Mutual benefit

“ I would spend my fortune in proving to the world, in making everybody know and believe that the mutual-interest business man and the mutual-interest workman have been produced and can be produced and shall be produced by the human race. ”

“ We may add that in such a union, beyond the mere material benefit, there naturally arises a moral influence of considerable power; and of this we have experienced the advantage; our connection having been sufficiently close to give to each of us, in a great measure, the benefit of the experience, knowledge, and judgment, of all the others, and to secure to each that friendly advice of which every one, some time or other, stands in need. ”

“ Everything that the indi- vidual man uses in his work and in his pleasures, the tools with which he works, the food, clothing, luxuries which he enjoys, even the language with which he thinks, is the joint product of all society past and present. These are all simply the services which his fellow-men everywhere are contributing to his life. Society is mutual service. But the motive which leads each individual to contribute his share to the joint pro- duct is mainly the share which he and those whom he loves can get in return. Society is opportunity. ”

“ Love, sympathy, fellowship, is what makes human life truly human. Cooperation, mutual service, is its fruitage. A clear-cut realisation of this and a resolute acting upon it would remove much of the cloudiness and [Pg 232] the barrenness from many a life; and its mutual recognition—and action based upon it—would bring order and sweetness and mutual gain in vast numbers of instances in family, in business, in community life. It would solve many of the knotty problems in all lines of human relations and human endeavour, whose solution heretofore has seemed well-nigh impossible. ”

“ If increased intercourse means, as is constantly contended, an increase of friendship and of mutual understanding among nations, the man who devoted a vast wealth to linking two peoples together would rise at once to the level of the great benefactors of mankind. ”

“ There was dignity about them, arising from a feeling of conscious worth, and a sense that they were not simply asking for employment as a favour: they were prepared honourably and truthfully to give back in labour, the value of what they received in board and wages. The contract would be advantageous to both parties, proving that our wise and kind Father has allowed and designed all these distinctions for good; that, by mutual dependence, we may be led to cherish those feelings of respect and regard for each other which are the strongest cement of society. ”

“ A certain proportion is allotted to each, and it is only by communicating with others that all enjoy what is sufficient for maintaining their respective places in the body [8] .' This is the principle of mutual dependence, the fundamental principle of corporate life. ”

“ The enlargement of human association, on the other hand, increases sympathy and coöperation among men, and paves the way to the cultivation of the mutual respect and regard which is the basis of social virtue. ”

“ No other branch of the human constitution shows more visibly our destination for society, nor tends more to our improvement, than appetite for fame or esteem. The whole conveniencies of life being derived from mutual aid and support in society, it ought to be a capital aim, to form connections with others so strict and so extensive as to produce a firm reliance on many for succour in time of need. ”

“ The purposes of business, the sense of responsibility to others, the danger of personal loss and possible failure, and the hope of reward are the surest guarantees for the conduct of affairs in the mutual interests of employe and employed. ”

“ But we see also that the practice of mutual aid and its successive developments have created the very conditions of society life in which man was enabled to develop his arts, knowledge, and intelligence; and that the periods when institutions based on the mutual-aid tendency took their greatest development were also the periods of the greatest progress in arts, industry, and science. ”

“ By an alliance of mutual affection and interests for life, it secures their highest development, and the most complete and undisturbed enjoyment of their benefits. It identifies the honor and interests of parents and children, securing affectionate protectors for helpless infancy, faithful guardians for inexperienced youth, and interested tutors for fitting the rising generation for the useful and noble stations of society ”

“ And lastly shows, that, as in fact, like mere animal society, it is founded and preserved by mutual wants, the supplial of which causeth mutual happiness, so it is likewise in right, as a rational society, by equity, gratitude, and the observance of the relation of things in general. ”

“ Upon such a foundation are built the earliest alliances: the object of which is the mutual protection and safety from threatening misfortunes, and the welfare of each individual. And thus the social instinct develops from pleasure. ”

“ It was the first group to develop, by virtue of its conscious relationship, the sense of trust and the habit of service of the stronger to the weaker, thus leading toward mutual aid within an area of affection and good-will. ”

“ These facts, mostly neglected by sociologists and yet of the first importance for the life and further elevation of mankind, we are now going to analyze, beginning with the standing institutions of mutual support, and passing next to those acts of mutual aid which have their origin in personal or social sympathies. ”

“ Men must come together either locally or commercially, must learn each other's wants, must compare with each other powers and tastes and opportunities, must come to have some confidence in each other, and then they will begin by rendering mutual services back and forth to experience the better satisfactions and the new strength that exchanges bring. ”

“ Use of wealth individual.—It is necessary to realize that the social organization is maintained solely for the sake of individuals. All study of welfare and illfare is a study of individual human beings. The mutual relations of these human beings in society are means to individual life, growth and enjoyment. Even the total power of a generation in society is dependent upon how the individual wants of individual members of that society are met. ”

“ Most of the world's business is done by companies, or partnerships, or associated endeavor of some kind. And the closer the intimacy between the men so engaged, the intimacy of common desires and common purposes, and mutual respect and confidence, and, if possible, friendship, the better chance there is for success. ”

“ I have been taught that the marriage alliance should be held sacred as a body corporate united in its parts for communion with self.”
Isolita. “If we consult our mutual advantage, it is not from extending injury but help to others, and 472with the flow of recurrent reciprocation, we in turn are filled to overflowing with grateful emotions of joy. We certainly should not disdain good instruction from any source, which offers experienced advantage for aiding our endeavors in perfecting the attainment of a happy union. ”

“ Everybody wants credit and everybody will be benefited by the measure. [132] All the world will give and receive credit. Rights and duties, privileges and obligations, are mutual. We may call this scheme mutualism. ”

“ To stir the masses, to appeal to their higher, better selves, to set them thinking for themselves, and to hold ever before them the ideal of mutual kindness and good will, based upon mutual [76] interests, is to render real service to the cause of humanity. ”

“ Mutual help and combination will then have become spontaneous and instinctive: each man contributing to the service of his neighbor as inevitably and naturally as the right hand goes to help the left in the human body—and for precisely the same reason. Every man—think of it!—will do the work which he likes, which he desires to do, which is obviously before him to do, and which he knows will be useful, without thought of wages or reward ”

“ As the actions prompted by the desire for pecuniary gain, many of the actions prompted by friendship, and the actions prompted by charity have for their object the satisfaction of the desires of others, the conferring of benefit upon others, it is proper to consider to what extent, in what manner, and under what conditions one should confer benefit upon or receive benefit from others. ”

“ For whereas when men's activities are carried on separately, or are joined in the way exemplified above, effort is immediately paid for by benefit, in this form of co-operation the benefit achieved by effort is exchanged for a like benefit to be afterward received when asked for. ”

“ During the same period, the development of economic organization on ever broader lines has emphasized the need of common purposes and common activities. [Pg 146]
Recent social experience teaches plainly that an injury to one is an injury to all; that a benefit to one is a benefit to all; that men rise in the scale of well-being with their fellows and not from them, and that a co-operative social life is the only one that will prove livable and workable. ”

“ Mutual Aid Developed Slowly.—Owing to ignorance and to the instinct for self-preservation, man starts on his journey toward progress on an individualistic and selfish basis. Gradually he learns to associate with his fellows on a co-operative basis. The elements which enter into this formal association are the exercise of a general blood relationship, religion, economic life, social and political organization. ”

“ The benefits secured by the mutual aid of sympathizing friends are not limited to the guarantee of civil rights, but extend to the realization of individual hopes and the indulgence of personal inclination and predilections, as well as to the higher privileges of a mental communion for which the panders of selfish wealth have as yet devised no equivalent. ”

“ In the relations between employer and employee, for instance, profit sharing is the most practical form of realizing this community of interest. Such action involves a co-operation of interests as the motives of the individual act. ”

“ To each the welfare of the other was the prime thought. To give the other the better portion, be it of food or wine, of freedom from care, or ease of mind, and to take the worse, was to each the ground plan of life, as it was its chiefest joy. ”

“ The practice of mutual aid causes as such no far reaching change in the cooperating individuals. By this happy device of uniting strengths for such tasks as killing game, dragging a boat or building a hut, desired results can be reached with less trouble in the isolated state—that is all. ”

“ Answering that challenge will require some soul-searching: Do we have the generosity to collaborate? Can we build legal, organizational, and financial structures that will preserve and order—but also share and disseminate the learning of the world? ”

“ For these Reasons there are no more useful Members in a Commonwealth than Merchants. They knit Mankind together in a mutual Intercourse of good Offices, distribute the Gifts of Nature, find Work for the Poor, add Wealth to the Rich, and Magnificence to the Great. ”

“ In aiding the Society, you are not only building up your own possession, but you are also becoming co-workers with God in some of His greatest purposes. In contributing to the funds of this association, you touch, with a gracious saving influence, the needy people of two hemispheres. ”

“ A large number, bound together by the strong ties of family affection, and taking hold of business in a united capacity, will be able, most frequently, to accomplish more than the same number of individuals acting separately, and governed only by individual interest. ”

“ Notwithstanding some differences of opinion upon some points, upon this one point that I have endeavored to set before you in my last few sentences, there has been an unanimity of feeling and opinion, that is of the imperative necessity of our being united in our business matters, in our financial matters and work to sustain each other and build each other up. ”

“ How is charity or the love of one's neighbor a precept and application of it?
A. By reason of equality and reciprocity; for when we injure another, we give him a right to injure us in return; thus, by attacking the existence of our neighbor, we endanger our own, from the effect of reciprocity; on the other hand, by doing good to others, we have room and right to expect an equivalent exchange; and such is the character of all social virtues, that they are useful to the man who practises them, by the right of reciprocity which they give him over those who are benefited by them. ”

“ What are we to understand by the Ethics of Coöperation? Can we find some external standard of unquestioned value or absolute duty by which to measure the three processes of society which we have named, dominance, competition, coöperation? Masters of the past have offered many such, making appeal to the logic of reason or the response of sentiment, to the will for mastery or the claim of benevolence. ”

“ Some of you have carried the idea of co-operation for economic ends farther, and have used the power which combination gives you to erect village halls and to have libraries of books, the windows through which the life and wonder and power of humanity can be seen. Some of you have light-heartedly, in the growing sympathy of unity, revived the dances and songs and sports which are the right relaxation of labor. ”

“ You will thus see that in this wider sense all creation moved together like a vast joint-stock co-operative society, each kind working consciously for its own good alone, but each also in a certain deeper and unconscious way contributing to the general well-being of all, by its exercise of some special function. ”

“ One single war--we all know--may be productive of more evil, immediate and subsequent, than hundreds of years of the unchecked action of the mutual-aid principle may be productive of good. ”