Voluntary cooperation

“ While, as we saw, the compulsory coöperation proper to militancy forbids, or greatly discourages, individual initiative, the voluntary cooperation which distinguishes industrialism gives free scope to individual initiative, and develops it by letting enterprise bring its normal advantages. Those who are successfully original in idea and act, prospering and multiplying in greater degrees than others, produce, in course of time, a general type of nature ready to undertake new things. ”

“ Moreover, beginning with exchanges of goods and services under agreements between individuals, the principle of voluntary coöperation is simply carried out in a larger way by any incorporated body of individuals who contract with one another for jointly pursuing this or that business or function. And yet, again, there is entire congruity between the representative constitutions of such private combinations and that representative constitution of the public combination which we see is proper to the industrial type: the same law of organization pervades the society in general and in detail. ”

“ Our people are responding to these impulses in remarkable degree. The best contribution of government lies in encouragement of this voluntary cooperation in the community. The Government, National, State, and local, can join with the community in such programs and do its part. ”

“ We shall endeavor to secure the coöperation of all persons, of whatever name or sect. The triumphant progress of the cause of Temperance and of Abolition in our land, through the instrumentality of benevolent and voluntary associations, encourages us to combine our own means and efforts for the promotion of a still greater cause. Hence, we shall employ lecturers, circulate tracts and publications, form societies, and petition our state and national governments, in relation to the subject of Universal Peace. ”

“ The voluntary system is in its very earliest development and so, in calculating the prospects of associations among large groups of people, a league of nations, industrial government, or a federal union of states, the degree to129 which the material for a common consciousness exists determines how far coöperation will depend upon force, or upon the milder alternative to force, which is patronage and privilege. ”

“ To share in the general benefit, he must voluntarily contribute time and money to the general good. The necessary machinery of society will, of course, exist — courts to settle disputes and police to keep order — but they will be maintained by voluntary co-operation. ”

“ Yet the spirit of voluntary association and giving was not only a virtue but also a practical necessity for those residing on the frontier.
Today, even with the best efforts of Federal, State, and local government, voluntary service remains essential to solving our Nation's most serious social problems. ”

“ Thus while voluntary association is sometimes advocated as a step towards, and sometimes on the other hand as a substitute for, and bulwark against, state socialism, we find in practice these two forces working each in its own sphere, and in ways complementary one to the other, while underlying and essential to both is the force of individual action and self-help. ”

“ I have laid it down as a first principle to educate the people through the people themselves, by their own voluntary co-operation and exertion, through the usual elective municipalities and other acknowledged and responsible organs of a free people. ”

“ It is therefore of supreme importance that all classes of the community, down to the lowest, should have much to do for themselves; that as great a demand should be made upon their intelligence and virtue as it is in any respect equal to; that the government should not only leave as far as possible to their own faculties the conduct of whatever concerns themselves alone, but should suffer them, or rather encourage them, to manage as many as possible of their joint concerns by voluntary co-operation ”

“ Ultimately society will have no class distinctions of the present order, no idlers or parasites, no poor and no coercive government. Voluntary co-operation or concerted action for social ends is a self-regulating, self-controlling force which, when fully developed in the new domestic and industrial systems is able to dominate society throughout its length and breadth. ”

“ And sharing is a personally chosen righteous act: that is, the rich should extend assistance to the poor, they should expend their substance for the poor, but of their own free will, and not because the poor have gained this end by force. For the harvest of force is turmoil and the ruin of the social order. On the other hand voluntary sharing, the freely-chosen expending of one’s substance, leadeth to society’s comfort and peace. ”

“ It is one of the most important lessons of present-day human experience. It holds for families, neighborhoods, villages, cities, nations, for mankind as a whole. It is joint action for the general welfare.
The principle of collective action has been recognized and put into practice during the ten centuries that span the rise of western civilization--put into practice up to a certain point--the nation or the empire. Beyond that point, collective action has taken two forms: competition and conflict, including war, and coordination or cooperation under agreement, contract or treaty. ”

“ That voluntary action by so many millions over so great an extent of country was a tremendous example, showing what an ideal and a public spirit and a call to action can do for people in making them forget private interests and convenience and making them great. ”

“ And it needs but to note how, during social evolution, the ideas and sentiments appropriate to the militant activities carried on by coercive co-operation have been at variance with the ideas and sentiments appropriate to the industrial activities, carried on by voluntary co-operation, to see that there has ever been within each society, and still continues, a conflict between the two moral natures adjusted to these two unlike modes of life. ”

“ The same admirable qualities by which the associations were carried through their early struggles, maintained them in their increasing prosperity. Their rules of discipline, instead of being more lax, are stricter than those of ordinary workshops; but being rules self-imposed, for the manifest good of the community, and not for the convenience of an employer regarded as having an opposite interest, they are far more scrupulously obeyed, and the voluntary obedience carries with it a sense of personal worth and dignity. ”

“ In the domain of economic and social welfare the party will foster the spirit of cooperation on as large a scale as possible. Instead of private and unorganised business enterprises, the party prefers cooperative union. ”

“ Those who have tried to point the world to universal peace may be divided into two schools: one advocating a form of coöperation in which the final reliance is to be reason, the other looking forward to some effective form of common action behind which shall be sufficient force to carry out the measures necessary to enforce the common will. ”

“ But the voluntary principle has been respected and vindicated! Has it? True it is that there has been a magnificent response to the Government's appeals. The patriotism and devotion of one half of the nation have effectively enabled the other half to evade its duty. But the time has again come when the demand for more men is imperative. Voluntarism is making its last efforts. Its devotees in their desperate endeavours to prevent its formal abandonment are eliminating from it every element of free will, and are introducing every device of veiled compulsion. ”

“ And this growth of voluntary co-operation, this exchange of services under agreement, has been necessarily accompanied by decrease of aggressions one upon another, and increase of sympathy: leading to exchange of services beyond agreement. That is to say, the more distinct assertions of individual claims, and more rigorous apportioning of personal enjoyments to efforts expended, has gone hand in hand with growth of that negative altruism shown in equitable conduct and that positive altruism shown in gratuitous aid. ”

“ In whatever belongs to my duty you shall have all the cooperation which an undiminished zeal for its welfare can inspire. It will be happy for us both, and our best reward, if, by a successful administration of our respective trusts, we can make the established government more and more instrumental in promoting the good of our fellow-citizens, and more and more the object of their attachment and confidence. ”

“ The existence of the machinery makes it difficult for either party in a serious dispute to refuse to employ it; the prestige of the government behind the conciliator enables him to deal freely with each party, and to throw the full light of day upon the real condition of affairs. This done, the full strength of the system of voluntary conciliation comes into play. ”

“ Now supposing that voluntary co-operation and public spirit prove equal to the task of elaborately organizing the farming, milling and baking industries for the production of bread, how will these voluntary co-operators recover the cost of their operations from the public who are to consume their bread? ”

“ Others seeing the failure of voluntary attempts to secure the benefits of the co-operative system, have advocated the enlargement of the powers of the State to the extent of consigning to it the management of all industry; so far taking control of the individual as to compel him to work, according to his capacity and remunerate him according to his wants. ”

“ It turns out that those co-operations in which all can voluntarily unite, and in the carrying on of which the will of the majority is rightly supreme, are co-operations for maintaining the conditions requisite to individual and social life. Defense of the society as a whole against external invaders, has for its remote end to preserve each citizen in possession of such means as he has for satisfying his desires, and in possession of such liberty as he has for getting further means. ”

“ The course that will restore to the workmen a father's duties and responsibilities, between which and themselves the state has now stepped, is for them to reject all forced contributions from others, and to do their own work through their own voluntary combinations. ”

“ Finally, fellow citizens, I shall await with cheering hope and faithful cooperation the result of your deliberations, assured that, without encroaching upon the powers reserved to the authorities of the respective States or to the people, you will, with a due sense of your obligations to your country and of the high responsibilities weighing upon yourselves, give efficacy to the means committed to you for the common good. And may He who searches the hearts of the children of men prosper your exertions to secure the blessings of peace and promote the highest welfare of your country. ”

“ Surely, there must be some method of bringing together in a council of peace and amity these two great interests, out of which will come a happier day of peace and cooperation, a day that will make men more hopeful and enthusiastic in their various tasks, that will make for more comfort and happiness in living and a more tolerable condition among all classes of men. Certainly human intelligence can devise some acceptable tribunal for adjusting the differences between capital and labor. ”

“ From the war-correspondent, whose letters give to the very nations that are fighting their only trustworthy accounts of what is being done, down to the newsboy who brings round the third edition with the latest telegrams, the whole organization is a product of spontaneous {432} coöperation among private individuals, aiming to benefit themselves by ministering to the intellectual needs of their fellows—aiming also, not a few of them, to benefit their fellows by giving them clearer ideas and a higher standard of right. ”

“ The one set is supreme at the beginning; the other set will be supreme at the end; and a compromise has to be maintained between them during the progress from beginning to end. On the one hand, there is the necessity of social self-preservation in face of external enemies. On the other hand, there is the necessity of cooperation among fellow-citizens, which can exist only in proportion as fair dealing of man with man creates mutual trust. ”

“ On the other hand, there is gradually developing a new sense of responsibility for assuming voluntary leadership in community activities, and a larger appreciation of the need of leadership and the duty of supporting it. ”

“ The principle of this delegation from one organism to another, is common interest and welfare; only those functions which can be performed with more even justice and with greater effectiveness, by the community for example, than by the family, are so delegated. In the same way the several groups commit to their common government only so much as they cannot perform with due justice and equity to the others in the same group. ”

“ The public force therefore needs an agent of its own to bind it together and set it to work under the direction of the general will, to serve as a means of communication between the State and the Sovereign, and to do for the collective person more or less what the union of soul and body does for man. ”

“ The next duty is to encourage on every hand an appeal to voluntary effort to accomplish all tasks too great for the strength of the individual. Whether those tasks be moral, industrial, or educational, voluntary co-operation alone should assume them and carry them to a successful issue. ”

“ The leaders in the societies themselves insisted upon a better sensing of social responsibility, which meant simply the better realization of one principle, co-operation, the signpost to the second stage of growth. ”