The Principles of Economics, with Applications to Practical Problems

by Frank A. Fetter

Coöperators under-value the enterpriser's function

4. Most coöperative schemes have suffered from a lack of good theory, an inability of the workers to see the importance of the enterpriser's service. Most men make a very imperfect analysis of the productive process. They see that a large part of the product does not go to the workmen; they see the gross amount going to the enterpriser, and they ignore the fact that this contains the cost of materials, interest on capital, and incidental expenses. They ignore further that the enterpriser's function is a productive and essential one. The theory of exploitation, or robbery, as explaining the employer's profits, is very commonly held in a more or less vague way by workmen. With a body of intelligent and thoroughly honest workmen, keenly alive to the truth, the dangers, and the risks of the enterprise, coöperation would be possible in many industries where now it is not. The producers' coöperative schemes usually stumble into an unsuspected pitfall. When a heedless and over-confident army ventures into an enemy's country without a knowledge of its geography, without a map, and without leaders that have been tested on the field of battle, the result can easily be foreseen.

§ III. CONSUMERS' COÖPERATION

Nature and kinds of consumers' coöperation

1. Consumers' coöperation is the union of a number of buyers to save for themselves the profits of the merchants or agents. There are many classes of consumers' coöperation, but the chief ones are: (1) to sell goods (retail stores); (2) to provide insurance (coöperative insurance companies); (3) to provide credit or capital (coöperative banks). These are also productive enterprises, for the merchant's work adds value to the goods, the insurance company and its agent do a real service, the profits of the small bank are, ordinarily, earned fairly under existing conditions. The terms producers' and consumers' coöperation merely set in contrast the part of the productive process that is undertaken. Producers' coöperation is concerned with the earlier steps, usually stopping when the product is disposed of to wholesale or retail merchants. Consumers' coöperation (often called distributive coöperation) is concerned with the later steps, the placing of a consumption good (rarely also productive agents) into the hands of the final user. It imparts the same value to goods that the retail merchant does. The one thing this class of coöperators is sure of when they begin is a number of consumers to make use of the service or products they purpose to supply; hence the name.

Costliness of competitive mercantile business

2. The waste of competitive mercantile business is the source from which it is expected that the savings of the coöperative enterprise will come. It is a great expense to the retail dealer to secure a body of customers. Rent of store-room, clerk hire, interest on invested capital are fixed charges, which can be met only on condition of a regular and frequent turnover of the stock. To attract customers the dealer must have a well-located store, must advertise, keep open long hours, and pay idle clerks. Frequently he must give credit, raising the price enough to cover the expense of bookkeeping, collection, bad accounts, and loss of interest. The public's likings, whims, lack of judgment, and lack of business analysis make these charges necessary. There are many communities where it would be impossible to carry on a cash business even at considerably lower prices. Customers are exacting and require the costly delivery of small packages; two horses and a driver must travel two miles to deliver a spool of thread or a half-dozen oranges. Frequent changes of fashion and the shifting of customers from one store to another keep the merchant always insecure in his trade. A number of buyers mutually agreeing to pay cash, to buy at certain times, to place all their orders with one store, to go to a cheaper location, down an alley or into a basement, can save much of this cost on one condition: that the management approaches in its efficiency that of ordinary competitive business. In spite of all these advantages, if there is inefficient management the final cost will be no less than that of ordinary business.

The more successful coöperative stores

3. Despite the possibilities of saving, most coöperative stores fail through a lack of good management. Note first the greater successes. Since 1842, from which time it dates, the coöperative-store movement has progressed steadily in England, where the scores of retail societies are federated and own large wholesale stores. The long experience has developed good methods and a conservatism almost inconceivable to an American mind. They are practically great stock companies in which one can buy a share at a small cost and become a purchaser at usual prices, receiving a dividend later according to the amount of his purchases. Coöperative stores in American universities are generally successful, apparently because they don't coöperate. Some get into politics and go the way of the wicked. The survivors gravitate into the hands of a committee of the faculty, which tries to employ an efficient manager, and administers the business as a public trust without private profit. The wastefulness of multiplying orders for text-books to be used by a class whose number is definitely known in advance, and the comparatively uniform character of the supplies, make economy peculiarly easy in this case. A large part of the services of the coöperative store, however, are indirect; it reduces and regulates the charges in the stores near by.