Consumers' Cooperative Societies in New York State

Excerpt

COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLES

The principles established by the Rochdale Pioneers in England in 1844 and observed consistently by successful societies since that time are as follows:

1. Earnings of capital stock limited to legal or current rate of interest.

2. Surplus earnings to be returned to members in proportion to patronage.

3. One vote for each member regardless of amount of stock owned. No proxy voting permitted.

In addition, the majority of societies adhere to the following principles:

1. Business to be done for cash.

2. Goods to be sold at current market prices.

3. Education given in the principles and aims of cooperation.

The Extent of Consumers' Cooperation.

The Tenth International Cooperative Congress, held in Switzerland in 1921, disclosed the fact that since the last Congress, in 1913, the number of cooperators in the twenty-five countries represented had increased from approximately eight million to thirty million and that cooperative trade had increased correspondingly.

Today in Great Britain the cooperative societies number more than four million members, nearly one-third of the entire population being represented in these societies. Switzerland, in 1920, boasted three hundred and sixty-two thousand members and a third of the Swiss people bought goods through their own societies. Cooperation is still alive in Russia in spite of its unsettled economic conditions. In 1920 there were twenty-five thousand societies with twelve million heads of families. In the same year the German cooperative societies were two million seven hundred thousand members strong.

In the United States cooperation has had an erratic development. Within the past seven years, however, there has been a rapid increase in new societies until today it is estimated that there are about three thousand with a membership of half a million. In number of societies New York is far behind most of its sister states. It has one hundred and twenty-five genuine consumers' cooperative associations, seventy-five of which are among farmer groups and the remaining fifty among city consumers. There are in addition some twenty cooperative buying groups connected with large commercial organizations. No complete tabulation has been made of the total business of all these cooperative groups, but in 1921 the five largest cooperative societies among the city consumers, with an average membership of 1,800 persons, all located in New York City, did a total business of approximately one million dollars. These societies and many others are prospering. On the other hand there are many cooperatives which have failed. Whether they have failed or succeeded more knowledge of practical cooperation can be gained from their experience than can ever be learned from books.

The Consumers' League feels that the experience of these societies should not be wasted. For this reason it is telling the stories of several cooperatives in New York, some of which are successfully established and some of which have fallen by the roadside....