HOW TO DETECT FAKE COOPERATIVES
Coyle, Albert F.
How to Detect Fake Cooperatives Service, Not Profit, Must Be T he Main Motive; Business To Be Democratically Controlled By ALBERT F. COYLE THE mas who merely steals your money is not the worst...
...For this reason, too, proxy voting should not be allowed, except in the case of husband and wife...
...They should form the foundation for every such society...
...The difference between the total cost of goods, including cost of doing business, and the total cash received must either be refunded to the consumers or else accumulated in a reserve fund to strengthen the business, which amounts to the same thing, since the consumers own the business...
...Certain well-fed individuals and well-kept newspapers continually exhort the farmers and workers to "cooperate" with the coal mine owner by laying in a stock of coal now (while the price is sky high...
...Cooperative'' Camouflage P IN ALLY, there is a lot of talk about "co* operation" that is sheer camouflage...
...Every genuine cooperative society should set apart a definite per cent of its surplus for local and national cooperative education...
...3) Sonnd business methods must prevail Goods showld be sold at or very near the market price, not "at cost*' No storekeeper can count the complete cost of has goods until they are actually sold, and the money in the bank, with the month's cost of doing business (rent, light, heat, delivery, etc) carefully computed and added to the wholesale price of the goods...
...In any event, a full report of the financial condition of the business should be made to all the members at the end of every dividend period, whatever the disposition of the surplus...
...In other words, human beings and not money vote...
...They extort from yon the last possible penny of profits and give yen shoddy goods in return...
...On the other hand, fake co-operation, whether devised in ignorance or dishonesty, is bound sooner or later to end in disaster...
...Or labor is urged to "cooperate" with capital in turning out a larger product This is simply a prostitution of the good word "cooperation...
...You cannot violate these principles without disaster any more than you can ignore the law of gravitation without suffering bumps and bruises...
...2) The business must be democratically controlled...
...how often are financial reports made...
...The "one man, one vote" principle must prevail, regardless of how many shares of stock a man may own...
...But why waste your wrath upon them, especially when you have yourself to thank for being thus picked and plundered...
...The name Rochdale has been written across two continents because the original Rochdale store embodied these fundamentals...
...This is the best proof of its devotion to men instead of to money...
...3) What salaries are being paid, and what commissions given to sellers of stock...
...If one uses half as much judgment as he would exercise in buying a horse or a suit of clothes, he can save both his money and his regrets...
...They steal not only the people's money, but what is infinitely more despicable they also filch their faith in honest co-operative enterprises...
...It is a very onesided cooperation these gentlemen want The consumer does all the cooperating in handing over his hard-earned money to the dealers and coal barons, but they do not favor cooperation in the division of their profits...
...It is true that you are mercilessly exploited as a consumer by a horde of parasitic middlemen, monopolists and speculators, who control the nation's food and clothing supply...
...Its goal is not to benefit a favored handful, but all the people of the community...
...There are certain definite principles that determine the success of every co-operative enterprise...
...This means that it must be owned by the many and not by the few...
...Whenever yon wish to do so jrou can organize co-operatively with your neighbors, as some-thirty million people around the world have now done, and supply yourself with the necessities of life at cost without profit or graft to anyone...
...4) Are the gains of the business distributed equally to the entire membership, or are certain favored incorporators given a special "dividend" on their investment...
...and are they accessible to the membership or just the directors...
...Indeed, there must be no profit...
...True co-operation never fails...
...The dictionary contains no fit epithet for these shameless swindlers...
...And, conversely, the honest application of these principles is equally certain to bring co-operative success...
...Better save your righteous indignation for the wolf in sheep's clothing...
...The members should have the right to elect the directors annually, to call special meetings of the entire membership to decide important issues, and to have access to the books to see that the business is honestly managed...
...There is no need for any sane person beyond the age of infancy to lose a penny in fraudulent co-operative enterprises...
...Therefore, every cooperative soeiety must be the center from which radiates an ever-widening circle of cooperative influences...
...This is where co-operative enterprises differ radically from profit-making businesses...
...If the enterprise can give a elean bill of health on all of these items, your influence and your money may safely be lent to its support...
...In its ultimate ideal cooperation embraces the whole world...
...The difference between this total cost and the selling price must either be rebated to all members annually, in the form of patronage dividends at the end of every quarter, half-year, or year, or else placed in a reserve fund to strenghthen the business, or take advantage of favorable market opportunities on quantity purchases, to expand, or to meet the stress of occasional slack times...
...Only in this way can cooperation change the prevailing motive of society from making money for the few into making life comfortable and wholesome for the many...
...But he who robs you of your faith in a good cause, injures yon and your fellowmen irreparably...
...1) Service, not profit, most be the main motive...
...It cannot fail, because it is based on inexorable moral and economic laws...
...The fake cooperative, run on paper by a crew of sEek-tongued stock salesmen who take advantage of the desire of the people to improve their lot and rob them of their hard earned dollars under the pretense of promoting co-operation...
...But suppose you are asked to join a society already organized and doing business ? In addition to these tests, ask the following questions, and see to it that you get straight, clear-cut answers: (1) Who and what are the directors of the society and how often are they elected by the entire membership...
...In brief, the foundation principles for every genuine consumer's co-operative society, whether store, laundry, or other enterprise, are devotion to service, democratic control, sound management, and educative program...
...Instead of capital hiring men, the men hire the capital, and pay it a limited interest if there is a surplus...
...The cooperative enterprise is not a selfish undertaking...
...4) A campaign of cooperative education should be earried on...
...If there is not a surplus, capital gets no interest This is in accord with the first principle laid down: serving mankind by providing the necessities of life, and not the gaming of money, ie the primary purpose of all true eo-cperative enterprises, This ideal can be carried out only if the business is democratically controlled...
...What You Should Know About the Business HP HE foregoing tests determine the sincerity, * the democracy, the soundness, and the unselfishness of every consumers' cooperative enterprise...
...For your money can he replaced...
...Therefore, a limitation must be set on the amount of stock any one member can acquire, and every consumer in the neighborhood must be permitted to join and own stock on equal terms...
...2) What were the assets and liabilities of the society at the last financial report...
...Four Reasonable Tests \\T ITHOUT becoming narrow or bigoted, '* there are certain definite co-operative principles that can be laid down, to which every honest and successful co-operative enterprise must conform...
...Business To Be Democratically Controlled By ALBERT F. COYLE THE mas who merely steals your money is not the worst villain oat of jail...
...The farmers and workers do all the cooperating when they exert themselves to produce more wheat and more cloth and more steel, but the big millers and industrial bosses are not interested in the cooperative distribution of their gains...
Vol. 14 • October 1922 • No. 10
