READABLE REPORT ON CO-OPS
Coleman, Mcalister
Readable Report On Co-ops OURSELVES, INC., A Story of Consumer Free Enterprise, by Lee R. Ward. Harper & Brothers. $2.50. Reviewed by McAlister Coleman DR. WARD, a Notre Dame graduate and one of...
...WARD, a Notre Dame graduate and one of the more progressive Catholic brethren who are active in the cooperative movement, tells in this often exciting book of his visits to American communities which have been benefited by their doing business together in the Rochdale co-op manner...
...Apart from this rather fatuous approach and Dr...
...He insists that somehow this is "free enterprise...
...Ward's evident ignorance of the history of the cooperative movement in this country, a history reaching far back of recent Scandinavian-born enterprises, as far back as the 1820's for that matter, the book is a welcome addition to any man's cooperative library, inasmuch as it tells what is going on here and now in a most readable manner...
...It is simply compounding confusion to identify co-ops with what the average American considers to be free enterprise...
...I can understand the reasons that lead so many propagandists for the co-ops to softsoap commercial enterprises, but I cannot applaud such palpable appeasement...
...By its very nature a well-rounded co-op eliminates middlemen, absentee ownership, and private profit, so why try to kid people into believing it is something which it is not...
Vol. 9 • November 1945 • No. 45
