COOPERATION. 379 COOFEBIA. scribed as share capital need not all be paid at once; weekly payments of ten cents are custom- ary. Whatever prolit the store makes after deduction of the interest on loans, tlic charge for depreciation in the value of the stock and phint, 5 per cent, dividend on the capital, a re- serve fund, and perliaps a bonus to employees, is divided among the purcliasers according to the respective amounts of their purchases. Goods are sold at the usual prices of private stores. Outsiders may buy at the store, but only mem- bers receive shares in the gains. These shares are also usually credited as payments on the stock shares until they the paid in full. The amount of each member's purcliase is recorded liy means of checks distributed with every sale. The management of the business is in the hands of an executive committee, which appoints the storekeepers, and oversees the purchase of goods and the finances. It is evident that the success of the society ill depend largely on this com- mittee, which must be honest and efficient. CoiipER.^TiVE PnoDtiCTioN. An attempt to solve the more difficult problem of doing away with the employer, the 'entrepreneur,' by having the workers furnish their own capital. Under our present economic system the distribution of wealth among the agents of production involves a grave conflict of interests, which may lead to industrial warfare and jeopardize the welfare of society by separating laborers and capitalists into distinct antagonistic classes; but the rela- tion between capital and labor is most satisfac- tory when there is no sharp separation into classes. Productive cooperation, therefore, by imiting men in the twofold capacity of workers and capitalists, has been recommended by many social reformers as a cure for our social ills. The voluntary union of a number of workers to conduct an enterprise collectively is by no means a modem invention. Schmoller and other economic historians have shown that it is, indeed, one of the earliest forms of industrial organization. The guilds of the Middle Ages were managed by associations of workmen, each one furnisliing a small share of the capital re- quired for the conduct of industry' under medi-Te- val methods. But their conservatism of method led to their displacement by capitalistic industry, and it is not until the nineteenth century that we find widespread attempts to reestablish coopera- tive productive enterprises; but only a few of them, notably among masons and piano-makers, were successful. Ferdinand Lassalle (q.v.) believed that the foundation of cooperative societies of produc- tion, with State aid in providing the necessary capital, would gradually transform present eco- nomic society into a socialistic one. The first productive association in the United States of which we have any record was that •of the 'Boston Tailors' Associative Union,' which was formed in 1849, but did not last long. There were many other experiments of a like nature, the most promising of which seems to have been the stove foundry of the Iron ^Moulders' International Union, started in 1867 in Allegheny County, Pa. But the paid-up ■capital proved insufficient at a critical mo- ment, and the enterprise failed. By far the most successful experiment in the United States is -found among the coopers of ^linneapolis. In 1868 a few journeymen coopers made an attempt Vol. v.— 25. to manage industry for themselves ; they were so successful that in 1874 a strong organization known as the "Cooperative Barrel Company' was formed, with a membership of about twenty coopirs. They bought a shop for $3000, ])ayiiig $1000 cash. The profits were to be divided in proportion to the work done. In 1S85 the paid- up capital amounted to $.50,000; the membership liad reached 120, besides 20 employees working for wages. The number has since been reduced. This example has been followed by others, and frequently with success. Experience seems to show that where articles are produced to order and not for the general market, cooperative pro- duction may succeed, but that these enter|)rises fail when they are confronted with the difiiculty of adjusting the supply to the variations of the market demands. Co6rER.TivE Credit axd B.^kkixg Organiza- tions. These are founded for mutual financial aid, and have been wonderfully prosperous in Germany, where they do a business of lunidreds of millions of dollars. In 1849 Herr .Schulze (Schulze-Delitzsch) founded a cooperative so- ciety to purchase raw material, among thirteen cabinet-makers in Delitzseh, his native town. In the ne.xt year he founded the first of his loan asso- ciations (Vorschussverehie) . which differed from the earlier banks in that the persons to whom loans could be granted must themselves be mem- bers of the association, paying regular monthly contributions. They thus themselves indirectly furnished the security for the credit afforded them. While these loan associations put the lender's in- terest foremost, Eaiffeisen. another German, born in the Westerwald, organized a cooperative bank in 1849 which placed the borrower's interest as the keystone of his system. Both systems have spread over the country, especially Schulze-De- litzsch's banks, numbering over a thousand in 1892, with over half a million members and a paid-up capital of nearly $30,000,000. In Italy, at the instigation of Signor Luzzatti, an organi- zation of a very similar sort was founded in 1860, at Milan, and has been widely imitated. As a matter of fact, all these 'people's banks' bear a close resemblance to our American build- ing and loan associations (q.v.), whose special and marked development in this countiy makes the United States one of the pioneer countries and chief homes of this form of coiiperation. BiBLioGRAniY. Ilolyoake. History of Coopera- tion in England (2 vols., London, 1885) ; "His- tory of Cooperation in the United States," a series of essays published in Johns Hopkins Viii- versity Studies (Baltimore, 1888) ; Potter, The Cooperative Moi^^ment in Great Britain (Lon- don, 1891) ; Reports of the (Knglish) Coopera- tive Congiesses (17 vols., ilanchester, 1869- 1900) ; Wright, ilassiichnsefts Labor Report (Boston, 189.5) ; id.. Manual of Distributive Co- operation (Boston, 1885) ; Report of Enfjlish Royal Commission on Labor reviews cooi)eration in all European courttries (London, 1880) ; Gil- man, Profit Sharinf) Between Employer and Em- ployed (New York, 1888) ; articles in United States Labor Bulletin (Washington). See Profit-Sharing: Building and Loan Associa- tions ; Collectivism. COOPERIA, koo-p*'ri-o. A genus of two or three species of tender, l)ulbous plants, of the order Amaryllidaceip. The narrow, elongate, twisted leaves appear with the fragrant solitary
