CO-OPERATION AND SOCIALISM.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTAT08"1
Sin,—In your issue of May 23rd you write: "With the voluntary Socialism of Cs-operation we have no quarrel." May I put to YOU the following case ? Suppose the Co-operative movement in Oldham spread so far that all the mills, shops, and houses became the property of some Co-operative Society, and that these societies formed an Association which thus assumed the full control of the industrial life of Oldham. Would there be any essential difference between this, the ripe fruit of voluntary Co-operation, and the completed municipal Socialism which placed all the same mills, shops, and houses under the management of the Town Council ? In either case an elected body would be able to dictate to any man in Oldham the work lie should do, the wages he should receive, and his mode of living; and if lie did not choose to accept this tyranny, he would have the same alternative,—viz., to get out of Oldham. In the one case it would be the Committee of the Co-operative Association, in the other the Town Council, that would exercise this power. Do you maintain that the difference in method of election of a Co-operative Committee and of a Town Council, or the difference in their actual powers after election, would be such as to preserve individual liberty in the one case, in the other to establish a baneful tyranny P—I am, Si,', SRL, [There is all the difference in the world between the two cases. The Co-operative Society rests on voluntary agree- ment, and is open at all times to the uprising of competi- tion, and of competition which would be sure to be effective if the competitors could do the work better than the Co-opera.. tire Society. No member of a Co-operative Society is bound to deal with his stores, and if they are badly managed he soon begins to buy elsewhere. If all Oldham industries and means of distribution were municipalised, they would rest, not upon a voluntary arrangement subject to open competition, but upon one based upon compulsion and the destruction of competition. If competition appeared, the universal trading municipality would crush out that competition by an underselling, not based upon better trading, but upon recourse to the rates. Prices would be lowered till competition ceased, and the loss made good by a rate, if necessary, of a pound in the pound. This is the reason why we hold Co-operation and Socialism to be, not the same, but antagonistic. One rests upon, and is kept from decay by, the voluntary principle ; the other rests upon compulsion, and compulsion, though sound and necessary in many walks of life, is the arch enemy and destroyer of trade.—En. Spectator.]
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