5. Reasons for lack of cooperative success in United States.—No one can tell whether the cooperative movement is to grow to large success in the United States or not. All we can do is to seek the reasons why it has not developed here so fast or so success fully as it has abroad, and ask whether these reasons will operate against future development in this country.
6. Lack of class consciousness.—In Europe co operation is a class movement, generally an expres sion of the workingman's class consciousness—an at tempt to link the wage-earners still more closely to gether so as to improve their condition and to give them greater strength in their continual battle with capital. In the United States the wage-earner of today is the capitalist of tomorrow; the class con sciousness of Europe is lacking. We may be devel oping such a class consciousness; labor organizations may in time bring about a solidarity of interests that will remove the present fundamental difference be tween labor conditions here and abroad. However, the workingmen of this country have not as yet found it necessary to cooperate except in the matter of bar gaining with employers. ' 7. Higher wages here.—At least until the begin ning of the European war, wages abroad were so low that many workingmen would have been shut off' from a large number of necessities if they had been unable to buy them thru cooperative methods for less money than was charged by regular dealers. In the United States wages have heretofore been sufficiently high to enable many workingmen to enjoy even some of the luxuries. The pinch of poverty has not neces sitated cooperation here as it has in many countries across the water.
8. Need of success of a cooperative store depends primarily upon the loyalty of its sup porters. Unless the store can be assured of the con stant trade of a definite group of people, it's success is dubious. In Europe the universal class consciousness, the driving necessity Of cooperation, produces this loyalty. In this country there is no equal incentive. We have been individualistic in politics and econom ics. The growing proportion of Europeans among our workers and the rising prices without proportion ate rise in wages, are tending to destroy this intense individualism. The time has not yet arrived, how ever, when there can be the same intra-class cooper ation in tbe United States as is found abroad. One
curious expression of the loyalty to the cooperative idea found abroad is the fact that the Glasgow co operative society is said never to have paid its chief officer more than thirty-seven dollars a week-. Few executives in this country, capable of conducting a.
many million dollar business, would do so for such a salary.
9. Isolation of Europe farms are small, and the farmers live close together or even in villages; this encourages community action in buying as well as in other ways. In the United States farms are larger, and the country dwellers come into con tact with one another infrequently; this encourages individual rather than community action. Further more there is great instability in farm life; farms are no longer handed down from one generation to an other; they are worked largely by renters who have no keen interest in building up cooperative societies, the greatest advantages of which must usually come in the future after a considerable period of planning and building.
10. Chief opportunity for coop eration has not been a marked success in this country because it has extended usually only to retail stores, and single stores at that. As we have already shoNvn, there are three elementh in a retail price--cost of the goods, expense of doing business and net profit. A single cooperative store can buy goods no more cheaply than any other store. Nor is it likely to do business any more cheaply, even tho it may omit credit accounts, delivery, etc. So far in the United States we have not proved conclusively that community activity is as efficient as individual activity spurred on by the incentive of profits. As a matter of fact, the cost of doing business in many cooperative stores is higher than the expense in independent stores. The only possible saving which the cooperative can effect is, therefore, the net profit of the retailer. In many retail lines this is exceedingly small—so small, in fact, that the possibly increased expense in the cooperative store entirely swallows it. As the sole purpose of the cooperative is to lower prices, it is not strange that the movement has not been generally successful in the United States, as long as individual stores were work ing merely to save doubtful items of expense, or to eliminate the often visionary retail profit.