QUESTIONS ABOUT CO-OPERATIVE. Part One
After malfunction have been identified among cooperative societies, the need to simplify the terms and system designed to operate an efficient cooperative group have been designed by a cooperative aficionado Mr. Agbonlahor Osamuyi and Team. He is a man who is very well aware that to reach the heart of a learner, the lecture must be presented in the simple best language that the learner will understand.
To this end, this book “QUESTIONS ABOUT CO-OPERATIVE” has been designed.
The following questions are expected to attract the interest of the cooperator to the cooperative organization. It will also explain some salient points the cooperator would otherwise may have not understood. These questions are also to present cooperative system as ordinary way of life for the cooperator so that it won’t be difficult to adapt to any change that may present itself in the line of running the society.
Question 1: What Concept Is The Co-Operative Foundation Laid?
Answer: “The co-operative ideal is as old as human society. It is the idea of conflict and competition as a principle of economic progress that is new. The development of the ideal of co-operation in the nineteenth century can best be understood as an attempt to make explicit a principle which is inherent in the constitution of society but which had been forgotten in the turmoil and disintegration of rapid economic change.”
Question 2: Was There Anytime That The Process Of Cooperative Faced A Hitch?
Answer: From the 1760s onwards, there were experiments in co-operation across the UK such as the Fenwick Weavers shop in Scotland and the Hull corn mill. By the early 1830s there were around 300 co-operative societies in the UK. These co-operatives often ran into problems through giving credit or a lack of business experience. Sometimes they were unable to recruit new members to move the co-operative into a new generation.
Question 3: What Helped The Rochdale Pioneers To Succeed, After Learning About The Situation Others Prior To It Previously Faced?
Answer: Instead of the pioneers to be deterred by the hectic situations faced by others that previously existed, the Rochdale Pioneers rather learned from these experiences and ideas and used them to develop a model of co-operation that could be followed by others.
They made this period of early nineteenth century a time of new ideas and rapid change. Many People interested in the survival of cooperatives were writing about and discussing co-operation and how to develop a successful and sustainable co-operatives.
Among these optimistic cooperators are Robert Owen (1771 - 1858) who was latter known as the Father of Co-operation and was also involved in the trade union movement, introducing infant education to the UK and in setting up co-operative communities. He is probably best known for his work at New Lanark in Scotland.
Another well known advocate of cooperative society is George Jacob Holyoake. (1817 - 1906) George Jacob Holyoake travelled the country during the 1830s talking about co-operation and Robert Owen’s ideas. Holyoake was a great advocate and propagandist for co-operation. His history of the Rochdale Pioneers “Self Help by the People” was published in 1857 and inspired others to follow and set up their own co-operatives.
Among these great supporters of cooperation is Dr William King (1786 - 1865) Dr William King was another advocate of co-operation, seeing it as a means for working people to improve their lives. From 1828 to 1830 King edited “The Co-operator”, sharing experiences and advising on the steps to establish a co-operative. The Rochdale Pioneers studied “The Co-operator” and recognized the importance of learning the lessons of the earlier failures as they developed the principles and practices that ensure their model of a co-operative society was successful.
Question 4: Why Was 1840s Called The Hungry Forties?
Answer: The 1840s were known as “The Hungry Forties” because the move from hand looms in homes to powered looms in factories during the industrial revolution which changed the lives of many working people in Rochdale. The weekly wage for weavers had fallen by half at least from the 1820s to the 1840s and was barely enough for them to survive on. Women’s wages were even lower and many people were only working two or three days a week.
Industrialization led to a rapid increase in the population of Rochdale. The cost of housing meant that workers lived in slums, often with one room for each family. The poorest families lived in basements, with little ventilation and light and with access only to polluted water. Food prices were very high and many shopkeepers added weights to the scales so that customers did not receive the amount of food they had bought. Food adulteration was common, with water being added to milk, chalk being added to flour and gravel being mixed with oatmeal.
Working people had little control over their lives and were struggling to improve their living and working conditions by joining trade unions and campaigning for the vote. Elsewhere in Europe others were pioneering co-operative ideas to address poverty in rural areas. In Germany Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen and Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch developed ideas that led to savings and credit co-operatives. In Slovakia Samuel Jurkovic established similar rural co-operative initiatives.
Question 5: Why are we sure that the Rochdale equitable pioneer cooperative was formed by workers in the weaver’s shop?
Answer: The 1840s were a bitter decade in Rochdale and many other parts of Europe, associated with poverty, hunger, and unemployment. No group was more desperate than weavers. However, the role of weavers in setting up the Rochdale Pioneers has been exaggerated by many casual writers. A close reading of the founding documents shows that weavers made up a large proportion of the first list of subscribers who supported the creation of the Pioneers. However, by the time of the founding meeting on 15 August 1844, many of the weavers had dropped out—perhaps because they were too desperate or too destitute to invest time or money in a co-operative venture.
Question 6: What Steps Were Taken To Quench The Unpalatable Situation?
Answer: In August 1844, a group of Rochdale workers after weighing the situation and knowing that if urgent step is not taken, things may get from bad to worse for them. Hence, they met to form a co-operative society. The 28 original members saw co-operation as the best way forward to give ordinary people control over their own business. They therefore resolved that to succeed, all members must having an equal share in the decision making and receiving a fair share of the profits by paying part of the investment of the business of the group, and also participating effectively for the success of the business. After meeting up with their individual expectation to be part of the business they named their co-operative ‘The Rochdale Society* of Equitable Pioneers’
*The Rule Book of the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers was written by Charles Howarth and includes the Objects of the Society as its “Law First”. They were setting out to improve both the financial and social conditions for members. The objects include the setting up of a shop, the building of houses, manufacturing, farming and a Temperance Hotel – to provide an alternative to the public house, which was the only meeting place for working people at the time. The ultimate aim was to change all production, distribution, education and government to co-operation. They knew that a world based around co-operation would be a much fairer place. All members would be able to buy good food at reasonable prices, to be part owners of the Society, take part in the decision making about how it would operate and receive a fair share of the profits. In addition, they would have access to libraries and educational classes which were normally only open to the rich.
Question 7: How do the founding fathers define co-operative society?
Answer: Co-operative society was defined an autonomous association of persons who became united, and willingly volunteer to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically controlled enterprise.
Question 8: What value do the Rochdale Cooperative set for the movement?
Answer: The founding fathers based the Co-operatives values on the principles of self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity. Therefore every co-operative members are expected to operate in the ethical values of honesty, openness, social responsibility, and caring for others
Question 8: What Class Of Persons Actually Came Together To Establish The Rochdale Pioneer Cooperative Society?
Answer: The labourers who organized the Rochdale Pioneers, 150 years ago, were people suffering from the social dislocations of the industrial revolution. They struggled to survive periodic unemployment, low pay, unhealthy cities, and dangerous workplaces. They had no social benefits—no insurance or health care or pensions from their employers or from the state. They were dependent on merchants who were sometimes unscrupulous, who exploited the helplessness of the poor by selling at high prices, by adulterating goods, or by trapping them with offers of credit. And the Rochdale labourers faced these challenges in a time and place when they had no vote, no democratically elected government to represent them, no interventionist state to protect them. Their answer to daunting social problems was a special kind of self-help: mutual self-help, in which they would help themselves by helping each other. It was a small start to a large international movement.
Question 10: Why do we conclude that cooperative society, mostly the farmers cooperatives are for those in the grass-root?
Answer: The founders of Rochdale were of course poor compared to their social superiors. They lacked real economic or political power, or high social status. And the poverty and misery surrounding them in Rochdale were undoubtedly a large part of their motivation for creating a co-operative. It is, therefore, reasonable to say that the forces of poverty and need inspired the formation of the Rochdale co-operative. But they did so somewhat indirectly, mediated by the agency of idealism and critical social thought, and by the activists of Owenism, Chartism, and other social movements. The Rochdale Pioneers did not rise spontaneously from need, but were organized consciously by thinkers, activists, and leaders who functioned within a network of ideas and institutions. The same can probably be said of all successful co-operatives in all times and places: they arise from need—when some activists, institutions, or agencies consciously promote and organize them. Also, while co-operatives have frequently been tools for the relatively poor or marginalized, there is evidence that (just as in Rochdale) they are rarely led by the very poorest.
The founders sorts for a mutual self-help organization that would advance their cause and serve their social objectives through concrete economic action. They called their new association the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers, a name that rang with overtones of Owenism. “Equitable” had been one of Robert Owen’s favourite words—as in his plan for Equitable Labour Exchanges that would allow workers to exchange goods and services directly with each other, bypassing employers and middlemen. To Owenites, “Equitable” signified a society that would eliminate capitalist-style exploitation, and that would exchange goods and reward labour fairly according to Owen’s ideas. The word “Pioneers” might have been inspired by the newspaper The Pioneer, which had been the organ first of the Operative Builders’ Union, an early trade union, and later of Owen’s Grand National Consolidated Trades Union. To choose a name like “Equitable Pioneers” in 1844 was a social and even political statement, and 6 Bonner (1961), p. 45, discusses these questions concisely. See also Cole (1944), pp. 59-60. 7 Bonner (1961), p. 45. The Meaning of Rochdale 5 implied that the Pioneers were consciously taking a place in the movement for social reform and the advancement of the working class and its interests.
Question 11: Why Do The Rochdale Pioneers Prefer To Open A Business Shop?
Answer: They preferred to open the shop because the members of the Society needed to raise money to start their store and they collected 2d or 3d a week from each member. With a loan from the Weavers Association, they were able to collect £28 and they were ready to start in business.
Private shopkeepers were worried by the idea of working people setting up their own store, so it was difficult for the Pioneers to find a shop. Eventually, Dr Dunlop, a local property owner, agreed to rent them the ground floor of 31 Toad Lane. The building had been a woollen warehouse and as part of the agreement, the Pioneers had to replace the large doors with a shop door and windows.
Question 12: Why is Dec 21st Considered As The Birth-Date Of International Cooperative Movement?
Answer: The Rochdale Pioneers admitted unlimited numbers of members and distributed part of the co-operative's profits as a dividend on purchases. With 28 members they started not the first, but the first successful co-operative enterprise, the Rochdale Equitable Pioneer Society at their shop in Toad Lane Rochdale, now the Rochdale Pioneers Museum. They began trading on 21 December 1844, the date now recognized as the birth-date of the International Co-operative Movement.
Question 13: What Are Some Qualities That Enhanced The Success Of Rochdale Pioneers?
Answer: The Rochdale Pioneers began in a very modest way. They sold the basic necessities of life to their members, butter, candles, soap, flour and blankets. Their aim was to supply good quality goods, cheaply and to return any profit to members of the co-operative. Where the Rochdale Equitable Pioneers succeeded was that, from their own harsh experience of poverty and the theories of Owen and King they worked out that to succeed, their co-operative enterprise must work on a number of key principles which are now recognized internationally as the Seven Co-operative Principles.
Question 14: What Achievements Were Recorded 26 Years Later By The Rochdale Pioneers?
Answer: The success of the Rochdale Pioneers was remarkable. For instance:
1. By the 1870's the co-operative movement had its own wholesale and insurance societies
2. They were able declare capital of over £300,000.
3. Today, despite intense competition in food retailing, UK retail co-operatives still have a total turnover of over £7.7 billion and there is a renaissance of interest in all forms of co-operative.
Question 15: What Led To The Setting Up Of The International Co-Operative Alliance?
Answer: With these achievement in view, the co-operative movement spread rapidly, by the end of the last century it was already an international movement. The International Co-operative Alliance was founded and held its first congress in Manchester in 1896. Today the Co-operative Principles are successfully applied throughout the world to a vast array of co-operative enterprises, farming co-operatives, fishing co-operatives, credit unions, retail co-operatives, manufacturing co-operatives, even co-operatives providing internet access services.
Question 16: What Situation Did the Laborers Who Formed the Rochdale Equitable Pioneer Cooperative Faced that motivated them to be determined to succeed in their Venture?
Answer: The labourers who organized the Rochdale Pioneers, 150 years ago, were people that suffered from the social dislocations of the industrial revolution of their time. They struggled to survive intervallic unemployment, low income, unhealthy cities, and dangerous workplaces. They had no social benefits—no insurance or health care not to mention about pensions from their employers or from the state. They were dependent on merchants who were sometimes deceitful, because at any privilege, they exploited the helplessness of the poor by selling at high prices, they even adulterate the goods. Because they want to use them as slaves, they systematically entrap them with offers of credit.
The Rochdale labourers faced these challenges in a time and place when they had no vote, no democratically elected government to represent them, no interventionist state to protect them. Their answer to daunting social problems was a special kind of self-help: mutual self-help, in which they would help themselves by helping each other. It was a small start to a large international movement.
Question 17: What was Rochdale Known For, and what eventually happened precisely in the early 19th century? Explain
Answer: Rochdale was a textile-based manufacturing town whose chief industry was in decline due to the industrial revolution. For centuries Rochdale had been a centre for the manufacture of flannel; but in the early decades of the nineteenth century, handloom weavers faced competition from the power loom and lost markets due to American tariff policies. Discontent in Rochdale centred among the weavers. There was repeated labour unrest, including violent strikes in 1808 and 1829. After the first of these incidents, troops were stationed near Rochdale until 1846.
Question 18: How Were The Founders Of Rochdale Able To Turn Their Poverty To Wealth?
Answer: The people that founded Rochdale were of course, poor people compared to their social superiors. They lacked real economic or political power, or high social status. And the poverty and misery surrounding them in Rochdale were undoubtedly a large part of their motivation for creating a co-operative. It is, therefore, reasonable to say that the forces of poverty and need inspired the formation of the Rochdale co-operative. But they did so somewhat indirectly, mediated by the agency of idealism and critical social thought, and by the activists of Owenism, Chartism, and other social movements. The Rochdale Pioneers did not rise spontaneously from need, but were organized consciously by thinkers, activists, and leaders who functioned within a network of ideas and institutions. The same can probably be said of all successful co-operatives in all times and places: they arise from need—when some activists, institutions, or agencies consciously promote and organize them. Also, while co-operatives have frequently been tools for the relatively poor or marginalized, there is evidence that (just as in Rochdale) they are rarely led by the very poorest.
Question 19: What Actually Make Rochdale Unique?
Answer: What gives Rochdale a unique place in the history of the co-operative movement is the set of principles derived by the founders to govern their affairs as a society. The individual ideas had been tried before in earlier co-operative experiments. The originality of the Rochdale society lay, in part at least, in the combination of these principles into a single unified whole:
- democratic control ("One Member, One Vote")
- open membership
- limited return on capital ("Labour Hires Capital")
- distribution of surplus in proportion to a member's contribution to the society
- cash trading only
- selling only pure, unadulterated goods
- providing for the education of members in co-operative principles
- political and religious neutrality
Question 20: How is Rochdale Today, And Why Would You Want To Emulate Them?
Answer: The co-op occupied the Toad Lane premises for twenty-three years. In 1867, the co-op moved down the lane into a four floor department store which the members had built to house their thriving business. The little store became a private shop. But as the power of cooperation grew, people coming to Rochdale from all over the world would inquire about the store which had given birth to modern cooperation. When they were shown 31 Toad Lane, they saw not the "Birthplace of Cooperation," but a shoddy little shop selling canaries and bird seed. At the 1914 Cooperative Congress it was therefore resolved to raise subscriptions to buy the building. Unfortunately, World War I impeded the campaign.
By the 1920s, enough money had been raised to buy the shop. The Cooperative Union and the Cooperative Wholesale Society drew up plans to restore the building to its original appearance, and the shop was officially opened as a museum in 1931. Between 1974 and 1978, the museum was closed to allow for extensive renovations and structural changes. The building is now in excellent condition. The renovated building and the Toad Lane Conservation Area was dedicated by Princess Alexandra on 13 May 1981. Along with the building next door, the short street is a well maintained attraction and one of the most visited sites in Rochdale's history.
The front room of the first floor of the museum depicts the simplicity of the original store with its meager supply of the shop's first few products: sugar, butter, flour, oatmeal, and tallow candles. Nearby are the benches where members waited to be served, the scale where their purchases were weighed, and the desk where their purchases were entered into the books of the cooperative. The rear room of the first floor depicts the history of the Rochdale Pioneers and the early leaders of the cooperative movement.
Originally a school and a chapel, which the co-op took over in 1848, were located upstairs. The co-op operated a library and classroom on the first floor, and a drapery and shoe repair service on the third floor. When the building was remodeled extensively in the 1970s, it was decided that the museum would be structurally safer if the third floor was removed. As a result, the second floor of the museum is a lofty and well lit meeting and exhibition hall. Around the walls hang many historical banners and photographs.
Rochdale is the mecca of any co-op pilgrim. To open the door and enter into the tiny shop where the modern cooperative movement began is a never to be forgotten experience for any co-op activist.
The original Rochdale Equitable Pioneers Society merged with the Oldham Cooperative Society in 1976 and then was absorbed into the Norwest Cooperative Society in 1982. A further merger made the co-op part of United Cooperatives. In 1989, the name of the Rochdale Equitable Pioneers Society was re-registered to revive the society as a supportive and promotional organization on behalf of the Pioneers Museum in Rochdale.
As farmers cooperatives there are lot of benefits to derive from the determination and zealousness of the shoe makers, watchmen, cabinet makers and like-minds the founders/pioneers of Rochdale Equitable Pioneers Cooperative that effectively and efficiently dedicate their time, effort and finance including their convenience to make sure cooperative strive around the world today.
All Cooperative Farmers Association affiliate members should endeavour to challenge themselves to become the prototype cooperative organization that will change the operations and pattern of management in the system in the state and the nation in-general.
Therefore all acfarian should take it as a challenge to succeed in this undertaking. And to effective achieve success; they must exhibit good quality of togetherness which entail love, sincerity, transparency, respect, truthfulness, most importantly the quality of continuity which aid the people and the organization to sustainability.
Our main tool shall be:
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