here is little hope for the cooperative
to compete with the stock company. Cooperation means working together,
and its emphasis is more on duties and obligations than on rights and
personal advantage. In cooperative enterprises the individual must be
convinced that his best interest in the long run is bound up with the
best interest of the whole membership, and unless he is sometimes
willing to forego immediate personal advantage and unless he can learn
how to work with others, sometimes without compensation or with less
than he could secure otherwise, there is little chance for developing a
strong organization. For cooperation is but democracy applied to certain
phases of business, and, like democracy in politics or any other sphere
of life, its highest sanction lies in belief and satisfaction in the
collective well-being.

It seems obvious, therefore, that those attitudes which are essential
for cooperation are the same which encourage community life, and that
where the cooperative spirit dominates, community activities will be
strengthened. Whereas, on the contrary, in those localities where
family, political, or personal feuds, jealousies and suspicions are
rife, cooperative enterprises will be difficult and the community will
be weak.

That cooperation does develop those qualities which make for better
communities is attested by all who have observed its effects. As a
result of his long experience Sir Horace Plunkett says:

"It is here, in furnishing opportunity for the exercise of
education secured from the agricultural colleges, that the
educational value of cooperative societies comes in; they
act as agencies through which scientific teaching may become
actual practice, not in the uncertain future, but in the
living present. A cooperative association has a quality
which should commend it to the social reformer--the power of
evoking character; it brings to the front a new type of
local leader, not the best talker, but the man whose
knowledge enables him to make some solid contribution to the
welfare of the community."[35]

So, likewise, a keen observer of Danish cooperation describes its
influence in creating scientific and social attitudes:

"Among the indirect, but equally tangible results of
cooperation, I should be inclined to put the development of
mind and character among those by whom it is practised. The
peasa