-operation, meaning voluntary
co-operation, there may also, it is true, be frequent overruling of the
minority by the majority, but only so far as the minority have, when
joining the association, voluntarily agreed to permit, and subject
always to an effective ultimate right of secession.

Thus co-operation occupies the middle ground between competition and
state or municipal socialism. In its technical sense, however, it does
not cover the whole of this ground: it does not cover associations which
are primarily for social, provident, or religious purposes, but only
those closely connected with the production of wealth. We speak of
co-operative societies for agriculture, for manufacturing, for retail,
or wholesale distribution, for building or house-owning, for raising
capital and so forth; while the great Friendly Societies (q.v.), though
a part of co-operation as a theory of life, are not part of the
co-operative movement. The line is somewhat hard to draw, and
consequently is drawn somewhat arbitrarily. Thus while a society for
building, or for the collective ownership of houses, is counted a
co-operative society, a Building Society (as we ordinarily understand
the term), though it be purely mutual in its basis, is not so counted in
Great Britain, but is in the United States (see BUILDING SOCIETIES).

Robert Owen.

For the early history of the co-operative movement we have to look
chiefly to Great Britain, and British co-operation acknowledges as its
founder Robert Owen (q.v.). In every age and every country the origins
of co-operation may no doubt be traced, where men have helped one
another in the creation of wealth and agreed as brothers as to its
division. In England long before the days of Owen there was much
co-operation of miners and fishermen which, though scarcely obligatory on
the individuals taking part in it, was largely regulated by custom.
Coming to more purely voluntary associations, co-operative workshops are
recorded, retail co-operation was practised in Scotland from the middle
of the 18th century, while in England shops not unlike co-operative
stores, but without the democratic element, were in one or two instances
set up by benevolent individuals. It does not seem, however, that there
was any theory of co-operation until Owen in England, and almost
simultaneously Fourier (q.v.) in France, formulated their gospels, not
identical, yet having much in common. Of these two Owen and his teaching