The Retail Co-operative Museum on Toad Lane in Rochdale is based in the very premises of the first ever retail co-operative innovation. I visited a while ago and remember “the hat Robert Owen wore while he was alive” (presumably they were unable to find his other hat!)
More important was the first floor co-operative library. This library and teaching space was there from day 1. Education was central to the co-operative movement and every co-op educated its members.
Robert Owen was an early inspiration for the co-operative movement and in the early years of the nineteenth century pioneered worker co-ops. The big breakthrough came with retail co-ops. Worker co-ops were difficult. They benefited workers only and it was easy to sell up and walk away. Retail co-ops benefitted their members and were supported by Industrial and Provident Legislation, which still governs co-ops and working men’s clubs to this day.
EV Neale: Co-operative Innovation
The man who drafted this legislation was a barrister called Edward Vansittart Neale. His main claim to fame came after he retired at the age of 65 and for 18 years presided as President of the Co-operative Union. He was a GOM, everyone knew his bushy white beard and mane of white hair; he was the Grand Old Man of co-operation.
As such he researched co-operation and travelled all over Europe. He observed experiments in co-operation and genuinely believed co-operation was the future of work. Every year at the AGM of the Co-operative Union, he delivered an inspirational speech. His vision far exceeded the mundane achievements of the Co-operative Wholesale Society. He received a standing ovation. His opposite number in the CWS presented statistics of the steady growth in the movement and received polite applause. The people went away inspired, as it turned out not to set up worker co-ops but to steadily build retail co-ops. Why was this?
EV Neale’s nemesis was a young woman reporter who each year listened to the speeches, did her own research, which showed worker and retail co-ops to be in conflict. Workers want to increase wages, consumers want lower prices. Her name was Beatrice Potter.
Potter eventually married Sydney Webb and the couple led the formation of the Fabian Society, The New Statesman and perhaps most important the Labour Party. And it was Beatrice who insisted the new party would support the Trade Union movement. It would be a party that supported workers, not consumers.
Auto-Didacts
Both the retail co-operative and trade union movements educated their members. Their interests might be opposed but both saw education as critical to success.
Many workers were self-taught or auto-did acts. They collaborated in education and knew it was much more than reading. Education is action. You don’t learn to negotiate solely from a book!
Both movements were lost during the 1980s. In a world of television and now the Internet, the self-taught person who knows from experience how things work, is a rarity. Insights came from solidarity between workers and mostly this was not anti-capitalism so much as a fullness of life lived for each other. It’s the decline of these movements across the world that’s led to the populist movements of the present. Communities under stress lose their education.
I promote the local economy because I believe it’s central to our lives and well-being. When we go shopping, we’re participating in the economy. Out of town shopping, huge multi-national chains and online selling not only take money out of circulation, they reduce the capacity of populations to interact, to collaborate and to learn together. We’ve lost our vision of what is possible and without a vision, the people perish.
LOCKDOWN POSTSCRIPT
The retail co-operative movement made a massive difference during the late 19th century. Maybe in the first half of the twentieth century it was over-shadowed by the Labour movement but it was still powerful until after WWII.
Many people were members of retail co-operatives and so they understood mutuality. This led to its application to many other aspects of the economy. Friendly Societies sprung up all over. Not so long ago you would find memorabilia from groups such as the Eponymous Order of the Buffaloes in pubs, temperance halls and nonconformist churches. These were not weird cults but self-help groups. If a member died or was incapacitated, the surviving members took care of his family.
It’s not hard to see how Friendly Societies led to insurance companies, building societies and even accessible banking. Most of the financial institutions we rely upon today owe their origins to this movement amongst the working classes. The government was remote and would never develop these new ideas.
Innovation, Not from Government
This leads me to wonder whether our expectations of government are too high. Take the recent debacle over A-level results. This is a fiasco in the 4 nations of the UK because it has been up to decision makers out of touch with reality.
Universities need students. Students need places at Universities. Neither party needs Government Ministers and Officers interfering in what should be a straightforward negotiation. Least of all do they need attempts to grade exams that have not been taken. There’s nothing to grade, so why are they trying to grade it? Talk about knitting fog!
Would be students have already applied and been offered places conditional on grades. As it happens this year, there are no exams and so students don’t have grades. So, why not admit students to university based on interview and references. Interviews might include tests, exercises and so on. Even with the need for social distancing, these are all possible.
I suspect the reason no-one has done this is because they might discover there is in fact no need for exams and all their attendant paraphernalia. Is it likely, that more students will end up in the same place? Even with exams, students find they’re on the wrong course.
Governments cannot deliver innovation. They legislate to support whatever’s going on out in the real world. Our focus should be upon encouraging innovation. We know it works because the co-operative movement did it.
Why I do this
Stories rarely remain unchanged, the context in which they’re told matters just as much as the context referred to by the story. I wrote this sequence of 21 stories about 18 months ago. You may have read some or all of them in their earlier form. Reading them now, we perhaps see something different, especially as we consider the need for innovation, post-lockdown..
As I republish these stories, I revise and polish them. Some need little change, for others the changes are extensive. At the end of each story, I add reflections based on where my thinking has moved onto, especially in the context of Lockdown.
This is story 19/21. Last Story: Hospitality: The Need for Inner Healing at £3 a Pop! Next Story: Strategy: Leaping to Solutions