has been as in profit-sharing to increase the amount of profits
through the stimulus the plan might give to the workers and by saving
in friction, disputes, and strikes.

Sec. 14. #Limited success of the plan.# Practically the plan has been
made to work in a comparatively few simple industries. The most
notable example of successful cooeperation in America was in the
cooper-shops in Minneapolis. There were few and uniform materials,
patterns, and qualities of product, few machines and much hand-labor,
simple well-known processes, a simple problem of costs, a sure local
market. After more than thirty years the main shop was still in
operation, but with a membership of the older men and with no growth,
A number of the less skilled workers receive ordinary wages. In
America a few of the productive cooeperative companies are found
operating small factories. In England, there have been numerous
successful societies, but all in small enterprises, mostly connected
with agriculture. Within the whole field of industry, this method
of organization makes little if any progress. Most experiments have
failed and the successful ones have become or are tending to become
ordinary stock companies with most of the stock in the hands of a few
men. Therefore, whether losing or making money, they nearly all cease
to exist as cooeperative enterprises. This result has disappointed the
hopes and prophecies of many well-wishers of the working classes.

Sec. 15. #Its main difficulty.# The main difficulty in producers'
cooeperation is to get and retain managerial ability of a high order.
Failure to do this results in inability to maintain and keep in
repair the equipment and to pay the ordinary returns to the passive
investment, and financial failure follows. There is no touchstone for
business talent, no way of selecting it with any certainty in
advance of trial. This selection is made hard in cooeperative shops
by jealousies and rivalries, and by politics among the workmen. A man
selected by his fellows finds it difficult to enforce discipline. In
cooeperation there is occasionally developed good business ability
that might have remained dormant under the wage system; some
work-men showing unusual capacity cease to be handicraftsmen. But the
unwillingness on the part of the workers to pay high salaries results
in the loss of able managers. Having demonstrated their ability, the
leaders go to competing establishments where their function is not