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194 THE OPINIONS OF JOHN STUART MILL.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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.. * • Part Ii. Co-Operation. Neail The ...
if it organizes self-supporting plans , it is still not a co-operative body in the trade sense of the word .
There must be a joint stock , a common fund , clubbed together yet nominally divided , and actually divisible ; just as A , B , C , ;
and D , might own a great cask of wine , so many quarts to each . And this common fund may be used or divided in various waysthe
shares may be equal or unequal , the government of the different ; parts of the concern may be federal or strictldemocraticand so
on . Only it is necessary that there shall be shares y , and proportionate ; profits , and that in some way the concern shall be self-governed .
Self-government is the root of the idea , for which reason Mr . Mill says capacity , the of co _pecziliar -operation characteristic . " , in short , of civilized heings is the
And this refers to all moral as well as to all commercial cooperation . The savage cannot co-operate in a _sj 3 here higher than
that of the yelling war-dance . The submissive hordes of Eastern despotisms were ranged in ranks under one masterbut they did
not co-here in mutual activity . There are two conditions , under which men associate firmly ; the influence of intellectual ideas and .
moral feelings , such as swayed the Greek communities and the Roman re _23 ublic ; and of religionwhich fuses the will of many
into-, One . Even in Pagan nations these combined secular and religious
inof fluences co-eration have sufficed in its to more creat extended e vigorous mor social al sense life . was But reserve the triump d for h op
Christianity to declare . The commerce of Christian Europe , —of Veniceof Florenceof Hollandshowed it in the middle ages in a .
secular , form ; the countless , pious , orders for conversion , for teaching _,, and for solace , showed it in a religious aspect . In our own Church _,
every day sees some fresh attempt at active combination , and the-Methodist " class meetings " express the same need .
It is not without design that I refer to the more strictly moral and religious meaning of the word , because it lies at the basis of
the commercial one . Before people can take shares in a _coal-niiney _apjooint a manager , and divide the profits , they must be able to
trust each other and the man whom they appoint ; they must agree on the principles of trade , and keep their tempers one towards the
other . It is therefore easy to see that when civil peace is established _,, and trade principles are pretty much the same in every town ,,
and merchants and traders find their transactions can go on from year to year in peace and quietnessthey will naturally begin to
think whether they cannot apply the , principle of united action to greater profit .
change 66 _According taking p ly lace , there in society is no than more the certain continual incident growth of of the the progressive principle *
, and practice of co-operation " Without entering too deeply into the history of the question , we
will consider the reasons which first turned the minds of speculative *
194 The Opinions Of John Stuart Mill.
194 THE OPINIONS OF JOHN STUART MILL .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Nov. 1, 1860, page 194, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01111860/page/50/
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