In Belgium co-operation is mostly socialist in the towns and Catholic in the country. In all the principal industrial centres are very important co-operative bakeries and distributive societies, owned by co-operative groups, numbering thousands of workmen of every calling. These _Maisons du peuple_ are admitted to be well managed, even by those who dislike their politics. The socialist party look upon them chiefly as a means of organizing and educating the working classes for political and economic emancipation, and of providing funds for political warfare. Like the English stores, and allied societies, they are based on the consumer, but unlike them they pay no interest on share capital, though they do on deposits. A much larger part of the profit than in England is devoted to propaganda and common purposes, though a part is also paid to the consumers individually in the form of checks exchangeable for bread or other goods. The workers employed also receive a share of profit as a dividend on their wages, and elect their representatives on the committee of management. By means of these societies the party has a press, buildings, and the funds to fight elections and support members in parliament. In France, where the store movement has been of an individualistic, and often middle class, tendency, the socialists have lately imitated the example of Belgium, and seem to be winning more success than the older French stores.
In the United States there has long been much important agricultural co-operation, and there have been many much-advertised attempts to establish Rochdale co-operation, but there have so often been failures and even dishonesties that co-operation has had a bad odour in the country, and the developments come and go with such rapidity that it is difficult to speak with confidence of its stability. The branch of co-operation which has been a great success in the United States consists of the great co-operative building societies, but building societies are not considered part of the co-operative movement in Great Britain.
Co-operation of all kinds is greatly developed in Italy, but one form is specially notable. The _Società di lavoro_ are co-operative labour gangs of great importance. They are counted by hundreds, and are found among navvies, builders, masons, carriers, stevedores, agricultural labourers and other workmen, and have carried out very great works in Italy and in foreign countries. They have, for instance, drained lands in the Campagna and made a railway in Greece. They differ from productive societies markedly in that they have comparatively little to do with capital or material, but contract mainly for labour.