With the factors involved in successful coöperative selling associations we are not here concerned, except to insist upon the point that as the weakest link measures the strength of a chain, so the strength of the local association determines the strength or weakness of the central selling association. A joint stock company may afford more efficient management than a coöperative association, and unless the local membership is convinced of the superior equity and ultimate advantages of a strong coöperative system, there is little hope for the coöperative to compete with the stock company. Coöperation means working together, and its emphasis is more on duties and obligations than on rights and personal advantage. In coöperative enterprises the individual must be convinced that his best interest in the long run is bound up with the best interest of the whole membership, and unless he is sometimes willing to forego immediate personal advantage and unless he can learn how to work with others, sometimes without compensation or with less than he could secure otherwise, there is little chance for developing a strong organization. For coöperation is but democracy applied to certain phases of business, and, like democracy in politics or any other sphere of life, its highest sanction lies in belief and satisfaction in the collective well-being.
It seems obvious, therefore, that those attitudes which are essential for coöperation are the same which encourage community life, and that where the coöperative spirit dominates, community activities will be strengthened. Whereas, on the contrary, in those localities where family, political, or personal feuds, jealousies and suspicions are rife, coöperative enterprises will be difficult and the community will be weak.
That coöperation does develop those qualities which make for better communities is attested by all who have observed its effects. As a result of his long experience Sir Horace Plunkett says:
"It is here, in furnishing opportunity for the exercise of education secured from the agricultural colleges, that the educational value of coöperative societies comes in; they act as agencies through which scientific teaching may become actual practice, not in the uncertain future, but in the living present. A coöperative association has a quality which should commend it to the social reformer--the power of evoking character; it brings to the front a new type of local leader, not the best talker, but the man whose knowledge enables him to make some solid contribution to the welfare of the community."[35]