372 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



enterprises have been due in large measure to the selective develop- 

 ment of a class of business directors, promoters, and organizers, and 

 the putting of the control of enormous units of our productive resources 

 into their hands. It is such captains of industry who decide upon 

 aggressive development in this direction, complete or partial with- 

 drawal from that field, and the marshaling of men and money to a 

 wholly new line of production elsewhere. The gathering of executive 

 authority into the hands of a small group of persons of specialized 

 abilities has made possible decisive action, a thing frequently 

 necessary in order to take advantage of opportunity or to avoid loss. 



Now the question forces itself forward: How far does co-operation 

 consolidate such entrepreneur functions in the hands of those able to 

 exercise them wisely? Clearly it does not give imperial control to 

 a few lords of industry, who can then exploit their fellows, as the cor- 

 poration sometimes does, no doubt. Does it, on the other hand, 

 leave all policies to be determined on a " one-man-one- vote " principle, 

 that leaves it on its former plane of inefficiency ? Or does it delegate 

 power for immediate action to men chosen because of demonstrated 

 fitness, and responsible to those affairs they direct? Undoubtedly 

 many of our successful co-operative associations are thus intrusting 

 their selling policies to keen and well-trained salesmen, and to a 

 limited extent are putting parts of their producing operations under 

 similar control. It is worth while, however, to pause and ponder how 

 fully and in what manner co-operation offers a better solution to the 

 problem of business entrepreneurship. 



We should realize, too, that to quite an extent we are tending to 

 keep the old type of unorganized operating units, while we concen- 

 trate both specialized abilities and administrative wisdom in public 

 bureaus the United States Department of Agriculture, the agricul- 

 tural colleges of the various states, the experiment stations, state 

 commissioners or boards of agriculture, county demonstration agents, 

 and the like. This is not socialism, since there is neither government 

 ownership nor operation. It might be called "individual enterprise 

 under government patronage," and apparently presents opportunities 

 for tremendously effective organization of some parts of our agricul- 

 tural resources, through pooling of interests and efforts on the largest 

 scale. 



The economic bearing of these facts has not as yet been carefully 

 studied or discussed. Indeed, the process itself is still in the early 

 stages of hardly conscious evolution. But it seems possible that it is 



