THE ECONO^riC fwVIN OF COOPERATION. 261 



have a permanent sale. But any product can be pushed into 

 sale far more rapidly by judicious advertising, and the better 

 the article, the more certain the profit in advertising. And 

 advertising is any means whereby public attention is called 

 to the product, whether by newspapers, circulars, expositions, 

 public lectures, or any of the hundred forms whereby man- 

 kind is informed of what was before unknown. It is in this 

 way that the thousand proprietary articles with which we are 

 all familiar have been brought to our attention. 



The special "advertising" of any product must invariably 

 be done at the expense of the original producer, or not at all. 

 No " middleman " of any kind will spend any money in this 

 way, unless casually, in connection with some private "brand" 

 of his own. Neither can any individual, or small group of 

 individuals, afford, at their private cost, to do any important 

 work of this kind, whose benefits are shared by everybody in 

 the business. Of course the individual efforts of thousands of 

 producers to sell their product, constitute, in the aggregate, a 

 large amount of advertising, but this is simply the normal 

 "pushing" which all products must obtain to find any sale. 

 To rapidly introduce a new product, or one whose production is 

 increasing faster than the consumi)tion, an extra and systematic 

 effort is required. 



At this point, therefore, there is a distinct economic gain 

 possible through cooperation, by enabling producers to unite 

 for the purpose of advertising their product, pushing its sales 

 vigorously, and finding and opening new markets* 



There are, of course, special methods of increasing markets 

 by forcing lower retail prices, which cooperative societies may 

 use, but they are hardly possible, or at least desirable, for 



* Incidentally we may here note a dift'erence between cooperation and 

 socialism. The income of the average individual being fi.xed, all producers 

 are struggling with each other to get the largest share of it. By as much as 

 one's outlay is increased in one direction, it must be diminished in some other. 

 Distributive cooperation of producers is the organization of one class for the 

 purpose of more effectually competing with all other classes in the strife for a 

 larger share of the purchasing fund. Socialism contemplates the abolition of 

 all competition. It is best to keep in mind those distinctions. 



