THE ECONOMIC GAIN OF COOPERATION. 271 



ization of any reasonable number at less than five per cent. 

 The possible gain would diminish as the locality of the pro- 

 ducers should approach nearer to the great markets of the 

 world, inducing more competition among buyers and better 

 information among producers. 



In opposition to this conclusion, some, and possibly most 

 economists would insist that natural selection would attract to 

 trade those best qualified to conduct it, and that competition 

 among them would enable i)roducers to obtain their services 

 at the lowest rate at which they could live and prosper, and 

 that any attempt to interfere with the regular operation of 

 these economic forces will in the long run be futile, and in so 

 far as temix>rary success might seem to be achieved, investiga- 

 tion would certainly disclose real economic loss. 



To follow this discussion far in this direction would cer- 

 tainly make these pages too technical for popular reading, and 

 would moreover involve the study of data as yet uncollected, 

 so far as I know, and unavailable. The situation of the 

 industry mentioned as above given correctly, unquestion- 

 ably shows tiie possibilit}^ of economic gain. The argument 

 opposed to it is based upon the law of natural selection as 

 applied to human effort. Perhaps the best rejoinder that can 

 be made in general terms is that from the foundation of the 

 world the progress of man has been a series of struggles with 

 nature — including his own nature — and that no man can yet 

 say that the evolution of the race does not tend towards forms 

 of life wherein cooperative effort shall take the place of com- 

 petitive struggle. 



There is another matter which is perhaps best considered 

 in this connection, which is the moral gain under cooperative 

 methods. Without argument I shall assume that any estab- 

 lished and continued moral gain in the management of any 

 industry inevitably carries with it a corresponding economic 

 gain. Returning to our illustration we find the facts 'to be 

 these: the increasing output of fruits of California has devel- 

 oped under competitive methods such an annually-increasing 

 distrust of values as to, in some branches, almost entirely 

 destroy the local market which I have been assuming, and 



