COOPERATIVE MARKETING 



CHAPTER I 



FOOD DISTRIBUTION AS A FIELD FOR COOPERATION IN 

 MARKETING 



Within the last century there have been numerous at- 

 tempts to better the condition of toiling humanity by various 

 methods of cooperative production or consumption, and 

 even more numerous have been the dreamers who perceived 

 in cooperation a panacea for all human ills, if only their 

 particular system could be made universal. But the mere 

 fact that most of the concrete attempts to put these benefi- 

 cent and far reaching theories into practice have met with 

 indifferent success or utter failure may lead some of us to 

 conclude that the underlying principles themselves are un- 

 sound. Schemes for phalanxes, ateliers, societies, associa- 

 tions, communities, brotherhoods have at various times been 

 heralded as the remedy for social maladies. Yet the death 

 rate among such proposals has always been high. 



However, there is one phase of cooperative organization 

 that has received relatively slight consideration, although 

 theoretically it is more tenable than either cooperative pro- 

 duction or cooperative buying and although practically it 

 is proving itself far more workable. This phase is coopera- 

 tive marketing. 



Two of the most vital issues in the United States at the 

 present time are the increasing cost of living and the flow 

 of population toward the cities. The causes of rising prices 

 are fairly obvious: enormous gold production accounting 



