~oe~dale: )tril{es, Debts, GiQ aQd t~e Ori9iQs of t~e fl\oderQ \ooperative fl\ovemeQt By Axel Schaefer In its literature, my neighborhood food co-op notes its historical debt to the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers and their principles. We have much in common with these pioneers. In the Fall of 1844, Rochdale workers and artisans began their democratic experiment in order to fight drug abuse, adulterated food, burdensome public and private debt, and industrial exploitation, problems still with us today. Their alternative institutions laid the foundation for the modern co-op movement. The cooperative endeavor of the Rochdale weavers, wool sorters, tailors and other artisans did not first amount to much. They began by selling flour, oatmeal, sugar, butter, and candles from a small store located on Toad Lane -"not a very inviting street," the cooperator and popularizer of Rochdale, George Holyoake recalled, "its name did it no injustice." Nonetheless, this store became one of the most reliable of their cooperative ventures. Rochdale, located in the industrial heartland near Manchester, England had a population of 25,000 in the 1840s. It shared the plight of painful social and economic upheaval as a result of rapid industrialization. Together with Leeds and Manchester, Rochdale was a hotbed of strikes, riots, and working-class activism. The founders of the co-op, who called their organization the Society of Equitable Pioneers, regarded bad food, gin, and debt as part of a cycle of poverty and dependence they wanted to break. Employing the moral cant of the nineteenth century, they railed against credit as a social evil that destroys selfrespect and responsibility. They would supply "only the Page 32 RAIN Summer 1996 Volume XV, Number 1 purest food," giving "full weight and measure." They announced that "for the promotion of sobriety, a temperance hotel be opened." The store would give no credit and neither "sell nor purchase any article except for ready money." During an unsuccessful strike in 184'4, many weavers had fallen into debt with local shopkeepers, who were themselves having difficulties. If they did not extend credit to poor workiD-g-class customers, they would lose them to the competition. Yet, in order to cover these risks they had to charge ever higher prices, or offer adulterated goods. The renewed cooperative impulse of the mid-1840s was as much fed by anger towards local shopkeepers as by disgust with the factories. "He says he was never out of debt with a shopkeeper for fourteen years," ran the typical story of a new co-op member, "and had he not belonged to the Society in 1847, he would have been obliged to apply to the parish officers for relief." The Pioneers' call for temperance reflected the concerns of nineteenth-century reform. Temperance, however, did not mean teetotaling, or total abstinence. It was directed against liquors such as gin, which had a devastating effect on working-class people. Distilled spirits implied sin, depravity, and madness, while fermented ales remained acceptable, and the Pioneers were not shy about meeting in places such as the local "Labour and Health" beerhouse. The Rochdale cooperators saw gin .as the cause for the destruction of the social, as well as, moral character of the individual. They refused to deal in liquors, although the "temperance hotel" they had planned never was built. The debtor was a common nineteenth-century symbol for moral decline. By excluding credit and liquor, the cooperators expressed their desire to raise themselves, without outside help, to the level of middle-class respectability. This was a two-edged sword. By wishing to overcome industrial class distinctions, they excluded many of the poorest and most indigent workers from the cooperative. They wanted to attract the thrifty artisans and offer them the means to independence, but "the cooperative never succeeded in reaching down to the lower levels of the workingclass." While their membership was open, their strict rules and regular collections of share payments kept the Left. The original Manchester Co-op store is now a museum.
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