So, now cooperative. Now, a cooperative is different. So, the simplest way as I've said before of defining a cooperative. It's a business that, it may distribute profits. So, it is not a non profit, but it doesn't do it in the same way. And a voting system is different, that is it's one person, one vote. So in a sense, this allows it to be taken over by someone with very little money. But the assumption is, that it won't happen and it will bring idealists together. So this is the first cooperative society in history. They weren't encouraging women. [LAUGH] They were all men. They were kind of modern when this photo was taken. This is 1844. Photography was kind of still a rather. When did the first photographs come in? Late 1830s, I think. So this is a pretty good job, this group portrait from then. So in 1844, in that building, it's in some town in England. Looks like it has a ad on one side of it now. They set up a food store called the Rochdale, was it Rochdale Pioneers, anyone know about this? I think you can go there and shop there. I think it's still going more as a tourist thing now. So they've set up what we call the Rochdale Principles. But I couldn't find the original Rochdale Principles, but maybe these are, but this was as stated in 1936. But I think it reaches back to the original principles. Everyone is a consumer, and every person is a potential member of cooperative. Regardless of race, religion, belief, occupation or nationality. It should say sex too, but a gender is what you would say now. It did for a reason, already. So they're benevolent to all people. So, the profits are returned to the membership in proportion to purchases in the form of a rebate, probably at the end of the year. They tallied up everything you've bought at their store. And then, they give you the profits back as a percentage of how much you shopped. So, I think they may not have exactly had one person, one vote. But they had a limit on the number of shares of stock that one could get. It does say, right. Each member is entitled to only one vote, regardless of how many shares of stock he, I should add, or she owns. The places, this place is controlled equally in the hands of the each and every member of the group. The idea of a cooperative is that it's totally different spiritually, than a for profit corporation, even though it is for profit. But it's the profits that are distributed to the people who shop there. It's a fundamentally different feeling. So in 1885, Yale students set up a cooperative for Yale student undergrads. And they called it the Yale Cooperative Society. And they had a store, it's now called the Yale Bookstore. It's no longer cooperative. They have a funny habit of failing, cooperative societies. So the idea that the Rochdale people created, was an idea that corporate structure matters. And that they would set up something with a different voting structure, and a different core charter for the company. And it would make for a different movement. So here's an article that points out that voluntary open membership, democratic member control membership, member economic participation. So that for start, you are not trying to sell. You're not fishing for fools out there, trying to sell to suckers who will buy something that's not good for you. You're saying it to yourselves. So, and it hopes to survive by some sense of loyalty. >> So, you describe the same business. For example, a grocery store can operate in either a for-profit form, or as a cooperative. >> Right. >> So could you speak to the difference in the business strategies for these kind of different business forms? >> Yeah, in fact, the very first cooperative according to historians is the Rochdale society. It was a grocery store, in the 1840s in the United Kingdom. And you can look at, they issued a statement, look at what their statement was. It was something about wanting to serve our community better. And what I think that ultimately means is Not just creating the appearance of doing better, but actually doing better. For example, giving foods that are healthy [LAUGH] and. Now of course, for profit stores have an incentive, of course, to give food that is healthy. But the incentive isn't exactly aligned, right? They're not going to be like a good mother to you, [LAUGH]. But the best things out for health, they have an incentive to play little tricks on you, maybe harmless. That tempt you to buy things that have a higher profit margin. And Cooperative grocery stores give the appearance of less value. Their prices might be higher and they might not have things, candies for example, that you wanted. But they have a community spirit that offsets that. So, I think that's the idea, and the problem is that they're not that successful. There are not that many cooperative grocery stores. I think they tend to thrive in strong communities, where people talk to each other. And know about it. They can't really advertise what they're doing, it may not be convincing. And they have to charge higher prices in order to get, or lower wages to the people who work there. But you sense the difference in atmosphere, and I think there's something valuable there. >> I think so, since we're talking about making a price on the value to deliver. So, could you speak to shrewd corporate, operate at it's full steam to maximize the profits for the community members. >> Well, I think they should maximize, yeah the thing about a cooperative is that they are, they will let other people who are not members shop there. But it's designed for the members, and they're paid a reimbursement at the end of the year on their purchases. So it's for the members, and the members have equal votes. So they can get together and vote to do whatever they want, but it's our store. I'm planning to shop here, and I'm meeting with them. And deciding, so it tends to, what would you do? I mean we could set up a cooperative right now here. And do you want me to maximize the dividend I pay you at the end? Probably not, right? You're not doing it for that reason. So they're maximizing something, it's the welfare of the group. But it's not the same thing as the pure profit maximization.
