Page 233 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

The Ideal of Self-Employment.

them the English Christian SociaUsts. But probably it sprang
native from the ground amongst the more idealistic of the Rochdale
Pioneers. It became an ideal of mid-century co-operation. Outside
the co-operative movement it remained an independent force.
Through William Morris this ideal of free craftsmen associated in
groups began a new literary career, and in another generation we
have seen the same force sending out another wave from France in
the extreme labour movement of sj'ndicalism.
But European civilisation meanwhile has become vastly more
complex. And its development, while it has made impossible a
resolving of society into a workers' paradise simply, at the same
time has opened a newer and still larger prospect for democracy.
The mediaeval worker could understand the solidarity of society
through devotion to his guild, his church, and his king. He could
not have understood the idea of an organic commonwealth, a free
community, organising industry not primarily for the workers, in
the narrower sense of the word, but for the whole body. Indeed,
although foreshadowed by ancient philosophers, and familiar in the
religious world since St. Paul's famous definitions of the memljers
and the body, as a prmciple to be followed in mundane affairs this
idea is still new, imperfectly grasped, and undeveloped. The
socialism of 1848 did not know it; the state socialism of Marx only
partly recognised it, and the word "collectivism" to-day rather
baldly represents it. The co-operative voyagers came across it
incidentally rather than of intent—as Columbus sailed to the West
" Indies." They landed on the shores of this unexplored continent
when they discovered the consumer, and then found that everybody
is a consumer and that an organisation of consumers is an organised
whole. And by the lips of Mitchell the general sense of the idea
continually was expressed in the phrase the " body politic." He
was no abstract thinker, but he was tenacious of a true idea, and
it was for its practical value that he held so steadily to a dim yet
brightening ideal of industry by and for an entire community. In
the democracy of such a community the masses of workers would
always be secure of justice, although they would remain servants of
the one united body. " Labour," said Mitchell (Newcastle Branch
celebrations, December 21st, 1892), " in his opinion ever would
secure a better reward in serving the body politic than in serving
"
individuals; and again (C.W.S. General Meeting, September 10th,
1892) : " We have no desu-e to cheapen labour. We want to cheapen
production by advancing labour as much as possible."
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