A co-operative is holistic, looking after the physical, mental and even spiritual well-being of an employee; by contrast he quotes Henry Ford saying: “Why is it I get a whole person when all I want is a pair of hands?” (p. 55). Despite the success of democracy in government for people in the UK and US, powerful capital providers and shareholders have succeeded in preventing this sort of model applying to business. Adam Smith looked at the moral implications of the market and although he saw the potential of the factory owners to develop industry and provide trickle-down wealth, he also saw the need for public expenditure on education and similar services, and criticised inequitable business practices. Others worried about the “social consequences of rapid industralization” (p. 57) include the founders of the co-operative movement, started by the Rochdale Pioneers in 1844 and developed in the mid-19th century. “There was an upsurge of employee-owned co-operatives started by a remarkable group who called themselves Christian Socialists and came together ‘to pioneer the way to a new and better social order’.” (p. 57). Set against this was the rise of the owners of capital who consolidated their wealth, achieved monopolies and grew by expanding around the world, to the benefit of people in the West but to the disadvantage of those in developing countries.
In the early part of the 20th century the emerging Labour party focused not on employee ownership but rather public ownership, the nationalisation of key industries, which greatly reduced the impetus towards co-operative working. The focus in the meantime switched to retail co-operatives, which paid a dividend to shoppers; half the public were members of the Co-op by the mid-20th century. Then in the 1960s the values of Flower Power emerged and more co-operatives were opened in the 1970s than in the previous 50 years combined.
One company that pioneered new thinking in the mid 20th century was Scott Bader, a chemical manufacturer set up by a Quaker called Ernest Bader, who had transferred ownership to his employees in 1951. It was at the company’s Wollaston, Northants, factory that the Industrial Common Ownership Movement (ICOM) was founded in 1971. The founders were particularly aware of what happened when co-operatives brought in outside capital or sold off their assets or business, so established rules in which residual assets can not be paid to the members but have to be transferred to another co-operative. The number of employee-owned businesses under the ICOM reached more than 1,000 by 1992, a rapid growth for a new sector which has been largely unnoticed. The first organisation set up under the ICOM rules was the Daily Bread Co-operative.
Sawtell then discusses John Stuart Mill, who wrote in 1869 that “the emancipation of women and co-operative production are the two great changes which will regenerate society.”[23] The author says:
His two predictions are linked because women are more natural co-operators than men. They strive less for power and they know the value of mutual encouragement. So the fact that women are now more acceptable and more commonplace as managers and entrepreneurs is one of the signs that the co-operative ethic, as opposed to the capital-ownership ethic, will become more widespread in the next century. (p. 62)
Sawtell’s use of John Stuart Mill’s arguments sheds interesting light on the equal opportunities employment pioneered in certain co-operatives and Quaker businesses, described elsewhere in this research. The writer predicts that employee ownership will come of age in the 21st century, as it is already a small but healthy segment that has not yet been tried on a big scale.