Within the cooperative movement of all countries, it is possible to distinguish two main groups: the farmers’ cooperatives and the consumers’ cooperatives of the non-farming population.

The objectives of the farmers’ cooperatives are the marketing of farm products on the one hand and the distribution of farm supplies and the consumers’ goods which the farmers require on the other hand. Both objectives are in themselves perfectly legitimate and could, apart from the problem of tax and credit privileges, be approved by everybody.

Capitalism needs neither propaganda nor apostles. Its achievements speak for themselves. Capitalism delivers the goods.

But the cooperatives cannot do without passionate propaganda. They call their promotional campaigning “cooperative education.”

The avowed objective of consumers’ cooperatives and of the farmers’ purchasing cooperatives is to provide their members with commodities and services at lower prices than those which they would have to expend in the absence of these associations. This is a perfectly legitimate task. We shall have to examine whether and how cooperatives really attain this end.

We meet here to discuss a question of economic theory.1 But first of all we must be in agreement on two principles. Otherwise, every attempt at mutual understanding would be hopeless from the very outset.

Suppose that, making use of our entire store of technological skill and our present-day knowledge of geography, we were to undertake to resettle the earth’s surface in such a way that we should afterwards be in a position to take maximum advantage of the natural distribution of raw materials. And suppose further that for this purpose the entire capital wealth of the present were at our disposal in a form that would allow us to invest it in whatever way was regarded as the most suitable for the end in view.

The infant industries argument advanced in favor of protective tariffs represents a hopeless attempt to justify such measures on a purely economic basis, without regard to political considerations. It is a grievous error to fail to recognize the political motivation behind the demand for tariffs on behalf of infant industries. The same arguments as are advanced in favor of protecting a domestic product against foreign competition could also be adduced in favor of protecting one part of a general customs area against the competition of other parts.

The malinvestment of capital goods can have come about in several ways.

Economic progress in the narrower sense is the work of the savers, who accumulate capital, and of the entrepreneurs, who turn capital to new uses. The other members of society, of course, enjoy the advantages of progress, but they not only do not contribute anything to it; they even place obstacles in its way. As consumers they meet every innovation with distrust, so that new products at first are unable to command the price that they could reach if the buyers were less conservative in their tastes. This is the reason for the not inconsiderable costs of introducing new articles.

The foregoing discussion makes quite clear the conduct of the individual entrepreneur and of the individual capitalist in the face of losses that come about through the commitment of inconvertible capital in enterprises in which a person having complete knowledge of all the relevant circumstances would no longer invest it today. Nevertheless, the way in which businessmen and the press generally discuss these matters differs markedly in many respects from our description.