181 years ago this Sunday, the 21^st, the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers opened their store on Toad Lane in Rochdale, England. While not, as widely regarded, the “first cooperative,” the Rochdale Pioneers were a signal effort that led to a global cooperative movement. Similar mutual enterprises sprang up in other nations in the same time period. Other co-operative ventures preceded Rochdale in England, but failed. Rochdale was the first in the English-speaking industrialized world to succeed. The reasons for that success remains guidance for cooperators to this day.

            The Rochdale Pioneers followed upon generations of social and political organizing in England. The Industrial Revolution had thrown much of the rural British population off of commonly held land, driving people into the cities to become working-class factory workers and servants. Textile weaving had been an artisan trade in which skilled weavers operated their own looms as small enterprises. Industrialization turned them into wage workers operating machinery owned by investor corporations.

            Cooperatives in England and elsewhere were thus a response to – and a critique of – the Industrial Revolution.

There is sometimes a tendency … to forget that the Pioneers commenced business the purpose of pioneering the way to a new and better social order. Without that ideal the Society would never have begun; without it the difficulties of the early years would not have been overcome, the efforts to promote and assist other never have been made, and the developments which created national organizations never thought of. Bonner, Arnold, British Cooperation (Co-operative Union, Ltd., 1961).

            What factors led to the Pioneers’ success in Rochdale where previous efforts had gone under?

• Study groups. For many years before 1844, the founding members belonged to organizations and groups that explored the concepts of cooperativism; some were part of the earlier failed attempts. The Pioneers learned from these failures and established new ground rules to operate differently.
• Principles. Those ground rules were written out as a list of guiding principles. The Rochdale Principles have evolved over time and remain a core feature of the cooperative identity, expressed today as the seven Cooperative Principles of the International Cooperative Alliance. The Rochdale Principles were a pragmatic statement of the needs of the business: trading only in high quality goods; not using outside capital finance; devoting resources to member education; democratic control; and not offering credit toward purchases.
• Cash-only Trading. Most predecessor co-ops in England had failed in part because they allowed members to purchase on credit, the promise of future payment. This led to poor cash-flow and the inability of the enterprise to pay its expenses. Refusal to extend credit was a harsh rule given the terrible economics conditions they struggled against. But the Pioneers recognized that the needs of their mutual enterprise took precedence over those of individual members. Members could only benefit if the business itself was healthy.

            Within a few years, the Rochdale model mushroomed across Britain. The consumer cooperative movement there ultimately owned stores, factories, coal mines, and ships, all for the collective economic power of ordinary working people. The Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers still exists in a national cooperative association that succeeded it: The Co-operative Group.

            We are again suffering hard times here in the Carolinas, indeed throughout the world. The example of the Rochdale Pioneers still offers important truths that will help us endure these challenges. By learning together, by working together, and remembering that we individually prosper when we do better collectively, ordinary people will have more control over our own circumstances.