Co-op Development
Dr. Moses Coady and the Antigonish Movement
taken from a brief prepared by the Extension Department of St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, NS, which was submitted to the Royal Commission on Taxation of Cooperatives, 1945
Long before the economic convulsions of the nineteen-thirties shocked Canadians into the realization that something was radically wrong (with the economic system), a number of people in Eastern Nova Scotia had interested themselves in a possible program which would improve living conditions in this country. Some of these people were professors at the University, others were agricultural workers, and others pastors of rural parishes. The founders of the Antigonish Movement had not been deluded by the prosperity of ’28 nor had they to wait for the depression of ’29 to become dissatisfied with the old order. For decades before this the farmers and fisherman of Eastern Canada had endured great depression. There were a few notable periods in which they had fairly good times, but in the main the old order meant poverty and misery for thousands of them.
The lot of the industrial worker was not much better. In boom times, especially during the last war, the industrial towns pulsated with life, but in between they suffered an economic blackout and became ghost-towns where no real human happiness could flourish. In one fifty-year period Eastern Canada lost four hundred and fifty thousand of its people to other parts of America. This acted like a pernicious anemia on hundreds of communities. For the people of Eastern Canada it was not a question of one depression; it was a question of a whole series of depressions, of dark days when men lived in insecurity and fear, unable to concern themselves with anything but the grim struggle to keep body and soul together.
The solution, some thought, lay in bringing the people to the University for the benefits of better education and they began to experiment with what was known as “The People’s School”. Groups of people with varying educational backgrounds were brought to the campus for a period of six weeks and given instruction in various fields of knowledge. The response showed that the people were anxious and able to learn, but the experiment was discontinued after four years because, in addition to the fact that such a system of adult education was beset with difficulties, it was recognized that only a small percentage could be reached in this manner alone and that the benefits of the University should be brought to the people rather than have the people come to the institution for instruction.
The second stage in the development of the movement came with a series of Rural Conferences which later became Rural and Industrial Conferences, attended by leaders in all walks of life who were anxious to inquire into the economic difficulties of the people of Nova Scotia. Out of their discussions came the conviction that education of the type which would reach out and operate in the lives of the great majority of the people must be the first step to reform and social improvement. To organize that educational program and develop the necessary techniques, the Extension Department was set up.
The essence of the philosophy on which the Antigonish Movement is built is contained in six principles. The first of these is the primacy of the individual. This principle is based on both religious and democratic teaching: religion emphasizes the dignity of man, created in the image and likeness of God; democracy stresses the value of the individual and the development of individual capacities as the aim of social organization.
The primacy of the individual gives rise to the second principle that social reform must come through education. Social progress in a democracy must come through the actions of the citizens; it can only come if there is an improvement in the quality of the people themselves. That improvement, in turn can come only through education.
The third principle is that education must begin with the economic. In the first place, the people are most keenly interested in all concerned with economic needs; and it is good technique to suit the educational effort to the most intimate interests of the individual or group. Moreover, economic reform is the most immediate necessity, because the economic problems of the world are the most pressing. (also, they control the scope of the discussion and define the boundaries of what is practical or possible in all other problems)
The fourth principle of the Antigonish Movement is that education must be through group action. Group action is natural because man is a social being. Not only is man commonly organized into groups, but his problems are usually group problems. Any effective adult education program must, therefore, fit into this basic group organization of society. Moreover, group action is essential to success under modern conditions; you cannot get results in business or civic affairs without organization.
The fifth principle is that effective social reform involves fundamental changes in social and economic institutions. It is necessary to face the fact that real reform will necessitate strong measures of change which may prove unpopular in certain quarters.
The final principle is that the ultimate objective of the movement is a full and abundant life for everyone in the community. Economic co-operation is the first step, but only the first, towards a society which will permit every individual to develop to the utmost limit of his capacities.
Travelling throughout Nova Scotia to the mines, the fishing wharfs and the lumber camps, Moses M. Coady took adult education to the people. Finding illiteracy rates as high as 75% in some areas, Coady began by organizing kitchen table study and discussion groups and by teaching reading and writing. One of his strategies was to identify the “natural leaders” in the community and to teach them to coordinate and expand local initiatives. Each study group was encouraged to list their most pressing economic needs. Specific tasks and solutions would then be defined and co-operative strategies to achieve them would be developed. Education and growth was viewed as a continuing process and each success was considered to be a new beginning rather than an end. Four main fields of co-operative activities were identified and pursued: (1) merchandising; (2) credit; (3) processing and marketing; and (4) services.
(1) merchandising: at the end of 1943, there were sixty retail co-operative stores in Nova Scotia with a membership of over 12,000. Their total volume of business was over $4,000,000. (2) credit: at the beginning of 1944, seventy thousand people in the Maritimes belonged to four hundred credit unions with assets of $4,250,000. In their first eleven years, these credit unions loaned over $13,000,000 to their members. In Nova Scotia alone, the loans amounted to $8,000,000; and it is significant that this loan business was carried on with a loss of only $1400. (3) processing and marketing: in 1944, a number of co-operative groups, owning their own lobster plants, were doing an annual business of over $1,500,000 and at that time they were the biggest producers of lobsters in the world. The co-operative poultry pools in Nova Scotia, developed by the Department of Agriculture, began with 9,437 lbs. in 1934 and marketed over 900,000 lbs. in 1944. Between 1934 and 1944 the two top grades, A and B, increased from 58% to over 90%, and the price rose from the lowest to the highest in Canada. (4) services: by 1944, six groups of industrial workers in Nova Scotia had completed housing projects and a seventh project had already begun. Other groups interested in housing co-operatives were in the study-club stage.
As the following 1945 passages reveal, Moses Coady believed that co-operation is the very essence of democracy:
A hundred and fifty years ago political democracy was the great aim of the people. It was thought that, if men were masters in the political realm, all would be well. Experience in this regard has been disappointing, particularly since the advent of technology, the concentration of wealth, and the powerful growth of financial groups. Owing to the intimate connection between economic control and political participation, political freedom is to a large extent nullified today. Domination in the economic field has meant control over the other fields of social activity. Those who control the financial processes of the nation will also rule the political state. Thus if the people want equality of opportunity and full participation in the democratic society they must improve their economic status. They must develop themselves intellectually and acquire economic prestige in the only way open to them - group action or co-operation. If democracy is to endure and grow to fulness, people of all classes must realize this fundamental truth.
and that co-operation is a force for unity and brotherhood:
Another great spiritual value of co-operation is that it gives the people of the nation a sense of togetherness. It gives unity of thought and action. This is particularly important for Canada. We are a mosaic of peoples. We have many religious creeds. This diversity might easily be an obstacle to our progress. Religious and racial bigotry may divert us from our true goal and dissipate our energies. Canada needs, above everything else, a new synthesis. We need new and larger loyalties. We need an overall philosophy that will unite us in common action. Co-operation is eminently fitted to do this. Right here in Maritime Canada, French and English, Protestant and Catholic, and adherents of all political parties are today working together in huge numbers to carry on in a friendly way the business activities of their lives.
Perhaps Coady’s most eloquent expression of the benefits of co-operation was quoted in a book by Alexander F. Laidlaw, entitled “The Man From Margaree”:
The promoters of the Antigonish Movement were certain of two points. They had a clear-cut idea of their objective, and they knew that this objective was to be reached through some scheme of adult education. The objective was to give life to the people of the Maritime Provinces. This meant a better economic status, more culture and greater spirituality; it meant giving the people equality of opportunity to achieve the realization of all their possibilities through voluntary action in a democratic society.
…this is only the beginning. We have no desire to remain at the beginning, to create a nation of mere shopkeepers, whose thoughts run only to groceries and to dividends. We want our men to look into the sun and into the depths of the sea. We want them to explore the hearts of flowers and the hearts of their fellow men. We want them to live, to love, to play and pray with all their being. We want them to be men, whole men, eager to explore all the avenues of life and to attain perfection in all their faculties. We want for them the capacity to enjoy all that a generous God and creative men have placed at their disposal. We desire above all that they will discover and develop their own capacities for creation. It is good to appreciate; it is godlike to create.
The second world war changed the economic conditions in Canada. Huge amounts of government spending during the war had helped industrialize Canada and unemployment had been nearly eliminated. The post-war boom bolstered a spirit of individualism, independence and self-reliance. Most citizens bought into the myth that unlimited upward mobility was possible for anyone who was prepared to work long and hard enough for one of the new industrial dynamo corporations that were now gobbling up their smaller competitors in the marketplace. Co-operation was out, competition was in. No one then could have imagined that history would so quickly begin to repeat itself all over again …except perhaps for Dr. Coady. In 1954, just five years before his death, he wrote:
During the past two centuries on this continent the general emphasis has been placed on material progress. In the feverish pursuit of this goal, a comparatively few clever and sometimes unscrupulous men have acquired immense wealth and power. Great masses of the people, meanwhile, are being gradually herded into a proletarian existence. Many have already accepted it as their portion. To this end, indeed, they are often deceived into believing that those who exploit them are their protectors. Even those who know the real situation and who are in positions of leadership are afraid to speak out against oppression lest they antagonize the oppressors.
Eighty years later, these words still ring true… perhaps now even more so since the concentration of wealth and power has intensified immensely. Unelected billionaires and pseudo-scientific technocrats conspire to disenfranchise humanity from Creation itself. AI and robots are making humans superfluous and economically obsolete. Eugenicists are once again calling for the culling of the Earth’s populations. Never more than now have we needed to rediscover the true meaning and purpose of life, to re-establish our innate value through cooperative creativity, and to refocus on love and the beauty and spirituality of nature.
I hope this post inspires you to seek out or initiate cooperative opportunities. Public resistance to digital IDs, programmable money and 15-minute cities will create an abundance of freedom-oriented cooperative opportunities. Let’s get started. Discover and connect with like-minded individuals in your local community today using LocalResistance.org.
To learn more about the Antigonish Movement, Dr. Moses Coady and Father Jimmy Tompkins explore this link. I could not find a download link to Alexander Laidlaw’s fabulous book “The Man From Margaree”. It is out of print. Dr. Coady’s own book “Masters of Their Own Destiny” is also out of print. (both can be viewed on eBay)