Cooperation
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Syllabus topic 3.1, "Social Processes- ... integration, isolation etc". Covered under MU's own "etc".
Pages 266 to 269 of 451
In one line
Cooperation is people working together for a shared end, and it is the process on which every other associative process, and every organisation, is built.
In the wording a student can write in an exam: cooperation is the associative social process in which two or more persons or groups work together in a joint effort to achieve a common objective which they could not achieve, or could not achieve as well, separately. Merrill and Eldredge describe it as the process by which individuals or groups combine their effort, in a more or less organised way, for the attainment of a common objective. It is universal, continuous and, in Kropotkin's phrase adopted by many writers, a condition of survival.
Its essential conditions
Three, and all three must be present.
- A common objective. Without a shared end there may be coexistence but not cooperation.
- Awareness of the common objective, and of the need for joint effort. People accidentally producing the same result are not cooperating.
- Organised effort, however loose, so that the contributions fit together rather than duplicate or obstruct.
The types
By nature of the association.
- Direct cooperation: people do the same work together, at the same time and place, and the doing together is essential. Villagers building an embankment, neighbours putting out a fire, a family harvesting.
- Indirect cooperation: people do different work towards a common end, without needing to be together at all. This is the cooperation created by the division of labour, and it is the form on which a modern economy runs. The farmer, the miller, the transporter and the baker cooperate to feed a city and never meet.
By scale and setting.
- Primary cooperation, in primary groups: the family, the play group, the village. Intimate, personal, an end in itself.
- Secondary cooperation, in secondary groups: the firm, the office, the trade union. Formal, contractual, a means to an end. This is the characteristic form in industrial societies.
- Tertiary cooperation, between groups whose interests are actually opposed, who cooperate for a limited purpose while remaining antagonists: two political parties combining to pass one measure, two competitors agreeing an industry standard. It is deliberately temporary and is sometimes called accommodation in disguise.
Why it happens
The bases of cooperation are usually given as: the desire for personal advantage, since most people achieve more together; mutual and shared needs; altruism and fellow feeling; shared values and beliefs; the necessity imposed by the situation, such as disaster or defence; and the requirements of the division of labour, which makes cooperation unavoidable once specialisation exists.
The interesting theoretical point, and the one that lifts an answer, is that cooperation does not require good will. Indirect cooperation between strangers with no interest in one another is produced by interdependence alone, which is Durkheim's organic solidarity in [Durkheim: Division of Labour and Social Solidarity]. A modern society is held together by cooperation between people who do not know, like or trust one another individually, and that is its distinctive achievement.
Cooperation
Its role
It is the foundation of social life. No group can exist without it; MacIver and Page treated it together with competition as the two most pervasive forms of social interaction.
It makes the division of labour possible, and therefore productivity, from [The Division of Labour].
It produces organisations and institutions.
It is what conflict is resolved into. Accommodation exists to restore enough cooperation for life to continue.
It underlies law. Contract is cooperation made enforceable; the company is cooperation given a legal personality; the cooperative society is cooperation as a statutory form. The whole apparatus of contract, partnership, company and society law exists to make cooperation between strangers reliable, which is the point at which this chapter matters most to a law student, and it connects to the trust discussed in [Social Exchange Theory].
The limits and the criticisms
- Cooperation is not always benign. A cartel, a conspiracy and a mob are cooperation. The process is neutral; its ends are not.
- It coexists with competition rather than excluding it, and most real situations contain both: members of a team cooperate against another team and compete within it for position.
- The free rider problem. Where a benefit is shared regardless of contribution, each person has an incentive to let others do the work, which is why cooperation on any scale needs enforcement, whether by informal control or by law.
- It can be coerced, and forced cooperation is called cooperation only by courtesy.
- It may be unequal. Parties who cooperate need not benefit equally, and the language of joint effort can conceal an arrangement in which one side takes most of the gain, which is the criticism levelled at the harmony reading of [The Jajmani System].
A worked example
Direct cooperation: on the day, four residents clear the terrace together, doing the same work at the same time.
Indirect cooperation: the contractor, the supplier, the bank holding the society's account and the municipal office issuing a permission all contribute different work to the same end and never meet.
Secondary cooperation: the residents act through the society, a formal association with rules, offices and a bank account, which is why the arrangement survives disagreement between individuals.
Tertiary cooperation: two factions of the committee who oppose each other on everything else combine to get this one resolution passed.
Cooperation
The free rider problem: three flats decline to pay their share while enjoying a dry ceiling, and neither goodwill nor the shared objective produces the money.
And here the law enters, exactly where the sociology predicts: the society's by-laws and the cooperative societies legislation permit the contribution to be levied and recovered. Law appears at the point where cooperation cannot enforce itself, which is the same proposition as in [Formal and Informal Social Control], arriving from the other direction.
Cooperation and competition compared
| Cooperation | Competition | |
|---|---|---|
| Class | Associative | Dissociative |
| Objective | Shared, and pursued jointly | Same objective, pursued against each other |
| Relation to the other party | Working with | Working against, though usually impersonally |
| Awareness of others | Essential | Not necessary; competitors often unaware of each other |
| Result | The end is achieved jointly | The scarce reward goes to some and not others |
| Coexistence | The two occur together constantly: teams cooperate internally and compete externally |
Quick revision
- Cooperation is joint effort by two or more parties towards a common objective. Conditions: a common objective, awareness of it, and organised effort.
- Direct: the same work together. Indirect: different work towards one end, which is the division of labour.
- Primary (family, village), secondary (firm, union), tertiary (opponents combining for a limited purpose).
- Bases: personal advantage, shared needs, altruism, shared values, situational necessity, and the division of labour.
- It does not require good will: indirect cooperation between strangers rests on interdependence, which is Durkheim's organic solidarity.
- Contract, partnership, company and cooperative society law exist to make cooperation between strangers reliable.
- Limits: a cartel is cooperation too; it coexists with competition; the free rider problem makes enforcement necessary; it can be coerced; and it may be unequal.
Test yourself
1. Define cooperation and state its essential conditions. The associative process in which two or more persons or groups combine their effort in an organised way to achieve a common objective they could not achieve as well separately. Its conditions are three: a common objective; awareness by the parties of that objective and of the need for joint effort, since people who accidentally produce the same result are not cooperating; and organised effort, so that the contributions fit together rather than duplicating or obstructing each other.
2. Distinguish direct from indirect cooperation. In direct cooperation people perform the same work together at the same time and place, and the doing together is essential: villagers raising an embankment, neighbours fighting a fire. In indirect cooperation people perform different work towards a common end and need never meet: the farmer, the miller, the transporter and the baker between them feed a city. Indirect cooperation is the form created by the division of labour and is the basis of a modern economy.
Cooperation
3. What is tertiary cooperation? Cooperation between groups whose interests are genuinely opposed, entered into for a limited purpose while the antagonism continues: two rival political parties combining to pass a single measure, or competing firms agreeing a common industry standard. It is deliberately temporary and limited, and it is sometimes described as accommodation in another guise, since it suspends rather than resolves the underlying opposition.
4. Why does modern cooperation not require good will? Because indirect cooperation is produced by interdependence rather than by sentiment. Specialisation makes each person dependent on the work of others they do not know, so their efforts combine whether or not they feel anything towards one another. This is Durkheim's organic solidarity, and it is the distinctive achievement of a complex society: it is held together by cooperation among people who neither know nor trust each other individually.
5. What is the free rider problem, and what follows from it for law? That where a benefit accrues to everyone regardless of who contributes, each person has an incentive to let others bear the cost, so voluntary cooperation on any scale tends to break down. It follows that cooperation of any size requires enforcement, whether by informal pressure in a small group or by law in a large one, which is why contribution to common expenses is made recoverable by statute and by by-law rather than left to goodwill.
The rest of this subject
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