Journal of Co-operative Studies 53(2), 5-15

Abstract

The debate on the ‘productive problem’ was a source of friction and dominated several Co-operative Union congresses in the 1880s and 1890s. Nominally it concerned profit-sharing in producer co-operatives, but deeper co-operative principles and purposes were at stake. This paper focuses on a specific contemporary project, and a specific individual, to revisit that debate. The project is Tenant Co-operators Ltd., Britain’s first housing co-operative; the individual is Benjamin Jones, manager of the London Co-operative Wholesale Society, and the key figure in the co-operative’s formation. Jones was an active participant on one side of the ‘productive problem’ debate. And yet the paper finds that the financial model chosen for Tenant Co-operators Ltd., and the alliances mobilised by Jones in itsformation, cut across the divide created by the debate. The paper argues that, despite the passions surrounding the ‘productive problem’, the co-operative movement was united by a broad consensus which informed practical activities such as the formation of Tenant Co-operators Ltd. This consensus was focused on the goal of social harmony; and this goal was in turn informed by the powerful connections between the co-operative movement and the Liberal Party.

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