I was very pleased to see the article by Holger Lyngholm on "Cooperation and Democracy in Denmark," in your last issue. For a long time I have believed that the cooperative principle and the Georgeist philosophy are related. Toyohiko Kagawa of Japan once told me that when we have cooperatives established, the Henry George system would be followed. I believe that when we all wake up as consumers, and organize cooperatives on the Rochdale principle, we will be more keenly aware of the tax problem and more capable of tackling it.

Henry George wrote:

"I am inclined to think that the result of confiscating rent in the manner I have proposed would be to cause the organization of labor, wherever large capitals were used, to assume the cooperative form, since the more equal diffusion of wealth would unite capitalist and laborer in the same person."

George set the right goal in this statement, but citizens of a free democracy need full stomachs and can't wait for distant promises. Political power is based on economic power, and before we can hope to have the Georgeist reform legislated, we will have to display some economic power. I believe that consumer cooperation is the right way to gain democratic control of economic power, and through it, of political power. Through the processes of education and good business management we would have the means to accomplish the reform of shifting taxes from labor products to land values.

The Danes have set the example. Let us take up the torch.