Thereby they would be placed on a
competitive level with the middleman, and the wage earner would be
assisted to escape the wage system into self-employment.
Such was the curious doctrine which captured the leaders of the
organized wage earners in 1867. The way had indeed been prepared for it
in 1866, when the wage earners espoused producers' cooperation as the
only solution. But, in the following year, 1867, they concluded that no
system of combination or cooperation could secure to labor its natural
rights as long as the credit system enabled non-producers to accumulate
wealth faster than labor was able to add to the national wealth.
Cooperation would follow "as a natural consequence," if producers could
secure through legislation credit at a low rate of interest. The
government was to extend to the producer "free capital" in addition to
free land which he received with the Homestead Act.
The producers' cooperation, which offered the occasion for the espousal
of greenbackism, was itself preceded by a movement for consumers'
cooperation. Following the upward sweep of prices, workmen had begun
toward the end of 1862 to make definite preparations for distributive
cooperation.
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