Why a "School of Cooperative Individualism"?

Edward J. Dodson

[An unpublished essay, July, 2006]

From time to time many of us engage informally in the debate over whether our movement is served well by categorizing ourselves as "Georgists." In times past, the stalwart supporters of Henry George and his proposals were denigrated as something of a cult. Some within the movement expressed concern that George's writings were treated as divinely inspired, as "the truth" rather than as a guide to understanding and basis for continued scientific investigation.

All this got me to wondering how the system of moral principles Henry George came to could be best described. At some point, I came across the term "cooperative individualism" in connection with the establishment of Fairhope in Alabama. These two words seemed to me to fit. What George believed in was the maximum amount of individual freedom (i.e., true liberty) within a societal framework of cooperative arrangements and institutions. The same could be said about the principles espoused by Thomas Paine and the philosopher Mortimer J. Adler. I decided that the path to rebuilding our movement from the small community it had become was to do so around the ideals of cooperative individualism, and I described Paine, George and Adler as three primary contributors to the development of these principles.

In 1997 I established the School of Cooperative Individualism as an internet-based education and research project. The main component of the project is a constantly expanding library of essays, articles and papers on political economy, with the writings of and about Henry George predominantly featured. I also created an on-line "Encyclopedia on Political Economy," organized alphabetically by subject, with links to material elsewhere on the SCI website and externally. Beginning in 1997 I started to go through all of the "Georgist" material I had accumulated since my first involvement in 1980. Articles from past years of Land & Liberty, The Henry George News, Equal Rights, Progress, GroundSwell, The Georgist Journal and many pamphlets were scanned, formatted and added to the SCI library as time permitted. In the process, I discovered a vast body of literature deserving of a new life and a new, broad audience. More recently, I have started going thru material from the earlier decades of Georgist activity, including issues of The Freeman from 1937 until the early 1940s. New material is being added from these sources almost every week.

Somewhere along the way, I decided to prepare as detailed picture of individual involvement in the Georgist movement as I could from all of the source materials available. The result is a "Biographical History of the Georgist Movement" that lists the names and known biographical information on every person I have encountered in my research. This section of the SCI website is organized by country, then alphabetically by surname. If the individual's writings are available in the SCI library, a link thereto is provided. Also, photographs of many persons listed have been scanned and made available.

There are other components of the website designed to attract researchers, teachers, students and the philosophically curious to browse once they arrive. A page of links will take visitors to the websites of other Georgist organizations and individuals. The main page highlights material recently added to the library and provides reviews of important new books. There are other components to the SCI website you might find of interest and value, entertaining even. From its humble beginnings, the project now receives an average of nearly 50,000 "hits" each month. I do not monitor the website traffic more closely than this. From time to time I receive an email from someone who either expresses appreciation for the material made available to them or engages me in an exchange of views.

The jury is still on whether this effort is, in any significant way, laying the groundwork for the building of a global movement adhering to the principles of cooperative individualism. Only time will provide an answer.