COOPERATIVES: The Farmer Takes a Town

(2 of 2)

Private business is most alarmed by the fact that cooperatives seem to be able to go into any business and make it pay. Example: the Consumers' Cooperative Association of North Kansas City, Mo., which started on $30,000, now owns 289 oil wells, 867 miles of pipeline, two refineries, two canneries, two sawmills, a feed mill, a soft-drink bottling plant, an insurance agency, a paint factory, etc. Another irritation to private business is the fact that marketing cooperatives are seldom prosecuted under the antitrust laws.

Help the Corporations. This year U.S. co-ops will do over $4 billion worth of business, more than ever before. Private business fears that, at their present rate of expansion, the co-ops will some day be a serious threat. For this reason anti-co-op organizations, such as Chicago's National Tax Equality Association (formerly the League to Protect Free Enterprise), are plumping for a change in the tax laws. The main N.T.E.A. argument is that expanding co-ops are taking taxable income off the tax rolls. Furthermore, N.T.E.A. contends that many a corporation is turning itself into a co-op merely to dodge taxes. Although Congress plans to delve into the matter, there is little chance of their radically revising co-op regulations. Coops are too potent politically, and have proved too valuable to the farmer.