Theory of Cooperation - Introduction

F.W.Taylor - The Principles of Scientific Management  - Third Principle

They (The managers) heartily cooperate with the men so as to insure all of the work being done in accordance with the principles of the science which has been developed.

F.W.Taylor - The Principles of Scientific Management and Industrial Engineering

Principle of Cooperation

It should be stated here emphatically that there is nothing that can permanently bring about results from scientific management, and the economies that it is possible to effect by it, unless the organisation is supported by the hearty co-operation of the men. Without this there is no scientific management. - Gilbreth in Applied Motion Study, Book. Page No. 29-30

The status of any culture is mirrored in its religion, its science, its literature, and its educational system.

In the first place the present world crisis is indeed due largely to the lack of intelligent cooperation, lack of democratic cooperation between individuals as such, between individuals and groups, and between groups and groups. In the second place, if we could bring individuals to cooperate intelligently, the crisis could easily be overcome. Such an answer is, however, so obvious and generalized as to be of little help. Experience has shown us quite plainly that cooperation, like so many good things, may not be had simply for the wishing. The mere fact that we recognize the value of cooperation presupposes that conflict and competition are also existent as human behavior forms. Perhaps under certain circumstances they are valuable and necessary. And so, although we shall provisionally accept these facile answers to our questions, we must realize that in so doing we are only setting up a working hypothesis. 

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERTudf7Ij0A   

Competition Temporary Cooperation Eternal - Deendayal Upadhyay – Adam Smith – Karl Marx, 2 Feb 2018 - Narayana Rao, 3.25K subscribers

Social Processes - Cooperation, Competition,  and Conflict. Conflict is a disease of the society. Competition has some benefits but negative consequences also. Cooperation is a win-win activity. Minimize conflict and the negative consequences of competition. Increase cooperation. The issue in examined in more detail in the video.

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The modern man is in a position to extract immeasurably more from nature than he does. Exactly how much more may be extracted depends on the assumptions made with regard to the reorganization in the economic system. But all serious students are in agreement that by making very minor changes in economic organization considerably more goods might be regularly produced than in even the best times of the immediate past. 

In so-called economic good times, although the standard of living leaves much to be desired for large segments of the population, there is no question about a cultural crisis arising. And even in economic good times maximal production efficiency is the exception rather than the rule. We may consider it as axiomatic that man is not able to consume what he is able to produce because of the recurrent jamming of our delicate machinery for economic distribution. 

Each and every economic  theory would require for its application the cooperation of large numbers of men. And to be able to influence men to cooperate presupposes a greater knowledge of applicable social psychology than we now possess. This inability to cooperate applies to problems other than the economic. For instance, the vast majority of individuals are opposed to war. If they could all cooperate in refusing ever to take part in war, war would disappear as a social force. But even at the present time, when it is common knowledge that the next world war may almost destroy civilization itself, it is almost inconceivable that a current war should be stopped by a peace strike. 

We shall not get far until we characterize cooperation and its antithesis, competition, as forms of social behavior between individuals and between groups. The world of tomorrow will be a world in which cooperative states made up of cooperative individuals live in peace and plenty, or it will be a world of continual chaos from which the values of civilization will gradually disappear. There is no alternative. 

Cooperation is not only important, it is essential. The world is in a critical state because it cannot overcome the conflicts. The world may well go on for several centuries before any complete chaos is established. Even with wars and depressions life is in many ways improving. The human constitution can stand an amazing amount of suffering, and if everyone does not become insane under the stress of increasing chaos, there is no reason for believing that the human race is threatened with immediate annihilation. What is most deplorable in the modern world is the great gap between the actuality of the bad society and the potentiality of the good society. Since the time of Plato’s Republic, political scientists have envisaged the better society as possible and failed to see it realized. In the Laws written in his old age, Plato himself became more realistic. Even if a world of cooperative states made up of cooperative individuals is Utopian, it seems the ideal toward which we must strive.