At this point it will perhaps be well to sum up the advantages and to estimate the prospects of the co-operative movement. In all its forms co-operation eliminates some waste of capital and energy, and therefore transfers some interest and profits from a special capitalist and undertaking class to a larger and economically weaker group of persons. For it must be borne in mind that all co-operative enterprises are conducted mainly by and for labourers or small farmers. Hence the system always makes directly for a better distribution of wealth. To a considerable extent it transfers capital ownership from those who do not themselves work with or upon capital to those who are so engaged; namely, the labourers and the farmers; thus it diminishes the unhealthy separation now existing between the owners and the users of the instruments of production. Co-operation has, in the second place, a very great educational value. It enables and induces the weaker members of economic society to combine and utilise energies and resources that would otherwise remain unused and undeveloped; and it greatly stimulates and fosters initiative, self confidence, self restraint, self government, and the capacity for democracy. In other words, it vastly increases the development and efficiency of the individual. It likewise induces him to practise thrift, and frequently provides better fields for investment than would be open to him outside the co-operative movement. It diminishes selfishness and inculcates altruism; for no co-operative enterprise can succeed in which the individual members are not willing to make greater sacrifices for the common good than are ordinarily evoked by private enterprise. Precisely because co-operation makes such heavy demands upon the capacity for altruism, its progress always has been and must always continue to be relatively slow. Its fundamental and perhaps chief merit is that it does provide the mechanism and the atmosphere for a greater development of the altruistic spirit than is possible under any other economic system that has ever been tried or devised.