Bung Hatta, one of the nation’s founding fathers, was very convinced that only through a cooperation of its people Indonesia could realize her independence and her greatness in the future. The former president Soekarno once summarized Pancasila, the philosophical basis of the Indonesian state where “panca” means five and “sila” means principle, into one principle: gotong royong (cooperation). And the famous philosopher and mathematician, Bertrand Russell, once wrote, “The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation.”  They are all right.

What makes cooperation so essential is not only because of the benefits it brings forth, but also because it is based on principles that truly reflect the reality of life. The key to the success of cooperation is that coordinated combinations (read: unity) of individuals whose different activities (read: diversity) can do things better than individuals can do.

So, one of the primary principles of cooperation is diversity. In cooperative organizations, things can be done better if there is a specialization and division of labor. Imagine if in an institution, say a university, all of its employers has the same specialization, teaching the same subject; no academic staff and no supporting staff such as information technology division which will facilitate the learning and teaching process. The university will cease its operation. The university continues running if it has diverse divisions and the staffs who do things different one from another and who perform the task not only for their selves but also for others in the university. For instance, the academic staffs do their jobs to support the teaching-learning process while the teachers whose job can attract students to enroll at the university are important resource for the university to pay its academic staff salary.

Just like any entity or individual which can hardly survive without diversity, every individual does not have to do everything needed for survival. We do not have to spend time learning all the skills we need in our lives. So we do not have to be a teacher, carpenter, tailor, and a medical doctor simultaneously. We have limited resources such as time, energy and financial supports. These limitations compels us specialize in certain jobs and others specialize in different jobs. The result is a highly interdependent organization in which key tasks are performed by individuals who are specially adapted and equipped to do them.^[i] This is called specialization or division of labor.

A cooperative division of labor can enable living processes to function more efficiently and effectively. We find specialization within our bodies, within our social systems, and between nations.^[ii] In economics for instance the theory of international trade and specialization has been well known since the 18^th century.  Difference countries have differences endowments such human resources and natural resources.  These differences, and other resource characteristics such as geographic location, provide a basis for some nations to specialize in the production of certain goods and exchange them for other goods from nations with different specialties.   For example, with abundant physical capital and highly skilled human resources, the United States specializes in the production of highly capital goods such as computer chips, while Indonesia, a low-skilled-human-resources country, specializes in the production of less capital-intensive goods such as textile and clothes.

This is the principle of comparative advantage introduced by David Ricardo in his book The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation published in 1817. The principle can be stated as following: If countries specialize and export the commodities whose opportunity cost is relatively low, trade can be mutually beneficial to both trading countries, even when one country has absolute advantage in all goods.

In other words, a nation should specialize in the production of goods that it can produce most efficiently. That nation should export these goods. A country should import goods that it can produce less efficiently than other countries. International trade benefits all the countries that trade. The potential world production becomes greater with unrestricted free trade than with restricted trade. 

Trade takes place because both parties benefit from their specialization and exchange. Specialization increases total output, and trade allows that increase to be shared. Trade also increases competition and allows countries to take advantage of economies of scale for some products. International trade also allows citizens of a nation to enjoy consumption possibilities that go beyond their own domestic production possibilities.  

In the sport world such as in soccer, basketball and football, the division of labor is evident. Rarely or never does any soccer team have only attacking or defending players. The team must have both attacking and defending players in order to be able to compete. If the team only possesses attacking players, the team will be in big trouble when its opponent launches a counter attack. Or if it only has defending players, the team will have difficulties in launching attack.

Thus the core principle of cooperation is diversity. It seems paradox, but we cooperate because we are diverse.

Cooperation provides advantages not only through a division of labor, but also through the principle of unity. Cooperation is able to exploit the fact that combinations often have new features that their components do not.^[iii] Take for instance a chemical element called Hydrogen (H).  Hydrogen is the most abundant of all elements in the universe. Hydrogen, the lightest and smallest element known to science, is estimated to make up more than 90% of all the atoms – three quarters of the mass of the universe.  It is “the fuel of life” because it is so essential to most biological processes in its atomic form, positive proton form or negative ion form. No electron moves in the living system unless it is accompanied by hydrogen. Human body stores hydrogen in its tissues. In the absence of an adequate supply of negative hydrogen ions, energy production is inhibited and our health deteriorates.

Stellar hydrogen fusion processes release incredibly massive amounts of energy by combining hydrogens to form another element called Helium in a process called fusion reaction.  In a fusion reaction, two atoms of the lightest element, hydrogen, fuse to create one atom of helium, the next-lightest element — and release much more energy. The hydrogen bomb, which was first developed by the United States in the early 1950s, is perhaps a thousand times more powerful than a uranium- or plutonium-based fission bomb, making it effectively the nuclear weapon's nuclear weapon.[iv]

Now, consider also about Oxygen. Living organism needs oxygen to live. The air we breathe contains oxygen. A gaseous element, oxygen forms 21% of the atmosphere by volume. About two thirds of the human body and nine tenths of water is oxygen. Plants and animals rely on oxygen for respiration. Hospitals frequently prescribe oxygen for patients with respiratory ailments. Oxygen shortage in the human body has been linked to every major illness category including heart conditions, cancer, digestion and elimination problems, respiratory disease, inflamed, swollen and aching joints, sinus problems, yeast infections and even sexual dysfunction. It is the main energy source for our brain function.[v]

While hydrogen and oxygen separately are extremely important elements in the universe, the combination of the two produces another chemical element which provides living to organism: water.  Without hydrogen to combine with oxygen we wouldn't have water. Oxygen burns hydrogen in the living system, releasing the energy that runs our bodies. Indeed, we all know that water, the matrix or mother of life, is made from hydrogen and oxygen. In fact, water is formed when hydrogen is burned by oxygen. We create pure water every day as a product of our metabolism. When we burn hydrogen in our cells, the energy that is released is used to run our bodies. The adult human body is composed of approximately 55 to 60% water--the brain is composed of 70% water. These are the results of combination of hydrogen and oxygen. Lack of water will make our body dehydrate and a severe dehydration could lead to death.  As a result of extensive research into the role of water in the body, the author, a medical doctor, believes that he has found chronic dehydration to be the cause of many conditions including asthma, allergies, arthritis, angina, migraine headaches, hypertension, raised cholesterol, chronic fatigue syndrome, multiple sclerosis, depression, and diabetes in the elderly.[vi]

Take another example from engineering. Bricks alone cannot build a solid wall, building or house. However, combined with cement and steel, they can make a house or a bridge or some other useful structure. Or imagine again the soccer team. If the team only possesses attacking players, the team will be in big trouble when its opponent launches a counter attack. A good and winning sport team is a solid combination of defending and attacking players. When the defenders successfully defend the opponent’s attack, they must coordinate with their attacking players so that the ball will fall into the possession of their attacking players. Without a coordinated action, the ball could fall into the opponent’s possession and the team could lose the game.

Cooperative combinations also mean a larger scale.  Larger scale can provide power over smaller groups, over individuals of the same species and over individuals of other species that are used for food. Larger-scale human groups are generally better at defending and taking territory. In the animal kingdom, predators such as lions that combine to hunt as groups are able to round up and kill larger and faster prey than they could as individuals.

The Rochdale cooperative is probably the most classical example of a cooperation which is based on unity principle. In the early 1840s, Rochdale, England was a small town of about 25,000 people. For years its economy had been dominated by the textile industry. But as the Industrial Revolution progressed and textile production became mechanized, workers struggled to maintain the standard of living that they had known in the past. Many weavers lived in poverty. In 1848 the mean life expectancy in Rochdale was only 21 years, six years less than the English national average.[vii] Women in surrounding areas were reported “`to give birth standing up, their arms round two other women, because they had no change of bedclothing; the very people who had spent their lives weaving clothes and blankets for the world had come down to this, rags on their backs and no blankets on their beds”.[viii] With this as background, it is not hard to understand why workers were looking for a way to better to survive amid such severe living conditions. Hence people were looking for new ideas that could help pull them out of their poverty and desperation. They formed cooperative business to help the cooperative members with their daily needs.  Members would be required to purchase at least one share in the society at the cost of one pound per share. The share could be paid in installments of at least three pence per week until the full pound was collected (1 pound = 240 pence).

At the end of the first year, the total takings were a modest 710 pounds, the membership had risen to 74, their capital had grown to 181 pounds, and they had made a surplus of 22 pounds.[ix]  Six years later in 1850 membership had increased to 600, capital was more than 2299 pounds and sales exceeded 300 pounds per week. 

So, the second core principle of cooperation is unity.

For decades, however, the development of cooperation has been focused on institutional and ceremonial aspects rather than on substance and spirit. Through out the 1970s and 1990s, the New Order regime established thousands of cooperation institutions across the countries, but the result is nothing more than the marginal role of cooperation, institutionally. No wonder, for most Indonesians cooperation means weak organization or worse, it becomes a joke.  The decades of the wrong focus have led to a misunderstanding of cooperation from acting together to enacting symbols; from working together voluntarily to working together by order; and from appreciation of diversity to paranoia of diversity. This violates the basic principle of cooperation.