Simple Capitalist Cooperation, initial form of a capitalist enterprise; an association, under the capitalist’s command, of several wage workers doing similar work. Cooperation provided a number of advantages over individual artisan production. The joint labour of a great number of workers, some of them more adroit and skilled than others, evened out individual differences in the work force. Collective labour emerged as average social labour. It economised on the means of production per unit of output as a result of saving fuel and light in the joint workplace, etc. Joint work produced the spirit of competition and raised labour productivity. It created important advantages during seasonal work, when the labour process had to be made continuous. Historically, simple capitalist cooperation played a progressive role, as it helped socialise labour and thus increase its productivity. As a capitalist form of the development of the productive forces, cooperation was the first stage in the production of relative surplus value.