Association, Patronizing and Autonomy

Abstract

In the 1860s and 1870s Belgian Masonic lodges actively organized cooperative societies which were people’s kitchens and people’s banks. Being dissatisfied with classical Masonic charity, a series of urban lodges wanted to engage in a broader and more efficient social action. Through association they hoped to foster self-help, thrift and autonomy among workers. These values would eventually allow the lower classes to accumulate possessions and to emancipate themselves. In time this would lead to an integration of at least the more ‘decent’ or moralized parts of the working classes into the community of active citizenry. This citizenship model of the ‘productive virtue’ was carried by radical liberals who were strongly present in the Belgian lodges that engaged into cooperative ventures. Most Masonic cooperatives did not last, with the exception of the Brussels people’s kitchen. They also failed to attract those social groups for which they were intended.