ABSTRACT
I. To encourage socialists to support his company’s propaganda e orts, Kerr incorporated his company in the state of Illinois, capitalizing it initially at $10,000 and increasing the nancing to $50,000 in 1904. In 1899 he began to sell shares in Kerr & Company for $10 apiece, o ering prospective investors partial ownership in what he termed a ‘co-operative publishing house’. Normally, of course, investors expect a monetary return on their investments, but Kerr made no such promises. Instead, he plainly told them, ‘we have never paid a dividend’ and ‘[f ]rom a capitalist standpoint we are a failure’. Why, then, buy a share of
stock for $10? Kerr’s answer was that it would help to hasten the arrival of the Cooperative Commonwealth. And if that was not answer enough, Kerr o ered a discount o the list price of Kerr & Company titles: ‘By becoming one of our Co-Operative Stockholders you are helping the working class movement and getting your books at a substantial discount.’5
