The business of co-operative society is generally managed by a committee elected by the members at annual general meeting. Since most of the co-operatives operate on a local scale, the meetings of the members are well attended, and this puts the managing committee under a lot of close supervision. ‘One man one vote’ is the basic element of co-operative democracy.

But in a co­operative, one member may have 10,000 shares and the other only 1 share, but each would command one vote only and no proxies would be permitted.