صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

mately $2,900 for each of the twenty-one million families. But, of course, the national income is not divided equally. More than 254,000 persons receive an income of at least $10,000 per year, and upwards of 842,000 persons receive an income of more than $5,000 per year.

The workers are reminded by Professor W. I. King, formerly of the University of Wisconsin, that approximately 2 per cent of the people possess some 60 per cent of the wealth of the United States, while 65 per cent, or the majority of the people, possess only 5 per cent of the wealth. That is, two million people possess more than the remaining one hundred and more millions all combined.1 The future condition of the world will be determined economically and politically by the contest for power. The power of the vote is in the hands of the many, while the power of capital is in the hands of the few, and the incongruity constantly grows greater.

Industry is in its very nature co-operative. So long as these problems are not approached from the viewpoint of joint solutions unrest will be the natural concomitant of industry. So long as we continue to view the industrial problem as one in which the workers, the employers and the technicians are to remain as separatist, unintegrated groups, just so long are we certain to have a grave industrial situation. The only alternative is to view the workers as machines, or "robots," who desire no responsibilities in the conduct of industry. If the viewpoint of personality, or the desire of every individual to share in the control of his own destiny, is omitted, the problem remains one merely of mechanics, of wages, hours, and standards of material living. Once the viewpoint of personality is injected the industrial problem comes to be one of cultural and spiritual

Wealth and Income, W. I. King, pp. 80, 82.

values. Without this viewpoint the industrial problem remains one in which only the lower strata of motives are employed.

We shall take up the question of the final solution of these problems in the next chapter. Must we not seek together some common platform for the reconstruction of industry? Such a platform must include legal, educational, ethical and spiritual measures.

Legally, we must seek federal or state legislation looking toward the abolition of forced unemployment, adequate accident, old age and health insurance. We need a re-codification of laws dealing with industrial relations. We need court reform that will prevent five to four decisions contrary to the mature action of Congress and the will of the people. We require in America the full and frank recognition of the right of collective bargaining.

Educationally, we need the provision of adult education available for all workers. We should have education dealing with the bases of class prejudice. This education should look forward to the growing participation of the workers in the joint control of industry. The whole trend of the times is toward this in more advanced industrial countries. Public welfare, rather than the monopoly of class privilege whether of workers or employers, must be the touchstone for the solution of every problem. In speaking of the workers' share of control on the industrial side of production, we are of course not referring to the monopolistic, autocratic control of ignorant workers of the factories which proved so disastrous in both Russia and Italy.

Ethically, there must be the recognition of the fact that industrial relationships are ethical in character. We need to invent means for evaluating the moral values involved in industrial technique. We shall need also the growing recognition by employers that it is just to expect them to

bear the burden of unemployment, at least in part. If only five per cent of the workers are unemployed, on average, it would only add five per cent to the wage bill if industry assumed the whole responsibility of unemployment insur、 ance, quite apart from any share undertaken by the workers or by the state. As Mr. Rowntree says, "We shall never have industrial peace until we find some way of removing the menace of unemployment."

Spiritually, we all need a deeper recognition of the value of personality. Man's threefold life is economic, political and spiritual. Man cannot live by bread alone, nor can he be dominated by any industrial or political tyranny that does not develop and satisfy his soul. Apart from spiritual life the worker becomes a mere cog in an industrial machine. Early craftsmanship gave the worker control over his own life, personal freedom and a sense of his worth as a man. Our problem is to recover this for the modern worker in our machine-made civilization. Thus we must include legal, educational, ethical and spiritual measures if we are to solve our industrial problems which are not mere matters of wages, hours and material conditions. The final solution of these problems we shall consider in the closing chapter.

CHAPTER IX

THE CHALLENGE OF A NEW WORLD OF LABOR

Let us now face the challenge which this new world of labor presents. As we have seen, under slavery the whole man was sold as a commodity. Under serfdom a large portion of his being remained a part of the economic system. Under capitalism a man's labor power is still often a commodity. This also must be redeemed and freed. He must work not as a cog in a heartless machine, not with his whole life dominated by a power which takes no account of him as a human being, but under a system which will give him economic freedom, human justice and spiritual development. In the light of these three fundamental and eternal demands, our present system must be judged and our plans for the future formulated.

In saying this we are dealing not with an idle theory but with the operation of a law as certain and as calculable as gravity. History repeats itself, from the strike of the oppressed Hebrew bricklayers in Egypt to the volcanic upheaval in autocratic Czarist Russia. And yet in every age, learning nothing and forgetting nothing, a Bourbon class arises in industrial, political or religious life, claiming a special privilege which in the nature of the case can only be enjoyed by a small minority at the expense of the rights of the vast majority. And in every age, just because it is human and cannot deny its God-given irrepressible instincts, that majority rises, organizes and claims its rights, peaceably if it be under a rule of liberty, violently if it

be under a system of repression. Man has at last won liberty of conscience in the religious sphere, the ballot and some measure of democracy in the political sphere; he has not yet won industrial democracy or justice in his economic life.

In Russia organized labor has won a large measure of economic freedom, though not yet economic prosperity, but without either full political or religious liberty. The majority are under a frankly imposed "temporary dictatorship." Russia will not reach stable equilibrium, even though her government be as strong as that of the Czar's for five centuries, until she learns the lesson not only of justice, equality and fraternity but also of liberty, democracy and spiritual autonomy.

In China exploited labor is under the most terrible and disgraceful conditions in the whole world, under a central government impotent and honeycombed with bribery and corruption. Paper laws cannot save the "face" of China. Conditions there constitute a burning challenge to the entire nation and to every true friend of that great people.

Japan has made more rapid industrial advance in making money than she has in solving the human problem of labor. If she continues to advance in liberalism, abolishes the dangerous political system of "dual government," and permits labor legally to organize to improve its conditions in the sweated industries, she may avoid a revolution of violence. No government has shown a greater sagacity in discerning the signs of the times and in granting reforms before it was too late.

The nationalists of India have been so absorbed with the great problem of political autonomy that they have as yet given little thought to industrial conditions which, however, represent an imperative need. The responsibility for these conditions cannot be placed solely on the govern

« السابقةمتابعة »