FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   418   419   420   421   422   423   424   425   426   427   428   429   430   431   >>  
s laid down simply and frankly that, according to the usual custom in the whole industrial world, the claims of labor were satisfied with the wages and that wages were determined by supply and demand (we have seen above by what law). "This fact," relates Professor Huber in his report of this affair, "was considered valid without further question, as the natural condition, needing no further justification, in opposition to a quite exceptional, arbitrary innovation, even though it were according to the statutes." Bravely, but only with very dimly understood emotional reasons, this proposition for the changing of the statutes was opposed by the original founders and managers of the association. In fact, a majority of five-eighths of the workingmen stockholders voted for the change of the statutes, taking exactly the same position as the capitalist employers, and the change was defeated for the time being only because, according to the statutes, a majority of three-fourths of the votes was required. "But nobody," states Professor Huber, "is unaware that the matter is not thereby settled; it is more likely that still further serious internal dissensions are to be looked for by this association, the outcome of which, perhaps even next year, may well be a successful repetition of this attempt--all the more so since the opposition is determined to make its influence felt in the election of the officials of the association, an election at which the majority elects, and through which the controlling offices of the management may soon be in their hands." Huber reports further in this matter that most of the associations producing on a factory scale have fallen in at the outset with the general custom, evidently without any further consideration or any consciousness of a principle. Only a few have adopted the cooeperative principle in favor of labor, and Huber must further admit, although very unwillingly and with a heavy heart, for he is a partisan of cooeperation depending upon individual workingmen alone: "There is no doubt that this question will very soon come to discussion and decision in all the producing associations where the opposition of capital and labor exists, and that the competition of the industrial macrocosm (i.e., the world's industry as a whole) is reproduced in the cooeperative microcosm (the individual world represented by the workingmen's associations)." You see, Gentlemen, if you reflect about these fact
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   418   419   420   421   422   423   424   425   426   427   428   429   430   431   >>  



Top keywords:

statutes

 

workingmen

 

opposition

 
majority
 
association
 

associations

 
individual
 

election

 

change

 

principle


cooeperative
 

producing

 

matter

 

custom

 

determined

 
Professor
 

question

 

industrial

 

management

 
Gentlemen

offices

 
fallen
 

outset

 

general

 

factory

 

reports

 

controlling

 
elects
 

reflect

 

attempt


repetition

 

officials

 

evidently

 

influence

 

represented

 

cooeperation

 

capital

 

depending

 

successful

 

exists


competition

 

partisan

 

discussion

 

decision

 

industry

 

reproduced

 
consciousness
 

consideration

 

microcosm

 

adopted