Political Ideals | Page 9

in the shape of trusts, cartels, federations of
employers and so on has greatly increased the power of the capitalist to levy toll on the
community. This tendency will not cease of itself, but only through definite action on the
part of those who do not profit by the capitalist rŽgime. Unfortunately the distinction
between the proletariat and the capitalist is not so sharp as it was in the minds of socialist
theorizers. Trade-unions have funds in various securities; friendly societies are large
capitalists; and many individuals eke out their wages by invested savings. All this
increases the difficulty of any clear-cut radical change in our economic system. But it
does not diminish the desirability of such a change.
Such a system as that suggested by the French syndicalists, in which each trade would be
self-governing and completely independent, without the control of any central authority,
would not secure economic justice. Some trades are in a much stronger bargaining
position than others. Coal and transport, for example, could paralyze the national life, and

could levy blackmail by threatening to do so. On the other hand, such people as school
teachers, for example, could rouse very little terror by the threat of a strike and would be
in a very weak bargaining position. Justice can never be secured by any system of
unrestrained force exercised by interested parties in their own interests. For this reason
the abolition of the state, which the syndicalists seem to desire, would be a measure not
compatible with economic justice.
The tyranny of the employer, which at present robs the greater part of most men's lives of
all liberty and all initiative, is unavoidable so long as the employer retains the right of
dismissal with consequent loss of pay. This right is supposed to be essential in order that
men may have an incentive to work thoroughly. But as men grow more civilized,
incentives based on hope become increasingly preferable to those that are based on fear.
It would be far better that men should be rewarded for working well than that they should
be punished for working badly. This system is already in operation in the civil service,
where a man is only dismissed for some exceptional degree of vice or virtue, such as
murder or illegal abstention from it. Sufficient pay to ensure a livelihood ought to be
given to every person who is willing to work, independently of the question whether the
particular work at which he is skilled is wanted at the moment or not. If it is not wanted,
some new trade which is wanted ought to be taught at the public expense. Why, for
example, should a hansom-cab driver be allowed to suffer on account of the introduction
of taxies? He has not committed any crime, and the fact that his work is no longer wanted
is due to causes entirely outside his control. Instead of being allowed to starve, he ought
to be given instruction in motor driving or in whatever other trade may seem most
suitable. At present, owing to the fact that all industrial changes tend to cause hardships
to some section of wage-earners, there is a tendency to technical conservatism on the part
of labor, a dislike of innovations, new processes, and new methods. But such changes, if
they are in the permanent interest of the community, ought to be carried out without
allowing them to bring unmerited loss to those sections of the community whose labor is
no longer wanted in the old form. The instinctive conservatism of mankind is sure to
make all processes of production change more slowly than they should. It is a pity to add
to this by the avoidable conservatism which is forced upon organized labor at present
through the unjust workings of a change.
It will be said that men will not work well if the fear of dismissal does not spur them on. I
think it is only a small percentage of whom this would be true at present. And those of
whom it would be true might easily become industrious if they were given more
congenial work or a wiser training. The residue who cannot be coaxed into industry by
any such methods are probably to be regarded as pathological cases, requiring medical
rather than penal treatment. And against this residue must be set the very much larger
number who are now ruined in health or in morale by the terrible uncertainty of their
livelihood and the great irregularity of their employment. To very many, security would
bring a quite new possibility of physical and moral health.
The most dangerous aspect of the tyranny of the employer is the power which it gives
him of interfering with men's activities outside their working hours. A man may be
dismissed