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Show THE CITIZEN 6 Such is the apple of Bolshevism which is being offered to the progeny of the first man and woman. Sometimes men seek escape through the doorway of suicide and that is the doorway to which. Bolshevism is pointing as if it were pointing the way back to Eden. The demand for shorter hours of work is the result of this yearning to escape. Work is regarded as an evil and naturally the less of an evil we have the better we are off. The wise man, however, knows that work is in itself a means of escape from the ills of life. Like all things human work is both a good and an evil. The man of experience may not love work for its own sake, but if it is work that is not wholly repulsive, if it interests him and keeps his mind and and heart engaged, he finds it a sure refuge from, from killing ennui. The world is getting away from the old notion that intoxication is an acceptable means of escape. To escape from worry, from the bitterness of love gone wrong, from physical exhaustion and mental depression, men were accustomed to seek surcease in the nepenthe of alcohol. After centuries of experience a great part of civilized mankind decided to face life soberly. They decided not to escape at all, but to accept life with noble courage and try to improve it. Those who now seek escape by following the baleful beacons of the anarchists are foolishly relying on promises which they have not analyzed. They have heard the subtle appeal, That way lies happiness, little knowing that if the truth were told the slogan should be, All ye who enter here, leave hope behind. soul-tortu- re . . THE GREATER PLUMB PLAN new Plumb plan for the control of American industries is THE on the fallacious theories of socialism. It starts with the promise that labor is not receiving its just share of production while capital is being overpaid. Therefore, it would establish tripartite control by labor, capital and the public with the avowed object of specially benefiting labor. The socialistic base of the plan, however, is somewhat disguised. Labor is not to receive all the savings effected in industry, but only such part as Mr. Plumb thinks it entitled to. He explains that in those industries which should be owned by the community all of the savings reflected in the greater productive power of increased efficiency should be equally divided between the public and labor. Government control of the railways is a terrible example of what Plumb plans will lead to. Instead of increased there is decreased efficiency and deficit instead of saving. The causes are not far to seek. There is no incentive, under government ownership or control, to ambition, initiative or energy. The result is torpor, mismanagement, neglect, waste and loss. The utilities become a drain on the public who are taxed to make up the deficiency. Mr. Plumb would allow Capital some recompense in those industries which, in his opinion, should not be directly operated by the government. He says: In such industries employing private capital to render public service, based on a grant, the public, or consumers, should still enjoy one-ha- lf of the savings of such efficiencies. Capital and Labor should receive the benefit of the other half, to be distributed between Capital and Labor in the proportion of their respective investments. The publics half should be reflected in a reduction of price to the consumers. How the author of the plan arrived at his arbitrary standard of distributing savings is not stated. The standard may be correct if there are savings, but if there are losses what? Already certain classes of labor are getting more than the Plumb standard, as can be demonstrated by a few illustrations. Under government control of railways the mens wages were increased, but as there were no savings the public was taxed to supply funds to pay the wage scale. This was reflected in higher prices paid by the public who are the consumers. Moreover, certain classes of labor have been underpaid so that labor working for the railways, in the mines and factories might receive high wages. This means that some classes of labor arc being taxed to give high pay to other classes of labor. Take, for example, the case of the countrys teachers. Everywhere they are underpaid. Millions of dollars, so to say, are taken from their pockets each year and transferred to the pockets of workers in the industries. Nor could the Plumb plan alter the situation. The very theory of it would perpetuate the inequality. We read in the authors commentary that every laborer is' entitled to receive the full value of the service he renders and this value is described, not in terms of money, but in the terms of the productive labor of other workers. If a workman produces a certain amount in a day he ought to receive the equivalent of that amount in the work of another laborer, it is argued. If A produces a shoe a day he has a right to demand the value of that shoe from B. If B happens to be a school teacher he can pay only by training the mind of A or of As children. Perhaps the children will die young and never produce anything as the result of the training they receive. How does this argument bear upon the Plumb theory? Only those who produce can provide wages for labor. Those who teach or guide opinion produce only indirectly and for that very reason they are being deprived today of fair wages because the total of production is not sufficient to go round. The manual laborer is arrogating to himself most of the fruits of labor .and denying a decent living to many who produce indirectly. Suppose that all the industries begin to lose after the government has taken control of them. Suppose that, as in the case of the railways, efficiency slumps and the industries do not produce up to the former standard. In that case, the total of production declines and the amount to be divided is less. If the wage of A is increased he can get just as much of this total production as he was able to buy before the price went up as a result of decreased production, but some one else suffers very likely B, the school teacher or C, the librarian, or D, the minister of the gospel, or E, the artist. There is only one way to distribute more of the worlds goods and that is to produce more. If industry is taken out of the hands of the ambitious and energetic and placed in the hands of government bureaus production will decrease. There will be less to go round. Instead of savings there will be losses. The Plumb plan makes no provision for a cut in wages when there are losses. The only way to make up the losses is to tax the public. Taxes mean higher prices to the consumer. Increases in wages granted while production decreases merely permit the laborer to buy as much as before. He makes no real gain. And if production is not sufficient to go round, Capital charges higher and .higher prices for the goods it produces and sells. The time comes when, as at present, those who produce actual wealth directly that is to say the manual laborers are better paid than those who produce wealth indirectly the teacher, the minister, the librarian, the jour- nalists. The only way to solve the problem is to produce more and production cannot be increased by paralyzing industry with government control or with any control which takes from business the incentives for work. The reply to this will be that if Capital gets an unfair share all 0 labor will suffer. True ,but what is an unfair share? Does Capital obtain an unfair share when it lays aside wealth for the production of other wealth? Take a concrete example? Did Henry Ford get an unfair share when he was enabled to obtain such a return on his investment as permitted him to make a cheap car, build up a colossal industry and provide work for millions? If his industry, in its early stage, had been turned over to government control or tripartite control the development probably would have been much slower and might have been arrested altogether. Industry progresses not merely by means of labor but by means of science and invention.- The automobile, the telephone, the steamy engine, farm machinery, the cotton gin, the sewing machine and a thousand other inventions produced by creative science give us our new industries. All of them add to material production. All of them make it possible to get more out of the original source of all wealth - the soil. J |
