Distributive Justice: The Right and Wrong of Our Present Distribution of WealthRyan, John A. (John Augustine)
PhilosophyChristian
Distributive Justice: The Right and Wrong of Our Present Distribution of Wealth
Ryan, John A. (John Augustine)
Economic history; Income distribution -- Moral and ethical aspects; Wealth -- Religious aspects
Under Socialism the boards of directors or commissions which exercised
supreme control in the various industries, would have to be chosen
either by the general popular vote, by the government, or by the
workers in each particular industry. The first method may be at once
excluded from consideration. Even now the number of officials chosen
directly by the people is far too large; hence the widespread
agitation for the "short ballot." Public opinion is coming to realise
that the voters should be required to select only a few important
officials, whose qualifications should be general rather than
technical, and therefore easily recognised by the masses. These
supreme functionaries should have the power of filling all
administrative offices, and all positions demanding expert or
technical ability. If the task of choosing administrative experts
cannot be safely left to the mass of the voters at present, it
certainly ought not to be assigned to them under Socialism, when the
number and qualifications of these functionaries would be indefinitely
increased.
If the boards of industrial directors were selected by the government,
that is, by the national and municipal authorities, the result would
be industrial inefficiency and an intolerable bureaucracy. No body of
officials, whether legislative or executive, would possess the varied,
extensive, and specific knowledge required to pick out efficient
administrative commissions for all the industries of the country or
the city. And no group of political persons could safely be entrusted
with such tremendous power. It would enable them to dominate the
industrial as well as the political life of the nation or the
municipality, to establish a bureaucracy that would be impregnable for
a long period of years, and to revive all the conceivable evils of
governmental absolutism.
The third method is apparently the one now favoured by most
Socialists. "The workers in each industry may periodically select the
managing authority," says Morris Hillquit.[130] Even if the workers
were as able as the stockholders of a corporation to select an
efficient governing board, they would be much less likely to choose
men who would insist on hard and efficient work from all subordinates.
The members of a private corporation have a strong pecuniary interest
in selecting directors who will secure the maximum of product at the
minimum of cost, while the employés in a Socialist industry would want
managing authorities who were willing to make working conditions as
easy as possible.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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