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
Co-operative production has occasionally been pronounced a failure.
This judgment is too sweeping and too severe. "As a matter of fact,"
says a prominent London weekly, "the co-operators' success has been
even more remarkable in production than in distribution. The
co-operative movement runs five of the largest of our flour mills; it
has, amongst others, the very largest of our boot factories; it makes
cotton cloth and woollens, and all sorts of clothing; it has even a
corset factory of its own; it turns out huge quantities of soap; it
makes every article of household furniture; it produces cocoa and
confectionery; it grows its own fruit and makes its own jams; it has
one of the largest tobacco factories, and so on." Obviously this
passage refers to that kind of productive co-operation which is
carried on by the stores, not to productive concerns owned and
managed by the workers therein employed. Nevertheless the enterprises
in question are co-operatively managed, and hence exemplify
co-operation rather than private and competitive industry. They ought
not to be left out of any statement of the field occupied by
co-operative production. The limitations and possibilities of
co-operation in production can best be set forth by considering its
three different forms separately.
The "perfect" form occurs when all the workers engaged in a concern
own all the share capital, control the entire management, and receive
the whole of the wages, profits, and interest. In this field the
failures have been much more numerous and conspicuous than the
successes. Godin's stove works at Guise, France, is the only important
enterprise of this kind that is now in existence. Great Britain has
several establishments in which the workers own a large part of the
capital, but apparently none in which they are the sole proprietors
and managers. The "labour societies" of Italy, consisting mostly of
diggers, masons, and bricklayers, co-operatively enter into contracts
for the performance of public works, and share in the profits of the
undertaking in addition to their wages; but the only capital that they
provide consists of comparatively simple and inexpensive tools. The
raw material and other capital is furnished by the public authority
which gives the contract.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account