Elements of Morals: With Special Application of the Moral Law to the Duties of the Individual and of Society and the StateJanet, Paul
Philosophy
Elements of Morals: With Special Application of the Moral Law to the Duties of the Individual and of Society and the State
Janet, Paul
Ethics
=97. I. Mechanical and industrial professions.=--1. _Employers and
employees._--The professions which have for their object the material
cultivation of the globe, and particularly _industry_ and _commerce_, are
divided into two great classes: 1, on one side, those who, having capital,
_undertake_ and direct the works; 2, those who execute them with their
arms and receive _wages_. The first are the _employers_; the second the
_employees_. What are the respective duties of these two classes?
=98. Duties of employers.=--The duties of all those who, by virtue of their
capital legitimately acquired, or by virtue of their intelligence,
command, direct and pay for the work done by men, are the following:
1. They should raise the wages of the workmen as high as the state of the
market permits; and they should not wait to be compelled to it by strikes
or threats of strikes. Conversely, they should not, from weakness or want
of foresight, yield to every threat of the kind; for in raising the wages
unreasonably high, one may disable himself from entering into foreign
competition, or may cause the ruin of the humbler manufacturers who have
not sufficient capital.
2. Capitalists, employers and masters should obey strictly the laws
established for the protection of childhood. They should employ the work
of minors within proper limits, and according to the conditions fixed by
the law.
3. Their task is not done when they have secured to the workmen and their
children the share of work and wages which is their due, even when they
are content to claim nothing beyond justice. They have yet to fulfill
toward their subordinates the duties of protection and benevolence; they
must assist them, relieve them, be it in accidents happening to them in
the work they are engaged in, or in illness. They must spare them
suspensions of work as much as possible; in short, they must, through all
sorts of establishments--schools, mutual-help societies, workmen-cities
(_cités ouvrières_), etc.--encourage education, economy, property, yet
without forcing upon them anything that would diminish their own
responsibility or impair their personal dignity.
=99. Duties of workingmen.=--The duties of workingmen should correspond to
those of the employers.
1. The workingmen owe it to themselves not to cherish in their hearts
feelings of hatred, envy, covetousness, and revolt against the employers.
Division of work requires that in industrial matters some should direct
and others be directed. Material exploitation requires capital; and those
who bring this capital, the fruit of former work, are as necessary to the
workingmen to utilize their work as these are to the first in utilizing
their capital.
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