unable to overcome the preliminary difficulty of persuading the
community both to adopt their project and to accept them as managers.
Communistic management would thus be, in all probability, less
favorable than private management to that striking out of new paths
and making immediate sacrifices for distant and uncertain advantages,
which, though seldom unattended with risk, is generally indispensable
to great improvements in the economic condition of mankind, and even
to keeping up the existing state in the face of a continual increase
of the number of mouths to be fed.
We have thus far taken account only of the operation of motives upon
the managing minds of the association. Let us now consider how the
case stands in regard to the ordinary workers.
These, under Communism, would have no interest, except their share of
the general interest, in doing their work honestly and energetically.
But in this respect matters would be no worse than they now are in
regard to the great majority of the producing classes. These, being
paid by fixed wages, are so far from having any direct interest of
their own in the efficiency of their work, that they have not even
that share in the general interest which every worker would have in
the Communistic organization. Accordingly, the inefficiency of hired
labor, the imperfect manner in which it calls forth the real
capabilities of the laborers, is matter of common remark. It is true
that a character for being a good workman is far from being without
its value, as it tends to give him a preference in employment, and
sometimes obtains for him higher wages. There are also possibilities
of rising to the position of foreman, or other subordinate
administrative posts, which are not only more highly paid than
ordinary labor, but sometimes open the way to ulterior advantages. But
on the other side is to be set that under Communism the general
sentiment of the community, composed of the comrades under whose eyes
each person works, would be sure to be in favor of good and hard
working, and unfavorable to laziness, carelessness, and waste. In the
present system not only is this not the case, but the public opinion
of the workman class often acts in the very opposite direction: the
rules of some trade societies actually forbid their members to exceed
a certain standard of efficiency, lest they should diminish the number
of laborers required for the work; and for the same reason they often
violently resist contrivances for economising labor. The change from
this to a state in which every person would have an interest in
rendering every other person as industrious, skilful, and careful as
possible (which would be the case under Communism), would be a change
very much for the better.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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