[Sidenote: Objections to and difficulties in profit-sharing in practice] 4. _The failure of profit-sharing to grow is due to objections on the side both of the employer and of the workman._ On the side of the workman there is the bookkeeping difficulty. He is suspicious, and he lacks knowledge of the business. If at the end of the year the books show no profits, the workman loses confidence, considers the plan to be mere deception, and rejects it. Moreover, the plan puts a limitation upon the workman's freedom to compete for better wages by changing his place of work. It is almost indispensable to make length of service a condition to the sharing of profits. Workmen coming and going, working only a few months, cannot be allowed to share; the percentage given to the others increases with length of employment. Whenever men are thus practically subject to a fine (equal to the amount of shared profits) if they accept a better position, there is danger of a covert lowering of wages. The plan tends to break up the trade-unions, which is one of the reasons that the employers like it, and is the reason that organized labor opposes it. The employer on his part objects to the interference with his management, the troublesome inspection of the books, and the constant grumbling and complaint of the workmen. It makes known the amount of his profits; if they are large, the advertising of his success invites competition; if they are small, publicity injures his credit and depresses the value of his property. In view of all these difficulties it is not surprising that while the plan often starts promisingly, it usually loses its efficiency after a short trial. Business methods are severely subject to the principle of the survival of the fittest. Through competition and the survival of the firms that adopt improvements, better methods must eventually supplant poorer ones. If a method fails to spread when it has been tried for fifty years and all are free to adopt it, there must be some defects inherent in it. That must be our conclusion as to profit-sharing. [Sidenote: Defective character of profit-sharing]