Collectivism; Economic history; Great Britain -- Economic policy; Industrial policy; Social history; Socialism
Of still greater effect is the mere presence of State regulation in such a
matter. The fact that the State has begun to gather statistics of wages
over these large areas of industry, and to do so not for a mere statistical
object, but a practical one, and the fact that the State has begun to immix
the action of positive law and constraint with the older system of free
bargaining, mean that the whole weight of its influence is now in favour of
regulation. It is no rash prophecy to assert that in the near future our
industrial society will see a gradually extending area of industry in which
from two sides the fixing of wages by statute shall appear. From the one
side it will come in the form of the State examining the conditions of
labour in connection with its own schemes for establishing sufficiency and
security by insurance. From the other side it will come through the
reasonable proposals to make contracts between groups of labour and groups
of capital enforceable in the Courts.
* * * * *
So much, then, for the Principle of a Minimum Wage. It has already appeared
in our laws. It is certain to spread. But how does the presence of this
introduction of a Minimum form part of the advance towards the Servile
State?
I have said that the principle of a minimum wage involves as its converse
the principle of compulsory labour. Indeed, most of the importance which
the principle of a minimum wage has for this inquiry lies in that converse
necessity of compulsory labour which it involves.
But as the connection between the two may not be clear at first sight, we
must do more than take it for granted. We must establish it by process of
reason.
There are two distinct forms in which the whole policy of enforcing
security and sufficiency by law for the proletariat produce a corresponding
policy of compulsory labour.
The first of these forms is the compulsion which the Courts will exercise
upon either of the parties concerned in the giving and in the receiving of
the minimum wage. The second form is the necessity under which society will
find itself, when once the principle of the minimum wage is conceded,
coupled with the principle of sufficiency and security, to maintain those
whom the minimum wage excludes from the area of normal employment.
As to the first form:--
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