The Socialism of to-day

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 835096955

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-28834

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Laveleye, Émile de

Title:: The Socialism of to-day

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: Field & Tuer

Year of publication:: 1884

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (XLIV, 331 S.)

Collection:: Economics Books

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328 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. figures include the productive and the wholesale societies as well as the distributive stores, but, as yet, the productive societies bear a small proportion to the others. According to the returns sent in for 1883, there were thirty-four productive societies, including ten corn-mills, doing an annual business of over ^1,720,000. Their aggregate capital was a little over half a million, and their profits upon this were ;¿’61,000, or an average, after covering all losses, of twelve per cent. From fifteen to eighteen of these productive societies are known to be based upon the principle of copartnership with the workers in shares, in profits, and in management. Co-operative distribution, useful work as it is in many ways doing, will never of itself create a new industrial order, will never make the workman his own employer. It is, however, a valuable means towards that end. It habituates working men to thrift, it teaches them business habits, it inspires them with mutual confidence, it is an ever-growing moral and intellectual educational agency, and it promotes “ the saving of joint capital by joint action for joint purposes.” One of the most important of these joint purposes is the establishment of productive co operative enterprises. There are considerable differences of opinion both as to the principles upon which such productive enterprises should be founded, and as to the best agencies for carrying them on. Into these questions I cannot enter here, but I may be permitted to express the hope that whatever plan is ultimately adopted, wherever the distinction of employer and employed remains, the co-operative employers will see their way to giving their workmen a direct interest in the results of their labour, otherwise the most important principle of true co-operation will be infringed. How can working men expect employers to admit them to a participation in profits, if they themselves, in their capacity of employers, “ do not as they would be done by?”* Strictly speaking, the term “ Co-operative Production ” * Why Socialist employers, who express such virtuous indignation at the “ wage-slave” system, and who think that profits are the produce of unpaid labour, do not adopt this principle, if only as a pis-aller, is—for them to explain.

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