The review. [volume] (High Point, N.C.) 1908-19??, 1919-09-11
FOR WHOM Do YOU WORK?
A Question That Deserves Candid
Consideration by Wage-Earners.
(Hartford Times.)

Anv working man in the country
who is asked the above question would
answer. 81 work for the company" or
az work for the boss;" and IN limit
ed sense he would be right. His en-
ployer hires him, furnishes him raw
material, pays his wages weekly, and
takes the product. But in reality his
employer is only his agent. He passes
on the goods to some one else, and
they may go through several hands
before they come into possession Of
the man who uses them. The man
in Texas or Montana who wears a hat
made in Danb0ry is the man for
whom the halter worked. 1t is all
matter of barter between producer
and consumer, though many agents
participate in the exchange. The
Texas man may send onions to the
Danbury man, or he may send his
onions to New York and the New
York man send ready-made suit to
the Danbury man, or there may be
100 intermediate exchanges, but in
the end goods are exchanged for
goods. One producer trades with an
other, the working man works for
the working man, unless he is en-
gagged in producing articles Of useless
luxury or building a palatial resi-
dence. Few are so engaged, and the
great body of workers are engaged
-i+~ producing useful things. They
work for other workers.
Of course, the intermediate agents,
the company, the men who carry the
goods from Danbury to Texas, and
all the line Of distributors, shave off
something from the goods or add to
the price, which amounts to the
same thing. Perhaps they did ia ir
toll-n1easure too deep; perhaps there
are too many of them. An intelligent
community ought to be able to regu-
late the shares. Perhaps the bankers
who supply the medium of exchange,
without which no exchanges are pos
-sible, charge too literally, though
their charges are very moderate. If
not, that can also be regulated. The
fact remains that in this great and
complicated community men work for
other men who work for them, though
neither sees the others nor knows who
they are, and the exchanges are made
by a string of intermediates.
The exchanges require time, and in
our modern industrial organization
are made at long range. Alabama
cotton may be carried to Fall River,
made into cloth, and after many
months be found on the shelves of
store in Montana, before it goes into
the users hands and is finally paid
for. But the worker in the cotton
fields must be paid every week. His
wages must be advanced and the
goods owned by many successive par
ties before they are really paid for
by the products Of another mans la
Dor. Hence the necessity of capital,
for all useful things-food, clothing,
and building materials-are capital
till they come into use. Otherwise
there could be no exchanges except
the hand-to-hand neighborhoOd trad
ing, which is insignificant and entire
~ unable to supply the wants of the
modern man. These two principles,
that in the long run men work for
other working men and are paid by
them, and that capital is necessary to
enable them to do so, show that
there is ne real antagonism between
capital and labor, since the function
of capital is to enable labor to make
the exchanges by which it subsists
They ought to be friendly and each
agree on the portion of the product
the other receives. 1t is suicidal for
either to try to get an undue share,
but to determine what are the proper
shares is the most difficult problem
which society has to settle.