The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1919-11-08
DEMOCRACY AND PRODUCTION


When a man says II will' it is not
possible to say how much he wills.
The best that can be done is to
estimate, in the light of what is
known about conditions and past per-
formances.
However, there are known truths
about human conduct and human ef-
fort which may be set down as to
direction, or trend, though the guam
tity be unknown.
Thus, consider the problem of pro-
duction. 1t is set forth that the
world has need of all possible pro-
ductive effort.
Employers set forth with empha-
sis the need of the world for
products.
The world has that need. 1t is
not debatable.
However, the world, in it's need,
is under a moral obligation to treat
justly those who must supply the
need The world acquires no right,
by virtue of it's need, to impose upon
those who bend their backs to pro-
duce the desired and required COM
modities.
The world must have COAL The
need is dire. But the world has no
moral sanction to refuse to take the
miners into council in fixing the
terms and conditions under which
the great need for coal is to be sat-
isfied.
The world needs wool goods. That
need gives no sanction to the en-
shaving of little children and the
cruel exploitation of their parents
in the wooden mills.
The need of the world cannot,
with moral justification, result In
abrogation of the fundamental rights
Of those whose fortune places them
in the position of having to supply
the need, which means the workers.
No more does the need of the
world give those who are to do the
producing moral right to use their
strategic position as a weapon with
which to impose cruel terms upon
the world.
There is manifest desire in some
quarters to throw democracy out of
the window, just when the world
needs it most and just when a great
many persons had come to hope we
were to have more of it than ever
in the everyday life of the world.
There is an evident tendency to
say to the worker, "You produce,
nd will determine the conditions"
This would have been bad enough
five years ago; today it is impos-
sible. 1t is as bad as the foolish
cries OF the bolshevik worker. but
with this difference: In America the
worker who has the bolshevik idea
is in a harmless and hopeless minor
ity, while the autocratic employer has
power and social standing. Also he
has all Of the presidents established
in the stone age, the ice age, and all
the other ages up to the early Vic
torian period.
II all of the workers in the world
were put in prisons production would
fall much below it's present volume.
Nobody will dispute that.
If all the workers of America
were deprived of the right to vote.
the right to speak freely, to read
freely. to write freely, and if they
were compelled to bow low in sub
mlss1Veness every time they passed
an employer, production would fall.
Nobody will dispute that.
And so, while it is not possible to
apply accurate measurements to hu-
man intentions and to the human
will, it is possible to know something
about what the trend of human in
tention will be under given circum-
stances. because we have experience
to guide us.
We know that if certain rights
were abolished and certain ancient
and autocratic customs were again
set up, the production Of goods would
fall Immediately and critically.
If there is certainty in looking
backward, may there not be an equal
certainty or approximately an
equal certainty-in looking forward?
Some of the ablest critics in the
country think there may be.
The point is that if re-establish-
ment OF autocratic methods and con-
cepts which have given way before
the democratic advance would let
down production, is there not hope
full reason to believe that an extern
sion OF democratic methods and a
further adjustment Of autocrat;c