Detroit evening times., 1945-11-28
Prosperity Through Free


The whole family makes watch parts,
wooden utensils. cigars; the women do hand
embroidery straw plating.
They receive the materials each week
from a factory in the lower valley, send back
the completed product 2They-hape lathe
powered by the stream that irrigates the fields.
To this work they bring the SAME IN
TENSIVE SKILLS THAT THEY DEVOTE TO
THEIR FARMING. The quality of the work
being high, the pay is good.
The Swiss like an activity that keeps the
family together. Yet the family is not an
isolated unit, for it co-operates in many ways
with the other families of the valley
During the summer herds are pooled and
driven by cowherds employed jointly by all the
farmers to the high grass slopes, right under
the cliffs, the common property of all
The viIlage cheese factory belongs to the
cooperative, in Uhich each farmer has a
Joint share and control in proportion to the
amount of milk he deiiUers-a share in the
management and share in the profits
Participation in these cooperative actv-
ties is VOLUNTARY. A farmer doesn't have
to pool his herd with the others for the grazing.
He doesn't have to bring his milk to the cheese
factory. He can, and often does, deliver it to
the tourist hotel down the valley.
BY combination of WORKING FOR
HIMSELF AND CO OPERATING WITH
OTHERS the farmer gets by. has a little more
in his savings account at the end of each year.
It's hard but satisfying life
At the end of the day he sits at the head
of the long table under the light shaded by
colored handkerchief. Mother and the girls
on one side, the boys on the other. Between
them the big bowl Of soup, the ham, the cheese
the big brown loaf. What they have they've
made for themselves
WHAT is true of the farmer is true of other
w Swiss workers. They make good living
in spite of their countrys poverty in re-
sources THROUGH HARD WORK AND INDI-
NIDUAL RESOURCEFULNE
They work longer hours and with fewer
holidays then we are used TO. And they work
with skill perhaps more intensified than that of
any other people. All that they have to sell
is quality.
They must HUe by exporf-rust import
raW materials from their neishbors and make
from then, finished products SO MUCH BET
TER THAN THE NEIGHBORS MAKE AT
HOME THAT THE LATTER ARE WILLING
TO BUY THEM BACK
That is the basis of all the Swiss industries:
watches and clocks, precision instruments.
hydro-electrc machinery, chemicals, textiles
The Swiss must keep ahead of their neigh
bors in ingenuity They must constantly invent
new things and new processes better than the
old
The United States grants annually $50 new
patents per million of population. SWITZER-
LAND GRANTS $50 PER MILLION.
Every manufacturer keeps up an unending
search for new inventions. And this ingenuity
isn't confined TO the laboratories of few dig
corporations 1T ABOUNDS AMONG SMALL
BUSINESSES AND INDIVIDUALS
THERE'S big business in Switzerland, espe.
Il cially in the heavy industries But generally
the industrial units are small Only 80 per
cent of Swiss workers work for companies en-
ploylng 100 or more The great ma iority of
businesses have less than 20 employees each
The typical unit, especially in the largest
industry, watches and locks, has 10 to Is en-
ployes and the owner usually the manager
In Switzerland there's no great gulf be-
tWeen employer and empioye. When you
Uotk around a SWiss city you can't tell which
IS the Workinsmen's quarter. Usually there
isn't any. An employer and some of the men
Uho work for him OFTEN LIVE IN THE
SAME BLOCK, GO TO WORK ON THE
SAME STREETCAR
Marx and other Socialists have said that in
capitalist system the rich would always get
richer and the poor poorer
BUT THE SPREAD BETWEEN THE RE-
WARDS OF MANAGERS AND WORKERS is
MUCH GREATER IN COMMUNIST RUSSIA
THAN IN CAPITALIST SWITZERLAND.
There are not many large incomes in