“We shall destroy all businesses, says the Syndicalist, by vexatious strikes. The capitalist, having vanished (struck out), the hands will work the business.
Syndicalism
“Just so. But he forgets that all businesses, like all men, die in time. Suppose all businesses were converted into Syndicalist businesses worked by all the hands, in a world of Syndicalist businesses—they would not escape from the law of decay and death which hangs over everything material. Businesses would die, and new businesses would have to be born under Syndicalism, just as in our world. The competition would be just as keen and the factors of death just as potent. But the factors of life would not be as potent. How would a new business be born to live under Syndicalism?
“Let us suppose that six men, by energy, hard work, a little money, and self-denial (all necessary), found a small business. It grows and prospers, and in a year’s time they find that they must introduce new labour to cope with the work. But the new hands are all Syndicalists. They don’t want wages, they must have their share in the business. They are taken on, six of them.
“We now have twelve men working a growing and prospering concern. Unless they are absolute fools, they must recognize that expansion to them means simply more danger and worry, for expansion is impossible without more labour, and all the new labour introduced only sops up the profits like a sponge, and even were the profits to increase out of proportion to the total labour employed, that increase of individual profit would in the majority of businesses be small—in numerous businesses it would be non-existent. Why should they expand and risk what they have got—for all expansion in business means risk—simply to benefit potential labourers?
“The law of Inertia comes at once into play, without any flywheel to counterbalance it. The business ceases to grow, and, a hundred to one, dies.
“That is only one of the flaws in the Syndicalist’s design. His machine has not been constructed with a view to this and other human weakness. In a world of automata it might work; in a world of flesh and blood it wouldn’t. In short, Syndicalism could destroy all the businesses of the world quite easily, but it could not build them again.
The Theories