A rational wages system

by Henry Atkinson

We must accept the fact that wealth is the product of machinery or of some worse form of slavery, and, for my part, I prefer it to be produced by machinery.

Besides all this, machinery is here, and to do without it is absolutely impossible—as impossible as it is for a highly developed organism to revert to its primitive state.

Where shall we draw the line and say, We will have no more machinery than we have at present? We cannot do so; it is manifestly impossible. Where, then, shall we draw the line and say, This work must be done by hand and not by machine; this work must be done on a general machine and not on an automatic; this work must be done by a single man and not by a team of men; this work must be done under this or that old-fashioned system and not under a well-organised system? These lines can never be drawn. Progress, by its very nature, will crush whatever opposes it, even though it has no intention of doing so. And it is not desirable to oppose progress if we desire to live and develop. As automatic machinery is the extreme end of one line of progress, so it is undesirable to sweep it away, even if it were possible.

Now, automatic machinery means cheap production, and this means more wealth. More wealth ought to mean more leisure for everybody. In order to make the best use of leisure, better education, real education, is needed—education in reasoning, in science, in civics, in art, in economics, in freedom.

The trade-unions are not educational; it is no part of their programme. The workers depend on their opponents for their education. Instead of curtailing wealth, the trade-unions should endeavour to control the production and distribution of it, to divert it so that it will benefit the workers, in order that both leisure and education may be theirs.

Under any conceivable system, the man who has the energy and initiative of the man who at present becomes a capitalist would always be a more important and better paid or better rewarded man than the worker. But he would be a leader and not a driver, and whatever he possessed would be looked upon by those who worked under him as a natural and righteous return for his ability. I merely mention this because trade-union control is no menace to the progress and success of the man of ability.

Finally, let me say that, if we must have cheap production, if we must have better organisation and make more and more use of machinery, if we must increase each man's output in order to meet the financial necessities of the immediate future, what method shall we adopt? Is it to be day work or piece work? Is it to be co-partnership or profit sharing that tend to rob a man of his liberty and turn him into a miniature capitalist? Or is it by such a method as this Reward System, whereby a man retains his full liberty, where his work is made more interesting, where he does no harm to his fellow-workers by earning high wages, where his trade-union is his stand-by?

These are the ways, the practical available ways, that confront the worker. It is easy to imagine pleasanter ways, but the devil drives and we have to decide now. The trade-unions would be wise to give close attention to the Reward System and that greater organisation of which it is a part. With trade-union support it will become one of the most satisfactory solutions of the differences between worker and employer; without trade-union support no system will be satisfactory.

It is not efficiency for efficiency's sake that is the issue. Efficiency is only a means to an end, to the end that the worker eventually may be in a position to exercise some control over the making and distribution of wealth. Present conditions drive him farther and farther from that end, and only education, better conditions of living, a certain amount of leisure, and a desire to undertake responsibility, will enable him to achieve it. Following on that will come the realisation of what efficiency would mean applied to the general production and distribution of commodities, to education, to the affairs of State, and with that comes the desire to control, and after that, again—well, perhaps Idealist will begin to see daylight!