Lastly, along with the sciences which seek the true, there are the letters and the arts which treat of and produce the beautiful. Hence a last class, namely, poets, writers, artists.
Such is about the outline of what a system of social professions might be. A treatise of professional morality which would be in harmony with this outline, would be all one science, the elements of which scarcely exist, being dispersed in a multitude of works, or rather in the practice and interior life of each profession. We will content ourselves with a few general indications.
97. I. Mechanical and industrial professions.—1. Employers and employees.—The professions which have for their object the material cultivation of the globe, and particularly industry and commerce, are divided into two great classes: 1, on one side, those who, having capital, undertake and direct the works; 2, those who execute them with their arms and receive wages. The first are the employers; the second the employees. What are the respective duties of these two classes?
98. Duties of employers.—The duties of all those who, by virtue of their capital legitimately acquired, or by virtue of their intelligence, command, direct and pay for the work done by men, are the following:
1. They should raise the wages of the workmen as high as the state of the market permits; and they should not wait to be compelled to it by strikes or threats of strikes. Conversely, they should not, from weakness or want of foresight, yield to every threat of the kind; for in raising the wages unreasonably high, one may disable himself from entering into foreign competition, or may cause the ruin of the humbler manufacturers who have not sufficient capital.
2. Capitalists, employers and masters should obey strictly the laws established for the protection of childhood. They should employ the work of minors within proper limits, and according to the conditions fixed by the law.
3. Their task is not done when they have secured to the workmen and their children the share of work and wages which is their due, even when they are content to claim nothing beyond justice. They have yet to fulfill toward their subordinates the duties of protection and benevolence; they must assist them, relieve them, be it in accidents happening to them in the work they are engaged in, or in illness. They must spare them suspensions of work as much as possible; in short, they must, through all sorts of establishments—schools, mutual-help societies, workmen-cities (cités ouvrières), etc.—encourage education, economy, property, yet without forcing upon them anything that would diminish their own responsibility or impair their personal dignity.
99. Duties of workingmen.—The duties of workingmen should correspond to those of the employers.
1. The workingmen owe it to themselves not to cherish in their hearts feelings of hatred, envy, covetousness, and revolt against the employers. Division of work requires that in industrial matters some should direct and others be directed. Material exploitation requires capital; and those who bring this capital, the fruit of former work, are as necessary to the workingmen to utilize their work as these are to the first in utilizing their capital.
2. The workingmen owe their work to the establishment which pays them; it is as much their interest as their duty. The result of laziness and intemperance is misery. We cannot enough deplore the use of what is called the Mondays—a day of rest over and beyond the legitimate and necessary Sunday. It is certain that one day of rest in a week is absolutely a necessity. No man can nor ought (except in circumstances unavoidable) work without interruption the whole year through. But the week’s day of rest once secure, all that is over and above that, is taken from what belongs to the family and the provisions against old age.