Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/515

 AN AMERICAN SYSTEM OF LABOR PENSIONS AND

INSURANCE.

THE two most ominous conditions confronting the laborer, acting as an incubus to his progressive efforts, are first the prob- ability of loss of income through accident or sickness and sec- ond the certainty of a period of diminishing returns to labor at a period in life in which the laborer becomes more depend- ent, this diminution resulting finally in complete cessation of income if the normal span of life is given. Whether based upon justice, duty, sympathy, enlightened self-interest or the idea of self-realization, proposals for the amelioration of indus- strial evils are essentially attempts to solve these two great problems. But with this as with other efforts to secure rational progress by control of social forces, the problem as presented to one people has quite a different form from that presented to neighboring people, even though of the same type of civiliza- tion and belonging to the same ethnic group. Those efforts to mitigate industrial evils which are adapted to one society, and therein promise to be effective, are not so adapted to other societies even though the general industrial organization may be the same.

Compulsory state insurance and various paternalistic and socialistic efforts may be efficacious with the German people ; profit-sharing and various forms of patronal institutions may succeed in France ; in England cooperation, friendly societies and various forms of voluntary associations perform a somewhat similar service, that of supplementing the individual efforts of tlu laborer in his handicapped struggle for existence. Yet none of these may be applicable to American conditions. Tradition, historical continuity, a strongly centralized bureau- cracy, a people accustomed to await the collective initiative are all factors favoring the success of the compulsory insurance

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