Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/519

SYSTEM OF LABOR PENSIONS AND INSURANCE $05 In the first place such systems require a regulation of labor that would not be tolerated. While to an extent such systems do bring about a freer, that is a fairer competition, by removing this handicap from the laborer, yet necessarily he is deprived of many privileges and much of the liberty that is so dear to the Anglo-Saxon. That such is the result is proved by the reaction toward the old guild system of industry in Germany. While the continental methods do not eliminate the factor of self-help, yet with those people less dependence has been placed upon this factor in the past than with the Anglo-Saxon. The immediate effect of such a system upon Anglo-Saxon population would unquestionably be a weakening of this principle to the detriment of society, an evil not entirely offset by the development of the principle of solidarity.

But fortunately there is an alternative. Social aid is not necessarily governmental aid. This alternative is social aid or obligation through trade or industry responsibility. There are many implicit recognitions of the validity of this principle. Employers' liability laws are such. Most of the trade associations and labor insurances are partially based upon this principle. Since the aid comes, however, from the laborer's efforts, it depends upon individual self-help rather than upon social responsibility. The railway insurance systems organized by several of the largest American railway corporations are similar implicit recognitions; though, as one would expect, the individual bears the brunt of this burden, and only to a slight extent does the industry acknowledge its responsibility, and then largely as a matter of financial protection. It is probable that most of the benevolent industrial schemes and not a few other variations of the usual method of industrial remuneration are based implicitly upon this principle, but because of their erroneous method fail utterly to accomplish this purpose. Coöperative enterprises, that are coöperative in reality as well as in name, are explicit recognitions of this principle. But these are few, their success questionable, and their application very limited. But fortunately there is an explicit trial of this