Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/619

 PROFIT-SHARING AND COOPERA TION 599

its best; it will easily excel, in many more fields, the wreck of the old system with which it is now brought into comparison. If a corporation were to adopt the share system in dealing with its employes, and were to pay the amount given to them, in excess of daily wages, in the form of stock, the effect would be to gradually transmute the partial cooperation into the complete form. New establishments started on this plan have, as a rule, perished in their infancy. Experience has shown that the mor- tality among them is increased by loans of capital made to them either by governments or by philanthropic societies. Such loans strain the enterprises at their weakest point, namely, their general management. Profit-sharing retains the experienced employer as the general director, and enlists the interest of every workman in the oversight of details within his province. Full cooperation, unless established by the gradual method above spoken of, renders a managing committee necessary, and the inexperience of the men selected for this function imperils the enterprise."'

Professor Hadley considers some form of collective property necessary to supply the motive to industry and thrift hitherto supplied by the opportunity offered to all workmen to save and become independent producers, and perhaps employers. The possibilities of saving are just as great now as during the past generation, but it takes so much more to become a capitalist that this motive does not work now as then. Thus the great advantage of private property is neutralized and must be sup- plied by some form of collective property, if there is to be advance out of the present conditions. Stock-holding by employes, profit-sharing, and cooperation are such forms now on trial. However, profit-sharing is disappointing, because the opportunity to increase wages at the expense of the employer is slight, and the extra profit is so small when divided among a large operating force. Both profit-sharing and cooperative pro- duction will meet with little success where the laborer already puts forth the nia.ximum of effort, as is quite largely the case in England and the United States. On the continent, both for this

■J. B. Cl.ARK, Thi Philosophy of Wealth, pp. 187, 1S8.