Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/621

 PROFIT-SHARING AND COOPERATION 6oi

is completed. Under present arrangements it is incomplete. A wage-earner, while he voluntarily agrees to give so many hours' work for so much pay, does not, during the performance of his work, act in a purely voluntary way : he is coerced by the con- sciousness that discharge will follow if he idles, and is some- times, more manifestly, by an overlooker. But under the arrangement described his activity becomes entirely voluntary.

" Otherwise presenting the facts, and using Sir Henry Maine's terms, we see that the transition from status to contract reaches its limit. So long as the worker remains a wage-earner, the marks of status do not wholly disappear. For so many hours daily he makes over his faculties to a master, or to a cooperative group, for so much money, and for the time is owned by him cr it. He is temporarily in the position of a slave, and his over- looker stands in the position of a slave driver. Further, a rem- nant of the n'gime of status is seen in the fact that he and other workers are placed in ranks, receiving different rates of pay. But, under such a mode of cooperation as that above contem- plated, the system of contract becomes unqualified. Each mem- ber agrees with the body of members to perform certain work for a certain sum, and is free from dictation and authoritative classing. The entire organization is based on contract, and each transaction is based on contract."' Such an opinion is not unobjectionable, but our only concern, at present, is Mr. Spen- cer's view.

But what of the jiossibility for the realization of these vari- ous ideals ? And here the sociologist and economist agree for the most part. The difificulties in the way of realization of either profit-sharing or the higher form of cooperation are not really economic, but moral. Mill, Marshall, Fawcett, Jevons, and Cairnes practically agree, as the latter states, that "the obstacles in the way are not physical, are not even economic, but moral, or intellectual ; or if economic, only in so far as economic results depend on intellectual and moral conditions." And Spencer comes to the conclusion that "the practicability of such a system depends on character." Continuing, he says: "It

' Sl'E.NCER, Principles of Sociology, Vol. Ill, pp. 571, 572.