Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/186

 1 72 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

not lessen competition ; while, on the other hand, it will secure to the people generally the benefits flowing from the monopoly. This control cannot, however, consistently with the competitive principle, be applied so long as there is a possibility of devising effective means for so controlling the organization and operation of monopolies that a healthy competition may be obtained.

In the second place, aside from the qualifications of the above, state operation of an industry may be justified upon the competitive principle if by so doing the industry is managed in such a way that a greater degree of true competition will be maintained between the individuals employed than would be the case under private management. This we consider a very important point, though not one which we remember to have seen often urged. From the social standpoint it is much more desirable that there should be healthy competition between employes than that there should be a contest between industrial concerns. It is one of the chief evils of the present industrial regime of production on a large scale that the chief competition that exists is between workingmen and -women in securing employment. Positions once secured, competition largely ceases. The employes become merged into a large body of workers, and have little direct personal interest in the work which they perform. Even in those private industries in which the wages paid are proportionate to the amount of work done, the individual is not permitted, as a rule, to exhibit his full degree of skill. In many cases it is an unwritten law among such workmen that certain maxima of piecework shall not be exceeded, even by the most able and skillful, for the very satisfactory rea- son that if such maxima are more than occasionally exceeded the price paid per piece by the employers will inevitably be reduced, with the result, of course, that the most efficient will henceforth receive no more than they would have earned under the old scale, while all the remainder will receive less.

If, then, we can have a governmental control, in which earn- ings are graded according to the amount and character of work done, and in which a careful inspection is maintained for the purpose of detecting with reasonable certainty the presence of