Page:Emile Vandervelde - Three Aspects of the Russian Revolution - tr. Jean Elmslie Henderson Findlay (1918).djvu/86

 ative movement. Even professionally, in its own industries, Western experience shows many examples of analogous intervention, but they have rarely achieved success unless they have taken into account the great principle of responsibility.

We could invoke, apart from co-operative production—properly speaking, where the employer disappears—the commandite ouvrière, where the workmen themselves assume the responsibility for the whole carrying out of the work, arranging its distribution among themselves, supervising and directing it, receiving from the employer the machinery and the raw material, and handing over to him the finished article, of which he limits himself to controlling the quality and the quantity. But in this commandite ouvrière the total cost of labour, the minimum output, the quality, the percentage of waste, and all the other important conditions are fixed by contract. The working collectivity is responsible for the carrying out of the contract, and if they wish to go in for speculation, they do so at their own risks.