Page:Johann Jacoby - The Object of the Labor Movement - tr. Florence Kelley (1887).djvu/12

Rh of others, and for wages which suffice at the utmost for the bare necessities of life. But if he finds no purchaser for the only commodity at his command, for his force of labor, he and his fall into the utmost misery. Yet, despite this wretched insecurity of his position, it will hardly occur to any workman to wish the old conditions back. It is a life worthy of man that he strives for, and he knows that this can be attained only in a state of freedom.

As the French Revolution proclaimed the workers personally free, so did it liberate inanimate property from the last shackles of the Middle Ages. Without reference to previous restrictions and obligations, whoever was in possession at the moment, found his right to the absolute control of his property recognized. This release of property, the application of steam power which followed soon after, and the general introduction of machine work produced a mighty and far-reaching transformation in the existing economic and social conditions.

Handicraft and trade upon a small scale were ever more crowded into the background; production by wholesale, the capitalistic method of production, took their place. But precarious as this change has rendered the lot of the handicraftsman without means and the small retail dealer, the advantages for the development of civilization connected with production and distribution upon a large scale are too weighty for Society ever to renounce them. A general return to production on a small scale by handicraft is as impossible as a return to slavery.

We must therefore limit the question under consideration as follows: How can a more equal distribution of the national income in the interest of all be attained without limiting freedom of labor, and without interfering with the progress of civilization won by production on a large scale?

The answer cannot be doubtful, for us at least. There is but one means to that end: ABOLITION of the WAGE-SYSTEM and the substitution for it, of Co-operative Labor.

Whoever has an open eye for the signs of the the times must recognize that this thought more or less clearly formulated forms the basis of the Labor Movement now making itself felt in every country in Europe. As slavery and serfdom, once a "necessary" social institution also, at last made way for Wage-Labor, so in our day there is coming about a similar change of no less importance, the transition from the Wage-System to free co-operative work. The important point is that the transition should take place in the most peaceful way. But this is possible only on condition of the harmonious activity of all the social forces concerned.

The question which occupies our attention should therefore finally be formulated thus:

What has the workman, what has the capitalist employer, and what has the