(Discusses the idea of the management of industry by the state, and the idea of its management by the trade unions.) Let us now assume that we desire to abolish the wastes of the competitive method, and to put our industry on a basis of co-operation. How should we effect the change, and how should we run our industry after it was done?
Let us take the United States Steel Corporation. What change would be necessary to the socializing of this concern? United States Steel is owned by a group of stockholders, and governed by a board of directors elected by them. The owners are now to be bought out with government bonds, and the board of directors retired. It may also be necessary to replace a certain number of the higher executive officials, who are imbued entirely with the point of view of this board, and have to do with finance, rather than with production. Of course, some other governing authority would have to be put in control. What would this authority be? There are several plans before the world, several different schools of thought, which we shall consider one by one.
First, the Socialist program. The Socialist says, "Consider the postoffice, how that is run. It is run by the President, who appoints a Postmaster-General as his executive. Let us therefore turn the steel industry over to the government, and let the President appoint another member of his cabinet, a Director of Steel; or let there be a commission, similar to the Interstate Commerce Commission, or the various war industry boards." Any form of management of the steel industry which provides for its control and operation by our United States government is Socialism of one sort or another.
There has been, of late, a great deal of dissatisfaction with government, on the part of the general public, and also of labor. The postoffice clerks, for example, complain that they are inadequately paid and autocratically managed, deprived of their rights not merely as workers but as citizens. The steel workers complain that when they go on strike against their masters, the government sends in troops and crushes their strike, regardless of the rights or wrongs of it. In order to meet such tactics, labor goes into politics, and elects here and there its own representatives; but these representatives become mysteriously affected by the bureaucratic point of view, and even where they try hard, they do not accomplish much for labor. Therefore, labor becomes disgusted with the political process, and labor men do not welcome the prospect of being managed by government.
If you ask such men, they will say: "No; the politicians don't know anything about industry, and can't learn. The people who know about industry are those who work in it. The true way to run an industry is through an organization of the workers, both of hand and brain. The true way to run the Steel Trust is for all the workers in it, men and women, high and low, to be recognized by law as citizens of that industry; each shop must elect its own delegates to run that shop, and elect a delegate to a central parliament of the industry, and this industry in turn must elect delegates to a great parliament or convention of all the delegates of all the industries. In such a central gathering every one would be represented, because every person would be a producer of some sort, and whether he was a steel worker or a street sweeper or a newsboy, he would have a vote at the place where he earns his living, and would have a say in the management of his job. The great central parliament would elect an executive committee and a president, and so we should have a government of the workers, by the workers, for the workers." This idea is known as Syndicalism, derived from the French word "syndicat," meaning a labor union. Since the Russian revolution it has come to be known as soviet government, "soviet" being the Russian word for trade council.
Now, taking these two ideas of Socialism and Syndicalism, it is evident that they may be combined in various ways, and applied in varying degrees. It is perfectly conceivable, for example, that the people of the United States might elect a president pledged to call a parliament of industry, and to delegate the control of industry to this parliament. He might delegate the control to a certain extent, and provide for its extension, step by step; so our society might move into Syndicalism by the way of Socialism. You have only to put your mind on the possibilities of the situation to realize that one method shades into the other with a great v............