So the organization of society on the basis of function, instead of on that of rights, implies three things. It means, first, that proprietary rights shall be maintained when they are accompanied by the performance of service and abolished when they are not. It means, second, that the producers shall stand in a direct relation to the community for whom production is carried on, so that their responsibility to it may be obvious and unmistakable, not lost, as at present, through their immediate subordination to shareholders whose interest is not service but gain. It means, in the third place, that the obligation for the maintenance of the service shall rest upon the professional organization of those who perform it, and that, subject to the supervision and criticism of the consumer, those organizations shall exercise so much voice in the government of industry as may be needed to secure that the obligation is discharged. It is obvious, indeed, that no change of system or machinery can avert those causes of socialmalaisewhich consist in the egotism, greed, or quarrelsomeness of human nature. What it can do is to create an environment in which those are not the qualities which are encouraged. It cannot secure that men live up to their principles. What it can do is to establish their social order upon principles to which, if they please, they canlive up and not live down. It cannot control their actions. It can offer them an end on which to fix their minds. And, as their minds are, so, in the long run and with exceptions, their practical activity will be.
The first condition of the right organization of industry is, then, the intellectual conversion which, in their distrust of principles, Englishmen are disposed to place last or to omit altogether. It is that emphasis should be transferred from the opportunities which it offers individuals to the social functions which it performs; that they should be clear as to its end and should judge it by reference to that end, not by incidental consequences which are foreign to it, however brilliant or alluring those consequences may be. What gives its meaning to any activity which is not purely automatic is its purpose. It is because the purpose of industry, which is the conquest of nature for the service of man, is neither adequately expressed in its organization nor present to the minds of those engaged in it, because it is not regarded as a function but as an opportunity for personal gain or advancement or display, that the economic life of modern societies is in a perpetual state of morbid irritation. If the conditions which produce that unnatural tension are to be removed, it can only be effected by the growth of a habit of mind which will approach questions of economic organization from the standpoint of the purpose which it exists to serve, and which will apply to it something of the spirit expressed by Bacon when he said that the work of man ought to be carried on "for the glory of God and the relief of men's estate."
Viewed from that angle issues which are insoluble when treated on the basis of rights may be found more susceptible of reasonable treatment. For a purpose, is, in the first place a principle of limitation. It determines the end for which, and therefore the limits within which, an activity is to be carried on. It divided what is worth doing from what is not, and settles the scale upon which what is worth doing ought to be done. It is in the second place, a principle of unity, because it supplies a common end to which efforts can be directed, and submits interests, which would otherwise conflict, to the judgment of an over-ruling object. It is, in the third place, a principle of apportionment or distribution. It assigns to the different parties of groups engaged in a common undertaking the place which they are to occupy in carrying it out. Thus it establishes order, not upon chance or power, but upon a principle, and bases remuneration not upon what men can with good fortune snatch for themselves nor upon what, if unlucky, they can be induced to accept, but upon what is appropriate to their function, no more and no less, so that those who perform no function receive no payment, and those who contribute to the common end receive honourable payment for honourable service.
Frate, la nostra volontà quietaVirtù di carità, che fa volerneSol quel ch'avemo, e d'altro non ci asseta.Si disiassimo esse più superne,Foran discordi li nostri disiriDal voler di colui che qui ne cerne.* * * * *
Anzi è formale ad esto beato esseTenersi dentro alla divina vogli,Per ch'una fansi nostre vogli e stesse.* * * * *Chiaro mi fu allor com' ogni doveIn Cielo è paradiso, e sì la graziaDel sommo ben d'un modo non vi piove.
The famous lines in which Piccarda explains to Dante the order of Paradise are a description of a complex and multiform society which is united by overmastering devotion to a common end. By that end all stations are assigned and all activities are valued. The parts derive their quality from their place in the system, and are so permeated by the unity which they express that they themselves are glad to be forgotten, as the ribs of an arch carry the eye from the floor from which they spring to the vault in which they meet and interlace.
Such a combination of unity and diversity is possible only to a society which subordinates its activities to the principle of purpose. For what that principle offers is not merely a standard for determining the relations of different classes and groups of producers, but a scale of moral values. Above all, it assigns to economic activity itself its proper place as the servant, not the master, of society. The burden of our civilization is not merely, as many suppose, that the product of industry is ill-distributed, or its conduct tyrannical, or its operation interrupted by embittered disagreements. It is that industry itself has come to hold a position of exclusive predominance among human interests, which no single interest, and least of all the provision of thematerial means of existence, is fit to occupy. Like a hypochondriac who is so absorbed in the processes of his own digestion that he goes to his grave before he has begun to live, industrialized communities neglect the very objects for which it is worth while to acquire riches in their feverish preoccupation with the means by which riches can be acquired.
That obsession by economic issues is as local and transitory as it is repulsive and disturbing. To future generations it will appear as pitiable as the obsession of the seventeenth century by religious quarrels appears to-day; indeed, it is less rational, since the object with which it is concerned is less important. And it is a poison which inflames every wound and turns each trivial scratch into a malignant ulcer. Society will not solve the particular problems of industry which afflict it, until that poison is expelled, and it has learned to see industry itself in the right perspective. If it is to do that, it must rearrange its scale of values. It must regard economic interests as one element in life, not as the whole of life. It must persuade its members to renounce the opportunity of gains which accrue without any corresponding service, because the struggle for them keeps the whole community in a fever. It must so organize industry that the instrumental character of economic activity is emphasized by its subordination to the social purpose for which it is carried on.
Abolition of private ownership,147
Absenteeism,152
Absolute rights,50-51
Absolutism in industry,144
Acquisitive societies,29-32
Administration,115-116
Allocation of power,163-164
American Constitution,18-19,52
Annuities,74
Arbitration, compulsory,101
Bacon, quoted,58,181
Bentham,16,52,55
Brain workers, position of the,161-171
British Coal Industry, reorganization of,166-171
Building Guilds,103
Building Trade Report,106-110
Bureaucracy,116,149
Capitalism, and production,173-176; downward thrust of,154; in America,101; losing control,141-142,148
Cecil, Lord Hugh,23,58
Cecil, Robert,59
Cecil, William,59
Church and State,10-13
Coal Industry Commission,71,126,137,143; report of,166-167
Coal Mines Committees,152
Combinations,125,130
Committee on Trusts,153
Competition,27
Compulsory arbitration,101
Confiscations,103
Conservatism, the New,28
Consumer, exploitation of the,133-134
Co-operative Movement and cost of coal,125
Dante, quoted,182-183
Death Duties,22
Democratic control,116
Dickenson, Sir Arthur Lowes,71
Directorate control,129
Duckham, Sir Arthur,119
Duke of Wellington, quoted,123
Economic confusion, cause of,131-132
Economic discontent, increase of,5
Economic egotism,27,
Economic expansion,9
Efficiency, the condition of,139-160; throughEsprit de Corps,149-150
Employer, waning power of the,140
England, and natural right,15-16; and France contrasted,16-17; Industrialism in,44-47; Liberal Movement in,18; over-crowding of population in,37; proprietary rights in,64et seq.
English landlordism,22-23
Englishmen, characteristics of,1-3; vanity of,129
English Revolution of 1688,52
Esch-Cummins Act,118
Expediency, rule of,16
Feudalism,18
Fixed salaries,177-178
Forced labor,102
France, social and industrial conditions in,16-17; Feudalism in,18; Revolution in,15,65,69
French Revolution,15,65,69
Function, definition of,8; as a basis for remuneration,41-42; as a basis of social reorganization,180; Function and Freedom,7
Functional Society,29,84-90
Functionless property-owners,79,86; abolishment of,87-88; an expensive luxury,87
Gainford, Lord, quoted,26,111
Gantt, H. L.,175
Government control in war time,25-26
Ground-rents,89-90,91
Hobson, Mr.,63
"Hundred-Family Man,"178
Imperial Tobacco Company,116
Incomes,41
Income Tax,22
Income without service,68
Individualism,48-49
Individual rights,9
Individual rightsvs.social functions,27
Industrial problems,7
Industrial reorganization,151,155
Industrial revolution,9
Industrial societies,9
Industrial warfare, cause of, and remedy for,40-42
Industrialism,18; a poison,184; compared to Militarism,44-46; exaggerated estimate of its importance,45-46; failure of present system,139-141; nemesis of,33-51; spread of,30; tendency of,31-32
Industry, and a profession,94,97; as a profession,91et seq.,125-126; deficiencies of,147; definition of,6; how private control of may be terminated,103-104; and the advantages of such a change,106; Building Trades' Plan for,108,111; motives in,155-159; nationalization of,104,114-118; present organization of intolerable,129; purpose of,8,46,181; right organization of,6-7; the means not the end,46-47
Inheritance taxes,90
Insurance,74
Joint control,111-112
Joint-stock companies,66
Joint-stock organizations,97
Labor, absolute rights of,28; and capital,98-100,108; compulsory,100; control of breaking down,139et seq.; degradation of,35; forced,102
League of Nations,101
Liberal Movement,18
Locke,14,52,55
Management divorced from ownership,112-113
Mann, Sir John,126
Militarism,44-45
Mill, quoted,89
Mine managers, position of,162,166-168
Mining royalties,23-24,88
Nationalism,48-49
Nationalization,114,117; of the Coal Industry,115,165,168-169
Natural right in France,15; in England,15-16; doctrine of,21
Officials, position under the present economic system,162
Old industrial order a failure,139; its effect on the consumer,144
Organization, for public service instead of private gains,127
Over-centralization,121
Ownership, a new system of,112-114
Pensioners,34
Poverty a symptom of social disorder,5
Private enterprise and public ownership,118-120
Private ownership,120; abolition of,147; of industrial capital,105-106
Private rights and public welfare,14-15
Privileges,24
Producer, obligation of the,127-128; responsibility of,128
Production, increased,5; large scale and small scale,87; misdirection of,37-39; why not increased,136
Productivity,4,46
Professional Spirit, the,149-150
Profits, and production,173-176; division of,133
Proletariat,19,65
Property, absolute rights of,52,80; and creative work,52et seq.; classification of,63,64; complexity of,75; functionless,76-77,81; in land,56-60; in rights and royalties,62; minority ownership of,79; most ambiguous of categories,53-54; passive ownership of,62; private,70-72; protection of,78-70; rights,50-51; security in,72-73; socialist fallacy regarding,86
Proudhon,54
Publicity of costs and profits,85,123-124,126,132
Redmayne, Sir Richard,149
Reformation the,10-13; effect on society,12-14
Reform Bill of 1832,69
Religion,10; changes in,11-12
Report of the United States Industrial Commission, 1916,128-129
Riches, meaning of,98
Rights of Man, French Declaration of, the,16,52
Rights, and Functions,8-19; doctrine of,21et seq.,43-44; without functions,61
Rights of the shareholder,75
Royalties,23-24,62
Royalties, and property,70; from coal mining properties,88; a tax upon the industry of others,89
Sankey, Justice,115,117,143,165,167,168,169
Security of income,73-75
Service as a basis of remuneration,25,41-42,85,133
Shareholders,91-92
Shells, cost of making,124-125
Smith, Adam,15,52,95
Social inequality,36-37
Social reorganizations, schemes for,5
Social war,40
Socialism,53
Society, duality of modern,135
Society, functional organization of,52
State management,116,117
Steel Corporation,116
Supervision from within,151
Syndicalism,130