Labor and Management

Carnegie – Gompers – Laughlin – Taylor

I can only begin to trace out the connections between these four, their relation to our previous readings, and their importance for the future.

Between Carnegie and Gompers exists the standard negotiations for higher wages and shorter hours. Standard claims of labor and standard costs of business. In doing business one cannot ignore labor. As we see with Carnegie one can take either a more cooperative, or more confrontational, approach. It seems both are ways of doing business.

The Homestead Strike highlights some of the importance of our past readings. The steel mill was Carnegie’s property, by contract, and he hired detectives to take it back. On the other side, laborers felt they had mixed their labor sufficiently with the plant to give them some claim of ownership. The violence exhibited by both sides failed to address this fundamental question about the nature of property. In every job I have ever had, workers have started to feel this sense of ownership. I offer for consideration that it is this sense of property that must be directly engaged in more cooperative negotiations.

I also offer that Frick’s attempt to bust the union was not business. Having achieved all the concessions he could have wanted for the purpose of running the business he went after their organization. There is a difference between reducing costs and eliminating every possible source of opposition. I wonder if an analogy holds between attempting to destroy a functioning collective bargaining unit and a functioning individual bargaining unit. Attempts to keep workers attached to their jobs are numerous. Listen to the song “Sixteen Tons”. I’ll go into this more in audio I think.

Some further quick points I offer for now: (1) Laughlin picks up the economists argument and is basically arguing about the relationship between the division of labor, productivity, and wages. By attacking Laughlin, Gompers is really attacking Smith. (2) Taylor is the logical conclusion of Smith’s division of labor. After all, if we are going to divide it, let’s divide it right. The whole purpose of this division is to increase productivity and Taylor notes, with some justification, that this increase in productivity depends on a correct division. (3) Finally, it is the unsatisfactory nature of Taylor’s system that now serves as the touchstone for a huge amount of management literature to come.

Gospel of Wealth

I always find it amazing when I read this piece the firm distinction Carnegie makes between running a business and being useful to the community. This distinction is so deep in his writing that one of the reasons he favors a high death tax is to recompense society for the unworthy lives of businessmen who have contributed nothing.

Walking through boarded up Main Streets, my first thought is never – “Oh, there should be more non profits here.” My first thoughts are how neat it would have been to be here when that Art Deco mercantile was open, or to see first run movies in the type of theatre that only existed in the downtown of yester-year.

Sure, things change. The point, though, is the sadness in closed downtowns is primarily that there is no business. Doing business was/is helping the community. This does not mean that charity is not laudable; it is just to say that doing business is serving the community. Carnegie is just wrong on this point.

Marx

Watching modern debates one would think that Marxians and Free Market Advocates would have nothing in common. Such over generalizations are usually untrue and mask the reasons behind the ferocity of the debate. Truth is, there are key points of agreement and key points of disagreement.


Points of Agreement: (Quotes are from the Manifesto, Chapter 1).

1) "The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations."

2) "The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe."

3) "The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production "

4) "The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe."


Points of Disagreement:

1) "in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom — Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation."

2) "The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation."

3) "The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones."

Something to think about. I have more I want to say ... but it can wait.

BK