stalled. It is essential, however, that attention should be called to industrial democracy as it is apparently understood and defined by those who apply the principles of "Scientific Management," for, unless this is done, it would be impossible to understand the attitude which "Scientific Management" has assumed towards labor.

Mr. Taylor has held that the relations between employers and workers are governed by a fundamental harmony of interests. Assuming this to be true and that perfect equality of interests exists between them, complete democracy in all of their relations is to be secured by setting aside the employers' personal authority, and the arbitrary rules and regulations of the workers, with all of the machinery for negotiations and the enforcements of decisions created by both, and substituting at all times the impersonal dictates of natural law and fact. It is the democracy of science as applied to industry. All that is necessary to realize this is to have in the hop a corps of scientists to determine and declare to employers and workers the objective scientific facts.

"If," as the Hoxie report says, "Mr. Taylor's original assumption is correct, and if all industrial matters touching the relations of employers and workmen have been or can be reduced to a purely scientific basis his conception of industrial democracy is valid, and if it is adhered to by scientific managers generally, the worker has no need of unions, union machinery or collective bargaining to voice his complaints and enforce his demands in order to secure just consideration of his interests and equal voice with the employers in the determination of all matters of mutual concern."

However, as a matter of fact, neither is the Taylor assumption correct, nor is it adhered to by scientific managers generally.

Theoretically, Mr. Taylor and other leaders of "Scientific Management" hold that the elements of the conditions of labor and the terms of employment can be demonstrated as objective scientific facts and are, therefore, no more subject to bargaining or arbitration than the question of the earth's revolution on its axis or the principles of arithmetic. Perhaps no feature of "Scientific Management" indicates a wider divergence between a theory and its application than the one under consideration.

Mr. Taylor's ideal shops with their corps of scientists, and

scientifically trained time-study men and instructors were not encountered during the investigation. It is true that systems of "Scientific Management" had been installed by efficiency engineers possessed of marked ability and wide experience, men of high ideals and not wanting in the milk of human kindness, but these men did not remain in charge of the plant to direct the machinery which they had installed, and this work was taken up by other and inferior men. It is the work of the time study men which chiefly determines whether efficiency shall be combined with just and humane treatment of the workers, regardful of their present and future welfare.

1

"This being true," says the Hoxie report, "the time-study man is, from the standpoint of labor, the central figure in 'Scientific Management,'—its vital organ and force. To perform his functions properly, to make 'Scientific Management' tolerable to labor, he must be a man exceptional in technical and industrial training, a man with a broad and sympathetic understanding of the workers as well as of the economic and social forces which condition their welfare, a man of unimpeachable judgment, governed by scientific rather than pecuniary considerations, and, withal, he must occupy a high and authoritative position in the management. For if he is to set tasks that will not cause nervous and physical exhaustion, he must not only have an intimate personal knowledge of the work to be done, the special difficulties it involves, the qualities required to do it well, the demand which it makes on the strength, skill, ingenuity and nervous force, but he must be able to recognize and measure nervous disturbance and fatigue and understand and deal wisely with temperament. If he is to set tasks that will always be fair and liberal, he must understand and know how to discount all the effects of current variations in machinery, tools and materials, in human energy and attention. If he is to safeguard the lives and health of the workers and their general economic and social welfare, he must be an expert in matters of sanitation and safety, and have a broad and deep understanding of economic and social problems and forces and, finally, if he is to make all this knowledge count, he must be able to establish the standards warranted by his study and judicial weighing of men and facts, and to protect these standards against infringement and displacement. All this and more, if the claims of

1 See Scientific Management and Labor by R. F. Hoxie. Appleton. 1915.

'Scientific Management' relative to labor are to be generally fulfilled.

But as things actually are, this emphatically is not the type of man who is habitually engaged in time-study work, and who is being drawn into it, nor does the time-study man of the present occupy this exalted position in the hierarchy of 'Scientific Management.' The best men in this work are perhaps technically qualified, but so far as the observation of your investigator has gone, the best of them are technicians with little knowledge of the subject of fatigue, little understanding of psychology and temperament, little understanding of the viewpoint and problems of the workers, and almost altogether lacking in knowledge of and interest in the broader economic and social aspects of working-class welfare. The bulk of the time-study men encountered were immature men drawn from the shop or from college. They were expected to get their knowledge and training in all the matters enumerated above through the actual work of time-study and task-setting. In the majority of cases encountered it was not considered essential that they should have had any special training in the particular industry. A man who had worked exclusively in the machine shop was considered competent, after a few weeks or months of contact and trial experience, to set tasks in a cotton mill.

Sometimes previous industrial experience of any kind was not considered necessary. Analytical ability, good powers of observation, a sense of justice and tact were the chief qualities emphasized as essential for a time-study man. Rarely, if ever, was anything said of technical knowledge concerning fatigue, psychology, sanitation, safety, and in broader problems of industrial and social welfare. Indeed, time-study and task-setting were almost universally looked upon as primarily mechanical tasks in which the ability to analyze jobs and manipulate figures rather than broad knowledge and sound judgment were regarded as the essential factors. Naturally, therefore, the time-study men were found to be prevailingly of the narrow-minded, mechanical type, poorly paid and occupying the lowest positions in the managerial organization, if they could be said to belong at all to the managerial group. Nor does the situation seem to promise much improvement. For the position and pay accorded to time-study, men generally, are such as to preclude the drawing into this work of

really competent men in the broader sense. Aside from a few notable exceptions in the shops, and some men who make a general profession of time-study in connection with the installment of 'Scientific Management' this theoretically important functionary receives little more than good mechanic's wages, and has little voice in determining shop policies. The start is often made at $15.00 per week. A good time-study man, according to current standards, can be had at from $75 to $100 a month, and $125 per month is rather high rating for experienced men, if the statements of scientific managers are to be trusted. In fact, the time-study man, who, if 'Scientific Management' is to make good the most important of its labor claims, should be among the most highly trained and influential officials in the shop, a scientist in viewpoint, a wise arbiter between employer and workmen, is, in general, a petty functionary, a specialist workman, a sort of clerk, who has no voice in the counsels of the higher officials. There are, of course, exceptions to this general rule, but taking the situation as a whole, the quality of the time-study men actually setting the tasks in 'Scientific Management' shops and the position which they occupy are such as to preclude any present possibility of the fulfillment of its labor claims."

GUILD SOCIALISM

REVIVING THE GUILD IDEA1

Most people are aware that long ago, in the Middle Ages, industry was organized under a system which is now called the Gild (or Guild) system. They know that for several centuries this was the prevailing method of industrial organization, and that it gradually decayed before the coming of modern industry, overwhelmed by the expansion of the market, by the substitution of new for old forms of production, by the growing importance of finance, and by the growth of national, as opposed to local, economic, and social consciousness. The old Guild system was essentially a local system, and for most people that is a sufficient reason for dismissing it as irrelevant to present-day industrial problems.

The old localized market, the 'town-economy' of which the industrial historians tell us, is indeed gone forever, though it may be hoped that we shall some day recover the finer qualities which belong to craftsmanship and small-scale production. But, even if we accept, for our time at least, the existence of national and international economy, with their concomitants the world market, and large scale production, there may still be much which we can learn from the guilds of the Middle Ages. For in the great days of the guilds, the ordinary man did achieve a position which he has never occupied in modern industry—a self-government and a control of his own working life which are of the essence of human freedom.

Modern industry is built up on a denial—a denial to the mass of the workers of the attributes of humanity. In the factory of to-day, the workman counts not as a man, but as an employee, not as a human being, but as the material embodiment of so much labor power. He sells his labor in a 'labor market,' and in that market an employer or the management of a company buys just that quantity of labor power which can be used for the realization of a profit. The employer or the 1 By G. D. H. Cole. Living Age. 302:214-17. July 26, 1919. Mr. Cole is the leading exponent of Guild Socialism.