Social Theories and Social Facts

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1905. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VII LABOR IN the study of the relationship of labor to economic life, three convenient divisions of the subject may be made. The first, individualism and unionism; the second, unions of labor and of capital; and the third, public and organized labor. Individualism, which has been the distinguishing characteristic of Americans for two hundred and fifty years, which, indeed, was the superinducing cause of the immigration of the first colonists, as of the successive streams which have flowed to this country in different volumes at different periods, has remained until recently, or perhaps even now is, the most potent factor in creating the richest and most prosperous country in the world from the raw material of a savage wilderness, and in building up the greatest and most powerful of nations from a few scattered and impoverished colonies. Now, however, on the threshold of the twentieth century, this force, which has accomplished so much, is giving way to collectivism, which for decades has retarded the development of England, and which in Australia and New Zealand has piled up the largest debt per capita of any country in the world, driven away immigration and paralyzed industry. We have achieved unquestioned predominance among the nations of the world by the full and perfect development of individualism, and our chief rival has fallen more and more behind in the race for commercial and industrial supremacy, owing to the tyranny of trade unionism. A few years ago every American workingman possessed the keen desire, and, possessing it, was conscious of the power to rise in the scale of life by his own force of character, intelligence, and ability. He had numerous examples before him and about him, and he asked no assistance of the law beyond freedom in the exercise of these qua...