The immediate direct interests of a particular body of workmen and a
particular company of employers may, and frequently will, impel them to
a course directly opposed to the wider interests of their fellow-
capitalists or fellow-workers. But it is evident that the smaller the
industrial unit, the more frequent will these conflicts between the
immediate special interest and the wider class interest be. Since this
is so, it would follow that the establishment of larger industrial
units, such as workmen's unions and employers' unions, based on a
cancelling of minor conflicting interests, will diminish the aggregate
quantity of friction between capital and labour. If there were a close
union between all the river-side and carrying trades of the country, it
is far less likely that a particular local body of dock-labourers would,
in order to seize some temporary advantage for themselves, be allowed to
take a course which might throw out of work, or otherwise injure, the
other workers concerned in the industries allied to theirs. One of the
important educative effects of labour organizations will be a growing
recognition of the intricate _rapport_ which subsists not only between
the interests of different classes of workers, but between capital and
labour in its more general aspect. This lesson again is driven home by
the dramatic scale of the terrible though less frequent conflicts which
still occur between capital and labour.
Pages:
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263