PICKING THE MANAGER.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 September 1921, Page 3

PICKING THE MANAGER.

A COMMON-SENSE REASON. WHY PRIVATE OWNERSHIP IS 1 MAINTAINED. Mo«?'t of the unrest of tlie world simmers down to this: People want higher wages and cheaper products of labor, shorter working hours and more goods. A SOCIALIST’S VIEW. Some wordmongers offer an easy solution—namely, just expropriate capital and capitalist. But intelligei . nd canSocialists know that thi s not a solution. John Spargo, for example, pays:—Every serious student of the problem has realised that the first great j task of any. Socialist society must be to . increase the productivity of labor. It is all very well for a popular propaganda among the masses to promise a great reduction in the hours of labor and at the same time a great improvement in the standards of living. The transla- | lion of such promises into actual ach- ’ -icvement must prove an enormous task. To build the better homes, make the better and more abundant clothing, shoes, furniture and other things required to fulfil the promise will require a great deal of labor and such an organisation of industry upon a basis of efficiency as no nation has yet developed. If the working class of this or any other country should take possession of the existing organisation of production there would not be enough in the fund now going to the capitalist class to satisfy the requirements of the workers, even if not a penny of compensation were paid to the expropriated owners. Kautsky, among others, has courageouslj’ faced this fact and insisted that “it will be one of the imperative tasks of the social revolution not simply to continue but also to increase production; the victorious proletariat must extend production rapidly if it is able to satisfy the enormous demands that will be made upon the new regime.” THE ESSENTIAL FACTOR. For intelligent and candid Socialists, , as well as for all other serious students, . the only solution finally is greater proI duction, higher industrial efficiency. Now I the efficiency of any industrial unit dc- ■- pends first of all upon the ability of j the management—of the directing mind |or minds. Whether it is a great railroad (system or a corner fruit stand, picking I a capable manager is the first step to- ; ward getting that unit to function properly. Without that step no other step will answer. The capitalistic system of individual competitive ownership is not only the best scheme that ever has been devised for picking capable managers, but it is the best- scheme to that end [ that ever can been devised, for under it I the rewards depend immediately and automatically upon good management. ’ while bad management immediately and i automatically entails heavy penalties. A ! set of stockholders, wlioso money is invested in the undertaking, choose the management. Their profits depend upon 2, right choice. If they choose wrongly, they lose their money. Naturally, then, the capitalist system tends with all its force to the development and discovery of able managers. To anyone acquainted with its day-by-day workings it often seems nothing else than a, tireless, insatiable hunt for capable men. But under the acid test of the capitalist system the man must actually make good; he must deliver the goods not in phrases but in unemotional cost aheets.

THE CONTRAST.

Under any scheme of public, socialist or collective ownership and direction of industry there would be no such acid test and not such immediate automatic penalties for poor management. When stockholders use bad judgment in choosing the management of a business, deficit wipes them out. They are naturally mighty anxious to avoid deficit. If the public owns the business deficit is charged off to the public treasury, explained away in plausible phrases, and nobody ex periences any acute personal inconvenience. Every scheme of public, socialist or collective ownership and direction comes to that; there is no big individual reward for good management, no acute individual penalty for bad management —unless, of course, it eventually comes to a Bolshevist case, where collectivism so demoralises industry that a whole population suffers acute penalties.

TO SUM UP. There is a real struggle throughout the Old World—with echoes of it here—over the final direction and management of industry. The crux of it is whether the managers of industry shall be closed by the stockholders, by the political government, or by the body of workmen

employed in the industry; or perhaps jointly by the Government and the workmen, This is very different from consulting labor, giving labor full representation, and a full say as to hours, wages and all that. It is not \i capital-and-labor partnership. It is the elimination of capital altogether as an active force in industry. In a word it is Socialism as the antithesis of capitalism. Inevitably, we believe, it means less capable management and lower industrial efficiency, when tbe need is for greater efficiency. True, the (Capitalist’s motive is selfish. It socks profits. But by and large it can realise that selfish end only through capable management and everincreasing eflieiqncy. It has acquired a large experience in industrial management and in picking capable managers.

We see no reason to assume that labor would be particularly less selfish. It never has been that we know of. It would seek waged as capital seeks profit. The point is that capitalists’ selfishness io more amenable to public control because, from its divisions it is weak in political power, in spite of all that is said to the contrary. The power of

capital can be limited, but with capital eliminated the power of labor would be without check or limit, and management would suffer in consequence. Capable management is tbe first need. The capitalistic i-cheme is the best method of getting it, so it stands. (Contributed by the N.Z. Welfare League.)