The Masses
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'''Labor and the Future''' by Amos Pinchot | '''Labor and the Future''' by Amos Pinchot | ||
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| + | "Confident in its isolation and ignorance, industrial absolutism not only says to the worker, "You toil and work and earn bread and I'll eat it; " it says, "You earn bread on my terms only and I'll eat it. And if you rebel I will use economic power, violence, law, the administration of justice—yes, and contempt of law and violation of justice, in order to reduce you to obedience."" | ||
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| + | Pinot's article argues that industrial absolutism is a unfair to the working class and discusses the use of labor strikes to cure the United States from industrial absolutism. Industrial absolutism is in essence the belief that an employer has complete power over his or her employees and the employees must obey the employer. Pinot uses the example of strikes to check the power of the employer and eventually phase out industrial absolutism. | ||
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| + | "Labor can no longer win by strikes alone. The labor surplus is so large..." | ||
| + | "Neither peaceful nor violent methods can keep this unemployed labor surplus out of the mine or mill." | ||
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| + | A major issue with Pinot's recognition of strikes as a means of overthrowing industrial absolutism is that if an employee is fired there is such a large labor surplus that two more employees can be hired the same day to take the former employee's place. This labor surplus also means that violent and peaceful methods are useless. Pinot even goes on to say that the industrial absolutism results in "industrial slavery." | ||
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| + | This type of writing eventually led to the introduction and recognition of labor unions once the labor surplus began to decrease. However, the damage by this article is still done as it target political issues that the US government had yet to solve. This is yet another is ''The Masses'' tackles that the US government had no answer to at the time. | ||
===Vol. 9 No. 8=== | ===Vol. 9 No. 8=== | ||
