Paul Monroe

“ For the last two years there have been no profits in our business for anybody, so there has been no profit sharing; and we have not had enough experience in it to intelligently judge of the good results that might arise from it. ”

“ After all, the greatest merit of the Christian socialists, though it may have appeared a defect, is that with them socialism is a means not an end: that the end is the full development of the inherent capabilities of the individual, and that society is a means to this development. They have derived this perception from Christianity, and though the idea has been but vaguely conceived, it is taking shape as the highest ethical perception of the race. Because of the Christian socialists' failure to enunciate this distinctly their ideal of status has remained indefinite. ”

“ In either case it is seldom if ever the economic motive, but rather a complex of social motives, both egoistic and altruistic, that is the occasion of the effort that brings the social reward—"greatness." It is not necessary to substitute a mastery over persons for a mastery over things in order to preserve inducements to exertion; the highest master, that over self, is not without motive power. Praise, honor, fame, leadership are aims that exert strong attractions; but the pleasures of doing, of achieving, of serving are no less powerful and are capable of much higher development. ”

“ How a social reformer can hope to reform by using language that is purposely unintelligible is indeed a question. But there are two distinct advantages thus gained for an unpopular innovation. Without charging duplicity we must observe first, that this form of doctrine always holds in mental reserve an alternative construction or a modifying opinion with which to condone each revolutionary utterance; and second, by this very vagueness the movement escapes many of the criticisms to which various social movements, especially socialism, are liable. ”

“ Here is a radical difference with other forms of socialism. The kingdom of God is defined as "that transfiguration of human society which corresponds to the resurrection of the individual." This kingdom is spiritual,—"the kingdom of God is within you;" but it can be embodied only in a secular form. That embodiment is to be here and now. In a popular form this is the characterization of the movement. The extravagant interpretation of this idea was criticised above, but its error is not in the location of the kingdom of God as to time and space. ”

“ The ideal of Christian socialism at least, that is, equality in title to privilege of development, does not involve equality of results, for individual capabilities are various although the race is one. Equality of opportunity, in the common application of the term, is not enough; equality of participation in all things would be no less unsatisfactory to the individuals concerned.
This solidarity is to be achieved through religion, through Christianity. ”

“ The wage system, now well established for a century, has shown a decided tendency to vary. This variation is chiefly in the direction of the admission of the laborers into a share of the product, in addition to their participation as wage receivers. But to designate all such variations, or even many of them, "profit sharing," is manifestly improper. The fact that a type indicates a tendency to vary in a given direction is prima facie evidence of the expediency of some such change, to the type at least. ”

“ Whether society is to be reformed only by reforming the individual units or whether the individuals are to be reformed by reforming their environment, may not be the only alternatives. The truth may lie in the reciprocal relation of these principles. In fact it is in the tacit recognition of this mutual harmonization of conflicting theories that Christian socialism has found its chief strength. If after all it is simply an individual matter, wherein does it differ from the more orthodox conceptions of Christianity and of society that give rise to the Christian socialist protest? ”

“ If I can see my way clear to it, I would like to extend the profit sharing so that finally a committee chosen by the older and the best employés should have a large share in the management of the business, and perhaps finally the complete mangement of it, and that all the employés should share to a much larger extent than they do now in the profits, perhaps in all the profits instead of in a small part of them after the salaries are paid and the interest on the capital. ”

“ Prevalent socialistic demands have stultified themselves by an insistence upon economic dues to the exclusion of less material needs. "Christian socialism is not merely a question of the stomach; it is also a question about equitable distribution of ideal goods, the means of higher culture as the results of a progressive civilization." ”

“ Unless experiments at cooperative profit sharing prove advantageous enough to recommend the system to employers for business reasons, the system must be counted a disappointment and a failure. Few employers are in a position to do business on any system that handicaps them in the fierce struggle of competition. ”

“ Socialism on the contrary demands radical changes in society to increase the sum of happiness in each individual. Socialism requires the use of the legal straight jacket to enforce comparative equality; religion prefers the constraining influence of Christ to draw together the members of Christian brotherhood." [16] Thus Christian socialism is seen to work by internal spiritual forces, while socialism employs external material forces as means. Christian socialism is primarily reformatory and hence reconstructive; socialism on the contrary is revolutionary and hence destructive. ”

“ Society is represented as an organism of mutually dependent parts, not as an aggregate of warring atoms. In contrast with individualism which regards man as laboring against man for private gain, it regards man as working with man for a common end. Individualism is based upon the theory that in the pursuit of private interests by each, the highest common good is produced: Christian socialism, as indeed all socialism, is based upon the theorv that in the status perceived to be best for the race or group, the individual will find the most complete development. ”

“ In the teaching of professed friends of labor much needs to be done first to disabuse the minds of workingmen of the prevalent idea that their employers are necessarily either their enemies, or entirely disregard their interests, and that everybody who has accumulated large wealth must have done it dishonestly and to the detriment or impoverishment of somebody else. ”

“ Coöperation in the specific sense is only a half truth, and fails of solving any save the simplest of those problems which Christian socialism confronts. It is applicable only to certain industries and fails to eradicate the fundamental evils of the present system. But it was as a modus vivendi that it was seized upon by the earlier Christian socialists. ”

“ This leads to a statement of the basal principle of Christian socialism, which at the same time affords a fundamental distinction between it and so-called "secular" socialism. The ideal of Christian socialism is a method; the ideal of socialism is a status. Socialism aims at an organization of society in which the state shall be the source of production of goods and the means and arbiter of distribution. ”

“ In conclusion I will venture to express the opinion, that before any system of industrial partnership or profit sharing possible to manufacturers, and hence practical and permanent can be introduced, there must be more, and to a very great extent radically different, fundamental teaching on the part of labor leaders and so-called labor and social reformers. ”

“ Whether motives in abeyance can be stimulated to a given intensity may not be determinable, but we no longer deal with the equation of societary relations upon the assumption that the only significant term is economic.
If the medical profession can have guarded for so many centuries the principle that every discovery affecting man's welfare belongs to the race and not to the finder, and yet have suffered no detriment, why may not the like be possible in commerce, in mechanics, and in all the arts affecting man's social well being? ”

“ At the same time it is evident that a theoretic status may be less liable to specific criticisms than an ideal social procedure, for the former may be conceived out of immediate connection with the existing order and yet not be vitiated by logical contradictions. It is not to be assumed that the present order has called forth all human capabilities or developed in true proportion all human motives. A proposed social procedure on the other hand must offer points of connection with present order and in its details must make ample provision for continuity of social evolution. ”

“ The term profit sharing may be applied to any arrangement whereby labor is rewarded in addition to its wages, or in lieu of wages, by participation in the profits of the business in which it is employed. Benefits of various kinds, as insurance, schools, libraries and beautiful surroundings, so long as maintained by employers out of their profits, and enjoyed by employes as an addition to what their wages would purchase, would have to be regarded in a strict analysis, as an indirect form of profit sharing. ”

“ Both the family and the nation are means to this fellowship; and though the solidarity of the race is a higher conception, yet both the family and the nation must be preserved in their integrity as means. So an integral family has been made by many the unit of society. This is one of the incidental though not unimportant, differences between socialism and Christian socialism. Upon this conception of solidarity was based the Christian socialists' advocacy of co-operation. If society is recognized as possessing an organic unity, it should work as such. Men are not merely individuals ”

“ Thus Kaufmann, himself a Christian socialist, says: "To some extent the apparent incompleteness, especially in matters of detail, must be attributed to the vagueness of utterances of the Christian socialists themselves in this respect. This is only what we must expect in all theorizers. According to a natural division of labor, social philosophers propound theories without entering into minute details, which are left for practical politicians to deal with in their endeavor to give effect to the theories as far as circumstances will permit." ”

“ Stock is always redeemed at par whenever the holder leaves the employ of the company. In 1894, a rule was adopted permitting participation in dividends only to those who, working full time and getting full pay, saved 10 per cent, of their wages and invested the savings in the stock of the company. This is not only to enable the employe to save rather than to consume his dividends, and to place upon him the responsibility for this, but to constitute the enterprise a real cooperative undertaking. The bonus averaged about 9 per cent, on wages for the first seven years. ”

“ Though Christian socialism has no Ruskin or Morris, yet the æsthetic demands of human nature have not been overlooked. Kingsley was essentially a poet and dwelt upon the artistic satisfaction of human desires. But this conception of personality insists above all upon the truth that labor is not a commodity: labor is a service, not only of individual to individual but of individual to society also Labor is thus regarded as a social function and should be so estimated. ”

“ It is true that the plan has been abandoned without anything resulting from it in the way of dividends; for the road has never earned a dividend. As this has been the experience of all Michigan roads, except one, for many years, it is no reflection upon the road or the system adopted. The system is important, not from the evidence it can give either pro or con, but from the principle upon which it is founded. It is the only American profit sharing enterprise, so far as the writer has knowledge, which openly avows the right of an employé to a share in the enterprise as a fundamental principle. ”

“ The company also pays wages to injured employés. For the first few years the plan was not a success from a purely business point of view. But it is now held that the saving under profit sharing is largely in excess of the sums paid to wage earners as profits. This saving is one of time, of diminished waste of material, in making a better quality of product, in keeping men of experience and in oversight. Owing to the grade of labor employed, the success of profit sharing has here been a matter of education. ”

“ The bonus amounted to 2 or 3 per cent, on wages. The firm say, "In our business, it was an injury rather than a benefit to us. We could not see any perceptible increase in the production of our men, nor interest in the care of their tools or material. On the contrary, our employés began to think that they were the proper parties to fix wages, and the prices at which we should sell the products. The employés were also careful to take advantage of their membership in the Labor Unions to enforce their demands. Since we have abandoned the system of profit sharing, these troubles do not exist." ”

“ Kingsley had pointed out this general distinction in Politics for the People, the first organ of the English school. "God will reform society," he wrote, "on condition of our reforming every man his own self, while the devil is quite ready lo help us mend the laws and the parliament, earth and heaven, without even starting such an impertinent and personal request as that a man should mend himself." ”

“ Greater stress has been laid upon the moral and social requirements of human life than has been the case with other forms of socialism, though as with the latter the fundamental importance of the material condition—health and material possessions—is emphasized. ”