And it is apparent that the working of the autocratic system in our economic life shows just the strength and weakness that would naturally be expected.The prompt undertaking and execution of vast schemes at a favorable moment, and the equally prompt recession when conditions alter;the investment of great resources in enterprises which yield no immediate return; the decision and secrecy important in overcoming competitors; the unhesitating sacrifice of workmen and their families when the market calls for a shut-down of production -such traits as these are of the utmost importance to commercial success, and belong to arbitrary control rather than to anything of a more popular sort.On the other hand, it would be easy to show at any length desired that such control is accompanied by a wide-spread disaffection of spirit on the part of the working classes, which, expressed in unwilling labor, strikes and agitation, is a commercial disadvantage, end a social problem so urgent as to unsettle the whole economic system.
The autocratic system has evidently a special advantage in a time of rapid and confused development, when conditions are little understood or regulated, and the state of things is one of somewhat blind and ruthless warfare; but it is quite possible that as the new industries become established and comparatively stable, there will be a commercial as well as a social demand for a system that shall invite and utilize more of the good-will and self-activity of the workman."The system which comes nearest to calling out all the self-interests and using all the faculties and sharing all the benefits will outcompete any system that strikes a lower level of motive faculty and profit." And the penetrating thinker who wrote this sentence believed that the function of the autocratic "captain of industry " was essentially that of an explorer and conqueror of new domains destined to come later under the rule of a commonwealth.Indeed the rise, on purely commercial grounds, of a more humane and individualizing tendency' aiming in one way or another to propitiate the self-feeling of the workman and get him to identify himself with his work, is well ascertained.Among the familiar phases of this are the notable growth of cooperative production and exchange in Belgium, Russia and other European countries, the increasing respect for labor unions and the development by large concerns of devices for in surance, for pensions, for profit-sharing and for the mate rial and social comfort of their employees."As a better government has come up from the people than came down from the kings, so a better industry appears to be coming up from the people than came down from the capitalists."
In some form or other the democratic principle is sure to make its way into the economic system.Cooperation, labor unions, public regulation, public ownership and the informal control of opinion will no doubt all have a part; the general outcome being that the citizen becomes a more vital agent in the life of the whole.
Before discussing further the power of the capitalist manager class, we ought to think out clearly just what we mean by social power, since nowhere are we more likely to go astray than in vagueness regarding such notions.
Evidently the essence of it is control over the human spirit, and the most direct phases of power are immediately spiritual, such as one mind exercises over another by virtue of what it is, without any means but the ordinary symbols of communication.This is live, human power, and those who have it in great degree are the prime movers of society, whether they gain any more formal or conventional sort or not.Such, for instance, are the poets, prophets, philosophers, inventors and men of science of all ages, the great political, military and religious organ- isers, and even the real captains of industry and commerce.All power involves in its origin mental or spiritual force of some sort; and so far as it attaches to passive attributes' like hereditary social position, offices, bank accounts and the like, it does so through the aid of conventions and habits which regard these things as repositories of spiritual force and allow them to exercise its function.
In its immediate spiritual phase power is at a maximum of vitality and a minimum of establishment.Only a few can recognize it.Its possessors, then, strive to establish and organize it, to give it social expression and efficacy, to gain position, reputation or wealth.Since power is not apparent to the common mind until it takes on these forms, they are, to superficial observation and in all the conventional business of life, the only valid evidence of it And yet by the time these symbols appear, the spiritual basis has often passed away.Primary power goes for the most part unseen, much of it taking on no palpable form until late in life, much yielding only posthumous reputation, and much, and that perhaps the finest sort, having never any vulgar recognition whatever.