The Theory and Policy of Labour Protection

In this way Rodbertus claims to be able to establish a fair measure and standard of comparison for labour times, not merely between the various kinds of trades and departments of industry, but also between the various degrees of individual efficiency. Each wage labourer would be able to participate proportionately in that portion of the national product which should be assigned to wage-labour as a whole. If therefore this portion were to be increased in a manner to which we shall presently refer, there would also be a rise in the share of the individual workers, in proportion to the rise in the nett result of national production. This scheme would form the groundwork of an individually just social wage system, a system by which the better workman would also be better paid, which would therefore balance the rights and interests of the workers among themselves, which moreover would ensure the productivity of national labour by variously rewarding the good and bad workers, thus recognising the rights and interests of the whole community, and lastly, which would continuously raise the labour-wage in proportion to the increase in national productivity (and also to the increasing returns of capital, whether fixed or moveable, applied to production).

I may here point out, however, that with all this we should not have arrived at an absolutely just system of remuneration of wage labour, unless we introduced a more complete social valuation of products in the form of normal labour pay instead of metal coinage.

But Rodbertus wishes to see his “normal work labour-day” – equal to 10 normal work hours – established as a universal measure of product value as well as of the value of labour: “Beyond and above what we have yet laid down the most important point of all remains to be established; the normal work labour-day must be taken as the unit of work time or normal time, and according to such work time or normal time (according to labour so computed) we must not only normalise the value of the product in each industry, but must also determine the wages in each kind of work.”

He claims that the one is as practicable as the other. First, with regard to regulating the value of product according to work time or normal work. In order to do this the “normal work labour-day” – which in any trade equals one day (in the various trades it may consist of a varying number of normal time hours), and which represents a quantity of product equal to a normal day’s work – this normal work day must be looked upon as the unit of work time or normal work, and in all trades it must be divided into an equal number (10) of work hours. The product in all trades will then be measured according to such work time. A quantity of product which should equal a full normal day’s work, whether it be the product of half a normal time labour-day, or of two normal time labour-days, would represent or be worth one work day (10 work hours); a quantity of product which should equal half a normal day’s work, whether it be the product of a normal work time or not, would represent or be worth half a day’s work or five work hours.

The product of a work hour in any trade would therefore, according to this measure, equal the product of a work hour in all other trades; or generally expressed: Products of equal work times are equal in value. Such is approximately the scheme of Rodbertus.

A really normal labour-day – normal time and normal work labour-day – would be necessary in any regulated social system that sought on the one hand, in the matter of distribution of wages, to balance equally “the rights and interests of the workers amongst themselves”; and on the other hand, in the matter of productivity, to balance equally the “rights and interests of the workers with those of the whole community,” by means of State intervention. It would therefore be necessary not merely in a State regulated capitalist society, with private property in the means of production, as Rodbertus proposed to carry it out under a strongly monarchical system, but also and specially would it be necessary under a democratic Socialism, if, true to its principles as opposed to Communism, it aimed at rewarding each man proportionately to his performance, instead of allowing each man to work no more than he likes, and enjoy as much as he can, which is the communistic method.

The only difference would be this: that any socialistic system must divide the nett result of production – after deducting what is required for the public purposes of the whole community – in proportion to the amount of normal time contributed, and must make the distribution in products valued according to the cost of their production computed in normal time; whilst Rodbertus, who wishes to preserve private property, finds it necessary to add one more point to those mentioned: the periodical normalisation of wage conditions in all trades. He is very clear upon this point. “The State must require the rate of wage for the normal working-day in any trade to be regulated and agreed upon by the employers and employed among themselves, and must also ensure the periodical readjustment of these regulations and the increase in the rate of wages in proportion to the increase in the productivity of work.”

But Rodbertus clearly perceived the difference between a normalised capitalist system and a normalised socialism, neither communistic nor anarchist. Were the workers alone, he continues, entitled to a share in the national product value, every worker would have to be credited with and paid for the whole normal time during which he had worked, and the whole national product value would be divided amongst the workers alone. For instance, if a workman had accomplished one and a half normal day’s work in his normal time working-day, he would be credited with 15 work hours, and paid accordingly; if he had only accomplished half a normal day’s work in the whole of his normal time working-day, he would be credited with only five work hours. The whole national profit, which would be worth x normal work, would then go in labour wage, which would amount to x normal work. But such a state of things, which may exist in the imaginations of many leaders of labour is, according to Rodbertus, the purest chimera: “In no condition of society can the worker receive the whole product of his normal work, he can never be credited in his wage with the whole amount of normal work accomplished by him; under all circumstances there must be deducted from it what now appears as ground rent and interest on capital.” Ground rent and interest on capital are, according to Rodbertus, remuneration for “indirect work” for the industrial function of directing or superintending production. “If therefore the worker has accomplished, in his normal time working-day, 10 hours of normal work, in his wages he will perhaps be only credited with three work hours, in other words the product value of three work hours will be assigned to him”; for the product value of one work hour would represent perhaps his contribution to the necessities of the State (taxes), and three work hours would have to go towards what is now called ground rent, and another three to interest on capital.

It is impossible here to enter upon a complete critical discussion of the practicability of the capitalist normal working-day, as conceived by Rodbertus; but I may be allowed in passing to indicate one or two points of criticism.

I maintain my opinion expressed above, that the cost of production in terms of normal labour is not the only factor to be considered in the valuation of products and the regulation of wages; hence, I still claim that the social measure of value in terms of the cost of production cannot be applied to labour products or to labour contributions without reference to the rise and fall of their value in use. Should, however, the State eventually interfere in the regulation of wages and prices, then I allow that the normal working-day of Rodbertus would become of importance to us for that purpose. For the rest, I hold that it has by no means been proved that such an exercise of interference could succeed even under a monarchical government based on private property, far less under a democratic government with a socialistic system of ownership. Neither do I regard it as proved that this method of State normalisation would actually achieve the establishment of a more normal state of affairs than can be arrived at in a social system where freely organised self-help is the rule, i. e. where both classes, Capital and Labour, can combine freely among themselves within the limits of a positive code safeguarding the rights of the workers. The direction taken by modern industrial life towards the harmonious conciliation of both classes, by means of the wage-list, the wage-tariff, and the sliding scale with a fixed minimum wage for entire branches of industry, and so forth, promises an important advance towards the establishment of a more normal wage-system.

In considering the question of the working-day as an instrument for affecting wages, it will be found that on the whole perhaps as much, or even more, may be achieved (and with fewer countervailing disadvantages) by the maximum working-day of free contract, varying according to trade, than by the normal working-day in the narrow meaning which Rodbertus has given to the term.

The complete elimination of the capitalist individualistic method of determining wages and prices, in favour of the measurement by “normal time” and “normal work” alone, would be open to grave objections both in theory and practice. Above all there is the practical danger of overburdening the State with the task of regulating and normalising, a task which only the most confirmed optimism would dare to regard lightly. It appears to me exceedingly doubtful at the present whether any State, even the most absolute monarchy with the best administration, would be competent to undertake such a task. I can see no likelihood of satisfaction on this point for some time to come, and must therefore range myself on the side of those who claim a better chance of success for the simpler method of improved organisation for the free settlements of wage-disputes by united representatives of both classes. But these and similar investigations are beyond the range of the main subject under discussion in this book.

My task is to prove that the maximum working-day of protective policy, or of protective and wage-policy, has nothing to do with the normal working-day in its strict sense – whether it be the normal working-day of Rodbertus separately adjusted in separate branches of industry, or the all-round normal working-day of non-communistic socialism. The normal working-day in the precise sense of Rodbertus, or even in the sense of the more rational socialists, affords an artificially fixed unit of value for the equitable determination of wages and prices; but it is neither a regulation by protective legislation of the longest permissible duration of the work within the astronomical day, nor a method of influencing the capitalistic settlement of wages by the legal enforcement of a much shorter maximum working-day. A normal working-hour would serve as well as a normal working-day for a common denominator for the uniform reduction of the various kinds of work to one normal measure of time and labour, with a view to the valuation of the products and contributions of labour.

It may be said that the normal working-day, in the sense of Rodbertus, by virtue of its being a matter periodically fixed and prescribed, is a normal working-day also in that wider sense in which the term may equally be applied to the maximum working-day of protective policy. But it cannot claim the title of normal working-day from the fact of this fixity or this artificial regulation, but only from the essential fact that it serves the purpose of a valuation of labour products and labour contributions on a scale which is really normal, i. e. socially just and equitable.

The importance from a theoretic point of view of a distinction between the maximum working-day and the normal working-day would of itself have justified our dwelling on the foregoing details. But these details are also of practical importance in considering the policy of the ten hours day of Labour Protection, as against the legal eight hours day. One word more on this point: the eight hours day threatens to ultimately develope, should Socialism as an experiment ever be tried, into a normal working-day of the worst possible kind.

Democratic Socialism has, hitherto at least, adopted on its party programme no formulary of the normal working-day required by it. It will scarcely find a better formulary than that of Rodbertus (omitting the periodical re-adjustment of the whole share of Labour as against Capital, see pp. 123, 124). The normal measure of Rodbertus would be an incomparably superior method to that of regarding as equal all astronomic labour time without respect to differences in the arduousness of the labour in the various trades, no attempt being made to determine the unit of normal work per normal time-day or normal time-hour. But would Democratic Socialism have really any other course open to it than to treat all labour time as equal, and so to bring about the adoption of a socialistic normal time of the most disastrous type, viz. the submergence of the socially normal working-day in the general maximum working-day?

To the enormous difficulties, technical and administrative, inherent in the normal labour time of Rodbertus, would inevitably be added the special and aggravated difficulties arising from the overpowering influence of the masses under a democratic “Social State,” on the regulation of normal time. Social Democracy, as a democracy, would almost necessarily be forced to concede the most extreme demands for equality, i. e. the claim that the labour hour of every workman should be treated as equal to that of every other workman, without regard to degrees of severity, without regard to differences of kind, and without regard to degrees of individual capacity and the fluctuations of value in use. In any case the Social State would probably not dare to emphasize in the face of the masses the extraordinary differences of normal labour in astronomically equal labour time, i. e. it might not venture to assign different rewards to equal labour times on account of differences in the labour. And yet if it failed to recognise those differences Social Democracy would be doomed from the outset.

It can thus be easily understood why Social Democracy has hitherto evaded her own peculiar task of precisely determining a practicable, socialistic, normal working-day.

There were two ways in which it was possible to do this: either by merely agitating for an exaggeration of the maximum working-day of capitalist Labour Protection, or by adhering to the communistic view which altogether denies the necessity for any reduction to normal time. And we find in fact among Social Democrats, if we look closely, traces of both these views.

According to the strict requirements of the Socialists, not only a maximum working-day, but also and especially a minimum working-day ought properly speaking to be demanded in order to meet the dire and recognised needs of the large masses of the people. Instead of this, Social Democracy holds out the flattering prospect of a coming time in which the working-day for all will be reduced to two or three hours, so that after the need for sleep is satisfied, at least twelve hours daily may be devoted to social intercourse, art and culture, and to the hearing or delivering of lectures and speeches. No attention whatever is paid to the trifling consideration, that either there might be a continual increase in the population and a growing difficulty in obtaining raw material for the purposes of production; or on the other hand that the population might remain stationary or decrease, and therewith progress in technique and industrial skill might come to an end.

While more and more the hopes of the people are being excited by promises of great results from the progressive shortening of the maximum working-day – through the increased productivity of labour – still we hear nothing with reference to the normal working time, or the regulation by it of values of products and labour. The party has not yet, to my knowledge, committed itself at all on this point; it is probable therefore that it has not arrived at possessing a clearly worked out conception of this, the very foundation question of the socialistic, non-communistic “Social State”; still less has it any programme approved by the majority of the party.

To represent equal measures of working time of different individuals in different trades by unequal lengths of normal time, or, in other words, to assign unequal rewards to astronomically equal measures of working time, is an idea that goes assuredly against the grain with the masses of the democracy. It is found better to be silent on this point. Hitze, who has taken part in all transactions of protective legislation in the German Reichstag, states from his own experience that the parliamentary wing of the Social Democrats has always had in view the maximum working-day, and never the normal working-day. He says: “None of those who have moved labour resolutions in the German Reichstag (not even such of them as were Social Democrats) have ever contemplated the introduction of the normal working-day, either as intended by the socialistic government of the future, or as conceived by Rodbertus – but they have always had in their minds the maximum working-day only – the fixing of an upward limit to the working time permissible daily, even though they may frequently have made use of the rather ambiguous expression ‘a normal working-day.’”

It will, however, be impossible for the movement to continue to evade this main point. In spite of all danger of division, in one way or another the party must come to a decision, must formulate on its programme some socialistic normal working-day as a common denominator for the valuation of commodities, and the apportionment of remuneration to all. The result of this would be to destroy all the present illusions concerning the possibility of providing employment for the industrial “reserve army,” and securing a general rise of wage per hour by means of the adoption of an eight hours day.

There are then only three courses open to them; either to develope the normal working-day logically into a socialistic form, perhaps by making use of the proposals of Rodbertus; or secondly, to treat the maximum working-day as the normal working-day, i. e. to regard the hours of astronomical working time of all workers as equal in value (without attempting any reduction to a socially normal time), and to make this the basis of all valuation of goods and apportionment of remuneration; or, thirdly, the communistic plan of dispensing with all normal working-time on the principle that each shall work as little as he chooses, and enjoy as much as he likes.

The first of these possible courses – the adoption of the views of Rodbertus – is rendered unlikely by the democratic aversion to reckoning equal astronomical times of work as unequal amounts of normal work, to say nothing of the practical difficulties and deficiencies which I have already pointed out in Rodbertus’ formulary.

The second course is the one that would more probably be followed by the Social Democrats; viz. the completion of their programme by identifying the standard of normal working-time with the astronomical individual working-time, i. e. by assigning a uniform value to all hours of astronomical time. But in this event Social Democracy would alienate the very pick of its present following; for this identification would involve that the more industrious would have to work for the less industrious, and the latter would gain the advantage. It can hardly in any case come to a practical attempt to enforce this view; but even theoretically the strongest optimism will not be able, I believe, to explain away the probability, approaching to a certainty, that such an attempt, implying the grossest injustice to the more diligent and skilful workers, would literally kill the labour of the most capable, and would therefore lead to an incalculable fall in the product of national work, and consequently also in wages. But it would be extremely difficult to convince the masses, among whom the Socialist agitation is mostly carried on, of the truth of this contention. They would undoubtedly demand in the name of equality that the astronomical hour should be treated as the normal working-hour, and this has already shown itself in the demand for a general minimum wage per hour.

It would be no great step from this to the third and most extreme alternative. This would be that there is, forsooth, no need for any normalisation, or for any normal working-day! It should no longer be: “to each according to his work, through the intervention of the State!” but rather, “to each one as much work as he can do, and as much enjoyment as he pleases!” Even that craze for equality, which would make a normal time-measure of the astronomical hour of the maximum working-day, would be superseded, and the identification of the maximum and normal working-days would be set aside by such a view as this. Practically, we need not fear that matters will go to this extreme. But it is interesting to note (and since the expiration of the German Socialist Laws in 1890), it is no longer treading on forbidden ground to point out that this cheap and easy agitation in the direction of pure communism which went on for years even under the Socialist Laws and before the very eyes of the police, has to-day already taken a very wide hold by means of fugitive literature and pamphlets.

It is not my intention to assert that the present leaders of Social Democracy are scheming to treat the astronomical working-hour as the unit of normal time in the event of the introduction of a socialist government. They are not guilty of such madness. As I have shown, the present leaders of the Social Democrats are aiming at the eight hours day only as a protective measure and a means of affecting wages, and they aim at realising it purely on the present capitalist basis. They do not give the slightest indication of desiring that the eight hours day should give to all workers the same wage for every hour of normal or astronomical working-time. Social Democracy still confines its activity entirely within the limits of the capitalist order of society, however much isolated individuals might wish to step forward at once, and without disguise. But would the present leaders be able to hold their own if the masses expressed a desire to have each astronomical labour-hour in their maximum working-day (at present of eight hours, but no doubt before long of six hours) recognised as the normal time-hour?

I trust that in the foregoing pages I have at least succeeded in making this one point clear; that the Policy of Labour Protection has nothing to do with any normal working-day. And for this reason: that it rejects the “universal” maximum working-day; and rejects it not merely as a measure of protective policy, but also as a measure affecting wages.

BOOK II

CHAPTER V.

PROTECTION OF INTERVALS OF WORK: DAILY INTERVALS, NIGHT REST, AND HOLIDAYS

1. Daily intervals of work

The uninterrupted performance of the whole work of the day is not possible without intervals for rest, recreation, and meals. Even in the crush and hurry of modern industry, certain daily intervals have been secured by force of habit and common humanity.

Yet the necessity for ensuring such intervals by protective legislation is not to be disputed, at least in the case of young workers and women workers in factory and quasi-factory business. From an economic point of view there is nothing to be urged against it.

In addition to the protection of women and young workers with regard to duration of daily work, England has also enjoined intervals of rest for all protected persons. In textile industries the work must not continue longer than 4½ hours at a time without an interval of at least half an hour for meals; within the working day a total of not less than 2 hours for meals must be allowed. In other than textile industries, women and young persons have a total of 1½ hours, of which one hour at least must be before 3 o’clock in the afternoon; the longest duration of uninterrupted work amounts to 5 hours. In workshops where children or young persons are also employed, the free time for women amounts to 1½ hours; in non-domestic workshops where women alone are employed (between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m.), 4½ hours is the total. The same time is allowed to young persons. In domestic workshops no free time is legally enforced for women; for young persons it amounts to the same time as that for women alone in non-domestic workshops.