Word: labor
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...higher), jawing to each other about everything natural to young barbarians. And in proportion I should say there were just about the same number among ourselves who really care for education. Only there is this difference: they have to struggle along after a day of hard physical labor, picking up what crumbs of knowledge they can find, while we have it handed to us on a silver platter, with a widow to feed us if necessary...
When I was in college seventy years ago, I was taught that labor is a commodity to be sold in the highest market and bought in the cheapest market; that the law of supply and demand would regulate the price of labor. In fact the laborers have united to boost prices of labor and the capitalists have united to keep the prices of labor down and the result is a disastrous labor...
...Labor is not a commodity; it is a service. The distinction is clear and is recognized by every housekeeper. If she buys a beefsteak the character of the butcher is a matter of economic indifference to her; all she wants to know is the character of the beefsteak; but if she hires a cook it is to her if the utmost importance to know the character of the cook--whether she is honest or a thief, industrious or idle, sober or intemperate. The employer and the employed are engaged in a co-operative industry and if that industry...
...right to strike is the only legitimate weapon which the unions have: without it under the personal economic system, they are not only helpless they cannot exits. And no matter how much public opinion is in favor of taking away this weapon, doing so can never settle the labor problem. If must be replaced by some other means of making labor and capital equal in strength. Otherwise the unions will be forced to adopt some more terrible measure of defense than the strike...
...settles the permanent problem. Our economic structure is becoming more and more complex; more and more industries are becoming public service industries in which the right to strike does not exist. An equivalent for this former right must be found, and found speedily. Unless we can settle the labor problem in a rational way, the problem is more than likely to be answered for us on an entirely irrational basis...