Democracy in America: In Two Volumes

Chapter 7.a Influence of Democracy on Salaries

1025 s4s4s4s4s4 c h a p t e r 7a Influence of Democracy on Salaries Most of the remarks that I made previously, when talking about servants and masters, can be applied to masters and workers.b a. Democracy has a general and permanent tendency to bring the worker and master closer and to equalize their profits more and more. [In the margin: Chapter that it is not certain that I will include.] This is the general rule, but in industry, such as it is constituted today in some of its parts, the opposite is seen. That is an exceptional fact, but very formidable and that much more formidable as it is exceptional (YTC, CVf, p. 41). On the jacket of the manuscript: The question of knowing whether I should let this chapter remain is still doubtful and needs to be asked of B[eaumont (ed.)]. and L[ouis (ed.)]./ The subject can seem known and yet redundant because of chapter 34 quarto where the matter is already treated./ This chapter has the disadvantage of posing the greatest questionof ourtimewithout even trying to resolve it. You are disappointed after reading it. Chapter 34 quarto corresponds to chapter 20 of the second part of volume II, on the industrial aristocracy. b. What I say about the servant always more or less applies to the worker. But democracy tends, more and more, to isolate the latter from the master, and while separating him from the master, to raise him to the same level. Tendency of democracy to raise salaries, to make the worker share in the profits. How in the current state of commercial science and habits there is an opposite tendency that accumulates capital in the hands of a few great manufacturers and reduces the workers to the greatest dependency and to the most extreme poverty. That this tendency is already noticeable in the United States, although in a much less pronounced way than in France, and above all in England. To find out why?That it is there .-.-.-.-.-.-.- democracy that fills the world. It is the only door open in the future to the re-formation of an aristocratic society. 1026 salaries As [] the rules of social hierarchy are less observed, while the great descend, the small rise and poverty as well as wealth ceases to be hereditary, you see the distance that separates the worker from the master decrease every day in fact and in opinion. The workerconceivesahigherideaof hisrights,of hisfuture,of himself; a new ambition, new desires fill him, new needs assail him. At every moment , he casts eyes full of covetousness on the profits of those who employ him; in order to come to share them, he tries hard to set his work at the highest price, and he usually ends by succeeding in doing so. [Thus equality of conditions tends to lead to the gradual elevation of salaries, and in turn, the elevation of salaries constantly increases equality of conditions. So the slow and progressive augmentation of salaries seems to me one of the general laws that govern democratic societies. But, in our times, a great and unfortunate exception presents itself. I showed in the first part of this work how a few of the principles of aristocracy, after being chased away from political society found refuge in the industrial world. This profoundly modifies, but only in some points, the general truth that I announced above.]c In democratic countries, as elsewhere, most industries are conducted at little cost by men not placed by wealth and enlightenment above the common level of those they employ. These entrepreneurs of industry are very numerous; their interests differ; [their number varies and is constantly reDemocracy pushes toward commerce and commerce remakes an aristocracy. This danger cannot be averted except by the discovery of means (associations or others) by the aid of which you could do commerce without accumulating as much capital in the same hands. Immense question. I believe that I would do well to touch upon these questions, to cast the most penetrating glance that I could at them, but without stopping there. They demand a book themselves (Rubish, 2). c. In the margin: “” salaries 1027 newed] so they cannot easily agree among themselves and combine their efforts. On the other side, almost all the workers have some assured resources that allow them to refuse their services when someone does not want to give them what...