In the period of reconstruction the industrial issues of significance to democracy will be whether or not management of industry as it has been assumed by the state for the purpose of war shall revert after the war to the condition of incompetency which the war emergency disclosed or whether state management shall be extended and developed as it was in Germany after the Franco-Prussian War.  Fortunately, these evidences of a new interest of labor in industry as a social institution, give us some reason to hope that we shall not be confined to a choice between business incompetency and state socialism.  The evidence of the desire on the part of the labor force to participate in the development of production is the factor we should keep in mind in any plans for democratic industrial reconstruction.  It is inevitable that an effort to open up and cultivate this desire of labor will be regarded by the present governing forces with apprehension.  The movement of labor in this direction is now looked upon with suspicion even by people who are not in a position of control.  The general run of people in fact outside of those who recognize labor as a fundamental force in industrial reconstruction, conceive of the labor people as an irresponsible mass of men and view their movements as expressions of an irresponsible desire to seize responsibility.  They are the men who are not experienced in business affairs and therefore cannot, it is believed, be trusted.  The arguments against trusting them are the same old arguments advanced for many centuries against inroads on the established order of over-lordship.  But over-lordship has flourished at all times, and in the present scheme of industry it flourishes as it always has, in proportion to the reluctance of the people to participate as responsible factors in matters of common concern.  Corruption and exploitation of governments and of industry are dependent upon the broadest possible participation of a whole people in the experience and responsibilities of their common life.  It is for this reason that we need to foster and develop the opportunity as well as the desire for responsibility among the common people.

After the war, it is to be hoped that America will undertake to realize through its schemes for reconstruction its present ideals of self-government.  As it does this, we shall discover that the issues which are of significance to democracy are of significance to education; for democracy and education are processes concerned with, the people’s ability to solve their problems through their experience in solving them.  If America is ever to realize its concept of political democracy, it can accept neither the autocratic method of business management nor the bureaucratic schemes of state socialism.  It cannot realize political democracy until it realizes in a large measure the democratic administration of industry.

CHAPTER III