The Next Step: A Plan for Economic World Federation Part 10

During the early years of capitalism there was a strong tendency to concentrate all of the power of a given business at one point, and in the hands of one man. With the growth of large enterprises, however, such centralization became unworkable. Instead of a single generalissimo, business organized the general staff. The corporation with its board of directors (executive committee) helped to make the transition, and when the United States Steel Corporation was formed, at the peak of the period of American trust organization, its const.i.tuent companies were given large scope for individual initiative and activity.

The tendency toward departmental autonomy in large businesses is also very marked. Bitter experience with "one man" concerns and top-heavy organizations convinced business men that the road to success lay along the path of federated autonomous units rather than of highly centralized bureaucracies.

The labor movement has had the same experience in many of the more advanced countries of the world. There has been almost a century of local, independent groups, each one acting on its own initiative. The failure of such a divide-and-perish course was predicted from the beginning. Then there have been highly centralized organizations of considerable extent and power, like the American Knights of Labor, which flourished for a time and then dried up and blew away. But out of the hundred years experience, the labor movement, as at present organized in Germany, Britain, Belgium, the United States, etc., is an exponent of the social principle that local autonomy must be preserved in all local matters, while questions of general concern must be referred to some general body which represents the general interest.

One of the most insuperable difficulties before the world at the present time is the lack of any central authority to which may be referred those matters of general and vital concern that affect the peoples of more than one nation. The peoples feel this lack. They are aware of the fact that industry, science, commerce, art, literature have all leaped the national boundary fence. This is particularly true of Western Europe, whose economic life is closely interwoven, and dependent on certain centers of coal and iron production, and whose political boundaries were determined before the present economic system was dreamed of. The importing of food and of raw materials, the development of markets and of investment opportunities, the organization of means for the transport and the exchange of commodities are matters of common concern to all of the important countries of Western Europe. Before the outbreak of the world war, Europe was an economic net-work of transport, finance and trade, and as a matter of course, communication and travel were common between all of the industrial countries. But while there were so many matters of common concern to Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Austria, Belgium, there was no central authority to which these questions could be referred for decision when the threads of mutual interest became tangled. Instead, secret and compet.i.tive statecraft made the tangle worse. The ma.s.s of conflicting jurisdictions and of petty jealousies that have grown up among the two score of independent and sovereign states of Europe made a conflict almost inevitable.

Under a federated system of the European states, civil war would be possible, but the chances of a conflict would be greatly lessened by the presence of a central authority before whom questions of divergent interests could be publicly threshed out. For when issues arise between organizations of equal and parallel jurisdiction, a conflict can frequently be avoided if there is some commonly recognized and superior authority before whom the points in dispute may be laid, and whose decision will prove binding on both parties.

What is so obviously true of Europe is also true of the remainder of the Western world, though to a lesser degree. The economic, social and cultural life of civilization has pa.s.sed beyond national boundaries.

Until this fact is recognized, and until some organization is created with a jurisdiction as wide as the problems at issue, misunderstanding, conflict and catastrophe will continue to occur.

5. _Building a Producers' Federation_

The first step in economic reorganization is the recognition or establishment of local district, divisional and world groups of producers affiliated along the lines of their economic activities. This is a simple acceptance, in social terms, of the economic forms that have been evolving since the industrial revolution.

The second step in economic reorganization is the recognition or establishment of local, district, divisional and world federations of the local, district, divisional and world industrial groups. This second step must be taken in order that there may be some authority competent to deal with those problems which are common to two or more of the groups in question.

There are two general types of problems that the federations of industrial groups will be called upon to handle:

1. Those problems involving inter-relations between the various producing groups, such as the factory workers, transport workers, agricultural workers and the like, that must exchange their products and receive from one another the materials upon which existence depends.

2. Those problems which are common to all producing groups simply because they are common to men and women who are trying to live and to function together. The water-supply, roads, education, are questions of this type.

Problems of the second sort, and the issues raised by them, cannot be entered upon at this point. The same federal authority that is charged with the control over inter-industrial problems will likewise charge itself, in each instance, with these common questions not immediately related to industry.

This is not an attempt to under-estimate the importance of non-industrial problems, but to confine attention, for the moment, to matters directly related to production, with the conviction that when a mechanism is developed capable of handling the industrial problems there will be less difficulty in taking care of those not so closely related to industry.

6. _Four Groups of Federations_

The issues arising between industrial groups, and those problems common to all groups, will best be handled by federations having a jurisdictional scope parallel to that of the separate groups of which the federations are composed. If these component groups are local economic units, the federation will be local in character. If they are district economic units, the federation will have a district as its sphere, and so on. By this means, there will be created a series of federations or joint organizations, beginning with the federation of local economic units, and ending with a federation of world industries.

Throughout this enlarging series of federations the principle of local autonomy will be maintained in all of its rigor, and no matter will be referred to a federation that can be handled by a local group. At the same time, the principle of federal authority will be a.s.serted, and those matters that concern the welfare of more than one group of parallel jurisdiction, will be referred automatically to the federal authority under whose control the group in question falls.

The most elemental of the federations would be the local producers'

federation, which would correspond, quite accurately, to the town or the city of the present day, save that its size and character would of necessity be much better regulated than the character and size of the present-day town or city. The modern city has been built as a profiteer's paradise. From the construction of houses to the erection of office buildings, the one foremost question: "What per cent will it yield?" has been the guiding principle behind city construction. The local industrial federation will have, as its chief task, the provision of a living and working place for people, hence the character of the industrial community will be determined with a view to the well-being of the inhabitants rather than to the profit of landlords.

The local federation would be under the control of a local council, the members of which would be elected by the producing units or groups composing the local federation, very much as the modern city is managed by a council elected by wards or aldermanic districts. Except for the choice of representatives on the council by occupational groups, rather than by geographic divisions, the local federation would closely resemble the munic.i.p.al government of the present day. In addition to its present functions, however, it would a.s.sume the task of dealing with issues arising between two or more of the local producing groups. That is, it would have economic as well as political functions, although it would not necessarily carry on any more productive enterprises (gas, water, house-construction, abbatoirs) than do munic.i.p.alities at the present time.

The local producers' federation would be responsible for two chief lines of activity. On the one hand, it would seek to maintain working relations between the various local economic groups by adjudicating those local questions that affected two or more of the groups. On the other hand, it would take charge of, and administer, those matters of common concern, such as the water supply, the local educational inst.i.tutions, and so on. This second group of functions would be similar to those now performed by the city council, the board of health, the board of education.

There would be a local producers' federation wherever a number of local industrial units agreed to function together. Counties, cities, boroughs, and school districts are, at the present time, organized very much in that way.

The local producers' federation would therefore differ little from the existing local groups, such as towns and cities, save that its const.i.tuent elements would be occupational groups rather than geographic divisions, and that it would be functioning in the economic as well as in the political field.

The second series of federations might be called the producers' district federations. They would include all district industrial groups within a given economic field. Such a district federation would correspond, roughly, to the present state as it exists in Mexico or Australia, or to the provinces in Canada.

The district federation would function in three ways. First, there would be the issues arising between the industrial organizations that composed the district federation; second, there would be the issues arising between local federations within the district, and third, there would be those common matters, like health, education, highways and so on.

The third series of federations would be the divisional producers federations, which would correspond, roughly, to such aggregations of states as the Commonwealth of Australia or the United States of America.

The boundaries of such a federation would follow the boundaries of the princ.i.p.al land areas and the chief population centers. North America, South America, South Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, Northern Europe, Northern Asia, Eastern Asia, Southern Asia and Australia would furnish a working basis for separating the world into such geographical divisions.

Each of these divisional federations would function along the same general lines as the local and district groups.

The fourth, in the series of federations, would be the world producers'

federation, which would be an organization composed of all of the major industrial groups. These groups, each of which would be organized on a world-wide basis, would unite in the world producers' federation in order to further those interests that were of consequence to two or more of them, as well as those common interests that were of concern to all alike. The world producers' federation would be built on the same principle as the local producers' federation, but unlike this latter federation, the world federation has no prototype existing at the present time.

The world producers' federation would be a world authority, linking up those interests of world consequence that are now waving about like cobwebs in the wind.

Throughout its entire course this outline has been designed in such a way as to separate sharply the producing units and the administrative groups (federations). The local, district, divisional and world industrial units are the back-bone of the public machinery in a producers' society. For the purposes of facilitating the work of administration, these producers' groups are brought together, at various points, in local, district, divisional and in a world producers'

federation, all of which federations derive their power directly from the industrial producers' groups. The world producers' federation therefore has no direct relations with the local producers' federation, any more than the government of a county, in a modern state, has with the central federal authority. The authority of the world producers'

federation, like that of the local, district and divisional producers'

federations, is derived from its const.i.tuent industrial member groups, and is confined to the questions that are of immediate concern to a number of them, or that are the common concern of all.

This arrangement will make difficult the production of a state of present type which has drifted far away from some of the most pressing necessities of the common life, and into the hands of politicians,--a situation that permits tyranny on the one hand, and that makes any adequate check on the activities of these political rings difficult or impossible. This danger would be considerably reduced by delegating administrative power to the federations, holding each within its prescribed range, and keeping the real power in the hands of the local, district, divisional and world industrial groups.

The decision of the world producers' federation would therefore be binding on the industrial groups, and not upon the local, district and divisional producers' federations, except in so far as the industrial groups compelled these federations to follow the policy of the world producers' federation.

It is probable that an exception would have to be made in the case of issues arising between two divisional producers' federations. The burden of settling such an issue should rest, however, on the industrial groups rather than on the world producers' federation.

This withholding of authority from the federations in general, and from the world producers' federation in particular may be open to criticism, but it has several strong points in its favor. Through its control of resources, transport and the like, the world producers' federation will wield an immense power. Its const.i.tuent members, having aided in its decisions of policy, may follow a similar course of action in the divisional and the district producers' federations. Again, the alternative to the organization of a series of disconnected federations is a centralized bureaucracy of such magnitude, and holding such vast power, that it would be both unwieldy and dangerous, beside violating that very essential rule of local authority in local affairs.

The separation of the federations would compel each of them to specialize on particular problems of administrative routine. Questions that were to be carried to wider authorities would be carried by and through the various const.i.tuent industrial groups.

The structural organization of the world producers' federation would be similar to that of the United States of America or that of the Russian Federated Soviet Republic. The const.i.tuent groups would be economic and occupational rather than political or geographic, but the principle of federated autonomous groups would be the same. Each of the major industrial groups that belonged to the world producers' federation would have sovereign power over those matters which affected that group alone.

The federation, on the other hand, would have jurisdiction over matters affecting two or more of the world industrial groups, as well as over those matters which were of common concern to all of the member groups.

7. _The Form of Organization_

The general lines of organization for the world producers' federation would be somewhat as follows:

1. The workers in each of the major industrial groups would vote in June of each year for the members of a world parliament which would be the central authority in the world producers' federation.

2. The world parliament would consist of from 800 to 1000 delegates, elected in each of the major industrial groups by the producers in that group.

a. Each industrial group would be ent.i.tled to at least 50 members in the world parliament, and to one additional member for each 50,000 workers over two and one half millions. But no group would be ent.i.tled to more than 150 members in the world parliament.

b. The members of the world parliament would be elected by popular vote in each of the major industrial groups, the franchise being extended to all producers, including those who had been producers and were rendered incapable of activity through age or infirmity.

c. Each industrial division would be ent.i.tled to at least five members of the parliamentary delegation from that particular industrial group, but the details of representation from each of the major industrial groups would be left in the hands of the group.

3. The world parliament would be elected in June and would meet in July of each year. Since the world congresses of each of the major industrial groups would meet in the preceding January, they would have six months to thresh out their individual problems, before they were called upon to consider the general problems confronting all of the groups.

4. The world parliament would select, from its own membership, an executive committee equal in size to ten per cent of the total membership of the parliament.

a. On this executive committee each of the world industrial groups would be ent.i.tled to at least five members.

b. The executive committee would be the steering committee of the world parliament, and when the world parliament was not in session, the executive committee would be the responsible body.