“The capitalist is very fond of declaring that labour is a commodity, and the wage contract a bargain of purchase and sale like any other. But he instinctively expects his wage-earners to render him, not only obedience, but also personal deference. If the wage contract is a bargain of purchase and sale like any other, why is the workman expected to toff his hat to his employer, and to say ‘sir’ to him without reciprocity?”

Industrial Democracy, written with Beatrice Webb (1902) 842

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Oct. 14, 2024. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The capitalist is very fond of declaring that labour is a commodity, and the wage contract a bargain of purchase and sa…" by Sidney Webb, 1st Baron Passfield?
Sidney Webb, 1st Baron Passfield photo
Sidney Webb, 1st Baron Passfield 3
British Baron and politician 1859–1947

Related quotes

Calvin Coolidge photo
Joseph Arch photo
Karl Marx photo
George Fitzhugh photo
Harrington Emerson photo

“The individual effort method of increasing the reward of the wage-earner includes all that is best in other methods, and attempts to exclude all that is objectionable. Its good points are summed up as follows:
# The standard time set is reasonable and one that can be reached without extraordinary effort, is in fact such time as a good foreman would demand.
# An extra reward of one-fifth of the regular wages for the operation is given to whoever makes standard time.
# Extra compensation above the hourly rate is paid even if standard time is not reached, although this extra compensation diminishes in percentage above standard time-and-a-half.
# If longer than time-and-a-half is taken, the regulai day rate is paid. Of this, the wage-earner is also sure.
# Standard time is carefully determined by observation and experiment, and is only changed when conditions change.
# The arrangement is one of mutual benefit to both parties — of increased earning to the worker, of increased saving to the employer.
# The employer loses more than the wage-earner if schedules do not encourage co-operation.
# The wage-earner, working on a schedule, becomes in a large degree his own foreman.
# The wage-earner determines his own earning power, and by co-operating to cut out wastes increases his own value.”

Harrington Emerson (1853–1931) American efficiency engineer and business theorist

Harrison Emerson, " Shop betterment and the individual effort method of profit-sharing http://archive.org/stream/americanengineer80newy#page/64/mode/1up" in: International Railway Journal Vol. 13. p. 61. 1905; Partly cited in Drury (1918, p. 141)

Dorothy L. Sayers photo

“Every time a man expects, as he says, his money to work for him, he is expecting other people to work for him.”

Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957) English crime writer, playwright, essayist and Christian writer

Essays, The Other Six Deadly Sins (1941)

Lysander Spooner photo
Eugene V. Debs photo
Mihira Bhoja I photo

Related topics