The engineers and the price system by Veblen Thorstein 1857-1929

Author:Veblen, Thorstein, 1857-1929 [Veblen, Thorstein, 1857-1929]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Industries, Industrial efficiency, Capitalism
Publisher: New York, B. W. Huebsch, inc.
Published: 1921-03-03T05:00:00+00:00

But for all that, those shudderingly sanguine persons who are looking for a dissolution of the system of absentee ownership within two years' time are not counting on salesmanlike waste and businesslike sabotage to bring on the collapse, so much as they count on the item listed under (d) above — the systematic dislocation and all-round defeat of productive industry which is due in part to shrewd manoeuvres of businesslike strategy, in part to the habitual ignorance of business men touching the systematic requirements of the industrial system as a whole. The shrewd worldly wisdom of the businesslike managers, looking consistently to the main chance, works in harmoniously with their trained ignorance on matters of technology, to bring about what amounts to ef-

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fectual team-work for the defeat of the country's industrial system as a going concern. Yet doubtless this sinister hope of a collapse within two years is too sanguine. Doubtless the underlying population can be counted on stolidly to put up with what they are so well used to, just yet; more particularly so long as they are not in the habit of thinking about these things at all. Nor does it seem reasonable to believe that this all-pervading waste and confusion of industrial forces will of itself bring the business organization to a collapse within so short a time.

It is true, the industrial system is continually growing, in volume and complication; and with every new extension of its scope and range, and with every added increment of technological practice that goes into effect, there comes a new and urgent opportunity for the business men in control to extend and speed up their strategy of mutual obstruction and defeat; it is all in the day's work. As the industrial system grows larger and more closely interwoven it offers continually larger and more enticing opportunities for such businesslike manoeuvres as will effectually derange the system at the same time that they bring the desired tactical defeat on some business rival; whereby the successful business strategist is en-

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abled to get a little something for nothing at a ' constantly increasing cost to the community at large. With every increment of growth and maturity the country^s industrial system becomes more delicately balanced, more intricately bound in a web of industrial give and take, more sensitive to far-reaching derangement by any local dislocation, more widely and instantly responsive to any failure of the due correlation at any point; and by the same move the captains of industry, to whose care the interests of absentee ownership are entrusted, are enabled, or rather they are driven by the necessities of competitive business, to plan their strategy of mutual defeat and derangement on larger and more intricate lines, with an ever wider reach and a more massive mobilization of forces. From which follows an ever increasing insecurity of work and output from day to day and an increased assurance of general loss and disability in the long run; incidentally coupled with increased

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