Twain on wages and unions
Hey Folks,
I’ve been re-reading Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court and sharing pieces of Twain’s political commentary with you here (this is the 16th entry) .
His insights remain pertinent to this day. We haven’t changed much from Twain’s day – or from King Arthur’s, for that matter.
- Uke Man
Chapter 33 – The Yankee discusses wages and their future with Dowley, the blacksmith.
“Brother Dowley, who is it that determines, every spring, what the particular wage of each kind of mechanic, laborer, and servant shall be for that year?”
“Sometimes the courts, sometimes the town council, but most of all, the magistrate, Ye may say, in general terms, it is the magistrate that fixes wages.”
“Doesn’t ask any of those poor devils to help him fix their wages for them, does he?”
“Hm! That were an idea! The master that’s to pay him the money is the one that’s rightly concerned in that matter, ye will notice.”
“Yes – but I thought the other man might have some little trifle at stake in it too; and even his wife and children, poor creatures. The masters are these: nobles, rich men, the prosperous generally. These few, who do no work, determine what pay the vast hive shall have, who do work. You see? They’re a ‘combine’ – a trade union, to coin a new phrase – who band together to force their lowly brother to take what they choose to give. Thirteen hundred years hence – so says the unwritten law – the ‘combine’ will be the other way, and then how these fine people’s posterity will fume and fret and grit their teeth over the insolent tyranny of trade unions! Yes, indeed! The magistrate will tranquilly arrange the wages from now clear way down into the nineteenth century; and then all of a sudden the wage-earner will consider that a couple of thousand years or so is enough of this one-sided sort of thing, and he will rise up and take a hand in fixing his wages himself. Ah. He will have a long and bitter account of wrong and humiliation to settle.”
I’ve been re-reading Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court and sharing pieces of Twain’s political commentary with you here (this is the 16th entry) .
His insights remain pertinent to this day. We haven’t changed much from Twain’s day – or from King Arthur’s, for that matter.
- Uke Man
Chapter 33 – The Yankee discusses wages and their future with Dowley, the blacksmith.
“Brother Dowley, who is it that determines, every spring, what the particular wage of each kind of mechanic, laborer, and servant shall be for that year?”
“Sometimes the courts, sometimes the town council, but most of all, the magistrate, Ye may say, in general terms, it is the magistrate that fixes wages.”
“Doesn’t ask any of those poor devils to help him fix their wages for them, does he?”
“Hm! That were an idea! The master that’s to pay him the money is the one that’s rightly concerned in that matter, ye will notice.”
“Yes – but I thought the other man might have some little trifle at stake in it too; and even his wife and children, poor creatures. The masters are these: nobles, rich men, the prosperous generally. These few, who do no work, determine what pay the vast hive shall have, who do work. You see? They’re a ‘combine’ – a trade union, to coin a new phrase – who band together to force their lowly brother to take what they choose to give. Thirteen hundred years hence – so says the unwritten law – the ‘combine’ will be the other way, and then how these fine people’s posterity will fume and fret and grit their teeth over the insolent tyranny of trade unions! Yes, indeed! The magistrate will tranquilly arrange the wages from now clear way down into the nineteenth century; and then all of a sudden the wage-earner will consider that a couple of thousand years or so is enough of this one-sided sort of thing, and he will rise up and take a hand in fixing his wages himself. Ah. He will have a long and bitter account of wrong and humiliation to settle.”
1 Comments:
well said brother.
will
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home