The present is better than any time earlier in the history of
technology for the development of a concept of industry as a socially
creative enterprise. As craftsmanship extended and intensified an
interest in personal ownership, it magnified the value of possessions;
as it deepened the desire for protection of private property and
the strengthening of property laws against human laws, it was not
a _socializing_ force. While the craftsmanship period strengthened
personal claims on workmanship and interest in it, mechanical power
and division of labor have impersonated industry.[A] In the labyrinth
of mechanical processes and economic calculation it is not to-day
possible for a worker to think or speak of a product as his. He has no
basis for ownership claims in any article; even the price is arranged
between buyer and seller and he is not the seller. An article owes its
existence to an infinite number of persons and its place in the market
to as many more.
[Footnote A: Thorstein Veblen--Instinct of Workmanship, Chapter V.]
A worker's claim to the product of his labor is merged in an infinity
of claims which makes the product more nearly the property of society
than of any one individual. And this merging of claims which has
resulted in the submerging of all wage workers, has set up the new
educational task of discovering the possibilities for creative
experience in associated enterprise.
While an article manufactured under business conditions is the product
of enforced association, we have in this condition the mechanics of
a real association.
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