The calculable effect of the appeal to capital to assume the
responsibility is in the long run of passing importance, as under the
present business arrangement that is the position capital occupies. In
other words, the appeal will mark no change in capitalist psychology
as it promises to do in the case of labor.
The calculable effect on labor psychology may have revolutionary
significance. It is quite another sort of appeal in its effect from
the stereotyped and familiar one of employers to labor to _feel_ their
responsibility. That appeal never reached the consciousness of working
men for the reason that it is impossible to feel responsible or to be
responsible where there is no chance of bearing the responsibility.
Experiencing responsibility in industry means nothing more nor less
than sharing in the decisions, the determination of procedure, as well
as suffering from the failure of those decisions and participating in
their successful eventuation. As the governments in the present case
have made their appeals to labor they have carried the suggestion of
partnership in responsibility because the government is presumably the
people's voice and its needs also presumably are the common needs and
not the special interests of individuals. It is hardly necessary to
point out that it was not the intention of government officials who
made the appeal to excite a literal interpretation; they did not
expect to be taken so seriously and up to date they have not been
taken more seriously than they intended by American labor.
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