Who Owns the Job; C. V. Grove

WhoOwnstheJobt• CECIL V. GROVE THAT QUESTION has generated all manner of controversy and fric tions over the years. Labor bosses, presuming to speak for all union members, maintain that jobs are owned by the workers. Although the claim is seldom made in such plain terms, when unions go out on strike, making use of threat and violence to prevent anyone else from doing the jobs they have just refused to perform, it is evi dent that both union leaders and members consider jobs to be the property of the unions. Management, on the other hand, tends to argue just the reverse. Pointing out that it is the com pany or corporation which does the employing and furnishes the nec essary capital involved, manageReprinted by permission from the editorial page of the July 21, 1974 edition of The Gazette Telegraph, Colorado Springs Colo rado, published by Freedom Newspape~st Inc. Mr. Grove is edi tonal wri ter in charge of the editorial page.

652 ment contends that the job be longs to the company or corp oration. Government, of course, goes them all one better. Regulating both employes and employers and taking its "cut" off the top in taxes, government acts on the assumption that it owns, not only the job, but the human beings involved, as well. What is the truth of the mat ter? Who, indeed, does own the job? Well, as usual, when you ask the wrong question, you are likely to get the wrong answer. In truth, no one owns a job. A job is something to be done, not something to be owned. A job is not property. And only property can be owned. And that, we believe, puts the entire question into its proper perspective. We can now ask, not who owns the job, but who owns the property 1974 WHO OWNS THE JOB? 653 involved and who should control it? The employe, as the owner of his own body, life and energy, is the only proper authority to decide how his property should be used.

Likewise with the employer. As the owner of the property his capital has bought and paid for (buildings, tools, equipment etc.), he is the only proper authority to decide how his property should be used. Getting the job done involves a coming together of the two and the use of the property involved on a basis mutually acceptable to the owners concerned. And how is this accomplished? The process occurs in the market place based on the principle of voluntary exchange - a place where, and a process in which, owners come together and peace fully decide to exchange what is theirs. Who, then, should do the job? The answer comes fast and clear: The owner who can, and will, do it to the satisfaction of the owner with whom he makes the volun tary exchange; both of whom, in a free market, would be free to seek other owners who might do it better. ~ IDEAS ON LIBERTY Production and Wages WITH A FREE market, in an advanced economy, most of the returns from production go to the workers - roughly 85 to 90 per cent.

Competition forces this. If workers are supplied wi~h good tools and equipment, they are more productive and their wag~ level is higher than it would be otherwise. This is a generalization regard ing all workers. The general wage level is higher in a country where there is a relatively high investment in tools and equip ment per worker. It is just that simple! In the United States, the investment per worker :in tools may be $20,000, and it is not unheard of to find a particular business with an investment of $100,000 in tools and equipment per worker. The road, then, to a higher wage level is through savings and investment in the tools of production. There is no other. W. M. CURTISS If you have built castles in the air, yo"!rr ,....need not be losdt; ththere is where they should be ~N:;.J.jf~¢'1.i. iR~f~;~':un er em.6'T,;,·:t ,.." .~ . Castles in theAir LEONARD E. READ SCRUTINIZE TRADITION and assess it, for it bears witness both true and false; to be blindly guided by it is to risk being led astray. So, beware of conventional thinking; break with tradition whenever reason shows its folly! As Ortega warned: The so-called Renaissance was, for the moment, the attempt to let go of the traditional culture which, formed during the Middle Ages, had begun to stiffen and to quench man's spon taneity . . . man must periodically shake himself free of his own cul ture.!