THE ECONOMIC TEACHING OF 'ABDU'L-BAHA
By MARY H. FORD
From Baha'i Year Book, 1925-1926, Baha'i Publishing Trust, Wilmette,
Ill., 1926, p. 170
The world vision of 'Abdu'l-Baha included in every way the betterment
of mankind. This betterment must be physical as well as spiritual for
the enlightened individual cannot continue to exist under conditions
that are only suitable for a primitive creature. 'Abdu'l-Baha says the
day of force has passed, the day of love has dawned. In the ages
behind us force and competition constituted the laws of being, but in
the period we are entering love and co-operation wil1 be the
dominating principles. The Messenger of God, always the Divine
Educator in each new age, reveals laws for the founding of a divine
civilization.
While in the United States 'Abdu'l-Baha told us how an ideal community
might be established. He also outlined definitely the changes that
would manifest in business methods reflecting the New Era. These he
explained would gradually eliminate competition, and substitute
co-operative means of conducting all sorts of industrial and
commercial enterprises. He said that employer and employee must be
brought together so that the management of affairs would not rest
solely in the hands of the owners of a factory or institution, but
would permit of consultation between worker and director, so that all
decisions would result from mutual understanding. Strikes arise he
declared because neither worker nor manager feels the point of view
and temper of the other. He insisted that workmen must always be
represented on the boards of the companies employing them, that they
must have access to the books and understand the financial status of
the concern for which they worked so that they could estimate the
justice of any change contemplated in the wage scale.
He declared that strikes could never accomplish the end desired by the
workers for until they understood the financial conditions of the
firms employing them they would keep on demanding more and more wages
in ruinous degree, while if they comprehended the financial situation
they would themselves propose reasonable measure. 'Abdu'l-Baha taught
moreover that violent action invariably produces reaction, thu5
defeating the end in view, and collectively or individually brutal
force destroys its own purpose.
He said the workers must become owners of stock in the centers that
employed them and have a share in the profits which accrued so that in
the end they would no longer be paid wages but would receive their
portion of the return on work and capital invested. He said also that
in such a plan the employee must be protected from loss, because as he
did not possess capital in cash but rather in his industry there would
come lean years in which the financier could wait comfortably for his
delayed dividends, on account of his accumulated wealth, but at such
periods the worker endowed only with hands and brain, must receive the
stipend nece5sary for his expenses.
When the worker has his seat upon the board of management and can vote
on the rate of wages, the di5position of surplus capital, dividends,
employment individual and collective, and all questions involving the
control of the enterprise, then the worker and manager will understand
one another and strikes will be completely eliminated. This has been
the result wherever such a method has been inaugurated and it is
surprising to observe its rapid increase in adoption. 'Abdu'l-Baha's
plan is practically that of the shop committee system applied many
years ago by Hart Schaffner and Marx, the great clothing firm. It was
initiated after a terrible strike during which the members of the
concern discovered to their amazement that they did not understand at
all the conditions of their employees, and being kindly people they
wished to guard against the return of a similar situation. Since then
they have had no strikes. Sidney Hilman has established the
Amalgamated Garment Workers Union on the same system. This involves an
elected board of workers and employers which in case of failure to
arrive at a majority decision in any question selects a financial
expert from the outside in whom both sides have perfect confidence,
who casts the majority vote to which all submit.
The commercial world has recently been much interested in the fact
that the Nash Garment Factory of Cincinnati whose owner has become
famous under the title of "Golden Rule Nash" as a result of his
endeavor to follow the Golden Rule in dealing with his employees, has
invited Sidney Hilman to organize a branch of the Amalgamated in the
Institution. Nash never permitted union membership among his
employees, declaring that his own methods and authority were
sufficient to ensure justice and fair dealing with his people. In the
last two years however his business has grown so immensely that he
could no longer keep in personal touch with his workers and through
the constant intervention of foremen and superintendents injustice
crept in. He realized that it was necessary to have help and looking
over the union field was immediately attracted by the shop committee
plan of the Amalgamated as one which ensured a continuous
understanding between employers and workers. It is planned to create
harmony and therefore must eliminate strikes.
Perhaps the most brilliant illustration of such harmony is the immense
Cochrane Carpet Factory of Yonkers, where this method was introduced
many years ago by Alexander Cochrane, with the most beneficent
results. The establishment is at present on what is practically a
co-operative basis with the best possible relationship between owners
and employees.
'Abdu'l-Baha spoke of a new consciousness that would arise in mankind
that would render it impossible for men in future to enjoy great
wealth selfishly. At present a man lives in a palace in London or New
York, and within a stone's throw of him are people who never in their
lives have fully satisfied hunger. The man in the palace enjoys his
own comforts feeling no responsibility for the others; but by and by
he will become so uncomfortable in the knowledge of other men's
sufferings that he can no longer endure his luxury. Then he will
devote his energies to changing the laws of the community so that
henceforth no one can be hungry and poverty will be abolished.
The day must come, 'Abdu'l-Baha declared, when no city will tolerate
slums, when all children will have equal rights of education, and when
the rich will even begin to give away their wealth because of the new
consciousness of other's needs which penetrate them. We are able to
see the fulfillment of this last prophecy, at least in its
commencement, in the immense Carnegie and Rockefeller Foundations, and
in the numerous cases already in evidence of people like Dix the
garment maker, who having acquired a fortune of several millions
through the assistance of his faithful employees, decided that he had
enough money and he would like to offer his employees an opportunity
to be equally fortunate in business. So with the co-operation of his
son, he put his factory into the hands of his workers at a temporary
and nominal royalty, and with his son served the new company for a
year with no salary, so that the firm should have the benefit of
experience in its inauguration. Within the past year at least a dozen
manufacturing establishments have followed the example of Dix which
plainly indicates that another feeling is arising in the world about
the possession of money.
'Abdu'l-Baha said that in the future all economic conditions would be
ameliorated, and the law of brotherhood would become the basis of
life. As an illustration of future possibilities he sketched the
business methods of an agricultural village, saying he chose
agriculture because its proper regulation is the basic factor in all
economic life. He explained that the organization of the village would
apply to any community. According to this system each citizen of the
town owns and tills his own fields without jurisdiction or limitation
of acreage, but the village elects a committee of citizens to market
the product of the entire community and when the harvest is sold the
committee levies a tax on each producer according to the amount of
surplus he has, beyond the amount necessary for the support of his
family. Only the surplus is taxed, and each is allowed perfect freedom
as to his expenses; but if his surplus is large it is quite heavily
taxed on the principles of an ascending tax for individual wealth.
This last is easily comprehensible to us from the point of view of the
income tax with which we are familiar, but the application of the tax
and its existence as a fluid income in the village is not so easily
appreciable. It is an expression of the new economic consciousness.
There will be some producers, comments 'Abdu'l-Baha, whose return will
not provide sufficient income for their needs. For instance if a
farmer has expenses of five thousand dollars and an income of twenty
thousand, he can pay a considerable tax on the fifteen thousand
surplus which comes to him. But if a man has expenses of five thousand
dollars and only returns of three thousand, then he must meet a
deficit of two thousand.
In such a case, says 'Abdu'l-Baha, he draws two thousand dollars from
the exchequer of the community, and ,in this way taxation becomes a
fluid source of wealth flowing back and forth among all citizens,
banishing poverty and assuring comfort for everyone. Certainly in such
a commonwealth there could exist no slums, there could exist no
prejudice, nor suspicion, nor hatred. To image it gives one a sense of
sympathetic brotherhood which is almost inconceivable at the present
moment. But its reality lies in the new consciousness that is
developing.
--
John Taylor
badijet@gmail.com
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