On Titles :
One of the things that we will not tolerate is injustice of any kind. The moment a man starts to swell with authority, he is discovered and he goes outor he goes back to a machine. A large amount of labour unrest comes from the unjustexercise of authority by those in subordinate positions and I am afraid that in far toomany manufacturing institutions it is really not possible for a workman to get a squaredeal. The work and the work alone controls us.
That is one of the reasons why we have no titles. Most men can swing a job, but theyare floored by a title. The effect of a title is very peculiar. It has been used too muchas a sign of emancipation from work. It is almost equivalent to a badge bearing the legend :This man has nothing to do but regard himself as import and all others as inferior.Not only is a title often injurious to the wearer but it has its effect on others as well.There is perhaps no greater single source of personal dissatisfaction among men than thefact that title bearers are not always the real leaders. Everybody acknowledges a realleader - a man who is fit to plan and command and when you find a real leader who bearsa title, you will inquire of someone else what his title is. He doesn't boast about it.Title in business have been greatly overdone and business has suffered. One of the badfeatures is the division of responsibility according to titles which goes so far as to amount to a removal altogether of responsibility. Where resp is broken up into many smallbits and divided among many departments, each department with its own titular head,who in turn is surrounded by a group bearing their nice sub-titles, it is difficult tofind anyone who really feels resp. Everyone knows what passing the buck means. The gamemust have originated in industrial organizations whre the depts simply shove the respalong. The health of the organization depends of every member, whatever his place, feelingthat everything that happens to come to his notice regarding the welfare of the biz ishis own job. Railroads have gone to the devil under the eyes of depts that say "oh, thatdoesn't come under our dept, dept X 100 miles away has that job"
On foreign trade and the plunder of Mexico:
A country becomes great when by the wise development of its resources and the skill ofits people, property is widely and fairly distributed. Foreign trade is full of delusions.We ought to wish for every nation as large a degree of self-support as possible. Insteadof wishing to keep them dependent upon us for what we manufacture, we should wish them tolearn to manufacture themselves and build up a solidly founded civilization. When every nationlearns to produce the things which it can produce, we should be able to get down to a basisof serving each other along those special lines in which there can be no competition.The north temperate zone will never be able to compete with the tropics in the special products of the tropics. Our country will never be a competitor with the orient in the production of tea. Nor with the south in the production of rubber.A large proportion of our foreign trade is based on the backwardness of our foreigncustomers. Selfishness is a motive that would preserve that backwardness. Humanity is a motive that would help the backward nations to a self-supporting basis. Take Mexico forinstance.
We have heard a great deal about the development of Mexico. Exploitation is theword that ought, instead, to be used. When its rich natural resources are exploited forthe increase of the private fortunes of foreign capitalists, that is not development. Itis ravishment. You can never develop Mexico until you develop the Mexican. And yet, how much of the development of Mexico by foreign exploiters ever took account of the developmentof its people. The Mexican peon is regarded as mere fuel for the foreign moneymakers.Foreign trade has been his degredation. Shortsighted people are afraid of such counsel.They say, "what will become of our foreign trade?" When the natives of Africa begin raisingtheir own cotton and the natives of Russia begin making their own farm implements and the natives of China begin supplying their own wants, it will make a difference to be sure, butdoes any thoughtful man imagine that the world can long continue on the present basis ofa few nations supplying the needs of the world? We must think in terms of what the worldwill be when civilization becomes general - when all the peoples have learned to helpthemselves. When a country goes mad about foreign trade, it usually depends on other countries for its raw material, turns its population into factory fodder, creates a privaterich class and lets its own immediate interests lie neglected. Here, in the US, we haveenough work to do developing our own country - to relieve us of the necessity of looking for foreign trade for a long time.
