THE NEW STATE
by Mary Parker Follett

The Occupational Group:
Chapter XXXIII
Increasing Recognition of the Occupational Group

FROM the confessedly embryonic stage of thinking in which the
movement for group organization still is, two principal questions
have emerged: (1) shall the groups form a pluralistic or a unifying
state, (2) shall the economic group be the sole basis of
representation? The first question I have tried to answer, the
second offers greater difficulties with our present amount of
experience.  Men often discuss the occupational vs. the
neighborhood group on the pivotal question - which of these is
nearest a man?  Benoist's plea for the occupational group was that
politics must represent _la vie_.  But, agreed as to that, we still
question whether the occupational group is the most complete
embodiment of _la vie_.

  It is not, however, necessary to balance the advantages of
neighborhood and occupational group, for I am not proposing that
the neighborhood group take the place of the occupational.  We may
perhaps come to wish for an integration of neighborhood and
industrial groups -- and other groups too as their importance and
usefulness demand -- as their "objective" value appears. In our
neighborhood group we shall find that we can correct many partial
points of view which we get from our more specialized groups. A
director of a corporation will be more valuable to his state and
even to his corporation if he is at the same time the member of a
neighborhood group. It may be that we shall work out some machinery
by which the neighborhood group can include the occupational group. 
All our functions must be expressed, but somewhere must come that
coordination which will give them their real effectiveness.  We are
not yet ready to say what the machinery will be, only to recognize
some of the principles which should guide us in constructing that
machinery.  The power of an individual is his power to live a vital
group life. The more your society is diversified in group life, the
higher the stage of civilization.  Perhaps the destiny of the
neighborhood group is to interpret and correlate, to give full
significance and value to, all the spontaneous association which
our increasingly fuller and more varied life is constantly
creating. It may be that the neighborhood group is not so much to
_include_ the others as to make each see its relation through every
other to every other [1]. The possible solution, mentioned above,
of the two houses of our legislatures and parliaments dividing
neighborhood and occupational representation, seems a little crude
now to our further analysis unless some practical integration is
being worked out at the same time in the local unit. But all this
must be a matter of experiment and experience, of patient trial and
open-minded observation [2].

     1. See pp. 199-201.

     2 Some writers talk of trade representation vs. party
     organization as if in the trade group you are rid of party. 
     Have they studied the politics of trade unionism?  In neither
     the trade group nor the neighborhood group do you
     automatically get rid of the party spirit.  That will be a
     slow growth Indeed.

  The salient fact, however, is that neighborhood and occupational
groups, either independently or one through the other, must both
find representation in the state. But we must remember that it is
industry which must be included in the state, not labor, but labor
and capital. This war certainly shows us the importance of the
great organizations of industry. Let them be integrated openly with
the state on the side of their public service, rather than allow a
back-stairs connection on the side of their "interests." And let
them be integrated in such manner that labor itself is at last
included in our political organization. This will not be easy; as
a matter of fact we have no more difficult, as we have no more
important, problem before us than the relation within the state of
one powerful organized body to another and of these bodies to the
state. The average American is against the growth of corporate
bodies.  But this prejudice must go: we need strong corporate
bodies not to compete with the state but to minister to the state.
Individualism and concentrated authority have been struggling for
supremacy with us since the beginning of our government. From the
beginning of our government we have been seeking the synthesis of
the two. That synthesis is to be found in the recognition of
organized groups, but not, I believe, by taking away power from the
state and giving to the group. Some of the pluralists, in their
reaction to the present fear of powerful groups, advocate that
groups should be given more and more power. I agree with them so
far, but their implication is that we shall thereby have shorn the
Samson locks of the state. This I do not believe we want to do.

  Every one sees the necessity to-day of the increase of state
control as a war measure, but some tell us that we should guard
against its dangers by giving to certain organizations within the
state enough power to "balance" the state. I insist that balance
can never be the aim of sound political method. We must first
change our conception of the state -- substitute the Service State
for the Sovereign State -- then methods must be devised within
which such new conception can operate. We should, indeed, give more
and more power to the groups, or rather, because we can never
"give" power, we should recognize all the power which springs up
spontaneously within the state, and seek merely those methods by
which that self-generating power shall tend immediately to become
part of the strength of the state.

  How absurd our logic has been. We knew that it took strong men to
make a strong state; we did not realize that those groups which
represent the whole industry and business of the country need not
be rivals of the state, but must be made to contribute to the
state, must be the means by which the state becomes great and
powerful at the same time that it uses that power for the
well-being and growth of all.  Our timidity has been but the
reflection of our ignorance. A larger understanding is what we need
to-day. There is no need to condemn the state, as do the
pluralists; there is no need to condemn our great corporate bodies,
as do their opponents. But full of distrust we shall surely be, on
one side or the other, until we come truly to understand a state
and to create a state which ministers continuously to its parts,
while its parts from hour to hour serve only the enhancement of its
life, and through it, the enhancement of the life of its humblest
member.

  The tendency to which we have long been subject, to do away with
everything which stood between man and the state, must go, but that
does not mean that we must fly to the other extreme and do away
with either the individual or the state. One of the chief
weaknesses of political pluralism is that it has so many of the
earmarks of a reaction -- the truth is that we have groups _and_
man _and_ the state, all to deal with.

  Neighborhood groups, economic groups, unifying groups, these have
been my themes, and yet the point which I wish to emphasize is not
the kind of group, but that the group whatever its nature shall be
a genuine group, that we can have no genuine state at all which
does not rest on genuine groups. Few trade-unionists in demanding
that their organization shall be the basis of the new state examine
that organization to see what right it has to make this demand.
Most trade-unionists are satisfied in their own organizations with
a centralized government or an outworn representative system. Labor
can never have its full share in the control of industry until it
has learnt the secrets of the group process. Collective bargaining
must first be the result of a genuine collective will before it can
successfully pass on to directorate representation, to complete
joint control [1].

     1. Yet perhaps the trade-union has been one of the truest
     groups, one of the most effective teachers of genuine group
     lessons which we have yet seen. Increased wages, improved
     conditions, are always for the group. The trade-unionist feels
     group-wants; he seeks to satisfy these through group action. 
     Moreover the terms of a collective bargain cannot be enforced
     without a certain amount of group solidarity. In strikes
     workmen often sacrifice their own interests for what will
     benefit the union: the individual-I may prefer his present
     wages to the privations of a strike; the group-I wants to
     raise the wages of the whole union.

  It is significant that the guild socialists, in considering how
acrimonious disputes between guilds are to be avoided, say that
"the labor and brains of each Guild naturally [will evolve] a
hierarchy to which large issues of industrial policy might with
confidence be referred," and "at the back of this hierarchy and
finally dominating it, is the Guild democracy. . . ." But then
guild socialism is to have no different psychological basis from
our present system. This is exactly what we rely on now so
patiently, so unsuccessfully -- the lead of the few, the following
of the crowd, with the fiction that, as our government is based on
numbers, the crowd can always have what it wants; therefore, at any
moment what we have is what we have chosen -- Tammany rule for
instance.  We need a new method: the group process must be applied
to industrial groups as well as to neighborhood groups, to business
groups, to professional societies -- to every form of human
association. If the labor question is to be solved by a system of
economic control based on economic representation instead of upon
vital modes of association, "industrial democracy" will fail
exactly as so-called political democracy has failed.

  Perhaps this warning is particularly necessary at the present
moment because "group" control of industry seems imminent.  Through
the pressure of the war guild socialism has made practical as well
as theoretical headway in England. There are two movements going on
side by side, both due it is true to the emergency of war, but
neither of which will be wholly lost when the war is over; it is
the opinion of many, on the contrary, that these movements are
destined to shape a new state for England. First, the government
has assumed a certain amount of control over munitions plants,
railroads, mines, breweries, flour mills and factories of various
kinds, and it has undertaken the regulation of wages and prices,
control of markets and food consumption, taxation of profits etc.
[1].

     1. I have not In this brief statement distinguished between
     government "ownership," "control," "regulation," etc.  See
     "War-Time Control of Industry" by Howard L. Gray.

  Secondly, at the same time that the state is assuming a larger
control of industry, it is inviting the workmen themselves to take
part in the control of industry. "The Whitely Report, adopted by
the Reconstruction Committee of the Cabinet, proposes not only a
Joint Standing Industrial Council for each great national industry,
for the regular consideration of matters affecting the progress and
well-being of the trade, but District Councils and Works Committees
within each business upon which capital and labor shall be equally
represented." These bodies will take up "questions of standard
wages, hours, overtime, apprenticeship, shop discipline, . . .
technical training, industrial research and invention, the adoption
of improved machinery and processes, and all those matters which
are included under 'scientific management'" [1].

     1.  "Representative Government in British Industry" by J. A.
     Hobson, in New Republic, September 1, 1917.

  This is a step which goes far beyond arbitration and conciliation
boards.  It gives to labor a positive share in the control of
industry. "Although it is not at present proposed to give any legal
recognition to this new machinery of economic government or any
legal enforcement of its decision, . . . it may reasonably be
expected that [these national industrial councils] will soon become
the effective legislature of the industry."

  Most noteworthy is the general acceptance of this plan. "All
classes appear to be willing and even anxious to apply the
principle of representative self-government not only to the conduct
of the great trades but to their constituent businesses."
Undoubtedly the English laborer has an increasing fear of
bureaucracy and this is turning him from state socialism: his
practical experience during the war of "tyrannical" bureaucracy in
the government controlled industries has lost state socialism many
supporters.

  The establishment of the Standing Industrial Councils is a step
towards guild socialism although (1) the determination of lines of
production, the buying and selling processes, questions of finance,
everything in fact outside shop-management, is at present left to
the employers, and (2) the capitalist is left in possession of his
capital. But this movement taken together with the one mentioned
above, that is, the trend towards state-ownership or joint
ownership or partial control, has large significance: the state to
own the means of production, the producers to control the
conditions of production, seems like the next step in industrial
development, in government form, -- the fact that these two go
together, that government form is to follow industrial development,
gives us large hope for the future.

  The British Labor Party in 1917 formulated a careful plan for
reorganization with a declared object of common ownership of means
of production and "a steadily increasing participation of the
organized workers in the management" [1]. This wording is
significant.

  In America also the pressure of war has led to the recognition of
labor in the control of industry. Adjustment boards containing
labor representatives have been required of almost all private
employers signing contracts with the War and Navy Departments [2].
The policy of the administration is to recognize collective
bargaining.  And the President's Mediation Commission, which
imposed collective agreements on the copper industry of Arizona,
stated in its official report, "The leaders of industry must . . .
[enable] labor to take its place as a cooperator in the industrial
enterprise." Moreover, the workman is gaining recognition not only
in the management of the industry in which he is engaged, but also
at Washington. On most of the important government boards which
deal with matters affecting labor, labor is represented. The work
of the War Labor Board and the War Labor Policies Board mark our
advance in the treatment of labor questions.

     1. See p.120.

     2. Following the precedent of England which provided, under
     the Munitions of War act and other legislation, machinery
     (joint boards representing employers and employed) for the
     prevention and adjustment of labor disputes.

  The "National Party," inaugurated in Chicago in October, 1917,
composed largely of socialists, had for one plank in its platform,
"The chief industries should be controlled by administrative boards
upon which the workers, the managers and the government should all
be represented." Thus the old state socialism is passing. 

  In France long before the war we see the beginnings of
syndicalism in the steps taken to give to the actual teaching force
of universities a share in the administration of the department of
education. In 1896-1897 university councils were established,
composed of deans and two delegates elected by each university
faculty. While these councils are under ministerial control, this
is hailed as the beginning of functionarist decentralization in
France. In 1910 was organized the representation of all the
personnel of the service of post, telephone and telegraph in
regional and central councils of discipline, and also advisory
representation to the heads of the service.

  The best part of syndicalism is its recognition that every
department of our life must be controlled by those who know most
about that department, by those who have most to do with that
department. Teachers should share both in the legislation and the
administration affecting education. Factory laws should not be made
by a Parliament in which factory managers and employees are not, or
are only partially, represented.

  One movement toward syndicalism we see everywhere: the forming of
professional groups -- commercial, literary, scientific, artistic
-- is as marked as the forming of industrial groups. Any analysis
of society to-day must study its groupings faithfully. We are told
too that in France these professional groups are beginning to have
political power, as was seen in several large towns in the
municipal elections before the war.  Similar instances are not
wanting in England and America.

  In Germany there are three strong "interest" organizations which
have a large influence on politics: the "Landlords' League" which
represents the conservatives, the "Social Democrats" who represent
labor, and the "Hanseatic League for Manufactures, Trade and
Industry" founded in 1909 with the express object of bringing
forward its members as candidates for the Reichstag and Landtags
[1].

     1. Christensen, "Politics and Crowd Morality," p.238.

  We have an interesting instance in the United States of political
organization on occupational lines from which we may learn much --
I refer to the Nonpartisan league of North Dakota composed of
farmers which, inaugurated in 1915, in 1916-7 carried the state
elections of North Dakota, electing a farmer-governor, and putting
their candidates in three of the supreme court judgeships, and
gaining 105 out of the 138 seats in the state legislature. The
first object of the league was the redress of economic injustice
suffered by the farmer. They saw that this must be done through
concerted control of the political machinery. Of the legislation
they wished, they secured: (1) a new office of State Inspector of
Grains, Weights and Measures, (2) partial exemption of farm
improvements from taxation, (3) a new cooperative corporation law,
and (4) a law to prevent railroads from discriminating, in
supplying freight-cars, against elevators owned by farmers'
cooperative societies.

  In 1917 a Farmers' Nonpartisan League of the state of New York
was organized. In September, 1917, the North Dakota League became
the "National Nonpartisan League," the organization spreading to
several of the neighboring states: Minnesota, South Dakota, Idaho,
Montana, etc.  At the North Dakota state primaries held in the
summer of 1918, nearly all the League's candidates were nominated,
thus insuring the continuance of its control of the state
government.

  In Denmark we are told the battle rages between the agrarian
party and the labor party. More and more the struggle in
Parliamentary countries is becoming a struggle between interests
rather than between parties based on abstract principles.  This
must be fully taken into account in the new state.

  The hoped-for relation of industry to the state might be summed
up thus: we want a state which shall include industry without on
the one hand abdicating to industry, or on the other controlling
industry bureaucratically. The present plans for guild socialism or
syndicate control, while they point to a possible future
development, and while they may be a step on the way, as a scheme
of political organization have many weak points.  Such experiments
as the Industrial Councils of England are interesting, but until
further technique is worked out we shall find that individual
selfishness merely gives way to group selfishness. From such
experiments we shall learn much, but the new ship of state cannot
ride on such turbulent waters.

  The part labor will take in the new state depends now largely
upon labor itself. Labor must see that it cannot reiterate its old
cries, that it need no longer demand "rights." It is a question of
a new conception of the state and labor seeing its place within it.
For a new state is coming -- we cannot be blind to the signs on
every side, we cannot be deaf to the voices within. Labor needs
leaders to-day who are alive not to the needs of labor, but to the
needs of the whole state: then it will be seen as a corollary how
labor fits in, what the state needs from labor, what labor needs
from the state, what part labor is to have _in_ the state.
