Now, if giving these things would be quite as much to the advantage of the company as to you, the company would be just as glad to give them as you would be to receive them, wouldn't it? I am assuming, of course, that the company knows its own interests just as well as you and your fellow workmen know yours. But if you went to the officials of the company and asked them to give you a dollar more for the two hours' less work, they would not give it--unless, of course, you were strong enough to fight and compel them to accept your terms. But they would resist and you would have to fight, because your interests clashed.
That is why trade unions are formed on the one side and employers' associations upon the other. Society is divided by antagonistic interests; into exploiters and exploited.
Politicians and preachers may cry out that there are no classes in America, and they may even be foolish enough to believe it--for there are lots of _very_ foolish politicians and preachers in the world! You may even hear a short-sighted labor leader say the same thing, but you know very well, my friend, that they are wrong. You may not be able to confute them in debate, not having their skill in wordy warfare; but your experience, your common sense, convince you that they are wrong. And all the greatest political economists are on your side. I could fill a volume with quotations from the writings of the most learned political economists of all times in support of your position, but I shall only give one quotation. It is from Adam Smith's great work, _The Wealth of Nations_, and I quote it partly because no better statement of the principle has ever been made by any writer, and partly also because no one can accuse Adam Smith of being a "wicked Socialist trying to set class against class." He says:
"The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little as possible. The former are disposed to combine in order to raise, the latter in order to lower the wages of labor.... Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform, combination, not to raise the wages of labor above their actual rate. To violate this combination is everywhere a most unpopular action, and a sort of a reproach to a master among his neighbors and equals.... Masters too sometimes enter into particular combinations to sink the wages of labor.... These are always conducted with the utmost silence and secrecy, till the moment of execution."
