But
what I hope for most is first that the natural evolution of the rural
community, and the concentration of individual manufacture, purchase and
sale, into communal enterprises, will lead to a very large co-operative
ownership of expensive machinery, which will necessitate the communal
employment of labor. If this takes place, as I hope it will, the rural
laborer, instead of being a manual worker using primitive implements,
will have the status of a skilled mechanic employed permanently by a
cooperative community. He should be a member of the society which employs
him, and in the division of profits receive in proportion to his wage,
as the farmers in proportion to their trade.
A second policy open to agricultural labor when it becomes organized is
the policy of collective farming. This I believe will and ought to
receive attention in the future. Co-operative societies of agricultural
laborers in Italy, Roumania, and elsewhere have rented land from
landowners. They then reallotted the land among themselves for
individual cultivation, or else worked it as a true co-operative
enterprise with labor, purchase and sale all communal enterprises, with
considerable benefit to the members.
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