now the
rule in many of the more important industries, the resulting surplus
normally passes neither to the managers, nor to the other employees,
nor to the public, but to the shareholders. Such an arrangement is
preposterous in the literal sense of being the reverse of that which
would be established by considerations of equity and common sense, and
gives rise (among other things) to what is called "the struggle between
labor and capital." The phrase is apposite, since it is as absurd as
the relations of which it is intended to be a description. To deplore
"ill-feeling" or to advocate {99} "harmony" between "labor and capital"
is as rational as to lament the bitterness between carpenters and
hammers or to promote a mission for restoring amity between mankind and
its boots. The only significance of these _cliches_ is that their
repetition tends to muffle their inanity, even to the point of
persuading sensible men that capital "employs" labor, much as our pagan
ancestors imagined that the other pieces of wood and iron, which they
deified in their day, sent their crops and won their battles. When men
have gone so far as to talk as though their idols have come to life, it
is time that some one broke them. Labor consists of persons, capital
of things. The only use of things is to be applied to the service of
persons. The business of persons is to see that they are there to use,
and that no more than need be is paid for using them.

Thus the application to industry of the principle of function involves
an alteration of proprietary rights, because those rights do not
contribute, as they now are, to the end which industry exists to serve.
What gives unity to any activity, what alone can reconcile the
conflicting claims of the different groups engaged in it, is the
purpose for which it is carried on. If men have no common goal it is
no wonder that they should fall out by the way, nor are they likely to
be reconciled by a redistribution of their provisions. If they are not
content both to be servants, one or other must be master, and it is
idle to suppose that mastership can be held in a state of suspense
between the two. There can be a division of functions between
different grades of workers, or between worker and consumer, and each
can {100} have in his own sphere the authority needed to enable him to
fill it. But there cannot be a division of functions between the
worker and the owner who is owner and nothing els