Chapter 28 Chapter 12 Industrial Organization (Continued).business management

Section 1 The original artisan traded directly with the consumer; now, too, the learned professions often do. So far we have considered work chiefly concerned with the management of industries or other enterprises employing many manual labourers.We must now, however, consider more carefully the various functions performed by the merchant; and how these functions are distributed among the leaders of a large enterprise, and among the various enterprises cooperating in the relevant branches of production and sales. question.Incidentally, we shall also examine the next question: in industry at least, although nearly every enterprise—if it is well run—prospers the bigger it is; What is the cause of the complete exclusion of small competitors from many branches of industry?

The "business" mentioned here is interpreted in a broad sense, including all things that satisfy the desires of others and receive direct or indirect rewards from those who benefit from them.It is therefore very different from the gratification of each man's desires for his own sake, and from the well-meaning help which springs from friendship and family affection. The primitive artisan manages all his business himself; but, as his customers are his immediate neighbours, with few exceptions, he requires little capital, and the plan of production is arranged for him by custom, except for his Apart from his family members, he does not have to manage the laborers, so he does not need to pay much attention to these tasks.He cannot enjoy continual prosperity; wars and famines constantly press upon him and his neighbors, hinder his work, and cease their need for his commodities.But he tended to think that good luck and bad luck—like sunshine and rain—were beyond his reach: his fingers were constantly at work, but his mind was seldom tired.

Even in modern England we sometimes see the artisan in the country, still clinging to primitive methods, making things to sell to his neighbors for his own sake; he himself manages his business and bears all the risks.However, this is rarely the case.The learned profession affords the most striking example of the old-fashioned way of doing business; for a doctor or lawyer usually manages his business himself, doing all the work.This approach is not without its drawbacks: some freelancers of first-rate ability render many valuable activities useless, or achieve only little success, because they do not have the special talent needed to attract business; They would be better paid, live happier lives, and contribute more to the world if some kind of intermediary arranged for them.But, on the whole, I am afraid that is the case for the best: those services which require the highest and finest faculties derive their full value only when there is complete confidence in the individual, and in such services In terms of supply, people's psychology does not trust the participation of intermediaries, and in this psychology, there are legitimate reasons.

However, British lawyers, if not employers or entrepreneurs, also act as advisers in the most senior and thoughtful legal matters.Second, many of the best young teachers sell their services not directly to consumers, but to the governing body of a university or school, or to the principal who arranges to buy their services: The employer supplies the teacher with a market in which to sell his labor; and the buyer - who may not be a good judge himself - gives some guarantee as to the quality of the teaching work supplied. Secondly, artists of all kinds, however famous, often find it to their advantage to employ others to deal with customers for him; The most profitable sale of works of art.

Section II However, in most businesses, there is a special class of entrepreneurs involved. But in the greater part of modern business the task of directing production so that a degree of effort can be most effectually employed in satisfying human desires has had to be broken up and passed into the hands of specialized employers, or by means of more common In terms of nouns, it was transferred into the hands of merchants.They "risk" or "undertake" the business; they gather the capital and labor necessary for the work; they arrange or "plan" the general plan of the business and supervise its details.From one point of view, we can think of merchants as a highly skilled industrial class, and from another as middlemen between manual laborers and consumers.

There are certain classes of merchants, who carry great risks, and have great influence over the producers and consumers of the commodities in which they deal, but who are not, to a great extent, immediate employers of labour.The extreme typical of these merchants is the merchants in the stock exchange and commodity market. They buy and sell a large amount every day, but they have neither factories nor warehouses. At most, they have only an office and a few employees.The results, however, of the activities of such speculators are mixed; and we may now attend to those forms of business which place the most emphasis on management and the least on the artful methods of speculation.Let us therefore take the more common form of business as an example, and note the relation of taking risks to the rest of the businessman's work.

Section 3 In construction and some other trades, the main risks of doing business are sometimes irrelevant to the details of management.Entrepreneurs are not employers. The construction industry would be well suited for our purposes, partly because it is still in some respects primitive ways of doing business.In the latter part of the Middle Ages, it became very common for private individuals to build houses without the help of builders; and the custom has not completely died out even now.He who builds his own house must hire all the workmen separately, he must pay attention to them, and check their wage requirements; he must buy materials from many sources, and he must hire expensive machinery, or he must save it.The wages he pays are probably higher than the prevailing wages; but here, what he loses, others gain.However, he wastes a lot of time in bargaining with the workers, in examining and directing the work of the workers with his incomplete knowledge; And where to buy the most cost-effective and other issues, he spent a lot of time wasted.This waste can be avoided by the following division of labor: the task of supervising detail work is performed by a specialized builder, and the task of design by a specialized architect.

There is often a finer division of labor when houses are constructed not at the expense of those who are to live in them, but as a speculative enterprise of construction.If this is done on a large scale, for example, by opening a new suburb, the possible benefits are so great that they present an attractive opportunity for powerful capitalists with high general operating capacity, but I am afraid There isn't a lot of specialized knowledge about the construction industry.They rely on their own judgment to make decisions about what the future supply and demand of various housing will be, but they delegate the management of the details.They employ architects and surveyors, design according to their general instructions; and contract with specialized builders to carry out construction according to the design.But they themselves bear the main risks of the business and control the general policy of the business.

The fourth quarter continues. As is well known, the following division of responsibilities prevailed in the wool industry just before the days of the big factories: the more speculative work and greater risk of purchasing and selling was undertaken by the entrepreneur, who himself did not It is not the employer of the labor; at the same time, the management details and the lesser risks of fulfilling certain contracts are borne by small contractors.In certain branches of the textile industry—especially those in which predictions of the future have great difficulty—this method is still widely practiced.Wholesalers in Manchester, who study the changes of seasons, the sales of raw materials, the general state of trade, financial markets, and politics, and other causes which affect the prices of various goods in the coming season; Having hired skilled designers to carry out their plans (as in the preceding example the speculators in construction employed architects); they enter into contracts with manufacturers all over the world to manufacture goods for which they decide to risk their investment. risks of.

Especially in the garment industry we see a resurgence of the so-called "cottage industry" which long ago prevailed in the textile industry: it is a kind of large entrepreneur who divides the work among people who operate alone, or with the help of several family members. A system in which men, or perhaps employing two or three helpers, go to huts and very small workshops.In the remote villages of almost every county in England, the agents of the great entrepreneurs, passing between them, distributed to the villages the semi-finished materials of all kinds of goods, especially such garments as shirts, collars, and gloves. and retrieve the finished product.The system, however, is most developed in the capitals and other large cities of the world, especially in the old cities, where there are many unskilled and unorganized laborers of poor constitution and virtue, and in the garment industry --in London alone this industry employs two hundred thousand people--and in cheap furniture especially.There is a constant rivalry between the factory and the domestic industry, now the former gains the upper hand, now the latter;

For example, the now increasing use of the sewing-machine, transported by steam power, has strengthened the position of the factories in the boot industry; and at the same time the position of factories and workshops in the garment industry has been strengthened.The hosiery industry, on the other hand, was led back to domestic industry by the recent improvement of the hand-loom; it is probable that the new distribution of power brought about by gas, kerosene, and electric motors would have the same effect on many other trades. Or there would be a movement towards half-way measures like those prevailing in the Sheffield cutlery trade.For example, in many sharp-tool enterprises, the milling and other parts of the work are divided among the workmen at the price of the piece, and these workmen hire the power they need from the factories or other persons with whom they contract: they sometimes Others are also hired to help them operate, sometimes alone. For another example, a foreign merchant usually does not have a ship himself, but concentrates on studying the trend of trade and bears the main risks of the trade himself; at the same time, he makes the transportation work done for him by others. There is such an ability as his to predict the finer points of trade, although as buyers of ships they do have their own significant and difficult business risks.Again, the greater risk of publishing books is borne by the publisher—perhaps with the author—while the printer is the employer of labour, supplying the expensive type and machinery necessary for the business.A somewhat similar approach is followed in many branches of the metal industry and of furniture, clothing, etc. Thus, those who bear the main risk of purchasing and selling, have many means of avoiding the trouble of accommodation and supervision of those who work for them.These methods have their merits; and if the workman is of a strong character, as in Sheffield, the result is not on the whole unsatisfactory.But unfortunately, those who go into this kind of work are often the weakest of the workers, and the least resourceful and least self-controlled.This system is adopted by the entrepreneur because of its flexibility, which actually enables him - if he chooses to - to exert undue pressure on those who work for him. one of the means. For the success of a factory depends to a large extent on a group of workers who keep working, but the capitalist who distributes the work to the workers at home has an advantage in keeping many on his list; Each gives a little work now and then, and pits them against each other; he does this easily, since they do not know each other, and cannot act in unison. Section 5. The talents required of the ideal industrialist. When the profit of business is discussed, it is always in relation to the employer of labour: "employer" is often taken as a term synonymous with the person who actually receives the profit of the trade.However, the examples we have just mentioned are sufficient to illustrate the following truth: the supervision of labor is only one aspect of management work, and often not the most important aspect; Different positions, but also to have a dual capacity. Let us return to the class of causes already mentioned (see Chapter 11, No. Sections 4 and 5), the manufacturer produces the goods, not to meet special orders, But for the general market.First, in relation to his role as merchant and organizer of production, he must have a thorough knowledge of the things in his own trade.He must have the ability to forecast wide fluctuations in production and consumption, and to know where there is an opportunity to supply a new commodity to satisfy a real desire, or to improve the production plan of an old commodity.He must be able to judge carefully, and to take risks boldly; he must certainly have a knowledge of the materials and machinery used in his trade. But, secondly, he must be a person's natural leader in terms of his role as employer.He must have the ability, first of all, to choose his assistants properly, and then to trust them fully; and must have the ability to make them care about the business and trust him, so as to develop their inner enterprise and creativity; Overall mastery and keeping business key plans organized and consistent. The capabilities required to be an ideal employer are so great and so many that few people can combine them to any significant degree.The relative importance of these abilities, however, varies with the nature of the industry and the size of the business; one employer excels in some talents, another excels in others; and two employers seldom Their success is due to exactly the same set of strengths.Some men owe their success to his nobility, while others prosper because they have no admirable talents but alertness and strength of will. The foregoing is the general nature of business management. Next we must examine: What opportunities do people of all classes have for developing their management capabilities; Capital.In this way we can come a little closer to the problem posed at the beginning of this chapter and can study the development of a firm over successive generations.This research can be easily combined with various forms of business operation.We have considered almost exclusively that form of organization in which the whole responsibility and management are concentrated in the hands of a single person.But this form is being overwhelmed by other forms of organization in which supreme power is dispersed among a few partners, or even among a majority of stockholders.Private and joint-stock companies, co-operatives and public enterprises are taking an ever-increasing part of business operations; and one of the main reasons for this is that they are interested in companies with excellent management capabilities, but have not inherited any great business opportunities. For those who do, offers attractive opportunities. Section 6. The sons of merchants begin with so many interests that one might expect merchants to form a hereditary class; there is no reason for this to happen. It is obvious that the son of a man who has achieved success in business has a great advantage over others from the beginning.From his youth he had a special facility for acquiring the knowledge and developing the faculties required for the management of his father's business: he learned with ease and almost unconsciously that his father's the trades and the persons and situations in which he bought and sold; he came to know the relative importance and real significance of the various questions and anxieties which his father pondered; Knowledge.Some of what he learned was applicable only to his father's trade; but most of it was useful to trades slightly connected with it; The general faculties developed of judgment and resourcefulness, enterprise and prudence, perseverance and modesty, will go a long way in fitting him for almost any other trade. Moreover, the sons of successful merchants, except those who seem by nature and education to be disliked and unfit for business, have at the outset almost more material capital than any other: if they inherit their father's business, they have Advantageous position of a solid business relationship. So it appears at first sight that the merchants would become a hereditary class, assigning the principal positions of management to his sons, establishing hereditary dynasties, and ruling certain branches of commerce for many generations.However, the reality is quite different.For when a man establishes a large enterprise, his descendants, though to the great advantage, often fail to develop the higher talents and the special will and temperament required to run it equally successfully.He himself was perhaps brought up by parents of strong and sincere characters; educated by their personal influence and struggles with difficulty in childhood.But his sons—at least those born to him when he became rich, and in any case his grandchildren—are probably mostly cared for by domestic servants who are not as hardy as his parents. character, while he himself was educated by the influence of his parents.His greatest ambition may be business success, and social or academic fame will be at least equally desired by his descendants. Granted, things may be going well for a while.His sons had solid business connections and—perhaps even more important—many competent subordinates who cared deeply about the business.With diligence and care, and utilizing the heritage of the business, they can last a long time.But when, after a whole generation, the old traditions have ceased to be a reliable guide, and the bonds of old clerks have been destroyed, the dissolution of the enterprise is almost inevitable, unless new persons enter into partnership in the enterprise, and at the same time The operation and management of the enterprise is actually handed over to the newcomers. But, for the most part, his descendants took a short cut to that end.They would rather have a bountiful income without effort than twice as much by constant toil and toil; they sell the business to private or joint-stock companies; or they become silent partners in the business; that is, To share in the risks and profits of the enterprise, but not to participate in its management: in both cases, the actual disposition of their capital is mainly in the hands of newcomers. Section VII private partnership organization. The oldest and simplest method of restoring the strength of an enterprise is the promotion into partnerships of some of its ablest employmen.The despotic proprietor and manager of a large factory or store, as he grows older, finds it necessary to entrust more and more responsibility to his principal subordinates; partly because of the increasing burden of work to be done, partly because of his own weaker than before.He still holds the supreme authority, but many things have to depend on the energy and integrity of his subordinates; He resolved to promote one of his trusted assistants to the partnership: thus relieving himself of his own work, and at the same time he could rest assured that his own life's business would also belong to those men whose habits he had acquired. , he might have had a fatherly feeling for them—and so it went.But there are now—and often have been—private partnerships of more equal terms, two or more persons of about equal property and ability, who combine their means to carry on large and difficult enterprises.In this case, there is often a clear division of management work: for example, in industry, one partner is sometimes almost exclusively responsible for purchasing raw materials and selling finished products, while another partner is responsible for the management of the factory; , one partner manages the wholesale division while the other manages the retail division.Using these and other approaches, a private partnership can be adapted to many different problems: it is very powerful and very resilient; it has worked a lot in the past, and it is alive and well now. Section VIII Joint Stock Company Organization.State business. However, from the end of the Middle Ages to the present there has been, in certain trades, a movement in which public joint-stock companies have replaced private enterprises, whose shares can be sold to anyone on the open market, while those of the latter, for example, have not received all relevant information. The person's license is not transferable.The result of this change was that many persons without special business knowledge put their capital at the disposal of those whom they employed: a new division of the various branches of business management thus took place. The ultimate bearers of the risks to which a joint-stock company is exposed are the shareholders; however, the shareholders usually do not take an active part in the planning and management of the enterprise and in governing its general policies; And completely do not participate in the details of the management work.Once the business is out of the hands of its founders, its management is mainly in the hands of the directors; if it is a large company, the directors may have only a small share, and most of them have no regard Management expertise.They are usually not required to work full time in the company; but they are considered to have extensive general knowledge and sound judgment to solve larger problems of company policy; at the same time, they want to make sure that the company's "manager" is doing his job well .The managers, from their assistants, do most of the planning, and all the management: but they are not required to contribute capital; and they are supposed to pass from low to high rank according to their zeal and ability.Because in the United Kingdom, the joint stock company organization accounts for a large part of the various enterprises carried on in the country, it provides great opportunities for those who have a talent for management and management, but have not inherited any physical capital or business connections. . The ninth section continues. The joint-stock company has great flexibility, can expand without limit if the business in which it is engaged provides a wide range of activities; and it is advantageous in almost every respect.However, due to the lack of sufficient understanding of the enterprise by the shareholders who bear the main risks, the joint stock company has a great weakness.It is true that the head of a large private enterprise assumes the principal risks of the business, and he delegates many of the details of the enterprise to others; The power of judgment, his position is secure.If the persons whom he entrusts to purchase and sell goods for him receive commissions from those with whom they deal, he can detect and punish this fraud.If they favoritism and promote their incompetent relatives or friends, or if they are perfunctory themselves, or even if they do not show the extraordinary ability that made them promoted in the first place, he can see the error and correct it. But in these matters the majority of the stockholders of the corporation— With a few exceptions-almost impotent; although there are a few large shareholders, often striving to know how things are going; thus enabling effective and judicious control over the general management of the business.The fact that the leaders of large corporations have rarely been deceived by the great temptations they have encountered in their work is a strong testimony to the amazing modern development of the spirit of honesty and fairness in business affairs.If they willfully exploit the convenience of their position for private gain, as in the commercial history of earlier civilizations, they misuse the confidence placed in them on such a scale as to hinder the development of this democratic form of industry-wide organization. .There is good reason to hope that the progress of business morality will continue, and that in the future—as in the past—it will be aided by the reduction of commercial secrecy and the constant disclosure of things of all kinds; Forms of business organization may safely generalize in many respects where they have previously failed, and may greatly exceed the enormous contribution they have already made to entrepreneurship by the unprotected. The same is probably true of central and local state-owned enterprises: they too may have great prospects, but until now they have generally not been effectively controlled or run by the taxpayers who bear the ultimate risk. Capable of a bureaucrat with the energy and enterprise of a private enterprise. However, the problems of the management of large joint-stock companies and state-owned enterprises involve many complicated and controversial issues, which we cannot yet study here.These problems are urgent because very large enterprises have grown rapidly of late, though perhaps not as rapidly as is commonly believed.This change is chiefly due to the advances in the procedures and methods of industry and mining, transport and banking, which cannot be carried on without large capital; Caused.The democratic element was at first almost alive in state enterprise: but experience shows that creative ideas and experiments in business technology and enterprise organization are extremely rare in state enterprise and not very common in private enterprise, And private companies, because of their age and size, will fall into bureaucratic methods.The narrowing of the range of industrial activity in which small enterprises may endeavor to be creative, therefore, risks creating new hazards. The largest scale of production is chiefly to be found in the United States, where monopolistic monopolies of huge enterprises are commonly called "trusts."Some of these trusts grew out of a business.Most trusts, however, have grown out of the merger of many separate businesses; the first step toward such a merger is usually a rather loose business association, or, to use a German term, It is a "cartel". Section 10 Cooperatives.Profit Distribution. The purpose of the cooperative system is to avoid the disadvantages of the above two methods of enterprise management. In the ideal form of co-operative society, in which many still hope, but are seldom realized, some or all of the shareholders who bear the risks of the business are themselves employed by the business.All employed persons, whether or not they contribute the physical capital of the enterprise, are entitled to a share of the profits, and also have certain voting rights in the members' assembly, which formulates the program of the business policy and appoints the staff to carry it out.They are, therefore, the employers and masters of their own managers and foremen; they have a fairly good means of judging whether the high work of planning operations is being faithfully and effectively carried out, and they are most likely to detect defects in the detailed work of management. Lax and incompetent. In the end, they made unnecessary some of the secondary administrative work which was necessary in other enterprises; for their own pecuniary interest, and their pride in their business success, made each of them Disgusted by either himself or his colleagues for ineffective work. But unfortunately, this system has its own great difficulties.For, in the present state of human nature, the employees themselves are often not the best masters of their own foremen and managers; and the enmity and indignation which reprimands arouse are liable to occur like oil mixed in the bearings of a large complex machine. role of sand.The most difficult work in business management is usually the least apparent; and those who do it with their hands are apt to underestimate the intensity of the work involved in the highest work of planning and management, and because its remuneration is not the same as It's about as high as you can get anywhere else, and they're also prone to resentment.In fact, the manager of a cooperative rarely possesses the alertness, creativity, and versatility of those selected by the struggle for existence and the most able men trained by the freedom and unfettered responsibility of private enterprise.It is partly for these reasons that the co-operative system has seldom been practiced in its entirety; and its partial application, except in the retail sale of commodities consumed by the workmen, has probably not met with notable success.In recent years, however, the success of bona fide production associations - "joint ventures" - has shown more promising signs. It is true that for those workers who are strongly individualistic, and whose minds are wholly absorbed in their own affairs, the quickest and most expedient route to material success is probably often, perhaps, established as a small independent "entrepreneur," or Aim for advancement in a private business or joint stock company.But for those workers who have a strong social element in their character and who do not want to leave their old associates but want to work with them as leaders, the cooperative system has a special capacity.The ideal of the cooperative system may in some respects be nobler than its practice; but it undoubtedly rests to a great extent on moral motives.True co-operatives, with a combination of keen business acumen and a spirit of fervent confidence; some co-operatives do very well for men of intellectual and moral genius--men who, for their inner confidence in the co-operative, are very just They work so hard, they are paid less than they would get by running their own business, or as managers in a private enterprise, but they are always satisfied.Men of this type are more common in co-operative clerks than in other occupations; and though they are not very common even among co-operative clerks, we may hope that a better understanding of the true co-operative principles The spread of this knowledge, together with the improvement of general education, will make the majority of co-operative members increasingly fit to solve the complex problems of business management. At the same time, the application of many parts of the principle of co-operation is being attempted under various conditions, each of which manifests itself in a new climate of enterprise management.For example, under the method of profit distribution, private enterprises retain the freedom of operation and management, but pay wages to those employed, all in accordance with market standards, whether it is hourly wages or piece-rate wages. Part of any profit that can be obtained above a specified minimum; thus, the enterprise can hope to obtain material and moral rewards from the following aspects: the reduction of friction, the employment of people who are more willing to make more comparisons to the enterprise perhaps Little things that are of great benefit, and finally attract to the enterprise workers of above-average ability and hard work. Another method of partial cooperation is that practiced by some of the mills in Oldham.These factories are actually joint-stock companies; and among the stockholders there are many workers who have a special knowledge of the trade, though they are often unwilling to be employed by the factories in which they themselves have shares.There is also a method of partial co-operation, in which the headquarters of the consumer co-operative establishes production through its agents—the wholesale co-operative.In the Scottish wholesale co-operatives the workers participated as workers in the management of the factory and in the distribution of profits, but in the British wholesale co-operatives this was not the case. At a later stage we shall study in more detail the various forms of cooperative and semi-cooperative management and the reasons for their success and failure in wholesale and retail trade, agriculture, industry, commerce, etc.However, we don't have to look any further now.What has been said suffices to show that the world is only just beginning to engage in the higher work of the co-operative movement, and that we have reason to expect that the many and varied forms of the co-operative movement will be more successful in the future than they have been in the past, and will be more beneficial to the workers. It will provide excellent opportunities for them to exercise themselves in enterprise management, gain the respect and trust of others, and gradually improve to a position where they can exert their business capabilities. Section 11. Opportunities for the advancement of workers.The workman is not so much hindered by want of capital as at first sight; for loaned capital is rapidly increasing.However, the increasing complexity of management is working against him. In speaking of the difficulty of the worker in raising himself to a position in which he can exercise his productive powers to the fullest, the chief emphasis is usually on his want of capital; but this is not often his chief difficulty.For example, the distribution co-operative has amassed a large amount of capital which it finds difficult to obtain a large rate of interest on; it is more than willing to lend this capital to any class of persons who can deal with the difficult problems of management.如果合作者第一具有高级经营能力和正直，第二具有在他的同事中对于这些品质享有很大声誉的“个人资本”，则他在创办大企业所需的足够的物质资本上，就不会有困难：真正的困难倒是在于使他周围的许多人，相信他具有这些难能可贵的品质。如果一个人力图从平常的来源中得到创办企业所需的资本之贷款，情况也是差不多的。 的确，差不多在一切营业之中，顺利创办企业所需的资本数额，是不断地增大；但是，自己不要使用资本的人所拥有的资本数额，却有快得多的增大，这些人如此急于要贷出资本，所以他们愿意接受日渐下降的利率。这种资本的大部分入于银行家之手，而银行家很快地就把它借给他们认为经营能力和信用都很可靠的人。在许多营业之中，能从供给必需的原料和商品的人那里得到赊欠，固不必说了，就是直接借款的机会，现在也是如此之多，以致对于一度克服获得善于运用资本之声誉的最初困难的人而言，创办企业所需的资本额之适度的增大，并不是很大的障碍。 但是，对于工人的地位提高之虽没有那样明显、也许较为重大的障碍，就是企业经营的日益复杂。企业的首脑现在必须考虑许多从前他从未感到麻烦的事情；而这类困难正是工厂的训练所最没有准备的困难。要克服这种困难，必须迅速改良工人的教育，不但改良学校中的教育，而且更重要的是，用报纸、合作社和工会的工作，以及其他方法来改良以后生活中的教育。 英国全部人口的大约四分之三，都是依靠工资为生的阶级；至少当他们丰衣足食，居住情况和所受的教育也很好的时候，他们具有成为经营能力源泉的神经强健。如果没有误入歧途的话，他们都是——有意识地或无意识地——企业领导地位的竞争者。普通工人如有能力，一般就可变为工头，由工头就可升为经理，并可与他的雇主合伙经营。或者，积蓄了一点钱之后，他会开设一家在工人区域内仍能维持的小店，店中的货品主要是靠赊欠购进的，白天让他的妻子来照管，晚上由他自己来管理。用这些或其他方法，他会增加他的资本，直到他能开设一家小的工场或工厂。一旦有了良好的开端之后，银行就会渴望给他慷慨的信用贷款。他必须要有时间才能这样做，因为要到中年之后他才会创办企业，他必须活得很长久而且很强壮，但是，如果他有了这个，而又有“耐心、天才和好运气”，则在他死去之前，他一定可以得到很大的资本。在工厂中用手操作的人，比会计员和其他许多在社会传统上看作是地位较高的人，具有升到领导地位的较好机会。但在商店中却不是这样；商店中所做的手工工作，一般没有训练的性质，而事务工作的经验对于使人准备经营商业，比经营工业较为适合。 因此，大体上有一种自下向上的广泛变动。从工人的地位一跃而为雇主的人，也许没有以前那样多了；但是，地位提高到足以使子弟能有达到最高地位的良好机会的人，却比以前多了。完全的地位提高在一代之中完成的，往往很少；而在两代中完成的较多；但地位提高运动的整个规模之大，恐怕是前所未有的。而且，对整个社会而言，地位提高分为两代完成，也许较好。在上一世纪之初，工人升到雇主的地位，人数很多，但适合于领导地位的人却很少：他们往往很粗暴专横；他们丧失了自制力，既不是真正高尚，也不是真正幸福；他们的子弟往往是骄傲、挥霍和放纵，把他们的财富滥用于低级和粗俗的娱乐，具有从前贵族的最坏的缺点，而没有他们的那些美德。工头和监工仍然要服从、又要发号施令，他们的地位正在提高，而且看到他的子弟会升到更高的地位，在某些方面使人对他比对小雇主更为艳羡。他的成功虽没有那样显著，但他的工作往往是较为高级，且对世界较为重要，同时，他的性格较为温和与文雅，而且像以前一样地坚强。他的子弟们有很好的训练；如果他们获得财富，他们就会加以相当好的利用。 然而，必须承认：在许多工业部门中巨大的企业——尤其是股份公司——的迅速扩充，会使对儿子们抱有希望的能干和节俭的工人，为妻子谋求事务工作。在事务工作中，他们就有失去用手做的建设性工作所固有的体力和性格上的力量的危险，而变为较低的中等阶级中平凡的人。但是，如果他们能够保持这种力量，使它不受损害，他们就会变成世界上的领袖人物，虽然一般并不是在他们父亲的行业中，因而就得不到特别适当的传统和才能的益处。 第十二节一个能干的商人迅速增加他所掌握的资本； 而对于无能的人，营业愈大，他通常损失资本就愈快。这两种力量会使资本适应善于运用资本所需的才能。运用资本的经营才能，在像英国这样的国家中，具有相当明确的供给价格。 当一个很有能力的人，不论采取什么办法，一旦居于一个独立企业的领导地位时，如有相当好的运气，不久就可证明他具有善于运用资本的才能，因此使他能有办法借入他所需要的差不多任何数额的款项。他如获得厚利，就可增加他自己的资本，而自己资本的这个增加部分，是以后借款的物质保证；他自己赚钱的事实，往往会使贷款者对于坚持贷款的全部担保不像从前那样小心了。当然，运气在经营中很有关系：一个很能干的人也许觉得事情的发展对他不利；他亏本的事实会减少他的借款能力。如果他是一部分依靠借入的资本来经营的话，这甚至会使贷款者拒绝继续贷款，这样，如果他只使用自己的资本，不过是一时的不幸就会使他垮台： 如要竭力恢复，他就会过一种充满忧虑甚至不幸之盛衰无常的生活。但是，他在患难中也能像在成功中那样表现出他的能力：人类本性是乐观的；人们极愿把资本借给那些曾经度过商业上的灾难而未丧失营业声誉的人，这是人所共知的。因此，虽然盛衰无常，能干的商人一般觉得，他所掌握的资本毕竟是与他的才能成正比例地增长。 同时，我们已经知道，能力薄弱而掌握大资本的人，很快地损失资本；他也许是一个能够和会要很好地经营一个小企业的人，这企业在他离开时比他初去时资本较为雄厚；但是，如果他没有处理重大问题的才能，则企业愈大，他搞糟企业就愈快。因为，大企业的交易，在考虑了平常的风险之后，只剩下很小一部分利润，而大企业通常只有依靠这种交易才能维持。从迅速成交的很大营业额中所得的微薄利润，对于能干的商人却可产生丰富的收入：有些营业的性质能使巨大资本有活动的余地，在这些营业中，竞争通常将营业的利润率压得很低。一个乡村中的商人，能比他的较为能干的竞争者从他的营业中少赚5％的利润，但仍能维持，不会破产。 但是，在获得利润很快、而纯然是例行工作的大工厂或大商店中，营业的全部利润，往往是如此之少，以致一个人如比他的竞争者即使少赚一点，在每次营业上就有很大损失；而那些经营困难和不是依靠例行工作的大企业，对于真正有经营才能的人，可提供很大的营业利润，但只有普通能力的人，要想经营这种企业，绝不会获得利润的。 这两种力量——一种是使能干的商人所掌握的资本增加的力量，另一种是使能力较差的商人手中的资本损失的力量——产生以下的结果：在商人们的才能之大小与他们所经营的企业之大小之间的一致性，比初看起来所认为可能的密切得多了。一个有天生的经营才能的人，在私人企业和股份公司中能够步步高升的许多途径，我们已经说过了，如把上述结果与这许多途径加在一起来考虑，我们就可得出如下的结论：在像英国这样的国家里，凡是进行大规模工作的地方，它所需要的才能和资本必然很快就会出现的。 而且，正像工业技术和能力日益越来越多地有赖于判断、敏捷、智谋、细心和毅力等广泛的才能一样——这些才能不是某一行业所特有的，而是对一切行业多少是有用的——经营才能也是如此。事实上，经营才能比低级的工业技术和能力，包括更多的这些非专门的才能：经营才能的等级愈高，它的应用就愈多种多样。 于是，因为运用资本的经营才能从这种才能过多的行业，向为它提供良好机会的行业作横的移动非常容易；而它作直的移动也非常容易，就是较为能干的人在他自己的行业中升到较好的地位，所以，即在我们的研究的这个初期阶段中，我们也有充分理由相信：在近代英国，运用资本的经营才能之供给，通常能适应对它的需求；因而就有相当明确的供给价格。 最后，我们可认为这种运用资本的经营才能之供给价格，是由三个因素构成的。第一是资本之供给价格；第二是经营才能和精力之供给价格；第三是把适当的经营才能与必需的资本结合在一起的那种组织之供给价格。我们对这三个因素中的第一个因素之价格已称为利息；对单独第二个因素之价格可称为纯经营收入，而对第二和第三个因素合在一起的价格可称为总经营收入。