AN influential factor in the development of manufacturing was the invention of steam power. The industries that use machines were forced out of the homes and into the factories. There was no alternative. The steam driven machines produced goods so cheaply that the hand power, or home machine could not earn its owner a livelihood. Thus the factory system developed, partly because of the mechanical necessity of concentration where the power from one engine could by the use of shafts and belts be made to run a great number of machines, and partly because of the natural tendency of the man with the most money to acquire possession of the factory and have others work for him.
Later the invention and perfection of the electric generator and motor made possible103 the distribution of power and the machine, with its motor attached, again became feasible for individual ownership. Difficulties, however, exist. These difficulties are the present capitalistic ownership of the material and machines, a lack of properly organized co?peratively conducted sources of power, present land ownership, house arrangement, and of getting this power to the worker; and what is of much more moment, the complete possession by capitalistic interests of the entire system of trade or distribution from the great railway combination to the retail shop, through which the individual worker must market his products.
Wage-slavery Doomed.
The ideal—and as I believe—an attainable ideal in a large number of Roadtown manufacturing industries is co?peration in the use of land, machines, power supply and transportation of products, and individualism in the actual operation of the machines and working the land. This will forever solve the labor question by abolishing the wage-system. Let104 us look at the details as they will be worked out in the Roadtown.
The first essential in such a system of co?perative individual producers is power. For this the Roadtown will have to compete in the markets of the world.
Roadtown will possess great advantages in this respect where it passes water power and coal fields and can buy them. Roadtown power plants, co?perative stores and cooking plants, will be located where railroads, canals or rivers cross the Roadtown, when practicable, to save the double handling and freight on coal. Otherwise the coal will be loaded into Roadtown cars by steam shovel and hauled at night to the power houses where the monorail coal cars will be dumped directly into the stoker reservoirs. The same heat will be used for generating power, heating the building, cooking the food and for whatever other purpose heat is required and the chimneys of Roadtown will be miles apart. There will be no wagon haulage of fuel in Roadtown life. Other sources of power, such as water, wind105 or waves, when developed will become available for the Roadtown.
The transmission of Roadtown power will involve none of the losses from which exposed transmission systems suffer because of the weather. The actual cost per horse power used will be far less than in present city distribution.
A Work Room in Every Home.
Every room in Roadtown will be wired for light and power, but the general building plan will presume that all regular industrial operations are to be conducted in a room on the lower floor of the house which will be equipped with power sockets and bolt plates in the floor and a non-vibrating foundation installed for machines. This room will be located where it will have ready access to the transportation lines, probably by a trap through the floor through which a case of goods can be dropped to a position where it can be automatically swung aboard a slowly moving “pick-up” car at night, something after the manner a mail-bag106 is now snatched from a post beside the railway track.
This work room will be separated from the rest of the house by sound-proof walls. Of course no room can be made absolutely sound proof, for where fresh air goes sound goes also. Very noisy industries as well as those that deal in bulky or malodorous substances must of necessity be out of and at a safe distance from the resident portion of Roadtown. The Roadtown work room, like the co?perative cook shop, though it is there to be used and will be equipped for a work room, yet its use as such is not obligatory. The power socket may be plugged, a rug thrown over the bolt plates and the work room used for a children’s play-room, a sun parlor, a palm garden, or a living-room. It is rented with the house, equipped to receive suitable machines, but if the tenants have other uses for their time, it is their affair.
The following industries will come early to the Roadtown: clothing manufactures, knitting, lace and needle work, millinery, artificial flowers and other decorative work, including107 all art and the so-called art crafts, jewelry, toilet articles and small household notions of all sorts; wood and cold metal workings, toys, hats, gloves, shoes, book-binding, and many similar types of light manufacturing.
The Roadtown corporation will have machines for suitable Roadtown industries made of certain standard sizes to fit the workroom described. These machines will be for sale or to rent to the tenant. Under the old system of industry, men, constantly fraught with the fear of losing their jobs, are always anxious to buy and own the tools of production. In Roadtown practice there will be nothing to gain by private ownership over publicly owned machines. The corporation will charge just enough rental to maintain and repair the machinery and replace with new ones when the old are out of commission. The operator of the machine will find it more profitable to invest his savings in the bonds of the corporation than to make his own repairs or to replace his own machines. Another advantage of108 renting your machine is the option you have at all times, that of exchanging it for some other kind of machine.
Whether the factory is brought into the home, or the man induced to go to the factory will, of course, depend upon the nature of his work. Sometimes it will be cheaper to move the product, sometimes cheaper to move the man. In either case the perfected system of transportation is of equal importance.
The selling of farm products co?peratively is practical, as is being abundantly proven in the United States and to a greater extent abroad. There is no valid argument that can be put up against co?perative buying of the raw material and selling of the finished product of the Roadtown workers. Such co?perative buying and selling should not for a moment be classed with the graft tempting work of the municipal or government buyer. In the case of the government the money which is used to buy cavalry horses, for instance, is raised by revenues upon diamonds or cigars. There is here no relation whatsoever between the man who pays the taxes and the buyer of109 the goods. In co?perative buying the connection between the man who pays and the price that is paid will be close indeed. The buyer of leather for Roadtown glove makers would be held even more closely responsible for ............