“But the solidarity of the of the wage owners has no relation to the product; it is concerned to increase wages and diminish hours of work. The management may have pride in the product, but when an industry is thoroughly commercialized there is a tendency to think only of profit, which may often be secured more easily by advertisement than my improved workmanship”(Russell 43).
While Russell argues several different ideas and concepts, most of his fourth lecture seems to center around this quote. The change in the overall labor system had tremendous effects on the roles of the average worker and management. The average worker is now just another cog in a machine that doesn’t truly have a great impact on the final product. Therefore he is more concerned with his paycheck and doesn’t actually care about the quality of the overall result. A lot of what Russell talks about in this lecture relates back to his ideas presented in lecture three on the importance of the individual. The power of the individual in Russell’s eyes fuels innovation and genius but by removing any incentive for the individual to succeed and innovate, stagnation could be the result. That’s why Russell suggests that individuals should be given a proper incentive and reward for their work because as he has stated before, the individual is the drive behind societies’ great achievements.
-Matthew Epstein