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Democracy and religion : a study in Quakerism / by G. von Schulze-Gaevernitz
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Democracy an& IReU^fon.

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those organisations, which though working on theground of the capitalistic order, try to supersedeits fundamentals. In this respect a great fieldhas been reclaimed by the co-operative societiesembracing to-day millions of working men andpeasants. Their final goal is to overcome thecapitalistic system by an economic order based onsolidarity. The same applies, though in a minorway, to the cartels, trusts and trade associationsof the capitalists, which try to exclude or toorganise competition. 1 The third stage, to-dayonly touched in an experimental way, would bereached where capital and labour combined toconduct a factory, even a branch of industry, onthe lines of mutual service and voluntary co-operation. Quaker employers, as e.g. theCadburys at Bournville, have tried to build uptheir famous works on the principle of solidarity(Werkgemeinschaft). Hugo Stinnes and Sir AlfredMond have tried to combine organised capital withorganised labour in order to conduct a givenbranch of industry by collective action (Arbeits-gemeinschaf t).

There might come a day when the whole ofthe economic life will be controlled by mutualconsent of labour and leader, brought togetherin a national council. The germs of such a centralpowernon-bureacratic but businesslikemight

1 The first cartel known of in history was foundedabout 1762 by some Quaker ironmasters, the Darbys attheir head, who at the Society of Friends ' monthly meetingsused to talk over business in fixing fair prices of theirproduce. Isabel Grubb, Quakerism and Industry, London ,1930. S. 147.

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