Industry and Humanity - 1918 Author:William Lyon Mackenzie King Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II THE WORLD ASPECT The War, momentous in every way, has helped to demonstrate the unity underlying human relations. Its world scale but reflects the... more » expansion in Industry and International Polity. It is essential to recognize the cosmopolitan trend in order to view the problem of Labor and Capital in true perspective. It is no longer a local problem, or even a national problem, as often assumed, but an international problem of the first magnitude. Industrial and international relations are the warp and woof of modern world intercourse. They constitute the obverse and reverse of a world problem of human relations in which political and industrial considerations are inseparably intertwined. It is the scale and intimacy of this relationship that distinguishes the Labor Problem of to-day from the problem as it has existed at any previous time. Nor is the problem of Labor and Capital any longer one which concerns only, or even mainly, these two essential parties to production. As never before, it is a Community problem, and a Community gradually expanding to the utmostlimits of human society.1 The expressions, "the Labor Problem," "the Problem of Capital and Labor," are wholly inadequate to suggest the comprehensive nature of considerations of which account must be taken, if the well-being of persons engaged in Industry is to be promoted with any promise of enduring results. They are equally insufficient to convey any idea of the bearing of the problems of Industry upon the whole of social life. Industry does not affect wage-earners merely as persons possessing labor which they dispose of on a basis of time, skill, and energy. For most men and women, the conditions which surround Industry, and the output of Industry, represent all that is possible for them in the way of...« less