Workers of the World, Buy It!

In looking over the writings of Karl Marx, U.S. Steel's Chairman Ben Fairless decided that Marx had missed a trick. "In his thirst for revolution," Fairless told a meeting of the Pennsylvania state chamber of commerce at Pittsburgh last week, "Marx overlooked completely the only economic system on earth under which it is possible for the workers themselves to own, to control and to manage directly the facilities of production. Shocking as the news may be to the disciples of Karl Marx, that system is capitalism."

Fairless had done a little figuring on how the employees of U.S. Steel could take over the company. U.S. Steel's 300,000 employees "could buy every share of the outstanding common stock of U.S. Steel just as easily and just as cheaply as they can purchase a moderately good automobile." It works out, said Fairless, to 87 shares apiece. "At today's prices, those 87 shares would cost them less than $3,500 . . . By investing $10 a week apiece--which is about what our steelworkers gained in the recent wage increase--they could buy all of the outstanding common stock in less than seven years." Or there was an even easier way. "Sixty-two shares of common stock [each] would give them a voting majority in the corporation's affairs . . . An investment of only $5 a week would turn the trick in less than ten years. Then they could elect their own board of directors, fire the present management, put Phil Murray in my job, and run the business to suit themselves . . . Clearly, Marx didn't know all the Engels."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.