SALARIALE, REGIME. – It is the social system characterized by the predominance, in the world of work, of the wage-based form of remuneration over other contractual forms, and consequently by the condition of wage-earner among workers (v. SALARIO). Alongside a very small number of entrepreneurs and capitalists, who respectively organize and finance work, dividing the profits among themselves, and a few technical and administrative managers whose positions are sufficiently stable and commensurate with their performance, this system contains a multitude of manual executors of work, remunerated by time or by measure, without any guarantee of employment.
I. CRISIS OF THE WAGE REGIME
Because it is precarious, this regime is morally unsatisfactory for the worker who, as he advances in professional training and social awareness, feels the affront of remaining extraneous to the life of the enterprise, in which he participates with an ever-greater contribution of intelligence, diligence, and initiative. Even more than by economic hardship, which is immediately felt and easily expressed, the wage regime is therefore characterized by a muted spiritual unease, less precisely perceived and more difficult to express; this is why the social question assumes a virulence or erupts in vindictive forms that are generally not proportionate to the stated economic causes: inadequate wages or something else. The discontent, even of the best-paid workers, derives precisely from the impossibility of satisfying spiritual needs by purely economic means, and above all from the lack of security for the future. In the century of materialism and economic liberalism, entrepreneurs and capitalists failed to foresee or understand the rapid maturation of such needs, and thus allowed the levers of social progress to be wrested from their hands (v. PROGRESSO). The workers, for their part, obeying political agitators, the children of that same century, were wrong to place the question on a universal revolutionary plane that stiffened the employing class into a defensive posture, multiplying its reasons for resistance: hence some ask whether the agitations that continued for a century accelerated or delayed the evolution of relations among the elements of production: enterprise, capital, and labor. Certainly, the problem was posed in an excessively radical manner, tending toward reforms of the internal structure of enterprises that cannot be expected to succeed if implemented in an overheated atmosphere of struggle; and which, in any event, cannot be carried out to the same degree and according to an identical model for all the highly varied types and sizes of enterprise, for every situation and every country.This intrinsic difficulty has in fact acted as a
brake on the adoption of reforms now universally desired: the threat of implementing them through trade-union or political impositions, always lacking in objectivity or tainted by demagogy, has needlessly alarmed the class of entrepreneurs, although they were already in principle convinced of the advisability and expediency of reforms, while also convinced of their dangerousness if implemented by force and not accompanied by other measures of an economic nature capable of making the general conditions of industry and agriculture secure and normal as well, and productive labor and commerce less difficult and risky.
The professional and moral maturity of the workers, too, must gradually be brought to the level of their new tasks and responsibilities.
II. TOWARD NEW SOLUTIONS
Faced with the threat of an authoritarian and therefore crude solution, and with the insidious politico-trade-union solutions now proposed under the name of co-management, whereby the new structures would be born contaminated by hatred and errors, a prompt, voluntary, intelligent initiative on the part of individual entrepreneurs appears necessary, to the extent of the real possibilities offered by each enterprise; for it seems possible that different forms and degrees of collaboration, association, and co-ownership may coexist, just as the progress of means of transport still allows all of them to coexist, from the most ancient to the most modern, appropriately selecting the work among them.The impasse can and must be overcome, and examples of such courageous initiatives by enterprises are already not lacking, in Italy and elsewhere. The Christian spirit and solidarity among entrepreneurs constitute the best disposition for such an undertaking: proof of this is the success of the «Union internationale des patrons catholiques»: UNIAPAC (v.) whose purpose is precisely the study, encouragement, and realization of similar initiatives. The evolution of the r. s. toward the forms mentioned above has in fact been presented as a conflict between capital and labor, that is, between capitalists and workers, while forgetting the pre-eminent figure entrepreneur (v.): as the one who calls capital and labor to collaborate through his idea and initiative, it is his privilege to preserve, or restore when it has been disturbed, harmony between the two factors, through harmony between each of them and the enterprise to which they contribute. If the figure of the entrepreneur has often been confused with that of the capitalist, this may perhaps be due to the abuse of joint-stock companies, in which the person who provides the capital is also a co-owner of the enterprise, but does not exercise its functions. Social justice is achieved by placing the three factors of production on an equal footing, without privileges, distributing profit in proportion to merit. This proportion, however, is not constant, either with respect to the various types of industry or with respect to time: for the entrepreneur and the capitalist, for example, it is generally greatest during the initial period of the enterprise, when risks and uncertainties reach their highest level, but it may again become high even for the most solid enterprises under particular political, economic, and social circumstances. Just as the entrepreneur can rid himself of surplus labor, so he should be able to rid himself of capital that has become too costly during the phase of the enterprise’s normal and secure operation, replacing it with less expensive capital.
III. FORMS OF THE WAGE REGIME
As for the forms toward which the wage regime is evolving, the principal ones may be mentioned. Piecework, mixed wages, and incentive pay can still be improved and organized, to the point of giving rise to small, almost autonomous enterprises within the principal enterprise; profit-sharing in the enterprise (v. PARTECIPAZIONISMO), workers’ shareholding, and the participation of workers (including salaried employees) in management to varying degrees; the decentralization and autonomy of departments or services; and the numerous types of profit-sharing and association contracts, as well as contracts for the redemption and co-ownership both of the product and of the means of production, present a very rich range of possibilities, enfiteusi (v.) mezzadria (v.) in the agricultural field; all forms that have sporadically existed at all times and that, even in the age of integral capitalism, have enabled—and continue to enable—considerable advancement and a continuous flow of individuals from the condition of wage earners into the independent circumstances of small, medium-sized, and even large entrepreneurs, shopkeepers, merchants, and proprietors.Cooperative forms, wherever compatible with productive activity, always constitute an exceptionally fertile field open to workers who aspire to independent and responsible work: better professional selection and more effective organization of credit would undoubtedly permit them to develop on a much broader scale, especially in the fields of handicrafts and small industry, commerce, and transport.
IV. MARXIST AND CATHOLIC APPROACHES TO THE PROBLEM
The Marxist position regarding the evolution of the r. s. is well known: the illusion that, by abolishing private ownership of the means of production and transferring it to the State in the name of the workers, the latter will no longer be exploited in terms of wages and will actually feel themselves masters of the enterprises is the principal obstacle both to a relaxation of relations among the various factors of production and to an objective examination of the situation and its problems. Moreover, Marxist ideology, while foreseeing the dictatorship of the proletariat, in no way envisages the abolition or transformation of the r. s., and in practice rejects every form of association between enterprise, capital, and labor, or of participation in industrial profits.The error of approach and method consists in this: whereas historical and environmental circumstances linked to a certain stage of economic civilization have produced or made possible particular structures and institutions, it is now claimed that these structures and institutions can be changed without any concern for transforming the economic environment that determined them—an environment essentially linked to technical progress in production, transportation, communications, exchange, credit, and currencies, as well as to morality and the degree of cultural maturity. Unless these general problems, and the specifically economic problems of measuring value, insuring savings, the mobility of capital, the rational financing of enterprises, and the improvement of stock exchanges and markets, are confronted and resolved (by economic or moral means respectively, and not by political means), any new social structure will find itself having to struggle against the same difficulties that give rise to the old structures.
The Catholic Church, by declaring that the r. s. is not in itself contrary to justice and morality, has always shown itself favorable to its natural evolution, hastening it through social works and study conferences (v. SETTIMANE SOCIALI) according to the formula: All proprietors! rather than the other formula that would make all proletarians. And this from the time when the common interpretation of the principles of the French Revolution did not permit workers to organize and act in defense of their own interests (v. DOTTRINA SOCIALE CATTOLICA).
In 1889 the Catholic University of Fribourg was organized, and soon became the center of Christian social studies. After two international Catholic congresses on social works (Liège 1887 and 1890), the activities promoted, the aspirations cultivated, and the studies brought to maturity, together with the suggestions of G. Toniolo (v.) Manning (v.) GIBBONS, JAMES (v.) of Baltimore, found a concrete outlet and a sovereign Rerum Novarum (v.) of Leo XIII (1891), from which dates a worldwide movement of workers’ renewal inspired by the truly integral needs of a better life in the human and Christian sense.
At the congresses held in succession during those same years, the need to direct the r. s. toward new forms was planned, and the family wage, participation in profits, and workers’ share ownership were proposed from that time onward (Milan Congress, 1894), giving vigorous life to the cooperative movement.
Today the evolution of the r. s. toward new forms can be accelerated and given greater precision not only by genuine progress in the economy, but also by intelligent social initiatives on the part of entrepreneurs, by workers’ professional culture and moderation, and finally by the seriousness of purpose of both sides.