COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AS PRICE FIXING 241 



information about , markets, market practices and market prices. 

 It may do much in the way of efficient publicity on the important 

 steps in marketing, particu larly transportation, grading, standard- 

 ization of pack, storage, processing and labeling, credit, and so on, 

 and still leave free play to individual initiative and industry. 

 But the heavy, paralyzing hand of bureaucracy should never be 

 permitted to displace the nice adjustment of economic forces seen 

 in the open market where keen buyers meet keen sellers face to 

 face and fix the market price under free play of supply and demand. 

 In the realm of organized labor the collective bargain has now 

 established its place, rather than government fixing of wages. It 

 is altogether probable and desirable that a legal method of collec- 

 tive bargaining be also worked out in agriculture in the immediate 

 future for those more specialized products when the plan promises 

 success. Such a collective bargain, were producers, distributers, 

 and consumers equally well organized and represented, would 

 prove a useful adjunct to the open market in establishing fair prices. 

 Its educative value would be great. Its economic value would be 

 small at first, but would doubtless increase with time. At any rate, 

 the growing demand by both consumer and producer for " price 

 fixing," and that " something be done" by "somebody" requires 

 that the situation be met. And the collective bargain method 

 would be vastly preferable to governmental price fixing. The farmer 

 would be given a voice in price making, thus salving a very sore 

 spot. In the language of our political formula, the " consent of 

 the governed " is basic; it is equally expedient in our economic life. 

 Collective Bargaining as Price Fixing. The term collective 

 bargaining is used in agriculture with some vagueness of meaning. 

 In mining and in railroading, whence the term comes, the meaning 

 is clear namely the fixing of the wage rate (and other conditions 

 of employment) by a sort of parliament or congress of representa- 

 times of labor and of capital. In agriculture the essence of the 

 term is price fixing. Therefore collective bargaining differs from 

 cooperative buying and selling. Cooperative selling means the 

 mere pooling of supplies and selling at the market price from day 

 to day. Collective bargaining means fixing the market price 

 usually for a definite period, such as one year or one month. And 

 price fixing also implies control of the supply by the producers 



/hose representatives are making the collective bargain. 



. The farmer desires collective bargaining, and is entitled to 



:, because of the voice it gives him in fixing the price on his 



wn products. 

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