DEMAND DEPENDENT ON THE MANY 237 



by the very men who are apparently most blind to Book m 

 it. For one of the arguments most frequently used 

 to show the practicability of industrial democracy is 

 based on the unusual ability manifested by the 

 officials of the trade unions in managing strikes and 

 great demonstrations of strikers. Must not these 

 men, it is asked, have very exceptional capacities 

 who can gather together their thousands at the 

 shortest possible notice, and march them into 

 Hyde Park through the crowded thoroughfares of 

 London ? And it is perfectly true that many of the 

 trade union leaders are, in their own way, men 

 with remarkable and exceptional characteristics. 

 But, in the first place, the more that their admirers 

 magnify them, the more do they detract from the 

 democratic character of trade unionism ; and in the 

 second place, if a man is necessarily exceptional 

 because he can so far organise some thousands of 

 men as to march them occasionally into an enclosure 

 where they walk about sucking oranges, how much 

 more exceptional must be the abilities that can 

 organise similar men, day after day, for the per- 

 formance of the most intricately adjusted tasks, in 

 such a way that their efforts shall result in an 

 Atlantic liner ! Trade unionism, then, whatever the 

 ability of its leaders, does not represent democratic 

 action in the actual process of economic production 

 at all ; and instead of pointing to any development of 

 such action in the future, merely helps to show us 

 that no such development is to be looked for. 



Such being the case, then, the facts that now 



