El Barbudo wrote:Valid point, that.
As was mentioned in the "Revolution" thread, establishment figures were very wary of possible revolution and working-class uprising.
It's perfectly possible that the likes of Ackroyd (Ackroyden and Copley Model Village) and Salt (Saltaire) saw the advantage in keeping the workforce placid. But it's also possible that they had a paternalistic view towards their workforce, so my guess is that it was probably a mixture of what they felt was right and what was expedient.
In some other cases though, such as the Crossleys in Halifax (where Mrs Crossley, in particular, always remembered where they had come from and how Christian it was to help others ... and was known to berate her husband and sons if they dared to forget) and the Fieldens in Todmorden who campaigned for a shorter working week for children and compulsory education for those children rather than have them working full-time in the mills.
Of course, Fielden could only go so far or the less altruistic employers would have out-competed him on cost and he'd have been out of business with his workers then unemployed, homeless and starving.
It required an act of parliament to keep that playing field level.
Today, we need to remember that businesses cannot afford to be be moral because business and the market are, in essence, amoral because they can't afford to be anything else ... the baseline of fair play to employees and customers always needs to be set by government to ensure that level playing field.
The market has no conscience.
All you need do is look at the three principles the Quaker founders of Barclays built their bank on:
Honesty, Integrity, Plain Dealing
