the hope that it would stimulate efficiency and economy on the part of
the workmen. Sometimes the immediate effect of the adoption of the
plan has been to make the workmen more efficient and more interested
in their tasks, but after the novelty of the scheme has worn off they
have generally fallen back into their former pace. In justice to the
workmen, it should be noted here that in most enterprises the
conditions of the market and the employer's managerial ability have
more influence upon profits than have the personal efforts of
individual workmen. Where workmen realize this, they tend to lose
faith in their ability to influence the share accruing to them under
the profit-sharing plan.

A last important reason why profit sharing is limited in scope is that
in many hazardous enterprises, such as mining, agriculture, fishing,
or building construction, the refusal and inability of the workmen to
share in possible losses prevent the adoption of the plan. A mining
corporation, for example, may make large profits one year, and lose
heavily the second year. Profit sharing is here inadvisable, if not
impossible. The distribution among the workmen of a large share of the
profits accruing at the end of the first year might so deplete the
financial reserves of the entrepreneur that he would be unable to meet
the losses of the second year.

B. COÖPERATION

112. RELATION OF PROFIT SHARING TO COÖPERATION.--Profit sharing
permits the workmen to secure more than a regular wage from a given
enterprise, without, however, giving them any control over the
management of the business. Coöperation goes a step farther, and
attempts to dispense with either a number of middlemen or with the