1.2: Edward Atkinson: “The Service Which Capital Renders When Employed by Labor” (1886)

Paired Sources from U.S. History, 1877-present
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Abstract

Edward Atkinson was an economist and inventor from Brookline, Massachusetts. Although he was an opponent of slavery, the influence of the economist Adam Smith upon him shows here in his justification for capitalist class relations and his dismissal of labor unions. He is a particularly good choice for defending the capitalist side of the Labor Question because he had no direct interest in it. His support was entirely philosophical and is therefore harder to automatically dismiss. Notice too Atkinson’s narrow definition of “the right kind of Trades Union.”

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