ABSTRACT
The figures of the firms practicing profit-sharing and co-partnership between the 1880s and the 1920s, and even today, clearly show the numerical marginality of the movement. To Lord Robert Cecil, who devoted himself to the profit-sharing movement as much as he did later to the League of Nations, it seemed strange that employers should be opposed to it at all, yet he noticed that profit-sharing and co-partnership were met by 'uncompromising opposition from the great majority of employers'. The discernable phenomenon in the British experience was a strong influence of individualistic liberalism. The conviction of profit arising out of risk-taking logically led to employer repudiation of profit-sharing with employees who took no part in meeting losses. The reason for employers' rejection of profit-sharing stemmed from the same fear as shareholders', the democratic implications of profit-sharing and co-partnership. The fear of possible interference with managerial prerogatives under the profit-sharing system did not involve the question of opening the company books.
