A "share" in a business has no separate existence so long as it is kept in that business.

But the small units of labour cannot so absolutely merge their individuality.

The capital-unit being impersonal can be absolutely merged for common action with like units.

The labour-unit being personal only surrenders part of his freedom of action and competition to the Union, which henceforth represents the social side of his industrial self.

How far the necessity of close social action between labour-units in the future may compel the labourer to merge more of his industrial individuality in the Union, is an open question which the future history of labour-movements will decide.
The slow, intermittent, and fragmentary manner in which labour-unions have been hitherto conducted even in the stronger trades, is a fact which has perhaps done more to hide the true parallelism in the evolution of capital and labour.