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Title: Twentieth Century Socialism
What It Is Not; What It Is: How It May Come
Author: Edmond Kelly
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Language: English
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TWENTIETH CENTURY SOCIALISM
TWENTIETH CENTURY
SOCIALISM
_WHAT IT IS NOT; WHAT IT IS:
HOW IT MAY COME_
BY
EDMOND KELLY, M.A., F.G.S.
Late Lecturer on Municipal Government at Columbia University,
in the City of New York
Author of "Government or Human Evolution,"
"Evolution and Effort," etc., etc.
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK
LONDON, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA
1911
Copyright, 1910
BY
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
First Edition, May, 1910
Reprinted, November, 1910
May, 1911
THE SCIENTIFIC PRESS
ROBERT DRUMMOND AND COMPANY
BROOKLYN, N.Y.
INTRODUCTION
I
No one whose intellectual parts are in working order believes that the
industrial world will go back to an unorganized individualistic
production and distribution of wealth. No one whose moral sense is
awake desires to see the chief means of production owned and
controlled by a small number of monstrously wealthy men, however great
their ability or good their intentions. Nevertheless, most persons of
moral sense and normal mentality are disturbed when one suggests in so
many words that if industry cannot henceforth be individualistic and
should not be owned and controlled by the Big Few, it will,
apparently, have to be owned and controlled by the Many. This
paradoxical psychology possibly indicates that we queer human beings
do our real thinking and perform our occasional feats of moral
self-examination in lucid intervals, alternating with states of
mind--and conscience--which were better not described in non-technical
language.
Edmond Kelly was a man whose lucidity was not interrupted. It was a
necessity of his nature to think clearly and coherently. Not less
necessary was it for him to think comprehensively, for his sympathy
was boundless. Every phase of life interested him. He found nothing
but meanness contemptible; and nothing but injustice moved him to
hate. To such a mind the partial view is intolerable. A fact must be
seen from every side and its relations to other facts must be traced
out. From his earliest manhood Mr. Kelly looked upon the struggle for
existence as both evolution and effort. Accepting the Darwinian
explanation of life, he yet could not admit that man is powerless to
control his fate. Physical evolution shades into physiological, and
physiological evolution into psychological. Effort, foresight, and
directed effort are products of evolution, but having been produced,
they become forces in further evolution. In the higher evolution of
man, they have become principal forces. From the moment that Mr. Kelly
grasped this thought his mind was busy with it through all the years
of his exceedingly active life, mastering its implications, examining
it in its social or collective, no less than in its individual aspect,
and forecasting the chief lines of constructive effort by an
enlightened mankind industrially and politically organized for the
most effective coöperation.
Yet it was not until a few years before his death that Mr. Kelly
became a declared Socialist. The slow advance to his ultimate
conclusions was characteristic. Though his mind moved swiftly, his
intellectual integrity compelled him to examine every position as he
went on. Because of these qualities his books form a series,
consecutive in premisses and argument; a logical sequence
corresponding to their chronological order. Thus, in his early work,
"Evolution and Effort," Mr. Kelly was content to do thoroughly one
particular thing, namely, to demonstrate that the Spencerian
philosophy of evolution could be accepted without committing mankind
to the practical programme of _laissez faire_, upon which Mr. Spencer
himself so strongly insisted. This work Mr. Kelly did so well that
there is no need for anyone to do it over, and it provided a firm
foundation for his further constructive efforts. _The Popular Science
Monthly_, which was then, under the editorship of Professor Edward L.
Youmans, unreservedly committed to Spencerian views, acknowledged that
it was the most telling attack upon what Professor Huxley had called
"administrative nihilism" that had been made in any quarter. The main
ideas of "Evolution and Effort" were elaborated and clinched in the
two large volumes on "Government or Human Evolution," and were
concretely applied to pressing practical questions in the unsigned
book, "A Programme for Workingmen."
Each of the two volumes on "Government" was devoted, as "Evolution and
Effort" had been, to establishing firmly a specific proposition. When
Mr. Kelly began writing the first volume, which bore the sub-title
"Justice," he was a lecturer in the Faculty of Political Science at
Columbia University and was intensely interested in the movement for
the reform of municipal politics in New York city. Believing that
adequate organization was the chief need, he had founded the City Club
and the subsidiary Good Government Clubs. In the discussions which
this movement called forth, he says: "One fact stood out with
startling conspicuousness. Not one out of a thousand was able to
formulate a clear idea as to the principles upon which he stood; upon
one measure he was an Individualist; upon another, a Collectivist; one
day he was for strong governmental action; the next for liberty of
contract; and of those who presented the claims of expediency and
justice respectively, no one was able to say what justice was."
It seemed, therefore, to Mr. Kelly that on the theoretical side we
needed first, and above all else, a clear conception of justice as an
end to be attained. For conclusions already arrived at in "Evolution
and Effort" made it impossible for him to believe that justice is
satisfied by merely "rewarding every man according to his
performance." Seeing in evolution possibilities beyond present
attainment, he believed that a way should be found to enable every man
to achieve his potential performance. Thus his notion of justice,
derived from the principle of evolution, became substantially
identical with that which had been set forth two thousand years ago by
Plato in _The Republic_. To quote Mr. Kelly's own words: "Justice may,
then, be described as the effort to eliminate from our social
conditions the effects of the inequalities of Nature upon the
happiness and advancement of man, and particularly to create an
artificial environment which shall serve the individual as well as the
race, and tend to perpetuate noble types rather than those which are
base."
It was inevitable that with such a conception of justice in mind, a
thinker scientifically so remorseless as Mr. Kelly was, should find
individualistic prejudices shaken before he completed his task.
"Beginning with a strong bias against Socialism of every kind," he was
forced before he reached the end of his first volume to "a reluctant
recognition that by collective action only could the uncorrupted many
be rescued from the corrupt few, and could successful effort be made
to diminish the misery of poverty and crime."
Having arrived at this conclusion, Mr. Kelly was able to make his
second volume on the respective claims of Individualism and
Collectivism an exposition which, for clearness of insight, acuteness
of philosophical observation, wealth of historical knowledge, and
sanity of judgment, has few equals in the modern literature of social
problems. He demonstrated the inevitable failure of individualism as
an adequate working programme for a complex civilization. He showed
that collectivism must be accepted, whether we like it or not, if we
desire justice; and, more than this, he showed, not speculatively, but
from concrete and experimental data, that a civilized mankind may be
expected to like a reasonable collectivism when it begins to
understand and to adopt it, far better than it has liked
individualism, and for the adequate reason that collectivism will
diminish misery and increase happiness.
Not even upon the completion of this remarkable volume, however, was
Mr. Kelly quite ready to take the final step of identifying himself
with the Socialist party. So strong was that nature within him which,
without theological implications, we may call the spiritual or
religious, that he would have been glad if he could have seen the
possibility of attaining the ends which Socialism contemplates through
a movement essentially subjective, that is to say, through
developments of the intellectual and moral nature of man which would
impel all human beings, irrespective of class distinctions, to work
together spontaneously and unselfishly, for the creation of a
wholesome environment and essential justice in social relations. It
was this feeling that led him to write the anonymously published,
"Practical Programme for Workingmen," in which essentially socialistic
measures are advocated, but with strong emphasis upon the vital
importance of character and sympathy.
When a strong-minded man of strict intellectual honesty has thus
advanced, step by step, from one position to another, at every stage
of his progress surveying the whole field of human struggle;
observing it dispassionately, as a scientific evolutionist; observing
it sympathetically, "as one who loves his fellowmen," comes at last to
the socialistic conclusion, and devotes the last weeks of his life to
the preparation of a new statement of socialistic doctrine, the fact
is more significant, as an indication of the way mankind is going,
than are all the cries of "lo here, lo there" that arise from the din
of party discussion. In Mr. Kelly's case the significance was deepened
by all the circumstances of taste and association. Intensely
democratic in his relations to men, Mr. Kelly was in breeding, in
culture, in delicacy of feeling an aristocrat of the purest type.
Educated at Columbia and at Cambridge, his university acquaintance and
his political and professional activities in New York and in Paris had
kept him continually in touch with what the socialist calls "the
capitalist class." In joining the Socialist party he jeopardized
friendships and associations that meant more to him than anything else
save the approval of his own conscience.
The book now given to the public, written when he knew that his days
were numbered, is, all in all, the most remarkable of his works. All
writers of experience know that it is far easier to write a first
statement of a newly discovered truth, than to restate the chief
principles of a system already partly formulated; a system more or
less vague where it is most vital, more or less unscientific and
impossible where it is most specific. No one knew better than Mr.
Kelly did that while the larger-minded leaders of the Socialist
movement would generously welcome any thought which he had to give,
there would be some of the rank and file who would feel that, in
differing from the accredited writers, he was revealing himself as a
convert not yet quite informed on all tenets of the creed--perhaps
not even quite sound in the faith. A less enthusiastic nature, or one
less resolutely determined to complete his life work as best he could,
would have shrunk from such an undertaking as this book was. That
under the circumstances he could put into it the vigor of thought and
of style, the incisive criticism, the wealth of fact and illustration;
above all, the freshness of view, the practical good sense and the
strong constructive treatment which we find in these pages, is indeed
remarkable.
How clearly he saw what sort of a book was needed, is best indicated
in his own account of what he desired to do. It should be first of
all, he thought, comprehensive. Socialism has been presented from the
economic standpoint, from the scientific, from the ethical and from
the idealistic. As Mr. Kelly saw it, Socialism is not merely an
economic system, nor merely an idealistic vision. It is a consequence
and product of evolution. "Science has made it constructive," he says,
"and the trusts have made it practical." It is ethical because "the
competitive system must ultimately break upon the solidarity of
mankind," because the survival of the fit is not the whole result of
evolution. The result still to be attained is "the improvement of
all." And Socialism is idealistic because it not only contemplates,
but gives reasonable promise of "a community from which exploitation,
unemployment, poverty and prostitution shall be eliminated."
But besides making an exposition of Socialism as a whole and in all
its parts, Mr. Kelly aimed to make a book "for non-socialists." With
this purpose in view he has kept closely to concrete statement and
above all has tried to avoid vagueness and loose generalization. He
has described possibilities in terms that all know and understand.
With the precision of the trained legal mind, he seizes the essential
point when he says: "It is not enough to be told that there are a
thousand ways through which Socialism can be attained. We want to see
clearly one way." With the last strength that he had to spend Mr.
Kelly showed one way; and no bewildered wayfarer through our baffling
civilization, however he may hesitate to set his feet upon it, will
venture to say that it is not clear.
FRANKLIN H. GIDDINGS.
NEW YORK, April 19, 1910.
II
An immense revolution, a wonderful revolution, is opening in the mind
of the human race; a new driving force is taking hold of the souls of
men--the devotion to the welfare of the whole; a new sense, with all
the intensity of a new-born feeling, is emerging in the consciousness
of men--the sense that one cannot himself be healthy or happy unless
the race is happy and healthy. A hundred theories appearing here and
there, a thousand organizations springing up, a million acts of
individuals everywhere, attest each day the presence and the growing
power of this vast solidarizing movement.
Among these manifestations throughout the world, the most pronounced
and the most clearly defined is that compact, fiercely vital
organization known as the international Socialist party. Yet the
Socialist party is not the movement, any more than the cresting billow
is the torrent. It is an imperatively necessary element; but the
movement itself is vastly broader and deeper than any manifestation of
it.
An uncounted multitude in all lands are gradually becoming conscious
of this sweeping tendency and of their own part in it--a multitude as
yet not bearing any specific title. Out of these a considerable number
are fully conscious of the movement, and are willing partakers. These
we might call solidarists, in token of their conviction that the goal
ought to be and will be an economic solidarity. But of even these it
is only a part who are distinctively to be called Socialists, only
those who have perceived two certain mighty facts: first, that men's
mass-relations in the process of making a living are fundamental to
their other relations, to their opinions and motives, and to all
revolutions; and, second, that the chief agency in bringing about
changes in the great affairs of the human race has always been and
continues to be the pressure and clash between enduring masses of men
animated by opposite economic interests. The Socialist is one who sees
these social and historic facts and whose action is guided by such
sight; the non-Socialist solidarist is one who, though animated by the
socializing impulses, has not yet perceived these two most weighty
facts.
Now Edmond Kelly, as was natural from his antecedents, was for nearly
the whole of his life a non-Socialist solidarist. But, about two years
before his death, being at the height of his powers of insight and
intellect, he attained the clear vision of the "class-struggle," and
no longer had any doubts where he himself belonged in the army of
humanity--he became and remained a comrade--a loyal comrade.
There is a certain bit of doggerel, said to derive from Oxford, which
tells us that:
"Every little boy or gal,
Who comes into this world alive,
Is born a little Radical,
Or else a small Conservative."
And this all-pervading division penetrates even that most radical of
bodies, the Socialist party. That party has its own conservative and
radical wings--its right and its left--and Edmond Kelly is distinctly
of the right.
One who is inclined by instinct to the one wing, and by logic to the
other, can realize the indispensableness of both--the special
contribution which each makes, and which the other cannot make, to the
common cause. The motive of this note is to appeal to the comrades of
the left not to shut their eyes to the value of this book, not to
forego its special usefulness. For the very attitude of its author,
which may be distasteful to them--his making appeals which they no
longer make, his using forms of speech which they reject, his making
so little use of that which is their main appeal, fit him especially
to influence the minds of that numerous fringe of educated persons who
must evidently be first made "rightists" before they can become
"centrists" or "leftists." It may even be imagined that the difficult
type of working man, he who thinks himself too noble-minded to respond
to class appeal, might begin to rouse himself if he could once be
brought under the charm of this book.
Aware that he had not long to live, Mr. Kelly hastened to finish the
first draft of the book, and indeed he survived that completion only
two weeks. He knew that considerable editorial work was needed, and
this he entrusted to Mrs. Florence Kelley, author of "Some Ethical
Gains through Legislation" and translator of Marx' "Discourse on Free
Trade," and of Friedrich Engels' work on the "Condition of the
Working Class in England." She undertook and has fulfilled this trust,
and has been aided throughout by the untiring labors of Shaun Kelly,
the author's son. Thus this book of Mr. Kelly's is doubly a memorial
of love--of his for man, and of ours for him.
RUFUS W. WEEKS.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTORY NOTES: PAGE
By Professor Franklin H. Giddings v
By Rufus W. Weeks xii
INTRODUCTORY 1
BOOK I
_WHAT SOCIALISM IS NOT_
CHAPTER
I. SUBJECTIVE OBSTACLES TO THE UNDERSTANDING OF SOCIALISM 18
Vested Interests 18
II. ECONOMIC CONDITIONS 23
1. Bourgeois, Revolutionist, and Evolutionist 23
(_a_) The Bourgeois Point of View 23
(_b_) The Revolutionist Point of View 24
(_c_) The Evolutionist Point of View 27
III. MISREPRESENTATION AND IGNORANCE 31
1. Socialism is not Anarchism 31
2. Socialism is not Communism 33
3. Socialism will not Suppress Competition 36
4. Socialism will not Destroy the Home 40
5. Socialism will not Abolish Property 42
6. Socialism will not Impair Liberty 46
7. Conclusion 51
BOOK II
_WHAT CAPITALISM IS_
EVILS OF CAPITALISM 53
I. CAPITALISM IS STUPID 57
1. Overproduction 57
2. Unemployment 66
3. Prostitution 79
4. Strikes and Lockouts 86
5. Adulteration 88
II. CAPITALISM IS WASTEFUL 94
1. Getting the Market 95
2. Cross Freights 96
III. CAPITALISM IS DISORDERLY 101
1. Anarchy of Production and Distribution 102
(_a_) Tyranny of the Market 102
(_b_) Tyranny of the Trust 104
(_c_) Tyranny of the Trade Union 106
IV. PROPERTY AND LIBERTY 112
1. Origin of Property 113
V. RESULTS OF PROPERTY 131
1. The Guilds 135
2. Trade Unions 140
3. The Unsolved and Insoluble Problems of Trade Unionism 159
(_a_) The Conflict between the Trust and the Trade
Union 167
(_b_) Advantage of Trusts over Unions 169
(_c_) Advantage of Unions over Trusts 171
VI. MONEY 176
VII. CAN THE EVILS OF CAPITALISM BE ELIMINATED BY COÖPERATION 199
BOOK III
_WHAT SOCIALISM IS_
I. ECONOMIC ASPECT OF SOCIALISM 204
II. ECONOMIC CONSTRUCTION OF THE COÖPERATIVE COMMONWEALTH 235
1. How Socialism May Come 239
2. Reform and Revolution 243
3. Possible Transitional Measures 248
4. Farm Colonies 263
5. Land 278
6. Summary of the Productive Side of Economic Construction 286
7. Distribution 288
8. Remuneration 303
9. Circulating Medium under Socialism 307
10. Summary 313
III. POLITICAL ASPECT 317
1. Education 325
2. Churches 328
3. Political Construction 329
IV. SCIENTIFIC ASPECT 335
1. Natural Environment 337
(_a_) Struggle for Life or Competitive System 337
(_b_) Coöperative System 342
2. Human Environment 349
3. Effect of Competitive System on Type 357
4. Brief Restatement 360
5. Can Human Nature be Changed by Law 364
6. Summary 374
V. ETHICAL ASPECT 378
1. Conflict between Science and Religion 378
2. Conflict between Economics and Religion 389
3. Socialism Reconciles Religion, Economics, and Science 395
VI. SOLIDARITY 402
APPENDIX 413
INDEX 433
TWENTIETH CENTURY SOCIALISM
INTRODUCTORY
My reason for writing this book is that I do not know of any one book
that gives in small compass to the uninformed a comprehensive view of
Socialism. It would be fatal to suggest to one not quite certain
whether he wants to know about Socialism or not, that he should read
the great economic foundation work of Karl Marx.[1] The excellent book
of Emil Vandervelde,[2] which seems to me to contain one of the most
compendious accounts of economic Socialism, is written from the
Belgian and European point of view rather than from the American; it
does not attempt to give either the scientific[3] or the ethical
argument for Socialism, nor does it contain specific answers to the
objections which are most imminent in American minds to-day. The
recent book by Morris Hillquit,[4] deservedly recognized as one of the
leaders of the party in America, an authoritative, clear and admirable
statement of what the Socialist party stands for, seems to be
addressed to the Socialist rather than to the non-Socialist.
Innumerable books and pamphlets by Bernard Shaw, Sidney Webb, John
Spargo, William Morris and others throw light on this enormous
subject. But for years past when asked by the average American what
one book would give him a complete account of Socialism, I have been
at a loss what to recommend. The book that first opened my eyes to the
possibilities of Socialism was "Fabian Tracts"; but I doubt whether
this would appeal to many American readers. An economic mind must be
given the economic argument; a scientific mind the scientific
argument; an idealistic mind, the ideal; an ethical mind, the ethical;
but the average mind must be given all four; for it is in the
convincing concurrence of all four that the argument for Socialism is
unanswerable.
Another reason for writing this book is the desire to put Socialism
firmly on the solid foundation of fact. It is the progress of science
and the economic development of the last few years that have made
Socialism constructive and practical. Science has made it constructive
and the trusts have made it practical. It no longer rests on the
imagination of poets nor on the discontent of the unemployed. On the
contrary, Science with its demonstration that man is no longer the
mere result of his environment, but can become its master, teaches us
that by constructing our environment with intelligence we can
determine the direction of our own development. The trusts, with
their demonstration of the waste and folly of competition, teach us
that what a few promoters have done for their own benefit the whole
community can do for the benefit of all.
Again, history has revealed a fact upon which the competitive system
must ultimately break; it may break under the hammer of the new
builder or through the upheaval of a mob; but that it must eventually
break is as certain as that day follows night. This fact is the
solidarity of mankind. Whether it was wise of the Few to share the
government with the Many it is too late now to inquire. The thing has
been done--_alea jacta_. And that the Few should imagine that, after
having put a club in the hands of the Many with which they can, when
they choose, at any election smash to pieces the machinery--political
and industrial--that oppresses them; and having established a system
of education--nay, of compulsory education--through which the Many
_must_ learn during their childhood, how upon attaining majority, they
can use this club most effectually, the Many will refrain from using
it--is one of those delicious inconsequences of the governing class
which throws a ray of humor over an otherwise tragic scene.
I do not believe it was in the power of the Few to perpetuate their
reign; I think there are evidences of a Power working through
Evolution to which even Herbert Spencer has paid the tribute of a
capital P, which ordained from the beginning that Man should progress
not as his forbears did, through the survival only of the fit, but as
Man has unconsciously for centuries been doing, through the
improvement of all. I think this is the Power that some worship under
the name of Jah and others under the name of God. But this view will
not be insisted upon, for it is not necessary to insist upon it. The
fact of human solidarity will, I think, be demonstrated,[5] and it
will, I hope, at the same time be shown that Socialism is no longer a
theory born of discontent, but a system developed by fact, and as
inevitably so developed as the tiger from the jungle of India, or
cattle from the civilization of man.
Again, I do not think it is sufficient to demonstrate that Socialism
is sound in theory. We have also to show that it is attainable in
fact.
The practical American will not be satisfied with being told that
there are a thousand different ways through which Socialism can be
attained. He does not want to be told how many ways there are to
Socialism, but wants to be shown one way along which his imagination
can safely travel.
What the "bourgeois" wants to know is just how Socialism is going to
work. He cannot conceive of industry without capitalism, any more than
he can conceive of the world without the sun. Some concrete picture
must be presented to his mind that will enable him to understand that
while capital is not only good, but essential, the capitalist is not
only bad, but superfluous. Nothing less than a picture of industry
actually in operation without capitalism will suffice; and this,
therefore, I have attempted to draw. No pretence is made that the
picture is the only possible Socialist state, or that it will ever be
realized in the exact shape in which it is drawn. The only claim to be
made for it is that it furnishes a fair account of an industrial
community from which exploitation, unemployment, poverty and
prostitution are eliminated; that such an industrial community is more
practical because far more economical than our own; and that it is the
goal towards which, if we survive the dangers attending the present
conflict between capital and labor, industrial and ethical evolution
are inevitably driving us.
Again, there is probably no feature connected with Socialism that it
is more important to demonstrate and define than its economy. It
occurred to me that we possessed in our official reports, and
particularly in the 13th Annual Report of the Bureau of Labor, figures
which would enable us to arrive at a considerable part of this economy
with some mathematical certainty. I pointed out my plan to Mr. J.
Lebovitz, of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., who has a
better talent for statistics than myself, and I cannot but
congratulate myself and my readers upon the results to which, thanks
to his help, we have jointly come.
It must be admitted that the figures in our possession do not enable
us to estimate the whole economy of Socialism; but they do enable us
to give a tentative estimate of how many hours a workingman would have
to work to produce the things which the average workingman consumes if
no account be taken of profit, rent, interest, and the cost of
distribution. Of course, though profit, interest and rent would be
eliminated in a coöperative commonwealth, we should still be subject
to the cost of distribution and, therefore, the figures we arrive at
are incomplete in the sense that we have to take into account the fact
that they do not include this cost. But there would be economies
exercised in a coöperative commonwealth, such as the economy of
insurance, of advertising, of unnecessary sickness, of strikes and
lockouts, of the cost of pauperism, crime and in some measure that of
dependents, defectives and delinquents, etc., which would probably pay
the cost of distribution. I feel, therefore, that although our figures
are not absolute, they do furnish a starting-point more satisfactory
than has heretofore been obtained.
The most impelling reason for writing this book is the persistently
false and misleading statements made regarding Socialism by the very
persons whose business it is to be informed on the subject. For years
now the men we elect to office as best fitted to govern us--Presidents
and Presidential candidates, Roosevelt, Taft and Bryan, have in spite
of repeated protests and explanations been guilty of this offence. Mr.
Roosevelt stands too high in the esteem of a large part of our voting
public, and I myself entertain too high an opinion of his ability, for
such charges as those he has made against Socialism to go unanswered.
And in answering them I shall take as my justification the platform of
the Socialist party,[6] which must be carefully read by all who want
to understand what Socialism really is in the United States of
America. It is of course impossible in a platform to give the whole
philosophy of Socialism, but the platform does state with sufficient
precision what Socialists stand for to make it impossible for anyone
who has read it to remain any longer under the false impression
created by ignorance or deliberate misrepresentation.
I take Mr. Roosevelt's articles in the _Outlook_ as the special object
of my explanations, not only because they express very widespread
fallacies regarding Socialism, but because they emanate from one who
for popularity and reputation casts every other American in the shade;
and also because, for this reason, his utterances not only command the
attention of the foolish--this he easily gets--but should also, in
view of his position, arrest that of those who tend by his
exaggerations to be estranged from him.
So I have felt it an urgent duty to explain not only what Socialism
is, as Hillquit, Vandervelde, Thompson,[7] and many others have so
ably done, but specifically to point out what it is not: That it is
not Anarchism, but order; not Communism, but justice; that it does not
propose to abolish competition, but to regulate it; nor to abolish
property, but to consecrate it; nor to abolish the home, but to make
the home possible; nor to curtail liberty, but to enlarge it.
Now if this last is to be done, it is indispensable to have clear
notions as to what liberty is; no intelligent understanding of liberty
is possible unless there is an equally intelligent understanding of
property, which is more closely connected with liberty than is
generally recognized. The necessary relation between property and
liberty has escaped some of our ablest lawyers. Just after James C.
Carter had finished his argument in Paris on the Seal Fishery case and
was preparing a supplementary brief that he had been given permission
to file, he told me that he felt it necessary to study up the
fundamental question of what property was and had been advised to read
Proudhon! I did not know much about Socialism at that time, but did
know enough to explain to him that Proudhon was an anarchistic
communist; and asked him if he thought the court was disposed to
listen to this kind of argument. Mr. Carter was shocked in the
extreme, and lowering his voice, asked, a little shamefacedly, what
Anarchism and Communism were, and were they the same as Socialism.
This led to a discussion of property, of the views held regarding it
by Socialists, Communists and Anarchists respectively; and to the
strange conclusion that the brief which Mr. Carter was preparing in
order to maintain the liberty of the United States to protect seals
as the property of humanity at large was Socialism Simon pure! To his
dismay he found himself on the verge of preaching the very doctrine
which of all doctrines he most abhorred!
I do not know any standard work on Socialism that enters carefully
into the nature of these things. I attempted it in "Government or
Human Evolution," to which I shall have occasion sometimes to refer.
But this book was addressed to students of Political Science and is
not short or compendious enough for the general public.
In a word, I have written this book to supply what I believe to be a
crying need--for a compact, simple statement of what Socialism is not,
of what Socialism is, how Socialism may come about, and particularly
distinguishing modern Socialism from the crude ideas that prevailed
before Marx, Darwin and the development of trusts.
The public imagines to-day that Socialism is Utopian. This is
singularly erroneous. Socialism is the only intelligent, practical
system for providing humanity with the necessaries and comforts of
life with the least waste, the least effort and the least injustice.
The competitive system under which these things are now produced and
distributed has been condemned by the business men whose opinions the
business world most respects, because it involves infinite labor to a
vast majority of the race and useless cost to all, without, I venture
to add, assuring happiness to any.
Socialism, on the other hand, presents a simple, obvious and
unanswerable solution of the manifold problems presented by the
competitive system. This solution ought to appeal to business men
because it undertakes to do for the benefit of the nation what our
greatest business men have been engaged for some years in doing for
the benefit of themselves.
It is not likely that the American public, once it understands the
situation, will refuse to adopt the only practical method of ridding
itself of a wasteful system and a corrupt government just because the
few who profit by it for very obvious reasons do not want them to. All
the public needs is a clear understanding of what Socialism really is;
how it is certain to come eventually; and how it is best that it
should come.
Many Socialists make the mistake of asking us to look too far ahead.
We are not all equally far-sighted. Some are very near-sighted. In
fact the habit of looking closely at our ledgers and at our looms
tends to make us near-sighted. Socialists too may be wrong in their
forecast centuries ahead. This book therefore makes a distinction
between those things that can be demonstrated and those which, on the
contrary, are still matter for mere speculation.
It can be demonstrated that a _partial_ substitution of coöperation
for competition in definite doses will put an end to pauperism,
prostitution and in great part to crime. Whether a _wholesale_
substitution of coöperation for competition will still further promote
human development and happiness is a matter of speculation--as to
which men can legitimately differ.
The contention made in this book is that a substitution of coöperation
for competition in the dose herein prescribed _must_ put an end to the
three gigantic evils above mentioned, and incidentally confer upon us
a larger and truer measure of liberty and happiness than the world has
ever yet known.
One word about the language of this book. As it is addressed to
persons not familiar with the Socialist vocabulary, I am going to
abstain to the utmost possible from using this vocabulary. I am not
going to use the words "surplus value" when the more familiar word
"profit" can be used with practically the same advantage. I am going
to avoid the expression "materialist interpretation of history" when
the words "economic interpretation of history" are equally correct and
less likely to mislead. And I am above all going to avoid, wherever I
can, the use of the words "individualism" and "individualists,"
because these words have been already used by capitalists to beg the
whole question. Capitalists have quietly appropriated this word to
themselves and Socialists have been foolish enough to permit them to
do it. Capitalism does indeed promote a certain kind of individualism;
but we shall have to discuss later just what is the nature of the
individualism promoted by existing conditions and compare it with the
individualism that will be promoted by Socialism. I think it will
become clear that it is the peculiar province of Socialism to rescue
the vast majority of men from conditions which make the development of
the individual impossible, and to put opportunities of individual
development at the disposal of all; that, indeed, the highest type of
individualism can be realized only in a coöperative commonwealth that
will give to every man not only opportunity for developing his
individual talents, but leisure for doing so--the very leisure of
which the vast majority are deprived under the present system and of
which the few who have it profit little.
It is not easy to find words to substitute for individualist and
individualism. The word that best describes the individualist is
"egotist." But the use of the word "egotist," for the very reason that
it is the truest word for describing the individualist, would arouse
such protest in the minds of those so designated as perhaps to
prevent this book from being read by the very persons to whom it is
chiefly addressed.
The word "capitalist" cannot be used for this purpose either, because
by no means all who have capitalistic ideas are capitalists, and some
capitalists are free from capitalistic ideas.
So instead of the words "individualist," "egotist" and "capitalist," I
am going to use the French word "bourgeois." It seems to convey what
it is intended to convey with least error and most consideration for
capitalistic susceptibilities. It is true that "bourgeois" is a French
word and should be avoided in consequence, but it has been now so
acclimated to our language that many editors print it without
quotation marks. The word "bourgeois" roughly includes all those who
have property or employ labor, or who can be psychologically classed
with these. It includes the small shop-keeper who keeps a clerk, or
perhaps only a servant, and the millionaire who keeps thousands of men
at work in his factories, mines, railroads or other industries. It
includes the large farmer who employs help, but not the small farmer
who employs no help; it includes the lawyer, the broker and the agent
who depend upon the capitalist but are lifted above the hunger line.
Instead of the word "individualism," I shall use another French
expression which has also become acclimated--that is to say, _laissez
faire_; for _laissez faire_ are words adopted by the bourgeois to
describe the system for which he generally stands. This expression is
peculiarly appropriate to-day, when we hear our business men clamoring
to be "let alone." Indeed were it not for the awkwardness of the
expression "let-alone-ism," this literal translation of _laissez
faire_ would just suit my purpose.
It is true that the _laissez faire_ of to-day differs from that of the
last century. For there is at present a very wide belief in the
possibility of controlling corporations, and whereas the _laissez
faire_ of the last century went so far as to deny the necessity of
government control, that of to-day very largely admits it. By laissez
faire, therefore, I mean the controlled _laissez faire_ that now
prevails as well as the uncontrolled _laissez faire_ of a century ago,
the essential difference between _laissez faire_ and Socialism being
that the former implies leaving the production and distribution of
everything to private capital whether controlled or uncontrolled by
government; whereas Socialism implies putting production and
distribution of at least the necessaries of life into the hands of
those who actually produce and distribute them without any
intervention or control of private capital whatever.
I have been careful to take my facts and figures not from Socialist
publications, but from government publications or economists of
admitted authority. I have, too, in every case where it seems
necessary quoted my authority so that there may be no doubt as to the
source from which my facts are drawn.
In conclusion it must be stated that there are four very different
standpoints from which Socialists start--the economic, the political,
the scientific and the ethical.
Ethical writers began by disregarding the economic side of Socialism
altogether, and some economic Socialists are therefore disposed to
despise ethical and so-called Christian Socialism; whereas the ethical
view is not only useful, but essential to a complete understanding of
the subject.
The scientific view of Socialism has been comparatively little
treated, but it is not for that reason the least important. On the
contrary, Herbert Spencer and his school have built a formidable
opposition to Socialism based upon pseudo-scientific grounds. It
becomes, therefore, important to point out the extent to which Herbert
Spencer was wrong and Huxley right in the application of science to
this question.
My own conviction is that the highest Socialism is that which
reconciles all four views--the economic, the political, the scientific
and the ethical. But as this is a work of exposition rather than of
controversy, I have abstained from insisting upon this view and have,
on the contrary, endeavored to give a fair account of all four
arguments, in the hope that those who are inclined to the economic
view may adopt it for economic reasons; those inclined to the
political view may adopt it for political reasons; those who are
attracted by the scientific view may adopt it for scientific reasons;
and those who are attracted by the ethical view may adopt it for
ethical reasons, leaving it to time to determine whether the strongest
argument for Socialism is not to be found in the fact that it is
recommended by all four.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] "Capital," by Karl Marx.
[2] "Collectivism and Industrial Revolution," Emil Vandervelde.
[3] Engels and others have described Marxian or Economic Socialism as
scientific, on the ground that Marx was the first to reduce Socialism
to a science. But the word science has become so inseparably connected
in our minds with chemistry, physics, biology, zoology, and geology,
etc., that it seems wiser to define Marxian Socialism as economic and
to keep the word scientific for that view of Socialism which is built
on the sciences proper and principally on biology.
[4] "Socialism in Theory and Practice." Macmillan, 1909.
[5] Book III, Chapter VI.
[6] See Appendix.
[7] "The Constructive Program of Socialism," Carl D. Thompson.
BOOK I
_WHAT SOCIALISM IS NOT_
Socialism is not a subject which can be put into a nutshell. On the
contrary it resembles rather a lofty mountain which has to be viewed
from every point of the compass in order to be understood. Mont Blanc,
approached from the North or Swiss side, presents the aspect of a
round white dome of snow; approached from the South or Italian side it
presents that of a sharp black peak of rock. Yet these totally
different aspects belong to the same mountain. It takes a mountaineer
about three days to go round Mont Blanc on foot; it takes an ordinary
pedestrian who has to stick to roads about a week. It is probable,
therefore, that the reader new to the subject will take at least a
week to understand Socialism, which is quite as big a subject as Mont
Blanc and considerably more important. He is likely, however, to take
much more than a week if, as happens in most cases, he starts in a
forest of prejudices any one of which is sufficient to obstruct his
view. In the confusion in which the ordinary citizen finds himself,
owing to this forest of prejudices which constitutes the greatest
obstacle to the understanding of Socialism, he may very possibly
wander all his life, and the first duty, therefore, of a book on
Socialism is to take him out of the forest which he cannot himself see
"because of the trees."
The great enemy to a sound understanding of Socialism used to be
ignorance; to-day, however, there is less ignorance, but a great deal
more confusion; and the confusion arises from two sources: confusion
deliberately created by false denunciations of Socialism, and
confusion unconsciously created by personal interests and prejudice.
The confusion arising from these two sources may be described as
subjective obstacles to Socialism because they exist within ourselves.
They are to be distinguished from objective obstacles to Socialism
which exist outside of ourselves. For example, if a majority of us
were in favor of adopting Socialism, we should still find many
objective obstacles to it; for example, if we proposed to expropriate
the trusts, we should undoubtedly be enjoined by the courts; we should
find ourselves confronted with federal and State constitutions; we
perhaps would have to amend these constitutions. These difficulties
are outside of us. But before we reach these obstacles, we have to
overcome others that exist within us and are to-day by far the most
formidable. These subjective obstacles reside in our minds and are
created there by vested interests, property, ignorance and
misrepresentation. We are all of us under a spell woven about us by
the economic conditions under which we live.
For example, the workingman who has saved a few hundred dollars and
goes out West to take up land, thinks that by so doing he will escape
from wage slavery. He does not know that he is not escaping slavery at
all, but only changing masters. Instead of being the slave of an
employer, he becomes the slave of his own farm. And the farm will
prove an even harder taskmaster than a Pittsburg steel mill, for it
will exact of him longer hours during more days of the year and seldom
give him as high a wage. Nevertheless, the fact that he owns the
farm--that the farm is his property--awakens in him the property
instinct that tends to rank him on election day by the side of the
bourgeois.
So also the store-keeper who, because he owns his stock, buys goods at
a low price and sells them at a high, and makes profit, considers
himself superior to the wage-earner, unmindful of the fact that his
store adds to long hours and low wage the anxieties of the market and
that, thanks to trusts and department stores, he is kept perpetually
on the ragged edge of ruin.
The clerk, too, whose only ambition is to rise one grade higher than
the one which he occupies, is prevented by the narrowness of his
economic field from appreciating the extent to which he is exploited.
Instead of being bound by class consciousness with his fellow clerks,
he is, on the contrary, in perpetual rivalry with them, and is likely
to be found on election day voting with the owner who exploits them
all.
And even the wage-earner, the factory hand, who is the most obviously
exploited of all, is in America still so absorbed by his trade union,
by his fight with his employer, that he has not yet learned to
recognize how much stronger he is in this fight on the political than
on the economic field. So he too, instead of recognizing the salvation
offered to him by Socialism as his fellow workingmen in Germany do,
allows himself regularly to be betrayed into voting for one of the
capitalist parties which his employer alternately controls.
And the darkness in which these men are regarding matters of vital
interest to them is still further darkened by their own ignorance, by
the ignorance of those around them and, I am afraid I must add, by
deliberate misrepresentation.
Let us begin by extricating ourselves from the forest of prejudice
that makes all clearness of vision impossible and, when we can see
with our eyes, we shall take a rapid walk around this mountain of
Socialism, as all climbers do, if only to choose the best points from
which to climb it.
CHAPTER I
SUBJECTIVE OBSTACLES TO THE UNDERSTANDING OF SOCIALISM
VESTED INTERESTS
There is in the archives of the House of Commons a petition filed by
the gardeners of Hammersmith in opposition to a proposed improvement
of the country roads, which would enable gardeners further removed
from London to compete with Hammersmith gardeners on the London
market. They regarded themselves as having a vested right in bad roads
and actually took these so-called rights sufficiently seriously to
petition Parliament not to improve roads which were going to bring
them into competition with gardeners already at a disadvantage by
being further removed from the market than themselves.
This is an illustration of the extent to which the human mind can be
perverted by personal interest. But there is another illustration of
so-called vested interests much more revolting in its nature and yet
perhaps more justified in fact. When the cholera broke out in Paris,
in 1830, and it was believed to have been brought into the country
through rags, a bill was presented before the French Parliament for
the destruction of all deposits of rags in the city. This was
violently opposed by the rag pickers, who pointed out that these rags
constituted their only source of existence, and they found many
members of the French Parliament to support their view. We, who can
dispassionately consider the situation of these rag pickers, have to
admit that, if they could earn their living in no other way than rag
picking, it would be a mistake for Parliament to deprive them of their
source of living without giving them some other employment. But it
would be worse still were Parliament to allow Paris to be decimated by
cholera because the rag pickers claimed a vested right in pestiferous
rags.
A similar situation presents itself in the city of New York to-day.
The tenement-house commission has imposed upon tenement-house owners
certain obligations which involve an expenditure of considerable sums
of money, and many of our best citizens are indignant because the
tenement-house law is not always rigidly enforced. Yet all who have
followed the recent rent strike on the East Side, know that the
tenement houses there are in large part owned by men as poor as those
who live in them. The immense congestion in this district brought
about such competition for lodgings that speculators were enabled to
buy tenement houses at their utmost value and to sell them at a still
higher price by persuading the thriftiest of the inhabitants of the
district that, if they purchased these tenement houses and acted as
their own janitors and agents, they could earn more money than was
then being earned. Victims were found who have put all their savings
into these tenement houses, leaving the larger part of the purchase on
mortgage. These new landlords raise the rent in order to make the
houses pay for themselves. These pauper tenement-house owners are in
the same position to-day as the Paris rag pickers of 1830.
The question of what, if any, compensation should be paid when the
state interferes with vested rights cannot be decided by any general
rule. The demand for compensation by the Hammersmith gardeners was
absurd; but that of the rag pickers was justified; that of poor
tenement-house owners on the East Side seems also to be justified; but
if the state in taking over these unwholesome tenements were to find
one in the hands of a speculator, would compensation be to the same
degree justified?
So these questions seem to become questions of detail; they cannot be
disposed of by a general rule: "there shall be compensation" or "there
shall not be compensation." Above all things, these so-called general
rules must not be erected into dogmas or "principles" under the
standard of which Socialists are to group themselves and fight one
another.
It is interesting to consider in connection with this subject the
geographical character of the objections to Socialism as illustrated
by the attitude taken by England and America respectively on the
subject of municipal ownership.
In England, municipal ownership of gas is the rule rather than the
exception. Indeed Manchester has owned its own gas plant from 1843,
and has furnished the public with gas at 60 cents per thousand cubic
feet, and even at that price[8] made a net profit in 1907-8 of
£57,609, which has been applied to the diminution of rates and
extension of the service. Birmingham, which had to pay an extravagant
price for its gas plant, nevertheless immediately reduced the price of
gas and brought it down from $1.10 under private ownership to 50 cents
to-day. In England, therefore, it is perfectly respectable to approve
of municipal ownership of gas. But inasmuch as water has been until
very lately furnished to London in great part by a private company
chartered by James I. the stock of which has increased in value a
thousand per cent and which counts among its stockholders royalty
itself, anybody until very lately who proposed municipal ownership of
water in London, was regarded as a dangerous anarchist.
The New York situation is just the reverse. For New York, after having
tried private ownership of water and abandoned it as early as 1850 on
account of the corruption that resulted therefrom, undertook public
ownership of water with such success that no disinterested citizen
to-day wants to go back to the old plan. So a New Yorker can advocate
municipal ownership of water and still be regarded as a perfectly
respectable citizen; but should he venture to favor municipal
ownership of gas he is at once classed with those whose heads are only
fit to be beaten with a club.
How long are we going to allow our opinions to be manufactured for us
by water companies in London and gas companies in New York? Obviously
we cannot take an impartial and intelligent view of this great
question until we have divested ourselves of the prejudices created by
vested interests. If the propertied class, which is committed to
existing conditions by the fact that it profits by them, is willing to
yield no inch to the rising tide of popular dissatisfaction and the
awakening of popular conscience, it is probable that the revolutionary
wing of the Socialist party will prevail, if only because under these
circumstances the evolutionary wing will not be allowed to prevail.
If, on the other hand, the propertied class become alive not only to
the danger of undue resistance, but also to the reasonableness and
justice of the Socialist ideal, there is no reason why vested
interests, save such as owe their existence to downright robbery and
crime, should materially suffer in the process of Socialist evolution.
If this be true the words "menace of Socialism" will turn out to be
inappropriate and unfounded. Sound Socialism has no menace for any but
evil-doers.
Having now climbed out of the forest of prejudices created by private
or so-called vested interests, let us next consider the different
points of view created by temperament and economic conditions, from
which the subject of Socialism tends to be regarded.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] "Municipal Year Book," 1909, p. 482.
CHAPTER II
ECONOMIC CONDITIONS
BOURGEOIS, REVOLUTIONIST, AND EVOLUTIONIST
Every man who is earning a living is profoundly affected by all that
affects his living. If Socialism seems to threaten this living, he
instinctively and often unconsciously repudiates it. From one point of
view, Socialism presents a more formidable aspect than from another.
It takes a very skilled climber to scale Mont Blanc from the Italian
side, whereas from the Swiss side it is simply a matter of endurance.
The same thing is true of Socialism.
Now there are three distinct and opposing points of view: The
bourgeois point of view, the revolutionist point of view, and the
evolutionist point of view.
(_a_) _The Bourgeois Point of View_
The bourgeois point of view is that which students of political
science have been in the habit of describing as individualism. But
there are objections to this use of the word individualism, as will
appear later on.
The bourgeois view is that the production and distribution of the
things we need can best be conducted by allowing every man to choose
and do his own work under the stimulus of need when poor and of
acquisitiveness when rich. This system is well described in the
maxim: "Every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost." The
first part of this maxim has in it considerable merit, for it
encourages the self-reliance that has made the prosperity of America.
But the latter part merely expresses a pious wish that is seldom
gratified. The devil does not take the hindmost. The devil leaves them
here to stalk through our highways and streets, a permanent army of
about 500,000 tramps, swelled at all times by thousands and in such
times as these by millions of unemployed.[9]
The bourgeois view is that of the man who owns or expects to own
property; the bourgeois class represents a small proportion of the
whole population, and is sometimes described as the propertied class.
But as the propertied class is in control of our schools, colleges and
press, it has hitherto made the opinions of the vast majority. Thus
the bourgeois view is not only that of the propertied class, but also
that of most of those who have no property. It is the view of the man
in the street.
Lately, however, Socialism has been making inroads into the opinions
of both classes, and this has divided Socialists into two groups
which, though generally found fighting under the same banner,
nevertheless take different views of the subject, which tends to
confuse the uninitiated. These two views are conveniently described as
revolutionist and evolutionist. Let us study the revolutionist point
of view first:
(_b_) _The Revolutionist Point of View_
Marx rendered a great service by pointing out the extent to which the
non-propertied class is exploited by the propertied class--the
proletariat by the bourgeois--the factory hand by the factory owner.
Marx, however, did not himself confine Socialism to the struggle
between the factory hand and the factory owner. But there has arisen
out of the Marxian philosophy a school which has emphasized the
observation of Marx that the factory hands increased in number while
the factory owners decreased in number, and that this tends to produce
a conflict between the two--a revolution from which the factory hand
must emerge released from the incubus of the factory owner. Two ideas
dominate this school: the class struggle--a struggle practically
confined to the factory worker on the one hand and the factory owner
on the other; and the revolution--the eventual clash between the two.
The triumph of the factory hand is, according to this school, to
result in the complete overturn of the whole social, industrial and
economic fabric of society, the community[10] succeeding to the
individual in the ownership of all land and all sources of
production--all profit now appropriated by the factory owner accruing
to the community and inuring to all the citizens of the state.
This revolutionist school regards Socialism from the point of view of
a class that has no property--the proletariat--just as the bourgeois
looks at Socialism from the point of view of those who have property.
Both points of view tend to be partial; the bourgeois tends to see
only what is good for himself in existing conditions and all that is
bad for him in Socialism; the revolutionist tends to see all that is
bad for him in existing conditions and only what is good for him in
the proposed new Socialism. This fact tends to make revolutionists
dominate the Socialist party (which is mainly recruited from the
proletariat) and is, therefore, entitled to the most serious
consideration. Private interest is the dominating motive of political
action to-day. It is the avowed motive of the bourgeois. He has,
therefore, no excuse for denouncing this same motive in the
proletariat, all the less as the bourgeois has to admit that his
industrial system produces pauperism, prostitution, and crime; whereas
the proletariat points out that Socialism will put an end to pauperism
and prostitution and in great part also to crime.
Because revolutionists believe that this change cannot be effected
without a revolution--without a transfer of political power from the
bourgeois to the proletariat--they speak of their movement as
revolutionary, and often say that Socialism must come by revolution
and not by reform.
But these words must not be allowed to mislead. Although the Socialist
platform says that "adequate relief" cannot be expected from "any
reform of the present order," it nevertheless embraces a series of
reforms entitled "Immediate Demands." This is proof positive that the
Socialist party is not opposed to legislative measures that in the
bourgeois vocabulary are known as reforms, since it advocates them.
Socialists make a distinction between legislation that tends to
transfer political power from the exploiters to the exploited and
those that do not; the former are termed revolutionary and the latter
are termed mere reforms. The former are what they stand for. But they
do not for that reason remain indifferent to legislation that improves
human conditions. On the contrary, the immediate demands of the
Socialist platform include:
The scientific reforestation of timber lands and the reclamation of
swamp lands; the land so reclaimed to be permanently retained as a
part of the public domain:
The enactment of further measures for general education and for the
conservation of health. The Bureau of Education to be made a
department. The creation of a department of public health. The free
administration of justice.
Obviously, therefore, even revolutionary Socialists advocate certain
reforms; but they will be content with nothing less than the transfer
of political power from those who now use it ill to those who will use
it better.
Last, but not least, revolution does not in the Socialist vocabulary
involve the idea of violence. It is used in the same sense as we use
the expression "revolution of the planets," "revolution of the
seasons," "revolution of the sun." Undoubtedly there are Socialists
willing to use violence in order to attain their ends just as there
are Fricks willing to use Pinkerton men, and mine owners willing to
use the militia to attain theirs. But the idea of violence has been
expressly repudiated by the leaders of the Socialist party. And the
word "revolution" must not be understood to include it. This question
is studied in fuller detail in Book III, Chapter II.
(_c_) _The Evolutionist Point of View_
The evolutionist point of view claims to be wider than either of the
foregoing. The evolutionist is not content to study Socialism from the
point of view of any one class. He undertakes to climb out of the
forest of prejudices created by class to a point where he can study
Socialism free from every obstruction. He studies Socialism from the
point of view of the whole Democracy, including the employer, the
employee, and those who neither employ nor are employed; as, for
example, the farmer who farms his own land without the assistance of
any farm hands outside of his own family. From this point of view, he
can denounce the evils of the existing system of production and
distribution--if system it can be called[11]--without the bitterness
that distorts the view of the victims of this system, and can
therefore see perhaps more clearly the methods by which the evils of
the existing system can be eliminated.
The evolutionist points to history to prove that forcible revolution is
generally attended by great waste of property and life, and is followed
by a reaction that injuriously retards progress. He therefore seeks to
change existing conditions without revolution, by successive reforms.
This class of Socialist is denounced by revolutionists under a variety
of names. He is called a parlor Socialist, an intellectual Socialist,
but perhaps the name that carries with it the most contempt is that of
step-by-step Socialist. He answers, however, that when he finds his
progress arrested by a perpendicular precipice such as we are familiar
with at the top of the Palisades, he refrains from throwing himself--or
advising his neighbors to throw themselves--headlong into the abyss,
but takes the trouble to find a possibly circuitous way round. He will
not consent to sit at the top of the precipice until he grows wings, as
the Roman peasant sat by the Tiber "until it ran dry." The step-by-step
Socialist is content to adopt a winding path which sometimes turns his
back to the place which he wishes to reach, because he holds in his
hand a compass whose unerring needle will bring him eventually to the
desired goal.
Again, the evolutionist claims to be supported by ethical and
scientific considerations which the revolutionary Socialist regards as
of secondary importance. But for the present it is convenient to
postpone the study of the ethical and the scientific aspects of
Socialism and to content ourselves with stating two principal claims
made by the evolutionist, viz.:
First: that his view is likely to be clearer than that of either the
bourgeois or the revolutionist, because it is not obstructed by class
interest;
Second: that his policy is likely to be wise, because it is neither
stationary as that of the bourgeois nor headlong as that of the
revolutionist.
In conclusion, the revolutionist keeps his eye fixed on the
horizon--perhaps it may even be said that he fixes his eye beyond the
horizon, if that be possible; he looks forward to a state of society
which, because it seems unrealizable to-day most of us are inclined to
regard as visionary; and in presenting to us a commonwealth in which
every personal interest will be vested in the community, he attacks at
once the personal interests of every man who owns property in the
country. Obviously, if all agriculture is to be owned by the
community, every farmer will lose his farm. If all the factories are
to be owned by the community, every factory owner will lose his
factory. If all distribution is to be managed by the community, every
storekeeper will lose his store. The revolutionary Socialist therefore
raises against himself every property owner in the land; and all the
more because there is division in the ranks of revolutionists as
regards compensation, to which I have already referred. (See Vested
Interests, p. 18.)
The evolutionist on the contrary confines his attention for the
present to existing conditions. He adopts, it is true, as an ultimate
goal the coöperative commonwealth advocated by the revolutionists. It
is indeed the point to which his compass is always directing him. It
constitutes the ideal to which he believes the race will eventually
adapt itself. But in addition to historical fact regarding the cost of
revolution in the past, and in view of certain other scientific facts
which will be dwelt upon later, he recognizes that personal or vested
interests are likely to interfere more than anything else with the
adoption of Socialism as an ultimate goal, and that these interests
therefore no statesman can afford to disregard.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] December, 1908.
[10] I am careful to use the word "community" and not the word
"state," for state ownership is not Socialism. The Prussian State
stands for state ownership, and even Mr. Roosevelt would not
characterize the Prussian Government as Socialistic.
[11] Book II, Chapter III.
CHAPTER III
MISREPRESENTATION AND IGNORANCE
Michaelangelo has said that sculpture is the art of chipping off
superfluous stone. The sculptor sees a statue in every block. This is
what Whistler used to call the "divine art of seeing." The sculptor's
task is to remove those parts of the block that hide the statue from
the layman's eye. So the Socialist sees the coöperative commonwealth
imprisoned within the huge, rough, cruel mass that we call modern
civilization, and his task is to remove from the beautiful form he
sees the errors which mask it from the view of the unenlightened. If
we can but remove these errors our task is in great part accomplished;
and the first of these errors is that which confounds Socialism with
Anarchism.
§ 1. SOCIALISM IS NOT ANARCHISM
Nothing is more unjustified than the confusion which exists in
people's minds between Anarchism and Socialism. This confusion is not
altogether unnatural, for Socialism and Anarchism have one great
feature in common--both express discontent with existing conditions.
The remedies, however, propounded by the Anarchists for evil
conditions and those propounded by Socialists are contradictorily
opposite. They are so opposite that the bourgeois turns out to be
more nearly associated with the Anarchist than the Socialist is.
The theory upon which our present economic and political conditions
are founded is that the less government interferes with the
individual's action, the better. This theory may be said to have taken
its start at the period of the French Revolution, and is generally
connected in the minds of English-speaking people with Adam Smith, the
Manchester School of _laissez faire_, the earlier works of John Stuart
Mill, and all the works of Herbert Spencer. When, however, the
pernicious consequences of allowing every individual to do as he chose
with his own became felt, as for example in the poisoning of rivers by
allowing every factory to pour its waste into them; and in
degeneration of the race through unlimited exploitation of women and
children in factories and mines, governments all over the world have
been obliged as measures of self-defence to enact laws limiting
individual action. The individualism of the beginning of last century
has been gradually leading to the Socialism of to-day, Socialism
being, among other things, an intelligent limitation of the abuse of
property in accordance with a preconceived plan, instead of spasmodic
limitation of the abuse of property forced upon us by the pernicious
consequences thereof, often creating new abuses as bad as those
suppressed.[12] While therefore the Socialist asks that the functions
of government be extended sufficiently to secure to every man the
greatest amount of liberty, and the bourgeois on the contrary demands
that there shall be the least amount of government consistent with
the protection of property and life, the Anarchist asks that there
shall be no government at all. The bourgeois, therefore, is closer to
the Anarchist than the Socialist is--in fact he stands between the
two.
Socialists and Anarchists then are polar opposites. There is a whole
world between them. Indeed it is impossible to conceive two theories
of government more opposite one to another than that of Socialism,
which demands more government, and that of Anarchism, which demands
the destruction of government altogether.
§ 2. SOCIALISM IS NOT COMMUNISM
Those who derive their information regarding Socialism solely from
books are apt to be puzzled by the word "Communism," because it has at
different times stood for different things. The early Christians were
Communists; so were Plato and Sir Thomas More; so also was Proudhon,
whom Mr. Roosevelt places in the same category with Karl Marx. He does
not seem to be aware that Proudhon and Marx were the protagonists of
conflicting schools and that Marx drove Proudhon--who was a
communistic Anarchist--and his followers out of the Socialist party of
that day. For from Marx' economic doctrine of value was derived a
totally new idea in the movement; this idea is couched in a formula
which has become so familiar to Socialists that it seems incredible
that anyone undertaking to write about Socialism should ignore it;
namely, that the _laboring class is entitled to the full product of
its labor_; that is to say, that it shall securely have exactly what
it earns; no more, no less; that it shall be deprived of it neither by
the capitalist as to-day nor by the thriftless or vicious as under
the Communism of Apostolic times.
Mr. Roosevelt accuses Socialists of "loose thinking." Is there not a
little loose thinking about this confusion of Socialism and Communism?
Or is it that Mr. Roosevelt is just a century behindhand? Or is it
that he has never read the works of Proudhon and Karl Marx, whom he
groups together as propounding the same kind of Socialism? As a matter
of fact, Proudhon has been so discredited by Marx that few Socialists
think it worth while to read his works; whereas "Capital" is to-day
the Bible of the Socialist movement.
One word, however, must be added about Communism before dismissing the
subject: There are two kinds of Communists, just as there are two
kinds of Anarchists; those who adopt Communism and Anarchism out of
discontent with the present system; and those who adopt them because
they stand for perfection. With the first category we need not concern
ourselves. Their day is over. With the second there is an important
point to be noted: Such writers as Kropotkin see further than the
average citizen. They look forward to a day when the spirit of mutual
helpfulness which ought to attend the substitution of coöperation for
competition will have entirely changed human nature; when men will
have acquired _habits_ of industry, of justice, and of self-restraint
that seem now incredible to us; they will then as naturally work as
they now naturally shirk; they will as naturally help one another as
they now naturally fight; they will as naturally share with one
another as they now despoil one another. This may seem wildly
impossible to us now; but if we look back to the day when our forbears
lived in hordes, when children bore their mother's name because they
did not know their father's, when no woman could move from her hut
alone without being subject to assault, when self-indulgence prevailed
except in so far as it was checked by fear, we can appreciate the
scorn with which one of them would have listened to a prophet who
should announce that men and women would ultimately mate once for all
and be faithful to one another; children know their fathers and bear
their father's name; women travel from one end of the country to
another with perfect security, and self-restraint cease to be an
imposition and become a habit. If then man has become so profoundly
modified by the progress from the promiscuousness of the horde to the
self-restraint of the family, why should he not be capable of one step
further--from the habits that result from competition to the habits
that would result from coöperation--from mutual hatred to mutual
helpfulness? This is the hope and faith of such writers as Kropotkin.
But it is not yet within the range of practical politics. So the
Socialist party rightly confines its program within practical limits.
There are too many idle and vicious among us to-day; too many products
of human exploitation; too many worn-out men, women, and children; too
much degeneration; too much hypocrisy; too much "looseness of
thought." We must cut our garment to our customer. All that the
Socialist asks to-day is to have what he earns. Morally he is entitled
to it. Can our system of production be so modified as to assure this
to him? This is the problem we have to solve. Socialists say that it
can be so modified, or that it can, at least, be so modified as to put
an end to pauperism, prostitution, and in great part to crime. This is
the practical Socialism of to-day as distinguished from the Communism
of centuries ago or that of centuries ahead. This is what the
Socialist party stands for, and it is by this standard and no other
that the Socialist party must be judged.
Socialism then does not stand to-day for Communism. On the contrary,
it demands that the workers be assured, as exactly as is humanly
possible, the product of their labor, and not share it with the idle
and vicious on the one hand or be deprived of it by the capitalist on
the other.
One reason why Communism has been discarded by the Socialist party is
that generations of competition have so molded human nature that it is
extremely probable that production would suffer were it suddenly
eliminated. A man who has accustomed himself to the stimulus of
arsenic cannot be suddenly deprived of arsenic without developing the
symptoms of arsenical poisoning. It will doubtless be indispensable to
maintain competition in the coöperative commonwealth. There is no
longer question then of discarding competition; the question is in
what doses shall it be administered; in doses that produce the
pauperism and prostitution of to-day, or in doses that will furnish
the necessary stimulus for human exertion without pushing that
stimulus to exhaustion and degeneracy?
This question brings us to our next subject:
§ 3. SOCIALISM WILL NOT SUPPRESS COMPETITION
No modern Socialist maintains that all competition is bad, or that it
would be advisable to eliminate competition altogether from production
and distribution. But it has become the duty of every sane man to
consider whether it may not be possible to eliminate the excessive
competition that gives rise to pauperism, prostitution, and crime. To
answer this question, we must begin by determining what competition
is good and what bad; and if the bad can be eliminated and the good
maintained.
Competition is a part of the joy of life; healthy children race one
another as they are let out from school; they challenge one another to
wrestle and leap; and when they are tired of emulation, they join
hands and dance. Competition and coöperation are the salt and the
sweet of life; we want the one with our meat and the other with our
pudding; we do not want all salt or all sweet; for too much sweet
cloys the mouth while too much salt embitters it.
We all unconsciously recognize this by encouraging games and
discouraging gambling. Now what is the difference between games and
gambling? One is a wholesome use of time for the purpose of wholesome
amusement; the other is an unwholesome abuse of time for the purpose
of making money. The one incidentally encourages a beneficial action
of muscle and brain; the other, on the contrary, promotes a
detrimental appetite for unlawful profit.
We are all perfectly agreed about this so long as we confine ourselves
to games and gambling; but as soon as we extend our argument to
production and distribution we shall at once come into collision with
the bourgeois. Let us therefore be very sure that our premises are
sound and our deduction sure before we confront him.
Even as regards gambling there are degrees of vice; some would justify
old people who bet only just enough on the issue of a game of piquet
to make it worth while to count the points; whereas all would condemn
a bet that involved the entire fortune, much more the life or death of
a human being.
Now it may seem extravagant to assert that the competitive system of
production imposes upon the majority a bet involving life or death,
yet statistics demonstrate that mortality is from 35 to 50 per cent
higher with those who lose than with those who win in the game of
life.[13] But it is not extravagant to assert that it imposes upon the
majority a bet involving a thing quite as precious as life--I mean
health. A man who bets his life and loses is free from pain on this
earth at any rate; but the man who bets his health and loses is
committed to a period of misery not only for himself, but for all
those around him so long as breath is in his body.
The greatest evil that attends the competitive system of production is
that it commits all engaged in it to a game the stake of which is the
life happiness not only of himself, but of all dependent on him.
If this were a matter of mere sport there is not a man with a spark of
moral sense in him who would not condemn it. He would denounce it as a
gladiatorial show; as belonging to the worst period of the worst
empire known to history. But because it is a matter of production the
bourgeois has for it no word save of justification and praise. He
justifies it by the argument of necessity: "the poor you have with you
always." He praises it because it "makes character."
If there were indeed no other system of production possible but the
competitive system, the plea of necessity would be justified. But when
we are dealing with a question involving the happiness of the majority
of our fellow creatures, we must be very sure that there is no better
system before the plea can be admitted. And as to those often
misquoted words of Christ, there will undoubtedly under the
coöperative as well as the competitive system always be some
shiftless, some poor. But everything depends on what is meant by the
word "poor." To-day the poor are on the verge of starvation; poverty
means not only misery, but disease and crime. Under a coöperative
system there need be no starvation; no fear of starvation; less
disease; and infinitely less crime! The vast majority of men do not
need the lash to drive them to their work; it is no longer necessary
to keep before us the fear of want, of misery, of starvation; we have
passed that stage; and just as the lash is used by trainers only for
wild beasts, and gentler animals are better trained by the hope of
reward than by the fear of punishment, so humanity has reached a point
of moral development which makes it no longer inferior to the lower
animals--the bourgeois notwithstanding. Better work can be got from a
man by the prospect of increased comfort than by the fear of misery
and unemployment.
As to the second justification, that the competitive system makes
character; look for a moment at the character of the men who have
succeeded in the competitive mill. Are these the saints of the latter
day? Or are our saints not to be found amongst those who have never
been in the competitive mill--who have resolutely kept out of
it--Florence Nightingale, Father Damien, Rose Hawthorne, the Little
Sisters of the Poor?
The real problem is not whether we should or can eliminate competition
altogether from the field of production, but whether we should or can
eliminate it to the extent necessary to put an end to the three great
curses of humanity to-day.
§ 4. SOCIALISM WILL NOT DESTROY THE HOME
Mr. Roosevelt in his _Outlook_ editorial[14] said of the "Socialists
who teach their faith as both a creed and a party platform" that "they
are and necessarily must be bitterly hostile to religion and
morality," that they "occupy in relation to morality and especially
domestic morality a position so revolting--and I choose my words
carefully--that it is difficult even to discuss it in a reputable
paper."
When, however, he undertakes to substantiate this, he is obliged to
admit that he cannot find any traces of it in American writers, and has
to go to France and England for his examples. Had he been better
informed, he would have known that not only is there no trace of
immorality in our American Socialist press, but that there is one
Socialist organ--the Christian Socialist--which has in the most vigorous
terms denounced all those whose writings tend in any way to attack the
fundamental principles of marriage. It is true that Christian Socialists
in Mr. Roosevelt's opinion "deserve scant consideration at the hands of
honest and clean-living men and women"; but he has not explained why.
Nor has he ventured any explanation why Christian Socialists or any
other Socialists should be "necessarily--bitterly hostile to religion
and morality."
I must postpone to the chapter on the Ethical Aspect of Socialism[15]
the explanation why Socialism, far from being "necessarily bitterly
hostile to religion and morality," as Mr. Roosevelt maintains, is--on
the contrary--the only form of society ever proposed which could make
religion and morality possible. At the present time, it seems
sufficient to point out the obvious fallacy of Mr. Roosevelt's
syllogism.
Here it is:
Gabriel Deville wants to destroy the home.
Gabriel Deville is a Socialist;
Therefore: All Socialists want to destroy the home. The logic of this
is bad enough, but even the premiss is false. Deville is no longer a
Socialist; and if he does want to destroy the home, no one that I know
of in America wants him back in the fold.
In exactly the same manner our ex-Presidential logician argues
regarding divorce:
Herron divorced;
Herron is a Socialist;
Therefore: All Socialists divorce. Herron was divorced in 1901. He is
the only leading Socialist who has divorced during twenty years to Mr.
Roosevelt's knowledge or to mine. Whereas, during that time here are
the statistics of divorces for the United States:
Total number of marriages 1887-1906, 12,832,044
Total number of divorces 1887-1906, 945,625 or about one in 12,[16] in
all of which the majority of the men presumably voted for Mr.
Roosevelt.
Can anyone who knows the family life of Socialists assert that the
divorce rate among them is greater than that of the community in which
they live?
Again, the pretence that the American home to-day is one which a
capitalist like Mr. Roosevelt can hold up to the admiration of the
world will not stand scrutiny.
Where there is wealth for leisure, there we find immorality enthroned
as a vice; and where there is no leisure, there we find immorality
imposed as a necessity. Are the filthy tenements and promiscuous
lodgings of the congested districts in our large cities the homes to
which Mr. Roosevelt is fearful that Socialism will put an end?[17] Or
is it the so-called She-towns in New England from which men are driven
because there is no employment in them for any save women and
children?[18] Or the lumber camps to which these men are driven where
there is no employment for women?[19] Or the home of the unemployed to
which the bread-winner has returned day after day for two years now,
seeking employment and finding none--guilty of no crime save that no
man has hired him? Thousands--nay, hundreds of thousands of such
so-called homes are scattered over the face of this land which Mr.
Roosevelt has during seven years administered.
As a matter of fact, no decent home is possible for the majority of
our fellow citizens so long as they are called upon to support it at
present prices on present wages. All this will, I think, be made clear
in the description of industrial conditions. Suffice it to say here
that these conditions furnish a few luxurious and often licentious
homes for the propertied class and a few comfortable and moral homes
for the aristocracy of the working class, but leave a vast number of
our families so nearly upon the edge of poverty as to drive their
daughters to prostitution and their sons to crime.
§ 5. SOCIALISM WILL NOT ABOLISH PROPERTY
Another charge made by Mr. Roosevelt is that Socialists propose to
abolish property and distribute wealth. It has been repeated by both
Mr. Taft and Mr. Bryan and is still being repeated _ad nauseam_ by the
press. Workingmen so absorbed by the making of bread that they have
no time to discuss questions of government may be excused for being
ignorant on such a point as this; to them ignorance cannot be imputed
as a fault. But that those who set themselves up as the persons best
fitted to govern and educate our country--as indeed the only persons
in the country possessing the knowledge of statesmanship necessary to
handle our governmental affairs and publish our daily press--should
either never have taken the trouble to find out what Socialism is, or,
having taken the trouble, should so traduce it, is a sad commentary
upon our editors and statesmen.
Just as it has been demonstrated that Socialism is opposed to
Anarchism, so can it be demonstrated that Socialism is opposed to the
distribution of wealth or the abolition of property. Far from
distributing wealth, the essence of Socialism is that it seeks to
concentrate it. Far from wanting to abolish property Socialism seeks
to put it on a throne. The question of property is so important that a
special chapter has been devoted to it. I shall therefore only say
here just enough to remove the error created by the misstatements
current on the subject.
Property is not only the basis of our present civilization, but must
be the basis of all conceivable civilizations. It may be said that not
only all law, but all government, is founded upon it. Property was
instituted to furnish to every industrious man security as regards
himself, his family, and the means of their support; to protect him
and them from theft, from fraud and evil doing.
Unfortunately property, like every human institution--even the best of
them[20]--has been abused to serve the selfishness of the crafty; and
there have arisen, therefore, notions and laws regarding property
which have reversed the results which property was instituted to
secure. Instead of making every industrious man secure as regards
himself, his family, and the means of their support, it has actually
deprived the majority of all security regarding these things and,
indeed, put the majority as regards these things at the mercy of a
very few. Not only this, it has created conditions which to-day are
depriving several millions of us not only of all means of support, but
of all opportunity of earning them.
The bourgeois' excuse for such conditions is that no better can be
devised. Here is the whole issue of Socialism raised; for Socialism
contends that these conditions are totally unnecessary; that it does
not need any imagination or invention to substitute for them a system
that will put an end to such evils as pauperism, prostitution, and, in
great part, crime; that we have but to adopt as a community the
principles already adopted by the men--the makers of the trusts--to
whom the whole business world looks up as infallible on these
subjects; and that this can be accomplished by ridding the institution
of property of the fallacies with which it has been industriously
defaced. Just indeed as the truly religious have during all ages
sought to rescue religion from the crafty who tend to use it for their
own ends--Christ from the Pharisee, Plato from the Sophist, Luther
from the Borgias, so Socialists are now seeking to rescue property
from the few who, under a mistaken theory of happiness, use property
to injure their fellow creatures when these very few can attain
happiness only by so using property as to benefit those they now
injure.
It must, however, be specifically stated that Socialism does not
involve the concentration of all wealth in the state. No sane
Socialist proposes to vest in the state the things which a man uses,
his personal apparel, his personal furniture, his objects of art, his
musical instruments, his automobile, or even his private yacht.
There is no intention to suppress private property except so far as it
is used for exploitation. Light is thrown upon this subject in another
paragraph, which indicts the capitalist system for making the
production of the necessaries of our lives the object of their
competitive enterprises and speculations.
What the Socialist party proposes to do is not to abolish property,
but to abolish the capitalist system, as it expressly states; and it
proposes to do this not only in the interest of the proletariat, but
also in the interest of the capitalist himself, who, to quote the
words of the platform, is "the slave of his wealth rather than its
master." The extent to which this last is true will be discussed in a
subsequent chapter and ought to constitute an impressive argument for
all--even millionaires--who have become the slaves of the very
fortunes they have made. And the moral tendency to restore property to
its original intention by abolishing the capitalist system is
expressly stated in the platform as not an attempt "to substitute
working-class rule for capitalist-class rule, but to free all humanity
from class rule and to realize the international brotherhood of man."
If this be immoral, then a great many of us do not know what morality
is.
Nor does it propose to vest in the state anything but what it is
indispensable for a state to own in order to rescue the unwealthy
majority from the exploitation of the wealthy few. Nothing is more
false or libelous than the allegation that Socialism proposes to
destroy property, or to deprive a man of the benefit of his talents,
or of the enjoyment of the products of his work. It is the present
industrial system that deprives the majority of the product of their
work. Socialism aims at the opposite of these things. What Socialism
does propose is to preserve wealth by eliminating waste and to ensure
to all men the fullest benefit of their talents and the enjoyment of
the whole product of their work. It does not propose to level down, as
is so often claimed; the necessary effect of Socialism is to level up,
if indeed it levels at all. The extent to which it may be wise to
concentrate wealth in the state, or whether it is necessary to
concentrate it in the state at all, is a question which must be
postponed until we have a clear idea of what Socialism is.
Meanwhile I venture to suggest one view of Socialism which, although
it does not attempt to define it, may help us as a first effort to get
a correct apprehension of it.
Socialism is the concentration of just so much wealth in the
community--please note that I do not say "state"--as may be necessary
to secure the liberty and the happiness of every man, woman, and child
consistent with the liberty and the happiness of every other man,
woman, and child.
We are obviously here brought to the question of what is liberty, and
to the discussion of another error regarding Socialism upon which the
bourgeois is disposed to insist, viz.: Socialism will impair liberty.
§ 6. SOCIALISM WILL NOT IMPAIR LIBERTY
The same thing must be said of liberty as of property: both are such
important subjects that they demand a chapter to themselves. But there
are current errors about liberty which, when removed, will prepare
the mind for the undoubted fact that Socialism, far from impairing
liberty, will greatly enlarge it.
When negro slavery existed people thought that if slavery were only
abolished, liberty would be secured. It was found, however, that when
negro slavery was abolished there was still another liberty to be
secured--political liberty.
Now that we have secured the constitutional right and the
constitutional weapon by which political liberty ought to be attained,
we discover that these rights and weapons are useless to us so long as
the immense majority of us are still economic slaves.
Let us consider for a moment just what is meant by an economic slave.
An economic slave is a man who is dependent for his living on another
man or class of men and who, because all his waking hours and all his
vitality must be devoted to making a living, has no leisure either to
exercise his political rights or to enjoy himself.
It may seem exorbitant to say that the "immense majority" of us are
economic slaves, yet a very little consideration will, I think,
convince that we are.
Workingmen are dependent on their employers under conditions worse
than negro slavery. For a slave owner had an interest in the life of
his slave just as a farmer has an interest in the life of his stock.
He therefore fed his slaves and did not overwork them. Nor was a slave
subject to losing his job. The factory owner, on the contrary, not
being the owner of his factory hands, is free to dismiss them as soon
as they are worn out, and it is to his interest, by speeding up his
machinery, to get the most work out of his hands possible, regardless
whether he is overworking them; for as soon as they show signs of
overwork he has but to dismiss them and employ a younger generation.
Nor can it be said of workingmen that they have leisure for education,
politics, or enjoyment. Now the last census shows that our industrial
population numbers 21,000,000.
In the second place, the farmer works himself as hard--if not
harder--than the factory owner works his factory hand. He is driven by
the same necessity as the factory owner--the necessity of making
money.[21] There are of course a few large farmers who own enough land
to work it as the factory owner works his factory--by the use of
machinery and men. But these are few, and it is the extraordinary
economy that these men make in working their farms that obliges the
small farmer to work night as well as day to make a bare living out of
his land. Now by the last census the farming population in the United
States numbers 30,000,000.
And what has been said of the workingman is true of the clerk and
domestic; and what has been said of the small farmer is true of the
small tradesman. Now clerks, domestics, and tradesmen number
30,000,000. Summing up we have:
Industrial population 21,000,000
Farmers 30,000,000
Clerks, domestics and tradesmen 30,000,000
----------
81,000,000
out of a total population of 90,000,000 are economic slaves.
And of the 9,000,000 that remain, how many are economically free?
These are in part teachers, physicians, and lawyers. I leave it to
teachers to tell us how much time they can call their own. As to the
rest, it is the dream of a young doctor to get a large practice; and
when his dream is realized, how much leisure does he enjoy? He is at
the mercy of his practice, not only weekdays, but Sundays--days and
nights. He is the slave of his own practice. It is the dream of the
young lawyer to get rich clients and handle big cases. When he gets
them, he discovers that he must have an office that costs between
$30,000 and $50,000 a year to take care of them, and that he must earn
these large sums before there is a penny left for himself. So he too
is the slave of his own office.
But further than this: Our great business men--amongst them the very
greatest--I have seen with my own eyes slowly sink under the burden of
the very institutions their own genius had created. They too have
become the slaves of their own creations.
So we are all slaves, the greatest and the least of us, with
exceptions so few that they are hardly worth mentioning. And how do
these exceptions use their leisure? It were better not too closely to
inquire. Too much leisure is as detrimental to happiness and progress
as too much work. The enormous increase of lunacy in late years is a
straw that shows how the stream runs. Because of too much work or too
much leisure the race is marching with fatal speed toward general
prostration of nerve, of body, and of mind.
Whether then we look at this question from the point of view of human
progress or of human happiness, it seems indispensable that the whole
machinery of production be speeded down a little instead of
continuously up. Now this is what Socialism proposes to do: It
proposes by the substitution of coöperation for competition to make
the same economy for all humanity as trust promoters have made for
themselves. And the economy will be an economy of time. We shall work
as hard while we are working, but we shall work four hours instead of
eight and twelve. And the rest of the time we shall have to ourselves;
we shall be economically free.
Yet if the reader has in his mind any such idea of Socialism as Mr.
Roosevelt's "state free lunch counter," resulting in an "iron
despotism over all workers compared to which any slave system of the
past would seem beneficent because less utterly hopeless"--he will be
disposed to condemn in advance any economic freedom purchased at such
a price. I beg the reader, therefore, to try to rid his mind of the
prejudice created by such views as Mr. Roosevelt's until he has read
the chapters on the Economy of Socialism and How Socialism May Come.
If in these chapters the errors of Mr. Roosevelt's notions are not
dissipated, then this book will have been written in vain.
One thing more, however, must be said on this subject. Inexcusable
though Mr. Roosevelt may be in most of his attacks on Socialism, it
must be admitted that the "iron despotism" to which he thinks
Socialism will lead is justified by many Socialist authors, and it is
only very lately that a way has been found for introducing coöperation
without compulsion. Again, Mr. Roosevelt is in good company in making
this charge. It is the great _cheval de bataille_ of every
anti-Socialist.
In "A Plea for Liberty," edited by Herbert Spencer, the idea of
concentrating wealth in the community is denounced as a "conception of
life or conduct" which would compel men "to rise at morn to the sound
of a state gong, breakfast off state viands, labor by time according
to a state clock, dine at a state table supplied at the state's
expense, and to be regulated as to rest and recreation."
In fact, Socialism proposes none of these things. But if it did, a
factory hand might very well ask whether such a conception of life or
conduct would be worse than to rise at morn by the sound of a factory
bell, labor by time according to a factory clock, neither breakfast
nor dine at a factory table supplied at the factory's expense, but be
regulated as to rest and recreation by factory rules. When we come to
discuss liberty, we shall be in a position to compare the liberty
enjoyed under Socialism with the liberty enjoyed to-day.
In the chapter on Property and Liberty, the subject of liberty is
carefully analyzed; no more, therefore, need be said on this subject
except in conclusion to insist that it is the competitive system of
to-day that makes slaves of practically all of us, and that it is the
coöperative system alone that will secure for us the last and greatest
of all the liberties--economic liberty--because it is economic liberty
alone that will enable us to enjoy the other two.
§ 7. CONCLUSION
Having now chipped off some but not all of the errors that prevail,
regarding Socialism, let us sum up what Socialism is not; it will help
us to a study of what Socialism is.
Socialism is not Anarchism. It is the contradictory opposite of
Anarchism. It believes in regulation, but demands that the
regulation be wise and just.
Socialism is not Communism. On the contrary it demands that
workingmen be assured as nearly as possible the product of their
labor.
Socialism does not propose to eliminate competition, but only to
abolish excessive competition that gives rise to pauperism,
prostitution and crime.
Socialism is not hostile to the home. On the contrary, it seeks
to remove the evils that make the homes of our millions
insupportable.
Socialism is not immoral. On the contrary, it seeks to make the
Golden Rule practical.
Socialism does not propose to abolish property or distribute
wealth. It proposes, on the contrary, to consecrate property and
concentrate wealth so that all shall enjoy according to their
deserts the benefits of both.
Socialism will not impair liberty. On the contrary, it will for
the first time give to humanity economic liberty without which
so-called individual and political liberty are fruitless. It
proposes to regulate production, consecrate property, and
concentrate wealth only to the extent necessary to assure to
every man the maximum of security and the maximum of leisure;
thereby putting an end to pauperism, prostitution, and in great
part, to crime, and furnishing to man environment most conducive
to his advancement and happiness.
Whether it will accomplish these things can only be determined
by approaching it from the positive side. We shall proceed next
then to answer the question what Capitalism is.
FOOTNOTES:
[12] The principal evil attending such laws is that they give rise to
graft. In other words, our political machine actually favors such
laws, because they put a club in the hands of the machine through
which it can not only levy political contributions, but coerce their
victims into support of the machine.
[13] The death rate in 1900 among occupied males in the professions
was 15.3 per 1000; in clerical and official classes 13.5; mercantile,
12.1; laboring and servant classes 20.2 per 1000 (12th Census U.S.)
Dr. Emmett Holt, writing in the _Journal of the American Medical
Association_, points out the marked contrast between the death rate of
the children of the poor and the children of the rich. See Appendix,
p. 421.
[14] _Outlook_, March 20, 1909.
[15] Book III, Chapter V.
[16] U.S. Census Bulletin 96, p. 7, 12.
[17] "Poverty," by Robert Hunter. (Macmillan.)
[18] "Socialism and Social Reform," by R.T. Ely, p. 43. (Crowell.)
[19] Ibid.
[20] "Government or Human Evolution," Vol. II, p. 88 _et seq._, by the
author.
[21] "The American Farmer," A.M. Simons.
BOOK II
_WHAT CAPITALISM IS_
Socialism is necessarily twofold: destructive and constructive;
critical and remedial. We shall take the critical or destructive rôle
of Socialism first; setting down the evils in our existing industrial
system which Socialism criticizes and seeks to destroy, and leaving
the remedial or constructive rôle of Socialism where it properly
belongs--to the end. For this reason the present book, which treats of
the evils of the existing industrial system, is entitled "What
Capitalism is."
EVILS OF CAPITALISM
For nearly two centuries men have produced and distributed the things
they needed, upon what is called "the competitive system." That is to
say, every individual is free to choose his particular share in this
work and to make out of his work all that he can, in order with the
money so made to purchase for himself the things that he individually
needs. The farmer undertakes to furnish us with food, the forester
with lumber, the miner with iron. Another set of men run railroads,
steamboats, wagons, etc., to distribute the things produced to those
who are engaged in selling them--by wholesale to the trade, or by
retail to the consumer. Every man engaged in production and
distribution is in a measure competing with every other man engaged in
it, each trying to make out of his particular calling the largest
amount of money possible with the view of being able with the money so
earned to purchase for himself the largest amount of necessaries,
comforts, and luxuries. This so-called competitive system has been
elaborately described by all writers of political economy from de
Quesnay and Adam Smith, the fathers of our present system of political
economy, to the present day; and because it follows the predatory plan
of nature (by which one set of animals lives by devouring another
set), it is claimed by some so-called philosophers to be "natural" and
therefore wise. The most notorious author of this so-called scientific
justification of the competitive system is Herbert Spencer.
The competitive system, however, has been found to result in great
waste, misery, and disease; and it is to these evil consequences that
the Socialist desires to put an end. He claims that the competitive
system is not wise, not scientific, and above all, not economical, but
is the most wasteful system conceivable. He alleges that the only
intelligent, economic way of producing and distributing the things we
need is by coöperation; and the whole economic issue between Socialism
and our present industrial system is that Socialism stands for
coöperation, and our present system for competition.
It is by no means a necessary part of Socialist philosophy that
competition be entirely eliminated. On the contrary, it has been
pointed out and will later be further seen that competition has many
useful qualities.[22] Socialism, however, points out that
competition, when allowed full sway in producing and distributing the
necessaries of life, is the direct occasion of the larger part of the
misery in the world, and insists, therefore, that as _regards
production and distribution of the necessaries of life_, competition
be sufficiently eliminated to assure to all men the opportunity to
work, and as nearly as possible the full product of their work. The
limitation in italics is the definite dose to which reference has
already been made.[23]
One prominent feature of the competitive system is that men do not
work for the purpose of supplying the needs of their fellow creatures.
The Steel Trust does not manufacture steel to satisfy our need for
steel; the farmer does not raise wheat to satisfy our need for bread;
they produce these things simply for the purpose of making money for
themselves in order that with this money they can procure for
themselves the things they need. Socialism claims that the rôle played
by money in the competitive system is unfortunate, because the amount
of money available at any given time is not always properly adjusted.
Sometimes it is so badly adjusted that there is more cotton in one
place than the people in that place can use, and in another more
people who need cotton than there is cotton to give them; so that it
is deliberately proposed to burn cotton for lack of consumers in one
place, while consumers are allowed to suffer for lack of cotton in the
other. So a short time ago thousands were dying of starvation for lack
of wheat in India, while we had such a superabundance of it in America
that we were exporting it every day. But that wheat was not available
for India because it had to be converted into money.
Socialists allege that this bad situation would never arise if things
were produced for the purpose of satisfying human needs instead of for
making money.
Let us enumerate some of the most important evils of the competitive
system, which Socialism seeks to correct. These evils briefly are: The
competitive system is stupid because wasteful and disorderly; it is
unnecessarily immoral, unjust and cruel.
FOOTNOTES:
[22] See Book I, Chapter III.
[23] See Book I, Chapter III.
CHAPTER I
CAPITALISM IS STUPID
§ 1. OVERPRODUCTION
The first and most glaring evil of the competitive system is that it
is stupid. In support of this I shall call as witnesses captains of
industry whom the business men regard as the greatest authorities in
the world: John D. Rockefeller[24], Henry O. Havemeyer[25], Elbert H.
Gary[26] and others.
Socialists are accused of being impractical. I shall have failed in
properly presenting the Socialist case if I do not succeed in
demonstrating that the impractical people are the bourgeois, the
Roosevelts, Tafts and Bryans who, though aware of the waste of the
competitive system, insist upon maintaining it; and that the only
practical people are those who, like the Socialists, having perceived
the waste that attends the competitive system, seek to replace it by a
more economic plan.
No one will, I think, deny that the most practical business men to-day
in America are Rockefeller, Pierpont Morgan, Havemeyer, and the others
who have been engaged in organizing our great trusts. Now the only
object of a trust is to eliminate the unnecessary waste of
competition; and the only difference between the Socialist and the
trust magnate is that the Socialist wants the benefit derived from
reducing competition to be shared by all; whereas Rockefeller,
Pierpont Morgan and the other trust magnates want the profit secured
by the elimination of waste all to themselves.
I do not suppose there is any man living so prejudiced or so dull as
to deny that, if Socialism could present a system by which all could
be made to profit from the elimination of the waste of the competitive
system in such a manner that the profit of each shall be proportional
to the amount which each contributes, Socialism would be justified.
The only point upon which there can be discussion is whether it is
possible to suggest a workable plan under which the evils of
competition can be eliminated, and the blessings of coöperation take
their place. In other words, is coöperation a practical cure for
competition? It is obviously impossible to decide whether a given
treatment would constitute a cure for a given disease, without a
thorough knowledge of the disease. It is therefore essential that we
should be clear as regards the defects of the competitive system, and
how far these defects are curable and how far incurable.
The beauty of the competitive system upon which the bourgeois loves to
dwell is that it is automatic; whenever there is overproduction in an
industry prices fall, profits disappear and therefore capital flows
away from it; as soon as overproduction comes to an end prices rise,
profits reappear and capital flows back to it. And the beauty of this
automatic system is the more commended because it closely follows
Nature; and indeed, the system of Nature is beautiful in the extreme.
The sun draws the vapor of pure water from the salt ocean; lifts it
high into the air, wafts it by propitious breezes to the continent;
sheds it in beneficent rain upon the thirsty land, and deposits it in
gigantic reservoirs of ice and snow upon our mountain heights; there
is the supply upon which during hot summers we depend; and the hotter
the summer, and the more therefore we need moisture, the more the snow
and glaciers melt and furnish us with torrents of refreshing streams;
so that at last the vapor that has been drawn by the sun from the
ocean, in obedience to the inevitable law of gravitation, returns to
it in a thousand rivers, after having performed its function of
nutrition and refreshment on the way.
In the same fashion demand is ever beckoning labor and capital to seek
new fields, tempting them from the low levels of low interest to high
levels of high profit; and supply, increasing through their efforts,
is forever bringing them back, like the force of gravitation, to the
point whence they started; and the cycle is repeated over and over
again, performing its mission of production and distribution on the
way.
Unfortunately, Nature, though beneficial in the main, does not
accomplish its work without distressing incidents. Breezes are not
always propitious; they sometimes create disastrous havoc; torrents
are sometimes more than refreshing, and summers unduly hot.
For example, the more abundant a crop is, the more prosperous the
country which grows the crop ought to that extent to be; but it
sometimes happens that, in such case, prices fall so low as to bring
disaster to those who have grown it.[27]
Nature is not always to be depended on. Occasionally a crop entirely
fails, and when this happens, as lately in India, millions are exposed
to starvation and thousands actually starve.
Even when Nature is most bountiful the competitive system results in
misfortune. For example, the President of the Boston Chamber of
Commerce in a speech to the Chamber said in 1891:
"In 1890 we harvested a cotton crop of over eight million
bales--several hundred thousand bales more than the world could
consume. Had the crop of the present year been equally large, it would
have been an _appalling calamity_ to the section of our country that
devotes so large a portion of its labor and capital to the raising of
cotton."[28]
In 1905 the newspapers announced "the South is proposing to burn
cotton so as to keep up its price."[29] And still more recently the
same suggestion has been made regarding the tobacco crop in Kentucky.
Again, the competitive system under which every man goes into the
business where he sees most profit, inevitably leads to periods of
overproduction, and overproduction leads to unemployment and misery.
No political economist denies the obvious fact that whenever an
industry is known to be profitable, capitalists are likely to engage
in this industry--indeed, this is one of the automatic processes which
the Manchester school has put forward as constituting the chief merit
of the system. It is, of course, important for the community at large
that prices should in no one industry become excessive; and obviously
the disposition of capital to rush into industries where profits are
high, does by competition tend to reduce prices, and thus prevent them
from becoming excessive. But economists, especially those of the
Manchester school, have not been willing to recognize that this
disposition of capital to flow into productive enterprises may, though
sometimes beneficial, be also sometimes ruinous; may, indeed, often
result in a devastating deluge. These economists, therefore, it may be
well to confront with a brief history of one or two of our largest
combinations. Let us take as a first example the sugar trust.
Just before the organization of this trust, overproduction had become
so excessive that of forty refiners in the United States eighteen
became bankrupt. Of the twenty-two that remained, eighteen combined.
Of the refineries belonging to these eighteen, eleven were closed,
leaving seven to do profitably the work which had previously been done
unprofitably by forty.
The history of the whisky trust shows overproduction to a still more
aggravated degree. Before the organization of the Distilling and
Cattle-Feeding Company, agreements were entered into by the majority
of the distillers; under one of them they agreed to reduce production
to forty per cent of what it at that time was; subsequently they
agreed to reduce still further to twenty-eight per cent; and of eighty
of the principal distillers who organized the Distilling and
Cattle-Feeding Company, the establishments of sixty-eight were closed,
leaving only twelve distilleries operating.
The same succession of events is found in the history of the American
Steel and Wire Company, and indeed of practically all American trusts.
This inevitable tendency towards overproduction vitally concerns
workingmen, for it is upon them that the evil consequences of this
process first and most fatally fall. As soon as the process results in
the inevitable reduction of prices to near cost, the manufacturer must
either throw workmen out of employment or reduce wages. Wages
constitute the only elastic element in cost, and it is therefore the
workingman who first pays for the evil working of this system. And not
only does the workingman pay for it, but the employer pays for it
also; for workingmen, to protect their interests, strike, and only the
wealthiest employers can stand the strain of a strike; the rest are
ruined by it.
Even a reduction of the hours of work or the days of employment in the
week will, if it lasts long enough, ruin the employer, for he has
still to pay the fixed charges of the factory, and if prices get low
enough, and he cannot sell his goods except at a ruinous loss, he ends
by not having means to pay these charges; and this process is
illustrated in the cases just mentioned; for example, eighteen out of
forty sugar refiners became bankrupt; and it was not till the eighteen
were ruined that a combination was possible amongst the rest.
One method employed by trusts to keep up prices at home is to sell
their excess of goods in foreign markets at prices below cost.
Mr. Gary, President of the Federal Steel Company, testified before the
Industrial Committee that steel had been recently shipped to Japan at
a price below the domestic price.[30]
Mr. J.W. Lee, President of the three independent pipe-line
organizations, testified that prior to 1895 "oil for export was sold
below the cost of crude at the refinery."[31]
Again, at a time when the American trade was paying $28 for steel
rails, the same steel rails were sold in Japan at $20.[32]
Obviously, the nations who are the victims of this process are not
long going to tolerate it; but this is a relatively small part of the
international complications produced by overproduction. The most
serious consequence of overproduction is that manufacturers, when they
can no longer get a remunerative price for their goods in the home
markets, are inevitably driven to seek it elsewhere. They seek foreign
markets, and failing foreign markets, they seek new markets by
colonization or conquest.
It is impossible to read the history of the British Empire during the
last 150 years without becoming persuaded that its so-called greed for
conquest inevitably results from the necessity under which English
manufacturers have been to secure markets for their increasing goods.
Either British factories had to close, and British workmen to be
thrown out of employment, or England must, by colonization or
conquest, secure a price outside her own borders for the goods which
competition perpetually tended to make her factories overproduce.
Indeed, the war through which England compelled China to purchase
Indian opium looks like the greatest of international crimes; yet,
when we understand this so-called crime of England, it turns out to
have been a commercial necessity; for the remunerative prices obtained
by the production of opium in India had so developed this branch of
business that millions of Indians depended for their lives upon it,
and either Chinese must poison themselves with opium, or Indians must
die of hunger. The responsibilities of England were to her subjects
first. The Chinese had to pay the price of this responsibility.
No better illustration of the wicked despotism that results from
existing industrial conditions could be given than this; it brought
about a condition of things under which England must commit a crime
against China, or millions of her subjects must perish in Hindustan.
The millions that would starve in India if the opium market were
suddenly closed remind us of the millions who are on the verge of
starvation here in the United States,[33] and have been for two years
past because of inherent and incurable defects in our industrial
system. It is no answer to say that the evil results of overproduction
are promptly remedied by the fluidity of capital to flow towards
profitable and to withdraw from unprofitable manufactures. Every time
such withdrawal takes place a corresponding number of workmen are
thrown out of employment, are subjected to want and anguish of
anxiety. The evil of this system cannot be explained away by pointing
out that the capital withdrawn from one manufacture will soon be
reinvested in another. A cotton-spinner cannot in a week or a month
become a boilermaker. The commercial system which makes it easy for a
capitalist to maintain income at cost of agony to the workingman does
not recommend itself to the political student seeking the
establishment of Justice in economic conditions. For, unfortunately,
labor is not as "fluid" or insensible as capital. The workingman is a
human being with the capacity for pain and anxiety that characterizes
our race; and every time that capital profits by its fluidity to flow
from one industry to another, the lives of men, women, and children
are threatened by want. Even in prosperous times memories of the last
panic and the certainty of a recurring panic keep their hearts haunted
by fear.
Overproduction is by no means the only cause for these periods of
unemployment. Indeed, the panic of 1907 was not the result of
overproduction, but of overinvestment, or what the French call the
"immobilization of capital." Every nation has two very different uses
for wealth: one for keeping its population alive and comfortable, the
other for developing the resources of the country, e.g., building
roads and railroads, exploiting mines and quarries, etc. If too much
wealth is immobilized in the latter, there is not enough for the
former. The important function of regulating this matter is in the
hands of bankers who make money not only out of the prosperity of
prosperous times, but out of the panic of panic periods. Thus in May,
1907, the bankers, knowing that there had been overinvestment, took
care of themselves by selling securities at top-notch prices,
occasioning what was called the "rich man's panic," because the rich
men of leisure were its victims; so that when the poor man's panic
came in October and stocks tumbled to one-half of May prices, the
bankers were able to reinvest the proceeds of May sales at fifty per
cent profit. One of the consequences of this operation was that in
October, 1907, neither manufacturers nor railroad men could get money
to keep their work going; gangs of five thousand men at a time were
summarily dismissed by railroads, and manufactures shut down.
Of course, the bankers did not "make the panic," as has been
sometimes ignorantly asserted; they only made money out of it both
ways--out of high prices in May and out of low prices in November. And
this illustrates one of the great defects of the competitive
system--that it puts different sets of men in a position where they
can make individual profit out of the misfortunes of their neighbors;
bankers out of panics; distillers and liquor dealers out of
drunkenness; manufacturers and retailers out of adulteration, and so
down the whole gamut of production and distribution; and this is the
process which the bourgeois approves because it "makes character."
But the unemployment that is the necessary result of all periods of
depression, whether produced by overproduction or overinvestment,
deserves more than passing mention for its fruits in the shape of
misery, pauperism, prostitution and crime, are menacing and
prejudicial to the race.
§ 2. UNEMPLOYMENT
The subject of Unemployment has just been treated by an expert in a
book[34] hailed by the press as the final word on the subject. All the
theories ever propounded as to the cause of unemployment have been
reviewed in this book, from overproduction, underconsumption,
competition, to "spots on the sun." And the author concludes in favor
of competition.[35] As regards the facts and the explanation of these
facts, there seems to be no essential disagreement between orthodox
economists and Socialists. Both trace unemployment back to
competition. And in addition to the arguments given by Mr. Beveridge
for tracing unemployment to competition, I venture to add that
competition must be decided to be the primary cause, because it is
itself the cause of the other so-called causes occasionally
proposed--overproduction, underconsumption, underemployment,
underpayment--in fact, all except "spots on the sun," which can, I
think, except for purposes of hilarity be definitely abandoned.
But although we are agreed as to facts, we very much differ as to
emphasis. Mr. Beveridge, and indeed all orthodox economists, pass
lightly over the injustice, the immorality and the agony of
unemployment. He refers to the "cyclical fluctuation" which gives rise
to unemployment as a mere failure of adjustment between demand and
supply. "No doubt," he says, "the adjustment takes time and may
only[36] be accomplished with a certain amount of friction and loss."
Now this "friction and loss," when expressed in money and wealth, seem
to us socialists stupid because avoidable; but when expressed in human
life and misery, they seem so intolerable that we are prepared if
necessary to shatter to bits the whole system that underlies them, in
order to "remould it nearer to the heart's desire." We are relieved
then when we discover that by applying wisdom instead of temper to the
solution of the problem, it is unnecessary to do any shattering, that
we can remould it without violence, and that this is what Socialism
proposes to do. Mr. Beveridge disposes of the Socialist solution in a
sentence: "To abolish the competitive stimulus," he says, "is to
abolish 'either the possibility of, or the principal factor in
material progress.'"[37] But these few words beg the whole question:
Need we abolish the competitive stimulus in the adoption of the
Socialist cure? Can we not confine ourselves to eliminating the
gambling element in it? Can we not diminish the stakes without
abandoning them altogether? Can we not take our arsenic in tonic
instead of in fatal doses? These questions belong to our constructive
chapters at the end of the book. I shall take up here only a few other
points about unemployment which orthodox economists do not
sufficiently emphasize, in order that there may be no doubt as to the
magnitude of this evil and as to the duty upon us to eliminate it if
we can.
Few things irritate the bourgeois more than to speak of workingmen as
"wage slaves." I have seen college professors lose their temper over
this word so often that they have served to suggest that in using it
we are, as children say, getting "warm." We are very near the Negro we
are looking for in the woodpile. Unemployment will help us in our
search.
Not only the slave, but the savage, has a great advantage over the
workingman, in that the former is never unemployed and the latter need
never be so unless he chooses. Unemployment then is the peculiar
product of our civilization. It is only under this competitive system
of ours that a strong, hearty, able-bodied man, not only willing, but
burning to work, with plenty of work to be done and with plenty of
food to be eaten, is refused both. Although there are vacant lots in
the heart of our cities and deserted farms within a few miles of them,
the unemployed and the women and children dependent on them are to
starve because owing to the "failure of adjustment between supply and
demand," no one for two years past has been able to make money by
employing them. Why this is so will more fully appear in Book II,
Chapter III. It is only necessary here to point out the forces that
tend to make the wage slave not only more unfortunate, but more
dangerous to the community than the African slave.
The slave owner has the same interest in the welfare of his slaves as
the cowboy in his cattle. God knows this is not much, but it is
sufficient to keep slaves and cattle in good condition if only for the
purpose of getting work out of the one and high prices out of the
other. The interest that a slave owner has in the health of his slaves
is a continuing one; it lasts during the working years of his slave.
The owner has paid a price or his slave has cost him a certain amount
to raise. The interest of the owner, therefore, is to get the most
work out of the slave during his working years. For this purpose he
lengthens these working years to the utmost possible; and accordingly
feeds and clothes his slave sufficiently and does not overwork him.
The interest of the factory owner is just the opposite. He has paid
nothing out of his capital for what is called the "free labor" he
employs; and because free labor exacts a high wage and short hours, it
is to the interest of the factory owner to get the greatest work
possible out of his employee, regardless whether his employee is
overworked. It is to his interest, not only to use his employee, but
to use him up; and to this end he speeds up his machinery to the
utmost point in order to force his employees to do the greatest work
possible during the hours of employment, and has recourse to
pacemakers. He does this with perfect security, because he has an
unlimited amount of young labor always at his disposal to replace
employees prematurely worn out from overwork and the diseases that
come from overwork. The factory owner does not adopt these methods out
of hardness of heart, but out of the necessity of the market. If he
pays a workingman high wages for short hours, he must get the greatest
work out of him if he is to compete successfully with other factory
owners in the same line of business. Even the most merciful factory
owners have to overwork their employees in order to sell goods at
prices fixed by the merciless market. This system results in manifold
evils. It creates a class not only of unemployed, but of
unemployables; men who cannot render efficient service because of
disease and of the drunkenness to which overwork tends; for when a
workingman feels his strength begin to wane he has recourse to
stimulants to last his day out, and once the habit of stimulants is
contracted, he loses his appetite for nourishing food and becomes
thereby more and more confirmed in the use of intoxicants.
We have here, therefore, a perpetual and necessary production of
unemployed and unemployable; the industrial town resembles a gigantic
threshing machine which produces its regular quota of unemployed and
unemployables as certainly as a threshing machine produces chaff.
This leads to another point to which I wish to attract special
attention. Unemployment is generally regarded as a purely temporary
evil. Indeed, the New York _Times_ took me to task for speaking of it
as a permanent evil.[38] The reason for this widespread error is that
permanent unemployment is a thing to which we have grown accustomed.
Charitable societies are familiar with it and know that it exists all
the time; but it is only when unemployment adopts gigantic proportions
so that the unemployed crowd our parks and streets and even indulge in
public demonstrations, that the public becomes aware of it. And it is
not only the regular operation of the industrial threshing machine
that produces the unemployed and unemployables; it is the character of
certain industries and occupations such as seasonal industries--for
example, carpentering and casual occupations, such as stevedores and
longshoremen. Mr. Beveridge gives a very graphic picture of the
unemployment on the London docks:[39]
Most of us have heard of the great Dock Strike of 1889, and of the
distinguished men who undertook to settle it. Efforts were made then
to regulate work on the wharves, and while these efforts did improve
the condition of the best of the men, as Mr. Beveridge says, "it is
seldom realized how small a proportion of the total field of dock and
wharf labor is really covered by the reform."[40]
He attributes the maintenance of evil conditions still prevailing on
the docks to the "separation of the interests of wharfingers,
shipowners, and contractors," to our old enemy--competition.
To appreciate the evil effects of casual or irregular employment, we
have again but to quote Mr. Beveridge:
"The knowledge that any man, whatever his experience, however bad his
antecedents, might get a job at the docks, attracted to their
neighborhood a perpetual stream of blackguards, weaklings and failures
from other every occupation. The experience, soon made, that regular
attendance was not necessary to secure selection on days when work
happened to be plentiful, and the daily alternations of hard exercise
and idleness rapidly developed in those who came, if they had it not
before, the greatest irregularity of habits, and physical or moral
incapacity for continuous exertion. The low physique and half-starved
condition of many of the laborers made their work dear at 4d. an
hour."[41]
Here he falls in with the evil feature of the competitive system which
has been described as gambling with nothing less for stakes than life,
health and happiness: "Finally," concludes Mr. Beveridge, "the door is
opened to abuse of patronage; convivial drinking and even direct
bribery are not unknown as a means of securing employment."[42]
The form of bribery paid by employees when of the female sex is a
still darker side of this dark subject.[43]
Another permanent cause of unemployment is underemployment and
underpayment. In many occupations, such as coal mining,
underemployment is averaged over a year so as to cause little
unemployment but much distress; the high wages which the miners are
able to stipulate for through their trade unions are reduced by
diminishing the days of work in the year. In other occupations
underemployment and underpayment reduce employees to a state of
starvation, which of course swells the rank of the unemployables.
Having seen how the pressure of the market forces factory owners to
overwork their employees and to dismiss all who are not able to earn
the wages they receive; how casual employment creates and keeps alive
a class of labor such as is described by Mr. Beveridge, and as must
perpetually throw employees either upon charity or into the street;
and having seen that this is a result of inherent and constant
conditions of our industrial system, we are not surprised to find
that statistics of unemployment indicate that it exists not only in
periods of industrial depression, as is imagined by the New York
_Times_ and others, but is, on the contrary, a permanent feature. For
example, the September Report of the New York Commissioner of Labor
shows that the average percentage of unemployment during the
prosperous period between 1902 and 1907, was 16.1 per cent. We shall
see later when we endeavor to calculate the amount of our population
affected by unemployment, that 16.1 per cent, being derived entirely
from trade union reports, does not fully represent the whole, because
it is generally admitted that unemployment prevails in much larger
proportion in unorganized labor than in organized.[44] The last United
States Census sets down the number of factory hands at over 7,000,000.
Taking therefore the official figures as representing the minimum of
constant unemployment, 16 per cent of 7,000,000 is 1,120,000, and as
every factory hand has on an average four persons dependent upon him,
this means a total population of 4,480,000, or roughly, four millions
and a half permanently in want in the United States owing to this
unemployment which orthodox economists recognize as a necessary result
of the competitive system.
But the public takes no account of the fact that our industrial system
regularly reduces a population of 4,500,000 to want. The public only
takes account of the extraordinary unemployment which occasions
disorder and riot in times of panic and industrial depression. Panics
and industrial depressions must not be confounded. We have seen that
industrial depressions are the inevitable result of what Mr. Beveridge
calls "cyclical fluctuations" and recur with abominable regularity.
Quite independent, however, of these regularly recurring industrial
depressions due to the working of the competitive system, there are
financial crises or panics due to similar perturbations in our money
market. Although they differ in many respects from industrial
depressions, nevertheless they have in common with them the inevitable
result of producing unemployment on a large scale. The panic of 1907
began as a purely financial crisis, but promptly became a lengthy
period of industrial depression. It is not necessary at this point to
discuss the relation between these two. But it is important that mere
scarcity of money in the panic of 1907 produced unemployment more
suddenly and in larger proportions than any other panics that have
preceded it.
Not only private enterprises such as railroads, but public bodies such
as municipalities, being no longer able to borrow money, had not only
to abandon work already voted, but to put a sudden stop to work
already undertaken. Laborers were dismissed in batches of five
thousand at a time, and every manufacturing and railroad plant was
driven by the impossibility of borrowing money to cutting down
expenses with a view to increasing the efficiency of the plant. Thus
the Pennsylvania Railroad announced that it had so increased the
efficiency of its plant that it was able to dismiss 30,000 men during
the year; the New York Central during 1907 dismissed ten per cent of
the staff upon its main line alone; seventy-six railroads, operating
over 172,000 miles of railroad, report an economy of nearly
$100,000,000, most of which constituted an economy in wages,[45] and
Senator Guggenheim, in an interview published in the _Wall Street
Journal_,[46] said:
"For the first time in many years the employer is getting from his men
the 100 per cent in efficiency for which he pays. It is a safe
assertion that prior to the panic the efficiency of labor was no
higher than 75 per cent, perhaps not even that."
Special attention is directed to the foregoing because unemployment is
ceasing to be a merely accidental and periodic phenomenon and is
assuming not only larger, but more permanent proportions. In other
words, the 30,000 men dismissed by the Pennsylvania Railroad were not
dismissed because of a temporary cessation of traffic. They were
dismissed because the Pennsylvania Railroad has succeeded in so
raising the efficiency of their system that they can permanently run
their lines with 30,000 less employees than they could before.
Let us endeavor to form some idea of the unemployment during the last
two years. The only State that regularly publishes official reports on
this subject is New York. The State of New York derives its
information from such trade unions as report to it; and from these
reports it seems that during 1908, the average unemployment has been
about one-third.
As has been intimated, an average of one-third of organized labor
reported by trade unions, means a very much larger proportion of
unorganized labor. It is true that Mr. Beveridge disputes this in one
passage,[47] but he himself furnishes the evidence of its truth in
several others; as for example, where he says that "in practice,
therefore, it is found that acute recurrent distress at times of
seasonal depression is confined to the unskilled occupations";[48] and
again, he points out how the lack of intelligence of unorganized and
semi-skilled and unskilled workmen makes it impossible for them to
take account of the fluctuations that produce unemployment. "The
measure of their failure," he says, "is to be found in those periods
of clamant distress which evoke Mansion House Relief Funds."[49]
In Chapter V, again, he points out the chronic distress of unskilled
men and that unemployment is largely due to lack of organization. It
stands to reason that whereas a factory owner thinks twice before
dismissing a skilled workman he will not hesitate to dismiss an
unskilled workman whom he can replace at any time.[50]
However much authorities may differ on this in Europe, there can be no
question about it in America. It was impossible to read the daily
papers in October, 1907, without being satisfied that the first men to
suffer were the unorganized and unskilled. Hardly a day passed for
weeks without papers announcing the discharge of workingmen in batches
of thousands at a time. It was only later that factories shut down,
and then for the most part, a day or so in the week. Unfortunately,
because the unskilled workingman is unorganized, it is impossible to
get any information regarding the extent of unemployment in their
ranks; but it can be stated without fear of contradiction, that the
percentage of unemployment is much larger in the ranks of the
unorganized than in those of trade unions.
The one-third, therefore, as shown by the New York Labor reports, is
below the mark, I will not undertake to say how much. In endeavoring
to make an estimate as to the extent of unemployment throughout the
entire Union, we must remember that the percentage of employment in
New York is likely to be larger than in purely agricultural States. On
the other hand, nowhere is the percentage of unemployment greater than
in the States devoted to mining. The difficulty under which we find
ourselves, therefore, in giving the exact figure of the extent of
unemployment, makes it wise not to increase the one-third reported by
trade unions in New York in consequence of the certainty that this
proportion was far larger in unorganized labor; and on the other hand,
not to decrease it out of the consideration that there were some
States in which the percentage would not be as much as in the State of
New York. Under these circumstances it may be assumed that the
percentage reported by the trade unions to the Labor Department fairly
represents the average unemployment throughout the whole United States
of America. Taking the census figures of over 7,000,000 as that of the
workingmen in the country, one-third of 7,000,000 is 2,333,333; add to
this the number of persons dependent on these workingmen; four to
each, 9,333,333; add this to the first figure and we get a population
of 11,666,666 which for two years has been on the edge of starvation,
and saved from it only through accumulated earnings, help from trade
unions and charity. As the unskilled workingman can hardly ever save
money owing to the low rate of his wages, and as he is not organized
and never receives benefits from a union, it may be said that the
large majority of these have been living for two years on the charity
of their neighbors.
It is probable, too, that the trade union member has been reduced to
depending upon charity; for the last report on savings banks shows
that $25,000,000 have been withdrawn during the last year, and their
presidents, when interviewed, recognized that this diminution was
caused by the withdrawal of funds by the unemployed.
It was also due to the withdrawal of funds by the trade unions. In
October, 1907, many trade unions had large sums accumulated which have
been applied during the year to the support of the unemployed. The
Union of Pressmen had $30,000 last October, all of which has gone to
support the unemployed during the year, and this union has suffered
comparatively little, only 20 per cent being now idle. This 20 per
cent is supported by assessments on those who are at work.
As regards remedies for unemployment, Mr. Beveridge says that "no cure
for industrial fluctuation can be hoped for; the aim must be
palliation." And he dwells at great length upon the palliative
measures to which Switzerland, Germany, Belgium and to a less extent,
France, have recourse; employment bureaus, insurance against
unemployment, and farm colonies, to which last he refers only
incidentally, pointing out that Hollesley Bay had proved for the most
part ineffectual.[51] These palliatives have, however, rendered
comparatively small service. In Germany, where they have all been
applied, unemployment during 1908 reached the rioting stage, at which
it becomes dangerous and commands the attention of our economists, as
in England. The palliative, to which Mr. Beveridge only incidentally
refers, is, to my mind, calculated not only to diminish the evil
immediately, but to serve as an important bridge over which the
unemployed and unemployables may pass into the Promised Land. The
farm colony, however, belongs to the constructive chapter at the end
of the book.
Another necessary consequence of the competitive system is a form of
unemployment which, because of its importance, deserves consideration
by itself--Prostitution.
§ 3. PROSTITUTION
Prostitution is not an easy or agreeable subject to treat; it will be
disposed of, therefore, in the fewest words possible. The treatment of
it will be summary, not because the subject is unimportant, but
because it is abominable. And if it is true that Socialism would put
an end to it, this alone, for those who can comprehend the horrors
thereof, ought to justify Socialism whatever be the sacrifice
necessary to the realization of it. If our present competitive system
is responsible for the evil to both sexes that results from
prostitution, then the maintenance of this system is, so far as every
one of us by indifference tolerates it, nothing less than crime.
We must begin by making ourselves clear as to what prostitution is.
Mere promiscuity of sexual relation does not constitute prostitution,
for many a woman is unfaithful to her husband many times without
losing social consideration, provided only she conduct herself with
sufficient discretion to avoid scandal.
Nor does intercourse for money constitute prostitution; for then
prostitution would include all those who marry for money. The real
definition of a prostitute is a woman who has intercourse both
promiscuously and for a money reward, promiscuity and gain must be
united.
Now it will later be made clear that in a Socialist state because
every woman would be furnished an opportunity to work, none would be
driven to prostitution.
Prostitution is generally the direct result of the disgrace put upon a
woman by loss of virtue. She is turned out of her home and her
legitimate employment. She has then but one recourse. It is sometimes
due to lack of employment; sometimes to the greater facility
prostitution affords for making a livelihood with the least labor. In
all these cases the _primum mobile_ is the making of a livelihood. As
Socialism would remove this _primum mobile_, would assure a livelihood
to every woman upon the single condition of her performing her
allotted work--there would be no motive for prostitution. If she
refused to perform her allotted task she would become a pauper--but a
prostitute never; for a Socialist state, as will be later explained,
would segregate paupers in farm colonies, where they would be
compelled to support themselves, and would not leave them to
demoralize their neighbors by profligacy and prostitution.
It may be objected that society keeps itself pure by casting out women
of loose character, and that an innocent girl should not be called
upon to work in a factory side by side with one who will deprave her
if she can. An exhaustive answer to this would involve a study of the
special conditions of each State, the laws of each State, the mental
attitude of the people, their tolerance of immorality or their
intolerance of it. It is a problem common to every society. This
exhaustive study it is not the province of this book to undertake; the
subject must be disposed of, therefore, by the following general
considerations:
In the society of the wealthy to-day we are confronted by the same
problem as would be presented in a coöperative commonwealth in which
prostitution would be rendered impossible by state employment
regardless of morality. In other words, wealth does for the wealthy
class what Socialism would do for the unwealthy; it makes prostitution
improbable if not impossible. And the wealthy manage to solve the
problem of promiscuity--every wealthy society for itself in its own
way.
In one country the woman who outrages morality is socially ostracized;
in another she is tolerated; in one country divorces are not only
lawful, but fashionable; in others the church forbids divorce but
tolerates the complaisant husband. _All these are problems of sex
which Socialism does not undertake to solve._ Later on the scientific
and ethical aspects of Socialism will, I hope, lead to the conclusion
that Socialism will so raise our ethical standards and habits of mind
that sexual irregularities will tend to diminish. Prostitution,
however, is not a sex, but an economic problem. A woman does not
receive money payment except for economic reasons. If the economic
pressure is removed she may be licentious, but she will not be a
prostitute. Chastity ought to be a purely moral or social question,
not an economic one. The competitive system makes it economic, and of
all the crimes imputable to the competitive system, this is the
greatest, for it directly perverts not only the human body, but the
human soul. Of course, unemployment, in degenerating the body,
ultimately degenerates the soul also, but the latter generation is
more or less remote; the public conscience may be forgiven for not
having discovered or taken account of it. But that we should see women
daily compelled by hunger to sell soul as well as body and should then
shut against them the door of our homes and our hearts, is a crime not
only against them, but against ourselves. We are hardening our hearts
as well as theirs. We are forcing our minds to that obliquity which
sees in Socialism only "pornographic literature" and "pornographic
propaganda" and charges the men who sacrifice their lives to the
putting an end to the conditions that produce prostitution with
"criminal nonsense" and "grave mental or moral shortcoming."[52]
This evil, like all evils that arise from the competitive system, is
not incidental or occasional, but inherent and necessary. It cannot be
better stated than by Miss Woodbridge, the secretary of the Working
Women's Society, in a report made to the Society on May 6, 1890:
"It is a known fact that men's wages cannot fall below a limit upon
which they can exist, but woman's wages have no limit, since the paths
of shame are always open to her. The very fact that some of these
women receive partial support from brothers or fathers and are thus
enabled to live upon less than they earn, forces other women who have
no such support either to suffer for necessities or seek other means
of support."
The extent to which wages are reduced below starvation rates is also
stated as follows:
"The wages, which are low, we find are often reduced by excessive
fines, the employers placing a value upon time lost that is not given
to service rendered. The salaries of saleswomen range from $2.00 to
$18.00, but the latter sum is only paid in rare instances in cloak and
suit departments. The average salary in the best houses does not
exceed $7.00, and averages $4.00 or $4.50 per week. Cashiers receive
from $6.00 to $15.00, averaging about $9.00. Cash girls receive from
$1.50 to $2.50 per week, though we know of but one store where $2.50
is paid. In the Broadway stores boys are employed, usually on
commission. The average salary of one large shop for saleswomen and
cash girls is $2.40; another $2.90; another $3.10; but in the latter,
the employees are nearly all men and boys. We find in many stores the
rule to fine from five to thirty cents for a few minutes' tardiness.
In one store all women who earn over $7.00 are fined thirty cents for
ten minutes' tardiness. Cash girls who earn $1.75 per week are fined
ten cents for ten minutes' tardiness."
It is hardly necessary to comment on a wage to saleswomen varying from
$2.40 to $3.10 a week, and this liable to reduction by fines. It will
be observed too that owners of department stores are compelled by the
pressure of the market to seek this half-supported help. Miss
Woodbridge says:
"In all the stores the tendency is to secure cheap help. You often see
the advertisement reading thus: 'Young misses, just graduated, wanted
for positions as saleswomen;' which means that being girls with homes
they can afford to work cheaper than those who are self-supporting."
The words "just graduated" constitute a direct appeal to the
educated--that is to say, partially supported--women.
So a self-respecting young girl who desires to contribute to the
expenses of the home, sets the rate of wages which drives her less
fortunate sister to misery and crime, and thus becomes the unconscious
instrument of her shame.
If anyone is not satisfied that the conditions above described must
result, unsavory details of a kind to persuade him will be found in
the report of Miss Maud E. Miner, probation officer of city
magistrates' courts, published in the Survey.
Lastly, temptation would be indirectly as well as directly diminished
by the absence of prostitutes as a class. It has been already
intimated that prostitution committed injustice to _both_ sexes. By
this it was intended to refer to the injustice of exposing our young
men to perpetual temptation furnished by the facilities for
prostitution. The whole question of sexual morality is mainly one of
suggestion. Take eight men accustomed to believe that they cannot
dispense with sexual connection; put them in a crew and remove the
suggestion that they can obtain relief at any time by substituting
therefor the notion of loyalty to the crew or a desire to win a race,
and the desire which before seemed uncontrollable practically
disappears. The moment the race is over, the old suggestion returns,
and the night of a boat race has become proverbial in consequence. The
same is true of men who go on hunting expeditions, yachting cruises,
into lumber camps, etc. Desire becomes dormant or controllable as soon
as facilities for gratifying it disappear; the moment the facility
returns, the suggestion is revived, and desire becomes uncontrollable.
What, then, would be the consequence if the suggestion were minimized
by the absence of prostitution altogether?
But this is not all: Men who seduce young girls and married women have
learned to gratify their passions through the facility afforded by
prostitution. If our youths were never afforded the chance of taking
that first step which leads to the _facilis descensus_, they would,
from the fact of never having gratified their passions, be less likely
to undertake to gratify them at the cost of seduction. The suggestion
would be absent; all women would tend to be as sacred to a man as his
sister. The relation of brother and sister is due entirely to the
absence of suggestion; he has learned to regard her with an
unconscious respect which removes the possibility of erotic
suggestion. What actually happens in the small family of to-day could
also happen in the larger family of to-morrow.
This must not be understood as a contention that Socialism would
destroy immorality. Far from it. All that is claimed is that it might
diminish immorality and that it would put an end to prostitution. This
last is reason enough for it.
It is impossible to treat of the economic cause of prostitution
without discussing its ethical consequences, because the consequences
react upon the cause. But we are here chiefly concerned with its
economic features; and it is impossible to put too much emphasis upon
the fact that the greatest permanent blot upon our civilization is the
necessary result of a competitive system that leaves a large part of
our women no other means of livelihood.
Although we have carefully distinguished between the woman who sells
herself to one man for a fortune and the common prostitute who sells
herself to many men for a pittance, the first is often more to blame
than the latter, because the latter is compelled by hunger while the
former often barters her chastity out of sheer love of luxury. The
whole heredity of man may be altered by the elimination through
Socialism of the sordid motive for marriage. Avarice may become
diminished by sexual selection. For although sexual selection is not
to-day found to have the force in animal heredity that Darwin thought,
it is an important factor in human heredity, thanks to the opportunity
for deliberate selection furnished by our institution of marriage. But
this belongs to another chapter.
From a purely economic point of view, prostitution is to be classed
with unemployment, which burdens the community with the support of a
class that in a coöperative commonwealth would be self-supporting. It
seems hardly necessary to state that the dissipation that attends the
life of a prostitute unfits her for work. And not content with being
idle herself, she causes others to be idle and constitutes a permanent
source of contagion, moral and physical, in our midst.
This is a necessary consequence of the competitive system.
§ 4. STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS
Another necessary result of a system of production that sets the man
who works with his hands against the man who works with his head, is
the conflict between capital and labor, that expresses itself in
strikes and lockouts. The conflict itself is treated in detail in the
chapter entitled Trusts and Trade Unions. Here we shall confine
ourselves to its wastefulness in time and money.
The sixteenth Annual Report of the United States Commissioner of
Labor,[53] for 1901, estimates the loss to employees resulting from
strikes and lockouts from January 1, 1881, to December 1, 1900--a
period of twenty years--at $306,683,223, and the loss to employers
during the same time at $142,659,104--together $449,342,327; or
roughly--$450,000,000. It is interesting to note how much less is the
loss to employers who are relatively able to bear it than to employees
who are relatively unable to bear it. But without regard to the
injustice of a system that bears so hardly upon the workingman, no
practical American who desires to see production attended with the
least waste and friction, can look upon such a loss as this without
impatience and humiliation.
Quite irrespective of the misery that results from unemployment and
the evils that attend it for the whole community--employed as well as
unemployed--too much emphasis cannot be put upon the foolish waste of
human energy that unemployment occasions. There have been for two
years in this country over a million (and probably much more than a
million) able-bodied men willing and anxious to assist in the
production and distribution of the things we need, and who have not
been permitted to do so--the energy of over a million, and probably a
great many more, absolutely wasted.
I have been amazed at the indifference of our wealthy class, and even
of the philanthropists amongst our wealthy class, at this condition of
the unemployed until a clue to this indifference was furnished by the
naïveté of a few of our captains of industry.
Here is what one of them, Daniel Guggenheim, president of the American
Smelting and Refining Company, says to the _Wall Street Journal_,
August 10:
"Every manufacturer in the country has lowered his costs of
production, partly through cheaper prices for raw materials, but
principally on account of the increased efficiency of labor. The
latter is one of the redeeming features of the current depression.
"For the first time in many years the employer is getting from his men
the 100 per cent in efficiency for which he pays. It is a safe
assertion that prior to the panic the efficiency of labor was no
higher than 75 per cent, perhaps not even that.
"Another thing--wherever a thousand men are needed, twelve hundred
apply. The result is that the thousand best men are picked; the
others, of necessity, must be turned away. But the thousand work more
conscientiously, knowing that two hundred are waiting to take the
places of the incompetents."
Here again we have one small class benefited by the misery of
millions of unemployed, and willing to perpetuate this condition of
unemployment in order to profit by it. Of all the waste that attends
the competitive system this waste of human energy is the most unjust,
and the most unjustifiable, unless it can be found that the pauperism
it imposes on the millions and the heartlessness it promotes in the
few, contribute, as the bourgeois tells us, "to make character!" But
if the waste of human energy at the cost of human agony is a matter of
indifference to business men, there is another form of waste which is
likely to appeal to them. We Americans pride ourselves upon our
business efficiency. In the next chapter we will consider the waste of
money that attends the competitive system and how the ablest business
men have set about eliminating it.
§ 5. ADULTERATION
It would seem as though the indifference of the public at large to
such wicked and wasteful things as unemployment, strikes, lockouts and
prostitution, were due to hardness of heart; but if we observe a
similar indifference to adulteration which concerns every individual
to the utmost, we have to recognize that tolerance of the evils of the
competitive system is due not so much to hardness of heart as to
stupidity. For since the dawn of our present civilization,
adulteration has been a constant and abominable evil. As the
Encyclopedia Americana puts it: "Adulteration is coexistent with
trade;"[54] and as the Britannica puts it: "The practice of
adulteration has become an art in which the knowledge of science and
the ingenuity of trade are freely exercised."
Before industrialism had reached its present development the statutes
enacted against adulteration were severe. They punished it with the
pillory and tumbrel. The following are the words of the statute:
"If any default shall be found in the bread of a baker in the city,
the first time, let him be drawn upon a hurdle from the Guildhall to
his own house through the great street where there be most people
assembled, and through the great streets which are most dirty, with
the faulty loaf hanging from his neck; if a second time he shall be
found committing the same offence, let him be drawn from the Guildhall
through the great street of Cheepe, in the manner aforesaid, to the
pillory, and let him be put upon the pillory, and remain there at
least one hour in the day; and the third time that such default shall
be found, he shall be drawn, and the oven shall be pulled down, and
the baker made to forswear the trade in the city forever."[55]
As the Encyclopædia puts it: "All this has given way to the force of
free trade." In other words, freedom of industry has been interpreted
to mean freedom of adulteration, and the Act of 1872 accordingly
punishes adulteration with "a sum not to exceed fifty pounds," and
only provides imprisonment in case of a second offence.[56]
It is interesting to take up any standard encyclopædia and read the
cold-blooded accounts of the various poisons introduced into our food
and other commodities for the purpose of adulteration. The matter has
been well treated by Mr. W.J. Ghent;[57] and in spite of the fact that
he is a prominent Socialist his book may be read, because in every
case he cites an authority, and his authorities are, for the most
part, reports of State Commissions and Health Departments.
It is probable that no article enters more universally into
consumption than milk, and of all the articles that we consume, it is
most important that milk should be pure, because it is the food of
infants and children. Yet in spite of all the laws passed for the
prevention of adulteration of milk, "in New York city, during 1902, of
3970 samples of milk taken from dealers for analysis, 2095, or 52.77
per cent, were found to be adulterated. The arrests in the city under
the inspection acts were 193 in 1899, 460 in 1900, 464 in 1901, and
722 in 1902."[58]
The experience in Ohio has been just the same as that of New York:
"The Dairy and Food Department of that State was created in 1886.
After seventeen years of inspections, arrests and prosecutions,
adulterations of milk still continue. 'Out of 1199 samples tested by
the chemists,' says the report for the year ending November 15, 1903,
'about one-fourth were found to be either below the required standard
in solids and butter fats, or adulterated with that base adulterant
known as "formalin" or "formaldehyde."'"[59]
Mr. A.J. Wedderburn calculates that 15 per cent of all our products
are adulterated; that is to say, $1,125,000,000 per annum.[60] And
this figure does not include adulterations of wine, whisky, beer,
tobacco, drugs or patent medicines.
Of eleven samples of coffee compounds analyzed by the Pennsylvania
Department in 1897-1898, "six contained no coffee whatever, and none
contained more than 25 per cent. The contents ranged from pea hulls
(65 per cent in one instance) to bran and the husks of cocoa
beans."[61]
The Ohio Report of 1898, in describing what is called "renovated
butter," says as follows:
"These factories have agents in all the large markets who buy up the
refuse from the commission men and retailers, taking stale, rancid,
dirty and unsalable butter in various degrees of putrefaction; this
refuse is put through a process of boiling, straining, filtering, and
renovating, and is finally churned with fresh milk, giving it a more
salable appearance. The effect is only temporary, however, as in a few
days the stuff becomes rancid and the odor it gives off is something
frightful. It is usually sold to people having a large trade who will
dispose of it quickly, for if it is not consumed at once it cannot be
used at all without being further renovated."[62]
After immense agitation we have had recent legislation of a character
to render adulteration difficult; the Federal Food and Drug Act which
went into effect January 1, 1907, since reënacted in thirty of our
States, and I suppose that many of our fellow-citizens think that this
Food and Drug Act is going to some extent to put an end to
adulteration. But is the experience of the entire race during its
entire history to be treated as of no importance in this connection?
Have we not had laws of this kind before, punishing adulteration in
every way--by the pillory and tumbrel as well as by fines and
imprisonment--and has any of them had any permanent effect in putting
an end to adulteration? How many more centuries are to elapse before
we learn the lesson that, so long as you give to one set of men an
irresistible motive for adulteration, no laws--no penalties, light or
severe, will materially check that impulse. If they are severe the
courts will not enforce them; if they are light the trade will
disregard them.
It is true that the adulteration of the things we eat and drink is
more important than the adulteration of things we wear. Nevertheless
it is a matter of no small importance that there is hardly a thing
that we do wear that is not adulterated in an astonishing degree. An
interesting paper on this subject was read before the Lake Placid
Conference on Home Economics, 1908.[63] The art of adulterating
textiles seems to be taught in our textile schools: "As a student in a
textile school said to a visitor: 'Our teacher is so clever, he can
spin wool and cotton together so they can never be detected;'" and
adulteration appears to be practically authorized under our New York
State law of 1900, which provides that "collars marked 'linen,' 'all
linen,' and 'pure linen,' must contain at least one thickness or ply
of pure linen." It is a common saying that, although the total supply
of wool in the world is only sufficient to meet one-third of the
demand, there is always wool to be had.
Of course, one principal reason why adulteration prevails is that it
is impossible for the ordinary consumer to detect it. For example, in
order to analyze stockings they must be destroyed. No consumer is
possessed of the technical schooling necessary to distinguish all-wool
or all-silk goods. Indeed it is stated by high authority that such a
thing as all-silk and all-wool is not to be purchased in the market,
though we continually buy articles declared to be all-wool or
all-silk.
I do not know whether the advocates of the present industrial
condition, on the ground that it "makes character," would go so far as
to approve of adulteration for this reason. It must be admitted,
however, that virtually everybody engaged in manufacture, production,
and distribution is a partner in the deliberate adulteration of things
for the purpose of cheating the public. This has been coexistent with
trade and has become recognized as one of our modern arts. The extent
to which adulteration is organized can be judged by the fact that "no
less than 40,000,000 pounds of fiber made from old rags, called
'shoddy,' are annually made in Yorkshire, at an estimated value of
£8,000,000 sterling, and that all is used for adulterating woolen
cloth."[64]
FOOTNOTES:
[24] Industrial Commission Report, Vol. I, p. 794.
[25] Ibid., p. 101.
[26] Ibid., p. 982.
The results of the work of this Commission are well summed up in Ind.
Com. Rep., Vol. I, Pt. I, p. 39, by Professor Jenks; and the waste
eliminated by trusts still more compendiously treated in "Government,"
Vol. II, p. 543, by the author.
[27] See N.Y. _Tribune_, Jan. 1, 1905, p. 2, column 2. Ibid., Jan. 2,
1905, p. 11, column 1.
[28] "Socialism and Social Reform," by R.T. Ely, p. 134.
[29] See N.Y. _Tribune_, Jan. 1, 1905, p. 2, column 2. Ibid., Jan. 2,
1905, p. 11, column 1.
[30] Report of the Industrial Commission, 1900. Vol. I, p. 199.
[31] Report of the Industrial Commission, Vol. I, 1900, p. 121.
[32] _Monde Economique_, Feb. 20, 1897.
[33] July 19, 1909.
[34] "Unemployment: A Problem of Industry," by W.H. Beveridge and
others. (Longmans.)
[35] Ibid., p. 61.
[36] "Unemployment: A Problem of Industry," by W.H. Beveridge and
others.
[37] Ibid., p. 63.
[38] N.Y. _Times_, Oct. 2, 1908.
[39] "Unemployment." W.H. Beveridge, p. 87.
[40] Ibid., p. 91.
[41] "Unemployment." W.H. Beveridge, p. 87.
[42] Ibid., p. 98. See also "Problems of Unemployment in the London
Building Trades." N.B. Dearles (1908, J.M. Dent). Cf. pp. 87-8.
[43] Book II, Chapter I.
[44] Mr. Beveridge denies this in one place, p. 21; but himself
produces proof of it later, p. 35.
[45] _Financial Chronicle_, Sept. 26, 1908.
[46] August, 1908.
[47] Beveridge, "Unemployment," p. 21.
[48] Ibid., p. 35.
[49] Beveridge, "Unemployment," p. 65.
[50] The managers of Trusts have pointed out that in order to keep
their highly skilled men, they have to sell often at a loss; and they
give this as the reason for what is called "dumping" their goods into
foreign markets. In other words, in order not to lower prices in
America during periods of depression due to overproduction, they sell
their goods at a loss abroad.--Industrial Commission, Vol. I, p. 282,
[51] Beveridge, "Unemployment," p. 182.
[52] Mr. Roosevelt in the _Outlook_, 1909, p. 622.
[53] P. 24.
[54] Americana, Vol. I, Subj. Adulteration.
[55] Encyclopædia Britannica, Vol. I, p. 51.
[56] An act to amend the laws of adulteration of food, drinks, and
drugs, 1872.
[57] "Mass and Class," by W.J. Ghent, p. 180-200.
[58] "The Health Department." A pamphlet published by the City Club
(1903), p. 23.
[59] Eighteenth Annual Report of the Ohio Dairy and Food Commission
(1903), p. 8.
[60] Address of Dr. W.C. Mitchell of the Colorado State Board of
Health, before the Portland Pure Food Convention (1902). Journal of
Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Convention of the National Association
of State Dairy and Food Departments, held at Portland, Ore., pp.
378-383.
[61] "Portland Proceedings," p. 469.
[62] Ohio Report (1898), p. 10.
[63] "The Study of Textiles," by Miss Nellie Crooks, Teachers College,
Columbia University, 1908.
[64] Encyclopædia Britannica, Vol. I, Subj. Adulteration.
CHAPTER II
CAPITALISM IS WASTEFUL
Under the system of free competition in the beginning and middle of
the last century, every investor who saw a profit in refining oil or
sugar, or making steel, put up a refinery or factory. The aim of every
factory was to manufacture the largest amount possible and sell it at
the highest price possible; and this is what Herbert Spencer[65] and
the Manchester School regard as the ideal system of production. Now
let us see just what happens as a result of this system of unlimited
competition.
§ 1. GETTING THE MARKET
Every manufacturer and refiner has to find purchasers for his product.
This effort to find purchasers is called in the trade, "getting the
market."
The expression "getting the market" covers all the expenses attending
the bringing of goods to the attention of the public, and they may be
roughly divided into two principal categories--advertising and
commercial travellers. The public little appreciates the enormous cost
which attends the work of finding a purchaser. Mr. Bradley, after a
careful calculation, estimates that "somewhere between the distiller
and the consumer in this country forty millions of dollars are lost;
this goes primarily to the attempt to secure trade."[66] Mr. Dowe[67]
the President of the Commercial Travellers' National League, testifies
that 35,000 salesmen have been thrown out of employment by the
organization of trusts, and 25,000 reduced to two-thirds of their
previous salaries. This would represent a loss of $60,000,000 in
salaries on a basis of $1200 each. He cites, as instances of trusts
that have dismissed salesmen, the baking powder, bicycle, chair,
paper-bag, rubber, tin-plate, steel and rod, sugar, coffee, thread and
type-founders' combinations. Not only do trusts dismiss salesmen, they
substitute for salesmen who, prior to the organization of the trust
had been earning $4000 to $5000 a year, cheaper salesmen who receive
$18 a week. He also estimates that the dismissal of commercial
travellers means a loss to railways of about $250 per day, 240 days in
the year; in all, $25,000,000. The loss to hotels is about as much,
and "many hotels are likely to become bankrupt if any more travellers
are taken off."
§ 2. CROSS FREIGHTS
Another waste attending the competitive system results from "cross
freights," the double freight a refiner sometimes pays for hauling oil
from the well, or sugar from the nearest seaboard and back over
exactly the same ground, when refined, to the customer. So also the
steel manufacturer sometimes pays freight for hauling ore to the coal
mine or coal to the ore, and back, after smelting, to the customer.
This waste resulting from cross freights is only a small part of a
similar waste that results from competition in the task of
distribution--or retail trade.
We are all familiar with the amazing results obtained by the national
enterprise known as the Post Office, and how, for the insignificant
sum of two cents, a letter written in New York can be delivered in an
incredibly short space of time in San Francisco, and even perhaps more
incredibly in the heart of the Rocky Mountains.
Let us consider for a moment the cost of doing this were letters
distributed throughout the country in the same way as our other
commodities, as for example, milk, coal, or bread. It would be
interesting to calculate how many hundred dealers in milk there are in
New York[68] or London, equipped with their own horses, wagons, and
men, each engaged in delivering milk all over the city; add to these
the thousands distributing in like manner bread, and the thousands
distributing coal, and so on with butter, eggs, meat, fish,
vegetables, and all other things that enter into our daily
consumption.
Every block of houses is served with milk by this large number of milk
dealers instead of by one, as would be the case if the distribution of
milk were in the hands of one agency; so every block is furnished with
butter, eggs, meat, fish, and vegetables by this large number of
dealers in butter, eggs, meat, fish, and vegetables, instead of by
one, and so on, through every article that enters into our daily use.
Compare with this the economy of time, labor, and expense effected by
the Government Post Office through sorting letters beforehand
according to streets, and confining the distribution in any one street
to a single carrier who distributes the letters with the greatest
economy of time and labor, from door to door.
No practical business man would be guilty of the stupidity of putting
a hundred men to do the work that could be done just as well by a
single man; and yet, this is exactly the stupidity of which the
competitive system is guilty. Let us consider the unnecessary number
of butcher shops in the city of New York.[69]
Before methods of communication had attained their present
development, it was necessary that there should be butcher shops in
every block to satisfy the needs of the people in the block. But
to-day, the telephone service permits of ordering meat at a great
distance, and the automobile permits of this meat being rapidly
delivered to the consumer. The best housekeepers residing downtown
to-day go for their meat to a butcher who lives in Harlem. Now there
is no reason why this Harlem butcher should not furnish all the meat
to the island of Manhattan, or indeed to all in Greater New York. But
there is a reason why under our competitive system this should not
take place, and this is the stupidity of butchers in particular and
the stupidity of the community at large. Most butchers believe that
they can make most money by cheating their customers; and the public
at large believe all butchers equally dishonest and therefore deal
with the butcher nearest them. This stupidity is to a great extent
justified. The art of the butcher consists in finding out to which
customers he can sell third-class meat at first-class prices;[70] and
as a rule, he is so successful in doing this that no butcher is ever
known to fail. On the contrary, they all grow rich. This being the
rule, the public is justified in giving up the expectation of being
honestly served, so that it is only the most intelligent housewives
who discover that there are butchers who do not have dishonest
methods. Thus the stupidity of butchers and public tends to encourage
the multiplicity of shops and keeps in the butcher business an
enormously larger number than is necessary. If now we take into
consideration that what is true of butchers is true of almost every
dealer in the articles of food we consume, we shall appreciate how
much waste of human effort there is in this business of distribution.
But all this waste, encouraging stupidity in the customer and
dishonesty in the retailer, is endorsed because it "makes character!"
Last but not least is the loss of by-products that inevitably results
from manufacturing upon anything less than a gigantic scale.
The managers of the Standard Oil Trust testify that among the waste
products capable of being utilized in sufficiently large refineries
are gasoline, paraffine, lubricating oil, vaseline, naphtha, aniline
dyes, and no less than two hundred drugs; and that the total value of
these waste products is actually as great as that of the oil
itself.[71]
Is or is not the contention with which this chapter started,
justified? It was charged that the competitive system is stupid
because wasteful and disorderly, and that it was unnecessarily
immoral, unjust, and cruel. The testimony of men recognized as the
highest authorities has been produced to demonstrate its wastefulness:
Waste of capital owing to bankruptcy, to working at irregular
efficiency, to frequent change of dimension, to cost of "getting the
market," to cross freights, to anarchy of distribution, to loss of
by-products;
Waste of human energy in the work of competition; and above all in
unemployment leading to vagrancy and pauperism.
And we need produce no testimony to prove things so obvious as the
immorality, injustice, and cruelty of overemployment and unemployment
and the necessary results thereof: drunkenness, disease, pauperism,
prostitution, insanity, and crime.
One word only still needs explanation: It has been stated that this
immorality, injustice, and cruelty are "unnecessary." It is useless to
rail at these things if they are necessary. Nature is often immoral,
unjust and cruel. The survival of the few fit and the corresponding
sacrifice of the many unfit has no justification in morality. Death,
deformity, and disease are often both unjust and cruel. Yet against
these last we are in great part helpless. It is not enough to show
that the competitive system results in evil; we have to demonstrate
that these evils are avoidable; and that our remedy for them will not
involve still greater evils. This belongs to the final chapters on
Socialism; and is referred to here only to assure the reader that it
has not been overlooked.
Sufficient emphasis, however, has not yet been put upon the lack of
order that characterizes the competitive system.
FOOTNOTES:
[65] "A Plea for Liberty," p. 17:
"Under our existing voluntary coöperation with its free contracts and
its competition, production and distribution need no official
oversight. Demand and supply, and the desire of each man to gain a
living by supplying the needs of his fellows, spontaneously evolve
that wonderful system whereby a great city has its food daily brought
round to all doors or stored at adjacent shops; has clothing for its
citizens everywhere at hand in multitudinous varieties; has its houses
and furniture and fuel ready made or stocked in each locality; and has
mental pabulum from halfpenny papers, hourly hawked round, to weekly
shoals of novels, and less abundant books of instruction, furnished
without stint for small payments. And throughout the kingdom,
production as well as distribution is similarly carried on with the
smallest amount of superintendence which proves efficient; while the
quantities of the numerous commodities required daily in each locality
are adjusted without any other agency than the pursuit of profit."
[66] Report of the Industrial Commission, pp. 829-831, Vol. I, 1900.
[67] Ibid., pp. 27-36.
[68] This work has been in part eliminated by combination. But the
economies resulting therefrom have all gone to the combinations. The
consumer pays just as much as he did before.
[69] Trow's Business Directory of New York city, 1909, lists about
4000 retail butcher shops in Manhattan and The Bronx. There are about
275 postal stations in the same territory.
[70] All good housekeepers know this by experience. I know it from the
butchers themselves, who explained it in the course of an effort to
arrange a combination of butchers in Paris.
[71] Testimony of Mr. Archbold (pp. 570-571) in the Report of the
Industrial Commission, Vol. I, 1900.
CHAPTER III
CAPITALISM IS DISORDERLY
Nature is both orderly and disorderly. She is orderly, for example, in
the general succession of her seasons, in the average rainfall, the
average sunshine. She is orderly in the regular drawing of water from
the ocean to the hills and the return of water from the hills to the
ocean. But Nature is extremely disorderly in her detail. Some years
rainfall is deficient and men starve because of drouth. Other years
the sunshine is insufficient and men starve because of rain. The
beneficent flow of water from the hills to the ocean is attended by
disorder which is often calamitous; the river swells to a torrent in
one place and spreads out to unwholesome marshes in another.
The power of man to profit by the order of Nature and to adjust its
disorder is an attribute that makes man almost divine; for this power
exerts as great influence over the soul of man as over the matter of
Nature. Man has demonstrated his control over Nature by protecting
himself against deficiency of water through reservoirs, and against
excess of rain through drainage; he has robbed torrents of their
terrors by dykes, and made them his servants by irrigation; he drains
the swamp and waters the desert. In one respect only has he failed to
exercise as yet sufficient control; namely, the competitive system.
The competitive system is applauded by Herbert Spencer because he
finds it in Nature. But Nature does not proceed only upon the
competitive plan. She furnishes us with the beehive and anthill as
types of coöperation, from which man can not only learn a lesson, but
receive a warning; for the evils that attend the coöperative plan of
the beehive are almost as great as those that attend the competitive
or predatory system.[72] What man then has to do is not blindly to
follow Nature either as respects her competitive system or her
coöperative system; but to do in this direction what he has done in
others--profit by what is good and orderly in Nature and suppress what
is evil and disorderly in it.
§ 1. ANARCHY OF PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION
The intelligent business man has been at work in suppressing the evils
of the competitive system. He has found the waste and disorder
attending unlimited competition so abominable that he has suppressed
competition to the utmost possible by the organization of trusts. It
has been pointed out that the disorder attending our production and
distribution gives rise to anarchy in both these departments of
industry. As long as every man is free to produce exactly what he
chooses--what he thinks will benefit him, there is no rational
relation between supply and demand.
(_a_) _Tyranny of the Market_
This process is going on in every industry. Capital rushes away from
business where there is no profit to business where there is profit.
The result is that the capitalist generally discovers a demand for an
article too late to profit by it, and does not discover that there is
no demand for an article until he is ruined by the discovery. The
boasted "fluidity of capital" causes it to pour from one industry to
another in obedience to what is called "the market"; and of all the
despotisms that the folly of man has subjected him to, none for
stupidity and pitilessness approaches the market. So long as there was
no large-enough combination of capital to acquire knowledge of the
supply and demand that determines market price or to any extent
control it, no man, however intelligent, could tell when prices were
going to rise and when to fall. And although the older economists
loved to dwell upon the fluidity of labor as well as upon the fluidity
of capital, they failed to take account of the bankruptcy that attends
the one or the appalling conditions that attend the other. For when
the supply of labor is large and factories are running at low
capacity; when men and women are seeking employment, and the demand
for labor is small, the effect of this law is to reduce wages below
the rate necessary to support life; the unemployed are then reduced to
a choice between the almshouse and starvation.
This evil consequence is a matter over which isolated employers have
little or no control; for the very same cause that reduces wages
reduces also the price of goods. It is because the demand for goods is
small that the manufacturer has to run his factory at a reduced
capacity; and the demand being small, the manufacturer cannot get a
remunerative price for his goods. Now the thing that reduces prices is
competition, and the thing that reduces wages is competition, and the
main source of every financial, commercial, and industrial disaster is
competition. Employer and employee are alike subjected to the
levelling principle. The moment a particular manufacture is found to
be profitable, and therefore able to pay a high rate of wages, new
factories are started and wages reduced by the competition of
workingmen. The flow to this industry, therefore, of both capital and
labor, inevitably reduces not only wages by the direct competition
between workingmen, but also the profit out of which high wages were
originally paid.
Employer, therefore, and employee are both slaves of the market; the
employer cannot get more than the market price for his goods, and out
of this he has to pay for his raw material, the cost of running the
factory, and the wages of his men. He cannot reduce the price of raw
material nor the cost of running the factory--rent, fuel, etc.; these
too are determined by the market. The only thing he can reduce is
wages: so he is driven to reduce wages or close his factory, for he
cannot long run his factory at a loss.
And so anarchy of production and anarchy of distribution lead
inevitably, as all anarchy does, to despotism--the despotism of the
market.
(_b_) _Tyranny of the Trust_
Now trusts are an attempt of capital to escape from the tyranny of the
market, to eliminate the waste of competition and bring order in the
place of disorder by making supply proportionate to demand. The
testimony of John D. Rockefeller before the Industrial Commission is
illuminating on this subject. In answer to Question 9, he says that he
"ascribes the success of the Standard Oil to its consistent policy to
make the _volume of its business large_." To Question 10, he says he
did this "by coöperation, or what is the same thing, combination." But
the necessity of keeping the volume of the business large made it
indispensable to extend the market. He says "Dependent solely upon
local business, we should have failed years ago. We were forced to
extend our market and to seek for export trade." "And so," he says,
"the Standard Oil spared no expense in _forcing_ its products into the
markets of the world."
The despotism of the market extends over the whole world. It is
impossible for any one nation to organize its industry, or for the
industry of any one nation to organize itself, under a world-wide
competitive system, without taking into consideration the conditions
of the world market. The Standard Oil could not maintain prices in
competition with foreign oil. It had to carry the industrial war into
Europe and Asia, and did this by eliminating competition at home;
putting an end to anarchy of distribution as well as to anarchy of
production; by transforming the whole system through the building of
pipe lines, the use of tank cars and tank steamers, through an
enormous aggregation of capital, and the use of every ingenious
improvement. The Standard Oil succeeded in doing this and "receiving
in return from foreign lands nearly $50,000,000 per year."
Mr. Rockefeller is an adroit witness, and carefully refrained from
reference to the methods by which competition was crushed as an
indispensable preliminary to what he calls the "enlargement of the
business." Mr. H.O. Havemeyer, President of the Sugar Trust, was more
frank. Here is his testimony on this subject in full:
_Q._ (By Senator Mallory) "Did I understand you to say--perhaps I may
have misunderstood you a while ago--that it was your policy to make as
much profit out of the consumer as you possibly could?"--_A._
"Consistent with business methods."
_Q._ "Consistent with business principles. In other words, your idea
is that your organization, the American Sugar Refining Company, will,
if it can, get the maximum profit out of its business from the
consumer. Now, I also understood you to imply at least that it is the
policy of the American Sugar Refining Company to crush out all
competition if possible."--_A._ "But that is not so; there is no such
testimony. I understand it has been put in that form by one of the
gentlemen here, but it is not the fact. What I said was that it was
the policy of the American Sugar Refining Company to maintain and
protect its trade, _and if it resulted in crushing a competitor it is
no concern of the American Company; if he gets in the press, that is
his affair, not ours_."
_Q._ "And if anyone interferes with the business, profits, or
competition of the American Sugar Refining Company, it is its policy
to prevent it if possible?"--_A._ "By lowering profits to defy it."
_Q._ "And if it results in crushing him out?"--_A._ (Interrupting)
"That is his affair."
_Q._ "Not the affair of the American Sugar Refining Company?"--_A._
"No."
_Q._ "Now, suppose in the natural course of events the American Sugar
Refining Company should suppress--we will not use the words 'crush
out'--all competition, all opposition. I understand from your
theory--business principles--that you would then seek to get out of
the public and consumer the largest amount of profit consistent with
your idea of business principles?"--_A._ "Precisely."
_Q._ "Then, if you had the power to charge or impose prices on the
public, what would be your idea of the limit that the public could
possibly stand?"--_A._ "I think it would stand a quarter of a cent
to-day. I think we could do it for twenty cents a hundred. I think the
country is really damaged by having a number of people in the
business."
_Q._ "That is not an answer to my question. My question is the limit.
What restraint would you put upon yourselves? What would be your
restraint?"--_A._ "I call that restraint business consideration."
_Q._ "Would it not be the utmost limit that the consumer would
bear?"--_A._ "Until we had competition we should be in that position,
but whether or not we would exercise it, is quite another matter."
The very effort of Mr. Havemeyer to disown the "policy of crushing out
competition" followed immediately by his admission that a trust is a
"press" built for that purpose, is indicative of the capitalist's mind
on the subject: At one moment he naïvely admits what a moment before
he emphatically denied. The trust, then, is the organization of an
industry by one or a few men strong enough to suppress competition and
bleed the consumer.
The tyranny of the market has been suppressed only to substitute
therefor the tyranny of the trust. And this new tyranny has for effect
to enrich the trust magnate at the expense of the whole nation.
The course of industrial events beginning with the creation of guilds
to suppress the anarchy of the Middle Ages; the tyranny of the guilds;
the revolt against the guild; its suppression; the substitution
therefor of so-called freedom of industry, of contract, of trade; the
disorder or anarchy that ensued; the despotism of the market; the
gradual suppression of all three freedoms in order to escape from the
despotism of the market; and this suppression only preparing the way
for the tyranny of the trust, is not accidental. It is a cycle through
which industry had to pass till mankind found its way of escaping from
the whirlpool.
We find the same cycle in the political world. The anarchy of the
horde paving the way to the despotism of the tyrant; the despotism of
the tyrant creating a revolt resulting in a new anarchy leading to
another despotism as bad as the last, until staggering between anarchy
and despotism, men slowly evolved a system of popular government. We
shall see later that popular government can never remain popular under
a system of industrial anarchy or industrial despotism, and that our
industrial organization must adopt a system of popular control, if
popular government is ever to become in fact as well as in name,
popular.
Suffice it to point out that our industrial development following a
law of necessity has so far staggered like a drunken man from anarchy
to despotism and from despotism to anarchy--and that we are not likely
to attain order from despotism until we recognize that the competitive
system, such as we now have, can never attain it; and that it can be
attained only by a deliberate substitution of coöperation for
competition _to the extent necessary_.
(_c_) _Tyranny of the Union_
Let us now consider another part of the industrial field which seems
destined to be the arena of the next great development--the field of
labor.
The consumer is not organized as yet; he has not waked up to the
extent to which he is fleeced by the trust. But labor is organized,
driven to organization by the terrible consequences of the freedom of
contract[73] for which he clamored so loud in the Revolutionary
period. A workingman alone, ignorant of the profits earned by the
manufacturer, ignorant of the number of workingmen applying for work,
himself hungry, and with a hungry family to support, is no match for
an employer with sufficient capital at his disposal, a considerable
knowledge of the labor market where he can find men to replace such as
ask for a higher wage than he is willing to pay, and with practically
no reason to fear hunger or even discomfort for himself or for those
who are dear to him.
Freedom of contract, therefore, meant for the unorganized workingman
at the beginning of the nineteenth century, not freedom, but slavery.
It will be later recorded how inevitably the tyranny of the market and
the greed of capital combined to reduce workingmen to starvation wages
and condemn women and children to degrading labor. One of two things
had to happen: The whole laboring class had to be reduced to a
condition of permanent slavery, or the laboring class had to combine
to put an end to competition between worker and worker that left them
at the mercy of the market. That men reduced to the physical condition
created by the industrialism of a century ago should have had the
intelligence, courage, and self-restraint to combine and act in
concert until they were able to some extent to impose rates of wages
upon the employers, seems to-day hardly less than miraculous, and
ought to serve as a warning to capitalists that they can no longer
dispute the coming political power of such workingmen, or remain
indifferent to it, or even denounce it with _Outlook_ intemperateness.
Mr. Eliot, President Emeritus of Harvard University, is outraged by
what he regards as the tyranny of the trade union. Has he ever thought
of the tyranny of the trust, or the tyranny of the market from which
both inevitably spring? Has he ever understood that such a competitive
system as ours can only put an end to anarchy by despotism; and can
only shake off despotism at the risk of anarchy?
But the subject of trusts and trade unions is too large to be treated
as an incident in the discussion of the evils of the competitive
system. I shall content myself, therefore, with summing up briefly the
course of events through which industrial development has passed, for
the light it throws upon the course through which it has still to
pass:
Anarchy of industrial conditions during the Middle Ages gave rise to
the guild, which for a season substituted order for disorder.
The order introduced by the guild involved regulation; regulation
involves power; and wherever power is exercised free from efficient
popular control, it must end in tyranny.
The tyranny of the guild aroused a revolt and the cry of freedom of
trade, freedom of industry, freedom of contract; these three freedoms
under the competitive system reintroduced an era of anarchy--both in
production and distribution--both for the employer and the employee,
subject only to the despotism of the market.
The employees undertook to put an end to competition between employees
by organizing trade unions.
The employers undertook to put an end to competition between employers
by organizing trusts.
So the anarchy which, under the competitive system, must result from
freedom, has given rise to the tyranny of the market, and the effort
to escape the tyranny of the market to two other tyrannies--of the
trust and of the trade union. These two tyrannies stand to-day not
only arrayed against one another, but in the bitterest conflict--in
the courts, in strikes, lockouts, and ultimately on the field of
politics.
One thing stands out in singular relief from the foregoing sketch,
viz., that it is freedom--of industry, of contract, and of trade--the
battle cry both of the bourgeois employer and the proletarian
employee--that has led to these two tyrannies.
At the present time I believe that the confusion in the ranks not only
of the employer, but of the employee, as regards this so-called
freedom--a freedom that both are clamoring for but neither have ever
attained--is responsible for the failure of both to understand one
another. And the subject of freedom or liberty will therefore be
discussed in a chapter to itself.
FOOTNOTES:
[72] "Government," Vol. I, p. 276.
[73] Book II, Chapter IV.
CHAPTER IV
PROPERTY AND LIBERTY
The savage in a savage country, free from all constraint of law,
custom, or government, must, I suppose, be admitted to enjoy the
greatest freedom conceivable. He is free to hunt what animals he
chooses; to pick the fruits of the earth; to gather the shells by the
seashore. He is free also to till any part of the land if he knows how
to do it; to sow and harvest it. He is also free to rob his fellow
men; to enslave them; to kill them and, if his tastes so incline, to
eat them.
But such a savage, while enjoying the greatest freedom conceivable, is
also exposed to the greatest risk conceivable; for example, he is
exposed to the risk of having the animals he hunts taken from him by
one stronger than he; if he tills the ground and reaps the harvest, he
is liable to have that harvest taken from him; and though he is free
to rob, enslave, kill, and eat his fellow men, his fellow men are
equally free to rob, enslave, kill, and eat him.
The same thing, of course, is true of his domestic relations. He may
capture any female he likes and compel her to serve as his wife; but
he is liable at any time to have his wife taken from him. As regards
his physical and domestic needs, therefore, while he enjoys the
greatest freedom possible, he is exposed to the greatest risk also.
§ 1. ORIGIN OF PROPERTY
It may be said for this order of things, if things can be said to have
order where there is no order, that the strong men would prefer this
system to one under which they would be limited as to the satisfaction
of appetite, passion, and caprice. But the strongest men are liable to
be subdued by a sufficient number of weaker men, as Polyphemus was
subdued by Ulysses and his crew. So the strong men in the community as
well as the weak, early discovered the importance of agreeing to
respect each one the rights of the other in the things which through
their labor they had acquired. Long, then, before there was any system
of written law, our savage ancestors recognized the right of men in
the product of their toil; and this recognition, whether we find it in
the Ten Commandments of the Jews, or the Twelve Tables of the Romans,
or in the customs of more savage races, is nothing more nor less than
the institution of property.
Although this institution of property involves an abridgment of
freedom--for under the property system nobody is free to rob
another--nevertheless it is an abridgment of freedom by which everyone
except the lazy profits; and it tends to put an end to laziness,
because, under this institution of property, only those who work can
eat.
It is because the institution of property is an abridgment of freedom
that property and liberty are treated together in this chapter. It is
impossible correctly to understand the one without the other. It will
be seen later that as civilization develops and men are crowded
together in a small space, it becomes indispensable to the convenience
of all that freedom should be further abridged; and that so long as
the freedom of the individual is abridged, not only for the benefit of
his neighbors, but of himself, the abridgment is a good thing and not
a bad. Whereas, when we find freedom being abridged to the
disadvantage of the many and the advantage of a few, then it will turn
out that this abridgment is a bad thing and not a good.
One feature about the abridgment of freedom it is impossible to
emphasize too much: In nations in which liberty is supposed most to
prevail, the abridgment of freedom is for the most part confined to
matters which involve little or no sacrifice. For example, the average
citizen does not find himself in the slightest degree hampered by the
criminal code; he does not want to kill or rob; it is perfectly clear
to him that the sacrifice he makes of his freedom to kill or rob is of
no importance by the side of the enormous security he receives as
regards those people who might want to kill or rob him.
Socialism has been much injured by certain fanciful writers who have
suggested various abridgments of human freedom that would be
altogether abominable; as for example, the undue limitation of a man's
liberty to choose his wife, and to choose his occupation. And
opponents of Socialism use these totally discredited suggestions as
weapons with which to fight Socialism; though in fact, modern
Socialism repudiates them altogether.
The institution of property, in abridging freedom, creates duties; and
in furnishing security, establishes rights. Thus we say that men have
a right of property in the product of their toil; a right to enjoy the
cabins they have built; a right to harvest the grain they have sown.
And the same thing can be said of rights and duties as has been said
about the abridgment of freedom. So long as no man exacts rights of
property in anything more than the result of his labor, so long is he
only asking what is due to him.
And the institution of property in the product of men's toil is not
only justified by convenience, but is also ordered by religion. It is
only economic expression of the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you
would that they should do unto you;" or "I shall respect your right to
the cabin you have built, as I expect you to respect my right to the
cabin I have built."
Moreover, even though this were not the rule imposed by religion, it
is a rule imposed by the principle of the survival of the fit. In the
conflict between races, those races in which rights of property were
respected were bound to prevail over those in which these rights were
not respected, because respect for rights of property such as these is
the only condition upon which a race can become prosperous, accumulate
wealth, strength, and all the resources that enable one race
successfully to fight with another. And here we see the first
reconciliation between religion and science. Both teach exactly the
same thing; that is to say, the Golden Rule.
In one sense the institution of property abridges freedom. In another
sense it enlarges it. For if a man has not only to kill his game, but
to protect it from others, he is a slave to the game he has killed
until he has eaten it. Whereas if the community in which he lives has
adopted the institution of property and respects it, he can leave his
game unprotected, and has leisure therefore for other occupation. It
will be seen ultimately that if the institution of property were
confined to the product of men's toil, the increase of knowledge of
the last few centuries would permit of another enormous enlargement of
freedom, for it would permit of the organization of labor in such a
manner that the work of securing the necessaries of life that now
costs the savage all his time, and the workingman of to-day between
eight and twelve hours of his day, need really only cost him a
comparatively insignificant fraction of it. But the demonstration of
this must be left until later.[74]
We have seen, therefore, that so long as property is confined to the
product of men's toil, all is well. The freedom of a savage life which
exposed every man to being robbed by every other man is what we call
license. The freedom, on the contrary, under the institution of
property which secures to men the product of their toil, we may call
liberty--liberty being freedom secured by law.
"Legum omnes servi sumus, ut liberi esse possumus."[75]
However simple the idea of property of men in the product of their
toil may seem to be, it has in practical life never yet been realized.
There are many reasons for this.
If a community were to attempt to-day to divide its available land into
tracts of just the size each one could himself cultivate, results would
very soon demonstrate that such a division is a physical impossibility.
Land varies much in fertility, and the amount of labor necessary to
cultivate one acre of land is very different from that necessary to
cultivate another acre of land. Men differ in their ability to
cultivate. One lacks strength; another intelligence--indeed, some lack
intelligence so much that they can never successfully cultivate their
own land, and these naturally become the employees of those who can.
Again, cultivation, of land leaves nothing for a man to do for a part
of the year, and gives him a great deal more than one man can do during
the rest of the year. It is impossible, therefore, to divide up the
available land of any community into parts which will mathematically or
even approximately correspond with the amount of work that each man can
do during the year. Then, too, the men who render great services to the
community seem entitled to larger buildings, better accommodations,
more ease and comfort, more personal service than those who render no
service beyond simply the day's work upon land. We find ourselves
confronted immediately by the enormous difficulty that results from the
inequality of land and the inequality of men, in any attempt to frame a
society which will even approximately assure to every man the product
of his own labor. These are inherent difficulties which no statesman
can disregard.
These difficulties have been enormously increased by the selfishness,
the intelligence, the violence, and the craft of men, which have been
used to secure to some such large tracts of land that the majority
were left without land altogether. And this system tends to be
perpetuated by the natural and laudable desire of every man to leave
his children after his death as well off as himself, thus creating
laws regarding testacy and intestacy of a character to secure this.
But the satisfaction of this laudable paternal instinct has had a bad
effect upon the community; for, whereas we are all disposed to allow
to every man the property which he has accumulated himself, even
though this accumulation confers upon him larger wealth than his
services warrant, we cannot but feel it improper that his issue, who
may be altogether worthless persons, should be enabled through the
success of their skilful ancestor to lead lives of idleness and even
profligacy from generation to generation. We are all, for example,
outraged to think that because John Jacob Astor over a century ago
had the forethought to invest his earnings in New York real estate,
his descendant, William Waldorf Astor, should to-day, though he has
abjured his American nationality and thereby escapes the payment of
personal taxes, nevertheless receive millions annually arising from
property which has increased in value through the labor of Americans
and not through any labor of his own.
Thus we find that owing to inherent physical difficulties such as the
inequality of land and the inequality of men, and owing to moral
difficulties some of which are reprehensible, as for example, avarice
and violence; and others commendable, such as intelligence and love of
offspring, notions of property have become altogether different in
fact from what they are in theory. Rights of property are not confined
to the product of men's toil, but cover all those things which a
family has been enabled under the law to accumulate whether by good
deeds or by bad. This has given rise to two well-defined classes--one
very small which owns land, and the other very large which owns no
land. And the fact that the small class owns land and the large one
does not own it, makes the latter dependent upon the former.
Much the same thing has taken place as regards personal property.
Relatively few men have secured control of the great industries of the
country, and are thereby in a position to dictate who shall work at
these industries, and as to the wages and conditions under which the
work shall be done.
Economically, therefore, the world can be divided into two sets of
people--a small set that owns the land and controls our industries;
and an enormous number of people dependent upon these; that is to say,
the vast majority can only work at these industries upon the
conditions imposed by a relatively insignificant minority.
The institution of property, therefore, originally destined to assure
to men the product of their toil, has altogether changed in character,
so that it--on the contrary--puts a very few men in a position where
they can exploit the labor of the rest.
A study of property and liberty cannot be separated from a study of
government, because the institution of property involves the idea of
law, and of a government to enforce the law. So long as no man seeks
to secure more property than the product of his labor, the amount of
government necessary to enforce the law need be but small--only just
enough to compel the lazy to work and to prevent them from stealing.
But the moment the institution of property is extended to cover more
than the product of labor, government has to be harsh; for as this
perverted notion of property creates a small propertied class and a
large proletariat, it is obvious that the government has to be
bolstered by a powerful organization of law courts, prisons, army, and
police in order to enable a very small minority to coerce a very large
majority. In fact, in our ancient civilizations the propertied class
consisted of either priests, soldiers, or both. In the case of the
priests, it was the domination of superior intelligence over
unintelligent superstition; and in the case of the soldiers, it was
the domination of organized force. Now, if the small propertied class
which controlled the government had governed well, or indeed had
governed without grossly outraging the governed, the whole development
of man might have been different. But it is not in human nature for a
few men possessed of autocratic power to use that power wisely. There
are exceptional periods in the history of the world when autocratic
power has been used wisely; but in the long run the opportunities
furnished by unlimited power to the evil propensities in men are
certain to result in gross injustice. Such is the testimony of
history.
Now if the few in the exploitation of the many had shown as much
temperance and wisdom as our ranch-men show to their cattle--and this
God knows is not much--the few might have enjoyed their liberty at the
expense of the many for an indefinite period. But they have shown so
little of either that in the State of New York our official Labor
Bulletin publishes that there have been for two years past about
200,000 breadwinners unable to earn the means of subsistence, and this
means--on the generally admitted average of four dependents (aged,
infirm, women, and children) to every breadwinner--a million human
beings on the verge of starvation for no fault of their own. And as
the population of New York is about one-tenth that of the whole
country, it would seem as though in this great, wealthy, prosperous
nation of ours freedom spells for some ten millions of people freedom
only to starve.
And as these ten millions are not cattle, but men and women with
hearts and brains, armed with a vote and carefully--nay,
compulsorily--educated to use this vote effectually, it does seem a
little foolish to imagine that they will continue indefinitely to
tolerate these conditions, if they can be changed.
So not only by the unfortunate majority, but also by some of the
fortunate minority who have bowels of compassion, the question is
being asked with insistence whether these conditions may not be
changed and if so how.
Conspicuous among the evils that have resulted from misgovernment by
the propertied class, are personal slavery and political despotism.
And the history of the world may be summed up as the effort of the
majority to escape from these two evils.
One reason why men have confused ideas about liberty is that they have
not carefully distinguished the various phases through which this
conflict has passed; for there are three kinds of liberty, all of
which are singularly interwoven one with the other and yet each of
which is distinctly different from the other.
There is personal liberty; that is, freedom from physical restraint.
In all civilized countries, personal liberty has been, to a large
measure, secured. Slavery, except in some parts of Africa, is
practically unknown, and every individual is protected from arbitrary
arrest west of Russia.
Next comes political liberty, which in so-called popular governments
we are supposed to enjoy; that is, we are supposed to be no longer
subject to autocratic government; we are supposed each to have a voice
in determining who are to govern us and what are to be the laws under
which we are to be governed. It will be seen later on that this
so-called political liberty is, in fact, enjoyed only by a very few
people in any country of the world, though universal franchise seems
to assure it to all.
Third and last, there is economic liberty; that is, freedom to earn
one's living. We have seen that the lawless savage enjoys economic
freedom. There is no restraint whatever upon him in procuring those
things which he needs--whether food, clothing, or shelter. We have
also seen that his position was immensely improved by the institution
of property in the product of toil, for under this definition of
property he practically enjoyed security and retained all the freedom
previously enjoyed except the freedom to rob; and he enjoyed thereby a
larger freedom because he did not have to keep perpetual watch over
the things he had hunted or produced.
But the moment the land was appropriated by a few men so that the
majority could not work on the land except as the wage servants of the
propertied class, then economic liberty came to an end; for no man can
be considered economically free if he depends upon some other man not
only for the means of subsistence, but for opportunity to work in
order to earn the means of subsistence. This economic dependence, due
to the appropriation of land by a class, results in a loss of all the
other liberties; for the franchise is of no value to a man every
waking hour of whose day has to be spent in earning a wage just
sufficient to support himself and his family. A vote can only be
effectually exercised if directed by a political education sufficient
to understand the political problems of the day, and if combined with
other votes in a political organization sufficient to carry out the
collective will of the people. The facility with which the Republican
and Democratic parties have divided the vote of the proletariat is
mainly due, I think, to the fact that the proletariat is too exhausted
by overwork to undertake political organization, though it is
beginning now to understand the necessity for doing so.
Last, but not least, a man cannot be regarded as enjoying liberty to
any appreciable extent if his actions during all the waking hours of
the day are determined, not by his own free will, but by the factory
bell.
And although it may be necessary to secure personal and political
liberty before economic liberty can be attained, it is certain that
until economic liberty be attained, neither political nor personal
liberty is effectually enjoyed. This subject will be treated at
greater length when we study the Political Aspect of Socialism.[76]
The point which it is essential to keep clearly in mind now is that
there are two notions of property, one of which is beneficent, and
furnishes a maximum of security and a maximum of liberty; the other of
which is unjust, and furnishes neither security nor liberty except to
the privileged few. The first is the theory that men are entitled to
property in the product of their labor; the second is that men are
entitled to property in things which are not the product of their
labor.
The most conspicuous of these things is land, which of course is not
the product of any man's labor, but the gift of Nature or God to the
whole race, or in America to Americans--certainly not to the
Englishman, W.W. Astor, for instance. And the appropriation by a few
men of all the tools of production--the factories, water power, steam
power, electric power, and of the great natural monopolies such as
railroads, telegraphs, telephones, tramways, gas, etc., has had just
as bad a result as the appropriation of land, for it has brought about
exactly the same condition--the exploitation of the many by the few.
This is the point which Henry George has overlooked, and it is a
failure to appreciate this fact that principally occasions the
differences between Single Taxers and Socialists. Private ownership of
land by a few was doubtless in its origin an act of spoliation;
whereas private ownership of factories and natural monopolies was the
result of the application of intelligence and labor to the
organization of industry. The latter, therefore, seems relatively
justifiable, whereas the first is not justifiable. But if the effect
of the latter is as bad for the community as that of the former, and
if there can be no escape from this system of exploitation except by
readjusting property in factories as well as property in land, does it
not seem evident that both must equally be faced?
At this point it may be well to point out that sound Socialism does
not endorse such exaggeration as Proudhon's "La propriété est le
vol"--"Property is theft," though there may be Socialists who do. On
the contrary, the fundamental basis of sound Socialism is the
distinction between property in the product of men's own toil and
property in the product of other men's toil. The one is altogether
just and beneficial; the other is unjust and detrimental.
Nor does Socialism fail to take into account the undoubted fact that
much land and many factories represent to-day an investment of
accumulated wages; and that to expropriate such land without
compensation would be as unjust an act of spoliation as the seizure of
land by violence or the enclosing of commons by craft.
On the contrary, Socialism recognizes that the problem of how to
readjust property so as to secure to men the full product of their
toil is of great difficulty and can only be solved by the application
thereto of the highest deliberation and wisdom. It appeals, therefore,
to those who have knowledge and those who have experience, those who
have studied and those who have suffered, convinced that it is by
uniting knowledge and experience and not by disuniting them that the
solution can best be attained.
We are now in a position to complete what has been said on the subject
of liberty.
Liberty is defined in all our dictionaries as "freedom from
restraint."
But it may be truly said that there is no such thing as universal
freedom from restraint. There may be indeed freedom from restraint of
man by man. But we remain under restraint to Nature owing to our
natural needs. That is to say, we are not free to spend our time as we
wish, for our natural needs compel us to devote our time to securing
shelter, clothing, and food. So also there may be partial freedom from
the restraint of Nature; but only upon the condition of restraint of
man by man, a restraint which under existing conditions bestows in
ordinate and generally unhappy leisure upon a few at the expense of
all the rest. We have therefore to recognize two kinds of restraint:
Natural restraint due to our needs, which makes us slaves to
things--shelter, clothing, and food;
Human restraint, exercised by one man over another, that puts some men
under restraint to others.
Again, the kind of freedom from restraint that exists in the savage
state is incompatible with two very precious things--security and
leisure; and there are two kinds of insecurity, corresponding to the
two kinds of restraint just mentioned:
I. Insecurity that arises from our own needs--food, shelter, clothing,
etc.
II. Insecurity that arises from the needs of others--theft, slavery,
despotism, etc.
The first--insecurity arising from our own needs--tends to make us
slaves to things.
The second--insecurity arising from the needs of others--tends to make
us slaves to people.
In the savage state or state of Nature, this insecurity is at a
maximum. A savage is a slave to his needs to such an extent that in
any climate save the tropics, he has to devote all his time to
satisfying them. And he is liable to be robbed or reduced to slavery
by men stronger than he.
It was to rescue himself from this insecurity that man created the
institution of property--of priceless value, it assured to men the
product of their labor and did not encourage one man to exploit the
labor of another. And for the same purpose man instituted law; that
is, the power for enforcing these rules--both also of priceless value
so long as they furnished security and the leisure that results
therefrom.
It was inevitable, however, that, owing to inequalities of men and of
things, the very system instituted to give security, liberty, and
leisure to all, should end by giving security, liberty, and leisure to
a few at the expense of the many.
Property, therefore, came to include two very different principles:
I. That men should securely enjoy the product of their toil.
This is believed by Socialists to be the desirable principle of
property.
II. That a few should without any toil enjoy the products of the
toil of the majority. This is the principle of property that
actually prevails to-day.
Now the bourgeois claims that the first or desirable principle of
property is unattainable and that the second is the only practical
system. This is the whole question we have to discuss.
I think that if we carefully reduce to its simplest terms the effort
of civilization to make men happy it will be found to be this:
It seeks to rescue men from the two restraints under which they labor
in a savage state:
Natural restraint due to our needs, i.e., shelter, clothing, food,
etc.
Human restraint due to the needs of others, i.e., theft, violence,
slavery, despotism, etc.
In other words, it seeks to secure for men _Liberty_, which, properly
understood, is emancipation from these two restraints. And the
blessings that ought to follow such liberty as this are two-fold:
Security and leisure. So that liberty, security, and leisure may be
described as the Trinity of human happiness; and all the more justly
because just as it is from the First Person of the Holy Trinity that
the other Two emerge, so it is from liberty that we get security and
leisure.
The real issue between the bourgeois and the Socialist is then reduced
to the following:
Can security, liberty, and leisure be enjoyed only by a few at the
expense of the many? Or can they be enjoyed equally by all?
I am glad in this connection to use the word "enjoyed," because this
word assumes--as indeed the whole bourgeois philosophy assumes--that
the few not only have security, liberty, and leisure, but that they
"enjoy" them; whereas I think it can be demonstrated that only the
worthless few have leisure and that they do not enjoy it, and that
neither the industrious nor the worthless have liberty or security at
all. In other words, the few in grasping at these things at the
expense of the many _enjoy_ none of them because of the hard fact of
human solidarity, which will drive them at last to reconsider all
these things. But this belongs to the subject of Solidarity and cannot
therefore be elaborated in this chapter.
The essential thing to be kept in mind is that the only liberty worth
having is one that will rescue us from _both_ kinds of
restraints--natural and human; that it is quite useless to throw off
human restraint and fall back into the condition of natural slavery
which seems to be the policy of the anarchist; nor is it of any
advantage to escape from natural slavery only to become a prey to
human despotism or exploitation, according to the creed of the
bourgeois. Socialism is the _juste milieu_ between Let-alone-ism on
the one hand and Anarchism on the other. Liberty, to be worth having,
must secure the greatest emancipation from _both_ restraints possible.
If we apply this notion of liberty to existing conditions, I think we
shall come to the following conclusion:
From natural slavery created by men's needs it was impossible for the
race to escape, except by the system which actually prevails--of
making the unwealthy majority work for the wealthy few. This results
in pauperism, prostitution, and crime.
Slavery to Nature in a natural or savage state practically condemns
savages to devote their whole time to procuring the necessaries of
life, and to protecting these things, once procured, from the
spoliation of their neighbors. A great stride in the progress of
humanity was made when savages began each to respect the product, of
the other's toil. And if this system could have prevailed, our late
advance in science and our consequent, control of Nature would secure
us two priceless advantages: one, security from spoilation; the other,
an organization of labor that would reduce the hours every man would
have to spend in procuring the necessaries and comforts of life to a
very small fraction of the working day. The results in leisure that
would accrue under a coöperative system will be explained later;[77]
but at this point it seems only necessary to indicate that if a man
need devote only three or four hours during the working days of his
life to satisfying his needs, he would have most of his waking hours
to devote to social service, literature, art, music, or amusement, to
an understanding of his political and economic problems, and to the
political organization necessary to secure popular control over
government for the first time in the history of the world. Every
reform movement in New York has failed because men who wanted reform
did not have the leisure to give to it; and the reform movement was
therefore left to those who devoted their whole time to it in order to
share the plunder on the day of victory. In other words, every reform
movement if successful resulted in a political machine animated by
selfish motives and therefore as bad as other political machines
similarly animated. When every man has time to protect his business
interests in the government; when these business interests are not
hostile to the general welfare, but coincide with it; and when
politics is the business of every man instead of being as now the
business of a few professional politicians, then for the first time
this world will see a veritable democracy.
Liberty, security, and leisure seem to me altogether the most
important things that we can attain through a correct understanding of
property. But owing to false notions of property created by the few
who have acquired all the property at the expense of their
fellow-citizens, there have arisen artificial conditions which have
created what may be called artificial slavery; that is to say,
personal dependence, political dependence, and economic dependence. Of
these three the last is the most important because, in consequence of
it, neither personal nor political independence is effectually
enjoyed. That these three forms of dependence are unnecessary and are
due to false notions of property which can be slowly eradicated, is
the belief of the Socialist. It is also his belief that the very
changes that will put an end to these three forms of dependence will
also set up true notions of property instead of false, and thereby
secure the priceless benefits of liberty and security on the one hand
and of leisure on the other.
In other words, Socialism proposes not to abolish property, but to
reinstate it; to relieve the rich from the insecurity and hatred to
which they are now exposed; to rescue them from slavery to wealth and
_ennui_; to confer upon them the immense consolation of knowing that
what they enjoy is at the expense of no one; that it commits none to
pauperism, prostitution, or crime; that it is earned by social
service, the only service worth doing; that the consideration they
enjoy is due to their own merits and not to inherited or ill-gotten
wealth; and to accomplish this by securing to all men the product of
their toil; by restoring property to the consideration to which it is
entitled; by furnishing to every man the maximum of liberty, security,
and leisure.
FOOTNOTES:
[74] Book III, Chapter II.
[75] Cicero, "Pro Cluentio," sec. 53.
[76] Book III, Chapter III.
[77] Book III, Chapter V. Economic Aspect.
CHAPTER V
THE RESULTS OF PROPERTY
Not only did Proudhon make a great mistake in condemning all property,
but some Socialists still make the same mistake; for property even in
its worst form has rendered humanity an indispensable service. It is
the cocoon which the human chrysalis has instinctively wound around
itself for protection while it is changing from a lower to a higher
stage of development.
For example, property even in its worst form--that is, property that
puts one man in a position to exploit the labor of another man--has
encouraged the intelligent and industrious to accumulate wealth; and
the accumulation of wealth makes economic development possible; for if
a man produced no more than was necessary for the support of himself
and his family, there would be no surplus out of which to support
those engaged in the development of national resources--for example,
the building of roads, the building of railroads, the building of
factories, the exploitation of mines. Every progressing nation has got
to have two totally different resources--the resources necessary to
support that part of the population which is engaged in production and
distribution--that is, in keeping the community alive; and the
resources accumulated for supporting those who are developing the
country; for example, the building of roads, etc. Obviously,
therefore, it is indispensable that more be produced every year than
is necessary for the support of those engaged in production and
distribution; enough must be produced to support also those engaged in
building roads, factories, etc.
Indeed little can be done in developing a country until a certain
amount of commodities has been accumulated for this purpose. Now the
accumulated resources applicable to development form what is called
capital--which, in the hands of a few persons, permits of those few
exploiting the rest; but in the hands of the producers themselves,
will permit of a better development without the evil results of
exploitation. It is alleged by opponents of Socialists that Socialism
proposes to abolish wealth or capital. It is inconceivable that men
supposed to be educated--such as Roosevelt, Taft, Bryan--should be so
ignorant in a matter concerning which it is their peculiar duty to be
informed. No cabinet minister in England, Germany, or France would be
capable of such a mistake.[78] In Europe statesmen take the trouble to
study Socialism and thus avoid making themselves ridiculous by such a
blunder as believing that Socialism proposes to destroy or abolish
wealth. Far from wishing to abolish wealth, Socialism seeks to enhance
it--to consecrate it--to put it beyond the reach of private avarice or
public discontent. How they expect to do this will be explained later.
Meanwhile, it is important to keep clearly in mind the fact that it is
not wealth that Socialists denounce, but the present distribution of
wealth. This explains why well-informed Socialists are the first to
recognize the beneficent rôle which the institution of private
property even in its worst form has played in stimulating
accumulation.
Here again, whether property was instituted for the deliberate purpose
of stimulating accumulation or not, we see once more evolution
favoring the survival of those nations who did accumulate at the
expense of those who did not. In a conflict between two tribes, it was
the tribe provided with the larger store of good weapons and food that
must eventually prevail over the tribe less well provided with these.
And so evolution has pushed men in the direction of accumulating
wealth because it destroyed those tribes which did not accumulate it
and allowed the survival only of those who did.
This accumulation of wealth involved two qualities of predominating
importance in human development, the exercise of forethought and
self-restraint. If we compare man with the lower animals we find that
there are no qualities in which he differs more from them than in
these two. Man is capable of deliberate self-restraint. And the
nations most capable of forethought and self-restraint have prevailed
over nations which have been less capable of these. Here again, it may
be incidentally pointed out that in no respect was the institution of
property more important to human development than in the recognition
of the kind of property which a man originally had in his wife and
children; and the more the domestic relations created by this property
required exercise of self-restraint, the more the nations having these
institutions prevailed over those which did not have them.
The systematic survival first of patriarchal tribes over metronymic
tribes,[79] and secondly, of monogamous tribes over polygamous
tribes, is an unanswerable argument in favor of marriage, of which no
well-informed Socialist fails to take account--Mr. Roosevelt to the
contrary notwithstanding. The Socialist party is to be judged by its
platform and not by extracts of isolated writers who have no more
right to bind the whole Socialist party on the subject of marriage,
than an isolated Republican or Democrat would have to bind the
Republican or Democratic parties respectively. Of course, property of
a man in his wife long ago ceased to exist in civilized countries; it
has played its part in its time, but disappeared before a more humane,
intelligent, and just understanding of the relations of man to his
wife. In the same way, the right of property of one man in the labor
of another will also yield to a more intelligent and wise
understanding of the right of property.
The institution of property performs one other function in society of
inestimable importance. Early civilizations such as those of Greece
and Rome, dominated by families who claimed descent from the gods,
created an aristocracy of birth which, because it was exclusive,
tended inevitably to become tyrannical. As, however, rights of
property became more and more recognized, the aristocracy found itself
confronted by a population that had accumulated wealth indispensable
to the maintenance of the state. Men too who had accumulated this
wealth had done so by the use of their brains, industry, forethought,
and self-restraint. They constituted a group with which the
aristocracy of birth had first to parley and to which it had
eventually to succumb. It is true that this group of the aristocracy
of wealth, which succeeded the aristocracy of birth, in one sense only
replaced one set of rulers by another. But the transfer of power to
the aristocracy of wealth was almost always effected through the
support of the people, and was almost always attended by some
concession of political control to the people. So that on the whole,
the tendency has been for every transfer of political power from the
aristocracy of birth to the aristocracy of wealth to include some
element of popular representation until slowly through the gradual
substitution of the bourgeoisie for the king, noble, and priest, the
people has secured the priceless boon of the franchise which it has
not yet learned to use.[80]
§ 1. THE GUILD
Now that we have given full credit to the rôle which property has
played in the world, let us consider some of its results. In the first
place, let us eliminate a prevailing error. We frequently read in
Socialist books that the competitive system is the necessary result of
the institution of private property. This is not altogether true:
Obviously, the institution of property has connected with it the
notion that as long as men are protected in the product of their
labor, every man is bound to labor enough to support himself; and if
he does not so labor, he must suffer the natural consequences. Under
this system, every man is at liberty to labor in whatever occupation
he chooses, to produce as much as he can, and to get the best price he
can for what he produces. No attempt will be made here to describe the
abominable consequences of this system prior to the Middle Ages. The
history of the industrial struggle prior to the Middle Ages is still
obscure and complicated. But the Crusades in the eleventh century
withdrew from Europe the most turbulent of its oppressing nobility
and the most servile of its religious subjects. The result was to give
to the less servile craftsmen an opportunity to organize themselves
against the noble and the priest in defence of their common craft. So
we find all over Europe an immense development of guilds or
corporations organized by the respective crafts or industries,
primarily for self-defence, and secondarily, for the organization and
regulation of labor therein. The story of these guilds has been too
often written to make it necessary to repeat it here.[81] I shall
content myself therefore with pointing out that these guilds did for a
season exercise an extraordinarily beneficial effect, not only on
industry, but on government. The guilds were composed not only of
employers, but also employees, and thus stand out in marked contrast
to trade unions. In many respects, however, they were similar to trade
unions. Thus they had benefit funds in case of sickness and death; and
they were animated by a sense of solidarity similar to that which
animates the trade unions. But the fact that the guild included
employer as well as employee gave it also different and important
functions. Every guild at the outset was inspired by a sense of
self-respect as well as of solidarity. It was a matter of pride with
them that the guild should furnish no goods not up to standard. The
guild therefore early established elaborate rules fixing standards and
prices so that no man could charge a high price for a low standard of
goods, nor could he compete with others in the same guild by offering
a high standard of goods for a lower price than that determined by the
guild. The guild protected the public from poor workmanship and the
worker from competition. Moreover, competition was still further
eliminated by the fact that no man could engage in any craft or trade
unless he belonged to the guild organized to defend and protect the
trade; and as the guild became a part of the municipal government and
indeed at certain periods controlled the municipal government
altogether, the guild was in a position to enforce this rule.
There are many features in the guild system which would be usefully
borrowed in a coöperative commonwealth. But the guild system broke
down because every guild was concerned with its own interests
irrespective of the interests of the whole community. Every guild
therefore became a class corporation which sought to use the guild for
purely selfish purposes. Entrance to the guild was confined to members
of the families of those controlling the guild; and no provision was
made for the thousands and hundreds of thousands who, because they
could not get admission to a guild and could find no work to do upon
the land, were left to wander as vagrants through the streets and
highways with no alternative save to steal or starve. In other words,
the vagrant of the Middle Ages included the unemployed of to-day.
Again, those who controlled the guild sought by limiting the number of
its members to create a privileged society from which they could
derive wealth without labor. Thus the whole business of killing and
selling meat was at one time in Paris confined to twenty persons.
These persons did not themselves engage in the business, but they
sublet their respective monopolies to others, and thus constituted an
idle aristocracy.
The abuses which attended the guild system became so intolerable that
in 1776, the very year when we in America were setting forth our
political rights in the Declaration of Independence, King Louis XVI
proclaimed the economic rights of the workingmen in France in one of
the most extraordinary documents to be found in history.[82] If we
could get this Republic of America to promulgate and to put into
operation the principles set forth in this decree of an absolute king
in 1776, we should secure all that the Socialist party of to-day
demands; that is to say, the right secured by law to men, not only to
work, but to enjoy the full product of their work. But civilization
had not yet advanced far enough to understand the full import of this
decree, and the guilds were too powerful at that time to permit of its
execution. The Parlement de Paris flatly refused to register the
edict. The king tried to execute the edict notwithstanding the refusal
by the Paris Parlement; but the attempt created such disorder that in
the same year the edict was abrogated. No attempt was made to execute
this decree in the provinces whatever. Meanwhile, however, two forces
were at work that were destined to break up the tyranny of the guilds.
One was the discovery of steam, which put an end to home industry and
subjected workmen to the conditions imposed by the owner of the
factory. The other was the growing upheaval of the Tiers Etat, or
popular branch of the government, which resulted in the French
Revolution.
The French Revolution has been a good deal too much confined by
historians to the political upheaval of the people against the noble,
the priest, and the king. Attention has not been sufficiently
attracted to the fact that it was at the same time a revolt against
the economic tyranny of the corporation or the guild. The cry of
liberty which ushered in the French Revolution was not confined to
political liberty. It was extended to liberty of industry--liberty of
trade--liberty of contract. In other words, what Rousseau did for
political emancipation with his theory of social contract, de Quesnay
did for economic emancipation with his doctrine of _laissez faire_, a
doctrine which prepared the way for the political economy of Adam
Smith and that of the Manchester School.
The essential principle preached by de Quesnay and later by Adam Smith
and Herbert Spencer, is that every man must in his efforts to support
himself and accumulate wealth be "let alone!"
It is of the utmost interest that this policy of _laissez faire_ was
inaugurated under the cry of liberty and is still supported on the
ground of liberty. When we see the evil consequences of this kind of
liberty we shall feel like crying with Madame Roland when she saw the
guillotine doing its grim work on the Place de la Grêve:
"O liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name!"
And here we shall appreciate the importance of having clear ideas as
to what liberty is and of therefore being able to distinguish false
notions of liberty from true.
If leaving to every man absolute liberty as to what he is to produce,
how he is to produce, and what he shall charge for it, would result in
the most orderly and therefore economical system of production and
distribution; if it were to secure to every man work in the first
place, and the product of his work in the second place, then it would
be justified. But if it produces none of these things, but on the
contrary, produces the greatest conceivable disorder and therefore
greatest possible waste; if it not only fails to assure to men the
product of their work, but even fails to give as many as one-third of
those engaged in industry any chance of working at all, as at present,
so that hundreds of thousands and even millions are at this time of
writing not only without work, but actually on the verge of
starvation--and if this system not only causes injustice and misery
to all these millions, but does not even make the few who profit by it
happy--if the tendency is also to make them immoral--if instead of
promoting liberty, it--on the contrary--makes slaves of all, not only
of employees but also of employers, so that neither is free to be
generous or just to the other and both are skirting ruin--the employer
in the shape of bankruptcy, and the employee in the shape of
unemployment; and last but not least, if this system is stupid--of all
the stupid systems conceivable the most stupid--and I have been able
to call as witnesses to this assertion the admittedly ablest business
men now living in America, what shall we shrewd, practical Americans
have to say in defence of it?
But we have still two important results of the competitive system to
consider--the trade union and the trust; not only for the evils that
attend them, but for the inevitable conflict to which they give rise.
The issue of this conflict is the real political issue of the day. All
the political parties save only one are seeking to ignore it; but they
cannot. It will end by either reforming or destroying them. To this
question too much attention cannot be given, for upon it depends the
survival of civilization itself.
§ 2. TRADE UNIONS
The attempt has already been made to show that the organization of
trade unions and trusts was not due to accident, but was the necessary
and inevitable consequence of the freedom of contract, freedom of
industry, and freedom of trade inaugurated by the French Revolution.
These three so-called freedoms are a sentimental way of describing the
competitive system, and as a matter of fact, not only make real
freedom impossible, but pave the way for despotism--the despotism of
the market in the first place and the despotism of the trade union and
trust, to which the despotism of the market inevitably leads.
The illusion contained in the words "freedom of contract" is well
demonstrated in the history of the trade union, for if the employee is
to be free to make such contracts as he chooses, he is not only free
as regards the contracts he chooses to make with his employer, but
also as regards the contracts he chooses to make with his fellow
employee. And amongst the contracts that he is free to make with his
fellow employee is the contract not to work for his employer except
under certain agreed conditions. In other words, the trade union is
simply an expression of freedom of contract between employee and
employee. But to what does this freedom of contract between employee
and employee lead? It leads to a suppression of the freedom of
contract, for it is an agreement not to work with the employee except
under conditions imposed by the trade union. Freedom of contract,
therefore, so far as the employee is concerned, under the competitive
system compels employees to abandon freedom of contract.
This may seem paradoxical until we understand the real significance of
it. Man stands between two alternatives--the unlimited freedom and
insecurity of savagery and the limited freedom and security of
civilization. This has been developed in the chapter on Property and
Liberty and receives interesting confirmation in the history of trade
unions, which has been too often and too well told to make it
necessary to repeat it here. Suffice it to point out that all
historians of the trade union movement record the fact that at the
very time when employers were shouting for freedom of contract they
passed laws denying freedom of contract to workingmen.[83] But the
very effort of the employers to prevent employees from combining with
one another reduced wages to so low a level and brought about so
wicked an exploitation of women and children and such unsanitary
conditions of the whole working population, that a parliament of
employers was as a matter of national defence compelled to restore to
workingmen the right to agree to abandon freedom of contract.
It may appear to the unsophisticated that for a workingman to endeavor
to escape from the tyranny of the employer by subjecting himself to
the tyranny of the trade union is but a jump from the frying-pan into
the fire. But such a conclusion would display woeful ignorance as to
the whole trend of human development; that is to say, from involuntary
subjection to a power over which we have no control, to voluntary
subjection to a power over which we have control. This is the history
of the development of all popular government. Reactionaries are
disposed to dwell on what they call the tyranny of the majority and
compare it unfavorably with the beneficent despotism of a Henri IV.
They, however, ignore the very material fact that an absolute monarchy
represents an involuntary servitude over which the subject has no
control; whereas the tyranny of a majority represents a voluntary
subjection to authority over which we have control. It may be and
undoubtedly is true that control over government even under popular
forms of government is small and ineffectual; but I hope to make it
clear in the chapter on the Political Aspect of Socialism[84] that the
ineffectualness of our control over government is due to the
competitive system and that under a coöperative system our control
over government would be effectual; and that it is only under a
coöperative commonwealth that the ideal democracy can be realized.
The development of trade unionism throws also a great light on the
fact of human solidarity. Socialists are often accused of being
theoretical and the bourgeois is disposed to regard human solidarity
as a theory. But in the growth of trade unionism it will be observed
that solidarity presents itself as a rock upon which the competitive
system must ultimately be wrecked. The capitalist class expressed its
wish in the law of 1799, which was a law of oppression; but the
inconvenient fact that women cannot be worked like beasts of burden
under ground without arousing the sympathies even of the capitalist
class; that little children cannot be made to suffer and to starve
without reaching the hearts of the whole nation, and that cholera bred
in unsanitary dwellings will find its way to the doors of the rich,
forced this same capitalist class to abrogate the law of 1799; to
abandon the policy of oppression in consideration of its own best
interests.
So combinations amongst employees have grown in strength in spite of
all the power of capital--political and industrial. This progress was
inevitable. Given freedom of contract, or in other words, the
competitive system; given some intelligence on the part of some of the
proletariat; and some compassion in the hearts of some employers, and
trade unions had to develop and grow in strength.
But now that they have developed and grown in strength--now that they
can be said to have reached what seems to be maturity, let us consider
how much good they have done. Let us discuss the unsolved and what I
believe to be the insoluble problems that result from trade unionism.
Before entering into this subject, let me say that if I do not discuss
here the merits of trade unionism it is not because I am not aware of
them; but rather because in this work on Socialism, which I desire to
make as concise as possible, it is not the merits of trade unionism
which it is important to emphasize, but their demerits. Although the
intelligence, order, and self-restraint displayed in the trade union
movement must be to the eternal credit of the workingman, nevertheless
all his efforts, however intelligent, however orderly, however
sacrificing, have failed to solve the problem of the conflict between
labor and capital. It is obviously wiser for the workingman to seek
salvation where it is to be found than by clinging exclusively to
trade unionism to abandon salvation altogether. Trade unionism, I
cannot emphasize it too much--was and is still a necessary step in the
development and education of the workingman; but it is only a step,
and nothing demonstrates the inadequacy of trade unionism better than
the conditions of unemployment that have existed during the last two
years not only in the United States of America, but almost throughout
the entire civilized world. It must not be supposed, however, that
because trade unions are believed to have created new evils almost as
intolerable as those they were organized to suppress, that trade
unions are to be looked upon with disfavor. On the contrary, the whole
argument of this book proceeds upon the self-evident fact that trade
unions have performed a necessary function and are bound to perform a
necessary function in the community until the trade union realizes its
ideal, but that a realization of this ideal is impossible under the
competitive system. In other words, the attempt will be made not only
to demonstrate that trade unions have, under the competitive system,
failed and must continue to fail to accomplish the work they set out
to do, but that under the coöperative system they can and will attain
their ideal--they can and will perform exactly what they started out
to do. However much, therefore, our argument may demonstrate the
failure of trade unions under existing conditions, it only leads to
the triumph of trade unions under coöperative conditions. What the
trade union has failed to do under competition, it can and will
accomplish under a coöperative commonwealth.
The argument of this book, therefore, is not to abandon trade unions,
but, on the contrary, to appeal to the unorganized employee to join
the trade union in order to strengthen it industrially; and on the
other hand to appeal to all employees, organized or unorganized, to
combine politically for the purpose of securing by franchise what they
never can accomplish by the strike.
The moral then to be drawn from the following pages is not that trade
unions have come to an end of their usefulness, but that whereas their
task in the past has been to check exploitation, their rôle in the
future will be to put an end to it altogether.
§ 3. THE UNSOLVED AND INSOLUBLE PROBLEMS OF TRADE UNIONISM
John Mitchell in his book "Organized Labor" has very properly stated
that "the ideal of Trade Unionism is to combine in one organization
_all_ the men employed, or capable of being employed, at a given
trade, and to demand and secure for each and _all_ of them a definite
minimum standard of wages, hours and conditions of work;"[85] and the
principle of Trade Unionism is also well described as "the _absolute
and complete prohibition_ of contracts between employers and
individual men."[86] In other words, the object of the Trade Union is
to put an end to competition between employees in order to substitute
what is called "collective bargaining," which, if complete, would put
the employer at the mercy of the employee, for individual bargaining,
which on the contrary puts the employee at the mercy of the employer.
The above is stated in other words in the Report of the Industrial
Commission:[87]
"The union is conceived as a means of bettering the condition of its
members by united action. If this action is to be thoroughly
effective, it must be taken by or on behalf of _all the members of the
craft_. It is by the establishment of an _absolute monopoly of labor
power_ and to ameliorate the conditions under which it is sold and
used."
Now the inherent and necessary defect of trade unionism under the
competitive system is to be found in the words I have italicized in
the above extract. If the trade union could be a "real monopoly of
labor," it could dictate terms to the employer; but it must not be
forgotten that, with the employer, it would remain subject to the
conditions created by the market. The very fact, however, that all
relations between labor and capital are determined by the conditions
of the market makes it impossible and will always make it impossible
for the trade union to attain its ideal; that is to say, to constitute
an absolute monopoly of labor power, to bind in one organization _all_
the men employed, to secure the absolute and complete prohibition of
contracts between employers and individual men, to demand and secure
for each and _all_ of them a definite minimum standard of labor,
wages, and conditions of work. This is the crux of the whole question.
It has taken over a century of organization on the part of the
employer and employee, of conflict between the two, of bankruptcy for
the employer and of misery for the employee, to demonstrate that the
ideal of trade unionism has not been and can never, so long as the
competitive system persists, be attained. The trade unionist will
answer that even though it be impossible to attain the ideal, trade
unions have accomplished much and can accomplish more for the
wage-earning class. To this it may be fairly answered that whatever
trade unions have in fact accomplished has been accomplished only at a
ruinous price--that the price they must continue to pay for this
accomplishment will continue to be ruinous and insufferable until
either by the revolt of the discontented as predicted by Karl Marx, or
by the awakening conscience of the whole community, as has already to
a limited degree taken place, the betterment aimed at by the trade
unionist will be attained and maintained without the payment of the
awful toll now exacted by the competitive system.
It is probable that both employers and employees, during a century's
struggle, have failed to take proper account of the extent to which
both were hampered by the exigencies of the market. The blindness of
both to this fact was perhaps due to the expansion of trade both in
England and America during most of the century; this expansion being
due to the development of the country in the United States and, in
England, to the conquests of new markets and colonies. So long as
expansion continued, trade unionists could insist upon increasing
wages out of increasing prices, and the success which attended trade
unions in raising wages during a large part of the century, brought
about a false idea that there was no limit to the extent to which
trade unions could by organization increase their share in the profits
of industry. Unfortunately, the era of expansion could not last
forever, and it was not until the lockout of the engineers in
1898-1899 that the British trade unionists began to discover how
narrow were the limits within which they could improve conditions.
Until 1897 the employees had on an average the best of it. In 1893 no
less than 63 per cent of strikes were decided in favor of the
employees. In 1896 again the proportion of working people involved in
disputes settled in their favor was greater than in any of the
previous years since 1892 with the exception of 1893; and it may be
interesting to note that during this year there was a lower percentage
of unemployed than during any year since 1890.[88] It is not
surprising, therefore, that trade unionists were convinced that there
was no limit to the extent to which they might increase their share in
the profits of industry. In 1897, however, the condition of the steel
industry in England became such that the employers could no longer
comply with the exactions of the trade unionists. In 1895 American
manufacturers for the first time attempted to export their steel to
other lands,[89] and their exports grew to $121,913,548 in 1900 and to
$183,982,182 in 1908.[90]
In the presence of American as well as German competition, the
pressure of the market was such that the employers felt they must
either break the power of the union or go out of business. They
therefore locked out the engineers in July, 1897, and the lockout
lasted until January, 1898, when the union was obliged to abandon all
its contentions. This lockout is the turning point in the history of
trade unionism in England. Up to that time, the idea that workingmen
could be induced to abandon the parties to which they belong in order
to organize a party of their own was never seriously taken into
consideration at their conventions, and resolutions in favor of
Socialism were overwhelmingly voted down. But as soon as the power of
the engineers--the strongest union in England--was broken in 1897 we
find trade union conventions entertaining the idea of political
organization and resolutions in favor of Socialism receiving careful
consideration.
The history of trade unionism in America has not as yet resulted in
any such definite climax as this; but what foreign competition has
compelled English employers to do a combination of employers in the
Steel Trust has done for the steel workers in America. In other words,
the trade union has to face one of two alternatives: either foreign
competition is bound ultimately to compel the employer to destroy the
union; or in the absence of foreign competition owing to a high
protective tariff, a combination of employers will do for their own
benefit what competition compelled British employers to do as a
condition of survival.
If we turn from the history to the nature of trade unions it will be
seen that what has happened must have happened. As has been stated,
all agree that the ideal of trade unionism is to unite all the workers
in one trade so as to substitute collective bargaining for individual
bargaining. Unfortunately by the very nature of things such a
combination is impossible. It is impossible to read any work on trade
unions, whether it emanates from the government, or from employers, or
from employees, without being struck by the fact that trade unions
seek to be comprehensive, to include all the members in the trade on
the one hand, while on the other hand there is a perpetual pressure
upon them to be exclusive. For example, we find locals charging heavy
initiation fees of a character to keep out members, for instance the
longshoremen, the garment workers, glass workers; and it may be
"stated as a general rule that when a union does succeed in
establishing a monopoly against employers it is exceedingly likely to
go on, if it feels strong enough, to establish a monopoly against the
employees."[91]
It is perfectly true that this tendency is frowned upon by the trade
unionists at large; but the reason for this is that every union which
tries to be exclusive cultivates a crop of non-unionists who
constitute a menace to the union.
A better illustration of the quandary in which unionists find
themselves between the importance of being comprehensive in the one
hand and the importance of being exclusive on the other, is found in
their attitude towards boy labor.
Modern conditions have made apprenticeship practically obsolete, and
yet many national organizations endeavor to maintain the practice with
a view to preventing too great a supply of skilled workers in the
trade. The limit generally fixed by national organizations is 1 to 10,
though some, such as pressmen, trunk and bag workers, flint glass
workers, allow 1 to 4. Lithographers allow 1 to 5.[92] "It is
obvious," says the Report of the Industrial Commission, "that the
chief motive which influences the unions in the shaping of their
apprenticeship rules is the desire to maintain their wages, by
diminishing competition within the trades."[93]
It is true that many unions in controlling apprenticeship are animated
by a much higher purpose; that is to say, to provide that when a boy
undertakes to learn a trade he shall have a chance to learn it.
John Mitchell in his book[94] claims that the restriction of admission
of apprentices in the United States is negligibly small, and yet
deplores the fact that "the great mass of youths to-day receive little
or no training in their particular trade as a result of the breakdown
of the apprenticeship system." In his opinion the solution to the
problem is not to be found in apprenticeship, but in industrial
schools; yet he deplores the hostility of graduates of trade schools
to trade unions, without apparently recognizing that this hostility is
due to the hostility first evinced by unions to trade schools. But let
us turn from conflicting opinions and look the facts in the face.
When a unionist approaches the age of forty years, he is confronted by
the fact that he cannot rival in speed and efficiency the work of a
young graduate of an industrial school. He looks forward to the time
when his place will be taken by the graduate of the industrial school.
He is very naturally therefore hostile to the industrial school and
the graduate of the industrial school is for the same reason hostile
to him. And here we come to the real difficulty: When a trade union
fails to include _all_ the members in the trade, it does _not_
succeed in eliminating competition between workingmen. On the
contrary, it begins by creating two hostile classes of workingmen:
Those within the union and those without--classes which bitterly hate
one another because they are both fighting for the same job. But they
do more than this: They create competition within the trade union
because by insisting upon high wages and short hours they are making
it impossible for the employer to utilize the service of any but the
most efficient. John Mitchell himself points this out. In resisting
the charge that trade unions tend to level down, he says: "If there is
a levelling at all in the trade union world, it is a levelling up and
not a levelling down. The only levelling which the trade union does is
_the elimination of men who are below a certain fixed standard of
efficiency_."[95] He further expresses it in another passage:[96]
"Trade unionism tends to improve workmen not only directly, through an
increase in wages and a reduction in hours, but it attains the same
end in an indirect manner. The general policy of trade unionism, as
has been explained before, is the establishment of a minimum wage,
safeguarding, as a rule, the right of the employer to discharge for
proved inefficiency. The result of this is the gradual creation of a
dead line of a standard of efficiency, to which all who work must
attain. Where there is a minimum wage of four dollars a day, the
workman can no longer choose to do only three dollars' worth of work
and be paid accordingly, but he must earn four dollars, _or else cease
from work_, at least in that particular trade, locality, or
establishment. The consciousness that he may be employed for a varying
wage permits many a man to give way to his natural idleness and
carelessness, whereas the maintenance of a rigid standard causes a
rapid and steady improvement. The minimum wage acts upon the workman,
as the school examination upon the child. If a child falls, by however
small a margin, below the standard set by the school, he fails of
promotion, and the stimulus which is strong in the case of a school
child is infinitely more intense in that of a worker with a family
dependent upon him. The principle of the survival of the fittest
through union regulations works out slowly and unevenly; nevertheless
its general effect is towards a steady and continuous progress of
workingmen to a permanently higher standard of efficiency."[97]
There is one point upon which the author is silent--yet it is the
point which enormously interests the workingman at large: this is that
while trade unionism guarantees high wages and short hours to the
efficient, it throws out of the trade altogether those workingman who
do not attain a high standard of efficiency or who, having attained
it, fall back from it owing to overwork, sickness, or old age.
There is, therefore, a perpetual struggle going on in the trade
unions, not only between members and non-members, but even amongst the
members of the union itself, in view of the fact that diminished
efficiency must eventually lead to the weeding out of the inefficient.
In periods of industrial depression such as we have just passed
through it is obvious that the most inefficient are the first to be
dismissed, and being the most inefficient, they are the ones least
able to find employment in other industries.
Under the title of Unemployment, the extent of this evil has been
pointed out; it must not be lost sight of; it reaches a population of
a million at the best of times and of five millions at such times as
these.
But the problem raised by the importance of comprehensiveness to
prevent "scabbing" on the one hand and of exclusiveness to maintain
wages on the other, is not confined to such details as initiation fees
and apprenticeship. It covers the whole question of the employment of
boys, women, old men, and half-supported persons, and includes the
"sweating" system.
The higher the wages exacted by trade unions the more employers are
compelled to have recourse to cheap labor of women and children, and
this labor is all the cheaper because the unionist himself contributes
to the supply; for the unionist supports his wife and children, and
the very fact of the support he gives them permits them to accept a
lower rate of wages than if they were not supported. To understand the
operation of this principle it must be borne in mind that rates of
wages are determined, not by the wishes of the employee or even by the
greed of the employer; they are determined by the market price.
Unionists are not the only persons who object to the labor of women
and boys. There is indeed no divergency of opinion as to the unwisdom
of working boys before their education is complete or their bodies
matured; or the unwisdom of employing women, destined by Nature to
perform other more important functions. No better witness to the
control exercised by the market on this important subject can be found
than a member of the English Ministry, the Right Honorable H.O.
Arnold-Forster, who says:
"The great cotton industry of Lancashire, the wool and worsted
industry of Yorkshire, and many other industries in a less degree are
at the present time dependent upon child labor. It is interesting to
observe that as lately as the autumn of 1907 a deputation waited upon
the responsible minister to urge upon him the desirability of raising
the age of half-timers from twelve to thirteen. The desirability of
the change was not denied, _but it was not considered possible to give
effect to it_.
"Those who have any acquaintance with the cotton trade are well aware
that that great industry, employing as it does no less than half a
million persons, is conducted upon the _most minute margins of profit
and loss_. The rate book of the cotton trade, in which wages of every
kind of work are calculated out to the tenth of a penny, is a miracle
of painstaking and intelligent computation. These fine calculations
are absolutely necessary. Both employers and employed know perfectly
well that the trade is, so to speak, _balanced on a knife edge_, and
that any sudden increase of cost, whatever may be its cause, is likely
to upset the balance, and turn the hardly won profit out of which
operators as well as employers obtain their living, into a loss. The
_fierce competition of the world_, especially of those countries in
which child labor and long hours are prevalent, has to be met, and the
persons principally concerned are only too well aware of the
fact."[98]
Nothing then is better established than that every employer is forced
by the pressure of competition to keep wages down, and that any
employer who either under the compulsion of a trade union or out of
generosity of heart attempts to raise wages one cent above the price
permitted by the market, must expiate his mistake in the bankruptcy
court.
There is only one way in which this competition can be met--the way
imagined by Karl Marx: a comprehensive organization of trade unions, not
only within one nation, but amongst all nations; in other words, the
famous--and at one time loudly proclaimed as the infamous--International.
The fact that the international plan of organization imagined by Karl
Marx failed, is little argument against it. But the fact that trade
unions do not succeed in securing all the members of a trade in any
nation--that indeed in the United States organized labor includes at
most 2,000,000 members, whereas the working population is over
20,000,000, ought to be a convincing argument that a comprehensive
organization of workers all over the world is still less possible.
One word must be said in this connection about the sweating system and
its relation to trade unions. It is a current statement that sweating
is confined in America to a few industries, such as tobacco and
garment making. This, however, is a great mistake. Sweating may be
defined as the reduction of wages to starvation or even below
starvation level. It is true that sweating in this country is in large
part due to an ignorant, unorganized, and poverty-stricken class of
immigrants. But sweating is also to be found in a much higher order of
employees. I refer to the sweating of certain factories and department
stores where the rate of wages is determined, not by the cost of
living, but by the price which half-supported women are willing to
take for their week's work.
In many factories and in practically all the department stores the
wages are below the sum necessary for a working woman to live; and
they are made so at least in part by the fact that the daughters of
well-to-do workingmen, being supported at home, are able and willing
to give their time for a sum less than sufficient to support life. In
some cases this work is rendered in a laudable desire to contribute to
the common expense of the home. In many cases it must be attributed to
vanity and the attractiveness of this kind of work.
We find, therefore, the workingman put in this singular position:
Through his trade union he secures a high rate of wages; with this
high rate of wages he seeks to establish a decent home; the desire of
a decent home permeates the entire family; the daughters want to
contribute thereto and, because they are partially supported
themselves by the high wages received by the father, they accept a
rate of wages so low that their less fortunate sisters are doomed to
starve.
So on every side the trade unionist is hoist by his own petard. The
high wage he is in a position to exact is perpetually menaced by the
competition of the women and children of his own family whom his own
high wages put in a position to compete with him. These high wages
throw out of employment all save those of the highest efficiency, and
by permitting the half-supported members of his family to work for low
wages, reduce others who are not half supported below the level of
starvation.
I shall not insist on other problems which still divide the members of
trade unions, such as what is called "right of trade," or "the
conflict between industrial and craft organization," both of which
occasion loss of employment and division in the ranks of labor,
because these are not insoluble. It is true that they have not yet
been solved, but there is nothing in their very nature that makes a
solution impossible. I do, however, insist upon the problems above
referred to, because they are not only unsolved, but by their very
nature can never be solved. No trade union can ever include _all_ the
men of the trade, because _all_ cannot earn the high standard of wages
set by the union; because the trade never can give employment to all
the men in the trade--at the best of times there are over 3 per cent
unemployed; because by insisting on a high rate for unionists, they
compel the employer to have recourse to the cheaper labor of women and
boys; because the very sense of family responsibility which makes a
unionist support his wife and children is exploited by the employer to
secure the services of these last at half wages; because the existence
of a half-supported population creates and maintains sweated trades;
because the employers, were they Angels of Mercy, cannot, thanks to
the pressure of the market, raise wages or dispense with the cheap
labor of women and boys without either incurring bankruptcy or
shutting down; because either contingency would deprive the unionist
of work and therefore of wages; because both employer and employee are
perpetually being chased round a vicious circle by the devil of
competition which, by keeping down prices and wages, keeps both in
danger of ruin and unemployment.
The conclusion to which we are driven seems to be that the competitive
system has the same effect upon trade unions as upon the rest of the
industrial field--it sacrifices the many to the few. During these last
two years wages have not been appreciably reduced. The most efficient
have continued to receive the same wages as before. But the price paid
for this advantage has been the reduction of between five and twenty
millions of people to the verge of starvation, a large part of whom
must by the very necessity of things be driven to vagrancy and through
vagrancy to crime.[99]
What Socialism proposes is to maintain the principle of competition to
the extent necessary to assure most comfort to the most efficient
without exposing the rest to so awful an alternative as unemployment.
And I think it will be seen that the education of the workingman
through the organization, the order, the democracy of trade unions
will play no small part in making Socialism possible, and that it is
probably through the organization of trade unions that a true
democracy will eventually be attained.
§ 4. TRUSTS
Two pictures of trusts have already been borrowed in this book,[100]
one by Mr. Rockefeller, showing the economies they make, and the other
by Mr. Havemeyer, showing the dangers that attend them. Trade unions
start out to include all the men in the industry; this is their ideal;
and it has been shown how far short of it they fall. It is generally
supposed that trusts likewise seek to include all employers in the
industry, but this is a great mistake. Not only does the law forbid
this, but it would be a mistaken policy. A trust that included all the
industry would invite newcomers for blackmailing purposes if for no
other. The last and best policy of the promoter is to include only the
most prosperous and to leave around the trust a fringe of independents
too weak to affect prices but just strong enough to live as a warning
to others. A good collection of independent factories on the verge of
bankruptcy is the finest bulwark a trust can have, for they discourage
the starting of any more.
How the trusts make prices and keep independents in their wake is well
illustrated by the following extract:[101] "The custom has regularly
been for some years for the Standard Oil Company to announce from day
to day the price which it would pay for crude petroleum and the price
at which it would sell refined petroleum. This price is generally
accepted as the market price, and competitors follow."
"Likewise, the American Sugar Refining Company first posts the prices
for the day, and is then followed by its competitors, who post theirs.
Generally they take the prices fixed by the American Sugar Refining
Company; but at times, if they have a little surplus stock on hand, or
if it is difficult for them to secure a customer, they will cut the
price perhaps one-sixteenth of a cent per pound. One or two of the
chief competitors seem to be forced to put their prices quite
frequently at one-sixteenth of a cent below that of the American Sugar
Refining Company. In spite of its control over the output it is said
by Mr. Post that the American Sugar Refining Company has not, in his
judgment, unduly restricted the output. It is probable, he thinks,
that had that company not been formed the competitive system would
have ruined many established refineries, so that as many would have
been closed as is now the case, and the output would have been fully
as small, probably even less. Practically all of the witnesses, both
members of the combination and their opponents, concede that while
there is a certain arbitrariness in fixing the prices it has been
exercised in most cases only within comparatively narrow limits, and
then, mainly to meet competition or stifle it."
Trusts, therefore, do in one sense succeed where trade unions fail;
that is to say, they do succeed in getting all to join them that they
want; whereas the trade unions do not, the essential difference
between the two being that the trust is essentially monopolistic
whereas the trade union is essentially democratic. The one wants to
benefit a few at the expense of the many; the other wants to benefit
all at the expense of none. As the competitive system favors the
policy of the trust and disfavors that of the union, the trust
succeeds where the union fails.
No one would accuse the organizers of a union of seeking to benefit a
few at the expense of the many, and yet this under the competitive
system is not only what happens but what must happen. On the other
hand, no one imagines that the organizers of a trust have any other
intention: they deliberately set out to eliminate competitors for
their own benefit and they have succeeded in their task to an
altogether unexpected degree.
It has been claimed, however, for the trusts that whatever may be the
private benefit of their stockholders, they do perform a great public
service.
Among the public services they were supposed to render it was claimed
that they would pay good wages and furnish steady employment.[102]
Even the labor unions themselves were of this opinion. Their leaders
testified that they did not fear industrial combination and that if
combinations were able by virtue of their savings to increase the
profits of industry, workingmen would be able by pressure to "maintain
or increase their wages quite as readily as before the combinations
were made."[103] Another contention made for trusts was that they
would lower prices. With the view of maintaining this contention, the
trust magnates themselves testified to the enormous economies effected
by combination, for the purpose of persuading us that the consumers
would profit by these economies. Mr. Havemeyer was honest enough,
however, to admit that he would be guided in fixing the price only by
business considerations. But it was believed at that time that
business considerations would be sufficient to keep prices down and
the experience of the Whisky Trust was cited to prove that it was
impossible to maintain prices above a reasonable margin of profit.
The Whisky Trust was organized in 1887 and after having lowered prices
for the purpose of eliminating competitors, it brought the prices up
to as high a level as had ever been reached before. The result of this
was that at the end of 1888 prices fell, owing to a reorganization of
the trust and to a subsequent raising of prices by the trust in 1891,
only to be followed by a corresponding fall in 1892. And so prices
went on reaching a very high level at the close of 1892, only to fall
back to a low level in 1893; and again to a high level in 1894, only
to go down so low in 1895 as to put the trust into the hands of a
receiver. By this time the Whisky Trust had learned its lesson; it
learned that if it endeavored to put the price of whisky up to an
undue height, new distilleries were started to profit by these high
prices, and the only way of avoiding bankruptcy was to maintain the
price just high enough to return profits to the trust, but not high
enough to encourage outside competition.
Undoubtedly the opinion generally prevailed at the end of the last
century that increase in price by the trust was not to be feared. But
at that time trusts had not yet acquired the art of handling
independent competitors. To-day the art has been acquired. Owing to
the enormous capital they control and the enormous extent of territory
they cover, they are in a position so to reduce prices in any one spot
where competition becomes dangerous as to crush out the competitor in
that place. They adopted this method recklessly at first, crushing out
all competitors and then raising the price unduly. Now they have
learned to maintain a group of competitors about them and to keep
these competitors alive, keeping prices high so long as competition is
not dangerous and depressing them just enough to crush out competition
when it becomes dangerous.
The movement of prices since the end of last century is sufficient to
demonstrate that trusts, far from reducing prices, are advancing them.
It must in all fairness to trusts be admitted that the enormous
increase in the annual output of gold tends to increase prices, and it
is extremely difficult to state just how much of the advance in price
since the end of last century is due to the increased output of gold,
and how much is due to deliberate advance on the part of the trusts.
We have, however, a guide in the relation between increase of wages
and increase of prices. If the advance in prices were due entirely to
increased output of gold, wages ought to increase in the same
proportion. But they do not.
Of the opinion expressed at the end of the last century that trusts
would improve the condition of workingmen, there is very little left
to-day.
From almost every point of view, trusts have since 1900 disappointed
expectations. It was claimed and with every show of reason that trusts
would, by their control of the market, be able to adjust supply to
demand and thus avoid the gluts that produce unemployment,[104] and
that although the economies they practised might result in the
shutting down of some factories and the discharge of employees, in the
end the workingmen would gain because their employment would be steady
and because trade unions would have only one employer to bargain with
instead of many.[105]
How far has experience justified these anticipations?
Far from diminishing unemployment, the reign of the trusts has
resulted in the most intense and widespread depression that we have
any record of.[106] Far from benefiting the unions, trusts have
crushed unions out of existence. Far from raising wages and shortening
hours, the employees of the Steel Trust in Pittsburg are to-day
working twelve hours at $1.80 a day, and once a fortnight twenty-four
hours in a single shift; whereas miners in the same district because
their union has not yet been crushed by the Coal Trust, are working
only eight hours at $2.36 a day.[107] And the Miners' Union has been
saved from the trust only by what is still regarded by many as the
improper personal intervention of President Roosevelt Oct. 31, 1902.
The conditions of labor under trust rule cannot be better described
than in the Survey, an investigation published not by Socialists, nor
even by persons inclined towards Socialism, but by believers in and
upholders of the competitive system:[108]
"With this number, Charities and The Commons completes its
presentation of the findings of the Pittsburg Survey, as to conditions
of life and labor of the wage-earners of the American Steel district.
The gist of the situation, as we find it, is as follows:
"I. An altogether incredible amount of overwork by everybody, reaching
its extreme in the twelve-hour shift for seven days in the week in
the steel mills and the railway switchyards.
"II. Low wages for the great majority of the laborers employed by the
mills, not lower than other large cities, but low compared with the
prices--so low as to be inadequate to the maintenance of a normal
American standard of living; wages adjusted to the single man in the
lodging-house, not to the responsible head of a family.
"III. Still lower wages for women, who receive for example in one of
the metal trades in which the proportion of women is great enough to
be menacing, one-half as much as unorganized men in the same shops and
one-third as much as the men in the union.
"IV. An absentee capitalism, with bad effects strikingly analogous to
those of absentee landlordism, of which Pittsburg furnishes noteworthy
examples.
"V. A continuous inflow of immigrants with low standards, attracted by
a wage which is high by the standards of Southeastern Europe, and
which yields a net pecuniary advantage because of abnormally low
expenditures for food and shelter; and inadequate provision for the
contingencies of sickness, accident, and death.
"VI. The destruction of family life, not in any imaginary or mystical
sense, but by the demands of the day's work and by the very
demonstrable and material method of typhoid fever and industrial
accidents; both preventable, but costing in single years in Pittsburg
considerably more than a thousand lives, and irretrievably shattering
nearly as many homes.
"VII. Archaic social institutions such as the aldermanic court, the
ward school district, the family garbage disposal, and the
unregenerate charitable institution, still surviving after the
conditions to which they were adapted have disappeared.
"VIII. The contrast--which does not become blurred by familiarity with
detail, but on the contrary becomes more vivid as the outlines are
filled in--the contrast between the prosperity on the one hand of the
most prosperous of all the communities of our western civilization,
with its vast natural resources, the generous fostering of government,
the human energy, the technical development, the gigantic tonnage of
the mines and mills, the enormous capital of which the bank balances
afford an indication; and, on the other hand, the neglect of life, of
health, of physical vigor, even of the industrial efficiency of the
individual. Certainly no community before in America or Europe has
ever had such a surplus, and never before has a great community
applied what it had so meagerly to the rational purposes of human
life. Not by gifts of libraries, galleries, technical schools, and
parks, but by the cessation of toil one day in seven, and sixteen
hours in the twenty-four, by the increase of wages, by the sparing of
lives, by the prevention of accidents, and by raising the standards of
domestic life, should the surplus come back to the people of the
community in which it is created."
It would be unfair, however, to the trusts not to recognize that in
spite of the shameful conditions they create for the majority they do
benefit a minority to no small degree. The highly skilled are highly
paid; they are fairly safe from unemployment; they are also furnished
an opportunity of purchasing stock, of which this minority avails
itself. The effect of the trust system on the workingman is very much
like that of the trade union; both benefit the highly skilled and
highly efficient, but at the expense of all the rest.
Now those who believe in the competitive system regard this as proper;
and that the highly skilled and highly efficient should fare better
than the lazy and vicious is equally a part of the Socialist creed.
All that the Socialist asks is that the punishment for falling short
of the highest skill and the highest efficiency be _not so severe_ as
that described by the Pittsburg Survey; and this not only in the
interest of the victim, but in that of the community of which he forms
an essential part. It is because Socialism proposes a plan for giving
to the efficient what their efficiency earns without committing the
inefficient to a life of degradation, that it is entitled to the
consideration of practical business men.
The degradation of the majority is not the only evil that results from
the trusts. The rich are accustomed to look upon this evil as
necessary and, therefore, one that they cannot hope to do more than
mitigate by philanthropy. They seem unconscious of the goal to which
this evil is inevitably driving them; and it is to this goal that I
want above all to direct their attention.
(_a_) _The Conflict Between the Trust and the Trade Union_
It might seem as though the title for this section ought to be the
conflict between capital and labor rather than the conflict between
trusts and trade unions. This, however, is a mistake. So long as labor
and capital were disorganized, there was not much danger in the
conflict between the two. The employer was too strong and he had on
his side in case of disturbance, the police, the militia, and the law.
The moment, however, that labor became organized, it became too
powerful for the police; it became dangerous even to the militia; and
it has in England been strong enough to change the law; and this in
spite of the fact that the organization of the workingman in unions
has compelled the employers to combine in associations and trusts.
Again, although all violence is injurious to individuals, the violence
to which unorganized workingmen resort in local disputes with their
employers, however injurious to local interests, tends to be
essentially temporary and does not tend to overthrow economic or
social institutions. The effect of organization, however, expresses
itself in the magnitude of the conflicts to which it gives rise; as
for example, the Homestead strike in 1892, the Pullman strike in 1894,
and what was practically equivalent to a civil war in Colorado during
1903.
It is generally believed that violence is the peculiar weapon of the
workingman. This again is a mistake. Employers have often been the
first to have recourse to violence and under conditions which hardly
seem pardonable. That a striking employee should be enraged at seeing
his place taken by strikebreakers and should be driven by his rage to
violence, is easily understood; but that employers, merely for the
sake of keeping down wages and making more profit, should have
recourse to it seems altogether unjustifiable. It is a matter of
official record that the Carnegie Steel Company opened negotiations
with Robert A. Pinkerton for armed men nineteen days before any strike
occurred.[109] The report also says that there was "no evidence to
show that the slightest damage was done or was attempted to be done to
property on the part of the strikers,"[110] and so far as acts of
violence are concerned, a personal investigation of the Colorado
strike satisfied me that the Employers' Association was just as guilty
as the miners. An impartial account of this struggle is to be found
in the _Political Science Quarterly_[111] published by a board of
which J. Pierpont Morgan is a member, and which cannot be accused
therefore of tenderness to miners or leanings towards Socialism. It is
difficult to justify the action of the mine owners in removing Moyer,
Haywood, and Pettibone under the circumstances described by Judge
McKenna in his dissenting opinion.[112]
If the trust managers have deliberate recourse to violence and
questionable methods in their conflict with labor which involve merely
a question of more or less profit, is there not excuse for the
workingman who has at stake his very livelihood and that of his wife
and children?
There are elements, however, in the coming conflict which to my mind
make it clear that notwithstanding the enormous advantages which
capital has over labor, it is labor and not capital that in the end
will triumph. To understand these elements it is indispensable to
consider the character of the advantages which the trusts have over
the trade unions, and the character of the advantages which the unions
have over the trusts.
(_b_) _Advantages of Trusts over Unions_
So far in America the conflict between trusts and unions has been
confined to the economic field, and in the economic field it must be
admitted that trusts have the advantage. In the first place, as has
already been intimated, the trusts have at stake merely a matter of
more or less profit. The trust can for the purpose of crushing the
union, sacrifice part of its profit without material damage. The
trust in this respect is in an infinitely better condition than the
isolated employer, for whom a strike very often means bankruptcy. This
is not the case with the trust. Its capital is too large and its
operations are conducted over too great an area for any strike to
threaten insolvency.[113]
Moreover, an isolated employer is far more at the mercy of the
employees than a trust, because a strike very often deprives him of
custom. The orders he cannot fill are filled elsewhere and he may
never recover the custom he has in this manner lost. The trust,
however, can allow a strike to take place in one factory without for
that reason failing to fill all its orders; for it can transfer them
to another of its numerous factories in another place. That this is
regularly done by the trust is a matter of common knowledge. The case
cited by the Industrial Commission[114] is that of the American
Smelting and Refining Company which "continued its business in the
districts where there was no strike, transferring the work as far as
possible."
In America, at any rate, the trusts have also on their side not only
the police and the militia, but the law. The courts have decided that
in the case of strikes and boycotts the courts can by injunction
commit for contempt and punish by imprisonment those who violate their
orders. These questions have been carried to the highest court and all
further attempts on the part of labor to fight these questions in the
courts are practically certain to be unavailing. The remedy of the
Federation of Labor is not to dispute these decisions in the courts,
but to secure new legislation reversing existing decisions on this
subject.
The English unions have discovered this and, by the organization of
their Labor party, have wrested from the British Government the trades
dispute law which has settled these questions in their favor.
So long as unions persist in fighting trusts exclusively on the
economic field and in the law courts, the unions seem bound to suffer
defeat.
There is one weakness in the armor of the trusts to which attention
has not yet been sufficiently directed. Trusts suffer more from their
victories than from their defeats; for a defeat as to the length of
hours or rate of wages, while it strengthens labor a little, does not
weaken the trust much. But every victory of the trust is the greatest
calamity to which it seems at present exposed; for every victory tends
to shift the arena from the economic field, where the trust is
invincible, to the political field, where labor has every advantage.
This will become clear when we examine the advantages of unions over
trusts.
(_c_) _Advantages of Unions over Trusts_
The larger the number of workers in every industry, the weaker are
they on the economic field. It has been pointed out that unions tend
to divide labor. They not only separate the labor world into two
bitterly hostile classes--organized and unorganized--but by the high
rate of wages that they demand they tend also to create jealousy
within the trade union between the efficient who can earn these high
wages and the less efficient who cannot. If the working population
were so small that the demand for labor was greater than the supply,
then indeed the unions might control the situation. But experience has
shown that, without accepting the exaggerations of Malthus, there is
always a greater supply of labor than demand. Even in the most
prosperous times between 3 and 4 per cent of the trade unions are
unemployed and, outside the unions, there is a mass of unorganized
labor, a great part of which is either working for wages insufficient
to support life or is not working at all. These things inevitably
produce hostility between the prosperous and highly paid members of
the union and all the rest; and this hostility is a source of weakness
in the economic struggle of capital against labor. The unions, too,
instead of being able to apply their funds to maintain strikes, have
to apply a large part of these funds to the support of unemployed,
whether through sickness or through industrial depression.
Upon the economic field, therefore, numbers tend to cripple the worker
in his fight against capital. On the political field, on the contrary,
the larger the number of workers, the stronger they are; for every
wage-earning man has his vote, and the vote of every wage-earner
counts as much as that of every capitalist. On the political field
there need be no division in the ranks of labor--organized and
unorganized labor can unite on a platform looking to the political
subjection of their common master. Indeed, if the trusts and employers
were to succeed in the task which they seem to have set
themselves--the destruction of every trade union--they would by so
doing put an end to the principal obstacle which now prevents
workingmen from uniting upon a common platform, for the suppression of
unions would mean two things: it would persuade the defeated unionists
that their only chance of successfully fighting capital was on the
political field; and it would put an end to the hostility between
organized and unorganized labor that is the principal obstacle at this
moment to united action of any kind. Moreover, the workingman could so
frame his political program as to secure the alliance of the whole
exploited class; the small farmer, the domestic, the clerk, and all
those who, out of interest or sympathy, find themselves arrayed
against the exploiting class.
The discovery that the workingman is no match for his employer on the
economic field having already been made in England, the Labor party
there has no less than 40 members in Parliament, and this small
contingent has been strong enough to obtain the legislation above
referred to. It is the sense of inferiority on the economic field that
has organized the millions who are every year swelling the ranks of
the Socialist party in Europe.
The shortsightedness of employers in failing to take account of this
fact has its humorous side. The employee was not very long ago
ignorant and incapable of organization--economic or political--and
without any vote on public affairs. It was only upon condition that he
should remain ignorant and incapable of political organization and
without any voice in public affairs that he could continue to suffer
the domination of his employer--such as is described in the Pittsburg
Survey. Yet the employer has given to every employee an equal vote
with himself in public affairs, so that to-day the employees outvote
the employers. Not content with this, and fearful lest the employee
should not be able adequately to use his vote, the employer has
covered the country with school-houses for the purpose of teaching the
employee how to use it. Yet employers proceed upon the assumption that
the intelligent, educated workingman of to-day, armed with a vote and
capable of the organization displayed in his unions, will continue to
endure such conditions as are described in the Pittsburg Survey as
patiently in the future as he has done in the past!
So trusts continue complacently to crush out unions, oblivious of the
fact that every union crushed drives its members to Populism,
Socialism, Anarchism, pauperism, and crime.
Of all the folds ready to receive the unfortunates driven out of their
unions by the trusts, which is the one least likely to prove dangerous
to the state? This question does not seem to concern the trusts at
all. They consider all these "isms" as equally vile, impractical, and
obnoxious. Yet, if they would only give to this matter one-half the
attention that they give to their business affairs, they could not
fail to see that every union they crush raises for them a crop of
political enemies who, if they show as much ability in political
organization as they have shown in economic organization--and there is
no reason why they should not--cannot but eventually secure a large
majority in our legislatures. When they have done this; when they have
the writing of a new constitution; when the police, the militia, the
army, and the law courts are on their side, is it not better that this
majority be intelligent and educated, as it might if Socialism were
rightly understood, and not uneducated and violent, as it will
certainly be if Socialism is not rightly understood? The conclusion to
which we seem to be driven is that, so long as labor struggles with
capital on the economic field through strikes, boycotts, and
litigation, it is bound to be beaten; but that every victory of
capital on the economic field shortens its reign; for it drives labor
to abandon the economic field, where it is weak, for the political
field, where it is strong; and that the evidence of constructive
ability and self-restraint exhibited by labor in the organization and
administration of the unions, indicates that that same ability
exercised in the political field will make it invincible there:
"We are many; they are few."
If this be so, then capital can no longer afford to disregard or
misrepresent the political aspirations of the army of labor. It may
indeed turn out in the words of the Cumæan Sybil:
"Via prima salutis
Quâ minime reris Graia pandetur ab urbe."
Our way of safety may be--not in the defeat of labor--but in its
enlightenment.
We have before us two alternatives: We can continue to fight labor; to
crush it; to create unemployment one day and wring our hands over it
the next; to arm labor, educate it, and force it to organize an army
of discontent that will eventually outvote capital and, with little or
no preparation for its task, seize the reins of government. Or we can
leave the fighting of labor to the trusts from which the whole public
suffers as well as the workingman, and ourselves join in a
reorganization of political forces that will make the legitimate
demands of the disinherited our own, and at last lay the foundations
of the Democracy that Lincoln through the smoke of the Civil War dimly
foresaw.
FOOTNOTES:
[78] Since writing this I see that Jaurès makes exactly the same
observation in _Van Norden's Magazine_, August, 1909.
[79] The metronymic tribes were tribes in which there was practically
no paternal relation. The mother was the head of the family and the
offspring took her name. This condition of things prevailed for some
time in ancient Egypt.
[80] This is elaborated in "Government or Human Evolution," Vol. II,
p. 96.
[81] "Government or Human Evolution," Vol. II, p. 102.
[82] Translation, see Appendix p. 422.
[83] Article 414 of the French Penal Code and Law of 1799 of the
British Parliament.
[84] Book III, Chapter III.
[85] "Organized Labor." By John Mitchell, p. 4.
[86] Ibid., p. 3.
[87] Report of the Industrial Commission, 1901, Vol. XVII, page 1.
[88] Bulletin of the Dept. of Labor, 1898, pp. 714-717.
[89] Andrew Carnegie's article on the Steel Industry in the
Encyclopedia Americana, Vol. XIV.
[90] Statistical Abstract, 1908, p. 445.
[91] Report of the Industrial Commission, 1901, Vol. XVII, p. 1.
[92] Report of the Industrial Commission, 1901, Vol. XVII, p. lii.
[93] Ibid., p. liii, 1901.
[94] "Organized Labor," Chapter XXX.
[95] "Organized Labor," p. 240.
[96] Ibid., p. 163.
[97] "Organized Labor," p. 163.
[98] "English Socialism of To-day," pp. 99-100.
[99] Letter of Police Commissioner Bingham, New York city, N.Y.
_Times_, Jan. 5, 1908. See Appendix, p. 423.
[100] Book II, Chapter III.
[101] Report of the Industrial Commission, 1901, Vol. I, p. 18.
[102] Report of the Industrial Commission, 1901, Vol. I, p. 29.
[103] Ibid., p. 31.
[104] "Most members of combinations feel that the tendency is to make
work more permanent under the combination form of doing business,
inasmuch as the combination is better able to adjust the supply of
goods to the demand, and thus to secure regularity in their productive
conditions." Report of the Industrial Commission, Vol. XIII, p. xxxi.
[105] "Some of the witnesses are of the opinion that the industrial
combinations give to the labor unions a decided advantage, inasmuch as
it enable them to deal with the trade as a whole instead of with
separate manufacturers." Report of the Industrial Commission, Vol.
XIII, p. xxxii.
[106] Book II, Chapter I, Unemployment.
[107] Pittsburg Survey, Charities, XXI, p. 1063.
[108] Charities, XXI, p. 1035.
[109] Senate Reports, 52d Congress, 2d session, Vol. I, Rept. No.
1280, p. xiv.
[110] Ibid., p. xiii.
[111] _Political Science Quarterly_, March, 1908.
[112] See Appendix, p. 424.
[113] Many workingmen still believe in the possibility of strikes and
even of a general strike. I do not take account of such strikes,
because they have not yet occurred and labor does not seem organized
upon a sufficiently comprehensive scale to make such strikes possible.
[114] Report of the Industrial Commission, Vol. XIII, p. xxxi.
CHAPTER VI
MONEY
No attempt will be made in this chapter to enter upon the disputed
questions regarding money, but only to point out undenied and
undeniable facts in connection with its use and abuse.
Coin, whether gold or silver, is used all over the world as the medium
of exchange. But gold and silver available for the purpose of coin are
limited in amount and totally inadequate to serve as mediums of
exchange without the assistance of other devices. Thus banks of issue
are organized for the purpose of issuing paper money. This money is
upon its face redeemable in coin, but banks of issue, relying upon the
probability that all paper issued will not be redeemed on the same
day, issue far more paper money than they have reserve in coin. In
England, this reserve is notably small.
Business, too, is conducted largely on credit; that is to say, the
trader buys goods not with coin, but with notes or promises to pay
gold, relying upon the probability that he will sell the goods before
his notes come due and thus be able to meet his notes with the
proceeds derived from the sale of the goods purchased with these
notes.
Industries, railroad companies, and transportation companies also use
credit for the purpose of building and running their roads and
factories. This credit takes the shape of permanent bonds and
temporary accommodations of the same character as the notes used by
private traders. The total number of bonds outstanding at par amount
to-day in the United States alone to $13,500,000,000.[115] It is
through the ability of railroad companies to issue bonds and credit
notes that they are enabled in prosperous periods to extend their
roads and factories.
Farmers also borrow largely upon their farms for the purchase of
implements, live stock, improvements, etc. Recent figures of bonded
indebtedness are not to be obtained; but they figure in the billions.
Again, cash payments are no longer made in coin; they are for the most
part made by check. Checks are not paid in coin; they are cleared
through clearing houses; the banks in every financial center belong to
a clearing house through which they daily settle with one another,
paying only differences of accounts in cash. Thus, in 1906, the total
transactions of fifty-five banks in New York city amounted to over
$103,000,000,000; yet the balances paid in money during the year only
amounted to about $3,000,000,000--a proportion of 3.69. So that
through the clearing-house system instead of exchanging gold to an
amount of $103,000,000,000 the whole business was transacted with only
3.69 per cent thereof in coin.
The above figures tend to show how small a relation is borne by coin
to the total exchanges of the world. Indeed, although coin is still
the ultimate medium of exchange, commercial and industrial
transactions are conducted for the most part through an enormous
system of credit built upon a comparatively small amount of coin.
The importance of this is considerable, for it puts those who have
coin and those who handle coin in a position which enables them to
control the industrial and commercial activities of the Nation. This
feature of our money system occasions what are called "financial
crises" as distinguished from commercial crises. Commercial crises and
industrial crises are due to overproduction. Financial crises are
produced for the most part by a breaking down of credit.
Credit may be broken down in many ways. A breakdown may be due to
inability on the part of those who handle coin to meet their
obligations in coin. It may, however, be due to the unwillingness of
those who have and handle money to put this money at the disposal of
the industrial public. It is sometimes occasioned by both.
Money is indispensable to the working of the industrial system. It may
be regarded as the blood of the industrial system because no farmer
can operate his farm, no factory owner his factory, no railroad
company its road without money or the equivalent of money--credit. And
if money can be compared with the blood in the human body, the banking
system must be regarded as its heart; the organ that keeps money in
circulation, accommodates circulation to the needs of the body,
furnishes the economic body with as much as at periods of exercise it
needs; and moderates its circulation when at periods of repose the
economic body is less in need of it. It is hardly necessary to point
out the extreme importance under these conditions that the heart of
this system act for the benefit of the system, and have at no time an
interest of its own to act independently of the system or in a manner
hostile to it. Now this is exactly the evil of existing monetary
conditions. Those who have and handle money have an interest of their
own to serve. While it is generally to their interest to use money in
making the community prosperous, it is at certain critical periods to
their interest on the contrary to withhold money. This is the point
upon which emphasis must be put. Let us, with a view to understanding
this, consider into how few hands the control of coin tends to be
concentrated; and how easy it is for these few to serve their own
interests at the expense of the public by withholding coin at moments
of utmost need.
A very brief study of the movements of coin in the United States will
demonstrate the very few hands in which the control of coin in the
country is vested:
Every trust, every corporation, every railroad company makes payments to
its stockholders at stated intervals consisting of dividends on stock
and interest on bonds. These amounts are large. In 1905 dividends
amounted to $840,018,022, and interest to $636,287,621--together a
billion and a half.[116] Most of this is paid in New York and produces a
regular flow of money from the great corporations to the New York banks.
The great life insurance companies have their principal offices in New
York and there flow daily into the coffers of these companies millions
of dollars of premiums, amounting in the year to nearly half a billion
($492,676,987 in 1908). During the last half century, 1859-1908, the
income from premiums reached the enormous total of $7,870,892,759.[117]
All these go into the hands of New York banks and trust companies.
These moneys are, in the ordinary course of business, returned to the
industrial public in the shape of accommodations to banks, loans to
farmers, factories, railroad companies, etc.; and if these enormous
sums that go into the hands of the Wall Street Group are not returned
to the industrial system, the industrial system must perish just as
the body must perish if its vital functions are not furnished with
blood. But as has been stated, it is to the interest of the Group to
keep the industrial system prosperous and, therefore, in prosperous
times this amount gets back to the country again, the Group receiving
a profit on taking in these moneys and on the paying out of them. One
thing, however, is certain--that the Group can by withholding money
make money scarce. It can by releasing money make it plentiful. The
power given to the Group by this order of things is incalculable. If
the Group desires to issue securities, it has an interest in making
money plentiful. If the Group desires to purchase securities cheaply,
it has an interest in making money scarce. The Group is therefore in a
position where it can serve its own interests whatever be the
direction these interests take.
A banker once described to me the situation as follows:
"The bulk of business is conducted with credit. An enormous credit
system is built upon a relatively small amount of gold. The bankers
control the gold; by controlling the gold they control credit; by
controlling credit they control business.
"This credit and gold system can be compared to an enormous system of
reservoirs and irrigation works, the sluices of which are all opened
and closed by electricity. It takes a very minute amount of
electricity to open and close the sluices; but the man who has control
of that small amount of electricity has the whole irrigation system at
his mercy. By pressing a button he can furnish water to one region and
take it away from another; and if water has been largely used--as in
the case of overinvestment--he can, by withholding water altogether,
put the whole population of the land irrigated by the system on its
knees."
Let us select as a concrete illustration of the workings of this
system the events of 1907:
The year prior to the October panic of 1907 was the most prosperous
year the country had ever seen. The balance of trade in our favor was
$446,000,000[118]; that is to say, Europe owed us $446,000,000 on the
year's transactions; the value of our crop exceeded that of the
previous year by over $480,000,000; the net earnings of our railroads
exceeded those of the previous year by over $260,000,000; the deposits
in our banks exceeded those of the previous year by over $880,000,000;
the cash held by our banks exceeded that held in the previous year by
over $100,000,000; and the Treasury of the United States was bulging
with ingots of gold. Nevertheless, the bankers knew that there had
been overinvestment. In fifteen years the banks had invested in stocks
and bonds no less than $437,000,000. In three years the trust
companies had invested no less than $643,000,000 in these
securities.[119]
Moreover, immense sums had been loaned by trust companies and cash
reserves had fallen from nearly 18 per cent in 1897 to a little over
11 per cent in 1907.[120] The Wall Street Group knew that there had
been overinvestment. As one of them said, "We are being overwhelmed by
our own prosperity." The breeze was blowing too strong and we were
carrying too much sail. The Wall Street Group, however, knowing that a
crisis was at hand and determined to realize the fullest possible
price for stocks, began selling securities in January, 1907, giving
rise to what has been termed "the rich man's panic," which climaxed
in March.[121] Securities fell in consequence of this selling on an
average of about 40 points. This tended to cripple all weak financial
institutions which were no longer able to sell securities with a view
to meeting obligations except at a loss. But this weakness did not
express itself until October.
The first to suffer was the brokerage firm of Otto Heinze & Company,
well-known speculators, particularly in copper stocks. The next to
fall were Charles W. Morse and E.R. Thomas, also speculators and
directors of the Mercantile National Bank, and others. All banks
controlled by these men at once showed weakness. But the panic did not
reach its climax until the Knickerbocker Trust Company became
involved. To understand the situation of the Knickerbocker Trust
Company, a word must be said regarding trust companies and their
relations to banks.
Banks in the city of New York are required by law to keep a reserve of
15 per cent of their deposits in coin. Trust companies, not being
subject to the banking law in this respect, are not called upon to
maintain this reserve. They have, therefore, an advantage over banks
because they can invest the whole of their deposits instead of keeping
a part of them uninvested in coin. The natural hostility that would
arise between trust companies and banks owing to this difference was
eliminated in almost every case because trust companies were
controlled by the banks. The Knickerbocker Trust Company, however,
formed a notable exception to this rule.
Owing to the genius of its President, Charles T. Barney, the
Knickerbocker Trust Company had increased its deposits to over eighty
millions in 1907. Mr. Barney did not belong to the Wall Street Group
in the sense of the word that he acted independently of it, and his
extraordinary enterprise and ability aroused the jealousy of the
Group. In 1907, the institution having 8,000 depositors with total
deposits of $80,000,000, became an independent power which was not to
be tolerated by the Group. Under these conditions, it could not be
expected that the Group would make any extraordinary effort to save
the Knickerbocker Trust Company. It was to the interest of the Group
that the Knickerbocker Trust Company should cease to remain an
independent financial power.
Everybody knew that the Knickerbocker Trust Company, though
temporarily embarrassed, was perfectly sound. The receivers, appointed
when its doors closed, so stated and subsequent events have proved
that the receivers were right. No one doubts the ability of the Group
to save the Knickerbocker Trust Company if it had chosen to do so. But
the Group had in its hands an instrument by means of which the ruin of
Mr. Barney could be effected: The clearing house has never admitted
trust companies to membership, because trust companies were not under
the obligation to maintain the 15 per cent reserve above referred to.
This matter had come up frequently for discussion and the clearing
house had insisted that all trust companies applying for membership to
the clearing house should keep a reserve at of least 10 per cent. This
the trust companies declined to do; but they nevertheless profited by
the clearing-house system by employing banks that were members of the
Clearing House Association to do their clearing for them--a dangerous
situation that proved the ruin of Mr. Barney. The Bank of Commerce was
the clearing-house agent of the Knickerbocker Trust Company; and the
Bank of Commerce was controlled by the Wall Street Group. Under these
conditions, the Knickerbocker Trust Company was at the mercy of the
Wall Street Group.
The Bank of Commerce publicly announced its refusal to clear any
longer for the Knickerbocker Trust Company on the 21st of
October.[122] Mr. Charles T. Barney was told that no help would be
given to the Knickerbocker Trust Company unless he resigned.
Understanding this to mean that help would be given if he did resign,
he resigned; but help was withheld; the Knickerbocker Trust Company
was allowed to go into the hands of receivers, and Mr. Barney
committed suicide.
Mr. Barney's corporation was not the only one upon which the Group had
its eye. The Group is interested in the General Electric Company, the
largest electrical company in America. The only serious rival of the
General Electric Company in the country is the Westinghouse Company.
Westinghouse was doing a larger business than he had capital for. "He
was overwhelmed by his own prosperity." All Westinghouse needed at
that time was money in order to protect his business. This money was
refused to him.
The Group is also interested in the railroads of the country and
indeed controls them. It is one of the bad features of our railroad
system that it almost everywhere controls steamship lines and thus
prevents the public from having the benefit of cheaper water rates by
exacting the same rates on steamboats as upon land. Morse with the
supposed backing of the Knickerbocker Trust had organized a system of
steamship companies which were running independently of the railroads
and threatening their monopoly of freight rates. It was necessary
that these steamship lines should be controlled by the various
railroad systems with which these lines competed, and Morse's
steamship company was forced into the hands of a receiver.
But there was another corporation of still more importance to the
Group--the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company.
The Steel Trust had never been able to purchase this company, and this
company was in a measure indispensable to them. The Tennessee Coal and
Iron Company had the extraordinary advantage of owning inter-bedded
coal and iron; that is to say, coal and iron in the same spot. It was
thus relieved of the necessity of transporting coal several hundred
miles to iron ore or iron ore several hundred miles to coal. This
enabled the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company to fix a price for steel
independently of the Steel Trust.
As has been explained, although trusts seek to have weak independent
concerns in existence if only to prevent strong independent concerns
from being organized, they cannot afford to have an independent
concern competing with them which is able to fix prices lower than
their own. For this reason, the Wall Street Group availed itself of
the panic to get control of the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company.
Upon the testimony of Oakleigh Thorne, President of the Trust Company
of America, and George W. Perkins of the firm of J.P. Morgan &
Company, who is a member of the Finance Board of the United States
Steel Corporation, before the Senate Committee on January 19,
1909,[123] it appears that a syndicate had been organized for the
purpose of acquiring the stock of the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company.
Mr. Oakleigh Thorne was a member of this syndicate, and the Trust
Company of America, of which he was president, had loaned on November
1, 1907, $482,700 to this syndicate against the stock of the Tennessee
Coal and Iron Company as collateral. It seems that the Trust Company
called this loan and that although the stock of the Tennessee Coal and
Iron Company was a dividend-paying stock and quoted at 119, the
syndicate found it impossible to borrow money upon it. The only
condition upon which they could borrow money was selling out to the
Steel Trust.
The Steel Trust gave in exchange for the Tennessee Coal and Iron
Company stock at 119 its own second mortgage bonds, quoted on the
market at that time at 82, and as soon as this exchange was effected
the syndicate was furnished with all the money it needed. Wall Street
loaned to the syndicate against steel second mortgage bonds the
amounts which had previously been refused upon the Tennessee Coal and
Iron Company stock. In other words, the Wall Street Group by refusing
to loan money to the syndicate against the Tennessee Coal and Iron
Company stock, compelled the syndicate to sell this stock to the Steel
Trust by agreeing to loan to the syndicate against Steel Trust second
mortgage bonds at 82 what they refused to loan to the same syndicate
on Tennessee Coal and Iron Company stock at 119.
The New York _Times_ says on this subject:[124]
"What inquiring Senators want to know is, How was it possible for a
small group of bankers to get together and, merely by agreement, force
out one security by giving preference to another less valuable? This
power is regarded as highly dangerous to all classes of securities,
placing them entirely at the mercy of the Wall Street Group."
The power of the Wall Street Group to which the _Times_ objects is in
times of panic reinforced by no less a power than the United States
Government. The United States differs from other countries in not
having a government bank for receiving government deposits and
distributing them in the ordinary course of banking business. The
result is that the receipts of the government accumulate in the United
States Treasury, and this tends to increase stringency in periods of
panic. It has become, therefore, a rule of the government to step in
on such occasions and deposit with its national banks a sufficient
amount to relieve stringency. It will be readily seen that this
intervention of the Secretary of the Treasury, while indispensable to
the public welfare, constitutes a great resource to the Wall Street
Group. For the Group can, by withholding cash at periods of
stringency, practically compel the government to come to the relief of
the market when, for purposes of its own the Group decides to withhold
funds. And as the Group includes the best-informed persons regarding
the finances of the country, it is to the Group that the Secretary of
the Treasury naturally goes for advice on these occasions. The Wall
Street Group therefore occupies a position which permits it to call
upon the government for funds when it desires to hoard its own funds
for its own purposes.
Thus we find Secretary Cortelyou in daily conference with the Wall
Street Group at this period; and after the Knickerbocker Trust Company
closed its doors on the 22d of October and receivers had been
appointed for the three Westinghouse firms on the 23d, Secretary
Cortelyou deposited $25,000,000 in the New York banks indicated by the
Group. This was just sufficient to prevent ruin but not sufficient to
relieve stringency. On November 4th, Judge Gary and Mr. Frick went to
see the President and explained to him that the purchase of the
Tennessee Coal and Iron Company stock by the Steel Trust was necessary
"in order to stop the panic."[125] The President on the same day wrote
a letter to the Attorney-General, subsequently communicated to the
Senate, in which he explained that in view of the fact that such a
purchase would tend "to stop the panic" and that it would not give the
Steel Trust more than 60 per cent. of the Steel industry, he did "not
feel it a public duty to interpose any objection."
The purchase of the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company having been
effected, the United States Government was once more called upon by
the Group and on November 17, the President and Secretary Cortelyou
announced the issue of 2 per cent Panama bonds for an amount of
$50,000,000, and 3 per cent on certificate indebtedness to an amount
of $100,000,000. By this time, however, the Group had decided that
there was no necessity to maintain panic conditions, and the issue of
these bonds was arrested, so that only one-half of the Panama bonds
and only $15,000,000 of the Treasury certificates were allotted.
It has been intimated that the Wall Street Group during the whole of
this panic was in possession of funds which it purposely withheld.
This intimation seems justified by the events which immediately
followed the purchase of the Tennessee Coal and Iron stock by the
Steel Trust. In November newspapers informed us that our bankers were
engaged in "buying gold" in Europe, and during November no less than
$63,000,000 were imported and in December a further $44,000,000 were
imported; together--over $100,000,000. It is a somewhat singular
thing that the public does not seem to have asked for information as
to what was meant by this singular expression "buying gold."
The machinery through which gold was brought over to America in
November and December was the following: Our farmers had already
produced crops and sold them to Europe; the 1907 cotton crop began to
move in August--a large part of it was in Europe before the panic. Our
wheat crop, though late, was already partly in Europe and on its way
there. Those who had produced and sold these crops had drawn against
their shipments. These drafts are called "cotton bills"--"wheat
bills." Certain bankers with connections abroad make it their special
business to buy these bills and present them for payment in Europe at
a minute profit called "exchange." But these bankers could not, during
the panic, borrow money as usual to buy these bills; and they did not
dare to use the money of their depositors for this purpose when they
were under imminent danger of a run. So these bills became a drug on
the market; they could be got for four cents in the pound cheaper than
in average years; and at this price, and at an exceptional profit, the
Wall Street Group went into the market and bought them up, presented
them for payment and got all the money from Europe that was wanted.
This is the process that was called "buying gold." But _who had gold
with which to buy these bills? Who had been hoarding gold?_
What do these facts disclose? They disclose that at the time when the
Wall Street Group refused help to the Knickerbocker Trust it had at
its disposal the gold in the United States Treasury--did not Cortelyou
actually put this gold at its disposal?--the credit of the United
States Government--did not Cortelyou at its bidding issue all the
bonds he was told to issue?--and enough money of its own at the proper
moment to purchase cotton and wheat bills at panic prices, so that
every ship that in November and December sailed from Europe to New
York came laden with gold?
No one can, I think, deny the power of the Group after a fair
consideration of these incidents. Let us see how this power was
exercised as regards the city of New York.
The Comptroller in a report published in November, 1907 (pages 5 and
6) showed that the city had not only voted, but appropriated over
$195,000,000 for, public works, much of which was urgently needed by
the city and some of which ought to have been completed four years
before. Yet this city of four million inhabitants, whose property is
underassessed at $7,000,000,000, was not able to employ its thousands
of unemployed at this urgently needed public work because, as
Comptroller Metz stated at a crowded meeting, Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan
would not give the money to do it with, _and the city could get it
from no one else_.[126]
Morgan allowed the city in October to issue $30,000,000 of its bonds
at 6 per cent, but refused to permit any further issue until the last
day of January. On January 29th, according to the New York _Sun_,[127]
Mr. Morgan relented, and the Mayor of the city, the Comptroller, the
Deputy Comptroller, the Corporation Counsel, and the City Chamberlain
were summoned to Mr. Morgan's library. There at last the imperial
consent was given; the richest city in America was allowed by Mr.
Morgan to issue its own bonds, but not in an amount large enough to
permit of any public works. So the unemployed were left to tramp
sleeplessly through our streets.
The Wall Street Group found another important element of profit in the
fall of securities during the panic. It has been said that securities
fell on an average 40 points when the Group sold securities between
January and March, 1907. Mr. James H. Brookmire estimates that they
fell another 16 points during the panic. The Group seemed informed as
to the exact moment at which securities had reached the bottom price;
that is, they knew the moment when the panic was intended to come to
an end. I was fortunate enough to be informed by a member of the Group
at the right moment. I purchased Northern Pacific stock upon the
advice given and, in the course of the year, made 50 per cent profit
thereupon. The Group that sold between January and March, 1907, was in
a position to buy back stock at less than one-half what they sold it
for and, if they chose to realize at the present time, it would make
an additional 50 per cent. In other words, it was in a position to
make over 100 per cent upon the whole transaction. When we keep in
mind the enormous figures which the operations of the Group attain,
the amount of profit realized upon this amount alone can be imagined.
I do not wish to be understood as pretending that the facts marshalled
in the foregoing pages constitute conclusive proofs that the Group
either made money by the panic, or withheld cash and credit for the
purpose of making money. It is possible that the sales of stock
between January and March and the repurchase of stock in November were
effected solely with a view to the public welfare; it is possible that
the Knickerbocker Trust Company was allowed to go to the wall solely
through error in judgment; it is possible that the Steel Trust
reluctantly purchased the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company as Messrs.
Gary and Frick explained to the President--solely for the purpose of
"stopping the panic." But practical business men are not accustomed to
concluding in this fashion. When the keenest appetites of humanity are
whetted to the utmost and opportunities are extended for the
satisfaction of these appetites, we generally conclude that these
opportunities are not refused through pure asceticism; at least not by
the Wall Street Group.
When Mrs. Forrest brought action against her husband, Edwin Forrest,
the actor, it was proved that the defendant had been seen visiting a
house of ill fame; after he entered, a third story front room was lit;
the room remained lit for about an hour; the light was extinguished at
the end of this period, and a few moments thereafter Mr. Forrest was
seen leaving the house. His counsel maintained that this was not
conclusive evidence against him; that his profession obliged him to
study human nature in every rank of life at close quarters, and that
it had not been proved that he visited this house for any other
purpose. Charles O'Conor in responding to this part of the defendant's
argument, said: "I can see the defendant walking up the steps of this
house of ill fame; I can see him enter and ushered into a room full of
human nature exclusively of the female sex ready and willing to be
studied at close quarters; I can see him select the one which he
believed to be able to furnish the best opportunities for this
purpose; I can see the two mount the stairs to the third story front
and light the gas; and I can see them together there devote an hour to
meditation and prayer." The jury was satisfied with the evidence and
rendered a verdict for divorce in favor of Mrs. Forrest.
Whatever be the opinion, however, as to whether or not the Wall Street
Group withheld funds to effect its purpose during the panic; or
whether it made money out of the panic, one thing is perfectly
certain--it was in a position where it could have withheld money; it
was in a position where it could have made money out of the panic. The
question the community has to decide is whether it is willing to leave
this power and this temptation to any group of bankers--either to the
saints now in control of Wall Street, or possibly to their less worthy
successors.
In one of the standard English works on Money,[128] George Clare
points out the exorbitant power of the Secretary of our Treasury:
"The New York Market is in fact at the mercy of an autocrat who,
having full power to loose or bind large masses of currency at his
absolute discretion, decides for himself whether and when money shall
be cheap, and whether and when it shall be dear."
This autocratic power is to-day at the disposal of the Wall Street
Group--not owing to any improper influence of the Group; not through
any improper conduct of the Treasury; but as a necessary result of
existing conditions. And if Mr. Clare is right in criticising the
wisdom of granting to the Treasury the autocratic power it now enjoys,
how much more dangerous is it to grant this autocratic power not to an
official who can be removed, but to a group of financiers who cannot
be removed? For the power exerted by the Wall Street Group includes
not only all the resources of the Treasury, but all the resources of
the entire country. It holds the life blood of our economic system in
its hands and, because it controls this life blood, it controls
politics, education, morals, and religion. And this group of men was
not elected to the position it now enjoys by the majority of our
citizens; it has usurped the position by virtue of its control over
silver and gold.
The fact, however, that the use of silver and gold as our sole medium
of exchange gives men control of the most essential things in our
life, whom we never elected to that office and who at critical times
have a personal interest to serve in opposition to that of the public
welfare, is not the only evil connected with their use:
Silver and gold do not furnish us with constant standards of values.
At various periods in the history of our civilization, gold and silver
have been discovered in enormous quantities, and the effect of the
discoveries and the putting of the gold and silver on the market has
been and must be of a character to seriously affect the interests of
all. When the amount of gold and silver in circulation is increased,
prices go up, but wages do not correspondingly rise; and the
wage-earner is unconsciously robbed. He goes on receiving the same
amount in gold or silver for his work, but the purchasing power of the
wage he receives diminishes. Again, when contraction takes place, as
for example when silver was demonetized in 1893, a great wrong was
done to the farmers who had borrowed money upon their farms; for by
demonetizing silver, gold increased correspondingly in value and the
farmer was called upon to pay his mortgages with money worth far more
than it was prior to the demonetization of silver.
One thing, however, we want to bear in mind, that although farmers
suffer by the demonetization of silver and wage-earners suffer by the
demonetization of silver, and no change in the amount of silver and
gold used as currency takes place without somebody suffering, the
financiers and all those who handle money are in a position so to
conduct their affairs as to profit by these changes. Meanwhile the
rest of the community are in such a position that they have not the
knowledge and even if they had the knowledge, would probably not have
the ability, to do anything but lose by them.
The average citizen has no knowledge on these subjects whatever, and
is therefore at the mercy of financial heretics. He was misled by the
greenback craze in the 80's, by the silver craze in the 90's, and is
subject to further delusions so long as coin remains the medium of
exchange and coin is controlled by a few individuals whose only
interest in it is to make out of it the largest fortune possible.
It must not be imagined that an attempt has been made to furnish
anything like an exhaustive account of the opportunities which
financiers have for profiting at the expense of the public. To do so
would require a volume as large as this one devoted entirely to this
subject.
For example, at this very time of writing,[129] the papers inform us
that Mr. Morgan is hurrying back from Europe to settle the question
whether a dividend is to be paid on the common stock of the United
States Steel Company. It is known that Mr. Morgan received a very
large block of this stock as his compensation for promoting the trust.
If he still has enough of this stock to make the payment of a dividend
of importance to him, or if he wants to sell at a high price, he will
be naturally influenced by this motive to declare a dividend. If, on
the other hand, he who best of all knows how prosperous the Company
is, desires to purchase more of this stock at a low price, he will be
tempted not to declare a dividend. The stock will fall and he will be
able to make a large profit by purchasing.
In this manner directors are always able, if they choose, to make
money on the declaration of doubtful dividends; and this can be done
without its being possible to impute any blame to them, for a
declaration of a dividend is always a matter of judgment. It is wise
to put aside a certain part of the profits as a reserve to meet hard
times, and just how much shall be put aside as a reserve and how much
shall be paid out for dividends are matters on which it is very
difficult for the best-intentioned men to agree. The directors,
however, who control the company can make up their minds beforehand
whether they will declare a dividend or not. If they propose to pass a
dividend, they can sell as much as the market permits and buy back
later at reduced prices. If they decide to declare a dividend, they
can buy as much as the market permits and sell later at advanced
prices.
Again, there seems to be no standard of morality amongst bankers as
regards the profits they make. In the ordinary walks of life, a man is
expected to be able to explain what the services are for which he
receives any considerable sum of money. This, however, does not seem
to be the case with bankers. In 1893, the United States Congress
appointed a committee to investigate the rumor that over a million
dollars had been remitted to J.P. Morgan & Company, Winslow Lanier &
Company and J. & W. Seligman for the purpose of corrupting Congress.
Messrs. Morgan, Lanier and Seligman were obliged to admit that a sum
of $1,200,000 had been divided among them, "apparently for the use of
their names and for nothing else." When asked if it had been remitted
for the purpose of corrupting Congress, they denied it; when asked if
they were still in possession of this sum, they admitted they were;
when asked what the services were for which they had received this
sum, they naïvely stated that they did not know.[130] Such an
admission made by a lawyer would be ground for having him disbarred.
The very moral or immoral attitude that permits of bankers receiving
enormous sums of money without being able to explain why these moneys
were paid to them, pervades the whole financial atmosphere.
The directors of our large corporations corrupt our legislatures; they
endow universities and pervert our education; they support the
churches and prevent them from preaching the doctrines of Christ; they
determine elections so as to secure legislators whom they can control.
They are masters, not only of our whole system of production and
distribution, but of our government and our laws. And this democracy
which in theory is a government of the people, by the people, and for
the people, turns out to be a government of the people, by financiers,
for financiers.
Nor does it seem possible to put an end to this condition of things so
long as our system of production and distribution is competitive; for
gold and silver have proved to be altogether the best mediums of
exchange, and some medium of exchange we must have in order to carry
on trade so long as that trade is left to individual initiative as at
present.
The whole community pays tribute to those who have gold and silver and
those who handle it, and these last have a personal interest contrary
to the interest of the public at moments of the greatest emergency.
Competitive conditions have subjected the whole currency of the
country to the control of a few men who thereby are masters of our
commerce, our manufactures, our exports, our politics, our religion.
In view of the fact that this small group practically governs the
country in matters of legislation, and by virtue of a sort of class
solidarity between the judges and the possessing class, governs the
courts also, the men who determine the making and executing of our
laws should, in a democracy such as ours, be elected by the people.
But they are not elected by the people and they are not removable by
the people. They are irremovable usurpers; they are created by
economic conditions and, as long as these economic conditions last,
they will continue to enjoy the power they now exercise.
FOOTNOTES:
[115] An article by Charles A. Conant in the _Atlantic Monthly_, Jan.,
1908.
[116] _Atlantic Monthly_, Charles A. Conant, Jan., 1908, p. 101.
[117] Insurance Year Book: Life and Casualty sections, 1909, p. 236-7.
[118] Statistical abstract of the U.S., 1908.
[119] "Monetary and Banking Systems." By Maurice L. Muhleman, formerly
U.S. Deputy Assistant Treasurer at New York.
[120] Ibid.
[121] According to computations made by Mr. James H. Brookmire on
quotations of twenty representative railroad stocks, these reached at
the highest point in 1906, 138. In March, these securities had gone
down to 98.
[122] N.Y. _Press_, Oct. 22, 1907.
[123] See N.Y. _Times_, Jan. 30, 1909.
[124] N.Y. _Times_, February 1, 1909.
[125] The N.Y. _Times_, Jan. 7, 1909.
[126] N.Y. _Sun_, Jan. 17, 1908.
[127] Ibid., Jan. 30, 1908.
[128] "A Money Market Primer," by George Clare. Recommended by the
Council of the Institute of Bankers. Revised edition, London, 1896, p.
123.
[129] July 16, 1909.
[130] House Reports, 52d Congress, 2d Session, v. 3, No. 2615, p. 5.
CHAPTER VII
CAN THE EVILS OF CAPITALISM BE ELIMINATED BY COÖPERATION?
One of our ablest captains of industry has lately collected articles
and addresses on this subject in a book entitled, "Problems of the
Day." If we were to eliminate from this book the errors under which
Mr. Carnegie labors as to what Socialism is, we could make of it an
admirable piece of Socialist propaganda. For Mr. Carnegie, although
denouncing Socialism in every page, believes in giving the workingman
an interest in the factory, and carries his belief in this system so
far that he actually looks forward to the day when labor will reach
"an equality with the millionaire as his partner in business."[131] He
cites as an example of what could be done in this direction the Filene
stores of Boston, the capital stock of which he says is held
"exclusively by employees." Now this is exactly the system which
modern Socialism wants to bring into existence. Because, therefore,
Mr. Carnegie does not belong to the Platonic School of Socialism which
suggests the breaking-up of the home and is denounced by all practical
Socialists of to-day; and because he disapproves of the abolition of
wealth, as do all practical Socialists of to-day, he deserves to
occupy a front rank in our Socialist army for having put his finger
upon the real evil--competition; and for having pointed the way to
the real solution--the substitution, of coöperation for competition
all through our industrial system.
One thing, however, Mr. Carnegie has failed to appreciate: namely,
that when all our industries are organized on the principle of the
Filene stores--when, as Mr. Carnegie explains, the capital stock of
every industry and department store is held exclusively by employees,
the worker will not be the partner of the millionaire--he will have
superseded him. I am afraid this is not what Mr. Carnegie wants, at
least not in his day. But when he really wants this as much as in his
book he seems to want it, Mr. Carnegie will be qualified to be a
member of the Socialist party.
There is an important distinction to be made between coöperation and
coöperatives, because coöperatives may be divided into two very
different classes: capitalistic coöperatives and socialistic
coöperatives.
The capitalistic coöperatives are either the efforts of capitalists to
secure the fidelity of employees by giving them a minute share in the
profits of the business, or the efforts of employees to benefit
themselves by eliminating capitalists without eliminating capitalism;
in other words, the fact that such coöperatives undertake to produce
or distribute commodities under the competitive _régime_, converts
them into capitalists.
In marked contrast to these are the coöperative stores of Belgium,
organized in part to improve the condition of those engaged in them,
but also with the view of putting an end to capitalism altogether.
These are performing a work of inestimable value to Socialism and the
Socialist party in Belgium, while materially helping those who belong
to them, they at the same time hold up as the standard aimed at, not
the mere material improvement of themselves, but the ultimate triumph
of an ideal.
The field for coöperation is so vast that it cannot be traversed in
the scope of this work. I shall close this subject therefore with the
suggestion that all coöperatives--even the capitalistic--are good and
useful, for they tend to educate. It is true that they may also
occasion evil; as for example, the Steel Trust when it encourages
employees to purchase stock, while it discourages and destroys
trade-union organization, and thereby creates an aristocracy of labor
which tends to prevent the sense of solidarity in labor ranks that
Marxians regard as essential to the triumph of the Socialist cause.
But the evil it does is probably compensated by the good. Incidentally
it furnishes us Socialists with a triumphant answer to Mr. Carnegie:
Here in his city of Pittsburg which he built up with his genius, is
the principle of coöperation adopted which he regards as the solution
of all our ills; yet it is this very Pittsburg that to-day furnishes
to the whole world the most abominable picture of exploitation ever
presented.[132] We Socialists are indeed fortunate that this picture
has been drawn not by ourselves, but by those who are to-day the most
intelligently opposing us.
FOOTNOTES:
[131] "Problems of the Day," by Andrew Carnegie, p. 76.
[132] The Pittsburg Survey, published by the Russell Sage Foundation.
BOOK III
_WHAT SOCIALISM IS_
Socialism is too vast a subject to be brought within the four corners
of any one definition. It is as impossible for a definition to convey
an idea of Socialism as for an empty theater to convey the comedies,
the idylls, and the tragedies nightly enacted on its boards. A
definition can at best barely give the mechanism of Socialism; it
cannot furnish a picture of the effect of that mechanism in
eliminating misery, in promoting progress, in making character. This
must be painted on a canvas--and on a large canvas--and on many
canvases--for, as has been already urged, Socialism is not a simple
thing; it is a highly complex thing; and it is only when we have
grasped _all_ that Socialism will effect--when we have studied its
economic results, its political results, its scientific results, and
its ethical results--that we can appreciate this new Gospel of the
Poor.
Socialism not only derives strength from each of these results, it
unites the divergencies between economics and politics, and solves the
conflict between science and religion. So that these four great
departments of human thought, instead of being independent or actually
in conflict with one another, find themselves in Socialism united in
one great harmonious whole.
Just as Christianity derived its strength from the discontent of the
oppressed, so Socialism has pushed its first roots in the misery of
the proletariat. But we do not judge of a flower exclusively from its
roots. So must we not judge Socialism exclusively from that part of it
which at present flourishes in dark tenements and in the misery of the
unemployed. It is our fault that the tenements are dark, that the
unemployed suffer. It will be our fault if Socialism remains the
Gospel of the Poor when we can make of it the final Gospel of the
whole human race.
For humanity has nearly finished the first great phase of its
existence; it has played the rôle of the worm long enough; already is
it cribbed, cabined, and confined by silk threads of its own weaving
that for a hundred years the cocoon has been accumulating about it,
repressing here, regulating there, till it is stifling under
limitations created by itself. But the very pressure of these
limitations has been developing new functions in us--a conscience
restive under false standards, a capacity for wider sympathies--the
wings of the grub, destined to burst the chrysalis of worn-out
prejudices, regulations, legislations, and despotisms; to spread out
into new spaces where there shall be development and happiness.
Whether these hopes are well founded or not is the subject of our
inquiry, beginning first with Economics--the roots of our flower;
proceeding then to Politics--its stem; next to Science--its structure,
and lastly to Morality and Religion--its blossom and its fruit. And if
I group Morality and Religion, it is because these have both from the
beginning of years and not always hand in hand, been groping after the
same thing--Happiness.
CHAPTER I
THE ECONOMIC ASPECT OF SOCIALISM
Let us begin by considering how large a part of our population is now
devoting its entire time to the work of competition, as distinguished
from that which is devoting its time to the task of production.
It is obvious that all who are devoting their time to the work of
competition would, in a coöperative commonwealth, be free to give
their entire time to production; and the time they gave to production
would be so much taken away from the time which those now engaged in
production have to give to it. For example, the United States to-day
keeps alive, according to the census of 1900, over 76,000,000 men,
women, and children; of these the working population is estimated at a
little over 29,000,000, of which, however, many are not engaged in
production or distribution; as for example, actors, clergymen,
lawyers, soldiers; and although some others, such as journalists,
physicians, and surgeons, are not occupied in production and
distribution, they nevertheless are so necessary to every community
that they may be regarded as a part of the working population. The
percentage excluded, however, by excluding those not engaged in
production and distribution, is so small that it is not worth while
taking them into account; and for purposes of easy calculation we
should, therefore, consider the whole population in round
figures--75,000,000, of which 30,000,000 are engaged in production
and distribution, the remaining 45,000,000 consisting of the aged,
sick, women, and children who cannot work and in fact, all who by
wealth or disability are deprived of the necessity of working. Now if,
of the 30,000,000 who do the work of production, it is found that
15,000,000, or one-half, are engaged in work that results from the
competitive character of our industrial system, it is clear that in a
Socialist community in which there is no competition, these 15,000,000
would be applied to the work of production; and therefore every man
would have to work only one-half the number of hours he now works in
order to keep the community alive.
Let us see if we can form any idea how many are engaged in the
wasteful work of competition, and how many, therefore, would in a
Socialist society be set free to relieve the labor of those engaged in
production.
It is conceded that of every one hundred men who start a new business
ninety become insolvent. This means that for every ten fit and able to
conduct a new business ninety engage in new business who are unable to
earn their bread at it. In a coöperative commonwealth the exact number
of men necessary to conduct business in any given place could be
mathematically determined; and the ninety unsuccessful men who are now
engaged in futile efforts to destroy the business of the ten
successful men would be employed in production to their own advantage
and to the relief of those already engaged therein.
The wastefulness, however, of the present plan is not confined to the
circumstance that many are engaged in attempting to do what can better
be done by a few, but is increased by the fact that in the conflict
between the successful and the unsuccessful a vast horde of men are
employed by competition, who would be thrown out of employment and
therefore be serviceable for production in case competition were
avoided. Amongst the men so employed are commercial travellers; these
men occasion waste to the community, not only because instead of
themselves producing they are living on the production of others, but
because they constitute a large part of the passenger traffic of the
country. The railroads are put to the expense of carrying these
travellers all over the United States that they may each have an
opportunity in every corner of the United States of decrying the goods
of one another. And this throws a side light on the evils of our
present plan, for the railroads have an interest in encouraging this
work. If they did not have this horde of commercial travellers to
carry about the country, many of them might not be able to pay
interest on their bonds. The testimony taken by the Industrial
Commission furnishes admirable instances of the waste attending
competitive production and the corresponding economy that would attend
a Socialist system. Mr. Edson Bradley, President of the American
Spirits Manufacturing Company, testifies that in the whisky business
"somewhere between the distiller and the consumer in this country,
$40,000,000 is lost. This goes primarily to the attempt to secure
trade."[133] Now the whole capital invested in liquors and beverages
is, according to the last census, $660,000,000, whereas the total
manufactures amount to about $12,686,000,000. It will be seen,
therefore, that the capital invested in liquors and beverages is about
one-twentieth of that invested in other manufactures. If, therefore,
$40,000,000 are lost in getting the trade in the liquor business, it
may be inferred that twenty times this amount--that is to say,
$800,000,000--are lost in getting the trade by all the manufactures in
the country. This represents only the expense of advertising in
manufactures; it does not cover the advertising done by the whole
retail trade, the department stores, insurance companies--life
insurance, fire insurance, title insurance--real estate agents, quack
medicines, and that vast body of population known as middlemen, who
raise the price of commodities to the consumer and whose services
would be eliminated in a coöperative commonwealth.
This latter class of advertising is very much larger than that of the
manufacturer, because it is the peculiar function of the retailer to
sell--to get the market--and the burden of advertising falls heavier
upon him. If $800,000,000 therefore represents the cost to the
manufacturer of getting the market, it is probable that the total cost
of getting the market by the whole community does not fall short of
twice this sum.
The advertiser practically pays the whole cost of printing and
publishing the innumerable newspapers and magazines of this country.
The one cent paid for such a paper as the _American_ does not cover
the cost of the paper alone; it is the advertisements that pay
handsomely for all the rest.
Advertising would be unnecessary in a coöperative system, where
practically everything would be furnished by a single industry. As the
Reverend E. Ellis Carr says,[134] the United States Government does
not find it necessary to advertise postage stamps. The Standard Oil no
longer advertises oil. Those of us who are old enough remember how,
prior to the organization of the oil trust, our fences were placarded
by the rival claims of a dozen different oils: Pratt's Astral oil,
etc., in letters of huge and ungainly size.
The only advertising necessary would be that of private enterprises
started in such industries as did not give satisfaction to the public,
and these, it is to be hoped, would be relatively small.
Mr. Dowe, President of the Commercial Travellers' National League,
testified[135] that "35,000 salesmen had been thrown out of employment
by the organization of trusts and 25,000 reduced to two-thirds of
their previous salaries.... The Baking Powder Trust has replaced men
at $4000 to $5000 a year by others at $18 a week.... The displacement
of travelling men represents also large loss to railways, amounting,
on the estimate that each traveller spends $2.50 a day for 240 days,
to $27,000,000, while the loss to hotels would be at least as much as
to railways." Adding up these losses, we reach the following result:
35,000 salesmen at an average compensation
(including commissions) of $3000 each a year $105,000,000
Loss in railroad travelling 27,000,000
Loss in hotel expenses 27,000,000
------------
Together $159,000,000
In the few industries, therefore, in which competition has been
diminished by the trust system, an economy of $159,000,000 was
estimated to have been already effected in the employment of salesmen
alone. And this was ten years ago. These figures enable us to
appreciate the enormous economy that would result from an elimination
of competition from our industries. An economy that constitutes a loss
to commercial travellers, railroads, and hotels under the competitive
system would constitute a pure gain to a Socialist community; for it
would mean so much more labor for production. Our present system then
encourages useless expenditure, whereas Socialism would eliminate it.
Another important economy would be made in the running of public
enterprises, through the absence of the necessity of collecting
revenue therefrom. In municipal tramways, for example, one-half the
force could be dispensed with, for the functions of the conductor are
practically confined to collecting fares. A similar economy would be
practised on railroads; in telegrams; no stamps would be required for
postage; no costly corps of clerks for bookkeeping.
Under our system gas is furnished to our cities by gas companies, each
one of which tears up the streets at great detriment to public
convenience and health, to lay its mains for the mere purpose of
competing with existing companies, with the result of forcing a
consolidation which tends to make gas dearer instead of cheaper to the
consumer. Professor Ely estimates[136] that the consolidation of gas
companies in Baltimore has cost eighteen millions, of which ten
millions represent pure loss.
Much the same thing is true of railroads. Professor Ely quotes a
railroad manager who states that if the railways of the United States
were managed as a unit instead of by competing companies, such
management would effect an economy of two hundred million dollars a
year; he cites, as an instance of useless paralleling of roads, the
numerous railroads which connect New York with Chicago. He estimates
that these lines cost two hundred million dollars, and that the
maintenance of the useless lines involves perpetual loss. To-day, when
railroads have doubled in length and traffic, the possible economy may
well be estimated at twice this amount. He is obliged, however, to
admit that the paralleling of railroads results in considerable
accommodation, when parallel lines pass through different places and
occasion some advantage in the time-table. With many lines in the
United States this, however, is not the case. The Colorado Midland
parallels the Denver and Rio Grande, passing through virtually the
same places, and as both are subjected to the necessity of connecting
and forwarding passengers to lines at their extremities, both are
obliged to run trains at the same hours. There is in this case no
advantage either to the time-table or to new places.
Nor does the competition of parallel roads always furnish better
accommodation to the public. Between Chicago and Denver one line is
able easily to run trains from place to place in twenty-four hours;
but for the purpose of avoiding a freight war with competing lines, it
has entered into an arrangement with them under which it agrees not to
run passenger trains in less than thirty-six hours. The public,
therefore, instead of gaining, loses an advantage of twelve hours,
thereby learning at no small inconvenience that competition does not
always compete.
What is true of the railroads and gas companies is also true of
telegraph business. The Western Union was capitalized at one hundred
million dollars. It is estimated that the cost of laying the lines
actually used by the Western Union was not more than twenty millions;
eighty million dollars, therefore, have been wasted by the existing
system, which encourages private companies to construct lines with the
result of compelling other companies to buy them up. Professor Ely
adds that "it cost England nearly as much to make the telegraph a part
of the postoffice as it did all the other countries of Europe put
together, because in these the telegraph has been from the beginning
a part of the postoffice, and the wastes of competition had been
avoided."[137]
Another most wasteful feature attending our present system is the
expense of distributing goods; for example, the articles which enter
most into our daily life, milk, bread, butter, eggs, meat, fish, and
vegetables. Compare the method of distributing these things with that
for distributing letters adopted by the postoffice. The fact that the
government is the only instrumentality through which letters are
distributed permits it to effect economy in time, labor, and expense
by sorting the letters beforehand according to streets and confining
the distribution in any one street to a single carrier, who
distributes the letters door by door.
This is the economical system for distributing all things in regular
use that would be adopted by the Socialist plan. Compare this now with
the plan necessitated by the competitive system. Every block is served
with milk by a number of milk dealers instead of by one;[138] every
block is furnished with bread by a very large number of dealers
instead of by one; every block is furnished with meat by a very large
number of dealers instead of by one; and so on through every article
which enters into our daily use.
Not only is there great waste of labor in the business of producing
and distributing the necessaries of life under the competitive system,
but the system itself creates a large class of business that absorbs
much of the wealth of the community and employs a very large number of
its members. For example, under a socialist system there would no
longer be any necessity or advantage in insurance, whether against
death or fire, or accident, or hail, or defective title, or any other
danger. The reason of this is obvious: we insure against pecuniary
loss arising out of these accidents because otherwise the whole loss
will fall upon ourselves. In a Socialist society some of occasions for
loss would not exist at all, and those that did exist would fall upon
the entire people and would consequently be inappreciable by any one
member of it. For example, a man insures his life so that his children
will not be reduced to poverty by his death; but in the Socialist
society the widow and the child are provided for, being all of them
members and all sharers in its income. Death in such a case would
practically not constitute a loss to the state financially, because
the number of deaths of the very old and the very young--the
unproductive members of the community--is far greater than that of its
productive members.
Insurance companies are beginning to understand the importance of
keeping their policy holders in good health. The Metropolitan Life
Insurance Company is to-day maintaining nurses for this purpose.
Another business that would be eliminated in a Socialist state is the
entire business done by brokers; not only Wall Street brokers, but
real estate brokers, mining brokers, and brokers of every description,
in so far as they are engaged in competition. The abolition of Wall
Street would carry with it the abolition of gambling in stocks which
is a necessary feature thereof. No law has yet been devised, though
the attempt has often been made, that would, so long as the
competitive system endures, put a stop to gambling in stocks. A law
which would successfully stop gambling in stocks would stop legitimate
dealing in stocks also. But the immoral element involved in "puts" and
"calls" is only an exaggeration of the immoral element involved in all
industrial transactions built upon the principle of private profit.
For although business can be conducted in such a way as only to
furnish to those engaged in it a fair remuneration, it perpetually
furnishes a temptation to contrive so that it shall furnish a large
rather than a fair return. In fact, the whole struggle of business
consists in endeavoring to secure the largest return of profit for the
least expenditure of labor. The man who succeeds in getting the
largest return for the least expenditure is the successful business
man; and no man does this with more security than the next class to
which attention may be called, whose occupation would come to an end
in the Socialist state; namely, the bankers.
It would take too long to enter here into an accurate and fair
estimate of the service rendered by the banker and the reward he
obtains for it. Most writers who favor Socialism undervalue the
functions of the banker. They are so impressed by the enormous incomes
which bankers make that they do not appreciate the great services they
render; and although, in a Socialist state, the banker _qua_ banker
would tend to disappear, the man who to-day does the work of a banker
would, it is hoped, do the same work for the state. So that although
the business of banking would disappear, the best form of government
would be that in which individuals who have been discovered to be best
fitted for the onerous and difficult duties of finance would be those
to whom these duties would be intrusted. Whether the man best fitted
to do this difficult work would be intrusted with it under the
Socialist plan is a doubt raised as an objection to Socialism which
will be considered later.[139]
Another large class of intelligent men, now engaged in carrying on the
quarrels which result from the competitive system, would be left
without an occupation under the Socialist plan; namely, the lawyers.
With them, the hatred and vindictiveness which arise from litigation
would in a Socialist society, in great part, disappear also. For
lawyers constitute the class whose business it is to conduct these
quarrels, and, alas! also to inflame them. When we consider that in
New York city alone there are nearly ten thousand practising lawyers,
and add to these the clerks, stenographers, bookkeepers, and
office-boys employed by each of them, those employed in the courts,
the sheriff's office, the county clerk's office, marshals, deputy
sheriffs, and others; and take into account that most of these men are
engaged in fighting, we cannot but be struck by the enormous advantage
to the community of a system which would practically eliminate this
class altogether.
I must not be understood to mean, however, that there would be no
necessity for courts under the Socialist plan. Even though crimes
against property were eliminated by Socialism, there would still be a
temptation to commit crime, owing to sexual jealousy and in a certain
degree to intemperance and idleness. It cannot be doubted that
intemperance and idleness would tend to diminish with the
disappearance of the misery that reduces men to the physical condition
that engenders these vices, but there would still, doubtless, be some
intemperance and some idleness; there would certainly remain unhappy
marriages; and as every man is to remain possessed of a small amount
of property there would be minute questions of property sometimes
involved. But it is hardly conceivable that such questions could
involve any system of justice more elaborate than that of the justice
of the peace, and possibly a single court of appeal. The diminution of
competition would so simplify the law that no question would be likely
to arise that the parties to the litigation could not themselves
explain. How little litigation would be likely under a Socialist
_régime_ may be judged by comparing the litigation to which the
administration of the postoffice gives rise with the interminable
lawsuits which result from the administration of railroads.[140]
Moreover, it is to be hoped that a Socialist community would at last
have leisure to study criminology and to understand that the criminal
has to be treated as a sick man rather than a wicked one. The whole
system of criminal procedure would be changed, and the type now known
as the criminal lawyer would disappear. The existing system, under
which every prosecuting officer considers his reputation involved in
securing the punishment of every accused person brought before the
court,[141] necessarily gives rise to a corresponding class of lawyer
who regards his reputation as well as his fee involved in opposing the
efforts of the prosecuting officer by any means, however
unjustifiable. Of course, to the extent to which the competitive
system was left standing, there would have to be lawyers to protect
competitive interests. But these lawyers would be supported by the
competitive system.
If, now, we consider that the large number of men liberated by the
substitution of Socialism for our present form of government would not
only diminish the labor of those now engaged in production, but that
it constitutes the part of our population engaged in fanning the flame
of hatred in the minds of men, the advantage to a community of having
this perpetual source of trouble removed will be obvious. But we are
not concerned so much now with the reduction of hatred under the
Socialist plan as with its economy.
Let us next pass to the consideration of the wastefulness involved in
the field of production itself:
In 1894 horses in the West became so valueless that they were left
unbranded by their owners, lest the branding of them involve the
payment of taxes thereupon. Cattle, on the other hand, have of late
risen in value; the price of them fell so low some time ago as to
involve the ruin of all those largely engaged in raising them; but
to-day everyone is rushing back into this business. This state of
things furnishes a fair opportunity of judging how imperfectly
informed the producer is as to the needs of the community. _He is only
informed that the community is overstocked with an article by being
ruined in the course of producing it._ This plan is not only
productive of misery to a large number of individuals in every
community, but is necessarily an extremely wasteful one. The object of
every community ought to be to produce the things it needs, not the
things it does not need. The present system, on the contrary, obliges
the community to be continually producing the things it does not need
as the only means by which it can arrive at a knowledge of what it
does need.
For under the existing system, overproduction occasions a surplusage
of things in themselves valuable, but the exchange value of which has
been diminished by their abundance. And the producer cannot afford to
keep this surplusage, because he has fixed charges to pay. He has to
sell his crop at a loss because he must have money to pay rent, or
interest on mortgage, or salaries, or for his own support during the
year. It is this pressure he is under to sell which impoverishes him.
And its consequences are far-reaching; for as the price of raw cotton
goes down, cotton manufacturers are encouraged to buy, and to increase
the output of their factories; and so overproduction of raw material
tends to result in overproduction of manufactured goods.
In a Socialist society the industry or good harvest of one year would
have for effect a diminution of labor the next; or greater comfort or
luxury next year for the same labor; no man's labor would be lost, and
the bountifulness of Nature would be a blessing and not, as now, a
misfortune.
The efforts to prevent the overproduction of cotton in the South gave
rise to a convention in 1892, regarding which Professor Ely quotes a
telegram from Memphis, January 8, as follows:
"That the farmers of the South are in earnest in their endeavors to
solve the serious problems of overproduction of cotton is evinced by
the enthusiastic meeting of delegates to the convention of the
Mississippi Valley Cotton Growers' Association, which was called to
order in this city this morning."[142]
And again the speech of the President of the Boston Chamber of
Commerce:
"In 1890 we harvested a cotton crop of over eight million
bales--several hundred thousand bales more than the world could
consume. Had the crops of the present year been equally large, it
would have been an appalling calamity to the section of our country
that devotes so large a portion of its labor and capital to the
raising of cotton."[143]
Nothing could better illustrate the evil of our present system and the
benefits of Socialism than such a state of things as is described in
the speech already quoted from the President of the Boston Chamber of
Commerce.[144] If in a Socialist Society more bales of cotton were
produced in any given year than the community or the world could
consume, the community would store away the unused cotton and modify
its agriculture in a manner to bring the cotton crop into proper
relation to existing needs. But such an event could not be an
"appalling calamity"; it could not be anything but a benefit; so much
more wealth for the community; so much less labor for its citizens.
And what is true of the cotton crop is equally true of all other
crops. Overproduction is impossible in a coöperative community, for
all the overproduction of one year would mean less work in that
particular kind of production the next. Every citizen in the community
would profit by so-called overproduction instead of, as now, suffering
from it.
Overproduction is closely allied to invention, which, as is well
known, has been a source of despair to workingmen; for improvements in
machinery almost always throw large numbers of them out of employment.
In India, as has been described, the destruction of hand-loom weavers
by machinery brought about a misery hardly paralleled in the history
of war; "the bones of the cotton-weavers are bleaching on the plains
of India." Yet invention, far from bringing distress to the
workingmen, as under our system it must, would in a coöperative
commonwealth prove an unqualified advantage. For every invention that
increases the efficiency of human labor diminishes the amount of time
that must be spent in labor to obtain the same result. In a
coöperative state the saving of labor is a benefit to every individual
in the community, whereas under the competitive system the saving of
labor is of immediate benefit to the owner of the patent alone, and
means immediate distress to the laborers it particularly affects.
A standard objection to Socialism is that it would remove all stimulus
to invention. This I believe to be a profound mistake.
In the first place, inventors are not always urged to invention by the
prospect of financial reward. The great discoveries of humanity, at
the basis of all our practical advances, were made by men who neither
sought nor obtained a reward therefor. It was not with the view of
making money that Newton discovered and propounded the laws of
gravity, or Ohm the laws of electrical resistance. Nor do inventors
to-day reap the reward of their inventions. Capitalists often have an
interest in suppressing inventions; for inventions generally involve
the expensive transformation of existing plants. For example, Mr.
Babbage[145] describes how a patent for welding gun-barrels by
machinery had long been unused because of the cheapness of hand labor;
but as soon as a strike forced up wages recourse was had to the
patent, which until then had been neglected.
Capitalists often prefer to dispense with an improvement rather than
go to the expense which improvements generally occasion. This was the
unwritten motive for the opposition of England to the construction of
the Suez Canal, and was believed by M. DeLesseps to be the motive of
their opposition to the Panama Canal.[146] Again, no one who has had
personal acquaintance with inventors can believe that their
discoveries are to any material extent the result of financial motive.
It would be difficult to imagine the conditions under which Edison and
Maxim would not invent. They cannot help inventing; they are as much
under a necessity to invent as a hen to lay eggs. Undoubtedly there
are certain environments which favor the production and utilization of
inventing types, and others that disfavor the production and
utilization of such types. And undoubtedly a motive for invention is a
part of the environment which does contribute to invention; but would
such a motive be wanting in a Socialist society? I think it can be
shown that it would not only be present, but would be a stronger
motive in the Socialist society than in our own; for under our own the
reward which an inventor receives for an invention is a patent, and a
patent is, as all lawyers will testify, merely a subject for
litigation. In other words, every man who invents a useful thing has
to overcome the objections of the patent office; the objections of
infringers; the objections of owners of machines which would be
superseded, all three obstacles of no small order. And not until they
are all overcome, if indeed, they are, is the patent likely to be a
source of income to the inventor. Under the Socialist order, however,
every man is interested in increasing the productiveness of society to
diminish the hours of labor; and nothing, moreover, would be easier
than for a Socialist Society exceptionally to reward invention by
diminishing the hours of labor due to it by the inventor.
If an inventor by any one invention shortened the hours of labor in an
aggregate amount equivalent to a lifetime of his own work for the
community, he ought to be relieved of the necessity of himself doing
further work. If the invention were clearly due to inventive skill and
not to accident, it would be to the interest of the industry in which
he was engaged to furnish him with a laboratory where he could
experiment with a view to further invention, as the General Electric
Company does for its inventors and Mr. Westinghouse for his. There is
not one inventor in a hundred but would laboriously avail of such an
opportunity; for the delight of an inventor is to invent. So inventors
would constitute one of the Honor group of the community. They would
receive during their lives the consideration due to their
inventiveness and industry. At present the enormous majority of
inventors die poor and unknown. Of all the inventors in America only
three that I know of are rich, Westinghouse, Bell, and Edison.
Practically all the rest have been victims of their own inventive
faculty. Who knows the name of the inventor of the slot machine so
much in vogue to-day? His name was Percival Everitt, and he died a
pauper in the street.
But we need not have recourse to argument to demonstrate that
pecuniary reward is not necessary to stimulate invention. There is one
profession in which a germ of self-respect has established the rule
that no discovery or invention shall receive pecuniary reward--the
medical profession. No doctor who wants to keep or earn a standing
patents a medicine or surgical instrument. Those who do so are at once
ostracized. Medicine or surgical inventions are deemed by
self-respecting doctors too important to the community for the
inventor to limit their use by patent.
If this idea of social service to-day animates the medical profession,
why should it not ultimately animate other professions, other
industries, other occupations? Why should it not animate them all?
Another profession has furnished the elements for all invention and has
never asked a pecuniary reward--I mean the teachers. If, for example, we
take such a subject as electricity, it will be found that all the
fundamental discoveries that enable the modern use of electricity are
due entirely to the researches of men who, out of sheer love of the
work, added research to the occupations for which they were paid. Sir
Isaac Newton was the first to discover the use of glass as a
non-conductor of electricity. Galvani and Volta, who gave their
names--one to Galvanic, and the other to Voltaic electricity--were
professors in Italy. The action of the electric current on a compass
needle was discovered by Professor H.O. Oersted in Copenhagen; and the
nature of electro-motive force, current strength and resistance, were
determined by Professor G.S. Ohm in Holland. But the greatest
discoveries of all were made by Faraday, who refused a title in order to
remain a professor all the days of his life. Is it possible that with
the record of these men before us, we can maintain the theory that gain
is the only stimulus to invention? If we think a little, we shall see
how essentially childish this notion is.
There are three principal motives for invention:
The desire to make money is one, but my experience of inventors has
persuaded me that it is the least, and is only perceptible in
inventors of the smallest caliber.
The faculty of invention is itself the determining motive. A man who
has a faculty _must_ exercise that faculty or suffer. The artist
_must_ paint; the sculptor _must_ sculpt; the musician _must_ make
music; the poet _must_ make rhymes. Lowell said that when he had no
time to state a proposition carefully in prose, he stated it in rhyme.
No one who has worked with inventors would be guilty of the error that
inventors need the stimulus of money reward. The mind of the inventor
teems with inventions as a herring at spawning season teems with
spawn. And as the herring must relieve herself of her spawn so must
the inventor relieve himself of his inventions. One great inventor of
the present day was in 1883 so fertile that the company who had
secured his exclusive services paid him to go to Europe and stop
inventing in order to avoid the ruinous expense of taking out his
patents. The inventor is driven by two forces: a function that insists
upon being exercised, and the pleasure which this exercise occasions.
Every man who can do a thing well loves doing that thing. To-day when
athletics bring notoriety it is very natural to conclude that men row
to get this notoriety. But in the old days when there was little or no
notoriety, men who could row, rowed for the pleasure of it; men who
could box, boxed for the pleasure of it. So to-day because a few
inventors--a very few--have become wealthy, the conclusion is drawn
that inventors invent only to make money. It is a pardonable fallacy,
but one that it takes very little intellectual effort to explode.
A man gifted with curiosity and imagination will forget altogether the
needs of the body in his effort to attain his end. Inventors are
notoriously improvident. Bernard Palissy not only forgot to eat, but
to furnish food to his wife and children. Nay, he not only starved
himself and them, but burned his furniture to the last chair in his
desperate efforts to get the glaze he was in search of. A chemist will
forget mealtime and bedtime in his laboratory. There is no force in
the world more compelling than the force of an idea; none to which the
body is under a more complete subjection. An inventor in pursuit of a
solution needs no more stimulus than a stag in the rutting season in
pursuit of his doe. The theory that he does, and that it is the
stimulus of money that he needs, is that of the amateur who has never
seen an inventor at work, or of the bookkeeper who reduces
everything--body, mind, soul, and heart--to dollars and cents.
An inventor may have been compelled to abandon research by the
necessity of making money or by the difficulty of finding it. Many an
one has been crushed by just such difficulties as these; and indeed it
may justly be said that more inventions are lost to us by the money
difficulty than are secured to us by the stimulus of a money reward.
A third motive is the desire for consideration which is at the bottom
of many other desires--at the bottom even of the desire for money
itself. For if we analyze the desire for money we shall perceive that
it includes two very different motives: the motive of prudence--the
desire to secure the comforts and luxuries of life; and the motive of
ambition, or the desire for the consideration of others. Now the
former is the first in time, for a man must begin by securing the
material things of life. But once these are secured the motive that
keeps men making money is desire for consideration. And this desire,
though evil when excessive, is in moderation one of the greatest of
human virtues; for it sets men upon deserving the affection of their
neighbors and promotes unselfishness and self-sacrifice. One of the
curses of the competitive system is that the desire for
consideration, which in its essence is a virtue, is converted by our
money system into a vice, because money is the chief instrument in
securing consideration.[147] More will have to be said on this subject
later. Here we may content ourselves with noting that in a Socialist
society consideration will be secured not meretriciously through
money, but deservedly through service. The inventor who shortens hours
of labor for the community will belong to the Honor Roll. He will
secure this recognition not after having forced his invention on the
capitalist and fought its merits through the courts, created
unemployment for his fellows, and crushed competition out of the field
his patent covers--but directly from the industry he has benefited,
without the waste that attends the establishing of patent rights
to-day. The inventor under Socialism will have a stronger stimulus
than he has to-day; for the chances of securing livelihood and
consideration are certainly not more than one in a hundred, whereas
under Socialism they will be a hundred to one. There will not be the
opposition of invested capital to overcome; nor the hostility of his
fellow-workman; nor the villainy of the infringer. If his invention
can reduce the hours of labor or otherwise benefit the community, it
will be hailed with delight and honor. And so even though he need no
stimulus he will under Socialism have it; for his reward will be
prompt and secure.
Moreover, as Professor Ely has pointed out, the tendency of invention
in a Socialist state would be to replace work which now involves
drudgery by machinery that would tend to lessen or eliminate it.
If it were conceivable that a law could be made or enforced requiring
that millionaires, and none but millionaires, were to serve as
stokers, there is no doubt that all the ingenuity in the land would at
once be put to making the work of stoking less detestable than it now
is; if necessary, naval architecture would be so reformed from top to
bottom, as to reduce the work of stoking to that pressure of a finger
upon a button which is the only physical work imposed by modern
conditions upon the millionaire to-day.
The improvements due to invention would in a Socialist society differ,
perhaps, in character but not in quantity, for invention obeys the
particular stimulus which gives rise to it. Thus Karl Marx points
out[148] that mechanical traction was not introduced into mines until
a law forbade the use of women and children there, and the "half-time
system stimulated the invention of the piecing-machine," thereby
replacing child labor in woolen-yarn manufacture. Again, immense
improvements have been made in charging and drawing gas retorts, owing
to labor troubles, and there is no doubt that all arduous work would
soon be made less arduous if we all had to take a turn at it.
The objection that Socialism, would destroy the stimulus to invention
has been treated at what may seem disproportionate length on account
of its extreme importance. For it is owing to human inventiveness that
production to-day tends to outstrip consumption. Of all the
speculations upon the possible advantages of a new social order those
which concern themselves with the shortening of the average working
day are the most fascinating, yet the most dangerous. They are
fascinating because, of the many afflictions of the present order it
is the excessive workday that we feel most, for it is that which robs
so many of us or our need of personal life; and we know that any
reduction of the hours of labor would mean an immediate increase in
the quantity, and an ultimate increase in the quality, of our life.
But they are dangerous speculations because they probe to the very
heart of that wonderfully complicated economic process which we call
Capitalism. To make any scientific estimate of the social labor time
required to produce the commodities socially necessary for our health
and happiness would require an elaborate and intimate investigation of
the most secret details of industry, trade, and transportation, such
as there is little likelihood of ever being made. Nevertheless, it is
possible, in the light of some data already at our command, to get a
suggestive glimpse into the probabilities of the situation.
The 13th Annual Report of the Bureau of Labor is an exhaustive study
of the actual time required to produce some 600 different commodities,
ranging all the way from apple trees to loaves of bread and shingles.
The principal object of this Report was to compare the cost of
production by hand with the cost of production by machine; and it has
demonstrated the enormous progress that has been made in the art of
production by the substitution of machine for hand labor. For example,
before the introduction of machine labor it took about sixty-three
hours and a half to produce thirty bushels of barley; whereas to-day,
with the use of machinery, the same amount can be produced in two
hours and forty-two minutes (p. 24-5). The Report, in estimating the
cost of producing, includes breaking the ground, sowing and covering
seed and pulverizing topsoil, hauling water and fuel for engine,
reaping, threshing, measuring, sacking and hauling to the granary (p.
432-3).
Having these figures it would seem to be a very simple matter to
ascertain the total time required to produce the various commodities
consumed by the average workingman's family. It would seem as though
all we had to do was to make out a list of these commodities, get the
time cost of each from the Report and add these together to get the
total. Unfortunately, however, the Report does not cover all the items
which would have to be included in this list of necessaries; and to
make an estimate from a single commodity or from two or three
commodities would be a little dangerous, because some of the
commodities have much higher time values than others and would
therefore introduce many elements of uncertainty.
But we may approach the question from another standpoint. The Report
does furnish the time value of ten of the principal crops and of
bituminous coal. Let us, then, restate the problem in the following
form:
_Assuming social ownership of land (including bituminous coal lands)
and modern machinery, how many hours' labor per day would be required
to produce enough of the principal crops to sell at farm or mine for a
sum sufficient to buy the necessaries of existence for the average
family?_
The first step, obviously, is to determine what constitutes the
necessaries of existence for the average American family. Here again
we may resort to official statistics. In the year 1900-01 the U.S.
Bureau of Labor entered upon an investigation of the income and
expenditure of the average American family. Agents were sent out all
over the country to collect data at first hand. These agents got
reports from some 25,440 families, and the figures are tabulated and
summarized in the 18th Annual Report of this Bureau.[149]
These 25,000 families had the necessaries of existence, we know,
simply because they managed to live, survive, and reproduce. Their
average income was $749.50; their average expenditure, $699.24, thus
representing a saving of $50 a year. But many of these families had
boarders, many had grown-up children or wife at work, many had
lodgers, so that the income was artificially increased or diminished
by these factors. There were, however, 11,156 families among these
which the report designates as "normal"; these were distinguished by
the following characteristics: a husband at work; a wife at home; not
more than five children--none over 14 years of age; no dependents,
boarders, lodgers, or servants (p. 18). Good units, you see, from a
statistical standpoint. Now, the average income of these normal
families was $650.98; the average expenditure $617.80.[150]
Here, then, we have over 10,000 families, of five persons each, who
manage to live on $617.80 a year, without resorting to crime or
charity. That they live in straitened conditions is undoubtedly true,
but they are by no means submerged, for in their coöperation with the
agents of the Bureau of Labor they all displayed qualities of
intelligence which are not to be found among the submerged. In short,
they were average self-respecting American workingmen's families.
But let us assume that $617.80 is inadequate; let us provide a margin
of safety by allowing $800 as the minimum for procuring the
necessaries of existence.[151] Below is a table showing time cost per
unit (bushels or pounds) of ten principal crops and of bituminous
coal. This is derived from the tables on pages 24-25 of the 13th
Annual Report of the Bureau of Labor, which are assumed to be
accurate.
------------+-------------+--------------+---------+-----------
| | Time Cost. | | Time Cost
Commodity. | Quantity. +--------------+ Unit. | in
| | Hrs. | Min. | | Minutes.
------------+-------------+------+-------+---------+-----------
Barley | 30 bush. | 2 | 42.8 | 1 bush. | 5.427
Wheat | 40 " | 6 | 17.4 | 1 " | 9.435
Hay | 2 tons | 15 | 30.5 | 1 ton | 465.25
Oats | 40 bush. | 7 | 5.8 | 1 bush. | 10.645
Rice | 60 " | 17 | 2.5 | 1 " | 17.042
Rye | 25 " | 25 | 10 | 1 " | 60.40
Corn | 80 " | 42 | 38.1 | 1 " | 31.97
Potatoes | 220 " | 38 | ... | 1 " | 10.364
Tobacco | 2,750 lbs. | 606 | 5.1 | 1 lb. | 13.22
Cotton | 1,000 " | 78 | 42 | 1 " | 4.72
Bit. Coal | 200 tons | 379 | 36 | 1 ton | 113.88
------------+-------------+------+-------+---------+-----------
Having the time cost per unit of each of these commodities, let us now
ascertain the time cost of the total crops of these produced in the
United States. This is exhibited in the table on the next page, which
is derived from the figures given in the Year Book of the Department
of Agriculture, 1907, p. 668. These, too, are assumed to be accurate.
We see from this table that the total time cost of these principal
crops, if produced with modern machinery on a large scale, would be
185,759,513,000 minutes, and that the money value of these
commodities, sold at farm or mine, is $3,214,510,707.
If, then, it would require 185,759,513,000 minutes' labor to produce
$3,214,510,707 worth of commodities, how much labor would be required
to produce $800 worth of these commodities? This is a problem in
simple proportion:
$800: $3,214,510,707:: _x_ minutes: 185,759,513,000 minutes. Working
this out we find that _x_ equals 46,230 minutes or 770 hours and 30
minutes. Estimating 300 working days to the year, this would seem to
indicate that a social work-day of 2-½ hours should be sufficient to
procure the necessaries of existence, valuing these at $800.
----------+-----------+--------------+---------+--------+-----------
| Average |Average Total |Time | |Total Time
| Annual |Value on Farm |Cost in | | Cost in
Commodity.| Production| Dec. 1, |Minutes. | Unit. |Thousand
| 1898-1907.| 1898-1907. | | |Minutes.
----------+-----------+--------------+---------+--------+-----------
| Millions | | | |
Barley | 117 bush.| $53,872,896| 5.427 | 1 bush.| 633,959
Wheat | 642 " | 444,206,221| 9.435 | 1 " | 6,057,270
Hay | 59 tons | 524,124,456| 465.25 | 1 ton | 27,449,750
Oats | 841 bush.| 265,595,639| 10.645 | 1 bush.| 8,952,445
Rice | 18 " | 14,594,913| 17.042 | 1 " | 305,756
Rye | 29 " | 16,527,099| 60.40 | 1 " | 1,751,600
Corn |2,309 " | 953,158,114| 31.977 | 1 " | 73,834,893
Potatoes | 255 " | 134,236,563| 10.364 | 1 " | 2,642,820
Tobacco | 743 lbs. | 59,548,881| 13.22 | 1 lb. | 9,822,460
Cotton |5,233 " | 457,787,442| 4.72 | 1 " | 24,699,760
Bit. Coal | 260 tons | 290,858,483| 113.88 | 1 ton | 29,608,800
| +--------------| | +-----------
| |$3,214,510,707| | |185,759,513
----------+-----------+--------------+---------+--------+-----------
Before accepting the above conclusion, however, it will be necessary
to make proper allowances for some important factors. First, the
figures quoted from the Report do not include time spent on
bookkeeping, upkeep, and repair of machinery, the time cost of the raw
material, of the machinery, etc. All these items are certainly
important, but we may safely assume that, taken together, they would
probably not increase the total by fifty per cent. If, then, we allow
an additional 1-¼ hours for these items, thus making the work-day
3-¾ hours, we shall be well within reason.
Second, it is to be inferred that the ten crops for which the 13th
Annual Report furnishes the time value were produced under unusually
favorable conditions, if not actually on "bonanza" farms. It is true
that the introduction (p. 12) affirms, in a blanket clause, "that the
effort was made to ascertain, not the quantity of work that could be
done under the most favorable conditions, but what was being
accomplished steadily in everyday work"; nevertheless, in the absence
of more specific information as to the actual conditions under which
the units under discussion were farmed, we cannot ignore the doubt
that arises in our minds. We may, however, offset this by two other
factors which were quite conservative in our estimate: (1) In adopting
the sum of $800 as a measure of the necessaries of existence, we have,
as already shown, allowed nearly a third over and above the sum
($617.80) actually ascertained to be requisite in the years 1900-1901.
(2) The figures in the 13th Annual Report are based upon
investigations made from fifteen to twenty years ago, between 1890-95.
The steady improvement in agricultural machinery which has been made
since then would undoubtedly reduce the present time cost of these
commodities very materially. It is not unreasonable, then, to urge
that these factors counterbalance each other; but in order to be on
the safe side let us add another quarter of an hour, thus making the
probable work-day consist of a round four hours.
We seem, then, to have warrant for believing that if agricultural
production were socialized to-day a 1200-hour work-year would suffice
to produce the necessaries, and an 1800-hour year, many of the
luxuries, of existence for the community. This, arranged to suit the
exigencies of agricultural production, might mean a twelve-hour
workday for four or six summer months, as the case may be.
Does this seem Utopian? Granted: all speculations of this sort must
seem Utopian. And yet, if we look back a few centuries, we shall find,
according to no less an authority than Thorold Rogers ("Six Centuries
of Work and Wages"), that the English workman, during the fifteenth
century and the first part of the sixteenth, lived, and lived well, on
the product of an eight-hour-day. Is it, then, so fantastic to suppose
that modern machinery, under a socialized system of production, could
cut this day in two?
The objection may be raised that this estimate is one-sided because it
is based on figures for agricultural production only, whereas
industrial production is really the more important half of the modern
economic process; and that therefore the generalization could not
apply to the whole economic process in a coöperative commonwealth.
It is true, as already pointed out, that we do not have comprehensive
data for all, or nearly all, the industrial products in actual use in
the average household. But we have posited, hypothetically, a
socialized agricultural community producing a quantity of goods which
it can sell at the farm for an average $800 per family; this $800
sufficing, when brought to the village store or forwarded to the city,
to buy the necessaries of existence for the family _at retail_. Now it
is well known that under present conditions the retail price of any
manufactured article comprises about one-third for actual cost of
production, one-third for manufacturer's profits and accounting costs,
and one-third for selling costs. In other words, every such article,
when it reaches the ultimate consumer, is weighted down with a load of
barnacles of trade-profits of innumerable middlemen, rents, dividends,
cost of advertising, and other trade-getting devices, etc., etc. Part
of this cost of distribution is undoubtedly legitimate and could not
be dispensed with under any organization of society, no matter how
scientific. The man engaged in producing the necessaries of life will
always have to support the man engaged in transporting and
distributing them, and the man engaged in manufacturing and repairing
the machinery and other instruments of production necessary thereto.
But it is impossible to believe that this auxiliary corps will ever,
in a rational system of production, consume two-thirds of the ultimate
retail value of most goods, as it does to-day.
It would seem, therefore, that if the industrial community organized
itself in the same fashion as our hypothetical agricultural community,
the exchange value of its products, whether stated in terms of social
labor, time, or money, or any other standard of value, would actually
be lower than our estimate assumes. By how much our four-hour work-day
would be reduced we have no means of determining, but it could hardly
be increased.
Probably, therefore, four hours will constitute the average daily
labor in a coöperative commonwealth, and these ought to be sufficient
to give to every citizen not only the necessaries and comforts now
enjoyed by the middle class, but some of the luxuries enjoyed only by
the millionaire.
FOOTNOTES:
[133] Report of the Industrial Commission, Vol. I, p. 829.
[134] _Christian Socialist._
[135] Report of the Industrial Commission, Vol. I, Part I, p. 222.
[136] "Socialism and Social Reform," p. 121.
[137] "Socialism and Social Reform," p. 120.
[138] It is stated that the retailing of milk in New York is
practically confined to six companies. But the price of milk has not
been reduced accordingly. The economies resulting from this
combination have swelled the profits of these companies. The consumers
gain nothing from it. And this is what is taking place with all trust
articles.
[139] Book III, Chapter III.
[140] This is more true of railroads in the United States than in
England, probably because competing roads have not been tolerated in
England to the same extent as in our country.
[141] The Thaw case furnishes an unfortunate illustration of this
tendency.
[142] Ely, "Socialism and Social Reform," p. 134.
[143] Ely, "Socialism and Social Reform," p. 134.
[144] Book II, Chapter I. This subject has been discussed in detail in
"Government or Human Evolution," Book II, Chapter II, p. 273, _et
seq._, by the author.
[145] "Economy of Manufacture." Babbage (London, 1832), p. 246.
[146] M. DeLesseps has stated that it cost England £100,000,000 to
change its shipping so as to fit it for passage through the Suez
Canal, and this expense applies more or less to change of machinery
due to invention in every factory.
[147] Book III, Chapter II.
[148] "Capital," Part IV, Chapter XV.
[149] Issued by the Government Printing Office in 1904, entitled,
"Cost of Living and Retail Prices of Food."
[150] "Cost of Living and Retail Prices of Food," pp. 18, 90-102,
516-93.
[151] "The Standard of Living Among Workingmen's Families in New York
City," by Robert Coit Chapin, Ph.B., Charities Publication Committee,
1909, p. 178, _et seq._
CHAPTER II
ECONOMIC CONSTRUCTION OF THE COÖPERATIVE COMMONWEALTH
Few things deterred me from a study of Socialism more than the
prevailing error that it necessarily would subject us all to the
tyranny of a state which would, because it owned all the sources of
production, be able to dictate to every one of us the kind of work we
should do and the hours during which we should do it. It must be
admitted that this is the Socialism described by many authorities,
amongst them Schäffle, in a book still widely read, entitled the
"Quintessence of Socialism." But this book loses some of its authority
when we remember that Schäffle followed it with another, entitled "Why
Socialism is Impossible"; and assuredly the state Socialism described
by Schäffle is extremely unattractive to the bourgeois mind.
It is not so unattractive to the workingman, because he now has these
things determined for him by his employer without having any security
of employment. State Socialism, therefore, has no terrors for him. On
the contrary, as the workingman expects that the Socialist society
will be controlled by workingmen, he expects to that extent to be his
own master; that is, he will control the society that controls him.
State Socialism, therefore, is the form probably most in vogue amongst
workingmen. They have not before their minds the history of previous
revolutions which have for the most part only substituted one set of
masters for another. They cannot be expected, therefore, to appreciate
the profound change that comes over men when put into positions of
power, the temptations to which they are exposed, and the errors which
even the best intentioned are likely to commit.
I do not mean to condemn state Socialism; for state Socialism
veritably controlled by the people would probably furnish better
government than that which we are now given at the hands of
capitalists. But I shall not attempt to describe the economic
structure that would prevail under state Socialism, because it has
been already described; whereas I do not think that there has been any
effort made to describe a coöperative commonwealth in which the state
would have very little more power than that enjoyed by the government
in England or Germany to-day.
The difficulty of assigning tasks and of determining wages which makes
Socialism impracticable to the bourgeois mind is a pure fiction,
encouraged, I admit, by many Socialist writers who imagine that
Socialism can only come by a sudden and violent transfer of political
power from the capitalist to the proletariat, called revolution. As
will more fully appear in the next chapter, the Political Aspect of
Socialism, such a revolution is by no means necessary; for the
coöperative commonwealth, as I understand it, need not be introduced
by any sudden transfer of political power whatever.
In one sense, indeed, Socialism has in part come. The _laissez faire_
school had barely announced their doctrine and proceeded to legislate
in accordance therewith, before the abominable consequences of the
_laissez faire_ doctrine became so obvious that steps had at once to
be taken to put an end to it. So the idea that a man could do what he
liked with his own, which resulted in working women in mines to an
extent which reduced them to the condition of the lower animals, the
use of children in factories to a degree imperilling the future of the
race, the reduction of men to starvation wages, the pollution of
rivers by factory products, the spread of cholera by unwholesome
dwellings--all gave rise to a series of legislative acts which limited
the right of a man to exploit women and children, compelled landlords
to maintain sanitary dwellings, and prevented the pollution of waters
by factory products altogether. All this legislation was an
unconscious tribute to that solidarity of the human race which is at
the root of Socialism.
Nor was this all. The state and city could so obviously perform
certain functions better and cheaper than private corporations that
enterprise after enterprise was slowly taken from individuals and
assumed by the state. The postoffice was the foremost of these. The
municipalization of gas, water, and trams, the nationalization of
railroads, telegraphs, and telephones, have been pursued as purely
economic measures rendered necessary by considerations of social
welfare.
Indeed, England has been rushing towards Socialism with such rapidity
that increasing rates gave the capitalists an excuse for frightening
the public with threats of bankruptcy, and occasioned the reaction in
municipal progress through which the country is now passing. But the
forces behind Socialism are so overwhelming that they convert its very
enemies into its unconscious prophets, priests, and promoters.
Mr. Roosevelt, who has so lately entered the lists against Socialism,
is with the exception perhaps of Pierpont Morgan and Rockefeller, the
greatest practical Socialist in America. When Mr. Roosevelt called
together the Governors of the States to consider what steps, if any,
could be taken to prevent the shameful waste of our national resources
by capitalistic enterprise, and when Mr. J.J. Hill in a remarkable
summary counted up the awful loss to humanity involved in this waste,
neither appears to have been aware that they were demonstrating to the
world not only that Socialism was good, but that it was indispensable.
When Rockefeller brought together the distillers of oil into a single
deliberately planned body, eliminating the waste of individual
competition, he does not seem to have been aware that he was
demonstrating the amazing advantage of eliminating competition and
slowly preparing an industry for nationalization. When Mr. Morgan did
the same thing for the Steel Trust, and the Coal Trust, and when he
tried to do the same thing for the railroads until checked by a
blundering government,[152] he, too, was unaware that he was
demonstrating the failure of the very capitalistic system for which he
stands. So the idol they themselves set up for worship they are
engaged in smashing all to pieces; and they none of them see the humor
of it.
When a horse refuses to return to his stable and balks when brought to
its door, a simple device overcomes his resistance: His head is turned
away from the door and he allows himself to be shoved without
opposition hind end foremost into the stable which he declines to
enter in the more usual way.
Roosevelt, Rockefeller, and Pierpont Morgan are just like this balky
horse. They loudly proclaim that under no consideration whatever will
they proceed front side forward, and yet in the middle of these
protestations they are going hind side forward faster than perhaps is
prudent. The difference between Socialists and Messrs. Roosevelt,
Rockefeller, and Pierpont Morgan is that Socialists consider it more
dignified to move front side forward; more intelligent to see plainly
where they are going, and proceed deliberately of their own motion
instead of being pushed there backward by forces they pretend to
ignore.
§ 1. HOW SOCIALISM MAY COME
The many theories proposed as to how Socialism may come, can be
generally classified into two: that it will come by revolution and
that it will come by successive reforms.
The so-called Marxian school calls itself revolutionary, and
undoubtedly many members of this school are revolutionary, and have
the idea that Socialism will come by revolution--by violence--while
among the more thoughtful, this word is used to mean that Socialism
will constitute revolution because it will transfer power from the
exploiting class to the exploited class.[153] Others have confused
ideas of the meaning of the word revolution in which the element of
violence and that of the transfer of political power are more or less
mixed. Socialism, of course, involves a transfer of political power,
and since such a transfer is revolutionary, Socialism may be properly
called revolutionary, though its coming may not be attended by
violence. Many authors believe that Socialism will come by the use of
extra political methods--not by successive reforms introduced by
parliamentary methods, but by a general strike, or the conversion of
the army, or adroit use of the conditions produced by war (as in
Russia after the Japanese War).
Some, again, believe that Socialism may come by the development of a
secret society which will secure the support of a sufficient number of
those in the possession of our military stores and military places to
permit of a conquest of political power by force. To those it may be
suggested that the days for the success of secret societies are over.
Capitalistic society possesses machinery in the shape of the press and
the secret service which would make the success of a secret society
impossible. The slightest indiscretion of one of its members under
feminine influence or that of drink would be sufficient to break up
the entire plan.
The capitalists are in possession of the army, the navy, the police,
the militia, and above all, the weapons with which to arm all these.
Recourse to bullets seems unnecessary and dangerous when our enemy has
the bullets and we have not, all the more when the work can be equally
well done with infinitely less disorder and agony if we only have
recourse to the ballots which we have and they have not.
When a sufficient number of men are persuaded that Socialism is the
best solution of our present economic evils, they can get what they
want the day they choose to use the ballot for that purpose; whereas
recourse to violence would lead not only to immediate disaster, but to
an indefinite postponing of the desired result. For a very large part
of our population which would, then, as now, be in doubt as to the
wisdom of adopting Socialism, would certainly be driven by violence
into the capitalistic fold and a period of capitalistic reaction would
result. This has been observed in so many revolutions in the past that
it is unnecessary to insist upon it here.
This must not be interpreted, however, as intending to eliminate
violence as a possible factor in the coming of Socialism. Had Haywood
been convicted it would have created an indignation so profound that
a very widespread and dangerous uprising might have taken place, and
although it would have been quelled, still, it is probable that such
an uprising might have led to Socialistic legislation. It is as
impossible to state beforehand how large a part violence will play in
the coming of Socialism as to state how much contributed to remedial
legislation in Ireland--the violence of 1798 and the 60's, or how much
the parliamentary tactics of Parnell.
Socialistic legislation is of two very different kinds, and these must
be carefully distinguished. Bismarck inaugurated Socialistic
legislation such as national insurance, intended, by taking away part
of the grievance of the workingmen, to diminish their discontent and
their reason for espousing Socialism.
Indeed, since the beginning of the nineteenth century legislation more
or less Socialistic has been enacted in every civilized country in the
world, partly owing to the _bona fide_ desire on the part of
legislators to put an end to evils that shocked their moral sense, but
perhaps far more by legislators who thought to satisfy Cerberus with a
sop. Socialistic legislation, therefore, enacted by capitalistic
legislators for the purpose of appeasing popular discontent, does
little towards promoting Socialism. Some Socialist writers claim that
it does nothing to this end, but this view is extreme and I think
incorrect. For example, it would be impossible for Socialism to come
without violence had not the nations of the world been slowly
conferring the franchise upon the class in whose interests and through
whom Socialism will come. Socialistic legislation of a character to
put the political weapon in the hands of the people, through which
they can secure the transfer of political power from those who now
enjoy it to themselves, is of the utmost value. Indeed, it is of so
much value that those Marxian Socialists who protest against all
compromise with capitalistic parties must have forgotten that it is
through the capitalistic parties, and through compromises of
Socialists with capitalistic parties, that these measures of political
reform have been enacted. In Belgium to-day the Socialists are
combining with the Radicals to wrest universal franchise from the
Catholics.
Again, Socialistic legislation which improves the condition of the
working class, though it takes away a part of their grievance and
does, to that extent, diminish the incentive to Socialism,
nevertheless strengthens the workingmen, raises their standard of
living and of thought, and gives them the very education and equipment
they need in order to become Socialists.
Nevertheless Socialistic legislation obtained from capitalistic
legislators can never effect the final transfer of political power
from the exploiting to the exploited class without which no Socialist
commonwealth can be secured. Here, therefore, we see the elements
which confuse this question of revolution and reform. The Marxian
Socialists in Germany have seen Socialistic legislation enacted year
after year and have seen it, by diminishing evils, tend to diminish
enthusiasm for revolution. Moreover, revolutionary German Socialists,
conscious that they have to destroy the existing political machinery
represented by the Emperor, the nobles and the church; conscious too,
that the farmer class is essentially capitalistic in its temper and
thought, and despairing therefore of getting a parliamentary majority,
naturally look to extra political methods as the only ones at their
disposal.
§ 2. REFORM AND REVOLUTION
There is great and regrettable confusion as regards the words reform
and revolution. The Socialist party calls itself revolutionary, and as
revolution is connected in the minds of most people with violence, the
popular impression is that the Socialist party stands for violence.
This is a profound mistake. The whole subject has been well treated by
Kautsky, an authoritative leader of the Socialist party; and he
distinctly disavows violence. Revolution to him is a "transfer of
political power from one class to another." The French Revolution
transferred political power from the king, the noble, and the church
to the bourgeois. The Socialist revolution is to transfer political
power from the bourgeois to the proletariat.
Here a word of caution must be said: Socialist literature is written
for the most part by the proletariat for the proletariat; and it is
natural that it should abound in just such phrases as these. Not that
the phrase is wrong or incorrect; rather is it incomplete. To-day, in
France the Republic is largely supported by the nobles of yesterday;
so also will the proletarian government of the Socialist revolution be
largely supported by the bourgeois of to-day.
The word revolution, therefore, is used here not to convey the idea of
violence, but rather in the sense of the revolution of the planets, or
of the seasons. It is as it were the closing of one cycle and the
beginning of another. There is, of course, a great difference of
opinion as to how this revolution is to be effected--whether by
parliamentary methods or extra-parliamentary methods such as strikes.
Into this subject, however, this book, being addressed to
non-Socialists rather than to Socialists, will not enter. It is purely
a question of tactics and may be said to have been solved in America
for the present by the very existence of a Socialist party which puts
up candidates at every election wherever feasible in order to do what
can be done in the direction of Socialism by constitutional methods.
There is, however, another use of the word revolution concerning which
it is of the utmost importance to be clear. Socialists often say that
"Socialism must come by revolution and not by reform." What is exactly
the meaning of this sentence? What is the difference between reform
and revolution?
Reformers proceed upon the assumption that the competitive system is
good and that capitalists can be entrusted with the task of reforming
it so to eliminate its admitted evils. The revolutionary Socialist on
the contrary says that the competitive system is bad and that the
capitalist cannot be entrusted with the task of putting an end to it.
So he decries mere reform and insists upon nothing less than
revolution, the transfer of political power from the capitalist to the
people at large. There is thus between the reformer and the
revolutionary Socialist a difference of principle; the one upholding
the competitive system and the other denouncing it.
But there is also another difference of hardly less importance between
the reformer and the revolutionary Socialist--a difference of method.
A bourgeois reformer has no preconceived plan of reform. He hits at
every evil like an Irishman at a fair--as he sees it. Governor Hughes,
who belongs to this class, thought in 1908 that race track gambling
was the greatest evil of existing conditions and devoted the entire
session of the legislature to an anti-race track gambling bill which
he triumphantly passed, only to see it nullified at the first
opportunity by the courts. In 1909 he thought that a primary election
bill was the most important reform; but this primary election bill
failed to pass. The legislature, very much under his guidance, spent
two years in passing a useless anti-race track gambling bill and
refusing to pass a primary bill, although during these two years at
least 200,000 men have been seeking employment and not finding it, and
a population therefore of about a million[154] in New York State alone
has been on the verge of starvation in consequence.
The most striking feature of the bourgeois reformer is his lack of
sense of proportion; but there is a reason for it. Unemployment is not
a popular subject with the class to which Governor Hughes belongs. As
an evil it is too merciless; as a resource it is too unavowable.[155]
So it is impossible to get any legislature in any State in this Union
effectively to consider the subject of unemployment.
The Socialist, on the contrary, has a definite preconceived plan of
legislative enactment. While the reformer, however well-intentioned
and intelligent, is hacking away at random at the jungle of evils in
which the competitive system encompasses him, and hardly ever
attaining any substantial progress, the Socialist has his course
directed for him by the polar star. He regards such bills as anti-race
track gambling as a waste of time. Race-track gambling is a necessary
and poisonous fruit of the competitive system. It is useless to attack
the fruit and leave the tree standing. The only legislation,
therefore, that interests the Socialist looks towards putting an end
or a check to the competitive system that results in the exploitation
of the Many by the Few. And of all the evils the one that has stood
out most startling and appalling during the last two years is the evil
of unemployment.
The immediate demands of the Socialist party published at the end of
the Socialist platform,[156] indicate the character of measures which
the Socialists urge. In one sense these are reforms, many of which
Governor Hughes favors, but they all tend towards one definite
end--the limitation and ultimate suppression of the competitive system
with the exploitation of the Many by the Few. In one sense, therefore,
Socialists are reformers, but revolutionary reformers; all their
reforms look towards the transfer of political power from the Few who
exploit political power for their individual benefit, to the Many who
will utilize political power for the benefit of all.
Having indicated the difference between reform and revolution, let us
consider how far the Socialist is justified in saying that the
competitive system is so bad that it cannot be improved--that it must
be replaced altogether.
When a wagon is thoroughly worn out, it is useless to repair it; for
if one part is strengthened it throws the strain upon a neighboring
part which breaks down; and if that part is strengthened it throws the
strain upon another which again breaks down. It is possible by
intelligently renewing various parts of the wagon upon a preconceived
plan, eventually to replace the broken-down wagon by an entirely new
one; but the difficulty of doing this is extreme, and the wagon when
so reconstructed, being composed of parts of different ages, must
again give way at its most worn part. So experience indicates that it
is better to throw a fairly used-up wagon on the junk heap and build a
new one in its place.
Reform measures such as we have had under former administrations
resemble an effort to patch up a worn-out wagon; for a reform measure
directed at one evil is found to produce other evils very apt to be as
great, if not greater than those that the measure is trying to
suppress. Not many years ago a society for the suppression of vice
made a crusade in New York upon vicious resorts. Such resorts are
abominable; they should not exist in an orderly community. But
attacking these resorts, without attacking the conditions that created
them, only distributed the evil all over the city, involving a
pernicious contact with unperverted youth.
Again, the difficulty of reconciling Sunday closing of barrooms with
furnishing _bona fide_ travellers at hotels with refreshments was
solved in New York by the Raines law, which defined a hotel by
establishing a minimum of bedrooms. The result was that to almost
every barroom there is attached this minimum of bedrooms to permit of
the sale of liquor on Sunday; and this effort to secure Sunday closing
has resulted in converting the barroom into a house of prostitution.
Again, legislation for putting an end to the awful congestion and
filth of the New York city tenements has by imposing upon the landlord
expensive repairs, raised rents, so that, although the tenement
dweller is little benefited because of evasion of the law, his rent
has been uniformly raised.
In the chapters on the Scientific and Ethical Aspects of Socialism, an
effort will be made to show why the competitive system is essentially
bad and must remain bad so long as acquisitiveness is deliberately
made the dominating motive of human activity; and how by modifying
economic conditions we can secure all the benefits of a tempered
acquisitiveness without the appalling results of an acquisitiveness
that knows no bounds. This argument belongs, however, to the
constructive argument for Socialism, and we have not yet completed the
destructive argument against existing conditions. For there are two
further illustrations furnished by recent efforts to curb competition
which not only tend to demonstrate the hopelessness of the task, but
throw light upon existing conditions and impending dangers. I refer to
the rate law and legislation tending to control monopolies--to the
inevitable tyrannies of the trust and the trade unions and the
irreconcilable conflict between the two.
§ 3. POSSIBLE TRANSITIONAL MEASURES
I shall describe the coöperative commonwealth on the theory that it is
to come gradually, not because I consider this the only way for
Socialism to come, but one of the possible ways and the one most
intelligible to the bourgeois mind.
Morris Hillquit and John Spargo have given good sketches of the
Socialist state.[157] I shall adhere closely to their views,
emphasizing and detailing them; and I am the more glad to adopt this
plan because both are members of the National Executive Committee of
the Socialist party and will not be accused of taking the bourgeois
view of Socialism; whereas because I have been a bourgeois, I am
likely to be accused of this.
Mr. Spargo begins by repudiating the idea of the Socialist state as a
"great bureaucracy" and declares the Socialist ideal to be a "form of
social organization in which every individual will enjoy the greatest
possible amount of freedom for self-development and expression; and in
which social authority will be reduced to the minimum necessary for
the preservation and insurance of that right to all individuals."
The rights of the individual Mr. Spargo summarizes as follows:
"There must be perfect freedom of movement, including the right to
withdraw from the domain of the government, to migrate at will to
other territories; immunity from arrest, except for infringing others'
rights, with compensation for improper arrest; respect of the privacy
of domicile and correspondence; full liberty of dress, subject to
decency; freedom of utterance, whether by speech or publication,
subject only to the protection of others from insult, injury, or
interference with their equal liberties. Absolute freedom of the
individual in all that pertains to art, science, philosophy, and
religion, and their teaching, or propaganda, is essential. The state
can rightly have nothing to do with these matters; they belong to the
personal life alone. Art, science, philosophy, and religion cannot be
protected by any authority, nor is such protection needed."
On the other hand, he summarizes the functions of the state as
follows:
"The state has the right and the power to _organize_ and _control_ the
economic system, comprehending in that term the production and
distribution of all social wealth wherever private enterprise is
dangerous to the social well-being, or is inefficient; the defence of
the community from invasion, from fire, flood, famine, or disease; the
relations with other states, such as trade agreements, boundary
treaties, and the like; the maintenance of order, including the
judicial and police systems in all their branches; and public
education in all its departments."
The state, according to Mr. Spargo, is not to _own_ all sources of
production (this is state Socialism); but is to have the right and
power to _organize_ and _control_ the economic system. There is
between these two statements all that distinguishes the crude
Socialism of the nineteenth century from the practical Socialism of
to-day. This is emphasized by Mr. Spargo when he states that
"Socialism by no means involves the suppression of all private
property and industry"; and the further recognition that the
"Socialist state will not be static"; that is to say, it will not once
for all decide that certain industries must be socialized and certain
other industries be left to individual initiative.
The dominant factor that will determine these things is the public
welfare. When private property in a particular thing is found
injurious to public welfare, it will be taken over by the state for
the purpose of being socialized, as will hereafter be explained. When
it is deemed that private property in a public industry is injurious
to public welfare, this industry will be socialized. When, on the
contrary, it is found that by socializing an industry the advance of
that industry tends to be paralyzed, private initiative will be
encouraged to enter into that industry. Indeed, the economic structure
of the commonwealth will be such that inefficiency in a socialized
industry will automatically give rise to the competition of private
initiative therein.
I have used the expression "socialized industry." It is above all
things important that we should be clear as to what these words mean;
for it is the socialization of industry which is the modern substitute
for the Socialist state. We cannot understand this better than by
taking a concrete example.
Let us assume that the public has become convinced that a few
individuals have already too long grown inordinately rich out of the
refining and distribution of oil, and that the time has come for this
industry to be socialized. The old theory was that the state would
expropriate this industry and become the employer of all engaged in
it. It is argued in favor of such a system that if the state can be
entrusted with the distribution of letters, it can also be entrusted
with the distribution of oil; and this is undoubtedly true. But if
this same argument is applied to all industries it will expose the
state to two great dangers: the state will be overburdened by the
multiplicity and vastness of these tasks; and the state will become
despotic. And because this task is greater than any one set of men can
properly perform; even though the intentions of the members of the
government be the best possible, errors of judgment and errors of
detail will involve the state in injustice and discontent.
This difficulty can be met by not putting all these functions upon the
state, but by so providing that the men shown in the past best able to
handle a particular industry should continue to handle it. The
socialization of the Standard Oil industry would simply mean the
elimination of capitalistic control and exploitation. In taking over
the oil industry, the state would doubtless adopt the method already
adopted in taking over railroads, etc. A board would be appointed to
take expert testimony as to the valuation of the industry, to
determine the real value of every share. It would be called upon to
value every stockholding with a view to determining to what
compensation each stockholder was entitled; because a distinction
will have to be made between various classes of stockholders. Some
stockholders have purchased their stock out of the economies of an
industrious lifetime. They depend upon the dividends from such stock
to support their old age. To cut down the income they derive from this
stock might not only work an injustice, but work an injury to the
commonwealth; for if these stockholders had not sufficient income to
support themselves, they would become a burden on the state. Other
stockholders would be found to have sufficient wealth to support a
considerable reduction in the valuation of their stock without
hardship. Others again would have such enormous wealth, that, having
much more income than they can possibly spend, the reduction of their
income would mean no hardship save that of depriving them of _power_
for the most part exerted at the present time injuriously to the
commonwealth.
Experts, therefore, appointed by the state to make estimates with a
view to the transfer of an industry from private to social ownership
will have two distinct functions to perform: the function that boards
of experts in similar cases perform to-day, to estimate the actual
value of the property; and to estimate the wealth of the respective
stockholders and classify stockholders according to wealth with the
view of effecting the transfer from private to social ownership
without injustice to the individual or injury to the commonwealth. It
is probable that compensation to stockholders will consist of
annuities rather than lump sums. The advantage of compensation by
annuity rather than by cash payment is considerable. As the state is
taking over industries it will be more difficult for individuals to
find investment for lump sums than to-day. As the state is looking
forward to taking over industries to a sufficient extent to eliminate
pure capitalism[158] altogether, it is to be hoped that future
generations will not feel the need of capital of their own and will be
all the more ready to enter into the coöperative scheme of industry
if, having no capital, they have to work each in his own industry
under the new and prosperous conditions which coöperative production
ought by that time to have brought about.
Cases will undoubtedly be found where wealthy parents have worthless
or defective children and grandchildren. Again, some parents have so
contributed to the development of industry of the nation, as in the
case of Mr. John D. Rockefeller and Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, that it
may seem proper that the compensation given in the shape of an annuity
to them should not end abruptly at their death; but that a part of it
should be continued to their offspring. This question is one of
conscience as well as of social welfare; and in view of the enormous
importance of it to the wealthy of to-day, it is a pity that they
confine themselves to denouncing Socialism, and by so doing, leave the
elaboration of the Socialist program to a party of discontented which
is likely to deal with them when the day of expropriation arrives, not
only without mercy, but without justice.
To judge of the difficulty of determining the questions likely to
arise, let us consider for a moment the case of Mr. Rockefeller.
Mr. John D. Rockefeller has testified over and over again that for
many years he has had nothing to do with the management of the
Standard Oil, and yet he draws from the Standard Oil an income so
enormous that, not being able to spend more than a fraction of it, he
has invested the balance in railroad shares and thus become master of
a large part of our railroad system. I myself believe after a careful
study of the organization and development of the Standard Oil that Mr.
Rockefeller has amassed his fortune strictly in conformity with law.
He has, it is true, deliberately lied at certain critical periods. But
lying is not a crime, and is not actionable except under specified
conditions. Mr. Rockefeller then is not a criminal. He simply presents
a case where, having rendered an immense service to the community, he
has received as a remuneration for that service wealth that surpasses
the dreams of avarice.
If Mr. Rockefeller's holdings in the Standard Oil were expropriated by
the state without one dollar of remuneration, Mr. Rockefeller would
still be in possession of a far larger income derived from his
railroad holdings than he and all his family could possibly spend. It
is probable, therefore, that in such cases as those of Mr.
Rockefeller, J. Pierpont Morgan, and others of their class, the state
would make a valuation of all their wealth, leave them what it is
proper they should have, and expropriate the rest. Even though there
were left to multi-millionaires more income than they could possibly
spend, the surplus expropriated by the state out of each of their
swollen fortunes would leave to every industry a large fund which
could be applied to increasing wages, improving conditions, and
reducing prices. If, for example, it turned out that the income Mr.
Rockefeller derives from his railroad shares is more than he can spend
and that, therefore, there were no reason why he should continue to
own any shares in the Standard Oil whatever, the dividends accruing
from the shares now held by Mr. Rockefeller in the Standard Oil would
be applicable to improving the conditions of those who work for the
Standard Oil. It is probable that Mr. Rockefeller owns about one-half
of the shares in the Standard Oil. All the dividends now paid to Mr.
Rockefeller would in such case be applicable to these things. Such a
solution would permit of the division of the enormous dividends which
are being paid to-day to Mr. Rockefeller amongst the working body of
the Standard Oil.
As to compensation, there is considerable disagreement in the
Socialist party, and many Socialists would not admit the principle of
compensation at all. In France, it is probable that these last
constitute, if not a majority, at any rate a very large minority of
the party; but in America I think it can be said that the Socialist
party stands for compensation. In support of this contention I cannot
do better than quote a passage from the article of Mr. Steffens in
_Everybody's Magazine_, Oct., 1908.[159]
This passage is extremely illuminating because we find in it the
opinions of two men thoroughly representative of the two wings of the
Socialist party: Eugene Debs, who is what Mr. Roosevelt would call "an
extreme Socialist"; that is to say, he looks at Socialism from the
revolutionary point of view; he regards the issue as between the
capitalist on the one side and the proletariat on the other; he is an
ardent exponent of the class struggle theory; his sympathies are
exclusively marshalled on the side of the poor, and his first impulse,
therefore, on being questioned on this subject, is to express an
opinion contrary to compensation. And yet his ideas on this subject
are not so rooted but that they can at once be corrected when he is
reminded by Victor Berger of the evils likely to result from
expropriation without compensation.
To those unfamiliar with the personnel of the Socialist party, it is
important to say a word regarding Victor Berger. He is the editor of
the _Social Democratic Herald_, published in Milwaukee; but he is far
more than this. He is the recognized leader of the Socialist party in
Wisconsin, the only State in which Socialism has succeeded in electing
members to the municipal council and to the State legislature. No one
who reads his editorials can fail to recognize that he is not only an
economist, but a scholar. He is regularly elected to the National
Executive Committee of the Socialist party at the head of the poll;
and although I must not be understood to imply that there are no other
men in the party of as great weight as Mr. Victor Berger, I think it
may be stated without fear of contradiction that he to-day has more
personal influence in the party than any other one man. The ease with
which he brought the Presidential nominee around to his view on the
subject of compensation is a measure of his influence. I think that
upon the subject of compensation the opinion of Victor Berger is
likely to prevail.[160]
The socialization of industry does not mean any change in the
personnel of the industry whatever. Every man drawing salary or wages
from the Standard Oil will go on drawing salary or wages as before.
The industry will be handed over to those who actually maintain and
work at it. These men will run the industry in very much the same way
as did the guilds in the Middle Ages, subject to the payment of
annuities to old stockholders determined by the court.
There would, however, be some notable distinctions, between the
medieval guild and the guild under a coöperative commonwealth.
The latter would not constitute a complete monopoly; on the contrary,
independent refiners would continue to refine and distribute oil,
maintaining a wholesome competition of a character to prevent the oil
guild from becoming perfunctory and inefficient. This competition
would tend to avert the evils that attended the close monopoly of the
medieval guild, practically all of which can be traced to the
completeness of their monopoly.
Again the state would not _own_ the oil industry; it would reserve the
right to _control_ it. No direct control need be exercised providing
the industry were wisely administered; but if the industry had
recourse to devices for crushing out competition to which the trusts
to-day habitually resort, the state would exercise this direct control
by appointing one or more members to the governing board of the
industry. The oil guild would, therefore, be kept upon its good
behavior, both by the competition of the independent refineries and by
the danger of state intervention.
When the public became convinced that the time had come for the
socialization of the steel industry, exactly the same process would be
adopted. In this case, the function of those who had to value
stockholdings would be facilitated. It has never been revealed how
much J. Pierpont Morgan got in common stock for his rôle in the
organization of the Steel Trust; but it is known that the amount of
stock taken by him on that occasion was enormous. It would be
interesting to calculate the number of hours of work he personally
spent in promoting this trust and to compare these hours with the
amount of stock which he received as a price of this service. Such a
method might facilitate the work of those who had to value the stock
and determine the amount to which he was entitled for the service he
rendered.
The socialization of industry, therefore, will be seen to be a
process in which, once started, the state need have little further to
do. It will practically consist of a transfer of the industry from the
hands of the capitalist to the hands of those actually engaged
therein. It will involve the valuation of every stockholding in such a
fashion that the capitalist will during his life receive in some cases
all, though in other cases less than he has heretofore received; so
that the excessive income now enjoyed by the capitalist will be
applicable to improving the conditions of those engaged in the
industry; it will also be applicable to the reduction of cost to the
consumer. And this process applied to every trusted industry will have
for immediate effect gradually to improve the condition of the
workingmen. When applied to them all, not only will the workers
receive an increased wage, but the wage they receive will have its
purchasing power increased by the lowering of prices in all
industries. Obviously this system is not going immediately to put the
luxuries now enjoyed by the multi-millionaire at the disposal of every
workingman; but it will increase them as the annuitants die, so that
with the disappearance of the first generation of multi-millionaires,
the conditions of labor will be still further improved; and with the
disappearance of the second generation, to whom doubtless some
annuities will also be given, the workingman will receive all the
benefits now given to the capitalist.
Inasmuch as the wage-earners now receive on an average a little less
than one-half of the whole profits of the industry, from this
socialization of industry alone the laborer's will ultimately have
their compensation doubled by increase of wage and decrease of prices.
By "worker" is not meant what we now call workingmen alone. It includes
all engaged in industry through the work of their hands or their heads.
It is a common error into which Mr. Roosevelt has fallen that Socialism
proposes to improve the condition of the one at the expense of the
other; that it is a doctrine of Socialists that "all wealth is produced
by _manual_ workers."[161] No such foolish proposition has ever been
propounded by any Socialist however "extreme."[162] Socialists recognize
the enormous rôle played by brain in the organization and administration
of industry. What Socialism seeks to do is to eliminate the idle
stockholder--not the industrious manager. If Mr. Roosevelt would cast
his comprehensive eye around the class to which he belongs, he will
observe that it is composed in great part of idle stockholders who
contribute nothing whatever to the work of the industries which furnish
their dividends. And because these stockholders are idle, he will find
that they tend also to be "thriftless and vicious," and that he is
denouncing his own class when he characterizes as "morally base" the
proposition that "the thriftless and the vicious, who could or would put
in but little, should be entitled to take out the earnings of the
intelligent, the foresighted, and the industrious." He is very hard on
them; he says this is living by "theft or by charity" and that this
means "in each case degradation, a rapid lowering of self-respect and
self-reliance."[163] If a Socialist were to use this language of the
idle stockholders, he would be characterized as intemperate. I would not
myself go so far as Mr. Roosevelt. There are many idle stockholders who,
_because they are unconscious of living "by theft or by charity,"_ have
preserved a social conscience that sets them to righting the wrongs of
the many. Mr. Roosevelt himself, indeed, belongs to this very class. If
he ever takes the trouble to understand Socialism, he will see that it
proposes to put an end to the class that is idle and tends to be
"thriftless and vicious"; that in other words, in this as in every other
point on which Mr. Roosevelt attacks us, Socialism stands for the very
opposite of what Mr. Roosevelt thinks. It proposes to take our
industries out of the control of the idle and hand them over to the
industrious, whether their industry be of the hand or of the head.
The result of such transfer will be to leave every man doing the work
which he is already doing; to improve his condition; to keep alive the
competition necessary to prevent inefficiency or perfunctoriness and
make character; to diminish the stakes of the game, so that the worker
shall not lose health and happiness as now, but shall secure more or
less of the luxuries of life. And industry will be so organized that
no man who wants to work shall be without work; and no one who does
not want to work shall be allowed to be idle.
Having explained what is meant by the socialization of industry, and
pointed out how small the rôle of the state need be in the
socialization of industry at large, we may next proceed to consider
certain industries in which the state does, to-day, in other countries
and would in a coöperative commonwealth certainly play the dominant
rôle. In the first place, the state would own all natural monopolies.
By the word "state" must not be understood the Government at
Washington alone. Certain monopolies are national monopolies and would
therefore be owned by the national Government at Washington; for
example, railroads, telegraphs, national forests, national waterways,
etc. But it is the local authorities that would take over such local
monopolies as tramways, electric works, gas works, and all those
things that are essentially municipal in their nature. The wisdom of
this transfer of natural monopolies from private to public ownership
it is not necessary to discuss. The enormous advantages that have
attended this transfer in countries where it has been conscientiously
tried leave no room for discussion except by those who have a personal
interest in it, and to those this book is not addressed. Moreover,
this subject will be treated in the next chapter.
There are, however, certain industries which, because they are
intimately connected with public hygiene, it seems indispensable that
the municipality should take over. I refer to such industries as
packing houses, butcher shops, pharmacies, and the production and
distribution of milk, ice, and bread.
The recklessness with which we allow ice companies to distribute ice
collected from ponds into which the drainage of a large population
filters and from the head waters of such rivers as the Hudson, which
receives all the sewage of Albany, Schenectady, and Troy, seems
incredible, were we not already familiar with the recklessness which
hands over all our industries to a competitive system so fierce in its
operation that adulteration is its necessary consequence.
Many of the bakeshops which furnish us with our bread baffle
description, and on the poisons which are introduced into our milk I
have already dilated. Wherever the temptation to adulterate is
considerable and the consequence of adulteration to public health
great, the community should not accept the risk that arises from
competition except within the narrowest possible limits. For this
reason, it will doubtless be wise for a coöperative commonwealth to
own and run packing houses, butcher shops, pharmacies, bakeries, and
to produce and distribute milk and ice.
As regards ice, it is amazing that the municipal authorities should
not have undertaken this task before--especially in view of the
raising of the price of ice for the poor by the Ice Trust. Every city
has to supply its citizens with water, and as they are in control of
pure water, it should be as much the function of the city to furnish
pure ice as pure water. They have reservoirs free from pollution from
which ice could be cut; and nothing but the political influence of the
Ice Trust on the one hand, and the stupid indifference of the consumer
on the other, has permitted this business to remain in private
hands.[164]
The enormous profits made by the Meat Trust would permit not only of
sanitary handling of this industry, but proper compensation to all
engaged therein, and a notable reduction in the price of meat.
The fact that the baking industry is not trusted will make the taking
over of this industry by the state a more difficult undertaking, but
not for that reason an impossible one.
Competition is not necessarily to be eliminated in the taking over of
these industries. It is quite possible that the state might not
furnish good bread, and it ought, therefore, to be permissible for any
individual to enter into this business. The competition will be
limited because, inasmuch as the state will charge for its bread very
little above cost price, few will be induced to enter into this
business out of the desire for making money. The only motive that will
induce citizens to enter into the business will be that of furnishing
bread to their taste. Moreover, such industries would have to comply
strictly with hygienic conditions, and they would be not so numerous
as to make inspection as difficult, ineffectual, or expensive as
to-day.
The production and distribution of milk suggests a function of the
state to which sufficient importance cannot be attached. I mean the
creation of farm colonies. On this single point I am not supported by
the authority of the Socialist party. In other words, farm colonies
have never been suggested as a part of the Socialist program; but this
seems to be due to an oversight, for there does not seem to be in the
Socialist party, as far as I can judge of it, any opposition to the
idea. And the rôle of the farm colony seems to me of such importance
that it is hardly possible to give too much attention to it.
§ 4. FARM COLONIES
The first farm colony was established in Holland. The system has since
taken root all through Europe, but has reached its finest development
in the Canton of Berne, in Switzerland. It proceeds upon the principle
that while it is difficult to make money out of farm land, it is easy
to get nourishment from it, and that the most obvious remedy for idle
labor is to apply it to idle land.
In Switzerland it is also recognized that idle labor is divided into
two distinct classes--the unemployed and the unemployable--and the
unemployable must be again classified into those unable to work
through physical defect and those unable to work through moral
defect; that is to say, those who are morally willing and physically
unable and those physically able and morally unwilling. There are
therefore in Switzerland two different kinds of farm colonies: forced
colonies which deal with the tramp, the drunkard, and the
misdemeanant--all those persons upon whom discipline has to be
exercised; and free colonies for those physically disabled or who are
out of employment through causes over which they have no control.
It is in the poorest countries in Europe that farm colonies have
reached their highest development. Switzerland has been driven to
organize farm colonies by the fact that she is too poor to disregard
the burden of the unemployed and unemployables. It is in the richest
countries, England, France, and America, that the farm colony system
has been most neglected. The farm colony plan is the cheapest as well
as the best way of solving the problem of pauperism, deserving or
undeserving. This question has been fully treated elsewhere[165] and
it is only referred to here in sufficient detail to explain why it is
believed that the farm colony system will form an essential feature of
every Socialistic community. For although there will be an enormous
diminution in the number of those unwilling or unable to work (for the
reason that under a coöperative commonwealth no one need be overworked
and, therefore, no one need be reduced to the physical exhaustion
which is the prime cause of pauperism), and although there will be
fewer drunkards because drunkenness, also, is largely due to overwork,
nevertheless, until the coöperative commonwealth has been in operation
several generations, that part of the population that is unwilling or
unable to work will have to be provided for. And even later there
will certainly be some part of the population that will require
discipline as regards work. The farm colony system, more and more
indispensable in our existing civilization, will perform an important
rôle in the gradual transformation of society from the competitive to
the coöperative form. It probably presents to-day one of the most
perfect pieces of constructive Socialistic work in which legislators
can engage. For it has the extraordinary advantage of satisfying an
immediate necessity of the competitive system and at the same time
realizing some fundamental principles of Socialism; for example, that
every man and woman is entitled to work; that the aged are entitled to
support; and that the state should own enough land to assure both
these things.
The fact that our railroads are now awakening to the necessity of
handling the tramp proves the necessity of the system, and the fact
that in Switzerland the forced colonies have been made to pay their
own expenses indicates its economy. Indeed, no proposed legislation
illustrates so well the power driving us towards Socialism as the
history of attempts at legislation in this direction in New York
State.
Twelve years ago a farm colony bill was drawn by a committee appointed
by the charitable societies in New York; but it did not secure at
Albany a moment's serious attention. We were told by our legislators
that poverty is not a crime. When we answered that our bill did not
make it a crime more than the penal code, but only purposed to
substitute for the expensive and degenerating system of the misnamed
workhouse, inexpensive and regenerating work on a state farm, and that
the plan had operated effectually in Holland and Belgium for over a
hundred years, we were told that the plan might do in Holland, but
would not do here. So in the archives of the French senate may still
be read the report made by Thiers, when appointed by Louis Philippe on
a committee to investigate the first railroad ever built, which
concludes as follows: "Railroads may serve a purpose in England, but
they are not suited to France."
A similar bill, improved by borrowing from late experience in
Switzerland, drawn by a similar committee (to which was added the
Commissioner of Charities, Mr. Hebberd) was presented at Albany at the
session of 1909, and although not passed, was sufficiently well
received to encourage the hope that it will pass at the session of
1910. It had the support of the great railroads in New York state; for
the railroads have discovered that the tramp is an intolerable
nuisance.[166] Colonel Pangborn of the Baltimore & Ohio has lately
estimated that the damage occasioned by tramps to railroads in the
United States amounts in a single year to twenty-five million
dollars.[167] For the tramp in America does not tramp; he rides on
railroads; he sets fire to freight cars and freight stations; he
obstructs the lines, wrecks trains, and is a fruitful cause of action
for damages. The measure, therefore, which was thrown out by the
Assembly when proposed from motives of humanity, may be passed as a
measure of self-defence, and self-defence thus constitutes an element
of the power always at work on the side of progress that neither
ignorance nor interest will be able to resist.
The reason for believing that the farm colony will perform an
important function not only during the period which must elapse before
the coöperative commonwealth, but also after the coöperative
commonwealth has been attained, is that work on land seems to be the
only work to which the unemployed and unemployables can be suitably
put.
Every day we seem to be increasing our capacity to make land
productive. We not only make new discoveries, but profit by those of
more ancient civilizations than our own. It has long been known that
in the East they subject grain to the same system of replanting that
truck gardeners do early vegetables.[168]
Dr. Fesca informs us that in Japan rice is treated in the same way:
"It is allowed first to germinate; then it is sown in special warm
corners, well inundated with water and protected from the birds by
strings drawn over the ground. Thirty-five to fifty-five days later,
the young plants, now fully developed and possessed of a thick network
of rootlets, are replanted in the open ground. In this way the
Japanese obtain from twenty to thirty-two bushels of dressed rice to
the acre in the poor provinces, forty bushels in the better ones, and
from sixty to sixty-seven bushels in the best lands. The average, in
six rice-growing States of North America, is at the same time only
nine and a half bushels."[169]
Agriculturists are familiar with the results obtained by Major
Hallett's growing what he called "pedigree cereals"; that is to say,
by using as seed only the best ears in his crop; and by giving to
each grain sufficient space he obtained sometimes as much as 2500
grains for one grain planted. Even better results were obtained by
Grandeau.[170]
We are only beginning to know how much can be produced out of an acre
of ground. One thing, however, is certain: where labor is cheap and
land limited as in the case of our unemployed, there is no method
known by which labor can produce better results than by putting it to
what is called "intensive culture"; and as the secrets of intensive
culture become more known, it becomes clear that if the state would
only take the trouble to set aside a certain amount of land for the
purpose, it could without further expense than that of the first
installation make able-bodied unemployed and unemployables
self-supporting.
This is not a question of fertility; it is simply a question of space.
Unfertile land is made fertile by intensive culture. It has been said
that the Paris gardener defies the soil and the climate. Every truck
gardener there stipulates in renting land that he "may carry away his
soil down to a certain depth, when he quits his tenancy."[171] In
other words, soil is now a manufacture; we are no longer confined to
fertile areas; we can make any area fertile by the application to it
of industry and intelligence.
Municipalities can contribute enormously to the fertility of the land
around them. A district near Paris, called Genevilliers, was a few
years ago a desert tract of sand. The city poured over this tract the
sewage of the city after a filtration that deprived it of its
offensive features. This tract has become of fabulous fertility; but
the municipality having failed to buy this land before this operation,
the increased value of the land has accrued to the persons who
happened to be the owners of it; whereas if the city had begun by
purchasing the land at the price at which it could have been purchased
before this operation, it would have had here a tract of enormous
value that, by the farm colony system, would have greatly contributed
to relieve the city of the burden of pauperism.
It would seem as though the art of using manure were practically
unknown in this country by the farmers. The results that can be
obtained in this way are given in the Farmer's Bulletin, No. 242,
where an intelligent use of manure resulted in crops of 6.7 tons of
hay for every acre of cultivation;[172] and this not by the
application of any extraordinary science, but simply by recognizing
the obvious fact that manure must be spread daily and not allowed to
lose most of its value from being piled into heaps, where it burns and
degenerates.[173]
The farm colony must be so organized that it furnishes work summer and
winter. As its name implies, the colony is not confined to work on
land. Many skilled workmen would lose their skill if they were put to
farm work. Swiss colonies, therefore, have a few industries
established in each colony to which skilled workmen are put. This
occupies unskilled inmates during the winter months when the weather
is too inclement for out of door work, and also teaches them.
Moreover, in a self-supporting farm colony there is work which can be
done by the aged and the infirm, teaming, taking care of animals,
plucking fruits and vegetables, preparing them for preserving, and all
the small jobs that attend large housekeeping.
The farm colony plan will in part relieve the state of the expense of
old-age pensions. Every industry will provide pensions for its own
workers and thus the state will be relieved by the guilds; but there
will always be some aged left unsupported by such private industries
as will continue to exist by the side of the guilds. Of these it may
be expedient to relieve some in their own homes; but many will find in
the free farm colony an abiding place more congenial to themselves
than the almshouse, and far less expensive to the state. It will be
more congenial because there will be no more disgrace attending a free
farm colony than any other state employment, and because it will be
organized so as to render its work as agreeable as possible. It will
never be so attractive as work outside the colony because it will be
subject to the kind of regulations that attend all big institutions,
so there is little fear of these colonies becoming larger than is good
for the community. But it will be a home rather than an almshouse, and
it will be less expensive to the state because of the work which even
the aged can do.
The farm colony furnishes a system by means of which the state can
compel the unwilling, able-bodied tramp and pauper to earn his own
livelihood; where it can afford work to the unemployed without cost to
the state; and can utilize to the utmost possible the services of
those who are not able-bodied.
It must not be imagined that discipline of a harsh character is
necessary. There are in every one of these colonies in Europe dark
cells, where a man who will not work, or will not obey rules, is
confined and kept on bread and water until he consents to work and to
obey rules; and the very fact of the existence of these cells, and of
this system, has been found sufficient to secure good work and
obedience to rules without using the dark cells except under
exceptional circumstances. The director of one of the Dutch colonies
told me that he did not use the dark cell once a year.
There is no reason why the farm colony system should not be extended
to the treatment of all crime except that we have prisons, prison
managers, and a prison administration which stand in the way of
radical prison reform; and the general stupidity which prefers the
ills we have to the blessings which, obvious as they are, we have not
imagination enough to comprehend. The folly of keeping an enormous
population of criminals idle, within four walls, at an enormous
expense to the community, when we could keep them busy to their great
advantage, physical, intellectual, and moral, without a penny of cost
to the community, is one of those things which future generations will
find it difficult to believe.[174]
In the coöperative commonwealth there will be no prisons, no
penitentiaries, no almshouses, no tramps, no unemployed. There will be
farm colonies of various grades, from those that have no discipline
beyond that necessary to secure the observance of rules necessary to
all institutional life, through those that have just enough discipline
to keep lazy men at work, to those that have sufficient discipline to
keep even criminals at work. For although it is obvious that under a
coöperative commonwealth in which there is no necessity for
exhausting any individual, no necessity for alcoholism or stimulation,
no anxiety regarding the means of existence; where there is throughout
a high standard of living, ease for the mind and abundance for the
body, the production of the natural criminal ought to be immensely
diminished, yet the occasional criminal will have to be provided for.
For further study of the farm colony system as it has been developed
in Switzerland, and as it might be applied in the United States under
existing conditions, the reader is referred to "The Elimination of the
Tramp."[175] It is hoped, however, that enough has been said regarding
these colonies to enable us to consider the immense rôle which an
intelligent classification of farm colonies would play, not only under
existing conditions, but in the future coöperative commonwealth.
A single farm colony for dealing with tramps as proposed in the bill
now before the Assembly of New York State would render an
indispensable service by taking off the streets and highways the
vagrants who, because they are now confounded with the unemployed,
tend to confuse the mind of the public on this all-important subject.
But although such a colony, organized under the same conditions as the
forced labor colony in Switzerland, would render this service without
cost to the state beyond that of first installation, its usefulness in
the problem of production at large would be extremely small. It would
attain its purpose if it were self-supporting. But if this tramp
colony proves a success, the same system could be applied not only to
take care of all our dependent and criminal classes, but to play an
important rôle in the production of the necessaries of life.
There ought to be three distinct classes of colonies:
The criminal farm colony surrounded by walls where the strictest
discipline would be enforced, and within which the inmates would be
confined to intensive cultivation, handicrafts, and some form of
machine industry.
The forced labor colony for misdemeanants and able-bodied vagrants and
paupers where larger liberty would be enjoyed; and
The free labor colony where there would be no regulation except that
indispensable in all institutions.
Perhaps to these should be added probationary colonies as described in
the "Elimination of the Tramp," p. 59, for those as to whose
willingness to work there is doubt. These would furnish the "test" so
much sought by English Poor Law Guardians. From these probationary
colonies the inmates would be graduated down to the forced labor
colony, or up to the free. So also criminals would be prepared for
social life by passing through the forced labor colony, and inmates of
the forced labor colony prepared for social life by passing through
the free labor colony.
In a coöperative commonwealth free labor would have no objection to
industrial work conducted within these colonies, because the less work
there is to be done in any given industry, the less hours would the
workers in that industry have to give to it. So that every industry
carried on in the colony would by so much diminish the amount of goods
produced outside by that industry, and to that extent relieve the free
labor engaged therein. This great objection to penal labor being
removed, the state will have an advantage in distributing the
industries throughout its colonies according to geographical
conditions.
The criminal colonies will naturally be more industrial in their
character than the agricultural, because they will have to be
operated within prison walls. They will nevertheless include truck
gardening and horticulture.[176] Penal colonies, therefore, will group
themselves around great water power, which will be retained by the
state and not dissipated by the gift of franchises to private
corporations.[177]
Misdemeanants and tramps will preferably be set to work on large farms
which, because of their size and remoteness from towns, will render
escape difficult. The methods adopted in Switzerland for making escape
difficult if not impossible, are fully described in the "Elimination
of the Tramp."[178]
As in these colonies there is more or less work to be done all the
year round, it would be indispensable to build in connection with them
factories which could be operated during the winter months, the state
being careful to limit the factories to the production of things
already socialized, so as not to compete injuriously with private
industry.
Free labor colonies ought to be located near large centers of
population, not only because of the character of the things they will
produce, for example, milk, vegetables, and fruits, which need a
market at the door, but also because it is in these great centers that
pauperism and unemployment express themselves in largest figures and
in greatest variation. In these colonies inmates will remain the
shortest terms, and it is important, therefore, to have them in
proximity to places where the inmates are likely to live in order to
avoid the heavy expense of transportation.
Free labor colonies will be engaged in the production of milk for two
reasons: The hygienic importance of milk is so great that it should as
much as possible be removed from the competitive field. It is
important that milk should be produced as near as possible to the town
where it is to be consumed. It is wiser, therefore, to assign the
production of milk to the free labor colony, near the city, than to
the penal or forced labor colony that would be comparatively remote.
But it must not be imagined that the production of milk can be
confided exclusively to such inexpert labor as that of the inmates of
free labor colonies. The production of milk can only be entrusted to
careful experts receiving a relatively high rate of wages. Free labor
colonies, therefore, will have to be provided with a corps of men and
women trained in the production of milk and dairy products.
It may be suggested that the fact that dairy products must be
entrusted to trained experts is a reason for not associating the
production of milk with free labor colonies. This objection disappears
when account is taken of the fact that dairy farms should have
connected with them such subsidiary products as chickens and pigs.
Skimmed milk is of the greatest value in these subsidiary productions;
so also is the garbage that would accumulate in such an institution as
a farm colony. The care of pigs and poultry can be confided to
defectives such as we are likely to find in a free labor colony. It
furnishes work all the year round; it enriches the soil rather than
impoverishes it.
Free labor colonies, therefore, will be engaged in the production of
milk, pigs, poultry, vegetables, fruits, and flowers. They will be
furnished with grain by the forced labor colonies in the States where
grain can be cultivated on a large scale; and by distributing
industries among the three classes of colonies and arranging for
exchange of products, the whole colony system ought not only to be
self-supporting, but to produce more than the colonies can themselves
consume. The disposition made of these products will be studied in
connection with the problem of distribution.
Under such a plan, no pauperism or even poverty will be tolerated in
the towns. As soon as a man, woman, or family is incapable of
self-support in the competitive field, or because of sickness or
accident in the coöperative field, they will be taken out of the town
where their presence is an expense and a nuisance not only to
themselves, but to the community, to a free farm colony where health
can be restored and defectives put to the best use possible.
Farm colonies in the Rocky Mountain region where sheep and cattle can
be fed on public land for nine or ten months in the year, and fed by
hand during the remaining two or three months, will furnish cattle and
sheep to municipal packing-houses that will distribute meat with the
economy of the postoffice system from door to door.
State farm colonies in the grain-growing districts will furnish grain
to all the other colonies and wheat to municipal bakeries that will
distribute bread with the economy of the postoffice system from door
to door.
Free labor colonies adjoining cities will produce milk, butter, and
dairy products, pork and pork products, chickens, eggs, vegetables,
fruits, and flowers and distribute them with the economy of the
postoffice system from door to door.
State factories distributed amongst penal colonies in accordance with
the geographical conditions that will make them most efficient, will
furnish garments, shoes, hats, etc., to the other colonies at the
cheapest possible price.
By the side of these productions, there will be maintained exactly the
same system of private ownership that exists to-day with all the
virtues that emulation produces free from the fatal consequences that
make failure result in misery, pauperism, prostitution, vagrancy, and
crime. For so long as the individual prospers in his private
enterprise, he will be encouraged to maintain it; whereas the moment
he fails, he will come within the state system under which the private
individual having proved his inability to support himself and his
family under the competitive plan, will be shown how to support
himself and his family by state institutions that will have reduced
this task to a science.
That the state will occasionally fail in this task is to be expected.
But what is the worst consequence that can result from failure?
Nothing more than the maintenance of the competitive system in every
field of industry where the state fails. If the state fails to furnish
good bread, private initiative will take the baking of bread from the
state and will keep it until the state succeeds in furnishing bread to
the taste of the public. If the state fails in furnishing garments,
private initiative will keep garment making in its hands except in so
far as the state makes garments for the inmates of its own
institutions.
Many problems connected with this system of production will occur to
the mind of the intelligent reader. These problems, however, will be
found to belong more strictly to the question of distribution and
government control--two subjects that cannot be intelligently
discussed until the question of private property in land has been
answered.
§ 5. LAND
Socialism was formerly defined as including state ownership of land.
This idea is to-day, however, abandoned in favor of a much more
intelligent system:
One principal difference between the Socialist and the Single Taxer is
that the Single Taxer is opposed to state ownership of all land; and
it is probable that the Single Taxer is more wise in this respect than
the state Socialist. In the first place, the state Socialist who wants
all land to be owned by the state ignores some very fundamental facts
in human nature: He ignores the fact that humanity has for generations
cultivated the instinct of ownership in land. There is nothing dearer
in life to the French peasant than the strip of land barely sufficient
to support life, and he will cling to that strip of land until some
accident has torn it from him and reduced him to the condition of a
pauper. Out of this instinct of ownership springs the extraordinary
industry of the farmer--an industry which is not excelled or equalled
in any but sweated trades.
The life of the peasant or small farmer is one of hardship that leaves
no moment for leisure, and of monotony that populates our lunatic
asylums.[179] Not only is the life of the farmer one of the hardest,
but it is also one of the least secure. The failure of a single crop,
the loss of a single horse, disease in a chicken yard, a violent
hail-storm--any of these may oblige a farmer to put that first small
mortgage on his farm which is the beginning of his ruin. Nevertheless,
the farmer sticks to his farm and labors on it from the rising of the
sun, through the glare of noon and up to the last ray in the west,
because the land is his own and he has for it the kind of affection
that a mother has for her child--an affection that makes no sacrifice
too great. It would seem unwise to deprive the farmer of the
satisfaction of ownership and the community of the industry and
productivity which this sense of ownership results in.
There is no conceivable advantage in depriving the farmer of the
ownership of his farm. The farmer now pays taxes on his land. The
right of the state to exact a tax puts the state in the position of a
landlord except that the state calls the tribute it levies on the farm
a "tax," whereas the owner calls this tribute "rent." Of course there
is a great difference between the tax levied by the state and the rent
paid by the farmer to the private owner, because the one is light and
the other heavy. This is the material difference which must not be
lost sight of in the discussion of the subject. Every farmer expects
to pay taxes to the state and all he asks is that the tax be not an
onerous one. It can be rendered less onerous in the coöperative
commonwealth than to-day because a coöperative commonwealth will not
exact payment of taxes in money, but will content itself with payment
in produce. Instead of the state taking over the land and depriving
the farmer of ownership, and exacting rent, the coöperative
commonwealth will leave the ownership in the farmer and exact a tax in
produce; and so long as this tax is paid, the farmer will remain the
undisputed owner of his land, and will continue to give it that hourly
care without which the best results can hardly be obtained.
There is nothing in modern Socialism, therefore, to frighten the
farmer. He cannot but benefit by it, for his taxes will be levied in
produce instead of in cash; and it is the conversion of farm produce
into cash which is the farmer's main difficulty to-day, as was seen
when money was discussed.
The title of a farmer under a coöperative commonwealth will be much
like that of the peasant in the Island of Jersey, who generally
purchases his land on condition of paying a certain amount to the
owner per annum. These Jersey titles are just as secure as freeholds
in England or in this country, subject of course to the payment of the
rent charged.
The tax in produce, however, which the farmer is to pay the state will
be far more just and fair. Land will be classified according to
productivity, and the farmer will never be called upon to furnish the
state with a larger proportion of his crop than he can afford. On the
other hand, farmers will not be allowed to keep the ownership of land
which they do not use. If it is to the benefit of the community that
land be drained, the owner will be called upon to drain it within a
definite period. If he does not drain it within that period, the state
will take his undrained land from him. Nor will the farmer be allowed
to cut down timber where the maintenance of the timber is deemed
important to the commonwealth.[180] He will be taught forestry and the
propagation of deer, and shown how to produce as much income out of
his timber as he would out of the land when cleared. Above all, he
will be relieved from the exorbitant prices which he now pays the
trust for every article which he does not himself produce. The state
will undertake the task of distribution, so that he can receive as the
farmer in South Australia does to-day--a part payment in cash for all
produce he delivers at the nearest railroad, and a subsequent payment
when his goods have been sold through the instrumentality of the
state. But this last belongs to Distribution.
Prices will not be lowered by the competition of farm colonies. On the
contrary, they will be maintained by the prices asked by farm
colonies. Farm-colony prices will allow every efficient farmer a
substantial living, and the farmer will have the benefit of the
example and advice furnished him by the nearest farm colony, which
will be a model farm.
It may be objected that under this system the farmer will not have
sufficient motive for adopting modern methods. There are undoubtedly
farmers who are averse to the adoption of modern methods; but there
are also thousands of farmers eager to know modern methods. Rev. J.D.
Detrich, who produced 6.7 tons of hay for every acre in cultivation on
his farm[181] was so pestered by neighbors who called to study his
methods that he was obliged to remove to an adjoining State.
Recalcitrant farmers will slowly be compelled to adopt modern methods
by the fixing of prices that will make modern methods indispensable to
prosperity.
In every way, therefore, the farmer will be benefited by the
introduction of Socialism. He will keep the title of ownership in his
farm that is dear to him; he will pay his taxes in produce instead of
in cash; he will have the benefit of education and advice at his door;
and he will be relieved of the exorbitant prices now demanded by the
trusts, and of that greatest of all his anxieties, the conversion of
his produce into cash.
As regards city land, the problem is a very different one, because the
treatment of city land is an essential part of the whole municipal
problem.
Practically all municipal problems may be reduced to one--namely,
crowding. As long as farmers live half a mile apart as they do on a
standard 160-acre farm in the West, sewage and garbage are matters of
individual rather than social interest. Provided the farmer does not
pollute springs and water courses, he may dispose of his sewage and
garbage as he chooses; but the moment men and women are crowded into
cities on the vertical as well as on the horizontal plane, the
disposal of sewage and garbage becomes of vital importance to the
whole community.
So also the maintenance of roads is a comparatively simple problem in
the country, where traffic is light; whereas in the city, where
traffic is great, the pavement of the streets presents problems not
only of resistance, but of noise. The droppings of horses on the
country road can be neglected; whereas those of horses passing a
thousand per hour in a crowded city street create a dust injurious to
health, and give rise to the problem of street cleaning.
Again, where land is plentiful compared with population, the rent
charged for land is small and often negligible; whereas where land is
scarce compared with the population, as in the island of Manhattan,
the rent becomes prohibitive for all except the wealthy, and
workingmen are reduced to the alternative between living near their
work in unwholesome tenements and living far from their work in less
unwholesome conditions. And this scarcity of land gives rise to many
problems of congested districts, of tuberculosis, sanitation,
transportation, and of rent.
If we look back on the whole history of our civilization, we shall see
an unconscious struggle always going on between private interest and
public spirit. The one tends to divide cities into two districts, one
composed of the palaces of the rich, the other of the slums of the
poor, and seeks to convert every problem of municipal government into
means of increasing private wealth. The other, on the contrary, we
find manifested in the "Age of Faith" building cathedrals; in the Age
of Beauty or Renaissance, building public squares and gardens; and in
recent years taking such services as transportation out of the hands
of private individuals and vesting them in the city. This struggle
between public and private interest has been, up to the present time,
unconscious or fitful. The Socialist asks that it should become
conscious and progressive; that is all.
Let us take a few concrete instances: It was not until dark alleys
were found to facilitate the work of criminals that municipalities
were driven to light the streets; it was not until a district of
Birmingham had become a menace to public welfare because its filth
engendered both disease and crime that the municipality was driven to
put an end to it; it was not until cholera began its ravages that
municipalities were driven to provide clean dwellings; it was not
until the evils attending imperfect transportation became intolerable
that New York was driven to build subways; it was not until fires
devastated the city that New York organized its fire department; it
was not until the filth of the streets was intolerable that the city
took the cleaning of streets out of the hands of private contractors.
Up to the present time municipal activities have been forced into
existence by the growth of the evils to a point where they could no
longer be endured.
Over a century ago it was said that municipalities were "sores upon
the body politic," and this phrase has been solemnly quoted ever since
as a sort of slogan of despair; whereas the municipality might be and
ought to be, if intelligently administered, the mainspring of all our
great national activities. The Socialist asks that, instead of waiting
for evils to become intolerable before we attempt to cope with them
and then adopting measures which, because they come late, are
inadequate, we should take up municipal administration as a
housekeeper takes hold of the administration of her house, adopting
measures which we must inevitably in the end adopt before the evils
become intolerable, and before the city becomes so over-built as to
make the difficulty of coping with these evils insurmountable.
This is the spirit in which a citizen should approach the question of
city land; and if we do approach it in this spirit, the problem of how
to put an end to the evils arising from private ownership of land is
in many respects similar to those which present themselves in our
effort to put an end to the evils of private ownership of stock.
For example, some land will be in the hands of men who have
contributed absolutely nothing to its value. They have inherited it,
and upon the rent which conditions have enabled them to exact they
have lived lives of uselessness if not of profligacy. One has abjured
his American nationality to avoid the payment of the personal tax, and
applies the sums which he receives, thanks to the industry of the
community in New York, to the publishing of a conservative newspaper
in London opposed to every effort permanently to improve the
conditions of humanity there. Some land will be in the hands of men
and women who have invested it in the economies of a laborious life
and for whom it represents an old-age pension. Between these two,
there is every degree of merit.
The problem of compensation in taking over of city land will prove as
complicated as in the socialization of industries, and very much the
same principles will apply. Every city presents problems of its own,
and it is difficult, therefore, to lay down general principles
applicable to all cities. But one point seems clear: We shall have to
live in our cities while we are transforming them, and this means that
the transformation will have to be slow. If the state undertakes to
transform the slums into habitable tenements, the present families of
the slums must be accommodated somewhere while the transformation
takes place.
Rebuilding our cities to accommodate them to the changed conditions of
a coöperative commonwealth, will be little more than doing on a large
scale what Birmingham did on a small scale when it converted its slums
into Corporation Street. If it is to be done well, it must be preceded
with the deliberate preparation indispensable to the success of every
large undertaking.
The Single Taxers are right when they claim that the enhancement of
the value of land due to the industry of the many ought not to be
appropriated by the idle few. The "unearned increment" should accrue
to the whole community and not to a few landowners. As, therefore, the
enhancement of the value of land due to crowding is a peculiar feature
of the city, and distinguishes it from the country, it seems
indispensable that city land should eventually be owned by the city;
by the mass of citizens who labor and dwell therein.
Another thing seems clear, namely, that a city cannot be transformed
to suit the needs of a coöperative commonwealth so long as the city is
owned by a few individuals who, by virtue of their ownership, have a
right to resist the transformation.
The ownership in city land is, therefore, totally different from
ownership in farmland. In the latter case, there is no necessity for
suppressing private ownership; whereas in the city, such suppression
seems indispensable. It may be added that the beautiful parts of every
city are due to state ownership. The Place des Vosges was built by
Henry IV; the Place Vendôme was built by Louis XIV; the Place de la
Concorde was built by Louis XV; the Champs Elysées and the Arc de
l'Etoile were built by the two Napoleons. Practically all the great
monuments of Paris were built by the state. Her streets were planned
by the state, and the height of her private buildings regulated by the
state. The same thing is true of London and Vienna. It is in our
American cities alone that private initiative being allowed full sway,
our buildings look like ill-assorted books in a neglected library;
that we are committed to interminable streets and avenues which pass
what monuments we have but lead up to none. In a word, our cities are
committed to conditions so inartistic that the task of making them
beautiful seems impossible short of destroying and rebuilding them
altogether.
§ 6. SUMMARY OF PRODUCTIVE SIDE OF ECONOMIC CONSTRUCTION
It will be seen that modern Socialism does not propose to interfere
with the private ownership of the farmer in his farm, and that the
production of agricultural and dairy products will remain much in the
same hands as at present, except that the state will have farm
colonies to standardize production; to weed out those farmers who,
because of their incapacity, are unable to produce what the land is
capable of producing; and to furnish work not only for unsuccessful
farmers, but for all who cannot earn a living in socialized industries
or under competitive conditions. Such a condition of things will
involve no redistribution of tasks. It will leave every man working in
the industry in which he is; it will leave those who are engaged in
competition still engaged in competition where it is not productive of
injurious result. It will raise wages in all socialized industries,
and raise the purchasing power of these industries by reducing prices;
it will, therefore, raise the standard of life for the workingman,
secure for him clean and wholesome habitations, and a possibility of
maintaining a home in the best sense of the word, where our present
civilization makes such a home impossible. By farm colonies it will
make the exploitation of men, women, and children impossible. Children
will not work at all until they have reached the fullest education of
which they are capable; women will not be allowed in industrial work
as long as they are bearing and rearing children; and men need never
receive a sweated wage when they have state institutions where they
can in exchange for their work, have board, lodging, and as much wage
as they can in addition earn. There will be no criminal class, for no
man need be driven to crime by want; and by the abolition of the
criminal class and the criminal environment, it is probable that crime
resulting from economic causes will tend to disappear. Nor will a
woman be driven by need to prostitution. Every industry will provide
compensation for its own superannuated and defectives, and the state
will have but few for whom to furnish old-age pensions. The community
will be relieved, therefore, of the enormous burden of vagrancy,
pauperism, prostitution, and crime; and all this without interfering
with any competitive industry capable of supporting its workers up to
the standard of life created by socialized industry, and without any
such convulsion as will throw upon the state the dangerous problem of
assigning tasks.
We have heretofore considered only the problem of production; we have
still to consider that of distribution.
§ 7. DISTRIBUTION.
At the present time anarchy reigns over production and distribution.
This anarchy has been in great part already replaced in the field of
manufacture by the trust. By combination, or as Mr. Rockefeller says,
"by coöperation" (Book II, Chapter III), all those engaged in the
manufacture of the same thing have eliminated competition so as to
obtain the advantages of production on a large scale. The coöperative
commonwealth will avail itself of the work already done by the trust,
and as has been already shown, will leave all these trusted industries
in the hands of those actually engaged in the work thereof.
In the field of agricultural production, however, little has been done
to diminish the anarchy of distribution.[182]
The anarchy which now characterizes distribution must be considered
under two heads: competition in the field of transportation, and
competition in the field of retail trade. America is unique among the
nations of the world for insisting upon railroads being run on the
competitive system. In Europe franchises are given to railroads with a
view to public welfare and the distinct policy of avoiding
competition. Capitals are adopted as railroad centers and franchises
so granted as to furnish a system of main lines radiating from these
centers in such a manner as to compete with one another the least
possible. In America we have proceeded upon the plan that railroads
are to compete just as traders do, and that it is by competition that
rates are to be kept down. Railroads competing with one another
between the same places are run at a social loss, the community is
better served by one railroad run in the interests of the country than
by two between the same points run in the interests of private
individuals.
As regards transportation then there seems to be no room for
competition whatever. The state should own all systems of
transportation with a view to bringing the produce of the country and
of the factory to the consumer at the lowest possible cost to the
community.
Let us consider how a coöperative community will deal with competition
in the retail trade.
There is no reason why the private retailer conducting a business for
his own account should not continue to exist side by side with a
system of state distribution. There are reasons of propinquity and
convenience that enable the small retailer to live to-day next door to
the big department store. In the same way, the private retailer can
perfectly well continue to live by the side of the state distributing
system. Nevertheless, some parts of retail trade will be taken over
absolutely, for example, milk, for hygienic reasons. And other
departments will be so completely in the hands of the state that so
long as the state furnishes a good quality it will be improbable that
private enterprise will find it useful to interfere; as for example,
the baking of bread.
As regards all those things which are likely to remain in the hands of
individual enterprise, as, for example, things in which taste plays an
important rôle--garments, hats, wallpaper, furniture, musical
instruments, other instruments of pleasure such as athletic goods,
bicycles, automobiles, steam launches, photographic apparatus--the
retailing of these is likely to remain as much a matter of private
enterprise as the production of them.
As regards the necessaries of life the consumer should be able to get
them at the lowest possible price. All things of a hygienic character,
which it is of the utmost importance that the consumer should have of
the purest quality, the state will undertake not only to transport,
but to distribute in state stores. It is of course conceivable that in
some towns the state store will not be conducted to the satisfaction
of its citizens, and private enterprise will therefore run a store in
that place better than the state. In such case, private enterprise
ought to be encouraged in its competition. But inasmuch as good state
management will be in a coöperative commonwealth a matter of the
greatest importance, it is not likely that the citizen will long
endure bad administration. This belongs more to the political aspect
of Socialism than to the economic, and will be studied there. We shall
therefore now pass to a brief consideration of just how this system of
distribution will work.
The state, having control of transportation, will adopt the method now
prevailing in South Australia, and will pay the manufacturer and the
farmer in cash at least 50 per cent--if not more--of the value of his
goods at the railroad station. These will then be transported by the
state in conformity with the needs of the various villages, towns and
cities to stores of its own. These will be run upon the coöperative
plan; the goods sold at only a small margin above cost, this margin
being kept to meet the expense of distribution; and the profits--if
any--will be distributed at the end of the year amongst customers on
the coöperative plan.
It is obvious, however, that if the state is to distribute in the most
economical manner, it must have some control over production. It must
not be called upon to transport and distribute more of any one thing
than the public wants; nor must it be caught without enough to satisfy
the needs of the consumer. This makes it indispensable to study the
problem of control at the same time with the problem of distribution.
No function of the state will probably be more important in a
coöperative commonwealth than that of controlling the production of
those things which, because they are necessaries or have hygienic
importance, a coöperative commonwealth should itself control,
transport, and distribute.
The problem of control is not as difficult as it might at first seem.
We know perfectly well to-day how much wheat, corn, beef, mutton,
etc., are actually consumed by our population. All we have to do to
determine this amount for ourselves is to take, for example, the
amount of wheat produced in the country, and the amount exported,
subtract the exports from the product and determine the amount
consumed in this country. The same thing can be done practically with
every staple product. The state, therefore, can determine every year
in advance how much of every staple product _must_ be produced for
the needs of the country. It will, of course, add to the amount
actually needed a margin to provide for poor crops and other
accidents.
Let us consider how this control will be exercised as regards farm and
dairy products. It has been already suggested that land should be
classified according to geographical conditions, exposure, and soil.
The productivity of the farm colonies will of course be known by the
state. Every private farm will have its productivity roughly
determined and every farmer will be expected to produce a minimum
amount. Of the amount he produces, a part will be taken as taxes to
furnish the government with the means to pay for administration. The
rest will be paid for partly in gold and partly in orders on the state
stores. The object of this system of payment is the following:
It has been explained that taxes will be paid in produce. This payment
therefore needs no further comment. A minimum product ascribed to
every farm will be paid for with orders on the state store. This
represents the amount which the farmer _must_ produce to keep his
farm. It also represents the amount which the state _must_ have to
supply its citizens with food. All over and above this amount will be
paid for in orders on the public store, or in cash, as the farmer
shall elect; or, if the farmer chooses to dispose of this part to
private traders he will be at liberty to do so. By this method the
community will be furnished with produce belonging to three different
categories: produce in the shape of a tax for which the farmer
receives no compensation, this being practically the rent he pays the
state for his land; second, the minimum produce for which the farmer
receives equivalent orders on the public store, this category being
the produce upon which the community depends for its sustenance.
The order upon the public store need differ in no way from the
greenback of to-day except that, instead of entitling the holder to a
dollar's worth of gold, it will entitle him to a dollar's worth of
goods in the public store. Thus if wheat can be produced in a
coöperative commonwealth at 50 cents per bushel, as seems likely,[183]
the farmer will receive for every two bushels an order for one dollar
on the public store.
The third category which represents the surplus above what the farmer
is required to produce in order to keep his farm, will constitute a
surplus of production applicable to exchange for luxuries and foreign
goods. This exchange can be made directly by the farmer or by private
banks and private merchants, or by the state.
Let us consider the control the state must exercise over, and the rôle
it must play in, the distribution of products of socialized industries
such as oil, sugar, steel, iron, leather, etc. The amount of iron and
steel required by the nation in the course of a year is not as
constant a quantity as the amount of wheat. It is, however,
sufficiently constant to make it possible to establish a minimum. The
state will begin by requiring socialized industries to furnish this
minimum and determine the price to be paid for it, thus creating a
stock on hand which can be accumulated so as to diminish the amount
needed in subsequent years and furnish a reserve which can be called
upon in case of extraordinary need. The state, having established the
minimum of steel, sugar, oil, etc., which it needs, will require of
the socialized industries to produce this minimum. It will also
require them to produce, in addition, an amount necessary to
contribute their share to the maintenance of the government. Every
associated industry, therefore, will furnish at regular intervals the
result of its manufacture in three categories similar to those already
explained--a part for taxes; a minimum already referred to that will
be paid for in orders on the public stores, and a surplus of which it
can dispose either to the state or directly to foreign bankers and
merchants. In this way, every associated industry will so adjust its
manufacture as to produce these three categories; the proceeds of the
surplus will be applicable in the first place to the support of
workers through accidents, illness, and during old age; and the rest
will be divided as profits amongst those engaged for example in the
steel industry. These profits will be applicable to the purchase of
luxuries either produced at home or produced abroad.
Under this system the coöperative commonwealth will have goods to
exchange with foreign countries and will to this extent be a merchant
as regards all those things which it holds in excess of the needs of
the community, and as regards that surplus which it may purchase from
the farmer and the socialized industries. This leaves room for a
system of private banks and private enterprises in international
trade; for the farmer and the socialized industries will be free to
trade their surplus through the government or through private
individuals as they may consider most to their profit.
The distributive stores will present very much the same aspect as our
department stores of to-day except that, though they may be even more
gigantic in size, they are not likely to be as diverse; for a large
proportion of the things now dealt in by department stores will
doubtless remain in the hands of private industry. The essential duty
of the state will be to provide its citizens with necessaries, not
luxuries pertaining to taste and pleasure.
The state store will be divided into two departments, retail and
wholesale; not that a different price need necessarily be charged in
the retail than in the wholesale department, but because the machinery
for furnishing builders with bricks is different from that for
furnishing housewives with groceries. The state stores will also have
a system for the regular delivery from door to door of such
necessaries of life as are daily or at stated intervals consumed,
e.g., milk, bread, coal, ice, meat, vegetables, and fruit, thereby
applying postoffice economies to the distribution of these things.
The labor of distribution will be diminished by the slow
transformation of city dwellings into gigantic apartment houses so
constructed as to give the fullest supply of light and air to every
room; and these apartment houses will have a distributing system of
their own to the relief of the state.
As regards alcoholic drinks, the state will undoubtedly undertake the
production of these with a view to taking this industry as far as
possible out of private hands. It will not be necessary, however, to
take it entirely out of private hands provided all private production
is subjected to vigorous control. But the distribution of alcoholic
liquors will probably be monopolized by the state on the Gothenburg
plan with, perhaps, the important feature which characterizes the
Public House Trust in England; that is, the persons in charge will
receive a salary and an additional commission upon the sale of
non-alcoholic drinks, but no commission on the sale of alcoholic
drinks; and this with a view to giving the persons in charge an
interest in selling non-alcoholic drinks. Under these circumstances,
there will be no temptation to encourage drunkenness and the rule of
not giving alcoholic drinks to persons already under the influence of
liquor will be complied with.
It will be possible under such a general system for the state to serve
as a medium for an exchange of labor that will greatly enhance the
pleasure of life. Under existing conditions, the factory works summer
as well as winter despite the fact that temperature makes work during
the summer irksome and dangerous to health and life; and at the very
time that the population is debilitated by being called upon to work
in factories during the heat of June, July, and August, the farmer is
in despair because he cannot find help to take in his harvest. Once
industries are associated so that they have a definite knowledge of
how much they have to produce, there is no reason why they should not
so adjust the work of the factory as to keep it open during the eight
cool months of the year, leaving the factory hands free to help the
farmer in the country during the four hot months. The same thing holds
good with the farmer who, during the short cold days of winter, has
little to do on the farm and can, therefore, to his advantage as well
as to the advantage of the community, devote those months to factory
work. There need be nothing compulsory about this exchange, for
socialized industry is master of its own time and can distribute its
work throughout the year as it chooses. But the fact that the state is
possessed of the knowledge how much is to be produced by every factory
and how much by every farmer--how many men are needed in the winter in
every factory and how many men in the summer on every farm, will
enable the state to serve as a medium through which the factory hand
can arrange to work on the farm during the summer and the farmer can
arrange to work in the factory in the winter, if they respectively
desire to do so.
It does not follow that the farmer is to be compelled to work long
hours in the summer in the field and also in the factory during the
winter; or the factory hand to give up his holiday in order to work on
the farm during the summer. It has been shown that all the necessaries
of life can probably be produced, even at the present time, by the
adults in the community though they work no more than two hours and a
half a day. If this be so, it would be easy so to adjust the work as
to enable those who desire it to work more hours in the day and become
entitled to so much longer vacation. The foregoing is only intended to
show that in addition to the vacation which can be thus enjoyed, the
farmer can relieve the monotonous existence of the farm during the
winter months by work in the factory, and the factory hand can escape
from factory conditions during the summer to his own advantage and to
the advantage of the community at large.
Another object we have in view is to put an end to the anarchy which
exists in all that part of our industry which has not been
concentrated into trusts--the anarchy under which some things are
produced in greater quantities than are needed, and some things needed
are not produced in sufficient quantities--under which no producer can
tell whether he is producing enough of a thing until the time for
profiting by the knowledge has passed; no producer can tell whether he
is producing too much of a thing until he is injured and even ruined
by the discovery. It is, I think, obvious that all these objects are
obtained by concentrating industry after the fashion of trusts in the
hands of the men actually engaged in the process of production; by
producing things not to make profit but to satisfy needs; and in the
quantities which we know to be needed and not in quantities determined
by the desire of the producer to make large profits cheeked only by
the bankruptcy that attends production in larger quantities than the
market will take.
Thus, the state orders thirty million tons of iron ore because we know
that this amount of iron ore has served the needs of the country
during a period of great activity, and will furnish not only all we
can use ourselves in that year, but all that we can dispose of abroad.
These thirty million tons represent then the maximum that we can
usefully manufacture; and we can safely order thirty million tons
because the state is not under the necessity to sell this iron to get
gold with which to pay wages, rent, coal, and the running expenses of
the factory. In a coöperative commonwealth there will be no rent to
pay. The coal will be paid for in exactly the same way as the iron, by
the issue of store orders.
The workers will get as nearly as possible the exact product of their
work. There will be no capitalist who will take from them what the
capitalist now takes, that is, about one-half of their earnings. Nor
will those doing a low order of work receive as much as those doing a
high order of work; every man will be paid according to his capacity;
for we begin by assuming that the distribution of work according to
capacity to-day is not far wrong, and so every man engaged in the
steel industry will continue to receive the same wages as he received
before with a certain prospect of an additional wage in the shape of
profit, representing the difference in wage between the new conditions
and the old.
Overwork will be impossible in the iron trade, because a sufficient
number will be employed to prevent overwork. And unemployment will be
impossible because if, at any period, it turns out that more iron is
being produced than the community can use, the excess men employed in
the previous year will be set to work by the state in some other
industry.
The effect of such a discovery will be to diminish the number of hours
required all round. It must not be forgotten how little work need
actually be done to produce the things we need. Under these
circumstances, we need hardly consider the question of overwork, for
all will enjoy ample leisure. The hours of labor will not diminish in
a great degree in the first year that an industry is taken over, for
during the transition period, experience must be given time to
demonstrate the extent to which hours of labor can be reduced.
And as regards unemployment, even though there be no industry in
which, for instance, the surplus workers of the iron trade can be
usefully employed, there will always be farm colonies where their
labor can be self-supporting.
Another beneficial consequence of this system is that if, as is
likely, it turns out that thirty million tons of iron are more than we
can use, the state will not be obliged to dump the excess upon
European markets as do now the trusts,[184] thereby incurring a heavy
loss to the home industry and arousing the animosity of the European
industry affected thereby.
Again, no financial panic can hurt the iron industry. The bankers may
gamble to their heart's desire. If they withhold gold the worst they
can do is to injure those engaged in competitive industry. No
withholding of gold can affect an industry which produces for use and
not for profit and receives weekly the wages of its employees in a
currency which, because it is not gold or based upon gold and not,
therefore, within the control of the banker or the financier, escapes
entirely the evil effects of financial operations. Nor can such an
industry be affected by what are called "industrial panics"; for
industrial panics are the result of overproduction--of the anarchy
that exists under the competitive system. These panics may affect
competitive industries, but cannot affect guild industries built on
yearly state orders for definite amounts calculated beforehand from
the known needs of the community, and not left as now to the anarchy
and accidents of the market.
Neither financial nor industrial panics can ever have the terrible
consequences in a coöperative commonwealth that they have under
existing conditions, because in a coöperative commonwealth all the
necessaries and most of the comforts of life will be produced upon the
coöperative plan, and therefore, a financial or industrial panic can
only affect that part of industry which proceeds under the competitive
system and as regards, for the most part, luxuries and not necessaries
of life.
Obviously, the system of store orders cannot be applied upon the first
transfer of an industry from the hands of the capitalist to those of
the guild. For a time gold will have to be used until the
transformation from capitalism to coöperation has been sufficiently
extended to put the state in a position to open public stores. There
need, however, be no anxiety as to the state not being in possession
of enough gold to handle this part of the business, because it will
obviously be the first duty of the coöperative commonwealth to
expropriate the mines and put itself in possession of the gold
necessary to carry on financial operations with the guilds until such
time as the public stores can be usefully opened. Moreover, in taking
over the gold mines, the state will also take over the iron mines;
and iron ore will be furnished to the iron guild under conditions that
will make the necessity of the use of gold far smaller than it would
be if the iron ore remained in private hands and had to be paid for in
gold. The state will only have to pay gold representing the labor cost
of extracting the ore, and will not have to pay miners' profits.
Under this system, there is no temptation to mine more ore or to cut
down more forests than is absolutely necessary for the needs of the
community. When every member in the community is educated to
understand that waste means more work for himself and that the saving
of waste means less work for himself, every man in the community will
have a direct personal interest in discouraging waste and promoting
economy.
Obviously, too, industry will be conducted at its maximum efficiency.
Instead of being slaves of the market, we shall become its master. We
shall have only so many factories running as are necessary to produce
the things we need. Every factory will be running at maximum capacity,
at maximum efficiency.
It will be observed that it is proposed to pay the same price for pig
iron after taking over the industry as was paid under competitive
conditions at the time of the transfer. The objection may be made that
this is obviously improper; that it is not fair to the workers in
other industries to pay what is known to be an excessive price to the
workers in pig iron. To this it may be answered that it will always be
better to apply a regular rule than to leave questions of this kind to
arbitrary administrative action. Besides, the rule that on taking over
a new industry the price paid for the production of the first year
shall be the price ruling at that time, will eventually put all
industries upon the same footing. At the excessive prices now ruling,
the workers will during the first year get a larger proportion than
they will ultimately be entitled to; but the larger proportion they
will get this year will be needed to face the initial expenses of a
higher standard of life.
But here comes the most serious objection that can be made to this
plan. It has been said that these prices will have to be revised; that
if those manufacturing cotton thread believe themselves to be
receiving less for the work they accomplish in their industry than
those engaged in making pig iron, they will insist on revision; if so,
there will be continual altercations between industries as to the
price to be paid for their goods and as to the share in this price
that each is to receive; and the problem arises, who is to settle
these innumerable questions?
This difficulty is the one that tends to make communists of us. It
would be easy to wave away this difficulty by providing that the total
profits be divided equally amongst all the members of the community.
Humanity, however, is not prepared for such a system. Generations of
selfishness have so determined the minds of those who are likely to
have to decide these questions in a coöperative commonwealth, that the
idea of paying the man at the head of the iron guild the same wages as
the man who puddles, will seem too preposterous to be entertained.
Whether man will ever develop to a point of unselfishness that will
enable him to entertain this idea is a matter of speculation. Suffice
it to recognize that if Socialism is to come within one hundred years,
and if we take into account the attitude of the public mind as it is
to-day, and the slowness with which the public mind changes in matters
so radical as these, we shall have to recognize that Communism is
still beyond the range of practical politics; and we shall have to
face the problem how the questions of the price of goods and the
remuneration of the individual are to be solved.
§ 8. REMUNERATION
It has been pointed out that the proportion at present received by the
various grades of workers in an industry, from the man who manages the
whole industry to those who do the least skilled work, will at first
be maintained. It may be that the salaries paid to managers at present
rates may seem so exorbitant[185]--so out of all proportion to those
paid to others--that there will be an outcry against it, leading to a
diminution of these salaries. For present high salaries to managers
are due to the extraordinary difficulty of handling industry under
competitive conditions--difficulties that will in great part disappear
when coöperative conditions are substituted for competitive
conditions. With the exception of these highest salaries, probably the
wisest rule will be to maintain at first the proportion that exists at
the time when the industry is taken over. Taking over these industries
will at once raise the salaries of all because they will receive the
share of the profits which now comes to the capitalist, after the
deduction of sums paid to annuitants. Nevertheless, it cannot be
expected that the proportion now existing will be indefinitely
maintained.
The cost of management under competitive conditions is far higher than
it would be under coöperative. A railroad man once pointed out to me
that the coöperative system is impossible because it would be
impossible for the government to find men capable of handling
railroads at the price habitually paid by the government for such
services. He pointed out that genius is necessary to handle
railroads,--the genius of such men as J.J. Hill and the late E.H.
Harriman. When, however, it was explained to him that the reason why
it was necessary to have such men as Harriman and Hill run our
railroads was the competition between them, and when he was asked
whether it would be necessary to have such men if our railroads were
run as our postoffice is run, he admitted that under such conditions
nine-tenths of the difficulty of management would be eliminated.
Obviously, therefore, the enormous salaries paid to men at the head of
trusts, life insurance companies, and railroad systems, would no
longer be earned, and of course they would no longer be paid.
What is true regarding the heads of these industries is true
throughout a large part of the administration. It would need less of
the faculty which characterizes the larger carnivora and more of the
faculties which characterize the beaver and the ant. For these humbler
services lower wages would be paid. This does not mean, however, that
there will not be in the state room for men of the constructive
ability of Harriman and Hill; but these men will not be the servants
of our industries, they will be the servants of our state; and the
genius that is now absorbed by business, will, in a coöperative
commonwealth, be more usefully employed in the larger fields of
politics.
After this slight digression, let us return to the question how far
the remuneration will be subject to revision.
It may be that the lower grades will not be subject to revision at
all; that all the iron ore we need can be produced by working four
hours a day during eight months of the year, and that the rate of
wages earned upon the old scale increased by the profits to which
workers will be entitled will, without changing the proportion,
furnish a standard of comfort such as to-day it is difficult to
foresee. It is probable, however, that workingmen who are to-day
members of the Socialist party will not agree with this prognosis, but
will insist that in a coöperative commonwealth the whole scheme of
remuneration will have to be revised. If this be so, it is useless to
deny that the revision of this rate of wages will be a matter of
difficulty and that the difficulties arising will tend to be
perpetual.
Obviously, there must be some plan devised under which these matters
will be better adjusted than by a government board, as has been
suggested by certain Socialists. Mr. Hillquit[186] quotes with
approval the words of Kautsky that government in a coöperative
commonwealth will change in character, and that the state will no
longer govern, but administer, and this is to a large degree true. But
if the administration is to determine what every man is to receive as
compensation for the work he does, it is clear that matters of such
vital importance cannot be referred to the arbitrary action of a board
of administrators.
It seems to me that it will be indispensable to submit these matters
to an industrial parliament in which every industry will be
represented. And as the determination of these questions will be a
matter of the greatest importance to every individual, it is probable
that these parliaments will have to be bicameral for the same reason
that our government is bicameral; for the same difficulty will present
itself. New York insists upon having its large population represented
in Congress. Rhode Island, on the other hand, in spite of its small
size, insists upon having its state sovereignty represented; so New
York is given a representation in proportion to its population in the
Lower House and Rhode Island is given equal representation in the
Upper House. Exactly the same situation will present itself it regard
to industries: Certain industries will be enormous and will want to be
represented in proportion to their size; for example, the steel
industry. Others will be much smaller but perhaps of much greater
importance; for example, the engineers. They will want to be fairly
represented in spite of their small size and I see no way of adjusting
this other than by adopting an industrial parliament of two chambers,
in one of which representation will be according to numbers, while in
the other every industry will be equally represented irrespective of
size. This may seem a cumbersome system, but it will take no more time
than the administration of the trade union takes to-day, and will not
be half as costly; for the trade union of to-day has to accumulate
funds to provide for unemployment, old age, sickness, and strikes.
Strikes and unemployment it will not be necessary to provide against
and the others will be provided for by every guild for their own
members. The question, therefore, of the adjustment of price and wages
will occupy far less time than is now occupied by federations of trade
unions.
It is probable that the conclusions to which the industrial parliament
will come will not be final. It will be deemed wise to refer them for
execution to the general government. This matter, however, belongs to
the chapter on the political aspect of Socialism.
§ 9. CIRCULATING MEDIUM UNDER SOCIALISM
It may not be clear at first sight why it is proposed to substitute store
checks for greenbacks or gold. Early Socialist writers--particularly
Rodbertus--attached much importance to the elimination of gold and the
substitution therefor of what they called "labor checks"; a currency
representing time spent in labor. Modern Socialist writers have been
disposed to cast aside all efforts to substitute this kind of currency
for gold. Mr. Hillquit quotes Kautsky[187] with approval on this
subject:
"'Money,' says Kautsky, 'is the simplest means known up to the present
time which makes it possible in as complicated a mechanism as that of
the modern productive process, with its tremendous far-reaching
division of labor, to secure the circulation of products and their
distribution to the individual members of society. It is the means
which makes it possible for each one to satisfy his necessities
according to his individual inclination (to be sure within the bounds
of his economic power). As a means to such circulation, money will be
found indispensable until something better is discovered.'"[188]
Upon this point I find myself at variance with modern Socialists. In
Book II, Chapter VI, on Money, I have endeavored to show how the use
of gold for currency puts those who own and handle gold in a position
practically to control the entire country. If I have failed in proving
this, there will be no occasion for substituting anything for gold.
But if I have failed, it is, I think, my fault; or perhaps Socialist
writers on this subject have not had, and do not possess, the intimate
knowledge of financial affairs indispensable to an understanding of
this subject. If Mr. Kautsky had practiced law in America, and had had
American financiers for his clients, he would not, I think, have
failed to understand that money is still more to-day what it always
has been since the beginning of the civilized world--the "root of all
evil." By money, I mean not currency, which is indispensable, but the
use of precious metals as the sole fundamental medium of exchange;
because the amount of such precious metals being limited, the few, who
under competitive conditions contrive to get control of these metals,
become by virtue of this control masters not only of our economic, but
of our political conditions.
Mr. Hillquit says[189] that the principal economic classes and
interest groups are represented by separate and well-defined political
parties; and that the "only exception seems to be presented by the
money-lending group of capitalists, who, as a rule, do not form
parties of their own. This, however, may perhaps be accounted for by
the function of money capital, which can become operative only in
connection with the other forms of capitalistic ownership, but has no
independent productive existence."
It is misleading to endeavor to draw conclusions from political groups
which characterize politics in Germany and France, and there is, I
think, a better reason why the great "money-lending group of
capitalists" or financiers do not form parties of their own.
Mr. Hillquit is doubtless right in saying that the "Republican party
is substantially the party of the modern capitalists," "while the
Democratic party is largely the party of the middle class";
nevertheless, in America, as in Europe, the so-called interests and
capitalists belong to no one party, because they must and do control
both. And it is because Socialist writers do not seem to be aware of
the extent to which they do control politics, that comparatively
little interest is taken by these writers in questions of currency.
No one who lived in Europe during the Boer war is ignorant of the
immense desire of both France and Germany to intervene on behalf of
the Boers, and they certainly would have intervened not only because
it afforded them a good opportunity to crush England, which one of
them openly and the other less openly desired to do, but because such
a war would have been popular with the masses in both countries. One
thing alone prevented this: Financiers in France and Germany were
heavily interested in African gold mines and it was their influence
that turned the scale against the crushing of England at that time.
In America, the revelations of the life insurance investigation told
all the world what Wall Street previously knew: that big corporations
contribute to both Republican and Democratic parties and practically
control the action of the Democratic side of our legislatures as well
as the Republican. Nothing could have been more transparent than the
influence of financiers in the decision whether Cannon and the rules
that make Cannon supreme in Congress were to be maintained. The Wall
Street Group, which had a lobby in Washington, appealed to the
Republican majority not to disorganize their party by fighting against
Cannon personally, promising that the Republican party would alter the
rules that gave him his present autocratic power; and when in
compliance with this promise, Cannon was reëlected and the rules came
up, the same lobby secured enough Democratic votes to maintain the
rules in spite of the adverse votes of the insurgent Republicans, the
argument then used being that the tariff bill could not be passed
unless the rules were maintained.
Again, after Taft had, on three separate occasions, solemnly promised
the people, if he were elected, a revision downward of the tariff, the
same lobby secured a revision of the tariff upwards. We are assured by
Messrs. Aldrich and Payne that the revision is a revision downward.
How, then, will they explain the extraordinary haste with which ships
sought to reach this port before the new tariff came into effect?[190]
Were these ships hurrying to port in order to escape the payment of a
low tariff? It may be answered that although the tariff was raised as
regards certain articles, it was lowered as regards others. To this I
have but to quote the _Reviews of Reviews_ for September, 1909, and
the articles entitled, "The Payne-Aldrich Tariff," which follow in
subsequent numbers. The _Review of Reviews_ is quoted rather than
other periodicals because it is recognized as a supporter of the
so-called Roosevelt policies and, therefore, cannot be accused of
Socialistic tendencies. It is seldom that the Interests have gone so
far as to elect a presidential candidate on a definite promise and
deliberately, as soon as the candidate was elected, to violate their
promise. But the Interests have at this moment such control over our
politics that they can even do this; and it seems very doubtful
whether this treachery will ever be materially punished.
If, as I believe, it is important that the competitive system be
allowed to survive in the coöperative commonwealth, it is obvious that
it can only be tolerated on the condition that the community be safe
from such political control as this. And for this reason it seems to
me essential that the use of gold as currency be limited; and that as
regards the exchange of all the necessaries of our existence, we
should have a currency that entirely escapes the control of the
financier. This is the reason why I have insisted on the use of store
checks which are just as convenient and secure as our present
greenbacks.
There seems to be no other way of eliminating the undemocratic
autocracy of the financier than by some such system as the one above
described; that is to say, the issue by the state of orders on the
public stores to the extent of the goods in the public stores, which
may in their general appearance differ but little from the greenback
of to-day: Instead of reading "Good for $1.00 gold currency," they
will read "Good for $1.00 at the public stores." This public store
currency will eliminate the use of gold and silver throughout the
socialized industries and as regards all agricultural products except
a very small portion. Every socialized industry and every farmer will
furnish to the state the bulk of his produce--that is, the minimum
exacted by the state--in exchange for this kind of currency.[191] It
is only the surplus--the amount produced by the farmer and factory
above the minimum established by the state--that the farmer and the
factory will be at liberty to sell for gold instead of exchanging for
public store notes; and of this surplus the farmer and factory will be
free to sell as much as they choose for public store notes, so that
gold and silver will constitute a small part of the medium of
exchange. This system will have the following advantages:
It will practically eliminate the present control of political and
economic conditions by financiers. So long as the currency used in
exchanging necessaries and comforts is rescued from the control of
financiers, it is a matter of comparative indifference whether the
financiers control the currency used in the manufacture and
distribution of luxuries, for such control will have practically no
effect upon the things necessary to human existence.
It will give to the state the use of the gold coin which is now
accumulated in its treasury for the redemption of its notes; and the
state will use this large gold fund for the purchase of the products
of other nations.[192]
Let us see how this proposed system of store notes will work in a
given manufacture:
The state will order the steel guild to manufacture thirty million
tons of pig iron (the amount produced in 1907 was a little over
twenty-six millions); and will allot to the steel guild for the supply
of steel six hundred and sixty million dollars in store notes, this
being calculated at the rate of $20 a ton. (The price in 1907 was a
little over $22.) These $660,000,000 will be paid to the steel guild
in the following manner:
Every week a number of store orders will be issued to the amount of
the wages of the week and of the fixed charges. At stipulated periods
the steel guild will furnish the state pig iron so that the state will
never have advanced to the guild store orders amounting to more than
the value of the pig iron in the store, an exception of course being
made for the first few weeks that the industry proceeds upon this
basis. Upon the delivery of pig iron at these stated periods, the
state will deliver the difference between the weekly amounts already
paid and the price of the pig iron delivered. If deliveries of pig
iron can be made once a month, this will enable a repartition of a
part of the profits so that the workers will not have to wait until
the end of the year before they receive their profits, the final
dividend being paid at the expiration of each year.
Such an order as the above will serve the following purposes and have
the following consequences: the steel guild will have a definite order
for a definite amount of pig iron to manufacture. It will know exactly
how many men it will need to manufacture this pig iron. It will employ
a few more men than those employed in 1910. The state will issue to
the steel guild weekly the amount of store notes necessary to pay the
wages upon the same scale as in 1910. Men engaged in the Steel Trust
at the moment of transference will continue to work and receive the
same rate of wages; but they will be entitled to their share of the
profits after the amounts due annuitants and the amounts necessary to
create a fund for old age and sickness have been deducted. Obviously,
this first order of thirty million tons is far larger than the country
uses, because a large part of the product of 1907 was exported. The
amount thus exported will be at the disposal of the state either to
export, or exchange for foreign products, or to set aside as a reserve
upon which the state can draw in case of deficit.
§ 10. SUMMARY
Let us now consider the purposes we have in view in this proposed
economic organization of the coöperative commonwealth and how far we
attain these purposes:
The main object of a coöperative commonwealth is to give to all
workers as nearly as possible the exact product of their work. It may
be interesting to note that this is the ideal that Mr. Roosevelt
himself proposes, and he objects to Socialism because he thinks
Socialism will on the contrary allow the "thriftless and the vicious"
to profit. These words describe not a coöperative commonwealth, but
existing conditions. For example, such a degenerate as Harry Thaw, who
would, I suppose, according to Mr. Roosevelt be classified as one of
the "thriftless and vicious," obtains his income from the profit
created by others who work for it; whereas those who work, instead of
getting the full product of their work, are obliged to see that nearly
if not altogether one-half of it goes to the support of the idle,
among them this young man. These are the exact conditions to which
Socialism proposes to put an end, and, therefore, I point out that the
principal object that Socialism has in view is to do exactly the thing
that Mr. Roosevelt wants to see done--to undo the very things to which
Mr. Roosevelt objects.
Another principal object of this proposed organization is to prevent
overwork and unemployment, that necessarily lead to drunkenness,
pauperism, prostitution, and crime.
A third thing which this system of organization proposes to do is to
preserve the resources of the country; and here again we find
ourselves realizing the ideal of Mr. Roosevelt. The single idea of a
lumberman is to sell lumber--not to preserve it; the idea of a coal
miner is to sell coal--not to preserve it; the idea of an iron miner
is to sell ore--not to preserve it. In a coöperative commonwealth
there is no desire to make profit out of these things. The one object
in view is to use our lumber, coal, and ore to the best advantage and
with the least waste.
Another object we have in view is to produce with the greatest
economy, with the greatest efficiency. We do not want forty refiners
engaged in refining sugar where seven will suffice.[193] We want all
our factories while they are working, to be working at their best
efficiency, not on half time or with only one-half the engines going.
We also want the things we need to be produced in such a way as to
take advantage of every waste product--a thing that can only be done
when industry is concentrated in the hands of a single guild instead
of being distributed as it tended to be (before the organization of
trusts) in the hands of many competing manufacturers.
This system of production and distribution would maintain the present
check upon overpopulation which Mr. Huxley regarded as the principal
objection to Socialism;[194] for under this plan, although every
member of the community would be assured a comfortable income, his
comforts would be limited by the number of children he brought into
the world. Experience shows that the prudence of the middle class
to-day constitutes a check upon overpopulation; that, in other words,
overpopulation is to be feared, not in the middle class, but in those,
such as the extremely poor, who are under no prudential check.[195]
The imprudent in such a coöperative commonwealth as is above
described, have always before them the prospect of the state farm with
its different degrees of unattractiveness. If, therefore, to-day
workingmen look upon the almshouse with abhorrence, it does not seem
unreasonable to suppose that the workers in a coöperative
commonwealth, accustomed to a far higher standard of living than the
workingman of to-day, would be deterred as much by the prospect of
committal to a farm colony as a self-respecting worker to-day is
deterred by the prospect of the almshouse.
But there is another point of view from which the question of
overpopulation must be considered: The increasing independence of
women in America has already served to diminish the increase of
population to the extent which our sociologists regard as alarming.
The population of the United States is increasing chiefly through
immigration and the increase of immigrants. Here, as elsewhere, it is
the extremely poor that propagate. Indeed, as women become more and
more independent economically, as they certainly would in a
coöperative commonwealth, there seems to be more danger of
underpopulation than overpopulation. But here the state can no doubt
exert a very important influence; for if there seems danger of
underpopulation it might increase its tax upon the industries of the
state and apply the tax to the support of children so as to relieve
parents at the expense of the entire state, of the cost of educating
children, thereby removing all economic motive for underpopulation.
I think, moreover, that since Mr. Huxley's day the whole opinion as to
overpopulation has changed. There is not a shadow left of the fears of
Malthus; for the extraordinary results published in the 13th Annual
Report of the Bureau of Labor show that productivity is likely to
increase rather than diminish in a coöperative commonwealth, in view
of the fact that all those now engaged in pure competition and
therefore a burden on the community, will be put to the work of
production, thereby increasing the productivity of the nation
relatively to its numbers.
FOOTNOTES:
[152] See Northern Securities Case, 193 U.S.
[153] Kautsky, "The Social Revolution."
[154] Upon every breadwinner there are on an average four persons
dependent--the aged, women, and children; 200,000 unemployed is
therefore equivalent to 1,000,000 in want.
[155] See Book II, Chapter I, Unemployment.
[156] See Appendix, p. 412.
[157] "Socialism." By John Spargo, p. 217.
"Socialism in Theory and Practice." By Morris Hillquit, Chapters V and
VI.
[158] By "pure capitalism" is meant the ownership of industry
entitling the owner to dividends although the owner contributes
nothing to the industry in the way of personal service.
[159] See Appendix, p. 428.
[160] _Saturday Evening Post_, May 8, 1909.
[161] _Outlook_, March 20, 1909, p. 622.
[162] Ibid., p. 619.
[163] Ibid., p. 623.
[164] On the very day of writing of the above, the N.Y. _Times_ of
June 25, 1909, states that the United States Postoffice Department has
installed a complete ice-making plant which has made such economy that
the Government is considering the building of an ice-plant for all its
departments. Private dealers charge at the rate of $7.65 a ton for
ice, whereas the Postoffice Department now furnishes ice at a cost of
65 cents a ton.
[165] "The Elimination of the Tramp," by Edmond Kelly. (G.P. Putnam's
Sons.)
[166] See Appendix, p. 429.
[167] _Charities and the Commons_, p. 342, June, 1907.
[168] Eugène Simon, "La cité chinoise" (translated into English);
Toubeau, "La répartition métrique des impôts," 2 vols., Paris
(Guillaumin), 1880, quoted by Kropotkin in "Fields, Factories and
Workshops," p. 239. See Evolution and Effort, p. 168.
[169] Dr. M. Fesca, "Beiträge zur Kenntniss der japanesischen
Landwirthschaft," Part II, p. 33 (Berlin, 1893). The economy in seeds
is also considerable. While in Italy 250 kilogrammes to the hectare
are sown, and 160 kilogrammes in South Carolina the Japanese use only
sixty kilogrammes for the same area. Semler, "Tropische Agrikultur,"
Bd. III, pp. 20-28. Quoted by Prince Kropotkin in "Fields, Factories
and Workshops," p. 239.
[170] L. Grandeau, "Etudes Agronomiques," 3d series, 1887-8, p. 43.
Quoted by Kropotkin, Ibid., 101.
[171] See Ponce, "La Culture maraiche," 1869. Barrel's "Dictionnaire
d'Agriculture." Quoted by Kropotkin, Ibid., p. 64.
[172] Very little land in New York State produces more than from two
to three tons an acre, and most of it does not produce so much.
[173] It is impossible in this book to give to the question of soil
fertility the scope which it needs in order to convince a layman of
the almost unlimited extent to which good soil can be manufactured and
made fertile. Those who are anxious to satisfy themselves on this
subject are urged to read the books above quoted.
[174] "The Elimination of the Tramp," p. 51.
[175] Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons.
[176] See "Elimination of the Tramp," p. 45.
[177] See _Hampton's Magazine_ for May and June, 1909.
[178] See p. 58.
[179] The occupation that furnishes most inmates to our asylums is
farming.
[180] This limitation on property has already been enacted in the
State of New York (Chap. 463, Laws of 1909), and bills of similar
import have been introduced into the legislatures of California,
Maine, and Pennsylvania. In Maine a hypothetical question as to the
constitutionality of such legislation was submitted to the supreme
court, which reported favorably (19 Lawyers' Reports annotated [U.S.]
422).
[181] Farmers' Bulletin, No. 242.
[182] Something has been done in connection with the milk supply. Thus
the milk producers of Boston have organized a union and have agreed to
a price with the Milk Contractors' Association. But although this
effort at combination has cheapened milk for large consumers such as
hotels, large restaurants, and even small stores, pint customers pay
just as much in Boston as elsewhere; that is, 8 cents a quart.
(Industrial Commission Report, Vol. VI, p. 409.)
[183] See 13th Annual Report of the Bureau of Labor of U.S., p. 25,
where the cost of producing wheat under the best conditions is
approximately 30 cents per bushel.
[184] Book II, Chapter II.
[185] For example, it is generally believed that the President of the
Steel Trust gets over $100,000 a year. Before the insurance
investigation presidents of life insurance companies got similar
salaries. Railroad presidents are also paid at similar rates.
[186] "Socialism in Theory and Practice," p. 133.
[187] "Socialism in Theory and Practice," p. 119.
[188] Karl Kautsky, "The Social Revolution," p. 129.
[189] "Socialism in Theory and Practice," p. 164.
[190] See any daily newspaper between March 16, 1909, when the bill
was introduced in the House, and Aug. 6, 1909, when the law went into
effect.
[191] Obviously, until all the industries are socialized, a part of
this minimum will have to be paid in gold. When, however, all the
industries are socialized, the whole of the minimum will be paid in
store checks.
[192] See Appendix, p. 431.
[193] Book II, Chapter I.
[194] I am not aware that Mr. Huxley has ever suggested any other
objection to Socialism than this; but I may be mistaken.
[195] "Government," Vol. I, p. 339.
CHAPTER III
POLITICAL ASPECT OF SOCIALISM
The importance of the political aspect of Socialism depends upon the
kind of Socialism selected for study. In Fourier's system, the social
side altogether predominates--the political side is relatively
unimportant. In state Socialism, on the other hand, the political side
is the most important and the social side is subsidiary. In modern
Socialism, the government takes an intermediary position; the
functions of the state under modern Socialism would be in some
respects less extended than in such a government as that of Prussia;
while in other respects it would be more extended; but in no
department would it assume the excessive power and interference
generally associated with Socialism in the public mind.
It cannot be too emphatically repeated that modern Socialism discards
the idea of a common home or even of a common table except to the
extent that a common table is sometimes found convenient in our own
day. To just the same extent the coöperative commonwealth discards the
idea of state ownership of industry and state ownership of land except
within the limits set forth in the previous chapter.
The two great political objections to Socialism are: that it would
give to the government a power destructive of individual liberty; and
that the corruption in our existing government demonstrates the
unwisdom of increasing the scope of its operations.
On the first of these objections it is not necessary to dwell; for it
is obvious that the moment state Socialism is abandoned, this
objection falls to the ground. The state no longer has the onerous and
probably impossible function of assigning tasks; the state no longer
controls the hours of labor; the state no longer interferes in the
private life of the individual any more than to-day. The relations of
the government are not so much with the individual as with
conglomerations of individuals in the respective industries; and even
here, the government does no more than indicate the amount of a given
thing that must be produced and the rate at which the thing so
produced is to exchange with the other necessaries of life. It has
been suggested that just as in France where commercial cases are
brought before purely commercial courts and thus separated from civil
and criminal cases, so all things pertaining to production and
distribution might be determined by an industrial parliament that
would determine such matters as the amount of a given thing to be
produced and the rate at which this thing is to exchange with other
necessaries, subject to the approval of Congress.
Such a system would have the great advantage of referring business
matters to business men who would bring no other than business
considerations to the solution of them. It would relieve Congress of
the necessity of discussing commercial details with which its members
are generally unfamiliar, and it would above all prevent that
sacrifice of business interests to purely political considerations
which often occurs to-day.
There will be an important rôle to be played in determining the amount
of the various necessaries of life which the socialized industries
will be called upon to produce, in distributing these products,
exchanging surplus products with foreign markets, and distributing the
proceeds of these exchanges. All this work is of a purely business
character and should be confided to business men, who have shown
themselves by their practical success in business fields most fitted
therefor. It would seem wiser to refer these matters to a parliament
composed of the representatives of associated industries, of
agricultural producers, and of distributing bodies. It would be the
duty of such a parliament to appoint its own executive and cabinet,
and it may be advisable to associate with the representatives of
agriculture and industry in such a parliament, representatives
selected by the citizens at large, so as to minimize the possibility
of combinations between powerful groups of industries for the purpose
of determining questions of public interest to their particular
advantage.
No attempt will be made here to work out the details of such a system,
the object of this book being rather to indicate the possibility of
doing these things than to point out the particular method by which
they should be done.
The objection that the corruption in our existing government
demonstrates the unwisdom of increasing the scope of its operations
seems at first sight a formidable one. If our government is as corrupt
as our "yellow journals" make it out to be, it seems folly to extend
its functions and give it larger opportunities for the exercise of
this corruption and for the demoralization of the community which this
corruption tends to produce. There are, however, many reasons for
believing that the less government has to do, the more corrupt it is;
and the more it has to do, the less corrupt it is.
For example, the Board of Aldermen in the city of New York was once
the governing body of the city. It was a body to which men of
importance belonged because its functions were important. When
corruption crept into the Board of Aldermen the legislature was
persuaded more and more to abridge its powers, and Tweed availed
himself of this disposition to take practically all the powers of
government out of the hands of the board and concentrate it in a small
body of men called "supervisors," to which he took care that he and
the members of his ring should belong. Some time after the Tweed ring
was broken up the Board of Aldermen retained the right of confirming
the appointments of the mayor; but this power too was taken from it by
ex-President--then Assemblyman--Roosevelt in 1884, and from that year
the Board of Aldermen became little more than a franchise-bestowing
corporation. The board has consequently become so corrupt that the
title of Alderman, which used to be a title of honor, is in New York a
title of disgrace. If we compare the Board of Aldermen to the board
which corresponds to it in London, we shall find a totally different
state of things. In London it is the County Council that governs the
municipality, and accordingly we find on it men who stand first in the
ranks of the business world.
But there is another consideration of vastly more importance than
this. New York citizens continue to complain year after year of the
low order of men selected by its citizens, not only to the Board of
Aldermen, but to all elective offices, including the State Assembly
and the Senate. Yet they do not stop to inquire the reason for this,
though it is obvious. What stake have the majority of New York
citizens in the government of the city? The vast majority are not
interested in the tax rates, for they do not pay taxes, or do not
think they do. The majority are not interested in an efficient fire
department, because they do not own property likely to be destroyed by
fire and, indeed, it is said that it is members of this very majority
that start most of the fires in New York. They are not interested in
clean streets, for foul though our streets be, they are not as foul as
the unwholesome tenements. They are not interested in an efficient
police. They are not interested in a board of education, because all
they want to get out of school for their children is reading, writing,
and arithmetic--enough to get a job. It is difficult to see in what
respect the large majority of our citizens are interested in good
government at all.
What then are they interested in? They are interested in bad
government. They want to get a brother or a cousin on the police
force; and they want the police to be complaisant to a brother or a
cousin in a liquor saloon. The retailer does not want to be disturbed
in his encroachments on the sidewalk. The building trade does not want
to be annoyed by a too conscientious building department. The German
wants his beer on Sunday and barrooms want to do business on Sunday.
The peddler wants to violate street ordinances and stand his cart in
the already too crowded streets. Churches want to receive per capita
contributions to their asylums and have long made efforts to secure
per capita contributions to their schools. The gambler wants to keep
open his gambling den; and the people want the gambler to be
undisturbed. The business man, the corporation, and the criminal want
to be "let alone"; and those dregs of the population too low to be
able to use the vote, want to sell it for a pittance on election day.
These are the conditions under which distinguished citizens and
committees of one hundred expect to secure good government! And we go
on ineffectually organizing municipal leagues, good government clubs,
and citizens' unions to this hopeless end. It is not reasonable to
suppose that in a government determined by the majority we can expect
the government to be good when the majority does not want the
government good, but wants it bad.
Occasionally the government in New York gets so bad that it outrages
even our outrageous majority, and the overthrow of bad government is
regarded as a triumph for reform. But no reform movement has ever
lasted more than one administration. The public has emphatically
assured us, over and over again, that it does not want reform
administration, and indeed it may be said that some of these reform
administrations have been just as bad as those they were intended to
reform.
Municipal politicians want good laws, if at all, in order to use them
for the purpose of levying blackmail, and the community is willing to
pay the blackmail so long as it is not too extortionate. Business men
find it cheaper to pay blackmail and be allowed to do what they want.
And the same is true all the way down the line until we get to the
criminal class, which has the biggest stake in bad government of all.
Yet the strange anomaly of existing conditions is that while the
majority of the citizens of New York have shown year after year for a
century that they want bad government and mean to have it, these
citizens are not bad men, but want to be good. It is the folly of our
economic conditions that makes them want bad government, and no more
pitiable sight was ever presented to gods and men than this city of
New York, or indeed any other of our great cities, full of citizens
animated with the best intentions, forced by economic conditions to be
bad. It has not yet seemed to dawn upon the reformers of the present
day that, if they want to have good government, the majority of the
citizens must be interested in the government being good; and not, on
the contrary, interested in its being bad as at this present time.
There are two ways of accomplishing this. One way has been pointed
out; to put an end to the competitive system that sets every man at
the throat or pocket of his neighbor. The other is to enlarge the
functions of the government sufficiently to make it important to every
citizen that the government be good; then only will public spirit
become stronger than private interest.
This conflict between public spirit and private interest is not a
matter about which there can be any longer any doubt. When a group was
engaged in organizing the City Club, we were told not once but a dozen
times by a dozen different men of high standing in the community, that
the whole question of good government to them resolved itself into
this: "Can I by contributing money or time to reform sufficiently
reduce taxes to make it worth my while to give my time and my money to
this thing; or is it not better for me to use my money in purchasing
protection from the organization that now controls the city and devote
my time to my own private affairs?" To these men the question of good
government was simply a question of tax rate, and these citizens are
the ones least touched by political conditions. When we come to
citizens whose business puts them continually in contact with
political conditions, we find the contrast between public spirit and
private interest still more marked; in the corporations that want
franchises, in the builders who want their plans approved, and in the
citizens already described who have an interest in keeping on good
terms with the powers that be.
If now we remove the temptation on the one hand and give a motive for
good government on the other, is it not reasonable to suppose that we
are more likely to obtain good government than now?
Temptation can be removed in many ways. Altogether the greatest motive
for corruption is that furnished by the eagerness of corporations to
secure franchises. Indeed the city was at one time governed by the
owners of our city transportation system. The temptation to violate
building laws would be removed if it were the city who built and not
the private individual. The temptation to vote for a corrupt police
force would be removed if the city instead of private barrooms sold
alcoholic drinks. The temptation to vote for corruptible milk
inspectors would be removed if the city instead of private dealers
supplied milk. In a word, if the city were to undertake the tasks
heretofore suggested, practically all temptation for graft would be
eliminated.
The same process would not only eliminate temptation for graft, but
would give the citizens a stake in good government. If the city
distributed milk the citizen would be interested in having pure milk
at a low price; if the city owned tramways, the citizen would be
interested in having transportation effective and cheap; if the city
manufactured gas and electric light, the citizen would be interested
in having good heat and light at proper prices; and so at last the
dream of the reformer that all citizens of the same city regard
themselves as stockholders in the same corporation, would cease to be
a dream and would be realized. They would have the same interest in
the gas plant, electric plant, ice plant, milk plant, transportation
plant of their city as a stockholder to-day has in the dividends which
these respective industries accord him, though the dividends would not
be paid in gold, but in wholesome service at cheap prices. Then only
would the conflict between public spirit and private interest come to
an end, for a man would find it more to his interest that the
government be carried on honestly and efficiently than he does now to
secure a government that is dishonest and inefficient. In a word, as
Mr. Mill said that the cure for the abuse of liberty is more liberty,
so the cure for the abuse of government is more government. This must
not be understood as a relapse in favor of state Socialism. It cannot
be too often repeated that it would be as great an error to confide
too much to the state as, at present, it is an error to confide too
little to it. The solution is to be found in taking the middle course:
_medio tutissimus ibis_. Give to the government the work it is fitted
to do and no more. What work it is fitted to do and what work it is
not fitted to do has already been explained.[196]
Amongst the tasks for which it is fitted is the work of Education:
§ 1. EDUCATION
There is no reason why the present system of education should be much
changed in a coöperative commonwealth. In its nature it would remain
very much the same and would only be extended in time; that is, all
children who show themselves capable of profiting by education will
have the opportunity of extending their education as far as their
abilities justify. Education need by no means be confined to the
state. There is no reason why the existing universities should not
continue their work of education even though they be maintained by
Rockefellers and Carnegies, and throw all their weight in support of
the competitive system against the coöperative. Socialism stands for
light, and if at any period in its development it turns out that the
community is not fitted for the phase of Socialism which it has
attempted, it may be important to correct the perfunctoriness of
official administration by a larger dose of private initiative; and in
such case let privately endowed schools and universities be there to
preach this doctrine.
Nor need there be any objection to sectarian schools. Once the human
mind is freed from the shackles of economic servitude, it can be
trusted to choose its religion, whether educated by sectarian schools
or not.
The essential difference between the educational system in a
coöperative commonwealth and under existing conditions will be that,
inasmuch as child labor in competitive industries will be absolutely
forbidden, no child will be deprived of education by economic
conditions. Every child, therefore, will have an equal opportunity for
mental development.
And the fact that the hours of work will be shorter will give to every
human being leisure throughout his his entire life in which to develop
talents of which no trace may be observable during attendance at
school or university. The coöperative commonwealth, therefore, without
changing the existing forms of education, will furnish to every man,
woman, and child an opportunity for educational development during the
whole of life instead of confining it as now to the very first few
years of it.
It is important to note that, under this system, every industry will
be free to work as few hours as it chooses, subject only to the
condition of working long enough to pay taxes, to furnish the minimum
required by the state, and to create a fund to provide for sickness,
accident, and old age.
Citizens in this respect will divide themselves into different
categories:
Some will want to work the least possible and devote the rest of their
time to idleness or pleasure. Others will want to work at the
particular industries in which they are engaged the least possible and
devote the rest of their time to such things as will more interest
them--to literature, art, music, or even to some other industry--even
to industries competing with the state. Others, instead of working the
short hours required in a coöperative commonwealth, will prefer to
work long hours so as to have a longer vacation than that enjoyed by
the majority; others, on the contrary, will prefer to work long hours
at the industry to which they belong, not with a view to earning a
longer vacation, but for the purpose of earning more wages applicable
to the increase of their comforts, luxuries, and amusements.
It would not be difficult for every industry to take account of these
various contingencies: A certain number of hours those engaged in a
particular industry will have to work, but they will be far shorter
than the hours of to-day. Those who volunteer to work longer hours
will be allowed to work longer hours. The work of the factory will
naturally be divided into two shifts: the one, a morning shift; and
the other, an afternoon shift, so that one shift can put in all their
work in the morning and the other in the afternoon. Who shall work in
each shift will be determined primarily by choice and, wherever choice
cannot be resorted to, by lot.
Such a condition of things as the foregoing would give to every
industry the greatest opportunity for transfer from one industry to
another. One who desired to exchange steel working for garment making,
could work during the morning shift at the steel trade and during the
afternoon shift at the garment trade; and when he had become
proficient in the garment trade, he would be able to abandon the steel
trade altogether and devote all his working hours to garment making.
Still more important, the system would give an opportunity to every
man to develop his peculiar talents, however late in life. It is well
known that men of genius often show no trace of their genius at
school. It is impossible to calculate how much human ability is lost
to the race by the fact that, not being observable in the few school
years during which children are subject to observation, it is crushed
out altogether in the competitive mill. The fact that the number of
hours we have to work in a coöperative commonwealth would be small,
would give to every man the rest of the day in which to develop his
undeveloped talents.
§ 2. CHURCHES
There is no reason why churches should not be supported in a
coöperative commonwealth under exactly the same conditions as to-day.
It is probable, however, that there will be a tendency to modify
public worship so as to render it less subject to obvious objections
than to-day.
At the present time, children animated with a desire to preach are
encouraged to join the ministry; and it sometimes happens that men of
vast business and political experience are made by the convention of
respectability to sit every Sabbath Day under a boy in the pulpit
reading crude theological essays. Few men are equipped in a manner
usefully to instruct or advise their fellow creatures in matters so
intimate as those of religion until they have attained years which,
while they unfit them for the hard work of industrial life, do by
accumulated experience peculiarly fit them for the work of the pulpit.
The divinity school and the divinity student will tend to diminish and
our pulpits will be filled by men who have shown themselves during
fifty or sixty years of active work in the community to be best fitted
to fill them. And these men, having at that age earned a retiring
pension, will not be at the expense of the community nor will they be
required by economic conditions as at present, to preach doctrines as
to the truth of which some are in doubt and others absolutely
disbelieve.
§ 3. POLITICAL CONSTRUCTION
Let us see now whether we can come to some conclusion regarding the
political construction of government under a coöperative commonwealth.
The idea prevails that Socialism involves an extreme centralization of
government. This, however, is quite contrary to modern notions of
Socialism. Indeed, in one sense of the word, Socialism upon the plan
already proposed would deprive the federal government of much of its
power. Nor do I see any reason why our present federal form of
government should be materially changed. For example, the present
state governments would be maintained with practically all the rights
they now enjoy, and the federal government would continue to operate
with less than the enumerated powers given it by our present
constitution. For example, instead of having as at present the right
to regulate commerce, to coin money, and to make patent laws, these
powers would be delegated to the industrial parliament subject only to
the approval of Congress. And although the title of all such
properties as railroads, mines, etc., would be vested in the United
States, the effectual control and administration of these properties
would be left to the industrial parliament, so that real power as
regards these matters would be exercised not by the federal
government, but by the industrial parliament, elected not upon the
geographical basis of Congress, but by the industries respectively
wheresoever situated, as explained in the previous chapter.[197]
It would be well to give the right of appeal to Congress because the
industrial parliament would consist of producers and each would have
an interest in securing for his industry the largest price possible.
It may be feared that a few powerful industries might, by the number
of votes they control in the chamber elected proportionately to
numbers, secure for itself privileges not fair to other industries.
This power would be restrained by the fact that the other chamber,
elected according to industries, not numbers, would exercise a
wholesome check upon any such attempt, and an appeal to Congress may
therefore not be necessary. Nevertheless, Congress would represent the
whole mass of the nation and would be, as it were, the consumers'
parliament in its relation to the industrial parliament. And it would
seem proper to give to Congress the right to reconsider and discuss
all new departures in connection with the business of the country, not
only out of consideration of the rights of consumers, but also for the
dignity of Congress.
What under these circumstances would be the special functions of
Congress? Congress would continue to exercise the powers it now
exercises as regards collecting taxes, establishing rules of
naturalization, providing for the punishment of counterfeiting,
establishing postoffices and postroads, organizing federal courts,
punishing piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and
offences against the law of nations, declaring war, and providing for
and maintaining the army, navy, and militia.
The States would enjoy all the rights they now enjoy as regards the
federal government; but the cities would enjoy much larger powers of
government than they now do. There seems to be no reason why the
question whether the city of New York should own its own subway should
be referred to farmers sitting in Albany, who have no interest and
little, if any, knowledge of the needs and resources of the city of
New York. It is probable, therefore, that on the whole the effect of
Socialism would be to decentralize rather than to centralize.
The parties in a coöperative commonwealth would probably be determined
by the main issue between coöperation and competition, and we find
here a reason for leaving to Congress the last word as regards the
decisions of the industrial parliament. For the latter would be a
parliament of coöperative industries and disposed, in protecting these
industries, to perpetually invade the territory of competition. So
long as humanity needs the stimulus of competition, it is essential
that this element be fairly represented in the political organization
of the state. All measures tending to restrain competition ought
therefore to be subject to the approval of the whole nation
represented in Congress.
One principal bourgeois objection to Socialism is that, under
competitive conditions the men best fitted to run an enterprise are
those to whom business enterprises are to-day confided upon the
principle of the survival of the fittest; whereas under a coöperative
commonwealth, the selection of those who are to manage industries must
be left to the doubtful intrigues of politics. This objection cannot
be seriously taken into consideration. There is probably nothing more
difficult for the bourgeois to understand than the difference that
would exist between the politics of a coöperative and those of a
competitive commonwealth. In the latter, the field of politics is
inevitably a cesspool of corruption, because every business man has
something to lose or gain through politics. The tariff law just
enacted presents one of the most recent illustrations of this. Not
only so, but the men appointed to office and elected to Congress in
our competitive commonwealth are selected by business interests, and
not appointed because of special fitness for the task.
In a coöperative commonwealth this situation would be reversed. When
all our comforts in life and the necessaries of existence are
furnished by our municipalities and our guilds, the management of
these municipalities and guilds will be of the utmost importance to
every one of us. Our citizens, instead of being interested in bad
government, will become interested in good government, in good
management and in good administration. Here the public will benefit by
the power of recall which, though it may work very imperfectly under
competitive, ought to work well under coöperative conditions. For
every man is interested in his municipal bakery furnishing good bread,
his municipal gas plant furnishing good gas; and citizens will be so
deeply interested in matters that touch them as nearly as this that
they will not be influenced by political cabals to put in a bad man as
superintendent of the municipal bakery, or to replace a good one by a
bad one for purely political reasons.
One reason why our politics are bad to-day is that hardly any of us
have time to give to making them good even if we wanted them good. The
workingman who works ten or more hours in the factory and travels two
or more hours to reach his work in the morning and return home when
his work is done, can hardly have much vitality left to attend to
politics. Indeed, the complaint of the trade unions is that he has not
vitality enough left to attend to matters so important to him as those
of his own trade union. But when the workingman in the first place is
thoroughly trained by an education that will last not less than
eighteen years--when he is not called upon to work more than four or
five hours a day, he will have the knowledge necessary to understand
his political needs, and the leisure to organize political movements
when necessary to remove a bad administrator and put a good
administrator in his place.
Indeed, popular government is impossible under capitalism for the
reasons just stated; those of us who want good government have not the
time to secure it. Popular government is only possible when the people
are sufficiently educated to understand their rights and have leisure
enough to organize with a view to enforcing them.
In the foregoing two chapters entitled, respectively, The Economic
Construction of the Coöperative Commonwealth, and The Political Aspect
of Socialism, I have endeavored to draw a picture of a coöperative
commonwealth in which capitalism is eliminated from the production and
distribution of all the necessaries and many of the comforts of life;
leaving, however, full play to the existing competitive system as
regards the luxuries, some of its comforts, and even as regards
necessaries wherever the coöperative commonwealth fails to do its work
up to the standard of taste of the community.
This picture has been drawn not because it is possible at this time to
forecast exactly what this economic and political construction will
be, but because many persons find it impossible to form to themselves
any idea how things can be produced and distributed without the help
of capitalism. No more is claimed for these chapters than that they
do present a scheme by means of which necessaries and many comforts
can be produced and distributed without the evils of capitalism, of
unemployment, of pauperism, of prostitution, and of economic crime.
Obviously, the two foregoing chapters suggest a thousand questions to
an inquiring mind, but I hope that the missing details cannot be
classed amongst those details which Gladstone characterized as
organic. In other words, I hope that they present a picture giving
sufficient details to make it clear that Socialism, as regards the
production and distribution of the necessaries and most of the
comforts of life, is not only beneficial, but practical and
economical; that, in a word, it puts an end to the waste and the
anarchy which jointly characterize the capitalistic system of to-day.
FOOTNOTES:
[196] Book III, Chapter II.
[197] Book III, Chapter II.
CHAPTER IV
SCIENTIFIC ASPECT OF SOCIALISM
Herbert Spencer has contributed more than any other modern writer to
emphasize the effect of environment upon life, whether vegetable,
animal, or human; yet, singularly enough, in applying his scientific
conclusions to sociology, he entirely failed to take account of the
essential difference which exists between natural environment and
human environment; between the effect of evolution upon life prior to
the advent of man, and its effect upon life subsequent to the advent
of man. He applied to human development the laws of evolution which he
found working prior to man, though man has reversed the natural
process of development so that evolution, under the environment
created by man, is taking and must continue to take a direction
entirely opposite to that which it took under the dominion of Nature
alone. Into what errors Mr. Spencer was led by his failure to
recognize the difference between human and animal evolution may be
gathered from the fact that he denounced governmental effort to
prevent disease as "sanitary dictation";[198] he denounced also
municipal ownership of gas and water, the building by the state of
houses for the poor, free libraries, free local museums, free
education, and generally all that he includes in the expression
"coercive philanthropy."[199]
He assumed that the predatory system which he saw prevailing in the
domain of Nature must prevail also in the domain of Man; and thus
became an apostle of _laissez faire_ and of the competitive system. As
such he advocated the utmost limitation of state interference and
opposed the Socialistic trend of modern legislation on the ground that
man is, as it were, doomed to perfection by the principles of
evolution, and that any effort of his to modify evolution can only
result in retarding it. He was led by the analogy between society and
organism into the theory that human institutions must be allowed to
grow as organisms _grow_, and that efforts on the part of man to
construct his own institutions produce more evil than good.
Mr. Huxley demolished the whole sociological structure which Herbert
Spencer built up on these errors in three essays, to which the reader
is referred.[200] The subject is also fully treated in the first
volume of "Government or Human Evolution."[201] The effort will be
made here to condense the argument and conclusions therein drawn by a
short study of environment--natural and human--with a view to
demonstrating the control which man has acquired over his environment
and thereby over his ultimate destiny. This leads to a study of the
effect of the competitive and coöperative systems on type
respectively, how far society is a growth and how far a construction,
and how far human nature can be modified by the conscious, deliberate
purpose of Man; all this to demonstrate that human happiness can be
best attained by substituting coöperation for competition to the
extent necessary to put an end to the evils resulting from the
competition of to-day, without for that reason eliminating wholesome
competition altogether.
There are two kinds of environment: the environment we find in Nature,
and the environment made by Man.
We shall study first the environment of Nature, and begin by
distinguishing therein two systems: the competitive, or so-called
struggle for life; and the coöperative or community system; confining
ourselves to facts observed in Nature prior to or outside of the
intervention of Man.
§ 1. THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT
(_a_) _The Struggle for Life, or the Competitive System_
Beasts of the field are necessary products of their environment.
The study of the crust of the earth reveals that upon the central mass
there have been laid layer upon layer of sand, clay, and limestone by
successive seas, which have successively rested on now buried
continents. Nearly every layer contains fragments of shell, scale, or
bone belonging to the beasts that have succeeded to one another upon
the earth during millions of years.
These layers of sand, clay, and limestone are the leaves of a gigantic
book, the earliest of which are burned by fire, the next scarred by
it, and the most recent illustrated by pictures so vivid that we can
read the story there of the development of Man from the lowest of all
forms of life.
The rocks are charts painted by the hand of Nature herself.
In these charts we read the story of Evolution. We learn the geography
of the world millions of years before the age of history; we know
that this land upon which we live has not only once, but often been
sunk beneath a deep sea; that during the earliest period of which
there is any record unburned, there was no living thing more highly
organized than a crab; not a fish nor any animal possessing the
backbone that distinguishes the vertebrates to which Man belongs from
the invertebrates to which belong the lowest kinds of living thing. We
know that later the whole face of the world was changed, and then
followed a warm period called Carboniferous, and that just before and
during this Carboniferous period there slowly developed fish
possessing the backbone that marks one of the great strides in animal
development. But at this time we see no trace of the four-footed
mammalia which immediately preceded Man.
In the marshes in which forests grew and died during the Carboniferous
period, there were piled, one upon another, layers of vegetation that
hardened into coal; this coal sank slowly beneath a deepening sea. In
this so-called cretaceous sea were deposited, in its deepest parts,
huge masses of chalk accumulated from countless shells; and upon its
shores crept four-footed things resembling fish, as the seal and the
sea-lion resemble them to-day, closely allied to them and clearly
developed from them, as if fish stranded upon the shallows had used
their fins for motion upon the banks, and out of fins made legs. And
from the gigantic lizards of the cretaceous period we find in the
overlying tertiary beds the infinite variety of four-legged animals
which people our continents to-day.
All this knowledge, full of profound interest to the student of Man,
comes from a study of the earth--Geology.
And next comes Zoölogy, telling how this amazing development of life
from lower to higher forms proceeded. For centuries Man studied the
living things on the earth, and added fact to fact till at last, a few
years ago, Darwin, Wallace, and others demonstrated the law according
to which this development takes place, the law of Evolution.
Briefly it is this:
All living things prior to the advent of Man tended to adapt
themselves to their environment by the process known as the survival
of the fit. Only those animals fit to survive, survived; all the rest
perished. When there was a change of environment, as, for example, of
climate, only those individuals survived that were capable of adapting
themselves to this change.
The process by which animals adapt themselves to changes of
environment is as follows:
There is in every new generation of animals an infinite variety; some
differ enough from the rest to be called "sports." These differences
are transmitted to future generations by heredity. Men have used these
differences to create types of animals suited to their purpose. Thus
by putting stallions built for speed to mares similarly built, Man has
produced the race-horse. On the contrary, by putting stallions built
for drawing loads to mares similarly built, Man has produced the
cart-horse.
Before the advent of man this selection of types was made by the
environment or by Nature, as the environment used to be called. Hence
the expression, natural selection, is used to describe the process by
which Nature or environment selects certain types for survival at the
expense of the rest; the process by which animals that live in the
desert gradually adapt themselves to endure great heat; and those that
live near the Poles gradually adapt themselves to endure great cold.
The environment or Nature uses in this process of selection a very
cruel but effectual device: A great many more living things are born
into the world than the world can support. In the lower forms of life
Nature is wastefully fertile; thousands of herrings' eggs are laid for
one herring that grows to maturity. This amazing fertility of Nature
results in a struggle for life which condemns the enormous majority of
living things born into the world to an early death, but has the
singular advantage of allowing only the types most fitted to the
environment to survive. And this process of natural selection acting
in an environment favorable to development from a lower to a higher
type has gradually caused the lowest forms of life, which consist of a
mere sac of so-called protoplasm, to develop organs especially adapted
to accomplish specific things: a mouth to take in food; a stomach to
digest it; bowels to assimilate it; a system of circulation--arms and
legs; a nervous system; a brain; ears; a nose; eyes; until at last, in
the order of creation as demonstrated in the great Book of the Rocks,
and as confirmed by zoölogy and other sciences, Man has evolved out of
the original protoplasmic sac.
Who created the first protoplasmic sac; why this cruel system was
invented by which life was ordered to pass through millions of
sacrificed and suffering bodies before it could emerge into the least
imperfect form; why Man to-day must suffer still in the progress which
he is destined to make from his present to a still higher form--these
are queries which it is not given us yet to answer. But that this
process has taken place at the cost of great agony and during millions
of years, is a fact which no man who has studied the face of Nature
can deny.
If we want to learn the art of happiness--for in spite of the process
just described there is nevertheless an art of happiness--we must
understand the processes of Nature. It is only by understanding the
processes of Nature that we can ever hope to modify them.
And it is here that we come to the first great lesson we have to learn
from a study of Evolution:
Man has already modified the processes of Nature in the past, and he
can doubtless still further modify them in the time to come.
But before we undertake to study how far Man has modified, and may
still modify, the cruel process of natural selection, there is another
process observable in Nature to which we must direct our most earnest
attention.
It is a common error to suppose that because Man has developed from a
lower form of life through a process of struggle for survival that
favors a few types at the expense of millions of other forms condemned
by this struggle to suffering and death, therefore it is only by this
same struggle that Man can hope to attain a higher form of
development. This is the error that approves the competitive system
and the resulting classification of men into a few rich and many poor.
It is because the question as to the merits and demerits of the
competitive system rests upon the principles of evolution, that it is
indispensable for all who want to understand the competitive system
also to understand the principles of evolution. For those who deny the
force of competition altogether are as wrong as the millionaires who
base their argument in favor of the competitive system upon the law of
evolution.
We cannot neglect the argument drawn from the struggle for life
involved in natural selection. Until we have shown that there is
something better than this struggle that can be put in its place, we
have left to the millionaires the vantage-ground, from which they can
quiet the conscience of the world. Thousands of our fellow-creatures
who are separated from us by the accident of wealth would come to our
side were they not sincerely convinced that poverty, pauperism, and
crime are necessary evils, belonging to the cosmic principles of
evolution through which Man has attained his existing dominion, and
through which he may hope, though not without infinite patience and
agony, ultimately to reach a still higher station.
This error must be removed, and it can only be removed by sober
argument. Temper will not do it; nor indignation; nor vituperation;
nor hate. The plain facts, if properly marshalled, are sufficient to
prove the error of the notion that competition is a necessary evil,
and that society cannot exist without unlimited competition, and the
poverty, pauperism, and crime that result therefrom. The first of
these facts is that by the side of the competitive system just
described, there is in Nature also a coöperative system almost as
highly developed as the competitive system and destined eventually
almost to take its place.
(_b_) _The Coöperative System_
We have seen that the struggle for life has had for effect to permit
only those forms of life to survive that adapted themselves to the
environment, and that when the environment was favorable to
development, this tendency of the fit to survive at the expense of the
less fit caused an evolution from lower to higher forms of life. The
effect of this tendency in the higher forms of life has been to create
two opposite types--the carnivores, who became more skilful in
tracking game, and more powerful in destroying it; and the
herbivores, the natural prey of the carnivores, who became more swift
in escaping their pursuers. Now the herbivores, conscious of their
weakness, early developed the instinct to herd for the purpose of
common defence. The fierce carnivore, on the contrary, is prevented by
his natural ferocity from herding. He tends to become solitary. Lions
and tigers are solitary animals; whereas sheep, goats, horses, and
cattle herd. This tendency to herd tends to develop in proportion as
an animal is weak; so that it is in insects that we find the herding
instinct most perfectly developed, and certain colonies of ants and
bees present a picture of coöperation to which the attention of
millionaires cannot be too strenuously directed.
Let it be said at the outset that these colonies are not offered as
models for us to imitate. On the contrary there are many features in
these colonies which we ought diligently to avoid. But just as there
are features in the competitive system that are good and some that are
atrociously bad, so there are features in the colony system that are
bad and some that are altogether good. It will later on appear that
_the essential privilege of Man is to be able to choose the good of
both and eschew the bad_.
A beehive is a city of bees built by the entire community for its
common use. This community consists for the most part of barren
females who do all the hard work, and are therefore commonly called
the workers; they build the comb, and add to it as the community
enlarges; they attend on the queen bee--the only fertile female
allowed to survive; they feed her, and act the part of midwife to her
when she lays her eggs; they see to the hatching of the eggs, and by
crowding about them provide them with the necessary temperature; when
the eggs are hatched, the workers feed the young ones differently so
as to produce a few fertile females to play the rôle of queen should
the throne become vacant, a large number of males to be utilized when
the nuptial hour arrives, and a larger number still of barren females
to continue the work of the community; the workers collect honey from
the flowers in the summer and store it away for common use during the
cold season; they determine which of the fertile females is to be
impregnated and become their queen; she is liberated on her
wedding-day, and in a summer flight, pursued by the males, conceives.
Then she returns to the comb, and is let loose upon the other fertile
females in the comb, and watched as she stings her possible rivals to
death one by one. Few males return from the nuptial flight; one only
of them weds, and he perishes in the act; the others perish without
wedding, or if they have strength to return to the comb, are
despatched by the workers watching at the entrance to perform the
execution.
It is impossible to conceive a more complete system of coöperation or
communism than this, or one which so little conforms to our notions of
justice or welfare. Indeed, it is probable that from a human point of
view the tiger in the jungle attains a greater measure of happiness
than any member of a bee community; for the workers seem to labor
without reward; of the males only one weds, and he perishes in the
act; and the queen herself is kept a close prisoner during her entire
existence, save only during the brief ecstasy of the nuptial flight.
The lesson to be learned from insect communities seems then to be, not
that coöperation in a natural environment results in the maximum of
happiness, but merely that coöperation is as much a part of Nature's
plan as competition, and that therefore the coöperative system is as
available to man as the competitive. The problem before man is how to
take the best of both systems, and eliminate the bad.
But there is a further lesson to be drawn from the singular customs
that prevail in the hive and in the ants' nest:
In both, the entire energies of all seem concentrated upon two
problems--the support of the community, and its perpetuation; and as
these two problems are identically the same as those by which men are
confronted, the systems adopted to solve them cannot but be of
absorbing interest to Man.
Nature or environment follows two diverging lines in animal
development. Along one line she seeks the perfection of the
individual; along the other the perfection of the community. But the
ideal of perfection presented by Nature is not Justice or Morality; it
is _perpetuation_, for perpetuation is the prize offered to the most
fit types in the struggle for survival. And there are obviously two
ways in which types can succeed in this struggle--one by individual
excellence, and another by sexual jealousy. And this sexual jealousy
must be eliminated from a community if its members are to live in
permanent harmony together. The scheme adopted by Nature in the
beehive to eliminate sexual jealousy is radical and cruel, but
effectual.
Obviously, the community system proceeds with reckless disregard of
the individual; the destruction of all the fertile females save the
single queen and of all the male sex; the singular fact that the sting
cannot be used save at the cost of the life of the individual using
it; the enforced chastity of the workers--all prove that Nature's plan
for securing the welfare of the community is to sacrifice thereto the
happiness and the lives of the individuals that constitute it.
Obviously, Man must find some better solution of this problem than
ants and bees. How Man has at various periods attempted to solve it we
shall study later. But before leaving natural environment, we have a
lesson to learn from the moral qualities which the two lines of
divergence have respectively developed--the qualities of the solitary
carnivore and those of the communistic bee.
We may be helped by observing the habits of herding animals that are
neither so fierce as the lion nor so servile as the ant. For although
it has of late been the fashion to justify our existing capitalistic
system by exaggerating the extent to which competition exists in
Nature, careful study reveals that though competition does prevail
between different species, it is the exception rather than the rule
between individuals of the same species. Nature has proceeded along
two lines of development: one of mutual struggle, and another of
mutual aid. Thus we find even carnivora, such as the hyena and the
wolf, herding for the purpose of the chase; even foxes and bears have
been seen to herd; eagles, kites, and pelicans notoriously associate
to this end. Practically all herbivora herd more or less permanently,
the permanence of the herd depending apparently upon the mildness or
the ferocity of the sexual instinct. In the case of the elk, the stag,
the bull, and the horse, that fight for the female, and prevent the
weak from perpetuating the race, the herd breaks up into groups during
the rutting season; whereas, in the case of apes and monkeys that
herd, the herd remains permanent.
Too little is known about the sexual relations of such animals as herd
permanently for any certain conclusions to be drawn from them, but it
can be said without fear of contradiction that Nature has succeeded
best through the combination of strength, selfishness, and ferocity
on the one hand, and that of intelligence, altruism,[202] and
servility on the other; for it is the lion and the tiger that dominate
the jungles of Asia; in Africa and South America it is the white ant.
These considerations lead us to conclusions of great importance, for
they enable us to trace the development of certain habits or instincts,
which, when we find them developed in Man, become lifted into virtues or
vices according to their nature and intensity. Thus solitude imposes
upon solitary animals habits of selfishness and self-reliance; the tiger
has no one to look to but himself for the satisfaction of the two great
animal needs--food and self-perpetuation; he is the Ishmaelite of the
animal kingdom; his hand is against everyone and everyone's hand is
against him. Whereas, community life imposes upon the ant habits of
docility and altruism; she works not for herself, but for her neighbors;
she is a natural slave, but a slave to a useful end--the common weal of
all.
To sum up: Natural environment has operated on animal life through the
principle of evolution or survival of the fittest in such a manner as
to develop physical organs and instinctive habits, both of which seem
to be necessary results. These physical organs and instinctive habits
depend for their nature and excellence upon two parallel systems:
According to one, the struggle for life has taken place not only
between one species and another, but also between individuals of the
same species; this has resulted in individual excellence, as in the
case of the lion and the tiger; and has developed habits of
selfishness, self-reliance and ferocity. According to the other, the
struggle for life has taken place mainly between one group and
another, and hardly at all between individuals of the same group, but
both the lives and the happiness of the individual are recklessly
sacrificed to it; this has resulted in collective excellence at the
expense of the individual; and has developed habits of docility and
altruism.
In the former, or competitive system, there is the greatest individual
freedom of action and the greatest individual satisfaction of animal
propensities, but there is the greatest individual risk, the few
survive at the expense of the many, and there is little or no social
satisfaction.
In the latter, or coöperative system, there is less individual
freedom, less satisfaction of animal propensities (indeed, sexual
appetite is left unsatisfied for all except one individual of each
sex, and at the expense of personal liberty for the female and for the
male of life itself), but there is least individual risk for the
workers, and most social satisfaction.
Intermediate systems partake of both the competitive and coöperative
plan, none of the intermediate systems, however, leading to supremacy,
and some of them resulting in degeneracy.
Such are the results of the unconscious action of natural environment
on living things.
We are now in a position to study the actual and possible results of
the conscious action of an artificial environment on Man.
§ 2. HUMAN ENVIRONMENT
Before studying the possible effects upon Man of an artificial
environment, consciously and deliberately created by him with the
definite purpose of attaining the maximum of human perfection and
happiness, we must be clear as to the actual effects upon man of the
artificial environment in which he finds himself. And first we must
give its full value to the fact that the environment in which we live
is in great part artificial, that it is the product not of Nature
only, but also of Art.
We have seen that the lower animals, prior to the advent of Man, were
the necessary product of the natural environment. We have now to study
how Man has modified the face of the world, as regards them and
himself, by the application thereto of Art.
The most obvious and striking change effected by Art on human life is
in relation to climate.
There is geologic evidence that the forefathers of Man in what is
called the Miocene Period, while not so intellectual as Man, were of a
far higher type than any living ape; the head, for example, indicates
a superior structure.[203] Now, the Miocene Period was exceptionally
warm. The bones of the so-called troglodytes are found in the caves of
the Dordogne with other vegetable and animal remains that indicate a
tropical temperature. This was followed by the glacial epoch, which
substituted for tropical conditions those now existing in the Arctic
zone. The troglodyte had to choose between the alternatives; he had to
flee to the tropics before the cold wave from the North, or to resist
the cold by recourse to Art. It is probable that he did both; some
did the one, and the rest the other; some fled to the tropics and
degenerated there into the existing anthropoid apes; the rest invented
weapons with which to slay fur-bearing animals, to strip them of their
skins, and convert the skins into clothing; used the shelter furnished
by natural caves, and eventually discovered the way to produce a
flame. This last Promethean gift was probably the first of the great
human inventions. When Man discovered how to produce and utilize fire
he became superior to climate.
This discovery produced an amazing consequence; for it seems certain
that our race made its first strides towards civilization in tropical
countries; but that progress in the Arts, by enabling Man to inhabit
colder and more bracing climates, permitted an increase in his power
to resist not only climate, but all the other natural conditions
hostile to his improvement; and so we find the Northern races
gradually subduing those of the South, and demonstrating the great
rule _that man's progress is secured, not by yielding to natural
environment, but by resisting it_.
The key to human progress in the past, and the probable key to human
progress in the future, is the faculty of Man to resist Nature; and
this faculty is twofold. Intelligence is the more obvious of the two
elements. But intelligence is not sufficient of itself. Intelligence
must be coupled with the power of self-restraint. For although
intelligence is the light which can guide men toward perfection, it is
useless unless accompanied by the willingness and power to follow the
light.
What avails it to the millionaire to know that he can by the
intelligent use of his millions alleviate the misery of the poor, if
he lacks the willingness and power to apply this knowledge?
What avails it to us to know that by substituting coöperation for
competition in the production of the necessaries of life, poverty can
be annihilated, if we have not the willingness and the power to effect
the substitution?
What avails it to a drunkard to know that drink is the cause of his
misery, if he has not the power to refuse it?
In man's struggle with climate, intelligence seems to play the
principal rôle, but there is also a spirit of resistance, in strong
contrast with submission that characterizes the lower animals. In
other arenas the power of self-control plays a still more conspicuous
part. There is probably no institution in which man differs more from
the lower animals than in that of marriage; and none more
characterized by self-control. If we compare the promiscuous
intercourse that prevails between the sexes in troops of apes, with
the fidelity that characterizes the highest types of marriage in our
most highly civilized communities, we cannot but be struck, not only
with the enormous gap between the two, but with the dominant rôle
played in development from the lower to the higher type by the power
of self-control. The passionate propensity that condemns the fiercer
carnivora to solitude, and reduces even the docile bee to a wholesale
massacre of one of the two sexes, has been so controlled in our
civilization that we find men and women not only living in the closest
proximity without violating the marriage vow, but even consecrating
themselves to life-long chastity out of respect for a religious
scruple.
Man has attained this result through the training of children by
parents in the family, of youth by masters in schools, and of adults
each by himself in the world at large.
Perhaps the most precious result of the institution of marriage is
the education furnished by the family which results from marriage. In
Greek life this education was the kernel of Greek religion. Every
family worshipped its own gods, and these gods were the shades of its
ancestors. Almost every duty in life resolved itself into a duty to
these shades; the duty to marry was but to ensure offspring who would
continue to minister to the deceased; the duty of chastity, and indeed
of morality in general, resolved itself into a duty to keep inviolable
the sacred flame upon the hearth.
The two virtues peculiarly stimulated by Greek religion were courage
in man and chastity in woman; these singularly correspond to the
qualities that characterize solitary carnivora--ferocity in the male
and compulsory fidelity in the female. They are the virtues that
attend individualism, and individualism so impregnated Greek
civilization that it prevented the Greek cities from ever combining
into a Greek nation, and ultimately left them a prey to the invader.
And those two individualistic virtues--courage and chastity--became
still more emphasized under the Roman rule in the soldier and the
vestal.
Christianity introduced a new element into civilized life; Christ
deprecated exhibitions of courage by inculcating humility; He tempered
the fierce demand for fidelity by bidding "him who was without sin
cast the first stone at her." The virtue He taught above all was the
virtue of Love; not love in the sense of natural affection, but love
in the sense of sacrifice; not love confined to the family, but love
extended from the family to the neighbor: "Love your neighbor as
yourself." And so under the dispensation of Christ all men, being the
children of a common Father, became as brothers one to another; the
early Christians carrying out this theory into practical life,
abandoned the acquisition of private wealth and brought all their
earnings into a common stock, giving to everyone according to his
need.
Unfortunately, the prosperity of the Church under Constantine
converted it into a political machine as unconscionable in its
methods, and as effectual in results, as the so-called rings which
govern many cities to-day. The Church forgot the virtues which it was
instituted to teach; and our Western civilization has ever since been
distracting us by encouraging the fighting virtues of the Roman
soldier on the one hand, and the altogether inconsistent humility of
the Christian saint on the other.
But men and women cannot live close to one another for centuries,
without having social virtues forced upon them; and while the
competitive system which prevails in our industrial and international
relations has stimulated the fighting qualities in us, the teaching of
Christ has preserved in our hearts ideas of happiness which have more
or less unconsciously created a tendency to replace competition by
coöperation wherever possible.
The joint effect of Roman and Christian rules of conduct has been to
substitute for the qualities that we observe in Nature--the lust and
ferocity of the carnivore and the servility of the ant--new qualities
altogether different, and in some respects almost opposite. For lust
has been replaced by a conception of the conjugal relation which
converts marriage into a sacrament; ferocity has yielded to the
courage of the medieval knight and the modern gentleman; servility
tends to disappear and be replaced by respect for laws; and fear has
been lifted by religion into reverence--"The fear of God is the
beginning of wisdom."
The fact that these virtues are held up to us as desirable and that we
are trained to conform thereto, is of dominating importance in
considering the character of human environment; and were there nothing
in human institutions to render the universal practice of these
virtues impossible, we should assuredly enjoy the happiness that must
result therefrom.
Unfortunately there are two reasons why we cannot practice these
virtues though we would:
We are divided into nations, each striving against all the rest to
secure for its citizens the largest possible share of the good things
of this world. Every nation is composed of individuals or families,
each engaged in a similar strife.
The first, the international conflict, gives rise to a peculiar virtue
called patriotism, which, in so far as it teaches a man to love the
country to which he belongs, and the people amongst whom he lives, is
altogether good, but in so far as it teaches him to hate and
occasionally slay those of other nations is altogether bad.
The second, the intranational conflict, gives rise to a quality which,
though not recognized as a virtue, should, if measured by the rewards it
receives, be assuredly regarded as the greatest of all--acquisitiveness;
for the fortunate few who possess this quality gather unto themselves
all the good things in the world at the expense of all the rest.
Let us briefly study each of these formidable obstacles to virtue and
happiness:
As regards the international conflict, the world is so large, and is
peopled by races of men so different, that it would be quite
impossible to include them all under the same government. The Red
Indian is incapable of adopting our civilization; he would rather die.
The Chinese has a conception of government so different from ours that
he has no word in his language for patriotism. The Oriental, who has
occupied the Danubian provinces for five centuries, is still so
foreign to us that he cannot live amongst Christians except either as
a conqueror in Turkey or a subject in Hindoostan.
So long as these differences exist, there must be separate nations;
and the smoke of international conflict must occasionally burst into a
flame.
Nevertheless, even to-day human effort can do much to diminish
occasions for war; witness the Tribunal of The Hague and the daily
multiplying treaties of arbitration; witness, too, the gradual
extension of solidarity between workingmen beyond national frontiers
and the growing disposition to organize regardless of them.
As regards the intranational conflict--between individuals belonging
to the same country--there is much more to be said, for although the
total elimination of occasions of conflict between citizens of the
same nation may still be far off, there is serious reason to believe
that a partial elimination of them is immediately possible, and may
constitute the most practical of all political programs, and the most
vital of all religious faiths. Indeed, a thorough understanding of the
problem presented by this intranational conflict is so indispensable
to its prosperous solution, that upon this understanding may be said
to depend the question whether our civilization is to degenerate.
The intranational conflict is mainly concerned with the acquisition of
wealth; and because this conflict has so far inordinately enriched a
few and impoverished the mass, it is the fashion for us to rail
against wealth.
But wealth is the necessary product of civilization, and like manure,
it is a benefaction when lightly distributed over the right place,
though a pest when heavily concentrated in the wrong. The wealthier a
community is the happier it ought to be. It is not wealth itself
which constitutes our grievance, but the method of its distribution.
Now the unequal distribution of wealth is mainly due to the system of
private property under which the few who have the gift of money-making
acquire large fortunes, while the many are left in comparative poverty
and even want.
Under this system, every man, instead of working for all, is working
only for himself, and he who has most acquisitiveness becomes master
of those who have less, society being by this single quality divided
into a series of classes or castes, at the top of which are a few
millionaires, and at the bottom the large contingent that after a life
of misery end their lives in the almshouse, the prison, or the lunatic
asylum--a contingent that has been determined by carefully prepared
statistics to constitute one-fifth of the entire population in the
richest country in the world.[204]
Private property has played an essential rôle in the slow
enfranchisement of the people. But just as the cocoon serves an
essential purpose in protecting the worm during its slow development,
but becomes a prison which the butterfly discards when it attains its
final freedom, so private property may turn out to have already served
its purpose if we can demonstrate ourselves so far developed as to be
fit to cast it aside.
Let us recall what rôle private property plays in our human
environment to-day:
It is the great stimulus which sets each one of us to work for
himself, and by working for himself to accumulate wealth that
contributes to the maintenance of all the rest. It furnishes (in
theory) a method under which the man who works most effectually gets
the highest reward.
Now, as it is essential in every community that every man should
contribute to the maintenance of all, and as justice seems to demand
that the workers should be rewarded according to results, it is
claimed that private property solves the problem of production in a
manner both effectual and just.
The competitive system, however, and the false notion of property to
which the competitive system gives rise by setting every man to work
for himself regardless of all the rest, prevents men from proceeding
upon the far more economical plan of coöperation.
§ 3. THE EFFECT OF THE COMPETITIVE SYSTEM ON TYPE
We have seen that under the law of evolution type tends to adapt
itself to environment. It must so adapt itself or perish. There is no
escape from this iron law. If the climate change from warm to cold,
animals must put on blubber or fur; if the climate change from cold to
hot, they must throw off blubber or fur. Those who adapt themselves to
the change survive; those who do not adapt themselves die.
So also, if in a given community the individual can secure the
necessaries of life only on the condition of outdoing his neighbor, it
is those who most successfully outdo their neighbors who prevail;
those who are outdone sink deeper and deeper into poverty and
ultimately join the irreclaimable fifth.
The effect, then, of the competitive system on type is to stimulate
the qualities that go to make up acquisitiveness; selfishness and all
the necessary results of selfishness--avarice, greed, envy, injustice,
hardness of heart.
It would be by no means fair to maintain that no man can be successful
in business who is not cursed with all these vices. On the contrary,
some of our greatest philanthropists have been successful business
men. But philanthropy sometimes results from the blessed principle of
reaction, under which vice, when it gets bad enough, creates a
revulsion against evil. Reaction, however, is the eddy in the stream;
and it is the stream and not the eddy that in the end counts.
The main, the essential, the inevitable result of private property is
to promote selfishness, for the competitive system creates an
artificial environment to which the human type must tend to conform.
This artificial environment not only promotes selfishness at large,
but tends to degrade every institution which man has invented in his
effort to advance. Among these institutions, the two which have sprung
from the noblest instincts in man, and ought most to tend to his
improvement, are Marriage and the Church. Yet both are demoralized by
the competitive system.
In the state of nature, animals tend to improve through sexual
selection. By sexual selection is meant the fight between males for
the female, the result of which is that the strongest males are the
ones that perpetuate the type.
In the artificial environment produced by private property, a very
different process is at work. Marriage tends to be determined by
wealth rather than fitness; and the wealthy tend to have few children
or none; whereas it is found that in the unwealthy classes, the
poorest have the most children. Well-to-do people protect themselves
and their families from poverty by prudence, whereas, those who
despair of escaping from poverty have no reason for refusing
themselves what is often almost their only satisfaction; and the
result is that while the houses of the rich tend to be desolate
through childlessness, those of the poor are crowded with the
offspring of despair.
The religious conception of Marriage that it is a sacrament has become
practically obsolete; particularly in this so among the rich, whose
daughters are annually offered for sale in the market of Mayfair as
shamelessly as not long ago were Circassian girls in that of
Istamboul.
The effect of private property on the Church is no less deplorable. It
costs money to maintain a church; and the more splendidly a church is
maintained the more money it costs. The priest has to live; bishops
indeed have to live in a certain state. The Church, then, must have
money. In some countries the Church secures money from the government,
and is driven thereby into the questionable field of politics; in
others, every individual church is thrown upon its own resources, and
has either to make its services attractive by ritual, or to depend for
its supplies upon one or two of the wealthy members of its
congregation. It is not surprising, then, that under this subjection
to wealth, Christians have abandoned the teaching of Christ, and
forgotten that in early days they sold all and gave to the poor,
contributed their earnings to a common stock, and resisted not evil
but overcame evil with good.
Yet the Church has rendered, and is still rendering, a priceless
service to man. Falter though she may, she has preserved for us the
Gospel of Christ.
The blame rests not with the Church, but with the artificial
environment which man has himself created, and to which he alone can
put an end--the environment that appeals to the selfishness of man,
and having made man selfish, insolently asserts that in no other
environment can he be otherwise.
Man will be what his environment makes him.
If the environment stimulates selfishness, man will be selfish. If it
stimulates unselfishness, he will be unselfish.
But man can by art so alter his environment that it will elicit the
noble in man, instead of the base.
Let us now sum up the difference between human and natural evolution,
and arrive at some conclusion regarding the part man has played, and
may still play, in his own advancement.
§ 4. BRIEF RESTATEMENT
Before the advent of man animal life prospered or degenerated
according as the natural environment was favorable to progress or
degeneration. The process of evolution was necessarily unconscious and
undeliberate.
With the advent of man a new force appeared upon the face of the
world, the power to modify the environment so as to make it serve
human needs, and accord with human intention.
Before the advent of man, selection was exercised by Nature or the
natural environment; since the advent of man it is man who has
selected and not Nature; animals dangerous and useless to man have
almost disappeared except in museums; and only those that are useful
to him are allowed to survive.
Climate is no longer paramount; man by the use of tools, clothing,
architecture, and other arts, contrives to-day to live in climates
which were once fatal to him.
By increase of knowledge man has acquired a control of the forces of
Nature, which makes him now a master where he was once a slave.
By increase of self-restraint--and self-restraint involves the
subjection of natural instincts--man has developed qualities which
permit of social existence unknown in any other race.
Without having lost the self-reliance that characterizes the solitary
carnivora, he has, by resisting Nature--by such artificial
institutions as that of marriage, and the education which results from
family relations--developed all the social virtues. Ferocity has been
tempered; lust has been reduced to subjection; in the place of the one
we now see courage; in the place of the other chastity; craft is
growing into wisdom; fear into reverence. He has substituted for the
standard of Nature the standard of Morality, and the substitution of
the standard of Morality for the standard of Nature has permitted men
and women to live in the same community safe from the ferocity that
drives the larger carnivora to solitude, and from the massacre and
mutilation which characterize such natural communities as those of
bees.
When from this point of view we compare man with the lower animals, so
immense is his progress that we are tempted to believe perfection
within the reach of his attainment.
Two things, however, suffice to keep alive evil in man:
While at almost every point he has so moulded his own environment as
to eliminate the vices that characterize the rest of the animal
kingdom, in two respects the predatory system still prevails:
The international conflict keeps nations in perpetual competition with
one another, and this periodically forces them to war; and the
intranational conflict keeps individuals in perpetual conflict with
one another, and stimulates all the vices which most interfere with
human happiness.
The international conflict seems doomed to continue so long as man
remains separated by racial antipathies and commercial interests.
Efforts are being made to diminish occasions for war to the utmost
possible, by bringing all races to recognize and aim at the same
social ideal. But there would still remain ample occasion for war so
long as men are kept in competition by conflicting commercial
interests. The task first in importance and time, therefore, seems to
be to eliminate as much as is advisable the commercial and industrial
conflict, which has been already pointed out to be the great
intranational obstacle to human perfection and happiness.
Now the intranational conflict has been seen to result from our
industrial system. This, as at present organized, is an artificial
creation of man; indispensable though it may have been to the gradual
evolution of the race, it has always acted, and must always act to
keep alive in man the very quality--selfishness--the elimination of
which is most essential to the happiness of a community, and the
absence of which particularly characterizes natural communities such
as those ants and bees.
While, then, man has resisted and in great part subdued Nature in the
physical world by science, and in a world which he has himself
created--the moral world--by self-restraint, he has added to this
artificial environment two institutions which tend to counterbalance
the advantages already secured. These are national governments that
create international conflict, and an industrial system that creates
intranational conflict; and we are confronted with the problem whether
these two hothouses of crime, hatred, selfishness and vice, can be
dispensed with.
Science affords us the encouraging hope that they can. It points out
that man has already suppressed many of the most merciless effects of
the natural environment; that by virtue of the power through which he
can in great part create and certainly modify his own environment, he
may still further push on the work of civilization if he will but
recognize that the real enemy to human happiness is hatred and the
real friend to it solidarity; and if he will return to the Gospel of
Christ, which economic conditions have so far compelled him to
disregard.
Before closing the study of evolution it is proper to point out that
we are now in a position to dispose of the contention that, because
natural evolution proceeds upon the principle of the survival of the
fittest, therefore human evolution must proceed upon the same lines.
This is the argument that millionaires and individualists set up
against those who believe in the possibility of diminishing human
misery by reducing the occasions for human conflict.
It is totally false.
Man has demonstrated his ability to resist Nature and to progress
along lines that are diametrically opposed to those of natural
evolution. The whole fabric of human civilization is an answer to the
millionaire's argument. The natural principle of the survival of the
fittest is no longer at work. Man has put an end to it. The lion and
the tiger no longer reign in the jungle nor the white ant in the
Pampas. Man, alone, determines which animals shall live and which
shall disappear. The weak in our own race no longer perish; mercy
comes to their rescue. The strong are no longer the only ones to
perpetuate the type; marriage protects the weak husband in his marital
rights as well as the strong. Climate no longer determines survival;
man has made himself master of climate, and indeed works most
effectually to-day in latitudes which at an earlier stage were peopled
only by savages.
At every point where man touches Nature he has reversed the natural
process.
The unfit no longer perish, the fit no longer alone survive. Man is no
longer the necessary result of the natural environment: _he makes his
own environment_; and if he be wise enough he can so modify it as to
modify himself with it. When, if ever, he so modifies it as to
eliminate those elements in it which stimulate vice, then he will have
realized the word of the Gospel, "Ye are Gods."
§ 5. CAN HUMAN NATURE BE CHANGED BY LAW?
It is currently urged and has become a sort of maxim that human nature
cannot be changed by law. Not only is this quoted by the bourgeois in
his argument against the Socialist, but even Henry George has fallen
into this error. Indeed, it is this error that prevented Henry George
from adopting Socialism and left him the distinguished founder of an
inadequate philosophy. For the most superficial knowledge of history
will suffice to demonstrate its untruth. Human nature has already been
profoundly changed by law; by the institution of marriage, by
education, by property. This has already been sufficiently discussed
to make it unnecessary further to comment on it.[205] It does not,
however, seem sufficient to point out the profound modification of
human nature by law in the past in order to persuade the bourgeois
that humanity can still further be modified by law in the future; for
a thousand instances can be quoted of efforts to change human nature
by law that have failed, and it is argued very illogically that
because in many instances they have failed, they must always fail.
Then, too, there remains in the minds of all influenced by Herbert
Spencer, the profound error that society is an organism and must be
allowed to grow; whereas on the contrary, a very little study
demonstrates that society differs from an organism in essential
points.[206]
No society can exist without some law of association. The law may be a
natural one, as in the case of myxomycetes; or it may be an artificial
one, as in the case of the United States constitution; or it may be
both, as indeed is the case in every human society.
This law of association is called "government." Strictly speaking, in
a political sense government means only that law of association which
is promulgated and enforced by the supreme power of the state; but
human society is controlled by a double system of laws--one written,
whether in judicial decisions or in express statute, and the other not
written, because it resides in the mass of the citizens under
conditions which baffle description. This last is imperfectly rendered
in the English word "custom," is more definitely expressed in the
French word _moeurs_, and is admirably conveyed by Horace in the words
Quid leges sine moribus
Vanae proficiunt?
The essential characteristic of custom is that, however controlling it
may be in fact, it does not enjoy the sanction of legislative
enactment or executive decree; indeed, it often arises out of
opposition to law; as where in the Western states game laws remain
unenforced, because public opinion supports the ranchman's defence of
necessity; and sometimes again where, though a law be in itself
proper, a community declines to avail itself of the law, as in the
custom that discredited divorce in the early Roman Republic.
Now, the importance of this moral or sometimes immoral sense that
makes custom independently of law, must not be underestimated--for it
is in many respects superior to law for evil or for good; and it
differs from law in the essential fact that it grows almost
imperceptibly, whereas law, in the strict sense of the word, is the
result of judicial decision or legislative enactment--both acts of
deliberation--or so purporting to be. The question naturally arises
then whether, in so far as society develops along the line of custom,
it does not follow the process of growth rather than that of
construction.
It is impossible to deny that custom and public opinion are in a
continual state of change; the varying fortunes of political parties
sufficiently testify to this; but how far these variations are in
civilized communities due to unconscious growth and how far to
conscious effort it is not easy to determine. Suffice it to point out
that, while opposing forces such as egotism and philanthropy, do
continually tend to mould opinion under conditions that baffle
inquiry, there are conscious forces at work which are quite as
powerful and could be made more so. Chief amongst these is education;
and in the word "education" are included not our schools and
universities alone, but all the educating influences of the day--the
press, the stage, music, literature, and art. That all these are
engaged in moulding public opinion--some in bringing popular
government into contempt, some in relaxing public morals, some in
holding up low ideals, some in indulging luxurious tastes, while they
could be doing just the opposite of all these things--there is no
doubt.
The existence of these things is mentioned here because failure to
mention them would have left the discussion incomplete. Enough has
been said to indicate that there are great forces at work in society
which to-day escape the control of government, and that it is not easy
to say how far they operate after the haphazard fashion of Nature and
how far subject to the deliberate purpose of man. Whatever be the
conclusion, it is certain that so far as they are left to Nature's
guidance they will result in Nature's handiwork; whereas so far as
they are controlled by human wisdom they will bear the fruits of that
wisdom.
In conclusion, therefore, associations of individuals are
characterized in primitive forms of life by unconsciousness; but as
the individuals develop, these associations seem to become deliberate
rather than unconscious, until in man they not only seem deliberate
but are so.
The history of human society shows that when it has been allowed to
grow unconsciously the development has been in the same direction as
under the predatory system of Nature; that is to say, institutions
have been moulded to benefit individuals presenting the combination of
strength and craft best fitted to survive in the artificial
environment which the strong and crafty created to that end. When
conditions produced by this system of growth under the spur of egotism
were replaced by one of construction under the guidance of wisdom,
there was progress.
Society is controlled by two forces: one which it consciously set up
for itself, called "government"; one which is unconsciously operating
through the silent struggle of natural and non-natural motives in the
individual lives of every one of us. The latter to a great extent
escapes the control of government; but in so far as society does
consciously create its own institutions, it ought to be engaged in the
process of construction and in the conscious effort towards
self-improvement. To this extent society is not an organism, and _à
fortiori_ government is not an organism either.
Society, then, is not an organism.
It differs from an organism in the following essential particulars:
The units of an organism have no individual existence; they are parts
essential to the whole and exist for the sake of the whole.
The units of a society have an individual existence; and, in the case
of human society, do not exist for the sake of the society, but
society for the sake of the individual.
Not only have the units of a society each an individual existence, but
they have each an individual will, an independent consciousness, and,
all except Materialists will add, an individual soul. The units of an
organism are conspicuously without any of these essential attributes.
But society, though not itself an organism, is an association of
organisms. And although human society seems to resemble a machine more
than an organism, the legislator cannot for a moment afford to forget
that the parts of his machine are not inanimate inorganic matter, but
organic living beings, endowed with the faculties of consciousness and
will--and above all alive to pleasure and sensitive to pain. Nor can
he afford to forget that the efficacy of all laws depends ultimately
upon the consent of those upon whom they are to operate; and that
therefore no law can be effectual that is not supported by public
opinion. Now, public opinion is the result of all the forces acting in
the social field, unconscious as well as conscious; so that while the
aim of the legislator should be to replace unconscious growth so far
as is possible by conscious construction, he commits a fatal error if
he fails to recognize that men and women are to-day actuated as to
nine-tenths of their thoughts and deeds by habit, and many--perhaps
the majority of them--incapable of conscious deliberate self-restraint
at all. Legislation therefore that seeks suddenly to exact of the
public a greater capacity for self-restraint than it is capable of,
cannot but prove ineffectual; and ineffectual legislation is bad,
because it tends to bring legislation into contempt. Prohibition
furnishes a good illustration of this principle: in those States in
which Prohibition is supported by public opinion it operates
advantageously; where it is not so supported it operates only as an
instrument of blackmail. Obviously Prohibition has diminished crime
and improved social conditions in some States, whereas every attempt
to force it or anything approaching to it upon the city of New York
has resulted in the corruption of the police engaged in enforcing it,
or in prompt punishment for the political party responsible for its
enactment. The helplessness of mere laws to eradicate defects of
temperament is one of the facts which tend to support the theory of
_laissez faire_; but the argument that because under certain
conditions legislation is inadequate, therefore legislation is always
inadequate, is too obviously illogical to need refutation. It could
hardly have received a moment's consideration had it not been
bolstered by pseudo-scientific conclusions drawn from an alleged
identity between society and organisms. But even if society were an
organism, this argument would still be incorrect; just as incorrect as
though it were contended that because under certain conditions
medicine is inadequate, medicines must always be avoided. Were society
as subtle and difficult to treat as the human bodies of which it is
composed, it would still be the duty of the legislator to study the
one, just as the physician studies the other, with a view to
determining the limits as well as the extent of his resources.
But society is not an organism; on the contrary, the more human and
civilized it is, the less it conforms to unconscious growth and the
more it yields to intelligent purpose. That it is composed of
organisms, however, sets a limit to the wisdom of interference which
it is of paramount importance that we should carefully define.
These limits seem roughly to be marked out by two essential factors:
one is the purpose of legislation--or justice, the other is the
obstacles to legislation--or national character. Government in aiming
at justice has to recognize defects of character. The justice which
can be attained in one community could not be attempted in another;
that which could be attained in one community in one stage of its
development, it would have been folly to attempt at an earlier one.
The approach to perfection in social conditions depends essentially
upon the approach to perfection attained by the individuals of which
the society is composed.
How nearly a government can attain perfection depends, then, upon the
individual character of those subject to it; and how nearly the
individual character can attain perfection depends to a great extent
upon the government to which it is subjected. These two factors cannot
be treated apart; one is a function of the other. Just as a physician
has in treating a patient to consider the hygienic conditions which
surround him, and the peculiarities of constitution which may make a
sudden change of these conditions injurious, so a legislator in
framing laws for a community and thus changing the conditions of its
environment, has to consider the temperament of the community and its
fitness to undergo the proposed change. This is one of the limits that
Nature puts to legislation, and it is upon a just apprehension of it
that the wisdom of legislation depends.
Although the extent to which legislation can modify nature depends
largely upon the individuals who compose the community, there are,
nevertheless, certain rules that can be laid down applicable by and
large, to the whole community.
When a trainer desires to subdue a wild beast, the first thing he does
is to diminish his rations. So long as the carnivorous passions of the
lion are kept whetted all attempt to control him fails. Or to use a
more homely illustration, when we want to break a high-spirited colt,
his supply of oats is lowered. To give such an animal an unlimited
amount of oats and then to seek to control him with a powerful harness
would be a mistake. If the harness left him free to move at all, he
would kick the harness to pieces. Every trainer knows that if a horse
is refractory, the first thing to be done to give him habits of
docility is to reduce his rations of grain and to feed him on a less
stimulating diet.
This simple and universally admitted principle is, however, singularly
neglected in our social and political institutions. These proceed upon
the opposite plan; that is to say, they whet the appetite of man to
the utmost by offering the largest rewards to the most crafty, the
most greedy, the most dishonest, and the most merciless of men, and
then legislatures, for the most part elected by these very men, are
expected to control their craft, greed, dishonesty, and
mercilessness.
Thus while the competitive system, by making money the main object of
human existence, drives men to gambling and crime, we maintain an
elaborate system of police courts, penitentiaries, and prisons for
suppressing these things, although the experience of all recorded
history demonstrates that these methods are totally ineffectual. By
overworking our wage-earners, we give them an insatiable thirst for
drink; we entrust the sale of liquor to private individuals; we give
these last the keenest motive for forcing the sale of liquor on a
community alas, too eager to buy it, and then we attempt by the
license system to control drunkenness. We leave our currency, which is
the lifeblood of our industrial system, in the hands of men entitled
under our law to consider this currency a mere method of increasing
their private wealth; we offer to these men monopolies of
transportation, of water, of gas, from which they can make gigantic
fortunes and through which they can control our politics, and then we
expect the very legislatures they control, the very legislators they
elect, and the very officers they appoint, to control them. Obviously,
if we begin by putting our legislature into the hands of the men whose
interest it is to use that legislature to exploit us, we ought not to
be surprised if the laws enacted by these legislatures fail to "change
human nature."
If, however, these appetites were never awakened, or if they were only
sufficiently tolerated to produce healthy activity; if the
"brotherhood of man" ceased to be a formula and became a fact; if men
were educated from the cradle to believe that coöperation resulted in
more economy, liberty, and happiness than competition; if coöperative
habits were created so that men instinctively coöperated with one
another instead of fighting with one another, can it be doubted that
the laws enacted to produce this change in our human conditions would
have a profound effect upon human nature?
The natural environment has produced the lion, the tiger, and the ape.
The artificial or human environment has produced man. But man is still
a competitive animal. The next step that we have to take is still
further so to modify our artificial environment as to make him a
coöperative animal; to suppress the excessive competition that to-day
promotes hatred, leaving enough to spur activity; to introduce enough
coöperation to create habits of mutual helpfulness, yet not so much as
to suppress individual initiative.
This effort does not involve any sudden revolution in our development;
it is only an intelligent continuation of the process already begun.
We have diminished the ferocity of the carnivora in men; we have still
further to diminish it without impairing courage. If we keep in mind
that the object of political effort should be to diminish unhappiness
and increase happiness, we shall conclude that this can best be done
by continuing to develop along this line; by eliminating the eagerness
created by the competitive system that makes success indispensable,
not only to luxury and comfort, but to health and life; and that by
modifying our institutions in the direction indicated in the foregoing
pages, we shall not only secure a larger measure of happiness, but we
shall so modify type as to change habits and change ideals.
In a word, Science teaches us that we are and must be creatures of our
own environment. History teaches us that we have moulded and can mould
our own environment. By this inestimable power, man can determine the
development of the human type. By maintaining existing conditions, we
shall continue to produce the type of grasping millionaires that the
community at large in its heart abhors. Whereas, by modifying the
environment by the substitution of coöperation for competition in the
measure above described, we shall create a type that humanity has set
up in all its poetry, music, and art, as the type to be desired,
respected, and loved.
§ 6. SUMMARY
In conclusion let us briefly summarize the scientific argument for
Socialism free from the explanations with which in a first
presentation of this subject it was necessary to encumber the text.
Evolution prior to the advent of man was an unconscious and therefore
indeliberate adaptation of function to environment through the
survival of the fittest and the corresponding destruction of the less
fit. Herbert Spencer and his school have been misled by this fact into
a glorification of the competitive system which seemed to them the
most conspicuous factor in the improvement of type. This school
altogether fails to take account of two facts of the utmost
importance:
Development under purely natural conditions--prior to the advent of
man--by no means proceeded alone along competitive lines. It also
proceeded along coöperative lines, so that while the lion, the tiger,
and the ape are the prevailing types in certain regions, in others the
prevailing type is the white ant.
The other equally important fact is that whereas evolution under
purely natural conditions--before the advent of man--was unconscious,
indeliberate, and merciless, since the advent of man it has become
conscious, deliberate, and merciful, to such an extent that in almost
every essential particular, development has reversed the process that
preceded the advent of man. Before the advent of man, animals were not
only the victims of the forces of nature, but also their necessary
result. Only those animals survived that were able to adapt themselves
to changes of environment. The rest perished. And they adapted
themselves to changes of environment mainly by developing new organs
to that end. For example, the camel develops pads under its feet to
protect them from the burning sands, and a reservoir in its alimentary
canal to furnish water during its wanderings in the desert; the
hairless hide of the tropical elephant becomes covered with thick
curly wool when found in the Arctic zone.
When, however, man appears upon the face of the earth, all this order
changes. The survival of animals in the world is no longer determined
by changes of climate or changes of environment; the survival of the
fittest is no longer determined by Nature. It is determined by Art--by
Man. The animals beneficial to man survive; the animals detrimental to
man perish. Again, man is no longer the victim of the forces of
Nature; he has become in great part master of them. The flame that
raged uncontrollably over the forest and plain, man now puts under his
kettle to make his tea; the torrent that devastated the valleys, man
now dikes and distributes in irrigating ditches, transforming deserts
into green fields. The fitful flash of the lightning in the heavens
man conducts along a little wire and converts into the steady glow of
the incandescent lamp. Nor does man any longer adapt function to
environment. The Esquimau of the Arctic regions has not developed a
thick curly fur; he has clothed himself in the furs of other animals;
the Arab of the desert has not developed pads under his feet or a
reservoir in his alimentary canal; he rides and loads water on the
back of the camel already so provided. Man is no longer the necessary
result of natural environment; he makes his own environment. Wherever
he goes, he makes a climate of his own. In the tropics, he builds
houses to protect himself from the heat, and creates an artificial
cold by punkahs, electric fans, and the manufacture of ice. In winter,
he creates another climate by building houses to protect himself from
the cold, heating them with a furnace and lighting them with gas and
electricity. Most important of all, by the control of man over
environment, he can determine not only his own destiny, but also the
destiny of generations to come. He can by preserving the competitive
conditions that exist, go on developing the base type that is now the
necessary result of these conditions--the type that seeks happiness
regardless of the happiness of others, such as our oil kings and
railroad kings, steel kings and other so-called captains of industry.
By substituting coöperation for competition, he can, on the contrary,
develop a noble type that seeks happiness through the happiness of
others, such as the settlement worker and the Little Sister of the
Poor, with, however, this amazing difference: that whereas to-day
those who rejoice in social service for its own sake are for the most
part humble and obscure, and those who use social service for their
own advancement are wealthy and illustrious, in a coöperative
commonwealth the genius that now goes into competitive business will
be drawn into the service of the coöperative commonwealth. The present
alliance between ability and craft will be broken up and a new
partnership encouraged between ability, wisdom, and unselfishness.
The fact that all life must adapt itself to environment has been felt
from the earliest dawn of civilization. Plato stated it in the
Republic. If justice is to be attained, according to Plato it can only
be attained under a just form of government. The whole history of man
since the days of Plato has demonstrated that every change in the
condition of man can be traced as the direct result of change of
environment--economic, political, ethical, and religious. The
demonstration that this not only is so but must be so was left to
science. And the contribution of science to Socialism is the
demonstration of the fact that man can create his own environment--can
take those elements in competition which are good and eliminate those
which are bad--can take those elements in coöperation which are good
and eliminate those which are bad; and by thus constructing his
environment through wisdom and art, determine whether the type
perpetuated by this environment is to be noble or base.
FOOTNOTES:
[198] "Principles of Sociology," p. 414.
[199] "Government or Human Evolution," Vol. II, p. 181.
[200] "Essays on Evolution and Ethics," "Essays on Science and
Morals," and "Struggle for Existence in Human Society."
[201] "Government or Human Evolution," Vol. I, p. 239.
[202] The word "altruism" is used instead of the more familiar word
"unselfishness" to avoid the criticism of those who contend that there
is no such thing as unselfishness. It is true that we are all selfish
in the sense that we are all seeking happiness for ourselves; but
selfishness can be defined as the search for happiness regardless of
the happiness of others, and altruism as the search for happiness
through the happiness of others.
[203] Lyell, Sir Charles, "Principles of Geology," 1872, Vol. I,
Chapter X, p. 201.
[204] This conclusion is arrived at by Charles Booth in a statistical
work which commands the approval of all authorities of whatever shade
of political opinion.
[205] Book III, Chapter V.
[206] "Introduction to the Study of Sociology." Herbert Spencer,
Chapter III.
CHAPTER V
ETHICAL ASPECT OF SOCIALISM
The ethical aspect of Socialism is a practical continuation of the
argument of the last chapter, and brings us to the crowning glory of
Socialism: that it alone can and does reconcile the conflict between
science, economics, and religion.
§ 1. THE CONFLICT BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION
Science produces convictions founded on fact. Religion imposes
convictions founded on faith. If Religion confines itself to matters
of faith--to the supernatural--it need not come into conflict with
Science. But when it trespasses on the realms of Science--when it
begins to deal with matters of fact--it creates a conflict with
Science in which Science must in the end be victorious. Thus when the
Church ventured to make it a matter of faith that the sun revolves
around the earth, it might secure the recantation of Galileo, but it
had in the end to yield before the demonstrations of astronomy.
This element of conflict between the church and the state is
disappearing and is bound entirely to disappear. The church is more
and more confining itself to supernatural matters which are properly
within the domain of faith. So long as it does this, it need not clash
with Science.
There is, however, another occasion of conflict between Science and
Religion more modern than the former and more real: The doctrine of
evolution in attacking the theory of special creation needed at one
time to attack the existence of God; and as interpreted by Herbert
Spencer and his school, gave rise to the doctrine that "because, on
the whole, animals and plants have advanced in perfection of
organization by means of the struggle for existence and the consequent
'survival of the fittest,' therefore men in society, men as ethical
beings, must look to the same process to help them towards
perfection."[207]
This notion, which Huxley describes as the fallacy that at that time
pervaded the so-called "ethics of evolution," raised an issue not only
with the church, but with the fundamental principles of religion. For
if, in fact, the blind process of evolution proceeding through the
survival of the fittest and the destruction of the unfit, was the only
process to which man could look for his development, then there is no
need of a God, and what is far more important, there is no need for
either human responsibility or human effort. Now the church, however
much its sects may differ in other matters, has always been united in
teaching not only the existence of a God, but the responsibility of
man to God, and a duty of man to make the effort necessary to comply
with his commandments. It is to the pages of Huxley that we must turn
to see this Spencerian fallacy refuted.
Huxley pointed out that a gardener in growing things beautiful and
useful to man proceeded in violation of the principles of evolution.
The characteristic feature of what he calls the "cosmic process," that
is to say, evolution _prior_ to the advent of man, "is the intense
and unceasing competition of the struggle for existence." The
characteristic of evolution since the advent of man is "_the
elimination of that struggle_ by the removal of the conditions which
give rise to it."[208]
The immense importance of these considerations is that they
demonstrate no less important a fact than that Man is to-day the
selecting agent and not Nature; and Man, by replacing evolution by Art
converts things which in the domain of Nature are not edible, such as
kale, into things which under Art become edible, such as cabbage.
But let us now take up the story as told by Huxley:
"Let us now imagine that some _administrative authority, as far
superior in power and intelligence to men, as men are to their cattle,
is set over the colony, charged to deal with its human elements_ in
such a manner as to assure the victory of the settlement over the
antagonistic influences of the state of nature in which it is set
down. He would proceed in the same fashion as that in which the
gardener dealt with his garden. In the first place, he would, as far
as possible, put a _stop to the influence of external competition_ by
thoroughly extirpating and excluding the native rivals, whether men,
beasts, or plants. And our administrator would select his human
agents, with a view to his ideal of a successful colony, just as the
gardener selects his plants with a view to his ideal of useful or
beautiful products.
"In the second place, in order that no struggle for the means of
existence between these human agents should weaken the efficiency of
the corporate whole in the battle with the state of nature, he would
make arrangements by which each would be provided with those means;
and would be relieved from the fear of being deprived of them by his
stronger or more cunning fellows. Laws, sanctioned by the combined
force of the colony, would restrain the self-assertion of each man
within the limits required for the maintenance of peace. In other
words, the cosmic struggle for existence, as between man and man,
would be rigorously suppressed; and _selection, by its means, would be
as completely excluded as it is from the garden_.
"At the same time, the obstacles to the full development of the
capacities of the colonists by other conditions of the state of nature
than those already mentioned, would be removed by the creation of
artificial conditions of existence of a more favorable character.
Protection against extremes of heat and cold would be afforded by
houses and clothing; drainage and irrigation works would antagonize
the effects of excessive rain and excessive drought; roads, bridges,
canals, carriages, and ships would overcome the natural obstacles to
locomotion and transport; mechanical engines would supplement the
natural strength of men and of their draught animals; hygienic
precautions would check, or remove the natural causes of disease. With
every step of this progress in civilization, the colonists would
become more and more independent of the state of nature; more and
more, their lives would be conditioned by a state of art. In order to
attain his ends, the administrator would have to avail himself of the
courage, industry, and coöperative intelligence of the settlers; and
it is plain that the interest of the community would be best served by
increasing the proportion of persons who possess such qualities, and
diminishing that of persons devoid of them. In other words, by
_selection directed towards an ideal_.
"Thus the administrator might look to the establishment of an earthly
paradise, a true garden of Eden, in which all things should work
together towards the well-being of the gardeners; within which the
cosmic process, the coarse struggle for existence of the state of
nature, should he abolished; in which that state should be replaced by a
state of art; where every plant and every lower animal should be adapted
to human wants, and would perish if human supervision and protection
were withdrawn; where men themselves should have been selected with a
view to their efficiency as organs for the performance of the functions
of a perfected society. And this ideal polity would have been brought
about, not by gradually adjusting the men to the conditions around them,
but by creating artificial conditions for them; not by allowing the free
play of the struggle for existence, but by excluding that struggle; and
by substituting selection directed towards the administrator's ideal for
the selection it exercises."[209]
And this is not confined to physical things, but is extended to moral.
"_Social progress_," he says, "_means a checking of the cosmic process
at every step and the substitution for it of another, which may be
called the ethical process_; the end of which is not the survival of
those who may happen to be the fittest, in respect of the whole of the
conditions which obtain, but of those who are ethically the
best."[210] And this leads to the final conclusion:
"As I have already urged, the practice of that which is ethically
best--what we call goodness or virtue--involves a course of conduct
which, in all respects, is opposed to that which leads to success in
the cosmic struggle for existence. In place of ruthless self-assertion
it demands self-restraint; in place of thrusting aside, or treading
down all competitors, it requires that the individual shall not merely
respect, but shall help his fellows; its influence is directed, _not
so much to the survival of the fittest, as to the fitting of as many
as possible to survive_. It repudiates the gladiatorial theory of
existence. It demands that each man who enters into the enjoyment of
the advantages of a polity shall be mindful of his debt to those who
have laboriously constructed it; and shall take heed that no act of
his weakens the fabric in which he has been permitted to live."[211]
Further on, he repeats:
"Let us understand, once for all, that the ethical progress of society
depends, not on imitating the cosmic process, still less in running
away from it, but in combating it."[212]
And later on:
"I see no limit to the extent to which intelligence and will, guided
by sound principles of investigation, and organized in a common
effort, may modify the conditions of existence, for a period longer
than that now covered by history. _And much may be done to change the
nature of man himself._ The intelligence which has converted the
brother of the wolf into the faithful guardian of the flock ought to
be able to do something towards curbing the instincts of savagery in
civilized men."[213]
And in a note Huxley emphasizes the extent to which human nature has
been already modified by pointing to the fact that sexual instinct has
been suppressed between near relations.[214]
Huxley's demonstrations that the happiness of man can only be attained
by the limitation of competition, by deliberate institutions to that
effect, and by conscious efforts to create an environment that will
tend to develop the ethical qualities of men, put an end to the last
serious occasion for conflict between Science and Religion; for it
results in the same theories of human responsibility, and the same
appeals to human effort, that it has been the rôle of the church to
preach from the beginning.
I have quoted from "Evolution and Ethics" because to my mind this
essay and its prolegomena make Huxley the founder of Scientific and
Ethical Socialism. It is true that he himself repudiates this. To him
Socialism is impossible because of what he describes as "the mighty
instinct of reproduction."[215] He points out that we cannot apply to
superfluous or defective human beings the system of extirpation which
gardeners apply to superfluous and defective vegetables and weeds.
I have already answered the objection to Socialism on the ground of
overproduction.[216] But Huxley never had presented to him the modern
idea of Socialism herein described. He speaks of the "elimination of
competition." It never occurred to him that the evils of competition
could be eliminated without eliminating competition. Candor, however,
compels me to admit that I do not think any presentation of the most
modern form of Socialism would at all have converted Professor Huxley.
There were two subjects upon which he could not speak without getting
into a temper: Gladstone and Socialism.
When I met him, I was not myself a Socialist. Indeed, I did not become
a Socialist until after Huxley died. My impressions, therefore, of him
were not affected by a prejudice in favor of Socialism. On the
contrary, I still regarded Socialism as impractical; I still believed
it to be absurd. It was only after months of labor in attempting to
utilize the "considerable fragments of a constructive creed"[217]
which Professor Ritchie found in Professor Huxley's pages, that I was
driven to a study of the Socialism to which I was utterly opposed, and
found in it the only solution to the contradictions which blurred even
the lucid pages of Huxley's works. And the contradictions in Huxley
are not difficult to find. Nothing could be more pessimistic than what
seems to be the climax of his argument in "Evolution and Ethics":
"The theory of evolution encourages no millennial anticipations. If,
for millions of years, our globe has taken the upward road, yet, some
time, the summit will be reached and the downward route will be
commenced. The most daring imagination will hardly venture upon the
suggestion that the power and the intelligence of man can ever arrest
the procession of the great year."[218]
And yet, on the very next page, he closes this essay with a note of
the serenest optimism:
"So far, we all may strive in one faith towards one hope."[219] And
the keynote of his attitude towards this subject is to be found in a
passage in which he "thinks it unjust to require a crossing-sweeper in
Piccadilly to tell you the road to Highgate; he has earned his copper
if he had done all he professes to do and cleaned up your immediate
path"; and a little later where he "shudderingly objects to the
responsibility of attempting to set right a world out of joint."
Now Socialists have the audacity to maintain that it is not beyond the
intelligence of the crossing-sweeper of Piccadilly to know and tell
the road to Highgate, and that the time has come when no one has a
right to "shudderingly object to the responsibility of attempting to
set right a world out of joint."
Huxley builded better than he knew; and in spite of his detestation of
Socialism it was he who built its strongest and most enduring
foundation; for unanswerable as may be the economic argument in favor
of Socialism, it might take centuries to prevail if there were not an
equally strong scientific and ethical argument for it.
The moment that Huxley recognizes that it is by the "elimination of
competition," or shall we say the "limitation of competition," by
substituting human selection for natural selection, and directing
selection towards an ideal that man is to progress and develop, he has
recognized the scientific basis of Socialism; and when he points out
that Science teaches self-restraint, human responsibility, human
effort, not so much the "survival of the fittest" as fitting as many
as possible to survive, he has reconciled Science and Religion.
It is probable that one of the reasons why Huxley took a pessimistic
view of the future was that he despaired of finding a solution to the
economic struggle. I cannot forget the melancholy with which he said
one day: "I am informed that England keeps its control of the market
of cotton goods by a difference in cost of production of a farthing
per yard. How long can this last?" But Huxley only gave a part of the
scientific argument for Socialism. For the other part we have to turn
from the pages of Huxley to those of Karl Marx.
One of the most important services Karl Marx rendered humanity was the
demonstration of the predominating influence of economics in the
development of man, in the determining of our custom, character, and
conduct.
The economic conception of history is described by F. Engels as
follows:
"The materialist conception of history starts from the principle that
production, and next to production the exchange of its products, is
the basis of every social system; that in every society arising in
history the allotment of products, and with it the division of society
into classes or ranks, depends upon what is produced, how it is
produced, and how when produced it is exchanged. Accordingly the
ultimate causes of all social changes and political revolutions are
not to be looked for in the heads of men, in their growing insight
into eternal truth and justice, but in changes of the methods of
production and exchange; they are to be looked for not in the
philosophy, but in the economy of the epoch in question."[220]
Before elaborating this conception of history, it may be well to point
out one or two elements of confusion in the terms in which it is
stated. It is described as the "materialist conception of history,"
and for this reason many people imagine that the admission of this
theory means the exclusion of the ideal. This is a profound error due
to a misunderstanding of the use of the word "materialist." This word
does not necessarily imply that the only proper conception of history
is a materialistic one in the sense that it excludes the operation of
ideals; but only that material conditions have played a predominating
rôle in determining ideas.
The admission, however, must be made that this explanation is by no
means admitted by all Socialist writers. Indeed the very language used
by Engels is inconsistent with it. He says "they are not to be looked
for in the philosophy, but in the economy of the epoch in question."
If, however, Mr. Engels were alive to-day and were challenged as to
whether in fact he meant by this phrase to exclude philosophy
altogether, I think he would answer in the negative. What he meant to
say, I think, was that the ultimate causes of all social changes and
political revolutions are to be looked for in the economy of the epoch
rather than in its philosophy. And this, I think, with some limitation
is true, for the philosophy of every period is to a large extent
determined by its economic conditions.
To this general statement there are, however, notable exceptions. Some
men either by the adequacy of their means or the smallness of their
needs, are lifted entirely above economic conditions, so that they can
reason abstractly without regard to economic conditions. This probably
is true of almost every philosopher that has made his mark. It is
impossible to read the words of Christ, of Plato, Aristotle, St.
Thomas Aquinas, Carlyle, Emerson, and Tolstoi without being impressed
by the fact that they soared far above all economic considerations.
On the other hand, economic conditions had a controlling influence on
the whole philosophy of Ruskin. His first contact with life was while
travelling with his father, who sold sherry to wealthy county
families, and approached their mansions by way of the butler's pantry.
This impregnated Ruskin with a cult for aristocracy. It made it
impossible for him to consider popular government without impatience.
Economic conditions too had put their mark so ineffaceably on the mind
of Huxley that although in his criticism of Herbert Spencer he
destroyed the principal philosophic bulwark of capitalism, he could
not talk on Socialism without irritation.
Thus although men as great as Ruskin and Huxley were unable to rise
above the slavery of the economic conditions in which their minds had
been formed, others are so constituted as to be able to discuss ethics
without any regard to economic conditions whatever. There is, however,
no doubt as to the dominating influence of economic conditions in
determining the average mental attitude.
Man had two dominating appetites--for food and for perpetuation; and
of these, because that for perpetuation is fitful whereas that for
food is continuous, the latter is the more determining of the two.
There is hardly an act in a man's life which is not determined by the
needs of food in the first place and the search for food in the
second. This is admitted by all sociologists.
A right understanding of economics is therefore of the utmost
importance to the conscious development of man. Unfortunately
economists themselves have been until very lately just as narrow in
their disregard of science and religion as science and religion have
been narrow in their disregard of economics. Let us consider as
briefly as the subject permits the inconsistencies which result from
this narrowness in regard to religion and economics.
§ 2. CONFLICT BETWEEN ECONOMICS AND RELIGION
It is said that by the side of every poison in Nature there grows its
antidote; that for every bean of St. Ignatius there is a bean of
Calabar; and that a man poisoned by the one has only to stretch his
hand out to the other.
So also in our social system may the two influences be at work, at
odds with each other; whereas, did we but know enough, they might not
only serve to counteract one another, but even become a priceless
boon to humanity, as indeed the beans of St. Ignatius and Calabar have
been made to yield up drugs as useful as nux vomica and eserine.
Religion and economics start by assumptions that are glaringly
inconsistent.
Religion proceeds upon the assumption that man has morality in him and
will, sometimes, act morally even contrary to his material interests.
Economics proceed upon the assumption that man has no morality in him
and will never act morally if morality be contrary to his material
interests.
Modern economists have somewhat modified this last view, but I am not
criticising modern Political Economy, which is already lowering its
flag to new doctrine; I am criticising the doctrine of _laissez
faire_, which still constitutes the backbone of our existing economics
and will continue to deform our economic ideas until that backbone is
relegated to museums by the side of the Ichthyosaurus and the
Iguanodon.
Is the assumption that economic science is uninfluenced by morality
true or false? Undoubtedly an economic science can be and has been
constructed which does ignore morality and, dealing with man not as he
really is but stripped of his morality, or as he is termed by some
economic writers, "economic man," and still more naïvely by others the
"average sensual man," has laid down the laws which _for such a man_
govern the production, distribution, and accumulation of wealth. In
the development of this science it has been found necessary to define
wealth, and here we come upon the first hard substance against which
economists have broken their heads. For obviously wealth is to the
"economic" or "average sensual" man a totally different thing to what
it is to a Diogenes, a Cato, or to a Sister of Charity. To the latter
wealth or well-being as opposed to illth or ill-being, consists mainly
in the opportunity to be helpful to our fellow-creatures, whereas to
the average sensual man wealth means money or the things that
represent money, produce, bonds, and shares of stock. Now all
economists are not "average sensual" men; it is doubtful whether to
those who know the Dean of Modern Economists, Mr. Alfred Marshall, he
can be described as a sensual man at all; and so there are few
subjects upon which economists have differed so much as upon the
definition of wealth. The extremists confine wealth to material things
that have an exchange value; but the absurdity of such a definition is
slowly making itself recognized; thus it has been forced upon some
that skill is wealth; and upon others that honesty too is wealth; for
the money value of honesty is now put into dollars and cents by surety
companies. And so very slowly but surely economists are beginning to
recognize that man is a moral as well as a sensual animal, and that
his morality cannot be disregarded even by economics.
Then, too, what is wealth in one country is not wealth in another;
thus we are told that the food of John the Baptist was "locusts and
wild honey," and in certain parts of Africa locusts are still a
marketable article of food; so snails are wealth in France though not
in England; and human flesh which is not wealth in Europe is still
wealth in some parts of Africa. Wealth then depends upon two factors:
intrinsic and extrinsic; the first including qualities of the thing
itself, the second depending upon human demand; so that a painting by
Tintoretto is wealth to a community that loves art, but an encumbrance
to one that does not love it; and absinthe, that is regarded as a
valuable asset in France, is excluded by Belgium as poison.
Here again we come up against the morality of man; will he continue to
poison himself with absinthe or will he abstain? Upon this ethical
decision will depend the question whether the immense stock of
absinthe now on the French market is wealth or not. And so we are led
insensibly to a question of still wider importance: Is wealth money or
is it happiness? If it is money then economists are right; if it is
happiness then they are wrong. And yet it is as clear as the sun on a
cloudless day that what man wants is happiness, and that if he has
been set all these centuries on seeking money it is because money is
believed by him to be practically the only medium through which he can
attain happiness. Here is repeated the old story of the captive beaver
in the attic gathering sticks to make a dam when the water pitcher was
upset. The object for making dams had disappeared, but the
dam-building instinct survived. We have grown so accustomed to labor
for money that we have lost sight of the real object of our efforts;
and we have to think a long time before we recognize that money in
itself is of no importance to us whatever; and that the only thing of
real importance is that for which money is sought--happiness. Now what
happiness consists of depends upon the mentality of any given
community. The tree-dwelling savage's idea of happiness is plenty of
nuts and fine weather; the Englishman's idea is plenty of land and a
seat in Parliament; the American's idea is millions of money; and the
tree-dwelling savage is probably as near the truth as either of the
other two.
Obviously there is an ideal of happiness quite different from this; an
ideal that recognizes the solidarity of the race and recognizes that
no one man can be securely happy unless his neighbors are happy also;
an ideal built on the plan of mutual helpfulness--of coöperation
instead of competition. But here the lip of the economist will curl
and he will, if he deigns to express himself at all, denounce such a
proposition as "impractical." But why does he do this? Because he has
been educated to believe that economics deal only with the "average
sensual man," and that wealth consists exclusively of "material things
that have an exchange value." If, then, it turns out that both these
assumptions are false, is it not time for him to revise his
philosophy?
It is not unnatural that starting with false definitions of man and of
wealth, economists should arrive at a false conclusion regarding the
so-called beauties of our industrial system, and of such time-honored
though immoral maxims as "competition is the soul of trade" and
"_caveat emptor_."
And now after this rapid glance at economic philosophy and the
"average sensual man," let us turn to Religion and see how Religion
regards man.
It seems inconceivable that the same civilization should include two
bodies of men living in apparent harmony and yet holding such opposite
and inconsistent views on man as economists on the one hand and
theologians on the other. To these last, man has no economic needs;
this world does not count; it is merely a place of probation,
mitigated sometimes, it is true, by ecclesiastical pomp and episcopal
palaces; but serving for the most part as a mere preparation for a
future existence which will satisfy the aspirations of the human
soul--the only thing that does count, in this world or the next. So
while to the economist man is all hog, to the theologian he is all
soul; and between the two the Devil secures the vast majority.
One-fifth of the population in London is admittedly foredoomed to die
in a penitentiary, an almshouse, or a lunatic asylum; and the vast
multitude of wage earners are kept out on the ragged edge of the
strike on one hand and unemployment on the other, with no better
prospect before them than a destitute old age.
Were there no churches in the land, were there no charity in man, no
pity, the economists would be comprehensible; but with our churches
still crowded; with charitable societies as thick as universities;
with pity in their own hearts giving every day the lie to the economic
enormities they profess and teach, what are we going to say of these
men? And were there no economists in the chair, no stock exchange, no
factory, no strikes, no unemployed; did our theologians' stomachs
never themselves clamor for food, or their bodies cry out for shelter
and heat, they too would be excusable. But with our tenements steeped
in misery; with misery pitilessly leading to crime, vice, disease;
with the demands of the body brought home to every one of them a
thousand times a day, is it not time for theologians at last to
remember that men have bodies as well as souls?
Consider then these two sets of teachers, one professing a philosophy
built on the assumption that man is all body and no soul, the other
built on the contrary assumption that man is all soul, meeting daily
at dinner parties and discussing the agony of the workingman with
complacency and "philosophic calm"!
Yet if we look at the world as it is, so full of evil and yet so
easily set right, we will not delve at the roots of plants and say:
"Life is all mud;" nor point to their leaves and say: "Life is all
flower and fruit." Life is made up of root and flower; man is made up
of body and soul. The economy and the religion that heed this will
alone be true. Let economics be enlightened by religion and let
religion be enlightened by economics; let the economist learn that the
soul of man is more than raiment and the priest that the needs of the
body come in order of time before the needs of the soul; let the
economist learn the laws of mutual helpfulness and the priest the laws
of the production and the distribution of well-being; and there will
spring into existence a new religion and a new political economy that
will preach the same thing--the solidarity of man--that what man wants
in this world is not money, but happiness--and that he can prepare
himself best for the next world of which he knows nothing by making
his neighbor as well as himself wholesome as well as happy, in this
world of which he to-day alas, knows too much of its misery and too
little of its play.
§ 3. SOCIALISM RECONCILES RELIGION, ECONOMICS, AND SCIENCE
Let us now consider the Scientific and Ethical aspects of Socialism
from a slightly different angle than that which closed the preceding
chapter.
In what Huxley calls the "cosmic process"--the process of evolution
prior to the advent of Man--the development or degeneration of animal
or vegetable life is determined by the environment. If the environment
is favorable to development, there is development; if it is
unfavorable, there is degeneration. The question, therefore, whether
animal or vegetable life is to develop or degenerate is left to the
caprice of environment. The process through which this caprice is
exercised is the survival of the fittest, and this includes two
processes: the utmost propagation on the one hand, and the utmost
competition on the other. With all the cruelty that this system
involves, it would be idle to call such a process moral; nor would it
be reasonable to call it immoral. The cosmic process is non-moral. It
ignores justice because justice is a conception of either God or Man,
and is not found in Nature outside of God or Man at all.
If now we turn from the cosmic process to that employed by the
gardener in converting wild land into a garden for the purpose of
producing things beautiful or useful to man, we find that the gardener
reverses the cosmic process. He does not tolerate utmost propagation
or even propagation at all except to the extent necessary to furnish
him beautiful or useful things. He limits propagation; and as to
utmost competition, he eliminates competition altogether. And it is
only by limiting propagation and eliminating competition that the
gardener keeps his garden beautiful and useful. The moment he stops
applying to his garden patch the art which limits propagation and
eliminates competition, that moment the garden tends to return to a
state of Nature; to
"an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank, and gross in nature,
Possess in merely."[221]
It must also be observed that in the garden patch selection is not
exercised by the environment, though it is limited by the
environment; selection is exercised by the gardener who, within the
limits permitted by the environment, replaces Nature. It is no longer
Nature that selects, but Man.
Let us now turn from the civilized garden to the civilized community.
Here, too, we find the cosmic process in some respects reversed; in
other respects, allowed to run riot. It is reversed in the sense of
the word that prudence created by the ownership of property limits the
propagation of the educated; but it remains unreversed by the fact
that despair created by absence of property leaves propagation
unchecked in the uneducated. So that if it be admitted that it would
be better for type that the educated should propagate than the
uneducated, the human type is tending to degenerate owing to the fact
that there is unlimited propagation of the least desirable types;
whereas there is limited propagation of the more desirable.
When we turn to competition, we find it almost unrestrained. Indeed,
it was the deliberate policy of the government and of political
economists a century ago to let it proceed absolutely without
restraint. Such was the doctrine of _laissez faire_ and such is the
doctrine which to-day is expressed by business men in the request to
be "let alone." But the experience of the past one hundred years has
demonstrated that humanity cannot afford to let competition go
unrestrained; that it leads to such fatal consequences that all--even
the most educated and carefully nurtured--are exposed to the contagion
of disease engendered by unrestrained competition; witness the cholera
scare and the hygienic laws to which this cholera scare gave
rise.[222] Competition has been controlled in various manners: by laws
such as factory acts, child labor acts, women labor acts; second, by
trade unions which the community and the law have had to protect in
order to keep workingmen from the danger of having to work for less
than starvation wages; and last of all, by trusts, which discovered
that competition involves a waste which, could it be saved, would roll
up enormous dividends to stockholders. But trusts have occasioned
evils against which to-day the whole nation is crying out. So that the
cry now abroad is to control monopolies, trusts, and corporations; and
if the efforts to control corporations have not already sufficiently
demonstrated that such laws are bound to result in more blackmail than
control, no reasonable man can doubt that they must in the end so
result in view of the fact that the prizes offered by business attract
first-class talent to business whereas the smaller prizes offered by
politics or the government can only draw to it second-or third-rate
ability.
I trust it has been shown that the confusion that results from the
competitive system is due to false notions of property; that property
as an institution is, and must always be, essential to the economic
structure of the state in the sense that the original and beneficial
purpose of property is to secure to men as nearly as possible the full
product of their toil. This is the ideal distinctly expressed by Mr.
Roosevelt, and is the ideal of every mind that has distinct notions
about property at all.
Our social structure, therefore, should be so organized as to assure
to men the full product of their toil by the adoption of some such
system as has been described in the chapter on the Economic
Construction of the Coöperative Commonwealth.
In such a social structure, competition would be limited so that we
should reserve its stimulus and eliminate its sting, and propagation
would be limited not only by prudence, but by the economic
independence of women, who ought to have most to say on the subject.
In such a social structure, we should for the first time have an
environment that would discourage vice and encourage virtue. And here
comes, as I have already said, the crowning glory of Socialism that
reconciles religion, economics, and science.
For the Church teaches: "Man is born in sin; his passions are sinful;
unaided by God he is their slave. If, however, he chooses to make the
effort necessary to secure the aid of God, he can master his passions
and earn salvation. But although the Grace of God will secure to him
some happiness in this world, this world is a place of unhappiness and
purgation; the reward of the faithful is not in this world, but in the
world to come."
The Economist teaches: "Man is born in sin; his passions are sinful;
in matters so practical as bread and butter we must not allow
ourselves to be deluded by the promises of the Church, as to the
fulfilment of which no evidence has ever been furnished. A practical
system of economics then must be built on the undoubted fact that the
'average man' is 'sensual' and will always act in accordance with what
he believes to be his material interest. It must be founded on human
selfishness; let every man be driven by selfishness to make wealth
primarily for himself and incidentally for the community at large.
This is the only practical system for the accumulation of wealth."
Science says: "Man is born with passions, but are these passions
sinful? They are sinful when uncontrolled, because they may then act
injuriously to the neighbor. When controlled they act beneficially to
the neighbor. The problem is not how to suppress passion, but how to
control it. Man must indeed obey his greater inclination; but Man has
the power to mould his own environment; to make his own habits; to
make his own inclination; Man therefore is master--not slave. There is
too in evolution a power which from the creation to this day has
persistently worked toward progress, justice, and happiness; but we
are still ignorant as to what this power is except in so far as we see
it working in Man. In Man we can see and study the working of this
power. And we find it in Man's capacity to mould his own environment
by resisting Nature instead of yielding to it. And so science teaches
to-day--not the gospel of evolution alone--but also the gospel of
effort and Art."
In Nature we observe two systems of social existence: one competitive,
one coöperative. Both are attended by evils; both by advantages. Man
can frame his social and economic conditions so as to eliminate the
evils and secure the advantages of both. This is Socialism.
Socialism leaves the church free to proceed along the lines of its
faith; but it furnishes the church with the inestimable advantage of
creating economic conditions that make the practice of religion for
the first time possible. To-day economic conditions by ignoring the
soul of Man and appealing only to his appetites make the practice of
the Golden Rule impossible.
Economic conditions can be so changed that they appeal to the soul of
man without ignoring his appetites. It may be that the earth is a
place of preparation for another life. But it is not for that reason
necessarily a place of misery and injustice. Socialism by eliminating
misery and injustice will make this preparation easier. The
environment of Socialism will tend to improve not only the
individual, but also the type. It may be that the grace of God will
help man to be noble and just. Let the church continue to teach this.
But let science be heard also in the positive proof it furnishes that
man will and must be what the environment makes him; that if we
continue to tolerate economic conditions that appeal to his
selfishness, he will and must remain selfish; whereas if wiser
economic conditions appeal to his unselfishness he will and must tend
to be unselfish.
And so in Socialism and in Socialism alone, do we find reconciled the
ethics of the church, the needs of economics, and the demands of
science.
The new church will continue to teach social service; the new
economics will permit of social service; and the new science will make
of social service an environment out of which the new type of man will
be evolved that will justify the words of Christ: "Hath it not been
said in your law 'Ye are Gods'?"
FOOTNOTES:
[207] "Evolution and Ethics," by T.H. Huxley, p. 80.
[208] "Evolution and Ethics," p. 13.
[209] "Evolution and Ethics," p. 20.
[210] Ibid., p. 81.
[211] "Evolution and Ethics," p. 81.
[212] Ibid., p. 83.
[213] Ibid., p. 85.
[214] Ibid., p. 116.
[215] "Evolution and Ethics," p. 20.
[216] Book II, Chapter I.
[217] "Government or Human Evolution," Vol. I, p. 16.
[218] "Evolution and Ethics," p. 85.
[219] Ibid., p. 86.
[220] "Modern Socialism," by R.C.K. Ensor.
[221] Of course, I must not be understood to mean that nothing
beautiful or useful grows in Nature outside of the art of the
gardener. On the contrary, we know that in the Tropics Nature
furnishes not only beautiful things, but enough of useful things to
make the art of the gardener unnecessary. The lesson to be drawn from
the garden patch is that, if the best result in the shape of beautiful
and useful things is to be obtained from a limited surface, Art must
be applied to that surface; Nature cannot be depended upon.
[222] Book III, Chapter II.
CHAPTER VI
SOLIDARITY
I think it was Miss Martineau who said that if her generation was
better than that which preceded her, the betterment was due to the
teachings of Carlyle; and much though we may differ with John Ruskin
in matters of detail, no one will dispute the apostolic fervor with
which he endeavored to push on the work of Thomas Carlyle. It is a
significant fact, therefore, that both Thomas Carlyle and John Ruskin
had nothing but abuse to give to political economy. Nevertheless, I
think we all must agree that this hostile attitude was due to a
misconception of the scope of political economy, a misconception due
in great part to its name; for the words "political economy" seem to
indicate that it deals with the economy of the state, and that it
becomes the duty of its teachers to show us not only what the rules
regarding the production and distribution of goods are, but what they
ought to be.
In fact, however, although economists do discuss how--if at all--the
system of production and distribution of goods can be improved, they
have always regarded it as their principal function to describe
accurately what the rules that govern production and distribution
really are, rather than what they ought to be. And as existing
industrial conditions are extremely complicated, those who have thrown
light upon them are highly to be honored. And although they have
contributed nothing to the solution of such problems as unemployment,
pauperism, and the conflict of labor and capital, it may be as
unreasonable to complain of this as to quarrel with the
"crossing-sweeper of Piccadilly" because he is unable "to tell you the
road to Highgate."
Again, political economy has encountered a great deal of unmerited
abuse because critics have confounded authors with their subject, and
have held economists responsible for the industrial conditions they
describe; whereas, these economists have earned our sincerest thanks
for demonstrating that the competitive system offers no solution for
the conflict between capital and labor, or the problem of unemployment
and all the other problems as those of pauperism, prostitution, and
economic crime which result therefrom.
Mr. Ruskin is certainly wrong when he denounces political economy as
the "science of getting rich," and when he adds that "persons who
follow its precepts" do actually become rich; "all persons who disobey
them become poor"; for our ablest political economists have always
been and still are relatively poor men, and our richest millionaire is
a past master of the rules in the game which it is his particular
business to play; but he is not concerned with a science which does no
more than study wealth under the competitive system and demonstrate
how inevitably a few grow rich and the rest grow poor under it.
Let us then abandon hostility to a science without which to-day we
could not see clearly the workings of the existing system, and on the
contrary, avail ourselves of all its teachings, recognizing that a
study of what industrial conditions to-day are must precede the study
of what they could and should be.
The study of political economy is necessary to a study of "social
economy." Political economy admittedly deals with the average sensual
man, and having determined the rules that determine the actions of the
average sensual man, it becomes now the problem of social economy to
deal with the average moral man. And the moral man must not be
regarded as opposed to the sensual. The moral man includes the
sensual, but adds affection, sympathy, and all that makes happiness to
the sensual man who may, through absence of affection and sympathy,
fail to attain the happiness of which he is in search. Under this
definition, while political economy deals with the attainment of
wealth, social economy deals with the attainment of happiness; and as
man must eat before he can pursue happiness, social economy must
concern itself with the acquisition of wealth to satisfy physical
needs before it concerns itself with the attainment of justice to
satisfy moral needs. An attempt has been made in this book to present
the social and economic structure which would best attain happiness.
Would such a system at the same time attain justice?[223]
To arrive at a correct notion of justice, we have to refer once more
to the difference between what Huxley calls the "cosmic
process"--that is to say, the process of the environment of Nature
before the advent of Man--and the ethical process, or the process of
the artificial environment created by Man. For there is one
difference, and a most essential difference, between them to which
attention has not yet been directed: namely, that in communities such
as those of the bee and ant, the individual is sacrificed to the
community; whereas the effort of Man is or should be to so organize
his community that it will serve the happiness of the individual. For
example, we would not tolerate a community upon the plan we see
practised by the bees, under which only one male out of a whole hive
is permitted to propagate and all the rest of the males on attaining
maturity are caused to die; only one female of the whole hive is
allowed to be fertile and to propagate, all the rest being subject to
the dreary round of keeping the fertile bee a prisoner, of feeding
her, of rearing, feeding and caring for the young in the hive, and
incidentally destroying any males who may return to the hive from the
nuptial flight. We have to recognize that the great obstacle to
happiness in community life is sexual instinct, of which Socialists of
the type of Edward Bellamy have for the most part failed to take
account.
Reference has been made to the various devices adopted by different
races of animals and by Man at different periods and at different
places to solve the problem of sexual instinct,[224] and it has been,
I think, demonstrated by Professor Giddings, that of all the systems
proposed none can compare with our present institution of
marriage.[225] The mere fact that the marriage system has survived in
the conflict with races that have adopted other systems ought to
furnish an argument in favor of its superiority. In the struggle
between races of Man, those races the institutions of which require
most self-restraint have invariably overwhelmed those races whose
institutions require less self-restraint. For example, the tribes that
lived without any regulation of sexual instinct and in which children
took the name of their mother because the name of their father was not
and could not be known, disappeared in the conflict with tribes which
insisted upon some restraint to sexual appetite, such as the
patriarchal system. Again, the patriarchal system which tolerated
polygamy has everywhere been destroyed when it came into conflict with
monogamous races, such as our own, which involve still further
restraint in the sexual relation.
It would seem, therefore, as though the monogamous marriage were the
keystone of our present civilization, for upon it has been built the
family, and the education and self-restraint which family life
involves.[226] There is too no function of the family more important
than that it serves as a model of what the state ought to be as
distinguished from what the state actually is; that is to say, a
government which should have equal concern for every member of the
community, and not one which as at present surfeits some and starves
others.
It is the growing idea that a properly constituted state must do this
for the protection not only of the many, but of the few that probably
give the most continuous aid to Socialism. As Mr. Edwin Björkman
expressed it: "We are beginning to grasp the futility of planning the
welfare of any one human being apart from the rest of his kind. We are
coming to think of ourselves, at last, as links in a chain so firmly
bound together that when the devil grabs the hindmost the wrench is
felt by the top-most--felt in the very marrow of his bones."[227]
And so while the institution of marriage has removed an obstacle to
solidarity in community life, public health has proved its ally. Mr.
Björkman has made an estimate of the enormous cost of unnecessary
sickness. But the protection of public health is furnishing us a far
better argument in favor of solidarity and Socialism than the mere
cost of neglecting it. In Cuba our sanitary engineers have practically
got rid of yellow fever, not only for that community, but for our own.
Recent discoveries tracing malaria to the mosquito are leading to the
destruction of this insect. Smallpox and cholera have practically been
stamped out, and efforts are now being made to do the same with
typhoid and tuberculosis.
Now one feature characterizes all these efforts. They cannot be made
by one man for himself; they have to be made by whole communities for
whole communities and they will eventually have to be made by the
whole world for the whole world. The same thing is true of vagrancy,
pauperism, and crime. No individual or group of individuals can handle
this problem; it must be handled by every community, and through the
further extension of extradition treaties by all countries for the
whole world.
Again, reference has been often made in this book to the necessity
under which governments, openly professing the policy of _laissez
faire_, have found themselves to enact laws totally inconsistent with
this doctrine. Such, laws ought to be sufficient evidence that the
days of _laissez faire_ are gone forever; and that this theory,
universally proclaimed a century ago as the only sound theory of
government, has to-day given way before the recognition that no
wealth can compensate a man for the misery of his neighbors; and that
even if, abandoning all ideals and all ethics, we confine ourselves to
the problem how to make men materially happy, we can only do so by
adjusting our institutions so that no man will be allowed to become or
to remain a pauper or criminal.
I am not discussing here matters of theory, but matters of fact.
Theoretically, the development of man might have taken a totally
different direction. The master minds of the period (such as that, for
example, of Mr. W.H. Mallock) might have so organized the able as to
constitute an aristocracy strong enough to keep the rest of the
community in a state of ignorant servitude, so that while Mr. Mallock
was enjoying the necessary leisure to discuss the "New Republic" amid
the luxury of his English country home, all the work of the world
would be accomplished by human automata with no desires beyond that of
the immediate gratification of their appetites. Unfortunately,
however, Mr. Mallock has come too late upon the scene. Some years
before he was born, the die was cast. Workingmen were given a voice in
public affairs and have been educated, so that they constitute a power
with which government has to reckon. Here is a fact against which it
is useless for millionaires to break their heads. No one can ignore
the power exercised by such men as Bebel in Germany, Jaurès and Guesde
in France, Vandervelde in Belgium, Keir Hardie and MacDonald in
England, Gompers and John Mitchell in America. These men are all
engaged in organizing the workingmen's vote with extraordinary
efficacy in Europe, and with extraordinary inefficacy in the United
States. But the days of Gompers and Mitchell are drawing to a close,
and in this country as well as in Europe, Organized Labor will grow
to understand the inevitable truth that it is only by political action
and with the Socialist program that it can defeat the power of
capital. So that whether Mr. Mallock be right or not, the day of
aristocracy is over and the day of solidarity has dawned. The question
for us to decide is whether we should recognize this fact and modify
our institutions to conform to the new era, or whether we should
continue to ignore the fact until we break our heads against it.
The point which Mr. Mallock and his school have failed to understand
is that the very greed which creates aristocracy unfits the aristocrat
for the coöperation indispensable to its survival. This condemns him,
as it does all the highest types of carnivora, created by the
competitive system to isolation. For it is out of the jealousy and
struggles of the aristocrats with one another that the people are at
last getting to their own. It was because the king, the noble, and the
church could not agree in the division of spoils that their perpetual
altercations left room for the organization of the Communes in France
at the end of the eleventh century. It was because the church, the
noble and the king would not give a fair share of the honors and
spoils of the state to the wealthy bourgeoisie, that the bourgeois was
obliged to associate himself with the people in 1789; it was because
of the conflict between the Whigs and the Tories that the franchise
was gradually extended to the workingmen in England; and it is because
the Republicans can put no limit to their greed that workingmen in
America will find themselves eventually compelled to organize
politically their at present disunited multitudes. It is, therefore,
extremely improbable that, even if Mr. Mallock had lived in an earlier
age, he could have prevented the inevitable progress of the great
principle of solidarity which has determined the direction of human
development ever since it began to differ from that of other animals.
If now we run through all the differences between the natural
environment and the environment created by Man, we shall see that they
practically all proceed upon the theory that men must develop no
longer as individuals but as a unit. All our customs and laws proceed
upon the theory of liberty and justice; and upon that theory is based
the original principle of property that assures to all men the product
of their toil. Now if all men are to be assured the product of their
toil, there must be an end to the system which puts a few millionaires
at one end of the social scale and millions of paupers at the other.
Again, for centuries the so-called struggle for life has ceased to be
a struggle for life, but has become a struggle for wealth, power, and
consideration. It is no longer only the fit that survive; the unfit
also survive; and if the unfit are to survive, we all have a common
interest in taking the necessary steps to prevent the unfit from
proving too heavy a burden upon the community.
Again, all isolating vices such as lust, ferocity, craft, fear, and
selfishness--vices which characterize the carnivora and condemn them
to lives of isolation--are being tempered by the necessities of common
life--by the fundamental fact of the solidarity of Man. Thus, lust is
tempered and in part replaced by love and mercy; ferocity is tempered
and in part replaced by courage and patience; fear is tempered and in
part replaced by respect and reverence; selfishness is tempered and in
part replaced by unselfishness.
And all this advantage which humanity has attained over the lower
animals is due to its ability to mould its own environment, and
deliberately undertake the task of justice; namely, to "eliminate from
our social conditions the effects of the inequalities of Nature upon
the happiness and advancement of Man, and particularly to create an
artificial environment which shall serve the individual as well as the
race, and tend to perpetuate noble types rather than those which are
base."
It is true that so far our efforts to attain justice have lamentably
failed; but they have failed mainly because we have not yet
sufficiently limited the scope of competition. The day we limit
competition as suggested in the chapter on the Economic Structure of
Socialism,[228] that day we shall have removed the lion from our path.
And as stated in the Preface, the development of Man will then proceed
upon the theory that all are perfectible and that it is through the
improvement of all that every individual will attain his best freedom,
his best happiness, and the fullest opportunities for promoting the
happiness of all around him.
This is the ideal to attain which the environment described in the
Chapter on the Economic Construction of the Coöperative Commonwealth
has been conceived. It is the ideal which furnishes the most
economical method of production and distribution and, therefore, the
most leisure and liberty; that creates the environment fitted to
perpetuate the noble rather than the base type; to promote virtue and
discourage vice and, in a word, creates conditions under which we can
practise the morality preached by every religion, whether it be that
of Moses, of Mohammed, or of Christ.
FOOTNOTES:
[223] In a previous attempt to define justice, I have found it
necessary to devote to this subject an entire volume, and I do not
believe that the subject can be sufficiently discussed in less than
such a volume. The definition with which I concluded that book has
been adopted by Mr. Lester F. Ward in his book on Applied Sociology. I
believe that all other definitions of justice are defective mainly
because other definitions such as those of Herbert Spencer in his book
entitled "Justice" confound justice with liberty. In other words, his
definition of justice is a definition of liberty, whereas justice is
more than liberty. Or perhaps it would be more correct to say that
liberty is one of the elements of justice.
[224] See "Government or Human Evolution," Vol. II, p. 181.
[225] See "Principles of Sociology," pp. 414-415.
[226] See "Justice," p. 127, by the author.
[227] The Unnecessary Curse of Sickness, _World's Work_, July, 1909.
[228] See Book III, Chapter II.
APPENDIX
I
SOCIALIST PARTY NATIONAL PLATFORM
ADOPTED AT THE NATIONAL CONVENTION ASSEMBLED AT CHICAGO, MAY, 1908
Human life depends upon food, clothing, and shelter. Only with these
assured are freedom, culture and higher human development possible. To
produce food, clothing and shelter, land and machinery are needed.
Land alone does not satisfy human needs. Human labor creates machinery
and applies it to the land for the production of raw materials and
food. Whoever has the control of land and machinery controls human
labor, and with it human life and liberty.
To-day the machinery and land used for industrial purposes are owned
by a rapidly decreasing minority. So long as machinery is simple and
easily handled by one man, its owner cannot dominate the sources of
life of others. But when machinery becomes more complex and expensive,
and requires for its effective operation the organized effort of many
workers, its influence reaches over wide circles of life. The owners
of such machinery become the dominant class.
POWER GOES WITH CONCENTRATION
In proportion as the number of such machine owners, compared to all
other classes, decreases, their power in the nation and in the world
increases. They bring ever larger masses of working people under their
control, reducing them to the point where muscle and brain are their
only productive property. Millions of formerly self-employing workers
thus become the helpless wage slaves of the industrial masters.
As the economic power of the ruling class grows, it becomes less
useful in the life of the nation. All the useful work of the nation
falls upon the shoulders of the class whose only property is its
manual and mental labor power--the wage workers--or of the class who
have but little land and little effective machinery outside of their
labor power--the small traders and small farmers. The ruling minority
is steadily becoming useless and parasitic.
STRUGGLE BETWEEN CLASSES
A bitter struggle over the division of the products of labor is waged
between the exploiting propertied classes on the one hand, and the
exploited propertyless class on the other. In this struggle the
wage-working class cannot expect adequate relief from any reform of
the present order at the hands of the dominant class.
The wage workers are, therefore, the most determined and
irreconcilable antagonists of the ruling class. They suffer most from
the curse of class rule. The fact that a few capitalists are permitted
to control all the country's industrial resources and social tools for
their individual profit, and to make the production of the necessaries
of life the object of competitive private enterprise and speculation,
is at the bottom of all the social evils of our time.
ANARCHY OF CAPITALIST PRODUCTION
In spite of the organization of trusts, pools and combinations, the
capitalists are powerless to regulate production for social ends.
Industries are largely conducted in a planless manner. Through periods
of feverish activity the strength and health of the workers are
mercilessly used up, and during periods of enforced idleness the
workers are frequently reduced to starvation.
The climaxes of this system of production are the regularly recurring
industrial depressions and crises which paralyze the nation every
fifteen or twenty years.
The capitalist class, in its mad race for profits, is bound to
exploit the workers to the very limit of their endurance and to
sacrifice their physical, moral and mental welfare to its own
insatiable greed. Capitalism keeps the masses of workingmen in
poverty, destitution, physical exhaustion and ignorance. It drags
their wives from their homes to the mill and factory. It snatches
their children from the playgrounds and schools and grinds their
slender bodies and unformed minds into cold dollars. It disfigures,
maims, and kills hundreds of thousands of workingmen annually in
mines, on railroads and in factories. It drives millions of workers
into the ranks of the unemployed and forces large numbers of them into
beggary, vagrancy and all forms of crime and vice.
HOW THE RULING CLASS CONTROLS
To maintain their rule over their fellow men, the capitalists must
keep in their pay all organs of the public powers, public mind and
public conscience. They control the dominant parties and, through
them, the elected public officials. They select the executives, bribe
the legislatures, and corrupt the courts of justice. They own and
censor the press. They dominate the educational institutions. They own
the nation politically and intellectually just as they own it
industrially.
SOCIALISM WILL FREE ALL CLASSES
The struggle between wage workers and capitalists grows ever fiercer,
and has now become the only vital issue before the American people.
The wage-working class, therefore, has the most direct interest in
abolishing the capitalist system. But in abolishing the present system
the workingmen will free not only their own class, but also all other
classes of modern society: the small farmer who is to-day exploited by
large capital more indirectly but not less effectively than is the
wage laborer; the small manufacturer and trader, who is engaged in a
desperate and losing struggle for economic independence in the face of
the all-conquering power of concentrated capital; and even the
capitalist himself, who is the slave of his wealth rather than its
master. The struggle of the working class against the capitalist
class, while it is a class struggle, is thus at the same time a
struggle for the abolition of all classes and class privileges.
PRIVATE OWNERSHIP THE BASIS OF CLASS RULE
The private ownership of the land and means of production used for
exploitation is the rock upon which class rule is built; political
government is its indispensable instrument. The wage workers cannot be
freed from exploitation without conquering the political power and
substituting collective for private ownership of the land and means of
production used for exploitation.
The basis for such transformation is rapidly developing within present
capitalist society. The factory system, with its complex machinery and
minute division of labor, is rapidly destroying all vestiges of
individual production in manufacture. Modern production is already
very largely a collective and social process. The great trusts and
monopolies which have sprung up in recent years have organized the
work and management of the principal industries on a national scale,
and have fitted them for collective use and operation.
The Socialist Party is primarily an economic and political movement.
It is not concerned with matters of religious belief.
FREEDOM THROUGH SOLIDARITY
In the struggle for freedom the interests of all modern workers are
identical. The struggle is not only national, but international. It
embraces the world and will be carried to ultimate victory by the
united workers of the world.
To unite the workers of the nation and their allies and sympathizers
of all other classes to this end, is the mission of the Socialist
Party. In this battle for freedom the Socialist Party does not strive
to substitute working-class rule for capitalist-class rule, but by
working-class victory to free all humanity from class rule and to
realize the international brotherhood of man.
THE SOCIALIST PLATFORM
The Socialist Party, in national convention assembled, again declares
itself as the party of the working class, and appeals for the support
of all workers of the United States and of all citizens who sympathize
with the great and just cause of labor.
We are at this moment in the midst of one of those industrial
breakdowns that periodically paralyze the life of the nation. The
much-boasted era of our national prosperity has been followed by one
of general misery. Factories, mills and mines are closed. Millions of
men, ready, willing and able to provide the nation with all the
necessaries and comforts of life are forced into idleness and
starvation. Within recent times the trusts and monopolies have
attained an enormous and menacing development. They have acquired the
power to dictate the terms upon which we shall be allowed to live. The
trusts fix the prices of our bread, meat and sugar, of our coal, oil
and clothing, of our raw material and machinery, of all the
necessities of life.
CAPITALISM TAKES THE OFFENSIVE
The present desperate condition of the workers has been made the
opportunity for a renewed onslaught on organized labor. The highest
courts of the country have within the last year rendered decision
after decision depriving the workers of rights which they had won by
generations of struggle.
The attempt to destroy the Western Federation of Miners, although
defeated by the solidarity of organized labor and the Socialist
movement, revealed the existence of a far-reaching and unscrupulous
conspiracy by the ruling class against the organizations of labor.
In their efforts to take the lives of the leaders of the miners the
conspirators violated State laws and the federal constitution in a
manner seldom equalled even in a country so completely dominated by
the profit-seeking class as is the United States.
CAPITALIST REFORM FUTILE
The Congress of the United States has shown its contempt for the
interests of labor as plainly and unmistakably as have the other
branches of government. The laws for which the labor organizations
have continually petitioned have failed to pass. Laws ostensibly
enacted for the benefit of labor have been distorted against labor.
The working class of the United States cannot expect any remedy for
its wrongs from the present ruling class or from the dominant
parties. So long as a small number of individuals are permitted to
control the sources of the nation's wealth for their private profit in
competition with each other and for the exploitation of their fellow
men, industrial depressions are bound to occur at certain intervals.
No currency reforms or other legislative measures proposed by
capitalist reformers can avail against these fatal results of utter
anarchy in production.
Individual competition leads inevitably to combinations and trusts. No
amount of government regulation, or of publicity, or of restrictive
legislation will arrest the natural course of modern industrial
development.
While our courts, legislatures and executive offices remain in the
hands of the ruling classes and their agents, the government will be
used in the interest of these classes as against the toilers.
OLD PARTIES REPRESENT CLASS RULE
Political parties are but the expression of economic class interests.
The Republican, the Democratic, and the so-called 'Independence'
parties and all parties other than the Socialist Party, are financed,
directed and controlled by the representatives of different groups of
the ruling class.
In the maintenance of class government both the Democratic and
Republican parties have been equally guilty. The Republican party has
had control of the national government and has been directly and
actively responsible for these wrongs. The Democratic party, while
saved from direct responsibility by its political impotence, has shown
itself equally subservient to the aims of the capitalist class
whenever and wherever it has been in power. The old chattel-slave-owning
aristocracy of the South, which was the backbone of the Democratic
party, has been supplanted by a child-slave plutocracy. In the great
cities of our country the Democratic party is allied with the criminal
element of the slums as the Republican party is allied with the
predatory criminals of the palace in maintaining the interests of the
possessing class.
TEMPORARY MEASURES DEMANDED
The various "reform" movements and parties which have sprung up within
recent years are but the clumsy expression of widespread popular
discontent. They are not based on an intelligent understanding of the
historical development of civilization and of the economic and
political needs of our time. They are bound to perish, as the numerous
middle-class reform movements of the past have perished.
As measures calculated to strengthen the working class in its fight
for the realization of this ultimate aim, and to increase its power of
resistance against capitalist oppression, we advocate and pledge
ourselves and our elected officers to the following program:
GENERAL DEMANDS
1. The immediate government relief for the unemployed workers, by
building schools, by reforesting of cut-over and waste lands, by
reclamation of arid tracts, and the building of canals, and by
extending all other useful public works. All persons employed on such
works shall be employed directly by the government under an eight-hour
workday and at the prevailing union wages. The government shall also
loan money to States and municipalities without interest for the
purpose of carrying on public works. It shall contribute to the funds
of labor organizations for the purpose of assisting their unemployed
members, and shall take such other measures within its power as will
lessen the widespread misery of the workers caused by the misrule of
the capitalist class.
2. The collective ownership of railroads, telegraphs, telephones,
steamship lines and all other means of social transportation and
communication and all land.[229]
3. The collective ownership of all industries which are organized on a
national scale and in which competition has virtually ceased to exist.
4. The extension of the public domain to include mines, quarries, oil
wells, forests and water power.
5. That occupancy and use of land be the sole title to possession. The
scientific reforestation of timber lands and the reclamation of swamp
lands. The land so reforested or reclaimed to be permanently retained
as a part of the public domain.
6. The absolute freedom of press, speech and assemblage.
INDUSTRIAL DEMANDS
7. The improvement of the industrial conditions of the workers:
(_a_) By shortening the workday in keeping with the increased
productiveness of machinery.
(_b_) By securing to every worker a rest period of not less than a day
and a half in each week.
(_c_) By securing a more effective inspection of workshops and
factories.
(_d_) By forbidding the employment of children under sixteen years of
age.
(_e_) By forbidding the interstate transportation of the products of
child labor, of convict labor and of all uninspected factories.
(_f_) By abolishing official charity and substituting in its place
compulsory insurance against unemployment, illness, accidents,
invalidism, old age, and death.
POLITICAL DEMANDS
8. The extension of inheritance taxes, graduated in proportion to the
amount of the bequests and to nearness of kin.
9. A graduated income tax.
10. Unrestricted and equal suffrage for men and women, and we pledge
ourselves to engage in an active campaign in that direction.
11. The initiative and referendum, proportional representation and the
right of recall.
12. The abolition of the Senate.
13. The abolition of the power usurped by the Supreme Court of the
United States to pass upon the constitutionality of legislation
enacted by Congress. National laws to be repealed or abrogated only by
act of Congress or by a referendum of the whole people.
14. That the constitution be made amendable by majority vote.
15. The enactment of further measures for general education and for
the conservation of health. The Bureau of Education to be made a
department. The creation of a Department of Public Health.
16. The separation of the present Bureau of Labor from the Department
of Commerce and Labor, and the establishment of a Department of Labor.
17. That all judges be elected by the people for short terms, and that
the power to issue injunctions shall be curbed by immediate
legislation.
18. The free administration of justice.
Such measures of relief as we may be able to force from capitalism are
but a preparation of the workers to seize the whole powers of
government, in order that they may thereby lay hold of the whole
system of industry, and thus come to their rightful inheritance.
FOOTNOTES:
[229] By a referendum vote of the entire membership of the Socialist
party in 1909 these three words, "and all land," were stricken out of
the Socialist platform.
II
DR. L. EMMETT HOLT
All who practice medicine among children and who study the question of
infant mortality statistically are struck with the marked contrast
between the death rate of the children of the poor and those of the
rich. Clay estimates that in England in the aristocratic families the
mortality of the first year is 10 per cent; in the middle class, 21
per cent; in the laboring classes, 32 per cent. This difference in the
infant mortality of the various classes is most striking in the case
of acute intestinal disease. Halle states that of 170 deaths from this
cause investigated in Graz in 1903 and 1904 there were 161 among the
poor, 9 among the well-to-do, and none among the rich. It may not be
true in adult life, but _in infancy money may purchase not only
health, it may purchase life_, since it puts at the disposal of the
infant the utmost resources of science, the best advice, the best food
and the best surroundings for the individual child. To relieve, or
even greatly to diminish, infant mortality these basal conditions of
modern city life--poverty and ignorance--must be attacked.
_Journal American Medical Association_, Feb. 26, 1910.
III
EXTRACTS FROM EDICT OF LOUIS XVI, 1776, ABOLISHING THE GUILDS[230]
Louis, etc. We owe it to our subjects to assure them the full and
complete enjoyment of their rights; we owe that protection especially
to that class of men who, possessing nothing but their labor and
industry, above all others have the need and right of employing to the
limit of their capacity their sole resources for subsistence.
We have viewed with pain the multiplied blows which have been struck
at this natural and common right of ancient institutions, blows which
neither time, nor opinion, nor even the acts emanating from the
authority, which seems to have sanctioned them, have been able to make
legitimate.
[After describing the vicious effects of the guild monopoly, it
continues:]
... Some persons ... contend that the right of labor is a royal right,
one that the Prince could sell and that the subjects ought to
purchase. We hasten to place beside this another maxim:
God, by giving to men needs and making them dependent upon the
resources of labor, has made the right of labor the property of all
men, and that property is primary, the most sacred and most
imprescriptable of all.
We regard it as one of the first obligations of our justice, and as an
act in every way worthy of our beneficence, to emancipate our subjects
from all their restraints which have been laid upon that inalienable
right of humanity. Wherefore, we will to abolish the arbitrary
institutions which do not permit the indigent to live by their labor;
which exclude the sex whose weakness implies greatest needs and fewest
resources ... which stifle emulation and industry and make useless the
talents of those whom circumstances exclude from admission into the
guild; which deprive the state and art of all the advantages which
foreigners might furnish....
FOOTNOTES:
[230] Translation taken from "Turgot and the Six Edicts," by R.P.
Shepherd, 1903, pp. 182, 186-7.
IV
POLICE COMMISSIONER BINGHAM
Declaring that "law-breaking is the easiest and the most lucrative
business in New York for the work involved," Police Commissioner
Bingham yesterday forwarded his annual report to Mayor McClellan.
After stating that law-breaking in the city is an easy and lucrative
business, the Commissioner continued:
"Its profits for slight effort are enormous and law-breaking has been
able to intrench itself behind such a rampart of legislation and
highly paid lawyers that the forces of law and order are placed in the
astonishing position of being actually on the defensive against the
law-breakers. Law-breakers and their highly paid lawyers frequently
fool even the courts into giving them protection against the police on
the grounds of illegal interference, or oppression.
"The howl of innocence is never so loud as when raised by crooks, and
this includes not only the actual criminals, but their friends and
protectors, crooked politicians. How otherwise is it possible for
prizefights to be held in New York city, in spite of the earnest
efforts of the police to prevent them? How otherwise is it possible
for places positively known by the police to be gambling resorts to be
conducted, and to obtain injunctions restraining the police from
interfering with them?
"The foregoing is far from saying that the police force of New York is
incompetent, or not able to cope with the situation. The police force
is competent, short-handed though it is. Its activity and efficiency
are proved by the very resistance given it by law-breakers, for the
better the work done by the police, the more stubborn is the
resistance they meet with from law-breakers."
As an example of what the police have to cope with the Commissioner
mentions the recent Sunday-closing incident, where a court decision
was handed down, and enforced, and the Aldermen straightway amended
the law. He then asks: "How then can the police execute the law, when
there seems to be so much doubt as to what the law really is?"
Gen. Bingham continues:
"These points are necessary in order that scheming politicians may be
deprived of any possibility of summarily getting rid of an honest
commissioner and in order that the honest men of the police force may
be encouraged. The men of the force to-day are not quite sure who is
their real boss--the 'machine' or the police commissioner. If once
satisfied that it is the commissioner, with a long term and only
removable on publication of charges, they will obey him."
Legislation requiring persons who sell any sort of dangerous weapons
to record the date and hour of the sale, and report it, with the name
and address of the buyer, to the police, is suggested, as well as a
daily report from pawnbrokers, giving the date, hour, and other
particulars of their transactions. This, the Commissioner says, is the
custom in other large cities.
The following figures of arrests, etc., in the last year are given in
the report:
ARRESTS MADE
By uniformed force 192,680
Detective Bureau 11,416
-------
Total 204,096
These figures refer to the Boroughs of Manhattan, The Bronx, and
Richmond.
N.Y. _Times_, Jan. 5, 1908.
V
PETTIBONE v. NICHOLS
_Dissenting opinion_ of Mr. Justice MCKENNA:
I am constrained to dissent from the opinion and judgment of the
court. The principle announced, as I understand it, is that "a Circuit
Court of the United States, when asked upon _habeas corpus_ to
discharge a person held in actual custody by a State for trial in one
of its courts under an indictment charging a crime against its laws,
cannot properly take into account the methods whereby the State
obtained such custody." In other words, and to illuminate the
principle by the light of the facts in this case (facts, I mean, as
alleged, and which we must assume to be true for the purpose of our
discussion), that the officers of one State may falsely represent that
a person was personally present in the State and committed a crime
there, and had fled from its justice, may arrest such person and take
him from another State, the officers of the latter knowing of false
accusation and conniving in and aiding its purpose, thereby depriving
him of an opportunity to appeal to the courts, and that such person
cannot invoke the rights guaranteed to him by the Constitution and
statutes of the United States in the State to which he is taken. And
this, it is said, is supported by the cases of _Ker_ v. _Illinois_,
119 U.S. 436, and _Mahon_ v. _Justice_, 127 U.S. 700. These cases,
extreme as they are, do not justify, in my judgment, the conclusion
deduced from them. In neither case was the State the actor in the
wrongs that brought within its confines the accused person. In the
case at bar, the States, through their officers, are the offenders.
They, by an illegal exertion of power, deprived the accused of a
constitutional right. The distinction is important to be observed. It
finds expression in _Mahon_ v. _Justice_. But it does not need
emphasizing. Kidnapping is a crime, pure and simple. It is difficult
to accomplish; hazardous at every step. All of the officers of the law
are supposed to be on guard against it. All of the officers of the law
may be invoked against it. But how is it when the law becomes the
kidnapper, when the officers of the law, using its forms and exerting
its power, become abductors? This is not a distinction without a
difference--another form of the crime of kidnapping, distinguished
only from that committed by an individual by circumstances. If a State
may say to one within her borders and upon whom her process is served,
I will not inquire how you came here; I must execute my laws and remit
you to proceedings against those who have wronged you, may she so
plead against her own offences? May she claim that by mere physical
presence within her borders, an accused person is within her
jurisdiction denuded of his constitutional rights, though he has been
brought there by her violence? And constitutional rights the accused
in this case certainly did have, and valuable ones. The foundation of
extradition between the States is that the accused should be a
fugitive from justice from the demanding State, and he may challenge
the fact by _habeas corpus_ immediately upon his arrest. If he refute
the fact he cannot be removed. _Hyatt_ v. _Corkran_, 188 U.S. 691.
And the right to resist removal is not a right of asylum. To call it
so in the State where the accused is is misleading. It is the right to
be free from molestation. It is the right of personal liberty in its
most complete sense. And this right was vindicated in _Hyatt_ v.
_Corkran_, and the fiction of a constructive presence in a State and a
constructive flight from a constructive presence rejected. This
decision illustrates at once the value of the right and the value of
the means to enforce the right. It is to be hoped that our criminal
jurisprudence will not need for its efficient administration the
destruction of either the right or the means to enforce it. The
decision in the case at bar, as I view it, brings us perilously near
both results. Is this exaggeration? What are the facts in the case at
bar as alleged in the petition, and which it is conceded must be
assumed to be true? The complaint, which was the foundation of the
extradition proceedings, charged against the accused the crime of
murder on the thirtieth of December, 1905, at Caldwell, in the county
of Canyon, State of Idaho, by killing one Frank Steunenberg, by
throwing an explosive bomb at and against his person. The accused
avers in his petition that he had not been "in the State of Idaho, in
any way, shape or form, for a period of more than ten years" prior to
the acts of which he complained, and that the Governor of Idaho knew
accused had not been in the State the day the murder was committed,
"nor at any time near that day." A conspiracy is alleged between the
Governor of the State of Idaho and his advisers, and that the Governor
of the State of Colorado took part in the conspiracy, the purpose of
which was "to avoid the Constitution of the United States and the act
of Congress made in pursuance thereof, and to prevent the accused from
asserting his constitutional right under cl. 2, sec. 2, of art. IV, of
the Constitution of the United States and the act made pursuant
thereof." The manner in which the alleged conspiracy had been executed
was set out in detail. It was in effect that the agent of the State of
Idaho arrived in Denver, Thursday, February 15, 1906, but it was
agreed between him and the officers of Colorado that the arrest of the
accused should not be made until some time in the night of Saturday,
after business hours--after the courts had closed and judges and
lawyers had departed to their homes; that the arrest should be kept a
secret and the body of the accused should be clandestinely hurried
out of the State of Colorado with all possible speed, without the
knowledge of his friends or his counsel; that he was at the usual
place of business during Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, but no
attempt was made to arrest him until 11.30 o'clock P.M. Saturday, when
his house was surrounded and he was arrested. Moyer was arrested under
the same circumstances at 8.45, and he and accused "thrown into the
county jail of the city and county of Denver." It is further alleged
that, in pursuance of the conspiracy, between the hours of five and
six o'clock on Sunday morning, February 18, the officers of the State
and "certain armed guards, being a part of the forces of the militia
of the State of Colorado," provided a special train for the purpose of
forcibly removing him from the State of Colorado, and between said
hours he was forcibly placed on said train and removed with all
possible speed to the State of Idaho; that prior to his removal and at
all times after his incarceration in the jail at Denver he requested
to be allowed to communicate with his friends and his counsel and his
family, and the privilege was absolutely denied him. The train, it is
alleged, made no stop at any considerable station, but proceeded at
great and unusual speed; and that he was accompanied by and surrounded
with armed guards, members of the State militia of Colorado, under the
orders and directions of the adjutant general of the State.
I submit that the facts in this case are different in kind and
transcend in consequences those in the cases of _Ker_ v. _Illinois_
and _Mahon_ v. _Justice_, and differ from and transcend them as the
power of a State transcends the power of an individual. No individual
or individuals could have accomplished what the the power of the two
States accomplished; no individual or individuals could have commanded
the means and success; could have made two arrests of prominent
citizens by invading their homes; could have commanded the resources
of jails, armed guards and special trains; could have successfully
timed all acts to prevent inquiry and judicial interference.
The accused, as soon as he could have done so, submitted his rights to
the consideration of the courts. He could not have done so in
Colorado, he could not have done so on the way from Colorado. At the
first instant that the State of Idaho relaxed its restraining power he
invoked the aid of _habeas corpus_ successively of the Supreme Court
of the State and of the Circuit Court of the United States. He should
not have been dismissed from the court, and the action of the Circuit
Court in so doing should be reversed.
VI
EUGENE v. DEBS
"Yes," said Debs. "The trusts are wiping out the competitive system.
They are a stage in the process of evolution: the individual; the
firm; the corporation; the trust; and so, finally, the commonwealth.
By killing competition and training men to work together, trusts are
preparing for the coöperative stage of industry: Socialism."
"Then you would keep the trusts we have and welcome others?" I asked.
"Of course," he answered, and Berger nodded approval.
"They do harm now," I suggested.
"Yes," said Debs, but Berger boomed: "No; not the trusts. Private
owners of the trusts do harm, yes; but not the trusts."
"Well, but how would you deal with the harm?"
"Remove 'em," snapped Berger, and Debs explained: "We would have the
government take the trusts and remove the men who own or control them:
the Morgans and Rockefellers, who exploit; and the stockholders who
draw unearned dividends from them."
"Would you pay for or just take them?"
Berger seemed to have anticipated this question. He was on his feet,
and he uttered a warning for Debs--in vain.
"Take them," Debs answered.
"No," cried Berger, and, running around to Debs, he stood menacingly
over him. "No, you wouldn't," he declared. "Not if I was there. And
you shall not say it for the party. It is my party as much as it is
your party, and I answer that we would offer to pay."
It was a tense but an illuminating moment. The difference is typical
and temperamental; and not only as between these two opposite
individualities, but among Socialists generally. Debs, the
revolutionist, argued gently that, since the system under which
private monopolies had grown up was unjust, there should be no
compromise with it. Berger, the evolutionist, replied angrily that it
was not alone a matter of justice, but of "tactic"; and that tactics
were settled by authority of the party.
"We (Socialists) are the inheritors of a civilization," he proclaimed,
"and all that is good in it--art, music, institutions, buildings,
public works, character, the sense of right and wrong--not one of
these shall be lost. And violence, like that, would lose us much."
Berger cited the Civil War: "All men can see now that it was coming
years before 1861. Some tried to avert it then by proposing to pay for
the slaves. The fanatics on both sides refused. We all know the
result: slavery was abolished. But how? Instead of a peaceful
evolution and an outlay of, say, a billion, it was abolished by a war
which cost us nearly ten billion dollars and a million lives. We ought
to learn from history, so I say we will offer compensation; because it
seems just to present-day thought and will prove the easiest, cheapest
way in the end. And anyhow," he concluded, "and besites, the party, it
has decited that we shall offer to pay."
From the article by Mr. Steffens, _Eugene V. Debs_, in _Everybody's
Magazine_, Oct., 1908.
VII
TRAMPS AND VAGRANTS
Tramps, professional and amateur, and trespassers of both sexes and
all ages, are simply swarming over the railroads east of the
Mississippi River, forming a very serious problem for both railroads
and State Governments, according to reports which O.F. Lewis has
received from most of the great roads of the East, and recently
published in _Charities_ and _The Commons_. Mr. Lewis finds from these
reports that the railroad tramp and trespasser evil is on the
increase, with roads and States through which they pass unable to
check it, and one road, the New York Central, declares that half of
the loss and damage claims currently paid by railroads may be ascribed
to robberies committed by tramps and trespassers. Much of this
increase in trampdom is ascribed to the effects of the panic and the
hard times, which threw thousands of men out of employment.
"Most of the railroads," says Mr. Lewis, in summing up the replies
received to the questions he sent out, "report a very noticeable
increase in vagrancy on their lines. The Central Vermont says 75 per
cent, the Chicago & Eastern Illinois 50 per cent, the Great Northern
200 per cent. Great increases are reported by the Delaware, Lackawanna
& Western, the New York Central, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia & Reading,
and many others. The Northern Pacific reports more vagrants travelling
than ever before.
"A decrease is reported on the Central of New Jersey, the Cumberland
Valley, Chicago, Indiana & Southern, and on the Missouri Pacific.
Emphasizing the increase on the Pennsylvania, President McCrea states
that four times as many arrests were made for illegal train riding in
June, 1908, as in June, 1907.
"Stealing foodstuffs, stealing rides, stealing handcars, threatening
and injuring trainmen, placing obstructions on tracks, stoning freight
crews, setting air brakes, and robbing ticket offices, are typical
offences."
As bearing on the question of, literally, "Who pays the freight?" the
following is from the New York Central's report:
"We are required by law to charge all of the costs arising out of the
operation of the railroad to operating expenses, which constitute the
loss of the services rendered. Among these expenses are loss and
damage due to the effects of trespassing and the acts of trespassers.
Inasmuch as the definition of a reasonable rate has been stated to
include the cost of the service and a reasonable return upon the value
of the property employed, it inevitably follows that our charge to the
public includes these elements of cost. It may, therefore, be said
that in the end the public pays, but we would prefer to eliminate this
source of cost as far as practicable."
Many railroads ascribe the increased number of vagrants to "hard
times," resulting in the reduction in the number of men employed
throughout the country.
The report is frequent that more "honest out-of-works" are stealing
rides and trespassing. President McCrea reports that "not many of the
illegal train riders are vagrants, but men out of employment." The
Southern Pacific reports that "the type of trespasser is as a whole
better."
With striking frequency the railroads report the majority of illegal
train riders to be young men and boys. The ages "18 to 25" are often
mentioned. The Central Railroad of New Jersey says they can be
considered as the coming generation of tramps.
Answering the question, "Do you believe in a State constabulary to
coöperate with the railway police in prosecuting vagrants?"
twenty-three railroads replied "yes," five replied "no," and sixteen
either had not considered the matter thoroughly or made no reply. The
State constabulary is favored mainly by trunk lines that are troubled
by vagrants.
N.Y. _Times_, Feb. 14, 1909.
VIII
PUBLIC STORE NOTES
The last report of the Director of the Mint (as quoted in _Statistical
Abstract of the United States_, 1908, p. 714) gives the stock of gold
in the United States as nearly $1,600,000,000 and amount of silver as
almost $700,000,000--in all, $2,300,000,000. Of course, all this coin
will never be at the disposal of the State; some of it will remain as
now in private hands. But all the coin now held by the Government as
reserves to secure greenbacks issued will be gradually released by the
substitution of store notes for greenbacks. This substitution cannot
be honestly effected except in proportion to the amount of produce
which goes into the public stores. There are at the present moment a
little over $1,000,000,000 of greenbacks issued by the United States
Government redeemable in coin. If in any given year the produce
acquired by the state amounts to--say, $100,000,000, the state can
withdraw greenbacks to the amount of $100,000,000 and substitute
therefor public store notes for $100,000,000, and so on, until there
have been substituted public store notes for all the greenbacks in
circulation.
As regards the remaining $1,300,000,000, some of this, of course, will
remain in private hands; and if it were the policy of the government
to increase its supply of gold for the purchase of foreign goods, it
could levy taxes paid by those engaged in private industry in gold
instead of in produce. If, on the other hand, the private banking
system operated satisfactorily, the state could leave the whole of
$1,300,000,000 in the hands of private bankers and through its
ownership of mines, would still have the whole gold and silver
production in the United States for the purchase of foreign goods.
As the amount of gold and silver produced in the United States
amounted in 1907 to over $90,000,000 of gold and over $37,000,000 of
silver, it will be seen that the state would have at its disposal some
$127,000,000 in gold and silver which it could use in the purchase of
foreign goods against which it could issue public store notes. In
other words, gold and silver will be confined to the amount used in
the competitive system and that required for the settlement of foreign
exchanges.
INDEX
A
Accidents, 165, 166, 326, 420
adulteration, 66, 88-93
advertising, cost of, 5, 95, 207-208, 233
Africa, 121, 309, 391
Agriculture, 29, 218
Year Book of the Department of, 230
Albany, 261, 265
alcoholism, 272
America, 16, 137, 140
business men in, 58
land in, 123
municipal ownership in, 20
prosperity of, 24
Republic of, 138
Socialism in, 149
sweating in, 156
trade unionism in, 149
workingman in, 409
American--
---- cities, 286
---- export of wheat, 55
---- Farmer, 48
---- Federation of Labor, 171
---- Medical Association, 421
---- nationality, 118, 284
---- Smelting and Refining Company, 87, 170
---- Socialist press, 40
---- Steel District, 164
---- Steel and Wire Company, 62
---- Sugar Refining Company, 106
---- view of Socialism, 1
---- workingmen's families, 229
Anarchism, 7, 31, 33-34, 43, 51, 127, 174
anarchists, 21, 31-34
Communistic, 33
anarchy, 108, 110, 300
---- of distribution, 99, 102-110
---- of production, 102-110, 414-415
---- of the Middle Ages, 107
apprenticeship, 150
---- rules, 151
Archbold, 99
art, 31, 45, 128, 328, 429
adulteration an, 88, 93
Asia, 105
Astor, John Jacob, 117
William Waldorf, 118, 123
B
Babbage, Economy of Manufacture, 219
Bankers, Institute of, 193
Barrel, Dictionnaire d'Agriculture, 268
Bebel, August, 408
Belgian view of Socialism, 1
Belgium, 392
coöperative stores in, 200
farm colonies in, 78
universal franchise in, 242
Bell, Alexander Graham, 221
Bellamy, Edward, 405
Berger, Victor, 255-256
Berger, Victor, views on compensation, 428-429
Berne, Canton of, 263
Beveridge, W.H., 66, 71-73, 75-76, 78
Bingham, Theodore, Police Commissioner of New York city, 158, 423, 424
Birmingham, 285
---- converted its slum into Corporation Street, 283
municipal ownership of gas in, 20
Bismarck, 241
Björkman, Edwin, 406-407
Boer War, 309
Booth, Charles, 356
Boston, Chamber of Commerce of, 60, 218
---- Milk Contractors' Association, 288
bourgeois, 4, 11, 23, 25-26, 29, 32, 37, 39, 44, 46, 58, 66, 111
---- needs concrete statement, 4
characterization of, 11
---- controls schools, colleges, and press, 24, 42-43, 68
Bradley, Edson, 206
British--
---- Empire, 63
---- employers, 148
---- government, 171
---- opium war in China, 63
---- Parliament, 142
---- trade unionists, 148
Brookmire, James H., 182, 191
Bryan, Wm. J., 6, 42, 57, 132
Bureau of Labor, 5, 227-228, 230, 293, 421
business men slaves of their own creations, 49
C
California, 280
Canal, 419
Canal, Panama, 220
Suez, 220
Cannon, Joseph, 309
capital, 58-61, 102-105, 109, 132, 144, 165, 167, 172, 226, 409
---- by Karl Marx, 1, 34
fluidity of, 64-65, 103
waste of, 99
capitalist, 4, 10-11, 33, 36, 60, 102, 107, 109, 200, 219, 308, 414-415
---- class, 418
---- society, 414
Carlyle, Thomas, 388, 402
Carnegie, Andrew, 148, 199, 201, 325
Problems of the Day, by, 199
Carnegie Steel Company, 168
Carter, James C., 7
Census (U.S.), 41, 48, 73, 77, 204
Central Railroad of Vermont, 430
---- of New Jersey, 430
Chamber of Commerce (Boston), 60, 218
Chapin, Robert Coit, 229
Charities, 164, 229
---- and the Commons, 266, 429
Commissioner of, 266
charity, 72, 77, 78, 420
Chicago, 209-210, 413, 430
children, 34-35, 65, 68 109, 117, 120, 143, 154, 321, 325, 328, 415, 421
death rate of, 38
exploitation of, 42
employment of, 42, 154, 157-158, 420
property in, 133
China, 63
Chinese, 64, 354
cholera, 18, 19, 143
Christian Socialism, 12
Christian Socialist, 40, 207
churches, 328-330
circulating medium, 307-313
citizens, 25, 42, 218, 320, 327
citizens' union, 322-324
City Club, 90, 323
civil war, 168, 175, 429
civilization, 31, 85, 88, 113, 119, 126, 134, 138, 140-141
property the basis of every conceivable, 43
unemployment a peculiar product of our, 68
Clare, George, 193
class, 118, 144, 152, 416, 422
bourgeois, 24, 26, 137
capitalist, 143
criminal, 322
---- consciousness, 16
dominant, 412
exploited, 26
---- interest, 29, 418
laboring, 33, 109
propertied, 24, 68, 120, 122, 414
---- rule, 45, 416
ruling, 414-418
---- struggle, 25, 414
wage-earning, 147, 415
Clearing House, 177
---- Association, 183
coal, 417
---- trust, 164, 238
Collectivism and Revolution, 1
colleges, controlled by propertied class, 68
colony, farm, 263-277, 380
agricultural, 273
penal, 274, 276
Colorado, 426-427
---- Midland railroad, 210
---- miners' strike, 168
---- State Board of Health, 90
Columbia University, 92
combination, 96, 99, 104, 143, 149-150, 160, 163-164, 319, 414, 419
commerce, 329
---- chamber of, 60, 218
Commerce and Labor, U.S. Department of, 421
Commercial Travelers' National League, 208
---- crises, 178, 414
Commonwealth, 5, 10, 30-31, 36, 80, 137, 143, 145, 252, 256, 300, 305,
317, 325-329, 426
Communism, 33, 36, 51, 302
---- of Apostolic times, 34
Socialism is not, 7
Communist, 7, 302
Sir Thomas More a, 33
community, 25, 29, 116, 123, 131, 144, 147, 218, 319, 323, 326, 329, 410
compensation, 19-20, 29, 123, 251-253, 255-256, 285, 429
competition, 7, 9, 18-19, 34-38, 51, 58, 61, 63, 71, 94, 99-103,
106-107, 151-152, 155, 157, 158, 262, 409, 419
foreign, 149
---- primary cause of unemployment, 66-67
competitive system, 8, 37-39, 51, 53, 56-57, 60-66, 72-74, 79, 82, 86,
88, 99, 101-102, 105, 110, 134, 140-142, 144-147, 153, 160, 323,
426, 432
Comptroller of the City of New York, 190
compulsory education, 3, 120
Conant, Charles A., 177, 179
conflict, 115, 121, 140, 144
---- between capital and labor, 5, 86
---- between economics and religion, 389
---- between races, 115
---- between science and religion, 378-395
---- between tribes, 133
conflict between trusts and trade unions, 176
international, 354
congested districts, 19, 42, 283
Congress (U.S.) 168, 197, 308-309, 318, 329-332, 417, 420, 426
Constitution, 329, 365, 417, 421
federal, 15
---- of the United States, 365, 425-426
State, 15
Constructive Program of Socialism, 7
consumer, 92-93, 96-97, 105-107
Consumers' parliament, 330
contract, freedom of, 94, 107, 109-110, 144
coöperation, 9, 34-35, 50-51, 54, 58, 94, 102, 104, 108, 199-201, 409
coöperative system, 39, 51, 128, 342-347
---- stores in Belgium, 200
corporations, 72, 320-321, 323-324, 426
Cortelyou, George, 187-189
cost, 62, 87, 155
---- of advertising, 5, 95
---- of crime, 5
---- of crude oil, 63
---- of distribution, 5
---- of getting the market, 99
---- of letter distribution, 96
---- of living, 156, 228-229
---- of revolutions, 30
cotton, 55, 92, 155
---- industries of Lancashire, 153
proposal to burn, 60
---- weavers of India, 218
country, 29, 35, 43, 65, 77, 112, 118, 120, 121, 131-132, 156, 330, 417
County Council (London), 320
courts, 15, 92, 110, 119, 155, 415-428
credit, 178
crime, 9, 22, 26, 35, 39, 42, 44, 52, 63, 66, 83, 99, 128, 130, 158,
415, 424-426
crises, 178, 414
cross freights, 96, 99-100
Cuba, 407
Cumberland, 430
custom, 13, 112, 113, 366
cyclical fluctuations, 67, 73
D
Dairy and Food Commission of Ohio, 90
---- products, 275
Damien, Father, 39
Darwin, Charles, 8, 85
Dearles, N.B., 72
death, 37-38, 99, 136, 212, 421
Debs, Eugene V., 255, 428-429
Declaration of Independence, 137
defectives and delinquents, 5
degeneracy, 36
Delaware, 430
democracy, 28, 129, 143, 158, 175
Denver, 210, 426-427
depression, 66, 76, 87, 414
industrial, 73, 153, 418
Detrich, J., 281
disease, 39, 54, 58, 69-70, 99
distribution, 23, 28-29, 36-37, 54-55, 59, 66, 87, 93-94, 97
anarchy of, 99, 102
cost of, 5, 10, 288, 318, 411
divorce, 40, 81
Dowe, President Commercial Travelers' League, 95
drunkenness, 70, 79, 99
Dutch farm colonies, 271
E
economic conditions, 23-30, 64, 322, 329
points of view created by, 22
economic interpretation of history, 10
---- liberty, 51-52
---- socialism, 1, 13, 14
---- tyranny, 138
Economists, 61, 66, 73, 103, 403
orthodox, 68
economy, 48, 50
---- of Manufacture, 219
---- of Socialism, 5
education, 144, 154, 158, 325-328
Board of, 321
---- of workingmen, 48, 144
U.S. Department of, 27, 421
Elimination of the Tramp, 264, 271-272
Eliot, Charles W., 109
Ely, Richard T., 42, 60, 209, 210, 217, 225
employers--
loss to, from strikes, 86
Employers' Association in Colorado, 168
Encyclopedia Americana, 88, 148
---- Britannica, 93
Engels, Friedrich, 1, 387
engineer's lockout, 148-149
England, 40, 63, 78, 132, 147-148, 176, 193, 210, 220, 236-237, 264,
309, 409, 421
Labor party in, 171
municipal ownership in, 20
Public House Trust in, 295
English--
manufacturers, 63
ministry, 154
---- Poor Law Guardians, 273
---- Socialism of To-day, 155
---- unions, 171
Ensor, R.C.K., Modern Socialism, 387
Ethical argument for Socialism, 12, 13, 29
---- Aspect of Socialism, 378-410
Ethical standards, 81
Europe, 76, 105, 132, 135-136, 166, 173, 181, 188, 196, 210, 223, 263,
289, 309, 408-409
Evolution, 3, 5
---- and Effort, 267
---- and Ethics, 336, 379-385
Socialist, 22
evolutionist, 23-24, 27-30, 429
exploitation, 4, 35, 45, 416
---- of women and children, 32
export of wheat, 55
---- of oil, 63, 104
F
Fabian Tracts, 2
factory, 29, 32, 48, 80, 103-104, 123-124, 132, 138, 156, 220, 327, 415-417
---- hand 16, 25, 47, 50, 73
independent, 159
---- inspection, 420
---- owners, 25, 29, 47-48, 69-70
fallacies regarding Socialism, 6
family, 28, 35, 42, 44, 109, 118, 122, 131, 134, 137, 153, 157, 421, 427
Faraday, 222
farm, 29
colony, 78-80, 263-277
deserted, 68
---- hands, 28
ownership of, 16
farmer, 15, 28-29, 48, 55, 177-178, 415
Farmers' Bulletin, 269, 281
farming population, 48
Federal Steel Company, 62
Federation of Labor, 171
Fesca, Dr. M., Beiträge zur Kenntniss der japanesischen
Landwirthschaft, 267
Fields, Factories and Workshops (Kropotkin), 267
Filene Store, 199-200
financial crises, 178, 299
fines (for adulteration), 88-93
food, 98
---- adulteration, 89-93
Food and Drugs Act, 91
forests, 27
Forster, Rt. Hon. H.O. Arnold, 154
Fourier, 317
France, 40, 78, 132, 137, 243, 264, 266, 308-309, 318, 392, 409
franchise, 135, 145
free trade, 69
freedom, 109, 116, 121, 124
law an abridgment of, 113-114
---- of contract, 11, 140-141
---- of industry, 111
economic, 50, 125
French Parliament, 18-19
---- peasant, 278
---- penal code, 142
---- Revolution, 32, 138, 140, 243
Frick, Henry, 27, 188, 191
funds, 172,
benefit, 136
Mansion House Relief, 76
savings bank, 78
trade union, 78
G
Galvani, 222
gambling, 38, 68, 72, 423
gardeners (Paris), 268
---- Hammersmith, 18-20
Gary, Elbert H., 57-62, 188, 191
gas, 123, 324
---- in Birmingham, 20
---- in Manchester, 20
---- in New York, 21
General Electric Company, 184, 221
Genevilliers, 268
George, Henry, 123, 364
German (the), 321
---- competition, 148
Germany, 236, 242, 308-309, 408
cabinet minister in, 132
palliative measures in, 78
workingmen in, 16
Ghent, W.J., 89
Giddings, Professor Franklin H., 405
Gladstone, 334, 384
Gompers, Samuel, 408
Gothenburg system, 295
government, 32-33, 43, 102, 121, 128-129, 135-136, 150, 218, 315,
317-320, 336, 416-418, 431
---- control, 12, 72
good, 321-324
---- postoffice, 97
---- printing office, 228
publications of U.S., 12, 228
the Prussian, 25
Grandeau, L., Etudes agronomiques, 268
Guesde, Jules, 408
Guggenheim, Senator, 74
Daniel, 87
guilds, 135, 140
tyranny of, 135-140
H
Hague Tribunal, 355
Hallet, Major, 267
Hammersmith, 18-20
Hardie, Keir, 408
Harriman, 304
Havemeyer, H.O., 57, 105, 107, 159, 161
Haywood, 169, 240
health, 414, 421
Colorado State Board of, 90
conservation of, 27, 38, 72
Department of, 27
Hebberd, Mr., Commissioner of Charities of New York city, 266
Henri IV, 142
Hill, James J., 238, 304
Hillquit, Morris, 2, 7, 248, 305, 307
Hindustan, 64, 355
history, 28, 387
Holland, 222
farm colonies in, 262, 265
Hollesley Bay, 78
Holt, Dr. L. Emmett, 38, 421
home, 7, 40-42, 51, 83, 105, 156, 157, 415
common, 317
---- Economics, Conference on, 92
---- industry, 138
horde, 34, 35, 107
hours of labor, 62, 69, 128, 145, 152, 153, 220, 318, 326, 328, 419
excessive, 70
four hours' workday, 50
---- of farmer, 15
House of Commons, 18
House report, 52d Congress, 2d
session, 197
Hudson river, 261
Hughes, Charles F., 244-245
Hunter, Robert, 42
Huxley, Thomas, 13, 315-316, 379-380, 382-386, 388, 395, 404
I
Ice Trust, 262
Idaho, 426-427
Illinois, 425, 427, 430
immediate demands, 26, 27, 246
immobilization of capital, 65
imprisonment for adulteration, 89-93
India, 218
starvation in, 55, 60
tiger developed in, 4
Indian opium forced upon China, 63
Indiana, 430
individualism, 10, 23, 32
Industrial Commission, 57, 62-63, 76, 95, 99, 104-107, 146, 150-151,
159, 161-164, 170, 206-208, 288
industrial conditions, 42, 64, 76, 93
---- depression, 153, 414
---- Parliament, 318
---- population, 48
---- schools, 151
---- system, 26, 46, 52, 73
industrialism, 88
industries, 118, 318, 326-327, 414, 416
captain of, 87
collective ownership of, 419
seasonal, 71
socialized, 319
industry, 65, 102-105, 107, 123, 134, 138-140, 148, 155, 159, 317, 421-422
insurance, 5, 78, 179, 303, 420
German national, 241
---- Year Book, 179
International, the, 155
---- complications, 63
---- conflict, 354
---- crime, 63
interest, 59, 69
personal, 29-30
private, 26
vested, 15, 17, 19, 20, 22-30
intranational conflict, 354
invention, 44, 219, 222-224
inventor, 219, 220-224
investor, 94
Ireland, 241
Italy, 22, 267
J
James I of England, 21
Japan, 62-63, 239, 267
Jaurès, 132, 408
Jersey, Island of, 280
justice, 27, 34, 64, 411-429
K
Kautsky, Karl, 239, 243, 307-308
Kentucky, 60
Knickerbocker Trust Company, 182-184, 189, 191
Kropotkin, 34, 135, 267-268
L
labor, 36, 50-51, 75, 80, 86, 104, 113-114, 116-117, 119, 123, 131,
135, 144, 147, 154, 157, 414-422
---- Bulletin, 120
Bureau of, 421
child, 109
Commerce and, 421
Department of, 421
fluidity of, 103
---- market, 109
---- members of Parliament, 173
---- not so fluid as capital, 64
---- of women, 109
young, 69
laborers, 72, 74
_Laissez-faire_, 11, 32, 139, 407
Lancashire, 154
land, 15, 24, 27, 29, 42, 48, 59, 112, 116, 118, 122-124, 148, 269,
278, 317, 412-414, 416, 420
law, 43, 91-92, 108, 112-113, 119, 121, 126, 137, 159, 322, 324, 410,
417, 420, 423, 425, 430
---- of 1799 of British Parliament, 142
relation of custom to, 13
Lebovitz, J., 5
legislation, 26, 424
leisure, 48-49, 52, 65, 125-130, 325, 411
Lesseps de, 220
Lewis, Orlando F., 429-430
liberty, 7, 32, 46-47, 50, 52, 110, 130, 139, 317, 325, 409, 412, 426
A Plea for, 50, 94
life, 28, 33, 37-38, 50, 67-72
Lincoln, 175
lockout, 5, 86-88, 110, 148
London, 18, 21, 71, 219, 284, 286, 320, 394
Louis XIV, 137, 422
Lowell, James Russell, 223
lumber, 53
camps, 42
lunacy, 49, 278
Lyell, Sir Charles, 349
M
McCrea, President, 430
MacDonald, J. Ramsay, 408
McKenna, Judge, 169, 424
machine, political, 129
machinery, 69, 218, 414-420
Maine, 280
Mallock, 408-409
Malthus, 172, 316
Manchester, 20
---- school, 32, 60, 139
Manhattan, 97-98, 282, 424
Mansion House Relief Fund, 76
Manufacture, Economy of, 219
market, 16, 18, 64, 93, 103-105, 109-110, 141, 146, 148, 158
foreign, 62, 63, 76, 319
getting the, 95-96
---- price, 154, 159
the London, 18
tyranny of the, 102-103
marriage, 40, 85, 134, 351-353, 358-359
Marshall, Alfred, 391
Martineau, Harriet, 402
Marx, Karl, 1, 8, 25, 33-34, 147, 155-156, 226, 386
Marxian school, 25, 201, 239
---- doctrine of value, 33
---- socialism, 1
---- socialist, 242
Mass and Class, 89
Maxim, 220
meat, 137, 417
---- distribution, 97
---- Trust, 262
Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, 212
Metz, Hermann, Comptroller of New York city, 190
Middle Ages, 107, 110, 135, 138
militia, 27, 427
milk, 96-97, 324
---- adulteration, 90
---- Contractors' Association, 288
trust, 211
Mill, John Stuart, 32, 325
Miner, Maud E., probation officer, 83
mineowners, 27
miners, 65 131, 415, 417
---- union, 164
Western Federation of, 417
misrepresentation, 6, 15-16
Mississippi, 429
Mitchell, Dr. W.C., 90-91
Mitchell, John, 146, 151-152, 408
Modern Socialism, R.C.K. Ensor, 387
Monde Economique, 63
Monetary and Banking system, by Maurice L. Muhleman, 181
money, 37, 53-55, 66-68, 77-79, 81, 86, 176-198, 323, 419
---- market, 74
---- Market Primer, by George Clare, 193
monopoly, 260, 416, 422, 428
---- of guilds, 256
monopolies, 123, 137, 146, 150
morality, 40, 45, 81-84
More, Sir Thomas, 33
Morgan, J. Pierpont, 169, 185, 195-196, 237-239, 254, 257, 428
elimination of waste by, 58
organization of steel and coal trusts by, 238
share of, in New York city finances, Oct., 1908, 190
Morris, William, 2
mortality, 38
infant, 419
Moyer, 169
Muhleman, Maurice L., 181
municipalities, 74
municipal ownership, 20-21
Municipal Year Book, 20
N
nation, 63, 65, 105, 107, 114, 131, 133, 412-418
National Association of State Food and Dairy Departments, 91
National Executive Committee, 248, 256
necessaries of life, 128, 417
Negro slavery, 46
New England, 42
New York Central railroad, 74, 429-430
New York city, 19-22, 177, 179, 190, 209, 214, 283-284, 320-322
Aldermen in, 247
butcher shops in, 97
reform in, 128
Trow's directory of, 97
New York State, 245, 265, 269, 272
---- Department of Labor, 73,74
Newton, Isaac, 219, 222
Nightingale, Florence, 39
Northern Pacific, 191, 430
Northern Securities Case, 238
O
occupations, 71-72, 75, 114-115, 278
Oersted, 222
Ohio Dairy and Food Department, 90
Ohm, 219, 222
oil, 63, 94, 96, 105, 417
Pratts' Astral, 207
Standard, 99, 104, 207
opium, 63-64
---- war in China, 63
organization, 115, 147-148, 157
industrial, 107
international, 156
---- of labor, 127, 145
---- of trade unions, 159
political, 122, 128
Organized Labor, by John Mitchell, 73-75, 115, 145-146, 151-153, 409, 417
Outlook the, 6, 40, 82, 109, 259
overinvestment, 65-66
overproduction, 57-66, 218
overwork, 48, 69-70, 72, 122, 164
ownership, 20-21, 416
collective, 419
---- of land, 24, 121, 280
State, 317
State, not Socialism, 25
P
pacemakers, 69
Palissy, Bernard, 223
palliative measures, 78
Panama bonds, 188
---- canal, 220
Pangborn, Col., 266
panic, 63, 65, 73-75, 87, 181-194, 299
Paris, 7, 18, 98, 137, 138, 286
Parliament, 173
Industrial, 319
parlor Socialists, 28
Parnell, 241
party, 416-419
capitalistic, 16
Democratic, 122, 134, 308
dominant, 415
Labor, in England, 171
Republican, 122, 134, 309, 418
Socialist, 2, 21, 26-27, 34-36, 45, 134, 200, 248, 414, 418, 428-429
pauper, 80
pauperism, 9, 22, 26, 35-36, 44, 52, 66, 99, 128, 130
penal colonies, 274
Pennsylvania, 74-75, 91, 280, 430
Pettibone vs. Collins, 424
Philadelphia, 430
philanthropists, 87
philosophy of Socialism, 6, 54
Pinkerton, Robert A., 168
pipe-line, 63, 105
Pittsburg, 15, 164-165, 167, 173, 201
Survey, 164, 167, 173-174, 201
platform, Socialist, 6, 26-27, 45, 134, 413, 421
Plato, 33, 44, 388
Platonic school of Socialism, 199
Plea for Liberty, 50, 94
political--
---- action, 26, 110, 409
---- contributions, 32
---- control, 135
---- issue, 140
---- liberty, 47, 52, 121
---- parties, 140
---- power, 26-27
---- Science Quarterly, 169
---- students, 23
politics, 48, 110, 129
Ponce, La Culture Maraiche, 268
Poor Law guardians, 273
popular government, 107, 142
population, 65, 131, 134, 142, 153, 156-158, 323
Populism, 174
Portland Proceedings, 90-91
postoffice, 262
---- economies, 96-97
Poverty, by Robert Hunter, 42
press, 66, 415, 420
propertied class in control of, 42-43
price, 42, 50, 58-63, 65-66, 69, 76, 87, 94, 98, 103-104, 106,
134-135, 147-148, 158-160, 228, 324, 417
Principles of Sociology, 335-405
Problems of the Day, by Andrew Carnegie, 199
problems, solution of, 151
economic, 128
Problems of Unemployment, 72
production, 12, 23, 25, 28, 33, 35-38, 45, 49, 52-54, 59, 66, 86,
93-94, 104, 110, 123, 131-132, 139
anarchy of, 318, 413, 414, 416, 418
products, 33, 36, 46, 51, 55, 99, 105, 113, 116-117, 119, 121,
123-124, 126, 128, 135, 137, 139, 314-319
profit, 5, 10, 16, 25, 37, 58-60, 65, 94, 102, 104-106, 108, 148, 155,
414, 423
proletariat, 25-26, 45, 119, 122
property, 7, 15-16, 24-25, 28-29, 32-33, 42-46, 112, 131-175, 414, 422
---- and Liberty, 54, 112-130
prostitution, 4, 9, 26, 35-36, 44, 66, 79, 86, 88, 99, 128, 130
Proudhon, 7, 33-34, 124, 131
Prussia, 317
Prussian Government, 25
public domain, 27
Public House Trust, 295
public ownership, 20-21, 27, 106
Pullman, 168
Q
de Quesnay, 54
Quintessence of Socialism, 235
R
race, 32, 65-66, 91, 115, 128, 327, 411
for profits, 415
rags sold as woollen cloth, 93
---- pickers of Paris, 18-20
railroads, 53, 65, 73-95, 123, 131, 215, 303, 329, 415, 419, 429-431
reclamation, 27, 101
reforestation, 27
reform, 26-28, 71, 127, 129, 243, 414, 418-419
relief, 26, 76
remedies, 31, 78
remuneration, 303-306
republic, 243
revolution, 25-28, 243
revolutionary period, 108
---- Socialists, 27, 29
revolutionist, 23-26, 30, 228
Rhode Island, 306
Ritchie, Professor, 385
Rockefeller, 57-58, 104, 159, 237-239, 253-255, 288, 325
Rocky mountains, 96, 276
Rodbertus, 307
Rogers, Thorold, 233
Roosevelt, Theodore, 6, 25, 33-34, 40-42, 50, 82, 132, 134, 237-239,
255, 259-260, 320, 398
Rousseau, 138
royalty, 21
Ruskin, John, 402-403
Russia, 121, 239
S
salaries, 82, 303-306
San Francisco, 96
savings Banks, 42, 65, 78
Schäffle, 235
Schenectady, 261
school, 153, 165, 321, 326, 328, 409, 415, 419
divinity, 329
industrial, 151
Manchester, 20, 32, 60, 139
Marxian, 25
trade, 151
Science, 1, 88, 115, 128, 421
---- and Morals, 336
Scientific aspect of Socialism, 335-377
Seligman, J. & W., 196
semi-skilled workers, 75
Semler, Tropische Agrikultur, 267
Shaw, Bernard, 2
sickness, 5, 136, 153, 172, 326, 406-407
Simon, A.M., The American Farmer, 48
Simon Eugène, La Cité Chinoise, 267
single tax, 123, 278, 285
slave, 15, 45, 47, 49, 51, 104, 115, 125, 140, 415, 429
slaveowner, 69
slavery, 15, 109, 120, 125, 127, 128-130
Smith, Adam, 32, 54, 139
Social Revolution (Kautsky), 239
Socialism and Social Reform, 42, 60, 209, 211, 217-218
Socialism in Theory and Practice, 248, 305, 307-308
socialization of industries, 34
South, farmers of the, 217
South Australia, 290
South Carolina, 267
Southern Pacific, 430
Spargo, John, 2, 248-250
Spencer, Herbert, 3, 13, 32, 54, 94, 101, 137, 336, 365, 388, 404
standard of living, 165, 229
standard of wages, 157
Standard Oil, 99, 104-105, 152, 159, 207, 251, 253-256
starvation, 103, 120, 139, 156, 158, 414, 417
State, 45-46, 80, 91, 134, 325, 409, 424-431
agricultural, 77
---- commissions, 89
---- constabulary, 431
---- Government, 329
---- laws, 417
mining, 77
New York, 75, 280
---- ownership not Socialism, 25
Prussian, 25
---- Socialism, 235, 317-318
---- Socialist, 27
---- viands, 50
Statistical Abstract of the United States, 148, 181, 431
statistics, 5, 38, 73
steel, 94, 327-328
---- industry, 148
---- rails, 63
---- trust, 55, 149, 164, 185-186, 201, 238, 257, 303
U.S.,--Corporation, 185
Steffens, Lincoln, 255, 429
step by step socialist, 28
stockholders, 21, 252, 324
stocks, 85, 160
store, 11, 29, 82, 156, 431
strike, 62, 71, 86-88, 145, 148, 168
struggle, 147, 153, 415
class, 25
---- for Existence in Human Society, 336
---- for life, 337, 410
study of Sociology, 365
Suez canal, 220
sugar trust, 61, 95
Survey, 164, 167, 173-174, 201
swamplands, 27, 101, 180, 420
sweated trades, 158
sweating system, 154, 156
Switzerland, 263, 266, 272
farm colonies in, 78, 269
system, 28, 34, 44, 409, 421
apprenticeship, 151
---- of production, 35, 414
capitalist, 45
competitive, 37, 39, 54, 66, 86, 98, 99, 145, 323, 325
coöperative, 128
factory, 416
Fourier's, 317
T
Taft, President, 1, 6, 42, 132
taxes, 323, 326, 420
personal, 118
single, 123
---- rate, 320
teachers, 49
---- college, 92
tenements, 19, 41, 247, 321
Tennessee Coal and Iron Company, 185-186, 188, 191
textiles, 92
---- schools, 92
Thompson, Carl D., 7
tobacco, 156
adulteration of, 91
---- crop in Kentucky, 60
Tolstoi, 388
Toubeau, La répartition métrique des impôts, 267
trade, 63, 88, 92, 93, 95
export, 105-106, 111, 137, 145, 149, 151-155, 321, 328
trade unions, 16, 72-77, 86, 110, 136, 140-159, 167-174
organization of, 159-160
tramps, 24, 264, 271-272, 273-274, 430
Troy, 261
trust companies, 182
Trust Company of America, 185
trusts, 15, 16, 76, 86, 104, 107, 110, 140, 142, 159, 175, 418
expropriation of, 15
development of, 58
Standard Oil, 99
steel, 149, 303
Turgot, 422
Tweed, 320
Tyranny, 142
economic, 138
---- of the guilds, 138
---- of the market, 102-104, 107, 109
---- of the trade union, 108-110
---- of the trusts, 104, 109
U
underconsumption, 66, 67
underemployment, 66, 67, 72
underpayment, 67, 72
unemployable, 70-72, 78, 87
unemployed, 24, 42, 66-79, 103, 107, 148, 157, 245, 415
unemployment, 4, 39, 60, 65, 79, 81, 86, 88-89, 140, 144, 153, 164, 245
unions, 108, 159-160, 169-175
United States, 7, 61, 64, 144, 147, 151, 177, 179, 187-188, 193, 204,
206, 209, 215, 266, 272, 416-417
---- Bureau of Labor, 228, 293
---- Census, 41, 48, 73, 77, 204
---- Congress, 168, 197, 308-309, 318, 329-330, 417, 420, 426
---- Constitution, 15, 365, 417, 426
---- Department of Agriculture, 230
---- Department, of Labor, 148, 230
divorce in, 40-41
---- postoffice, 96-97, 262
United States, Secretary of the Treasury of, 187, 189
statistical abstract of, 148, 181, 431
statutes of, 424-425
---- Treasury, 181, 187-188
unorganized labor, 73, 75, 77, 109, 145
unskilled labor, 75-77
V
value, 125-126
Marx' theory of, 33
surplus, 10
Vandervelde, Emil, 1, 7, 408
Vermont, 430
vested interests, 15, 18-22, 30
vice, 40, 362, 410-411, 415
Vienna, 286
violence, 27, 67, 117-118, 124, 168-169, 425, 429
Volta, 222
W
wages, 69-70, 103-104, 109, 118, 124, 142, 145,147,151-158, 165
miners', 82-83
---- earners', 16
---- servants', 122
---- slave, 68
---- slavery, 68-69
union, 419
Wall Street, 179-192, 212
war, 168, 175, 429
Ward, Lester F., 404
Washington, 5, 260, 309
waste, 96, 102, 139, 301
---- lands, 419
---- of capital, 99
waste of life and property in revolution, 28
water, 20, 21, 101, 123, 419
wealth, 42-43, 45-46, 50, 52, 65, 67, 115, 117, 130-131, 134-135, 137,
410, 415, 418
Webb, Sidney, 2
Western Federation of Miners, 417
Western Union, 210
Westinghouse Company, 184, 187, 221
wheat, 55, 293
whiskey, adulteration of, 91
Trust, 61, 161-162
Why Socialism is Impossible, 235
Winslow, Lanier & Company, 196
Wisconsin, 256
women, 35, 46, 65, 68, 80-86, 120, 142-143, 154, 157-158, 165, 245,
265, 275
exploitation of, 32
suffrage for, 420
Woodbridge, Alice, 82
working class, 42-45, 414-416, 419
workingmen, 15, 47-48, 51, 62, 64, 68, 70, 75, 77, 86, 103, 108, 109,
116, 137-138, 142, 144, 149, 151-154
standard of living of, 229
Y
Year Book of the Department of Agriculture, 230
Insurance, 179
Municipal, 20
Yorkshire, 154
* * * * *
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| Page 14: Socalism replaced with Socialism |
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| Page 180: noney replaced with money |
| Page 205: conoeded replaced with conceded |
| Page 226: pulverzing replaced with pulverizing |
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| Page 285: cooperative replaced with coöperative |
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| Page 292: catagories replaced with categories |
| Page 295: Gothenberg replaced with Gothenburg |
| Page 312: "six hundred and and sixty million dollars" |
| replaced with |
| "six hundred and sixty million dollars" |
| Page 312: "will be paid to be steel guild" replaced with |
| "will be paid to the steel guild" |
| Page 327: primarly replaced with primarily |
| Page 336: subsituting replaced with substituting |
| Page 351: cooperative replaced with coöperative |
| Page 362: self-straint replaced with self-restraint |
| Page 371: "If the the harness left" replaced with |
| "If the harness left" |
| Page 407: communites replaced with communities |
| Page 409: canivora replaced with carnivora |
| Page 433: Barral replaced with Barrel |
| Page 435: captial replaced with capital |
| Page 437: Beitrage replaced with Beiträge |
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