HOW THE PEOPLE MAY ACQUIRE THE TRUSTS
Most men are not interested in private profits, because they don’t get
any. Profits are only for capitalists, and the number of capitalists
bears but an insignificant proportion to the whole number of people.
Most men are wage-workers, of one sort or another, or small farmers.
Yet we are living under a system that makes private profits the basis of
business. If profits are good, business is good. If profits are only
fair, business is only fair. If profits are bad, business is bad. And,
when business is bad, the whole country suffers, though the country has
the men, the machinery and the land with which business might be made
good.
Socialists liken the present business edifice to an inverted pyramid
resting upon its point—the point of private profits. Socialists have
observed that the steadiest pyramids do not rest upon their points. They
do not believe the pyramids of Egypt would have stood as long as they
have if they had not been right side up. Socialists therefore propose
that the pyramid of business shall be turned right side up. They believe
it would stand more nearly steady if placed upon the broad basis of the
people’s needs than it now does upon the pivot-point of private profits.
That is all that Socialists mean when they talk about the
“revolutionary” character of their philosophy. They want to make a
revolutionary change in the basis of business. They want goods produced
solely to satisfy the public need for goods, rather than to satisfy any
man’s greed for profits. They do not see how business can be thus
revolutionized, so long as a few men own all of the great machinery with
which goods are produced. Socialists, therefore, propose that the
ownership of all the great machinery shall be acquired by the people, by
purchase, and thus transferred from a few to all.
Those who are not in favor of this program may be divided into two
classes. One class, desiring to cling to the private profit system, is
opposed, upon principle, to the Socialist program. The other class,
while eager enough, perhaps, to be rid of present conditions, does not
believe the Socialist plan is practicable. The reason why so many men
believe the Socialist plan is impractical is because so many men do not
know what the Socialist plan is. The newspapers, owned as they are by
capitalists, do not take the pains to tell the people much about the
plans of Socialism. Even so great a trust lawyer as Samuel Untermyer of
New York, apparently did not know much about the plans of Socialism
until he debated Socialism in Carnegie Hall with Morris Hillquit. Mr.
Untermyer, in his opening statement, made the colossal mistake of
declaring that the Socialists had no definite plan for transferring the
industries of the country from private to public ownership; that no one
knew whether they meant to take over all industries, or whether they
meant to take over only the trusts, while leaving the small concerns
that are now fighting the trusts to compete with the government. In
short, Mr. Untermyer left the impression that in the matter of putting
their program into practice the Socialists were whirling around in a
fog.
Let us see who was whirling around in a fog.
Victor L. Berger, the Socialist congressman from Milwaukee, introduced
in the House of Representatives a bill embodying the following features:
The government shall immediately proceed to take over the ownership of
all the trusts that control more than 40 per cent. of the business in
their respective lines.
The price to be paid for these industries shall be fixed by a
commission of fifteen experts, whose duty it shall be to determine the
actual cash value of the physical properties.
Payment for the properties shall be proffered in the form of United
States bonds, bearing 2 per cent. interest payable in 50 years, and a
sinking fund shall be established to retire the bonds at maturity.
In the event of the refusal of any trust owner or owners to sell to
the government his or their properties at the price fixed by the
commission of experts, the President of the United States is
authorized to use such measures as may be necessary to gain and hold
possession of the properties.
A Bureau of Industries is hereby created within the Department of
Commerce and Labor to operate all industries owned by the government.
Mind you, this is but the barest skeleton of the Berger bill. The bill
itself may have no sense in it. But that is not the point. Samuel
Untermyer, great trust lawyer and presumably well-read man, said that
the Socialists had no definite plan for taking over the industries of
the country. He made this statement in Carnegie Hall before thousands of
people. And there was not one word of truth in it. If he had taken the
slightest pains to inform himself, he might easily have learned that the
Socialists have an exceedingly definite plan for taking over the
ownership of the nation’s industries.
But Mr. Untermyer took no pains to inform himself. Ignorant as an Eskimo
of the Socialist program, he just went to Carnegie Hall and talked. What
he did not know, he guessed. What he could not guess right, he guessed
wrong. He could guess almost nothing right. Mr. Hillquit made him look
ridiculous. He was ridiculous. He was more than ridiculous. He was an
object for pity. A great lawyer, having a great reputation to sustain,
discussing a great subject of which he had only the most meager
knowledge!
Mr. Hillquit riddled him, of course, but he did not riddle much because,
speaking Socialistically, Mr. Untermyer is not much. But, unfortunately,
only the 5,000 or 6,000 who heard the debate knew that Mr. Untermyer had
been riddled. Millions of New Yorkers who read the capitalist newspapers
the next morning received the impression from the headlines that
Untermyer had riddled not only Hillquit but Socialism. “Socialists have
no definite plans for doing the things they want to do” was the parroted
charge. The charge was not true, but the public did not know the charge
was not true. The capitalist newspapers would not let the public know.
The newspapers had good reasons for not letting the public know. The
newspapers are owned or backed by millionaires who are interested in
maintaining present conditions. Socialism would interfere with these
newspaper millionaires as much as it would interfere with any other
millionaires. Yet it is from such sources that the public receives most
of its information with regard to Socialism. It is because of this fact
that the public knows so much about Socialism that is not so.
It emphatically is not so that the Socialists have no definite plan for
taking over the management and control of the industries of the country.
They know precisely what they are trying to do and how they are trying
to do it. They have not drafted all of the laws that would be required
under a Socialist republic for the next 500 years, but they have
formulated certain general principles that, once established, will
endure for centuries. I shall endeavor to make these general principles
plain.
Socialists want to end class warfare. They want to prevent one class
from robbing any other class. They do not see how class warfare can be
ended so long as a small class controls the means of life of the great
class. The means of life is the machinery and materials with which men
work. Socialists, therefore, purpose that the means of life shall be
owned by all of the people, through the government.
If this program be put into effect, a start must be made somewhere.
Socialists purpose that the start be made with the trusts. They propose
that the start be made with the trusts because the trusts have advanced
furthest along the road of evolution. The trusts have already sloughed
off the multitude of primitive, competitive managers. They are
concentrated. Only the slightest shift will be necessary to concentrate
the managements a little more and vest them in the government. Besides,
the trusts control the bulk of the production of the great necessaries
of life. Get the trusts and we shall have life. We shall have food. We
shall have clothing. We shall have shelter. We shall have all of these
things, because we shall have the machinery with which we may make all
of these things.
Long before Congressman Berger’s bill was drafted, the cry of the
Socialists was “Let the nation own the trusts.” Among Socialists, this
cry was as insistent and as common as the cry of “Let us stand pat” was
insistent and common among the Hanna Republicans of 1896 and 1900. That
Socialist cry showed where the Socialists planned to begin. Congressman
Berger’s bill only echoed the cry and made it more definite. The
Socialist cry was “Let the nation own the trusts.” Congressman Berger’s
bill told what trusts were, within the meaning of Socialist demands, and
how to get them. Berger’s bill declared that a trust should be construed
to mean any industry or combination of industries that controlled 40 per
cent. or more of the national output of its product. And, Berger’s bill
also laid down the principle that the easiest way to acquire the trusts
is to buy them. Moreover, his bill also sought to provide the
governmental machinery and the money with which to do it.
Never mind whether Berger’s bill was wise or foolish. Never mind whether
the Socialist program is wise or foolish. We are now considering the
charge that the Socialists have no definite program. That is what Mr.
Untermyer said. That is what a thousand others say. Is it not plain that
they are all wrong? Who can doubt that if the Berger bill were enacted
into law, the trusts could and would be taken over? The Berger bill is
plainer than any tariff bill that was ever written. Any man of common
sense can understand it. No man can understand a tariff law. Yet tariff
laws are administered. They are definite enough to accomplish what the
protected manufacturers really want accomplished. Even those who oppose
high tariff laws do not contend that they should be repealed because
they lack definiteness.
The simple fact is that the Socialists want to take the trusts first,
because they are the most important and the best adapted to immediate
ownership by the people. For the time being, small competitive
manufacturers would be compelled to compete with the government. If the
Socialist theory of production is a fallacy, the small competitive
producers would demonstrate it by providing better working conditions
for their employees and selling goods more cheaply than the government.
In that event, Socialism would fall of its own weight and the nation
would restore present conditions.
If the Socialist theory of production is not a fallacy, the competitive
producers would be driven out of business and sell their plants to the
government for what they were worth. They would be driven out of
business, because they could not afford to do business without a profit.
They could get no profit without appropriating part of the product of
their workers, and if they appropriated part of the product of their
workers, the workers would shift over to the national industries where
no products were appropriated.
In short, if the national ownership of trusts were a success, the day of
the competitive manufacturer would be short. He could not afford to do
business with a competitor who sought no profits. And this is precisely
what Socialists believe would take place. They believe the national
ownership of the trusts would be quickly followed by the national
ownership of every industry that is now owned by some to skim a profit
from the labor of others.
This does not mean, however, that peanut stands would be owned by the
government. It does not necessarily mean that farms would be owned by
the government. The Socialists are not fanatics over the mere principle
of government ownership. They appeal to the principle only to accomplish
an end. The end is the destruction of the power of some to rob others.
If there is no robbery, there is no occasion for the application of the
principle. The ownership of a peanut stand gives the owner no power to
rob anybody. A man who tills his own farm is robbing nobody. Neither the
ownership of the peanut stand nor the ownership of the farm gives the
owner the power to rob anybody, because neither owner profits from the
labor of an employee. But if tenant farming should ever become a serious
evil in this country—and it is increasing all the while—the Socialists,
if they were in power, would take over the ownership of all tenant farm
lands. They would take over the tenant farms for the same reason that
they now want to take over the trusts—because the landlords were using
the power of ownership to appropriate part of the products of the
tenants.
Let this do for the critics who say that Socialists have no definite
program for taking over the ownership of the nation’s industries. There
is another set of critics who say that, if Socialists should ever take
over the industries, they could not run them. They say that the change
from private to public ownership would bring chaos, that the government,
as a manager of industry, would break down, that red revolution would
sweep the world and that civilization would probably go down with a
crash.
I shall pause a moment to comment upon the lack of humor that these
gentlemen betray. They take themselves so seriously. If they were called
upon to attend a dog beset with fleas, they would doubtless counsel the
dog to prize the fleas as it prized its life.
“Don’t bite off one of those fleas, my dear dog,” we can hear them say.
“You don’t know it, but they are doing you good. Each flea-bite
increases the speed with which you pursue game. If fleas were not biting
you all the time, you might become so comfortable that you would lie
down in the sun, go to sleep, forget to eat, and thus starve to death.
Remember, the fleas are your friends!”
Of course, the great capitalists who are opposing Socialism are not to
be likened to fleas, except as to the facts that they are exceedingly
agile and are working at the same trade. But in a season of national
mourning over the high cost of living, is it not unseemly for these
gentlemen to provoke us to laughter by telling us that, if we were to
lose them, we ourselves should be lost? We who work can never save
ourselves. We can be saved only by those who work us.
Let us get down to brass tacks. If the Socialists were to gain control
of this government to-morrow, probably the first thing they would do
toward carrying out their program would be to call a national convention
to draft a twentieth century constitution to replace our present
eighteenth century one. The convention would abolish the senate, vest
the entire legislative power in the house of representatives, destroy
the United States Supreme Court’s usurped power to declare acts of
congress unconstitutional, make all judges elective by the people and
establish the initiative, the referendum and recall. Socialists would
not attempt to establish Socialism without first clearing the ground so
that the people could control their government absolutely.
The work of the convention having been approved by the people, perhaps
the first trust that would be taken over would be the railroad trust. It
would be a big job. It would be so big a job that no other similar job
would be undertaken until the completion of the railroad job was well
under way, and the railroad job might require a year or two. I mention
this fact to show that it would not be the purpose of a Socialist
administration to rip this country up from Maine to Southern California
within twenty-four hours from the fourth of March. In fact, there would
be no ripping or jarring, as I shall soon show. Everything would proceed
in an orderly, lawful manner.
I say there would be no ripping or jarring, because there would be no
cessation of industry. Let us suppose, for instance, that the ownership
and control of the railroads had been transferred from the present
owners to the government. What would happen? Absolutely nothing in the
nature of a jar. What happens now when one group of capitalists sell a
railroad to another group of capitalists? Nothing, of course. The new
owners tell the general manager to keep on running trains, as usual, or
if they install a new general manager, they tell him to keep on running
trains. The trainmen, if they did not read the newspapers, would not
know the road had changed hands.
The transition from private to public ownership would be accomplished
precisely as smoothly. The only change would be in the orders that a
Socialist administration would give to the chief executive officer of
the railroads. That order, in substance, would be: “Don’t try to make
any profits out of the railroads. Run them at cost. Give the men more
wages and shorter hours, and give the public the best possible service
at the lowest possible rate and with the least possible risk to human
life.”
If you can manufacture a riot out of such ingredients, go to it. If you
can figure out how such a proceeding would disrupt civilization, proceed
at your leisure.
The cards are all down. You now know what the Socialists want to do.
Where is the danger?
“Oh,” the capitalist gentlemen say, “but you Socialists are not business
men, and business men are required to manage industries. A Socialist
government would therefore fail.”
Mayor Gaynor expressed much the same thought in a statement about
Socialism that he prepared for the New York _Times_. Mr. Gaynor’s
attitude toward Socialism is tolerant—almost sympathetic—yet he asked:
“Who would run your Socialistic government? Where would you get honest
and competent men? Would the human understanding and capacity be
larger then than it is now?”
Wherever Socialism is discussed, such questions are asked. They are
evidently regarded as insuperable obstacles to Socialism. As a matter of
fact, they serve only to show how little the questioners know of
Socialism.
Socialists do not purpose to establish hatcheries for the breeding by
special creation, of a class of super-men to administer government and
manage industry. They will depend upon the regular run of the human race
for material with which to work out their ideas. But they will approach
the subjects of government and industry from a different point of view.
The capitalist’s conception of honest and efficient government is that
sort of government that will best protect him in the enjoyment of the
unjust advantages that he has over the rest of the people. The
capitalist’s conception of honest and efficient business management is
that sort of business management that will yield him the most profits
upon the least capital. The Socialist’s conception of the best
government is that which gives no man an advantage over another, while
giving every man the greatest opportunity to exercise his faculties,
together with the greatest degree of personal liberty that is consistent
with the liberty of everybody else. And, the Socialist’s conception of
honest and efficient business management is that sort of management that
produces the most product under the best working conditions at the least
cost and distributes it among the people without profit.
In answer to Mayor Gaynor and others, Socialists therefore make these
replies:
Capitalists are now able to get honest men who are competent to
administer the government in the interest of the capitalist class. Why,
then, should you doubt that Socialists will be able to get honest men
who will be able to administer the government in the interest of the
working class? In either case, it is simply a matter of executing the
orders of the employer. Capitalism’s employees obey its orders.
Socialism’s employees will, for the same reason, obey its orders. You
tell your employees to maintain the advantage that the few have over the
many, and they obey you. We shall tell our employees to destroy the
advantage that the few have over the many. We believe they will obey us.
If they do not, we shall recall them. That is more than you can now do.
Mayor Gaynor and others also ask if the “human understanding and
capacity” would be larger under Socialism than they are now. Positively
not. But we respectfully beg leave to suggest that it is not a matter of
understanding or capacity. It is a matter of purpose and intention. Men
“understand” what they are given to understand. If a man is told to
understand the problem of grinding human beings down to push dividends
up, he devotes his mind to this task and to no other. If the same man
were told to grind dividends down to the vanishing point and hoist human
beings high and dry above the poverty point, he would probably
understand that, too. And, so far as capacity is concerned, we already
have the capacity for great productive effort. We simply are not
permitted to exercise enough of it to keep us in comfort. Socialism
would not increase the capacity of the human mind, but it would give the
nation an opportunity to exercise the capacity it has.
To simmer the whole matter into a few words, Socialism would endeavor to
place government and industry in the hands of men who would consider
every problem and every opportunity from the point of view of the
working class. It is the reverse of this method against which Socialists
complain. Capitalists are compelled to consider the working class last
in order that they may consider themselves first. The interests of the
capitalist class and the working class, instead of being “identical,”
are hostile. The capitalist class seeks a maximum of product for a
minimum of wages. The working class seeks a maximum of wages for a
minimum of product. The two classes are at war with each other for the
possession of the values that the working class creates.
And, since capitalists control both government and industry, it is but
natural that the interests of capitalists should be considered first and
the interests of workingmen last.
A little thought is enough to dissipate the fear that a Socialist
government would fail, “because Socialists are not business men, and
business men are required to manage industry.” Let us first inquire,
what is meant by a “business man”? Is he not, first and foremost, a man
who is expert in the squeezing out of profits? Of course, he is. If he
can produce enough profits to satisfy his stockholders, he need know
nothing about the mechanics of the business itself. And, so long as
business is conducted upon the basis of private profits, it is obvious
that the men in charge of it must be “business” men—men who understand
the business of extracting profits.
But, with business established upon a basis of public usefulness, with
no thought of private profits, of what use would be such a business man?
His executive and organizing ability would be of the greatest value, but
his ability as a mere profit-getter would be of no value.
For purposes of illustration, let us consider Judge Gary, the chief
executive official of the United States Steel Corporation. Judge Gary
probably knows about as much about making steel as you do about making
Stradivarius violins. He was educated as a lawyer, practised law and was
graduated to the bench. He knows a steel rail from a gas tank, but, to
save his life, he could not make either. He is a lawyer—plus. A lawyer
with a business man’s instinct for profits. A lawyer with a business
man’s instinct for organization and administration.
Back of Judge Gary sits a cabinet of Wall Street directors who, in a
general way, tell him what to do. But, like Judge Gary, these Wall
street directors know nothing about the making of steel. They are expert
only in the making of profits.
Now, a simple old person who had just dropped down here from another
planet might tell you that such men could not possibly manage a great
business like that of the steel trust. Such a simple old person might
tell you that, under the management of such men, the plants of the steel
trusts would be as likely to turn out bologna sausages or baled hay as
steel. But we know, as a matter of fact, that, under the management of
such men, the steel trust turns out nothing but steel. And why? Simply
because, below these managers are thousands of highly trained men and
hundreds of thousands of wage-workers who, collectively, know all that
is known about the making of steel.
Here, then, comes this crushing question. If the Socialists were to gain
control of this government, and upon behalf of the government, buy out
the steel trust, what would prevent the Socialist President from writing
such a letter as this to the chief executive officer of the steel trust:
“Dear Judge Gary: Until further notice stay where you are and do as
you have been doing, except as to these particulars: Instead of
consulting with J. Pierpont Morgan and your Wall Street cabinet,
consult with me and my cabinet. Instead of making steel for profit,
make it solely for use. It will not be necessary for you to make steel
rails that break in order to keep steel stock from breaking on the
market. Make everything as good as you can, sell everything you make
at cost, increase the wages of your workingmen and shorten their
hours. Do everything you can, in fact, to make the lot of the
steel-worker as comfortable as may be.”
Would such a letter create a riot? Would Judge Gary indignantly resign
and the workers flee?
Would the production of steel be interrupted for a single moment?
Yet, in no more violent way than this would the Socialists take over the
ownership and control of any industry. The men now in charge would be
left in charge—at least until better men could be found to take their
places. Probably, here and there, a man would have to be changed. Not
every man who can squeeze out profits is good for anything else. But the
men who could forget profits and make good in usefulness—the men who
could look at their problems solely from the point of view of the
public—such men would be let alone. They would not only be let alone,
but they would be given a better opportunity than they now have to make
good. Profits ever stand in the way of making good in the real sense.
Steel rails that break and kill passengers are not made poor because the
steel trust officials do not know how to make them better. They are made
poor because it would decrease profits to make them better. Every
intelligent manager of industry knows of many things that he might do to
increase the worth of his product, but most of this knowledge goes to
waste because it would interfere with profits.
Let no man fear that Socialism, if tried, would crumple up because the
government would be unable to find competent managers of industry. Every
industry will continue to produce men who are competent to take charge
of its technical work. The matter of executive heads is of secondary
importance. The Postmaster General of the United States, who, almost
invariably, is a mere politician, is at the head of one of the greatest
enterprises in the world, yet the mails go on. The men who sort letters
must know their business. The Postmaster General need not know his. It
would be better if he did, of course, but even if he does not the mails
go on. So much more important, collectively, are the real workers of the
world than any man who figureheads over them.
When E. H. Harriman died the Harriman heirs found a man to head the
Harriman system of railroads. The man they found—Judge Lovett—is not
even a railroad man, but the Harriman lines go on. The Vanderbilts,
Goulds, Rockefellers and Morgans also find men to manage their railroads
and other industries. What these capitalists have done, the President,
his cabinet and congress, will probably have little difficulty in doing.
Opponents of Socialism make ridiculous statements about the slavery that
they declare would exist if the people, through the government, owned
and operated their own industries. The workingman is told that, under
Socialism, he would be ordered about from place to place as if he were a
child.
This charge is no more ridiculous than another charge that is sometimes
made, by which it is represented that, under Socialism, the blacksmith
would burst into an opera house, demand the job of leading the
orchestra, and start a revolution if he were denied the job. The fact is
that, under Socialism, industry would proceed, so far as these matters
are concerned, in much the same manner that it now proceeds. The workers
would be free to apply for the kinds of work for which they regarded
themselves as best fitted. So far as the necessities of industry would
permit, the applications of the workers would be granted. But, in the
long run, the workers would have to work where they were needed,
precisely as they now have to work where they are needed, and, then as
now, particular tasks would be given to those who were best fitted to
perform them. Under Socialism, the worker would have to apply for work,
at this place or that place, precisely as he does now. The only
difference would be that he would always get work somewhere, that he
would work fewer hours, under better conditions, for more pay, and,
that, as a voter, he would have a voice in the management of all
industry.
Such are the replies made by Socialists to the chief objections that are
launched against Socialism. There is another charge—not an
objection—that should also be considered. It is the charge that
Socialists are dreamers, striving to establish a Utopia. Nothing could
be more absurd. Socialists are evolutionists. They do not believe in
Utopias, because they do not believe there is or can be such a thing as
the last word in human progress. They believe the world will always
continue to go onward and upward, precisely as it has always gone onward
and upward. Much as they are devoted to Socialism, they have not the
slightest belief that the world will stop with Socialism. They believe
Socialism will some day become as outgrown and burdensome as capitalism
now is, and that, when that day comes, Socialism should and will give
way to something better.
The chief contention of Socialists is that Socialism is the next step in
civilization, that it represents a great advance over capitalism, that
it will end poverty and industrial depressions, and that Socialism must
come unless civilization is to go backward.