THE “PRIVATE PROPERTY” BOGEY-MAN
Socialists want the people, through the government, to own and operate
the country’s great industries. In making this proposal, however, they
always specify that they also want the people to own and operate the
government.
Upon this slight basis rests the charge that Socialists oppose the right
of the individual to own private property. Gentlemen who own much
private property—hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth—energetically
try to frighten gentlemen whose holdings of private property are chiefly
confined to the clothes they stand in and the chairs they sit in.
“Beware of those Socialists,” say these gentlemen. “They are your worst
enemies. They would deprive you of the right to own private property.
They would have everybody own everything jointly, thus permitting nobody
to own anything individually. Look out for them.”
We Socialists say to you: “Look out for the gentlemen who are so fearful
lest you shall lose the right to own private property. If you will
observe carefully, you will note that they are the ones who own
practically all of the private property. You have hopes, perhaps, but
they have the property. Your hopes do not increase. Their property does.
Besides, we have no desire to deny you the right to own private
property. On the contrary, we want to make your right worth something.
It is not worth anything now, because you don’t own anything and can’t
own anything. You are kept too busy making a bare living.”
The imagination can picture no more seductive subject than the right to
own private property. The right to own private property suggests the
power to exercise the right. The power to exercise the right a little
suggests the power to exercise it much. The power to exercise it much
suggests the power to put the world at one’s feet; to reach out and get
this, whatever it may be; to go there and get that, wherever it may be.
Nothing that is of earth or on earth is beyond the dreams of one who
owns enough private property. Therefore, the subject may be worth a
little more than ordinary consideration.
What, then, is property? Let us look around us. One man has property in
land. So far as the eye can see, maybe, the laws of the state defend him
in his power to say: “This is mine. I bought it. I paid for it. No one
can take it from me without my leave. No one may even pick a flower from
the hillside, or a berry from a bush without my consent.”
Property in land may be called property in natural resources—property in
things that man did not make.
Then there is property in things that man has made. Property in food,
property in clothing, property in houses, and property in the mills and
machinery with which food, clothing, houses and all other manufactured
articles are made.
Now, why should anyone wish a property right in anything? Why should
anyone wish to say of anything on earth: “This is mine. No one may take
it from me without my leave. No one may even use it without my leave”?
Only that he may fully use and enjoy it. That is the only valid reason
that lies behind the desire to own anything. Some things cannot be fully
used and enjoyed unless they are exclusively within the control of those
who use them. A home into which the world was at liberty to enter would
be no home. It might be a lodging house or a hotel, but it would be no
home. Therefore, there is a valid reason why each individual should
exclusively control the house in which he lives. Such exclusive control
may arise from private ownership, as we now understand the term, or it
may arise from the right, guaranteed by the state, to exclusive control
so long as its use is desired; but, from whatever it may arise, it
should exist.
It is the shame of the present civilization that it does not exist. The
great majority of human beings have not the exclusive control of the
houses in which they live. Their clutch upon their habitations is of the
flimsiest sort. The sickness of the father may deprive them of the power
to pay rent and thus put them out. The ability of some other man to pay
a greater rental may put them out. Any one of many incidents may deprive
them of their right to exclusive control of their domiciles.
Exclusive control of the furnishings of a home is also necessary to
their complete enjoyment. What is true of house furnishings is true of
clothing. Anything, in fact, that is exclusively used by an individual
cannot be completely enjoyed unless it is exclusively controlled by that
individual.
Wherein lies the justice of permitting one individual to own that which
he does not use and cannot use, but which some other individual must
use? Why should Mr. Morgan and his associates be permitted to own the
machinery with which the steel trust workers earn their living? Why
should Mr. Rockefeller and his associates be permitted to own so many of
the railroads with which railroad men earn their living? Why should one
man be permitted to own block upon block of tenements, while block upon
block of tenement-dwellers own no homes?
These questions cannot be answered by saying that the world has always
been run this way. In the first place, it is not true. Never, during all
the years of the world, until less than a century ago, did a few men own
the tools with which all other men work. In fact, it is only within the
last 40 years that such ownership has divided the population into a
small master class and a vast servant class. But even if the world had
always been run as it is running, that, in itself, would not make it
right. And anything that is wrong cannot be made right without changing
it.
We Socialists are determined to change the laws relating to private
property. We assert that the present laws are wrong. We are prepared to
prove that they are wrong. We are eager to demonstrate that the poverty
of the masses is the direct result of the ownership, by a few, of a
certain kind of property that should not be privately owned. We refer,
of course, to the industrial machinery of the country, which is owned by
those who do not use it and used by those who do not own it.
Our proposal, therefore, is this: We say that all property that is
collectively used should be collectively owned, and that all property
that is individually used should be individually owned. The last clause
should help out the gentleman who is afraid that Socialism would rob him
of the ownership of his undershirt. The first clause will help him to
own an undershirt.
Please take this suggestion: Distrust any man who advises you to
distrust Socialism because of the fear that it would destroy the
individual’s right to own property. Such a man is always either ignorant
upon the subject of Socialism or crooked upon the subject of capitalism.
There are no exceptions, for Socialism does not mean what he says it
means and would not do what he says it would do.
Socialism would give such a meaning to the individual right to own
property as it has never had in all the history of the world. Under
Socialism, the individual would not only have the right to own property,
but he would have the power to exercise the right. He would own
property. If Socialism would not give every head of a family the power
exclusively to control as good a house as the $5,000–a-year man now
lives in, Socialists would have no use for Socialism. The actual
ownership of the house might or might not rest with the individual. To
prevent grafters from grabbing houses, it might be deemed advisable to
let the state hold the title. But the state would protect the individual
in the right exclusively to control the house as long as he wished to
live in it, even if it were for a lifetime. If the people so desired,
the state might even go further and give the children, after the death
of their parents, the same right. But no Socialist government would
permit a landlord class to fatten upon a homeless class.
Why? Because Socialists believe that no validity underlies a private
title to property except the validity that is completed by the _use_ of
property. This statement, like any other, can be made ridiculous by
construing it ridiculously. Socialists do not mean by this, for
instance, that if a man should take his family to the country for the
summer anybody would have a right to move into his house, merely because
he had temporarily ceased to use it. But Socialists do mean that it is
hostile to the interests of the community for a small class to own so
much that they can never use.
Socialists believe that the needs of the community are so great that all
of the resources of the community should be available to the community.
Therefore, they would require occupancy, or use, as a pre-requisite to
the perfection of a title. Not that if a man, in spring, were to hang up
his winter underclothing for the summer, any neighbor gentleman would
thereby be given the right to appropriate the same—nothing of the kind.
This statement with regard to use, like all other statements made by
Socialists, must be construed reasonably. We simply lay down the
principle that it is wrong to perpetuate conditions under which a few
are enabled to grab so much more than they can use. Such grabbing hurts.
What a man cannot use he should not have. He thereby prevents others
from getting what they need.
Besides, what is grabbing but a bad habit? Mr. Rockefeller’s
$900,000,000, if expended exclusively for bologna sausages, might buy
enough to supply him for a million years. If expended for golf balls, he
might be able to play golf, without buying a new ball, until he had
eaten the last sausage. If expended for clothing, he might be able to
wear a new suit, every fifteen minutes, for the next 28,000,000 years.
But what good do all of these figures do Rockefeller? His capacity for
consuming wealth is extremely limited. It is only his capacity for
appropriating the wealth created by others that is great. Every time Mr.
Rockefeller’s watch ticks $2 drop into his till—but he never sees them.
He hardly knows they are there. He has to hire a bookkeeper to know they
are there. So far as certainties are concerned, Mr. Rockefeller knows
only that when he wants bacon and eggs, with a little hashed brown
potatoes on the side, he has the money to pay for them. In other words,
the few wants of his slight physical body are never in danger of denial.
Mr. Rockefeller’s physical wants would be in no danger of denial if he
were worth only $50,000. Why, then, does he want to own the rest of his
$900,000,000 worth of property? Plainly, it is only because he is a
victim of a bad habit. Some men want money because of the power it gives
them, but Rockefeller has never seemed to care much about power. He
simply has a mania for accumulation. The more he gets, the more he can
get—therefore, he always wants to get more.
And, what does Rockefeller do with wealth, after he gets it? Why, he
lets us use it. He invests it in railroads, or steel mills, or
steamboats, or copper mines, or restaurants, or whatever seems likely to
bring him more money. He does not use any of these properties much. The
same freight train that brings him a package of breakfast food brings
carloads of kitchen stoves and iron bedsteads to those whose watches
have to tick all day to bring in $2. But the point is that while Mr.
Rockefeller uses his properties little and we use them much, he is
continuously charging us toll for their use and investing the toll in
more iron, more steel or more copper. If he charged us no toll, we
should have reason to be thankful to him. If he should invest the toll
in the necessities of life and dole them out to us, we should, if we
were beggars, also have reason to be thankful to him. But he invests his
toll in more iron, more steel or more copper—toll that the men who made
it need to put blood into their bodies and clothing on their families.
That is all that the private ownership of property does for Mr.
Rockefeller more than it does for anybody else. The beefsteak upon his
plate is no more secure from outside attack than is the food upon the
plate of the poorest laborer. But the industrial machinery that Mr.
Rockefeller owns enables him to get, every time his watch ticks, the
equivalent of $2 worth of food, or clothing, or anything else.
We stupid people who permit the private ownership of industrial
machinery should be exceedingly thankful to Mr. Rockefeller and men of
his type. To these gentlemen, are thanks especially due from those
persons who believe that the constitution of the United States
represents the last gasp of wisdom and should not, therefore, in any
circumstances, be changed. Under the constitution and laws of this
country, as they stand to-day, Mr. Rockefeller and his associates could
legally starve us to death, if they were so minded. Each of them could
go abroad, deposit $1,000,000 in the Bank of England, then cable
instructions to close down every industry they own, which would mean
every industry of importance in the country, including the railroads. No
one would have a legal right to trespass upon their premises, and their
hoarded wealth would be sufficient to enable them to live comfortably
abroad to the end of their days, while the people of America were
starving to death.
Of course, the people of America would not starve to death. Law or no
law, the people of America would break into the abandoned properties and
operate them. Without extended delay, they would change the law,
including the federal constitution, to justify their action. But the
theoretical possibility of such abandonment is sufficient to illustrate
the absurdity of our present laws with regard to the ownership of
private property.
When the constitution was adopted, even no such theoretical possibility
existed. It is true that we were then almost exclusively an agricultural
people, and some of the best families had stolen millions of acres of
the most available land. But back of the most available land were untold
millions of acres of other land upon which human life could be
sustained—land that could be had for the taking and clearing. The
factory age had not dawned. Every home was its own factory, in which
cloth was woven and clothing was made. Aside from the stolen land which
was privately owned, almost nothing was privately owned that was not
suitable for private ownership. That was largely due, of course, to the
further fact that there was not, at that time, much wealth in the
country.
But, viewed from any angle, the unrestricted private ownership of
property is a curse to the people and always has been. If it were not a
curse, in the sense that it enables some to rob others, no one who is in
his senses would be in favor of it. The desire to use property is a
legitimate reason for wishing to own it, but the desire to own property
that one does not use can arise from no other motive than a purpose to
use such ownership as a bludgeon with which to rob the users.
Apply this test and it will be found never to fail. The landlord owns
land because he wants to live in idleness from the fruits of those who
till the land. The multimillionaire owners of industrial machinery want
to own the industrial machinery because they want to use such ownership
to appropriate part of what their employees produce. If private
ownership did not give this advantage to the owners, the owners would
not care to own. If it does give this advantage to the owners the
workers have a right to object. Moreover, the workers have a right to
insist that such ownership cease.
It is not enough to reply that a man has a right to own any physical
property that he can buy. Some burglars have enough money to buy dark
lanterns and “jimmies,” paying for the same in perfectly lawful coin of
the United States. But merely because the private ownership of burglars’
tools is not for the good of the people, we have laws forbidding such
ownership, and if the laws be violated, we seize and confiscate the
tools.
Some day, the fact may dawn upon us that, for every dollar taken with
burglars’ tools, a million dollars is taken—quite legally, of course—by
the owners of industrial tools.
It may be a sore blow, of course, to a man who under capitalism, has
never been able to own a coffee grinder, to tell him that, under
Socialism, he would not be permitted to own a steel mill. If so, let the
blow fall at once. He might as well know the worst now, as later. But if
there be those who are interested in owning homes, furniture, clothing,
motorboats, automobiles, and so forth, let them be interested in
Socialism. Socialism, by no means, guarantees that every laborer shall
go to his work in a six-cylinder car, while his wife does the marketing
in a limousine, but it does guarantee that Socialism would not prevent
him from privately owning all such property that he could earn.
We realize, of course, that this is but a small bait to hold out to a
man whom capitalism has given the “right” to own the earth. Among
gentlemen who would like to own the earth, perhaps we shall therefore
make little progress. But among gentlemen who have been promised the
earth and are getting only hell, we may do better. The time may come
when they will tire of piling their bones at the foot of the precipice
of private property. The time may come when they will realize that it
would be no more absurd to have private undershirts owned by the public
than it is to have the public’s industrial machinery owned by private
interests. Then we shall have Socialism.
“And everything will be divided up equally, all around, and in five
years the same persons will be rich who are now rich, and the same
persons who are now poor will be poor again.”
List to the croaking parrot that has just flown into our happy home.
Whenever and wherever there is a discussion about Socialism, that wise
old bird wheels in and declares it is all a wicked scheme to rob the
rich for the benefit of the poor, and that in no event could it long
succeed. Poor old feathered imitation of a human intellect! Brainless,
yet not without a voice, it talks on and on and on. Bereft of its
feathers and its voice, it might take its place upon a hook in the
market place and eventually work its way into some careless shopper’s
basket as a perfectly good partridge, or diminutive duck. Placed upon
the table and served as a delicacy, its worthlessness would soon be
understood. But clad as nature clothed it and harping words that some
one once dropped into its ear, its voice is continuously mistaken for
the voice of wisdom and the progress of the world is commanded to halt.
But the progress of the world does not halt. Those who can think without
inviting excruciating pain; those who can reflect without bringing on a
stroke of apoplexy, are not compelled to think much or to reflect much
to realize that nothing the bird says about “dividing up” is so. Who
divided up the wealth that is represented in the public buildings in
Washington? What part of the White House, pray, do you own? Do you own
the south veranda, or do you own the President’s bed? Maybe it is the
gilded lady upon the dome of the Capitol who calls you “papa” or
“mamma.” If not, the wealth represented in the public buildings in
Washington has not been “divided up,” for you have not been given your
share.
Under Socialism, the wealth of the nation would no more be divided up
than the wealth invested in the American navy is divided up now. The
industrial wealth of the community, owned in common by the members of
the community, would be at the service of the community. It would no
more be at the service of an individual, exclusive of any other or all
other individuals, than the postal department is now at the service of
an individual to the exclusion of any other individual. Nor would any
man or small set of men ever have a greater opportunity to regain
possession of the nation’s industrial wealth than any man or small set
of men now have to acquire private ownership of the Capitol at
Washington. Any man may walk into the Capitol with all the freedom that
he might feel if it were his own. But let any man try to sell off a wing
as a lodging house and the Capitol police would do their duty. Let
Socialists once nationalize the nation’s industries and they will
cheerfully agree to lay their heads on the block if individuals ever
recover possession of them.
Gentlemen who believe otherwise forget that under Socialism there would
no longer be the means by which a few pile up great fortunes at the
expense of the many. The private ownership of property that is
collectively used is the means by which such fortunes are now
accumulated. With the means gone, how could the fortunes reappear?
We Socialists are also often chided for what our opponents are pleased
to call our “gross materialism.” Gentle folk like the Morgans, the
Guggenheims, the Ryans, the Havemeyers and others often grieve because
our vision seems to comprehend nothing but bread and butter, clothing
and furniture, houses and lots and pensions for the aged.
Their grief is perhaps natural. We talk much about those things. We are
frankly committed to the task of removing poverty from the world.
Material things are required to remove poverty. When poverty goes, of
course, a lot will go that is not material. All of the unhappiness that
is caused by poverty and the fear of poverty will go. All of the
ignorance that is caused by poverty will go. All of the crimes that are
caused by ignorance and poverty will go. And much of the vice will go.
Much of the vice? Did you ever consider how much vice would go if
capitalism were to go? Did you ever realize to what extent vice is
fostered by the profit system to which Socialism is opposed? No? Then
read what Wirt W. Hallman, of Chicago, said before the American Society
of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis. Here it is:
“If any city will take the profit out of vice, it will immediately
reduce the volume of vice at least 50 per cent. If, in addition, it
will make vice dangerous to men as well as women, to patrons,
property-owners and business men as well as to dive-keepers and women
street-walkers, it will reduce vice 75 per cent. or more, and will
reduce the wreckage of health and morals in much the same proportion.”
Socialism will not only take the profit out of vice, but it will take it
out of everything. By enfranchising woman and making her economically
independent, no woman would be compelled to sell herself to keep
herself. Socialism, in this and other enumerated respects, is therefore
not particularly materialistic.
But what if it were wholly materialistic? What if its advocates thought
of teaching nothing to the world but the best means of supplying itself
with bread and butter, boots and shoes, caps and clothing, houses and
lots? Do you now require your grocer to teach you ethics? Does your
haberdasher supply you with spiritual food as well as neckties? If your
house were burning, would you refuse the assistance of the fire
department merely because the fire department is exclusively
materialistic?
The charge of “gross materialism” is but more sand thrown in the eyes of
those who could not be so easily robbed if they could see Socialism.
Socialists behold a world that is and always has been poverty-stricken.
They say that for the first time in the history of the world it is now
possible to remove poverty. And those gentlemen who might have to go to
work if poverty were removed rebuke the Socialists because they do not
sing psalms while talking about the bread and butter question.
Assuredly, no flattery is thereby intended, but indeed what flattery
this is. By inference, they tell the world that we are super-men. We
could tell the world all it needs to know if it were not for the
cussedness that causes us to harp on bread and butter.
The real cause of such complaint is, of course, not that we are teaching
the world too little, but too much. We could preach ethics and religion
until the cows came home and not arouse a croaker. We could preach
nothing until the cows dropped dead and still there would be silence.
But when we proclaim the right of the individual, not only to work, but
to possess all he creates, the gentlemen who create nothing and own
everything fire at us every brick within reach.
Mr. John C. Spooner, once a United States Senator from Wisconsin, but,
happily, no longer such, feels particularly aggrieved at the Socialist
proposals commonly known as the initiative, the referendum and the
recall. To engraft these measures upon our federal and state
constitutions would, he says, be an attempt to bring about a “pure
democracy,” meaning thereby a community the members of which directly
governed themselves. A “pure democracy,” according to Mr. Spooner, was
never made to work on a great scale and cannot be made to work to-day.
Mr. Spooner, who, in and out of office, has always served the rich, is
evidently still true to his allegiance. If Mr. Spooner does not know
that no Socialist, nor any other person fit to be out of an idiot
asylum, has ever even suggested that the government of the United States
be converted into a pure democracy, the sum of his knowledge is even
less than the sum of his public services up to date. Socialists, and
those who have followed us in advocating the initiative, the referendum
and the recall merely want to give the people power to do certain things
for themselves, provided their elected representatives refuse to do
them.
We do not propose to do away with representative government. We do not
propose to disband a single legislative body. But we do propose to make
every elected official represent us. We do not care whether he be a
judge, a congressman or a President. He must represent us. But merely
because we are determined these gentlemen shall represent us, other
gentlemen like Mr. Spooner seek to make the people believe we are trying
to go back to the old New England town meeting days and collect
90,000,0000 people on the prairie somewhere every time a law is to be
passed or a fourth-class postmaster appointed. The most charitable
construction that can be placed upon the attitude of Mr. Spooner and men
of his kind is that they are infinitely more foolish than they believe
Socialists to be.
Another point of view is suggested by a Denver gentleman whose letter
follows:
“In one of your articles on Socialism, you tell how Socialists would
govern—changes they would make in the constitution, and so forth. I
should like to ask what you Socialists, or your ancestors had to do
with making our present form of government? In other words, what
percentage of the Socialists have three generations of American-born
ancestors? Socialist leaders, in particular? A very small percentage,
I venture to say. Socialism is a result of immigration. Americans
still have faith in the constitution of the United States.”
When all other attacks fail, the charge is gravely made that “Socialism
is un-American” and, therefore, a “result of immigration.”
Does it never occur to these gentlemen that the United States are also
the “result of immigration”? That the English language, as we speak it
here, is the result of immigration?
Would these gentlemen have us reject everything that comes from Europe?
If so, why do they not reject the Declaration of Independence, which,
though written by Thomas Jefferson, yet breathes the spirit of Rousseau
and Voltaire, at whose feet he was proud to sit? Why do they not reject
the constitution of the United States which is heavily saturated with
the political principles of the English? Why do they not reject the
English common law, which assuredly is not American? Why do they not
reject the multiplication table, the works of Shakespeare and the
wireless telegraph?
Why don’t they? Because they are not fools. They are foolish, let us
hope, only when they are talking about Socialism. On this subject, their
brains curdle. They do not ask whether the principles upon which it is
based are true. Truth is not the test. The test is the place where the
principles were first proclaimed. If it could be proved that they were
first proclaimed at Muncie, Indiana, by a gentleman who was born there
immediately after the landing of Columbus—then we might expect these
patriots to become Socialists even if Socialism had not a leg to stand
upon. But since Europeans chanced to hit upon Socialism before we did,
precisely as they chanced to hit upon many another good thing before we
did, these gentlemen do not want Socialism, even though it be true.
Well, let them reject it. Let them reject the sun, the moon and the
stars, if they want to. None of them was made in America. Let them
reject the Mississippi River because it was discovered by De Soto, a
foreigner. Let them reject the Pacific Ocean because it was discovered
by Balboa, another foreigner. The march of the sun and planets will
probably not be seriously disturbed, even if some gentlemen do reject
them. Possibly the Mississippi River may flow on. Certainly, the
Socialist party in America will not disband. It’s busy.
I cannot tell my correspondent what percentage of Socialists have three
generations of ancestors who were born in America. I do not know. I do
not care. I do not know why he should care. I know some Socialists who
have fifteen generations of ancestors who were born in America. I have
seen some Socialists when they had been in this country only fifteen
minutes. So far as I could discover, they were precisely like the
Socialists who had lived in this country, in person or by proxy, for 300
years. They all believed that poverty was unnecessary and that Socialism
would remove it.
Either that belief is true, or it isn’t. Whence it sprang or by whom it
is expressed makes no difference with its truth or falsity. Yet, men who
think they can think, write or speak as this gentleman has written. They
mean well, of course, but they are suffering from ingrowing Americanism.
They are turning their eyes upon themselves and their backs upon the
world. If America ever reaches the point where it will reject truth,
simply because it comes from abroad, while accepting error for no other
reason than that it is made at home, America will not be worth bothering
about.