PERHAPS some of my readers may think that the above title is not a
correct one: it may be said, a new epoch is always dawning, change is
always going on, and it goes on so gradually that we do not know when we
are out of an old epoch and into a new one. There is truth in that, at
least to this extent, that no age can see itself: we must stand some way
off before the confused picture with its rugged surface can resolve
itself into its due order, and seem to be something with a definite
purpose carried through all its details. Nevertheless, when we look back
on history we do distinguish periods in the lapse of time that are not
merely arbitrary ones, we note the early growth of the ideas which are to
form the new order of things, we note their development into the
transitional period, and finally the new epoch is revealed to us bearing
in its full development, unseen as yet, the seeds of the newer order
still which shall transform it in its turn into something else.
Moreover, there are periods in which even those alive in them become more
or less conscious of the change which is always going on; the old ideas
which were once so exciting to men’s imaginations, now cease to move
them, though they may be accepted as dull and necessary platitudes: the
material circumstances of man’s life which were once only struggled with
in detail, and only according to a kind of law made manifest in their
working, are in such times conscious of change, and are only accepted
under protest until some means can be found to alter them. The old and
dying order, once silent and all-powerful, tries to express itself
violently, and becomes at once noisy and weak. The nascent order once
too weak to be conscious of need of expression, or capable of it if it
were, becomes conscious now and finds a voice. The silent sap of the
years is being laid aside for open assault; the men are gathering under
arms in the trenches, and the forlorn hope is ready, no longer trifling
with little solacements of the time of weary waiting, but looking forward
to mere death or the joy of victory.
Now I think, and some who read this will agree with me, that we are now
living in one of these times of conscious change; we not only are, but we
also feel ourselves to be living between the old and the new; we are
expecting something to happen, as the phrase goes: at such times it
behoves us to understand what is the old which is dying, what is the new
which is coming into existence? That is a question practically important
to us all, since these periods of conscious change are also, in one way
or other, times of serious combat, and each of us, if he does not look to
it and learn to understand what is going on, may find himself fighting on
the wrong side, the side with which he really does not sympathize.
What is the combat we are now entering upon—who is it to be fought
between? Absolutism and Democracy, perhaps some will answer. Not quite,
I think; that contest was practically settled by the great French
Revolution; it is only its embers which are burning now: or at least that
is so in the countries which are not belated like Russia, for instance.
Democracy, or at least what used to be considered Democracy, is now
triumphant; and though it is true that there are countries where freedom
of speech is repressed besides Russia, as _e.g._, Germany and Ireland,
{176} that only happens when the rulers of the triumphant Democracy are
beginning to be afraid of the new order of things, now becoming conscious
of itself, and are being driven into reaction in consequence. No, it is
not Absolutism and Democracy as the French Revolution understood those
two words that are the enemies now: the issue is deeper than it was; the
two foes are now Mastership and Fellowship. This is a far more serious
quarrel than the old one, and involves a much completer revolution. The
grounds of conflict are really quite different. Democracy said and says,
men shall not be the masters of others, because hereditary privilege has
made a race or a family so, and they happen to belong to such race; they
shall individually grow into being the masters of others by the
development of certain qualities under a system of authority which
_artificially_ protects the wealth of every man, if he has acquired it in
accordance with this artificial system, from the interference of every
other, or from all others combined.
The new order of things says, on the contrary, why have masters at all?
let us be _fellows_ working in the harmony of association for the common
good, that is, for the greatest happiness and completest development of
every human being in the community.
This ideal and hope of a new society founded on industrial peace and
forethought, bearing with it its own ethics, aiming at a new and higher
life for all men, has received the general name of Socialism, and it is
my firm belief that it is destined to supersede the old order of things
founded on industrial war, and to be the next step in the progress of
humanity.
Now, since I must explain further what are the aims of Socialism, the
ideal of the new epoch, I find that I must begin by explaining to you
what is the constitution of the old order which it is destined to
supplant. If I can make that clear to you, I shall have also made clear
to you the first aim of Socialism: for I have said that the present and
decaying order of things, like those which have gone before it, has to be
propped up by a system of artificial authority; when that artificial
authority has been swept away, harmonious association will be felt by all
men to be a necessity of their happy and undegraded existence on the
earth, and Socialism will become the condition under which we shall all
live, and it will develop naturally, and probably with no violent
conflict, whatever detailed system may be necessary: I say the struggle
will not be over these details, which will surely vary according to the
difference of unchangeable natural surroundings, but over the question,
shall it be mastership or fellowship?
Let us see then what is the condition of society under the last
development of mastership, the commercial system, which has taken the
place of the Feudal system.
Like all other systems of society, it is founded on the necessity of man
conquering his subsistence from Nature by labour, and also, like most
other systems that we know of, it presupposes the unequal distribution of
labour among different classes of society, and the unequal distribution
of the results of that labour: it does not differ in that respect from
the system which it supplanted; it has only altered the method whereby
that unequal distribution should be arranged. There are still rich
people and poor people amongst us, as there were in the Middle Ages; nay,
there is no doubt that, relatively at least to the sum of wealth
existing, the rich are richer and the poor are poorer now than they were
then. However that may be, in any case now as then there are people who
have much work and little wealth living beside other people who have much
wealth and little work. The richest are still the idlest, and those who
work hardest and perform the most painful tasks are the worst rewarded
for their labour.
To me, and I should hope to my readers, this seems grossly unfair; and I
may remind you here that the world has always had a sense of its
injustice. For century after century, while society has strenuously
bolstered up this injustice forcibly and artificially, it has professed
belief in philosophies, codes of ethics, and religions which have
inculcated justice and fair dealing between men: nay, some of them have
gone so far as to bid us bear one another’s burdens, and have put before
men the duty, and in the long run the pleasure, of the strong working for
the weak, the wise for the foolish, the helpful for the helpless; and yet
these precepts of morality have been set aside in practice as
persistently as they have been preached in theory; and naturally so,
since they attack the very basis of class society. I as a Socialist am
bound to preach them to you once more, assuring you that they are no mere
foolish dreams bidding us to do what we now must acknowledge to be
impossible, but reasonable rules of action, good for our defence against
the tyranny of Nature. Anyhow, honest men have the choice before them of
either putting these theories in practice or rejecting them altogether.
If they will but face that dilemma, I think we shall soon have a new
world of it; yet I fear they will find it hard to do so: the theory is
old, and we have got used to it and its form of words: the practice is
new, and would involve responsibilities we have not yet thought much of.
Now the great difference between our present system and that of the
feudal period is that, as far as the conditions of life are concerned,
all distinction of classes is abolished except that between rich and
poor: society is thus simplified; the arbitrary distinction is gone, the
real one remains and is far more stringent than the arbitrary one was.
Once all society was rude, there was little real difference between the
gentleman and the non-gentleman, and you had to dress them differently
from one another in order to distinguish them. But now a well-to-do man
is a refined and cultivated being, enjoying to the full his share of the
conquest over Nature which the modern world has achieved, while the poor
man is rude and degraded, and has no share in the wealth conquered by
modern science from Nature: he is certainly no better as to material
condition than the serf of the Middle Ages, perhaps he is worse: to my
mind he is at least worse than the savage living in a good climate.
I do not think that any thoughtful man seriously denies this: let us try
to see what brings it about; let us see it as clearly as we all see that
the hereditary privilege of the noble caste, and the consequent serf
slavery of the workers of the Middle Ages, brought about the peculiar
conditions of that period.
Society is now divided between two classes, those who monopolize all the
means of the production of wealth save one; and those who possess nothing
except that one, the Power of Labour. That power of labour is useless to
its possessors, and cannot be exercised without the help of the other
means of production; but those who have nothing but labour-power—i.e.,
who have no means of making others work for them, must work for
themselves in order to live; and they must therefore apply to the owners
of the means of fructifying labour—i.e., the land, machinery, &c., for
leave to work that they may live. The possessing class (as for short we
will call them) are quite prepared to grant this leave, and indeed they
must grant it if they are to use the labour-power of the non-possessing
class for their own advantage, which is their special privilege. But
that privilege enables them to _compel_ the non-possessing class to sell
them their labour-power on terms which ensure the continuance of their
monopoly. These terms are at the outset very simple. The possessing
class, or masters, allow the men just so much of the wealth produced by
their labour as will give them such a livelihood as is considered
necessary at the time, and will permit them to breed and rear children to
a working age: that is the simple condition of the “bargain” which
obtains when the labour-power required is low in quality, what is called
unskilled labour, and when the workers are too weak or ignorant to
combine so as to threaten the masters with some form of rebellion. When
skilled labour is wanted, and the labourer has consequently cost more to
produce, and is rarer to be found, the price of the article is higher: as
also when the commodity labour takes to thinking and remembers that after
all it is also men, and as aforesaid holds out threats to the masters; in
that case they for their part generally think it prudent to give way,
when the competition of the market allows them to do so, and so the
standard of livelihood for the workers rises.
But to speak plainly, the greater part of the workers, in spite of
strikes and Trades’ Unions, do get little more than a bare subsistence
wage, and when they grow sick or old they would die outright if it were
not for the refuge afforded them by the workhouse, which is purposely
made as prison-like and wretched as possible, in order to prevent the
lower-paid workers from taking refuge in it before the time of their
_industrial_ death.
Now comes the question as to how the masters are able to force the men to
sell their commodity labour-power so dirt-cheap without treating them as
the ancients treated their slaves—i.e., with the whip. Well, of course
you understand that the master having paid his workmen what they can live
upon, and having paid for the wear and tear of machinery and other
expenses of that kind, has for his share whatever remains over and above,
_the whole of which he gets from the exercise of the labour-power
possessed by the worker_: he is anxious therefore to make the most of
this privilege, and competes with his fellow-manufacturers to the utmost
in the market: so that the distribution of wares is organized on a
gambling basis, and as a consequence many more hands are needed when
trade is brisk than when it is slack, or even in an ordinary condition:
under the stimulus also of the lust for acquiring this surplus value of
labour, the great machines of our epoch were invented and are yearly
improved, and they act on labour in a threefold way: first they get rid
of many hands; next they lower the quality of the labour required, so
that skilled work is wanted less and less; thirdly, the improvement in
them forces the workers to work harder while they are at work, as notably
in the cotton-spinning industry. Also in most trades women and children
are employed, to whom it is not even pretended that a subsistence wage is
given. Owing to all these causes, the reserve army of labour necessary
to our present system of manufactures for the gambling market, the
introduction of labour-saving machines (labour saved for the master, mind
you, not the man), and the intensifying of the labour while it lasts, the
employment of the auxiliary labour of women and children: owing to all
this there are in ordinary years even, not merely in specially bad years
like the current one, {184} more workers than there is work for them to
do. The workers therefore undersell one another in disposing of their
one commodity, labour-power, and are forced to do so, or they would not
be allowed to work, and therefore would have to starve or go to the
prison called the workhouse. This is why the masters at the present day
are able to dispense with the exercise of obvious violence which in
bygone times they used towards their slaves.
This then is the first distinction between the two great classes of
modern Society: the upper class possesses wealth, the lower lacks wealth;
but there is another distinction to which I will now draw your attention:
the class which lacks wealth is the class that produces it, the class
that possesses it does not produce it, it consumes it only. If by any
chance the so-called lower class were to perish or leave the community,
production of wealth would come to a standstill, until the wealth-owners
had learned how to produce, until they had descended from their position,
and had taken the place of their former slaves. If on the contrary, the
wealth-owners were to disappear, production of wealth would at the worst
be only hindered for awhile, and probably would go on pretty much as it
does now.
But you may say, though it is certain that some of the wealth-owners, as
landlords, holders of funds, and the like do nothing, yet there are many
of them who work hard. Well, that is true, and perhaps nothing so
clearly shows the extreme folly of the present system than this fact that
there are so many able and industrious men employed by it, in working
hard at—nothing: nothing or worse. They work, but they do not produce.
It is true that some useful occupations are in the hands of the
privileged classes, physic, education, and the fine arts, _e.g._ The men
who work at these occupations are certainly working usefully; and all
that we can say against them is that they are sometimes paid too high in
proportion to the pay of other useful persons, which high pay is given
them in recognition of their being the parasites of the possessing
classes. But even as to numbers these are not a very large part of the
possessors of wealth, and, as to the wealth they hold, it is quite
insignificant compared with that held by those who do nothing useful.
Of these last, some, as we all agree, do not pretend to do anything
except amuse themselves, and probably these are the least harmful of the
useless classes. Then there are others who follow occupations which
would have no place in a reasonable condition of society, as, e.g.,
lawyers, judges, jailers, and soldiers of the higher grades, and most
Government officials. Finally comes the much greater group of those who
are engaged in gambling or fighting for their individual shares of the
tribute which their class compels the working-class to yield to it: these
are the group that one calls broadly business men, the conductors of our
commerce, if you please to call them so.
To extract a good proportion of this tribute, and to keep as much as
possible of it when extracted for oneself, is the main business of life
for these men, that is, for most well-to-do and rich people; it is
called, quite inaccurately, “money-making;” and those who are most
successful in this occupation are, in spite of all hypocritical pretences
to the contrary, the persons most respected by the public.
A word or two as to the tribute extracted from the workers as aforesaid.
It is no trifle, but amounts to at least two-thirds of all that the
worker produces; but you must understand that it is not all taken
directly from the workman by his immediate employer, but by the employing
class. Besides the tribute or profit of the direct employer, which is in
all cases as much as he can get amidst his competition or war with other
employers, the worker has also to pay taxes in various forms, and the
greater part of the wealth so extorted is at the best merely wasted: and
remember, whoever _seems_ to pay the taxes, labour in the long run is the
only real taxpayer. Then he has to pay house-rent, and very much heavier
rent in proportion to his earnings than well-to-do people have. He has
also to pay the commission of the middle-men who distribute the goods
which he has made, in a way so wasteful that now all thinking people cry
out against it, though they are quite helpless against it in our present
society. Finally, he has often to pay an extra tax in the shape of a
contribution to a benefit society or trades’ union, which is really a tax
on the precariousness of his employment caused by the gambling of his
masters in the market. In short, besides the profit or the result of
unpaid labour which he yields to his immediate master he has to give back
a large part of his wages to the class of which his master is a part.
The privilege of the possessing class therefore consists in their living
on this tribute, they themselves either not working or working
unproductively—i.e., living on the labour of others; no otherwise than as
the master of ancient days lived on the labour of his slave, or as the
baron lived on the labour of his serf. If the capital of the rich man
consists of land, he is able to force a tenant to improve his land for
him and pay him tribute in the form of rack-rent; and at the end of the
transaction has his land again, generally improved, so that he can begin
again and go on for ever, he and his heirs, doing nothing, a mere burden
on the community for ever, while others are working for him. If he has
houses on his land he has rent for them also, often receiving the value
of the building many times over, and in the end house and land once more.
Not seldom a piece of barren ground or swamp, worth nothing in itself,
becomes a source of huge fortune to him from the development of a town or
a district, and he pockets the results of the labour of thousands upon
thousands of men, and calls it his property: or the earth beneath the
surface is found to be rich in coal or minerals, and again he must be
paid vast sums for allowing others to labour them into marketable wares,
to which labour he contributes nothing.
Or again, if his capital consists of cash, he goes into the labour market
and buys the labour-power of men, women and children, and uses it for the
production of wares which shall bring him in a profit, buying it of
course at the lowest price that he can, availing himself of their
necessities to keep their livelihood down to the lowest point which they
will bear: which indeed he _must_ do, or he himself will be overcome in
the war with his fellow-capitalists. Neither in this case does he do any
useful work, and he need not do any semblance of it, since he may buy the
brain-power of managers at a somewhat higher rate than he buys the
hand-power of the ordinary workman. But even when he does seem to be
doing something, and receives the pompous title of “organizer of labour,”
he is not really organizing _labour_, but the battle with his immediate
enemies, the other capitalists, who are in the same line of business with
himself.
Furthermore, though it is true, as I have said, that the working-class
are the only producers, yet only a part of them are allowed to produce
usefully; for the men of the non-producing classes having often much more
wealth than they can _use_ are forced to _waste_ it in mere luxuries and
follies, that on the one hand harm themselves, and on the other withdraw
a very large part of the workers from useful work, thereby compelling
those who do produce usefully to work the harder and more grievously: in
short, the essential accompaniment of the system is waste.
How could it be otherwise, since it is a system of war? I have mentioned
incidentally that all the employers of labour are at war with each other,
and you will probably see that, according to my account of the relations
between the two great classes, they also are at war. Each can only gain
at the others’ loss: the employing class is forced to make the most of
its privilege, the possession of the means for the exercise of labour,
and whatever it gets to itself can only be got at the expense of the
working-class; and that class in its turn can only raise its standard of
livelihood at the expense of the possessing class; it is _forced_ to
yield as little tribute to it as it can help; there is therefore constant
war always going on between these two classes, whether they are conscious
of it or not.
To recapitulate: In our modern society there are two classes, a useful
and a useless class; the useless class is called the upper, the useful
the lower class. The useless or upper class, having the monopoly of all
the means of the production of wealth save the power of labour, can and
does compel the useful or lower class to work for its own disadvantage,
and for the advantage of the upper class; nor will the latter allow the
useful class to work on any other terms. This arrangement necessarily
means an increasing contest, first of the classes one against the other,
and next of the individuals of each class among themselves.
Most thinking people admit the truth of what I have just stated, but many
of them believe that the system, though obviously unjust and wasteful, is
necessary (though perhaps they cannot give their reasons for their
belief), and so they can see nothing for it but palliating the worst
evils of the system: but, since the various palliatives in fashion at one
time or another have failed each in its turn, I call upon them, firstly,
to consider whether the system itself might not be changed, and secondly,
to look round and note the signs of approaching change.
Let us remember first that even savages live, though they have poor
tools, no machinery, and no co-operation, in their work: but as soon as a
man begins to use good tools and work with some kind of co-operation he
becomes able to produce more than enough for his own bare necessaries,
All industrial society is founded on that fact, even from the time when
workmen were mere chattel slaves. What a strange society then is this of
ours, wherein while one set of people cannot use their wealth, they have
so much, but are obliged to waste it, another set are scarcely if at all
better than those hapless savages who have neither tools nor
co-operation! Surely if this cannot be set right, civilized mankind must
write itself down a civilized fool.
Here is the workman now, thoroughly organized for production, working for
production with complete co-operation, and through marvellous machines;
surely if a slave in Aristotle’s time could do more than keep himself
alive, the present workman can do much more—as we all very well know that
he can. Why therefore should he be otherwise than in a comfortable
condition? Simply because of the class system, which with one hand
plunders, and with the other wastes the wealth won by the workman’s
labour. If the workman had the full results of his labour he would in
all cases be comfortably off, if he were working in an unwasteful way.
But in order to work unwastefully he must work for his own livelihood,
and not to enable another man to live without producing: if he has to
sustain another man in idleness who is capable of working for himself, he
is treated unfairly; and, believe me, he will only do so as long he is
compelled to submit by ignorance and brute force. Well, then, he has a
right to claim the wealth produced by his labour, and in consequence to
insist that all shall produce who are able to do so; but also undoubtedly
his labour must be organized, or he will soon find himself relapsing into
the condition of the savage. But in order that his labour may be
organized properly he must have only one enemy to contend with—Nature to
wit, who as it were eggs him on to the conflict against herself, and is
grateful to him for overcoming her; a friend in the guise of an enemy.
There must be no contention of man with man, but _association_ instead;
so only can labour be really organized, harmoniously organized. But
harmony cannot co-exist with contention for individual gain: men must
work for the common gain if the world is to be raised out of its present
misery; therefore that claim of the workman (that is of every able man)
must be subject to the fact that he is but a part of a harmonious whole:
he is worthless without the co-operation of his fellows, who help him
according to their capacities: he ought to feel, and will feel when he
has his right senses, that he is working for his own interest when he is
working for that of the community.
So working, his work must always be profitable, therefore no obstacle
must be thrown in the way of his work: the means whereby his labour-power
can be exercised must be free to him. The privilege of the proprietary
class must come to an end. Remember that at present the custom is that a
person so privileged is in the position of a man (with a policeman or so
to help) guarding the gate of a field which will supply livelihood to
whomsoever can work in it: crowds of people who don’t want to die come to
that gate; but there stands law and order, and says “pay me five
shillings before you go in;” and he or she that hasn’t the five shillings
has to stay outside, and die—or live in the workhouse. Well, that must
be done away with; the field must be free to everybody that can use it.
To throw aside even this transparent metaphor, those means of the
fructification of labour, the land, machinery, capital, means of transit,
&c., which are now monopolized by those who cannot use them, but who
abuse them to force unpaid labour out of others, must be free to those
who can use them; that is to say, the workers properly organized for
production; but you must remember that this will wrong no man, because as
all will do some service to the community—i.e., as there will be no
non-producing class, the organized workers will be the whole community,
there will be no one left out.
Society will thus be recast, and labour will be free from all compulsion
except the compulsion of Nature, which gives us nothing for nothing. It
would be futile to attempt to give you details of the way in which this
would be carried out; since the very essence of it is freedom and the
abolition of all arbitrary or artificial authority; but I will ask you to
understand one thing: you will no doubt want to know what is to become of
private property under such a system, which at first sight would not seem
to forbid the accumulation of wealth, and along with that accumulation
the formation of new classes of rich and poor.
Now private property as at present understood implies the holding of
wealth by an individual as against all others, whether the holder can use
it or not: he may, and not seldom he does, accumulate capital, or the
stored-up labour of past generations, and neither use it himself nor
allow others to use it: he may, and often he does, engross the first
necessity of labour, land, and neither use it himself or allow any one
else to use it; and though it is clear that in each case he is injuring
the community, the law is sternly on his side. In any case a rich man
accumulates property, not for his own use, but in order that he may evade
with impunity the law of Nature which bids man labour for his livelihood,
and also that he may enable his children to do the same, that he and they
may belong to the upper or useless class: it is not wealth that he
accumulates, well-being, well-doing, bodily and mental; he soon comes to
the end of his real needs in that respect, even when they are most
exacting: it is power over others, what our forefathers called _riches_,
that he collects; power (as we have seen) to force other people to live
for his advantage poorer lives than they should live. Understand that
that _must_ be the result of the possession of _riches_.
Now this power to compel others to live poorly Socialism would abolish
entirely, and in that sense would make an end of private property: nor
would it need to make laws to prevent accumulation artificially when once
people had found out that they could employ themselves, and that thereby
every man could enjoy the results of his own labour: for Socialism bases
the rights of the individual to possess wealth on his being able to use
that wealth for his own personal needs, and, labour being properly
organized, every person, male or female, not in nonage or otherwise
incapacitated from working, would have full opportunity to produce wealth
and thereby to satisfy his own personal needs; if those needs went in any
direction beyond those of an average man, he would have to make personal
sacrifices in order to satisfy them; he would have, for instance, to work
longer hours, or to forego some luxury that he did not care for in order
to obtain something which he very much desired: so doing he would at the
worst injure no one: and you will clearly see that there is no other
choice for him between so doing and his forcing some one else to forego
_his_ special desires; and this latter proceeding by the way, when it is
done without the sanction of the most powerful part of society, is called
_theft_; though on the big scale and duly sanctioned by artificial laws,
it is, as we have seen, the groundwork of our present system. Once more,
that system refuses permission to people to produce unless under
artificial restrictions; under Socialism, every one who could produce
would be free to produce, so that the price of an article would be just
the cost of its production, and what we now call profit would no longer
exist: thus, for instance, if a person wanted chairs, he would accumulate
them till he had as many as he could use, and then he would stop, since
he would not have been able to buy them for less than their cost of
production and could not sell them for more: in other words, they would
be nothing else than chairs; under the present system they may be means
of compulsion and destruction as formidable as loaded rifles.
No one therefore would dispute with a man the possession of what he had
acquired without injury to others, and what he could use without injuring
them, and it would so remove temptations toward the abuse of possession,
that probably no laws would be necessary to prevent it.
A few words now as to the differentiation of reward of labour, as I know
my readers are sure to want an exposition of the Socialist views here as
to those who direct labour or who have specially excellent faculties
towards production. And, first, I will look on the super-excellent
workman as an article presumably needed by the community; and then say
that, as with other articles so with this, the community must pay the
cost of his production: for instance, it will have to seek him out, to
develop his special capacities, and satisfy any needs he may have (if
any) beyond those of an average man, so long as the satisfaction of those
needs is not hurtful to the community.
Furthermore, you cannot give him more than he can use so he will not ask
for more, and will not take it: it is true that his work may be more
special than another’s, but it is not more necessary if you have
organized labour properly; the ploughman and the fisherman are as
necessary to society as the scientist or the artist, I will not say more
necessary: neither is the difficulty of producing the more special and
excellent work at all proportionate to its speciality or excellence: the
higher workman produces his work as easily perhaps as the lower does his
work; if he does not do so, you must give him extra leisure, extra means
for supplying the waste of power in him, but you can give him nothing
more. The only reward that you _can_ give the excellent workman is
opportunity for developing and exercising his excellent capacity. I
repeat, you _can_ give him nothing more worth his having: all other
rewards are either illusory or harmful. I must say in passing, that our
present system of dealing with what is called a man of genius is utterly
absurd: we cruelly starve him and repress his capacity when he is young;
we foolishly pamper and flatter him and again repress his capacity when
he is middle-aged or old: we get the least out of him, not the most.
These last words concern mere rarities in the way of workmen; but in this
respect it is only a matter of degree; the point of the whole thing is
this, that the director of labour is in his place because he is fit for
it, not by a mere accident; being fit for it, he does it easier than he
would do other work, and needs no more compensation for the wear and tear
of life than another man does, and not needing it will not claim it,
since it would be no use to him; his special reward for his special
labour is, I repeat, that he can do it easily, and so does not feel it a
burden; nay, since he can do it _well_ he likes doing it, since indeed
the main pleasure of life is the exercise of energy in the development of
our special capacities. Again, as regards the workmen who are under his
direction, he needs no special dignity or authority; they know well
enough that so long as he fulfils his function and really does direct
them, if they do not heed him it will be at the cost of their labour
being more irksome and harder. All this, in short, is what is meant by
the organization of labour, which is, in other words, finding out what
work such and such people are fittest for and leaving them free to do
that: we won’t take the trouble to do that now, with the result that
people’s best faculties are wasted, and that work is a heavy burden to
them, which they naturally shirk as much as they can; it should be rather
a pleasure to them: and I say straight out that, unless we find some
means to make all work more or less pleasurable, we shall never escape
from the great tyranny of the modern world.
Having mentioned the difference between the competitive and commercial
ideas on the subject of the individual holding of wealth and the relative
position of different groups of workmen, I will very briefly say
something on what for want of a better word I must call the political
position which we take up, or at least what we look forward to in the
long run. The substitution of association for competition is the
foundation of Socialism, and will run through all acts done under it, and
this must act as between nations as well as between individuals: when
profits can no more be made, there will be no necessity for holding
together masses of men to draw together the greatest proportion of profit
to their locality, or to the real or imaginary union of persons and
corporations which is now called a nation. What we now call a nation is
a body whose function it is to assert the special welfare of its
incorporated members at the expense of all other similar bodies: the
death of competition will deprive it of this function; since there will
be no attack there need be no defence, and it seems to me that this
function being taken away from the nation it can have no other, and
therefore must cease to exist as a political entity. On this side of the
movement opinion is growing steadily. It is clear that, quite apart from
Socialism, the idea of local administration is pushing out that of
centralized government: to take a remarkable case: in the French
Revolution of 1793, the most advanced party was centralizing: in the
latest French revolution, that of the Commune of 1871, it was federalist.
Or take Ireland, the success which is to-day attending the struggles of
Ireland for independence is, I am quite sure, owing to the spread of this
idea: it no longer seems a monstrous proposition to liberal-minded
Englishmen that a country should administer its own affairs: the feeling
that it is not only just, but also very convenient to all parties for it
to do so, is extinguishing the prejudices fostered by centuries of
oppressive and wasteful mastership. And I believe that Ireland will show
that her claim for self-government is not made on behalf of national
rivalry, but rather on behalf of genuine independence; the consideration,
on the one hand, of the needs of her own population, and, on the other,
goodwill towards that of other localities. Well, the spread of this idea
will make our political work as Socialists the easier; men will at last
come to see that the only way to avoid the tyranny and waste of
bureaucracy is by the Federation of Independent Communities: their
federation being for definite purposes: for furthering the organization
of labour, by ascertaining the real demand for commodities, and so
avoiding waste: for organizing the distribution of goods, the migration
of persons—in short, the friendly intercommunication of people whose
interests are common, although the circumstances of their natural
surroundings made necessary differences of life and manners between them.
I have thus sketched something of the outline of Socialism, by showing
that its aim is first to get rid of the monopoly of the means of
fructifying labour, so that labour may be free to all, and its resulting
wealth may not be engrossed by a few, and so cause the misery and
degradation of the many: and, secondly, that it aims at organizing labour
so that none of it may be wasted, using as a means thereto the free
development of each man’s capacity; and, thirdly, that it aims at getting
rid of national rivalry, which in point of fact means a condition of
perpetual war, sometimes of the money-bag, sometimes of the bullet, and
substituting for this worn-out superstition a system of free communities
living in harmonious federation with each other, managing their own
affairs by the free consent of their members; yet acknowledging some kind
of centre whose function it would be to protect the principle whose
practice the communities should carry out; till at last those principles
would be recognized by every one always and intuitively, when the last
vestiges of centralization would die out.
I am well aware that this complete Socialism, which is sometimes called
Communism, cannot be realized all at once; society will be changed from
its basis when we make the form of robbery called profit impossible by
giving labour full and free access to the means of its
fructification—i.e., to raw material. The demand for this emancipation
of labour is the basis on which all Socialists may unite. On more
indefinite grounds they cannot meet other groups of politicians; they can
only rejoice at seeing the ground cleared of controversies which are
really dead, in order that the last controversy may be settled that we
can at present foresee, and the question solved as to whether or no it is
necessary, as some people think it is, that society should be composed of
two groups of dishonest persons, slaves submitting to be slaves, yet for
ever trying to cheat their masters, and masters conscious of their having
no support for their dishonesty of eating the common stock without adding
to it save the mere organization of brute force, which they have to
assert for ever in all details of life against the natural desire of man
to be free.
It may be hoped that we of this generation may be able to prove that it
is unnecessary; but it will, doubt it not, take many generations yet to
prove that it is necessary for such degradation to last as long as
humanity does; and when that is finally proved we shall at least have one
hope left—that humanity will not last long.