REPUDIATION OF MARX BY MODERN SOCIALISTS, CONTINUED.
THEIR RECOGNITION OF CAPITAL AS THE IMPLEMENT OF DIRECTIVE ABILITY.
THEIR NEW POSITION, AND THEIR NEW THEORETICAL DIFFICULTIES
The reader will remember how, having first elucidated the part which
exceptional mental faculties, concentrated on the direction of labour,
and here called ability, play in modern production, I proceeded to
the question of the means by which this direction is accomplished,
and showed that these were supplied by the possession of
wage-capital--capitalism thus representing no mere passive monopoly, but
a system of reins which are attached to innumerable horses, and are
useless except as vehicles of the skill with which the coachmen handle
them. We shall find that by implication, if not always by direct
admission, the intellectual socialists of to-day are in virtual but
unacknowledged agreement with this further portion of the present
argument also.
In order to demonstrate that such is the case, let me briefly call
attention to a point on which we shall have to dwell at much greater
length presently--namely, that these socialists, though they reject the
theory of production on which morally and intellectually the earlier
socialism based itself, persist in making promises to the labourers
precisely of the same kind as those with which the earlier socialism
first whetted their appetites. In especial besides promising them
indefinitely augmented wealth, they continue to promise them also some
sort of _economic emancipation_; and many of these socialists, in
explicit accord with their predecessors, declare that what they mean by
emancipation is the entire abolition of the wage-system.
Prominent among this number are Mr. Sidney Webb and his colleagues, who
are certainly the best educated group of socialistic thinkers in
England. Mr. Webb, in particular, is a man of conspicuous talent, and
few writers can afford a more favourable illustration than he does of
the lines along which the socialistic theory of society is compelled, by
the exigencies of logical thought, to develop itself. Now, in proposing
to abolish the wage-system, Mr. Webb and his fellow-theorists do not do
so without specifying a definite substitute; and when we come to
consider what their substitute is, we shall find that it implies, on
their part, a full recognition of the function which wage-capital, as
the instrument of ability, performs in modern production.
Now, the reader must observe that, in indicating the nature of the
function in question--namely, that of providing a means by which the
process of direction may be accomplished--and in showing how under the
existing system wage-capital is what actually performs it, I never for a
moment implied that wage-capital was the only means by which the same
result might be accomplished. Indeed, if we look back into the past
history of mankind, we shall find that there are two systems other than
that of wages, by which the conformity of labour to the requisite
directions of ability, not only might be, but actually has been secured.
One of these is the corvée system prevalent in the Middle Ages. The
other system is that of slavery. Under the corvée system, peasants were
the proprietors of the plots of ground on which they lived, and were
thus able to maintain themselves by working at their own discretion; but
they were compelled by their tenure to place a certain part of their
time at the disposal of their feudal superior, and to work according to
his orders. If only a number of otherwise independent peasants could be
forced to give enough of their time to the proprietor of a factory
to-day, the entire use of wage-capital would in his case be gone. The
same thing is true of slavery. Like the peasant proprietor, who gives
part of his time to his overlord, the slave is provided with the
necessaries of life independently of his obedience to the detailed
orders of his master. His master feeds him just as he would feed an
animal; the industrial obedience is insured by the subsequent
application of force.
These two coercive systems are the only alternatives to the wage-system
that have ever been found workable in the past history of the world. We
will now consider the system which some of the most thoughtful
socialists of to-day are proposing as a substitute for it in the
hoped-for socialistic future. The school of English socialists, of which
Mr. Webb is the best-known member, have given to the world a volume
called _Fabian Essays_. This volume was republished in America, and to
the American edition a special preface was prefixed with a view to
emphasising the essentials of a socialistic conception of society, and
bringing the details of the socialistic theory up to date. In this
preface it is stated, with regard to the apportionment of material
wealth generally, that "the only truly socialistic scheme" is one which
"will absolutely abolish all economic distinctions, and prevent the
possibility of their ever again arising." And how would it accomplish
this end? "By making," says the writer, "an equal provision for all an
indefeasible condition of citizenship, without any regard whatever to
the relative specific services of the different citizens. The rendering
of such services on the other hand," the writer goes on, "instead of
being left to the option of the citizen, with the alternative of
starvation (as is the case under the wage-system) would be secured
under one uniform law of civic duty, precisely like other forms of
taxation or military service."
Such, then, is the system which is put forward by educated socialists
to-day as the only means of escape from the existing system of wages.
And an escape from the wage-system--and one not theoretically
impracticable--it no doubt is; but an escape into what? It is an escape
into one of those systems which I have just now mentioned. That is to
say, it is an escape into economic slavery. For the very essence of the
position of the slave, as contrasted with the wage-paid labourer, is, so
far as the direction of his industrial actions is concerned, that he has
not to work as he is bidden in order to gain a livelihood, but that, his
livelihood being assured him no matter how he behaves himself, he is
obliged to work as he is bidden in order to avoid the lash, or some
other form of equally effective punishment.[8]
Now, I am not attempting here to find any fault with socialism on the
ground that it would, on the admission of some of its most thoughtful
exponents, be obliged to re-establish slavery as the price of
emancipation from "wagedom." I have commented on this fact solely with
the view to showing that the nature of the alternative to the
wage-system thus proposed indicates a full recognition, on the part of
those proposing it, of the nature and necessity of the functions which
the wage-system performs at present--namely, that of supplying the means
by which the ablest minds in the community secure from the mass of the
citizens the punctual performance of the industrial tasks required of
them. I am not even insisting that such a slave-system as Mr. Webb
contemplates is logically essential to the theory of intellectual
socialism at all. On the contrary, as may be seen from a letter
addressed to myself by a member of a socialistic body at Chicago, many
socialists, as to this matter, are opposed to Mr. Webb altogether.
Socialists, says my correspondent, speaking for himself and his
associates, have no objection whatever to the system of "wagedom" as
such; nor do they wish to see the direction of labour "enforced by the
power of the law." They recognise, he says, quoting my own words, that
production under socialism, just as under the present system, will be
efficient in proportion as labour is directed by the best minds "which
can enhance the productivity of an average pair of hands." They object
to the wage-system only in so far as it is a means by "which the
employing class can make a profit out of the labourers"; and the only
change which in this respect socialists desire to introduce is to
transfer the business of wage-paying from the private capitalist to the
state--the state which will have no "private interests to serve," and
consequently no temptation to appropriate any profits for itself.
Socialists, he continues, subject to this proviso, would leave the
wage-system just as it is now. The state would pay those who worked, and
in accordance with the work they did; but the idle or refractory it
would "leave to starve to death, if they so elected, unless somebody
wished to keep them alive, as happens at the present time."
The difference between socialists with regard to this question, however,
does nothing in itself to discredit the socialistic theory as a whole.
It has merely the effect of providing us with two sets of witnesses
instead of one to the truth of a common principle, which is recognised
by both equally. One set declares that the ability of the most competent
men must direct the labours of the majority by means of an appeal to
their fears; the other declares that the same result must be
accomplished, as it is at the present time, by an appeal to their choice
and prudence. In either case it is admitted that the separate manual
tasks performed by the majority of the citizens must be directed and
co-ordinated by the most competent minds somehow; and that the process
of direction must have some system at the back of it, by means of which
the orders issued to each labourer can be enforced--this system being
either a continuation of that which is in existence now, or another
which would to most people be in many ways more distasteful.
The socialists of to-day, in admitting that such is the case, have at
last placed themselves in a line with the sober realities of life, and
in doing so have assimilated their own analysis of production to the
analysis set forth in the beginning of the present volume.
Apart from the fact that, according to their constructive programme,
private capitalism would be abolished, and the sole capitalist would be
the state, the socialistic system of production, as they have now come
to conceive of it, would, in respect of the vital forces involved, be
merely the existing system continued under another name, with a
directing minority composed of exceptional men on the one hand, and a
majority composed of directed men on the other. But in the minds of many
socialistic thinkers the simplicity of the situation is obscured by the
vagueness of the ideas which they associate with the phrase "the state."
For them these ideas are like a fog, into which private capitalism
disappears, and in which the forces represented by it lose all definite
character. The state, however, is in reality nothing but a collection of
individuals; and if the state, besides being a political body, is to
become the sole industrial capitalist also, state capitalism, just like
private capitalism, will succeed or fail in proportion to the talents of
those to whom capital is intrusted as a means of directing the
labourers.
If, then, in any capitalistic country, such as Great Britain or America,
the business of production could become socialised to-morrow, the best
that could possibly happen would be the transformation of the present
employers into so many state officials, who industrially would be the
state itself. The only difference would be that they would have lost all
personal interest in the pecuniary results of the talents which they
would still be expected to exercise.[9]
Now, if such a transformation of circumstances could be suddenly
effected to-morrow, without any corresponding change in the dispositions
of these men themselves, there is theoretically no reason for supposing
that the process of production might not continue to be as efficient as
it is now, so long as this precise situation lasted. But it could not
last. It would be transitory in its very nature. The present generation
of industrial directors would die, and in order that the efficiency of
the state as the director of labour might be maintained, other men would
have to be discovered who were possessed of equal ability in the first
place, and who in the second could be trusted or compelled to use it
unremittingly to the utmost, in the absence of the main motive which has
actuated such men hitherto.
Apart from the problems involved in these two requirements, neither the
theory of production which is put forward, nor the productive system
which is advocated, by the intellectual socialists of to-day, contains
anything with which theoretically the most uncompromising of their
opponents could quarrel. It is on these two problems that everything
will be found to turn--one being the problem of how, under the
conditions which socialism would introduce, the ablest men could be
discovered, and invested according to their efficiency with the
requisite industrial authority; the other being the problem of how,
under the same conditions, it would be possible to secure from such men
that full exertion of their talents, on which the material prosperity of
the entire community would depend.
For socialists these two problems may be said to be practically new. So
long as socialism based itself on the Marxian theory of production, the
selection, and the subsequent conduct of the men who would compose the
industrial state presented no appreciable difficulties. For the state
would, according to this theory, be in no sense the director of the
labourers; it would merely be their humble servant. It would be like an
old woman who sat all day long in a barn, counting, sorting, and making
up into equal shares the different products brought in to her by her
sons, who worked out of her sight in a dozen different fields; or,
to quote the words of one of my late socialistic correspondents,
the functions of the industrial state would be "simply
industrial-clerical." The industrial state would consist of clerks and
shop-boys, the former of whom added up accounts, while the latter
weighed, sorted, and handed out goods over a counter. If the industrial
state were to be nothing more than this, the selection of an adequate
personnel would doubtless present no difficulties. But as soon as the
socialistic theory recognises that the industrial state, instead of
being the mere receiver and dispenser of products produced by labour,
would represent the intellectual forces by which every process of labour
is directed, the problems of how the individuals who compose the state
are to be chosen, and of how the continuous exertion of their highest
faculties is to be secured, become the fundamental problems which
socialists are called upon to consider.
If we assume that under the régime of socialism a nation could always
secure, as the official directors of its labour, the men whose ability
would enable them to direct it to the best advantage, and could force
these men to exert their exceptional faculties to the utmost, the
exaction of obedience to their orders from the common labouring
citizens, let me say once more, would present no theoretical difficulty.
But the task of securing the requisite ability itself is of a wholly
different kind. Let us consider why.
Any one armed with an adequate implement of authority, whether the
control of the means of subsistence or the power of inflicting
punishment, can secure, within limits, from any ordinary man the
punctual performance of any ordinary manual task, and the performance of
it in a prescribed way; but he is able to do this for the following
reasons only: So far as ordinary labour is concerned, any one man, by
simply observing another, can tell with approximate accuracy what the
other man can do--whether he can trundle a wheel-barrow, hit a nail on
the head, file a casting, or lay brick on brick. Further, the director
of labour knows the precise nature of the result which he requires in
each case that the individual labourer shall accomplish. Hence he can
exact from each labourer conformity to the injunctions laid on him, in
respect both of the general character and the particular application of
his efforts. But in respect of the faculties distinctive of those
exceptional men by whom alone ordinary labour can be directed to the
best advantage, both these conditions are wanting. It is impossible to
tell that any man of ability possesses any exceptional faculties for
directing labour at all, unless he himself chooses to show them; and,
indeed, until circumstances supply him with some motive for showing
them, he may very well not be aware that he possesses such faculties
himself. Moreover, even if he gives the world some reason to suspect
their existence, the world at large will not know what he can do with
them, and will consequently be unable to impose on him any definite
task. A pressgang could have forced Columbus to labour as a common
seaman; but not all the population of Europe could have forced him to
discover a world beyond the Atlantic; for the mass of his
contemporaries, until his enterprise proved successful, obstinately
refused to believe that there was such a world to discover.
The men, therefore, on the exercise of whose directive ability the
productive efficiency of a modern nation depends, would occupy, with
regard to any nation organised on socialistic principles, a position
fundamentally different from that of the ordinary labourer. The exercise
of their distinctive powers, unlike those of the labourer, could never
be secured by coercion; because neither the nation at large, nor any
body of representatives, could possibly know that these powers existed
until the possessors of them chose to reveal the secret. They could not
be made to reveal it. They could only be induced to do so; and they
could only be induced to do so by a society which was so constituted as
to offer for an exceptional performance some exceptional reward, just as
a reward is offered for evidence against an unknown murderer. The reward
at present offered them is the possession of some exceptional share of
the wealth to the production of which their efforts have exceptionally
contributed; and, hence, since it is the object of all socialistic
schemes to render the achievement of such a reward impossible, we shall
find that the ultimate problem for socialists of the modern school is
how to discover another which in practice will be equally efficacious.
But though this is the ultimate problem, it is very far from being the
only one which the theory of socialism in its modern form raises.
Directive ability, which is a compound of many faculties, varies greatly
in degree and kind. Its value, if tested by the results of its actual
application to labour, would in some cases be immense, in other cases
very small, and in others it would be a minus quantity. Thus, even if we
suppose that the exercise of it is so far its own reward that all who
believe themselves to possess it--and these are a very large
number--will, for the mere pleasure of exercising it, be eager to gain
the positions which will make its exercise possible, the problem would
remain of how to discriminate those who would, as industrial directors,
achieve the greatest successes, from those who would bring about nothing
but relative or absolute failure. This problem of how, under a régime of
socialism, ability could be so tested that the practical means of
direction could be granted to or withheld from it, according to its
actual efficiency, is the problem which we will consider first; for
though of secondary importance as compared with the problem of motive,
it is in more immediate connection with the details of daily business.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] The economic condition of the great mass of the population, which
this "up-to-date" socialist contemplates, is precisely analogous to that
of the Helots in Sparta, whose subsistence was secured independently of
their specific services, whilst their services to the directing class
were wrung from them by a system of iron discipline.
[9] While these pages were in the hands of the printers, a work was
published by an American socialist, in which it is asserted that the
socialisation of America would consist at first of this precise
process--namely, the conversion of all the existing active employers and
directors of labour into the salaried servants of some state department.