THE SOCIAL POLICY OF THE FUTURE
I was constantly asked by socialists in America whether I really
believed that society, as it is, is perfect, and that there are no evils
and defects in it which are crying aloud for remedy. Unless I believed
this--and that I could do so was hardly credible--I ought, they said, if
I endeavoured to discredit the remedy proposed by themselves, to suggest
another, which would be better and equally general, of my own.
Now, such an objection, as it stands, I might dismiss by curtly
observing that I did not, and could not, suggest any remedy other than
socialism, partly because the purport of my entire argument was that
socialism, if realised, would not be a remedy at all; and partly
because, for the evils that afflict society, no general remedy of any
kind is possible. The diseases of society are various, and of various
origin, and there is no one drug in the pharmacopoeia of social reform
which will cure or even touch them all, just as there is no one drug in
the pharmacopoeia of doctors which will cure appendicitis, mumps,
sea-sickness, and pneumonia indifferently--which will stop a hollow
tooth and allay the pains of childbirth.
But though such an answer would be at once fair and sufficient, if we
take the objection in the spirit in which my critics urged it, the
objection has more significance than they themselves suspected, and it
requires to be answered in a very different way. Socialism may be
worthless as a scheme, but it is not meaningless as a symptom.
Rousseau's theory of the origin of society, of the social contract, and
of a cure for all social evils by a return to a state of nature, had, as
we all know now, no more relation to fact than the dreams of an
illiterate drunkard; but they were not without value as a vague and
symbolical expression of certain evils from which the France of his day
was suffering. As a child, I was told a story of an old woman in
Devonshire who, describing what was apparently some form of dyspepsia,
said that "her inside had been coming up for a fortnight," and still
continued to do so, although during the last few days "she had swallowed
a pint of shot in order to keep her liver down." The old woman's
diagnosis of her own case was ridiculous; her treatment of it, if
continued, would have killed her; but both were suggestive, as
indications that something was really amiss. The reasoning of Rousseau,
who contended that the evils of the modern world were due to a departure
from primeval conditions which were perfect, and that a cure for them
must be sought in a return to the manner of life which prevailed among
the contemporaries of the mammoth, and the immediate descendants of the
pithekanthropos, was identical in kind with the reasoning of the old
woman. The reasoning of the socialists is identical in kind with both.
It consists of a poisonous prescription founded on a false diagnosis.
But just as the diagnosis, no matter how grotesque, which a patient
makes of his or of her own sufferings, and even the remedies which his
or her fancy suggests, often assist doctors to discover what the ailment
really is, so does socialism, alike in its diagnosis and its proposed
cure, call attention to the existence of ailments in the body politic,
and may even afford some clue to the treatment which the case requires,
though this will be widely different from what the sufferer fancies.
Such being the case, then, in order that a true treatment may be
adopted, the first thing to be done is to show the corporate patient
precisely how and why the socialistic diagnosis is erroneous, and the
proposed socialistic remedies incomparably worse than the disease. To
this preparatory work the present volume has been devoted. Let us
reconsider the outline of its general argument. As thoughtful socialists
to-day are themselves coming to admit, the augmented wealth distinctive
of the modern world is produced and sustained by the ability of the few,
not by the labour of the many. The ability of the few is thus productive
in the modern world in a manner in which it never was productive in any
previous period, because, whereas in earlier ages the strongest wills
and the keenest practical intellects were devoted to military conquest
and the necessities of military defence, they have, in the modern world,
to a constantly increasing degree, been deflected from the pursuits of
war and concentrated on those of industry. But the old principle remains
in operation still, of which military leadership was only one special
exemplification. Nations now grow rich through industry as they once
grew rich through conquest, because new commanders, with a precision
unknown on battle-fields, direct the minutest operations of armies of a
new kind; and the only terms on which any modern nation can maintain its
present productivity, or hope to increase it in the future, consist in
the technical submission of the majority of men to the guidance of an
exceptional minority. As for the majority--the mass of average
workers--they produce to-day just as much as, and no more than, they
would produce if the angel of some industrial Passover were henceforward
to kill, each year on a particular day, every human being who had risen
above the level of his fellows, and, in virtue of his knowledge,
ingenuity, genius, energy, and initiative, was capable of directing his
fellows better than they could direct themselves. If such an annual
decimation were inaugurated to-morrow in civilised countries such as
Great Britain and America, the mass of the population would soon sink
into a poverty deeper and more helpless than that which was their lot
before the ability of the few, operating through modern capital, began
to lend to the many an efficiency not their own. In other words, the
entire "surplus values"--to adopt the phrase of Marx--which have been
produced during the last hundred and fifty years, have been produced by
the ability of the few, and the ability of the few only;[31] and every
advance in wages, and every addition to the general conveniences of
life, which the labourers now enjoy, is a something over and above what
they produce by their own exertions. It is a gift to the many from the
few, or, at all events, it has its origin in the sustentation and the
multiplication of their efforts, and would shrink in proportion as these
efforts were impeded. If, then, the claims which socialists put forward
on behalf of labour are really to be based, as the earlier socialists
based them, on the ground that production alone gives a valid right to
possession, labour to-day, instead of getting less than its due, is, if
we take it in the aggregate, getting incomparably more, and justice in
that case would require that the vast majority of mankind should have
its standards of living not raised but lowered.
Is it, then, the reader will here ask, the object of the present volume
to suggest that the true course of social reform in the future would be
gradually to take away from the majority some portion of what they at
present possess, and bind them down, in accordance with the teaching of
socialists in the past, to the little maximum which they could produce
by their own unaided efforts? The moral of the present volume is the
precise reverse of this. Its object is not to suggest that they should
possess no more than they produce. It is to place their claim to a
certain surplus not produced by themselves on a true instead of a
fantastic basis.
Socialists seek to base the claim in question, alternately and sometimes
simultaneously, on two grounds--one moral, the other practical--which
are alike futile and fallacious, and are also incompatible with each
other. The former consists of the _a priori_ moral doctrine that every
one has a right to what he produces, and consequently to no more. The
latter consists of an assumption that those who produce most will, in
deference to a standard of right of a wholly different kind, surrender
their own products to those who produce least. The practical assumption
is childish; and the abstract moral doctrine can only lead to a
conclusion the opposite of that which those who appeal to it desire. But
the claim in question may, when reduced to reasonable proportions, be
defended on grounds both moral and practical, nevertheless, and the
present volume aims at rendering these intelligible. Let us return for a
moment to Rousseau and his theory of the social contract. We know to-day
that never in the entire history of mankind did any such conscious
contract as Rousseau imagined take place; but it is nevertheless true
that virtually, and by ultimate implication, something like a contract
or bargain underlies the relation between classes in all states of
society.
When one man contracts to sell a horse for a certain price, and another
man to pay that price for it, the price in question is agreed to because
the buyer says to himself on the one hand, "If I do not consent to pay
so much, I shall lose the horse, which is to me worth more than the
money"; and the seller says to himself on the other hand, "If I do not
consent to accept so little, I shall lose the money, which is to me
worth more than the horse." Each bases his argument on a conscious or
subconscious reference to the situation which will arise if the bargain
is not concluded. Similarly, when any nation submits to a foreign rule,
and forbears to revolt though it feels that rule distasteful, it
forbears because, either consciously or subconsciously, it feels that
the existing situation, whatever its drawbacks, is preferable to that
which would arise from any violent attempt to change it. The same thing
holds good of the labouring classes as a whole, as related to those
classes who, in the modern world, direct them. By implication, if not
consciously, they are partners to a certain bargain. They are not
partners to a bargain because they consent to labour, for there is no
bargaining with necessity; and they would have to labour in any case, if
they wished to remain alive. They are partners to a bargain because they
consent to labour under the direction of other people. It is true that,
as regards the present and the near future, they are confronted by
necessity even here. This is obviously true of countries such as Great
Britain, in which, if the labour of the many were not elaborately
organised by the few, three-fourths of the present population would be
unable to obtain bread. Nevertheless, if we take a wider view of
affairs, and consider what, without violating possibility, might
conceivably take place in the course of a few disastrous centuries, the
mass of modern labourers might gradually secede from the position which
they at present occupy, and, spreading themselves in families or small
industrial groups over the vast agricultural areas which still remain
unoccupied, might keep themselves alive by labouring under their own
direction, as men have done in earlier ages, and as savages do still.
They would have, on the whole, to labour far harder than they do now,
and to labour for a reward which, on the whole, would be incomparably
less than that which is attainable to-day by all labour except the
lowest. Moreover, their condition would have all the "instability"
which, as Spencer rightly says, is inseparable from "the homogeneous."
It could not last. Still, while it lasted, they could live; and, in
theory, at all events, the mass of the human race must be recognised as
capable of keeping themselves alive by the labour of pairs of hands
which, in each case, are undirected by any intelligence superior to, or
other than, the labourer's own. In theory, at all events, therefore,
this self-supporting multitude would be capable of choosing whether they
would continue in this condition of industrial autonomy, with all its
hardships, its scant results, and its unceasing toil, or would submit
their labour to the guidance of a minority more capable than themselves.
Such being the case, then, if by submitting themselves to the guidance
of others they were to get nothing more than they could produce when
left to their own devices, they would, in surrendering their autonomy,
be giving something for nothing--a transaction which could not be
voluntary, and would be not the less unjust because, as all history
shows us, they would be ultimately unable to resist it. Justice demands
that a surrender of one kind, made by one party, should be paid for by a
corresponding surrender of another kind, made by the other party; which
last can only take the form of a concession to labour, as a right, of
some portion of a product which labour does not produce. Labour can, on
grounds of general moral justice, claim this as compensation for
acquiescence, even though the acquiescence may, as a matter of fact, be
involuntary.
Human nature, however, being what it is, these purely moral
considerations would probably have little significance if they were not
reinforced by others of a more immediately practical kind. Let us now
turn to these. The motive which prompts labour to demand more than it
produces is itself primarily not moral, but practical, and is so obvious
as to need no comment. What concerns us here is the practical, as
distinct from any moral, motive, which must, when the situation is
understood, make ability anxious to concede it. For argument's sake we
must assume that the great producers of wealth are men who have no other
motive ultimately than ambition for themselves and their families, and
would allow nothing of what they produce to be taken from them by any
other human being except under the pressure of some incidental
necessity. There is one broad feature, however, which even men such as
these understand--the fact, namely, that for successful wealth
production one of the most essential conditions is a condition of social
stability, or a general acquiescence, at all events, in the broad
features of the industrial system, by means of which the production in
question takes place. But if the labourers have no stake in the surplus
for the production of which such a system is requisite, it may be
perfectly true that by escaping from it they would on the whole be no
better off than they are, yet there is no reason which can be brought
home to their own minds why they should not seek to disturb it as often
and as recklessly as they can. There is, at best, no structural
connection, but only a fractional one, between their own welfare and the
welfare of those who direct them; and a structural connection between
the two--a dovetailing of the one into the other--is what ability, no
matter how selfish, is in its own interests concerned before all things
to secure. In other words, it is concerned in its own interests so to
arrange matters that the share of its own products which is made over to
the labourers shall be large enough, and obvious enough, and
sufficiently free from accessory disadvantages, to be appreciated by the
labourers themselves; and the ideal state of social equilibrium would be
reached when this share was such that any further augmentation of it
would enfeeble the action of ability by depriving it of its necessary
stimulus, and, by thus diminishing the amount of the total product,
would make the share of the labourers less than it was before.
Though an ideal equilibrium of this kind may be never attainable
absolutely, it is a condition to which practical wisdom may be always
making approximations; but in order that it may be an equilibrium in
fact as well as in theory, one thing further is necessary--namely, that
both parties should understand clearly the fundamental character of the
situation. And here labour has more to learn than ability; or perhaps
it may be truer to say that socialism has given it more to unlearn. If
any exchange takes place between two people, which by anybody who knew
all the circumstances would be recognised as entirely just, but is not
felt to be just by one of the contracting parties, he, though he may
assent to the terms because he can get none better, will be as much
dissatisfied as he would have been had he been actually overreached by
the other. If, for example, he believed himself to be entitled to an
estate of which the other was in reality not only the _de facto_, but
also the true legal possessor, and if the other, out of kindness (let us
say) towards a distant kinsman, agreed to pay him a pension, he would
doubtless accept the pension as a something that was better than
nothing; but he would not be satisfied with a part when he conceived
himself to be entitled to the whole, and as soon as occasion offered
would go to law to obtain it. In other words, if two persons are to make
a bargain or contract which can possibly satisfy both, each must start
with recognising that the other has some valid right, and what the
nature of this right is, to the property or position which is held by
him and which is the subject of the projected exchange. Unless this be
the case, any exchange that may be effected will, for one of the parties
at least, not be a true bargain or contract, but an enforced and
temporary compromise. There will be no finality in it, and it will
produce no content.
Now, in the case of the bargain or contract between labour and ability,
this last situation is precisely that which the teachings of socialism
are at present tending to generalise. They are encouraging the
representatives of labour to regard the representatives of ability as a
class which possesses much, but has no valid right to anything, and with
whom in consequence no true bargain is possible; since, whatever this
class concedes short of its whole possessions will merely be accepted by
labour as a surrender of stolen goods, which merits resentment rather
than thanks, because it is only partial.
The intellectual socialists of to-day, and many of their less educated
followers, will strenuously deny this. They will declare that they,
unlike their predecessors, recognise that directive ability is a true
productive agent no less than ordinary labour is; and that able men, no
less than the labourers, have rights which they may, if they choose,
enforce with equal justice. And if we confine our attention to certain
of their theoretical admissions, we need not go further than the pages
of the present volume to remind ourselves that for this assertion there
are ample, if disjointed, foundations. But the doctrine of modern
socialism must be judged, not only by its separate parts, but also by
the emphasis with which they are respectively enunciated, and by the
mood of mind which, on the whole, it engenders among the majority of
those who are affected by it; and, whatever its leading exponents may,
on occasion, protest to the contrary, the main practical result which
it has thus far produced among the masses has been to foment the
impression, which is not the less efficacious because it is not
explicitly formulated, that when labour and ability are disputing over
their respective rights, ability comes into court with no genuine rights
at all; and that, instead of representing (as it does) the knowledge,
intellect, and energy to which the whole surplus values of the modern
world are due, it represents merely a system of decently legalised theft
from an output of wealth which would lose nothing of its amplitude, but
would on the contrary still continue to increase were all exceptional
energy, knowledge, and intellect deprived of all authority and starved
out of existence to-morrow.
So long as such an impression prevails, and indeed until it is
definitely superseded by one more in consonance with facts, no
satisfactory social policy is practicable. Labour, as opposed to
ability, may be compared to a man who believes that his tailor has
overcharged him for a coat, and who disputes the account in a law court
with a view to its reasonable reduction. In such a case it will be
possible for him to obtain justice. The tailor's claim for £12 may be
reduced to a claim for £10, or £8 5_s._, or £6 15_s._ 6_d._ But if the
customer's contention is that he ought to get the coat for nothing, and
that he does not in justice owe the tailor anything at all, he is making
a demand that no law court could satisfy, and by a gratuitous
misconception of his rights is doing all he can to preclude himself from
any chance of obtaining them. The mood which socialism foments among the
labouring classes is precisely analogous to the mood of such a man as
this, and its results are analogous likewise. Its origin, however, being
artificial and also obvious in its minutest particulars, the remedy for
it, however difficult to apply, is not obscure in its nature. The mood
in question results from a definite, a systematic, and an artificially
produced misconception of the structure and the main phenomena, good and
evil, of society as it exists to-day, and the different parts played by
the different classes composing it. It has been the object of the
present volume to expose, one after another, the individual fallacies of
which this general misconception is the result, not with a view to
suggesting that in society as it exists to-day there are no grave evils
which a true social policy may alleviate, but with a view to promoting
between classes, who are at present in needless antagonism, that sane
and sober understanding with regard to their respective positions which
alone can form the basis of any sound social policy in the future.
Of the individual demands or proposals now put forward by socialists,
many point to objects which are individually desirable and are within
limits practicable; but what hinders, more than anything else, any
successful attempt to realise them is the fact that they are at present
placed in a false setting. They resemble a demand for candles on the
part of visitors at an hotel, who would have, if they did not get them,
to go to bed in the dark--a demand which would be contested by nobody if
it were not that those who made it demanded the candles only as a means
of setting fire to the bed-curtains. The demands for old-age pensions,
and for government action on behalf of the unemployed, for example, as
now put forward in Great Britain, by labour Members who identify the
interests of labour with socialism, are demands of this precise kind.
The care of the aged, the care of the unwillingly and the discipline of
the willingly idle, are among the most important objects to which social
statesmanship can address itself; but the doctrines of socialism hinder
instead of facilitate the accomplishment of them, because they identify
the cure of certain diseased parts of the social organism with a
treatment that would be ruinous to the health and ultimately to the life
of the whole.
We may, however, look forward to a time, and may do our best to hasten
it, when, the fallacies of socialism being discredited and the mischief
which they produce having exhausted itself, we may be able to recognise
that they have done permanent good as well as temporary evil--partly
because their very perverseness and their varying and accumulating
absurdities will have compelled men to recognise, and accept as
self-evident, the countervailing truths which to many of the sanest
thinkers have hitherto remained obscure; and partly because socialism,
no matter how false as a theory of society, and no matter how
impracticable as a social programme, will have called attention to evils
which might otherwise have escaped attention, or been relegated to the
class of evils for which no alleviation is possible.
Even to suggest the manner in which these evils would be treated by a
sound and scientific statesmanship would be wholly beyond the scope of a
volume such as the present, for this reason, if for no other, that, as
has been said already, the evils in question are not one but many, each
demanding special and separate treatment, just as ophthalmia demands a
treatment other than that demanded by whooping-cough. But one general
observation may be fitly made, in conclusion, which will apply to all of
them. These remedies cannot be included under the heading of any mere
general augmentation of the pecuniary reward of labour taken in the
aggregate. The portion of the national dividend which goes to labour
now, in progressive countries such as Great Britain, Germany, and
America, is immensely greater than it was a hundred years ago, and
unless industrial progress is arrested its tendency is to rise still
further. The main evils to which a scientific statesmanship should
address itself arise from the incidental conditions under which this
dividend is spent--conditions, largely improvable, which at present
deprive it of its full purchasing power. Of this I will give one
example--the present structure of great industrial towns. It cannot be
doubted that, if the sums now spent on the construction and maintenance
of insanitary slums and alleys were employed in a scientific manner, a
rent which has now to be paid for accommodation of the most degrading
kind would suffice to command, on the strictest business principles,
homes superior to those which, if its amount were doubled, would hardly
be forthcoming for the labourer in most of our existing streets; while
the purchasing power of the existing income of labour would be increased
concurrently, and perhaps to a yet greater extent if much of the
education, which now has no other effect than of generating
impracticable ideas as to the abstract rights of man, were devoted to
developing in men and women alike a greater mastery of the mere arts of
household management.
But in merely mentioning these subjects I am transgressing my proper
limits. I mention them only with a view to reminding the reader once
more that the object of this volume is not to suggest, or supply
arguments for maintaining that existing conditions are perfect, or that
socialists are visionaries in declaring that they are capable of
improvement. Its object has been to expose that radical misconception of
facts which renders demands visionary that would not be visionary
otherwise, and to stimulate all sane and statesmanlike reformers by
helping them to see, and also to explain to others, that the improved
conditions which socialism blindly clamours for are practicable only in
proportion as they are dissociated from the theories of socialism.
FOOTNOTES:
[31] Like all generalisation dealing with complex matters, this must be
qualified by individual exceptions. For example, men who have made
fortunes for themselves, and have added to the world's stock, by work in
the gold-fields, have been in many cases _labourers_, directing their
own efforts by their own intelligence. But some men have been
exceptional in one or other of two ways--either in propinquity to the
scene of action, or (and this is the more common case) in handihood,
determination, and courage. It is not every one who has it in him to go
in search of gold to Alaska.
INDEX
Ability, and labour defined, 19;
labour as opposed to, 29;
capital as the implement of, 32;
a name for the directive faculties, 33;
value of directive, 68;
monopoly of business, 89, 93;
and individual motive, 110;
modern socialists' recognition of products due to, 191;
rent of business, 191, 194
Abstract justice, interest and, 204, 206, 208, 210, 212, 214, 216, 218,
220, 222, 224, 226
Activity, two kinds represented by two groups of, 28;
military distinct from industrial, 121
Agriculture, Mill on nature in, 181;
and rent, 192
Allen, Grant, _The Woman Who Did_, 147
Arkwright, the inventor of the spinning-frame, 83, 197
Artist, the case of an, 115
Bastiat, his plane, 213, 214
Bellamy, _Looking Backward_, 92;
his description of a socialistic Utopia, 92;
his argument, 105
Bessemer, 197, 220
Boy messengers, 80
Bradlaugh, Charles, 85
Brazil, Rossi fails to found a socialistic colony in, 141
Brigand chief, his justification, 206
Capital, is labour in an externalised and permanent form, 14;
is past labour crystallised, 14, 20;
as the implement of ability, 32;
fixed and circulating, 35;
the primary function of, 40;
its interest described by George as the gift of nature, 212
Capitalism (a comparatively modern phenomenon), causes of its
accelerated development, 2;
as a working system, 3;
essence of modern, 14;
and wages, 16;
state and private, 62, 71;
economics of: the "economic man" and economic science, 123, 124
Cause and effect, 185
Cellini, Benvenuto, 24
Christian socialism as a substitute for secular democracy,
_see_ Democracy; the message of, 153;
its view of the steel-kings and the oil-kings, 153, 158, 160;
its preaching a species of ecclesiastical electioneering, 156;
and the faculty of invention, 159;
abolishes competition, 160;
on the moral conversion of able men, 160
_Christian Socialist, The,_ 150
Christian socialists, are simply secular socialists of the more modern
and educated type, 163;
their temperamental deficiency finds its fullest expression in
socialism, 172
Coleridge, Lord, 135
Colossal fortunes, growth of, 130, 131
Competition, 160
Corvée system, and slavery, 57, 58
Crozier, Dr. Beattie, _Wheel of Wealth_, 217, 218, 236
Darby of Coalbrookdale, 83
Demand and supply, 143
Democracy, 130, 132, 134, 136, 138, 140, 142, 144, 146, 148;
Christian socialism as a substitute for secular, 150, 152, 154, 156,
158, 160, 162, 164, 166, 168, 170, 172, 174
Direction, wage-capital an implement of, 70
Directive ability, 191;
its value, 68;
and socialism, 87;
and labour, 182, 187, 189-93
---- faculties, 31;
function of the, as applied to the operations of modern labour, 29;
their function, illustrated by the case of a printed book, 29;
name for the, 33
Dudley, 82
Eclecticism, 186
Economic distinction, abolished by the truly socialistic scheme, 58
Economic emancipation, is entire abolition of the wage-system, 56
---- man, the, 111, 123
---- motive, personal gain the primary, 127
---- opportunity, 254
---- science, capitalism and, 124;
its reasonings, 177
---- values, 166
Economics of capitalism, 123
Eddy, Mrs., her Christian science, 150
Edison, 47, 150, 197, 220
Education, its ideal object as a means of happiness, 273
Electric lighting of London, 84
Equality of opportunity, 253, 254, 256, 258, 260, 262, 264, 266, 268,
270, 272, 274, 276
Equilibrium an ideal, 288
Evolution, organic, 85
Evolutionary socialists, 102
---- sociology, 94
_Fabian Essays_, 58
Family life, 135, 140, 141
Fighting instinct, the, 121
France, state monopolies in, 80
Frederick the Great, 99
French revolution, 206
George, Henry, 210, 211
"Gospel for To-day, The," 151, 153, 157, 159
_Great Eastern, The,_ 264
Greed, 125
Gronlünd, a disciple of Marx, 18
Happiness, an equation between desire and attainment, 273
Harrison, Frederic, the English prophet of Positivism, 118;
on the soldier's willing service, 120
Helots in Sparta, 59
Heroism, socialists' view of, 118, 122
Hillquit, Mr., the American socialist, 42, 43, 50;
and "common manual labour," 48, 50;
his irrelevancies, 50;
his argument, 51, 53;
verbal jugglery of, 53
Ideal equilibrium, an, 288
Income, of labour, 197;
earned and unearned, 226
Individual motive and democracy, 130, 132, 134, 136, 138, 140, 142, 144,
146, 148
Industrial effort, its progress depends on thought and the advance of
knowledge, 32;
productivity of, 157
---- productivity, 195
---- towns, present structure of great, 294
Industry, state-directed, 81;
the iron, 82
Intellect, inequalities of the human, 102, 107
Interest, and abstract justice, 204, 206, 208, 210, 212, 214, 216, 218,
220, 222, 224, 226;
socialistic attack on, 227, 228, 230, 232, 234, 236, 238, 240, 242,
244, 246, 248, 250, 252
Invention, Christian socialists on the faculty of, 159
Inventors, 160-62
Iron industry, the, 82
Jesuit Fathers in Uruguay, 193
Just reward of labour, 176, 178, 180, 182, 184, 186, 188, 190, 192, 194,
196, 198, 200, 202
Justice, interest and abstract, 204, 206, 208, 210, 212, 214, 216, 218,
220, 222, 224, 226
Kidd, on rival and independent claims, 93;
his argument, 103, 106
Labour, as a wealth-producer, 11, 21, 42;
definition of ability and, 19;
two distinguishable kinds of, 23;
a productive agent, 25, 199;
directive, 31, 71, 75, 77, 78;
emancipation of, 47;
the Marxian doctrine of the all-productivity of, 47;
by itself, impotent to produce the wealth of modern nations, 54;
and the socialistic promise, 127;
as estimated by its actual products--the just reward of, 176, 178,
180, 182, 184, 186, 188, 190, 192, 194, 196, 198, 200, 202;
income of, 197, 295;
as opposed to ability, 291
Labour-certificates, 12
Labourer, the ordinary manual, 66, 67, 174
Laplace, 91
Legislation, 134, 135;
and the Government's will, 136
Lombe, the great silk-factory erected at Derby by, 197
L.C.C. steamboats, 73
Macaulay, _Essay on Dryden_, 92;
on the absurdity of confounding speculative sociology with practical,
101
Machine-capital, 219
Machinery, a development of capitalism, 2;
Marx on, 27;
embodies labour directed in a new way, 38;
the question of, 88
Majority, will of the, 129, 139, 140;
powers of the "sovereign," 137
Marx, Karl, his formula, 7;
his treatise on capital, 8;
his theory summarised, 9, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20;
his doctrine of scientific socialism, 11, 18;
his falsified prophecies, 17;
errors of, 19, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30, 32, 34, 36, 38, 40;
on machinery, 27;
repudiated by modern socialists, 41, 42, 44, 46, 48, 50, 52, 54, 56,
58, 60, 62, 64, 66, 68
Melba, 116, 144
Military, distinct from industrial, activity, 121
Mill, J.S., 2, 32; _Political Economy_, 20, 21, 179;
on nature in agriculture, 180, 181
Modern socialists, their repudiation of Marx, _q.v._;
and the question of motive, 90, 111, 113;
their assertion, 115
Monastic orders, 117
Monopolists, 93
Monopoly, modern capital is, 38;
of business-ability, 89, 93
Motive, ability, and individual, 110
---- individual, 130, 132, 134, 136, 138, 140, 142, 144, 146, 148
---- practical as distinct from moral, 287
---- socialists and, 90, 111, 113
Motives, discussion of various, 113-5
Multi-millionaires, 131-3;
a suggested limit, 138
Napoleon III., 99
_North American Review,_ 130
Opportunity, equality of, 253, 254, 256, 258, 260, 262, 264, 266, 268,
270, 272, 274, 276
Orders, monastic, 117
Organic evolution, 185
---- nature, products of, 210
Owen, Robert, 170;
his views on socialism, 7
Peasant proprietors, 20, 57
Penny post, 79
Plane, Bastiat's, 213, 214
Positivism, Frederic Harrison, the English prophet of, 118-20
Post Office, British, 79
Postal employé, the, 260, 261
Press, a state, 85
Problems of practical life, 95
Product, correspondence between productive effort and, 207
Production, unequal powers of, 142, 254;
labour, capital, and law the only factors in, 191
Productive agent, labour as a, 25, 199
---- effort, the astounding advances of the efficiency of, 26
Productivity, industrial, 195
Rent, of business-ability, the, 191, 194;
and agriculture, 192
Reward of labour, as estimated by its actual products, just, 176, 178,
180, 182, 184, 186, 188, 190, 192, 194, 196, 198, 200, 202
Ricardo, 2, 12, 32, 92
Roosevelt, President, 169
Rossi, Govanni, the Italian socialist, his failure to found a
socialistic colony in Brazil, 141
Rousseau, his theory of the social contract, 283, 284
Ruskin, John, 23;
his scheme of political economy, 118
Sentimental thinkers, 123
Shakespeare, 92, 96
Shaw, Bernard, 43, 208, 209;
_Man and Superman_, 215, 216, 222
Slave, contrasted with wage-paid labourer, 59
Slavery, 57
Smith, Adam, _Wealth of Nations_, 25, 26, 36
Social Democratic Federation, its campaign and its catechism, 45
Social policy of the future, 278, 280, 282, 284, 286, 288, 290, 292, 294
Socialism, Christian. _See_ Christian socialism
---- historical beginning of, 1, _et seq._;
two ideas of, 1;
and capitalism, 3;
a theory, 5;
regarded as a practical force, 8;
basic doctrine of so-called scientific, 18;
a fallacy, 49, 167;
proximate difficulties of, 69, 70, 72, 74, 76, 78, 80, 82, 84, 86, 88;
its ultimate difficulty, 89, 90, 92, 94, 96, 98, 100, 102, 104, 106,
108, 110, 112, 114, 116, 118, 120, 122, 124, 126, 128;
"the Great Man theory," 91
Socialistic attack on interest, and the nature of its error, 227, 228,
230, 232, 234, 236, 238, 240, 242, 244, 246, 248, 250, 252
Socialistic temperament, debilitates the faculties, 169
---- theory of society, a, 56, 58
Socialists, on heroism, 118, 122;
their two main doctrines, moral and economic, 165;
their false and true theories of production, 166;
their fallacy, 167
---- evolutionary, 102
Society, two contrasted groups of, 15
Sociology, scientific, 111
---- speculative, 109
Spencer, Herbert, 106;
causal importance of the great man, 89-101;
on modern production, 97, 98;
_Study of Sociology_, 99;
on the invention of the _Times_ printing-press, 100;
_Social Statics_, _ibid._;
criticised by Author's _Aristocracy and Evolution_, 101
State officials, 69
Steel and oil, 153, 158, 159, 160, 162
Supply and demand, 143
Utopia, Bellamy's description of a socialistic, 92
Value, surplus, 13
Wage-capital, 36, 37, 39, 41, 57, 58, 264;
an implement of direction, 70;
its waste brings about its own remedy, 71
Wagedom, socialists and, 59, 60
Wage-fund, division of total, 201
Wage-system, alternatives to, 57, 60;
an escape from, 59
Watt, 221
Wealth, socialists' conception of, 145;
a form of power, 146;
superfluous, 155;
produced by two functionally different classes, 176
---- of modern nations, "common manual labour" impotent to produce the,
48, 50, 54
Wealth-producer, the greed of the, 125
Wealth-producing power, labour's, 11, 21, 42
Webb, Sidney, 43, 58-60, 89, 90, 119, 191, 194, 197;
his argument, 107, 108
Wilshire, Gayford, his leaflet, 47, 143, 257
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