THE STATE AND SOCIETY.
During the last few decades and in all countries of civilization, the
economic life of society has assumed an uncommonly rapid pace of
development, a development that every progress on any field of human
activity adds swing to. Our social relations have thereby been thrown
into a state of unrest, fermentation and dissolution never known before.
The ruling classes no longer feel the ground safe under them, nor do
existing institutions any longer possess the firmness requisite to
breast the storm, that is approaching from all sides. A feeling of
uneasiness, of insecurity and of dissatisfaction has seized upon all
circles, high and low. The paroxysmal efforts put forth by the ruling
classes to end this unbearable state of things by means of tinkering at
the body social prove themselves vain and inadequate. The general sense
of increasing insecurity, that comes from these failures, increases
their uneasiness and discomfort. Hardly have they inserted a beam in the
shape of some law into the rickety structure, than they discover ten
other places where shoring is still more urgent. All along they are at
perpetual strife among themselves and deeply rent by differences of
opinion. What one set deems necessary, in order somewhat to calm and
reconcile the increasingly discontented masses, the other considers as
going too far, and unpardonable weakness and pliancy, only calculated to
prick the longing after greater concessions. Striking evidences thereof
are the debates in the 1894-5 sessions of the Reichstag, both on the
floor of the house and in committee, on the so-called "revolutionary
bill," as well as numerous other discussions in all parliaments. Within
the ruling classes themselves there exist unbridgeable contrasts, and
they sharpen the social conflicts.
Governments--and not in Germany alone--are shaking like reeds in the
wind. They must lean on something: without support they cannot exist:
they now lean on this side, then on that. In no progressive country of
Europe is there a Government with a lasting parliamentary majority, on
which it can count with safety. Majorities are breaking up and
dissolving; and the ever changing course, in Germany, especially,
undermines the last vestige of confidence that the ruling class had in
themselves. To-day one set is anvil, the other the hammer; to-morrow it
is the other way. The one tears down what the other painfully builds up.
The confusion is ever greater; the discontent ever more lasting; the
causes of friction multiply and consume in a few months more energies
than years did formerly. Along with all that, material sacrifices,
called for by manifold taxes, swell beyond all measure.
In the midst of all this, our sapient statesmen are lulling themselves
in wondrous illusions. With an eye to sparing property and the rich,
forms of taxation are selected that smite the needy classes heaviest,
and they are decreed with the belief that, seeing a large portion of the
masses have not yet discovered their real nature, neither will they be
felt. This is an error. The masses to-day understand fully the nature of
indirect imports and taxes upon the necessaries of life. Their growing
political education and perspicuity disclose to them the gross injustice
of the same; and they are all the more sensitive to these burdens by
reason of the wretchedness of their economic conditions, especially
where families are large. The rise of prices in the necessaries of
life--due to indirect imposts, or to causes that bring on similar
results, such as the premiums on brandy and sugar that, to the amount of
dozens of millions, a part of the ruling class pockets yearly at the
expense of the poor of the kingdom, and that it seeks to raise still
higher--are realized to be a gross injustice, a heavy burden, measures
that stand in odd contradiction with the nature of the so-called
Christian State, the State of Social Reform. These measures extinguish
the last spark of faith in the sense of justice of the ruling classes,
to a degree that is serious to these. It changes nothing in the final
effect of these measures that the draining is done in pennies. The
increase in the expenditure is there, and is finally sensible to the
feeling and the sight of all. Hundreds upon hundreds of millions cannot
be squeezed out of practically empty pockets, without the owners of the
pockets becoming aware of the lifting. The strong pressure of direct
taxation, directs the dissatisfaction among the poor against the State;
the still stronger indirect taxation, _directs the discontent against
society also, the evil being felt to be of a social as well as political
character_. In that there is progress. Him whom the gods would destroy,
they first make blind.
In the endeavor to do justice to the most opposed interests, laws are
heaped upon laws; but no old one is thoroughly repealed, nor new one
thoroughly enforced. Everything is done by halves, giving satisfaction
in no direction. The requirements of civilization that spring from the
life of the people, demand some attention, unless everything is to be
risked; even the fractional way they are attended to, demands
considerable sacrifice, all the more seeing that our public institutions
are overrun by parasites. At the same time, not only are all the
unproductive institutions, wholly at variance with the trend of
civilization, continued in force, but, due to the existing conflicts of
interests, they are rather enlarged, and thus they become all the more
burdensome and oppressive in the measure that increasing popular
intelligence ever more loudly pronounces them superfluous. Police,
armies, courts of law, prisons, the whole administrative apparatus--all
are enlarged ever more, and become ever more expensive. And yet neither
external nor internal security is obtained. The reverse follows.
A wholly unnatural state of things has gradually arisen in the
international relations of the several nations. The relations between
nation and nation multiply in the measure that the production of goods
increases; that, thanks to improved transportation, the exchange of this
mass of merchandise is facilitated; and that the economic and scientific
achievements of each become the public possession of all. Treaties of
commerce are concluded; expensive routes of traffic--Suez Canals, St.
Gotthard Tunnels--are opened with international funds. Individual
countries support with heavy subsidies steamship lines that help to
promote intercourse between several nations. The Postal Union--a step of
first rank in civilization--is established; international conventions
are convoked for all imaginable practical and scientific purposes; the
literary products of genius of any nation are spread abroad by
translations into the leading languages. Thus the tendency is ever more
strongly marked toward the internationalizing, the fraternizing of all
peoples. Nevertheless, the political, the military state of the nations
of Europe stands in strange contrast to this general development. The
hatred of nation against nation, Chauvinism, is artificially nourished
by all. The ruling classes seek everywhere to keep green the belief that
it is the peoples who are hostilely inclined toward one another, and
only wait for the moment when one of them may fall upon another and
destroy it. The competitive struggle between the capitalists of several
countries, together with their jealousy of one another, assume upon the
international field the character of a struggle between the capitalists
of one country against those of another, and, backed by the political
blindness of the large masses, it conjures into existence a contest of
military armaments such as the world has never seen before. This contest
has brought forth armies of magnitudes that never were known; it
produced implements of murder and destruction for land and naval warfare
of such perfection as is possible only in an age of such advanced
technique as ours. The contest drives these antagonisms to a head, it
incites a development of means of destruction that finally destroy
themselves. The support of the armies and navies demand sacrifices that
yearly become larger, and that finally ruin the richest nation. Germany,
for instance, had, according to the imperial budget of 1894-95, a
regular army and navy outlay of nearly 700 million marks--inclusive of
pensions and of interest on the national debt, which amounts in round
figures to two milliards, incurred mainly for purposes of war. Under
these war expenses, the appropriations for educational and other
purposes of culture suffer severely; the most pressing needs in this
direction are neglected; and that side of the State, devoted to
so-called external defence, acquires a preponderance that undermines the
original purpose of the State itself. The increasing armies absorb the
healthiest and most vigorous portion of the nation; for their
improvement all mental and physical forces are enlisted in a way as if
education in mass-murder were the highest mission of our times.
Furthermore, implements of war as of murder are continuously improved:
they have attained--in point of swiftness, range and power--a perfection
that renders them fearful to friend and foe. If some day this tremendous
apparatus is set in operation--when the hostile forces of Europe will
take the field with twelve or fourteen million men--the fact will appear
that it has become uncontrollable. There is no general who could command
such masses; there is no field vast enough to collect and set them up;
no administrative apparatus that could nourish them for any length of
time. If battles are delivered, hospitals would be lacking to shelter
the wounded: the interment of the numerous dead would be an
impossibility.
When to all this is added the frightful disturbances and devastations,
produced to-day by a European _war on the economic-field_, there is no
exaggeration in the saying: "_the next war is the last war_." The number
of bankruptcies will be unparalleled; export stops--and thereby
thousands of factories are condemned to idleness; the supply of food
ceases--and thereby the prices of the means of life rise enormously. The
number of families whose breadwinner is in the field runs up into the
millions, and most of them must be supported. Whence shall the means
come for all that?
The political and military state of Europe has taken a development that
cannot choose but end in a catastrophe, which will drag capitalist
society down to its ruin. Having reached the height of its development,
it produces conditions that end with rendering its own existence
impossible; it digs its own grave; it slays itself with the identical
means that itself, as the most revolutionary of all previous social
systems, has called into life.
Gradually a large portion of our municipalities are arriving at a
desperate pass: they hardly know how to meet the increasing demands upon
themselves. It is more particularly upon our rapidly growing large
cities, and upon the localities situated in industrial districts, that
the quickened increase of population makes a mass of demands, which the
generally poor communities can come up to only by raising taxes and
incurring debts. The budgets leap upward from year to year for school
buildings, and street paving, for lighting, draining and water works;
for sanitary, public and educational purposes; for the police and the
administration. At the same time, the favorably situated minority makes
the most expensive demands upon the community. It demands higher
institutions of education, theatres, the opening of particularly fine
city quarters with lighting, pavement, etc., to match. However justly
the majority may complain of the preference, it lies in the very nature
of modern affairs. The minority has the power and uses it to satisfy its
social wants as much as possible at the expense of the collectivity. In
and of themselves nothing can be said against these heightened social
wants: they denote progress; the fault is only that their satisfaction
falls mainly to the lot of the property classes, while all others should
share them. A further evil lies in that often the administration is not
the best, and yet is expensive. The officials often are inadequate; they
are not sufficiently equipped for the many-sided demands made upon them,
demands that often presuppose thorough knowledge. The members of
Aldermanic Boards have generally so much to do and to attend to in their
own private affairs that they are unable to make the sacrifices demanded
for the full exercise of these public duties. Often are these posts used
for the promotion of private interests, to the serious injury of those
of the community. The results fall upon the taxpayers. Modern society
cannot think of undertaking a thorough change in these conditions. It is
powerless and helpless. It would have to remove itself, and that, of
course, it will not. Whatever the manner in which taxes be imposed,
dissatisfaction increases steadily. In a few decades, most of our
municipalities will be unable to satisfy their needs under their present
form of administration and of raising revenues. On the municipal as well
as on the national field, the need of a radical change is manifest: it
is upon the municipalities that the largest social demands are made: it
is society _in nuce_: it is the kernel from which, so soon as the will
and the power shall be there, the social change will radiate. How can
justice be done to-day, when private interests dominate and the
interests of the commonweal are made subservient?
Such, in short, is the state of things in the nation and in the
municipality. They are both but the reflection of the economic life of
society.
* * * * *
The struggle for existence in our economic life grows daily more
gigantic. The war of all against all has broken out with virulence; it
is conducted pitilessly, often regardless of the weapon used. The
well-known French expression: "_ote-toi de la, que je m'y mette_." (Get
away, that I may step in) is carried out in practice with vigorous
elbowings, cuffings, and pinchings. The weaker must yield to the
stronger. Where physical strength--which here is the power of money, of
property--does not suffice, the most cunning and unworthy means are
resorted to. Lying, swindle, deceit, forgery, perjury--the very blackest
crimes are often committed in order to reach the coveted object. As in
this struggle for existence one individual transgresses against the
other, the same happens with class against class, sex against sex, age
against age. Profit is the sole regulator of human feelings; all other
considerations must yield. Thousands upon thousands of workingmen and
working-women are, the moment profit demands it, thrown upon the
sidewalk, and, after their last savings have been spent, turned to
public charity or forced to emigrate. Workingmen travel, so to speak, in
herds from place to place, criss-cross across the country, and are
regarded by "decent" society with all the more fear and horror, seeing
that the continuity of their enforced idleness deteriorates their
external appearance, and, as a consequence, demoralizes them internally.
Decent society has no inkling of what it means to be forced, for months
at a stretch, to be denied the simplest exigencies of order and
cleanliness, to wander from place to place with a hungry stomach, and to
earn, generally, nothing but ill-concealed fear and contempt, especially
from those quarters that are the very props of this system. The families
of these wretches suffer all along utmost distress--a distress that not
infrequently drives the parents, out of desperation, to frightful crimes
upon their own children and themselves. The last years have furnished
numerous shocking instances of whole families falling a prey to murder
and suicide. Let one instance do for many. The private correspondent,
S----, in Berlin, 45 years of age, with a still handsome wife 39 years
old, and a daughter of 12, is without work and starving. The wife
decides, with the consent of her husband, to turn prostitute. The police
gets wind thereof. The wife is placed under moral control. The family,
overcome with shame and desperate, agree, all three, to poison
themselves, and carry out their resolve on March 1, 1883.[160] A few
days before, the leading circles of Berlin celebrated great court
festivities at which hundreds of thousands were squandered.
Such are the shocking contrasts of modern society--and yet we live in
"the best of all possible worlds." Berlin has since then often witnessed
the holocaust of whole families due to material want. In 1894 the
spectacle was frequent, to an extent that called forth general horror;
nor are the instances few, reported from large and small towns within
and without Germany. This murder and suicide of whole families is a
phenomenon peculiar to modern times, and an eloquent sign of the sorry
economic state that society is in.
This general want also drives women and girls in increasing numbers into
the arms of prostitution. Demoralization and crime are heaped up, and
assume the most manifold forms. The only thing that prospers is the
jails, penitentiaries and so-called houses of correction, no longer able
to accommodate the mass that is sent to them. The crimes of all sorts
and their increase are intimately connected with the economic state of
society--a fact, however, that the latter will not have. Like the
ostrich, it sticks its head in the sand, to avoid having to admit the
incriminating state of things, and it lies to the point of deceiving
itself into the belief that the fault lies with the laziness of the
workingmen, with their love of pleasure, and with their irreligiousness.
This is a self-deception of the most dangerous, or a hypocrisy of the
most repulsive, sort. The more unfavorable the state of society is for
the majority, all the more numerous and serious are the crimes
committed. The struggle for existence assumes its rudest and most
violent aspect: it transfers man into conditions where each sees a
mortal enemy in the other. The social bonds become looser every
day.[161]
The ruling classes, who do not probe matters to the bottom, or do not
like to, seek to meet the evil after their own fashion. If poverty and
want, and, as a result therefrom, demoralization and crime increase, the
source of the evil is not searched after, so that it may be stopped; no;
the products of the conditions are punished. The more gigantic the evils
grow, and the numbers of evil-doers multiply in proportion,
proportionately severe penalties and persecutions are deemed necessary.
It is sought to drive out the devil with Beelzebub. Prof. Haeckel also
considers it proper to proceed against criminals with the severest
punishments possible, and that capital punishment, in particular, be
stringently applied.[162] By this stand the Professor places himself in
sweet accord with the re-actionists of all shades, who otherwise are
mortally opposed to him. Haeckel is of the opinion that incorrigible
scape-graces must be uprooted like weeds that take from plants light,
air and space. Had Haeckel turned his mind slightly toward social,
instead of engaging it wholly with natural science, he would know that
these criminals could, in most instances, be transformed into useful
members of human society, provided society offered them the requisite
conditions of existence. He would also find that the annihilation of
individual criminals or the rendering of them harmless, prevents as
little the commission of fresh crimes in society, as the removal of
weeds on a field would prevent their returning if the roots and seeds
are not likewise destroyed. Absolutely to prevent the forming of harmful
organisms in Nature is a feat man never will be able to achieve but _to
so improve his own social system, a system produced by himself, that it
may afford favorable conditions of life for all, and furnish to each
equal freedom to unfold, to the end that they no longer need suffer
hunger, or be driven to satisfy their desire for property, or their
ambition at the expense of others--that is possible_. Let the cause of
the crimes be studied, and let that be removed; then will the crimes
themselves be wiped out.[163]
Those who would remove crimes by removing the causes thereof, cannot, as
a matter of course, sympathize with a plan of brutal suppression. They
cannot prevent society from protecting itself after its own fashion
against the criminals, whom it cannot allow a free hand; but we demand
all the more urgently the radical reformation of society, i. e., the
removal of the causes of crime.
The connection between social conditions, on the one hand, and evildoing
and crimes, on the other, has been frequently established by
statisticians and sociologists. One of the misdemeanors nearest at
hand--one that, all Christian charitable tenets to the contrary
notwithstanding, modern society regards as a misdemeanor--is begging,
especially during hard times. On that subject, the statistics of the
Kingdom of Saxony inform us that, in the measure in which the last
industrial crisis increased--a crisis that began in Germany in 1890, and
whose end is not yet in sight--the number of persons also increased who
were punished for begging. In 1889, there were 8,566 persons punished
for this crime in the Kingdom of Saxony; in 1890, there were 8,815; in
1891, there were 10,075; and in 1892 the figures rose to 13,120--quite
an increase. Mass-impoverishment on one side, swelling affluence on the
other--such is the sign-manual of our age. In Austria, in 1873, there
was one pauper to every 724 persons; in 1882, to every 622 persons.
Crimes and misdemeanors show similar tendency. In Austria-Hungary, in
1874, there were 308,605 persons sentenced in the criminal courts; in
1892, their number was 600,000. In the German Empire, in 1882, there
were 329,968 persons sentenced for crimes and misdemeanors under the
laws of the land; that is to say, to every 10,000 inhabitants of twelve
years and over there were 103.2 criminals; in 1892, the number of
criminals was 422,327, or 143.3--an increase of 39 per cent. Among the
persons punished, there were, for crimes and misdemeanors against
property:--
To Every 10,000
Inhabitants,
12 Years of Age
Year. Total. and Over.
1882 169,334 53.0
1891 196,437 55.8
We think these figures speak volumes. They show how the deterioration of
social conditions intensify and promote poverty, want, misdemeanors and
crimes.
The basis of our social state is the capitalist system of production. On
it modern society rests. All social, all political institutions are
results and fruits of that system. It is the ground from which the whole
social and political superstructure, together with its bright and dark
sides, have sprung up. It influences and dominates the thoughts and
feelings and actions of the people who live under it. Capital is the
leading power in the State and in Society: the capitalist is the ruler
of the propertyless, whose labor-power he buys for his use, and at a
price, that, like all other merchandise, is governed by supply and
demand and oscillates now above, then below the cost of reproduction.
But the capitalist does not buy labor-power out of "sweet charity," in
order to do a favor to the workingmen, although he often so pretends. He
buys it for the purpose of obtaining surplus wealth from the labor of
the workingmen, which he then pockets under the name of profit,
interest, house and ground rent. This surplus wealth, squeezed out of
the workingmen, and which in so far as the capitalist does not squander
it in dissipation, crystallizes in his hands into more capital, puts him
in a condition to steadily enlarge his plant, improve the process of
production, and occupy increased labor forces. That, at the same time,
enables him to step up before his weaker competitors, like a mailed
knight before an unarmed pedestrian, and to destroy them. This unequal
struggle between large and small capital spreads amain, and, as the
cheapest labor-power, next to that of children and lads, woman plays
therein a _role_ of increasing importance. The result is the ever
sharper division of a smaller minority of mighty capitalists and a mass
of capital-less male and female lack-alls whose only resource is the
daily sale of their labor-power. The middle class arrives hereby at a
plight that grows ever graver. One field of industry after another,
where small production still predominated, is seized and occupied to
capitalist ends. The competition of capitalists among themselves compels
them to explore ever newer fields of exploitation. Capital goes about
"like a roaring lion, seeking whom it may devour." The smaller and
weaker establishments are destroyed; if their owners fail to save
themselves upon some new field--a feat that becomes ever harder and less
possible--then they sink down into the class of the wage earners, or of
Catilinarians. All efforts to prevent the downfall of handicraft and of
the middle class by means of institutions and laws, borrowed from the
lumber-room of the musty past, prove utterly ineffective. They may
enable one or another to deceive himself on his actual condition; but
soon the illusion vanishes under the heavy weight of facts. The process
of absorption of the small by the large takes its course with all the
power and pitilessness of a law of Nature, and the process is sensible
to the feeling and the sight of all.
In the period between 1875-1882, the number of small industries
decreased in Prussia by 39,655,[164] although the population increased
in this period by about two million heads. The number of workmen
employed in small industries sank, during that time, from 57.6 per
cent., to 54.9 per cent. The industrial statistics for 1895 will furnish
much more drastic figures. The development of large production stands in
close relation to the development of steam machine and steam
horse-power. And what is the picture presented by these? Prussia had:--
1878. 1893.
Stationary steam boilers 32,411 53,024 + 63.6 per cent.
Stationary steam engines 29,895 53,092 + 77.6 per cent.
Movable machines 5,536 15,725 + 184 per cent.
The Kingdom of Saxony had:--
1861. 1891.
Stationary steam engines 1,003 8,075 + 700 per cent.
Horse-power 15,633 160,772 + 922 per cent.
In 1861, a steam engine in Saxony had, on an average, a 15.5
horse-power; in 1891, it had 19. All Germany had in 1878 about three
million horse-power in operation in industry; in 1894, about five
million. Austria had in 1873 in round figures 336,000 horse-power; in
1888, about 2,150,000. Steam power spreads daily, and stronger steam
machines drive out weaker ones--large production drives out small. The
fact is shown emphatically in the industries in which steam has become
the general power, the brewery industry, for instance. In the German
brewery tax department, exclusive of Bavaria, Wuertemburg, Baden and
Alsace-Lorraine, there were:--
Breweries Industrially
Year. in Operation. Operated. Output.
1873 13,561 10,927 19,654,900 hl.
1891-2 8,460 7,571 33,171,100 hl.
------ ------ ----------
5,101 3,356 13,516,200 hl.
Decrease Decrease Increase
= 38 per cent. = 31.1 per cent. = 68.8 per cent.
The breweries in general, this table shows, had decreased during this
period 38 per cent., the industrially operated ones 31.1 per cent.; the
output, however, had increased 68.8 per cent. The giant concerns
increased at the expense of the middle and small ones. The identical
development is going on _in all countries of civilization, in all
industries capitalistically operated_. Let us now take up the brandy
distilleries. In all the eight provinces of Prussia, there were in
operation:--[165]
Consumed in Distillery,
Year. Distilleries. Brandy (Double Quintal).
1831 13,806 1,736,458 5,418,217
1886-87 5,814 2,518,478 24,310,196
------ --------- ----------
7,992 782,020 18,891,979
Decrease Decrease Increase
= 38 per cent. = 31.1 per cent. = 68 per cent.
Similar results are revealed in the coal and the mineral mining
industries of the German Empire. In the former, the number of leading
concerns--623 in number between the years 1871-1875--dropped to 406 in
1889, but the output increased simultaneously from 34,485,400 tons to
67,342,200 tons, and the average number of employees rose from 172,074
to 239,954. In the latter, the average number of leading establishments
between 1871-1875, was 3,034, with an average force of 277,878 hands,
that turned out 51,056,900 tons; in 1889, the number of leading
establishments had _dropped to 1,962, while the average force had risen
to 368,896 hands, and the output to 99,414,100 tons_.[166] We see that
in the coal mine industry the number of concerns decreased during that
period 35 per cent., while the number of employees rose 40 per cent.,
and production as much as 95.2 per cent. Similarly in the mineral mining
industry. Here the number of establishments decreased 35.3 per cent.,
while the number of workingmen employed rose 33 per cent., and
production 94.7 per cent. A smaller but much richer number of employers
now confronted a greatly swollen number of proletarians. Nor does this
technical revolution proceed in industry alone: it is also going on in
the department of transportation and communication. German commerce had
upon the seas:--
Sailing
Year. Vessels. Tonnage. Crews.
1871 4,372 900,361 34,739
1893 2,742 725,182 17,522
----- ------- ------
1,630 175,179 17,217
Decrease. Decrease. Decrease.
Sail navigation, we see, declines perceptibly, but in so far as it
continues to exist, _the tonnage of vessels increases, and the force of
the crews decreases_. In 1871, there came to every one sailing vessel
205.9 tons and 7.9 crew; in 1893, however, the average tonnage per
sailing vessel was 271.7 and only a crew 6.4 strong. A different picture
is offered by the German ocean steamship navigation. Germany had:--
Year. Steamers. Tonnage. Crews.
1871 147 81,994 4,736
1893 986 786,397 24,113
--- ------- ------
Increase 839 704,403 19,377
We see that, not only did the number of steamers rise considerably, but
that their tonnage increased still more; on the other hand, the force of
the crews had relatively decreased. In 1871, steamers had on an average
a 558 tonnage, with a 32.1 crew; in 1893 they had a 797.5 tonnage and
only a 24.5 crew. It is an economic law that the number of workingmen
_decreases_ everywhere with the concentration of industry, while,
relatively to the whole population, wealth concentrates in ever fewer
hands, and the number of employers, rendered unable to hold their own
and driven into bankruptcy by the process of concentration, mounts ever
higher.
In the eight old provinces of Prussia, the population increased 42 per
cent. during 1853-1890. But the incomes in the several grades rose in
the following rates:--[167]
Incomes. Increased
Up to 3,000 marks 42 per cent.
3,000-- 36,000 marks 333 per cent.
36,000-- 60,000 marks 590 per cent.
60,000--120,000 marks 835 per cent.
Over 120,000 marks 942 per cent.
The number of incomes up to 3,000 marks increased exactly with the
population; it would, however, have lagged behind it if, within the
period of 1853-1890, there had not been an extraordinary increase of
national, State, municipal and private officials, the large majority of
whose incomes falls below 3,000 marks. On the other hand, the number of
large incomes has risen beyond all proportion, although, during the
period under consideration, there was not yet any provision in Prussia
making the correct estimate of incomes obligatory. This was introduced
in 1891. The actual increase of incomes was, accordingly, much larger
than the figures indicate. As stated before, the concentration of
wealth, on the one side, is paralleled with mass-proletarianization, on
the other, and also with swelling figures of bankruptcy. During the
period of 1880-1889, the number of bankruptcy cases, adjudicated by law,
averaged, in Germany, 4,885 a year; it rose to 5,908 in 1890; to 7,234
in 1891; and to 7,358 in 1892. These figures do not include the large
number of bankruptcies that did not reach the courts, the assets not
being large enough to cover the costs; neither are included among them
those that were settled out of court between the debtors and their
creditors.
The same picture that is presented by the economic development of
Germany is presented by that of all industrial countries of the world.
All nations of civilization are endeavoring to become industrial States.
They wish to produce, not merely for the satisfaction of their own
domestic wants, but also for exportation. Hence the absolute propriety
of no longer speaking of "national" but of "international" economy. It
is the world's market that now regulates the price of numberless
products of industry and agriculture, and that controls the social
position of nations. The productive domain, that, in the near future,
will dominate the world's market is that of the United States--a quarter
from which is now proceeding the principal impetus toward
revolutionizing the relations of the world's market, and, along
therewith, all bourgeois society. According to the census of 1890, the
capital invested in industry in the United States has risen to 6,524
million dollars, as against 2,790 million in 1880, an increase of 136
per cent. The value of the industrial products rose during that period
from 5,369 million dollars to 9,370 million, or 75 per cent. in round
figures, while the population increased only 25 per cent.[168] The
United States has reached a point of development where it must export a
large mass of products in order to be able to continue producing in
sufficient quantities. Instead of importing articles of industry from
Europe, these will henceforth be exported in large volumes, thereby
upsetting commercial relations everywhere. What pass has been reached
there is indicated by the mammoth struggles between Capital and Labor,
by the distress of the masses that has lasted years, and by the colossal
increase of bankruptcy during the last crisis. In 1879, 1880 and 1881
the sum absorbed in bankruptcies ran up to 82 million dollars in round
figures; in 1890 the amount was 190 million dollars, and in 1891 it rose
to 331 million dollars. An instance will illustrate the gigantic measure
of the concentration of capital in that country. In 1870, there were in
the United States 2,819 woolen mills, in which 96 million dollars were
invested as capital; in 1890 the number of these mills had sunk to
1,312, but the capital invested had risen to 136 million. In 1870, on an
average, $34,000 sufficed to establish a woolen mill; in 1890, not less
than $102,000 was requisite. The increased demands upon capital forces
the building of stock corporations, which, in turn, promote the
concentration still more. Where the powers of a single capitalist do not
suffice, several of them join; they appoint technical overseers, who are
well paid, and they pocket, in the form of dividends, the profits which
the workingmen must raise. The restlessness of industry reaches its
classic form in the stock corporation, which demonstrates how useless
the person of the capitalist has become as a leader of industry.
Seeing that this process of development and concentration is proceeding
equally in all leading countries, the inevitable results of the anarchic
method of production is "over-production," the stoppage of trade, the
crisis.
Accordingly, the crisis is a consequence of the absence of any means
whatever whereby at any time the actual demand for certain goods can be
gauged and controlled. There is no power in bourgeois society able to
regulate production as a whole; the customers are spread over too vast
an area; then also, their purchasing power, upon which depends their
power of consumption, is affected by a number of causes, beyond the
control of the individual producer. Moreover, along with each individual
producer, are a number of others, whose productive powers and actual
yield also are unknown to him. Each strives, with all the means at his
command--cheap prices, advertisements, long credit, drummers, also
secret and crafty detraction of the quality of the goods of his
competitor, the last of which is a measure that flourishes particularly
at critical moments--to drive all other competitors from the field.
Production is wholly left to accident and to the judgment of
individuals. Accident often is more unfavorable than otherwise. Every
capitalist must produce a certain quantity of goods, in order that he
may exist; he is, however, driven to increase his output, partly because
his increase of revenues depends upon that, partly also because upon
that depend his prospects of being able to overcome his competitors, and
keep the field all to himself. For a while, the output is safe; the
circumstance tends to expansion and increased production. But prosperous
times do not tempt one capitalist alone; they tempt them all. Thus
production rises far above demand, and suddenly the market is found
overstocked. Sales stop; prices fall; and production is curtailed. The
curtailment of production in any one branch implies a diminished demand
for workingmen, the lowering of wages and a retrenchment of consumption
in the ranks of labor. A further stoppage of production and business in
other departments is the necessary consequence. Small producers of all
sorts--trademen, saloonkeepers, bakers, butchers, etc.,--whose
customers are chiefly workingmen, lose the profitable sale of their
goods and likewise land in distress.
The way in which such a crisis works appears from a census on the
unemployed which the Social Democratic Party of Hamburg undertook on
February 14, 1894. Of 53,756 workingmen who were interrogated, and of
whom 34,647 were married, with an aggregate family dependence of
138,851, there were 18,422 who, during the last year, had been idle a
total of 191,013 weeks; 5,084 persons had been idle from 1 to 5 weeks;
8,741 from 6 to 10 weeks; 1,446 from 11 to 15 weeks; 984 from 16 to 20
weeks; 2,167 more than 20 weeks. These are workingmen, who wished to
work, but who, in this best of all possible worlds, could find no work.
The sorry plight of these people may be imagined.
Again, one industry furnishes its raw material to another; one depends
upon the other; it follows that all must suffer and pay for the blows
that fall upon any. The circle of participants and sufferers spreads
ever wider. A number of obligations, assumed in the hope of a long
continuance of prosperity, cannot be met, and thus new fuel is added to
the conflagration of the crisis, whose flames rise higher from month to
month. An enormous mass of stored-up goods, tools, machinery, becomes
almost worthless. The goods are got rid of at great sacrifices. Not only
their proprietor is thereby ruined, but also dozens of others who are
thereby likewise forced to give up their goods under cost. During the
crisis itself, the method of production is all along improved with the
view of meeting future competition; but this only prepares the ground
for new and still worse crises. After the crisis has lasted years, after
the surplusage of goods has been gradually done away with through sales
at ruinous prices, through retrenchment of production, and through the
destruction of smaller concerns, society slowly begins to recover again.
Demand rises, and production follows suit--slowly at first and cautious,
but, with the continuance of prosperity, the old vertigo sets in anew.
Everyone is anxious to recover what he lost, and expects to be under
cover before the next crisis breaks in. Nevertheless, seeing that all
capitalists foster the identical thought, and that each one improves his
plant so as to head off the others, the catastrophe is soon brought on
again and with all the more fatal effect. Innumerable establishments
rise and fall like balls at a game, and out of such continuous ups and
downs flows the wretched state of things that is witnessed at all
crises. These crises crowd upon one another in the measure that large
production increases, and the competitive struggle--not between
individuals only, but between whole nations--becomes sharper. The
scampering for customers, on a small scale, and for markets on a large
one, gains in fierceness, and ends finally in great losses. Goods and
implements are heaped mountain high, yet the masses of the people suffer
hunger and want.
The autumn of the year 1890 brought new proof of the correctness of
this outline. After a long series of years of business depression,
during which, however, large capitalist development was steadily
progressing, an improvement in our economic life set in during 1887-8,
stimulated in no slight degree by the extensive changes introduced in
our army and navy systems. The upward movement continued during 1889 and
up into the first quarter of 1890. During this period, a number of new
establishments began to crop up everywhere in several fields of
industry; a large number of others were enlarged and improved to the
highest point of technical perfection, and their capacity greatly
increased. In the same measure that this large capitalist development
progressed, a larger and ever larger number of establishments passed
from the hands of individual capitalists into stock corporations--a
change that ever is more or less connected with an increase of
production. The new issues, that, as a result of these combinations and
due also to the increase of the public debt, were contracted in the
international money market, ran up in 1887 to about 4,000 million marks;
in 1888, to 5,500 million; and in 1889, to even 7,000 million. On the
other hand, the capitalists of all countries were endeavoring to
"regulate" prices and production by means of national and international
agreements. Rings and Trusts sprang up like mushrooms over night. The
majority, often all the capitalists concerned in the more important
branches of production, formed syndicates, by means of which prices were
fixed, and production was to be regulated by the light of accurate
statistical information. Over-production was thus to be prevented. A
marvelous monopolization of industry, such as had never been seen, was
thus achieved in the interest of the capitalists and at the expense of
the workingmen, and of the consumers in general. For a while it seemed
as if capital had come into possession of the means that enabled it to
control the market in all directions, to the injury of the public and to
its own greater glory. But appearances deceived. The laws of capitalist
production proved themselves stronger than the shrewdest representatives
of the system who imagined they held in their hands the power to
regulate it. The crisis set in. One of the largest international
business houses of England fell and involved a number of others in its
fall. All exchanges and markets--of London, Paris, Vienna and Berlin, as
far as St. Petersburg, New York and Calcutta--shook and trembled. It had
again been shown that the profoundest calculations prove deceptive, and
that capitalist society cannot escape its fate.
All this notwithstanding, capitalism proceeds on its course: it can be
no other than it is. By means of the forms that its course dictates, it
throws all the laws of capitalist economics overboard. "Free
competition," the Alpha and Omega of bourgeois society, is to bring the
fittest to the top of the enterprises; but the stock corporation
removes all individuality, and places the crown upon that combination
that has the longest purse and the strongest grip. The syndicates,
Trusts and rings carry the point still further. Whole branches of
industry are monopolized; the individual capitalist becomes but a pliant
link in a chain, held by a capitalist committee. _A handful of
monopolists set themselves up as lords of the world and dictate to it
the price of goods, to the workingmen their wages and conditions of
life._
The whole course of this development brings out how utterly superfluous
the individual capitalist has become, and that production, conducted
upon a national and international scale, is the goal toward which
society steers--with this difference, that, in the end, this organized
production will redound to the benefit, not of a class, but of the
collectivity.
The economic revolution just sketched, and which is driving bourgeois
society with great swiftness to its apogee, becomes more pointed from
year to year. While Europe finds itself pressed more and more in its
foreign markets, and finally on its own territory, by the competition of
the United States, latterly enemies have risen in the East also,
rendering still more critical the plight of Europe, and at the same time
threatening the United States also. This danger proceeds from the
progress of English India toward becoming a great agricultural and
industrial State--a progress that, in the first place, looks to the
meeting of the wants of India's own two hundred million strong
population, and, in the second place, develops into a mortal enemy of
English and German industry in particular. And still another industrial
State is beginning to rise in the East--_Japan_. According to the
"Kreuzzeitung" of February 20, 1895, "during the last ten years, Japan
has imported from Europe the best perfected machinery for setting up
industrial plants, especially in cotton spinning. In 1889, she had only
35,000 spindles; now she has over 380,000. In 1889, Japan imported 31
million pounds of raw cotton; in 1891, she imported 67 million. She is
steadily decreasing her importations of manufactured articles, and
increasing her importations of raw material, which she then retransports
in the shape of manufactures. During the last year Hongkong, a European
colony, bought over two million marks of Japanese cotton goods. The
Japanese are providing their own markets with goods that formerly were
imported from Europe and the United States. They are also exporting to
Oriental markets, that were formerly provided from western sources. They
are exporting matches and soap; they are manufacturing clothing, felt
hats and hosiery; they have glass-blowing establishments, breweries,
tileries, tan-yards and rope-walks."
The further expansion of Japan's industry steadily reduces importations
from Europe and the United States, and simultaneously places it in
condition to turn up in the world's market as a competitor. Should
China also, as a result of the Japanese-Chinese war, be compelled to
open her immense territory to European culture, then, in view of the
great adaptability and marvelous unpretentiousness of the Chinese
workingman, another competitive power will have risen, more dangerous
than any that the world's market has yet had to reckon with. Truly, the
future of bourgeois society is threatened from all sides with grave
dangers, and there is no way to escape them.
Thus _the crisis becomes permanent and international_. It is a result of
all the markets being overstocked with goods. And yet, still more could
be produced; but the large majority of people suffer want in the
necessaries of life because they have no income wherewith to satisfy
their wants by purchase. They lack clothing, underwear, furniture,
homes, food for the body and mind, and means of enjoyment, all of which
they could consume in large quantities. But all that does not exist to
them. Hundreds of thousands of workingmen are even thrown upon the
sidewalk, and rendered wholly unable to consume because their
labor-power has become "_superfluous_" to the capitalists. Is it not
obvious that our social system suffers of serious ailments? How could
there be any "over-production" when there is no lack of capacity to
consume, i. e., of wants that crave satisfaction? Obviously, it is not
production, in and of itself, that breeds these unhallowed conditions
and contradictions: _it is the system under which production is carried
on, and the product is distributed_.
* * * * *
In human society, all its members are bound to one another by a thousand
threads; and these threads are all the more numerous in proportion to a
people's grade of culture. If disturbances set in, they are forthwith
felt by all. Disturbances in production affect distribution and
consumption; and _vice versa_. The feature of capitalist production is
the concentration of property into ever fewer hands and into ever larger
establishments. In distribution, on the contrary, an opposite current is
noticeable. Whoever, due to the destructive effect of competition, is
stricken from the list of independent producers, seeks, in nine cases
out of ten, to squeeze himself as a dealer between the producer and the
consumer, and thus to earn his livelihood.
Hence the striking phenomenon of the increase of the middleman--dealers,
shopkeepers, hucksters, commissioners, brokers, agents, saloonkeepers,
etc. Most of these, among whom women are strongly represented, lead a
life of worries and a needy existence. Many are compelled, in order to
keep their heads above water, to speculate upon the lowest passions of
man and to promote them in all manner of ways. Hence the marvelous swing
of the most repulsive advertisements, particularly in all matters the
object of which is the gratification of sexual pleasures.
It is undeniable, and, viewed from a higher viewpoint, it is also
cheering, that the current for a greater enjoyment of life runs deep in
modern society. Man begins to understand that, in order to be human, a
life worthy of human beings is requisite, and the feeling is expressed
in such form as corresponds with the respective conceptions of the
enjoyment of life. As far as the distribution of its wealth is
concerned, society has become much more _aristocratic_ than at any
previous period. Between the richest and the poorest, the chasm is wider
to-day than ever before. On the other hand, with regard to its ideas and
laws, society has become more _democratic_.[169] Hence the masses strive
after greater equality; and, seeing that in their ignorance they know
not yet the path by which to attain their wishes, they seek equality in
the imitation of the upper classes by furnishing themselves with
whatever pleasures are within their reach. All possible artificial means
are resorted to in order to exploit this tendency; the consequences are
often serious. The gratification of a justified desire thus leads in a
number of cases to wrong paths, often to crime; and society intervenes
in its own way, without thereby improving matters in the least.
The increasing mass of the middlemen draws many evils in its wake.
Although this class toils arduously and works under the load of heavy
cares, _the majority are parasites, they are unproductively active, and
they live upon the labors of others, just the same as the capitalist
class_. Higher prices is the inevitable consequence of this industry.
Food and other goods rise in price in such manner that they often cost
twice or many times as much as the producer received for them.[170] If
it is thought unadvisable or impossible to materially raise the price of
the goods, lest consumption decline, they are artificially deteriorated,
and recourse is had _to adulteration of food, and to false weights and
measures_, in order to make the requisite profits. The chemist Chevalier
reports that he knows, among the several adulterations of food, 32 for
coffee, 30 for wine, 28 for chocolate, 24 for meal, 23 for brandy, 20
for bread, 19 for milk, 10 for butter, 9 for olive oil, 6 for sugar,
etc. The Chamber of Commerce of Wesel reported in 1870 that an extensive
system of swindle was practiced in the shops in the sale of
ready-weighed articles: for 1 pound, 24 or 26 pennyweights were given,
and in that way twice as much was gained as the difference in the price.
Workingmen and small traders who get their goods on credit and who must,
accordingly, submit, even when the fraud is obvious, fare worst of all.
Grave abuses are also perpetrated in bakeries. Swindling and cheating
are inseparable from our modern conditions, and certain government
institutions, such as high indirect taxes, are direct incentives
thereto. The laws against the adulteration of food alter matters but
little. The struggle for existence compels the swindlers to resort to
ever shrewder means, nor is there any thorough and strict inspection.
Leading and influential circles of our ruling classes are even
interested in the system of swindle. Under the pretext that, in order to
discover adulterations a more comprehensive and more expensive
administrative apparatus is required, and that "legitimate business"
would suffer thereby, almost all inspection, worthy of the name, is
lamed. If, however, laws and measures of inspection do actually
intervene, they affect a considerable rise in the price of the
unadulterated products, seeing that the lower price was made possible
only by adulteration.
With the view of avoiding these evils of trade, evils that, as ever and
everywhere, are hardest on the masses, "Consumers' Associations" have
been set up. In Germany, the "Consumers' Association" plan, especially
among the military and civil service employees, reaches such a point
that numerous business houses have been ruined, and many are not far
from the same fate. These Associations demonstrate the superfluousness
of trade in a differently organized society.[171] In that consists their
principal merit. The material advantages are not great for the members;
neither are the facilities that they offer enough to enable the members
to discover any material improvement in their condition. Not
infrequently is their administration poor, and the members must pay for
it. In the hands of capitalists, these Associations even become an
additional means to chain the workingman to the factory, and they are
used as weapons to depress wages. The founding of these "Consumers'
Associations" is, however, a symptom that the evils of trade and at
least the superfluousness of the middlemen have been realized in wide
circles. Society will reach that point of organization at which trade
becomes wholly superfluous; the product will reach the consumer without
the intervention of any middlemen other than those who attend to its
transportation from place to place, and who are in the service of
society. A natural demand, that flows from the collective procurement of
food, _is its collective preparation for the table upon a large scale,
whereby a further and enormous saving would be made of energy, space,
material and all manner of expenditures_.
* * * * *
The economic revolution in industry and transportation has spread to
agriculture also, and in no slight degree. Commercial and industrial
crises are felt in the country as well. Many relatives of families
located in the country are partially or even wholly engaged in
industrial establishments in cities, and this sort of occupation is
becoming more and more common because the large farmers find it
convenient _to convert on their own farms a considerable portion of
their produce_. They thereby save the high cost of transporting the raw
product--potatoes that are used for spirits, beets for sugar, grain for
flour or brandy or beer. Furthermore, they have on their own farms
cheaper and more willing labor than can be got in the city, or in
industrial districts. Factories and rent are considerably cheaper, taxes
and licenses lower, seeing that, to a certain extent, the landed
proprietors are themselves lawgivers and law officers: from their midst
numerous representatives are sent to the Reichstag: not infrequently
they also control the local administration and the police department.
These are ample reasons for the phenomenon of increasing numbers of
funnel-pipes in the country. Agriculture and industry step into ever
closer interrelation with each other--an advantage that accrues mainly
to the large landed estates.
The point of capitalist development reached in Germany also by
agriculture has partially called forth conditions similar to those found
in England and the United States. As with the small and middle class
industries, so likewise with the small and middle class farms, they are
swallowed up by the large. A number of circumstances render the life of
the small and middle class farmer ever harder, and ripen him for
absorption by the large fellow.
No longer do the one-time conditions, as they were still known a few
decades ago, prevail in the country. Modern culture now pervades the
country in the remotest corners. Contrary to its own purpose, militarism
exercises a certain revolutionary influence. The enormous increase of
the standing army weighs, in so far as the blood-tax is concerned,
heaviest of all upon the country districts. The degeneration of
industrial and city life compels the drawing of by far the larger
portion of soldiers from the rural population. When the farmer's son,
the day laborer, or the servant returns after two or three years from
the atmosphere of the city and the barracks, an atmosphere not exactly
impregnated with high moral principles;--when he returns as the carrier
and spreader of venereal diseases, he has also become acquainted with a
mass of new views and wants whose gratification he is not inclined to
discontinue. Accordingly, he makes larger demands upon life, and wants
higher wages; his frugality of old went to pieces in the city.
Transportation, ever more extended and improved, also contributes toward
the increase of wants in the country. Through intercourse with the city,
the rustic becomes acquainted with the world from an entirely new and
more seductive side: he is seized with new ideas: he learns of the wants
of civilization, thitherto unknown to him. All that renders him
discontented with his lot. On top of that, the increasing demands of the
State, the province, the municipality hit both farmer and farmhand, and
make them still more rebellious.
True enough, many farm products have greatly risen in value during this
period, but not in even measure with the taxes and the cost of living.
On the other hand, transmarine competition in food materially
contributes toward reducing prices: this reduces incomes: the same can
be counterbalanced only by improved management: and nine-tenths of the
farmers lack the means thereto. Moreover, the farmer does not get for
his product the price paid by the city: he has to deal with the
middlemen: and these hold him in their clutches. The broker or dealer,
who at given seasons traverses the country and, as a rule, himself sells
to other middlemen, wants to make his profits: the gathering of many
small quantities gives him much more trouble than a large invoice from a
single large holder: the small farmer receives, as a consequence, less
for his goods than the large farmer. Moreover, the quality of the
products from the small farmer is inferior: the primitive methods that
are there generally pursued have that effect: and that again compels the
small farmer to submit to lower prices. Again, the farm owner or tenant
can often not afford to wait until the price of his goods rises. He has
payments to meet--rent, interest, taxes; he has loans to cancel and
debts to settle with the broker and his hands. These liabilities are due
on fixed dates: he must sell however unfavorable the moment. In order to
improve his land, to provide for co-heirs, children, etc., the farmer
has contracted a mortgage: he has no choice of creditor: thus his plight
is rendered all the worse. High interest and stated payments of arrears
give him hard blows. An unfavorable crop, or a false calculation on the
proper crop, for which he expected a high price, carry him to the very
brink of ruin. Often the purchaser of the crop and the mortgagee are one
and the same person. The farmers of whole villages and districts thus
find themselves at the mercy of a few creditors. The farmers of hops,
wine and tobacco in Southern Germany; the truck farmers on the Rhine;
the small farmers in Central Germany--all are in that plight. The
mortgagee sucks them dry; he leaves them, apparent owners of a field,
that, in point of fact, is theirs no longer. The capitalist vampire
often finds it more profitable to farm in this way than, by seizing the
land itself and selling it, or himself doing the farming. Thus many
thousand farmers are carried on the registers as proprietors, who, in
fact, are no longer such. Thus, again, many a large farmer--unskilled in
his trade, or visited by misfortune, or who came into possession under
unfavorable circumstances--also falls a prey to the executioner's axe of
the capitalist. The capitalist becomes lord of the land; with the view
of making double gains he goes into the business of "butchering
estates:" he parcels out the domain because he can thereby get a larger
price than if he sold it in lump: then also he has better prospects of
plying his usurious trade if the proprietors are many and small holders.
It is well known that city houses with many small apartments yield the
largest rent. A number of small holders join and buy a portion of the
parcelled-out estate: the capitalist benefactor is ready at hand to pass
larger tracts over to them on a small cash payment, securing the rest by
mortgage bearing good interest. This is the milk in the cocoanut. If the
small holder has luck and he succeeds, by utmost exertion, to extract a
tolerable sum from the land, or to obtain an exceptionally cheap loan,
then he can save himself; otherwise he fares as shown above.
If a few heads of cattle die on the hands of the farm-owner or tenant, a
serious misfortune has befallen him; if he has a daughter who marries,
her outfit augments his debts, besides his losing a cheap labor-power;
if a son marries, the youngster wants a piece of land or its equivalent
in money. Often this farmer must neglect necessary improvements: if his
cattle and household do not furnish him with sufficient manure--a not
unusual circumstance--then the yield of the farm declines, because its
owner cannot buy fertilizers: often he lacks the means to obtain better
seed. The profitable application of machinery is denied him: a rotation
of crops, in keeping with the chemical composition of his farm, is often
not to be thought of. As little can he turn to profit the advantages
that science and experience offer him in the conduct of his domestic
animals: the want of proper food, the want of proper stabling and
attention, the want of all other means and appliances prevent him.
Innumerable, accordingly, are the causes that bear down upon the small
and middle class farmer, drive him into debt, and his head into the
noose of the capitalist or the large holder.
The large landholders are generally intent upon buying up the small
holdings, and thereby "rounding up" their estates. The large capitalist
magnates have a predilection for investments in land, this being the
safest form of property, one, moreover, that, with an increasing
population, rises in value without effort on the part of the owners.
England furnishes the most striking instance of this particular increase
of value. Although due to international competition in agricultural
products and cattle-raising, the yield of the land decreased during the
last decades, nevertheless, seeing that in Scotland two million acres
were converted into hunting grounds, that in Ireland four million acres
lie almost waste, that in England the area of agriculture declined from
19,153,900 acres in 1831, to 15,651,605 in 1880, a loss of 3,484,385
acres, which have been converted into meadow lands, rent increased
considerably. The aggregate rent from country estates amounted, in
pounds sterling, to:--
Countries. 1857. 1875. 1880. Increase.
England and Wales 41,177,200 50,125,000 52,179,381 11,002,181
Scotland 5,932,000 7,493,000 7,776,919 1,844,919
Ireland 8,747,000 9,293,000 10,543,000 1,796,700
---------- ---------- ---------- ----------
Total 55,856,200 67,911,000 70,499,300 14,643,800
Accordingly, an increase of 26.2 per cent. within 23 years, and that
without any effort on the part of the owners. Although, since 1880, due
to the ever sharper international competition in food, the agricultural
conditions of England and Ireland have hardly improved, the large
English landlords have not yet ventured upon such large demands upon the
population as have the continental, the German large landlords in
particular. England knows no agricultural tariffs; and the demand for a
minimum price, fixed by government, of such nature that they have been
styled "price raisers" and as the large landlords of the East Elbe
region together with their train-bands in the German Reichstag are
insisting on at the cost of the propertyless classes, would raise in
England a storm of indignation.
According to the agricultural statistics gathered in Germany on June 2,
1882, the farms fell into the following categories according to size:--
Percentage of
Area. Farms. Total Farms.
Under 1 hectare 2,323,316 44.03
1 to 5 hectares 1,719,922 32.54
5 to 10 hectares 554,174 10.50
10 to 20 hectares 372,431 7.06
20 to 50 hectares 239,887 4.50
50 to 100 hectares 41,623 0.80
100 to 200 hectares 11,033 0.21
200 to 500 hectares 9,814 0.18
500 to 1,000 hectares 3,629 0.07
1,000 hectares 515 0.01
--------- -----
Total 5,276,344 99.90
According to Koppe, a minimum of 6 hectares are requisite in Northern
Germany for a farmer's family to barely beat itself through; in order
to live in tolerable circumstances, 15 to 20 hectares are requisite. In
the fertile districts of Southern Germany, 3 to 4 hectares are
considered good ground to support a peasant family on. This minimum is
reached in Germany by not four million farms, and only about 6 per cent.
of the farmers have holdings large enough to enable them to get along in
comfort. Not less than 3,222,270 farmers conduct industrial or
commercial pursuits besides agriculture. It is a characteristic feature
of the lands under cultivation that the farms of less than 50
hectares--5,200,000 in all--contained only 3,747,677 hectares of grain
lands, whereas the farms of more than 50 hectares--66,000 in round
figures--contained 9,636,246 hectares. One and a quarter per cent. of
the farms contained 2 1/2 times more grain land than the other 98-3/4 per
cent. put together.
And yet the picture presented by these statistics falls by far short of
the reality. It has not been ascertained among how many owners these
5,276,344 farms are divided. The number of owners is far smaller than
that of the farms themselves: many are the owners of dozens of farms: it
is in the instance of large farms, in particular, that many are held by
one proprietor. A knowledge of the concentration of land is of the
highest socio-political importance, yet on this point the agricultural
statistics of 1882 leave us greatly in the lurch. A few facts are,
nevertheless, ascertained from other sources, and they give an
approximate picture of the reality. The percentages of large landed
property--over 100 hectares--to the aggregate agricultural property was
as follows:--
Provinces. Percentage. Provinces. Percentage.
Pomerania 64.87 Brandenburg 42.60
Posen 61.22 Silesia 42.14
West Prussia 54.41 Saxony 30.89
East Prussia 41.79 Schleswig-Holstein 18.03
According to the memorial of the Prussian Minister of Agriculture,
published in the bulletin of the Prussian Bureau of Statistics, the
number of middle class farms sank, from 354,610 with 35,260,084 acres,
in 1816, to 344,737 with 33,498,433 acres, in 1859. The number of these
farms had, accordingly, decreased within that period by 9,873, and
peasant property had been wiped out to the volume of 1,711,641 acres.
The inquiry extended only to the provinces of Prussia, Posen (from 1823
on), Pomerania, exclusive of Stralsund; Brandenburg, Saxony, Silesia,
and Westphalia.
What disappears as peasant property usually goes into large estates. In
1885, in the province of Pomerania, 62 proprietors held 118 estates; in
1891, however, the same number of proprietors held 203 estates with an
area of 147,139 hectares. Altogether, there were in the province of
Pomerania, in 1891, 1,353 noble and bourgeois landlords, owning 2,258
estates with 1,247,201 hectares.[172] The estates averaged 551 hectares
in size.
Our eastern provinces give this table of landlords for the year 1888:--
Prince of Hohenlohe-Oehringen 39,365 hectares
Prince of Sigmaringen 29,611 "
Prince of Thurn and Taxis 24,482 "
Prince Bismarck 18,600 "
Prince Radziwill 16,398 "
Duke of Milzinski 13,933 "
Representative Kennemann 10,482 "
Duke Serg. v. Czarnecki 9,263 "
v. Hansemann 7,734 "
Etc., etc., etc.
We see that we here have to do with owners of latifundia of first rank;
and a portion of these gentlemen own also large estates in Southern
Germany and Austria.
According to Conrad,[173] there were in the year 1888, in East Prussia,
547 entails, of which 153 were instituted before the beginning of the
nineteenth century. Entailed land is property that an heir can neither
mortgage, divide nor alienate. The owner may go into bankruptcy through
a dissolute life, but the entail and the income that flows therefrom
remain unseizable. These entails, which only the very rich can
institute, are steadily increasing in number since the last decades. The
547 entails in existence in the eastern provinces of Prussia in 1888,
held by 529 persons, 20 of whom were bourgeois, embraced 1,408,860
hectares, or 2,454 hectares on an average. According to the statistical
figures, submitted in the spring of 1894 by the Prussian Minister of
Agriculture to the Agrarian Commission, the entails of Prussia embraced
at that time 1,833,754 hectares with a net income of 22,992,000 marks.
Estimating the holders of entails at 550, each has an unseizable income
of 41,800 marks. Assuming, however, that these entails are concentrated
in one province, it would mean that the whole province of
Schleswig-Holstein, with an area of 1,890,000 hectares, belonged to 550
owners. In 1888 there were in the eastern provinces of Prussia 154
persons--among them 15 ruling Princes (the Kings of Prussia, Saxony,
etc.); 89 Dukes, other Princes and Counts; 40 noblemen and 10
bourgeois--who alone owned 1,830 estates aggregating 1,768,648 hectares
of land. Probably, the property of these persons has in the meantime
increased considerably, seeing that a good portion of the net incomes
from these estates is expended in acquiring new ones. The nobility of
the first and second rank are the principal elements engaged in this
gigantic concentration of landed property; but they are closely followed
by the aristocracy of finance, who, with increasing predilection, invest
their wealth in land, consisting mainly in magnificent woods, stocked
with roe, deer and wild boar, that the owners may gratify their passion
for the hunt. A large number of the baronial manors consist of the
estates of dispossessed peasants, who were driven from their homes and
reduced to day laborers. According to Neumann, in the provinces of East
and West Prussia alone, there were from twelve to thirteen thousand
small holdings appropriated in that way between 1825 to 1859. This
process of dispossessing, proletarianizing the country population by the
capitalist landlords, has the laying waste of the land as a natural
consequence. The population emigrates, or moves to the cities and
industrial centers. Woods and meadows gain upon cultivated lands, the
remaining territories are operated with machinery, that render human
labor superfluous, or that need such only for short periods during the
plowing and sowing seasons, or when the crops are gathered. The rapidly
increasing number of movable steam engines, already mentioned, consists
mainly of engines employed in the cultivation of the land. The decrease
of the rural population, resulting upon these and other causes of
secondary nature, is sharply expressed in the statistics on population.
Within the eight old provinces of Prussia, the proportion between the
rural and the city population revealed, between 1867 and 1890, the
following progression:--
Year. City Population. Country Population.
1867 7,452,000 16,568,000
1890 11,783,000 18,173,000
---------- ----------
Increase 4,331,000 1,605,000
= 58 per cent. = 9.7 per cent.
The rapidity is obvious with which the city is surpassing the country
population. But the situation is still more unfavorable to the country
if the fact is considered that 148 communities, with from 5,000 to
40,000 inhabitants, and aggregating a population of 1,281,000 strong,
are included in the rural but really belong to the industrial districts.
They are essentially proletarian villages, located near large cities.
Furthermore, 647 communities, with from 2,000 to 5,000 inhabitants, and
aggregating a population of 1,884,000, are likewise included in the
rural, while, to a perceptible degree, they belong to the industrial
districts.
Similar conditions exist in Saxony and Southern Germany. In Baden and
Wurtemberg also the population of many districts is on the decline. The
small farmer can no longer hold his head above water; to thousands upon
thousands of them the fate of a factory hand is inevitable; they enter
the field of industry; and, with the help of their families, they
cultivate during leisure hours the plot of land that may still be
theirs. At the same time the large landlord's hunger for land knows no
bounds; his appetite increases the more peasant lands he devours.
As in Germany so are things developing in neighboring Austria, where
large landed property has long ruled almost unchecked. The difference
there is that the Catholic Church shares the land with the nobility and
the bourgeoisie. The process of smoking-out the farmer is in full swing
in Austria. All manner of efforts are put forth in order to push the
peasants and mountaineers of Tyrol, Salzburg, Steiermark, Upper and
Lower Austria, etc., off their inherited patrimony and to drive them to
relinquish their property. The spectacle, once presented to the world by
England and Scotland, is now on the boards of the most beautiful and
charming regions of Austria. Enormous tracts of land are bought in lump
by rich men, and what cannot be bought outright is leased. Access to the
valleys, manors, hamlets and even houses is thus barred by these new
masters, and stubborn owners of separate small holdings are driven by
all manner of chicaneries to dispose of their property at any price to
these wealthy owners of the woodlands. Old farmlands, on which numerous
generations have been supported for thousands of years, are being
transformed into wilderness, in which the roe and the deer house, while
the mountains, that the noble or bourgeois capitalist calls his own,
become the abode of large herds of chamois. Whole communities are
pauperized, the turning of their cattle upon the Alpine pastures being
made impossible to them, or their right to do so being even disputed.
And who is it that thus raises his hand against the peasant's property
and independence? Princes, noblemen and rich bourgeois. Side by side
with Rothschild and Baron Mayer-Melnhof are found the Dukes of Koburg
and Meiningen, the Princes of Hohenlohe, the Prince of Lichtenstein, the
Duke of Braganza, Prince Rosenberg, Prince Pless, the Counts of
Schoenfeld, Festetics, Schafgotsca, Trautmannsdorff, the hunting
association of the Count of Karolysche, the hunting association of Baron
Gustaedtsche, the noble hunting association of Bluehnbacher, etc.
Large landed property is everywhere on the increase in Austria. The
number of large landlords rose 9.5 per cent. from 1873 to 1891, and that
means a considerable decrease of small holders: land cannot be
increased.
In Lower Austria, of a total area embracing 3,544,596 yokes, 521,603
were taken up by large estates (247 owners), and 94,882 yokes by the
Church. Nine families alone owned, in the middle of the eighties,
157,000 yokes, among these owners was the Count of Hoyos, with 54,000
yokes. The area of Moravia is 2,222,190 hectares. Of these, the Church
held 78,496, 3.53 per cent.; 145 private persons held 525,632, and one
of these alone held 107,247 hectares. Of Austrian Silesia's area of
514,085 hectares, the Church owned 50,845, or 9.87 per cent.; 36
landlords owned 134,226, or 26.07 per cent. The area of Bohemia is
5,196,700 hectares: of these the clergy owned 103,459 hectares; 362
private persons owned 1,448,638. This number is distributed among Prince
Colloredo-Mansfeld with 58,239 hectares; Prince Fuerstenberg with
39,814; Imperial Duke Waldstein with 37,989; Prince Lichtenstein with
37,937; the Count of Czerin with 32,277; the Count of Clam-Gallas with
31,691; Emperor Franz Joseph with 28,800; the Count von Harrach with
28,047; Prince von Lobkowitz with 27,684; Imperial Count Kinsky with
26,265; the Count of Buquoy with 25,645; the Prince of Thurn and Taxis
with 24,777; Prince Schwarzenberg with 24,037; Prince
Metternich-Winneburg with 20,002; Prince Auersperg with 19,960; Prince
Windischgraetz with 19,920 hectares, etc.[174]
The absorption by the large landlords of the small holdings in land
frequently proceeds in "alarming manner." For instance, in the judicial
district of Aflenz, community of St. Ilgen, an Alpine hill of over 5,000
yokes, with pasture ground for 300 head of cattle, and a contiguous
peasant estate of 700 yokes, was all converted into a hunting ground.
The same thing happened with Hoellaep, located in the community of
Seewiesen, which had pasture land for 200 head of cattle. In the same
judicial district of Aflenz, 47 other pieces of land, holding 840 head
of cattle, were gradually absorbed and turned into hunting grounds.
Similar doings are reported from all parts of the Alps. In Steiermark, a
number of peasants find it more profitable to sell the hay to the lordly
hunters as _feed for the game in winter_, than give it to their own
cattle. In the neighborhood of Muerzzuschlag, some peasants no longer
keep cattle, but sell all the feed for the support of the game.
In the judicial district of Schwarz, 7, and in the judicial district of
Zell, 16 Alpine hills, formerly used for pasture, were "cashiered" by
the new landlords and converted into hunting grounds. The whole region
of the Karwendel mountain has been closed to cattle. It is generally the
high nobility of Austria and Germany, together with rich bourgeois
upstarts, who bought up Alpine stretches of land of 70,000 yokes and
more at a clip and had them arranged for hunting parks. Whole villages,
hundreds upon hundreds of holdings are thus wiped out of existence; the
inhabitants are crowded off; and in the place of human beings, together
with cattle meet for their sustenance, roes, deer and chamois put in
their appearance. Oddest of all, more than one of the men, who thus lay
whole provinces waste, is seen rising in the parliaments and declaiming
on the "distress of landed property," and abuses his power to secure the
protection of Government in the shape of duties on corn, wood and meat,
and premiums on brandy and sugar,--all at the expense of the
propertyless masses.
According to the census of the eighties, there were 8,547,285 farms in
France; 2,993,450 farm owners had an average annual income of 300
francs, the aggregate income of these being 22.5 per cent. of the total
income from farms; 1,095,850 farm owners had an average annual income of
1,730 francs, the aggregate income of these being 47 per cent. of the
total income from farms; 65,525 large landlords, owning 109,285 farms,
drew 25.4 per cent. of the total agricultural revenues:--_their
possessions embraced more than one-half of the agricultural lands of
France_.
Large agricultural property is becoming the standard in all countries of
civilization, and, in virtue of its political influence, it sways
legislation without regard to the welfare of the commonwealth.
Nevertheless, the tenure of agricultural land and its cultivation is of
high importance to social development. Upon land and its productivity
depends first of all the population and its subsistence. Land can not be
multiplied at will, hence the question is of all the greater magnitude
to everyone how the land is cultivated and exploited. Germany, whose
population increases yearly by from 5,600,000 heads, needs a large
supply of breadstuffs and meat, if the prices of the principal
necessaries of life shall remain within the reach of the people.
At this point an important antagonism arises between the industrial and
the agricultural population. The industrial population, being
independent of agriculture, has a vital interest in cheap food: the
degree in which they are to thrive both as men and as workers depends
upon that. Every rise in the price of food leads, either to further
adulterations, or to a decline of exports, and thereby of wages as a
consequence of increased difficulties of competition. The question is
otherwise with the cultivator of the soil. As in the instance of the
industrial producer, the farmer is bent upon making the largest gains
possible out of his trade, whatever line that may be in. If the
importation of corn and meat reduces the high prices for these articles
and thereby lowers his profits, then he gives up raising corn and
devotes his soil to some other product that may bring larger returns: he
cultivates sugar-beet for the production of sugar, potatoes and grain
for distilleries, instead of wheat and rye for bread. He devotes the
most fertile tracts to tobacco instead of vegetables. In the same way,
thousands of hectares are used as horse pastures because horses for
soldiers and other purposes of war fetch good prices. On the other hand,
extensive forests, that can be made fertile, are kept at present for the
enjoyment of the hunting lords, and this often happens in neighborhoods
where the dismantling of a few hectares of woodland and their conversion
to agricultural purposes could be undertaken without thereby injuriously
affecting the humidity of the neighborhood.
Upon this particular point, forestry to-day denies the influence of
woodlands upon moisture. Woods should be allowed in large masses only at
such places where the nature of the soil permits no other form of
cultivation, or where the purpose is to furnish mountain regions with a
profitable vegetation, or with a check to the rapid running down of
water in order to prevent freshets and the washing away of the land.
From this point of view, thousands of square kilometers of fertile land
could be reclaimed in Germany for agriculture. But such an alteration
runs counter as well to the interests of the hierarchy of
office-holders--foresters--as to the private and hunting interests of
the large landlords, who are not inclined to forfeit their hunting
grounds and pleasures of the chase.
To what extent the process of rendering "hands" superfluous is
progressing in agriculture and in the industries therewith connected has
been shown in the palpable depopulation of the rural districts of
Germany. It may, furthermore, be specified that in the period between
1885 and 1890, the decrease of the rural population in 74 districts east
of the Elbe was above 2 per cent.; in 44 of these 74 districts it was
even above 3 per cent. In western Prussia, a decrease was established of
over 2 per cent. in 16 districts, in two of which the decrease exceeded
3 per cent. Especially high was the percentage of decrease in those
neighborhoods where large landlords figure as special dispensations of
Providence. In Wurtemberg, during the period between 1839 and 1885, the
population of 22 peasant districts declined from 29,907 heads to
19,213,--not less than 35.7 per cent. In East and West Prignitz, the
rural population declined during the period of 1868-1885 from 100,000
heads to 85,000,--15 per cent.
The decrease of the rural working population is marked also in England
where, as well known, latifundia property reigns supreme. The
progression in the decrease of agricultural workers was there as
follows:--
Sexes. 1861. 1871. Decrease.
Males 1,833,652 1,328,151 505,501
Females 376,797 186,450 193,127
--------- --------- -------
Total 2,210,449 1,514,601 698,628
Since then the decrease has proceeded further. According to Dr. B. J.
Brock, in the year 1885 there was the following yield per acre in
bushels:--
Countries. Wheat. Barley.
Great Britain 35.2 37.8
Germany 18.7 23.6
France 16.0 19.5
Austria 15.5 16.8
Hungary 11.7 16.0
The difference in productivity between Great Britain and the other
countries is, we see, considerable, and it is attained through a more
extensive operation of the soil. In Hungary also the number of persons
engaged in agriculture has decreased considerably:--
1870 4,417,514
1880 3,669,177
a decrease of 748,457, or more than 17 per cent. in ten years. The
agricultural lands passed into the hands of large magnates and
capitalists, who employed machines instead of human workers, and thus
rendered the latter "superfluous." These phenomena manifest themselves
everywhere in agriculture,--just as in large industrial production. The
productivity of labor increases, and in the same measure a portion of
the working class is promoted to the sidewalk.
As a matter of course, this process has its evil consequences for woman
also. Her prospects of being a proprietor and housewife decline, and the
prospects increase of her becoming a servant, a cheap hand for the large
landlord. As a sexual being she is more exposed even than in the city to
the illicit wishes and cravings of the master or his lieutenants. More
so than in industry, on the land proprietary rights in the labor-power
frequently expand to proprietary rights over the whole person. Thus, in
the very midst of "Christian" Europe a quasi Turkish harem system has
developed. In the country, woman is isolated to a higher degree than in
the city. The magistrate or a close friend of his is her employer:
newspapers and a public opinion, to which she otherwise might look for
protection, there are none: furthermore, male labor itself is generally
in a disgraceful state of dependence. But "the heavens are away up, and
the Tsar is away off."
The census of occupation of 1882 established that, out of 5,273,344
farms, only 391,746, or 7 1/2 per cent., employ machinery. Out of the
24,999 large farms, however, containing over 100 hectares of land,
machinery was in use on 20,558, or 82 1/4 per cent. Naturally, it is the
larger farms only that can utilize machinery. The application of
machinery on a large surface, all of one product, engages labor only a
comparatively short time, the number of male and female hands,
absolutely needed on the place and for tending the cattle, is reduced,
and after the field work is done, the day laborers are discharged. Thus
with us, just as in England and in a still higher degree in the United
States, a rural proletariat of grave aspect springs up. If, in view of
the shortness of the season, these workingmen demand correspondingly
high wages when they are needed, their impudence is denounced; if, upon
their discharge, they roam about in hunger and idleness, they are called
vagabonds, are abused, and not infrequently dogs are set upon them to
chase them from the yards as "tramps," unwilling to work, and they are
handed over to the constabulary for the workhouse. A pretty social
"order."
Capitalist exploitation of agriculture leads in all directions to
capitalist conditions. One set of our farmers, for instance, has for
years made enormous profits out of beet-root and the production of sugar
therewith connected. Our system of taxation favored the exportation of
sugar, and it was so framed that the tax on beets yielded but an
infinitesimal revenue to the treasury of the Empire, the premium on the
exportation of sugar being large enough to almost swallow the tax.
The rebate allowed the sugar manufacturers per double quintal was
actually higher than the tax paid by them on beets; and this premium
enabled them to sell large quantities of sugar at the expense of the
domestic tax-payers, and to extend ever more the cultivation of the
sugar-beet. The profit that accrued from this system of taxation to
about 400 sugar factories was estimated at over 30 million marks for
1889-1890: on an average 78,000 marks per factory. Several hundreds of
thousands of hectares of land, previously devoted to raising grain, were
turned into beet-root fields; factories upon factories were started, and
are still being started; the inevitable consequence is an eventual
crash. The large returns yielded by the beet-root cultivation affected
favorably the price of land. It rose. The result was the buying up of
the small farms, whose owners, seduced by the high prices, allowed
themselves to be inveigled into selling. While the land was thus being
used for industrial speculation, the raising of potatoes and grain was
being confined to narrower fields, hence the increasing need of
importation of food from abroad. The demand exceeds the supply.
Thereupon, the large supply of foreign farm products and their cheaper
transportation from Russia, the Danubian Principalities, North and South
America, India, etc., finally leads to prices on which the domestic
farmers--weighed down with mortgages and taxes, and hampered by the
smallness of their farms, and their often faultily organized and
deficiently conducted farming--can no longer exist. High duties are then
placed upon importations; but these duties accrue only to the large
farmer; the small fellow profits little by them, or none at all; and
they become heavy burdens to the non-agricultural population. The
advantage of the few becomes the injury of the many; small farming
retrogresses; for it there is no balm in Gilead. That the condition of
the small peasants in the tariff areas of Germany has been steadily
deteriorating, will be generally admitted. The advantages to the large
farmer from high duties, prohibitions of importations and measures of
exclusion enable him all the more easily to buy out the small holder.
The large number of those who do not produce in meat and bread what they
consume themselves--and a glance at the statistics of occupation and
division of the soil shows that these are by far the larger majority of
the farmers--even suffers a direct injury from the increased prices
resulting upon higher tariffs and indirect taxes. An unfavorable crop,
that lowers still more the returns from the farm, not only aggravates
the pressure, but also increases the number of the agriculturists who
are compelled to become purchasers of farm products themselves. Tariffs
and indirect taxes can not improve the economic condition of the
majority of the farmers: he who has little or nothing to sell, what, to
him, does the tariff boot, be it never so high! The incumbrance of the
small farmer and his final ruin are thereby promoted rather than
checked.
For Baden--overwhelmingly a State of small farms--the increase of
mortgage indebtedness during the period of 1884-1894 is estimated at 140
to 150 million marks. The mortgage indebtedness of the Bern peasants
aggregated in round figures 200 million francs in 1860; in 1890 it
aggregated 500 million francs. According to a report of the Bohemian
representative Gustave Eim, made to his constituents in 1893, the
indebtedness that weighed upon the farms of Bohemia stood as follows:--
1879 2,716,641,754 guilders
1889 3,105,587,363 guilders
We see that inside of that period the burden of indebtedness increased
14.13 per cent.--that of small holdings 13.29 per cent., while that of
the large holdings increased only 3.77 per cent. The bulk of the
increased indebtedness fell to the share of middle class property.
How the cultivator of the soil operates his farm is--under the aegis of
St. Private Property--his own business. His private interest decides.
What cares he about the commonwealth and its well-being? He has to look
out for himself: so, then, stand aside! Does not the industrialist
proceed on that plan? He produces obscene pictures, turns out immoral
books, sets up factories for adulterating food. These and many other
occupations are harmful to society: they undermine morality and incite
corruption. What does that matter! It brings in money, even more money
than moral pictures, scientific books, and honest dealing in
unadulterated food. The industrialist, greedy after profits, needs to
concern himself only about escaping the too sharp eye of the police; he
can quietly pursue his shameful trade, assured that the money he will
thereby rake in will earn for him the envy and esteem of society.
The Mammon character of our age is best typified by the Exchange and its
doings. Land and industrial products; means of transportation;
meteorologic and political conditions; scarcity and abundance;
mass-misery and accidents; public debts, inventions and discoveries; the
health, sickness and death of influential persons; war and rumors of
war, often started for the express purpose;--all this and much more is
made objects of speculation, for exploitation and mutual cheating. The
matadors of capital attain decided influence upon society, and, favored
by the powerful means at their disposal and their connections, they
amass enormous fortunes. Cabinet ministers and whole Governments become
puppets in their hands, compelled to act according as matadors of the
Exchange pull the wires behind the scenes. Not the State has the
Exchange, but the Exchange has the State in its power. Will he, nill he,
a Minister is often forced to water the upas tree, which he might prefer
to tear up by the roots, but that he now must aid in growing.
All these facts, that, seeing the evils gain by the day in magnitude,
daily force themselves with increasing importunity upon the
consideration of everyone, demand speedy and radical help. But modern
society stands bewildered before all these phenomena, just as certain
animals are said to stand before a mountain;[175] it turns like a horse
in the treadmill, constantly in a circle,--lost, helpless, the picture
of distress and stupidity. Those who would bring help are yet too weak;
those who should bring help still lack the necessary understanding;
those who could bring help will not, they rely upon force; at best, they
think with Madame Pompadour "_apres nous le deluge_" (after us the
deluge). But how if the deluge were to come before their departure from
life?
The flood rises and is washing out the foundations upon which our State
and Social structure rests. All feel that the ground shakes, and that
only the strongest props can now stead. But these demand great
sacrifices on the part of the ruling classes. There is the rub. Every
proposition injurious to the material interests of the ruling classes,
and that threatens their privileged position, is bitterly opposed and
branded as a scheme looking to the overthrow of the modern political and
social order. Neither is the sick world to be cured without any danger
to the privileges and immunities of the ruling classes, nor without
their final abolition by the abolition of the classes themselves.
"The struggle for the emancipation of the working class is no struggle
for privileges, but a struggle for equal rights and equal duties; it is
a struggle for the abolition of all privileges"--thus runs the programme
of the Socialist Movement. It follows that half-measures and small
concessions are fruitless.
Until now, the ruling classes regard their privileged position as quite
natural and normal, as to the justice of which no doubt may be
entertained. It is a matter of course, therefore, that they should
object and resolutely oppose every attempt to shake their prerogatives.
Even propositions and laws, that affect neither the fundamental
principles of the existing social order nor the privileged position of
the ruling classes, throw them into great commotion the moment their
purses are or might be touched. Mountains of paper are filed in the
parliaments full of speeches and printed matter, until the heaving
mountains bring forth a ridiculous mouse. The simplest and most obvious
questions regarding the protection of Labor are met by them with such a
resistance as though the existence of society hinged on such
concessions. After endless struggles a few concessions are finally wrung
from them, and then they act as if they had sacrificed a large part of
their fortunes. The same stubborn resistance do they display if the
point is the formal recognition of the equality of the oppressed
classes, to allow these, for instance, to have an equal voice with them
in wage and other labor agreements.
This resistance to the simplest matters and the most obvious demands
confirms the old principle founded in experience, that no ruling class
can be convinced by _reasoning_, until the force of circumstances drives
them to sense and to submission. This force of circumstances lies in the
development of society, and in the increasing intelligence awakened by
this very development among the oppressed. The class-antagonism--the
sketch of our social conditions has pointed them out--grow more
pronounced, visible and sensible. Along therewith increases the
understanding of the untenableness of the existing order among the
oppressed and exploited classes; their indignation mounts higher, and,
as a result thereof, also the imperious demand for a change and for
improved conditions. By penetrating ever wider circles, such
understanding of the situation finally conquers the vast majority of
society, most directly interested in the change. In the same measure,
however, as the popular understanding increases regarding the
untenableness of the existing order and the necessity of its radical
change, the power of resistance decreases on the part of the ruling
classes, whose power rests upon ignorance and lack of intelligence on
the part of the oppressed and exploited. This cross effect is evident;
hence, everything that promotes it must be welcome. The progress made by
large capitalization, on one side, is amply compensated, on the other,
by the increasing perception by the proletariat of the contradiction in
which the social order stands with the well-being of the enormous
majority. The dissolution and abolition of the social antagonisms may
cost extraordinary pains, sacrifices and efforts, it may depend upon
factors that lie beyond the influence of the individual, or even of a
class. Nevertheless, the solution is reached the moment these
antagonisms have reached their acme,--a point towards which they are
rushing.
The measures to be adopted at the various phases of development depend
upon the then conditions. It is impossible to foretell what measures may
become necessary under given circumstances. No Government, no Minister,
be he ever so powerful, can foresee what circumstances may require in
the next few years. All the less is it possible to foretell measures,
that will be influenced by circumstance, which elude all accurate
calculation. The question of "measures" is a question of tactics in
battle. These depend upon the enemy and upon the means at his disposal,
and at mine. A measure that would be excellent to-day, may be harmful
to-morrow, the circumstances that yesterday justified its application
having changed to-day. With the goal in view, the means to attain it by
depend upon time and tide; imperative is but the seizing of the most
effective and thorough going ones that time and tide may allow. In
forecasting the future, hypotheses alone are available: things must be
supposed to exist that have not yet set in.
_Accordingly, we suppose the arrival of a day when all the evils
described will have reached such maturity that they will have become
oppressingly sensible to the feeling as to the sight of the vast
majority, to the extent of being no longer bearable; whereupon a general
irresistible desire for a radical change will seize society, and then
the quickest will be regarded the most effective remedy._
All social evils, without exception, have their source in that social
order of things, which, as has been shown, rests upon capitalism, upon
the capitalist system of production. Under this system, the capitalist
class is the possessor of all instruments of labor--land, mines,
quarries, raw material, tools, machines, means of transportation and
communication--and it exploits and oppresses the vast majority of the
people. The result of such abuses is an increased precariousness of
livelihood, increased misery, oppression and degradation of the
exploited classes. It is, consequently, necessary to convert this
capitalist property into social property by means of a general
expropriation. _Production for sale must be converted into socialist
production, conducted for and by Society. Production on a large scale,
and the increasing fertility of social labor,--until now a source of
misery and of oppression for the exploited classes--must be turned into
a source of highest well-being and of full and harmonious culture._
FOOTNOTES:
[160] Let also one American instance be cited. It occurred on April 1,
1894, in Dolgeville, N. Y., where an employe of the "profit-sharing"
concern of Alfred Dolge--at whose annual dinners Professor, now
President George Gunton was regularly a star guest, and orator to the
"dined" workingmen on the beauties of "profit-sharing,"--one of the
workingmen, driven by the pinching poverty and incertitude inflicted
upon him by the "profit-sharing" practice, killed his wife, four
children and himself, and left a letter describing his plight. (See "The
People," April 8, 1894)--THE TRANSLATOR.
[161] As early as the days of Plato were the consequences of such
conditions understood. He writes: "A nation in which classes exist, is
not one, but two: one class is made up of the poor, the other of the
rich, both living together, yet on the watch against each other.... In
the end, the ruling class is unable to conduct a war, because it would
then have to avail itself of the masses, whom, armed, it fears more than
the enemy himself"; Plato, "The Republic." Aristotle says: "Widespread
poverty is an evil, inasmuch as it is hardly possible to prevent such
people from becoming inciters of sedition"; Aristotle, "Politics."
[162] "Natuerliche Schoepfungsgeschichte."
[163] Similarly Plato in "The Republic": "Crimes have their roots in
want of culture, in bad education and bad social institutions."
Evidently, Plato understood the nature of society better than one of his
learned successors twenty-three hundred years later,--not a cheering
contemplation.
[164] In the sense of German industrial statistics, every employer is
placed under the head of "small producer" who employs less than five
persons.
[165] Clemens Heiss: "Die grossen Einkommen in Deutschland."
[166] Clemens Heiss, _ubi supra._
[167] Clemens Heiss: "Die grossen Einkommen in Deutschland."
[168] According to the census of 1900, the capital invested in industry
was 9,831 million dollars,--an increase over 1890 of 3,307 million; and
the value of the industrial products was 13,010 million dollars,--an
increase over 1890 of 3,640 millions.--THE TRANSLATOR.
[169] Professor Adolf Wagner expresses the same thought in his first
revised edition of Raus' "Lehrbuch der politischen Oekonomie." He says,
p. 361: "The social question is the consciousness gained by the people
of the contradiction between the economic development and the social
principle of freedom and equality, that hovers over their minds as the
ideal, and is realized in political life."
[170] Dr. E. Sax says in his work "Die Hausindustrie in Thueringen,"
among other things, that in 1869 the production of 244 1/4 million slate
pencils had given from 122,000 to 200,000 gilders in wages to the labor,
but the final price paid by the consumer rose to 1,200,000 gilders; it
was, accordingly, at least six times as much as the producer received.
In the summer of 1888, there were 5 marks paid at first hand for 5
hundredweights of shellfish; the retailer paid the wholesale dealer 15
marks; and the public paid 125 marks. Moreover, large quantities of
foodstuffs are destroyed because the prices will not pay for
transportation. For instance, in years of great herring draughts, whole
boatloads are turned to manure, while inland there are hundreds of
thousands of people who can buy no herrings. It was likewise in 1892
with the large potato crops in California. And yet sense is claimed for
such a state of things.
[171] The industrial census of June 5, 1882, gives Germany 386,157 large
and 154,474 small stores, a total of 531,631. In the large shops, there
were 705,906 persons employed.
[172] Dr. Rud. Meyer, "Das Sinken der Grundrente."
[173] "Die Fideikommisse in den westlichen Provinzen Pruessens."
[174] For further details see, "Das soziale Elend und die besitzenden
Klassen in Oesterreich," T. W. Teisen.
[175] A German idiom, expressive of dumb bewilderment, uses the simile:
"Like oxen before a mountain."--THE TRANSLATOR.