YOUR BOSS UNDER SOCIALISM
My dear Smith,
Having seen what the condition of the “wage slave” will be under
Socialism, it is only fair that we should give a little attention
to that other class in the Co-operative Commonwealth, the “bossing
class.” The Socialist speaker on the street-corner assures us that,
when the Socialist ideal is realized, everything in society will be
democratically managed. It is in this way, they say, and in this way
alone, that true liberty can be realized. The fact that they do not
make clear is that, if you accept their definition, “liberty” means
liberty to do just as we are told and nothing more.
And there will be no lack of people with power to tell you what to do.
As Laurence Gronlund states in “The Co-operative Commonwealth” (p.
115), while the Commonwealth “guarantees suitable employment,” it
certainly cannot “guarantee a particular employment to everybody,” and
this, as your own good judgment must tell you, opens the way for the
creation of an army of state controllers in numbers hitherto undreamt
of.
The theory that efficient work can be performed without direction is so
utopian that it has been discarded, even by the majority of Socialists.
The most that they are trying to do to-day is to develop a plan whereby
the actual worker and the army of bosses may exist without continuous
warfare.
This brings us to the question: How are these bosses to be selected?
For of course, so many will want to be bosses that some definite mode
of selection must be resorted to.
Some socialistic prognosticators assert that the candidates for the
directive positions will undergo a kind of civil service examination.
Other authorities state that they will be chosen by drawing lots; but,
as one writer has said, “in point of impracticability there is little
to choose between the two suggestions.”
The favorite theory, however, is that the choice of bosses will be made
by popular election, and such a course would be eminently socialistic
in that it cynically and entirely ignores the claims of individual
efficiency.
We know how inadequate a system of election may be, especially when
popularity becomes the important factor in the choice of a candidate.
It is not easy to imagine the complications that will ensue when every
question of management of social affairs must be determined by the vote
of the people.
In “Two and Two Make Four” (p. 230), Bird S. Coler, a most practical
man of affairs, presents a sample of the questions upon which the
people might be called upon to vote, thus giving us an opportunity to
see how wisely we may be governed under Socialism:
“Boris Humphiak says puddling is a hot, hard job, and he doesn’t see
why he should blister and sweat while Reginald Carnegie just sits in
a cool office talking to a stenographer. Comrade Carnegie explains to
Comrade Humphiak that the Carnegie labor is necessary, directive labor,
and can be performed in the office, while the Humphiak labor is manual
labor and must be performed in the puddling room. Comrade Humphiak
cannot see it. He says each man ought to take his turn at puddling and
at superintending. Let us vote on it. There are a thousand puddlers,
one superintendent. The vote is a thousand to one for the Humphiak
proposition. Comrade Carnegie goes down to the puddling room, tries to
puddle, to the intense joy of the other puddlers who cease labor in
order to enjoy his weak and inefficient attempts to puddle; and, when
blinded and exhausted, he overturns a vat of molten metal, those who
survive are sorry and those who do not, among whom is Comrade Carnegie,
do not care any more. Meanwhile, Comrade Humphiak goes into the office,
lights a cigar and neglects to give some orders, as a result of which
forgetfulness on his part, the mill burns down.”
There is nothing absurd in the picture which Mr. Coler has drawn.
Complications just as serious would arise were the questions of
direction left to a popular vote; yet, if such matters are not settled
by the ballot, how are they to be adjusted?
“Some kind of organization labor must have,” says Herbert Spencer (“A
Plea for Liberty,” p. 10), “and if it is not that which arises by
agreement under free competition it must be that which is imposed by
authority.... Without alternative, the work must be done, and without
alternative the benefit whatever it may be must be accepted.”
Socialists like to talk about abolishing class distinction. They know
that this is one of the most attractive proposals that they can dangle
before the envious and the ignorant. Yet what have we here but the
establishment of two distinct classes--the directing or “bossing”
class, and the obeying or working class? That Socialism would institute
changes, there can be no doubt, but it would be a change in bosses,
not a change in methods. As Professor Flint has said (“Socialism,” p.
373), “it would place the masses of mankind completely at the mercy of
a comparatively small and highly centralized body of organizers and
administrators entrusted with such power as no human hand can safely
and righteously wield.”
Hobhouse in “Democracy and Reaction” (p. 228), clearly defines what
this must mean:
“As the ‘expert’ comes to the front and ‘efficiency’ becomes the
watchword of administration, all that was human in Socialism vanishes
out of it. Its tenderness for the losers in the race, its protests
against class tyranny, its revolt against commercial materialism,”
all the sources of the Socialist doctrines are gone like a dream,
and “instead we have the conception of society as a perfect piece of
machinery pulled by wires radiating from a single centre, and all men
and women are either ‘experts’ or puppets.”
It is thus that humanity, liberty and justice must vanish under
Socialism, for the ultimate result, said Mr. Spencer (“A Plea for
Liberty,” p. 26), “must be a society like that of ancient Peru ... in
which the mass of the people, elaborately regimented in groups of 10,
50, 100, 500 and 1,000, ruled by officers of corresponding grades and
tied to their districts, were superintended in their private lives as
well as in their industries, and toiled hopelessly for the government
organization.”
Not in practice alone, but in theory as well, the Socialist form of
government is nothing short of absolute despotism. The very fact
that the citizens of a nation--or of the world, should International
Socialism become possible--are divided into the two classes of
controllers and controlled necessarily provides for inequality in
rank and an unequal enjoyment of the right of liberty. Socialists urge
that, because the controlling class will derive their rights from the
voluntary act of the controlled, such a condition of affairs will be
freely undertaken. This may be possible in the beginning. It is quite
probable that those destined to be controlled may, through their
whole-hearted belief in Socialism, co-operate in the establishment of
the new régime. But, later, it would begin to be a different story.
Once having experienced the privilege of directing, it is quite beyond
the bounds of reason to suppose that the director will consent freely
to take his place in the servient class. A member of the official
class, once that class has become firmly established, would strenuously
resist any act threatening his position, and it would be doing an
injustice to Socialists to assume that some of them have not seen
this necessary consequence of their system. What would happen were
such a move contemplated is frankly stated by Professor Karl Pearson.
“Socialists,” he says (“Ethics of Free-thought,” p. 324), “have to
inculcate that spirit which would give offenders against the State
short shrift and the nearest lamp-post.” As Professor Flint remarks,
such a sentiment “gives expression to the thought which animated the
first tyrant.”
If you were to read the works of the prominent Socialist writers, John,
you would find that Professor Pearson does not stand alone in his
opinion. Robert Blatchford, in his popular presentation of Socialism
(“Merrie England,” p. 75), goes just as far in asserting that man has
no right to demand any other freedom than that which the majority may
be willing to permit him to have. “Just as no man can have a right to
the land, because no man makes the land, so no man has a right to his
self, because he did not make that self.”
In spite of the crudeness and illogical character of this statement,
it expresses only too forcibly the claim for the deification of
the Socialist State at the cost of the complete suppression of the
individual.
What does all this mean? In the last analysis it means that, if there
is to be a servient class and a bossing class, it really is immaterial
whether the worker belongs to the minority or to the majority. In
either case, if he is selected as one to be bossed, such will be
his fate, for the only people who will actually count at all are the
officials who have been chosen, by one means or another, to become the
bosses. What will make the conditions of the worker under Socialism
infinitely worse than it is to-day, is the absence of any means of
associated action for redress. Under no circumstances could such an
existence be tolerable save in an ideal State in which benevolence
reigns supreme--a State where envy, hatred, tyranny, ambition,
indolence, folly and vanity no longer exist; a State where there are
only wise and good men; and in such a State even law and direction
might logically become unnecessary.
The human race, John, is not fitted for such a State. Untold centuries
will pass before this ideal millennium can even remotely be realized.
In the meantime we are trying to improve conditions with the material
which we have at hand. With such material, even were all the theories
of Marx to be put into operation, human nature must be considered as a
factor, and it takes no prophet to foresee what a hopeless muddle we
should make of things if we tried to run society upon the principles
which Socialism proposes. Even John Spargo admits that “there is
no such thing as an ‘automatic democracy,’ and eternal vigilance
will be the price of liberty under Socialism, as it has ever been”
(“Socialism,” p. 217).
Mr. Spargo is right as far as he goes, but he does not go far enough.
He does not tell us that under Socialism vigilance would no longer
be possible because it would not be tolerated; that with all trades
and industries in the hands of the government, with all men and
women dependent on the government for daily bread and compelled to
do the work assigned to them, the State will consist of two classes
only--state functionaries and ordinary people, controllers and
controlled, masters and slaves. In what manner could man protect
the rights of liberty under such a régime? What remedy could he
have against oppression when he would always be pitted against “the
State”--a State which would be placed in a position of being able to do
no wrong.
“Wage slavery,” John? Isn’t this infinitely worse than any “wage
slavery” of which you have ever dreamt?