A FEW “MINOR” DETAILS
My dear John,
When the Socialists promise to see that you get the full product of
your labor, there are a few minor details which they overlook. Not the
least of these is the detail as to how they are going to do it.
If you should ask your friend, the soap-box man, where he gets the
figures which he reels off so glibly when he is talking to you about
the way you are robbed, he may find it difficult to answer; but the
difficulty he encounters when confronted with such a question is
nothing in comparison to that which he will experience if you ask him
to inform you how the Socialist bosses are going to figure out your
labor value in a way to assure you against robbery. It is easy for him
to say that under Socialism you will get all you produce, but don’t let
him get away with the idea that he can make such statements without
being called upon to prove them.
It is a beautiful promise, this assurance of Socialism that every
worker in the Co-operative Commonwealth will get every penny that is
represented in his labor. It is a beautiful promise; but lots of people
have made beautiful promises and haven’t kept them. Can it be possible
that the bright little promiser who talks to you at the street corner
is one of the “four-flushers,” too?
Ask him the next time he invites questions. Tell him that you are a
practical man, and that you want more definite details.
Do you know what he will tell you? He will use a lot of words rounded
out into more or less eloquent periods, but, when you attempt to
analyze what he has said, you will find that all his wisdom could have
been expressed in a single sentence. In plain English, he tells you
that your request for details is nothing more or less than “a mark of
ignorance.” He wants you to believe that Socialism’s plan will be all
right for everybody, because, as the old negro said, “it jes’ works out
so.”
Well, perhaps it will! Let us see.
To test the truth of this theory, we must tackle one of the most
difficult problems that we shall be called upon to consider. But I
think, if we are patient, we shall be able to get to the bottom of
Marx’s complicated methods of reasoning, and so show that even the
promise to ascertain the full value of the worker’s labor--to say
nothing of the detail of giving it to him afterwards--is one of the
most glaring absurdities in the whole Socialist scheme.
Marx tells us that value is determined by labor.
What does he mean?
He means that the value of a commodity is fixed by the labor that is
put into it. This is all right as far as this statement goes, but it
does not help us very much in determining the value of a particular
commodity. Before we can know what a commodity is worth, we must know
(according to Marx) what it cost to produce the mental and physical
energy that was used in making it. To do this, we must first know the
total cost of all the commodities which the worker consumed during the
period when he was performing this particular task.
You know the old problem of the hen and the egg--which was first? The
Socialist’s labor-value puzzle is much more perplexing, because, in
addition to a lot of other things, you are called upon to find out
which was first, the worker or the commodity which he consumed--the
clothes he wore, the food he ate, the bed in which he slept while
acquiring the strength for the work that produced this commodity.
If you were called upon to answer this question, to fix the value of
even a single article, you would find the task anything but an easy
one. Can you imagine what will happen when the government functionaries
sit down to figure out this problem for every kind of article that is
sold--anywhere in the world?
But, don’t imagine that their task ends here. When they have once
succeeded in getting this puzzle solved, they will next be called upon
to find out how many persons have contributed their labor toward the
production of each and all of the commodities that have entered into
the transaction.
Benedict Elder, in exposing this particular absurdity of Socialism
in _The Common Cause_ (September, 1912), illustrated his argument by
showing the difficulties that the Socialist statisticians will face
when they are called upon to find the value of the labor necessary in
producing an ordinary pin. As it is difficult to obtain a more striking
example, we may well follow Mr. Elder’s calculations.
To find the value of the labor of making a pin, it is necessary to
begin by getting the exact time expended by every person who has
contributed a necessary part towards the production of the pin.
This includes the time of the man who sells the pin to you over
the counter--for, of course, there will have to be salesmen under
Socialism--the time spent by the miner who dug the metal from the earth
and by every other individual who has had anything to do in handling
it. Talk about tracing your ancestry back to the days of William the
Conqueror--that would be a “cinch” compared to this kind of mental
gymnastics!
Yet our Socialist statisticians are not finished with their work, even
yet! Before they can tell the cashier how much to pay the worker so
as to give him the full value of his labor in producing the pin, they
must also determine how much labor-power each man spent in doing his
part of this work and how many commodities, and how much of each, the
man consumed to produce the labor-power necessary to complete the task
assigned to him.
“Here,” says Mr. Elder, “we have indeed a monumental undertaking,
one that staggers the mind to contemplate, one that challenges a
combination of figures to express. Yet we are not fairly started at
our task.... We have taken but one commodity where the number of
commodities is practically infinite. We cannot follow the Socialists
many steps; their range becomes so vast, their intricacies so
bewildering, their complications so overwhelming, the throne of reason
would be threatened by the stupendous scale of thought demanded almost
at the outset. It is said that a German scientist once undertook to
figure out the number of possible moves on a chess-board. He reached
a point where the combination of figures required could no longer be
expressed in any known language, and then his mind unhinged. On the
chess-board there are just thirty-two pieces to be moved on sixty-four
spots.”
The Socialist program may seem very plausible and extremely attractive
when the Socialist propagandist is describing it in broad generalities
and you do not examine its details too critically; but, when you
get down to cases, John, and begin to try to find out how all these
magnificent promises are to be kept, you will begin to feel that you
are in danger of joining the German scientist whose “mind unhinged.”
Just for the sake of argument, let us admit that the Socialist
functionaries have finally succeeded in performing the apparently
impossible task of ascertaining exactly how much your labor-time has
been worth to the community. This fact equitably determined, the worker
would probably be given labor checks, for which he could secure other
things of equal value with his labor. For example, if it required
1,000,000 days’ labor to provide this year’s shoes for the community
and 2,000,000 pairs of shoes were made in that time, we can imagine
that a check for one day’s labor might exchange for two pairs of shoes.
It is easy to see that it would require no small amount of book-keeping
to keep even this matter of detail adjusted fairly, especially when we
remember what intricate calculations are necessary to find out how many
persons contributed to the production of these shoes, and how the value
of the time of each worker must be figured. But the same difficulty
would present itself with every kind of commodity in any way dependent
upon the labor-power of man.
If the labor checks that each worker receives are to be of real value,
they must be exchangeable for articles which the worker himself needs
or thinks he needs. In other words, our Socialist officials are also
to be called upon to ascertain what the public may be expected to
demand. This does not mean merely the articles that are necessary to
life--food, clothing, fuel, etc.--but everything that must be placed
at the disposal of a man if he is to enjoy unrestricted freedom of
choice as to the character of the articles which he purchases. Even
the smallest thing must be considered--the boy’s jumping-Jack and the
button-boots for the doll baby; for it is not admitted that any wants
of man--however small or great--are to be prohibited by the government.
The ordinary playthings of the child represent a demand upon raw
material, and each of these demands must be considered in calculating
the total production for which arrangements must be made in advance.
To accomplish this result the statistical expert will be compelled to
ascertain the actual needs of every family--indeed, of every individual
from one end of the country to the other, if not throughout the
entire world, since, of course, there would still be an interchange
of products between the various lands. A statistical estimate based
upon present conditions would be of little avail. To overcome the
difficulty, an accurate schedule of every article that will be needed
to meet the demands of the purchaser must be made.
The taking of a census is a long and laborious task, and to its
completion years are devoted. Yet the census which the United States
government takes is mere child’s play compared with the schedules which
will have to be filled out, arranged and digested, if all the small
commodities which people want to buy, and which they buy to-day, are to
be ascertained and tabulated in preparation for production.
As Cathrein points out (“Socialism,” p. 270), it will be necessary
to consider “the numerous articles of food which are required even
in the humblest family, the supplying of the kitchen with fuel and
cooking utensils, the fitting up of the drawing-room and bedrooms with
furniture and ornamentation, the lighting and heating, the stocking of
the pantry, etc., besides the necessary repairs. There must be included
the mending of clothes, furniture, etc.... The authorities will have to
supply needle and thread to replace the missing shirt-button. All these
items must be tabulated for the determination of the demand upon which
the great system of production is to be based. And all this would have
to be done not for one family alone, but for the millions of families
which constitute a modern State and for everyone of their members....
Even a cursory glance at the immense department stores of our large
cities with their thousands of different articles, will convince anyone
of the great variety of modern requirements.
“Moreover, the social demand is not at all constant; it varies
from month to month, from week to week, even from day to day. Many
requirements cannot be foreseen in the least; suddenly and unexpectedly
they make their presence felt. Weekly or even daily inquiries would
become necessary, or at least there would be needed numerous offices
where lists of requirements could be filed.
“However, it would not suffice to provide for single families. The
needs of society at large, all the public requirements, would also
have to be satisfied. In the first place would come the arrangements
for transportation: streets and roads, bridges, railways, canals,
vehicles of all kinds. The care of all this would be incumbent on the
paternal State. What an amount of daily exertion to supply a large city
with meat, milk, fruit, vegetables, etc. Private hotels would also be
abolished. It would become the functions of public officials to provide
shelter, food, and service for every comer, unless travelling is to be
forbidden in the Socialist commonwealth. Then, again, the whole of the
building business will be in the hands of the State. Public and private
edifices, dwellings, schools, hospitals, insane asylums, storehouses,
theatres, museums, public halls, post and telegraph offices, railroad
stations, would have to be erected and kept in repair, or enlarged
as necessity required. And these buildings could not be handed over
to contractors as is generally done nowadays; the State alone could
take care of drawing up the plans and specifications, of gathering
the necessary materials and workmen, of directing and supervising
the erection. If the State is supposed to do all this systematically,
without squandering an immense amount of labor and materials, the
extent and quality of the requirements in the entire commonwealth must
be ascertained long beforehand by some responsible authority.
“What the different cities and town administrations are doing now,
and as a rule through private contractors, in the matter of streets,
public health, water supply, lighting, baths, etc., would fall to the
care of the State. Physicians, surgeons, druggists, nurses, midwives,
would have to be appointed, and it would be incumbent upon the State to
provide for the professional education of a sufficient number of people
for all these offices. The State would have to find ways and means
to take care of education, of the press, literature, arts, theatres,
museums, etc.... To this would have to be added the management of
the farms, vineyards, vegetable gardens, cattle and stock raising,
the forests and fisheries, mining, smelting, and other industrial
processes. In all these departments, the requirements would have to
be accurately ascertained before there would be any question of a
systematic regulation of production.”
There are several important items that have been omitted, but it
does not seem necessary to enumerate them. Enough has been shown
to demonstrate that, to perform all this work and to compile such
an overwhelming amount of statistical labor alone, a huge army of
public officials will be required, and they must be public officials
of such capability and integrity as not to be subject to the human
weaknesses that are responsible for so many of the blunders in work
of this kind--blunders that might prove fatal to the entire system of
production and even threaten the very existence of the nation.
Do you think that human intelligence is equal to such a task? The
soap-box orator may call your attention to the fact that this work is
being done to-day. Yes, it is being done, but, as the Socialist so very
often asserts, many of our worst evils are due to the fact that the
work is being done so badly.
The Socialist also assures us that he will remedy all these evils,
which means that Socialism will do the work much better than it is
being performed at the present time. Do you think that this is
possible? Do you believe that so gigantic a system of State machinery
can be organized and made to operate without a hitch? Is it possible
that a system of collective government composed of human units, all
subject to human frailties, can perform what private enterprise, with
its vast resources and its boundless ambition, has never been able to
accomplish, especially when no hope of extra recompense stimulates
these human units in the performance of their appointed tasks?