WHAT WE ARE PROMISED
My dear John,
We have already seen how impossible many of the basic theories of
Socialism are; but, heretofore, we have been dealing with definite
proposals, and not with the general application of the Socialist ideas.
To return to the simile of the jig-saw puzzle, John, we may say that we
now have all the pieces properly cut out before us. What we have to do
is to fit them together and see what kind of a picture they give us.
Of course, we shall not be able to do this without some protests from
Socialists. They do not like us to test their theories by constructing
an imaginary Commonwealth, even though we use no other material than
the facts which they themselves have given us--the admitted principles
of international Socialism--in its construction. Indeed, Socialists
insist that it is a mark of imbecility for anyone to ask for such a
picture to say nothing of complaining because it is not available.
“Only the ignorant would ask for a cut-and-dried plan of a state
that can exist only in its completeness in the distant future,” says
Suthers, in his popular propaganda booklet, “Common Objections to
Socialism Answered.” “Why is it impossible to produce a cut-and-dried
plan? Simply because comprehensive prophesy of the future is beyond
human power.... Is there a man alive to-day who can forecast the
details of all the events that will register themselves in his single
consciousness to-morrow?... It were a silly waste of time for any
Socialist to spend his life in drawing up cut-and-dried plans of a
distant future.... They (the critics) say that one says one thing and
one another. God of brains, what else do they expect?”
“For all his heat,” says Kelleher (“Common Ownership,” p. 105), “Mr.
Suthers is far from answering a very serious objection, or rather,
consciously or unconsciously, from dealing with the real point of the
objection at all. It is not the mere details of the socialistic state
that the critics of Socialism are demanding to have explained, but its
essential constitution. It is no reply to say that we do not require or
expect to know the details about the future under the existing system.
We do not, but we know the conditions in which these details will work
themselves out, and rightly or wrongly we accept them, because, with
all their faults, we are convinced that they are the best that are
available for us.”
Moreover, not all the Socialists have been as loath to forecast the
details of the proposed Co-operative Commonwealth as Mr. Suthers. H.
G. Wells has given us a rather elaborate series of prognostications in
his “New Worlds for Old,” and the following--Mrs. Besant’s picture of
the future which Socialism proposes--is said by Bliss to be “one of the
best short ideals of Socialism yet written.” In quoting this “prophecy”
I have found it necessary to abridge it slightly, but you will find all
the details that have been omitted in Mrs. Besant’s contribution to the
“Fabian Essays.”
“The unemployed have been transformed into communal workers--in
the country on great farms, improvements of the bonanza farms in
America--in the towns in various trades. Public stores for agricultural
and industrial products are open in all convenient places, and filled
with the goods thus communally produced. The great industries, worked
as Trusts, are controlled by the state instead of by capitalist
rings.... After a while the private producers will disappear, not
because there will be any law against individualistic production,
but because it will not pay. The best form of management during
the transition period, and possibly for a long time to come, will
be through the Communal Councils which will appoint committees to
superintend the various branches of industry. These committees will
engage the necessary manager and foreman for each shop, factory, etc.,
and will hold power of dismissal as of appointment.... This (making
the worker accommodate himself to the demand for labor), however,
hardly solves the general question as to the apportioning of laborers
to the various forms of labor. But a solution has been found by the
ingenious author of ‘Looking Backward.’ Leaving young men and women
free to choose their employments, he would equalize the rates of
volunteering by equalizing the attractions of the trades.... But there
are unpleasant and indispensable forms of labor which, one would
imagine, can attract none--mining, sewer-cleaning, etc. These might be
rendered attractive by making the hours of labor in them much shorter
than the normal working day of pleasanter occupations.... Further, much
of the most disagreeable and laborious work might be done by machinery,
as it would be now if it were not cheaper to exploit a helot class....
In truth, the extension of machinery is very likely to solve many of
the problems connected with differential advantages in employment; and
it seems certain that in the very near future the skilled worker will
not be the man who is able to perform a particular set of operations,
but the man who has been trained in the use of machinery.... Out of
the value of the communal produce ... all charges and expenses are
deducted, and the remaining value should be divided among the communal
workers as a ‘bonus.’ It would be obviously inconvenient, if not
impossible, for the district authority to sub-divide this value and
allot so much to each of its separate undertakings--so much left-over
from gas works for the men employed there, so much from the tramways
for the men employed on them, and so on. It would be far simpler and
easier for the municipal employes to be regarded as a single body, in
the service of a single employer, the local authority; and that the
surplus from the whole businesses carried on by the Communal Council
should be divided without distinction among the whole of the communal
employes.”
Taking Mrs. Besant as a guide and calling upon other Socialist
authorities for further directions, let us see if we can put our
jig-saw puzzle together and thus ascertain what kind of a place the
Co-operative Commonwealth is likely to be.
In the first place, John, it is scarcely probable that any Socialist
will deny that all means of production, distribution and exchange
will be in the hands of the collective state. This means that all
the manufacturing will be done by the communal authorities acting
for the people; that all the methods of disposing of these products,
through shops or otherwise, will be under the same direction, and
that all means of transportation--railways, steamships, etc.--will,
like the Post Office to-day, be in the hands of the people or their
representatives. So far, in all probability, we shall meet with no
denial from the Socialists.
In the matter of land, however, our Socialist authorities are not so
thoroughly in agreement. For example, when they are talking with the
farmer, or other small land owner, who does not wish to have his real
estate expropriated, some Socialists are quite willing to admit that
their program makes no provision for the confiscation of farm lands.
As you have seen, however, the Socialists are quite ready to hide any
feature in their scheme that seems likely to arouse opposition in
the minds of the small property holders. Yet, land being invariably
included in “means of production” by all authoritative Socialists, it
is not easy to see how any real Socialist can promise to exclude farm
lands from the general plan of confiscation. It is far easier to assume
that the _Appeal to Reason_ and the Socialist propagandists who write
propaganda matter to induce the farmer to vote the Socialist ticket are
not telling him the truth about this phase of the question.
Then, too, when we remember the Socialist proposition that all labor in
the Co-operative Commonwealth shall be performed collectively and not
under the direction of an employer, it is pretty difficult to imagine
how a farmer will be able to operate a farm when he is prevented from
employing others to help him. Certainly, Mrs. Besant’s suggestion is
the more logical one--farm lands must be expropriated and the industry
of agriculture pursued on great farms, operating on the bonanza farm
basis which has already proved such a gigantic failure in this country.
With all means of production, distribution and exchange in the hands of
the Commonwealth, there would naturally be but one source of employment
for labor--The Commonwealth. If you wanted a job, John, you would have
to go to the employment bureau of the Commonwealth and present your
application, upon which you would be assigned to such a position as
might chance to be open at the time your application was received. You
are a machinist, but it might chance that machinists are not much in
demand on the day you apply for the job. Accordingly, you would be sent
to paint houses, or to build streets; anything that happened to be open
would be assigned to you and you would have to take it or starve to
death, because the Commonwealth, as we have seen in a previous letter,
could not be expected to find for every applicant the particular kind
of work that he preferred to perform.
Under our present system, inadequate as it is in some respects, a man
can select the work that he prefers, and there is no limit to the
heights that he can ascend, provided he shows an ability to occupy a
higher position in the industrial world. To-day merit counts; to-day
knowledge and initiative, as well as industry, mean something. But,
under the system that Socialism proposes, it would be the favor of the
bosses or, at least, the votes of one’s associates that could alone
secure promotion.
Election of bosses by popular vote may sound all right in theory,
but I seriously fear that the scheme would not operate successfully
if applied practically. Popularity would be a poor substitute for
proficiency, especially in view of the fact that it would probably be
the easiest boss and not the most exacting boss, who would secure the
votes of the most people. Try to picture what would happen under these
conditions, and you will have taken the first step toward a clear
understanding of industrial conditions under Socialism.
But, let us suppose, for argument’s sake, that you have secured
employment at a trade that is fairly satisfactory to you and that
the more important industrial problems have been reasonably well
adjusted. At the end of the work-week you receive the labor check
which represents the “full value” of the products which have been
produced. We have already seen how difficult the Socialists will find
it to determine the full value of the work of each operative and
to measure it for exchange, so there is no need to emphasize this
question further. We will suppose that the apparently insurmountable
difficulties have been satisfactorily overcome, and that you are well
pleased with the share you receive in your labor check.
Now, what are you going to do with it?
We are told that the laborer will be permitted to purchase whatever he
pleases--as much or as little as he has a mind to buy. Of course he
can buy only from the State because everything--all the stores, shops,
factories, farms, etc.--will be owned and operated by the government.
“Our cities cannot give us to-day two things so simple as pure water
and clean streets,” remarks Father Kress. “By what magic will they be
made capable of doing the thousands of things implied in production and
distribution?”
Imagine yourself, your pay check in your hand, going in to the gigantic
government warehouse, or as Mrs. Besant prefers to call them, “public
stores for agricultural and industrial products.” The fact that you are
to be permitted to buy anything you like, or can, with the amount in
hand, presupposes that everything you desire will be kept in stock. But
what if you do not find it? The clerk could not promise to get it for
you, because it is not impossible that the committee on manufactures
may have decided that you ought not to have it. Caviare and Limburger
cheese are two commodities that are extremely pleasing to some people’s
palate, while there are other people who could not be induced to eat
them for pay. Suppose the committee on manufactures was composed
chiefly of persons who saw no excuse for the existence of caviare or
Limburger cheese. Is it likely that they would take the trouble to see
that the supply of these commodities did not run short, especially
when, in a Commonwealth where there was no competition, there is no
need to make any special effort to please purchasers?
Freedom to purchase is impossible unless every possible want is
provided for. Perhaps this condition would exist in the Co-operative
Commonwealth. Perhaps it wouldn’t!
Let us take another example, John.
Suppose you wanted to build a house. At present you can do this in
accordance with any plans that please you. You don’t have to ask
anybody’s advice if you don’t want to. But would things be like this
under Socialism? You might want to build a bookcase in the centre of
the room instead of around the walls. You might have very good reasons
for wishing to do this. But do you think it would be a simple matter to
convince the committee on carpentering that your plan should be carried
out, if they happened to disapprove of your ideas? Under our present
system you can get almost any kind of work done if you are willing
and able to pay for it. All you have to do is to find the laborer and
employ him. Under Socialism, it wouldn’t be a single laborer that
would have to be seen, but a committee whose consent would have to be
obtained before any laborer could undertake your work.
The Socialists tell us that Socialism will inspire inventors, writers
and other mental workers to a degree never before dreamt of.
Is this possible?
An invention to-day stands a fair chance of being put on the market
so long as it has the slightest evidence of practicability; somebody
can usually be found to furnish the money for the experiments needed
to perfect the scheme of the inventor. But how would it be in a
Commonwealth where the practicability of an invention and its value
as a social factor would have to be determined by a special committee
before it could be produced and its merits tested by actual experience?
We know how much money has been spent in the experimental work of many
inventors. We know, too, that, in the majority of cases, inventions
have been perfected in the face of widespread scepticism. Few people
believed that the telephone would ever be made of practical value. Even
when the telephone had succeeded and become an absolute necessity, the
great mass of the people laughed at the idea of wireless telegraphy. Do
you think that a committee on inventions would have passed favorably
upon such ideas, and would have authorized the necessary appropriations
for perfecting them in the face of such strong popular opposition?
Socialists also tell us that freedom is the choicest jewel in our
possession; that freedom of press, speech and assemblage are rights
which are inherent in human nature and which must be defended, with our
lives if need be. But what do we find under Socialism? Could there be
any freedom of press when the Socialist State owned every press, when
the Socialist State employed every printer, when the Socialist State
controlled every sheet of white paper?
Before a printed word could be given to the world, it would have
to pass the censorship of the special bureau entrusted with these
responsibilities. Such a committee would have to determine whether an
author’s work was worth printing or not; and suppose, by any chance,
an author or an editor desired to give expression to opinions that
did not harmonize perfectly with those of the ruling majority, do you
suppose that the State-owned presses would be permitted to run in the
publication of such theories?
There is one thing, John, that you can depend upon; and that is that
the Socialist scheme makes absolutely no provision for freedom. The
Socialists talk as if we were “wage slaves,” but no conditions existing
to-day--not excepting the worst--represent such galling servitude
as would exist under the despotic bureaucracy that Socialism would
develop. It is true that you might be guaranteed against unemployment
so long as you were willing to take the kind of work provided for
you. It is true that you might exchange your labor checks for the
commodities that other workers had produced--so long as you desired
to purchase the kind of things that the officials of the Commonwealth
wanted you to buy. It is true that you might be permitted to write and
speak and teach, so long as you desired to promulgate ideas approved by
the majority. Once you begin to think along the lines advocated by the
minority, what do you think would happen to you? If a full stomach were
all that man required for his happiness, the Co-operative Commonwealth
might seem to offer an enviable state of existence. It is because
Socialists believe that a full stomach is the highest aim of man,
that they fail to recognize the inadequate character of their proposed
Commonwealth.
It is an elaborate program that Socialism has planned--a program
that provides for free services on every hand, free amusements, free
excursions, free transportation, free professional services, etc.
Education, of course, will be free, not only the tuition and the books
but the clothes the children wear and the victuals they eat. “Will the
State be able to carry out this program?” asked Godkin in _The Forum_
(June, 1894). “It cannot give more than it gets; will we be rich enough
to pay the extravagant bills of Socialism?” It is assumed by Socialists
that the wealth of the State will be unlimited, but on what foundations
is this assumption based?
I have called your attention to merely a few of the problems that
suggest themselves when we attempt to consider what kind of an
existence Socialism has planned for us. There are hundreds of other
examples that will occur to you if you stop to think the matter over
seriously. If this is the kind of life you want to live--the kind of
freedom you think you would enjoy--you are welcome to it.