production? In the first place stands the introduction of the labor of
women and children, since tending machines generally does not require
great muscular strength. The advantages which accrue to the capitalist
from the employment of women and children are obvious. Since the price
of the workman’s labor is determined by the time necessary for the
production of the necessities of life not only for himself, but also
for his family, as soon as the whole family are compelled to sell their
labor, the price of that labor will simply equal that of the labor of
the workman alone. Ordinarily the income of the family will rise a
little under these circumstances, but, because of the absence of the
wife from the household, expenses will increase also. The increase of
the surplus-value, obtained by the labor of women and children, is
therefore important. Besides, the women and children have less power to
resist the capitalist than men have, while the men, in their turn, are
weakened by the competition of women and children.
In the second place the introduction of machines produces in the mind
of the capitalist a desire to prolong the working day as much as
possible, for the following reasons among others. The greater the
number of hours each day in which the machine is in operation, the more
quickly it will return its cost through the product, and, other things
being equal, the shorter will be the time required for the capitalist
to gain the same amount of surplus-value. Suppose A works his machines
for 8 hours a day, and B works as many machines for 16 hours; B’s
machines will return their cost through the product in half the time
needed by A’s. Consequently B will gain double the surplus-value in the
same time, so that A also will be driven to work his machines for 16
hours. And since a machine deteriorates even when it is not in use,
there is, when the machines are stopped, a loss of value which the
capitalist cannot retrieve. Hence the tendency to prolong the
working-day. In the third place every capitalist runs the danger of
seeing his competitors introduce new machines which save still more
work and so diminish the value of his own. The more quickly a machine
returns its cost, the less the danger just mentioned becomes.
Finally, I have still to notice the following cause for the
prolongation of the working-day. The object of the employment of
machines is the increase of the surplus-value through their use. This
increase, however, is possible only through the diminution in the
number of workmen employed by the capitalist. But since the
surplus-value is created only by the workmen, any diminution in their
number is to the disadvantage of the capitalist. In order to overcome
this he attempts to prolong the day.
The more machinery is developed, the more the attention which the
workman must give to his work increases; in other words, the more
intense the labor becomes. The tendency of the capitalist to increase
the intensity of labor reaches its apogee as soon as the working time
is limited, for different reasons. In order that the surplus-value may
be equal to what it was formerly, the workman, for example, must
produce as much in eleven hours as he formerly produced in thirteen
hours. The means by which the intensity of labor is increased (not to
enter into unnecessary details) are; first, the manner of fixing
wages—piece-work, and second, the practice of making the workmen tend
more machines than formerly, and of driving the machines faster, so as
to force the workmen to a greater intensity of labor.
The contest between the large manufacturing establishments and the
small factories and workshops has led gradually but infallibly to the
destruction of the latter. They are forced to maintain the competitive
struggle by incredibly long hours of labor, by an unlimited
exploitation of the labor of women and children, etc. In this way it is
often possible to resist competition for some time, but finally the
large manufactory triumphs all along the line.
Agriculture also, though to a less degree than manufacturing, has been
revolutionized by the introduction of machines. Rural workers who have
become superfluous have betaken themselves to the cities, and there go
to swell the population already enormously increased by industrialism.
The exposition which I have just given of the origin of the
surplus-value is sufficient for this work. It is not necessary for our
subject to stop to consider the fact that a part of the surplus-value
is destined to become capital, while the other part is consumed by
those who have appropriated the whole. As has been shown above, the
employment of machines, etc., has increased in every branch of
industry, and this has brought it about that the capital necessary to
any manufacturing establishment increases continually under the
pressure of competition. Hence it follows that capitalism itself forces
the capitalist to invest as new capital part of the surplus-value
acquired by him. But aside from this, it is capitalism also that
produces the capitalist’s penchant for always investing more capital,
which, in its turn, produces a greater surplus-value than the original
capital, etc. And since the accumulation of capital has no limits, the
greediness of the capitalist has none, and he is driven to increase his
capital incessantly, even when his income is so great that it permits
him to satisfy every possible need.
However, the group of capitalists of which we have been speaking is not
the only one that gains surplus-value. Industrial capital is obliged to
share the total surplus-value with commercial capital, the capital
consisting of money, and that consisting of real estate. In the first
place, a part of the surplus-value is claimed by commercial capital.
For the economic system in force would not be able to operate without
commerce. The development of capitalism has led to an extensive
division of labor in the class of capitalists (banks, insurance
companies, etc.), and the capital invested in these enterprises must
equally have its share of the total surplus-value. Capital in the form
of money plays an increasingly important part in modern capitalism, and
so must have its share of the surplus-value.
The owners of the soil also appropriate a considerable part. The land
is the most indispensable means of production, and is incapable of
being increased at will. As capitalism increases, the demand for
territory becomes greater and greater. This causes the ground rents in
general to rise, which means that the share of the total surplus-value
which the land-owners appropriate becomes greater and greater. It is
especially in the cities, which are highly developed under capitalism,
and in which, consequently, the demand for land is great and the supply
relatively small, that ground rents have risen to an unheard of degree,
and this to the prejudice of the health and happiness of the less
privileged classes.
Up to this point we have been necessarily supposing that the capitalist
succeeds in making a profit. But, as we know, it often happens that he
does not attain his end, that his capital produces no added value, that
he even loses it entirely or in part. This case being important for the
subject in hand we must stop to consider it for a moment. As has been
shown above, the capitalist begins by purchasing labor and the means of
production in order to set in motion the process of production. For him
the difficulty then consists of selling the manufactured product at its
value and of thus realizing the added value which is a part of this. At
times, aided by circumstances, he succeeds in selling the product above
its value, and so makes an extra profit. On the other hand, he runs the
risk of having to sell the product below its value, or of not being
able to sell it at all.
The causes of the poor success of the process are of different kinds.
In the first place, the capitalist may not have the ability necessary
for the direction of the process of production. For example, the
product made under his management may be inferior to that of his
competitor, though the cost of production is the same; the means of
production may be purchased at too high a price; he may not have been
in touch with the tastes of consumers, etc.; reasons all of which
render his product unsalable, or salable at a loss.
In the second place, circumstances independent of his own act may
present themselves which have the same result. Let us look at some of
them. To begin with, the unforeseen cessation of payment on the part of
one of his important debtors may oblige him to sell his goods at a
sacrifice in order to satisfy his creditors. Again, he may lack the
capital necessary to meet competition. For the amount of capital
necessary in every branch of industry or commerce becomes greater and
greater, and the man who cannot procure this capital is forced little
by little to give ground to his competitors and finally to give up
business altogether.
In the third place, it very often happens that, as a result of
competition, there is an oversupply of commodities, which from this
very fact are unsalable, or must be sold for less than their value. In
the periods of prosperity this case is not general. But it is the rule
in crises. Because of their great importance to the relation between
criminality and economic conditions, it is necessary to pause here to
examine the cause and origin of these crises.
Economic crises, that is to say periods in which the economic life is
greatly disturbed, are due to various circumstances; for example, to a
war which puts obstacles in the way of the regular continuance of
international commerce. But aside from such causes there are others
which are natural to the present economic system itself, and which
bring on these crises periodically. It is these causes, which are the
more important, of which it is necessary to treat here.
A crisis is the result of overproduction. This does not imply that in
every case overproduction will bring about a crisis. If one who is
producing for his own consumption happens to produce more than he can
consume, the result will be that during a certain period he will
proceed to produce less, and the equilibrium will be reëstablished. But
when one manufactures not for himself but for the market the situation
is entirely different. Each manufacturer of commodities produces
separately, that is to say without any understanding with his
fellow-manufacturers, articles of which he himself has no need, but
which he attempts to exchange for money in order to obtain what he does
need. If he does not succeed in selling his commodities he is left
without money to buy the commodities that are necessary to him.
Overproduction can thus have very harmful results for those who hold
commodities.
Now how does it happen that the capitalistic mode of production causes
periodically a production greater than the possible consumption? (It
goes without saying that this phrase is not to be taken to mean that
the consumers are physically incapable of using the product, but merely
that there are not enough buyers.) As has been shown above,
capitalistic production is carried on for the sake of the added value,
that is to say, the value of the unpaid labor. In other words, the
working class produces more than it consumes. In feudal society the
surplus was entirely consumed by the class which appropriated it; at
present, on the contrary, the owning class use part of the surplus to
form new capital. For this comes a continually increasing accumulation
of capital, and consequently a greater and greater quantity of products
which in the end find no buyer. For the extension of production
increases the number of workmen necessary, and consequently increases
the demand also, but these workmen produce in their turn more than they
consume. The overproduction is not, then, neutralized by a greater
consumption. On the contrary it furnishes the material for an
overproduction still greater. Hence capitalism causes crises
periodically as the result of an overproduction caused by too small a
consumption on the part of the working class.
Since the mass of capital increases without cessation it is
indispensable to find new investments, and to broaden the market. From
this it results, among other things, that the capitalist class is
forced to take up the policy of political expansion and to conquer
countries where capitalism has not yet become rooted. If it succeeds in
finding a new outlet, then, production increases enormously, existing
factories are enlarged, new ones are established, etc., and the new
market is inundated with goods. But in the end this market ceases to be
able to absorb the continually increasing mass of products, so much the
more since the production of the country itself also increases as
capitalism gains foothold there. The commodities remain, then, unsold,
and a crisis is begun. Production must be stopped or decreased; the
stock of commodities being thus made smaller the equilibrium begins
little by little to reëstablish itself; after which the movement is
repeated. But since the capitalistic method of production little by
little spreads itself over the whole earth, it becomes increasingly
difficult to find countries where capitalism has not been implanted.
Hence overproduction tends to become chronic.
Besides the cause already set forth there is still another circumstance
which can produce a crisis or aggravate one already existing; I refer
to the lack of order in the present mode of production. Suppose that
the demand for iron is great at any given moment. The production will
then increase so quickly, and in such a degree (each manufacturer
ignoring what his competitors are doing), that the supply will far
exceed the demand. As a result manufacturing will be checked. As soon
as overproduction occurs in as important a branch of industry as the
manufacture of iron, there will follow also a stoppage of production in
other branches, and a general crisis will ensue.
The consequences of a crisis for the capitalist class are well known.
Many are forced to stop producing, are no longer able to pay their
creditors, and draw many of their debtors in their train. Because of
the complexity of the present system of production the consequences of
a crisis are very far reaching. It is naturally the small capitalists
who are stricken first, whence it follows that during crises there is a
great concentration of capital.
Just as in the first part of this discussion I proceeded on the
assumption that the capitalist always attains his end, i.e. gains the
surplus-value, just so I have also been speaking as if the workman
always sold his labor. Let us look now at the case of the man who does
not succeed in selling it. In order that a contract be entered into
between capitalist and workman it is necessary that labor be desired
and offered. If the workman for his part cannot deliver the labor
contracted for, or not enough of it, whether from sickness or from
weakness, it is perhaps but a question of exchange, and the workman is
abandoned to his fate. Capitalism rests upon this fact that there is a
class of men, much more numerous than any other, who are deprived of
everything and consequently are forced to sell their labor; otherwise
no workman would care to close a contract.
Let us look at the other side of the question, when the supply of labor
exceeds the demand. Those who do not succeed in selling their labor are
then equally abandoned to their own resources. From what causes in the
capitalistic method of production does it happen that the supply of
labor is in excess of the demand? Are these causes to be found in too
great an increase in the population, or in the method of production
itself?
It has been shown above that the composition of capital changes
incessantly. Machinery becomes more and more developed and a great part
of capital is composed of machines. The introduction of machines has
taken place because they economize labor. Thus a certain number of
workmen find themselves without occupation. It is true that there is a
mitigating circumstance, namely that there is an increased demand for
labor in other branches (manufacture of machines), but this demand can
never be as great as the amount of labor rendered superfluous by
machinery, for otherwise machines would never have been introduced.
However short the apprenticeship required by modern industry, it is
nevertheless impossible for a workman to change from one branch to
another at short notice. Thus the consequences for workmen thrown out
of employment continue to be serious notwithstanding the increased
demand in another branch. The only case in which the introduction of
machines will occasion no unemployment will be when the demand for
commodities increases extraordinarily, as, for example, when a new
market is opened up.
However there are still other causes of forced unemployment. Such are
the introduction of the labor of women and children, the migration of
rural workers to the cities, immigration from backward countries, and
the supplanting of small businesses, by which members of the lower
middle class are forced down into the proletariat.
The causes of overpopulation are found, then, in the system of
production itself, and not in a too great increase of the population; a
conclusion to be drawn also from the fact that as far as actual
productivity of labor is concerned each produces more than enough for
his needs. There are, then, always a number of persons who desire to
work but cannot find employment. In periods of crisis the number of
these increases enormously. The so-called “reserve army of labor” is a
condition indispensable to capitalism. Without it sudden development in
periods of prosperity would be impossible. Without it also the power of
organized labor would become so great that the surplus-value would run
serious danger. It is just because the supply of labor exceeds the
demand that the power of the capitalists over the workmen is so great,
and also that it happens so often that the interests of the workmen are
thwarted.
We come now to the end of my exposition. For our subject it is
unnecessary to continue it further. I should like, however, to draw
attention to two more points. The continually increasing concentration
of capital has as a consequence that the conduct of the business under
the direction of the capitalist himself more and more gives place to
the stock company, which combines the capital of numerous persons, and
gives the direction to a salaried employe. Following this,
concentration drives the owners in one branch of industry to combine
for the purpose of eliminating competition, and thus of increasing
profits; in this way the “trusts” come into being. Competition, the
fundamental principle of capitalism, is changed into its opposite,
monopoly.
CHAPTER II.
SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE DIFFERENT CLASSES.
Let us pass now to the social condition in which the different social
classes live in consequence of the place they occupy in the economic
system.
A. THE BOURGEOISIE.
After a long and difficult struggle against feudalism the bourgeoisie,
the class possessing the means of production, came out victorious. It
has grown and become more powerful, and in almost all the countries
where capitalism exists it is still the directing class.
The bourgeoisie is divided into three groups. The first comprises the
capitalists who direct their business themselves. As has been shown in
the preceding pages the power of this group is based upon its
monopolizing the surplus-value. The idea which predominates among the
bourgeoisie in general, and particularly among the first group, is to
gain money, always more money. This thirst for gold is not quenched
when the man has arrived at a point where he can live a luxurious life
and gratify all his caprices. Thanks to capitalism it is possible to
amass wealth without limit, so that the capitalist is never satisfied,
however enormous may be the sums which he has gained. The consequence
is that in general he is little developed in other directions, uses all
his time in attaining the end he wishes for, has a mind only
superficially cultivated, and if he is interested in art he regards it
simply as a pastime which he procures for money.
Next to this group comes that of the persons whose sole occupation
consists in appropriating a part of the surplus-value to increase their
capital and in spending the rest for a luxurious life. It is
unnecessary to set forth here the regrettable consequences of idleness
and too easy a life. Doubtless there are in this group some persons who
work and do not squander their income. But the fact remains that the
present economic system produces a class who are not forced to work and
can dissipate what others produce. The luxury displayed by the
bourgeoisie has injurious consequences for the whole population. Not
only do many persons aid this class in spending a part of the
surplus-value, but further, as a consequence of the uninterrupted
increase of luxury among the bourgeoisie (the result of the continued
increase in the surplus-value), desire becomes so much the greater
among the other classes as they have the less possibility of satisfying
it.
The development of capitalism (the growth of stock companies) is the
reason why the above-mentioned group of capitalists increases in
comparison with the first group. The control of affairs is more and
more abandoned to salaried employes. With these we come to the third
and last group; the so-called liberal professions, in which men provide
for their needs by intellectual labor. They are not capitalists in the
strict sense of the term, for they live by selling their labor; but as
they are recruited principally from the bourgeoisie, and in general
have nearly the same standard of living as the bourgeoisie, it will be
best to treat them here. Under the capitalistic system those who
cultivate science or the arts are obliged to sell their products. There
was a time when their number being limited their products brought a
high price. However the development of capitalism has been the cause of
a continually increasing demand for these persons. The task of the
state and municipality becoming constantly greater requires an
increasing number of functionaries; the larger application of science
to industry demands more engineers, chemists, etc.; the multiplication
of stock companies puts the direction of affairs more and more into the
hands of salaried employes; etc., etc.
The extension of university education produced a greater supply, and
this occasioned a considerable fall in the price of the commodity. In
the end the supply began to exceed the demand; in this territory also
there is an overproduction. Thence it happens that the price of this
commodity often falls below its value, and thus a sort of scientific
proletariat is formed. Just as the merchant on account of
overproduction in his branch can dispose of his goods only by taking
advantage of every possible method, so men of the liberal professions
must at times have recourse to similar means if they wish to attain a
great success or even to support themselves.
Although I speak of these persons under the head of “bourgeoisie” this
is not an exact classification. Not only does their material condition
sometimes differ from that of the bourgeoisie, but in other regards
they cannot be treated under the same head. Many of them are
descendants of those who have practiced the same profession; others
have come from among the bourgeoisie proper, and have chosen the
profession in question from inclination and natural disposition. These
circumstances as well as the influence of the profession itself bring
it about that for the last group the gaining of money is not the
principal end as with the first, but that other motives also impel
them.
In the next place we must fix our attention upon a matter which
concerns the entire body of the bourgeoisie: the uncertainty of the
future, for no one, not even the richest, is sure of it. In the
exposition of the economic system which we have been considering the
principal causes of this state of things have been indicated; it is
therefore useless to go over the details again. It is not only those
who lack capital or the ability to direct an enterprise, whose position
is uncertain. A manufacturer can be ruined by an invention which makes
his product unsalable; an unforeseen fall in price may have the same
effect upon a merchant; etc., etc. This uncertainty reaches its height
during crises, and, as a consequence of the complexity of economic life
at present, the fall of one has disastrous consequences for those who
have relations with him. From this it happens that to the agitation and
weakness which are the consequences of competition, is added the fear
of losing one’s position.
The cause of this fear is obvious. The capitalist who is ruined, and
the stock-holder whose securities become valueless, see themselves
thereby deprived of everything that makes life worth living, power,
luxury, importance, etc., while the possibility of recovery without
capital seems very small. This is especially true of the first two
groups of the bourgeoisie. Nevertheless the position of the liberal
professions is not very stable, though it is somewhat more so than that
of the other groups.
Whence does the bourgeoisie recruit itself? In great part from the
descendants of the bourgeoisie, in a less degree from the other
classes. If a “petit-bourgeois” or a proletarian finds himself
incorporated into the ranks of the bourgeoisie it is by virtue of
extraordinary circumstances. They may reach this station because they
have qualities which especially fit them to direct capitalistic
enterprises; but in this case circumstances must arise to bring their
capacity to light and give them a chance to develop it.
Although a relatively small number succeed in passing from another
class to that of the bourgeoisie, this does not prevent nearly all from
having an ardent desire to enrich themselves and from seizing every
opportunity which may help them attain this end. (The only exception is
found in those workers who understand that the historic task of the
working class is to found a society where there shall be neither rich
nor poor.) A man will often start a factory or a shop without having
either capital or ability, in the hope of raising himself in the social
scale; and unless the circumstances are extraordinarily favorable
failure follows almost immediately. This applies also quite as strongly
to the capitalists who for one reason or another have failed in
business; they try to gain success in another branch at any cost, even
if capital and ability are lacking. But such a course can only retard
their fall, and they end infallibly by sinking permanently to the rank
of the proletarian.
What I have just been saying brings out strongly the character of the
present process of production. Production is not undertaken for the
sake of consumption, but for profit, so that the man who believes that
he has a good chance to improve his condition goes to work to produce,
without asking himself whether there is need of his products, or
whether he can meet the required conditions.
As to the relation of the bourgeoisie, as a class, to other classes,
and especially to the proletariat, a few words will suffice after the
exposition I have given of present economic conditions. “In every
nation there are two nations.” These words describe the relations in
question. From their mode of life the bourgeoisie and the proletariat
remain strangers to one another. [270] The bourgeoisie, having arrived
at a wrong idea of the present system, do not consider the proletariat
as the class which sustains society by its toil, but as a necessary
evil. According to the bourgeois every strike is a diminution of his
rights, an encroachment upon his property. In the political field the
bourgeoisie, notwithstanding its intrinsic divisions, acts as a unit
against the proletarians; a fact which does not prevent there being
opposing interests within the class: in the first place the contest of
the different groups of capitalists (manufacturers against agrarians,
etc.) and then the opposing interests of the manufacturers within each
group.
B. THE PETTY BOURGEOISIE.
In reality the line of demarcation between the bourgeoisie and the
petty bourgeoisie is not drawn with the precision desirable for a
theoretical exposition. Just as there are numerous gradations in the
bourgeoisie, so are there in the petty bourgeoisie.
It is the petty bourgeoisie which has among its different classes the
most ancient traditions. There was a time when it was strong and
powerful. But the development of capitalism has changed all that.
Industrialism has arisen and undermined the petty bourgeoisie. In the
combat the small capitalist must eventually go down. He has not, like
his adversaries, scientific forces at his disposal, has no great
credit, cannot, in consequence of the insufficiency of his capital,
make use of new inventions; in short, his arms are inferior to those of
his antagonists. All this does not make him renounce the contest at
once; on the contrary, it arouses him to bring all his forces into
play. In consequence of his position in the economic life he has no
breadth of view. He cannot comprehend that what earned bread for his
ancestors during so many years will some day fail. This is the reason
that, as soon as large capital enters into the competition, the small
manufacturer overdrives himself, and not only himself but his workmen
also, and further, attempts to lower wages, lengthen the working day,
and introduce women and children to take the place of men. Competition
forces the merchant to take advantage of his customers in all sorts of
ways, a fact which gives commerce its character; for the art of
commerce is to buy cheap and sell dear. Hence there is opposition
between the merchant and the manufacturer on the one hand, and between
merchant and customer on the other. This is why the merchant is led to
depreciate the article he buys, and to praise that which he is selling.
This tendency naturally becomes stronger as competition becomes
fiercer. Advertising, a system of deceit, is invented to draw
purchasers at any cost; and the point is even reached where men no
longer give exact weight (“My competitors do not give it,” says the
merchant to himself), and sell goods of poorer quality than
represented. This is why commerce has a moral code of its own.
However, notwithstanding their desperate resistance, the situation of
the petty bourgeoisie becomes worse and worse, and this has important
social consequences, for example, the increase of the labor of women
outside of their own homes. Whole groups of the petty bourgeoisie are
so fallen into decadence that the plane of their existence has become
the same as that of the proletariat, or has even fallen below it.
Finally the contest with the large capitalist means not simply
degradation to the petty bourgeois, but absolute ruin. When a crisis
comes the small capitalists are the first to feel the shock. Their ruin
may come in various ways; their business may be annihilated
altogether—in which case they are permanently reduced to the ranks of
the proletariat—or it may become dependent upon great capital under the
name of home industry, i.e. wage labor masked under the appearance of
independence. Only those who have been able to save a part of their
capital from the wreck can try fortune once more in another branch of
industry where great capital has not yet begun to compete, but they are
sure to be pursued and finally overtaken by their enemy.
As in the case of the bourgeoisie, the relations which the different
members of the petty bourgeoisie have among themselves are determined
by the economic system; fierce competition, life in a little circle
where ideas cannot be broadened, all this breeds envy, hatred, and
meanness. [271]
As to intellectual culture a great part of the petty bourgeoisie takes
rank between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Generally the
children of this class are better taught than those of the proletariat.
But since the field of their ideas is very restricted and the struggle
for existence requires all their time, their intellectual level remains
in general much below the average level of the bourgeoisie. Others
still who are of the lowest stratum of the petty bourgeoisie have the
same development as the proletariat.
The petty bourgeoisie is recruited from the descendants of the same
class, then from among the bourgeois who have failed in business, and
finally from former proletarians. These last are those who cannot sell
their labor for some reason, and try to gain a livelihood by making an
insignificant capital of value in trading. Their plane of living does
not differ from that of the proletariat unless by being lower.
As to the relation of the petty bourgeoisie to the other classes, it is
naturally hostile to the bourgeoisie, since it is that class which has
deprived it, or is still depriving it, of its influence. This hostility
is, however, of a different kind from that which the working class
feels toward the bourgeoisie. The petty bourgeoisie envies the
bourgeoisie; it desires also to become rich, and thereby powerful. On
the other hand it feels no community of interest with the working
class, whose fixed determination to be free from the wage system it
holds in abhorrence. The political position of the petty bourgeoisie,
placed as it is between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, has
necessarily become an equivocal one.
C. THE PROLETARIAT.
The proletariat, that class of persons who do not possess the means of
production and who can exist only by the sale of their labor, dates
from modern times. Between the independent artisan and the modern
proletarian comes the journeyman as a link in the chain. The
difference, however, between the journeyman and the proletarian is
great. The journeyman generally lodged with his master, worked with
him, and was considered as a member of the family. And since the means
of production necessary were still quite limited, the journeyman by
saving his wages had a chance some day to become master. With this hope
he came to consider himself as having common interests with his
employer.
The situation of the proletarian is entirely different. His work is
entirely separate from that of his employer; the lengthening of the
working-day does not imply that the capitalist works longer also. The
workman lodges apart, and it makes little difference to the employer
how his employes are housed and fed. The means of production being very
dear, and the knowledge necessary to direct any business being lacking,
the proletarian can almost never become an employer.
As has been shown it is the ruined members of the petty bourgeoisie who
have formed the first stock of the proletariat. But although this class
is still reinforced in the same way the greatest part of the
proletariat is now composed of the descendants of proletarians.
We can easily comprehend the situation of the proletariat provided we
do not lose sight of the basis of the present economic system, that is,
the fact that the object of production is to gain for some the largest
possible surplus-value at the expense of the rest of the population.
The child of the proletarian is set to work at an age when the child of
the bourgeois parents is still leading a care-free life, with nothing
to do but to develop his powers. When taken to the factory the young
proletarian finds himself in the midst of ignorant and coarse men
caring nothing for him, and soon picks up their bad habits. It is in
this environment that the proletarian will pass the greatest part of
his life without hope of ever raising himself above it.
The greater part of the trades practiced have an unfavorable effect,
frequently even very harmful to the health of the workmen (on account
of great heat, too much dust, injurious gases, etc.). These prejudicial
influences might be checked or prevented, but it costs money to make a
factory sanitary, with no immediate return, and hygienic suggestions
are therefore generally not followed. A number of trades constantly
threaten the workers with death or mutilation; but although safety
devices can almost always remove the danger, for the reason above
stated they are still many times left untried.
As regards the length of the working-day, moderate work is a pleasure,
excessive work mere torment. Except in so far as the laws and the labor
unions have intervened, the day has been prolonged until there is left
only the time absolutely necessary for food and sleep. Many workmen are
not even given the night for sleeping, for in many factories the night
force succeeds that on duty in the daytime. We may read in the holy
Scriptures that a day has been set aside for rest, but this does not
prevent Sunday from being a day of work under the capitalistic system,
even though we are supposed to be living in a Christian society.
In general the work in factories is very monotonous, and hence
brutalizing; and further, fatiguing from its great intensity. Moreover
a vexatious discipline is sometimes maintained. However harmful may be
the results of factory labor upon the physical, intellectual, and moral
condition of the worker, they are less so than the results of
sweat-shop labor. For sweat-shop hours are still longer than those of
the factory; and the work is done in a place which is both kitchen and
bedroom, so that not only is the workman injured but his family as
well.
Let us now take up the question of wages. It is necessary that the wage
should be enough to procure what is strictly needful, and in fact wages
generally do not rise above this standard. Further the workman buys at
a high price goods of low quality, for he who cannot spend much is
powerless in dealing with the producers. Since the workman does not
draw his wages till he has done the work, he must get credit for the
necessaries of life (often being obliged to add to his debts on account
of sickness or unemployment). His wages prevent his paying his debts,
and force him, therefore to continue to trade with his creditor, who
cheats him at every turn. Again, in some branches of industry he is
obliged to buy what he wants from the capitalist, or from the foreman
(truck-system), or to live in a house which belongs to the capitalist
(cottage system)—and then gets poorer quality at a higher price than
elsewhere.
Let us take up next the dwellings of the proletariat. Capitalism is the
cause of a great congestion of persons in a limited area. An enormous
rise in the price of land in the cities and consequently a similar rise
in rents have been the result. No class spends a larger part of its
income in rent than the laboring class. The proletariat is not only
lodged expensively but badly. All those who pass through the laborers’
districts know the monotonous rows of houses, ill-built, uniform and
simple. But the internal arrangement of these buildings is much more
miserable; the stairs and landings are narrow, the rooms small, badly
lighted and ventilated, and often must serve for kitchen and bedroom
combined. But notwithstanding the limited space, the number of inmates
often is further increased by taking lodgers, in an attempt to make
both ends meet. For all these reasons the house of the working-man is
not a real home in which he can be at ease.
As if these consequences of capitalism were not serious enough, the
labor of married women is added. By this the life of the family,
already damaged in so many ways, has been destroyed. Furthermore the
physical effect upon the woman, and even more upon the child with which
she is pregnant, is most prejudicial, without reckoning that her moral
condition suffers equally.
Up to this point I have been speaking of the proletarian on the
supposition that he has been able to sell his labor-power. But, as we
have seen already, when this sale is not possible, he and his family
are left to their fate. This then is what freedom of labor means, a
freedom that the slave never knows, freedom to die of hunger. No one
guarantees to the workman or his family the means of subsistence if,
for any reason, he is not able to sell his labor. The slave-owner had
an interest in taking care of a sick slave, for the slave represented
value which he did not care to see diminished. But if a workman is sick
he is discharged and replaced by another. The sickness and death of the
laborer do not harm the capitalist at all.
I have set forth above the numerous causes which prevent the workman
from selling his labor. Forced idleness has become chronic little by
little, reaching its acute stage in times of crisis. Then seasonal
trades make the work of thousands dependent upon the weather. Aside
from general causes, which affect whole groups, there are also
individual causes. A workman displeases his employer, it may be because
he is one of the leaders of a union, or for some other reason; he is
discharged, and runs, especially in times of economic depression, the
risk of not being able to find employment elsewhere. If the worker
falls ill or is injured (this often happens as a consequence of an
unhealthful or dangerous trade), or when he reaches old age (and hard
work ages men quickly), he is condemned. If the period of idleness
lasts long the workman loses his ability and the habit of working (for
working is above all a habit), and the time is not far distant when he
will become altogether incapable of working.
The intellectual condition of the working class is easily understood.
In his youth the child learns but little. The circle of his ideas
remains restricted, since his parents have ordinarily neither the
knowledge, the opportunity, nor the desire to supplement the little
that is learnt at school. At the age when the child begins to think for
himself, and his aptitudes begin to manifest themselves, he is put to
work. The little that the proletarian has learned in his childhood is
quickly forgotten under the pressure of the long, monotonous toil,
which dulls his intelligence and makes him thus less sensitive to
higher impressions. Even if this were not the case, the long duration
of labor fatigues the workman too much, his domestic life does not
permit him to develop himself, and further he has no money for
intellectual pleasures. The pleasures of the workman belong to his kind
of life. Consequently his amusements are rough and coarse. Alcohol and
sexual intercourse are often the only pleasures he knows. [272]
The life of the working-man is less retired than that of the bourgeois.
He sees continually the misery of his companions, which is also his
own, he feels himself more at one with them, but the demand for labor
always remaining below the supply, competition among the workers
arouses antagonistic feeling among them. The possibility of some day
becoming rich being almost entirely cut out, the working-man is less
avaricious than the bourgeois, and less economical; he lives from day
to day, and if he happens to get a little more than usual at any time
he spends it at once.
The situation may be summed up as follows: under the capitalistic
system the greater part of the population, the part upon whose labor
the entire social fabric is based, lives under the most miserable
conditions. The proletariat is badly clothed, badly fed, miserably
housed, exhausted by excessive and often deleterious labor, uncertain
as to income, and ignorant and coarse. [273]
However, the sketch given above shows only one side of the question. At
length the workers have perceived that the interests of the employer
are opposed to their own, that the cause of their poverty lies in his
luxury. They have begun to set up opposition when they learn that by
organizing themselves into labor unions they gain a power by which they
can ameliorate their lot. The work no longer being done separately as
in the time of the guilds, but together, there has been this
consequence for the workmen, that being now in the same position with
regard to the capitalist, and in the same social condition, they have
gained in the feeling of solidarity and in discipline, two conditions
which are essential to victory in the struggle. Little by little the
workers have learned that their enemy is not their own employer simply,
but the whole capitalist class. The strife has become a strife of
classes. And capitalism being international the conflict of the working
class has become international also.
The means by which the working class attempt to better their position
are of various kinds. First there are the unions, which undertake the
contest for the shorter day and higher wages. Then there is
coöperation; and finally, and above all, politics. The movement for
unions, which could not exist without liberty of the press, of meeting,
and of forming associations, forces the working-men to take part in
politics.
At first, when they still had no clear idea of the position they
occupied in society, the working-men permitted other political parties
to make use of them. But coming to understand that the laborers form a
class apart, whose interests are different from those of other classes,
they have formed an independent working-man’s party. Finally, the
contest of the working class could not limit itself to improvements
brought about within the frame-work of the existing economic system; if
they wished to free themselves permanently they saw themselves obliged
to combat capitalism itself. Thus modern socialism was born; on one
side from an ardent desire of the working class to free itself from the
poverty caused by capitalism; on the other side from the development in
the manner of capitalistic production, in which small capital is always
conquered by large capital. The conviction becomes more and more
general that capitalism has fulfilled its historic task, the increase
of the productive forces, and that the means of production must belong
to all if we are effectively to deliver humanity from the material and
intellectual miseries which result from capitalism. The labor movement
blends itself with socialism, then, and thus social democracy becomes
the political organization of the working class.
What have been the results of the opposition made by the working class
to the misery imposed upon them by capitalism? When we compare the
condition of the proletariat in the first half of the nineteenth
century (see, for example F. Engels, op. cit.) with that of today, we
cannot help recognizing that it has been improved. Forced (in order to
avoid worse things) by the labor agitation and also by the ravages
which capitalism had caused in the working class, incapacitating them
for the work required of them, the bourgeoisie decided to put forth
laws limiting the work of women and children, etc. The unions,
consisting principally of skilled workers, have been and still are able
to obtain increase of wages and a shortening of the working-day, by
making use of the weapons at their disposal (strikes, etc.).
Coöperation also has raised the standard of living somewhat for those
who have taken part in it.
From the fact that the working class, in so far as it has been
organized, has improved its condition, the conclusion has wrongly been
drawn that the distance between the two parties, the possessors and the
non-possessors, has been diminished. Those who draw this conclusion
forget that during this period the totality of wealth has been
enormously increased, and that the proletariat has obtained only a
part, while the rest has fallen to the bourgeoisie. And so far as I
know, no one has yet been able to prove that the part falling to the
bourgeoisie must be smaller than that obtained by the proletarians.
[274]
Besides the material consequences of the labor conflict, its spiritual
consequences are also of very high importance. The contest has obliged
the working-men to develop themselves, has taught them that they occupy
an important place in society, and thus has increased their confidence
in themselves. It is socialism especially which, by giving the hope of
a better future to a whole class oppressed and poor, has had the effect
of little by little elevating the proletariat intellectually and
morally.
D. THE LOWER PROLETARIAT. [275]
I must speak now of the fourth and least numerous group of the
population, that of the very poor. Not possessing the means of
production, and not being able to sell their labor, these people occupy
no position in the economic life properly speaking, and their material
condition is therefore easy to understand. Everything that has been
said upon this subject with reference to the proletariat applies here,
but in a much larger degree. The manner in which these people are fed,
clothed, and housed is almost indescribable. The middle class have no
idea of such a life; they believe that the pictures of these conditions
sometimes painted for them are exaggerated, and that charity is
sufficient to prevent their passing certain limits. From these limits
we understand that the bourgeoisie does not mean to be incommoded by
the poor. If charity were to go farther it would require sums so great
that the increase of capital and expenditures for luxury would be
interfered with. That would be quite out of the question.
In order to depict these conditions I wish to give but one quotation,
taken from an interesting article, “Englands industrielle Reservearmee”
in which account has been given of the researches of certain clergymen
in the poorest quarters of London. And everything that is here said of
London applies in general to other great cities. For capitalism
produces the same effects everywhere.
“Think of the condition in which the poor live. We do not say the
condition of their dwellings, for how can those holes be called
dwellings, when in comparison with them the lair of a wild beast would
be a comfortable and healthful place. Only a few who read these lines
have any conception of what pestilential places these nests are, where
tens of thousands of human beings are herded together among horrors
that recall to us what we have heard of slave-ships between decks. To
reach these abodes of misery we have to find our way through hardly
passable courts, impregnated with poisonous and evil-smelling gases,
which rise from the heaps of offal strewn around, and from the dirty
water flowing underfoot—courts, into which the sun seldom or never
penetrates, through which no breath of fresh air ever blows, and which
seldom have the benefit of a cleaning. We have rotten stairs to climb,
which threaten to give way at each step, and in some places have given
way, leaving holes that endanger the lives and limbs of those who are
not accustomed to them. We are obliged to feel our way along dark and
dirty passages swarming with vermin; then, if we are not driven back by
the intolerable stench, we may enter the holes in which thousands of
beings, of the same race as ourselves, lodge together. Have you, dear
reader, ever pitied those poor creatures whom you found sleeping in the
open under railway arches, in wagons or hogsheads, or under anything
that would afford them shelter? You will learn that these are to be
envied in comparison with those who seek refuge here. Eight feet square
is the average size of very many of these ‘living-rooms.’ Walls and
ceiling are black with the accumulation of dirt which has become
fastened there through the neglect of years. It falls down from the
cracks in the ceiling, sticks out of the holes in the walls, in short,
is everywhere. What goes by the name of a window is half stuffed up
with rags or nailed up with boards, in order to keep out the wind and
rain, while the rest is so smeared and darkened that no light can get
in, nor is it possible to see out. If we climb up to an attic room,
where at least we may expect a breath of fresh air through an open or
broken window, and look down upon the roofs or cornices of the stories
below, we shall discover that the already tainted air which might find
its entrance into the window, has come thither over the decayed bodies
of cats, birds, or still more nauseous things. The buildings themselves
are in such miserable condition that the thought naturally arises,
‘Will they fall down upon the heads of the inmates?’ And furniture? We
shall perhaps discover a broken down chair, the rickety remains of an
old bedstead, or the mere fragments of a table; more often, however, as
a substitute for these we shall find only rough boards resting upon
bricks, an old warped trunk, or a box; and more often still nothing but
rags and rubbish.
“Every room in these rotten, damp, fetid houses is occupied by one, and
often by two families. A sanitary inspector reports that he found in a
cellar a man, his wife, three children, and four hogs. In another room
a missionary found a man sick with small-pox, his wife just recovering
from child-birth, and the children half naked and covered with dirt.
Here seven persons live in a cellar-kitchen, and a dead child lies
between the living. In another room a poor widow was living with three
children, and one child who had already been dead thirteen days. Her
husband, a cab-driver, had committed suicide a short time before.—Here
lives a widow and her six children, including a daughter of 29, another
of 21, and a son of 27. Another room contains father, mother, and six
children, of whom two are sick with scarlet fever. In another live,
eat, and sleep nine brothers and sisters from 29 years old down. Here
is a mother who sends her children out on the street from early evening
till late after midnight, because she rents her room during this time
for immoral purposes. Afterwards the poor worms may creep back to their
dwelling if they have not found some scanty shelter elsewhere. Where
there is a bed it consists of nothing but a heap of dirty rags, refuse,
or straw, but mostly there is not even this, and the miserable beings
lie upon the dirty floor. The renter of this room is a widow, who takes
the only bed herself and sublets the floor to a married couple for two
shillings sixpence a week.” [276]
“However miserable these rooms may be they are yet too dear for many,
who wander about all day seeking to get a living as well as they can,
and at night take shelter in one of the common lodging-houses, of which
there are so many. The lodging-houses are often the meeting place of
thieves and vagabonds of the lowest sort, and some are even kept by the
receivers of stolen goods. In the kitchen men and women may be seen
cooking their food, doing their washing, or lounging around smoking and
gambling. In the sleeping room there is a long row of beds on each
side, as many as sixty or eighty in a single room. In many
lodging-houses the two sexes are permitted to lodge together without
any regard for the commonest decency. Yet there is still a lower step.
Hundreds cannot procure even the twopence necessary to secure the
privilege of passing a night in the stuffy air of these dormitories;
and so they lie down on the steps and in the passage ways, where it is
nothing uncommon in the early morning to find six or eight human beings
huddled together or stretched out.” [277]
We may limit ourselves to this sketch of the habitation—all the other
living conditions conform thereto. With so miserable a material life
there can be no question of the intellectual life. Continual poverty
and the permanent fear of dying of hunger destroy all that is noble in
man and reduce him to the condition of a beast, without any aspiration
for higher things; for those who have come to this state from the more
favored classes become more and more degraded and have soon lost the
little knowledge they acquired in earlier periods. Servility and lack
of self-respect are necessary to the poor if they are to get the alms
they need to keep them alive, since they occupy no place in the
economic life. Between them and the workers there is an enormous
difference; they have no feeling of solidarity in the social life.
What is the origin of the lower proletariat, from what classes is it
recruited? If we are to believe many criminologists and sociologists
the answer to this question ought to be that their poverty is not due
to social conditions but exclusively to themselves; that they are
inferior by nature. But to get a true answer we must put the question
in this way: do the existing social classes form the groups into which
men would be classified according to their qualities?
Those who give an affirmative answer to this question reason as
follows: men differ enormously among themselves in their innate
capacities. The largest division of them is made up of people of
moderate worth, a small number rise above this, and the rest are
inferior. Circumstances have little influence upon the development of
these capacities. If any man has great abilities circumstances cannot
keep him from the place to which they entitle him. He who has little
ability also arrives at the place which that fact makes his own. In
other words (to confine myself to capitalism) the bourgeoisie, the
ruling class, is composed of persons predestined to rule; next comes
the petty bourgeoisie, followed by the proletariat, predestined to
rough work; and finally lower proletariat, a class predestined to
succumb in the struggle for existence, since incapable of meeting its
requirements. [278]
An attentive examination of this theory, which is an application to
society of the Darwinian theory of selection, shows at once—even
supposing it to be correct—that there is an important difference
between the struggle for existence in nature and that in society. In
nature the conquered are either annihilated, or are prevented from
reproducing themselves, while in society the lower classes multiply
much faster than the higher. It is no longer a question of the survival
of the most fit, and the annihilation of the rest, as in nature.
Who is it then who remains victor in the struggle for life in society?
To answer this it is necessary first to answer another, Are the chances
the same for all? If this is not the case then it cannot be a question
of the triumph of the best.
There are few questions upon which opinions differ as much as upon
this. Generally these opinions are only conjectures, for they are not
based upon an examination of facts. For this reason I wish to set down
here briefly the very important conclusions of Professor Odin in his
“Genèse des grands hommes”, a work noteworthy not simply from the
wealth of documents of which the author made use, but also from his
very scrupulous care in examining them. Professor Odin has made studies
of the educational environment, the economic environment, the
ethnological environment, etc., of all the men of letters born in
France between 1300 and 1830, to the number of 6382.
As to educational environment, the author has been able to procure
exact information with regard to 827 persons; a good education had been
given to 811, or 98.1 % and 16, or 1.9 % had had a poor education. “All
this forces us to admit that education plays a rôle not only important,
but capital, decisive, in the development of the man of letters.” [279]
The economic environment in which the men of letters had passed their
youth could be discovered in the case of 619. Of these, 562, or 90.7 %,
passed their youth sheltered from all material care, while 57, or 9.3
%, passed their youth in indigence or insecurity. In consequence the
author makes the following observation: “As it appears, only the
eleventh part of the literary men of talent have passed their youth in
difficult economic conditions. This ratio, already very small in
itself, appears much more striking when we strive to represent the
numerical relation which ought to exist for the whole population
between well-do-do families and those that are not. It is impossible to
say, doubtless, what this relation has been on the average for the
whole modern period. But it is clear that we shall be well below the
truth if we admit that the families of the second category are three or
four times as numerous as those of the first. That is to say, from the
mere fact of the economic conditions in which they are born, the
children of well-to-do families have at least forty or fifty times as
much chance of making a name in letters as do those who belong to
families that are poor, or are simply in a position of economic
instability.” [280]
Further, the author shows that the fifty-seven men of letters who
passed their youth in an unfavorable economic environment were by
chance put in a position to develop their capacities. (Only five of
them received a poor education.)
Finally the social environment from which the literary men have sprung:
======================+======================================
| Number of Literary Men of Talent
Social Classes. | Relatively to the Total Population
| of Each Social Class.
----------------------+--------------------------------------
Nobility. | 159
Magistracy. | 62
Liberal professions. | 24
Bourgeoisie. | 7
Manual labor. | 0.8
======================+======================================
Upon examining these figures we see that of two persons of the same
innate qualities the one who has sprung from the nobility has about 200
times as much chance of becoming a person of importance as the one who
comes from the laboring class. The struggle of our day has been
characterized as a race with a handicap, in which one runs on foot with
a burden on his back, another rides a horse, while the third takes an
express train. The reality, however, is still stronger.
Doubtless we must not forget that the researches of Professor Odin
include in part a period that differs in many respects from our own
(hence the small contingent of the bourgeoisie), and that since this
time education has become more solid and more general, a fact which
increases the chances of success of a gifted man sprung from a poor
environment. In the second place it was literary men and not
capitalists who were the subject of investigation, and since the former
doubtless must have greater natural aptitudes than the latter, it may
well be that it is easier for anyone without money to acquire capital,
than would be suggested by the figures applying only to men of letters.
Nevertheless, all this does not overthrow the fact that the researches
of Professor Odin have proved that the fact of being born in a class
where youth is without care, and enjoys a good education, procures an
enormous advantage in the struggle for existence. [281]
In order to prevent erroneous interpretations I will add Professor
Odin’s own conclusion, from which it is plain that he does not deny
absolutely that men’s innate capacities differ widely (which, indeed,
is disputed by few, and may be considered settled). “Heredity and
environment,” he says, concur with one another in the development of
talent. We may characterize as follows their respective spheres of
action: where the hereditary qualities are identical—to suppose an
impossible case—it is the environment which causes all the difference
between individuals; where the environment is identical, it is
heredity.
“Put in these terms the proposition is banal. What is less so, since
this has been established here with certainty for perhaps the first
time, is that heredity alone can do nothing. However strong may be the
natural disposition given by heredity, it can only develop itself in a
favorable environment. Thrown into an unfavorable environment it will
become weakened in the degree in which the environment is contrary to
it, and may even end by being atrophied to the point of being no longer
perceptible. The supposed omnipotence of heredity is only an illusion,
resulting from an elementary confusion between heredity and simple
parentage.
“This is not all. We have been able to determine more nearly what is
the indispensable environment for the development of literary talent.
It is a good education, made possible by certain circumstances which
are advantageous socially and economically, in other words, a proper
social environment.” [282]
As a second form of the handicap we must speak of inheritance. It is
impossible to estimate this advantage in figures, but it is
incontestable that the man who has become rich in this way has no need
of great knowledge or great intelligence in order to remain rich.
Provided he does not speculate or squander his money, he should be able
to have the enjoyment of it all his life. The struggle for existence is
unknown to him; at the very start of the race his foot is nearly at the
goal.
We see already that these two circumstances have as their result that
the classes do not correspond exactly to the groups into which men are
separated according to their capacities. However we must now leave the
cases in which one has a start of another, and give an answer to the
question, “In what do the conquerors in the contest excel?”
In the first place, attention must be drawn to a group of capitalists
who have acquired their wealth without having their abilities called
into play, but who are entirely indebted to chance, i.e. the
speculators, the winners of the great prizes in lotteries, the men who
make rich marriages, etc. Next we may mention the other capitalists,
the great manufacturers and merchants. Wherein are they distinguished?
First for energy and activity, next for a great talent for
organization, especially as shown in the choice of their chief
employes, and finally for a need of luxury, not too great, lest the
building up of their capital be interfered with, nor too restrained,
lest the suspicion be aroused that their fortune is in danger. The
first of these aptitudes must certainly be considered as the most
favorable; the talent for organization especially is of the highest
importance, for it is without contradiction a factor in social
progress. It is because of this talent and not for their fabulous
wealth alone that the names of Pierpont Morgan, of Rockefeller, and of
other directors of trusts will not be entirely forgotten after they are
dead. But these are not the only capacities which these people must
display. To direct a capitalistic enterprise it is necessary among
other things to have a fair portion of insensibility as well toward
workmen as toward customers; then it will not do to be too scrupulous
about truth (in advertising, etc.), nor to show too much character
(however impertinent his customers may be the capitalist takes it all
through fear of seeing them go over to his competitors).
Nevertheless, he who displays all these qualities, still is not
entirely sure of being able to improve his position, or even to
maintain himself in it; crises, as has been shown, are inevitably bound
up with capitalism itself, and strike at times the most substantial and
energetic capitalists. By a new invention or a new manner of working
the most active and intelligent manufacturer may see himself
out-stripped by a competitor. And aside from all fortuitous
circumstances, in society as it exists today the struggle for existence
is a struggle between those best armed, those who have the best
machines, etc. But the manufacturer who can procure the best machines,
who can bring his establishment up to the latest technical
requirements, who can procure the services of the ablest technicians,
etc., is the man who has most capital. The struggle is not a struggle
of men but of capital.
In his work, “Die Darwinsche Theorie und der Sozialismus” Dr. L.
Woltmann has brought out clearly the difference between the combat in
nature and that which takes place in society. He says: “The history of
the civilization of the human race also proceeds upon the basis of the
great biological principles of adaptation, transmission, and perfection
in the struggle for existence. But between the application of these
principles among the lower animals and in the world of man there are
the following essential differences. In the first place in the animal
world the struggle for existence takes place through the adaptation of
organic means to organic ends, while with men technical tools and
economical means of production enter in, things which are not within
the power of separate individuals, but are made possible by
association. In the second place hereditary transmission in the case of
animals is organic, while in the case of human beings there is added an
external and legally determined hereditary transmission of technical
tools and of capital. In the animal kingdom, in the third place, the
struggle for existence is a rivalry of organic production and
reproduction, while among men, especially under the capitalistic order,
there takes place a competition in commodities and places, a contest
for profit, which has hardly anything in common with natural
selection.” [283]
Thus we see clearly who it is that can rise from the class of
non-possessors to that of possessors: it is those to whom fortune is
peculiarly favorable, or who, possessing the qualities necessary for
the capitalist, meet with the opportunity of putting them in evidence.
Those who are dropped from the capitalist class are those who have been
unfortunate or who do not possess the qualities necessary for
capitalists.
The answer to the question proposed, “Are the present classes also the
groups where men can be ranked according to their qualities”, must be
decidedly negative. The bourgeoisie is not the ruling class because the
most intelligent and energetic persons are found among its members.
There are also included in this class persons without energy, stupid
people, of minor importance in short, just as in the petty bourgeoisie
and the proletariat very capable persons may be met with. The fact of
being excluded from the class of possessors is not a proof of
inferiority. If the superior persons were those who led society they
would be the great thinkers, the savants, for it is they who have made
society progress and who have desired its well-being. For even if
capitalists, more than others, have aided progress, it is by chance,
for they have always had in view only their own profit. [284]
I could easily cite a number of celebrated authors who are unanimously
of the opinion that the conquerors in the present struggle are not such
because they are naturally superior. [285] I will confine myself to
recalling the opinion of one whose authority no one will contest,
namely, Charles Darwin. Here is what Wallace says: “In one of my last
conversations with Darwin he expressed himself as having very little
hope of the future of humanity, and this upon the basis of his
observation that in our modern civilization natural selection does not
occur, and the fittest does not survive. The victors in the struggle
for gold are by no means the best or the most intelligent, and it is a
well known fact that our population reproduces itself in each
generation much more rapidly among the lower than among the middle and
upper classes.” [286]
An examination of the struggle for existence in the middle class shows
that everything which happens in the bourgeoisie on a large scale is
reproduced here on a small scale. He who has little capital is
surpassed by a competitor who has more, even though the former may be
entirely fitted for his business; crises have the same ruinous
influence here, and strike skilful and unskilful alike. The difference,
as far as the struggle for existence is concerned, between the class in
question and the bourgeoisie, consists in this: the less energetic, the
less intelligent of the middle class runs more danger of falling back
out of the ranks than a member of the bourgeoisie who is his equal.
Finally, we come to the proletariat. Here also there is an elimination
of individuals not because they are incapable, but because they are
superfluous in the present mode of production, as well as of those whom
sickness or old age render unfit for labor. Here we must take account
of a factor which is of less importance in the other classes, bodily
health and strength. While the proletarian has need neither of much
knowledge or great intelligence to carry on his trade, he has a
powerful weapon for the struggle in his muscular strength and health.
Unfavorable conditions have a strong influence upon him, and the one
who is weak and ailing must, other things being equal, yield in the
present struggle for existence to a competitor who is stronger and in
better health. And finally, in this contest also the less active, the
less persevering among the workers will have the smaller chance of
success, supposing conditions to be equal.
So we return to the point from which we set out, the lower proletariat.
This class is not composed, then, as has sometimes been claimed, of
beings inferior by nature, of persons who are fit for nothing. In the
great majority of cases social conditions and not their lack of
aptitude, are the exclusive and direct causes of their position. In
support of this I will give some figures, which also show the relative
importance of the causes compared among themselves.
German Empire.
====================================================================+============
Injuries to the person assisted } | 1.04
,, ,, ,, breadwinner of the family } By | 0.09
Death of ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, } Accident. | 0.36
,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, } Not by | 8.35
Sickness of the person assisted or of one of his family } Accident. | 15.24
Bodily or intellectual infirmities | 8.97
Weakness of old age | 12.32
Large number of children | 1.34
Forced unemployment | 2.23
Alcoholism | 0.88
Laziness | 0.71
Other causes designated | 4.09
,, ,, not designated | 0.06
“Co-assisted”[287] | 44.32
+------------
| 100.00[288]
====================================================================+============
This table shows that 44.32% of the persons assisted were
“co-assisted”; that 8.8% have become indigent through the death or
injury of the breadwinner of the family; that there are, therefore,
53.12% of those assisted the cause of whose indigence is not to be
found in the persons themselves, but in their social environment.
(Generally such persons are spoken of as not being poor through their
“own fault”, a term so vague that it would be well to discontinue its
use.) 1.34% are persons with a large family, whose wages are too small
to support so many; 2.23% are out of employment, i.e. they wish to work
but can find nothing to do; 12.32% are prevented from working by old
age. Consequently we reach the figure of 69.01% for those who have
become indigent through causes which do not depend upon themselves.
Finally come 25.25% of those assisted who have been injured, or are
sick, or have bodily or intellectual infirmities.
Further, there are social causes which play a great part in the
etiology of the cases we have been discussing (bad housing conditions
favoring tuberculosis, lack of protective devices for dangerous
machines, causing injuries, etc.). Others of these persons are born
weak or sickly, in which case we may speak of individual causes of
poverty, although social conditions have contributed in their turn by
their influence on the parents to make the children wretched.
It is, however, a social phenomenon that the sick and weak of the
proletariat are left to shift for themselves. They find themselves in
that condition only because they do not possess the means of
production, and are no longer in a condition to sell their labor. Many
times we read in treatises upon morals how shameful it is that nomadic
peoples abandon or kill their sick and aged, and how by these customs
they give proof of their inferior morality. But those who speak in this
way forget how, notwithstanding our present civilization, a great
number of persons still pass their old age in the direst poverty; they
forget also that the manner in which the nomadic peoples live forces
them to rid themselves of their sick and aged, because it would be
impossible to take them with them; they forget also that, on account of
the limited power that nomads have over nature, they find themselves in
exceedingly difficult material circumstances, so that their manner of
acting is not judged immoral by any of their own families who suffer by
it; [289] finally they forget that the productivity of labor is so
enormous at present that all the sick and aged could be supported; a
part of the money spent in superfluous luxuries would be ample for this
purpose.
We have still to examine the last two headings, laziness and
alcoholism. As the figures given above show, these form a very small
part of the causes: together only 1.59%. [290] Among the causes which
have brought these persons to the point where they are, there are
social factors also. Later on I shall speak of the relation between the
present economic system and alcoholism. But at this point we may say as
regards the 0.71% of persons who do not wish to work that a part of
them—it is impossible to say just how many—have grown up in a bad
environment, where they have never been given the habit of working
regularly and diligently, so that they have become totally incapable of
doing so.
There is still another social factor that may be named; the
disagreeable character of many kinds of work, made worse by long hours
and low wages. To adduce but one example: the miner is obliged to work
in a vitiated atmosphere, often in a painful position, and constantly
surrounded by dangers, and this for very low wages. If we stop to think
of this we are more astonished at the millions of workers who pass
their lives under similar conditions, than at the comparatively few who
refuse to work.
However, taking all this into account, it is certain that there are
among the proletariat persons who are predisposed to idleness by their
congenital constitution. It is indubitable that these persons are
invalids, who would be cared for in a well-organized society, but in
ours are abandoned to their fate. Professor Benedikt says, in speaking
of physical neurasthenia: “It represents not so much absolute weakness
as speedy exhaustion coupled with a painful feeling of weakness. We
make in our childhood more muscular movements than is necessary, and
out of the pleasurable feeling which comes from these develop the first
elements of pleasure in work. If, however, the child quickly becomes
weary, and the muscular action soon begets a lively feeling of
discomfort, there arises from this discomfort laziness or physical
neurasthenia.” [291]
The number of those the cause of whose poverty is to be found in
themselves is not, then, very considerable. Nevertheless it is a little
greater than the statistics given would lead one to suppose, for there
are also certain of the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie, ruined in
consequence of the lack of the qualities required for success, who have
gone down little by little and have finally become incorporated with
the lower proletariat.
But is this class of poor persons absolutely fit for nothing? It seems
to me that (leaving the sick out of consideration) the answer must be
decidedly in the negative. It is true that a part of this group
succumbs in the struggle because it is inferior. But it would be as
absurd to say of the runner who comes in last in a race that he cannot
run at all, as to say of the man who goes under in the struggle for
existence that he is fit for nothing. Those who do not succeed in life
are in great part those who through accident of birth have not obtained
the place for which their talents fitted them. How many among the
bourgeoisie are ruined from their incapacity for directing a business
enterprise, while they would have become useful members of society if
they had been able to follow their true vocation? And how many
proletarians have fallen lower and lower through not being fitted for
the trade to which their birth destined them, while their innate
qualities predestined them to a different form of work? [292]
Side by side with these there are individuals who are really inferior,
who have little energy, intelligence, etc. It would be absurd to claim
that these persons are capable of doing great things, even in the most
favorable circumstances. But there is a great difference between not
being able to do great things, and being absolutely useless, as are the
members of the lower proletariat under present conditions. These
persons have need of being guided, cannot stand up without support, and
in order not to perish need to find themselves in a favorable
environment. If their neighbor comes to their assistance they can
assuredly become sufficiently useful, and in any case need do no harm.
Anyone who will look about him may be convinced of the truth of this;
for many persons of just this sort, happening to belong to the
bourgeoisie, have succeeded very well.
Ethnology points out also that classes have not their origin in the
universal fact that men differ in their innate qualities. For if this
were true classes would be as old as humanity itself. This, however, is
not the case; it has been proved that in the evolution of society there
has been a stage (that it was a long time ago makes little difference)
when riches and poverty were unknown, and classes did not exist. [293]
The assertion that the “war of all against all” is a natural
phenomenon, is absolutely false, and proves a very great lack of
sociological knowledge. It is certain that classes have long existed,
but a society like that of our time, in which we can apply the adage of
Hobbes, that “man is a wolf to his fellowman”, is of comparatively
recent date.
Our conclusion, then, is this: the groups into which the population of
capitalistic countries is divided do not originate in the circumstance
that men differ in their innate capacities, but in the system of
production that is in force; it is chiefly chance that determines to
which class an individual belongs; there are inferior beings in each
group, but among the lower proletariat they are more numerous than
elsewhere; but these inferior beings may still be useful enough on
condition that they be placed in a favorable environment.
CHAPTER III.
THE RELATION OF THE SEXES AND OF THE FAMILY.
A. MARRIAGE.
As between the two commonplaces, “There have always been poor people”,
and “The present institution of marriage springs from human nature
itself and is as old as society”, it is hard to say which is repeated
oftenest, but it is quite certain that one is no more exact than the
other. Sociology has proved that marriage, as it exists at present, is
the result of a long process of evolution, and every serious observer
must be convinced that its present form will be no more constant than
those which preceded it, and that the ideas concerning it have
undergone important modifications.
The question to solve is this: “How has monogamy taken its rise?” With
the aid of sociology I shall endeavor to give the answer as summarily
as possible. [294] It will, however, be necessary to recall the ancient
forms of marriage, without which it would be impossible to grasp the
origin and evolution of the present form. Most sociologists are of the
opinion that primitive man lived in promiscuity, which, if true, must
have been in the most remote period, when man was hardly
distinguishable from the anthropoid apes. Other authors, on the
contrary, have attempted to show that such a state of things has never
existed. [295] However, the only thing proved is that no case of
promiscuity has ever been established among peoples observed by serious
ethnologists. But all these peoples, however far removed they may be
from us, had already attained a certain degree of development, and were
by no means in their primitive state. No amount of observation can
prove whether or not primitive man really lived in a state of
promiscuity, and we can only take refuge in hypotheses.
We shall be getting at the truth when we come to an agreement as to the
meaning of the word “promiscuity.” Do we mean by this a state like that
in which dogs live, where after copulation the male and female do not
remain together at all? Then it is very likely that human beings have
never lived in that state, inasmuch as such promiscuity exists rarely
or not at all among the animals most approaching man. [296] If, on the
contrary, we mean by promiscuity a state in which rules concerning the
sexual life are lacking, but where life in common for a longer or
shorter period is not excluded, then, since man is part of the animal
kingdom, it is most probable that there has been a time when this state
has existed, and that it is only little by little that objective rules
have appeared. [297] Let us now leave the domain of hypothesis and
examine the real facts. [298]
The most primitive of the peoples who have been observed in detail have
been named “lower hunters”; they include the Australian aborigines, the
Veddhas, the Botocudos, etc. Among these peoples the men hunt while the
women gather fruit and roots. They are forced to wander in small groups
in order to provide for their needs, as otherwise the game and fruit
would soon fail. Their limited control over nature is a frequent cause
of famine and distress generally, and thus prevents any considerable
increase in the population.
As to their sexual relations, there could not be any question of
promiscuity among these peoples. Each horde is divided into three
age-classes, and the union of a member of one of these classes with a
member of another is forbidden. The cause of this prohibition is not
certain. Grosse [299] (as well as other authors [300]) is of the
opinion that it lies in the fact that these peoples discovered the
unfavorable effects of consanguineous unions upon the children, and
that this discovery led to the prohibition. [301] Other authors believe
that the hordes which practiced this exclusion, without suspecting its
importance, ran less danger of extinction than those which did not
practice it. [302]
The hordes being composed of but few persons, this exclusion would
force the men more and more to seek wives from outside the horde, thus
little by little becoming a group of consanguineous persons with whom
union is forbidden. If a man has procured a woman by capture he becomes
her absolute owner, can maltreat her, abandon her, do what he likes in
short. The power of the man over his wife is less great if he has
acquired her by purchase or exchange, since her family then exercises a
certain control.
The relation of the sexes is sufficiently explained by the mode of
production. When these savages are on the march the woman carries the
little that they possess, erects the tent, and searches for fruit; the
man on the other hand by his natural qualities is fitted for hunting
and for the defense of the hunting ground. Hunting being the principal
resource, and in this period bodily strength being of the highest
importance, it is natural that the man should rule.
The so-called “higher hunters”, among whom we must reckon the North
American Indians of the northwest coast and some peoples of northern
Asia, have reached a higher stage of social evolution. The difference
between these and the preceding class is only quantitative, and results
from the circumstance that they have been able to settle themselves in
countries that are rich in game and fish. This permits them to be more
sedentary, to live in larger groups, and to attain a higher
development.
As with the lower hunters there is among them a division of labor
between men and women: The man hunts, fishes, and constructs the tools
that he has need of; the woman gathers roots and herbs, prepares the
food, and gives herself up to the duties of the household. Some of
these peoples are capable of producing more than they need, a fact
which occasions commerce of some importance, and produces at times a
great inequality of fortune.
At this stage of development the woman is of great use, which brings it
about that the father does not give his daughter but sells her. Since
the man, then, has bought his wife she has become his property, and he
can do with her as he wishes; her infidelity is punished with death. If
the husband has received gifts of value from his father-in-law, he is a
little limited in his power, since, if he wishes to repudiate his wife,
he is obliged to return the gifts. However repudiation is rare, since
the woman is very useful to the man and he has ordinarily paid very
dear for her. This is also why polygyny, though permitted almost
everywhere, is rare. Only the very rich can permit themselves the
luxury of more than one wife.
The position of the wife is rather better when, instead of following
her husband, he comes to live at her father’s house. This happens
sometimes when the man cannot pay the whole purchase price, sometimes
when the father-in-law is much richer than he. In this latter case the
son-in-law prefers to profit by the wealth and power of his wife’s
father, who, for his part, asks nothing better than to keep his
daughter at home, since, in this manner, instead of losing a worker
from the household he gains one by the coming of the husband.
We come now to the “pastoral peoples”, living principally in Asia and
Africa. Just as hunting is not the sole resource of the preceding
groups, so the raising of cattle is not the exclusive occupation of
this group, but simply the principal one; hence their name. The raising
of cattle is naturally the work of the men, seeing that it proceeds
genetically from hunting, while the women in this class, as in the
preceding, gather fruits and herbs and attend to the work of the
household. Although the land is held in common, there are great
diversities of wealth, since cattle, the principal form of possession,
are individual property, and since war and pillage are also frequent
sources of wealth.
Polygyny is permitted, and nomads take as many wives as they can pay
for and support. Only the rich, however, can afford to purchase more
than one wife, for the fathers demand a good price. Once purchased the
woman becomes the absolute property of the man, who can exploit her in
any manner, or abandon her, and when he comes to die can leave her to
his heirs with the rest of his possessions. Adultery on the part of the
woman is severely punished, while the man is free. Often under polygyny
only one of the women is considered the legitimate wife and her
children have the sole right to inherit, while the other women are
considered only as concubines. The position of the legitimate wife
towards her husband does not prevent her being as much of a slave as
the other women. Nowhere else has the woman as humble a place as among
these pastoral peoples, and nowhere else is the rôle of the man as
important as here.
Let us next examine the “lower agriculturists” (among whom are to be
found the greater number of the North American Indians, and a great
number of the peoples of Africa and the East Indies). When hunting
peoples, through chance circumstances (wealth of game for example),
have ceased to wander continually, they may easily pass into
agriculturists. [303] Agriculture in its turn brings it about that
those who practice it become more and more sedentary.
The cultivation of the soil developed in connection with the gathering
of fruit and roots, so that it originally formed part of woman’s sphere
of labor; hence the economic importance of women increased, and a
father became less and less disposed to give his daughter in marriage
for a small equivalent. The future husband is obliged to acquire his
wife at a considerable price, perhaps may have to win her by serving
his father-in-law temporarily. Thus, although polygyny is permitted it
is only the rich and the chiefs who can procure more than one wife.
Since agriculture requires many hands, the parents try to keep their
children with them as long as possible. [304] Thus the custom grows up
of several families living in the same house, and the husband comes to
live with his wife’s family when he is unable to pay the purchase
price. Even if this is not the case, a close relationship exists
between the wife and her family, so that she returns to it with her
children when her husband dies. The more important the position of the
woman in the family becomes, the more it comes to pass that the married
woman remains in her own family and the husband in his, and that the
union consists only in more or less frequent visits paid by the man to
his wife.
It is easy to see why the position of woman at this stage is in general
better than at those which preceded. Ordinarily it is the woman who
tills the soil and cares for the household, while the man hunts and
prepares the necessary tools; and since agriculture gives a more
regular and surer production than hunting, it follows that the position
of woman is improved. The woman becomes less dependent upon the man, to
such a point that, for example, she is able to break the marriage, a
condition very different from those in which the wife was the property
of her husband. (The somewhat numerous exceptions are explained by the
fact that in those cases the man takes part in the cultivation of the
soil.) This is especially the case when a domestic community is formed
in which the women govern (matriarchate). [305] Thus a situation is
developed at times in which the women have an important position even
outside of the family (gynecocracy).
As the preceding considerations show it is not the family which, at
this stage of development, takes the first place. During the periods
which I have examined before this the clan (in Latin “gens”, in German
“Sippe”), a group of persons descended from a common ancestor, is of
importance only inasmuch as members of the clan are forbidden to marry
among themselves. Among the lower agriculturists, however, the clan is
developed into a consanguineous group living in a community, and in
most cases the clan is maternal—that is, descent and the right of
succession are reckoned in the maternal line.
However as soon as agriculture increased greatly in importance,
especially when the raising of cattle, commerce, and industry grew up
beside it, the relation between the sexes became considerably modified.
The man gave up hunting, always a less important resource at this
stage, and applied himself more and more to agriculture and other
branches, and the woman only seconded him in these occupations. In
consequence of the continually increasing productivity of labor, the
man could produce more than he needed for consumption. The possession
of slaves then became advantageous, slavery took on greater and greater
proportions, and in this way the woman’s part in the economic life
became less important. Thus the man becomes anew the principal factor
and his authority resumes the force it had in the earlier periods. It
is no longer the man who lives with the woman and her family but she
lives with him. We have seen above that among the lower agriculturists
it is the clan, and especially the maternal clan, that holds the first
place. Through the economic development the maternal clan is made to
give place to the paternal clan. In the clan there was equality, since
the soil, the most important means of production, and the dwelling were
possessed in common; but the disappearance of this equality followed
the development of commerce and industry, for the products of these
were, from the first, private property. This inequality was increased
still more because private property in land began to grow up side by
side with property in common. In the second place, the booty in war was
not the same for all warriors, and furthermore war brought about the
existence of a class of persons (slaves) whose interests were opposed
to those of the conquerors. This development of private property leads
necessarily to a gradual change from the maternal clan to the paternal.
For in the first case a father had to leave his property to the members
of his clan (we have seen that it was the man who became the possessor
of private wealth); and since his children belonged always to another
clan than his own, the clan of their mother, the children did not
inherit from their father. Hence the change to the paternal clan. [306]
But this was not all. Through the great modifications in the mode of
production of which I have already spoken, the importance of the clan
diminished more and more, and at length disappeared entirely. As long
as there was equality among the members of the clan, as long as the
social relationships were little complicated, the clan and the
organizations that sprang from it (mere combinations of clans) sufficed
for the purposes of social organization. But such an organization,
being purely democratic in its nature, was no longer adapted to a
society in which there were rich and poor, freemen and slaves, in
which, therefore, there was a large group of persons oppressed and a
small group of oppressors.
The clan and the combinations of the different clans were replaced by
the state. This was an organization which had for its principal end the
maintenance of order as far as possible, in a society in which the
interests of different groups, like those of individuals, were opposed
to each other, and the regulation of this conflict of interests. [307]
This organization is consequently entirely different from the clan, the
object of which was to take the interests of the community to heart. It
is evident that in an organization like this it is the most important
and influential class which comes first.
On the one hand, then, the clan loses itself in the state; on the other
hand the family, which played but a secondary part while the clan
system was at its height, became of greater importance. The clan is
divided into “great families” (“Grossfamilien”), i.e. husband, wife,
and their unmarried children as well as their male descendants, with
their wives and children; and the father is the master of all these
persons and all their property. However it is only little by little,
and in proportion as we get away from the clan, that the authority of
the father becomes unlimited. This form of the family has continued
even down to our own day in China and Japan, and was general during the
early days of ancient Rome.
In China the woman, whose work is entirely limited to household
occupations, has a position which, according to all accounts, is only
that of a subordinate. Her whole life is under the direction of her
husband; she can never obtain a divorce, while her husband can dissolve
the marriage without cause; if he takes her in the act of adultery he
has the right to kill her, while he himself may keep concubines. In
Japan the position of woman is much the same, and in ancient Rome also,
though in the course of time the situation of the Roman woman was
improved.
As the method of production became more elaborate and the social life
was modified as a consequence, the “great family” disappeared, to be
replaced by the modern family, consisting of the husband and wife with
their unmarried children. Through the increasing extension of the
division of labor the sons could more easily provide for their own
needs and withdraw themselves in this way from the paternal authority,
and the increasing power of the state favored this tendency by limiting
the authority of the father.
The best sources for the study of the first phases of monogamous
marriage are furnished by ancient Greece. There absolute submission of
the woman to the man still prevailed. After the decease of the husband
the woman was under the guardianship of his son. The man could
repudiate his wife or give her to another. While he had full liberty to
have intercourse with other women, the woman who committed adultery was
severely punished. The occupations of the woman were confined to
spinning, weaving, and housekeeping; her life was concentrated within
the house, though even there her authority was very limited, while
outside it had no force whatever.
In comparing the position of woman during the period in question with
that in the earlier periods (excepting the lower agricultural period)
we see that in general her condition is but little ameliorated.
Monogamy existed in reality for one of the parties only, since the man
was free to keep concubines, while he took every means in his power to
prevent the infidelity of his wife, by isolating her from the outer
world. Hence it is not true, as some would have us believe, that
monogamy is the consequence of an instinct, nor that it is due to a
higher degree of culture, made possible by the increased productivity
of labor. [308] On the contrary, among the lower agriculturists, much
less civilized than the ancient Greeks, the position of women was
better than with the latter; being more free, the woman enjoyed in
general a higher degree of consideration.
The origin of monogamy is explained only by the modifications that the
mode of production has undergone. Through these the man has again taken
the most important place in the economic life, it is he who governs and
the woman has only to obey him. Thus it is that through the continual
increase of private property monogamy sprung up, that is to say the
union of a man and a woman with the object of producing legitimate
children who might inherit the property of the father. [309]
Since that time monogamy has persisted to our own day. However
important the modifications which the method of production has
undergone since the rise of monogamy, the fact remains that a certain
part of the work necessary to existence belongs still to the work of
housekeeping, which, as at other times, is performed by the women. The
more important labors, those which give the greater social power to him
who executes them, fall upon the man, and from this fact his
preponderance still persists.
Though the position of the married woman may be somewhat improved when
compared with that at the beginning of civilization, nevertheless a
study of existing civil codes (especially of the French civil code and
of those for which it has served as a model) shows that the married
woman is in general still in a state of great dependence. The woman
must obey her husband and follow him wherever he wishes; except where
otherwise stipulated in the marriage contract the husband has the
management of his wife’s fortune and the income from it belongs to him;
it is the man who exercises parental authority; the woman cannot appear
in a lawsuit without the assistance of her husband; etc.
The difference between the position of the married woman of today and
that of former times consists principally in that the consent of both
parties is necessary to conclude the marriage, that the husband can no
longer repudiate his wife, but can only dissolve the union for
important reasons (adultery, cruelty, etc.), and that the woman also,
for the same reasons, can obtain separation or divorce.
This raises the question as to why a marriage should not be dissolved
as soon as for any reason the union becomes intolerable to either
party. The answer must be as follows. From the dominant position of the
man in the economic life it is clear that the woman would not be able
to loose the bonds of marriage at her pleasure, except in the case
provided by law, inasmuch as the man could not permit so grave an
assault upon his authority. From this point of view monogamy and the
ancient forms of marriage are alike, for the woman has never been able
to secure a divorce at her own pleasure except among the lower
agriculturists, where, on account of her importance in the economic
life she enjoyed the same rights as the man. The present organization
of society prevents the man, for his part, from getting a divorce
except in certain cases provided by law, for if it were possible for
the husband to break the marriage at will, society today would not have
the necessary solidity and stability; marriage would be a very
hazardous enterprise for the woman, since, from the nature of her
occupation, she is generally not in a position to provide for her own
needs by herself; and the support and education of the children by
their parents would also be less assured. But even this is not all. As
we have seen, monogamy was created as soon as private property became
general. Reciprocally monogamy is one of the causes which support and
increase the spirit of property in men. It is in the narrow circle of
the family, away from the contact with society, that a keen desire to
possess is developed among children.
The deepest roots of marriage as it exists today are found in our
present state of society, based as it is on private property; and, in
its turn, marriage is a support for that society. Here is also the
reason for the disapprobation of free unions felt by the majority, even
if the motives of these unions are the most noble. And this also is why
the more conservative a man is as to the institution of private
property, the more he holds to the existing form of marriage, a fact
otherwise inexplicable.
An examination of the modifications made during the last century in the
matrimonial law and in matters pertaining to it, shows that the
position of the married woman has improved gradually. To cite only a
few examples, the French civil code gave to the married woman the right
of divorce in the case of adultery on the part of her husband only if
he kept a concubine in the common dwelling (art. 230). In 1884 this
article was modified so that the woman now has the same right of
divorce in case of adultery as the man. (Article 337 of the penal code,
however, punishes the adulterous wife by an imprisonment of from three
months to two years, while article 339 punishes the adulterous husband
only if he has been keeping a concubine in the common dwelling, and
then only by a fine of from one hundred to two thousand francs.) In
England before 1870 the married woman was in a position of dependence.
The right of possession of personal property as well as the
administration of real estate and the benefit of revenues from it
devolved upon the husband. Since 1870 and 1882 there has been a great
change in the matrimonial law, to the great advantage of the woman who
has become, among other things, the sole owner of her fortune, etc.
[310] In the countries where there have been no modifications in the
last century, public opinion is such that we may be sure that the
condition of women will be better in case of an eventual revision of
the matrimonial law.
In searching for the causes of the changes of opinion upon this
question we discover that here again they are due in the last analysis
to the economic life. This springs from the fact that the number of
women who work independently, who gain their own bread, increases
continually. The causes which bring this about are of diverse kinds but
can be reduced to the following. In the first place, the number of
marriages contracted is in general diminishing, and this decrease is
due to the continually diminishing number of marriages among the
moneyed classes, and to the fact that these marriages take place later
in life than formerly. [311] It is not difficult to see that a
retrograde movement in the marriages of the bourgeoisie must tell.
Marriage brings an increase of expenses indeed, but among the
proletariat it brings also an increase of revenue (the woman may earn
something by working away from home, or save by doing the work of the
house herself). Among the bourgeoisie, on the other hand, it brings
with it pecuniary disadvantages only, at least if we except those cases
in which the wife is more or less rich. The struggle for existence
becomes more and more difficult, and especially among the members of
the petty bourgeoisie and those who practice the liberal professions
marriage does not take place until later in life, and in general the
number of marriages diminishes. [312] To this it is still necessary to
add the fact that in Europe and in some of the states of North America
the number of women exceeds that of the men. [313]
The diminishing opportunity for women of the more or less well-to-do
classes to marry forces them to earn their own living. The change that
housekeeping has undergone and is still undergoing must also be taken
into consideration. The importance of housekeeping continually
decreases in consequence of the extension of manufacturing, which
absorbs the special tasks of the household one after another. While
formerly clothes were made at home, bread was baked there, etc., at
present there remains for the work of the household only the care of
the house and the preparation of the food. And even these occupations
may soon be taken out of the house. [314] Unmarried women of the
bourgeoisie used formerly often to be able to find a home with members
of their family, since they were able to be of service. At present they
are in general only superfluous persons in the household.
Even the married women of the bourgeoisie find themselves more and more
forced to contribute to the revenues of the family by working for
money, [315] and this for reasons already cited in speaking of
unmarried women: the increasing difficulty of the struggle for
existence, and the diminution of the importance of household
occupations. Outside of those whose economic situation forces them to
work for money, the number of women who seek to earn something is
becoming greater and greater. With these it is not necessity that
forces them, but the spirit of independence awakened in them by the
example of the others. If, on the one hand, the supply of women’s labor
increases, on the other hand the demand is increasing also; for though
it has been asserted that women are incapable of anything beyond
housekeeping, they have proved their aptitude for many of the
professions. And besides, the labor of women is much sought after, for
not being yet organized like men, the wages they can obtain are not so
large.
And if the women of the bourgeoisie are engaging more and more in paid
labor, the women of the proletariat were forced into it long ago. The
labor of women became possible through the development of mechanical
processes, as our exposition of the present economic system has shown.
Since then this form of labor has assumed larger and larger
proportions. The unmarried women of the proletariat are all obliged to
provide for their needs, while the married women also often are, and
the number of these is continually increasing. [316]
By what has gone before it has been indicated how important a change
has taken place and is still taking place in the economic position of
women. This change is in the last analysis the reason why women have
revolted more and more against the inferior position in which the law
places them, and why their opposition has already taken the form of
deeds. This is the reason also why the legal position of woman is best
in general in those countries where she has freed herself most by her
independent work, as, for example, in the United States.
Up to this point we have examined only the legal side of the question.
We must go on to add some observations concerning the material side.
The civil codes rest, among other things, upon the fiction that all
persons are equal. No mention is made of the division into distinct
classes; and it is the same with marriage. Before the law all marriages
are equal, while in reality they are not so. It is necessary, therefore
to treat of the conjugal conditions of the different classes. [317]
In the first place take marriage in the bourgeois class. The conditions
of life for the two sexes are different before marriage. Leaving out of
account the fact that the number of women who provide for their own
needs is increasing (they are still in the minority), it is
incontestable that the aspirations of the women of the bourgeoisie tend
toward marriage, the earliest and best marriage possible, in order that
their future may be assured. And since the possibility of making a good
marriage is becoming less, husband-hunting with all its unfortunate
consequences becomes more and more eager. While the whole education of
women looks only to marriage, that of the great majority of young men
has as its object the attainment of wealth or an important position as
soon as possible. Even when the marriage is contracted in consequence
of a reciprocal inclination, the differing conceptions of life held by
the two parties contain the germs that may render it unhappy. In
speaking of these very frequent cases Mme. Dr. Adams-Lehmann very
justly says: “Neither understands the other. Sundered in everything
that belongs to life, from childhood up, nature succeeds in uniting
them at one point for a short time only. From this point on their paths
diverge. The husband complains often and bitterly that his wife does
not understand him. What would he have, when she belongs to an entirely
different civilization? She has her own virtues, her own failings and
vices, but they are not those of her husband, and serve principally to
set her at variance with him. And the same is true of the man, over
whose lack of understanding his wife just as often and bitterly
laments. Different systems of culture, different aims, different
ideals,—in such an atmosphere how should harmony thrive?” [318]
But these causes are further strengthened when economic motives have
influenced the marriage more or less. If the two parties have frankly
made their union on this basis they will not be too exacting, and will
know how to submit to the inevitable; but when, as is ordinarily the
case, the marriage has been contracted under false pretenses, the
situation is much worse. [319]
It is plain, then, from this how little the legal form shows the
reality. In order that the marriage may be contracted, the consent of
the two parties is necessary, no matter how that consent is obtained.
It is very often the parents who have made the choice, being guided by
calculation alone. Such is the reality, and the formal free consent is
only the appearance.
Weighty causes, sprung from social conditions, then, often bring it
about that the married life is one of hate and discord. Aside from the
reasons cited there is yet another which does not proceed from social
conditions. Even when the marriage has been brought about through
mutual inclination, there is no guarantee that this inclination will
last. Not only may the parties be deceived as to each other’s character
and temperament, but their feelings may change, and the marriage bond
become insupportable.
The law permits divorce only in certain fixed cases; and since divorce
brings with it serious economic disadvantages for the woman, and
sometimes for the man as well, it is not often resorted to. The fear of
losing the good opinion of one’s friends may also prevent divorce. And
this fear of blame where a divorce is desired proves once more how
little real love has to do with the origin of monogamy.
If it is difficult, then, if not impossible, to break a marriage, the
consequence is bound to be adultery, especially on the side of the man,
since his manner of life gives him easy opportunity for it, and he does
not fear the consequences as a woman does. The difference between
monogamy and the more ancient forms of marriage is not great. Before
the law monogamy alone is recognized and polygamy prohibited; but in
reality polygamy always exists.
Let us go on now to marriage among the proletarians. [320] Here there
can be no question of a different education for the boy and the girl;
both are put to work while still children, and their relations are
quite free. Among the working classes marriage usually takes place at
an early age, because the workman early reaches the maximum of his
earning capacity, and as a consequence it is useless for him to wait
long before marrying; besides which he reaches maturity sooner than the
bourgeois. Often marriage is contracted after it has been consummated
and the sexual intercourse has had results. This is easy to understand
when one observes the life of the proletariat, their housing
conditions, their work in common, etc.
While it is not true that the marriages of the proletariat are always
marriages of inclination, as has been asserted (for material interests
play some part here also), yet they are oftenest of this kind. One of
the causes, then, which often make marriages among the bourgeoisie
unhappy does not exist here. On the other hand there are other causes
which can bring about the same result. In the first place, this
inclination is in many cases of a sexual nature only, without there
being any sympathy of character. If this inclination dies out,
therefore,—a thing which happens very often, since marriages in the
proletariat are made at an early age, and the women soon grow old
because of their hard life—there is no longer any basis for a happy
marriage. There is a lack of that intellectual development which may
render the difficulties of married life supportable. In consequence of
this lack the slightest differences may result in great altercations,
and the causes of unhappiness are sought in the person and not in the
circumstances of which the person is but the victim. Then in the next
place there are the heavy cares of the struggle for existence. If a
laborer’s family have already enough difficulty in making both ends
meet, in the case of sickness or forced unemployment their misery is
extreme, and it is often this misery which causes disputes and even
blows. Further, the labor of women, the bad housing conditions, and
alcoholism all tend to the same result. And because of hard work and
many cares the wife of the workman soon grows old. In the proletarian
class, therefore, marriages are threatened by many causes.
There is besides all this a very important difference between the
marriages of the bourgeoisie and those of the proletariat as to their
bases. The preponderating power of the man, which is strongly marked in
bourgeois marriages, is less so in the proletarian, especially in those
families where the woman provides for herself by paid labor. And
private property, one of the “raisons d’être” of legal monogamy with
the bourgeoisie, is lacking among the proletariat. This “raison d’être”
is found with the latter in the necessity that the man should be
charged with providing for the material needs of the children. Thus, in
the proletariat the free union between a man and a woman generally
meets with disapprobation only when there are offspring. The
consequences are, first, that conjugal unions without legal sanction
are not as much frowned upon by the proletarians as by the other
classes; second, that the decision to dissolve the union, whether free
or legal, is much more easily made among proletarians than among the
bourgeoisie. [321]
With regard to marriage among the lower proletariat a word or two will
suffice. Persons who have recently fallen to this class keep the ideas
of the class from which they came. But when the persons have been born
in the lower proletariat, or when their poverty has lasted for a long
time, they become demoralized, and the relations between men and women
show the effects of it. [322]
We come, then, to the end of our exposition. It seems to me that it has
been shown that the different forms of marriage are in the last
instance determined by the respective modes of production. Hence the
origin of monogamy, the most recent form of marriage, is not to be
found in the innate desire of the man and the woman to be united for
the whole of their lives, a desire which the law is supposed to
sanction. Quite on the contrary men are not all monogamous, and still
less monogamous during the whole of their life; a circumstance because
of which the present economic conditions have produced the legal
marriage, obliging two persons to remain together; if it were otherwise
the law would not concern itself with the relations between man and
woman.
Some important modifications have taken and are taking place in this
matter. The bases upon which the present marriage system rests are
changing. This is due to different reasons. In the first place woman is
coming little by little to occupy a higher and more independent social
position. Next, the importance of housekeeping in the economic life is
diminishing. The only moral basis for marriage is little by little
coming to be mutual love and sympathy, for true love can only exist
between persons free and equal. [323] There is a constantly increasing
number of persons who, in place of stigmatizing as immoral a union that
is non-legitimate, but contracted because of mutual love and sympathy,
consider it, on the contrary, as superior to a legal marriage
contracted for economic reasons.
Finally, it is to be noted that the present economic and social life
has bound up the sexual life with the economic life, by making marriage
possible only for those who have the necessary means at their disposal,
and consequently has caused the compulsory celibacy of millions of men
and women.
B. THE FAMILY.
In the preceding pages we have fixed the attention principally upon the
relation between the man and the woman, and it now remains to treat of
the position of the children born of their union.
It is a biological fact that the mother is designed by nature to have
the care of the child during its first years, and consequently this
care persists through all phases of the social development. It is,
then, superfluous to speak of it in a sociological treatise.
The relations between parents and children have not always been the
same in the different phases of social development, and it is therefore
impossible to speak here of relations instituted by nature. A glance at
the respective situations in the different periods shows that among the
“lower hunters”, where the woman is considered as the property of the
man, the children born are also in the absolute power of their father,
who has the right of life and death over his children, and whose power
over them ceases only when he has sold his daughters to their husbands,
or when his sons, having become adults, are recognized as members of
the tribe. [324]
Among the upper hunters and the pastoral peoples it is, as with the
peoples named above, to the father, in general, that the children
belong, or to whom they owe obedience. The mother, herself in
subjection to the father, has little or no authority over the children.
[325]
Among the lower agriculturists the conditions in question differ
relatively very much. As has been shown in the considerations upon
marriage among these peoples, the position of woman is often quite
other than during the preceding periods. She is not at all in so
subordinate a situation, her position is even not without importance,
thanks to the place which she occupies in the economic life. And this
importance shows itself also in her relations with her children. In
general it is to the mother that the education of the children falls,
while the influence of the father is little or nothing. In these last
cases a greater or less power belongs to the mother’s brother (under
the matriarchate the grandfather and father of the children belong to
another clan, and the maternal uncle and the children belong to the
clan of the mother). [326]
As has already been said above conditions among the higher
agriculturists were patriarchal. The father had unlimited power over
his unmarried daughters, and over all his sons with their descendants.
[327] It is from these so-called “great families”, that the present
form of the family springs (husband, wife, and their not yet
emancipated children) as a consequence of the fact that the adult sons
have been able to emancipate themselves on account of the modifications
that the economic life has undergone. From this time especially the
affection for children in general which is found among almost all
people, takes on an exclusive character, and becomes limited to one’s
own children. For monogamy is before all a consequence of the desire of
the man, which came in with private property, to leave his possessions
to the children of his legal wife, whose father he knew himself to be.
[328]
In its essence this form of the family has been maintained down to the
present day. The modifications it has undergone may be reduced to the
two following. [329] In the first place, in consequence of her improved
position as wife, the mother has obtained a greater influence over the
education of her children, though her power is, under the law, still
subordinated in every way to that of her husband. In the second place
the state manifests a continually increasing tendency to exert an
influence over the relations between parents and their children. To
begin with, the state imposes upon married parents the task of
supporting and bringing up their children, and prohibits by the penal
law slaying or abandoning them. The origin of these requirements must
be found in the fact that the state is interested in having the
children cared for, in order that the population may be as numerous as
possible. (The state being once formed, while the causes of infanticide
among primitive peoples have almost disappeared, the law has no
occasion to make any great change in the existing situation.) If the
married parents were not forced by the state to support and bring up
their children [330] it would be necessary to impose this task upon
other institutions which do not exist in our present society. The state
is not an institution for the public well-being; it is chiefly a means
of maintaining the external order in the disorder which results from
the complicated and muddled system of capitalistic production; it is
before all a system of police. If it were otherwise, the state would
consider it as one of its first duties to deprive parents of their
rights over their children, if they did not perform their task, or did
it badly, and would itself undertake the care and training of these
children, as well of those whose parents were dead or otherwise
absolutely unable to care for them. For society as a whole, as well as
the children themselves, has a very great interest in this matter.
However, the state in general does not assume any duty towards
abandoned or neglected children, and only in a hesitating way
intervenes to punish or to take away the parental authority of those
who have been guilty of such acts. [331] Little by little, as the ideas
upon the duties of the state become modified however (principally under
the influence of organized labor, which aims at transforming the state
into an organized community), it interests itself more in the person of
the child. As to the care of the child’s property all the codes are
already very much detailed!
There are two points with regard to which the state quite generally has
an influence over the lot of the child. First, it prohibits or limits
his paid labor; and second, it obliges parents to send their children
to school.
We have already spoken of this prohibition, which is made necessary
from the fact that the physical condition of the working classes is
becoming worse, and because the labor movement exercises a pressure
upon the state. Compulsory education has its origin, on one side, in
the fact that, in some occupations, capitalism cannot make use of
workmen who are altogether ignorant; on the other side, in the fact
that without compulsory education the youth of the working class would
be even more brutalized than at present. The opposition to compulsory
education on the part of whatever is conservative is another clear
indication of what an intimate connection there is between the
individual family and the present economic system. The economic
position of the man as breadwinner for his wife and children is the
cause of his desire to be limited in his power as little as possible.
Up to this point we have been treating of conditions past and present
only in so far as they are regulated by law (the formal side); we must
now go on to treat conditions from the material side. Here we must
consider three subjects: physical education, intellectual education,
and moral education. In treating of criminality, however, we have
naturally little to do with the first two, while the third is of the
highest importance for us.
As to physical education it is enough to say that it is the “conditio
sine qua non” of the two others. The intellectual and moral qualities
of a child that is badly cared for physically, can never be entirely
developed. The parents (and the child himself) use up all their energy
in providing for their bodily necessities, so that there is none left
for the other needs. Dr. A. Baer says: “Children of this kind (i.e., of
the poor classes) already at an early age bear the cares and sorrows
that life imposes upon them; they early become acquainted with the
claims and demands of life, and not infrequently are very early
influenced by living-conditions which will necessarily affect them long
afterward.” [332]
It is only among the bourgeoisie and the relatively well-to-do portion
of the petty bourgeoisie that there can be any sufficient physical
education for the children. Among the proletarians, and those of the
petty bourgeoisie who are in a similar situation as regards material
conditions, it is insufficient, and worse, if possible, among the lower
proletariat. However, if there is a lack of it among these last, there
is at times a superabundance among the bourgeoisie. There children are
often brought up in such luxury that they are early made blasé and
rendered unhappy for the future. Dr. Baer says upon this subject: [333]
“It is through other circumstances and causes that the children of the
rich and well-to-do classes are brought to a condition of precocity,
accompanied by sickly irritability and arrogant self-conceit. Here are
good-living, luxury, and the superabundance of bodily enjoyments, the
early familiarity with the theater, balls, and outside social life in
general, which make them incapable of the harmless pleasures of
childhood. Improper education in the family is responsible for the fact
that children in widely separated social classes are already at any
early age left to themselves and fall into evil ways. ‘One must have
lived in a great city,’ says von Krafft-Ebing, ‘and have visited the
hovels of the poor, and the palaces of the rich to know what mistakes
in the bringing up of children are committed there, where the children
of the poor, amidst dirt and drink, and those of the rich, amidst
arrogance and rascality, are going to ruin physically and morally....
Every day may be seen children falling asleep at the theater or other
places of amusement to which their parents’ folly and desire for
pleasure have dragged them. Other parents provide for their children
the doubtful happiness of children’s balls and soirées. Is it any
wonder, then, if we now, especially in the great cities, very seldom
meet with any real children?’”
In the countries where education is compulsory, it is guaranteed that
all the children will acquire a certain amount of knowledge. It is
unnecessary to say that in general this amount of knowledge is very
small in the case of the children of the poor, and consists of the
rudiments of reading, writing, and arithmetic, so that there is no real
intellectual education. For the children of the bourgeoisie quite a
different preparation is made; here there is rather an over- than an
undersupply of the means of education. The great competition in present
day society, the superabundance of intellectual forces, the ardent
desire to see their children succeed in spite of everything, all this
obliges parents to crowd their children’s intellectual capacities, even
to the detriment of their other qualities. “The thing which in our
modern life conduces most to the giving of a one-sided, inharmonious
development to the child, is the fact that too little weight is given
to the development of the disposition, and too much to the development
of the understanding. Because there is no influence exerted upon the
spiritual and emotional life, the mind of the child is often from early
youth turned toward the material and sensuous, the life of pleasure,
and comes to bend its thought wholly to the practical and utilitarian.”
[334]
Thus we arrive at the very subject we have in view, moral education. As
I have already remarked, one of the characteristic differences between
education among the primitive peoples and that of our own day is this,
that as a consequence of the great complexity of our present society,
and the numberless conflicts between individual interests, the task
imposed upon the educator is now much broader and more onerous. [335]
The first condition, without doubt, that might be demanded of one who
is to make a child into a moral man, a man of character, is surely
this, that he should be himself a man of character. It goes without
saying that no person can give more than he has. Leaving aside for the
moment the criminal class, of whom I shall treat later, it is clear
that no one without character, or weak in character, can ever train
children to have well developed moral sentiments. He may be able, it is
true, to teach them to distinguish good from bad, but such lessons
concern only the intellectual part of the nature and not the moral
part, and they cannot transform children into persons who feel morally.
It cannot be denied that the number of persons who do not feel morally
is great, and that these have children. Without forgetting the fact
that it is the father to whom the law gives especially the parental
authority, we must recognize that it is the mother upon whom the task
of education generally rests, because the father is almost always away
from home. But the inferior position of woman, maintained now for
centuries, has been extremely harmful to her character, and thus it
often happens that this lack of character passes to the children as
well. [336]
A second condition without which successful education is impossible is
that educators shall have the innate qualities necessary for their
task. We should doubt, and not without reason, the common sense of
anyone who dared to assert that every person was capable of becoming a
good sculptor or even carpenter. Just so no one could say that everyone
possesses the qualities necessary for an art as difficult as that of
education.
To be a good educator it is necessary to be very fond of children, to
have much patience and zeal, to know how to put one’s self on a plane
with the child, to have a clear and practical intellect, especially
when the teacher has a great affection for the child, since without
intelligence the excess of affection will only be harmful. There are
parents who possess these qualities in a very high degree, and it is
only to be regretted that they teach only their own children, and not
those also of parents in whom the teaching faculty is entirely lacking.
Next comes the group of those who have a modicum of the requisite
qualities, and finally a smaller group who have little or no aptitude
for the task. The least fit to give a good education, however, are
psychopathic individuals, because of their changeable disposition,
their quick fits of temper, etc.
Just as educators differ greatly in their innate fitness for teaching,
so different children need to be guided in different ways. If there are
children who require little care in order that they may presently be
able to adapt themselves to the requirements of society, others, who
form the great majority, require more; while there remains a second
minority who, if they are to be made fairly useful men and women, must
have constant and minute attention. Among these last are to be classed
the victims of heredity. If they have parents without great teaching
ability, as is often the case with these psychopathic individuals, the
results are even worse.
Aside from innate fitness it is necessary that an educator should have
received the necessary education. The teacher without notions of
psychology, of pedagogy, etc., often deceives himself, even if he has
all the necessary innate qualities, and consequently warps the
character of his pupils.
The instructor must learn his trade, and if this is so, why should not
the educator in charge of the moral education of the child need an
apprenticeship, since moral education is a task no less difficult than
intellectual education (which is about all that our present schools
undertake)? However, it is incontestable that in all classes of society
today moral education is practiced in dilettante fashion, as was
formerly the case with intellectual education. [337]
Finally, there remains the condition that the teacher should have the
time necessary to perform his task, for without this the most capable
cannot attain good results. Having now laid down the general
conditions, let us go on to examine in a few words education as it is
actually practiced in the different classes.
Let us begin with the bourgeoisie. As has already been remarked, the
children in this class are often spoiled by the great luxury that
surrounds them, and further by the fact that their intellect is
developed at the expense of their moral qualities. As my remarks
concerning capacity, character, etc., apply to all classes, it is
unnecessary here to speak of them more fully. Only it must be observed
that, as far as positive knowledge of pedagogy is concerned, the
bourgeoisie is much superior to the proletariat, from which there
follows among other things a corresponding superiority of the bourgeois
education. The character of the bourgeois woman, who occupies, like all
women, a lower rank in society, has generally suffered still more from
her easy mode of life, and her weakness of character is transmitted to
her children if she brings them up herself. This condition must be
added, for society life, or in other words, the habit of doing nothing
at all, is often the cause of mothers’ having their children brought up
by some one who has neither natural aptitude nor acquired capacity for
this task, but only takes charge of the children for the sake of a
place. There are even children who are not suckled by their mothers but
by nurses, since the mothers are afraid of diminishing their own
charms. This proves once more the weakness of the allegation that the
parents are the natural educators of the child; for we see in this case
that the social environment can lead to the renunciation of duties that
are really natural. [338]
The moral education of the children of the bourgeoisie is generally
superficial, and has especially in view the task of teaching the
children to conduct themselves according to the proprieties, much more
than that of developing their real moral nature. [339] In the second
place this education develops among them a very strong feeling of
class, so that they consider the members of the proletariat as inferior
beings, born by nature to serve the bourgeoisie, in place of seeing in
them only their own fellows, who have become different merely because
of fortuitous circumstances.
In the third place, our present educational system makes children
egoistic, those of the bourgeoisie more than those of the proletariat.
This assertion contradicts, it is true, the numerous authors who are
convinced that our present education in the family is a source of
altruism. [340] They are right when they say that altruistic sentiments
between the members of the family themselves have their rise within the
circle of the family. For a long time the life within the family
constituted a man’s whole life (as it still does for a very great
number of women), but in the society of today a great part of the time
is passed outside of the family circle, and for this reason the opinion
of these authors, though shared by many persons, is not correct. In the
family circle the child, especially when he has neither brothers nor
sisters, [341] soon discovers that his own interests come first, that
the outside world is his enemy, and that when he grows up he must make
himself as large a place there as possible. It matters little that the
interests of others will then be injured. It must be added further,
that if on the one side the family is an economic unity, and that the
interests of the members of the family are so far parallel, on the
other hand there exist opposing interests, such as inheritance, which
may destroy the homogeneity of interest.
It may be objected here that in our present society, consisting as it
does for the most part of adherents of Christianity, most children are
taught to love their neighbor as themselves. This is true, but in a
society such as ours, where the interests of all men are opposed, the
effect of this commandment cannot be great, or will be practiced only
in words and not in acts, and so end in hypocrisy. He who wants to
follow this commandment to the letter sees himself at once defeated in
the conflict of life, unless he changes his opinion. [342]
No one known to me has better characterized the existing educational
system than Owen. “As society is now constituted,” he says, “no
children can by possibility be really well educated. The fundamental
errors upon which it has been based, filling the early mind with error
and hypocrisy and all manner of conflicting ideas, opposed to facts and
to nature, render it impracticable for any child to be rationally
trained or treated by society. And the more education of this kind is
given to children, the more they are estranged from a knowledge of
themselves, or of human nature generally, and the less competent will
they be to understand what society has been made to be, and yet less
what it ought to be, and how it may be made what it is desirable that
it should be, for the happiness and well-being of all.
“Mothers and fathers thus taught, are incompetent to teach and educate
their children in the spirit, manner, and conduct, which should, for
the benefit of all, be given to all children. Their affections also,
especially the strong natural animal affections of the mother, are, in
almost all cases too strong for the very limited powers of judging
accurately respecting their own children and those of other parents,
which females now acquire from their present mal-education.