This question forms one of the corner-stones of future society, but of
all the questions in which society seems interested it is the worst
understood. Four-fifths of the people of the world toil on, year after
year, and all the time see the other fifth revelling in the luxuries the
sweat of their brows has produced. While the one-fifth enjoy the
luxuries thus produced, as though they had acquired them by divine
right, which none may call in question nor dispute, the great power of
the laboring many has never been felt. It has never been concentrated or
organized into concert of action. Even now this immense force is still
dispersed. It seems to have no centre around which it can gather. It has
no organization, and herein lies its weakness.
Organization should be effected for two principal ends: First, for
construction; second, for destruction. The old systems cumber the ground
whereon the new must be reared, and they must be pulled down to give it
room; nevertheless, the constructive part of the operation must first
begin; before the old will yield, the new must at least be formulated.
This is not impossible in the department of principles. This new rests
upon foundations deeper down than existing things, and these can,
therefore, be used previously to the destruction of the foundations of
the old. The new also reaches higher than the old; hence its frame-work
may be reared, while yet the old stand comparatively intact. The work of
construction once begun, that of destruction must necessarily
immediately follow, and when the former shall have been completed the
latter will have been but finished. This is the philosophy of
Integration and of Disintegration in all departments of the universe.
Labor and Capital is a question relating in the first instance to the
material prosperity of a people; but secondarily it reacts upon all
other interests—intellectual, moral, physical and religious. None of
these interests can flourish among a people who are burdened by material
wants; neither are they usually unitedly prosperous among that part of a
people who are greatly advanced in material possessions. Either extreme
in material interests appears to be deleterious to the best and most
harmonious general advancement of all the other interests. It is the
mean between the extremes—the calling up from those below, and the
leveling down of those above the mean—in which the harmony of all is
found.
Harmony of all the interests of humanity can alone be attained through
organization. A permanent basis of organization can only be discovered
by scientific investigation. The organization of society must be
realized through the science of sociology, which, of all sciences is the
least understood by the general mind. Yet there are among the great
minds of the planet a large number of those who thoroughly comprehend
this science, and it is to these that the world must look for a
reconstruction of its society upon such principles as shall render it
permanent; upon such, as it can constantly be improved upon, without
changing its methods of operation.
Into such a reconstruction the branch of sociology that relates to
production and use, or labor and capital, will enter largely, and must
be the portion of it to be first entered upon, because all things which
are built upon earth must have a material foundation until there shall
be such a harmony and unity of interests, and such co-operation among
mankind as would proceed from a universal brotherhood, in which each
would have his special part to perform to contribute to the common
result.
The agitation that is beginning to be felt all over the world where
intelligent labor exists, indicates that the time is at hand wherein the
first steps toward a constructive organization of society, upon
scientific principles, is to be begun. Not only is this agitation shown
to exist in this country, but it has lately been developed that labor
societies exist throughout Europe, having a common head and centre, and
that they deem themselves strong enough to express wishes entirely
antagonistic to the ruling powers.
Now what these organizations require to become—something more than mere
instruments for agitation, mere means by which the injustice between
labor and capital is exposed—is to become constructive in their action;
instead of expending all their means and strength in the work of pulling
down the old systems of things, they should begin the actual
construction of a new system. For this end they must bring science—the
science of sociology—to their aid, and make its professors active
leaders and trusted assistants in the grand work. Capital is putting
forth some strong efforts to confine science in its interests, but the
teachings of science are of too general and cosmopolitan a character to
permit its professors to ally themselves with a pseudo aristocracy—the
aristocracy of wealth.
Well may the political parties view with alarm the beginning of
organization among the classes they have until now relied upon to carry
themselves into power. If bereft of the capacity to influence the masses
who heretofore have not thought for themselves, they know their power
will depart. How has it been possible thus long for leaders to control
the masses, except that the masses have permitted others to act for
them, and that without rendering any account for such action? The time
for such representation has passed. The people have arrived at that
degree of understanding of their actual interests, that will not admit
of a blind acquiescence in all that even a “People’s Congress” may do.
They will begin to instruct their representatives instead of being led
by them.
’Tis true that by capital coming to the rescue of the country it is
intact to-day; but it asked its price and has been paid. So far the
obligation is removed, and justice to all is demanded. Legislation
entirely in the interests of capital will not be any longer tacitly
acknowledged as binding those whose interests are sacrificed. Whatever
obligations the country may be under to those who hold its securities,
it is under still greater to the producing interest, to which it must
look for the ability to retire them when called upon so to do by the
tenor of the contract they contain. It thus appears that all the
interests and all the prosperity of the country are dependent upon the
producing classes, and therefore to them government must listen, for
they will not be ignored much longer.
NEW YORK, Oct. 10, 1870.