CAN THE EVILS OF CAPITALISM BE ELIMINATED BY COOPERATION?
One of our ablest captains of industry has lately collected articles
and addresses on this subject in a book entitled, "Problems of the
Day." If we were to eliminate from this book the errors under which
Mr. Carnegie labors as to what Socialism is, we could make of it an
admirable piece of Socialist propaganda. For Mr. Carnegie, although
denouncing Socialism in every page, believes in giving the workingman
an interest in the factory, and carries his belief in this system so
far that he actually looks forward to the day when labor will reach
"an equality with the millionaire as his partner in business."[131] He
cites as an example of what could be done in this direction the Filene
stores of Boston, the capital stock of which he says is held
"exclusively by employees." Now this is exactly the system which
modern Socialism wants to bring into existence. Because, therefore,
Mr. Carnegie does not belong to the Platonic School of Socialism which
suggests the breaking-up of the home and is denounced by all practical
Socialists of to-day; and because he disapproves of the abolition of
wealth, as do all practical Socialists of to-day, he deserves to
occupy a front rank in our Socialist army for having put his finger
upon the real evil--competition; and for having pointed the way to
the real solution--the substitution, of cooperation for competition
all through our industrial system.
One thing, however, Mr. Carnegie has failed to appreciate: namely,
that when all our industries are organized on the principle of the
Filene stores--when, as Mr. Carnegie explains, the capital stock of
every industry and department store is held exclusively by employees,
the worker will not be the partner of the millionaire--he will have
superseded him. I am afraid this is not what Mr. Carnegie wants, at
least not in his day. But when he really wants this as much as in his
book he seems to want it, Mr. Carnegie will be qualified to be a
member of the Socialist party.
There is an important distinction to be made between cooperation and
cooperatives, because cooperatives may be divided into two very
different classes: capitalistic cooperatives and socialistic
cooperatives.
The capitalistic cooperatives are either the efforts of capitalists to
secure the fidelity of employees by giving them a minute share in the
profits of the business, or the efforts of employees to benefit
themselves by eliminating capitalists without eliminating capitalism;
in other words, the fact that such cooperatives undertake to produce
or distribute commodities under the competitive _regime_, converts
them into capitalists.
In marked contrast to these are the cooperative stores of Belgium,
organized in part to improve the condition of those engaged in them,
but also with the view of putting an end to capitalism altogether.
These are performing a work of inestimable value to Socialism and the
Socialist party in Belgium, while materially helping those who belong
to them, they at the same time hold up as the standard aimed at, not
the mere material improvement of themselves, but the ultimate triumph
of an ideal.
The field for cooperation is so vast that it cannot be traversed in
the scope of this work. I shall close this subject therefore with the
suggestion that all cooperatives--even the capitalistic--are good and
useful, for they tend to educate. It is true that they may also
occasion evil; as for example, the Steel Trust when it encourages
employees to purchase stock, while it discourages and destroys
trade-union organization, and thereby creates an aristocracy of labor
which tends to prevent the sense of solidarity in labor ranks that
Marxians regard as essential to the triumph of the Socialist cause.
But the evil it does is probably compensated by the good. Incidentally
it furnishes us Socialists with a triumphant answer to Mr. Carnegie:
Here in his city of Pittsburg which he built up with his genius, is
the principle of cooperation adopted which he regards as the solution
of all our ills; yet it is this very Pittsburg that to-day furnishes
to the whole world the most abominable picture of exploitation ever
presented.[132] We Socialists are indeed fortunate that this picture
has been drawn not by ourselves, but by those who are to-day the most
intelligently opposing us.
FOOTNOTES:
[131] "Problems of the Day," by Andrew Carnegie, p. 76.
[132] The Pittsburg Survey, published by the Russell Sage Foundation.
BOOK III
_WHAT SOCIALISM IS_
Socialism is too vast a subject to be brought within the four corners
of any one definition. It is as impossible for a definition to convey
an idea of Socialism as for an empty theater to convey the comedies,
the idylls, and the tragedies nightly enacted on its boards. A
definition can at best barely give the mechanism of Socialism; it
cannot furnish a picture of the effect of that mechanism in
eliminating misery, in promoting progress, in making character. This
must be painted on a canvas--and on a large canvas--and on many
canvases--for, as has been already urged, Socialism is not a simple
thing; it is a highly complex thing; and it is only when we have
grasped _all_ that Socialism will effect--when we have studied its
economic results, its political results, its scientific results, and
its ethical results--that we can appreciate this new Gospel of the
Poor.
Socialism not only derives strength from each of these results, it
unites the divergencies between economics and politics, and solves the
conflict between science and religion. So that these four great
departments of human thought, instead of being independent or actually
in conflict with one another, find themselves in Socialism united in
one great harmonious whole.
Just as Christianity derived its strength from the discontent of the
oppressed, so Socialism has pushed its first roots in the misery of
the proletariat. But we do not judge of a flower exclusively from its
roots. So must we not judge Socialism exclusively from that part of it
which at present flourishes in dark tenements and in the misery of the
unemployed. It is our fault that the tenements are dark, that the
unemployed suffer. It will be our fault if Socialism remains the
Gospel of the Poor when we can make of it the final Gospel of the
whole human race.
For humanity has nearly finished the first great phase of its
existence; it has played the role of the worm long enough; already is
it cribbed, cabined, and confined by silk threads of its own weaving
that for a hundred years the cocoon has been accumulating about it,
repressing here, regulating there, till it is stifling under
limitations created by itself. But the very pressure of these
limitations has been developing new functions in us--a conscience
restive under false standards, a capacity for wider sympathies--the
wings of the grub, destined to burst the chrysalis of worn-out
prejudices, regulations, legislations, and despotisms; to spread out
into new spaces where there shall be development and happiness.
Whether these hopes are well founded or not is the subject of our
inquiry, beginning first with Economics--the roots of our flower;
proceeding then to Politics--its stem; next to Science--its structure,
and lastly to Morality and Religion--its blossom and its fruit. And if
I group Morality and Religion, it is because these have both from the
beginning of years and not always hand in hand, been groping after the
same thing--Happiness.
CHAPTER I
THE ECONOMIC ASPECT OF SOCIALISM
Let us begin by considering how large a part of our population is now
devoting its entire time to the work of competition, as distinguished
from that which is devoting its time to the task of production.
It is obvious that all who are devoting their time to the work of
competition would, in a cooperative commonwealth, be free to give
their entire time to production; and the time they gave to production
would be so much taken away from the time which those now engaged in
production have to give to it. For example, the United States to-day
keeps alive, according to the census of 1900, over 76,000,000 men,
women, and children; of these the working population is estimated at a
little over 29,000,000, of which, however, many are not engaged in
production or distribution; as for example, actors, clergymen,
lawyers, soldiers; and although some others, such as journalists,
physicians, and surgeons, are not occupied in production and
distribution, they nevertheless are so necessary to every community
that they may be regarded as a part of the working population. The
percentage excluded, however, by excluding those not engaged in
production and distribution, is so small that it is not worth while
taking them into account; and for purposes of easy calculation we
should, therefore, consider the whole population in round
figures--75,000,000, of which 30,000,000 are engaged in production
and distribution, the remaining 45,000,000 consisting of the aged,
sick, women, and children who cannot work and in fact, all who by
wealth or disability are deprived of the necessity of working. Now if,
of the 30,000,000 who do the work of production, it is found that
15,000,000, or one-half, are engaged in work that results from the
competitive character of our industrial system, it is clear that in a
Socialist community in which there is no competition, these 15,000,000
would be applied to the work of production; and therefore every man
would have to work only one-half the number of hours he now works in
order to keep the community alive.
Let us see if we can form any idea how many are engaged in the
wasteful work of competition, and how many, therefore, would in a
Socialist society be set free to relieve the labor of those engaged in
production.
It is conceded that of every one hundred men who start a new business
ninety become insolvent. This means that for every ten fit and able to
conduct a new business ninety engage in new business who are unable to
earn their bread at it. In a cooperative commonwealth the exact number
of men necessary to conduct business in any given place could be
mathematically determined; and the ninety unsuccessful men who are now
engaged in futile efforts to destroy the business of the ten
successful men would be employed in production to their own advantage
and to the relief of those already engaged therein.
The wastefulness, however, of the present plan is not confined to the
circumstance that many are engaged in attempting to do what can better
be done by a few, but is increased by the fact that in the conflict
between the successful and the unsuccessful a vast horde of men are
employed by competition, who would be thrown out of employment and
therefore be serviceable for production in case competition were
avoided. Amongst the men so employed are commercial travellers; these
men occasion waste to the community, not only because instead of
themselves producing they are living on the production of others, but
because they constitute a large part of the passenger traffic of the
country. The railroads are put to the expense of carrying these
travellers all over the United States that they may each have an
opportunity in every corner of the United States of decrying the goods
of one another. And this throws a side light on the evils of our
present plan, for the railroads have an interest in encouraging this
work. If they did not have this horde of commercial travellers to
carry about the country, many of them might not be able to pay
interest on their bonds. The testimony taken by the Industrial
Commission furnishes admirable instances of the waste attending
competitive production and the corresponding economy that would attend
a Socialist system. Mr. Edson Bradley, President of the American
Spirits Manufacturing Company, testifies that in the whisky business
"somewhere between the distiller and the consumer in this country,
$40,000,000 is lost. This goes primarily to the attempt to secure
trade."[133] Now the whole capital invested in liquors and beverages
is, according to the last census, $660,000,000, whereas the total
manufactures amount to about $12,686,000,000. It will be seen,
therefore, that the capital invested in liquors and beverages is about
one-twentieth of that invested in other manufactures. If, therefore,
$40,000,000 are lost in getting the trade in the liquor business, it
may be inferred that twenty times this amount--that is to say,
$800,000,000--are lost in getting the trade by all the manufactures in
the country. This represents only the expense of advertising in
manufactures; it does not cover the advertising done by the whole
retail trade, the department stores, insurance companies--life
insurance, fire insurance, title insurance--real estate agents, quack
medicines, and that vast body of population known as middlemen, who
raise the price of commodities to the consumer and whose services
would be eliminated in a cooperative commonwealth.
This latter class of advertising is very much larger than that of the
manufacturer, because it is the peculiar function of the retailer to
sell--to get the market--and the burden of advertising falls heavier
upon him. If $800,000,000 therefore represents the cost to the
manufacturer of getting the market, it is probable that the total cost
of getting the market by the whole community does not fall short of
twice this sum.
The advertiser practically pays the whole cost of printing and
publishing the innumerable newspapers and magazines of this country.
The one cent paid for such a paper as the _American_ does not cover
the cost of the paper alone; it is the advertisements that pay
handsomely for all the rest.
Advertising would be unnecessary in a cooperative system, where
practically everything would be furnished by a single industry. As the
Reverend E. Ellis Carr says,[134] the United States Government does
not find it necessary to advertise postage stamps. The Standard Oil no
longer advertises oil. Those of us who are old enough remember how,
prior to the organization of the oil trust, our fences were placarded
by the rival claims of a dozen different oils: Pratt's Astral oil,
etc., in letters of huge and ungainly size.
The only advertising necessary would be that of private enterprises
started in such industries as did not give satisfaction to the public,
and these, it is to be hoped, would be relatively small.
Mr. Dowe, President of the Commercial Travellers' National League,
testified[135] that "35,000 salesmen had been thrown out of employment
by the organization of trusts and 25,000 reduced to two-thirds of
their previous salaries.... The Baking Powder Trust has replaced men
at $4000 to $5000 a year by others at $18 a week.... The displacement
of travelling men represents also large loss to railways, amounting,
on the estimate that each traveller spends $2.50 a day for 240 days,
to $27,000,000, while the loss to hotels would be at least as much as
to railways." Adding up these losses, we reach the following result:
35,000 salesmen at an average compensation
(including commissions) of $3000 each a year $105,000,000
Loss in railroad travelling 27,000,000
Loss in hotel expenses 27,000,000
------------
Together $159,000,000
In the few industries, therefore, in which competition has been
diminished by the trust system, an economy of $159,000,000 was
estimated to have been already effected in the employment of salesmen
alone. And this was ten years ago. These figures enable us to
appreciate the enormous economy that would result from an elimination
of competition from our industries. An economy that constitutes a loss
to commercial travellers, railroads, and hotels under the competitive
system would constitute a pure gain to a Socialist community; for it
would mean so much more labor for production. Our present system then
encourages useless expenditure, whereas Socialism would eliminate it.
Another important economy would be made in the running of public
enterprises, through the absence of the necessity of collecting
revenue therefrom. In municipal tramways, for example, one-half the
force could be dispensed with, for the functions of the conductor are
practically confined to collecting fares. A similar economy would be
practised on railroads; in telegrams; no stamps would be required for
postage; no costly corps of clerks for bookkeeping.
Under our system gas is furnished to our cities by gas companies, each
one of which tears up the streets at great detriment to public
convenience and health, to lay its mains for the mere purpose of
competing with existing companies, with the result of forcing a
consolidation which tends to make gas dearer instead of cheaper to the
consumer. Professor Ely estimates[136] that the consolidation of gas
companies in Baltimore has cost eighteen millions, of which ten
millions represent pure loss.
Much the same thing is true of railroads. Professor Ely quotes a
railroad manager who states that if the railways of the United States
were managed as a unit instead of by competing companies, such
management would effect an economy of two hundred million dollars a
year; he cites, as an instance of useless paralleling of roads, the
numerous railroads which connect New York with Chicago. He estimates
that these lines cost two hundred million dollars, and that the
maintenance of the useless lines involves perpetual loss. To-day, when
railroads have doubled in length and traffic, the possible economy may
well be estimated at twice this amount. He is obliged, however, to
admit that the paralleling of railroads results in considerable
accommodation, when parallel lines pass through different places and
occasion some advantage in the time-table. With many lines in the
United States this, however, is not the case. The Colorado Midland
parallels the Denver and Rio Grande, passing through virtually the
same places, and as both are subjected to the necessity of connecting
and forwarding passengers to lines at their extremities, both are
obliged to run trains at the same hours. There is in this case no
advantage either to the time-table or to new places.
Nor does the competition of parallel roads always furnish better
accommodation to the public. Between Chicago and Denver one line is
able easily to run trains from place to place in twenty-four hours;
but for the purpose of avoiding a freight war with competing lines, it
has entered into an arrangement with them under which it agrees not to
run passenger trains in less than thirty-six hours. The public,
therefore, instead of gaining, loses an advantage of twelve hours,
thereby learning at no small inconvenience that competition does not
always compete.
What is true of the railroads and gas companies is also true of
telegraph business. The Western Union was capitalized at one hundred
million dollars. It is estimated that the cost of laying the lines
actually used by the Western Union was not more than twenty millions;
eighty million dollars, therefore, have been wasted by the existing
system, which encourages private companies to construct lines with the
result of compelling other companies to buy them up. Professor Ely
adds that "it cost England nearly as much to make the telegraph a part
of the postoffice as it did all the other countries of Europe put
together, because in these the telegraph has been from the beginning
a part of the postoffice, and the wastes of competition had been
avoided."[137]
Another most wasteful feature attending our present system is the
expense of distributing goods; for example, the articles which enter
most into our daily life, milk, bread, butter, eggs, meat, fish, and
vegetables. Compare the method of distributing these things with that
for distributing letters adopted by the postoffice. The fact that the
government is the only instrumentality through which letters are
distributed permits it to effect economy in time, labor, and expense
by sorting the letters beforehand according to streets and confining
the distribution in any one street to a single carrier, who
distributes the letters door by door.
This is the economical system for distributing all things in regular
use that would be adopted by the Socialist plan. Compare this now with
the plan necessitated by the competitive system. Every block is served
with milk by a number of milk dealers instead of by one;[138] every
block is furnished with bread by a very large number of dealers
instead of by one; every block is furnished with meat by a very large
number of dealers instead of by one; and so on through every article
which enters into our daily use.
Not only is there great waste of labor in the business of producing
and distributing the necessaries of life under the competitive system,
but the system itself creates a large class of business that absorbs
much of the wealth of the community and employs a very large number of
its members. For example, under a socialist system there would no
longer be any necessity or advantage in insurance, whether against
death or fire, or accident, or hail, or defective title, or any other
danger. The reason of this is obvious: we insure against pecuniary
loss arising out of these accidents because otherwise the whole loss
will fall upon ourselves. In a Socialist society some of occasions for
loss would not exist at all, and those that did exist would fall upon
the entire people and would consequently be inappreciable by any one
member of it. For example, a man insures his life so that his children
will not be reduced to poverty by his death; but in the Socialist
society the widow and the child are provided for, being all of them
members and all sharers in its income. Death in such a case would
practically not constitute a loss to the state financially, because
the number of deaths of the very old and the very young--the
unproductive members of the community--is far greater than that of its
productive members.
Insurance companies are beginning to understand the importance of
keeping their policy holders in good health. The Metropolitan Life
Insurance Company is to-day maintaining nurses for this purpose.
Another business that would be eliminated in a Socialist state is the
entire business done by brokers; not only Wall Street brokers, but
real estate brokers, mining brokers, and brokers of every description,
in so far as they are engaged in competition. The abolition of Wall
Street would carry with it the abolition of gambling in stocks which
is a necessary feature thereof. No law has yet been devised, though
the attempt has often been made, that would, so long as the
competitive system endures, put a stop to gambling in stocks. A law
which would successfully stop gambling in stocks would stop legitimate
dealing in stocks also. But the immoral element involved in "puts" and
"calls" is only an exaggeration of the immoral element involved in all
industrial transactions built upon the principle of private profit.
For although business can be conducted in such a way as only to
furnish to those engaged in it a fair remuneration, it perpetually
furnishes a temptation to contrive so that it shall furnish a large
rather than a fair return. In fact, the whole struggle of business
consists in endeavoring to secure the largest return of profit for the
least expenditure of labor. The man who succeeds in getting the
largest return for the least expenditure is the successful business
man; and no man does this with more security than the next class to
which attention may be called, whose occupation would come to an end
in the Socialist state; namely, the bankers.
It would take too long to enter here into an accurate and fair
estimate of the service rendered by the banker and the reward he
obtains for it. Most writers who favor Socialism undervalue the
functions of the banker. They are so impressed by the enormous incomes
which bankers make that they do not appreciate the great services they
render; and although, in a Socialist state, the banker _qua_ banker
would tend to disappear, the man who to-day does the work of a banker
would, it is hoped, do the same work for the state. So that although
the business of banking would disappear, the best form of government
would be that in which individuals who have been discovered to be best
fitted for the onerous and difficult duties of finance would be those
to whom these duties would be intrusted. Whether the man best fitted
to do this difficult work would be intrusted with it under the
Socialist plan is a doubt raised as an objection to Socialism which
will be considered later.[139]
Another large class of intelligent men, now engaged in carrying on the
quarrels which result from the competitive system, would be left
without an occupation under the Socialist plan; namely, the lawyers.
With them, the hatred and vindictiveness which arise from litigation
would in a Socialist society, in great part, disappear also. For
lawyers constitute the class whose business it is to conduct these
quarrels, and, alas! also to inflame them. When we consider that in
New York city alone there are nearly ten thousand practising lawyers,
and add to these the clerks, stenographers, bookkeepers, and
office-boys employed by each of them, those employed in the courts,
the sheriff's office, the county clerk's office, marshals, deputy
sheriffs, and others; and take into account that most of these men are
engaged in fighting, we cannot but be struck by the enormous advantage
to the community of a system which would practically eliminate this
class altogether.
I must not be understood to mean, however, that there would be no
necessity for courts under the Socialist plan. Even though crimes
against property were eliminated by Socialism, there would still be a
temptation to commit crime, owing to sexual jealousy and in a certain
degree to intemperance and idleness. It cannot be doubted that
intemperance and idleness would tend to diminish with the
disappearance of the misery that reduces men to the physical condition
that engenders these vices, but there would still, doubtless, be some
intemperance and some idleness; there would certainly remain unhappy
marriages; and as every man is to remain possessed of a small amount
of property there would be minute questions of property sometimes
involved. But it is hardly conceivable that such questions could
involve any system of justice more elaborate than that of the justice
of the peace, and possibly a single court of appeal. The diminution of
competition would so simplify the law that no question would be likely
to arise that the parties to the litigation could not themselves
explain. How little litigation would be likely under a Socialist
_regime_ may be judged by comparing the litigation to which the
administration of the postoffice gives rise with the interminable
lawsuits which result from the administration of railroads.[140]
Moreover, it is to be hoped that a Socialist community would at last
have leisure to study criminology and to understand that the criminal
has to be treated as a sick man rather than a wicked one. The whole
system of criminal procedure would be changed, and the type now known
as the criminal lawyer would disappear. The existing system, under
which every prosecuting officer considers his reputation involved in
securing the punishment of every accused person brought before the
court,[141] necessarily gives rise to a corresponding class of lawyer
who regards his reputation as well as his fee involved in opposing the
efforts of the prosecuting officer by any means, however
unjustifiable. Of course, to the extent to which the competitive
system was left standing, there would have to be lawyers to protect
competitive interests. But these lawyers would be supported by the
competitive system.
If, now, we consider that the large number of men liberated by the
substitution of Socialism for our present form of government would not
only diminish the labor of those now engaged in production, but that
it constitutes the part of our population engaged in fanning the flame
of hatred in the minds of men, the advantage to a community of having
this perpetual source of trouble removed will be obvious. But we are
not concerned so much now with the reduction of hatred under the
Socialist plan as with its economy.
Let us next pass to the consideration of the wastefulness involved in
the field of production itself:
In 1894 horses in the West became so valueless that they were left
unbranded by their owners, lest the branding of them involve the
payment of taxes thereupon. Cattle, on the other hand, have of late
risen in value; the price of them fell so low some time ago as to
involve the ruin of all those largely engaged in raising them; but
to-day everyone is rushing back into this business. This state of
things furnishes a fair opportunity of judging how imperfectly
informed the producer is as to the needs of the community. _He is only
informed that the community is overstocked with an article by being
ruined in the course of producing it._ This plan is not only
productive of misery to a large number of individuals in every
community, but is necessarily an extremely wasteful one. The object of
every community ought to be to produce the things it needs, not the
things it does not need. The present system, on the contrary, obliges
the community to be continually producing the things it does not need
as the only means by which it can arrive at a knowledge of what it
does need.
For under the existing system, overproduction occasions a surplusage
of things in themselves valuable, but the exchange value of which has
been diminished by their abundance. And the producer cannot afford to
keep this surplusage, because he has fixed charges to pay. He has to
sell his crop at a loss because he must have money to pay rent, or
interest on mortgage, or salaries, or for his own support during the
year. It is this pressure he is under to sell which impoverishes him.
And its consequences are far-reaching; for as the price of raw cotton
goes down, cotton manufacturers are encouraged to buy, and to increase
the output of their factories; and so overproduction of raw material
tends to result in overproduction of manufactured goods.
In a Socialist society the industry or good harvest of one year would
have for effect a diminution of labor the next; or greater comfort or
luxury next year for the same labor; no man's labor would be lost, and
the bountifulness of Nature would be a blessing and not, as now, a
misfortune.
The efforts to prevent the overproduction of cotton in the South gave
rise to a convention in 1892, regarding which Professor Ely quotes a
telegram from Memphis, January 8, as follows:
"That the farmers of the South are in earnest in their endeavors to
solve the serious problems of overproduction of cotton is evinced by
the enthusiastic meeting of delegates to the convention of the
Mississippi Valley Cotton Growers' Association, which was called to
order in this city this morning."[142]
And again the speech of the President of the Boston Chamber of
Commerce:
"In 1890 we harvested a cotton crop of over eight million
bales--several hundred thousand bales more than the world could
consume. Had the crops of the present year been equally large, it
would have been an appalling calamity to the section of our country
that devotes so large a portion of its labor and capital to the
raising of cotton."[143]
Nothing could better illustrate the evil of our present system and the
benefits of Socialism than such a state of things as is described in
the speech already quoted from the President of the Boston Chamber of
Commerce.[144] If in a Socialist Society more bales of cotton were
produced in any given year than the community or the world could
consume, the community would store away the unused cotton and modify
its agriculture in a manner to bring the cotton crop into proper
relation to existing needs. But such an event could not be an
"appalling calamity"; it could not be anything but a benefit; so much
more wealth for the community; so much less labor for its citizens.
And what is true of the cotton crop is equally true of all other
crops. Overproduction is impossible in a cooperative community, for
all the overproduction of one year would mean less work in that
particular kind of production the next. Every citizen in the community
would profit by so-called overproduction instead of, as now, suffering
from it.
Overproduction is closely allied to invention, which, as is well
known, has been a source of despair to workingmen; for improvements in
machinery almost always throw large numbers of them out of employment.
In India, as has been described, the destruction of hand-loom weavers
by machinery brought about a misery hardly paralleled in the history
of war; "the bones of the cotton-weavers are bleaching on the plains
of India." Yet invention, far from bringing distress to the
workingmen, as under our system it must, would in a cooperative
commonwealth prove an unqualified advantage. For every invention that
increases the efficiency of human labor diminishes the amount of time
that must be spent in labor to obtain the same result. In a
cooperative state the saving of labor is a benefit to every individual
in the community, whereas under the competitive system the saving of
labor is of immediate benefit to the owner of the patent alone, and
means immediate distress to the laborers it particularly affects.
A standard objection to Socialism is that it would remove all stimulus
to invention. This I believe to be a profound mistake.
In the first place, inventors are not always urged to invention by the
prospect of financial reward. The great discoveries of humanity, at
the basis of all our practical advances, were made by men who neither
sought nor obtained a reward therefor. It was not with the view of
making money that Newton discovered and propounded the laws of
gravity, or Ohm the laws of electrical resistance. Nor do inventors
to-day reap the reward of their inventions. Capitalists often have an
interest in suppressing inventions; for inventions generally involve
the expensive transformation of existing plants. For example, Mr.
Babbage[145] describes how a patent for welding gun-barrels by
machinery had long been unused because of the cheapness of hand labor;
but as soon as a strike forced up wages recourse was had to the
patent, which until then had been neglected.
Capitalists often prefer to dispense with an improvement rather than
go to the expense which improvements generally occasion. This was the
unwritten motive for the opposition of England to the construction of
the Suez Canal, and was believed by M. DeLesseps to be the motive of
their opposition to the Panama Canal.[146] Again, no one who has had
personal acquaintance with inventors can believe that their
discoveries are to any material extent the result of financial motive.
It would be difficult to imagine the conditions under which Edison and
Maxim would not invent. They cannot help inventing; they are as much
under a necessity to invent as a hen to lay eggs. Undoubtedly there
are certain environments which favor the production and utilization of
inventing types, and others that disfavor the production and
utilization of such types. And undoubtedly a motive for invention is a
part of the environment which does contribute to invention; but would
such a motive be wanting in a Socialist society? I think it can be
shown that it would not only be present, but would be a stronger
motive in the Socialist society than in our own; for under our own the
reward which an inventor receives for an invention is a patent, and a
patent is, as all lawyers will testify, merely a subject for
litigation. In other words, every man who invents a useful thing has
to overcome the objections of the patent office; the objections of
infringers; the objections of owners of machines which would be
superseded, all three obstacles of no small order. And not until they
are all overcome, if indeed, they are, is the patent likely to be a
source of income to the inventor. Under the Socialist order, however,
every man is interested in increasing the productiveness of society to
diminish the hours of labor; and nothing, moreover, would be easier
than for a Socialist Society exceptionally to reward invention by
diminishing the hours of labor due to it by the inventor.
If an inventor by any one invention shortened the hours of labor in an
aggregate amount equivalent to a lifetime of his own work for the
community, he ought to be relieved of the necessity of himself doing
further work. If the invention were clearly due to inventive skill and
not to accident, it would be to the interest of the industry in which
he was engaged to furnish him with a laboratory where he could
experiment with a view to further invention, as the General Electric
Company does for its inventors and Mr. Westinghouse for his. There is
not one inventor in a hundred but would laboriously avail of such an
opportunity; for the delight of an inventor is to invent. So inventors
would constitute one of the Honor group of the community. They would
receive during their lives the consideration due to their
inventiveness and industry. At present the enormous majority of
inventors die poor and unknown. Of all the inventors in America only
three that I know of are rich, Westinghouse, Bell, and Edison.
Practically all the rest have been victims of their own inventive
faculty. Who knows the name of the inventor of the slot machine so
much in vogue to-day? His name was Percival Everitt, and he died a
pauper in the street.
But we need not have recourse to argument to demonstrate that
pecuniary reward is not necessary to stimulate invention. There is one
profession in which a germ of self-respect has established the rule
that no discovery or invention shall receive pecuniary reward--the
medical profession. No doctor who wants to keep or earn a standing
patents a medicine or surgical instrument. Those who do so are at once
ostracized. Medicine or surgical inventions are deemed by
self-respecting doctors too important to the community for the
inventor to limit their use by patent.
If this idea of social service to-day animates the medical profession,
why should it not ultimately animate other professions, other
industries, other occupations? Why should it not animate them all?
Another profession has furnished the elements for all invention and has
never asked a pecuniary reward--I mean the teachers. If, for example, we
take such a subject as electricity, it will be found that all the
fundamental discoveries that enable the modern use of electricity are
due entirely to the researches of men who, out of sheer love of the
work, added research to the occupations for which they were paid. Sir
Isaac Newton was the first to discover the use of glass as a
non-conductor of electricity. Galvani and Volta, who gave their
names--one to Galvanic, and the other to Voltaic electricity--were
professors in Italy. The action of the electric current on a compass
needle was discovered by Professor H.O. Oersted in Copenhagen; and the
nature of electro-motive force, current strength and resistance, were
determined by Professor G.S. Ohm in Holland. But the greatest
discoveries of all were made by Faraday, who refused a title in order to
remain a professor all the days of his life. Is it possible that with
the record of these men before us, we can maintain the theory that gain
is the only stimulus to invention? If we think a little, we shall see
how essentially childish this notion is.
There are three principal motives for invention:
The desire to make money is one, but my experience of inventors has
persuaded me that it is the least, and is only perceptible in
inventors of the smallest caliber.
The faculty of invention is itself the determining motive. A man who
has a faculty _must_ exercise that faculty or suffer. The artist
_must_ paint; the sculptor _must_ sculpt; the musician _must_ make
music; the poet _must_ make rhymes. Lowell said that when he had no
time to state a proposition carefully in prose, he stated it in rhyme.
No one who has worked with inventors would be guilty of the error that
inventors need the stimulus of money reward. The mind of the inventor
teems with inventions as a herring at spawning season teems with
spawn. And as the herring must relieve herself of her spawn so must
the inventor relieve himself of his inventions. One great inventor of
the present day was in 1883 so fertile that the company who had
secured his exclusive services paid him to go to Europe and stop
inventing in order to avoid the ruinous expense of taking out his
patents. The inventor is driven by two forces: a function that insists
upon being exercised, and the pleasure which this exercise occasions.
Every man who can do a thing well loves doing that thing. To-day when
athletics bring notoriety it is very natural to conclude that men row
to get this notoriety. But in the old days when there was little or no
notoriety, men who could row, rowed for the pleasure of it; men who
could box, boxed for the pleasure of it. So to-day because a few
inventors--a very few--have become wealthy, the conclusion is drawn
that inventors invent only to make money. It is a pardonable fallacy,
but one that it takes very little intellectual effort to explode.
A man gifted with curiosity and imagination will forget altogether the
needs of the body in his effort to attain his end. Inventors are
notoriously improvident. Bernard Palissy not only forgot to eat, but
to furnish food to his wife and children. Nay, he not only starved
himself and them, but burned his furniture to the last chair in his
desperate efforts to get the glaze he was in search of. A chemist will
forget mealtime and bedtime in his laboratory. There is no force in
the world more compelling than the force of an idea; none to which the
body is under a more complete subjection. An inventor in pursuit of a
solution needs no more stimulus than a stag in the rutting season in
pursuit of his doe. The theory that he does, and that it is the
stimulus of money that he needs, is that of the amateur who has never
seen an inventor at work, or of the bookkeeper who reduces
everything--body, mind, soul, and heart--to dollars and cents.
An inventor may have been compelled to abandon research by the
necessity of making money or by the difficulty of finding it. Many an
one has been crushed by just such difficulties as these; and indeed it
may justly be said that more inventions are lost to us by the money
difficulty than are secured to us by the stimulus of a money reward.
A third motive is the desire for consideration which is at the bottom
of many other desires--at the bottom even of the desire for money
itself. For if we analyze the desire for money we shall perceive that
it includes two very different motives: the motive of prudence--the
desire to secure the comforts and luxuries of life; and the motive of
ambition, or the desire for the consideration of others. Now the
former is the first in time, for a man must begin by securing the
material things of life. But once these are secured the motive that
keeps men making money is desire for consideration. And this desire,
though evil when excessive, is in moderation one of the greatest of
human virtues; for it sets men upon deserving the affection of their
neighbors and promotes unselfishness and self-sacrifice. One of the
curses of the competitive system is that the desire for
consideration, which in its essence is a virtue, is converted by our
money system into a vice, because money is the chief instrument in
securing consideration.[147] More will have to be said on this subject
later. Here we may content ourselves with noting that in a Socialist
society consideration will be secured not meretriciously through
money, but deservedly through service. The inventor who shortens hours
of labor for the community will belong to the Honor Roll. He will
secure this recognition not after having forced his invention on the
capitalist and fought its merits through the courts, created
unemployment for his fellows, and crushed competition out of the field
his patent covers--but directly from the industry he has benefited,
without the waste that attends the establishing of patent rights
to-day. The inventor under Socialism will have a stronger stimulus
than he has to-day; for the chances of securing livelihood and
consideration are certainly not more than one in a hundred, whereas
under Socialism they will be a hundred to one. There will not be the
opposition of invested capital to overcome; nor the hostility of his
fellow-workman; nor the villainy of the infringer. If his invention
can reduce the hours of labor or otherwise benefit the community, it
will be hailed with delight and honor. And so even though he need no
stimulus he will under Socialism have it; for his reward will be
prompt and secure.
Moreover, as Professor Ely has pointed out, the tendency of invention
in a Socialist state would be to replace work which now involves
drudgery by machinery that would tend to lessen or eliminate it.
If it were conceivable that a law could be made or enforced requiring
that millionaires, and none but millionaires, were to serve as
stokers, there is no doubt that all the ingenuity in the land would at
once be put to making the work of stoking less detestable than it now
is; if necessary, naval architecture would be so reformed from top to
bottom, as to reduce the work of stoking to that pressure of a finger
upon a button which is the only physical work imposed by modern
conditions upon the millionaire to-day.
The improvements due to invention would in a Socialist society differ,
perhaps, in character but not in quantity, for invention obeys the
particular stimulus which gives rise to it. Thus Karl Marx points
out[148] that mechanical traction was not introduced into mines until
a law forbade the use of women and children there, and the "half-time
system stimulated the invention of the piecing-machine," thereby
replacing child labor in woolen-yarn manufacture. Again, immense
improvements have been made in charging and drawing gas retorts, owing
to labor troubles, and there is no doubt that all arduous work would
soon be made less arduous if we all had to take a turn at it.
The objection that Socialism, would destroy the stimulus to invention
has been treated at what may seem disproportionate length on account
of its extreme importance. For it is owing to human inventiveness that
production to-day tends to outstrip consumption. Of all the
speculations upon the possible advantages of a new social order those
which concern themselves with the shortening of the average working
day are the most fascinating, yet the most dangerous. They are
fascinating because, of the many afflictions of the present order it
is the excessive workday that we feel most, for it is that which robs
so many of us or our need of personal life; and we know that any
reduction of the hours of labor would mean an immediate increase in
the quantity, and an ultimate increase in the quality, of our life.
But they are dangerous speculations because they probe to the very
heart of that wonderfully complicated economic process which we call
Capitalism. To make any scientific estimate of the social labor time
required to produce the commodities socially necessary for our health
and happiness would require an elaborate and intimate investigation of
the most secret details of industry, trade, and transportation, such
as there is little likelihood of ever being made. Nevertheless, it is
possible, in the light of some data already at our command, to get a
suggestive glimpse into the probabilities of the situation.
The 13th Annual Report of the Bureau of Labor is an exhaustive study
of the actual time required to produce some 600 different commodities,
ranging all the way from apple trees to loaves of bread and shingles.
The principal object of this Report was to compare the cost of
production by hand with the cost of production by machine; and it has
demonstrated the enormous progress that has been made in the art of
production by the substitution of machine for hand labor. For example,
before the introduction of machine labor it took about sixty-three
hours and a half to produce thirty bushels of barley; whereas to-day,
with the use of machinery, the same amount can be produced in two
hours and forty-two minutes (p. 24-5). The Report, in estimating the
cost of producing, includes breaking the ground, sowing and covering
seed and pulverizing topsoil, hauling water and fuel for engine,
reaping, threshing, measuring, sacking and hauling to the granary (p.
432-3).
Having these figures it would seem to be a very simple matter to
ascertain the total time required to produce the various commodities
consumed by the average workingman's family. It would seem as though
all we had to do was to make out a list of these commodities, get the
time cost of each from the Report and add these together to get the
total. Unfortunately, however, the Report does not cover all the items
which would have to be included in this list of necessaries; and to
make an estimate from a single commodity or from two or three
commodities would be a little dangerous, because some of the
commodities have much higher time values than others and would
therefore introduce many elements of uncertainty.
But we may approach the question from another standpoint. The Report
does furnish the time value of ten of the principal crops and of
bituminous coal. Let us, then, restate the problem in the following
form:
_Assuming social ownership of land (including bituminous coal lands)
and modern machinery, how many hours' labor per day would be required
to produce enough of the principal crops to sell at farm or mine for a
sum sufficient to buy the necessaries of existence for the average
family?_
The first step, obviously, is to determine what constitutes the
necessaries of existence for the average American family. Here again
we may resort to official statistics. In the year 1900-01 the U.S.
Bureau of Labor entered upon an investigation of the income and
expenditure of the average American family. Agents were sent out all
over the country to collect data at first hand. These agents got
reports from some 25,440 families, and the figures are tabulated and
summarized in the 18th Annual Report of this Bureau.[149]
These 25,000 families had the necessaries of existence, we know,
simply because they managed to live, survive, and reproduce. Their
average income was $749.50; their average expenditure, $699.24, thus
representing a saving of $50 a year. But many of these families had
boarders, many had grown-up children or wife at work, many had
lodgers, so that the income was artificially increased or diminished
by these factors. There were, however, 11,156 families among these
which the report designates as "normal"; these were distinguished by
the following characteristics: a husband at work; a wife at home; not
more than five children--none over 14 years of age; no dependents,
boarders, lodgers, or servants (p. 18). Good units, you see, from a
statistical standpoint. Now, the average income of these normal
families was $650.98; the average expenditure $617.80.[150]
Here, then, we have over 10,000 families, of five persons each, who
manage to live on $617.80 a year, without resorting to crime or
charity. That they live in straitened conditions is undoubtedly true,
but they are by no means submerged, for in their cooperation with the
agents of the Bureau of Labor they all displayed qualities of
intelligence which are not to be found among the submerged. In short,
they were average self-respecting American workingmen's families.
But let us assume that $617.80 is inadequate; let us provide a margin
of safety by allowing $800 as the minimum for procuring the
necessaries of existence.[151] Below is a table showing time cost per
unit (bushels or pounds) of ten principal crops and of bituminous
coal. This is derived from the tables on pages 24-25 of the 13th
Annual Report of the Bureau of Labor, which are assumed to be
accurate.
------------+-------------+--------------+---------+-----------
| | Time Cost. | | Time Cost
Commodity. | Quantity. +--------------+ Unit. | in
| | Hrs. | Min. | | Minutes.
------------+-------------+------+-------+---------+-----------
Barley | 30 bush. | 2 | 42.8 | 1 bush. | 5.427
Wheat | 40 " | 6 | 17.4 | 1 " | 9.435
Hay | 2 tons | 15 | 30.5 | 1 ton | 465.25
Oats | 40 bush. | 7 | 5.8 | 1 bush. | 10.645
Rice | 60 " | 17 | 2.5 | 1 " | 17.042
Rye | 25 " | 25 | 10 | 1 " | 60.40
Corn | 80 " | 42 | 38.1 | 1 " | 31.97
Potatoes | 220 " | 38 | ... | 1 " | 10.364
Tobacco | 2,750 lbs. | 606 | 5.1 | 1 lb. | 13.22
Cotton | 1,000 " | 78 | 42 | 1 " | 4.72
Bit. Coal | 200 tons | 379 | 36 | 1 ton | 113.88
------------+-------------+------+-------+---------+-----------
Having the time cost per unit of each of these commodities, let us now
ascertain the time cost of the total crops of these produced in the
United States. This is exhibited in the table on the next page, which
is derived from the figures given in the Year Book of the Department
of Agriculture, 1907, p. 668. These, too, are assumed to be accurate.
We see from this table that the total time cost of these principal
crops, if produced with modern machinery on a large scale, would be
185,759,513,000 minutes, and that the money value of these
commodities, sold at farm or mine, is $3,214,510,707.
If, then, it would require 185,759,513,000 minutes' labor to produce
$3,214,510,707 worth of commodities, how much labor would be required
to produce $800 worth of these commodities? This is a problem in
simple proportion:
$800: $3,214,510,707:: _x_ minutes: 185,759,513,000 minutes. Working
this out we find that _x_ equals 46,230 minutes or 770 hours and 30
minutes. Estimating 300 working days to the year, this would seem to
indicate that a social work-day of 2-1/2 hours should be sufficient to
procure the necessaries of existence, valuing these at $800.
----------+-----------+--------------+---------+--------+-----------
| Average |Average Total |Time | |Total Time
| Annual |Value on Farm |Cost in | | Cost in
Commodity.| Production| Dec. 1, |Minutes. | Unit. |Thousand
| 1898-1907.| 1898-1907. | | |Minutes.
----------+-----------+--------------+---------+--------+-----------
| Millions | | | |
Barley | 117 bush.| $53,872,896| 5.427 | 1 bush.| 633,959
Wheat | 642 " | 444,206,221| 9.435 | 1 " | 6,057,270
Hay | 59 tons | 524,124,456| 465.25 | 1 ton | 27,449,750
Oats | 841 bush.| 265,595,639| 10.645 | 1 bush.| 8,952,445
Rice | 18 " | 14,594,913| 17.042 | 1 " | 305,756
Rye | 29 " | 16,527,099| 60.40 | 1 " | 1,751,600
Corn |2,309 " | 953,158,114| 31.977 | 1 " | 73,834,893
Potatoes | 255 " | 134,236,563| 10.364 | 1 " | 2,642,820
Tobacco | 743 lbs. | 59,548,881| 13.22 | 1 lb. | 9,822,460
Cotton |5,233 " | 457,787,442| 4.72 | 1 " | 24,699,760
Bit. Coal | 260 tons | 290,858,483| 113.88 | 1 ton | 29,608,800
| +--------------| | +-----------
| |$3,214,510,707| | |185,759,513
----------+-----------+--------------+---------+--------+-----------
Before accepting the above conclusion, however, it will be necessary
to make proper allowances for some important factors. First, the
figures quoted from the Report do not include time spent on
bookkeeping, upkeep, and repair of machinery, the time cost of the raw
material, of the machinery, etc. All these items are certainly
important, but we may safely assume that, taken together, they would
probably not increase the total by fifty per cent. If, then, we allow
an additional 1-1/4 hours for these items, thus making the work-day
3-3/4 hours, we shall be well within reason.
Second, it is to be inferred that the ten crops for which the 13th
Annual Report furnishes the time value were produced under unusually
favorable conditions, if not actually on "bonanza" farms. It is true
that the introduction (p. 12) affirms, in a blanket clause, "that the
effort was made to ascertain, not the quantity of work that could be
done under the most favorable conditions, but what was being
accomplished steadily in everyday work"; nevertheless, in the absence
of more specific information as to the actual conditions under which
the units under discussion were farmed, we cannot ignore the doubt
that arises in our minds. We may, however, offset this by two other
factors which were quite conservative in our estimate: (1) In adopting
the sum of $800 as a measure of the necessaries of existence, we have,
as already shown, allowed nearly a third over and above the sum
($617.80) actually ascertained to be requisite in the years 1900-1901.
(2) The figures in the 13th Annual Report are based upon
investigations made from fifteen to twenty years ago, between 1890-95.
The steady improvement in agricultural machinery which has been made
since then would undoubtedly reduce the present time cost of these
commodities very materially. It is not unreasonable, then, to urge
that these factors counterbalance each other; but in order to be on
the safe side let us add another quarter of an hour, thus making the
probable work-day consist of a round four hours.
We seem, then, to have warrant for believing that if agricultural
production were socialized to-day a 1200-hour work-year would suffice
to produce the necessaries, and an 1800-hour year, many of the
luxuries, of existence for the community. This, arranged to suit the
exigencies of agricultural production, might mean a twelve-hour
workday for four or six summer months, as the case may be.
Does this seem Utopian? Granted: all speculations of this sort must
seem Utopian. And yet, if we look back a few centuries, we shall find,
according to no less an authority than Thorold Rogers ("Six Centuries
of Work and Wages"), that the English workman, during the fifteenth
century and the first part of the sixteenth, lived, and lived well, on
the product of an eight-hour-day. Is it, then, so fantastic to suppose
that modern machinery, under a socialized system of production, could
cut this day in two?
The objection may be raised that this estimate is one-sided because it
is based on figures for agricultural production only, whereas
industrial production is really the more important half of the modern
economic process; and that therefore the generalization could not
apply to the whole economic process in a cooperative commonwealth.
It is true, as already pointed out, that we do not have comprehensive
data for all, or nearly all, the industrial products in actual use in
the average household. But we have posited, hypothetically, a
socialized agricultural community producing a quantity of goods which
it can sell at the farm for an average $800 per family; this $800
sufficing, when brought to the village store or forwarded to the city,
to buy the necessaries of existence for the family _at retail_. Now it
is well known that under present conditions the retail price of any
manufactured article comprises about one-third for actual cost of
production, one-third for manufacturer's profits and accounting costs,
and one-third for selling costs. In other words, every such article,
when it reaches the ultimate consumer, is weighted down with a load of
barnacles of trade-profits of innumerable middlemen, rents, dividends,
cost of advertising, and other trade-getting devices, etc., etc. Part
of this cost of distribution is undoubtedly legitimate and could not
be dispensed with under any organization of society, no matter how
scientific. The man engaged in producing the necessaries of life will
always have to support the man engaged in transporting and
distributing them, and the man engaged in manufacturing and repairing
the machinery and other instruments of production necessary thereto.
But it is impossible to believe that this auxiliary corps will ever,
in a rational system of production, consume two-thirds of the ultimate
retail value of most goods, as it does to-day.
It would seem, therefore, that if the industrial community organized
itself in the same fashion as our hypothetical agricultural community,
the exchange value of its products, whether stated in terms of social
labor, time, or money, or any other standard of value, would actually
be lower than our estimate assumes. By how much our four-hour work-day
would be reduced we have no means of determining, but it could hardly
be increased.
Probably, therefore, four hours will constitute the average daily
labor in a cooperative commonwealth, and these ought to be sufficient
to give to every citizen not only the necessaries and comforts now
enjoyed by the middle class, but some of the luxuries enjoyed only by
the millionaire.
FOOTNOTES:
[133] Report of the Industrial Commission, Vol. I, p. 829.
[134] _Christian Socialist._
[135] Report of the Industrial Commission, Vol. I, Part I, p. 222.
[136] "Socialism and Social Reform," p. 121.
[137] "Socialism and Social Reform," p. 120.
[138] It is stated that the retailing of milk in New York is
practically confined to six companies. But the price of milk has not
been reduced accordingly. The economies resulting from this
combination have swelled the profits of these companies. The consumers
gain nothing from it. And this is what is taking place with all trust
articles.
[139] Book III, Chapter III.
[140] This is more true of railroads in the United States than in
England, probably because competing roads have not been tolerated in
England to the same extent as in our country.
[141] The Thaw case furnishes an unfortunate illustration of this
tendency.
[142] Ely, "Socialism and Social Reform," p. 134.
[143] Ely, "Socialism and Social Reform," p. 134.
[144] Book II, Chapter I. This subject has been discussed in detail in
"Government or Human Evolution," Book II, Chapter II, p. 273, _et
seq._, by the author.
[145] "Economy of Manufacture." Babbage (London, 1832), p. 246.
[146] M. DeLesseps has stated that it cost England L100,000,000 to
change its shipping so as to fit it for passage through the Suez
Canal, and this expense applies more or less to change of machinery
due to invention in every factory.
[147] Book III, Chapter II.
[148] "Capital," Part IV, Chapter XV.
[149] Issued by the Government Printing Office in 1904, entitled,
"Cost of Living and Retail Prices of Food."
[150] "Cost of Living and Retail Prices of Food," pp. 18, 90-102,
516-93.
[151] "The Standard of Living Among Workingmen's Families in New York
City," by Robert Coit Chapin, Ph.B., Charities Publication Committee,
1909, p. 178, _et seq._
CHAPTER II
ECONOMIC CONSTRUCTION OF THE COOPERATIVE COMMONWEALTH
Few things deterred me from a study of Socialism more than the
prevailing error that it necessarily would subject us all to the
tyranny of a state which would, because it owned all the sources of
production, be able to dictate to every one of us the kind of work we
should do and the hours during which we should do it. It must be
admitted that this is the Socialism described by many authorities,
amongst them Schaeffle, in a book still widely read, entitled the
"Quintessence of Socialism." But this book loses some of its authority
when we remember that Schaeffle followed it with another, entitled "Why
Socialism is Impossible"; and assuredly the state Socialism described
by Schaeffle is extremely unattractive to the bourgeois mind.
It is not so unattractive to the workingman, because he now has these
things determined for him by his employer without having any security
of employment. State Socialism, therefore, has no terrors for him. On
the contrary, as the workingman expects that the Socialist society
will be controlled by workingmen, he expects to that extent to be his
own master; that is, he will control the society that controls him.
State Socialism, therefore, is the form probably most in vogue amongst
workingmen. They have not before their minds the history of previous
revolutions which have for the most part only substituted one set of
masters for another. They cannot be expected, therefore, to appreciate
the profound change that comes over men when put into positions of
power, the temptations to which they are exposed, and the errors which
even the best intentioned are likely to commit.
I do not mean to condemn state Socialism; for state Socialism
veritably controlled by the people would probably furnish better
government than that which we are now given at the hands of
capitalists. But I shall not attempt to describe the economic
structure that would prevail under state Socialism, because it has
been already described; whereas I do not think that there has been any
effort made to describe a cooperative commonwealth in which the state
would have very little more power than that enjoyed by the government
in England or Germany to-day.
The difficulty of assigning tasks and of determining wages which makes
Socialism impracticable to the bourgeois mind is a pure fiction,
encouraged, I admit, by many Socialist writers who imagine that
Socialism can only come by a sudden and violent transfer of political
power from the capitalist to the proletariat, called revolution. As
will more fully appear in the next chapter, the Political Aspect of
Socialism, such a revolution is by no means necessary; for the
cooperative commonwealth, as I understand it, need not be introduced
by any sudden transfer of political power whatever.
In one sense, indeed, Socialism has in part come. The _laissez faire_
school had barely announced their doctrine and proceeded to legislate
in accordance therewith, before the abominable consequences of the
_laissez faire_ doctrine became so obvious that steps had at once to
be taken to put an end to it. So the idea that a man could do what he
liked with his own, which resulted in working women in mines to an
extent which reduced them to the condition of the lower animals, the
use of children in factories to a degree imperilling the future of the
race, the reduction of men to starvation wages, the pollution of
rivers by factory products, the spread of cholera by unwholesome
dwellings--all gave rise to a series of legislative acts which limited
the right of a man to exploit women and children, compelled landlords
to maintain sanitary dwellings, and prevented the pollution of waters
by factory products altogether. All this legislation was an
unconscious tribute to that solidarity of the human race which is at
the root of Socialism.
Nor was this all. The state and city could so obviously perform
certain functions better and cheaper than private corporations that
enterprise after enterprise was slowly taken from individuals and
assumed by the state. The postoffice was the foremost of these. The
municipalization of gas, water, and trams, the nationalization of
railroads, telegraphs, and telephones, have been pursued as purely
economic measures rendered necessary by considerations of social
welfare.
Indeed, England has been rushing towards Socialism with such rapidity
that increasing rates gave the capitalists an excuse for frightening
the public with threats of bankruptcy, and occasioned the reaction in
municipal progress through which the country is now passing. But the
forces behind Socialism are so overwhelming that they convert its very
enemies into its unconscious prophets, priests, and promoters.
Mr. Roosevelt, who has so lately entered the lists against Socialism,
is with the exception perhaps of Pierpont Morgan and Rockefeller, the
greatest practical Socialist in America. When Mr. Roosevelt called
together the Governors of the States to consider what steps, if any,
could be taken to prevent the shameful waste of our national resources
by capitalistic enterprise, and when Mr. J.J. Hill in a remarkable
summary counted up the awful loss to humanity involved in this waste,
neither appears to have been aware that they were demonstrating to the
world not only that Socialism was good, but that it was indispensable.
When Rockefeller brought together the distillers of oil into a single
deliberately planned body, eliminating the waste of individual
competition, he does not seem to have been aware that he was
demonstrating the amazing advantage of eliminating competition and
slowly preparing an industry for nationalization. When Mr. Morgan did
the same thing for the Steel Trust, and the Coal Trust, and when he
tried to do the same thing for the railroads until checked by a
blundering government,[152] he, too, was unaware that he was
demonstrating the failure of the very capitalistic system for which he
stands. So the idol they themselves set up for worship they are
engaged in smashing all to pieces; and they none of them see the humor
of it.
When a horse refuses to return to his stable and balks when brought to
its door, a simple device overcomes his resistance: His head is turned
away from the door and he allows himself to be shoved without
opposition hind end foremost into the stable which he declines to
enter in the more usual way.
Roosevelt, Rockefeller, and Pierpont Morgan are just like this balky
horse. They loudly proclaim that under no consideration whatever will
they proceed front side forward, and yet in the middle of these
protestations they are going hind side forward faster than perhaps is
prudent. The difference between Socialists and Messrs. Roosevelt,
Rockefeller, and Pierpont Morgan is that Socialists consider it more
dignified to move front side forward; more intelligent to see plainly
where they are going, and proceed deliberately of their own motion
instead of being pushed there backward by forces they pretend to
ignore.
Sec. 1. HOW SOCIALISM MAY COME
The many theories proposed as to how Socialism may come, can be
generally classified into two: that it will come by revolution and
that it will come by successive reforms.
The so-called Marxian school calls itself revolutionary, and
undoubtedly many members of this school are revolutionary, and have
the idea that Socialism will come by revolution--by violence--while
among the more thoughtful, this word is used to mean that Socialism
will constitute revolution because it will transfer power from the
exploiting class to the exploited class.[153] Others have confused
ideas of the meaning of the word revolution in which the element of
violence and that of the transfer of political power are more or less
mixed. Socialism, of course, involves a transfer of political power,
and since such a transfer is revolutionary, Socialism may be properly
called revolutionary, though its coming may not be attended by
violence. Many authors believe that Socialism will come by the use of
extra political methods--not by successive reforms introduced by
parliamentary methods, but by a general strike, or the conversion of
the army, or adroit use of the conditions produced by war (as in
Russia after the Japanese War).
Some, again, believe that Socialism may come by the development of a
secret society which will secure the support of a sufficient number of
those in the possession of our military stores and military places to
permit of a conquest of political power by force. To those it may be
suggested that the days for the success of secret societies are over.
Capitalistic society possesses machinery in the shape of the press and
the secret service which would make the success of a secret society
impossible. The slightest indiscretion of one of its members under
feminine influence or that of drink would be sufficient to break up
the entire plan.
The capitalists are in possession of the army, the navy, the police,
the militia, and above all, the weapons with which to arm all these.
Recourse to bullets seems unnecessary and dangerous when our enemy has
the bullets and we have not, all the more when the work can be equally
well done with infinitely less disorder and agony if we only have
recourse to the ballots which we have and they have not.
When a sufficient number of men are persuaded that Socialism is the
best solution of our present economic evils, they can get what they
want the day they choose to use the ballot for that purpose; whereas
recourse to violence would lead not only to immediate disaster, but to
an indefinite postponing of the desired result. For a very large part
of our population which would, then, as now, be in doubt as to the
wisdom of adopting Socialism, would certainly be driven by violence
into the capitalistic fold and a period of capitalistic reaction would
result. This has been observed in so many revolutions in the past that
it is unnecessary to insist upon it here.
This must not be interpreted, however, as intending to eliminate
violence as a possible factor in the coming of Socialism. Had Haywood
been convicted it would have created an indignation so profound that
a very widespread and dangerous uprising might have taken place, and
although it would have been quelled, still, it is probable that such
an uprising might have led to Socialistic legislation. It is as
impossible to state beforehand how large a part violence will play in
the coming of Socialism as to state how much contributed to remedial
legislation in Ireland--the violence of 1798 and the 60's, or how much
the parliamentary tactics of Parnell.
Socialistic legislation is of two very different kinds, and these must
be carefully distinguished. Bismarck inaugurated Socialistic
legislation such as national insurance, intended, by taking away part
of the grievance of the workingmen, to diminish their discontent and
their reason for espousing Socialism.
Indeed, since the beginning of the nineteenth century legislation more
or less Socialistic has been enacted in every civilized country in the
world, partly owing to the _bona fide_ desire on the part of
legislators to put an end to evils that shocked their moral sense, but
perhaps far more by legislators who thought to satisfy Cerberus with a
sop. Socialistic legislation, therefore, enacted by capitalistic
legislators for the purpose of appeasing popular discontent, does
little towards promoting Socialism. Some Socialist writers claim that
it does nothing to this end, but this view is extreme and I think
incorrect. For example, it would be impossible for Socialism to come
without violence had not the nations of the world been slowly
conferring the franchise upon the class in whose interests and through
whom Socialism will come. Socialistic legislation of a character to
put the political weapon in the hands of the people, through which
they can secure the transfer of political power from those who now
enjoy it to themselves, is of the utmost value. Indeed, it is of so
much value that those Marxian Socialists who protest against all
compromise with capitalistic parties must have forgotten that it is
through the capitalistic parties, and through compromises of
Socialists with capitalistic parties, that these measures of political
reform have been enacted. In Belgium to-day the Socialists are
combining with the Radicals to wrest universal franchise from the
Catholics.
Again, Socialistic legislation which improves the condition of the
working class, though it takes away a part of their grievance and
does, to that extent, diminish the incentive to Socialism,
nevertheless strengthens the workingmen, raises their standard of
living and of thought, and gives them the very education and equipment
they need in order to become Socialists.
Nevertheless Socialistic legislation obtained from capitalistic
legislators can never effect the final transfer of political power
from the exploiting to the exploited class without which no Socialist
commonwealth can be secured. Here, therefore, we see the elements
which confuse this question of revolution and reform. The Marxian
Socialists in Germany have seen Socialistic legislation enacted year
after year and have seen it, by diminishing evils, tend to diminish
enthusiasm for revolution. Moreover, revolutionary German Socialists,
conscious that they have to destroy the existing political machinery
represented by the Emperor, the nobles and the church; conscious too,
that the farmer class is essentially capitalistic in its temper and
thought, and despairing therefore of getting a parliamentary majority,
naturally look to extra political methods as the only ones at their
disposal.
Sec. 2. REFORM AND REVOLUTION
There is great and regrettable confusion as regards the words reform
and revolution. The Socialist party calls itself revolutionary, and as
revolution is connected in the minds of most people with violence, the
popular impression is that the Socialist party stands for violence.
This is a profound mistake. The whole subject has been well treated by
Kautsky, an authoritative leader of the Socialist party; and he
distinctly disavows violence. Revolution to him is a "transfer of
political power from one class to another." The French Revolution
transferred political power from the king, the noble, and the church
to the bourgeois. The Socialist revolution is to transfer political
power from the bourgeois to the proletariat.
Here a word of caution must be said: Socialist literature is written
for the most part by the proletariat for the proletariat; and it is
natural that it should abound in just such phrases as these. Not that
the phrase is wrong or incorrect; rather is it incomplete. To-day, in
France the Republic is largely supported by the nobles of yesterday;
so also will the proletarian government of the Socialist revolution be
largely supported by the bourgeois of to-day.
The word revolution, therefore, is used here not to convey the idea of
violence, but rather in the sense of the revolution of the planets, or
of the seasons. It is as it were the closing of one cycle and the
beginning of another. There is, of course, a great difference of
opinion as to how this revolution is to be effected--whether by
parliamentary methods or extra-parliamentary methods such as strikes.
Into this subject, however, this book, being addressed to
non-Socialists rather than to Socialists, will not enter. It is purely
a question of tactics and may be said to have been solved in America
for the present by the very existence of a Socialist party which puts
up candidates at every election wherever feasible in order to do what
can be done in the direction of Socialism by constitutional methods.
There is, however, another use of the word revolution concerning which
it is of the utmost importance to be clear. Socialists often say that
"Socialism must come by revolution and not by reform." What is exactly
the meaning of this sentence? What is the difference between reform
and revolution?
Reformers proceed upon the assumption that the competitive system is
good and that capitalists can be entrusted with the task of reforming
it so to eliminate its admitted evils. The revolutionary Socialist on
the contrary says that the competitive system is bad and that the
capitalist cannot be entrusted with the task of putting an end to it.
So he decries mere reform and insists upon nothing less than
revolution, the transfer of political power from the capitalist to the
people at large. There is thus between the reformer and the
revolutionary Socialist a difference of principle; the one upholding
the competitive system and the other denouncing it.
But there is also another difference of hardly less importance between
the reformer and the revolutionary Socialist--a difference of method.
A bourgeois reformer has no preconceived plan of reform. He hits at
every evil like an Irishman at a fair--as he sees it. Governor Hughes,
who belongs to this class, thought in 1908 that race track gambling
was the greatest evil of existing conditions and devoted the entire
session of the legislature to an anti-race track gambling bill which
he triumphantly passed, only to see it nullified at the first
opportunity by the courts. In 1909 he thought that a primary election
bill was the most important reform; but this primary election bill
failed to pass. The legislature, very much under his guidance, spent
two years in passing a useless anti-race track gambling bill and
refusing to pass a primary bill, although during these two years at
least 200,000 men have been seeking employment and not finding it, and
a population therefore of about a million[154] in New York State alone
has been on the verge of starvation in consequence.
The most striking feature of the bourgeois reformer is his lack of
sense of proportion; but there is a reason for it. Unemployment is not
a popular subject with the class to which Governor Hughes belongs. As
an evil it is too merciless; as a resource it is too unavowable.[155]
So it is impossible to get any legislature in any State in this Union
effectively to consider the subject of unemployment.
The Socialist, on the contrary, has a definite preconceived plan of
legislative enactment. While the reformer, however well-intentioned
and intelligent, is hacking away at random at the jungle of evils in
which the competitive system encompasses him, and hardly ever
attaining any substantial progress, the Socialist has his course
directed for him by the polar star. He regards such bills as anti-race
track gambling as a waste of time. Race-track gambling is a necessary
and poisonous fruit of the competitive system. It is useless to attack
the fruit and leave the tree standing. The only legislation,
therefore, that interests the Socialist looks towards putting an end
or a check to the competitive system that results in the exploitation
of the Many by the Few. And of all the evils the one that has stood
out most startling and appalling during the last two years is the evil
of unemployment.
The immediate demands of the Socialist party published at the end of
the Socialist platform,[156] indicate the character of measures which
the Socialists urge. In one sense these are reforms, many of which
Governor Hughes favors, but they all tend towards one definite
end--the limitation and ultimate suppression of the competitive system
with the exploitation of the Many by the Few. In one sense, therefore,
Socialists are reformers, but revolutionary reformers; all their
reforms look towards the transfer of political power from the Few who
exploit political power for their individual benefit, to the Many who
will utilize political power for the benefit of all.
Having indicated the difference between reform and revolution, let us
consider how far the Socialist is justified in saying that the
competitive system is so bad that it cannot be improved--that it must
be replaced altogether.
When a wagon is thoroughly worn out, it is useless to repair it; for
if one part is strengthened it throws the strain upon a neighboring
part which breaks down; and if that part is strengthened it throws the
strain upon another which again breaks down. It is possible by
intelligently renewing various parts of the wagon upon a preconceived
plan, eventually to replace the broken-down wagon by an entirely new
one; but the difficulty of doing this is extreme, and the wagon when
so reconstructed, being composed of parts of different ages, must
again give way at its most worn part. So experience indicates that it
is better to throw a fairly used-up wagon on the junk heap and build a
new one in its place.
Reform measures such as we have had under former administrations
resemble an effort to patch up a worn-out wagon; for a reform measure
directed at one evil is found to produce other evils very apt to be as
great, if not greater than those that the measure is trying to
suppress. Not many years ago a society for the suppression of vice
made a crusade in New York upon vicious resorts. Such resorts are
abominable; they should not exist in an orderly community. But
attacking these resorts, without attacking the conditions that created
them, only distributed the evil all over the city, involving a
pernicious contact with unperverted youth.
Again, the difficulty of reconciling Sunday closing of barrooms with
furnishing _bona fide_ travellers at hotels with refreshments was
solved in New York by the Raines law, which defined a hotel by
establishing a minimum of bedrooms. The result was that to almost
every barroom there is attached this minimum of bedrooms to permit of
the sale of liquor on Sunday; and this effort to secure Sunday closing
has resulted in converting the barroom into a house of prostitution.
Again, legislation for putting an end to the awful congestion and
filth of the New York city tenements has by imposing upon the landlord
expensive repairs, raised rents, so that, although the tenement
dweller is little benefited because of evasion of the law, his rent
has been uniformly raised.
In the chapters on the Scientific and Ethical Aspects of Socialism, an
effort will be made to show why the competitive system is essentially
bad and must remain bad so long as acquisitiveness is deliberately
made the dominating motive of human activity; and how by modifying
economic conditions we can secure all the benefits of a tempered
acquisitiveness without the appalling results of an acquisitiveness
that knows no bounds. This argument belongs, however, to the
constructive argument for Socialism, and we have not yet completed the
destructive argument against existing conditions. For there are two
further illustrations furnished by recent efforts to curb competition
which not only tend to demonstrate the hopelessness of the task, but
throw light upon existing conditions and impending dangers. I refer to
the rate law and legislation tending to control monopolies--to the
inevitable tyrannies of the trust and the trade unions and the
irreconcilable conflict between the two.
Sec. 3. POSSIBLE TRANSITIONAL MEASURES
I shall describe the cooperative commonwealth on the theory that it is
to come gradually, not because I consider this the only way for
Socialism to come, but one of the possible ways and the one most
intelligible to the bourgeois mind.
Morris Hillquit and John Spargo have given good sketches of the
Socialist state.[157] I shall adhere closely to their views,
emphasizing and detailing them; and I am the more glad to adopt this
plan because both are members of the National Executive Committee of
the Socialist party and will not be accused of taking the bourgeois
view of Socialism; whereas because I have been a bourgeois, I am
likely to be accused of this.
Mr. Spargo begins by repudiating the idea of the Socialist state as a
"great bureaucracy" and declares the Socialist ideal to be a "form of
social organization in which every individual will enjoy the greatest
possible amount of freedom for self-development and expression; and in
which social authority will be reduced to the minimum necessary for
the preservation and insurance of that right to all individuals."
The rights of the individual Mr. Spargo summarizes as follows:
"There must be perfect freedom of movement, including the right to
withdraw from the domain of the government, to migrate at will to
other territories; immunity from arrest, except for infringing others'
rights, with compensation for improper arrest; respect of the privacy
of domicile and correspondence; full liberty of dress, subject to
decency; freedom of utterance, whether by speech or publication,
subject only to the protection of others from insult, injury, or
interference with their equal liberties. Absolute freedom of the
individual in all that pertains to art, science, philosophy, and
religion, and their teaching, or propaganda, is essential. The state
can rightly have nothing to do with these matters; they belong to the
personal life alone. Art, science, philosophy, and religion cannot be
protected by any authority, nor is such protection needed."
On the other hand, he summarizes the functions of the state as
follows:
"The state has the right and the power to _organize_ and _control_ the
economic system, comprehending in that term the production and
distribution of all social wealth wherever private enterprise is
dangerous to the social well-being, or is inefficient; the defence of
the community from invasion, from fire, flood, famine, or disease; the
relations with other states, such as trade agreements, boundary
treaties, and the like; the maintenance of order, including the
judicial and police systems in all their branches; and public
education in all its departments."
The state, according to Mr. Spargo, is not to _own_ all sources of
production (this is state Socialism); but is to have the right and
power to _organize_ and _control_ the economic system. There is
between these two statements all that distinguishes the crude
Socialism of the nineteenth century from the practical Socialism of
to-day. This is emphasized by Mr. Spargo when he states that
"Socialism by no means involves the suppression of all private
property and industry"; and the further recognition that the
"Socialist state will not be static"; that is to say, it will not once
for all decide that certain industries must be socialized and certain
other industries be left to individual initiative.
The dominant factor that will determine these things is the public
welfare. When private property in a particular thing is found
injurious to public welfare, it will be taken over by the state for
the purpose of being socialized, as will hereafter be explained. When
it is deemed that private property in a public industry is injurious
to public welfare, this industry will be socialized. When, on the
contrary, it is found that by socializing an industry the advance of
that industry tends to be paralyzed, private initiative will be
encouraged to enter into that industry. Indeed, the economic structure
of the commonwealth will be such that inefficiency in a socialized
industry will automatically give rise to the competition of private
initiative therein.
I have used the expression "socialized industry." It is above all
things important that we should be clear as to what these words mean;
for it is the socialization of industry which is the modern substitute
for the Socialist state. We cannot understand this better than by
taking a concrete example.
Let us assume that the public has become convinced that a few
individuals have already too long grown inordinately rich out of the
refining and distribution of oil, and that the time has come for this
industry to be socialized. The old theory was that the state would
expropriate this industry and become the employer of all engaged in
it. It is argued in favor of such a system that if the state can be
entrusted with the distribution of letters, it can also be entrusted
with the distribution of oil; and this is undoubtedly true. But if
this same argument is applied to all industries it will expose the
state to two great dangers: the state will be overburdened by the
multiplicity and vastness of these tasks; and the state will become
despotic. And because this task is greater than any one set of men can
properly perform; even though the intentions of the members of the
government be the best possible, errors of judgment and errors of
detail will involve the state in injustice and discontent.
This difficulty can be met by not putting all these functions upon the
state, but by so providing that the men shown in the past best able to
handle a particular industry should continue to handle it. The
socialization of the Standard Oil industry would simply mean the
elimination of capitalistic control and exploitation. In taking over
the oil industry, the state would doubtless adopt the method already
adopted in taking over railroads, etc. A board would be appointed to
take expert testimony as to the valuation of the industry, to
determine the real value of every share. It would be called upon to
value every stockholding with a view to determining to what
compensation each stockholder was entitled; because a distinction
will have to be made between various classes of stockholders. Some
stockholders have purchased their stock out of the economies of an
industrious lifetime. They depend upon the dividends from such stock
to support their old age. To cut down the income they derive from this
stock might not only work an injustice, but work an injury to the
commonwealth; for if these stockholders had not sufficient income to
support themselves, they would become a burden on the state. Other
stockholders would be found to have sufficient wealth to support a
considerable reduction in the valuation of their stock without
hardship. Others again would have such enormous wealth, that, having
much more income than they can possibly spend, the reduction of their
income would mean no hardship save that of depriving them of _power_
for the most part exerted at the present time injuriously to the
commonwealth.
Experts, therefore, appointed by the state to make estimates with a
view to the transfer of an industry from private to social ownership
will have two distinct functions to perform: the function that boards
of experts in similar cases perform to-day, to estimate the actual
value of the property; and to estimate the wealth of the respective
stockholders and classify stockholders according to wealth with the
view of effecting the transfer from private to social ownership
without injustice to the individual or injury to the commonwealth. It
is probable that compensation to stockholders will consist of
annuities rather than lump sums. The advantage of compensation by
annuity rather than by cash payment is considerable. As the state is
taking over industries it will be more difficult for individuals to
find investment for lump sums than to-day. As the state is looking
forward to taking over industries to a sufficient extent to eliminate
pure capitalism[158] altogether, it is to be hoped that future
generations will not feel the need of capital of their own and will be
all the more ready to enter into the cooperative scheme of industry
if, having no capital, they have to work each in his own industry
under the new and prosperous conditions which cooperative production
ought by that time to have brought about.
Cases will undoubtedly be found where wealthy parents have worthless
or defective children and grandchildren. Again, some parents have so
contributed to the development of industry of the nation, as in the
case of Mr. John D. Rockefeller and Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, that it
may seem proper that the compensation given in the shape of an annuity
to them should not end abruptly at their death; but that a part of it
should be continued to their offspring. This question is one of
conscience as well as of social welfare; and in view of the enormous
importance of it to the wealthy of to-day, it is a pity that they
confine themselves to denouncing Socialism, and by so doing, leave the
elaboration of the Socialist program to a party of discontented which
is likely to deal with them when the day of expropriation arrives, not
only without mercy, but without justice.
To judge of the difficulty of determining the questions likely to
arise, let us consider for a moment the case of Mr. Rockefeller.
Mr. John D. Rockefeller has testified over and over again that for
many years he has had nothing to do with the management of the
Standard Oil, and yet he draws from the Standard Oil an income so
enormous that, not being able to spend more than a fraction of it, he
has invested the balance in railroad shares and thus become master of
a large part of our railroad system. I myself believe after a careful
study of the organization and development of the Standard Oil that Mr.
Rockefeller has amassed his fortune strictly in conformity with law.
He has, it is true, deliberately lied at certain critical periods. But
lying is not a crime, and is not actionable except under specified
conditions. Mr. Rockefeller then is not a criminal. He simply presents
a case where, having rendered an immense service to the community, he
has received as a remuneration for that service wealth that surpasses
the dreams of avarice.
If Mr. Rockefeller's holdings in the Standard Oil were expropriated by
the state without one dollar of remuneration, Mr. Rockefeller would
still be in possession of a far larger income derived from his
railroad holdings than he and all his family could possibly spend. It
is probable, therefore, that in such cases as those of Mr.
Rockefeller, J. Pierpont Morgan, and others of their class, the state
would make a valuation of all their wealth, leave them what it is
proper they should have, and expropriate the rest. Even though there
were left to multi-millionaires more income than they could possibly
spend, the surplus expropriated by the state out of each of their
swollen fortunes would leave to every industry a large fund which
could be applied to increasing wages, improving conditions, and
reducing prices. If, for example, it turned out that the income Mr.
Rockefeller derives from his railroad shares is more than he can spend
and that, therefore, there were no reason why he should continue to
own any shares in the Standard Oil whatever, the dividends accruing
from the shares now held by Mr. Rockefeller in the Standard Oil would
be applicable to improving the conditions of those who work for the
Standard Oil. It is probable that Mr. Rockefeller owns about one-half
of the shares in the Standard Oil. All the dividends now paid to Mr.
Rockefeller would in such case be applicable to these things. Such a
solution would permit of the division of the enormous dividends which
are being paid to-day to Mr. Rockefeller amongst the working body of
the Standard Oil.
As to compensation, there is considerable disagreement in the
Socialist party, and many Socialists would not admit the principle of
compensation at all. In France, it is probable that these last
constitute, if not a majority, at any rate a very large minority of
the party; but in America I think it can be said that the Socialist
party stands for compensation. In support of this contention I cannot
do better than quote a passage from the article of Mr. Steffens in
_Everybody's Magazine_, Oct., 1908.[159]
This passage is extremely illuminating because we find in it the
opinions of two men thoroughly representative of the two wings of the
Socialist party: Eugene Debs, who is what Mr. Roosevelt would call "an
extreme Socialist"; that is to say, he looks at Socialism from the
revolutionary point of view; he regards the issue as between the
capitalist on the one side and the proletariat on the other; he is an
ardent exponent of the class struggle theory; his sympathies are
exclusively marshalled on the side of the poor, and his first impulse,
therefore, on being questioned on this subject, is to express an
opinion contrary to compensation. And yet his ideas on this subject
are not so rooted but that they can at once be corrected when he is
reminded by Victor Berger of the evils likely to result from
expropriation without compensation.
To those unfamiliar with the personnel of the Socialist party, it is
important to say a word regarding Victor Berger. He is the editor of
the _Social Democratic Herald_, published in Milwaukee; but he is far
more than this. He is the recognized leader of the Socialist party in
Wisconsin, the only State in which Socialism has succeeded in electing
members to the municipal council and to the State legislature. No one
who reads his editorials can fail to recognize that he is not only an
economist, but a scholar. He is regularly elected to the National
Executive Committee of the Socialist party at the head of the poll;
and although I must not be understood to imply that there are no other
men in the party of as great weight as Mr. Victor Berger, I think it
may be stated without fear of contradiction that he to-day has more
personal influence in the party than any other one man. The ease with
which he brought the Presidential nominee around to his view on the
subject of compensation is a measure of his influence. I think that
upon the subject of compensation the opinion of Victor Berger is
likely to prevail.[160]
The socialization of industry does not mean any change in the
personnel of the industry whatever. Every man drawing salary or wages
from the Standard Oil will go on drawing salary or wages as before.
The industry will be handed over to those who actually maintain and
work at it. These men will run the industry in very much the same way
as did the guilds in the Middle Ages, subject to the payment of
annuities to old stockholders determined by the court.
There would, however, be some notable distinctions, between the
medieval guild and the guild under a cooperative commonwealth.
The latter would not constitute a complete monopoly; on the contrary,
independent refiners would continue to refine and distribute oil,
maintaining a wholesome competition of a character to prevent the oil
guild from becoming perfunctory and inefficient. This competition
would tend to avert the evils that attended the close monopoly of the
medieval guild, practically all of which can be traced to the
completeness of their monopoly.
Again the state would not _own_ the oil industry; it would reserve the
right to _control_ it. No direct control need be exercised providing
the industry were wisely administered; but if the industry had
recourse to devices for crushing out competition to which the trusts
to-day habitually resort, the state would exercise this direct control
by appointing one or more members to the governing board of the
industry. The oil guild would, therefore, be kept upon its good
behavior, both by the competition of the independent refineries and by
the danger of state intervention.
When the public became convinced that the time had come for the
socialization of the steel industry, exactly the same process would be
adopted. In this case, the function of those who had to value
stockholdings would be facilitated. It has never been revealed how
much J. Pierpont Morgan got in common stock for his role in the
organization of the Steel Trust; but it is known that the amount of
stock taken by him on that occasion was enormous. It would be
interesting to calculate the number of hours of work he personally
spent in promoting this trust and to compare these hours with the
amount of stock which he received as a price of this service. Such a
method might facilitate the work of those who had to value the stock
and determine the amount to which he was entitled for the service he
rendered.
The socialization of industry, therefore, will be seen to be a
process in which, once started, the state need have little further to
do. It will practically consist of a transfer of the industry from the
hands of the capitalist to the hands of those actually engaged
therein. It will involve the valuation of every stockholding in such a
fashion that the capitalist will during his life receive in some cases
all, though in other cases less than he has heretofore received; so
that the excessive income now enjoyed by the capitalist will be
applicable to improving the conditions of those engaged in the
industry; it will also be applicable to the reduction of cost to the
consumer. And this process applied to every trusted industry will have
for immediate effect gradually to improve the condition of the
workingmen. When applied to them all, not only will the workers
receive an increased wage, but the wage they receive will have its
purchasing power increased by the lowering of prices in all
industries. Obviously this system is not going immediately to put the
luxuries now enjoyed by the multi-millionaire at the disposal of every
workingman; but it will increase them as the annuitants die, so that
with the disappearance of the first generation of multi-millionaires,
the conditions of labor will be still further improved; and with the
disappearance of the second generation, to whom doubtless some
annuities will also be given, the workingman will receive all the
benefits now given to the capitalist.
Inasmuch as the wage-earners now receive on an average a little less
than one-half of the whole profits of the industry, from this
socialization of industry alone the laborer's will ultimately have
their compensation doubled by increase of wage and decrease of prices.
By "worker" is not meant what we now call workingmen alone. It includes
all engaged in industry through the work of their hands or their heads.
It is a common error into which Mr. Roosevelt has fallen that Socialism
proposes to improve the condition of the one at the expense of the
other; that it is a doctrine of Socialists that "all wealth is produced
by _manual_ workers."[161] No such foolish proposition has ever been
propounded by any Socialist however "extreme."[162] Socialists recognize
the enormous role played by brain in the organization and administration
of industry. What Socialism seeks to do is to eliminate the idle
stockholder--not the industrious manager. If Mr. Roosevelt would cast
his comprehensive eye around the class to which he belongs, he will
observe that it is composed in great part of idle stockholders who
contribute nothing whatever to the work of the industries which furnish
their dividends. And because these stockholders are idle, he will find
that they tend also to be "thriftless and vicious," and that he is
denouncing his own class when he characterizes as "morally base" the
proposition that "the thriftless and the vicious, who could or would put
in but little, should be entitled to take out the earnings of the
intelligent, the foresighted, and the industrious." He is very hard on
them; he says this is living by "theft or by charity" and that this
means "in each case degradation, a rapid lowering of self-respect and
self-reliance."[163] If a Socialist were to use this language of the
idle stockholders, he would be characterized as intemperate. I would not
myself go so far as Mr. Roosevelt. There are many idle stockholders who,
_because they are unconscious of living "by theft or by charity,"_ have
preserved a social conscience that sets them to righting the wrongs of
the many. Mr. Roosevelt himself, indeed, belongs to this very class. If
he ever takes the trouble to understand Socialism, he will see that it
proposes to put an end to the class that is idle and tends to be
"thriftless and vicious"; that in other words, in this as in every other
point on which Mr. Roosevelt attacks us, Socialism stands for the very
opposite of what Mr. Roosevelt thinks. It proposes to take our
industries out of the control of the idle and hand them over to the
industrious, whether their industry be of the hand or of the head.
The result of such transfer will be to leave every man doing the work
which he is already doing; to improve his condition; to keep alive the
competition necessary to prevent inefficiency or perfunctoriness and
make character; to diminish the stakes of the game, so that the worker
shall not lose health and happiness as now, but shall secure more or
less of the luxuries of life. And industry will be so organized that
no man who wants to work shall be without work; and no one who does
not want to work shall be allowed to be idle.
Having explained what is meant by the socialization of industry, and
pointed out how small the role of the state need be in the
socialization of industry at large, we may next proceed to consider
certain industries in which the state does, to-day, in other countries
and would in a cooperative commonwealth certainly play the dominant
role. In the first place, the state would own all natural monopolies.
By the word "state" must not be understood the Government at
Washington alone. Certain monopolies are national monopolies and would
therefore be owned by the national Government at Washington; for
example, railroads, telegraphs, national forests, national waterways,
etc. But it is the local authorities that would take over such local
monopolies as tramways, electric works, gas works, and all those
things that are essentially municipal in their nature. The wisdom of
this transfer of natural monopolies from private to public ownership
it is not necessary to discuss. The enormous advantages that have
attended this transfer in countries where it has been conscientiously
tried leave no room for discussion except by those who have a personal
interest in it, and to those this book is not addressed. Moreover,
this subject will be treated in the next chapter.
There are, however, certain industries which, because they are
intimately connected with public hygiene, it seems indispensable that
the municipality should take over. I refer to such industries as
packing houses, butcher shops, pharmacies, and the production and
distribution of milk, ice, and bread.
The recklessness with which we allow ice companies to distribute ice
collected from ponds into which the drainage of a large population
filters and from the head waters of such rivers as the Hudson, which
receives all the sewage of Albany, Schenectady, and Troy, seems
incredible, were we not already familiar with the recklessness which
hands over all our industries to a competitive system so fierce in its
operation that adulteration is its necessary consequence.
Many of the bakeshops which furnish us with our bread baffle
description, and on the poisons which are introduced into our milk I
have already dilated. Wherever the temptation to adulterate is
considerable and the consequence of adulteration to public health
great, the community should not accept the risk that arises from
competition except within the narrowest possible limits. For this
reason, it will doubtless be wise for a cooperative commonwealth to
own and run packing houses, butcher shops, pharmacies, bakeries, and
to produce and distribute milk and ice.
As regards ice, it is amazing that the municipal authorities should
not have undertaken this task before--especially in view of the
raising of the price of ice for the poor by the Ice Trust. Every city
has to supply its citizens with water, and as they are in control of
pure water, it should be as much the function of the city to furnish
pure ice as pure water. They have reservoirs free from pollution from
which ice could be cut; and nothing but the political influence of the
Ice Trust on the one hand, and the stupid indifference of the consumer
on the other, has permitted this business to remain in private
hands.[164]
The enormous profits made by the Meat Trust would permit not only of
sanitary handling of this industry, but proper compensation to all
engaged therein, and a notable reduction in the price of meat.
The fact that the baking industry is not trusted will make the taking
over of this industry by the state a more difficult undertaking, but
not for that reason an impossible one.
Competition is not necessarily to be eliminated in the taking over of
these industries. It is quite possible that the state might not
furnish good bread, and it ought, therefore, to be permissible for any
individual to enter into this business. The competition will be
limited because, inasmuch as the state will charge for its bread very
little above cost price, few will be induced to enter into this
business out of the desire for making money. The only motive that will
induce citizens to enter into the business will be that of furnishing
bread to their taste. Moreover, such industries would have to comply
strictly with hygienic conditions, and they would be not so numerous
as to make inspection as difficult, ineffectual, or expensive as
to-day.
The production and distribution of milk suggests a function of the
state to which sufficient importance cannot be attached. I mean the
creation of farm colonies. On this single point I am not supported by
the authority of the Socialist party. In other words, farm colonies
have never been suggested as a part of the Socialist program; but this
seems to be due to an oversight, for there does not seem to be in the
Socialist party, as far as I can judge of it, any opposition to the
idea. And the role of the farm colony seems to me of such importance
that it is hardly possible to give too much attention to it.
Sec. 4. FARM COLONIES
The first farm colony was established in Holland. The system has since
taken root all through Europe, but has reached its finest development
in the Canton of Berne, in Switzerland. It proceeds upon the principle
that while it is difficult to make money out of farm land, it is easy
to get nourishment from it, and that the most obvious remedy for idle
labor is to apply it to idle land.
In Switzerland it is also recognized that idle labor is divided into
two distinct classes--the unemployed and the unemployable--and the
unemployable must be again classified into those unable to work
through physical defect and those unable to work through moral
defect; that is to say, those who are morally willing and physically
unable and those physically able and morally unwilling. There are
therefore in Switzerland two different kinds of farm colonies: forced
colonies which deal with the tramp, the drunkard, and the
misdemeanant--all those persons upon whom discipline has to be
exercised; and free colonies for those physically disabled or who are
out of employment through causes over which they have no control.
It is in the poorest countries in Europe that farm colonies have
reached their highest development. Switzerland has been driven to
organize farm colonies by the fact that she is too poor to disregard
the burden of the unemployed and unemployables. It is in the richest
countries, England, France, and America, that the farm colony system
has been most neglected. The farm colony plan is the cheapest as well
as the best way of solving the problem of pauperism, deserving or
undeserving. This question has been fully treated elsewhere[165] and
it is only referred to here in sufficient detail to explain why it is
believed that the farm colony system will form an essential feature of
every Socialistic community. For although there will be an enormous
diminution in the number of those unwilling or unable to work (for the
reason that under a cooperative commonwealth no one need be overworked
and, therefore, no one need be reduced to the physical exhaustion
which is the prime cause of pauperism), and although there will be
fewer drunkards because drunkenness, also, is largely due to overwork,
nevertheless, until the cooperative commonwealth has been in operation
several generations, that part of the population that is unwilling or
unable to work will have to be provided for. And even later there
will certainly be some part of the population that will require
discipline as regards work. The farm colony system, more and more
indispensable in our existing civilization, will perform an important
role in the gradual transformation of society from the competitive to
the cooperative form. It probably presents to-day one of the most
perfect pieces of constructive Socialistic work in which legislators
can engage. For it has the extraordinary advantage of satisfying an
immediate necessity of the competitive system and at the same time
realizing some fundamental principles of Socialism; for example, that
every man and woman is entitled to work; that the aged are entitled to
support; and that the state should own enough land to assure both
these things.
The fact that our railroads are now awakening to the necessity of
handling the tramp proves the necessity of the system, and the fact
that in Switzerland the forced colonies have been made to pay their
own expenses indicates its economy. Indeed, no proposed legislation
illustrates so well the power driving us towards Socialism as the
history of attempts at legislation in this direction in New York
State.
Twelve years ago a farm colony bill was drawn by a committee appointed
by the charitable societies in New York; but it did not secure at
Albany a moment's serious attention. We were told by our legislators
that poverty is not a crime. When we answered that our bill did not
make it a crime more than the penal code, but only purposed to
substitute for the expensive and degenerating system of the misnamed
workhouse, inexpensive and regenerating work on a state farm, and that
the plan had operated effectually in Holland and Belgium for over a
hundred years, we were told that the plan might do in Holland, but
would not do here. So in the archives of the French senate may still
be read the report made by Thiers, when appointed by Louis Philippe on
a committee to investigate the first railroad ever built, which
concludes as follows: "Railroads may serve a purpose in England, but
they are not suited to France."
A similar bill, improved by borrowing from late experience in
Switzerland, drawn by a similar committee (to which was added the
Commissioner of Charities, Mr. Hebberd) was presented at Albany at the
session of 1909, and although not passed, was sufficiently well
received to encourage the hope that it will pass at the session of
1910. It had the support of the great railroads in New York state; for
the railroads have discovered that the tramp is an intolerable
nuisance.[166] Colonel Pangborn of the Baltimore & Ohio has lately
estimated that the damage occasioned by tramps to railroads in the
United States amounts in a single year to twenty-five million
dollars.[167] For the tramp in America does not tramp; he rides on
railroads; he sets fire to freight cars and freight stations; he
obstructs the lines, wrecks trains, and is a fruitful cause of action
for damages. The measure, therefore, which was thrown out by the
Assembly when proposed from motives of humanity, may be passed as a
measure of self-defence, and self-defence thus constitutes an element
of the power always at work on the side of progress that neither
ignorance nor interest will be able to resist.
The reason for believing that the farm colony will perform an
important function not only during the period which must elapse before
the cooperative commonwealth, but also after the cooperative
commonwealth has been attained, is that work on land seems to be the
only work to which the unemployed and unemployables can be suitably
put.
Every day we seem to be increasing our capacity to make land
productive. We not only make new discoveries, but profit by those of
more ancient civilizations than our own. It has long been known that
in the East they subject grain to the same system of replanting that
truck gardeners do early vegetables.[168]
Dr. Fesca informs us that in Japan rice is treated in the same way:
"It is allowed first to germinate; then it is sown in special warm
corners, well inundated with water and protected from the birds by
strings drawn over the ground. Thirty-five to fifty-five days later,
the young plants, now fully developed and possessed of a thick network
of rootlets, are replanted in the open ground. In this way the
Japanese obtain from twenty to thirty-two bushels of dressed rice to
the acre in the poor provinces, forty bushels in the better ones, and
from sixty to sixty-seven bushels in the best lands. The average, in
six rice-growing States of North America, is at the same time only
nine and a half bushels."[169]
Agriculturists are familiar with the results obtained by Major
Hallett's growing what he called "pedigree cereals"; that is to say,
by using as seed only the best ears in his crop; and by giving to
each grain sufficient space he obtained sometimes as much as 2500
grains for one grain planted. Even better results were obtained by
Grandeau.[170]
We are only beginning to know how much can be produced out of an acre
of ground. One thing, however, is certain: where labor is cheap and
land limited as in the case of our unemployed, there is no method
known by which labor can produce better results than by putting it to
what is called "intensive culture"; and as the secrets of intensive
culture become more known, it becomes clear that if the state would
only take the trouble to set aside a certain amount of land for the
purpose, it could without further expense than that of the first
installation make able-bodied unemployed and unemployables
self-supporting.
This is not a question of fertility; it is simply a question of space.
Unfertile land is made fertile by intensive culture. It has been said
that the Paris gardener defies the soil and the climate. Every truck
gardener there stipulates in renting land that he "may carry away his
soil down to a certain depth, when he quits his tenancy."[171] In
other words, soil is now a manufacture; we are no longer confined to
fertile areas; we can make any area fertile by the application to it
of industry and intelligence.
Municipalities can contribute enormously to the fertility of the land
around them. A district near Paris, called Genevilliers, was a few
years ago a desert tract of sand. The city poured over this tract the
sewage of the city after a filtration that deprived it of its
offensive features. This tract has become of fabulous fertility; but
the municipality having failed to buy this land before this operation,
the increased value of the land has accrued to the persons who
happened to be the owners of it; whereas if the city had begun by
purchasing the land at the price at which it could have been purchased
before this operation, it would have had here a tract of enormous
value that, by the farm colony system, would have greatly contributed
to relieve the city of the burden of pauperism.
It would seem as though the art of using manure were practically
unknown in this country by the farmers. The results that can be
obtained in this way are given in the Farmer's Bulletin, No. 242,
where an intelligent use of manure resulted in crops of 6.7 tons of
hay for every acre of cultivation;[172] and this not by the
application of any extraordinary science, but simply by recognizing
the obvious fact that manure must be spread daily and not allowed to
lose most of its value from being piled into heaps, where it burns and
degenerates.[173]
The farm colony must be so organized that it furnishes work summer and
winter. As its name implies, the colony is not confined to work on
land. Many skilled workmen would lose their skill if they were put to
farm work. Swiss colonies, therefore, have a few industries
established in each colony to which skilled workmen are put. This
occupies unskilled inmates during the winter months when the weather
is too inclement for out of door work, and also teaches them.
Moreover, in a self-supporting farm colony there is work which can be
done by the aged and the infirm, teaming, taking care of animals,
plucking fruits and vegetables, preparing them for preserving, and all
the small jobs that attend large housekeeping.
The farm colony plan will in part relieve the state of the expense of
old-age pensions. Every industry will provide pensions for its own
workers and thus the state will be relieved by the guilds; but there
will always be some aged left unsupported by such private industries
as will continue to exist by the side of the guilds. Of these it may
be expedient to relieve some in their own homes; but many will find in
the free farm colony an abiding place more congenial to themselves
than the almshouse, and far less expensive to the state. It will be
more congenial because there will be no more disgrace attending a free
farm colony than any other state employment, and because it will be
organized so as to render its work as agreeable as possible. It will
never be so attractive as work outside the colony because it will be
subject to the kind of regulations that attend all big institutions,
so there is little fear of these colonies becoming larger than is good
for the community. But it will be a home rather than an almshouse, and
it will be less expensive to the state because of the work which even
the aged can do.
The farm colony furnishes a system by means of which the state can
compel the unwilling, able-bodied tramp and pauper to earn his own
livelihood; where it can afford work to the unemployed without cost to
the state; and can utilize to the utmost possible the services of
those who are not able-bodied.
It must not be imagined that discipline of a harsh character is
necessary. There are in every one of these colonies in Europe dark
cells, where a man who will not work, or will not obey rules, is
confined and kept on bread and water until he consents to work and to
obey rules; and the very fact of the existence of these cells, and of
this system, has been found sufficient to secure good work and
obedience to rules without using the dark cells except under
exceptional circumstances. The director of one of the Dutch colonies
told me that he did not use the dark cell once a year.
There is no reason why the farm colony system should not be extended
to the treatment of all crime except that we have prisons, prison
managers, and a prison administration which stand in the way of
radical prison reform; and the general stupidity which prefers the
ills we have to the blessings which, obvious as they are, we have not
imagination enough to comprehend. The folly of keeping an enormous
population of criminals idle, within four walls, at an enormous
expense to the community, when we could keep them busy to their great
advantage, physical, intellectual, and moral, without a penny of cost
to the community, is one of those things which future generations will
find it difficult to believe.[174]
In the cooperative commonwealth there will be no prisons, no
penitentiaries, no almshouses, no tramps, no unemployed. There will be
farm colonies of various grades, from those that have no discipline
beyond that necessary to secure the observance of rules necessary to
all institutional life, through those that have just enough discipline
to keep lazy men at work, to those that have sufficient discipline to
keep even criminals at work. For although it is obvious that under a
cooperative commonwealth in which there is no necessity for
exhausting any individual, no necessity for alcoholism or stimulation,
no anxiety regarding the means of existence; where there is throughout
a high standard of living, ease for the mind and abundance for the
body, the production of the natural criminal ought to be immensely
diminished, yet the occasional criminal will have to be provided for.
For further study of the farm colony system as it has been developed
in Switzerland, and as it might be applied in the United States under
existing conditions, the reader is referred to "The Elimination of the
Tramp."[175] It is hoped, however, that enough has been said regarding
these colonies to enable us to consider the immense role which an
intelligent classification of farm colonies would play, not only under
existing conditions, but in the future cooperative commonwealth.
A single farm colony for dealing with tramps as proposed in the bill
now before the Assembly of New York State would render an
indispensable service by taking off the streets and highways the
vagrants who, because they are now confounded with the unemployed,
tend to confuse the mind of the public on this all-important subject.
But although such a colony, organized under the same conditions as the
forced labor colony in Switzerland, would render this service without
cost to the state beyond that of first installation, its usefulness in
the problem of production at large would be extremely small. It would
attain its purpose if it were self-supporting. But if this tramp
colony proves a success, the same system could be applied not only to
take care of all our dependent and criminal classes, but to play an
important role in the production of the necessaries of life.
There ought to be three distinct classes of colonies:
The criminal farm colony surrounded by walls where the strictest
discipline would be enforced, and within which the inmates would be
confined to intensive cultivation, handicrafts, and some form of
machine industry.
The forced labor colony for misdemeanants and able-bodied vagrants and
paupers where larger liberty would be enjoyed; and
The free labor colony where there would be no regulation except that
indispensable in all institutions.
Perhaps to these should be added probationary colonies as described in
the "Elimination of the Tramp," p. 59, for those as to whose
willingness to work there is doubt. These would furnish the "test" so
much sought by English Poor Law Guardians. From these probationary
colonies the inmates would be graduated down to the forced labor
colony, or up to the free. So also criminals would be prepared for
social life by passing through the forced labor colony, and inmates of
the forced labor colony prepared for social life by passing through
the free labor colony.
In a cooperative commonwealth free labor would have no objection to
industrial work conducted within these colonies, because the less work
there is to be done in any given industry, the less hours would the
workers in that industry have to give to it. So that every industry
carried on in the colony would by so much diminish the amount of goods
produced outside by that industry, and to that extent relieve the free
labor engaged therein. This great objection to penal labor being
removed, the state will have an advantage in distributing the
industries throughout its colonies according to geographical
conditions.
The criminal colonies will naturally be more industrial in their
character than the agricultural, because they will have to be
operated within prison walls. They will nevertheless include truck
gardening and horticulture.[176] Penal colonies, therefore, will group
themselves around great water power, which will be retained by the
state and not dissipated by the gift of franchises to private
corporations.[177]
Misdemeanants and tramps will preferably be set to work on large farms
which, because of their size and remoteness from towns, will render
escape difficult. The methods adopted in Switzerland for making escape
difficult if not impossible, are fully described in the "Elimination
of the Tramp."[178]
As in these colonies there is more or less work to be done all the
year round, it would be indispensable to build in connection with them
factories which could be operated during the winter months, the state
being careful to limit the factories to the production of things
already socialized, so as not to compete injuriously with private
industry.