population, not only because of the character of the things they will
produce, for example, milk, vegetables, and fruits, which need a
market at the door, but also because it is in these great centers that
pauperism and unemployment express themselves in largest figures and
in greatest variation. In these colonies inmates will remain the
shortest terms, and it is important, therefore, to have them in
proximity to places where the inmates are likely to live in order to
avoid the heavy expense of transportation.
Free labor colonies will be engaged in the production of milk for two
reasons: The hygienic importance of milk is so great that it should as
much as possible be removed from the competitive field. It is
important that milk should be produced as near as possible to the town
where it is to be consumed. It is wiser, therefore, to assign the
production of milk to the free labor colony, near the city, than to
the penal or forced labor colony that would be comparatively remote.
But it must not be imagined that the production of milk can be
confided exclusively to such inexpert labor as that of the inmates of
free labor colonies. The production of milk can only be entrusted to
careful experts receiving a relatively high rate of wages. Free labor
colonies, therefore, will have to be provided with a corps of men and
women trained in the production of milk and dairy products.
It may be suggested that the fact that dairy products must be
entrusted to trained experts is a reason for not associating the
production of milk with free labor colonies. This objection disappears
when account is taken of the fact that dairy farms should have
connected with them such subsidiary products as chickens and pigs.
Skimmed milk is of the greatest value in these subsidiary productions;
so also is the garbage that would accumulate in such an institution as
a farm colony. The care of pigs and poultry can be confided to
defectives such as we are likely to find in a free labor colony. It
furnishes work all the year round; it enriches the soil rather than
impoverishes it.
Free labor colonies, therefore, will be engaged in the production of
milk, pigs, poultry, vegetables, fruits, and flowers. They will be
furnished with grain by the forced labor colonies in the States where
grain can be cultivated on a large scale; and by distributing
industries among the three classes of colonies and arranging for
exchange of products, the whole colony system ought not only to be
self-supporting, but to produce more than the colonies can themselves
consume. The disposition made of these products will be studied in
connection with the problem of distribution.
Under such a plan, no pauperism or even poverty will be tolerated in
the towns. As soon as a man, woman, or family is incapable of
self-support in the competitive field, or because of sickness or
accident in the cooperative field, they will be taken out of the town
where their presence is an expense and a nuisance not only to
themselves, but to the community, to a free farm colony where health
can be restored and defectives put to the best use possible.
Farm colonies in the Rocky Mountain region where sheep and cattle can
be fed on public land for nine or ten months in the year, and fed by
hand during the remaining two or three months, will furnish cattle and
sheep to municipal packing-houses that will distribute meat with the
economy of the postoffice system from door to door.
State farm colonies in the grain-growing districts will furnish grain
to all the other colonies and wheat to municipal bakeries that will
distribute bread with the economy of the postoffice system from door
to door.
Free labor colonies adjoining cities will produce milk, butter, and
dairy products, pork and pork products, chickens, eggs, vegetables,
fruits, and flowers and distribute them with the economy of the
postoffice system from door to door.
State factories distributed amongst penal colonies in accordance with
the geographical conditions that will make them most efficient, will
furnish garments, shoes, hats, etc., to the other colonies at the
cheapest possible price.
By the side of these productions, there will be maintained exactly the
same system of private ownership that exists to-day with all the
virtues that emulation produces free from the fatal consequences that
make failure result in misery, pauperism, prostitution, vagrancy, and
crime. For so long as the individual prospers in his private
enterprise, he will be encouraged to maintain it; whereas the moment
he fails, he will come within the state system under which the private
individual having proved his inability to support himself and his
family under the competitive plan, will be shown how to support
himself and his family by state institutions that will have reduced
this task to a science.
That the state will occasionally fail in this task is to be expected.
But what is the worst consequence that can result from failure?
Nothing more than the maintenance of the competitive system in every
field of industry where the state fails. If the state fails to furnish
good bread, private initiative will take the baking of bread from the
state and will keep it until the state succeeds in furnishing bread to
the taste of the public. If the state fails in furnishing garments,
private initiative will keep garment making in its hands except in so
far as the state makes garments for the inmates of its own
institutions.
Many problems connected with this system of production will occur to
the mind of the intelligent reader. These problems, however, will be
found to belong more strictly to the question of distribution and
government control--two subjects that cannot be intelligently
discussed until the question of private property in land has been
answered.
Sec. 5. LAND
Socialism was formerly defined as including state ownership of land.
This idea is to-day, however, abandoned in favor of a much more
intelligent system:
One principal difference between the Socialist and the Single Taxer is
that the Single Taxer is opposed to state ownership of all land; and
it is probable that the Single Taxer is more wise in this respect than
the state Socialist. In the first place, the state Socialist who wants
all land to be owned by the state ignores some very fundamental facts
in human nature: He ignores the fact that humanity has for generations
cultivated the instinct of ownership in land. There is nothing dearer
in life to the French peasant than the strip of land barely sufficient
to support life, and he will cling to that strip of land until some
accident has torn it from him and reduced him to the condition of a
pauper. Out of this instinct of ownership springs the extraordinary
industry of the farmer--an industry which is not excelled or equalled
in any but sweated trades.
The life of the peasant or small farmer is one of hardship that leaves
no moment for leisure, and of monotony that populates our lunatic
asylums.[179] Not only is the life of the farmer one of the hardest,
but it is also one of the least secure. The failure of a single crop,
the loss of a single horse, disease in a chicken yard, a violent
hail-storm--any of these may oblige a farmer to put that first small
mortgage on his farm which is the beginning of his ruin. Nevertheless,
the farmer sticks to his farm and labors on it from the rising of the
sun, through the glare of noon and up to the last ray in the west,
because the land is his own and he has for it the kind of affection
that a mother has for her child--an affection that makes no sacrifice
too great. It would seem unwise to deprive the farmer of the
satisfaction of ownership and the community of the industry and
productivity which this sense of ownership results in.
There is no conceivable advantage in depriving the farmer of the
ownership of his farm. The farmer now pays taxes on his land. The
right of the state to exact a tax puts the state in the position of a
landlord except that the state calls the tribute it levies on the farm
a "tax," whereas the owner calls this tribute "rent." Of course there
is a great difference between the tax levied by the state and the rent
paid by the farmer to the private owner, because the one is light and
the other heavy. This is the material difference which must not be
lost sight of in the discussion of the subject. Every farmer expects
to pay taxes to the state and all he asks is that the tax be not an
onerous one. It can be rendered less onerous in the cooperative
commonwealth than to-day because a cooperative commonwealth will not
exact payment of taxes in money, but will content itself with payment
in produce. Instead of the state taking over the land and depriving
the farmer of ownership, and exacting rent, the cooperative
commonwealth will leave the ownership in the farmer and exact a tax in
produce; and so long as this tax is paid, the farmer will remain the
undisputed owner of his land, and will continue to give it that hourly
care without which the best results can hardly be obtained.
There is nothing in modern Socialism, therefore, to frighten the
farmer. He cannot but benefit by it, for his taxes will be levied in
produce instead of in cash; and it is the conversion of farm produce
into cash which is the farmer's main difficulty to-day, as was seen
when money was discussed.
The title of a farmer under a cooperative commonwealth will be much
like that of the peasant in the Island of Jersey, who generally
purchases his land on condition of paying a certain amount to the
owner per annum. These Jersey titles are just as secure as freeholds
in England or in this country, subject of course to the payment of the
rent charged.
The tax in produce, however, which the farmer is to pay the state will
be far more just and fair. Land will be classified according to
productivity, and the farmer will never be called upon to furnish the
state with a larger proportion of his crop than he can afford. On the
other hand, farmers will not be allowed to keep the ownership of land
which they do not use. If it is to the benefit of the community that
land be drained, the owner will be called upon to drain it within a
definite period. If he does not drain it within that period, the state
will take his undrained land from him. Nor will the farmer be allowed
to cut down timber where the maintenance of the timber is deemed
important to the commonwealth.[180] He will be taught forestry and the
propagation of deer, and shown how to produce as much income out of
his timber as he would out of the land when cleared. Above all, he
will be relieved from the exorbitant prices which he now pays the
trust for every article which he does not himself produce. The state
will undertake the task of distribution, so that he can receive as the
farmer in South Australia does to-day--a part payment in cash for all
produce he delivers at the nearest railroad, and a subsequent payment
when his goods have been sold through the instrumentality of the
state. But this last belongs to Distribution.
Prices will not be lowered by the competition of farm colonies. On the
contrary, they will be maintained by the prices asked by farm
colonies. Farm-colony prices will allow every efficient farmer a
substantial living, and the farmer will have the benefit of the
example and advice furnished him by the nearest farm colony, which
will be a model farm.
It may be objected that under this system the farmer will not have
sufficient motive for adopting modern methods. There are undoubtedly
farmers who are averse to the adoption of modern methods; but there
are also thousands of farmers eager to know modern methods. Rev. J.D.
Detrich, who produced 6.7 tons of hay for every acre in cultivation on
his farm[181] was so pestered by neighbors who called to study his
methods that he was obliged to remove to an adjoining State.
Recalcitrant farmers will slowly be compelled to adopt modern methods
by the fixing of prices that will make modern methods indispensable to
prosperity.
In every way, therefore, the farmer will be benefited by the
introduction of Socialism. He will keep the title of ownership in his
farm that is dear to him; he will pay his taxes in produce instead of
in cash; he will have the benefit of education and advice at his door;
and he will be relieved of the exorbitant prices now demanded by the
trusts, and of that greatest of all his anxieties, the conversion of
his produce into cash.
As regards city land, the problem is a very different one, because the
treatment of city land is an essential part of the whole municipal
problem.
Practically all municipal problems may be reduced to one--namely,
crowding. As long as farmers live half a mile apart as they do on a
standard 160-acre farm in the West, sewage and garbage are matters of
individual rather than social interest. Provided the farmer does not
pollute springs and water courses, he may dispose of his sewage and
garbage as he chooses; but the moment men and women are crowded into
cities on the vertical as well as on the horizontal plane, the
disposal of sewage and garbage becomes of vital importance to the
whole community.
So also the maintenance of roads is a comparatively simple problem in
the country, where traffic is light; whereas in the city, where
traffic is great, the pavement of the streets presents problems not
only of resistance, but of noise. The droppings of horses on the
country road can be neglected; whereas those of horses passing a
thousand per hour in a crowded city street create a dust injurious to
health, and give rise to the problem of street cleaning.
Again, where land is plentiful compared with population, the rent
charged for land is small and often negligible; whereas where land is
scarce compared with the population, as in the island of Manhattan,
the rent becomes prohibitive for all except the wealthy, and
workingmen are reduced to the alternative between living near their
work in unwholesome tenements and living far from their work in less
unwholesome conditions. And this scarcity of land gives rise to many
problems of congested districts, of tuberculosis, sanitation,
transportation, and of rent.
If we look back on the whole history of our civilization, we shall see
an unconscious struggle always going on between private interest and
public spirit. The one tends to divide cities into two districts, one
composed of the palaces of the rich, the other of the slums of the
poor, and seeks to convert every problem of municipal government into
means of increasing private wealth. The other, on the contrary, we
find manifested in the "Age of Faith" building cathedrals; in the Age
of Beauty or Renaissance, building public squares and gardens; and in
recent years taking such services as transportation out of the hands
of private individuals and vesting them in the city. This struggle
between public and private interest has been, up to the present time,
unconscious or fitful. The Socialist asks that it should become
conscious and progressive; that is all.
Let us take a few concrete instances: It was not until dark alleys
were found to facilitate the work of criminals that municipalities
were driven to light the streets; it was not until a district of
Birmingham had become a menace to public welfare because its filth
engendered both disease and crime that the municipality was driven to
put an end to it; it was not until cholera began its ravages that
municipalities were driven to provide clean dwellings; it was not
until the evils attending imperfect transportation became intolerable
that New York was driven to build subways; it was not until fires
devastated the city that New York organized its fire department; it
was not until the filth of the streets was intolerable that the city
took the cleaning of streets out of the hands of private contractors.
Up to the present time municipal activities have been forced into
existence by the growth of the evils to a point where they could no
longer be endured.
Over a century ago it was said that municipalities were "sores upon
the body politic," and this phrase has been solemnly quoted ever since
as a sort of slogan of despair; whereas the municipality might be and
ought to be, if intelligently administered, the mainspring of all our
great national activities. The Socialist asks that, instead of waiting
for evils to become intolerable before we attempt to cope with them
and then adopting measures which, because they come late, are
inadequate, we should take up municipal administration as a
housekeeper takes hold of the administration of her house, adopting
measures which we must inevitably in the end adopt before the evils
become intolerable, and before the city becomes so over-built as to
make the difficulty of coping with these evils insurmountable.
This is the spirit in which a citizen should approach the question of
city land; and if we do approach it in this spirit, the problem of how
to put an end to the evils arising from private ownership of land is
in many respects similar to those which present themselves in our
effort to put an end to the evils of private ownership of stock.
For example, some land will be in the hands of men who have
contributed absolutely nothing to its value. They have inherited it,
and upon the rent which conditions have enabled them to exact they
have lived lives of uselessness if not of profligacy. One has abjured
his American nationality to avoid the payment of the personal tax, and
applies the sums which he receives, thanks to the industry of the
community in New York, to the publishing of a conservative newspaper
in London opposed to every effort permanently to improve the
conditions of humanity there. Some land will be in the hands of men
and women who have invested it in the economies of a laborious life
and for whom it represents an old-age pension. Between these two,
there is every degree of merit.
The problem of compensation in taking over of city land will prove as
complicated as in the socialization of industries, and very much the
same principles will apply. Every city presents problems of its own,
and it is difficult, therefore, to lay down general principles
applicable to all cities. But one point seems clear: We shall have to
live in our cities while we are transforming them, and this means that
the transformation will have to be slow. If the state undertakes to
transform the slums into habitable tenements, the present families of
the slums must be accommodated somewhere while the transformation
takes place.
Rebuilding our cities to accommodate them to the changed conditions of
a cooperative commonwealth, will be little more than doing on a large
scale what Birmingham did on a small scale when it converted its slums
into Corporation Street. If it is to be done well, it must be preceded
with the deliberate preparation indispensable to the success of every
large undertaking.
The Single Taxers are right when they claim that the enhancement of
the value of land due to the industry of the many ought not to be
appropriated by the idle few. The "unearned increment" should accrue
to the whole community and not to a few landowners. As, therefore, the
enhancement of the value of land due to crowding is a peculiar feature
of the city, and distinguishes it from the country, it seems
indispensable that city land should eventually be owned by the city;
by the mass of citizens who labor and dwell therein.
Another thing seems clear, namely, that a city cannot be transformed
to suit the needs of a cooperative commonwealth so long as the city is
owned by a few individuals who, by virtue of their ownership, have a
right to resist the transformation.
The ownership in city land is, therefore, totally different from
ownership in farmland. In the latter case, there is no necessity for
suppressing private ownership; whereas in the city, such suppression
seems indispensable. It may be added that the beautiful parts of every
city are due to state ownership. The Place des Vosges was built by
Henry IV; the Place Vendome was built by Louis XIV; the Place de la
Concorde was built by Louis XV; the Champs Elysees and the Arc de
l'Etoile were built by the two Napoleons. Practically all the great
monuments of Paris were built by the state. Her streets were planned
by the state, and the height of her private buildings regulated by the
state. The same thing is true of London and Vienna. It is in our
American cities alone that private initiative being allowed full sway,
our buildings look like ill-assorted books in a neglected library;
that we are committed to interminable streets and avenues which pass
what monuments we have but lead up to none. In a word, our cities are
committed to conditions so inartistic that the task of making them
beautiful seems impossible short of destroying and rebuilding them
altogether.
Sec. 6. SUMMARY OF PRODUCTIVE SIDE OF ECONOMIC CONSTRUCTION
It will be seen that modern Socialism does not propose to interfere
with the private ownership of the farmer in his farm, and that the
production of agricultural and dairy products will remain much in the
same hands as at present, except that the state will have farm
colonies to standardize production; to weed out those farmers who,
because of their incapacity, are unable to produce what the land is
capable of producing; and to furnish work not only for unsuccessful
farmers, but for all who cannot earn a living in socialized industries
or under competitive conditions. Such a condition of things will
involve no redistribution of tasks. It will leave every man working in
the industry in which he is; it will leave those who are engaged in
competition still engaged in competition where it is not productive of
injurious result. It will raise wages in all socialized industries,
and raise the purchasing power of these industries by reducing prices;
it will, therefore, raise the standard of life for the workingman,
secure for him clean and wholesome habitations, and a possibility of
maintaining a home in the best sense of the word, where our present
civilization makes such a home impossible. By farm colonies it will
make the exploitation of men, women, and children impossible. Children
will not work at all until they have reached the fullest education of
which they are capable; women will not be allowed in industrial work
as long as they are bearing and rearing children; and men need never
receive a sweated wage when they have state institutions where they
can in exchange for their work, have board, lodging, and as much wage
as they can in addition earn. There will be no criminal class, for no
man need be driven to crime by want; and by the abolition of the
criminal class and the criminal environment, it is probable that crime
resulting from economic causes will tend to disappear. Nor will a
woman be driven by need to prostitution. Every industry will provide
compensation for its own superannuated and defectives, and the state
will have but few for whom to furnish old-age pensions. The community
will be relieved, therefore, of the enormous burden of vagrancy,
pauperism, prostitution, and crime; and all this without interfering
with any competitive industry capable of supporting its workers up to
the standard of life created by socialized industry, and without any
such convulsion as will throw upon the state the dangerous problem of
assigning tasks.
We have heretofore considered only the problem of production; we have
still to consider that of distribution.
Sec. 7. DISTRIBUTION.
At the present time anarchy reigns over production and distribution.
This anarchy has been in great part already replaced in the field of
manufacture by the trust. By combination, or as Mr. Rockefeller says,
"by cooperation" (Book II, Chapter III), all those engaged in the
manufacture of the same thing have eliminated competition so as to
obtain the advantages of production on a large scale. The cooperative
commonwealth will avail itself of the work already done by the trust,
and as has been already shown, will leave all these trusted industries
in the hands of those actually engaged in the work thereof.
In the field of agricultural production, however, little has been done
to diminish the anarchy of distribution.[182]
The anarchy which now characterizes distribution must be considered
under two heads: competition in the field of transportation, and
competition in the field of retail trade. America is unique among the
nations of the world for insisting upon railroads being run on the
competitive system. In Europe franchises are given to railroads with a
view to public welfare and the distinct policy of avoiding
competition. Capitals are adopted as railroad centers and franchises
so granted as to furnish a system of main lines radiating from these
centers in such a manner as to compete with one another the least
possible. In America we have proceeded upon the plan that railroads
are to compete just as traders do, and that it is by competition that
rates are to be kept down. Railroads competing with one another
between the same places are run at a social loss, the community is
better served by one railroad run in the interests of the country than
by two between the same points run in the interests of private
individuals.
As regards transportation then there seems to be no room for
competition whatever. The state should own all systems of
transportation with a view to bringing the produce of the country and
of the factory to the consumer at the lowest possible cost to the
community.
Let us consider how a cooperative community will deal with competition
in the retail trade.
There is no reason why the private retailer conducting a business for
his own account should not continue to exist side by side with a
system of state distribution. There are reasons of propinquity and
convenience that enable the small retailer to live to-day next door to
the big department store. In the same way, the private retailer can
perfectly well continue to live by the side of the state distributing
system. Nevertheless, some parts of retail trade will be taken over
absolutely, for example, milk, for hygienic reasons. And other
departments will be so completely in the hands of the state that so
long as the state furnishes a good quality it will be improbable that
private enterprise will find it useful to interfere; as for example,
the baking of bread.
As regards all those things which are likely to remain in the hands of
individual enterprise, as, for example, things in which taste plays an
important role--garments, hats, wallpaper, furniture, musical
instruments, other instruments of pleasure such as athletic goods,
bicycles, automobiles, steam launches, photographic apparatus--the
retailing of these is likely to remain as much a matter of private
enterprise as the production of them.
As regards the necessaries of life the consumer should be able to get
them at the lowest possible price. All things of a hygienic character,
which it is of the utmost importance that the consumer should have of
the purest quality, the state will undertake not only to transport,
but to distribute in state stores. It is of course conceivable that in
some towns the state store will not be conducted to the satisfaction
of its citizens, and private enterprise will therefore run a store in
that place better than the state. In such case, private enterprise
ought to be encouraged in its competition. But inasmuch as good state
management will be in a cooperative commonwealth a matter of the
greatest importance, it is not likely that the citizen will long
endure bad administration. This belongs more to the political aspect
of Socialism than to the economic, and will be studied there. We shall
therefore now pass to a brief consideration of just how this system of
distribution will work.
The state, having control of transportation, will adopt the method now
prevailing in South Australia, and will pay the manufacturer and the
farmer in cash at least 50 per cent--if not more--of the value of his
goods at the railroad station. These will then be transported by the
state in conformity with the needs of the various villages, towns and
cities to stores of its own. These will be run upon the cooperative
plan; the goods sold at only a small margin above cost, this margin
being kept to meet the expense of distribution; and the profits--if
any--will be distributed at the end of the year amongst customers on
the cooperative plan.
It is obvious, however, that if the state is to distribute in the most
economical manner, it must have some control over production. It must
not be called upon to transport and distribute more of any one thing
than the public wants; nor must it be caught without enough to satisfy
the needs of the consumer. This makes it indispensable to study the
problem of control at the same time with the problem of distribution.
No function of the state will probably be more important in a
cooperative commonwealth than that of controlling the production of
those things which, because they are necessaries or have hygienic
importance, a cooperative commonwealth should itself control,
transport, and distribute.
The problem of control is not as difficult as it might at first seem.
We know perfectly well to-day how much wheat, corn, beef, mutton,
etc., are actually consumed by our population. All we have to do to
determine this amount for ourselves is to take, for example, the
amount of wheat produced in the country, and the amount exported,
subtract the exports from the product and determine the amount
consumed in this country. The same thing can be done practically with
every staple product. The state, therefore, can determine every year
in advance how much of every staple product _must_ be produced for
the needs of the country. It will, of course, add to the amount
actually needed a margin to provide for poor crops and other
accidents.
Let us consider how this control will be exercised as regards farm and
dairy products. It has been already suggested that land should be
classified according to geographical conditions, exposure, and soil.
The productivity of the farm colonies will of course be known by the
state. Every private farm will have its productivity roughly
determined and every farmer will be expected to produce a minimum
amount. Of the amount he produces, a part will be taken as taxes to
furnish the government with the means to pay for administration. The
rest will be paid for partly in gold and partly in orders on the state
stores. The object of this system of payment is the following:
It has been explained that taxes will be paid in produce. This payment
therefore needs no further comment. A minimum product ascribed to
every farm will be paid for with orders on the state store. This
represents the amount which the farmer _must_ produce to keep his
farm. It also represents the amount which the state _must_ have to
supply its citizens with food. All over and above this amount will be
paid for in orders on the public store, or in cash, as the farmer
shall elect; or, if the farmer chooses to dispose of this part to
private traders he will be at liberty to do so. By this method the
community will be furnished with produce belonging to three different
categories: produce in the shape of a tax for which the farmer
receives no compensation, this being practically the rent he pays the
state for his land; second, the minimum produce for which the farmer
receives equivalent orders on the public store, this category being
the produce upon which the community depends for its sustenance.
The order upon the public store need differ in no way from the
greenback of to-day except that, instead of entitling the holder to a
dollar's worth of gold, it will entitle him to a dollar's worth of
goods in the public store. Thus if wheat can be produced in a
cooperative commonwealth at 50 cents per bushel, as seems likely,[183]
the farmer will receive for every two bushels an order for one dollar
on the public store.
The third category which represents the surplus above what the farmer
is required to produce in order to keep his farm, will constitute a
surplus of production applicable to exchange for luxuries and foreign
goods. This exchange can be made directly by the farmer or by private
banks and private merchants, or by the state.
Let us consider the control the state must exercise over, and the role
it must play in, the distribution of products of socialized industries
such as oil, sugar, steel, iron, leather, etc. The amount of iron and
steel required by the nation in the course of a year is not as
constant a quantity as the amount of wheat. It is, however,
sufficiently constant to make it possible to establish a minimum. The
state will begin by requiring socialized industries to furnish this
minimum and determine the price to be paid for it, thus creating a
stock on hand which can be accumulated so as to diminish the amount
needed in subsequent years and furnish a reserve which can be called
upon in case of extraordinary need. The state, having established the
minimum of steel, sugar, oil, etc., which it needs, will require of
the socialized industries to produce this minimum. It will also
require them to produce, in addition, an amount necessary to
contribute their share to the maintenance of the government. Every
associated industry, therefore, will furnish at regular intervals the
result of its manufacture in three categories similar to those already
explained--a part for taxes; a minimum already referred to that will
be paid for in orders on the public stores, and a surplus of which it
can dispose either to the state or directly to foreign bankers and
merchants. In this way, every associated industry will so adjust its
manufacture as to produce these three categories; the proceeds of the
surplus will be applicable in the first place to the support of
workers through accidents, illness, and during old age; and the rest
will be divided as profits amongst those engaged for example in the
steel industry. These profits will be applicable to the purchase of
luxuries either produced at home or produced abroad.
Under this system the cooperative commonwealth will have goods to
exchange with foreign countries and will to this extent be a merchant
as regards all those things which it holds in excess of the needs of
the community, and as regards that surplus which it may purchase from
the farmer and the socialized industries. This leaves room for a
system of private banks and private enterprises in international
trade; for the farmer and the socialized industries will be free to
trade their surplus through the government or through private
individuals as they may consider most to their profit.
The distributive stores will present very much the same aspect as our
department stores of to-day except that, though they may be even more
gigantic in size, they are not likely to be as diverse; for a large
proportion of the things now dealt in by department stores will
doubtless remain in the hands of private industry. The essential duty
of the state will be to provide its citizens with necessaries, not
luxuries pertaining to taste and pleasure.
The state store will be divided into two departments, retail and
wholesale; not that a different price need necessarily be charged in
the retail than in the wholesale department, but because the machinery
for furnishing builders with bricks is different from that for
furnishing housewives with groceries. The state stores will also have
a system for the regular delivery from door to door of such
necessaries of life as are daily or at stated intervals consumed,
e.g., milk, bread, coal, ice, meat, vegetables, and fruit, thereby
applying postoffice economies to the distribution of these things.
The labor of distribution will be diminished by the slow
transformation of city dwellings into gigantic apartment houses so
constructed as to give the fullest supply of light and air to every
room; and these apartment houses will have a distributing system of
their own to the relief of the state.
As regards alcoholic drinks, the state will undoubtedly undertake the
production of these with a view to taking this industry as far as
possible out of private hands. It will not be necessary, however, to
take it entirely out of private hands provided all private production
is subjected to vigorous control. But the distribution of alcoholic
liquors will probably be monopolized by the state on the Gothenburg
plan with, perhaps, the important feature which characterizes the
Public House Trust in England; that is, the persons in charge will
receive a salary and an additional commission upon the sale of
non-alcoholic drinks, but no commission on the sale of alcoholic
drinks; and this with a view to giving the persons in charge an
interest in selling non-alcoholic drinks. Under these circumstances,
there will be no temptation to encourage drunkenness and the rule of
not giving alcoholic drinks to persons already under the influence of
liquor will be complied with.
It will be possible under such a general system for the state to serve
as a medium for an exchange of labor that will greatly enhance the
pleasure of life. Under existing conditions, the factory works summer
as well as winter despite the fact that temperature makes work during
the summer irksome and dangerous to health and life; and at the very
time that the population is debilitated by being called upon to work
in factories during the heat of June, July, and August, the farmer is
in despair because he cannot find help to take in his harvest. Once
industries are associated so that they have a definite knowledge of
how much they have to produce, there is no reason why they should not
so adjust the work of the factory as to keep it open during the eight
cool months of the year, leaving the factory hands free to help the
farmer in the country during the four hot months. The same thing holds
good with the farmer who, during the short cold days of winter, has
little to do on the farm and can, therefore, to his advantage as well
as to the advantage of the community, devote those months to factory
work. There need be nothing compulsory about this exchange, for
socialized industry is master of its own time and can distribute its
work throughout the year as it chooses. But the fact that the state is
possessed of the knowledge how much is to be produced by every factory
and how much by every farmer--how many men are needed in the winter in
every factory and how many men in the summer on every farm, will
enable the state to serve as a medium through which the factory hand
can arrange to work on the farm during the summer and the farmer can
arrange to work in the factory in the winter, if they respectively
desire to do so.
It does not follow that the farmer is to be compelled to work long
hours in the summer in the field and also in the factory during the
winter; or the factory hand to give up his holiday in order to work on
the farm during the summer. It has been shown that all the necessaries
of life can probably be produced, even at the present time, by the
adults in the community though they work no more than two hours and a
half a day. If this be so, it would be easy so to adjust the work as
to enable those who desire it to work more hours in the day and become
entitled to so much longer vacation. The foregoing is only intended to
show that in addition to the vacation which can be thus enjoyed, the
farmer can relieve the monotonous existence of the farm during the
winter months by work in the factory, and the factory hand can escape
from factory conditions during the summer to his own advantage and to
the advantage of the community at large.
Another object we have in view is to put an end to the anarchy which
exists in all that part of our industry which has not been
concentrated into trusts--the anarchy under which some things are
produced in greater quantities than are needed, and some things needed
are not produced in sufficient quantities--under which no producer can
tell whether he is producing enough of a thing until the time for
profiting by the knowledge has passed; no producer can tell whether he
is producing too much of a thing until he is injured and even ruined
by the discovery. It is, I think, obvious that all these objects are
obtained by concentrating industry after the fashion of trusts in the
hands of the men actually engaged in the process of production; by
producing things not to make profit but to satisfy needs; and in the
quantities which we know to be needed and not in quantities determined
by the desire of the producer to make large profits cheeked only by
the bankruptcy that attends production in larger quantities than the
market will take.
Thus, the state orders thirty million tons of iron ore because we know
that this amount of iron ore has served the needs of the country
during a period of great activity, and will furnish not only all we
can use ourselves in that year, but all that we can dispose of abroad.
These thirty million tons represent then the maximum that we can
usefully manufacture; and we can safely order thirty million tons
because the state is not under the necessity to sell this iron to get
gold with which to pay wages, rent, coal, and the running expenses of
the factory. In a cooperative commonwealth there will be no rent to
pay. The coal will be paid for in exactly the same way as the iron, by
the issue of store orders.
The workers will get as nearly as possible the exact product of their
work. There will be no capitalist who will take from them what the
capitalist now takes, that is, about one-half of their earnings. Nor
will those doing a low order of work receive as much as those doing a
high order of work; every man will be paid according to his capacity;
for we begin by assuming that the distribution of work according to
capacity to-day is not far wrong, and so every man engaged in the
steel industry will continue to receive the same wages as he received
before with a certain prospect of an additional wage in the shape of
profit, representing the difference in wage between the new conditions
and the old.
Overwork will be impossible in the iron trade, because a sufficient
number will be employed to prevent overwork. And unemployment will be
impossible because if, at any period, it turns out that more iron is
being produced than the community can use, the excess men employed in
the previous year will be set to work by the state in some other
industry.
The effect of such a discovery will be to diminish the number of hours
required all round. It must not be forgotten how little work need
actually be done to produce the things we need. Under these
circumstances, we need hardly consider the question of overwork, for
all will enjoy ample leisure. The hours of labor will not diminish in
a great degree in the first year that an industry is taken over, for
during the transition period, experience must be given time to
demonstrate the extent to which hours of labor can be reduced.
And as regards unemployment, even though there be no industry in
which, for instance, the surplus workers of the iron trade can be
usefully employed, there will always be farm colonies where their
labor can be self-supporting.
Another beneficial consequence of this system is that if, as is
likely, it turns out that thirty million tons of iron are more than we
can use, the state will not be obliged to dump the excess upon
European markets as do now the trusts,[184] thereby incurring a heavy
loss to the home industry and arousing the animosity of the European
industry affected thereby.
Again, no financial panic can hurt the iron industry. The bankers may
gamble to their heart's desire. If they withhold gold the worst they
can do is to injure those engaged in competitive industry. No
withholding of gold can affect an industry which produces for use and
not for profit and receives weekly the wages of its employees in a
currency which, because it is not gold or based upon gold and not,
therefore, within the control of the banker or the financier, escapes
entirely the evil effects of financial operations. Nor can such an
industry be affected by what are called "industrial panics"; for
industrial panics are the result of overproduction--of the anarchy
that exists under the competitive system. These panics may affect
competitive industries, but cannot affect guild industries built on
yearly state orders for definite amounts calculated beforehand from
the known needs of the community, and not left as now to the anarchy
and accidents of the market.
Neither financial nor industrial panics can ever have the terrible
consequences in a cooperative commonwealth that they have under
existing conditions, because in a cooperative commonwealth all the
necessaries and most of the comforts of life will be produced upon the
cooperative plan, and therefore, a financial or industrial panic can
only affect that part of industry which proceeds under the competitive
system and as regards, for the most part, luxuries and not necessaries
of life.
Obviously, the system of store orders cannot be applied upon the first
transfer of an industry from the hands of the capitalist to those of
the guild. For a time gold will have to be used until the
transformation from capitalism to cooperation has been sufficiently
extended to put the state in a position to open public stores. There
need, however, be no anxiety as to the state not being in possession
of enough gold to handle this part of the business, because it will
obviously be the first duty of the cooperative commonwealth to
expropriate the mines and put itself in possession of the gold
necessary to carry on financial operations with the guilds until such
time as the public stores can be usefully opened. Moreover, in taking
over the gold mines, the state will also take over the iron mines;
and iron ore will be furnished to the iron guild under conditions that
will make the necessity of the use of gold far smaller than it would
be if the iron ore remained in private hands and had to be paid for in
gold. The state will only have to pay gold representing the labor cost
of extracting the ore, and will not have to pay miners' profits.
Under this system, there is no temptation to mine more ore or to cut
down more forests than is absolutely necessary for the needs of the
community. When every member in the community is educated to
understand that waste means more work for himself and that the saving
of waste means less work for himself, every man in the community will
have a direct personal interest in discouraging waste and promoting
economy.
Obviously, too, industry will be conducted at its maximum efficiency.
Instead of being slaves of the market, we shall become its master. We
shall have only so many factories running as are necessary to produce
the things we need. Every factory will be running at maximum capacity,
at maximum efficiency.
It will be observed that it is proposed to pay the same price for pig
iron after taking over the industry as was paid under competitive
conditions at the time of the transfer. The objection may be made that
this is obviously improper; that it is not fair to the workers in
other industries to pay what is known to be an excessive price to the
workers in pig iron. To this it may be answered that it will always be
better to apply a regular rule than to leave questions of this kind to
arbitrary administrative action. Besides, the rule that on taking over
a new industry the price paid for the production of the first year
shall be the price ruling at that time, will eventually put all
industries upon the same footing. At the excessive prices now ruling,
the workers will during the first year get a larger proportion than
they will ultimately be entitled to; but the larger proportion they
will get this year will be needed to face the initial expenses of a
higher standard of life.
But here comes the most serious objection that can be made to this
plan. It has been said that these prices will have to be revised; that
if those manufacturing cotton thread believe themselves to be
receiving less for the work they accomplish in their industry than
those engaged in making pig iron, they will insist on revision; if so,
there will be continual altercations between industries as to the
price to be paid for their goods and as to the share in this price
that each is to receive; and the problem arises, who is to settle
these innumerable questions?
This difficulty is the one that tends to make communists of us. It
would be easy to wave away this difficulty by providing that the total
profits be divided equally amongst all the members of the community.
Humanity, however, is not prepared for such a system. Generations of
selfishness have so determined the minds of those who are likely to
have to decide these questions in a cooperative commonwealth, that the
idea of paying the man at the head of the iron guild the same wages as
the man who puddles, will seem too preposterous to be entertained.
Whether man will ever develop to a point of unselfishness that will
enable him to entertain this idea is a matter of speculation. Suffice
it to recognize that if Socialism is to come within one hundred years,
and if we take into account the attitude of the public mind as it is
to-day, and the slowness with which the public mind changes in matters
so radical as these, we shall have to recognize that Communism is
still beyond the range of practical politics; and we shall have to
face the problem how the questions of the price of goods and the
remuneration of the individual are to be solved.
Sec. 8. REMUNERATION
It has been pointed out that the proportion at present received by the
various grades of workers in an industry, from the man who manages the
whole industry to those who do the least skilled work, will at first
be maintained. It may be that the salaries paid to managers at present
rates may seem so exorbitant[185]--so out of all proportion to those
paid to others--that there will be an outcry against it, leading to a
diminution of these salaries. For present high salaries to managers
are due to the extraordinary difficulty of handling industry under
competitive conditions--difficulties that will in great part disappear
when cooperative conditions are substituted for competitive
conditions. With the exception of these highest salaries, probably the
wisest rule will be to maintain at first the proportion that exists at
the time when the industry is taken over. Taking over these industries
will at once raise the salaries of all because they will receive the
share of the profits which now comes to the capitalist, after the
deduction of sums paid to annuitants. Nevertheless, it cannot be
expected that the proportion now existing will be indefinitely
maintained.
The cost of management under competitive conditions is far higher than
it would be under cooperative. A railroad man once pointed out to me
that the cooperative system is impossible because it would be
impossible for the government to find men capable of handling
railroads at the price habitually paid by the government for such
services. He pointed out that genius is necessary to handle
railroads,--the genius of such men as J.J. Hill and the late E.H.
Harriman. When, however, it was explained to him that the reason why
it was necessary to have such men as Harriman and Hill run our
railroads was the competition between them, and when he was asked
whether it would be necessary to have such men if our railroads were
run as our postoffice is run, he admitted that under such conditions
nine-tenths of the difficulty of management would be eliminated.
Obviously, therefore, the enormous salaries paid to men at the head of
trusts, life insurance companies, and railroad systems, would no
longer be earned, and of course they would no longer be paid.
What is true regarding the heads of these industries is true
throughout a large part of the administration. It would need less of
the faculty which characterizes the larger carnivora and more of the
faculties which characterize the beaver and the ant. For these humbler
services lower wages would be paid. This does not mean, however, that
there will not be in the state room for men of the constructive
ability of Harriman and Hill; but these men will not be the servants
of our industries, they will be the servants of our state; and the
genius that is now absorbed by business, will, in a cooperative
commonwealth, be more usefully employed in the larger fields of
politics.
After this slight digression, let us return to the question how far
the remuneration will be subject to revision.
It may be that the lower grades will not be subject to revision at
all; that all the iron ore we need can be produced by working four
hours a day during eight months of the year, and that the rate of
wages earned upon the old scale increased by the profits to which
workers will be entitled will, without changing the proportion,
furnish a standard of comfort such as to-day it is difficult to
foresee. It is probable, however, that workingmen who are to-day
members of the Socialist party will not agree with this prognosis, but
will insist that in a cooperative commonwealth the whole scheme of
remuneration will have to be revised. If this be so, it is useless to
deny that the revision of this rate of wages will be a matter of
difficulty and that the difficulties arising will tend to be
perpetual.
Obviously, there must be some plan devised under which these matters
will be better adjusted than by a government board, as has been
suggested by certain Socialists. Mr. Hillquit[186] quotes with
approval the words of Kautsky that government in a cooperative
commonwealth will change in character, and that the state will no
longer govern, but administer, and this is to a large degree true. But
if the administration is to determine what every man is to receive as
compensation for the work he does, it is clear that matters of such
vital importance cannot be referred to the arbitrary action of a board
of administrators.
It seems to me that it will be indispensable to submit these matters
to an industrial parliament in which every industry will be
represented. And as the determination of these questions will be a
matter of the greatest importance to every individual, it is probable
that these parliaments will have to be bicameral for the same reason
that our government is bicameral; for the same difficulty will present
itself. New York insists upon having its large population represented
in Congress. Rhode Island, on the other hand, in spite of its small
size, insists upon having its state sovereignty represented; so New
York is given a representation in proportion to its population in the
Lower House and Rhode Island is given equal representation in the
Upper House. Exactly the same situation will present itself it regard
to industries: Certain industries will be enormous and will want to be
represented in proportion to their size; for example, the steel
industry. Others will be much smaller but perhaps of much greater
importance; for example, the engineers. They will want to be fairly
represented in spite of their small size and I see no way of adjusting
this other than by adopting an industrial parliament of two chambers,
in one of which representation will be according to numbers, while in
the other every industry will be equally represented irrespective of
size. This may seem a cumbersome system, but it will take no more time
than the administration of the trade union takes to-day, and will not
be half as costly; for the trade union of to-day has to accumulate
funds to provide for unemployment, old age, sickness, and strikes.
Strikes and unemployment it will not be necessary to provide against
and the others will be provided for by every guild for their own
members. The question, therefore, of the adjustment of price and wages
will occupy far less time than is now occupied by federations of trade
unions.
It is probable that the conclusions to which the industrial parliament
will come will not be final. It will be deemed wise to refer them for
execution to the general government. This matter, however, belongs to
the chapter on the political aspect of Socialism.
Sec. 9. CIRCULATING MEDIUM UNDER SOCIALISM
It may not be clear at first sight why it is proposed to substitute store
checks for greenbacks or gold. Early Socialist writers--particularly
Rodbertus--attached much importance to the elimination of gold and the
substitution therefor of what they called "labor checks"; a currency
representing time spent in labor. Modern Socialist writers have been
disposed to cast aside all efforts to substitute this kind of currency
for gold. Mr. Hillquit quotes Kautsky[187] with approval on this
subject:
"'Money,' says Kautsky, 'is the simplest means known up to the present
time which makes it possible in as complicated a mechanism as that of
the modern productive process, with its tremendous far-reaching
division of labor, to secure the circulation of products and their
distribution to the individual members of society. It is the means
which makes it possible for each one to satisfy his necessities
according to his individual inclination (to be sure within the bounds
of his economic power). As a means to such circulation, money will be
found indispensable until something better is discovered.'"[188]
Upon this point I find myself at variance with modern Socialists. In
Book II, Chapter VI, on Money, I have endeavored to show how the use
of gold for currency puts those who own and handle gold in a position
practically to control the entire country. If I have failed in proving
this, there will be no occasion for substituting anything for gold.
But if I have failed, it is, I think, my fault; or perhaps Socialist
writers on this subject have not had, and do not possess, the intimate
knowledge of financial affairs indispensable to an understanding of
this subject. If Mr. Kautsky had practiced law in America, and had had
American financiers for his clients, he would not, I think, have
failed to understand that money is still more to-day what it always
has been since the beginning of the civilized world--the "root of all
evil." By money, I mean not currency, which is indispensable, but the
use of precious metals as the sole fundamental medium of exchange;
because the amount of such precious metals being limited, the few, who
under competitive conditions contrive to get control of these metals,
become by virtue of this control masters not only of our economic, but
of our political conditions.
Mr. Hillquit says[189] that the principal economic classes and
interest groups are represented by separate and well-defined political
parties; and that the "only exception seems to be presented by the
money-lending group of capitalists, who, as a rule, do not form
parties of their own. This, however, may perhaps be accounted for by
the function of money capital, which can become operative only in
connection with the other forms of capitalistic ownership, but has no
independent productive existence."
It is misleading to endeavor to draw conclusions from political groups
which characterize politics in Germany and France, and there is, I
think, a better reason why the great "money-lending group of
capitalists" or financiers do not form parties of their own.
Mr. Hillquit is doubtless right in saying that the "Republican party
is substantially the party of the modern capitalists," "while the
Democratic party is largely the party of the middle class";
nevertheless, in America, as in Europe, the so-called interests and
capitalists belong to no one party, because they must and do control
both. And it is because Socialist writers do not seem to be aware of
the extent to which they do control politics, that comparatively
little interest is taken by these writers in questions of currency.
No one who lived in Europe during the Boer war is ignorant of the
immense desire of both France and Germany to intervene on behalf of
the Boers, and they certainly would have intervened not only because
it afforded them a good opportunity to crush England, which one of
them openly and the other less openly desired to do, but because such
a war would have been popular with the masses in both countries. One
thing alone prevented this: Financiers in France and Germany were
heavily interested in African gold mines and it was their influence
that turned the scale against the crushing of England at that time.
In America, the revelations of the life insurance investigation told
all the world what Wall Street previously knew: that big corporations
contribute to both Republican and Democratic parties and practically
control the action of the Democratic side of our legislatures as well
as the Republican. Nothing could have been more transparent than the
influence of financiers in the decision whether Cannon and the rules
that make Cannon supreme in Congress were to be maintained. The Wall
Street Group, which had a lobby in Washington, appealed to the
Republican majority not to disorganize their party by fighting against
Cannon personally, promising that the Republican party would alter the
rules that gave him his present autocratic power; and when in
compliance with this promise, Cannon was reelected and the rules came
up, the same lobby secured enough Democratic votes to maintain the
rules in spite of the adverse votes of the insurgent Republicans, the
argument then used being that the tariff bill could not be passed
unless the rules were maintained.
Again, after Taft had, on three separate occasions, solemnly promised
the people, if he were elected, a revision downward of the tariff, the
same lobby secured a revision of the tariff upwards. We are assured by
Messrs. Aldrich and Payne that the revision is a revision downward.
How, then, will they explain the extraordinary haste with which ships
sought to reach this port before the new tariff came into effect?[190]
Were these ships hurrying to port in order to escape the payment of a
low tariff? It may be answered that although the tariff was raised as
regards certain articles, it was lowered as regards others. To this I
have but to quote the _Reviews of Reviews_ for September, 1909, and
the articles entitled, "The Payne-Aldrich Tariff," which follow in
subsequent numbers. The _Review of Reviews_ is quoted rather than
other periodicals because it is recognized as a supporter of the
so-called Roosevelt policies and, therefore, cannot be accused of
Socialistic tendencies. It is seldom that the Interests have gone so
far as to elect a presidential candidate on a definite promise and
deliberately, as soon as the candidate was elected, to violate their
promise. But the Interests have at this moment such control over our
politics that they can even do this; and it seems very doubtful
whether this treachery will ever be materially punished.
If, as I believe, it is important that the competitive system be
allowed to survive in the cooperative commonwealth, it is obvious that
it can only be tolerated on the condition that the community be safe
from such political control as this. And for this reason it seems to
me essential that the use of gold as currency be limited; and that as
regards the exchange of all the necessaries of our existence, we
should have a currency that entirely escapes the control of the
financier. This is the reason why I have insisted on the use of store
checks which are just as convenient and secure as our present
greenbacks.
There seems to be no other way of eliminating the undemocratic
autocracy of the financier than by some such system as the one above
described; that is to say, the issue by the state of orders on the
public stores to the extent of the goods in the public stores, which
may in their general appearance differ but little from the greenback
of to-day: Instead of reading "Good for $1.00 gold currency," they
will read "Good for $1.00 at the public stores." This public store
currency will eliminate the use of gold and silver throughout the
socialized industries and as regards all agricultural products except
a very small portion. Every socialized industry and every farmer will
furnish to the state the bulk of his produce--that is, the minimum
exacted by the state--in exchange for this kind of currency.[191] It
is only the surplus--the amount produced by the farmer and factory
above the minimum established by the state--that the farmer and the
factory will be at liberty to sell for gold instead of exchanging for
public store notes; and of this surplus the farmer and factory will be
free to sell as much as they choose for public store notes, so that
gold and silver will constitute a small part of the medium of
exchange. This system will have the following advantages:
It will practically eliminate the present control of political and
economic conditions by financiers. So long as the currency used in
exchanging necessaries and comforts is rescued from the control of
financiers, it is a matter of comparative indifference whether the
financiers control the currency used in the manufacture and
distribution of luxuries, for such control will have practically no
effect upon the things necessary to human existence.
It will give to the state the use of the gold coin which is now
accumulated in its treasury for the redemption of its notes; and the
state will use this large gold fund for the purchase of the products
of other nations.[192]
Let us see how this proposed system of store notes will work in a
given manufacture:
The state will order the steel guild to manufacture thirty million
tons of pig iron (the amount produced in 1907 was a little over
twenty-six millions); and will allot to the steel guild for the supply
of steel six hundred and sixty million dollars in store notes, this
being calculated at the rate of $20 a ton. (The price in 1907 was a
little over $22.) These $660,000,000 will be paid to the steel guild
in the following manner:
Every week a number of store orders will be issued to the amount of
the wages of the week and of the fixed charges. At stipulated periods
the steel guild will furnish the state pig iron so that the state will
never have advanced to the guild store orders amounting to more than
the value of the pig iron in the store, an exception of course being
made for the first few weeks that the industry proceeds upon this
basis. Upon the delivery of pig iron at these stated periods, the
state will deliver the difference between the weekly amounts already
paid and the price of the pig iron delivered. If deliveries of pig
iron can be made once a month, this will enable a repartition of a
part of the profits so that the workers will not have to wait until
the end of the year before they receive their profits, the final
dividend being paid at the expiration of each year.
Such an order as the above will serve the following purposes and have
the following consequences: the steel guild will have a definite order
for a definite amount of pig iron to manufacture. It will know exactly
how many men it will need to manufacture this pig iron. It will employ
a few more men than those employed in 1910. The state will issue to
the steel guild weekly the amount of store notes necessary to pay the
wages upon the same scale as in 1910. Men engaged in the Steel Trust
at the moment of transference will continue to work and receive the
same rate of wages; but they will be entitled to their share of the
profits after the amounts due annuitants and the amounts necessary to
create a fund for old age and sickness have been deducted. Obviously,
this first order of thirty million tons is far larger than the country
uses, because a large part of the product of 1907 was exported. The
amount thus exported will be at the disposal of the state either to
export, or exchange for foreign products, or to set aside as a reserve
upon which the state can draw in case of deficit.
Sec. 10. SUMMARY
Let us now consider the purposes we have in view in this proposed
economic organization of the cooperative commonwealth and how far we
attain these purposes:
The main object of a cooperative commonwealth is to give to all
workers as nearly as possible the exact product of their work. It may
be interesting to note that this is the ideal that Mr. Roosevelt
himself proposes, and he objects to Socialism because he thinks
Socialism will on the contrary allow the "thriftless and the vicious"
to profit. These words describe not a cooperative commonwealth, but
existing conditions. For example, such a degenerate as Harry Thaw, who
would, I suppose, according to Mr. Roosevelt be classified as one of
the "thriftless and vicious," obtains his income from the profit
created by others who work for it; whereas those who work, instead of
getting the full product of their work, are obliged to see that nearly
if not altogether one-half of it goes to the support of the idle,
among them this young man. These are the exact conditions to which
Socialism proposes to put an end, and, therefore, I point out that the
principal object that Socialism has in view is to do exactly the thing
that Mr. Roosevelt wants to see done--to undo the very things to which
Mr. Roosevelt objects.
Another principal object of this proposed organization is to prevent
overwork and unemployment, that necessarily lead to drunkenness,
pauperism, prostitution, and crime.
A third thing which this system of organization proposes to do is to
preserve the resources of the country; and here again we find
ourselves realizing the ideal of Mr. Roosevelt. The single idea of a
lumberman is to sell lumber--not to preserve it; the idea of a coal
miner is to sell coal--not to preserve it; the idea of an iron miner
is to sell ore--not to preserve it. In a cooperative commonwealth
there is no desire to make profit out of these things. The one object
in view is to use our lumber, coal, and ore to the best advantage and
with the least waste.
Another object we have in view is to produce with the greatest
economy, with the greatest efficiency. We do not want forty refiners
engaged in refining sugar where seven will suffice.[193] We want all
our factories while they are working, to be working at their best
efficiency, not on half time or with only one-half the engines going.
We also want the things we need to be produced in such a way as to
take advantage of every waste product--a thing that can only be done
when industry is concentrated in the hands of a single guild instead
of being distributed as it tended to be (before the organization of
trusts) in the hands of many competing manufacturers.
This system of production and distribution would maintain the present
check upon overpopulation which Mr. Huxley regarded as the principal
objection to Socialism;[194] for under this plan, although every
member of the community would be assured a comfortable income, his
comforts would be limited by the number of children he brought into
the world. Experience shows that the prudence of the middle class
to-day constitutes a check upon overpopulation; that, in other words,
overpopulation is to be feared, not in the middle class, but in those,
such as the extremely poor, who are under no prudential check.[195]
The imprudent in such a cooperative commonwealth as is above
described, have always before them the prospect of the state farm with
its different degrees of unattractiveness. If, therefore, to-day
workingmen look upon the almshouse with abhorrence, it does not seem
unreasonable to suppose that the workers in a cooperative
commonwealth, accustomed to a far higher standard of living than the
workingman of to-day, would be deterred as much by the prospect of
committal to a farm colony as a self-respecting worker to-day is
deterred by the prospect of the almshouse.
But there is another point of view from which the question of
overpopulation must be considered: The increasing independence of
women in America has already served to diminish the increase of
population to the extent which our sociologists regard as alarming.
The population of the United States is increasing chiefly through
immigration and the increase of immigrants. Here, as elsewhere, it is
the extremely poor that propagate. Indeed, as women become more and
more independent economically, as they certainly would in a
cooperative commonwealth, there seems to be more danger of
underpopulation than overpopulation. But here the state can no doubt
exert a very important influence; for if there seems danger of
underpopulation it might increase its tax upon the industries of the
state and apply the tax to the support of children so as to relieve
parents at the expense of the entire state, of the cost of educating
children, thereby removing all economic motive for underpopulation.
I think, moreover, that since Mr. Huxley's day the whole opinion as to
overpopulation has changed. There is not a shadow left of the fears of
Malthus; for the extraordinary results published in the 13th Annual
Report of the Bureau of Labor show that productivity is likely to
increase rather than diminish in a cooperative commonwealth, in view
of the fact that all those now engaged in pure competition and
therefore a burden on the community, will be put to the work of
production, thereby increasing the productivity of the nation
relatively to its numbers.
FOOTNOTES:
[152] See Northern Securities Case, 193 U.S.
[153] Kautsky, "The Social Revolution."
[154] Upon every breadwinner there are on an average four persons
dependent--the aged, women, and children; 200,000 unemployed is
therefore equivalent to 1,000,000 in want.
[155] See Book II, Chapter I, Unemployment.
[156] See Appendix, p. 412.
[157] "Socialism." By John Spargo, p. 217.
"Socialism in Theory and Practice." By Morris Hillquit, Chapters V and
VI.
[158] By "pure capitalism" is meant the ownership of industry
entitling the owner to dividends although the owner contributes
nothing to the industry in the way of personal service.
[159] See Appendix, p. 428.
[160] _Saturday Evening Post_, May 8, 1909.
[161] _Outlook_, March 20, 1909, p. 622.
[162] Ibid., p. 619.
[163] Ibid., p. 623.
[164] On the very day of writing of the above, the N.Y. _Times_ of
June 25, 1909, states that the United States Postoffice Department has
installed a complete ice-making plant which has made such economy that
the Government is considering the building of an ice-plant for all its
departments. Private dealers charge at the rate of $7.65 a ton for
ice, whereas the Postoffice Department now furnishes ice at a cost of
65 cents a ton.
[165] "The Elimination of the Tramp," by Edmond Kelly. (G.P. Putnam's
Sons.)
[166] See Appendix, p. 429.
[167] _Charities and the Commons_, p. 342, June, 1907.
[168] Eugene Simon, "La cite chinoise" (translated into English);
Toubeau, "La repartition metrique des impots," 2 vols., Paris
(Guillaumin), 1880, quoted by Kropotkin in "Fields, Factories and
Workshops," p. 239. See Evolution and Effort, p. 168.
[169] Dr. M. Fesca, "Beitraege zur Kenntniss der japanesischen
Landwirthschaft," Part II, p. 33 (Berlin, 1893). The economy in seeds
is also considerable. While in Italy 250 kilogrammes to the hectare
are sown, and 160 kilogrammes in South Carolina the Japanese use only
sixty kilogrammes for the same area. Semler, "Tropische Agrikultur,"
Bd. III, pp. 20-28. Quoted by Prince Kropotkin in "Fields, Factories
and Workshops," p. 239.
[170] L. Grandeau, "Etudes Agronomiques," 3d series, 1887-8, p. 43.
Quoted by Kropotkin, Ibid., 101.
[171] See Ponce, "La Culture maraiche," 1869. Barrel's "Dictionnaire
d'Agriculture." Quoted by Kropotkin, Ibid., p. 64.
[172] Very little land in New York State produces more than from two
to three tons an acre, and most of it does not produce so much.
[173] It is impossible in this book to give to the question of soil
fertility the scope which it needs in order to convince a layman of
the almost unlimited extent to which good soil can be manufactured and
made fertile. Those who are anxious to satisfy themselves on this
subject are urged to read the books above quoted.
[174] "The Elimination of the Tramp," p. 51.
[175] Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons.
[176] See "Elimination of the Tramp," p. 45.
[177] See _Hampton's Magazine_ for May and June, 1909.
[178] See p. 58.
[179] The occupation that furnishes most inmates to our asylums is
farming.
[180] This limitation on property has already been enacted in the
State of New York (Chap. 463, Laws of 1909), and bills of similar
import have been introduced into the legislatures of California,
Maine, and Pennsylvania. In Maine a hypothetical question as to the
constitutionality of such legislation was submitted to the supreme
court, which reported favorably (19 Lawyers' Reports annotated [U.S.]
422).
[181] Farmers' Bulletin, No. 242.
[182] Something has been done in connection with the milk supply. Thus
the milk producers of Boston have organized a union and have agreed to
a price with the Milk Contractors' Association. But although this
effort at combination has cheapened milk for large consumers such as
hotels, large restaurants, and even small stores, pint customers pay
just as much in Boston as elsewhere; that is, 8 cents a quart.
(Industrial Commission Report, Vol. VI, p. 409.)
[183] See 13th Annual Report of the Bureau of Labor of U.S., p. 25,
where the cost of producing wheat under the best conditions is
approximately 30 cents per bushel.
[184] Book II, Chapter II.
[185] For example, it is generally believed that the President of the
Steel Trust gets over $100,000 a year. Before the insurance
investigation presidents of life insurance companies got similar
salaries. Railroad presidents are also paid at similar rates.
[186] "Socialism in Theory and Practice," p. 133.
[187] "Socialism in Theory and Practice," p. 119.
[188] Karl Kautsky, "The Social Revolution," p. 129.
[189] "Socialism in Theory and Practice," p. 164.
[190] See any daily newspaper between March 16, 1909, when the bill
was introduced in the House, and Aug. 6, 1909, when the law went into
effect.
[191] Obviously, until all the industries are socialized, a part of
this minimum will have to be paid in gold. When, however, all the
industries are socialized, the whole of the minimum will be paid in
store checks.
[192] See Appendix, p. 431.
[193] Book II, Chapter I.
[194] I am not aware that Mr. Huxley has ever suggested any other
objection to Socialism than this; but I may be mistaken.
[195] "Government," Vol. I, p. 339.
CHAPTER III
POLITICAL ASPECT OF SOCIALISM
The importance of the political aspect of Socialism depends upon the
kind of Socialism selected for study. In Fourier's system, the social
side altogether predominates--the political side is relatively
unimportant. In state Socialism, on the other hand, the political side
is the most important and the social side is subsidiary. In modern
Socialism, the government takes an intermediary position; the
functions of the state under modern Socialism would be in some
respects less extended than in such a government as that of Prussia;
while in other respects it would be more extended; but in no
department would it assume the excessive power and interference
generally associated with Socialism in the public mind.
It cannot be too emphatically repeated that modern Socialism discards
the idea of a common home or even of a common table except to the
extent that a common table is sometimes found convenient in our own
day. To just the same extent the cooperative commonwealth discards the
idea of state ownership of industry and state ownership of land except
within the limits set forth in the previous chapter.
The two great political objections to Socialism are: that it would
give to the government a power destructive of individual liberty; and
that the corruption in our existing government demonstrates the
unwisdom of increasing the scope of its operations.
On the first of these objections it is not necessary to dwell; for it
is obvious that the moment state Socialism is abandoned, this
objection falls to the ground. The state no longer has the onerous and
probably impossible function of assigning tasks; the state no longer
controls the hours of labor; the state no longer interferes in the
private life of the individual any more than to-day. The relations of
the government are not so much with the individual as with
conglomerations of individuals in the respective industries; and even
here, the government does no more than indicate the amount of a given
thing that must be produced and the rate at which the thing so
produced is to exchange with the other necessaries of life. It has
been suggested that just as in France where commercial cases are
brought before purely commercial courts and thus separated from civil
and criminal cases, so all things pertaining to production and
distribution might be determined by an industrial parliament that
would determine such matters as the amount of a given thing to be
produced and the rate at which this thing is to exchange with other
necessaries, subject to the approval of Congress.
Such a system would have the great advantage of referring business
matters to business men who would bring no other than business
considerations to the solution of them. It would relieve Congress of
the necessity of discussing commercial details with which its members
are generally unfamiliar, and it would above all prevent that
sacrifice of business interests to purely political considerations
which often occurs to-day.
There will be an important role to be played in determining the amount
of the various necessaries of life which the socialized industries
will be called upon to produce, in distributing these products,
exchanging surplus products with foreign markets, and distributing the
proceeds of these exchanges. All this work is of a purely business
character and should be confided to business men, who have shown
themselves by their practical success in business fields most fitted
therefor. It would seem wiser to refer these matters to a parliament
composed of the representatives of associated industries, of
agricultural producers, and of distributing bodies. It would be the
duty of such a parliament to appoint its own executive and cabinet,
and it may be advisable to associate with the representatives of
agriculture and industry in such a parliament, representatives
selected by the citizens at large, so as to minimize the possibility
of combinations between powerful groups of industries for the purpose
of determining questions of public interest to their particular
advantage.
No attempt will be made here to work out the details of such a system,
the object of this book being rather to indicate the possibility of
doing these things than to point out the particular method by which
they should be done.
The objection that the corruption in our existing government
demonstrates the unwisdom of increasing the scope of its operations
seems at first sight a formidable one. If our government is as corrupt
as our "yellow journals" make it out to be, it seems folly to extend
its functions and give it larger opportunities for the exercise of
this corruption and for the demoralization of the community which this
corruption tends to produce. There are, however, many reasons for
believing that the less government has to do, the more corrupt it is;
and the more it has to do, the less corrupt it is.
For example, the Board of Aldermen in the city of New York was once
the governing body of the city. It was a body to which men of
importance belonged because its functions were important. When
corruption crept into the Board of Aldermen the legislature was
persuaded more and more to abridge its powers, and Tweed availed
himself of this disposition to take practically all the powers of
government out of the hands of the board and concentrate it in a small
body of men called "supervisors," to which he took care that he and
the members of his ring should belong. Some time after the Tweed ring
was broken up the Board of Aldermen retained the right of confirming
the appointments of the mayor; but this power too was taken from it by
ex-President--then Assemblyman--Roosevelt in 1884, and from that year
the Board of Aldermen became little more than a franchise-bestowing
corporation. The board has consequently become so corrupt that the
title of Alderman, which used to be a title of honor, is in New York a
title of disgrace. If we compare the Board of Aldermen to the board
which corresponds to it in London, we shall find a totally different
state of things. In London it is the County Council that governs the
municipality, and accordingly we find on it men who stand first in the
ranks of the business world.
But there is another consideration of vastly more importance than
this. New York citizens continue to complain year after year of the
low order of men selected by its citizens, not only to the Board of
Aldermen, but to all elective offices, including the State Assembly
and the Senate. Yet they do not stop to inquire the reason for this,
though it is obvious. What stake have the majority of New York
citizens in the government of the city? The vast majority are not
interested in the tax rates, for they do not pay taxes, or do not
think they do. The majority are not interested in an efficient fire
department, because they do not own property likely to be destroyed by
fire and, indeed, it is said that it is members of this very majority
that start most of the fires in New York. They are not interested in
clean streets, for foul though our streets be, they are not as foul as
the unwholesome tenements. They are not interested in an efficient
police. They are not interested in a board of education, because all
they want to get out of school for their children is reading, writing,
and arithmetic--enough to get a job. It is difficult to see in what
respect the large majority of our citizens are interested in good
government at all.
What then are they interested in? They are interested in bad
government. They want to get a brother or a cousin on the police
force; and they want the police to be complaisant to a brother or a
cousin in a liquor saloon. The retailer does not want to be disturbed
in his encroachments on the sidewalk. The building trade does not want
to be annoyed by a too conscientious building department. The German
wants his beer on Sunday and barrooms want to do business on Sunday.
The peddler wants to violate street ordinances and stand his cart in
the already too crowded streets. Churches want to receive per capita
contributions to their asylums and have long made efforts to secure
per capita contributions to their schools. The gambler wants to keep
open his gambling den; and the people want the gambler to be
undisturbed. The business man, the corporation, and the criminal want
to be "let alone"; and those dregs of the population too low to be
able to use the vote, want to sell it for a pittance on election day.
These are the conditions under which distinguished citizens and
committees of one hundred expect to secure good government! And we go
on ineffectually organizing municipal leagues, good government clubs,
and citizens' unions to this hopeless end. It is not reasonable to
suppose that in a government determined by the majority we can expect
the government to be good when the majority does not want the
government good, but wants it bad.
Occasionally the government in New York gets so bad that it outrages
even our outrageous majority, and the overthrow of bad government is
regarded as a triumph for reform. But no reform movement has ever
lasted more than one administration. The public has emphatically
assured us, over and over again, that it does not want reform
administration, and indeed it may be said that some of these reform
administrations have been just as bad as those they were intended to
reform.
Municipal politicians want good laws, if at all, in order to use them
for the purpose of levying blackmail, and the community is willing to
pay the blackmail so long as it is not too extortionate. Business men
find it cheaper to pay blackmail and be allowed to do what they want.
And the same is true all the way down the line until we get to the
criminal class, which has the biggest stake in bad government of all.
Yet the strange anomaly of existing conditions is that while the
majority of the citizens of New York have shown year after year for a
century that they want bad government and mean to have it, these
citizens are not bad men, but want to be good. It is the folly of our
economic conditions that makes them want bad government, and no more
pitiable sight was ever presented to gods and men than this city of
New York, or indeed any other of our great cities, full of citizens
animated with the best intentions, forced by economic conditions to be
bad. It has not yet seemed to dawn upon the reformers of the present
day that, if they want to have good government, the majority of the
citizens must be interested in the government being good; and not, on
the contrary, interested in its being bad as at this present time.
There are two ways of accomplishing this. One way has been pointed
out; to put an end to the competitive system that sets every man at
the throat or pocket of his neighbor. The other is to enlarge the
functions of the government sufficiently to make it important to every
citizen that the government be good; then only will public spirit
become stronger than private interest.
This conflict between public spirit and private interest is not a
matter about which there can be any longer any doubt. When a group was
engaged in organizing the City Club, we were told not once but a dozen
times by a dozen different men of high standing in the community, that
the whole question of good government to them resolved itself into
this: "Can I by contributing money or time to reform sufficiently
reduce taxes to make it worth my while to give my time and my money to
this thing; or is it not better for me to use my money in purchasing
protection from the organization that now controls the city and devote
my time to my own private affairs?" To these men the question of good
government was simply a question of tax rate, and these citizens are
the ones least touched by political conditions. When we come to
citizens whose business puts them continually in contact with
political conditions, we find the contrast between public spirit and
private interest still more marked; in the corporations that want
franchises, in the builders who want their plans approved, and in the
citizens already described who have an interest in keeping on good
terms with the powers that be.
If now we remove the temptation on the one hand and give a motive for
good government on the other, is it not reasonable to suppose that we
are more likely to obtain good government than now?
Temptation can be removed in many ways. Altogether the greatest motive
for corruption is that furnished by the eagerness of corporations to
secure franchises. Indeed the city was at one time governed by the
owners of our city transportation system. The temptation to violate
building laws would be removed if it were the city who built and not
the private individual. The temptation to vote for a corrupt police
force would be removed if the city instead of private barrooms sold
alcoholic drinks. The temptation to vote for corruptible milk
inspectors would be removed if the city instead of private dealers
supplied milk. In a word, if the city were to undertake the tasks
heretofore suggested, practically all temptation for graft would be
eliminated.
The same process would not only eliminate temptation for graft, but
would give the citizens a stake in good government. If the city
distributed milk the citizen would be interested in having pure milk
at a low price; if the city owned tramways, the citizen would be
interested in having transportation effective and cheap; if the city
manufactured gas and electric light, the citizen would be interested
in having good heat and light at proper prices; and so at last the
dream of the reformer that all citizens of the same city regard
themselves as stockholders in the same corporation, would cease to be
a dream and would be realized. They would have the same interest in
the gas plant, electric plant, ice plant, milk plant, transportation
plant of their city as a stockholder to-day has in the dividends which
these respective industries accord him, though the dividends would not
be paid in gold, but in wholesome service at cheap prices. Then only
would the conflict between public spirit and private interest come to
an end, for a man would find it more to his interest that the
government be carried on honestly and efficiently than he does now to
secure a government that is dishonest and inefficient. In a word, as
Mr. Mill said that the cure for the abuse of liberty is more liberty,
so the cure for the abuse of government is more government. This must
not be understood as a relapse in favor of state Socialism. It cannot
be too often repeated that it would be as great an error to confide
too much to the state as, at present, it is an error to confide too
little to it. The solution is to be found in taking the middle course:
_medio tutissimus ibis_. Give to the government the work it is fitted
to do and no more. What work it is fitted to do and what work it is
not fitted to do has already been explained.[196]
Amongst the tasks for which it is fitted is the work of Education:
Sec. 1. EDUCATION
There is no reason why the present system of education should be much
changed in a cooperative commonwealth. In its nature it would remain
very much the same and would only be extended in time; that is, all
children who show themselves capable of profiting by education will
have the opportunity of extending their education as far as their
abilities justify. Education need by no means be confined to the
state. There is no reason why the existing universities should not
continue their work of education even though they be maintained by
Rockefellers and Carnegies, and throw all their weight in support of
the competitive system against the cooperative. Socialism stands for
light, and if at any period in its development it turns out that the
community is not fitted for the phase of Socialism which it has
attempted, it may be important to correct the perfunctoriness of
official administration by a larger dose of private initiative; and in
such case let privately endowed schools and universities be there to
preach this doctrine.
Nor need there be any objection to sectarian schools. Once the human
mind is freed from the shackles of economic servitude, it can be
trusted to choose its religion, whether educated by sectarian schools
or not.
The essential difference between the educational system in a
cooperative commonwealth and under existing conditions will be that,
inasmuch as child labor in competitive industries will be absolutely
forbidden, no child will be deprived of education by economic
conditions. Every child, therefore, will have an equal opportunity for
mental development.
And the fact that the hours of work will be shorter will give to every
human being leisure throughout his his entire life in which to develop
talents of which no trace may be observable during attendance at
school or university. The cooperative commonwealth, therefore, without
changing the existing forms of education, will furnish to every man,
woman, and child an opportunity for educational development during the
whole of life instead of confining it as now to the very first few
years of it.
It is important to note that, under this system, every industry will
be free to work as few hours as it chooses, subject only to the
condition of working long enough to pay taxes, to furnish the minimum
required by the state, and to create a fund to provide for sickness,
accident, and old age.
Citizens in this respect will divide themselves into different
categories:
Some will want to work the least possible and devote the rest of their
time to idleness or pleasure. Others will want to work at the
particular industries in which they are engaged the least possible and
devote the rest of their time to such things as will more interest
them--to literature, art, music, or even to some other industry--even
to industries competing with the state. Others, instead of working the
short hours required in a cooperative commonwealth, will prefer to
work long hours so as to have a longer vacation than that enjoyed by
the majority; others, on the contrary, will prefer to work long hours
at the industry to which they belong, not with a view to earning a
longer vacation, but for the purpose of earning more wages applicable
to the increase of their comforts, luxuries, and amusements.
It would not be difficult for every industry to take account of these
various contingencies: A certain number of hours those engaged in a
particular industry will have to work, but they will be far shorter
than the hours of to-day. Those who volunteer to work longer hours
will be allowed to work longer hours. The work of the factory will
naturally be divided into two shifts: the one, a morning shift; and
the other, an afternoon shift, so that one shift can put in all their
work in the morning and the other in the afternoon. Who shall work in
each shift will be determined primarily by choice and, wherever choice
cannot be resorted to, by lot.
Such a condition of things as the foregoing would give to every
industry the greatest opportunity for transfer from one industry to
another. One who desired to exchange steel working for garment making,
could work during the morning shift at the steel trade and during the
afternoon shift at the garment trade; and when he had become
proficient in the garment trade, he would be able to abandon the steel
trade altogether and devote all his working hours to garment making.
Still more important, the system would give an opportunity to every
man to develop his peculiar talents, however late in life. It is well
known that men of genius often show no trace of their genius at
school. It is impossible to calculate how much human ability is lost
to the race by the fact that, not being observable in the few school
years during which children are subject to observation, it is crushed
out altogether in the competitive mill. The fact that the number of
hours we have to work in a cooperative commonwealth would be small,
would give to every man the rest of the day in which to develop his
undeveloped talents.
Sec. 2. CHURCHES
There is no reason why churches should not be supported in a
cooperative commonwealth under exactly the same conditions as to-day.
It is probable, however, that there will be a tendency to modify
public worship so as to render it less subject to obvious objections
than to-day.
At the present time, children animated with a desire to preach are
encouraged to join the ministry; and it sometimes happens that men of
vast business and political experience are made by the convention of
respectability to sit every Sabbath Day under a boy in the pulpit
reading crude theological essays. Few men are equipped in a manner
usefully to instruct or advise their fellow creatures in matters so
intimate as those of religion until they have attained years which,
while they unfit them for the hard work of industrial life, do by
accumulated experience peculiarly fit them for the work of the pulpit.
The divinity school and the divinity student will tend to diminish and
our pulpits will be filled by men who have shown themselves during
fifty or sixty years of active work in the community to be best fitted
to fill them. And these men, having at that age earned a retiring
pension, will not be at the expense of the community nor will they be
required by economic conditions as at present, to preach doctrines as
to the truth of which some are in doubt and others absolutely
disbelieve.
Sec. 3. POLITICAL CONSTRUCTION
Let us see now whether we can come to some conclusion regarding the
political construction of government under a cooperative commonwealth.
The idea prevails that Socialism involves an extreme centralization of
government. This, however, is quite contrary to modern notions of
Socialism. Indeed, in one sense of the word, Socialism upon the plan
already proposed would deprive the federal government of much of its
power. Nor do I see any reason why our present federal form of
government should be materially changed. For example, the present
state governments would be maintained with practically all the rights
they now enjoy, and the federal government would continue to operate
with less than the enumerated powers given it by our present
constitution. For example, instead of having as at present the right
to regulate commerce, to coin money, and to make patent laws, these
powers would be delegated to the industrial parliament subject only to
the approval of Congress. And although the title of all such
properties as railroads, mines, etc., would be vested in the United
States, the effectual control and administration of these properties
would be left to the industrial parliament, so that real power as
regards these matters would be exercised not by the federal
government, but by the industrial parliament, elected not upon the
geographical basis of Congress, but by the industries respectively
wheresoever situated, as explained in the previous chapter.[197]
It would be well to give the right of appeal to Congress because the
industrial parliament would consist of producers and each would have
an interest in securing for his industry the largest price possible.
It may be feared that a few powerful industries might, by the number
of votes they control in the chamber elected proportionately to
numbers, secure for itself privileges not fair to other industries.
This power would be restrained by the fact that the other chamber,
elected according to industries, not numbers, would exercise a
wholesome check upon any such attempt, and an appeal to Congress may
therefore not be necessary. Nevertheless, Congress would represent the
whole mass of the nation and would be, as it were, the consumers'
parliament in its relation to the industrial parliament. And it would
seem proper to give to Congress the right to reconsider and discuss
all new departures in connection with the business of the country, not
only out of consideration of the rights of consumers, but also for the
dignity of Congress.
What under these circumstances would be the special functions of
Congress? Congress would continue to exercise the powers it now
exercises as regards collecting taxes, establishing rules of
naturalization, providing for the punishment of counterfeiting,
establishing postoffices and postroads, organizing federal courts,
punishing piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and
offences against the law of nations, declaring war, and providing for
and maintaining the army, navy, and militia.
The States would enjoy all the rights they now enjoy as regards the
federal government; but the cities would enjoy much larger powers of
government than they now do. There seems to be no reason why the
question whether the city of New York should own its own subway should
be referred to farmers sitting in Albany, who have no interest and
little, if any, knowledge of the needs and resources of the city of
New York. It is probable, therefore, that on the whole the effect of
Socialism would be to decentralize rather than to centralize.
The parties in a cooperative commonwealth would probably be determined
by the main issue between cooperation and competition, and we find
here a reason for leaving to Congress the last word as regards the
decisions of the industrial parliament. For the latter would be a
parliament of cooperative industries and disposed, in protecting these
industries, to perpetually invade the territory of competition. So
long as humanity needs the stimulus of competition, it is essential
that this element be fairly represented in the political organization
of the state. All measures tending to restrain competition ought
therefore to be subject to the approval of the whole nation
represented in Congress.
One principal bourgeois objection to Socialism is that, under
competitive conditions the men best fitted to run an enterprise are
those to whom business enterprises are to-day confided upon the
principle of the survival of the fittest; whereas under a cooperative
commonwealth, the selection of those who are to manage industries must
be left to the doubtful intrigues of politics. This objection cannot
be seriously taken into consideration. There is probably nothing more
difficult for the bourgeois to understand than the difference that
would exist between the politics of a cooperative and those of a
competitive commonwealth. In the latter, the field of politics is
inevitably a cesspool of corruption, because every business man has
something to lose or gain through politics. The tariff law just
enacted presents one of the most recent illustrations of this. Not
only so, but the men appointed to office and elected to Congress in
our competitive commonwealth are selected by business interests, and
not appointed because of special fitness for the task.
In a cooperative commonwealth this situation would be reversed. When
all our comforts in life and the necessaries of existence are
furnished by our municipalities and our guilds, the management of
these municipalities and guilds will be of the utmost importance to
every one of us. Our citizens, instead of being interested in bad
government, will become interested in good government, in good
management and in good administration. Here the public will benefit by
the power of recall which, though it may work very imperfectly under
competitive, ought to work well under cooperative conditions. For
every man is interested in his municipal bakery furnishing good bread,
his municipal gas plant furnishing good gas; and citizens will be so
deeply interested in matters that touch them as nearly as this that
they will not be influenced by political cabals to put in a bad man as
superintendent of the municipal bakery, or to replace a good one by a
bad one for purely political reasons.
One reason why our politics are bad to-day is that hardly any of us
have time to give to making them good even if we wanted them good. The
workingman who works ten or more hours in the factory and travels two
or more hours to reach his work in the morning and return home when
his work is done, can hardly have much vitality left to attend to
politics. Indeed, the complaint of the trade unions is that he has not
vitality enough left to attend to matters so important to him as those
of his own trade union. But when the workingman in the first place is
thoroughly trained by an education that will last not less than
eighteen years--when he is not called upon to work more than four or
five hours a day, he will have the knowledge necessary to understand
his political needs, and the leisure to organize political movements
when necessary to remove a bad administrator and put a good
administrator in his place.
Indeed, popular government is impossible under capitalism for the
reasons just stated; those of us who want good government have not the
time to secure it. Popular government is only possible when the people
are sufficiently educated to understand their rights and have leisure
enough to organize with a view to enforcing them.
In the foregoing two chapters entitled, respectively, The Economic
Construction of the Cooperative Commonwealth, and The Political Aspect
of Socialism, I have endeavored to draw a picture of a cooperative
commonwealth in which capitalism is eliminated from the production and
distribution of all the necessaries and many of the comforts of life;
leaving, however, full play to the existing competitive system as
regards the luxuries, some of its comforts, and even as regards
necessaries wherever the cooperative commonwealth fails to do its work
up to the standard of taste of the community.
This picture has been drawn not because it is possible at this time to
forecast exactly what this economic and political construction will
be, but because many persons find it impossible to form to themselves
any idea how things can be produced and distributed without the help
of capitalism. No more is claimed for these chapters than that they
do present a scheme by means of which necessaries and many comforts
can be produced and distributed without the evils of capitalism, of
unemployment, of pauperism, of prostitution, and of economic crime.
Obviously, the two foregoing chapters suggest a thousand questions to
an inquiring mind, but I hope that the missing details cannot be
classed amongst those details which Gladstone characterized as
organic. In other words, I hope that they present a picture giving
sufficient details to make it clear that Socialism, as regards the
production and distribution of the necessaries and most of the
comforts of life, is not only beneficial, but practical and
economical; that, in a word, it puts an end to the waste and the
anarchy which jointly characterize the capitalistic system of to-day.
FOOTNOTES:
[196] Book III, Chapter II.
[197] Book III, Chapter II.
CHAPTER IV
SCIENTIFIC ASPECT OF SOCIALISM
Herbert Spencer has contributed more than any other modern writer to
emphasize the effect of environment upon life, whether vegetable,
animal, or human; yet, singularly enough, in applying his scientific
conclusions to sociology, he entirely failed to take account of the
essential difference which exists between natural environment and
human environment; between the effect of evolution upon life prior to
the advent of man, and its effect upon life subsequent to the advent
of man. He applied to human development the laws of evolution which he
found working prior to man, though man has reversed the natural
process of development so that evolution, under the environment
created by man, is taking and must continue to take a direction
entirely opposite to that which it took under the dominion of Nature
alone. Into what errors Mr. Spencer was led by his failure to
recognize the difference between human and animal evolution may be
gathered from the fact that he denounced governmental effort to
prevent disease as "sanitary dictation";[198] he denounced also
municipal ownership of gas and water, the building by the state of
houses for the poor, free libraries, free local museums, free
education, and generally all that he includes in the expression
"coercive philanthropy."[199]
He assumed that the predatory system which he saw prevailing in the
domain of Nature must prevail also in the domain of Man; and thus
became an apostle of _laissez faire_ and of the competitive system. As
such he advocated the utmost limitation of state interference and
opposed the Socialistic trend of modern legislation on the ground that
man is, as it were, doomed to perfection by the principles of
evolution, and that any effort of his to modify evolution can only
result in retarding it. He was led by the analogy between society and
organism into the theory that human institutions must be allowed to
grow as organisms _grow_, and that efforts on the part of man to
construct his own institutions produce more evil than good.
Mr. Huxley demolished the whole sociological structure which Herbert
Spencer built up on these errors in three essays, to which the reader
is referred.[200] The subject is also fully treated in the first
volume of "Government or Human Evolution."[201] The effort will be
made here to condense the argument and conclusions therein drawn by a
short study of environment--natural and human--with a view to
demonstrating the control which man has acquired over his environment
and thereby over his ultimate destiny. This leads to a study of the
effect of the competitive and cooperative systems on type
respectively, how far society is a growth and how far a construction,
and how far human nature can be modified by the conscious, deliberate
purpose of Man; all this to demonstrate that human happiness can be
best attained by substituting cooperation for competition to the
extent necessary to put an end to the evils resulting from the
competition of to-day, without for that reason eliminating wholesome
competition altogether.
There are two kinds of environment: the environment we find in Nature,
and the environment made by Man.
We shall study first the environment of Nature, and begin by
distinguishing therein two systems: the competitive, or so-called
struggle for life; and the cooperative or community system; confining
ourselves to facts observed in Nature prior to or outside of the
intervention of Man.
Sec. 1. THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT
(_a_) _The Struggle for Life, or the Competitive System_
Beasts of the field are necessary products of their environment.
The study of the crust of the earth reveals that upon the central mass
there have been laid layer upon layer of sand, clay, and limestone by
successive seas, which have successively rested on now buried
continents. Nearly every layer contains fragments of shell, scale, or
bone belonging to the beasts that have succeeded to one another upon
the earth during millions of years.
These layers of sand, clay, and limestone are the leaves of a gigantic
book, the earliest of which are burned by fire, the next scarred by
it, and the most recent illustrated by pictures so vivid that we can
read the story there of the development of Man from the lowest of all
forms of life.
The rocks are charts painted by the hand of Nature herself.
In these charts we read the story of Evolution. We learn the geography
of the world millions of years before the age of history; we know
that this land upon which we live has not only once, but often been
sunk beneath a deep sea; that during the earliest period of which
there is any record unburned, there was no living thing more highly
organized than a crab; not a fish nor any animal possessing the
backbone that distinguishes the vertebrates to which Man belongs from
the invertebrates to which belong the lowest kinds of living thing. We
know that later the whole face of the world was changed, and then
followed a warm period called Carboniferous, and that just before and
during this Carboniferous period there slowly developed fish
possessing the backbone that marks one of the great strides in animal
development. But at this time we see no trace of the four-footed
mammalia which immediately preceded Man.
In the marshes in which forests grew and died during the Carboniferous
period, there were piled, one upon another, layers of vegetation that
hardened into coal; this coal sank slowly beneath a deepening sea. In
this so-called cretaceous sea were deposited, in its deepest parts,
huge masses of chalk accumulated from countless shells; and upon its
shores crept four-footed things resembling fish, as the seal and the
sea-lion resemble them to-day, closely allied to them and clearly
developed from them, as if fish stranded upon the shallows had used
their fins for motion upon the banks, and out of fins made legs. And
from the gigantic lizards of the cretaceous period we find in the
overlying tertiary beds the infinite variety of four-legged animals
which people our continents to-day.
All this knowledge, full of profound interest to the student of Man,
comes from a study of the earth--Geology.
And next comes Zoology, telling how this amazing development of life
from lower to higher forms proceeded. For centuries Man studied the
living things on the earth, and added fact to fact till at last, a few
years ago, Darwin, Wallace, and others demonstrated the law according
to which this development takes place, the law of Evolution.
Briefly it is this:
All living things prior to the advent of Man tended to adapt
themselves to their environment by the process known as the survival
of the fit. Only those animals fit to survive, survived; all the rest
perished. When there was a change of environment, as, for example, of
climate, only those individuals survived that were capable of adapting
themselves to this change.
The process by which animals adapt themselves to changes of
environment is as follows:
There is in every new generation of animals an infinite variety; some
differ enough from the rest to be called "sports." These differences
are transmitted to future generations by heredity. Men have used these
differences to create types of animals suited to their purpose. Thus
by putting stallions built for speed to mares similarly built, Man has
produced the race-horse. On the contrary, by putting stallions built
for drawing loads to mares similarly built, Man has produced the
cart-horse.
Before the advent of man this selection of types was made by the
environment or by Nature, as the environment used to be called. Hence
the expression, natural selection, is used to describe the process by
which Nature or environment selects certain types for survival at the
expense of the rest; the process by which animals that live in the
desert gradually adapt themselves to endure great heat; and those that
live near the Poles gradually adapt themselves to endure great cold.
The environment or Nature uses in this process of selection a very
cruel but effectual device: A great many more living things are born
into the world than the world can support. In the lower forms of life
Nature is wastefully fertile; thousands of herrings' eggs are laid for
one herring that grows to maturity. This amazing fertility of Nature
results in a struggle for life which condemns the enormous majority of
living things born into the world to an early death, but has the
singular advantage of allowing only the types most fitted to the
environment to survive. And this process of natural selection acting
in an environment favorable to development from a lower to a higher
type has gradually caused the lowest forms of life, which consist of a
mere sac of so-called protoplasm, to develop organs especially adapted
to accomplish specific things: a mouth to take in food; a stomach to
digest it; bowels to assimilate it; a system of circulation--arms and
legs; a nervous system; a brain; ears; a nose; eyes; until at last, in
the order of creation as demonstrated in the great Book of the Rocks,
and as confirmed by zoology and other sciences, Man has evolved out of
the original protoplasmic sac.
Who created the first protoplasmic sac; why this cruel system was
invented by which life was ordered to pass through millions of
sacrificed and suffering bodies before it could emerge into the least
imperfect form; why Man to-day must suffer still in the progress which
he is destined to make from his present to a still higher form--these
are queries which it is not given us yet to answer. But that this
process has taken place at the cost of great agony and during millions
of years, is a fact which no man who has studied the face of Nature
can deny.
If we want to learn the art of happiness--for in spite of the process
just described there is nevertheless an art of happiness--we must
understand the processes of Nature. It is only by understanding the
processes of Nature that we can ever hope to modify them.
And it is here that we come to the first great lesson we have to learn
from a study of Evolution:
Man has already modified the processes of Nature in the past, and he
can doubtless still further modify them in the time to come.
But before we undertake to study how far Man has modified, and may
still modify, the cruel process of natural selection, there is another
process observable in Nature to which we must direct our most earnest
attention.
It is a common error to suppose that because Man has developed from a
lower form of life through a process of struggle for survival that
favors a few types at the expense of millions of other forms condemned
by this struggle to suffering and death, therefore it is only by this
same struggle that Man can hope to attain a higher form of
development. This is the error that approves the competitive system
and the resulting classification of men into a few rich and many poor.
It is because the question as to the merits and demerits of the
competitive system rests upon the principles of evolution, that it is
indispensable for all who want to understand the competitive system
also to understand the principles of evolution. For those who deny the
force of competition altogether are as wrong as the millionaires who
base their argument in favor of the competitive system upon the law of
evolution.
We cannot neglect the argument drawn from the struggle for life
involved in natural selection. Until we have shown that there is
something better than this struggle that can be put in its place, we
have left to the millionaires the vantage-ground, from which they can
quiet the conscience of the world. Thousands of our fellow-creatures
who are separated from us by the accident of wealth would come to our
side were they not sincerely convinced that poverty, pauperism, and
crime are necessary evils, belonging to the cosmic principles of
evolution through which Man has attained his existing dominion, and
through which he may hope, though not without infinite patience and
agony, ultimately to reach a still higher station.
This error must be removed, and it can only be removed by sober
argument. Temper will not do it; nor indignation; nor vituperation;
nor hate. The plain facts, if properly marshalled, are sufficient to
prove the error of the notion that competition is a necessary evil,
and that society cannot exist without unlimited competition, and the
poverty, pauperism, and crime that result therefrom. The first of
these facts is that by the side of the competitive system just
described, there is in Nature also a cooperative system almost as
highly developed as the competitive system and destined eventually
almost to take its place.
(_b_) _The Cooperative System_
We have seen that the struggle for life has had for effect to permit
only those forms of life to survive that adapted themselves to the
environment, and that when the environment was favorable to
development, this tendency of the fit to survive at the expense of the
less fit caused an evolution from lower to higher forms of life. The
effect of this tendency in the higher forms of life has been to create
two opposite types--the carnivores, who became more skilful in
tracking game, and more powerful in destroying it; and the
herbivores, the natural prey of the carnivores, who became more swift
in escaping their pursuers. Now the herbivores, conscious of their
weakness, early developed the instinct to herd for the purpose of
common defence. The fierce carnivore, on the contrary, is prevented by
his natural ferocity from herding. He tends to become solitary. Lions
and tigers are solitary animals; whereas sheep, goats, horses, and
cattle herd. This tendency to herd tends to develop in proportion as
an animal is weak; so that it is in insects that we find the herding
instinct most perfectly developed, and certain colonies of ants and
bees present a picture of cooperation to which the attention of
millionaires cannot be too strenuously directed.
Let it be said at the outset that these colonies are not offered as
models for us to imitate. On the contrary there are many features in
these colonies which we ought diligently to avoid. But just as there
are features in the competitive system that are good and some that are
atrociously bad, so there are features in the colony system that are
bad and some that are altogether good. It will later on appear that
_the essential privilege of Man is to be able to choose the good of
both and eschew the bad_.
A beehive is a city of bees built by the entire community for its
common use. This community consists for the most part of barren
females who do all the hard work, and are therefore commonly called
the workers; they build the comb, and add to it as the community
enlarges; they attend on the queen bee--the only fertile female
allowed to survive; they feed her, and act the part of midwife to her
when she lays her eggs; they see to the hatching of the eggs, and by
crowding about them provide them with the necessary temperature; when
the eggs are hatched, the workers feed the young ones differently so
as to produce a few fertile females to play the role of queen should
the throne become vacant, a large number of males to be utilized when
the nuptial hour arrives, and a larger number still of barren females
to continue the work of the community; the workers collect honey from
the flowers in the summer and store it away for common use during the
cold season; they determine which of the fertile females is to be
impregnated and become their queen; she is liberated on her
wedding-day, and in a summer flight, pursued by the males, conceives.
Then she returns to the comb, and is let loose upon the other fertile
females in the comb, and watched as she stings her possible rivals to
death one by one. Few males return from the nuptial flight; one only
of them weds, and he perishes in the act; the others perish without
wedding, or if they have strength to return to the comb, are
despatched by the workers watching at the entrance to perform the
execution.
It is impossible to conceive a more complete system of cooperation or
communism than this, or one which so little conforms to our notions of
justice or welfare. Indeed, it is probable that from a human point of
view the tiger in the jungle attains a greater measure of happiness
than any member of a bee community; for the workers seem to labor
without reward; of the males only one weds, and he perishes in the
act; and the queen herself is kept a close prisoner during her entire
existence, save only during the brief ecstasy of the nuptial flight.
The lesson to be learned from insect communities seems then to be, not
that cooperation in a natural environment results in the maximum of
happiness, but merely that cooperation is as much a part of Nature's
plan as competition, and that therefore the cooperative system is as
available to man as the competitive. The problem before man is how to
take the best of both systems, and eliminate the bad.
But there is a further lesson to be drawn from the singular customs
that prevail in the hive and in the ants' nest:
In both, the entire energies of all seem concentrated upon two
problems--the support of the community, and its perpetuation; and as
these two problems are identically the same as those by which men are
confronted, the systems adopted to solve them cannot but be of
absorbing interest to Man.
Nature or environment follows two diverging lines in animal
development. Along one line she seeks the perfection of the
individual; along the other the perfection of the community. But the
ideal of perfection presented by Nature is not Justice or Morality; it
is _perpetuation_, for perpetuation is the prize offered to the most
fit types in the struggle for survival. And there are obviously two
ways in which types can succeed in this struggle--one by individual
excellence, and another by sexual jealousy. And this sexual jealousy
must be eliminated from a community if its members are to live in
permanent harmony together. The scheme adopted by Nature in the
beehive to eliminate sexual jealousy is radical and cruel, but
effectual.
Obviously, the community system proceeds with reckless disregard of
the individual; the destruction of all the fertile females save the
single queen and of all the male sex; the singular fact that the sting
cannot be used save at the cost of the life of the individual using
it; the enforced chastity of the workers--all prove that Nature's plan
for securing the welfare of the community is to sacrifice thereto the
happiness and the lives of the individuals that constitute it.