CLASS AND RACE
THE CLASS-CONFLICT THEORY CRITICISED—ECONOMIC SOLIDARITY OF
CLASSES—THE OUTLOOK—RACE; HEREDITARY AND SOCIAL FACTORS—WHAT
CONSTITUTES, PRACTICALLY, A RACE PROBLEM—RACE IN INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS—MINGLING RACES; RACE CASTE
Class-conflict thinkers have conceived the social situation somewhat as
follows: There are practically two classes, the privileged and the
unprivileged. They are separate and irreconcilable and the rift between
them is growing wider. So soon as they clearly grasp this situation the
unprivileged, who are far more numerous and of equal natural ability,
will overcome the privileged and bring about a revolution. This will
obliterate the class line and permit the organization of a classless and
purely democratic society.
It is more in accord with the facts, I think, to hold that these
divisions, in American democracy at least, are subject to that principle
of modern life which keeps the person from being absorbed in the group,
insures his being a member of the organic whole as well as of a faction,
and makes social classes more and more like parties rather than distinct
organisms. Moreover, as parties, they probably have a permanent
function, and are not likely to be obliterated.
The fact that we all live in a common stream of suggestion and
discussion makes a total separation of classes impossible. Capitalists
and hand-workers read, in great part, the same newspaper despatches and
public speeches. There is a common general atmosphere which no man
interested in his fellows can escape. Wars, calamities, adventures,
athletic contests, heroic deeds, pathetic incidents, inventions,
discoveries, and the like appeal to everybody, and make a common element
into which class feeling enters very little. There are, of course, class
publications which often emphasize to the utmost the class view of every
occurrence; but few intelligent men are content with these alone. We all
love the broad current and seek it in the press. It seems that this is
more the case now than formerly; that men are less and less content with
the committed organs of any sort of opinion, but demand a large and free
view.
If the question of the moment happens to be a class question, the modern
way of treating it is by open discussion, in which each side strives to
understand the other’s point of view, if only to refute it. This
inestimable good has democracy brought us, among others, that we dare
not, cannot, ignore the other side; we must meet it in open discussion.
This, again, is a growing condition. All who can remember twenty-five or
thirty years back must be impressed with the tendency of everything to
come into the open. Formerly the domination of the rich was a covert
thing, very little being said about it because it was unobserved, or
accepted as part of the natural order. And the like was true of a
hundred other questionable or vicious conditions—political corruption,
sexual vice, and the like. At present the interest and intelligence
directed toward class questions is too great to permit of underhand or
secretive methods. Wrongs are brought to light sooner or later and react
against those who practise them. It would be hard to say whether labor
has been most hurt by venality and intimidation on the part of some of
its leaders, or capital by its corruption of politics and exploitation
of the people. Public opinion regards both with deep resentment, and is
determined to know the truth regarding them.
And when two parties are brought to discuss an issue before the public
as arbiter, they are in great degree reconciled or united by the
process. That is, they are brought to recognize and appeal to common
principles of justice which the public accepts as binding on all. The
airing of fundamental economic questions in our day is educative to all
concerned. The tendency of it is to draw our ideas and practices out of
the dimness of a class environment and show them in the white light of
the public square, where every passer-by is a critic; so that we
ourselves are led to take a universal view of them.
This would be true even if there were no authoritative expression of
public opinion in government, but it is all the more true because there
is such an expression. It is an excellent thing, as regards solidarity,
that every faction must stand well with the public under peril of
hostile regulation. This means, if only we can make the public mind
penetrating and intelligent, that it will not pay to do the things that
cannot bear the light.
Those who doubt our ability to control the capitalist class perhaps give
too little weight to the moral elements in the situation. The privileged
classes of the past have been strong because they were, or seemed to be,
essential to social order and the maintenance of the higher traditions.
If their function in this regard is diminishing, as there is reason to
think, then the moral position of any class attempting to continue the
old inequalities as against practicable reforms, will be extremely weak.
No merely selfish interest, under modern conditions, can long make head
against the general current of moral judgment.
It is true that class loyalty may, to some extent, enlist a spirit of
group devotion and militant ardor; but it does not, for the majority
offer the conditions needed to awake enthusiasm, and I do not see how it
ever can. Social classes, make what you will of them, have not separate
cultures, traditions, or currents of daily thought, and are not likely
to have. The class spirit has not been successful in subordinating the
spirit of nationality, even in time of peace; while in time of war, or
in the case of nationalities struggling with oppression, like the
Belgians, the Poles, or the Bohemians, class becomes quite a secondary
matter.[61]
The growing economic solidarity of classes tends in the same direction.
We hear it said with equal confidence that the interests of capital and
labor are opposed, and that they are the same. The solution, of course,
is that both statements are true. The two have a common interest in the
prosperity and stability of industry, and are mutually dependent upon
each other’s efficiency and fair dealing. At the same time there is a
real conflict of pecuniary interest as to the division of the product.
In general the solidarity and interdependence increase as industries
become more extensive and intricate, and require more intelligent and
harmonious co-operation. It is also increased by the diffusion of
investment, thrifty wage-earners becoming, to a large and increasing
degree, small capitalists as well. The outcome is an organic whole which
does not exclude opposition, but tends to limit it to what is
functional, and to bring it under the control of rule.
Under such conditions the relation between economic classes—capital and
labor, let us say, for simplicity—is that of two parties to a bargain so
advantageous for both that neither can afford to throw it up, but whose
precise terms are matter for controversy. Each side may have a motive
for disputing, for feeling out the other’s position, even for
temporarily refusing to trade, but not for going to extremes. Neither
can afford to push the other to desperation. Capital could starve out
labor, and labor could wreck the whole system, but in either case it
would be suicidal to do so.
The orderly development of industrial life calls for an organization of
process analogous to that of political democracy; that is, one providing
regular methods for investigation, discussion, conflict, decision, and
tentative advance on the chosen course. Disputes between capital and
labor are normal, and it should be part of our system to arrange for
their development and solution with the least possible misunderstanding,
hostility, and economic waste. Small differences may be aired and
adjusted before a permanent committee made up from both parties, while
more serious differences, involving principles, after being formulated
by each side, may be precisely and thoroughly investigated by a public
agency in which both sides have confidence, in order that the situation
may be clearly seen and agreement reached, if possible. And where
struggle proves inevitable it should take place under public control and
in accordance with rules expressing the paramount ideal of a common
service. I understand something of this kind to be the programme of
competent students of the labor problem; and there is the same need of
regular process on all lines of growth.
There is every reason, in the United States at least, to anticipate not
a class war but a continuance of the comparatively mild reconnoissances
and skirmishes that have long marked industrial conflicts—whether they
are carried into politics or remain purely industrial. The function of
these light engagements is to determine approximately the strength of
the parties in view of the whole economic, social, and moral situation,
and so to establish a _modus vivendi_. Violent or reactionary methods,
or any others not adapted to the general situation, will fail.
We may expect gradual but continuous progress in the direction of ideals
of social justice. Such ideals, as they are diffused, tried out, and
adapted, tend to become standards to which controversies are referred.
They are neither purely humanitarian nor purely economic, but represent
a working compromise between the two.
The total-cleavage theory of economic classes is taken most seriously in
Europe, owing to the fact that European classes are largely castes, an
inheritance from an older order, which actually do embrace almost the
whole being of the member; and also to repressive methods and the
comparative absence of democracy. It would be hard, I imagine, to find
an American writer of equal weight who would assent to the assertion of
the German economic historian, Karl Bücher, that “all modern industrial
development tends in the direction of producing a permanent laboring
class ... which in future will doubtless be as firmly attached to the
factory as were the servile laborers of the mediæval manor to the
glebe.”[62] I think that the division into two classes is on the whole
diminishing, and that while the society of the future will not be
classless, its classes will be mainly functional groups, increasingly
open to all through a democratic and selective system of education.
Class consciousness, however, is desirable, within limits, as a means to
the diminution of privilege, which still exists in great power and can
scarcely be overcome except as it is understood.
The question of race differs from that of nationality or of social class
in that it supposes a division among men springing not merely from
differences in history, environment, and culture, but rooted in their
biological nature.
Of such a hereditary division we have almost no _definite_ knowledge,
except as regards the somewhat superficial traits of color and
physiognomy. It is even possible to doubt whether there is any important
innate psychical difference among the several branches of mankind. It is
certain that different spirits are to be found in different races, that
there is a deep and ancient unlikeness in the whole inner life of the
Japanese, for example, and of the English. But the same is true of
peoples like the English and German, who are not of distinct races. In
other words, a group soul, a special _ethos_ or _mores_, is the sure
result of historical causes acting for centuries in a social system; so
that different souls will exist whether the race is different or not.
And as race differences, when present, are always accompanied by
historical differences, it is not possible to make out just how much is
due to them alone.
Many of us, to be sure, feel that the judgment of common sense, however
incapable of demonstration, shows us unlikenesses of temperament and
capacity, between Negroes and whites, for example, that cannot
altogether be accounted for by influences acting after birth. Admitting
that color is unimportant, the divergence in cranial and facial type may
reasonably be supposed to mean _something_, however unfair may be their
interpretation by white people.
It would be strange, reasoning from general principles, if races which
have been bred apart for thousands of years and, in some cases, have
become so different physically, should remain just alike as to innate
mental traits. Surely it is not in accordance with what we know of
heredity to suppose that millenniums of growth and adaptation in
different environments have no effect upon this most plastic part of the
organism. Or why should races be presumed equal in mental and moral
capacity when family stocks in the same race are so evidently unequal in
these respects?
The next easiest thing to accepting the apparent as true is to declare
it wholly false; and so in regard to races; if you have come to see that
many of the differences supposed to be racial are due to environment,
you will save yourself trouble by believing that all of them are of this
nature. But I cannot think that a patient consideration of the facts
justifies this conclusion.
However, judgments of race capacity are very open to bias, and have
proved so untrustworthy in the past that it is not surprising that some
students regard them as altogether illusory. Fortunately, it is seldom
necessary, in dealing with practical questions, to depend upon such
judgments.
In practice we never have to deal with race as a separate factor, but
always in intimate combination with social and historical conditions.
The essential thing, for most purposes, is to understand the working of
the combination as a whole. Accordingly, a race problem, as understood
in practical politics and sociology, does not mean one based upon a
strictly biological distinction, but one in which biological and social
factors, working together, produce lasting differences sufficient to
keep the groups apart. In Europe most of the cases where there is an
acute race situation—as between Germans and Poles in northern Prussia,
between Russians and Finns, Germans and Czechs, or English and Irish—are
cases where the strictly biological difference is probably not very
great; the question is mainly one of antagonistic traditions. In our own
Negro problem natural differences in color and physiognomy certainly
play a large part, if only by defining the race line and instigating
psychological attitudes. What we have to deal with, in any case, is the
total situation.
It follows from the importance of environment that differences which
make a race problem in Europe do not necessarily do so when the peoples
in question migrate to America and undergo in common the assimilating
influences of a democratic civilization. Germans and Czechs, for
example, do not form hostile groups here as they do in Bohemia. America
has demonstrated the impermanence of many Old World divisions, while
others seem to be as persistent here as anywhere. The only conclusive
test is that of experience.
In so far as races remain separate in different nationalities, with no
large or permanent intermigration, it is not apparent that their
relations offer any race problem distinct from those that attend the
contact of nations. Thus, as regards international questions, the
Americans and Japanese are simply two nations, like the Americans and
the French. There is no reason why their trade and diplomacy should be
affected by the difference in physiognomy, and if they should go to war
the issue will depend upon the energy, organization, and intelligence of
the two peoples, precisely as in the case of closely kindred nations
like the English and German. What may be the basis of the assumption of
certain writers that the mere existence of two races, even with the
Pacific between them, means war, it is not easy to understand. It would
seem that the motives impelling to peace or war would be about the same
as between nations of the same race; always excepting the possibility
that through more intimate contact by migration racial feeling might be
excited and might extend to the respective nations. I do not mean to
suggest that this last is a very great or an unavoidable danger, but
evidently it is one way, possibly the only way, in which international
relations might take on a racial character.
Another prospect, often brought forward with confidence, is that if
interracial migration is forbidden, the nation or nations representing
the more prolific race will go to war in order to secure an outlet for
their surplus population. But if they do this they will do it not as
races but as nations; and would do it quite as readily, perhaps, if
there were no difference in race. The nation, not the race, is the
organized militant unit, eager to plant colonies and extend its power
and prestige. The mere shedding of surplus racial population is not an
object of ambition, and so not in itself likely to be a motive to war.
In other words, it is not apparent why Japan and China, being peopled by
a distinct race, are any more likely to attack Canada, in case the
latter forbids immigration, than if they were peopled by Germans or
Scandinavians.
Another matter whose importance in this connection is perhaps
exaggerated is that of economy of subsistence. We are told regarding the
Japanese that “he can underlive, and therefore he can outlive, any
Occidental,” but I question whether the unique solidarity of his social
system, intimate, ardent, adaptable, is not a more formidable element of
power than his supposed ability to live on a cup of rice a day. If the
latter is real and advantageous it is merely a factor in national
efficiency, like others, with no peculiar and inevitable tendency to
bring on conflict.
It would seem, then, that in order to have a true race problem the races
must mingle in considerable numbers in the same political system. And in
that case the ruling factor is not the precise amount of strictly racial
difference, as distinct from social, but the actual attitude of the
groups toward each other. If this is such as to keep them separate and
perhaps hostile, it matters little, as regards the social situation,
whether it is based on sound ethnology or not. In the United States the
immigration of Europeans, even though they be of stocks considerably
different from the older inhabitants, as Italians, Slavs and Jews, seems
not to create a true race problem, experience indicating that
assimilation will take place within a generation or two. On the other
hand, the presence of the Negro in large numbers creates a race problem,
because assimilation is generally held undesirable, and does not, in
fact, take place. Whether the immigration of Orientals in large numbers
to our Pacific coast would create an enduring race question is, perhaps,
undetermined, but experience indicates that it would.
Permanent race groups in the same social system constitute race caste.
It seems to me that this is beyond comparison the most urgent race
question with which we have to deal; not only as regards its present
aspects, but because it is likely to have a rapid growth. Many
countries, including our own, already suffer from it, and the freedom of
movement given by modern conditions, together with the persistence of
race sentiment, tend to make it almost universal. That is, if the
Chinese, for example, can compete successfully with other races in
certain industrial functions, there is no reason, apart from legal
restriction, why they should not form colonies in every country where
those functions are in demand.
It is doubtful how far it may be possible to reconcile race caste with
the democracy and solidarity which are coming to be the ideals of modern
nations. In the Southern United States the caste feeling is not
diminishing, and while we hope that it is taking on forms more favorable
to the co-operation of the races on a plane of fair play and mutual
respect, the issue is somewhat in doubt. Certainly the present condition
is not in harmony with democratic ideals, and its defenders can hardly
claim more for it than that it makes the best of a difficult situation.
Much the same appears to be true of the contact of races in other parts
of the world, in South Africa, Australia, India, and even in Eastern
Europe.
As a matter of theory a society made up of race groups co-operating in
equality and good-will is not clearly impossible. But at the best it
would be more like an international federation than like a nation with a
single soul. We can imagine a harmonious Austria-Hungary, but should not
wish our own country to resemble it. And, as a matter of fact, it has
always been the case, so far as I know, that where there were race
castes under the same government one of them has domineered over the
rest. It is a situation by all means to be avoided if possible.
There are, then, quite apart from any comparison of races as to
superiority, excellent grounds of national policy for preventing their
mingling in large numbers in the same state. So far as we can judge by
experience, the race antagonism weakens that common spirit, that moral
unity, that willing subordination of the part to the whole, that are
requisite to a healthy national life. I see no reason why America and
Australia should not avoid the rise of an unnecessary caste problem by
restricting Oriental immigration, or why the Oriental nations should
not, on the same ground, discourage Occidental colonies. Such measures
would not imply anything derogatory to the other race, and, this being
understood, should give no offense.
_PART VI_
VALUATION