This discussion is necessarily didactic and assertive for it is
impossible to prove or disprove any of these postulates. It is for that
reason, and the lack of time that I cite no instances. They would
be merely illustrative and not probative, for the human intellect is
unequal to any adequate inductive study of the subject, and human life
is too short to classify, master and digest the data even if they could
be assembled. All that can be done is to state conclusions reached
upon such observation and experience as is to each of us available
and commend them to the judgment of others upon their observation and
experience. Whatever can be proved at all can be reduced to a syllogism
but agreement upon premises is in this case impossible.
But some things we do know and among them is the awful fact that man is
powerless before Nature which deals with man precisely as it deals with
other forms of life. Man can dodge Nature as the scale insect cannot,
but higher forms of life can, and man the most effectively of all. But
in the end she will get every one of us. Those will live happiest and
longest who best know how to work with Nature and not against her. And
individualism and not collectivism, is Nature's way. If our own object
is the greatest aggregate of human comfort, we should realize that the
greatest possible aggregate can only be attained when each individual
under the stimulus of self-interest gets the largest measure of comfort
for himself.
In the dim future which we shall not see, this may lead to conclusions
which one shudders to think of. It may be that the time will come on
this planet when in a decreasing population struggling for existence
from the remains of an exhausted Nature, the greatest good of the
greatest number will be found by the deliberate extinction of those
least fit, that what is available may be reserved to those who can make
best use of it. Astronomers tell us there are probably dead worlds whose
spectrums tell us that they are of the same material as our own planet
and presumably once the abode of sentient beings, for it is unthinkable
that of all the worlds which occupy space which has no confines,
the small planet which we inhabit alone supports sentient life. What
tragedies darkened the last centuries of life in those dying worlds or
what may happen to our own remote descendants happily we cannot know,
but human experience does not enable us to conceive of any physical
structure which does not ultimately resolve itself into its primal
elements. On our own planet we know of forms of once vigorous life
which utterly perished by reason of physical changes which we cannot
comprehend, and that high civilizations one after another have risen,
flourished, faded and become extinct while yet our own world was young,
and who shall say what is in store for our own civilization?
If this is gruesome why should one be asked to present a subject which
cannot be adequately presented without showing what pygmies we are and
how helpless in the grasp of an all-powerful Nature.
And the application of it all is that when Nature's sole and universal
stimulus to progress is the love of self which she has implanted in
every soul, it is folly to assume that we can better Nature's work
by substituting for the universal stimulus to effort a more or less
fleeting emotion which takes hold of but a very few and persists with
but a still smaller number. Whatever scheme of collectivism we may
establish, we know in advance that every member of the collective
group will continuously strive to get for himself to the utmost limit
regardless, if it could be discovered, of what is rightfully due. And a
plan of Society which each member of Society is striving to subvert is
doomed from its birth.
And the fourth count in the indictment of Socialism is that it is
contradictory to Nature to such a degree as to make its permanence
unthinkable because destructive not only of human comfort and happiness
but of human life.
Expressed in briefest form the four counts are as follows[3]:
I. Public servants produce less for consumption than private workers.
Decrease of consumption means increase of human misery. Therefore,
Socialism, making all of us public servants would increase human misery.
II. Brains, not Labor, creates the social dividend. Ability is
demonstrated only under strenuous competition inspired by self-interest.
Therefore, Socialism, excluding competition inspired by self-interest
would obliterate the social dividend.
III. The accumulating man inspired by selfishness is essential to
any social saving. Social saving is essential to the support of
an increasing population. Therefore, Socialism by eliminating the
Capitalist would make life impossible to many who now live.
IV. To fight Nature is to die. Socialism fights Nature. Therefore,
Socialism would destroy the race.
It is a matter of premises, and I have already said that the premises in
these syllogisms can neither be proved or disproved. People, I suppose,
will continue to fight over them but I shall not. No human life is long
enough and no human intellect strong enough to demonstrate or disprove
any one of them. Experimentally mankind is always somewhere trying out
one or the other of these postulates but success or failure only proves
that they did or did not prove true in that particular case.
An underlying fallacy of Socialism is the concept that poverty or at
least extreme poverty, can be banished from the world. It cannot. It
is impossible for the effective to produce and save as fast as the
ineffective will waste and destroy if they can get at it. No truth in
the Bible is more profound than the saying: "The poor ye have always
with you."
The concept is based upon an unfounded belief in the competence of the
average man. He is not nearly so competent an animal as he has taught
himself to believe. We read our Nordau and with but the very slightest
ability to judge what he says we declare him a libeler. We read our Le
Bon and declare off-hand that it is absurd and wicked to say that
the crowd has no more sense than a flock of sheep. When we hear of
an alienist who cites the increase of murder, suicide and insanity as
evidence that mankind is losing its mental balance, we declare that the
man is crazy himself.
I do not say that such men are or are not right or anywhere near right
in the views they express, but I do say that they are writing in cold
blood in the light of a great deal of exact knowledge and certainly are
much better judges of the truth in those matters than most of us who
dispose of them so brusquely.
The fact is that man, like other animals, differs greatly in individual
ability but he differs from other animals in that the difference between
the most competent and the least competent is enormously greater than
such difference in any other species. The highest type of man is almost
Godlike in the scope and keenness of his intellect. The lowest type
reaches depths of degradation not touched by any other animal. There is
no degradation so utterly degraded as a degraded mind.
If you ask what all this has to do with Socialism, the reply is that
it has everything to do with it. The sole object which I have in this
address is to impress upon you the concept of man as an animal in the
grip of an all-powerful Nature, and differing from other animals solely
in his greater ability to dodge and evade, and so prolong the processes
through which Nature will surely get him in the end; to conceive of him
also as subject to the same law which enthralls other animals, whereby
the fittest who demonstrate their fitness in the economic struggle shall
survive while the least fit shall perish; to conceive of him as prepared
and inspired for the struggle by the love of self which Nature has
implanted in his soul in order that the race may endure to the utmost
limit possible for it, by the survival of those having the greatest
capacity for happiness.
And, having fixed this conception in your minds, form your own judgment
of the probable outcome of a contest which would begin by eliminating
from man the one principle--selfishness--through which he must survive
if he survives at all.
Thus far, I have dealt with the subject in icy cold blood as a purely
economic problem wholly excluding all considerations of humanity. It
must be dealt with in that way if we are to deal with it intelligently.
What must be will be, however dearly we may wish it otherwise. But we do
not wish to go home with ice in our souls, and let us see if we cannot
find some reflections more comforting. I am sure that we can.
I have said that humanitarianism has no legitimate place in economic
discussion and it has not. But it has a very large place outside
economic theory and often in contact with economic results.
There may be economic gains which ought to be and will be surrendered
for social gains, as long as we can do it and live. A very reliable test
of the prosperity of a Society is the extent to which it can without
distress, surrender economic goods in exchange for social goods.
I have attacked Socialism, not Socialists. Multitudes of Socialists are
most charming men and women, and the aspirations of pure Socialism are
the noblest of which the human mind can conceive. How impossible they
are of realization I think they are, I have endeavored to show. But
there are individualists whose ideals are equally noble. Any conception
that Socialists as a class are upon a higher ethical plane than
individualists may be dismissed. Personally, I fear that at present the
average ethical plane of Socialists is below that of opponents for the
allurements of Socialistic theory have attracted to that cult a great
number of the economically impotent, but nevertheless greedy, who know
nothing and care less about Socialistic theory but lust for that which
they have never earned. It is they who promote class hatred as well
as class consciousness. They are an effective offset, morally, to the
greedy and consciousless employers who nevertheless perform a useful
economic function which the greedy among the Socialists do not.
But, my controversy at this time is not with them, but with the
Socialistic idealists moved by the loftiest conception of the welfare
of mankind and the most earnest desire to promote it. And now let us
introduce somewhat of humanitarianism, which, while it has no place
in economic theory, is that which most ennobles and beautifies human
character. And here let me register my last attack upon Socialistic
controversy, which is, that fundamentally it tends to degrade human
character by adopting for, and applying to the manual workers of the
world a contemptuous epithet. When Marx, if it was he, I am not sure,
shouted: "Proletariat of all nations, unite" he said a very wicked
thing. It is not my conception of the manual worker that he is a mere
"child getter," but rather that he is as such, morally and socially the
equal of any of us, from whose ranks there are continually emerging the
leaders of thought, of discovery, of direction and of accumulation to
whose abilities and activities all human progress is due, and I cannot
hear without indignation suggestions from his own would-be leaders
which impair his self-respect. I wish, for a concrete example, that the
workingman should pay his poll tax and contribute to his occupational
insurance with the rest of us, not to relieve Capital of a burden, but
that the character of the working man himself may be strengthened by a
conscious contribution to the upkeep of Society.
Our emotions are stronger than our reasoning powers, and as a matter
of fact, collective human action is and during any period which we need
consider will be controlled by humanitarian instincts and not by the
rigidity of economic theory. Individually, we do and always shall, seek
each his own particular interest. Collectively, we invariably consider
the welfare of all. This has been particularly impressed on me during
the last few years, during which I have presided over the deliberations
of a large body of good citizens, probably about equally divided between
the accumulating and non-accumulating classes. Whatever the individual
practices and tendencies of the respective members, whenever after
discussion the collective opinion is expressed on any social topic the
vote is invariably substantially unanimous for that policy which those
present believe will make for the general good. It is not true that the
rich desire to oppress the poor. It is not true that there is any real
conflict of interest between classes. It is true that there is a general
desire for the general welfare. And it is also true that the general
welfare will be surest and soonest attained by cooperation, and not
conflict between classes, under the direction of those proved to be
strongest and wisest.
I have said, and I am sure you must agree, that man economically differs
from other animals mainly in his greater ability to evade the operation
of Nature's own laws and to make use of the material resources and
forces of Nature to assist him in so doing. And he does it mainly by
collective action which is displayed most effectively and beneficently
in those great economic organizations which we hate and stigmatize
as "trusts" and which every one of us longs to get into as our best
assurance of economic stability.
The problem is how to so regulate these economic regulators of Nature,
that each shall get from their beneficent operation, not that which is
his ethical due, for that we can never determine, nor would it be for
the general welfare that each should receive his due, but that which
each can receive without injury to Society.
It is certain that each will get less as the ages go by unless by our
human ingenuity we can make production keep pace with population. At
present, production greatly varies in different parts of the world,
and the condition in each country is indicated by the amount of leisure
possible to the average man. As population increases, leisure must
decrease. If we work in a crowded community but eight hours per day,
some will die among the weaker who would have lived if all had worked
nine hours. The best index of the economic condition of any country is
the amount of leisure which can be enjoyed by the average man without
noticeable increase of mortality among the least efficient. The
mortality tables have not yet been studied in their relations to this
subject, but in time they will be. In Australia, mostly unsettled, the
eight hour day is easy. If enforced in China the mortality would be
awful. But then China has great but untouched natural resources to be
developed by machinery devised elsewhere, and whose development will
decrease mortality, while at the same time, at least for a long period,
permitting more leisure. These conditions tend to equalize themselves
throughout the world and in time the contest between humanitarian
instincts and economic pressure will reach a world-wide equilibrium
through the operation of natural law. What will happen then I do not
know. Neither can any of us know.
What we do know is that in each generation the aggregate of human
happiness will be in a direct ratio with production per capita, up to
the limit of the ability of the earth to produce food. We also know that
the rate of production per capita will increase or decrease in a direct
ratio with the amount of human energy devoted to production and not
wasted in conflict, whether individual, class or international.
Each generation must work out its own problems in its own way. As
population grows denser, individual freedom must more and more give
way to collective restraint and direction. We in the cities have less
freedom than those of the country, and the greater the city the more the
individual impulse must be subordinated to collective control.
But we must never attempt to supplant individual selfishness, inspiring
individual initiative and energy by any form of community ownership or
direction which destroys or lessens opportunity for the more competent
and especially the economically exceptional man. You would create
thereby a machine operated by machinists for the accomplishment of
machine purposes which are the purposes, good or bad as the case may be,
of the individual operators who have never been and are not likely to be
the economically competent.
For our generation the problem is, while not restricting either the
opportunity or the reward of the economically competent, to compel the
predatory and extortionate among them to behave decently, so that others
of their class may do so without ruin--to which end, in my judgment,
jail sentences and not fines will be most effective.
And likewise, to compel the ill-disposed and violent among the
economically ineffective, to obey the laws or suffer the consequences.
To bother our heads much less about Social theories, whose premises it
is impossible to establish, and much more about the practical relief of
the unfortunate by both individual and collective action and suppression
of parasitism among both rich and poor.
To encourage and promote the organization of interests, not for
contention, but for cooperation.
To fully recognize, that only by personal exertion according to his
ability does any one earn the right to live, but that the reward of
exertion will be and should be apportioned, not in the ratio of energy
displayed, but in that of its effectiveness and usefulness to Society.
To learn to differentiate between that reasonable discontent which is
the mainspring of human progress, and that unreasonable discontent which
is the destruction of Society.
And finally, each of us according to his ability and opportunity, to
practice and inculcate respect for the law, the maintenance of order,
regard for the rights of others, admiration for the successful, sympathy
with the unfortunate, charity for all, hope for humanity, joy in the
simple life and contentment therewith.
[Footnote 1: See Note 2.]
[Footnote 2: The accuracy of this reference was challenged by a young
Socialist, after the address. I have not read Capital for many years
but think I cannot be far wrong in my statement and, in any case,
the conception as stated, whether accurately Marxian or not, is the
conception of all who give vitality to Socialism in this country. Hence,
I do not take the time to verify my recollection. I am a busy man and it
is no light thing to tackle Capital with intent to extract its precise
meaning. Multitudes who have tried it have failed. Perhaps I was one of
them. Of course Marx recognized the value of Labor other than manual,
but his appeal was to manual workers and it is mainly they who have
responded.]
[Footnote 3: Some of these counts would bear subdividing but they would
come out all right. Any syllogism will come out all right when you
assume the premises.]
*****