THE GRIEVANCES OF THE SOCIALISTS
"Socialism is not only a theory of another and better system of
society: it is an indictment of the existing order."[95] The Socialist
conception of society as at present constituted, given in the
preceding chapter, will have prepared the reader to some extent for
the Socialist grievances. These grievances are three in number, and
may be summed up as follows:
(1) The workers are for all practical purposes slaves who are kept in
chains and forced to work by the capitalist class.
(2) The rich men cause the poverty of the poor by defrauding them of
the largest part of their wages.
(3) The workers receive only from one third to one fourth of the wage
which is their rightful due.
Let us look into these grievances.
According to the Socialist leaders, the workers--
Helots in hunger nursed
Slaves of their reign accursed[96]--
keep the rich in affluence. Nevertheless they themselves are kept in
poverty, degradation, and slavery by the capitalists whom they nourish
by their labour. "The landlord owns the raw material and can live in
idleness. The capitalist owns the machinery and can live in idleness.
The worker has nothing, except his ability to work, and he cannot
work without the consent of the landlord and the capitalist.
Therefore, he is virtually a slave. He cannot control his own
life."[97]
As a matter of fact the position of the worker is worse than was that
of the slave. "It did not always pay to starve a slave, because if he
died you might have to buy another one. Therefore the lot of the slave
under a good master was in many respects better than that of the
proletariat in our great cities."[98] "Poverty rather than property is
the reward of labour to-day."[99] "Poverty is our reward for creating
plenty, and the class that lives in luxury by exploiting our labour
contemptuously informs us that the law of supply and demand condemns
us to suffer the most hideous privation whenever our excessive
industry has created a glut of all the things that satisfy human
needs."[100]
The workers are unfree, being enslaved by the capitalists. It is true
that they possess freedom of contract, but freedom of contract, like
individual liberty, is an illusion, because the workers, being
penniless, are compelled to accept whatever work is obtainable, and to
be satisfied with whatever wages are offered. "The right to sell in
the markets is now well established, but the chief difficulty with the
majority of workers lies in the fact that they have nothing but their
labour to sell, and a market is not easy to find even for that."[101]
Although co-operation has made millions of workers in Germany, France,
Belgium, and other countries prosperous and independent, independence
is, according to the Socialists, for some unspecified reason,
unobtainable for the workers of Great Britain, and co-operation is a
failure. "The chance of the great bulk of the labourers ever coming to
work upon their own land and capital in associations for co-operative
production, has become even less hopeful than it ever was."[102]
"Everywhere the workman is coming to understand that it is practically
hopeless for him, either individually or co-operatively, to own the
constantly growing mass of capital by the use of which he lives."[103]
The advent of the great industry has not benefited but harmed him.
"The supersession of the small by the great industry has given the
main fruits of invention and the new power over Nature to a
comparatively small proprietary class, upon whom the mass of the
people are dependent for leave to earn their living."[104] "The worker
is now a mere item in a vast industrial army over the organisation and
direction of which he has no control. He is free, but free only to
choose to which master he will sell his labour--free only to decide
from which proprietor he will beg that access to the new instruments
of production without which he cannot exist."[105]
As the capitalist class owns the factories, workshops, &c., the worker
has become to that class a slave in the full and generally accepted
meaning of the word. "The effect of private property in land and
capital is in all essential respects the same as was the effect of
private property in human beings. In each case slavery is the result.
The form may have changed, but the substance remains."[106] "The
labourer to-day is a slave, and labour has become a mark of
bondage."[107] Except for a slight difference in outward form, the
British wage-slaves are no better off than were the black slaves on
the sugar plantations in the past. "Much as the 'free-born Briton' may
dislike to hear the painful truth recited, it is a fact, not to be
controverted, that four-fifths of our total population are bound as
completely and as miserably as ever was a black African slave to a
Western planter. There is no real freedom which is not economic
freedom. He is a slave who depends for his bread upon the will or the
whim of a man like himself, or of a number of such masters."[108] In
other words, capitalism and slave-owning are for all practical
purposes synonymous words, as may be seen from the Socialist
Catechism: "Q. What constitutes the chief difference between
capitalism and slave-owning? A. The fact that the capitalist goes
through the form of bargaining with the labourer as to the amount of
the portion of the produce that shall be returned to him.--Q. What is
this farce called? A. Freedom of contract.--Q. In what sense is it
free? A. In this sense--that the labourer is free to take what is
offered or nothing.--Q. Has he anything to fall back upon? A. He has
absolutely nothing in countries where the tyranny of capitalism is
untempered by any form of Socialism."[109]
To those working men who might object that it is a gross exaggeration
to say that the British worker is a slave, and that he is penniless,
the Socialist agitator answers: "What? You are a free man and not a
slave? There are no slaves in this country? What is a slave? One who
works at the bidding of another, and only by permission of another,
and for the profit of that other. Does not that fit your case exactly?
Do you work when you like and idle when you like? Not you! You work
when the capitalist requires your labour, when your services will be
useful in making a profit for him. When that is not the case you can
starve in the gutter, although there may be all the necessaries of
life in profusion around you. These things do not belong to you,
although you and your class have made them; they are so much wealth
which your masters have acquired from your unpaid labour, things which
you have produced, but for which you have never been paid, out of
which you have been swindled by the natural operation of the system of
wage-slavery of which you are the unconscious victim. From this
condition of things there is no escape while the whole of the people
do not own the means of production. Nothing but the abolition of the
class ownership of the means of life, and the substitution of
ownership of the whole people, will abolish this form of
slavery."[110]
The foregoing grievance is absurd. If regular work for a regular wage,
agreed upon by contract, is slavery, then all salaried men from the
Prime Minister and the Lord Chancellor downward are also
"wage-slaves."
The Socialist agitator, after having told the working men that they
are no better off than negro slaves, then asks his hearers, as a rule:
"Why is it that the producers in this country are the poorest of the
population? Why is it that those who do not produce are the
richest?"[111] The manner in which this question is put suggests the
reply. Indeed, all Socialists agree in holding the rich responsible
for the poverty of the poor, as the following utterances will show:
"Socialism contends that the poverty of the poor is caused by robbery
on the part of the rich. The mansion explains the hovel. Belgravia has
its counterpart in Shoreditch. The factory, the foundry, the
ship-building yard account for the shooting lodge, the yacht, and the
tours in foreign lands. The long day's toil of one class renders
possible the life-long play of the other."[112] "If you have no
unemployed at the top of the social ladder you will have none at the
bottom."[113]
"The riches of the rich class are the cause of the poverty of the
masses."[114] "You make the automobile, he rides in it. If it were not
for you, he would walk; and if it were not for him, you would
ride."[115] "Colossal poverty is the foundation of colossal wealth; he
who would eliminate the poverty of the masses assails the wealth of
the few."[116]
The foregoing arguments, or rather assertions, may sound very
convincing and may be exceedingly useful for propaganda purposes, but
they are disproved by facts. If the existence of the rich were the
cause of the poverty of the masses, the workers in countries which
possess few rich capitalists, such as Ireland, Spain, Italy, Servia,
and Bulgaria, should be exceedingly well off; the workers in the
countries where the richest millionaires live, such as the United
States, should be the poorest. In reality, the American workmen are
the most prosperous, whilst the workers in Ireland and other
millionaire-less countries are the poorest. Rich men are not the
consumers, but merely the trustees and managers, of the national
wealth which is invested chiefly in reproductive undertakings--mills,
railways, mines, &c.--which supply comforts and conveniences to all.
The capitalists, the employers, British Socialists say, have become
rich by defrauding the worker of his wages. The worker must starve so
that a few rich people may live in luxury, and things will become
better for the worker only when there are no more rich men. "The gains
of the capitalist are simply the losses of labour! The partly or
wholly unearned incomes of the rich consist of the unpaid, withheld
wages of the industrious poor."[117] "Only by living off another man's
labour and denying another man the fruits of his toil can riches be
acquired. Riches are directly responsible for poverty, and the art of
being rich is the art of keeping one's neighbour poor. When there are
no rich there will be no poor. To the wealth of the few, acquired at
the expense of the many, and not to drink or want of thrift, are all
the evils of our social life to be ascribed."[118] "Production is
carried on to-day purely in the interest and for the profit of the
class which owns the instruments of production."[119]
There are ninety-and-nine who live and die
In want and hunger and cold,
That one may revel in luxury,
And be wrapped in its silken fold;
The ninety-and-nine in their hovels bare,
The one in a palace with riches rare.[120]
Ye poor of wealthy England,
Who starve and sweat and freeze
By labour sore to fill the store
Of those who live at ease;
'Tis time to know your real friends,
To face your real foe,
And to fight for your right
Till ye lay your masters low;
Small hope for you of better days
Till ye lay your masters low.[121]
The working men are, according to the Socialist agitators, "excluded"
from property by the capitalist class which owns all the land,
factories, machinery, &c. The capitalist class has thus reserved for
itself a monopoly of all the instruments of production. Consequently,
"the only means by which the excluded class can live is by working for
the capitalist class--by getting some one or other of the capitalist
class to allow them access to the tools and materials in his
possession, and pay them wages in return for their labour."[122]
However, the capitalists do not grant to the workers access to the
instruments of production free of charge. They exact a toll from them,
and employ them only if, by so doing, they can secure a profit for
themselves. In the fact that an employer will engage workmen only if
he can make a profit by their labour, the Socialists see a cruel
injustice. "Your capitalist class draw upon this excluded horde of
landless, toolless, foodless lack-alls, and do actually find work for
as many as they can employ at a profit to themselves. This excluded
class have no rights--not even the elementary right to exist. What God
meant by creating them when He knew, or might have known, that
everything belonged to the capitalists, nobody can understand."[123]
"The whole of our industrial system is founded on a principle existing
nowhere else in Nature, the principle of production and distribution
for profit. If no employer can make a profit out of the worker's
labour he is cast into the unemployed army."[124] "Seven out of every
eight persons in your community, 37,500,000 of the men, and women, and
children who form your nation, can lay no claim to any right to
exist--exist only on sufferance. If one or other of the irresponsible
persons who own the country can be induced to allow them to earn their
bread, well and good; if not, they must die. At the present moment
there are 700,000 persons shut out in this manner from any chance of
obtaining food to eat. You call it being 'out of work,' and can see
the spectral army, 700,000 strong, hungry and in want. They are not
kept idle and hungry because there is no 'work.' The earth is there
with all its boundless store that their 'work' would turn into wealth
if they could but get at it. They are kept idle because those who own
the country cannot find them employment at a profit to themselves,
because the blind, fatuous insanity of your 'system of trade' makes no
provision even for keeping its slaves in work."[125]
According to the Socialists, the employer of labour has no right to
work at a profit, and the capitalist has no right to demand rent or
interest. "The great central truth of Socialistic economy, ever to be
kept in mind, is Adam Smith's definition of wages: 'The produce of
labour is the natural recompense or wages of labour.' From this
'natural recompense' rent and profit are, in Socialist eyes,
unnatural, illegitimate abstractions, to be recovered and added to
wages as speedily as possible."[126] "Profit is the result of unpaid
labour; it is the produce of the working man, for which the latter
receives no equivalent. If he received his proper and just share, if
the capitalist could not deprive him of this, then the capitalist
could make no profit."[127]
Not only are "rent" and "profit" illegitimate abstractions, but they
are downright theft. Every landowner, every banker, every
manufacturer, every shopkeeper is a thief. All business for profit is
swindling. "Land-rent and capital-rent are thefts from the produce of
labour."[128] "The manufacturer aims primarily at producing, by means
of the labour he has stolen from others, not goods, but profits."[129]
"What is successful business but cheating? What is the whole basis of
capitalist industry but the use of the means of production, not for
the legitimate end of producing wealth for use, but for the purpose of
making profit for the few by despoiling, sweating, pillaging, and
murdering the many?"[130]
Even the more moderate Socialists complain that work is carried on by
the employers only "at a profit to themselves," and they wish to
abolish this state of affairs, which, they argue, is demoralising to
the working men, and is the cause of low wages and unemployment. "The
workman is called into the workshop when capital can profitably employ
him, and turned adrift again the moment capital finds it can no longer
turn his services to profitable account. He is not consulted as to
when he shall be employed or when cast adrift. His necessities and
those of his dependents are no concern of anyone save himself. He has
no right to employment, no one is under obligation to find him work,
nor is he free to work for himself, since he has neither the use of
land nor the command of the necessary capital."[131] "So long as
industry is carried on for profit instead of for use, for gain instead
of for need, so long must the evils of low wages and no wages go
on."[132]
The grievance that the manufacturers manufacture "not for use but for
profit" is ridiculous. The manufacturers manufacture things which the
public will buy and use. There is consequently no distinction between
manufacturing for use and manufacturing for profit, except this, that
no manufacturer will give his time and trouble, and run considerable
risks, without adequate compensation. The complaint must therefore be
limited to the fact that the employer of labour makes a profit. The
question now arises: "What does the manufacturer do with his
earnings?" In the vast majority of cases he will use by far the larger
part of his profits for renewing machinery and enlarging his works,
and thus increase the national capital and the national power of
production, spending privately only a director's salary which he would
also receive as a director-employee of the Socialist commonwealth.
"The employer who works without a profit breaks himself,"[133] and in
breaking himself he breaks up the factory. Universal production
regardless of profit would lead to universal bankruptcy, whilst the
curtailing of profits may lead to a proportionate curtailment in the
expansion of industry and in the production of articles for use, and
to general poverty. It has the same effect whether the workers destroy
the capitalist's capital or whether they break the machinery and
devastate the corn-fields.
The complaints of the Socialists as to the way in which the workers
are exploited by the capitalist class are founded not only on
arguments such as those given in the foregoing but on figures as well,
and these are exceedingly curious and interesting. Under titles such
as "How the Worker is Robbed,"[134] statements are made every day, and
by all Socialists, which are to prove that the national income is
inequitably divided between capitalists and workers. These statements
are calculated to make every workman's blood boil, and they seem to
confirm the contention of the Socialists that the capitalists
inhumanely plunder the working masses. However, these figures are so
palpably false and so grossly misleading that attention cannot
sufficiently strongly be drawn to the deception which is constantly
being practised upon the workers. I hope, therefore, that my readers
will patiently and carefully consider the following.
The figures relating to the yearly income of the "capitalist class"
and the "working class" which are given in innumerable Socialistic
writings, and which are brought forward at almost every Socialist
meeting and lecture, are usually taken from a pamphlet entitled
"Facts for Socialists from the Political Economists and
Statisticians," published by the Fabian Society. The copy lying before
me bears the notice, "Tenth Edition (Revised), 111th thousand, 1906."
That pamphlet furnishes the statistical basis of fact to the Socialist
agitation. Its effect may be measured by its enormous circulation. It
contains a vast number of quotations from Blue-books, political
economists, and statisticians; and a certain show of learning, of
thoroughness, and of conscientiousness gives it at first sight the
appearance of being a reliable and honest production. However,
appearances are proverbially deceptive.
According to "Facts for Socialists," the whole national income amounts
to _1,800,000,000l._ per year (page 3), and is derived from the
following sources:
"I.--RENT
"The total profits from the ownership of lands, houses, tithes, &c.,
the rents of mines, quarries, ironworks, gasworks, waterworks, canals,
fishings, shootings, markets, tolls, &c., must amount to at least
_290,000,000l._[135]
"II.--INTEREST ON CAPITAL
"The profits of public companies, foreign investments, railways, &c.,
assessed to income tax in the United Kingdom, the interest payable
from British public funds and from Indian, Colonial, and Foreign
Governments' funds, and the interest on capital employed in private
undertakings of manufacture or trade cannot be less than
_360,000,000l._ Adding hereto the rent (_290,000,000l._), we have a
total of _650,000,000l._ for rent and interest together. This
represents the proportion of the nation's income claimed from the
workers, _not in return for any service rendered to the community, but
merely as the payment for permission to use the land and the already
accumulated capital of the country_.[136]
"III.--PROFITS AND SALARIES
"The numbers and total income of this large class cannot be exactly
ascertained. It includes workers of all grades, from the exceptionally
skilled artisan to the Prime Minister, and from the city clerk to the
President of the Royal Academy. It is convenient for statistical
purposes to include in it all those who do not belong to the 'manual
labour class.' If we take the 'rent of ability' to have increased in
the same proportion as the assessments to income tax, this prosperous
body may be estimated to receive for its work as profits and salaries
about _460,000,000l._ annually.[137]"
Adding up the income from "Rent," "Interest and Capital," and "Profits
and Salaries," the pamphlet continues:
"THE CLASSES
"The total drawn by the legal disposers of what are sometimes called
the 'three rents' of land, capital, and ability amounts at present to
about _1,110,000,000l._ yearly, or just under two-thirds of the total
produce.
"AND THE MASSES
"Allowing for the increase since these estimates were made, we may
safely say that the manual labour class receives for all its millions
of workers only some _690,000,000l._"[138]
In a short table the distribution of the national income is then given
as follows:
Rent L290,000,000
Interest 360,000,000
Profits and Salaries 460,000,000
-------------
Total (that is, the income of the
legal proprietors of the three
natural monopolies of land, capital,
and ability) 1,110,000,000
Income of manual labour class 690,000,000
-------------
Total produce L1,800,000,000[139]
At first sight it seems outrageous that "the income of the legal
proprietors of the three natural monopolies of land, capital, and
ability" should come to _1,110,000,000l._ per annum, and the income of
the manual labour class only to _690,000,000l._ per annum, about
one-third of the whole, especially as we learn on page 4 of the
pamphlet that the "idle rich" are only a small fraction of the
community. This statement would prove the assertion that the idle rich
are causing the poverty of the poor to be correct if it were honest
and fair, but it is neither the one nor the other.
In the first place the foregoing statement divides the nation into two
classes "the masses" and "the classes": manual labourers and "the
legal proprietors of the three natural monopolies." As the pamphlet is
addressed to the uncritical body of general readers, and especially to
working men, these will naturally divide, owing to the artful wording
of the phrase, the national income between manual labourers and
capitalist monopolists. According to this pamphlet everyone who is not
a labourer is a capitalist monopolist. Therefore the capitalist
monopolist class includes all lawyers and doctors, all parsons and
clerks, all officers and salaried officials. Every business man, every
farmer, every fisherman, every greengrocer, every baker, every
butcher, every sailor, every cobbler, every chimney-sweep, every
clerk, being not a wage-earning labourer, is "one of the legal
proprietors of the three natural monopolies," or in plainer language,
a monopolist. At least, the income of this very large class has
barefacedly been credited to the capitalist class, whilst its members
have been utilised (on page 4 of the pamphlet) to swell the ranks of
the workers. This is dishonesty number one.
The income of the exceptionally skilled artisans, who also form a very
large class, is credited on page 7 to the "classes" under the heading
"profits and salaries." They also are included among the
"monopolists," although their number has likewise been utilised (on
page 4) to swell the number of the workers. This is dishonesty number
two.
Let us now look at the result of the dishonest Fabian juggling with
figures by comparing the statement regarding the national income
contained in the Fabian pamphlet with a recent statement of Mr.
Chiozza Money, M.P., who is a Socialist, and who divides the national
income as follows:
Income of working class (33,000,000 people)
about L650,000,000
Income of middle class (all except manual
labourers and the rich--small business
men, managers, clerks, public servants,
&c., with incomes up to L700--9,750,000
people) about 475,000,000
Income of rich (with incomes L700 and
above) (1,250,000 people) about 600,000,000
--------------
Total about L1,725,000,000[140]
From the foregoing statement it appears that the rich draw not
two-thirds, but only one-third, of the national income, and this fact
should be carefully borne in mind in view of the contents of the
following pages.
The pamphlet states on page 6 that _650,000,000l._ per annum are paid
in the shape of rent and interest, "not in return for any service
rendered to the community, but merely as the payment for permission to
use the land and the already accumulated capital of the country." The
national capital is invested chiefly in perishable objects such as
houses, factories, railways, steamships, mines, &c., which depreciate
unless kept in proper repair. There is wear and tear in capital as in
everything else. Capital is lost and destroyed every day. Lastly, the
national capital is growing, and must continue growing, in accordance
with the growing capital requirements of the time and the growing
number of its inhabitants, or the country will decay. New houses, new
factories, new railways, new steamships must be built and new mines be
opened to increase the comfort of all. From _200,000,000l._ to
_300,000,000l._ are thus reinvested every year in Great Britain, and
only by this constant process of reinvestment is it possible to
maintain and increase the productive power of the country for the
benefit of all. The _200,000,000l._ to _300,000,000l._ which are
yearly reinvested in reproductive undertakings are found by the
capitalists, the trustees, directors and managers, not the consumers,
of the national industry and of the national wealth. This sum comes
out of their earnings, which thus benefit not only the capitalists but
the whole nation. Much irrelevant statistical matter is given in the
pamphlet, but this large item is left out. That is dishonesty number
three.
On page 6 the profits of public companies are treated as "Interest on
capital," and interest on capital is disparagingly called "unearned
income" on page 7. Most British industries are carried on by limited
companies, and limited companies are as a rule formed in this way,
that the partners in the former private enterprise become directors.
As directors they receive a purely nominal salary. They work as much
as they did whilst the business was a private concern, and their
income depends on their usually very large holding of shares. The
large director-shareholders, and their number is very great, earn
their dividends by hard work. Nevertheless their whole income is
included in the item "interest on capital," and called "unearned
income." This is dishonesty number four.
On page 7 the property of the "manual labour class," or the poor, in
land and capital is given as follows:--
In 1901 the deposits in P.O. Savings Bank were L140,392,916
The deposits in Trustee Savings Banks were 51,966,386
Consols purchased for small holders were 14,450,877
In 1900 the capital of Building Societies was 46,775,143
The funds of Trade-Unions, Co-operative,
Friendly, and Provident Societies were 72,219,991
The funds of Industrial Life Assurance
Societies were 22,998,793
------------
Total L348,804,106[141]
In reality the property of the "manual labour class" in land and
capital amounts not to _348,804,106l._, but to at least
_1,000,000,000l._[142] This is dishonesty number five.
The imports of Great Britain are larger than the exports by about
_150,000,000l._ The larger part of the money paid for these imports
goes in wages paid to foreigners, and is paid away by the British
capitalist class out of their earnings. British wage-earners surely
cannot expect to be paid wages in respect of articles made abroad.
However, no allowance for this large item has been made in comparing
the appropriation of the national income between capital and labour.
This is dishonesty number six.
Between one hundred and two hundred million pounds of the national
income is derived from foreign investments. The income derived from
foreign investments should in fairness either be left out of the
account or the income of foreign labour, received in respect of these
investments, be added to the British labour income. In comparing the
income of capital and labour, the pamphlet takes note of the earnings
of British capital on all five continents and on the sea, and compares
with it only the income of British labour--although foreign, not
British labour, produces the foreign income of British capital.
Giving as authority an ancient Board of Trade Return, and wishing to
magnify the difference in the earnings of the idle rich and the
industrious poor, the average yearly income of "those of the manual
labour class who are best off" is given at _48l._ per adult. This
means _18s._ per week. In view of the fact that most British workers
earn between _1l._ and _2l._ per week, that in many Trade-Unions the
_average_ wage is about _35s._ per week, the figures given are
palpably wrong unless the female workers are included. Whether this is
the case or no is not stated, but even if the wages of both sexes
should be joined together they appear to be very considerably
understated. This is dishonesty number seven.
There are many more unfair, misleading, and dishonest statements in
this pamphlet which it would lead too far to enumerate.
Most of the important pamphlets issued by the Fabian Society are
signed by their authors. The fact that the most effective, "Facts for
Socialists," is unsigned seems to indicate that the author--apparently
a well-known leader of the Fabians--had some sense of shame, and it is
to be hoped that the Fabian Society will immediately, and publicly,
repudiate this dishonest pamphlet.
The statements contained in the pamphlet "Facts for Socialists," may
be misleading and utterly dishonest, but they are very useful for
propaganda purposes. Nothing is more likely to inflame the masses than
to be told that the "idle rich" take more than two-thirds of the
national income. The practical effect of this pamphlet may be seen in
utterances such as the following: "It has been estimated that in our
country of the wealth produced, one-third is enjoyed by those who earn
it and two-thirds by those who have not laboured for it. To put it in
other words, of every three pounds earned by labour, one pound goes to
him who earned it and two pounds to others who have done nothing
towards its production."[143] "For two-thirds of his time the worker
is a slave, labouring not for himself but for others."[144] "On the
average at the present time the workers produce nearly four times as
much as they consume."[145] "Nearly two-thirds of the wealth produced
is retained by an eighth of the population."[146] "The great mass of
the people, the weekly wage-earners, four out of five of the whole
population, toil perpetually for less than a third of the aggregate
product of labour, at an annual wage averaging at most _40l._ per
adult, and are hurried into unnecessarily early graves by the severity
of their lives."[147] "Out of the wealth which his labour creates, the
worker receives but one-third. He is paid one-third the value of his
labour, and when he seeks to lay it out he is robbed of one-half its
purchasing power, and all this is done by a Christian people."[148]
"Q. How does the capitalist act? A. He extorts from those labourers
who are excluded from the land a share of all that they produce, under
threat of withholding from them the implements of production and thus
refusing to let them work at all.--Q. On what terms does the
capitalist allow the labourers to work? A. The capitalist agrees to
return to them as wages about a quarter of what they have produced by
their work, keeping the remaining three-quarters for himself and his
class.--Q. What is this system called? A. The capitalist system."[149]
"By analysing the returns of the income-tax, various economists show
that the value received by the working class and the superintendents
of labour amount to a third or less of the wealth produced. The
income-tax returns, however, are not a very reliable test of the
degree of exploitation, though, of course, they afford us valuable and
incontestable evidence that the worker does not receive more than a
third of what he produces. One to four, or one to five, in my opinion,
expresses more accurately the rate of exploitation."[150]
I am not prepared to give an estimate how the national income is
distributed between hand workers, brain workers, and men who live on
their income without doing any useful work, because such an estimate
could be arrived at only by guesswork. However, it is quite clear that
it is untrue that the wage-earners receive only one-third, one-fourth,
or one-fifth of the wages which they ought to receive, as is
constantly stated.
FOOTNOTES:
[95] _Justice_, October 19, 1907.
[96] _Social-Democratic Federation Song Book_, p. 13.
[97] _The Worker's Burden_, p. 1.
[98] Hyndman, _Social Democracy_, p. 9.
[99] Macdonald, _Socialism_, p. 12.
[100] _Protect the Home_, p. 1.
[101] _John Ball_, p. 10.
[102] _Facts for Socialists_, p. 12.
[103] Sidney Webb, _The Difficulties of Individualism_, p. 15.
[104] _Ibid._ p. 7.
[105] _Ibid._ p. 12.
[106] Keir Hardie, _Can a Man be a Christian on a Pound a Week?_ p.
12.
[107] McClure, _Socialism_, p. 27.
[108] Ethel Snowden, _The Woman Socialist_, p. 11.
[109] Joynes, _The Socialist Catechism_, p. 5.
[110] _To the Man in the Street_, Social-Democratic Federation
Leaflet.
[111] Hyndman in Debate, _Will Socialism Benefit the English People?_
p. 5.
[112] Leatham, _The Class War_, p. 4.
[113] _Socialism, For and Against_, p. 6.
[114] Snowden, _Socialists' Budget_, p. 11.
[115] Debs, _Industrial Unionism_, p. 5.
[116] Kautsky, _Class Struggle_, p. 10.
[117] Hall, _The Old and New Unionism_, p. 4.
[118] Lister, _Riches and Poverty_, pp. 13, 14.
[119] Bax and Quelch, _A New Catechism of Socialism_, p. 7.
[120] _Poems for Socialists_, p. 8.
[121] _Social-Democratic Federation Song Book_, p. 25.
[122] Washington, _A Corner in Flesh and Blood_, p. 14.
[123] _Ibid._
[124] Benson, _Socialism_, p. 5.
[125] Washington, _Nation of Slaves_, p. 11.
[126] Davidson, _The Old Order and the New_, p. 30.
[127] _Some Objections to Socialism_, p. 7.
[128] Davidson, _The Old Order and the New_, p. 45.
[129] Morris, _Useful Work and Useless Toil_, p. 30.
[130] _Some Objections to Socialism_, p. 20.
[131] Keir Hardie, _From Serfdom to Socialism_, p. 52.
[132] Hall, _The Old and New Unionism_, p. 5.
[133] Macdonald, _Socialism_, p. 6.
[134] _The Socialist Annual_, 1907, p. 16 f.
[135] _Facts for Socialists_, p. 5.
[136] _Facts for Socialists_, pp. 6, 7.
[137] _Ibid._ p. 7.
[138] _Ibid._ p. 8.
[139] _Facts for Socialists_, pp. 8, 9.
[140] See _Daily News_, November 28, 1907.
[141] _Facts for Socialists_, p. 7.
[142] See Mr. Quail's paper in the _Contemporary Review_ for August
1907.
[143] Ward, _The Ideal City_, pp. 5, 6.
[144] Keir Hardie, _From Serfdom to Socialism_, p. 15.
[145] Quelch, _Social-Democratic Federation_, p. 5.
[146] _Manifesto of the Socialist Party of Great Britain_, p. 8.
[147] Sidney Webb, _The Difficulties of Individualism_, p. 8.
[148] Keir Hardie, _Can a Man be a Christian on a Pound a Week?_ p. 7.
[149] Joynes, _The Socialist Catechism_, p. 2.
[150] Hazell, _Summary of Marx's "Capital,"_ p. 9.