HOW THE PROGRESS OF SOCIALISM MAY BE CHECKED
What can be done to check the growth of Socialism? Some most
interesting statistics supplied by the German Social-Democratic party
will furnish the best reply to that question. An analysis of the
electorate of Magdeburg and Bremen, two typical commercial and
industrial towns, gave the following result:
COMPOSITION OF ELECTORATE
Magdeburg Bremen
Numbers Per cent. Numbers Per cent.
1. Capitalists 4,491 = 8.08 5,085 = 8.34
2. High officials 559 = 1.06 197 = 0.32
3. Medium officials 2,304 = 4.35 615 = 1.01
4. Lower officials 4,364 = 7.75 3,567 = 5.85
5. Professional men 1,422 = 2.55 1,047 = 1.72
6. Newer middle-class 3,924 = 7.06 4,882 = 8.01
7. Independent artisans 3,704 = 6.67 5,196 = 8.53
8. Bakers and grocers 932 = 1.57 1,124 = 1.84
9. Older middle-class 2,787 = 5.01 4,074 = 6.68
10. Clerks and bookkeepers 3,121 = 5.62 5,247 = 8.61
11. Working men in State and
municipal employment 1,424 = 2.55 1,415 = 2.32
12. Working men in privateer
employment 26,423 = 47.73 28,573 = 46.77
------ ----- ------ -----
55,563 = 100 60,962 = 100[1197]
Commenting upon the foregoing table, a German Socialist periodical
wrote: "An analytical comparison of the electorate of Hamburg and
Bremen reveals an extraordinary similarity in its social composition.
It shows that the workers form hardly a majority of the population.
They can be victorious only when they march hand in hand with
professional men, the lower officials, and the newer middle-class.
However, not all working men are Socialists. At the last election
3,000 working men in Magdeburg, and 2,500 working men in Bremen, voted
against Social-Democracy. The patriotic anti-Socialist working-men's
associations are rapidly increasing their membership. A thousand
workmen, one-third of the whole occupied at the Krupp-Gruson Works in
Magdeburg, have joined the anti-Socialist working-men's associations.
The 'working-men's associations for fighting Social-Democracy' have
grown in a surprising fashion."[1198]
The lower middle-class forms the strongest bulwark against the
progress of Socialism, and Socialists know it. The philosopher of
British Socialism, for instance, wrote: "The proletariat proper, the
class which bears the future Socialist world in its womb, by no means
at present everywhere outweighs, numerically, all other classes. On
the contrary, so far as I am aware, this is only the case in Great
Britain and some of the North American States, and even in these
countries the majority is not large. The bulk of the non-proletarian
sections of the democracy are by no means proletarian or
Social-Democratic, even in their instincts, let alone Socialistic in
their convictions. The predominating, or at all events most
influential, elements in the non-proletarian democracy are what, for
brevity, I have rather loosely termed the clerk and the shopkeeping
class: in other words, they who are, or hope to become, small
capitalists, the small middle-class. This last section of the 'people'
or the democracy is, as such, the most formidable, because the most
subtle, enemy with which the Socialist movement has to contend. The
aim of the small capitalist, and of him who hopes to become one, is
security and free play under the most advantageous conditions for his
small capital to operate. On this account the little bourgeois, the
small middle-class in its various sections, is the great obstacle
which will have to be suppressed before we can hope to see even the
inauguration of a consciously Socialist policy. It must be destroyed
or materially crippled as a class before real progress can be
made."[1199]
Whilst many Socialists wish to destroy the lower middle-class, others,
especially the Fabians, endeavour to convert it to Socialism, and to
set it on against the wealthy. They argue: "The commercial clerk with
his reading, his writing, his arithmetic, and his shorthand is a
proletarian, and a very miserable proletarian, only needing to be
awakened from his poor little superstition of shabby gentility to take
his vote from the Tories and hand it over to us. The small tradesmen
and ratepayers who are now allying themselves with the Duke of
Westminster in a desperate and unavailing struggle--against the rising
rates entailed by the eight hours day and standard wages for all
public servants, besides great extensions of corporate activity in
providing accommodation and education at the public expense, must
sooner or later see that their interest lies in making common cause
with the workers to throw the burden of taxation directly on to
unearned incomes."[1200] "It only needs one evening's intelligent
discussion of this monstrous state of affairs to make a beginning of a
really sensible and independent organisation of the middle classes for
their own defence and for their escape from between the two millstones
of organised Labour and organised Plutocracy, which are at present
grinding the last penny in the pound out of them."[1201] It is
estimated that there are in England 500,000 clerks.[1202] With the
object of permeating this large section of the middle class with
Socialism, a new monthly paper, the "Clerk," has recently been started
under Fabian auspices.
Socialism is undermining the lower middle-class, and it is
unconsciously being assisted in this policy by short-sighted
anti-capitalistic Parliamentary legislation, which, as usual, hits
hardest the smaller capitalists. If Great Britain wishes to erect a dam
against the rising tide of Socialism, she must strengthen the lower
middle-class in town and country by well-devised legislation, and she
should before all re-create her peasantry. Great Britain should
encourage the accumulation of small capitals by encouraging thrift. At
present thrift is discouraged by the difficulty which small savers
experience in obtaining satisfactory investments. The low interest of
2-3/4 per cent. paid by the British savings-banks--Continental
savings-banks give 4 per cent.--is quite inadequate; and the British
Company Laws are so bad and sound investments so scarce that the small
investor who wants a higher return than 2-3/4 per cent. is almost
certain to lose his money if he buys stocks or shares. Leasehold
investments are very unsatisfactory, because the object bought
automatically reverts to the landlord, and small freehold properties
are as a rule unobtainable under the present system of land-holding.
Therefore the first and most important step to encourage thrift should
be to enable the small saver to invest his savings profitably and
securely in land and houses where it is under his own control.
Co-operation also should be encouraged. Co-operative banking, which is
highly developed in Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy, but almost
unknown in Great Britain, would at the same time greatly benefit the
small investor and the small _bona-fide_ borrower.
FOOTNOTES:
[1197] _Die Neue Gesellschaft_, September 1907, p. 325.
[1198] _Die Neue Gesellschaft_, September 1907, pp. 325, 326.
[1199] Bax, _Essays in Socialism_, pp. 40, 41.
[1200] Shaw, _The Fabian Society_, p. 26.
[1201] _New Age_, November 1907, p. 23.
[1202] _Clerk_, January 1908.