It appears that from the moment when it will no longer be possible to
exploit the individual, there will no longer be any individuality. At
least it so appears to the capitalists who deem that which does not
yield them a profit to be non-existent. To the socialists, on the
other hand, the existence of individuality appears dependent upon its
freedom. Now, as it is, as we have just seen, only in the socialist
period that all individuals will be able to have the means necessary
to true freedom, it follows that the triumph of socialism will be the
triumph of the individual, the blossoming of personality.[15] In the
socialist period, indeed, all those who shall wish to work will be
able to do so, by choosing freely their favorite kind of socially
useful labor, and all will be able to consume the social products
proportionally to the labor they have furnished. Will it not,
therefore, be to the interest of all to work, and to try to make the
work as little toilsome and as productive as possible? Is there not
here, apart from the joy of serving one's fellows, the most powerful
motive for emulation both as regards the quantity of labor
individually performed and in the invention or discovery of improved
processes tending to procure for each and all the maximum of benefits
in return for the minimum of exertion?
A certain degree of audacity is required to dare compare the producers
of the future under socialism, with the office-holders of to-day under
capitalism. What interest has the office-holder of to-day to reduce to
the minimum the cost to the State of the services it is his function
to perform? His salary, determined before any labor is performed, is
independent of the quantity and quality of his labor; and so the
office-holder, though full of righteous indignation against the
workingmen who wish to work only eight hours a day, seeks, on his own
part, to work just as little as possible, and he squanders and wastes
as much as possible, because extravagance never costs him a penny and
sometimes brings him in handsome rewards. While under the regime of
socialism, the personal interest of the individual will be in harmony
with the social interest of all, under the present system the personal
interests of the office-holders are in direct conflict with the
interest of the State. Under the regime of socialism, men, all men,
will be producers and not office-holders; they will not be
office-holders any more than are members of a family who, in order to
provide for the satisfaction of the needs of the family, perform
severally various functions.
* * * * *
In conclusion, the whole question may be summed up thus: Is the spirit
of initiative and personal energy likely to be more broadly
disseminated among the masses, when the latter know that they are
compelled to make their own wretchedness the instrument of the
prosperity of a minority, or when they shall know that their own
prosperity will be whatever they, by their own labor, shall make it,
under a system of absolute equality of privilege? There can be no
doubt as to the answer in the minds of all those who are not too much
wonted to the denial of truth. But, under the regime of socialism,
initiative[16] and energy cannot promote personal interests alone;
while being more favorable than ever to those interests, they will
necessarily be advantageous to all. As soon as the material conditions
necessary for the attainment of individual prosperity shall also be
the conditions requisite for social prosperity, we shall see grow out
of this harmony a system of ethics based on the newly acquired
consciousness of social solidarity, and under this new morality the
action of the individual will have not only as its necessary though
indirect result, but also as its guiding principle, motive and goal,
the social or common interest, the greatest good of all.
It would seem that from this time forth all ought to unite their
efforts in order to hasten the dawn of the realization of a social
environment so advantageous to all. In fact, excepting a very small
minority of great financiers and capitalists, all those who work or
have worked with hand or brain, all have an interest in the triumph of
socialism; unfortunately all are not conscious of the undeniable
precariousness of the situation of all under the regime of capitalism,
and so do not see the advantage for all in transforming this regime
along the lines of its social tendencies, and many will stupidly
strive to prolong the state of things which is the cause of their
troubles.
Socialism repels no one and is open to all those, without regard to
their social position, who comprehend its necessity. But, if it is far
from repelling them--striving indeed to attract them--it cannot count
in advance, generally speaking, on those who too readily become the
dupes of illusions begotten by a more or less privileged social
situation and who are unable to rise above their class prejudices
sufficiently to form a just conception of their own true interests.
While preparing the ground for socialism which is developing wherever
the capitalist mode of production has reached a certain stage, the
economic phenomena at the same time necessitate the economic and
political organization of the industrial[17] laborers, and they are
the class immediately and directly interested in the triumph of
socialism.
Small industrial employers, artisans, retail merchants and working
owners of small farms have two-fold class-ties. They belong to the
possessing class, and yet they are exploited. When, under the empire
of a naive pride and vain hopes, the man proud of his possessions, the
would-be capitalist, dominates in them, they give heed to the dirty
blackguards who are forever telling them that the common laborer and
the socialist wish to take their little property away from them, and
they show a hostility which, in spite of their conservative
intentions, is aimed against those whom they ought to help if they
wish to be sure of retaining the little property they have. When,
under the lashes of the thong of stern reality they feel themselves
exploited and menaced with expropriation, they applaud the demands of
the socialists and help support--as has often been seen--the strikes
of the laborers. According to circumstances the middle class declares
itself in this way, now on one side, now on the other.
The industrial workingmen who own nothing but their labor-power and to
whom the possession, even in a dream, of the smallest estate is an
impossibility, cannot possibly conceive the false idea that they have
anything to lose by the victory of socialism. From that to thinking
that they have everything to gain by that victory is not far; for this
all that is needed is for them to be brought into contact with the
socialist propaganda. Therefore the principal mission of socialism is
to instruct and organize the multitudes of industrial laborers; they
must be won over the first of all. This which is, in fact, for the
middle class only a defensive war against the great capitalists
becomes an offensive war for the great majority of the industrial
laborers who have to conquer that which the middle class has only to
preserve.
Because we say that socialism makes its appeal more particularly to
the industrial laborers, we beg our critics not to represent us as
saying that socialism ought to neglect the members of all other
classes. Socialism struggling for the emancipation--no longer
impossible--of all, combats in every rank or stratum of society all
exploitations and all oppressions, and it is the natural defender of
all the exploited and all the oppressed. Just as, to regard the
economic question as the sum and substance of militant socialism is
not, in our opinion, to restrict its field of action, but is simply,
on the contrary, to pursue directly the only line of conduct by which
it is possible for its efforts to produce broad general effects, so to
devote our attention first of all to the industrial laborers is not to
make light of the wrongs of the other victims of exploitation, but it
is to devote our first efforts to strengthening the active army of
socialism, formed of those who have to blaze out a path for the
movement, but whose success--which will be hastened by the support of
members of other classes--will assure the emancipation of all.