ON THE ASCENDENCY OF A CAPITALIST CLASS—CONTINUED
THE INFLUENCE OF AMBITIOUS YOUNG MEN—SECURITY OF THE DOMINANT CLASS IN
AN OPEN SYSTEM—IS THERE DANGER OF ANARCHY AND SPOLIATION?—WHETHER THE
SWAY OF RICHES IS GREATER NOW THAN FORMERLY—WHETHER GREATER IN AMERICA
THAN IN ENGLAND.
In any society where there is some freedom of opportunity ambitious
young men are an element of extreme importance. Their numbers are
formidable and their intelligence and aggressiveness much more so: in
short, they want an opening and are bound to get it.
As the members of this class are mainly impecunious, it might be
supposed that they would be a notable offset to the power of wealth;
and in a sense they are. It is their interest to keep open the
opportunity to rise, and they are accordingly inimical to caste and
everything which tends toward it. But it by no means follows that they
are opposed to the ascendency of an upper class based on wealth and
position. This becomes evident when one remembers that their aim is
_not to raise the lower class, but to get out of it_. The rising young
man does not identify himself with the lowly stratum of society in
which he is born, but, dissatisfied with his antecedents, he strikes
out for wealth, power or fame. In doing so he fixes his eyes on those
who have these things, and from whose example he may learn how to gain
them; thus tending to accept the ideals and standards of the actual
upper class. He gives a great deal of attention to the points of view
of A, a railroad president, B, a senator, and even of C, head of a
labor organization, but to a mere farmer or laborer, whose hand is on
no levers, he is indifferent.
The students of our universities are subject to a conflict between
the healthy idealism of youth, which prevails with the more generous,
and the influences just indicated, which become stronger as education
draws closer to practical affairs. On the whole, possessed of one great
privilege and eager to gain others, they are not so close in spirit to
the unprivileged classes as might be imagined.
Thus the force of ambitious youth goes largely to support the
ascendency of the money-getting class; directly, in that it accepts
the ideals of this class and looks forward to sharing its power;
indirectly, in that it is withdrawn from the resources of the humbler
class. How long will the rising lawyer retain his college enthusiasm
for social reform if the powers that be welcome him and pay him
salaries?
We have then the fact, rather paradoxical at first sight, that the
dominant class in a competitive society, although unstable as to
its individual membership, may well be more secure as a whole than
the corresponding class under any other system—precisely because it
continually draws into itself most of the natural ability from the
other classes. Throughout English history, we are told, the salvation
of the aristocracy has been its comparative openness, the fact that
ability could percolate into it, instead of rising up behind it like
water behind a dam, as was the case in pre-revolutionary France.
And the same principle is working even more effectually in our own
economic order. A great weakness of the trades-union movement, as of
all attempts at self-assertion on the part of the less privileged
classes, is that it is constantly losing able leaders. As soon as a man
shows that marked capacity which would fit him to do something for his
fellows, it is ten to one that he accepts a remunerative position, and
so passes into the upper class. It is increasingly the practice—perhaps
in some degree the deliberate policy—of organized wealth to win over in
this way the more promising leaders from the side of labor; and this is
one respect in which a greater class-consciousness and loyalty on the
part of the latter would add to its strength.
Thus it is possible to have freedom to rise and yet have at the same
time a miserable and perhaps degraded lower class—degraded because the
social system is administered with little regard to its just needs.
This is more the case with our own industrial system, and with modern
society in general, than our self-satisfaction commonly perceives.
Our one-sided ideal of freedom, excellent so far as it goes, has
somewhat blinded us to the encroachments of slavery on an unguarded
flank. I mean such things as bad housing, insecurity, excessive and
deadening work, child labor and the lack of any education suited to the
industrial masses—the last likely to be remedied now that it is seen to
threaten industrial prosperity.
It is hard to say how much of the timidity noticeable in the discussion
of questions of this sort by the comfortable classes is due to a vague
dread of anarchy and spoliation by an organized and self-conscious
lower class; but probably a good deal. If power, under democracy, goes
with numbers, and the many are poor, it would seem at first glance that
they would despoil the few.
To conservative thinkers a hundred, or even fifty, years ago this
seemed almost an axiom, but a less superficial philosophy has combined
with experience to show that anarchy, in Mr. Bryce’s words, “is of all
dangers or bugbears the one which the modern world has least cause to
fear.”[123]
The most apparent reason for this is the one already discussed, namely,
that power does not go with mere numbers, under a democracy more than
under any other form of government; a democratic aristocracy, that is,
one whose members maintain their position in an open struggle, being
without doubt the strongest that can exist. We shall never have a
revolution until we have caste; which, as I have tried to show, is but
a remote possibility. And as an ally of established power we have to
reckon with the inertia of social structure, something so massive and
profound that the loudest agitation is no more than a breeze ruffling
the surface of deep waters. Dominated by the habits which it has
generated, we all of us, even the agitators, uphold the existing order
without knowing it. There may, of course, be sudden changes due to the
fall of what has long been rotten, but I see little cause to suppose
that the timbers of our system are in this condition: they are rough
and unlovely, but far from weak.
Another conservative condition is that economic solidarity which
makes the welfare of all classes hang together, so that any general
disturbance causes suffering to all, and more to the weak than to the
strong. A sudden change, however reasonable its direction, must in this
way discredit its authors and bring about reaction. The hand-working
classes may get much less of the economic product than they ought to;
but they are not so badly off that they cannot be worse, and, unless
they lose their heads, will always unite with other classes to preserve
that state of order which is the guaranty of what they have. Anarchy
would benefit no one, unless criminals, and anything resembling a
general strike I take to be a childish expedient not likely to be
countenanced by the more sober and hard-headed leaders of the labor
movement. All solid betterment of the workers must be based on and get
its nourishment from the existing system of production, which must
only gradually be changed, however defective it may be. The success of
strikes, and of all similar tactics, depends, in the nature of things,
on their being partial, and drawing support from the undisturbed
remainder of the process. It is the same principle of mingling
stability with improvement which governs progress everywhere.
And, finally, effective organization on the part of the less privileged
classes goes along with intelligence, with training in orderly methods
of self-assertion, and with education in the necessity of patience and
compromise. The more real power they get, the more conservatively, as
a rule, they use it. Where free speech exists there will always be a
noisy party advocating precipitate change (and a timid party who are
afraid of them), but the more the people are trained in real democracy
the less will be the influence of this element.
Whatever divisions there may be in our society, it is quite enough
an organic whole to unite in casting out tendencies that are clearly
anarchic. And it is also evident that such tendencies are to be looked
for at least as much among the rich as among the poor. If we have at
one extreme anarchists who would like to despoil other people, we have,
at the other, monopolists and financiers who actually do so.
It is a common opinion that the sway of riches over the human mind
is greater in our time than previously, and greater in America than
elsewhere. How far is this really the case?
To understand this matter we must not forget that the ardor of the
chase—as in a fox hunt—may have little to do with the value of the
quarry. The former, certainly, was never so great in the pursuit of
wealth as here and now; chiefly because the commercial trend of the
times, due to a variety of causes, supplies unequalled opportunities
and incitements to engage in the money-game. In this, therefore, the
competitive zeal of an energetic people finds its main expression. But
to say that wealth stands for more in the inner thought of men, that
to have or not to have it makes a greater intrinsic difference, is
another and a questionable proposition, which I am inclined to think
opposite to the truth. Such spiritual value as personal wealth has
comes from its power over the means of spiritual development. It is,
therefore, diminished by everything which tends to make those means
common property: and the new order has this tendency. When money was
the only way to education, to choice of occupation, to books, leisure
and variety of intercourse, it was essential to the intellectual life;
there was no belonging to the cultured class without it. But with free
schools and libraries, the diffusion of magazines and newspapers, cheap
travel, less stupefying labor and shorter hours, culture opportunity
is more and more extended, and the best goods of life are opened, if
not to all, yet to an ever-growing proportion. Men of the humblest
occupations can and do become gentlemen and scholars. Indeed, people
are coming more and more to think that exclusive advantages are
uncongenial to real culture, since the deepest insight into humanity
can belong only to those who share and reflect upon the common life.
The effect is that wealth is shorn of much of that prestige of
knowledge, breeding and opportunity which always meant more than its
material power. The intellectual and spiritual centre of gravity,
like the political, sinks down into the masses of the people. Though
our rich are rich beyond the dreams of avarice, they mean less to the
inner life of the time, exercise less spiritual authority, perhaps,
than the corresponding class in any older society. They are the objects
of popular curiosity, resentment, admiration or envy, rather than the
moral deference given to a real aristocracy. They are not taken too
seriously. Indeed, there could be no better proof that the rich are no
overwhelming power with us than the amount of good-natured ridicule
expended upon them. Were they really a dominant order, the ridicule, if
ventured at all, would not be good-natured. Their ascendency is great
when compared with a theory of equality—and in this sense the remarks
in the last chapter should be understood—but small compared with that
of the ruling classes of the Old World.
Over a class of frenzied gold-seekers, rich or poor, chiefly in the
towns, the money-idea is no doubt ascendant; but if you approach the
ordinary farmer, mechanic or sober tradesman you are likely to find
that he sets no high rate on wealth beyond what is necessary for the
frugal support of a family, and that he neither admires nor envies
the rich, but looks at the millionaire and thinks: “After all, it
isn’t life. What does he get out of it more than the rest of us?” The
typical American is an idealist, and the people he looks up to are
those who stand in some way for the ideal life—or whom he supposes
to do so—most commonly statesmen, but often writers, scientists or
teachers. Education and culture, as Mr. Bryce and others have noticed,
is cherished by plain people all over the land, often to a degree that
puts to shame its professed representatives.
We find, then, that agitators who strive to incite the people against
the rich encounter with disgust an idealism which refuses to believe
that their advantages are extravagantly great; and one of the main
grievances of such men is what they look upon as the folly or lack of
spirit of the poor in this regard.
Never before, probably, was there so large a class of people who,
having riches, feel that they are a doubtful blessing, especially in
relation to the nurture of children. Many a successful man is at his
wits’ end to give his children those advantages of enforced industry,
frugality and self-control which he himself enjoyed. One of the
richest men of the day holds that accumulations are generally bad for
the children, as well as for society, and favors almost unlimited
graduated taxation of inheritances.[124] According to the philosophy
which he supports by practice as well as theory, the man who finds
himself rich is to live modestly and use his surplus as a trust fund
for the benefit of the public.
What would a man wish for his own son, if he could choose? First, no
doubt, some high and engrossing purpose, which should fill his life
with the sense of worthy striving and aspiration. After this he would
wish for health, friends, peace of mind, the enjoyment of books, a
happy family life and material comfort. But the last, beyond that
degree which even unskilled labor should bring, he would regard as of
secondary importance. Not a straitened house and table but a straitened
soul is the real evil, and the two are more separable now than
formerly. The more a real democracy prevails, the less is the spiritual
ascendency of riches.
There is, for instance, no such settled and institutional deference
to wealth in the United States as there seems to be in England; the
reason being, in part, that where there are inherited classes there are
also class standards of living, costly in the upper class, to which
those who would live in good company are under pressure to conform. In
England there is actually a ruling order, however ill defined, which
is generally looked up to and membership in which is apparently the
ambition of a large majority of all aspiring men who do not belong
to it by birth. Its habits and standards are such that only the
comparatively rich can be at home in it. There is nothing corresponding
to this with us. We have richer men and the pursuit of riches is an
even livelier game, but there is no such ascendency in wealth, no such
feeling that one must be rich to be respectable. With us, if people
have money they enjoy it; if not, they manage with what they have,
neither regarding themselves nor regarded by others as essentially
inferior.
It is also a general feeling here that wealth should not be a
controlling factor in marriage, and it is not common for American
parents to object seriously to a proposed son-in-law (much less a
daughter-in-law) on the mere ground of lack of means, apart from his
capacity to earn a living. The matter-of-fact mercenariness in this
regard which, as we are led to believe by the novelists, prevails
in the upper circles of England, is as yet somewhat shocking to the
American mind.
Hereditary titles, sometimes imagined to be a counterpoise to the
ascendency of wealth, are really, in our time at least, a support and
sanction to it, giving it an official standing and permanence it cannot
have in democracy. We understand that in England wealth—with tact,
patience and maybe political services—will procure a title, which,
unlike anything one can get for money in America, is indestructible
by vice and folly, and can be used over and over to buy wealth in
marriage. “Nothing works better in America than the promptness with
which the degenerate scions of honored parents drop out of sight.”[125]
Rank is not an offset but a reward and bribe to wealth; perhaps the
only merit that can be claimed for it in this connection being that
the desire and deference for it imposes a certain discipline on the
arrogance of newly acquired riches.
The English idea that those in high offices should have a magnificent
style of living, “becoming to their station,” is also one that goes
with caste feeling. It makes it hardly decent for the poor to hold such
offices, and is almost absent here, where, if riches are important to
political success, the condition is one of which the people do not
approve and would gladly dispense with.
I doubt whether the whole conception which imputes merit to wealth
and seeks at least the appearance of the latter in modes of dress,
attendance and the like, is not stronger everywhere in Europe than in
the United States.
FOOTNOTES:
[123] The American Commonwealth, Chapter 94.
[124] Andrew Carnegie.
[125] T. W. Higginson, Book and Heart, 145.