of the things useful to him, and he who has them in abundance is rich,
or wealthy.
Note that I say this of "A primitive state of society," Jonathan, for
that is most important. _It is not true of our present capitalist
state of society._ This may seem a strange proposition to you at
first, but a little careful thought will convince you that it is true.
Consider a moment: Mr. Carnegie is a wealthy man and Mr. Rockefeller
is a wealthy man. They are, each of them, richer than most of the
princes and kings whose wealth astonished the ancient world. Mr.
Carnegie owns shares in many companies, steelmaking companies, railway
companies, and so on. Mr. Rockefeller, owns shares in the Standard Oil
Company, in railways, coal mines, and so on. But Mr. Carnegie does not
personally use any of the steel ingots made in the works in which he
owns shares. He uses practically no steel at all, except a knife or
two. Mr. Rockefeller does not use the oil-wells he owns, nor a
hundred-millionth part of the coal his shares in coal-mines represent.
If one could get Mr. Carnegie into one of the works in which he is
interested and stand with him in front of one of the great furnaces as
it poured forth its stream of molten metal, he might say: "See! that
is partly mine. It is part of my wealth!" Then, if one were to ask
"But what are you going to do with that steel, Mr. Carnegie--is it
useful to you?" Mr. Carnegie would laugh at the thought. He would
probably reply, "No, bless your life! The steel is useless to _me_. I
don't want it. But somebody else does. _It is useful to other
people._"
Ask Mr. Rockefeller, "Is this oil refinery your property, Mr.
Rockefeller?" and he would reply: "It is partly mine. I own a big
share in it and it represents part of my wealth." Ask him next: "But,
Mr. Rockefeller, what are _you_ going to do with all that oil? Surely,
you cannot need so much oil for your own use?" and he, like Mr.
Carnegie, would reply: "No! The oil is useless to me. I don't want it.
But somebody else does. _It is useful to other people._"
To be rich in our present social state, Jonathan, you must not only
own an abundance of things useful to you, but also things useful only
to others, which you can sell to them at a profit. Wealth, in our
present society, then consists in the possession of things having an
exchange value--things which other people will buy from you. So endeth
our first lesson in political economy.
And here beginneth our second lesson, Jonathan. We must now consider
how wealth is produced.
The Socialists say that all wealth is produced by labor applied to
natural resources. That is a very simple answer, which you can easily
remember. But I want you to examine it well. Think it over: ask
yourself whether anything in your experience as a workingman confirms
or disproves it. Do you produce wealth? Do your fellow workers produce
wealth? Do you know of any other way in which wealth can be produced
than by labor applied to natural resources? Don't be fooled, Jonathan.
Think for yourself!
The wealth of a fisherman consists in an abundance of fish for which
there is a good market. But suppose there is a big demand for fish in
the cities and that, at the same time, there are millions of fish in
the sea, ready to be caught. So long as they are in the sea, the fish
are not wealth. Even if the sea belonged to a private individual, as
the oil-wells belong to Mr. Rockefeller and a few other individuals,
nobody would be any the better off. Fish in the sea are not wealth,
but fish in the market-places are. Why, because labor has been
expended in catching them and bringing them to market.
There are millions of tons of coal in Pennsylvania. President Baer
said, you will remember, that God had appointed him and a few other
gentlemen to look after that coal, to act as His trustees. And Mr.
Baer wasn't joking, either. That is the funny part of the story: he
was actually serious when he uttered that foolish blasphemy! There are
also millions of people who want coal, whose very lives depend upon
it. People who will pay almost any price for it rather than go without
it.
The coal is there, millions of tons of it. But suppose that nobody
digs for it; that the coal is left where Nature produced it, or where
God placed it, whichever description you prefer? Do you think it would
do anybody any good lying there, just as it lay untouched when the
Indian roved through the forests ignorant of its presence? Would
anybody be wealthier on account of the coal being there? Of course
not. It only becomes wealth when somebody's labor makes it available.
Every dollar of the wealth of our coal-mining industry, as of the
fishing industries, represents human labor.
I need not go through the list of all our industries, Jonathan, to
make this truth clear to you. If it pleases you to do so, you can
easily do that for yourself. I simply wanted to make it clear that the
Socialists are stating a great universal truth when they say that
labor applied to natural resources is the true source of all wealth.
As Sir William Petty said long ago: "Labor is the father and land is
the mother of all wealth."
But you must be careful, Jonathan, not to misuse that word "labor."
Socialists don't mean the labor of the hands only, when they speak of
labor. Take the case of the coal-mines again, just for a moment:
There are men who dig the coal, called miners. But before they can
work there must be other men to make tools and machinery for them. And
before there can be machinery made and fixed in its proper place there
must be surveyors and engineers, men with a special education and
capacity, to draw the plans, and so on. Then there must be some men to
organize the business, to take orders for the coal, to see that it is
shipped, to collect the payment agreed upon, so that the workers can
be paid, and so on through a long list of things requiring _mental
labor_.
Both kinds of labor are equally necessary, and no one but a fool would
ever think otherwise. No Socialist writer or lecturer ever said that
wealth was produced by _manual labor_ alone applied to natural
resources. And yet, I hardly ever pick up a book or newspaper article
written against Socialism in which that is not charged against the
Socialists! The opponents of Socialism all seem to be lineal
descendants of Ananias, Jonathan!
For your special, personal benefit I want to cite just one instance of
this misrepresentation. You have heard, I have no doubt, of the
English gentleman, Mr. W.H. Mallock, who came to this country last
year to lecture against Socialism. He is a very pleasant fellow,
personally--as pleasant a fellow as a confirmed aristocrat who does
not like to ride in the street cars with "common people" can be. Mr.
Mallock was hired by the Civic Federation and paid out of funds which
Mr. August Belmont contributed to that body, funds which did not
belong to Mr. Belmont, as the investigation of the affairs of the New
York Traction Companies conducted later by the Hon. W.M. Ivins,
showed. He was hired to lecture against Socialism in our great
universities and colleges, in the interests of people like Mr.
Belmont. And there was not one of those universities or colleges fair
enough to say: "We want to hear the Socialist side of the argument!" I
don't think the word "fairplay," about which we used to boast as one
of the glories of our language, is very much liked or used in American
universities, Jonathan. And I am very sorry. It ought not to be so.
I should have been very glad to answer Mr. Mallock's silly and unjust
attacks; to say to the professors and students in the universities and
colleges: "I want you to listen to our side of the argument and then
make up your minds whether we are right or whether truth is on the
side of Mr. Mallock." That would have been fair and honest and manly,
wouldn't it? There were several other Socialist lecturers, the equals
of Mr. Mallock in education and as public speakers, who would have
been ready to do the same thing. And not one of us would have wanted a
cent of anybody's money, let alone money contributed by Mr. August
Belmont.
Mr. Mallock said that the Socialists make the claim that manual labor
alone creates wealth when applied to natural objects. _That statement
is not true._ He even dared say that a great and profound thinker like
Karl Marx believed and taught that silly notion. The newspapers of
America hailed Mr. Mallock as the long-looked-for conqueror of Marx
and his followers. They thought he had demolished Socialism. But did
they know that they were resting their case upon a _lie_, I wonder?
That Marx never for a moment believed such a thing; that he went out
of his way to explain that he did not?
I don't want you to try to read the works of Marx, my friend--at
least, not yet: _Capital_, his greatest work, is a very difficult
book, in three large volumes. But if you will go into the public
library and get the first volume in English translation, and turn to
page 145, you will read the following words:
"By labor power or capacity for labor is to be understood the
aggregate of those _mental and physical_ capabilities existing in a
human being, which he exercises when he produces a use-value of any
description."[2]
I think you will agree, Jonathan, that that statement fully justifies
all that I have said concerning Mr. Mallock. I think you will agree,
too, that it is a very clear and intelligible definition, which any
man of fair sense can understand. Now, by way of contrast, I want you
to read one of Mr. Mallock's definitions. Please bear in mind that Mr.
Mallock is an English "scholar," by many regarded as a very clear
thinker. This is how he defines labor:
"_Labor means the faculties of the individual applied to his own
labor._"
I have never yet been able to find anybody who could make sense out of
that definition, Jonathan, though I have submitted it to a good many
people, among them several college professors. It does not mean
anything. The fifty-seven letters contained in that sentence would
mean just as much if you put them in a bag, shook them up, and then
put them on paper just as they happened to fall out of the bag. Mr.
Mallock's English, his veracity and his logic are all equally weak and
defective.
I don't think that Mr. Mallock is worthy of your consideration,
Jonathan, but if you are interested in reading what he said about
Socialism in the lectures I have been referring to, they are published
in a volume entitled, _A Critical Examination of Socialism_. You can
get the book in the library: they will be sure to have it there,
because it is against Socialism. But I want you to buy a little book
by Morris Hillquit, called _Mr. Mallock's "Ability,"_ and read it
carefully. It costs only ten cents--and you will get more amusement
reading the careful and scholarly dissection of Mallock than you could
get in a dime show anywhere. If you will read my own reply to Mr.
Mallock, in my little book _Capitalist and Laborer_, I shall not think
the worse of you for doing so.
Now, let us look at the division of the wealth. It is all produced by
labor of manual workers and brain workers applied to natural objects
which no man made. I am not going to weary you with figures, Jonathan,
because you are not a statistician. I am going to take the statistics
and make them as simple as I can for you--and tell you where you can
find the statistics if you ever feel inclined to try your hand upon
them.
But first of all I want you to read a passage from the writings of a
very great man, who was not a "wicked Socialist agitator" like your
humble servant. Archdeacon Paley, the great English theologian, was
not like many of our modern clergymen, afraid to tell the truth about
social conditions; he was not forgetful of the social aspects of
Christ's teaching. Among many profoundly wise utterances about social
conditions which that great and good teacher made more than a century
ago was the passage I now want you to read and ponder over. You might
do much worse than to commit the whole passage to memory. It reads:
"If you should see a flock of pigeons in a field of corn, and
if (instead of each picking where and what it liked, taking
just as much as it wanted, and no more) you should see
ninety-nine of them gathering all they got into a heap,
reserving nothing for themselves but the chaff and the refuse,
keeping this heap for one, and that the weakest, perhaps
worst, pigeon of the flock, sitting round and looking on, all
the winter, whilst this one was devouring, throwing about and
wasting it; and if a pigeon, more hardy or hungry than the
rest, touched a grain of the hoard, all the others instantly
flying upon it, and tearing it to pieces; if you should see
this, you would see nothing more than what is every day
practised and established among men.
"Among men you see the ninety-and-nine toiling and scraping
together a heap of superfluities for one (and this one, too,
oftentimes the feeblest and worst of the set, a child, a
woman, a madman or a fool), getting nothing for themselves,
all the while, but a little of the coarsest of the provision
which their own industry produces; looking quietly on, while
they see the fruits of all their labor spent or spoiled; and
if one of their number take or touch a particle of the hoard,
the others joining against him, and hanging him for theft."
If there were many men like Dr. Paley in our American churches to-day,
preaching the truth in that fearless fashion, there would be something
like a revolution, Jonathan. The churches would no longer be empty
almost; preachers would not be wondering why workingmen don't go to
church. There would probably be less show and pride in the churches;
less preachers paid big salaries, less fashionable choirs. But the
churches would be much nearer to the spirit and standard of Jesus than
most of them are to-day. There is nothing in connection with modern
religious life quite so glaring as the infidelity of the Christian
ministry to the teachings of Christ.
A lady once addressed Thomas Carlyle concerning Jesus in this fashion:
"How delighted we should all be to throw open our doors to him and
listen to his divine precepts! Don't you think so, Mr. Carlyle?" The
bluff old puritan sage answered: "No, madam, I don't. I think if he
had come fashionably dressed, with plenty of money, and preaching
doctrines palatable to the higher orders, I might have had the honor
of receiving from you a card of invitation, on the back of which would
be written, 'To meet our Saviour.' But if he came uttering his sublime
precepts, and denouncing the pharisees, and associating with publicans
and the lower orders, as he did, you would have treated him as the
Jews did, and cried out, 'Take him to Newgate and hang him.'"
I sometimes wonder, Jonathan, what really _would_ happen if the
Carpenter-preacher of Gallilee could and did visit some of our
American churches. Would he be able to stand the vulgar show? Would he
be able to listen in silence to the miserable perversion of his
teachings by hired apologists of social wrong? Would he want to drive
out the moneychangers and the Masters of Bread, to hurl at them his
terrible thunderbolts of wrath and scorn? Would he be welcomed by the
churches bearing his name? Would they want to listen to his gospel?
Frankly, Jonathan, I doubt it. A few Socialists would be found in
nearly every church ready to receive him and to call him "Comrade,"
but the majority of church-goers would shun him and pass him by.
I should not be surprised, Jonathan, if the President of the United
States called him an "undesirable citizen," as he surely would call
Archdeacon Paley if he were alive.
I wanted you to read Paley's illustration of the pigeons before going
into the unequal distribution of wealth. It will help you to
understand another illustration. Suppose that from a shipwreck one
hundred men are fortunate enough to save themselves and to make their
way to an island, where, making the best of conditions, they establish
a little community, which they elect to call "Capitalia." Luckily,
they have all got food and clothing enough to last them for a little
while, and they are fortunate enough to find on the island a supply of
tools, evidently abandoned by some former occupants of the island.
They set to work, cultivating the ground, building huts for
themselves, hunting for game, and so on. They start out to face the
primeval struggle with the sullen forces of Nature as our ancestors
did in the time long past. Their efforts prosper, every one of the
hundred men being a worker, every man working with equal will, equal
strength and vigor. Now, then, suppose that one day, they decide to
divide up the wealth produced by their labor, to institute individual
property in place of common property, competition in place of
co-operation. What would you think if two or three of the strongest
members said, "We will do the dividing, we will distribute the wealth
according to our ideas of justice and right," and then proceeded to
give 55 per cent. of the wealth to one man, to the next eleven men 32
per cent. and to the remaining eighty-eight men only 13 per cent.
between them?
I will put it in another way, Jonathan, since you are not accustomed
to thinking in percentages. Suppose that there were a hundred cows to
be divided among the members of the community. According to the scheme
of division just described, this is how the division would work out:
1 Man would get 55 Cows for himself
11 Men would get 32 Cows among them
88 Men would get 13 Cows among them
When they had divided the cows in this manner they would proceed to
divide the wheat, the potato crops, the land, and everything else
owned by the community in the same unequal way. I ask you again,
Jonathan, what would you think of such a division?
Of course, being a fair-minded man, endowed with ordinary intelligence
at least, you will admit that there would be no sense and no justice
in such a plan of division, and you doubt if intelligent human beings
would submit to it. But, my friend, that is not quite so bad as the
distribution of wealth in America to-day is. Suppose that instead of
all the members of the little island community being workers, all
working equally hard, fairly sharing the work of the community, one
man absolutely refused to do anything at all, saying, "I was the first
one to get ashore. The land really belongs to me. I am the landlord. I
won't work, but you must work for me." And suppose that eleven other
men said in like manner. "We won't work. We found the tools, we
brought the seeds and the food out of the boats when we came. We are
the capitalists and you must do the work in the fields. We will
superintend you, give you orders where to dig, and when, and where to
stop. You eighty-eight common fellows are the laborers who must do the
hard work while we use our brains." And suppose that they actually
carried out that plan and _then_ divided the wealth in the way I have
described, that would be a pretty good illustration of how the wealth
produced in America under our existing social system is divided.
_And I ask you what you think of that, Jonathan Edwards. How do you
like it?_
These are not my figures. They are not the figures of any rabid
Socialist making frenzied guesses. They are taken from a book called
_The Present Distribution of Wealth in the United States_, by the late
Dr. Charles B. Spahr, a book that is used in most of our colleges and
universities. No serious criticism of the figures has ever been
attempted and most economists, even the conservative ones, base their
own estimates upon Spahr's work. It would be worth your while to get
the book from the library, Jonathan, and to read it carefully.
In the meantime, look over the following table which sets forth the
results of Dr. Spahr's investigation, Jonathan, and remember that the
condition of things has not improved since 1895, when the book was
written, but that they have, on the contrary, very much worsened.
SPAHR'S TABLE OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH IN THE UNITED STATES
==========+============+=======+==========+=================+=======
| No. of | Per | Average | Aggregate | Per
Class | Families | Cent | Wealth | Wealth | Cent
----------+------------+-------+----------+-----------------+-------
Rich | 125,000 | 1.0 | $263,040 | 32,880,000,000 | 54.8
Middle | 1,362,500 | 10.9 | 14,180 | 29,320,000,000 | 32.2
Poor | 4,762,500 | 38.1 | 1,639 | 7,800,000,000 | 13.0
Very Poor | 6,250,000 | 50.0 | | |
----------+------------+-------+----------+-----------------+-------
Total | 13,500,000 | 100.0 | $4,800 | $60,000,000,000 | 100.0
----------+------------+-------+----------+-----------------+-------
Now, Jonathan, although I have taken a good deal of trouble to lay
these figures before you, I really don't care very much for them.
Statistics don't impress me as they do some people, and I would far
rather rely upon your commonsense than upon any figures. I have not
quoted these figures because they were published by a very able
scholar in a very wise book, nor because scientific men, professors of
political economy and others, have accepted them as a fair estimate. I
have used them because I believe them to be _true and reliable_.
But don't you rest your whole faith upon them, Jonathan. If some fine
day a Republican spellbinder, or a Democratic scribbler, tries to
upset you and prove that Socialists are all liars and false prophets,
just tell him the figures are quite unimportant to you, that you don't
care to know just exactly how much of the wealth the richest one per
cent. gets and how little of it the poorest fifty per cent. gets. A
few millions more or less don't trouble you. Pin him down to the one
fact which your own commonsense teaches you, that the wealth of the
country _is_ unequally distributed. Tell him that you _know_,
regardless of figures, that there are many idlers who are enormously
rich and many honest, industrious workers who are miserably poor. He
won't be able to deny these things. He _dare_ not, because they are
_true_.
Ask any such apologist for capitalism what he would think of the
father or mother who took his or her eight children and said: "Here
are eight cakes, as many cakes as there are boys and girls. I am going
to distribute the cakes. Here, Walter, are seven of the cakes for you.
The other cake the rest of you can divide among yourselves as best you
can." If the capitalist defender is a fair-minded man, if he is
neither fool nor liar nor monster, he will agree that such a parent
would be brutally unjust.
Yet, Jonathan, that is exactly how our national wealth is divided up.
One-eighth of the families in the United States do get seven-eights of
the wealth, and, being, I hope, neither fool, liar nor monster, I
denounce the system as brutally unjust. There is no sense and no
morality in mincing matters and being afraid to call spades spades.
It is because of this unjust distribution of the wealth of modern
society that we have so much social unrest. That is the heart of the
whole problem. Why are workingmen organized into unions to fight the
capitalists, and the capitalists on their side organized to fight the
workers? Why, simply because the capitalists want to continue
exploiting the workers, to exploit them still more if possible, while
the workers want to be exploited less, want to get more of what they
produce.
Why is it that eminently respectable members of society combine to
bribe legislators--_to buy laws from the lawmakers!_--and to corrupt
the republic, a form of treason worse than Benedict Arnold's? Why, for
the same reason: they want to continue the spoliation of the people.
That is why the heads of a great life insurance company illegally used
the funds belonging to widows and orphans to contribute to the
campaign fund of the Republican Party in 1904. That is why, also, Mr.
Belmont used the funds of the traction company of which he is
president to support the Civic Federation, which is an organization
specially designed to fool and mislead the wage-earners of America.
That is why every investigation of American political or business life
that is honestly made by able and fearless men reveals so much
chicanery and fraud.