swiftness, so that we have now the great Trust Problem. Everyone
recognizes to-day that the trusts practically control the life of the
nation. It is the supreme issue in our politics and a challenge to the
heart and brain of the nation.
Fifty years ago Karl Marx, the great Socialist economist, made the
remarkable prophecy that this condition would arise. He lived in the
heyday of competition, when it seemed utter folly to talk about the
end of competition. He analyzed the situation, pointed to the process
of big capitalists crushing out the little capitalists, the union of
big capitalists, and the inevitable drift toward monopoly. He
predicted that the process would continue until the whole industry,
the main agencies of production and distribution at any rate, would be
centralized in a few great monopolies, controlled by a very small
handful of men. He showed with wonderful clearness that capitalism,
the Great Idea of buy cheap and sell dear, carried within itself the
germs of its own destruction.
And, of course, the wiseacres laughed. The learned ignorance of the
wiseacre always compels him to laugh at the man with an idea that is
new. Didn't the wiseacres imprison Galileo? Haven't they persecuted
the pioneers in all ages? But Time has a habit of vindicating the
pioneers while consigning the scoffing wiseacres to oblivion. Fifty
years is a short time in human evolution but it has sufficed to
establish the right of Marx to an honored place among the pioneers.
More than twenty-five years after Marx made his great prediction,
there came to this country on a visit Mr. H.M. Hyndman, an English
economist who is also known as one of the foremost living exponents of
Socialism. The intensity of the competitive struggle was most marked,
but he looked below the surface and saw a subtle current, a drift
toward monopoly, which had gone unnoticed. He predicted the coming of
the era of great trusts and combines. Again the wiseacres in their
learned ignorance laughed and derided. The amiable gentleman who plays
the part of flunkey at the Court of St. James, in London, wearing
plush knee breeches, silver-buckled shoes and powdered wig, a
marionette in the tinseled show of King Edward's court, was one of the
wiseacres. He was then editor of the _New York Tribune_, and he
declared that Mr. Hyndman was a "fool traveler" for making such a
prediction. But in the very next year the Standard Oil Company was
formed!
So we have the trust problem with us. Out of the bitter competitive
struggle there has come a new condition, a new form of industrial
ownership and enterprise. From the cradle to the grave we are
encompassed by the trust.
Now, friend Jonathan, I need not tell you that the trusts have got the
nation by the throat. You know it. But there is a passage, a question,
in the letter you wrote me the other day from which I gather that you
have not given the matter very close attention. You ask "How will the
Socialists destroy the trusts which are hurting the people?"
I suppose that comes from your old associations with the Democratic
Party. You think that it is possible to destroy the trusts, to undo
the chain of social evolution, to go back twenty or fifty years to
competitive conditions. You would restore competition. I have
purposely gone into the historical development of the trust in order
to show you how useless it would be to destroy the trusts and
introduce competition again, even if that were possible. Now that you
have mentally traced the origin of monopoly to its causes in
competition, don't you see that if we could destroy the monopoly
to-morrow and start fresh upon a basis of competition, the process of
"big fish eat little fish" would begin again at once--_for that is
competition_? And if the big ones eat the little ones up, then fight
among themselves, won't the result be as before--that either one will
crush the other, leaving a monopoly, or the competitors will join
hands and agree not to fight, leaving monopoly again?
And, Jonathan, if there should be a return to the old-fashioned,
free-for-all scramble for markets, would it be any better for the
workers? Would there not be the same old struggle between the
capitalists and the workers? Would not the workers still have to give
much for little; to wear their lives away grinding out profits for the
masters of their bread, of their very lives? Would there not be gluts
as before, with panics, misery, unemployed armies sullenly parading
the streets; idlers in mansions and toilers in hovels? You know very
well that there would be all these, my friend, and I know that you are
too sensible a fellow to think any longer about destroying the trusts.
It cannot be done, Jonathan, and it would not be a good thing if it
could be done.
I think, my friend, that you will see upon reflection that there are
many excellent features about the trust which it would be criminal and
foolish to destroy had we the power. Competition means waste, foolish
and unnecessary waste. Trusts have been organized expressly to do away
with the waste of men and natural resources. They represent economical
production. When Mr. Perkins, of the New York Life Insurance Company,
was testifying before the insurance investigating committee he gave
expression to the philosophy of the trust movement by saying that, in
the modern view, competition is the law of death and that co-operation
and organization represent life and progress.
While the wage-workers are probably in many respects better off as a
result of the trustification of industry, it would be idle to deny
that there are many evils connected with it. No one who views the
situation calmly can deny that the trusts exert an enormous power over
the government of the country, that they are, in fact, the real
government of the country, exercising far more control over the lives
of the common people than the regularly constituted, constitutional
government of the country does. It is also true that they can
arbitrarily fix prices in many instances, so that the natural law of
value is set aside and the workers are exploited as consumers, as
purchasers of the things necessary to life, just as they are exploited
as producers.
Of course, friend Jonathan, wages must meet the cost of living. If
prices rise considerably, wages must sooner or later follow, and if
prices fall wages likewise will fall sooner or later. But it is
important to remember that when prices fall wages are _quick_ to
follow, while when prices soar higher and higher wages are very _slow_
to follow. That is why it wouldn't do us any good to have a law
regulating prices, supposing that a law forcing down prices could be
enacted and enforced. Wages would follow prices downward with
wonderful swiftness. And that is why, also, we do need to become the
masters of the wealth we produce. For wages climb upward with leaden
feet, my friend, when prices soar with eagle wings. It is always the
workers who are at a disadvantage in a system where one class controls
the means of producing and distributing wealth.
But, friend Jonathan, that is due to the fact that the advantages of
the trust form of industry are not used as well as they might be. They
are all grasped by the master class. The trouble with the trust is
simply this: the people as a whole do not share the benefits. We
continue the same old wage system under the new forms of industry: we
have not changed our mode of distributing the wealth produced so as to
conform to the new modes of producing it. The heart of the economic
conflict is right there.
We must find a remedy for this, Jonathan. Labor unionism is a good
thing, but it is no remedy for this condition. It is a valuable weapon
with, which to fight for better wages and shorter hours, and every
workingman ought to belong to the union of his trade or calling. But
unionism does not and cannot do away with the profit system; it cannot
break the power of the trusts to extort monopoly prices from the
people. To do these things we must bring into play the forces of
government: we must vote a new status for the trust. The union is for
the economic struggle of groups of workers day by day against the
master class so long as the present class division exists. But that is
not a solution of the problem. What we need to do is to vote the class
divisions out of existence. _We need to own the trusts, Jonathan!_
This is the Socialist position. What is needed now is the harmonizing
of our social relations with the new forms of production. When private
property came into the primitive world in the form of slavery, social
relations were changed and from a rude communism society passed into a
system of individualism and class rule. When, later on, slave labor
gave way before serf labor, the social relations were again modified
to correspond. When capitalism came, with wage-paid labor as its
basis, all the laws and institutions which stood in the way of the
free development of the new principle were swept away; new social
relations were established, new laws and institutions introduced to
meet its needs.
To-day, in America, we are suffering because our social relations are
not in harmony with the changed methods of producing wealth. We have
got the laws and institutions which were designed to meet the needs of
competitive industry. They suited those old conditions fairly well,
but they do not suit the new.
In a former letter, you will remember, I likened our present suffering
to a case of appendicitis, that society suffers from the trouble set
up within by an organ which has lost its function and needs to be cut
out. Perhaps I might better liken society to a woman in the travail of
childbirth, suffering the pangs of labor incidental to the deliverance
of the new life within her womb. The trust marks the highest
development of capitalist society: it can go no further.
The Old Order changeth, yielding place to new.
And the new order, waiting now for deliverance from the womb of the
old, is Socialism, the fraternal state. Whether the birth of the new
order is to be peaceful or violent and painful, whether it will be
ushered in with glad shouts of triumphant men and women, or with the
noise of civil strife, depends, my good friend, upon the manner in
which you and all other workers discharge your responsibilities as
citizens. That is why I am so anxious to set the claims of Socialism
clearly before you: I want you to work for the peaceful revolution of
society, Jonathan.
For the present, I am only going to ask you to read a little five cent
pamphlet, by Gaylord Wilshire, called _The Significance of the Trust_,
and a little book by Frederick Engels, called _Socialism, Utopian and
Scientific_. Later on, when I have had a chance to explain Socialism
in a general way, and must then leave you to your own resources, I
intend to make for you a list of books, which I hope you will be able
to read.
You see, Jonathan, I remember always that you wrote me: "Whether
Socialism is good or bad, wise or foolish, _I want to know_." The best
way to know is to study the question for yourself.
VIII
WHAT SOCIALISM IS AND WHAT IT IS NOT
Socialism is industrial democracy. It would put an end to the
irresponsible control of economic interests, and substitute
popular self-government in the industrial as in the political
world.--_Charles H. Vail._
Socialism says that man, machinery and land must be brought
together; that the toll gates of capitalism must be torn down,
and that every human being's opportunity to produce the means
with which to sustain life shall be considered as sacred as
his right to live.--_Allan L. Benson._
Socialism means that all those things upon which the people in
common depend shall by the people in common be owned and
administered. It means that the tools of employment shall
belong to their creators and users; that all production shall
be for the direct use of the producers; that the making of
goods for profit shall come to an end; that we shall all be
workers together; and that all opportunities shall be open and
equal to all men.--_National Platform of the Socialist Party,
1904._
Socialism does not consist in violently seizing upon the
property of the rich and sharing it out amongst the poor.
Socialism is not a wild dream of a happy land where the apples
will drop off the trees into our open mouths, the fish come
out of the rivers and fry themselves for dinner, and the looms
turn out ready-made suits of velvet with golden buttons
without the trouble of coaling the engine. Neither is it a
dream of a nation of stained-glass angels, who never say damn,
who always love their neighbors better than themselves, and
who never need to work unless they wish to.--_Robert
Blatchford._
By this time, friend Jonathan, you have, I hope, got rid of the notion
that Socialism is a ready-made scheme of society which a few wise men
have planned, and which their followers are trying to get adopted. I
have spent some time and effort trying to make it perfectly plain to
you that great social changes are not brought about in that fashion.
Socialism then, is a philosophy of human progress, a theory of social
evolution, the main outlines of which I have already sketched for you.
Because the subject is treated at much greater length in some of the
books I have asked you to read, it is not necessary for me to
elaborate the theory. It will be sufficient, probably, for me to
restate, in a very few words, the main principles of that theory:
The present social system throughout the civilized world is not the
result of deliberately copying some plan devised by wise men. It is
the result of long centuries of growth and development. From our
present position we look back over the blood-blotted pages of history,
back to the ages before men began to write their history and their
thoughts, through the centuries of which there is only faint
tradition; we go even further back, to the very beginning of human
existence, to the men-apes and the ape-men whose existence science has
made clear to us, and we see the race engaged in a long struggle to
Move upward, working out the beast
And let the ape and tiger die.
We look for the means whereby the progress of man has been made, and
find that his tools have been, so to say, the ladder upon which he has
risen in the age-long climb from bondage toward brotherhood, from
being a brute armed with a club to the sovereign of the universe,
controlling tides, harnessing winds, gathering the lightning in his
hands and reaching to the farthest star.
We find in every epoch of that long evolution the means of producing
wealth as the center of all, transforming government, laws,
institutions and moral codes to meet their limitations and their
needs. Nothing has ever been strong enough to restrain the economic
forces in social evolution. When laws and customs have stood in the
way of the economic forces they have been burst asunder as by some
mighty leaven, or hurled aside in the cyclonic sweep of revolutions.
Have you ever gone into the country, Jonathan, and noticed an immense
rock split and shattered by the roots of a tree, or perhaps by the
might of an insignificant looking fungus? I have, many times, and I
never see such a rock without thinking of its aptness as an
illustration of this Socialist philosophy. A tiny acorn tossed by the
wind finds lodgment in some small crevice of a rock which has stood
for thousands of years, a rock so big and strong that men choose it as
an emblem of the Everlasting. Soon the warm caresses of the sun and
the rain wake the latent life in the acorn; the shell breaks and a
frail little shoot of vegetable life appears, so small that an infant
could crush it. Yet that weak and puny thing grows on unobserved,
striking its rootlets farther into the crevice of the rock. And when
there is no more room for it to grow, _it does not die, but makes room
for itself by shattering the rock_.
Economic forces are like that, my friend, they _must_ expand and grow.
Nothing can long restrain them. A new method of producing wealth broke
up the primitive communism of prehistoric man; another change in the
methods of production hurled the feudal barons from power and forced
the establishment of a new social system. And now, we are on the eve
of another great change--nay, we are in the very midst of the change.
Capitalism is doomed! Not because men think it is wicked, but because
the development of the great industrial trusts compels a new political
and social system to meet the needs of the new mode of production.
Something has got to give way to the irresistible growing force! A
change is inevitable. And the change must be to Socialism. That is the
belief of the Socialists, Jonathan, which I am trying to make you
understand. Mind, I do not say that the coming change will be the
_last_ change in human evolution, that there will be no further
development after Socialism. I do not know what lies beyond, nor to
what heights humanity may attain in future years. It may be that
thousands or millions of years from now the race will have attained to
such a state of growth and power that the poorest and weakest man then
alive will be so much superior to the greatest men alive to-day, our
best scholars, poets, artists, inventors and statesmen, as these are
superior to the cave-man. It may be. I do not know. Only a fool would
seek to set mete and bound to man's possibilities.
We are concerned only with the change that is imminent, the change
that is now going on before our eyes. We say that the outcome of
society's struggle with the trust problem must be the control of the
trust by society. That the outcome of the struggle between the master
class and the slave class, between the _wealth makers_ and the _wealth
takers_, must be the victory of the makers.
Throughout all history, ever since the first appearance of private
property--of slavery and land ownership--there have been class
struggles. Slave and slave-owner, serf and baron, wage-slave and
capitalist--so the classes have struggled. And what has been the
issue, thus far? Chattel slavery gave way to serfdom, in which the
oppression was lighter and the oppressed gained some measure of human
recognition. Serfdom, in its turn, gave way to the wages system, in
which, despite many evils, the oppressed class lives upon a far higher
plane than the slave and serf classes from whence it sprang. Now, with
the capitalists unable to hold and manage the great machinery of
production which has been developed, with the workers awakened to
their power, armed with knowledge, with education, and, above all,
with the power to make the laws, the government, what they will, can
anybody doubt what the outcome will be?
It is impossible to believe that we shall continue to leave the things
upon which all depend in the hands of a few members of society. Now
that production has been so organized that it can be readily
controlled and directed from a few centers, it is possible for the
first time in the history of civilization for men to live together in
peace and plenty, owning in common the things which must be used in
common, which are needed in common; leaving to private ownership the
things which can be privately owned without injury to society. _And
that is Socialism._
I have explained the philosophy of social evolution upon which modern
Socialism is based as clearly as I could do in the space at my
disposal. I want you to think it out for yourself, Jonathan. I want
you to get the enthusiasm and the inspiration which come from a
realization of the fact that progress is the law of Nature; that
mankind is ever marching upward and onward; that Socialism is the
certain inheritor of all the ages of struggle, suffering and
accumulation.
And above all, I want you to realize the position of your class, my
friend, and your duty to stand with your class, not only as a union
man, but as a voter and a citizen.
As a system of political economy I need say little of Socialism,
beyond recounting some of the things we have already considered. A
great many learned ignorant men, like Mr. Mallock, for instance, are
fond of telling the workers that the economic teachings of Socialism
are unsound; that Karl Marx was really a very superficial thinker
whose ideas have been entirely discredited.
Now, Karl Marx has been dead twenty-five years, Jonathan. His great
work was done a generation ago. Being just a human being, like the
rest of us, it is not to be supposed that he was infallible. There are
some things in his writings which cannot be accepted without
modification. But what does that matter, so long as the essential
principles are sound and true? When we think of a great man like
Lincoln we do not trouble about the little things--the trivial
mistakes he made; we consider only the big things, the noble things,
the true things, he said and did.
But there are lots of little-minded, little-souled people in the world
who have eyes only for the little flaws and none at all for the big,
strong and enduring things in a man's work. I never think of these
critics of Marx without calling to mind an incident I witnessed two or
three years ago at an art exhibition in New York. There was placed on
exhibition a famous Greek marble, a statue of Aphrodite. Many people
went to see it and on several occasions when I saw it I observed that
some people had been enough stirred to place little bunches of flowers
at the feet of the statue as a tender tribute to its beauty. But one
day I was greatly annoyed by the presence of a critical woman who had
discovered a little flaw in the statue, where a bit had been broken
off. She chattered about it like an excited magpie. Poor soul, she had
no eyes for the beauty of the thing, the mystery which shrouded its
past stirred no emotions in her breast. _She was only just big enough
in mind and soul to see the flaw._ I pitied her, Jonathan, as I pity
many of the critics who write learned books to prove that the economic
principles of Socialism are wrong. I cannot read such a book but a
vision rises before my mind's eye of that woman and the statue.
I believe that the great fundamental principles laid down by Karl Marx
cannot be refuted, because they are true. But it is just as well to
bear in mind that Socialism does not depend upon Karl Marx. If all his
works could be destroyed and his name forgotten there would still be a
Socialist movement to contend with. The question is: Are the economic
principles of Socialism as it is taught to-day true or false?
_The first principle is that wealth in modern society consists in an
abundance of things which can be sold for profit._
So far as I know, there is no economist of note who makes any
objection to that statement. I know that sometimes political
economists confuse their readers and themselves by a loose use of the
term wealth, including in it many things which have nothing at all to
do with economics. Good health and cheerful spirits, for example, are
often spoken of as wealth and there is a certain primal sense in which
that word is rightly applied to them. You remember the poem by Charles
Mackay--
Cleon hath a million acres, ne'er a one have I;
Cleon dwelleth in a palace, in a cottage I;
Cleon hath a dozen fortunes, not a penny I;
Yet the poorer of the twain is Cleon, and not I.
In a great moral sense that is all true, Jonathan, but from the point
of view of political economy, Cleon of the million acres, the palace
and the dozen fortunes must be regarded as the richer of the two.
_The second principle is that wealth is produced by labor applied to
natural resources._