that profits are the reward of managing ability, the wages of
superintendence. Under primitive capitalism there was some
justification for this view.
It was impossible to deny that the owner of a factory did manage it,
that he was the superintendent, entitled as such to some reward. It
was easy enough to say that he got a disproportionate share, but who
was to decide just what his fair share would be?
But when capitalism developed and became impersonal that idea of the
nature of profits was killed. When companies were organized they
employed salaried managers, _whose salaries were paid before profits
were reckoned at all_. To-day I can own shares in China and Australia
while living all the time in the United States. Even though I have
never been to those countries, nor seen the property I am a
shareholder in, I shall get my profits just the same. A lunatic may
own shares in a thousand companies and, though he is confined in a
madhouse, his shares of stock will still bring a profit to his
guardians in his name.
When Mr. Rockefeller was summoned to court in Chicago last year, he
stated on oath that he could not tell anything about the business of
the Standard Oil Company, not having had anything to do with the
business for several years past. But he gets his profits just the
same, showing how foolish it is to talk of profits as being the reward
of managing ability and the wages of superintendence.
Now, Jonathan, I have explained to you pretty fully what Socialism is
when considered as a philosophy of social evolution. I have also
explained to you what Socialism is when considered as a system of
economy. I could sum up both very briefly by saying that Socialism is
a philosophy of social evolution which teaches that the great force
which has impelled the race onward, determining the rate and direction
of social progress, has come from man's tools and the mode of
production in general: that we are now living in a period of
transition, from capitalism to Socialism, motived by the economic
forces of our time. Socialism is a system of economics, also. Its
substance may be summed up in a sentence as follows: Labor applied to
natural resources is the source of the wealth of capitalistic society,
but the greatest part of the wealth produced goes to non-producers,
the producers getting only a part, in the form of wages--hence the
paradox of wealthy non-producers and penurious producers.
I have explained to you also that Socialism is not a scheme. There
remains still to be explained, however, another aspect of Socialism,
of more immediate interest and importance and interest. I must try to
explain Socialism as an ideal, as a forecast of the future. You want
to know, having traced the evolution of society to a point where
everything seems to be in transition, where a change seems imminent,
just what the nature of that change will be.
I must leave that for another letter, friend Jonathan, for this is
over-long already. I shall not try to paint a picture of the future
for you, to tell you in detail what that future will be like. I do not
know: no man can know. He who pretends to know is either a fool or a
knave, my friend. But there are some things which, I believe, we may
premise with reasonable certainty These things I want to discuss in my
next letter. Meantime, there are lots of things in this letter to
think about.
_And I want you to think, Jonathan Edwards!_
IX
WHAT SOCIALISM IS AND WHAT IT IS NOT
(_Continued_)
And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall
lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the
fattling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the
cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down
together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the
suckling child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the
weaned child shall put his hand on the basilisk's den. They
shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the
earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the
waters cover the sea.--_Isaiah._
But we are not going to attain Socialism at one bound. The
transition is going on all the time, and the important thing
for us, in this explanation, is not to paint a picture of the
future--which in any case would be useless labor--but to
forecast a practical programme for the intermediate period, to
formulate and justify measures that shall be applicable at
once, and that will serve as aids to the new Socialist
birth.--_W. Liebknecht._
At the head of this letter I have copied two passages to which I want
you to give particular attention, Jonathan. The first consists of a
part of a very beautiful word-picture, in which the splendid old
Hebrew prophet described his vision of a perfect social state. In his
Utopia it would no longer be true to speak of Nature as being red of
tooth and claw. Even the lion would eat straw like the ox, so that
there might not be suffering caused by one animal preying upon
another. Whenever I read that chapter, Jonathan, I sit watching the
smoke-wreaths curl out of my pipe and float away, and they seem to
bear me with them to a land of seductive beauty. I should like to live
in a land where there was never a cry of pain, where never drop of
blood stained the ground.
There have been lots of Utopias besides that of the old Hebrew
prophet. Plato, the great philosopher, wrote _The Republic_ to give
form to his dream of an ideal society. Sir Thomas More, the great
English statesman and martyr, outlined his ideal of social relations
in a book called _Utopia_. Mr. Bellamy, in our own day, has given us
his picture of social perfection in _Looking Backward_. There have
been many others who, not content with writing down their ideas of
what society ought to be like, have tried to establish ideal
conditions. They have established colonies, communities, sects and
brotherhoods, all in the earnest hope of being able to attain the
perfect social state.
The greatest of these experimental Utopians, Robert Owen, tried to
carry out his ideas in this country. It would be well worth your while
to read the account of his life and work in George Browning Lockwood's
book, _The New Harmony Communities_. Owen tried to get Congress to
adopt his plans for social regeneration. He addressed the members of
both houses, taking with him models, plans, diagrams and statistics,
showing exactly how things would be, according to his idea, in the
ideal world. In Europe he went round to all the reigning sovereigns
begging them to adopt his plans.
He wanted common ownership of everything with equal distribution;
money would be abolished; the marriage system would be done away with
and "free love" established; children would belong to and be reared
by the community. Our concern with him at this point is that he
called himself a Socialist and was, I believe, the first to use that
word.
But the Socialists of to-day have nothing in common with such Utopian
ideas as those I have described. We all recognize that Robert Owen was
a beautiful spirit, one of the world's greatest humanitarians. He was,
like the prophet Isaiah, a dreamer, a visionary. He had no idea of the
philosophy of social evolution upon which modern Socialism rests; no
idea of its system of economics. He saw the evils of private ownership
and competition in the fiercest period of competitive industry, and
wanted to replace them with co-operation and public ownership. But his
point of view was that he had been inspired with a great idea, thanks
to which he could save the world from all its misery. He did not
realize that social changes are produced by slow evolution.
One of the principal reasons why I have dwelt at this length upon Owen
is that he is a splendid representative of the great Utopia builders.
The fact that he was probably the first man to use the word Socialism
adds an element of interest to his personality also. I wanted to put
Utopian Socialism before you so clearly that you would be able to
contrast it at once with modern, scientific Socialism--the Socialism
of Marx and Engels, upon which the great Socialist parties of the
world are based; the Socialism that is alive in the world to-day. They
are as opposite as the poles. It is important that you should grasp
this fact very clearly, for many of the criticisms of Socialism made
to-day apply only to the old utopian ideals and do not touch modern
Socialism at all. In the letter you wrote me at the beginning of this
discussion there are many questions which you could not have asked
had you not conceived of Socialism as a scheme to be adopted.
People are constantly attacking Socialism upon these false grounds.
They remind me of a story I heard in Wales many years ago. In one of
the mountain districts a miner returned from his work one afternoon
and found that his wife had bought a picture of the crucifixion of
Jesus and hung it against the wall. He had never heard of Jesus, so
the story goes, and his wife had to explain the meaning of the
picture. She told the story in her simple way, laying much stress upon
the fact that "the wicked Jews" had killed Jesus. But she forgot to
say that it all happened about two thousand years ago.
Now, it happened not long after that the miner saw a Jew peddler come
to the door of his cottage. The thought of the awful suffering of
Jesus and his own Welsh hatred of oppression sufficed to fill him with
resentment toward the poor peddler. He at once began to beat the
unfortunate fellow in a terribly savage manner. When the peddler,
between gasps, demanded to know why he had been so ill-treated, the
miner dragged him into his kitchen and pointed to the picture of the
crucifixion. "See what you did to that poor man, our Lord!" he
thundered. To which the Jew very naturally responded: "But, my friend,
that was not me. That was two thousand years ago!" The reply seemed to
daze the miner for a moment. Then he said: "Two thousand years! Two
thousand years! Why, I only heard of it last week!"
It is just as silly to attack the Socialism of to-day for the ideas
held by the earlier utopian Socialists as beating that poor Jew
peddler was.
Now then, friend Jonathan, turn back and read the second of the
passages I have placed at the head of this letter. It is from the
writings of one of the greatest of modern Socialists, the man who was
the great political leader of the Socialist movement in Germany,
Wilhelm Liebknecht.
You will notice that he says the transition to Socialism is going on
all the time; that we are not to attain Socialism at one bound; that
it is useless to attempt to paint pictures of the future; that we can
forecast an immediate programme and aid the Socialist birth. These
statements are quite in harmony with the outline of the Socialist
philosophy of the evolution of society contained in my last letter.
So, if you ask me to tell you just what the world will be like when
all people call themselves Socialists except a few reformers and
"fanatics," earnest pioneers of further changes, I must answer you
that I do not know. How they will dress, what sort of pictures artists
will paint, what sort of poems poets will write, or what sort of
novels men and women will read, I do not know. What the income of each
family will be I cannot tell you, any more than I can tell you whether
there will be any intercommunication between the inhabitants of this
planet and of Mars; whether there will be an ambassador from Mars at
the national capital.
I do not expect that the lion will eat straw like the ox; I do not
expect that people will be perfect. I do not suppose that men and
women will have become so angelic that there will never be any crime,
suffering, anger, pain or sorrow; I do not expect disease to be
forever banished from life in the Socialist regime. Still less do I
expect that mechanical genius will have been so perfected that human
labor will be no longer necessary; that perpetual motion will have
been harnessed to great indestructible machines and work become a
thing of the past. That dream of the German dreamer, Etzler, will
never be realized, I hope.
I suppose that, under Socialism, there will be some men and women far
wiser than others. There may be a few fools left! I suppose that some
will be far juster and kinder than others. There may be some selfish
brutes left with a good deal of hoggishness in their nature! I suppose
that some will have to make great mistakes and endure the tragedies
which men and women have endured through all the ages. The love of
some men will die out, breaking the hearts of some women, I suppose,
and there will be women whose love will bring them to ruin and death.
I should not like to think of jails and brothels existing under
Socialism, Jonathan, but for all I know they may exist. Whether there
will be churches and paid ministers under Socialism, I do not know. I
do not pretend to know.
I suppose that, under Socialism, there will be some people who will be
dissatisfied. I hope so! Men and women will want to move to a higher
plane of life, I hope. What they will call that plane I do not know;
what it will be like I do not know. I suppose they will be opposed and
persecuted; that they will be mocked and derided, called "fanatics"
and "dreamers" and lots of other ugly and unpleasant names. Lots of
people will want to stay just as they are, and violently oppose the
men who say, "Let us move on." But I don't believe that any sane
person will want to go back to the old conditions--back to our
conditions of to-day.
You see, I have killed lots of your objections already, my friend!
Now let me tell you briefly what Socialists want, and what they
believe will take place--_must_ take place. In the first place, there
must be political changes to make complete our political democracy.
You may be surprised at this, Jonathan. Perhaps you are accustomed to
think of our political system as being the perfect expression of
political democracy. Let us see.
Compared with some other countries, like Russia, Germany and Spain,
for example, this is a free country, politically; a model of
democracy. We have adult suffrage--_for the men_! In only a few states
are our mothers, wives, sisters and daughters allowed to vote. In most
of the states the best women, and the most intelligent, are placed on
the political level of the criminal and the maniac. They must obey the
laws, their interests in the well-being and good government of the
nation are as vital as those of our sex. But they are denied
representation in the councils of the nation, denied a voice in the
affairs of the nation. They are not citizens. We have a class below
that of the citizens in this country, a class based upon sex
distinctions.
To make our political system thoroughly representative and democratic,
we must extend political power to the women of the nation. Further
than that, we must bring all the means of government more directly
under the people's will.
In our industrial system we must bring the great trusts under the rule
of the people. They must be owned and controlled by all for all. I say
that we "must" do this, because there is no other way by which the
present evils may be remedied. Everybody who is not blinded to the
real situation by vested interest must recognize that the present
conditions are intolerable--and becoming worse and more intolerable
every day. A handful of men have the nation's destiny in their greedy
fingers and they gamble with it for their own profit. Something must
be done.
But what? We cannot go back if we would. I have shown you pretty
clearly, I think, that if it were possible to undo the chain of
evolution and to go back to primitive capitalism, with its competitive
spirit, the development to monopoly would begin all over again. It is
an inexorable law that competition breeds monopoly. So we cannot go
back.
What, then, is the outlook, the forward view? So far as I know,
Jonathan, there are only two propositions for meeting the evil
conditions of monopoly, other than the perfectly silly one of "going
back to competition." They are (1) Regulation of the trusts; (2)
Socialization of the trusts.
Now, the first means that we should leave these great monopolies in
the hands of their present owners and directors, but enact various
laws curtailing their powers to exploit the people. Laws are to be
passed limiting the capital they may employ, the amount of profits
they may make, and so on. But nobody explains how they expect to get
the laws obeyed. There are plenty of laws now aiming at regulation of
the trusts, but they are quite futile and inoperative. First we spend
an enormous amount of money and energy getting laws passed; then we
spend much more money and energy trying to get them enforced--and fail
after all!
I submit to your good judgment, Jonathan, that so long as we have a
relatively small class in the nation owning these great monopolies
through corporations there can be no peace. It will be to the interest
of the corporations to look after their profits, to prevent the
enactment of legislation aimed to restrict them and to evade the law
as much as possible. They will naturally use their influence to secure
laws favorable to themselves, with the inevitable result of corruption
in the legislative branches of the government. Legislators will be
bought like mackerel in the market, as Mr. Lawson so bluntly expresses
it. Efforts will be made to corrupt the judiciary also and the power
of the entire capitalist class will be directed to the capture of our
whole system of government. Even more than to-day, we will have the
government of the people by a privileged part of the people in the
interests of the privileged part.
You must not forget, my friend, that the corruption of the government
about which we hear so much from time to time is always in the
interests of private capitalism. If there is graft in some public
department, there is an outcry that graft and public business go
together. As a matter of fact the graft is in the interests of private
capitalism.
When legislators sell their votes it is never for public enterprises.
I have never heard of a city which was seeking the power to establish
any public service raising a "yellow dog fund" with which to bribe
legislators. On the other hand, I never yet heard of a private company
seeking a franchise without doing so more or less openly. Regulation
of the trusts will still leave the few masters of the many, and
corruption still gnawing at the vitals of the nation.
We must _own_ the trusts, Jonathan, and transform the monopolies by
which the few exploit and oppress the many into social monopolies for
the good of all. Sooner or later, either by violent or peaceful means,
this will be done. It is for the working-class to say whether it shall
be sooner or later, whether it shall be accomplished through the
strife and bitterness of war or by the peaceful methods of political
conquest.
We have seen that the root of the evil in modern society is the profit
motive. Socialism means the production of things for use instead of
for profit. Not at one stroke, perhaps, but patiently, wisely and
surely, all the things upon which people in common depend will be made
common property.
Take notice of that last paragraph, Jonathan. I don't say that _all_
property must be owned in common, but only the things upon which
people in common depend; the things which all must use if they are to
live as they ought, and as they have a right to live. We have a
splendid illustration of social property in our public streets. These
are necessary to all. It would be intolerable if one man should own
the streets of a city and charge all other citizens for the use of
them. So streets are built out of the common funds, maintained out of
the common funds, freely used by all in common, and the poorest man
has as much right to use them as the richest man. In the nutshell this
states the argument of Socialism.
People sometimes ask how it would be possible for the government under
Socialism to decide which children should be educated to be writers,
musicians and artists and which to be street cleaners and laborers;
how it would be possible to have a government own everything, deciding
what people should wear, what food should be produced, and so on.
The answer to all such questions is that Socialism would not need to
do anything of the kind. There would be no need for the government to
attempt such an impossible task. When people raise such questions they
are thinking of the old and dead utopianism, of the schemes which
once went under the name of Socialism. But modern Socialism is a
principle, not a scheme. The Socialist movement of to-day is not
interested in carrying out a great design, but in seeing society get
rid of its drones and making it impossible for one class to exploit
another class.
Under Socialism, then, it would not be at all necessary for the
government to own everything; for private property to be destroyed.
For instance, the State could have no possible interest in denying the
right of a man to own his home and to make that home as beautiful as
he pleased. It is perfectly absurd to suppose that it would be
necessary to "take away the poor man's cottage," about which some
opponents of Socialism shriek. It would not be necessary to take away
_anybody's_ home.
On the contrary, Socialism would most likely enable all who so desired
to own their own homes. At present only thirty-one per cent. of the
families of America live in homes which they own outright. More than
half of the people live in rented homes. They are obliged to give up
practically a fourth part of their total income for mere shelter.
Socialism would not prevent a man from owning a horse and wagon, since
it would be possible for him to use that horse and wagon without
compelling the citizens to pay tribute to him. On the other hand,
private ownership of a railway would be impossible, because railways
could not be indefinitely and easily multiplied, and the owners of
such a railway would necessarily have to run it for profit.
Under Socialism such public services as the transportation and
delivery of parcels would be in the hands of the people, and not in
the hands of monopolists as at present. The aim would be to serve the
people to the best possible advantage, and not to make profit for the
few. But if any citizen objected and wanted to carry his own parcel
from New York to Boston, for example, it is not to be supposed for an
instant that the State would try to prevent him.
Under Socialism the great factories would belong to the people; the
trusts would be socialized. But this would not stop a man from working
for himself in a small workshop if he wanted to; it would not prevent
a number of workers from forming a co-operative workshop and sharing
the products of their labor. By reason of the fact that the great
productive and distributive agencies which are entirely social were
socially owned and controlled--railways, mines, telephones,
telegraphs, express service, and the great factories of various
kinds--the Socialist State would be able to set the standards of wages
and industrial conditions for all the rest remaining in private hands.
Let me explain what I mean, Jonathan: Under Socialism, let us suppose,
the State undertakes the production of shoes by socializing the shoe
trust. It takes over the great factories and runs them. Its object is
not to make shoes for profit, however, but for use. To make shoes as
good as possible, as cheaply as good shoes can be made, and to see
that the people making the shoes get the best possible conditions of
labor and the highest possible wages--as near as possible to the net
value of their product, that is.
Some people, however, object to wearing factory-made shoes; they want
shoes of a special kind, to suit their individual fancy. There are
also, we will suppose, some shoemakers who do not like to work in the
State factories, preferring to make shoes by hand to suit individual
tastes. Now, if the people who want the handmade shoes are willing to
pay the shoemakers as much as they could earn in the socialized
factories no reasonable objection could be urged against it. If they
would not pay that amount, or near it, the shoemakers, it is
reasonable to suppose, would not want to work for them. It would
adjust itself.