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Title: Your pay envelope

Author: John R. Meader

Release Date: August 15, 2022 [eBook #68755]

Language: English

Produced by: deaurider and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
             https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOUR PAY ENVELOPE ***





  YOUR PAY ENVELOPE


  BY

  JOHN R. MEADER
  EDITOR OF “THE COMMON CAUSE”

  [Illustration]


  NEW YORK
  THE DEVIN-ADAIR COMPANY
  437 FIFTH AVENUE
  1914




  COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY
  THE DEVIN-ADAIR COMPANY

  [Illustration]




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                 PAGE

  I. THE PROBLEM STATED                      1

  II. WHAT SOCIALISM IS AND ISN’T            9

  III. THE WORKER’S WAGE                    19

  IV. HOW THE “ROBBING” IS DONE             32

  V. YOUR OWN PAY ENVELOPE                  41

  VI. YOU “WAGE SLAVES”!                    54

  VII. YOUR BOSS UNDER SOCIALISM            67

  VIII. SOME MORE “EQUALITY”                77

  IX. A FEW “MINOR DETAILS”                 87

  X. LABOR’S FULL PRODUCT                  101

  XI. IS WRETCHEDNESS INCREASING?          116

  XII. THE CLASS STRUGGLE                  133

  XIII. SHALL WE TAKE IT OR PAY FOR IT?    144

  XIV. THE REVOLUTION                      160

  XV. WHAT WE ARE PROMISED                 173

  XVI. WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE WORLD?        189

  XVII. THE REMEDY                         200




YOUR PAY ENVELOPE




CHAPTER I

THE PROBLEM STATED


  Dear Mr. Smith,

I am glad that you have asked me if the soap-box orator told the truth
when he said that all the arguments against Socialism are either “lies”
or “foolish misrepresentations.”

The soap-box orator wants you to believe that all the wise men in this
world are Socialists, and that those who do not accept the teachings of
Karl Marx are either ignoramuses or wicked men.

You tell me that your “common sense” teaches you that “there are two
sides to every question.” This statement shows that you are an honest
and a practical man. You say that you are a worker, a trade unionist, a
Christian--all of which means that you are a good citizen. These frank
statements are the best introduction you could offer. It is this kind
of man who insists upon having “facts,” and who is not likely to be
carried away by theories--even by plausible theories. He insists upon
knowing that there are plenty of “facts” to back up the theories before
he accepts them.

Hence, I am going to write to you at some length--to you and to all
the rest of the John Smiths. In these letters I shall express myself
as simply and as clearly as possible. I shall give you plenty of
facts--“the hardest of hard facts”--and a mass of cold, logical reasons
that cannot fail to appeal to “robust common sense” and the “love of
fair play.”

As you have said, there are two sides to every question, and the
question of Socialism is no exception to this rule. The reason that
the soap-box orator attracts so large a crowd is because he tells the
people who listen to him a lot of things which they know are true.

He tells them, for example, that wages and the expense of living have
not kept equable pace with each other--that the smaller rate of wage
which the worker received fifteen or twenty years ago may really have
been a higher rate of wage because the man who got it was able to
buy more with it. He tells us that it is a bad thing that children
should be compelled to work for a living at an age when they ought to
be in school or playing the games which nature intends children shall
play. He points to the employer as he rides by in his $4,000 touring
car, and he asks how long it has been since you have had a ride in
an automobile. He reads to you the newspaper report of an elaborate
dinner given by “society women” to their poodle dogs, and supplements
it with another item, from the same paper, telling the number of people
who have died of starvation during the past six months. With eloquent
words, vibrant with sympathy, he paints a picture that makes your
blood boil with indignation, and the worst of it is that the things he
describes are true.

Every man, if his heart is in the proper place, knows that things are
not right. He knows that there are plenty of workers to-day who do
not earn money enough to enable them to live decently. He knows that
workingmen do not make their wives and children toil in the factories
for the mere joy of knowing that they are not idle. The worker is not
so blind to the advantages of education, that he does not want to see
his children well-educated. If he insists upon their going to work
instead of to school, it is because he needs the few dollars which they
can earn to supplement somewhat his own too meagre wage.

The worker is justified in not being satisfied with his lot. If a man
is treated unjustly, he has a moral right to protest; and I am the
last person who would wish to deny him that right. At the same time, I
am going to take exception to one statement that the soap-box orator
makes. He tells us that Socialism is the one and only solution of all
the industrial and social evils of the world. He asserts that, if
enough of us will vote the Socialist ticket, we can get the industries
away from their present owners and own them ourselves, paying ourselves
for our labor by taking all the profits that now go to the men who
furnish the capital to carry on the business.

If this were true--and that were all there was to it--I might be a
Socialist. It is because it is impossible for it to be true that I am
writing these letters; and, before I have finished, I think you will
admit that I shall have proved that the soap-box orator is talking
“through his hat.”

I do not ask you to reject the teachings of Socialism because they
are new or untried. Every good thing was new once, and I am not so
foolish as to imagine that every possibly-good thing has been tried.
Indeed, a great many ideas and inventions that have proved of the
greatest advantage to the world were once denounced as impracticable.
The telephone is one of them. I can remember the time when the best
business men laughed at the idea of anybody’s buying stock in a
telephone company; they admitted that people could talk over the wire,
but it was impossible to make them believe that the instrument could be
made strong enough to carry the sound of the human voice more than a
few blocks. They said it was all right as a “toy,” but that it had no
“commercial utility”--which meant that they did not think they could
make any money out of it.

To tell the truth, some of the basic ideas in Socialism are not at
all new. They are very, very old; but, if they were as old as a dozen
Methuselahs, this fact would not make them any more true. It is not the
age of a theory that makes it true; it is the principle underlying it.
And I propose to show you that, instead of being the combination of
all wisdom, the principles of Socialism are so unreasonable that it is
difficult to understand how any thinking man can accept them.

To prove this, I shall resort chiefly to facts and very little to
theoretical argument. I shall not ask you to believe that a thing is
so, merely because I say that it is so. When I present an argument,
I shall explain all the facts upon which it is based, and you may
consider the argument on its own merits.

In doing this, I must ask you to forget yourself. A prominent Socialist
writer has told us that it is necessary to “get out of the body to
think.” As he explains, “that means that when a problem is before you,
you should not let any personal prejudice, or class feeling, come
between that problem and your mind; that you should consider a case
upon the evidence alone, as a jury should.”

I shall be satisfied if you will follow this advice. I can ask you to
do no more than to forget your own condition, your own troubles, your
own life-problems, and consider this question simply as a man--as a
jury-man, if you will. If you were asked to figure how much you can
earn in three days and two hours and fifteen minutes at your present
rate of wage, you would not think whether you were a Republican or a
Democrat, would you? You would simply apply the rules of arithmetic to
your sum, and I ask you to read my letters and decide, by the same kind
of unbiased judgment, whether I am right or wrong.

By way of anticipation, let me assert that it is possible for us to
solve every problem that confronts us to-day without resorting to the
proposed “remedy” of Socialism. We have here a country, big enough and
productive enough to give all the people plenty of room and all they
want to eat. There are facilities to supply all the children with a
good education and ample opportunities for recreation. The fact that
so many of the people do not succeed in securing plenty, shows that
something is wrong. But, is the “wrong” in our system of industry, or
are we ourselves--and, when I say “we,” I mean the whole people, not
you and me alone--to blame for these conditions? That is the important
question.

Socialism promises that it will right all wrongs and asserts that this
cannot be done in any other way. I do not believe that Socialism could
“make good,” and it is here my task to prove it.




CHAPTER II

WHAT SOCIALISM IS AND ISN’T


  Dear Mr. Smith,

Before beginning our investigation of Socialism, we must define our
subject. To talk intelligibly about Socialism, I must first know that
you understand what Socialism is and what it isn’t.

You may say that the soap-box orator has made all this very clear to
you, but you mustn’t be too certain about that. The soap-box orator
may know what Socialism really is, and what it proposes to accomplish,
and he may not. I have known soap-box orators who knew so little about
Socialism as to contend that it was nothing more than a political
movement which proposed to institute some much-needed reforms along
purely economic lines. And, there are other soap-box orators who, while
fully qualified to tell you all about Socialism, wouldn’t dream of
doing it for fear of frightening you.

It may be true that all Socialists agree to some extent upon a few
basic principles; but they disagree about so many things that it is
almost impossible to pin them down to anything definite. If a Socialist
is cornered in an argument, he will try to elude you by asserting that
Socialists are “not agreed” upon the answer to the question you have
asked, or that “the issue is purely a matter of private opinion.”

Have you noticed how cleverly Socialists can do this?

A Socialist agitator is out on a still hunt for converts. He meets John
Jones and asks him why he does not join the Socialist party.

“No,” says John, “I will not join the Socialist party, because it
stands for industrial unionism and I believe in the policy of the
American Federation of Labor.”

“That’s all right,” replies the Socialist agitator. “There are plenty
of prominent Socialists who are enthusiastic members of the A. F. of
L.,” and he reels off the names of a dozen or more. Of course, John
Jones is persuaded that he was mistaken in his opinion of the Socialist
party, and he joins.

Going a block or two further, the Socialist agitator meets Bill Brown,
and asks him why he does not carry a red card. Bill replies that he is
opposed to the Socialist party because of its friendliness for the A.
F. of L.

“I am opposed to violence, but I am an industrial unionist,” he
asserts, “and shall have nothing to do with an organization that stands
for craft unionism.”

What does the Socialist agitator do? From his pocket he extracts a
pamphlet written by Eugene V. Debs, in which Mr. Debs expounds the
doctrines of industrial unionism and shows that it is impossible for
a Socialist to be a conscientious craft unionist. So, realizing that,
as Socialism’s foremost advocate, Eugene V. Debs ought to know what
Socialism means, Bill Brown signs up.

A few moments later, our Socialist agitator comes face to face with Joe
Black.

“Come, Joe,” he says, as he grasps his hand, “you are a good Radical.
Why aren’t you in the Socialist party?”

But Joe shakes his head.

“Not for mine!” he asserts, emphatically. “I want nothing to do with a
party that is opposed to direct action. How is the worker to get what
he wants unless he takes it? I believe in _The Revolution_, but not in
the milk-and-water kind of revolution the Socialist party preaches.”

“That’s where you are mistaken, Joe,” replies the Socialist agitator.
“Why, some of our leading Socialists believe just exactly as you
do. Here”--and the agitator draws from his pocket a copy of the
Haywood-Bohn pamphlet on “Industrial Unionism”--“take this with you and
read it. It will show you how we Socialists stand on the question of
the industrial revolution.”

So Joe Black lines up, too.

I might continue in this strain indefinitely, for there is scarcely a
question at issue upon which Socialists do not disagree so widely that
those who preach Socialism can manage to be all things to all people.

But, you ask, what _does_ Socialism mean?

Let me answer your question by first telling you what Socialism does
not mean. In this way, we shall more quickly get to the real meaning of
the term.

I have met Socialists who told me that Socialism means absolutely
nothing but the promotion of a reform program: that it means shorter
hours and better pay, the elimination of child labor, the government
ownership of inter-state industry, the municipal ownership of municipal
utilities, and so on.

If you read the program of “Immediate Demands” in the Socialist
platform, you may get the idea that this definition of Socialism is a
correct one. But you would be mistaken. The “Immediate Demands” of the
Socialist party are not Socialism, and no real Socialist pretends that
they are. Indeed, in the platform of 1908, the Socialists themselves
repudiated this idea. Let me quote the closing paragraph of this
program:

“Such measures of relief as we may be able to force from capitalism
are but a preparation of the workers to seize the whole power of
government, in order that they may thereby lay hold of the whole system
of industry and thus come to their rightful inheritance.”

Think the matter over calmly, John. Measures of relief that are nothing
more than “preparations” for an object cannot by any possibility be
that object itself--can they?

Then, too, there are plenty of Socialists who have not the slightest
use for a program of “Immediate Demands.” The Socialist party has
found these demands useful in persuading people to vote for its
candidates, and, for this reason, it goes right on talking about
“Immediate Demands,” as if these “sops” to social reform were
simon-pure Socialism.

The absurdity of this position is well pointed out by H. G. Wells:

“You cannot change the world and at the same time not change the
world,” he says. “You will find Socialists about, or at any rate those
calling themselves Socialists, who will pretend that this is not so,
who will assure you that some odd little jobbing about municipal gas
and water is Socialism.... You might as well call a gas jet in the
lobby of a meeting house the glory of God in heaven!”

If anybody should tell you that H. G. Wells is merely one Socialist out
of many millions, and that he does not know what he is talking about,
ask him if Wilhelm Liebknecht knew his Socialism any better. If your
Socialist is honest, he will have to admit that Wilhelm Liebknecht knew
what he was talking about, whether Wells does or not.

Assuming this to be true, listen to what Liebknecht says:

“The laboring class is exploited and oppressed by the capitalist class
and ... effectual reforms which will put an end to class government and
class exploitation are impossible” (quoted by Ejayh in _Weekly People_,
June 17, 1911).

If your Socialist still insists that Liebknecht is not sufficiently
good authority, you can refer him to Karl Marx himself, for it was he
who said:

“The working class ought not to exaggerate to themselves the ultimate
working of these everyday struggles. They ought not to forget that
they are fighting with effects; that they are retarding the downward
movement, but not changing its direction; that they are applying
palliatives, not curing the malady.... Instead of the conservative
motto: ‘A fair day’s work for a fair day’s wage,’ they ought to
inscribe on their banners the revolutionary watchword: ‘Abolish the
wages system’” (quoted in _Appeal to Reason_).

In brief, to quote Liebknecht again (_The Revolt_, May 6, 1911),
“pity for poverty, enthusiasm for equality and freedom, recognition
of social injustice and the desire to remove it, ... condemnation of
wealth, and respect for poverty,” government ownership or municipal
ownership, an agitation for a shorter work-day, the demand for a more
equitable wage, an extension of the suffrage--not one, nor all of these
things is Socialism.

And if not, what _is_ Socialism?

Socialism is an indictment of the whole system of modern civilization,
a plan to overthrow it, and a scheme to set up in its place a system
of society in which all means of production, distribution and exchange
shall be owned collectively and operated collectively.

To attain this end--to effect the overthrow of all existing
institutions that the “more perfect” institutions of Socialism may take
their place--Socialists preach a gospel of class consciousness, by
which they hope to incite so strong a feeling of class hatred in the
heart of the worker that he will rise in revolt against his employer
and take from him all the means of production and distribution--by the
peaceful method of the ballot, if he can do it in that way; if not, by
violence and with bloodshed--the bloodshed Victor Berger threatened
when he advised the worker to “be prepared to back up his ballot with
his bullets.”

This is what Socialists mean when they talk about _The Revolution_.
This is the method by which they hope to attain their goal, the
Co-operative Commonwealth, in which, if the plan of Socialism does not
miscarry, there will be but one class--the working class--and all human
beings will actually love one another so much that they will dwell
together in peace and harmony ever after.

It is a beautiful picture--this idea of the lion and the lamb lying
down together. It is so enticing a promise that I might almost be
willing to go through a wee bit of a revolution myself in order to
attain it, if I could only believe that everything would work out in
the way Socialists predict that it will.

It is right here, John, that I am compelled to part company with the
Socialists for good and all. I am just as thoroughly enamoured peace
and harmony as Debs or Haywood or Hillquit. Not one of these gentlemen
would welcome a world without social evils and social miseries more
heartily than I. But, when I sit down and start to figure out
the problem logically, I find that the evidence against Socialism
accumulates rapidly. Between you and me, John, Socialism could not do
what it promises to accomplish even if it had the chance. You don’t see
why it couldn’t? Well, I’ll show you.




CHAPTER III

THE WORKER’S WAGE


  My dear Mr. Smith,

If you stop at the street corner to listen to a soap-boxer, there are
two things that he is pretty certain to tell you: first, that you are
a “wage slave,” and, second, that you are being “robbed” every day you
work.

With a flood of words, carefully prepared to appeal to men in your
position, and with stories that are supposed to illustrate the points
he wants to make, the man on the street-corner will try to persuade you
that labor is the sole factor in wealth production--that the workers
produce all the wealth of the world--and that this wealth belongs
rightfully to those who made it.

The agitator will tell you--what you already know--that there is a part
of the product of your toil that goes to your employer. This should
not surprise you. When you consented to work for three dollars a day,
it was with a clear understanding that you would do enough more than
three dollars’ worth of work a day to give your employer a fair return
upon his investment. I’ll wager, you never suspected that he had no
right to this share, but, instead, was stealing it from you, until the
soap-box orator began to tell you that you were being “robbed.”

If you question the speaker as to the extent of this “robbery,” you
will get little satisfaction. Socialists all agree that the worker
is “robbed,” but they disagree very materially as to the amount of
which he is “robbed.” One Socialist (I. L. P. pamphlet, “Simple
Division”) tells you that the worker receives only _one-seventh_ of
what he produces. Another (Hazell, “A Summary of Marx’s ‘Capital’”)
asserts that labor obtains _one-fifth_ of its product. Still another
(Victor Grayson, Speech, June 4, 1908) announces that the worker takes
_one-quarter_ of what he really earns. Another English Socialist
(author of “The Basis and Policy of Socialism”) proves by statistics
that _one-third_ of the total product goes to the man who ought to
have it all. A more reasonable individual (Chiozza-Money, “Riches
and Poverty”) estimates the worker’s share as a “_trifle more
than one-half_,” while Suthers, who makes a specialty of answering
objections to Socialism, figures that the returns to labor represent
_two-thirds_ of the amount that the worker ought to receive (“Common
Objections to Socialism Answered”).

You see what a hazy idea the Socialists have upon this question, how
chaotic and self-contradictory their statements are; yet it is upon
such “facts,” that the contentions or claims of Socialism depend.

The soap-box man’s statements about the “robbery” of the worker are
based upon a principle that is taken from Karl Marx’s book, “Capital,”
which is the Bible of all real Socialists. Karl Marx said that “labor
is the source of all value,” and it is upon the truth of this statement
that the whole economic structure of Socialism rests. If it is true
that labor _is_ the source of all value, it is possible to argue that
the laborer is entitled to all he produces. If labor _is not_ the sole
source of value, the laborer is not entitled to all he produces and it
is nonsense to say that he is. Thus, the whole question of the fairness
of the principle upon which the modern wage system is based stands or
falls with this “law” of value.

I suppose it is safe for me to assume that you have never read
“Capital.” I suppose it is just as safe to assume that you never will
read the three bulky tomes in which Marx has expounded the economic
system that we call “Socialism.” You needn’t be ashamed to admit this
fact. There are lots of others like you. Even the soap-boxer, who
quotes Marx so fluently and who upholds his theories so energetically,
has no advantage over you in this respect. It is a safe hundred to one
shot that he also has never read--and never will read--“Capital.”

The German poet Heine tells us that when Hegel, the well-known
philosopher, lay on his death-bed, he declared: “Only one has
understood me.” But, immediately after, he added, irritably: “And he
did not understand me, either.”

If this story had been told of Marx instead of Hegel, I should be
quite as ready to believe that it is true. If the soap-box orator
should attempt to explain the Marxian theory of value, he would have
no audience in five minutes. It is because he explains the effects
of this “law,” and not the principles supposed to underlie it, that
he finds so many people willing to listen to him. Nobody wants to be
“robbed,” and, when the Socialist orator asserts that all workers are
constantly being “robbed” of the larger portion of their earnings, we
are interested at once.

So, if I am to make you understand the reason that this theory of the
Socialists is false, if I am to prove to you that you are not “robbed”
(at least not in the way the Socialists say you are), I must avoid
the technical words and often unintelligible expressions that have
made Marx’s “law of value” so difficult to comprehend. I must appeal
strictly to your common sense. Then, if you want to go more deeply into
the intricate detail in which Marx has framed his economic theories,
there are several books that will give you all the information you can
possibly digest. One of these is “Socialism: A Critical Analysis,” by
Professor Oscar D. Skelton of Queens University, Canada; another is
“Socialism” by Cathrein-Gettelmann. You will find them in any good
library.

Marx separated value into two classes: _value in use_ and _value
in exchange_. “Use-value” means the value that an article has in
satisfying some human need. “Exchange value” means the value that an
article has when we come to exchange it for something else--for money
or for other articles. Thus, an article may be very valuable _for use_
and still have no value _in exchange_. For example, both water and
air are necessary to human life and so are very useful, yet, should
we desire to exchange them for clothes or fuel, we should find it a
difficult matter to make such a bargain, simply because water and air
are usually free to all.

Articles that have _exchange value_ are those for which men are willing
to give something “in exchange,” but as the articles we can’t sell
are frequently just as useful as those for which we can get a price
in the market, Marx argued that there must be something in one that
the other does not contain--some one factor upon which exchange-value
depends--and he decided that this common element is _human labor_
(“Capital,” p. 4).

Was Marx right in this assumption? Is it “labor that makes value”?

When you go to the store to buy an article, you do not ask what it cost
the manufacturer to produce it, do you? You don’t care whether the
man who made this article has profited by its manufacture or not. It
doesn’t occur to you to ask how many hours of labor were put into it,
or how much the workers who made it were paid. The question uppermost
in your mind is: “How badly do I want it?” If you want it so badly
that you would rather own it than spend the same amount of money for
something else, you purchase it and take it away with you. If you
prefer to spend the money in other ways, you go away without buying
this article.

Now, what is the principle that influences you to make this decision?
It is what this article is worth to you for your own use, is it not?

Has labor anything to do in making you form this decision? Neither
capital nor labor has anything to do with the question. If the article
has cost the manufacturer ten times as much as you are asked to pay
for it, if ten times as much labor had been expended in making it, you
wouldn’t give one penny more than it is worth to you for its use, would
you?

Let us take another illustration:

Marx points out that labor--and he measures the value of labor by the
time necessary to perform a given piece of work--is the sole source of
exchange-value. As a result, Socialists propose to substitute what they
call labor certificates for our present system of money, so that a man
who spends four hours making cigars can buy with his labor certificates
anything that represents a proportionate amount of labor.

Would this be a fair basis of exchange?

Would it be fair if a man working four hours in making cigars were to
exchange the product of his labor for the gold or the diamonds that it
had taken some other man four hours to extract from the earth? And is
there no difference in the value of a silk dress and a cotton dress,
if both kinds of cloth take the same time and skill in the making?
Would it be fair to figure the value of any article on the amount of
labor-time expended in producing it? There are mines in which gold is
produced at a cost of less than $5 an ounce, and there are other mines
where it costs so much to extract the gold that there is no profit in
mining it. Is anybody so silly as to believe that the labor-time spent
in one mine is as productive of value as the time expended in the
other?

Any farmer will tell you that it is impossible to make the varying
costs of agricultural products harmonize with the theories of Marx. In
raising wheat, or potatoes, a great deal depends upon the quality of
the land. If the land is very good, wheat may be grown at a cost of 50
cents a bushel, and with much less labor than the farmer would expend
in raising wheat oh poorer land, though the latter crop might cost from
75 cents to a dollar a bushel to raise, if not more.

It is not the cost of an article that determines its value. Its value
is based primarily upon its capacity to satisfy human wants. A useless
article has no exchange-value, no matter how much it has cost. An
article that has gone out of fashion possesses comparatively little
value, in spite of the fact that it represents the expenditure of
capital as well as actual labor which was “necessary labor” at the
time it was performed. The Socialists have to admit this fact--Marx
also admitted it (“Capital,” p. 189)--yet they do not seem to see the
inconsistency of saying that the value of an article is affected by
its loss of utility, while, at the same time, asserting that “a useful
article has value only because human labor ... has been embodied in
it.” If they told the truth they would say, “an article upon which
labor has been expended has value only because it is useful.” But this
would be to admit that their whole scheme is built upon a foundation of
sand.

A commodity has value, not only because it has cost time and skill
to produce it, and therefore is difficult of attainment, but also
for the reason that it holds the one common property of all valuable
articles--utility. It is true that articles of value are seldom
produced without labor. It is not true that it is labor that makes them
valuable. In confessing this, Socialism acknowledges that the law of
Marx is contradicted by experience. Are we Simple Simons not to see
this very obvious contradiction?

Take the commodity timber--because the woods which we use in building
houses and those which are used in making furniture possess radically
different values.

If you were to go to a primitive country, John, you would find plenty
of trees that you could cut down, without asking anybody’s permission
and without paying anybody for the privilege. Suppose that you were
to take a gang of men into such a forest and were to cut down a lot of
trees. If you took no pains in selecting these trees, but cut various
kinds of wood, you would get different prices for the timber, and these
prices would not in any way depend upon the cost of production (cutting
down the trees) or the expense of transportation. As you know, there is
a market price for every kind of wood, yet one wood costs practically
no more than another to produce, and one may be transported as cheaply
as another. What does this price depend upon? Upon _utility_, does it
not? It is the _use-value_ of the wood that ultimately fixes its price.

Then, too, you may take the products of the arts--the books we read and
the paintings we admire. Does the amount of labor-time expended in the
making fix the value of these commodities? An author may devote years
to writing a novel, and yet see it fall still-born from the press,
whereas another novelist, in a few months, may produce a story that
nets him $25,000. Does labor-time count as a factor in determining the
value of our books, our pictures, our musical compositions, or our
scientific discoveries?

There is still another factor to be considered, John, and that is
the productive power of thought. Marx, as you would see were you to
analyze the first pages of his book, “Capital,” starts off with the
idea that all labor is common, manual labor. Later on, he encounters
the difficulty that labor when undirected is usually unproductive.
A thousand men, working without direction, will produce nothing
proportionate to the amount of physical strength they expend. Put a man
with brains and knowledge over them, and he will show them how to make
their labor fully productive.

Even Marx recognized the fact that he must make some provision for
“skilled” and “mental” labor, so he grudgingly bridged over the gap by
stating that “skilled labor counts only as unskilled labor, a given
quantity of skilled labor being considered equal to a greater quantity
of simple labor” (“Capital,” p. 11).

Socialists to-day try to deny that Marx intended to imply that the
term “labor” means “average manual labor.” They will tell you, if
you question them closely, that the term “labor” includes industrial
effort of every kind--mental as well as physical labor. This is a worse
absurdity than to say that manual labor is the source of all value.
If we are to admit that “labor” includes every kind of effort, the
assertion that all wealth should go to the laborers who produced it
simply means that all wealth ought to go to the human race. And so it
does. The only question remaining is: _How can it be distributed more
fairly?_

This would take the very cornerstone away from the Socialist’s
structure and bring it tumbling about his ears. If we do this, there
is practically no room for argument left, for the number of persons
who in no way contribute to the industrial progress of the world--the
inheritors of wealth who are literally and positively idle--is so
small that there is no reason why we should give them much serious
consideration.




CHAPTER IV

HOW THE “ROBBING” IS DONE


  My dear Mr. Smith,

After asserting that labor produces all value, and “showing” that
the laborer receives but a very small portion of the value which he
produces, Marx tells us that this unpaid-for labor--the labor-strength
and time of which the worker is robbed--is used by the Capitalist Class
(Marx’s term for the employer) in the further robbery of the worker.
This unpaid-for labor Marx calls “surplus value,” and he includes
under this term everything that the worker does not get in his own
pay-envelope--dividends, interest, rents and profits of all kinds.

Of course, nobody will deny that “surplus value”--or, more correctly,
profit--may exist in industry. If the employer could not reap more from
the industry than the mere equivalent of wages paid, it would not be to
his interest to keep on paying wages. But the “surplus value” to which
I refer, and the thing that Marx means when he talks about “surplus
value,” are entirely different.

To admit that Marx is right in his definition of surplus value, we
must first come to the conclusion that the worker is entitled to all
the value that is produced, and, as we have already seen, this is not
so. If it is not so, what has become of Marx’s surplus-value theory?
There may be industrial injustices; there are many instances in which
employers fail to pay those who work for them a just wage. I am willing
to admit that there are numerous cases of this kind. If I thought it
would add to the strength of my argument to particularize, I could
name many unjust employers. But it would do no good. Between the
abuses committed by individual capitalists and the “awful crimes of
capitalism” which Socialism depicts, there is a difference as great as
the distance from pole to pole.

According to Marx’s theory, if a laborer can produce something equal to
the amount of his wage in six hours of work, the value of the product
which he turns out during the other six hours in his work-day is stolen
from him. “The extra six hours,” says Marx, “I shall call _surplus
labor_, which realizes itself in a _surplus product_ having a _surplus
value_” (“Capital,” p. 178).

Have I made this clear, John? Do you see what Marx is driving at--that,
when you are helping your employer to pay his rent, the interest on the
money he has borrowed that he might keep you at work, the dividends to
his stockholders, or the profit to himself, you are helping him to rob
you--actually contributing to the robbery of yourself?

The soap-box orator will talk to you by the hour about surplus value.
He will tell you that it makes no difference how much money there is
in your pay-envelope. So long as it does not contain every cent of
your employer’s profit, you are being “robbed.” “No wage can ever be
fair compensation for a day’s work!” he shouts. “Before there can be
justice on earth, the making of goods for profit must come to an end,
for this is the ‘tap-root’ from which all the evils of Society develop.
No dividends! No Interest! No Rents! No Profits! In a word, no Surplus
Value!”

Marx, like the soap-boxer on the corner, includes all profits in the
category of robbery and exploitation. He admits that labor can do
nothing without capital, but he contends that capital itself is the
product of past labor and, therefore, ought rightfully to belong to the
laborers of the present day. “Capital,” he says, “is dead labor, that,
vampire-like, lives by sucking living labor” (“Capital,” p. 134).

In this we have the assumption that all labor is performed by
“laborers” of the propertyless class, and that all capital is owned by
“capitalists.”

This, as you know, is not true.

There are plenty of laborers who have a respectable little store of
capital laid by for the proverbial rainy day, and many of them own
stock in the very concern that employs them. Not every man who lives
by the labor of his hands is existing on the verge of starvation, as
Socialists would have you believe, nor is it true that all labor is
performed by the “laboring class.” Many so-called “capitalists” are
truly sons of toil, the performers of manual labor and the producers of
wealth, even as Marx would define a “producer.”

But, let us stop generalizing, and get down to cases.

Marx says that all profit is robbery and exploitation. As an example of
the utter absurdity of this theory, let me cite an illustration which
Mr. G. W. de Tunzelmann once used in a debate with a prominent English
Socialist.

He took the case of a man who buys a diamond for $498,000. The man pays
$2,000 to the diamond-cutter for cutting the stone, and, finally, sells
it for $550,000, making a 10 per cent. profit upon his outlay. If Marx
argues rightly, this sum of $50,000 was obtained by robbery, but--who
was robbed? Was it the diamond-cutter who was defrauded of a portion of
his wages? Should the entire $52,000 have gone to him for his part in
the transaction, while the capitalist got nothing?

The Socialist who was debating with Mr. de Tunzelmann found it
impossible to answer this question intelligibly. “If the $50,000 did
not come from the diamond-cutter’s wages, where did it come from?” was
all he could say, and, John, it is all that any Socialist can say!

Then, here is an illustration from my own experience:

I have a friend who bought a painting from a young artist, paying
$300 for it. This was a very fair price to pay for the picture. The
artist was well satisfied with his bargain and my friend felt that the
work of art was well worth $300 to him. Several years passed, and the
comparatively obscure artist became a famous artist--so famous that
there were lots of people who wanted to buy his pictures, and my friend
found that he could sell his painting and get $2,000 for it.

May we again ask: Who was robbed? The man who painted the picture
received its full value at the time; the man who bought the picture
from my friend was satisfied that he got good value for his money. If
Marx is right, my friend robbed somebody to the extent of $1,700. But
whom did he rob?

As we have already seen, the value of an article is chiefly a
matter of utility as adfected (raised or lowered) by difficulty of
attainment--not the worker’s “difficulty of attainment,” not the
time and effort he had to expend to produce this article, but your
“difficulty of attainment,” or the effort you must make to secure it.
The part that the worker plays in the production of a commodity is of
minor importance when compared with the other factors which operate
in determining its value. It is the employer, and not the worker,
who assumes all the risk. It is the directing genius, and not the
mere physical force used in operating the industry, that determines
whether it shall succeed or fail. If this were not true, every business
enterprise would be a success, for it would be nothing more than the
proposition of getting money and men together and setting them to work.
But you know that this is not what happens in real life.

Mr. Hyndman, the celebrated English Socialist, attempts to say that
such a thing is possible. In his manual of Socialism he asks us to
believe that a man who has $50,000 would find it a very simple matter
to live permanently by robbing other men of part of the products
of their labor. This man, he tells us, merely buys a mill of some
kind--_doesn’t it matter what kind of a mill he buys?_--employs a
manager and the necessary number of operatives, and then sits down and
lets the wheels go round. Don’t smile, John, for this is precisely what
Mr. Hyndman tells us the man does. “He has nothing to do but sit still
and watch the mill go,” he asserts, naively (see Mallock’s “Socialism,”
p. 13).

Do you believe this? Socialists do. As a practical man, do you imagine
that any one method of employing capital will be just as successful
as any other? If the laborer produces all value, and an article is
valuable simply because of the labor there is in it, Mr. Hyndman and
his master, Karl Marx, and the soap-box orator, who is telling you how
to solve all of life’s problems by voting for the candidates on the
Socialist ticket, are right. If this is not true, they are wrong, and
you can’t get away from this conclusion. One might as well argue that
an engine is sufficient unto itself and needs neither working capital
in the form of fuel nor the directing hand of the engineer.

There is another class of “capitalists” who receive comparatively
little attention from the Socialists. These are the employers who make
no profits upon their investment, who purchase material and pay their
workers’ wages and who do not earn enough to reimburse themselves for
their outlay. The commercial agencies which report business conditions
have records of many such cases. Men go into business and fail; people
put their money into stock companies and never receive dividends. The
work is done; the labor is performed; but there is no surplus value of
which the worker may be “robbed.” In this case are we to assume that
the unfortunate investors are robbed by their workmen?

Marx maintains that all capitalists are robbers. Are we therefore
to believe that all capitalists are successful? We cannot deny that
capital, and even the product of labor, may be transferred by the
process of robbery. Before there can be any robbery, however, the
capital or the value of the product must exist, and it is beyond the
power of labor to call either _capital_ or _value_ into being.




CHAPTER V

YOUR OWN PAY ENVELOPE


  My dear Smith,

Having seen that the Marxian theories of value are not the sanely
“scientific” laws that Socialists declare them to be, but are utter
absurdities that run counter to all laws of logic and even contradict
human experience, we shall now get down to your own individual pay
envelope, for that is the thing which most interests you. But, please
don’t imagine that, because we have stopped talking about Marx’s
theories for the moment, we have reached the end of our list of
Socialist fallacies. To tell the truth, we have just begun to enumerate
them. Silly as these ideas are in theory, they do not begin to attain
the full limit of their absurdity until we attempt to apply them to the
practical affairs of life.

Last night I stood at the street corner and heard the soap-box orator
“educate” the crowd. He told them that the average earnings of every
worker in America was $2,500 a year--a trifle more than $48 a week--and
he asked the men if they had found any such sum of money in their
pay-envelope recently.

You can imagine the answer he received to this question, John. Yet,
the soap-boxer still asserted that this was the amount each worker had
earned, and insisted that the difference between $48 and the sum he had
received represented the amount of which his employer was “robbing”
him. From the look on the faces of some of the men, I felt that the
agitator had made an impression upon them. He reeled off his statistics
so glibly that you really couldn’t blame them for believing him.

Of course, he also told them that, under Socialism, nothing of this
kind could happen--that they would get their $2,500 a year, and more,
too, and that they would have to work only half as long a time each day
in order to earn this amount of money. “We must change the ‘system,’”
he cried. “We must stop the making of goods for profit! Then, and
then only, will you put an end to the exploitation that is the cause
of all your poverty and misery. It is the only way you can throw the
parasite-capitalist off your back. You are being robbed of four-fifths
of your wages, and you’re not allowed to keep even the little you get,
because capitalism, after robbing you by taking four-fifths of the
money you earn, puts the prices of everything you buy higher and higher
until there isn’t a penny of your earnings left for yourself, and you
don’t get a chance to live decently, at that.”

You have heard this kind of talk. You may have thought that there was
some truth in it. You--like all the rest of us--are confronted with the
problem of the cost of living, and--like most of us--you wish that you
could earn more money. “Is it possible,” you ask, “that I am earning
four times as much as I get, and that I am being ‘robbed’ of the
greater part of it?”

If you listen to the Socialists you will come to believe that this is
just what is happening. A Socialist paper published in Kansas has spent
a lot of money to advertise the fact that, when Socialism triumphs and
you get what you actually earn, you will be paid $2,000 a year for six
hours a day.

This is a very conservative estimate--for a Socialist. As you may have
learned by this time, the writers and speakers who undertake to tell
the worker what is to happen to him under Socialism do not agree about
the amount of money he will get and the length of time he will have to
work in the Co-operative Commonwealth, any more than they do when they
try to estimate the extent of the “robbery” from which he is suffering.

Usually, the rate of payment is fixed at $2,500 for four hours’ work a
day. A writer in a popular magazine fixes the sum the worker will be
paid at $5,000. Suthers, the English Socialist, promises the equivalent
of $10,000 a year, and there is a band of “comrades” on the Pacific
Coast who can demonstrate “scientifically” that a 3-hour day affords
sufficient time in which to earn a decent living and even the luxuries
of life.

Well, do you believe any of these statements? I hope you are not such
a simpleton as to be fooled by the bald assertion of any speaker or
writer when you have, within your reach, the facts from which you can
learn the truth for yourself.

Let us pursue this more rational method. Certainly, the Socialists
cannot object if we check off their calculations and find out if they
have made any mistakes in their figuring.

According to the last United States Census report--and that ought to
be good enough authority for anybody--the total value of all the goods
manufactured in this country during the year 1909 was $20,672,052,000
and the number of persons employed in making these goods was 7,405,513.
If we divide one by the other, we find an earning capacity of more
than $2,700 per man; but, unfortunately, that is not the way things
work out. There are certain expenses of manufacture that have to be
deducted from the “gross value” before we can even begin to calculate
the earning capacity of the worker. One little item we mustn’t forget
is called “Cost of Materials.” Another item is known as “Miscellaneous
Expenses.” After you have received your wages, you are perfectly
willing that your employer shall deduct these “expenses” before
figuring his own profits, are you not?

In 1909, the “cost of materials” alone represented the tremendous
sum of $12,141,291,000 and the “cost of miscellaneous expenses” was
$1,945,676,000. When we subtract these two charges from the “gross
value,” we have $6,585,085,000 left, and if we divide this sum by the
number of workers, we find that the average product of the worker was
but $889.23.

What did the worker actually get? The “cost of labor and salaries,”
in 1909, was $4,365,613,000, and, if we divide this by the number of
workers, we learn that the average is $589.52.

This is quite different from the story the Socialists tell us. Had
all the industries in America been owned and operated collectively,
in 1909, the worker, at the best, could have received but $299.71
more than he did, for, as you must admit, such factors as “cost of
materials” and “miscellaneous expenses” must needs be considered, even
under the collective system of industry. Certainly, the worker in the
textile mills could not produce the cotton and wool and silk, and the
shoe-worker could not raise the animals and prepare the leather, even
were Socialism to bring about all the marvelous changes it has promised.

Yet, this is precisely what the Socialists do when they commence to
quote “facts.” It is useless for them to deny the charge, for there is
no other method by which they can figure an average earning capacity
of $2,500 for each worker. To do this it would be necessary for the
employer to get his cotton for nothing, his leather for nothing, and
everything he uses in making his product, for nothing. Moreover, it
presupposes that he can procure free fuel, free light, and, what is
still more improbable, that he has to pay nothing for new machinery
or for repairing the old. Do you think that the Socialist is showing
himself the “friend” of the worker when he fills his mind with such
“dope” as this?

And, even, the figures we have worked out are not fair--to the
employer. He does not make a profit of more than $299 upon the labor
of each of his workers--not by any means! Out of the $299 must come
the cost of selling and transportation, bad debts, taxes, interest,
etc., so that, when we have deducted all these charges, we can scarcely
question Willey’s justification for the assertion (“Laborer and the
Capitalist,” p. 22) that capital actually receives no more than 6
per cent net profits on its product. Moreover, as _The American
Federationist_ points out (July, 1905), the census figures fall short
of giving us the actual cost of manufactures, as the original “gross
value” upon which our calculations are based is itself “arrived at by
a constant duplication of value, owing to the fact that the finished
products of one plant become the material of some other factory, in
which they are changed into some higher form and again included in the
value of products.”

I will admit that it is practically impossible to compile statistics
that will take such facts as these into consideration, and the
Socialists do not act fairly when they lead us to assume that all these
conditions have been considered in their figures. How many times do you
suppose the value of the same piece of leather is computed from the
time it becomes a hide until it is turned out, a finished product, from
the shoe factory. Yet, as we have seen, every time the value of this
material is included in the value of products it gives the manufacturer
credit for a sum of money that never reached him.

Let us suppose that we were running all our industries under just such
a collective form of government as the Socialists propose to establish,
and that, as a result, we were bound to see that every worker got the
$5,000 a year he has been promised. Do you see what that would mean?
Figure it out for yourself--multiply the 7,405,513 workers in the
industrial plants by the $5,000 that each would have to be paid, and
then remember that the seven millions of workers represent only a small
proportion of the workers to whom this sum of money must be given by
the Co-operative Commonwealth. Even counting the seven millions alone,
we have a total of $37,027,505,000--almost twice as much as the “gross
value” of all manufactured products in this country to-day.

It is true that we do not know just how many men, women and children
of working age there are who would have to be given a place in the
collective pay-roll. In view of the total population of the United
States, I do not think that any Socialist will accuse me of overstating
the case if I assert that there would be 30,000,000 people to be
provided for.

What would this mean? Merely an annual pay-roll of
$150,000,000,000--that’s all.

Easy, isn’t it! At present, we manufacture less than $21,000,000,000
worth of goods--the consumable wealth produced in the United States
is estimated by Socialists to be but $30,000,000,000 (_Appeal to
Reason_, October 5, 1912); yet they ask us to get busy and undertake
to meet a pay-roll that is at least fully five times greater than the
total product to-day. And, if you want to be as conservative as the
most conservative Socialist statistician who is dreaming these dreams,
and allow that labor under Socialism will be rewarded with a meagre
$2,000 a year, you will still have a pay-roll of $60,000,000,000 to
provide for, or twice as much as we make. How are you going to meet
it? As a practical man, John, I ask you: _How?_ Certainly not from the
$21,000,000,000 produced each year in manufactures. If we add to this
the total wealth represented by the agricultural, mining and fishing
interests of this country, we shall still fall far short of the sum we
require. How is it to be done?

Absurd as all these promises are, we have not yet reached the
limit--far from it! For example, we are told that in the Co-operative
Commonwealth we shall have to work only half as long as we do now.
In other words, the man who works eight hours a day now, will get
along swimmingly by working four hours, and still receive the income
promised--from $2,000 to $5,000 a year--for his effort.

Are we to understand from this that, though the worker, with the best
machinery and the most scientific management now possible, succeeds
only in turning out less than $900 worth of goods in a year, he will be
able, under collective management, to turn out from two and one-half to
five times as great a product, while working just half as many hours?

You know that this couldn’t be done. You know that, if you worked
half as many hours as you do now, some other man would have to put
in the other half of the day or only about half the usual product
would be manufactured. If, therefore, we entirely disregard the fact
that Socialists are promising to pay the individual worker more money
every year than several workers are now able to produce, we are still
confronted by a problem that defies solution. A certain amount of work
must be done to keep the needs of Society supplied. To do this work, a
certain amount of effort must be exerted, and, to exert this effort, a
certain amount of time is necessary. Yet, the Socialists want us to
assume that all of these appeals to common sense are absurd--that once
the making of goods for profit has ceased, there will be no difficulty
in meeting the industrial pay-roll, no matter how enormously its
proportions may have increased.

And this leads up to still another very interesting phase of the
situation. We are told by the Socialists that the making of goods for
profit is to end, and that, in the Co-operative Commonwealth, such
problems as the high cost of living will trouble us no longer. Once let
the Socialists get control of our industries and we shall be compelled
to pay no more than a commodity is actually worth.

Do you see into what a maze of absurdities the Socialists have led
you? They tell us that we are to get anywhere from $2,000 to $5,000 a
year. An English Socialist promises the workers $10,000 a year, for
what does a few paltry thousands matter when a great army of voters
are to be fooled into casting their ballots for the Socialist ticket!
In addition, you are assured that your work-day is to be cut in half,
and you are further informed that, with the culmination of the profit
system, you will be able to purchase everything you want at materially
lower prices than are charged for such commodities to-day.

Will you tell me, John, where the Socialists are going to get the
money to meet this enormous pay-roll, if they stop making goods for
profit? Wages are to be increased out of all proportion to the present
schedule; hours of labor are to be reduced to a minimum, and yet,
despite all this, the prices of all commodities are to be cheapened,
too.

You don’t see how they are going to do it? No more do I! Suppose you
ask that wise little man on the street-corner. Maybe he can tell you!




CHAPTER VI

YOU “WAGE SLAVES”!


  My dear Smith,

If you were to tell the soap-boxer that Socialism is an impracticable
scheme, and that it couldn’t “make good” whether we all wanted it or
not, he would become very indignant and would probably call you a
“blind fool,” if he did not shower upon you still more vituperative
epithets. If you ever find yourself in such a position, don’t let
the soap-boxer place you on the defensive. When you talk about the
impracticability of Socialism you put the Socialist just where he
doesn’t want to be, and, if you follow up your attack consistently
and strenuously, you will have him on the run before you know it.
Socialists like to theorize. They like to talk to people who don’t
ask for too many details, but they have little liking for the man who
demands definite plans and accurate specifications.

You have a little house in a new suburban section. It is a small house
and it has a mortgage on it, but you are paying for it gradually and
it won’t be many years before it will be all your own. Even now the
payments and all the charges together call for a smaller monthly
expenditure than would be required if you rented a home not nearly as
comfortable as this one.

Now, John, suppose I were to come to you and tell you that if you
would let me tear down your house I would build you another somewhere
else. Wouldn’t you be likely to ask me where the new house was to be
located, and what guarantee I would give you that it would be a more
satisfactory place of abode than the one which you now occupy? No
matter how well you may know me--no matter how much confidence you
may have in me as an individual--unless you are a very careless or a
very stupid person, you will refuse to consent to any change in your
domestic arrangements until you are certain that the proposition will
be advantageous to you.

Such caution is entirely reasonable; this is the attitude you should
take; yet Socialism asks you to disregard all such conditions. It
expects you to believe that, when everything that represents modern
civilization has been thrown into a vast melting-pot called “The
Revolution,” something will come out of it that will be very much to
your profit. They won’t tell you how this is to be brought about. They
themselves have a vague idea in regard to what kind of a society we are
to evolve into, and they try to describe it to you under the general
terms of the “Co-operative Commonwealth.” As a matter of fact, however,
it is almost impossible to find any two Socialists who will agree, even
as to the main points of their program, and some of the socialistic
leaders are honest enough to admit that there is a poor chance that
they would be able to carry out this program successfully, even if
given the best of opportunities. For example, Edward Bernstein, who is
a sufficiently good Socialist to be selected to represent his party
in the German Reichstag, admits that, “_Socialism could not keep its
promise if it were placed in power to-morrow._”

Remember this the next time the soap-box orator calls you a “wage
slave.” Ask for specifications. Insist upon his telling you if
Socialism would not introduce as hopeless a form of slavery as the
world has ever known, and--if not, why not?

It is a catchy phrase, the term “wage slave.” It is a telling taunt
that does good service for Socialism wherever there are people simple
enough to be imposed upon. Yet if you, who are not a Socialist,
will study this question you can easily turn the tables upon the
limber-tongued agitator in a way to make him very unhappy.

In the first place, the use of the term “wage slave” would naturally
lead us to suppose that, under Socialism, men will no longer work for a
wage; that they will become their own masters, employing themselves and
paying themselves the full product of their labor; in a word, that each
will be free with a freedom such as man has never before experienced.

Knowing that this is the plan proposed by many prominent Socialist
thinkers, it is somewhat surprising to find publications purporting to
represent Socialism still promising the worker a “wage.” It is true
that they have greatly increased the amount of his remuneration until
they promise him anywhere from $2,000 to $10,000 a year, but they
combine to talk about the “wages” he will get.

What does this mean? Simply that under Socialism he will still be a
wage earner. He may receive labor checks instead of United States
currency--or something equivalent in value--but, if such a system
were to be carried out, he could have no more freedom than he enjoys
to-day and from every indication it is not impossible that he might
have considerably less. A man is no less a wage slave because he works
for 90,000,000 and himself, than he is when he is employed by a single
individual. This is a fact that Socialism overlooks.

Under the present system a man is free to choose his own method of
livelihood. If he does not like one trade, he can learn another. If he
wants to get out of the industrial sphere altogether and enter upon a
professional career, there are methods of accomplishing this purpose
within his reach, if he is willing to work hard enough to attain that
end. It is true that there are certain restrictions under existing
labor conditions--the area of selection is not as wide as it might be,
yet there is a great deal more scope for the development of individual
preference to-day than there could possibly be under Socialism.

Let us see for ourselves.

Socialism provides for the collective ownership of all means of
production, distribution and exchange. This means that the State--using
the term as “collective” State, of course--would organize all these
industries and would operate them upon a collective, which means a
democratic, basis. Under such conditions it is doubtless true that
every man would have an equal opportunity to earn a living, but it is
absurd for anybody to assert that this equality of opportunity would
also mean absolute freedom of choice.

If you want evidence in support of this statement, you can get it--and
Socialist testimony at that.

In 1906, the Fabian Society of London--an organization composed of
absolutely orthodox Socialists--issued a leaflet entitled, “Socialism
and Labor Policy.” Let us see what they have to say about the freedom
of choice we shall have under the collective régime.

“Everybody should have a legal right to an opportunity of earning his
living in the society in which he has been born,” we read, “but no one
should or could have the right to ask that he should be employed at the
particular job which suits his peculiar taste and temperament. Each of
us must be prepared to do the work which Society wants doing, or take
the consequences of refusal.”

Again, Sydney Webb, in his “Basis and Policy of Socialism” (p. 71),
says:

“Instead of converting every man into an independent producer, working
when he likes and where he likes, we aim at enrolling every able-bodied
person directly in the service of the community, for such duties and
under such kind of organization, local or national, as may be suitable
to his capacity and social function. In fact, so far are we from
seeking to abolish the wage system, so understood, that we wish to
bring under it all those who now escape from it--the employers, and
those who live on rent or interest--and so make it universal. If a man
wants freedom to work or not to work just as he likes, he had better
emigrate to Robinson Crusoe’s island, or else become a millionaire.
To suppose that the industrial affairs of a complicated industrial
State can be run without strict subordination and discipline, without
obedience to orders, and without definite allowances for maintenance is
to dream not of Socialism, but of Anarchism.”

And Sydney Webb is not alone in these conclusions. Ramsay MacDonald,
who is certainly one of the most conservative of Socialists, expresses
the same spirit when he tells us that “trade must be organized like a
fleet or education system” (“Socialism and Society,” p. 172); while
Suthers answers this particular “objection” by expressing the most
genuine contempt for those who would protest against the kind of
slavery that collectivism would introduce. He reminds us that the
people themselves would then be masters. Who would oppress the people?
The people themselves? Like so many other Socialists, he will not see
that slavery is slavery under whatever guise it may operate.

The only attempts to escape this proposition have been most utopian
in character. Bebel, for example, asks us to believe that, in a
Socialist State, disagreeable work will be accomplished chiefly
by means of mechanical devices and that such undesirable tasks as
remained, and which could be performed only by personal action, would
be freely undertaken, as an effect of the unselfish spirit which will
prevail among the workers of the future. He even suggests that it
will be possible to inaugurate a kind of changing-off system so that
each member of society may in his turn submit to assignment to the
performance of the more disagreeable duties.

While this suggestion may be equitable in theory, it is of no practical
value. Picture to yourself what kind of a community we should have
if each individual was compelled to submit himself by a changing-off
system to the most disagreeable avocations that you can imagine. Can
you say that “freedom” could exist under such a régime? Do you think
that such a system is possible outside of the penitentiary?

Of still greater absurdity is Bebel’s promise (“Woman,” p. 271) that
the members of the social body shall become so perfectly developed
that, “without distinction of sex,” they “shall undertake all
functions” of society. As Cathrein says (p. 289), “this statement can
hardly be said to deserve a refutation.”

“Let us only imagine what such industrial and technical ability
supposes,” he continues. “Every individual in his turn undertakes all
social functions. For instance, in a factory he is director, foreman,
fireman, bookkeeper, a simple laborer or hod-carrier; then he turns
to some other branch of industry or social calling--becomes editor,
compositor, telegrapher, painter, architect, actor, farmer, gardener,
astronomer, professor, chemist, druggist. With such a program is any
thorough knowledge of anything possible?”

You know, John, that the efficient worker is the man who has mastered
a trade thoroughly, and you also know that the maintenance of his
efficiency depends upon his constant attention to the ever-changing
details of his particular trade. This means the application of a
lifetime, yet Socialists tell us that, merely by the adoption of the
collective system, all men will become so perfectly proficient in
everything that they will be fitted to undertake every kind of work.

No, John, this is not a joke! I did not find it in _Puck_ or _Judge_.
It is Bebel and other equally bright lights of the Socialist
philosophy, who are responsible for these assertions. Even Marx himself
endeavors to prove (“Capital,” p. 453) that the “separate individual”
will be replaced by the “totally-developed individual,” and this
development will confer upon the workman “absolute availability” for
everything. If this is not a flight of imagination worthy of our old
friend Baron Munchausen, what is it? Even Professor Paulsen, who cannot
be called an anti-Socialist, protests in his “System of Ethics” (Vol.
II, p. 437) against the equalizing tendencies shown by those who are
trying to picture the future Co-operative Commonwealth.

“In the society of the future,” he says, “the self-same individual
will be letter carrier to-day; to-morrow he must perform the
duties of a post-office clerk; on the third day he must act as
postmaster-general--but why use a title?--in short, he must undertake
all that business which at present the director of the national
post-office has in hand--he must prepare programs for international
post-office congresses, etc.; and on the fourth day he must again
return to the counter; on the fifth he condescends to be letter-carrier
once more but this time not in the metropolis, but in some
out-of-the-way place, for it is but meet that the sweets of city life
should fall to the lot of all in their turn. Thus it would be also with
the railroad department, in the mining and military department and
in every common factory. To-day the member of the socialistic State
descends into the bowels of the earth as a collier, or hammers at the
anvil, or punches tickets; to-morrow he wields the quill, balances
accounts, makes chemical experiments, drafts designs for machines
or issues general edicts on the quantity and quality of the social
productions.”

So, you “wage slaves,” you have been told what is in store for you.
The utopian promises of some Socialist apologists are too ridiculous
to be credited by a sane individual. The only thing that remains is
the course which Sydney Webb and Ramsay MacDonald have outlined. The
worker will still work for a wage. The officials of the new State will
sanction the selection of his employment. He may take it or leave it,
live or starve to death, for there will be but one master to whom he
can turn for a job--the omnipotent State. It is the State that will
tell him what he is permitted to do, and he will have no right save
that of strict obedience.

As the author of “The Case Against Socialism” says (pp. 290-1): “A man
might desire to be an electrical engineer. ‘No vacancies,’ says the
State. ‘Ah, but I am sure that I can prove myself to be a much better
man than some whom you have chosen,’ replies the applicant. ‘No outside
competitions allowed,’ says the State. ‘We want masons, and a mason you
must be.’ ‘But have I no personal freedom?’ replies the man. The answer
is that he belongs to the State, and, if the official is in the mood to
graciously explain matters further, the man will probably be told that
it is difficult enough to organize labor at all, and that the attempt
would become impossible if anyone was so selfish as to consider such a
trivial matter as his own inclinations.”

What chance could a worker have under such circumstances? If he was not
satisfied, he would simply have to pocket his dissatisfaction and make
the best of it. What do you think of a body of men who, while planning
this fate for the American worker, have the nerve to talk to him about
“wage slavery”! Could anything be worse than this slavery with the
State as a master?




CHAPTER VII

YOUR BOSS UNDER SOCIALISM


  My dear Smith,

Having seen what the condition of the “wage slave” will be under
Socialism, it is only fair that we should give a little attention
to that other class in the Co-operative Commonwealth, the “bossing
class.” The Socialist speaker on the street-corner assures us that,
when the Socialist ideal is realized, everything in society will be
democratically managed. It is in this way, they say, and in this way
alone, that true liberty can be realized. The fact that they do not
make clear is that, if you accept their definition, “liberty” means
liberty to do just as we are told and nothing more.

And there will be no lack of people with power to tell you what to do.

As Laurence Gronlund states in “The Co-operative Commonwealth” (p.
115), while the Commonwealth “guarantees suitable employment,” it
certainly cannot “guarantee a particular employment to everybody,” and
this, as your own good judgment must tell you, opens the way for the
creation of an army of state controllers in numbers hitherto undreamt
of.

The theory that efficient work can be performed without direction is so
utopian that it has been discarded, even by the majority of Socialists.
The most that they are trying to do to-day is to develop a plan whereby
the actual worker and the army of bosses may exist without continuous
warfare.

This brings us to the question: How are these bosses to be selected?
For of course, so many will want to be bosses that some definite mode
of selection must be resorted to.

Some socialistic prognosticators assert that the candidates for the
directive positions will undergo a kind of civil service examination.
Other authorities state that they will be chosen by drawing lots; but,
as one writer has said, “in point of impracticability there is little
to choose between the two suggestions.”

The favorite theory, however, is that the choice of bosses will be made
by popular election, and such a course would be eminently socialistic
in that it cynically and entirely ignores the claims of individual
efficiency.

We know how inadequate a system of election may be, especially when
popularity becomes the important factor in the choice of a candidate.
It is not easy to imagine the complications that will ensue when every
question of management of social affairs must be determined by the vote
of the people.

In “Two and Two Make Four” (p. 230), Bird S. Coler, a most practical
man of affairs, presents a sample of the questions upon which the
people might be called upon to vote, thus giving us an opportunity to
see how wisely we may be governed under Socialism:

“Boris Humphiak says puddling is a hot, hard job, and he doesn’t see
why he should blister and sweat while Reginald Carnegie just sits in
a cool office talking to a stenographer. Comrade Carnegie explains to
Comrade Humphiak that the Carnegie labor is necessary, directive labor,
and can be performed in the office, while the Humphiak labor is manual
labor and must be performed in the puddling room. Comrade Humphiak
cannot see it. He says each man ought to take his turn at puddling and
at superintending. Let us vote on it. There are a thousand puddlers,
one superintendent. The vote is a thousand to one for the Humphiak
proposition. Comrade Carnegie goes down to the puddling room, tries to
puddle, to the intense joy of the other puddlers who cease labor in
order to enjoy his weak and inefficient attempts to puddle; and, when
blinded and exhausted, he overturns a vat of molten metal, those who
survive are sorry and those who do not, among whom is Comrade Carnegie,
do not care any more. Meanwhile, Comrade Humphiak goes into the office,
lights a cigar and neglects to give some orders, as a result of which
forgetfulness on his part, the mill burns down.”

There is nothing absurd in the picture which Mr. Coler has drawn.
Complications just as serious would arise were the questions of
direction left to a popular vote; yet, if such matters are not settled
by the ballot, how are they to be adjusted?

“Some kind of organization labor must have,” says Herbert Spencer (“A
Plea for Liberty,” p. 10), “and if it is not that which arises by
agreement under free competition it must be that which is imposed by
authority.... Without alternative, the work must be done, and without
alternative the benefit whatever it may be must be accepted.”

Socialists like to talk about abolishing class distinction. They know
that this is one of the most attractive proposals that they can dangle
before the envious and the ignorant. Yet what have we here but the
establishment of two distinct classes--the directing or “bossing”
class, and the obeying or working class? That Socialism would institute
changes, there can be no doubt, but it would be a change in bosses,
not a change in methods. As Professor Flint has said (“Socialism,” p.
373), “it would place the masses of mankind completely at the mercy of
a comparatively small and highly centralized body of organizers and
administrators entrusted with such power as no human hand can safely
and righteously wield.”

Hobhouse in “Democracy and Reaction” (p. 228), clearly defines what
this must mean:

“As the ‘expert’ comes to the front and ‘efficiency’ becomes the
watchword of administration, all that was human in Socialism vanishes
out of it. Its tenderness for the losers in the race, its protests
against class tyranny, its revolt against commercial materialism,”
all the sources of the Socialist doctrines are gone like a dream,
and “instead we have the conception of society as a perfect piece of
machinery pulled by wires radiating from a single centre, and all men
and women are either ‘experts’ or puppets.”

It is thus that humanity, liberty and justice must vanish under
Socialism, for the ultimate result, said Mr. Spencer (“A Plea for
Liberty,” p. 26), “must be a society like that of ancient Peru ... in
which the mass of the people, elaborately regimented in groups of 10,
50, 100, 500 and 1,000, ruled by officers of corresponding grades and
tied to their districts, were superintended in their private lives as
well as in their industries, and toiled hopelessly for the government
organization.”

Not in practice alone, but in theory as well, the Socialist form of
government is nothing short of absolute despotism. The very fact
that the citizens of a nation--or of the world, should International
Socialism become possible--are divided into the two classes of
controllers and controlled necessarily provides for inequality in
rank and an unequal enjoyment of the right of liberty. Socialists urge
that, because the controlling class will derive their rights from the
voluntary act of the controlled, such a condition of affairs will be
freely undertaken. This may be possible in the beginning. It is quite
probable that those destined to be controlled may, through their
whole-hearted belief in Socialism, co-operate in the establishment of
the new régime. But, later, it would begin to be a different story.
Once having experienced the privilege of directing, it is quite beyond
the bounds of reason to suppose that the director will consent freely
to take his place in the servient class. A member of the official
class, once that class has become firmly established, would strenuously
resist any act threatening his position, and it would be doing an
injustice to Socialists to assume that some of them have not seen
this necessary consequence of their system. What would happen were
such a move contemplated is frankly stated by Professor Karl Pearson.
“Socialists,” he says (“Ethics of Free-thought,” p. 324), “have to
inculcate that spirit which would give offenders against the State
short shrift and the nearest lamp-post.” As Professor Flint remarks,
such a sentiment “gives expression to the thought which animated the
first tyrant.”

If you were to read the works of the prominent Socialist writers, John,
you would find that Professor Pearson does not stand alone in his
opinion. Robert Blatchford, in his popular presentation of Socialism
(“Merrie England,” p. 75), goes just as far in asserting that man has
no right to demand any other freedom than that which the majority may
be willing to permit him to have. “Just as no man can have a right to
the land, because no man makes the land, so no man has a right to his
self, because he did not make that self.”

In spite of the crudeness and illogical character of this statement,
it expresses only too forcibly the claim for the deification of
the Socialist State at the cost of the complete suppression of the
individual.

What does all this mean? In the last analysis it means that, if there
is to be a servient class and a bossing class, it really is immaterial
whether the worker belongs to the minority or to the majority. In
either case, if he is selected as one to be bossed, such will be
his fate, for the only people who will actually count at all are the
officials who have been chosen, by one means or another, to become the
bosses. What will make the conditions of the worker under Socialism
infinitely worse than it is to-day, is the absence of any means of
associated action for redress. Under no circumstances could such an
existence be tolerable save in an ideal State in which benevolence
reigns supreme--a State where envy, hatred, tyranny, ambition,
indolence, folly and vanity no longer exist; a State where there are
only wise and good men; and in such a State even law and direction
might logically become unnecessary.

The human race, John, is not fitted for such a State. Untold centuries
will pass before this ideal millennium can even remotely be realized.
In the meantime we are trying to improve conditions with the material
which we have at hand. With such material, even were all the theories
of Marx to be put into operation, human nature must be considered as a
factor, and it takes no prophet to foresee what a hopeless muddle we
should make of things if we tried to run society upon the principles
which Socialism proposes. Even John Spargo admits that “there is
no such thing as an ‘automatic democracy,’ and eternal vigilance
will be the price of liberty under Socialism, as it has ever been”
(“Socialism,” p. 217).

Mr. Spargo is right as far as he goes, but he does not go far enough.
He does not tell us that under Socialism vigilance would no longer
be possible because it would not be tolerated; that with all trades
and industries in the hands of the government, with all men and
women dependent on the government for daily bread and compelled to
do the work assigned to them, the State will consist of two classes
only--state functionaries and ordinary people, controllers and
controlled, masters and slaves. In what manner could man protect
the rights of liberty under such a régime? What remedy could he
have against oppression when he would always be pitted against “the
State”--a State which would be placed in a position of being able to do
no wrong.

“Wage slavery,” John? Isn’t this infinitely worse than any “wage
slavery” of which you have ever dreamt?




CHAPTER VIII

SOME MORE “EQUALITY”


  My dear John,

If you want to see how mad a man can get and still live, ask the
soap-box orator if Socialism proposes to pay all kinds of workers the
same wage. Tell him that you have heard that, in the Co-operative
Commonwealth, there will be absolute equality of remuneration.

If you put this question to the street-corner agitator, I’ll promise
that you will get all that you bargained for and more. But don’t
be frightened by his torrent of wrath and indignation. Quietly but
persistently press the question home. Have your quotations where
you can get at them easily, and be sure that they are strictly
“scientific”--that you have the right page of the book from which they
have been taken. If you will do this, and maintain your equanimity, you
can very soon take the wind out of the soap-boxer’s sails, because,
whatever some Socialists say to the contrary, equality of remuneration
is the only possible outcome of the socialistic system, and there are
plenty of simon-pure Marxists who admit as much.

In my last letter I told you what Socialism means by “equality of
opportunity,” and I proved the truth of my statements by citing
quotations the authenticity of which no Socialist can deny. Not one of
these quotations was “torn from its context,” or otherwise mutilated,
though there may be some Socialists who will tell you that this is what
has happened.

Having seen that “equality of opportunity” means merely the opportunity
to do the things that meet the approval of the bosses, we will now
consider the question of equality of reward; and again we shall let the
Socialists themselves tell us what Socialism really means to do towards
“solving” the wage problem.

In the first place, let us refer to Karl Marx, for his orthodoxy
is probably above suspicion. We find that the great master of the
socialistic philosophy is a little uncertain as to what may happen
during the transitional period between capitalism and the realization
of the Socialist ideal. At this stage, he says, there may be
inequalities in rights, including remuneration, but about the ultimate
effect of collectivism, he has no such doubt. “In a higher phase
of communist society,” he says, “after the slavish subordination
of the individual under divisions of labor and consequently the
opposition between mental and bodily work has disappeared ... after
the individual has become more perfect in every respect ... then only
... society may inscribe on its banner: ‘From each one according to
his abilities, to each one according to his needs.’” (“Zur Kritik des
sozialdemokratischen Parteiprogramms.”)

It is difficult to construe this statement of Marx to mean anything
except that the end of Socialism is practically complete equality in
matters of reward. Certainly this is the idea which Mr. Spargo has
formed from his study of the Marxist philosophy, for he tells us very
definitely in his book, “Socialism” (p. 233), that “it may be freely
admitted that the ideal to be aimed at ultimately must be approximate
equality of income.”

George Bernard Shaw, the eminent English Socialist, also admits that
equality is the ultimate aim of Marxism. In a paper read before the
Fabian Society, in 1910, and published in the _Fabian News_ (January,
1911), Mr. Shaw defines Socialism as “a state of society in which the
income of the country would be divided equally among the inhabitants,
without regard to character, industry or any other consideration except
that they were human beings.”

And, that there might be no misunderstanding about his attitude toward
this question, Mr. Shaw, talking to an interviewer for _The Labor
Leader_, said (March 31, 1912): “Socialism is the system of society
where all the income of the country is to be divided up in exactly
equal portions; every one to have it, whether idle or industrious,
young or old, good or bad ...; anyone who does not believe that, is
not a Socialist.... Those are the conditions on which I say I am a
Socialist. Those are the conditions on which Society should stand. The
point is not whether they are reasonable conditions or not. They are
the only workable conditions.”

Mr. Shaw seemed to think it necessary to disarm possible criticism
by admitting that the conditions he proposes might be called
“unreasonable.” His fears are groundless. We do not dub his proposition
“unreasonable”--indeed, it embodies the only reasonable conditions
under which Socialism could be operated. The only unreasonable thing
about it is that it absolutely defies any attempt to bring it into
harmony with that other working proposition of Marxism: that every
worker shall receive the full products of his labor. If all are to
get the same reward, whether idle or industrious, whether valuable or
valueless to the community, it necessarily follows that some portion of
the proceeds of the industrious workers’ labor must go to the worker
whose labor has been profitless.

Discouraging as such a system of payment would be to industry and
initiative, it still is, as a matter of fact, the only system that
Socialism can adopt if it is to show any regard for the preservation of
the collective character of the State.

If all workers are paid alike, it is possible that a certain degree of
equality may be maintained. If, as Blatchford says in “Merrie England”
(p. 103), “the only difference between a Prime Minister and a collier
would be the difference of rank and occupation,” the mere worker may
feel that he is living in a State in which class distinction has been
largely eliminated. If, on the other hand, workers are to be paid
according to the nature and value of their productions, how long do
you think it will be before a new set of class distinctions will be
created? How long will it be before the skilled workman who draws the
fattest pay envelope will become the aristocrat, or, at least, will
assume a class distinction mid-way between the bossing class and the
class of unskilled laborers?

The Socialists themselves have recognized the danger that the problem
of remuneration presents, and have tried to anticipate some of its
difficulties by suggesting possible solutions. The sophists among them,
of course, have sought to evade the issue, thus leaving the inquirer
to imagine that this question, like all the other difficulties that
confront the Collectivist, will settle itself when the moment of
emergency arises. The more honest and consistent Socialists, however,
are quite frank in their admission that equality of reward is the
inevitable consequence of Collectivism. Even Spargo, in the quotation
already referred to, admits that class formation must take place and
the old problems incidental to economic inequality reappear under
anything less than an “approximate equality of income.”

Mrs. Annie Besant, who is a much-quoted Socialist, takes the same
stand. “Controversy,” she says (“Fabian Essays,” pp. 163-164), “will
probably arise as to the division: shall all shares be equal, or shall
the workers receive in proportion to the proposed dignity or indignity
of their work? Inequality would be odious.... The impossibility of
estimating the separate value of each man’s labor with any really valid
result, the friction which would arise, the jealousies which would be
provoked, the inevitable discontent, favoritism, and jobbery that would
prevail; all these things will drive the Communal Council into the
right path--equal remuneration of all workers.”

And yet as early as 1830--years before Marx and Engels had begun to
prepare their “Communist Manifesto”--the French Communists addressed a
manifesto to the Chamber of Deputies in which it was stated that the
equal division of property would constitute “a greater violence, a more
revolting injustice, than the unequal division which was originally
effected by force of arms, by conquest.”

The Socialist of the present day may well learn wisdom from the logic
of his French predecessors. It is a self-evident fact that production
must be most disastrously effected by equality of distribution. Where
is the incentive to come from if the industrious or the highly skilled
man is to be mulcted of a share of his earnings that it may be used
to equalize things with the “work-shy,” who happens to be indisposed
to earn a living for himself? As one writer suggests, “it is to be no
longer a question of ‘Every man for himself, and the devil take the
hindmost,’ but we are to go to the opposite extreme and endeavor to
establish an equally false doctrine of ‘Every man for his neighbor, and
the devil take the foremost.’”

Marx seemingly attempts to provide for this contingency by preaching
the doctrine embraced in the formula, “From each according to his
ability, to each according to his needs.” Apparently, he recognizes
that it will be impossible to evade the inequalities naturally existing
between different individuals, and he endeavors to neutralize these
natural advantages by supposing that each is to produce “according to
his ability.”

But, my dear John, you mustn’t be deluded by the suggestion that there
is a difference in these propositions. In both cases, the neutralizing
profits are to be taken from the most efficient producers and given
to those who are less efficient. If this were done there would soon
be an end to the Socialist promise that every worker is to get the
full product of his labor. If this rule of remuneration were to become
operative, the surplus product needed to supply the bad or idle worker
with the means of securing a reward “according to his needs,” would be
stolen from the proceeds of the industry of the more capable “comrades.”

Yet H. M. Hyndman, the prominent English Socialist, sees no objection
to this arrangement. In a letter contributed to the London _Daily
Telegraph_ (October 14, 1907), Mr. Hyndman wrote:

“Socialism will recognize no difference as to the share of the general
product between the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ workman, but will give both
every opportunity to make themselves more valuable citizens and
comrades. Good and bad will alike be doing their social best for the
community, and will be entitled to their full participation in the
enjoyment of the wealth created by the work of the whole body.”

Mr. Hyndman seems to assume that, under such a system of production,
there would be enough to go round--enough to satisfy all the wants of
every member of the community. Do you think this possible?

Suppose that Socialism were adopted to-morrow, and that you, knowing
that your livelihood was assured, were working side by side with a man
who was producing about half as much as you. Would the fact that his
sloth and incapacity did not count against him inspire you to do your
best work, especially when you realized that the surplus product of
your toil was fated to compensate him for his failure to “make good”?

It makes little difference from what point of view Socialism attempts
to solve its problem of remunerating the worker. No matter which
course it pursues, it courts disaster. Whether it rewards all equally
or continues to recognize the existence of natural inequalities, it
remains a system under which freedom is impossible.

Do you like the prospect, John?




CHAPTER IX

A FEW “MINOR” DETAILS


  My dear John,

When the Socialists promise to see that you get the full product of
your labor, there are a few minor details which they overlook. Not the
least of these is the detail as to how they are going to do it.

If you should ask your friend, the soap-box man, where he gets the
figures which he reels off so glibly when he is talking to you about
the way you are robbed, he may find it difficult to answer; but the
difficulty he encounters when confronted with such a question is
nothing in comparison to that which he will experience if you ask him
to inform you how the Socialist bosses are going to figure out your
labor value in a way to assure you against robbery. It is easy for him
to say that under Socialism you will get all you produce, but don’t let
him get away with the idea that he can make such statements without
being called upon to prove them.

It is a beautiful promise, this assurance of Socialism that every
worker in the Co-operative Commonwealth will get every penny that is
represented in his labor. It is a beautiful promise; but lots of people
have made beautiful promises and haven’t kept them. Can it be possible
that the bright little promiser who talks to you at the street corner
is one of the “four-flushers,” too?

Ask him the next time he invites questions. Tell him that you are a
practical man, and that you want more definite details.

Do you know what he will tell you? He will use a lot of words rounded
out into more or less eloquent periods, but, when you attempt to
analyze what he has said, you will find that all his wisdom could have
been expressed in a single sentence. In plain English, he tells you
that your request for details is nothing more or less than “a mark of
ignorance.” He wants you to believe that Socialism’s plan will be all
right for everybody, because, as the old negro said, “it jes’ works out
so.”

Well, perhaps it will! Let us see.

To test the truth of this theory, we must tackle one of the most
difficult problems that we shall be called upon to consider. But I
think, if we are patient, we shall be able to get to the bottom of
Marx’s complicated methods of reasoning, and so show that even the
promise to ascertain the full value of the worker’s labor--to say
nothing of the detail of giving it to him afterwards--is one of the
most glaring absurdities in the whole Socialist scheme.

Marx tells us that value is determined by labor.

What does he mean?

He means that the value of a commodity is fixed by the labor that is
put into it. This is all right as far as this statement goes, but it
does not help us very much in determining the value of a particular
commodity. Before we can know what a commodity is worth, we must know
(according to Marx) what it cost to produce the mental and physical
energy that was used in making it. To do this, we must first know the
total cost of all the commodities which the worker consumed during the
period when he was performing this particular task.

You know the old problem of the hen and the egg--which was first? The
Socialist’s labor-value puzzle is much more perplexing, because, in
addition to a lot of other things, you are called upon to find out
which was first, the worker or the commodity which he consumed--the
clothes he wore, the food he ate, the bed in which he slept while
acquiring the strength for the work that produced this commodity.

If you were called upon to answer this question, to fix the value of
even a single article, you would find the task anything but an easy
one. Can you imagine what will happen when the government functionaries
sit down to figure out this problem for every kind of article that is
sold--anywhere in the world?

But, don’t imagine that their task ends here. When they have once
succeeded in getting this puzzle solved, they will next be called upon
to find out how many persons have contributed their labor toward the
production of each and all of the commodities that have entered into
the transaction.

Benedict Elder, in exposing this particular absurdity of Socialism
in _The Common Cause_ (September, 1912), illustrated his argument by
showing the difficulties that the Socialist statisticians will face
when they are called upon to find the value of the labor necessary in
producing an ordinary pin. As it is difficult to obtain a more striking
example, we may well follow Mr. Elder’s calculations.

To find the value of the labor of making a pin, it is necessary to
begin by getting the exact time expended by every person who has
contributed a necessary part towards the production of the pin.
This includes the time of the man who sells the pin to you over
the counter--for, of course, there will have to be salesmen under
Socialism--the time spent by the miner who dug the metal from the earth
and by every other individual who has had anything to do in handling
it. Talk about tracing your ancestry back to the days of William the
Conqueror--that would be a “cinch” compared to this kind of mental
gymnastics!

Yet our Socialist statisticians are not finished with their work, even
yet! Before they can tell the cashier how much to pay the worker so
as to give him the full value of his labor in producing the pin, they
must also determine how much labor-power each man spent in doing his
part of this work and how many commodities, and how much of each, the
man consumed to produce the labor-power necessary to complete the task
assigned to him.

“Here,” says Mr. Elder, “we have indeed a monumental undertaking,
one that staggers the mind to contemplate, one that challenges a
combination of figures to express. Yet we are not fairly started at
our task.... We have taken but one commodity where the number of
commodities is practically infinite. We cannot follow the Socialists
many steps; their range becomes so vast, their intricacies so
bewildering, their complications so overwhelming, the throne of reason
would be threatened by the stupendous scale of thought demanded almost
at the outset. It is said that a German scientist once undertook to
figure out the number of possible moves on a chess-board. He reached
a point where the combination of figures required could no longer be
expressed in any known language, and then his mind unhinged. On the
chess-board there are just thirty-two pieces to be moved on sixty-four
spots.”

The Socialist program may seem very plausible and extremely attractive
when the Socialist propagandist is describing it in broad generalities
and you do not examine its details too critically; but, when you
get down to cases, John, and begin to try to find out how all these
magnificent promises are to be kept, you will begin to feel that you
are in danger of joining the German scientist whose “mind unhinged.”

Just for the sake of argument, let us admit that the Socialist
functionaries have finally succeeded in performing the apparently
impossible task of ascertaining exactly how much your labor-time has
been worth to the community. This fact equitably determined, the worker
would probably be given labor checks, for which he could secure other
things of equal value with his labor. For example, if it required
1,000,000 days’ labor to provide this year’s shoes for the community
and 2,000,000 pairs of shoes were made in that time, we can imagine
that a check for one day’s labor might exchange for two pairs of shoes.

It is easy to see that it would require no small amount of book-keeping
to keep even this matter of detail adjusted fairly, especially when we
remember what intricate calculations are necessary to find out how many
persons contributed to the production of these shoes, and how the value
of the time of each worker must be figured. But the same difficulty
would present itself with every kind of commodity in any way dependent
upon the labor-power of man.

If the labor checks that each worker receives are to be of real value,
they must be exchangeable for articles which the worker himself needs
or thinks he needs. In other words, our Socialist officials are also
to be called upon to ascertain what the public may be expected to
demand. This does not mean merely the articles that are necessary to
life--food, clothing, fuel, etc.--but everything that must be placed
at the disposal of a man if he is to enjoy unrestricted freedom of
choice as to the character of the articles which he purchases. Even
the smallest thing must be considered--the boy’s jumping-Jack and the
button-boots for the doll baby; for it is not admitted that any wants
of man--however small or great--are to be prohibited by the government.

The ordinary playthings of the child represent a demand upon raw
material, and each of these demands must be considered in calculating
the total production for which arrangements must be made in advance.

To accomplish this result the statistical expert will be compelled to
ascertain the actual needs of every family--indeed, of every individual
from one end of the country to the other, if not throughout the
entire world, since, of course, there would still be an interchange
of products between the various lands. A statistical estimate based
upon present conditions would be of little avail. To overcome the
difficulty, an accurate schedule of every article that will be needed
to meet the demands of the purchaser must be made.

The taking of a census is a long and laborious task, and to its
completion years are devoted. Yet the census which the United States
government takes is mere child’s play compared with the schedules which
will have to be filled out, arranged and digested, if all the small
commodities which people want to buy, and which they buy to-day, are to
be ascertained and tabulated in preparation for production.

As Cathrein points out (“Socialism,” p. 270), it will be necessary
to consider “the numerous articles of food which are required even
in the humblest family, the supplying of the kitchen with fuel and
cooking utensils, the fitting up of the drawing-room and bedrooms with
furniture and ornamentation, the lighting and heating, the stocking of
the pantry, etc., besides the necessary repairs. There must be included
the mending of clothes, furniture, etc.... The authorities will have to
supply needle and thread to replace the missing shirt-button. All these
items must be tabulated for the determination of the demand upon which
the great system of production is to be based. And all this would have
to be done not for one family alone, but for the millions of families
which constitute a modern State and for everyone of their members....
Even a cursory glance at the immense department stores of our large
cities with their thousands of different articles, will convince anyone
of the great variety of modern requirements.

“Moreover, the social demand is not at all constant; it varies
from month to month, from week to week, even from day to day. Many
requirements cannot be foreseen in the least; suddenly and unexpectedly
they make their presence felt. Weekly or even daily inquiries would
become necessary, or at least there would be needed numerous offices
where lists of requirements could be filed.

“However, it would not suffice to provide for single families. The
needs of society at large, all the public requirements, would also
have to be satisfied. In the first place would come the arrangements
for transportation: streets and roads, bridges, railways, canals,
vehicles of all kinds. The care of all this would be incumbent on the
paternal State. What an amount of daily exertion to supply a large city
with meat, milk, fruit, vegetables, etc. Private hotels would also be
abolished. It would become the functions of public officials to provide
shelter, food, and service for every comer, unless travelling is to be
forbidden in the Socialist commonwealth. Then, again, the whole of the
building business will be in the hands of the State. Public and private
edifices, dwellings, schools, hospitals, insane asylums, storehouses,
theatres, museums, public halls, post and telegraph offices, railroad
stations, would have to be erected and kept in repair, or enlarged
as necessity required. And these buildings could not be handed over
to contractors as is generally done nowadays; the State alone could
take care of drawing up the plans and specifications, of gathering
the necessary materials and workmen, of directing and supervising
the erection. If the State is supposed to do all this systematically,
without squandering an immense amount of labor and materials, the
extent and quality of the requirements in the entire commonwealth must
be ascertained long beforehand by some responsible authority.

“What the different cities and town administrations are doing now,
and as a rule through private contractors, in the matter of streets,
public health, water supply, lighting, baths, etc., would fall to the
care of the State. Physicians, surgeons, druggists, nurses, midwives,
would have to be appointed, and it would be incumbent upon the State to
provide for the professional education of a sufficient number of people
for all these offices. The State would have to find ways and means
to take care of education, of the press, literature, arts, theatres,
museums, etc.... To this would have to be added the management of
the farms, vineyards, vegetable gardens, cattle and stock raising,
the forests and fisheries, mining, smelting, and other industrial
processes. In all these departments, the requirements would have to
be accurately ascertained before there would be any question of a
systematic regulation of production.”

There are several important items that have been omitted, but it
does not seem necessary to enumerate them. Enough has been shown
to demonstrate that, to perform all this work and to compile such
an overwhelming amount of statistical labor alone, a huge army of
public officials will be required, and they must be public officials
of such capability and integrity as not to be subject to the human
weaknesses that are responsible for so many of the blunders in work
of this kind--blunders that might prove fatal to the entire system of
production and even threaten the very existence of the nation.

Do you think that human intelligence is equal to such a task? The
soap-box orator may call your attention to the fact that this work is
being done to-day. Yes, it is being done, but, as the Socialist so very
often asserts, many of our worst evils are due to the fact that the
work is being done so badly.

The Socialist also assures us that he will remedy all these evils,
which means that Socialism will do the work much better than it is
being performed at the present time. Do you think that this is
possible? Do you believe that so gigantic a system of State machinery
can be organized and made to operate without a hitch? Is it possible
that a system of collective government composed of human units, all
subject to human frailties, can perform what private enterprise, with
its vast resources and its boundless ambition, has never been able to
accomplish, especially when no hope of extra recompense stimulates
these human units in the performance of their appointed tasks?




CHAPTER X

LABOR’S FULL PRODUCT


  My dear Smith,

There is a good reason why the Socialists are unwilling to tell you
just what their State will be, or how it will work. _They themselves do
not know._

You can divide the present-day Socialists into two classes. The best
of them are utopian dreamers--theorists who hope that things will work
out all right, and who are willing to take a chance. The worst of them
are mere office-seekers, eager for place or pelf, and willing to become
special pleaders for the oppressed in return for their votes.

There was a time when the Socialists were actuated by a high and
unselfish ideal. It was a fallacious ideal, it is true. They were
fighting for principles that would have worked the ruin of the nations
had they been put into practice. But, as you know, a man can be both
sincere and wrong at the same time. The early Socialists were sincere,
even though they were wrong. But those Socialists of to-day who have
turned the philosophy of Socialism into a purely political movement,
and who do not ask you to believe as they do so long as you vote as
they want you to vote, have neither high ideals nor good principles.
They are just as bad political grafters as have ever been harbored by
any of the old political parties.

If the Socialists do not know much about the practical operations of
their utopian commonwealth, however, we can work out the problem for
ourselves. All that it is necessary to do, John, is to collect the
different pieces of the Socialist program and fit them together, just
as you did the jig-saw puzzles with which you used to amuse yourself
when a boy.

For example, let us take still another phase of the Socialist promise
to see that every man shall get the full product of his labor.

The Socialists have been quick to realize that this fallacy is the best
vote-catching device that they have yet invented. “You make it all,”
they explain, “and it is all yours.”

“Yes, it is all yours!” they declare, “but do you get it? No, you do
not begin to get all of your earnings. If you are very lucky you may
get one-third of what you earn; if you are less lucky, you have to be
content with one-fifth. It is only under Socialism that you will get
_all_ your earnings.”

This is the promise that Blatchford makes in “Merrie England” (p. 189).
It is this that countless Socialist writers have promised. It is this
promise that is used as a text by practically every soap-box orator
in this country--or in any other, for that matter. “The right to the
entire product of labor and capital together!” That is the main tenet
of the gospel of Socialism.

Now, John, I am willing to admit for the sake of argument that there is
considerable justice in the worker’s demand for a larger portion of the
output of his industry. Of course, we cannot admit that he is entitled
to the entire output of labor and capital combined; but this point
need not delay us long, since he never will get it. He can’t expect
to have the full product now, and he needn’t expect to have it, even
if Socialism triumphs and the modern system of private ownership is
buried six feet underground. Neither Socialism nor any other system of
production will ever be able to make this promise good.

Do you see what this means? It simply shows that the Socialist is
trying to fool you with promises that can never be kept. He tells you
that he will give you the entire value of the product. He does not tell
you how he is going to find out how much it is, and he is also very
careful to conceal the fact that, even if he knew exactly how much the
value of your labor-time amounted to, he couldn’t give you the full
amount that you produce. He couldn’t do it to-day, nor a hundred years
from to-day, nor a million years from to-day, simply because it is a
proposition that is just as impossible as to make 2 plus 2 equal 5.

While the great mass of Socialist writers and speakers are so
unscrupulous that they continue to agree to espouse a policy which
they know they can never fulfil, there are other Socialists who are
more honest and who frankly admit that this program is entirely
impracticable. The latter are not the Socialists whose writings are
exploited for the instruction of possible converts, however. When a
man has caught Socialism and caught it bad, it is safe for him to read
what they have written; but, for the beginner, it is best to feed him
on the pre-digested and carefully censored output of the propaganda
committees.

The soap-box orator informs you that under Socialism all industry will
be owned collectively and will be conducted in the interests of the
workers exclusively. What does the worker imagine that this means? He
pictures himself as a part owner of the factory in which he works. He
sees himself dividing the profits of that manufacturing concern with
the 50 or 100 or 500 persons now constituting the working force of the
establishment. Believing that this is what Socialism promises to do for
him, he becomes interested immediately. Naturally the soap-box orator
doesn’t try to correct this impression.

Sydney Webb, however, tells a different story. He knows that Socialism
does not intend to do anything of this kind. Turn to “Fabian Tract No.
51” (p. 16), and you will read the following:

“The whole of our creed is that industry should be carried on, not for
the profit of those engaged in it, whether masters or men, but for
the benefit of the community. We recognize no special right in the
miners as such to enjoy the mineral wealth on which they work. The
Leicester boot operatives can put in no special claim to the profits
of the Leicester boot factory, nor the shop-man in the co-operative
store for the surplus of its year’s trading. It is not for the miners,
bootmakers, or shop-assistants, as such, that we Socialists claim the
control and the profits of industry, but for the citizens.”

This is quite a different proposition, isn’t it? Socialism doesn’t mean
that you are to be permitted to turn the factory in which you work into
a profit-producing concern for your own benefit. It does mean, however,
that the profit produced by all the concerns in the entire country
shall be lumped together, and, after all the losses and necessary
charges have been deducted, the sum left shall be divided among all the
people--a system under which you would receive one-fifty, one-seventy
or one-ninety millionth part, according to the population of the nation.

This puts the matter in a less attractive light, but we have by no
means fully disclosed the iniquity of those who are trying to fool the
voters with false promises. Let us now try to find out what charges
must be deducted from the total profits before this division can be
made.

Not all businesses are to-day successful. Some of them fail because
the people do not buy the articles which it was expected they would
buy, and it is quite possible that such mistakes might be made under
Socialism. It is entirely probable that some kind of mistakes would
be made, and that there would be approximately as great a proportion
of losses with collective management as we now have under individual
management. These items would, of course, have to be deducted before
the division of profits could be effected.

The Socialists claim that a large part of the profits of which the
worker is robbed, goes to meet the expenses of rent and interest,
two factors that would not have to be considered in the Co-operative
Commonwealth. They do not seem to take into account the fact that the
money applied to rent, interest and profit is not stored away, or
otherwise taken out of circulation, even to-day. The greater part of
this sum finds its way back to industry by providing for extensions in
business, renewals of machinery, enlargements of factories, and the
establishment of new industries.

There are items of expense that we cannot dodge even under Socialism.
Factories and machinery do not last forever. New methods must
constantly be adopted. An ever-increasing popular demand necessitates
an extension of manufacturing facilities. Do the Socialists expect us
to believe that, on the establishment of the Co-operative Commonwealth,
everything will be income and there will be no outlay--all profit and
no expenses?

Then we must provide for the payment of the huge army of Socialist
officials, for there will be practically no end to the number of
overseers, superintendents, clerks, bookkeepers, auditors, cashiers,
and statisticians--to say nothing of the host of minor officials--all
of whom will have to be paid at the same rate, to say the least, as the
laborers.

In talking about this kind of workers to-day, the Socialist agitator
is very apt to dub them a “non-producing class.” If you will examine
Socialist statistics carefully, you will find that the statisticians
almost invariably omit to consider the amount paid such workers as
an item of expense; that they are even likely to include the sum
represented by these salaries in the _profits_ of the employing class.
Should the time ever come when the Socialists themselves are called
upon to provide the pay-roll for the nation, they will discover that
the directive and executive workers, and all the persons employed to
carry out their part of the program, will call for the expenditure of
a tremendous sum of money. Tremendous as this amount would be to-day,
however, the present outlay for this purpose would be but a drop in the
bucket compared to the cost of the system that Socialism would have to
establish.

Let us see what the Socialists themselves--the more frank and honest
kind of Socialists--have to say about this matter.

Deville in “Socialism, Internationalism and Revolution,” says: “After
deducting from the product a portion to take the place of taxes,
a portion to replace the labor consumed, one to extend the scale
of production, one to insure against disasters, as floods, winds,
lightning, etc., one to support the incapable, one for administration,
one for sanitation, one for education, etc., the producers of both
sexes will distribute the balance among themselves in proportion of the
quantity of ordinary labor respectively furnished.”

Mrs. Besant, in “Fabian Essays” (p. 163), has very similar ideas upon
this point. She says:

“Out of the value of the communal produce must come rent of land
payable to the local authorities, rent of plant needed for working of
industries, wages advanced and fixed in the usual way, taxes, reserve
fund, accumulation fund, and the other charges necessary for the
carrying on of the communal business. All these deducted, the remaining
value should be divided among the communal workers as a ‘bonus.’”

A “bonus”? Yes, but would there be any bonus? These who are familiar
with the history of the labor movement in France will naturally recall
Louis Blanc’s unfortunate experiment with the National workshops.

In 1848 the Provisional Government issued a proclamation engaging to
guarantee work to all citizens and promising to put an end to the
sufferings of workmen by decreeing the formation of a permanent
Commission for the workers.

Louis Blanc, who was at the head of this movement to abolish all
profits of capital and to establish the perfect equality of all workers
“without considering skill or activity,” developed the National
Workshops scheme. At first the workmen threw themselves into the
project with great heartiness, even working overtime; but this was
merely a temporary condition. To aid the great tailoring workshop, the
government gave it an order to provide 25,000 uniforms for the National
Guard. The building in which the work was conducted was provided
absolutely free of cost and the government advanced all the capital
required in the experiment. The price agreed upon was to be eleven
francs per uniform. Each of the 1,500 workmen was given two francs a
day as “subsistence money,” and was promised his _pro rata_ share in
the profits.

But there were no profits. Instead, the uniforms actually cost, when
finished, sixteen francs apiece, and the government had to stand the
loss. You may read the whole story of the commercial disaster which the
attempt to introduce collective ownership brought upon France. The
experiment ended in a panic such as the nation had never known, and the
revolt of the workmen which followed was suppressed by the troops only
after 10,000 persons had been killed or wounded.

Don’t you think that I am right when I say that it will take something
more than the mere assertion of a Deville or an Annie Besant to
persuade a sane and sensible people that collective ownership is more
practical to-day than it was some sixty years ago?

The admissions that these Socialists have made seem conclusively frank;
yet Richardson, in “Industrial Problems” (p. 179), gives us a concrete
example that may throw an additional sidelight upon the situation. He
says:

“In a Socialist State, if a laborer in ten hours can produce five pairs
of shoes, he could not have as his reward for that labor five pairs
of shoes. For while he was making these shoes, educational work had
to be done, hospitals had to be operated, the mentally and physically
incapable had to be cared for--all socially necessary labor had to be
carried on; and the cost of the maintenance of these things is a part
of the cost of the social product.”

Richardson goes on to calculate how much the shoemaker “might get” for
his product; but he entirely overlooks the very grave possibility that
after all the items which Mrs. Besant and he have enumerated, and all
of Deville’s “etcetera” have been deducted, the worker “might get”
nothing at all.

In short, are we not justified in questioning the wisdom of this
scheme? Under the present system the wages of a worker represents a
first charge against the business, and profits, interests and rent can
be paid only out of what is left (if anything is left) after he has
secured his share.

The adoption of the Socialist system would change all this. The worker
might get a beggarly “subsistence wage,” to keep him alive and able to
work, but nothing else would be paid to him until all the expenses of
the State, including the cost of its numberless agents and officials,
had been deducted. Justly does Schaffle say (“The Quintessence of
Socialism,” p. 122): “The leading promise of social democracy is
practically and theoretically untenable; it is a delusive bait for the
extreme individualistic fanatic craving for equality among the masses.”

After seeing all this, John, do you think it possible that the
condition of the worker could be improved by the adoption of Socialist
methods? In view of the very dubious prospect of a possible “bonus,”
what do you think of a man who would go to the lengths that Spargo goes
in his attempt to befuddle the brain of those who are too ignorant,
or too careless, to investigate this question for themselves. Under
Socialism, Spargo says (“Socialism,” p. 236): “If Jones prefers _objets
d’art_, and Smith prefers fast horses or a steam yacht, each will be
free to follow his inclination so far as his resources will permit.”

Let us be thankful for this concession! We shall in this respect, at
least, be no worse off than we are to-day. At the present moment Jones
can buy his art objects, and Smith his fast horses or his steam yacht,
if the “resources” of Smith and Jones will permit. The question in
which we are interested, John, is not what you and Jones _will be
permitted_ to do, but what you _will be able_ to do, and I sadly fear
that Spargo, who must know the logical effects of Socialism, had a good
laugh at your expense when he penned those words.




CHAPTER XI

IS WRETCHEDNESS INCREASING?


  My dear John,

If you listen to a Socialist speaker, or pick up a Socialist
periodical, you are pretty certain to come face to face with the
assertion that “the poor are now growing poorer and the rich richer
every day.” If you ask for further particulars, you will soon discover
that the chief reason why Socialists believe that this is what is
happening is because Karl Marx predicted that it is what was going to
happen.

The great founder of Socialism was very certain that the development of
capitalism would tend to produce constantly-increasing “wretchedness,
oppression, slavery, degeneracy, and exploitation” of the working
class (“Capital,” p. 790); and while a few writers, like Kirkup in
the “History of Socialism” (p. 386), admit that “Marx made a serious
mistake,” because “facts and reasonable expectations combine clearly to
indicate that the democracy ... is marked by a growing intellectual,
moral and political capacity, and by an _increasing freedom and
prosperity_,” the great mass of Socialists agree with Snowden’s
assertion (“The Socialist’s Budget,” p. 8) that “the few cannot be rich
without making the many poor.”

This principle, formulated by Marx, is known as “the law of the
concentration of capital,” and, if we are to accept this formula, we
must be able to prove that capital is being concentrated “in the hands
of a smaller and smaller number of capitalists, that large fortunes are
created at the expense of smaller fortunes, and that great capitalists
are increased by the extinction of small ones” (Tcherkesoff, “Pages of
Socialist History,” p. 23).

In a few words, Marx insisted that capitalism was dividing the world
into two classes--the owning class and the toiling class--and that
the third, or middle class, was rapidly being eliminated, some few
of its members being absorbed into the upper-class while the great
majority, becoming impoverished, were destined to sink to the lowest of
proletarian depths.

But is this what has happened in the half a century or so that has
passed since Marx formulated this “law of capitalistic development”?
If this “law” is ever to prove itself true, it is time, as Tcherkesoff
says, “that it should be exemplified by at least some few economic
phenomena”; yet during this period the number of small capitalists not
only has not diminished, but has actually increased, while the doctrine
of increasing misery, instead of being verified, is contradicted by
indisputable statistics which show, as Professor Hatton has asserted
(in his Cleveland, Ohio, debate), that “there is an increasing
betterment in the condition of the laboring classes.” Certainly none
but a most prejudiced Socialist will assert that there is any tangible
evidence to indicate that the people are dividing into two hostile
camps, especially in view of the fact--so easily demonstrated--that
fully 90 per cent. of the capitalists, big and little, have come
from the ranks of the workers, while the number of small investors
increases with such leaps and bounds as almost to defy the efforts of
the statistician to keep pace with them. It was these undeniable facts
that compelled Bernstein, though a Socialist, to take issue with Marx.
He saw that there was no “increasing misery” of the masses, that the
wealth of the world was not being centralized in a few hands; but that,
instead, the number of the possessing classes grows absolutely and
relatively.

In all my letters, John, I have tried to avoid such things as abstruse
theories and dry statistics, but we have at last reached a point
where statistics are necessary if we are to get a clear view of the
situation. Such statistics are necessary, not only because they show
the absurdity of Marx’s predictions, but also for the reason that
without this knowledge we should be unable to protect ourselves against
the false testimony that Socialists are so ready to introduce as
“facts.”

For example, John Spargo (in “Socialism”) quotes Lucien Sanial as
authority for the statement that, in 1900, there were 250,251 persons
in the United States who possessed $67,000,000,000, “out of a total of
$95,000,000,000, given as the national wealth; that is to say, .9 of
one per cent of the total number in all occupations owned 70.5 per cent
of the total national wealth. The middle class, consisting of 8,429,845
persons, being 29 per cent of the total number in all occupations,
owned $24,000,000,000, or 25.3 per cent of the total national wealth.
The lowest class, the proletariat, consisting of 20,393,137 persons,
being 70.1 per cent of the total number in all occupations, owned but
$4,000,000,000, or 4.2 per cent of the total wealth.” In brief: “Of the
29,073,233 persons ten years old and over engaged in occupations, .9 of
1 per cent own 70.5 per cent of total wealth.”

Mr. Spargo asks us to accept these figures as true because Mr. Sanial,
“an expert statistician,” says that they are authentic. Don’t let him
fool you, John. Mr. Sanial simply “guesses” that his statistics are
reliable, and, as he is a “red card” Socialist, he must either tell us
just where he got his authority for these figures or be ruled out of
court as a prejudiced “guesser.”

And he can’t do it. He can’t do it, simply because there are no census
records, or other official figures, upon which to base his statistics
on wealth distribution between the classes, no accurate information
upon this subject within the reach of any human being. Yet it is upon
such “evidence” that Socialists rely to prove that Marx was a true
prophet!

But this is an old trick. As Stuart P. West says (_The Common Cause_,
June, 1912), “the Socialist of the agitator-demagogue type has no fine
sensibilities about making his statements square with painstaking
inquiries into the truth. He makes broad assertions, backing them up
with a few statistics which are partly guess-work, partly half-truths,
and relies upon the lack of information among his audience to do the
rest.”

So much for the unreliable character of Socialist figures in general.
Now, let us get down to facts.

The Erfurt platform (1891) repeated Marx’s assertion that among
the workers there is a “growing insecurity of existence, misery,
oppression, slavery, degradation and exploitation.” If you thought
that this might be true, John, what would you expect to find? That the
worker was being pressed closer to the wall, would you not? That wages
increased slowly, so slowly as scarcely to approximate the bare cost
of subsistence; that there was a more rapid extension of the hours of
labor, with pauperism a general rather than an exceptional condition.
Let us see.

In the United States, wages have practically doubled since 1860 and
the hours of labor have decreased from 15 to 30 per cent. In Norway,
Sweden, Germany, Japan, and several other countries, the increase in
wages since 1860 has also been fully (where not more than) 100 per
cent, while the hours of labor, especially since 1890, have shown a
tendency toward improvement consistent with such progress in the United
States (cf. _The Common Cause_, loc. cit.).

The statistics on pauperism afford quite as telling an argument against
Marx’s prediction of the increasing misery. In the United States, in
1886, the ratio of paupers was 116.6 to each one hundred thousand
inhabitants. In 1903 the ratio had decreased to 101.4 per each one
hundred thousand inhabitants.

In England the figures are even more impressive, for the ratio of
paupers fell from 62.7 per one thousand inhabitants in 1849 to 26.2 in
1905. As Mr. West says: “There were actually 200,000 fewer paupers in
1905 than in 1849, although the population of the country during these
fifty-six years almost doubled, and this in the face of the Marxian
predictions.”

But if Marx missed fire in his prophesy regarding the general labor
situation, does not the “trustification of industry” show that he
was right in the prediction that the wealth of the world was to be
concentrated in the hands of the few? Not at all. The census figures of
manufactures in the United States--and these figures are representative
of world conditions in manufacturing--prove conclusively that the small
establishments are not being crushed out of existence. It is true
that there has been a steady concentration of industries through the
organization of the combinations known as “trusts,” and if it could
be shown that this concentration meant that the ownership of all the
industries was falling into the hands of a smaller number of persons,
there might be some ground for the Socialist contention that the few
are absorbing the wealth of the many.

Ten years ago it looked as if this was what was happening, but, during
the past decade, the ownership of these corporations has changed
so completely that there can no longer be any doubt concerning the
outcome. Instead of being a device to promote the cause of Socialism
by concentrating the wealth of the nation in the hands of a few
interests, the modern “trust” has become in reality an agency for the
diffusion of wealth.

Of course, as you know, John, a corporation--even a “trust”--is
owned by those who hold its stock. Every shareholder is a partner in
the concern; so, when we find that, instead of being owned by fewer
persons, the stock is distributed among increasing thousands of
persons, it is difficult to see where there is any evidence of marked
concentration of industrial wealth.

If you take, for example, the great railway systems, you will find
that, whereas in 1901 nine of the leading roads were owned by
50,000 stockholders, in 1911 the stock in these companies was held
by 118,000 persons. In 1901 the stock in the fifteen industrial
corporations--popularly termed “trusts”--was held by 82,000 persons; in
1911 more than 247,000 individuals owned the stock in these companies.

Think for a moment what these figures mean. “Twenty years ago,” said
Mr. West (_The Common Cause_, August, 1912), “before the movement
of combinations had begun, the steel properties of this country
were owned by not more than 5,000 persons.” (That might well be
called “concentration of industrial wealth,” John!) “Now the Steel
Corporation, which at the highest estimate does not represent more
than 60 per cent of the steel production of the United States, is
owned by 150,000 persons.” As another writer recently said: “If
the attorney-general should succeed in destroying the value of the
Steel Corporation’s securities, he would not only deprive thousands
of the provision they have made against old age, but stop the
wholesome movement that is making for the _popular ownership of
the big corporations and thus for the checking of dangerous wealth
concentration_.”

You see how little evidence there is in support of the Socialist “law”
of concentration.

Another contention of Marx and his followers is that concentration will
also show itself in the principal industry of humanity--agriculture.
Do the facts support this prediction? Certainly, not in England, or in
any other country in Europe. But how about the farmers of the United
States? Are they being absorbed and enslaved by a few capitalists?

Once upon a time there was reason to fear that agriculture was to be
concentrated in the “bonanza” farms, but the years have gone and the
danger is past, “bonanza” farming having proved a failure. Instead, we
now have “intensive” farming--a method of raising crops that calls for
smaller, rather than larger, farms.

To get a clear view of the agricultural situation in this country, we
shall not go back in the records to the date of Marx’s prediction. Such
figures would “show him up” in so ridiculous a light that I haven’t the
heart to subject his prophesy to this test. Instead, we will simply
retrace our steps to 1900, when we find that there were 5,737,372 farms
in the United States, the average size being 146.2 acres. In 1910--just
ten years later--the number of farms had increased to 6,340,357, and
the average holdings had decreased to 138 acres.

If you desire to examine more detailed statistics, turn to _The
Common Cause_, (July, 1912), and read the evidence that Mr. West has
accumulated. “While the so-called law of concentration fails absolutely
to work out under these acreage statistics,” he says, “its failure
is still more complete when we compare the movement of acreage with
the movement of farm values. The average number of acres in the farm
came down from 146 in 1900 to 138 in 1910; but farm land (exclusive
of buildings), which was valued at $13,100,000,000 in 1900, rose to
$28,400,000,000 in 1910, an increase of 117.4 per cent. In other words,
the farm wealth of the country more than doubled during the ten-year
period while the average size of farm holdings considerably decreased.
The conclusion from these figures is, of course, inevitable: not only
has there been no concentration of wealth in land but, on the contrary,
there has been an astonishingly great and rapid diffusion of wealth.”

Even Spargo, who is admittedly a well-informed Socialist, recognizes
the weakness of the Marxian theory when applied to agriculture, for
he says (“Socialism,” p. 134): “One thing seems certain, namely that
farm ownership is not on the decline. It is not being supplanted by
tenantry: the small farms are not being absorbed by larger ones.”

This is in direct contradiction to the assertions of the majority of
Socialist agitators. With voice and pen they are still predicting the
downfall of the farmer, and this in spite of the frank admissions of
the more fair-minded and informed Socialists that the conditions they
describe do not exist.

Quite as contrary to the facts are the Socialist assertions that the
slight increase in the proportion of mortgaged farms is proof of the
absorption of American farms by the “interests.” In asking us to
believe that this is what is happening, Socialists assume that we are
so ignorant as to real conditions that we can credit the theory that
a mortgage is an inevitable shortcut to bankruptcy, when, as a matter
of fact, it is more often the means by which the farmer rises from
the ranks of tenantry to the property-owning class. Indeed, Spargo
himself admits that this is so. In “Socialism” (p. 134), he says: “Now
while a mortgage is certainly not suggestive of independence, it may
be either a sign of decreasing or increasing independence. It may be
a step toward the ultimate loss of one’s farm or a step toward the
ultimate ownership of one. Much that has been written by Populist and
Socialist pamphleteers and editors upon this subject has been based
upon the entirely erroneous assumption that a mortgaged farm meant loss
of economic independence, whereas it often happens that it is a step
towards it.”

Having seen how all the predictions of Marx break down when put to the
test of practical experience, we shall now consider one more fatal
mistake made by this great prophet of “scientific” Socialism. This is
what we may term the “verge of starvation” theory.

According to this doctrine of the Socialists, the accumulation of
misery is keeping pace so literally with the accumulation of wealth
that the great mass of the workers are constantly sinking deeper and
deeper below the conditions of existence of their own class (see
“Communist Manifesto”). As a result, it is asserted, there are to-day
but comparatively few workers who are more than a week or two removed
from destitution, whereas, as Skelton shows (“Socialism: A Critical
Analysis,” p. 147), “no social fact is better established than that
the forty years which have passed since Marx penned this dismal
forecast have brought the working classes in every civilized country
not increasing degradation, misery, and enslavement, but increasing
material welfare, freedom and opportunity of development.”

How is it in your case, John? Are you living on the verge of
starvation? If you were to be taken ill, or were to lose your job,
would your family be on the town within a week or two? I thought not,
and what is true in your case, is just as true in the majority of cases.

There are statistics, too--and plenty of them--to prove that the
Socialists have an entirely erroneous impression of the financial
condition of the “masses.” First, let us take the savings bank
deposits; for, as you know, it is in this kind of a bank that the
worker usually puts his savings for safe keeping. The very rich do not
bother with a string of little accounts, and, accordingly, savings
bank deposits have always been accepted as a measure of the wealth
of the people of small or moderate means. Admitting this, what do we
find? That, in 1911, more than one in every ten persons in the United
States--counting all men, women and children--possessed a bank account,
the total amount of these accounts being no less than $4,212,584,000.

The building and loan associations afford another means of deposit for
the savings of the worker, and, in 1911, the number of persons who held
shares in and paid dues to such associations was nearly 2,200,000, the
total assets of the societies being but a trifle less than one billion
dollars.

If these facts are not sufficient, study the workers themselves; see
how they live and how they spend their money, and then ask yourself
if the Socialist is telling the truth when he says that this class of
citizens do not share in the increasing prosperity of the nation.

The workers live far better to-day than the so-called middle class was
able to live half a century ago. As Willey states (“Laborer and the
Capitalist,” p. 190), there are servant girls at the present time who
own jewelry that costs more money than our grandmothers could afford to
spend for a wedding dress (quoted by Kress, “Questions of Socialists,”
p. 22).

In addition to living under so much better conditions that most of the
workers now enjoy luxuries that the so-called well-to-do could ill have
afforded half a century ago, this class of citizens still manages to
find money for several other things. For example, the immigrant workers
succeed in saving enough out of their wages to send the vast sum of
$300,000,000 to foreign countries every year, while the enormous sums
spent by the workers each year in picture shows, candy and for drink in
the saloons would be sufficient to start every homeless man in America
upon the high road to the ownership of a home.

Talk about locks and bolts against the masses, John--bars to prevent
them from enjoying the good things of life! Why, there would be none of
these good things of life--no enjoyment, no freedom of any kind--under
a system that placed a premium on laziness and saved its highest
rewards for the bosses--and that is what Socialism would do!




CHAPTER XII

THE CLASS STRUGGLE


  My dear John,

It is almost impossible to find a Socialist agitator who does not
lay great stress upon the “class struggle.” I cannot remember having
listened to a single one of these gentry who has not asserted that
his “clear view of the economic situation” dates from the hour when
he first became “class-conscious”; and I do not think that many
Socialists will deny the statement that fully four-fifths of the
militant propaganda is an attempt to arouse the workers to this sense
of “class-consciousness.”

Of course, the Socialists want you to believe that the revolution they
are preaching is really an evolutionary process by means of the ballot.
But, as you must have noticed, John, their promise of peaceful methods
is not borne out by the gospel of class-hatred which they preach under
the name of “the class struggle.” It is “class war” that they are
trying to incite; and in this, as one writer has said, “evolutionary
Socialists closely rival, even if they do not always equal, the members
of the revolutionary organizations.... _No graver mistake, therefore,
could be made in diagnosing Socialism than to regard evolutionary
Socialists_ (so-called) _as opposed to revolutionary methods_. The
whole gospel of the ‘class war’ as commonly preached by Socialists
... is a direct and malicious incitement to the ignorant to adopt
revolutionary methods” (“A Case Against Socialism,” p. 101).

There are lots of things in Socialism that a man doesn’t have to
believe in order to be a Socialist, but class-consciousness is not one
of them. Before he can sign up, before he can get his red card, he must
affix his signature to a document in which he admits that he recognizes
the existence of a class struggle.

Marx and Engels formulated this doctrine and preached it in their
“Communist Manifesto,” where they said:

“The history of all past society is the history of class antagonism,
which took different forms in different epochs. But whatever form they
may have taken, the exploitation of one section of society by another
is a fact common to all previous centuries.... The first step in the
working-class revolution is the raising of the proletariat [workers]
to the position of the ruling class.... The proletariat will use its
political power to wrest by degrees all capital from the bourgeoisie
[employers] to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of
the State, _i. e._ of the proletariat organized as the ruling class....
If the proletariat, forced by its struggle against the bourgeoisie to
organize as a class, makes itself by a revolution the ruling class,
and, as the ruling class, destroys by force the old conditions of
production, it destroys along with these conditions of production the
conditions of existence of class antagonism, class in general, and
therewith its own domination as a class” (pp. 20, 21).

Here we have the doctrine of class-war in a nutshell. Believing
that the wealth of the world in every kind was destined to become
concentrated in the hands of the few, and that all the people
would of necessity be divided into two distinct classes, with
absolutely antagonistic interests, Marx assumed that a class-war must
result--the proletariat, or wage-earning class, waging war with the
property-owning class to compel the latter to give back the property it
had stolen and restore liberty to the “enslaved worker.”

As you can see, John, the doctrine of the class-war is necessarily one
of the foundation stones of the Socialist gospel. Ferri recognized its
importance as you may ascertain if you will turn to page 145 of his
“Socialism and Positive Science,” where he says:

“The other sociological theory by which Karl Marx has really dissipated
the clouds which obscured till now the heaven of Socialist aspirations,
and which has furnished to scientific Socialism the political compass
for steering itself with complete assurance in the contentions of the
life of every day, is the great historic law of the class struggle.”

The _Manifesto_ of the Socialist Party of Great Britain takes the same
stand when it says that “the Socialists say that the present form of
property-holding divides society into two great classes”; while the
Social Democratic party of England repeats Marx’s assertion that “the
history of human society is a history of class struggles arising from
the antagonism of class interests,” and appeals to the workers to make
themselves “masters of their own country and of all the resources,
political and material” (Quelch, “The Social Democratic Party”).

“There are in reality but two classes,” says the _Socialist Standard_
(December, 1907), “those who live by labor and those who live upon
those who labor--the two classes of exploiter and exploited.”

Here, then, is the crux of the whole question. The workers are told
that they are being robbed and exploited by the capitalists, and that
there can be nothing in common between the two classes. “The task
before us is not to appeal to the capitalist class to do something,
but to organize the workers for the overthrow of that class, so they
(the workers) may do something for themselves. The battle cry of the
workers’ party is not ‘the right to work,’ but ‘the right to the
product of our labor,’ and the right waits only upon their might”
(_Socialist Standard_, November 1, 1908).

“The Capitalist class, in its mad race for profits,” says the American
Socialist party platform (1908), “is bound to exploit the workers to
the very limit of their endurance, and to sacrifice their physical,
moral and mental welfare to its own insatiable greed.”

If we turn to France, we find Jaurès (“Studies in Socialism”) preaching
the same doctrine. “Society,” he says, “is to-day divided into classes
with opposing interests, one class owning the means of life and the
other nothing but their power to work. Never in the history of Society
was the working class so free from all traces of property as to-day.”

I might go on indefinitely citing the words of prominent Socialists who
have preached Marx’s doctrine of class hatred; but, as the whole story
is summed up by our own “Rev.” George D. Herron, I shall (as a final
example) permit him to tell us what the class-struggle means to the
Socialists. He says:

“There are no words that can make this fact hideous and ghastly enough,
or vivid and revolutionary enough--the fact that society and its
institutions are organized for the purpose of enabling some people to
live off of other people, the few to live off the many. There is no
language realistic enough, or possessed of sufficient integrity, to lay
bare the chasm between the class that works and the class that reaps
the fruit of that work; between the class that is grist for the great
world-mill of economic might and the class that harvests that grist.
And until the working class becomes conscious of itself as the only
class that has a right to be, until the worker understands that he is
exploited and bound by the power which his own unpaid labor places in
the hands that exploit and bind him ... our dreams and schemes of a
common good or better society are but philistine utopias, our social
and industrial reforms but self-deceit, and our weapons but the shadows
of stupidity and hypocrisy” (“From Revolution to Revolution,” p. 3).

Now, John, as a matter of fact, have you in your experience as a
working man ever run across the class struggle as Socialists define it?

I have put this question to scores of workers and the answer has always
been the same. Not one of them, unless he happened to be a red-card
Socialist who took the “class struggle” on faith, has ever found the
class-consciousness out of which the revolution is to generate.

I do not deny that there is such a factor as class-interest in the
industrial world. We see this interest exhibited in the industrial
struggles that are almost daily taking place. The labor organizations
are evidence of the existence of a class interest, but, beyond this,
there is no class consciousness other than that which is incited by the
Socialist agitators in the hope that they may tempt the worker to deeds
of violence.

Think of it, John! The Socialist agitator must know, if he has even
ordinary common sense, that the worker is not entitled to the whole
product of labor--that it is not labor that finally fixes the value of
a commodity. Yet, basing his arguments upon this self-evident fallacy,
he calls upon the workers to unite and overthrow the present industrial
system that they may take back from their employers the capital “of
which they have been robbed.”

Nor will any real Socialist deny that this is the purpose of their
propaganda. Even Hyndman, who is anything but a rank revolutionist,
said in his celebrated debate, “Will Socialism Benefit the English
People?”: “We are accused of preaching discontent and stirring up
actual conflict. _We do preach discontent, and we mean, if we can, to
stir up actual conflict._”

After this frank admission you will probably not be surprised to read
Jack London’s declaration of war:

“We intend nothing less than to destroy existing society and to take
the whole world. If the law of the land permits, we fight for this end
peaceably, at the ballot box. If the law of the land does not permit
the peaceful destruction of society, and if we have force meted out to
us, we resort to force ourselves. In Russia the Revolutionists kill the
officers of the Government. I am a Revolutionist.”

And Harry Quelch, in _Justice_ (October 21, 1893), voiced just as crude
an expression of the Marxian “gospel of hate”:

“We are prepared to use any means, any weapon--from the ballot-box to
the bomb; from organized voting to organized revolt; from parliamentary
contests to political assassination--which opportunity offers and which
will help in the end we have in view. Let this be understood, we have
absolutely no scruples as to the means to be employed.”

Frankly: Do you hate your employer? Would you harm a hair of his head
even if you had the chance? Do you curse him whenever you think of
him, crying with Archibald Crawford: “_Damn the Boss! Damn the Boss’s
son! Damn his family carriage! And damn his family, too!_”? Do you
think that Herron knows what he is talking about when he says that “our
whole system of life and labor, with all that we call civilization is
based on nothing else than war ... a war so terrible, so full of death,
that its blood is upon every human hand, upon every loaf of bread, and
upon every human institution”? Do you agree with the conclusion that
it is “only folly, or worse, falsehood, that prates of peace in such a
society”? (Quoted by _The Revolt_, April 25, 1912.)

Yet this is but a sample of the “truth” as it is taught from the
soap-box. Wherever there is a militant propagandist, you will hear this
kind of an appeal. “In fact, the repetition of the bitter denunciation
of society is so constant,” says Peter W. Collins (_The Common Cause_,
January, 1912), “that on the mind of him who becomes an attendant at
the soap-box, this doctrine of class-hatred, of enmity among men,
gradually sinks into the mind and heart and the poison does its work,
as the dripping of water wears away a stone.”

This is what the Socialist wants. His prime object is to create a
force among the toilers that may be welded into a great revolutionary
movement. In this appeal slumber the darkest and the most cruel
instincts of man’s nature.

There is no room in this country for class-hatred. It does not exist
outside of the ranks of the Socialists. There is, in fact, more
class-hatred shown by the rival factions in the Socialist movement in
their squabbles with one another, than there is between employer and
employe. Yet, by means of cunning misrepresentation and perversion of
facts, all who come under the influence of Socialism--even the children
in the Socialist Sunday schools--are made to take this wrong outlook
upon life; their mental balance is upset; they are incited to develop
a feeling of bitter hatred against those from whom they have suffered
no harm. In this way, by sowing the poisonous seed of prejudice
and class-hatred, it is hoped later on to reap the harvest of THE
REVOLUTION.




CHAPTER XIII

SHALL WE TAKE IT OR PAY FOR IT?


  My dear John,

While some of the more mild-mannered advocates of Socialism will try to
make you believe that the change from private ownership to collective
ownership will be accomplished without confiscating anybody’s property,
there are few among the authoritative Marxists who consider such a
course, even as a remote possibility. Marx didn’t think that it could
be done, as you will see if you will turn to Engels’ “Preface” to the
English translation of “Capital” (p. xiv), and in this theory he is
supported by almost every Socialist apologist of note. Once in a while
we encounter a socialistic writer who proposes to compensate owners if
they will permit themselves to be expropriated “with a good grace,” a
theory which assumes that, if the owners of property are not entirely
willing that their possessions shall be taken away from them, they will
be punished by being forcibly deprived of their goods, whether they
like it or not.

And, if you want still more corroborative testimony, turn to “The
Ethics of Socialism,” by Belfort Bax, and on pages 127 and 128 you will
read: “The Socialist has a distinct aim in view. If he can carry the
initial stages towards his realization by means of the count-of-heads
majority, by all means let him do so. If, on the other hand, he sees
the possibility of carrying a salient portion of his program by
trampling on that majority, by all means let him do this also.”

Not long ago I discussed this question with one of the conservative
Socialists who believe that those who own property will be very glad to
help on the new régime by relinquishing their possessions.

“You are mistaken,” he said. “We do not intend to confiscate. We shall
pay for everything we take. The worst we shall do is to compel the
capitalists to give us their property at the price which the commission
of awards sets as a fair return.”

“But will not that defeat your whole scheme?” I asked. “If you give the
owners of productive capital a fair monetary return for their property,
would you not automatically create a set of class distinctions that
would be quite as pronounced as those which exist to-day?”

“Oh,” he said, “we do not propose to give them for their property money
that they could invest; we shall give them bonds.”

“How does that make any difference?” I persisted. “Interest-bearing
bonds would have a more definite effect than actual money. By giving
such bonds you would establish a perpetually-idle class, and so defeat
the aims of your movement.”

“But the bonds will not bear interest,” he replied. “Interest is
usury--a crime which will not be permitted in the Socialist State.
As Leatham says (“The Class War,” p. 11): ‘Everyone who lends his
neighbor £5 and exacts £5 5s. in return is a criminal.’ Holders of
bonds may dispose of them, if they can find anybody who is foolish
enough to want to hoard money, but--once the value of the bonds has
been spent--that will end the matter, and we shall have eliminated the
property-possessing parasites without violence or ‘confiscation.’”

Is it possible to conceive of a more one-sided arrangement? Valuable
property is to be taken from its owners and in return they are to be
given bonds which may or may not possess real value. In case nobody can
be found to purchase them, the possessors will have to be content with
the satisfaction of framing the certificates as evidence that they were
once members of an “exploiting class.”

In this, however, the Socialists are really most logical. To take
wealth from a citizen in one kind would be the height of folly, if
the same wealth were promptly returned to him in another kind. Such a
transfer of productive property would mean nothing to the community.
The only way in which the Socialist scheme can be carried out is to
eliminate entirely all private rights in property used for purposes
of production, distribution and exchange. If we admit the Socialist
contention that labor is entitled to all value produced, no matter how
it is produced, and that the worker is now the victim of spoliation,
the only logical attitude is a defence of confiscation.

Most Socialists assume this position and excuse it on the ground that
such an act on the part of the Co-operative State would be eminently
just.

Rev. Charles H. Vail, in “Modern Socialism” (p. 152), upholds this
method of reasoning. “As to the confiscation of property,” he says,
“the misconception here relates to the justice of confiscation, and is
due to a failure to comprehend the nature of capitalist accumulations.
The Socialist contends that all such is the result of spoliation
and exploitation. The capitalist is able to appropriate the product
of labor by reason of his ownership of certain means of production.
Private property, then, in the instruments of production is unjust.
The confiscation of private property is therefore just. If capital
represents the fleecings of labor, no one can contend that its holders
have claim to compensation on the ground of equity. The only grounds
upon which compensation can be argued is that of mercy or expediency.”

Even the Socialist will admit that under existing laws confiscation
would be illegal. So long as they live under the present system they
may be willing to abide by these laws--at least to the extent of not
openly violating them and so subjecting themselves to the danger of
incarceration in capitalist prisons. They insist, however, that as
these laws were made for the protection of property-holders, there is
no reason why they should not change them and so make the ownership of
property just as great a crime as the theft of property is to-day. All
they wait for is the power to accomplish this purpose.

In other words, they stand for the principle that might makes right,
and as you know, John, might doesn’t do anything of the kind. In taking
this position, Socialism proposes to violate natural right. A majority
might do this; a majority might compel a minority to relinquish the
rights that are inherent in natural law; but Socialism has no more
right to do this thing than it has to re-establish slavery. Natural
right does not depend upon a vote of a majority, but is grounded on
primary law, and is eternal, no matter what majorities may say to the
contrary.

That the contrary is the position of Socialists upon this question is
fully attested by that eminent apostle of Socialism, Eugene V. Debs. In
_The International Socialist Review_ (February, 1912), Debs says:

“As a revolutionist, I can have no respect for capitalist property
laws, nor the least scruple about violating them. I hold all such laws
to have been enacted by chicanery, fraud and corruption, with the sole
end in view of dispossessing, robbing and enslaving the working class.
But this does not imply that I propose making an individual law-breaker
of myself and butting my head against the stone wall of existing
property laws. That might be called force, but it would not be that. It
would be mere weakness and folly. If I had the force to overthrow these
despotic laws, I would use it without an instant’s hesitation or delay,
but I haven’t got it, and so I am law-abiding under protest--not from
scruple--and bide my time.”

That the great majority of Socialists take the same position upon the
question of confiscation will scarcely be denied by those who are
at all familiar with the Socialist trend of thought. That they are
serious in their effort to incite disrespect for all property laws
is shown by the efforts that are made to teach the children in their
Sunday schools that all rent, profit and interest are no more than so
many forms of robbery. “The Red Catechism,” used in Socialist schools,
holds up to execration all those who are supposed to stand in the way
of the revolution. They are referred to as the “landlord class” and
the “capitalist class,” and in these categories everybody is included
who owns anything, however little, or who employs another person for a
wage, even though it be but the bellows-boy or a humble dressmaker’s
assistant. Thus, “The Red Catechism” asks:

“When would Socialists allow anyone to have a machine?”

“When a person can use a machine for her own use. For instance,
Socialists would let a dressmaker have a machine for her own work, but
not for the purpose of employing others to exploit and rob them,” is
the answer.

How craftily the Socialist school-teachers impart their philosophy of
destruction to the boys and girls who are so unfortunate as to come
within their sphere of influence is told by a story, the truth of which
is vouched for by the special commissioners of the London _Standard_--a
paper which recently conducted a painstaking investigation of the
menacing character of Socialism.

A well-known Socialist speaker and writer was addressing a meeting in
Islington, attended chiefly by children. A portion of his address ran
somewhat as follows:

“The most interesting event of the week has been the train murder,
of which most of you have no doubt heard. Two men were seated in a
railway carriage. The one was rich; he had a diamond pin in his tie,
a thick gold chain across his waistcoat, money jingled in his pockets
when he moved. The other was poor, miserably poor; he wanted money
for everything--food, clothes, lodging. He asked the rich man to give
him of his superfluity; the rich man refused and so the poor man took
by force what he could not get by entreaty, and in the use of that
force--the only effective argument which the poor possess--the rich man
was killed. The shedding of blood is always to be deplored, but there
are times when it is warranted. Violence is a legitimate weapon for the
righting of social wrongs.”

The address over, the lecturer went about among the children
questioning them with the object of finding out whether they had
grasped the meaning of his address. To a bright intelligent girl of
twelve, he said:

“You heard what I said about the two men in the train?”

“Yes,” was the reply.

“Did you understand what I meant by my story?”

“Oh, yes,” answered the girl. “You meant that if we hadn’t got
something that we wanted, and somebody else has got it, we could go and
take it from them.” And the lecturer, smiling his approval, passed on.

There are Socialists who will indignantly repudiate all such ideas;
yet we have but to turn to some of the most respectable authorities on
Socialism to find ample evidence that the gentleman who lectured before
the children of Islington was scarcely more radical than many of the
more eminent advocates of Marxism. Bax, for example, in his “Ethics
of Socialism,” admits that “for him [the Socialist] it is indifferent
whether social and political ends are realized by lawful or lawless
means.”

If it be said that this is a principle which was applied by Bax to
conditions in general, and had nothing to do with the conduct of
individuals, what is to be said of the advice which he gives (“Outlooks
from the New Standpoint”) to those who are searching for the “new”
standard of personal integrity. “The cheapest way of obtaining goods is
not to pay for them,” said Bax, “and if a buyer can avoid paying for
the goods he obtains, he has quite as much right to do so as the seller
has to receive double or treble their cost price and call it profit.”

Karl Kautsky, who is regarded by many as the official interpreter of
Socialism, has also laid down laws for the guidance of Socialists in
ethical matters. He advances the theory that the moral law prevails
only when we have intercourse with members of our own class, or social
organization. “One of the most important duties is that of truthfulness
to comrades,” he says (_Neue Zeit_, October 3, 1903). “Towards enemies
this duty was never considered binding.” As the Socialist, even from
his Sunday school days is taught to regard every employer as his enemy,
the natural effect of such a principle, if put into operation in every
day affairs, is obvious.

At the time this statement was made by Kautsky, some resentment was
expressed towards him because, as he himself relates (“Ethics and
the Materialistic Conception of History,” p. 157), his “statement
was interpreted as if he had attempted to establish a special social
democratic principle in opposition to the principle of the eternal
moral law which commands unconditional truthfulness to all men.”
“Whether this interpretation was right or wrong,” says Ming (“The
Morality of Modern Socialism,” p. 136), “we may judge from the
well-attested fact that in a Socialist meeting in Hamburg a motion made
to disavow Kautsky’s proposition was lost.”

In view of all these facts, it is difficult to see what ground
Socialists can have for denying that they expect to put the process
of confiscation into effect. Of course, not all Socialists are
so radical as Bax, who takes occasion repeatedly to declare his
advocacy of this doctrine. “Now, justice being henceforth identified
with confiscation and injustice with the rights of property, there
remains only the question of ‘ways and means.’... The moral effect of
sudden expropriation would be much greater than that of any gradual
process.” To him there can be no middle-ground between “possession and
confiscation.” Unless a man accepts the doctrine that private ownership
is unjust and confiscation just, he cannot be a true Socialist (op.
cit., pp. 75-76).

As we have seen, John, the principle of confiscation, once we have
accepted the proposition that private property is theft, is perfectly
logical and even the methods of compensation proposed by Socialists are
nothing more or less than confiscation in disguise. Cecil Chesterton
states this fact very clearly in _The Church Socialist Quarterly_
(January, 1911), where he says:

“Socialism means confiscation. Let no Socialist deceive himself about
that. However ‘evolutionary’ (whatever that may mean) the process may
be, whatever solatium to the present property-owners humanity and
a sense of justice may dictate, Socialism means confiscation. The
issue may be stated very concisely. However gradual the process of
transferring wealth from the rich class to the community, will the rich
at the end of that process be as wealthy as before, or won’t they? If
they will, then the end of Socialism has not been achieved. If they
won’t, then, under whatever form, their property has been confiscated.”

Quite in keeping with this presentation of the case is the resolution
passed by the Socialist Federation of Australasia, held in Melbourne,
in June, 1912. It read:

“The Federation vehemently protests against the working class being
misled by the Labor or other parties into the belief that it is
possible to socialize the instruments of production by a gigantic
scheme of ‘buying out,’ or compensation to the possessing class,
and warns the workers against endorsing such a Utopian, immoral and
impracticable scheme.” This, says The Socialist (March, 1911), the
organ of _the Socialist_ Labor party of England, “is a condensed
statement of the position laid down in our manifesto of 1908.”

Even Morris Hillquit, a conservative American Socialist, is compelled
to admit that confiscation is likely to become the order of the day
once Socialists are in power. “It is not unlikely that in countries in
which the social transformation will be accomplished peacefully, the
State will compensate the expropriated proprietors, while every violent
revolution will be followed by confiscation. The Socialists have not
much concern about this issue” (“Socialism in Theory and Practice,” p.
140).

It may be true, as Hillquit says, that Socialists “are not much
concerned” with the charge that they are planning to set up a State
in which the Divine law, “Thou shalt not steal,” is to be set at
naught--a State that will take from the successful and the thrifty
the possessions they have accumulated--a State against the actions of
which there can be no redress. But what have you to say as a decent
law-abiding citizen, John? What?

Before leaving this subject, John, there is still another difficulty
to be considered: if the Socialist State proposes to pay for the
property it seizes, where is the money to come from for even an
inadequate scheme of compensation? Do you think that the new State
would be content to assume the additional burden imposed by such a
debt as would be represented by all these obligations? No matter how
extortionate the new methods of taxation might be, if they stop short
of relative confiscation, it would take many decades to extinguish this
liability. Is it not more likely that history would repeat itself, and
that the story of the French Revolution would be repeated in the new
Co-operative Commonwealth? In France, in the days of the Revolution,
there was compensation for the expropriated in the beginning, but
this speedily resolved itself into expropriation without indemnity.
Nor must it be forgotten that, whatever provisions might be made,
the State would be bound by its principles to prevent those whom
it compensated from investing their funds, or engaging in business
competition; transferring their money or bonds, or bequeathing their
possessions to others; for, if this were not done, compensation
would prove to be the means of re-establishing the very system which
Socialism seeks to destroy.




CHAPTER XIV

THE REVOLUTION


  My dear John,

You will meet many Socialists who will tell you that the Marxist creed
anticipates that no force will be required in bringing about the change
from capitalism to collectivism--no violence, no bloodshed. If anybody
attempts to make you believe that the Socialist purpose is a peaceful
one, refer him to “The Communist Manifesto,” which was drafted by Marx
and Engels, and terminates with these words:

“The Communists do not seek to conceal their views and aims. They
declare openly that their purpose can be obtained only by violent
overthrow of all existing arrangements of society. Let the ruling
classes tremble at a communistic revolution. The proletarians have
nothing to lose in it but their chains; they have a world to win.”

If you are still told, as I have been, that such language was used by
the founders of Socialism, not because they meant to incite violence,
but simply to arouse the interests of the worker in their propaganda,
call your Socialist’s attention to the transactions of The Hague
Congress in 1872, when Marx declared:

“In most countries of Europe violence must be the lever of our
social reform. We must finally have recourse to violence, in order
to establish the rule of labor.... The revolution must be universal,
and we find a conspicuous example in the Commune of Paris, which has
failed because in other capitals--Berlin and Madrid--a simultaneous
revolutionary movement did not break out in connection with this mighty
upheaval of the proletariat of Paris.”

Indeed, John, so revolutionary a program can never be brought about
by anything less than the most violent of revolutions. It is true
that there are Socialists who profess to believe that this end can
be achieved by legal and political means; yet they themselves admit
that this rule will hold good only in times and in countries where
the purposes of the revolution can be accomplished by such peaceful
methods. Where political means are wanting, or the Socialist majority
is insufficient to overawe completely all opposition, recourse to
violence must be had.

We must not forget that, as Professor Woolsey says (“Communism and
Socialism,” p. 228), “there never was a revolution since history
told the story of the world so complete as this” (namely, that which
Socialism proposes to effect); and, as he later remarks (p. 280),
nothing short of the persuasion of violent revolution “can lead holders
of property ... to acquiesce in so complete an overthrow of society and
downfall of themselves, as modern Socialism contemplates.”

Personally, with your knowledge of human nature, can you conceive of
any other method by which Socialism can accomplish its aims? Do you
deem it possible that such world-wide dispossession can come without a
struggle on the part of those who are to be excluded from the enjoyment
of what they have been brought up to believe they rightfully possess?
Is it reasonable to expect that all holders of productive property,
both large and small, will placidly surrender at the request of the
Socialist demagogues? You don’t believe this could happen? Neither do
the Socialists. In his “History of Socialism” (p. 10), Kirkup, who is
anything but an extreme radical, admits that “the prevailing Socialism
of the day is in large part based on the frankest and most outspoken
revolutionary materialism”; while Hyndman, who is conspicuously the
advocate of political action, writes in “Social Democracy” (p. 22): “We
are not so foolish as to say we will not use force if it would bring
us to a better period more rapidly. We do not say we are such men of
peace.”

Our own Charles H. Kerr, the head of the great American Socialist
publishing house, takes a similar stand. In discussing the means by
which American Socialists plan to overthrow capitalism, he says (“What
to Read on Socialism,” p. 10):

“As to the means by which the capitalist class is to be overthrown,
the real question worth considering is what means will prove most
effective. If it could best be done by working for ‘one thing at a
time’ and bidding for the votes of the people who have no idea what the
class-struggle means, we should no doubt favor that method. But history
has made it very clear that such a method is a dead failure.... If,
on the other hand, the working class could best gain power by taking
up arms, just as the capitalist class did when it dislodged the
land-holding nobility from power, why not?”

These advocates of a violent revolution are mild-spoken, indeed, as
compared to many of the better-known apologists of Socialism. Bebel,
for example, in “Unsere Ziele” (p. 44), speaks more emphatically.

“We must not shudder at the thought of the possible employment of
violence; we must not raise an alarm cry at the suppression of
‘existing rights’, at violent expropriation, etc. History teaches us
that at all times new ideas were realized, as a rule, by a violent
conflict with the defenders of the past, and that the combatants for
new ideas struck blows as deadly as possible at the defenders of
antiquity. Not without reason does Karl Marx in his work on ‘Capital’
exclaim:

“‘Violence is the midwife that waits on every ancient society that is
to give birth to a new one; violence is itself a social factor.’”

Dietzgen, too, advocates nothing short of revolution, and sees no
reason why violence should be condemned under such conditions.

“Oh, ye short-sighted and narrow-minded who cannot give up the fad
of the moderate organic progress!” he says. “Don’t you perceive that
all our great liberal passions sink to the level of mere trifling,
because the great question of social salvation is in the order of the
day? Don’t you perceive that struggle and destruction must precede
peace and construction, and that chaotic accumulation of material is
the necessary condition of systematic organization, just as the calm
precedes the tempest and the latter the general purification of the
air?... History stands still because she gathers force for a great
catastrophe.”

Both the “Red Catechism” and Joynés’ “Socialist Catechism” teach the
same doctrine. In the “Red Catechism,” one looks in vain for any hint
of contemplated compensation or peaceful methods of expropriation.

“How are the forms of government changed?” is asked.

“By means of revolution,” is the answer.

And in the “Socialist Catechism,” we find these words:

“Q. What is the revolution for which the Socialists strive? A. A
revolution which will render impossible the individual appropriation
of the products of associated labor and consequent exploitation and
enslavement of the laborers.... Q. _How are forms of government
changed, so as to readjust them to the economical changes in the
forms of production which have been silently evolving in the body of
society?_ A. _By means of revolution._ Q. _Give an instance of this?_
A. _The French Revolution of 1789._”

And even the Socialist hymn-books, the books from which the children in
the Socialist schools sing, are filled with such sentiments as:

  “They’ll know full soon, the kind of vermin,
  Our bullets hit in that last fight.”

Or, as another Socialist song has it:

  “Rise in your might, brothers, bear it no longer,
  Assemble in masses throughout the whole land;
  Teach the vile blood-suckers who are the stronger
  When workers and robbers confronted shall stand.”

Certainly, Kirkup is not far from the true Socialist ideal when he
asserts (“History of Socialism,” p. 160), that “a great revolutionary
catastrophe is to close the capitalistic era”; even though he adds,
“this must be regarded as a very bad preparation for the time of social
peace which is forthwith to follow.”

It is not easy for Socialists to evade this issue, especially in
view of the fact that the instructions they have received from their
leaders so invariably tend to incite violence. “If the people have not
a scrapnel to shoot, they have broken bottles to throw,” said Victor
Grayson at Huddersfield, on August 12, 1907. “Chemistry,” says Hyndman
(“Historical Basis of Socialism,” p. 443), “has placed at the disposal
of the desperate and the needy cheap and powerful explosives, the full
effects of which are as yet unknown. Every day adds new discoveries
in this field; the dynamite of ideas is accompanied in the background
by the dynamite of material force. These modern explosives may easily
prove to capitalism what gunpowder was to feudalism.”

If there remained any doubt as to the precise purposes of Socialism,
the attitude which its press and its speakers assume toward the
use of violence during the French Revolution and the Paris Commune
would afford evidence in plenty. Marx lauded the uprising of 1871 and
praised its bloodthirsty crimes as the work of heroes. “Workingmen’s
Paris, with its Commune, will be forever celebrated as the glorious
harbinger of a new society,” he said, in “The Civil War in France” (p.
78); and there is practically no end to the quotations that might be
presented from the writings of Socialists who support Marx’s position.
Herron refers to the Commune as “a sort of glad and beatific moment,
a momentary and prophetic spring-time in the long procession of the
changing forms of parasitism and hypocrisy and brute force which we
know as law and government” (_Boston Address_, 1903).

Quelch, too, in _Justice_ (London, March 18, 1911), signalizes the
Paris Commune as “a glorious event, which should ever be borne in mind
and celebrated by the proletariat of all civilized countries,” while
the _Appeal to Reason_, when asked why American Socialists celebrated
the anniversary of the Commune, replied (August 29, 1893):

“Because it represented a rise of the working class and served as a
splendid example of what working men can accomplish.”

And this glorious event, this “glad and beatific moment,” is thus
described by Mazzini, the Italian patriot:

“A people was wallowing about as if drunk, raging against itself and
lacerating its limbs with its teeth, while howling triumphant cries,
dancing an infernal dance before the grave which it had dug with its
own hand, killing, torturing, burning and committing crimes without
sense, shame or hope. It put one in mind of the most horrid visions of
Dante’s Hell.”

The Socialist historian, Benham, describes the events of the Commune
in his “Proletarian Revolt,” and the following summary of this
description, with the pages for reference, appears in “Questions of
Socialists and Their Answers” (p. 108), by Rev. William Stephens Kress:

 Forty thousand Parisians were killed in battle (p. 211); public
 buildings and priceless works of art were burned or destroyed;
 Napoleon’s column was torn down; the movable property of people
 who had fled the city was confiscated (p. 101); churches were
 pillaged (p. 57); Jesuits were robbed of 400,000 francs (p. 43);
 12 unfriendly journals were suppressed (p. 75); 300 of the clergy
 were imprisoned (p. 59); 200 priests were held as hostages (p. 118);
 priests were murdered (pp. 169, 171, 172, 181) ... Deguery, the Curé
 of the Madeline, when catechised by Rigault, judge of the Council of
 Discipline, said: “We teach the religion of our Lord Jesus Christ.” To
 which Rigault replied: “There are no Lords. We do not know any Lords.”
 When Archbishop Darboy was questioned, he answered: “I am a servant
 of God.” Rigault asked: “Where does he live?” To which the Archbishop
 replied: “Everywhere.” Rigault then gave command: “Send this man to
 the Conciergerie, and issue a warrant for the arrest of his Master,
 one called God, who has no permanent residence, and is consequently,
 contrary to law, living in a perpetual state of vagabondage” (p.
 57). Archbishop Darboy was ordered shot. When the order was given to
 fire he blessed the soldiers. “That’s your benediction, is it? Now
 take mine,” said Lolive, one of the soldiers, as he fired a pistol
 bullet into the Archbishop’s body (p. 158). Mr. Washburne, American
 Minister to France, said of Darboy: “He was one of the most charming
 and agreeable of men and was beloved alike by rich and poor. He had
 spent his whole life in acts of charity and benevolence” (p. 158).
 Speaking of the deadly hatred on the part of the Communards of all
 things religious, Benham remarks: “The actions of the Commune were
 proofs positive that they subscribed to the skeptical tenets which
 hold priests to be the advocates of human ignorance and a bar to the
 progress of the race” (p. 59).

It is such scenes of bloodshed and injustice--just this kind of triumph
of might over right--that Socialists would have repeated. They cannot
deny this, John, because this program, horrible as it may seem to us,
is perfectly logical from the Socialist point of view. “According to
Socialist ethics,” says Ming (“The Morality of Modern Socialism,”
p. 344), “all means are morally good which lead to the victory of
the proletariat. Why, then, should violence not be justified if it
brings success? The working class is the only class that has the right
and power to be; it is society, the nation, the true public, while
capitalism is but a cancer of the social organism. Why should it not
employ violence when deemed an effective means for emancipation,
conquest of power and introduction of collectivism?”

No, John, it is not when Socialists advocate violence that they are
illogical; it is when they deny that they advocate and plan to resort
to violence in accomplishing their purposes that they show a lack of
logic.




CHAPTER XV

WHAT WE ARE PROMISED


  My dear John,

We have already seen how impossible many of the basic theories of
Socialism are; but, heretofore, we have been dealing with definite
proposals, and not with the general application of the Socialist ideas.
To return to the simile of the jig-saw puzzle, John, we may say that we
now have all the pieces properly cut out before us. What we have to do
is to fit them together and see what kind of a picture they give us.

Of course, we shall not be able to do this without some protests from
Socialists. They do not like us to test their theories by constructing
an imaginary Commonwealth, even though we use no other material than
the facts which they themselves have given us--the admitted principles
of international Socialism--in its construction. Indeed, Socialists
insist that it is a mark of imbecility for anyone to ask for such a
picture to say nothing of complaining because it is not available.
“Only the ignorant would ask for a cut-and-dried plan of a state
that can exist only in its completeness in the distant future,” says
Suthers, in his popular propaganda booklet, “Common Objections to
Socialism Answered.” “Why is it impossible to produce a cut-and-dried
plan? Simply because comprehensive prophesy of the future is beyond
human power.... Is there a man alive to-day who can forecast the
details of all the events that will register themselves in his single
consciousness to-morrow?... It were a silly waste of time for any
Socialist to spend his life in drawing up cut-and-dried plans of a
distant future.... They (the critics) say that one says one thing and
one another. God of brains, what else do they expect?”

“For all his heat,” says Kelleher (“Common Ownership,” p. 105), “Mr.
Suthers is far from answering a very serious objection, or rather,
consciously or unconsciously, from dealing with the real point of the
objection at all. It is not the mere details of the socialistic state
that the critics of Socialism are demanding to have explained, but its
essential constitution. It is no reply to say that we do not require or
expect to know the details about the future under the existing system.
We do not, but we know the conditions in which these details will work
themselves out, and rightly or wrongly we accept them, because, with
all their faults, we are convinced that they are the best that are
available for us.”

Moreover, not all the Socialists have been as loath to forecast the
details of the proposed Co-operative Commonwealth as Mr. Suthers. H.
G. Wells has given us a rather elaborate series of prognostications in
his “New Worlds for Old,” and the following--Mrs. Besant’s picture of
the future which Socialism proposes--is said by Bliss to be “one of the
best short ideals of Socialism yet written.” In quoting this “prophecy”
I have found it necessary to abridge it slightly, but you will find all
the details that have been omitted in Mrs. Besant’s contribution to the
“Fabian Essays.”

“The unemployed have been transformed into communal workers--in
the country on great farms, improvements of the bonanza farms in
America--in the towns in various trades. Public stores for agricultural
and industrial products are open in all convenient places, and filled
with the goods thus communally produced. The great industries, worked
as Trusts, are controlled by the state instead of by capitalist
rings.... After a while the private producers will disappear, not
because there will be any law against individualistic production,
but because it will not pay. The best form of management during
the transition period, and possibly for a long time to come, will
be through the Communal Councils which will appoint committees to
superintend the various branches of industry. These committees will
engage the necessary manager and foreman for each shop, factory, etc.,
and will hold power of dismissal as of appointment.... This (making
the worker accommodate himself to the demand for labor), however,
hardly solves the general question as to the apportioning of laborers
to the various forms of labor. But a solution has been found by the
ingenious author of ‘Looking Backward.’ Leaving young men and women
free to choose their employments, he would equalize the rates of
volunteering by equalizing the attractions of the trades.... But there
are unpleasant and indispensable forms of labor which, one would
imagine, can attract none--mining, sewer-cleaning, etc. These might be
rendered attractive by making the hours of labor in them much shorter
than the normal working day of pleasanter occupations.... Further, much
of the most disagreeable and laborious work might be done by machinery,
as it would be now if it were not cheaper to exploit a helot class....
In truth, the extension of machinery is very likely to solve many of
the problems connected with differential advantages in employment; and
it seems certain that in the very near future the skilled worker will
not be the man who is able to perform a particular set of operations,
but the man who has been trained in the use of machinery.... Out of
the value of the communal produce ... all charges and expenses are
deducted, and the remaining value should be divided among the communal
workers as a ‘bonus.’ It would be obviously inconvenient, if not
impossible, for the district authority to sub-divide this value and
allot so much to each of its separate undertakings--so much left-over
from gas works for the men employed there, so much from the tramways
for the men employed on them, and so on. It would be far simpler and
easier for the municipal employes to be regarded as a single body, in
the service of a single employer, the local authority; and that the
surplus from the whole businesses carried on by the Communal Council
should be divided without distinction among the whole of the communal
employes.”

Taking Mrs. Besant as a guide and calling upon other Socialist
authorities for further directions, let us see if we can put our
jig-saw puzzle together and thus ascertain what kind of a place the
Co-operative Commonwealth is likely to be.

In the first place, John, it is scarcely probable that any Socialist
will deny that all means of production, distribution and exchange
will be in the hands of the collective state. This means that all
the manufacturing will be done by the communal authorities acting
for the people; that all the methods of disposing of these products,
through shops or otherwise, will be under the same direction, and
that all means of transportation--railways, steamships, etc.--will,
like the Post Office to-day, be in the hands of the people or their
representatives. So far, in all probability, we shall meet with no
denial from the Socialists.

In the matter of land, however, our Socialist authorities are not so
thoroughly in agreement. For example, when they are talking with the
farmer, or other small land owner, who does not wish to have his real
estate expropriated, some Socialists are quite willing to admit that
their program makes no provision for the confiscation of farm lands.
As you have seen, however, the Socialists are quite ready to hide any
feature in their scheme that seems likely to arouse opposition in
the minds of the small property holders. Yet, land being invariably
included in “means of production” by all authoritative Socialists, it
is not easy to see how any real Socialist can promise to exclude farm
lands from the general plan of confiscation. It is far easier to assume
that the _Appeal to Reason_ and the Socialist propagandists who write
propaganda matter to induce the farmer to vote the Socialist ticket are
not telling him the truth about this phase of the question.

Then, too, when we remember the Socialist proposition that all labor in
the Co-operative Commonwealth shall be performed collectively and not
under the direction of an employer, it is pretty difficult to imagine
how a farmer will be able to operate a farm when he is prevented from
employing others to help him. Certainly, Mrs. Besant’s suggestion is
the more logical one--farm lands must be expropriated and the industry
of agriculture pursued on great farms, operating on the bonanza farm
basis which has already proved such a gigantic failure in this country.

With all means of production, distribution and exchange in the hands of
the Commonwealth, there would naturally be but one source of employment
for labor--The Commonwealth. If you wanted a job, John, you would have
to go to the employment bureau of the Commonwealth and present your
application, upon which you would be assigned to such a position as
might chance to be open at the time your application was received. You
are a machinist, but it might chance that machinists are not much in
demand on the day you apply for the job. Accordingly, you would be sent
to paint houses, or to build streets; anything that happened to be open
would be assigned to you and you would have to take it or starve to
death, because the Commonwealth, as we have seen in a previous letter,
could not be expected to find for every applicant the particular kind
of work that he preferred to perform.

Under our present system, inadequate as it is in some respects, a man
can select the work that he prefers, and there is no limit to the
heights that he can ascend, provided he shows an ability to occupy a
higher position in the industrial world. To-day merit counts; to-day
knowledge and initiative, as well as industry, mean something. But,
under the system that Socialism proposes, it would be the favor of the
bosses or, at least, the votes of one’s associates that could alone
secure promotion.

Election of bosses by popular vote may sound all right in theory,
but I seriously fear that the scheme would not operate successfully
if applied practically. Popularity would be a poor substitute for
proficiency, especially in view of the fact that it would probably be
the easiest boss and not the most exacting boss, who would secure the
votes of the most people. Try to picture what would happen under these
conditions, and you will have taken the first step toward a clear
understanding of industrial conditions under Socialism.

But, let us suppose, for argument’s sake, that you have secured
employment at a trade that is fairly satisfactory to you and that
the more important industrial problems have been reasonably well
adjusted. At the end of the work-week you receive the labor check
which represents the “full value” of the products which have been
produced. We have already seen how difficult the Socialists will find
it to determine the full value of the work of each operative and
to measure it for exchange, so there is no need to emphasize this
question further. We will suppose that the apparently insurmountable
difficulties have been satisfactorily overcome, and that you are well
pleased with the share you receive in your labor check.

Now, what are you going to do with it?

We are told that the laborer will be permitted to purchase whatever he
pleases--as much or as little as he has a mind to buy. Of course he
can buy only from the State because everything--all the stores, shops,
factories, farms, etc.--will be owned and operated by the government.
“Our cities cannot give us to-day two things so simple as pure water
and clean streets,” remarks Father Kress. “By what magic will they be
made capable of doing the thousands of things implied in production and
distribution?”

Imagine yourself, your pay check in your hand, going in to the gigantic
government warehouse, or as Mrs. Besant prefers to call them, “public
stores for agricultural and industrial products.” The fact that you are
to be permitted to buy anything you like, or can, with the amount in
hand, presupposes that everything you desire will be kept in stock. But
what if you do not find it? The clerk could not promise to get it for
you, because it is not impossible that the committee on manufactures
may have decided that you ought not to have it. Caviare and Limburger
cheese are two commodities that are extremely pleasing to some people’s
palate, while there are other people who could not be induced to eat
them for pay. Suppose the committee on manufactures was composed
chiefly of persons who saw no excuse for the existence of caviare or
Limburger cheese. Is it likely that they would take the trouble to see
that the supply of these commodities did not run short, especially
when, in a Commonwealth where there was no competition, there is no
need to make any special effort to please purchasers?

Freedom to purchase is impossible unless every possible want is
provided for. Perhaps this condition would exist in the Co-operative
Commonwealth. Perhaps it wouldn’t!

Let us take another example, John.

Suppose you wanted to build a house. At present you can do this in
accordance with any plans that please you. You don’t have to ask
anybody’s advice if you don’t want to. But would things be like this
under Socialism? You might want to build a bookcase in the centre of
the room instead of around the walls. You might have very good reasons
for wishing to do this. But do you think it would be a simple matter to
convince the committee on carpentering that your plan should be carried
out, if they happened to disapprove of your ideas? Under our present
system you can get almost any kind of work done if you are willing
and able to pay for it. All you have to do is to find the laborer and
employ him. Under Socialism, it wouldn’t be a single laborer that
would have to be seen, but a committee whose consent would have to be
obtained before any laborer could undertake your work.

The Socialists tell us that Socialism will inspire inventors, writers
and other mental workers to a degree never before dreamt of.

Is this possible?

An invention to-day stands a fair chance of being put on the market
so long as it has the slightest evidence of practicability; somebody
can usually be found to furnish the money for the experiments needed
to perfect the scheme of the inventor. But how would it be in a
Commonwealth where the practicability of an invention and its value
as a social factor would have to be determined by a special committee
before it could be produced and its merits tested by actual experience?
We know how much money has been spent in the experimental work of many
inventors. We know, too, that, in the majority of cases, inventions
have been perfected in the face of widespread scepticism. Few people
believed that the telephone would ever be made of practical value. Even
when the telephone had succeeded and become an absolute necessity, the
great mass of the people laughed at the idea of wireless telegraphy. Do
you think that a committee on inventions would have passed favorably
upon such ideas, and would have authorized the necessary appropriations
for perfecting them in the face of such strong popular opposition?

Socialists also tell us that freedom is the choicest jewel in our
possession; that freedom of press, speech and assemblage are rights
which are inherent in human nature and which must be defended, with our
lives if need be. But what do we find under Socialism? Could there be
any freedom of press when the Socialist State owned every press, when
the Socialist State employed every printer, when the Socialist State
controlled every sheet of white paper?

Before a printed word could be given to the world, it would have
to pass the censorship of the special bureau entrusted with these
responsibilities. Such a committee would have to determine whether an
author’s work was worth printing or not; and suppose, by any chance,
an author or an editor desired to give expression to opinions that
did not harmonize perfectly with those of the ruling majority, do you
suppose that the State-owned presses would be permitted to run in the
publication of such theories?

There is one thing, John, that you can depend upon; and that is that
the Socialist scheme makes absolutely no provision for freedom. The
Socialists talk as if we were “wage slaves,” but no conditions existing
to-day--not excepting the worst--represent such galling servitude
as would exist under the despotic bureaucracy that Socialism would
develop. It is true that you might be guaranteed against unemployment
so long as you were willing to take the kind of work provided for
you. It is true that you might exchange your labor checks for the
commodities that other workers had produced--so long as you desired
to purchase the kind of things that the officials of the Commonwealth
wanted you to buy. It is true that you might be permitted to write and
speak and teach, so long as you desired to promulgate ideas approved by
the majority. Once you begin to think along the lines advocated by the
minority, what do you think would happen to you? If a full stomach were
all that man required for his happiness, the Co-operative Commonwealth
might seem to offer an enviable state of existence. It is because
Socialists believe that a full stomach is the highest aim of man,
that they fail to recognize the inadequate character of their proposed
Commonwealth.

It is an elaborate program that Socialism has planned--a program
that provides for free services on every hand, free amusements, free
excursions, free transportation, free professional services, etc.
Education, of course, will be free, not only the tuition and the books
but the clothes the children wear and the victuals they eat. “Will the
State be able to carry out this program?” asked Godkin in _The Forum_
(June, 1894). “It cannot give more than it gets; will we be rich enough
to pay the extravagant bills of Socialism?” It is assumed by Socialists
that the wealth of the State will be unlimited, but on what foundations
is this assumption based?

I have called your attention to merely a few of the problems that
suggest themselves when we attempt to consider what kind of an
existence Socialism has planned for us. There are hundreds of other
examples that will occur to you if you stop to think the matter over
seriously. If this is the kind of life you want to live--the kind of
freedom you think you would enjoy--you are welcome to it.




CHAPTER XVI

WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE WORLD?


  My dear John,

While I think I have shown you that Socialism is not what it pretends
to be--a certain remedy for all the social evils of our day--and that
it is utterly impossible for Socialism to keep its promises by making
this world over into a veritable kingdom of God on earth, we must not
make the mistake of dismissing all the contentions of the Socialists as
so many exhibitions of mental aberration. There is madness in some of
their doctrines--it is a crazy kind of a future that they have planned
for us; but behind all their absurdities there is a well-justified
protest against a series of social and industrial abuses from which the
great body of humanity is suffering, as from so many hideous sores.

Mind you, John, I do not say that Socialists never exaggerate existing
conditions. We have already seen how prone they are to try to make us
put the most gloomy construction on the social outlook, and how ready
they are to twist statistics into all kinds of strange contortions to
make them fit their theories, in an endeavor to prove that the evils
which exist are ever so much more glaring than they really are.

But the evils exist. The worker does not get an adequate share of the
wealth which he contributes to produce. The problem of unemployment
cries for solution from one end of the world to the other. In every
State and country the evils of child labor demand a remedy. Everywhere
numbers of men and women work under conditions that are a disgrace
to our boasted civilization, and in all parts of the land workers
are compelled to live in an environment and under circumstances that
absolutely preclude the attainment of the ideals toward which humanity
is supposed to be tending.

In a word, we cannot deny that something is radically wrong with
the world. So far we may go hand in hand with the Socialist. To the
extent that he demands reform measures which shall give to the worker
greater opportunities for development and happiness, we must heartily
concur. But is the Socialist right when he asserts that these wrongs
are the inevitable result of the system which he calls “capitalism”?
Is it impossible, as he insists, that these wrongs may be righted
except by the overthrow of our present system and the substitution of
collective ownership of all means of production for our privately-owned
competitive method of managing things?

When the Socialist tells us that Individualism is responsible for
all these evils, he is right. When he tells us that these evils are
inherent in the system which permits individual ownership of productive
properties, he is wrong. It is not the competitive system that is
responsible for all our social and industrial abuses. These unjust
features of modern life are the direct result of the vicious practices
which selfish and cruel individuals have adopted in their relations to
their fellow-men, but which do not necessarily have any place in the
system itself.

If you were to study the development of political economy, you would
discover that the marked degradation of the workers, as well as much
of the callousness of the prosperous to the sufferings of the poor are
the direct result of the economic ideas promulgated by the Liberal
philosophers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. “Liberty,
fraternity and equality,” are terms to conjure with; but, once we apply
these principles to the practical affairs of life, we have started
society upon a downward course which can be checked only by a complete
reversal of such ideas.

The French Deists sought to remove all trammels from man that he might
follow nature without restraint. They, and the economists who followed
them--Adam Smith, Ricardo, Bentham, Mill, and others--saw no room for
morality, religion, or even ethics, in political economy. The natural
effect of such principles was to foster the selfish impulses of man
rather than enforce conformity to the standards of conduct which are
embodied in the eternal laws of justice. These principles taught men
that the matter of prime importance was self-interest; they encouraged
cruelty and greed; they opened the way for the practice of unregulated
competition and stultified the Christian ideals of self-renunciation
and human brotherhood.

A political economy without ethics, without a rule of right except as
set down in man-made law, can have none of the elements of justice
save, possibly, through sheer accident. Legal morality and the morality
for which Christianity has always stood are as opposed as the two
poles in many particulars. Where the principles of true morality
are recognized, there is no inherent antagonism between capital and
labor. They have interests that are mutual, and there is no excuse for
turning the industrial world into a battleground upon which strength
and cunning usurp the place of love and justice. The moment that the
higher ideals of life are subordinated to the passion of greed, the
degradation of the weaker and less cunning becomes inevitable.

History shows us that this is precisely what has happened. Instead of
becoming a means to progress, the competitive system, through lack of
control, has resulted in a form of unlicensed competition which, as J.
J. Welsh asserts (“Socialism, Individualism and Catholicism,” p. 19),
may be “rightly described as commercial cannibalism.... It delivers
up weak, unorganized labor into the hands of organized and omnipotent
capital.... Without regard for the skill of the worker, the value of
his labor, or the requirements of a decent human life, the competitive
principle justifies the capitalist in paying the workman the least,
which, in the circumstances, he can compel him to accept. The employer
shelters himself under the law of supply and demand, as though that
were the supreme regulator of the remuneration and conditions of labor.
There is no savor of morality in such a principle. It gives an unfair
advantage to the few rich, who control the instruments of production,
over the defenceless masses, and it makes a question of strict
justice--the remuneration and the actual subsistence of the toiler and
his family--depend upon a trial of strength between two contending
parties.”

There is no right-minded man who is not ready to join the Socialists in
their condemnation of the effects of the operations of this principle
of unrestrained competition. Were we compelled to believe that there
was no way by which this system could be changed, but that the human
sorrow and merciless injustice resulting from the exploitation of
the weak by the strong must continue unchecked until our system of
production and distribution has been completely overthrown, there
are comparatively few of us who would not go still further and urge
the adoption of the collective methods of industry. It is because we
believe that it is our unregulated competition, and not the principle
of individual ownership itself, which is destructive of right and
justice, that we do not and cannot join hands with the Socialists. As
we shall see, it is possible to bring about a correction of the abuses
from which countless thousands have suffered and are still suffering.
As we shall see, there are instruments within our reach with which we
may check the unbounded lust of greed which has made this generous
earth a vale of woe and mourning for the poor.

While we do not agree with socialistic principles, therefore, we
recognize the justice embodied in the Socialist protest; and, much as
we deplore the spirit which has exaggerated our evils with a view to
inciting class hatred and a revolution that can result only in violence
and bloodshed, we should be blind if we did not appreciate the fact
that it is this protesting sentiment that has been to a marked degree
responsible for the moral awakening that will eventually set things
right.

For example, there can be no doubt that there is justification for
the Socialist declaration regarding the unequal distribution of
wealth. The facts in the case are too notorious to permit of denial,
when multitudes are suffering all the woes of destitution, when many
are starving for lack of life’s bare necessities, and while the few
are able to waste in extravagance the means which would relieve
the sufferings of countless thousands if properly applied. “The
pestilential principle that each man has the right to dispose of his
wealth without regard to the common good is the cause of the widespread
mischief,” says Welsh.

This unjust principle is also responsible for the inadequate rate of
wage and the horrible conditions which exist so generally among the
miserable multitude. There are those who may deny that such conditions
prevail; but our own eyes and ears, to say nothing of the great mass of
statistical information which is within our reach, prove conclusively
that there are untold thousands of children who are born into the
world without a chance of life or happiness; that vast multitudes
of young women, unable to sustain life in the unequal struggle for
existence, are driven to the streets for the sustenance which they
find it impossible to earn by honest toil; that men and women, who are
entitled in strict justice to a wage that will support them and those
dependent on them, are deprived of all their natural rights through no
fault of their own. For them there is no such thing as decent food,
clothing and shelter possible, to say nothing of the hope of ever being
able to meet the higher but no less natural requirements of life.

Christianity has always held that it is the duty of each and all to
preserve life decently and that anything that tends to make this
impossible is a crime. “This idea of class duties and class comforts
is either explicitly or implicitly referred to as the final test in
every question of distribution or exchange,” says Ashley, who quoted
Langenstein in evidence of the fact that these principles of industrial
justice were recognized prior to the fourteenth century. “Everyone,”
says the latter, “can determine for himself the just price of the
wares he has to sell by simply reckoning what he needs in order to
support himself in his rank of life”; and those who have read the
writings of the Church Fathers do not need to be told that Christianity
has ever maintained the necessity of recognizing the right of the
worker to a living wage. These traditional teachings are embodied
in the Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII, who repudiates the principle
that competition alone determines the morality of the so-called free
contract.

“There is a dictate of nature more imperious and more ancient than
any bargain between man and man, that the remuneration must be enough
to support the wage-earner in reasonable and frugal comforts,” says
the Pope. “If, through necessity or fear of a worse evil, the workman
accepts harder conditions because an employer or contractor will give
him no better, he is the victim of force and injustice.”

The Socialists claim that the Marxian gospel affords the only possible
relief for the victims of this force and injustice. As I have already
asserted, if this were true, a great many more of us would be
Marxists. As it is, however, there is a remedy which we may adopt with
safety, and with every assurance that it may be applied successfully if
we but get together and work together in the right way.




CHAPTER XVII

THE REMEDY


  My dear John,

As we have seen, it is not necessary that we should study life through
the smoked glasses of Socialism to realize that all is not well with
the world. Indeed, we have no need to look further than our own
everyday experiences to witness misery that is heart-rending, to see
evils that imperatively demand relief. That such conditions exist,
nobody can deny; and the Socialists have made good use of this fact
in shaping their appeal for “universal justice.” Certainly, it is an
argument that cannot fail to touch the human heart that is at all moved
to sympathy.

If such evil conditions exist, it is our duty to remedy them, and with
as little delay as possible. Sympathy is not enough. We must act and
act at once--but how? It is a question that we who are not Socialists
are frequently asked. “If the Socialists are wrong,” our friends
inquire, “what have you to offer as a substitute?”

One of the greatest weaknesses in the Socialist position is due to the
fact that it persists in looking at life from the wrong perspective.
Instead of finding the right point of view, it examines life’s canvas
from so close a range that it loses all sense of proportion. Assuming
this attitude toward current events, the abuses apparent are magnified
to such a degree as to make it appear that Marx was correct in
asserting that the capitalist system is rotten to the core, and that
the only hope for relief lies in collective ownership.

Are the Socialist contentions true? Is everything in this country
tending towards hopeless bankruptcy?

Fortunately there are facts in plenty which answer these questions.
There never was a period in the world’s history in which greater
progress was made toward modifying--if not actually eliminating--the
burdens that have caused so much misery to the poor. You must remember,
John, that the evils against which Socialists inveigh so bitterly are
not new evils. They had their origin generations ago; they have been
promoted by the sophistical theories of Economic Liberalism; and, if
they now seem more indefensible than they did to our grandfathers and
great-grandfathers, it is because our intenser conceptions of the
ideals of human brotherhood compel us to view life with closer scrutiny.

In truth, while the indictment of Socialism is warranted in one sense
of the word, it is by no means entirely justified. If we were doing
nothing to improve conditions for the workers and for the relief of the
poor, the outlook would be a hopeless one; but, when we realize that,
while Socialism itself is doing practically nothing but denouncing
and slandering society (where it does not actually oppose our reform
measures), we are working steadily toward the solution of our social
problems, we can see good reason to believe that our civilization is
far from being the failure it has been pictured.

No better evidence of the extent of the world’s material progress can
be found than in labor’s advancement during the past century. To-day,
there is still much to be done before we can attain the ideal embodied
in the expression, “a fair day’s pay”; yet it is interesting to note
that we should have to go back no further than the first quarter of
the eighteenth century to find an Act of the Court of Massachusetts
under which employers could adopt a maximum wage schedule. In a word,
this law prevented an employer from giving more than the specified
sum per day; yet no effort was made to prevent him from paying the
lowest wages for which a laborer could be induced to work. Between
this condition and the minimum wage agitation with which we are now
familiar, there is a contrast that speaks eloquently in evidence of our
social progress.

In England, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the situation
of labor was worse than it has ever been in this country. Forbidden by
law to establish any safeguard in the form of organization for his own
protection, the employe was absolutely at the mercy of his employer.
The result was a condition of affairs that was barbaric. If the
employer paid the rate of wage agreed in money, or even in “truck,” he
was under no further legal responsibility; and, as the introduction of
improved machinery in many trades was beginning to make it possible for
women and children to perform the duties which hitherto had fallen only
upon men, an employer was able to make the worker accept terms that
made proper sustenance impossible.

At the dawn of the nineteenth century, this was the condition of
things: the laborer was (1) prohibited from forming protective
combinations or unions; (2) compelled to work sixteen hours out of each
twenty-four; (3) forced to accept as recompense wages which were wholly
inadequate to provide the most vital necessities of life; and, as
though these conditions were not sufficiently oppressive, (4) employers
were permitted to make payment at long intervals, or in “truck,” _and
could charge interest at the rate of 260 per cent per annum on all
cash advances made to the needy worker_. Apparently, this was the time
when Marx ought to have appeared with his doctrine of wage slavery and
his incitement to class hatred. But, when we compare these conditions
with those which exist to-day, we can readily see that, while things
are still far from being “ideal,” the worker assuredly is not sinking
steadily into deeper depths of degradation.

Even in this country the conditions of the laborer were far from
enviable a century ago. As McMaster tells us in his “History of the
People of the United States”:

“His house was meaner, his food coarser, his clothing was of commoner
stuff, his wages lower, and his hours of daily labor far longer than
those of the men who in our time perform like service. Down to the
opening of the nineteenth century, a farm hand was paid $3 a month. A
strong boy could be had for $1 a month. Women who went out to service
received $10 a year; type-setters were given $1 per day. The hours
of work were from sunrise to sunset, and, as the sun rose later and
set earlier in the Winter than in the Summer, _wages in December
were one-third less than in July_. On such pittances it was only by
the strictest economy that a mechanic could keep his children from
starvation and himself from jail,” for these were the days when a man
could be arrested upon the complaint of a creditor and, being lodged
in jail, could be kept there until the indebtedness was paid--a system
which actually permitted life imprisonment for debt.

If I were to tell you of the indescribably vile conditions under
which the workers of those days toiled and lived, you would find it
difficult to believe that human beings could bear such burdens and
survive. If you are interested in investigating this subject, there
are books in the libraries that will tell you the story in all its
damning details. And this is the perspective from which you should
view life. It is, to say the least, “unscientific” to exaggerate the
weak spots in present-day civilization to such an extent as to convey
the impression that the evils criticized are the worst that have ever
been known, when a few hours’ study of history would be sufficient to
disclose the fact that circumstances are now infinitely less oppressive
than they have been in the past. At the same time the knowledge that
things are incalculably better than they were even half a century ago,
and that they are steadily improving, must not blind us to the fact
that there is still much to be done--more perhaps than has yet been
accomplished--and that it is our duty as good citizens to do our part
in remedying all our social defects.

But what are we to do?

Let history answer.

Do you imagine that it was the individual capitalist--the “heartless
and greedy sweater”--who was responsible for all the improvements
that have occurred in our industrial conditions? No, it was the worker
himself who secured all these reforms. The worker, chiefly through his
own effort, has brought about the reformation that we witness to-day,
and it is the worker who must carry on the campaign until all the
abuses of which we complain have been eliminated.

It is from the pages of history that we learn the story of the past; it
is to the pages of history that we must turn for advice as to what we
must do in the future. Let us see what history tells us.

In the first place we learn that, despite all the legal prohibitions
then existing, the workers organized new associations. In the beginning
these organizations were merely “friendly societies,” ostensibly formed
to provide aid for the men in time of sickness or other misfortune; but
behind this purpose was the inception of the peaceful revolution that
was to rescue labor from the mire of degradation into which it had been
so pitilessly thrust.

Here then we have our first lesson: _the duty of the worker to
organize_. As Portenar says in his “Problems of Organized Labor”
(p. 4), “the trade union came into being because it was needed;
because the helpless individual found in concerted action with other
individuals his best, if not his only, means of resistance to the
arbitrary exercise of power, to injustice, to cruelty. It was a hard
fight. Wealth, and the merciless power of wealth; the state law,
forbidding workmen to co-operate for the purpose of increasing wages
and fixing maxima, with its interpreters zealous for its rigorous
enforcement; legislative bodies deaf to the cries of those who were
denied the privilege of a voice in the selection of their members; and
the broken-spirited timidity of those in whose behalf the union was
created; these were the forces to be contended with and overcome.”

But the trade union was born, and the trade union has won many a
victory. But for this weapon of defense--and sometimes of offense--the
condition of the worker would not have been what it is to-day. Through
its efforts legislation has been secured. Through its efforts public
opinion has been shaped, and it is to its efforts that we must look
primarily for future betterment of labor’s condition.

The first step, therefore, is one of organization; and, this step once
taken, our subsequent progress follows logically. As the strength of
the organized workers increases, more demands can be made, and with a
much better prospect that they will be recognized. Legislatures, like
parliaments, are no longer deaf and blind to the requirements of the
workers. We have seen the circumstances under which the laborer existed
in the past. We know from personal experience the hardships suffered by
those who live under the lessened burden of to-day.

“Looking broadly to labor legislation as it has occurred in this
country,” said Carroll D. Wright, “it may be well to sum up its general
features. Such legislation has fixed the hours of labor for women
and certain minors in manufacturing establishments; it has adjusted
the contracts of labor; it has protected employes by insisting that
all dangerous machinery shall be guarded ... it has created boards
of factory inspectors whose powers and duties have added much to the
health and safety of the operatives; it has in many instances provided
for weekly payments ... it has regulated the employment of prisoners;
protected the employment of children; ... provided for the ventilation
of factories and workshops; established industrial schools; ...
modified the common-law rules relative to the liability of employers
for injuries of their employes; fixed the compensation of railroad
corporations for negligently causing the death of employes, and has
provided for their protection against accident and death.”

In spite of all that has been accomplished, however, we must increase
enormously our efforts along these lines, and so open up new avenues of
progress. The question of the hours of labor requires adjustment; child
labor, sweating, the home industries, the standardization of wages on
a “living” basis, are but a few of the problems which must be settled;
and the only way to settle them is by means of legislation.

We must not forget, however, that laws are of little use unless they
are enforced. We already have laws on our statute books which would
quickly put an end to some of our abuses were they to be applied
adequately. This teaches us that, unless legislation is supported by
public opinion, it will be practically useless. Until public sentiment
forbids, laws are evaded; and a statute that is a “dead letter” is a
pretty sterile “reform measure.”

It is here that we find the next duty of the worker. Personally, and
through his organization, he must carry out a campaign of education
that will help to develop a more alert social conscience--that will
arouse all good citizens to the justice of his demands, and so
frustrate the efforts of the rascals who, greed-inspired, exist chiefly
to set the moral laws at naught.

To-day, this program can be carried out more easily than ever before in
human history. The social conscience is already awakening and in his
efforts to win more support for his righteous cause, the worker will
derive aid from the churches as well as from the many organizations
that have come into existence during the past decade solely to cast
their influence in behalf of social-welfare movements. The social
question to-day includes the industrial question. Moreover, it is
more than an economic and political question. It has its moral and
religious phases and so appeals directly to all public-spirited men and
women. By organization, legislation and education, a still wider and
ever-widening interest can be excited, until one by one the merciless
evils--now the source of so much woe--have been eliminated.

The objection may be raised that the program outlined is anything but
a simple one. I will admit that this is so; but I can assure you,
John, that the difficulties presented by the remedial measures I have
suggested are really not as great as those which we should experience
were we to attempt to carry out the plan which the Socialists have
arranged for us. The program I have outlined represents a sane solution
of our industrial problems; and the better acquainted with Socialism
you become the more firmly you will be convinced that the so-called
“palliatives” afford the only safe remedy for existing evils. There
can be no short-cut to the end we seek. Many forces operate to produce
present conditions and they must be considered and co-ordinated. It
is because the Socialists have failed to recognize this fact and make
provision for it that they have lost their way and wandered into such a
tangle of absurdities.




INDEX


  Agriculture, Concentration in, 125 sqq.

  American Federation of Labor, 10 sq.

  _American Federationist_, value of goods manufactured in U. S., 47 sq.

  _Appeal to Reason_, estimates consumable wealth in U. S., 50;
    lauds Paris Commune, 168 sq.

  Ashley, W. J., on principles of industrial justice, 197.


  Bax, Belfort, on aims of Socialism, 145;
    end of Socialism justifies every means, 153 sq., 155.

  Bebel, August, proposes “changing-off” system, 61 sqq.;
    defends violence, 164.

  Benham, Charles, describes Paris Commune, 169 sq.

  Bentham, Jeremy, 192.

  Berger, Victor, advocates violence, 17.

  Bernstein, Ed., declares Socialism could not keep its promise, 56;
    takes issue with Marx, 118 sq.

  Besant, Mrs. Annie, equal remuneration of all workers, 83;
    the worker’s share of the products, 110 sqq.;
    forecast of the future Socialist state, 175 sqq.

  Blatchford, Robert, individuals have no inherent right to freedom, 74;
    equality of payment under Socialism, 81 sq.

  Blanc, Louis, National Workshops scheme, 110 sqq.

  Bohn, Frank, 12.

  Bonanza Farms, 126, 175, 180.

  Bosses, Selection of, under Socialism, 68 sqq.; 181.

  Building and Loan Deposits, 130 sq.


  Capital, 39 sq.

  “Capital,” see Marx, Karl.

  “Capitalism,” see Individualism.

  Capitalistic Development, Law of, 117 sqq.

  “Case Against Socialism,” choice of occupation under Socialism, 65 sq.

  Cathrein-Gettelmann, 23;
    on “changing-off” system, 62 sq.;
    impracticableness of Socialism, 95 sqq.

  Census, U. S. Industrial, 45.

  Changing-off System, 62 sq.

  Chesterton, Cecil, Socialism is confiscation, 156.

  Chiozza-Money, on “robbery of worker,” 20 sq.

  Christianity and Labor, 197 sqq.

  Class Consciousness, 16, 133 sqq.

  Class Distinctions, 71.

  Classes in U. S., 119 sq.

  Class Hatred, see Class Consciousness.

  Coler, Bird S., on “changing-off” system, 69 sq.

  Collective Ownership, 59 sqq.

  Collins, Peter W., Socialist method of sowing class hatred, 142 sq.

  _Common Cause, The_, 90 sqq.;
    Socialist statistics, 121;
    increase of wages in recent times, 122;
    wider distribution of wealth today, 124, 126 sq.

  Commune, see Paris Commune.

  “Communist Manifesto,” 83;
    misery keeps pace with wealth, 129;
    class antagonism, 134 sq.;
    advocates violent overthrow of existing society, 160.

  Communists, French, attack equal division of property, 83.

  Compensation, see Confiscation.

  Competitive System, 193 sq.

  Concentration of Capital, 117 sqq.

  Confiscation, 144 sqq.

  Co-operative Commonwealth, definition, 17;
    estimated pay roll, 49 sqq.;
    length of working day in, 50 sqq.;
    choice of occupation in, 67 sqq.;
    feasibility of, 158;
    forecast of, 175 sqq.

  Cost of Labor, 46 sq.

  Cost of Materials, 45 sq.

  Consumable Wealth of U. S., 49 sq.

  Crawford, Archibald, advocates class hatred, 142.


  _Daily Telegraph_ (London), 85.

  Debs, Eugene V., 11;
    no respect for property laws, 149 sq.

  De Tunzelmann, G. W., attacks “robbery” theory, 36.

  Deville, division of produce under Socialism, 109 sq.

  Dietzgen, Joseph, advocates violence, 164 sq.

  Division of Profits, 77 sqq.


  Earnings of Workers, see Wages.

  Economic Liberalism, 191 sqq.

  Elder, Benedict, difficulty of calculating value of labor, 92 sqq.

  Engels, Friedrich, preaches class antagonism, 134 sq.

  Employment under Socialism, 180 sqq.

  Equality of Opportunity, 59, 78 sqq.

  Equality of Remuneration, 77 sqq.

  Erfurt Platform, exploitation of poor by rich, 121.

  Ethics of Socialism, 149 sq., 153 sq., 157 sq., 171 sq.

  Exchange Value, 23 sqq.

  Expropriation, see Confiscation.


  Fabian Essays, equal remuneration of workers, 83;
    individual has no rights, 105 sq.;
    division of profits, 110.

  Fabian Society, on freedom in choice of occupation, 59.

  Farms in U. S., 125 sqq.

  Ferri, Enrico, advocates class antagonism, 136.

  Five thousand dollars a year, 44, 48 sq.

  Flint, Robert, Socialism a despotism under bosses, 71, 74.

  Four-hour day, 44.

  Freedom of choice of occupation, 59 sqq.

  Freedom of Press and Speech, 186 sq.

  Freedom to purchase, 182 sqq.

  French Revolution, 158.


  Godkin, E. L., Socialism and state solvency, 188.

  Grayson, Victor, on “robbery” of worker, 20;
    defends violence, 167.

  Gronlund, Lawrence, no choice of occupation under Socialism, 67 sq.


  Hague Congress (Socialist) of 1872, violence to be lever of social
   reform, 161.

  Hatton, condition of laboring classes improves, 118.

  Haywood, Wm. D., 12.

  Hazell, on “robbery” of workers, 20.

  Herron, George D., working class alone entitled to existence, 138 sq.,
   141;
    lauds Paris Commune, 168.

  Hillquit, Morris, thinks confiscation probable, 157.

  Hobhouse, L. T., society divided into “experts” and puppets under
   Socialism, 71 sq.

  Hours of Labor, 43 sq., 51, 204.

  Hyndman, H. M., maintains all investments are successful, 38 sq.;
    wealth divided equally among good and bad workmen, 85 sq.;
    advocates class conflict, 140 sq.;
    ready to use violence, 163;
    even dynamite, 167.


  “Immediate Demands,” 13 sq.

  Imprisonment for Debt, 205.

  “Increasing Misery,” 122.

  Individualism, 191 sqq.

  Industrial Unionism, 11 sq.

  Industries, Ownership of, 123 sqq.

  Intensive Farming, 126.

  Interest a Crime, 146.

  _International Socialist Review_, no respect for present laws, 149 sq.

  Inventions, effect of Socialism on, 185 sq.


  Jaurès, on class antagonism, 138.

  Joynes, advocates violence, 165.

  _Justice_ (London), all weapons legitimate, 141;
    lauds Paris Commune, 168.


  Kautsky, Karl, moral law binding only between members of the same
   class, 154 sq.

  Kelleher, Rev. J., on constitution of Socialist state, 174 sq.

  Kerr, Chas. H., all weapons defensible to overthrow existing society,
   163 sq.

  Kirkup, Thomas, attacks Marx’s law of the concentration of capital,
   116 sq.;
    Socialism is revolutionary materialism, 163;
    revolution to end present era, 167.

  Kress, Rev. W. S., present distribution of wealth compared with past
   conditions, 131;
    description of Paris Commune, 169 sqq.;
    the satisfaction of public wants under Socialism, 182 sq.


  Labor Certificates, 26.

  Labor Conditions in early 19th Century, 204 sqq.

  Labor, Full Product of, under Socialism, 87 sqq., 102 sqq.

  “Labor is Source of All Value,” 21 sqq.

  Labor Time, 26 sq.

  Labor Value, 88 sqq.

  Langenstein, principles of industrial justice, 197.

  Laws, Disrespect for, among Socialists, 149 sq.

  Leatham, interest is criminal, 146.

  Legislation, Labor, in U. S., 209 sq.

  Leo XIII, Pope, on morality of free contract, 198.

  Liberty under Socialism, see Freedom of Choice.

  Liebknecht, Wilhelm, on aims of Socialism, 14 sqq.

  London, Jack, proclaims class war, 141.


  MacDonald, Ramsay, on worker’s freedom under Socialism, 61;
    selection of workers, 65.

  Mallock, W. H., 38.

  Manifesto of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, 136.

  Manufactures in U. S., 45 sq.

  Marx, Karl, on real aim of Socialism, 15;
    on value, 21
  sqq.;
    on skilled labor, 30;
    on “robbery” of worker, 32 sqq.;
    supports “changing-off” system, 63 sq.;
    equality of remuneration, 78 sq.;
    law of concentration of capital, 116 sqq.;
    advocates class antagonism, 134 sq.;
    defends violence, 160 sq., 164;
    lauds Paris Commune, 168.

  Massachusetts, Act of Court of, fixing maximum wage, 203.

  Maximum Wage, early in 19th Century, 203.

  Mazzini, Giuseppe, describes Paris Commune, 169.

  McMaster, J. B., Labor Conditions in U. S., in early 19th century,
   205.

  Mill, J. S., 192.

  Ming, Rev. John J., S. J., Socialists hold moral principles bind
   only members of same class, 155;
    ethics of Socialism, 171.

  Minimum Wage, 203.

  Miscellaneous Expenses of Manufacture, 45 sq.

  Mortgaged Farms, 128.

  Municipal Ownership, 13 sq.


  National Workshops experiment, 40 sqq.

  Natural Rights, 149.

  Necessary Labor, 27.

  _Neue Zeit_, moral law binds only members of same class, 154.


  Opportunity Under Socialism, see Equality of Opportunity.

  Organization of Labor, 203 sq., 207 sqq.


  Paris Commune, 161, 168 sqq.

  Paulsen, Friedrich, ridicules “changing-off” system, 64 sq.

  Pauperism, decrease in recent times, 122 sq.

  Pearson, Karl, no mercy under Socialism for offenders against the
   State, 73 sq.

  Peru, Ancient, Society in, illustrates working of Socialist state, 72.

  Portenar, A. J., on development of trade unions, 207 sq.

  Product of Manufactures in U. S., 45 sq.


  Quelch, means to be used in class war, 141;
    lauds Paris Commune, 168.


  Railways, Ownership of, 124.

  “Red Catechism,” ownership of machines under Socialism, 150 sq.;
    advocates revolution, 165.

  Remuneration, 77 sqq.

  _Revolt, The_, advocates class war, 142.

  Revolution, The, definition, 17, 143, 160 sqq.; 165 sq.

  Ricardo, David, 192.

  Richardson, N. A., workers’ share of products under Socialism, 112 sq.

  “Robbery” of Worker, 20 sqq., 34 sqq., 42 sq.


  Sanial, Lucien, distribution of wealth in U. S. in 1900, 119 sq.

  Savings of Workers, in U. S. Savings Banks, 130 sq.;
    in building societies, 130.

  Schäffle, Albert, condemns Socialist promises, 113 sq.

  Shaw, George Bernard, equality of income primary tenet of Socialism,
   79 sqq.

  Simple Labor, 30.

  Six-Hour Day, 33.

  Skelton, Oscar D., 23;
    Marx’s forecast of increasing misery of poor discredited, 129.

  Skilled Labor, Payment of, under Socialism, 30, 77 sqq.

  Smith, Adam, 192.

  Snowden, riches of the few means the poverty of the many, 117.

  Social Conscience, 211 sq.

  _Socialist, The_, advocates confiscation, 157.

  “Socialist Catechism,” revolution necessary to end exploitation of
   workers, 165.

  Socialist Federation of Australasia, advocates confiscation, 156 sq.

  Socialist Hymn Book, 166.

  Socialist Platform, in Germany, see Erfurt Platform;
    in U. S., 134; in Great Britain, 136.

  Socialist Schools, 143, 150 sqq., 166.

  _Socialist Standard, The_, workers to organize for overthrow of
   Capitalists, 137.

  Spargo, John, constant danger to liberty under Socialism, 76;
    equality of income aim of Socialism, 79;
    freedom to indulge tastes under Socialism, 114 sq.;
    admits weakness of Marxian theory as applied to agriculture, 127 sq.

  Spencer, Herbert, only two methods of organizing labor, 70 sqq.;
    liberty and justice must die under Socialism, 72.

  _Standard, The_ (London), investigates menacing character of
   Socialism, 151.

  Steel Corporation, U. S., Ownership of, 125.

  Surplus Value, Theory of, 32 sqq.

  Suthers, on “robbery” of workers, 21;
    remuneration under Socialism, 44;
    no details concerning future Co-operative Commonwealth, 174.


  Tcherkesoff, Concentration of Capital, 117 sq.

  Ten Thousand Dollars a Year, 44.

  Three-hour Day, 44.

  Trade Unions, 207 sqq.

  Trusts, 123.

  Twenty-five hundred dollars a year, 42, 44.

  Two thousand dollars a year, 43.


  Unemployment, 190.

  Unskilled Labor, 30.

  Use Value, 23 sqq.

  Utility, 24 sqq.

  Utility, Loss of, 27 sq.


  Vail, Rev. Charles H., defends confiscation of property, 147 sq.

  Value of Farms in U. S., 127.

  Value of Goods Manufactured in U. S., 45 sqq.

  Value, Theory of, 23 sqq., 68.

  Verge of Starvation, 35.

  Violence as a political weapon, 16, 160 sqq.


  Wages, Socialist prophecies, 42 sqq.;
    average in U. S. in 1909, 46 sqq.;
    under Socialism, 52, 57 sq., 60;
    increase in recent times, 121 sq., 202 sqq.

  Wealth, Distribution of, in U. S., in 1900, 119 sq.

  Wealth Production, U. S., 49 sq.

  Webb, Sydney, on freedom of worker under Socialism, 60 sq.;
    selection of workers, 65;
    industry is for benefit of community, not for profit of masters or
     workingmen, 105 sq.

  Welsh, Rev. J. J., unbridled competition is commercial cannibalism,
   193 sq.;
    man may not dispose wealth regardless of common good, 196.

  Wells, H. G., on true aims of Socialism, 14;
    forecast of Socialist state, 175.

  West, Stuart P., on Socialist assertions and statistics, 120 sqq.;
    wider distribution of wealth today, 124, 126 sq.

  Woman, to undertake same tasks as man under Socialism, 62.

  Willey, 47;
    present distribution of wealth compared with past conditions, 131.

  Woolsey, Rev. J. D., foretells violent opposition to Socialist plans,
   162.

  Wright, Carroll D., labor legislation in U. S., 209 sq.



Transcriber’s Notes

Page 72: “absolute depotism” changed to “absolute despotism”

Page 130: “associations affords” changed to “associations afford”

Page 133: “he first become” changed to “he first became”

Page 170: “which Rignault” changed to “which Rigault”

Page 185: “slighest evidence” changed to “slightest evidence”

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