THREE

SOCIALIST FALLACIES

JOSEPH RICKABY, S.J

SIXTH THOUSAND

LONDON ••

CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY

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E POPE AND TH

Select Letters and Addresses on Social

by POPE LEO XIII.

BY C. S. DEVAS, M.A.

CONTENTS. ‘

CONDITION OF THE WORKING CLASSES.
* Rerum Novarum? May i 1891.

AFFECTING MODERN SOCI1
“ Inscrutabili” April 21, 1878.

m
OF STATES.

Immortale Dei” November 1, *885.
•

ISTIANS AS CITIZENS.

ipientice Christiana” January 10, 1890.

Prastantissimum ” June 20, 1888.

ISTIAN MARRIAGE

rn oRIGHT

“ Arcanum Divines” February 10, 1880.

NG OF CHRISTIAN LIFE.
“ Exeunle jam Anno,” De<ember 25, 1888.

MODERN ERRORS, SOCIALISM, &c.

“ Quod Apostolici Muneris” December 28, 1878.

FORKING MEN’S CLUBS AND ASSOCIATIONS.
“ (Pest avec une particuliere Satisfa,ction” February 24,

REUNION OF CHRISTENDOM.
“ Praclara Gratulationis ca,” June 20, 1894.

CHRISTIAN DEMOCRACY.
“ Graves de Co 9 18, 1901.



THREE SOCIALIST FALLACIES

By JOSEPH RICKABY, S.J.

I. The Surplus Value Fallacy

I have to deal with three main fallacies on which

Socialists found their system. I will give them names

respectively as the Surplus Value Fallacy, the People

Fallacy, and, honoris causa
,
the G.P.F., or Great Post

Office Fallacy. First, then, of Surplus Value”.

I will suppose a man, Conon, to have become the

owner, legally and honestly, of a vast accumulation of

material, capable of being worked up into besoms and

brushes. Still he wants ground, buildings, machinery;

workmen : all that, however, he will get, if he can only

find capital. He meets another man, Callias, legally

and honestly rich, and looking for an investment for his

money. They combine into a firm : Conon and Callias
)

Besom and Brush Manufacturers . A site is purchased,

buildings erected, machinery put in, and a number

of workmen are hired. We must suppose that these

workmen are treated with that justice which Leo XIII

insists upon in his Encyclical of May 15, 1891, on

the Condition of the Working Classes. That is, they

Deac&M



2 Three Socialist Fallacies

receive a living wage sufficient to support them in

frugal comfort. This is just : for whoever engrosses

a man’s labour is bound to feed and keep that man

up to a decent standard of human life. A just slave-

owner of old did as much for his slaves
;
and surely

the labour of a free man should not command less

remuneration than slave labour. It is an element of

human life to marry and have a family. Conon and

Callias, faithful to Leo XI IPs teaching, pay their

men wages high enough for them to marry on, not

indeed in the first month of their employment, but

within a reasonable time, long before the grey hairs

come. Every week their workman, being a single

man, has money over from his wages, without pinching

himself, if he does not gamble, nor drink like a sot : he

can put that money in the savings-bank, and marry

on it ere long. It is necessary to presuppose all this,

because otherwise the problem of surplus value, which

we wish to come to, will be complicated by an ex-

traneous and irrelevant problem, which we must avoid

—the problem of a fair wage.
The firm goes on steadily, and in time does well. In

the fifth year we find that they have cleared off all

incumbrances, and their besoms and brushes are all

over the country. Their gross receipts in the course

of that year are quite a handsome sum, which we will

call X. X has flowed out again in three streams, z.

Of these, x has gone in channels manifold, to pay for

raw material, cost of machinery, rates and taxes, and

working expenses generally, perhaps including the

luxury of a little law
; y has gone into the workmen’s



The Surplus Value Fallacy 3

pockets as wages; z remains. This z is the “ surplus

value,” as Karl Marx calls it. Bolingbroke used to

say of the Members of the House of Commons : a They

follow the man who shows them the game.” Surplus

value is the game that Karl Marx has shown the

Socialists
;

and for that they follow him. Messrs.

Conon and Callias put this quantity z
,

this surplus

value, into their own pockets. They call it u capitalist’s

profit”
;

it was in view of that z, and for the sake

of obtaining it, that they set up as manufacturers

of brushes and besoms. Marx and the Socialists after

him call this a process of u exploiting the workman ”
;

they denounce it as un-Christian and unjust : they

will have it that this
a
surplus value ” is simply the

creation of the workman’s labour, and should all be

thrown in, at the top of the wages, to complete the

workman’s share of the proceeds. But Messrs. Conon

and Callias would never have put their capital into the

business on those terms. Marx and his followers reply

that they want no Conon and Callias, nor any other

private capitalist,, great or small-: the State is to be

sole capitalist,—a difficult arrangement, as my Moral
Philosophy shows. But even on the score of per-

sonal labour, and increase of value thence resulting,

Messrs. Conon and Callias have a large claim to what

we may call wages for the management of their own

capital. They organized the labour of the workmen.

Workmen without an organizer are as inefficient as

an army without a general. The organizer is a master-

workman, and must be paid accordingly. Part of

that quantity z
)

therefore, must be paid over to Messrs.

/



4 Three Socialist Fallacies

Conon and Callias, because they, more potently than

any other two individuals, have laboured to produce it.

When that part has been deducted, and paid over,

we will call the remainder z1 . This is all the surplus

value that becomes matter of debate. And the question

is not such an easy one to answer : By what right

or title do Messrs. Conon and Callias appropriate to

themselves that z
r

?

We will construct an argument on behalf of the firm
;

and, better to appreciate the worth of the argument, we

will put it in the form of a syllogism, thus : The fruit

of capital belongs to the owner of the capital: but the

quantity z' (the final surplus value) is thefruit of capital

:

therefore it belongs to the owners of the capital
,

i.e.
,
to

Messrs. Conon and Callias. The major premise is

only an application of the received maxim, res fructificat

domino (a thing fructifies to its owner). The flank of

an opposing syllogism is best turned by a distinction.

So we ma}' out-manoeuvre the above syllogism by thus

distinguishing the axiom upon which it is founded. A

thing fructifies to its owner—natural fruit
,
granted

;

aftifcia l fruity if the owner himself is sole cause of it ,

granted again
; if he is only the joint cause along with

another man
,

again I distinguish, it fructifies to the

exclusive benefit of the owner
,
denied

;
it fructifies to the

owner to the benefit of the other man
,
granted. Then

it may be pointed out that the firm is not the sole cause

of the fructification of their capital, but only the joint

cause along with their workmen. Hence would follow

two consequences, one against Marx's assignment of

the whole quantity z' to the workmen
;

the other



The Surplus Value Fallacy 5

against the owners of the capital taking the whole

of the z
f

to themselves, and considering that they have

no further duties to the workmen on that account

—

I do not mean of adding to their wages, but of so

administering the profit as that their enjoyment of

it may be a benefit to their working people. It is

not a duty of strict justice : that the firm has discharged

in paying the stipulated wage, provided that it be an

ample life-wage : it is a moral duty, not easily definable.

We may call it a nucleus of duty with a large envelope

of counsel. A moral counsel is not a thing to scoff

at, and it may be enforced by law. To scoff at

“ counsels ” is one of the old-fooleries of Protestantism.

It would thus appear that capital which has fructified

through another’s labour should fructify to the common

good—both the good of the owner of the capital and
the good of the labourer

;

that neither the firm should

shut out the workmen, nor the workmen the firm, from

the enjoyment of that residual quantity z' : that it

should turn to the good and the profit of them both.

And this conclusion, rightly understood, is I believe

correct
;
and in the honest acceptance of it on both

sides lies the hope of pacification and conciliation

of Labour with Capital.

St. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theological follow-

ing Aristotle, has an inquiry into property, which at

first sight seems out of date, but on further study

appears just what is wanted for modern times. It

was not written in face of a capitalist regime
,

but the

principles are eternal and for all time. He discusses

1 2a 2ae, q. 66
;
Aquinas Ethicus

)
ii. l.c. pp. 53-58.



6 Three Socialist Fallacies

first ownership of property in general, and shows

that man has such ownership, under God. Then

coming to private ownership he draws these very

remarkable conclusions : that as to power of adminis-

tration and management it is lawful for man to have

private possessions
;
nay, that it is necessary to human

society, because every man is more careful in looking

after his own than in looking after common property,

because, again, social order is better preserved by this

system of private management, and because the in-

terests of peace are best consulted, every one being

contented to look after his own
;
that at the same time

a man ought not to hold exterior goods for his own,

but for common goods, to the extent of readily allowing

others to share them in their need
;
that a man sins by

indiscriminately excluding all others from the use and

benefit of the things that he calls his own
;

finally, that

it is left to the discretion of each possessor to manage

his possessions so that the needy may have their relief

out of them.

This is an impartial award between capital and

labour, between socialism and private property. On

the one hand, it is pronounced that there is to be

private property, which in our days means private

capital
;

and that the administration of capital for

the public good is better done by individuals than by

the State. This I think is a legitimate development

of St. Thorhas’s doctrine. On the other hand, it appears

that the rich are not authorized to bear away the good

things of life for their own mere private delectation

and glorification, simply as so much matter of self-



The Surplus Value Fallacy 7

indulgence to gratify their every whim and caprice
;

that whoever is rich, is, or ought to be, rich for the

common good
;

that the needs of the poor, not their

folly and improvidence, but their unavoidable and

necessary needs, are chargeable upon the rich.

All this is particularly true of that bone of contention,

z\ that surplus value which remains over, after working

expenses have been met and all wages paid, including

the wage of the capitalist himself as manager. This

residual surplus value has labour for its father and

capital for its mother. The capital is all of the

capitalist
;
the labour is part master-labour, which is

of the capitalist, and part executive labour, which

is of the workmen . 1 Which of the two parents is to

have the offspring ? Naturally, both of them. No, says

Socialism, take it away from them both
;

let it be

brought up and managed as the offspring of the

State. That plan is unnatural, and, with men as

they are, quite unworkable. It would mean the

starving and ultimate extinction of the offspring in

question. There is nothing for it to leave it in private

management. If both its parents, Capital and Labour,

manage it together, we have a Co-operative Society. A

very excellent thing that, but, so far as we have hitherto

1
7tovoq apxirnKToviKOQ and tektovucSq

,
Aristotle (Ethics, i. i) might

have called them respectively. Hence the saying of Leo XIII (Ency-

clical on the Condition of the Working Classes) : It is most true

that from no other source than from the labour of working men does

the wealth of nations take its rise

:

has its truth in the same sense as

if we were to say that not otherwise than of woman is man born.

The working man, as philosophers wou.d put it, is total cause

in his own order, but not sole cause : there are other orders of

causation besides his.



8 Three Socialist Fallacies

had experience of it, not the most efficient instrument of

production. It would be extremely difficult, not to say

impossible, to entrust the whole production of com-

modities to co-operative societies. It would be also

hard to make the man who has brought all the capital

into the society a mere manager, dependent on the

votes of the rest. Somehow the management of that

much-disputed quantity z' must still be left, usually

at least, to the discretion and conscience of the

capitalists our old friends Messrs. Conon and Callias.

And finely these capitalists have administered their

trust ! There is a grim humour and a sad pleasantry

in the thing. We may construct in imagination a

street, or for that matter a whole city—the juxta-
position only is imaginary, the materials are real

enough
:
put on the one side of the street the houses

of the capitalists, and on the other side the houses of

the poor who have only their labour to live on
;
and

then tell me, in the name of St. Thomas and living

justice, that all the wealth that you see on the one side

is held and administered for the benefit of the poor

workers across the way ! There is room for rhetoric

and indignation hero, still we must not exaggerate.

In large measure, even as things stand, the profits of

capital do go to the common good. Great part of them

is capitalized, that is, spent upon productive enterprises,

enlarged and improved machinery, and the like, afford-

ing more wages and more wealth. Socialists often

speak as though the capitalist spent all his profits in

enjoying himself. In that case his enemies would also

have their enjoyment, in seeing him never becoming



The Surplus Value Fallacy 9

any richer. This is not his cue at all. He spends half

his profits, and often a good deal more, in extending

his business* if markets are open and workmen

numerous and willing . 1 If the Government owned the

capital, they would apply, let us hope, as large a pro-

portion of the profits in the same way. Else the

Government would never grow richer
;

but Government

will need to be very rich indeed to do all that Socialists

expect of it.

Then again we must consider in a large city the

number of good things that are called a free,” and yet

cost money. They are paid for out of the rates and

taxes, that is, principally from the pockets of the rich
;

yet rich and poor alike have the use of them, and they

use them more who contribute less towards them. If

surplus value were distributed in the form of increased

wages, the Government and the municipality would find

it necessary to. lay the burden of taxation and rates

heavier upon the labouring classes . 2 The money must

be forthcoming somehow, if these public benefits are

to be kept up. When there are no rich men to draw

upon, the labourer must find the money. Besides taxa-

tion, we may mention hospitals and other works of

charity and utility, voluntarily paid for and supported

by the recipients of surplus profit. It is all very well

to say that they ought to do more
;
let them at least

have the credit of their not inconsiderable actual per-

1 This important point is well urged in Mr. Egmont Hake’s

The Coming Individualism
,
pp. 266, 267.

2 Or to withhold wages in proportion, which comes to the same

thing.



TO Three Socialist Fallacies

formanees. Would a nation of Government clerk

scrambling for salaries do as much ?

The conclusions we have arrived at, then, are these :

(a) The Socialist argument on surplus value does

evince thus much, that the said surplus ought not to

be turned merely to the private emolument and grati-

fication of the capitalist.

(b) But it should be administered by the capitalist

for the common good of himself and of his working

people.

(c) T

q

some extent already working people do share

in the benefits that spring from surplus value.

(d) It cannot be contended that the people’s share

in these benefits is so full as it ought to be. This is

proved by inspecting the poorer quarters of any large

town and comparing them, indoors and out of doors,

with the houses of the wealthy. Most certainly this

disproportion is not to be all put down to industry, and

thrift, and public services rendered by the wealthy, and

to idleness, wastefulness, and crime -on the part of the

poor.

(e) State interference to rectify this wrongful in-

equality is of the nature of a surgical operation, to be

dispensed with where not necessary. It exhausts and

weakens the commonwealth
;

and, recklessly applied,

the remedy may hinder a recovery which would have

gradually taken place without it. 1 Ne magistrates inferat

se importunius
,

which we may translate, “ let not the

magistrate interfere where he is not wanted,” says

1 See this argued in The Corning Individualism
,
by A. Egmont

Hake, the first six chapters.



The People Fallacy 1

1

Leo XIII, and he says again :
u
Let not the State inter-

fere with the inner management and daily routine of

associations of workmen : for the life of a living

organism depends on an inward principle, and is easily

crushed out of it by pressure from without.” 1

(/) There is no heroic remedy to ensure the right

application of riches. There is no constitution of

society that can guarantee the abolition either of

poverty or of oppression of the poor. The utmost that

can be done is to make men moral and religious,

and then, in the main, surplus value will foe rightly

employed.

II. The People Fallacy

u By no one was it suggested that the democracy

could possibly, after having secured the power, put it

to any other use than one beneficial to the masses. . . .

Our Collectivist opponents . . . draw no distinction

between the Government, the ruling officials, and the

collectors and consumers of the taxes on the one hand,

and the governed, working, and tax-paying people on

the other. ... By assuming that the people and the

Government are one ... by not distinguishing between

the nation and the Government . . . they suppose that

what is given to the Government is given to the

individual.” 2

We cannot follow Mr. Egmont Hake in all that he
says, but his book, on the whole, yields much profitable

1 Encyclical on the Condition of the Working Classes.
2 The Coming Individualism

,

pp. 52, 254-255. By A. Egmont

Hake.



12 Three Socialist Fallacies

thought. In particular his chapter on “The Haven of

Socialism ” is a production that we may safely defy any

man to read, and understand, and remain a Socialist in

conviction. We quote one passage :
u

If we condense all the far-fetched and roundabout

ideas of the Socialists, we find that, according to them,

Socialism elevates and improves the character of the

people to such an extent that they will be both able

and willing to establish a perfect Government, a perfect

bureaucracy, and a perfect police. On the other hand,

that the perfect Government, the perfect bureaucracy,

and the perfect police will render the people perfect.

No reason is ever supplied to prove that either the

Government or the people would be perfect under a

Socialistic system, but these desiderata are taken for

granted and are made the premises for long disserta-

tions on the advantages that would result to a country

thus favoured.” 1

I am not, however, now concerned with the difficul-

ties that would beset Socialism in practice, but with the

fallacies that prop up the theory, and notably with what

I call the “ People Fallacy,” referred to by Mr. Hake in

the first passage I have quoted. It was my fortune some

time ago, at the end of a public lecture on Socialism, to

be asked some difficulties by a working man. He was

no profound or clear-sighted questioner, but I really

felt grateful to him, because he fired upon me, one after

the other, what I may call the two big guns of Socialism.

He began with a discharge of small arms, asking me

how it was consistent with our Lord’s precept, Do as ye
1

P. 106



The People Fallacy T 3

would be done by, to defend private capital, which meant

the exploitation of the workman. The reply was a

denial that private capital necessarily did mean the

exploitation of the workman. Then the first big gun,

surplus value
,
was brought up and fired. The objector

said that <af course the private capitalist exploited the

workman by putting into his own pocket the surplus

value, the product of the workman's toil. Now inas-

much as this matter of surplus value needs a deal of

discussion, I thought it simpler to turn the flank of my

opponent by pointing out that his dear Socialist State

would also exploit the workman by putting the surplus

value into the public purse. This drew the fire of the

second big gun, the people
,

and I was told that whatever

went to the people was the workman’s own. I replied

by calling attention to a pamphlet I held in my hand

{Socialism, Catholic Truth Society), and a heading in

that pamphlet. Political Difficulties of Socialism : there

the discussion dropped. I propose to follow up that

issue now.

A great philosopher was once unwise enough to pro-

pose that wives and children should be in common, and

that no man should have a wife of his own. The benefit

that he anticipated from such promiscuity was that every

individual of the elder generation would regard every

individual of the younger generation as a son or daughter,

and love and cherish the person accordingly. Aristotle’s

criticism of the arrangement was this : that the elder

man would think on seeing the younger, There goes my

son
,
or So-and-So's

,

or So-and-So’s

,

to ten thousand terms
;

and the interest he would take in him and the affection



H Three Socialist Fallacies

he would bear him would be represented by the fraction

1 0 o

o

o'
Then said Professor Aristotle to his class, and

the saying has come down to us: u Better have one

cousin all to yourself than ten thousand such sons.”* 1

Similarly, if you with 9,999 others are joint owner of

all the capital in a commune, the value and significance

of your ownership will also be represented by Twoo*

This is your share of property from an individualistic

point of view. But, it will be contended, this is a

wrong point of view from which to consider the

matter : we should consider it in a collectivist spirit :

the individual no longer thinks of himself : he has no

mind but the public mind, no interest but the common

interest, no desire but that the will of the majority be

accomplished. In other words, he has changed his

nature : man under Socialism is not man as we hcxve

known him in history for twenty-five centuries. That

suppression of the individual, that disappearance of the

private person in the common body, which is supposed,

not very kindly, to be characteristic of the Society of

Jesus, has now taken place in all mankind, or at least

all over Great Britain, or the United States, or whatever

the land be in which the Earthly Paradise of Socialism

is located. That unfixing of the individual, and con-

centration of all affections and desires upon one

common good, is brought about without any novitiate,

or any of those long years of training in which the

young Jesuit is slowly disciplined and fashioned to the

ideal of his Order. The Socialist “ People ” is certainly

a peculiar people, very unlike the selfish peoples who

1
Aristotle’s Ethics

,
b. ii. ch. ii.



The People Fallacy 15

figure in history. In face of such magnificent assump-

tions of unanimity it is impossible to argue. The sight

of the ten thousand citizen proprietors all with one

accord investing their capital and disposing of their

profits, is sublime, in fact quite unlike anything on

earth. It reminds one of a game of war that two

civilians out walking in the country used to play, de-

fending imaginary fortified positions against one another.

Any proposed attack on what seemed a weak point was

met by the rejoinder : “ Oh, I forgot to tell you, that’s

just where I had posted three regiments and a big

battery.” With power of creating regiments and

batteries just as they happened to be wanted, it might

not be impossible for an amateur commander to hold

his ground against Lord Roberts of Kandahar.

There is no use in Socialists pointing to the unanimity,

such as it is, with which the government of the country

is at present carried on, or the affairs of a great mer-

cantile company are managed. The individual does

not depend on either the Government or the company,

as he would depend upon the Socialist State for all he

had. To increase dependence is to awaken a keener

interest
j
and keen interest in the breast of each of a

multitude of individuals about the same concern is a

strong incentive to dissension, if not about the end, at

least about the means to be employed. Besides, no

Government and no company is under popular control

such as Socialists anticipate.

We may then confidently expect that the ten thou-
sand co-proprietors will be of anything but one mind

about the disposal of their patrimony. If we reckon



1

6

Three Socialist Fallacies

the gross income of Great Britain at twelve hundred

millions, with twenty-five million adults to own it in

common, it is clear how far every individual will be

from having his own way in the disposal of this mighty

inheritance. All that can be done is to effect a com-

promise, which will quite please no man, and will be

regarded by not a few with mighty discontent. This,

unless Rousseau’s transformation of the individual into

the general will is -really to come about : u Each of us

puts into a common stock his person and all his power

under the supreme direction of the general will
;
and

we receive in our turn the offering of the rest, each

member as an inseparable part of the whole. Instantly,

instead of the private person of each contracting party,

this act of association produces a moral and collective

body, composed of as many members as the assembly

has voices, which body receives by this same act its

unity, its common Ego, its life and its will.” 1 And

again : “ The citizen consents to all the laws, even to

those which are passed in spite of him.” 2 All which

we take to be true only in a Pickwickian sense. In

no ordinary sense of language is it true that an over-

borne and discontented minority willingly consents to

the action of the majority, and that the individual

cannot but will what the community wills. We shall

be told again that in the Socialist State the minority

never will be discontented, and the individual will have

his every wish fulfilled in achieving the good pleasure

of the majority. Such is the wonderful perfection of

the Socialist People. But before the People are quite

1
Contrat Social

,
i. 6. * lbid.

%
iv. 2 ,



The People Fallacy 17

turned Socialist, it would be well to let them know, as

novices in a Religious Order are told, what perfection

is expected of them, that they may not engage in their

new state otherwise than with their eyes open.

This much of theory, but in sad and sober fact parties

would run high in the Socialist Utopia. The Govern-

ment would be democratic to the last degree : nothing

being further from the Socialist purpose than the en-

trusting of political power and control of all capital to

the hands of a few, or of any number short of the

whole multitude, who will decide all things in the last

resort by a direct vote of manhood suffrage, and appa-

rently woman suffrage also. There are here potent

elements of dissension and party intrigue. Democracy

is not always a harmonious Government—we know it in
history to have been very much the reverse : not always

a kind and indulgent Government—it has frequently
been cftiel, stern, and even sanguinary. There is a

lamentable want of historical knowledge in the Socialist

school. Now, social science without history is very

much like chemistry without experiments. The facts

of past history are a check upon theories of government

and economics. I have been myself struck, in lecturing

on social and political science to a class of young men,

how little such words as democracy
,

revolution
,
oligarchy

,

meant to them, because they had not examples vividly

before their mind, supplied by any intimate acquaint-

ance with past times. Socialists of late have taken to

adorning their pages with Greek learning, but it is

rather artistic and poetical than historical. I cannot

but think that an acquaintance with the democracies



1

8

Three Socialist Fallacies

of Athens and Corcyra, as they appear in the pages of

Thucydides, would raise in a Socialist mind grave fears

for his Popular Assembly—a more democratic body
than ever sat on the Pnyx hill at Athens, and with a

grasp upon the wealth and industries of its citizens

which the Athenian Demus never dreamt of, and, had

he dreamt of it, would have put aside as a bad dream

and evil infringement of liberty. Still, the Athenian

Demus was an unruly body, and lost the empire of the

world by its very unruliness. There is every reason to

expect the Socialist Demus to be still more unruly, and

very much less capable.

III. The Great Post Office Fallacy

I do not know that Socialists are great admirers of

our public buildings. They may be blind to the

splendours of the Law Courts, where the Law of Pro-

perty is administered. They may regard the Admiralty,

the Foreign Office, and the Horse Guards as emblems

of the waste of the People’s money. The King and

the Royal Family, they think, might be economically

stowed away in St. James’s Palace, leaving his other

residences to the People. Westminster to them is the

home of bourgeoisie counsels, of a falling aristocracy,

and an effete Church. On the other hand, the Lions

in Trafalgar Square have for Socialists a strange fascina-

tion. Thither their thin processions stream on Sunday

afternoons, much as Charles Edward in 1745 marched

to Derby, “ neither joined by friends nor opposed by

enemies.” But the building that they do really'love,



The Great Post Office Fallacy 19

and centre their predilections upon, is the General Post

Office, St. Martin’s-le-Grand. The Post Office is to them

the one model Government institution, a sort of earnest

and first instalment of Socialism to come. Listening

to their organs, one hears, not toujours perdrix
,
but

toujours Post Office. They can never have enough of

the Post Office, and fancy that the rest of mankind

can never have too much of it. All our misgivings

about the working of Socialism are met with the cry,

“ Look at the Post Office.” Because letters, in the

interval between posting and delivery, are the property

of the Postmaster-General, they argue that all capital

should be the property of the State. Because the State

has the monopoly of all letter-carrying, they consider

that it should have the monopoly of all capitalistic pro-

duction. Because it distributes letters, it should receive

rents. Because it does one thing well, it can do all

things well. This line of argument I have ventured to

call the G.P.F. (Great Post Office Fallacy).

There are two things about letters, the writing of

them and the sending of them, or production and dis-

tribution. There is also a third thing, not always

unattended with labour and annoyance, and that is the

reading of them : but that, perhaps, is the office of the

consumer. It will be enough if the State bakes our

bread, without eating it for us, even though it be hard

of digestion. But to justify the eulogies of Socialists,

the State certainly ought to write our letters. ”lt

ought to produce the commodity as well as distribute

it
:

just as it will dig our coals and boil our soap,

besides carrying and retailing those commodities. Then



20 Three Socialist Fallacies

certainly, if it can keep up its present efficiency, the

Post Office will be a prodigious boon to the nation, and

may go far towards reconciling us to the general estab-

lishment of Socialism. Then we shall buy a letter, as

we buy a newspaper—in the Socialist Commonwealth.
There all the newspapers will be written by the Govern-

ment scribes, who will tell the people what Government

think they ought to be told. A private paper could not

possibly be allowed : for a paper, if it is a success, is a

paying concern, one form of capitalistic enterprise,

which of course could not be permitted in private

hands. As the Socialist Government, it is hoped, will

not contradict itself, in the manner that private papers

now deny one another’s statements, or pronounce them

“ premature,” or
u
crude,” or

11
blank nonsense,” one

public paper, the Moniteut
,

will be enough in each

Socialist commune, and every citizen will be expected

to buy a copy out of his wages. As the paper will be

sold for a good deal more than it is worth, that will be

one form of State taxation. But to return to the

manufacture and distribution of letters.

Here my Socialist friend steps in to inform me that

his Government will not undertake the manufacture, or

production, of letters, but only the distribution of them,

which is all that the department does at present whose

head office is at St. Martin’s-le-Grand. This makes

a change in the argument, and much shakes our

confidence in the conclusion. To argue from successful

distribution to successful production is to over-leap a

chasm. It is, for wholesale purposes, a greater tran-

sition than from tailoring to ironwork. The need never



The Great Post Office Fallacy 21

ceases for reminding Socialists that the question

between them and their opponents is, not whether

certain enterprises are not better left in State hands,

or in municipal hands, but whether all private enter-

prise is to be forbidden.

Let us go into the matter seriously, considering what

the Post Office really does : what evidence is thence

forthcoming for the advisability of converting the whole

carrying and distributing trade into a State monopoly
;

and whether the success of the Post Office in dis-

tributing our letters is any valid encouragement to us

to commit to Government the sole manufacture of all

our commodities. What the Post Office really does is

this : it gets private companies to carry the letters for

it : the letters which it thus gets carried are written,

great part of them, on the business of private capitalists

;

and the said letters are paid for with the money made

by private capitalists. The conclusion that really

follows from these facts is, that it would be a hazardous

experiment to abolish the private company and the

private capitalist—hardly the conclusion that Socialists
are looking for. We see thousands of mail-carts and

letter-vans driving about, the property of the Post-

master-General : but I do not know that he ‘owns a

single locomotive, certainly not a line of railway, nor

a fleet of steamships. He makes contracts with the

great railway and steamboat companies to carry his

letters for him. These private corporations compete

for his favour, and he reaps the benefit of their enter-

prise and ingenuity. They all -vie with one another to

get his custom, and try who can execute his business



22 Three Socialist Fallacies

best. If they were all his servants, and their capital

part of his administration, I fear the cry would reach

him : “You send too many letters by the London and

North-Western.” At present the word goes from him

to them : “ If you gentlemen cannot expedite my letters

quicker, I shall not renew your contract, and will send

the letters another way.” Which of these arrangements

is better ? In a general way, we are proud of the

English Government : but we should be the last people

to wish to see the dead hand of Government every-

where. For a dead hand it would be, did it not

continually receive life on all sides from the abounding

vitality of private enterprise. To this private enterprise

the Post Office at present ministers, carrying the

mandate of private enterprise ail over the earth, and

receiving in payment for service rendered some portion

of the wealth which private enterprise produces.

Whatever be the success of the Post Office, it is not

enough to warrant our establishing a Railway Office

with supreme command of all our railways, and a

Shipping Office supreme over all our ships. This

would be nationalizing the carrying trade. But, as we

have seen, the Post Office does not supply universally

the means of carrying even letters : it arranges with

private companies for carrying them. There is no

evidence therefore, so far, of the competence of the

State to build all locomotives and steamers, lay down

new railways, keep old ones in repair, and do the work

of all the great companies to which the Post Office at

present gives its contracts. As a piece of logic this

argument from unlike to unlike, and from one term to



The Great Post Office Fallacy 23

a series of dissimilar terms, is an outrage upon the laws

of thought.

Still less does the Post Office supply any argument

for the nationalizing of our means of production. The

simple fact should be borne in mind that the Post

Office does not produce letters; it distributes them,

and that is all. If letters longed for are not written,

you don’t blame the postman. The postman is not

answerable for the quality of the letters that he delivers,

whether they are well or ill written, contain good or

bad news, are kind or harsh. In this the Post Office is

unlike the gas company, which not only distributes gas,

but likewise manufactures it, and is responsible for its

quality. Still more is the postman unlike the soap-

boiler, whose soap, if it is a poor article for its price,

may be set aside by foreign competition. The dis-

tributive function of the Post Office bears no analogy

to the work of production
;
nor does the successful

nationalizing of the one afford any valid expectation of

success to attend the nationalizing of the other.

One thing we have learned from the Post Office, and

are thankful to know, that a strike is possible in a

Government department. The advent of Socialism,

therefore, and of Government departments everywhere,

will not deliver us. from that blight of our present social

economy, strikes. Or will a strike be treated as a

mutiny, and the hands marched to their work, if

necessary, under the prickings of fixed bayonets ?

Socialist leaders should let the workman know that,

before he votes for a Socialist representative in Parlia-

ment.



24 Three Socialist Fallacies

Truly, Mr. Socialist, this is a sad world : there is no

joy for you under the dome of St. Paul’s and small

consolation at St. Martin’s-le-Grand.

One should read Socialist works and listen to Socialist

speeches rather in sorrow than in anger. The bulk of

Socialists are poor, half-educated, simple-minded people,

able to take but a narrow view of life, which view

includes much misery and small hope. It is not for a

man of education, comfortably fed and well-housed, to

get indignant at these poor people. They know of no

heaven beyond the grave : they see around them some

image of hell upon earth : they have no breadth of

mind, no amplitude of knowledge, to furnish tests for

distinguishing visionary new worlds from practicable

improvements of their condition : they are miserable,

and see their comrades in misery, needy in the midst of

plenty : what wonder if they readily believe that their

misery is all of the rich man’s making, that their sub-

mersion has been his elevation, and that they can only

rise by bringing him down to their level ? We must

teach them otherwise, and at the same time labour on

their behalf, in the conviction that all the glories of our

Empire are incomplete, and even insecure, till we can

establish justice and equity, sympathy and a common

interest, between workman and employer.

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