THE OUT CO ME
OF
IN DIVIDUALIS MI.
BY
J. H. L. E W Y,
LATE LECTURER ON LOGIC AND EconoMICs AT THE BIRKBECK
INSTITUTION AND THE CITY OF LONDON CollBGE, HONORARY
SECRETARY OF THE NATIONAL LIBERAL CLUB
PoliticAL ECONOMY CIRCLE.
T HIF, D E D IT IO N.
Revised and Enlarged.
TIONDON :
P. S. KING & SON, 5, KING STREET, WESTMINSTER, S.W.
Price Siapence Net.



“Every one may seek his own happiness in the
way that seems good to himself, provided that he
infringe not such freedom of others to strive after a
similar end as is consistent with the freedom of all
according to a possible general law.”—IMMANUEL
RANT.
“The world is too much governed. The race is
not to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but
to the crafty; and statutes adroitly devised hedge
in monopolies as if they were divinities. The
resultant misery and inequality, that curse mankind
through loss of freedom, are adduced by the State
Socialist as a reason for more government. The
patient must be cured by a hair of the dog that
bit him.”—WM. LLOYD GARRISON.
“Whatever freedom for ourselves we claim,
We wish all others to enjoy the same,
In simple womanhood’s and manhood's name !
Freedom within one law of sacred might :—
‘Trench not on any other's equal right.’”—
JAMES THOMSON.

THE OUTCOME OF INDIVIDUALISM."
I.—THE OUTLOOK.
HE tremors of the social earthquake which is now agitating
so many lands ought to do much to dispel the day dreams
of the children of Privilege. Some of the early seismologists
taught that the solid crust of the earth on which we live is
relatively as thin as an egg-shell, and that within is a molten mass
whose pent-up forces no man can measure, which may at any
moment break forth with volcanic fury. Whatever modicum of
truth there may be in this statement, it furnishes an apt figure of
our present social state. We are living on a mere film of historic
sediment, uplifted by the comparatively violent outbursts of the
past, while beneath it, and in one sense upholding it, is a fluid
mass of ideas, emotions, passions, as little appreciated in the
fullness of their force by the generality of statesmen—absorbed by
the petty cares, and sometimes by the pettier ambitions, of the day
—as was the condition of the interior of the earth by either the
patricians or the plebeians of Pompeii. And still it would be most
profitable, both in the highest and in the lowest sense, to give
something like serious attention to the study of these underground
social forces; though they may make very little show at present
in a general election. The most which we seem likely to be able
to do by increasing knowledge of terrestrial earthquakes is, at some
sacrifice of wealth, convenience, and historical attachment, to get
out of the range of their activity. With the eruptive energy of
society we can do much more and far better. We can choose
whether it shall become the motive power of a great moral and
economic advance, or shall be shunted on evil lines or driven
beneath the surface, there to accumulate till the tension on Our
civilization reaches the breaking point, and the whole fabric of
European society is riven to its foundations. It is for those who
have political and social influence to say which of these alternatives
shall be ; but there, for all practical purposes, their power of
selection ends. The maintenance of the present economic condition
is not only undesirable ; it is impossible.
If we would avoid revolutionary violence on the one hand, and
on the other the hopeless, hapless torpor of the East, there must
* This essay was originally delivered as a lecture at the National
Liberal Club, on 10th January, 1890. In this, the third, edition, it has
been considerably extended.





4
be no illusions. The notion that the masses are to be reconciled
to poverty by such sops as the facilitation of the sale of land and
the hire of allotments was ludicrous enough at any time to those
acquainted with the main currents of European thought ; and the
excitement which bursts out sporadically at almost every point of
the compass, scarcely adds materially to the evidence for those who
have not buried their eyes, like the Ostrich of fable, in the sand of
fixed ideas.
It is the sheerest folly to treat Socialism as a kind of mad dog,
the people bitten by which are to be cured, a la Pasteur, by
inoculation with mitigated virus. Still, the fact of such proposals
having been made, and in part embodied in practice, is one
indication among many that statesmen are beginning to see that no
changes in the form of government—however satisfactory in them-
selves, no commercializing of our planet—however complete, no
blood and iron repression—however seemingly successful for the
time, will ever exorcise the red spectre of Socialism. Thoughts of
world-wide recurrence are not to be transfixed by bayonets.
Hunger is not to be spirited away by the adoption of the cloture.
The father of Socialism is an empty stomach” and its mother a
fertile, though perhaps somewhat disordered, brain. Whether
statesmen like it or not, ideas are now afloat which, if not
supplanted, as they only can be, by other ideas, will inevitably
overturn most of what is best in the present social order.
Violence is worse than useless. It is a virtual surrender of the
whole case, and does but bear fruit after its own kind. Socialism
will increase and multiply its adherents, so long as its parental
circumstances exist. If these cannot be got rid of, its triumph is
certain ; and all attempts to dragoon it out of existence will but
exacerbate an irrepressible change.
The suppressed rage and the fear to speak of the ordinary
politician are but the measure of his impotence. Socialism
must be met, if at all, in the open, and on level ground.
The attempt to discredit it by abuse of its champions is
mere impertinence, and is not to be justified by the use
of similar language on the other side. It may be unsound as a
political theory—I believe it is so ; but the pretence that it springs
in the breasts of its advocates from a low ideal of life is the very
reverse of the truth. No ; when the history of the Socialistic
movement comes to be written without passion or prejudice, many
* At the International Trades Union Congress at Paris, in August, 1886,
Herr Grimpe, German delegate, said that in Germany—“They were only
separated from the English Trades Unionists by the Socialist idea. We
are as well organised as they are, but the English have enjoyed too
much political freedom, too much material prosperity, and are therefore
unable to understand the necessity of the doctrines we advocate.” If
Herr Grimpe were to speak now, he would find the “New Unionism *
more to his taste.
5
a man or woman who is now regarded by conventionally respectable
egotists as an Ogre, will be recognised as a devoted lover of man-
kind. The moral springs of Socialism are not, as is too generally
assumed, envy and greed ; though these unamiable sentiments may
make for it in many cases. On the contrary, a noble impatience of
the misery of their fellow men, and a belief that this results funda-
mentally from unjust economic conditions, supply the motive-power
of four-fifths of the Socialistic propaganda. So convinced am I of
this that I cannot bring myself to argue against it without saying
that, if any harsh word slips unwittingly from me, I apologize for
it beforehand. In my contest with Socialists there needs enter, so
far as I am concerned, no element of bitterness. If they are
indeed Socialists in my meaning of the term, my political ideal is
the very reverse of theirs, which I hold to be fatal to human
progress, and shall persistently oppose by all honourable means :
but our ultimate aims are not thus divergent. We are both
striving, each according to his lights, for human advancement. So
far, therefore, as the appeal is to the arbitrament of reason, the
matter is one for close definition and clear argument. Feeling of
any kind, other than desire to arrive at truth, should not be
imported into it.
II.-ANARCHISM, INDIVIDUALISM, AND SOCIALISM.
The difficulty at starting is that, in “Socialism " and “Individu-
alism,” we have to deal with terms which are used in all sorts of
senses, or without any sense at all. In the shallow and heartless
political controversy of the day, “Socialism " has more often been
utilized as a convenient missile to throw at a party opponent than
as the name of a political theory. And this state of things is pass-
ing away only to give place to another equally fatal to clearness of
connotation. Politicians whose adoption of a fixed party name
acts as a disguise for the fact that their political position is con-
tinually shifting, and who naturally detest clean-cut definitions, are
adopting the ruse of Morgiana and writing “Socialist " on every-
body's door. I have had some difficulty in rubbing it off my own,
and am not sure that I have seen the last of it there—especially as
some gentlemen who use Individualism as a cloak for the mainten-
ance of privilege are interested in keeping it there.
The term is of English—and, I believe, of Owenite—origin, but
was brought into general European use nearly half a century ago
by Louis Reybaud, and has thoroughly established itself, but not
in its original meaning. At first it meant social, and especially
economic, cooperation, without any implication of State compulsion.
The Owenite societies and the so-called Socialistic communities of
the United States were Socialistic only in this obsolete—or, at
least, obsolescent—sense. Up to very recently, the Socialists, who
hoped to accomplish their ends by the machinery of Government





6
were distinguished as State Socialists. Now this term is, or is fast
becoming, tautologous, State enforcement being taken up into the
connotation of Socialism. :
I regard this change as a decided improvement. If our reason-
ings are to be ad rem and our investigations fruitful, it is well that
the chief lines of division in our terminology should correspond to
the most important difference in the things denoted by it ; and it is
the limit of State interference which is the essential matter. Still the
more modern use of the term Socialism has one disadvantage. There
are some people who do not seem to be able to rid themselves of
the notion that opposition to Socialism must mean the taking up of
an anti-social (instead of an anti-coercive) attitude, and who con-
found Individualism with egotism. This is unfortunate, but I am
afraid we cannot do better than to accept it. As Hosea Biglow some-
what roughly says: “The right to be a cussed fool is free from all
devices human.” It is probable that the intellectual enfranchise-
ment of these word-slaves would involve a process somewhat
similar in kind to that attempted by Mr. Nicholas Easy, and is be-
yond our power. If we rescued them from one verbal stumble, by
propping them up on one side, it is only too likely that we should
merely have changed the direction of their fall. It is not very easy
to retain in an erect position the sort of person who comes a
cropper over the dictionary.
As I have said, the employment of the word “Socialism ‘’ as an
instrument of abuse, and more recently as an accommodating cap
which fits everybody, has to a large extent blurred the outlines of
its meaning. Still it has a meaning. When John Stuart Mill, who,
in my opinion, has done more to propagate Socialism than any
writer of our generation, Karl Marx not excepted—when John
Stuart Mill included in the remarkable posthumous confessions
which pained and astonished his most ardent admirers, the state-
ment that his views and those of his wife were such as would
class them decidedly under the general designation of Socialists,”
he knew what he was saying. “It is common,” said the late
Professor Cairnes, “to hear any proposal which is thought to in-
volve an undue extension of the power of the State branded as
Socialistic.” This is correct enough so far as it goes, but it is
evident that, until the due powers of the State are defined, it
does not go very far. In Cairnes's other suggested definition—
“the employment of the powers of the State for the instant accom-
plishment of ideal schemes " — the word “instant " is a
patent exaggeration : it should be “direct.” But, apart
from this, the words “ideal schemes " are far too vague, and
have the appearance of begging the question against Socialism.
Moreover, Individualism and Anarchism are at least as much
* “Autobiography,” p. 231.
f “Some Leading Principles of Political Economy,” p. 316.

7
“ideal schemes '' as Socialism. The complete embodiment of
their principles is just as much a thing of the future as is that
of modern systematic Socialism.
After much thought on the subject, I prefer the following
definitions, which have the advantage of making the issue perfectly
clear. Looked at from an economic point of view, I hold Socialism
to be the active or direct distribution of products by the State.
Regarded from its more general or political aspect, I designate
as Socialistic any extension of State interference or activity beyond
the point up to which that interference is necessary in order that
freedom may be at the maximum. Individualism postulates that
Some Government—that is, some compulsory co-operation for
political purposes—is needed in order to keep freedom at this
point, that so much Government is justifiable and good, and
that all Government beyond this is unjustifiable and mischievous.
This quantum of Government desiderated by the Individualist
constitutes a norm from which Anarchism diverges on one side and
Socialism on the other. If we are suffering from a poison we find
it advantageous to take a second poison, which acts as an antidote
to the first. But, if we are wise, we limit our dose of the second
poison so that the toxic effects of both combined are at the
minimum. If we take more of it, it produces toxic effects of its
own beyond those necessary to counteract, so far as possible, the
first poison. If we take less of it, the first poison, to some extent,
will do its bad work unchecked. This illustrates the position of the
Individualist, against the Socialist on the one side and the Anarchiston
the other. I recognise that Government is an evil. It always means
the employment of force against our fellow man, and—at the very
best—his subjection, over a smaller or larger extent of the field of
conduct, to the will of a majority of his fellow citizens. But if
this organized and regularized interference were utterly abolished,
he would not escape from aggression. He would, in such a society
as ours, be liable to far more violence and fraud, which would be a
much worse evil than the intervention of Government needs be.
But when Government pushes its interference beyond the
point of maintaining the widest liberty equally for all citizens, it
is itself the aggressor, and none the less so because its motives,
are good.
The ethical basis of Individualism is neither a social contract
dug from the depths of the moral consciousness of jurist or
philosopher, nor (pace Mr. Herbert Spencer) an assumption of
“virtual '' or “practical ’’ unanimity in the community, but the
necessity of such coercion in order that freedom may be at the
maximum—in order that personal rights, and the proprietary
rights which arise out of them, may be, so far as practicable,
sustained. And this coercion by the State, being limited in
justification by that necessity, ought naturally to decrease with the
increase of respect for the rights of others and the consequent

8
decline of invasive conduct. Under Individualism, the State
would tend to evanesce with the evanescence of its raison d'être.
All attempts to base the defence of the State's existence on a
supposed social compact, or on an assumption of the consent of
the entire community, are not only efforts to build up the fabric of
political truth on the quicksand of fiction, but are also suicidal;
for they involve a tacit admission that the State can be morally
upheld only by showing it to be a voluntary association—that is,
by showing it to be what it is not and can never become ; for the
cooperation of which the State is an embodiment is essentially
compulsory. To say that it had become voluntary, and to say
that it had ceased to be, would mean the same thing. The social-
compactists, ancient and modern, have fallen into Anarchism
without knowing it.
And I must say the same of their brethren, the quasi-
Individualists who advocate what they call “voluntary taxation.”
I would be content to pass sub silentio the fact that “voluntary
taxation '' is a suicidal phrase—as a tax is an enforced levy made
by some public authority—if it were not that this covers a
serious ambiguity. What is a voluntary tax 2 Is it a voluntary
contribution for political purposes 2 No, says Mr. Greevz
Fisher, who has written a pamphlet in its defence —“It may
well be doubted whether it would ever be wise or practic-
able to regard Government as a mendicant institution, wholly
or largely dependent, like Orphanages, infirmaries, or other
charities, upon the energies with which the hat was circulated and
the begging box shaken.” What Mr. Fisher understands by
“voluntary taxation '' is payment by the citizen for each separate
Service which he calls for. But some of the services of government
are not rendered in a way which makes the application of this
principle possible. Notably this is the case with the external
defence of the country. This difficulty Mr. Fisher would get over
by giving up the maintenance of our national integrity, which, he
says, “is a mere fetish.” Mr. Wordsworth Donisthorpe, who is
another voluntary taxationist,” would maintain this “fetish '' by a
special tax on land. To Mr. Auberon Herbert, on the other hand,
who seems to take “voluntary taxation " au sérieuw, this proposal
to make a levy, necessarily compulsory, on the owners of land,
would smack of the unpardonable sin.
But, apart from ambiguities of language leading to regrettable
confusion of thought, I contend that the State cannot be upheld by
voluntary donations; for an institution so upheld would
necessarily be a voluntary one, while the co-operation of which the
State is the organ is, in its very nature, compulsory. Mr.
* He now repudiates the name, on the ground that Mr. Auberon
Herbert has altered its meaning and the public is beginning to under-
stand it in this new sense. (Personal Rights Journal, 1890, pp. 101-2.)

9
Donisthorpe would, perhaps, care little for this distinction. So
far as I can make out what his politics are, I would class him as an
Anarchist ; but I can make out nothing for certain, for his
declarations box the compass of political theory. “We support
democracy,” he says in one place,” “ because it leads straight to
anarchy.” “Is there then no discoverable rule for our practical
guidance 2'' he asks in another place ; and replies : “I believe
there is, but it is not embodied in the formula. “No Government.’”
On a neighbouring page of the same work, he declares: “It is
not the weakening but the strengthening of the State to which we
must look for the amelioration of society —the subordination of the
will of each to the welfare of all. And this is called Socialism.”
This might be taken as a motto by the Fabian Society. He even
goes so far as to state that “it may fairly be doubted whether
there has ever been a restraint put upon individuals by even the
most despotic of Governments, which may not at one time or another
have been a necessary and beneficent concomitant of social evolution.
The power of life and death exercised by the old Roman paterfamilias
over his children and slaves was probably at one time an unmixed
good. And the like power of the King of the Ashantees is or was
probably conducive to the group welfare.'', Voluntary taxation
was probably the offspring of the Anarchistic phase of these
Somewhat mixed statements of opinion.
Mr. Auberon Herbert's position is more definite. He is in
favour of substituting for taxation what Mr. Greevz Fisher calls
the circulation of the hat and the shaking of the begging box.
But an organization so upheld would cease to be the State. It
would be a mere voluntary organization, as the Anarchists are
quick-witted enough to see. And how are the functions and
activity of this agency to be decided ? By the contributors 2
* Individualism, p. 257. # Ibid, p. 299. # Ibid., p. 296.
§ Ibid., pp. 298-9. Professor Huxley seems to see in Mr. Donisthorpe—
whose ability I by no means dispute—an especial representative of Sane
experiential Individualism ; but, for my own part, I must say that this
“group-welfare " and its sister fictions, the “group-mind ’’ and the
“group-will '' (Individualism, pp. 275-7), are among the most monstrous
instances of metapolitical moonshine with which I have ever met. What
is the “group-welfare ‘’” According to Mr. Donisthorpe, it does not
mean the welfare of all the units of the group, nor that of the majority
of the individuals, nor that of any of the individuals. Why, then, should
anyone outside of the region
Where entity and quiddity,
The ghosts of defunct bodies, fly,
care for this “group-welfare " ? I say plainly that I would not sacrifice
the veriest whim of the moment to this substantia secunda of nineteenth-
century “nomology.” If I give up any portion of my happiness, it
must be to increase that of some human beings or other sentient creatures,
not the welfare of a “group º' which does not mean benefit to any of its
individuals,

10
But, if this means all the contributors, it assumes that they would
be agreed, which they most assuredly would not be. There is no
such singleness of aim, either political or personal, among the
citizens of any country in the world. I am aware that it is
suggested that contributors should subscribe only to those ends
with which they agree. But—apart from the fact that this would
probably be a fatal premium on dissent—would subscribers be
content to uphold on any point an organization to whose action
generally they were, it might be, strongly and conscientiously
opposed ? I cannot think they would. They would inevitably ask
why the persons from whom they were so widely separated in
political aspiration should alone have an organization to embody
their views in practice and force them on others. They, too,
would set up such an agency , such agencies would multiply ,
they would come into collision ; and the country would be plunged
into chaos and civil War. In the meantime, there would be no
agency which could represent the nation in its corporate capacity
to colonies or foreign states. The latter would probably not be
slow to take advantage of our disorganization ; and Mr. Greev/
Fisher's “fetish '' would go the way of other fetishes in this
nineteenth century of ours.
The whole scheme of so-called “Voluntary Taxation '' seems to
me to show deficiency of analytic power. Its projectors appear to
think that they can substitute for the State an organization sup-
ported by voluntary contributions, and that forthwith the community
will be in a condition of idyllic peace. But this is an illusion. It
is the inconsistency of the aims of men, and not the “cussedness"
of politicians, which necessitates coercion and justifies coercive
cooperation. The overruling or compulsion of some men is a
physical necessity, so long as their regulative desires within a
given political area clash. Anarchism is no cure for this evil :
it would but accentuate it, and exacerbate the other evils which
flow from it. I am thoroughly with Mr. Auberon Herbert in the
desire to minimise the interference of man with his brother man–
to widen the portals of individuality to the utmost practicable
limit. This, however, is not to be accomplished by a virtual
abolition of the State. The denunciation of all taxation, by placing
all taxation on the same level, really acts as a support to unjust
taxes ; and the association of this short-sighted cry for an imprac-
ticable measure with Individualism tends to produce in the minds
of the public the idea that Individualists are people whom sober
politicians may safely leave out of account.
Taxation must be, potentially at least, co-extensive with
government. The way to reduce it is to severely limit the
function of government to the maximising of liberty, to abolish
privilege, and to exercise due vigilance over the expenditure of the
State revenue. Such vigilance is becoming every day further
removed from possibility by the growth in complexity of the
%

11
functions assigned to the State. This is the evil which must be
attacked ; but, to make this attack effective, there must be a clear
recognition of the lines of principle which separate the legitimate
activity of the State from Socialism on the one side and Anarchism
on the other.
These lines I have endeavoured to mark out, and they are the
dividing lines of the great political battle-field of the future, as I
conceive them. But the determination of the meaning of words is
a problem, not of truth, but of convenience, and anyone is quite at
liberty to say that for him the words Individualism and Socialism
have different significations from those in which I use them.
For me it is sufficient to say that, when I proclaim myself an
Individualist, and opposed to both Socialism and Anarchism, this
must be understood in the above meaning of the terms. It is useless
to consume our energies in mere verbal disputes. I must, however,
caution students that definition is not a matter of indifference.
Nine-tenths of the embarrassments which surround most philoso-
phical questions arise from the difficulty of getting a firm hold of
them. When this is done, the solution is comparatively easy.
Until it is done no solution can be rationally hoped for.
III.--THE SOCIALISTIC SILENCE AND THE ANARCHISTIC DEFENCE.
Two years have passed away since the first edition of this essay
was published. But, though Socialistic prints and platform
speakers are by no means lacking in polemical spirit, I cannot find
that any attempt has been made to show that my presentment
of Individualism is untenable as a political doctrine, or to defend
Socialism against my attack. This might, of course, have arisen
through a very cheap appraisement of my effort ; but, from the
casual remarks of Socialists which have reached my ears, and the
fact that this essay is recommended in the Fabian Society tract
What to ſtead, I do not think that this is the reason why I have
escaped their public criticism ; and I can only conclude that they
regard it as better, from the tactical point of view, to direct their
fulminations against things as they are, and to assume that
Socialism is the alternative to that state of things, than to defend
their position against that which is logically the alternative system.
From Anarchists my essay has met with more attention ;
though it was not directed against Anarchism, and the boundary
of that political doctrine and Individualism was scarcely more than
defined. Mr. B. R. Tucker, the editor of Liberty (Boston, U.S.A.),
has contended that my distinction is based on a misapprehension
of what Anarchists mean by government. He uses that term so as
to include all coercion or invasion of non-aggressive individuals.
According to this definition, Bill Sikes's avocation is a
governmental one, and Anarchism—i.e., absence of government

12
—can never be reached till every individual ceases from aggres-
sion. I think I may very well be excused for not guessing that
“government " is used by Anarchists in this abnormal sense,
especially as Mr. Tucker's own Associate Editor, Mr. Victor
Yarros, in the pages of Liberty,’” says that it has been pointed out
a thousand times that Anarchism does not mean no coercion. A
majority in any country might abolish the State, and thus attain
Anarchism in the ordinary and—as I contend—the proper sense ;
but this might result in an increase of “government’’ in Mr.
Tucker’s sense, and, if the State had previously restricted its
interference within Individualistic limits, this would certainly
happen.
But as we are agreed with regard to the activity of Mr.
William Sikes, let us put that aside, and concentrate our dis-
cussion on that coercion by the State on whose justifiability we
differ. Whatever else Anarchism may mean, it means that State
coercion of peaceable citizens, into cooperation in restraining the
activity of the aforesaid Sikes, is to be condemned and ought to be
abolished. Anarchism implies the right of an individual to stand
aside and see a man murdered or a woman raped. It implies the
right of the would-be passive accomplice of aggression to escape
all coercion. It is true the Anarchist may voluntarily cooperate
to check aggression ; but also he may not. Quá Anarchist, he is
within his right in withholding such cooperation, in leaving
others to bear the burden of resistance to aggression, or in leaving
the aggressor to triumph unchecked. Individualism, on the
other hand, would not only restrain the active invader up to the
point necessary to restore freedom to others, but—in order that
this may be done—would also coerce the man who would other-
wise be a passive witness of aggression into cooperation against
his more active colleague.
Mr. Tucker has acknowledged the correctness of my statement
of the Anarchistic doctrine ; though he, of course, does not accept
as deserved the expressions which I used to show my own dislike
of it. “It is agreed,” he says, “that, in Anarchism's view, an indivi-
dual has a right to stand aside and see a man murdered. And pray,
why not?” he asks. Good. Here is a perfectly clean-cut issue. There
is no beating about the bush with Mr. Tucker, who accepts the full
consequences of the doctrine which is his. Differ from him we
may, but it is impossible not to admire the manly intrepidity of
his logic. And mark what results from this. Already we have
the enormous gain that any person of ordinary ability can see
what the matter in dispute between Anarchism and Individualism
really is. The Anarchist claims to stand aside, if he so choose,
while the grossest aggressions, which he could have prevented, are
perpetrated on his neighbour. The Individualist denies the validity

* 1892, p. 2.

1. 3
of this claim, and insists that this man's fellow-citizens, organized
for common defence, may coerce him (if necessary) into coopera-
tion against the aggressor. ..
Now what has Mr. Tucker to say against the latter contention ?
“If it is justifiable,” he says, “to collar a man who is minding
his own business and force him into a fight, why may we not also
collar him for the purpose of forcing him to help us to coerce a
parent into educating his child, or to commit any other act of
invasion that may seem to us for the general good 2 I can see no
ethical distinction here whatever.” Let me see if I can provide
Mr. Tucker with a pair of spectacles. Does he see no difference
between depriving men of a small part of their liberty in order to
make possible for them a much larger degree of liberty, and sub-
jecting them to a like deprivation of liberty in order to promote
Some other end which we consider “for the general good " ? Is
he—to use another of his illustrations—unable to see any difference
between curtailing a man's freedom in order to increase his
wealth, and curtailing his freedom in one direction—that of callous
abstinence while his fellow citizens are being crushed, in order
much more largely to augment his freedom in another direction—
that of immunity from the danger of being crushed himself 2 I
cannot believe that he has looked this distinction fairly and squarely
in the face, and is unable to see it.
To my statement that it is necessary that all citizens should be
held to the duty of cooperation against the aggressor, in order that
freedom may be at the maximum, Mr. Tucker replies : —“Supposing
for the moment that this is true, another inquiry suggests itself:
Is the absolute maximum of freedom an end to be attained at any
cost 2 I regard liberty as the chief essential to man's happiness,
and therefore as the most important thing in the world, and I
certainly want as much of it as I can get. But I cannot see that
it concerns me much whether the aggregate amount of liberty
enjoyed by all individuals added together is at its maximum or a
little below it, if I, as one individual, am to have little or none of
this aggregate.” But this last hypothesis could be true only on
the supposition that Mr. Tucker is so active and constant an
aggressor that it is necessary, in order to safeguard the freedom
of others, to keep him almost entirely under restraint. This
supposition is very wide of the truth, and he would in reality,
under Individualism, as I conceive it, enjoy a more complete freedom
than under Anarchism.
But Mr. Tucker questions whether the maximum of freedom is
an end to be attained at any cost. If not, some portion of liberty
must be sacrificed to some other end, which is the vice of Socialism.
Extremes meet, and the Anarchist and the Socialist fall into each
other's arms. As Mr. Tucker wants as much liberty as he can
get, he ought to wish the same for all other men and women; and
I have no doubt he does, But this means that human freedom is

14
to be at the maximum. I cannot see what he can urge against
this, except some a priori notion of personal inviolability, which
theoretically rests on no logical foundation and practically would
defeat itself.
Mr. Tucker regards “liberty as the chief essential to man's
happiness, and therefore as the most important thing in the world.”
There is an evident slip in exposition here—a thing very unusual
with him ; for that whose importance depends on the fact that it is
a means to an end cannot be the most important thing in the
world, or it would be more important than that end. I expect
Mr. Tucker would agree with me that happiness is the ethical and
liberty the political summum homum. If so, we should get as near
as we can to the latter in order to attain the former. And I
maintain that this is to be done, at the present time, not by the
abolition of the State, but by its reduction to Individualistic pro-
portions. These proportions would then grow narrower and
narrower, with the decline of invasive conduct, till, at last,
Individualism and Anarchism would coincide, and the State would
disappear.
IV.--EconoMIC LAws.
Before proceeding to work out, as best I can within narrow
limits, the question at issue between Individualism and Socialism,
and especially to trace the Outcome of Individualism, it is necessary
to point out that this question is not one of economics. “Except
on matters of mere detail,” John Stuart Mill very pertinently
remarks, “there are perhaps no practical questions even among
those which approach nearest to the character of purely economic
questions, which admit of being decided on economic premisses
alone.” Cairnes has expressed the same truth with his own
peerless lucidity. “There are few practical problems which do not
present other aspects than those purely economical–political,
moral, educational, artistic aspects—and these may involve conse-
quences so weighty as to turn the scale against purely economic
Solutions. On the relative importance of such conflicting considera-
tions, Political Economy offers no opinion, pronounces no judg-
ment, thus . . . standing neutral between competing social
Schemes; neutral as the science of mechanics stands neutral between
competing plans of railway construction, in which expense, for
instance, as well as mechanical efficiency, is to be considered ;
neutral, as chemistry stands between competing plans of sanitary
improvement; as physiology stands neutral between opposing
systems of medicine. It supplies the means or, more correctly, a
portion of the means for estimating all ; it refuses to identify itself
with any. Now, I desire to call particular attention to this
* Preface to “Principles of Political Economy.”


1.
5
characteristic of economic science, because I do not think it is at
all generally appreciated, and because some serious and indeed
lamentable consequences have arisen from overlooking it. For
xample, it is sometimes supposed that because Political Economy
comprises in its expositions theories of wages, profits, and rent, the
science is therefore committed to the approval of our present mode
of industrial life, under which three distinct classes, labourers,
capitalists, and landlords, receive remuneration in those forms.
Under this impression, some social reformers, whose ideal system
of industrial life involves a modification of our existing system,
have thought themselves called upon to denounce and deride
economic science, as forsooth seeking to stereotype the existing
forms of industrial life, and of course therefore opposed to their
views. But this is a complete mistake. Economic science has no
more connexion with our present industrial system than the science
of mechanics has with our present system of railways. Our exist-
ing railway lines have been laid down according to the best extant
mechanical knowledge; but we do not think it necessary on this
account, as a preliminary to improving our railways, to denounce
mechanical science. If wages, profits, and rent find a place in
economic theories, this is simply because these are forms which the
distribution assumes as society is now constituted. (?) They are
phenomena which need to be explained. But it comes equally
within the province of the economist to exhibit the working of any
proposed modification of this system, and to set forth the operation
of the laws of production and distribution under such new
conditions.”
I hope I have made it clear by these quotations that
economic laws are not products of human will or design, but
permanent relations in the order of the phenomena of wealth,
which we may learn or not learn, but which we can no more
alter than King Cnut could annihilate the force of the tide.
They are truths to be known, not commands to be obeyed—
likenesses to be discovered, not expedients to be invented or adopted.
They are fixed stars, very useful to us in finding our way across
the ocean of life, but utterly beyond our reach or influence.
To curse them or bless them, to worship them or denounce them,
is equally absurd, “ for,” as Mill says, “the expression, Laws of
Nature, means nothing but the uniformities which exist among
natural phenomena.”
Now turn I to Mill's “Political Economy,” and see how he
discourses on the laws of that portion of the science which
occupies by far the greater part of our text-books—Distribution.
“ Unlike the laws of Production,” he says, “ those of Distribution
are partly of human institution, since the manner in which wealth
is distributed in any given Society depends on the statutes or
* “System of Logic,” Vol. I., p. 367.

16
usages therein obtaining.” A more astounding sentence than this
from Mill it would be difficult to conceive. It is scarcely necessary
to point out that the word “laws " is used here ambiguously. It
is applied to Production in its strict scientific sense ; but, when it
is applied to Distribution, what is indicated is, not scientific laws,
nor civil laws, but the concrete results of both, and the actual
circumstances, physical and other, of the society. In this way a
contrast is set up between Production and Distribution which has
no existence apart from equivoque ; for the concrete facts of
Production, like those of Distribution, are partly the results of
the customs and legal institutions existing in a community ; and
the scientific laws of Distribution, like those of Production, are
utterly beyond the disposition of man's desires or volitions.
Fancy how any physicist would be laughed at who contended that,
because firearms are made, loaded, and discharged according to
the designs of men, the law of projectiles is partly of human
institution Would he not be answered thus: “Alter your cannon
how you may, load them, fire them how you may, you will never
change by one iota those facts with regard to the flight of missiles
which are summed up in the law of projectiles.” And so I say :
“No legislative changes, no changes whatever which you make in
your conduct, can possibly affect the laws of the distribution of
wealth. The multiplication table would be just as much affected
by your adoption of a decimal system of coinage, weights, and
measures, as economic laws would be by anything which you
could possibly do.” Mill's example will show how needful
it is to keep the all-embracing principle of the uniformity
of nature before our minds on all occasions. But this necessity
is a disagreeable one for a public man. He who declines to shut
his eyes to the inexorable is almost always credited with the
harshness of Nature which he recognises and laments. Those are
but few, even in Britain, who do not, consciously or unconsciously,
hug the idea that there are snug corners in the universe of things
where miracles can still be worked. Many even of those who
Smile at Joshua's command to the sun talk as if we had in the
House of Commons 670 Joshuas, who can put aside the order of
nature, and ordain general affluence in the absence of its ascertained
conditions. .
It may be asked how came so powerful a thinker as Mill to fall
into the egregious fallacy above described 2 The cause is, to my
mind, obvious. He was arguing for a suppressed conclusion.
This sort of thing cannot be done with impunity. He wished the
Government to interfere with the Distribution of wealth, but not
with its Production. The endeavour to teach this without avowing
it landed him in the extrordinary assertion that the Laws of
Distribution “are partly of human institution,” but that Produc-
tion is “not an arbitrary thing.” And this was not all–
perhaps not the worst. When Mill proceeds to expound the Laws

17
of the Distribution of Wealth, he goes beyond the sentence I have
quoted. In the Preliminary Remarks, the Laws of Distribution
were “partly of human institution ; ” now Distribution “is a
matter of human institution solely.” And the reason of this
wonderful dictum is that “the things once there, mankind
. . . . can do with them as they like.” But this is equally
true of Production. A carpenter may, at will, make a piece of
wood into a handrail, burn it, or beat his wife with it. A man
may sow his barley, or make broth or whiskey with it. This
option is not in any way inconsistent with the existence of Laws
of Production, any more than is the fact that we can throw stones
in any direction we choose a disproof of the law of gravitation.
If the criterion which Mill here lays down for the determination
of when a group of phenomena is outside of the sphere of
economic law, and “is a matter of human institution solely,” were
correct, economic science could have no existence ; for, in both
branches of political economy, human volition is a constant factor.
No one has pointed this out more clearly than Mill himself; and it
is, therefore, the more to be regretted that, prompted by his latent
Socialism, he should have endeavoured to make out a diversity
between the political economy of Production and that of Distribu-
tion, for which there is not the slightest foundation. How Mill's
doctrine on this point bears on the Socialistic controversy it will be
my next business to show.
W.--THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH.
Having arrived, by the road of ambiguity, at the conclusion that
the Distribution of wealth, unlike its Production, “is a matter of
human institution solely,” there was one step more for Mill to
take in order to arrive at the Socialistic goal, and he took it. “In
the social state,” he says, “in every state except total solitude,
any disposal whatever of ſwealth] can only take place by the
consent of society, or rather of those who dispose of its active
force. Even what a person has produced by his individual
toil, unaided by anyone, he cannot keep, unless by the permission
of society. Not only can society take it from him, but
individuals could and would take it from him, if society only
remained passive ; if it did not either interfere en masse, or employ
and pay people for the purpose of preventing him from being
disturbed in the possession. The distribution of wealth, therefore,
depends on the laws and customs of society. The rules by which
it is determined are what the opinions and feelings of the ruling
* Book II., Chap. I., sec. 1
# See also my article on “Distribution as a Branch of Economics,”
in the First Volume of Transactions of the National Liberal Club Political
Economy Circle.




18
portion of the community make them, and are very different in
different ages and countries; and might be still more different, if
mankind so chose.”
We are thus led up to this conclusion—that those who dispose of
the active force of a community must, in the very nature of things,
determine the distribution of wealth in that community. Even if
society remain passive it is, it seems, distributing wealth. The
argument really is this –If we can interfere in any affair, we do
interfere in it ; for, if we do, we do ; and if we do not, we do, as
the result is conditional on this inactivity of ours. That this
remarkable specimen of reasoning should have remained so long
undisturbed is a sad comment on the amount of intelligence devoted
to the most important branches of human knowledge. It will be
observed that to the question—Ought the State to undertake the
distribution of wealth 2 Mill by implication replies—It cannot
refrain from doing so. The question of morality, of utility, is
thus evaded ; for, to that which is not optional, no ethical
predicates, laudatory or the reverse, can be applied. It is this
inability to see any practical alternative to the positive interference
of Government in the Distribution of wealth, and in other and not
less important matters, which Mill did so much to bring about,
and which is so characteristic of our public men at the present
day ; and it is because of this want of power of discrimination that
that the fulminations of our statesmen against systematic Socialism
have about as much real value as the murmured refusals of Donna
Julia. And the result is not creditable to our age or country.
Liberty—that liberty which has placed us in the forefront of nations
—is gradually being nibbled away in all directions. Principle is
coming to be regarded as mere pedantry. “Each case must be
dealt with On its merits,” we are told with absurd iteration—as if
there were any other mode of judging a case. This formula is
really used to cabalistically push aside one particular method of
judgment, namely that by deduction from fundamental morals.
We seem to have come upon a time of utter infidelity to general
principles, except that most vicious one that there are no general
principles. There is always a large section of the British public
ready to give a willing ear to this doctrine. It is one of those
consecrations of empiricism which delight the heart of the British
Philistine ; for there is nothing on which he so much prides him-
self as his superiority to the shallow people who have not acquired
his proficiency in the art of sitting between two stools—of gracefully
taking a seat, with an air of conscious superiority, between two con-
tradictory propositions. The “practical" politician finds that, like
the prose-talking M. Jourdain, he has always been distributing
wealth, even when least aware of it. Splendid idea There is, then,
no “scientific frontier ‘’between the possessions of Peter and those
* Book II, Chap. I, see 1.


19
of Paul. That frontier has been drawn by the arbitrary will of the
State, and the same conveniently-named abstraction can rearrange
it according to the necessities of the moment. Eruptions are con-
stantly breaking out in various parts of the body politic—eruptions
which a little golden ointment will do much to alleviate. There
are other parts of the body politic, not too fat it is true, but which
will still yield the precious unguent to adequate pressure. The
problem of statesmanship is obvious.
What is not so obvious, however, is the alternative to the
interference of the State in the ditribution of wealth. To
clear this up, let us consider a little further Mill's position.
According to him, the policeman and the burglar are alike
distributors of wealth, because, but for the activity of either, the
distribution would be different. But surely this is a very
misleading classification. No doubt the policeman, in a certain
sense, interferes in the disposal of wealth ; but his interference is,
or, rather it ought to be, negative—interference to prevent inter-
ference. The total result of his normal activity in this direction is
to restrict, and its tendency is to minimise, the aggression of
individuals on the possessions of others. It is needless to contrast
with this the activity of the thief or the conqueror. Mill himself
has pointed out the difference between intervention to enforce non-
intervention, and intervention for any other purpose. “The
former,” he said, speaking of the case as between nations, “is
always rightful, always moral.” I go further, and say that not
only is this negative intervention justifiable, both in the case of
individual and nation, but that intervention of any other kind,
however well-intentioned, is altogether unjustifiable. To keep to
the matter immediately under discussion, the maintenance of the
industrial liberty of its citizens, implying as this does the
maintenance of the right of property of each man in that which he
produces, is one of the first duties of the State. The right of each
person to the enjoyment of the fruit of his (or her) exertions is
implied in the right of liberty ; for to deprive any person of any
part of that which his faculties enable him to produce is to deprive
him, pro tanto, of the use of his faculties, or, in other words, to
reduce him, more or less, to the position of a slave, Liberty and
property are inseparable.
WI.-PROPERTY.
Here, however, is much need of explanation. When it is said
that liberty and property are thus united, this cannot apply to all
which in the past, has been recognised as property. The proprietary
rights, for example, for which the late Mr. Jefferson Davis and his
* “Dissertations and Discussions,” Vol. III., p. 176.
20
supporters fought, are clearly not deducible from the right of each
human being over his own person, but are the very negation of it.
And, as I shall endeavour to show, there are still rights of property
recognised by the State which not only are not a corollary of
personal rights, but are fundamentally inconsistent with them.
“The institution of property,’” says Mill, “when limited to its
essential elements, consists in the recognition, in each person, of
the right to the exclusive disposal of what he or she have (sic)
produced by their own exertions, or received either by gift or fair
agreement, without force or fraud, from those who produced it.
The foundation of the whole is the right of producers to what they
themselves have produced.”
In another place, Mill says:–“ Nothing is implied in property
but the right of each to his (or her) own faculties, to what he can
produce by them, and to whatever he can get for them in a fair
market, together with his right to give this to any other person if
he chooses, and the right of that other to receive and enjoy it.”f
Nothing could be better, it appears to me, than this statement.
It will be observed that rights of property are the outcome of rights
of person. A violation of proprietary rights is an indirect violation
of personal rights, and, so far as it goes, a reduction of the
individual to a state of bondage. When we are forcibly deprived
of that which is the fruition of our faculties, or prevented from
enjoying it unaggressively, we are to that extent robbed of the use
of those faculties.
VII.--THE CASE AGAINST SOCIALISM.
I arraign Socialism of being guilty of this assault. I assert that
it is essentially inconsistent with that sovereignty of the individual
over himself which is the most sacred and fundamental of human
rights; and I shall ask you, however much you find to deplore in
our present state—as I do—whether this is the direction in which
we should move in order to place human interests and human progress
on a firm and durable basis.
Let me now show you I am right in my statement of what
Socialism is. Mr. Sydney Olivier is Secretary of the Fabian Society,
by far the ablest body of Socialists I know. In a “Symposium
on the Land Question " he says:– “The ultimate refuge of the
Individualist, the right of a man over his own body and capacities
& º # is itself a large assumption, not necessarily admitted
by Socialists.” But we have a more authoritative utterance to the
same effect. At the Socialist Congress at St. Gallen, in 1888, a
resolution was adopted which declares that “the Anarchistic theory
of Society, in so far as it aims at the autonomy of the Individual,
* “Principles of Political Economy,” Book II., Chap. 2, sec. 1.
f Ibid, sec. 3.

2 |
is anti-socialistic.” This implies that the autonomy of the
individual is inconsistent with Socialism. Mr. Sidney Webb—one
of the most logical and scientific of Socialists—has shown us, the
economic outcome of this. In a paper read before the London
Dialectical Society and published in the Church Reformer, he
says: —“The Socialists would nationalize both rent and interest
by the State becoming the sole landowner and capitalist. . . . .
Such an arrangement would, however, leave untouched the third
monopoly, the largest of them all, the monopoly of business ability.
. . . . The more recent Socialists strike, therefore, at this
monopoly also, by allotting to every worker an equal wage,
whatever the nature of his work. This equality has an abstract
justification, as the special ability or energy with which some persons
are born, is an unearned increment due to the influence of the
strugle for eatistence upon their ancestors,” and consequently,
having been produced by Society, is as much due to Society as the
‘ unearned increment of rent.” -
This means that any abilities which an individual has over and
above his fellows are not to be recognised as belonging to him, but
are to be forcibly appropriated, in their fruits, by the State, and
equally divided between the members of the community, whose
income is thus to be reduced to a dead level. Mr. Webb speaks of
“ the toll levied upon labour by the monopolists of land, capital,
and ability.” The surplus of A.'s earnings over those of B.,
because of his greater energy or talent, are called a “toll " on B.,
and he is called a monopolist by reason of his possession of the
results of the use of his own faculties.
Let it be clearly understood that the question at issue is one of
politics, not one of personal morals—not what it is the duty of a
man voluntarily to devote to public uses of the fruits of his
labours, but what his fellow men are justified in forcing him to
yield up. A large portion of my life and energies have been given
to work for which I have received no pecuniary reward. But I
say plainly that, if any body of persons tried to exact this from
me, they would find me made of stubborn material. Mr. Webb,
in a lame sort of way, recognises this difficulty. The scheme, he
says, “would effect its object, provided it were practicable ; ” to
which I may add that the moon would make very good cream
cheese, provided that were practicable. The idea of stealing the
chickens of genius before they are hatched appears to me as mad
as it is unjustifiable. You may decree that the surplus of value
over the wages of ordinary labour produced by a Landseer or a
Millias, a Rubenstein or a Wagner, a Dickens or a Tennyson, an
Erskine or a Burke, a Brassey or an Armstrong, shall be
* Italics are mine. As I pointed out to Mr. Webb at the time, this
applies also to abilities which a person has in common with his fellows,



22
confiscated to public uses; but are you sure that, under these
circumstances, it will be produced 2 If under such conditions
it be produced, it is clear that Socialism must have forced an open
door. It is much more likely to firmly close a partially open
one. There is a great deal of “human nature '' even in persons
of ability. .
In the Commonweal, the organ of the Socialist League, it was
contended that Socialists ought not be asked to form a community
of their own and prove its virtues by success. “In a Socialist
community,” the writer said, “the sharp and clever men would
not be able to raise themselves above their fellows by large
acquisitions of material wealth. . . . . But in a small
community, surrounded by competitive life, they would be
constantly made discontented by seeing how much distinction they
could get in the world outside, not by doing something worthy of
it, but by the much easier way of using their sharpness to get
wealth. Now, although Socialists do believe that human nature
on the whole is good enough to make a happy communal life
possible, if unnecessary temptations are taken away, still we do
not think that it can stand the strain of any great amount of
temptation to better self easily at the expense of the community.”
The clever men aforesaid would, it appears to me, not only be
discontented, but would emigrate, unless the dunces who were
endeavouring to exploit their superior abilities held them prisoners.
And that this is the necessary condition is evident ; for the
absence of non-Socialistic communities outside means nothing save
the absence of the possibility of escape from Socialism. Let it not
be thought that I deny that men of more than average ability can
be got to work for their fellows ; many are doing that now.
What I do assert is this—that such a despotism of the many over
the few as the writer in the Commonweal is arguing for would be
not one whit more justifiable than the despotism of the few over
the many, and that such despotism would defeat its own ends;
for the higher abilities will not yield their fruit save in an
atmosphere of freedom. What a high-spirited man would give of
his free will he would refuse to force; and, even if he could not
overtly rebel, when compelled to grind corn in the prison-house of
the Philistines, he would be more likely to bring the fabric down
about their heads than to supply them with bread.
VIII.-CAPITAL AND INTEREST.
Mr. Sidney Webb admits that “all such plans "-that is, of the
dull, and inactive appropriating the difference of wages of their
brighter and more energetic fellow citizens—“ are . . . .
also open to what still appears as an objection to an ordinary mind,
namely that their basis is the spoliation of some for the assumed



23
benefit of others.” Methinks the “ordinary mind " has much to
say for itself. Let me suppose that it is so far politically in the
ascendant as to prevent the nationalization of the so-called “rent
of ability.” Does a similar objection hold with regard to
nationalization of capital 9 Yes; it does. What is capital 2 It
is defined by economists as a product which is devoted to further
production. It belongs, therefore, according to the definition of
property already given, to its producers, or to the persons to
whom they have given or sold it. To take it by force is robbery
pure and simple, however it may present itself to the minds of the
leading Socialists. And all such attempts are as stupid as they
are blameworthy. They discourage the accumulation of capital,
whose tendency is to lower the rate of interest, and ultimately to
annihilate it.
Here it is necessary to explain that I reject the theory of the
tendency of interest to a positive minimum. The so-called
“Mercantile ” theory of wealth, which Mill denounced as to be
“too preposterous to be thought of as a serious opinion,” has an
exact counterpart in his own theory of capital. The notion that
a nation becomes wealthy in proportion to its success in heaping
up money or money materials is indeed a crude absurdity. “Gold
and silver,” as Adam Smith said, “whether in the shape of coin
or of plate, are utensils, it must be remembered, as much as the
furniture of the kitchen,” and he justly held that “to attempt to
increase the wealth of any country, either by introducing or by
detaining in it an unnecessary quantity of gold and silver, is as
absurd as it would be to attempt to increase the good cheer of
private families by obliging them to keep an unnecessary number
of kitchen utensils.”
So far the theory of money is based on the clearest and most
palpable grounds of experience ; though the ghost of the fallacy
slain by Adam Smith seems to be still lurking in the crania of
Fair Traders and Bimetallists. The error was in not perceiving
that the function of money is a limited one, and requires
for its most effective performance not an indefinite but a
definite quantity of money. And the same is true of capital.
Its use also is an instrumental one. Capital is not a pri-
mary requisite of the production of wealth. It is clearly im-
possible that it should be such a primary requisite, for it is
itself a product.
But why is any such stock required 2 If production
commences without capital, why cannot it continue without
it 2 The answer to this question is that production would
continue to be scanty and uncertain without the aid which
capital can give. Man needs for the satisfaction of his wants and
* “Wealth of Nations,” Book IV., chap. 1,

24
desires suitable material things. But, of these material objects,
those which, like the air he breathes, are his without any onerous
contribution on his part, are but few ; and become relatively fewer
as men increase in numbers and human society becomes more and
more complex, Most of the articles which minister to our needs or
our enjoyments are now more or less artificial products; and the
tendency is still to a higher degree of artificiality, as the demands
of men multiply by the multiplication of men or by the increase of
their exigencies or economic appetites. The food we eat, the fuel
with which we cook it, the clothing which keeps us warm and
decent, the houses which shelter us, the illuminating agents with
which we extend the period of light, and the thousand and One
accessories to the comfort, convenience, and culture of a modern
household, are all the work of man. It is true that Nature supplies.
the materials. This she always does. Man cannot add a grain
to the weight of the planet and its inhabitants; and his power of
destruction is limited in like manner. A meteoric stone by falling
on the earth, would increase its mass , but even this would be only
by the subtraction of the same quantity of matter from the
remainder of the universe. So far as mere quantity is concerned,
man is powerless over the external world. He can neither create
matter nor annihilate it. And it is the same with what are called
the forces of nature. They remain persistent under all changes.
The pieces of glass in Nature's kaleidoscope fall about, but the
novelties which charm us or irritate us are novelties of combination
only. Dame Nature, like other less metaphorical dames, is ever
changing the pattern of her dress ; but—unlike those dames—she
is ever using up the old material.
Man, as I have said, can neither make matter nor destroy it ;
but he can, in ascertainable ways and within ascertainable limits,
confer on it the qualities which he desires it to possess. Our
power over the external world is strictly circumscribed. We can
move things from one place to another and await the result. We
can rub the ring which calls up one or more of these Geni which
men call by the names of the various forms of energy. All else is
accomplished by them. Our ring requires more rubbing than
Aladdin's, and rubbing in different ways in order to call up the
different Geni. That is all.
It may seem that, in including fuel as an artificial product, I
have gone too far. Is not coal a natural product 2 When buried
'neath the fields of Northumbria or South Wales, it undoubtedly is
so, and is so completely. No man's hand has fashioned it or placed
it where it is. But coal in a London cellar or in the bunkers of
an ocean steamship is artificial to the extent of its being placed
there. All that man may have done is to move it ; but, as I have
just said, that is all that he can do to it. Coal in my kitchen is a
less elaborated form of wealth than the watch in my pocket. Still
this is but a difference of degree. In both instances, natural objects

*

25
have had conferred on them useful properties by the labour and
patience of man. ź . . .
Now, when man sets about the production of commodities for
his use, he may do this with the view of directly consuming those
commodities, or he may make some things with the indirect object
of producing others. The former of these is the primitive and
simple stage of the production of wealth ; the latter the derivative
and complex stage. If a savage goes out armed only with his
naked limbs, or with one or two stones or broken branches which
lie plentifully strewn about his path, and thus seeks the prey with
which he hopes to satisfy his hunger, he is an example of the
former method. If he takes advantage of a more than ordinarily
large supply of food to chip an edge to the stone and tie it with
twigs to the branch, in order to provide an instrument for the
chase, he has taken the step which divides indirect from direct pro-
duction. The food thus used is capital, and the owner of it has
become a capitalist ; for his rude weapon is wealth, it is the result
of labour, and it is to be used for the purpose of producing other
wealth. And this “bloated capitalist " gets interest, too, in the
surplus of produce (after allowing for wear and tear and risk) over
what he could have obtained by his unaided labour. Economic
Interest is the surplus resulting from the employment of capital,
like Economic Rent is a surplus resulting from the employment of
the more productive natural agents.
Neither rent nor interest is necessarily connected with hiring or
lending. Interest, in the sense which we are now using this term
—and, for the purpose of distinction, we will call this Total
Interest—consists of the whole of the extra produce which is ob-
tained by the use of capital. But, in any given state of knowledge
of the arts of production, some modes of using capital are much
more productive than others. It would be nothing short of a
miracle if, at any given time, all the various methods of using
capital brought about the same pro rata increase of commodities.
As a matter of fact this is not so. There are the widest differences
in the result of the investment of capital in the augmentation of
the produce ; far wider, indeed, than the differences between the
crops of the land under cultivation. .”
Now of the modes of indirect production known to human beings
at any time, they will naturally choose those first which are most
productive, passing on to others—if they pass to them at all—in
the order of their productiveness; and they will stop—when 2
When to go further would leave them—in the then state of their
minds—an insufficient inducement. But why should any induce-
ment be needed ? Why should men require a special reward for
indirect production ? In itself, I see no reason why they should
do so. If a certain quantity of a commodity n can be produced in
two ways, (1) directly, and (2) indirectly, through the production
of another commodity, m, and if these processes are equally

26
laborious and take the same time, there exists no reason that I can
see why the production pid m should have a special reward attached
to it. But this is only another way of saying that I cannot
believe that interest can be the reward of mere indirect production
—that is, production through the medium of capital per se. It is
evident that if any such reward were forthcoming, it could only be
at the expense of the reward of labour, that is, wages. But under
the supposed circumstances, the labourer would be positively with-
out any inducement to forego a portion of his reward. Interest is,
then, not the reward of capital, as such.
Let us now vary our hypothesis. Let us suppose that, by
producing m through m, we obtain a larger quantity of produce,
but that this result is spread over a longer period of time. Here
we have a very different state of things. The point is not that the
increased produce is obtained by the mediate or indirect
method. That consideration, though not immaterial, is not, in
itself, sufficient to account for the phenomenon, interest. The
real price which is paid for the extra produce is Waiting. Just as
Labour is employed in changing the places of things, and is the
Space element of production ; so Capital, which is employed in
changing the date of reward, is the Time element. Labour and
Waiting—if I may correct Adam Smith's statement—are the price
we pay for all things. But here I am met with an objection of
the Proudhonists—an objection which, though dressed up in
Kantian phrases, is really as old as Thomas Aquinas : “Why
should a price be put on Time 2 º' it is asked—“Time which is
a form of our subjective grasp of things 2 º’ Well, my answer to
this is that, though time in the abstract, apart from events, may
be as worthless from an economic point of view as our
transcendentalist friends assert—a proposition which I should be
very sorry to dispute—the period at which commodities come into
our possession for enjoyment is not a matter of like indifference.
It would require a great deal of philosophic argument to
prove to a man that an income of £1,000 a year would be the
same to him whether receivable for the remaining years of
this century, or the corresponding years of next century, or the
next millenium.
It may be argued that Waiting is not necessarily an onerous
contribution to production ; and this is true. But the same is
true of Labour. The only difference—and it is one which bears
important consequences—is that while Waiting is homogeneous,
Labour is heterogeneous. There is but one kind of Waiting.
There are many kinds of Labour; and some of these are pleasanter
than others. Some occupations carry with them such extra-
economic rewards that—in the absence of conditions which would
limit the number of applicants for such occupations so as to bring
them, at Zero wages, below the number of places to be filled—no
Wages are needed, or are, indeed, possible ; for any payment

27
made under such circumstances could not properly be called
Wages. - &
Great or even moderate productiveness is to be obtained only
by long and indirect processes. These imply waiting for the
returns to current labour, and living on the accumulated results
of former labour. If thrift as well as labour have not done its
Work, these indirect methods cannot be adopted, and their
advantages must be foregone. Men must live on such wild fruit
as they can collect and such wild animals as they can catch.
When the hunter defers the consumption of part of his food in
order to make weapons of the chase, he has made one step onward
in the capitalistic direction; and when he has domesticated some
of the animals he has caught he has taken a far-reaching step.
An important fact in economic history is imbedded in the fact that
“capital” and “cattle " are etymologically identical. It would,
perhaps, be rash to say that the nomadic possessor of flocks and
herds was the first “employer of labour ; ” but it is safe to say
that his predecessors in that iine may be left out of account without
doing them much injustice. Thus arose domestic manufactures
and the beginning of culture ; till flocks and herds grew numerous
and men grew numerous with them, and necessity, the mother of
invention, disclosed to them the advantages of agriculture. Even
the ruddest tilling of the ground gives a large increase of food ;
but it involves longer waiting for results. It involves also, if
instruments are to be used, some devotion of savings to the
purposes of secondary capital. Every step forward in the yoking
of the forces and the moulding of the materials of nature
necessitates a larger margin of saving. Food and clothing must
be produced for men who dig in mines, men who delve in forests,
men who work at furnaces, men who labour at forge and anvil—
must, that is, if the plough and the harrow, the spade and the
pitchfork, are to be used in the tillage of the earth. And this
process goes on and on. The tendency of economic evolution is
ever in the direction of more indirect and more specialized
processes; and this implies a constantly increasing demand for
capital, and especially for the more permanent forms of capital,
which only repay their outlay over long periods.
But, though the demand for capital thus goes on increasing in
any community, at any given time, with its population, and land,
and the state of its industrial development all finite in quantity,
the capital required in order to obtain the maximum of production
cannot be infinite. All capital is primarily an advance on account
of wages. It cannot, therefore, exceed the full amount of those
wages. These, again, are advanced by the capitalist with the
intention of recouping himself from the produce ; and, therefore,
cannot, if he is to obtain any interest, equal the whole of that
produce. Even were the rate of commercial interest at Zero,
wages would not exceed the computed value of the produce,

28
Still the Third Section of the Fifth Chapter of John Stuart
Mill’s “Principles of Political Economy '' is written for the
purpose of proving that “increase of capital gives increased
employment to labour without assignable bounds.” His assertion
is “that the portion [of capital] which is destined to their [the
labourers’ maintenance may (supposing no alteration in anything
else) be indefinitely increased, without creating an impossibility of
finding them employment.” But suppose they are all employed,
and suppose their wages are already sufficiently high to maintain
them in the highest state of efficiency. “We will assume them,”
says Mill, “to be already sufficiently supplied with necessaries.
What follows 2 That the labourers become consumers of luxuries;
and the capital previously employed in the production of luxuries,
is still able to employ itself in the same manner: the difference
being that the luxuries are shared among the community generally
instead of being confined to a few.” This is, no doubt, very
amiable; but the goodness of Mill's heart must not blind us to
the badness of his reasoning. He sets out by promising to show
that any possible increase of capital is capable of giving “addi-
tional employment to industry.” What he does show is, not that
increased employment, but that increased remuneration may be given
without limit, provided the persons who pay it have the means
and are regardless of their loss or gain—a proposition which, I
venture to say, no person capable of understanding it has ever
disputed.
But this is not all. Let us suppose that these wonderful
“capitalists” give two bushels of corn for the labour directly used
in the production of one, and so enable the labourers to consume
luxuries. Would the portion of their payment which provided for
these luxuries be capital? Clearly not ; for capital is, by definition,
Subservient to productive purposes. And it could as little be called
wages. It could properly be regarded only as a gift. Indeed, the
attempt of Mill to prove his point by dropping, ad hoc, the ordi-
nary economic postulate of self-regarding motive in commercial
matters is simply childish. It might be proved in exactly the same
way that profits or rent may increase without any assignable limit.
The heaping up of capital ad infinitum, like the heaping up of
money in the same way, is a sheer absurdity ; with this difference
in favour of the latter—that while it is quite possible for a nation,
or the commercial world, permanently to keep in circulation a
larger quantity of money than is in any way advantageous, it is
impossible for this to be done in the case of capital. All capital is
expenditure in advance, and depends for its permanence on reali-
Zation in the produce.” Indeed, one has not to go beyond the


* This must be understood subject to the law of interest hereafter to
be explained.

29
pages of Mill in order to prove this. He accepts Wakefield's
doctrine that the employment of capital is limited at any time by
the extent of the field of investment.* Nay, more, he holds that
this limit is always such as to yield a positive minimum of interest
--or profit, as he persists in calling it. Though this minimum is,
he says, “liable to vary, and though to specify exactly what it is
would at any time be impossible, such a minimum always exists;
and whether it be high or low, when once it is reached, no further
increase ºf capital can for the present take place.” “As capital
increased, population either would also increase, or it would not.
If it did not, wages would rise, and a greater capital would be
distributed in wages among the same number of labourers. There
being no more labour than before, and no improvements to render
the labour more efficient, there would not be any increase of the
produce ; and as the capital, however largely increased, would
only obtain the same gross return, the whole savings of each year
would be exactly so much subtracted from the profits of the next,
and of every following year. It is hardly necessary to say that in
such circumstances profits would very soon fall to the point at
which further increase of capital would cease.”. ->
But—to return to our examination of Waiting as one of the
elements of cost—I have said that it is not necessarily onerous.
As in the case of each kind of Labour, however, it will fetch the
price in the market which is necessary for the equation of the
Supply to the demand; which—to put the matter in another way
—is the counterpoise of advantage necessary to bring about the
addition of the last increment of capital. This leads us to a further
examination of Interest. I have named the whole amount of the
increase obtained through the use of capital, Total Interest. This,
as I have said, is widely different on different portions of capital.
I do not refer to differences caused by the administrative abilities
of the persons who use the capital, or the differences in opportunity
seized—which are only the objective aspects of these personal
differences. Quite apart from these differences in human qualities,
some modes of indirect production are more prolific than others.
But the persons whose capital is used in the most productive way
obtain no higher rate of interest than those whose capital is
employed at lesser advantage. How is that ? If capital has so
grown that the increase of production resulting from its last
increment is 3 per cent., that rate only will be obtainable by the
whole of the capitalists within the area of competition ; for if a
higher rate were to be had in any kind of production, capital
would be drawn to it, the supply of the goods would be increased,
and competition would bring down the value till it was such as to
* “Principles of Political Economy,” Book IV., chap. iv., sec. 2.
# Ibid, sec. 3. The italics are mine. . . --- -
| “Principles of Political Economy,” Book IV., chap. iv., sec. 4,

30
afford only the same interest as on the last dose of capital. This,
which we call Marginal Interest, is therefore the measure of
normal Commercial Interest. In this way, the larger part of what
we have termed Total Interest goes over to the consumer.
In the preceding illustration, I have supposed Marginal Interest
to go down to 3 per cent. But why should it not go lower 2
Why should it not go down to zero? or become negative 2
Commercial or Loan Interest grows out of the fact that, apart
from its existence, the demand for anticipated consumption is in
excess of the demand for deferred consumption. To equate these,
Commercial Interest comes in. Some persons wish to consume
before the goods on whose production they are engaged are com-
pleted or ready for exchange, or before a market has been found
for them. Other persons wish, not to anticipate the reward of
their labours, but to defer it, or at all events are willing to do
so. If the amounts of wealth in these two categories
were equal, interest would, as it appears to me, have no
raison d'être. It would correspond to, and be the counter-
poise of, no sacrifice. It is because the whole amount of
wealth in demand for the purposes of capital is greater than the
amount of wealth whose consumption persons are ready or anxious
to postpone that some make-weight is necessary. This make-
weight, Usury or Loan Interest, acts in two ways. It makes
anticipated consumption less advantageous, and deferred consump-
tion more so, and thus tends to equate the supply of capital to the
demand. It is necessary to induce persons to wait who would not
otherwise do so. But, let it be clearly understood, the sacrifice
made is the Waiting—not the payment of Interest on loans. The
latter is merely the market equivalent of the Waiting, which, under
the free play of economic forces, is transferred from the borrower
who reaps the benefit of the Waiting to the lender who waits.
The sacrifice is the Waiting, not its economic counterpoise. And,
given the circumstances, this sacrifice cannot be avoided, though
we may try forcibly so to regulate matters that not he who refrains
from consuming—not he who performs an onerous service, but
Some other person or persons, may pocket the resulting gain.
I have already said sufficient to show how the employment of
capital is limited; but I cannot altogether accept Mill's account of that
limit, or his theory of the relations of capital and interest. “The
rate of interest,” he says, “will be such as to equalize the
demands for loans with the supply of them. It will be such that
exactly as much as some people are desirous to borrow at that
rate, others shall be willing to lend. If there is more offered than
demanded, interest will fall; if more is demanded than offered, it
will rise; and, in both cases, to the point at which the equation of
supply and demand is re-established.” This is, no doubt, true
* “Principles of Political Economy,” Book III., chap. xxiii., sec. 1.

31
so far as it goes; but it does not explain why a payment in the
shape of interest is necessary on the part of the borrower in order
to equate the supply of loans with the demand. Mill endeavours
to supply this omission in another place.” “There would,” he
says, “be adequate motives for a certain amount of Saving, even
if capital yielded no profit. There would be an inducement to lay
by in good times a provision for bad ; to reserve something for
sickness and infirmity, or as a means of leisure and independence
in the latter part of life, or a help to children in the outset of it.
Savings, however, which have these ends in view, have not much
tendency to increase the amount of capital permanently in existence.
These motives only prompt persons to save at one period of life
What they purpose to consume at another, or what will be con-
sumed by their children before they can completely provide for
themselves. The savings by which an addition is made to the
national capital usually emanate from the desire of persons to
improve what is termed their condition in life, or to make a pro-
vision for children or others, independent of their exertions.” The
word “usually,” which I have italicised, shows that this is merely
a narrow induction from the circumstances of our day—a mode of
proof destitute of validity in economics, as Mill himself has shown.|
There is no necessity that “the amount of capital permanently in
existence ’’ should be kept up by perpetual loans from the same
creditors. The same purpose would be attained by some creditors
taking the places of others. Permanent investment does not imply
the permanence of the original investment; for such investments may
be bought and sold.
Cairnes's treatment of the subject is still more unsatisfactory.
He takes for granted that abstinence is necessary, includes in it an
element of risk, and confines his argument to a defence of the
necessity of reward. But why should there be any abstinence 2
Cairnes might have saved himself the trouble of arguing for the
necessity of interest; for so long as abstinence is involved in the
saving of capital, will it and not interest form part of the cost of
production. No “expropriation " will save mankind from paying
this, the ultimate cost of capital, as such ; though one set of per-
sons may save themselves from it at the expense of another set, as
any common thief may save himself from labour by stealing another
man's watch.
Is abstinence—in the sense of an onerous or disagreeable post-
ponement of consumption—a permanent necessity ? I opine not.
A very large part of our present saving involves no abstinence,
and with the progress of society this would rapidly increase. As
* “Principles of Political Economy,” Book IV., chap, iv., sec. 3.
| “Essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy,”
& Some Leading Principles of Political Economy,” pp. 88-95.

32
the rate of interest goes down, there is a disposition, too, on the
part of individual capitalists to increase their investments in order
to keep up their position. From both sources, therefore, there is
a tendency to multiply capital. The difficulty of extending the
field of investment is becoming greater and greater, and this growth
will be still further checked when the workers have learned the
lesson of parental prudence. On the side of demand, therefore,
the tendency is to restriction. On the side of supply the tendency
is towards a very wide extension. Those who understand the laws
of value will see at once what must be the result of this. The rate
of interest must fall and fall continuously. Each fall will tend to
widen somewhat the field of investment, but the gap will soon be
more than filled, and the process will be repeated. It would take
me too far afield to describe the several stages of this evolution.
It must suffice here to say that I believe that loan interest will not
always be positive, that it will even fall below the zero point, and
that the investors of the future will be content to pay a little for
the privilege of deferred consumption.*
Our capital in Great Britain is very large, owing to the
abnormal concentration here of fixed capital employed in
manufactures; but the amount per head of the population does
not come up to what any good and prudent man would save as a
provision for emergencies, for support in the decline of life, for
insurance of his life for the benefit of his children, and for purposes
of beneficence. Abstinence—in the sense of deferred consumption
which does not bring its own sufficient reward—will cease to be, and
loan interest with it. But this will be gain, not loss, to humanity;
for one of the elements of the cost of the production of wealth will
have disappeared, and while no man will be poorer, the labourer
will be richer—provided always that the prime condition of our
problem, progress on the lines of Individualism, be fulfilled.
* I put forward this theory of interest in a paper read at the Zetetical
Society on 22nd February, 1882. It has since been accepted by some of
the acutest students of economics. In his Plea for Liberty, Mr. Thomas
Mackay has endeavoured to reply to the above argument. He accuses
me of Overlooking (1) “the willingness of men to pay for a rapid
succession of labour-saving inventions,” and (2) “the increased poten-
tialities of the consumers.” My reply to (i) is that, although men
might be willing to pay for the loan of labour-saving appliances if
that loan could not be obtained gratis, they will not pay for what can be
obtained without payment. Loan interest now is not at the rate that men
would pay rather than forego the use of capital. In other words, com-
mercial or loan interest is identical in amount, not with total interest but
with marginal interest. With regard to (2), I do not deny that the
potentialities of consumption—and I hope its actualities—will increase, or
would do so under Individualism; but my point is that though consump-
tion per head as a whole, will increase, the demand for deferred con-
sumption will increase much more rapidly than the demand for
immediate consumption. Mr. Mackay meets neither of my points,



IX. —WAGEs.
It will thus be seen that, under Individualism, the tendency would
be for commercial interest to evanesce and finally to disappear, or
even to become negative. But what about wages 2 The term wages
is used in two different senses. In its widest sense it denotes the
economic reward of labour, in whatever form that reward may be
obtained. The wealth obtained in exchange for their labour by
the dock labourer, the Lord Chancellor, the shoe-black, the
merchant, the prima donna, the teacher, the peasant proprietor,
the physician, the semptress, is alike wages in this sense of the
word. It is clear, however, that there are the widest differences
of remuneration, and that these are by no means dependent on the
amount of exertion. The quantity of work done by individuals
may, and does, go some way towards determining their wages;
but it is quite plain that if one person's wages are a hundred times
as great as those of another it is not because he works a hundred
times as hard. As a matter of fact, it is the hardest workers, as
a class, who receive the lowest remuneration. If we shift our
point of view, and look at the matter on its objective side— if we
estimate the amount of labour, not by the “pains " of the
individual but by the end accomplished, we are at once face-to-
face with some of those questions of the theory of value which
are the stumbling-blocks of “scientific '' Socialism. *::.
When we come to examine what are the causes operative, in
state of freedom, in producing differences of wages, they are found
to admit of a threefold classification corresponding very closely to
the division of the produce into wages, interest, and rent.
Supposing competition free, relative wages depend on (1) energy,
(2) culture, and (3) natural ability. Wages depend upon energy
because they depend on the productiveness of labour. Either the
labourer is working for himself—that is, the produce of his labour
is his own, or he is working for another—that is, he has contracted
to sell his services at a fixed price, the buyer taking all profits and
all risks arising out of the disposal of the produce, if any. In the
former case, whatever the worker adds to the result by the effec-
tiveness of his labour he adds to the reward of that labour. In
the latter case, the result is scarcely different. The competition
among the employers of labour would tend to make wages propor-
tional to the effectiveness of the work done. For any increased
efficiency of labour the worker would obtain the same fraction of
the added as of the original produce. If a workman—by the aid
of capital and administration—produced 10, and received 8 as
wages, and he were, by increased industry, to produce 12%, his
wages would rise to 10.
As regards the second cause of differences of wages, it is that
which marks the difference between skilled and unskilled labour.
I call it culture rather than skill, for the latter may be natural or

34
artificially acquired. Really the increase of wages thus obtained
is interest on capital fixed in a human being ; and, were capital
thus invested in the same way as it ordinarily is invested, or tends
to be, the differences between the wages of skilled and unskilled
labour would—natural ability apart—be only such as to afford the
ordinary chance of interest. It would, commercially speaking, be
a matter of indifference to a parent whether he invested a certain
sum in the technical education of his child or invested that suum
for his child's benefit. In other words, the prospective wages of
the child as a skilled labourer, would be equal to his wages as an
unskilled labourer, plus the interest on what it would have cost to
fit him for a labourer with the supposed skill, and a life insurance
to the amount of that cost. .
All this would be true, I say, were capital invested by
parents in the technical education of their children in the
same way as it is invested by a capitalist in the improvement
of a machine, or as it would be invested by a slave-owner in
the improvement of his slaves, were the slave, as such, not
largely incapacitated for such improvement and were his owner
not afraid of the consequences of his culture. But parents do
not act thus; and they are not prevented from so acting merely
by hindrances to free competition. The number of parents
who are able—and still more the number of those who are
both able and willing—to make any considerable investment
either of their children's time or their own money, on
the economic culture of their children, is relatively small—smaller
than, in a country like ours, is the natural proportion of skilled to
unskilled labour. The majority get so many children that it is a
struggle to bring them up at all, much more to give them a
technical education. Indeed, there is a vicious tendency on the
part of a considerable part of the poorer class to get children in
order to live upon their earnings in after life ; and this odious and
mischievous parasitism makes it advantageous to have a large
family.
But all this is not the result of freedom of competition, but just
the reverse. The Poor Law, in its ordinary operation, gives
relief in proportion to the size of the family, and when that family
has grown up, makes the support of the parents a charge on the
children. A short time ago a man who himself had nine children
to support was sent to prison, on the plaint of the Poor Law
Guardians, in default of paying them for the maintenance of his
father The miseducative influence of such a law is most
lamentable. It is a direct incentive to one of the worst causes of
our social misery.
It is in consequence of the operation of these causes that the
wages of skilled labour are at a scarcity value over and above
those of unskilled labour. The difference is much greater than the
interest (including risk) on the cost of technical education. In the


35
higher kinds of skilled labour—those of the professions—other
causes are operative to still further distend this difference. These
causes, however, are not free competition, but the hindrances to it
which have been imposed by force, in the interests of limited
classes, or have come down to us from a time still more barbarous
than our own.
The third cause of differences of wages, natural ability, is the
human analogue of those differences in the productiveness of
various portions of the earth's surface which result in the payment
of rent. This advantage may consist of a heightened ability to do
What the masses can do, and may be likened to greater fertility of
the soil; or it may consist of some special aptitude. It is this
which enables its happy possessor to obtain very high wages. A
Landseer, a Farrer Herschell, a Patti, a Dickens, and other
working men and women, receive very high wages partly on
account of their culture, but mainly on account of their native
ability. In a state of freedom the tendency would be for persons
to incur a greater or less amount of parental responsibility
according to their earnings. The more highly endowed by nature
and training would have the larger—though not large—families.
The natural limitation of the higher abilities, as well as of the
higher culture to a few persons, would thus be gradually toned
down and tend to disappear, and this effect would be still farther
heightened by the decrease in the demand for the higher abilities,
owing to the concentration of business, and the consequent
economy in the use of administrative power.
The causes of difference in the remuneration of labour which we
have hitherto considered are those which depend on the workers
themselves—on their industry, their cultivation, and their natural
capacity. It is plain that, in the same external circumstances,
such difference must be conditioned by differences in the labourers
themselves, for there is nothing else on which it can be dependent.
The personal qualities of the labourer and those of his environment
evidently make up the whole of the possible causes of his life-
history, and therefore of that particular of it which we are now
considering. .
For the purpose we have at present in view, the worker's
environment may be distinguished as social and physical. How
much the remuneration of labour depends on the physical
circumstances of that labour can easily be seen, for there are parts
of the earth's surface where man cannot live by any amount of
exertion, and there are other parts where, though the possibilities
of production from them are limited, a moderately dense population
can live in ease and comfort. The most important facts connected
with this physical side of the economic environment are its
constancy in quantity while the human demands on it tend to
grow, and the variable usefulness of its constituent parts. What
man can produce depends not only on his own qualities but on

36
those of the natural agents and objects within his reach ; and
these, as I have said, are limited in quantity and different in
quality. One can imagine the whole of the constituents of the
surface of our planet arranged in the order of their economic
worth, with reference to the present state of our knowledge. If
this were done, it would be seen that, as population became more
dense, more and more of these constituents would be taken up in
industry, and the nearer would the human tide roll towards the
pole of sterility. This would be plain enough to the meanest
apprehension if society did not forcibly interfere to confuse the
teachings of Nature. The nearer the approach which has been
made to economic Individualism, the greater has been the tendency
to parental prudence. W. T. Thornton points out that no nation
has developed this prudence which has not passed through the
peasant proprietor stage. But what does this mean 2 Is there
some magic in private property in land when held directly by
the cultivator 2 There is nothing of the sort. Indeed, Mill, after
adopting this notion of the “magic of property,” empties it of all
meaning by saying : “The idea of property does not, however,
necessarily imply that there should be no rent, any more than
there should be no taxes. It merely implies that the rent should
be a fixed charge, not liable to be raised against the possessor by
his own improvements.” But property by the tenant in his own
improvements in the land is one thing, and property in the land
apart from such improvements is another, and a very different one.
I quite agree with Mill that “what is wanted is permanent posses-
sion on fixed terms.” What I demur to is the misuse of terms by
which the good resulting from this is attributed to private property
in land.
The good qualities of the so-called “peasant proprietor"—his
“almost superhuman industry,” his thrift, his peacefulness, his
care in limiting his parental responsibilities—are the fruits of the
Individualistic side of the régime under which he lives. “The
effect of the revolution in France,” said Malthus, “has been to
make every person depend more upon himself and less upon
others. The labouring classes are therefore become more indus-
trious, more saving, and more prudent in marriage than formerly ;
and it is quite certain that, without these effects, the revolution
would have done nothing for them.” The faults and deficiencies
of the French “peasant proprietor "→his narrow life, his tendency
to stagnate—are results of circumstances which have no necessary
connexion with Individualism. So far as he has the full advantage
of his industry, thrift, and prudence, and so far as he is forced to
rely on these, and not on illusory or worse than illusory State aid,
he is made a better man economically and morally. So far as his
interests are isolated, and centred in one little plot of land, is his
* “Essay on Population,” 7th ed., p. 320.

37
moral nature dwarfed, and his economic functions, in the long run,
depraved. Nº.
There is nothing, therefore, absolutely fatal to human happiness
(at least so far as it is dependent on economic conditions) in the
limitation of the earth's surface and its supply of raw materials.
Man needs but recognize this limitation, like the other limitations
of his environment, and limit his demand on that surface and those
raw materials accordingly ; and my contention is that, if men were
left to face this problem—if its conditions were not hidden and
distorted by a publicly-taught reliance on the collective force of the
majority to save them from the effects of their own ignorant or
contumacious conduct—they would quickly learn so obvious a
lesson.
The primary objective condition of economic prosperity—non-
deficiency of good natural agents as compared with the need for
them—would, therefore, naturally flow from Individualism.
Wages would be permanently high and much less unequal than at
present. The increase of capital would far outstrip the increase
of labour, and the demand for deferred consumption would over-
take the demand for loans. “Abstinence ’’ would cease to be,
and interest with it. Cooperation—voluntary cooperation would
grow as it has never yet grown, when the forced cooperation of
the State was banished from the economic sphere and kept within
Individualistic limits. Industry would tend more and more to
assume the cooperative model. The division of labour would be
carried still further than at present, and the home industries would
be specialized with the industrial emancipation of women. The
habit of saving would be more generally diffused, but not carried
so far in individual cases as our present “effective desire of
accumulation.” Trade crises and industrial depressions would
disappear with the disappearance of their causes. Competition
there would still be, but it would no longer take the form of a
struggle for mere existence or industrial warfare. Progress in the
arts of life would be greater than ever it was before, for it is
always greatest where Individualism is greatest.
X.—TRADES UNIONS.
In the above analysis of Wages under Individualism, I have
confined my examination to the normal rate, and have therefore
said nothing about Trades Unions, which, as hitherto carried on,
act only on the market rate ; for it is evident that, unless the
normal remuneration of labour is raised, the general condition of
the labourer will not be improved. Mill's celebrated review of
Thornton “On Labour,” which left his much over-praised
“Principles of Political Economy " a wreck, is vitated by this
consideration ; and I do not believe he would have cared much for
Trades Union activity, or have written as he did in support of it,

38
if he had not hoped and believed that it would develop in the
opposite direction to that which it has actually taken, and would
influence the normal rate of wages through the principle of
population.
The fund to be divided between the rank and file of the industrial
army and their officers being given, its partition between the two
classes depends on the circumstances of the time which determine
managerial wages and interest, the labourers getting the remainder.
This remainder constitutes the normal value of their services under
the conditions then and there existing. As in the case of commo-
dities, if wages be pushed beyond this point, this very fact tends
to lessen the demand for labour and to increase the supply of it,
while, if wages fall below this point, and labour is abnormally
cheap, the field of profitable investment for capitalists is widened,
the demand for labour increases, and wages at once go up.
Let it not be supposed that I am arguing against Trades Unions.
I fully recognize their potentiality for good. In the dark years
before their emancipation, I persistently advocated the right of
Workmen to combine ; and, much as I regret the line which they
have taken, nothing would induce me to question or endeavour to
subvert the recognition of that right. Trades Unions are useful,
in so far as they make competition more complete and effective,
and enable the workpeople to take their part in determining the
circumstances under which they labour ; and they might be
immeasurably more useful, and confer an enormous blessing on
the whole labouring population, if they would (1) endeavour to
control the supply of labour, and thus raise its normal value,
by inculcating the necessity of much greater care in incurring
parental responsibilities; and (2) teach the workmen that
the line of their deliverance from dependence on the capitalist
employer is by learning to league themselves together in coopera.
tive—voluntarily cooperative – enterprise. But when they become
instruments of Socialistic warfare, they are utterly mischievous.
Instead of peaceful rivalry, whose tendency would be to raise
the character and condition of mankind, and which—under
Individualistic conditions—needs be absolutely hurtful to no man,
we have here a merciless battle of anti-social greed, whose general
effect is to waste human effort, deprave human character, and
lessen human happiness. Even if the “New Unionism '' attain
for its votaries some temporary advantage—a lasting advantage it
cannot gain—I deny that the added pelfº can properly be called
wages. Wages are the reward of labour, not of violence. Loot,
plunder—these are words which may describe it; and there is a
Nemesis which waits on acquisitions of this kind.

* When it really is added—when it has not all, or more than all, been
paid away in purchase of the instruments of warfare.

39
N ature is a hard taskmistress. Drive her away with a whip, as
the Latin proverb says, and she will certainly retrace her steps ;
and—I will add—she will make you pay heavily for that whipping.
You may put this or that burden on capital. You may make its
investment perilous. You may threaten its capture. You may
do all these things; but do not nurse the illusion that you will
not have to pay very dear for your whistle. Wages are residual,
and every increase of risk to capital increases the amount which
goes for insurance, and lessens the amount which goes to the
Wage-earners.
When the competition of the employers is effective, the
labourers need to do little in the way of bargaining. Look
at what happened but a short time ago. In 1885, a Royal
Commission was appointed to inquire into the Depression of
Trade and Industry. I wish every artizan could intelligently
study the Final Report of that Commission, presented to
Parliament in the following year. I do not mean that the
conclusions of the Comissioners should be accepted on
authority, or indeed, that they should be accepted at all. I care
more for the truth which they let be seen almost unwittingly,
almost unwillingly, than the doctrine they set themselves to preach.
Now what are the facts which came out into the light on the
investigations of that Commission. What was the nature of the
“depression " ? Was the gross amount of production found to
be smaller 2 No ; it was greater than ever. But, perhaps, the
produce per head of the population had decreased ? No ; it had
increased. Then it must be that we had been extravagant and
not saved so much 2 Not so ; we had saved more than ever.
Then what was the nature of the ‘‘ depression " ? Tiet me tell
you in the words of the Commissioners (xv.)—“There can be no
doubt that, of the wealth annually created in the country, a
smaller proportion falls to the share of the employers of labour
than formerly. The view, therefore, which we are disposed
to adopt is that the aggregate wealth of the country is being dis-
tributed differently, and that a large part of the prevailing
complaints and the general sense of depression may be accounted
for by the changes which have taken place in recent years in the
apportionment and distribution of profits.”
And this, forsooth, is called a “Depression of Trade and
Industry " . So impressed are the Commissioners with the
melancholy nature of the situation, that they warn the Wage-
earners “that while wages have risen, profits have fallen : " that
“ this is obviously a process which cannot be continued beyond a
certain point; ” that “this point has, we think, been very nearly,
if not quite, attained already : " and that “a time may . . . . . . .
come when capital will lose all inducement to lend itself to the
work of production, and if the employer is driven out of the field,
the labourer will necessarily suffer with him " (p. 21). .
40
Now look into this Report itself. You there find that the chief
mode in which the distribution turned in favour of the labourer
was not by a rise of money wages, but by a fall in the prices of
commodities, resulting from the competition of the capitalists
among themselves. The rapid accumulation of capital had caused
the struggle for a place in the field of investment to be very
intense ; and real wages rose, not by a rise in the price of labour,
but by a fall in the price of produce. -
And here let me point out that, just as this good fortune came
to them by the operation of prices, when the economic circum-
stances were favourable, with little, if any, intervention on their
part, and certainly no resort to violent means; so they may find a
rise in money wages, obtained by the method of force, avail them
little, or nothing at all, owing to the working of the same mechanism
of prices.
XI.-RENT.
I have thus dealt with wages and interest under Individualism.
What about rent 2
What is rent 2 Let me quote some of the economists. “Rent,”
says Adam Smith, “may be considered as the produce of those
powers of nature, the use of which the landlord lends to the
farmer.’” º
“Rent,” says Ricardo, “is that portion of the produce of the
earth, which is paid to the landlord for the use of the original
. . . . powers of the soil.”f ---
“Wages and profits,” says Senior, “are the creation of
man. They are the recompense for the sacrifice made, in the
one case of ease ; in the other of immediate enjoyment. But
a considerable part of the produce of every country is the
recompense of no sacrifice ; is received by those who neither
labour nor put by, but merely hold out their hands to accept the
offerings of the rest of the community.”;
Now, to go no further than these quotations, it is evident that
rent, properly so called, stands upon an altogether different footing
from interest and wages. As an item of private incomes, it rests
on private property in land. But this, I contend, is an unjustifiable
institution. Land in the economic sense—that is, the raw material
of the globe—no man made or can make. He can make improve-
ments in it, and this is all he can do. Those improvements are
his by right of his labour embodied in them. He must, therefore,
be allowed possession of that land or material sufficiently long to
enable him to get his crop off of it—using the term “crop '' in the
* “Wealth of Nations" (McCulloch's ed.), p. 161.
+ “Ricardo's Works " (McCulloch’s ed.), p. 34.
; “Political Economy'' (Sixth Edition), p. 87.




41
Widest sense. Farther than this, however, he has no moral claim
to it. It is no outcome of his energies. It is the gift of Nature,
not to him alone, nor even to his generation. It is the inheritance
of the human race, and all he is entitled to is an equal right to use
it with others. If more than this be conceded to him, it can only
be at the expense of injustice to his fellows. This injustice reaches
its climax when persons are allowed to possess far more than their
fair share of the land, as previously defined, not for the purpose of
using it productively, but to be periodically bought off by their
less favoured fellow-citizens. Mr. Auberon Herbert justifies this
by reference to “the open market.” But this is an evasion. The
question is not whether we should be able to sell or acquire in
“the open market ’’ anything which we rightfully possess, but how
we come into rightful possession. «»
Private property in land—apart from improvements—is essen-
tially inconsistent with Individualism. To be free, we require, not
only the use of our faculties, but something on which to use them :
and they are mocked, whether they know it or not, who are told
they have freedom while all access to the raw material, without
which they can produce nothing, is barred to them by a privileged
few. Their liberty, under such circumstances, is that of a bird to
fly in a vacuum.
Blackstone says: “There is nothing which so generally strikes
the imagination, and engages the affections of mankind, as the
right of property ; or that sole and despotic dominion which one
man claims and exercises over the external things of the world in
total exclusion of the right of any other individual in the universe.
And yet there are very few that will give themselves the trouble to
consider the original and foundation of this right. Pleased as we
are with the possession, we seem afraid to look back to the means
by which it was acquired, as if fearful of some defect in our title ;
or at best we rest satisfied with the decision of the laws in our
favour, without examining the reason or authority upon which
those laws have been built. We think it enough that our title is
derived by the grant of the former proprietor, by descent from
our ancestors, or by the last will and testament of the dying
owner; not caring to reflect that (accurately and strictly speaking)
there is no foundation in nature or in natural law why a set of
words upon parchment should convey the dominion of land.
. . . . These inquiries, it must be owned, would be useless
and even troublesome in common life. It is well if the mass of
mankind will obey the laws when made, without scrutinizing too
nicely into the reasons for making them.” ”
This is evidently an esoteric appeal to the “haves' not to talk
too loud. The doctrine which Blackstone teaches Sotto voce is that
real property was “originally acquired by the first taker.” In the
* Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book II., Chap. I.
º 3. 42
statement of this doctrine, it is always difficult to make out
whether its defenders intend to state an historical or a moral truth
—whether they wish to say what is or has been, or to lay down
what ought to be. Some of them can scarcely be said to ring the
changes on these two assertions, for they regard them as one.
For instance, Mr. Wordsworth Donisthorpe writes:—“If Majority
means those persons who wield the force majeure, then I admit at
Once that the Majority has a right to take over the land with or
without compensation, and to melt down the landowners into
oleomargarine. The Majority, like everybody else, has a right to
do whatever it likes, subject to the will of a stronger power—call
it the Law, or the State, or the Sovereign Power, or the Bigger
Crowd.” This makes might identical with right. It is, of course,
true that those who wield the force majeure can make what laws
they like, and can thus confer on themselves any legal rights they
choose ; but when we are judging law—when we are seeking the
ethical basis of law, it is useless to refer us to law itself. The
question at issue is a moral, not a legal one. The great weakness
—and it is a fatal one—of Mr. Donisthorpe's very able presenti-
ment of his own view of Individualism is that he persistently looks
at moral questions from the point of view of positive law. If he
strays upon quasi-ethical ground, he takes up the position of
Egoistic Hedonism, from which it is eminently necessary to
dissociate Individualism. This persistent legal set of Mr.
Donisthorpe's mind results in natural rights being, as he says,
“utterly unintelligible '' to him. He can, according to his own
account, see no rights anterior to law. But law, in so far as it
is not a mode of warfare, is an endeavour to give natural or moral
rights a political sanction. To deny that any rights exist save
those sanctioned by law—when it is anything more than a mere
logomachy—is to deny all force to moral considerations and to
treat every social question as one of the force majeure.
The right of occupancy—the right of “the first taker’’ is the
ethic of scramble, and is undeserving of the slightest respect. In
a world where all are necessarily dependent on the use of natural
agents, the notion that those who are first able to appropriate them
are justified in doing so, to the exclusion and enslavement of, it
may be, the majority of mankind, is preposterous. “No man
made the land,” says John Stuart Mill. “It is the original
inheritance of the whole species. . . . . It is no hardship
to any one to be excluded from what others have produced ; they
were not bound to produce it for his use, and he loses nothing by
not sharing in what otherwise would not have existed at all.
But it is some hardship to be born into the world and to find
all Nature's gifts previously engrossed, and no place left for the
new-comer. To reconcile people to this, after they have once
admitted into their minds the idea that any moral rights belong
to them as human beings, it will always be necessary to convince
3.



43
them that the exclusive appropriation is good for mankind on the
whole, themselves included.” “ Mill's general contention appears
to me unanswerable ; but I cannot admit that the Legislature
would be justified in depriving any man of that to which he is
morally entitled, on the ground of a judgment of the effective
majority that this would be good for him and for the community.
The good of the community is best attained by absolute respect
for moral rights. If the majority think that a man would do
well to surrender a portion of his rights, they ought to endeavour
to convince him of this, but not to coerce him. In the domain of
his rights the individual is sovereign.
The right of occupancy cannot be ethically sustained. Res
mullius occupanti concediturf might do very well for the old world.
It breathes the spirit of militarism. The spirit of Individualism is
more consonant with the words of the French code: “Les biens
qui m'ont pas de maître appartiemment a l’Etat.” That which no-
body made, and which therefore belongs to nobody by right of
production, belongs equally to everybody. Especially must this be
so with that which everybody needs, and without which the con-
cession of the right to the use of our faculties is as much a mockery
as was the concession to Shylock of his right to a pound of flesh
without a drop of blood. Y.
Here, however, it is needful to clear away a misconception on
which Mr. Auberon Herbert builds a large part of his argumenta-
tive edifice. Ilocke says: “The labour of a man's body and the
work of his hands we may say are properly his. Whatsoever then
he removes out of the state that nature hath provided and left it in,
he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something of his
own, and thereby makes it his property,’’. To this argument it
has rightly been objected that if that on which a man works is not
his originally, it is not made so by his work, though he is equit-
ably entitled to the value of his improvements. Mr. Auberon
Herbert wants to know, if a field is not private property, how the
crops which absorbed part of the material of that field can be so.
This contention involves a misunderstanding of the doctrine against
which it is urged. That doctrine is that, as a matter of natural
right, all persons are equally entitled to the use of land, and,
therefore, no person should be conceded any proprietary rights in
the soil which are inconsistent with the exercise of equal rights by
his fellows. The raising and private use of a crop are not neces-
sarily inconsistent with the maintenance of such rights. Provided
the grower has not more than his fair share in the use of the land,
or has compensated the community—using this term in its widest

* Principles of Political Economy,” Book II., Chap. II., § 6.
+ See Maine's Ancient Law, Chap. VIII.
On Government, Chap. V

44
Sense so as to include posterity—for what he has been allowed to
use in excess of this, the conditions of equity are satisfied. All
persons do not want direct access to the land for the purposes of
production ; but those who have not this access should be at liberty
to recoup themselves by the exchange of this right for a portion of
capital, or in any other way not subversive of the rights of others.
They should not be left merely with the use of their bodily facul-
ties without anything on which to use them. The defence
of Individualism plus private property in land seems to me impos-
sible. The practical alternatives are Collectivism and a complete
and consistent Individualism—that is, a full recognition of personal
rights and equal rights in the gifts of Nature.
The main reason why this truth has made so little headway of
late, is that it has been associated, by Mr. Henry George and
others, with proposals which cannot be sustained from the point of
view of justice. Mr. George is not a Socialist, To give him his
proper name, he is a Repudiationist. He would wipe out the
National Debt by means of a sponge, and would “nationalize "
land by seizing—by taxation or otherwise—the whole of the rental
of the country. To this I could not for a moment agree. However
lacking in moral justification private property in land may have been
originally, it has been recognized by the State ; innocent persons
have been induced to make investments in it; the transfers have
been made according to forms prescribed by the State, which has
also received a commission on each such transaction in the shape of
a stamp duty. Under such circumstances, if we resolve—as I
hope and believe we will—that private property in land shall cease
to be, the cost of the change—so far as there is any—must be borne
by the whole nation, as in the case of slave emancipation, and not
by those only who happen to be in the possession of land when it
it is determined that this change must be made. I hold it to be a
maxim of universal application that no change in the laws of
property should be retrospective in its application.
But, when the abolition of private property in land is spoken of,
and it is agreed that this cannot or ought not to be done by
expropriation, visions of a gigantic scheme of purchase at
Once present themselves to the public mind. I believe that
this is not at all necessary, nor even expedient. If once the right
principle were adopted by Parliament, it would soon fructify
and yield a bounteous harvest. When that principle became the
moral basis of a settled policy, public lands would not be allowed
to slip from public hands; the permanent fiscal burthens on
land — which are really a reserved rental belonging to the
State” – would be jealously maintained ; lands held in trust
* In order that I may not be misunderstood, I wish to say most
explicitly that what I am arguing for is, not State ownership, but State
trusteeship, of land. If the State were the owner of land, it might sell it.
This it should never be allowed to do.


45
by corporations might be transferred to the State on equitable
terms; the pruning away of some of the absurdities of the
law of inheritance would result in many rich windfalls to
the State ; reversions, whose market value is little, might
advantageously be acquired ; and, last but not least, I think we
might reasonably look forward to bequests and gifts of land and
other property to the State becoming much more frequent.
Especially should I hope that many of the large landholders would
voluntarily turn their permanent ownership into a terminable one ;
for they would gain far more in the love and esteem of their fellow-
citizens than they would lose in point of wealth. In other words,
the system I would adopt would be that of patience, forbearance,
and faith in the vivifying effect of a great moral principle. And
here let me say that we would be rewarded for our moderation in
another way. I verily believe that, if land could be made national
property to-morrow, we would take out our access of fortune in a
large increase of population. It would not be an unmixed evil if
we were to take half a century in extinguishing private ownership
of the soil. If you trace the growth of parental prudence, you will
find that it is everywhere a result of Individualism. I am aware
that some Socialists have proposed to attain the same object by
direct State action, but this is a part of a system of State parentage
which would be productive of vast evils of another kind.
XII.-EconoMICS AND ETHICs of INDIVIDUALISM.
Individualism would mean then a great extension of parental
prudence, with a consequent increase of the average produce per
head. It would mean greater energy. Rent would become a
public fund, and taxation would be very light. Loan interest
would vanish, the national debt would cease to be a burthen, and
wages would be increased by a large part of business profits.
The great inequalities in wages would also tend to become less, as
interest on the capital invested in technical education would
disappear, and the increase of the higher abilities consequent on
free competition would lessen the “rent of ability,” while the
tendency to production on a large scale would lessen the demand
for that ability. I do not say that inequalities would altogether
become things of the past, but they would be much less in degree,
they would correspond to degrees of worth, and, by enabling the
ablest to support a more numerous offspring, would improve the
race. Poverty would be a matter for the historian to deal with.
This would not console some sections, at least, of the Socialists.
It is riches, not poverty, which offends them. “Think not that
poverty is the great eyesore of our city,” said Father Benson, the
Christian Socialist ; “if we were all poor together we might have
God’s blessing on our penury : the great eyesore of London is your

46
accumulated wealth. If a man can have no crime imputed to him
Save this—that he has accumulated riches in the bank : that alone
is sin enough to send him to hell.”
It may be urged that the economic “Outcome of Individualism,”
which I have endeavoured to pourtray, is not very different from
the economic outcome of Socialism. It is not very different from
that which Socialists essay to bring about. The difference lies not
so much in the end desired as in the justifiability and efficiency of
the means. “True Socialism,” says Mr. Belfort Bax, “recognizes
that force is the midwife of progress.” Exactly. That which the
Individualist would attain as the outcome of a maximum of freedom,
the Socialist, like a bad accoucheur, endeavours to snatch
incontinently from the womb of time, and kills or maims in the
snatching.
Individualism, let me remind you, means neither egotism nor
isolation. It means voluntary beneficence and public spirit, as
against all attempts to enforce these by penal laws. It means
voluntary cooperation as contrasted with the forced cooperation
of the State. Under Individualism, Industrial cooperation would
assume both wider dimensions and a great variety of shapes, and
the differentiation of labour would pass far beyond its present
limits.
In their extra-economic developments, Socialism and individual-
ism are also contrasted. Individualism would purify marriage by
ridding it of the bane of coercion and masculine dominion. It
would utterly abolish all disabilities of sex. It would bring their
duties home to parents, and hold them responsible for their
fulfilment. Socialism is essentially inimical to family life, which
it regards as a bourgeois institution—to use its own favourite
anathema. Socialism would make motherhood a State business or
profession, would pay women for this sexual function, and deprive
fathers of all status or recognition. It would no longer be
necessary for a woman to know who was the father of her child.
Her children—up to a certain number—would be supported by the
State, which would be supreme over their education. † Mrs.
Besant says that education is too important a matter to be left in
the hands of parents, and Mr. Belfort Bax, one of the most
consistent and courageous of Socialists, would practically apply
this by taking the religious teaching of children out of the hands
of their parents. He would not “permit by religious practices the
cerebral deformation of children.” What this means is that, if in
the Socialist caucus Freethinkers were in the majority, they would
proscribe all theological teaching of the young.
* Church Reformer, 15th April, 1884.
f See the last essay—on Socialism and Sex—in Professor Karl Pearson’s
Ethic of Freethought, and a pamphlet on The State Endowment of Mothers,
by Mr. G. A. Gaskell, of the Fabian Society. .”




47
See how far we have gone already in State parentage. Look at
the growing demand, not that children should be fed—that is
perfectly right—but that they should be fed at the expense of
those who did not incur the responsibility of bringing them into
existence. Take note of the growth of police power and trial by
officials, the decay of trial by jury, the shoals of statutes interfering
with personal freedom turned out every session by Parliament.
Then see the impossibility of the public obtaining any practical
insight into the provisions of these measures, and the fact that even
Members of Parliament find the burthen of reading through
the multitudinous and mazy provisions of the Bills issued day by
day, during the Session of Parliament, by the Queen's printers—
without mentioning the libraries of evidence in Blue Books on
which these measures, or some of them, are supposed to be based
—too heavy to be borne by mortal man. Open your eyes to these
things, and you will see how impossible is democracy save when
the sphere of government is very limited. Cowper's Mahometans
ate up the hog while denouncing it as an unclean thing, by
judging each piece—as the phrase of the empirical Socialist goes—
“on its merits.” So you are being made to swallow Socialism bit
by bit.
XIII.-CoNCLUSION.
I have no wish to disguise the seriousness of the situation.
The flowing tide is with Socialism. But tides ebb as well as
flow ; and I hope to see the ebbing of that tide. Our lives
are getting to be more and more regulated from without, with
the effect that we are becoming drained of our individuality and
drilled into mere machines. The passive attitude of mind induced
by this régime will, if that régime grow in intensity, be fatal to
all manliness of thought and manliness of conduct. Discrimination,
as any competent psychologist will tell you, is the most fundamental
of our mental faculties. Our intellectual and moral natures come
into play only when we discriminate and decide for ourselves.
Just so far as this discrimination and decision are taken away
from us, we are deprived of the most essential element of our
manhood and womanhood, and are turned into mere tools propelled
from without. That any community can, in the long run, gain by
thus dwarfing and paralyzing the humanity of its members—that
we could long succeed, even for administrative purposes, under
such a system, is the notion of a moral spendthrift. A few
Government departments may be carried on with tolerable success
with human material drawn from outside ; but to argue from
this that we could successfully turn the whole, or even a large
part, of our industrial system into one huge Governmental machine
is as absurd as its embodiment would be fatal. Inefficiency would


48
grow as the Individualistic recruiting ground became narrower. A
brief and brilliant span of existence may be attained by a Socialistic
State by living on the moral and intellectual capital of its pre-
decessors; but it soon runs through this capital, and goes out like
a spent Squib, and makes a nasty smell. Any good that is worth
having cannot be thus superimposed on us. Even to rulers the system
is disastrous. It may start with very able and worthy men ; but how
is this crop to be renewed 2 Such men may found hierarchical or
despotic systems, but they are themselves the products of free
communities, as the energy and public spirit of our Socialist
leaders are products of those elements of our present condition
which they would eliminate. Caesar was not born of Caesarism ;
and more genuine saviours of society have arisen in the same way.
When repressive laws had done their work, and Europe rotted
under the influence of the Pax Romana, her resurrection came
from those rude and rough nations of the north who prized
freedom and—most fortunately for mankind—had never passed
under the heel of the Roman. But if repression does its work
Once more—if, false to our history and our heritage, we surrender
one after another of our liberties out of coward fear of poverty,
disease, drunkenness, competition of foreigners, or aught else—if
we, having influence with our neighbours, lead them once more on
this fatal path, I see no manly barbarians in the north to save us.
I see but a silent expanse of eternal ice—the fitting symbol of that
stagnation and death to which we shall have gone, because we had
not the courage and the intelligence to persevere on the road of
freedom.
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