THE LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY THE LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY BY W. H. MALLOCK AUTHOR OF RELIGION AS A CREDIBLE DOCTRINE, "THE RECONSTRUCTION OF \ HUMAN ETC., ETC. BELIEF," "A HUMAN DOCUMENT," SECOND EDITION LONDON CHAPMAN AND HALL, LTD. 1918 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED, BRUNSWICK ST., STAMFORD ST., 8.E. 1, AND BUNOAY. SUFFOLK PREFACE THIS work was planned, and the opening chapters were written, in the earlier months of the year 1914, when the outbreak of a great war was only a remote contingency. Since then, and more especially during the last twelve months, the subject here discussed namely, the nature and the limits of the power of pure democracy has acquired day by day a more immediate importance. Indeed, all practical controversies may be said now to turn on it. It thus has happened that the principles here laid down in general terms have, whilst the work was in progress, been illustrated by a series of extraordinarily apt examples. References to many of these have been added in brief footnotes. Four-fifths of the work were, however, substantially complete before the world was astonished by the revolution in Russia; and, though it has been possible to add a few footnotes relating to that movement, such notes are necessarily inadequate to the magnitude and significance of the occasion. The author has therefore thought it desirable to rewrite the concluding pages, and substitute a more detailed mention of recent events in Russia and other countries also, for a final discussion of various general facts and problems, such as the genesis and functions of a leisured class, the possible equalising of certain industrial faculties by education on the one hand, and the probably increasing difference between the highest and the lowest on the other, the increasing pressure of 3807.10 vi PREFACE the world-population against the means of subsistence, and the increasing importance of mere mental efficiencies in combating this pressure, etc. The publication of these discussions (growing as they do out of the questions here dealt with) is deferred. The author desires to record his obligations to the singularly interesting work on oligarchy in revolutionary parties, by Professor Michels of Basle, which was pub- lished in England in the year 1915 (see Book I, Chap. I); to Mr. Stewart Graham's account, published some years ago by Mr. Murray, of the socialist experiment in Paraguay known as New Australia (see Book IV, Chap. Ill); and also to The Daily Mail, for the letters pub- lished by it from a socialist correspondent in Russia. Further, the author regrets that it has been impossible to include any reference to certain articles on " Indus- trial Revolution or Ferment," which were published in The Times in October, 1917, and attracted wide atten- tion. The whole of the present work was by that time in the printer's hands. November, 1917. CONTENTS BOOK I POLITICAL DEMOCRACY CHAPTEE I PAQH THE CONCEPTION OF A GENERAL WILL IN POLITICS . 1 The violation of thought by the use of inaccurate language, as exemplified by Rousseau's fantastic concep- tion of freedom (1-4). Its analogue in current conceptions of democracy (4). Modern definitions of political de- mocracy analysed (4-6). Pure democracy as government by the spontaneous and identical wills of the units of the average mass (6-10). Except, as to certain questions, no spontaneous identity of average wills exists. Classifica- tion of political questions with regard to which a pure democratic will is possible and impossible (10-19). CHAPTER II OLIGARCHY AND WILL-FORMATION 20 A pure democratic will possible as to very simple ques- . tions, but as to those only (20-21). As to the composite or __ - complex questions which arise in great and complex states, a general will requires the formative influence of the few (21-22). Examples from English history, Electoral re- form, Free Trade, the Right to Work, Scientific imple- ments of war (22-25). The part played by oligarchy in the formation of general wills as to such questions (25-29). CHAPTER III THE ARTS OF OLIGARCHY 30 The devising of definite measures by the few, which the many are induced to ratify (30-31) . The methods by which, in the absence of bribery, the necessary ratification is obtainable (31-32). Concerted agitation, advertisement and concerted exposition. The object of these and the object of bribery the same (33-35). The Referendum as an imple- ment of oligarchy (35-37). viii CONTENTS PAOB CHAPTEE IV INEXPUGNABLE OLIGARCHY 38 Everyman an oligarch, whatever his rank, who intention- ally influences the vote of any other man. Oligarchs of the tap-room (39-40). Conversation as an implement of oli- garchy (39-41). Pure democracy would suppress the public meeting and all oratory (42). With regard to simple and fundamental questions, such methods, as a fact, are not re- sorted to (42-43). The fact that they are resorted to, with regard to complex questions, shows that oligarchic methods are necessary (43-45) CHAPTEE V REVOLUTIONARY OLIGARCHIES 46 Oligarchy in Trade Union and Labour Parties (46-47). These parties at first purely democratic, but oligarchy has inevitably developed in them (46-48). Socialist and Trade Union leaders inevitably become oligarchs that is to say, more than mere employees (48-49). Experience has shown certain special gifts to be necessary in these leaders. When once in power, it is difficult to dismiss them (48-49). A " gregarious inertia " characteristic of the majority in all revolutionary parties, the energy necessary for leadership being found in small minorities only (50). The ambitions of rival oligarchs (51). Causes which solidify the position of leaders actually in office : examples from Germany and Italy (51-52). The oligarchs of "The International," Marx and Engels (53). Lassalle and Proudhon admit that purely democratic wills must be merged in those of the leaders (55-56). Recent admission by socialists to the same effect (57). Syndicalist oligarchs, such as Labriola (58-59). Open repudiation of pure democracy by modern revolution- aries (59-61). CHAPTEE VI DISAPPEARING ILLUSIONS 62 Means and a general objective. Impotence of any purely democratic will to prescribe complex means (62-64). The conception of a will which is purely democratic as to objec- tives, though not as to means (64-65). Confusion in this conception between will and wish (66). A general wish for welfare through governmental action (66-67) . This is totally different from a will as to complex means (68). Welfare, us subserved by government, is a plexus of definite means to a generally wished-for end (69). The average man wholly incompetent to define this plexus of means for himself, or I CONTENTS ix to specify it in a definite way to others (70). A will which does not specify definite means is not a political will at all (71). Popular awakening from the dream of pure demo- cracy in politics (72-74). Transference of popular hopes from political democracy to democracy in the spheres of industrial or social life (75-77). BOOK II DEMOCRACY AND TECHNICAL PRODUCTION CHAPTER I THE DEFINITION OF INDUSTRY 78 The conception of Industrial Democracy as a means by which the masses will appropriate all incomes now derived from mere " possession " (78-79). This conception based on a loose idea of what industry is (79). Industry is a technical process affecting material substances (80). Trade Unions and Labour Parties, as such, have nothing to do with the details of this process (81). Industry is simply the application of hand-work, knowledge, and other mental forces to the fashioning and movement of material sub- stances which are given to man by Nature (81-82) . CHAPTER II PURE DEMOCRATIC INDUSTRY ...... 83 Pure democracy in industry means hand-work directed solely by the knowledge and mental powers common to all average men, and excludes all authority or guidance exer- cised by the exceptional few (83). This doctrine reduced to a quasi-scientific form by Marx (84-85). Summary of the Marxian doctrine that manual labourers are the sole and equal producers of all wealth (85-87). This doctrine true of production in its earlier stages (75-88). But if this be the whole truth, how has production ever increased in efficiency ? (88-89). Attempts made by Marx to answer this question (89-91). Actual, but limited progress of purely democratic hand-work (91). The four causes to which this limited progress has been due (92-96). From the decline of Roman slavery to the end of the eighteenth century, the productivity per head of industrial workers stationary (97). Extraordinary progress since that time. To what has this progress been due ? (97-98). x CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER III THE SECRET OF MODERN PROGRESS 99 Inability of the Marxian doctrine of labour as the sole producer to explain modern industrial progress. Analysis of the gaps and errors of the Marxian argument (99105). Marx ascribes progress largely to new subdivisions of manual labour (105-106). The main cause (which Marx entirely misses) is the subdivision of productive effort into manual and purely mental, so that the two are performed by different classes (107-108). This differentiation of the mental workers from the manual is essentially a develop- ment of oligarchy (108-109). CHAPTER IV PRODUCTIVITY OP THE FEW . . . . .110 Definite admissions by modern socialists on the special functions and productivity of the industrial oligarchy (109-111). Attempts made by socialists to reconcile an oligarchic with a purely democratic formula. Five types of argument (111). Three of these entirely futile (111-114). Two deserve consideration. The evolutionary or monistic argument which denies the reality of the individual. This has no relation to practical life (115-116). The argument borrowed from Mill, which represents all productive efforts as equal if they are " equally necessary " (117). Radical error of this argument (118). The true basis of all practical reasoning which relates to production, and indeed to all human causation (119-120). The exceptional productivity of the few. How all men in practice really calculate this (121-124). Practical concession by thinkers of all schools (socialists included) that, relatively to their number, the exceptional few produce incomparably more than the many (124^127). Why, then, having admitted this fact, should socialists endeavour to obscure it by idle argumentative devices ? (127). BOOK III DEMOCRATIC DISTRIBUTION AS RELATED TO THE FACTS OF PRODUCTION CHAPTER I DISTRIBUTION IN ENGLAND The practical reason why socialists seek to obscure the exceptional productivity of the few, even whilst formally CONTENTS xi admitting it (128). The "enormous" unearned income alleged to be stolen by the few from the actual products of the many (129-130). Is the unearned income really an " enormous share " of the total income of a typical modern country ? This question can be answered only by reference to typical facts (131). Analysis of the earned and unearned income of England or the United Kingdom about the year 1907 : six classes of income Wages, Salaries, Professional earnings, Earnings of small businesses, Earned portion of the profits of the greater businesses (mostly companies), Unearned profits of companies, together with rent of lands and buildings, etc. (131-137). All income is earned except income derived from inherited property (138-139). Total income of the United Kingdom in 1907 compared to the earned and unearned income of a professional man. Small relative amount in a country like England of the actually unearned portion (139-140). Aggregate of incomes above 5000 and 3000 (141). Fantastic exaggerations by socialists (which they have now reduced) of the amount of the unearned income of a typical modern country (141-142). CHAPTER II COMPAKATIVE DISTBIBUTION 143 Close similarities of distribution in all the great modern countries (143-144). Detailed similarities of distribution in the United Kingdom and the United States (144-146). Incomes exceeding 3000 and 5000 in the two countries (145-146). Similar graduation of wages in both countries (146-149). These graduations totally incompatible with the Socialist theory of wages (149-151). International evidence as to the minute adjustment of wages to the graduated efficiencies of the wage-earners (151-152). Narrow limits of possible underpayment (151-152). Socialist myths as to the millionaires and the lesser " rich " of modern countries such as the United Kingdom and America (153-155). Approximate, though not perfect, adjustment of income in modern countries to the actual efficiency of individuals (155-156). Why does modern distribution con- form everywhere to the same precise scheme, and to no other? An answer to this question is to be found in history (156-157). CHAPTEE III A CENTURY OF CHANGING DISTRIBUTION .... 158 The income of England in the years 1801 and 1907. The increment per head of the population between these two dates (158-159). Directive Mind as the primary producer xii CONTENTS PAGE of the increment (159). Number of large and small busi- nesses in England at the beginning of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries (159-160). In- creased number of employees subject to single units of direction, or the increasing radius of the influence exercised by each of the more powerful minds ; increased output per worker thus resulting (161). Of this increment, attribu- table primarily to Mind, the employers (as representing Mind) get no more than a fifth. What becomes of the remainder ? A large part goes to a novel class of sub- ordinate mental workers (161-167). The larger part of the increment goes to the manual labourers (168). Why should this be, if labour itself is non-progressive ? (169). The reason is, that industry, as intellectualised by a scientific oligarchy, requires, and provides opportunities for novel grades of labour which, except the lowest, command com- petitive prices, which in varying degrees exceed the minimum (170-172). The three productive classes (173). CHAPTER IV DISTRIBUTION AS IT IS 174 Summary of preceding chapter. The obvious question is, if the Mind of the employers in any sense produces the whole increment, why do the employers not appropriate the whole ? (174-175). It does produce the whole in one sense, but in another sense it does not, as shown by the case of the Jesuits in Paraguay (175-177). If the oligarchy is taken as a going concern, it practically produces part of the increment only. If its existence is in danger, there is practical truth in saying that it produces the whole (177-178). Distribution as it is coincides with the three forces Supreme mind, Subordinate mind and Labour on condition that oligarchic industry is taken as a going concern (178-179). Even socialists are beginning to admit that distribution as it is conforms substantially to the broad facts of distribution (179-181). Even socialists are beginning to admit that if accord between production and distribution were complete, distribution would not in any vital way differ from what it is (181-184). Socialist theory as revised in the light of this admission (183-184). The new theory is that distribution must be determined by moral sentiment, not by the facts of production. Incisive exposition of this doctrine by an American socialist (184-187). CONTENTS xiii BOOK IV DISTRIBUTION BY DEMOCRATIC SENTIMENT CHAPTEE I PAOH THE SENTIMENTAL PROGRAMME 188 An interesting and typical exposition of the reasoned content of socialism has been given by Mr. Bernard Shaw (188-189). Analysis of Mr. Shaw's Exposition. Industrial collectivism (which is merely the American Trust-system nationalised) is demanded by, but is not in itself, socialism (189-190). Collectivism (as the Trust-system shows) in- volves inequality of effort, but socialism differs from the Trust-system in demanding equality of payment, this demand being based on an imperious moral sentiment (190-191). If all are to be paid alike irrespective of what they produce, how will work be secured from the idle? Mr. Shaw answers : By quasi-military discipline (191). But most men, according to him, will naturally work their hardest for the sake of "being precious to humanity" (191-192). All the highest work, he says, is done without thought of " payment," and thus in ;a socialist polity, though the idle would be whipped like slaves, the mass of the citizens would perform industrial work with volun- tary fervour, and would not require whipping (192-194). Extraordinary confusions of thought involved in this conten- tion shown : firstly, as to the nature of " work " (194-195) ; secondly, as to the nature of " income " (195-197). Other absurdities involved in Mr. Shaw's typical programme (197-200). CHAPTEE II SOCIALIST EXPERIMENTS 201 Reluctance of socialists to test their industrial programme by experiment (201-202). A large number of experiments have nevertheless been made (202). Seven typical examples here reviewed Religious experiments Their complete but limited success (202-203). Five of the secularist experi- ments which lasted for more than five years (203-204). Socialism by solidarity of average sentiment (204-205). Failure of such sentiment apart from eclectic religion (205-207). Owen's experiment, and its final collapse (207-210). Brook Farm (210-211). The Wisconsin and Phalanx (211-213). The North American Phalanx (213- 216). Lane's experiment, "New Australia" (217-225) Its collapse, Lane's second experiment, and his utter dis- appointment (225-226). His emphatic recognition that the requisite sentiment was wanting in even his most devoted followers (227). xiv CONTENTS PAOB CHAPTEE III THE DETAILED LESSONS OF EXPERIMENT . . . 228 The motives to industry and obedience paralysed by all schemes of arbitrarily equalised reward. "Undivided interests " lead to individual impotence (229). Insistence on this fact by contemporary critics of the various socialist ventures (229-231). A socialist sentiment does develop itself in times of extreme danger, but passes away with the crisis (231-232). Want of socialist sympathy on the part of American and Australian labourers with the Japanese (232-233). Actual limits of altruism in ordinary life (234- 235). Yet, within certain limits, socialism inseparable from all societies (235-236). The vital task is to discover the extent to which, and the limits within which alone the principles and projects of socialism are applicable to practical affairs (237). BOOK V THE PHILOSOPHY OF SANE REFORM CHAPTEE I THE IDEAL MINIMUM WAGE 238 Distribution presents no problems so long as societies are simple and individual workers or families visibly get what they produce, the amounts of their several products being not notably different (238-239). Distribution pre- sents a problem only when work becomes complex and co-operative, and some units produce notably more than others (239). Unless production is notably unequal, no sentiment is needed to secure equal distribution (239). In this case equalitarian sentiment must be of a double kind, inciting the great producers to surrender, and the ordinary producers to seize (239-240). Thus socialist sentiment is a demand that the many shall live mainly on the products of the few. Some element of truth even in this seeming absurdity (240). All parties agree that the wage- earner must not get less in wages than the value of what he could produce as an independent worker (241). How is the per- sonal product of any co-operative worker (whether wage- earner or employer) to be measured ? As shown in a former chapter, each man or class produces so much as would not be produced were he or it inoperative (241-242) Socialist experiments embodied applications of this prin- ciple (241-242). The personal product of the wage-earners CONTENTS xv as distinct from that of the employers, is thus a measurable quantity (242-243). No wage can be just which is less than the value of the worker's personal product (242). Two supplements must be added to this, one being compen- sation for the wage-earner's lost independence, the other representing a balance of net advantage. We thus reach the wage of Industrial Stability (244-247). The ideal minimum must be compounded of these three elements, partly as a matter of moral justice, and partly as a matter of self-interest from the point of view of the employers (247-249). CHAPTEE II MORALS, WAGES AND SECURITY 250 The actual amount of the minimum will vary according to the wealth of different countries (250251). But it must bear relation to moral facts as well as economic (251-252). Papal encyclicals on a morally just minimum (252-253). Fantastic estimates of the requisite amount of the morally just minimum (253-254). Such exaggerations merely en- gender a mood which nothing can satisfy. The just amount must be limited by national powers of production (254-255), The largest minimum practically possible must be taken as representing the normal lot for the time being (255). Moral justice, as distinct from commercial self-interest, relates to the minimum only (255-256). But more is involved in the conception of a just minimum than a mere pecuniary quantity (256). Justice also demands for the wage-earner secure opportunities of work (257-258). Highly-paid wage- earners may be less secure than poor working owners (258- 259). All wealth, other than agricultural, is ultimately precarious. Approximate security as an object of practical endeavour (259-261). Two other conditions demanded by justice for the wage-earner moral respect, and the right to rise (261-263). CHAPTEE III THE RIGHT TO RESPECT 264 Just moral treatment demanded by wage-earners, as well as just and secure wages (264-265). " Overbearing " treat- ment of wage-earners by employers (265-266). Just moral treatment is a recognition of actual moral equalities (266- 267). Unjust moral treatment on either side provokes ill- temper which is fatal to mutual understanding (267-268). Just moral treatment must take account of such inequali- ties, as well as of such inequalities as actually exist (268 271). Examples of overbearing treatment in pre-revolu- tionary France and elsewhere. Treatment of the labourer xvi CONTENTS as though he were merely so much " labour " (271-273). Just respect of wage-earners for employers (273). Exag- gerated attempts at conciliation which disregard hard facts (274-276). Men, if justly treated in respect of real equali- ties, do not naturally demand any absolute and fictitious equality (276-277). This is shown by actual popular de- mands in respect of the Right to Rise (278). CHAPTER IV THE RIGHT TO RISE 279 The Right to Rise, or Equality of Opportunity, one of the main demands of Revolutionary France (279-280). This was due to artificial restrictions of opportunity (280). Equal opportunity the Magna Charta of unequal achieve- ment (280-282). The wages of exceptional skill (282-283). " Democratic education " as a means of getting to " the top of the tree" (283-288). Demands for absolute equality mere protests against artificial inequality (288-289). The elements of truth and justice which have been here set forth as latent in the demands of socialism (289-290). BOOK VI THE DATA OF CONTENT CHAPTER I THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SANE REFORM 291 Three stages of socialist thought. Modern reversion to sentiment as the basis of a socialist policy, instead of the facts of production, which were the basis of the Marxian doctrine (291-293). This adoption of a psychological, in- stead of a purely industrial basis, involves an inverted psychology (293). It involves the assumption that interest in others stands first in the scale of motive, whereas it is really derived from an antecedent interest in self (294). No one desires equality, as a fact external to himself, for its own sake (295). When such equality is really desired, it is desired for the sake of certain accidental results, as happens at times in cases of extreme want or danger ; otherwise it appeals only to the idle and the jealous (295-297). Even so, it appeals only to individuals, as secretly dissociating themselves from the mass (297). Pure socialist sentiment is a mere psychological mare's nest (297-298). The minimum wage with its adjuncts (as de- scribed in the foregoing chapters) is rational, as contrasted CONTENTS xvii with socialist demands, because it is based primarily on the self-interest of all (298-301). Summary of conditions here described as the objects of sane reform (302-303). How nearly are these attainable ? Certain difficulties in the way of their complete attainment must be considered (303-304). CHAPTEE II OBJECTIVE DIFFICULTIES 306 The objective difficulties most apparent in relation to the minimum wage (305). The ideal minimum wage, as here described, is essentially contingent on work (306). Un- earned income possible for a few only. No conceivable polity could satisfy all the idle (306). Security of work completely attainable in some countries, but not in others (306-310). Causes which rendered unqualified security of occupation impossible in certain countries (310-311). But even in such countries a reasonable security may be approached (311-312). Yet apart from objective difficulties in the way of ideal conditions there are other difficulties which are subjective (312). CHAPTEE III SUBJECTIVE DIFFICULTIES 313 Popular discontent often due to ideas as distinct from experienced facts (313). A just minimum must not only be just ; the recipients must know it to be so (314). Further, even should the recipients know that a certain minimum is the amplest possible, the imagination of each might present it to him as insufficient for himself (314-316). The indis- criminate encouragement of personal ambition as a stimulus to discontent with even the best conditions possible for any large number of men (316). Two kinds of education necessary to correct discontent which is due to mere ideas (316-317). One is a dissemination of knowledge as to broad statistical facts, the other is a training of the imagi- nation (316-317). Statistical education, its scope (317-318). Immense effect of false statistics, e.g. those of Marx and Henry George. What false statistics can do, substantially correct statistics will tend to undo (318-323). The imagina- tion as a disturbing and protesting influence (323-324). If not artificially inflamed, the imagination tends to accommodate itself to possibilities (324). The inflammatory effect of a falsification of general standards of living : examples (325-326). Striking example of agitators revert- ing to a natural standard in the case of the Highland peasantry (326-327). A training of the imagination with regard to life taken as a whole (328-329). xviii CONTENTS BOOK VII DEMOCRACY AND THE FINAL LIFE-PROCESS CHAPTER I PAGE THE MATERIAL DATA OF CONTENT . ... 330 Government, war and industry alike subserve the drama of individual life, or social intercourse (330-331). In all highly civilised states these three subservient activities are oligarchic ; but the final end, namely social intercourse, is democratic (332). Social intercourse for the individual is not a national process, but a group-process, each group being numerically small (332-334). Within the limits of each group social intercourse is democratic (334-335). The inner democratic lives of these social groups are a democracy imposing orders on the oligarchies of subservient effort, and notably on the industrial oligarchy (334-335). The influence of the social democracies on architecture (335-336). The influence of social democracies on the production of all superfluous goods, or " riches " (336). The real substance of income not money but goods, which are bought mainly at shops (337). Difference between Needs and Tastes (337-338). Riches as distinct from bare sufficiencies are goods that minister to Tastes, Tastes indefinitely various (338-339). Democracy in shopping analysed (339-340). Demand in shopping imposes purely democratic orders on the oligarchy of production (340-341). Such democracy much more complete than any democracy possible in complex politics (341). Each customer determines the substance of his real income (342). Examples of how the same wage-income is converted into different real incomes, of which some mean affluence, others poverty (342-344). The real income is the man, so far as material things are concerned (345). CHAPTEE II THE MENTAL DATA OP CULTURE 346 Just as politics and industry subserve real income, so does real income subserve mental and moral culture (346- 347). The Life of Knowledge, the Life of Art, the Life of Religion (346-347). These lives oligarchic in origin on one side, but essentially democratic on another (348-349). This is specially clear in the case of religion (349-350). Democracy in one sense the final process, but the higher forms of democratic life are only achieved through oli- garchy (351). Current ideas which militate against content under the best possible conditions re-examined (352). CONTENTS xix CHAPTER III THE MOOD OF VAGUE REBELLION . . 353 Any lot which man can reasonably covet must, by impli- cation, be for himself possible (353). The exceptional man may reasonably covet more than the man of ordinary capacity (353-354). If the average reward does not con- tent the ordinary man, his discontent must be due not to reason, but mere mood or temper (354-355). Striking ex- amples of mere Mood versus Reason (355-356). Methods by which socialist thinkers endeavour to insinuate moods which they cannot defend by direct reasoning (356-357). These methods evade the direct facts of economics. Two great examples. Practicability of exposing them. False conception of the State. False interpretation of history (357-358). Ludicrously false analogy between the State and an animal organism (358-361). Partial analogy be- tween the two, which is fatal to all socialist suggestion. The State has no common sensorium (362). The socialist mood as insinuated by an absurd misinterpretation of his- tory (362-363). Analysis of this misinterpretation which was formulated by Marx (362-365). The peculiar power of the few, operative in all civilisations (e.g. those of the Incas and the Aztecs (365-367). Origin of this paradoxical power everywhere exercised by the few (367-369). Social- ist history represents this power as due everywhere to accidents. {Such a theory absolutely false. It excludes the main fact which renders history intelligible (367-369). Nevertheless in socialist history there is one element of truth (369). In past times the few (mainly representing military force) have lived on abstractions from national wealth, not on additions to it (369-370). Difference be- tween the modern industrial oligarchy and other forms of oligarchy which preceded it (370-371). The wealth of the scientific employer comes from additions, in which the employed participate. The participation of the employed the foundation of stability (371). Participation involves obedience (371). The root of impracticable discontent is comprised in the formula of pure democracy, which repre- sents civilisation as a result of the co-operation of equals. Experience will teach this, if the teaching of reason is neglected (371-372). CHAPTER IV OBJECT-LESSONS OF TO-DAY 373 The few being necessary agents in all complex govern- ment, in efficient production and. in culture, from what is the power of the few derived ? (373). According to modern xx CONTENTS thinkers, and even early Catholic theologians, it is an axiom that all power is ultimately derived from " the people " (373-374). Fundamental error of this doctrine (374). The authority of the few ultimately derived neither from the divine right of kings, nor from " the people," but from Nature (374-375). Nature compels men to agriculture and the production of necessaries (375). If " the people " wish for a profusion of superfluities and for national security, Nature compels them to" obey the few who alone can enable them to achieve these ends (376-377). If " the people " do not obey the few, Nature, teaching them by results, is the power that will re-compel the many to obedience (376-377). The example of the Russian revolution as a rebellion " against all controlling persons " (377-378). Absurd and suicidal conduct of Russian peasants, as described by an English socialist (378-380). Curious absence of any senti- ment of " each for all " (380). Similar conduct of factory workers (381). The impending " economic crash " (381- 382). Comments of an English socialist. " Impossible expectations " denounced (382). Agreement of such criti- cisms with the argument of the present work (382-383). Socialist demands for a revolutionary dictator, who shall undo the results of his own previous teachings (383-384). Pretence of a revolutionary dictator that he is still a revolu- tionary democrat (384-385). The Russian revolution and oligarchies of middle-class adventurers (385-387). Similar claims of oligarchs to be pure democrats in England and America (388-389). English labour-leaders as oligarchs in secret session (389). Fatal tendency of statesmen of the highest capacity to pose as pure democrats, and deny the oligarchic power which alone makes them beneficially in- fluential (389-390). Let all beneficial wielders of oligar- chic power have the courage to show themselves in their true colours (391-392). Democracy only knows itself through the co-operation of oligarchy (392). THE LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY BOOK I POLITICAL DEMOCRACY CHAPTER I THE CONCEPTION OF A GENERAL WILL ATTENTION has often been called to the astonishing extent to which the thoughts, thepassions and the actions of vast multitudes of merTTiave been vitiated or misdirected by the use of ambiguous language. A "signal example of this fact may be found in the doctrines of a writer who, more perhaps than any other, was instrumental in inflaming the passions which gave force to the first French Revolution. 4 Man is born free, and is everywhere in chains." Such are the opening words of the most celebrated work of Rousseau ; and though the philosophy of Rousseau himself is by this time largely obsolete, these words to-day are significant in a sense far deeper, though quite other, than that which their author and his disciples imputed to them. To Rousseau they seemed, and to multitudes they have seemed also, the condensed expres- sion of some liberating and momentous truth. Indeed even to-day, if repeated to audiences of a certain kind, they would doubtless be received with acclamation. But anybody who takes them to pieces in the daylight of common intelligence, will now discover that they either mean nothing at all, or else that they mean some- thing which, even if true, is absolutely without import- 2 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY ance. It will be interesting here to submit them to a short but a close analysis. If there is anything really important in what they profess to enunciate, this obviously is comprised in the first four of them " Man is born free " : the assertion that he is " everywhere," as an actual fact, " in chains " being nothing more than a rhetorical way of saying that the actions of the human unit are, under existing, con- ditions, artificially hampered by the actions of -units other than himself. Hence, when the man who is kk free " and the man who is in " chains " are contrasted, tlie former is understood to differ from the latter in the fact that his way of life and his actions are determined by himself only by his temperament, his desires, and the extent of his personal faculties and are not controlled by others in opposition to his own bent. Such, then, being here the meaning of the word " free," what, let us ask next, is the meaning of the word "man"? Since here it is plainly synonymous with "the individual human being," its meaning may at first sight seem to be clear enough. But this is not so ; for, even when defined thus far, it may mean either the human being at any stage of its existence, or it may mean the human adult as distinguished from the child or baby. There is also an ambiguity which attaches itself to the words "is born." If these are taken liter- ally, the only human beings that are born at all are babies; and to say that "man is born free " must mean, and can mean only, that babies are born free ; and this again must mean, if it means anything, that so long as they are utterly helpless their condition and actions are determined by no desires, by no intelligence, and by no judgments but their own. The mothers of the human race will hardly endorse this proposition as accurate, nor will anybody claim much value for it as a contribu- tion to social science. Let us, however, suppose that when "man " is stated to be "born free," the statement is not to be taken in its strict obstetrical sense, but means that, though doubtless born in a natural condition of dependence, he naturally comes to be free by a process of post-natal development. This meaning is at all events less absurd THE DREAM OF ROUSSEAU 3 than the other; but let us consider if it is true. If it is true at all, it must be true of actual human beings, either as they exist to-day or as they existed once on the surface of the earth somewhere. That is to say, in the lifetime of every average individual a period normally arrives, or normally did so in the past, when his actions cease or ceased to be " chained," controlled or limited by the actions and existence of anybody except himself ; for if no such freedom is exemplified in the history of human nature it would be nonsense to represent such freedom as natural, and it would similarly be nonsense to represent the so-called "chains" as artificial. Is it, then, possible to discover any portion of the earth's surface where either now or formerly such free- dom either is, or ever has been, achieved by the inhabit- ants as a natural incident of their maturity, and enjoyed by them in peace thenceforwards wjtb 1 * any " rha^ g " to limit it? The answer is that, with a few chance exceptions, a freedom of this kind is altogether ima- ginary. Just as every baby is bound to have two parents, most adults are bound to mate and to have babies, for unless they did so the human race would end ; and as soon as a man sets himself to woo, and keep on terms with a mate, and as soon as children are born for whom he must provide food, his actions begin through the operations not of artifice, but of Nature, to be so "chained " by the existence and the demands of others that they differ inevitably from what they would .4. be if he lived alone. To say that a man is naturally free as soon as he achieves maturity is no truer than to say that he is born free as a baby. Here and there, there may be a free baby ; here and there, there may be a free adult ; but the only kind of baby that is free is the baby that is left to die, and the only kind of free adult is the solitary on a desert island. Here, then, in this insane proposition that "man is born free," and in the wide effects produced by it on the thoughts and temper of multitudes, we have a signal example of the condition of moral and mental chaos to which language used ambiguously is able to reduce man- kind, causing their demands and arguments to resemble the cries of animals vaguely conscious of anger, disease, 4 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY or wounds, rather than a rational diagnosis of what is really the matter with them. From this prefatory example we will now pass on to another, for ourselves far more important namely, the chaos of thought and sentiment, of which the nucleus is the word "Demo- cracy " as used at the present time. "-Demnrracy " is a word which, whatever it may mean otherwise, is now, with equal frequency, used in several senses, the epithet "political" being used to indicate the one, the epithets "industrial" and "social" being used to indicate the others. The first is of great antiquity, the second and third are modern, and between the first and the latter two, even popular thought draws a fairly clear distinction. The principles, indeed, of industrial and social democracy, by those who project and look forward to their triumph in the near future, are consciously regarded as novel extensions of a prin- ciple the action of which is already familiar in the sphere of political government. //Hence political democracy is regarded by all parties as democracy in the basic form with which all argument as to its nature and the extent of its application starts; and political government, in respect of its current functions and limitations, means for all parties substantially the same thing. Its objects, whether achieved by restriction, adjudication, or com- mand, are understood to be limited to the maintenance and improvement of such general conditions as will for each_citizen, in respect of his private life, guarantee the utmost freedom which consists with the freedom of others, and which the scope of his own talents enables him to utilise for himself. This general conception of the functions of political governments being assumed, the word "Democracy," if ambiguous in its political sense, is not ambiguous for want of attempts to define it. Professed democrats are constantly addressing themselves to the task of describ- ing Democracy as a peculiar system of government, and defining its peculiar features with an ostentatious sem- blance of precision; but, the moment their definitions are analysed, all of them, as we shall see presently, fall to pieces, leaving no idea behind them which has any counterpart in the world of actual or of possible fact. DEFINITIONS OF DEMOCRACY 5 This assertion must not be taken to mean that such persons are attempting to define a nothing. On the con- trary, they have all of them at the back of their minds a something so profoundly real that, although it is operative in very various degrees, it is never absent from the government of any human society; and if we want to understand what this something really is, we must set ourselves to consider exactly how far, and why, it differs from those conceptions of it which all current definitions popularise. Of these current definitions, which naturally exhibit much verbal variety, we will accordingly take three versions, which everybody will recognise as signally, and also as favourably, representative. Our first shall be the most famous of all still un- rivalled as a talisman for eliciting instant cheers namely, the definition of a great American statesman : ^ people7T>2/ the people." Our second shall be that of a more recent authority an American likewise and a very distinguished publicist, according to whom democracy is a special system of government which ensures that " every man, in virtue of his manhood alone, shall have an equal voice in the affairs of the common country." Our third definition shall be taken from a contem- porary English writer, Mr. Cecil Chesterton, whose style has a ring of homely common sense like Cobbett's, and who, in a volume entitled The Great State ^ has joined certain other reformers in a very temperate attempt to harmonise the dreams of revolutionaries with the bald actualities of life. The definition which Mjr._Cj3^sterJ.pn contributes to this volume, being given at some lerrgtifi and not in the form of an aphorism, may be briefly summed up thus. n Democracy^in its essence is govern- ment which, by whatever means, is actually in accord- ance with the general will of the governed ; and ideally this result might be realised by an ideal despot. Prac- tically, however, ideal despotisms are impossible ; and no less impossible, except in microscopic communities, 1 A Collection of Essays by English writers of Socialist or semi- Socialist Sympathies, edited by Mr. H. G. Wells. 6 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY is government by the extreme alternative namely, the voice of all the citizens assembled under the same tree. The only device, therefore, which is practicable in the great States of to-day is the election by the many of a small number of delegates, to whom the mass of the citizens specify what "the general will" is and whose sole business is to execute it in accordance with the terms specified. True democracy exists, so this writer proceeds, in proportion, and only in proportion, as the correspondence between the action of the delegates and the general will is complete. Let us now consider what these definitions come to, beginning with the first and most famous of them. This definition consists of three separate statements : firstly, that Democracy is government of the people ; secondly, that it is government for the people ; and, thirdly, that it is government by the people. It is obvious that the first purports to enunciate something which, however profound, can at once be grasped by everybody ; whilst the second adds something more pro- found and distinctive still, and that both lead up to the cumulative profundity of the last. Let us ask, then, what intelligible meaning can be possibly read into each. To begin, then, with the first "government of the people " is a phrase which, with equal verbal propriety, may be taken as meaning either of two opposite things. It may mean government exercised over the people by some power external to them a meaning like that of the preacher when he speaks about the government of the passions ; or it may mean government which the people themselves exercise. It cannot, however, bear the latter of these two meanings here ; for this, without any ambig- uity, is reserved for the final statement that democracy is government by the people, which either means this or nothing. Unless, therefore, it is an instance of pure tautology, government of the people must mean govern- ment which is somehow exercised over them ; and it must, in so far as it is realised in any concrete case, mean government exercised over the people of some particular country. As to the second statement, its meaning is as plain as that of the last. Government for the people must mean, in any concrete case, government carried on DEFINITIONS OF DEMOCRACY 7 in the interest of the people of a particular country, and \ not in the interest of the people of any other. What, \ then, is the meaning of the three statements in combina- ] tion ? Its three clauses being combined, this world- famous definition of democracy reduces itself to the fol- / lowing propositions : that Democracy in any concrete case let us say in the case of France is government / which is exercised over the French people, and not (for . example) over the German; that it is exercised by the people of France, not by the people of Germany; and that it is exercised by the people of France with a view to their own advantage. -. Now what, with all its solemn crescendo of emphasis, does this definition convey to the mind of any human being which was not in his mind already before he began to listen to it ? What is it more than a sequence of superlatively barren platitudes ? And yet after all it must, as addressed to millions, be the vehicle of some- thing vital : or it would never be quoted as a watchword, and call forth plaudits, as a spark sets fire to gunpowder. In what part of it, then, does its vital meaning reside ? Its vital meaning, its sole distinctive meaning, resides in nothing that the words say by way of an informative proposition. It resides in some sense, altogether un- stated, which is presupposed to be already attached to one of them ; and that word is the word " people." This presupposed sense is like the skin of a drum, and the so-called definition is nothing but a drum-stick beating a tattoo on it. This drum-beating, however, does us one service at all events. Though answering no question itself, it loudly calls attention to the question which requires to be answered. What, in detail, for persons calling them- selves " democrats," does this one word " people " mean, thereby for them acquiring its peculiar resonance ? The " people " of any country cannot, in this connection, be merely a synonym for the inhabitants taken as a whole, as it would be were we classifying peoples according to their racial colours. It must carry with it some implica- tion of a narrower and more incisive kind. It must mean, and it obviously does mean, one or other of two things either some particular section of the inhabitants, 8 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY which governs or ought to govern, to the specific exclu- sion of some other section; or else the whole of the inhabitants, regarded as a governing body, to the specific inclusion of some section which is, under certain forms of government, excluded. Now there are doubtless many agitators who, animated by passion or prejudice, would maintain that the former of these two meanings is the correct one, and that government by the people means the specific, and indeed the vindictive, exclusion of all individuals from power who are in any way sufficiently eminent to be distinguish- able as a separate class. But no democrats of to-day, who claim to be serious thinkers, commit themselves intentionally to any position such as this. On the con- trary, as Mill points out, they profess altogether to repudiate it. The essence of " pure democracy " accord- ing to modern conceptions of it is, says Mill, " govern- ment by the people as a whole," no individuals being excluded, whether high or low, and none of them having less power, though none may have more, than any others. This conception is expressed with unmistakable clearness in the second of those definitions of Democracy which have here been chosen for examination, and to which we will now turn. The essence of political democracy, according to this definition of it, is "that every man shall have an equal voice in the affairs of the common country," and that he shall have this equal voice " in virtue of his manhood alone." Here again we have a formula the ultimate purport of which must be looked for in what it implies rather than in what it enunciates; but what it does enunciate is so precise that its full implications can be reached by a use of the simplest logic; and in realising what these are the author himself aids us. The formula in question does not, he says with the utmost emphasis, imply that all men are equal, or even approximately equal in all respects. On the contrary, "the differences between men and men in their capacities for rendering honest service to society are," he says, "immense and incalculable," as may be seen in the spheres of art, philosophic thought, and more particularly the scientific control of industry. In the general business of life, this GOVERNMENT BY AVERAGE MAN 9 writer freely admits, it is the influence of exceptional men that makes the world move onwards; but in the sphere pi-political government and here we come to what his formula really means it is the essence of democracy to render all such influence inoperative. The doctrine that the right of each citizen to "an equal voice," or to one vote and only one, " in the government of the common country " is a right which belongs to him "in virtue of his manhood alone," means this, and it cannot mean anything else. It means that the ground on which a citizen is entitled to vote is simply and solely his possession of those residual characteristics which enable an anthropologist to distinguish a man from an erect monkey. It is these residual characteristics that each vote represents, and it is Because these character- istics are equal that each vote should have an equal value. Hence, if this definition of political democracy be correct, true democracy must be government deter- // mined by faculties which, however unequal actually, . have for this special purpose been reduced artificially ( to their lowest common denominator. It might recog- nise in a Newton a master of all mathematical science, but it would not allow him, in examining the business books of the nation, to impose on his fellows any con- clusions with regard to them which his washerwoman could not arrive at just as well as he by use of the simple arithmetic required for adding up her bills. ^ ^~ Such would be the result, in strict or abstract logic, if democracy means government by all as units of equal influence. But practically, though not in the abstract, the principles of eVen the strictest doctrinaires lead to a conclusion which is much more moderate than this. All such persons recognise when they talk of equality the existence of some men so low in the scale of intelli- gence, or by temperament so perverse or slothful, that no State which consisted solely of men like these could thrive. Indeed, Socialists often admit that in dealing with such a residuum a Socialist jgojjjy would have to resort to measures not less'but more severe than any which are applied to-day. They certainly would never contend that men who, possessing nothing, refuse to produce anything, or that idiots or obstinate drunkards, 10 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY should be able to influence legislation in accordance with their own ideas. The extremest democrats, however, may without practical inconsistency maintaiu that such men should have votes nevertheless, for such men being necessarily a small minority, the cumulative power of their votes would, if it stood for anything mischievous, be nullified by the votes of a normally sane majority. Thus the abstract theorem that under a true democracy the power of all citizens would be equal in virtue of their manhood alone is modified by the theorem that the power of each would in practice be contingent on his manhood being of an average or a normal kind. And here we reach what to all intents and purposes is the working conception of democracy which is at the present day implied in the formulae of doctrinaires, and which floats in the minds of multitudes. It is a conception of a government determined solely by the mass of incon- spicuous men by what Whitman, the poet of demo- cracy, celebrates as "the divine average." Now, apart from certain facts which will claim our attention presently, this conception is very far from fantastic. For what is it that ideally the average man represents ? He represents common honesty, common sense, common neighbourly goodwill, and the common family affections. He is moreover so far from being an abstraction that, if average men in this sense did not form the majority of mankind, no social life of a tolerable kind would be possible. The most towering genius in respect of his household conduct must reason, feel, and comport himself like nine men out of every ten, or else there will be no dealing with him. Why, then, it may be asked, should not political government be determined by men acting as equal units through an exercise of those faculties only in respect of which all average men are equal ? Is there anything in the nature of the case to make such a regime impossible ? The answer is that there are two things, the first of which is as follows : We have seen that the most obvious difficulty which, in strict or abstract logic, the theory of democracy suggests namely, that it reduces, the units of influence to their lowest common denominator is solved by the fact that persons of appreciably subnormal EXCEPTIONAL TALENT 11 character would have in practice no influence at all. But, though in this way the difficulty which comes from below is eliminated, the corresponding difficulty which comes from above remains. For just as, if the influence of every unit is equal, the judgments of ninety average men would nullify those of any ten men who were sub- normal, so likewise would the judgments of the average ninety nullify those of any ten men their superiors in so far as these, by the exercise of superior talents, reached any conclusions which anybody not notably imbecile could not entirely understand, and was not on the point of reaching by his own unaided faculties. Else, if the ninety voters allowed the ten to guide them, ten men would have the votes of ninety other men in their pockets, and the primary principle of pure democracy would be violated. Here is one of the difficulties involved in the very plausible conception of democracy as government deter- mined by the people alone, the word " people" being taken as meaning the units of the average mass. But below this difficulty lies another of a yet more funda- mental kind ; and in order to gain a clear idea of what this difficulty is we will now pass on to the third of the three definitions of democracy which have here been cited as typical, and consider it more minutely. All theories of democracy as government by the will of the people involve an assumption, which we have not as yet noted, that if we only exclude the upper and lower minorities the" remainder of any population, or the units of the average mass, are certain, with regard to all political questions, to think, feel, and judge in sub- stantially the same way ; and this aspect of the question Mr. Chesterton's definition brings into full prominence. Mr. Chesterton, as we have seen already, sets out with observing that democracy, if conceived in terms of its ultimate object, is simply an absolute harmony, no matter how ensured, between the acts of the executive government and "the general will" of the governed; but he adds that, in practice, so far as large States are concerned, it can be realised only through the agency of elected representatives, to whom the general will is com- municated by those electing them, and whose sole busi- 12 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY ness is to obey it with abject accuracy. He admits, however, that the realisation of such a government is a feat less simple than it seems. Elections, he says, may rest on the widest possible suffrage, and the result may, as ample experience shows, be not democracy, but a kind of degraded oligarchy. For example, he says, " Sir Josiah Gudge is elected to represent the radical borough of Slocum," but does Sir Josiah, he asks, represent this borough in reality ? Sir Josiah, as a member of Parlia- ment, must, he says, do one of two things or the other. "He must vote in accordance with the will of the inhabitants of Slocum, or against it. If he does the former, he is acting as a faithful representative. If he does the latter, he is not a representative at all, but an oligarch." How far, then, is the official conduct of the typical Sir Josiah of to-day really determined by any instructions which the inhabitants of Slocum have dic- tated to him ? The inhabitants, says Mr. Chesterton, will really have dictated nothing. Sir Josiah will have come to them with a programme of measures already formulated ; his opponent will have come to them with another ; and all that the inhabitants will have had any chance of doing will have been that of making through the ballot-box a Hobson's choice between them. Such a method of government is certainly not democratic ; and yet, says Mr. Chesterton, it is the method which, as modern experience shows, has thus far emerged invari- ably from the most elaborately democratic institutions. What, then, is the explanation of this practical paradox ? The explanation, says Mr. Chesterton, is as follows : Both the primary essentials of pure democracy are present the general will, like a great toothed driving- wheel on the one hand, and the executive body, like a small wheel, on the other ; but in all democratic constitu- tions which have thus far been elaborated, the mechan- ism connecting the two has always been defective in some way which prevents the former, except on rare occasions, from imposing its own movements on the latter, thus leaving those of the former for the most part quite inoperative. Hence the only difficulty in the way of rendering democracy complete is, says Mr. Chesterton, altogether mechanical. It has no connection with the I BRIBERY AND EXTERNAL INFLUENCE 13 nature of the democratic principle itself; and the task of surmounting it, though not altogether simple, needs only a few experiments and a little ingenuity for its accomplishment . Mr. Chesterton's explanation of a difficulty thus emphasised by himself is interesting because, by its can- dour, it exhibits him as looking for it in every place but the right one. The fundamental difficulty does not lie in the fact that the present machinery for realising the general will is defective. It lies in the fact that any general will, which does or which can exist, is something widely different from Mr. Chesterton's own conception of it, and from that which all modern theories of pure democracy postulate. That such is the case will be obvious if we only take the trouble to analyse this conception carefully. There are three points, then, as to which all democrats v are agreed. *" One is that any will which can be called * general is the sum of the judgments of the units of the average mass. The second .is that the judgments of each unit ' shaft be represented by a single vote, and thus be of equal influence. The third is that the judgments of each unit shall, as represented by his vote, be freely formed by himself, and shall not, for governmental purposes, have been warped into conformity with the Judgments of any other person or group of persons, whether by bribery, intimidation, or any other device of any kind. This last point deserves special attention ; for if large numbers of men, though their votes are recorded by themselves, are really expressing by them the dictated judgments of others, these others will, as has been said already, have, not their own votes only, but to all intents and purposes an indefinite number added to them. That such is the case when the judgments which votes express are changed from what they otherwise would be by brutal and direct bribery, is a fact on which democrats themselves are the first persons to insist; but results essentially similar are, as presently we shall see in greater detail, producible by other methods. An lago might revenge himself on a faithful Desdemona who had re- pulsed him, by the simple process of bribing an assassin 14 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY to murder her; but he might compass the same end by persuading an Othello that she was faithless, and thus inciting the husband to do the deed on his own account. What money would do in the former case, statement would do in the latter. It would enable one man to determine the conduct of a second, or to put the matter in terms of political life to transfer the control of the second man's vote to himself ; and in political life, under a system of universal suffrage, the promulgation of state- ments which are made with the deliberate object of swaying the judgment in some special direction is one of the most powerful means by which one man may master the votes of many, and virtually multiply his own. This is not true, it must be noted, of the publica- tion of bare facts, if these be stated in their integrity; but whenever, with a view to the effect of it on the public mind, news is coloured by comment, or a cal- culated distribution of emphasis, those responsible for such procedure are, in so far as they are successful, transferring the control of the votes of other men to themselves. Inconvenient electors were, in the days of Pickwick, kept from the polling-booth, and so deprived of their votes, by "hocussing their whisky," and leaving them drunk in a barn. Hocussing the facts is a method of the same character; and in proportion to its success is no less incompatible with the principles of pure democracy. No one could admit this more fully than democrats themselves, as the violent outcries raised by them in Great Britain and Germany against official manipulations of news in time of war have testified. But let us sup- pose that full purity of voting, in the sense here indi- cated, were achieved. Would the difficulties involved in the postulates of pure democracy be ended ? We shall, on the contrary, be simply brought at last to the ultimate difficulty out of which all the others spring. This ultimate difficulty resides in the obvious fact, which we have not as yet considered, that if the judg- ment of the people, or the units of the average mass, are to be so united as to acquire a force that is cumulative, and thus constitute a will which deserves to be called "general," it is necessary that these judgments shall be, SIMPLE AND ABSTRUSE PROBLEMS 15 in all important respects, identical. The question, therefore, is whether or how far, with regard to govern- mental matters, all average men are, if left to them- selves, certain or even likely to judge, and therefore to will, in the same way, simply because none of them are distinguished by conspicuous incapacity on the one hand, or even by the rudiments of conspicuous talent on the other. To answer this question in a few words is impos- sible. The matters with which governments have to deal are various ; and, as we shall see, it is only with regard to certain of them that any general will of a spontaneous kind is possible. Let us begin with taking two simple examples of governmental action, with regard to one of which all men do, as a fact, spontaneously judge alike ; whilst, with regard to the other, the spontaneous judgments of most men even men of considerable capacity are a blank. Our first example shall relate to protection from murder ; our second to the question of bi-metallism. All men, even murderers themselves, so long as they are left at large, desire that the Government, by laws and the maintenance of an adequate police, should minimise the risks which any citizen runs of being stuck in the ribs when he is asleep or enjoying an evening stroll. No prompting, no agitation, no bribery is needed to bring even the stupidest citizen to this way of thinking. But let us suppose that the question with regard to which the will of the average mass is consulted is the question of whether the system of mono-metallism, as at present established, shall be maintained or shall be modified by what is called "the remonetisation of silver." Here is a question the answer to which, accord- ing as it was yes or no, might very appreciably affect the well-being of everybody; but if it were put by any member of Parliament to each of the voters who elected him, the answer of all but a few of them, if they spoke their minds, would be this : " The question of the re- spective merits of mono-metallism and bi-metallism is a remarkably difficult and, we may add, a remarkably dry one. We know nothing about it ourselves, and the most eminent experts disagree. You, however, though 16 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY you only muddle us when you talk about it, presumably know more than we do, or else you are not worth your salt. So do not worry us about our judgments. Make the best use you can of your own." Mr. Chesterton lays it down with an air of blunt finality that a representative must always do one or other of two things "that he must vote either in accordance with the will of his con- stituents or against it." It does not occur to this often very sensible writer that there is yet a third alternative which is, with regard to many questions, the only one ever realised that the constituents may have no definite will at all. These two illustrations show clearly enough what, if considered broadly, the state of the case is. They show us that a will of the kind which pure democracy postu- lates is, with regard to certain questions, a permanent, a familiar, and a completely realised fact; while they show that, in contrast to such questions, others exist also with regard to which such a will is so completely a myth that it has in the world of realities no possible counterpart. It is evident, therefore, that the postulate of a general will in politics can, if we are to accept it as more than an idle and academic dream, be so accepted only with important and specific limitations. Let us now take a bird's-eye view of governmental questions as a whole, dividing them into groups, according to the degree of completeness, or of incompleteness down to the point of nullity, in which such a general will as pure democracy postulates either does exist, or can possibly exist, with regard to them. We shall find that, roughly and for the purposes of the present discussion, political questions are divisible into four groups as follows : (1) Fundamental, simple and unaltering questions ; (2) Momentary and simple questions ; (3) Temperamental questions; (4) Composite questions, or questions which, though not momentary, are constantly presenting themselves in practically new forms, and which, though varying in complexity, are all of them far from simple, whilst certain of them constitute a sub-group meriting the designation of Abstruse. POLITICAL PROBLEMS CLASSIFIED IT Of these four groups of questions the first and fourth the Fundamental and the Composite are normally the most important. We will, therefore, begin with dis- posing of the intermediate two, before turning to the others, which will be the main subject of our discussion. Of Momentary questions, the most striking example is one which relates to war. It has nothing to do with the conduct of war itself or the kinds of preparation and action on which its success depends. It has to do solely with the question of whether war on a given occasion shall be undertaken or no. On certain occasions the inhabitants of some one country become so exasperated by the behaviour and the menaces of another that all conflicting judgments as to the complex facts of the situation give place to a common passion, and there is thus developed a cumulative will to fight the force of which is a multiple of individual wills formed by the citizens severally "in virtue of their manhood alone." But a general will of this kind, however vast its effects on the course of human history, is in itself short-lived, not outlasting the crisis which called it forth; and, as such crises are happily rare, it is exceptional. It is not a characteristic of the normal life of nations. 1 As examples of the questions here called Tempera- mental, we may take those relating to the consumption of alcoholic liquors and those into which a religious element enters. Such questions, so far as the possibility of any general will is concerned, not only differ from those involved in any momentary crisis but are essen- tially and diametrically opposed to them. With regard to Temperamental questions, the units of the average mass not only fail to arrive at judgments which even approach identity, but they form and maintain judg- ments which are intentionally and even violently con- flicting. Who can contend that all average men, simply because they are neither illustrious thinkers nor fools, will feel and judge alike as to the drinking of beer or 1 Amongst Momentary questions may be included the abolition of a monarchy. In many cases the dethronement of monarchs has been the work of intrigue ; but regarded merely as a single act, a spon- taneous general will may quite conceivably sanction it. But to abolish one kind of government is a very different thing from governing. C 18 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY spirits? Some of them will be for free drinking, some of them for regulated drinking, some of them for pro- hibiting the drinking of alcoholic liquors altogether. They will judge and feel differently, not because their intellects are unequal, but because their temperaments and prepossessions are diverse. The same observation holds good of the judgments of average men as to ques- tions connected with religion. Many Socialists are at great pains to explain that a man's religion, in any reasonable polity, has no more to do with government than the colour of his hair or trousers ; and so far as religion is merely an inward conviction this is no doubt true. But if in any country, whilst masses of men are atheists, others are sincere Christians, and if the religion of the latter has any effect on their lives, there are two sets of questions at all events in which religion is closely implicated, and which Government must deal with in one way or another. These are questions relating to education and marriage; and it is obvious that, as to any legislation by which these two questions are affected, any million of convinced Christians will spontaneously differ in opinion from any million of similarly capable atheists. In the case, then, of all those questions here called Temperamental the postulate of pure democracy, that all men of average intelligence will, as to questions of government, come to the same conclusions, is so abso- lutely contradicted by fact that it would not be worth while to discuss it, if it were not one of the implications of much popular argument. 1 Thus, if we set aside Momentary questions because with regard to these, though a general will is possible, it is possible only on signally rare occasions ; and if we set aside Temperamental questions because, with regard to these, average men, as such, have no natural pro- clivity to will in the same way, or join together in 1 Amongst Temperamental questions must be included those into which the racial element enters, such as those involved in the relation of Ireland to the United Kingdom, and Ulster to the rest of Ireland. Even in Ulster itself there is a Catholic will and a Protestant. Of divergencies in popular opinion which are due to racial temperament, examples on a still larger scale have been provided by the United States in connection with the European war. POLITICAL PROBLEMS CLASSIFIED 19 developing any general will at all, it is with the Funda- mental questions and the Composite questions that we are here mainly concerned; and we shall see that, if regarded as the subjects of a general will of any kind, the difference between these last, though mainly one of degree, is practically so profound that, whilst a purely democratic will is a reality with regard to the former it is, from the nature of things, with regard to the latter impossible. CHAPTER II OLIGARCHY AND WILL-FORMATION OF Fundamental questions an example has been given already namely that of protection from murder; and to this may be added the protection of chattels from theft, the protection of the home from intrusion, and the fulfilment of contracts in accordance with terms specified. Such questions are Fundamental because they relate to the maintenance of certain primary conditions in the absence of which no society could exist. Now, with regard to questions such as these, little reflection is necessary to show us that in all societies a general will is present the correspondence of which to the requirements of pure democracy is complete. Every will which is capable of being translated into action is related to two things a desired end, and the means or machinery by which this end may be realised; and in both respects, so far as Fundamental questions are con- cerned, the completeness of the general will is an obvious and universal fact. In the first place as to ends, the individual judgments of which such a will is the sum are the same for the simple reason that all men, as to ends like these, naturally feel or think in precisely the same way. No man, however stupid, requires to be persuaded by a neighbour, or an oligarchy of superior persons, that the Government should protect him from the chances of being murdered any night in his bed, or of having his teaspoons stolen before he comes down to breakfast. In the second place, the means by which ends of this kind are to be achieved are, in their main features, as familiar as the ends themselves. They consist of some system of police, law-courts, and penalties, with which, though its minor details vary with place and circumstance, all men, in respect of its essentials, have been acquainted 20 PRIMITIVE DEMOCRACY 21 since the dawn of history. Here, therefore, there is a general will as to means which is no less spontaneous and unanimous, and hardly less specific, than the general will with regard to ends which accompanies it. That such is the case is sufficiently obvious from the fact that, whenever Governments are too weak to accom- plish these ends efficiently, every man seeks to accom- plish them as best he can for himself. Thus on a well-known occasion a prominent English Socialist was attacked by a man in Paris who attempted to steal his watch. No police being present, the Socialist very rightly knocked his assailant down. If the then Govern- ment of France had but given effect to the general will completely, it would merely with the arm of the law have done what the alien democrat did instinctively with his own. Let us now pass on to the questions here called Com- posite, which comprise in normal times the whole of the subject-matter of political government in so far as political government has any history at all, or' suggests any controversy as to the will, democratic or otherwise, by which its actions are, or by which they ought to be, determined. Composite questions differ from Fundamental ques- tions in the fact that they are far more complex, and at the same time are always changing. With regard to Fundamental questions, the will of the units governed, except when it takes the form of a protest against ineffi- cient administration, is simply a standing demand, not requiring to be reaffirmed, for the effective maintenance of a routine already established. As to composite ques- tions, the case is essentially otherwise. Composite questions have their root in Fundamental questions, and ' up to a point coincide with them ; but they represent such questions as multiplied, complicated, combined, and recombined, by the evolution of new circumstances, such as new industrial methods, increases in wealth and population, and the growth of commercial relationships between one country and another. Thus, whereas in societies which are small, isolated, and stationary Funda- mental questions of government are practically the only questions, the questions as to which alone in the great 22 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY States of to-day the Government requires any positive guidance, either from the brains of the governed or from those of the executive itself, are questions in respect of which the ends to be achieved are novel, whilst the means present themselves in the form of many untried alternatives, each of which requires to be very carefully devised, for and against each of which there are many things to be said, and from which it is impossible for anybody to select the best except by the use of a keen and balanced intellect, corroborated by vigour of character, and acting on wide knowledge. Of the growth, as just described, of Fundamental ques- tions into Composite, we may take from English history the following four examples : The question of the dis- tribution of Parliamentary seats prior to the first Reform Bill; the question of Free Trade versus Protection; the question of the Right to Work ; and a fourth, which shall be specified presently. To all who acquiesce in the system of government by elected legislators it is obvious that, whatever be the qualifications on which the right to a vote depends, there must logically at all events be some approach to equality in the number of voters or citizens for whom each repre- sentative speaks ; and if the number and distribution of a population always remained the same, the question of "the distribution of seats," if settled satisfactorily once, would be settled for all time. Now, when George III succeeded to the throne of England, the then dis- tribution of seats, if not ideally perfect, was not obtru- sively at variance with the size and distribution of the constituencies. Hence, if number and distribution of the population of England had never since then changed, a distribution of seats which satisfied the men of the eighteenth century would have satisfied the men of the next century also. As a matter of fact, however, be- tween the accession of George III and his death the population of England had not only so increased, but its distribution also had altered in so rapid and extra- ordinary a way that, whilst huge towns in the north were represented by no member at all, there were two members in the south for three men and a hay-stack. Here is one case in which it is easy to understand how DEMOCRACY AND COMPLEX PROBLEMS 23 an old question, taken for a time as settled, may become a new one, and one, as we shall see presently, which required a solution involving many new complexities. The question of Free Trade versus Protection, as it finally shaped itself in England at the beginning of the Victorian epoch, will be readily recognised as one of similar character. The main issue involved related to national food supply more especially to the supply of bread, and came to be known as the question of "the big and the little loaf." Here we have a question as old as the days of Jacob. But in Georgian England it was absent till the close of the eighteenth century, for Eng- land till then, so far as corn was concerned, was not an importing on the contrary she was an exporting country, and there was no staple food on which a pro- tective tax could fall. Owing to the subsequent growth of the population, coupled with other changes, this ques- tion which till then meant nothing for the public con- sciousness, formed fifty years later the subject of the bitterest non-military conflict which had ever agitated the nation in the whole course of its history. The question commonly indicated by the phrase " The Right to Work " is one which has always been latent in all coherent polities ; but in primitive times it was simple, and carried with it its own solution. In the case of populations which were stationary, and drew most of their wealth from agriculture or from pasture, or from both, it did not emerge into a practical form at all ; for a territory which had provided each man out of a thousand with enough for his wants in one age would continue to do so in another. Or, again, in primitive times, when the earth was sparsely occupied, if a given population increased, it had merely to enlarge its borders, or else, like the Scythian nomads, move in a body from one territory to another. And, indeed, in countries such as Canada and Australia such a solution is theoretically adequate to-day. But the question as it presents itself in modern, especially in Western Europe, and has already begun to present itself in the United States, is novel and far more complex, and it is so for two main reasons. In the first place, in some of these countries the whole of the fruitful area is by this time occupied already, whilst 24 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY in others the unoccupied portion is very rapidly con- tracting. In the second place, work itself, which was primitively of a few kinds only, is now divided into kinds so numerous and so diverse in character that dif- ferent men, in demanding that work should be found for them, are not demanding productive work of any kind, but each is demanding some special kind out of many. Let us now take our fourth example. This shall be the question of providing a kind of gun by which German airships may be destroyed on their way to London. Here we have a question which, in respect of its general char- acter, was present and vital in the first cluster of huts which was ever threatened by the ferocity of any hostile tribe. Like all practical questions, it is a question of ends and means. With regard to ends, to-day as in the earliest times, we have a general will of an absolutely democratic character; for all men are equally anxious "in virtue of their manhood alone " that the roofs and the walls that shelter them shall not be burnt or shat- tered; and in primitive times, when men had no other weapons than stones, sticks, firebrands, and their naked fists, there was a will equally democratic with regard to the means also. In other words, the will of a tribe to protect itself comprised a similar will in respect of the weapons to be used. But, as weapons of war became gradually more complex and various the will as to means and the will as to ends became separated. So far as ends are concerned, the average Londoner of to-day, in willing that his home shall be guarded from German aircraft, wills precisely what the savage wills in some primeval kraal; but the question of the means by which aircraft may be driven off or destroyed calls, as we shall see presently, for a will profoundly different from that by which the average savage is actuated when, equipped only with the familiar arms of his ancestors, he cracks the skull of another with a club or with a slung pebble. These four illustrations are sufficiently indicative of the manner in which questions, in themselves Funda- mental and permanent, exfoliate under new circum- stances into Composite questions which are new, and each of which, as it arises, must be the subject-matter of a new will. Let us, then, consider how far a will of OLIGARCHY AND POPULAR MEASURES 25 that purely democratic kind, which is with regard to Fundamental questions an actually existing fact, is capable of reproducing itself in relation to Composite questions likewise. Stated in a general way, what we shall see is this, that in all countries possessing what is commonly called a Constitution the action of the Government must reflect a general will of some kind : and that this will is the sum of a multitude of judgments which are all in sub- stance identical; but that their identity is due to the fact that, even if they are spontaneously recorded, they are, in respect of Composite questions, not spontaneously formed. Let us turn again to the question of the distribution of Parliamentary seats in England as it forced itself on public attention at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The scheme of distribution which that century had inherited from the past was already so widely at variance with the logical object of all representative government that its anomalies were patent to the least intelligent man who was sufficiently interested in the subject to consider it worth a thought. Long before the first Reform Bill, though numbers remained apathetic, an opinion was widely prevalent which, as a vague criticism of abuses and a vague demand for their aboli- tion, was, so far as it went, of a genuinely democratic character. But if each of the units by whom this opinion was held had been invited to explain in writing what representation, if proportional in any true sense, would be, most of them could have formulated no series of intelligible answers at all; and their answers taken together would certainly have resulted in nothing which a statesman could construe into a series of specific and practicable orders. The history of the popular will in England, in so far as it reflected itself in the passing of the first Reform Bill, is the history of a judgment which was in its first stage the sum of individual judgments sponta- neously formed and identical, but at the same time vague, and for practical purposes futile, and which was gradually by the influence of certain super-energetic minorities endowed with a force and unity of which it 26 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY was itself incapable. This process was of a double nature. It was, firstly, a process of raising a vague opinion from a temperature of lukewarm protest to a temperature at which, like scraps of lead in a ladle, indi- vidual opinions are fused into a common passion. It was, secondly, a process of forcing this fluid mass to run itself into various moulds which minorities of active men had deliberately prepared for its reception. Both these processes, whose spectacular aspects are familiar to readers of history, took the form of resolutions passed at meetings, of quasi-military marches or riots, and of monster petitions weighted with miles of signatures. But though each of these phenomena seemed to be purely popular, each as its active principle always had some one man, or small cluster of men, exceptional in point of energy, exceptional in powers of persuasion, and excep- tional for the most part in mental alertness also, by sub- mitting themselves to whom (and by this means only) the masses acquired a unity and a temporary precision of thought, without which they would have been power- less for any definite purpose. Indeed, the meetings and the marches and the riots were, if considered psycho- logically, monster petitions changed into other forms- petitions of which the definite substance was the work of a leading few, whilst the miles of signatures were the mere Amens of the multitude. If the substance had been withdrawn, the meaning of the signatures would have disappeared, as a Reform meeting in London melted away at once when Hunt, the principal orator, was frightened from his platform by a bullet through his celebrated white hat. The question of Free Trade versus Protection, and the triumph in Great Britain of the former over the latter, which was one of the main events of the middle of the nineteenth century, constitute a case whose essentials are precisely similar. Here again the principle involved is one of extreme simplicity that a Government ought, so far as a Government can affect the matter, to secure for the masses the largest and cheapest supply which under given conditions is possible of food, and more particularly of bread. The question, moreover, at that particular time had been simplified to an unusual degree THE RIGHT TO WORK 27 by a long experience of the evils of very ill-devised corn- laws. And yet it required the tireless and protracted efforts of a specially gifted minority, which had Bright and Cobden for its heroes, their organising powers, their powers of argument and presentation, and their sanguine prophecies, many of which were totally falsified by events, to fashion out of a vague opinion, however spon- taneous in itself, a cumulative will sufficiently precise and vehement to overbear all obstacles and accomplish the end desired. Let us now turn to the question of the Right to Work. If in great modern States this were really as simple to- day as many foolish persons imagine it, and as in primi- tive times it was, everybody would will that the general right to work should be admitted by the Government, and secured by means as simple as those by which it secures each citizen's right to live. " For if," said Louis Blanc, "a Government is bound to protect life, it is bound to secure the means by which men can be kept alive." But, as Mill observes, this principle, though simple enough in the abstract, presents itself in modern States as one of extreme complexity; for, if a Govern- ment is bound to find work for all the units of a given population, it can do so only on condition that it is empowered to control their numbers. Would such con- trol be possible ? If possible, are there any means by which it would be rendered tolerable ? Here we have a host of difficulties emerging from the very roots of life, like wasps from a disturbed nest, and provoking most men merely to beat them off, or else to upset one another in trying to run away from them. But Mill, in reviewing this matter, sees one of its difficulties only. The very idea of the right to work is in itself ambiguous. It may mean the right of every man to have work found for him by which he can gain a living, either within the limits of a certain geographical area, or else to have it found for him on the surface of the earth somewhere. Early in the nineteenth century the inhabitants of the Tyree one of the Hebridean islands were largely main- tained by the manufacture of certain chemicals obtained by burning a peculiar kind of seaweed. This industry was destroyed by the triumph of Free Trade principles, 28 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY and the consequent admission to Great Britain of these chemicals from abroad; some three-fourths of the islanders being in this way deprived of their main means of sustenance. Had these persons claimed from the Government the right to have work found for them, what would this claim have meant ? that such work was to be found for them within the coastline of their native islet, or that it was to be found for them somewhere within the limits of the British Empire ? Had the principle involved in it borne the former mean- ing, it would have plainly been as great an absurdity as the principle that a farmer, on a limited number of acres, is bound to provide grazing for a limitless number of cows. Had it meant, on the other hand, that the Government was bound to provide work for them somewhere, it would have meant that the Govern- ment should be empowered to determine where ; and this could only have meant that the Government should be empowered to transport them to any spot whether in Canada, Jamaica, Australia, or the recesses of British Africa which Parliament or a State Department might see fit to select. Here, then, we have again a question with regard to which any number of answers is possible. If any Government attempted to answer it practically by asking each citizen for guidance " in virtue of his manhood alone," it would elicit nothing but a babel of conflicting voices, which individually meant little, and which cumulatively meant nothing. If any practical advance towards a general and systematic solution of the question of the right to work is ever to be made and it never has been made yet it will be made by an excep- tional few imposing their own schemes on the many, not by the many imposing the scraps of abortive thought, as shaped spontaneously in their own minds, on the few. Of our four typical questions, it remains for us to review the last namely the question which first arose during the great European war, of how the British Islands should protect themselves from attack by in- vading air-craft. No question, in respect of the end involved in it, could evoke a will a general will more purely democratic than this. The will of any one unit is spontaneously the same as the will of every other. It OLIGARCHY AND INVENTION 29 presents itself to the imagination of each in precisely the same picture an airship in ignominious flight, or an airship falling down in flames. But a will as to ends, let it be never so general, is, if we think of it as a power which can definitely guide a Government, nothing unless it carries with it a will as to specific means ; and in this most illuminating case it is sufficiently clear from events that the purely democratic will is a hopeless and helpless blank. In a case like this, all that the units of the average mass can do is to cry out for somebody whose talents exceed the average, and who, presenting them with some plan or mechanism by which the end in view may be accomplished, ask them to say "Yes" to the proposal that this mechanism shall be adopted. This particular case is no doubt an extreme one; but all political questions of the kind here called Composite that is to say, all questions of government which are possible subjects of controversy, and require that any action of a novel kind shall be taken, conform to this type of case in a greater or less degree. In respect of such questions the many have wills of some kind, but they are vague, incomplete, and, taken as a whole, they are powerless, until the talents and energies of the few present them with specific materials, on which, whether by way of selection, of acceptance, or of rejec- tion, they can act. But even when matters have reached this point, the necessary functions of the few are so far from being ended that they merely enter on a new career of activity. What the nature of that activity is we will consider in the following chapter. CHAPTER III THE ARTS OF OLIGARCHY As an approach to the fresh question which has just now been indicated, let us continue for a moment longer the use of our last illustration namely that of a general will with regard to an anti-aircraft gun. The Many, in merely willing the use of some gun or mechanism by which hostile aircraft may be driven off or destroyed, but the nature of which they themselves are quite incom- petent to suggest, are like passengers trying in a boat to be sick on an empty stomach; but we have assumed that when once a contrivance sufficient for this end was presented to them, they would with one consent all will the adoption of it. This assumption, however, if we apply it to actual life, is by no means so simple as it seems. A contrivance of the kind in question would, from the nature of the case, be novel, and, however perfect it might be, only experts of very special capacity could form, before it was tried, any independent judg- ment with regard to its merits whatsoever. Indeed, even Boards of experts have often rejected contrivances, subsequently shown to possess the highest value, as not being worth the cost of so much as a systematic trial. And this difficulty is increased when, as usually happens, not one contrivance only is submitted to their judgment, but several. Now it is true that of contrivances such as an anti-aircraft gun, the cost of which is individually not enormous, several might be tried simultaneously or in rapid succession before the occasion for the use of them had altogether passed away ; and the Government might invite the masses to record a general will that the type of gun should be adopted which experiment had shown to be the best. This is a part in the drama which the masses, as a pure democracy, would be fully competent 30 HOW OLIGARCHY OPERATES 31 to play, just as a crowd at Epsom is competent to acclaim the Derby winner when it has won. But the questions to which experiments of kinds like these are applicable form but a small part of those Composite Questions with which Governments have to deal. A dozen different guns devised for the destruction of Zep- pelins might be tested by practice at so many floating targets, in a dozen consecutive days, or even in a single morning ; but schemes of electoral reform, or of Protection or of Free Trade, can be tested by no such preliminary means as these. Of any electoral or fiscal schemes that are possible, it is impossible at the same time to experi- ment with more than one; and the one which happens to be adopted must be kept in operation for years before, as an experiment, it is able to teach us anything. Its adoption must, therefore, be determined by psychological processes whose action precedes the event, not by the results which follow it. All Composite questions, then, as related to the will of the many, resemble the question of defences against hostile aircraft in the fact, which this example so signally illustrates, that before the many can collectively will anything about them at all, two distinct tasks must be carried out by the few. In the first place the question at issue must be invested by the few with the form of some definite scheme or schemes, for otherwise the judgments of the many will have nothing to act on. In the second place, if these judgments are to be so precise on the one hand, and so absolutely unified on the other, as to constitute an injunction that some one scheme shall be adopted, the devisers of this scheme must so present it to the mass of average men that a judgment in favour of its adoption shall, somehow or other, develop itself in the mind of each. Further, it is evident that, if such a consensus of judgment cannot be elicited beforehand by short and sharp experiment a feat which is possible in exceptional cases only it must be elicited by the arts of deliberate and systematic persuasion. It is in the practice of such arts, which are essentially the arts of an oligarchy, that at least one half of the activity of any Constitutional Government, actual or possible, consists; and the more nearly a Constitution 32 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY conforms in outward semblance to the principles which the theory of pure democracy postulates, the more necessary does the practice of such arts become, and the more industriously do statesmen who call themselves democrats practise them. Let us consider this fact further in the light of well-known examples. The object of such arts may be briefly restated thus. Owing to changed social conditions some Composite question arises, such as that of providing some new military weapon or some new fiscal system. Before the many can play any part in the matter, some new weapon or some new fiscal system or, as generally happens, several complete in respect at least of their main details, must be devised. The devising of this or of these requires special abilities, and is necessarily the work of the few. The many can, as a whole, play no part in the matter except that of agreeing to pronounce that some one device, if there be only one, is satisfactory, or, if several be offered, that some one of these is the best. The situation of the many with regard to such devices is very much what it would be with regard to a medicine which nobody had ever tried, and the probable effects of which could not reasonably be anticipated by anybody otherwise than from some knowledge of its chemical composition and the action of chemical substances on the tissues of the human body. The only means by which in each of a countless number of people, most of them certainly not chemical experts, a confidence in the merits of an untried medicine could be elicited would be a system of puffs on the part of the would-be vendor. Now such puffs or advertisements are of various kinds and grades, but they all conform to one or other of two types. They may contain some fragments of vague scientific information which even to the most ignorant man is in a vague way familiar, and suggests to him some judgment which he attributes to his own intelli- gence; or else they may consist of a number of bare assertions, the efficacy of which depends on the art with which they are emphasised. Thus, if a man has invented a compound called "Radium Cocoa," he may commend its virtues to the public in either or both of the two following ways. OLIGARCHIC PERSUASION 33 4 'Madame Curie, the renowned French scientist, has," he may say, "pronounced that one atom of radium is beyond all doubt an epitome of the self-renewing vitality of Nature. Those who drink Radium Cocoa are taking the vitality and undying youth of Nature into their own systems." Or else, adopting a style which for many is more insidious, he may say, "What YOU so often suffer from is that Tired Feeling, that Bored Feeling, a Feeling that you've had Enough of it. Whenever you feel that way, just drink a cup of Radium Cocoa. The House of Lords drinks it. The House of Commons drinks it. Your Best Girl drinks it, directly after you have been talking to her. Baby Bubbles, of Paradise Mews, Clac- ton, drinks it. Here are two pictures, showing Baby Bubbles before a cup of Radium Cocoa, and after." But whichever method the advertiser of an untried com- pound may adopt, the object of his advertisements will be to create in the minds of all who look at them a similar will or judgment, which they would not and could not have formed if left to their own devices. And any Government which, in respect of any composite or com- plex questions, requires the definite support of any general will at all, is bound, so long as it cannot resort to bribery, to manufacture such a will for itself in substantially the same ways. As practised by statesmen, whether actually in office or struggling for it, the arts of eliciting from each unit of a miscellaneous mass an identical judgment with regard to any complex measures, are, as history shows us, divisible roughly into three. One of these may be called the Art of Political Incendiarism ; another the Art of Political Stimulation; whilst the third, which alone gives meaning to either of the two others, is the Art of Popular Exposition, or the art of placing before the public in a manner which compels conviction statements as to fact which have been so chosen and marshalled that average minds, unconscious of external pressure, shall naturally tend to draw from them some desired conclusion. What is here meant by the art of Political Incendiarism is the art of kindling in multitudes by loose and popular rhetoric a belief that they are suffering from some par- 34 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY ticular grievance for which some statesman professes to have devised a cure, his object being to achieve or retain power as the social saviour by whom alone the cure can be applied. This art is like that of the quack American doctor, of whom the story is told that, when asked to cure a child of smallpox, he began with giving it a powder, saying to the parents as he did so, " This powder will bring on the convulsions. I'm not much at pustules, but I reckon I'm hell on fits." The art of Political Stimulation has for its object a mere overcoming of the inertia which disinclines a vast number of persons, even when suffering from conditions really onerous and remediable, not only to think out political remedies for themselves, but even to accept with interest those thought out by others. Except for the fact that one of these arts is fraudulent whilst the other is legitimate and on most occasions necessary, it is impossible to draw any definite line between them. The nature of both is very vividly illustrated by a remark which an English statesman of the extreme radical school is reported to have addressed to a friend, who endowed it with immortality by repeating it. "I have sometimes feared of late that my personal influence was declining. I find, however, that my fears were groundless. Let me only make the people angry, and I can do with them what I please." Of the last of these three arts namely that of Popular Exposition, or the art of creating a will in favour of specific measures, not by rhetorical statements calculated to inflame opinion, but by plying the public with facts which, even if accurately stated, are so selected and emphasised that the average mind will draw from them some special conclusion for itself, signal examples have been provided by various governments during the great European war. During the earlier months of that war the German Government spent more than 1,000,000 in America with the object of manufacturing an opinion by this precise method we may call it a campaign of emphasis. It may have been, as is said, a campaign of falsehoods also ; but this, if such were the case, is no more than an accident. It is the art with which state- \ments are selected, whether true in themselves or no, OLIGARCHIC PERSUASION 35 and the concerted emphasis which they thus acquire \ when presented, that gives them their cumulative effect, j and converts them into an instrument for securing the j end desired. Such methods of manipulating the judgments of average men by systematising the supply of facts on which judgments are formed are certainly not what is commonly meant by bribery, though when emissaries are paid to conduct the process these methods very closely resemble it ; but they are no less inconsistent than bribery with the pure democratic principle. If a witness by manipulating or merely suppressing facts causes a jury to do what they would not have done otherwise to acquit a man really innocent, or acquit a man really guilty he is no less interfering with the natural action of others than he would be had he bought the verdict by slipping a banknote into each juryman's pocket. Whichever were his object a just result or an unjust the nature of his conduct would in this respect be the same, namely an influencing of the recorded judgments of men other than himself. For, except in the case here described as that of Political Incendiarism, it must not be supposed that these arts of oligarchic influence are in any way necessarily sinister, nor are they peculiar to one party only. On the contrary, they are compatible though not always associated with the strictest moral integrity. In any constitutional country their employ- ment is inseparable from statesmanship. In so far as it is necessary, with regard to any Composite question, that a government should secure the support of any general will at all a will possessing any definite content these arts of manipulation must be prac- tised by all statesmen equally. Neither the will of the governing few nor the will of the governed many could, without such oligarchic arts, become so much as articulate. These observations are primarily made with reference to the action of persons or parties either actually in power, or competing for it with a reasonable prospect of obtaining it. In all modern countries, however, much of the business of eliciting corporate wills is performed by sectional bodies, or parties in a narrower sense ; and 36 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY in these the arts of the few are not confined to the arts of mere incitation or persuasion, but are to a considerable extent supplemented by those of discipline. Such sec- tional bodies as these, which have no general authority, will be dealt with in another chapter. We are for the moment concerned with national government only ; and here we must proceed to note that, in the opinion of many persons, absolutely pure democracy may, despite all difficulties, be realised by a constant use of the Referendum, or plebiscite, this being taken to carry with it the popular right, not only of decision but of personal initiative also. The opinion is specious, but it is alto- gether illusory, merely bringing us back to oligarchy under a new disguise. The device of the Referendum, or plebiscite, though often very effective, is effective only when the questions which form its subject have been previously reduced by the few to the last state of real or seeming simplicity. Those who formulate the questions do not, indeed, give the answers, but they determine within narrow limits what the nature of the answers shall be, and they alone make definite answers possible. A plebiscite might elicit an answer of the kind required to the question of whether the parish wants a new pump or no; but it certainly could not do so if what each parishioner was asked for were an accurate description or sketch of the pump which he thought most suitable. If a bride and bridegroom, whose cherished dream was to visit the north of Ireland, had been promised by a tribe of rela- tions the costs of their wedding tour on condition that they asked the relations what the course of their tour should be, it would be idle for them to ask each one of a hundred aunts or cousins, each haunted by personal recollections and preferences, for the route, the hotels, the excursions, which he or she would recommend. They would if they did this get a hundred answers, which would practically amount to none. If they wished to get an answer at once distinct and general, they would have to frame their question in a very different way. Instead of saying to each, "Where do you wish us to go ? ", they might say to all at once, " Shall we go to Hell or Connaught?", and they thus would elicit an c OLIGARCHY AND THE REFERENDUM 37 answer which was not only clear and general, but was also the precise answer which they themselves desired. When a plebiscite established the dynasty of Victor Emmanuel, the question addressed to each unit of the Italian people was not " What kind of government would you wish to establish if you could?" It was simply "Do you wish that Italy shall remain what it is now a collection of petty States each afraid of its neighbours, or else that it shall be a great kingdom united under one great king?" If each Italian had been asked for a sketch of whatever government ducal, royal, papal, federal, republican, or communist corresponded to his own ideal, the plebiscite would have meant no more than a buzz of quarrelling voices heard through a single telephone, instead of what statesmen were waiting for a clear business-like message on which business men could act. Nor would the situation be mended by the popular right of initiative the right of every citizen "in virtue of his manhood alone " to submit to the Executive any proposal he might please, and to claim that it should for this is what the matter comes to have in the last resort a special little plebiscite to itself. Such a right, no doubt, might be possibly exercised with effect by a citizen here and there, and on very rare occasions; but it could not be exercised by all. Were it exercised by all, the life-work of each adult would be mainly taken up with examining the vagaries of all the rest. On the other hand, if it were exercised by a few, and a few only, the principle of oligarchy would be back again without any disguise whatever. The right of initiative would be meaningless even in theory, except in so far as it enabled the individual who insisted on using it to obtain for his own proposals the support of a considerable number of other men, and cause them to form some judgment which they would not have formed otherwise a process which is essentially that of imposing his will on theirs. If we ask how one man would be able to do this, we can only say that, if he did not do so by bribery, he would have to do so by practising as a private individual, and for some one isolated purpose, the essentially oligarchic arts which, as 38 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY we have seen already, are practised by leading statesmen systematically and on a larger stage. In other words, with regard to Composite questions, the pure will of the many, unless it is unified by the formative influence of the few, is neither a foolish will nor a wise will. It is a will which does not exist. It can only come into action and acquire a definite content when the few have provided it with a subject-matter on which to act. Hence, in all advanced states of society the exceptional influence of a more or less numerous few is absolutely essential to the operation of the democratic principle, and this fact is at the same time fatal to the theory of pure democracy. CHAPTER IV INEXPUGNABLE OLIGARCHY THE meaning of the paradoxical fact that, in any com- plex society, democratic action would be impossible under a regime of pure democracy, will be more clearly appreciated if we consider with more minuteness what the theory of pure democracy, when seriously taken, implies the theory whose basic principle expresses - itself in the common formula of "One man one vote," or of " One man one unit of influence," or in the aphor- ism of the Abbe Sieyes, who said of the King of France that his rightful influence was to that of his subjects exactly in the ratio of one to thirty millions. If this theory or principle really means what it affects v to mean, it would, were it translated into fact, have one \ very startling consequence. It would not only mean that a King, if kings were permitted to exist, should have no more influence as a voter than the obscurest man in the street. It would also mean that, if any prestige were left to him, he should not use it, no matter how informally, to influence the votes of any members / of his entourage who respected the dignity of his office, ' or were animated by loyalty to his person. But the application of this principle would not be confined to kings. It would apply with equal strictness to the men in the street themselves. It would mean with regard to the judgments by which votes are determined that no one man, whatever his social status, should, by his decision of character or his reputation for superior know- ledge, so sway the mind of even a single companion whether a worker in the same workshop, or a frequenter of the same eating-house that the thoughts and votes of two men were determined by the mind of one; and if such a condition were to be realised, what would have 39 40 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY to happen would be this. Every voter would be bound to form his judgments in an atmosphere artificially sterilised like that of a sick-room, so that no germs of suggestion should be able to attack him from without, and inoculate his thoughts or feelings with those of any other person. If this regulation were pushed to its full logical consequences, it would be necessary to treat all questions of politics as though they were obscene subjects which each man might have to confront in the hermitage of his own mind, but about which no con- versation between man and man was to be tolerated. For let any dozen men begin to discuss politics round the hearth of any village inn, there will always be one or more who will, through some special alertness alike of mind and speech, influence to some extent the judgments of the larger number; and the first faint breath of oligarchy will mix itself with the smoke of pipes, and the odours of the fraternal tap-room. Oligarchs need not be men distinguished by wealth or station, or by any of the advantages possible for a small class only. The officials of a trade union, who order a strike or prohibit it, may be oligarchs just as truly as a senate of hereditary peers, or any elected chamber packed with aristocratic landlords. When, as sometimes happens, a number of trade unionists refuse to obey the orders which their leading officials issue, such movements, though often described as outbursts of democracy pure and simple, are always found to have, as their cause and nucleus, the activity of new oligarchs struggling to displace the old, 1 and in all such cases one main instrument of oligarchy is some special power of speech of speech whether uttered by the mouth or committed to printed paper. If there were a hundred men who could think and could understand language, but who could themselves neither utter a word nor read it, one man who could speak would necessarily rule the rest. Only through him, who inter- preted each to all, would any concerted action on the part of the rest be possible. All men, as a matter of 1 It is hardly necessary to call the reader's attention to the frequency with which this fact was illustrated by strikes amongst munition workers on the Clyde, in Sheffield and elsewhere, contrary to the orders of the official heads of the unions. REPRESSION OF OLIGARCHY 41 fact, are able to talk somehow, and consequently take or attempt concerted action of some sort ; but since some men can notoriously talk with much more effect than others, the mere use of unrestricted speech inevitably communicates to a few certain powers inconsistent, no matter whether they are small or large, with the absolute equality of influence which pure democracy postulates. It is true that no democrats, however rigid their creed, would propose that for this reason all political conversa- tion should be suppressed. 1 They would reject such a plan as absurd, even if it were not impracticable. But this does not show that it is not in strict logic impera- tively demanded by the principles of pure democracy. It shows that, with regard to the affairs of any complex policy, these principles are not strictly compatible with the unalterable facts of life. But let this argument be waived as merely academic or captious. Let us suppose that, if reasonably inter- preted, the principles of even fhe purest democracy would not demand the suppression of such political talk as forms a natural incident of ordinary social intercourse, "T or of such inequalities of influence as are naturally bound to result from it. Other things remain, however, the suppression of which they would demand, and these, in the eyes of democrats, are very much more important. The principles of pure democracy would, if applied with even the roughest semblance of logic, suppress all poli- tical discussion which, emerging from the conversational and wholly informal stage, develops into discussion the conditions of which have been deliberately prearranged 1 Since these words were written, the precise conditions there sug- gested as logical necessity but a practical impossibility, were actually realised by the German Government. In a London Journal (June 9, 1917) it was reported that, with a view to preventing " discouraging statements as to the war," no one " of lower rank than a member of parliament" should be permitted to make any such statement to any other person, and a reward was offered of 150 to anyone who " should bring any violator of this regulation to book." ft Police regulations to this effect," the report continued, " adorn the advertisement pillars in the streets. Nobody is safe in even the most confidential conver- sation." Pure autocracy, in order to suppress any general will or opinion, creates the very conditions which pure democracy logically postulates, and which at the ame time prevent the development of any general will at all. 42 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY ~-*-^ by a few men for the purpose of influencing many in any special and calculated way. In other words, the prin- ciples of pure democracy, which demand before all things else that no one voter of any kind shall, so far as such an abuse is preventable, exercise more than one unit of influence, would suppress everything which partakes of the nature of oratory, under which heading we may include all incitation or persuasion which is, with a political object, accomplished either by voice or litera- ture. Wherever the orator begins pure democracy ends ; for if the aim of the political orator is not to make men vote as they would not have voted if he had not been there to move them, the labour of the orator would be labour thrown away. Now here again, it may be urged by the doctrinaires of pure democracy, we have a conclusion which, if it be true at all, is true only in a cloudland of idle academic quibbling. It is, they may say, a conclusion which would, if practically accepted, destroy all such move- ments as are now called " campaigns," all newspapers which did not strictly confine themselves to the publica- tion of bare news unaccompanied by explanation or comment, and more unthinkable still it would actually destroy the great political meeting. These things can, these things must co-exist, so such persons will say, with democracy which is pure in the highest degree possible in other words, which is pure to all reasonable intents and purposes ; and no truth can be established of any practical value by comparing it with a democracy in which all such things were absent, and which could not exist anywhere except in a fantastic dream. And in arguing thus, such persons would up to a point be right. The logic of pure democracy, if applied in the way here indicated, would make a clean sweep of all those methods and institutions with which democratic action has thus far been identified. But should such persons go on to object that, if these methods and these institutions were absent, no democracy of any kind, pure or impure, would be possible, they would be wrong. It must be remembered that throughout the discussion in which we are immediately engaged we have been dealing only with those Composite questions which, PURE DEMOCRACY IN ACTION 43 constantly changing their form, always highly complex, and peculiar to the life of great and elaborately civilised States, comprise nearly all the questions which, to any important extent, demand the formation of any novel will by anybody. But let us only turn back to the questions which have here been called Fundamental, and which still persist everywhere, though constantly inter- tangled with others ; and we shall find, as has been said already, that with regard to these a pure democratic will, which requires for its formation and maintenance neither campaigns, newspapers, meetings, nor even private discussion, is so far from being an impossible fancy that it is an inexpugnable fact in the life of all societies ; and if we compare this will with the only kinds of general will which can, with regard to Composite ques- tions, be induced to form and record themselves, we have a standard by which to measure the difference between these last and the will on which pure democracy, as a political theory, rests. Let us suppose, then, that a formal reamrmation was necessary of a general judgment to the effect that robbery and arson were evils of an intolerable kind, and that a police force, with whose efficiency the public was already familiar, should be maintained as a defence against them. What need would there be of meetings all over the country to secure the due expression of such a judgment by everybody ? If a meeting were called for this pur- pose, the most powerful orator on the platform could tell the audience nothing which every member of the audi- ence could not tell the orator. A meeting might as well be held for the purpose of expressing a belief in the fact that Queen Anne was dead. Why, then, is it that, when Composite questions are at issue, such as that of Free Trade for England in the middle of the nineteenth century, meetings are, in all constitutional countries, one of the principal expedients to which all parties resort? Why are public buildings packed with excited crowds ? Why does a Bright or a Chamberlain strain every nerve in addressing them, often continuing patiently this arduous labour for years ? The reason why public meet- ings would be superfluous and ridiculous in connection with Fundamental questions, whilst they are in connec- 44 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY tion with Composite questions necessary, is this. Whereas in the former case the wills of the many, as freely formed by each, are practically the same in substance and are thus spontaneously united in a cumulative will already, the wills of the many in the latter case are vague, various, and for the most part practical nullities, and cannot acquire any general meaning whatever, until the few, treating them as so much raw material, manu- facture such a meaning out of them by intricate processes of their own. If any one doubts whether this manufacturing pro- cess is necessary, conclusive proof that it is so is to be found in the mere fact that, in spite of its immense cost in the way both of money and effort, the task of conducting it is systematically and continually under- taken; just as if proof were required that raw cotton from America is not in itself cotton ready to be stitched into night-shirts, such proof would be found in the mere existence of the spindles and the mills of Lancashire. Here, however, it must be noted is a fact which has a converse side. If the process carried on by the few of manipulating the wills of the many is shown to be neces- sary by the mere fact of its being undertaken, the in- tensity of effort involved in it shows something else as well. It shows that the wills of the many, however incapable in their crude and spontaneous forms of deter- mining the actions of a government as to any questions but the simplest, are far from being purely passive and without some bent of their own ; for otherwise the process of manipulating them would be far less laborious than it is. There is not only action on the part of the rela- tively few ; there is also reaction on the part of the rela- tively many. This fact will be fully discussed hereafter in connection with other questions, not merely with those which are commonly called political ; but it does not affect the counter-fact with which alone we are con- cerned at present, that in the political government of any large and complex society, unless some exceptional influence were systematically exercised by the few, there would be on the part of the many no effective action or reaction at all. Such being the case, then, the result of the preceding BOTH PRINCIPLES NEEDED 45 analysis may be summed up by saying that all current definitions of democracy err, even before they are stated, by reason of a false assumption which underlies the formulation of all of them. They all assume that demo- cracy is a system of government of some kind. This is precisely what, except in primitive and minute com- munities, pure democracy is not, nor ever has been, nor ever can be. It is not and never can be a system of government of any kind. It is simply one principle out of two, the other being that of oligarchy, which two may indeed be combined in very various proportions, but neither of which alone will produce what is meant by a government, any more than saltpetre or charcoal wiil itself produce gunpowder. It has, however, been pointed out already that this general argument has thus far been mainly applied to the government of entire nations, either as carried on by some party actually in possession of power, or to the conduct of some other party which, having possessed it once, has some reasonable prospect of regaining it, and is constantly on the watch to do so. We will now turn our attention to those sectional parties which are known by such names as Leagues, Associations, Federa- tions or Unions, each of which aims at exercising over public affairs some will which is democratic, at all events so far as its own members are concerned, and consider whether democracy without any oligarchic concomitant is more practicable in the microcosm of the League than it is in the macrocosm of a great and highly civilised nation. With regard to this question, as will be seen in the following chapter, evidence is available of a signally pertinent kind. CHAPTER V REVOLUTIONARY OLIGARCHIES SHORTLY before the outbreak of the great European war, a distinguished economist, Professor R. Michels, of the Universities of Basle and Turin, issued an elaborate volume devoted to an examination of the democratic principle as operative in those sectional parties whose one avowed aim is to exhibit it in its purest form. These parties, he says, which side by side make their appear- ance everywhere a Socialist Party on the one hand, a Labour Party on the other are still everywhere a minority; but they have for the last half century been increasing with such rapidity that they are now an important minority in most European countries. The former is more comprehensive than the latter, and stands for "the rights of man," whilst the latter stands more particularly for the rights of a man as a labourer. The attitude of both, however, towards existing systems of government even towards those in which a radical ele- ment preponderates is, says Professor Michels, 1 the same. The object, or at all events the professed object, of both is not to play a permanent part in these systems of government as they are, but rather to establish in their place a system altogether new, in which pure demo- cracy, unadulterated by any alien element, and repre- senting solely the will of equal and equally influential units, shall be a realised fact at last. Hence, says the author, if we wish to see what democracy means in practice, it is in the actual development and working of these two parties, and of the many and various sub- 1 Political Parties, by Robert Michels, Professor of Economics and Statistics in the University of Basle, and Professor of Statistics in the University of Turin. English translation by Eden and Cedar Paul. London. Jarrold and Sons. 1916. 46 TRADE UNION OLIGARCHS 47 sections of them, that the question can be most easily, if not most comprehensively, studied. It will, therefore, be instructive to consider the nature of the conclusions drawn by him from a mass of detailed and accumulated data, and compare them with the conclusions which have already been elucidated here. The general conclusion reached is in both cases the same that , x except in the case of communities or organ- isations which are small, and whose objects are extremely simple, no corporate action which is purely democratic is possible, and that every attempt to eliminate oligarchy is bound to end in a re-creation of it.// This conclusion, says Professor Michels, is rendered specially clear by the case of those parties or organisations on which his own attention has been concentrated, for the leaders of these, together with the rank and file, have been clearly con- scious from the first of what the primary principle of pure democracy is. They have realised that pure demo- cracy, as represented by any body of men bound together in the pursuance of any united policy means that no unit of this mass shall exercise any influence greater than that which is exercised by any other, and that no one unit shall, on behalf of the rest, do or execute anything which any one of the rest could not have executed as well and with equal ease, and would not have sponta- neously executed in substantially the same way. They have not only realised this as a matter of unambiguous theory, but they set out with showing that such was the case by their conduct. Thus, says Professor Michels, in England, which was the cradle of the Trade Union movement, some of the Unions began with choosing their officials by lot or else in alphabetical order, and the agricultural unions of Italy, in their earlier days, went farther. Every proposal of the officials had to be re- duced to writing, and before it could be put into execu- tion it had to be sanctioned by the signature of every one of the members. Moreover, the official accounts were open to the inspection of all, so that any member might be able, as soon as his own turn came, to step at a moment's notice into any vacated place. But as time went on, as the membership of the Unions grew, and the duties of the officials assumed a more complex character, 48 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY this primitive plan of election or selection at haphazard was generally found to be more and more inadequate. It was found that the duties of the officials comprised some exercise of initiative, and that a leader, if he was to be worth anything, must in most cases have natural talents not to be found in everybody especially the talents of a stimulating or explanatory speaker and also some special equipment in the way of digested know- ledge. Hence the more important of the democratic organisations of to-day have abandoned choice by lot from a medley of supposed equals for a method so elabor- ately different that some of them have established colleges at which certain students a carefully picked minority who promise to be fit for leadership are hand- somely paid and put through a course of training, so that out of these a minority smaller still may be ulti- mately chosen by their teachers as eligible for posts of power. The existence of even a few institutions of this kind is an index of how far the spirit by which they are animated differs from that which prompted the pioneers of the Trade Union movement to leave the selection of their leaders, so far as was possible, to chance, and de- liberately to ignore, rather than deliberately measure, such differences in public efficiency as exist between man and man. It is argued by some, Professor Michels observes, that the power as exercised by the leaders thus selected repre- sents, not a negation of the democratic principle, but its triumph, such men being nothing but specially skilled employees, hired by the average mass to do its difficult work for it, and liable to curt dismissal if they are not punctual in obeying their masters' orders. But to speak of such persons as nothing more than employees is merely, he says, to play with words. Whether we call them employees or no, the plain fact is that the men by whom the affairs of the democratic parties are conducted, though they may perhaps take some orders, give far more orders than they take ; and although, like em- ployees generally, they are as a matter of theory always liable to be dismissed, it is rarely possible to dismiss them by purely democratic means. The reasons why this is so may, he says, be divided into two groups, the OLIGARCHIC LEADERS 49 first consisting of negative reasons which render dismissal difficult, the other of positive reasons, which combine to render tenures of office permanent, and augment in so doing the kinds of power attached to them. Of the negative reasons, the chief are, according to Professor Michels, these. In the first place, as the in- fluence of any democratic organisation grows, and its points of contact with affairs in general multiply, many of the duties of the leaders become so highly technical that any serious discussion of them is over the heads of laymen, and efficient criticism of the leaders in respect of such duties as these is beyond the competence of the mass of members collectively. In the second place, the efficiency of the leaders in the management of large affairs becomes more and more dependent, not merely on natural gifts whether these be moral or mental, but also on powers of judgment and prompt action, which most men can acquire by experience of office only. Hence any leaders who, having once been chosen, have re- mained in office for a certain number of years, will be men whom, if their party dismissed them, it would be very difficult to replace. Further, the democratic parties have found out from experience how greatly their ex- ternal influence and also their internal cohesion depend on their actions possessing a certain substratum of con- tinuity, and are therefore inclined on principle, except in extreme cases, to preserve a continuity of leadership as a thing desirable in itself. All these facts, except in extreme cases (such as that in which an Italian agitator was found to be taking fees from employers for his services in settling strikes), tend to remove the leaders from the category of mere employees, and endow them with powers largely, if not wholly, independent of the source from which they were first derived. Thus, the Amalgamated Association of Operative Cotton-spinners in England have a rule to the effect that the posts of their officials shall be permanent, unless one or all of the staff should provoke universal censure. Similarly, with special reference to a strike of the first magnitude, a resolution, says Professor Michels, was passed by the Italian Federation of Labour, that even if the results of a referendum should be adverse to the views of the 50 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY leaders then in office, this should not be construed as invalidating the position of the leaders themselves ; whilst still more widely significant is the general fact that in Germany the leaders of the Socialist and the Trade Union parties have proved to be practically irremovable except by death or voluntary resignation. Further, to such difficulties of a mental and tactical kind which render dismissal of the leaders by the action of the mass difficult, there are two more to be added, one of which is purely mechanical, whilst the other, which underlies this, has its roots in human nature itself. The mechanical difficulty consists of the simple fact that, as soon as a party has become sufficiently numerous to constitute, by pervading a country, a force in national life, it becomes impossible that all, or even most of its members, these being widely diffused, shall meet in their thousands except on very rare occasions, and they would even then be unmanageable for the purposes of detailed criticism. But closely connected with this mechanical result, increase of membership has brought to light another which is in itself of wholly independent origin. Although the parties of revolutionary protest are, in every country where they exist, a minority of the nation as a whole, and are thus presumably permeated by some special democratic fervour, the majority of this minority, with regard to questions of detail, is everywhere found in practice to be apathetic to such a degree that critics have described them as suffering from the malady of "gregarious inertia." Impatient enthusiasts have said of them that these masses of professed democrats are no better than ordinary men, "being far more interested in a road at the bottom of their back gardens " than in any administrative details connected with democratic policy, and that, except when excited by some sensa- tional cry "A bas la vie chere," for instance they signify no interest in party affairs whatever. Thus, says Professor Michels, on occasions both in Holland and Italy, when the conduct of the leaders was attacked with regard to the most momentous questions, the number of members who took the trouble to vote varied from one- fifth to one-tenth of the whole. In France, of the mem- OLIGARCHIC LEADERS 51 bers of the General Federation of Labour, only one in fifty is a reader of the party journal. In this case and in that of similar organisations everywhere, the section of the rank and file which alone keeps a watchful eye on the doings of the party leaders is a certain small minor- ity, which, distinguishable from the rest as oil is dis- tinguishable from water, makes a habit, like the habit of inveterate playgoers, of attending party meetings, and fills hall after hall with the same familiar faces. It is from this minority that, except on very rare occasions, all close and effective criticisms of the party leaders emanates, and it has, says Professor Michels, been found that this minority, which alone realises what the diffi- culties of party leadership are, is for the most part dis- posed to support, rather than attack, those at present in office who are taking such difficulties on themselves. Amongst the minority in question there are on occasion, doubtless, embittered malcontents, and in the activity of such, not in spontaneous disaffection on the part of the larger number, lies the only adverse influences which the leaders have to fear. But influences of this kind, Professor Michels observes, are not in their origin demo- cratic, nor do they represent any protest against the influence of an oligarchy as such. On the contrary, they originate in men who are anxious to be oligarchs them- selves, and who seek to convert the mass into an instru- ment of their own ambition. Such revolts, when they occur, may be formidable and at times successful, but, says Professor Michels, definite experience has shown that the actual leaders, as a rule, not only are able to hold their own against them, but tend to acquire in- creased powers in doing so, these indeed being thrust on them by the mass of their respective parties, with a view to preventing the recurrence of paralysing or useless discords. Amongst the new powers thus placed in the leaders' hands is the power, which according to circum- stances is more or less fully developed, of choosing, as posts fall vacant, new colleagues or subordinates at their own personal discretion. Thus, in Germany, of the Trade Union officials one in every five is a nominee of the Central Council. By a congress of Trade Unions in Italy, held at Modena in the year 1910, it was not only 52 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY permitted to the leaders, but enjoined on them as a primary duty, that, exercising their best judgment, they should nominate every member of their official staff themselves; whilst as for the General Federation of Labour in France, which of all labour organisations claims to be most revolutionary, the highest posts in this are, as they fall vacant, filled up by a process which is tantamount to nomination by the chief secretary. It is idle, the author proceeds, in the face of facts like these, to pretend that the democratic leaders are no more than employees. It is idler still to dismiss the conten- tion that they are oligarchs as though it were a baseless calumny due to conservative prejudice; for this is, on the contrary, the precise contention or accusation which the various democratic groups are constantly levelling at one another. Indeed, the intellectual representatives of certain of them do not altogether repel it, but are, as we shall see presently, coming to admit that some ele- ment of oligarchy is inevitable. The groups, however, which still adhere to the strict teaching of Marx are, Professor Michels observes, singu- larly tart and vehement in declaring that the charge of oligarchy has no application to themselves and that they, at all events, still reflect in their organisation the democratic teaching and the democratic mind of their master. It will, therefore, be instructive to consider what, as shown by his conduct, the practical mind of their great master was. The principal life-work of Marx, apart from his theoretical writings, was the found- ing of the International a society which was to exhibit his own theories in action. The International was to be a Union of the manual labourers of the world, having for its object to combine them as equal units in pure democratic action against one common foe the ubiqui- tous oligarchy of the present employing classes. It was necessary that, like every other organisation, this world-wide democracy should have some central executive. There thus came into existence a supreme General Council, and if this Council was to be an implement of democracy in any sense, it was further necessary that the labourers of every included coun- try should, by some means or other, be represented SOCIALIST AUTOCRATS 53 in it. It was, therefore, not unnaturally proposed that for this purpose the labourers of each country should elect and be represented by a President a compatriot, a labourer like themselves, and acquainted with their own conditions. This proposal, however, through the influence of Marx was negatived. It was, indeed, re- solved that each country should be represented by a Secretary, but this resolution was immediately followed by another, to the effect that these secretaries need have no connection whatever, by way either of birth or election, with the country which they affected to repre- sent, but should be chosen from amongst its own members by the General Council itself. By this means, so Marx and his friends announced, a glorious event had been accomplished, new to human history. The world- wide democracy of Labour "had at last been provided with a common and purely democratic leadership," which announcement was almost directly followed by the nomination of Engels, the intimate friend of Marx, as acting secretary for four countries at once. Such were the first notes of the overture to the opera of uni- versal democracy of the overthrow of the few by the many under the guidance of scientific socialism. The active performers were a small circle of men who pro- posed to make all humanity dance to their own tunes, and out of this small group there was one man whose notes from the very first were heard above all the rest. This one man was Marx, whose influence as time went on asserted itself more and more. Not only did Marx, in pursuance of his own tactical purposes, shift the meeting-place of the Council from London to New York at his pleasure, but he edited most of the documents which the Council issued, revising them on his own authority; and at last he was openly attacked by two indignant colleagues for having dared to make public a Manifesto to which their signatures were not attached. Jealousy matured and spread. He, and Engels along with him, were denounced as presuming upstarts. One after another most of his colleagues deserted him, de- claring that he and they could no longer work together ; and mainly owing to the quarrels of these few individuals the terrible International came to an early end. Its 54 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY collapse was not due to the action of democracy rebelling against oligarchy, but of several oligarchs rebelling against the superior power of one. "The larval mon- archy of Marx," as Professor Michels calls it, perished, not by the stones of the populace, but by the daggers of his own associates. When we consider that Marx is still revered by Social- ists as the intellectual founder of the modern democratic movement, his practical career as an autocrat has an almost unique significance, as illustrating how inevitably the power, which in theory is that of the multitude, is bound, as the condition of its exercise, to centre itself in the persons of a few, whilst when one of the few has appreciably a stronger will than the rest, it tends to centre itself in the person of one man only. Cases like that of Marx in his role of autocrat are rare, for the kinds of genius are rare which render such cases possible ; but whether power be centred in the persons of a small class or of an individual, it is at all events the antithesis of that impossible power which the theory of pure democracy ascribes to the homogeneous mass. It may, says Professor Michels, be urged that the more extreme of the oligarchic characteristics by which certain leaders, such as Marx, have notoriously separated them- selves from the people, are due, not to the necessities of the situation, but merely to the fact that human nature is weak, and that some of these men succumb, by a moral accident, to the selfish whispers of insidiously disguised ambition. But, says Professor Michels, in the case of such extreme arrogations of power, mere selfish ambition is not the primary cause, although it may be often present. The most absolutely unselfish enthusiast, who believes that he can accomplish great things for the multitude, is, in proportion to his faith in his own mission, bound to act as an oligarch, often as a bare- faced autocrat, no less than the most selfish schemer, for unless he is prepared to do so, he must cease to act at all. Nobody has expressed this fact more clearly and boldly than Lassalle, whose magnetic influence over his followers was greater than that of any other modern revolutionary. Lassalle was no doubt ambitious in the strictly personal sense ambitious to an extraordinary SOCIALIST AUTOCRATS 55 degree, but his claims to autocracy were made on public grounds, and these, he was able to boast, were under- stood by his followers no less plainly than by himself. "It is," he said, "well recognised by the masses of the labourers themselves that, if their wills are to be effec- tive they must be forged into a single hammer, and that this hammer must be wielded by the sinews of one strong hand. And this," he added, " which happens in our own organisation already, represents in miniature the coming social order." To the example of Lassalle two others may be added, which are not mentioned by Professor Michels, and to which we shall recur hereafter namely those of Robert Owen, who attempted to establish a community purely democratic in America, and of William Lane, who attempted a similar feat in Paraguay. Owen, who in some respects was wholly without thought of self, had no sooner settled his adherents in their new homes, than he did what Lassalle did not do. He in- sisted on divesting himself of every shred of power which was not shared equally by all. Left to themselves, how- ever, and soon threatened with ruin, his adherents im- plored him to save them by assuming the office of dictator. With great reluctance he did so. Affairs began to mend. Again he resigned his office. Troubles again beginning, he was once more forced to resume it, the moral of these events being ultimately emphasised by the sequel. //Lane began as a preacher of the most absolute democratic equality, denouncing every man who aspired to be more influential than his fellows ; but even whilst his practical experiment was no more than a project, the question had been forced on him of whether a pure democracy, if it is to have any practical success, must not have at the head of it what he described as " some better Napoleon, with the heart of Christ and the brain of a Jay Gould "; and this question, as we shall see in a future chapter, he answered by attempting the part of all three characters himself. It is not, however, necessary for the purpose of our immediate argument to lay any special stress on extreme cases such as these. What here concerns us is the fact, not that oligarchy on occasions tends to culminate in autocracy, but that even in the case of those sectional 56 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY and eclectic parties which have the realisation of demo- cracy as their conscious and primary object, any attempt at democratic action with regard to any complex ques- tions is bound to culminate in the establishment of a more or less numerous oligarchy. This, indeed, in general terms was admitted long ago by the arch-revolu- tionary, Proudhon. As soon, he said, as any masses of men depute the power latent in their mere numbers to representatives or selected leaders in order that it may be put to any effective use, these men, if they are so to use it, are bound they cannot help themselves to con- solidate it in their own persons. "All power," he continues, "thus moves in a cycle. Issuing from the People, it ends by raising itself above the People." It remains for us to consider how experience since the time of Proudhon has affected the theoretical as well as the practical views of the intellectual leaders of the demo- cratic parties of to-day. It will be found that, though for the purpose of playing on popular sentiment the formulae of pure democracy are as widely used as ever, and are indeed adopted not only by would-be revolu- tionaries, but also by parties whose views are conserva- tive or conservatively liberal, serious revolutionary thinkers, in so far as they speak seriously, are everywhere modifying the theory which these formulae express, and investing it with a new import which is widely different from the old. They are seeking to justify in theory those methods of conducting affairs which have been found by their active leaders, whether autocrats or oligarchic groups, to be absolutely inevitable in prac- tice. This fact will be evident to any one who has given any careful attention to their more recent utterances. Professor Michels has collected a number of significant and typical illustrations of it. Of these, for our present purpose, it will be enough to mention the following. They may be divided into two groups, the one relating to the limitations of popular power, the other to its true foundations, or the particular sources from which it really emanates. Of the various current definitions of absolutely pure democracy, one of the most famous, as has here been observed already, is "Government of the People, for the REVISED IDEA OF THE DEMOS 57 People, by the People." This formula, says Professor Michels, the more serious democratic thinkers, especially in Germany and England, have now radically revised, or in other words repudiated. They assert with redoubled emphasis that everything must be done for the People, but they wholly deny that the People can accomplish this "everything" by themselves. "If democracy is to be effective," they say, "democracy must be taken as including the personal authority 6 of leaders. 5 ' "In all the affairs of management," says one of them, "for the decision of which there is requisite specialised know- ledge, and for the performance of which a certain degree of authority is essential, a measure of despotism must be allowed, and thereby a deviation from the principles of pure democracy. From the democratic point of view," he continues, "this is perhaps an evil, but it is a necessary evil." The leader must, says a philosopher of the English Labour Party, "have a scheme of his own to which he works, and he must have the power to make his will prevail." "Apart from his leaders," says Bernstein, "the average man has no political com- petence. . . . Everything which is tactically of import- ance must of necessity devolve on the leaders; " and it has been seriously suggested that the party of true democracy in England would be directed to the best advantage by a cabinet of "three persons." The theory, then, being thus discarded that the great mass of the people, as units of equal influence, can determine the government of any complex society for themselves, and the action of some power which is above the people being thus admitted as necessary, it remains to be asked from what popular source the power of the autocrat, the triumvirate, or the leading minority (what- ever its number) is to be derived. It is not contended by any of the new theorists that those who hold this power shall hold it in right of inheritance. They must, therefore, have acquired it at some time of their lives through a popular sanction of some kind, which commits it to them personally, in personal preference to others. If, then, the masses as a whole are incompetent to con- duct the government of any complex society by them- selves, in what sense are they competent to select with . 58 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY any discretion the particular men best fitted to conduct it on their behalf ? How is this question answered by the new logic of democracy ? The answer is one which has its basis in a broad, empirical fact, of which mention has been made already, and which fifty years of experience have taught demo- cratic leaders to recognise and accept as general. This is the fact that as soon as any revolutionary party so far increases its membership as to make it a considerable force by the mere weight of its numbers, it invariably tends to divide itself into two well-marked sections- one being a majority which, absorbed in its own private affairs, would rather play skittles in a tavern with a revolutionary name than concern itself with the details of dry revolutionary tactics, which in mood, though not in theory, is afflicted with "a gregarious inertia " often akin to conservatism, and contents itself with shouting for revolution in moments of rare excitement ; the other being a minority relatively small, which pores over party journals, which listens with upturned faces to the oratory of the party platform, and whose party principles are held with the energy of sincere conviction. Such being the case, then, Professor Michels observes, the apathy of the large majority, which the democratic leaders at first found disconcerting, has now come to be viewed by them in a very different light. Thus, he says, in France active members of the General Federation of Labour argue that the apathy of the mass is positively favourable to the true revolutionary cause, for it eliminates what would else be opposition to the policy of the more daring few. Bakunin, who at one time was celebrated for the terrific announcement that "the chariot of revolution was roll- ing, and gnashing its teeth as it rolled," had expressed the same view already in somewhat different language, maintaining that the manual labourers, who were to gain most from the movement, should not be allowed any voting power in its management, and this same view or admission is reduced to a definite formula by the Italian revolutionist, Labriola, prominent as a preacher of Syndicalism, who, having observed "that it is cer- tainly not revolutionary tactics to entrust the sword of Brennus to any body of men who, like peasant pro- SYNDICALIST OLIGARCHS 59 prietors, are inclined to the sloth of conservatism," proceeds to define what democracy in its true sense is. "In politics," he says, "as in everything else, the last thing that true democracy means is the influence of all men acting as units of equal influence, as though right were always the sum of the largest assortment of like individual wills. True democracy, on the contrary, is the concentrating of power in an elite, who can best judge of the interaction of social cause and effect." Here we have a clear and temperate statement of what, in the minds of the leaders of modern revolutionary parties, the working conception of democracy has at last come to be. This conception, says Professor Michels, amounts "to a deliberate denunciation of democracy in any sense of the word." It will, however, be more accurate to say that it amounts to a conception of demo- cracy founded on a new conception of the Demos. What it means or implies is that of any given population a certain minority alone is found to be endowed with certain peculiar energies namely those which exhibit themselves in connection with social and public questions as the subject-matter of politics ; that for political pur- poses this minority alone constitutes the Demos in any reasonable sense of the word ; and that in virtue of its susceptibility to suggestion on the part of the leaders that is to say, of the men " who have their own schemes to which they work " it forms a Praetorian guard on which the authority of the leaders rests. In other words, according to the modern theory, revolutionary demo- cracy (whether in the case of a nation or a party) is primarily government by a considerable but a relatively \ small minority, who are not the people but are simply | the most energetic section of them, and ultimately by a \ group of persons "working to schemes of their own," who are not this considerable minority, but only an infinitesimal fraction of it. These two oligarchies the larger oligarchy and the less are practically to settle the conduct of affairs between them, and the mass of the citizens some eighty per cent, of the whole are for their own good, which they cannot understand them- selves, to submit to the two oligarchies with the best grace they may. 60 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY Conceptions of government such as these can hardly be described as amounting to " a deliberate denunciation of democracy in any sense of the word "; but they do amount to a repudiation and this is all that concerns us here of democracy in its pure form. They amount to a negation of everything supposed to be represented by the formula of "one man one vote," or of "equal influence for every man in virtue of his manhood alone." They amount to a direct negation of the idea that the people, taken as a whole, and confronting political ques- tions as an aggregation of equal units, possess any com- mon, definite and effective will at all. They amount to a direct affirmation that an oligarchic element is essen- tial, and that no general will could possibly exist without it. We neecf not for the moment push this argument farther, but may content ourselves with noting that the experience of those revolutionary parties which aim at realising democracy to the extremest degree which is practicable, has compelled them in practice, and grad- ually taught them in theory, not only to recognise that in all complex government an element of oligarchy is indispensable, but also to invoke its action in forms as drastic as any which it ever tends to assume, in the wider sphere of national government, or of the State. If, then, even professional revolutionaries, whose war-cry is "the will of the people," have discovered from experience that the people, except as to the simplest questions, have no definite and guiding will at all, unless it forms itself under the influence, and expresses itself through the action of an oligarchy, we have here a very remarkable illustration of the necessary character of the fact that a similar situation reveals itself in the case of national governments, which have to deal with problems of much greater complexity than any presenting themselves to mere parties of protest. There are, however, certain democratic optimists, by no means revolutionary in the extreme sense of the word, who, though recognising that the pure and independent will of the people is incapable of dictating to an executive all the details of any national policy, still maintain that a popular will exists, which is quite sufficiently definite POPULAR OBJECTIVE 61 for the broad practical purpose of turning the Executive into its humble though trusted servant, and is only hindered from doing so by purely accidental impedi- ments. In order to see how far their position is tenable, we will now resume the main line of our argument, which relates to the nation and the accepted national govern- ment, rather than the internal discipline peculiar to this or that disaffected and disruptive party. CHAPTER VI DISAPPEARING ILLUSIONS OUR general argument thus far may be briefly re- stated thus. It starts with insisting on the fact that, in communities small and primitive and isolated, pure democracy, or government determined by the sponta- neous wills of all, is not only a possible system, but is practically the system which exists; and, further, that it continues to exist with regard to those fundamental questions which, in all communities, simple or complex, are the same. In its relation, therefore, to questions such as these, we have a working example of what pure democracy is, by which we can measure how far, with regard to others, its only effective action diverges from the pure type. The extent and nature of its divergence may be indicated once again by a series of simple illustrations such as those which have been used already. Let us suppose that all the voters of England are assembled in some vast hall, and that the executive government is represented in the person of a single minister, who asks for their corporate will as to the three following questions which he puts before them thus. (1) "Of late, as you all know, there have been con- stant attempts at incendiarism by the use of matches and kerosene. Is it your will that the government shall still maintain the police-force which, as you all know, has proved itself able to frustrate them ? (2) "Of late, as you all know, a number of conflagra- tions have been caused, and might any day be caused again, by incendiary bombs dropped from German air- ships. Is it your will that the government shall produce an anti-aircraft gun which will shoot down airships as easily as a sportsman shoots a pheasant ? 62 POLITICAL ENDS AND MEANS 63 (3) " What is the precise construction, or what are the vital peculiarities, of the gun which, for that purpose, you will that the government shall produce ? " The first question would at once be answered by acclamation, and this would tell the minister everything he asked to be told. All the citizens would know what is meant by the word "policeman," and in expressing by a unanimous shout their will that the police-force should be maintained, they would be giving a definite order which could at once be carried into execution. The second question would probably be answered by acclamation likewise, and this would tell the minister something of what he asked to be told. It would mean that the people spontaneously willed or ordered the production of a gun of some sort. But a gun of some sort is practically a gun of no sort. If the minister wanted an order which could definitely guide his actions, he would have to go on to the third question ; and if he put this to his audience if he asked for any working instructions as to what sort of gun this particular gun should be his question would elicit a response of a very different kind. Most of the assembled voters would stare at him in awkward silence. Some of them would giggle, and think that the minister was laughing at them. Then from a miscellaneous minority would come a volley of answers, most of them worthless, whilst those which were not worthless were so conflicting and various that no ingenuity could invest them with any corporate meaning. The unhappy minister would be driven to shout out to his instructors the very familiar adjuration, "Don't all speak at once." But that everybody should speak at once is the very thing which the theory of pure democracy demands, and the fact that this demand elicits in some cases the precise result desired illustrates by contrast the absurdity of supposing that it would, or ever could, do so in others. Of the three typical questions which we have just now been imagining, the first elicits a will which is sponta- neous, which is unanimous, which is complete. The will elicited by the second is spontaneous, it is unanimous, but it is incomplete, stopping far short of the point at which definite orders must begin. It is, therefore, for 64 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY purposes of practical guidance, a nullity. The third question, which demands that this incomplete will shall complete itself, fails to elicit any general will at all. Between will and action there must be a further will which is still missing. This must be the will of the minister or oligarchy on whose behalf he speaks, and if the construction of the desired weapon is ever to be accomplished at all, the only will which can render its accomplishment possible is not any will which the many dictate to the few. It is essentially one which the few dictate to the many, and which the many must somehow or other be induced to make their own./ Or to put the matter in more general terms, in proportion as political questions recede from fundamental simplicity, the power of unalloyed democracy to deal with such questions evaporates, and, unless it is quasi-chemically changed by combination with oligarchy, ceases practically to exist. Now the general truth of this argument, as we have seen in the preceding chapter, has come to be admitted even by the prophets of extreme revolution. In what sense, then, can it be contended by persons of more moderate principles that the people as a homogeneous whole, or the units of the average mass, have, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, some definite will of their own, complete in itself, and independent of any minority whose talents may happen to be necessary for the transaction of detailed business ? The idea which such persons have at the back of their minds is well expressed by a writer who has here been quoted already as able to state bluntly what many other persons mean. This writer maintains that, with regard to political ques- tions, no matter how complex, a will is naturally imma- nent in the units of the average mass, which, due to the likeness of one unsophisticated man to another, deserves to be called the specific will of the people, in the only important sense which that phrase is intended to suggest. That is to say, in complex cases no less than in simple, the mass of the people, as distinct from special minori- ties, have a definite will with regard to "the general objective of government," though they may not in complex cases be able to prescribe the means. WILLS AND WISHES 65 There is enough of truth in this argument, and also of very common error, to render it worth attention. Both the truth and the error are connected with a confusion of thought which, at once fostered and hidden by an inaccurate use of language, makes the term " will " interchangeable with the term "wish." The most care- less thinker, if he only gives his mind to the matter, is bound to recognise that, although he constantly confuses them, they stand for two different things, and that though a will must always include a wish, and the two in practice may thus often coincide, a wish in itself is very far from constituting a will. Thus a man may wish, what is probably wished by most men, that he had not perpetrated in his youth a number of foolish actions; but nobody can will, and nobody would say that he wills, not to have done something which twenty years ago he did. He may wish that he could get to Mars, and have a look at the supposed canals. He may wish to get from London to York, and have a look at the [inster. But his wish that he could get to Mars must jmain a wish, or an idle emotion only. Why ? Because LO means exist which he can possibly employ for getting there. His wish to get from London to York may be any day matured into a will. Why ? Because means of getting there exist, such as trains or his own legs, by choosing and employing which his wish any day may be accomplished. In other words, a wish is no more than a feeling of desire for a mentally imaged something which, whether possible or absolutely impossible, the imagination presents to the consciousness of the wisher as desirable. A will is a feeling of desire for a mentally imaged something which the person so desiring it knows or believes to be possible by the use of specific means ; and only becomes a will when it causes him to adopt, or do his best to adopt them. These observations as to the difference between wish and will have a special bearing on the question of a general will in politics. When the writer to whom we are here referring claims that in the sphere of political government there is always a general will with regard to the governmental objective, though except in very simple cases there is no such will as to means, what he 66 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY obviously intends to say and the nature of his argu- ment shows this is that, with regard to the objective, there is not a general will, but only some general wish. In the statement, as thus amended, there is doubtless a certain truth. Let us consider how much it comes to. Governments and their actions are not ends in them- selves. Free Trade is not an end in itself. Even the legal administration of justice is not an end in itself. Each is valued only as conducing to some end or objec- tive ulterior to it. The objective in the former case is some kind of prosperity. In the latter it is justice itself, not the means of administering it. Every voluntary action which man is capable of performing is performed, says Aristotle, for the sake of some immediate end ; but all such ends, except one, are one after another sub- sidiary to some end which is beyond themselves; and the ultimate end or objective which alone is desired for its own sake, and which has often been identified with pleasure, is best described, says Aristotle, as " eudai- monia," or happiness. What Aristotle says of human action in general is, with one qualification, true of the actions performed by governments. The objective of governmental action is not happiness itself, but it is the next thing to it. It is best described as Welfare, or the conditions out of which Happiness is most likely to arise, in so far as regulation by an external power can produce them. The statement must, therefore, in a certain sense be true, that, with regard to the governmental objective, all the units of the average mass, and those indeed of exceptional classes also, do spontaneously wish for one and the same thing; for any one man may be trusted, "in virtue of his manhood alone," to wish for his own welfare just as devoutly as any other man. But a wish of this kind, in so far as it has any relation to the detailed possibilities of life or the possible action of any govern- ment whatsoever, is general and unanimous so long only as it is vague. Thus if each citizen, as one out of so many millions, were asked to describe in detail his own conception of the conditions which would constitute welfare for himself, the first condition which they all would agree in naming would no doubt be an income of WILLS AND WISHES 67 at least some hundreds a year. Most people, while they were about it, would probably say some thousands. 1 Here, in one sense, would be a very happy unanimity ; and it is quite possible that a government might so act (whether by granting monopolies, by creating new posts, or otherwise) as to realise this wish in the case of a citizen here and there. But since there is no country under the sun whose resources could provide even half of such an income for everybody, it is obvious that so many millions of individual wishes, of which only a few thousands or a few hundreds could be gratified, would not, if considered as a guide to governmental actions, be a general wish at all. It would, on the contrary, be a general conflict of wishes, like the wishes of persons pushing for the best seats in a theatre; for every man would be wishing for himself a something which, if obtained by him, would render the fulfilment of other men's wishes impossible. Let us suppose, however, that the citizens perceive this, and that their wishes for welfare are sobered down to wishes for such conditions only as governmental action of any kind is competent to secure for all; and let us consider how far in detail their wishes are likely to coincide, and thus coalesce into any general will which, to a government waiting for orders, would be clear or even approximately intelligible. In a simple society, or one relatively simple, which has just emerged from the hunting stage into the agri- cultural, welfare is spontaneously identified in the minds of most of the citizens with the tenure by each of a sufficient quantity of land, which tenure shall be so secured to him by law that his sole means of earning a livelihood shall never be taken away from him. All such men, therefore, in wishing for their own welfare, wish for the enactment or maintenance of some par- ticular land-law, the essential content of which can be grasped and expressed by everybody ; and the expression 1 Amongst the early incidents of the Russian revolution, the strike was announced by a mass of workmen at Rostoff, who demanded wages at the rate of 90 a month, or more than 1000 a year. The total income of Russia did not come to as much as 13 per head of the population. 68 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY of it, as addressed to the government, transforms a general wish into a true general will. It must, however, be observed that, simple though this case is, there is one element in it which is not at first sight apparent. If a government in obedience to such a will is to render each man's right to a given plot of land inalienable, it can do so only by depriving him of the right to quit it ; and so long as a society consists mainly of cultivators this deprivation will be hardly so much as noticed, for no one would wish to run away from his sole means of subsistence. But if trade and manufactures begin, as they did in mediaeval England, to offer the cultivator chances of greater gain than any which he can hope for whilst he is tethered to the clods of a few acres, his idea of welfare (as happened in mediaeval England) begins to be complicated by the intrusion of a new element. To the wish for security is added a wish for freedom. Hence a further wish arises in a growing number of minds that a law, which can only secure the means of subsistence for a man by chaining the man to one means of subsistence, shall be superseded by a law which will render this connection dissoluble, and allow him to choose, if he can find it, a means of subsistence for him- self. At the same time, the new law, although it would have its advantages, would obviously deprive him of those secured by the old; and every interested person, before his wish could mature itself into a will that the new law should be enacted, would have to balance against its promised advantages the advantages it would take away to calculate which alternative would yield him a net gain : and different minds would be certain to work out such a sum differently. This case is typical. In any complex society, out of all the many wishes which, in the mind of every average man, vaguely make up the general idea of welfare, there are few which, if fulfilled completely, would not be found inconsistent with the complete fulfilment of others. 1 1 Here, again, is a fact which has been strikingly illustrated by incidents of the Russian revolution. The dockers at Archangel refused to work for more than six hours a day or for more than three days a week. The docks were blocked with cargoes of coal and other neces- saries, which could not be unloaded. By the strikers themselves fuel IMPOTENCE OF MERE WISHES 69 ie wished-for objective is not a single condition, but a plexus of many, each of which must be limited by the co-existence of others, in order that all together may produce the result, welfare. If the people, then, in respect of their several complete objectives are to have any common will which they are able to impose on the government, this will must be a highly complex thing; and if it is to be expressed in a manner which any government can understand, the expression of it must be equivalent to a picture representing welfare divided into its component parts, the position, dimensions and configuration of each being indicated with such precision that the government may be able to shape its conduct accordingly. Further, if a picture of this kind, with all its complex details, is really to represent the will of the average mass, all the units of the mass must, sponta- neously and without prompting, draw it each for him- self in precisely the same way. But there are two reasons why such a result is impossible. In the first place, a picture of this elaborate kind would have to be drawn from a conception no less elaborate, which the person drawing it had already thought out and matured ; and the train of thought required for this purpose would be not only so intricate, but would also deal with quan- tities so incapable of exact measurement, that the con- ception thus formed of welfare by any one mind would rarely coincide, even in its main details, with that formed by any other. In the second place, whatever the conception of welfare in a man's own mind may be, it would in most cases bear very little resemblance to the only definite picture by means of which he would be able to communicate it to a government or to any- body else. Such a picture, as drawn by most men, would be like a drawing of its mother by a child, who, was hardly obtainable. The workmen in one great factory insisted on an increase of wages in the ratio of 1 to 5. The value of the total product, out of which alone their wages could come, had presently sunk in the ratio of 200 to 15. Unskilled girls demanded and managed to secure 3 10s. a week. They presently found that their boots cost them 10 a pair. Peasants, who demanded communism in land, were aghast when grain was demanded of them for certain other workers and the army. 70 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY being lost in a crowd, should hand it to a policeman in order that he might be able to find her. If the police- man appeared at the door of the child's nursery after- wards with a creature whose features and proportions were like those of the child's drawing a creature with legs like sticks, with one eye in its forehead, and another eye in its cheek the child would certainly exclaim that this was not its mother, but the devil. The truth of the matter is that for any man to analyse accurately his own conception of the welfare for which he himself wishes, and express it in terms intelligible to any other human being, is a task requiring talents of an exceedingly rare order. The task of inducing millions of men to unify, for governmental purposes, their various conceptions of what they wish for, by adopting a single conception which is not identical with any of these, is a task re- quiring talent of a rarer order still ; and it is only when this latter task has been accomplished with something like substantial success that a multitude of wishes, previously vague, unlike in their content, and ineffec- tual, can be converted into a demand for a single set of conditions, all of them absolutely specific, and thus be made to constitute a cumulative and effective will. Those, then, who claim that the units of the average mass, though they cannot dictate means to the govern- ment or the executive oligarchy, have nevertheless, with regard to the governmental objective, some corporate will of their own which a government could be ordered to execute, absolutely ignore the essential point at issue. It is true, and has been said already, that just as will must always precede voluntary action, so must wish always precede will. The very idea of government, the very idea of a people to be governed, presupposes on the part of the people one common wish at all events that is to say, the wish to live ; and the wish to live, owing to the constitution of the human body, is primarily identified with, and is indistinguishable from, the wish for food. Now if all men were congregated on an abso- lutely barren rock, the wish for food would be a wish and a wish only. No action could follow it, and the human race would die. Nature, however, has taught COMPLEXITY OF WELFARE 71 men for countless thousands of years that this wish can be satisfied by the immemorial practice of agriculture ; but the wish for food is not agriculture itself, although there would be no agriculture without the wish for food. Agriculture is a wish for food-stuffs which has translated itself into a will to produce them by certain means, such as ploughing, sowing, draining, selection of seeds, rota- tion of crops, and so forth. Similarly, the wish for welfare in a highly civilised State is not political govern- ment, though there would be no political government if nobody wished for welfare. Welfare, in so far as political action can secure it, is in any complex society a plexus of intricate and interconnected means, each of which must represent some will as definite as itself ; and if each of these means is to represent a will of the people generally, each must represent an indefinite number of wills, all so exactly unified that they practically amount to one. For, just as the same pig can be killed in one way only, so this plexus of means which, so far as government can affect the matter, constitutes welfare in its only possible form, cannot in any one country and at any given moment be, even in the smallest detail, other than the thing it is. If, then, in order that any particular plexus may be definitely willed by the people to the exclusion of all others, it is necessary (as most serious democrats are now coming to admit) that the means comprised in this plexus, or at all events the larger part of them, shall be first devised by the few, and the people in some way or other induced to will the adoption of them, we are brought by a new route back to the old conclusion. The people, except with regard to simple and fundamental questions, have, apart from an oligarchy, no place in the arena of political life whatever. The contention, in short, that the people, without any oligarchy to guide them, have a definite will of their own as to a highly complex objective, though they have, apart from an oligarchy, no such will as to the means, is a contradiction in terms. It is a contradiction which is disguised by, and due to, a confusion of wish with will; for in the world of political government, as in the world of action generally, the bald truth is this that a wish which is 72 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY not identified with a will as to definite means is not a will at all. Nobody in his senses can deny that such is the case with regard to certain governmental means or objectives when these are taken individually such, for example, as safety and an anti-aircraft gun. Welfare as a general objective is not only no exception to this rule, but it is, on the contrary, the crowning and the all-comprehensive illustration of it. The theory, however, of a phantom objective, the realisation of which can be definitely willed by the people though they cannot dictate the means by which such a result may be accomplished, is not the less interesting because it is altogether illusory. On the contrary, it is more so; for it is simply the condensed expression of a vague idea or feeling which the theory of pure demo- cracy tends to develop in the consciousness of the average man. That theory means for each average man who accepts it that there is no individual in the world whose wishes are more important than his own, and no individual who, if all men had their rights, would have greater power than he to impose his own wishes on the government. It thus engenders in him the feeling (which is far more intimate and less open to regulation than the thought) that welfare, as wished for by himself, he being secretly the hero of it, is the special kind of welfare which the government ought to realise. A homely illustration of this general fact may be found in a letter which was addressed to an American journal by a workman an immigrant from Austria after some prolonged experience of affairs in the great Republic. "I was brought up," he said, "in the most aristocratic country in the world, and I have come here to the most democratic. But what good has all this democracy done me ? I am no more up to the top of the tree than I ever was." This man's ingenuous complaint was an expression of what millions of other men more or less vaguely feel. Each of these others, animated by the democratic idea that he has no superior either in rights or power, wishes to be at or near the top of the tree somehow. He expects the government somehow or other to put him there; and since the top of the tree, IMPOSSIBLE EXPECTATIONS 73 from the nature of things, can be occupied by a few men only, each member of the majority, let the government do what it may, will feel that he is defrauded by it of his own democratic due. The more democratic a government may be in semblance, and the more profuse, as a consequence, it is in its popular promises, the greater is the discrepancy between its promises and the utmost it is able to perform. The more widely amongst the governed does a sense of grievance diffuse itself a mood of unrest and suspicion which makes it in- creasingly difficult for any executive oligarchy to secure a democratic assent to such limited measures as alone can, when the time for action comes, be put before the people by any statesmen as practicable. In a word, the broad result of the theory of pure governmental democracy, especially with reference to the general governmental objective, is to render the people restive by popularising impossible expectations. That such is the case is shown clearly enough by the course of modern and comparatively modern history. If we take it roughly that the ideas at the root of modern political democracy first became widely effective towards the close of the eighteenth century, we may say that such a mood of restiveness has from the very first, in one country or another, accompanied all attempts at translating the conception of pure democracy into practice. The true content of such moods, however, has been not precisely what it may seem to have been. It has not amounted, and it does not amount, to a mere uneasy protest that this or that particular government (such as those which formed and dissolved themselves during the course of the French Revolution) was not governmental democracy in its pure and proper form. It comprised from the first the germs of a wider judg- ment, to the effect that no democracy, the scope of which is purely political, can do anything to secure the con- ditions which the idea of democracy suggests. The Austrian immigrant in America who attacked political democracy at the beginning of the twentieth century because it had not enabled him to reach the "top of the tree," did but express a feeling which had developed itself, as we shall see hereafter, when the French Revolu- 74 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY tion was merely a maturing dream. Before the more immediate effects of that movement had spent them- selves Babeuf had boldly declared that no purely poli- tical revolutions could have for the masses of the people any meaning whatever, and lost his head in consequence for conspiring against the French Republic. During the earlier years of the nineteenth century, to mention a few names only, (George Rapp, a German; St. Simon and Fourrier, Frenchmen; and Robert Owen, an English- man,) whilst political democracy was by a large majority still regarded as the key to a near millennium, each in their several ways, and supported by numerous fol- lowers, denounced it as wholly incapable of fulfilling its own promises. What these men and others said in effect was this : "The great thing the people want, and the only thing about which they really care, is not to vote equally, but to live equally; and equal living is a thing which political democracy by itself does not give, and does not even tend to give them." From the middle of the nineteenth century onwards this kind of criticism has continued to increase in volume, and to seek for justification in an increasing number of illustrations. Thus, in France, those who had hoped most from democracy in political govern- ment, complain to-day that it has, as a working system, replaced a noblesse by a bourgeoisie far more oppres- sive; whilst in America, where political democracy has been attempted on the largest scale, conditions are more unequal than in any other country in the world. But the judgments and the mood of mind which such criticism expresses have been far from taking the turn which at first sight might have seemed likely. Though directed against democracy as a principle which vainly attempts to realise itself so long as it is applied to prob- lems of mere political government, they have not been directed against the principle of pure democracy as such. Their actual meaning has gradually developed into one, which is merely the meaning foreshadowed by men like Babeuf and Owen that the democratic prin- ciple has failed to accomplish its promises hitherto, because it has sought to display itself in too narrow a field. It has followed men to their doorsteps, but has CHANGES OF POPULAR MOOD 75 left them when they went inside. Its action has stopped short just where it ought to begin. If democracy is ever to result in a scheme of equal living, it must mainly be realised in connection with the affairs of private life, such as industrial production, the distribution of indus- trial products, and the social interests and intercourse to which such distribution ministers. The word " Democracy," when used in this extended sense, is, as has been said already, commonly distin- guished by the epithet " industrial " or "social," or by both, these being taken to indicate two substantially different, though closely associated things. Each of these will here be considered in its proper order. Mean- while, as to democracy in the sphere of political govern- ment, the results of our analysis may be recapitulated thus. Pure political democracy, or government in which every citizen plays really an equal part, is not in itself, or under all circumstances, impossible. On the contrary, it is the type of government which in certain communi- ties actually tends to exist. These are communities which are minute, primitively simple in their conditions, and isolated. In such communities pure democracy is possible, and indeed inevitable, because all the questions are simple which the government has to settle, and everybody tends to think about them in virtually the same way. Thus, according to Caesar, the Gallic tribes of his day were democracies in times of peace, and oligarchies in times of war; for in times of war alone was there any scope or need for the leadership of men more sagacious and more courageous than the rest. Further, since in all communities, no matter what their character, certain simple questions persist as the basis of associated life, there is an element of pure democracy in all governments alike. In proportion, however, as communities increase in size, advance in civilisation, and come to have chronic dealings with communities other than themselves, the problems of government multiply, and most of them become more complex. With regard to most of them there is room for endless differences of opinion. The mere task of considering them carefully is congenial only to men whose mental energy is some- 76 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY what above the average, whilst the task of solving them successfully calls for talents and knowledge of special and unusual kinds. For these reasons, two results are inevitable. In the first place, the business of dealing actively with political problems at all tends, from the mere fact of its being laborious, to pass into the hands of the more energetic minority, this body being thus a sort of oligarchic nebula. In the second place, since the solution of these complex problems is not only laborious but difficult, out of this large and nebular oligarchy smaller oligarchies nucleate themselves, which represent, not energy only, but energy combined with various unusual talents, until at last some group is reached (or on critical occasions some one individual) under whose will the wills of the nebular oligarchy range themselves, and are transmitted by oratory or by other means to the mass. Such is the process which, in every highly civilised country possessing a popular constitution, is taking place under our very eyes. This persistence of oligarchic action is not, as some thinkers contend, due to any defect in the details of mere constitutional mechanism. On the contrary, it becomes more and more pervasive in proportion as such details conform in outer semblance to the democratic ideal. It reveals itself, as we have seen, in the internal organisation of even those sectional parties whose avowed aim is to raise popular power to a maximum. It is due to the permanent facts of human nature on the one hand, and the inevitably complex character of all civilised societies on the other. The case, indeed, may be summed up thus. Nobody would contend, in dealing with the affairs of any great country or empire, whether in times of peace or war, that all exceptional intellect, all exceptional knowledge, all exceptional sagacity and strength of character were superfluous. If talents like these, then, are not abso- lutely superfluous, it follows that oligarchy of some kind is a necessity ; for talent as applied to government can exert itself in one way only namely that of an influence exercised by a few men over many. The most talented man in the world might be a Caesar, a Napoleon or a Lincoln within the limits of his own bedroom; but, THE INDUSTRIAL OBJECTIVE 77 if he could influence nobody besides himself, his talents would be paralysed if he sat as the chairman of a parish council. The paralysis of oligarchy would be, therefore, the? paralysis of talent. It must, however, be clearly recog-! nised for here we have a complementary fact which is no less important that the activity of oligarchy is not the paralysis of democracy. It leaves democracy, in relation to simple and fundamental questions, un- touched; whilst with regard to the composite questions which civilisation adds to these, it provides the only means by which, in any definite form, it is practically possible for the principle of democracy to express itself. We will now extend our inquiry, and consider whether the expulsion of oligarchy and the establishment of pure democracy are projects more practicable in the spheres of industrial and social life than they are in the sphere of politics, as the word " politics" is still commonly understood. BOOK II DEMOCRACY AND TECHNICAL PRODUCTION CHAPTER I THE DEFINITION OF INDUSTRY THE idea of extending the application of the demo- cratic principle beyond the scope of such government as is commonly called political is in itself no novelty. The speeches which Aristophanes in his play, Women in Parliament, puts into the mouths of his agitators male and female correspond almost word for word with count- less actual speeches which are made on socialist plat- forms and at street corners to-day. This idea, how- ever, in the forms with which the world is now familiar is distinctively modern in respect of its theoretical details, and also of the extent to which it has become prevalent. Democracy to-day, in the extended sense of the word, is, as we have seen already, commonly described as "Industrial" Democracy, or "Social." These two epithets are often used interchangeably; but implications of the latter, as we shall see more fully hereafter, differ from those of the former in the fact that they are more comprehensive, and less easy to define. It will be necessary, therefore, to consider Industrial Democracy first, and rigidly exclude, in doing so, all reference to activities which do not pertain to the process of actual industry itself. How important pre- cision with regard to this point is, will be seen from the following statement made by a well-known socialist, which we may take here as our text. "Every day," says Mr. Sidney Webb, "there is a growing consensus of opinion that the inevitable out- come of democracy is the control of the main instru- 78 RECOVERY OF PRODUCTS 79 ments of production by the people themselves, and the consequent recovery of what John Stuart Mill calls ' the enormous share which the possessors of industry ' are able to take of ' the total produce.' ' Now, this short statement, which seems simple enough, is in reality a combination of three. The first is to the effect that, though the actual process of production is carried on mainly by a body called " the people themselves," they get at present only a part of what they produce, the remainder being appropriated by persons who are mere "possessors " of the materials on which, and the great mechanisms and appliances by which, the actual producers operate. The second is to the effect that if the democratic principle were really applied to industry, the present privileges of these mere " possessors " would cease, and "the people themselves " would be able, in accordance with their several efficiencies, to secure that "share" of their products which is now unjustly withheld from them. The third is to the effect that this share is " enor- mous." Now it is obvious that, even if all these statements were correct, there would be no integral connection between the first two and the third. Whether the " share " alleged to be withheld is so great as to merit the name "enormous " or no, is a question which can be determined by statistical inquiry only, and it might conceivably be answered in one way or another without the first statement or the second being in point of principle affected. But the difference between the first and the second is even more fundamental. As Mr. Webb puts these, they are indeed united by the implica- tion that production and distribution should in justice go hand in hand, and that no man should get more than he produces, and no man should get less. But the fact that these two processes are in their nature separable, is shown by the socialists themselves, whose cl^ief com- plaint is that under the existing system the facts of individual production and the principles of distribution are separated. When Mr. Webb starts with saying that the inevitable 80 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY outcome of democracy is the transference of the control of industry or production to the people, and that this transference is to be accomplished by putting the people in possession of the great modern instruments, which must include the raw materials, of production, he shows clearly enough what industry is understood to be. In- dustry is the fashioning by men of the crude gifts of nature into finished goods with the aid of appropriate implements, and the transport of these goods to the shops or other places where they pass at length into the hands of the final user or consumer. But the process which determines what share of the goods, when they are finished, shall pass into the hands of one class of consumer or another has no effect on the processes by which goods of any given kind are produced. The income, or, as Mill calls it, "the total produce" of a nation may be compared to a great plum-pudding of specified weight and quality. Now, if nobody was going to eat it or get any share of it at all, it is perfectly true that the pudding would never have been made ; but the fact that it is there, and ready to be eaten by somebody, is the primary fact that Mr. Webb's statement pre- supposes. Such being the case, then, the processes in- volved in the production of it will have consisted of a number of operations, such as the getting together of certain given materials flour, suet, sugar, spice, raisins and so forth the mixing of them in given quantities, and the boiling of them for a given time; which operations performed by human hands might be accurately re- corded in a series of photographic diagrams ; and these operations, which are a type of what is meant by in- dustry, would, if the pudding were to be produced at all, be in themselves the same, no matter whether this man or that man should eat more or less than the rest. This is what the doctrinaires of Industrial Democracy forget, and the origin of their error is not far to seek. Assuming as they do that a few men, under existing conditions, tend to swallow up most of the national income between them, they fix their attention on the fact that great masses of men engaged in industrial work are already able, by forming themselves into Trade DEMOCRACY IN PRODUCTION 81 Unions, to secure in the form of wages a larger share of what Mill calls "the total produce" than the "pos- sessors " or the employers would have conceded to them had compulsion of this kind been absent. Hence, to such thinkers it seems that we here have a living example of industrial democracy beginning to come into its own. Now such thinkers may be perfectly right in claiming for the Unionist movement a democratic char- acter of some sort, but the error which they commit is this. They assume that because the action of Unions as a means of augmenting wages is the action of men who happen to be engaged in industry, it must of neces- sity be in itself industrial. They might just as well argue that if some important fortress had been captured by the gallantry of a regiment made up wholly of post- impressionist painters, the feat was a triumph of the principles of a particular school of painting. Let us suppose that the English dyeing industry, having suf- fered for years from the scientific competition of Ger- many, suddenly gets the better of its rival through the discovery and perfecting of some secret and hitherto undreamed-of process. The wage-earners employed in an industry thus resuscitated might conceivably manage by strikes or other concerted action to raise their collec- tive wages from (let us say) half the total gains of the business to two-thirds, three-quarters, four-fifths or even a larger fraction. But such action on their part would not have the least effect on any one of those novel actions, elaborately prescribed and timed, which their hands would have to execute in order to render that total gain possible out of which their wages, whether large or small, would come. What they did as members of a Union would have been democratic action of some sort, but it would not have been action of the sort which alone is industrially productive. It would have be- longed, not to the province of industrial democracy, but to that wider province of democratic action which must, as we shall see in greater detail hereafter, be compre- hended under the term "social." We will, therefore, in discussing Industrial Democracy, use the word " in- dustrial " here in its sole legitimate sense the sense indicated by Mill, when he says that every action which 82 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY is commonly called " industrial" or " productive" resolves itself ultimately into one species of operation namely the transference by human hands of material substances from one position to another. Mill ought to have included the action of the human intelligence in determining what the substances selected for transfer- ence should be, and how and in what order the various rearrangements should be made ; but the fact remains that no action is industrial which does not subserve or culminate in the re-arrangement of material substances in such a way as to convert them into material or economic goods, or which does not consist of such services as may be requisite for the final enjoyment of them. The scope of our present inquiry having been, then, thus delimited, we may now go on to consider what, according to current conceptions of it, the principle of pure democracy as applied to industry means. CHAPTER II PURE DEMOCRATIC INDUSTRY WHAT, according to current conceptions of it, demo* cracy means in the sphere of political life has been shown by reference to the words of the American writer, who describes it as a system of government which en- sures that "every citizen shall, ' in virtue of his man- hood alone,' exert an equal influence ' over the affairs of the common country.' ' In the same way, when extended to the sphere of industry, the idea of pure democracy means that every worker, not indeed because he is a man, but because, and in so far as, he is a man who works industrially, shall play an equal part in the technical process of production; or that production, as Mr. Webb and others say in more general language, "shall be controlled by the people themselves." Now, the first point emphasised in our argument with regard to political government was that the word "people," as used by the doctrinaires of democracy, must, if it has any distinctive meaning at all, mean the units of the average mass to the exclusion of any minority whose talents and energies are above the average standard, and whose judgments, in so far as they differed from those of the great majority, would, if allowed to prevail, make the average mass subject to them. The units of this minority would, under such a system, not indeed be in theory disfranchised; but the majority could always outvote them, and in this way would necessarily render their exceptional judgments nugatory. Here, as we have seen already, is one of the most obvious difficulties which besets the idea of democracy as applied to political government; but in the sphere of technical production it is practically much more for- 83 84 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY midable. A rudimentary example of it may be seen in the Trade Union policy which forbids a bricklayer, specially alert and dexterous, to lay more bricks in a day than can be laid with ease by the great mass of his fellows. This is a policy which experience shows to be practicable, but the principle involved in it has its obvious limits. Not even the extremest advocate of democratic or Trade Union principles would forbid a very skilful surgeon to mend a man's broken leg, on the ground that most surgeons could do nothing better than amputate it. Indeed, in view of modern applications of abstruse science to industry, the most careless thinker will experience a difficulty in contending that production could have reached or could maintain its present efficiency if no judgments or faculties took any part in controlling it except such as are formed and exercised by ninety-nine men of every hundred. And that here we have a difficulty which at all events requires atten- tion is shown by the fact that the doctrinaires of Indus- trial Democracy have of late years spent much of their ingenuity in attempts at explaining it away. The nature and the value of these attempts we shall have occasion to discuss presently. For the moment it is enough to observe that, whatever their value may be, they must, for a time at all events, have seemed satis- factory to a large number of enthusiasts ; for they have enabled even thinkers who claim to be taken seriously to go on repeating, without any admitted qualification, that Industrial Democracy is the goal of all human progress, and that Industrial Democracy, according " to a growing consensus of opinion," means the control or the entire direction of industry by the units of the "people themselves," which can only mean the units of the average mass to the exclusion of all those whose talents are above the average. If we wish, then, to arrive at any conclusion as to how far the conception of pure industrial democracy is in any way consonant with the facts or the possibilities of life, let us consider it as reduced to a strict and ostensibly scientific theory by the thinker to whom, however widely they may have come to differ from him in detail, the industrial democrats of to-day all owe their inspiration. MARX ON PRODUCTION 85 That thinker is Marx; and he has this merit, at all events, that he provides us with a doctrine which, if we can accept it as true, invests the idea of production as a purely democratic process with a clear-cut and in- telligible meaning, and also connects this meaning with daily-experienced fact. The primary propositions of Marx may be briefly summed up thus. If we take at starting the raw gifts of nature for granted, all economic wealth is the product of manual labour, or the impact of hands on matter ; and further, if allowance be made for cases of abnormal weakness, the amount of wealth which every labourer produces by working with normal diligence for a given time is equal. Marx was careful to add that, when labour is thus spoken of, it must not be taken to con- sist of mere manual efforts as such, but includes in the case of each individual labourer those mental activities by which his manual efforts are directed, and which form an essential part of his indivisible manhood. But this careful enlargement of the meaning of the term "labour" is so far from enlarging the sense of the original formula that it does but accentuate what were intended by Marx to be its limitations. The essence of his meaning is that, though mental effort of some sort must always direct manual, this mental effort in the case of each labouring unit must be taken as directing the movements of his own hands only, and not as dictating, controlling, or exercising a mastery over the technical movements of the hands of an aggregate of other men. That such is his general meaning when he lays down the proposition that the wealth-product of all labourers, hour for hour, is equal, will be seen more clearly if we consider his argument in detail. Labour in all civilised, and even in semi-civilised countries, is, he says, so far divided that different labourers devote themselves to different trades. Each of them, wholly or mainly, lives by producing one class of goods only, of which he himself will consume little, or perhaps nothing. Hence, the results of his labour, in so far as they are wealth for himself, will not consist of the things which he has fabricated with his own hands, but of other and various things which have been fabricated by the hands of 86 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY others, and which, by parting with his own products, he is able to get in exchange for them. Hence, whenever an exchange is made, the first thing necessary is a common standard of some kind, by which the value of unlike goods may be estimated ; and, according to Marx, wealth-value is determined by one thing only namely the amount of manual labour which, as measured by time, is commonly required for the production of what- ever goods may be in question. Thus, if each of a hundred labourers labouring for a hundred hours produces so many finished commodities, no matter what their char- acter, whether they consist of mince-pies, watches, pints of blacking, delicate carvings, jewels, or flints broken into fragments for the purpose of mending roads, the total product l of each man will purchase as much of the products of any number of the others as requires, if they are taken together, a hundred hours to produce them. Hence, Marx and his followers have contended that the proper medium of exchange would be, not money in its ordinary form, but "labour-checks," each of which would be a certificate that the holder had worked with his hands for so many hours or minutes, and was there- fore entitled to so much of any commodities as any other worker could produce in the same time. Now, if this theory of wealth-production be at once correct and complete, it not only provides a logically coherent meaning for the conception of industrial demo- cracy in its most unqualified form, as a multitude of processes conducted by absolutely equal units, but it also gives us a picture of industrial democracy in action in action not only as a possibility, but as a hard con- temporary fact. Indeed, to call it a theory at all, as is often done, is misleading. When Marx said that manual 1 The total product of each labourer is to be understood as the value which his own labour adds to the raw material on which he works. Thus the value of an ounce of gold represents the labour necessary, on an average for finding it, and presenting it to other labourers in a workable form. According to Marx every goldsmith who spends a week in fashioning an ounce of gold into a spoon adds an equal value to the metal, no matter what may be the artistic quality of his Avork. An artist adds no more to the value of an ounce of gold in a week than a stone-breaker adds to the value of a heap of stones, or than a pastry- cook adds to the value of so much flour and butter. LABOUR AS SOLE PRODUCER 87 labour is the sole human agency involved in the pro- duction of wealth, he did not mean that it would be so under such and such changed conditions. He meant that it is so now, that it always has been and will be, and that no productive agent other than the man who works with his hands is possible. Similarly, when he said that every manual labourer produces in a given time goods of an equal value, he meant that everywhere, in the actual markets of the world, goods do exchange in proportion to the labour-time required for their pro- duction, the kind and quality of the labour being matters of complete indifference. And if anybody should ask why, in the minds of Marx and his followers, industrial democracy a thing already established should be associated with revolutionary change, the answer is that the kind of change they contemplated had nothing to do with the industrial process as such. It related solely to the fact that the implements which the equal labourers use (such as factory plant and means of transport) have, owing to political or social accidents, been nefariously appropriated by men who, so far as production is con- cerned, have nothing to do with the industrial process at all. Marx was never weary of insisting that the modern " possessors of industry " the employing or capitalist classes owe their present positions to his- torical accidents solely, which enable them to appro- priate most of what the industrial democracy produces, whilst they themselves to use a phrase frequent in Marxian oratory "do but sit in their chairs watching the machine go." Let these mere parasites be elimi- nated either by the social pressure of Trade Unions, or politically by the pressure of legislation, or if needs be by armed rebellion, and industry itself so the argument of Marx proceeds will not be hampered or dislocated by any technical change. Remaining what it always has been and must be, namely a purely democratic process, it will still be as efficient as before ; but the fact that it will operate under changed social conditions will render that vast fraction of the product which the parasites now appropriate available for distribution amongst the manual labourers alone, whose hands and brains have alone played any part in producing it. 88 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY Here we have the outlines of that classical doctrine of production on which all the earlier conceptions of indus- trial democracy based themselves, and which the indus- trial democrats of to-day, whilst repudiating many of its details, have endeavoured to re-establish in the form of revised versions. But, before considering what these revised versions come to, let us consider the doctrine in the form in which Marx left it, with its two salient pro- positions that wealth is produced by manual labour only, and that all manual labourers as productive agents are equal; and let us ask whether there is or ever has been any state of society to which these propositions are applicable. The answer to this question will probably be a surprise, not only to critics who regard Marx with contempt, but even to the more discerning of those who, being in sympathy with his temper and his objects, are naturally inclined to agree with him so far as they reasonably can. Without indulging in any non-historical fancies, such as those which constituted the stock-in-trade of Rous- seau, it is possible to look back to stages of primitive life in which the process of production actually did con- form, with substantial exactness, to the terms of the Marxian doctrine. In those societies which preceded the organisation of slavery all the little wealth that existed was produced by manual labourers, each using his hands under the direction of his own intelligence. Further, we may assume that as producers they were all of them fairly equal, and that their products, in so far as there was any occasion to exchange them, ex- changed in proportion to the time that was necessary for the production of each. But, however completely primitive conditions such as these may have realised the Marxian conception of the industrial process in some respects, there is one respect in which they differ notoriously from that process as it exists to-day. Relatively to the time consumed, and to the number of individuals engaged in it, the volume of products in which that process results to-day is in- comparably greater than it was, not only in the primi- tive, but even in a recent past. If, then, manual labour directed solely by the minds of the labourers themselves LABOUR AND PROGRESS 89 remains always and under all conditions the sole pro- ductive agency as it was when the world began, and if no one labourer working for a given time produces appreciably more wealth than another, the question arises of how the output of labour as a whole can ever be greater in one age than in another. The pertinence of this question was recognised by Marx himself, but in the sole answers which he himself could suggest he merely evaded the difficulty by trans- lating it into another form. Manual labour, he said, has in the modern world acquired an efficiency never known before, because "the implements of production have been concentrated," whereas prior to the develop- ment of capitalism on a large scale they were " scattered." Thus, for a thousand hand-looms once scattered amongst a hundred villages is now substituted the mechanism of a single gigantic mill; and a thousand weavers, pre- viously working in isolation, cluster round this one mill for a common productive purpose. By such means, says Marx, two results have been accomplished. Manual labour, within the limits of each industry, has been enabled to divide itself to an extent never before pos- sible ; and through the employment of great unitary mechanisms, each actuated by a single monstrous engine, "society" has acquired "a new control over the pro- ductive forces of nature." Now, all this may be true enough, but it leaves the question at issue altogether untouched. Certain changes, such as those which Marx roughly indicates, have no doubt occurred. So much we may take for granted. But these changes must have been due, and their main- tenance must be due also, to the actions of human beings mental actions or manual, or mental and manual combined. The question is, by whom were these actions performed? Were they all planned and performed by average manual labourers, directed by no knowledge and no intelligence but their own ? Did no other class play any part in the matter ? Does no other class play any part in it to-day ? Marx himself admits he not only admits, he asseverates that one of the changes in question, namely "the concentration of the imple- ments," was the work of " infamous persons " who never 90 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY did a stroke of manual labour in their lives, and who concentrated the implements merely by getting posses- sion of them, thus causing the labourers to " concentrate themselves " in the same way. But since the men the modern capitalists by whom the implements came to be possessed, had, according to Marx, no other object than that of extracting a toll from the labourers whom they allowed to use them, these capitalists certainly, if the argument of Marx is correct, can have done nothing personally to make labour more productive. The crucial questions still unanswered are these. Did the labourers, their concentration being once accomplished, proceed to divide their individual labour-tasks for themselves ? Did they, and do they, as units of equal influence, accomplish for themselves the intricate task of co- ordinating them? And finally, to come to the point on which everything else turns, is it solely to the equal talents of average manual labourers, cogitating in their spare time, that we owe that "new control over the productive forces of nature " by which the modern system of production is distinguished from all others? It will be observed that, in speaking of the triumphs of industrial science, Marx shrinks from the naked pro- position that nobody but manual labourers played any part in achieving them. He takes refuge in saying that they have somehow been achieved by "society." But since, according to his own reiterated statements, " society " is composed of two classes only namely labourers who produce everything, and idlers who pro- duce nothing he cannot mean that the most important additions ever made to the productive efficiency of man- kind are due to the latter that the latter, the mere idlers, have had anything whatever to do with them. He must mean that they are due to the labourers, and due to them only men no one of whom, in point of productive efficiency, is, according to him, superior to any other. Further, he must mean precisely the same thing with regard to that other process which he notes as no less peculiar to production in modern times that is to say, the new subdivision of labour-tasks, and the elaborate organisation of the multitudes performing them in scientific concert. He must mean that this PRIMITIVE LABOUR 91 subdivision and organisation are devised, determined and carried out by the manual labourers themselves, all of them acting together as units of equal influence, and unaided by any intelligence superior to or other than their own. He must mean that industry in its most elaborate, most scientific and most productive forms, is a process no less purely democratic to-day than it was in the days when the homes of men were caves, when their clothes were skins or loin-cloths, and their imple- ments were sticks and stones. He must mean, in short, that in any human society the labour of the average units, if we begin with taking it in its rudest and most primitive stage, contains or has contained in itself the potency of indefinitely great developments, solely through the exercise of those mental and manual facul- ties in respect of which no one unit is appreciably superior to the rest. Is this the case ? Does the history of mankind offer any evidence to show that mere average labour, uninfluenced by any oligarchic authority, becomes able to produce in one age an output of material wealth appreciably larger than it previously had been in another ? And the answer is that, up to a certain point, a purely democratic progress of this kind is indubitable, the implications of the Marxian doctrine being up to that point justified. The explanation of this progress is to be found in the following historical causes, none of which, so far as the technique of production is concerned, involve the exer- tion of any mental or manual faculties beyond such as are possessed by the vast majority of the units of whatever race may be in question. These causes are four in number : Firstly, the early localisation of industries, which, as Herbert Spencer points out, has been the first distinctive feature of every community when emerging from the primitive or sub-primitive stage; Secondly, a gradual division of task-work within the limits of each industry itself; Thirdly, certain very simple inventions, such as the plough, the hand-loom, the potter's wheel, and the small boat; together with the discovery, due to common experience or to chance, of the qualities of various sub- 92 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY stances (such as flints or metals), and of various very simple processes : Fourthly, a certain coercion of the labourers which, though exercised over them by men other than them- selves, is not necessarily connected with labour in respect of its technical details, but which merely causes it to be more intense and continuous. All these causes consist either of the action of experi- ence and circumstance on average minds and hands, or of the average reaction of such minds and hands to these. Thus, the early localisation of industries was, as Herbert Spencer explains, due to the unequal manner in which the gifts of nature are distributed, cultivable land, potter's clay, and fish, for example, being severally most plentiful in so many different neighbourhoods, and the occupants of each neighbourhood, in accordance with this distribution, devoting themselves severally to tillage, the making of pots, and fishing. 1 By dividing their industries thus, so that each is confined to the places where it can be practised to the best advantage, men have increased the efficiency of their otherwise unchanged labour, without the exercise of any mental faculties beyond those by which all men alike are distinguished from the higher animals. The division of labour-tasks within the limits of each industry itself is, up to a certain point, a spontaneous process likewise. In the case of any commodity the production of which requires more than one kind of operation, any one labourer can discover just as easily as any other that if he confines himself to a few opera- tions only he acquires a quickness of hand which would else be beyond his reach. A group of labourers may thus become more productive without invoking the aid of any faculties but their own. The same thing may be said of those basic inventions and discoveries which have become, one after another, almost co-extensive with mankind. They have been the results of diffused experience, or a multitude of sporadic accidents, each of them speaking plainly to the average 1 Thus in Fiji the coastal inhabitants produce salt. The inhabitants of an inland district, who have never seen the sea, produce sails. PROGRESS OF PURE LABOUR 93 luman brain, and telling nothing to any one man which could not be grasped by all. The fourth of the four causes here in question that is to say, the institution of slavery by enabling (as Mill says) a permanently leisured class to devote its faculties to the accumulation of systematic knowledge, gradually resulted in the application of such knowledge to industry. In the great empires of antiquity the genius of the scientific architect and the abstruse lore of the astronomer were stamped on the labours of the mason. The genius of Archimedes was operative in the ship-yards of ancient Syracuse. This aspect of the matter, however, does not concern us here. In the present connection the sole fact to be noted is that, quite apart from any technical guidance of the labour of slaves by slave-owners, the coercion of the former by the latter made the labour of the former more pro- ductive by merely rendering more intense and continuous a number of industrial actions, such as those involved in agriculture, which the labourers, with less assiduity, had already carried out by themselves. We may therefore concede to Marx and the earlier socialists that, not only in primitive and sub-primitive times, but even under the ancient slave-systems such as those of Rome and Egypt, the industrial process was, to a very great extent, a process carried on by manual labourers only, who were subject to orders so far as results were concerned, but who, in respect of their methods, operated as a true democracy. Since, then, the wealth of the world in primitive times was small, and since, owing to the technical actions of manual labourers alone it has increased notoriously up to a certain point, the question is what, as a matter of history, are the utmost limits which this increase has reached, and to what extent, and to the presence of what new causes, has the industrial process as a whole made a further advance since then ? If we take as our standard of efficiency production as it is to-day, we shall find that the progress thus exhibited by the manual labourers themselves, striking as its results have been, does not carry us far. The mere localisation of industries, important though it is as a 94 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY starting-point, is a process, if taken by itself, the results of which are soon exhausted, as is plain from the fact that it is extant in many communities whose condition is still one of semi-primitive poverty. Of those basic inventions and discoveries, examples of which have just been given, and also of the increased dexterity due to divisions of task-work in its earlier and simpler forms, the effects on the efficiency of the manual labourers as a whole have limits which are susceptible of more accu- rate measurement. That the great basic inventions such as the loom and plough were the products of industrial democracy when still in its earlier stages, is a fact fre- quently emphasised by industrial democrats to-day ; and the inference which they draw from it is that all inven- tions and discoveries those of to-day no less than those of yesterday are attributable to the mass of average labourers likewise. They could hardly have hit on an argument of a less fortunate kind. It is one which proves nothing but the narrowness of its own applica- tion ; for in all countries where labour is still to be found operating solely or mainly under the direction of the manual labourers themselves, the inventions and pro- cesses in use at the present day still remain what they were thousands of years ago. These primitive inven- tions of democracy having once been made, democracy in its pure state has subsequently made no others. Mere dexterity has, as a productive agent, shown itself capable of a more protracted progress; but this, too, reached its limits before any of the extant civilisations of the western world began. The brick-makers, the masons, the carpenters, and other craftsmen of to-day, if left to perform then* tasks under the guidance of their own brains only, would in a given time produce nothing more or nothing better than their predecessors did in Rome at the dawn of the Christian era. It remains for us to consider the extent to which the product per head of a given number of labourers work- ing under their own direction may be increased by mere coercion. The increased continuity of effort which was imposed on the labourers from without by the slave- systems of the ancient world, and (we may add) by the corvie system of the Middle Ages also, has had effects SLOW PROGRESS IN PAST 95 spectacularly were very much more conspicuous than any which have resulted from the other causes here in question. But these effects have had their narrow limits likewise. Of all these four causes, indeed, the mere coercion of labour from without is really the one whose influence is least expansive ; for its effects are determined, not by the potentialities of the average man's brain, or of his hands as mere instruments of skill, but by something much less elastic namely the maximum of muscular effort of which, within a given time, a man's organism is, as a whole, capable. Thus, if so many primitive labourers, working (let us say) for twelve hours a day, would have produced a product per head which was expressible by the number 6, it is con- ceivable that through division of task-work, simple in- ventions and so forth, they might, without more physical effort, have come to produce in a labour-day of the same length a product per head expressible by the number 12. But it is obvious that their product could not, by any mere prolongation of their labour-hours, be raised in the proportion of 12 to 24, for no slave-owner could extort from the strongest slave a regular labour-day of twice twelve hours' duration. It is true that the splen- dours of Rome, imperial, public and private, could never have come into existence if the manual labour of multi- tudes had not been intensified by pressure on the part of the ruling few; but mere pressure as thus applied to a mass of manual labourers, though an essential element of the case, was far from being its sole peculiarity. An accessory feature, in many ways more important, was the fact that the slave-owning classes, besides intensify- ing to the utmost the labour of the democracy which worked for them, were to a degree far greater able to increase its numbers. The wealthy classes of antiquity, when their wealth had reached a certain point, may be compared to a single individual who, starting with a patrimony (let us say) of five hundred slaves, lets them out to a mine-owner a case of this precise kind is mentioned by Athenseus receiving for each a rent of 10 a year, ends with raising his income from 5,000 to 10,000, not by making five hundred slaves work either harder or better, but simply by getting possession 96 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY of five hundred more. The income of the slave-owner is doubled, but the product of each slave separately is no greater than it was before. Thus, a labouring population being given, which is in a technical sense a self-directing democracy, the extent to which its output can be increased by mere coercive pressure, is, though considerable, nothing like so great as at first sight it may seem ; and without attempting to fix an exact date, we may say that it reached its maximum under the earlier Roman emperors. It is needless to enlarge on the fact for no one is likely to dispute it that the societies of Mediaeval Europe were not richer than the society for which Pompeii was a third-rate watering-place, and Antioch, Alexandria and Corinth, with its four-hundred-thousand slaves, were no more than provincial towns. The movement called the Renaissance was, in industry as in other things, an attempt to recover ground which since the days of the Caesars had been lost ; and it may be said with confidence that, up to the end of the eighteenth century, there was not a country in the world in which self-directed manual labour produced, relatively to the number of persons engaged in it, more than it did in the days of Nero or Hadrian. If, then, we concede to Marx and his followers as for purposes of argument we may do, though with many actual reservations l that even up to a time so recent as the close of the eighteenth or the beginning of the nineteenth century manual labour as directed by the minds of the labourers themselves was the sole producer of wealth no less truly than it is amongst primitive savages to-day, the history of labour so far, as a pro- ductive agent, will be as follows. The productivity of labour having been at the beginning of things not more than sufficient to provide the human animal with the bare necessaries of existence, such as leaves to sleep on and scraps of skin for clothing, the labourers gradually in the course of untold ages, through the simple inter- action of experience and common human intelligence, 1 Sombart has dealt with examples of capitalist or oligarchic enter- prise in the Middle Ages, and in the 16th and 17th centuries. We are dealing here not with existencies, but with predominancies. MARX ON MODERN PROGRESS 97 found themselves able to fashion an increasing number of commodities such as huts adroitly thatched, lake- dwellings of morticed wood-work, gracefully-shaped utensils, hideous nose-rings, and patterned textile fabrics. They thus raised their manner of life to the lower levels of civilisation, and the personal faculties acquired by them were, as Herbert Spencer explains, raised to a higher power when certain warlike races, cradled in barren regions, enslaved the less virile inhabit- ants of regions exceptionally fertile, and compelled them to exert these faculties with a new and more sustained intensity. Under this stimulation the powers of manual labour rose and fell in one region after another, until, having reached their maximum prior to the days of Diocletian, they declined or came to a standstill for more than fifteen hundred years. Then in a manner so rapid that history may regard it as sudden, a change took place the like of which had never been seen before. First in England, and subsequently throughout most of the western world, the industrial process as a whole acquired some new vitality ; and the volume and variety of its products, relatively to the number of human beings engaged in it, made a greater advance in the course of a single century than it had done during all the millen- niums of human life preceding it. With this general account of the matter Marx himself would have been in entire agreement. Indeed, the recent unparalleled increase in the productive efficiencies of mankind is a phenomenon which he and his followers have inclined to caricature rather than to underestimate. Further, they admit, as we have seen, that in order to produce such a change in the industrial result, there must have been commensurate changes in the technical details of the industrial process likewise changes which, as Marx says, developed themselves first in England, and which, though far from sudden in the strict sense of the word, became first assured and conspicuous at a date which was not much earlier than that of the battle of Waterloo. How the nature of these changes is explained by Marx himself has just now been briefly stated; but, as has been said already, the only ex- planations which he suggests must have some other 98 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY explanation at the back of them, and one which his own do not even so much as hint at. We will now go on to consider what this ultimate explanation is. We shall find that it lies in none of the facts which Marx contents himself with enumerating not in the mere growth of knowledge, not in the mere development of scientific ma- chinery, not in the mere concentration of the labourers, or in any new subdivision of their labour tasks. All these causes, however real, are secondary, and require themselves to be explained. The basic explanation is to be found in a fact which lies deeper than any of them. CHAPTER III THE SECRET OF MODERN PROGRESS LET us summarise once again the explanation which Marx gives of the vast productive powers of industry in the modern world. These novel and unparalleled powers are due, he says, to three causes; Firstly, a " concentration " of the implements of pro- duction which in former times were " scattered," and used more or less in isolation by the individual labourers owning them; Secondly, the new subdivision and more intelligent co-ordination of labour tasks which in each business becomes possible by the massing together of all the labourers concerned in it; And, thirdly, the new stores of practical scientific knowledge which " Society " has acquired whilst these changes were in progress, and which, embodied in new mechanisms and processes, have given man a "new control over the productive forces of nature." Now, the first of these three causes namely the con- centration of implements vast as have been its indus- trial effects, was, according to Marx, not in itself an industrial process at all. It consisted in the buying up by men otherwise idle of all the little implements pre- viously owned by the users of them, and the stacking of these implements together in so many walled enclo- sures, to which the labourers had to flock if they wished to produce anything. It was simply the triumphant generalisation of a practice actually rife in England in the middle of the sixteenth century. This was a practice inaugurated by "the great clothiers," and called "the engrossing of looms " (which meant the acquisition of the implements of production in the weaving trade) and "the letting them out to poor artificers at a rent." Its 99 100 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY object and its result were, according to Marx, simply to affect distribution by enabling the "engrossers" to appropriate the larger part of the product; but it had nothing to do with the details of the productive process at all. These were still determined by the manual labourers themselves. The causes, therefore, to which modern industry owes those vastly increased efficiencies which are still the wonder of the world, are, according to the Marxian logic, not three, but two namely the acquisition of " a new control over the productive forces of nature," and a new subdivision and a more elaborate co-ordination of the tasks performed directly by the labourer's own hands. Now, this explanation of the first cause namely the acquisition and concentration of the implements by a personally non-productive class might have at all events some superficial plausibility, if applied to con- ditions as they were up to the middle of the eighteenth century. In Hogarth's series of pictures, "The Indus- trious and the Idle Apprentice," there are two represent- ing the interior of the business premises of a rich cloth- weaver; and what we see is one room after another in which a number of hand-looms are being worked, each by a single operative. The implements are practically the same as they had been in the Middle Ages. They have undergone no change whatever, except for the fact that they have been congregated under a single roof. But between an establishment such as this, which was typical of the eighteenth century, and the kind of estab- lishment which was typical of the century following there is one profound difference of which Marx was fully aware, but of which, when he speaks of concentration, he takes no account whatever. This difference consists in the fact that, whereas in the middle of the eighteenth century the implements of earlier periods had been changed only by being concentrated, they were, from the beginning of the nineteenth century onwards, not con- centrated only, but reconstructed, unified and entirely metamorphosed also. That metamorphosis accom- panied concentration that the two processes rapidly came to be inseparable was as plain to Marx as to anybody, as his own language shows ; for it was only ORGANISATION AND MIND 101 the metamorphosis of hundreds of puny appliances into vast unitary mechanisms actuated by huge engines that gave to the human worker what he calls " a new control over the productive forces of nature." But as to how the metamorphosis was accomplished, the theory of Marx is silent, and he hides its silence under a veil of inept tautology. The metamorphosis, he says, is at- tributable to the modern growth of knowledge. That, no doubt, is true ; but of knowledge acquired, and know- ledge applied, by whom ? What he aims at proving is that, apart from the concentration of the various imple- ments of production, in respect of their ownership and their locality, by a purely possessive and industrially idle class, the entire progress of industry was accom- plished by the labourers alone. If such was the case, then, the manual labourers generally must, from the beginning of the nineteenth century onwards, have not only reorganised for themselves the whole of the various tasks performed by their own hands, readjusting and re-devising them in the light of new and abstruse know- ledge, but the whole of this new knowledge must have been acquired by themselves also. They must them- selves have translated it into that new order of mechan- isms without which their new accomplishments in the way of self -organisation would be nugatory. Is there, then, any reason for supposing, or is it even remotely conceivable, that the labourers, unguided by any brains but their own, accomplished by democratic agreement both these processes, or either of them ? The knowledge involved in the metamorphosis of a collection of old hand-looms into the plant of a modern cotton-mill, or of a yardful of old stage-coaches into motor-cars or express trains, was of a very elaborate kind. Did it spring up in the brains of all the labourers sponta- neously, as a sense of sin springs up at a revival meet- ing ? Did it even originate in the brains of Trade Union delegates, from whose speeches their constituents im- bibed it, assenting to it by a show of hands ? On the . contrary, in the process of acquiring the multitudinous \ knowledge in question, and translating it by means of machinery into "a new control over the productive forces of nature," the labourers as a class have played 102 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY no part whatever except one which is purely negative namely that of suspicious and occasionally of violent opposition. As history shows us with minute biographi- cal detail, this process has in all its main particulars been the work of individuals, or small groups of indi- viduals, who were distinguished from their fellows by doing what the mass of their fellows did not do what few of them had the enterprise to attempt, fewer still the genius to accomplish, and what most of them had not the capacity or even the wish to understand. It must, moreover, be noted that these exceptional men, though many of them had at one time been manual labourers themselves, did not increase the efficiency of manual work generally by any unusual skill in the performance of such work on their own part, or indeed by the performance of any manual tasks at all. A man like Watt added to the productive forces of the world, not by means of any engines which his own hands had fabricated, but by the influence which, through his models and instructions, he exercised over the hands of others. And all inventors who by means of novel mechanisms " wrought (as Herbert Spencer says they are) from the very substance of the inventors' brains " have given men "a new control over the productive forces of nature," have done so as powerful thinkers, and not as dextrous craftsmen. The same considerations are no less pertinent as applied, not to such mechanisms themselves, but to the reflex action of these on the conduct of the labourers using them a reflex action resulting in that new sub- division and new co-ordination of labour-tasks by which, Marx rightly says, the efficiency of each pair of hands, as distinct from the mechanisms, has been increased. The argument of Marx implies that both of these new developments are due to some exercise of faculties resi- dent in the labourers themselves, but previously latent because there was no scope for them. Let us, however, consider in detail what this new subdivision and co- ordination of labour-tasks mean. When the labour-tasks involved in the production of any one finished article are divided, and different labourers are set to fashion different parts of it, each GROWTH OF BRAIN-WORK 103 part must be shaped in accordance with a settled pattern, so that all the parts shall ultimately fit to- gether. Now, when the parts are few, when the finished article is of a simple and unchanging kind, and the labourers are a small group at work in the same shed, the allocation of these tasks, and the precise nature of each, can be settled by the labourers themselves. But when the number of parts into which an article is for purposes of manufacture divided rises, let us say, from four or five to a hundred ; when the number of labourers rises from ten or twelve to a thousand ; when the prin- ciples on which the tasks are divided cease to be merely empirical, and involve an elaborate knowledge of mathe- matics, mechanics and chemistry; when the character of the finished article itself has constantly to be im- proved or modified in order to meet new demands, and when the specification of each task in particular requires an alert ingenuity of the highest practical order; this constant re-devising and subdividing of tasks becomes, from the nature of the case, a separate task in itself, which cannot be included in the category of labour as Marx defines it. And the same thing is true with regard to the organisa-^/ tion of the labourers, as distinct from the mere devising of the various tasks prescribed to them. Organisation comprises the allotment of different tasks to the most/ suitable persons ; an accurate timing of their movements in relation to one another, so that no labour may be lost by preventable pauses on the one hand or preventable overstrain on the other; and also an alert inspection of the work of each individual, so that errors may be seen and rectified before any appreciable dislocation of the general process has been caused by them. Here, again, when the labourers are few, and when their different tasks are few, and when the interconnection of these can be seen at a glance by all, the business in question is easy, and the labourers can accomplish it by talk- ing together as they hold their tools. But when the labourers are numbered by thousands, and their different tasks by hundreds, the business of organising the exe- cution of these last changes like the business of devising them, and changes for like reasons. Whoever may be 104 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY the persons by whom this business is performed, it is one which engages their entire time and attention ; and it cannot be performed by labourers whose efficiency in manual task-work, according to the argument of Marx himself, depends on the fact that each of them gives his time, his attention and his hands to manual task-work, and one kind of task- work only. With regard, then, to the several arguments by which Marx seeks to exhibit the unapproached efficiency of the modern industrial process as due to capacities which, in the course of a single century, have come to life in the persons of the manual labourers themselves, and in all of them to an equal extent, what we have seen thus far has been this : Firstly, that " man's new control over the productive forces of nature " which is embodied and concentrated in mechanisms such as those of the modern factory, instead of being due in any sense to the manual labourers generally, is due to the activities of a small minority of individuals activities which are not in the nature of manual labour at all. Secondly, we have seen that, though the use of each great mechanism by a large number of labourers has resulted in a new subdivision and a new organisation of labour which has enabled the labourers personally to operate with in- creased effect, the actual business of subdividing and organising no more belongs to the category of labour, as Marx defines it, than the solitary ferments of knowledge and constructive imagination which take place only in the brain of the practical genius, and to which the world owes the steam-engine, the telephone and the electric light. In other words, whatever increased efficiency may in modern times have been acquired by the hands of the labourers themselves through new organisations of their hand-work, is primarily due to men who may never have touched a tool. And here we are brought at last to the heart of our present question. Human beings, as they come into the world to-day, are very much the same as they were in any previous century; and, whatever the activities may be to which the increased industrial efficiency of the modern world is due, they were always in a potential form, as plentiful as they are now. How, then, is it that FISSION OF EFFORT 105 >m the close of the eighteenth century onwards they have produced, and are still producing, effects on in- dustry which they never produced before ? What new condition of things is everywhere at the bottom of this unexampled change ? This is the crucial question ; and Marx himself, though he completely misses the answer, and could indeed not have admitted it without destroying the whole fabric of his economic doctrines, approaches it very nearly. He takes every step necessary to reach it except the last. Having assumed that, through the possession of new mechanisms of production, labour has gained a new control over the productive forces of nature, the one other cardinal fact, on which he insists as explaining the increased efficiency of ordinary or average hand- work, is, as we have seen, a new subdivision of labour-tasks into ever simpler parts, so that the work of each man's hands becomes more rapid and easier. Now, in order to under- stand what his full meaning is we must remember his emphatic assertion that actual labour, as performed by a living man, is in itself a process not single, but dual. Even the simplest manual operation, such as that of sorting nails according to their different sizes, involves the activity, not of a man's hands only, but also of his mind by which the action of his hands is directed. Hence, in pointing to a subdivision of labour-tasks as a cause of increased productivity on the part of the indi- vidual labourer, Marx means that when a labourer devotes himself to one kind of task alone, not his hands only, but his directing intelligence also, acquires a quickness and certitude not otherwise possible. But here the argument of Marx, so far as it relates to the division of task-work, stops. It stops short just where it ought to begin. He is right in asserting that the efficiency of the modern system of production is closely associated with the principle of division some- how; but the kinds of division with which alone he concerns himself are secondary phenomena only. They are the consequences of another division which is very much more profound. This, which, in respect of the extent to which it has been carried out, is the root- 106 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY peculiarity of the modern system of production, is not a subdivision of one manual task into several or a large number; it is a division of that composite activity which the execution of all manual tasks involves into its two component parts the manual part and the mental so that these are no longer performed by the same persons. A limited control over the operations \ of his own hands is, of course, necessarily left to the manual labourer himself ; but all intellectual direction of i the higher and more comprehensive kinds is transferred \to a new, a separate and a numerically small class, whose ysole connection with labour consists in the business of Directing it. ; This fission of industrial effort into the manual and the purely mental, like the fission of a single cell, first shows itself in a very rudimentary form. Whenever more than a score of manual labourers are gathered together in a shed, or (as Adam Smith calls it) a single "workhouse," for the purpose of making and putting together four or five separate parts of any simple product such as a pin, some record has to be kept of the output of each group, so that the multiplication of no one part shall be more rapid or less rapid than the multiplication of the others. When the total output is small, these simple arithmetical records can be made by the labourers themselves; but as soon as the business expands, these records, though arithmetically they will be no less simple than before, will be such that a man or a boy must give his entire time to them. The work of the manual labourers must be supplemented by that of the clerk. Here at once we have a fission of industrial work into manual work and mental ; but it is a fission which is embryonic only, and gives no hint of the effects which are peculiar to it when it is carried farther. The work of the clerk who counts what the labourers do is no more difficult than theirs. All we can say is that the two kinds of work are different, and are naturally assigned to two classes of men. The effects of this fission, which are peculiar to it as a cause of increased production, do not begin to be apparent till the action of the mental workers no longer merely records the various operations of the manual, but begins at the same time to alter and dictate INDIVIDUAL BRAIN-WORK 107 their details, and whilst rendering these last individually more simple, becomes in itself more complex. This fact may be illustrated by an example which has already been used as illustrating by way of analogy the problem involved in complex political government. All the higher applications of mental activity to manual may be typified by one which, as Herbert Spencer says, is actually amongst the most important of them. That is to say, the application to industry, not of a simple arithmetic which counts the pieces of matter affected by the labourers' hands, but of the higher mathematics, by which application the movements of the labourers' hands in dealing with matter are modified. In propor- tion, then, as the mathematical knowledge is abstruse on which the joint efficiency of any group of labourers depends, the number of persons diminishes by whom the requisite knowledge is possessed, or who have even the capacity for acquiring it. High mathematical genius, as everybody knows, is rare. The union of it with practical genius is notoriously rarer still. And of all the other purely mental activities by which industrial production is affected the same thing holds good. In proportion to the extent of their influence in augmenting the output of industry generally, the number of persons in whom they are to be found is small. Let us suppose, then, that some particular industry is prosecuted, as it might have been in the days of Adam Smith, in a hundred "workhouses " by a hundred groups of labourers, each group consisting of twenty men ; and let us suppose, further, that in one of these separate groups one labourer out of the twenty happens to develop a genius like that of a Watt or an Edison, and quadruples the output of this particular group by ceasing to operate with his own hands himself, and merely showing each of the nineteen others how his hands from moment to moment may be used to the best advantage. In that case the rest of the labour-groups will find them- selves in a condition, not of absolute, but of relative helplessness, and their natural tendency will be to unite with the group in which a man of genius is present, so that the benefit of his guidance may be extended to all alike. 108 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY Here we have the true underlying cause of the modern clustering of the manual labourers in large groups instead of remaining in small ones, or instead of working singly. The centres round which they cluster are not what Marx or the ordinary socialist supposes. These primarily are not great mechanisms, but the mental efficiencies of exceptionally able individuals, to which the mechanisms themselves are due, and to which are due also the new organisation of the labourers, and the new subdivisions of their tasks. By means of such a clustering, exceptional individuals such as these are enabled to do the thinking for thousands and tens of thousands of average men, so that each of these last even the most incapable of them is in turn enabled to execute his own special piece of hand-work precisely as it would have been executed had he been himself one of the master intellects of the world. Never has this fact been more dramatically illustrated than it has been during the course of the great European war. In every belligerent country the objects at which industry aims have been largely changed from commodi- ties for private use and enjoyment into commodities or goods essential to the preservation of national life, such as aeroplanes and anti-aircraft guns; and -in order that such weapons might be produced, the first step necessary has been this to place the labour required for their construction under the control of those picked intellects who are able to devise the best. In industry for normal, just as much as for military purposes, this fission of productive effort into its two component parts, so that the highest intellects may control the largest number of hands, has been the primary cause of all that increased efficiency by which the modern system of production is so sharply distinguished from all that have gone before it. It alone has rendered possible that application of intellect to industrial effort generally which has gained for man, and which still continues to gain for man, "a new control over the productive forces of nature." In other words, the increased efficiency of industry in the modern world is due primarily (though, as we shall see hereafter, not SOCIALISTS ON OLIGARCHY 109 exclusively) to a development, not of the democratic principle, but of the oligarchic. Let us now go on to consider what kind of reply will be made to this statement of the case by thinkers who have, since the days of Marx, endeavoured to maintain that industry, as a technical process, can conserve, and indeed increase its present productive powers, and yet remain or become what it was in earlier times a process which is exclusively, or even preponderantly democratic. CHAPTER IV THE PRODUCTIVITY OF THE FEW IF the foregoing argument be correct, one thing is at once evident namely that the essence of industrial efficiency is the rule of the Many by the Few, or that the modern system of production is more efficient than its predecessors precisely because it has lost the char- acteristics of a pure democracy. And, curiously enough, in the writings of Marx himself there are passages which show that even he, in moments of transitory insight, perceived that this conclusion had some elements of truth in it. Thus, on one occasion he compares the labourers of the modern world to a company of instru- mentalists performing some great oratorio, and adds that no performance of this kind would be possible unless some great composer had dictated to each performer the notes which he had to play. In his case, however, admissions of this kind are merely like isolated boulders, brought down by an intellectual glacier from some distant region of thought, and deposited here and there on a plain with which otherwise they have no connection. But what Marx recognised only by fits and starts, later industrial democrats have come to perceive more clearly. Thus, Vorwdrts the leading organ of the industrial democrats of Germany has described the Marxian doctrine that all wealth is produced by manual labourers as comparable to the doctrine of Thales that the universe is nothing but different forms of water. The intellectual socialists of America repudiate the vulgar idea that the industrial functions of the purely mental worker are less apparent to them than to any other sane men. The need of the oligarch in the tech- nical conduct of industry has been clearly recognised by labour-leaders in Italy; but of all comprehensive no MONOPOLISTS OF ABILITY 111 statements sufficiently brief for quotation, that which illustrates this change of attitude best has been provided by Mr. Sidney Webb. Now, Mr. Webb, as we have seen already, identifies industrial democracy with the "control" of industry by what he calls "the people themselves " ; and this control they will, according to him, acquire by appropriating those implements of pro- duction which are at present owned by capitalists, and which indeed constitute the bulk of the industrial capital of to-day. But, so he proceeds, democrats must remem- ber one thing namely, that if, in their capacity of mere possessors, the private monopolists of capital were all dispossessed to-morrow, yet, though one monopoly would be gone, another would still remain, and one of a kind which, so far as we can see, is ineradicable. This, says Mr. Webb, is " a natural monopoly of industrial or busi- ness ability" or "a natural energy with which some men are born," and with which the masses of mankind are not born; "and to dream," he says, "of a compli- cated industrial state " from which the influence of such men is eliminated, and "in which the workman is free to work just as he likes, without strict subordination, and without obedience to orders, is to dream, not of socialism, but of anarchism." Hence, according to him, the business of those thinkers who would, under modern conditions, place the theory of industrial democracy on a practically defensible basis, is not to ignore these facts, but to show that their real significance is quite other than what it seems to be, and that the principle of in- dustrial democracy in spite of them remains intact. And that Mr. Webb is merely describing a view which he shares with his brother intellectuals in this and in other countries is shown by the fact that socialists all over the world have, since the days of Marx, employed much of their speculative ingenuity in endeavours to get over the difficulties which Mr. Webb's language indi- cates, and which none of them any longer ignore. We will now briefly consider the nature and the value of the arguments by which the accomplishment of this feat has been attempted. These arguments, though expressed in a great variety of forms, are in substance reducible to five, each of which can be summarised in 112 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY a few words. Two of them only are deserving of any serious consideration. The other three, though when stated on a platform they may have some popular effect, will be found when considered soberly to be no better than claptrap. We will first dispose of these. One of these arguments is as follows. However com- pletely we may admit that the efficiency of modern production depends on a submission by the great mass of the workers to the intellect and technical guidance of the specially gifted Few, yet if this submission is an act of free consent, the Many in the very surrender of their own judgments are exercising them, and the system which requires the surrender thus expresses the will of an industrial democracy after all. Of this argument it is enough here to observe that it does but emphasise what nobody in his senses will deny namely the action of the democratic principle as one element of the situa- tion; but it does not disprove on the contrary, it implicitly admits the active operation of the principle of oligarchy as its counterpart. The harmonious work- ing of any system, whether democratic or otherwise, requires the willing consent of all parties engaged in it ; but the fact that the Many consent to be guided by the Few would no more prove that oligarchy was pure demo- cracy in disguise than the fact that a patient chooses his own doctor proves that the patient is the author of his own prescriptions. If the two things were the same thing, all doctors would be superfluous. A second argument, which may be dismissed with equal brevity, is this. However important the fact that in modern production a few persons must direct the technical operations of the many, this does not mean that the few, considered as human beings, are in any way more capable than the great mass of their fellows. It merely means that they have, by some chance or other, been chosen to exercise what are necessarily exceptional functions. The great directors of labour, whatever the talents may be which appear to distinguish them from the mass, resemble a watcher on a hill, who signals to an army on one side of it the movements of an army on the other. The signals of this one man may influence the actions of thousands ; but any unit of these SOCIALIST APOLOGETICS 113 thousands, if placed in that man's position, could signal with equal effect, and be no less influential than he. In other words, in the school of industrial life men are not at the bottom of the class because they have no conspicuous abilities, but they exercise no conspicuous abilities because they are at the bottom of the class. This argument does indeed deserve to be noticed, for it forms one of the modern flavourings of the lowest popular oratory; but no serious thinker, whatever his democratic zeal, either affects to believe it himself, or addresses it to a thoughtful audience. A third argument is this. It is idle to pretend that the great directors of industry are not what they seem to be namely men who in point of talent are indefinitely superior to the mass. Indeed, the influence of men like these is, in a certain sense, the motive-power of all modern progress. This influence, however, operates only as the initiator of new departures, in the way of inventions and methods, and the industrial application of new knowledge generally. As soon as each new move- ment has been started, its special connection with its author or initiator ceases. All knowledge, when once it has been achieved and applied to industrial purposes, becomes thenceforth common property. Any one can apply it who pleases, and in practice become equal to the initiator; and if it were not for patents and other legal devices, which secure for the initiators some interest in the results of their own inventions, whatever these men contribute to the fund of human efficiency would at once diffuse itself through the whole industrial mass, no trace being left of its origin in any special nucleus. Now, to a very limited extent this argument is true, but to a limited extent only. It is true in pro- portion as the knowledge and its industrial applications are simple, and the latter are on a small scale. What is commonly called knowledge namely, knowledge of general principles is mainly perpetuated and mainly diffused by books; but it only becomes common to all men in proportion as they are able to assimilate it. Any child can assimilate the contents of a child's book of arithmetic ; but a hundred men might live with the works of Newton before them, and only one man out of i 114 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY the hundred be able to grasp their meaning. Any schoolboy to-day, after reading a page of instructions, can make a pound of gunpowder which is better than Roger Bacon's, or a model steam-engine which in prin- ciple is more perfect than the engines of Newcomen. But when from the world of pastime we pass to that of practical modern life, in which the object of industry is to multiply as well as to make commodities, in which steam-engines are as big as houses, and steamships are as long as streets, problems arise which in the world of pastime are absent ; and these demand for their solu- tion, not only a knowledge which few can completely master, though books may contain it which any dunce can buy. They demand a knowledge of a different kind also, which is not transmissible by books, or even by living example, and which those who possess it owe to the favour of nature only. This is the knowledge of how to manage men, and this, in the world of industry, no more becomes common property because certain individuals have already possessed and exhibited it, than the powers of a great general transmit themselves to any nervous book- worm who puzzles himself over Caesar's Commentaries. The argument, then, that the powers of an industrial oligarchy are, as fast as they are success- fully exercised, converted into the powers of a demo- cracy, is, in so far as it is true, so limited in its range of application that the question here at issue is not even appreciably affected by it. Contrasted with these three arguments, and altogether rejecting them, are two others, of quite different kinds, each of which in a sense is true, and would, were it only relevant, be doubtless of great importance. The first of these is an argument which, though specially applied to industry by the doctrinaires of in- dustrial democracy, is applied by others to human action of all kinds. It begins with admitting that if men are in reality what to vulgar observation they seem to be namely, so many separate units whose faculties are self- existent what seems to be industrial oligarchy is pre- cisely the thing it seems, and the idea of industrial democracy must be given up as a delusion. If, how- ever, under the searchlight of sociological science we INDUSTRIAL MONISM 115 look below the surface of things and see them as they really are, we shall see that the individuals who present themselves as the Few and the Many are not self-existent or independent entities at all. In any given society the great men and the average men alike are what they are, and are able to do what they do, only because, like variously-tempered puppies who have come into the world together, they are all products of a common cor- porate past. Hence, if a certain minority of them happen to have derived from their ancestors a larger share of industrial ability than the rest, this share is the result of an age-long social struggle, to which the strong and the weak were both necessary parties. It does not belong properly to the present possessors of it them- selves, but is merely a temporary deposit drawn from a common store. So far as the possessors are concerned, it is, says Mr. Sidney Webb, " nothing more than a species of unearned increment," and, herein resembling "the unearned increment of rent," it belongs not to them, but to society, or the community as a democratic whole. Now, of this argument it is sufficient to say here that it is merely an application to industry of a wider philo- sophic conception which is as old as human thought namely, the conception of the All or the One as the reality which is behind the Many. According to this conception of things, which appears in various forms as Pantheism, Determinism, and mental or material Mon- ism, the existence of the separate personality is alto- gether a delusion. There is no question of whether one individual does or produces more or less than another. The indivisible Whole, whether God or the Universe, or (as Herbert Spencer called it) the Unknowable, does and produces everything. The individual, as a separate entity, does or produces nothing. Now, as a matter of speculative logic, this doctrine may be impregnable ; but as Kant, Hume, St. Augustine, and (we may add) common sense point out, the moment we attempt to apply it to practical life philosophers and ordinary men reject it alike as nonsense. If Socrates quarrels with his wife he is quarrelling with Xantippe; he is not quarrelling with the Universe. If a murder has been 116 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY committed we look for the individual murderer, on the ground that he is the criminal and other people are innocent. If we want a great picture painted we look for an individual artist, on the ground that he can paint it and most individuals cannot. That is to say, we assume, for all practical purposes, that individuals really do what they seem to do ; and unless we assumed this there would be no dealing with anybody. The application of these criticisms to the industrial process is obvious. The "monopolists of business ability," as a matter of practical experience, are as radically different from the average units directed by them as a man who murders his mother in order to steal her savings is dif- ferent from a mother next door who is teaching her child its prayers. They are able to do things, and they do things, which are not done and which cannot be done by others ; and unless these differences were recognised, no complex business of any kind would be possible. The philosophy of industrial Monism, by which these differ- ences are obscured, may amuse the philosopher in his study; but if preached in a factory or a shipyard it would be the maundering of a strayed lunatic. The last of the arguments which are urged with the object of showing that industrial democracy combined with unambiguous oligarchy is nothing but a mode of pure democracy after all, still remains to be considered. It is in many respects a great improvement on the pre- ceding. Moreover, the credit is due to it of having, for the benefit of the practical agitator, replaced the doc- trine of Marx that all wealth is the product of manual labour only, by another, equally popular in its sugges- tions, but less open to criticism on the part of common intelligence. This is the argument that wealth is the product, not of labour, but of society. It is an argu- ment which in certain ways is a great improvement on the preceding, because instead of being an exercise in the logic of remote speculation, it addresses itself frankly to the world of concrete fact. It admits that men must be treated as separate entities varying greatly in the scope of their industrial powers, some men directing and others submitting to direction ; and yet aims at establishing the industrial equality of all, not by eluding MILL ON EQUAL NECESSITY 117 or transcending these facts, but by facing them. It is, therefore, as a weapon of popular agitation, very much more in vogue than any of the four others. It may be summed up thus. However unequal may be tKe efforts of individual producers otherwise, such as those of the genius and those of the average labourer, they are prac- tically equal in the fact that they are all equally neces- sary. Necessity has no laws ; it also has no degrees. The contention that all industrial factors in produc- tion are in a practical sense equal if they are equally necessary for the production of a given result, was first formulated by Mill, in connection with the business of agriculture. Some thinkers, he observes, referring to the French physiocrats, have debated whether, of a given agricultural product such, for example, as twenty bushels of corn land or labour produces the larger part. All such questions as this, however, he declares to be void of meaning; and he explains this statement by laying down the following principle. Whenever two causes, however different otherwise, are both so neces- sary to the production of what he calls "the effect" that this (which in the present case is agricultural produce) could, if either were wanting, not be produced at all, it is idle to say that most of it is produced by one or the other, for the absence of either would make the difference between the production of a given effect or none. Thus, he adds by way of illustration, it is idle to ask whether, if 2 be multiplied by 10, the 2 or the 10 does most in producing the number 20 ; for if either the 10 or the 2 no matter which were altered, the pro- duction of the 20 would be equally out of the question. This argument which Mill applies to land and labour is that which is now applied by the theorists of industrial democracy to average manual labourers and "the mono- polists of ability " who direct them. Now, if we make certain suppositions, the argument of Mill is correct. One of these is that land is a constant quantity, the other is that "the effect" is a constant quantity also. Thus, if there were only one acre of land in the world, and if the effect were always twenty bushels of corn or nothing, it would doubtless be impossible to say that the land produced more bushels than the 118 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY labourer or the labourer more bushels than the land. But in the actual world of agriculture there is not one acre only; there are many which acres vary greatly in quality. Further, the joint produce of an acre of land and a labourer is not a given number of bushels or nothing. The whole question of produce is a question of less or more ; and if the same labourer were trans- ferred from a bad acre to a better one, and if thereupon "the effect" rose from twenty bushels to thirty, we should at once be able to say that, in a very practical sense, the extra ten bushels were the product, not of the labourer, but of the land. Indeed, Mill elsewhere insists on this very fact himself ; for in one of his own chapters he explains with great lucidity that an extra product of this kind is distinguishable as economic rent, and goes to the recipient solely because the land is his. On the same principle, the matter may be put conversely. If the same acre of land is tilled successively by two dif- ferent labourers, and if when it is tilled by the one there is a product of twenty bushels, and when it is tilled by the other there is a product of thirty, we are able to say that, in a strictly practical sense, the extra product is produced by the superior efficiency of the second. And the same argument applies to the industrial pro- cess generally in respect of the parts now played by the manual workers on the one hand and the mental direc- torate on the other. If the producers of any commodity let us say, for example, boots were always one small group of nineteen manual labourers, whilst a twentieth man directed them; and if "the effect" of their joint efforts were always the same likewise say, forty pairs of boots in a week; and if, moreover, unless the tale of forty pairs of boots were completed, the whole output would be worthless or would vanish into thin air; it would then be impossible to say that the director pro- duces more boots than any one of his workers or fewer. But if the director absented himself for a year, and his place was taken by a labourer no better and no worse than the rest, and if thereupon the weekly product fell from forty pairs of boots, not to none, but to twenty pairs ; and if, when the director returned and resumed his duties, the product forthwith rose from twenty pairs PRACTICAL CAUSATION 119 of boots to forty ; we should then be able to say that, in a very practical sense, that twenty pairs of boots were the product of the director alone. In other words, any mental director of a group of co-operating workers pro- duces so much of the joint output as would cease to be produced if his mental functions were suspended, and would be produced again when the exercise of these functions was renewed. Those, however, whose object is to evade this conclu- sion will endeavour to do so by the method of a reductio ad absurdum thus. If it is true, they will say, that the mental director of labour produces so much of a product as the labourers whom he directs could not have pro- duced without him let us say one-half of it it must be equally true that the labourers produce the whole, because in the absence of the labourers the director could have produced nothing. This argument, though absolutely worthless, is interesting and demands atten- tion; for its worthlessness is due to a fact which is not superficially apparent. Its worthlessness lies in the fact that it is false to the essential principle on which all reasoning of a practical kind rests. All reasoning which precedes and determines action is in its very nature hypothetical, and reduces itself to the following formula : " If I do this or that particular thing it will be the cause of this or that result." Thus a man, if he puts a match to shavings, reasons that if he does so he will cause them to catch fire. When a man, seeing a fire, throws a bucket of water over it, he reasons that if he does so he will cause the fire to cease. But there is another kind of reasoning namely, that of the thinker whose province is not action, but speculation; and for him neither tjie match nor the water will have been the cause of the results in question. They will each of them have been but one cause out of countless causes all equally neces- sary, such as those which have caused water and trees to exist, the action of gravity, and the existence and com- position of the atmosphere. But with causes such as these the practical reason has no concern whatever. The man who applies the match and the man who applies the water do not ask what would happen if the law of gravitation were suspended, or if water, wood, 120 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY and air became things other than they are. Out of a countless number of hypotheses they concern themselves with two only. On what principle, then, is this selection made ? The answer is that the hypotheses with which practical reason concerns itself relate to such acts alone as on any given occasion may either be performed or not be performed, according as the practical reason of human beings determines. Let us now apply this principle to the two special hypotheses with which we are here concerned namely, those relating to labour and a purely mental directorate. We shall see that, in computing the product of any director of labour as so much of the total as would not be produced on the hypothesis that he ceased to direct, we are arguing in accordance with the laws of practical reason; but if we argue on the counter-hypothesis, that the labourers ceased to labour, we are indulging in a speculation which practically has no meaning at all ; for the first hypothesis represents a practical possibility, the second does not. The labourers as a whole can never cease to labour, except for very brief periods, for if they ceased to labour they would die, and nothing would be left to reason about ; but the direction of labour by the Mind of a non-labouring class is in its present form a purely modern phenomena. Mankind existed for thousands of years without it, and if it disappeared to-morrow mankind would exist still. Hence, to say that all wealth is produced by Society that is, by the labour and the mental director jointly is no doubt true enough; but, except for one special purpose, with which we will deal presently, it is a truth that tells us nothing. What we want to know is, not how much these agents produce jointly, but how much the second adds to the product of the first. To say that all wealth is a social product is like saying that malaria is a local product. Malaria prevails in some countries, it does not prevail in others. All countries are, in many respects, alike. All must possess, for example, soil, air, and sunshine. Were any of these absent malaria would be absent also; therefore, all these things in a sense are its joint causes. But since malaria prevails in certain localities only, some cause must be present there which CAUSALITY OF THE FEW 121 is not present elsewhere ; and if malaria is an evil which men desire to extirpate, they must concern themselves with the identification of this exceptional cause alone. That cause, it has now been discovered, is a fly. If the fly is extirpated, malaria disappears along with it. If the fly returns, malaria reappears also. Thus the prac- tical reason concerns itself with this cause alone, for it is the only cause in respect of which human beings can take action. They can get rid of the fly, but they cannot get rid of earth, air, and sunshine. If we substi- tute for malaria, as a product which we desire to abolish, an increased output of wealth, as a product which we desire to retain, the case is just the same. We may compare the directors of labour to so many malarial flies. Wherever one settles the industrial output is increased ; and just as the fly is practically the one cause of malaria, so is the director practically the one cause of the increment not of the total product, but of just so much of the total as may happen to appear and to disappear along with him. The application of this argument is, however, as was just now observed, limited by one exception. When it is said that all wealth is produced by society, the word " society," if it stands for more than a mere abstraction, must be used to designate some society or societies in particular, such, for example, as the English, French, or German. Now if, as happens in war time, one society has, either as an ally or an enemy, to consider the efficiency of another from the standpoint of an outside observer, then to say that the latter society, as a whole, produces so much is a really informative statement. It is so for this reason that the great practical question for such an observer is, not how this total is produced, but the mere fact of its production. But for each society, in respect of its own internal forces and in times of war this is specially obvious the practical question is what are the agents of production when these are considered separately, and what, when so considered, is the nature of their interaction; for it is only when matters are considered in this way that the conditions which will result in a maximum product are discoverable. For those, then, who desire to understand what, 122 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY within any given society, different men, different classes of men, or different kinds of productive effort, contribute severally to the product of the society as a whole, to answer that the product as a whole is produced by society as a whole, is not to throw any light on the work- ings of these different parts, but simply to hide them from observation under the tarpaulin of a barren platitude. The proposition that the wealth of a society is pro- duced by that society itself comes, if not absolutely barren, to no more than this that modern production requires co-operation of some kind, or that wealth as the world now knows it cannot be produced by a solitary. Here we have a principle which is applicable, not to industry alone, but to nine-tenths of all possible human conduct. If a man lives absolutely alone, he cannot commit murder, for no one exists into whom he can stick a knife. It is equally obvious that he cannot commit perjury, for nobody exists to whom he can tell a lie. He cannot exhibit the virtue of unselfishness, for the only person in whose interests he can act is himself. Such being the case, it is obviously true, in a sense, that murder is a social product, that perjury is a social product, and that heroic self-sacrifice is a social product likewise. But would this mean that if, out of so many thousand men, three excite horror by murder or false swearing, or public admiration by acts of unusual heroism, all are equally criminals and equally moral heroes ? If this were true, a murdered man should be hanged along with his murderer, for the latter could not have killed him if he had not been there to kill. A government which made such an assumption would be a government fit for Bedlam. And what is true of moral action is equally true (,f industrial. In the estimation of industrial forces, as in the administration of legal justice, that which has to be dealt with is the voluntary actions, and the results of the actions, of individuals. If a society of workers in which one man directs the many produces more than a society in which the many direct themselves, it is idle to say that society is as truly the producer of the larger product as of the less. The sole question is, what pro- CALCULUS OF PRODUCTION 123 duces the excess of the one product over the other ? And here we are brought to the answer already given. The excess is produced by one man namely, the direc- tor, the presence or the absence of whose activities is the only element which differentiates one society from the other. The extra output is produced by that one man as truly as malaria is produced by the presence of the malarial fly. This method of reasoning is no mere exercise in the logic of remote speculation, like that of the Industrial Monists. It is the instinctive and inevitable reasoning of all practical men. This fact has been brought into prominence by the great European war, as though it were lit up by successive flashes of lightning. War, to an extent never before paralleled, has become a war of intellectual industries as well as a war of armies. In every belligerent country it has made ceaseless demands on industrial intellect in both of its two main forms the intellect which shows itself in scientific invention, and the intellect which shows itself in the scientific organisation of men ; and the demand for each, wherever it has found utterance, has always couched itself in the same inevitable terms. The cry of all parties alike has not been a cry addressing itself to "society," to "the people themselves," or to the mass of average men. It has been a cry for individuals who stand out from the mass, and are able to do what the average man cannot do. With regard to the mechanisms of war, such as (to quote an example which has here been used already) an anti-aircraft gun, what England has cried out for has been, in the common-sense words of a prominent London journal, "a new inventive brain, capable of large generalisations, and capable of applying them in detail." With regard to the organisation of the mass of average workers, these being already in exist- ence, and equipped with their normal faculties, the demand has been for exceptional brains likewise, which shall organise these men anew in accordance with new requirements. When the food-problem in Germany first threatened to become urgent, this demand found clearer and more instant expression nowhere than it did in the leading journal of the Social Democrats themselves. 124 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY " What Germany wants," said Vorwarts, " in the present internal crisis is one man of large knowledge and supreme business ability." And what do such demands mean demands which the stress of circumstance has purged of fantastic theory, and restored to that common sense by which all men are naturally guided whether they recognise the fact or no ? Such demands mean, when translated into terms of their implications, that, if Society is to act efficiently, the mass of average workers, of which society is mainly composed, must group themselves for industrial purposes, not primarily Jas Marx said) round this or round that great mechan- ism, but round certain centres of control which are the intellects and localised influence of exceptionally able men. Let us suppose, then, that some exceptional man devises a mechanism or weapon of such power and pre- cision that the course of a war is altered in favour of the country using it. Would any one say that the part played by a man like this was not distinguishable and not greater than that which was played by others who could merely cry out for his appearance, or who helped to construct this weapen in accordance with the in- ventor's orders? The refutation of such an opinion is embedded in the very language in which ordinary thought expresses itself. Everybody would instinctively say, with regard to the fortunes of war, that the appear- ance of a man like this "had made all the difference." If the case were one, not of a change in the fortunes of war, but of an addition to the national output of common comforts and luxuries, everybody would say precisely the same thing, with the alteration of one word only. Everybody would say that this man had not "made" all the difference, but had "produced" it the difference being the difference between a larger output and a less. Such being the case, then, it must always be borne in mind that in every industrial system which yields a return sufficient to keep the workers alive, the demo- cratic principle, as embodied in the hands of the self- directed workers themselves, and producing a certain minimum, must always be assumed as a starting-point, GENIUS EQUALS OLIGARCHY 125 and is necessarily always present. The sole point here insisted on is, that all modern additions to this minimum, which itself is approximately constant, are contingent on the direction of the labourers by a purely intellectual class, or (as Mr. Webb calls them) "the natural monopolists of the best business ability." In other words, Industrial Democracy is not an impossible system of production, but it is an inefficient system. It is the system of the world in its babyhood. Industry, after a certain early stage of progress has been reached, grows in efficiency in proportion as it ceases to be purely democratic, and becomes a system in which two distin- guishable principles the democratic and the oligarchic the average intelligences of mankind, and the excep- tional intelligences interact. It is true that, even if the labourers worked solely under their own direction, none of them issuing any orders to others, a certain minority of them would be appreciably more productive than the rest. But the larger products of individuals such as these would be merely like so many molehills which, though lifting themselves here and there, did nothing to alter the general level of a field. " Society," or "the people themselves," may, in their capacity of producers, be compared to a regiment of soldiers ordered to move across country to a given spot by night, and possessing in its ranks one man who can see by night as well as he can by day. If such a man directs his own movements only, he may reach the spot in question with the utmost ease and promptitude ; but unless he is able by his orders to direct the movements of the rest, the mass will be left helpless to flounder or drown in ditches. The same is the case in industry. If a thou- sand men of average vision are to derive any benefit whatever from the presence amongst them of one man of exceptional vision, one man must issue orders to a thousand, and the thousand must obey one man; and if this is not oligarchy as definitely distinct from demo- cracy, there is not, and never has been, such a thing as oligarchy in the world. That such" are really the essential facts of the situation is now being admitted, as Professor Michels shows, by various revolutionary writers without any attempt to 126 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY disguise the matter. The Italian syndicalist, Labriola, insists, as we have seen already, that political progress can never be the work of the multitude, but can be accomplished only by "an dlite who alone can judge of the interaction of social cause and effect"; and what this writer says with regard to political government, other revolutionary writers are now saying with regard to industry. Thus Kautsky, who in some respects is a professed follower of Marx, dismisses as impossible the application of the democratic principle to commerce. Commerce, or commercial distribution (which is pro- duction in its final stage) is, he says, "outside the competence of the rank and file." We may talk, he proceeds, of this or that commercial business as " co- operative "; but in the cases to which this name is applied, the conduct of affairs is really in the hands of a few managers, unless, indeed, "the customer can be said to co-operate with the shopman " whenever a bit of ribbon changes hands over the counter. Another socialist critic, speaking of a business at Ghent, which claims to be a great example of successful co-operation or democracy, declares that " it bears in every detail the imprint of the strong will that has created it. The one man who is its master issues his orders in the brusque and imperious tone of a bourgeois captain of industry; and this is what he practically is." It has, says Professor Michels, been claimed that in societies for co-operative manufacture, true co-operation is theo- retically far more practicable than in commerce. He goes on, however, to observe herein agreeing absolutely with the argument of the present work that this claim is valid for groups of workers only, whose numbers are small, and whose methods are of the simplest kind- such, for example, as ten or twelve village cobblers cutting and stitching leather at the back of a small shop. But as soon as such an industry increases, and endeavours by the aid of science to secure a larger out- put per head of the workers engaged in it, the case entirely changes. Technical subordination begins, and equal co-operation ends. Thus, he says, one of the foremost leaders of the labour movement in Italy has expressed himself to the following effect : " We have SOCIALIST EVASIONS 127 learned by prolonged experience that those businesses only can survive which are headed by a good organiser. Categories of the most various trades, found in the most diverse environments, have been unable to secure organ- isation and to live through crises, except in so far as they have been able to find first-class men to manage their affairs." Now, all this is substantially what is said by Mr. Webb himself. "In any complex system of industry " such as that which prevails to-day, the efficiency of the workers as a whole is the average efficiencies of the Many multiplied by the efficiencies of the Few the Few whom he describes as "the natural monopolists" of ability, and whose function is to issue orders, whilst that of the Many is to execute them with "strict obedience." Why, then, do he and other democratic reformers endeavour to hide this fact by declaring that, " accord- ing to a growing consensus of opinion," the inevitable outcome of democracy " is the " control " of production \J by "Society," or "the people themselves"? If "the people themselves " include the directing few, produc- tion is controlled by the people themselves already. If the people themselves are the masses, as distinct from the few and excluding them, then, according to Mr. Webb's own opinion, and a growing consensus of revolu- tionary opinion generally, no efficient production by "the people themselves" is possible. For what con- ceivable reason, then, can men not deficient in intelli- gence, who have seen with very fair clearness what the nature of the situation is, have betaken themselves to reasonings and formulae such as those which we have just examined, and which are practically useless except for the purpose of obscuring it ? The answer to this question will be indicated in the following chapter, and it will carry us on directly to inquiries of a new order. BOOK III DEMOCRATIC DISTRIBUTION AS RELATED TO THE FACTS OF PRODUCTION CHAPTER I DISTRIBUTION IN ENGLAND THE explanation of the curious fact that the demo- cratic doctrinaires of to-day, having come to admit that an efficient system of production involves at all events a large element of oligarchy, should endeavour to obscure this truth under a veil of pseudo-philosophic or wholly irrelevant platitudes, is not to be found in any mental defect on their part which renders them liable to oscillate between sound reasoning and unsound. It is to be found in the ultimate object which they practically have in view. Their object is not to establish any theory of production, however true, for its own sake. Their object is to provide, as an instrument of popular agita- tion, some basis in principle for a certain popular demand a demand which relates, not to the process of production, but to the manner in which the products are, and the manner in which they ought to be, distributed. The content of this demand, which in all countries is the same, is plainly expressed in the latter of the two clauses which make up Mr. Webb's account of "the inevitable outcome of democracy." Having said that the immediate outcome is the control of production by what he calls "the people themselves," he goes on to explain that the ultimate end in view is the "recovery by the people themselves " of a certain share of the product which is, under the existing system, appropriated by mere "possessors." 128 INCOME FROM POSSESSION 129 The demand thus indicated will, as has been said already, be found to derive all its significance from certain propositions as to fact which are contained in it by way of implication. These implied propositions are as follows : (1) In all the civilised countries of the modern world, a few men, commonly called "the rich," over and above any income which they may produce by their own abilities and enterprise, appropriate a secondary income, in the production of which they have played no part whatever. (2) The whole of this secondary income is produced by "the people themselves "by the efforts present or past of the units of the average mass; and as soon as the people come to own the means of production they will "recover "it. (3) This secondary income, regarded as a " share of the total produce," is so " enormous " that the " recovery " of it by "the people " is, "according to a growing consensus of opinion," the sole objective of Democracy throughout the modern world, and will, when accom- plished, metamorphose the whole character of social life. The core of these propositions is obviously contained in the last, which asserts the immense magnitude of the "share" awaiting recovery, and the extent to which the people must have hitherto been underpaid. Every- body knows that in all civilised countries some share of the national produce goes to persons who are mere "possessors," for otherwise nothing in the nature of a leisured class could exist. The practical question is the quantitative question of " What share ? " Neither Mill, nor Mr. Webb, nor any of the thinkers who agree with them, assert, as Marx did, that the Many produce every- thing and the exceptional Few nothing, or that any man who is rich must be ipso facto a thief. On the contrary, they admit that "the Rich," or at all events the active section of them, produce or earn a "share" which, relatively to their numbers, is considerable a share which Mill describes as "the wages of the employers' superintendence," which Mr. Webb and others describe as "the rent of their ability," and which American statisticians and economists describe as "gains from 130 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY the effort of the entrepreneur." The essence of the democratic contention is that, whatever the amount of this earned share may be, the few Rich in any case get a great deal more than their earnings, and the People get a great deal less; and the practical object of the exponents of the democratic idea is to persuade the People that the "share" of which they are thus de- frauded is something so vast that it is well worth their while to do and to dare everything in order to gain possession of it. Since, however, as we have seen, it is no longer possible to deny in serious argument the exceptional productivity of the Few, and their conse- quent rights to an exceptional " share " of some sort, the doctrinaires of Democracy have betaken themselves to every possible device by which the exceptional pro- ductivity of the Few, though it cannot be denied, may be obscured, as being a fact which, if too clearly recog- nised, would lower the temperature of the passions to which the doctrinaires make appeal. Here, then, we have the origin of those ludicrous or platitudinous theories which aim at representing the productivity of unequal men as equal on the ground that all of them are creatures of a common biological process, or are all alike parts of some national aggregate. These are theories which, as applied to practical life, are so absolutely insane and futile, except for the one purpose of fomenting popular passion, that not even the most rabid of democrats would dream of applying them for a day to his dealings with his own household, in respect even of such trivial matters as the choice of a wife or cook, or the bringing up of his children. Indeed, as we shall see presently, such methods of argument are now being rapidly abandoned by the doctrinaires of democracy themselves for others which, though similar in their practical purport, are deduced intellectually and morally from a wholly different principle. Meanwhile there is one proposition to which, in some form or other, they adhere with unabated tenacity. This is the pro- position, relating not to principle but to fact, that of " the total produce " or income of every modern country the share appropriated by the "Rich," over and above what certain of them may earn by their own ability, ENGLISH UNEARNED INCOME 131 is of such a magnitude that no revolution would be too hazardous which promised the mass of the workers even a remote prospect of "recovering it." Now this proposition, whatever be its exact sense, may quite imaginably be true. It is impossible to say a priori that the great mass of the producers in any one country or in all are not defrauded of some share of their products, or whether, if they are so defrauded, this share deserves the name "enormous " or no. We can reach a conclusion only by an examination of concrete facts; and if we find that, under such conditions as are now prevalent, the products are, as a fact, systematically and not merely by accident, mal-distributed in the way described, we shall have to consider by what principles the systematic mal-distribution is determined, and in what way and how far democratic action can alter them. But the broad facts of the case are what we must deal with first, and we can deal with them only as embodied in some typical instance or instances. The best instance to begin with will be naturally that of the country in which the modern industrial system has been on trial for the longest time, and of which, moreover, the statis- tical records are sufficiently comprehensive and precise. It has been commonly admitted by socialists of all nations that no country could be chosen which fulfils these conditions more signally than the United Kingdom. Let us take, then, the case of the United Kingdom as (to speak roughly) it was about the year 1907, this year being the central year of a quinquennium with regard to which statistics are available of an exceptionally ample kind. Two methods of investigation, each independent of i the other, 1 united to show that the net income of the * 1 Prior to the year 1907 the national income was computed, firstly on the hasis of wage-rates recorded as current amongst various classes of workers, and the number of workers comprehended in each class ; and secondly on the basis of the records relating to income-tax, which deal mainly, though not entirely, with incomes exceeding 160 a year. About the year 1905 statisticians had come to the conclusion that the then income of the United Kingdom was somewhat in excess of 2000 million pounds. In the year 1907 a novel inquiry was instituted that is to say, a f{ Census of Production " which took no cognisance of individual incomes at all, but dealt only with the net selling value of 132 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY United Kingdom in the year 1907 amounted approxi- mately to 2100 million pounds, of which it is ascertain- able from the records relating to income-tax that 790 (or, let us say 800) million was made up of net incomes in excess of 160, whilst 1300 million was the sum of incomes below that figure. Now all the individual receipts which made up this grand total were derived by the recipients either from the mere possession of property, or from personal effort of some kind, or in part from one of these sources, and in part, also, from the other. Let us deal with the total derived from personal effort or, as it is commonly called, "earned income " first. The kinds of effort by which, in a modern society, incomes are earned may be broadly reduced to five. Firstly, the effort of manual workers, most of whom work for wages. 1 Secondly, the effort of mental workers, such as school- teachers, government functionaries, and business clerks or managers, who work for wages commonly called salaries. Thirdly, the effort of independent professional men who, as to the details of their work, are practically their own masters. Fourthly, the effort of the very small employers who not only direct their employees (very few in number), but also share their work. Fifthly, the effort of the larger employers, who alone are typical of the modern industrial system, and whose sole connection with their employees consists in the task, purely mental, of directing them. Let us begin with the income derived from ordinary manual and from salaried mental effort. This may be the products of each of the industries and gainful services of the country, and arrived at the total income by putting all these values together. These values yielded about 2100 million pounds as the net national income ; thus confirming the result of those independent methods according to which the total, a few years before, had been between 2000 and 2100 million pounds. 1 In this class are comprised certain independent workers, such as the village blacksmith, and small farmers who rarely use hired labour, but normally cultivate their holdings witli the aid of their own families. The class comprises domestic servants also. ENGLISH EARNED INCOME 133 taken as comprising the aggregate namely, 1300 million pounds of incomes not exceeding 160 a year, to which must be added about 150 million, ear-marked and analysed by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, as the salaries of those mental workers whose total incomes range from 160 upwards. Thus wages, in the wider sense of the word, amounted in all to about 1450 million pounds, or 70 per cent, of the entire produce of the nation. To this sum must be added the earnings of professional men, and those of the smaller employers. The aggregate of professional earnings was, according to a common estimate, something like 60 million, and the net gains of the partners in the smaller business firms gains which averaged less than 300 per partner were in the aggregate something like 50 million. It is impossible to distinguish between these two categories with exactitude, but together they made up a total of about 110 million; and if this sum be added to wages and salaries, we have an income identifiable as earned which did not amount to less than 1560 million, 1 or 75 per cent, of what is described by Mill as "the total produce " of the nation. To this sum must be added the profits of the larger businesses, in so far as these are the result of the active ability of the principal and controlling partners, and are not mere interest on capital as held by the outside public. Such businesses are here taken as including all whose gross profits exceeded 1000. Nearly all of them were constituted in the form of firms or companies. 1 Those who desire to work out these figures for themselves should consult the analytical reports of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue for the years 1905-10, especially the Synopses of Incomes, Schedules D and E. It should be noted that what are called ' ' the gross amounts reviewed " include about 200 million pounds which form no part of net incomes exceeding 160, but are made up of outgoings and small incomes not subject to tax. In the case of business incomes (Schedule D) these deductions must be carefully distributed, as some of them (e. g. allowances for wear and tear of machinery) are applicable only to businesses of a certain kind. The 60 million pounds, given in the text as the estimated earnings of some 200,000 professional men, are taken as being included in incomes classified as being earned by "Persons," the purely business profits being mainly, though not wholly, comprised in profits recorded as those of " Private Firms " and "Companies." 134 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY Their aggregate profits at the period here in question amounted, in round figures, to 300 million pounds; and of this sum, as will be shown in detail presently, about half was interest on capital, and the other half, or 150 million, was the product directly resulting from the ability of the controlling partners. Thus, to the income already specified as earned, this further sum of 150 million must be added, the total earned by direct and daily renewed effort being thereby raised to 1710, or (in round figures) to 1700 million pounds out of an entire national income of 2100 million. Of the remaining 400 million * (so we may roughly call it, although in reality it was less) which was proxi- mately derived by its recipients from the mere possession of property, about 240 million consisted of the rents of buildings, building sites, agricultural land with its im- provements, and interest on certain stocks, mainly foreign, which was paid by governments, or agents acting on their behalf, whilst the residue about 150 million, as has just now been said represented the interest on shares held by the general public in the larger businesses of the kingdom. The nature, the composition and the magnitude of this proximately unearned income have, however, been the subject of so many popular misconceptions that the figures here given, and their significance, must be examined in greater detail. Of these misconceptions the most obvious and familiar is the following, which largely accounts for the over- estimates often made of the magnitude of the unearned total. It relates to the notorious fact that business enterprises for the most part are, under modern con- ditions, organised in the form of companies, and largely worked with capital provided by mere investors. Now, the doctrine which is popular on democratic platforms to-day is that, when businesses were mostly small, and the capital was owned by the person, or two or three 1 The above total of nearly 400 million of income from possession is exclusive of about 50 million ear-marked in the official returns as foing to persons whose total incomes do not exceed 160. This sum eing distributed already amongst " the workers/' it cannot form part of any sum which democracy can aim at " recovering " from them. EARNED INCOME OF COMPANIES 135 persons who administered it, the profits might be fairly attributed to the efforts of such persons themselves ; but that ever since the rise of the modern company system the whole situation has in this respect been changed. In the case of any large company so the argument runs the employer who controls the business in his capacity of predominant partner is altogether eliminated; his services are relegated to a manager whose salary figures in the wage-bill, and the total profits are interest pure and simple, going to a body of shareholders who know nothing about the business whatsoever, except in so far as it yields them a larger or smaller dividend. Should this argument be correct, the proximately unearned total would be raised from 400 million to 550. Now, as applied to certain companies, of which railways are the chief example, it is doubtless correct enough; but if applied to companies generally it is nothing better than nonsense. Can any one suppose that all the novel in- ventions and conveniences which have been placed at the disposal of mankind by the enterprise of modern companies have been simply due to the entrusting by idle and inexpert persons of so much money to the hands of wage-paid managers, who forthwith proceed to use it in any manner they please ? If things stood really thus, the growth of wealth would be a charmingly simple process. Any section of the investing public, having deposited its sovereigns in a bank, would merely have to issue an advertisement to some such effect as this : "A Company having been formed with a capital of a million pounds for the production of something new, useful and marvellous, a Manager is wanted to settle what this something shall be, and to supervise its pro- duction. Salary 5000 a year. As the shareholders know nothing about any kind of business themselves, and are quite incapable of judging between man and man, the first applicant will be accepted." Such an idea is ludicrous. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the growth of the company system has given rise to a question which is really of extreme im- portance, and is practically novel on account of its novel magnitude. This is the question of what, in the profits of the larger companies, is the average proportion borne 136 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY by interest on mere investment to the earning or pro- ducts of the ability of the active and controlling partners. An answer to this question was attempted by the German economist Wagon, which was based on the business records of a number of selected companies, so far as these records were accessible to the inquiry of a private person. He found, as might be expected, that the ratio of the product of the activity of the controlling partners to what he described as " company gain," or interest, varied greatly in different cases, and he does not appear to have arrived at any general average. Evidence, however, of a very much ampler kind namely, that provided by the official statistics of America was tabulated in the year 1914 by Dr. W. S. King, Professor of Statistics in the University of Wisconsin. In Dr. King's tables the gains of all businesses are divided into three portions, described respectively as Rent, or "the value-product attributable to sites and buildings " ; " Interest, or the value-product attributable to plant or mechanical equipment"; and "Profits," which term is defined as " the value-product attributable to the efforts of entrepreneurs." Thus, "Rent" and "In- terest " together correspond to what Wagon calls " Com- pany gains," or income from mere possession; whilst "Profits " are the product of the ability of the active and controlling employers, or (to use Mill's language) "the wages of the employers' superintendence." Such being the case, the total gains of all the industrial and commercial undertakings in the United States, in the year 1910, were, according to these fables, about 1900 million pounds, of which 850 million consisted of rent and interest, and 1050 million consisted of the product of " the efforts of the entrepreneurs." In the year 1900, though the figures were much lower, the proportion was substantially the same. It would thus seem, from the results of a scientific analysis of the greatest mass of contemporary data in the world, that of the total gains of businesses, industrial and commercial of to-day, the collective product 1 of the efforts of the active employers 1 How greatly the proportions which yield this general average vary in particular cases may be seen from the following examples. The pro- portion of the total gain attributable to the "efforts of the entrepre- MEANING OF EARNED INCOME 137 is about 55 per cent., and those of the investing public 45 per cent. We shall, therefore, probably be under the mark rather than over it if we assume, as we have done here, that, in the United Kingdom at the period here in question, of the total net gains of the larger firms and companies that is to say, 300 million pounds as much as half was the product of the efforts of the employers, and that not more than a half went as interest to the mere investor. But it is not only in respect of the profits of Companies that popular thought as to unearned income errs. Another error is prevalent which relates to the con- ception of unearned income generally. It is no doubt true, as popular thought assumes, that all income not earned or produced by direct effort is necessarily income from possession; but all income from possession is not necessarily unearned. There are many kinds of effort, such as efforts devoted to the perfecting of some great invention, which, until they are ended, produce prac- tically nothing. Not till an invention is so complete in design that it is fit to be multiplied by manufacture and put into general use does it come into being as a something which adds to the world's wealth, or can bring to the inventor any reward whatever. When it is completed, he sells the right of producing it, we may so suppose, to a company, which pays him in shares to the value (let us say) of 30,000, and he thenceforth enjoys an income of 1500 a year without the necessity on his part for any further effort of any kind. Such income would take the form of income from mere pos- session ; but anybody who maintained that it was not truly earned could do so only by committing himself to the impossible principle that no effort, however long and laborious, which results in the production of any per- manent utility, can possibly produce, or possibly earn, anything. neur " was, in the case of Railways, 10 per cent. ; of Mines, 12 per cent. ; of Electric Power and Light, 33 per cent. ; of Manufactures, 54 per cent. ; of Commerce, 66 per cent. ; and of Transportation by Water, 69 per cent. The small percentage representing " rent and interest" in this last case would appear to be due to the fact that 110 rent is payable for the permanent way namely the sea. 138 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY The same argument applies to the rent of buildings. Brown and Jones are, let us say, two clerks, each of them earning a salary of 400 a year, out of which, by living with care, each of them could save 300. Brown, how- ever, spends his surplus in getting men and women to dance, sing and dress up for his pleasure at music-halls. Jones pays it to builders who year by year in return for it build him a model dwelling fit for a workman's family. At the end of ten years a row of such dwellings is owned by him, for which he receives a rental of 150. His total income is now 550, whereas that of Brown is still 400 only. The extra income of the house-owner would be commonly called unearned, its immediate origin being possession, and not, like that of his salary, the perform- ance of daily duties. But, as any one can see, who takes the trouble to think, it is just as truly earned as truly the result of work as the annual salary itself out of which the houses were created. If the salary is the equivalent of effort, the houses are the equivalent of the saved portion of his salary. They are so much salary converted into a permanent instead of a perishable form, and endowed with a lasting utility which recoins itself in an annual rent. This rent, indeed, is not only earned but is super-earned; for the salary out of which the houses were created represented the product of technical efforts only, but the rent is the product of these efforts with foresight and will added to them. If, how- ever, Jones when dying should bequeath his houses to his companion, the rental, as received by Brown, would immediately change its character. Instead of being earned, it would be unearned, for its new recipient would have played no part in creating it. Here we see what the really essential difference be- tween earned income and unearned income is. Earned income is income which, whether its proximate source be the possession of property or no, has its ultimate origin in efforts made by the recipient himself at some time of his life, be that time what it may. 1 Unearned 1 The practical bearings of this fact is illustrated by an article on "Income-tax Hardship" in a popular London Journal (Sept. 1914). ' ' The hardship/' it says, ' ' of the present system is illustrated by the case of a retired professional man, who for the forty years of his work- MEANING OF EARNED INCOME 189 income is income which, coming as it always must do from permanent property of some kind, comes from property created by the efforts of persons other than the present recipients themselves. That is to say, apart from gifts of property inter vivos or of property acquired by marriage or some form of gambling, all income from property is earned which comes from property produced by the efforts of the living. The only kind of income which can properly be called unearned is income from such property as has been created by the efforts of the dead. In other words, again, at any given period in the case of any given country, all income from property is earned which is due to the efforts of the generation at that time alive. Hence, the active lifetime of a generation being not less than thirty years, the earned income with which we are here concerned will be income from such property as had been created in the United Kingdom during the thirty years preceding the year 1907. Now, this new property, consisting for the most part of houses and shares in companies, amounted in the year 1907 to at least one-half of the total which we are able to identify as yielding rent or interest. If, then, the total income originating proximately in " possession " was at that time, as we have seen, nearly 400 million, nearly 200 million will have been earned by the efforts of the persons at that time receiving it, and nearly 200 million will have been unearned, or inherited by the living from the dead. The income of the United Kingdom, in short, at the beginning of the twentieth century, in respect of its sources as they actually were on the one hand, and were popularly supposed to be on the other, is comparable to the income of a doctor, which was known by all his neighbours to be slightly in excess of 2000 a year ; the prevalent opinion being that he barely made 400 by his practice, and that 1700 was from property left to ing life denied himself every luxury on principle, in order to provide for his children and the old age of his wife and himself. Yet the interest on the savings of these laborious years is treated as unearned. Attention should be paid to the difference between income inherited and that derived from savings." 140 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY him by his father, whereas in reality 1700 was from his practice, about 200 from property left to him by his father in the year 1877, and another 200 from property saved and created out of his own fees in the course of some thirty years of active professional life. In other words, the " enormous " unearned " share," which has haunted the imagination of men like Mr. Webb and Mill, was not in reality so much as one-tenth of the total, being equal at the time in question to threepence a day per inhabitant of the United Kingdom. In the foregoing illustration, however, one point is ignored, and still remains to be considered, with regard to which an error prevails, even more absurd than those which have just been noted. By most agitators it is assumed that unearned income, whatever its amount may be, is distributed wholly amongst persons who earn or produce nothing. Thus a Socialist Society, of which Mr. Webb is a leading member, issued in the year 1905 a pamphlet, the writer of which having established to his own satisfaction that the unearned income of the United Kingdom amounted to no less than 700 million pounds, immediately proceeded to observe that here we have obviously the income of the body called " the Idle Rich," which body consisted, according to him, of some 700,000 adult males, " not one of whom had ever even professed to have so much as the shadow of an occupa- tion in the whole course of his life." If this were true some singular results would follow. Nobody who had inherited a couple of hundreds a year could ever in his life have done so much as a stroke of useful work. Nobody who had ever done a stroke of useful work could possibly be the son of a parent who had not by the time of his death spent everything he had ever possessed. The fact is, as everybody in his senses knows, countless men are in receipt of inherited incomes which are nothing more than additions to incomes earned by work. How these additions are distributed there is no statistical evidence of a direct kind to show. But, though we cannot say how, in detail, the inherited " share " was distributed, there are, with regard to the effects of its distribution on total incomes, evidences, some of them direct, some of them indirect, but generally accepted as INCOMES ABOVE 3000 141 valid, which indicate the facts of the matter clearly enough in outline. We have indirect evidence as to certain total incomes in the number of houses of certain rental values. We have other evidences of a kind more or less direct as to total incomes up to 500 a year. In particular we have evidences, absolutely direct and unambiguous, as to incomes ranging from 3000 up- wards. 1 These taken by themselves would be quite sufficient to show how wildly absurd is the doctrine of " the enormous unearned share " withheld from the masses by a fabulously rich minority, or, as a radical sentimentalist has described them, by " the super- wealthy with their piled-up aggregations." The income of any typical modern country England or the United Kingdom being taken as the classical example has been depicted by socialists and others, from the days of Marx onwards, as an image with a head of gold, which head, representing the unearned " share," is swollen to such vast proportions that the atrophied limbs and body can scarcely sustain its weight. Thus, a member of the English Labour Party, addressing the House of Com- mons, declared that nearly all the wealth which had been created in England since the beginning of the nine- teenth century had gone to a few persons who were " enormously rich already." The founders of an English labour-league had issued a Manifesto about twenty years before, according to the figures given in which, if the unearned income of the rich had at that time weighed a pound, the income of the rest of the nation would hardly have weighed more than three and a half ounces. As a matter of fact, in the year 1907, if everybody is taken as one of the fabulously rich whose income amounts to as much as 5000, the income of the rich was to that of the rest of the nation, not in the proportion of a pound to three and a half ounces, but was barely as much as one ounce to a pound. But before we attempt to draw any further moral from 1 These figures as to incomes exceeding 3000 a year were not avail- able for the year 1907 ; but their then amount can be approximately reached by reference to the general increases of income which have taken place since then. 142 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY this particular fact, or from the others which have just been indicated, the whole of the figures just given with regard to England or the United Kingdom shall be con- sidered in connection with others, which, besides helping to confirm them, will invest them with a fresh significance. CHAPTER H COMPARATIVE DISTRIBUTION IF the figures just given were figures standing by them- selves, they might be open to two criticisms which would, if true, detract indefinitely from their import- ance. In the first place, since they are partly based on methods of indirect computation which cannot claim to be exact, they cannot, it might be said, be taken as the basis of any definite argument. In the second place it might be said that, relating, as they do, to the affairs of one country only, the facts which they indicate, even if indicated correctly, are largely local and accidental, and are for that reason deficient in any general meaning. If these figures stood by themselves, such criticism would be plausible. The actual state of the case is, however, widely different. The general ideas with regard to the modern distribu- tion of income which underlie the arguments of most social revolutionaries have been mainly derived from theorists who either neglected, as Henry George did, statistical methods altogether, or who flourished when these methods were at a stage much less advanced than that which they have reached since the time of Henry George's death. It is true that, so far as the distribution of incomes is concerned, much remains to be done in the way of collecting information a kind of work which must mainly be performed by governments ; but this work has in many countries been now advanced suf- ficiently to render the employment possible of the method of international comparison. Such is the case especially with regard to the four great countries in which wealth-production has increased to the most con- spicuous extent namely, the United Kingdom, France, Prussia and America. In each of these countries statis- 143 144 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY ticians, using independent methods, have been en- deavouring to ascertain with as much correctness as possible what the distribution of incomes in that par- ticular country is. In each case large use has been made of the method of estimates, yet when the general results of these various computations are compared, the mam features of distribution in any one of these countries are found to be almost identical with its features in all the rest. If each of these several results is expressed by a curved line, and the four lines are exhibited in a single diagram, the tendency of each is to approach and often to overlap the others. The most elaborate example of this kind of coincidence is that provided by a comparison between the United Kingdom and America, for which a mass of material will be found in a volume by Dr. W. I. King, already referred to, on The Wealth and Income of the People of the United States. It was published in the year 1913, and relates to the year 1910. Let us begin then with re-examining the case of the United Kingdom in the light of the evidences already used or mentioned namely, the known total income of the country about the year 1907, as shown by the Census of Production, the Income-tax Returns for the same period, and the numbers of houses of various rental values ; and let us summarise the results as either directly shown by, or inferable from, them, not with regard to the various sources of income, but with regard to the distribution of incomes taken as so many wholes. And let us first, for purposes of a rough and preliminary comparison, divide these incomes into the five following groups, show- ing what percentage of the total is formed by the inferable or the known aggregate of each. The First Group shall consist of incomes of 5000 and upwards. The Second, of incomes ranging from 3000 to 5000. The Third, of incomes ranging from 1000 to 3000. The Fourth, of incomes ranging from 500 to 1000. The Fifth, of incomes not exceeding 500. The total income of the United Kingdom having been at the time 2100 million, it appears from the various evidences which have just now been mentioned that the ENGLAND AND AMERICA 145 incomes comprised in the First Group formed 6 per cent, of the total ; those in the Second, 2 per cent. ; 1 those in the Third, 8 per cent. ; those in the Fourth, 10 per cent. ; and those in the Fifth, 75 per cent. Let us now turn to Dr. King's Tables for America, in which, with extraordinary elaboration, American incomes are grouped in a like way, the aggregate in each case being reduced to a fraction of the entire income of the country. Decimals being omitted, Dr. King's figures for America, as against those just given for the United Kingdom, are as follows. The aggregate of incomes comprised in the First Group namely, those exceeding 5000 a year is given by Dr. King as 8 per cent., the corresponding figure of the United Kingdom being 6. The aggregate of incomes in the Second Group namely, those lying between 3000 and 5000 is given by him as 2 per cent., the corresponding figure for the United Kingdom being the same. The aggregate of incomes in the Third Group namely, those lying between 1000 and 3000 is given by him as 6 per cent., the corresponding figure for the United Kingdom being 8. The aggregate of incomes in the Fourth Group- namely, those lying between 500 and 1000 is given by him as 9 per cent., the corresponding figure for the United Kingdom being 10. The aggregate of incomes in the Fifth Group namely, all those that do not exceed 500 is given by him as 75 per cent., the corresponding figure for the United Kingdom being 74. If we take the first two groups together namely, those comprising all incomes in excess of 3000 and examine them more minutely, we shall, with the excep- tion of one notable detail, discover other parallelisms no less remarkable than these. The exception relates to the largest incomes of all. If we take the hundred and fifty richest men in America, and compare them with the seventy-five richest men in the United Kingdom (the 1 The percentages for Groups 1 and 2 are based on the super-tax returns, made subsequently to the year 1907, and giving the actual numbers and total increase of the persons concerned. L 146 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY two numbers being the same relatively to the different populations), it appears that this group in America had an aggregate income of 75 million pounds, or an average income of half a million per person, whilst its counter- part in the United Kingdom had an aggregate income of 13 million only, the average income per person being roughly 170 thousand. Otherwise, the grouping of in- comes in excess of 3000 exhibits in the two cases what is not so much a likeness as an identity. Thus, if, to vary our method of classification, we take, not the total amount, but the total number of incomes exceeding 3000, the number of those ranging from 3000 to 5000 will in both countries be nearly half of the whole ; the number of those ranging from 5000 to 10,000 will in both countries be nearly one-third ; the number of those ranging from 10,000 to 20,000 will in both countries be a little more or a little less than a seventh; and the number of those exceeding 20,000 will in both cases be one-hundredth. The close similarity between the two countries which is shown by figures such as these figures worked out by absolutely independent inquirers, dealing with abso- lutely different and differently presented data forms a strong confirmation of the substantial, though it would be rash to say of the exact, accuracy of each. It may, at any rate, be taken as refuting, beyond the possibility of doubt, the fundamental assumption of all socialist reformers that some " enormous share " of the wealth of the modern world passes, in virtue of the accident of mere " possession " or otherwise, into the hands of the conspicuously rich. It may be taken as showing that even the rich and the moderately rich between them manage to secure no more than a relatively small fraction of it. But the significance of this similarity does not end here. The fact that out of the productive activity of each of these two populations a scheme of distribution arises which is in its main features nearly, if not abso- lutely, the same, shows that these results must be deter- mined, not by any local accidents, or by moral conduct peculiar to particular groups of individuals, but by general principles of some kind to which certain human WAGES AND LABOUR VALUES 147 activities, whenever they come into operation, tend naturally and inevitably to conform. The practical meaning, however, of a broad conclusion like this will be very imperfectly represented if we give our minute attention to the larger incomes only, which have their origin in more or less exceptional enterprise. We must examine with the same minuteness the lower incomes also, which mainly, though not wholly, consist of the earnings of wage-paid labour. We must not content ourselves with ascertaining that, if all these be taken in the mass, an overwhelming portion, and a portion the same everywhere, of the total income of any modern country is absorbed by them. We will, therefore, still using Dr. King's figures for America, presently pursue our comparison between that country and the United Kingdom farther. Let us first, however, realise the nature of the main question with which such a com- parison will concern itself. This is a question relating to the universal conditions under which, in any modern country, the incomes, which are mainly the wages, of the masses of the population are received by them, and relating more especially to a conception of the nature of these conditions, which still forms the basis of the revolutionary logic of to-day. The import of this conception, when put into plain words, expresses itself in the theory of wages which Marx, though he did not invent it, was the first thinker to invest with what claimed to be a scientific form. It has the merit of being extremely simple, and may be summarised in a few words. According to this theory, society under modern conditions is divided into two classes a small employing minority who own all the implements of labour, and a vast majority who own nothing but the labour-power resident in themselves. Such being the case, then, labour is a mere commodity which the labourer sells to the employer; the price paid for it is wages, and is in each case the subject of a bargain. If the two parties met on an equal footing, the price might bear some relation to the value of the labour sold. But the footing on which as an actual fact they do meet is, said Marx, in its very essence unequal. The labourer must sell his labour from week to week, or he 148 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY will starve. The employer can afford to wait. The labourer, therefore, unless he is prepared to die, is forced to accept a price which bears no relation whatever to the value of what his labour produces, but is measured by the cost of keeping a man just above the level of starva- tion. This result is, according to Marx, inevitable, not so much because the employer is wicked, wicked though he generally is, as because, from the very nature of a bargain, nobody will give more for anything than the lowest price which the vendor can be induced to take for it. Hence, said Marx, under the existing economic system, wages are everywhere by a kind of universal fatality forced down to a common, and to the lowest possible, level. And this theory, in spite of some modifications, continues to dominate socialist thought to-day. It is, indeed, now admitted by socialist thinkers themselves that the wage-earners since the days of Marx have managed to extract from the employers something in excess of the bare means of subsistence; but wages, they say, still resemble a table-land, the level of which, although it may have risen somewhat, is everywhere raised but slightly above the uniform cost of keeping a human being alive; and this rise, such as it is, tjiey attribute to collective bargaining through unions, which has proved to be of greater efficiency than Marx was able to anticipate. Now, there is nothing in this account of the matter which is a priori impossible. On the contrary, if we take it as a mere description of facts, it is roughly applicable to England at the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the modern industrial system had but partly displaced the old. Only some 5 per cent, of the adult male labourers of the country received at that time as much as 23s. a week. About 8 per cent, received from 18s. to 19s. The average for 87 per cent, was not more than 10s. 6d. Even socialists cannot deny that wages have increased since then; but when they seek to explain this rise by attributing it to democratic action in the form of collective bargaining, they ignore another change more important, as a symptom, than the actual rise itself. Collective bargaining may account for the fact that wages have risen as a whole, but it will not GRADUATION OF WAGES 149 account for the fact that wages have risen unequally. Still less will it account for a certain peculiar change in the manner in which wages of unequal amounts are dis- tributed. In these two latter respects what has actually happened is as follows. In the first place, an admitted increase in the minimum wage-rate being allowed for, wages as a whole at the be- ginning of the twentieth century had come to differ from wages at the beginning of the nineteenth in the fact that their range and the minuteness of their graduation from a given minimum upwards were very much greater at the later period than they had been at the earlier. Whereas a diagram of their graduation as they were at the earlier date would have had the contour of a slight and hardly perceptible slope, a diagram of their gradua- tion as they were a century later would have had throughout the contour of an ascending staircase. In the second place, with regard to the number of persons amongst whom wages of various amounts were distributed, the distribution at the beginning of the nineteenth century was what is called " pyramidal." A century later it had, up to a certain point, come to assume the form of a pyramid upside down. This means that, at the earlier of the two dates the most numerous class of recipients was the class whose wages were lowest, and that as the wages increased the number of the recipients declined; whereas a century later those who j ^L received the minimum, which was then (we may say) 40, were very much less numerous than those who received 50, that these again were less numerous than those who received 70, and these yet again less numer- ous than those who received 90; but that after some such point the pyramidal order reasserted itself, those who received 90 outnumbering those who received as much as 100; whilst as to the salaried class, those who earned more than 1000 were, in respect of their numbers, a mere vanishing quantity. This, roughly stated, is what has happened in the United Kingdom after a century of bargaining between the employing classes and the employed ; but it has not happened in the United Kingdom only. A situation essentially similar has developed itself in America also, 150 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY and during a much shorter period. Thus, in a table devoted to the earnings of married men, Dr. King divides these into twelve graduated amounts, ranging from a minimum of 50 up to nearly 300 ; and his figures show that for every 50 men earning no more than 50, there were 300 earning 70, 600 earning 80, 1000 earning 100, and 2700 earning 150. That point having been reached, the same change occurred which occurred in the United Kingdom lower down in the scale. Thus, the number of those whose earnings averaged 170 was only 2100 ; the earnings of only 1600 reached or approached 200 ; and the earnings of only 600 reached or approached 300. To many readers these details may doubtless seem dry enough, but their dryness will vanish when we realise their general import ; for the remarkable parallelism which they have here been cited to illustrate between the results of bargaining for wages in these two widely separated countries is virtually a refutation, so far as this question is concerned, of the theory which has been the basis of all revolutionary agitation from the middle of the nineteenth century down to the present time. This theory has, as we have seen already, its root in the idea of a bargaining process which, since one of the parties to it is in a position to bide his time, whilst the very life of the other depends on his selling his wares namely, his personal efforts immediately, enables the former to beat down the price of these wares, no matter what their value, to the minimum which will enable the latter to keep body and soul together. Now, such a situation, let it be said again, is conceivable. The question is, does it, as a general fact, exist ? Is it the typical situation which capitalism, after a century of trial, has produced ? A mere glance at indubitable facts is enough to show that it is not. No minute insistence on the accuracy of detailed figures is necessary to show that such a situation, if it prevails at all, prevails in relation to a minority of the wage-earners only a minority the proportions of which we shall very greatly exaggerate if we say that, in the leading capitalist countries of the world it amounts to, or even approaches, one-fifth of the whole. Let us suppose, then, that the ASCENDING WAGES 151 wages of as many as one-fifth of the wage-earners are determined, as Marx argues, not by the value of their products, but merely by the naked cost of the minimum of food required by them. The typical question as to wages still remains unanswered. The fact that the employer pays this irreducible minimum to a fifth of his men, but to a fifth of his men only, does but bring into prominence the fact that, in dealing with the vast majority of them, the price which he actually pays is not this minimum at all; it is this minimum plus some amount added to it, which in each case must, according to the psychology of Marx, cost the employing Shylock a twinge of acute pain. Thus, the question as to wages generally which really requires explanation is not why they tend as a whole in the direction of a common minimum, but why they tend to move, in various degrees, away from it. To say that this result has been due to the pressure of collective bargaining is no answer at all. So far as collective bar- gaining is concerned, there is an upward pressure all along the line ; but in the case of each section of wage- earners the result of this pressure differs. All along the line there is a downward pressure on the part of the employers also. In each case they give way up to a certain point, but they do not give way beyond it. What, then, are the final limits between which, as extremes, the conscious process of bargaining can do no more than reach some mean ? These extreme limits are in all cases the same. The lower limit is the smallest possible sum on which a wage-earner can be kept alive. The upper limit is determined no less rigidly by the total product of the business in which the wage-earners play a part. 1 But, these limits being present in all cases alike, how is it that, as the result of individual transactions, the intermediate sums finally agreed on vary, so that out of 1000 men working for the same employer some will get 40 or 50, others 60 or 70, others 80 or a 100, others 150, others 200, and a few very much more ? 1 This is true of the self-directed lahourer also. His income must be something between the maximum he could produce if he strained his muscles to the utmost, and the minimum which, produced with more desultory work, would just save him from death. 152 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY In the light of the facts and figures which we have just been considering, one thing is evident. However the results of each individual transaction may be affected by the personal temper of those directly concerned in it, they are affected by it to a small extent only. They are mainly determined by certain facts or forces which are altogether external to any cupidity, generosity, any strength or weakness of will, which is peculiar to any one employer or any one body of workmen; and that such is the case is evident for the two following reasons. One of these is the fact that, throughout any one country, the graduations of wages which result from countless individual transactions tend in all like industries to be uniform. The other is the fact that, if two great coun- tries are compared, the details of this graduation are relatively the same in each, even in respect of their most unlikely particulars. To what, then, is this elaborate graduation, as a fact in itself, and to what is its world-wide but unintended uniformity, due ? Here is a question to which there is only one answer. The graduation is due to the fact that industry, as intellectualised by the modern scientific oligarchy, is a process the product of which, to a degree far greater than was the case under simpler systems, depends on the efforts of men who differ widely from one another in their several degrees of efficiency, some of them adding more to the total, some of them adding less, and wages being determined by the particular efficiency of each ; whilst the graduation is similar in different and distant countries for the simple reason that Nature, in dealing with different populations, distributes unequal efficiencies in very much the same way. Even, however, if all this be granted, those who cling to the idea that the wage-earners nevertheless are robbed of some enormous share of the value of their products somehow, may yet as a matter of theory urge the fol- lowing argument. Wages, it is open to them to say, may be adjusted with perfect accuracy to the value of every wage-earner's personal product in this sense, that, if the work of A is worth double the work of B, B is certain to get for it twice the price that A gets ; but that A and B, to a like fractional amount, may each be POSSIBLE UNDERPAYMENT 153 defrauded of wages really due to him. A's work may be worth 200, and B's work may be worth 100; but if B, instead of 100 gets 75 only, and if A, instead of 200, gets only 150, the difference between the larger of these two sums and the less will be strictly propor- tionate to the difference between the two values pro- duced, yet each man will be the victim of a similarly proportionate theft, his receipts falling short of his product to the extent of one quarter. The facts of graduation may no doubt be inconsistent with an indis- criminate robbery of the kind imagined by Marx, but they are perfectly compatible with the supposition that wages are everywhere curtailed by a system of embezzle- ments which, though not indiscriminate, are monstrous. Now, in this argument, just as in the argument of Marx that all wages tend downwards to one irreducible minimum, there is nothing which, as a matter of mere theory, might not or may not be true. Here, again, the question is, Does the theory coincide with actual facts ? And certain facts are ascertainable which will enable us to reach an answer, not indeed absolutely precise, but sufficiently so to enable us to establish a broad con- clusion. For if the wage-earning classes as a whole are, to some enormous extent, really the victims of a theft- system of the kind described, the stolen portion of their products is bound to be discoverable somewhere in the incomes unduly swollen of other people of some sort. The question is, then, Who can these other people be ? Before we can go further, it is necessary to understand this. If to any socialist meeting in Chicago or New York this question were put as follows, " Who are the great embezzlers of income produced by, and therefore due to, the masses of the American people ? " there can be no doubt as to what the instant answer would be. It would be, "The factory kings, -the railroad kings, the oil kings, the kings of finance and speculation "men whose type would be indicated by shouts of " Vander- bilt," " Harriman," " Carnegie," " Rockefeller," "Mor- gan." If a similar question were put to a socialist meeting in London, the answer would be substantially the same, though the names of typical plunderers might 154 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY be less easy to find. On either occasion orators would spring from their seats and descant on the outward signs by which such men may be known their palaces in Grosvenor Square, or Fifth Avenue, the tiaras of their wives, their moors in Scotland, their salmon rivers in Norway, and the luxury of their monstrous yachts. In America and Europe alike the typical embezzler, the typical cause of poverty, who robs the labourer's home of the necessaries, and the middle-class home of the modest embellishments of life, figures in socialist art as a species of bloated ogre, clutching so many sacks, each of them labelled " A million " or " Ten million dollars." That is to say, according to current ideas of him, the typical embezzler, be his country what it may, obviously belongs to that small cluster of persons whose wealth is sufficiently great to be matter of international, or at least national, knowledge, and especially so great as to be worthy of celebration by newspapers. Now, if ideas of this kind have any justification any- where, they have it in the recent growth of enormous incomes in America ; and it may be reasonably con- tended that incomes such as these, which transcend all sane possibilities of the amplest private expenditure, are liable to convert themselves into implements of public and political corruption. But to suppose that they represent any appreciable abstraction from what would be otherwise the income of the nation generally, will, when facts are examined, reveal itself as a pure delusion. The number and aggregate income of the super- millionaires of America, and the number and aggregate income of the class which in the United Kingdom most nearly approaches them, have been given here already. The result of what Mr. Webb would call a " recovery by the people " of the entire income of this class in America would mean, in the language of school-boys, a weekly "tip " of a threepenny-bit for everybody; and a similar " recovery " by the people of the United King- dom would mean for everybody a weekly " tip " of three halfpence. Let us, however, suppose that the robbery of the poorer classes by the richer is imputed, not to a little cluster of super-millionaires only, but to the semi- THE RECOVERABLE MAXIMUM 155 millionaires as well that is to say, everybody whose income was as much as 20,000. The number of this class in America was approximately 3000. It was in the United Kingdom approximately 1500. If we suppose that every one of such persons stole the whole of his income, and the people " recovered " what would vul- garly be called " the lot," the results would be doubtless superior to those we have just considered. The weekly " tip " would in America be raised to tenpence-half- penny, and in the United Kingdom to fourpence. Or, again, if we find it amusing, we may carry our supposi- tions further. We may first consider what would happen if the people of the two countries " recovered " all incomes in excess of 5000, and then what would happen if they " recovered " all tha* exceeded 3000. We should find that the " recovery " meant for the American workman a rise in wage-rates of a penny-farthing in every shilling, and for the British a rise of a penny. But if we wish to deal with the matter seriously, we may pass on at once to a supposition probably wider than the widest to which any temperate socialist in cold blood would commit himself. This is the supposition that every man who receives an income of more than 1000 a year steals as much of it from " the people " as happens to exceed that sum. The supposition is, of course, absurd, but it will nevertheless be interesting to see how it works out. The total of incomes in excess of 1000 formed in both countries 17 per cent, or 18 of the total ; but if we suppose that the recipients are severally taken to have come by as much as 1000 honestly, the portion assumed to be stolen will have been in America 11 per cent., and in the United Kingdom it will not have been more than 8. Thus, a "recovery by the people" at the beginning of the twentieth century of all incomes which exceed 1000 per head would have meant for the American workman a rise in wages at the rate of a penny-halfpenny in the shilling, and would have meant for his British comrade a rise of about one farthing less. It is not necessary to insist on either of these figures as exact. The broad fact which alone concerns us here is this, that even if we estimate the possibilities of 156 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY " recovery " at a maximum, the object in view being a more complete adjustment of wages or other payments to the actual product of workers varying in their degrees of efficiency, such a " recovery " would result in no greater change than that which is constantly due to a good business year or a bad one. It would effect no change more noticeable in the existing scheme of dis- tribution than that which would be effected hi the con- figuration of a human being if his measurement round the waist rose from thirty-five inches to thirty-eight or forty. In other words, within a maximum fraction, whether of one-ninth or one-twelfth of the total amount involved, the various producing units under the modern industrial oligarchy tend to receive, in all their various degrees, what their personal work i?i_ worth, this fact being shown by the identity~of the complex features of the general scheme of distribution which comes into being wherever that system operates. The facts, however, as thus far stated, are in the main empirical. They are facts which experience and observa- tion show to be the results, natural and unintended, of that principle of industrial oligarchy (commonly de- scribed as " capitalism on the great scale ") which, having established itself first in England, became there widely prevalent about the beginning of the nineteenth century, in America about fifty years later, and in Ger- many after the conclusion of the Franco-Prussian war. Such results being peculiar to the novel system in ques- tion, they must obviously have been due to the develop- ment of the oligarchic principle somehow; but if we wish to render them intelligible if we wish to see why these results have shaped themselves as they have done everywhere, and have not shaped themselves otherwise, it is necessary to connect them with the working of the oligarchic principle in detail ; and this task can be ac- complished in one way only. It can be accomplished only by a comparison more or less precise, not between the affairs of one country and the contemporary affairs of others, but between the affairs of some one typical country as they actually are to-day, and the affairs of that country itself as they were when the new system was beginning to displace the old; but the old, though its COMPARISON WITH THE PAST 157 days were numbered, was the dominant system still. There is one country, and one country only, in which evidence sufficiently definite for such a comparison can be found. That country is England. Not only are the statistics of production and distribution in England or the United Kingdom voluminous with regard to con- ditions that prevail to-day, but similar records are extant, curiously minute and comprehensive, of the corresponding conditions as they were more than a hundred years ago. The principal changes which such a comparison reveals, together with their inner signifi- cance, shall be reviewed in the following chapter. CHAPTER III A CENTURY OF CHANGING DISTRIBUTION THE income of England in the year 1801 was, accord- ing to a number of concurrent evidences, 1 about 180 million pounds, or 20 per head of a population of 9 million. The income of the United Kingdom about the year 1907 was, as we have seen already, about 2100 million, or 47 per head of population of 45 million. Now, if the process of production had itself undergone no change except such as resulted from an increase in the number of persons engaged in it, the simplest arithmetic will show us that, in the year 1907, the income of the United Kingdom would not have been more than 900 million, whereas it actually was 900 million with 1200 million added to it. About an eighth of this incre- ment, however, was derived from British enterprise abroad; and, since no home labour was involved in it, it cannot be attributable to any novel forces acting on the population of the British Islands themselves. The home-produced increment, which here alone concerns us, will have been accordingly about 1050 million. If, then, it be true that the modern increase of wealth is due primarily to the Mind of a novel oligarchy of em- 1 In the year 1801 an income-tax was imposed on all incomes exceed- ing 60 a year, or 23*. a week These incomes were classified in the returns according to their total amounts, the sources not being specified, and were divided seriatim into 34 groups. There is also a large mass of evidence relating to agricultural and other earnings below 23*'. a week. Mulhall, in summing up the records relating to Poor-relief in England at various periods, gives the income of England (including Wales) in 1801-5 as 180,000,000. His computation was independent of those on which the same sum, as given in the text, are founded. It is neces- sary in dealing with that period to take England alone, England being the part of the United Kingdom which was first ' ' industrialised," and no sufficient records with regard to Ireland having been then in existence. 158 THE CRUCIAL CHANGE 159 plovers, as a force directing the labour by which matter i is moved and manipulated, it will follow that, at the present time, more than half of the income of the United Kingdom is produced in a primary sense by a body of persons which, numerically, is so small as to be hardly visible. The actual meaning, however, of this proposition is not so paradoxical as it seems. What it comes to is that, at the beginning of the twentieth century there was on an average one directing mind, whether that of an indi- vidual or two or more partners, for every 500 or 600 labourers, whereas in any comparable undertakings a hundred years before the labourers directed by one Mind would have been, we may say roughly, a couple of hundred only. 1 But the difference between the two periods may be further explained thus. At the begin- ning of the nineteenth century, about one-third of the productive business of the country was carried on by independent workers or small family groups, and another third by employers on a very small scale still a numer- ous class, such as jobbing builders, plumbers, makers of carts, and so forth who worked as labourers them- selves along with their own subordinates. Not more than one-third of the productive business of England had so far passed into the hands of industrial oligarchs, or employers whose individual profits reached or ex- ceeded 1000 a year. In other words, businesses of the modern oligarchic kind and even these were small as compared with their successors of to-day produced at the beginning of the nineteenth century 33 per cent, only of the industrial output of England, and the smaller businesses, which were absolutely or relatively demo-; cratic, produced, to speak roughly, 67 per cent. A^J** ^v*" hundred years later the oligarchic businesses were pro- 1* ^ ^ ducing 86 per cent. The democratic businesses produced no more than 14 per cenC The latter persisted, and they persist, in various familiar forms such as those 1 The figures given as to industries at the beginning of the nineteenth century are based on the income-tax assessments for the year 1812, pub- lished in the year 1815. The income-tax tables for the year 1801 classify incomes according to their total amounts only, without indicat- ing their source. 160 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY which have just been mentioned. Their absolute number, apparently, has not increased or diminished; but, relatively to the increased population, it had by the end of the nineteenth century dwindled to a fifth of what it had been at the beginning of it. Their profits, ranging from 80 a year to 1000, representing an average of something less than 300, appear to be much what they were a hundred years ago. The oligarchic businesses, on the other hand namely, those producing profits of 1000 a year and upwards have, concurrently with the relative decline of the others, increased in two ways. Each of the employing units has brought within the circle of his influence a larger number of labourers, and the average product per employee has been raised on an average in the ratio of 4 to 10. Of this fact it will be sufficient to give two illustrations. If the oligarchic businesses of England had remained what they were at the beginning of the nineteenth century, except for the fact that they had increased in the same ratio as the population, their total profits at the beginning of the twentieth century would not have exceeded 50 million pounds, the average profit per business being 2500. Their actual profits, as we have seen, were at that time 300 million, the average profit per business being 10,000. In the year 1812 there were in England only 1000 busi- nesses which severally produced a profit of more than 8000. The total profits of all of them were barely above 6 million, 6000 being the average profit of each. Ninety years later, of the thousand largest businesses the profit of the smallest did not fall short of 50,000 ; the aggregate profits of all were 180 million, and the average profit of each was 180,000. It is, therefore, in the development of these larger businesses since the beginning of the nineteenth century in the application of single units of brain-power to the direction of a larger and larger number of labourers that we must look for the action of oligarchy as the cause of increasing wealth. The case is summed up by Goethe in the second part of Faust, where the secret of material progress is said to consist in this : "One Mind suffices for a thousand hands/' SIZE OF BUSINESSES 161 and in the progress of England since the beginning of the , nineteenth century this fact is presented to us in a definitely measurable form. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, each of the larger employers, such as they then were, directed on an average about 250 labourers, the total product per employee being about 40. A century later each of the larger employers directed on an average the labour of twice or three times as many, the average product per employee being raised from 40 to 100. As a natural consequence of the increased productive power which industry acquired as the principle of oligarchy developed itself, it has come about in the course of a few generations that about five- sevenths of the business output of England is produced under the direction of the minds of a few men ; and here, when roughly translated into terms of statistical and historical fact, we have the import of thejthesis thatv at the beginning of the twentieth centuryl the Mind of the larger employers was the primary producer of an income of some 1050 million pounds^ added to an income which would otherwise have been 900 million only. And now we reach the question to which all these observations have been tending. If the total reward which, in the shape of profits profits being taken as including all interest on industrial capital went to Mind as embodied in the persons of the industrial oli- garchy and their associates, was, as we have seen, about 300 million pounds, and, if, as we have seen also, these profits would have amounted to no more than 50 million had industrial methods remained what they had been a century before, and had all the subsequent conquests of directing Mind been absent, the question which con- fronts us is this. Why, if Mind is the producer of a total increment of 1050 million, do the representatives of Mind get only 250 million, or less than a quarter of it, for themselves ? What becomes of the remainder ? The more we reflect on the detailed facts of the situation, the more evident will the pertinence of this question become. For these men, the heads of the larger busi- nesses, are, as socialists put it, "the great national pay- masters." The wages and salaries, which are the in- comes of the vast majority of the population, must in ^ 162 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY the first instance have passed into these men's custody. Why, then, did they pay away, and to whom did they pay away, four-fifths of a certain increment, if their own minds had really produced the whole of it ? To this question there are two principal answers, each of which goes to the roots of the modern industrial system, and without invalidating the thesis that the modern increase of wealth is primarily due to the Mind of the modern industrial oligarchy, modifies its practical import by showing what, in actual life, the operation of such an oligarchy implies. The first of these answers may be given by means of a simple illustration. Let us suppose that the introduc- tion of the modern locomotive engine was due entirely to the genius of one exceptional man, in the sense that a dozen mechanics by blindly following his directions \ypresented a specimen engine, complete in every detail of its mechanism, to a world which would never have dreamed, if left to its own wisdom, of any means of traction other than a horse or a donkey. But one such specimen engine, however perfect and powerful, would, if it stood alone, be nothing more than a toy, or a wonder for the world to gape at. In order that the world should derive from it any practical benefit, huge works would be necessary at which replicas of this specimen could be turned out by the thousand. Let us, then, suppose further that this same man, the inventor, establishes such works himself, he being his own capitalist, and secures the services, not of twelve but of twelve thousand manual workers, all of whom he engages for the specific purpose of so moving particles of matter from one posi- tion to another that finally, like pieces of a puzzle, they shall coalesce into engines devised by his own brain. The operations of Mind, as embodied in the persons of the great employers, could not be exemplified in a more complete form than it would be in the person of an industrial genius such as this. Now, it might seem that here we should have two factors only namely, the labour of some thousands of men moving particles of matter on the one hand, and a single mind dictating how and when they should be moved on the other. In actual life, however, the situa- SALARIED MENTAL WORKERS 163 tion would be widely different. Between these two factors there would necessarily be a third connecting them. The most absolute monarch who ever flattered himself by saying " L'etat c'est Moi " could not govern even the paltriest province unless he were surrounded by ministers, each of whom had an army of lesser officials under him ; and the same thing holds good in the case of the intellectualised industry of to-day. If Mind, other than the minds of the manual labourers themselves, were represented solely by that of the supreme employer, and if the labourers in executing their thousands of daily tasks had to get their orders direct from him or from nobody, he would not find minutes in the longest of working days for issuing orders to one labourer out of a hundred. For him, the first thing necessary before he could set his business going would be to secure the services of certain principal managers men who were capable of grasping his main ideas, and were masters of the technical knowledge required for putting them into execution. His next step would be to get together a mixed array of sub-managers, draughtsmen, calculators, clerks and* foremen, from the top to the bottom of a long descending scale, until at last the men were reached, who would, under this system of elaborate mental direc- tion, deal with particles of matter by the use of their hands and muscles. 1 Now, all these officials, no less than the employer 1 As a type of the difference between oligarchic businesses as they had come to be at the beginning of the nineteenth century and as they were a hundred years later, we may say with approximate accuracy that for every five or six hundred manual labourers at the earlier period there would have been five employers, each directing a separate business his own, and employing a staff of 100 or 120 labourers and 3 or 4 ntal workers. At the later period, there would have been on an srage 1 employer of a higher order, who, superseding the original 5, employed 600 manual labourers and 45 mental subordinates, or 1 mental worker to every 12 manual. The proportions borne to-day by the sub- "inate mental workers to the manual vary greatly in different busi- s, according to the degree and quality of intellectualisation from e. Thus in the construction of ships (i. e. hulls) there was, accord- to the Census of Production (1907) 1 mental subordinate to 29 nual workers. In the construction of marine engines there was 1 to every 9. In the following businesses the proportions were these : Gas, 1 to 10 ; Chemicals and Bicycles, 1 to 8 ; Clocks and watches 1 to 3. I 164 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY himself, represent not manual effort, but mental. Hence, when the Mind of a class whose functions are mental only, and involve no formative contact with material substances whatsoever, is spoken of as directing the operation of human hands which, unless they are in contact with such substances, produce nothing at all, this cannot be the Mind of the employing class alone. It must, in practice, include another class as well, whose function it is to see that material substances are handled in accordance with a purpose which the brain of the employer specifies. Hence, if the primary peculiarity of the modern industrial system is the extent to which, under it, the handling of matter is intellectualised by submission to the control of a small employing class, a secondary peculiarity will be the development of this class of mental subordinates. It will, moreover, be natural to expect that, in proportion as the control of the employers increases in range, and grows more and more scientific, these mental subordinates, in respect not alone of their number, but also of their earnings, as an index of their productive value, will increase likewise, and increase to such an extent that even the roughest statistics will exhibit an unambiguous record of it. And such we shall find to be the case. According to Colquhoun, whose investigations relate to the year 1812, the number of business employees in England, Scotland and Ireland, other than manual labourers, did not amount at that time to more than 70,000, their average earnings being 70 per head. This would mean that in England some ten or twelve years earlier the number of such employees could not have exceeded 60,000,* their aggregate earnings being just over 4 million pounds. Had the industrial system undergone no other changes than those resulting from a mere increase of the popula- tion, the number of such persons employed in the United Kingdom rather more than a century later would have been 300,000, and their aggregate earnings but just over 20 million pounds. As a matter of fact their number 1 This would allow on the average about three mental workers, besides the employer or the employees, to every business in England which made a profit exceeding 310 a year. SALARIED MENTAL WORKERS 165 had by that time reached one million ; l their average earnings had risen from 70 per head to 200, and their aggregate income had risen from 20 to 200 million. This means that out of the total increment ascribable primarily to the Mind of the supreme employers, the employers had to part with 180 million in payment for the services of a new class of mental coadjutors. If this be added to the increment retained by the employers and their financial associates for themselves, the share of the new wealth taken by these two groups of mental workers together will have amounted to 430 million out of a total increment of 1050 million. Who, then, appropriated the residue ? This residue of the income more than 600 million went as an addition to the wages of manual labour. Had manual labour throughout the United Kingdom been paid in the year 1907 at the rates prevailing in England at the beginning of the nineteenth century and this is precisely what would have been the case had the doctrine of Marx been true the aggregate income of the labourers at the latter of these two dates would have barely been as much as 400 million pounds. As a matter of fact, the labourers' share of the increment raised this total by 160 per cent. Now, in one sense the most remarkable feature in this division of the spoils of progress is the share secured by the subordinate mental workers; for, in respect of the increases alike in their number and their earnings, these persons are practically a new class. 2 When, however, the functions of mere Mind as an agent of production are realised, and the great differences in efficiency between some minds and others, the rise of this class and the wide range of its salaries are at once sufficiently intelli- 1 About half this number were subject to income-tax, their average earnings being about 300 a year. The earnings of the other half were below the income-tax level, and averaged 100. 2 As the result of the investigations of a committee of distinguished economists, it was shown in a paper presented to the British Association at Sheffield that out of a non-assessed income of 1300 million, about 250 million represented (about the year 1907) the earnings of a Lower Middle Class, in which the lower ranks of the Salaried Mental Workers were included. 166 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY gible excepting in one particular. If the productive faculties which the members of this class exercise are such as to command payments, notably in most, and in some cases enormously, exceeding those of the highest manual labour, why were they not in operation a hundred years ago, and securing, if not the same, yet proportionately the same rewards ? Are we to suppose that in the course of a hundred years the percentage of persons born with such capacities has trebled itself ? A supposition like this would be absurd. The percentage of persons in whom capacities such as these were con- genital was, presumably, no greater at the beginning of the twentieth century than it had been a century before ; but what had increased in number and become novel in kind were the means or opportunities of applying such faculties to productive purposes. Thus the construction of a ship like a modern Dreadnought demands and gives scope for the exercise of high mathematical talents, by the studious development of which a number of picked workers earn large rewards to-day ; but talents of this order would have been useless in the days of Nelson, and many of the men who helped to construct the Victory may have had in them the makings of mathe- matical experts, and yet, hardly conscious themselves of endowments then so sterile, been obliged to earn their living by the use of the axe and hammer. In other words, the intellectualisation of industry, which primarily has its origin in the Mind of the supreme directorate, increases the supply of subordinate mental talent in action by creating opportunities for the use of faculties which would else be dormant. The presence, then, of the subordinate mental workers as a factor in modern industry carries its explanation on the face of it, and though it considerably modifies the practical import of the thesis that the modern increase of wealth is due to the supreme employers, it does not conflict with that thesis in any fundamental way. But when we turn from mental effort to manual , and consider the fact that these same manual labourers have secured far more of the increment than the two other classes together, it may seem at first sight that the case is totally different. It may seem either that the thesis NOVEL OPPORTUNITIES 167 in question is in itself erroneous, and that the hands and muscles of the self-directed average man do increase in efficiency, which that thesis denies, or else that the employers, according to a scheme of minutely graduated generosity, paid twice as much to each labourer as his labour could possibly produce. Of the difficulty thus suggested the solution is dis- coverable in two sets of facts, both of which are of the first importance, but which are in current controversy altogether neglected. One of them is purely economic, the other is moral, political, or, in a general sense, social. The latter will be discussed hereafter. We will here confine ourselves to the former namely, facts which are purely economic. In the case of mental capacities, such as an innate talent for mathematics, which a workman is incapable of using if there is no opportunity for their use, but which, if a use is devised for them by the genius of a scientific employer, he at once does his utmost to culti- vate, and finds that their industrial value embodies itself in an ample salary in the case of capacities such as these, two things are equally evident. One is that, apart from the genius of the scientific employer, the potential talents of the employee would be, for practical purposes, as though they did not exist. The other is that, in the same practical sense, such potential talents would be equally non-existent unless the employee developed them by certain extra efforts of his own. If the employer represents the oligarchic principle in in- dustry, and the employee the democratic, the case is similar to that which exists, as we have seen already, in the sphere of political government. Action from above being given, there is not only submission from below, but a positive reaction also. The worker who develops high mathematical powers in response to the demands of an employer who provides him with the opportunity of using them is, when they are actually used by him, and his earnings are thereby increased, a co-creator of the increment out of which his increased earnings come. And what is true of subordinate mental effort is, with certain qualifications, true of manual effort also. The 168 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY manual labourers of to-day or, in other words, the mass of average men would produce no more than they did a hundred years ago if they were left to the direction of no minds other than their own ; for they would have no opportunity of doing, in the way of productive work, anything different from what they did a hundred years ago. But the technical control of their labour by a scientific oligarchy being given, there has not been on the part of masses of the labourers the mere passive response of conformity, or a doing under the guidance of others the same order of work which they had pre- viously been doing under their own. In many respects there have been changes in the character of the work itself, and the labourers have, in accordance with their several natural endowments, been called on to exert themselves in the development of various faculties which were previously unused for the reason that they were not usable. Of this fact a rudimentary but a very striking illustra- tion is to be found in the first modern event which awoke in the legislators of England a consciousness of industrial change. This, which became notorious very early in the nineteenth century, was the growing employment of children of tender years in factories. A little child at the beginning of the nineteenth century was a creature no stronger or cleverer than its predecessors had been at the time of the Norman Conquest ; but certain master minds, by concentrating themselves on the industrial process, had so far simplified a number of manual opera- tions, and had so far substituted non-human force for human, that the feeble hands and the limited intelligence of infants were able to produce daily the value of a loaf of bread, whereas previously they produced, and could have produced, nothing. The infants had played no part in devising the scientific apparatus on which the possible exercise of their productive powers depended. Were the apparatus withdrawn, their small productive powers would at once have been withdrawn also. But the point to be noted is that, the existence of the apparatus being given, the infants in using it were not doing to order something which, like playing a game, they would have done somehow in any case, but were NOVEL GRADES OF LABOUR 169 making some extra (and to them arduous) effort, the like of which they never had made before. And of manual labour generally under the modern industrial system, the same thing holds good, not in all its forms, but in most of them. It is true that, unlike infants, the majority of human adults must in any state of society perform manual labour of some kinds, these kinds being such as are necessary for the bare support of life. These are still essential to production, no matter how elaborate, as may be seen when some piece of super- scientific machinery is transported by a carter in a van to the premises of the final user. The carter who, acting under orders, does this kind of work to-day, does nothing which he could not have done, and would not have had to do on his own account, had he been a mediaeval peasant carting his own barley. He differs from his predecessor as a child who reproduces on tracing-paper certain lines which a drawing-master has drawn on a slate beneath it, differs from a child who, with a pencil equally firm, describes on a blank slate figures of its own devising. The sole factor present in the first case and not present in the second is no new positive effort either of mind or body, but a passive act of absolutely easy obedience. The labourers who still perform work of this simple kind to-day cannot be said in any accurate sense to produce more to-day by any faculties resident in themselves than their predecessors did a hundred or even two thousand years ago ; and the fact that these men, whose earnings represent the minimum, are twice as well paid as their grandfathers for work precisely similar, is due to causes of a moral or social kind, the discussion of which must be reserved for a later stage of our argument. The labourers, however, whose work is still of this primitive kind, and who still receive the minimum, what- ever that may be, have sunk under the modern system to a relatively small minority: and the minimum sum secured by these men being given, the fact that the majority in varying degrees earn more is of purely eco- nomic origin; and, although it may have a social side also, we are here concerned with it as an economic fact alone. We have seen, then, that the wages generally, a 170 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY minimum sum being given, owe all their upward gradua- tions, in so far as these occur, to a corresponding gradua- tion in the efficiencies of the workers earning them. This holds good under all systems of which wages form a part. What concerns us here is the fact that, in pro- portion as, under the modern system of oligarchy, in- dustry has been intellectualised from above, the gradua- / tion of the wages, not only of mental, but of manual work also, has acquired a wider range, and become more minute in character, than it was when this system of oligarchy was still in its earliest stages ; and if we com- pare industrial oligarchy as it is to-day with what it was in England a hundred years ago, the difference between the two may be briefly expressed thus. Any employer demanding work from his labourers is like a schoolmaster setting sums to his class. The sums set by the typical employers of yesterday were all so simple that most of the class could do them. The cleverest boys in doing them used and revealed no more talent than the dullest. The sums set by the typical employer of to-day, though certain of them are simple still, are for the most part in varying degrees difficult. They require for their solu- tion talents which are not only greater than those pos- sessed by all, but which also, before they are usable for any particular purpose, must be cultivated by deliberate effort on the part of the possessors themselves, the details of such effort depending on what the purpose is. This is what socialists forget when they reason about labour as a commodity which is bought and sold. They think of it as a commodity which is always of one grade only, and if all labour were still of those simplest kinds of which all human beings must be capable who are capable of keeping themselves alive, this conception would corre- spond with fact. It did, we may roughly say, correspond with fact in England at the beginning of the nineteenth century in some such sense as this : that, if labour at that time had been bought by the larger employers, not from the labourers directly, but through some salesman representing them at a central office, and if at that time an employer had asked to be supplied with labour-power to the extent of a hundred units, most of the units wanted by him would have been of a low, and a more GRADES AND PRICES 171 or less uniform, efficiency ; and that the salesman might have taken so much for granted unless the intending customer had made some statement to the contrary. But to ask him in the same fashion for a hundred units to-day would be like asking a wine-merchant for a hundred bottles of wine. An order given in these general terms would be meaningless. The salesman of to-day, were it necessary to explain the situation, would say to the employer, " What qualities of labour do you want ? In former times we supplied three qualities only. Our chief trade was in the lowest, but we kept them all in stock. To-day we supply the article, not in three qualities, but in sixteen. The lowest quality, for which the demand to-day is small, we keep in stock as we always did, but the higher qualities have to be made to order. You must specify in each case what you want the labourer to do ; the labourer, so far as he can, must make himself capable of doing it, and the extra effort involved in his self-preparation must, according to circumstances, be secured by some extra payment." What the new accomplishments on the part of the manual labourers are which the modern oligarchy demands, and for the use of which it creates opportuni- ties, need not, and cannot, be discussed in detail here. It will here be sufficient to indicate their general char- acter. By largely substituting for mere muscular effort the powers of steam and electricity, and thus liberating the labourer from duties exhausting to mind and body, the industrial oligarchy has demanded from the labourers generally, and has thus enabled them to develop, a self- concentration on tasks in which energy, mainly mental, plays a part considerably larger than it did in the tasks which previously were alone open to them. These novel tasks remain still essentially manual in the sense that they involve, and are in each case bounded by, a manual contact on the labourer's part with so much or so many of certain prescribed substances as can be brought within the reach of one pair of human arms ; but these tasks have become matters of habituated and alert attention rather than of mere muscular endurance on the one hand, or of mere tricks of dexterity, themselves difficult, on the other. In any case the main fact which concerns 172 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY us here is this : that, whatever the new tasks now de- manded of the manual labourers may be, they involve on the whole more self-preparation, and a greater graduation of efficiencies from an inevitable minimum upwards, than did the tasks demanded by the employers a hundred years ago. 1 Since, then, each of these new efficiencies needs a voluntary effort on the labourers' part to develop it, and since, in its own degree, each adds its something to the success of the employer's projects, the employer is bound to elicit them in the only way that is practicable namely, by paying a price for each proportionate to the excess of its value over that of the crude effort which is all that the labourer would have troubled himself to put on the market otherwise. Such, then, is the primary, though it is not the entire, explanation of that increase which has, under the modern industrial oligarchy, taken place in the earnings of mere manual labour. The primary cause of this increase has not been the generosity of the employers, nor the pressure of collective bargaining. Its primary cause has been the fact that, the action of the oligarchy being first assumed as an essential, various new efficiencies we may call them kinds of super-labour in response to the demands of the oligarchy have been developed by the labourers themselves. Here, then, in these three productive classes the | oligarchy of employers whose business is mental direc- tion, the great subordinate staff whose business is mental ; direction in obedience to the employers' orders, and the manual workers through whom Mind is brought into 1 Many persons deny this. Those who do so have mainly in view kinds of manual work which are of the nature of artistry. And it is true that the role of the artist, as a direct fashioner of goods that come into the market, has, under the modern system of production, become relatively less important than it once was. It is, however, not extinct. It flourishes under limitations of a very obvious kind, with which senti- mental democrats least of all people should quarrel. In proportion as goods are fashioned by the direct labour of artists, each of whom possesses some special genius, the supply of such goods is necessarily slow and small. They can, therefore, be acquired by the few only, and these few are the exceptionally rich ; but unless artists work under scientific employers who can use their designs as patterns, wealth,, as represented by art-products, can never diffuse itself outside a narrow circle. THREE PRODUCTIVE CLASSES 173 contact with matter, we have the three main agencies, to the interaction of which, not only the increase of wealth is due, but the general features of its distribution also. We have these classes and their respective func- tions before us, not as mere abstract quantities, but as localised and concrete facts, the development of which, in the case of one country at all events, is historically and statistically measurable with some rough but suf- ficient accuracy ; and with the aid of such concrete facts we can more or less definitely see how the scheme of distribution, which to-day is substantially the same everywhere, substantially reflects and coincides with the actual dynamics of production. In the following chapter we will consider these facts again, with reference to the more recent attempts of socialist or democratic thinkers to exhibit some vast change in the present distribution of wealth and circum- stance as possible through a fuller operation of the forces of pure democracy. I CHAPTER IV DISTRIBUTION AS IT IS LET us sum up briefly the argument of the foregoing chapter with regard to modern production and the process of distribution as contingent on it, in a country which is the classical type of the progressive countries of the world. In the course of little more than a century the modern industrial system has not only provided occupation and the means of livelihood for a population five times as great as that which could otherwise have maintained itself within the limits of the British Islands, but it also has more than doubled the average product per in- habitant. This result is primarily due to the fact that intellects of a superior order have concentrated their powers on the business of directing manual labour ; and, since manual labour was, at the beginning of the twentieth century, not superior, either in muscular force or skill, to what it had been at the beginning of the nineteenth, or indeed to what it had been in ancient Rome or Egypt, the whole of the increment which is new since the beginning of the nineteenth century must, in a primary sense, be the product of Mind alone, as embodied in the persons of those by whom labour is now directed. Such, then, in a primary sense, being the principle of production to which the modern increment is due, it was pointed out that this principle, when translated into actual practice, has resulted in a scheme of distribution which, within something like a tenth of the total, tends so far to accord with the minutiae of the productive process that what a man or a class receives is a roughly accurate index of what he or it produces. We have seen, however, that, if this measure of indi- vidual production be adopted, the practical result differs 174 OLIGARCHY IN ACTION 175 to a vast degree from anything which our general theory, if taken without qualifications, might reasonably lead us to expect. We have seen that out of an increment of 1050 million pounds the representatives of controlling Mind received as an actual fact something less than a quarter. Hence, if it is true in any sense that Mind | produced the whole, it must be true in some other sense that its product was a quarter only, whilst Subordinate Mind and Labour between them produced the rest. If, therefore, our discussion is to have any practical mean- ing, we must consider more closely how, in any sense that is practical, these two propositions are related to one another, or whether the former, which credits the Mind of the oligarchy with having produced the whole, has in actual life any meaning whatever. In order to understand this question it is necessary to revert to a discussion which occupied us in a previous chapter, with regard to the nature of practical reasoning generally. It was there pointed out that all practical reasoning is in its nature hypothetical, resolving itself into a statement that, if such and such a particular thing be done, such and such a result will be thereby caused or produced. It was pointed out further that, if such reasoning is to have any immediate import, the action which is the subject of the hypothesis must be of a kind which it is likely or reasonably possible that an indi- vidual or a class may, under existing circumstances, elect to perform, having not performed it previously, or, having performed it previously, may elect to perform no longer. Thus, if manual labour, by availing itself of the new opportunities which, as we have seen, have been created for it by the Mind of an industrial oligarchy, can be said to produce more to-day than it did at the begin- ning of the nineteenth century, or indeed to play any part in the production of the increment whatsoever especially if it can be said in any serious sense to produce more of the increment than is produced by the Mind of the oligarchy or as much one condition must first be taken for granted. This condition is that the existing system of production, with an industrial oligarchy at the head of it, is established as a going concern, and that no question of what would happen if the action of the 176 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY oligarchy were suspended presents itself as relating to possibilities which are near enough to be worth con- sidering ; whereas if this condition disappears, the whole situation changes. Thus, for example, when the Jesuits were a power in Paraguay, they selected certain of the more intelligent natives, and succeeded in teaching them the delicate art of watch-making. By these natives, though experts in arts immemorially their own, such a use of the human hand had never before been dreamed of. In response to the demands, and under the supervision of their in- structors, they nevertheless acquired it. Under such conditions the industry so far prospered that the Jesuits are said to have made a considerable profit from the products of it, these being sold in Europe for the benefit of their own Order ; and whilst this situation lasted, the craftsmen, who profited also, may be said to have done as much in producing the total output as the men who merely set them their lessons and told them what to do. But when, as subsequently happened, the Jesuits were driven from the country, the native watch-makers, de- prived of their guides, were helpless. There was no longer a question of which did most in the making of this new merchandise the Mind of the directors or the labour of the men directed. There was for the labourers, as soon as they were left to themselves, no merchandise of this new kind at all; and the proposition that the directors had produced the whole of it a proposition which would otherwise have been true in an abstract, a remote, and a speculative sense only would then have represented for the natives a highly important and directly experienced fact. This illustration is taken from a chapter of history very unusual in kind, but it turns on an event the sub- stantial reproduction of which on an incomparably wider scale is not only not impossible if we take it as a practical hypothesis, but is actually the precise event which the theory of pure democracy indicates as the object of all popular endeavour, 1 and which the earlier 1 A most remarkable illustration of the vital pertinence of the above passage has been provided by the course of the Russian revolution an event which did not begin, and which was indeed anticipated by HIGH WAGES^AND OLIGARCHY 177 leaders of democratic opinion were urging year by year all labouring men to work for by strategical strikes, by violence, or the capture of governmental power. The event which was to be thus worked for is simply the entire cessation of any kind of influence which is exer- cised over industrial effort by the knowledge, the in- tellect or the energy of any purely directive class, and the " emancipation ''such is the agitator's favourite term of the masses of the workers from all mental guidance other than that which originates in their own minds only. So long as such an event continues to be aimed at by any large section of the workers, or to haunt their minds as an object of ideal endeavour, the proposi- tion that the oligarchy, which such persons have often attempted and may again attempt to destroy, really produces the whole of the new wealth of the world, in the sense that if the oligarchy were paralysed this new nobody, till more than a year after the words in the text were written. The following facts, recorded by the socialist correspondent of an English newspaper at Petrograd (July 1917), speak for themselves. M. Skoboleff, a revolutionary leader himself, declared that the great danger of the revolution was caused by the masses, whose one object was " to terrorise and compel the dismissal of all controlling persons of any kind," and manage industry (as Owen and Lane attempted to manage it) by purely democratic committees, which had no power except in so far as they reflected the intelligence and the immediate inclinations of the wage-earners. These committees (as Owen found, and as Lane found) proved absolutely incompetent. In one factory the helplessness of the committee being apparent to all, the experi- ment was attempted of turning the foremen into so many petty dictators. The foremen proved as helpless as the committee. The workers were accordingly driven to come for guidance to the old management. In a dyeing business in Petrograd the wage-earners had demanded wages so far beyond the value of the total product that there was no revenue out of which to pay them. There was, however, oil the premises a large store of chemicals. The wage-earners insisted that these should be sold, and wages paid out of the sum thus obtained. These chemicals were essentials of the industry. Nothing could be done without them. The works accordingly had to close down. The more intelligent revolutionists, like M. Skoboleff, may denounce such insane proceedings ' ' as a direct menace to the gains achieved by the revolution," but they are simply the logical results of the principles of pure democracy which principles necessarily mean, if they mean any- thing, "the dismissal of all controlling persons," or, in other words, any oligarchic person who imposes his own will, or the results of his own knowledge, on others. 178 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY wealth would presently exist no longer, is not a proposi- tion which is true as a piece of mere abstract theory. It is one which is fraught with a meaning as momentous and as strictly practical as any social politician, or any sane man, can imagine. Nevertheless, let it be said again, in so far as we take, and have reason to take, the operation of the oligarchy for granted, the practical truth will be that what the oligarchy produces by the process of intellectual direc- tion is by no means the whole of the increment, but merely a small fraction, the larger part being the pro- duct of those democratic reactions reactions both manual and mental which the action of the oligarchy evokes, and alone makes possible, but without which the oligarchy itself would in all industries be crippled, and in many reduced to impotence. Here, then, in the operations of these three great agencies in Supreme or Controlling Mind, Subordinate Mind, and Labour, the interaction of which is the essence of the modern productive system, we see the reason why, in all progressive countries, the resulting scheme of dis- tribution, elaborate as its graduations are, is almost indistinguishably the same, and why Controlling Mind should, in spite of its primacy, get out of the total pro- duct such a relatively small reward. The reason lies firstly in the fact that the modern productive process depends on the interaction of units who differ greatly in respect of their unitary productive powers ; secondly, in the fact that the distribution of the product everywhere tends to adjust itself to what each unit produces; and, thirdly, in the fact that these various powers them- selves are everywhere distributed by nature in very much the same proportions. The international similarities of distribution are explicable in no other way. There is, indeed, in all highly civilised countries, such as the United Kingdom and America, about a tenth part of the total annual product which, like a kind of precipitate, goes to its recipients as income from inherited capital ; and, even if this fact is ignored, it cannot be pretended, as to the rest, that the adjustment is as yet in individual cases complete. It is enough to say that the adjustments resemble those of coats to individual human figures. CURRENT REWARDS OF EFFORT 179 The coats adjust themselves generally to the dimensions of their respective wearers, though in many cases the fit may not be perfect. Now, if such allowances be made for maladjustments of this kind, the general adjustment of income to the product of individual effort is gradually being admitted by socialist thinkers themselves. It is being admitted by them partly in the way of revised theory, partly in the way of a series of revised statistics. Thus, the " enormous share " stolen from the products of the workers by an absolutely non-productive class was, according to Marx and his immediate followers, some- thing between 80 and 75 per cent, of the total. Twenty or thirty years later, the strike-leaders of Australia had reduced this estimate of the stolen share to 66 per cent. Ten years later, again, the more educated of the English socialists had reduced it to 33, and others, later still, have reduced it to 25. These changes are reflections, not only of an improved arithmetic, but also of an advance in thought from the crude puerilities of Marx, by which the earlier socialists were dominated, to something more closely resembling the complexities of actual fact. The Marxian ideas of listribution in the modern world were perfectly logical related to the Marxian theory of production; but, ;spite the talent displayed by Marx in his exposition it, his theory of production is, as applied to the lodern world, one for which the word " puerile " is the >nly correct epithet. Modern economic society is, ac- >rding to that theory, divided into two, and no more lan two classes a mass of employers on the one hand, rhose sole activity is theft, and who hardly know the iture of the industries of which, as Mill said, " they are ie possessors," and a mass of labourers, exclusively lanual, on the other, who are all of the same grade, rho all receive or tend to receive the same starvation rages, and who, unaided by any intellect or any ima- lation but their own, produce all the wealth of the todern world between them. If such a picture were correct, the Marxian estimate the stolen or unearned share would doubtless be >rrect also. It stands or falls, however, with two 180 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY definite assumptions : firstly, that the labourers are all of the same grade, and all receive the same minimum wage ; and, secondly, that neither the employers nor any intermediate class have anything to do with the opera- tions of labour whatever, whether as masters of science, as men of enterprise, or as organisers, or in any other way. Each of these assumptions has come to be recog- nised by the later socialists as absurd. They recognise, on the one hand, that wages do not all tend to a minimum, but rise for the most part in varying degrees above it, the aggregate share of the wage-earners in the national product being thus indefinitely larger than the fifth part or the quarter which the logic of Marx assigned to them. They recognise, on the other hand, that the modern employers, as distinct from the mere investors, are, instead of mere idle " expropriators," the most active agents in production that have ever been known to history. One modern socialist writer, who has already been quoted here, admits that they owe their positions to the fact that they are born with certain peculiar energies of which they are the practical mono- polists; that their function consists in the issuing of technical orders to which the mass must conform in a spirit of " strict subordination and discipline " ; that these men are producers as truly as the labourers them- selves; that a large share of the income of " a complex industrial state " is produced by them, and that this share must be regarded as the rent of their special ability. Other representative socialists, English, Belgian, German, Italian and American, have come to admit in almost the same words that the special abilities of men who were classed by Marx as idlers " make all the difference to a business between success and ruin." In proportion, then, as socialists have come to per- ceive on the one hand that wages are greater in the aggregate than according to Marx they could be, and on the other that employers produce a large part of the income which according to Marx they steal, it is obvious that the socialist estimate of the stolen total has, as compared with the Marxian, been necessarily reduced to very modest proportions. The latest socialist esti- mates have, as was just now mentioned, reduced it from TRUSTS AND WAGES 181 80 per cent, of the entire product to 25 ; and, if we allow for the fact that at any given time about half of the income directly coming from property is from property created by the actual recipients themselves, the income really unearned, according to this computation, will, though somewhat excessive, be not far from the truth. Nor does this more reasonable view of the actualities of the existing situation lead to a revised conception of unearned income alone. It leads to a revised conception of the causes which mainly determine the distribution of incomes generally. In proportion as socialists have now come to perceive that if, in respect of incomes derived from inherited property (which alone are really unearned), allowance be made to the extent of a tenth or even a twelfth of the total income of a typical modern nation, the entire remainder is the product of the efforts of living men in proportion as they have come to per- ceive further that these efforts, instead of being, as Marx assumed, equal, rise from the bottom to the top in a minutely graduated scale ; that distribution is graduated in a manner no less elaborate, and that in different and distant countries this distributive graduation exhibits the same contour or pattern one thing has, generally if not in exact detail, become as plain to socialists as it must be to other men. It has become plain to them that this uniform graduation of incomes cannot be accounted for on the supposition that millions of workers, all of them equal in efficiency, are robbed of their equal products to systematically unequal degrees, but that primarily and mainly their shares of the total product must, with substantial accuracy, be adjusted to the unequal amounts which their efforts severally reduce. This profound change, however, in the trend of socialist thought has not been due to a development of thought alone. It has been due largely to two kinds of experi- ence. One of these has been the growth since the days of Marx of State-owned or Municipal undertakings, such as railways, gas-works, electric lighting and telephones. The other has been the growth of the great Trusts of America. According to the implications of earlier socialist argu- 182 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY ment, and according to the dream of all the earlier socialists, as soon as any industry had passed into the hands of the State, "the people" that is, the em- ployees would enjoy, somehow or other, a vague some- thing called "economic freedom"; that they would divide in equal shares the entire proceeds amongst them- selves; that they would settle for themselves, without any dictation from above, what their several tasks should be ; and the State, as holder of the capital, would be no more than their banker. Since the days of Marx every one of these expectations has been falsified. It has been found that in State-owned industries the general conditions of employment are in no essential feature different from those that prevail under private companies. The same discipline from above, as a matter, not of choice, but of necessity, reappears in yet stricter forms. Wages are graduated in substantially the same way, being adjusted to the value of work with the same fatal precision. Equality of income and free- dom are as far off as ever. All this is admitted by the serious socialists of to-day. Experience has shown, says one of them, who once was an ardent Marxian, that a State-owned industry, such as the Post-Ofnce (which Marx adduces as a specimen of ideal socialism in action), is merely private capitalism rehabilitated under a new name. Since the days of Marx the world-famous Trusts of America have, by the facts of experience, been teaching socialists precisely the same lesson. The growth of these huge corporations from the closing decade of the nine- teenth century onwards, each of which is a combination of countless businesses into one, has affected the socialist imagination, and, through it, socialist theory, in a manner yet more remarkable. It Has done so in two ways. On the one hand, to a degree much greater than any of the industries which have thus far been owned and monopolised by the State, these corporations have shown how efficient as instruments of production groups of industries may be rendered by uniting them under one control, and have thus provided socialists with the spectacle of a feat accomplished which, if only carried to its full logical consequences, would realise their idea TRUSTS AND OLIGARCHY 183 of what socialism, as a productive scheme, would be. On the other hand, nowhere else has the principle of industrial oligarchy been developed to so extreme an extent. Nowhere else are the graded efficiencies of the mass so conspicuously signalised by a scale of unequal wages. Nowhere else is the contrast greater and more obtrusive between the fortunes of the directed many and those of the directing few on whose constant vigilance the vitality of these mammoth enterprises depends. This latter aspect of the question modern socialists recognise no less clearly than the former. State-owned industries and Trusts, more especially the latter, repre- sent the productive system which socialism necessarily demands ; and yet these very persons, who lead and reflect the movement of socialist thought to-day, admit that both such systems are, if taken by themselves, utterly subversive of the object at which any kind of socialism aims. " Let us," they say in effect, " organise men in whatever way we please, so long as it will render their corporate industry effective ; let us pay them as nearly as possible the full value of their individual work ; and the very features against which the idea of socialism is a protest will reappear as they are under the system existing here and now." An admission of this kind by the leaders of socialist thought might at first sight seem to be nothing less than a relinquishment of every idea by which socialism has thus far been actuated. Such, however, is not the case. So far as socialism has for its ultimate object a general equality of material conditions or incomes, the admis- sion in question is merely a prelude to the revival of the old promise in a yet more alluring form. What the change in theory is which has made this revival possible may be gathered from the number of new tentative formulae which have, to speak roughly, since the close of the nineteenth century, crept into the language of socialist thinkers generally. They differ as much in their implications from the theories of a productive monism, which aimed at merging the industrial oli- garchy in the mass, and which have already been examined here, as they do from the theory of Marx, in which there is no recognition of the functions of oli- 184 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY garchy at all. These new formulae have now become so familiar that the following examples of the ways in which they are worded will suffice. "It is a mistake to suppose," says one writer, " that socialism is identified with any one theory of economic production. It relates to something wider than the act of produc- tion, and beyond it." "A system of production," says another, "is socialist or non-socialist, not according to the manner in which wealth is produced, but according to the social uses to which it is put afterwards." " Socialism," says another, " does not necessarily mean, and as a matter of fact it cannot mean, that everything is to be done by the people. Its sole essential meaning is that everything is to be done for the people." Con- densed statements such as these, from the nature of the case, are informative in the way of implication only. What, then, when stated in fuller and more precise terms, does the implication mean which emanates like a scent from all of them ? What new principle do they indicate, by the practical application of which all the inequalities incident to an oligarchic system of pro- duction shall have for their final issue a paradise of democratic equality ? This question was asked with incisive candour, and the modern socialist answer to it was indicted no less clearly, in a sort of manifesto published in the year 1907 by a clerical exponent of socialist thought in America. There are traces in his language of a temper peculiar to churchmen only, but his main argument was wholly independent of religion. It was merely a logical ex- pression of the ruling idea now common to intellectual socialists generally. The democrats of the eighteenth century, and the Marxian socialists of the nineteenth, both, said this writer, made an error, and the same error, at starting; not, indeed, as to the object of the democratic movement, but as to the means required for its accomplishment ; and nowhere, so he proceeded, is this fact more clearly shown than in the great Charter of Democracy on which the American Constitution rests. The ideal State was there declared to be one in which each man would be free to do his best for himself by the use of his own faculties, so far as this course was com- SENTIMENTAL DISTRIBUTION 185 itible with a like freedom for others. Now, a State nis constituted would work, he said, well enough if it rere not for one fact, and this fact the fathers of the icrican Constitution overlooked. They assumed that le faculties of all men were, not perhaps precisely, but at all events very fairly, equal. This, however, he went on to observe, is just what men's faculties are not ; and, in respect of no faculties, the use of which is generally necessary, do men differ more conspicuously than in the intellect and energy necessary for the production of wealth. Hence a government which aims merely at providing them with equal opportunities of producing as much as they can, and keeping as much as they produce, is a hotbed of those ultimate inequalities which democracy aims at minimising. The few who are endowed with faculties of one special order faculties ethically void and often allied with baseness are left untrammelled to accumulate wealth and power, whilst the many are left unaided in absolute or comparative poverty. Hence the earlier democrats, and more par- ticularly the earlier socialists, though right in their estimate of the evils by which society is at present afflicted, were radically wrong as to their cause. The cause of existing inequalities does not lie in the fact that most men, under the existing system, do not get all that they produce. It lies in the fact that on the whole this is precisely what they do get. They get what is due to them as producers. What justice demands, what demo- cracy demands, what socialism demands, is that they shall get what is due to them, not as producers, but as men. In other words, according to this argument, a just distribution of material goods and circumstances has nothing to do with what happens within the precincts of production itself. Within those precincts the prin- ciple of oligarchy may preponderate. Some men may cast much into the treasury, others relatively little. Justice relates to what happens outside the factory gates, and demands that when the treasury is opened the last shall be as the first, the first no greater than the last. Thus, with one of those touches of nature which make the whole world kin, the writer illustrates 186 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY his meaning from what probably was his own experi- ence. He complains of the shameful fact that, under the existing system, a minister of Christ, if he wants to build a church, may have to come hat in hand to some coarse-grained individual whose one and only superiority is a wholly non-moral, a wholly non-Christian power of producing the dollars which the Christian desires to spend. Under a system of socialist or truly democratic justice, what the Christian now begs as a favour here is the writer's conclusion he would be entitled to demand as a right. In this train of reasoning, apart from its clerical applications, we see what the theory of wealth and dis- tribution is to which socialist and democratic thinkers are now generally approximating. In this theory they find what, ever since they detected the fallacy of the Marxian doctrine that the value of the product of every worker is equal, they have all been looking for in one place after another. They find a means by which two things, seemingly incompatible, may be harmonised, both of which are essential to socialism in virtually the same degree ; one of them being a system of production from which oligarchy, subordination and all kinds of inequality are inseparable ; the other being a system of distribution which shall nevertheless be equal. Nor is this the only advantage which the new conception of the socialist principle brings them. By its means their estimate of " the enormous share recoverable by the people themselves " is restored to its old proportions, if not, indeed, swollen beyond them ; for what the masses are promised by a polity which ignores the facts of pro- duction is not merely that limited sum which at present certain persons enjoy in excess of their actual products. Everybody who produces, and can only produce, a little, is promised nearly all the products of those who possess more. How such a scheme of socialism would work out in practice is a question which shall be dealt with when we have seen in greater detail what its operation would be as anticipated by socialists themselves. Meanwhile, it will be enough to observe that if the essence of socialism is to be found in the process of democratic distribution, SENTIMENTAL DEMOCRACY 187 and if this is not to be determined by the facts of indi- vidual production at all, the entire conception of social- ism or a socialist polity, in so far as such a polity is novel, belongs to a domain of life which is not industrial but social; and social democracy, not industrial, is the democratic element which is involved in it. In order to realise this fact more clearly we will presently consider the modern socialist programme as set forth and expounded by one of the few socialist writers who has won international distinction as a critic of life generally. BOOK IV DISTRIBUTION BY DEMOCRATIC SENTIMENT CHAPTER I THE SENTIMENTAL PROGRAMME WHAT is meant or suggested by the term Social Democracy, as distinct from " Political " and " Indus- trial," is the application of the principle of " one man one unit of influence " to every province of life which is distinguishable from that of technical industry on the one hand, and that of the making and administration of governmental laws on the other. The exclusion of these latter activities will not, indeed, be complete ; for if principles purely moral are, as modern socialists con- tend, to determine amongst other things the distribution of material products, such principles, as we shall see presently, will require laws to enforce them; but a development of these principles into an active and com- pelling power must, as the writer about to be quoted insists, both precede such laws if they are to be made, and accompany them if they are ever to be effective ; and the nature of these principles themselves, as moral or social phenomena, is the matter with which we are first concerned. The writer in question is Mr. G. B. Shaw, whose peculiar talents, joined with his socialist sympathies, have been made known by his dramas to a wide and international public. These dramas, whatever may be their merits otherwise, display an alertness of thought and logic, a keen observation of character, and an insight into social relationships and the current ideas involved in them, which qualify the author in a very signal degree, 188 THE SOUL OF SOCIALISM 189 not to lead, but to reflect contemporary socialist thought, and to express its essential content in the most coherent, the most logical, and generally in the most favourable form of which it is, from the nature of things, susceptible ; and nowhere can a better or more representative exposi- tion of socialism as a scheme of social, to the exclusion of industrial, democracy be found than in an exposition of it which was given by Mr. Shaw as a challenge to adverse criticism, on an occasion designed to secure for it an attention as wide as possible. In order, then, to understand clearly what a socialist polity would be, as advocated, defended and understood by the serious socialists of to-day, Mr. Shaw's exposition of the matter, as given by him on that occasion, shall in substance be reproduced here. 1 MX*,. Shaw begins by saying that the one essential characteristic by which a socialist State, as properly understood, is distinguished from all others has been obscured in the minds of its opponents because they mistake for its essence what is merely one of its inci- dents. They identify it, he says, with a mere unification of industries, which ought always to be distinguished from socialism by the name of " Industrial Collectiv- ism." If the essence of socialism be, what it really is namely, an equal distribution of incomes or material circumstance collectivism, says Mr. Shaw, emphasising the precise illustration which has just now been men- tioned, would in itself no more tend to produce this than the great Trusts of America. But socialism begins where industrial collectivism ends. Instead of leaving/ distribution to be determined by the facts of production J it appears on the stage precisely at the critical moment, I 1 Mr. Shaw's views, as here given, were expounded by him at great length in a controversy carried on by himself and Mr. Harold Cox in the Morning Post The nature of the occasion led to great diffuse- ness of statement on his part, and to much dislocation of the logical order of his arguments. Their true logical order is, however, per- fectly clear to an attentive reader, ana is carefully represented in the text. Some socialists would probably say that Mr. Shaw presses the demand for an absolute equality of incomes too far. But this is a mere matter of detail, and does not affect the representative character of his reasoning ; for a virtual or effective equality is demanded by them all alike. 190 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY and imparts to collectivism a totally new character by subjecting the distribution of its products to a force which has no relation to industrial facts whatever. This force, he says, which is the soul of socialism, may be best described as a sentiment, of which the nature and the genesis are as follows. The sentiment, he says, is one which will, when fully developed, render the very idea of unequal incomes intolerable; and although at present it is doubtless far from general, to suppose that it will soon become so is no mere idle dream. It has its roots in ordinary human nature. A sentiment prevails already amongst all civilised men which demands that the beggar shall be covered with clothes of some kind, no less than the plutocrat. Socialism, then, regarded as a practical project, does not require for its basis the creation of any sentiment that is new. It merely requires a development and this is in rapid progress of one which is familiar to all of us, as operative here and now, and which will, when developed only a little further, make the spectacle of a poor man as intolerable as the spectacle of a naked man. Hence, it will no longer content itself with demanding a coat for every- body. It will insist on filling the pockets of all coats alike with what Mr. Shaw, in language of almost needless precision, calls a the quotient of the national income divided by the number of the population." In short, the socialist State, as expressing the sentiment in ques- tion, will, Mr. Shaw proceeds, say to every one of its citizens, " We guarantee you a standard income from the day of your birth to the day of your death, and whatever else we allow you to do, we will not allow you to be poor." We must, however, remember, Mr. Shaw hastens on to observe, that if a socialist State is to prosper, the national income out of which all these incomes are to come must, relatively to the population, be certainly not less than the incomes of the richer countries of to- day; and that collectivism, though it may be capable of producing an ideally adequate maximum, depends after all for its success on the efforts of individual workers. Hence, income-producing work must be some- how exacted from everybody ; and socialism, if the State INDUSTRIAL COERCION 191 is to save itself from " national bankruptcy," " may not dare to tolerate a single idle person." How, then, he asks, is the requisite work to be secured ? Under the existing system, he says, the problem is self-solving; for, " except in the case of the few who are men of property," a man who will not work is necessarily condemning himself to starve. But if socialism guarantees to him that, whether he work or no, he shall live in equal luxury so long as there is breath in his body, the old stimulus will be gone, and socialism must supply a substitute. And this, says Mr. Shaw, is very easily found. The status of the socialist citizens as income-producing workers must be assimilated to that of soldiers in the Prussian army. They must all be subjected to a quasi-military discipline. The sluggish, the insubordinate and even the truants will, "up to the day of their death," suffer no diminution of income ; but the slothful will have a touch of the cane, the insubordinate will have a touch of the dog- whip, and the truants will be treated like military deserters and shot. Now here, says Mr. Shaw, anticipating an obvious criticism, we have a system of society which at first sight might seem to be one of slavery a system which recalls the condition of the Children of Israel in Egypt, with the melons and the flesh-pots in front of them and the lash of the taskmaster behind. Of all the apparent difficulties which socialism has to en- counter, this, he says, is the most important. It is, however, apparent only. It is based, he says, on two misconceptions, which vanish under the touch of analysis. The first of these relates to industrial work generally. In order to ensure a diligent and universal performance of it, the socialist State would require certain punitive and coercive powers. Let this be at once granted. But all States so Mr. Shaw argues are bound to equip themselves with powers of a like kind, as precautions against theft and murder. This, however, does not mean that the mass of average men are only restrained from larceny, fraud or murder by dread of the police- man's bludgeon, of the cell, or of the hangman's rope. 192 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY They obey the law spontaneously, not because they are slaves but because they are free. The State as a punitive, the State as an enslaving power, is felt, in practice, by none but a perverse minority. In the socialist State the case would be just the same. As soon as industrial work was transformed into a legal duty, the majority would perform it freely and as a matter of course, just as they now obey the laws which prohibit murder. So much for the first of the misconceptions in ques- tion. The second, according to Mr. Shaw, is grosser and more unpardonable. It relates, not so much to the amount as to the quality of the work required, and those who give voice to it express themselves in effect thus : " Industrial work is of various kinds and grades, and the vice or absurdity of the socialist system is this : it would pay for all qualities at exactly the same rate." To this objection, says Mr. Shaw, which can only be urged by the " base " or the blindly foolish, the obvious answer is as follows. This objection assumes that work is invariably performed for payment. No fallacy could be more absurd than this. Work in general is usually, and the higher kinds of work are always, performed without thought of a reward which affects to represent their value in terms of money or its equivalents. Indeed, says Mr. Shaw, not only " is the man base who asks to be paid for doing his best for his country, but the man who thinks that such services can be measured in coin is a fool." " The talents which are precious to humanity and build up great States have (so far as coin goes) mostly a minus value. Indeed, those who exercise them are fortunate if they are not persecuted as well as un- paid." Mr. Shaw illustrates his meaning by reference to men like Socrates, Paul, Spinoza, Leibnitz, Newton and others, and he very justly contends that the life- work of such men as these owes all its value to the fact that it was performed spontaneously, and not for the sake of any income or " coin " commensurate with it. Who can doubt, then, he asks, that, in a great socialist polity, which starts with assuring an equal and ample income to everybody, most of the industrial workers, and especially the ablest section of them, will eagerly COMPULSION AND EQUALITY 193 do their utmost in contributing to the total stock, without any other motive than the desire of " being precious to humanity," and without adjusting their services to the likelihoods of any private gain ? In socialism, then, as a scheme of equalised incomes, despite the draconian powers which the State would have in reserve for the purpose of extorting work from a certain debased minority, there is nothing which conflicts with the freedom of any reasonable and decent man. Mr. Shaw's picture, however, is not yet complete. A brilliant finishing touch still remains to be added to it. Industry, says Mr. Shaw, when organised under one directorate, will run with such perfect smoothness and so slight a waste of effort that the hours of daily work requisite for the production of an adequate national income will probably sink to five, and at all events to not more than six. Thus the socialist State will be a paradise, not only of general affluence, and of the happy freedom which comes when work, in any case necessary, is performed with a willingness which anticipates and outruns compulsion ; but it will, as Mr. Shaw depicts it, be a paradise of leisure also. In such a State Humanity will at last come into its own. Now, the whole of this argument in a certain sense hangs together, and may be taken as representing, in a signally favourable way, the amount of cohesion that exists in socialist thought generally. Moreover, up to a certain point it is not only consistent with itself, but is also in sober relation to fairly definite facts. In the first place it is quite conceivable that, though industrial collectivism in itself would have no tendency to result in an equal distribution of incomes, a sentiment so strongly in favour of such a distribution might develop itself that the forces of law would be utilised with some success to secure it. It is also conceivable that, as happened in the days of Sesostris, arduous labour might be extorted from multitudes by mere compulsion, though all direct connection between work and income were eliminated. Nobody will quarrel with Mr. Shaw's argu- ment thus far. Everybody will agree with him when he admits that, if industry in a socialist State would wholly, or even mainly, have mere compulsion as its 194 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY basis, socialism would be rightly repudiated as a resuscitation of slavery. But the whole of his argument thus far is simply of the nature of a preamble. His argument proper, as he himself insists, hangs on the thesis that, as a matter of fact, the entire work demanded by the socialist State of the citizens would be, by the vast majority of them, performed of their own free will, coercion for them having practically no existence; and as soon as he crosses the Rubicon, and comes to this crucial point, his reasoning acquires a totally different character. Com- parative clearness gives place to a confusion which is doubly grotesque because he does not himself perceive it. It is a confusion arising not so much from an error in his logic as from a confused conception of the things to which his logic is applied. It is a confusion which reflects itself in his use of the ordinary word " work." " Work " is a word which is, in different connections, used to denote effort of very different kinds; and what is true of one kind may be quite untrue of another. Now, Mr. Shaw's main argument deals with work of one special kind only, which he, with the utmost precision, defines in terms of the object at which it aims that object being the production of the national income. All men must work, he says, to produce a national income which is adequate, for if they do not the socialist State will be bankrupt. But when he seeks to prove that a work of this particular kind would by most men be per- formed so freely, and indeed with so much ardour, that not even a threat of external compulsion would be necessary, and appeals to facts as showing that the best and most effective work is and always has been per- formed for its own sake only, it is evident from his own description of them that the kinds of work which he selects to prove his proposition are totally different from that with which, and with which alone, his main argument has any sort of connection. The kinds of work to which he is here referring are, to take a few of his instances, the kinds of work accomplished by men such as Socrates, Paul and Spinoza; and on these kinds of work he expatiates in the following way. It is evident, he says, that they cannot be due to coercion, for coercion is WORK AND PERSONAL GAIN 195 generally applied, not to stimulate, but to suppress them. It is equally evident that they cannot be per- formed for the sake of any equivalent in the way of " coin or income "; for they do not produce, and have no relation to, any of the things of which income ulti- mately consists. Indeed, if financially they have any result at all, this result is, he says, " mostly a minus quantity," and the men who perform them " are for- tunate if they are not persecuted as well as unpaid." If such be the case, then, one thing at least is clear, that however " precious to humanity " these kinds of work may be, they are not work of the kind which produces a national income. They are not the work which, according to Mr. Shaw's definition of it, the socialist State would be bound to exact from everybody unless all the citizens are to die of national bankruptcy ; and not only is the man very far from being a fool who thinks that work of this kind can be measured in terms of " coin " or its equivalents, but the man must be a fool who imagines that it can be measured in any other way. Men produce potatoes in order that they may eat potatoes; and the only ground on which the socialist State would have to insist, " under pain of death if need be," that every man for so many hours should do as much of this work as he can, is that there would not otherwise be enough potatoes to eat. Since, then, every average citizen would know that, whether he himself produced much income, or little, or none at all, or even a minus quantity, the total product would be affected to a barely appreciable degree, and that, whatever he did or did not do, his own reward would be the same, is it likely that he would burn with desire to do more work or better than such as would just save him from the lash of the watchful taskmaster ? The absurdity of supposing that he would, sufficiently obvious on the face of it, is emphasised further by the two following facts. The first of these facts we shall have hereafter to deal with it at greater length is this : that when socialists argue about incomes, they think of incomes in the abstract, or as though, like water, they were so many homogeneous quantities, which differed only in magnitude as measured in terms of money. 196 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY Now, when incomes are so small that they only suffice to purchase a little more or less of the simplest neces- saries of existence, this way of thinking is accurate and clear enough; for the necessaries of life are few, and in most cases much the same. But these are precisely the incomes which socialism ajms at abolishing. These incomes of equal primary poverty it aims at expanding into incomes of equal affluence. In other words, to a minimum of bare necessaries it aims at adding a multi- tude of superfluous and alternative luxuries. Let us suppose, for example, that all the material commodities, the enjoyment of which distinguishes affluence from poverty, are books, and that the actual substance of each man's affluence is his library. There may be a thousand libraries representing the same expenditure, and yet no actual book ranged on the shelves of one might be a duplicate of any actual book discoverable on the shelves of another. The shelves of one might be packed with nothing but Protestant sermons, those of another with tomes of Jesuit casuistry, those of a third with novels, or amatory verse, or histories of stage dancing. Thus no individual citizen, as a worker in the socialist State, would be asked to be " precious to humanity " by printing and producing books. Each would be asked to display an impassioned diligence in multiplying copies of this or that book in particular. But any worker might say that, though literature, taken in the abstract, was wealth in its most precious form, the particular book in the production of which he was thus invited to strain himself was not precious but injurious, or at best utterly futile, and that he would be much more precious to humanity by idling as much as he dared, and so diminishing the supply, than he would be by working his hardest, and so raising it to a] maximum. If a Catholic were asked to multiply books by Baptists, if a puritan were asked to colour engraved^ pictures of ballet-girls, the task imposed on each would! be certain to excite in him, not ardour, but antipathy;' or if the task, as it might be, were to multiply a senti- mental novel, it might well excite in any serious man; contempt. Such conscientious objectors might, it isi quite conceivable, do as the State told them, thus bowing WORK AND PERSONAL GAIN 197 themselves in the House of Rimmon; but, since the socialist State would, ex hypothesi, pay them an equally ample sum whether they obeyed orders or no, they cer- tainly would not obey them for any conceivable reason other than a wish to save themselves from the whip of the State slave-driver. But, quite apart from this fact, there is another which is embedded by socialists themselves in their own pros- pectus of promises, and which leads to the same conclu- sion. Foremost amongst the promises which they dangle before the impassioned average worker is the promise that income-producing work will, under socialism, be reduced to something like a vanishing quantity, most of his life being thus left to him as a playground for perfectly free activities whether of mind or body. But if income-producing work really is, as they say, equiva- lent to " being precious to Humanity," and if a sense of being precious to Humanity is the choicest of all human pleasures, why do the prophets of socialism advertise as a prospective blessing the reduction of these hours of supreme bliss to a minimum ? In acting thus they are, on their own principles, like the keeper of a restaurant who, having informed the public that the price of his set dinner included a supply of the finest wine in the world, should add, as a further advantage, that he gave to each of his guests no more than a drop of it. What socialists really feel when they promise a reduction of income-producing work to a minimum is what most men would feel likewise, and what Henry George said bluntly is felt by all men that if, in the case of the individual, work is rendered unnecessary for securing the means, and the amplest means, of pleasure, it must, for the sake of others, be extorted from each, like the slave's work, as a means of avoiding pain ; and the kind of pain to be avoided, as Mr. Shaw himself indicates, could be nothing but that of the whip, either threatened or actually applied. The uses of the whip, however, under a regime of equalised incomes are by no means yet exhausted. They would not be confined to the workshops of State col- lectivism. The whip would be needed for purposes which, quick though his mind is, Mr. Shaw has appar- 198 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY ently never so much as contemplated. If the hours of slave-labour necessary for producing the statutory national income were, as Mr. Shaw suggests, reduced approximately to five, and if seven should be allowed for sleep, the leisure time of the citizens, during which they might do as they liked, would amount substantially to seven-tenths of their waking life. How, then, do socialists suppose that this life of freedom would be occupied ? The question is not an idle one ; for here, if anywhere, would be found that spontaneous self-expres- sion of character for which assured and equal incomes can alone provide a basis. According to Mr. Shaw, the State would say to the citizens, " I may rob you of your democratic freedom for five hours a day for the necessary purpose of ensuring that the incomes which you are to enjoy may be produced ; but, when once those hours are over, I order and I forbid nothing." But the matter would by no means end here, if a polity of the kind which Mr. Shaw imagines were realised. There are two things, at all events, which, if equalised incomes are really its special and essential feature, a socialist State would have to forbid absolutely. It would, in the first place, have to forbid saving. For if any of the citizens took as they very easily might do to saving four- fifths of their own ample allowances, equality of circum- stance would not endure for a twelvemonth. The State, therefore, besides seeing that an ample and equal income was punctually got by everybody, would have year by year to see that everybody spent the whole of it. But this is not all. It would have to forbid likewise another thing more important than simple saving. It would have to forbid any citizen in his long hours of leisure to supplement the work performed by him in the State workshops by any further productive work on his own account. Unless this were forbidden, the more practical and energetic of the citizens, when their State work was over, might, instead of being precious to humanity by philosophising after the manner of Spinoza, start busi- nesses for themselves, in which the full fruits of diligent labour or genius would go to individuals as the reward of their own efficiency, and not be frittered away as virtual presents to others who had not the skill or the COMPULSORY IDLENESS 199 will to produce such things for themselves. In this way an additional income would arise an income not common to all, but confined to a special class, all of whose members would be richer, some incomparably richer, than the rest. A socialist State could never tolerate this. All supplementary enterprise would have to be put down at any cost. A situation would accord- ingly arise for which Mr. Shaw's logic makes no sort of provision ; but if incomes were to remain equal, it would have to be met somehow. The whip which, on his own admission, would have to be kept somewhere for use in the collectivist workshops would accordingly have to perform, not one function only, but three. Besides lashing the obstinate or the idle into industry, it would have to be lashing the conspicuously industrious into idleness; and when not terrifying the citizens into pro- ducing incomes on the one hand, or abstention from producing them on the other, it would have to be terrifying these unfortunate persons into spending them. Such, then, according to Mr. Shaw's account of it, would the socialist polity be, as intellectual democrats have now come to conceive it. But whatever absurdities this account may involve, they are, let it be said again, not peculiar to himself. His account is a vivid and signally representative exposition of the idea which is maturing in the minds of the more thoughtful socialists of to-day the idea, that is, of socialism as a scheme of moral or social democracy superimposed on a scheme of industry the oligarchic character of which, though it cannot be denied or altered, is for practical purposes metamorphosed by the final scheme of distribution to which it will be made subservient. The value of Mr. Shaw's account of a polity thus con- stituted lies firstly in the fact that his critical powers have enabled him to signalise clearly the defects of the old socialist ideal, and, secondly, in the fact that these same critical powers have not only enabled but compelled him, without perceiving it, to exhibit the defects of the new, which, though different from those of the old, belong to an order of thought no less remote from the region of actual life. The Marxian socialists, indeed, were in one respect much more reasonable than their 200 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY successors. They assumed that the natural sentiment of each man as a worker was what it really is namely, a sentiment which demanded the full value of his own work for himself; and the demand of the Marxian socialists that all incomes should be equal was merely an incidental result of the theory that no one man in the same number of hours produces more or less wealth than another. This crudely absurd theory the modern socialists have abandoned ; but in order to preserve the doctrine that rewards should nevertheless be equal, they have been obliged to replace the original theory by another which is no less absurdly at variance with the character of the average man than the theory of Marx was at variance with the actualities of scientific industry. The Marxian conception of labour as the sole agent in production is not more illusory, as the basis of a socialist system, than the general sentiment in favour of equal distribution by which socialist thought now seeks to replace it. Such, at least, is the conclusion to which logical analysis leads us. We will now turn from logical analysis to fact, and see, with the aid of certain concrete examples, how far a sentiment in favour of equal dis- tribution has proved to be really operative when put to the test of experiment. CHAPTER H SOCIALIST EXPERIMENTS IF a detached spectator a tourist from some other planet were to visit the earth to-day, and give his at- tention to the socialist or social democratic movement, what would probably strike him as its strangest feature is this, that those who take part in it are willing, on behalf of their principles, to do everything in the way of activity except to show that they are practicable by putting them into experimental practice. He would have heard orators at a thousand Trade Union meetings who proclaimed that all the difficulties of the modern world would be solved if only the labourers were masters of their own capital, and secured for their own class the entire product of their exertions. He might have heard them declaring that " the employers have never done anything for labour which we, the labourers, could not any day do for ourselves." But although to take, for example, the case of the United Kingdom the wage- earning classes at the beginning of the twentieth century owned a collective capital of a thousand million pounds, our tourist might have failed to discover that any serious attempts were being made by them to employ this capital themselves under their own corporate direc- tion. If of this capital they would venture but one hundredth part, ten socialist businesses, each with a capital of a million, might, as modest experiments, be set going to-morrow; and if socialism is correct in principle, the success of these could not fail to be such that others would soon follow, till the employers of to-day were eliminated, not by violence but by competi- tion, and all who now work for wages would presently be the employers of themselves. Why, then, our tourist might ask, does nothing of this kind happen ? The 201 202 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY socialists, he might say, were like the prisoner who, according to the story told by an American humourist, had been locked up for ten years in a cell, " when one day a thought struck him. He opened the window and got out." But to this fear on their part of testing their prin- ciples by experiment there have been many memorable exceptions. Experiments have been made of the precise kind in question, which, curiously few as they are in comparison with what might reasonably have been expected, are quite sufficiently numerous, sufficiently different in some respects, and sufficiently like in others, to constitute a body of evidence astonishingly coherent and illuminating. Many of them, in respect of their origin, have been British or European ; the latest and largest was Austra- lian; but the actual scene of most of them has been naturally in the New World, where land is acquired more easily than in the Old, and where life is less encumbered by old habits and traditions. Records of some eighty have been collected by Macdonald, Noyes and Nordhoff, the Australian experiment being the subject of a volume devoted to itself. They cover a period of a hundred and thirty years, and are separable into two groups namely, those which were animated by a sentiment having its basis in religion, and those from which the religious motive has been practically, if not formally, excluded. Socialism or social democracy as a scheme founded on a sentiment which demands equality in distribution represents socialist thought, not only in its latest, but in its earliest forms also. As an object of possible endeavour, and also as a subject of ridicule, it was perfectly familiar to the citizens of ancient Athens ; and the first and most successful attempt to realise it in the modern world was initiated nearly forty years before the word " socialism " was known. This experiment, which was the formation of the sect or community of the Shakers, began in the year 1774, and thirty years later another experiment followed it that is to say, the formation of the sect or community of the Rappites. The animating principle of both these was religion. The foundress of the Shakers was an RELIGIOUS SOCIALISMS 203 English woman, Ann Lee, of humble birth but of very remarkable character, who believed herself to be the recipient of a number of divine revelations, and who, acting under this belief, emigrated from England to America, where she hoped to establish a polity consonant with the mind of Christ. George Rapp, the founder of the Rappites, was a native of Southern Germany, the son of a small farmer. He, like Ann Lee, had from his youth upwards divine revelations of his own ; and in the year 1805, accompanied by three hundred disciples, he, like her, set sail for America, with the object of founding a Kingdom of Christ on earth. But though both these leaders were visionaries, both of them, like St. Theresa, united to religious enthusiasm a singular aptitude for affairs; and their respective schemes, as expressed by them in business terms, may be said to have resulted in almost the same prospectus. The principle of the Shakers was, as Ann Lee put it, " that all the members should have a united interest in all things"; that the Society should be primarily the owner of whatever was produced by individuals, and should then dispense to the individuals whatever each might need ; each according to his abilities, whether these were great or small, performing in return such work as the Elders might see proper to assign to him. The principles of the Rappites were embodied in a series of Articles of Association, to which every member had to affix his signature. The first of these Articles consti- tuted a deed of gift on the member's part " of all property whatever possessed by him or her to George Rapp and his heirs or assigns for ever, to be held and administered on behalf of the members generally; and the said George Rapp covenanted on behalf of himself and his successors that they would supply the members severally with all necessaries of life, whether in youth or age, whether in sickness or health, together with such care and consolation as their situations might reasonably demand." During the next seventy years these two pioneer ex- periments were followed, in the United States, by nearly eighty others, whilst the great Australian venture, of which mention has just been made, came twenty-five 204 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY years later, its actual scene being in Paraguay. Some of these were religious, most of them essentially secular. Otherwise, the object proposed was in all cases the same. It was precisely the object described, as we have seen, by Mr. Shaw namely, the production by the community of an adequate total income, and the distribution of this amongst the members, not in accordance with what each produced (which would vary), but in accordance with a sentiment relating to their equal needs, and now com- monly expressed in the formula " Each for all." Be- tween all these experiments there was another point of likeness also, which exhibits the projectors as men who, up to a certain point, gauged human nature accurately in the light of sound common sense. They all of them proposed to secure the triumph of socialism by means similar to those which had secured the triumph of the modern private capitalist. Modern capitalism has developed itself and spread itself throughout the world, because wherever it has been tried it has generally been found to work to be industrially more efficient than any other system which had preceded it. Its general success has consisted in a multiplication of successful units. The practical socialists, with whom we are now dealing, proposed to establish socialism through units of success likewise, but through units of a different kind. Instead of establishing single successful businesses, what they aimed at establishing was equally successful communi- ties ; and the difference between a business and a com- munity was understood by them to be this : In an ordinary business the employer and the employed alike work severally for the benefit of themselves and their own families. In a socialist community all families would be one. As matters stand, they argued, within the limits of the family circle economic advantages are not divided, but shared. Each home, in short, is a miniature socialism in itself. In order, therefore, that socialism might develop into a working system, the first thing to be done was, according to them, so to extend the socialism of the family circle that a considerable number of men, women and children might be welded together into a family of a larger kind, not by blood relationship, but by a sentiment of human brotherhood, RELIGIOUS SOCIALISMS 205 and by a consequently " united interest " in the fruits of their collective industry. The idea of all the pro- jectors was to begin with an extended family, comprising from two or three hundred up to fifteen hundred persons; and if one such group were successful, others would be bound to follow. At all events they realised that if an effective socialist sentiment could not extend itself throughout a community of a few hundreds of persons, it would be idle to look for its extension through the world, or even an entire nation. Let us now consider how these experiments worked, beginning with the religious, which deserve special atten- tion, and of which the two just mentioned are curiously contrasted, but equally instructive types. Of these two, when Nordhoff published his accounts of them, one namely, the Shakers had lasted for more than a century; the other namely, the Rappites had lasted for seventy years. Both had been constantly pros- perous ; the Rappites had achieved great riches ; and yet each body had, according to its own lights, been faithful to the doctrine of a " united interest in all things." Both may be regarded as triumphs of that precise senti- ment which, as Mr. Shaw describes it, " renders the very idea of unequal incomes intolerable." As applied, however, to the details of practical life, they understood this sentiment in very different ways. The Rappites, though unswerving socialists in respect of their own fraternity, made no pretence of socialism in their dealings with the outside world. Possessing, as they did, considerable funds to start with, they used these in the following ways. In the first place, all rough work within the borders of their own settlement they committed to hired labourers, many of whom were Chinamen, and of whom it was caustically said that " they did as much work in a day as the brethren would do in six." In the second place, they became investors, on an ever-increasing scale, in outside enterprises such as mines, oil-wells and railroads, and were ultimately found to be the principal sleeping partners in a cutlery business, then the largest in the whole of the United States. Their success, in short, was the success of a species of exclusive club, their socialism being a pious 206 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY eccentricity uniting the members, but uniting the mem- bers only, and related to socialism in the wider sense of the word, not as an example, but as a negation of it. Very different in this respect have been the principles and practice of the Shakers. Continuously successful as they have been in producing an income adequate to their modest wants, they have depended on no labour but their own; and their tasks, assigned to them by the Elders, have been faithfully performed by each in obe- dience to a sentiment which, identifying each with all, and eliminating every thought of gain for self as sinful, makes the labour of each a sacrifice owed, through all, to God. If a polity like that of the Rappites is com- parable to a religious club, a polity like that of the Shakers is comparable to a Franciscan monastery. That such a polity may prosper and be self-supporting, the experiment of the Shakers, like that of the Franciscans, shows ; and if this were the whole of the matter, it would show in a very striking way that the principles of modern socialism, as expounded by Mr. Shaw, are practicable. As a matter of fact, however, it shows something else also. The Shakers being rigid celibates, it is obvious that a socialism like theirs, though self-supporting, cannot be self-renewing. Denying marriage to its mem- bers, it postulates a world outside in which marriage is prevalent. This fact might conceivably be no more than an accident ; but it actually was a consequence and an illustration of a fact much deeper than itself. The Shakers enjoined celibacy, not as an isolated merit, but as one detail of a sacrifice co-extensive with the socialist life, another detail of which, and one of prior import- ance, was the sacrifice of all desire for private or unequal gain ; and the fact that these members were not members by birth, but had to be chosen from postulants reared in the outside world, was a means of demonstrating, as the Shakers themselves attested, how rare those persons are from whom, in their inmost hearts, a true renuncia- tion of the hope of unequal gain is possible. No member was accepted till after a year's novitiate, and before a year was over most of the postulants would depart. Thus a socialism like that of the Shakers is, in its very essence, no less exclusive than a socialism like that of RELIGIOUS SOCIALISMS 207 the Rappites, although for a different reason. Just as in the latter case, the magic circle of socialism does not include the average manual labourer, so it does not include in the former the typical or average man. Neither of such schemes is comprehensive in any general sense, or contains in it any promise for the masses of the human race. The only socialist experiments which can yield a direct moral of any general import are those which appeal to the motives of average men and women, and no more confine their promises to persons of exceptional character than they do to persons of exceptional business intellect. We will, therefore, now turn our attention to the secular experiments comprised in the list just mentioned, and see how their fortunes compare with the signal, if limited, success attainable by those of the religious or quasi-conventual type. Of these secular experiments, something like seventy in number, it would be not only impossible to deal with all, but useless. Most of them came to an end in their third year, or earlier. We will, therefore, confine ourselves to the few which outlived or reached their fifth. Of such experiments there are five namely, that of the Owenites, or, to give it its full name, The New Harmony Community of Equality; three other communities, extended families, or (as they preferred to call themselves) Phalanxes namely, the Brook Farm, the Wisconsin, and the North American ; and, lastly, most ambitious of all, the experi- ment called New Australia. The earliest of these, the New Harmony Community of Equality, was financed and founded in the year 1825 by a prosperous British mill-owner, the celebrated Robert Owen. He was fortunate in finding a site equipped already for his purpose. The Rappites, then in the twentieth year of their existence, had acquired amongst other properties an estate of 30,000 acres, and had built on it a model village which they had christened by the name of Harmony. This estate, having ceased to satisfy their ambitions, was offered for sale as it stood, and Owen became the purchaser, taking posses- sion of it with nearly nine hundred followers. To them, at a meeting held in the old town-hall of the Rappites, 208 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY he formally recapitulated the principles of the venture on which they were now embarking. In language almost identical with that in which Ann Lee had expressed the aims of the Shakers, their own aim, he said, was to extinguish all inequalities " by doing away with divided money transactions," and " thus uniting all separate interests into one." All would have to labour, for such is the lot of man. Each would naturally labour accord- ing to his best abilities, but the products of all alike would be congregated in a common store ; and each, for no other payment than the labour already performed by him, would have an equal right to select from the total stock whatever particular articles he or his might need. Since, however, some time must elapse before their own labours could fructify, Owen stocked the communal store himself with all such things as in his opinion were necessary, from clothes and flour down to tea, pickles and pills. Such measures were those of a mere dictator. They were wholly opposed to the prin- ciple which he set out to establish, and as soon as they were in his opinion complete he refused to exert his per- sonal powers further. He transferred the management of affairs to the hands of a Preliminary Committee, and took himself off for nearly a year to England, hoping to find on his return that the mustard-seed of his social- ism was already a thriving tree. What he did find was something signally different. The Preliminary Com- mittee had indeed given general satisfaction by lavishing his money on bands and on nightly dances; but their sole capacities otherwise had proved to be those of talkers, not of industrial managers. The goods in the store were dwindling. Industry, in a state of chaos, gave little promise of replacing them. The Preliminary Committee was dissolved in feverish haste, and a new body formed instead of it, called an Executive Council. This, however, in spite of its grander name, proved no more competent than its predecessor, and the whole undertaking would have come to an ignominious end if the flock of members had not, by their universal request, compelled their shepherd who had led them into the wilderness to become once more dictator, and do what he could to save them. As soon as he resumed his OWEN'S EXPERIMENT 209 authority, matters began to mend. The community bore some resemblance to an orderly private business, the head of which, though the profits might not be large, was known to allot the whole of them in equal shares to his workpeople ; and the novel prospects which it thus offered to labour became soon so widely known, and proved to be so attractive, that new applications for admission to its ranks multiplied, which, as matters were then arranged, it was not possible to entertain. In order, therefore, to provide for the new influx, the original group was supplemented by three others. The single community thus reappeared as four, each of which, devoting itself to industries of a more or less specialised kind, was, as occasion required, to exchange its own products with those of the other three, in quantities to be measured by paper money, or labour-checks. Owen, who seems not to have perceived, or not to have been disturbed by the fact that the serpent of " divided money transactions " was thus re-entering Eden, was fully convinced that socialism would now become self- acting; and the role of dictator was again, and for the third time, renounced by him. The method of manage- ment by Executive Councils was resuscitated, and each of the four groups had a separate Council to itself. Hereupon there arose a confusion worse confounded. The question of production was entangled with the ques- tion of commerce. The four Councils could manage matters no better than one ; and at last a day came when a great general meeting urged on Owen that dictatorship must be forthwith revived. Owen, who refused to accept the supreme office, agreed, by way of compromise, that the Councils should be abolished, each group being managed by a dictator of its own; and of four co-equal dictators he consented to act as one. Things being so settled, there were some signs of im- provement, but they were not of long duration. The groups quarrelled with their dictators, the dictators quarrelled with one another, and industry, thus dis- organised, was again coming to a standstill. One social- ist principle alone retained its vitality. This was the sentiment in favour of equal distribution a sentiment which expressed itself in getting from the communal 210 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY stores a great many more commodities than the members of the community produced. This sentiment was one day found to have been so active that there were two commodities only of which the popular consumption did not thus exceed supply. One of the commodities was glue. Terrible to relate, the other commodity was soap. Owen could endure a great deal, but all endurance has limits. Anxious as he had been to divest himself of any dictatorial power in the business of communal manage- ment, he was still the legal owner of the whole communal property, and he was now driven to an expedient the success of which was complete. He began to allocate buildings and portions of land to individuals in whom he detected some spirit of enterprise. The effect was as startling as that of an electric shock. Facing the communal hall, there was soon a glitter of goods in the windows of a private grocery. Sign-boards began to show themselves on one building after another, an- nouncing the establishment of various private manu- factures. Such being the trend of events, Owen accepted the inevitable. After a struggle of twelve years, during which the constitution of his polity had been six times changed, those of his followers who deserved this he converted into private owners, allowing them to lapse into a cluster of variously prosperous families, each pur- suing its own " divided interest," and indistinguishable from the families of the commonplace world around them. The Brook Farm, the Wisconsin and the North American Phalanxes, and, lastly, New Australia, all ran a course which, in substance though not in detail, resembled that of the Owenites. All began with the same high hopes. All encountered and succumbed to the same fundamental difficulties ; and out of the ashes of each, in greater or less vigour, there re-arose the spirit of private enterprise. The Brook Farm Phalanx, established in the year 1842, when the failure of the Owenites was a tragedy still recent, would, if for no other reason, be memorable on account of the character of its chief projectors. They were mostly persons of education and culture, the philo- sophic Emerson being a prominent figure amongst them. Their immediate aim was to found, as they themselves BROOK FARM 211 put it, a sort of secluded college which, whatever might be its own peculiarities, would show how, on socialist principles, life might be transformed for all. The first thing needful for such^a pattern community of equally lived lives was, they said, that it should be self-support- ing. It must, therefore, have its basis in agriculture, and " the perfume of clover must linger over it, though it aims beyond the highest star." But work in the fields, if cordially shared by all, would, they said, soon require but a fraction of the members' time. All desir- able manufactures would almost at once be added to it, and would " provide the elegancies as well as the com- forts of life, together with all means of study, and all means of beautiful amusement," without an expenditure of more industrial toil than was just sufficient for impart- ing a healthy zest to leisure. The members had a capital large enough for all their initial purposes till their labour should begin to replace it ; and in two years' time they were able to announce publicly that " every step has strengthened the faith in which we set out, and the time has passed when even initiative movements ought to be prosecuted in silence." Their lands, they said, had yielded abundant harvests; weavers and other artificers were installed in a great workshop ; and one great wing of their communal college was finished a building with a frontage of a hundred and forty feet. A little more capital might, they said, be acceptable, and in all in- vestments, theoretically, there is doubtless a risk of loss ; " but we," they went on, " have now reached a point where such risk hardly exists. We have before us a solemn and glorious work to prepare for the time when the nations, like one man, shall reorganise their town- ships on the basis of perfect justice such as ours." Three years later the college home was in ruins, the college lands had been sold, and the lately sanguine members men, wives and children were seeking to resume their places in the world which they had left behind them. The Wisconsin Phalanx, established but two years later, was better equipped than the Brook Farm Phalanx in one way. Most of its members were men more habituated to manual work, and it lasted a year -longer; but its earlier history, otherwise, was very nearly the 212 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY same. At the end of its second year it, too, published an account, equally sanguine, of what had been accom- plished so far. " We have had," said the writers, " two excellent harvests. To a large steam saw-mill, which we bought along with the property, we have added a flour-mill, a smithy, a bootmaker's shop, a laundry and a general store. We have, moreover, completed a com- munal residence, with a facade twice as long as that of the Brook Farm College." It was further announced that their capital in the form of agricultural improve- ments, buildings and implements of production was increasing at an annual rate of 4 or 5 per member. Three more years went by, and no check was admitted. Indeed, by the end of the fifth year accounts had become so glowing as to raise a curiosity in many minds that was not very far from scepticism, and inquiries made on the spot by an emissary of the New York Tribune brought to light certain details by which popular doubts were justified. The official accounts were, he found, so far accurate that the money capital with which they began their enterprise had, by conversion into buildings, goods and improvements, not only not been diminished, but actually did, as was claimed for it, show an un- doubted increase. It appeared, however, that the increase had been largely over-computed, and other revelations were added of a much more important kind. Despite the length of the great communal residence, the individual lodgings, he said, were of such a kind that " few labourers in the Eastern States would tolerate them." Still more was the writer astounded by the wretched and filthy condition in which the rooms were kept, and also by the manner in which this fact was explained to him. The occupants, whose lot had been painted as one of growing prosperity, told him that " the struggle for necessaries was such that it left them no time to be tidy " ; and they further confessed that many of them were driven to supplement the little namely, the equal pittance which the Phalanx was able to allow them by wage-paid labour for employers on the ordinary farms around them. Such being the actualities of their: situation, which underlay the publicly issued accounts of it, it will not be thought surprising that before another NORTH AMERICAN PHALANX 213 year was over the Wisconsin Phalanx was dissolved. The communal property was broken up into lots, some of the members acquiring their own freeholds, and what was left of the Phalanx reappeared as a common village. We now come to the North American Phalanx, which Noyes describes as "the great test experiment on which practical socialism in America was prepared to stake its all." The projectors fully admitted the com- plete failure of experiments like Brook Farm and Wis- consin, and claimed to have discovered the cause to which this failure was due. The projectors of these, they said, made the initial blunder of so pooling their capital that no account was taken of the amounts of the individual subscriptions. No one subscriber could claim or identify so much of the total as his own. To arrange matters thus, they continued, " is simply to substitute for the individual employer the corporate employer ; and the corporate employer is still more irresistible, for the individual worker can have no rights as against him. We," they said, "on the contrary, have stricken the relation of employer and employed from the categories of existence altogether " by arranging that each member shall be the owner of whatever may be the amount subscribed by him; and in virtue of his particular holding he will be able to claim from the communal management as a right, "that work shall be found for him suitable to his own endowment." He will thus be employed, they said, not by the community, but by himself. As a member of the community he will receive in the way of wages an equal share of what the labour of the community produces ; but the capital used by the community produces an income also, and this income from capital will, as a supplement to wages, be divided amongst the members, not in equal shares, but in strict proportion to the capital held by each. If the members desire, by saving, to increase their capitals they can do so. The better it will be for them, and the better for the community also. Though this recognition of saving may lead to some inequalities, these will not be serious, since life will be lived in common; and that spur will be provided by it to individual diligence, the want of which has been the secret of all previous failures. 214 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY Such, in outline, were the principles of the North American Phalanx, and it so far justified the high hopes entertained of it that of all the secular socialisms at- tempted in the United States, this community, which lasted for twelve years, was for something like nine years apparently the most successful. The standard wage allotted to current labour seems, indeed, never to have exceeded sixteen shillings a week, but the officials of this community claimed, at the close of its eighth year, that the average capital holding per family of five persons had risen from three hundred and fifty to as much as seven hundred pounds. A better test, however, of its prosperity, as compared with the squalors of Wisconsin, is to be found hi the picturesque descriptions given by successive visitors of the manner in which the members lived. The earliest of these relate to it at the close of its second year; and not till the beginning of the ninth do any of the later descriptions appreciably differ from the first. The communal dwelling, with its hall and its endless rows of bedrooms, was surprising, said all these witnesses, in respect not alone of its size, but of its planning and equipment also. The fittings were severely simple, the floors were without carpets, but cleanliness reigned everywhere. The meals, well served at long tables, were plentiful. The lighting at night was bril- liant. The members, in summer at all events, would go to their outdoor work as though it were some healthy game. In the hay-fields they often sang. After supper the younger members danced, the girls in summer wreathing their hair with flowers. Such, till the community was entering on the ninth year of its existence, were its principal features as viewed by the eyes of strangers. In that year, however, a fresh inquirer arrived who, though met by all outward signs of unabated prosperity, could not get rid of the impression that something was wrong somewhere. When, not content with appearances, he tried to dis- cover on what precise principles the business of the community was managed, and how all this prosperity was maintained, the official to whom he addressed him- self would give him no plain answers, but wandered NORTH AMERICAN PHALANX 215 away into discussions as to why, when tested by ex- periment, socialism always failed. Another member, a woman, descanted to him on the same subject. But, whatever the cause of these ominous symptoms, the same inquirer, returning a year afterwards, was led to conclude that it could not have been more than tem- porary. Several things had happened, and the air was alive with optimism. A new member had arrived, bringing with him a large capital. The direct wages of labour had been raised from fifteen to sixteen shillings a week; the new member had insisted on building a house for himself, on having his meals alone, and on living in his own way. It appeared, moreover, that the new member's exclusiveness was so far from unpopular that it merely represented a sentiment which in secret had long been general, and which had now expressed itself in action. The original system of communal meals had been abolished, and the great hall now was a restaurant, where friends or solitary persons could eat by themselves, and choose what dishes they pleased. An interesting light on the sentiment which had thus revealed itself is thrown by another inquirer about a year afterwards. Many members, he found, were be- ginning to admit plainly that, though communal life was not without its advantages, they could any day make a very much better living by working directly for themselves or under a good employer than they could under a socialist system of so-called self-employment. A little later these further facts were recorded. Although the officials of the community had not very long ago claimed for the members a capital which, through their various savings, had come to represent an average of 700 per family, the truth had leaked out at last. Few of them had in reality managed to save anything, and those who had saved something had been, for some time past, investing their money, not in the stock of the community, but in various outside ventures which promised securer dividends. The wisdom of these persons was presently justified by the event. It ap- peared that from the very beginning that part of the members' incomes which had been paid to them in addition to their earnings as interest on their own 216 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY capital, had not really been interest, but had come out of the capital itself ; and that, though the new subscriber might have eased the situation somewhat, the cash of the Phalanx presently would have dwindled to the last dollar. That such was indeed the case became soon painfully evident. Provisions began to fail. The com- munal hall remained, with its apparatus of tables, but the tables at supper-time would very often be empty ; and the socialist edifice was sensibly tottering to its fall when the final crash was precipitated by a purely extra- neous accident. A large communal outhouse was one day destroyed by fire. The damage amounted to barely 2000, or less than what, according to the sanguine officials, had been the capital holding of any three average families ; and Horace Greely offered to restore the building himself. But the general opinion of the members was that affairs were hopeless. The end was not long in coming. The North American Phalanx, having lived out its twelfth year, was, in the language of its projectors, " stricken out of the categories of exist- ence," and its lands, like those of its predecessors, were once again submerged by the tides of individual ownership. 1 Experiments such as these, if each of them stood alone, might be looked on as too narrow in their scope, too much at the mercy of chance causes or accident, to afford a basis for any general conclusions. But the causes which proved fatal to all before twelve years were over were, in all these experiments, the same. To speak broadly, they may be reduced to two, one of them inhering in the nature of all collective industry, the other inhering in the nature of human beings, with the sole exception of small and essentially select minori- ties. The first of these causes was a want of ability in 1 As an example of the relative efficiencies of the socialist and capital- ist systems, it may be mentioned that one of the religious communities of America, not included in the accounts of Macdonald, Noyes or Nordhoff, came to an end about the year 1906. The members numbered about 200, the annual value of their property, as they themselves utilised it, having been about 40 per member. The short newspaper paragraph in which the incident was recorded wound up with the bald statement that the property had been acquired by a neighbouring millowner, who was erecting on it model dwellings for'three thousand workpeople. LANE'S EXPERIMENT 217 industrial direction. The second was a want of any general sentiment sufficiently strong and persistent to ensure that directions, if given, should be accepted with submission on the one hand, and carried out with a diligence punctual and sustained on the other, under a social system the essential object of which was to render the conditions of the worst worker equal to the con- ditions of the best. But before we discuss this question in any greater detail, there is another experiment which awaits our examination still the experiment of " New Australia," projected by William Lane. Lane, by birth an Englishman, had early in life been frenzied by the doctrines of Karl Marx, and had sought a career in Canada as an apostle of the universal strike. The effects of his oratory there, however, being not equal to his expectations, he betook himself to Australia, about the year 1890, in quest of human material more quickly inflammable. What he hoped for he found. Australia was at that time being agitated by a series of strikes so savage, so obstinate, and concerted with such deliberate care, that business was largely paralysed, banks were suspending payment, and the whole industrial structure seemed on the verge of ruin. Lane at last found himself in a thoroughly congenial atmosphere. To the native apostles of the strike-movement he added himself like a second Paul; but even here the trend of events, when he had watched it longer, disappointed him. The employers were, in appearance, being brought rapidly to their knees ; but the strikers more rapidly still were reducing themselves to a state of destitution; and the movement threatened to collapse, having only effected this that wages, which had been rising for the previous forty years, would have sunk back to the level of the year 1850. With a flash of genuine insight Lane adapted himself to the situation. The popular logic of democracy was, he realised, vitiated by one great defect. Labour was accustomed to tell itself that labour was all-powerful, for if the labourers ceased to labour, the employers would have nobody to employ; but a general cessation of labour was, so he saw, impossible, since, before the employers were ruined, the labourers would, if they still stood idle, be 218 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY dead. He accordingly began to address the Australian wage-earners thus : " As a method of getting rid of the employers I have," he said in effect, " hitherto preached the strike to you. I was wrong. I am here to show you a more excellent way. Instead of withdrawing our labour in the sense of ceasing to exercise it, the proper course for you and me to pursue is to withdraw our bodily persons, and our active labour along with us, and find some place of our own where we can labour for ourselves only. The employers, with no one to steal from, and nothing left to steal, will die like flies, as they should do ; but as for us, who produce all wealth already, whatever we produce we shall keep, instead of getting in wages not more than a third of it." Lane, who was gifted with remarkable powers of per- suasion, was soon the head of a large throng of disciples men who, drawn from the upper ranks of labour, had been earning, before the strikes, an average annual wage of some 170, and who, if they worked in concert under no other master than themselves would, according to his prospectus, all have uniform incomes of something above 500. In a time incredibly short he had, for the purpose of carrying his ideas into action, founded a Company, the subscriptions to which were beyond his extremest hopes. He was not, however, betrayed into any undue precipitancy. He began with paying certain men of experience to visit the likeliest countries, and discover what available territory would be fittest for the impend- ing enterprise. Such a territory was at last discovered in Paraguay. It was eminently ricfi in pasture, in cul- tivable lands, and forests, these last comprising some of the finest timber in the world ; it was half as large as an average English county; and, so long as the settlers did their best to develop it, the Paraguayan Government would concede it to them as virtually their own for nothing. This offer was accepted, and so ample were the Company's funds that Lane purchased a vessel which, packed to its utmost capacity, conveyed to the land of promise a first contingent of shareholders, and which would, it was so hoped, be making in the near future constant similar journeys. The voyage was marked by but two embarrassing NEW AUSTRALIA 219 incidents. Some of the immigrants were so affected by the air of equality that they wished to have their say as to how the ship should be navigated. It appears that they were somewhat surprised when ordered to hold their tongues. But greater friction was caused by certain of the younger members, not of the same sex, who developed a propensity to haunt the decks at night, two by two in joint contemplation of the moon. Lane may not have regarded romance as the tainted child of capitalism, nor capitalism as unmasked romance, but, he being a rigid puritan as well as a professed atheist, the one shocked him just as much as the other. He issued an edict that these proceedings must cease, and battened the young ladies down at the first approach of twilight. The would-be lovers, however, were more restive than the would-be navigators, and disputed the right of an equal to order his equals thus. Lane's answer was, " This ship is owned by a Company. Com- panies are governed by the shareholders, and share- holders have votes in proportion to the shares held by them. I have in my pocket a proxy for every share- holder we have left behind us, and my votes alone will outweigh those of the lot of you." To this anti-capitalist logic the lovers had no answer, and all disagreements were forgotten in the joys of a safe arrival. The pur- chase of cattle and implements, and the erection of temporary dwellings, had all the excitements of a picnic. These dwellings, constructed of rough woodwork and mud, were, as the builders observed, less fitted for men than animals ; but everything must have a beginning, and these were well enough as a makeshift. Meanwhile, money was so plentiful that one of their early transac- tions (as happened in the case of the Owenites) was the purchase of instruments for a band ; and as soon as matters were sufficiently far advanced, the incipient township was visited by officials of the Paraguayan Government : there were trumpetings, speeches, a great unfurling of flags, and the settlement was formally recognised under the title of " New Australia." The way to universal wealth, to universal equality, to true social democracy, to the brotherhood of emanci- pated man, now seemed to be clear. As the settlers 220 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY looked round them at their great herds of cattle, at the prairies green with pasture, at their forests waiting for the axe, at the soils promising plenty at the first touch of the spade, at all their accumulated implements of cultivation and woodcraft, and even at their simple shelters which soon would be solid mansions, their emotions were similar to those of the members of the Brook Farm Phalanx. They foresaw themselves setting an example which, at no very distant time, " the workers of the world " would follow, but first and foremost the wage-slaves of old Australia, who would presently come in their thousands, leaving that land of bondage, to enjoy the freedom and plenty of the New Australian paradise. In twelve years' time New Australia was a thing of the past. Most of the members were starving. Many of them were begging the officials of capitalist governments to pay their passages back to the home they had so rashly left. Lane himself disappeared as a ragged fugitive, and the only members of his company left in the socialist paradise were a few vigorous men who acquired lands of their own, and, growing into capitalists on their own account, became all of them substantial, and some of them very opulent, farmers. The precise events which led up to this catastrophe were partly due to the character of Lane himself, partly to that of his followers. In him, as in most demagogues, were united two tempers, and two sets of convictions. He was no doubt a believer in the natural equality of men, and in the equal and astonishing affluence which the masses would secure for themselves, the moment they escaped from the depredations of a small, dominant class. At the same time, as not only his conduct but also his own statements show, the conviction lay deep in his mind that these, his natural equals, could only achieve equality by submitting their wills to that of some one exceptional man " some better Napoleon," it was thus that Lane described him, " with the brain of a Jay Gould and the heart of Christ." In drawing this picture, he was undoubtedly drawing what he took to be a portrait of himself ; and, so far as the conception of his enterprise and its earlier stages are concerned, it is obvious that, apart from him, there would have been LANE AS A DESPOT 221 no such enterprise at all. Indeed, it may be said that on his part some measure of autocracy was inevitable up to the time when the settlers took final possession of their territory, and certain divisions of labour had at once to be made by somebody, for the purposes of running up dwellings, driving their cattle to pasture, and beginning some sort of cultivation. But though the spirit of the autocrat never deserted him to the last, a time came when he was compelled by his avowed principles, and also by a formal agreement of which he was himself the author, to place the control of industry on a purely democratic basis by handing it over to directors chosen by the workers themselves. This step came none too soon; for the spirit of pure democracy, which had twice asserted itself on the ship, had been subsequently exasperated by Lane on two still graver occasions. Lane was a strict teetotaler. He did not believe in God, but he believed that alcohol was the devil. Whilst the mass of his company were making their way to the settlement, he discovered that some of the mothers had brought with them jars of treacle, not for themselves, but for their children, to whom it was extremely soothing. Lane, who declared that treacle had the venom of alcohol lurking in it, gave instant orders that the jars should be snatched from them and thrown away. But the consternation which this act produced was mild in comparison with that produced by another. As soon as the settlement had assumed some semblance of order, Lane issued a formal and general edict forbidding the consumption by anybody of intoxi- cating liquor of any kind. But, although men's lips might obey him, he could not command their cravings, and at last it came to his knowledge that certain obsti- nate rebels had been drinking native whisky in taverns beyond the border. Faced by so gross an outrage on the part of his dear equals, Lane at once invoked the aid of the Paraguayan army, and those who had dared to disobey him were expelled from the socialist Eden by the bayonets of alien capital. It is not surprising to learn that a sentiment which had long been smouldering began now to express itself in the observation that Lane was " a changed man." But the spirit of pure 222 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY democracy had its own triumphs before it. On one occasion, indeed, it had shown its mettle already, when Lane, by a happy accident, was too far off to interfere with it. Before the mass of the immigrants transferred themselves to their new kingdom, a party was dis- patched in advance to make some preparation for their arrival. The journey took two days, the pioneers of democracy had to sleep on the way, and accordingly, when night drew on, the question arose as to where they should pitch their tents. No action could be taken till the general will had expressed itself. Hereupon there ensued a general chatter. One man was in favour of one spot, another was in favour of another, and whilst they were still disputing they were startled by drops of rain. These drove them at once to the only decision possible, which was to set up their tents on the nearest ground accessible into which they could drive a tent- peg. Of all the spots they might have chosen it hap- pened to be the most exposed. The rain turned to a deluge, the wind was rising rapidly ; their tents were blown down as fast as they set them up; the lamps in their stoves were blown out as fast as they put a match to them ; they could not cheer themselves with so much as a cup of tea ; and they at last exhibited to the sunrise, after a night under the naked sky, the first practical triumph of the principles of pure democracy. This event may seem trivial enough in itself, but it is not trivial as a type of what was about to follow during the twelve years that were ahead of them. At a very early stage of the drama, when Lane still acted as autocrat, the different groups of workers, whatever might be the tasks assigned to them, began to complain that their own work was the hardest, the rest being unduly favoured ; and when Lane's initial autocracy gave place, as agreed, to a system of industry controlled by " the people themselves," they were fully determined that these wrongs should cease. The workers under the new constitution were directed or superintended by officials of their own choosing ; and so complete was the concession made to the principles of pure democracy that if any group of workers was dissatisfied with the man chosen to direct them, a bell might be rung, a DEMOCRATIC IMPOTENCE 223 popular meeting called, the obnoxious official deposed, and another chosen instead of him. The general result was that, in every group, whenever a director tried to secure from his men work which seemed to them either too hard or too orderly, instant revolt ensued. The tocsin of democracy was sounded, and the director super- seded by another, certain sooner or later to suffer the same fate. The only work, indeed, to which they took with spontaneous vigour was that of ringing the bell a species of exercise in which the boys delighted. But this was not all. Except when united for revolt, the workers respected one another no more than they re- spected their officials. One of their industries was the cultivation of melons ; and so completely was the spirit of " each for all " absent, that they would trample down the fruit raised by the labour of their fellows if they could, by so doing, take a short cut home to their dinners. When they left their work they would con- stantly lose their tools, as things which, belonging to everybody, anybody might be left to find. They allowed their cattle to deteriorate for want of sufficient attention. Though they did a little dilatory wood-cutting for their own immediate purposes, one man only, whose example was not followed, endeavoured to show what wealth was lying idle in their enormous forests. Even in the matter of their dwellings, the settlers proved so helpless that many of them, when the enterprise ended, were occupying the huts which, when first hastily constructed, had been said by themselves to be fit only for animals. Nevertheless, these stalwart men, in possession of a most fruitful soil, and a very considerable live-stock, would hardly have been human if, however disorderly their work, they had not for a time provided themselves with the bare necessaries of life. It is true that, under their new conditions, their way of living at its best was poverty as compared with what it had been in the days of what they called their slavery; but for many years they were far removed from want, and even when it approached they were not at first conscious of it. But, meanwhile, the industrial millennium was as far off as ever; and at last, as they waited in vain for it, their efforts, such as they were, began gradually to decline. A 224 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY certain number seceded, demanding from Lane repayment of a portion of their own capital, and new arrivals from Australia did but in part replace them; but their first general awakening to the actual facts of the situation was due to Lane himself, who one day informed them of the interesting fact that, as matters then stood, the average value of the total product of each of them was less than the actual wages of an English agricultural labourer, and that ruin was directly ahead of them if they did not at once bestir themselves and do better than this. So desperate, indeed, did the situation prove to be that another remedy was needed of more immediate kind. This was the raising of capital by the sale of all their cattle, now miserable beasts, to some capitalist speculator, who gave for them little more than the bare value of their hides. The community breathed again, and Lane informed his followers that all would yet be well if they, who had once been earning 70s. a week, would only do work of the value of as much as 7 a year. His appeal would, however, have been fruitless if it had not, from some quarter or another, called forth a proposal which was accepted as a new revelation. " Our cattle," it was said, " may have gone, but our forests still remain. Let us use our capital as wages, and turn our forests into gold by employ- ing cheap native labour." Whatever Lane may have thought of this proposal himself, he gave it his sanction as the sole immediate means of securing the triumph of pure social democracy; and John Lane, his brother, was forthwith dispatched to Melbourne with the new programme in his pocket, to canvass for fresh members, and also for fresh subscriptions. He succeeded in obtaining neither. His failure, he explained on his return, had been due to two causes. One was what he described as " a slump in Australian socialism"; the other was the fact that they, whose avowed object was to escape from the tyranny of employers, were about to re-establish on their own account the accursed thing themselves. He had urged on the objectors that the principles of pure social democracy, and the doctrine that all men are equal simply because they are men, were applicable to white men only, and did not apply LANE'S LAST ATTEMPT 225 to their dealings with men who were black or yellow; but the long and the short of it was that his arguments and his mission had been in vain. Convinced at last that his enterprise as it now stood was hopeless, William Lane turned round on his fol- lowers, and informed them, like a Hebrew prophet, that their ruin was on their own heads; that the life-blood of socialism was a living and sustained enthusiasm an enthusiasm of each for all, and that this in them was wanting. " As for me," he said, " I can work with enthusiasts only; and amongst you," he proceeded, "though most have been found wanting, there are yet a chosen few who are men after my own heart." These he would take away with him, and he and they together, the majority being abandoned to their fate, would pre- sently build up elsewhere a Kingdom of Heaven for themselves. Of the abandoned majority, most, as has been said already, were shipped back to Australia by the charity of the heartless rich, whilst some remained behind and blossomed into substantial farmers on parts of New Australia which were granted to them as their own property. But the story of Lane and his remnant still remains to be told. It forms the climax of a drama which combined the incidents of an Aristophanic farce with the fatalities of a Sophoclean tragedy. It was alleged by many that Lane had retreated to a portion of the original settlement which he had long been coveting as the choicest for his own exclusive use. This was wholly untrue. He obtained from the Para- guayan government the concession of a new tract, com- paratively small, called Cosme, and there in the wilder- ness he and his chosen band began, with unquenched hopes, their work of construction over again. They erected a preliminary hamlet a cluster of forlorn shanties, adding to these, as the heart of their distribu- tive system, the inevitable common store, stocking it with such simple goods as their funds enabled them to purchase, and leaving each as a part of the " all " to draw from it whatever particular articles were for him or for her necessary. The faith of these persons in the principle of " each for all " was plainly a living force in them up to a certain point. Whilst waiting for the 226 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY dazzling wealth which they still believed to be imminent, it enabled them to bear with patience conditions of the nudest poverty food of the scantiest, dwellings that would barely shelter them, clothes that were little better than carefully mended tatters. But even in these elect Lane had occasion to observe that the spirit of private gain was by no means wholly wanting. For example, by the women constant efforts were made to secure from the one poor store better clothing or more of it than could possibly be supplied to all. He was, however, still so satisfied that the true socialist spirit would completely triumph in the end that he presently set out for England, prophesying a quick return with a new contingent of members crushed victims of capitalism, who were burn- ing to exchange slavery for freedom and impending opulence. Within limits he was as good as his word. He duly returned himself, and there came, visibly enough, some new converts along with him. These, indeed, might have been much more numerous had he only consented to add free love to his programme; but they could not, however numerous, have created on their arrival a greater sensation than they did. The old members were as wretched and as ragged as ever, but the new victims of capital had an air of such signal pros- perity that those who were enjoying economic freedom already could at first sight hardly believe them real. The feminine victims, in particular, were such figures of frills and fashion that Lane was soon the spectator of even more enthusiasm than he wanted. Every woman amongst his old adherents was glaring at her new sisters, and was eager, we need not suppose to tear them limb from limb, but at all events to appropriate the best of their boots and blouses. From that moment there was new discord in Eden, and Lane, who had thus far sur- vived discords so grave and many, was unable to com- pose this. Having admitted that socialism, or pure social democracy, had difficulties to contend with which he had not at first realised, but predicting that, never- theless, its future triumph was inevitable, he took himself back to a land where capitalism still was rampant, and sought for a private livelihood in the offices of a Mel- bourne newspaper. THE MISSING STIMULUS 227 Of all the secularist experiments in socialism, as at- tempted in the United States, it has already been said briefly, after a survey of the most important of them, that their failure was due to two and the same two causes, both of them inherent in, and peculiar to, the socialist scheme as such. The proximate cause, it was said, was the want of efficient industrial direction ; but the primary cause was the absence of any industrial motive which could, when the motive of preferential gain was elimi- nated, compel any regular response to industrial orders of any kind. These experiments show that, if we exclude the whip of the taskmaster, such work as is requisite for the success of a socialist polity can, under a system of equal rewards for all, be elicited only by a passion in each of the workers for some object which is external to all of them in the sense that the work of each affects his individual welfare, whether for better or worse, to a degree so small as to be barely appreciable by himself. This is precisely the conclusion on which Mr. Shaw insists, and from which, having insisted on it, he attempts in vain to escape; and this is precisely the conclusion of which, amongst the ruin of his own projects, Lane had at last a vision which was clearer even than Mr. Shaw's. Mr. Shaw calls the requisite passion " a sentiment." Lane gave it a much more adequate name when he described it as a passion which must not fall short of an " enthusiasm." Let us now, with the experiment of Lane before us, take the five together, and see how they all unite in teaching the same lesson. CHAPTER III THE DETAILED LESSONS OF EXPERIMENT WITH regard to these five entirely independent experi- ments, the most obvious fact to note is that the plot or story of all, as though they were Synoptic Gospels, is in Substance, if not in every detail, the same. In each case we have a group of human beings, nearly all of whom, with the exception of the Brook Farm venturers, were drawn from the upper ranks of wage-paid manual workers. In each case they were led to believe that the average man produces from three to four times as much as the modern employing class, in the way of wages, allots him. In each case they were led to believe that, when once the employer " had been stricken from the categories of existence," and the labourers had access in common to land and capital of their own, their lot would be one of equal and almost fabulous affluence. In each case they left the employer behind them. In each case they were provided with land carefully chosen, and a capital sufficient for starting those basic industries which, having such was their hope supplied them at once with comfort, would soon be followed by others productive of universal wealth. And yet, in each case, so far as their socialist lives were concerned, these dreamers of golden dreams ended in helpless beggary. That this could not have been the result, as some persons pretended, of a mere series of errors made in the choice of lands is shown by the fact that in each case, when the socialist community was dissolved, a certain number of the ex-members those who had any grit in them restored once more to the world of private motive and property, began on those selfsame lands to make an ordinary peasant's livelihood some, indeed, to lay the foundations of considerable and enduring fortunes. O?he 228 \. PARALYSED MOTIVE 229 industrial paralysis of which, so long as they submitted to a socialist rule, they were the victims, and from which, when that rule was ended, they forthwith re- covered, was the visible result of a paralysis of industrial motive, and this it is the avowed object of a socialist polity to produce. It consists of a temporary severing of those nerves or muscles by which the prospect of unequal gain is normally connected with the exercise of unequal effort, and a replacing of such prospective gain by the prospective gratification of a vague and diffused sentiment which, though not wholly fictitious, has no permanent tendency to stimulate those prosaic activities on which a continuous supply of even the necessaries of life depends. Every chapter in the history of all these experiments shows this. Thus, for example, the Owenites, so far as their lives depended on their own produce, would have died of want except during those periods for which Owen himself consented to wield the powers of an auto- crat, which were only his because the undertaking belonged to him, and he could, had he not been obeyed, have done at any moment what at last he did, and brought the entire scheme of equal distribution and " undivided interests " to an end. Whenever he trans- ferred the control of affairs to Councils, obedience to which was a matter of mere socialist sentiment, there was no obedience at all. Industry lapsed into indo- lence. Consumption outran production, and want once more began. Of the cultured idealists, who projected the Brook Farm experiment, one, looking back on it, said with regretful candour that its failure was inevitable from the first. Its success, he said, was contingent on the abso- lute supremacy of a sentiment which has, as a motive to work, no actual existence. In the mere fact of the family, he added, " we have an element so subversive of enthusiasm for general association that, for practical purposes, the two cannot co-exist." In the case of the Wisconsin Phalanx, socialist senti- ment was for a time more operative, but was finally extinguished by the wretchedness of its own results. Indeed, its more active members were in their heart of 230 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY hearts so little enamoured of equality, as an end in itself, that they sought to increase their incomes by wage- work in the world outside. The North American Phalanx owed its greater longevity and such, it ap- pears, was the explanation of its own projectors not to the driving force of a greater desire for equality, but rather to its careful concessions to the spirit of private gain. Moreover, quite apart from the question of the desire for equality as a motive, many of the members, long before its end was imminent, had begun to express their weariness of equality as an experienced thing ; and one of their number, with reference both to that body and others, subsequently made public, as the results of close observation, his own diagnosis of equalitarian sentiment generally. What he said may be briefly summarised thus. The sentiment in favour of equality, if taken in the socialist sense, owes much of its vogue, as the basis of a practical polity, to a certain class of propagandists, to whose temper, as though by instinct, that of the mass is always ready to adjust itself. These men are drawn, he said, from a class which is quite peculiar, " and is always to be found floating on the surface of any com- plex society a body of discontented, jealous, indolent spirits, disgusted with our present social system, not because it enchains the masses, but because they cannot render it subservient to their own private ends. This class," he said, " as experience shows, stands ready to mount any new movement that promises ease, abun- dance and individual freedom ; it has entered as an active element into all these socialist ventures ; and then, as soon as it becomes evident that the enterprise cannot continue to support men, unless everybody works his hardest, and in strict subservience to orders embody- ing general principles, these persons raise at once the old cry of tyranny and oppression. Anarchy ensues, and the enterprise goes to pieces." These words, which were used with reference to the American experiments generally, and to one experiment in particular, would have been still more poignantly applicable had they been used a generation later with reference to the experiment of Lane. What Lane learnt TRUTH UNDERLYING ERROR 231 from experience what the conduct of his followers taught him was this, that the equalitarian sentiment on which he, taking it at its face value, relied as the driving force of an industry by which all, irrespective of their various individual efficiencies, should be made the possessors of equal and almost fabulous wealth, was, in so far as it existed, a sentiment very different from that which he himself imagined. This sentiment was found by him, when viewed through the prism of experience, to resolve itself into three, all equally incompatible with the achievement of their professed object, one being a secret impatience of the burden of any industry what- ever ; another being an open impatience of anything like industrial discipline ; and the third being a jealous fear on the part of most lest some should, through superior energy, rise to any position which would overshadow their own. Sentiments such as these are not only in- sufficient to stimulate the production of any such wealth as it is the primary promise of socialism to distribute equally amongst all, but as Lane, like his predecessors, found out to his cost, they render the maintenance of even a tolerable poverty impossible. And yet, if we take a wider view of the matter if we take the sentiment which, identifying each with all, will tolerate nothing for self unless all alike share it and if we consider this sentiment as applied, not to any planned experiments, but to those vicissitudes of life which are intended or planned by nobody, we shall find that it is far from being altogether a dream. We shall find that, on certain occasions, it exerts a force so great as to be clearly measurable by the dynamometer of precise results; and, thus seeing what it can do, we shall be better able to sober ourselves by a definite understanding of what it cannot. That this sentiment may be practically operative in certain religious sects which are in their nature excep- tional, and which aim in a material sense at nothing more than the competence which is necessary for a peni- tential peace, has been pointed out already. But it still remains for us to note that on certain exceptional occa- sions it is actually operative likewise amongst ordinary men and women, and turns them for a time into socialists 232 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY without either their will or knowledge. Of this fact we have a trenchant example in the conduct of crews, either rowing to save themselves in the boats of a sinking ship, or struggling, in the hope of rescue, for food on a barren island. The objects and ambitions of all are here reduced to one that is to say, a bare escape from death. Even in situations such as these, a preferential care for self sometimes comes to the surface in singularly brutal forms; but when the persons concerned are sufficiently few in number to constitute an undivided flock, all hedged in by circumstances from which there is no escape, and each member being a witness of the struggles and sufferings of the rest, a sympathy of each with all becomes constantly so acute that each will work for the others as though their lives were his own, the strongest in particular being stimulated to supreme exertions by the spectacle of those who can do little or nothing for themselves. But desperate situations of this kind are not only in fact exceptional. They are the precise conditions which socialism aims at abolishing; and even though socialist experiments, with the exception of one detail, have resulted in conditions which were certainly no less des- perate, these have, in case of such experiments them- selves, entirely failed to produce that self-identification of each with the equal welfare of all which in other emergencies is, as a rule, conspicuous. The reason is that, when socialism has been attempted in practice, there has been no hedge of circumstance, as there is on barren islands, which excludes the persons concerned from any choice but the choice between selfless enthu- siasm and death. The socialist experimenters have had always a third alternative namely, that of walking away, and pursuing their own interest under circum- stances of a different kind ; and this was the very alterna- tive which they all in the end adopted. The actual extent and the limits of a selfless enthu- siasm for others may be further illustrated by other examples, which, though less extreme, are of wider range than these. In no countries is a generally democratic sentiment supposed to be more active than it is in America and Australia ; and this sentiment includes, we PROVED LIMITS OF ALTRUISM 233 may safely say, a sympathy with human suffering and a practical desire to alleviate it on the part of multitudes who are not sufferers themselves. Thus, if Japan were visited by an appalling famine, appeals on behalf of its victims would at once be made to Australian and American sympathies, and to no class of appeal would popular response be larger than it certainly would be to this. Nevertheless, when in normal times the Japanese have evinced a desire, by working for themselves in either of these two countries, to reach a higher standard of life than they found to be possible at home, American and Australian sentiment, the sentiment of Labour more particularly, has not only failed to welcome them, but has actually insisted on driving them back to con- ditions which, as measured by American and Australian standards, are poverty. Such diffused exhibitions of the actual extent and limits of average human sympathy are merely pheno- mena which, from the Middle Ages onwards, have been recognised by Catholic moralists as part of the order of nature. The sympathy which, in respect of the distribu- tion of material things, is possible for the average man, and the Christian religion demands of him, is, according to them, divisible into three grades, these being deter- mined by the circumstances of the person or persons by whom the " all," as objects of sympathy, happen to be represented. Let the " all " be represented by a single person A, and the generalised " each " by a single person B. If A be moderately prosperous, B, though much richer than he, will owe him nothing but a sentiment of general amity. If A be in difficulties but not in extreme distress, it will be meritorious on B's part, though not obligatory, to use his wealth in giving him judicious aid. If A's situation would be desperate unless aid were forth- coming, it will then be obligatory on B to give him what aid he can. To suppose that a sentiment proper to the last of these three cases could be or ought to be raised to the same pitch by the others is, unless we resort to a supposition more ridiculous still, to contemplate a change in human nature which would render peace or happiness impossible for any human being. For if all men should ever grow 234 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY sensitive to such an extreme degree that each man bewailed the lot of all other men as miserable whose incomes, though sufficient for life, fell short of his own, even the poorest classes in any rich country like England would be constantly tortured by the thought of countries like Russia and China, the total incomes of which, if divided equally amongst all, would still leave everybody poorer than the least skilled English labourer. But the matter does not end here. If human sym- pathy grew so acute as this, it would not concern itself with matters of income only. Other ills would remain independent of wealth or poverty, from the pangs of toothache to those of despised or bereaved love ; and these, diffused amongst all by a sympathetic contagion, would make everybody unable to smile whilst a single human being was weeping. Every bride and bridegroom would have to wear black at the altar for those who at the same hour would inevitably be burying their dead, and the news of one old woman with a toothache in Pekin would cast the gloom of midnight over every home in Europe. This oecumenical misery would be curable on one supposition only, which is merely the logical sequel of the root-supposition of the socialists. This is the sup- position that, if sympathy were really so super-sensitive that the wants and sorrows of others produced affliction in each man as though they were really his own, the happiness of others would conversely have a like effect on the miserable. In that case, not only would every bride feel her happiness blighted by the thought of con- temporary widows, but every widow would be consoled for the loss of her husband if on her way to his funeral she encountered a wedding-party. Not only would Mrs. Smith be robbed of all satisfaction in the silk of her Sunday gown by the thought that Mrs. Jones, her neigh- bour, went to church in alpaca, but Mrs. Jones, as her eyes strayed from her hymn-book, would be filled with satisfaction by the spectacle of Mrs. Smith in silk. This last supposition is one in which not even socialists would indulge Lane, as we have seen, discovered its fallacy for himself but it is in reality not more absurd than their own. The truth is that a certain thickness of skin, or a COMMON-SENSE ALTRUISM 235 certain sluggishness of the sympathetic imagination, is necessary for the mass of mankind in order to make life tolerable, just as a certain degree of obtuseness in the matter of hearing is necessary to protect them from sounds that would otherwise drive them mad ; and that kind of super-sensitive sympathy which will not be satisfied till all men are not only removed from want, but are equal in wealth also, may indeed haunt men's minds as a sort of ideal protest against certain forms of in- equality, but it does not provoke, or even tend to pro- voke, most men to any attempts at realising an ideal equality which they in their hearts view with repugnance, or at best with complete apathy. To suppose, however, that a sympathy of each with the lot of all is a sentiment which, except on occasions of rare and extreme danger, has no power whatever over the social lives of men, would be graver error even than that of the socialists, who make its power ridiculous by supposing it to be greater than it is. Without some such sympathy, some quasi-socialist sentiment, demand- ing and securing equality of conditions in some respects, there could be no such thing as civilisation, or even as a coherent tribe. In every society there is an element of socialism and socialist sentiment. If men have neg- lected this fact hitherto, they have merely neglected it because they took it for granted. One of the earliest examples of a socialist institution is a street. One of the principal modern examples of a socialist institution is the Post Office. On the other hand, the ultimate process to which both institutions minister is the growth and vitality, not of socialist life but of private. A socialist street exists to give access to private houses. The socialist Post Office performs, in transmitting letters, a like service for all ; but the letters themselves are private, indeed most of them are secret products, and minister, with few exceptions, to essentially private interests. That is to say, in each of these two typical cases there are two factors, two principles, two sentiments involved, and the error of all socialists is that, confining their attention to one of these, they imagine that it can operate alone. They reason like builders who proposed to complete a bridge by pulling down one half of its arch, \j 236 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY and using the bricks to beautify and extend the other. If they would but realise that the socialist principle in itself, which they take to be something new, is no new principle at all, but is one which (as ministering to, and assuming the action of, another) must always exist in any complex society, and that the sentiment at the back of it, in so far as it corresponds with anything actual, is normally a form of instinctive common sense, they might well be justified by existing social conditions in their attempts to rouse this sentiment into a more alert and more self-conscious activity. For, as has been here observed with reference to political government, though the principles of oligarchy and democracy are both equally necessary, their powers need not be always in precisely the same proportions. As the circumstances of any nation change, it will sometimes happen that for their solution a greater exercise of oligarchic power is necessary, sometimes a greater exercise of democratic, though in no complex society will either be operative alone. Hence, then, if, without regard to their details, the principles and projects of socialism are taken as representing an attempt to secure for the democratic principle a greater influence in some respects than, at present, it actually exerts, there is one strong reason, at all events, for supposing that this attempt indicates the actual existence of social mal-adjustments of some kind, in the cure of which the democratic principle will be a signally active element. The reason which makes this supposition antecedently probable is a fact analogous to one which was cited by Cardinal Newman as a proof in itself of the divine vitality of the Church. This fact was the scandalous character of Popes such as Leo X, in spite of which the Catholic Church survived. The same argu- ment is applicable to the principles and projects of socialism. Whenever these have been reduced to any definite form, they have shown themselves, in one way or another, so inconsistent either with the technical facts of industry or with the actual character of the great masses of mankind they have, moreover, when tested by experiment, always ended in such farcical failures that the unabated though vague response which they still continue to excite amongst masses of men every- THE: VITAL QUESTION 237 where cannot be otherwise than a proof that actual evils exist, against which these principles and projects are a protest and a call for help. To discover in these principles and projects what the residuum of actual truth may be, and how it may be developed into some practicable scheme calculated to allay the discontent of which socialism is the misleading symptom, is one of the most important tasks to which the practical statesman or the thinker at the present time can address himself. In the following chapters the principle of " each for all," as meaning that, without regard to the facts of individual production, all shall receive equal shares of the produce the principle sum- marised by Mr. Shaw as the essence of scientific social- ism, and as put by Lane and his predecessors to the test of direct experiment shall be reviewed with reference to the bald actualities of life ; and, absurd as it is when taken in the form with which socialists themselves invest it, we shall find that a something emerges from it which is, not only what Americans would describe as a "plain, practical proposition," but which also accords more closely with the actual sentiments of those who at present, for want of better, take the doctrinaires of socialism as their guides. BOOK V THE PHILOSOPHY OF SANE REFORM CHAPTER I THE IDEAL MINIMUM WAGE IN order to extract the truth underlying or latent in the socialist conception of a sentiment which, without regard to the facts of individual production, shall demand and secure equality in the distribution of the total product, it is necessary to realise that in such a conception as this, an absurdity is involved even greater and more radical than any of those to which attention has been called already. One thing at once is evident, and even socialists admit this, that in very simple communities, consisting mainly of peasants cultivating their own plots, the con- ception of distribution by sentiment would have no practical meaning. In such a community the differences of wealth are slight. Each man and his household, either by direct consumption or exchange (the latter process being hardly less simple than the former), visibly get the whole of their own product between them; and so long as this is the case distributive justice, as under- stood by all, will be satisfied. The idea of determining distribution, not by the facts of production, but by moral or social sentiment, acquires an intelligible meaning only when the mass of the workers, ceasing to work in isola- tion, co-operate in large bands, each of which is directed by the mind of a non-labouring master ; and when, owing to the development of mind as a productive agent, the members of the master class, together with their mental subordinates, actually come to produce, quite apart from 238 A CONFLICT OF SENTIMENTS 239 what they may steal, incomparably more per head of their small number than what is or could possibly be produced by any unit of the average mass. The idea of determining distribution by the dictates of a general sentiment which, filling the hearts of all, will demand and secure equality, necessarily presupposes inequalities of some conspicuous kind in production, for otherwise there would be little or nothing for such a general senti- ment, as an equalising agent, to do. How remote from reality is the supposition that any such sentiment exists in force sufficient to accomplish the task assigned to it, we have seen already by reference to a series of test experiments ; but it remains to be pointed out that it is not only inconsistent with facts, but that the very con- ception of it is also inconsistent with itself. If sentiment in any community is to have sufficient force to render the distribution of unequal products equal, what is really required, and what socialists un- consciously postulate, is not one sentiment animating all alike, but two sentiments sharply opposed in kind, though conducing to the same end, one of which will animate some of the citizens, whilst the other animates the rest. For unless the productive efficiency of all the citizens is equal, they will from the nature of things be divisible into two main classes the men who produce more than the average, and the men who produce less. Hence, if by the action of sentiment the distribution of the products is to be equalised, the sentiment which must animate the former will be one which impels them to transfer nearly the whole of their own products to other people ; and the sentiment which must animate the latter will be one impelling them to the very different, and perhaps less arduous, task of being " precious to human- ity " by demanding this transference as their due. Socialism, in short, as a scheme for equalising incomes by the action of two opposite sentiments severally opera- tive in two contrasted classes, would be a topsy-turvy reproduction of the iniquity which, according to Marx, is the essence of the existing system. Under that system, said Marx, the few live on the efforts of the many. Under a regime of sentimental socialism, the many would live mainly on the efforts of the few. Or, if socialists 240 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY should think this statement too crude in its candour, they might express their promises more delicately by describing a socialist polity as one which would secure for the great mass of its citizens indefinitely more than these citizens themselves produce. It may well be thought by sober and sensible people that the force of folly can go no farther than this. And yet in this very promise, and even in the detailed sup- position that some sort of sentiment exists which will in some near future bring about its accomplishment, there lurk certain elements of actuality a sane recognition of which may well lead to far-reaching modifications of the temper and actions of men under the conditions which exist to-day. In order to see how this is, let us begin by translating the general term " income " into the particular term " wages " ; for when socialists talk about equalising, and so raising, incomes, the incomes which they have in view are, as we have just seen, the incomes of the great majority ; and under the existing system, in all civilised countries, wages form the incomes and represent the material circumstances of at least four-fifths l of the population. Whenever the distribution of material things is discussed whether in a Papal Encyclical or on the platform of a social congress the question of wages is that towards which discussion gravitates. Further, though the question of wages may be looked at from many points of view, it is always, by all parties alike, discussed as a question which is primarily a question of quantity, and which, being so, is referable to some idea or, we may say, to some sentiment of justice. Socialists may say, if they like, that the wage- earner ought in justice to get, not only the full value of his own product, but more; but they, like everybody else, will maintain that the typical wage-earner should at all events get as much. Here, then, at all events, is one point of agreement; and this brings us back to the question of how, when a 1 This proportion does not hold good in Russia, Serbia, Bulgaria and certain other countries, in which the modern industrial system is but partially developed, and which are the poorest countries in the Western world. THE PERSONAL PRODUCT 241 multitude of wage-earners work, as is the case to-day, in co-operation with one another and also with a common master, we can measure what the individual wage-earner produces in his own person, as distinct from his fellows on the one hand, and from the common master on the other. Now, although, when men work collectively andT the product is collective likewise, we cannot do what we can when they work singly, and identify the product of each by the method of direct observation, it has been shown in an earlier chapter that it is measurable, in principle at all events, by a method no less valid. What each man virtually produces is so much of the collective product as would cease to be produced if his own efforts were withdrawn, or so much as is added to it if his efforts, previously absent, are added to those of some given number of other men. This method of measurement has been constantly used in war-time by employers when they have claimed for this or that member of their staffs exemption from military service, on the ground that his withdrawal would cripple the employer's busi- ness to this or to that precisely specified extent. This method is similarly applicable to a measurement of the respective products of different co-operating classes, such as the wage-earners and the employers of a country, each class being taken as a whole. It has thus been used here in a former chapter, when, in order to estimate roughly the actual product of the modern employers of England, a comparison was made between the product per head of the entire working population as it is at the present time, with what it was when scientific employ- ment had barely outgrown its infancy. In the case, however, of a class, such as the wage-earners as a whole, it is not generally practicable, as it is in the case of any employee taken singly, to remove them from the influence of the scientific employer altogether, and leave them to show their mettle by producing what they can for them- selves. Such being the case, then, the socialist experi- ments reviewed in the last chapter have here a peculiar interest quite apart from their consequences. They show that those who devised them recognised the funda- mental validity of this method of measurement them- selves, and their experiments were deliberate applications 242 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY of it in its most difficult and comprehensive form. " Our aim," said the founders of the North American Phalanx, " is, by eliminating the employers altogether, to provide an index of what the masses, as such, produce, and to show that, without aid or guidance from any class external to themselves, they may produce co- operatively all the means of life, and even increase the present rate of production." Lane said the same thing at greater length, and, so far as it went, in a really scientific way. The result of these experiments, as we have seen, was the very opposite of what the projectors anticipated. It showed that when the average worker deprives himself of the aid of a specially able directorate, the total product, instead of being maintained or in- creased, shrinks to a fraction of what it was when the ability of the directorate, was operative, this fraction alone being his true personal product. We need not, however, dwell on the details of these experiments longer. What immediately concerns us here is not that they yielded this or that precise result, but that they consti- tute emphatic admissions on the part of socialists them- selves, that out of the collective product of a mass of inter-acting workers it is perfectly possible to identify certain portions or values as the personal product of particular men or classes, and that thus, when we speak of the fraction which, whatever its precise amount, the wage-earner himself produces, we are not speaking of any fanciful quantity, but of one which in actual life is potentially measurable with quite sufficient exactitude. Let us take, for example, some industrial group con- sisting of 500 wage-earners together with one director, and suppose that the total product is expressible as x plus 40, x being what the wage-earners produce by their own personal faculties, and 40 being the product of the employer, or " the rent of his directive ability," in the sense that it is an increment which comes into being when he directs, and when he ceases to direct disappears. Thus the average product of each wage- earner individually will be x divided by 500, and the individual product of the director will be 40 divided by 1 that is to say, 40. Now, it is obvious that the system of oligarchy which WAGES OF EQUIVALENCE 243 the authority of the director represents would never have been developed at all unless some such increment had resulted from it, which went as a gain to somebody. Let us suppose, then, that the whole of it went to the employer himself. In so far as justice demands that each man shall enjoy the whole of whatever product is contingent on his own exertions, the employer in securing the whole of it will be acting with perfect justice. On the other hand, it is equally evident that if, by abusing his position, he appropriates anything more, his action will be grossly unjust ; for the " more," which must come from somewhere, can be nothing else than an abstraction from the personal product of the wage-earner. The wage-earner would, in that case, by submitting his technical efforts to the control of another person, how- ever superior to himself, get less for his own consumption than he once got, or might get, by working as his own master. No employer, not even the most grasping, if the matter were plainly put to him, would deny that by such an arrangement every sentiment of justice was outraged. Here, then, we have at once a standard below which, \ without injustice, no wages can fall. This standard is \ the amount which a man now working as a wage-earner could produce for himself, either by working in complete independence, or else as a member of some group of equals, no one of whom exercised any greater authority than the rest. If by working for wages under an em- ployer he gets less than this he is robbed. Let us sup- pose, however, that the typical wage-earner does not get less than this. Let us suppose that what he gets as a wage-earner is fully equal to anything which he could by his personal powers get for himself otherwise. How would the case stand then ? If justice relates to indus- trial facts only, all pretence that the man was robbed would be gone. His own personal powers, whether exer- cised under a master or otherwise, would yield him the ; same return namely, the whole of what they were capable of producing. Pure industrial justice would have nothing more to say. This is, however, not the whole of the story. In the first place, even if, in a strictly material sense, the inde- 244 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY pendent worker, by being converted into a wage-earner, lost nothing, he at all events, in a material sense, gains nothing; and in the second place he would lose some- thing which, though not material, is appreciable none the less. What he would lose is his independence ; and this is a something which, other things being equal, he would, to say the least of it, rather have than not. He would, therefore, through the wage-system, if he found himself compelled to submit to it, be obviously a net loser to a very appreciable degree; and the extent of his loss would be magnified in his own eyes when he saw that, by this same system, other men were conspicuous gainers. Without overestimating the moral sympathies of mankind, we may safely say that the situation of the wage-earners generally, as represented by a man thus circumstanced, would be recognised as contrary to justice, not by those only who suffered from the existing system, but by those also who personally did nothing but profit by it; and that, even amongst the latter, a socialist sentiment would develop itself which demanded that an injustice of so plain a kind should be rectified. What, then, if stated definitely, would such a demand mean ? If it were not a demand that the existing system should be abolished, it could only be a demand that those persons or classes who, though neither gaining nor losing otherwise, had through it lost an independence which they might still conceivably enjoy, should not merely receive as wages the entire value of their own personal products which is what they presumably would do if they worked as their own masters but that they should, when working as wage-earners, receive something more as well; this extra wage, which would necessarily come out of the increment produced by the employers themselves, being of such an amount that the wage- earners' loss of their independence might be reasonably taken as counterbalanced by it. But however evident the justice of such a demand might be, it is doubtful whether its power would suffice for the accomplishment of its own object, if abstract or ideal justice, and nothing more, were at stake. The truth is that all men have naturally a sentimental inclina- tion towards the Just; but in most men it tends to WAGES OF COMPENSATION 245 remain an inclination and nothing more, if justice, as related to any concrete question, is difficult to define precisely, if the means of achieving it are disputable, or if it appears to threaten any loss to themselves, or is anyhow not closely connected with their own immediate interests. If, however, it be made apparent to them that their own self-interest and the sentiment for justice coincide, the latter, thus liberated from all impending influences, will acquire that practical force which, as Lane found out from experience, pure socialist sentiment when put to the test lacks. This is signally true of ideal justice to wage-earners in its relation to those persons namely, the employing classes and their allies with whose self-interest it may at first sight seem most likely to conflict. To such persons, at all events, whatever it may be to others, the existing industrial system is essentially a source of gain. Their whole fortunes are bound up with it; and, if having paid the wage-earners the full and fair value of what the wage-earners themselves produce, they are invited on sentimental grounds to pay them something more as well, their natural impulses would be, whilst admitting that the invitation had force in it as a counsel of ideal perfection, to set it aside as a counsel too perfect to be practicable. But, if such persons will consider their situation further, they will see that their own interest in the existing industrial system is by no means limited to their gains from it at this or that given moment. They will realise that their interests are no less closely identified with a reasonable assurance that this system shall be secure ; and no system can be secure if the majority of those whose activities are essential to its operation, and who in this case are the wage-earners, have something to gain, and nothing to lose, by over- throwing it. Now, if wages were less, and were known by the wage- earners to be so, than what they could produce inde- pendently by their own unaided powers, the system which entailed this loss on them would, it is needless to say, be the object of their unmixed antagonism. The tasks which it imposed on them they would execute with a sluggish reluctance, in the hope that by thus crippling 246 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY it they would bring it altogether to an end ; and even if their wages were fully equal to the value of anything they could produce independently, the sense of their lost independence would suffice to engender a temper in them, perhaps of a less violent but of a no less hostile kind. What director of labour, if his men were in a temper like this, could feel secure from one year to another that his own directive ability would continue to produce anything ? His business, even if it did not collapse, would be structurally insecure, and would be always in danger of collapsing. If, then, with this situation confronting him, he compensates his men for their sense of lost independence by paying them an extra wage a wage which is over and above the industrial value of their products, and thus removes from their minds all positive grounds of enmity he will not only be doing what his sentiments have already, so we assume, suggested to him as an act of justice, but he will, as a business man, have taken a step essential to the security of his own fortunes, and will enjoy the comfortable sense of being a just man also. But although this extra wage this compensation for lost independence might eliminate from the temper of his employees the element of inevitable enmity, and indeed do all that abstract justice requires, it would still be insufficient in the long run for his own practical pur- pose. It is true that the employees, this extra wage being granted, would now have no ground for feeling that the employer and the system represented by him did them any positive injury, but they would have just as little ground for feeling that it brought them any positive good. They might cease for a time to have any interest in its overthrow, but they would be just as far as ever from being interested in its permanent maintenance. Such being the case, in the employer's own private interest a second supplement would be needed over and above the value of what the wage-earners themselves produced ; and the reason why it would be needed is this that a system whose efficiency and undisturbed continuance have no better basis than complete indiffer- ence on the part of the majority of those concerned in it, hardly possesses more structural strength than one THE WAGES OF STABILITY 24T whose popular basis is a sentiment of unmixed antago^ nism. A system which rests on the indifference of the majority of those concerned in it is, indeed, in equi- librium, but the equilibrium is not stable ; and the second extra wage will be necessary in order to render the con- dition of the wage-earners, not only equal to the best which they possibly could compass for themselves, but so definitely and indubitably superior to it that any crippling of the system through which such advantages were secured to them would be recognised and dreaded by all of them as fraught with calamity for themselves. Thus of these two wage-sums, each of which is some- thing in excess of the full value of the wage-earner's personal product of the product which, apart from the employer, he would be able to produce by himself we may call the first the Wages of Industrial Equilibrium, and we may call the second the Wages of Industrial Stability. The latter would constitute for the wage- earners, taken collectively, a stake in the existing system analogous to a stake in the country a stake which, though smaller in the case of each wage-earner as an individual, is no less real than that of the great employer, and which is, if taken collectively, beyond all com- parison greater. Regarded, then, as a general concept, the ideal or typical wage which mere self-interest would agree with the sentiment of justice in prescribing would not consist in practice of three separate portions, but would be found, when analysed, to be a compound of three ele- ments. 1 The primary element we may call the Wages of Economic Equivalence, this being prescribed not only by industrial justice, but also by the self-interest of the 1 An Australian correspondent, writing to a London paper in July 191 7 with regard to wages, mentions that Australian wage-courts deal with the just wage as a composite quantity, in a manner not unlike that indicated in the text. " The basic wage," he says, " is laid down as a wage which will enable the average employee to renew his strength and maintain his home from day to day. The secondary wage is re- muneration for gifts and qualifications requisite for the performance of skilled functions." No reference is made, however, to the principle insisted on in the text, that some ultimate reference must be always implied to what the wage-earner could produce for himself, if he worked as his own master. 248 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY wage-earners and the employers alike. The second, which is compensation to the wage-earners for their lost sense of independence, is prescribed by the self-interest of both the two parties likewise, and coincides with the demands of sympathetic or human justice. The third, which, when added to the others, converts the whole into a wage sufficient to ensure stability, not only coin- cides with the suggestions of political or social justice, but is demanded by the ultimate self-interest of the employer who pays it, no less than by the immediate self-interest of the wage-earners to whom it is paid. Thus from the most fatuous of the doctrines or implica- tions of socialism there emerge, when these are submitted to dispassionate but sympathetic analysis, ideas and principles which in many ways closely resemble them even in their most unlikely particulars, and impart to them a vital meaning by reducing them to a reasonable form, just as a scientific inventor might reduce Swift's dream of a flying island to an aeroplane. This will become yet more evident when our analysis of wages is concluded. Meanwhile, with regard to mere sentiment as a social or economic force, our analysis as thus far carried will suggest the following question. If the demands of justice in relation to wages coincide with those of self-interest to the extent which has just been indicated, does justice, as a moral or socialist sentiment, practically demand anything which diffused self-interest would not demand without it ? And to this question it may be answered that, if it did nothing else, justice, by merely repeating what self-interest dictated, would repeat it in a tone or language which would carry to many minds much deeper conviction ; but, if our analysis of wages as a quantitative question were complete, it could hardly be said that, if taken as an independent force, the sentiment of justice plays a larger part than this. Our analysis, however, is as yet so far from com- plete that it has, if taken as it stands, no definite relation to concrete facts whatever; and when we come to con- sider it as susceptible of application to these, the inde- pendent functions of justice or we may say if we like of mere socialist sentiment will be found to exceed anything which our argument has as yet suggested. FACTS AND CONCEPTS 249 The ideal wage, whether as the just wage or the wage of industrial stability, we have thus far treated as a general concept only ; but, when we come to translate it into terms of actual life, it will not be a general concept, but some particular thing, which, as we shall see, varies according to particular circumstances, and to which the relation of justice of moral or socialist justice as distinct from mere self-interest will be found to vary also. CHAPTER II MORALS, WAGES AND SECURITY No general principle relating to a matter like wages will have any practical value unless we are able in any concrete cases to express its demands in terms of some definite pecuniary amount. Now, in any concrete case that is to say, in the case of any actual country the amount of any wage, whether this be just or unjust, which could possibly be made universal, must lie some- where between two definite limits. The lower limit is a wage-quantity sufficient to keep the wage-earner in bare bodily health, and we may call this Wages of Necessity. The upper limit is, in the case of any given country, the average product per head of the occupied population as a whole. Now this latter fact, though no less obvious than the former, makes one thing clear which sentimentalists often forget. The average product per head of different populations differs. It was com- puted, for example, by statisticians towards the close of the nineteenth century that, if the National incomes of Spain, Austria, Portugal, Italy and Russia had been divided in equal shares amongst their adult populations generally, the income of no individual, whether a wage- earner or anybody else, could in Spain have exceeded eleven shillings a week, in Austria, Portugal and Italy nine shillings or ten, and that it could in Russia not have exceeded seven, whilst in France, England and America the corresponding average would have ranged from twenty-eight to forty. Hence, if a just wage bears any relation whatever to the maximum theoretically possible for all, it cannot be any absolute sum which is due in justice to all workers alike, on the ground that they all of them are workers and human beings. It must be a sum which, in each particular case, is due to them on 250 MINIMUM WAGE AND MANHOOD 251 the ground that they are citizens of some particular country, and it will in some countries be twice, three times, four times, or even five times as great as in others. But this is not all. The just wage, whatever its amount may be, will not be different in different countries only. It will in the same country be different for different men. For the purpose of momentary illustration the assump- tion has just been made that, in any given country, all the wage-earners are, as productive agents, equal. As a matter of fact, however, their respective products vary, and the barest industrial justice will, as we have seen already, demand that their wages shall vary in like proportions. By no one is this latter proposition en- dorsed with greater emphasis than it is by the spokesmen of specially skilled labour, who are often more anxious to maintain the graduation of wages than they are for the moment to secure an immediate increase. Thus, whatever, as expressed in terms of some general average, the ideally just wage may in any given country be, justice will mean for some men a larger wage than for others, and for certain of these others it will necessarily mean some minimum; and, as will appear when the matter is considered further, it is with the ideal minimum that moral or sentimental justice, as diverging from or transcending self-interest, is mainly, if not exclusively, concerned. With regard to the minimum wage, no less than to any other, mere self-interest will demand that it constitutes a wage of stability that besides representing the value of the personal product of the wage-earner, it carries with it certain extra advantages, sufficient to ensure his attachment to the system under which he receives them. But so far as the employer is actuated by self-interest only, these extra advantages might, it is quite conceiv- able, be provided by him in kind, just as well as in money. They might take the form of so many kegs of whisky, added every Saturday night to so many weekly shillings; and so long as the whisky kept the wage-earner in a good temper, deprived him of any wish to strike, and did not make him incapable of doing his work on Monday, the mere self-interest of both parties would be satisfied. But moral justice, though it might 252 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY not demand of the employer any greater expenditure, would arrive at the sum in question, not indeed by wholly, but by largely different methods. Admitting that the ideal minimum must be partly measured by reference to the stability of the industrial system, it would view it in relation to something else as well a something quite incompatible with a wage which, how- ever ample, was half made up of intoxicants. This something is the life of a human being as a moral end in itself; and it will, as thus considered, include all those faculties and impulses, together with the develop- ment and satisfaction of them, by which all men not subnormal are generically distinguished from even the highest of the subhuman animals. It includes man's spiritual or ideally moral impulses, whether these are associated with any definite religion or no. It includes his capacity for the great primary affections, for some acquisition of knowledge, for the exchange of thought, for something at all events in the way of artistic taste, and for ordinary social intercourse. In the eyes, then, of moral justice the minimum wage of stability will represent, not merely the net advantage of one industrial system over another. It will represent the material means by which even the least efficient of men the men who have no talents but such as are virtually universal- may secure, if they use these reasonably, a life which, as an end in itself, is worthy of human beings. That such is the case is shown clearly enough when the logic of the problem is expressed in terms of a religious creed, as it has, for example, been expressed by various Catholic thinkers in dealing with the relation of the Church to the industrial conditions of to-day. Thus the two Papal Encyclicals known as " Rerum novarum " and " Graves de Communi " lay it down that in the fixing of wages, though regard must always be had to the industrial possibilities of the time, and an element must always be present of pure business contract, " there must nevertheless always underlie the contract an ele- ment of natural justice, anterior to the will of the two parties and superior to it "; and it is further laid down that the object of such " anterior justice " is " to secure that the wages of the worker, even when these are no LIMITS OF MINIMUM 253 more than the minimum, shall be such that he will feel himself to be not a mere economic implement, but a man who (in living a life of human relationships) is free to devote himself to the attainment of the final and spiritual good for which we all came into the world." Here we are again brought back into the regions of prosaic business. The bald question confronts us of how a minimum wage ideally sufficient for these moral and spiritual purposes, and also sufficient for the stability of the industrial system by which it must be itself pro- vided, can be expressed in precise terms of pounds, shillings and pence. What, in other words, is the minimum on which a man can afford to be a man ? Now, for the simple reason which has been pointed out already, that the range of possible wages differs in different countries, the question admits of no general answer. It has, however, been rendered much more difficult than it need be by a class of perverse senti- mentalists who, by exaggerating the claims of justice, tend to divest them of all practical meaning. To this error many thinkers are liable whose knowledge and judgment otherwise entitle them to sincere respect; for if we allow ourselves to be guided by mere moral ima- ginations of what might be, our conceptions of an adequate minimum will have no limits at all. Thus two English economists, writing shortly before or after the close of the nineteenth century, have gravely committed themselves to the assertion that if the whole of the then income of England, including taxes and savings, were equally divided amongst all for the purpose of annual spending, each man's income would provide him with but a meagre instalment of what, for its full develop- ment, the nature of man demands. Now what do such statements mean ? The only sane meaning which can possibly be read into them is a vague suggestion that the productive powers of the people of England generally should, to an indefinite degree, be somehow or other increased ; and if the persons by whom such statements are made were armed with some practical scheme by the adoption of which a result such as this might be accom- plished, they might be justified in fomenting discontent with the utmost possibilities of the present as a means 254 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY of exciting the masses to some definite action through which some ampler lot might be possible for them in an immediate future. But so long as the persons in ques- tion have no such schemes in their pockets, and are quite unable to indicate anybody else who has one, these inflated estimates of the minimum to which every man, as a man, is entitled, can do nothing but manufacture a general mood or temper which will of necessity, for nine men out of ten, make any kind of content with human life impossible. 1 Such a mood, though many examples of it might be cited, and though it is sufficiently common to be mis- chievous, is no doubt, in its more extreme forms, excep- tional ; but it is not for that reason any the less instruc- tive. 2 It is neither more nor less than the moral and logical consequence of that sentimentality, mainly of middle-class origin, which suggests impossible estimates of what justice demands for all men estimates which tend to render, in the judgment of those affected by them, a maximum wage hardly less inadequate than a minimum. The homely truth and this men naturally realise when 1 Of this mood or temper a very interesting example was provided in the year 1917, by the language of certain men who figured as the leaders of strikes amongst the munition workers of Sheffield. Of these men, who were mostly young engineers, there was one who expressed the sentiments of himself and his fellows thus : " We are asked/' he said, " to fight for our homes. Our answer is, that we have no homrs to fight for. The best homes of the English workers to-day are in oue opinion no better than dog-kennels," whilst another developed the sentiments of his colleague thus : " We don't," he said, " want to fight, and we don't want to work either. The only men 1 can see as has got any money don't work at all." These young men were all of them earning wages far in excess of anything which an equal division of the entire income of the country could have possibly rendered general only forty years before ; and yet, despite this fact, they were more discontented than their fathers, and were discontented in a far more irrational way. 2 This very mood, since the words in the text were written, has spread like a conflagration in Russia, and has been the despair (for the time at all events) of the more rational of the revolutionary leaders. The Russian correspondent of a London paper reported an impassioned appeal of M. Kerensky to the masses, urging them not "to waste their time in thinking of the best things they could imagine, but to strain every nerve in securing the bet things which it was possible to get." THE NORMAL LOT 255 no germs of artificial suggestion disorder their common sense is that, if they are ever to be contented with their material circumstances at all, they must adjust their estimates of satisfactory circumstances to facts. Hence, unless the average workers, who naturally earn less than those whose skill is exceptional, are doomed by the nature of things to a life of subhuman misery, there must, in any given country and at any given time, be a certain minimum wage which will lie somewhere between certain definite limits, and which average men, or the workers of least efficiency, will recognise and accept as just, because it is (the largest practically possible. If we suppose, then, that in any given country such a minimum wage has been fixed which at once repre- sents for the recipients a better lot than would be theirs were they left to their own devices, and is also sufficient for the needs of a reasonably human life, the fact of its being so recognised will not mean merely a recognition of it as the largest minimum possible. It will mean that the lot represented by it is, and for the time must be, the normal human lot, with which every man ought to be content, unless by exceptional talent of one sort or another he is able, as an exception, to provide himself with some addition to it. The only question, in short, which the lot of those receiving such a wage will suggest will be, not why these men get so little, but why anybody else gets more. The minimum lot, however, though the minimum wage is the foundation of it, is, as we shall see presently, not necessarily determinable by the minimum wage alone. Justice and self-interest alike will prescribe certain additions to it which, though closely connected with wages, belong to different categories. Of these we shall speak presently. But, so far as mere wages are con- cerned, moral or sentimental, as distinct from merely legal, justice, when the minimum has once been fixed, need have nothing more to say. For when we turn from the workers who earn the minimum to those of greater efficiency who, in varying degrees, earn more, there is no necessity here for any renewed insistence on the fact that a certain minimum is due to all workers alike on 256 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY the ground that they all are human. The wages here in question will in any case be more than this, and the larger sum will include the less. A larger sum will be claimed by this worker and that, not on the ground that he is a man, but on the ground that he is a man whose special productive faculties are, as measured by their results, definitely greater than the faculties possessed by others. What this excess amounts to must be settled by technical evidence relating exclusively to this or to that case ; and all that justice can do which it has not done already will be to pronounce as to some particular man that, whatever the excess may come to, the full value of this shall be included in the wages due to him. It will thus be seen that, when wages exceed the minimum, justice divests itself of an element which was, in fixing the minimum, one of the first importance. When justice enjoins that the minimum shall not be less than so much, there is always in any such judgment an element of hypothetical compassion compassion for those whose condition, if they got less, would be pitiable. But when a minimum which satisfies justice has been once definitely secured, the element of compassion in respect of any higher wage disappears. If justice decrees that the wages of some exceptional man shall be, not the minimum oc, but x plus 5, or 10, or 20, as the case may be, it does so, not because his condition if he got less would be pitiable (for x is sufficient to remove him beyond the reach of pity), but because x plus some extra quantity happens to be the value of this particular man's work. Compassion in his case would be, not justice, but favouritism; and even when in fixing the minimum justice calls compassion to its aid, it aims at expunging everything which could possibly form an excuse for the action of such a sentiment afterwards. To say this is merely to say what a clear recognition of facts would turn into a political axiom namely, that any numerous class, the co-operation of which is essential to any industrial system, is a constant cause of industrial instability and danger if any elements provocative of i reasonable compassion survive in it. Let us suppose, then, that so far as mere wages are concerned the minimum so far being the key to the ECONOMIC SECURITY 257 whole situation the demands both of moral justice and industrial stability are satisfied. But even if so much be granted, a satisfactory scale of payments for current labour will not do more than partly cover the case. Account must be taken of three other conditions, the relation of one of which to the minimum wage is so intimate that it ought to be here dealt with as though the two were inseparable, the second and the third being reserved for discussion in a separate chapter. The nature of this first condition may be briefly ex- plained thus. In order that wages under a system of industrial oligarchy may satisfy the demands of justice and of general stability likewise, they must, let it be said again, include not only the equivalent of anything that the wage-earners could produce by themselves, but certain additions also, so that such wages, as the results of the oligarchic system, will represent for the wage- earners a balance of net advantage. ^foreover, of such wages one essential element must be compensation for the independence which the wage-earners under a system of oligarchy lost> If, however, with regard to their broad features, we contrast this oligarchic system with what history exhibits as its democratic alternative, we shall see that what the workers lose by exchanging the latter for the former is not independence only. Let us take, for example, a peasant cultivating his own plot, and compare him with a mechanic working for wages in a factory. The product of the peasant may be worth fifteen shillings a week, the wages of the mechanic may be thirty shillings; and the peasant, in becoming a mechanic, might feel that a doubled income more than made up to him for the privilege, which he had to sur- render, of prescribing the details of his own task-work to himself. He will, however, it is constantly urged, have lost by the change, not his technical independence only, but something else as well, for which no mere wages can compensate him, and this something is security. So long as he owned the materials which render production possible these for the peasant being , land he could always produce something, although it v might not be much; whereas if he works for wages, no matter how ample, he may any day be dismissed, and - 258 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY ^fo^ some indefinite time may be able to earn nothing. This contrast is very often exaggerated (for the peasant is not secure from the danger of bad seasons), but there is hi it nevertheless an important element of truth. The wage-earners, in losing their ownership of the means and materials of production, have increased their incomes as a whole, but the security of the individual income has been very considerably diminished. The mere fluctua- tions of business, apart from sickness or accident, may any day, in the case of any individual, cut off his income for the time being at its source an event which is for the working-owner impossible. The proportion, indeed, of workers affected by such calamities may, at any given time, not be actually more than five out of every hun- dred; but the chance of their occurrence will, in count- less wage-earning households, do much to counteract the contentment resulting from present plenty. It will, indeed, do more. It will tend to promote amongst con- siderable masses of a population the peculiar sense or sentiment which socialists describe as " proletarian." By this they mean the consciousness of a certain eco- nomic insecurity which is not necessarily connected with inadequate wages, but which results from, and is for the wage-earner a constant reminder of, the fact that the materials and implements of his work are not personally his own, and that his access to them being thus deter- mined by persons other than himself, these persons have somehow dispossessed him of something which he once enjoyed. This idea of dispossession, as the socialists themselves suggest it, is in many respects altogether fal- lacious. If in any typical country let us say, for example, England we take the wage-earners as they are to-day on the one hand, and the implements and ma- terials of production as they are to-day on the other, it is absolutely absurd to say that there ever was a time when the wage-earners, or the ordinary workers, were personally in possession of either. The materials of pro- duction are represented mainly by Land. The wage- earners of England and their families number to-day nearly thirty-five million persons. In the days when agriculture was the principal occupation of the country, THE RIGHT TO WORK 259 and when a statutory interest in the soil was most nearly universal, the total population did not exceed four millions. In what sense can some thirty additional millions regard themselves as dispossessed of a limited geographical area which had never been possessed by a similar body at any time? What is true of the ma- terials of production is true of the implements also. The typical implements of to-day, which are vast scientific mechanisms, not only never have been, but by no possi- bility could have been, possessed by each unit of the mass of labourers using them. It is true that a thousand weavers might, as equal shareholders, possess the plant of a great mill between them; but this fractional form of possession this possession by each of a thousandth part of the whole would not be the kind of possession enjoyed by their great-grandfathers, each of whom, through possession of his own hand-loom, could use his implement of production when and how he pleased. The wage-earners have not been dispossessed of the main implements of production which are in use at the present day, and 'on the use of which the increase in their lown wages depends. They have not been dispossessed of land on which, in their present numbers, the mass of them could ever have maintained themselves. Nevertheless, development of the very conditions which make large wages possible has been accompanied, so far as the individual wage-earner is concerned, by a certain insecurity which was in the days of small earnings and diffused ownership absent ; which socialists, though they [grossly exaggerate it, are right in regarding as a very serious evil, and which thoughtful persons of strong conservative sympathies have come to recognise as a serious evil also. For this evil, in the opinion of all competent thinkers, > the remedy must be sought in one or the other of the two following forms either in some form of insurance i against periods of involuntary unemployment, or else in some statutory recognition of what is called the Right to Work. These two schemes, though they both lave the same object, involve or imply different methods )f reaching it. A system of insurance would protect the 260 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY willing or potential worker against loss of income through loss of immediate opportunity of work by guaranteeing him a livelihood till suitable work was found. A recog- nition of the Right to Work would involve an obligation on the part of the State or some public body to provide him with work at once of one sort or another, and pre- sumably to pay him a wage proportionate to his highest potential efficiency, whether the work actually found for him were worth such a wage or no. Both these schemes are beset with obvious difficulties. Any scheme of insurance, if it really had the effect of rendering any man who happened to be out of employment as well off as he would be when doing his normal work, would naturally tend to render unemployment popular, and \/ thus to foment the evils the pains of which it was meant JXs^to neutralise. Insurance, however, can, as experience shows, be largely carried out by the persons concerned / themselves; and, all of them being interested parties, */ precautions can be taken by their own general vigilance against any great abuses of the funds which they have themselves subscribed. On the other hand, the Right to Work, as recognised and guaranteed by the State, though much more logical and soundly moral in theory, is, by reason of its greater completeness, beset as a practical scheme by difficulties much more formidable. It is logically and morally sounder because, instead of pensioning idleness, which might very often be voluntary, it aims at providing for all the conditions of continuous industry; but, for reasons already men- tioned in the course of an earlier chapter dealing with political government, its logical development would, in most countries at all events, be hampered by limits which no government could remove, or would else depend on conditions which no government could ensure. In countries like Australia or New Zealand, which are but sparsely occupied, the State might conceivably for many generations to come secure the right to work for all possible applicants by grants of virgin land; but in old countries such as England, every acre of whose usable land is occupied and used already, no such course is possible. A NATION'S RIGHT TO WORK 261 If in such countries the State is to provide re- munerative work for every one of its citizens who are unable to find such work for themselves, it can, as Mill points out, fulfil this obligation on one condition only on condition that in some way or other it is empowered to limit their number. It might, as Mill suggests, con- ceivably limit their number by legal restraints on marriage ; it might do so by forced emigration. In any case a limitation would have to be effected somehow. But quite apart from any difficulties connected with increasing numbers, the power of the State to guarantee remunerative work for everybody is limited ultimately in a way more obvious still. It is contingent, not on the mere numbers of whatever may be the population in question, but on the wealth of the population rela- tively to its numbers also. For work provided by the State would be work provided only because none other was forthcoming. It would be a kind of work for which there was no natural demand ; and the payments made by the State for it would, in an economic sense, be merely a drain on the wealth of those who were employed nor- mally. If the community as a whole was prosperous, especially if its wealth were increasing, the cost of State- paid work might be more than counterbalanced by its advantages. But if the wealth of any community were as a whole declining, no system of State-paid work, no system of insurance against loss by unemployment either, could avert the doom which would threaten, not the wage-earners only, but the heads of those enterprises also out of the gains of which the wages were paid. States have risen and fallen, such as Carthage, Venice, Florence, and will rise and fall again. They have risen through the enterprise of their rulers and the answering activity of the ruled, whether in war, in industry, or in trade. They have fallen through the fortunes of war, through the rise of rival industries, or some gradual changes in the trade routes of the world. What could State-paid work, what could any system of insurance against unemployment do to avert the doom which would, in cases like these, threaten the wage-earners and the payers of wages alike ? What could they have done 262 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY to maintain the vanished argosies of Venice, or to recreate prosperity amongst the ruins of Carthage ? If, however, the general conditions of industrial pros- perity be given namely, an harmonious interaction of oligarchy and democracy on the one hand, and a wage- system having as its basis a just minimum on the other either of these devices, namely, insurance against un- employment or a statutory right to work, or both taken together, might accomplish, or go far towards accom- plishing, the result which is here in question. That result is the provision for every honest and willing worker, not only of a wage which is just in respect of quantity, but also a permanent opportunity of earning it, or else some sort of guarantee that if the opportunity on this or on that occasion is not at once forthcoming, the worker, meanwhile, shall not suffer in consequence. The achievement of such a result, or even the partial achievement of it, would be tantamount, in its effects on the wage-earners, to a re-diffusion of small industrial ownerships. For, in the case of the working owner the hand-loom weaver, for instance his earnings being a given quantity, the ownership of the implements used by him is materially advantageous or even perceptible to himself for this reason only, that his right to work or his opportunity of working is established by it. If, then, by working as a wage-earner under the direction of a scientific employer, and by using the implements with which the employer provides him, he not only earns far more than he ever did or could do by working as his own master, but also recovers under another form the permanent opportunity of working which the personal ownership of his loom or of any other implement gave him, the balance of advantages derived by him from his technical status of wage-earner, as compared with those derivable from working as his own master will, in respect of his mere material circumstances, be as great as either moral justice or his own self-interest could demand. But even if we assume that all these conditions are fulfilled, there are, as has been said, two others, which both justice and self-interest will demand for the wage- earner likewise, if the conditions of industrial stability, MORAL STATUS 263 so far as he is concerned, are to be complete. One of these is distinct from mere material claims altogether. It relates to the moral esteem due to him, quite apart from his wages, as a member of the wage-earning class. The other, closely connected with moral esteem likewise, relates to the individual wage-earner, not as a type of his class, but as a unit of it who is, if he can, entitled to rise out of it. I CHAPTER III THE RIGHT TO RESPECT WE have seen that in estimating the amount of a just minimum wage regard must be had, not to the wage- earner's physical needs only, but also to the decency of his home as distinct from its mere comfort, and to a reasonable gratification of his moral and other human emotions. Such being the case, then, in considering these last, we have thus far had in view two quantities only. One of these is the wage-earner, who is a moral and emotional being as well as a mere worker. The other is some aggregate of material goods or conveniences such as house-room, chattels, clothing, food and drink, newspapers, books, tobacco, means of amusement which in the form of wages is offered to him as the reward of his work, the opportunity of working being guaranteed to him at the same time; and if our argument as thus far stated were complete, the wage-earner would, so long as these goods were delivered to him, feel that every debt due to him from the employer or from society had been discharged. If, however, we take men as they are, experience and observation will show us that amongst the wage-earner's natural desires there is one which no mere wages, however just, could satisfy. This is a desire on the wage-earner's part in respect of his dealings with the employer, for what we may call just treatment as distinguished from just payment. The difference between these two things and the im- portance of it were illustrated in an interesting way by a letter from a professional agitator which was addressed to, and published in The Times, towards the close of the year 1916. It related to a wage dispute one of extreme bitterness then in progress in the South Wales coalfield, and professed, in language of a relatively temperate 264 OVERBEARING CONDUCT 265 kind, to enlighten the general public as to what were its main causes. The ostensible matter at issue was a matter of wages only. A certain wage was, by a stand- ing agreement, due to the miners under certain trade conditions. The dispute turned on the question of whether or no these contemplated conditions had arisen, and it might in principle have been settled by an audit- ing of the employers' books. But behind any facts connected directly with wage-rates, there lay, said the writer, one of a much more general kind. This, he said, was the fact that the personal tone or attitude adopted by the employers towards the men had shown for many years such an absence of all " good will " that the men would put no faith in the employers' books if they saw them. Indeed, he continued, to make a long story short, the behaviour of the employers had become so " over- bearing " such was the word in which the essence of their offences was condensed by him that the men were resolved to put up with it no longer. Now, whatever the rights or the wrongs of this par- ticular case, the word " overbearing " gives a very sufficient clue to the kind of personal treatment which the wage-earners naturally resent, and it serves, by its implied contrast, as a clue to the kind of treatment which, whether they analyse it or not, they claim naturally as their due. ^What, then, as appHied to conduct, does the word " overbearing " mean ? j It is a word in very common use. It, or its equivalents, have been familiar to all men in all ages, and the kind of conduct which it indi- cates is no invention or monopoly of the industrial employers of to-day. As soon as we begin to analyse if, it will be found that its essential element is an implied denial by one man of some sort of equality in another which the latter believes, and obstinately feels himself to possess ; and a belief or feeling that all men are equal is, in some sense, and always has been, so widely dif- fused that it cannot, in the case of the wage-earners, be set down as a foible of individual vanity. What, then,- we must ask further, is the nature of the equality the; existence of which this feeling or belief asserts ? The most logical explanation of its nature is provided 266 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY by the supernatural doctrine that every human being possesses an immortal soul, each soul being in God's eyes equally precious, and that all men, even if they cannot explain it, carry about with them a dim consciousness of this. It is logically explicable also, though with a logic less complete, on the assumption that every man possesses a quasi-supernatural conscience, to whose dic- tates it is the supreme duty of all men equally to con- form. But, quite apart from attempts to explain it by religious or mystical theory, a sense of the existence in all men, unless they themselves destroy it, of some moral and equal dignity, is a sense which, as a matter of fact, is, like the sense of self, co-extensive with the human race. It is, for example, expressed in the celebrated line of Terence Homo sum : humani nihil a me alienum puto which, as St. Augustine says, would always rouse the plaudits of heathen playgoers. It cannot be sup- posed that these " vain and ignorant persons " (for so St. Augustine called them) had any definite belief in God, the soul, or conscience as the Christian world under- stands them; but the residual equality, of which they proclaimed their recognition as existing between man and man, was an equality of relationship to something of which conscience is virtually the equivalent, and it will for practical purposes be most clearly described as < ~~the equal right of every man to his own self-respect. The kind of conduct, then, which is commonly called " overbearing " is, in the last analysis, conduct on the part of one man towards another which shows a want of respect for the respect which the other man entertains for himself ; and the correctness of this definition, and its signal pertinence to the case of the modern employer and the wage-earner, is curiously illustrated by the fact that in ancient Athens conduct of this precise kind was recognised as a legal offence, even when indulged in by a master towards a slave who was in law his chattel. This offence was technically known as hubris a word denoting conduct which is injurious to the suffering party, not because it inflicts on him any material wrong (of which the modern economic equivalent would be the payment of insufficient wages), but because it is a pro- DANGERS OF BAD TEMPER 267 vocative outrage on his moral estimate of himself. In making such conduct even towards a slave penal, the object of the Athenians was indeed their own self-interest rather than moral justice. Their object was to render the slaves contented, and by so doing to promote public tranquillity; but in making such a provision they bore witness to the fact that a due respect in a superior for the self-respect of the humblest is one of the main conditions on which popular contentment rests. And what the Athenian recognised as true even with regard to slaves, is on purely utilitarian, as distinct from all moral grounds, still more vitally true with regard to the wage-earners of to-day. There are two main reasons of a purely utilitarian kind why the modern employer should respect the self-respect of the wage-earner. One of these, though its range is no doubt limited, is that in many cases a wage-earner's self-respect is one of the. chief qualities for which the employer values him. No employer would assign any \ position of trust to a man in whose character he knew self-respect to be wanting; and any employer would be blind to his own interests if he did not respect in others the principal quality which rendered them of value to himself. The second reason relates to all employees, whether in positions of trust or no. The main general conditions which every employer desiderates are, firstly, a calculable peace with his workmen in the matter of wages, and, secondly, their best efficiency in the doing of the work prescribed to them; and unless the self- respect of his workmen is respected by him in a reason- able way, he will jeopardise his own chances of securing or conserving either. The general explanation of this fact may be given in very homely language, and applies to all human relation- ships, the domestic as well as the industrial. To outrage the self-respect of man, woman, or child is the surest way of putting either him or her into that condition of mind known as " a bad temper." Thus the story is on record of a child the daughter of a very eminent person who, having one day been discovered in a state of war with her brother, a year younger, she explained the matter by saying, " John has broken my dignity." 268 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY Bad temper is, indeed, the cause of half the private tragedies of the world ; and it is so for this reason that, if it be more than a passing fit of irritation, it generally takes the form of imputing to another person motives and feelings grotesquely different from and invariably worse than those by which, in giving offence, that per- son is really actuated. If a husband, agitated by the assaults of his wife's lap-dog, spills the contents of a cream-jug over the silk of her new tea-gown, she, should she view the act through the medium of bad temper, will declare that it was done deliberately for the mere sake of annoying her. If next day he slips on a mat, and deluges her with the contents of the tea-pot, she will say, and begin to believe, that such conduct is part of a scheme for making her whole life miserable. If she catches him next day in a corner confiding these events to a sister-in-law better looking than herself, she will soon add infidelity to her list of his other crimes, and be watching for evidence on the strength of which to divorce him. So long as such a temper lasted in her, no reconciliation by appeal to facts would be possible, for she would have lost all power of discerning what the actual facts were. And what is true of individuals is true also of classes. If the wage-earners of the modern world are treated by the employers generally with such a want of personal consideration as to put them into a mood of chronic and diffused resentment, the conduct of the employers other- wise that is to say, in matters of wages and technical discipline however fair it may be, will be pre-con- demned by them, and construed into an imaginary' offence against themselves. It should, therefore, be evident to any intelligent employer that, if what he wishes for is industrial peace and prosperity, he must not regard the debt which he owes the wage-earners as one which can be liquidated by just wages alone, but that he must also, by his personal behaviour towards them, pay a debt of fellow-feeling to a self-respect on their part, of which no men morally honest could, if they would, divest themselves. In theory, at all events, the matter is thus far plain. Here, however, in practice there arises an obvious GRADUATIONS OF RESPECT 269 difficulty. Since this self-respect of the wage-earners is a sentiment a respectful recognition of which is owed by the employer to all his wage-earners equally, the peculiar quality in themselves by which their self-respect is excited must be a quality which they all possess in substantially the same degree. If any man's own respect for his own particular manhood is held by him to deserve respect from an employer or from anybody else, which could not be accorded indiscriminately to the self-respect of all, he must hold this opinion on the ground that, besides possessing the quality which imparts a dignity to the lives of all human beings alike, he personally pos- sesses others, which exist in some men only. If, more- over, his estimate of his own deserts is to be taken seriously by others, the exceptional qualities which he thus attributes to himself must be qualities which really exist in him, and correspond to his own valuation of them. If they do not if they exist in his imagination only his own self-respect will be not self-respect at all, but vanity, or self-consequence, or self-importance ; and the conduct of those who ignore, instead of respecting it, will not be " overbearing " ; on the contrary, it will be severely kind, or which is still more to the point it will in any case be inevitable. A bad fiddler's respect for himself as a man may deserve as much respect as a good fiddler's, but the bad fiddler would be absurdly self-important if he thought that his fiddling deserved the same attention. The same argument applies to the moral or social debt which, as from one set of human beings to another, is due from the employers to the wage-earners in the way of personal treatment. The kind of respect which is due to them because they are men and the importance of this debt can hardly be overestimated is due to them for the one reason, and the one reason only, that it has its basis in certain actual facts, and it is important only in so far as it corresponds to thesg,. Whether as a natural fact or as a supernatural factual! men, just as truly as they all have a nervous system,vhave, though it is often subconscious, a certain self-respect which rests on no claims to any special efficiency, which is much more nearly akin to modesty than it is to vanity > which 270 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY responds to fair recognition like a horse to a sympathetic rider, but which is at the same time very easily wounded ; and when it is wounded, either by direct affront or by not being reasonably satisfied, it converts itself into a spirit which will not be satisfied with anything. If, then, any harmonious co-operation between the two classes is to be possible between the employers and the employed between the representatives of the oligarchic principle on the one hand, and the representatives of the democratic principle on the other the former must pay to the latter, not one debt only, but two. They must not only pay to the wage-earners a debt which expresses the technical, the industrial, or the material facts of the situation. They must pay a second debt also, in the way of a personal behaviour which expresses a recog- nition of the moral facts as well ; and it is only by thus discharging the moral claims of the wage-earners in so far as these rest on facts, that the danger arising from claims, at once moral and material, which are out of accord with facts, and which nothing could satisfy, can be averted. But as yet we have dealt with one half of the question only. It remains to be noted that this moral debt must be mutual. If the behaviour of the employers to the wage-earners is to be based on, and to express a recog- nition of actual facts, the behaviour of the wage-earners to the employers must be based on, and express a recog- nition of actual facts likewise; and however completely the behaviour of each class to the other may express the moral equality which actually exists between them, certain inequalities will persist, a like recognition of which will be necessary for the same reason. The tech- nical function of the employer is to give orders, and the function of the wage-earner is to obey them ; and this inequality is not the result of accident. Any employer who has built up a great business has done what thou- sands attempt to do, and what only a few can do. His success and the maintenance of it are due (as a socialist writer already quoted admits) to the fact that he is the " natural monopolist of some special business ability "; and all such ability, when exercised, is in the last analysis an application of talents and energies, which are CONTEMPT FOR WORK 271 conspicuous only in a few, to the task of directing and co-ordinating the operations of many, in whom such gifts are absent, or present only in a much smaller degree. If, then, for the purpose of securing co-operative harmony a personal behaviour is due from one party to the other which recognises vital equalities in so far as these exist, this primary element of behaviour must necessarily be combined with a second, by which equally real inequalities will be recognised no less plainly. If men who are unequal in their relations to any practical enterprise mimic a behaviour, and cultivate a mood of mind which imply that they are, in these particular relations equals, they are reducing life to a foolish game of pretence, which will bring them into constant collision with its most fundamental facts; and co-operative har- mony will be farther off than ever. But although the ideal behaviour of each of these classes to the other can be indicated clearly enough as a matter of general principle, it is impossible, even by way of suggestion, to reduce its details to any precise code. Nobody unfamiliar with what goes by the name of " Society " will enable himself to pass muster as a member of it by reading a book on etiquette before he goes out to dinner. The one thing needful, which no such book could teach him, is a certain something which can only come from habit, and from a host of subcon- scious associations which render his sympathies kin to the sympathies of those around him. Similarly, the personal behaviour accorded by the two great classes, the employers and the wage-earners, to one another must, if it is to answer the purpose of securing so- operative harmony, have at the back of it some feeling or sympathy, which alone gives it its value, which alone can prescribe its details, and for which no calculated conformity to any code could be a substitute. The efficiency of such behaviour depends, not on its forms, but on the spirit of which it is the vehicle ; and its spirit will be best understood by considering, as a matter of history, the most familiar manifestations of the over- bearing behaviour which is its opposite. Of overbearing behaviour towards industrial workers the most familiar historical example is to be found in 272 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY pre-revolutionary France; but France, in the persons of its then ruling classes, did but represent a mood which, in one form on another, is as old as civilisation itself. This mood was one of contempt on the part of the noble, the intellectual, indeed of the cultured classes generally, for all who worked in pursuit of economic gain, the latter comprising, not the labourers only, but with a few exceptions, the employing classes as well. The employing classes of France were, indeed, the first persons to be stung by this contempt into any organised action, and to raise by way of retaliation the battle-cry of the " Rights of Man." In France, indeed, and else- where in Europe also, this contempt was more than a matter of mere behaviour. It was embodied in a social system which, closing the roads of ambition to all but nobles and churchmen, was felt by the employers, or the bourgeoisie, as a daily experienced insult. But, as later revolutionists have never been weary of saying, contempt for the workers, as such, was never experienced in its full force by the masses till the employing classes of France had climbed into the nobles' places ; and con- temporary English economists, in dealing with the labouring masses, had, as the philosophers of a new system of industry, not only ignored their manhood, but deprived them of the very name of men, by converting the labouring man into so much abstract labour. Now, for certain theoretical purposes this substitution of labour for the man who labours is necessary. In so far as we are concerned with the process of production only, the labourers are labour. They are practically nothing else. As Marx himself said of them, they are simply so much Force. But the formula which presents them in terms of this abstract quantity came, as a matter of fact, to be more than a formula, or an instrument of scientific investigation. It came to express a certain moral temper by which, in dealing with their men, the new race of great employers was permeated. When writers such as Ricardo said of some given industry that a " fresh dose of capital " would be needed in this case, and " a dose of labour in that," or described the regions ideally fit for an enterprise as those " in which labour is at once cheap and abundant," they expressed a conception of RESPECT FOR MANHOOD 273 things on the part of the employing classes from which the image of the labourer as a man had actually, for practical purposes, disappeared. This result may in part, at least, be explained by the fact that in proportion as the number of labourers whose work was directed by a single brain increased, as the business of directing them became more abstruse and complex, and the directions had to reach the labourers through a growing number of intermediaries, the person- alities of the labourers became necessarily more remote from the great modern employer than they were from his typical predecessor, who worked by rule of thumb, who could see all his men at a glance, and could talk to each individually in the course of a single morning. But the moral fact remains that the increasing intellectual- isation of industry has been accompanied, in the persons of the employers, by a certain defect of vision, which, though leaving their employees visible to them, perhaps more clearly than ever, as technical mechanisms of so many kinds and qualities, has rendered their manhood, as such, a hardly distinguishable shadow. And this general fact has a natural tendency to express itself in the temper, the mood, the behaviour, not only of one of the two parties concerned, but of both. In each case the behaviour in question corresponds to what is meant by " overbearing," in the sense that it implies a dis- regard of certain essential facts. In the case of the employers it implies a disregard of that natural self-respect, a want of which would render the employed contemptible. In the case of the em- ployed it implies a disregard of those abilities and func- tions which the employers must necessarily possess and exercise if they are not to betray their own interests and those of the employed also. Of these two kinds of behaviour, or of these two moods as expressed by be- haviour, the first provokes the second. The employers ignore, or tend to ignore, the moral claims of the em- ployed. The employed retort by ignoring the dynamic functions of the employers. So long as this battle of conflicting exaggerations lasts, nothing in the nature of co-operative harmony is possible ; and of the two kinds behaviour which co-operative harmony demands it 274 LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY will be enough to say, if we content ourselves with speak- ing broadly, that they must represent a certain revul- sion from those which now prevail. Such a statement, however, though sufficiently correct and intelligible in respect of its general suggestions, must, before we can press it closely, be very carefully qualified. The requisite moods or behaviours must not be merely revulsions from those which prevail at present. Mere revulsion from one form of error may easily lead to another perhaps even more unfortunate. The im- portance of this consideration, and of the dangers which may arise from a neglect of it, especially in relation to the behaviour of the employers towards the employed, are illustrated clearly enough by the suggestions of many reformers who, in the interest of the employers them- selves, are inclined to adopt and press, in some even of their most exaggerated forms, the demands of the wage-earners as their own. It has, for example, been urged with a view to indus- trial harmony, by persons of conservative temperament, whose enlightened sagacity otherwise calls for sincere respect, that a just personal treatment, as accorded to his staff of wage-earners by the typical employer of to-morrow, will ultimately involve some such arrange- ments as the following, in which the practicable and the impracticable are curiously mixed together : (1) A taking of his wage-earners generally into some sort of co-partnership. (2) A frank and fraternal disclosure to them of the total profits of his business, and of the principles on which these are distributed. (3) A giving to them a full control of so much of the productive process as can properly be called their own. (4) A consultation with them on fraternally equal terms as to any new methods or mechanisms which he has himself invented and may think it desirable to introduce. Suggestions of this kind, as coming from conservative quarters, are valuable for two reasons. In the first place they are witnesses to the importance of mere mood, temper, or behaviour, as conditions of co-operative har- mony. In the second place they show how readily, in TRAVESTIES OF RESPECT 275 the case even of thinkers whose aims are essentially temperate, claims and expectations which are, within limits, reasonable, may by the mere impetus of sympathy be carried far beyond them. Thus, that the wage-earners should, in a way not at present general, be consulted as to matters affecting their own convenience, is not only morally just, but is strictly reasonable also ; for as to such matters even the least intelligent wage-earner knows far more than the employer. 1 Further and here is a point with which presently we shall deal again it is absolutely essential for the purposes of industrial peace that the wage-earners should somehow be put in possession of evidence which will show them beyond all doubt the normal ratio of wages to the value of the total product. But to claim that the employer should evince his fraternal respect for them by taking them as a body into his counsels with regard to methods, mechanisms, and the new conceptions and new knowledge involved in them, is to claim what in practice is impossible, and what even if imagined in any detail would be absurd. The great industries of to-day depend mostly on principles mechanical, chemical and mathematical, which few minds can follow, fewer still can master, and which cannot be expressed exactly otherwise than in complex formulae, which to nine men out of ten would be wholly devoid of meaning, and as to the application of which not one man in a thousand could form a judgment of any practical value whatso- ever. How could a great ship or a great steel bridge be constructed, how could a new chemical be brought into general use, if before the construction or manufac- ture began all the intricate problems involved in its design or composition had to be submitted for approval to every man who hammered a rivet, turned a tap, or helped in moving a carboy from one shed to another? How could the thought of Darwin have been ever com- municated to the world if, before his works could be 1 The argument in the text was used, in a very temperate way, by Mr. J. R. Clynes, M.P., a Labour Member, in an address delivered at Oxford, August 2, 1917 ; in which he urged the desirability