WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES OWE TO EACH OTHER ^$or r >fTMt- r By WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER With an Introduction by ALBERT GALLOWAY KELLER Professor, Department of Social Sci^mes Yale University Harper & Brothers Publishers New York and London WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES OWE TO EACH OTHER Copyright, 1883, 1920, by Harper & Brothers Printed in the United States of America Published April, 1920 D-U CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE FOREWORD v INTRODUCTION 7 I. ON A NEW PHILOSOPHY: THAT POVERTY is ^^ THE BEST POLICY 13 II. THAT A FREE MAN is A SOVEREIGN, BUT THAT A SOVEREIGN CANNOT TAKE "TIPS" ' 28 III. THAT IT is NOT WICKED TO BE RICH ; N A.Y, EVEN, THAT IT IS NOT WICKED TO BE ir- RICHER THAN ONE^S NEIGHBOR ... 43 IV. ON THE REASONS WHY MAN IS NOT ALTO- v GETHER A BRUTE 58 V. THAT WE MUST HAVE PEW MEN, IP WE WANT ^ STRONG MEN 72 VI. THAT HE WHO WOULD BE WELL TAKEN CARE , OF MUST TAKE CARE OF HIMSELF . . . / 81 VII. CONCERNING SOME OLD FOES UNDER NEW FACES 101 VIII. ON THE VALUE, AS A SOCIOLOGICAL PRINCI- PLE, OF THE RULE TO MIND ONE*S OWN BUSINESS 112 IX. ON THE CASE OF A CERTAIN MAN WHO IS NEVER THOUGHT OF 123 X. THE CASE OF THE FORGOTTEN MAN FARTHER CONSIDERED 134 XI. WHEREFORE WE SHOULD LOVE ONE AN- <^ OTHER 153 FOREWORD. "I HAVE just finished re-reading Sumner's Social Classes" remarked an emeritus colleague of Sumner's, recently. "I used to think it was too hard. It is hard, but, confound it! it's true." There are at least two good reasons for bringing this little book to the attention of a second generation: there is in it the sort of truth that can never be out of date; and it is a brilliant piece of writing. If it had no more than historical value, it would deserve, by reason of its special qualities of style and spirit, to be republished over and over again, as other keen and epigrammatic essays on social relations have been; for such documents of energetic conviction conserve the living spirit of their times and form pleasing and pro- ductive oases amid wastes of arid chronicle and prosy lucubration. But there is more than historic value in Social Classes; it presents a series of acute observations on human nature and the social order that belong to no one time or place. It is an impassioned vindication of individu- FOREWORD. alism, if you will, and a resolute arraignment of the social meddling and social doctors that were popular in 1883, are now, and perhaps always will be. It is a blunt exposition of the author's understanding ofjaissez-faire that is, / "Mind your j3wn business^ which, he says, ^ is'^iFHo^trfnT of liberty. It advocates only the ftim^ase, multiplication, and extension of opportunity. "In the prosecution of these chances, we all owe to one another good will, mutual respect, and mutual guaranties of liberty and security. Beyond this, nothing can be affirmed as a duty of one group to another in a free state." If any age ever needed an unflinching state- ment of the individualistic position, even though that position be overstated in the heat of controversy and in disgust with the social doctors, it is this present age. At a time when the world is menaced with the curtailment of civil liberty and the paralysis of individual initiative through weird and grotesque develop- ments of socialism, it is altogether wholesome to listen again to the voice of one stout-hearted and uncompromising exponent of sense, even though it be hard sense. The man who takes to heart the truths in this little book cannot be led by the nose even into that pseudo-open- mindedness that toys with bolshevism and anarchism. ,- It is true that Social Classes is the outcome FOREWORD. of the study of a population predominantly rural and agricultural, and that parts of it need to be read with that fact in mind. To that degree it is of historical rather than con- temporary interest. But its main thesis will not be out of date while men live together in society; for it is a clear call to the standard of civil liberty as guaranteed by a free state. And it is an inspiration to any one who admires pluck and hard hitting in defense of stout conviction. A. G. KELLER. WEST BOOTHBAY HARBOR, MAINE, August 6, 1919. WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES OWE TO EACH OTHEit. INTRODUCTION. WE are told every day that great social problems stand before us and demand a solu- tion, and we are assailed by oracles, threats, and warnings in reference to those problems. There is a school of writers who are playing quite a rdle as the heralds of the coming duty and the coming woe. They assume to speak for a large, but vague and undefined, constit- uency, who set the task, exact a fulfilment, and threaten punishment for default. The task or problem is not specifically defined. Part of the task which devolves on those who are subject to the duty is to define the prob- lem. They are told only that something is the matter : that it behooves them to find out what it is, and how to correct it, and then to 8 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES work out the cure. All this is more or less truculently set forth. After reading and listening to a great deal of this sort of assertion I find that the ques- tion forms itself with more and more distinct- ness in my mind : Who are those who assume to put ji'trd questions to other people and to demand a solution of them ? How did they acquire the right to demand that others should solve their world-problems for them? Who are they who are held to consider and solve all questions, and how did they fall under this duty? So far as I can find out what the classes are ho are respectively endowed with the rights and duties of posing and solving social prob- ; ems, they are as follows : Those who are bound to solve the problems are the rich, comfortable, prosperous, virtuous, respectable, ''educated, and healthy ; those whose right it is to set the problems are those who have been less fortunate or less successful in the struggle t for existence. The problem itself seems to be, How shall the latter be made as comfort- able as the former ? To solve this problem, and make us all equally well off, is assumed to be the duty of the former class ; the penalty, if L OWE TO EACH OTHER. they fail of this, is to tion. If they cannot make everybody else as ^weEf off as themselves, they are to be brought down to the same misery as others. During the last ten years I have read a great .jnany books and articles, especially by attempt has been made to set up ^ the State '\ as an entity having conscience, power, and will sublimated above human limitations, and as constituting a tute- lary genius over us all. I have never been able to find in history or experience anything to fit this concept. I once lived in Germany for two years, but I certainly saw nothing of it there then. Whether the State which Bis- marck is moulding will fit the notion is at best a matter of faith and hope. My notion of the State has dwindled with growing experience of life. (As an abstraction, the State is to me' only All-of-usT] In practice that is, when it exercises will or adopts a line of action it is a little rou]3 of hap-hazard way .. by the majority of us to per] form certain services for all of us. The ma-^ jority do not go about their selection very rationally, and they are almost always disap- pointed by the results of their own operation. 10 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES Hence " the State/' instead of offering resour- ces of wisdom, right reason, and pure.moraL. ^girr , ............ - * ' ' ^ " " " s$rise beyond what the average of ujLI>QSSs< , gOTeraliy offers mu^ Furthermore, it often turns out in practice that " the State " is not even the known and accredited servants of the State, but, as has been well said, is only \t hidden in the recesses of a Government bu- reau, into whose power the chance has fallen W ' for the moment to pull one of the stops which control the Government machine. In former days it often happened that " the State " was \a barber, a fiddler, or a bad woman. In our $ (day it often happens that "the State" is a / \. & tittle functionary on. whom a big functionary pT *y 5 S forced to depend. JT \f I cannot see the sense of spending time to & read and write observations, such as I find in the writings of many men of great attainments and of great influence, of which the following might be a general type: If the statesmen could attain to the requisite knowledge and wisdom, it is conceivable that the State might perform important regulative functions in the production and distribution of wealth, against which no positive and sweeping theoretical OWE TO EACH OTHER. 11 objection could be made from the side of eco- nomic science ; but statesmen never can ac- quire the requisite knowledge and wisdom. To me this seems a mere waste of words. The inadequacy of the State to regulative tasks is agreed upon, as a matter o.a>fit, by jalL__3V'hy, then, bring State regulation into the discussion simply in order to throw it out again? The whole subject_ought to be dis^ Qussed and settled., aside, from the hypothesis ofJ5tate_ regulation. The little group of public servants who, as I have said, constitute the State, when the State determines on anything, could not do much for themselves or anybody else by their own force. If they do anything, they must dispose of men, as in an army, or of capital, ( as in a treasury. But the army, or police, or I posse comitatuS) is more or less All-of-us, and the capital jn the treasury. js_. the jproducJLpf thalabor jmd mviog of AU-of -us. Therefore, when the State means power-to-do it meansr All-of-us, as brute force or as industrial force. ! \ _If anybody js to benefit jrom the action of L If, then, the question is raised, What ought the State to do for labor, for trade, for manufactures, for 12 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES the poor, for the learned professions ? etc., etc. that is, for a class or an interest it is really the question, What ought All-of-us to do foi / Some-of-us? But Some-of-us are included in All-of-us, and, so far as they get the benefit of their own efforts, it is the same as if they worked for themselves, and they may be can- celled out of All-of-us. Then the question which remains is, What ought Some-of-us to do for Others-of-us ? or, What do social class- owe to each other ? I now propose to try to find out whether there is any class in society which lies under the duty and burden of fighting the battles of life for any other class, or of solving social problems for the satisfaction of any other class $3also, whether there is any class which has the right to formulate demandssjon " soci- ety " that is, on other classes ; alsi^whether there is anything but a fallacy and a supersti- tion in the notion that " the State " owes any thing to anybody except geace, ordej 1 , and tliu gi^antees^of rights. I have in view, throughout the discussion, the economic, social, and political circumstances which exist in the United S OWE TO EACH OTHEK. 13 I. ON A NEW PHILOSOPHY: THAT POVERTY IS THE BEST POLICY. IT is commonly asserted that there are in the United States no classes, and any allusion to classes is resenteST On'TfiS' other hand, we constantly read and hear discussions of social topics in which the existence of social classes is assumed as a simple fact. "The poor," "the weak," "the laborers," are expressions which are used as if they had exact and well- understood definition. Discussions are made to bear upon the assumed rights, wrongs, and mis- fortunes of certain social classes ; and all public speaking and writing consists, in a large meas- ure, of the discussion of general j>lans^ for meeting the wishes of classes of_peppla who havejnot been able to satisfy theirjjwn desires. These classes are sometimes discontented, and sometimes not. Sometimes they do not know that anything is amiss with them until the "friends of humanity" come to them with 14: WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES offers of aid. Sometimes they are discon- tented and envious. They do not take their achievements as a fair measure of their rights. They do not blame themselves or their parents for their lot, as compared with that of other people. Sometimes they claim that they have a right to everything of which they feel the need for their happiness on earth. To make such a claim against God or Nature would, of course, be only to say that we claim a right to live on earth if we can. But God and Nature have ; ordained the chances and conditions of life on earth once for all. The case cannot be re- i ftH^ ? / opened. We cannot get a revision of the laws V [ tu^ xiw human lif o^l We are absofatelyl&iit up to ^ v/ s the need and duty, if we would learn how to ) live happily, of investigating the laws of Nat- ure, and deducing the rules of right living in the world as it is. These are very wearisome rand commonplace .tasks. They consist in la- !bor and self-denial repeated over and over 'again in learning and doing. When the peo- ple whose claims we are considering are told to apply themselves to these tasks they become irritated and feel almost insulted. They formu- late their claims as rights against society that ( is, against some other men. In their view they OWE TO EACH OTHER. 15 e a right, ^ggtjonl^ to pursue happiness, 1 ^t^, but_to get it; and if they fail to get it,, they j tKmk they have a claim to the aid ofjother men \ 'Z^-*"---'" tFat is, to the labor and self-denial of other T men to get it for them. They find orators and poets who tell them that they have griev- ances, so long as they have unsatisfied desires. Now, if there are groups of people who have M*"" a claim to other people's labor and self-denial, and if there are other people whose labor and self-denial are liable to be claimed by the first groups, then there certainly are "^classes," Vid classes of the oldest and most vicious type. For a man who can command another man!g | v labor and self - denial for the support of his own jgxistence is a privileged person of the highest species conceivable on earth. Princes J> jaad paupers meet on this plane, and no other men are on it at all. On the other hand, : a(\ man whose labor and self-denial may be di- \ verted from his maintenance to that of some other man is not a free man, and approaches/ more or less toward the position of a slave/ Therefore we shall find that, in all the notions which we are to discuss, this elementai^con- are not classes, will produce repeated con fa- 16 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES / J sion and absurdity. We shall find that, in our efforts to eliminate the old vices of class gov- ernment, we are impeded and defeated by new products of the worst class theory. We shall find that all the'^schemes for producing equal- ity and obliterating the organization of society produce a new differentiation based on the worst possible distinction the right to claim and the duty to give one man's effort for an- other man's satisfaction! We shall find that every effort to realize ^equality necessitates a ^sacrifice of liberty. It is very popular to pose as a " friend of humanity," or a " friend of the working class- es." The character, however, is quite exotic in the United States. It is borrowed from England, where some men, otherwise of small account, have assumed it with great success and advantage. Anything which has a chari- table sound and a kind-hearted tone general- ly passes without investigation, because it is disagreeable to assail it. Sermons, essays, and orations assume a conventional standpoint with regard to the poor, the weak, etc. ; and it is allowed to pass as an unquestioned doc- trine in regard to social classes that "the rich" ought to '-'pare for t!\o iioor;" that OWE TO EACH OTHER. 17 Churches especially ought to collect capital from the rich and spend it for the poor ; that parishes ought to be clusters of institutions by means of which one social class should per- form its duties to another ; and that clergy- men, economists, and social philosophers have < a technical and professional duty to devise ^ r capital to the work of society, is ayyurdeiu On no ^sound Apolitical theory ought such a person to sliare in the political power of the State. He drops out of the ranks of work- ers and producers. Society must support him. It accepts the burden, but he must be cancel- led from the ranks of the rulers likewise. So much for the pauper. About him no more need be said. But he is not the " poor man." The " poor man" is an elastic term, under which any number of social fallacies may be hidden. Neither is there any possible definition of "the weak." Some are weak in one way, and some in another ; and those who are weak in one sense are strong in another. In general, however, it may be said that those whom hu- 4 manitarians and philanthropists call the weak \ are the ones through whom the productive \ and conservative forces of society are wasted. OWE TO EACH OTHER. They constantly neutralize and destroy the finest efforts of the wise and industrious, and are ^ dqad - weight) on the society in all its struggles to realize any bgtter things. "Wheth- er the people who mean no harm, but are weak '"in the essential powers necessary to the per- formance of one's duties in life, or those who are malicious and vicious, do the more mis- chief, is a question not easy to answer. Under the names of the poor and the weak, the negligent, shiftless, inefficient, silly, and imprudent are fastened upon the industrious and prudent as a responsibility and a duty. On the one side, the terms are extended to cover the idle, intemperate, and vicious a who, by the combination, gain credit which they do not deserve, and which they could not get if they stood alone. On the other hand, the terms are extended to include wage-receivers of the humblest rank, who are degraded by the combination. The reader who desires to guard himself against fallacies should always scrutinize the terms "poor" and "weak" as used, so as to see which or how many of these classes they are made to cover. The humanitarians, philanthropists, and re- formers, looking at the facts of life as they 22 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES present themselves, find enough which is sad and unpromising in the condition of many members of society. They see wealth and poverty side by side. They note great in- equality of social position and social chances. They eagerly set about the attempt to account for what they see, and to devise schemes for remedying what they do not like._In their ^ eagerness to recommend the less^fortun, classes to pity and consideration ;thej forget all about the rights of other classes ' ^^'*" ** r ** v gloss over all the faults of the classes in ques- tion, and they exaggerate their misfortunes and their virtues. They invent new theories of property, distorting rights and perpetrating injustice, as any one is sure to do who sets about the re -adjustment of social relations with the interests of one group distinctly be- fore his mind, and the interests of all other groups thrown into the background. When I have read certain of these discussions I have thought that it must be quite disreputable to be respectable, quite dishonest to own proper- ty, quite unjust to go one's own way and earn one's own living, and that the only really ad- mirable person was the good-for-nothing. The man who by his own effort raises himself OWE TO EACH OTHEB. 23 above poverty appears, in these discussions, to be of no account. The man who has done nothing to raise himself above poverty finds that the social doctors flock about him, bring- ing the capital which they have collected from the other class, and promising him the aid of the State to give him what the other had to work for. In all these schemes and projects the organized intervention of society through the State is either planned or hoped for, and the State is thus made to become the protector and guardian of certain classes. The agents who are to direct the State action are, of course, the reformers and philanthropists. Their schemes, therefore, may always be reduced to this type that A and B decide what shall do for D. It will be interesting to inquire, at a later period of our discussion, who C is, and what the effect is upon him of all these ar- rangements. In all the discussions attention is concentrated on A and B, the noble social reformers, and on D, the " poor man/' I call / C the_Forgotten Man, because I have never w^ seen that any notice was taken of him in any of the discussions. When we have disposed of A, B, and D we can better appreciate the 24: WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES case of 0, and I think that we shall find that he deserves our attention, for the worth of his character and the magnitude of his unmerited I burdens. Here it may suffice to observe that, j on the theories of the social philosophers to ! whom I have referred, we should get a new Krnaxim of judicious living: Poverty is the j best policy. If you get wealth, you will have / to support other people; if you do not get 1 wealth, it will be the duty of other people to j support you?) No doubt one chief reason for the unclear and contradictory theories of class relations lies in the fact that pur society, largely con- trolled in all its organization by one set of doctrines, still contains survivals of old social theories which are totally inconsistent with the former. In the Middle_Ages men were united by custom and prescription into asso- ciations, ranks, guilds, and communities of various kinds. These ties endured as long as life lasted. Consequently spciety^was depend- ent, throughout all its details, o and [the tie, or bond, was sentimental. In our mod- prn state, and in the United States more than Anywhere else, the social structure is based on OWE TO EACH OTHER. 25 contract^and status is of tlie least importance.! ^ Jr oeo&'^ct, however, is__rational even rational- istic. It is also realistic, cold, and rnatter-of- fact. A contract relation is based on a suffi- cient reason, not on custom or prescription. It is not permanent. It endures only so lon^ as the reason^ Jor-it^e^i4ures. (In a state based on contract, sentiment j$ out of place in any public or common affairs?! It is relegated to the sphere of private and personal relations, where it depends not at all on class types, but on personal acquaintance and personal esti- mates. The sentimentalists among us always seize upon the survivals of the old order. They want to save them and restore them. Much of the loose thinking also which trou-l bles us in our social discussions arises from the fact that men do not distinguish the ele- ments of status and of contract which may be found in our society. Whether social philosophers think it de- sirable or not, it is out of the question to back to status or to tliQg^ntimental relatio which once united baron anarietainer, master and servant, teacher and pupil, comrade and comrade. That we have lost some grace and 26 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES felegance is undeniable. That life once held more poetry and romance is true enough. But it seems impossible that any one who has studied the matter should doubt that we have gained immeasurably, and that our farther gains lie in going forward, not in going back- ward. The feudal ties can never be restored. If they could be restored they would bring back personal caprice, favoritism, sycophancy, and intrigue. A society based on contract is a society of free and independent men, who form ties without favor or obligation, and co- operate without cringing or intrigue. A so- based on contract, therefore, gives the utmost room and chance for individual de- velopment, and for all the self-reliance and dignity of a free man^l That a society of free men, co-operating under contract, is by far the strongest society which has ever yet existed; that no such society has ever yet developed the full measure of strength of which it is capable ; and that the only social improvements which are now conceivable lie in the direction of more complete realization of a society of free men united by contract, are points which cannot be controverted- OWE TO EACH OTHEK. It follows, however,[that one man, in a freei*r state, cannot claim help from, and cannot! be charged to give help to, another* To * understand the full meaning of this asser- tion it will be worth while to see what a free democracy is. 28 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES II. THAT A FREE MAN IS A SOVEREIGN, BUT THAT A SOVEREIGN CANNOT TAKE " TIPS." A FREE man, a free country, liberty, and equality are terms of constant use among us. They are employed as watchwords as soon as any social questions come into discussion. It is right that they should be so used. They ought to contain the broadest convictions and most positive faiths of the nation, and so they ought to be available for the decision of ques- tions of detail. In order, however, that they may be so em- ployed successfully and correctly it is essential that the terms should be correctly defined, and that their popular use should conform to cor reel definitions. No doubt it is generally be lieved that the terms are easily understood, and present no difficulty. Probably the pop- ular notion is, that liberty means doing as one has a mind to, and that it is a metaphysical or sentimental good. A little observation OWE TO EACH OTHER. 29 shows that there is no such thing in this world as doing as one has a mind to. There is no man, from the tramp up to the Presi- dent, the Pope, or the Czar, who can do as he has a mind to. There never has been any man, from the primitive barbarian up to a Humboldt or a Darwin, who could do as he had a mind to. The " Bohemian " who deter- mines to realize some sort of liberty of this kind accomplishes his purpose only by sacri- ficing most of the rights and turning his back on most of the duties gf_acivjlizedjiian, while filching as much as he can of the advantages of living in a civilized state. Moreover, lil?- j3rty is not a metaphysical or sentimental thing at all. It is positive, practical, and actual. It is produced an^malirfainedrby law and" insti- tutions, and is, therefore, concrete and histor- ical. Sometimes we speak distinctively of civil liberty; but if there be any liberty other than civil liberty that is, liberty un- , dor law it is a mere fiction of the school- men, which they may be left to discuss. Even as I write, however, I find in a lead- ing review the following definition of liberty : Civil liberty is " the result of the restraint ex- ercised by the sovereign people on the more 30 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES powerful individuals and classes of the com- munity, preventing them from availing them- selves of the excess of their power to the det- riment of the other classes." This definition lays the foundation for the result which it is apparently desired to reach, that "a govern- ment by the people can in no case become a paternal government, since its law-makers are its mandatories and servants carrying out its will, and not its fathers or its masters." Here we have the most mischievous fallacy under the general topic which I am discussing dis- tinctly formulated. In the definition of lib- erty it will be noticed that liberty is construed as the act of the sovereign people against somebody who must, of course, be differenti- ated from the sovereign people. "Whenever "people" is used in this sense for anything less than the total population, man, woman, child, and baby, and whenever the great dog- mas which contain the word " people " are con- strued under the limited definition of "peo- ple," there is always fallacy. History is only a tiresome repetition of one 1 story. Persons and classes have sought to win possession of the power of the State in order to live luxuriously out of the earnings of \ OWE TO EACH OTHER. 31 others. Autocracies, aristocracies, theocra- cies, and all other organizations for holding political power, have exhibited only the same line of action. It is the extreme of political error to say that if political power is only taken away from generals, nobles, priests, mil- lionnaires, and scholars, and given to artisans and peasants, these latter may be trusted to do only right and justice, and never to abuse the power ; that they will repress all excess in others, and commit none themselves. They will commit abuse, if they can and dare, just as others have done. The reason for the excesses pf the old governing classes lies injLlifi-jdl knd passions of human nature-cupidity, lust, iindictiveness, ambition, and vanity. These, vices are confined to no nation, class, or age! They appear in the church, the academy, the workshop, and the hovel, as well as in the army or the palace. They have appeared in autocracies, aristocracies, theocracies^ democ- racies, and ochlocracies, all alike. LThe only thing which has ever restrained these vices of human nature in those who had political pow- ^r is law sustained by impersonal ^institutions^ I If political power be given tv the massesTwho \.have not hitherto had it, nothing will stop 32 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES them from abusing it but laws arid institu- tions. To say that a popular government can- not be paternal is to give it a charter that it can do no wrong. The trouble is that a dem- '- '<***/ t t ocratic government is in greater danger than any other of becoming paternal, for it is sure of itself, and ready to undertake anything, and ' its power is excessive and pitiless against dis- sentients. / ^Whatjhistory shows is, that rights are safe * only when guaranteecT" against all arbitrary power, and all class and personal interesT. Around an autocrat there has grown up an oligarchy of priests and soldiers. In time a class of nobles has been developed, who have broken into the oligarchy and made an aris- tocracy. Later the demos ^ rising into inde- pendent development, has assumed power and made a democracy. Then the mob of a capi- tal city has overwhelmed the democracy in an ochlocracy. Then the "idol of the peo- ple," or the military " savior of society," or both in one, has made himself autocrat, and the same old vicious round has recommenced. Where in all this is liberty? There has been no li^pxty at all, save where a state has known how to break out, once for all, from this delu- OWE TO EACH OTHER. 33 round ; TO set_bamers to selfishness, cupid- ity, envy, andjust, in all classes, from highest to lowest, by laws and institutions ; and to ere? #te great organs of civil life which can elimi- nate, as farjj^ossible.. arbitrary and personaT elements from ...the adjustment of interests Liberty is an af \ "of laws and institutions which ; is noti Tecting the proper class i to rule. The notion of a free state is entirely mod- ern. It has been developed with the develop- ment of the middle class, and with the growth of a commercial and industrial civilization. Horror at human slavery is not a century old as a common sentiment in a civilized state, The idea of the " free man," as we understand it, is the product of a revolt against mediaeval and feudal ideas ; and our notion of equality, when it is true and practical, can be explained only by that revolt. It was in England that the modern idea found birth. It has been strengthened by the industrial and commer- cial development of that country. It has been inherited by all the English-speaking nations, who have made liberty real because 3 34 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES they have inherited it, not as a notion, but as a body of institutions. It has been borrowed and imitated by the military and police states of the European continent so fast as they have felt the influence of the expanding industrial civilization ; but they have realized it only im- perfectly, because they have no body of local institutions or traditions, and it remains for them as yet too much a matter of " declara- tions" and pronunciamentos. The notion of civil liberty which we have inherited is that of a status created for the in- dividual by laws and institutions, the effect of which is that each man is guaranteed the i use of all his o f wn powers exclusively for his \j own welfare. It is not at all a matter of elections, or universal suffrage, or democracy. institutions are to be tested by the degree to which they guarantee liberty. It is not to be admitted for a moment that liberty is a j means to social ends, and that it may be im- \lpaired for major considerations. Any one who so argues has lost the bearing and rela- tion of all the facts and factors in a free state. A human being has a life to live, a career to run. He is a centre of powers to work, and of capacities to suffer. What his powers may fi j OWE TO EACH OTHER. 35 be whether they can carry him far or not ; what his chances may be, whether wide or restricted ; what his fortune may be, whether to suffer much or little are questions of his personal destiny which he must work out and endure as he can ; but for all that concerns the bearing of the society and its institutions upon that man, and upon the sum of happiness to which he can attain during his life on earth, the product of all history and all philosophy ^- up to this time is summed up in the doctrine, , that he should be left free to do the most for himself that he can, and should be guaranteed the exclusive enjoyment of all that he does. If the society that is to say, in plain termsJ if his fellow -men, either individually, b$ groups, or in a mass impinge upon hin otherwise than to surround him with neutra conditions of security, they must do so unde the strictest responsibility to justify them selves. Jealousy and prejudice against alt such interferences are high political virtues in a free man. It is not at all the function of the State to make men happy. They must make themselves happy in their own way, and at their own risk. The functions of the State lie entirely in the conditions or chances Q WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES . \ under which the pursuit of happiness is car- ried on, so far as those conditions or chances can be affected by civil organization. Hence, liberty for labor and security for earnings are the ends for which civil institutions exist, not means which may be employed for ul- terior ends. Now, the cardinal doctrine of any sound 2^(political system is, that rights and duties should be in equilibrium. A monarchical or aristocratic system is not immoral, if the rights and duties of persons and classes are in equilibrium, although the rights and duties of different persons and classes are unequal. An immQral_p.QliticaL^ystein is created when- \ jezgrjliere-are privileged classes that is, class- \ es who have arrogated to themselves rights .s. while throwing the duties upon others.^ ^J> democracy all have equal political rights. That is the fundamental political principle. A democracy, then, becomes immoral, if all have not equal political duties. This is un- questionably the doctrine which needs to be reiterated and inculcated beyond all others,, if democracy is to be made sound and p|r- manent. Our orators and writers never speak of it, and do not seem often to know anything OWE TO EACH OTHER. 37 about it; but the real danger of democracy is, that the classes which have the power un- der it will assume all the rights and reject all the duties that is, that they will use the po- litical power to plunder those- who-have. D& moeracy, in order to be true to itself, and to develop into a sound working system, must oppose the same cold resistance tp any claims for favor on the ground of poverty, as on the ground of birth and rank. It can no mora admit to public discussion, as within the range of possible action, any schemes for coddling] and helping wage-receivers than it could en-! tertain schemes for restricting political powei{ to wage-payers. It must put down schemes \ for making " the rich " pay for whatever " the poor" want, just as it tramples on the old I theories that only the rich are fit to regulate \ society. One needs but to watch our period- \ ical literature to see the danger that democ-' racy will be construed as a system of favor- ing a new privileged class of the many and the poor. Holding in mind, now, the notions of liber- ty and democracy as we have defined them, we see that it is not altogether a matter of fanfaronade when the American citizen calls 38 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES himself a "sovereign." I A member of a free democracy is, in a sense, a sovereign. He has no superior. He has reached his sovereignty, however, by a process of reduction and divis- ion of power which leaves him no inferior. It is very grand to call one's self a sovereign, but it is greatly to the purpose to notice that the political responsibilities of the free man have been intensified and aggregated just in proportion as political rights have been re- duced and divided. Many monarchs have been incapable of sovereignty and unfit for it. Placed in exalted situations, and inheritors of grand opportunities, they have exhibited only their own imbecility and vice. The reason was, because they thought only of the gratifi- cation of their own vanity, and not at all of their duty. The free man who steps forward to claim his inheritance and endowment as a free and equal member of a great civil body must understand that his duties and responsi- bilities are measured to him by the same scale as his rights and his powers. He wants to be subject to no man. He wants to be equal to his fellows, as all sovereigns are equal. So be it; but he cannot escape the deduction that he can call no man to his aid. The other ft OWE TO EACH OTHER. 39 sovereigns will not respect his independence if he becomes dependent, and they cannot re- spect his equality if he sues for favors. The* free man in a free democracy, when he cut\ off all the ties which might pull him down, -^severed also all the ties by which he might have made others pull him up. He must take all the consequences of his new status. wl>JIe is, in a certain sense, an isolated man.] /The family tie does not bring to Tiim disgrace for the misdeeds of his relatives, as it once would have done, but neither does it furnish him with the support which it once would have given. The relations of men are open and free, but they are also loose. A free man in a free democracy derogates from his rank if he takes a favor for which he does not render an equivalent. A free man in a free democracy has no duty whatever toward other men of the same rank and standing, except respect, courtesy, and good-will. We cannot say that there are no classes, when we are speaking politically, and then say that there are classes, when we are telling A what it is his duty to do for B. |Tn a free state every man is held and expect-i ed to take care of himself and his family, to) 40 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES taiake no trouble for his neighbor, and to con- tribute his full share to public interests and i common necessities^ If he fails in this he jthrows burdens on others. He does not there- by acquire rights against the others. On the Contrary, he only accumulates obligations to- tvard them ; and if he is allowed to make his deficiencies a ground of new claims, he passes over into the position of a privileged or pet- ted person emancipated from duties, en- I dowed with claims. This is the inevitable .,- j result of combining democratic political tlie- I ories with humanitarian social theories. It - 1 would be aside from my present purpose to show, but it is worth noticing in passing, that one result of such inconsistency must surely be to undermine democracy, to increase the power of wealth in the democracy, and to hasten the subjection of democracy to plutoc- racy ; for a man who accepts any share which he has not earned in another man's capital cannot be an independent citizen. It is often affirmed that the educated and wealthy have an obligation to those who have less education and property, just because the latter have political equality with the former, and oracles and warnings are uttered about OWE TO EACH OTHER. 4:1 what will happen if the uneducated classes who have the suffrage are not instructed at the care and expense of the other classes. In this view of the matter universal suffrage is not a measure for strengthening the State by bringing to its support the aid and affection of all classes, but it is a new burden, and, in fact, a peril. Those who favor it represent it ag^j^pgrik This doctrine is politically im- moral and vicious. When a community es- tablishes universal suffrage, it is as if it said to each new-comer, or to each young man: " We give you every chance that any one else has. Now come along with us ; take care of yourself, and contribute your share to the bur- dens which we all have to bear in order to sup- port social institutions." Certainly, liberty, and universal suffrage, and democracy are not pledges of care and protection, but they carry with them the exaction of individual respon- sibility. The State gives equal rights ancT"^ equal chances just because it does not mean / 1 to give anything else. It sets each man on his feet, and gives him leave to run, just be- cause it does not mean to carry him. Having obtained his chances, he must take upon him- self the responsibility for his own success or 4:2 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES failure. It is a pure misfortune to the com- munity, and one which will redound to its injury, if any man has been endowed with political power who is a heavier burden then ? than he was before ; but it cannot be said that < there is any new duty created for the good ; citizens toward the bad by the fact that the bad citizens are a harm to the State. OWE TO EACH OTHER. 43 III. THAT IT 18 NOT WICKED TO BE RICH; NA Y, EVEN, THAT IT IS NOT WICKED TO BU RICHER THAN ONE'S NEIGHBOR, I HAVE before me a newspaper slip on which a writer expresses the opinion that no one should be allowed to possess more than one million dollars' worth of property. Along- side of it is another slip, on which another writer expresses the opinion that the limit should be five millions. I do not know what the comparative wealth of the two writers is, but it is interesting to notice that there is a wide margin between their ideas of how rich they would allow their fellow-citizens to be- come, and of the point at which they ("the State," of course) would step in to rob a man of his earnings. These two writers only rep- resent a great deal of crude thinking and de- claiming which is in fashion. I never have known a man of ordinary common-sense who did not urge upon his sons, from earliest child- hood 3 doctrines of economy and the practice WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES of accumulation. A good father believes that he does wisely to encourage enterprise, pro- ductive skill, prudent self-denial, and judicious expenditure on the part of his son. The ob- ject is to teach the boy to accumulate capital. If, however, the boy should read many of the diatribes against "the rich" which are afloat in our literature; if he should read or hear some of the current discussion about "capi- tal ;" and if, with the ingenuousness of youth, he should take these productions at their lit- eral sense, instead of discounting them, as his father does, he would be forced to believe that he was on the path of infamy when he was earning and saving capital. It is worth while to consider which we mean or what we mean. Is it wicked to be rich? Is it mean to be a capitalist ? If the question is one of degree only, and it is right to be rich up to a certain point and wrong to be richer, how shall we find the point ? Certainly, for prac- tical purposes, we ought to define the point nearer than between one and five millions of dollars. There is an old ecclesiastical prejudice in favor of the poor and against the rich. In days when men acted by ecclesiastical rules OWE TO EACH OTHER. 4:5 /* these prejudices produced waste of capital, and helped mightily to replunge Europe into \ barbarism. The prejudices are not yet dead, but they survive in our society as ludicrous contradictions and inconsistencies. One thing must be granted to the rich : they are good- natured. Perhaps they do not recognize themselves, for a rich man is even harder to define than a poor one. It is not uncommon to hear a clergyman utter from the pulpit all the old prejudice in favor of the poor and against the rich, while asking the rich to do something for the poor ; and the rich comply, without apparently having their feelings hurt at all by the invidious comparison. We al agree that he is a good member of societj who works his way up from poverty to wealth, but as soon as he has worked his way up we begin to regard him with suspicion, as a dan- gerous member of society. A newspaper starts I the silly fallacy that " the rich are rich because the poor are industrious," and it is copied from one end of the country to the other as if it were a brilliant apothegm. " Capital " is de- nounced by writers and speakers who have never taken the trouble to find out what capi- tal is, and who use the word in two or three 4:6 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES different senses in as many pages. I^abor or- * J") ganizations are formed, not to employ com-_ bined effort for a common object, but to in- Tfulge in declamation and denunciation, and especially to furnish an easy living to some officers who do not want to work. People Who have rejected dogmatic religion, and re- tained only a residuum of religious sentimen- talisin, find a special field in the discussion of the rights of the poor and the duties of the rich. We have denunciations of banks, cor- porations, and monopolies, which denuncia- tions encourage only helpless rage and ani- mosity, because they are not controlled by any definitions or limitations, or by any distinc- tions between what is indispensably necessary and what is abuse, between what is established in the order of nature and what is legislative error. Think, for instance, of a journal which makes it its special business to denounce mo- nopolies, yet favors a protective tariff, and has not a word to say against trades-unions or patents! Think of public teachers who say that the farmer is ruined by the cost of trans- portation, when they mean that he cannot make any profits because his farm is too far from the market, and. ..jffihfi denouao-- the OWE TO EACH OTHER. 47 istfti railroad because jt f armef^^itjtheexpenBe j^itsj^ockhplderSj, the disadvantage which lies in the physical situa- tion of the farm! Think of that construe-'" tion of this situation which attributes all the trouble to the greed of "moneyed corpora- tions!" Think of the piles of rubbish that one has read about corners, and watering stocks, and selling futures! Undoubtedly there are, in connection with each of these things, cases of fraud, swindling, and other financial crimes ;_ that is to say, the greed and selfishness of men are perpetual. They put on new phases, they adjust Hiem- selves to new forms of business, and constant- ly devise new methods of fraud and robbery, just as burglars devise new artifices to circum- vent every new precaution of the lock-makers. The criminal law needs to be improved to meet new forms of crime, buL to denounce %,/ financial devices which are useful and legiti- mate because use is made of them for fraud, is ridiculous and unworthy of the age in which we live. Fifty years ago good old Englishi Tories used to denounce all joint-stock com- panies in the same way, and for similar rea- sons. 48 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES fr All the denunciations and declamations I which have been referred to are made in the / interest of " the poor man." His name never ceases to echo in the halls of legislation, and he is the excuse and reason for all the acts which are passed. He is never forgotten in poetry, sermon, or essay. His interest is in- voked to defend every doubtful procedure and \every questionable institution. Yet where is [he ? Who is he ? Who ever saw him ? When did he ever get the benefit of any of the num- berless efforts in his behalf ? When, rather, was his name and interest ever invoked, when, upon examination, it did not plainly appear that somebody else was to win somebody who was far too " smart" ever to be poor, far too lazy ever to be rich by industry and economy ? A great deal is said about the unearned in- crement from land, especially with a view to the large gains of landlords in old countries. The unearned increment from land has indeed made the position of an English land-owner, for the last two hundred years, the most fort- unate that any class of mortals ever has en- joyed ; but the present moment, when the rent of agricultural land in England is declining OWE TO EACH OTHEB. 49 under the competition of American land, is not well chosen for attacking the old advan- tage. Furthermore, the unearned increment from land appears in the United States as a gain to the first comers, who have here laid the foundations of a new State. Since the land is a monopoly, the unearned increment lies in the laws of Nature. Then the only question is, Who shall have it ? the man who Has The ownership by prescription, or some or all others ? It is a beneficent incident of the ownership of land that a pioneer who reduces it to use, and helps to lay the foundations of a new State, finds a profit in the increasing value of land as the new State grows up. It would $tfi~ ***** *\ be unjust jto take that profit away from him^ ^* ^ or from any successor to whom he has sold it. Moreover, there is an unearned increment on capital and on laboj^due to the presence, aroumi 2ie capitalist and the laborer^of-a-^eai^in- dustrious, and prosperous society. A tax on land and a succession or probate duty on capi- jl might be perfectly justified by these facts. Unquestionably capital accumulates with a rapidity which follows in some high series the security, good government, peaceful order of the State in which it is employed ; and if the 50 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES State steps in, on the death of the holder, to claim a share of the inheritance, such a claim may be fully justified. The laborer likewise gains by carrying on his labor in a strong, highly civilized, and well-governed State far more than he could gain with equal industry on the frontier or in the midst of anarchy. He gains greater remuneration for his ser- vices, and he also shares in the enjoyment of all that accumulated capital of a wealthy com- munity which is public or semi-public in its nature. It is often said that the earth belongs to the f race, as if raw land was a boon, or gift. Raw land is only a chance to prosecute the strug- gle for existence, and the man who tries to learn a living by the subjugation of raw land /makes that attempt under the most unfavor- jjable conditions, for land can be brought into (use only by great hardship and exertion. The boon, or gift, would be to get some land after somebody else had made it fit for use. Any one in the world to-clay can have raw land by going to it ; but there are millions who would regard it simply as " transportation for life," if they were forced to go and live on new land and get their living out of it. Private OWE TO EACH OTHER. 51 ownership of land is only division of labor. If it is true in any sense that we all own the soil in common, the best use we can make of our undivided interests is to vest them al gratuitously (just as we now do) in any whc will assume the function of directly treating the soil, while the rest of us take other shares in the social organization. The reason is, be- cause in this way we all get more than we would if each one owned some land and used it directly. Supply and demand now deter- mine the distribution of population between the direct use of land and other pursuits ; and if the total profits and chances of land-culture were reduced by taking all the "unearned increment " in taxes, there would simply be a redistribution of industry until the profits of land -culture, less taxes and without chances from increasing value, were equal to the prof- its of other pursuits under exemption from taxation. It is remarkable that jealousy of individual property in land often goes along with very exaggerated doctrines of tribal or national property in land. We are told that John, James, and William ought not to possess part of the earth's surface because it belongs to 52 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES all men ; but it is held that Egyptians, Nica raguans, or Indians have such right to the ter- ritory which they occupy, that they may bar the avenues of commerce and civilization if they choose, and that it is wrong to override their prejudices or expropriate their land. The truth is, that the notion that the race own the earth has practical meaning only for the latter class of cases. ^ The great gains of a great capitalist in a modern state must be put under the head of wages of superintendence. Any one who be- lieves that any great enterprise of an industri- al character can be started without labor must have little experience of life. Let any one try to get a railroad built, or to start a factory and win reputation for its products, or to start a school and win a reputation for it, or to found a newspaper and make it a success, or to start any other enterprise, and he will find what obstacles must be overcome, what risks must be taken, what perseverance and courage are required, what foresight and sagacity are nec- essary. Especially in a new country, where many tasks are waiting, where resources are strained to the utmost all the time, the judg- ment, courage, and perseverance required to OWE TO EACH OTHER. 53 organize new enterprises and carry them to success are sometimes heroic. Persons who possess the necessary qualifications obtain great rewards. They ought to do so. It is foolish to rail at them. Then, again, the abili- ty to organize and conduct industrial, eommerA cial, or financial enterprises is rare ; the great! captains of industry are as rare as great gener-l als. The great weakness of all co-operative' enterprises is in the matter of supervision. Men of routine or men who can do what they are told are not hard to find ; but men who can think and plan and tell the routine men what to do are very rare. They are paid in proportion to the supply and demand of them. If Mr. A. T. Stewart made a great fortune by collecting and bringing dry-goods to the people of the United States, he did so because he understood how to do that thing better than any other man of his generation. He proved it, because he carried the business through commercial crises and w T ar, and kept increasing its dimensions. If, when he died, he left no competent successor, the business must break up, and pass into new organization in the hands of other men. Some have said 54: WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES that Mr. Stewart maide his fortune out of those who worked for him or with him. But would those persons have been able to come togeth- er, organize themselves, and earn what they did earn without him? Not at all. They would have been comparatively helpless. He and they together formed a great system of factories, stores, transportation, under his guidance and judgment. It was for the bene- fit of all; but he contributed to it what no one else was able to contribute the one guid- ing mind which made the whole thing possi- bleX In no sense whatever does a man who y accumulates a fortune by legitimate industry exploit his employes, or make his capital " out of " anybody else. The wealth which he wins \ would not be but for him.^ \ The aggregation of large fortunes is not at \ all a thing to be regretted. On the contrary, \ it is a jiecessary condition.^ ..many forms of - social advance. If we should set a limit to the accumulation of wealth, we should say to our most valuable producers, "We do not want you to do us the services which you best understand how to perform, beyond a certain point." It would be like killing off our gen- erals in war. A great deal is said, in the cant 9 WE TO EACH OTHER. 55 of a certain school, about "ethical views of wealth/' and we are told that some day men will be found of such public spirit that, after they have accumulated a few millions, they will be willing to go on and labor simply for the pleasure of paying the taxes of their fel- low-citizens. Possibly this is true. It is a prophecy. It is as impossible to deny it as it is silly to affirm it. For if a time ever comes when there are men of this kind, the men of that age will arrange their affairs accordingly. There are no such men now, and those of us who live now cannot arrange our affairs by what men will be a hundred generations hence. There is every indication that we are to see n$w developments of the power of aggregated "NUu . ~ * * - ; t ;' '* . & V CU*. capital to serve civilization^ and that the new -. mad ft Bright here in America. Joint -stock companies are yet in their infancy^^^mgoi^oratetf capital, instead of being a thing wnich can be overturned, is a thing which is becoming more and more in- dispensable. I shall have something to say in another chapter about the necessary checks and guarantees, m_a political point- of yiesK, which must be established. Economically 56 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES speaking, aggregated capital will be more and more essential to the performance of our so- rcial tasks. Furthermore, it seems to ine cer- Jtain that all aggregated capital will fall more / and more under personal control. Each great I company will be known as controlled by one master mind. fe3?he reason for this lies in the > V /great superiority of personal management over O^ j I management by boards and committees/] This tendency is in the public interest, for it is in the direction of more satisfactory responsibil- ity. The great hinderance to the development of this continent has lain in the lack of capi- tal. The capital which we have had has been wasted by division and dissipation, and by in- judicious applications. The waste of capital, in proportion to the total capital, in this coun- try between 1800 and 1850, in the attempts which were made to establish means of com- munication and transportation, was enormous. The waste w r as chiefly due to ignorance and bad management, especially to State control of public works. We are to see the develop- ment of the country pushed forward at an un- precedented rate by an aggregation of capital, and a systematic application of it under the direction of competent men. This develop- OWE TO EACH OTHER. 51 ment will be for the benefit of all, and it will enable each one of us, in his measure and way, to increase his wealth. We may each of us go ahead to do so, and we have every reason to rejoice in each other's prosperity. Theref ought to be no laws to guarantee propertyL.'^ the folly of its possessors. Injfche ab senceoj^ such laws, capital "Inherited by a spendthrift will be squandered and re-accu- mulated in the hands of men who are fit an/1 competent to hold it. So it should be, and under such a state of things there is no reason to desire to limit the property which any man may acquire. 58 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES IV. ON THE REASONS WHY MAN IS NOT ALTOGETHER A BRUTE. THE Arabs have a story of a man who de- sired to test which of his three sons loved him most. He sent them out to see which of the three would bring him the most valuable pres- ent. The three sons met in a distant city, and compared the gifts they had found. The first had a carpet on which he could transport him- self and others whithersoever he would. The second had a medicine which would cure any disease. The third had a glass in which he could see what was going on at any place he might name. The third used his glass to see what was going on at home : he saw his father ill in bed. The first transported all three to their home on his carpet. The second admin- istered the medicine and saved the father's life. The perplexity of the father when he had to decide which son's gift had been of the most value to him illustrates very fairly the difficulty of saying whether land, labor, or OWE TO EACH OTHER. 59 capital is most essential to production. No production is possible without the co-opera- tion of all three. We know that men once lived on the spon- taneous fruits of the earth, just as other ani- mals do. In that stage of existence a man was just like the brutes. His existence was at the sport of Nature. He got what he could by way of food, and ate what he could get, but he depended on finding what Nature gave. He could wrest nothing from Nature ; he could make her produce nothing ; and he had only his limbs with which to appropriate what she offered. His existence was almost entirely controlled by accident; he possessed no capi- tal ; he lived out of his product, and produc- tion had only the two elements of land and labor of appropriation. At the present time man is an intelligent animal. He knows some- thing of the laws of Nature ; he can avail him- self of what is favorable, and avert what is unfavorable, in nature, to a certain extent ; he has narrowed the sphere of accident, and in some respects reduced it to computations which lessen its importance; he can bring the productive forces of Nature into service, and make them produce food, clothing, and 60 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES shelter. How has the change been brought about ? The answer is, By capital. If we can come to an understanding- and what a place it occupies in civilization, it will clear up our ideas^ about a great many of these^scEemes. and-j)hilQSQpIiies which are put forward to criticise social ftrra.ngftTr^ntfl 3 ^rjiK^jiflRis of proposed reforms. The first beginnings of capital are lost in the obscurity which covers all the germs of civilization. The more one comes to under- stand the case of the primitive man, the more wonderful it seems that man ever started on the road to civilization. Among the lower animals we find some inchoate forms of capi- tal, but from them to the lowest forms of real capital there is a great stride. It does not seem possible that man could have taken that stride without intelligent reflection, and every- thing we know about the primitive man shows us that he did not reflect. No doubt accident controlled the first steps. They may have been won and lost again many times. There was one natural element which man learned to use so early that we cannot find any trace of him when he had it not fire. There was one tool- weapon in nature the flint. Beyond OWE TO EACH OTHEK. 61 the man who was so far superior to the brutes that he knew how to use fire and had the use of flints we cannot go. A man of lower civil- ization than that was so like the brutes that, like them, he could leave no sign of his pres- ence on the earth save his bones. The man who had a flint no longer need be a prey to a wild animal, but could make a prey of it. He could get meat food. He who had meat food could provide his food in such time as to get leisure to improve his flint tools. He could get skins for clothing, bones for needles, tendons for thread. He next devised traps and snares by which to take animals alive. He domesticated them, and lived on their in- crease. He made them beasts of draught and burden, and so got the use of a natural force. He who had beasts of draught and burden could make a road and trade, and so get the advantage of alt soils and all climates. He could make a boat, and use the winds as force. He now had such tools, science, and skill that he could till the ground, and make it give him more food. SoJErom the first step that maiN-^ made aboye^ the brute the thing which made! jS his civilization possible was capital. Every stepr of capital won made the next step possible, up 62 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES to the present hour. Not a step has been or can be made without(capitafy It is labor accumulated, multiplied^ into itself raised to aThigher power, as the mathematicians say. The locomotive is only possible to-day be- cause, from the flint-knife up, one achieve- ment has been multiplied into another through thousands of generations. We cannot now stir a step in our life without capital. We cannot build a school, a hospital, a church, or employ a missionary society, without capital, any more than we could build a palace or a factory without capital. We have ourselves, and we have the earth ; the thing which limits what we can do is the third requisite capital. Capital is force, human energy^ jstoredjjr ac- cumulatgd, and very few people ever cgme to appreciate itsjjiiportance tojciviljzed life.; We get so used to it that we do not see its use. The industrial organization of society has undergone a development with the develop- ment of capital. Nothing has ever made men - spread over the earth and develop the arts but necessity that is, the need of getting a liv- ing, and the hardships endured in trying to meet that need. The human race has had to pay with its blood at every step. It has had OWE TO EACH OTHER. 63 to buy its experience. The thing which has kept up the necessity of more migration or more power over Nature has been increase of population. Where population has become chronically excessive, and where the popula- tion has succumbed and sunk, instead of devel- oping energy enough for a new advance, there races have degenerated and settled into perma- nent barbarism. They have lost the power to rise again, and have made no inventions. Where life has been so easy and ample that it cost no effort, few improvements have been made. It is in the middle range, with enough social pressure to make energy needful, and not enough social pressure to produce despair, that the most progress has been made. At first all labor was forced. Men forced it on women, who were drudges and slaves. Men reserved for themselves only the work of hunting or war. Strange and often horri- ble shadows of all the old primitive barbarism are now to be found in the slums of great cit- ies, and in the lowest groups of men, in the midst of civilized nations. Men impose la- bor on women in some such groups to-day. Through various grades of slavery, serfdom, villainage, and through various organizations 64 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES of castes and guilds, tlie industrial organiza- tion lias been modified and developed up to the modern system. Some men have been found to denounce and deride the modern system what they call the capitalist system. V^ (Thg_ modern system is based_on liberty, on contract, and on private property J It has been reached through a gradual emancipation of the mass of mankind from old bonds both to Nature and to their fellow-men. Village communities, which excite the romantic ad- miration of some writers, were fit only for a most elementary and unorganized society. /I'hey were fit neitherjo cope with the natu- \ ral difficulties of winning much food from lit- \ tie land, nor to cope with the malice of men. Hence they~perished. In the modern society the organization of labor is high. Some are land-owners and agriculturists, some are trans- porters, bankers, merchants, teachers; some advance the product by manufacture. It is a Xsystem ofjivision of functions, which is being mequali*, ties in property, luxury, and creature com- forts, not to knowledge, virtue, or even phys- ical beauty and strength. But it is plainly 70 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES impossible that we should all attain to equali- ty on the level of the best of us. The history of civilization shows us that the human race has by no means marched on in a solid and even phalanx. It has had its advance-guard, its rear-guard, and its stragglers. It presents us the same picture to-day; for it embraces every grade, from the most civilized nations down to the lowest surviving types of barba- rians. Furthermore, if we analyze the socie- ty of the most civilized State, especially in one of the great cities where the highest tri- umphs of culture are presented, we find sur- vivals of every form of barbarism and lower civilization. Hence, those who to-day enjoy the most complete emancipation from the hardships of human life, and the greatest command over the conditions of existence, simply show us the best that man has yet been able to do. Can we all reach that stand- ard by wishing for it? Can we all vote it to each other? If we pull down those who are most fortunate and successful, shall we not by that very act defeat our own object ? Those who are trying to reason out any issue from this tangle of fake notions of society and of history are only involving themselves OWE TO EACH OTHEE. 7l in hopeless absurdities and contradictions. If any man is not in the first rank who might get there, let him put forth new energy and take his place. If any man is not in the front rank, although jig has done his best ? how can he be advanced at all ? Certainly in no waj save t by pushing^ dovyiL^any. one forced to contribute JA ^'* IU I, . L| I . II'" It is often said that the mass of mankind are yet buried in poverty, ignorance, and brut- ishness. It would be a correct statement of the facts intended, from an historical and so- ciological point of view, to say, Only a small fraction of the human race have as yet, by thousands of years of struggle, been partially emancipated from poverty, ignorance, and brutishness. When once this simple correc- tion is made in the general point of view, we gain most important corollaries for all the subordinate questions about the relations of races, nations, and classes. 72 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES V. THAT WE MUST HAVE FEW MEN, IF WE WANT' STRONG MEN. IN our modern revolt against the mediaeval notions of hereditary honor and hereditary shame we have gone too far, for we have lost the appreciation of the true dependence of children on parents. We have a glib phrase about "the accident of birth," but it would puzzle anybody to tell what it means. If A takes B to wife, it is not an accident that he took B rather than^C, D, or any other woman ; and if A and B have a child, X, that child's ties to ancestry and posterity, and his relations to the human race, into which he has been born through A and B, are in no sense acci- dental. The child's interest in the question whether A should have married B or C is as material as anything one can conceive of, and the fortune which made X the son of A, and not of another man, is the most material fact in his destiny. If these things were better OWE TO EACH OTHER. 73 understood public opinion about the ethics of marriage and parentage would undergo a most salutary change. In following the modern tendency of opinion we have Jost sight of the s ? and our legislar tion has thrown upp^ some parents the re- sponsibility, not only of their own children, but of _ jthose.,QjLQthrs. The relation of parents and children is the only case of sacrifice in Nature. Elsewhere equivalence of exchange prevails rigorously. The parents, however, hand down to their children the return for all which they had themselves inherited from their ancestors. They ought to hand down the inheritance with increase. It is by this relation that the human race keeps up a constantly advancing j contest with Nature. The penalty of ceasing ^ an aggressive behavior toward the hardships of life on the part of mankind is, that we go backward. We cannot stand still. Now, pa- rental affection constitutes the personal motive which drives every man in his place to an aggressive and conquering policy toward the limiting conditions of human life. Affection for wife and children is also the greatest mo- tive to social ambition and personal self -re- 74: WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES spect that is, to what is technically called a " high standard of living." Some people are greatly shocked to read of what is called Malthusianism, when they read it in a book, who would be greatly ashamed of themselves if they did not practise Malthu- sianism in their own affairs. Among respect- able people a man who took upon himself the cares and expenses of a family before he had secured a regular trade or profession, or had accumulated some capital, and who allowed his wife to lose caste, and his children to be dirty, ragged, and neglected, would be severe- ly blamed by the public opinion of the com- munity. T^^t^n^rd^fjira^^^ch a man^ makes for himself and his family, if he means to earn it, and does not formulate it as a de- mand which he means to make on his fellow- men, is a gauge of his self-respect ; and a high standard ofliving is the moral limit which an intelligent body of men sets for itself far in- side of the natural limits of the sustaining power of the land, which latter limit is set by starvation, pestilence, and war. But a high' standard of living jrestrains population; that" is, if we hold up to the higher standard of men, we must have fewer of them. OWE TO EACH OTHER. 75 Taking men as they have been and are, they are subjects of passion, emotion, and instinct, i Only the elite of the race has yet been raised L to the point where reason and conscience can j even curb the lower motive forces.^ For the ' mass of mankind, therefore, the price of bet--: ter things is too severe, for that price can be/X ~suriiirrfed up in one wordr^s^jLdnTi.trol \ - Th r consequence is, that for all but a few of us the limit of attainment in life in the best case is to live out our term, to pay our debts, to place three or four children in a position to sup- port themselves in a position as good as the father's was, and there to make the account balance. Since we must all live, in the civilized or- ganization of society, on the existing capital ; and since those who have only come out ef en have not accumulated any of the capital, have no claim to own it, and cannot leave it to their children ; and since those who own land have parted with their capital for it, which capital has passed back through other hands into industrial employment, how is a man who has inherited neither land nor capital to secureja Jiving ? He must give his produc- tive energy to apply capital to land for the* 76 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES farther production of wealth, and he must se- cure a share in the existing capital by a con- tract relation to those who own it. Undoubtedly the man who possesses capital has a great advantage over the man who has no capital, in all the struggle for existence. Think of two men who want to lift a weight, one of whom has a lever, and the other must apply his hands directly ; think of two men tilling the soil, one of whom uses his hands or a stick, while the other has a horse and a plough; think of two men in conflict with a wild animal, one of whom has only a stick or a stone, while the other has a repeating rifle; think of two men who are sick, one of whom can travel, command medical skill, get space, light, air, and water, while the other lacks all these things. This does not mean that one man has an advantage against the other, but that, when they are rivals in the effort to get the means of subsistence from Nature, the one who has capital has immeas- urable advantages over the other. If it were not so capital would not be formed. '^Capital \/ j is only formed by self-deniajjand if the pos- I session of it did not secure advantages and V I superiorities of a high order men would never OWE TO EACH OTHER. 77 submit to what is necessary to get it. The first accumulation costs by far the most, and the rate of increase by profits at first seems pitiful. Among the metaphors which par- tially illustrate capital all of which, however, are imperfect and inadequate the useful to show some facts about capital. Its first accumulation is slow, but as it proceeds the accumulation becomes rapid in a high ra- tio, and the element of self-denial declines. This fact, also, is favorable to the accumula- tion of capital, for if the self-denial continued to be as great per unit when the accumulation had become great, there would speedily come a point at which farther accumulation would not pay. The man who has capital has_ cm&L his,, tflture, WQJI leisure which he employ in winning secondary objects of ne cessity and advantage, and emancipated him- self from those things in life which are grods and belittling. Tjie possession of capital itj. an indispensable prpnrapiqifo of ed- ; ncational, scientific, and moral goods. This is 1 not saying that a man in the narrowest cir- cumstances may not be a good man. It is saying that the extension and elevation of all the moral and metaphysical interests of the 78 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES race are conditionedj>a that extension of civ- ilization of which capital is tl^e prerequisite, a53~?Eat he who has capital can participate in and move along with the highest develop- ments of his time. Hence it appears that the man who has his self-denial before him, however good may be his intention, cannot be as the man who has his self-denial behind him. Some seem to think that this is very unjust, but they get their notions of justice from some occult source of inspiration, not from observing the facts of this world as it has been made and exists. t Jhejnaxim, or injunction, to which a study of capital leads us ig 1 jGet^caital. In a com- munity where the standard of living is high, and the conditions of production are favora- ble, there is a wide margin within which an individual may practise self-denial and win capital without suffering, if he has not the I charge of a family. That it requires energy, I courage, perseverance, and prudence is not to jbe denied. Any one who believes that any good thing on this earth can be got without those virtues may believe in the philosopher's stone or the fountain of youth. If there were OWE TO EACH OTHER. 79 any Utopia its inhabitants would certainly be very insipid and characterless. Those who have neither capital nor land H? unquestionably have a cjoser class intfir^gt^K fc &ij~~2 than landlords or capitalists. If one of those " who are in either of the latter classes is a spendthrift he loses his advantage. If the n on - capitalists increase their numbers, they 7 surrender themselves into the hands of the landlords and capitalists. They compete with each other for food until they run up the rent of land, and they compete with each other for wages until they give the capitalist a great amount of productive energy for a given amount of capital. If some of them are economical and prudent in the midst of a class which saves nothing and marries early, the f e^Y prudent suffer for the folly of the rest, since they can only get current rates of wflg p - g }, ^ and if these are low the margin out of which to make savings by special personal effort is narrow. No instance has yet been seen of a society composed of a class of great capitalists and a class of laborers who had fallen into a caste of permanent drudges. Probably no such thing is possible so long as landlords es- pecially remain as a third class, and so long ii 80 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES as society continues to develop strong classes of merchants, financiers, professional men, and other classes. If it were conceivable that non-capitalist laborers should give up strug- gling to become capitalists, should give way to vulgar enjoyments and passions, should recklessly increase their numbers, and should become a permanent caste, they might with some justice be called proletarians. The name has been adopted by some professed labor leaders, but it really should be considered in- sulting. If there were such a proletariat it would be hopelessly in the hands of a body of plutocratic capitalists, and a society so or- ganized would, no doubt, be far worse than a society composed only of nobles and serfs, which is the worst society the world has seen in modern times. At every turn, therefore, it appears that the number of men and the quality of men limit each other, and that the question whether we shall have more men or better men is of most importance to the class which has neither land nor capital. OWE TO EACH OTHER. 81 VI. THAT HE WHO WOULD BE WELL TAKEN CARE OF MUST TAKE CARE OF HIMSELF. THE discussion of "the relations of labor and capital " has not hitherto been very fruit- ful. It has been confused by ambiguous defi- nitions, and it has been based upon assump- tions about the rights and duties of social classes which are, to say the least, open to serious question as regards their truth and justice. If, then, we correct and limit the definitions, and if we test the assumptions, we shall find out whether there is anything to discuss about the relations of "labor and capital," and, if anything, what it is. Let us first examine the terms. 1. Labor means properly, toil, irksome ex- ertion, expenditure of productive energy. 2. Tiie__term is used, secondly, by a figure* of speech, and in a collective sense, ia_de.sig- n&le. fhn J)Qfjy-^rf jgfggg 77 * who, having neither capital nor land, come into the industrial or- ganization offering productive services in ex- 82 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES 1 Change for means of subsistence. These per- (sons are united by community of_interest into a group, or class, or interest, and, when inter- ests come to be adjusted, the interests of this group will undoubtedly be limited by those of other groups. 3. The term labor is used, thirdly, in a more restricte37very popular and current, but very ill-defined, way, tojdesgnate a limited sub- graup_^mong those who live by contributing productive efforts to the work of society. Every one is aTaBor^"^oTteTffoTar^person of leisure. Public men, or other workers, if any, who labor but receive no pay, might be exclud- ed from the category, and we should immedi- ately pass, by such a restriction, from a broad and philosophical to a technical definition of the labor class. B\jt merchants, bankers jro- fessional men, and all whose labor is, to an im- ..gortaSjLdegree, mental as well as manuaL are is- third use of the termjab,or. The result is, that the word is used, in a sense at once loosely popular and strictly technical, to designate a group of laborers who separate their interests from those of other laborers. Whether farmers are included under " labor " in this third sense or not I have not been able OWE TO EACH OTHER. 83 to determine. It seems that they are or are not, as the interest of the disputants may re- quire. 1. CafftaLia^any product of labor which is used to assist production. 2. 'JMs "term "also is used, by a figure of speech, and in a collective sense, for the per- possess capital, and who come into the industrial organization to get their living by using capital for profit. To do this they need to exchange capital for productive ser- ** c ***je| vices. These persons constitutcTlin interest, 't* A !* c ^*f v,^ | X I ^,taf 1/11*^1 / group, or class, although Jhey are joot jmite^ * *.*,// p rc j u i by any such community of interest as fabor^^ r j ers, and, in the adjustment of interests, the interest of the owners of capital must be lim- ited by the interests of other groups. 3. Capital, however, is also used in a vague and popular sense which it is hard to define. In general it is used, in this sense, to mean employers of laborers, but it seems to be re- stricted to those who are employers on a large scale. It does not seem to include those who employ only domestic servants. Those also are excluded who own capital and lend it, but do not directly employ people to use it. It is evident that if we take for discussion 84 "WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES " capital and labor," if each of the terms has three definitions, and if one definition of each is loose and doubtful, we have everything pre- pared for a discussion which shall be inter- minable and fruitless, which shall offer every attraction to undisciplined thinkers, and repel everybody else. The real collision of interest, which is the centre of the dispute, is that of employers and employed ; and the first condition of success- ful study of the question, or of successful in- vestigation to see if there is any question, is to throw aside the technical economic terms, and to look at the subject in its true meaning, expressed in untechnical language. We will Use the terms " capital " and " labor " only in their strict economic significance, viz., the first definition given above under each term, and ive will use the terms " laborers " and " capi- talists " when we mean the persons described in the second definition under each term. i It is a common assertion that the interests of employers and pmployed are identical^ that they are partners in an enterprise, etc. These sayings spring from a disposition, which may often be noticed, to find consoling and encour- aging observations in the facts of sociology, OWE TO EACH OTHER. 85 and to refute, if possible, any unpleasant obser- vations. If we try to learn what is true, we stall both do what is alone right, and we shall do the best for ourselves in the end. The in- terests of employers and employed as parties to a contract are antagonistic in certain re- spects and united in others, as is the case wherever supply and demand operate. If John gives cloth to James in exchange for w r heat, John's interest is that cloth be good and attractive but not plentiful, but that wheat be good and plentiful ; James's interest is that wheat be good and attractive but not plenti- ful, but that cloth be good and plentiful. _A11 menjbay e a. cQmmQn.intece^hjL^all things be good, and^ jhat^all^hings but the one which Q2^_^24fl^J^~jl^MsL "ffiie |^^Y er is interested that capital be good but rare^ and productive energy~good anT plentiful ; thejin- ploye is interested that f.qpit-Q-1 "h^ goorl wfi rj^Sit^fuh but that productive energy be good 2nd rare. When one man alone can do a ser- vice, and he can do it very well, he represents the laborer's ideal. laEk^aay that employers and employed arc partners in an enterprise? jfc only a delusive figure of speech. It is plainly based on no facts in the industrial system. 86 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES I 3mployers and employed make contracts on the best terms which they can agree upon, like buyers and sellers, renters and hirers, borrew- iers and lenders/^Their relations are, therefore, \ controlled by tne universal law of supplr and demandT] The enmlojer assumes the direction of the business, and t^fees_all the risk, for the capital must be consumed in the industrial process, and whether it will be found again in the^groduct or not depends upon the good judgment and foresight with which the capi- tal and labor have been applied. J0nder the ^ages^sy^temi^e employer and^^he_^naploye contract for time. The employe fulfils the contracFlf^ie obeys orders during the time, and treats the capital as he is told to treat it. Hence he is iieJTQin_aU^^^ and speculation. That this is the most advan- Tageous"arrangement for him, on the whole and in the great majority of cases, is very cer- tain. Salaried men and wage-receivers are in precisely the same circumstances, except that the former, by custom and usage, are those who have special skill or training, which is almost always an investment of capital, and which narrows the range of competition in their case. Physicians, lawyers, arid others OWE TO EACH OTHER. 87 paid by fees are workers by the piece. To the capital in existence all must come for their subsistence and their tools. Association is the lowest and simplest mode of attaining accord and concord between men. It is now the mode best suited to the condi- tion and chances of employes. Employers formerly made use of guilds to secure com- mon action for a common interest. They have given up this mode of union because it has been superseded by better ones. Corre- spondence, travel, newspapers, circulars, and telegrams bring to employers and capitalists the information which they need for the de- fence of their interests, ^he combination be- i^yeen them js^automatic and instinctive. _It^ ragnla.tftfl hy rule. It is all the stronger on that account, because intelli- gent men, holding the same general maxims of policy, and obtaining the same information, pursue similar lines of action, while retaining all the ease, freedom, and elasticity of personal independence. At present employes have not the leisure > necessary for the higher modes of communi- cation. Capital is also necessary to establish the ties of common action under the higher 88 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES forms. Moreover, there is, no doubt, an inci- dental disadvantage connected with the release which the employe gets under the wages sys- tem from all responsibility for the conduct of the business. That is, that employes do not learn to watch or study the course of industry, and do not plan for their own advantage, as other classes do. There is an especial field for combined action in the case of employes. . Em- ployers are generally_^eparated by jealousy and pride in regard to all but the most universal class interest^. Employes have a much closer ^interest in each other's wisdom. Competition alisis'for profits ^redounds^to the bene- fit of laborers. Competition of laborers for subsistence redounds to the benefit of capital- ists. It is utterly futile to plan and scheme so that either party can make a " corner " on the other. If employers withdraw capital from employment in an attempt to lower wages, they lose profits. If employes with- draw from competition in order to raise wages, they starve to death. thetwo things which lea^ Employers can, however, if they have fore- sight of the movements of industry and com- merce, and if they make skilful use of credit, OWE TO EACH OTHER. 89 win exceptional profits for a limited period. One great means of exceptional profit lies in the very fact that the employes have not exer- cised the same foresight, but have plodded along and waited for the slow and successive action of the industrial system through suc- cessive periods of production, while the em- ployer has anticipated and synchronized sever- al successive steps. ~No bargain is fairly made if one of the parties to it fails to maintain his interest. If one party to a contract is well in- formed and the other ill informed, the former is sure to win an advantage. No doctrine that a true adjustment of interest follows from the free play of interests can be construed to mean that an interest which is neglected will get its rights. The employes have no means of informa- tion which is as good and legitimate as as- sociation, and it is fair and necessary that their action should be united on behalf of their interests. Thoy^ are not in a position ior^the unrestricted ' in regard_Jj)_many of their interests. Unquestionably the better ones lose by this, and the development of individualism is to be looked forward to and hoped for as a great 90 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES gain. In the mean timejfche labor market, in w]iich wages are fixed, ftamjot re^ justments unless the^ interest^^of .the jsMFairly defended, and ..thaL-Cannot ? _ perhaps^ ^t_be done^ without associations of laborers. No newspapers yet report the labor market. If they give any notices of it of its rise and fall, of its variations in different districts and in different trades such notices are always made for the interest of the employers. Re- 41&il^ both locally " and trade-wise (so far as the latter is possible)^ a legitiiHate-and-^seful-mode of -rising- wages. ijj&dtiniate.. attempt to raise wages by limiting the number of apprenfaflfi iff thfi great abuse of trades-nnions^ I shall discuss that in the ninth chapter. It appears that the English trades were forced to contend, during the first half of this century, for the wages which the market real- ly wouM give them, but which, under the old traditions and restrictions which remained, they could not get without a positive struggle. They formed the opinion that a strike could raise wages. They were educated so to think by the success which they had won in certain attempts. It appears to have become a tra- OWE TO EACH OTHEK. 91 ditional opinion, in which no account is taken of the state of the labor market. It would be hard to find a case of any strike within thirty or forty years, either in England or the United States, which has paid. JLf_a strike, occurs, jt certainly wastes capital and hinders- produe "-tionT It must, therefore, lower wages subse- quently below what they would have been if there had been no strike. If a strike suc- ceeds, the question arises whether an advance of wages as great or greater w r ould not have occurred within a limited period without a strike. Nevertheless, a. It is like war, for it is war. All that can be said is that those who have recourse to it at last ought to understand that they as- sume a great responsibility, and that they can only be justified by the circumstances of the case. I cannot believe that a strike for w r ages/ ever is expedient.^j'There are other purposes, to be mentioned in a moment, for which a strike may be expedient ; but a strike for wages 7 is a clear case of a strife in which ultimate success is a complete test of the justifiability of the course of those who made the strife. If the men win an advance, it proves that they { 92 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES I I ought to have had it. If they do not win, it [ proves that they were wrong to strike. If they strike with the market in their favor, they win. If they strike with the market against them, they fail. It is in human nat- ure that a man whose income is increased is happy and satisfied, although, if he demanded it, he might perhaps at that very moment get more. A man whose income is lessened is displeased and irritated, and he is more likely to strike then, when it may be in vain. Strikes in industry are not nearly so peculiar a phe- nomenon as they are often thought to be. Buyers strike when they refuse to buy com- modities of which the price has risen. Either the price remains high, and they permanently learn to do without the commodity, or the price is lowered, and they buy again. Ten- ants strike when house-rents rise too high for them. They seek smaller houses or parts of houses until there is a complete re-adjustment. Borrowers strike when the rates for capital are so high that they cannot employ it to ad- vantage and pay those rates. Laborers may strike and emigrate, or, in this country, take to the land., This kind of strike is a regular application of legitimate means, and is sure OWE TO EACH OTHER. 93 to succeed. Of course, strikes with violence against employers or other employes are not to be discussed at all. .,Xrades-imin, then, are right and useful, and it may be that they are necessary. They may do much by way of true economic means to raise wages. They are useful to spread information, to maintain _ esprit jfa corps^io elevate the public opinion of the class. They have been greatly abused in the past. In this country they are in constant danger of being used by political schemers a fact which does more than anything else to disparage them in the eyes of the best work- men. The economic notions most in favor in the trades-unions are erroneous, although not more so than those which find favor in the counting-room. A man who believes that ho can raise wages by doing bad work, wasting time, allowing material to be wasted, and giving generally the least possible service in the al- lotted time, is not to be distinguished from the man w T ho says that wages can be raised by putting protective taxes on all clothing, furni- ture, crockery, bedding, books, fuel, utensils, and tools. One lowers the services given for the capital, and the other lowers the capital 94 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES given for the services. Trades-unionism in the higher classes consists in jobbery. There is a great deal of it in the professions. I once heard a group of lawyers of high standing sneer at an executor who hoped to get a large estate through probate without allowing any lawyers to get big fees out of it. They all approved of steps which had been taken to force a contest, which steps had forced the executor to retain two or three lawyers. No one of the speakers had been retained. Trades -unions need development, correc- tion, and perfection. They ought, however, to get this from the men themselves. If the men do not feel any need of such institutions, the patronage of other persons who come to them and give them these institutions will do harm and not good. Especially trades-unions ought to be perfected so as to undertake a great range of important duties for which we now rely on Government inspection, which nev- \ er gives what we need. The safety of workmen from machinery, the ventilation and sanitary arrangements required by Tacrtories, the ^special precautions oT~,certain processes, the hours_pf laboj} .women and children, the schooling of children, the limits of^age^for employed chiJ OWE TO EACH OTHER. 95 dren, Sunday work, hours of labor these and other like matters ought to be controlled by the men themselves through their organiza- tions. The laborers about whom we are talk- ing are free men in a free state. (If they wan II to be protected they must protect themselves.! They ought to protect their own women and children. Their own class opinion ought to secure the education of the children of their class. If an individual workman is not bold enough to protest against a wrong to laborers, the agent of a trades-union might with propri- ety do it on behalf of the body of workmen. Here is a great and important need, and, h> stead of applying suitable and adequate means to supply it, we have demagogues declaiming, trades -union officers resolving, and Govern- ment inspectors drawing salaries, while little or nothing is done. I have said that trades-unions are right and useful, and, perhaps, necessary; buLtradesjin- iQngLj,re, in fact, in this country, an esfitic and imported institution, and a great many of their rules and modes of procedure, having been de- veloped in England to meet English circum- stances, are out of place here. The institution itself does not flourish here as it would if it WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES were in a thoroughly congenial environment. It needs to be supported by special exertion and care. Two things here work against it. / B^gfe^the^ A trades-union, to be strong, needs to be com- posed of men who have grown up together, who have close personal acquaintance and mut- ual confidence, who have been trained to the same code, and who expect to live on together in the same circumstances and interests. In this country, where workmen move about fre- quently and with facility, the unions suffer^ in their harmony and stability. It was a signifi- "cant fact that the unions declined during the hard times. It was only when the men were prosperous that they could afford to keep up the unions, as a kind of social luxury. When the time came to use the union it ceased to be. ;>6econdly, the ^mjsric^ii-JKQrkman real &. such personal independence, and such an inde- ^ pendent and strong position in the labor mar- * * i _... M. ii. -r- ** ------ - "* "" " ' ..... "* ket^jhatjie doesjaot need^the joaioa. He is farther on the road toward the point where per- sonal liberty supplants the associative principle than any other workman. Hence the associa- tion is likely to be a clog to him, especially if he is a good laborer, rather than an assistance. OWE TO EACH OTHER. 97 If it were not for trie notion brought from England, that trades-unions are, in some mys- terious way, beneficial to the workmen which notion has now become an article of faith it is very doubtful whether American workmen would find that the unions were of any use, unless they were converted into organizations for accomplishing the purposes enumerated in the last paragraph. The fashion of the time is to run to Govern- ment boards, commissions, and inspectors to set right everything which is wrong. No ex- perience seems to damp the faith of our pub- lic in these instrumentalities. The English Liberals in the middle of this century seemed to have full grasp of the principle of liberty, and to be fixed and established in favor of non- interference. Since they have come to power, however, they have adopted the old instrumen- talities, and have greatly multiplied them since they have had a great number of reforms to carry out. They seem to think that interfer- ence is good if only they interfere. In this country the party which is " in " always inter- feres, and the party which is " out " favors non-interference. Tli^ystemjrf interference is a complete failure of the ends jtjurniTaf, ~ . / / 98 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES and sooner or later it will fall of its own ex- {^pense and be swept away. The i\a.nQtions one to regulate things by a committee of control, and the other to let thongs regulate.. themselves by the conflict of interests between free men are diametrically opposed ; and the f oirmer is corrupting to free institutions, be- catise men_wi^^^.taugkt-ta^expect Govern- ment inspectors to come and take care~of IhauoL lose all true education in liberty,, ^ If we have *eeiPall wrong foftKe last three hundred years in aiming at a fuller realization of indi- vidual liberty, as a condition of general and widely-diffused happiness, then we must turn back to paternalism, discipline, and authority ; but tq^have_a combinatioli of liberty and de- pendence is impossible. I have read a great many diatribes within the last ten years against employers, and a great many declamations about the wrongs of employes. I have never seen a defence of the employer. Who dares say that he is not the friend of the poor man ? Who dares say that he is the friend of the employer ? I will try to say what I think is true. There are bad, harsh, cross employers; there are slovenly, negligent workmen; there are just about as OWE TO EACH OTHER. 99 many proportionately of one of these classes as of the other. The employs of the United I States as a class, proper exceptions being un- derstood have no advantage over their work- men. They could not oppress them if they ' wanted to do so. The advantage, taking good and bad times together, is with the workmen. * The employers wish the welfare of the work- men in all respects, and would give redress for any grievance which was brought to their at- tention. They are considerate of the circum- stances and interests of the laborers. They remember the interests of the workmen when driven to consider the necessity of closing or reducing hours. They go on, and take risk and trouble on themselves in working through bad times, rather than close their works. The ' whole class of those-who-have are quick in their sympathy for any form of distress or suffering. They are too quick. Their sympa- thies need regulating, not stimulating. They are more likely to give away capital recklessly than to withhold it stingily when any alleged case of misfortune is before them. They re- joice to see any man succeed in improving his position. They will aid him with counsel and information if he desires it, and any man who 100 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES needs and deserves help because he is trying to help himself will be sure to meet with sympathy, encouragement, and assistance from those who are better off. If those who are in that position are related to him as employers to employe, that tie will be recognized as giv- ing him an especial claim. I OWE TO EACH OTHEK. 101 VII CONCERNING SOME OLD FOES UNDER NEW FACES. THE history of the human race is -c story of attempts by certain persons ana class- es to obtain control of the power of }li3 so as to win earthly gratifications at the ex- ; pense of others. People constantly assume that there is something metaphysical and sen- timental about government. At bottom therer are two chief things with which government! has to deal. They are, the property of menl > and theJiouor^i)LjOiiien._ These it has to de-i fend against crime. The capital which, as we have seen, is the condition of all welfare on earth, the fortification of existence, and the means of growth, is an object of cupidity. Some want to get it without paying the price of industry and economy. In ancient times they made use of force. They organized bands of robbers. They plundered laborers and merchants. Chief of all, however, they 102 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES found that means of robbery which consisted in gaining control of the civil organization the State and using its poetry and romance as a glamour under cover of which they made robbery lawful. They developed high-spun theories of nationality, patriotism, and loyal- ty. They took all the rank, glory, power, and prestige of the great civil organization, and they took all the rights. They threw on oth- ers the burdens and the duties. At one time, no doubtj feudalism was an organization which drew together again the fragments of a dis- solved socief|?; but when the lawyers had ap- plied the Roman law to modern kings, and feudal nobles had been converted into an aris- tocracy of court nobles, the feudal nobility no longer served any purpose. In modern times the great phenomenon has been the growth of the middle class out of the mediaeval cities, the accumulation of ^wealth, and the encroachment of wealth, as a social power, on the ground formerly occupied by rank and birth.. The middle class_Eas been / obliged to fight for its rights jga^LiliaJEeu- / dalJcEss, and it has7"cTuring three or four cen- / turies, gradually invented arid established in- JS. stitutions to guarantee personal and property OWE TO EACH OTHER. 103 rights against the arbitrary will of kings and nobles. in its turn T^ealth is now jbecoming a power I inJJieJ3tate, and, like every other ]x>wer, it isl liable to abuse unless restrained by checks and guarantees. There is an insolence of wealth, as there" is an insolence of rank. A plutoc- racy might be -even far worse than an aristoc- racy. Aristocrats have always had their class vices and their class virtues. They have al- ways been, as a class, chargeable with licen- tiousness and gambling. They have, however, as a class, despised lying and stealing. They have always pretended to maintain a standard of honor, although the definition and the code of honor have suffered many changes and shocking deterioration. The middle class has always abhorred gambling and licentious ,| ness, but it has not always been strict about*' truth and pecuniary fidelity. That there is a code and standard of mercantile honor which is quite as pure and grand as any military code, is beyond question, but it has never yet been established and defined by long usage and the concurrent support of a large and influ- ential society. The feudal code has, through centuries, bred a high type of men, and con- 104 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES stituted a caste. The mercantile code has not yet done so, but the wealthy class has attempted to merge itself in or to imitate the feudal class. The consequence is, that the wealth-power has been developed, while the moral and s^T cial sanctions by which that power ought to ] be controlled have not yet been developed. / A plutocracy would be a civil organization in which the jpower resides in wealth, in which a man might have whatever he could buy, in which the rights, interests, and feelings of those who could not pay would be overridden. There is a plain tendency of all civilized governments toward plutocracy. The power of wealth in the English House of Commons has steadily increased for fifty years. The history of the present French Republic has shown an extraordinary development of plu- tocratic spirit and measures. In the United States many plutocratic doctrines have a cur- rency which is not granted them anywhere else; that is, a man's right to have almost anything which he can pay for is more pop- ularly recognized here than elsewhere. So far the most successful limitation on plufcoc- racy has come from aristocracy, for the pres- OWE TO EACH OTHER. 105 tige of rank is still great wherever it exists. The social sanctions of aristocracy tell with great force on the plutocrats, more especially on their wives and daughters. It has already resulted that a class of wealthy men is grow- ing up in regard to whom the old sarcasms of the novels and the stage about parvenus are entirely thrown away. They are men who have no superiors, by whatever standard one chooses to measure them. Such an interplay of social forces would, indeed, be a great and happy solution of a new social problem, if the aristocratic forces were strong enough for the magnitude of the task. If the feudal aris- tocracy, or its modern representative which is, in reality, not at all feudal could carry down into the new era and transmit to the new masters of society the grace, elegance, breeding, and culture of the past, society would certainly gain by that course of things, as compared with any such rupture between past and present as occurred in the French Revolution. The dogmatic radicals who as- sail "on principle" the inherited social no- tions and distinctions are not serving civiliza- tion. .Society can do without patricians, but ,'; ( imnot do without the patriciaQjd.rJtllfiSf WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES In the United States ty opponent, of p]ru Jocracy is democracy. Nowhere else in the world has the power of wealth come to be discussed in its political aspects as it is here. Nowhere else does the question arise as it does here. I have given some reasons for this in former chapters. Nowhere in the world is thejlanger of a plutocracy as formidable as it is here. To it we oppose the power of num- bers as it is presented by democracy. De- mocracy itself, however, is new and expert-^ mental. It has not yet existed long enough to find its appropriate forms. It has no pres- tige from antiquity such as aristocracy pos- sesses. It has, indeed, none of the surround- ings which appeal to the imagination. On ^the other hand, democracy is rooted in the j physical, economic, and social circumstances of the United jStates. This country cannot be other than democratic for an indefinite pe- riod in the future. Its political processes f will also be republican. Jhe afifefitlQiLof the j people for democracy makes them blind and uncritical in regard to it, and they, are as fond of the political fallacies to which democracy lends itself as they are of its sound and cor- rect interpretation, or fonder. Can democ- OWE TO EACH OTHER. 107 racy develop itself and at the same time curb plutocracy ? ^ Already the question presents itself as one of life or death to democracy. Legislative/ and judicial scandals show us that the conflict is already opened, and that it is serious. The ^ lobbyjs^the army of the plutocracy. Anjslec- tivjELJlldiciary is aTTteyice so much in the in^ terest of plutocracy, that it must be regarded ' r J ? - " p as a striking proof oi^iha . judicial institution that it hag reacted the corruption so much as it has. The caucus, convention, and committee lend themselves most readily to the purposes of interested speculators and jobbers. It is just such ma- ch'nery as they might have invented if they had been trying to make political devices to serve their purpose, and their processes pall in question nothing less , than the possibility of ^ free self-government under the forms of a democratic republic. For now I come to the particular point which I desire to bring forward against all the denunciations and complainings about the power of chartered corporations and aggre- gated capital. If charters have been given which confer undue powers, who gave them ? 108 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES Our legislators did. Who elected these legis- lators ? We did. If we are a free, self-gov- erning people, we must understand that it costs vigilance and exertion to be self-govern- Kng. It costs far more vigilance and exertion to be so under the democratic form, where we have no aids from tradition or prestige, than under other forms. If we are a free, self-gov- erning people, we can blame nobody but our- J selves for our misfortunes. No one will come to help us out of them. It w r ill do no good to heap law upon law, or to try by constitu- tional provisions simply to abstain from the use of powers which w r e find we always abuse. How_caeuwe^et bad legislators to pass a law which shall hinder bad legislators from pass- ing^a bad law ? ThaLjs^wIiat we are trying to do by many of our proposed remedies. /The tasE before us, however, is one which calls for fresh reserves of moral force and po- litical virtue from the very foundations of the social body. Surely it is not a new thing to us to learn that men are greedy and covetous, and that they will be selfish and tyrannical if - they dare. The plutocrats are simply trying to do what the generals, nobles, and priests have done in the past get the jjower of the OWE TO EACH OTHER. 109 Statejiito their hands, BO as to bend the rights of others to their own advantage; and what we need to do is to recognize the fadLthat are face to face with the same old foes t vices _ agd passions of human .nature. One of the oldest and most mischievous fallacies i this country has been the notion that we ar better than other nations, and that Govern- ment has a smaller and easier task here thaA elsewhere. This fallacy has hindered us from' recognizing our old foes as soon as we should, have done. Then, again, these vices and pas- ' sions take good care here to deck themselves out in the trappings of democratic watch- words and phrases, so that they are more of- ten greeted with cheers than with opposition when they first appear. The plan of electing' men to represent us who systematically sur- render public to private interests, and then trying to cure the mischief by newspaper and platform declamation against capital and cor- porations, is an entire failure. Thi^new foesjjaiigt-Jba m ^t, as the old ones I were met by jristitntiVms sm(\ frnprsmtew. I ciety so advantageous an em- ploynienTof his services, whatever they are, TiTany other~way as by spendingjhem^on^his "family Upon" this, however, I will not in- sist. I recur to the observation that a man who proposes to take care of other people must have himself and his family taken care of, after some sort of a fashion, and must have an as yet unexhausted store of energy. The danger of minding other people's busi- OWE TO EACH OTHER. 115 ness is twofold. First, there_ia-tlia-.danger) t-^jj^-^JT^aiLJnay l^avp, "his own Ivilfii^p^nTT^-t tended to ; .and, second, there is the danger of an impertinent interference with another's af- fairs. The " friends of humanity" almost al- ways run into both dangers. I am one of humanity, and I do not want any volunteer friends. I regard friendship as mutual, and I want to have my say about it. I suppose that other components of humanity feel in the same way about it. If so, they must regard any one who assumes the role of a friend of ^ impertinent. The reference of th friend j)JLhnmajuty :4>ack4e- ne^ouibviously the next step. Yet w r e are constantly annoyed, and the legislatures are kept constantly busy, by the people who have made up their minds that it is wise and conducive to happiness to live in a certain way, and who w r ant to compel everybody else to live in their way. Some people have decided to spend Sunday in a certain way, and they want laws passed to make other people spend Sunday in the same way. Some people hay^regjQlYjgdJLQ,bp. .tee- totalers, and they want^ jjjaw passed to make everybody else a teetotaler. Some people 116 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES have resolved to eschew luxury, and they want taxes laid to make others eschew luxury. The taxing power is especially something af ter which the reformer's finger always itches. Sometimes there is an element of self-interest in the proposed reformation, as when a pub- lisher wanted a duty imposed on books, to keep Americans from reading books which would unsettle their Americanism ; and when artists wanted a tax laid on pictures, to save Ameri- cans from buying bad paintings. I make no reference here to the giving and taking of counsel and aid between man and man : of that I shall say something in the last chapter. The very sacredness of the relation ^ iii which two men stand, to. -one another wheiu one of them rescues the other from vice sep- arates that relation from any connection with the work of the social busybody, tlxe profes- sional philanthropist, and, the^ empirical legis=-_ Tatar! ~~ The amateur social doctors are like the ama- teur physicians they always begin with the question of remedies, and they go at this with- iout any diagnosis or any knowledge of the anatomy or physiology of society. They nev- er have any doubt of the efficacy of their OWE TO EACH OTHER. 117 remedies. They never take account of any ulterior effects which may be apprehended from the remedy itself. It generally troubles them not a whit that their remedy implies complete reconstruction of society,, or .even a reconstitution of human nature. Against all such social quackery the obvious injunction to the quacks is, to mind their own business. The social doctors enjoy the satisfaction of feeling themselves to be more moral or more enlightened than their fellow-men. They are able to see what other men ought to do when the other men do not see it. An examination ' of the work of the social doctors, however, shows that they are only more ignorant and more presumptuous than other people. We have a great many social difficulties and hard- ships to contend with. Poverty, pain, disease, and misfortune surround our existence. We fight against them all the time. The individ-i ual is a centre of hopes, affections, desires, and! sufferings. When he dies, life changes its] form, but does not cease. That means that 1 the person the centre of all the hopes, affec- tions, etc. after struggling as long as he can, is sure to succumb at last. We would, there- fore, as far as the hardships of the human lot 118 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES are concerned, go on struggling to the best of our ability against them but for the social doc- tors, and we Would endure what we could not cure. But we have inherited a vast number of social ills which never came from Nature. Thej 7 are the complicated products of all the tinkering, muddling, and blundering of social doctors in the past. These products of social quackery are now buttressed by habit, fashion, prejudice, platitudinarian thinking, and new quackery in political economy and social sci- ence. It is a fact worth noticing, just when there seems to be a revival of faith in legisla- tive agencies, that our States are generally providing against the experienced evils of over-legislation by ordering that the Legislat- ure shall sit only every other year. During the hard times, when Congress had a real chance to make or mar the public welfare, the final adjournment of that body was hailed year after year with cries of relief from a /great anxiety. The greatest reforms whicl I could now be accomplished would consist in | undoing the work of statesmen in the past and the greatest difficulty in the way of re' \ f orm is to find out how to undo their worl i without injury to what is natural and sound. OWE TO EACH OTHER. x 119 All this mischief has been done by men who sat down to consider the problem (as I heard an apprentice of theirs once express it), What kind of a society do we want to make ? When they had settled this question _& priori tq their satisfaction, they set to work _ to make their ideal society, and to-day we suffer the conse- quences. Human society^tries hard to jadapt itself to any conditionsjn which it finds itself, and we have been warped and distorted until \vejiave got used to it, as the foot adapts it- self to ^an ill-made boot. Next, we have come to think^that that ia.thejright way for things to be ; and it is true that a change to a sound and normal condition would for a time hurt us, as a man whose foot has been distorted would suffer if he tried to wear a well-shaped boot. Fiiiallvj we have produced a lot of economists and social philosophers who have invented sophisms for fitting our thinking to the dis-y torted facts.^^ Society, therefore, does not need any caret * or supervision. If we can acquire a science of spciety,J)ased on_observatioii^ of phenome- na and study of forces, we may hope to gain some ground slowly toward the elimination of old errors and the re-establishment of a sound 120 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES and natural social order. Whatever we gain that way will be by growth, never in the world by any reconstruction of society on the plan of some enthusiastic social architect. The latter is only repeating the old error over again, and postponing all our chances of real improvement. Society needs first of all to be freed from these meddlers that is, to be let alone. Here we are, then, once more back at "the old doctrine Laissez faire. Let us trans- late it into blunt English, and it will read, Mind your own business. It is nothing but the doctrine of liberty/ Let every man be happy in his own way. If his sphere of ac- tion and interest impinges on that of any oth- er man, there will have to be compromise and adjustment. Wait for the occasion. Do not attempt to generalize those interferences or to plan for them a priori. We have a body of laws and institutions which have grown up as occasion has occurred for adjusting rights. Let the same process go on. Practise the ut- most reserve possible in your interferences even of this kind, and by no means seize oc- casion for interf enng^with ....natural__adjust- ^ients. Try first long and patiently whether the natural adjustment will not come about - OWE TO EACH OTHER. 121 through the play of interests and the volun- tary concessions of the parties. I have said that we have an empirical polit- ical economy and social science to fit the dis- tortions of our society. The test of empiri- cism in this matter is the attitude which one takes up toward laissez faire. It no doubt wounds the vanity of a philosopher who is just ready with a new solution of the universe to be told to mind his own business. So he goes on to tell us that if we think that we shall, by being let alone, attain to perfect happiness on earth, we are mistaken. The half-way men the professorial socialists join him. They solemnly shake their heads, and tell us that he is right that letting us. alone will never secure us perfect happiness. Under all this lies the familiar logical fallacy, never express- ed, but really the point of the whole, that we shall get perfect happiness if we put ourselves in the hands of the world-reformer. We nev- er supposed that laissez faire would give us perfect happiness. We have left perfect hap- piness entirely out of our account. If the social doctors will mind their own business, we shall have no troubles but what belong to Nature. Those we will endure or combat as 122 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES we can. What we desire is, that the friends of humanity should cease to add to them. Our disposition toward the ills which our fel- low-man inflicts on us through malice or med- dling is quite different from our disposition toward the ills which are inherent in the con- ditions of human life. To mind one's ovm^business is a purely neg- ative and unproductive injunction, but, taking social matters "as Tney are just now, it is a so- ciological principle of the first importance. There might be developed a grand philosophy - on the basis of minding one's own business. OWE TO EACH OTHER 123 IX. ON THE CASE OF A CERTAIN MAN WHO IS NEVER THOUGHT OF. THE type and formula of most ..schemes of philanthropy or humanitarianism is this :^A i and B _put their heads together to decide what t Cjshall be made to do for D^ The radical vice I of all these schemes, from a sociological point J of view, is that is not allowed a voice in the matter, and his position, character, and inter- ests, as well as the ultimate effects on society through C's interests, are entirely overlooked, call C the Forgotten Man. For once let usf look him up and consider his case, for the characteristic of all social doctors is, that they fix their minds on some man or group of men whose case appeals to the sympathies and the imagination, and they plan remedies addressed to the particular trouble ; they do not under- stand that all the parts of society hold togeth- er, and that forces which are set in action act and react throughout the whole organism, until an equilibrium is produced by a re-adjustmenl 124 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES of all interests and rights. They therefore ig- nore entirely the source from which they must draw all the energy which they employ in their remedies, and they ignore all the effects on other members of society than the ones they have in view. They are always under the dominion of the superstition of govern- ment, and, forgetting that a government pro- duces nothing at all, they leave out of sight the first fact to be remembered in all social discussion that the State cannot get a cent for any man without taking it from some other man, and this latter must be a man who has produced and saved it. This latter is the For- gotten Man. The friends of humanity start out with cer- tain benevolent feelings toward "the poor," "the weak," "the laborers," and others of whom they make pets. They generalize these classes, and render them impersonal, and so constitute the classes into social pets. They turn to other classes and appeal to sympathy and generosity, and to all the other noble KMI- timents of the human heart. Action in the line proposed consists in a transfer of capital f roin the better oft to the worsc~iE CajmtaJ^ i however, as we have seen, is the furco by OWE TO EACH OTHEK. 125 wliidj^civilization is rnaiataiiied-4iiid carried! on. The same piece of capital cannot be usea ~m two ways. Every bit of capital, therefore, which is given to a shiftless and inefficient member of society, who makes no return for > it, is diverted from a reproductive use ; but if it was put to reproductive use, it would have to be granted in wages to an efficient and productive laborer. Hence the real sufferer/ i *- by that kind of benevolence whichj^onsists yvj an expenditure of capital to protect the^good- f or-nothing is the industrious laborer. The ' latter, however, is never thought of in this connection. It is assumed that he is provided for and out of the account. Such a notion only shows how little true notions of political economy have as yet become popularized. There is an almost invincible prejudice that a man who gives a dollar to a beggar is gener- ous and kind-hearted, but that a man who re- fuses the beggar and puts the dollar in a sav- ings-bank is stingy and mean. The former is putting capital where it is very sure to be wasted, and where it will be a kind of seed for a long succession of future dollars, which must be wasted to ward off a greater strain on the sympathies than would have been occa- 126 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES gioned by a refusal in the first place. Inas- much as the dollar might have been turned into capital and given to a laborer who^jdnle^ ^earning^ it. would have reprodiiCdJ.t, itjnust be regarded ^ takpn f t^latite 1 * When a millionnaire gives a dollar to a beggar the gain of utility to the beggar is enormous, and the loss of utility to the millionnaire is insignificant. Generally the discussion is allowed to rest there. But if the millionnaire makes capital of the dollar, it must go upon the labor mar- ket, as a demand for productive services. Hence there is another party in interest- the person who supplies productive services. There always are two parties. The second one is always thoJ^orffotten Man, and any one who wants to truly understand the matter in r question must go and search for the Forgotten Man. He will be found to be worthy, indus- trious, independent, and self-supporting. He is not, technically, "poor" or rr wea;" he minds his own business, and makes no corn- plaint. Consequently the philanthropists nev- er think of him, and trample on him. "We hear a great deal of schemes for "im- proving the condition of the working-man." In the United States the farther down we go OWE TO EACH OTHER. 127 in the grade of labor, the greater is the ad- vantage which the laborer has over the higher classes. A hod-carrier or digger here can, by one day's labor, command many times more days' labor of a carpenter, surveyor, book- keeper, or doctor than an unskilled laborer in Europe could command by one day's labor. The same is true, in a less degree, of the car- penter, as compared with the book-keeper, sur- veyor, and doctor. This is why the United States is the great country for thejmskilled laborer. The economic conditions all favor that class. There is a great continent to be subdued, and there is a fertile soil available to labor, with scarcely any need of capital. Hence the people who have the strong arms have what is most needed, and, if it were not for social consideration, higher education would not pay. Such being the case, the working-man needs no improvement hi his condition except to be freed from the para- sites who are living on him. All sghgm.es for patronizing " the working classes^savor of condescension. They, are impertinent and out of place in this free democracy. There is not, in fact, any such state of things or any such relation as would make projects of this 128 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES kind appropriate. Sucli projects demoralize both partie^ flattering the vanity of one and undermining the self-resp.e.ct,of .the other. For our present purpose it is most impor- tant to notice that if we lift any man up we must have a fulcrum, or point of reaction. In society that means that to lift one man up we push another down. The schemes for improv- ing thejeondition of the working classes inteiV fere in the competition of workmen withj&h ^ther. The beneficiaries are selected by favor* itism, and are apt to be those who have recom- mended themselves to the friends of humanity by language or conduct which does not betoken independence and energy. Those who suffer a corresponding depression by the interference are the independent and self-reliant, who once more are forgotten or passed over; and the friends of humanity once more appear, in their zeal to help somebody, to be trampling on those who are trying to help themselves. Trades-unions adopt various devices for rais- ing wages, and those who give their time to philanthropy are interested in these devices, and wish them success. They fix their minds entirely on the workmen for the time being in the trade, and do not take note of any other OWE TO EACH OTHER. 129 workmen as interested in the matter. It is supposed that the fight is between the work- men and their employers, and it is believed that one can give sympathy in that contest to the workmen without feeling responsibility for anything farther. It is soon seen, however, that the mnj^yer a.drk t.hft t.ra.dp.R-miinn n.nrl to the other risks of Jy'fi au4 settles^ dpjgDL-ta...it. philosophically. If, now, we go farther, we see that he takes it philosophically because he has passed the loss along on the public. It then appears that the public wealth has been diminished, and that the daiigsr . of a trade war, like the danger of a reyolutjon^ is a constant reduction^of the well-being^ of jalL So far, however, we have seen only things which could lower wages nothing which could raise them. The em- ployer is worried, but that does not raise wages. The_jpublic loses, buttheloss goes to cover extra risk and Jhat_do.ea..n.ot~raifie A trades-union raises w^ages (aside from the legitimate and economic means noticed in apprentices who may be bis device acts directly on the supply of la- 9 130 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES borers, and that produces effects on wages. If, however, the number of apprentices is limited, some are kept out who want to get in. Those who are in have, therefore, made a monopoly, and constituted themselves a privileged class on a basis exactly analogous to that of the old privileged aristocracies. But whatever is gaiiied by this arrangement for those who are in is won at a greater loss to those who are kept out. Hence it is not upon the masters nor upon the public tha^r^es^unipn^exert t]ie pressure by which they .rajafi ^ragea.;.. it. is other j^j^jrfJh&J^^ 3 / j-ffi iflto the trades, but, not being able to do so, arg pushed down into thejinskilled labor class. These persons, however, are passed by entirely without notice in all the discussions "about trades-unions. They are the Forgotten Men. But, since they want to get into the trade and win their living in it, it is fair to suppose that they are fit for it, would succeed at it, would do well for themselves and society in it ; that is to say, that, of all persons in- terested or concerned, they most deserve our sympathy and attention. ine cases already mentioned involve no leg islation. Society, however, maintains police, OWE TO EACH OTHER. 131 sheriffs, and various institutions, the object of which is to protect people against themselves that is, against their own vices. Almost all legislative effort to prevent vice is really pro- tective of vice, because all such legislation saves the vicious man from the penalty of his vice. Nature's remedies against vice are teix*\ rible. She removes the victims without jjjity. A drunkard in the^.^gattfinjs just wherejie ' ought to be, according to the fitness and ten- dency of tilings. Nature has set up on him the process of decline and dissolution by which she removes things which have survived their usefulness. Gambling and other less men- tionable vices carry their own penalties with them. Now, we never can annihilate a penalty. We can only divert Jt_from the heaTpf the man who has incurred it to the heads of others { ^ t who have Jiot^ incurred it. A vast amount of " social reform " consists in just this operation. The consequence is that those who have gone astray, being relieved from Nature's fierce discipline, go on to worse, and that there is a constantly heavier burden for the others to bear. Who are the others ? When we see a drunkard in the gutter we pity him. If a/po- 132 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES liceman picks him up, we say that society has interfered to save him from perishing. " Soci- ety " is a fine word, and it saves us the trouble of thinking. The industrious and sober work- man, who is mulcted of a percentage of his day's wages to pay the policeman, is the one who bears the penalty. But he is the Forgot- ten Man. He passes by and is never noticed, because he has behaved himself, fulfilled his contracts, and asked for nothing. The fallacy of all prohibitory, sumptuary, and moraHegislation is_the same. A and B determine to be teetotalers, which is often a wise determination, and sometimes a necessary one. If A and B are moved by considerations which seem to them good, that is enough. But A and B put their heads together to get a law passed which shall force C to be a teetotaler for the sake of D, who is in danger of drink- ing too much. There is no pressure on A and B. They are having their own way, and they like it. There is rarely any pressure on D. He does not like it, and evades it. The press- ure all comes on 0. The question then arises, Who is C? He is the man who wants alco- holic liquors for any honest purpose whatso- ever, who would use his liberty without abus- OWE TO EACH OTHER. 133 ing it, who would occasion no public question, and trouble nobody at all. He is the Forgot- ten Man again, and as soon as he is drawn from his obscurity we see that lie is just what each one of us ought to be. 134 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES X. THE CASE OF THE FORGOTTEN MAN FARTHER CONSIDERED. THERE is a beautiful notion afloat in our literature and in the minds of -our peopl^that men are born to certain " ^aturaJ[jri^hts.'' \If that were true, there woulcFte soritet&bg-'on earth which was got for nothing, and this world would not be the place it is at all. The fact is, that the,rg_Js no right whatever inherited JiyjQQaTijrohift]i.liflfl TiAtTaTi f>^JYg]gJ^ nT1 ^ responding duty bj_ jhg__side of it, as the price of it. The rights, advantages, capital, knowledge, and all other goods which we in- herit from past generations have bago won by the struggles and sufferings of(j>astgenera- tiaag 5 and the fact that the race nves^though men die, and that the race can by heredity ac- cumulate within some cycle its victories over Nature, is one of the facts which make civili- zation possible. The struggles of the race as a whole produce the possessions of the race as OWE TO EACH OTHER. 135 a whole. Something for nothing is not to be found on earth. If there were such things as natural rights, the question would arise, Against whom are they good ? Who has the corresponding obli- gation to satisfy these rights ? There can be j no rights against JNaturejjsxcept to get out of^ ^^ her whatever we can, which is only the fact : *~ftf tlle^ffu^gle^ for existence stated over "agam. The common assertion is, that the rights are good against society; that is, that society is bound to obtain and secure them for the per- sons interested. Society, however, is only the persons interested plus some other persons ; \ and as the persons interested have by the hy- pothesis failed to win the rights, we come to this, that natural rights are the claims which certain persons have by prerogative against some other persons. Such is the actual inter- pretation in practice of natural rights claims which some people have by prerogative on^ other people. ~ This theory is a very far-reaching one, and of course it is adequate to furnish a foundation for a whole social philosophy. In its widest extension it comes to mean that if any man finds himself uncomfortable in this world, it 136 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES must be somebody else's fault, and that some- body is bound to come and make him comfort- #ble. Now, the people who are_most un.com- this, w&rld (for if we should tell all our troubles it would not be found to be a very comfortable world for anybody) are those who haye jieglected their duties, and conse- ouently have failed to get their rights. The people who can be called upon to serve the uncomfortable must be those who have done their duty, as the world goes, tolerably well. Consequently the doctrine which we are dis- cussing turns out to be in practice only a scheme for making injustice prevail in hu- man society by reversing_the_distributioa~of rewards ^ lE9^punishm^j^^tween those who "Gave don? their iu^ an^^those-wlia have not. VVcTare constantly preached at by our pub- lic teachers, as if respectable people were to blame because some people are not respectable as if the man who has done his duty in his own sphere was responsible in some way for another man who has not done his duty in his sphere. There are relations of employer and employe which need to be regulated by com- promise and treaty. There are sanitary pre- cautions which need to be taken in factories OWE TO EACH OTHER. 137 and houses. There are precautions against fire which are necessary. There is care need- ed that children be not employed too young, and that they have an education. There is care needed that banks, insurance companies, and railroads be well managed, and that offi- cers do not abuse their trusts. There is a duty in each case on the interested parties to defend their own interest. The penalty of neglect is suffering. The system of J^rovid- ing f or these things by boards and inspectors throws the cost of it, not on the interest^ parties, but on the tax-payers. Some of them, no doubt, are the interested parties, and they may consider that they are exercising the proper care by paying taxes to support an inspector. If so, they only get their fair de- serts when the railroad inspector finds out that a bridge is not safe after it is broken down, or when the bank examiner comes in to find out why a bank failed after the cashier has stolen all the funds. The real victim is the Forgot- ten Man again tHe man who has watchedTliis omi- investments, maxTe his own macliinery jsafe, attended to his own plumbing, and edu- cated his own children, and who, just when he wants to enjoy the fruits of his care, is told 138 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES that it is his duty ...to go and take care of 'some of his negligent neighbors, or, if he does not go, to pay an inspector to go. No doubt it is often his interest to go or to send, rather than to have the matter neglected, on account of his own connection with the thing neglect- ed, and his own secondary peril ; but the point now is, that if preaching and philosophizing can do any good in the premises, it Ismail wrong to jDreach toj:he Forgotten Man^that it is his diflt^jfco^gQ and ygmedy other people's neglect. Clt^is not hisduty. j It is a harsh and unjust burden which is laid upon him, and it is only the more unjust because no one thinks of him when laying the burden so that it falls on (him. The exhortations ought to be expended on the negligent tEat they take care of them- selves. It is an especially yjjgipTis extension of the false doctrine tbove mentioned tia criminals have some sort of a right against or society. Many reformatory -^plans are based on a doctrine of this kind wlt^ they are urged upon the public conscience. 4- criminal is a man who, instead of working with and for the society, has turned against it, and become destructive and injurious. His punishment OWE TO EACH OTHER. means that society rules him out of its mem- bership, and separates him from its association, by execution or imprisonment, according to the gravity of his offence. He has no claims against society at all. "What shall be done with him is a question of expediency to be settled in view of the interests of society that is, of the non-criminals. The French writers of the school of '48 used to represent the badness of the bad men as the fault of "society." As the object of this statement was to show that the badness of the bad men was not the fault of the bad men, and as soci- ety contains only good men and bad men, it followed that the badness of the bad men was the fault of the good men. On that theory, of course the good men owed a great deal to the bad men who avere in prison and at the galleys on their acdpunt. Jf we do not admit that theory, it behl yv^sjas_^^omember . that liSY^cIaim which \ve allow to the criminal against the u Pt-a-te " -V only ,gp ^ have never cost the State discipline or correction. The punishments of society are just like those of God and Nature they are warnings to the wrong-doer to reform himself. WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES When public offices are to be filled nu- merous candidates at once appear. Some are urged on the ground that they are poor, or cannot earn a living, or want support while getting an education, or have female relatives dependent on them, or are in poor health, or belong in a particular district, or are related to certain persons, or have done meritorious ser- vice in some other line of work than that which they apply to do. The abuses of the jgublic jervice are to Jbe condemned on account of the harm " to the public interest, but there is an incidental injustice of the same general character with that which we are discussing. If an office is granted by favoritism or for any personal reason to A, it cannot be given to B. If an office is filled by a person who is unfit for it, he always keeps out somebody some- -'where who is fit for it ; that is, the social in- justice has a victim in an unknown person the Forgotten vMan. and he is some person who has no political influence, and who has known no way in which to secure the chances of life except to deserve them. He is passed by for the noisy, pushing, importunate, and incompetent. I have said something disparagingly in a pre- OWE TO EACH OTHEK. 141 vious chapter about the popular rage against combined capital, corporations, corners, selling futures, etc., etc. The popular rage is not without reason, but it is sadly misdirected, and the real things which deserve attack are thriving all the time. The__greatest soci eyjfl with which we have to contend is beryO Whatever there is in legislative char- ters, watering stocks, etc., etc., which is objec- tionable, comes under the head of jobbery. /Jobbery is any scheme which aims to gain, / "nof by the legitimate fruits of industry and ( enterprise, but by extorting from somebody a \ part of his product under guise of some pre- \ tended industrial undertaking. Of course it \is only a modification when the undertaking in question has some legitimate character, but the occasion is used to graft upon it devices for obtaining what has not been earned. Job- j)ery is tl^e vice of pjutocracy^^nd it is the especial form under which plutocracy corrupts a democratic and republican form of govern- ment. The United. States is deeply afflicted with it, and the problem of civil liberty here is to conquer it. It affects everything which we really need to have done to such an extent that we have to do without public objects 142 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES which we need through fear of jobbery. Our public buildings are jobs not always, but v of- ten. They are not needed, or are costly be- yond all necessity or even decent luxury. In- ternal improvements are jobs. They are not made because they are needed to meet needs which have been experienced. They are made to^ serve private ends, often incidentally the political interests oFtEe persons who vote the appropriations. IPensifiaa, have become jobs. In England pensions used to be given to aris- tocrats, because aristocrats had political influ- ence, in order to corrupt them. Here pensions are given to thereat democratic mass} because they have political power, to corrupt them. Instead of going out where there is plenty of land and making a farm there, some people go down under the Mississippi River to make a, farm, and then they want to tax all the peo- ple in the United States to make dikes to keep the river off their farms. The California gpld- miners have washed out gold, and have washed |the dirt down into the rivers and oil the farms j below. They want the Federal Government ito now clean out the rivers and restore the warms. The silver-miners found their product faeclining in value, and thev got the Federal OWE TO EACH OTHER. 143 Government to go into the market and buy what the public did not want, in order to sus- tain (as they hoped) the price of silver. The Federal Government is called upon to buy or hire unsalable ships, to build canals which will no pay, to furnish capital for all sorts of..ex- periments, and to provide capital for enter- prises of which private individuals will win the profits. All this is called "developing our resources," but it is, in truth, the great plan of all living on each other. / The greatest Job^of alj is a protective Iforin 2 . V ^f^i^ A/1 1 It includes the bi^est log -rolling and the * widest corruption of economic and political ideas. It was said that there would be a re- bellion if the taxes were not taken off whiskey and tobacco, which taxes were paid into the public Treasury. Just then the importations of Sumatra tobacco became important enough to affect the market. The Connecticut tobac- co-growers at once called for an import duty on tobacco which would keep up the price of their product. So it appears that if the tax on /tobacco is paid to the Federal Treasury there I will be a rebellion, but if it is paid to the / Connecticut tobacco-raisers there will be no \rebellion at all. The farmers have long paid f 14:4 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES tribute to the manufacturers ; now the manu factoring and other laborers are to pay tribute to the farmers. The system is made more comprehensive and complete, and we are all living on each other more than ever. Now, the plan of plundgring^each other pro- duces nothing. It only (wastes. N All the ma- terial over which the pr<5^Ctn?Tmterests wran- gle and grab must be got from somebody out- side of their circle. The talk is all about the American laborer and American industry, but in every case in which there is not an actual production of wealth by industry there are two laborers and two industries to be consid- ered the one who gets and the one who gives. Every protected industry Jmsjo, plead^as the major premise of its^argumen^^at_any indu- i*2L which does jao^gaj^^gA^Jto. be carried on at the expense of the_consiimers of the prod- uct, and, as its minor premise, that the indus- try in question does not pay ; that is, that it cannot reproduce a capital equal in value to that which it consumes plus the current rate of profit. Hence^every such^ industry must be a Jgarasite on some other industry. What is the other industry ? Who is the other man ? This, the real question, is always overlooked. OWE TO EACH OTHER. 145 In all jobbery the case is the same. There is a^victimjsomewhere who is paying for it all. The doors of waste and extravagance stand open, and there seems to be a general agree- ment to squander and spend. It all belongs to somebody. There is somebody who had to contribute it, and who will have to find more. Nothing is ever said about him. Attention is all absorbed by the clamorous interests, the importunate petitioners, the plausible schem- ers, the pitiless bores. Now, who is the vic- tim ? He is the Forgotten Man. If we go to find him, we shall find him hard at work till- ing the soil to get out of it the fund for all the jobbery, the object of all the plunder, the cost of all the economic quackery, and the pay of all the politicians and statesmen who have sacrificed his interests to his enemies. We shall find him an honest, sober, industrious citizen, unknown outside his little circle, pay- ing his debts and his taxes, supporting the church and the school, reading his party news- paper, and cheering for his pet politician. We must not overlook the fact tM^tTSTEor- gotten Man is not infrequentlv 4 woman. / I V "-"" " - / w^j~** 7 have before me a newspaper whiol^ cpjiMins five letters from corset-stitchers who complain 10 146 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES that they cannot earn more than seventy-five cents a day with a machine, and that they have to provide the thread. The tax on the grade of thread used by them is prohibitory as to all importation, and it is the corset-stitchers who have to pay day by day out of their time and labor the total enhancement of price due to the tax. Women who earn their own living probably earn on an average seventy-five cents per day of ten hours. Twenty-four minutes' work ought to buy a spool of thread at the re- tail price, if the American work-woman were allowed to exchange her labor for thread on the best terms that the art and commerce of to-day would allow; but after she has done twenty-four minutes' work for the thread she is forced by the laws of her country to go back and work sixteen minutes longer to pay the tax that is, to support the thread-mill. Thethread-mill, therefore, is not asuinfttitu- jioii f or getting tliread for the American peo^ pie, but for making thread harSer to get than 3fli]&:WJ^^ In justification, now, of an arrangement so monstrously unjust and out of place in a free country, it is said that the employes in the thread-mill get high wages, and that, but for OWE TO EACH OTHER. 147 the tax, American laborers must come down to the low wages of foreign thread -makers. It is not true that American thread -makers get any more than the market rate of wages, and they would not get less if the tax were entirely removed, because the market rate of wages in the United States would be controlled then, as it is now, by-thp^siipgly and demand . of laborers -under.,ihe natural advantages and opportunities of industry in this country. It makes a great impression on the imagination, however, to go to a manufacturing town and see great mills and a crowd of operatives ; and such a sight is put forward, under the special allegation that it would not exist tut for a protective tax, as a proof that protective taxes are wise. But if it be true that the thread- mill would not exist but for the tax, or that the operatives would not get such good wages but for the tax, then how can we form a judgment as to whether the protective system is wise or not unless we call to mind all the seamstress- es, washer -women, servants, factory -hands, saleswomen, teachers, and laborers' wives and daughters, scattered in the garrets and tene- ments of great cities and in cottages all over the country, who are paying the tax which 148 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES keeps the mill going and pays the extra wages ? If the sewing-women s teachers, servants, and washer-women could once be collected over against the thread-mill, then some inferences could be drawn which would be worth some- thing. Then some light might be thrown upon the obstinate fallacy of " creating an in- dustry," and we might begin to understand the difference between wanting thread and wanting a thread-mill. Some nations spend capital on great palaces, others on standing armies, others on iron -clad ships of war. Those things are all glorious, and strike the imagination with great force when they are seen ; but no one doubts that they make life liarder for the scattered insignificant peasants and laborers who have to pay for them all. They "support a great many people," they "make work," they "give employment to other industries." We Americans have no palaces, armies, or iron-clads, but we spend our earnings on protected industries. A big \ protected factory, if it really needs the protec- j tion for its support, is a heavier load for the I Forgotten Men and Women than an iron-clad I of war in time of peace. It is plain that the Forgotten Man and th OWE TO EACH OTHER. 149 JForgotten Woman are the real productive strength of the country. The Forgotten Man works and votes generally he prays but his chief business in life is to pay. His name never gets into the newspapers except when he marries or dies. He is an obscure man. He may grumble sometimes to his wife, but he does not frequent the grocery, and he does not talk politics at the tavern. So he is for- gotten. Yet who is there whom the states- man, economist, and social philosopher ought to think of before this man ? If any student of social science comes to appreciate the case of the Forgotten Man, he will become an un- flinching advocate of strict scientific thinking in sociology, and a hard-hearted sceptic as re- gards any scheme of social amelioration. He will always want to know, Who and where is the Forgotten Man in this case, who will have to pay for it all ? The Forgotten Ma.j) |fi not ^ p^p^VTa, It belongs to his character to save something. Hence he is a capitalist, though never a great one. Pie is a "poor" man in the popular sense of the word, but not in a correct sense. In fact, one of the most constant and trust- worthy signs that the Forgotten Man is in 150 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES danger of a new assault is, that "the poor man" is brought into the discussion. Since the Forgotten Man has some capital, any one who cares for his interest will try to make capital secure by securing the inviolability of contracts, the stability of currency, and the rmness of credit. Any one, therefore, who 1 cares for the Forgotten Man will be sure to pe considered a friend of the capitalist and an enemy of the poor man. It is the Forgotten Man who is threatened by every extension of the paternal theory of government. It is he who must work and pay. When, therefore, the statesmen and social phi- losophers sit down to think what the State can do or ought to do, they really mean to de- cide what the Forgotten Man shall do. What the ForgottenJMtan wants, therefore, is a fuller realization of constitutional liberty. He is ^ III! Ill "" I _ II " suffering from the fact that there are yet mixed in our institutions mediaeval theories of protection, regulation, and authority, and modern theories of independence and indi- vidual liberty and responsibility. The conse- quence of this mixed state of things is, that those who are clever enough to get into con- trol use the paternal theory by which to meas- OWE TO EACH OTHER. lire their own rights that is, they assume privileges ; and they use the theory of liberty to measure their own duties that is, when it comes to the duties, they want to be " let alone." The Forgotten Man never gets into control. He has to pay both ways. His rights are measured to him by the theory of liberty that is, he has only such as he can conquer ; his duties are measured to him on the paternal theory that is, he must discharge all which are laid upon him, as is the fortune of parents. In a paternal relation there are always two parties, a father and a child ; and when we use the paternal relation metaphorically, it is of the first importance to know who is to be fa- ther and who is to be child. Tlip rdle of par- entjalls always to the Forgotten Man. What he wants, therefore, is that ambiguities in our institutions be cleared up, and that liberty be more fully realized. It behooves any economist or social philos- opher, whatever be the grade of his orthodoxy, who proposes to enlarge the sphere of the " State," or to take any steps whatever having in view the welfare of any class whatever, to pursue the analysis of the social effects of his proposition until he finds that other group 152 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES whose interests must be curtailed or whose energies must be placed under contribution by the course of action which he proposes; and he cannot maintain his proposition until he has demonstrated that it will be. more ad- vantageous, both quantitativ^^jmd quality t, to those who must bear the weight of it thaq,j3omplete noMntofereng^ by the State with the relations of the parties in question. OWE TO EACH OTIIEJR. 153 XI. WHEREFORE WE SHOULD LOVE ONE ANOTHER. SUPPOSE that a man, going through a wood, should be struck by a falling tree and pinned down beneath it. Suppose that another man, coming that way and finding him there, should, instead of hastening to give or to bring aid, begin to lecture on the law of gravitation, taking the tree as an illustration. Suppose, again, that a person lecturing on the law of gravitation should state the law of falling bodies, and suppose that an objector should say : You state your law as a cold, mathematical fact, and you declare that all bodies will fall comformably to it. How heartless ! You do not reflect that it may be a beautiful little child falling from a window. These two suppositions may be of some use to us as illustrations. Let us take the second first. It is the objec- tion of the sentimentalist ; and, ridiculous as 154 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES the mode of discussion appears when applied to the laws of natural philosophy, the sociolo- gist is constantly met by objections of just that character. Especially when the subject under discussion is charity in any of its public forms, the attempt to bring method and clear- ness into the discussion is sure to be crossed by suggestions which are as far from the point and as foreign to any really intelligent point of view as the supposed speech in the illustra- s tion. In the first place, a child would fall just as a stone would fall. Nature's forces iknow no pity. Just so in sociology. The [forces know no pity. In the second place, if a natural philosopher should discuss all the bodies which may fall, he would go entirely astray, and would certainly do no good. The same is true of the sociologist. He must con- centrate, not scatter, and study laws, not all conceivable combinations of force which may occur in practice. In the third place, nobody ever saw a body fall as the philosophers say it will fall, because they can accomplish nothing unless they? study forces separately, and allow for theiu combined actionjn all concrete and actual phenomena. The same is true in so- ciology, with the additional fact that the forces OWE TO EACH OTHER. 155 and their combinations in sociology are far the most complex which we have to deal with. In the fourth place, any natural philosopher who should stop, after stating the law of fall- ing bodies, to warn mothers not to let their children fall out of the window, would make himself ridiculous. Just so a sociologist jvho should attach moral applications and practical maxims to his inv^tigajtion5 would entirely miss his proper business. There is the force of gravity as a fact in the world. If we un- derstand this, the necessity of care to conform to the action of gravity meets us at every step in our private life and personal experience. The fact in sociology is in no wise different. If, for instance, we take political economy, thftt science does not teach an individual how to get rich. It is a social science. It treats of the laws of the material welfare of human societies. It is, therefore, only one science among all the sciences which inform us about the laws and conditions of our life on earth. Education has for its object to give a man knowledge of the conditions and laws of liv- ing, so that, in any case in which the individ- ual stands face to face with the necessity of deciding what to do, if he is an educated man, 150 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES he may know how to make a wise and intellt gent decision. If he knows chemistry, phys- ics, geology, and other sciences, he will know what he must encounter of obstacle or help in Nature in what he proposes to do. If he know^s physiology and hygiene, he will know what effects on health he must expect in one course or another. If he knows political econ- omy, he will know what effect on wealth and on the welfare of society one course or anoth- er will produce. There is no injunction, no " ought " in political economy at all. It does not assume to tell man what he ought to do, any more than chemistry tells us that we ought to mix things, or mathematics that we ought to solve equations. It only gives one element necessary to an intelligent decision, and in fevery practical and concrete case the responsi- / bility of deciding what to do rests on the man | who has to act. The economist, therefore, does not say to any one, You ought never to give money to charity. He contradicts any- body who says. You ought to give money to charity; and, in opposition to any such per- son, he says, Let me show you what difference it makes to you, to others, to society, whether you give money to charity or not, so that you OWE TO EACH OTHfiB. 157 can make a wise and intelligent decision. Cer- tainly there is no harder thing to do than to employ capital charitably. It .would be olly^ijCu say that nothing ought to Jbe^one, but I fully day the^next most pernicious charity in itsjbroad and popular senge. In the preceding chapters I have discussed the public and social relations of classes, and those social topics in which groups of persons are considered as groups or classes, without regard to personal merits or demerits. ^1 have relegated all charitable^oj^ to^iMjlom^m^o^ private relation^ where personal acquaintance and personal estimates may furnish the proper limitations and guarantees. A man who had no sympathies and no sentiments would be a very poor creature ; but the public charities* more especially the legislative charities, nour- ish no man's sympathies and sentiments. Furj- thermore, it ought to be distinctly perceived that any charitable and benevolent effort which any man desires to make voluntarily, to see if he can do any good, lies entirely beyond the field of discussion. It would be as imperti- nent to prevent his effort as it is to force co- operation in an effort on some one who does 158 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES not want to participate in it. What I choose to do by way of exercising my own sympa- thies under my own reason and conscience is one thing ; what another man forces me to do of a sympathetic character, because his reason and conscience approve of it, is quite another thing. What, now, is the reason why we should help each other ? This carries us back to the other illustration with which we started. We may philosophize as coolly and correctly as we choose about our duties and about the laws of right living ; no one of us lives up to what he knows. The man struck by the falling tree has, perhaps, been careless. We are all care- less. Environed as we are by risks and perils, which befall us as misfortunes, no man of us is in a position to say, " I know all the laws, and am sure to obey them all; therefore I shall never need aid and sympathy." At the very best, one of us fails in one way and an- other in another, if we do not fail altogether. Therefore the man under the tree is the one of us who for the moment is smitten. It may be you to-morrow, and I next day. It is the common frailty in the midst of a common peril which gives us a kind of .solidarity of in OWE TO EACH OTHER. 159 terest to rescue the one for whom the chances of life have turned out badly just now. Prob- ably the victim is to blame. He almost always is so. A lecture to that effect in the crisis of his peril would be out of place, because it would not fit the need of the moment ; but it would be very much in place at another time, when the need was to avert the repetition of such an accident to somebody else. jMgn, therefore, owe to men, in the chances and J >~~^^.^ MM . ^_ , Z perils of this life, aid and sympathy, on ac- count jx the common ^rScjpation in human frailty and folly. This observation, however, puts .aid and sympathy in the field of private and personal^relation, under the regulation of reason^ and conscience, and gives np ground I for mechanical and impersonal jschemesi. We may, then, distinguish four things : 1. The function of science is to investigate f truth.. Science is colorless and impersonal. It investigates the force of gravity, and finds out the laws of that force, and has nothing to do with the weal or woe of men under the operation of the law. 2. The moral deductions as to what one I ought to^3o~are to be drawn by the reason man \vho i* 160 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES ^ Let him take note of the force of gravity, and see to it that he does not walk off a precipice or get in the way of a falling body. 3. On account of the number and variety of perils of all kinds by which our lives are environed, and on account of ignorance, care- lessness, and folly, wg_gj which wejbave learned, so us act 4. The law of flHQigjfoyj hj which we share , each others' burdens, is^tojdoj^. we would be donoiy. It is not a scientific principle, and does not admit of such generalization or in- terpretation that A can tell B what this law I enjoins on B to do. Hence the relations of I s m P a ^ 1 J an( i sentiment are essentially limit- l ed to tw^persons^only, and they cannot be ^ made a b&sis for the~Telations of groups of persons, or for discussion by any third party. i i/fioeial improvement is not to be won by di- rect effort. It is secondary, and results from physical or economic improvemenjtef That is the reason why schemes of direct social amel- ioration always have an arbitrary, sentimental, and artificial character, while true social ad- OWE TO EACH OTHER. 161 vance must be a product and a growth. The ef- forts which are being put forth for every kind of progress in the arts and sciences are, there- fore, contributing to true social progress. Let any one learn what hardship was involved, even for a wealthy person, a century ago, in cross- ing the Atlantic, and then let him compare that hardship even with a steerage passage at the present time, considering time and money cost. This improvement in transportation by which "the poor and weak" can be carried from the crowded centres of population to the new land is worth more to them than all the schemes of all the social reformers. An im- provement in surgical instruments or in an- aesthetics really does more for those who are not well off than all the declamations of the orators and pious wishes of the reformers. Civil service reform would be a greater gain to the laborers than innumerable factory acts and eight-hour laws. Free trade would be a greater blessing to "the poor man" than all the devices of all the friends of humanity if they could be realized. If the economists could satisfactorily solve the problem of the regulation of paper currency, they would do more for the wages class than could be accom- 11 162 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES plished by all the artificial doctrines about wages which they seem to feel bound to en- courage. If we could get firm and good laws V passed for the management of savings-banks, and then refrain from the amendments by which those laws are gradually broken down, we should do more for the non-capitalist class than by volumes of laws against "corpora- tions" and the "excessive power of capital." We each owe to the other l '{ of grievances. It has been said, in answer to my argument in the last chapter about the Forgotten Women and thread, that the tax on thread is " only a little thing," and that it cannot hurt the women much, and also that, if the women do not want to pay two cents a spool tax, there is thread of an inferior qual- ity, which they can buy cheaper. These an- swers represent the bitterest and basest social injustice. Every honest citizen of a free state owes it to himself, to the community, and es- pecially to those who are at once weak and wronged, to go to their assistance and to help redress their wrongs. Whenever a law or so- cial arrangement acts so as to injure any one, and that one the humblest, then there is a duty on those who are stronger, or who know bet- OWE TO EACH OTHER. 163 ter, to demand and fight for redress and rection^ When generalized this means that it is the duty of All-of-us (that is, the State) to establish justice for all, from the least to the ^greatest, and in all matters. This, however, is ^no new doctrine. It is only the old, true, and indisputable function of the State; and in working for a redress of wrongs and a correction of legislative abuses, we are only struggling to a fuller realization of it that is, working to improve civil government. each owe it to the other to guarantee rights. Eights do not pertain to results, but only to chcmoes. They pertain to the condi- tions of the struggle for existence, not to any of the results of it ; to the pursuit of happi- ness, not to the possession of happiness?\ ItV cannot be said that each one has a right to have some property, because if one man had such a right some other man or men would be under a corresponding obligation to pro- vide him with some property. Each has a right to acquire and possess property if he can. It is plain what fallacies are developed when we overlook this distinction. Those fal- lacies run through all socialistic schemes and theories. If we take rights to pertain to re- I 164 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES suits, and then say that rights must be equal, we come to say that men have a right to be equally happy, and so on in all the details. Eights should be equal, because they pertain to chances, and all ought to have equal chances so far as chances are provided or limited by the action of society. This, however, will not produce equal results, but it is right just be- cause it will produce unequal results that is, results which shall be proportioned to the merits of individuals. We each owe it to the other to guarantee mutually the chance to earn, to possess, to learn, to marry, etc., etc., against any interference which would prevent the exercise of those rights by a person who wishes to prosecute and enjoy them in peace for the pursuit of happiness. If we general- ize this, it means that 4Jko|^i s ought to guar- antee rights to each of us. JButTour modern free, constitutional 'States are constructed en- tirely on the notion of rights, and we regard them as performing their functionjnore and more perfectly according as they guarantee rights^ iiT*consonailCB' With the constantl^cor rected and expanded notions of rights from one generation to another. Therefore, when we say that we owe iV to 'each other to guar* OWE TO EACH OTHER. 165 antee rights we only say that we ought to prosecute and improve our political science. If we have in mind the value of chances to earn, learn, possess, etc., for a man of indepen- dent energy, we can go on one step farther in our deductions about help. The^onlv^help r which is generally expedient, even within the limits of the private and personal relations of two persons to each other, is(Eat which con- sists in helping a man to help himself) This always consists in opening the chances. A man of assured position can, by an effort which is of no appreciable importance to him, give aid which is of incalculable value to a man who is all ready to make his own career if he can only get a chance. The truest and deepest pathos in this world is not that of suffering but that of brave struggling. The truest sym- pathy is not compassion, but a fellow-feeling with courage and fortitude in the midst of noble effort. Now, the aid which helps a man to help himself is not in the least akin to the aid which is given iujV^ftrity. If alms are given, or if we "make work" for a man, or "give him employment," or " protect " him, ply take a product fr nnp. and 166 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES another. If we help a man to help himself, by opening the chances around him, we put him in a position to add to the wealth of the communitjrjby putting new powers in opera- tion to produce. It would seem that the dif- ference between getting something already in existence from the one who has it, and pro- ducing a new thing by applying new labor to natural materials, would be so plain as never to be forgotten ; but the fallacy of confusing the two is one of the commonest in all social discussions. We have now seen that the current discus- sions about the claims and rights of social classes on each other are radically erroneous and fallacious, and we have seen that an anal- ysis of the general obligations which we all have to each other leads us to nothing but an emphatic repetition of old but well-acknowl- edged obligations to perfect our political insti- tutions. We have been led to restriction, not extension, of the functions of the State, but we have also been led to see the necessity of purifying and perfecting the operation of the State in the functions which properly belong to it. If we refuse to recognize any classes as existing in society when, perhaps, a claim OWE TO EACH OTHER. might bo set up that the wealthy, educated, and virtuous have acquired special rights and precedence, we certainly cannot recognize any classes when it is attempted to establish such distinctions for the sake of imposing burdens and duties on one group for the benefit of others. The men who have not done their duty in this world never can be equal to those who have done their duty more or less well. If words like wise and foolish, thrifty and ex- travagant, prudent and negligent, have any meaning in language, then it must make some difference how people behave in this world, and the difference will appear in the position they acquire in the body of society, and in relation to the chances of life. They may, then, be classified in reference to these facts. Such classes always will exist; no other so- cial distinctions can endure. If, then, we look to the origin and definition of these classes, we shall find it impossible to deduce any obliga- tions which one of them bears to the other. The class distinctions simply xesult- from &a ' different "degrees of success with which .ingr have availed themselves of the chances whidj wereTpresented to them. Instead of endeav- oring to~ redistribute the acquisitions which 16& WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES have been made between the existing classes, our aim should be to increase, multiply, immediate recall. ^ ' ' , ICLF /" V:. P \ 1 rH "4 % ^ ,? J KB 13 1968 1 5i3k V/^ MAR 13 1968 REC'D MAR11'68-4PM LOAN DCPT. APR 1 01988 AUTO OISCJW 11188 diAR 2 1 1 98 9 |H^I\ fy * AUTO DISC FES 2 8 1989 LD 214. 60 2 '6 1 " General Library U.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES COOLlMiaOl 6< 225 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY