>t ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO DALLAS SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO Elements of Socialism A TEXT-BOOK BY JOHN SPARGO AUTHOR OF " KARL MARX, HIS LIFE AND WORK," " SOCIALISM, A SUMMARY AND INTERPRETATION OF SOCIALIST PRINCIPLES," ETC., ETC. AND GEORGE LOUIS ARNER, PH.D. LATE INSTRUCTOR IN ECONOMICS IN DARTMOUTH COLLEGE COPYRIGHT, 1912 BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Set up and electrotyped. Published February, 1912 CONTENTS PART I SOCIALISM AS A CRITICISM CHAPTER PAGE I. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . 3 II. CAPITALIST SOCIETY . 7 III. PLANLESS PRODUCTION . 19 IV. 30 V. LEISURE AND LUXURY ...... . 44 VI. INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY . . . 63 PART II SOCIALIST THEORY VII. INTRODUCTORY . 61 VIII. SOCIAL EVOLUTION . 65 IX. THE ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY . 76 X. INDUSTRIAL EVOLUTION . 91 XI. THE CLASS STRUGGLE THEORY .... . 100 XII. VALUE AND PRICE . 116 XIII. SURPLUS-VALUE . 141 XIV. THE LAW OF CONCENTRATION .... . 157 XV. MONOPOLIES AND TRUSTS ..... 168 PART III THE SOCIALIST IDEAL XVI. THE UTOPIAN SOCIALIST IDEAL .... . 187 XVII. THE IDEALS OF MODERN SOCIALISM . . . . 201 XVIII. THE SOCIALIST STATE POLITICAL ... . 212 XIX. THE SOCIALIST STATE ECONOMIC ... . 224 XX. SOCIALISM AND THE FAMILY .... . 240 iii 2029218 i v CONTENTS PART IV CHAPTER PAGE XXI. THE RISE AND GROWTH OP MODERN SOCIALISM . . 255 XXII. THE NATIONAL SOCIALIST MOVEMENTS . . . 266 (1) Germany 266 (2) France 275 (3) Austria 279 (4) Belgium 281 (5) Italy 283 (6) Great Britain 285 (7) The United States 292 (8) Russia 301 (9) Finland 305 (10) The Scandinavian Countries .... 306 (11) Holland 308 (12) Switzerland 309 (13) Spain 310 (14) Poland 310 (15) Hungary 311 (16) Other Countries 312 PART V POLICY AND PROGRAM XXIII. SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM 317 XXIV. THE REFORM PROGRAM OF SOCIALISM .... 337 XXV. SOME OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM .... 354 ERRATUM Page 144, line 14, for Buying cheap and selling dear is therefore an explanation" read "Buying cheap and selling dear is therefore no explanation." IV CONTENTS PART IV THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT CHAPTER PAGE XXI. THE RISE AND GROWTH OF MODERN SOCIALISM . . 255 XXII. THE NATIONAL SOCIALIST MOVEMENTS . . . 266 (1) Germany 266 (2) France 275 (3) Austria 279 (4) Belgium 281 (5) Italy 283 (6) Great Britain 285 " T_i*j a+of M . 292 PART V POLICY AND PROGRAM XXIII. SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM . XXIV. THE REFORM PROGRAM OF SOCIALISM . XXV. SOME OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM . 317 337 354 PART I SOCIALISM AS CRITICISM CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Beginning of the Socialist movement: In the early part of the nineteenth century, that splendid century of progress in science and invention, of capitalistic expansion, philo- sophic individualism, and economic laissez faire, arose the deep-seated and far-reaching popular movement which we call Socialism. Like every other great movement in history, it was at first weak and insignificant. It consisted of little more than a vague groping for a way of escape from the evils of the time. Its adherents were for the most part poor men without influence, victims of poverty and oppression, led by a few idealists. Thus, it was not essentially different from the movements of protest which in all ages have chal- lenged and assailed recognized injustice. But the new movement soon passed out of this stage of its development, and became a conscious, disciplined force with its positive and negative sides well defined. The rapidly growing industrial system gave a great impetus to science. The principle of universal evolution and the methods of science profoundly influenced every department of human thought and activity in the leading countries of the world. Under that influence Socialism took shape as a powerful force aiming at the destruction of an economic system in which a few are enabled to appropriate most of the advan- tages of industrial effort and progress, and at the develop- ment of a new economic system based upon cooperation, democracy and justice, and insuring equality of opportunity to all. Importance of the movement: In spite of ridicule, ostra- cism and bitter persecution the Socialist movement has made phenomenal progress. Its representatives are to be found in the parliaments of all the leading nations. The political strength of the movement is indicated by the fact that nearly 3 4 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM ten million votes are cast for its parliamentary representa- tives throughout the world. Of course, the movement is much stronger numerically than even these figures indicate. Making due allowance for the fact that in most countries women do not enjoy the parliamentary franchise, and the further fact that in many countries a large part of the adult male population is also excluded from the right of the franchise by property and other restrictive qualifications, it is probably a conservative estimate that forty million adults are Social- ists and would vote for Socialist representatives if they could. Obviously, such a movement demands and deserves serious and candid investigation and study. To be effec- tively and efficiently supported if good and wise it must be understood. To be effectively and efficiently opposed if evil and unwise it must likewise be understood. An understand- ing of the principles of Socialism, of the aims and methods of the movement, has become an essential condition of intelligent citizenship. The wilful and ignorant misrepre- sentation of Socialism in which many of its opponents have indulged is not only powerless to check the progress of the movement, but extremely dangerous. Nothing is more dangerous in a democracy than appealing to prejudice in the discussion of matters of this kind. Difficulties of definition: It is not an easy matter to formulate a satisfactory definition of Socialism. The task has been attempted by numerous writers, friendly and other- wise. That the definitions of Socialism by its advocates differ considerably from each other has been made the basis of much rather unreasonable criticism. A definition is simply a brief explanation of the thing defined. When the thing to be defined is at once a comprehensive criticism of society, a philosophy interpreting the social conditions and institutions criticised, a forecast of the future de- velopment of society, and a movement with a program based upon these and intended to remove the evils com- plained of and to bring about the social ideal forecasted, definition is necessarily very difficult and hazardous. That the definition of one man should over-emphasize the critical aspect of Socialism, that of another its philosophi- cal basis, that of a third its forecast and that of yet another its program is inevitable. The cheap sneer that there are INTRODUCTION 5 "fifty-seven varieties of Socialism" is an exceedingly petty criticism. We must bear in mind that difference in defini- tions is by no means the same thing as contradiction. It is safe to say that the recognized leaders of Socialist thought have defined Socialism with quite as large a degree of unan- imity and as small a degree of antagonism as have been shown by the recognized leaders of any department of thought, if we omit those relating to and conditioned by the exact sciences. Provisional definition: As we have already intimated, Socialism may be conveniently divided into four parts. No study of Socialism can be satisfactory, no definition of it can be complete, which does not consider it as (1) a critic cism of existing society; (2) a philosophy of social evolution; (3) a social forecast or ideal; (4) a movement for the attain- ment of the ideal. As a provisional definition, then, we may accept the following: Socialism is a criticism of existing society which attributes most of the poverty, vice, crime anoTbtner social evils of today to the fact that, through the private or class ownership of the social forces of production and exchange, the actual producers of wealth are exploited by a class of non-producers; a theory of social evolution according to which the rate and direction of social evolution are mainly determined by the development of the economic factors of production, distribution and exchange; a social forecast that the next epoch in the evolution of society" will tie ~cHs- tinguished by the social ownership and control of the prin- cipal agencies of production and exchange, and by an equalization of opportunity as a result of this socialization; a movement, primarily consisting of members of the wealth- producing class, which seeks to control all the powers of the State and to bring about the collective ownership and con- trol of the principal means of production and exchange, in order that poverty, class antagonisms, vice and other ill results of the existing social system may be abolished, and that a new and better social system may be attained. ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM SUMMARY 1. Socialism arose as a movement of protest, and through the accept- ance of the principle of evolution became a conscious, disciplined force with a definite aim. 2. Politically, Socialism is represented by a great international party with nearly 10,000,000 voters and 40,000,000 adult sympathizers. 3. Socialism must be considered as a criticism of existing society, as a philosophy of social evolution, as a social forecast or ideal, and as a movement for the attainment of the ideal. QUESTIONS 1. In what way has science influenced the character of Socialism? 2. What is the chief aim of the Socialist movement? 3. Give a provisional definition of Socialism. CHAPTER II CAPITALIST SOCIETY I Point of view in Socialist criticism: The Socialist criti- cism of society is essentially constructive and impersonal. This is not always apparent to the casual reader of, or listener to a popular presentation of Socialism, but if the speaker or writer is really representative of Socialism at its best his criticisms of institutions are directed toward the determining economic conditions and their consequences, and his criticism of men has for its purpose the desire to give concrete examples of types and classes as they are affected by economic conditions. Karl Marx makes this perfectly clear in the preface to the first volume of Capital. 1 This criticism, moreover, has always the transformation of society through changes in the basic economic conditions as its motive. This assumption of the fundamental economic basis of society and social institutions is essential to Social- ism. As we shall see later in our study, psychological and other factors in social evolution are not excluded. They are simply regarded as subordinate to the economic factors. Socialism and decadent institutions: Socialists do not devote much attention to the criticism of unimportant or decadent institutions. Attempts to direct Socialist attacks to the surviving remnants of feudal society have largely "I paint the capitalist and landlord in no sense coukur de rose. But here individuals are dealt with only in so far as they are the person- ifications of economic categories, embodiments of particular class- relations and class-interests. My standpoint, from which the evolu- tion of the economic formation of society is viewed as a process of natural history, can less than any other make the individual responsible for relations whose creature he socially remains, however much he may subjectively raise himself above them." Karl Marx, Capital, vol. I, p. 15, American edition. 7 8 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM failed for the reason that the Socialists are interested in and mainly concerned with the vital power of Capitalism. Both in Germany and England, for example, all efforts to induce the Socialists to direct special attacks against the institution of monarchy have failed. At the International Socialist Congress at Amsterdam, in 1904, M. Jean Jaures, the French Socialist leader, boasted of the fact that France had long been a republic and rebuked the German Social Democrats for acquiescing in the continuance of the mon- archy. He was replied to by Herr Bebel to the effect that, while the German Social Democrats desired a republic they would not make it a special issue, because it was not worth while. So long as the capitalist state exists, whether its form be monarchical or republican, its power will be used to defend the privileges and powers of the capitalist class. Therefore, the abolition of the capitalist system itself is the really important goal. The capitalist class: With the final overthrow of feudal- ism and the aristocracy of birth by the victorious middle class at the time of the French Revolution the foundation was already laid for a new aristocracy of wealth. The inven- tion of power machinery and the consequent concentration of industry in factories, made individual ownership of the instruments of production by the workers themselves an impossibility. -Those producers who were first to take advantage of the' new methods, or who 'had the greatest advantages in such important matters as power, markets, labor supply or raw materials, soon became the sole owners of industry. Thus was established a new class whose mem- bers, like the great land-owners, have been able to draw a perpetual income from industry, even when performing no directive labor. It is true that many members of this class perform a high grade of labor, as managers, for which they are liberally paid, but the greater part of their income is the direct or indirect result of ownership of the means of production and is not in any sense in proportion either to need or to ability. Those persons, then, whose income is wholly or principally derived from the labor of others as a result of their ownership of the means of production constitute what the Socialist knows as the Capitalist Class. CAPITALIST SOCIETY 9 The proletariat: The concentration of the ownership of the means of production, and the growth of cities and factory towns, transformed the journeyman of handicraft industry and the peasant of feudalism into the propertyless wage- worker of modern industry. With no control over his means of livelihood, he is obliged to accept the current rate of wages for the kind of labor he performs, pay for the goods he consumes a price which is set by conditions over which he has no control, and live wherever the capitalist entre- preneur may locate his factory. In the early days of the capitalist system, class lines were loosely drawn and it was possible for a man of ability to rise from the working class to the capitalist class. But as the system becomes more rigid and more complex the passing of a proletarian into the capitalist class becomes all but impossible. He may leave his class in spirit and become a retainer of the capitalist class, but generally, and unless specially favored, he remains in fact a proletarian. Who constitute the proletariat? The proletariat properly includes not only factory workers and day laborers, but clerks in business houses and salesmen in mercantile establish- ments. The farm laborer in Europe is still a feudal peasant to a very large extent, but in America, so far as he is not the son or heir of a middle-class farmer, the farm laborer is essentially a proletarian. The word "proletariat" is of Ro- man origin. In ancient Rome it was applied to a large class of free citizens without property or certain means of exis- tence. The modern technical meaning of the word connotes the claslTbf workers who do not own the tools and imple- ments of their calling, the wage-working class in general. In common usage, however, the word is used to describe the^entire class of workers who own no property. Wage slavery: Socialists frequently speak of the condi- tion of the proletariat under Capitalism as "Wage Slavery." This term is sometimes objected to on the ground that the worker is free to give up his job and move from place to place at will. He is thus in a very different position from that of the chattel slave of antiquity, or even that of the feudal serf. The Socialist replies that while the worker is theoretically free he is in fact enslaved; that while the law does not 10 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM enforce wage slavery, it is enforced by conditions more effectually coercive than statutes could be. There is always an army of unemployed ready to take the jobs that the discontented may vacate, and the choice that confronts the worker is usually a choice between holding his job or falling to poverty or even pauperism. If he moves from one factory to another, he only changes masters, still working under the same general conditions. The average worker cannot hope to find relief in private business enterprises. The risk is too precarious, for the majority of small business enterprises fail. Except in rare cases, agricultural employment offers no way of escape to the factory worker. The wages of farm laborers are generally far lower than those of industrial laborers and for one accustomed to city life the loneliness of the country is often intolerable. The farmer who prospers must combine a high degree of specialized technical skill with good business ability, and these things the factory- trained worker lacks and cannot easily learn. The farm offers no solution. The term "wage slavery" is therefore hardly an exaggeration. Herbert Spencer on wage slavery: That the system of wage-labor is a form of slavery is sometimes contended by opponents of Socialism as stoutly as by the Socialists them- selves. Herbert Spencer, for example, argues this with as much earnestness and force as any Socialist writer. He says: "The wage-earning factory-hand does, indeed, exem- plify entirely free labor, in so far that, making contracts at will and able to break them after short notice, he is free to engage with whomsoever he pleases and where he pleases. But this liberty amounts in practice to little more than the ability to exchange one slavery for another; since, fit only for his particular occupation, he has rarely an opportunity of doing anything more than decide in what mill he will pass the greater part of his dreary days. The coercion of circum- stances often bears more hardly on him than the coercion of the master does on one in bondage." 1 The middle class: Between the true capitalist class and the true proletariat stands a somewhat indefinite middle class, composed of small capitalists, professional men, salaried 1 Herbert Spencer, The Principles of Sociology, vol. Ill, p. 525. CAPITALIST SOCIETY 11 or semi-independent business men and land-owning farmers. The lines of demarkation between the middle class and the classes on either side of it are not always clearly distinguish- able, but the types of the three classes can be distinguished. The middle class has not the fixed characteristics of the other two. Its members are usually either striving to reach the capitalist class or struggling desperately to avoid sinking into the proletarian class. The small business man sees his business absorbed into a combination and becomes himself either a salaried employee or a wage-worker. The small capitalists seem to be increasing in number, but their influence in the management of industry is diminishing. Pride of property usually makes the small business man an ally of the true capitalist class, although there are many examples of adherence to the cause of the proletariat by members of that group. The professional man is becoming increasingly dependent upon the capitalist class for support and is usually conservative, although large numbers of professional men and women sympathize with the pro- letariat and many become active leaders in proletarian movements. The proportion of farmers owning their land is steadily diminishing 1 and the farmer is becoming more and more dependent upon capitalist agencies for the market- ing of his product. These facts are forcing large numbers of farmers into sympathetic relations with the proletariat. TABLE I CHANGES IN FARM TENUBE IN THE UNITED STATES* Per Cent, of Number of Farms Operated by Farms Operated Total by YEAR. Number of Farms. Cash Share Owners. Cash Share Owners. Ten- Ten- Tenants. Tenants. ants. ants. 1900... 5,739,657 3,713,371 752,920 1,273,366 64.7 13.1 22.2 1890... 4,564,641 3,269,728 454,659 840,254 71.6 10.0 18.4 1880... 4,008,907 2,984,306 322,357 702,244 74.5 8.0 17.5 1 See Table, Changes in Farm Tenure in the United States. ' U. S. Census Reports, 1900, Vol. V, p. Ixzvii. 12 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM When Marx predicted the more or less rapid extinction of the middle class he referred primarily to the class of petty manufacturers and merchants. It is evident that, so far from becoming extinct, this class has numerically increased. This increase is probably accounted for in part by the fact that economic pressure forces large numbers of wage-workers into the lower ranks of the middle class, most of whom fail and fall back into the proletariat after a brief struggle. This movement is always going on. Wage-workers who find it impossible to secure employment take their small savings and attempt to make a living in the petty retail trades, most of them failing and sinking into a worse condition than that from which they hoped to escape. The same may be said of thousands of wage-earners too old for work, or incapacitated by disease or accident. Those who do not utterly fail may be roughly divided into three groups: (1) those who eke out a scanty living rarely or never superior to that of the wage-earning proletariat; (2) those who cease to do business on their own account and become salaried employees, as agents and managers for large corporations; (3) those whose business establishments are absorbed by large concerns and who become small stockholders. Industrial organization: The magnitude of modern indus- trial enterprises, and the great amounts of capital necessary for their establishment and operation, make individual owner- ship impossible as a general rule. Individual capitals must be combined. The simplest form of combination in owner- ship is the partnership in which two or more capitalists agree to engage in an enterprise together and share in the profits in proportion to the capital which each has contrib- uted. If, however, these capitalists apply to the State and receive a charter entitling them to act as a business unit they acquire, as a corporation, a new status. They not only have all the advantages of combined capital, but the addi- tional advantages of perpetual life, limited liability, flex- ibility of organization and concentration of power. Mem- bership in the corporation consists simply in the ownership of stock, which can be freely bought and sold. These advantages have made the corporation the charac- teristic form of industrial organization under capitalism, and the result has been the development of a distinct indus- CAPITALIST SOCIETY 13 trial State within the political State. And by virtue of its control of the means of livelihood the industrial State is the more powerful and largely controls the political organization of society. And, while since the eighteenth century the forms of the political State have become more democratic, the industrial State remains in the hands of the few. It is not even an aristocracy, the rule of the best, but a plutocracy, the rule of the richest. Gains under capitalism: While capitalism has brought with it many evils which were relatively unknown in the earlier stages of industrial evolution, it is at the same time a distinct forward step. Contrary to a very common im- pression, recognition of this fact is inherent in the philos- ophy of Socialism. Few apologists of capitalism have more clearly perceived, or more eloquently described the immense benefits, both material and spiritual, of the capitalist era than Karl Marx himself. 1 Machinery has increased the productivity of labor many fold. While the most apparent benefits of this gain have gone to the capitalists, still the workers have made real and sub- stantial progress. The proletarian is still propertyless, but he consumes more goods, of greater variety and better qual- ity, than did his ancestors of the journeyman and peasant classes. The proletarian in Western Europe and America is better educated than the feudal gentleman. He is rapidly becoming emancipated from superstition and freed from intellectual and spiritual bondage. Travel has been cheap- ened beyond all dreams of a century ago. Famine and pestilence are almost unknown. Disease has been so checked that the average length of life is greater by fifteen years than before the industrial revolution. Wars have become less frequent and the nations of the world are closer together than ever before. II Relative vs. absolute well-being: While it is true that in an absolute sense the working classes are better off, there has been a relative loss. A far larger share of the total product of industry is now taken in the form of rent, interest 1 See, e. g., The Communist Manifesto, Part I. 14 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM and profits than ever before, and the classes in society who gain their income from such sources are growing in wealth and power more rapidly than are the working classes. The essential thing is not income but property. Vested interests, property rights, special privileges, rule the world and make democracy impossible. To be a well-fed slave is not a high ambition, and unless the workingman can gain in independ- ence, self-respect and a sense of responsibility no superficial reform will carry with it much enduring satisfaction, no government and no social order can be stable. But even so far as these superficial things go, capitalistic society does not give to the proletariat its share of the benefits of progress. Wages : The compensation of the producer under capital- ism is determined neither by his needs, nor by the value of the product that he gives to society. Laboring power is a commodity that is bought and sold on the market, and the price of which at any given time is determined by the laws of supply and demand. In the long run, the wages of any given class of labor equals its cost of production. Thus labor becomes as impersonal as so much steam or water power, and is placed on the same level with capital and land as one of the three factors in production in the currently accepted economic theory. The "iron law of wages": The statement of the law of wages by some Socialists in Lassalle's phrase, "the iron law of wages," needs some qualification. According to this theory, wages can never permanently rise above the require- ments of a bare subsistence, for if they should so rise the number of children would increase, thus increasing the supply of labor and drawing the wage back to the bare subsistence level. This theory has been disproved by ex- perience, for as a matter of fact wages have permanently risen. Both nominal wages, or wages expressed in money, and real wages, or the sum of satisfaction that the laborer is able to enjoy as the result of his labor, have materially increased within fifty years and increased even more in the preceding fifty years. It frequently happens that the workers in one town receive higher wages and enjoy a higher standard of living than workers in another town who do exactly the same kind of work. The peculiar circumstances attending the indus- CAPITALIST SOCIETY 15 trial development in various localities exert a greater influ- ence upon the standards of living than is commonly recog- nized. As an illustration : In one town the woolen industry was first established by English workers accustomed to a relatively high standard of living, and in another town by Belgians accustomed to a relatively low standard of living. In course of time, through the migration of workers and other causes, these characteristics disappear and in both towns the industry is carried on by a cosmopolitan industrial popula- tion. But the standards of living are not equalized. Wages, both nominal and real wages, continue to be higher in the former town than hi the latter. In other words, there are local standards of living established by local usage and tradition. The standard of life: The principal fallacy hi the "iron law of wages" hi its extreme form is that the changing standard of life is not taken into account. The gains in the wage scale which are attained from time to time are not all absorbed in larger families, but a large part, and often the whole, of the gains go toward a greater abundance of material goods, education and recreation. As a matter of fact, the theory that any substantial increase of wages will lead to an increase in the size of families is absolutely unten- able. From the time of Adam Smith it has been recognized that low wages, extreme poverty and large families go together. 1 No single fact concerning population is better established than that the fecundity of the poorer classes is always greater than that of the well-to-do classes. In all countries the wealthiest classes are most infertile. 2 The number and character of the wants, the satisfaction of which appear to a man as necessary, constitute his stand- ard of life. The typical wage will, in the long run, be just sufficient to maintain this standard and provide for the reproduction of labor. At any given time and place the wage may be higher or lower than the type. In the first case there will be expenditures for luxuries and a tendency toward a higher standard of life; in the second there will be poverty with occasional or chronic pauperism, and a tendency 1 Cf ., The Wealth of Nations, vol. I, ch. viii. 3 This subject is discussed at length in The Common Sense of the Milk Question, by John Spargo. 16 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM toward a lower standard of life. Taking the Western world as a whole the standard of life of the proletariat has steadily risen. This is not usually apparent from year to year, but from generation to generation the gain is clearly marked. It is particularly obvious as between the first and second generations of European immigrants in the United States. This fact of the rising standard of living, far from being an argument for a continuance of the present system, is the one thing that makes industrial democracy possible, necessary and inevitable. It is a demonstrable fact that the higher the standard of life the greater will be the resistance offered to any lowering of that standard. A people with a low standard of living can be exploited, robbed, bullied, and even mur- dered in cold blood, without offering effective resistance. The Russian moujiks splendidly illustrate this fact. A people with a high standard of living, on the other hand, are jealous of their rights and quick to see and resent any infringement of them. The standard of life everywhere tends to rise. There are always unsatisfied wants just beyond the necessities of life which will be satisfied at every opportunity. As soon as the satisfaction of a want becomes habitual it becomes a part of the standard of life. Imitation has a great deal to do with this tendency to raise the standard of living. Where approximate equality in wealth prevails and men rarely come into direct contact with those whose standard of life is higher than theirs, the advance is slight and simply follows the increase of income. But where differences in wealth are great, the highest standard becomes the model which all strive to copy. Rich women set fashions which factory girls feel they must follow. Expecially is this true where a democratic philosophy has been preached, and where there is a tradition of those who have successfully crossed class barriers. In such a community there will be vigorous resist- ance, not only to a lowering of the standard of life, but to any interference with the rising of the standard, either by law or by economic exploitation. Economic pressure and resistance: In the earlier stages of social evolution it was the limitations of the physical environment which pressed upon the individual and pre- vented the full satisfaction of his wants. War, slavery, CAPITALIST SOCIETY 17 feudal landlord, monarch and crystallized religious forms have successively and together suppressed the natural prog- ress of mankind. All these forms of social pressure were largely economic in their origin, but the most prevalent form of social pressure under capitalism is more purely economic than any earlier form. The older checks on progress have lost much of their force. Invention and discovery have pushed back the physical limitations, wars are less frequent, chattel slavery is abol- ished, the feudal landlord and the monarch are anachronisms, and religious terrorism has lost much of its force. The great repressive force now is the capitalistic domination of indus- try, the wage system by which labor is deprived of a large part of its product, and the limitation of industrial produc- tion for the sake of greater profits and a higher standard of life for the few at the expense of the many. Organized capitalism stands like a rock against any relative gam on the part of labor. It imports laborers with a lower standard of life to lower the standard at home. Less personal and more active than any of the older forms of pressure, except the physical limitations themselves, capitalism not only endeavors to prevent the standard of life from rising but attempts directly to lower it. To this pressure the proletariat offers a resistance pro- portionate to the gains already made. This resistance is not always conscious, and is not usually consciously directed against the real source of the pressure, but wherever there is a protest meeting, a labor union, a strike, a proletarian political party or a social revolution, this resistance is mani- festing itself. When this resistance is consciously directed against capitalism and towards industrial democracy and social freedom, all the essentials of a Socialist movement may be said to exist. 18 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM SUMMARY I 1. Socialist criticism is essentially constructive and impersonal. 2. The invention of machinery and the rise of factories brought about the reconstruction of social classes, the capitalist owners of the means of production becoming the dominant class and the proletariat, composed of propertyless wage-workers, the subject class. 3. Between the capitalist class and the proletariat is a middle class, less definitely constituted than either, and with the interests and sympathies of its members divided. 4. The capitalist age has been one of great material progress, with a distinct gain in the absolute well-being of the majority. II 5. The compensation of labor under capitalism takes the form of a competitive wage, and the typical wage is just sufficient to maintain the current standard of life of the laborer and his family. 6. The standard of life tends to rise from generation to generation, creating a continually strengthening demand for higher wages. 7. The capitalist domination of industry acts as a great repressive force tending to lower the standard of life of the proletariat. QUESTIONS 1. Why do Socialists refuse to direct special attacks against the institutions of monarchy? 2. What are the dominant characteristics of the capitalist class? Of the proletariat? 3. What reasons are there for considering the position of the pro- letariat one of wage-slavery? 4. What are the advantages of the corporation as a form of business organization? 5. In what respects has the working class gained through capitalism? 6. Distinguish between absolute and relative well-being. 7. Criticise the "Iron Law of Wages." 8. What is meant by the "Standard of Life"? 9. How is the standard of life related to the wage system? LITERATURE Ely, R. T., and Wicker, G. R., Elementary Principles of Economics, Part IV, Chap. III. Marx, Karl, Capital, Vol. I, Parts II and VI. Spargo, John, The Common Sense of the Milk Question, Chap. I; The Substance of Socialism, Part III. CHAPTER III PLANLESS PRODUCTION The competitive system: America has grown up in the spirit of the laissezfaire philosophy: we have been taught to believe that if the government and the monopolists would not interfere, individual self interest working in the spheres of production and exchange would bring about the highest possible social efficiency. America has been the paradise of this laissez faire individualism. With mil- lions of acres of free land to which the dissatisfied could go, and a continent to develop; with the absence of tradi- tional authority and the presence of the most adventurous spirits of all countries, it is no wonder that individualism and competition appeal to the typical American. Then, too, the idea of the "Survival of the Fittest" introduced by Darwin, gave to competition a new scientific basis, so that even in these days of huge combinations, when Judge Gary of the United States Steel Corporation testifies before a Committee of the House of Representatives that competition in the steel industry is dead, 1 a large element in the American population still wishes to destroy the "Trust" and rely upon competition to bring about substantial social justice. This idea of the effectiveness of competition was illus- trated by an economist of a past generation by a description of the provisioning of London, holding it to be self-evident that no public or monopolistic agency could meet the com- plex and multiform needs so well as they were met by the blind working of competition. But the people of London were not all fed. Perhaps as many as thirty per cent had to go hungry part of the time, then as now. Competition falls far short of efficiency. Lack of coordination: In the laissez faire philosophy it was forgotten that individual liberty must be limited 1 Vide reports in the daily press, July, 1911. 19 20 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM in order to bring about the maximum of social liberty. Darwin and his immediate followers failed to emphasize as Kropotkin has done the importance of cooperation as a factor in evolution. Competition is chaotic, it has no organization. It is simply the outgrowth of the ages before modern science was born. A scientific age demands scien- tific methods, and competition in industry is the reverse of scientific Under competition there is no way of estimating the demand. Producers work blindly and hope to be able to dispose of their products at a profit. There is no apportion- ment of the work among the various producers, so that no producer knows how much of the supply it will pay him to produce. This is especially evident in agriculture within a limited market. If the price of potatoes has been high each farmer will plant a large acreage of potatoes, with the result that in the next season there will be an over-supply of a bulky and perishable product which cannot be profitably disposed of. Competition, therefore, results in great fluc- tuations in price, gambling in the necessities of life, numerous business failures, irregular production and consequent injury to the working class. Unnecessary duplication: Anyone who has lived in a city which rejoiced in two or three different telephone systems can appreciate the disadvantages of competition. Every business man must have "both 'phones," and whenever one wishes to call a friend on his "Independent" telephone he discovers to his sorrow that the friend has a "Bell." Nothing is gained by this expensive duplication and incon- venience, for either extreme or "cut-throat" competition must go on until one company is financially ruined, or the companies must agree on a rate, thus giving no advantage over monopoly. Much money has been wasted in paralleling railroads. Capital diverted from industry for the purpose of building unnecessary roads is a social loss. Often a rail- road is built as a huge blackmailing scheme, built with the preconceived plan of selling out to the competitor. Real competition in public service facilities is practically non- existent and impossible for any considerable length of time. In the process of exchange the wastes of competition are PLANLESS PRODUCTION 21 obvious. Several grocery stores in a small town carry identical stocks of goods, duplicate floor space, stale goods, managers and clerks, while one large store with branches as the town became larger could supply the needs of the town much more cheaply and could afford to change stock more frequently. The distribution of the milk supply where a dozen milk wagons serve a single street needs only to be compared with the postal delivery system to illustrate the wastes of competition. In manufacture the wastes of com- petition are equally obvious. Even now that a considerable degree of monopoly has been attained, there are far more factories than would be necessary under an efficient and economical system of production. Advertising: One of the greatest wastes in the marketing of commodities is in the matter of advertising. Advertising has, of course, a legitimate place in business life and would to some extent be necessary in a Socialist commonwealth. It is necessary to make a market for a new product, to call attention to the advantages of new methods over old. But it is not necessary to spend huge sums in persuading people to buy one brand of a standard article rather than another equally good. The excessive advertising of soaps and break- fast foods illustrates this waste. Advertising also offers a means of influencing the press in a manner and to a degree that is socially dangerous and undesirable. Newspapers and magazines cannot live with- out advertising, and the judicious placing of advertising matter, or the threat of the withdrawal of such matter already placed has changed the editorial policy of many newspapers and magazines. The wastes of duplication can also be seen in personal advertising by travelling salesmen. The "drummer" equally with the printed advertisement has a legitimate function to perform in keeping retail dealers in touch with the larger business world, persuading them to introduce novelties, and saving to the retailer the expense of going to the city to place an order. But it is clearly an economic waste when salesmen from several wholesale houses visit one small grocer within a single week, trying to persuade him to in- crease his stock of standard goods. Useless vocations: The capitalist system makes necessary 22 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM many vocations which are not socially productive, and which draw large numbers of the ablest men and women from pro- ductive work. With the socialization of capital these voca- tions would largely disappear and a heavy tax upon the producing population be saved. (1) Lawyers: There were 114,703 lawyers in the United States according to the census of 1900, the increase of law- yers between that and the previous census being much more rapid than that of the total population. It is safe to say that now (1911) there are more than 140,000 persons in the legal profession in this country. Probably nine-tenths of the litigation and an even larger part of legal business transacted out of court involves property rights and other issues directly resulting from capitalism. While the social- ization of capital would probably not do away with the legal profession in its entirety, it is evident that the number of lawyers would be greatly reduced. (2) Soldiers: Since the only function of the army and navy under capitalism is to extend foreign markets and coerce rebels against capitalist authority, militarism cannot survive the present industrial system. This will release for socially beneficial work not only the 100,000 men in the army and navy, but the greater army engaged in the manu- facture of the munitions of war, in the provisioning and serving of the army and navy, and in the administrative bureaus. The cost of militarism to the country, exclusive of pensions, is $300,000,000 a year. The same amount spent in productive labor would add tremendously to the wealth and well-being of the nation. A simple, inexpensive and democratic system of national defense could easily be sub- stituted for the present wasteful and undemocratic system. (3) Bankers and brokers: The number of persons in the United States engaged in these occupations is constantly increasing. In 1870 the number was 10,631. By 1880 it had risen to 15,180, and by 1890 to 30,008. By 1900 the number was 73,277. Thus the number of bankers and brokers has been steadily increasing three times as fast as the total population. In addition to this army of men a very con- siderable part of the 1,000,000 clerks, copyists, bookkeepers, accountants and stenographers enumerated in the census of PLANLESS PRODUCTION 23 1900 were employed in banks and brokerage houses. To a very large extent, these occupations are socially unproduc- tive and wasteful. The banking operations which would be necessary under Socialism would employ only an insig- nificant proportion of those now directly or indirectly engaged in banking. The broker is purely a social parasite, and as such would have no place in a rationally conducted society. He would be given useful work and thus trans- formed from a parasite to a useful and productive member of society. (4) Agents: Another unnecessary group which would be practically eliminated under Socialism is that of insurance, real estate and sales agents, which in 1900 numbered in the United States 241,333 persons. State insurance would not need agents. Land would not be bought and sold. Sales agents would have only the limited function of introducing new classes of goods with which people were unfamiliar, a function similar to that of the travelling salesman under Socialism. The premium on dishonesty: Competition and the profit system make it almost impossible for men to succeed in many lines of business without resorting to deception, unfair advantage and adulteration of goods. Profits are gained by reducing the expenses of production and selling at the highest possible price. The sale of cotton and shoddy for wool, the addition of glucose to sugar, injurious preservatives in food- stuffs, poor building materials sold for good, deodorized eggs and embalmed beef, bogus mining stocks, "city lots" in a Florida swamp, railway rebates, manipulation of legislatures, two hundred per cent, on chattel loans and a thousand other nefarious devices have been developed by a laissez faire competitive system. When one competitor resorts to such means the others must follow or go out of business. Restric- tive legislation is bitterly fought by personally honest men. One method of deception is hardly made illegal before another is devised. The spirit of the law is violated and the letter upheld. Government inspectors must watch all forms of manufacture to detect violations of the law, and it becomes an advantage to the manufacturer to bribe the inspector. Nor must it be forgotten that practically the entire system of government regulation and inspection with its army of 24 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM employees and expensive departmental machinery is a social waste, made necessary by the nature of capitalism. To these evils must be added the danger to the health and lives of the workers under the profit system. Every safety device costs money and the manufacturer not unnaturally hesitates to incur the expenditure lest it reduce the margin of profit. One manufacturer may even wish to guard his machinery, but find himself unable to do so unless his com- petitors do the same, and even he will fight a law compelling him to protect the lives of his employees. So it is with sanitation. Even a private monopoly is more likely to safeguard the health of its employees than is the best indi- vidual employer under competition. Over-production and under-consumption : In the struggle between competing producers it frequently happens that the public demand for an article at a certain price is over- estimated. Or the price may be temporarily above the normal, and manufacturers in either case run their factories to their fullest capacity and produce more than can be profit- ably disposed of. Competition in selling drives the price down until sellers prefer to hold goods rather than to sell. The factories are then closed, the employees are thrown out of work, and production is only resumed after the accumu- lated product has been gradually marketed. A series of profitable years often stimulates production to such an extent that there comes to be what is known as "general over-production." In nearly all lines of industry the prod- ucts exceed the demand at prices which yield a surplus to the manufacturer. But at the same time that warehouses are loaded with unsold goods thousands of consumers are going without them, simply because they cannot afford to buy. The real problem is not over-production, but under-consumption. True, over-production the production of more than can be consumed to the advantage of the consumers is possible in some industries, but general over-production is impossible. The capacity of society to expand its wants for more and better goods is practically unlimited, and it is always possible for the average man to consume the equivalent of what he produces. The producers and consumers in general are the same individuals viewed from different viewpoints, and if PLANLESS PRODUCTION 25 each family were able to consume the equivalent of what its members produced there could be no question of over- production. The tendency of monopoly in industry is toward the better regulation of production and the elimination of over-pro- duction and its results. But not until this tendency to the monopolization of industry reaches its culmination in social- ization will the real problem of under-consumption be solved. Crises: The whole period of capitalist industry has been marked by periodic fluctuations in business conditions. A period of prosperity is followed by a crisis, a panic in the world's markets, and a period of business depression and social distress. There have been four "major crises" in the United States, those of 1837, 1857, 1873 and 1893. The major crisis seems to come at intervals of about twenty years, that of 1873 being hastened by conditions following the Civil War. Minor panics and crises have usually alter- nated with major crises, giving a period of business depression about once in every ten years. Crises are commonly explained as a result of an over- expansion of the credit system. Bank credit is loaned to business men in too large quantities and on too little security. Easy credit tempts men to take too great business risks, and when their notes become due they are unable to pay. The bank which has guaranteed their obligations then fails, and with the close interrelation of banks and business houses, one after another is drawn into bankruptcy until the busi- ness world is paralyzed. A crop failure may precipitate a panic by diminishing the purchasing power of farming com- munities, thereby reducing the profits of manufacturers and making them unable to meet their notes. Whatever its cause, a panic is bound to grow. Business is founded on credit and credit is almost destroyed. Even the securities on which credit is based fall in value, and money itself is hoarded, thus reducing bank reserves. This is one side of the problem. On the other side stands the fundamental difficulty that the high profits of a pros- perous time increase the relative gains of the capitalist class as against those of the proletariat. These additional gains are transformed into capital which must be re-invested in further production. With its lower relative income the great 26 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM consuming proletariat cannot buy its own product. Its purchases fall off as in the case of the farmers at the time of a crop failure. Goods lie unsold in warehouses and the profits of manufacturers from which loans were to be repaid are not forthcoming. This situation breaks at some point and a panic ensues. Unemployment following the panic still further reduces the purchasing power of the people, and it is only after the surplus has been consumed by the capitalist class, their servants and those who produce goods and services for them, or after some of the surplus has been given away in the form of charity, that the normal level can be regained and the entire process begun anew. Passing of the competitive era: Unregulated competition is largely a thing of the past. Competition through price is modified to such an extent that the ruinous cut-throat com- petition of a generation ago is practically unknown. There is still some degree of competitive price in the wholesale trade in staple goods, but it is incidental and relatively unimportant. There is also a form of competition in the retail trade, consisting of advertising and other attempts to "get the business," but price agreements prevent the disastrous consequences of unregulated competition. Thus some of the evils of competition are eliminated through the increasing magnitude of the business units. In many indus- tries this process has gone still further and has culminated in monopoly. The tendency of monopoly in industry is toward the better regulation of production and the elimina- tion of over-production and its results. But it brings with it greater concentration of wealth and a higher degree of direct exploitation, so that monopoly is not in itself a solu- tion of the basic industrial problem. The waste of labor: The capitalist system requires at all times a great reserve army of laborers who, ordinarily unem- ployed, can be called into active service in times when production needs to be increased. In the United States from one to three million workers 1 capable of adding enor- 1 This is admittedly a very vague and unsatisfactory statement to make upon such an important subject. Adams and Sumner with wisdom and truth remark that "there is no more difficult topic in the whole range of labor problems, and few so important, as this subject of unemployment" (Labor Problems, p. 519). Upon no problem of equal importance do we possess less exact information. The number PLANLESS PRODUCTION 27 mously to the social wealth by their labor are constantly idle. The relatively inefficient, the so-called "unemployed," who might be producing something at least, are usually not employed at all, but supported by charity. When to these are added the idle rich and their servants and retainers, the producers of ostentatious luxuries for the plutocracy, those employed in the unproductive and parasitic occupations already enumerated, and the vast number of workers whose labor is largely wasted through poorly organized private enterprise, it will at once be seen what a tremendous waste of labor-power is involved in the chaotic and planless capitalist system. It is certain that with the elimination of all this waste a far higher standard of life than the present average could be maintained with comparatively short hours of labor. Agricultural production: Although the tendency in manu- facture and commerce is towards concentration and the elimination of the evils of competition, the tendency in agriculture is apparently the reverse. The great "bonanza farms" of the West and the great plantations of the South are being broken up into smaller holdings. The number of farms as shown by the census is steadily increasing. In Europe this same process is going on. Great estates are being divided into small farms and sold to peasants on State credit. Is competition, then, effective and desirable in agriculture? The same evils of lack of coordination and unnecessary duplication exist in agriculture as in industry. The inde- pendent farmer is not in touch with the consumer and cannot tell in advance what acreage it will be worth while for him to devote to each crop. The risk which each farmer must assume is, in proportion to his capital, very great. Drought, frost, hail or insect pests may destroy his whole crop and reduce him to poverty. In spite of the apparent of unemployed workers rarely falls below one million, even in "good" times. In "bad" times it frequently rises to considerably more than three millions. For example, 1900 was by no means a very "bad" year, but, according to the federal census of that year, thirty-nine per cent, of the male workers, 2,069,546 persons, were idle from four to six months of the year (U. S. Census, Special Reports, volume on "Occupation," p. ccxxxv). The conservatism of the statement in the text is evident (cf. Hunter, Poverty, ch. I). 28 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM increase in competition, the real tendency is toward its elimination. In the first place, there is a marked concentra- tion of farm ownership, as we have already seen. 1 In the next place, the marketing of farm produce has passed out of the hands of the farmers themselves. Instead of being able to sell direct to the consumer, they must reach him through an army of middlemen whose functions are becom- ing more and more concentrated. The industrial functions which formerly constituted a large part of farming have passed out of the farmer's hands. He no longer makes butter and cheese, nor does he peddle milk about the city. These functions are capitalized and concentrated. The more expensive farm machinery, like threshing machines and reapers, are either owned cooperatively or owned and operated by those who specialize in that part of farm work and make it their business. Some of the evils of unrestrained competition are partially avoided by the crop reports and recommendations of the Department of Agriculture, an example of collective action saving the individual from the evil consequences of an inefficient individualism. A similar service is performed by associations and unions of farmers engaged in producing certain groups of crops. So keenly is the necessity of elim- inating competition felt at times that violence is resorted to for the purpose of regulating production, as by the tobacco planters of Kentucky, for example. The separate farm may remain, but competition is no more desirable in farming than in the other branches of production. Where competition may persist: Competition as a regu- lator of industry is a failure. It is unscientific, it lacks adapt- ability and coordination, it involves too much individual risk, it involves social loss in duplication of plants, machines and men, it wastes men and money in advertising, it brings about adulteration of goods and cheap construction, and it increases the danger of under-consumption and crises. But a certain kind of competition would remain either under private or public monopoly. It is socially advantageous to have men and groups of men strive toward greater efficiency. A healthy rivalry between farmers to keep up the best farm, and to produce crops of the highest quality in the greatest See Table I, p. 11. PLANLESS PRODUCTION 29 quantity adds to the social wealth and well-being, as does the rivalry of the same sort between manufacturing establish- ments and transportation lines. A competition between men for position and public honors when the reward is clearly placed on a basis of efficiency and merit, results in a distinct social gain. It is entirely possible to retain all the benefits of competition without enduring its evils. SUMMARY 1. Industrial competition necessarily involves great social loss through the duplication of establishments and services, and in the advertising of goods. 2. The capitalist system makes necessary many socially unproductive vocations. 3. Privately organized industry offers irresistible temptation to dishonesty and fraud. 4. The risks of capitalist industry give rise to periodic crises which bear most heavily upon the working class. 5. Competition in the form of personal and group rivalry for social efficiency, position and honor may persist without industrial competi- tion. QUESTIONS 1. Why does competition fail as a regulator of industry? 2. Give examples of unnecessary duplication in industry. 3. Discuss the Socialist position in regard to advertising. 4. Explain the relation between the capitalist system and the voca- tion of law. 5. What is meant by over-production? Under-consumption? 6. Why does capitalist society fail to utilize all of the available supply of labor? 7. How is the farmer affected by the capitalist system? 8. What would be the place of competition under Socialism? LITERATURE Ely, R. T., Socialism and Social Reform, Part II. Hunter, Robert, Poverty. Hyndman, H. M., Commercial Crises of the Nineteenth Century. Kelly, Edmond, Twentieth Century Socialism, Book II. Reeve, S. A., The Cost of Competition. Simons, A. M., The American Farmer. CHAPTER IV POVERTY What constitutes poverty? Our definition of poverty has been somewhat anticipated. Poverty is at once an absolute and a relative condition. As an absolute condition, it may be defined as an insufficient supply of those things which are necessary to maintain efficiency in the conditions existing at a given time and in a given place. A family may be said to be in poverty when its income is insufficient to provide for all its members the things necessary to maintain them in a state of physical efficiency. This is true regardless of the fact that the income would have sufficed to keep another family at the standard of efficiency in some other place, or in the same place at some other time. Thus poverty is a relative condition. The Chinese coolie can supply all his felt wants, and maintain himself efficiently, according to Chinese standards, on a wage which would mean starvation to an Italian laborer. In turn the Italian laborer can main- tain himself efficiently and save money on a wage entirely insufficient to efficiently maintain an American workingman. A family with a three dollars a day standard that is, a family living under conditions in which it takes three dollars a day to procure the things necessary to physical efficiency is just as poor on an income of two dollars a day as a family with an income of fifty cents a day where the necessities of physical efficiency can be procured for seventy-five cents a day. Whenever the income of a family is so low that it does not make possible the maintenance of all its members in a state of efficiency, and there is a lack of any of the things essential to the attainment of that end, there is poverty. When the income falls so low that it must be augmented by public or private charity, we have the development of poverty to pauperism. This condition is poverty at its worst. Pau- 30 POVERTY 31 perism is the last refuge of the weak, the aged, the sick and infirm, and other victims of the human struggle. The extent of poverty: There is no way of obtaining a very accurate measure of the amount of poverty existing hi any city or in any nation. The extensive statistical work of the United States Census Bureau throws very little light on American poverty. Practically the only useful data avail- able have been gathered by students and social workers in private investigation or are contained in the reports of public and private charities. For England the investigations of Mr. Charles Booth in London and Mr. B. S. Rowntree hi York are the most illuminating sources of information. Mr. Booth found that of the population of London about 30 per cent was living below the poverty line, and in York Mr. Rowntree found 27.8 per cent hi poverty, and that in 1899, a year when trade was more than usually good. The standard of living in America is a little higher than the English standard. Therefore, the poverty line must be set a little higher here than hi England to make any comparison of value. If this be done, there is little or no evidence that conditions here are much better than hi England. During the year 1903 the public authorities in Boston aided 136,000 persons, or more than 20 per cent of the population. The value of these figures is greatly impaired by the fact that we have no means of ascertaining how many duplications they con- tain. That the number of such duplications is considerable will not be doubted by anyone who is at all familiar with the subject. On the other hand, the figures do not take into account the large number of persons relieved by voluntary philanthropic agencies and private individuals. That these would more than cancel the number of duplications hi the statistics of public relief is beyond question. So we get the startling fact that at least 20 per cent of the population of the city of Boston reached the level of pauperism in the year 1903. Of course, the number of poor persons, that is, persons whose income was insufficient to provide the things necessary to the maintenance of efficiency, was very much higher.' By no means do all who are poor apply for charity. Self-respect keeps many who are desperately poor from doing so. 32 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM It is estimated by Robert Hunter that in our large cities there are rarely less than 25 per cent of the people in poverty. Studies of unemployment tend to confirm this estimate. Fully 30 per cent, of the wage-earners are unemployed for a portion of the year, their incomes are irregular and they are therefore extremely liable to fall below the poverty line. To unemployment must be added the disability of wage- earners by sickness and accident. The eminent authority on vital statistics, William Farr, estimates that for every death two persons are, on an average, seriously ill, and three per- sons so ill as to require medical attention. 1 Dr. Farr was one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of all the statisticians of history, and his estimate was based upon an exhaustive study of the mortality and morbidity experience of the United Kingdom. As Professor Irving Fisher remarks, there is every reason to believe that Farr's conclusion is nearly as valid as when he wrote, about forty years ago. 3 If, then, we apply Farr's estimate to the United States, in which about 1,500,000 persons die each year, we get the startling result that something like 3,000,000 persons in the United States are at all times seriously ill. Of course, we have to be cautious in thus attempting to apply figures based upon British conditions a generation ago to the United States of the present day. Still, Professor Fisher, after checking the result in various ways, concludes that the esti- mate based upon Farr's crude rule is a fairly conservative one. 3 In 1900, of the total population of known ages in Con- tinental United States the age-group twenty to sixty-four years inclusive constituted 51.5 per cent. Assuming that percentage to have been about the same in 1910, there were in that year 47,365,717 persons between the ages of twenty and sixty-four years, inclusive. Mr. Edward Bunnell Phelps, editor of The American Underwriter, and one of the best statistical authorities in America, has calculated that Professor Fisher's estimate of 3,000,000 seriously ill is too conservative; that there are at least that number of persons in the United States between twenty and sixty- 1 Farr, Vital Statistics, pp. 512-513. 8 Report on National Vitality, by Professor Irving Fisher, p. 34. * Fisher, op. tit. POVERTY 33 four years of age, inclusive, ill enough to require medical attendance. And these years, it will be noted, are the most important working years. In furnishing this estimate to the present writers, Mr. Phelps calls attention to the fact that some seven years ago one of our very best statistical authorities tabulated the number and percentages of Odd Fellows reported as sick in twenty-nine different States, and found that of the total membership of that organization in those States an average of 7.85 per cent, were sick. One of the large health and accident insurance companies pub- lishes a carefully tabulated statement which shows that on an average ten per cent, of its policy-holders between the ages of twenty and sixty-four years, inclusive, are sufficiently ill to warrant the payment of sickness claims. Dr. Farr's estimate that 2,000,000 in the United Kingdom are ill enough to require medical attention was equivalent to saying that that 6.3 per cent, of the total population was sick. The medical director of another large health and accident com- pany estimated that hi the United States, on an average, fully 5 per cent, of all persons in the age-group named are ill enough to need medical attention. If we average these several estimates and apply that average to the population in the age-group named, the result is almost startling: ESTIMATES OF HABITUAL ILLNESS IN UNITED STATES BASIS OF ESTIMATE. Popu- lation, Ages 20-64. Probable No. of Cases of Sickness. Odd Fellows' experience, 7.85% of 47,365,717 47,365,717 47,365,717 47,365,717 3,718,209 4,736,572 2,368,286 2,984,040 Health Company's experience, 10% of Medical Director's estimate, 5% of Dr. Farr's figures, 6.3% of Total number of sick persons estimated according to the average of the four estimates . . . 3.451,777 It would seem, therefore, that, on an average, at least 3,000,000 persons between the ages of twenty and sixty-four are sick. Not all of these are of the working class, for the fires of fever burn in mansion and hovel. Many are wealthy, many are of the professional class. How many 34 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM are bread-winners with families dependent upon them we do not know. Probably not less than 1,500,000. We do know that diseases of all kinds, and especially the most dangerous, like tuberculosis and pneumonia, are more prevalent among the wage-earners than among any other class. 1 It is perfectly obvious, therefore, that disease greatly adds to the poverty of the masses. According to Mr. Hunter there were in 1904 at least 10,000,000 persons in poverty in the United States. There is no evidence that poverty is diminishing. All the organized charities are con- stantly enlarging their scope, and are pressed to the limit of their capacity in relieving misery. The cry of helplessness which ascends from our great organized agencies for phil- anthropic relief is appalling. The pauper: The greater part of the families living in poverty do not become paupers. They strive to maintain their self-respect. They struggle bravely to increase their incomes, and by small economies manage to avoid applying for relief. Even the very poor will sacrifice part of their meagre incomes to help their neighbors and friends tide over a period of exceptional distress and to save them from becoming paupers But the typical pauper has lost the self-respect of poverty. Take the pauperism of the tramp, for example. The tramp is not necessarily unhappy, nor does he suffer keenly. He cheerfully relies upon his stronger neighbors, or upon organ- ized charities, to keep him from starvation. This form of chronic pauperism is a disease of character, more hopeless than crime itself. But it cannot be denied that capitalism puts a premium on this parasitic life. The tramp on the whole has an easier life and is often much better fed than the hard-working laborer. It is estimated by Mr. James Forbes, Director of the National Association for the Prevention of Mendicancy, that there are not less than 250,000 such tramps in the United States The tragedy of this aspect of the problem lies in the fact that, very often, the most promising and healthy boys of the working class find their way into the ranks of trampdom. The monotony of the average wage- earner's life, and the periodic unemployment which destroys ambition and thrift, are perhaps mainly responsible for this. 1 Cf. Fisher, op. tit., p. 22. POVERTY 35 Another form of chronic pauperism, closely allied to that of the tramp, but differing from it in important respects, is that of the shiftless and inefficient families who are always dependent upon public and private charity. If there is a man at the head of the family he is generally unemployed, even in times when there is relatively little unemployment. The truth is that he is unemployable. The cause may be inefficiency and inability to apply himself to any task, how- ever simple, or it may be sickness, or drunkenness, which is itself a form of sickness. Or the cause of his failure may be the characteristic which we call laziness. But lazi- ness is probably always a result of defective conditions closely allied to poverty, and rarely or never the primary cause of poverty. Back of the inertia, lack of ambition and staying power which manifest themselves in what we call laziness are the untoward conditions born of poverty, such as mal- nutrition, neglect of disease, lack of training, failure to discover in the formative years of life the natural aptitudes of the boy who thus develops into the pauper. How many families of this class there are we have no means of ascer- taining in the present chaotic state of our statistics of relief. That the number is frightfully large is certain. They go from one charitable agency to another until they have gone the entire round, and then they begin the circuit anew. To these classes of paupers who are the victims of moral deficiencies, diseases of character which flourish in capital- ist society, must be added the large class whose pauperism is less directly the result of moral disease, but is the result of old age, physical infirmity due to disease and accident, the idiotic, the insane, the widowed and orphaned. There are more than a quarter of a million such men, women and children living in institutions at the public expense, in addi- tion to the vast number supported outside by public and private philanthropy. Altogether, pauperism presents an appalling picture of human wreckage. Poverty and the child: Nowhere are the ill effects of poverty more strikingly manifest than in the lives of the children of the poor. During the period of rapid growth in mind and body poverty creates an environment for the child which robs it of its chance of a full and healthy develop- ment, without which an efficient manhood or womanhood 36 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM will be impossible. Robbed of physical and intellectual opportunities in the most important years of all, the child of poverty is heavily burdened in the race of life. It is a well-known fact that the death rate among the poor is very much higher than among the well-to-do. This is especially true of the infantile death rate. Dr. Charles R. Drysdale, an eminent authority, declared some years ago that the death rate of infants among the rich was not more than 8 per cent., while among the very poor it was often as high as 40 per cent. In aristocratic Brookline, Mass., the death rate of children under one year per 1,000 births in the year 1900 was 96.9, while in Fall River, an industrial town in the same State, it was 260.2. Yet the experts say that, upon the whole, the babies of the poor are just as strong and healthy at birth as those of the rich, and that post- natal, rather than pre-natal, conditions are responsible for the terrible difference in the death rate. Except for poverty and other evils resulting from capitalism, there is no apparent reason why the death rate of babies anywhere in the United States should be materially higher than in Brookline. This means that in the prosperous year of 1900 more than 200,000 babies under one year of age needlessly died in the United States. Not all were victims of poverty, of course, but a vast majority were victims of poverty, ignorance, lack of care and other evils which appear to be inseparable from capitalist society. Terrible as these figures are, they by no means represent the worst, evils of poverty as it affects the child. At least the suffering of those who die in infancy is of short duration. Death is all too often an escape from long continued priva- tion and suffering. Recent investigations in this country and in Great Britain have revealed the fact that an alarming number of poor children of school age are chronically under- fed and otherwise neglected. Victims of malnutrition and diseases incidental to malnutrition, an alarming percentage of the children in our public and parochial schools are not only backward in their studies, but as a result of the com- bination of their physical and mental disadvantages they are continually augmenting the ranks of the inefficient who fall into pauperism, the shiftless, the intemperate, the vicious, the lazy and unemployable. POVERTY 37 Closely related to these conditions is the evil of child labor. Of the great army of children employed in mines, factories, workshops, street trades and farming occupations, the vast majority are victims of poverty. That a large num- ber of such children come from families who manage to keep slightly above the line of poverty is indisputable, but it must be borne in mind that very often such families main- tain that position only by adding the wages of the children to those of the adult bread-winners. Where a child earns two dollars a week, for instance, that sum may mean the difference between staying above the poverty line or falling below it. It may mean the difference between living in a hovel on a mean street where it is hard to be "respectable," and living in a better neighborhood. One terrible fact is that the children who are forced thus early into the labor market are the children least fitted for it. Child labor is quite unnecessary in this age of marvellously productive machinery and unemployed adults. But if it were necessary for little children to labor at all, those chosen for labor should be the strongest and best fitted to bear the strain. But the strongest and best developed children are the sons and daughters of the rich and well-to-do classes, and these are never torn from the playgrounds to enter the factories and mines or to face the perils of the street trades. It is always the children of the poor who are forced into the labor market, and the poorer the family the more necessary becomes the income derivable from the labor of its children. Thus child labor is a link hi a chain of vicious circumstance. The child whose infant years were spent in an environment which weakened it physically and so sapped the foundations of all strength, mental and moral as well as physical, and whose years of school life continued the cruel process, is subject to the further weakening of all that makes for strength of body, mind and character. The prevention of child labor: It is manifestly impossible to end child labor by appealing to the parents of the children. The pressure of poverty forces them to send the boy or girl to work. Meagre though the wage of the child may be, it is often an important item in the family budget. It is vain to urge that the child becomes a competitor of his father, that child labor leads to low wages for adult workers. The 38 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM parents know that. But they also know that the process is not an immediate one, that the employment of the indi- vidual child does not immediately and directly reduce the wages of the particular adult worker. The process is a slow and indirect one, subtly hidden in the complex mechanism of capitalist production. The wage of the child, on the other hand, is a direct and immediate gain. It means increased comfort at once. Likewise, it is useless to appeal to the employers to put an end to child labor. So long as child labor appears profitable the capitalist will not end it in response to appeals for sympathy for the child. In com- petitive industry the most kindly employer must take all the advantages for profit making which his competitor takes or go out of business; in industries wholly or partially monopolized the incessant demand of the stockholders for dividends forces the directors and managers to employ every profitable device and method. To stop child labor, then, legislation is resorted to. Every attempt to enact such legislation is bitterly opposed by those who profit from child labor. The laws when enacted are flagrantly violated. Still, despite all difficulties, something has been done in the direction of checking the worst abuses. The Socialist favors every effort to prevent child labor by legislation, and nearly every Socialist party in the world de- mands the prohibition of the labor of all children under sixteen years of age. But the Socialist sees in child labor only another symptom of social disease inseparable from the capitalist system, and believes the disease to be remedi- able only through the socialization of production and ex- change. Poverty and old age : One of the most tragic phases of the problem of poverty is that of the aged poor. After a life- time of hard work thousands of sober and industrious men and women pass the years of old age, when they are no longer able to work, in destitution, dependent either upon charitable agencies, or upon relatives who by contributing to the support of their dependent relatives diminish their oppor- tunities to save a competency for their own old age. Obvi- ously, there must be something radically wrong with a social system which does not make it possible for a worker after forty years or more of industry to live comfortably for ten, POVERTY 39 fifteen or twenty years when he is no longer able to work. Thrift is no remedy for the evil, and it is useless to argue that the workers should save enough to keep them hi their old age. That is possible in some cases. It is a fact that many of the aged poor might have been enjoying comfort had they been prudent and frugal in early life. But the average wage-earner does not earn more than enough to maintain himself and family in efficiency, even if every penny of his earnings is wisely directed to that end. For the average wage-earner saving is only possible at the expense of efficiency, either that of himself or some member of the family. Saving under such conditions means stinting, either by reducing the amount or lowering the quality of food, clothing or education, or by reducing the comforts and advantages arising from good housing accommodations. To those who have been accustomed to live in relative comfort dependence in old age involves the most intense suffering and humiliation. Of all the fears which beset the working class the fear of a beggarly old age is perhaps the most generally felt and the most dreaded. To avoid its realization men and women of the working class sacrifice much present comfort, and many of the necessary requisites of an efficient life, in order that they may have something upon which to rely in their old age. Even when a little is saved in this manner, the difficulties of safe investment and the dangers of loss are great. Evil results of poverty: Poverty is not only an evil hi itself, but it is the direct cause of many other evils. Crime is to a very large extent the result of poverty. The com- monest of all forms of crime is theft, and it is perfectly well known that robbery, burglary, pickpocketing, and other crimes of this class increase with every depression in trade. As wages decrease and the number of the unemployed increases the number of cases of larceny of all kinds grows. There is more theft in winter than in summer. In general it may be said that whenever the conditions of life become harder than usual for the poorer classes crime increases. Crime is the reaction of the relatively strong man to economic failure and oppression, just as pauperism is the refuge of the weak. While crime is by no means confined to the male sex, the 40 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM true female counterpart of crime in the male is prostitution. The life of a prostitute is not attractive and few enter it from choice. The life involves social ostracism and loss of self-respect, together with the abandonment of all that women value most highly. Except in the cases of a relatively small number of moral degenerates, the ranks of those who depend upon prostitution for a living are recruited from those who have failed otherwise to maintain themselves. Wherever investigations have been made into this subject a very close relation has been shown to exist between low wages and irregular employment and prostitution. Universally, the proportion of prostitutes who find their way into the ranks of those that walk in shame from such poorly paid occupa- tions as those of dressmakers, milliners, saleswomen, button- hole makers, cloakmakers and the like is very large. What is even more significant is that every depression of trade affecting these and similar occupations in the form of unem- ployment or decreased wages is immediately followed by a large increase in the number of prostitutes. At the National Purity Congress in 1895 the number of public prostitutes in the United States was estimated at 230,000. Other estimates are much higher, one investigator placing the number at 600,000.* Whatever the number may be, it is probably safe to say that five-sixths of all public prostitutes are victims of poverty. The relation of poverty to disease has already been suffi- ciently noted for our present purpose. It is not only one of the most active causes of such diseases as tuberculosis and pneumonia, but it is an important factor in the causation of that form of disease which is so often mistakenly treated as a crime, drunkenness. It is often said that drunkenness is a principal cause of poverty. That it frequently appears as the direct and immediate cause is true, but it must not be forgotten that it is itself, in many cases, the product of poverty and its concomitant conditions, overwork to the point of exhaustion, malnutrition and physical weakness, crushed hope and desperation of despair. Here as in so many other directions poverty tends ever to perpetuate itself. That is its worst feature Causes of poverty: Not so long ago it was very generally 1 Cf. Bliss, Encyclopedia of Social Reforms. Art. "Prostitution." POVERTY 41 contended that poverty was almost entirely due to the faults of the poor themselves, to moral defects in the indi- vidual rather than to defects in the economic and social environment. That view has been abandoned. Dr. Edward T. Devine, for example, admits that "the tradition which many hold that the condition of poverty is ordinarily and as a matter of course to be explained by personal faults of the poor themselves is no longer tenable. Strong drink and vice are abnormal, unnatural and essentially unat- tractive ways of spending surplus income." 1 The Socialist takes the same view of the problem and to all such questions as "Does poverty exist because people are shiftless, lazy, intemperate, dishonest or depraved, or because they have too many children?" answers with a vigorous negative. He agrees with Dr. Devine further "that personal depravity is as foreign to any sound theory of the hardships of our modern poor as witchcra t or demoniacal possession; that these hardships are economic, social, transitional, measurable, manageable." 2 He holds that all foregoing moral distressful phenomena are the direct and indirect results of conditions arising out of the economic system and inherent in its very nature. In a system which enables a relatively few owners to appropriate a large part of the products of industry regardless of effort on their own part, and where the actual producers can rarely take more than sufficient to keep them from day to day and week to week, poverty is inevitable. Charity not a solution of the problem : Society no longer intentionally permits any of its members to starve. When extreme poverty confronts us an attempt is usually made to relieve it. For this purpose numerous and costly organiza- tions exist, and in addition to this organized charity there is a large amount of personal effort directed to the same end. The effect of charity, however skillful and well-intentioned its dispensers may be, is often disastrous. It places the individual in a position of cringing dependence and destroys self-respect by invading the privacy of the home to make inquiries which are necessary to prevent imposition. But apart from these criticisms, and even if none of them were true, it would be a sufficient criticism to make of the 1 Charities and the Commons, Vol. XIX, p. 1104. 2 Misery and Its Causes, by Edward T. Devine, p. 11. 42 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM attitude of those who hold that charity is a sufficient solu- tion of the poverty problem to point out the confessed inability of our charity organizations to remove more than a tithe of the poverty existing in society under normal con- ditions. There is no large city in America in which any or all of the philanthropic agencies are or have ever been in a position to raise sufficient money to raise above the poverty line all who have fallen below it. This fact was shown in a striking manner during the discussion, in 1907, of the report of the New York State Conference of Charities and Correc- tions of the committee of . that body on wages and the standard of living. The committee reported that the lowest amount upon which a family of five could be supported in decency and health in New York City was about eight hundred dollars a year. Commenting upon the fact that many thousands of families have a total income of ten dollars a week or less, and that after allowances are made for sick- ness, holidays and occasional unemployment, the total income of such families does not exceed four hundred and fifty dollars a year at best, Dr. Devine frankly admitted that it would be impossible for organized charity to make up the deficiency for all such families, and so place them just above the poverty line. Such a policy would, he declared, lead to financial bankruptcy. 1 In other words, the charitable societies cannot hope to add to the wages of those workers whose incomes are inadequate to maintain themselves and families at the point of efficiency, enough to enable them to do so. Therefore, there must still be poverty which organized charity can neither promise nor seriously hope to remove. The Socialist view of poverty: Any open-minded Socialist must recognize that some of the evils of poverty can be relieved without disturbing the present social order. Muni- cipal milk stations for the supply of milk for infants, free meals for school children, medical inspection, child labor laws, farm colonies for the unemployed these and a multitude of similar reforms are possible within the capitalist system. But so long as capitalism remains and wages are determined by competitive methods poverty will continue to blight the world. It will be removed only when the basic industries 1 Charities and the Commons, Vol. XIX, p. 1083. POVERTY 43 have been brought under social ownership and control. So, while rejoicing in all measures of amelioration, the Social- ist concentrates his attention upon abolishing the funda- mental causes of poverty, trusting that the effects will dis- appear when the causes are removed. SUMMARY 1. A family is in poverty when its income is insufficient to provide those things which are necessary to maintain the efficiency of its mem- bers in a given time and place. 2. The effects of poverty are most evident in the lives of children. Under conditions of poverty the infantile death rate is very high and the growth of the minds and bodies of children is unpaired. 3. Poverty is a direct cause of crime, prostitution, disease and intemperance. 4. Charity is entirely inadequate for the relief of poverty, and con- tributes nothing toward its cure. QUESTIONS 1. Distinguish between poverty and pauperism. 2. What basis have we for estimating the extent of poverty? 3. What are some of the causes of pauperism? 4. Discuss the causes and the social effects of child labor. 5. Show how poverty acts as a cause of crime. 6. What is the social effect of charity? 7. What is the Socialist attitude toward poverty? LITERATURE Devine, E. T., Misery and Its Causes. Fisher, Irving, Report on National Vitality, Its Wastes and Conserva- tion. Hobson, John A., Problems of Poverty. Hunter, Robert, Poverty. Rowntree, B. S., Poverty, a Town Study. Spargo, John, The Bitter Cry of the Children. The Common Sense of the Milk Question, Chaps. I- VI. CHAPTER V LEISURE AND LUXURY Capitalist and manager: The capitalist as such has nothing to do with the management of the industry in which he holds stock. As a capitalist owner of a textile mill he need not know the difference between gingham and worsted. He may be a child or an idiot. If he does useful work in the management of the industry, as capitalists of a generation ago often did, he is to that extent a laborer and is entitled to the rewards of labor. As a matter of fact, he usually gets these rewards over and above his income as a capitalist. The shrewd business man who so directs an undertaking that it yields an increasing revenue without raising prices or lowering wages is undoubtedly performing a real service for society, and should receive a salary proportionate to that service. But when the gain comes through monopoly, special privilege, injury to the consumer or injury to the producer, society receives no benefit for which it should be called upon to make any payment. The business man who works for himself and against the interests of society deserves no consideration and no reward. Socialists do not wish to deny to the real captains of industry a reward equivalent to the social value of their share in production, any more than they wish to deny to the least efficient laborer the equivalent of the social value of his share in production. Socialists do charge, however, that even the salaries of those engaged in the management of industry as it is at present conducted are not proportioned to the share of the recipients in production. "To him that hath shall be given" seems to be the rule to-day, as of old. Men who have wealth or influence with the wealthy can obtain positions with salaries far in excess of the value of the services rendered. Capitalism also richly rewards services which are socially undesirable and unnecessary. Brokers, 44 LEISURE AND LUXURY . 45 speculators, commission merchants, .corporation lawyers, lobbyists, and many other groups are paid large salaries although society would be better off if they did not exist. Unearned wealth: The incomes of capitalists and land- owners are unearned. They bear no relation whatever to the productivity or the needs of those who receive them. There are other methods of getting unearned incomes, such as betting, swindling, begging and plain robbery. These methods are admittedly dangerous, demoralizing and crim- inal. But any form of unearned income is regarded as socially harmful by the Socialist, except where it takes the shape of a social gift for the maintenance of one who is incapacitated from labor. The unearned income of the capitalist is not a social gift, but a sum extorted from the producers through the mechanism of our industrial system. Inheritance: It is difficult to see why children, distant relatives or strangers should inherit the wealth of a deceased man in the production of which they have had no share. We no longer recognize the right of inheritance to political offices or honors. Hereditary royalty, nobility or dignity is almost universally looked upon as undesirable, but capital- ist society upholds the much more dangerous inheritance of capital with the same unquestioning faith that feudal society had in hereditary royalty. The fortune accumulated by a man of ability in a lifetime of honest effort may be inherited by a son or other heir, who, despite his mediocre ability, and the fact that he renders little or no service to society, thereby enjoys all the benefits of wealth. It is not the inheritance of purely personal property to which the Socialist objects, but the inheritance of capital, stocks and bonds representing ownership and control of industry, and land titles which confer upon their owners the power to absorb part of the wealth of society in the form of incomes derived from the exploitation of the labor and needs of others. There is no reason why society should assert the ownership of those forms of personal property which have none of the foregoing characteristics, except in such rare and exceptional circumstances as might lead even a capitalist State to do the same. Advantages of wealth: From the point of view of social power it is the ownership and control of industry rather than 46 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM income which counts. The man who owns can control. But aside from this social power a large income gives advan- tages which may not in themselves be harmful to society, but the enjoyment of which by the few to the exclusion of the many constitutes a social injustice. Among these advantages are education, travel, luxurious and beautiful homes, better care when ill, protection of childhood and old age. The man of wealth is free to seek the most skill- ful physicians and the most healthful climate. He need not wait for complete prostration before seeking medical aid. From these advantages the poor man is practically debarred. The higher death rate among the poor than among the rich is a matter of common knowledge. Among 10,000,- 000 well-to-do persons the number of yearly deaths is prob- ably not more than 100,000; among the best paid wage- earners the number is probably not less than 150,000; and among the poorest paid workers the number is probably not less than SSC^OOO. 1 Money may purchase life itself. The privilege of being able to devote his life freely to the work of one's choice, regardless of its income yielding power, is inestimable. Genius is not necessarily associated with money-making ability, and many of the greatest artists and writers have been able to develop their talents only through their freedom from the necessity of making a living. Previous to the industrial revolution the productivity of society was insufficient to support more than a relatively few in comfort and to afford leisure for cultural develop- ment. With the development of labor-saving machinery it becomes possible, for the first time in history, to realize any normal and healthy desire and still perform a just share of the necessary labor of society. Sufficient leisure for the development of talent is demonstrably possible for all in a society in which the most highly developed methods of production and organization are fully utilized. Culture and labor need not be divorced in modern society. The leisure class : The existence of social classes, generally hereditary in character, exempt from the work of production and thus able to devote themselves exclusively to certain honorific employments, such as warfare, politics and relig- ion, has been characteristic of every age since the end of 1 Poverty, by Robert Hunter, p. 144. LEISURE AND LUXURY 47 primitive communism. These classes have played a tre- mendous part in social evolution, for without them culture and civilization could hardly have been developed and pre- served. The Pericleian Age in Greece, for example, was only possible with many slaves for every free citizen. Under capitalism the predominant leisure class has been placed upon an entirely new basis, that of wealth regardless of any real or pretended services to society. This class is also to a large extent hereditary in character. It maintains itself by the exercise of its power of control over the means of production as surely as did the nobility of feudal times through land ownership. Inheritance of capital crystallizes class distinctions and makes equality of opportunity impos- sible. The inheritance of great landed estates in feudal times carried with it a sense of responsibility to society, and especially to the serfs and peasants. The feudal lords at least served society to the extent of assuming the risks and responsibilities of warfare, and of preserving, in conjunction with the church, the culture and civilization of the past. But this new leisure class performs no social service whatever. The inheritance of capital tends to perpetuate a class having no direct contact with the sources of its income, no feeling of social responsibility and no knowledge of the life of the producing class. The most conspicuously idle and extrava- gant of the capitalist class, those who do not perform even the most perfunctory directive functions, and cannot be considered as other than social parasites, live on incomes derived from inherited capital. Now that politics, art, education, and even military protection, are possible upon a thoroughly democratic basis, the Socialist sees no reason for maintaining in luxury a social class which does not and cannot justify its existence by some definite social service which it performs with peculiar efficiency. Ostentatious expenditure: Wealth in the form of capital gives the owner power over the lives of men. Wealth with large income enables the possessor to enjoy comforts and luxuries denied to other men, and the possession of wealth, or even the appearance of being wealthy, brings honor and social prestige. There is therefore a great temptation to spend large sums ostentatiously in order to be regarded as rich, rather than for the direct pleasure or benefit the 48 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM expenditure will bring. Expensive dinners and balls, ex- travagant houses, furnishings and dress, and e\en philan- thropy, are frequently attributable to the desire for social prestige and honor. Often this object is attained by the wearing of certain forms of dress, or living in such a way that productive labor is impossible, thereby indicating that one belongs to a class wealthy enough to be free from labor. The silk hat, the monocle, the walking stick and the patent leather boots of an English gentleman are neither comfort- able nor especially useful, but it is plainly evident that no one could do an hour's honest work in such an outfit. In its origin, at least, that fact is responsible for the outfit. Ostentatious expenditures by the very wealthy indirectly help to protect them in their social position. In the effort to share in the social homage and prestige bestowed upon rich families many a middle-class family imitates these extravagances to the point of financial ruin, and so is effec- tually prevented from obtaining real power. If we analyze our expenses, even the relatively poor among us will find that a surprisingly large proportion goes for ostentation, but this can hardly be avoided. As long as class distinctions are so great it is practically necessary to imitate and con- form, particularly in dress, or else be subject to ridicule. The necessity of keeping up these ostentatious expenditures hi order to maintain appearances constitutes in the aggregate an immense social loss. If it were not for the social necessity of keeping up the appearance of prosperity, real prosperity would be more easily obtained, and labor could be applied to a greater social advantage. The pace in ostentatious expenditure is set by the idle rich and everyone else is com- pelled to live as nearly as possible to that standard under the penalty of being stamped as socially inferior. The servant and society: The productivity of labor having increased much more rapidly than wages, the socially pro- ductive laborers themselves cannot purchase and consume their own product. Production must either be checked, therefore, and the resulting army of unemployed supported by charity, or the non-producing class must be so increased that the social product may be consumed. The servants and retainers of capitalism and the producers of certain kinds of luxuries for the capitalist class perform this function LEISURE AND LUXURY 49 by assisting the capitalist class in the consumption of goods. At the same time, they add to the sum of personal and social satisfaction which the owning class is able to enjoy. It may well be questioned whether a rational society would tolerate the existence of a servant class, except for the service of the sick and infirm. Such service might be regarded as an occupation of peculiar dignity and honor. But the idea that the whole life of one human being should be spent doing the work of and making comfort for another human being capable of doing it for himself is repellant to the ideas of freedom and equality. Many a rich idler whose life is of no benefit to society not only consumes an income repre- senting the labor of many producers, but wastes still more on the employment of personal servants. The rich man must have his valet and the rich woman her maid to assist them in dressing. The spectacle of one healthy person employing another healthy person to button his shoes or comb her hair, as the case may be, is so ludicrous that the parasitical nature of these forms of service is obvious. But a large part of the work performed by the servant class is none the less parasitical because less obviously ludicrous. We are not at present concerned with the question whether or not this form of useless labor will wholly disappear with the coming of Socialism. What concerns us is the social waste in present society represented by the servants and retainers of the capitalist class. It is true that a large majority of those engaged in ordinary domestic service are employed by the large middle class, rather than by the relatively small class of the very rich, but the number of servants and retainers of the latter class is greater than the entire number of domestic servants. In this class of servants and retainers is included such personal servants as valets, footmen, waiters, and the like, as well as the secretaries, private tutors, hired "companions" and the physicians who confine their professional service to the wealthy for extrava- gant fees. It includes also the editors, publicists, lawyers and preachers whose energies and talents are devoted to the task of defending the present social order for pay. The burden of the capitalist class upon the producers can only be realized when its vast army of servants and retainers is taken into account. From an economic point of view, the 50 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM servant and the retainer are producers of utilities for indi- viduals or groups of individuals, but they are not producers of social wealth. Every such servant or retainer means one more laborer taken from social production, and so much more work to be done by the producers who are left. The social effect of luxury: It is a common fallacy that anything which "makes work" is advantageous to labor. When some millionaire indulges in a particularly wild ex- travagance it is not unusual to hear it said that he is per- forming a social service by "putting money into circula- tion." It might as well be said that a vandal who amused himself by smashing windows was a social benefactor because he caused people to spend more money and made work for glass-blowers and glaziers, as that any good results from useless expenditures in any other form. Every plate-glass window has been produced by an expenditure of human effort and its unnecessary destruction means so much social loss. The labor of society consists of the replacement of goods which have been used up or destroyed, and devising new kinds of goods which will add to human efficiency and happiness. Waste and luxury from a social point of view mean a squandering of the products of labor, and a diverting of productive energy to useless ends. The fallacy that labor spent upon the production of luxuries which are an exclusive class privilege somehow benefits the laboring class arises from the confusion of wealth with money. Real wealth consists of production and consumption of goods. Of the total estimated wealth of the United States, gold, the only standard money, constitutes little more than one per cent. Its value depends upon its exchangeability for other things. The real social effect of excessive luxury is the destruction of social wealth in the accumulated products of labor power. If a man with an income of a million dollars a year should live according to the standard of an Italian laborer, his income would be quite as freely circulated as though he spent it all on steam yachts, palatial dwellings or jewels for courtesans. This money, whether invested or deposited in banks, would be in constant circulation. Degeneracy as the result of great wealth : It has been well said that society rots at both extremes; the rich rot from luxury and the poor rot from poverty. Great wealth is not LEISURE AND LUXURY 51 an unmixed blessing. Idleness and lack of social respon- sibility combined with the gratification of every whim, lead to dissipation, self-indulgence and other evils which result in the demoralization of the individual. A parasitic existence, whether in the plant or the animal kingdom, or in human society, brings about changes in the organism which unfit it for any further independent existence. It used to be said that a family passed from shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves in three generations, and perhaps the saying was to a certain extent true when the country was new and men stood more nearly upon their own merits. But at present, when fortunes are so immense, it takes little ability to keep them together, and the degenerate who otherwise would be earning the minimum wages at unskilled labor, or be in the care of some institution, is enabled to give monkey dinners and waste wealth in other equally foolish ways, and even then is unable to materially reduce the capital which he has inherited. A few such individuals might be kept in custodial institu- tions, but it is obvious that only a very small number of the most flagrant cases could be thus dealt with. The only remedy for the degeneracy which is commonly associated with the inheritance of immense wealth is to stop producing degenerates of this type. This can be done by abolishing the conditions which permit an idle class to live in luxury while the producing class languishes in poverty. 52 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM SUMMARY 1. The function of the capitalist as such needs to be distinguished carefully from that of the director of industry, who in that capacity is a producer. 2. The inheritance of capital perpetuates class distinctions and gives rise to a group of capitalists who have no directive functions. 3. Leisure is necessary for the development and continuation of civilization and culture. Before the time of machine production leisure was possible only to a few. Now it could become possible for all. 4. Servants and retainers of the rich are socially unproductive work- ers, and a burden on society. 5. Luxury involves social loss, and the diversion of labor from occupa- tions which are socially productive. QUESTIONS 1. Explain the attitude of the Socialist toward the "Captain of Industry." 2. Why distinguish between the inheritance of capital and the inher- itance of such personal property as jewelry and paintings? 3. If a leisure class was socially advantageous in the Middle Ages, why is it not so now? 4. Discuss the social effect of frequent changes in fashion. 5. Make a list of occupations which would be regarded by Socialists as socially unproductive. 6. What is the fallacy in the expression, "Spending money makes trade good"? 7. How may great wealth bring about degeneracy? LITERATURE Ely, R. T., and Wicker, G. R., Elementary Principles of Economics, Ch. IV. George, Henry, The Menace of Privilege. Veblen, Thorstein, The Theory of the Leisure Class. CHAPTER VI INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY Socialism and Individualism: It is a very common error to regard Socialism and Individualism as antithetical con- cepts. As a matter of fact, there is no antagonism between the two. The Socialist contends that true individualism is impossible under capitalism and that fact constitutes no small part of his indictment of the existing social order. Individualism is not an absolute but a relative term. There has never been a time when any individual could live his life within the boundaries of human society absolutely untrammeled by the lives of others or their requirements. The most despotic monarch has always been bound in some degree by convention, influenced by advice, restrained by fear of revolt or coerced by circumstance. Even when exceptional liberties of individual activity are enjoyed by favored individuals or classes they are never absolute and unlimited. Absolute individual freedom is hardly conceiv- able, even as an abstract conception. It is very evident that by its very nature society places upon the liberty of every individual some limitation, some restraint. It is equally evident that when excessive individual liberty is granted to an individual or a class, enabling that individual or class to oppress other individuals or other classes, true individual- ism does not exist. Neitzsche's Superman is often referred to as the perfect apotheosis of individualism, but that view is not warranted, for the reason that he could only exist by crushing the individuality of others. True individualism is inseparable from equality of opportunity. The freedom and opportunities of each individual must be bounded by the equal freedom and opportunities of every other indi- vidual. Capitalism and Individualism: Under a system which is properly described as wage-slavery the workers have little 53 54 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM freedom or opportunity for individual development. Their lives are forced into narrow grooves, individual initiative is discouraged, and they have no time for creative effort out- side of their working hours, even if they should feel the need of it. Leisure is a necessary condition for creative effort, and that is an unknown luxury to most wage-earners. Life is reduced to a dull level of deadly monotony, a joyless round of work at daily tasks which are heavy, irksome and unin- spiring, mitigated by cheap recreation, often brutalizing in its effects, by eating and sleeping. Relatively few members of this class ever reach distinction. The great majority of the distinguished men and women of one generation are the sons and daughters of the moderately wealthy and comfort- able middle classes of the generation before. When a mem- ber of the wage-earning class does rise to a place of distinc- tion it is a fact considered worthy of special comment and we get the impression that the number of such successes is greater than it really is. Even the leaders of the workingmen in their struggles frequently come from the classes above. While the rich enjoy many more opportunities for the development of individuality than do the wage-earners, as a class their lives are not characterized by a gain of individ- uality commensurate with their privileges. The rich society woman who is enslaved by the customs and conventions of the world in which she lives, and exhausted by the aimless round of social duties and vulgar dissipation which com- prise such a large part of her parasitic existence, is as much enslaved by her wealth as the poor seamstress is by her poverty. Her life becomes just as monotonous and irksome, and equally prevents the development of individuality. Such a woman has often as little time and energy left for creative work and self-expression as her poorer sister. Even the active capitalist, the typical captain of industry, is not free from the narrow bondage of wealth. We speak of such a man as owning so many millions of dollars, but it would be nearer the truth to say that the millions of dollars own him. Absorbed in the task of getting wealth, the task be- comes an obsession. Money ceases to be a means, it becomes an end: it is no longer servant, but master. Life becomes a narrow and sordid existence from which it is impossible to break. When he retires in old age he is unhappy because INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 55 he finds too late that he has lost the capacity for rational enjoyment. Perhaps the greatest opportunities for individual develop- ment and expression are enjoyed by the most prosperous and independent section of the middle class. The person whose income is secure and large enough to permit the leisure and the comfort essential to a high order of creative work, and is not burdened with the anxiety involved in the owner- ship of millions, is more to be envied than any other member of society. A large proportion of the artists, scientists, inventors, statesmen, philosophers and writers have come from this section of the middle class. It is only too true that a vast number of those who enjoy these advantages do not profit by them. The corrupting influence of the example of the idle rich is a factor which must be reckoned with. It is no wonder that the lives of so many who might profit by their available opportunities become mere shoddy imita- tions of the lives of the richer class above them, lives of vain attempt to appear to be something which they are not. To sum up: for the great mass of the people the condi- tions of capitalist society make a worthy individualism impossible. It will not be possible until parasitic idleness and brutalizing overwork have both been abolished. The goal to be aimed at is the realization of Mr. Ruskin's fine saying that "Life without industry is guilt; labor without art is brutality." Not until all men are usefully employed at work which is worth the doing and of itself a pleasure, and the work is done under conditions which are healthful, and rewarded with the leisure and the material goods necessary to the fulfillment of every legitimate craving for knowledge, for beauty and self-expression will true individ- ualism be possible. Class education: Where social classes exist it seems inevitable that the educational system as a whole should tend to perpetuate the class division. Consciously or uncon- sciously, the private school sharpens class distinctions and fixes an almost impassable barrier between 'the rich and the wage-earning classes. The public school, left to the children of the relatively poor, makes other social contacts impossible. These differences maintained throughout the formative years of life form habits of thought which can hardly be broken. 56 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM Thus the individuality of the rich child and the individuality of the poor child are merged with the spirit of their respective classes. Their sympathies are narrowed and they are rendered almost incapable of entertaining feelings of true social unity and democracy. "Benevolent feudalism" : When a member of the capitalist class comes to a realization of the effects of poverty, and honestly wishes to improve social conditions, it does not occur to him, as a rule, to consult the wishes of the people he would help. His attitude is substantially that of the paternal feudal lord who considered it his duty to care for his villein tenants. To alter the conditions of life by paying higher wages is usually beyond his individual power, and he is not likely to do so in any case. He is willing to give to the workers out of the wealth which he receives many of the things which he thinks they ought to have. He is not even willing to give them money outright as private largess, because he fears that they would not spend it wisely. We find, then, as a striking phenomenon of the capitalist system, "philanthropy" in all its forms. The conspicuous gifts of libraries and universities are familiar to everyone, but it is the so-called "welfare work" which touches the working class most directly. The building of model tene- ments, the establishment of clubs and lunch rooms, sick benefit funds and the Christmas turkey all supply the bene- ficiaries with things desirable in themselves, but it is ques- tionable whether the consequent loss of independence and self-reliance does not outweigh any possible benefit received. The danger is all the greater when, as is usually the case, the gift is made in such a manner as to increase the power of the giver over the lives of the work-people. This feudal assumption of personal responsibility for the social life of others effectually destroys all feeling of collective responsi- bility, and makes the worker a slave in his social as well as his economic relations. It is not surprising that the working- man should resent this social dictation, nor that he should be charged with base ingratitude toward his generous bene- factor. Neither side is capable of understanding the motives and feelings of the other. The matter may perhaps be put in a clearer light by instancing the case of the benevolent capitalist who logically carried his welfare plans a step INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 57 higher in the social scale and announced that he would furnish saddle horses for the free use of all his employees who were receiving salaries of $2,000 or over. He was much chagrined when the employees informed him that they would much prefer an increase of salary. Social responsibility: While there is little direct respon- sibility to be attached to any individual in the present social order, and while it is not desirable for any individual to assume such responsibility, we must recognize a collective responsibility, in which we share as individuals, for the existence and perpetuation of evil and unjust conditions. Responsibility can only be attached to a man in his capacity as a member of society. His will and individuality can only be effectively expressed through the social organization, and a form of society which is composed of antagonistic classes is a very imperfect medium for the expression of whatever sense he has of personally sharing in the collective respon- sibility. Perhaps the greatest social advantage which results from the class consciousness of the workers, and the organization based upon it, lies in the fact that they offer the most serv- iceable medium for the expression of this sense of personal participation in the collective responsibility for evil and unjust conditions. The working class is so numerous that its organization offers to the individual, even though he does not belong to the working class, the most effective medium through which to express his sense of being a sharer in the collective responsibility for the ills of society, and the most efficient method of contributing to their removal. Class ethics may not be the highest ethics imaginable, but the ethics of the class in revolt, which is organized to abolish classes and class rule, is the highest attainable here and now, and, therefore, the most efficient ethics. When the means of production and exchange have been made subject to social ownership and control, their advantages socialized and classes abolished, the machinery of the class-less State will make possible the perfect expression of the individual's sense of sharing every social responsibility. 58 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM SUMMARY 1. Socialism and individualism are not antithetical concepts. Indi- viduality can only be expressed through the medium of social organiza- tion. 2. Under capitalism there is little opportunity for the development of individuality either among the poor or among the rich. 3. Class education forms habits of thought which restrict individual- ity and the power of self-expression. 4. The conscious organization of the working class offers the best medium for personal participation in the collective social responsibility. QUESTIONS 1. What limitations upon individual activity must be imposed by any social group? 2. What is the effect of inequality in social position upon indi- viduality? 3. How does capitalist society restrict the freedom of the working- man? That of the capitalist? 4. Discuss the social effect of philanthropy. 5. What are the conditions of effective social responsibility? LlTERATTTHE Ghent, W. J., Our Benevolent Feudalism, Mass and Class. PART II SOCIALIST THEORY CHAPTER VII INTRODUCTORY The influence of Karl Marx: As we turn from the Social- ist criticism of existing society to the more positive aspects of Socialism we encounter the personality of the greatest thinker and most powerful influence in the history of Social- ism, Karl Marx. Professor Thorstein Veblen has said: "The Socialism that inspires hopes and fears in the world to-day is of the school of Marx. No one is seriously apprehensive of any other so-called socialistic movement, and no one is seriously concerned to criticise or refute the doctrines set forth by any other school of 'Socialists.' The Socialists of all countries gravitate toward the theoretical position of avowed Marxism. In proportion as the movement in any given country grows in mass, maturity and conscious pur- pose, it unavoidably takes on a more consistently Marxian complexion." 1 The greatness of Karl Marx is freely admitted by the most implacable opponents of Socialism as well as by its most ardent advocates. The words "Socialism" and "Marxism" are practically synonymous in the vast literature of the subject which has been produced during the last thirty or forty years. Whatever modifications his followers may have made in his theories, or may yet be compelled to make, one fact stands undisputed by friend or foe, namely, that the great international Socialist movement finds in those theories its justification, its intellectual weapons for defense and attack, the rationale of its aspirations toward a better and happier state of society and the bedrock of its assurance in the ultimate attainment of that goal. Saint-Simon, Fourier and Owen: It is commonly said that Marx found Socialism a Utopian movement and trans- formed it into a scientific movement. Prior to Marx Social- 1 Quarterly Journal of Economics, XXI, p. 299 61 62 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM ism was the name given to a variety of communistic schemes devised and advocated by men who regarded themselves as the discoverers of the true remedy for all social ills. For our present purpose it will be sufficient if we regard the Utopian method as represented by the three great Utopians of the early part of the nineteenth century, Saint-Simon and Fourier in France and Robert Owen in England. These names are of special significance to us in this study. It was the Saint-Simonian form of Socialism which first awakened the interest of Marx; it was here in the United States that the principal Fourierist experiments were made, enlisting so many of the most brilliant minds of the latter part of the first half of the nineteenth century; it was to the schemes of Robert Owen that the word "Socialism" was first applied, in 1833, and Owen also made his most ambitious experiment in the United States, at New Harmony. But there is another and weightier reason for the grouping together of the three names. It enables us to avail ourselves of the masterly description of Utopian Socialism by Frederick Engels, perhaps the most lucid brief statement of the matter ever written. He first describes how the French philosophers of the eighteenth century, the forerunners of the Revolution, proclaimed the "Kingdom of Reason" and refused to recog- nize any authority other than that of reason in religion, ethics, natural science, politics, or anything else. By reason they judged society and all its institutions. They condemned society as a whole and every existing social institution as irrational. What was needed was a Kingdom of Reason, the rule of Eternal Truth. Engels then proceeds to show that the Utopian Socialists, while holding a very different objective ideal from that of the eighteenth century phil- osophers, shared their philosophy. "One thing is common to all three. Not one of them ap- pears as a representative of the interests of the proletariat, which historical development had, in the meantime, produced. Like the French philosophers, they do not claim to eman- cipate a particular class to begin with, but all humanity at once. Like them, they wish to bring in the kingdom of reason and eternal justice, but this kingdom, as they see it, is as far as heaven from earth from that of the French philosophers. INTRODUCTORY 63 "For, to our three social reformers, the bourgeois world, based upon the principles of these philosophers, is quite as irrational and unjust, and, therefore, finds its way to the dust-hole quite as readily as feudalism and all the earlier stages of society. If pure reason and justice have not, hitherto, ruled the world, this has been the case only because men have not rightly understood them. What was wanted was the individual man of genius, who has now arisen and who understands the truth. That he has now arisen, that the truth has now been clearly understood, is not an inev- itable event, following of necessity in the chain of historical development, but a mere happy accident. He might just as well have been born 500 years earlier, and might then have spared humanity 500 years of error, strife, and suf- fering." With such a basis it was inevitable that Utopian Social- ism should take the form of moral judgments, denunciations of the wickedness and selfishness of the rich and powerful on its critical side, and of colonizing schemes on its positive side. Fourier waited one hour at noon every day for twelve years for the coming of a philanthropist with the gift of a million francs, with which the happiness of the human race would be secured. The pathetic picture illustrates the essential feature of Utopian Socialism the perfect plan had been devised; only the money was lacking. Once adopted, the plan would end poverty, misery and all other social evils. The Marxian synthesis: Marx began his career as a Socialist by assailing the ideological basis of Utopian Social- ism. More than a decade before the publication of the epoch-marking discoveries of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace, and long before Herbert Spencer, then a young man in his twenties, had been heard of, he was apply- ing the theory of evolution to society, and assailing the very foundations of Utopianism. With the publication of the Communist Manifesto, in 1848, arose a new school of Socialism which laughed all the fanciful schemes of communistic colonization to scorn and based its whole argument for and faith in a better society upon the broad fact of evolution. The Darwinian theories greatly aided the development of this new school by establishing 64 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM the fact of evolution, and it was at once natural and proper that the new school of Socialism should claim to be scientific. Marxian Socialism is therefore internationally known as scientific Socialism in contradistinction to Utopian Socialism. The philosophical basis of Marxian Socialism consists of a synthesis of three distinct but correlated theories. The first, which Marx called the materialistic conception of history, explains the motive force in social evolution, its causation; the second, the class struggle theory, explains the mode of social evolution as distinguished from its causa- tion; the third, the theory of surplus-value, explains the basis and origin of the class antagonisms in present society, and the development of society in the direction of Socialism. It is with this philosophical synthesis we are concerned at this stage of our study. SUMMARY 1. The theory of modern Socialism is inseparable from the construc- tive thought of Karl Marx. 2. The theory of modern Socialism does not admit of arbitrarily constructed Utopian ideals. 3. The philosophical basis of Marxian Socialism is a synthesis of the theories of the economic interpretation of history, of the class-struggle and of surplus-value. QUESTIONS 1. Discuss the position o* Marx in Socialist thought. 2. What was the earliest meaning of the word Socialism? 3. What is the essential difference between Utopian and Marxian Socialism? CHAPTER VIII SOCIAL EVOLUTION Socialism and the principle of evolution: The principles of scientific Socialism are almost meaningless without a comprehension of the evolutionary character of life and of society. Scientific Socialism studies the evolutionary changes that have taken place in society from the simplest human groups in primitive savagery to the complex world society of to-day. It investigates the causes of the changes which have taken place, and the causes which are operating in the world at present. It recognizes that the evolutionary process is not yet complete, and points out the next step in social evolution, which Socialists believe will be to a world society based upon cooperative production, and cooperative use of natural wealth, for the benefit of all, as contrasted with the present stage of development, in which wealth is produced and used largely for the benefit of a few. The evolution of social groups is recognized by non- Socialists, but they generally confine themselves to a descrip- tion of past conditions, without applying the results of their observation in the formulation of social theories, or in the forecasting of the future course of development. Evolution and revolution: Darwin and his immediate followers believed that evolution was the result of infini- tesimal variations in existing forms, which gradually accumulated when they proved of advantage to the indi- vidual, and in time resulted in new species. The development of new forms of life would therefore be a process so slow as to be imperceptible except by the comparison of two periods separated by thousands of generations of individuals. A more recent school of biology believes that changes come more suddenly. New environmental conditions cause many members of a species to depart greatly from the type, so that in one generation there are individuals so different from 65 66 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM their parents that they may be classed as a new variety. Some of these individuals, if bred to others of like character, will breed true without reversion to the older type. This is the theory of evolution by mutations of which Hugo DeVries is the greatest exponent. According to this theory, the development of new species, instead of depending upon an incalculably slow process of modification, frequently results from relatively sudden changes. In other words, there are sudden leaps or "mutations" in the process of evolution. This theory has been of great interest to Socialists because by analogy it appears to support the view that social transformation may be relatively sudden, and not conditioned by a slow process of almost imperceptible change. However conflicting these views may seem to be, they are in fact not conflicting but complementary. Just as Darwin himself "recognized both lines of evolution," that variations might arise suddenly, as De Vries claims, or gradually and almost imperceptibly, so the best thoughts of the modern Socialist movement reconcile both views of social evolu- tion. Revolution is not the opposite of evolution. As nature accomplishes changes by slow and gradual processes, by erosion and climatic cycles covering hundreds of thousands of years, so also it works by sudden changes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and the crashing together of worlds in space. Socialism, then, recognizes the existence of both gradual and relatively sudden changes in social organization. When- ever forces, physical or social, meet with but slight resistance, the changes they effect are slow and gradual. But when forces are checked by the inertia of the mass on which they work, or by the opposition of other forces, an accumulation of energy results, and when a crisis comes the change is sudden and often catastrophic. Animal and human societies: Professor Giddings defines sociology as the "science of the natural groupings and collective behavior of living things, including human beings." The lower animals, and even plants, live in groups and have a form of social organization. Among ants and bees this organization is very complex and involves division of labor and indirect processes to a high degree. Evolution was not always the result of struggle and the survival of the strongest SOCIAL EVOLUTION 67 and most cunning, but mutual aid, companionship and cooperation played a large part in the processes of develop- ment. Family life begins far back of human society. The organization of groups for offense and defense and for the gathering of food are so common among animals that exam- ples need not be cited. They will occur to everyone. All these forms of cooperation had their effect on variation and survival, and it was not always the strongest or best adapted individuals who survived, but the forms best equipped with a social nature. When man first appeared he was already equipped with a social heredity of association and coopera- tion which enabled him, in spite of his naturally defenseless condition, to hold his own in the struggle with other animals. No existing human society is so low in the scale of evolu- tion as was that of primitive man, but the evidence is conclusive that man was always a "social animal," probably evolving in the form of social groups through the slow stages from anthropoid to man, so that even if we could observe in retrospect the complete process, it would be impossible to fix within a hundred thousand years the time of the appearance of a group form which was distinctly human. But although social evolution had its beginnings far back of the human race, for our present purpose the study of human societies is sufficient. The social mind: "The mental and moral elements of society are combined in products that are called by such terms as the common feeling, the general desire, the moral sense, the public opinion, and the general will of the com- munity, which it is convenient for the sociologist to name collectively the social mind." 1 With the development of man and his differentiation into races, society became more and more complex, and in the place of the instinctive habits of lower animals there devel- oped the social mind. The basic ideas which form the content of the social mind are economic. Individual experiences of utility, such as the discovery of the food value of a plant, are developed and communicated by means of association and become the common property of the group. Where useful things were limited in quantity and the supply was 1 Franklin H. Giddings, Principles of Sociology, p. 132. 68 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM not equal to the demand the ideas of wealth and value must have entered the primitive social mind. Private property was probably somewhat later in origin. The necessity of protecting the sources of food supply gave rise to the recognition within the group of a common territory, and the exclusion of other groups from these hunting or fishing grounds. Warfare developed leaders and allegiance, and welded the group into a political organ- ization of a primitive type. Primitive man began to think and to talk about himself and his environment. The world seemed full of mystery. How could he hunt in a dream when his friends swore that he had not moved? The echo and the shadow puzzled him. The mighty forces of nature awed him. There must be a power greater than himself, and since he could not think of forces as impersonal, he imputed personality to that power. There must be a spirit apart from the body or he could not hunt in his dreams. Thus were evolved the ideas of anthropomorphic gods, spirits and ghosts. His friends slept and afterwards reported dream adventures, so his friends dead had gone away to the "happy hunting grounds" to stay. Thus at a stage earlier than any now represented by even the lowest modern savages, the social mind contained ideas economic, political and religious, ideas which effectu- ally differentiated him from his ancestors. The family: There is no unanimity of opinion among sociologists as to the form of the primitive family. Prac- tically all forms of the family known among men are to be found also among lower animals. The simplest theory, and one which has never been disproven, is that primitive man lived in a state of practical promiscuity with no form of marriage. It is true that nearly all if not all of the peoples now in existence have some form of marriage, but the tie is often only temporary. There is evidence that every race has passed through a social stage in which the only relation- ships were those traced through the mother, the obvious reasons being either the failure to recognize the part of the father in the child or the difficulty of determining its pater- nity. It is doubtful if for one-tenth of the life of mankind paternal relationships have been anywhere recognized. The most primitive races now living have very elaborate SOCIAL EVOLUTION 69 systems of kinship through the mother, and these systems are remarkably similar between groups in a similar stage of development, no matter in what part of the world they may live. The American Indian, the Australian Bushman and the primitive European all had the same complex maternal family organization. Perhaps through the conquest of another people and the appropriation of its women, the relation of father to child began to be looked upon as important, and finally modified the mother family to the extent that maternal relationships were often disregarded. It is only in very recent times and in a relatively high civilization that a monogamous family becomes the rule and relationship is traced both through the father and through the mother. A stable monogamous family is a high ideal which is yet far from being fully realized. The clan : As the children of a common mother recognized their bond of kinship from the beginnings of human society, it was natural to continue the bond from generation to generation and so form the clan or gens. Under this system all descendants through female lines of a common female ancestor, often so remote as to be mythical, were counted as kin, thus forming the social organization next broader than the simple family. It is as though under our system the children all took the name of the mother instead of that of the father from generation to generation, and all persons having the same surname were considered as kin and bound to aid and assist one another in every way possible. A son then belonged to the clan of his mother, but his children belonged to the clan of their mother, and were not recognized by their paternal relatives and were under no obligations to them. When the transition came from the mother family to the father family, the clan also changed its nature and maternal relationships were disregarded. This form can be more easily understood, for it is the familiar system of Scotland and Ireland, where such clans as the McDougalls and the O'Neills have maintained their organization almost to the present day. For the purposes of common religious ceremonies from two to five clans sometimes combined into a phratry. The 70 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM i origin of the phratry was probably the subdivision of a single clan, the various divisions retaining memories, and, later, traditions, of their former unity. The tribe and the confederacy: The ancient clan was too weak in numbers to engage in war or to inspire respect in the minds of possible enemies, so a number of clans were united into a tribe. The tribe was organized under the leadership of its elders and its own war chiefs and occupied a fairly definite territory when not migrating from one sec- tion to another. The more advanced peoples were still further organized into tribal confederacies, such as the league of the twelve tribes of Israel and that of the Iroquois. These confed- eracies were the highest forms of political organization attained in savage or barbarous society and sometimes attained to the proportions of powerful states. Probably the best example of tribal organization based upon kinship is that of the Iroquois as described by Lewis H. Morgan. About the time of the first Dutch Settlement, five Indian tribes, occupying a territory now included in the State of New York, formed a league or confederacy. In 1715 a sixth tribe, the Tuscaroras, was admitted, but not to full equality. Primitive communism: In tribal society there was no conception of private property other than that directly associated with the person. Much of the trouble between the whites and the Indians of America has been due to the failure of the Indian to comprehend our idea of private property in land. In tribal communism any object not in use is looked upon as common property. The spoils of the chase are always impartially divided, and the hoarding of food or other useful things is not tolerated. Even dwell- ings are rarely private. Among the Iroquois the members of the same clan living in the same village occupy one com- munal dwelling. Even the lazy are in no danger of starva- tion. They are welcome to share in the food provided in any lodge, but they are obliged to suffer scorn and abuse from their hosts, especially from the women. The ideas of primitive communism are hard to eradicate. They survive in the universal hospitality of all simple folk the world over. The Russian moujik cannot be reconciled to SOCIAL EVOLUTION 71 the division of the communal lands of the mir. The "thieving propensities" of the Southern negro do not come from a criminal nature, but from the failure of a simple barbarous people fully to appreciate the conception of private property. Private property: In order that anything may become private property it must not only be appropriated by an individual, but society must acknowledge his right of possession. The only forms of individual property so sanc- tioned by society under tribal communism were weapons, personal ornaments, and trophies of the chase or of war. As society became more complex, the elders of tribes and war-chiefs were permitted to appropriate more than a pro- portional share of the booty of a successful raid. When war captives began to be kept alive as slaves instead of being killed, the custom arose of considering them as the private property of the chief. It is only under civilization that private property in land appears. Land ownership by groups and families leans naturally to ownership by indi- viduals. Private property in the social means of production aside from land is almost entirely the product of capitalist society. Never before, except in agricultural and great building operations, were armies of men employed in pro- ducing for individual owners of the means of production. From savagery to barbarism : Morgan l divides the proc- ess of social evolution into three main epochs savagery, barbarism and civilization. Savagery and barbarism in turn may be divided into three main stages lower, middle and upper. As in the case of all forms of evolution, progress is slowest in the earlier stages, and it has been estimated that nine-tenths of the life of the human race has been spent in the epoch of savagery and about one-hundredth only in the epoch of civilization. The first stage of savagery alone probably lasted longer than all subsequent stages of human evolution combined, so that while the progress made by mankind in this stage was very slow, the absolute gain was very great. No race of to-day is 50 low as the first stage of savagery in which mankind still lived in the tropical forest, probably in trees, and subsisted on fruits, nuts and roots, and probably raw meat and fish. During this period man first developed Indent Society, by Lewis H. Morgan, p. 9 et seq. 72 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM articulate speech and learned to use clubs and stones for defense and attack. With the discovery and control of fire begins the middle state of savagery. Coincident with this great advance comes the use of rough chipped stone implements. Dis- covery and invention thus enabled the savage to enlarge his menu and to make his food more palatable by cooking. The lowest tribes of to-day are living in the middle stage of savagery. The higher stage of savagery is marked by the use of the bow and arrow, wooden vessels and utensils and polished stone implements. Many Asiatic and African tribes are still in this higher stage of savagery as were our own North Western Indians until comparatively recent times. From barbarism to civilization: The transition to bar- barism was marked by the invention of pottery, which was probably first made by covering wooden or wicker vessels with clay and burning out the wood. In this stage animals were domesticated and agriculture began. Most of the North American Indians were in the lower stage of barbar- ism at the time of the settlement of the country by Euro- peans, and not savages as is generally supposed. In the middle_stage of barbarism, represented by the ~Indians"of Mexico and Peru, agriculture was further devel- oped and dwellings were built of stone and sun-dried brick. The softer metals were known and used. In the East the middle stage of barbarism is represented by such nomadic groups as those of Abraham and Jacob before the Egyptian captivity. The higher stage of barbarism begins with the smelting oT Iron. It is the age of mythology and epic poetry, the age of the Homeric poems and the Norse Sagas. These stages have differed in different parts of the world only in so far as the natural environment has differed. In regions where metals were rare the development of metal working was slower than that of agriculture and pottery. By reason of their invention of a primitive calendar and their near approach to a written language, the Mayas of Yucatan might perhaps be classed as barbarians of the higher class, or even as approaching civilization, although they had not learned to smelt iron. SOCIAL EVOLUTION 73 It is only with the development of a written language, as distinguished from primitive picture writing, the destruc- tion of social organizations based upon kinship, the wider utilization of natural and manufactured products, and the beginnings of science that we have civilization. The first known civilizations originated in Egypt and Babylonia about the year 4000 B. c. These early civilizations were but beginnings and were participated in by only a small part of the people in the countries in which they arose. Ancient civilization: The elements of culture developed in the valleys of the Nile and the Tigris-Euphrates were appropriated successively by the other peoples of South- western Asia and the Mediterranean basin, and received new additions through the varied experiences of the different peoples, until the new civilization culminated in the mag- nificent literature, art, architecture and philosophy of the Age of Pericles in Greece. But ancient civilization was never the possession of the many. Culture, refinement, art and literature are impossible without leisure and freedom from drudgery. Ancient civilization was built on slavery. Athens, so far as its 20,000 citizens were concerned, was nearer the Socialist ideal than any equally large community before or since, but the slaves, who probably numbered nearly 200,000, were entirely outside the Athenian civilization, and were simply the labor-saving machines which made that civiliza- tion with its culture possible. The complete separation of culture and civilization from production ultimately led to the degeneration of the leisure class, which, enervated by luxury and dissipation, could not retain its power. The development of philosophy was checked by a wave of oriental mysticism. Rome then became the leader of civilization, but the conditions of its environment led to conquest and empire with the consequent development of law and admin- istration, rather than literature and art. Then came the infiltration and, finally, the invasion of the empire by the barbarian North, and the slow process of the absorption and democratization of ancient civilization by the whole popula- tion of Europe, a process in which the medieval church played a prominent part. Modern civilization: From one point of view, the Middle Ages seem no more advanced than the first stages of civiliza- 74 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM tion in Egypt. As in Egypt, almost the only scholars were priests and monks, and the mass of the people were bar- barians. The same course of development and adaptation had to be repeated, but on a far larger scale. Little of real value was lost, but instead of twenty thousand Athenians, there were millions of Europeans to civilize and two thousand years were needed to accomplish the task. Modern civiliza- tion is in some respects no higher than that of Greece, but it is on an infinitely grander scale. Its greatest original achievements are its science and its control of the forces of nature. As before we must have leisure and freedom from drudgery in order to become civilized, but for the first time in all the history of man the time has come when machines can be made to do the drudgery, and the powers of man released, so that he may develop a real civilization which all may enjoy, and not merely a favored few. SOCIAL EVOLUTION 75 SUMMARY 1. Modern Socialism finds its justification in the principles of uni- versal evolution, and its hope for the future is based upon its inter- pretation of the past. 2. The earliest human society was based upon kinship and primitive communism. From these beginnings Society had slowly evolved into the complex world civilization of to-day. 3. The main stages of social evolution are savagery, barbarism and civilization. Civilization begins with the destruction of kinship or- ganization and the development of written language. 4. Ancient civilization was the 'possession of the few and had its economic basis in slave labor. Modern civilization is the possession of the many and is based upon machine production. QUESTIONS 1. Why do modern Socialists consider the principle of evolution as a necessary part of their theory? 2. What special significance do Socialists find in the "mutation theory" of De Vries? 3. What is meant by the "social mind"? 4. Explain the probable origin of the clan or gens. 5. Give examples illustrating the survival of the spirit of primitive communism. 6. What was the probable origin of private property? 7. What are the characteristic features of each of the stages of savagery? Of barbarism? 8. What are the essential features of civilized society? 9. What are the essential differences between ancient and modern civilization? LlTERATTTKE Darwin, Charles, Origin of Species. Descent of Man. De Vries, Hugo, Species and Varieties, their Origin bv Mutation. Engels, F., Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. Giddings, F. H., Principles of Sociology. Howard, G. E., History of Matrimonial Institutions. Morgan, L. H., Ancient Society. Parsons, Elsie Clews, The Family. Spencer, Herbert, Principles of Sociology, Vol. I, Part I. Westermarck, E., History of Human Marriage. CHAPTER IX THE ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY The motive forces in social evolution: So far we have been outlining roughly the evolution of society from savagery to civilization. The next question is "Why have these changes taken place?" The problem is complex. Man has always lived in society and has been obliged to adapt him- self to his social environment, and the social group in turn has always occupied some part of the earth's surface in a physical environment to which it has been obliged to adapt itself. The climate, soil, contour of the land, presence or absence of water, the flora and fauna have all had their influence upon man, and man has also modified his environ- ment. Many writers have ascribed the changes in social organiza- tion to man's own will and to the influence of great leaders. But while it is true that men sometimes rise above their environment, the "Great Man Theory" minimizes the limita- tions of environment, both social and physical. Other writers have gone to the opposite extreme and attempted to interpret history by the physical environment alone, leaving out of consideration the influence which men have been able to exert over their own destiny by modifying their environ- ment. The Socialist theory: Modern scientific Socialism has for its philosophical basis the Marxian theory of historical development, which many Socialist writers of the present day call the Economic Interpretation of History. Marx and Engels, who were the first to develop the theory, called it the Materialistic Conception of History. The advantages of the former term over the latter are, first, that the specific term "economic" is more accurately descriptive than the term "materialistic," and, second, that it obviates the mis- understandings which arise from the confusion in the popular 76 THE ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY 77 mind of the word "materialistic" with the doctrines of philo- sophical materialism. The essence of the theory is that the rate and direction of social evolution are mainly, but not exclusively, conditioned by the development of the methods of production and exchange. It does not exclude other factors, but subordinates them to the economic factor. Origin of the theory: While it is true that earlier writers laid the foundations of the theory of the economic motiva- tion of society, or anticipated it, Karl Marx was the first to formulate it and cause it to be recognized as a theory of great philosophical importance. This is probably his great- est single contribution to the thought of the world. The first indications of the theory in any of the writings of Marx are to be found in his little known work, Die Heilige Familie, which was published in 1845. But it was not until the publication of his Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, in 1859, that he attempted to elaborate the theory. In the preface to that work Marx wrote: I was led by my studies to the conclusion that legal relations as well as forms of state could neither be understood by themselves, nor ex- plained by the so-called general progress of the human mind, but that they are rooted in the material conditions of life, which are summed up by Hegel after the fashion of the English and French of the eighteenth century under the name "civic society"; the anatomy of that civic society is to be found in political economy. The study of the latter which I had taken up in Paris, I continued at Brussels whither I immi- grated on account of an order issued by Guizot. The general conclusion at which I arrived and which, once reached, continued to serve as the leading thread in my studies, may be briefly summed up as follows: In the social production which men carry on they enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will; these relations of production correspond to a definite stage of development of their material powers of production. The sum total of these rela- tions of production constitutes the economic structure of society the real foundation, on which rise legal and political superstructures and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production in material life determines the general character dflhe social, political and~spMtual processes of life. It is not the conscious- ness of men that determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence determines their consciousness. 1 Marx proceeded to illustrate the value of the theory as a method of historical interpretation by sketching in bold and 1 A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, by Karl Marx, translated from the second German edition by N. I. Stone, p. 11. 78 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM vigorous outline the interrelation of economic methods and social and political institutions: At a certain stage of their development, the material forces of pro- duction in society come in conflict with the existing relations in produc- tion, or what is but a legal expression for the same thing with the property relations within which they had been at work before. From forms of development of the forces of production these relations turn into their fetters. Then comes the period of social revolution. With the change of the economic foundation the entire immense super- structure is more or less rapidly transformed. In considering such transformations the distinction should always be made between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, aesthetic or philosophic in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of the conflict and fight it out. Just as our opinion of an individual is not based on what he thinks of himself, so can we not judge of such a period of transformation by its own consciousness; on the contrary, this consciousness must rather be ex- plained from the contradictions of material life, from the existing con- flict between the material forces of production and the relations of pro- duction. No social order ever disappears before all the productive forces, for which there is room in it, have been developed; and new higher relations of production never appear before the material con- ditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society. Therefore, mankind always takes up only such problems as it can solve: since, looking at the matter more closely, we will always find that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions necessary for its solution exist or are at least in the process of formation. 1 Delimitation of the theory: Marx and Engels sometimes, in controversies with their critics, over-emphasized the influence of the economic factor in social evolution and made their statement of the theory too absolute. This Engels himself freely admitted toward the close of his life. Thus, in 1890 he wrote to a student: "Marx and I are partly responsible for the fact that younger men have sometimes laid more stress on the economic side than it deserves. In meeting the attacks of our opponents, it was necessary for us to emphasize the dominant principle denied by them ; and we did not always have the time, place or opportunity to let the other factors which were concerned in the mutual action and reaction get their deserts." 2 In another letter he says: "According to the materialistic view of history, l ldem, pp. 12-13. 1 Quoted from the Sozialistische Akademiker, 1895, by Seligman, The Economic Interpretation of History, pp. 142-143. THE ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY 79 the factor which is in last instance decisive in history is the production and reproduction of actual life. More than this neither Marx nor I have ever asserted. But when any one distorts this so as to read that the economic factor is the sole element, he converts the statement into a meaningless, abstract, absurd phrase. The economic condition is the basis, but the various elements of the superstructure the political forms of the class contests, and their results, the constitutions the legal forms, and also all the reflexes of these actual contests in the brains of the participants, the political, legal, philosophical, theories, the religious views . . . all these exert an influence on the development of the historical struggles, and in many instances determine their form." From these statements of the theory by its originators it will be seen that it is no part of the theory that every phenom- enon of social evolution can be explained by economic facts, or traced to economic causes. Much of the criticism which has been directed against the theory has rested on the assumption that it involved a denial of influence to all other factors. The economic interpretation of history may be defined as~tEe~theory that the rate and direction of social progress are determined mainly, but not wholly, by the economic conditions existing principally the methods of producing wealth and the social relations which these involve. Economic interpretation and religion: The theory has been especially subject to attacks and misrepresentations because of its assumed hostility to all forms of religious belief. On this point its dogmatically atheistic friends and its dogmatically religious enemies have been equally guilty of misunderstanding and misstating the subject of dis- cussion. Religion is, fundamentally, man's attempt to put himself into harmonious relation with, and to discover a satisfying interpretation of, the forces of the universe. The more incomprehensible those forces, the greater man's need of an explanation of them. The Marxian theory does not deny that men have been benefited by seeking an inter- pretation of the universe, or that the quest for such an interpretation is compatible with rational conduct. It does not offer any answer to the great questions, Whence? Why? Whither? which mankind in all stages of its development has 80 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM asked concerning life itself and the universe, the answers to which it has made the framework of its religion. Nor does it deny that such questions may be answered. The theory does not include these questions and, therefore, cannot in any sense be regarded as a substitute for religious belief. The bearing of the theory upon religion is purely inter- pretative. Marx in his work could not ignore such an Im- portant and universal phenomenon as religion. He saw that the religion of a people, like their laws and their politics, always bears a marked relation to their mental development and their special environment. The savage ascribes person- ality to ' everything which exhibits phenomena which he cannot otherwise explain, and thus develops an animistic philosophy involving every striking fact in his environment. To the Israelites of the formative period Jahve was a tribal god, similar to the gods of other tribes about them, but fortunately more powerful. With the development of the national spirit, Jahve became a King and Supreme Lord of the Theocracy. In times of oppression and war Jahve was a God of Battles, while under other conditions be became a God of Peace. In almost every religion, the conception of the future life is, in its early stages at least, an idealized reflex of the terrestrial life. A hunting tribe believes in a future life in which game is plentiful. A people accustomed to disagree- able labor and poverty looks forward to a future life of ease and luxury. The earthly hierarchy is reproduced in the heaven, and a society of caste is included in the concept of heaven when it exists below. It is not a denial of the truth of any form of religion to give a rational explanation of its origin and the forces shaping its development. It is not a denial of the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church to explain its form of organization and the statement of its creed by the conditions attending its origin and development within the Roman Empire, its political function as the successor of the Empire in Western Europe, and the economic environment of feudalism. Neither do we deny the benefits resulting from the Protestant revolt by attributing the revolt itself to economic condi- tions, rather than to the personality and genius of Martin Luther. Students of comparative religion and Biblical THE ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY 81 criticism find the method of economic interpretation as helpful and illuminating as do the students of history and politics. Economic interpretation and "free will": It has been charged that the economic interpretation of history denies the freedom of the will and presents a fatalistic view of society. This charge arises from a misconception of the basis of the theory. It is not a theory of the motives of individuals, but an explanation of the actions of social groups. We simply say that a social group will adapt itself to economic conditions or perish. When the game in a certain district is killed off, the primitive inhabitants must turn from hunting to fishing, or to a vegetable subsistence. Any individual is perfectly "free" to continue his hunting, but the chances are that he will starve to death. The point may be illustrated by the theories of mass statistics. It is safe to predict that approximately 500,000 people will travel in the New York subway to-morrow, but no individual is thereby compelled to breathe bad air. Any- one is perfectly free to stay at home or to walk, without appreciably affecting the business of the Interborough Rapid Transit Company. The economic necessity of earning a living, however, and the fact that for a million of people the subway is the most rapid and convenient means of reaching the business districts where they are employed, combine to make the use of the subway definitely pre- dictable. As a matter of fact, the amount of "free will" which we enjoy is vastly over-estimated. A very large part of the actions of our individual lives are determined by the neces- sity of making a living. The bookkeeper does not add columns of figures ten hours a day because he loves the work, nor does a miner dig coal because he prefers fire damp to pure air. Even our choice of occupations is not entirely a free one. The chances are strong that the son will follow the same general line of work as the father. The lawyer's son may become a, lawyer, a physician, or an engineer, but he is not very likely to become a laborer, except as a result of failure at some other chosen task. Likewise, our religion is rarely our free and deliberate choice. The chances of a Jewish child entering the Roman Catholic Church are slight, 82 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM but a child of Roman Catholic parents is very likely to follow his parents into that church. Economic interpretation and ethics: According to the theory of economic causation, the economic basis of any society is largely influential in determining its moral con- sciousness. That which is immoral and socially condemned is that which is conceived to be harmful to the social group, either in the present or in the future. Since any interference with the prevailing method of gaining a livelihood must threaten the life of the group, conformity to the conceived economic interests of a group becomes its standard of virtue. Thus in primitive societies virtue involves loyalty to fellow tribesmen and the slaughter of enemies, physical strength, courage, sacrifices to the mysterious powers which control subsistence, and, where living conditions are very hard, the killing of the aged and infirm. In more advanced societies, respect for the private property of men in goods, slaves and wives becomes virtuous.^ As economic life becomes more complex, the moral code is expanded, involving a multitude of social relations unknown to men of an earlier stage of social development. Class ethics: Just as the vertical division of society into tribes and nations results in tribal and national moral codes, so the horizontal stratification of society into social classes brings about distinct class ethical codes. When it was immoral to kill a freeman it was no infraction of the moral code, no offense to the prevailing moral sense of the group, to kill a slave. The feeling of solidarity and common interests involves only the class, and since in a class state it becomes almost impossible to conceive of any action which would benefit all classes equally, the classes come to have divergent codes of ethics. But it is always the ethical code of the ruling class which constitutes the recognized standard of morality at any given time. In the words of John Stuart Mill : "Wherever there is an ascendant class, a large portion of the morality emanates from its class interests and its class feelings of superiority. The morality between Spartans and Helots, between planters and negroes, between princes and subjects, between nobles and roturiers, between men and women, has been for the most Dart the creation of these class interests and feelings." 1 1 John Stuart Mill, On Liberty. THE ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY 83 The capitalist regards as virtuous honesty and fidelity to terms of contracts as between members of his class, and on the part of others toward members of his class, but is not strongly condemned by his fellows for himself breaking a wage agreement or for fleecing a "lamb" on the stock market. Charity is a virtue, and direct personal injury, even to a worker or any of his family, is wrong; but under- mining the health, destroying the lives and impoverishing the workers in the "legitimate" pursuit of business does not infringe the moral code. The wage-working class is also developing a code of ethics based on class loyalty, class solidarity and class conscious- ness. The wage-worker regards as virtuous strict fidelity to class interests and consistent opposition to the special interests of the capitalists, and detests the "scab" as a traitor to his class. The divergence of the ethical standards of the two classes is very clearly shown by the newspaper comments on the occasional acts of violence by strikers and their sympathetic allies. An assault upon a strike-breaker is regarded with horror by the capitalist press, while in the labor press it is very often condoned and excused. The strike-breaker has violated class ethics in a struggle which involves the most fundamental interests, of the strikers and their families. The law does not enforce the ethical code of the working classT'because it is the subject class, and the law always reflects the ethical concepts of the ruling class. So the striking workman must either submit to defeat through the employment of men of his own class who violate its ethics, or resort to the primitive methods of enforcing the moral code. Superiority of working class ethics: While any code of class ethics must necessarily have many shortcomings, the ethical code of the working class is infinitely superior to that of the capitalist minority. It is superior, in the first place, because it is formulated in the interest of the great majority, while the ethical code of the capitalist class is formulated in the interest of a minority. It is superior, in the second place, because it assails with the greatest force of numbers possible in a class state the evils which injure the greatest number of persons. The well-being of the mass of mankind is advanced in proportion to the degree in which the ethical code which 84 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM reflects the interests of an increasing proportion of the whole mass is recognized. This is only another way of saying that the maximum of satisfaction will result from the moral code which is the reflex of the maximum of human interests. As an ideal no ethical code based upon class dominance can satisfy. The perfect ethical code will not be bounded by class interests. The ethical code of the working class is the nearest approach to that ideal we have yet attained, for it reflects the largest proportion of the totality of human interests. Economic interpretation and law: In primitive society the ethical code was established by custom and its violation punished directly by the group. As society becomes more complex, custom develops into law which defines in detail the interrelations of men and states. Laws vary infinitely according to time and place, and their Form and content are determined largely by the economic interests of the law- making class. Laws not only reflect the economic and social conditions of the time, but are designed for the purpose of preserving those conditions in so far as they are regarded as being necessary to the maintenance of the rule and power of the ruling class. This fact was frankly asserted in the class legislation of all ages previous to the capitalist era. The slave or the serf received little or no consideration, even when in the majority. Law is therefore essentially conservative, lagging behing the social advance and rarely recognizing a new condition until it has become established through force or the effective threat of force. The laws of capitalist society are likewise designed to preserve the existing conditions essentially unchanged. The greater part of our legal codes are taken up with rules for the protection and definition of private property. The assumption that all men are equal before the law is made to operate in favor of the property-owner, since the machinery of the law is chiefly concerned with his protection, and does not recognize the weaker position of the poor litigant who cannot employ the best legal talent. Class influence upon legal codes: The influence of class is strongly marked in all our legal codes. _Ihfi-old principles have been strengthened with every change in property forms, but the corresponding interests of the wage-workers THE ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY 85 have been neglected- In the matter of the wage contract and the responsibility of the employers for the dangers of employment the law rarely interferes, except in a half- hearted way, while the minutest details of property rights are covered by statutes. When a law is made to apply to both labor and capital, as in the case of the Sherman Anti- Trust Act, it is enforced against labor, but is ineffective against capital. Thus are laws enacted and enforced in conformity with the economic interests of the dominant class, and the only progressive steps taken conform to the recognized economic interests of the majority, the working class, which, in the countries where manhood suffrage obtains, is able to obtain concessions by effectively threatening the supremacy of the ruling class. The great man in history : To what extent are individuals responsible for great social changes? No one denies that Napoleon Bonaparte influenced the course of European history, or that Karl Marx influenced the development of the Socialist movement. But a man in the present day, having all the qualities and gifts of Napoleon, could not influence the history of Europe in the same way or to the same extent. If Karl Marx had lived before the Industrial Revolution he would not have formulated the Socialist theories which are associated with his name. On the other hand, Europe would have developed in political and indus- trial organization substantially as it has done if Napoleon had never left Corsica, and there would have been a Socialist movement and an economic interpretation of history if Marx had never lived. It is only when economic conditions are ripe that individuals appear to exert a determining influence upon historical developments. Great individualities which profoundly influence the course of historical develop- ment do not exist of themselves, independent of conditions. They are the products of favorable combinations of economic and social circumstances, of a perception of needs formed in the matrices of such combinations of circumstance, or of crises which conduce to the highest development of qualities of initiative and leadership which would otherwise either remain dormant or be directed to other ends. There are certain limits between which a man may freely act and within 86 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM whicn he may succeed, but these limits are defined by economic and social conditions. Even the limited area of freedom indicated is in fact still further restricted by such factors as heredity. Marx tells of an inventor who devised a multiple loom as early as the fifteenth century. Perhaps in one sense he was greater than Hargreaves, but the economic conditions were not ripe for such a loom and the man was put to death and his invention destroyed. When the domestic system had developed and the embryonic capitalist forms were ready then the power loom was developed, and its inventors have been universally acknowledged as great men. Applications of the theory to American history: The greatest value of the theory of the economic interpretation of history lies in the fact that by means of it we can explain the origin and development of the various stages of social _I_evolution and their relation to each other. In the preceding chapter we have sketched the main lines of social evolution and seen that each fundamental change in the organization of society, and even each general advance in culture, arose from changes of an economic character to which they can be traced with practical certainty. But while this is the chief value of the theory, it also has value as an explanation of a large part of the important specific events of history. For our present purpose it will be sufficient to consider, briefly, a few of the most conspicuous events in American history in the light of the theory. It was the commerce of the handicraft stage, checked by the pastoral barbarians of Turkey and Persia, which led to the imperative demand for a new route to India and sent forth such adventurers as Columbus, Vasco da Gama and John Cabot. The Norse discovery of America about the year 1000 was futile and without influence upon the develop- ment of Europe because there had not yet arisen the need for a new outlet for trade and colonization. Every war which the United States has fought has been of economic origin. The Revolutionary War was due to the economic exploitation of America by England. The war of 1812 was due to England's interference with our commerce. The Mexican War was due to land hunger on the part of the agricultural South which was losing in the competition with THE ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY 87 the industrial North, a competition more bitter even than that which preceded the Protestant revolt in Europe because it was between the agricultural stage of social evolution and the industrial stage, whereas in the earlier European struggle the conflict was between two stages very much nearer to each other, the agricultural stage and the handicraft stage. The South must extend its area and its institutions, including slavery, or be crushed by the North. Mexico was the unhappy victim. The Civil War, while it arose over the right of secession, apparently an exclusively political ques- tion, was in reality the culmination of the same great struggle between two different and widely separated economic stages, the agricultural and the industrial, and ended, as was inevitable, in the victory of the higher stage. The Spanish- American War was fundamentally due to the prevention of the free development of the Cuban sugar industry through Spanish misrule, and the consequent interruption of a profit- able American trade. Objections to the theory: The principal criticisms of the economic interpretation of history can be grouped as follows : (1) the alleged antecedence of social organization to the economic environment; (2) the claim that the theory is an insufficient explanation of the facts; (3) the claim that it is "sordid." Concerning the first criticism, it is a sufficient reply to state the fact that the question of the priority of society or environment is not involved in the theory. No social change can take place without the existence of both society and environment. A certain amount of variation is possible in a static environment, but when environmental changes take place it is the best adapted forms which survive the new conditions. Social groups can also transform their environment within narrow limits, as Holland has been transformed by its people and as the desert is made productive by irrigation. But it is just in these cases that environ- mental influence is most pronounced. Everyone knows how the history of Holland has been conditioned and deter- mined in conformity with its economic conditions, and irrigation at once makes possible the existence of a civilized society where it was not possible before. The second criticism, that the theory is insufficient as an 88 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM explanation, is only valid when directed against exaggera- tions of the theory. The criticisms of Eduard Bernstein and otner members of the "Revisionist" group within the inter- national Socialist movement, for example, apply not so much to the theory itself, as Marx and Engels developed it, as to the crude applications of it by some of their disciples. As Frederick Engels himself has remarked, "It is unfor- tunately only too common for a man to think he has perfectly understood a theory and is able forthwith to apply it, as soon as he has made the chief propositions his own." 1 It may be freely admitted as Engels himself has done that in their earlier statements of the theory Marx and Engels were not always careful to make it clear beyond the possibility of honest misconception that they recognized the influence of spiritual and other non-economic factors upon historical development. But he who would either employ or judge a theory must take it in its most developed form, that is, in the form which comprises the fullest and maturest thought of the minds responsible for the theory. Criticisms of the theory which confine themselves to the earlier and cruder statements of it, and ignore the later developments and improved statements of it, is not honest criticism. It may also be admitted that, even in the statements of the theory by Engels toward the end of his life, the sense of proportion is not perfectly maintained, and that the sphere of influence ascribed to spiritual and ideological factors is too limited. But these things do not touch the essentials of the theory. It is a sufficient reply to the objection that the theory does not afford a sufficient explanation of the whole progress of human history, to point to the fact that neither Marx nor Engels claimed that it did anything of the sort. Jft is essentially a criticism directed against a mis- conception and misstatement of the theory, rather than against the theory itself. Not much time need be wasted in a discussion of the criticism that the theory is sordid, and that it is unworthy of humanity to attribute its activity and its progress to economic conditions. The question to ask is not "Is the theory pleasing?" but "Is it true?" We might as well deny that the beauty of the rose is made possible only 1 Engels, Anti-Diihring. THE ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY 89 through the unlovely soil in which its roots are sustained, as refuse to admit that the finest idealism may be rooted in the commonplace processes of making a living. General acceptance of the theory: Through the general acceptance of the principle of evolution and the idea of the continuity of the historical process, the economic interpreta- tion of history has gained acceptance far beyond the limits of the Socialist movement. People may differ as to the application of the theory and the conclusions to be drawn from it, but there is no longer any great opposition to the theory in its application to the great social transformations of the past, to religious forms, to ethical and legal codes and to a large number of important specific historical events. In the light of the theory we are now hi a position to discuss the development of the economic organization of society as the basis for a further treatment of Socialist theories and ideals. 90 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM SUMMARY 1. Socialists regard economic forces as the chief factors in the bring- ing about of social change. 2. The Economic Interpretation does not exclude the "spiritual factors"; it is not fatalistic and does not deny free will. 3. The economic factors largely determine religious forms, ethical standards and the content of legal codes. 4. The Economic Interpretation of History applies primarily to the explanation of stages in social evolution, but at the same time it directly explains many specific historical events. QUESTIONS 1. What was the origin of the theory of the Economic Interpretation of History? 2. Why is the term "economic" preferable to "materialistic" in this connection? 3. What factors other than the economic have influenced history? 4. In what ways have the economic factors influenced religious forms? Ethical codes? 5. How are economic class distinctions reflected in legal codes? 6. What is meant by the "Great Man" theory of history? 7. Illustrate the economic interpretation theory by events in Ameri- can history. In English history. 8. What are the chief objections to the theory and how do Socialists answer them? LITERATURE Hillquit, M., Socialism in Theory and Practice, Chap. Ill and IV. Kautsky, K., Ethics and the Materialistic Conception of History. Marx, Karl, Capital. Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Preface. Rogers, J. E. T., The Economic Interpretation of History. Seligman, E. R. A., The Economic Interpretation of History. Simons, A. M., Social Forces in American History. Spargo, John, Socialism, a Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles, Chap. IV. CHAPTER X INDUSTRIAL EVOLUTION The economic stages: Any classification of economic history must necessarily be somewhat arbitrary, for the whole process of development has been subject to variation. In different parts of the world the social groups have lived under varied environmental conditions. Some writers have divided economic history into stages on the basis of labor forms, as: (1) Independent or communal labor with slaughter of enemies. (2) Slavery and serfdom. (3) Wage-labor regulated by individual contract. (4) Collective bargaining. Other writers have taken the process of exchange as the basis of classification and describe three stages: (1) "Truck" or barter economy. (2) Money economy. (3) Credit economy. Perhaps the most common classification is that based on production and the increasing control of man over nature. The division is into five stages: (1) The stage of direct appropriation. (2) The pastoral stage. (3) The agricultural stage. (4) The handicraft stage. (5) The industrial stage. Finally, the German economist, Buecher, classifies economic history on the basis of the development of the economic unit: (1) The stage of household economy. (2) The stage of town economy. (3) The stage of national economy. (4) The stage of world economy. These classifications are not at all conflicting, and all are 91 92 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM suggestive. The two last classifications, however, best explain the historical process. The stage of direct appropriation: This is the primitive stage of human development in which man lived by hunting and fishing, and by the vegetable foods, such as nuts, fruit and roots, which could be obtained without cultivation. It corresponds to the epoch of savagery in social evolution. Exchange and the transfer of goods are unimportant. Primitive communism is the rule and there are no sharply marked social classes. There is a marked difference between tribes in this stage who live chiefly by hunting and those who life chiefly by fishing or subsist on a vegetable diet. The hunting tribes are more warlike, occupy a larger territory and are generally of a higher physical type. Their dwellings are very simple and usually temporary. Fishing tribes are peaceful and occupy restricted territories near the sea coast. They build permanent dwellings and construct boats and fishing imple- ments. The pastoral stage: This stage is marked by the domes- tication of animals, and the care of large flocks of sheep and herds of cattle. Pastoral groups are usually migratory or nomadic, wandering from place to place in search of the best pasturage, and living in tents. This stage corresponds with the middle stage of barbarism in Europe and Asia. The life of the Hebrew patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, as described in the book of Genesis, is a perfect example of life in the pastoral stage. Slavery became general in the pastoral stage and the con- ception of private property was greatly extended. Social distinctions became clearer. Men of great wealth like Abraham were powerful chiefs, and were absolute rulers of the households of wives, concubines, descendants, followers, and slaves. Private property in land was not yet generally recognized and there was little commerce. J3uch commerce as there was took the form of barter. The agricultural stage: The agricultural stage opens up an entirely new field of activity to man. Having already learned the food uses of fruits, grains, nuts and roots, and how to manage animals, he now combines his knowledge and becomes a plant producer. A denser population becomes INDUSTRIAL EVOLUTION 93 possible. Fertile valleys like those of the Tigris-Euphrates and the Nile become the homes of millions of men. The idea of land ownership first developed in the agricultural stage, although even then ownership by the village community, rather than by the individual, was the rule. Slavery grad- ually developed into serfdom, a condition of servitude hi which the subject enjoyed more privileges than under slavery, but was not free to migrate at will. Commerce grew in impor- tance, mainly because the wealthy class grew in strength and demanded foreign luxuries. The denser population made necessary a more efficient government and more detailed laws. This is the stage of the Babylonian Code of Ham- murabi and of the Mosaic law. It was during the agricultural stage that the civilizations of antiquity developed. The agricultural stage persisted through the early Middle Ages and developed into the so-called manorial economy and its political counterpart, the feudal system. In the thirteenth century the population of England was largely concentrated in villages or manors ruled by a lord, to whom the people were bound. The land of the manor was divided into three great fields which were cultivated in rotation, one always lying fallow. Each villein tenant held a strip of land in each of these fields which he was entitled to cultivate and was required to devote a part of each week to the cultivation of the part of the land especially reserved for the lord of the manor. The handicraft stage: With the development of the cities and the commerce of the later Middle Ages, the trades and hand manufacture became predominant and the agri- cultural organization as represented by the feudal system and the manor began to decline in relative importance. Towns which had become centres of trade won their inde- pendence from the feudal lords, and the handicraftsman who had long plied his trade as a servant on the feudal estate gained an independent and powerful position. As the town was first a trading centre the first rulers of the towns were the merchants, who hi the twelfth century in England were organized into guilds which at once protected trade and formed the basis of the political organization of the towns. As the craftsmen grew in numbers and importance they were admitted into the merchant guilds, which they 94 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM later supplanted with their own craft guilds. These craft guilds grew so powerful that by the fourteenth century they were the real rulers of the English cities. . Each trade has its own guild of masters presided over by its own alderman, who in conjunction with the aldermen of other guilds formed the governing body of the town. Membership in a guild was usually confined to those who had served their apprenticeship and later had worked as journeymen and become masters. As the system became more rigid it became increasingly difficult for journeymen who were entitled to join the guilds and thus become masters to secure admission to membership in the guilds without powerful influence to assist them. For their own protection the journeymen organized other guilds of their own, the "Bachelors' Companies," which in organization and tactics were somewhat similar to a modern trade union. The next step in industrial evolution, which bridges the gap between the true handicraft stage and the industrial stage is known as the domestic system. The guild master became a petty capitalist who received the raw materials from a middleman and gave them out to artisans who lived largely in the country and devoted a part of their time to agriculture. These artisans, who were the successors of the journeyman, had no control over the marketing of the product of their labor. The industrial revolution: Then came the sudden and fundamental change in methods of production which fol- lowed the invention of the steam engine and power machinery in the last half of the eighteenth century. Every previous change in the forms of industry had been so slow as to cover many generations in the process of transition, but this was rapid and relatively sudden, a true industrial revolution. The manufacture of textiles was at this time the most important industry in England. Under the handicraft and the domestic systems, all the work of spinning and weaving had to be laboriously done by hand. The first of the series of great inventions came in 1738, when Kay invented the flying shuttle. Then came Hargreaves' spinning jenny, in 1767, then Arkwright's water frame and the combination of the two into the "mule" by Crompton. Cartwright then developed the power loom and Whitney's cotton gin increased INDUSTRIAL EVOLUTION 95 the supply of raw material. With the application of steam power to spinning and weaving the domestic system came to an end. It was no longer profitable to send out work to be manufactured in homes. The workmen had to be gathered together into factories where the power could be economically applied. The master craftsman, who had become the merchant under the domestic system, giving out work and selling the product, now became the owner of the factory, while the journeyman, with his ranks recruited from the peasants of the country estates, became the factory worker, the proletarian of the modern industrial world. The transition came so rapidly as to cause a great deal of distress and social anarchy. An entirely new set of econpmic conditions had to be faced, and governments and laws formed under the old system were incapable of adaptation to the needs of the worker for protection. The new machines could be operated by children better than by the old weavers and spinners, and the struggles of the displaced workers to gain a livelihood form one of the most tragic chapters in the history of industrial development. Weavers who had made a comfortable living by the labor of eight hours a day, supplemented by the products of their little farms, now could barely keep from starvation by working sixteen hours out of twenty-four. Children had always worked under the old system, but the work had been done at home, and was divided between the apprentice work at the loom and the outdoor work of the farm. Under the new system they were massed together in factories under masters who had no personal interest in them, and worked fourteen hours a day under frightfully unsanitary conditions. The first attempts of workmen to organize unions were checked by stringent and often savage laws. The popular resentment very natu- rally led to machine-breaking riots. The old land-owning aristocracy was obliged to yield political power to the new lords of industry and England became a capitalist state. The industrial stage : This is the stage of economic evolu- tion in which the civilized world lives to-day. Production is carried on by means of power machinery on a large scale. This machinery is owned and controlled by a distinct class. Industry is so specialized that no one workman turns out a finished product which is to any large extent his own work. 96 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM Trade and commerce have been developed until markets are international, and a credit system has taken the place of cash payment. But although our age is essentially industrial, all of the other stages of production are still represented at the present day. Not only are there tribes and peoples in various parts of the world who represent all of the earlier stages of indus- trial evolution, but in our own civilization all the older forms of production are to be found. The stage of direct appropria- tion is represented wherever there are things of value to be taken by man direct from nature, for his own use. Hunting and fishing are by no means abandoned. The pastoral stage is represented by the great cattle and sheep ranges of the West and of South America and Australia. Agriculture never even declined in absolute importance, although other forms of production have developed since the agricultural stage which, because of their greater relative importance, have become the characteristic and dominant economic forces. Handicrafts are still carried on wherever machine methods have not been introduced, as in bricklaying, and for certain purposes nearly all the old crafts are carried on to-day. The domestic system has degenerated into the sweatshop and become one of the worst forms of modern exploitation. Old forms do not die. They simply change in relative importance. The development of the economic unit: Along with the increase in the power of man to control the forces of nature has come a progressive enlargement of the economic unit. The number and variety of wants has continually increased, and a progressively greater and more intricate organization of society becomes necessary. The stages in this process may be described as follows: (a) Independent household economy: Production was at tirst, and even later in the pastoral and agricultural stages, carried on by the household. The products were likewise consumed by the household. Trade and commerce were unimportant before the handicraft stage. The Greek house- hold from which we get our word "economy" was an inde- pendent economic unit. Agricultural products were grown for use and not for commerce. Slaves skilled in all trades were employed and there was very little which any member INDUSTRIAL EVOLUTION 97 or retainer of the household needed to get from beyond the estate. The life of a savage or barbarous family is a more simple example. The man does the hunting and fighting, the woman makes the clothing, prepares the food and bears the burdens. The family can exist comfortably without any dependence upon the rest of the world. (6) Town economy: With the building of cities and the diversification of industry, the independent economy became impracticable. It was more profitable for the weaver to give all his time to his trade and buy his food supplies else- where, giving in exchange his cloths or the money received from their sale. But it was no more than an extension of the household economy for little was used which was not produced within or near the town. Commerce was largely local, and the town could exist without regard to the State or other towns. (c) National economy: With the improvement of the means of communication, and the perception of the advan- tages of trade between cities, the nation became the economic unit. In England the products of the mines of the South- west were exchanged for the agricultural products and the manufactures of the East and North. The town was no longer self-sufficient and independent. But the nation still produced all that it needed to consume. The period of national economy was marked by the welding together of towns and principalities into powerful modern States. To enhance the importance of the nation, taxes on internal trade were abolished and tariffs were imposed on imports from other countries. Patriotism was encouraged and sectional- ism discouraged. Thus national economy supplanted town economy. (d) World economy: The stage has now passed when there is an advantage in maintaining a national economy. The railway, steamship, telegraph and ocean cable have brought the nations of the world nearer together than provinces were during the development of national economy. Markets have become world-wide. No country is entirely self-sufficient, and such countries as England are so dependent upon other nations that even a temporary check to commerce involves great hardship, as when the American Civil War stopped the importation of raw cotton and reduced the 98 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM Lancashire operatives to abject poverty. Capital knows no national lines. It is essentially international. The migration of masses of laborers from one country to another in response to the demands of industry, the spread of education and increasing ease of international communication have resulted in a highly developed sense of international solidarity of class interest. National lines which once served to extend the economic unit from town to nation, now impede further growth, and patriotism, which was once a broadening senti- ment tending to replace excessive loyalty to the town by a larger loyalty to the nation, has in its turn become, in its extreme forms, a hindrance to further development and a menace to the peace of the world. INDUSTRIAL EVOLUTION 99 SUMMARY 1. Economic history may be divided into stages on the basis of the increasing control by man over nature. 2. In the first stage men live by hunting and fishing; the second is characterized by the domestication of animals and the introduction of slavery; in the third stage agriculture is developed; the fourth is characterized by handicraft industry and the fifth stage begins with the development of power machinery and the factory system. 3. These stages have differed materially in different parts of the world and their form has been modified by geographical and climatic conditions. 4. A new method of gaming a livelihood does not usually displace an older form, but subordinates it, thus adding to the complexity of economic life. 5. Economic history is also classified on the basis of the progressive enlargement of the economic unit from the household through the town and nation to a world economy. QUESTIONS 1. What are the characteristic features of the stage of direct appro- priation? Of the pastoral stage? Of the agricultural stage? 2. Describe the manorial system. In which stage does it belong? 3. Explain the organization and functions of the craft guild. 4. What was the domestic system of industry? 5. What is meant by the "Industrial Revolution"? 6. Name the chief inventions which brought about the industrial revolution. 7. Compare the industrial stage with the handicraft stage. 8. Characterize the household economy, the town economy, the national economy. 9. What facts lead us to expect the realization of a world economy? LlTERATTTKE Buecher, C., Industrial Evolution. Coman, Katherine, The Industrial History of the United States. Ely, R. T., Studies in the Evolution of Industrial Society. Hobson, J. A., The Evolution of Modern Capitalism. Morgan, L. EL, Ancient Society, Part I, Chap. II and III. Spencer, Herbert, Principles of Sociology, Vol. Ill, Part VIII. Toynbee, A., The Industrial Revolution, Chap. IV. CHAPTER XI THE CLASS STRUGGLE THEORY The theory stated : The class struggle theory is a part of the economic interpretation of history. Ever since the dissolution of primitive tribal society, the modes of economic production and exchange have inevitably grouped men into economic classes. In his Introduction to the Com- munist Manifesto Frederick Engels thus summarizes the theory: "In every historical epoch, the prevailing mode of eco- nomic production and exchange, and the social organization necessarily following from it, form the basis upon which is built up, and from which alone can be explained, the political and intellectual history of that epoch; and, consequently the whole history of mankind (since the dissolution of primi- tive society, holding land in common ownership) has been a history of class struggles, contests between exploiting and exploited, ruling and oppressed classes; that the history of these class struggles forms a series of evolution in which, nowadays, a stage has been reached where the exploited and oppressed class the proletariat cannot attain its emancipa- tion from the sway of the exploiting and ruling class the bourgeoisie without at the same time, and once and for all, emancipating society at large from all exploitation, oppres- sion, class distinctions, and class struggles." Analysis of the statement: In this statement there are several important propositions. First, that class divisions and class struggles arise out of the economic life of society. Second, that since the dissolution of primitive society, which was based upon communism, mankind has been divided into economic classes, and that all its history has been a history of struggles between these classes, ruling and ruled forever warring against each other. Third, it is implied rather than stated that the different epochs uTEuman 100 THE CLASS STRUGGLE THEORY 101 history have been characterized by the interests of the ruling classes of these epochs. Fourth, that a state has now been reached in the evolution of society in which the struggle assumes the form of a contest between the proletariat and the capitalist class. Fifth, that the proletariat by eman- cipating itself will destroy all the conditions of class rule, and in doing so will emancipate all society from the evils attendant upon class struggles. Opposition to the theory: No other phase of the Socialist philosophy has attracted so much criticism as this doctrine of the essential antagonism of social classes. The criticism has taken two distinct forms that of denying tEe^existence of social classes, and that of accusing the Socialists of fomenting class hatred. That there are no class distinctions in America has been a part of the national tradition. The absence of legalized caste and of all titles of nobility, and the numerous examples of self-made men the rail-splitter who became President, and the millionaires who as poor boys sold newspapers on the streets lend support to the tradition. There is no formal legal barrier separating the classes, and the nouveau riche is still a familiar type. This form of criticism is based upon the false assumption that a social class must necessarily be a crystallized social group, the membership of which is based upon inheritance. But though we have no hereditary, titular ruling class, the division of the population into classes is very obvious. The second form of criticism directed against the theory tacitly admits the existence of social classes, but denies that they are based upon antagonistic interests which are irrecon- cilable. It asserts that the major interests of the two classes are identical, and ascribes all industrial conflicts to "unfor- tunate misunderstandings between capital and labor," or to the work of "dangerous agitators." It accuses the Socialists of inciting the workers to violent assaults upon the industrial order, from which assaults the workers themselves must suffer equally with their employers. This criticism, it may be admitted, is generally honest and sincere. It is based upon an entire misconception of the whole theory, however. It assumes that the Socialists are engaged in creating a class struggle, instead of which they 102 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM are simply directing attention to the existence of a class struggle resulting from the conditions of social evolution. The class struggle is, from the Socialist point of view, simply a law of social development, for which the Socialist is as little responsible as Newton was for the law of gravitation. There were class struggles thousands of years before there was a Socialist movement. Definition of the word "class": It will help us to avoid much confusion and misunderstanding of the theory if we start with a clear conception of the meaning of the word "class." What is an economic class? In order that we may intelligently discuss any theory based upon the existence of economic classes we must first of all be able to answer that question. In the first place, the term obviously refers to a grouping of individuals based upon economic relation and status. It does not refer to the grouping which results from a selective process based upon the choice of the individuals because they are congenial to each other, or because they hold certain ideas in common. Such a grouping, however large it might be, would not be an economic class. It is not enough to say that the grouping must be based upon economic relation and status, however. All the persons connected with the steel industry, for instance, from the multi-millionaire head of a corporation to the poorest paid laborer, might be regarded as a class, because of that economic relation and status, that is, because they were all engaged in a distinct branch of economic activity, regardless of the fact that the multi- millionaire on top and the laborer at the bottom might well be said to live in different worlds. The income basis: Many writers have taken income as the most satisfactory basis for the classification of society into economic classes. Mr. W. H. Mallock, for example, in his Classes and Masses, makes relative income the test of class membership, and arbitrarily divides English society into classes accordingly. By this method a skilled artisan earning two pounds a week and a feeble-minded pensioner of a rich relative living upon two pounds a week are regarded as belonging to the same "class," despite the fact that the artisan has never known the luxury of a week's rest, and that the pensioner has never done a day's work. The income THE CLASS STRUGGLE THEORY 103 basis results simply in the old, crude and unscientific division of society into rich and poor. The source of income basis: The only satisfactory basis for the classification of society is that of similarity of eco- nomic functions and interests in the prevailing economic system. In other words, source of income, rather than amount of income, is the test of class membership. In every form of industrial society there appears a social class forma- tion based upon the source of income or mode of obtaining the necessities of life common to the members of the respec- tive classes. Within each class the individuals may compete against each other, each striving to obtain as large a share as possible of the total available wealth, but the unity and solidarity of the class as a whole is invariably shown by its resistance to any attack made upon its material interests by any other class. The characteristic features of an eco- nomic class, then, are that its members are united by their general economic interests, and that as a whole the class opposes every attempt of any other class to invade its interests. We may say ? jtherefore, that an economic class consists of an aggregate of persons having similar specific interests in the prevailing economic system, and whose functions in that system are likewise similar. Thus it is the special interests of the producers, as producers, which make them a class. They may share certain important general interests with all the rest of society, but their particular interests as producers they hold against all the rest of society. By similarity of functions we do not mean identical functions. Miners and bakers are engaged in very different occupations, but they perform similar functions in the sense that they are producers of wealth and not mere consumers. As against all who are consumers of wealth merely, they have a common class interest. Antiquity of class divisions and struggles : Class divisions have existed ever since slavery began in the epoch of barbar- ism. When^prisoners of war began to be exploited rather than killed, society became for the first time divided into definite classes. The conflict of interests between master and slave is obvious. The class struggle existed even though the ignorance, degradation and lack of opportunity for dis- 104 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM cussion which limited the slaves made effective resistance impossible. Sporadic revolts were always crushed with relentless brutality. The feudal age is one of recognized social class distinctions. The conspicuous divisions were between lord and serf, whose interests were as obviously antagonistic as those of master and slave in the preceding regime. Feudal class distinctions also arose through conquest, as, for example, the subjugation of the Britons by the Saxons and, later, by the Normans. As we have seen, the freemen who settled in the towns as tradesmen and craftsmen developed by the eleventh century a powerful middle class, closely organized in guilds and gaining control of some of the most important sources of wealth. The interests of this class were opposed to those of the feudal nobility just as were the interests of the serfs, but they were better able to make effective resist- ance and to wage war upon the nobility. By the beginning of the nineteenth century this class had won a complete victory and itself became the dominant, ruling, employing class. Character of classes in capitalist society: The capitalist class in its victory brought with it out of its life as a subject class the theories of political democracy and laissez faire. It established the modern State in such a form that no legal guarantee of the integrity of any class was possible. The rigidity of class divisions under feudalism was broken and passage from class to class became common. But the de- velopment of the economic has accomplished by a gradual and almost imperceptible process that which the State could not do. It has made the passage from the lower class to the class above increasingly difficult, and, while there is no guarantee as yet of the absolute integrity of the master class, practically that result has, to a very large degree, been attained. Transition from the status of wage-worker to that of capitalist, which was common and relatively easy in the earlier stages of capitalism, becomes increasingly rarer and more difficult with the era of concentration and the immense capitals required for industrial enterprise. Passage from the lower class to the upper tends to become almost as rare as the transition from pauperism to princedom in the Old World. An impecunious coachman may marry a THE CLASS STRUGGLE THEORY 105 princess, and so enter the sacred circles of royalty. Such instances are little rarer than marriages between common laborers and the daughters of our lords of industry and finance. Thus class lines tend to become permanently fixed. The principal and characteristic class division of capitalist society is that which separates the employing, wage-paying class from the employed, wage-receiving class. It is clear that where it is to the interest of the employer to produce as cheaply as possible and sell at the highest rate of profit, his interest conflicts with that of the wage-worker, who wishes to get the highest possible wage for the least possible effort, and who has no responsibility for the conduct of the business as a whole. The exceptionally loyal and efficient man may become a foreman, or even a partner in the business, but if all employees were equally loyal and efficient they would be no better off, as a group, than now. If they turned out a greater product, their wage under the competitive wage system might even be less. As employer and employee, then, their particular interests are fundamentally antag- onistic. The Economists on class divisions: The contention is, then, that the employer as such and the employee as such have opposing interests for which they must struggle in order to maintain or improve their status, and that in consequence society becomes stratified along the lines of these class divisions. These facts have been perceived clearly enough by some of the great economists. Thus, Adam Smith, in his Wealth of Nations, states the matter as clearly and forcibly as any Socialist of the present day: "The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little, as possible. The former are disposed to combine in order to raise, the latter in order to lower the wages of labor. . . . Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labor above their actual rate. To violate this combination is everywhere a most unpopular action, and a sort of reproach to a master among his neighbors and equals. . . . Masters too sometimes enter into particular combina- tions to sink the wages of labor. . . . These are always conducted with the utmost silence and secrecy until the moment of execution. . . . Such combinations, however, are 106 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM frequently resisted by a contrary defensive combination of the workmen; who sometimes too, without any provoca- tion of this kind, combine of their own accord to raise the price of labor. . . . They are desperate and act with the extravagance and folly of desperate, men, who must either starve or frighten their masters into an immediate compliance with their demands. The masters upon these occasions are just as clamorous upon the other side and never cease to call aloud for the assistance of the civil magistrate, and the rigorous execution of those laws which have been enacted with so much severity against the combinations of servants, laborers and journeymen." 1 The basis of the class struggle, and the fact that an improvement in well-being intensifies rather than checks class strife, are clearly suggested by the following passage from John Stuart Mill: "Notwithstanding the effect which improved intelligence in the working classes, together with just laws, may have in altering the distribution of the produce to their advantage, I cannot think it probable that they will be permanently contented with the condition of laboring for wages as their ultimate state. To work at the bidding and for the profit of another, without any interest in the work the price of their labor being adjusted by hostile competition, one side demanding as much and the other paying as little as possible is not, even when wages are high, a satisfactory state to human beings of educated intelligence, who have ceased to think themselves naturally inferior to those whom they serve. They may be willing to pass through the class of servants on their way to that of employers; but not to remain in it all their lives." 2 Common general interests of the classes: Aside from these special relations, the classes have many things in common. As in the case of the lord and the serf, the capital- ist and the laborer may belong to the same church and have religious interests in common, but even here, more than ever before since the founding of the Christian Church, religious bodies tend to give the same recognition to class 1 Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Vol. I, Book I, chap. viii. 2 John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy, Book IV, chap, vii. THE CLASS STRUGGLE THEORY 107 lines as do secular organizations. A poorly dressed woman feels as much out of place in an aristocratic church as she would in an aristocratic club. The classes may also have common racial and national interests, and these may at times even counterbalance their economic antagonism. They may even have a common industrial interest in the development of an industry in which they are engaged, and fear equally the results of depression hi trade or of hostile legislation. Individuals versus classes: There will always be found in every class individuals who either do not recognize their class interests, or who consciously ignore them. To the former group belong those workingmen who, unconscious of their class interest, take the side of their employers in industrial disputes, refuse to join labor organizations and boast of their loyalty to their employers. To the latter group belong those who subordinate the class interest which they clearly perceive to some other interest which they regard as being more important. Among such interests may be mentioned the racial and religious interests. Thus we find workingmen of one race joining together to exclude the workingmen of another race from employment and from social and political recognition, frequently enabling the capitalist class to increase its powers of exploitation through using one set of workers to fight the other. Thus, too, in all periods of social transition we find members of the ruling class making common cause with the class in revolt. Marx calls attention to this fact hi a memorable passage: "Finally, in times when the class struggle nears the decisive hour, the process of dissolution going on within the ruling class, in fact within the whole range of old society, assumes such a violent, glaring character that a small section of the ruling class cuts itself adrift, and joins the revolutionary class, the class that holds the future in its hands. Just as, therefore, at an earlier period, a section of the nobility went over to the bourgeoisie, so now a portion of the bourgeoisie goes over to the proletariat, and in par- ticular a portion of the bourgeois ideologists, who have raised themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically the historical movements as a whole." It is very evident that a fair statement of the theory as 108 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM Marx and Engels conceived it is itself a sufficient reply to those critics of the theory who have pointed to the fact that men like Robert Owen, Marx, Engels, Lassalle, and many others who have played an important part in the history of the Socialist movement itself have come from the ruling class. Crude statements of the theory by ill-informed ex- ponents may offer some excuse for such criticism, but it is manifestly foolish and unfair to judge any theory by the crudest and least capable presentation of it. Revisionist criticism of the theory: While the dominant and all-absorbing conflict in present society is that which goes on between the wage-paying and wage-receiving classes, these two groups do not constitute the whole of society. This is especially true in the United States which is still very largely an agricultural nation. We must con- sider the rather inchoate and ill-defined interests of the large so-called middle class, consisting of farmers, retail traders, petty manufacturers, and so on. Marx and Engels, as noted in an earlier chapter, regarded the imminent dis- appearance of this class as certain and self-evident. Assum- ing so much, they could ignore its existence as a transitory incident and present the picture of a conflict in which the lines are automatically fixed, or perhaps a better expression would be, a conflict in which an instinctive alignment of society takes place upon the basis of ascertainable and con- flicting economic interests. Bernstein and other Socialists of the Revisionist school have criticised the theory in this particular, and pointed to the fact that the middle class has not yet disappeared, but is even increasing in numerical strength through the increase in the number of small stockholders. Bernstein suggests too, that the workers cannot properly be regarded as a homogeneous class. Admitting that under capitalism the wage-workers have more common interests than conflicting ones, and in that sense constitute a class, he holds that the abolition of capitalism would at once reveal the fact that the proletariat consists of many diverse elements, differing greatly from each other, and, therefore, bound to divide into new classes instead of abolishing all classes as Marx and Engels predicted. Granting that Bernstein is right in criticising the assump- THE CLASS STRUGGLE THEORY 109 tion in the Communist Manifesto that the workers are a homogeneous mass, equally devoid of property, family and independence, it does not follow that we must accept his view that the differences in needs and interests will remain unmodified after "the propertied and governing classes are removed from, or deprived of, their positions," and become the basis of a new arrangement of classes. The criticism fails in that it presupposes a sudden transformation from capital- ist ownership to Socialist ownership, without any serious modification of the position and constitution of the pro- letariat. Relation of the middle class to the proletarian struggle: In the acute phases of the struggle between the capitalist class and the proletariat, the middle class occupies a very unenviable position. Many of its members are struggling desperately to avoid sinking into th6 proletarian class, while many others are struggling out of the working class into the ranks of the class above. It is impossible to state with exactitude the attitude of this indefinite class toward the proletarian class in its struggle against the capitalist class. In general it may be said that, just as a man whose income is wholly or principally derived from the labor of others, through the ownership of the means of production and ex- change, is a member of the capitalist class, so a man whose income is wholly or principally derived from his own labor is a member of the working class. In general, that section of the middle class which depends wholly or in principal part upon rent, profit and interest for its maintenance will manifest little sympathy with the producing class in its struggles. On the other hand, the sympathies of that section of the middle class which depends primarily upon its own labor, and only secondarily upon rent, interest and profit, will, in general, manifest little sympathy with the capitalist class. The middle class is inclined to oppose the pretensions of the capitalist class, but at the same time little inclined to sympathize with the working class. It fears most of all the interruption of business. The members of the middle class as a rule would prefer to have all class conflicts cease, but care very little how a settlement is effected. It is from this class that we hear most about the "essential identity 110 -ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM of interest" of the workers and their employers. The mem- bers of this vague class suffer both from high prices and the increasing power of the workers to demand high wages. They blame the "Trust" for all their major ills, and the "agitators" for all their minor ones. Having no well defined interests as a class, the middle class pursues no consistent policy. It sees in the manifestations of the class struggle little more than personal inconvenience, and does not rec- ognize its far-reaching significance. But with the growth of the great monopolies, which exploit the petty traders and small farmers almost as much as they exploit the wage- workers, though in other ways, there is a marked tendency on the part of a considerable proportion of the middle class to make common cause with the worker in the one sphere where such unity is possible, that of political activity. Expansion of the concept of class: As a result of the criticisms directed against the class struggle theory in its narrowest form, and the experience which they have gained, the Socialist parties of the world manifest an increasing tendency to expand the meaning of the term "working class." Wilhelm Liebknecht, the astute political leader of the German Social Democracy, in a paper which was post- humously published, wrote : "A tiny minority alone demands that the Socialist movement shall be limited to the wage-earn- ing class. . . . We ought not to ask 'Are you a wage-earner?' but 'Are you a Socialist?' If it is limited to the wage-earners, Socialism cannot conquer. If it includes all the workers and the moral and intellectual elite of the nation, its victory is certain." Liebknecht then continues to argue that the Social Democracy is "the party of all the people with the exception of two hundred thousand great proprietors, small proprietors, and priests." Class consciousness: The recognition of the existence of social classes, and of the interests upon which they are based, is what the Socialist means by "class consciousness." The capitalist who accepts the system as it is, and joins with the other members of his class to embrace every advan- tage which presents itself is class conscious. Likewise, the worker who recognizes that in the long run his interests are those of his class, and who joins with his fellows to obtain a larger share of the product of their labor, is class conscious. THE CLASS STRUGGLE THEORY 111 The Socialist argues that the whole working population must be aroused to a recognition of their class interests. The victory of the capitalist class in the struggle would mean the destruction of democracy in a hopeless capitalist despotism. On the other hand, the victory of the working class would not result in class despotism, the substitution of one ruling class for another, as all previous class triumphs have done, but in the abolition of the conditions without which no class rule can exist, namely, class ownership and control of the things upon which society as a whole depends. Class consciousness does not mean class hatred: Because they seek to arouse the workers to a consciousness of their class interests, the Socialists are often bitterly condemned and accused of seeking to stir up class hatred. This is very obviously an unjust charge. Whether the class struggle theory be accepted or not, it is essential that it be not mis- represented. The Socialists do not create the class struggle. If we admit its existence, we must admit that it has its roots in economic conditions which the Socialists have not shaped, but which have developed in the course of centuries of evolution. What the Socialist does is to call attention to the class struggle and to the antagonism of economic interests which creates the struggle. By awakening the workers to a recognition of the class struggle and the forces which determine its existence, Socialism tends to divert the wrath and the revolt of the workers from individual employers to the system itself, because it compels them to see that the capitalist class, like their own, is a product of . evolution, and that the individual capitalist is no more responsible for conditions than the individual wage-worker. By discouraging the idea of independent personal attack, and fostering belief in association upon class lines for the purpose of improving conditions by economic and political activity, Socialism has undoubtedly done much to make the peaceful, evolutionary solution of the labor problem possible through political channels. It must, therefore, be regarded as one of the great constructive forces of modern times. Organization of laborers and capitalists: With the advent of machine production and the development of the factory system, the old system of bargaining between masters and wage-workers assumed a new form. Under the domestic 112 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM system there was a large degree of competition, both among the masters and among the wage-workers, and although the masters had a certain advantage of position the journey- man was still able to obtain a relatively large share of the product. The individual or corporate employer of hundreds of working people, on the other hand, has an overwhelming advantage, especially where little skill is involved and when labor-saving devices are being continually introduced. The employer can fix a wage-scale which the worker must accept or leave. There is no bargain. If, however, all or a large part of the available labor is organized, so that a strike against the employer's wage-scale will effectually close the factory, the workers can have some bargaining power. Labor unions appeared almost as early as the beginnings of capitalistic concentration and have been from the first bitterly opposed by the employing class. Fail- ing to crush the unions by legislation directed against com- bination, the employers themselves resorted to the organiza- tion of associations for the protection of their interests against the demands of the labor unions. Thus they were able to do away with a great deal of the competition in their own ranks for labor, which the unions had taken advantage of in their efforts to increase wages. The result has been the intensification of the class struggle. Highly organized associations of employers are lined up in opposition to the gigantic federations of labor unions, and the conflict becomes more and more severe from year to year. Thus we have a regimentation of the forces of industry in which industrial initiative, on both sides, is subordinated to the interests of the class; a manning of forces like great armies on the field of battle. The directive and admin- istrative genius of the capitalist class must not only manage industry itself, but must devote a large part of its attention to the organization and leadership of the capitalist forces in the class war. The directive and administrative genius of the working class must in like manner be devoted to the organization and leadership of the forces of that class. But unlike the leaders of the capitalist forces, the labor leaders have no voice in the direct management of the industrial processes, and are, therefore, at a big disadvantage. The weapons of class warfare: The first and most prim- THE CLASS STRUGGLE THEORY 113 itive form of class warfare is that of physical violence. It is the natural expression of a feeling of outraged justice. The only method of struggle open to the slave of antiquity was that of murderous revolt. Even the early revolts against the capitalist system took the form of machine smashing. Violence is always met by violence, and the greater resources of the masters in every age, together with the alienation of public sympathy which occurs when it is resorted to, make an appeal to violence a verj' dangerous thing for the working class. The recognition of this fact has sometimes led em- ployers secretly to incite violence in order to discredit the workers and justify repressive measures. Organized labor is able to use the strike or the threat of a strike as a means of enforcing its terms. The capitalist analogue of the strike is the lockout, in which the employer refuses all work to the men until they agree to his terms. The boycott directed against the products of a particular establishment, or against all goods made by non-union labor, has as its counterpart the blacklist of the employer directed against the workman who has been active in asserting the interests of his class. The blacklist is very effective in checking the activity of potential union leaders. The capitalist control of the State enables the employers to call to their assistance the police and the militia, and even the regular army of the United States. Still more important is the power to bring about class legislation and, through the judiciary, class interpretation of the law. The power of the judiciary over legislation has been developed in the United States to a greater extent than in any other country. The Supreme Court may annul any law passed by Congress by declaring it unconstitutional, and only by the slow processes of death, resignation and appointment can the court be reconstituted and such an opinion reversed. Im- peachment proceedings are only possible in cases of personal misconduct, and even then are too cumbersome for practical use. Not only can the Supreme Court nullify legislation, but it can directly legislate by reading into a law a signif- icance which has been expressly rejected by Congress. These powers were never specifically given to the court, but the customs and precedents of a century have given to the exercise of the powers practically all the authority of constitu- 114 ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM tional sanction. The power of the judiciary is used with damaging effect upon the unions by means of the issuance of injunctions in labor disputes. Under an injunction directed against any or all persons involved in labor troubles a striker or union official can be arrested and imprisoned without jury trial. Political organization of the proletariat: To meet and overcome the capitalist use of the agencies of the State, the forces of labor in every industrial nation are being forced into political activity upon class lines. Class conscious working people are everywhere organizing into Socialist or Labor parties for the express purpose of gaining control of the machinery of the State. The capture of the State by the proletariat, through political education and organization of the workers, is the primary aim of all Socialist parties. With the conquest of the powers of the State by the pro- letariat class ownership of the means of production and exchange will be abolished. Then, for the first time in history, will true democracy, true Socialism and true indi- vidualism be possible. This does not mean that there will be a perfect human society in which no differences will exist. There may even be classes in a certain sense of the term, but not the present horizontal stratification of society. There may be social struggles, struggles between races and religions, but these are no part of the problem of Socialism, which concerns itself only with the next step in social evolution. THE CLASS STRUGGLE THEORY 115 SUMMARY 1. History has been largely a record of struggles between economic classes. 2. In modern society the class struggle assumes the form of a con- flict between the capitalist class and the proletariat. 3. The basis of the class divisions is a difference in source of income and not in the amount of income. 4. Class consciousness is the recognition of the existence of social classes and of the interests on which they are based. 5. Both great economic classes organize their forces and both use all the available industrial and political weapons in the prosecution of the struggle. QUESTIONS 1. What do Socialists mean by the class struggle? 2. What are the principal criticisms of the theory of the class struggle, and what are the Socialist answers to these criticisms? 3. Why cannot the amount of individual wealth be taken as a basis of class division? 4. What is meant by the middle class, and what is its relation to the class struggle? 5. Explain what is meant by class consciousness. 6. What is the social function of the employers' association? 7. What is the place of the trade union in the class struggle? 8. What is the purpose of the blacklist? The boycott? LlTERATTJBE Ghent, W. J., Mass and Class. Kautsky, K., The Class Struggle (Das Erfurter Program.) London, Jack, The War of the Classes. Marx, K and Engels, F., The Communist Manifesto. Mitchell, John, Organized Labor. Simons, A. M., Class Struggles in America. Spargo, John, Socialism, a Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles, Chap. VI. CHAPTER XII VALUE AND PRICE Introductory remarks : We come now to that phase of our subject which is the most difficult, namely, the political economy of Socialism in general and the much disputed theories of value and surplus-value in particular. Enough books and pamphlets have been written explaining, attack- ing and defending these pivotal Marxian doctrines to form a large library by themselves. Contrary to the old adage that "in a multitude of counsellors there is wisdom," the student is more than likely to be confused by the multitude of counsellors represented by this voluminous literature. The subject is necessarily somewhat abstract and difficult. To master it requires patience and perseverance together with at least ordinary capacity for mental perception. If the student has these, the most elemental requisites of sound scholarship, he will find that the difficulties to be mastered are only great enough and numerous enough to stimulate his intellectual ambition and energy. Pitfalls to be avoided: The way of the student will be made easier if certain common causes of confusion are fore- seen and avoided. One of the most common of these causes of confusion lies in the fact that many students and critics of Marx enter upon the study of his theories with precon- ceived mental concepts more or less clearly defined, but alto- gether erroneous, of which they do not divest themselves. With this bias as a foundation they are practically unable to get a mental picture of Marx's theories which is not more or less distorted by their preconceived errors. For example, the student who has read a little political economy and something less of Socialism has heard or read the claim made by some critics of Marx, such as Mr. W. H. Mallock, that the central idea in Socialist economics is that all wealth is the product of ordinary manual labor, and, therefore, ought 116 VALUE AND PRICE 117 in justice to belong to the laborers. Later on he encounters the formula in which Marx states his proposition that the value of commodities is determined by the amount of socially necessary human labor power which they represent. If his mind were not already warped and biased, he would investi- gate the theory of which the statement quoted is the formula, instead of which he is very apt to regard it as a confirmation of the altogether absurd statement of Marx's theory made by his critics. To avoid this pitfall which has trapped so many unwary feet, it is necessary that the student should divest his mind of all preconceptions of the subject and begin his study of Marx with an open mind, as though he had never before heard of Marx, of wealth, of value or of labor. That is the only attitude compatible with sound scholarship. Another prolific source of error to be avoided is the unschol- arly habit of beginning a study in the middle, or anywhere else than at the beginning. This habit is one which is at all times to be avoided, but in the case of a thinker like Marx it is especially dangerous. For Marx moves with precise method in his reasoning, step by step. If we do not begin with him at the beginning and follow him closely we cannot hope to escape confusion and difficulty. We may think that we know perfectly the meaning of such terms as "wealth," "capital," "labor" and "value," and that we need not stop to consider his definitions. If that is our attitude we are doomed to inevitable confusion. We think of capital, for example, as consisting of things