EXCHANGE SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL A Broader Basis for Socialism BY FLOYD J. MELVIN, PH.D. Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of New York University. flew lotfc STURGIS & WALTON COMPANY 1915 Copyright 1914 BY STURGIS & WALTON COMPANY Set up and electrotyped. Published March, 1915 s\>r TO MY WIFE AND COMRADE EVA ERNST MELVIN PREFACE This study has grown out of an attempt to formulate a generic definition of socialism. De- scriptive definitions there are a plenty, but these have the obvious shortcomings of all descriptive definitions. They seem to present little that can be set up as the norm to which all variations in the socialist movement can be traced. They are naturally not in entire agreement for their terms will vary according as one or another as- pect of socialism is stressed. The unfortunate result of this is that all discussions of socialism tend to degenerate into controversy about the meaning of the term itself, and not infrequently lead to the most absurd assertions about what socialists want to do. In order to clear up this confusion it has seemed necessary to seek for the fundamental basis of the socialist movement, its grounds or causes in the general social situation. Instead of basing the socialist system on the formal and rather materialistic science of economics, a la Marx, an attempt has been made to deduce the social system required and ordered by the more general science of sociology. Nevertheless it is PREFACE believed that the whole is in line with the teach- ing of the best socialists of all periods, and that although the subject is approached from an en- tirely different and apparently hitherto neg- lected point of vantage, the conclusions of " scien- tific socialism " are for the most part simply brought up to date and interpreted in modern terms. That this attempt may prove of value in lead- ing the many earnest students of social problems to realize the real nature of the socialist move- ment is the hope of the writer. FLOYD J. MELVIN. BROOKLYN, N. Y. CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY 3 The individual and the state; administration of things vs. government of persons; appeal of the ideals of socialism; why socialism is delayed; socialism is democracy not ochlocracy, not exclusively working class; socialism as the sociological ideal. CHAPTER II. VARIOUS DEFINITIONS CONSIDERED . . .11 As opposed to philosophical individualism: individ- ualism not opposed by socialists; socialism not the or- ganism but the organization; the derivation of the terms responsible for the supposed opposition; social- ism coordinate with individualism. As opposed to political individualism: organization necessary under socialism; socialism complete organization; individual not coerced, organization tends to become unneces- sary; socialism opposed to anarchism. As opposed to ethical individualism: Christian practice impossible under present system; social responsibility implied in Christianity. Socialism to be defined by its grounds and causes rather than by its plans and probable results. CHAPTER III. SOCIOLOGICAL DEFINITION OF SOCIALISM . 32 The social unrest: the spirit of democracy due to developing social self consciousness ; socialism an extension of democracy; its tendency to unify society "social responsibility." The sociological ideal stated: its fulfillment in socialism; Characteristics of social- ism: organization, socially perceived ideals, intelli- gent decision, democracy. Pseudo-socialistic activi- ties, their significance for socialism. CHAPTER IV. FORCES PRODUCING SOCIALISM: SPIRITUAL . 60 Civilization: socialization; regard for justice; elimi- nation of chance; systematization of endeavor; ethical and aesthetic ideals. Hurnanitarianism : its rise, its CONTENTS PAGE growth assured; its demand for social amelioration. Christianity: socialism is applied Christianity. So- cial self consciousness : its prototype in individual self- consciousness ; the underlying cause of the rise of de- mocracy. "Class consciousness": requires social self- consciousness as a basis; is reliable because based on self-interest; verges into social self consciousness ; satisfied only by socialism. CHAPTER V. FORCES PRODUCING SOCIALISM: MATERIAL . 87 Cooperation: increasing importance j social jus- tice required; replaces competition; progress toward cooperation. Division of labor: its result in over- specialization; its inevitable increase under capital- ism. The factory system: development of; its nature that of slavery. The introduction of machinery: its effect on the labor market; its reaction on coopera- tion, division of labor, and the factory system; its enhancement of capital. Appropriation of all avail- able land: affects all classes. Capitalism: its un- ideal character; not self -destructive; its inadequacy as a method of control of industry; its tendency towards industrial monarchy; the alternative between industrial monarchy and industrial democracy. The trusts and the labor unions; their preemption of the field of government in industry; their functions ab- sorbed by the socialist state. CHAPTER VI. SOCIAL CONTROL: MEANS 125 Purpose of a self conscious society: furnished by intelligence. Control of education: socialism the apotheosis of public education; product subordinate to producer; distribution of the product according to needs; encouragements to education. Control of evolution: human evolution a matter of social rather than individual concern; natural selection checked by humanitarianism ; power and promise of such con- trol under socialism. Cooperation of socialism with individualism. CHAPTER VII. SOCIAL CONTROL: METHOD 158 Natural control not ideal: warfare the primitive method of nature; displaced by competition; compe- tition is indirect warfare; nature replaces it in the highest realms by representative decision; the prog- CONTENTS PAGE ress of method through the stages of warfare and competition to intelligent decision. Arena of debate: people the judges. CHAPTEE VIII. SOCIALIST AIMS AND IDEALS . . . .183 Political: democracy demanded by "consciousness of kind"; Socialist Party democratically organized; scientific political adustment requires democracy. Economic: condition of the poor bettered by them- selves under democracy; competition in industry un- scientific from the sociological point of view. So- cial: equality not demanded under socialism except as prompted by ideals; pro-social qualities favored under socialism. Religious: Religion of Humanity; spiritual freedom under socialism. CONCLUSION 201 BIBLIOGRAPHY . 205 All previous historical movements were movements of mi- norities, or in the interests of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority. MAEX: The Communist Manifesto. With the seizing of the means of production by society, production of commodities is done away with, and, simul- taneously, the mastery of the product over the producer. Anarchy in social production is replaced by systematic, defi- nite organisation. The struggle for individual existence dis- appears. Then for the first time man, in a certain sense, is finally marked off from the rest of the animal kingdom, and emerges from mere animal conditions of existence into really human ones. The whole sphere of the conditions of life which environ man, and which have hitherto ruled man, now comes under the domination and control of man, who for the first time becomes the real, conscious lord of Nature, because he has now become master of his own social organisation. The laws of his own social action, hitherto standing face to face with man as laws of Nature foreign to, and dominating him, will then be used with full understanding, and so mas- tered by him. Man's own social organisation, hitherto confront- ing him as a necessity imposed by Nature and history, now becomes the result of his own free action. The extraneous objective forces that have hitherto governed history, pass under the control of man himself. Only from that time will man himself, more and more consciously, make his own his- tory only from that time will the social causes set in move- ment by him have, in the main and in a constantly growing measure, the results intended by him. It is the ascent of man from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of free- dom. . . . Man, at last the master of his own form of social organisation, becomes at the same time lord over Nature, his own master free. FBEDERICK ENGELS, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific. In Socialistic society, when mankind will be placed upon a natural basis, and will be truly free, man will consciously guide his own development. In all preceding epochs, man acted in regard to production and distribution, and in regard to the increase of population, without any knowledge of their underlying laws; he, therefore, acted unconsciously. In the new society man will act consciously and methodically, know- ing the laws of his own development. Socialism is science applied to all realms of human activity. AUGUST BEBEL, Woman and Socialism. SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL CHAPTER I INTEODUCTORY THE question as to the proper relation between the individual and the state has always been a matter of much speculation both to philosophers and to practical men of affairs. An inquiry into the subject can hardly be avoided by the student of economics on the one hand nor by the student of ethics on the other; while those por- tions of social and political science lying in be- tween have the various aspects of this question as their subject matter. Just how much does individual character, initiative, ideals, etc., depend upon the struc- ture and functions of the state in which the in- dividual happens to be born? What is the re- lation between individual morality and social righteousness? Character, as we know, depends much on the give and take of the individual in society ; and the structure of the state affects the 3 4 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL society which is one of the factors. Individual responsibility may be lessened or increased at the mandate of the state. To the unthinking masses, including ofttimes the managers of "big business," the statute law determines the right or wrong of an act as well as the end of action itself. For as life is the constant adapta- tion of the individual to the environment, it is evident that the social environment as embraced in statutes calls for further and further readap- tation on the part of the individual continually. Moreover the individual finds his larger self more or less adequately expressed in the state. The welfare of the state is hence a matter of direct personal concern. Patriotism thus be- comes an end in itself. But at the same time the citizen feels justified in calling upon the state to assist him in his private enterprises. The idea of paternalism thus evoked justly excites alarm, for a citizenry seeking private aid from the state is the very reverse of patriotic. Yet the state exists for and by virtue of the individuals who compose its citizenship. Cer- tain it is that the individual does not exist for the state, though there is danger in the opposite conception of the state for the individual. It is perhaps in the combined conception that the balance is struck, best expressed in the maxim, " Each for all and all for each," with the final INTRODUCTORY 5 emphasis on the individual as the object of all social endeavour. In the light of these reflections it is odd that socialism has been accused of both tendencies toward the tyranny of the state and toward the over-indulgence of the citizens. The truth lies to one side of the whole controversy, as we may see by the most cursory investigation. There is amazingly little necessity for govern- ment of persons if we have an all-embracing ad- ministration of things. Things are adminis- tered, under our present system -of government, by persons acting in their individual capacity. The person is prohibited by law from certain acts relating to property, but otherwise things enter but incidentally into the present accepted province of government. Governing itself is of course a business and as such calls for some in- come and disbursement, but in this way only does government enter the sphere of the adminis- tration of things. It is chiefly occupied in check- ing the undesirable activities of persons. But if the administration of things is left entirely in private hands the privilege will naturally be con- tinually abused, thus calling for further repres- sive laws continually. This is awkwardly trying to get at things through persons, an inefficient plan of procedure. We confer powers upon the individual that he is certain to abuse and then 6 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL devise strict laws for his punishment. The so- cialist plan is quite different. Under socialism, says Engels, " the government of persons is re- placed by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production." * Socialism is, however, rather a form of social organisation than a definite plan of administra- tion. It does not lay down a specific method of conducting each social activity, but rather pro- vides the means by which that control is to be exercised. It may indeed be said to offer the so- cial application of that idealism which has fol- lowed as a reaction to the realism of the latter half of the 19th Century. There is for instance the ideal of economic justice. But this is rather inherent in the nature of the means provided than a principle of action. For if any malad- justment of economic justice be made to fall on those in whose power it is to remedy it, we may suppose that the remedy will be promptly forth- coming. Then there is the ideal of social equal- ity; but this again is only more possible of re- alisation under socialism, not more necessary to it. Lastly there is the ideal of the emancipation of woman, which is no integral part of the so- cialist doctrine, but which might naturally be expected for the first time to receive adequate consideration. For all of these ideals socialism i Socialism, Utopian and Scientific," pp. 128-129. INTRODUCTORY 7 stands as a convenient means, and socialists more or less avow their individual intention of em- bodying them in the institutions of the socialist state. And indeed were it not for these preconceived ideals socialism would possess no appeal to the people at large. It is through these concrete in- stances of the sociological ideal that socialism derives its strength in the support of common public sentiment. Sociologically considered socialism is that form of social organisation which tends to extend the field of social control to all matters directly af- fecting society as a whole. This would mainly be to embrace the control of industry, which is the largest field remaining conspicuously under the sway of anarchy ; but ultimately to cover all matters affecting either environment or heredity. It is society acting as an organised unit rather than as an agglomeration of unorganised indi- viduals. In order to act thus it must first be organised in appropriate form, and secondly it must be informed with purposes sufficiently com- mon to permit of concerted action. A certain degree of civilisation is necessary that these conditions may obtain. But this has long since been reached and socialism has been delayed chiefly by the machinations of the privi- leged classes, possessing most of the power of 8 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL the world. These have been able to maintain their supremacy so long because of several rea- sons. They have provided that the exceptional man might rise into their own class, thus ally- ing the natural leaders of revolt with themselves. They have appealed to the gambling instinct by which the present system has appeared desirable on account of the rich prizes which a few have been permitted to obtain. They have prostituted their superior culture and means to delude and mislead and deceive the masses. Finally they have thoughtlessly maintained a system which they found ready made and which so admirably suited their own needs. Much of the lack of so- cial progress is attributable solely to inertia. Until the establishment of democracy there was nothing that could properly be called just government. Previous governments were nat- ural tyranny, gained and maintained by force or intrigue from an authority external to the peo- ple. Real government as opposed to tyranny arose with democracy and extended only so far as the preservation of order, was negative rather than positive, and allowed much anarchy even in politics and still more in industry and society. The lack of popular confidence derived doubtless from experience with former tyrannical govern- ments is well stated in the maxim : " That gov- ernment is best which governs least." INTRODUCTORY 9 Shall this natural tyranny be displaced by a government from below? For tyranny is always presumed by its apologists to be a government from above. But democracy need not mean rule by the inferior. It involves the many only as the jury before whom are argued those questions which affect the general welfare. It is sharply to be distinguished from the ochlocracy, wherein persons of ability and talent are allowed no op- portunity to exert their due influence upon the common mind. It may be objected that this op- portunity is sure to be taken advantage of by the demagogue. The reply is that the dema- gogue must be met on his own ground, and con- quered. He is the enfant terrible of democracy. But democracy is desirable in spite of him, for it is the only escape from the otherwise intoler- able evils of despotism. Furthermore socialism is not merely a working class movement but a movement to abolish all classes. It is working class only so far as the working class has most to gain by such an out- come. It is working class largely only because all movements for securing social justice for the oppressed must spring from the oppressed them- selves. It does not even mean that the leaders must come from the working class, but merely that every proposed measure must be continually referred to them for approval. 10 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL Socialism is broader than its immediate ob- ject, the social control of industry. We must press on and inquire from the socialist why so- ciety should control industry. He would prob- ably reply: in the interests of social justice, to avoid social despotism, to prevent the enslave- ment of the workers, to bring about the brother- hood of man, etc. Throughout all of this we may note his abounding idealism, his devotion to the cause and his faith in its ultimate triumph. This is not the aspect of men who are seeking merely material ends. It has much of the positive zeal of a religious faith. It is scarcely reasonable to suppose that man will rest content with creature comforts once more is within his grasp. It is a libel on human nature to claim as much. Socialism is as wide as man's aspirations. Its aims must be those of our common humanity. Hence, as has often been said, socialism is as strong as the strongest presentation that can be made of it. It is the writer's contention that there is much implied in it that is not insisted upon by its usual advo- cates ; in fact, that its full content is nothing less than the summation of all conscious plans for the betterment of society. It is the actual applica- tion to society in a practical way of the conclu- sions of scientific sociology, the embodiment of the sociological ideal. CHAPTER II VARIOUS DEFINITIONS CONSIDERED THE term socialism, as commonly used, has a signification of so general a nature that all at- tempt at exact definition must at first seem futile. The various propagandas of this movement present as great a diversity of doctrines as has ever been upheld by the various sects of Chris- tians, in ancient or modern times. But social- ism, like Christianity, has a central integrating principle, by virtue of which it possesses a work- ing unity and the power to incorporate new ele- ments of social policy. It is not, as too com- monly supposed, a merely accidental agglomera- tion of those social forces tending toward a " so- cial revolution." It takes its rise from a single great sociological cause and embraces only those demands for so- cial readjustment that spring from that source. Nor should we attribute any significance what- ever to the propensity of the undiscriminating to group together as socialistic all plans for so- cial amelioration arising from " the social un- 11 12 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL rest," for among these are included such, unso- cialistic schemes of social procedure as that of anarchy on the one hand and that of Christian communism on the other. It is clearly distin- guished from the former by the critical comment of Guthrie in Socialism before tlie French Revo- lution, " For the anarchist, the betterment of society depends primarily upon the betterment of the individual, while for the socialist the better- ment of the individual depends primarily upon the betterment of society." 2 And it is no less clearly distinguished from the latter by the as- sertion of Dr. Vedder in Socialism arid the Ethics of Jesus, " The socialist would transform man's environment, hoping that this would work a change in man himself; Jesus would transform man, and leave him to deal with his environ- ment." 3 These remarks serve indeed to point out a certain similarity between the two propos- als as well as to distinguish both from socialism. The movement which we are to consider is ex- tremely broad, but it does not embrace all plans for social regeneration. We shall do well there- fore to define socialism first by contrast with other projected forms or principles of social ac- tion, and follow this by an examination of its sociological basis in order to arrive at a generic definition of this most baffling subject of inquiry. 2 p. 17. S P. 383. VARIOUS DEFINITIONS CONSIDERED IS Proceeding then to a consideration of the meaning of the term socialism from a negative point of view, we may first note that it has quite frequently been held to be opposed to individual- ism. Particularly have writers of a philosoph- ical turn of mind been prone to adopt this view, and in some cases they have held it to be the very negation of individualism. This charge, as put forward by Prof. Ely or by Dr. Lyman Abbott, for instance, seems to be based on the assumption that under socialism society must be considered to be of the nature of the organism. This is a serious charge if true. For in the organism all significant individuality is denied to the constituent parts. Each cell or member of the organism exists solely for the sake of the whole, in which summation of parts alone is to be found true personality. The citizen ex- ists for the state. In the organisation the con- trary principle applies. Each part or factor finds its purpose and personality inherent in it- self. It enters into relations with its fellows solely for mutual aid and convenience. The whole exists simply to minister to its parts. The state exists for the citizen. If the socialist state is an organism rather than an organisation then we must consider that the principle of individ- ualism would suffer eclipse on the advent of socialism. But if on the contrary its nature is 14 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL that of the organisation, then no such opposition is entailed. Now the essential nature of any existing or proposed state is clearly betrayed as either or- ganism or organisation by its form of govern- ment. Since the organism requires that all sig- nificant individuality be reserved for the whole, denying it to the parts, we shall find that the governing or sovereign power is exercised as a whole, and naturally enough that this may be the more efficiently done we find it delegated to spe- cialised parts of the organism. Such is the brain or other higher nervous centres in animals, and such are aristocracies and oligarchies in the po- litical state. In these states as in all creations of the nature of the organism, significant indi- viduality is denied to the parts, even the special- ised governing nobility itself being bound to consider the good of the whole rather than its own, according to the code of noblesse oblige. On the other hand the organisation is charac- terised by true democratic government. Each individual member is as a personality more sig- nificant than the ensemble; hence he requires that his will as a significant entity be taken into consideration in the conduct of the whole. This can be accomplished only through democracy. And where the individual will does affect the con- VARIOUS DEFINITIONS CONSIDERED 15 duct of the whole in due measure, there only is to be found the real democracy. Now while socialism proper insists upon the democratic principle of organisation as the best known device for thwarting the self-interest of despotism, and thus the only form of the state that does not unduly entrench upon the freedom of the individual, there is a spurious socialism known as Bismarckian or state socialism, which does not observe this precaution. This form of socialism is indeed open to all the objections which have been urged against socialism by the philosophical individualists. It is organised from the top down rather than from the bottom up. It is marked quite as well by the absence of democracy as is socialism proper by its pres- ence. It is the organism in the sphere of the state. We may remark in passing that the Marxian socialist has ever had to contend against any further extension of the organising func- tion of the state upon this basis quite as strenu- ously as against that complete disruption of the organising function of the state demanded by the anarchists. The charge that socialism is opposed to indi- vidualism because introducing into the organisa- tion of the state the principle of the organism is thus seen to be unfounded as regards socialism proper. In Prof. Ely's case, however, it would 16 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL seem that a misapprehension may also have arisen from the unfortunate implication of the terms themselves. Wihile according to their deri- vation as philosophically considered the terms socialism and individualism stand opposed, it does not follow that as used by the sociologist they are thus conflicting. For in sociology the term socialism is not to be understood as the negation or submergence of the principle of indi- vidualism, but simply as an expression for the resultant of the tendencies of the many discreet individualities when these are socially united in an organisation. And since this product or sum- mation of individual tendencies will represent an average of individual tendencies it is absurd to suppose that the resulting society could ever be completely or even largely opposed to any of its constituent units. But now an entirely new opposition arises from this use of the terms in their sociological sense, for here we must face the inevitable query as to who shall be supreme, the one or the many the individual or the state. The socialist unhes- itatingly replies, the many. But we must not rashly conclude therefore that the freedom of the individual is to be interfered with in any new or unusual manner by this supremacy of the many, for in reality it furnishes but another in- stance of the all-conditioning constraint imposed VARIOUS DEFINITIONS CONSIDERED 17 by the laws of nature. It is nature's own neces- sity that individualities shall be conditioned by each other, unless indeed their every desire should harmonise with those of all others and thus conflict between them fail to arise. It is however inconceivable that opposing desires should be long lacking or that these opposing desires should fail to be self -harmonising. To be sure the anarchist does affect this tour de force and we might venture to agree that if human na- ture were perfect we might conceive all desires as harmonious. But if on account of our pres- ent imperfect state conflicting desires are inevit- able, then that government which exists solely for the sake of their equitable adjustment is add- ing no further restrictions on the necessarily lim- ited freedom of the individual. All government is thus opposed to political individualism : exists in fact to embody the consensus of opinion con- cerning the limitations on the freedom of each necessitated by the demand for a similar freedom on the part of others. And all prohibitive gov- ernment is an enormity if it is less or more than a mere representation of the natural limitations arising from the mutually conflicting desires of its subjects. The socialist is affirming no new or unaccepted principle in opposing political in- dividualism. Thus the socialist society as conceived by its 18 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL advocates seeks to embody only those restrictions on the freedom of the individual that are nat- urally inevitable. It simply recognises and con- strues in the form of statutes these naturally imposed restrictions. Its laws but reproduce or represent laws of nature which are certain to appear in the form of tyranny in the absence of just government. Hence the socialist state like all just government is to be regarded as but the instrumentality through which is to be effected the equitable adjustment of the mutually con- flicting claims of its subjects, clearly not as an institution presenting claims otherwise non-ex- istent. And as it thus provides a government as a means through which all such claims may work out through a medium especially designed for their adjustment, we may readily believe that more freedom results than where such clashing desires are allowed to reach their natural con- clusion in the despotic rule of the strongest. So- cialism is thus not even opposed to a real politi- cal individualism so far as it can be achieved in practice, although perhaps opposed to the merely postulated, but unrealisable, unconditioned in- dividualism of the political anarchist. And all government partakes of the nature of socialism to this extent. We may note that it is nothing more nor less than this conception of unconditioned individ- VARIOUS DEFINITIONS CONSIDERED 19 ualism that is conjured to the support of anarch- ism, that negation of government with which the highly organised government of socialism is so properly contrasted. Says Lyman Abbott in Anarchism: Its Cause and Cure^ " Anarchy is the doctrine that there should be no govern- mental control; Socialism that is, State So- cialism is the doctrine that government should control everything." 4 Of course this contrast is unfair both to anarchy and to socialism, for each is presented in the ridiculous extreme. But for- tunately the definition of the term anarchy is al- most universally agreed upon: it is simply the absence of governmental organisation, based upon the assumption that such organisation is unnecessary. But as we have seen unless indi- vidual desires do in fact harmonise, then such organisation is indispensable. It must be re- tained to establish an artificially enforced har- mony, at least pending the evolution of that per- fection of human nature which will permit of its abolition. 'We may state then from the point of view of the non-anarchist that although it is doubtless true that ultimately only those natures that do harmonise with each other would sur- vive, yet evolution has still far to proceed before this result is reached, and at present human na- ture is far from that state of perfection in which * Outlook, February, 1902, p. 465. 20 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL any form of organisation or none at all would be equally consistent with human welfare. In case the individual were perfect the socialist would not concern himself about the form or functions of social organisation, as he does so supremely at present. His claim is indeed that the utmost resources of the political scientist should be called into requisition in the attempt to construct that institutional society which will best answer the purposes of imperfect humanity. Human nature must be taken as it is, its strength accurately and scientifically tested ; and without grumbling unduly at the weakness of the material at his command, the social architect must pro- ceed to plan a stable and good society. It is because he perceives clearly the weakness and unreliability in the characters of those who must be entrusted in a measure with the welfare of others that the socialist insists on what he re- gards as the most essential requisite in the struc- ture of government, namely a complete adher- ence to the principle of democracy throughout this necessary organisation. For while an aris- tocracy can and probably usually does govern better than a democracy, its unfailing tendency is to revert to despotism. Similarly in a repub- lican form of government, in proportion as the character of the average representative law maker is not sufficiently reliable to defend the VARIOUS DEFINITIONS CONSIDERED 21 interests of his constituency, the necessity arises for the use of the recall and the initiative and referendum. And while it may be admitted that direct legislation is an awkward form of law making, it may well be the best attainable in view of the corrupting influences on the representa- tive law making body. From the foregoing con- siderations the socialist concludes that not only is organised government necessary despite the contentions of the anarchist, but that in view of the non-altruistic character of those who are to formulate its laws and administer its decrees it must be thoroughly democratic. But even democratic organisation is not suf- ficient unless it is measurably complete. As op- posed to anarchy socialism is complete organisa- tion. Now it is obvious that competition can find place only in the absence of complete organi- sation, and that cooperation, the antithesis of competition, is the signal characteristic of com- plete organisation. Hence a direct consequence of the organising propensity of socialism is its antipathy to competition. Says Skelton in So- cialism, A Critical Analysis, " In each of these aspects indictment, analysis, panacea, cam- paign socialism is intelligible only as the an- tithesis of the competitive system." 5 Let it be noted, however, that the government P. 9. 22 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL of the socialist state, although thus completely organised, would be wholly negative as govern- ment proper. The individual would not be posi- tively coerced, but only restrained from coercing others. The socialist state would neither exploit its citizens itself nor permit individuals to do so. The individual would be left free in all respects to choose among the numerous alternatives which would be provided by the socialist democratic state. That there would be provided a great va- riety of such alternatives would follow from the fact that these alternatives would be established and made available by those who would be most interested in seeing that such opportunities were supplied, for these under the democratic socialist state would possess full power to adopt all de- sirable measures of industrial and social reform. Under democracy it is impossible to enslave so- ciety as a whole. Furthermore the organisation of the socialist state, while conditioning the acts and privileges of its members, is not necessarily felt by them as a restrictive agency. As the other laws of nature are seen to be necessary laws of our being, and subjectively asserted, so the laws of man be- come superfluous to the normal man. The nor- mal parent does not find the compulsory educa- tion law a restriction, nor does the normal son VARIOUS DEFINITIONS CONSIDERED 23 feel constrained by the law compelling the sup- port of aged parents. The law. is fulfilled through voluntary obedience ; hence although we may agree with Lyman Abbott that socialism is the complete opposite of anarchy, we can never- theless maintain that the socialist is able to agree with the philosophical anarchist who finds that the organisation will be ultimately superfluous through fulfilment. There is a form of individualism yet to be con- sidered which is held to oppose the socialist con- ception even more stubbornly than those already considered, namely, that of the ethical individ- ualist. An examination of socialism from the standpoint of ethical individualism seems espe- cially necessary inasmuch as socialism is so vig- orously attacked in the name of Christianity, not- withstanding the oft repeated declaration that " the ethics of socialism are identical with those of Christianity." 6 In the first place we must all agree that the Christian life is impossible in society as at pres- ent constituted. The unreserved practice of Christian virtues can lead only to non-survival. The Christian ideals of the pure altruism of serv- ice have been consistently ignored in practice * Cyclopcedia of Social Reform, Bliss. Article on Chris- tianity and Social Reform. 24 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL and the competitive struggle sanctioned by the materialistic evolutionists has been everywhere substituted. The logic of events thus proves that individual ethics cannot be divorced from social morals. In addition to those acts and choices for which the individual can justly be held responsible are others within the control of society alone. For these it is proper that society rather than the in- dividual be held responsible. And the fact that this responsibility is not that of a vague some- thing called society but that of the individuals who together compose society, does not imply that it is on a par with purely individual respon- sibility. Social responsibility is incommensur- able in terms of individual responsibilities. While the individual is totally responsible for his own private acts, he is only partially responsi- ble for the commonly acquiesced in acts of so- ciety as a body. It has indeed been asserted, notably by Pro- fessor Peabody in Jesus Christ and the Social Question, that Christ taught only individual re- sponsibility. Thus the professed followers of one whose chief teaching was the brotherhood of man protest in the name of their leader against the recognition of the principle of social responsi- bility. They seem to believe with Tolstoy that the Kingdom of Heaven can be established on VARIOUS DEFINITIONS CONSIDERED 25 earth only by repudiating the ordinarily accepted laws of political science. But they denounce the socialists as visionaries who do not recognise the imperfections of human nature. Nor do they at- tempt to show how individual excellence is to be made manifest in works. The socialist objects that virtuous humanity must obviously be working under a great disad- vantage if it must proceed through individual effort to achieve an unorganised regeneration of society ; while, as we may rest assured, the forces of evil will not advance singly but in well ordered array. Moreover, while a certain type of Chris- tian is concentrating attention upon the affairs of another world, the wicked are prospering by strict application to " business " here and now. All this follows from that form of other- world- liness which, while attributing total responsi- bility to each person in his individual capacity for all his acts, relegates to another world the practical recognition of his deserts. The social- ist is opposed to ethical individualism only in so far as it illogical ly imposes responsibility without granting authority, and in so far as it dishonestly withholds reward when due. And it is opposed to individualism in general only when the latter would altogether deny that there is any field whatever for the application of the principle of socialism. 26 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL If we turn now from these attempts to define socialism in terms of its contrast with the various forms of individualism we shall find that it is even more difficult to frame a hard and fast defi- nition in positive terms. All those positively expressed definitions which we are able to find in the writings of the best expounders of social- ism are marked by a very obvious inadequacy. They patently leave something to be inferred. They ignore phases generally recognised as be- longing to the movement. There is, indeed, much implied in socialism of which many of its most ardent and enthusiastic supporters seem unaware, though they undoubtedly feel the emo- tional fervour inspired by the unperceived mo- tives. It is no occasion for wonder that such should be the case, for it is almost unfailingly true that those engaged in the midst of great reconstructive movements have been more or less blind to the real nature and significance of the forces that were in large part influential in determining their action. Socialism more than most move- ments is self-conscious, but it is far from being completely so. We shall find that the current definitions most acceptable to socialists generally show recognition of only a part of the movement. Thus we may read a series of quotations in the introduction to The Handbook of Socialism by VARIOUS DEFINITIONS CONSIDERED 27 W. D. P. Bliss, where six pages of definitions by representative socialists of all sorts, Utopian and scientific, agree that socialism is primarily an economic movement, concluding with his own definition, " Socialism is the fixed principle, capable of infinite and changing variety of form and only gradually to be applied, according to which the community should own land and cap- ital collectively and operate them co-operatively for the equitable good of all." 7 This obviously leaves much that is of determining value untold, for we are unable to imagine with definiteness that state of society where the control is vested in a governing body indefinitely referred to as the "community," which in turn is informed with no guiding principle beyond the indefinite and general " equitable good of all." And when we attempt to formulate this guiding principle for ourselves we are obliged to admit that we are unable to find any ready made determination of the ideal good, but only a line of development 1 to be progressively worked out. No descriptive definition of socialism can probably be framed which will be inclusive of its multifarious as- pects or even true to its inner meaning. Hence we are forced to abandon any attempt to define socialism by its results, probable or predictable, and to content ourselves with an examination 7 p. u 28 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL of its grounds or causes in the general social situation and of its professed and implied pur- poses. We must undertake to define it as a form of social organisation rather than as a worked out scheme of social institutions. Modern scientific socialism condemns all attempt at definition in terms of results as Utopian. Says Miss Hughan ,in American Socialism of the Present Day, " The distinction between Utopian and scientific socialism lies in the fact that the former sub- mitted to the choice of mankind a plan founded upon ethics and expediency, while the latter presents an analysis of economic forces with a prognostication as to their more or less inevi- table tendencies. The strictly economic inter- pretation of history precludes the determination of the details of a society until the material con- ditions which are to produce that society have arrived." 8 The socialists themselves meet the demand for a positive definition by a declaration of the pur- poses of socialism, i. e., of their own purposes. While we may consider these with profit we shall be obliged to ask continually if they are typical and to what extent they may be expected to prevail in a socialistically organised commu- nity. p. 120. VARIOUS DEFINITIONS CONSIDERED 29 Foremost among these declared purposes is the declaration in regard to the establishment of economic justice. Socialism is generally known as an economic doctrine and programme. Volumes have been written describing and ex- plaining its economic foundations. Its plat- forms usually declare it to be a strictly economic movement with no purpose beyond the political expression of the contentions of the labour unions and no aim beyond the material improvement of the proletariat. This obsession with the mate- rial is due to the short range of vision of the common man rather than to any paucity of spiritual implications in the movement itself. We may note that many of those in the move- ment are not particularly of a reflective or an- alytical cast of mind, hence all that comes to consciousness in their minds is the economic con- tent of the movement. They are engaged strictly in forwarding a reorganisation of society with the sole aim of ameliorating the condition of the working class. That this would incidentally supply the material foundation for an entirely new social structure ought to be seen to follow plainly enough from the doctrine of economic determinism to which they are so largely com- mitted. And that some of these consequences might surpass in importance the effects directly sought seems scarcely to have occurred to many 30 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL of the most enthusiastic workers in the move- ment. While we may consider then that the main concern of socialism, particularly as conceived by most of its advocates, is in economic affairs, we must take note also that it implies reforms quite remote from any purely material well be- ing. Bax well says, " The attempt to limit the term socialism within the four walls of an eco- nomic definition is in the long run futile." 9 But although socialism may not be confined to the economic field, it at least takes its start there. If we say with C. H. Vale that socialism is " industrial democracy," 10 we shall properly emphasise the economic standpoint of the move- ment and further signify by the use of the term democracy that the future direction that it will take will rest upon the character of the people composing the collective commonwealth. We cannot perhaps predict far into the results of an industrial democracy such as this, but we can at least make an analysis of the powers con- ferred and deduce some of the probable result- ants from the conjunction of these with the known characteristics of human nature. We must understand socialism then, not by its predicted final results nor even entirely by Outlooks from the New Standpoint, p. 21. 10 Principles of Scientific Socialism. VARIOUS DEFINITIONS CONSIDERED 31 its professed purposes, but by an analysis of its grounds and causes, noting the various forces spiritual and material that tend to produce it and their probable outcome. Then we may con- sider the significance of the movement as related causally to the past, noting its tendencies as to means and methods and trying to discover so far as possible its aims and the probabilities of their realisation. CHAPTER III \ SOCIOLOGICAL DEFINITION OF SOCIALISM WE are now prepared after this preliminary discussion of the necessary limitations of our at- tempt, in a general way at least, to classify this modern manifestation of popular uprising. From the point of view of the science of sociology it is not an isolated phenomenon. Nor is it a mere passing phase of restive discontent. It is part and parcel of the movement for popular liberty that has during the past century laid so profound hold upon all civilised mankind. This fact of tremendous import will become more apparent as we proceed in our discussion. Mean- while we should note that if there is any rec- ognisable sociological cause for this movement for popular liberty, then the same cause may be expected to reach its further fruition in the further development of socialism. In considering the rise of this movement we find, as we should expect, that oppression must first be felt and recognised before any effort will be made to escape from it. And it is of course direct oppression that is thus first recognised and SOCIOLOGICAL DEFINITION OF SOCIALISM 33 thrown off by the partially aroused people. This took place when the despot was dethroned, and autocracy as a principle of government was dis- placed by political democracy. But this reform was incomplete in that it sought to benefit only a portion of humanity, for some classes such as slaves still remained in direct bondage, and others, including women, were allowed no direct voice in the government. Moreover even if com- pleted this overthrow of direct tyranny leaves untouched a multitude of indirect forms and instances of oppression. It remains that indus- trial and social as well as political despotism be overthrown before a real freedom can be en- joyed. The real meaning of socialism is to be sought in an analysis of the forces tending to accomplish this overthrow, and a formulation of the means and methods that will guarantee the permanent establishment of ideal social rela- tions. Since therefore socialism has an origin in the general movement toward democracy, we may expect that the same forces that are responsible for the rise of democracy will control its further development. Hence it is our next task to ex- amine the forces underlying the rise of democ- racy in each department of human relations. Now it is obvious that there is to be expected, and in fact always has been, a restive seeking 34 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL to alter conditions on the part of those who feel their own status in the social system to be relatively unsatisfactory. In early times while the caste system remained practically in effect this took the form of peasants' rebellions or artisans' revolts. Later we find desperate ef- forts on the part of individuals and families to raise themselves from " that state in which Prov- idence had caused their lot to be cast." Prefer- ment was sought through military service, through the arts of the courtier, through mar- riage alliances, and even through the church. Finally the idea of status was definitely aban- doned as a principle of social structure and that of contract substituted. But this demanded a quite different set of social institutions and a quite different attitude toward social questions. The jury system which had hitherto been re- stricted to criminal actions became now gener- ally extended to cover civil cases. The method of settling social action by voting which had hith- erto received but limited recognition began to gain sway in all the most highly civilised com- munities. Bodies of representatives of "the commons " began to advise and then to command the autocratic ruler. Thus democracy an- nounced its arrival as superseding nature gov- ernment, or tyranny. It is obvious that the desires of the rank and SOCIOLOGICAL DEFINITION OF SOCIALISM 35 file, who under democracy are the ultimate sovereign power, will be generally different from those of the staff, whose function it is to direct, either through recognised position of authority as in the past, or as at present through ownership of the necessary means of production. And if we proceed to note these differences one by one we shall be immediately struck by the fact that this democratic society will first of all desire that industrial competition shall cease. As in w r ar it is chiefly the privates in the ranks who pay the penalty of the struggle, so in in- dustrial competition it is the workers for wages who must bear the burden of the conflict. The struggle that to the employer is merely a contest to decide who shall secure commercial supremacy is to the employee a matter of securing a liveli- hood. Looking at the matter from the point of view of the more numerous class, who under democracy would obtain their desires, it is small wonder that they should desire a cessation of the conflict. It is properly a matter concerning solely the competing capitalists, a conflict in which they themselves are not directly interested. But they must enter nolens volens as employees of one or the other party to the contest. And whichever of the competing capitalists should prove victorious they are certain of loss through the inevitable lowering of wages necessitated by 36 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL the attempt of each employer to underbid the other in the cost of production. They themselves are unable to enter the tourney, disqualified by lack of the necessary evidence of rank as implied in the possession of land and capital. The whole struggle is indeed a tragic one to the worker. He rightly distrusts the generals or " captains of industry " under whom he lines up, their honour and their dis- position to sacrifice him for he is aware that often they make terms between themselves and join in common cause against him. The heart- lessness of business being thus shown in the brutalised disregard for those who are chiefly affected, we cannot wonder that the wage earner intends to do away with industrial warfare as soon as he has the power. Moreover just as the gradual cessation of actual warfare betokens not only an improve- ment in the methods of settling disputes but quite as much a decline in martial spirit, so is the mitigation of competition among labourers not only a result of the solidarity of labour but even more a result of the weakening of the spirit of industrial ambition: this notwithstanding the efforts of the strenuous element among our pop- ulation to keep it alive. Lack of the determina- tion to wrest power and position from associates is denounced in certain quarters as scathingly SOCIOLOGICAL DEFINITION OF SOCIALISM 37 as was formerly the lack of reckless bravery and ferocity in battle. This lack of competitive spirit is based mainly upon the gradual but gen- eral growth of altruism. Indeed the solidarity of labour itself is based quite as much upon the growth of this sentiment as upon economic neces- sity. But a deeper underlying source of dissatisfac- tion with our imperfect and incomplete social organisation is the finally awakening spirit of social selfconsciousness. This rather than any mere mechanical working out of historic pro- cesses is responsible for the passion for democ- racy whose sources we are seeking. It is not a Renaissance this time but a social awakening quite as profound and even more momentous on account of its greater scope, a spirit of modern times yet to be clearly recognised and named, but whose most tangible manifestation as we have seen is the enthusiasm for democracy, a recon- struction of society according to the demands of the newly developing science of sociology. This movement may be regarded as in some sense a reaction from the naturalism of the im- mediate followers of Darwin, for it aims to im- prove the order in which " natural selection " is supreme. It seeks to erect the superstructure of man's purposive creation upon the basic un- purposive natural order, which seems to ignore 38 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL the harmonies demanded by man. This is not unnatural in the truest sense. Man's conscious mentality has passed through a similar succes- sion of evolutionary stages. The representative faculties have emerged to forestall the necessity of actual trial of each possibility of action. Thinking man, who exemplifies nature at her highest, plans and reasons before acting, instead of following lower nature in her necessity of making many inharmonious combinations to ascertain which forms are actually compatible. This reasoning faculty is first applied to the more -objective realms. Man reasons regarding the use to be made of his natural surroundings and his tools, much later about his relations with other men, and later still about his own moods and frames of mind. Latest of all is his objective scientific method applied to the conduct of society as a whole. But this application when finally made is of the highest importance. It is this application which is now demanding attention, for it becomes manifest as the prin- ciple of socialism. It is this consistent scien- tific application of sociology that is the unob- trusive but actual force behind the various surface manifestations of the socialist movement. Ethics as a science treating of the responsi- bilities of the individual as determined by his social relations has long been a consistent guide SOCIOLOGICAL DEFINITION OF SOCIALISM 39 to the individual conscience: now social ethics treating of the responsibilities of society for and to the individual is called into play under the guise of the so called religious aspect of socialism. Thus the final application of science, that to man as the ultimate end of all human endeavour and regard, is in sight. With this preliminary examination of social- istic definitions and tendencies we may proceed to formulate a provisional definition, bearing in mind all the while that such a definition must be expressed in terms of principles and causes rather than in terms of plans and results, for these are as yet indeterminate. It is to be re- garded then as the direct fruition of social self- consciousness, a necessary and inevitable con- sequence of increased clearness of social vision, presenting a consummation unavoidably to be reached if the progress of civilisation be not arrested or turned backward. We have seen how; political democracy was the first step in the ac- tivity of society which had reached its majority. By this real government as distinguished from autocratic tyranny has been established at least in form. That this coming of age of society should be accompanied by the demand for self government is entirely consistent. And we now find that so little daunted is the newly en- franchised citizenry by this responsibility that 40 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL a further demand is rapidly becoming articulate that for complete power to bring the further evolution of human society under human direc- tion. With these facts in mind we may hazard the approximation that socialism is the social system which seeks by means of the social con- trol of heredity and environment to direct the further progress of civilisation in accordance with the ideals arising through social self con- sciousness. This control of the factors of further progress must proceed through the appeal of ideas to the people democratically organised if it is to be truly social in character. And while we may not pre- dict the exact form or scope of the resulting institutions, we are at liberty to infer certain of their characteristics from the known tendencies of democratic communities. No longer is the control of any phase of social development to remain in the hands of individ- uals provided the idea of its control by society is an idea that appeals to the people. Thus under democratic organisation there is placed within the reach of the lower half of society the power to alter civilisation according to their own needs. Such an arrangement cannot fail to have the most momentous consequences. For this rule by the lower half of society, or to speak more strictly in accordance with the fact, accord- SOCIOLOGICAL DEFINITION OF SOCIALISM 41 ing to the decisions of the lower half, will differ in several important respects from that rule that has prevailed hitherto. And several char- acteristics may be predicted of it with safety if we are to assume that it shall become really ef- fective. First, the lower half being in control of the situation, they will be held in respect as never before. Their views will become for the first time of real and supreme importance. They will be in no sense negligible factors as ever hereto- fore, for no important step can be taken without their consent. Eule must be exercised if not by them at least through them. Hence their mental and moral state becomes for the first time matter of supreme selfish concern to those who are more favoured. Inasmuch as their material condition reflects on their mental and moral capacity and welfare, this also will become for the first time a matter of intimate personal concern to their superiors. The whole people must progress as one. No longer may the few distance the many or perhaps even progress at their expense. Society becomes builded upon the principle of the cantilever bridge, in which each part is sup- ported by the part immediately below it; rather than upon the principle of the suspension bridge, in which each part is supported by the part im- mediately above it. It consequently becomes a 42 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL matter of more concern what is below than what is above. That this attitude, necessitated on the part of society, will fail to be extremely interest- ing in its consequences for the lower half is in- conceivable. We do not depend upon altruism to support the socialist commonwealth. Com- munity of interest will suffice to accomplish all that could for a moment be expected of altruism, and more. Self-interest will prompt the most earnest and sincere endeavours on the part of the favoured to uplift their less fortunate com- rades. Thus the socialist movement tends to unify society. Since the welfare of each is bound up with the welfare of all, it tends to make all men brothers. A unified society progressing in this way must in course advance further and in the long run faster than a partial group, as may be seen in the contrast afforded by our modern civilisation when compared with that of the Greeks. Inasmuch then as the whole people or a majority of them must be interested before any movement for the common welfare can become effective, the resulting society presents a new aspect significant as the effect of an integrating tendency which we find most properly expressed in the fortunate name of socialism. Under socialism then society must progress as a whole SOCIOLOGICAL DEFINITION OF SOCIALISM 43 and the word " solidarity," now the slogan of the workers, becomes the motto of society. Society thus becomes responsible as a whole for all matters of social concern. This is quite a different matter from the " social responsibil- ity " often spoken of at the present time. The latter usually and naturally refers to the respon- sibilities of the individual members of the privileged classes to look out for the interests of the social group to which they feel themselves to belong, in the best and broadest sense of course, for all the people. But this " social re- sponsibility " is felt to be essentially individual responsibility in practice. The individual will be punished by conscience in this world and re- tribution in the next for neglecting it, but it does not come within the interdiction of the civil law. It has a basis in altruism alone and may be expected to manifest itself in proportion as that sentiment is developed. The socialist while not denying the assistance of this motive, would not attempt to base the solid structure of the com- monwealth on any such insubstantial and un- stable foundation. Social responsibility is for him the responsibility of the individual not for but to society, and the consequent responsibility of society for the individual. It has been objected that the exercise of this 44 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL responsibility by society will lessen the in- dividual's responsibility for himself. Now in justice we may be glad if this is so, in case it does not relieve the individual of responsibility commensurate with his command over his des- tinies. But the individual cannot in a civilised community possibly exercise control over all the forces bearing on his welfare. How then can he justly be held responsible for the outcome of these forces on himself? Civilisation itself is an at- tempt to put responsibility where it belongs, on man rather than upon nature, who seems to re- pudiate the imposition. For man singly and alone can control nature only to very limited extent, while man collectively can impose a far larger measure of control. According to these respective powers is apportioned the appropriate measure of responsibility. The individual is in nowise relieved from re- sponsibility for his own welfare where he can by any means be supposed to possess the cor- responding authority over his lot. Indeed he can be more properly held for that which he can control when relieved of that which he cannot. Hence charity and state aid assume an entirely new aspect under socialism. Except as strictly humanitarian measures, such as old age pensions, charity is entirely out of place in the socialist society, however greatly it may be needed to SOCIOLOGICAL DEFINITION OP SOCIALISM 45 make up the deficiencies in justice in the pres- ent. Another inference from the really democratic government of socialism is the fact that the tendency of the exceptional individuals to detach themselves from the general mass would be checked. The desire to obtain for themselves and their families permanent hereditary advantages would be unavailing. Thus the limiting of fam- ilies, the education for class social position, and the instilling of aristocratic notions into the minds of their children would be given up. The distinctions sought would necessarily be limited to real superiority of lineage and not at all to those determined by hereditary possessions. In other words class pride and class aggrandisement must disappear as class distinctions are rendered impermanent by the advent of democracy. With classes abolished the individual would rest upon his own merits as a member of society. F. W. Headley in Darwinism and Modern Socialism bewails the fact that under socialism it will be impossible to " found a family." It is true that much of the family pride and re- sponsibility will be abolished along with equally unfounded individual responsibility. The pub- lic school has already made inroads on the ex- ercise of parental responsibility and is decried as a socialist institution. But it is evident that the 46 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL parent has as much power to educate his children himself as he ever actually possessed. The re- sponsibility assumed by the state in all such in- stances is that which the narrower authority was never able to exercise effectively. If we look at the pronounced socialistic measures we shall find that they are merely such as would be naturally brought about by a major- ity vote in regard to things industrial and social. We may instance the tendency toward paternal- ism which is so strongly criticised. The com- mon man desires that certain things be done for him by the government. Some of them perhaps he might better do for himself, but right or wrong his demands are heard by a government that is responsive to his wishes. Then there is the main contention of the social- ist, that the government should receive the un- earned increment. It is not to the worker's advantage that a private individual should re- ceive this inevitable return upon investment of capital, for then it would pass completely out of his control, whereas if it is taken over by the government he will have a voice in its dis- posal. The common man, so immensely in the major- ity, longs for a government that is responsive to the interests of his own class. He has thus far been deluded into thinking that although SOCIOLOGICAL DEFINITION OF SOCIALISM 47 the conduct of business is far from just he might in some way manage to win one of the unjust gains for himself. His gambling spirit has hence predisposed him to favour a system in which rich prizes await the fortunate or the crafty. This is the true inwardness of much of the in- dividualism for which the typical American has been so highly commended. However we cannot believe that even with all this in favour of a con- tinuance of the laisser faire system the great bulk of the citizens of our country would have patiently endured seeing themselves involun- tarily contributing to these rich prizes if they had had within their easy grasp the means of altering these conditions. This means socialism proposes to furnish them. Many other questions are suggested as to the meaning of socialism with reference to special problems. It is constantly sought to define socialism by its results, and it is not surprising that the replies are not in agreement. Would socialism prohibit the sale of intoxicants? This is a question which presents itself to the socialist as -one regarding the degree in which the public policy is seen to demand the surrender of private or individual preference. Socialism holds, as does the present accepted theory of government, that public policy takes precedence over in- dividual desire, but that liberty demands that 48 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL balance between the demands of the public and those of the individual which results in the great- est freedom. Hence socialism does not settle this question or any other of like nature, but as we shall see it does provide the machinery by which it may be settled equitably. Having thus examined socialism in a preli- minary way as to what it includes, we may next notice those reforms which unjustifiably ap- propriate the name socialistic. In taking up this topic of pseudo-socialistic reforms, we shall do well to examine our definition more in detail and deduce therefrom the essential features of true socialism. The social control, as was stated, implies adequate organisation. Without organi- sation society is not a unified, coherent body, but simply an inchoate mass of human individual- ities. Unless natural organisation, that is spon- taneous self-adjustment without formal system, is in force, in which case the society functions practically as an organism, there must be a codi- fied system of rules. Such a system of rules or laws is characteristic of the organisation proper. And such organisation is, except for the case noted, the necessary preliminary to real social action, hence to that supreme social ac- tion called forth by socialism. This organisation should be sufficiently com- plete to accomplish the purpose of the socialist SOCIOLOGICAL DEFINITION OF SOCIALISM 49 state, that of supplanting warfare and competi- tion in the control of heredity and environment. It must be at least as extensive and thorough as that required for government, since it includes that function. In general the more complete the formal organisation, the more adequate for the socialist's purpose, always considering the appropriateness of the particular form of organi- sation in question to the purposes involved. Thorough organisation alone is a very consider- able step toward the realisation of the socialistic state. In the second place in order to " direct the further progress of civilisation " there must be clearly perceived social purposes or ideals. It is well recognised that no matter how perfect the mechanism of a social organisation may be, unless there is a common social aim, society will degenerate and disintegrate. Even if it does not do so, such a society could hardly be deemed to control its further progress, for control implies the directing force of purposes or ideals in ac- cordance with which the control is exercised. As organisation is necessary to socialism as the instrument through which control is to be ex- ercised, so are intelligently perceived social pur- poses implied as the outcome of that social selfconsciousness which is the underlying cause of the socialist movement. And these social 50 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL purposes are naturally the formulated and ap- plied expression of the common social ideals. Even with these two, organisation and socially perceived ideals, control to be real must be ac- companied with another essential condition. If it is to be exercised consciously society must adopt means commensurate with its purposes and adapt the organisation to its ideals. It must not rule in the manner of nature, blindly and un- heedingly; nor may it allow nature to reassume her formerly exercised control in default of man's intelligent adaption of means to conscious ends. The method of nature is that of the survival of the fittest, with the elimination of those not thus naturally " selected " : first employing war- fare as the agent in this selective process, later competition. These two methods must not be allowed to intrude into the sphere of the con- scious method of selection that should prevail under socialism. For socialism replaces these crude and wasteful processes by virtue of the same economy that has been successfully invoked to guide individual conduct, namely intelligent decision. Socialism requires that society em- ploy as its method of selection that intelligent decision achieved through the representative faculty of the mind, instead of that of direct trial (warfare) or that of indirect trial (com- petition). SOCIOLOGICAL DEFINITION OF SOCIALISM 51 Moreover the very first demand of awakening social selfconsciousness was for democracy in the realm of politics. With the completely awakened social selfconsciousness this demand will be the more insistent and comprehensive. In the first place democracy is the only form in which the government can be presumed to ex- press the common will. But more than this, it is the only form in which governmental activity can be said to be exercised by the people at large. In this respect it is to be contrasted with nature government, i. e., with autocracy. We may suppose that autocracy arises without any social selfconsciousness on the part of the sub- jects. In the autocracy the role of the citizen- ship is purely passive. It is not their govern- ment but a government of them. The will of the despot alone receives expression in the state un- less democracy prevails. So far is autocracy from expressing the collective will, and so serv- ing as the organising forms and forces which make possible the social unit, that it may be said to be on the contrary the full and free expression of a society of one. (L'Stat, c'est moi.) The so- cialist society will be the furthest possible re- move from nature government, or autocracy. It will be the apotheosis of democracy. If we proceed now to examine many of the so- called socialistic activities, which seem at first 52 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL glance to justify this characterisation, we shall find that on closer inspection they will be found to lack one or more of these four indispensable characteristics: viz. organisation, socially per- ceived ideals or purposes, decision instead of trial, and democratic rule. We may instance as deficient in adequate or- ganisation all those public and private charities which are not thus far thoroughly co-ordinated with the other economic factors affecting the livelihoods of those concerned. For thorough organisation demands such co-ordination. Pri- vate endowments fall into the same category and are especially worthy of notice in this regard since they are often instanced as excellent sub- stitutes for socialist measures, involving the ap- propriation of public funds. For when these benefactions take the form of gratuities, as they commonly do, they thereby fail to take into ac- count the correspondence that should and natur- ally does exist between merit and reward. Moreover they all lack that origin in commonly acknowledged desert which is assumed in the state pension for past meritorious service. Pen- sions and all forms of state aid proportioned to service are commonly socialistic when related to the other rewards for service distributed by the body social, in other words when a part of SOCIOLOGICAL DEFINITION OF SOCIALISM 53 organised compensation ; pseudo-socialistic when not so apportioned. But there are many activities bearing a thoroughly organised relation to the other ac- tivities of the state which still lack something of falling into the category of socialistic enter- prise, because they are not informed with socially perceived ideals. Much of public education is in this condition. It may be objected that at the worst it is believed to fit for business. This can hardly be deemed an ideal purpose at all, for what is meant is that it trains for individual survival, to the discomfiture of competitors. In so far as public education lacks the element of ideal social purpose it can not be truly de- nominated socialistic. There is even a variety of the organised state relief of poverty to which the designation social- istic must be denied for the reason that it is not instinct with such purpose. This system of poor relief often has no purpose save the simply hu- manitarian impulse to relieve suffering of any sort. A broader social vision would sense the error of pauperising and so virtually enslaving the recipients of such aid. Preventable poverty is never ideal even when systematically relieved. Almost the whole of our penal system is like- wise lacking in this socially perceived purpose. 54 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL There is behind the penal laws simply a desire to avenge private injury or at most to protect society against the criminal. Even if we admit that deterrent laws protect society against crime, and that some laws are aimed at the reformation of the criminal, we have still to note the objection that there is no plan, consistent as a whole, which, aims to remove the source of the corruption. There are other typical social activities which! are undeniably well organised and even purpose- ful, but which, are still to be rejected as pseudo- socialistic because they do not rest on the third essential of socialism, social decision, but instead on competition or even in some instances on war- fare. The assertion of national supremacy through foreign wars may indeed be regarded as compatible with socialism within the nation, but clearly not as between nations. Accordingly it is allowed by those socialists who hold the limited nationalistic view of society, but not by those who accept the principle of socialism as of world wide application. Again, public works undertaken through the contract system of allotment to the lowest bidder are lacking in the element of social decision, being a reversion to the ante-socialist principle of competition. Even the civil service depart- ment of the present state is vitiated as a truly socialistic institution by the competitive stan- SOCIOLOGICAL DEFINITION OF SOCIALISM 55 dard which determines not only who are qualified to enter but who are to be permitted to remain. This again is contrary to that principle of social- ism which requires that social decision rather than competition should determine the standard of a reasonable day's work and a reasonable re- ward. But that which binds all these attributes of socialism together and makes them practically effective is democratic rule. This is the one in- dispensable condition of effective " control of heredity and environment by society." Under a deficiency of democracy labour most of those forms of state enterprise commonly but er- roneously denominated " socialistic." And most of the objections to a socialistic society which obtain among thinking people are based upon the unsatisfactory working of just these forms of enterprise. Indeed herein is afforded the very greatest opportunity of despotism. Whether such state enterprises are held outside the control of the people by an awkward and unmanageable system of representative government, backed by a property rights protecting constitution as in the United States, or by a bureaucracy ulti- mately responsible only to the crown as in Ger- many, such state socialism (better called state capitalism) fails utterly to be truly socialistic, through its lack of democracy. 56 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL And if real government ownership can thus af- ford such opportunities to the despot, what must be said of that spurious public ownership, where the government holds title to the property, the real value of which is represented by privately held national, state, or municipal bonds? In this case the governing officials if not directly responsible to the people and removable at their pleasure have no check whatever upon the temptation to play off the bond holders against the public. It may at once be admitted, as it is by all reputable socialists, that without demo- cracy public ownership would result in the worst sort of tyranny, for the economic and political rulers would be combined into one despotic over- lord. While none of these steps are socialistic in themselves and some are extremely dangerous in their incomplete form, they are ofttimes of such a nature as to render the establishment of real socialism a matter easier of accomplishment. They are preliminary steps not of but towards socialism. Certain of the fundamental prin- ciples underlying the American government are peculiarly well suited to the purposes of social- ism. For example the retention of the right of eminent domain is most fortunate. It is the needful principle underlying the constitution of the socialist state, and its exercise will greatly SOCIOLOGICAL DEFINITION OF SOCIALISM 57 facilitate the assumption by the state of social- istic functions without the necessity of a political revolution. As before stated the democratic form of govern- ment is also a considerable part of the necessary political machinery of socialism. It therefore only remains to make our political machinery more thoroughly democratic. All those measures such as the recall, the initiative and referendum, proportional representation, etc., are favourable to socialism precisely in the measure that they are favourable to democracy. Even under the laisser faire policy govern- ment has a tendency to reach out toward the control of industry. Public service commissions have no other meaning. While they ostensibly govern men instead of managing industry, they at least recognise the necessity of governmental interference with private business. They can- not be defended on any other assumption than that of the socialist, that the interests of society are of paramount importance and are subject to protection and advancement by society acting as an organised unit. Then too there is more than a hint regarding the probable management of the labour problem in the civil service. While the method of selec- tion must not remain competitive except on strictly ideal grounds, the examination feature 58 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL may justifiably remain as a qualifying test. It would then be the task of the examiner to so conduct the qualifying test that it would furnish, a true indication of the fitness of the candidate for the position. Such competition as might still remain would hardly be competition proper at all, but rather merely a rivalry for that good opinion which would result in a favourable choice by the decision of those delegated to ex- ercise such choice. Organisation within industry has progressed apace, if not with governmental approbation then in spite of its absence. The forces of labour have combined into labour unions, w r hile the forces exercising a directing control have united into vast industrial combines, officered by " cap- tains of industry." These two, the one represent- ing the spirit and form of democracy, albeit a limited democracy, the other, that of an hered- itary autocracy, are the most notable forerun- ners of an impending industrial autonomy. That the combination of capitalists is overshadowing and overwhelming the unions of the labouring proletariat is no evidence whatsoever that the contest will not presently be renewed on a field more favourable to the latter. The powers of the government have hitherto been successfully in- voked only by the forces of capital and seem to have been altogether overlooked by those of la- SOCIOLOGICAL DEFINITION OF SOCIALISM 59 bour, but with the new spirit of political democ- racy in the air it is extremely unlikely that this preoccupation of the forces of labour with the more direct industrial means will be for long. It seems far more likely that the powers conferred by political democracy will presently be per- ceived and seized upon by the workers to usher in industrial democracy. Both forms of organisation, even in their present imperfect state, promise much for social- ism: the trust because it is furnishing ready to hand the forms of organisation and the enforced submission of the workers to industrial rule, much as monarchy accustomed its subjects to po- litical rule, or slavery accustomed the workers to habitual and regular endeavour; the labour union because it trains the workers directly in the forms and exercises of democratic govern- mental functions as applied to industrial prob- lems, much as local self rule accustomed the peo- ple to the exercise of legislation for the common good before the general establishment of political democracy. " As socialism is the child of capitalism, capi- talism will show it how to set about its busi- ness. " Macdonald: The Socialist Movement. CHAPTER IV FORCES PRODUCING SOCIALISM, SPIRITUAL WE have seen that socialism is to be regarded as a logical and natural part of that great world movement whose political expression was a de- mand for democracy in government. We have next to see how this demand reaches its culmina- tion in the desire that the political democracy be used to establish an industrial and social de- mocracy, in place of the present oligarchy of wealth. We may perhaps best proceed in this attempt by enumerating and examining the vari- ous phases of civilisation that may seem to call for this radical change in industrial and social institutions. Civilisation may be defined as the sum total of social heredity. Of this inheritance by far the most conspicuous element is the mass of ma- terial wealth and invention which have so changed the conditions of life on the earth. But this material inheritance is after all of less im- portance than the spiritual inheritance of senti- ment and culture which would quickly supply the impulses and knowledge for the reproduction 60 FORCES PRODUCING SOCIALISM, SPIRITUAL 61 of the material element if the latter should in any way be lost. It is evident that changes in social institutions, and grounds for further changes, are constantly becoming apparent. In a general way we say that this is the progress of civilisation. This process is cumulative. Each stage embodies something from each of the preceding stages and gives rise to its successor by a process of natural and inevitable evolution. It is often questioned whether the ground of each successive stage is to be found purely in material conditions, which are largely an inheritance from the preceding stage. Not to enter too deeply into the question of the ultimate sources of social forces, we may at least conclude that we find them working through knowledge, ideals, and sentiments. That these may have had an origin depending largely on prevalent economic conditions we may admit, but they must be examined in ipse. They are com- prised in the social heredity as apart from the material and biological heredity. It is with this non-material body of social heredity, forming the spiritual element of civilisation, that we are first concerned in seeking to know the forces under- lying the socialist movement. In this aspect civilization embraces all the educational and institutional machinery which 62 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL is so vital a factor in the environment of each individual born into the civilised community. The forces of this spiritual inheritance set up certain powerful antagonisms with some of the natural instincts of man and also tend to strongly reinforce other instincts which are naturally weak. In the first place they tend to make him pro-social instead of anti-social. He must per- force become somewhat socialised. In the sec- ond place he is taught to employ his reason in- stead of the method of trial and error. He thus comes to rely on systematic effort rather than on luck. The institutions of civilisation are constantly becoming more and more such that effort is rewarded with certainty and nothing is left to chance. Organisation is accomplishing its work so that the institution of society pos- sesses ever greater internal and external har- mony. The efficiency of the individual life is thus promoted by the education which helps it to adapt itself to its surroundings, and by the in- stitutions by which its surroundings are in a measure adapted to its own nature. The indi- vidual's powers are thus extended. Want is un- necessary to those who have productive effort to contribute, and a pleasure economy is ready to be installed in which men will not feel them- selves so much driven by want as lured by de- FORCES PRODUCING SOCIALISM, SPIRITUAL 63 sire. Leisure becomes attainable for the ma- jority largely as a result of the conservation and systemisation of resources through institutional control. All this follows as the general effect of the spiritual influences arising through the advance of civilisation. But the direct effect of the progress of civ- ilisation on the spiritual life is also to be noted. The larger conception of the unity of life, its oneness in time and space, is a necessary result of the knowledge growing out of better methods of investigation and communication. And not only the conception of the unity of life but that unity itself contributes to this advance in the state of civilisation. With communication prac- tically universal the conflict between incompati- ble ideas becomes ever fiercer, and the survival of the fittest alone assured. All this allows for a broader socialisation than has yet been seen. Indeed socialisation may be deemed almost synonomous with the spiritual aspect of civilisation. And this increase in so- cialisation reacts to the further advancement of civilisation, with the most important conse- quences. For it is not improvement in the arts applied to inanimate nature that tells most for the progress of civilisation, but in those that ap- ply to human relations. This improvement is well summed up in the term socialisation, the 64 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL adaptation of the individual to live in society, particularly that society, let us hope, which has been previously adapted to receive and welcome him. Under civilisation are however several spir- itual influences not directly implied in the term socialisation. As the first of these we may men- tion the regard for justice. This regard for jus- tice springs from a high development of indi- viduality alone. Recognition of and regard for individuality itself is a necessary preliminary. And an enlightened individuality cannot fail to result in an enhanced sense of justice. Har- monious relations between individuals calls im- peratively for a recognition of the necessity of justice. Injustice even if in my favour gives me but temporary benefit and results inevitably in my injury in the long run. It is to my advantage that the whole society to which I belong should prosper. Injury to any member will react on all if I belong to a thoroughly civilised com- munity. Only by a series of continued unjust advantages could this tendency of injustice to injure me be overcome and result in my perma- nent advantage. And as the disadvantages are cumulative these unjust advantages in my favor would have to be of increasing injustice, with a final disadvantage to me when the system finally breaks down, as it obviously must from its cumu- FORCES PRODUCING SOCIALISM, SPIRITUAL 65 lative and progressively increasing character. Hence enlightened individuality no less than sympathetic altruism demands the abolition of injustice. Another tendency of civilisation is the com- parative elimination of chance. Civilised man likes to reckon with certainty upon the results of his labours and is progressively more able to do so. In fact we may say that the progress of civilisation may be pretty accurately estimated by the progress in establishing a fixed reward for effort. Modern man turns to games of chance as a recreation in accordance with the well established law that sport exhibits a ten- dency to repeat the activities of comparatively primitive life. Now socialism seeks to eliminate chance so far as the individual is concerned from the entire realm of the business world. A day's certain wage replaces the uncertainties of the speculative entrepreneur's, reward. . This is about the- only foundation for the charge of cre- ating the dead level so often decried in socialism. It is thus seen to be in the direct line of civilisa- tion. Another consequence of civilisation is the sys- temisation of human endeavour. The savage works aimlessly, or at most by uncoordinated spurts of impulsive activity. His now and his then, and his here and his there are in no partic- 66 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL ular relation. The civilised man plans and ex- ecutes. His acts are related to each other and to his purposes, in time and space. He thinks logically and works systematically. By this means he avoids the waste of the trial and result method of arriving at conclusions, and the fric- tion of working at cross purposes with his envi- ronment. Socialism seeks to introduce this prin- ciple of action into the social and industrial world. At present nobody plans the general con- duct of society or business. It certainly is not the function of the state to do so under the laisser faire policy. Each individual business man is working with the most imperfect knowledge of the plans of every one else and frequently at cross purposes when he does know them. Even if per- fectly informed he could not be depended upon to work in harmony with others when actuated and directed only by his own impulses. Hence the business and social world is a chaos ruled at long range only by the law of supply and demand, and judged only by the final results in national survival or decay. Civilisation implies moreover a rise from the purely physical to the mental plane. This so- cialism provides for by its method which is that of mental comparison and decision rather than that of physical struggle or material competition. FORCES PRODUCING SOCIALISM, SPIRITUAL 6T That civilisation has arrived at a stage where this advance is to be expected is apparent from the conscious purposes manifested by societies as a whole. Great phrases like those made cur- rent during the French Revolution reveal the common thought in the minds of many. Ideals for which men fight and to which they devote themselves in times of peace bear testimony to the fact that man's intelligence can at last be ap- pealed to otherwise than by force or by the pres- sure of material want. The conduct of society like the conduct of the individual is ready to take on an ethical and consciously responsible character. It is reaching the years of discre- tion. The aesthetic instinct is closely allied to the ethical. The true, the beautiful, and the good go together. It is no accident that most artists are socialists. The artist feels the need of social justice more keenly than the rest of his fellows. Poverty is a blot on the social landscape. It is not merely that the artist wants justice for him- self, he can see no beauty in an inharmonious and jarring society. Moral and esthetic order in- volve social order, which can never be attained under our present system of industrial and so- cial anarchy; at least not until leaders of all sorts become more far-seeing than they are likely 68 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL to become, with the assistance of all sorts of gov- ernmental education and research, for many ages. All sciences are capable of furnishing a pe- culiar beauty which is perceived through the con- templation of their various forms of harmony. Now the science of sociology has only the beauty of harmonious human relations to offer. The real sociologist must perforce be a reformer. Whether he turns to socialism or not, he is pro- foundly dissatisfied with our present industrial system and with the society which depends on it. It is true that some historians profess to admire our institutions and their beneficent ef- fects. Such regard is born only from a com- parison with previous even more chaotic indus- trial systems. It would never be independently suggested by a study of present conditions in the light of present standards of efficiency. The insistence of the socialists on the im- portance of the immediate improvement of the physical and material conditions of the masses has been quite erroneously ascribed to a pre- occupation with the grossly material aspects of civilisation. This interest in the material wel- fare of the masses, invariably in evidence throughout socialistic thought, is shown in pleas for a sympathetic attitude toward the privations of poverty, and is usually set forth by contrast- FORCES PRODUCING SOCIALISM, SPIRITUAL 69 ing it with the superabundance of the opulent. This particular form of presentation is unfor- tunate, for it naturally calls forth the charge of envy. It is easily explained otherwise. Start- ing with the desire to prove that this miserable condition of the poverty stricken is unnecessary and remediable, it is most natural that the ma- terial means by which it might be assuaged should be suggested as a basis for comparison. We may well believe that the source of the com- parison may be found in this consideration rather than purely in motives of envy. Furthermore we should note that the validity of this appeal rests upon and presupposes a ready response to humanitarian motives; that its ef- fectiveness is in direct proportion to such re- sponsiveness. Can we expect this appeal to in- crease in effectiveness? The answer that we make to this question depends upon our views as to the increasing prevalence of humanitarian sentiments. That such sentiments are upon the whole becoming more powerful is probably com- monly admitted. Various movements of the last century point in this direction. In the realm of law we find the punitive idea gradually super- ceded by the reformative aim, in religion the idea of an avenging Deity is displaced by that of a forgiving Father, in art the slightest sugges- tion of pain is fatal, in music there is a progress 70 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL towards the peaceful and harmonious as opposed to the dissonant striving symphony, in literature the century is distinguished from all preceding ages by the rise of the humanitarian spirit. Coming down to the latest movements of our own times, we find not only legitimate expres- sions of this spirit everywhere, but even the most grotesque exaggerations, viz., the abolition of corporal punishment of children in the school and in the home, vegetarianism, the anti-vivisec- tion movement, the legacies for the care of or- phaned canines, etc. In appealing to this growing sentiment the socialist finds ample justification for criticism of many prevailing conditions for the workers. He is able to make a strong comparison between the state of the toiler for wages and the slave. If he makes the most of this opportunity it is but distinctly to his credit. He seeks only to relieve suffering that is in no wise due to the conse- quences of individual action. This is far in- deed from the mawkish sentimentality with which he is often charged. His greater sensi- tiveness to the results of social injustice is merely an evidence of his advanced state of sympathy. This increased sensitiveness cannot fail to indi- cate an advanced position in human development, for it is most pronounced among most highly civilised peoples. Humanitarianism is one of FORCES PRODUCING SOCIALISM, SPIRITUAL 71 the essentials of civilisation. The socialist hopes for the advance of his cause through its increase. If we examine briefly the probabilities regard- ing the increase of this sentiment we shall dis- cover no reason to believe that it is to cease in its growth. Sympathy is an elemental emotion that follows our comprehension of the emotional states of others. Hence the cultivation which accompanies civilisation brings in its train the enlargement of this sentiment. We may men- tion as one of the factors of this increased com- prehension, the view promulgated by the doc- trine of human evolution. This has by placing man in a series with all living organisms made him seem to be related to all forms of living creatures, and very closely to his fellow men. Its effect has been hence to minimise distinctions of family, class, nationality, and even race, so far as the question of their common humanity is concerned. Another modern force tending to increase sym- pathy is found in those forms of art which cause one to lose his personality temporarily in that of another. This is one of the distinct missions of the drama and to an even greater extent of the novel, for to it they chiefly owe their interest and success. But it cannot fail to produce this inner comprehension of the feelings of another that is the basis of sympathy. Interest in " how 72 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL the other half lives " cannot fail to be aroused. And the enormous increase in these forms of art thereby becomes a force for the increase of sym- pathy. Again philanthropy has become an organised systematic institution engaging the whole time and attention of hundreds of educated workers and the interests of many of the well to do. It furnishes an outlet for the humanitarian feeliugs of the latter, but more important by far, it brings them somewhat into contact with the more un- fortunate part of humanity. This results in a more intimate knowledge of the miseries endured by the poverty stricken and eventually leads to some consideration of the grounds and causes of their unfortunate condition. A less fatalistic view of the inevitableness of poverty is born of more accurate knowledge of its causes. It is seen to depend, in part at least, on the faults of society. Science has greatly aided this more accurate diagnosis by displacing the teaching of the older theology that suffering follows only from personal transgression of the law, as the direct and heaven sent consequence of sin. In- stead of asking, " Which has sinned, this man or his father? " science seeks to know by what un- fortunate combination of circumstances the maladjustment arose. Nor does the fatalism of predestined ill longer FORCES PRODUCING SOCIALISM, SPIRITUAL 73 hold undisputed sway over the natural pity for the fallen. The larger comprehension of the sources of such evils, portrayed as by Dickens for example, has led people's minds into more practical if less self-satisfied lines of reflection. Nor is the conviction that undeserved suffering exists, so frequently overcast as formerly by the belief that a kindly Providence has relieved well meaning people of all responsibility. The re- sulting release both from the view of providen- tial tribulation against which it would be im- pious as well as useless to contend, and from the sense of irresponsibility following from the doc- trine of predestination, has left humanity free to remedy human ills. A vastly better comprehen- sion of social responsibility is resulting. Thus far the rise of humanitarianism has been taken as sui generis. It is in fact intimately as- sociated with the spread of Christianity, al- though not demonstrably dependent on that movement either for its initial impulse or for its development. Christianity itself involves many forces tending to humanitarianism, inconsider- able only if taken singly. In general the great emphasis placed on the other regarding im- pulses leads inevitably to an affirmative answer to the query adopted as distinctively Christian, " Am I my brother's keeper? " As such, Chris- tianity has preached the brotherhood of man, 74 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL with the Golden Rule as the concrete embodiment of its doctrine. The socialist of every creed has always appealed strongly to this motive, and the appeal like that to sympathy is increasingly ef- fective. Socialism has been well defined in the words of Frances E. Willard as "Applied Christianity." 11 That a religion of such ideals could not fail to provide a basis for social re- form is obvious. The ideal of personal right- eousness demands the righteous society, if such an individual is to survive. Moreover, it im- plies the righteous society as its fulfilment. The similarity of the aim of Christianity and that of socialism will become still more apparent when we consider the method of socialism, and find that socialism not only adopts the cardinal Christian doctrine of non-resistance, but eschews that refined warfare manifesting itself as compe- tition. It may be stated without hesitation that every practical admonition of the Christian re- ligion is reaffirmed by socialism. To be sure, supernatural sanctions are not given or at least emphasised, but rational sanctions replace or re- inforce these. Even the other -worldliness of Christianity usu- ally so objectionable to the socialist has con- 11 " It is the very marrow of Christ's gospel. It is Chris- tianity applied." Address at the National W. C. T. U. Convention at Buffalo in 1897. FORCES PRODUCING SOCIALISM, SPIRITUAL 75 tributed to the success of his movement, for it has led to the despising of material wealth and the struggle therefor. Hence it has weakened the spirit of competition by this renunciation, as it has that of warfare by the doctrine of non-re- sistence. It has been shown that Christianity has as one of its essential basic elements the recogni- tion of the importance of the individual self- consciousness. It is the religion of selfhood be- fore it can be the religion of altruism. But this emphasis on the importance of the individual selfconsciousness has other and very far-reach- ing applications. For the personality is sub- ject to progressive enlargement by the taking in of elements more and more alien to that nar- rowly individual self which is the essence of the individuality, before the latter is enlightened by selfconsciousness. The earliest and most pri- mary extension of this purely individual self- consciousness occurs in the institution of the family. Here each member feels the first en- largement of his personality feels himself identified in material and spiritual interests with another. The mother and the child, the father and the child, the father and the mother, finally the father, mother and child, become firmly and more or less permanently united. Soon we find this community of interests ex- 76 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL tended with the extension of the family circle. The gens and the tribe are successively felt to be a part of the now somewhat socialised self. More dimly but nevertheless in a real sense the individual sees that his welfare is bound up with the welfare of his fellows. In the period of na- tionalism, which historically follows these bar- barous aggregations of men, the " consciousness of kind" becomes more marked and takes on definite form expressed in systematically organ- ised institutions. To the virtue of loyalty, at first directed to wife and child and later to chief, is superadded that of patriotism, or loyalty in the abstract, to the group idea as expressed in principles and institutions. That man could rest satisfied in this devotion to an abstraction is hardly to be expected. Ac- cordingly we find that he tends on the one hand to make his idea of the nation synonomous with humanity, and on the other to give concrete ex- pression to his devotion in religious worship. It is a great mistake to divorce the term religion from its possibly original meaning, that which binds together. It is the idea of the oneness of all nature, especially as most significant, of all human nature, that underlies all religion. Any religion that puts the emphasis elsewhere than on humanity is but a pseudo-religion. We must expect then that the culmination of social self- FORCES PRODUCING SOCIALISM, SPIRITUAL 77 consciousness must be a religion of humanity, a universal religion. Society's selfconscious ex- istence acquires a new significance in its own eyes, and the newly emancipated and enfran- chised ensemble of mankind goes forth with the resolve to attain and preserve a thoroughly in- tegrated life for itself as a whole. Humanity has attained its majority. This coming of age of society is quite anal- ogous to the narrower coming of age of the indi- vidual. It is accompanied by the rational per- ception of its own integrity, and a conscious re- inforcement of its purposes through the will. A plan is progressively laid out and adopted after deliberation. There follows an adaptation of means to ends and a discarding of the outworn method of trial and error wherever feasible. This application of social selfconsciousness may be noted a little further from the point of view of the individual. It is agreed by all stu- dents of sociology that man is becoming progres- sively advanced in social selfconsciousness. This growth may be traced through several stages. We have first the stage of individual warfare, in which each man is instinctively egotistic, in a purely naive self-seeking. Next we find him conscious of his purposes ; and first singly, then in combination with little cliques of his like spir- ited comrades, he aggrandises himself at the ex- 78 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL pense of natural resources or of his less actively self-seeking or weaker fellows. We next find a whole society made up of individuals who have reached this stage. Life is on all sides a con- stant struggle for dominion. This is the con- scious purpose of each. Man becomes cynical because he is well aware that each is thoroughly and often avowedly selfish. But now more per- manent groups are formed who agree to arbitrate their differences in the interests of the group domination over the mass. Thus we find the aristocrat lording it over the commons, the pa- trician over the plebeian, the capitalist over the proletariat. But there is at all times a tendency on the part of the individual members of the privileged group to break the implicit or " gentleman's " agreement on which their concord depends, with the consequence that the members of the group encourage the making of laws to preserve the existing order, to uphold the state, or latterly to " regulate business." Anything is better than the constant defection of associates to compete against the group for individual advantage, even a government that seems to limit the powers of privilege. That this government at first develops under the auspices of a chief as ruler need not blind us into believing the fiction taught by the older FORCES PRODUCING SOCIALISM, SPIRITUAL 79 historians that it is the personality of the ruler that is the main force in establishing or uphold- ing the government or in fact in any way re- sponsible for it. For a stage is finally reached where this ruler becomes not indispensable and the group along with the unprivileged revolt against monarchy; that is, the group refuses longer to do homage to the one for the sake of the prestige thereby gained over the many. A limited voting class thereupon appears, to repre- sent the class of the socially selfconscious. But this class becomes larger and larger, resulting first in manhood, then in adult suffrage. This increasing social selfconsciousness has two more steps to take. First, society as a whole must become socially selfconscious to such a de- gree as to assume direction over all socially im- portant affairs. Secondly, the individuals com- posing this selfconscious society must each be- come completely socialised, realising in his own consciousness the total aim of the society of which he is a member. These successive steps give rise to the two future forms of society, based respectively upon socialism and upon anarchism. It is not to be supposed that society can be- come selfconscious per saltum and en masse. The capitalist group is naturaly the first of mod- ern groups to become so. Formerly the most advanced group was undoubtedly the clerical. 80 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL In considering his own interests each capitalist is aware that they are quite similar to those of other capitalists. He knows to whom to turn for sympathy and aid in his endeavours to se- cure favorable legislation. For an increasing number of purposes he is at one with his asso- ciates. It is not surprising that the " gentle- men's agreements " by which rates of fare are set by supposedly competing railroads at what the traffic will bear and the price of milk ad- vanced simultaneously by numerous separate companies, to mention only two flagrant cases, should be far and away in advance of the similar agreements among workingmen's organisations. The camaraderie of men of wealth is stimulated by the enjoyment of pleasures in common and the banquet is typically the common meeting ground of great business rivals. In time this comradeship is noticed by those who are exploited through the laws enacted at the behest of this coterie. Bitterness springs up, but there is for a long time no concerted action on the part of the exploited; largely be- cause of hope, it may be, that each will be taken into the self-favoured group, and for the further reason that there has heretofore been the oppor- tunity for those possessing initiative to rise into this dominating group. It will be my conten- tion in the following pages to show that this op- FORCES PRODUCING SOCIALISM, SPIRITUAL 81 portunity is gradually becoming denied. Even if this were not the case, we have at least to no- tice how the class conscious position of each of the two bodies is becoming constantly more dis- tinct, and as such more and more strongly de- manding every hour that equality of opportunity shall prevail. But we should distinguish clearly between this class interest and the more basic social selfcon- sciousness that we found to be the most signifi- cant sociological characteristic of our times. While social selfconsciousness is the general and diffused notion that society is in a larger sense the self, and as such to be defended and enhanced, class interest is the rational perception that the narrowly individual self is at one in interests and purposes with others who are situated in a like condition. Of course the social selfcon- sciousness reinforces this perception and receives a peculiarly intimate field of application in this narrow social self. We find then here and there locally and fitfully arising about certain trades and industries as centres of crystalisation, the phenomenon known widely through the preach- ing of socialist agitators as " class conscious- ness," which might be briefly defined as class in- terest reinforced and informed by social con- sciousness. The rise of class consciousness therefore im- 82 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL plies that the integration of self consciousness has proceeded far enough to permit the social me, i. e., society as conceived by the individual in question, to act as the background or screen on which is to be projected the image of this en- larged or group individual me. We may add that this cannot occur until the social me has attained a sufficient degree of definiteness and integrity to admit of being thus used as an apperceiving mass. The group is thus seen as the larger individual me and so related to the social me. This is an entirely different matter from the forced associations which arise from the attempt to secure mutual aid in protection and aggran- disement. From such forced associations the me has never become emancipated. There is no re- lation between the individual and the group, for the individual is not regarded by himself or others as distinct from the group. These in- stinctive associations have arisen everywhere that men have found advantage in them. On the other hand one would hardly claim that con- jugal love, parental love, friendship, loyalty to party, or patriotism, took their rise from these considerations of forced association. The latter arise rather from a voluntary identification of the self with the larger circle of fellow beings. FORCES PRODUCING SOCIALISM, SPIRITUAL 83 As such, they are a conscious extension of the already somewhat differentiated ego. We must then regard the development of class consciousness as a step in this process of broad- ening the self-inclusiveness. It follows the rise of social selfconsciousness by presenting the class as a larger ego related to society by the former. It will eventually become coextensive with the society postulated by the larger social selfconsciousness, and will thus form the medium through which the individual directly appre- hends the fulness of society. While social consciousness gets its impulse still from religious or altruistic feelings, class consciousness rests upon the more tangible foun- dation of a broadened selfishness. It cannot be too strongly insisted that the latter does not re- quire a changed human nature, except perhaps a somewhat more broadly intelligent human na- ture. Intelligence is subject to education ; class consciousness can be developed in men not of exceptional calibre. It is not a Quixotic mis- sion to attempt to awaken this feeling in the common mind. To this extent at least we must admit that socialism is not impracticable. Class consciousness is moreover bound to re- sult in no other form of society than socialism. The particular class consciousness certain to re- 84 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL suit thus is of course that of the lower or prole- tarian class. Suppose that this whole class should be raised to the ruling power by some overturn of material conditions while the pres- ent institutions of privilege were maintained; the whole movement would be but an interchange of individual positions. Indeed the socialists have been accused by the undiscriminating or interested critics of wishing to accomplish just this. These critics ignore the patent fact that the proletarians are not seeking to adjust them- selves to the present perpetuated conditions of privilege, but are seeking to adjust the condi- tions to themselves to abolish privileges in which they a$ proletarians cannot share. The socialist unification of society results from the obvious fact that while the aristocracy could not embrace all or any considerable part of so- ciety, the democracy cannot but embrace all of it. It is almost axiomatic that " they will rule who can." Hence the masses will rule just as soon as they realise their power and their class interest, If they rule according to their own desires, as we may assume will be the case, they must be guided by those principles of govern- ment that tend to favour the masses. On no other basis will they be able to unite. It is on this fact that the inherent strength of the idealism of democracy rests. Democracy is powerless to FORCES PRODUCING SOCIALISM, SPIRITUAL 85 unite on any other basis than ideals, i. e., so- cially perceived purposes. Hence socialism is inevitable under real democracy if the masses be class conscious. Social consciousness which precedes and is in general preliminary to class consciousness, lends assurance of permanence and power. We may examine the development of class consciousness a little further from the point of view of the individual. We shall find that it is a more complex perception than the more pri- mary social consciousness. It is a most peculiar but suggestive fact that a man will fight for his country far sooner than he will fight for his class. His first allegiance is to the whole society of which he feels himself to be a part. This may result from his sense that while his relations with the whole are fewer, they are more har- monious than with those of the group. At any rate a general sense of nationality manifested in patriotism has been universally the historical preliminary to the discovery that after all one's interests are more directly identified with those of one's economic class. It takes some experi- ence and much understanding to arrive at the knowledge that the welfare of the nation is not necessarily the welfare of the individual citizen. Nevertheless, each has learned by this identi- fication of self with the nation to look outside 86 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL himself. It is later that his social consciousness becomes concentrated in his class. Then the measure of his relation to society as a whole be- comes expressed through the intermediate term of his relation to his class and of his class to so- ciety. His social orientation is now sufficiently complete so that having identified himself with his class, he now tries to make his class predomi- nant in society. While his real social self is the class, his ideal social self is society. It would be a mistake to consider that the workings of this class consciousness as a force producing socialism is confined to the lower class. It operates with quite as great force among those who find that they belong to a class more favourably situated. In this case the ten- dency to extend the limits of the class so as to include all who are deemed worthy is quite as strong. In both cases the individual is related to his class through a broad selfishness and his class is related to society through altruism ex- pressing itself in terms of the ideal. Class con- sciousness is the lever with which the spiritual forces enumerated will endeavour to materialise their yearning for social justice. CHAPTER V FORCES PRODUCING SOCIALISM, MATERIAL THE spiritual forces predominating at the pres- ent day have been seen to have a strong trend towards socialism. If we turn to a consideration of those material forces which are increasingly called into being under our form of civilisation, we shall find that here, too, we are being urged toward a remedy for existing economic evils. The most marked characteristic of our times is the increase in cooperation. It will not re- quire any enumeration of conditions or events to demonstrate this. Associations of all sorts are witness to this tendency. The progressive or- ganisation of business, uniting under one sys- tem the combined efforts of thousands of super- intendents and workmen is the most conspicuous feature of modern industry. Not only the in- tense efforts of the labour unions to unite all workers for the purpose of collective bargain- ing with the captains of industry commanding the vast aggregations of capital, but the numer- ous voluntary associations for every conceivable 87 88 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL purpose, strikingly demonstrate this tendency of our time. Although the advantages of cooperation must have been apparent very early in the history of man, it was for a long time impossible for him to make any extended use of the principle. As- sociation is necessary to this form of enterprise. This demands a sense of security from the fear of personal attacks by a partner. If we note the insecurity from such betrayals of confidence at the present time we can understand that not without a considerable degree of social organi- sation can extensive cooperation become a re- ality. All the while, however, the demand for cooperation is increasing. The vast proportions of modern business which have followed upon worldwide communication and intercourse have demanded this great increase in associated in- dustry as a greatly desirable economy. More- over, this enlarged cooperation is absolutely de- manded by the system arising from the modern means of production. It is that organization which follows on scientific discovery of the meth- ods most productive. The means of production have been marvellously improved by the inven- tion both of tools and processes. But the utili- sation of these improved means demands the co- operative efforts of many workers. The association of workers in cooperative ac- FORCES PRODUCING SOCIALISM, MATERIAL 89 tivity is hardly most natural to mankind. Man is by nature independent and freedom loving. It consequently takes considerable pressure to get him to work harmoniously with his fellows. The schooling of men to work together has been the main task of the capitalist system. This work has been well done: few nationalities but are able to work together for wages. The his- torical role of slavery was to make a beginning in this direction. The day of the necessity of the capitalist and of the slave owner alike is past. Greater progress in the line of cooperation waits on greater justice alone. For the worker will participate freely in a common task only when he is assured that justice will prevail in the distribution of the product. Hence the fur- ther establishment of justice will bring as an immediate consequence an increase in the prac- tice of cooperation. Even our present co- operation among men of wealth would be im- possible without the regulation of business by the law. For the law determines in a measure the relation between investors and hence the re- turn on investment which each may hope to re- ceive. It is quite natural that cooperation in busi- ness should be at present, in the preliminary stages, of a militant nature; at first defensive, 00 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL later predatory. For this is but observing the order in which all cooperation has arisen. But we should note as of extreme importance the fact that as a predatory band the individuals co- operating cannot be inclusive of the whole people. While in what we may believe will be the final form of the cooperative combination, as a band engaged in the conquest of nature, they can hardly be otherwise than all inclusive. This stage is yet to come. It answers strictly to our definition of socialism so far as form of organisa- tion is concerned. The probability of the progressive abolition of industrial competition may be taken up a little more at length. For of course it is competition that is displaced in each instance by cooperation. It is hardly to be denied that the latter is gain- ing rapidly on the former at the present time. The question is what this change is due to and whether it may be expected to continue and in- crease. In general we may account for the replace- ment of competition by cooperation in business as due to the economic law that whenever the advantages of probable victory over a rival are less than the saving to be effected by combina- tion with that rival, then that combination will take place and cooperation will supersede com- petition. For instance two milk companies will FORCES PRODUCING SOCIALISM, MATERIAL 91 remain competitors so long as the profits pros- pective as a result of the extra business which either may attract away from its rival are greater than would be the saving obtainable from a share in the combined business. When this point is passed they unite. This is the method of the elimination of competition when the com- petitors are of approximately equal strength. The process when they are not of equal strength is well understood. It consists simply in under- selling the rival until his resources are exhausted or until he is willing to accept favourable terms for combination. Occasionally of course a los- ing concern lingers long, making little if any profit, and is tolerated on account of its small capacity for diminishing the profits of its rivals. The methods of monopoly formation which are usually related to the foregoing process will be taken up later. What is sought here is merely to understand how cooperation grows at the expense of competition. Cooperation is a tolerably good measure of civilisation, for it marks out the material con- sequences of the civilisation almost perfectly. This will be seen if we consider the nature of the life of civilised man as compared with his life in the natural state. Man as man has probably never lived and worked entirely alone. It is quite probable that he has always from the be- 92 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL ginning deserved the name of the political animal. But we can readily find him under primitive conditions hunting, fishing, and forag- ing quite alone. He early learned cooperation in fighting. When he began to till the land he worked largely alone at first, at most changing work when the character of the task required. Just as soon as the character of his neighbours made such a procedure possible he began to trade with them. This is a sort of cooperation. He learns to rely upon his fellows to supply a part of his needs and engages in turn to supply a part of theirs. But this arrangement is of a temporary nature and in each individual in- stance more or less unpremeditated and depen- dent on the exigencies of the moment. It is voluntary and capricious. Later the wage sys- tem is introduced (to pass over slavery as an involuntary mode of cooperation). Under this system men gather together for regular, system- atised cooperation at the behest of a capitalist master who prescribes the mode of production and even guarantees its results for a considera- tion in the form of profits. But this coopera- tion still seems to be incomplete for it ends before the best purpose of cooperation begins, at the distribution of the product. That is still subject to the rule of competition, manifesting itself as the competitively fixed price of labour. FORCES PRODUCING SOCIALISM, MATERIAL 93 Hence the beneficent results of cooperation in industry are largely lost by the workers and the appellation of " wage slavery " to their condi- tion obtains justification. It remains to consider the most extensive ap- plication of the principle of cooperation at the present time, that to government. In fighting as might be expected man has always been a step in advance of the form prevailing in in- dustry, for it was in this that he was forced to cooperate first. Accordingly we find that he has formed more or less voluntary associations called nations, the essential aspect of which is their significance as fighting units. From fight- ing enemies to providing for the general needs, which is after all only a sort of fighting against the parsimony of nature, is however a short and easily taken step; especially if the conditions imposed by nature are such as to render it neces- sary for national survival. Hence we have the nation not only providing for the common de- fence, but establishing means of communication, looking after the protection of persons and pro- perty, providing for the dissemination of in- formation, and for the general education through a system of public schools. Finally it must logically be extended to serve all those eco- nomic and social needs which are common to the generality of its citizens. That the state has 94 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL been misused by various agencies in the interests of such objects as the aggrandisement of indi- viduals, as an instrument of religious pro- paganda, as a vehicle of capitalistic exploitation, as a bulwark of privilege, etc., should not blind us to its true and logical function as an all con- venient agency to provide for the general wel- fare. We have seen that cooperation as a principle of industrial action has increased in importance as civilisation has advanced, and that it is re- placing competition by a process of necessary and quite inevitable economic evolution. We shall find that what may be named as the second great characteristic of industry under civilisa- tion renders the advent of socialism not so much inevitable as desirable, as the only means of escape from an otherwise intolerable situation. This second marked characteristic of civilised industry is the division of labour. Division of labour is not as might be thought dependent on cooperation, but arises independ- ently and is a primary phenomenon of vital or- ganisation. It is a natural and invariable consequence of the inclusion of dissimilar ele- ments in every organic structure. It is quite as much the cause as the result of cooperation. We find it among the cells of all but the sim- plest forms of life and among the members of FORCES PRODUCING SOCIALISM, MATERIAL 95 every species of plant and animal. The primary division especially in the latter is that of sex. It makes for economy of function and for di- vergent progressiveness, but it has certain unfortunate consequences to the individual; for on account of it he becomes an incomplete en- tity. The unit of society is not the individual : at its lowest terms it is the family, temporary or permanent. In other words division of labour tends directly to induce specialisation with all the important consequences of the lat- ter. This specialisation is the universal conse- quence of the division of labour: we find it oc- companying any possible diversity of function among the cells of an organism. It is also natural among the members of any closely knit organisation, such as the swarm of bees. Dif- ferentiation has here taken place as the result of specialisation until the unit is not the single bee but the swarm, and the whole functions not as an organisation but as an organism. There seems to be no limit to the process of specialisation. Physical and mental character- istics seem to be responsive to its demands, un- til significant individuality is all but lost. Since human society furnishes no exception to this tendency, we are here in grave danger of a catastrophe which civilisation has accidentally 96 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL exposed us to. The effort of blind nature to effect economies normally results in the sub- stitution of the organism for the organisation. As we saw, this means the sinking of the in- dividual in the whole. There are two alter- native possibilities outside of this one. The first, proposed by the extreme individualist, is virtu- ally to do away with association altogether : the second, proposed by the socialist, is to adhere strictly to the principle of the organisation while retaining all the advantages of association. Either of these two proposals demands volun- tary action by society, or its members; for we shall otherwise be absorbed in the organic society that nature assisted by its unconscious agents, the forces of the business world, is establishing in accordance with the natural law according to which economies are sought in lower processes at the expense of higher ones. In modern industry we have this exemplified in the most striking manner. In the first place over-specialisation produces one-sided, incom- plete personalities wholly dependent on the body social, and incapable of exchanging occupations with other members. In the second place it re- sults in a comparatively static society. It in- clines to take on the characteristics of the organism rather than those of the organisation, and as such it is subject to the laws of slow FORCES PRODUCING SOCIALISM, MATERIAL 97 change of the former as against the comparative adaptability of the latter. Under specialisation efficiency of the static form cannot be denied. There is a decided posi- tive gain in this respect. But it is at the loss of true individuality and consequently of social fluidity. In society this is manifested by a more or less rigid system of castes, by a highly special- ised series of occupations, usually intensified into hereditary guilds, and often based on ac- tual differences of form as well as function, and by the entirely logical assigning of the govern- mental and managing functions to a class. That this perceived efficiency is often urged in favour of monarchical or aristocratic government as against democracy is hence quite accountable. But the human being tenaciously proclaims his right to be an individual entity, and so protests against the unnecessary specialisation which would steal away his opportunity to become such. The division of labour in human society has come about in a rather uncalculated manner. Only to a very limited extent is it the result of individual choice. This choice, when opera- tive, we may suppose will be exercised in ac- cordance with the possession of native capacity consciously perceived: for one chooses that in which he believes he has capacity as demon- strated by previous success. The chance ele- 98 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL ment of nature also enters along with other factors. The opportunities of time and place circumscribe or determine the limits of the pos- sible or at least the advantageous employments, causing one occupation to be taken up at greater advantage than another. These native capaci- ties and natural opportunities will always vary, no matter how ideally the conscious development of the social environment is planned. Natural ability and natural opportunity are then the normal basis of the division of labour. But man has cunningly contrived another and far more potent cause which may and usually does largely disregard these normal bases. This as we have seen is specialisation in industry. In place of the natural opportunity offered un- der nature, we have the most highly and ingeniously devised localisation and segregation of industries on the one hand and the most artificial and arbitrary classification of workers on the other. In the first place occupations are designed without the slightest reference to the good of their future employees; in the second place the employees are given little if any op- portunity to exercise their choice of occupation. Thus in dealing with specialisation we are dealing with an artificial factor in the mode of industry, which like most artificial elements is capable of infinitely greater development than FORCES PRODUCING SOCIALISM, MATERIAL 99 those purely natural in origin. Specialisation here becomes the conscious attempt to enhance one faculty at the expense of others because by this arrangement coupled with the division of labour, greater productiveness results. This specialisation proceeds without any necessary reference to natural ability and often in direct defiance thereof. It is a powerful agency in increasing productiveness and is about the only form of socialisation that takes place at the expense of the individuality. Indeed it is sur- prising how many of our social evils can be directly traced to its malevolent influence. Moreover, it cannot be denied that capitalism favours it or indeed that a progressive increase in its sphere is not inevitable under capitalism. It is too patent a fact directly before us. Every workshop of whatever kind is an example of this truth. The self-seeking of industry for the sake of the product can never lead in any other direc- tion. A division of labour that springs from personal choice for the sake of the producer is an entirely different matter and is as desirable as the former plan is undesirable. Such choice is not favoured under the competitive system for the worker is obliged to consider the product rather than himself at every turn. Nothing must be allowed to handicap his striving for the 100 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL utmost possible productivity. He is obliged to keep up to the competitively set pace. Stan- dards of wages and livings are thus determined for him, and he dare not disregard them. But the system springing from individual choice and natural opportunity will efface the evils of over- specialisation in industry and leave much of its beneficient results. The gratification of indi- vidual choice and the utilisation of native capa- city have been shown to be entirely in harmony. Only the driving force of competitive standards is responsible for the evil, and with this eli- minated specialisation assumes only normal proportions. But meantime specialisation thus carried on to the worker's disadvantage is becoming an ever more prominent feature of our industrial system. It is not commercially profitable that a work- man be concerned in any other process than that in which he is immediately employed. Hence any attempt on his part to learn the trade in its entirety is discouraged. It is difficult to see how anything in competitive industry can ever overcome this tendency. The workman is not permanently valuable : so that no considerations of his welfare can enter into the matter. That is his affair and not his master's, for more un- spoiled hands can be had at the same or even cheaper wages. Thus he is not even cared for FORCES PRODUCING SOCIALISM; MATERIAL 101 as was the slave. There is a growing tendency to regard labour as something apart from the individual labourer. It is assumed that labour is bought rather than the labourer hired. Eela- tions between employer and employee become de- humanised. Over-specialisation brings no direct harm upon those in control of industry. And labour as a commodity becomes the cheaper as specialisation becomes the more intense. Social- ism alone by enabling the labourer to protect his own interests as a labourer can overcome the growing evils arising from over-specialisa- tion. We shall see how this will be accomplished when we come to consider the method of social- ism. The two most salient features of our modern industrial system, cooperation and division of labour, are both seen to favour the establishment of socialism. These remind us of a third feature, the factory system. The factory system exists as an independent factor in the industrial sys- tem. It is not essential to either cooperation or the division of labour, though it intensifies both greatly. Its significant sociological char- acteristic is that it requires the labourer to sell himself into slavery, a limited slavery both as regards duration and nature of occupation, to be sure, but nevertheless a real personal sub- jection to the factory boss. Formerly in the 102 SOCIALISiM "AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL period of household industries it was the pro- ducts only that were sold. The worker's time and the use he should make of it remained his own. The custom which has replaced this private production depends partly on con- venience, but more on the greater efficiency of work done under the immediate driving super- vision of the boss. Besides, this system allows no misuse or misappropriation of materials, for as we have learned, locked doors prevent un- licensed exit with such goods. The factory system results in the regimenta- tion of labour. It thus facilitates cooperation. But it is doubtful if it would have reached pro- portions nearly so large if it had not been called for by the introduction of machinery. It does not entirely depend upon this cause as might be supposed, for it may develop as a consequence of cooperation alone or in conjunction with the division of labour. Its primary cause is the ad- vantage in the direction of labour by the superin- tendent. This requires the presence of all the workers in one place. But where the work to be done requires nothing more than the following out of well standardised processes and where the raw materials are uniform in quality and easily portable, the factory system does not pre- vail unless the work requires special facilities not easily furnished in an isolated workroom. FORCES PRODUCING SOCIALISM, MATERIAL 103 Such facilities are power and certain sorts of machinery. The consequences of the introduction of the factory system upon the conduct of industry are many and important. In the first place regular and prescribed hours of labour are insisted upon. The method of doing work tends to become de- finitely standardised: the work room conditions are fixed. Finally a working rate, at least as a minimum, is established; and all employees are compelled to live up to it. Most important of all are the consequences that follow from the fact that it is the worker that is bought rather than the work. The worker engaging to followj instructions obediently, the superintendent or foreman becomes responsible for the quantity and quality of the product. The worker is but a temporary slave under his direction. Indi- viduality in productive methods is entirely lost. Piece work in the factory is an anomaly : its true place is in the individual work shop. For there it is able to conform to the convenience of the home worker. In the factory the worker sells himself; it is the business of the foreman to make good use of him. Since under the piece work system the product rather than the producer is paid for, this is by far the more proper system of remuneration. It is objectionable only because under it the 104 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL iron law of wages works without let or hindrance. It is showing the same tendency to displace the method of compensation proper to the factory, payment by time, much in the same way and for the same reason that wage labour supplants slave labour. The evils consequent to its further introduction will be an increase of those with which the " wage slave " is familiar. They are peculiar to a purely competitive system of in- dustry and cannot be wholly or largely eli- minated so long as that system prevails. We leave further consideration of the methods of the present factory system and its alternative under competition for consideration in connec- tion with the method of socialism, and proceed to consider another of the forces in modern in- dustry tending toward socialism, namely, the in- troduction of machinery. The immense signi- ficance of this is promptly seen. Machinery in displacing hand workers has enabled one work- man to turn out the product formerly requiring several workers. This workman would tend to receive the wage formerly received by all or at least the value of the product as thus increased, if he owned the machinery with which he turns out this increased product ; but since the owner- ship of this machine requires capital and since capital is concentrated in relatively few hands, never wholly in those of the workers, it is the FORCES PRODUCING SOCIALISM, MATERIAL 105 capitalist who tends to receive the extra earnings economically attributable to the use of the machine. The use of machinery thus furnishes one of the bases of capitalism. It also allows of the great resulting increase in the productive- ness of industry, a greater surplus above the subsistence wage of the worker. These effects are by no means of stationary or decreasing importance, for the introduction of machinery is proceeding at a constantly ac- celerating rate. This follows as a result of the application of scientific method to invention. Such application pays and is likely to pay in- creasingly in the future. Hence there is no reason to apprehend a diminution in the effects now being wrought. So when we point out the proportion of the product of industry received by the owner of capital, we are pointing to a phe- nomenon of increasing interest and importance. Not only is the use of capital greatly ex- tended by the introduction of machinery, but a train of consequences extends backward, through its aggravation of the factory system, with the division of labour and forced cooperation of the latter, each with the attendant ill effects already discussed. 1 Thus cooperation is extended through the multiplication of similar machines. Specialisa- tion is enormously stimulated by the nature of 106 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL the machine itself. For the nature of the machine is distinctively to perform some one operation or set of operations. There is no variation in its process. The effect on the machine tender is to produce the counterpart of the machine its complement. Moreover the machine is run under the direction of the factory boss and the factory thus enhanced in im- portance. The boss can to some extent direct its speed: hence the factory hands can be liter- ally speeded up by machinery. This is the apotheosis of the factory system with all its bale- ful effects. The prevalence as well as the intensification of the factory system is increased by the intro- duction of machinery, for several reasons. The distribution of power is greatly facilitated by the massing of the machines. The oversight over valuable and often intricate machinery is best accomplished in the factory. The housing of the larger machinery requires a building specially designed and given up to that use. The fact that a single machine often requires a regimentation of workers inconvenient or im- possible in the household, and in general the fact that it is easier to bring the worker to the machine than the machine to the worker, com- pels the adoption of the factory system. We have seen then that the primary character- FORCES PRODUCING SOCIALISM, MATERIAL 107 istics of our industrial system; cooperation, division of labour, the factory system, and the introduction of machinery, all strongly suggest a socialistic form of management. We now pass to those material factors which more impera- tively demand that the present system be given up or greatly modified. W!e may begin with the capitalistic appropriation of natural resources. It has often been said that an outlet for the exploited labour population is to be found in a return to the land. This is only true if access to the land is to be had on nominal terms. Available land must be defined as land adjacent to markets or within reach of them by a carrier. But railroads can and do charge " what the market will bear." This means that the settler even if offered free land but subjected to these charges, is in anything but a free economic posi- tion. Moreover capital is required in modern farming, besides that involved in the purchase or hire of the land itself. This brings farming under the category of capitalistic enterprise and effectually debars the non-capitalistic worker. And while the field is still open to the small capitalist it is so only on terms dictated by the large capitalist. Equality of opportunity can be had under a system of private land ownership only when all are treated alike in its apportionment. It is 108 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL obvious that this has never been the case in America since early colonial times if even then. At present even a measurable equality cannot be had. Economists have obstinately refused to consider this aspect of the system of the private ownership of land. It is undoubtedly true that the possession of land as a private right does strengthen family pride and stability. The same might with equal propriety be urged in favour of slavery. But there are a few industries which require little land and comparatively little capital. Among these may be mentioned the various forms of small intensive farming, poultry raising, etc. These must be classed with home industries. The sweat shop is their prototype in manufac- turing. They are inevitably brought into this class by the same causes; namely, by their de- pendence on the large capitalist. Express com- panies, the country merchant, etc., exact from them a heavy toll. For the very reason that they are in a measure open to the man with small capital they feel the full force of the competition of the vast army of the unemployed. And the small proprietor is subject to the same con- sumer's tax as the labourer. This phase of his environment will be discussed under capital- ism. The entry into the professions of large num- FORCES PRODUCING SOCIALISM, MATERIAL 109 bers of these nearly propertyless aspirants for success has been a natural result of the attempt on their part to escape from these conditions and secure at least a competence. Incidentally the professions have been degraded by this ac- cession of those who have chosen their vocation rather than been chosen for it. Lacking capital, all sorts of efforts are made to develop money- making capacity out of innate ability or brain capital. Even sport is commercialised (not in- deed professionalised). Any and everything that seems to promise a life free from the base servility exacted from the employee of the cap- italist is looked upon with favour. No matter how unattractive otherwise, or how normally de- ficient in pecuniary reward, it is speedily crowded with those who will " work it for all it is worth." The civil service lists are filled not- withstanding the low salaries and the prospect of slow advancement. Thus we see the utter impossibility of individual independence under present economic conditions. The former op- portunities are rapidly disappearing. It only remains to view the material affairs of our civilisation as a whole in order to under- stand the method by which the economic world is ruled and material livelihood apportioned. The system prevailing is not a consciously planned system but a purely adventitious out- 110 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL come of the economic forces which we have men- tioned. All these material forces then may be seen to culminate in capitalism, the system in which industry is controlled by and through capital by an owner selected by competition in ac- cumulativeness or rather acquisitiveness. Ac- cording to this system the control which was previously exercised by the feudal barons by reason of their military prowess, and later by the nobility by virtue of their political position, is in these latter days exercised by a hereditary body of financial directors or owners who bear sway by reason of their wealth. These surround themselves with able advisors whose sole ambi- tion is to increase the rate of returns on their master's investments and thereby " show re- sults." These returns are in the form of a geometric ratio, doubling every five to fifteen years. Thus their power is ever increasing through spontaneously multiplying possessions. It is difficult to believe with some advanced thinkers that this waxing industrial monarchy can ever fall of its own weight, for it automatic- ally selects the fittest as managers, and uner- ringly weeds out incompetents. Lack of judg- ment means losses, and if continued or repeated, inevitable failure, thus resulting in the displace- ment of misplaced power. Hence only the com- FORCES PRODUCING SOCIALISM, MATERIAL 111 petent can long remain in charge. As a result capitalism maintains its directing ability. Nor is there any sign that this competition among managers will fall away as does that be- tween rival firms or corporations. Better inter- course between business factors in modern times allows instead of fiercer competition between managers. And recognition of the better man- ager is subject to the powerful pressure of greed looking for gains. Then too, the economies necessary as a result of the competition of widely separated competitors due to the better trans- portation of products will all the more tend to the elimination of the inefficient manager. Nor can any degeneration of the persons com- posing the capitalist class themselves ever re- sult disastrously to capitalism. The class is constantly recruited from the best material to be found in the lower classes. There is never a lack of worthy claimants for these positions of responsibility and privilege. Classes do not become sufficiently rigid to allow the dying out of the upper class. There seems then no means by which the capitalist system can work its own destruction except through the voluntary efforts of those not favourable situated under its re*- gime. On its material side capitalism shows no prospects of a decline. Its power is inherent in 112 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL the usefulness of capital, which is more and more an indispensable factor in production. Financing a proposition is but securing the con- sent of capital that the undertaking shall be carried out. Without this consent no under- taking involving the use of capital great or small can be inaugurated, and this consent can be withheld indefinitely. Labour can endure for some time but eventually must come to terms: not so with capital, which does not have to capit- ulate. This fact gives capital the whiphand over labour and would enable capitalists to crush labour completely were it not for the friction attending this form of competition. It is precisely the element of slavery remaining, namely the necessity of replacing the discharged labourers with raw recruits, that allows to labour the respite that it enjoys from utter bon- dage from utter economic degradation. Nor is the capitalist system of industry less successful on the side of productiveness. There is a continual gain in this respect. The periodic panics and crises attending the competitive sys- tem in its less organised days, and due to over- production or rather to under consumption, are likely to be entirely eliminated, the one by the limiting of production, the other by the greater prodigality of the capitalist class itself. There is little probability that production in the better FORCES PRODUCING SOCIALISM, MATERIAL 113 organised industries will ever again fall far be- low or rise far above the perceived requirements. Industry is effectually controlled and regulated by the trusts. Science has been successfully in- voked to the aid and direction of productive capacity, and to the effecting of desirable econ- omies. Products and profits increase. The characteristics of capitalism are such as might be expected from this account of its nature and functions. We have defined capitalism as the organisation of society under capitalists whose right to the title has been gained through industrial competition. This contest is strictly between the rival aspirants for the control of capital, and not as is commonly supposed be- tween rival industrial concerns. That it ap- pears in the form of a contest between the latter is but accidental and at the same time most unfortunate for the people at large, as it is ab- solutely unexcused by any useful outcome what- ever. Precisely as during a war between rival claimants to a throne, not only are the actual contestants involved, but the whole country is drawn into the struggle. It might indeed be supposed that the struggle will redound to the ultimate benefit of the country in that the better or more warlike prince will be victorious and so selected as ruler, but it is extremely unfortunate that the munitions of war must be so liberally 114 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL provided. Besides, it is plain that this method of " natural selection " of capitalists in order to assure the proper direction of industry is ex- ceedingly subject to interference by accidents which considerably nullify the most efficient working of the scheme. In this " natural selection " of capitalists the fittest is he who happens upon the proper plan. This does not usually or at least necessarily im- ply any superior personal characteristics. It is the supremacy of the particular business that de- termines the supremacy of the particular capi- talist. This ascendency of the commercial en- terprise itself depends more upon circumstances outside the personal qualities of the capitalist in question than upon his own worthiness. The lucky guess as to the position of ore lands, or as to the location of future cities, the inheritance of wealth, or the quiet tip acquired quite by acci- dent, etc., often determine success or failure quite as much as personal excellence. We have thus a very unjust mode of determining the selec- tion of capitalists as well as a very clumsy mode of exercising control over industry. A general recognition of the inadequacy of this method of exercising control over industry is gradually gaining ground among all classes, but chiefly as might be expected among those who suffer the most hardships on account of its fail- FORCES PRODUCING SOCIALISM, MATERIAL 115 lire to function well, namely, the workers. These are fast becoming conscious of their position as a class, and there will inevitably follow a de- mand that a more efficient system for the con- trol of industry be substituted. Such a system is socialism, which presents a plan for the direct control of industry as op- posed to the indirect method of capitalism. For where capitalism allows " natural selection " to determine between plans by eliminating the in- dividuals identified with those rejected, socialism decides on the acceptance or rejection of the plans themselves. It is evident that the method of socialism is the more humane as well as the more just and efficient. Eeserving further discussion of this point to be considered under the Method of Socialism we may note that capitalism while not indeed work- ing its own downfall is still proceeding to assume a form that will eliminate one of its evils at the expense of intensifying others. For under capitalism competition is receiving an automatic check in two forms: first that of the labour unions, and second that of the trusts. Consider- ing the deadly character of competition it would seem surprising that these spontaneous combina- tions had not sprung up earlier. They had to wait for class consciousness on the one hand, and for enlightened business interest on the other. 116 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL Besides competition itself has not been so severe in the past as at present owing to various dis- turbing factors. Among these on the side of cap- ital was the expense incident to doing business at a distance, the monopoly arising by the aid of governmental or grafting politician politics, the natural monopoly, and the element of personal relation. Added to these or perhaps as a modifi- cation of the government aided monopoly is the patent monopoly. On the side of the workers have always been the sudden or unexpected de- mands for labour from various causes, such as wars, natural destructions, discoveries and in- ventions, the latter sometimes though not usu- ally producing an increased demand more than sufficient to offset the economies effected by the increased productiveness of labour. And al- though the labourer has actually at most stages been pressed hard against the limits of a bare existence wage, the improvidence and inefficiency of the labourer of marginal utility has allowed a slight surplusage to the average labourer over the existence wage. Again, as we have seen, re- sources in the form of unappropriated land have usually in this country until the present held out an alternative to the hard pressed wage slave. Again the supply of workers is incompletely furnished unless wages are sufficient to keep the FORCES PRODUCING SOCIALISM, MATERIAL 117 marginal worker somewhat efficient. The worker cannot be replaced without some friction in the readjustment. Hence an employer who disturbed his labour force too frequently would find the replacing of the discharged members to be a task greater than the advantage gained. It is the latter fact alone that allows the labourer in the average case any respite from the down- ward urge of wages. Strangely enough speciali- sation aids to precisely the extent to which it has induced departure from the normal human type. For the friction of readjustment is there- by rendered the greater. But with the standard- ising of processes throughout all the plants of a particular industry, even this ceases to pro- tect. Again among those forms of industry employ- ing large amounts of fixed capital such as rail- roads, we have under usual stable conditions a "gentlemen's agreement" corresponding to the armed truce of nations. All fear the disastrous effects of a " rate war," and competition is mu- tually refrained from in prices of transportation. It still continues in quality of service, and most important of all in conspicuousness through ad- vertising. It is sought by the power of sugges- tion to influence choice. Friction again, this time in the form of a lack of real knowledge on the part of at least a portion of the traveling 118 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL public and perhaps also a love for variety, pre- vents this competition from working out its log- ical result, complete victory on the part of one road with empty trains on all others. With so much friction it takes time to undermine a com- petitor completely, but the logical outcome of all forms of industry depending on fixed capital is monopoly. The labourer standing before his prospective employer presents another case of fixed capital. In this case the mature man himself is the em- bodiment of capital, largely fixed. In general he is good for but one thing, work. He cannot be reconverted into the raw material of which he is economically composed. He is not transform- able into a salable or consumable product of any variety desired. Even his capacity as to kind of labour can be but slightly altered, the less so the more specialisation has proceeded. His la- bour power must be utilised in a single definite way if at all. If the demand for that particular kind of labour power is limited, by lack of raw material or circulating capital, or even as is usu- ally the case, by reason of lack of initiative on the part of those who control capital, or if his labour power cannot be made to render a satisfac- tory profit to the capitalist, we have another instance of competition among the forms of fixed capital, and one in which the investment is pe- FORCES PRODUCING SOCIALISM, MATERIAL 119 culiarly helpless before the competitive lowering of prices. Two labourers apply for the same job. Each must have money as the means of sustenance. What limits underbidding? Each reflects that) less money is preferable to none. Nowhere ex- cept at the point where one is forced to commit economic suicide, in desperation deciding that there is practically no difference between the wage offered and nothing at all, does the under- bidding cease. Economic friction alone in the majority of cases saves the labourer from this plight. He gambles from imperfect knowledge that he may be offered a better paying position to-morrow. Or perhaps custom is strong upon him and he is unable to see the propriety of un- derbidding the usual wage. Unorganised class feeling analogous to the gentleman's agreement of the trust, or the professional sense of the doc- tor, may deter him from underbidding. Again he may not from lack of knowledge be even pres- ent to underbid the other man. In both these cases of fixed capital, that of the stocked industry and that of the fully reared and trained labourer, the struggle is ended by the in- dustrial combination and the trade union re- spectively, and the competition between forms of fixed capital ceases. These organisations are a necessity in order that the naturally evolving 120 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL monopoly may not be altogether despotic. It is a law of nature that in the absence of organisa- tion subjugation by the strongest shall prevail. Ultimately under natural conditions the will of the strongest thus rules. The conflicts which remain are only those of the representative fac- ulty of his mind, and the result is known as tyranny. If this should be fully evolved before the advent of socialism we should have in place of our industrial feudalism an industrial mon- archy. Organised government has refused to recog- nise the essentially social nature of modern in- dustrial affairs. Hence it has made no attempt to control them directly. In fact, government as its name implies has concerned itself almost exclusively with people. Rarely has it conde- scended to undertake the most necessary manage- ment of things. In this it betrays its origin as of the order of slavery. Perfect freedom, per- haps for long yet unattainable, brooks only the latter. In any case industrial affairs have long cried loudly for social regulation and in response for that species of industrial government which properly belongs only to the state, have arisen the trust and the labour union. Each in its pres- ent state is illogical as an incomplete and un- related institution. Each antagonises the other, attempting to rule in practically the same FORCES PRODUCING SOCIALISM, MATERIAL 121 sphere, and both come into frequent conflict with the general government. This conflict is par- ticularly natural and universal between the la- bour union and the trust : so much so that inas- much as the former is considerably identical in membership with the larger exploited class and is democratically organised, the conflict between these two is often confused with the class conflict of socialism. It is to be noted that these organisations thus perform a real service to the public. Govern- ment is normally profitable. In the Middle Ages the barons performed a real service in re- storing and maintaining order in their limited provinces. For this service they recouped them- selves by securing the feudal allegiance from their subjects and serfs. The gratitude of even the latter was not altogether mistaken. Men are usually willing to be restrained for the common good and even to pay for the restraint. A similar condition has arisen recently in our own land so far as industry is concerned. Out of the saving resulting from the abolition of the destructive and costly competition of the pre- trust days, the trusts have earned and have been able to collect a vast recompense for their serv- ices. This has been partially aside from any mulcting of the consumer or the real producer. That they have not hesitated to do this also 122 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL whenever opportunity afforded may be freely ad- mitted. It is but a consequence to be reasonably expected of any and every sort of irresponsible government. But the trust has arisen in response to the business man's immediate perception of the ad- vantages of socialism. The trust is the only form of socialism that can prevail in a thoroughly an- archistic industrial society, for the labour unions are unable, at least thus far, to command suffi- cient power to serve other than as a mere party of opposition. The trust is a strictly limited socialism, a sort of feudal socialism, autocrat- ically administered and otherwise imperfect be- cause unstable as to its working force and hence disregardful of their welfare. With a wise far- seeing capitalist at its head, no remaining com- petition to restrict its benevolent policies, and a stable working force, it is the most tolerable form of private capitalism. It of course sets the prices of its products at what the market will bear and so limits its benefits to its own em- ployees and owners. If complete trustification of all our industries were at once effected, we should have a form of society which might (or may) endure for a con- siderable time, and quite analogous to the insti- tution of monarchy in the political realm. It would be subject however to the constant en- FORCES PRODUCING SOCIALISM, MATERIAL 123 croachments of capitalists from other lines of business, after the manner of wars of territorial conquest among nations. That such a state of affairs will long be tolerated by our workers is unthinkable. It seems more likely that the de- mand for democratic management of the trusts will be rather prompt. Democracy has had a taste of power in the political field, and while this has mainly taken the form of a preference between rulers, it is increasingly reaching out for a control of measures, including those of an industrial nature. Even if each trust were controlled by its workers democratically organ- ised after the pattern (and purpose) of the indus- trial unions, the resulting socialism would still J>e too partial, too local, and too mutually war- ring and competitive to be a permanent form of organisation, though such organisation might well serve as the local unit of the cooperative commonwealth. Capitalism is thus developing forms of organi- sation which will inevitably call more and more insistently for "industrial democracy." The power of the captains of industry is becoming so conspicuous and this power is questioned so bit- terly by the unions of the workers that we can- not believe that the latter will much longer delay to avail themselves of the weapons conferred upon them by political democracy. This need 124 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL imply no revolutionary movement except in so far as any overturn of long accepted govern- mental policies is revolutionary. Unlike most European countries we have the means of indus- trial revolution ready to hand in our rather com- plete political democracy. But it must be revolutionary in the sense that it substitutes the collective will in industry for the individual will. Industrial management must be social rather than individual. In place of many unrelated business agencies must be the one well-organised democratically controlled co- operative commonwealth. Failing this we shall have a more or less limited industrial monarchy. For disorder such as now prevails in things in- dustrial can be put the temporary manifestation of industrial immaturity. CHAPTER VI SOCIAL CONTROL, MEANS HAVING thus reviewed the forces spiritual and material which are arousing the selfconscious- ness of society and spurring it on to purposeful adaptive activity, we have further to inquire con- cerning the probable direction of the progress of such a society and the means by which social control will be exercised. What will be the pur- poses of the selfconscious society? We may say in general that they will be those analogous to the purposes of the individual who is endowed with selfc.onsciousness. In general terms we are accustomed to say that " he realises his mis- sion." All his acts, before performed instinct- ively and automatically, are now reinforced and given a finer direction by the consciousness of ideal ends and the conscious adoption of appro- priate means and methods. He has attained the age of responsibility. He has a knowledge of good and evil. His acts are henceforth charac- teristic of his personality. He is an original source of purposive creation. The evolution of social selfconsciousness as- 125 126 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL sumes a like progress. Society sets out to achieve its mission. Society has indeed adopted methods heretofore, but has done so only under the pres- sure of necessity, and they have been merely such as answered to the exigencies of the moment. While individual statesmen have advocated schemes for the promotion of national welfare, breeding and training citizenship, the citizens themselves have submitted to such plans, or re- sisted them, without any clear knowledge as to their purpose or their own intentions in regard to them. Nor have the methods themselves been clear. They have ever been in the nature of com- promises. The mere adoption of socialism on the other hand involves the voluntary acceptance of a whole series of socially perceived methods, of conscious adaptation. Moreover, this conscious adaptation implies, even necessitates, the employment of a certain sort of means means other than a blind reli- ance on the working out of unknown natural laws means that shall allow of the direct ex- pression of conscious purpose and plan. Such means will differ from those now unconsciously employed chiefly by the advance from the un- heeding reliance upon natural processes to the intelligent mastery and utilisation of those forces which have hitherto borne unseeing rule. The means employed will not necessarily displace en- SOCIAL CONTROL, MEANS 127 tirely those naturally in force, but will be adopted in each instance after due consideration of the improvement possible. In those cases where the means naturally in force are retained the government must criticise each application of them and stand by to control or limit their action. In so far as man's plans are fully worked out, they will fully displace the control of nature so far as such a change can be effected. But more than all else he will adopt definite guiding principles in response to the appeal of ideals, in place of the aimlessness of the mere instinctive desire to live which has characterised his socially subconscious period. His ideals for the just society will seek not altogether unavail- ingly for concrete expression. So much of Utopia as the state of advancement of human capacity will permit will be realised. Ideals which have hitherto served as guides to individ- ual action for generations are thus in a position to be somewhat tardily adopted with reference to society. There is absolutely no deterrent and every in- ducement to the citizens of the socialist common- wealth to devise such a system of production and distribution as shall be thus truly ideal in its educational effects. More or less obscured, but pervading every socialist manifesto and platform, is the declaration of the purpose to ultilise every 128 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL available means to evolve a higher type of man than has yet existed, and to educate every indi- vidual man to the highest state of which he is capable. To say that a democratically organised community could fail in this regard is to deny the success and wisdom of the principle of de- mocracy itself. Man will thus become surrounded with a pur- poseful environment. This calculated purpose- ful environment supersedes the compelling force- ful environment of nature which has hitherto enslaved submissive mankind. Man has not hitherto been free even to that extent which is attainable by concerted social action. But self- conscious society is able to attain a sort of social personality, through a public spirit which can even now be discerned as characteristic of the best communities. As the individual has been able to improve his condition through voluntary choice, so society within practicable limits estab- lishes ? voluntary social environment, and the social structure begins to bear the imprint of conscious social devisings. As the individual be- comes in a measure self sufficient and self sur- rounded, so does society achieve a like triumph of inner personality. Thus socialism is the reaction of society upon its own institutions. The institutions mould so- ciety and society proceeds to remake the institu- SOCIAL CONTROL, MEANS 129 tions. Institutions have hitherto been a growth undirected except by the logic of events, the same that will still intrude into the beginnings of so- cialism; but when socialism shall have become fully developed, the institutional life of society will have become fully directed. In a certain sense all constructive statesmanship is thus di- rective. We must merely note that the directive agents are hitherto pursuing purely personal and narrow ends or at most that they do not repre- sent society in any adequate sense. Society is not directing itself. It is perhaps being directed consciously, but not with any generally con- ceived conscious purpose. Its directors are themselves chosen by chance, or at most by a sys- tem which has in it a large element of chance as has been shown, and their control where real is at best a most indirect and inaccurate expression of popular will. The socialist state will be a cooperative com- monwealth, embodying the collective sense and power of its citizens directed toward their eman- cipation from the thralldom to the industrial tyranny of which we have seen the rationale. For along with the change in the control of in- dustry goes a change in the motives of those who are in control. This has often been stated by socialists as " production for use, not for profit." It is more than this ; it is production for the pro- 130 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL ducer, not for the product. In other words, the incentive to those who are in control of industry to so direct the work that the output will be en- hanced at the expense of the worker, will be eliminated. The extraordinary result of this change of emphasis is that for the first time the worker will become of primary significance, the effect of industry on him takes precedence over any consideration of quantity or quality of product. Even here the enhancement of the educational content of the socialist movement is not fully seen. Its full influence is not entirely measured by this fundamental change in the nature of the occupation of each citizen. For not only is the production of wealth under the control of the workers under socialism, but its disposition also is in their hands. And from this united control of production and distribution arises a vast op- portunity to create a set of conditions which shall vitally react on the character and conduct of man. It has often been charged by critics, within as well as without the socialist move- ment, that socialism will require a changed hu- man nature. It seems fairly probable that the converse will prove true. Socialism will change human nature, at least so far as a different and calculated environment can accomplish that de- sirable effect. For its fundamental characteris- SOCIAL C6NTROL, MEANS 131 tic, as we have seen, is to surround humanity with a set of artificial conditions replacing those of an unreasoned naturally evolved civilisation, much as the planned and chosen influences of the school replace the lawless but highly natural en- vironment of the street or forest playground. We may look for the setting up by socialism of an artificially created environment, designed so far as the wisdom and accomplishments of so- ciety shall dictate, to consist of just those condi- tions which will allow the individual to enjoy life, and to work out the perfect development of his own individuality. All these influences thus calculated to effect a desirable change in human nature, or rather in its manifestations, may be grouped together and rightly denominated educational influences. For the essential procedure in every attempt to educate consists in bringing to bear on the indi- vidual the influences of an environment arti- ficially fashioned, in which it is hoped that the de- sired development will work out. Socialism pro- poses to do this in the large, not merely with children in the calculated environment of the school, but with all persons in the quite as well calculated environment of the socialist state. Socialism is the apotheosis of public education. Thus we see that the socialist society would be adjusted as a setting or background for a more 132 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL profound individualism than can possibly exist without this socialism, its complement. Not in- dividualism in the whole sphere of human affairs, irrespective of their nature ; but individualism in matters of purely personal concern, socialism in those of social concern. There is no antagonism, simply a correlation. Taken in their broadest meaning there are two factors in human affairs not thus purely individual, and hence falling properly within the sphere of socialist manage- ment. These are education and evolution. While education is not as fundamental as hu- man evolution, or eugenics, it is no less a neces- sary element in the ideal civilisation, for no mat- ter how much the race were improved, if the in- dividual were not treated as an end in himself no real benefit to humanity could be felt. We may consider education first then somewhat more in detail, as the better perceived and more com- monly sought for object of socialism. Education may be more narrowly defined from the sociological point of view as the development of the individual by means of exercises and in- fluences devised to effect that result. We should note that this development requires the coopera- tion of factors outside the individual's own self- activity. Education may indeed be due to the existence of conditions planned previously by the individual himself to constitute such factors, but SOCIAL CONTROL, MEANS 133 in the majority of instances it will as a matter of fact result from those planned and regulated by another and presumably wiser agency. In any case education from the point of view of the sociologist is due to environment rather than to self-activity, for the latter is a constant factor or at least is not subject to external influences, such as are invariably implied in every attempt to provide educational opportunities. In primitive times we may presume that all education was accidental, due to the influence of adventitious surroundings. It was natural edu- cation as distinguished from consciously planned education, or education proper. It was thus due solely to natural environment. This environ- ment we should note consists of all those circum- stances both material and spiritual with which the individual happens to be surrounded as a result of the social structure prevailing at the time. Socialism as we have seen proposes to organise and adapt this environment in order to be assured that it shall be in accordance with the needs of the expanding ego of each individual. Otherwise it can have but an accidental relation to his needs, and may or may not correspond to them, the chances being practically infinite that it will not. But not only in the remote past but in much more recent times do we find that each individual 134. SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL is born into a natural environment which has not to any measurable degree been prepared for his reception. It is still largely a random education that he receives, but it has never at any time been altogether so. For a mother has always in a measure anticipated the needs of every hu- man infant, and thus somewhat rectified the un- providential neglect of nature. But the mother's powers in this direction even when supplemented by the efforts of the father are sadly limited in their scope, being able to furnish educational op- portunities of only the most immediately practi- cal kind, and merely such as will suffice to allow the development of the naturally dominant in- stincts. Unforeseeing nature still enters as the main agent of education, training the savage throughout his short but eventful life, and usu- ally discarding him at an early stage in his po- tential career in favour of his successor. Even in modern so-called civilised society na- ture still provides the great mass of educative situations, and hence education is still in a hap- hazard condition. For we may easily perceive that the exercises provided by the demands of modern industry are not infrequently exactly op- posed to the educational requirements of the worker, and indeed that they are often even less well adapted to his needs than were those of more primitive times. On the contrary the hab- SOCIAL CONTROL, MEANS 135 its induced by the vocation of the modern arti- san, for instance, are such as to make him be- come conservative but unprogressive in his man- ner of thought and action. At least when com- pared with the initiative and rapid decision re- quired in the earlier times of warfare and ad- venture, his life is quite tame and quite tam- ing in its effects upon his character. In the later days when commerce absorbed the chief attention of the newly developed merchant class, a wholly different emphasis was placed upon the qualities called into play as a result of the substitution of competition for warfare. The practice of deceit, for example, is now tempered with that measure of honesty which is the best policy. Still it is the continued exercise of vari- ous forms of deceit which give rise to the busi- ness maxim of caveat emptor. When special- ised industry itself arises and the industrial rev- olution has given birth to the modern industrial state, still other qualities almost innumerable in number and infinite in variety are demanded, but only as required for the needs of industry rather than for the needs of man. Throughout all these phases of natural education may be noted the one ever present defect, that each character testing influence or " temptation " is purely accidental and its educational effect therefore fortuitous. But it may be suggested that this fortuitous 136 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL influence is on the whole as good as any that could possibly be devised by the calculations of those who would establish the ideal environment. If this be indeed so then the proper course for a civilised community is to revert back entirely to purely natural conditions. Education would then be most effective if we should close our schools, repeal our laws against moral nuisances, and even do away with government altogether as an artificial hindrance to the perfect working of a purely natural environment. On the con- trary, the effort of all civilised communities is to multiply such artificial agencies and institu- tions, and even to bring the operations of indus- try, commerce, etc., more and more under the sway of the government, thus achieving in a measure the educational advantages of socialism through indirect and awkward means. The edu- cational aim of socialism is merely to hasten this assumption of social control of environment through the adoption of direct and efficient means. Under socialism then the control of environ- ment becomes one of the two general means of the direction of the further progress of civilisa- tion. The social ownership and operation of the means of production for the equitable good of all thus furnishes the basis for a general application of the dictates of educational policy to all the SOCIAL CONTROL, MEANS 137 situations arising in productive industry. It is true that production requires labour, but it may be denied that this labour is necessarily stunting or degrading and hence uneducative. On the contrary it involves the employment of bodies and brains for just such productive effort as the similar necessity of production of past ages has evolved them to perform. The amount of labour necessary to maintain all in the state of highest happiness and efficiency is probably far below that amount which if equitably distributed would be felt by any as a burden. In fact, the civilised world has probably achieved the means of libera- tion from a pain economy and is doubtless quite able if so disposed to put into operation at once the pleasure economy which is destined ulti- mately to displace it. We must not make the very common mistake of supposing that it is merely the material en- vironment which would thus be under the control of the socialist state. The spiritual environment could not fail to reflect this change in material affairs. It is unthinkable that the establish- ment of production for use in place of produc- tion for profit should not make entirely new and quite preferable demands upon the moral quali- ties of the producer. The injunction, " Lead us not into temptation," seems likely of fulfilment when the socialist society arrives to adjust the 138 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL requirements of the material environment to the moral needs of the individual. Moreover, it is not alone through the agency of a changed material environment that spiritual influences will be adjusted to the needs of the in- dividual. As we shall see, the method of social- ism is such that emphasis is constantly being placed on the appeal to those faculties that are concerned with the cooperative and hence essen- tially altruistic life, rather than as at present upon those egoistic faculties that are chiefly called into play in the competitive life. For since competition is to be replaced by decision as the method of determining the conduct of society, the very method of appeal cannot but give rise to continual " campaigns of education." In these verbal contests which thus replace both warfare and competition and which lead to the adoption of those ideas which are recog- nised by society as the best, it can readily be seen that it is the voice of the scholar that will be heard furthest and oftenest. This is far from being the case at present, for on account of the fact that the results of scholarly speculation are usually under present conditions, of more theo- retical than practical value, the philosopher has seldom received sufficient reward to furnish him the opportunity to pursue his researches and speculations to their proper conclusion, or even SOCIAL CONTROL, MEANS 139 to publish adequately those results of importance which he is able to reach. Thus the organisation and interpretation of knowledge lags, and worse yet the thinker is discouraged, being denied the mere opportunity of thinking for its own sake. His pride of intellect is consequently weakened and he remains a prey to superstition along with his less enlightened fellows. Mankind has not received enlightenment on many subjects for the simple reason that no business interest has con- sidered it sufficiently profitable to provide for his liberal education, even when such enlighten- ment is not actually opposed by them in the name of theology. There is danger that even the public schools and the colleges will here and there be taught to maintain a discreet silence on scientific conclusions of the utmost importance, at the behest of the representatives of a very real materialism. Moreover the scholar's pride in the excellence and standing of his intellectual achievement must now be maintained in the face of a pride of material wealth from which he must realise that he is forever cut off. And while he may decry the pride of material wealth, he cannot but ac- knowledge its superior advantages for the ac- quisition of culture and refinement : in short for the furthering of those very forms of self-develop- ment which he alone can best appreciate. 140 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL Furthermore, he cannot but regard with concern the extent of the power of leadership which wealth now confers, and the feebleness of his own attempts in comparison. The deadening influence of the eternal ques- tion of a purely commercialised civilisation, " Will it pay? " is felt by every scientist and philosopher throughout the length and breadth of the land. Socialism would free the investi- gator and the scholar from this humiliation and set him in the front rank of leadership. It would enable him to associate with his fellows in semi-public bureaus of research and specula- tion, to his own great delight and the profit of society. Class work in school is a feeble ex- ample of the educational effects of associated study. Better instances are the schools of lit- erature springing up about various centres, such as that of the Lake District of England or that in the neighbourhood of Boston a century ago. WLat this associated activity in intellec- tual pursuits might become among a whole peo- ple unhampered by pressing material necessities can only be fully guessed when we come to con- sider how this natural tendency to intellectual rivalry will be reinforced by the method of social- ism. As we shall see, this method the method by which control will be exercised will be SOCIAL CONTROL, MEANS 141 wholly favourable to the influence, and encourag- ing to the efforts of the scholar. Moreover under socialism much of the motive now urging to the anti-social modes of conduct would be eliminated. The altruistic spirit would undoubtedly be rapidly acquired by man were it not for the egoistic forces of economic competi- tion forever assailing him. Hence socialism has but to remove the adverse influences which have been accumulating under the present system to allow for a great expansion in the growth of altruism. So far is socialism from requiring a changed human nature that it is probably the only scientific attempt to utilise human nature as it is. And it would be more proper to say that socialism will change human nature, at least so far as an entire change in the motives govern- ing the commercial relations of men could effect that desirable result. Under the present system progress in this direction has been squarely op- posed by all the influences that an unrestricted appeal to individual selfishness can bring to bear. Our present science of economics is entirely justified in attributing none but consistently selfish motives to the " economic man " in his business relations. The statement that the socialist state is materialistic as compared with the present state in this sense is impossibly ab- 142 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL surd. That it will afford a better opportunity for the advance in all forms of mental culture, including the development of personal integrity, follows from the fact that it affords the average individual the opportunity to adjust industry to his own needs. The advocates of the interests of educational policy could not ask for more in the conduct of industry. This becomes only the more increasingly evident as we consider the possibilities open to the socialist state in the distribution of the pro- duct. This can be set down as nothing less than the ultimate educational ideal, " to each accord- ing to his needs." This ideal is even now in- creasingly realised in the so-called socialistic activities of the modern state. For each ex- tension of " state welfare work " such as the es- tablishment and maintenance of public schools, parks, free hospitals, etc., is but the progressive application of the principle which lies at the very core of p. 11 educational endeavour. Then with the public schools free to direct their aim toward teaching how to live rather than toward how to get a living, as so invariably to- day, the increase in real education as distin- guished from mere training can not fail to pro- duce what must needs appear to be indeed a changed human nature. When we contemplate the narrowness of previous aims of the school, SOCIAL CONTROL, MEANS 143 as for instance the demand in early colonial times that the child be taught reading in order that he might be able to read the Bible, or as in more modern times that he be taught lan- guages in order that he may display a learning which will serve as a mark of class distinction, we are led to anticipate a very considerable in- crease in the efficiency of school education alone. In short, socialism means the emancipation of education from the requirements of a competitive civilisation. Education, the conscious attempt to improve the individual, becomes free to re- spond to the dictates of the ideals achieved through the selfconsciousness of the race. This highly satisfactory consummation can be realised only through socialism, for competitive industry requires the subordination of the learner to the task, of the school to the factory, of the nation to the greed of gain. The practical demands of competitive industry can never be reconciled with the actual needs of each developing individual. In so far as such needs were perceived by the citizenship of the cooperative commonwealth, they could not fail to receive every bit of con- sideration that would be allowed by the condi- tions of industrial progress. They would con- stitute a first mortgage upon the surplus value of the production of society. But more fundamental than education, which 144 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL we have thus seen can be satisfied only under socialism, and more far reaching because of permanent causal relation to all ages, is the ques- tion of evolution. How would evolution fare under socialism? Would socialism result as has been claimed in a universal panmixia? The very- first discovery in regard to evolution considered from the sociological point of view is portentous. It is that evolution is not an individual but a social concern. The individual's part in the affairs of this world is but brief and transitory in comparison with the time required for evolutionary pro- cesses to work out. The individual as such can- not possibly have the keen positive interest in evolution that he is likely to have in education, owing to the comparatively short length of time required for the fruition of the benefits of the latter. On the other hand, evolution is the more fundamental and necessary to the welfare of society. It furnishes the very basis of society, the raw material out of which education fashions the citizen of the civilised state. A splendid race of men could be brought into being through its operations alone, though not of course a splen- did civilisation, for the latter is the result of the cooperation of evolution and education, aided it may be by the voluntary efforts of exception- ally inspired individuals. SOCIAL CONTROL, MEANS 145 But evolution takes time, much time. It is the one human concern of importance which is not of concern to any individual man, except as he identifies himself with the race of which he is a member. Individual initiative in race im- provement, or eugenics, is ridiculous ; it has even proved insufficient in education. But it may be objected that the individual does indeed care about his own immediate descend- ants, and so individually provides for the future excellence of the race. On the contrary it is doubtful if consideration for the future good of society has ever caused a single child more or less to be born. At any rate one cannot discover on looking about that pride of family has any appreciable influence on the number of offspring. Other considerations prevail than this of so pri- mary importance to the race. If there is one duty to society of which the average citizen is totally regardless it is this. This must necessarily remain true so long as society takes no active steps to protect her own interests. Under the competitive system it is rather to the interest of the individual and his own immediate descendants that the remainder of the future society should not be too efficient, or in other words too well born. It is the indi- vidual against the field. His chances are some- what better if the field is not too fast. Hence 146 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL if the parent reasons at all, his reflections will not lead him to the proper conduct for race improve- ment. Here the principle that individual selfish action results in the general welfare that the individual in benefiting himself benefits society breaks down altogether. For the individual cannot if he would improve the quality of his offspring in the slightest degree ; and to increase their quantity merely decreases the opportunities of each. What he can do he has no motive to do : what he cannot do he might have a motive to do. The race cannot look for improvement on the basis of selfish individual exertions. Natural selection alone is responsible for all former progress in race improvement. But as we have seen, the rise of humanitarianism has operated to reduce and all but nullify this natural elimination of the unfit. It requires no proof to demonstrate that the peoples of all civil- ised countries are being chiefly recruited from those commonly taken to be the unfit. Civilisa- tion is indeed " a diseased condition of society " from this point of view. Says Saleeby in Parent- hood and Race Culture, " We civilised men . . . do our utmost to check the progress of elimina- tion : we build asylums for the imbecile, and the maim and the sick : we institute poor laws : and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of everyone to the last moment. . . . SOCIAL CONTROL, MEANS 147 Thus the weak members of civilised society pro- pagate their kind. 7 ' 12 We may even point out in confirmation of this indictment, that every civilisation thus far accomplished has perished through internal weakness, undoubtedly due in large measure to racial deterioration. Having gone so far as to provide for the sur- vival of the unfit, society must take the further step of " the social control of human evolution." To do less is to be subject to certain disaster as a race. For it is not only that our own par- ticular conditions thus negatively allow degene- ration, they even encourage it in a positive way. Says Saleeby again, " Finally there occurs the phenomenon of reversed selection, when it is fit- ter to be bad than good, cowardly than brave, .when healthy children are killed in factories whilst feeble-minded children or deaf-mutes are carefully tended until maturity and then sent into the world to reproduce their maladies." 13 This is the most severe indictment that could conceivably be brought against any social system from the standpoint of evolutionary science. That its truth and applicability to our own is constantly becoming greater with every advance in modern scientific methods must be apparent to every observer. Regarding the seriousness of the charge we can 12 p. 171. 13 p. 264. 148 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL t only quote further from Saleeby : " If society be so organised that there are factors of more survival value than the disinterested search for truth, or mother love, or the power to create great poetry or music then, according to the inevitable and universal law of the survival of the fittest, our parasites will oust our poets, and our poisoners our philosophers. There are those who live in society today and reproduce their like by virtue of their tenacious hooks and voracious stomachs." 14 " The business of eugen- ics or race culture is to create an environment such that the human characters of which the human spirit approves shall in it outweigh those of which we disapprove." 15 Here we have the manifest duty of society stated in unmistakable terms from the standpoint of the eugenist. For it surely cannot be claimed that the environment is to any extent worth mentioning within the control of the individual, while as we have seen at length it is to a very considerable extent within the control of society. In one respect only could it be hoped that the selfish impulses of the individual would work for the improvement of the race. It is possible that sexual selection by choosing the best as mates might result in the improvement of parent- hood. But here too the present system is as i* p. 47. is p. 52. SOCIAL CONTROL, MEANS 149 usual on the wrong side. Marriage has been made into an economic bargain. Of the effect on the welfare of the race we need hardly inquire. Wallace believes that only through socialism can we achieve "that perfect freedom of choice in marriage which will only be possible when all are economically equal, and no question of social rank or material advantage can have the slight- est influence in determining that choice." 16 And Saleeby adds, " Again I say, if socialism, or the abolition of (wti-natural) inheritance, be neces- sary in order that selection for marriage shall be determined by the possession of personal qualities of racial value greater than the power of purse, which has always been a racial curse, then the sooner socialism is established the bet- ter." 17 By what means then shall the edicts of eu- genics be put into force? It is difficult to see how society can exert any influence whatever, other than to disseminate information, unless it is in control of the economic situation : but this again is socialism. It is incompatible with the very first principle of personal liberty to make laws governing the action of individuals in this matter. A little might be accomplished by nega- tive laws, which are not so objectionable in this 16 Fortnightly Review, January, 1908. 17 p. 198. 150 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL connection as positive mandates, but these would prove difficult to enforce and of small utility at best. The anti-socialist is here utterly powerless and impotent. It cannot be denied indeed that any society, calculating or otherwise, has an influence in this respect. Our present society is, as we have seen, exercising a most potent influence in the wrong direction. The question is whether this " reversed selection " shall be remedied by a re- turn to nature's method, " natural selection," or whether the time has come for man to assert his mastery over the future of humanity. Says Gal- ton on this point in Sociological Papers, 1905, " Purely passive, or what may be styled mechani- cal evolution, ... is moulded by blind and wasteful processes, namely, by an extravagant production of raw material and the ruthless re- jection of all that is superfluous, through the blundering steps of trial and error. . . . Evolu- tion is in any case a grand phantasmagoria, but it assumes an infinitely more interesting aspect under the knowledge that the human will is, in some small measure, capable of directing its course. Man has the power of doing this largely so far as the evolution of humanity is con- cerned." 18 Says Lancaster, " Man is ... a product of the definite and orderly evolution is p. 52. SOCIAL CONTROL, MEANS 151 which is universal, a being resulting from and driven by the one great nexus of mechanism, which we call Nature. He stands alone, face to face with that relentless mechanism. It is his destiny to understand and control it." 19 Sa- leeby adds, " It is our destiny to command the end while humanising the means." 20 " Nature can preserve a race only by destroying the unfit. We who are intelligent must preserve and ele- vate the race by preventing the unfit from ever coming into existence at all. We must replace nature's selective death rate by a selective birth rate. This is merciful and supremely moral: it means vast economy in life and money and time and suffering: it is natural at bottom, but it is Nature raised to her highest power in that al- most supra-natural fact the moral intelli- gence of man." 21 As we shall see under the method of socialism this is the exact object of socialism from the eugenist's point of view. But society must in some manner exercise this power, this time not over insensate material, but over the very living elements of which it is itself composed. This particular control, moreover, is one over functions hitherto of all others deemed most private and individual. Who shall beget descendants and how many? this has been i Romanes Lecture, 1905. 21 p . 24. 20 p. 41. 152 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL held to be a matter of strictly private concern. On the contrary it is the one individual activity which means most for society, particularly for the society of the future. And moreover the children are not merely wards of the parents : in a larger sense they belong to society, to which they may appeal for upbringing in case of the de- fault of their parents. Looked at from the standpoint of biological evolution their deserts are seen to be quite dis- tinct from the ability or inclination of their parents to provide for them. They are related not to the actual position and power of their parents, but to that potential position and power which with other and more favourable circum- stances their parents might have realised. And not simply to this either, for the latest word of Mendalian genetics is to the effect that those parents possessed the power of transmitting qualities which they themselves could never real- ise in their own persons. Hence the need of breaking up this chain of fortuitous inheritances at the point of beginning of each successive gene- ration. Society is responsible to each child that it may receive a " square deal." The child is innocent of the overt sins of its parents, even if endowed to some extent with their hereditary qualities. But so much of accident has entered into their lives SOCIAL CONTROL, MEANS 153 that the child should, as another individual, be so far as possible freed from the chain of con- sequences of their choices, good or bad. And this again can only be undertaken by society on condition that the would be parents receive the sanction of society. The state cannot assume re- sponsibility for that over which it has no con- trol, though it could to be sure accomplish some- thing with a given product. The only efficient medium for such control is that state which controls environment. Hence it is not the interests of education alone that are conserved by socialism, but equally those of eu- genics. For the socialist state exercising com- plete control over industry, is in a peculiarly favourable position to reward parenthood, par- ticularly motherhood, in every way. Thus com- pensation of mothers could be continued during the months of disability; or on the other hand such payment could be withheld if it were de- sired that such parenthood should be dis- couraged. By no other agency than the indus- trial state could society bring to bear such potent influences without unduly infringing upon indi- vidual and personal prerogatives. But at present it is largely from lack of knowl- edge that the practices of eugenics are ham- pered. And while this deficiency of scientific information would in any case prohibit the im- 154 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL mediate inaugurating of eugenic statecraft, this very lack is again due to too great reliance upon individual initiative. Scientific investigation in the field of eugenics does not pay, that is, it does not pay any individual or small group of individuals to investigate the facts and deduce the proper procedure. Hence the impetus to re- search that may be expected as a consequence of the inauguration of the socialist regime will be of even more marked importance as applied to evolution than as applied to education, for in the latter field it is already felt to pay. The gather- ing and disseminating of information being al- ready a recognised function of the state, we shall have under socialism both the knowledge and the means of putting it into effect. We may here note that there is but a limited field for the direct control over evolution, and that most of this being negative it could be put into operation even under our present system of society. Indeed such legal measures as will pre- vent the multiplication of strains of known un- fitness, we may shortly expect. Even our limited social consciousness is sufficient to motive such a measure, for there is none to profit by opposi- tion. And as direct positive measures are im- possible now, so they will doubtless continue under the socialist regime, until it is finally merged into the fully free philosophical an- SOCIAL CONTROL, MEANS 155 arcMstic society in which they would be super- fluous. We may safely predict that eugenic measures will never come within the pale of the law as positive mandates. None will be pro- secuted as criminal for failure of parenthood. But as we have seen there is left to the social- ist society the method of indirect influence through the control of the economic situation. Even here control must be by classes, not by indi- viduals. Certain traits must be denominated desirable by society and these must be en- couraged by economic rewards, leaving indivi- duals to adjust their own private actions to these conditions. Says Saleeby, "Thus positive eu- genics must take the form, at present, of remov- ing such disabilities as now weigh upon the de- sirable members of the community, especially of the more prudent sort." 22 For instance if we should assume that the scholarly temper is a hereditable trait, we cannot say to its possessors, Mate, and be fruitful, but we must instead provide suitable economic encouragement for such people to assume the responsibilities of parenthood. That such conditions would be ef- fective in producing the desired results is not en- tirely certain, but we must believe that they would be far more effective than the mere giv- ing of information alone, which is all that could 22 p. 200. 156 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL be undertaken under any other system than that of socialism. But positive as well as negative influences may be expected to result from extra-legal measures in the socialist society. In a community where patriotism stands for the enforcement of those principles for which the state exists, as well as for the mere continued existence of the state, we may expect that the parenthood, and so the biological survival, of the best will become as much a recognised duty as any other individual responsibility to society. Customs and conven- tions may well be expected to reflect this obliga- tion with overwhelming power against which no individual will be able to stand. Thus we have seen that socialism " seeks to direct the further progress of civilisation by means of the social control of heredity and en- vironment." It would not do to trust to either factor alone, for each is subject to the law of diminishing returns. Together they cover all that it is in man's power to effect socially. It may be freely admitted that there is doubtless an individual factor of the highest importance not herein embraced, that of individual will, which also contributes to the direction of the future progress of civilisation directly, as well as through the intervention of the state. Social- ism should cooperate with this factor, which may SOCIAL CONTROL, MEANS 157 be known as that of individualism. There is nothing incompatible with such cooperation in the principles of socialism. And in recognising the two factors of socialism there is laid a splen- did foundation for the exercise of this third factor, which has hitherto monopolised attention. For socialism does not in the least fail to re- cognise this factor of individual will; but, not content with sowing the seed of racial superior- ity, the socialist community will attempt to gather the harvest in the development of this racial ability through the education of each indi- vidual and his consequent reaction upon the society which has thus allowed for his self-ful- filment. Is it possible that this developed indi- vidual should not prove a new point of departure for a further development of civilisation? If the power of individual will is indeed an originat- ing cause, it will be entirely free to act effec- tively in that society which is thoroughly organised, informed with socially perceived ideals, and governed democratically through in- telligent decision. The socialist society is but supplying the machine or instrument with which the individualist master may make his person- ality felt in the further progress of civilisation. Socialism promises to make the two factors ef- ficient and so to allow scope for the third. The individual can ask nothing further from society. CHAPTER VII SOCIAL CONTROL, METHOD WE now come to that aspect of the socialist proposal that most departs from established procedure. This is in reference to the method of determining which of two or more alternative plans or -persons is to prevail. It is obvious that the most direct and simple method of such determination is that of combat or warfare. This is the primitive method of settling disputes or controversies. Its tendency under primitive conditions is on the whole to select the fittest. For of the combatants or groups of combatants the one which is superior in prowess, including the considerable advantage of possessing the best laid plans, is likely, barring accidents, to turn out victorious. Since in the long run this is the aggregate result it might on first consideration seem that it were well to let nature continue in this, her first method of selection. Unfortunately for the untroubled peace of mind of man, the outcome of warfare does not always coincide with his own ideals. Hence he is tempted to try to improve 158 SOCIAL CONTROL, METHOD 159 upon this method. Says Geddes, speaking of the social demands of science, " The government of the future as yet only ideal, . . . believes that there are ideals and that they may be worth acting upon." 23 Warfare is incompetent to evolve the type idealised by man or to develop in the individual man those characteristics de- manded for the highest civilisation. But this first method of nature, direct warfare, is unsatisfactory even as the agent of " natural selection/' To say nothing of the immense drain of warfare on human happiness and upon wealth, it does not even accomplish its purpose of select- ing the fittest with entire efficiency. For the survival of the individual is dependent upon ac- cidental conditions quite as frequently as upon merit, and even in case of survival the victor is often crippled and so doomed to fall in the next conflict. Besides there is not only the question of which individual shall survive but what policy. Warfare is a most awkward means of settling the latter question. For several reasons warfare has been discarded among civilised peoples so far as settling dis- putes regarding personal matters is concerned. In this sphere it survived long as combat and still lingers in the form of the duel. But it is so 23 Quoted by Saleeby in Parenthood and Race Culture, p. 122. 160 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL manifestly unfair between the mature and the im- mature as to be early regarded as dishonourable for the former. In the next place quantity was seen to prevail at the expense of quality. Sheer weight of numbers crush the braver and more deserving few. It was at first attempted to ob- viate these disparities by regulations, as in the tourney and the duel. For a time this was con- sidered a satisfactory solution of the matter. But better civilisation sees the necessity for do- ing away with it altogether, if not in the interests of the individuals, who are overthrown justly or unjustly, then certainly in the interests of the group, which is desirous that the better man and the better plan should prevail. Thus it has been displaced in its crudest and cruelest form by the prohibition of the govern- ment upon private aggression and vengeance. In other words the government as a harmonising force took upon itself to decide the proper out- come of such conflicts. At first the ruler saw to it that brawls did not occur, and settled dis- putes himself. Later he was forced to abandon this power or voluntarily relinquished it to be settled by competition as a form of indirect war- fare. This was done largely because there was at that time no government possessing the confi- dence of the people, as is evinced by the saying SOCIAL CONTROL, METHOD 161 widely current that the best government is that which governs least. In general therefore, from whatever cause, warfare has been replaced by competition. In- stead of trying conclusions directly with his antagonist, each seeks to become possessed of the other's means of livelihood or supremacy. It often becomes a struggle to the death for the pos- session of some one common object or advantage. All is not fair in this conflict as in warfare, for the governing power prescribes the rules and limits of the struggle. It is a supervised con- test, in which direct aggressive tactics are barred, though it tends to degenerate into simple war- fare. From the rivalry between Cain and Abel down to the latest strike, the loser shows a dis- position to disregard morality and adopt " direct action." The winning party is not so strongly tempted to employ these measures and con- sequently deprecates violence. That there is bound to be such reversion to the earlier warfare wherever there is competi- tion ought to be apparent on the slighest con- sideration, and that this warfare tends to the commission of unlawful acts is equally obvious. Hence it is no permanent solution to establish a strong government. No government will ever eliminate this extremely undesirable tendency of 162 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL competitive industry. Although competition is a natural method, along with warfare, it is ca- pable of advantageous replacement by a less wasteful method if such can be found. It may readily be admitted that competition is an improvement over warfare. In the first place it is far less destructive. There is nothing personal about the conflict. Hatred is therefore absent and the energies of each are instead con- centrated on the winning of the desired goal. It is as Adam Smith long ago pointed out, posi- tive in its results. Warfare is, as we saw, nega- tive. Warfare inevitably tends to lessen life: competition may not, for both contestants may be able to win a measure of success without greatly diminishing that of each other. It readily merges into cooperation; as in hunting or fishing, for example, the rivals turn to each other's assistance when the game would other- wise escape. Thus there results a greater variety of development of talent or ability than under warfare. Not alone the destructive but the constructive abilities are largely exercised. In consequence of all these advantages and be- cause it was the smallest possible departure from the former system of warfare, it was early adopted by society as the proper method of de- termining superiority of persons and projects. Under simple and uncomplicated social condi- SOCIAL CONTROL, METHOD 163 tions it tends to select the fittest automatically, and this selection results for the time being in increased productivity in industry. It is sub- ject to regulation, in theory at least, which may cut off many of its untoward effects, and it may even be prohibited in particular cases without entirely destroying its efficiency as a principle of social action. It has had a long and varied history as the doctrine of laisser faire. But just as decision by warfare was previously outgrown and discarded in favour of this new method of selection, so competition shows evi- dences of having seen its most useful days. Nature herself has found a more economical method and is using it in her higher forms of creation. Man as man no longer determines every personal problem by the old method of trial and error that is characteristic of com- petition. Instead the contest has become re- presentative, psychical in a word. Man by the use of the imagination and the understanding calculates the probable effect of a proposed ac- tion, instead of being under the necessity of performing the action in order to be convinced of its outcome. It is the decision of selfconscious man that replaces the outworn method of trial and error. The contest takes place within his mind on the mimic stage of his representative consciousness. Mind reproduces in its micro- 164 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL cosm the macrocosm of nature, with distinctly economical results. For indeed the enormous wastefulness of com- petition as a regulator of prices is a matter en- tirely open to our observation. We have only to look about us to note the unnecessary duplication of all sorts of industrial and commercial plants, from railroads whose tracks parallel each other for thousands of miles to corner groceries whose rival stocks of provisions grow stale on the shelves in the efforts of each proprietor to carry "complete lines." Rival establishments keep open long hours lest they lose some little stray business to their competitors, while lightly laden delivery wagons follow each other about over nearly identical routes. The inconvenience and loss of such absurdly stupid lack of social deci- sion is perhaps best seen in such instances as that of the toleration of several rival telephone sys- tems in the .same town. However as everyone at all conversant with the conditions prevailing in the business world well knows, it is in the process of marketing the product that the cost of competition reaches its acme of socially useless expenditure. The pro- digal extravagance of competitive advertising needs but to be mentioned, for it is as con- spicuous as the advertising itself. And this stupendous social loss is further augmented by SOCIAL CONTROL, METHOD 165 the cost of armies of high paid salesmen under conditions requiring the most lavish expenditure for purposes of demonstration and display. In- deed the retail price of most articles of com- merce, not matters of daily necessity, is com- monly several times the cost of production, ow- ing to this entirely unnecessary tax. And so far is this evil from the possibility of remedy by further competition that we may reckon that the greater the number of competitors the greater must be the margin of profit on each article, for the fewer the sales for each competitor. But while we have thus seen that competition is showing no sign of becoming any the less costly it is an undeniable fact that it is becoming in- creasingly unreliable as a method of selecting the fittest. So many purely adventitious factors have arisen that success in competition now indi- cates little regarding the capability of the success- ful competitor. Indeed much of the business competition today is carried on by proxy. Es- tates are managed by trust companies; a thou- sand and one agencies agree to carry on each and every kind of business on commission; defunct concerns are actually helped on to their feet by receiverships ; and even the fortunes of the insane or criminal have been known to increase during the period of their incarceration. Well may we be able to join in the indictment that " the race 166 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all." 24 But even if competition were unerringly ef- ficient in every instance as a selective principle, it would still remain unsatisfactory in the highest degree on account of the unideal grounds on which selection is based. These, except where modified by the principle of decision which in- deed tends here and there to enter and claim her own, are rooted solely in the most uninspired economic materialism. The competitive selection of industrial rulers is based solely on their ability to acquire, ethically or otherwise, a fortune. The most revolting personal morality is no bar against eligibility for a commanding position in industry. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde form no exceptional partnership in modern busi- ness practice. Moreover industrial leadership is hereditary. Hence even if the original accumu- lator of a fortune be a monument of virtue and rectitude, there is no guarantee whatever that his heirs will exhibit like qualities: rather the reverse indeed for the prevalent training for the sons and daughters of millionaires has not 24 Ecclesiastes 9 ill. SOCIAL CONTROL, METHOD 167 usually been such as to conduce to moral in- trepidity. But even such, men as are selected or allowed tc assume leadership through inheritance would hardly initiate such atrocious practices as are common in many portions of the field of business if there were any practicable alternative. The would be honorable business man is compelled to imitate the methods of his most unscrupulous competitors, or go out of business. The result of this condition is that the conduct of many lines of business very often appears to be in the con- trol of fiends. No man however evilly disposed could willingly contrive so many and so malefi- cent devices of misery and destruction as we find displayed on every hand. Our food markets reek with diseased, dirty and adulterated prod- ucts of every description. " Cheap and nasty " seems to be the conquering maxim of the success- ful purveyor of delicacies. Even a trademark often guarantees good quality for a time only that the brand itself may be later exploited in the quest of the all important profits. From wooden nutmegs down to the latest Jordan al- monds of sugar-coated peach pits the rule of competition in business amply justifies the warn- ing " caveat emptor." For profits depend not upon merit but upon 168 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL skill in competing. And while the weapons ia this indirect warfare may be ability in produc- tion, the armor is undeniably secrecy and decep- tion. There is no natural limit to profit except the similar rapacity of actual or potential com- petitors. Hence the effort to secure these profits and to outwit business antagonists brings out all the chicanery of the competitor's nature. It matters not by what means those with whom one does business are overreached, whether by greater foresight, accident of the weather, chance turn of the market, manipulation of the same, unprincipled bargaining, or legal quibble, the result is equally satisfactory, larger profits. Finally we might mention, monopoly prices, in- timidation of rivals, secret bargaining with com- mon carriers, etc., for each and all of the means known best to commercial and legal mercenaries must be utilised if one would aspire to leader- ship under the regime of industrial competition. Thus competition must give place because it fails almost as much as does warfare to allow scope to the influence of ideals. It is material considerations alone that are of effect in de- termining which man or measure is " fittest." Like warfare competition is incompetent to evolve the type idealised by man or to develop in the individual man those characteristics de- manded for the highest civilisation. SOCIAL CONTROL, METHOD 169 And all these objections absolutely inhere in the very nature of competition, rather than in any abuse to which it is subject. As warfare im- plies a field strewn with the slain and wounded, so competition implies failures to obtain a live- lihood as well as successes. And these failures involve misery and suffering quite as real as that involved in the bloodshed of battle. In any case even if these failures could be made but rela- tive, so long is the contest and so severe is the struggle that it is open to most of the objections of direct warfare. Even if adventitious ad- vantages, such as undeserved "(m-natural) in- heritances " were eliminated, and a minimum subsistence income were guaranteed to every de- feated competitor, all the objections noted would still apply. We may note as most significant that competi- tion is entirely abolished in that most closely knit of social groups the family. The family is indeed the first social unit to foreshow com- ing social reforms for the reason that it is so well organised as to be well in advance of the other forms. To be entirely consistent the ad- vocates of unlimited competition should allow each member of the family to scramble for the daintiest morsels and the most attractive cloth- ing. It is in this narrow sphere of the home that its chief objection becomes most apparent, 170 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL namely, its essentially anti-social character. It is as we have seen motived strictly by the self- seeking impulses and indeed is seriously inter- fered with by the altruistic impulses. A boy who is being trained for participation in competi- tive enterprise should not be led to become too regardful of the feelings or claims of others. He must not be too considerate, too generous, or too open-hearted. The effect of the competitive sys- tem is distinctly to discourage the social quali- ties, for their possession is a distinct disad- vantage in the business world. Moreover, in practice competition constantly points to the advantages of that form of industry which is destined to replace it, cooperation. For ever and anon the competitors find it to their advantage in this case and that to forget the an- tagonism of their separate interests and to work together to accomplish some common and not otherwise attainable end. It is constantly being overlooked by the participants that " one's gain is another's loss," when each may gain more by allowing the other to participate in the ad- vantages. This cooperation in turn becomes less occasional and more organised. Thus does the old order contain, as Marx says, the germ of its successor. Where this transforming process is for any reason long delayed the competition becomes SOCIAL CONTROL, METHOD 171 more and more bitter, and narrowed down to a smaller and smaller number of competitors. Finally the victor over all takes charge of the combined productive factors, and decrees invaria- bly that all competition between them cease thenceforth in the interests of cooperation, ex- cept where for peculiar reasons this personal competition will not interfere with effective co- operation in the larger process of production. Under this exception to be sure fall most of the workers under the wage system, yet theirs is a strictly narrowed competition. Workers are al- lowed to compete in quantity of articles pro- duced under the piece work system, but are not allowed to scramble for the best or the most raw material or for the use of the best machines. But the next best step in advance, cooperation, is attended with a very considerable change in the alignment of economic and social forces, ne- cessitating a very great amount of readjustment. It is, like the substitution of competition for warfare, only possible if conditioned by a great enlargement of the functions of the state. It requires a strong central authority to direct the now quite comprehensive social organisation. Whereas previously government was negative, merely prescribing the rules of the contest and the penalties for their infraction, it must now become positive, not prescribing the rules of the 172 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL contest, but displacing the contest altogether and instead pronouncing the decision which replaces the outcome formerly contested for. Cooperation in industrial affairs is indeed pos- sible only if supplemented by decision as a means of selection of men and measures. For unlike the formerly employed principles of warfare and competition, cooperation does not automatically select the men who are to administer industry, or the measures which are to be adopted. To be sure these points might be determined by the em- ployment of the principle of chance, as in the selection of jurors by lot and the selection of alternative policies by the toss of a coin; but these crude methods are clearly tending to be replaced, in the first instance by the appointment of specialists and in the second by the careful consideration of the proposed policies. Decision remains then as the only mode of selection proper to cooperation. If the government is to possess powers so vast it is imperative that its form be such as to ren- der it entirely trustworthy and it may as well be admitted that if such a form cannot be devised then the outlook for the success of socialism is gloomy enough. But after all it is perhaps not too much to expect that a government that is already entrusted with life and death powers over its subjects should not prove unequal to its SOCIAL CONTROL, METHOD 173 trust when allowed to control incomes and prices. Besides, as we have shown earlier, the question is merely the choice between control by the authorised government of the state and control by the unauthorised government of the trusts and labour unions. It is proposed then to replace competition by a merely representative conflict, which will be destructive of neither time nor energy. It may be asked if under competition the conflict is not already reduced to its smallest proportions, for we must still assume that so long as there are in- dividualities in the world there will be conflicts. To this question we may return an unqualified negative. Nature herself has pointed out the way. Let us observe how this evolution of method has proceeded. In the beginning evolution worked through physical forces alone. Conditions did not even ad- mit of chemical action, on account of too great heat and possibly lack of pressure due to too great dispersion. Working by the single law of gravi- tation as a centripetal force, and the law of mo- mentum as a centrifugal force, systems evolved, nebulous and not only inorganic but inchoate so far as chemical composition was concerned. Possessing none but physical properties, so sim- ple were the resulting systems that they could be computed mathematically. But after a time 174 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL differentiation on the basis of the relation of mass to extension could not but become appar- ent. Here we have the basis on which chemical affinity can begin to work. Contiguity of simi- lar atoms bred molecules by natural segregation as the most elementary of chemical processes. These molecules assumed definite characteristics, each its own. While still subject to elementary physical laws matter began to assume other capa- bilities and characteristics which were destined to quite overshadow the former ones. As chemical reactions became ever more com- plicated there became manifest a new or hitherto inoperative principle, life. At first barely self- sustaining and passive, by successive stages it proceeds progressively from the stage of passive selection to that of active seeking, still proceed- ing to work out its problems empirically and thus to reach its solutions by the mechanical method of trial and error. At last in the human being is born the purely psychical faculty of repre- sentation. And here on the mimic field of rep- resentative consciousness are fought out all na- ture's battles in the comparatively economical and indestructive fashion of cogitation. Instead of the former method of blind nature which con- tinually tries, and rejects the unsuccessful indi- viduals of her experimentation, man's reason forecasts and predicts the result and thus avoids SOCIAL CONTROL, METHOD 175 the necessity of the wastefulness and pain of nature's method. It is this representative fac- ulty and its method that the socialist seeks to substitute for the natural competition of the present system. The momentousness of this charge can hardly be overestimated. Nothing like it has taken place in historical times, for history practically begins with the establishment of competition ex- cept as between nations. It is to society what the birth of abstraction is to the individual. It is not that the selective struggle has been abol- ished. That can never be so long as individu- ality persists, but the struggle has been lifted to a higher plane. It is no longer physical but psychical. The arms have changed: first the sword is beaten into the plowshare, then the pen becomes mightier than either. The sword is indeed the appropriate symbol of warfare, the plowshare of competition, the pen of the new era of discussion now coming into view. A mighty debate replaces the turmoil of the com- petitive struggle. The worth of each plan is subjected to the fire of opposing opinions ex- pressed as publicly as may be. Then the de- cision is rendered by the judges. It is impossi- ble to get unprejudiced and disinterested judges. Consequently the only jury that can be trusted to render a decision fairly is the people them- 176 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL selves the whole people. No considerable class that is competent to judge of the merits of the questions debated should be excluded from this jury, for the widest experience is demanded to properly interpret the arguments. Not all are necessarily debaters, but all those possessing ideas will inevitably be such. And it is accordingly seen upon a little reflection that it is ideas rather than people that can in such cir- cumstances be said to rule. So far is socialism from being that form of government known as the ochlocracy, government by the mob, that it would undoubtedly be its direct opposite. In a sense rule will never be to the many. The few will always possess the superior minds and will inevitably assume the reins of government, if not ostensibly, then still as the power behind the throne. But this postulate of political science comes to the aid rather than to the discomfiture of socialism rightly understood. For as we have seen the essence of socialism in so far as method is concerned is the substitution of decision for competition. If this decision is of social rather than of individual or class character then the essential condition of socialism is met even if the propositions themselves originate from the few. It matters not by whom the ideas are pro- posed. Not their sponsors but their upholders are truly in power. SOCIAL CONTROL, METHOD 177 The jury is thus in the background. It is in- structed by the common sense of the people at large. From this sense there is and ought to be no appeal. Its alternative is despotism, the judgment of the few, almost inevitably not dis- interested. The evidence must be presented at such length that each voter shall become fully informed of the various claims of each measure for consideration. Therefore the widest pub- licity must be given to all matters which are to come up for decision. All opinions must be heard if only to be rejected. It is no accident that the socialist always and everywhere is the foremost advocate of freedom of speech or that the first and perhaps the only fundamental de- mand of the socialist society is that the oppor- tunity to openly declare convictions on any topic whatever shall be in no wise abridged. It can hardly be claimed that the decisions of this jury will in every particular instance be en- tirely just. The perfection of society awaits on the perfection of the individual. But it must almost inevitably happen that on any question whatsoever the majority of the voters or at least those holding the balance of power will be those not directly interested. And it seems altogether unlikely that any particular class of workers could be permanently underpaid or ill treated so long as other trades were favoured, for as- 178 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL suredly transfer to other trades would never be denied so long as a majority of those who are re- sponsible for the laws might feel the necessity of leaving the doors open. While workers cease to compete for jobs, the jobs themselves continue to compete for workers. Thus the socialist method of decision is seen to be preferable to the method of competition in practically every particular. If we consider the method of the selection of men and measures further from the side of its historical genesis, we find it to be broadly as fol- lows: Warfare is the normal state of social relations among savages. Man's predatory ac- tivity in capturing food was naturally enough transferred to its seizure from other men. Com- munism within the tribe relegated this exploita- tion to that of other tribes without the commune. It is to be noted that a limited communism was thus the first peace that obtained among men. This communism easily provided for a rude di- vision of labour, especially as between the sexes. Thus man lived in association with his fellows and at peace, though it is not hard to believe that the power of the strongest led to a ready acqui- escence to his demands. Bickerings continually arising, it became the habit to refer all disputes to the strongest, who thus became king. Habit is strong especially where mentality is weak. SOCIAL CONTROL, METHOD 179 It led the subjects to the lodge of the king even after his death. Kelationship was recognised in their allegiance to his eldest son. Consequently seldom was his strength questioned or tested. This remarkable power of habit may perhaps ac- count for much of the quiescence of today. The rich are supposed to be the owners of the vast wealth which they possess. The partial abolition of warfare within the tribe allowed the peaceful to gain standing and holdings. As these grew relatively numerous and their real worth to the tribe became more or less recognised by all, their opinions and in- terests began to receive consideration as against those of the warriors. Property rights were in- stituted. Here was the foundation for an en- tirely new sort of struggle for supremacy. From the older sort of direct physical hand to hand combat, we pass to a subtle impersonal struggle by indirect means. Who shall take possession of the facilities by which all must live? For the possible amount of property in such facilities is limited by nature. There may be as good fish in the sea as ever were caught, but the same could hardly be said of the small river or lake. The plumpest nuts may be at the top of the tree, but once these are gathered there remain only the in- ferior fruits. The best hunting ground, the patches of most succulent berries, the most tooth- 180 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL some game, all are limited in quantity by na- ture. If not in direct combat, man must still struggle with man. Strife arose over the posses- sion of these facilities. Peace could only be ob- tained by holding them in common. Thus the commune is the first form of peaceful tribal prop- erty relation. Again this advanced form of con- trol breeds its own undoing. For not only does the military order survive with its king and army, but since all civilisation demands a peace pre- serving power, the councils, etc., tended to rec- ognise the claim of the productive occupier of the land as perpetual, and the people acquiesce. From limited tenure arises the idea of permanent right, and finally of " fee-simple." Thus there arose a scramble for choice loca- tions and large holdings, with an appetite for preferment under the law, which is another per- manent heritage to us from the past. But courts were instituted, constitutions and statute laws established, and finally all have become equal in the sight of the law. Is this promise of peaceful relations to be realised? No, not only has every sort of peaceful relationship been broken in upon by foreign wars, but even considering the local situation alone, each community has developed within itself the seeds of conflict. The equitable distribution of land and natural facilities for life has become through one cause and another SOCIAL CONTROL, METHOD 181 grossly inequitable, and most important of all, the possession of capital or credit has become the sine qua non of successful competition. The inventions of science, which at first tended to make the peasant equal to the noble, now threaten to provide the modern noble with the means of permanently enslaving the peasant. Success in competition is now due to a thousand factors, of which often the least is merit. Everything points to the displacement of com- petition as a matter of economic and moral ne- cessity. It is crude, wasteful, awkward and un- reliable. A more direct means of determining survival value and the lines of future develop- ment is imperatively demanded. Even the changing manners as they reflect the prevailing social system, presage the downfall of competi- tion. During the era of force we may well believe that etiquette demanded that a truce be pro- claimed and observed in company. Thus knights pass by on the right, the shield being held on the left arm. The helmet was removed to the lady or even to the liege as a token of submission. The smile betokened the lack of serious hostile intentions. Even the hand clasp may have been adopted as a mutual surrender of the power to harm, while the giving of the left hand was for obvious reasons a deadly offence. 192 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL 1 IDEAL Passing to the competitive period, we find the giving of gifts and particularly of entertain- ments such as the banquet the height of social etiquette. Although much of the etiquette of previous periods is retained in form, much has been added of more vital meaning. Competi- tion is restrained by law in the case of marriage. The betrothed couple are no longer under its sway. It is eliminated in the family in eco- nomic affairs: noticeably in the case of table manners. At receptions to rush for seats is not exactly good form, whatever practice may still be recognised as proper in the street car. Thus we see competition ideally abolished, at first in the more limited sphere of the home, then in the larger circle of good company. Since etiquette represents nothing so much as ideal conduct un- der ideal surroundings it is most significant that we find it already prohibiting all forms of serious competition. The coming form of selection which is to re- place competition has been seen to be decision. It remains but to state briefly by whom the de- cisions are to be rendered and something regard- ing their probable nature in the principal spheres of human activity and interest. CHAPTER VIII SOCIALIST AIMS AND IDEALS WE have first to consider what form of govern- ment the people really desire, what form would be reached by rather than required for popular decision. It can hardly be doubted that the rank and file would choose the purest democracy. At least until the " despotism of the masses " was grievously felt by the masses themselves, it is altogether probable that they would insist upon virtually direct rule by themselves. " Con- sciousness of kind" is a sufficient reason why the masses would trust only the masses in pref- erence to rulers supposed to be committed to their interests. Thus socialism not only requires but invokes the purest democracy in effect if not in form. And socialists criticise our present attempts to do democratic work with republican machinery. For this requirement leads to several demands which we should recognise in this connection. For instance, if the people are to govern directly it is necessary that the widest publicity prevail. Even the crudest and wildest ideas must have an 183 184 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL opportunity to be heard in full, if only to be re- pudiated. It is not accidental that socialists have everywhere always stood for free public ex- pression of opinion, even of that of their worst enemies, the anarchists. Public debate is among them the most highly appreciated form of enter- tainment. Nor is it an accident that "no two socialists agree." Independence of judgment is the prized possession of every socialist. Their political platforms are decided upon in caucuses in which every member is privileged to suggest planks and amendments and to secure their adoption if they can prove them acceptable. And then the whole platform is submitted piecemeal to a referendum vote of all party members. The socialist party is organised not from the top down but from the bottom up. Nominations are by petition and informal ballot. Each indi- vidual member expresses his decision in regard to the availability of any suggested candidate. The central organisation merely collates and canvasses the vote. In other parties the con- vention usually selects the candidate without in- structions. Politics has always been the art of defending a privileged class against the encroachments of the exploited. Early political systems spring di- rectly from either religious or military power. Later systems are based upon vested rights SOCIALIST AIMS AND IDEALS 185 economic rights in the main, and those the rights of property. Our constitution shows regard for the rights of property at least equal to that for the rights of persons. Indeed it was freely pre- dicted that property would not be safe in a re- public. So far, however, property has received more than due consideration. How much greater will be the popular support of the real rights of private property when all feel person- ally interested in the matter? Under socialism however we may be assured that property would receive no direct consideration. Only as it min- isters to the needs of man would property pos- sess "rights." " Socialism is science applied to all realms of human activity/' 26 says Bebel. In fulfilling this ideal, socialism must apply practically the find- ings of political science. Scientific political ad- justment requires first of all that the deciding power should be vested in those who would be unfavourably affected by a wrong decision. The fighting male population is the element worst affected by a wrongful decision in favour of war. The chief argument for allowing them to vote has in the past been this liability. Let no man and no class be forced into war. Women may be most affected by loose marriage laws. The ig- norant may be most abused through fraudulent 25 Woman and Socialism, p. 500. 186 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL advertisements; the reputable by slander, etc. But since each class must submit its proposals to a tribunal including a preponderating element of those not directly concerned, at no time would any small class be able to override the whole scientifically organised political unit. A majority vote as a requirement to pass legis- lation would seemingly be a sufficient check on class domination. No class is in the majority. A majority can be obtained only by an advocacy of general wants and needs. If desirable any other proportion for the enactment of laws, such as three-fourths, might be required instead. The majority rule was chosen to indicate and fore- shadow the probable result of a physical contest* Considering the increasingly large proportion of non-combatants, it may be that the proportion required could safely be placed higher. It may be noted that in any case exercise of democracy is bound to result in a continual kneading of society. This follows from the fact that only those who are especially privileged are satisfied with conditions as they are. All others have something to gain by the overthrow of the privileged. And since those who hold the bal- ance of power can not command the support of those above them in thus bringing about the overthrow of such privilege as has grown up, they must needs appeal to those below. The lat- SOCIALIST AIMS AND IDEALS 187 ter will respond only if it is made worth their while. Hence they may count on the support of the middle class in general. It is only when the limited few, so privileged as to be more likely to lose than to gain through any upheaval, have been in power that a static condition of society has prevailed. This can be clearly seen to fol- low from the fact that all the less privileged portion of society may gain at the expense of the more favoured, while only a portion of the more favoured will be at any time anxious to maintain the status quo. As Marx has shown, it is this cause that has brought about the extension of the franchise to the less favoured classes, and it is this cause which will continually induce the less favoured portion of the privileged to seek the support of the proletariat. Democracy is the necessary correlary to so- cialism, because any opportunity for rule by the man who possesses an advantage will but allow him to increase that advantage. Thus arose laws favouring vested rights. Man has ever tried to legislate himself into a position of artificial advantage over others. If however all men have equal opportunity to secure legislation, and each must submit his legislative propositions to all, no further safeguard for the preservation of in- dividual liberty could be devised. None, we are convinced, will be needed. 188 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL The betterment in the condition of the poor under socialism follows from the probable at- tempt on the part of the majority to better their condition. Those below the average would nat- urally utilise the government as an agency to raise themselves up to the standing of others. There can never long be a majority far below the average under a real democracy. In this sense alone socialism is a levelling process. It is a levelling upward, not downward. As long as a majority felt that there was anything to be gained by a change in industrial relations, that change would be effected by legislation. It is even conceivable that if a majority persisted in idleness or unproductiveness, the minority of the workers might be mulcted of the fruits of their toil. Although it is extremely improbable that this would under any conditions reach anything like the proportions of the capitalistic exploita- tion of the present, it might be sufficient to pre- vent the success of socialism among a barbarous people who had never been schooled into habits of regular exertion, especially in view of their lower productive capacity. But among civilised peoples, a drone or an aggregation of drones could not fail to be as quickly felt to be a menace to the body industrial as is a similar criminal aggregation to the body politic. It is probable SOCIALIST AIMS AND IDEALS 189 that man has advanced nearly if not quite as far in habits of industry as in habits of orderliness. Thus he is today approximately as well fitted to govern himself industrially as he is to govern himself politically. Would socialism abolish classes such as are at present interested in a selfish way in the re- sults of elections? Probably not entirely. It is likely that the workmen in one occupation might still aim at advantage over those of other industries. But with the freedom of movement of these fellow workers, whom they could not debar from entering any favoured occupation, their advantage would be fleeting at most. It is more likely that it could not be obtained at all, for the larger number of workers of other in- dustries neutral to the contention, would serve as a system of checks and balances against any group legislation. In general the aims of the socialistic society might be presumed to be such as the less favoured part of the people would find to their advantage. For the first time the underlings would have a decisive voice in affairs industrial as they already have in things political. And as the physically weak or peacefully inclined have instituted gov- ernmental restraints upon those who are stronger or more aggressive, so we might expect would 190 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL the less successful industrially institute re- straints upon those who would exploit their need. Would this rule prove inimical to the gifted? It seems highly probable that there would be a considerable levelling process, so far as material rewards are concerned. Since the common peo- ple would be in a clear majority they could, if they chose, give themselves the higher rewards, except that they could not slight genius to the extent of making its payment less than the indi- vidual genius was willing to earn in common pur- suits. Further, scarcity talents could as at pres- ent command whatever their possessor chose to demand, within the commonly felt limits of their value to the society. We cannot believe that the people would all at once lose their tendency to hero worship either. Those who accomplished most for the good of mankind would undoubtedly always receive the rewards of a grateful society. In the case of men of talent unwilling to serve without extra com- pensation it will be easy to persuade the people to furnish the greater reward. They will simply not be left to struggle with each other for that reward as at present. The main disadvantage of the competitive sys- tem from the point of view of sociological and economic idealism, is that there are two alterna- SOCIALIST AIMS AND IDEALS 191 tive ways to achieve success. First to wrest it from nature to the benefit of mankind, second to wrest it from the accumulation of those who have previously wrested it from nature. If only the first of these alternatives were possible we could not complain so bitterly of the competitive sys- tem, although it would still remain indirect war- fare and subject to all the disadvantages of the latter. But the second method of acquisition is resorted to with frequency corresponding to the increasing surplus above the subsistence demands of the producers. This iniquitous practice can- not possibly be abolished under capitalism. The very rewards distinctive of capitalism rent, in- terest, and profits are all unearned ; or worse, earned at the expense of others. Interest, for example, lays tribute upon him who would compete on equal terms with those who have the obvious advantages implied in the possession of capital. Eent is a like tribute upon him who would partake of equal natural ad- vantages with those who are well provided with the same. Profit is the direct result of depriv- ing others of the full fruits of their production. Profit is the most indefensible of the three, for it is achieved through competition as is success in a battle of direct warfare, without any re- gard whatever for those killed or maimed in the contest: with this difference, that whereas in 192 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL direct warfare each is obliged to consider the loss to his own forces, under competition all the labour world is the recruiting ground for the forces on both sides, neither being in the least obliged to husband his resources, but resting se- cure in the consciousness that every man who falls on his side is one less possible recruit for the enemy. That a free for all contest of this sort should be tolerated by the mere pawns in the game i unthinkable, once they understand the nature of the conflict and possess the means to bring it to an end- The first would necessarily be assured before socialism could even triumph at the polls, while the victory of socialism would itself pro- vide the second. There prevails at present in the industrial world the purest anarchy, unrecognised as simi- lar to civic anarchy only because its method of conflict is indirect and largely impersonal. When a workers wages are reduced he does not realise that he is being pitted in endurance against another far-off worker, whose wages are at the same time being reduced by the businew rival of his own employer. But such, as we know, is the case. Whichever wins, each worker is certain to be forced down as far as possible, and competition between him and his fellows is SOCIALIST AIMS AND IDEALS 193 certain to make the limit only that of endur- ance. The suicidal nature of this conflict is sure to be apparent even before socialism can be suc- cessful as a political power. It is extremely un- likely that it will be forgotten once industrial democracy is established. Hence we are correct in predicting that socialism will utterly abolish competition. We have already seen how decision will replace it. Economic conditions will be under artificial regulation on ideal grounds. Equality, that sine qua non of the extreme in- dividualist, has been set up by some socialists as the aim of ideal social development. But it is no essential element of the socialist programme. Only in the form of equal opportunities and that degree of equality of compensation which the lower half of society deem just and expedient will equality prevail in the socialist community. Its real stronghold is in individualism, as claimed by its sponsors, the pre-revolutionists of the 18th Century. The reason of this is not far to seek. A state of equilibrium under individualism must imply the absence of unadapted inferiors who are being " survived." All must be fittest, The struggle goes on until this point is deter- mined and enforced by the elimination of the 194 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL vanquished. But unless there is to be one single sole survivor, there must be a community of strictly equal and so evenly balanced survivors. The battle between these must be a draw. This is possible only on the assumption of equality. Under individualism we are driven to choose be- tween unending struggle and an absolute equal- ity. Humanitarianism is demanding the cessa- tion of the struggle. It is small wonder that the philosophers of individualism have seen the solu- tion of this state of conflict solely in equality. On the other hand, if equality is to prevail under socialism it is because of no necessity in the case, but because of its appeal to idealism a point not by any means as yet determined. Is there an ideal of further human evolution? We may reply that each of us has an ideal for his own immediate descendants. Hence the ideal is definite enough; it remains only to make it comprehensive, all inclusive. It is compara- tively easy to state this ideal in negative terms, to say what we do not want. In general we are not pleased with those characteristics which we group together as degenerate. We certainly do not want those with physical infirmity. Like- wise we condemn those whose moral qualities are anti-social. Intellectual weakness is seldom de- fended. When we turn to the positive statement of SOCIALIST AIMS AND IDEALS 195 ideal eugenics, we find more possibilities of dis- agreement. For while some admire the meek- ness which is to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven, others prefer the practical shrewdness which leads to personal success at the expense of others. The latter preference is an instinct that finds encouragement in the present constitution of so- ciety. We should be troubled with regressions to it in any society, for it dates back to more primitive times. Meanwhile we can note that those whom we deem most idealistic at the pres- ent time are unmistakably on the side of the Christian ideal. It seems likely that a large majority can and will accept this as their ideal, as soon as the state of social conditions renders it anything but an encumbrance in the struggle for existence of the individual. It cannot be too emphatically stated that there will be no settled iron-clad institutions under socialism. Socialism is science applied to all the affairs of life, says Bebel. Increasing knowl- edge requires constant readaptation. Hence there will be no demand on the part of society that morality crystalise into a system of estab- lished dogmas. And as with morality so with religion. A state religion consisting of a pre- scribed creed expressed in a ceremonial and in- sisting upon an adherence to orthodox doctrine \vould certainly be done away with by socialism 196 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL and to this extent the criticism that " socialism is opposed to religion " is justified. It is even possible that the status of religious belief might be affected in a more positive man- ner. The religious element in socialism is strong. Wherever aspirations after an un- realisable perfection are given free expression, there is pure religion and undefiled. This is an aspect of socialism itself. But it must be care- fully distinguished from any particular demand of socialism or the demands of any particular so- cialist. Socialism gives full play to the religious impulses, but socialism is not itself a religion except to those incapable of philosophic vision. Once realised, the socialist plan of society will offer the form but not the substance of all future progressive aspirations. Hence we find that un- der socialism religion itself is for the first time really free, not the mere instrument of economic forces as so universally today. It will always remain the complement of the actual conditions of life to be sure, but free to exercise an inde- pendent, uncoerced influence upon the course of events. The battle between economic forces and religion, disguised as theology against science, will end in the verging of science into religion, when the economic force behind theology is with- drawn and philosophy is permitted to perform her peacemaking office of mediation. Religion SOCIALIST AIMS AND IDEALS 197 will then become but a plastic body of individual aspirations, beliefs and principles of conduct, unbounded by anything except the nature of the believer. Eevealed religion will be subject to new constructions, and natural religion to new discoveries. Religion thus becomes the embodiment of the subjective individual ideal, a truly democratic interpretation of the universe, unrestrained by the consideration of objective material ends, the pure aspiration of the soul. At present we have but the efforts of oppressed humanity to amelio- rate its sufferings by the conjured up vision of rest, happiness, recreation, etc., elsewhere than in this work-a-day world. No practical applica- tion of these aspirations is considered in good form; they are simply the means of catharsis of the justice-demanding instincts. To be sure those portions of Christian doctrine inciting to self-sacrifice are well thought of. They fit in admirably with the rdle of the proletariat in capi- talist society. But who ever heard of self-ab- negation on the part of the captain of industry? His character does not fit the part, and is not expected to. We must uphold the present sys- tem even in our religion. It is for freedom in religious practice that many turn to socialism. Tired of a theology that is enlisted in the support of institutions of privi- 198 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL lege, desiring to adopt a faith actually fostering the growth of character, and despairing of a sat- isfactory voicing of their own spiritual aspira- tions from a subsidised pulpit, they turn to the economic freedom of socialism as the necessary basis for the development of a religion which will answer to the demands of their natures. This religion, uncorrupted by the influence of sordid motives, will be at the disposal of the masses, supported democratically. It would even be safe to subsidise religious inquiry under such a society. No class would be powerful enough to subvert such a research. But religion under socialism will be even more than at present the private concern of the indi- vidual. During the Feudal regime the rulers were deeply concerned with the religious beliefs of their subjects, for upon the efficacy of these beliefs depended the attitude of the subjects to- ward pre^ ailing institutions. Again during monarchical reign the ruler finds the moral sup- port or at least the sanction of religious beliefs the necessary condition of a submissive people. Even a republic, if the property possessing class is to rule, must be supported by the religious views of its citizens. Otherwise they will be- come more self-seeking with disastrous conse- quences to the House of Have. The socialist society alone can afford to tolerate any form of SOCIALIST AIMS AND IDEALS 199 belief. No requirements of religious faith are necessary, for each individual is free to exert his own influence in his own behalf as well as in any direction that his ideals may prompt. Having no classes, socialism has no irrational principles to uphold, no vested rights to be protected, no cherished institutions to be maintained. All is fluid, plastic. The reformer, the non-conformist, is welcome. He may make his influence tell to the extent of its natural appeal. The idea is as ever under socialism, treated as an impersonal thing. It is considered apart from its sponsor. This is spiritual freedom. We have seen that socialism aims to free the ideals of its citizens from the domination of the material demands of economic necessity, in the various spheres where ideals are normally active. In establishing a new material basis for society it is inevitable that the whole superstructure shall assume new forms and tendencies. And in the case of " the culture demanded by mod- ern civilisation " this can hardly have any other effect than to free the entire realm of the ideal culture from the domination hitherto imposed upon it from below. That culture which is for the immense majority "a mere training to act as a machine " will be replaced by a culture whose nature is determined from above and whose characteristic will be such as appeals to 200 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL the free spirit of humanity. The " materialistic conception of history," like the " class struggle " both discovered or at least pointed out by the socialists will be eventually relegated to a past era by the same agency which has been responsi- ble for their recognition. " It is the ascent of man from the kingdom of necessity to the king- dom of freedom." CONCLUSION WE have seen that socialism is increasingly called for by forces that are themselves augment- ing in a geometric ratio. We have seen that it is a concrete application of forces and demands which the sociologist subjectively recognises as embodying his most cherished ideals for human society. We have noted that it is part of a gen- eral historical evolution which we can hardly ex- pect to be either reversed or arrested. Amidst all its diversities, which but betray the many-sidedness of its origin, we have found a general unity of purpose and method. The purpose is nothing less than the control of the further progress of civilisation by man, and the method that of decision in place of warfare or competition. Both are in line with historical evolution as it has progressed hitherto, and each has for a long time been operative in the sphere of the individual. Their extension to society is the coming of socialism. The advent of socialism cannot be prevented, thought it can be retarded or hastened, for it is the next step in the evolution of society. In the 201 202 SOCIALISM AS THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAL increasing attention given to schooling and eugenics we see the universal consciousness of this. At most if the particular plan adopted in any attempted socialist state were to fail to at- tain that intelligent decision by which it should be marked, it could hardly revert to anything worse than our present competitive system. The world moves rapidly since universal communica- tion has been established and lost trails would quickly be recovered. We can not remain sta- tionary. The weaknesses of socialism are the weak- nesses of democracy. It cannot be denied that such exist nor that they would be in some re- spects accentuated under socialism, though in other respects they might be minimised. First steps are always perilous, as much for the self- directing society as for the self-directing indi- vidual. But society must accept the responsi- bilities of maturity no less than the individual. The tow-lines of natural selection are already cast off, and as the socialist state gathers head- way we can only hope that she will answer to the helm. The intelligence that sits in the pilot house is social self consciousness. Never again having once attained the knowledge of good and evil can humanity return to the blissful ignorance of a reliance upon natural environment and a de- CONCLUSION 203 pendence upon natural selection. The future of human society is delivered over into the direction of man himself. May he prove equal to the re- sponsibility which thus devolves upon him. BIBLIOGRAPHY Bax, Ernest B.: The Ethics of Socialism. (Chas. Scrib- ner's Sons.) Blackmar, Frank W.: Elements of Sociology. The Mac- millan Co. Bebel, August: Woman and Socialism. Socialist Litera- ture Co. Blatchford, Robert: Merrie England: God and My Neigh- bor. Chas. H. Kerr & Co. Bliss, W. D. P.: Handbook of Socialism. (Chas. Scrib- ner's Sons.) Brooks, John Graham: The Social Unrest. The Macmil- lan Co. Bttcher, Carl : Industrial Evolution. Henry Holt & Co. Campbell, J. R. : Christianity and the Social Order. The Macmillan Co. 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Huebsch. INDEX INDEX (See also table of contents.) Abbott, Lyman, quoted, 19. Advertising, conspicuousness of, 117; extravagance of, 164. ^Esthetic order, involves social order, 67. Altruism, and solidarity, 37; and the socialist com- monwealth, 42; and social responsibility, 43 ; and economic competition, 141, 170. Anarchist, philosophical, 23. Anarchism, opposed to so- cialism, 12, 19; in the fu- ture, 79. Aristocracy, and despotism, 20. Bax, E. B., quoted, 30. Bebel, August, quoted, 185. Big business, morality of, 4. Bismarckian socialism, 15. Bliss, W. D. P., quoted, 27. Bridge, society compared to, Brotherhood of man, 73. Bureaucracy, 55. Capital, necessity of, 89, 105, 181. Capitalism, definition of, 110, 113; r61e of, 89; pro- ductiveness of, 112 ; char- acteristics of, 113; not self-destructive, 111. Caste system, displaced by status, 34. 213 Caveat emptor, 135, 167. Chance, elimination of, 65. Charity, under socialism, 44. Christian communism, 12. Christian ideal, 195. Christianity, sects of, 11; and socialism, 23, 73. Civil service, 54, 57. Civilisation, progress of, 60- 63. Class consciousness, increas- ing, 81, 85, 86, 115 ; of cap- italists, 80. Classes, abolished by social- ism, 45. Class struggle, labour unions and, 121 ; abolished by socialism, 200. Conscious adaptation, 126. Contract, system of, 34. Contract bidding, 54. Communism, primitive, 178, 180. Cooperation, characteristic of socialism, 21, 87ff., 105, 170. Cooperative commonwealth, 129. Competition industrial, op- posed by socialism, 21 ; displaced by cooperation, 35, 90, 115, 161ff.; dis- placed warfare, 160; cost of, 164. Competition, between mana- gers, 111 ; among labour- ers, 119. Dead level, 65. 214 INDEX Debate, importance of under socialism, 175, 184. Decision, essential under socialism, 50, 58; replaces natural selection, 163, 182; accompanies coopera- tion, 174. Demagogue, the, 9. Democracy, essential under socialism, 15, 20, 51 ; polit- ical, 33ff. ; chosen by the people, 183. Direct action, 161. Direct legislation, 21, 57. Division of labour, 94, 98. Ecclesiastes, quoted, 166. Economic determinism, 29. Education, 127ff. ; socialism, the apotheosis of, 131. Ely, R. T., quoted, 15. Eminent domain, retention of, 56. Engels, Frederich, quoted, 6. Environment, control of, 128ff. Envy, socialists accused of, 69. Equality, social, 6, 193. Ethics, Christian, 23; indi- vidual, 38 ; social, 39. Ethical order, involves so- cial order, 36. Etiquette, implications of, 181, 182. Eugenics, under socialism, 127-128, 147ff. Factory system, 101, 106. Family (competition), abol- ished in, 169; unit of so- ciety, 95. Family responsibility, 45. Farming, 107. Fee-simple, 180. Freedom of speech, 177, 184. Freedom, spiritual, 200. Galton, Francis, quoted, 12. Gambling instinct, 8, 47, 65. Geddes, quoted, 159. Government, under social- ism, 16, 171. Government ownership, 56. Guthrie, W. B., quoted, 12. Headley, F. W., quoted, 45. Heredity, control of, 143ff. Hughan, Jessie Wallace, quoted, 28. Humanitarianism, 69-70. Human nature, taken as it is, 20, 25; influenced by socialism, 83, 130, 141, 142, 177. Idealism of socialists, 6, 10. Ideals of socialism, 7, 49, 84, 127, 194. Individualism, philosophical, 13, 132 ; political, 17 ; ethi- cal, 23. Individuality, regard for, 64 ; lost through specialisa- tion, 97. Individual initiative, 156- 157. Industrial democracy, 30, 59. Industrial unions, 123. Initiative and referendum, 21, 57. Interest, 191. Jury system, 34. Justice, economic, 6, 29, 191 ; regard for, 64. Labourer, as fixed capital, 118. Labour unions, 58, 59, 115, 119, 120. Laisser faire, 57, 66, 163. Lancaster, quoted, 156. Land, all appropriated, 107. Lower half of society, neces- sary consideration for, 41. INDEX 215 MacDonald, J. R., quoted, 59. Machinery, introduction of, 104. Marx, Karl, quoted, 170, 187. Materialism, economic, 166. Materialistic conception of history, 200. Monarchy, displacement of, 79. Morality under socialism, 195ff. Nation, ultimate function of, 93. Natural selection, 37, 50, 146, 150, 158. Natural selection of capital- ists, 104. Noblesse oblige, 14. Ochlocracy, 9, 176. Organisation, individuality preserved in, 13ff . ; demo- cratic principle in, 14; an essential of socialism, 48- 49; inevitable, 58. Organism, denies true per- sonality, 13ff. ; implies aristocracy, 14; in state socialism, 15. Otherworldliness, 25, 74. Panmixia, 144. Paternalism, 4, 46. Patriotism, 4, 156. Peabody, Francis G., quoted, 24. Penal laws, 54. Pensions, 52. Philanthropy, 72. Philosophical anarchism, 23. Piece work, 103. Pleasure economy, 62, 137. Politics, 184. Poor relief, 53. Poultry raising, 108. Poverty, 72. Predestined ill, 72. Producer, sacrificed to prod- uct, 99, 129. Professions exploited, 108, 109. Profit, 191. Prohibition, 47. Proletariat, 84, 187, 188. Property rights, 179, 185. Proportional representation, 57. Publicity, 177, 183. Public ownership, 55. Recall, 21, 57. Religion under socialism, 195ff. Religion of humanity, 76-77. Rent, 191. Representative faculty, 175. Republican form of govern- ment, 20-21. Responsibility, individual and social, 24, 43ff. Reversed selection, 147, 150. Saleeby, C. W., quoted, 146, 147, 148, 149, 151, 155. Scholar, influence of, 138. Science, applied in socialism, 39. Scientific sociology, 38. Self-consciousness, progres- sive enlargement of, 75ff. Sexual selection, 148. Sin, not cause of poverty, 72. Skelton, O. D., quoted, 21. Slavery, 33, 59, 89. Socialisation, 63ff. Socialised self, 76. Socialism, alternatives to, 22 ; the next step, 79 ; pre- liminary definition of, 7, 28; sociological definition, 40. Socialist Party, 184. 216 INDEX Social reform, distinguished from socialism, 48ff. Social responsibility, 24, 43. Social self-consciousness, awakening, 37ff. ; applica- tion of, 77; evolution of, 125. Social unrest 11, 32. Sociological ideal, the, em- braced in socialism, 10. Sociologist, the, a reformer, 68. Sociology, scientific applica- tion of in socialism, 10, 38. "Solidarity," the social motto, 43. Solidarity of labor, 37. Specialisation, 95, 105. Spiritual freedom, 199. Spiritual implications of so- cialism, 29. Spiritual inheritance, in civilisation, 61. State Socialism, 15, 55. State welfare work, 142. Subsidised pulpit, 198. Superstition, 139. Systemisation of human en- deavour, 65. Sympathy, increase of, 71ff. Tournament, competition compared to, 36. Tusts, 59, 115, 119, 120, 122, 123. Tyranny, alternative to so- cialism, 8. Unearned increment, 46, 191. Vale, C. H., quoted, 30. Vedder, H. C., quoted, 12. Wage slavery, 93, 101. Wallace, Alfred Russell, quoted, 149. War, and socialism, 54. Warfare, 158, 178. Willard, Frances E., quoted, 74. Woman, emancipation of, 6. Woman suffrage, 33, 79, 176, 185. Worker of marginal utility, 116-117. Working class and socialism, 9. 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