GIFT OF THE Struggle For Existence BY WALTER THOMAS MILLS, A. M. "Move upward, working out the beast, and let the ape and tigerdie." Tennyson: In Memoriam, cxvili. "It Is well if the mass of mankind will obey the laws when made without scrutiniz- ing too nicely into the reasons for making them." Blackstone: Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book II., Ch. I. "The starting point of the development that gave rise to the wage-laborer as well as to the capitalist was the servitude of the laborer." Marx: Capital, p. 739. "Since the advent of civilization, the outgrowth of property has been so Immense * * * that it has become, on the part of the people, an unmanageable power * * * The time will come, nevertheless, when human intelligence will rise to the mastery over property, and define the relations of the state to the property it protects, as well as the obligations and the limits of the rights of its owners." Morgan: Ancient Society, p. 662. INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF SOCIAL ECONOMY CHICAGO, ILL. 74,* COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY HILDA F. MILLS COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY HILDA F. MILLS UNITED STATES AND ENGLAND MAY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Published Simultaneously in United States and England May 28, 1904. Walter Thomas Mills, Editor TO THE GREAT MULTITUDE OF THOSE WHO- ARE STRUGGLING FOR EXISTENCE THIS VOLUME IS OFFERED BY ONE OF THE STRUG- GLERS. BUT FIRST OF ALL, AND ABOVE ALL OTHERS, IT IS GIVEN TO THE WOMAN WHOSE DEVOTION TO THE UPWARD STRUGGLE, WHOSE PERSONAL SACRI- FICE AND WHOSE CONSTANT ASSISTANCE HAS MADE THIS WRITING AND ITS PUBLIQATION POSSIBLE TO MY WIFE, HILDA F. MILLS PREFACE In the preparation of this book it has been my wish to help those who are trying to help others in the long warfare against oppression and so to have some share in helping to make a speedy and peaceful transition from the outworn social forms, by which we are sur- rounded and of which we are the victims, to the next order of things, in the long ascent of the universal life of which I am a part. I wish it were possible to mention by name many of those who have helped me among the more than three thousand of my students and comrades who have studied and criticised large portions of these discus- sions in advance sheets. It had been my purpose to do so, but the number has so outgrown all expectations in that particular as to make it entirely impracticable. They are found in every state in the Union, in all the provinces of Canada, in England and on the Continent, in India, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, the Philip- pines, Hawaii, Alaska, Mexico and Cuba. Their in- quiries, suggestions and encouragement and, finally, their assistance in publishing this volume, have placed me under lasting obligations to them all. WALTER THOMAS MILLS Eosedale, Kans., Dec. 1, 1903. AN OUTLINE CHAP. PART I f 1. Capitalism and Socialism. -> 2. First Principles. Primitive Life. Order of Primitive Progress. Summary. Slavery. Serfdom. The Wage System. The Era of Invention. The Trust and the World Market. The Collapse of Capitalism. Summary. Collectivism, Democracy and Equality. Same Continued. The Ownership of the Earth. Religious and Political Democracies. Modern Science and Socialism. Machine Production. Utopias and Co-operative Society.!^ Growth of Sense of Solidarity. The Irrepressible Conflict. Collapse of Capitalism, the Triumph of Socialism. The Purposes of the State. Assumptions in Economics. Theories of Value. The Money Question. Theories of Population. Rent, Interest and Profit. The Fine Arts and Socialism. Religion and Socialism. Education and Socialism. The Farmer and Socialism. The Middle Class and Socialism. ./ The Trust, Imperialism and Socialism.*^ Labor Unions and Socialism. Municipal Misrule and Socialism. Unjust Taxation and Socialism. Public Ownership and Socialism. Civil Service and Socialism. Status of Women and Socialism. The Race Problem and Socialism. The Traffic in Vice and Socialism. Charity Organizations and Socialism. The Nature of a Political Party. The Socialist Party. A Question Box. How to Work for Socialism. The Final Summary. CLEARING { 3. THE 4. GROUND I 5. r 6 - PART II 7. 8. EVOLUTION 9. w OF CAPITALISM 10. 11. U I 12. ' ' 13. W 14. H PART III 15. CO 16. EVOLUTION 17. 18. W OF 10. SOCIALISM 20. 21. 22. PART IV | 04'. w QUESTIONS { ^Q' ^1 OF O CONTROVERSY [ 28. O 29. *""! 30. B 31. H 33! CO PART V 34. 35. w CURRENT J 36. X PROBLEMS 37. 38 H 39! 40. 41. 42. 43. PART VI f 44. 45. ORGANIZATION { 46. AND 47. CONTENTS PART I CLEARING THE GROUND CHAPTER I CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM The Means of Life Their Sources-^Monopoly Tyranny Inequality No Legal Right to Life Inherited Mastery and Servitude Collectivism Democracy Equal- ity Under Socialism Summary. CHAPTER II FIRST PRINCIPLES In the Beginning The Struggle for Existence The Collective Struggle Con- stant Changes and Survivals The Higher from the Lower Forms Argument for th Theory of Development The Human Embryo Rudimentary Survivals The Record of the Rocks The Time Required Confirmation by the Astronomers- Conclusions Summary. CHAPTER III PRZMITTVB LIFE Savagery, Barbarism and Civilization The Order of Development Object Les- sons in History Primitive Man Not Helpless The Roots of Civilization The Struggle for Existence Fundamental The Human Brain With Both Base and Dome Higher Activities Not Denied The Crucifixion of the Worthiest and the Survival of the Best Adapted Darwin, Spencer, Marx Summary. CHAPTER IV THE ORDER OF PRIMITIVE PROGRESS First Period, Man With Only His Inheritance From His Animal Ancestry- Second Period, Fire Third Period, Bow and Arrow Fourth Period, Pottery Fiftfc Period, Taming the Animals (Sixth Period, Iron Primitive Products and Inven- tions Barbarian Expansion Seventh Period, The Alphabet, War, Slavery and the Class Struggle Whence Slavery The Hunter and the Soldier Robbing the Rob- bersSubjection of Women Achievements of Primitive Society Mechanical An- cestry Brotherhood Economic Classes Slaves and Soldiers Summary. CHAPTER V A SUMMARY OF PART^FIRST \ \ 10 ; PART II THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM CHAPTER VI SLAVERY Evolution The Struggle for Land Tribes Enslaved The Social and the Mili- taryThe City, Politics and Militarism Conquered Tribes and Private Lands Not the Oldest Form of Labor Traditions Roman Law Primitive Democracies Old Words for Slave Primitive Burials Indians Without Slaves Negroes Not Originally In Slavery Cruelties Products of Slave Labor Slavery In the United States Destroyed by War, Wage System Pays Better White Slavery In America Selling Negroes to Themselves The 'Slave Dealing North Slave Labor Unprof- itableWage System Impossible Under Barbarism Emancipation Forbidden- Summary. CHAPTER VII SERFDOM Workmen Born, Not Captured The Serf's Home The Slave Market Ger- manio Tribes in Southern Europe In Teutonic and Celtic Countries Thorold Rogers on the Fifteenth Century Denial of Political Power Serfdom In America Slavery and Serfdom Vice, Cruelty and Greed The Masters Make the Change to Serfdom Transition Most Obscure Slaves Could Not Masters Did Summary.. CHAPTER VIII THE WAGE SYSTEM Slavery, Serfdom and the Wage System Industrial Discipline The Struggle for Land Again Expansion Inevitable Widening Peaceful Territory Jealousies Divine Right of Kings The Towns Better Roads, More Trade ORobber Barons- Free Cities The Modern City The Growing Market Gun Powder Worthless Castles, the King's Soldiers Discharged Soldiers and Evicted Serfs The Wage System The Class War Peddlers, Merchants and Helpless Workers New Countries Printing The Industrial Revolt Against the Church Commerce Poli- tical Economy and the Factory Towns Wage System Came by Choice of the Masters, the Workers were Helpless Could Have Had Slaves A Long Evolution- Summary CHAPTER IX THE ERA OF INVENTION AND THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION Lands, Slaves, Tools The Earth Not Restored Arrested Growth Slavery and Inventions Militarism and Politics Culmination of Growth of Tools, Organization and Conquest Machinery The Free Cities, the American Frontier and Inventions Industrial Occupation and Inventions Tools and Machines The Industrial Revolution The Organization of Industry and Inventions Power Machinery, Connecting Machinery and Machine Tools The Skilled Worker and Machinery The Displacement of Labor Loss of Solidarity Individual Deliverance Workers Again Bound to Their Class The Strong Men, to Save Themselves Must Save Their Class 'Summary. CHAPTER X THE TRUST, THE WORLD MARKET AND IMPERIALISM Evolution of the Corporation Victory of the Big Machines A Wider Market Bankruptcy and Consolidation The Trust Consolidation Without Bankruptcy The Trust at Work Closing Factories Looking for Investments Economies of the Trust Monopoly and the Trust The International Trust The World Market The Trust at Work Closing Factories Looking for Investments Economies of Surviving Factory International Strikes and Trusts The Tariff, the Trust and the Shanghai Factory No Possible Competitor Cornered at Last Imperialism- Choosing a Flag to Starve Under Imperialism, Militarism, Expansion, Capital- ismSummary. CHAPTER XI THE COLLAPSE OF CAPITALISM; The Culmination Surplus Products The Foreign Market Losing the Market Purchasing Power Commercial Suicide The Collapse The Bankrupt Trusts- Played to a Finish Compulsory Idleness The Class War Benevolent Feudalism Inner Circle Unable to Keep the Peace, Disguise Its Crimea or Defend Itself Summary. CHAPTER XII A SUMMARY OF PART SECOND 11 PART III THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM CHAPTER XIII COLLECTIVISM, DEMOCRACY AND EQUALITY Capitalism Not the Invention of Capitalists Socialism Not the Invention of Socialists Underlying- Principles Inherent in the Nature of Things In Care of Young In Primitive Groups In the Nations In Business Democracy In an Organism In Reproduction Unanimous Agreement Democratic Armies Col- lectivism and Democracy Equality Primitive Equality The Just Powers of Government The Concern of All Summary. CHAPTER XIV COLLECTIVISM, DEMOCRACY AND EQUALITY (Continued). Things in Common 1 Village Communities Slave Associations Ancient Trade Unions The Early Church The Free Cities Fraternal Societies Modern Labor Unions Working Class iSolidarity Monopoly The Whole is Greater Than Any of Its Ports Sanitary Conditions Conclusions Summary. CHAPTER XV COLLECTIVISM! IN THE OWNERSHIP OF THE ElARTH Belongs to Man Belongs to All Men Biblical Authority The Scientific De- fense The Monopolist and Nature The Beginning The Forming of the Planets The Making of the Earth's Surface The Beginning and the Ending Not a Question of Intentions Evolution Pre-conscious Development The Right of the Most Conscious Man and the Rest of Nature The Earth and Man The Plant and Its Flower Mutual Adaptation Monopoly and Collectivism Private Titles Based on Force The Evil of Monopoly Inherent in the Nature of Things Sum- CHAPTER XVI (RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL DEMOCRACIES The Fall of Democracy The Struggle for Democracy Political Democracies Among Industrial Masters The Early Church Ecclesiastical Rebels Calvinistic Churches The Windsor Constitution American Industrial and Political Dem- ocracy Lincoln on Labor and Capital The Populist Party A Shop Without a Boss The Plutocrat, the Democrat and Socialism Summary. CHAPTER XVII MODERN SCIENCE AND SOCIALISM Modern Science The Wickedntess of Growth Old ^Records Recent Investiga- tionsLaw of Social Growth The Social Compact Taken for Granted "Abroga- tion of Contracts" New Life Must Abrogate Old Forms Science the Shackle Breaker Science and Inventions In Manufactures In Agriculture Gi-owing Toward Socialism Sanitary Science Science and Crime Uncultivated Fruits- Uncultivated Grains Uncultivated Men Conscious Selection and Socialism- Summary. CHAPTER XVIII MACHINE PRODUCTION AND COLLECTIVISM Aristotle on Machinery Joint Ownership and Use Co-operation Necessary- Drudgery Unnecessary Machinery and the World Market Concentration and Private Ownership Easy Transition to Collective Ownership A Hired Manage- mentBeginnings of Future Forms of Organization Industrial Departments in the Government Labor Organizations and the Departments Labor Organizations and Political Power Transforming the Government The Evolution of Socialism Summary. CHAPTER XIX UTOPIAS, COLONIES, CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETIES AND SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM Dreams Which 'Nations Dream Ancestry Communism and Socialism- Primeval Survivals A New Defense for Old Proposals Before the Doctrine of Evolution On a Small :Scale Service of the Utopians Benefits of Co-operation- Co-operative Stores Co-operative Communities Chances for Unity Waiting tor Returns Under Suspicion Enmity of the Courts Bishop Hill Ruskin Colony 12 Greatest Enterprises Out of Reach An Unequal Battle World-Wide Conflict- Co-operative Organization a Public Function ^Socialists and Co-operators All Corporations Perform Public Functions A Township Against a Continent The Evolution of Socialism Summary. CHAPTER XX THE GROWTH OF THE SENSE OF SOLIDARITY OF THE .RACE Tribal Solidarity iA Completer Individuality Primitive Ignorance of Earth and Man World Conquest and Race Solidarity The Great Religions Into All Nations to Trade With Them Modern Industry Vital Race Relationships The Warm Blood Current of the Race Life United Testimony of the Sciences The Poets and Prophets Industry and Politics Must Develop with the Race Life Highest Incentive to Action Capitalism Outgrown Socialism and Solidarity Capitalism the Builder of Socialism Summary. CHAPTER XXI THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT The Economic Classes Fixing the Class Lines All Wars, Class Wars Conflicts Between the Exploiters Ruling Classes and Prevailing Morals Thd Evolution of the Class Struggle Conflicting Economic Interests Class Con- sciousnessThe Irrepressible Warfare The Evolution of Socialism Summary. CHAPTER XXII THE COLLAPSE OF CAPITALISM AND THE TRIUMPH OF SOCIALISM; The Inevitable Collapse If Capitalism Remains Need Not Remain Failure of Incentive Under Capitalism Producing for the Products Filling- the Store- house with Leisure for All End of Monopoly, Tyranny and Inequality Conclu- sions Summary. PART IV SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY BETWEEN CAPITALISTS AND SOCIALISTS CHAPTER XXIII FOR) WHAT PURPOSES MAY THE STATE EXIST The Struggle to Survive Government a Factor in the Struggle to Survive Self Preservation The Social Struggle The Abuse of Power Class Rule and Self-Government Public Powers Controlled to be Abused The Government and Business Enterprises Industrial and Political Self-GovernmentSocialism and the Government Socialism Will Deliver the State from the Hands of Its Foes Do Socialists Propose the Abuse of Public Power Individuality Established and Defended Under Socialism The End of the Oppressor Summary. CHAPTER XXIV ASSUMPTIONS IN ECONOMICS The Economists The English School The Historical School "The Dismal Science" The Field of Study May Learn the Next Step Is Capitalism Natural Capitalism of Recent Origin The Origin of Capital Walker's Account Theories Facing Facts John Stuart Mill and the Duke of Argyll War the Origin of Capital The Right to Buy and Sell Labor a Commodity Self Interest Economic justice Letting Things Alone "The Iron Law of Wages" Summary. CHAPTER XXV THEORIES OF VALUE The Exhange of Products Power in Exchange The Economists and Socialism All Theories Lead to Socialism Theories of Value Utility-HScarcity Difficulty of Attainment "Competitive and Socialistic" Labor and the Produce of Labor Marginal Utility Labor and Machinery Justifying Exploitation iSlipply and Demand 'Service for Service Monopoly and Value Theft Not Exchange Who, Not What, Produces Value The Share of Nature Machinery Human Energy and the Landlord, the Capitalist and the Laborer The Record! of Tyranny- Summary. 13 CHAPTER XXVI JUSTICE IN EXCHANGE (THE MONEY QUESTION) The Origin of Money The Necessity for Money Not at First the Creation )f Law Earliest Forms of Money Necessary Qualities Its Functions A Medium 3f Exchange A Measure of Value Value A Common Quality of All Goods Applying the Measure Both Medium and Measure A Standard for Deferred Payments Debtor and Creditor The Relation Between Other things and Dol- larsBank Made Money The Multiple Standard No Solution Under Capitalism Summary. CHAPTER XXVII THEORIES OF POPULATION The Law of Increase The Struggle to Exist Limited Powers of Production fncreaslng and Diminishing Returns When the Last Acre Is In Use In the Year 2400 The Gloomiest Page in Economics An Old Problem Absurd Proposals to Limit Population A Knowledge of Natural Causes Over Population Unneces- sarySafe Conditions Impossible under Capitalism Forbidding the Poor to Marry Genius and the Poor Giving the World to the Backward Races- Capitalism Unable to Use the Eiarth Unable to Develop Its Resources Pestilence and Famine No Relief Socialism and the Causes of Over Population Maternal Distress Over Work and Mental Neglect Self-Control (Can Use the Earth- Hake the Desert Blossom The Unwelcome Child. CHAPTER XXVIII RENT, INTEREST AND PROFIT The Joint Producers The Landlord The Capitalist The Manager The Laborer The Division of Products What is Rent The Single Tax Fixed Im- provements Land Titles and Other Property Socialists and the Single Tax Unearned Benefits Who Pays the Rent No Escape The Appeal to Conscience "Indemnification" for "Unearned Benefits" Buying One's Own Birthright- Services and Limitations of the Single Tax Thrift, .Saving and Interest Risk- Share of the 'Profits Profit and Superintendence The Skillfully Managed 1 The Laborer's Right Unstated The Real Question The Answer The Prison House of Toil The Way Out is Socialism. PART V CURRENT PROBLEMS OF PUBLIC INTEREST AND SOCIALISM CHAPTER XXIX PINE ARTS AND SOCIALISM. What Is Art The Industrial and the Fine Arts Word 'Pictures and Oratory Form and Color Life, Love and Art Joy of Life the Source of Art Capitalism Cuts Off the Sources of Art Loss of Leisure "Worn Out" Deaf and Blind- Patronage and Monopoly Natural Beauty and Commercial Ugliness Never Seeing the World Art is Social The Art Gallery and the Market Place Art and the Fashion Plates Wrecking the Masterpiece Capitalism Doing Its Best Strength and Beauty tAj-tists Are Socialists 'Summary. CHAPTER XXX RELIGION AND SOCIALISM! The Thinking Animal Oldest Instincts Moving and Motionless Living and Dead The Breath of Life The Origin of Worship Fetishism, the Worship of Things Polytheism, or Many Masters of Groups of Things One Good and One Bvll Spirit, Masters of All Common Grounds of Scholarship of All Creeds- Evolution of Religion Beginnings of Organization Cannibalism The Families of Gods The Gods of War Religion and Slavery The Jews, the Romans and the Tribal Gods The One Military Master and the One God^-The Ancient Priesthood The Law of Growth Great Services of the Church The Unity of All Nature The Highest Religion The Order of Advance Capitalism and Religion and the Right to Think The Mastery of Wealth The Religious Teacher and His Training Work and Worship The Slaughter of Intelligence Socialism! and Religion- Religious Convictions a Private Matter Brotherhoodi-Supporting 1 the Church Boundless Opportunity Under Socialism Summary. 14 CHAPTER XXXI EDUCATION AND SOCIALISM The Old Education The Business Education The New (EducationA. Better Market or a Better Life Breaking With Ideals to Hold Employment The Clash between the .Market and the Schools Training Masters and Servants Corrupt- ing the Schools Falsifying Text Books The Factory Child and the Public Schools Labor and Learning The Hired Boss and His Neglected Learning Socialism and Learning The Workshop and the School The Ideals of the Schools and the Tasks of Real Life Summary. CHAPTER XXXII THE FARMER AND SOCIALISM Untaken Land America Before the Civil War The Disappearing Wage Worker Independent Self -Support iSelf-Employed No Inheritance of Dependence Under the Yoke Loss of Independence Occupation of the Land Machinery The Narrowing Process Specialization in Farming The Small Farm Salaried Super- intendents Why Half a Farm Millionaire Ranchmen Surrender for Lack of Outlet The Surplus Farmer's Boy "Middle Class" Farmers The Largest Group of the Working Class The Agricultural Working Class A Bare Existence- Public Ownership 'Public 'Loans Farmer and Capitalist Socialism and the Farmer The Farmer's! Family JEnlarging Life and Restoring 1 Liberty The Way Out Summary. CHAPTER XXXIII THE MIDDLE CLASS AND SOCIALISM The Middle Class The Subject Stated Numbers of the Various Classes- Economic Classes and Political Parties Socialists and the Working Class- Middle Class Measures Only Two Parties Possible Economic Interests both Ways lActing with the Capitalists Acting with the Working Class Small Properties Exploitation at the Shop Door The Millionaire ^Emptiness of the Master's Life The^Riddle of the Middle Class The Sifting of the Wheat A Call to Workers Only Summary. CHAPTER XXXIV THE TRUST, IMPERIALISM AND SOCIAlLXSM The Evolution of the Trust The Problem and the Solution Proposed Pub- licity Government Control Limiting Industrial Organization The Tariff and the Trust National Collective Ownership Completing the Social Revolution A Resistless Current Universal War The Motive for Action One World Military Power The Family of Nations One World Commercial Power Military and Commercial Imperialism Industrial Democracy Summary. CHAPTER XXXV LABOR UNIONS AND SOCIALISM Medieval Towns The Guilds The Wage System Labor Organizations- Great Service of the Unions Labor Organizations London Working Men Fall of the Bastlle American Revolution In the Civil War Story of the Class Struggle The Old Unionism The Hopeless Beginning A World Movement Unionism and Socialism Scope of Service The Schools and the Unions Socialism and Unionism Shorter Hours Increased Rewards Employment for All International Competi- tion of the Workers Industrial Organization Must Administer the Government In Politics Endorsing Candidates The Shop Door and the Ballot Box Union Not a Political Party A Working Program Summary. CHAPTER XXXVI MUNICIPAL MISRULE AND SOCIALISM Majority Always for Good Government Both Parties Alike in City Rule- Corrupt Social Forces Tax Dodgers Corporations Professional Politicians- Purchasable Voters Always False Issues Pooling Interests by Corrupt Forces- Socialism and Municipal Misrule Tax Dodgers, Corporations. Politicians and the Socialists Why no Purchasable Voters under Socialism While Capitalism Re- mainsCorrupting -Forces Put Together and Out of Power Keeping Them Out Summary. 15 CHAPTER XXXVII UNJUST TAXATION AND SOCIALISM Justice in Taxation Impossible Indirect Taxation Property Which Can be Hidden Cannot be Hidden, Held in mall Holdings Cannot be Hidden, Held in Large Holdings Public Charges Under Socialism Taxation Under a Local Socialist Administration Oppressive Taxation and Socialism Who Pays the Taxes Equalization of Collective Burdens Big and' Little Tax Payers Summary. CHAPTER XXXVIII PUBLIC OWNERSHIP AND SOCIALISM The Collective Public Collective Ownership Bismarck Free Rides and RenU and Wag-es A Concession in the Argument A Step in Evolution An Important Admission Some Advantages Public Ownership of the Means of Producing the Means of Life Industrial Democracy Summary. CHAPTER XXXIX THE CIVIL SERVICE AND SOCIALISM "The Coming Slavery" The Civil Service Self-Governing Service Post Office Employes and the President Limited Employment The Incompetent and the Unemployed Self Employment for All Self Government by All Loss of Self Control More Democracy The Current Slavery Management by the Com- petentThe Dismissal of the Shop Spy Just and Rational Promotion Summary. CHAPTER XL STATUS OF WOMAN AND SOCIALISM Disfranchised Women Economic Dependence Primitive Self-Government The Soldier and the Master Voting Instead of Fighting Limited Franchise of Workingmen Disfranchised at the Shops Socialists and Equal Suffrage Self- Government of the Women at Work Equal Industrial and Political Rights for All Women in Politics Industrial Emancipation Summary. CHAPTER XLI. THE RACE PROBLEM AND SOCIALISM Its Importance The Chinese Question The Negro Question Race Competi- tion Industrial Training Disfrachisement Forbidding 'Marriages Transporting "A White Man's World" Chinese Exclusion Race Antagonism and Economic Interests Mastery and Servitude Labor Unions and the Race War Illiterates- Illiteracy and Socialism An Italian Example Hating Because Fighting, Not Fighting Because Hating Slandering the Enemy Race Hatred and Robbery Competing for Jobs Socialism Ends the Economic War Necessary Race Differ- ences Remain End of Race Robbery and Hatred Summary. CHAPTER XLII THE TRAFFIC IN VICE AND SOCIALISM What is Vice Drugs Trifling With Life Games of Chance The Traffic In Vice Stimulants and Narcotics Under Capitalism The Traffic In Women The Gamblers Sports Are Survivals Gambling the Rule of the Market "A Roaring Farce" Prohibition The Saloon Total Abstinence Summary. CHAPTER XLIII THE CHARITY ORGANIZATIONS AND SOCIALISM Primitive Co-operation Not CharitySlaves and Serfs Not Victims of Charity End of Personal Relations between Masters and Servants The Early Church and Mutual Aid Among the Slaves Public Provision for Roman Citizens Guilds, Mutual Aid Not Charity Organizations Confiscation of Church Property Beginning of the Poor Laws Modern Charity Exchanging Self-Respect for Bread Hospitals and Asylums Socialism and the Helpless Mutual Dependence The Crippled, the Blind, the Aged Victims of Social Neglect The Shameless Compromise of a Hopeless Bankrupt Tomorrow All Are Helpless Mutual Aid Among the Poor Franternity Loss of the Fraternal Spirit The Days of Trial- Provoking Evil "Falling Upward" Summary. 16 PART VI POLITICAL ORGANIZATION AND PROPAGANDA CHAPTER XLIV THE NATURE OF A POLITICAL PARTY A Means of Escaping War The Last Alternative The Record The Revolu- tionary Parties The Parties of the Constitution Washington's Cabinet End of the Federalists Whigs and Democrats Back Sighted The Northwest Territory- Land Speculators and Plantation Owners Surrender or Fight Voting and Fight- ing Ordinary Issues The Referendum Exceeding the Power of the .Referendum No Political Parties Mere Appetites for Office There is a Real Question A Part of tlhe Legal Machinery The Primary and Election Laws National Parties Purely Voluntary New Parties Petitions Disfranchising Minorities Summary. CHAPTER XLV THE SOCIALIST PARTY Early Organizations Half a Century Ago Other Countries The Populists- Imported Socialism Inherent in American Life Economics and Politics Only Two ides The American Vanguard' Her Historical Trend Toward Socialism- Partisan 'Pitfalls Fusion Capture by Its Foes Primary Laws No National Primary Laws Limiting the Membership Heresy Trials Withholding Charters- Only Rational Methods Can Prevail Disfranchisement a Failure The Only Safe- GuardDiscipline of Politicians by Politicians Censorship "Doctrinal Purity" Voice of the Minority Free Speech and Majority Rule Summary. CHAPTER XLVI A QUESTION BOX Equal Income? The Helpless ? The Lazy? Boss Rule under (Socialism? Don't the Machines Earn Anything? The Family? The Church? The State? Incentive? Class Hate? Low 'Motives ? Robbing the Rich? Equality of Races? 'Paying Dues? CHAPTER XLVII HOW TO WORK FOR SOCIALISM Previous Training Choosing the Place of Battle A Blank Book Your Coun- try Selecting Your Jury Men to Avoid Whom to Select Where to Begin How to Reach Them Conversations Correspondence Organization Cash Litera- ture A Worker's Library Public Meetings Classes for Study. CHAPTER XLVIII THE FINAL SUMMARY A Comrade's Greeting In the Infancy of Our Race Tusks and Claws Primitive Achievements Civilization Evolution of Capitalism Evolution of Socialism Social and Economic Controversies Current Problems Organization. The Struggle for Existence PART I CLEARING THE GROUND CHAPTER I CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM 1. The Means of Life. Man cannot live without food, fuel, clothing and shelter. He cannot live well without homes, books, pictures, music, literature, gar- dens, places of pleasure, and transportation for him- self and his belongings, together with the leisure for their enjoyment. 2. Their Sources. Nature has provided in abun- dance the raw materials out of which the skill and industry of the workers may provide all these things, and the great improvements of modern industry have so increased the productive power of the workers that abundance for all can be produced and the working day so shortened that there will be ample leisure for all. 3. Monopoly. But the lands, tools, shops, store- houses and transportation lines are legally owned by the few, and the many can use none of these things ex- cept with the consent of the few who are the legal own- 18 CLEARING THE GROUND. PART I ers. The many cannot live except they use these things to produce the means of life, and hence it is that the many cannot live at all except on terms named by the few. 1 4. Tyranny. The legal owners, moreover, do not consent that the workers shall use either the natural resources or the tools of industry except the legal own- ers keep control of both the natural resources and the tools of industry while in use, and so the few reserve to themselves the right of mastery over the many while using them and hence the many must live as the servants of the few, or not at all. 2 5. Inequality. Again, the_JLega_L .owners of the lands, tools, shops, store-houses and transportation lines, aj)gr^riajte_jtojthemselves the total product of the industries, conae^ting^that the workers_shall have for ^ barest. subsistence. The~~legal owners do not guar- antee that the workers shall always have an oppor- tunity to be employed, even on these terms. The legal owners insist on the right to employ "whom they will, for such hours as the legal owners shall name, requir- ing such speed in the work as the legal owners shall 1. "The time once was when the ownership and control of prop- erty were largely coincident. We have been gradually, and for the most part unconsciously, growing away from these conditions in our endeavor to secure economies of modern production, and at the saime time retain the institution of private property unchanged." Jones: Economic Crises, p. 52. 2. "The possession of the means of livelihood gives to the capital- ists the control of the government, the press, the pulpit, and the schools, and enables them to reduce the workingmen to a state of in- tellectual, physical and social inferiority, political subservience and virtual slavery." National Platform of the Socialist Party of America, adopted at Indianapolis, 1901. "The whole system of capitalistic production is based on the fact that the workman sells his labor-power as a commodity." Marx: Capital, p. 431. "There is no principle of justice which gives first terms [conditions] into the hands of one individual as if they were his alone. When they lapse into his possession, the slip must be corrected at once." Bascom: Sociology, p. 228. CHAP. I CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM 19 choose, and paying such wages as the legal owners shall determine. 6. No Legal Right to Life. If the Jegal owners choose io^ refuse em^Loyni^ti-ta-an^i particular worker, Eejs jiot^mitt ed , under capitalism, or under the laws of any country on earth, to opportunity of jinj^_sj)rjLto^ kind, ' not necessarily because of any fault of his, buTsimply because "no one hath hired him." 3 If the worker proves himself of great value to his master, his master may improve the lot of such a worker not because of any regard for that particular worker, or because of any lack of regard for other workers, but simply be- cause it pays the master better to do so. 7. Inherited Mastery and Servitude, A child born in the family of the legal owner may inherit pro- _ ductivejproperty, and through this pnvate^ownej^hipr- by inherit ap(*ft of iK^-lanrls anH tools, wkiflb others must use, he jigj)orn to be their_master as Jjie _ 'be_his Servants, again, not Jaecause^ojLthe fault-ef either the servant or the^master^uOecause this is inherent in capitalism. All this results in the great wealth of the_f em_wha, create no wealth, and ^the great poverty of the many, whocreate all wealth. V 3. "The four cardinal tenets of Trade Unionism the world over are: (1) That employes shall have the right to say how long they shall work. (2) How much work they shall turn out. (3) How much they shall get for it. (4) Who shall be employed. The Trade Unionist declares in the abstract that these principles are non-arbitra- ble. The critical examination of the demands made by the modern Trade Unionist will show that they contain the seed of indus- trial destruction." This is taken from a secret circular mailed only to employers of labor by the American Manufacturers' Association. The circular argues at length in opposition to these propositions, con- tending that the employers only shall determine the length of the day's work, the amount of the product required, and the wages to be paid, and insists that if the workingmen are to be heard on these ques- tions it means industrial destruction. The able-bodied man without money and begging for employment may be jailed as a vagrant in every State in the Union. 20 CLEARING THE GROUND PART I 8, Collectivism. On the other hand, the istsjngigHtet the lands, togls^ shops^torejiouses and transportation lines, so far as th^ used_by alLof the people, ought_to_bejowned by all of the people. 4 Then the many^ouldnoFde^e^dTTTn^tlie* few, for the consent of the few, for the many to stay alive; nor would the many be obliged to bargain with the few in order to secure the opportunity to produce the means of life, such things as food, fuel, clothing and shelter. 9. Democracy. Again, the^Socialists contend tha ^ ft t ^ A wnr1 d 'ft w ork ought^ themselves - Then the relation of mastery aTse cea-se, ahcT self-govern- ment would-extend to the field of every day's activities and control by the common voice of all the toilers all the interests held in common by all the toilers. 10. Equality. And finally, the Socialists con- gnjL that, all Tnpn^and^wom.en shall have an equal op- portunity ta_become_ workers, if they shall so choose, 5 njthe management of industries car- riedjpn with the collective use of the collectively owned lands, toolSjjhops, store-houses and transportation 4. "The Socialist Party of America, in national convention as- sembled, reaffirms its adherence to the principles of International So- cialism, and declares its aim to be the organization of the working class, and those in sympathy with it, into a political party, with the object of conquering the powers of government and using them for the purpose of transforming the present system of private ownership of the means of production and distribution into a collective ownership by the entire people." National Platform of the Socialist Party of America, adopted at Indianapolis, 1901. 5. "Not only do we owe it to ourselves to pursue a serious call- ing, but likewise to society at large. The man who refuses to work in some way or other lives at others' expense. This is no less true of one who idly spends his inheritance than of the professional beggar or thief. From the legal point of view the former consumes what belongs to him and does no wrong; from the moral standpoint, however that is, in reality he accepts the products of others without making any return; he lives as a parasite at the table of the people, without helping to defray the costs." Paulsen: A System of Ethics, p. 533. CHAP. I CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM 21 lines, with dl the products belonging to the workers be divided-among^them as the workers aloae^shall detejrniiner- 11. Under Socialism. Then, inasmuch as all men and women would have the opportunity to be produc- ers, with the free use of the lands, tools, shops, store- houses and transportation lines; and inasmuch as no one would then have the power, through private owner- ship of the industries, where others toil, or through the private management of the industries, where others are employed, or through the private appropriation of the products which others produce, either to enrich himself or to exercise the power of mastery over others, then the great unmerited poverty of the many and the great unearned wealth of the few, together with all industrial despotism, must disappear. 6 12. Summary. 1. Capitalism is the private owner- ship by the few of what the many must collectively use. Socialism is the collective ownership by the many of what the many must collectively use. 2. Capitalism is the private management, by the few, of the work which the many must do collectively. Socialism is the collective, democratic management by the many, of the work which the many must do col- lectively. 3. Capitalism is the private appropriation, by the few, of the products of the many with no one able to produce without the consent of some private owner. Socialism is the appropriation, by the many, for the 6. "Property [in the means of production] is today a lie for the majority of men, a robbery for the minority. Socialism would make property the possession of everyone. It would convert it into a truth, secure to the worker within society the full proceeds of his labor and destroy the capitalistic system of plunder from its foundation. * * * Our end is: The free democracy with equal economic and political rights; the free society with associative labor. The welfare of all is for us the one end of the state and society." Liebknecht: Socialism, What It Is and What It Seeks to Accomplish, p. 23. 22 CLEARING THE GROUND PART I / individual and private possession and use of the many, of the products produced by themselves, with equal op- portunity for all men and women to be producers, if they shall so choose. Capitalism involves the unmerited wealth of those who are idle, and the unmerited poverty of those who are the creators of all wealth. Socialism involves the wealth of those who merit wealth by becoming its pro- ducers, and the poverty of those, only, if such there be, who, having the opportunity to live in comfort, choose rather the merited poverty, the fruits of voluntary idle- ness. Our Purpose. By what process did capitalism come to be? How did the few get possession of the natural resources and of the tools which all must use or perish ? Why do the many submit to this needless tyranny of the few? Why do the many continue to surrender the wealth their toil produces to make millionaires of others while they re- main in such pitiless poverty themselves? Whence come these proposals of the Socialists? On what grounds do they rest their claims? By what process has the movement grown in power ? What de- fense has their position among the thoughtful and sin- cere students of affairs? What effect will the coming of Socialism have on the most serious interests of life and the great social problems of the hour? Can these proposals of the Socialists be adopted, and if so, by what means can a worker contribute most to a peaceful and speedy victory of the Socialists ? To answer these, questions is the purpose of this volume. REVIEW QUESTIONS. 1. What are the means of life? 2. What are the means of producing the means of life ? 3. Are the means of production and the workers, ready and able to use the means of production, abundant? Defend your reply. CHAP. I CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM 23 4. If so, why do not the workers proceed to produce and keep for their own use sufficient for their needs? 5. Why are the workers obliged to get the consent of those who do not work before they are able to produce the means of life ? 6. To what relation must all workers .now submit before they are permitted to earn a living for themselves and families? 7. Are the children of the workers born to be the servants of others? 8. What results from this dependence and subordination of those who work as related to those who do not work? 9. Give three points of contrast between what prevails under capitalism and what would prevail under Socialism. CHAPTER H FIRST PRINCIPLES 13. In the Beginning. Until recently it has been the custom of thoughtful people to account for the coming into existence of the earth and of all forms of life and of all social institutions on the earth by as- suming that in the beginning some force or forces were at work which are no longer acting, or at least, are not acting as subject to the natural laws now known to be in operation. It was formerly supposed that only by making some such assumption could the main facts of life be reasonably explained. But it is now quite generally agreed by all thought- ful students of nature that we may look upon and directly study all of the forces and processes necessary to give a rational explanation of all of the main facts of life, including the process by which man himself came to his present perfect physical form. 14. The Struggle for Existence. It is true, throughout all nature, that no form of life can long exist except it struggles for existence. It is true that the very struggle develops the organs used for that struggle. It is true that any individual peculiarity which may make the struggle a successful one by en- abling its possessor to survive, will also survive. It is 24 CHAP. II FIRST PRINCIPLES 25 plain that, any individual peculiarity which may make the struggle fail, by causing its possessor to disappear, such peculiarity would also disappear. Now, every form of life is constantly acted upon by all the forces and conditions which surround it. Is it not clear that those individuals whose organs are best fitted to the conditions or forces acting upon them, or that are able to use those organs in a way best fitted to the conditions or forces acting upon them, are the most likely to survive in their struggle for existence as against changing or adverse conditions and in the face of destructive natural forces? 1 15. The Collective Struggle. In the same way, those great groups of individuals whose members are born one from another, and have the same organs and the same general bodily functions those groups, in their struggle against all other groups, would be most likely to survive which were found in the actual strug- gle to be best equipped for the purposes of the strug- gle. In the same way, those groups best able and most disposed to guard each other in the struggle with other groups and to help each other to survive within their own groups, by making joint provisions against adverse conditions and destructive natural forces, would be most likely to survive. 2 16. Constant Changes and Survivals. Now, all na- ture is in the process of constant change. Any changes in any of the forms of life which place the new forms of life at a disadvantage in the struggle for existence, mean that the new forms will cease to exist. Any 1. Darwin: Origin of Species, Chapter III. 2. "The change that has been made in the point of view of eco- nomics by the present generation is * * * due to the discovery that man himself is in a great measure a creature of circumstances and changes with them; and the importance of this discovery has been accentuated by the fact that the growth of knowledge and earnestness has recently made and is making deep and rapid changes in human na- ture." Marshall: Present Position of Economics (Inaugural Lecture, Cambridge University, 1885), pp. 12-13. 26 CLEARING THE GROUND PART I changes which place the new forms at a better ad- vantage mean that the new forms will survive and that a new form has thus appeared as a new form in nature. Continue this process long enough, change the conditions often enough, follow the forms of life up from the sea, up from the soil, down from the trees, into the erect position, into the development of new tools for new tasks rather than new organs for new tasks, into the more effective struggle for existence by creating organized groups, tribes, nations, rather than attempting a further and impossible improvement in the organic structure of the individual, and you have accounted for man's existence and have discovered the method of his advance. 3 17. The Higher from the Lower Forms. You have not accounted for the natural forces, but you have not been obliged to assume the existence of any force 3. " * * The creation of man was by no means the creation of a perfect being. The most essential feature of man is his im- provableness, and since his first appearance on the earth the changes that have gone on in him have been enormous, though they have con- tinued to run along in lines that were then marked out. The changes have been so great that in many respects the interval between the the highest and the lowest men far surpasses quantatively the interval between the lowest men and the highest apes. If we take into account the creasing of the cerebral surface, the brain of a Shakespeare and that of an Australian savage would doubtless be fifty times greater than the difference between the Australian's brain and that of an orang- outang. In mathematical capacity the Australian, who cannot tell the number of fingers on his two hands, is much nearer to a lion or a wolf than he is to Sir Rowan Hamilton, who invented the method of quaternions. In moral development this same Australian, whose language contains no word for justice and benevolence, is less remote from dogs and baboons than from a Howard or a Garrison. The Aus- tralian is more teachable than the ape, but his limit is nevertheless very quickly reached. All the distinctive attributes of man, in short, have been developed to an enormous extent through the long ages of social evolution. . "This psychical development of man is destined to go on in the future as it has gone on in the past. The creative energy which has been at work through this bygone eternity is not going to become quiescent tomorrow. From what has already gone on during the his- toric period of man's existence, we can safely predict a change that will by and by distinguish him from all other creatures even more widely and more fundamentally than he is distinguished today."- Fiske: Destiny of Man, pp. 71-73. ' HAP. II FIRST PRINCIPLES 27 which you cannot now see in existence. You have not accounted for the constant changes in all forms of life, but you can see such changes going on all around you. You have explained the development of the higher forms of life from the lower forms of life, and you have done so by simply extending through long periods of time, the action of the forces which you see now in operation. All this results from the struggle for ex- istence, the individual struggling against other indi- viduals as well as against adverse natural conditions and forces, and the members of the same groups strug- gling for each other and against all other groups as well as against adverse natural conditions and forces. This is found by actual observation to be the process of all organic physical development, and, as we shall see further on, of all social progress. 4 18. Argument for the Theory of Development. - That we may see the full force of this truth and be better able to follow the arguments of all succeeding pages, consider some of the proofs, not that this is a possible and rational explanation, but that it is, in all likelihood, the real and the only possible explanation of the method of development: 19. The Human Embryo. 1. This whole theory of development was first suggested by the study of the 4. "In life and in history every man suffers whatever fate is conditioned by his natural constitution. Yet his natural constitution depends not on him, but, as we have seen, upon the social medium from which he emerges. This is to blame if individual fates are so seldom proportional to individual merits. For fate strikes the individual in proportion to the merits of the species, so to speak. His own merits may be different. Historical development cares nothing for that, The course and events of history are commensurate with the character and conditions of the social media ; and this we must recognize as historical justice. There is none other in history or even -in nature. "Hence the alpha and omega of sociology, its highest perception and final word is : human history a natural process ; * * * it preaches most impressively man's renunciatory subordination to the laws of na- ture which alone rule history." Gumplowicz: Outlines of Sociology, p. 213. 28 CLEARING THE GROUND PART 1 growth of the human embryo. It was noticed that the embryo of a child, forming in its mother's womb, be- gins with the simplest known form of life, and by a constant shifting of forms, from the simpler to the more perfect forms, it assumes every possible simpler form, fish, amphibian, reptile and mammal, until at last it reaches the form of man. 5 It is held that this is so, because the race has passed through all these simpler forms before reaching the form of man. This order of development is equally true of the embryo of all lower forms of life. They all pass through all lower forms before reaching their own. A human embryo, of a certain growth, has a tail longer than its legs; at another and later growth it has a complete covering of hair; at birth it sometimes has the " blow-holes " of a fish still open in its neck, and always at birth the strongly developed grip in its hands which indicates an earlier stage of human development when clinging to the boughs of trees was the habit of the race. 6 The theory of development ex- plains all this. No other explanation is possible. 20. Rudimentary Survivals. 2. There are numer- ous organs in the body for which man has now no use, but which are of service in the simpler forms of life. They are believed to be survivals from those simpler forms of life. The muscles for whipping the ears, for shaking the scalp, for using the tail, the three to five bony joints of the tail still found at the base of the back, though overgrown; the vermiform appendix, which in grass-eating animals is of great size and of great service, but which in man shrivels after birth, and, while it performs no known function in the hu- man economy, it remains always a point of danger, are instances of such survivals. It is claimed that not 5. Ward: Dynamic Sociology, Vol. I., p. 340. 6. Alfred Russell Wallace: Malay Archipelago, p. 53. CHAP. II FIRST PRINCIPLES 29 fewer than seventy such survivals are found in the human body, none of which perform any known func- tion, all of which are of use in lower forms of life, but which remain in man as so many perpetual witnesses of the process of the making of the human form. 7 Make bare your arm and notice how the scattering hair on the hands and arms is arranged. On the hand and forearm it points away from the wrists; on the arm, both above and below the elbow, it points toward the elbow. Now place yourself in a stooped-over posi- tion, as if sitting and balancing yourself in a tree; raise your wrists to your ears; drop your hands for- ward and downward; extend on either side your elbows and imagine a heavy coating of hair on head and hands and arms, and you can see yourself heavily thatched with hair extending downward from the crown of your head and ready to protect you from the storm. Just such a position is now taken, in time of storm, by the orang, whose hair is arranged in the same way and evidently for the same purpose. 8 The theory of development explains all this. No other theory can. 21. The Record of the Rocks. 3. When geologists began the study of the rocks, they not only discovered evidences which confirmed the theory of development, but they found the proof of the great age of the world, of the passing of the countless centuries required for the slow development of the higher forms of life. They discovered that all rocks were in conditions which in- dicated their origin by processes which would require great periods of time for their formation. They found two classes of rocks, the water-laid and the fire-fused. The water-laid rocks were nearest the surface, and 7. For popular discussion of vestigial organs, see Drummond's Ascent of Man, Chapter II. 8. Romanes: Darwin and After Darwin, pp. 89-92. 30 CLEARING THE GROUND PART I were formed as if all the substances of these rocks had been pulverized and then deposited by the ac- tion of water. They were found in layers, with the marks of the action of water on them and with the fossils of plants and animals so imbedded in them that it seemed impossible to resist the conclusion that they were placed in the positions in which they were found by the action of water, and hence the name of the water-laid rocks. The fire-fused rocks are below the water-laid rocks and form the foundation of the earth's crust. The evi- dence seems conclusive that they were formerly a mol- ten mass, and hence the name of the fire-fused rocks. The substance which makes up the water-laid rocks must have been first pulverized from the surface of the fire-fused rocks. The water-laid rocks are in layers one above another and contain the fossilized remains of the vegetable and animal forms of life which were in existence during the time in which the various layers were being formed. These fossils show a constant improvement in the forms of life in each higher layer of the rocks, and at last suggest that these forms of life grew out of each other by a natural process of improvement or develop- ment. The process of pulverizing the surface of the original fire-fused rocks by frost, wave and storm, and then the gathering together of these small particles in the slow deposits, resulting from the natural movements of the waters and their final solidification into rocks, must have occupied vast ages of time. And, leading to the same conclusions, the forms of life whose fossils were found in these rocks would require a like dura- tion for the development of the last and more perfect forms of life, found in the highest and most recent of CHAP. II FIRST PRINCIPLES 31 these rocks, from the simplest forms of life found in the lowest and oldest of the rocks. 22. The Time Required. The geologists studying the earth could not explain the water-laid rocks with- out great periods of time for their formation. The biologist studying the forms of life could not explain their continuous development, showing in each higher layer of the rocks higher forms of life, unless great periods of time were granted for their development. So the time element in the development of the forms of life confirms the hoary age of the rocks, which have preserved the fossilized remains of the improving forms of life; and the time element in the formation of the rocks, confirms the belief in the measureless ages during which the simpler forms of life were growing into the form of man. 9 23. Confirmation by the Astronomers. Astronomy came with its story of the earth's origin and of its relation to the rest of the universe. It showed that the earth was a birth, rather than a creation, and it asked for space so boundless and time so limitless that the time calculations of the students of the rocks and of the forms of life, seemed to come far short rather than to exceed the long periods of actual duration. Where the geologist and biologist had spoken in thou- sands, the astronomer spoke in millions. And so all students of nature came to the conclusion of the very great age of the earth, and, by the same reasoning, they came to a conviction of the very great age of the human race, for in the midst of these rock records of the past were found the records of man and of his products. These investigations have so extended the known age of our race as almost to make the use of numbers meaningless. It is commonly held that the 9. Haeckel : In the Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1898, On Our Present Knowledge of the Origin of Man. 32 CLEARING THE GROUND PART I age of the race cannot be less than one hundred thou- sand years, with the strong probability of its being not less than half a million years. 10 The theory of development explains all this. No other theory can. 24. Conclusions. Here, then, is the story of the growth of the race told over again by the growth of the embryo of each new child. Here is the record of the remnants of organs now useless, but which were once of service in the earlier forms of life. Here is the record of the rocks told without prejudice and with no interest in mis-stating the facts, and here the proof of the passing of the countless centuries necessary for the development to so take place. You may see the life-struggles, by which this advance has taken place, still going on between the individuals and between the groups, for, among plants, animals and men, there are both the struggle against all else, for the preservation of the individual, and the surrender of the individual for the preservation of its kind. This last suggestion will be more largely discussed in the succeeding chap- ter. (See also Chapter XHI). 25. Summary. 1. All forms of life are struggling for existence. 2. All forms of life are always changing. 3. The new forms which come as the result of con- stant changes, which make more effective the struggle for existence, are the ones which survive. 4. It is this process which results in the progress of persons, races and institutions. 5. That the life of man has been so developed is 10. Lyell: Principles of Geology; Avebury: Prehistoric Times, pp. 360-404; Geike: The Great Ice Age, pp. 766-816; J. Croll: Climate and Time, Chapter XXI. "We have every reason to believe, then, that the great Glacial period of the Pleistocene Age began 240,000 years ago, and came to an end 80,000 years ago. But, at the beginning of this period men were living in the valley of the Thames River." Fiske: Excursions of an Evolutionist, Chapter on "The Arrival of Man in Europe." CHAP. II FIRST PRINCIPLES 33 believed, (a) because of the repetition of such a race development in the growth of the human embryo, (b) because of the rudimentary survivals of organs found in the human body, not now of any service, but which are of service to lower forms of life, and (c) because of the constant improvement in the forms of life as re- corded in the rocks, showing the simplest forms of life only in the oldest rocks and continually showing higher forms as the advance is made upward through the more recent strata of the rocks and finally to the form of man. 6. The theory of development, that is, of evolu- tion, explains all this, and the same theory of develop- ment, that is, of evolution, is the basis of all scientific study of the development of social institutions. REVIEW QUESTIONS. 1. How was the present order of existence formerly accounted for? 2. What is the scientific method? 3. What is meant by the struggle for existence and survival of the fittest? 4. Does this account for the origin of natural forces themselves ? 5. Give the three arguments in defense of the claim of the theory that man has been developed from lower forms of life. 6. What of the probable age of the human race ? CHAPTER in PRIMITIVE LIFE 26. Savagery, Barbarism and Civilization. Until within recent years the story of the primitive life of our race was not thought to be of much importance. It was not understood to have covered any great periods of time or to have had any important part in the making up of the usages and the institutions of civilized life. It was generally thought that the dif- ference between savage people and civilized people was largely a matter of races. It was not generally thought that the races now civilized were at any time themselves savages. It was historically known that all had been in barbarism. 1 It is now known that all were in savagery before they were in barbarism, just as all were in barbarism before they were in civilization. The distance which lies between savagery and civiliza- tion is not a matter of the different natural endow- ments of the different races. It is a matter of the different degrees of development of the different races. 2 27. The Order of Development. It is now a matter 1. Ancient Society: Lewis H. Morgan, pp. 3-18; Tylor: Primitive Culture, Vol. I., Chap. 2. 2. Morgan: Ancient Society, pp. 3-18; Tylor: Primitive Culture. Vol. I., Chap. 2. 34 CHAP. Ill PRIMITIVE LIFE 35 of agreement among scholars that just as a chemist may put certain substances into a crucible and predict the result of applying heat and the steps by which the result is reached; and that, just as another familiar with the experiment could come upon the scene in the midst of the proceeding and tell all the steps which had gone before and all which were to follow, so if a student of primitive society is given certain habits or customs of a people, he can determine the stage of its growth, and so be able to tell, with great certainty, not only the steps which it has taken, but many of its current habits and customs, and can tell, with equal certainty, the next step in its progress. You can tell such a student the implements found in the graves of an ancient people, and he can tell you mucji of their forms of government, the nature of their sex/relations and the kind of houses which they built. 3 28. If a race is found which has not developed the use of the bow and arrow, it may be quite safely in- ferred that promiscuous sex relations, no permanent dwellings and only the most primitive forms of govern- ment will be found characteristic of that race. If a sav- age or barbarian race be found without slaves, it may be predicted, with equal certainty, that the private ownership of land, the use of money or a market, will not be found among the practices of that race. 29. Object Lessons in History. In this way the rude tribes which still linger in their infancy reveal to us what the life of our own race was when in like infancy. Hence it follows that modern scholarship has not only multiplied the years allotted to the early life of the race, but it has made this study of primitive man of the utmost importance, because here can be studied in the simplicity of their beginnings, the usages and the institutions of our civilized life. Civili- 3. Morgan: Ancient Society, Preface and First Three Chapters. 36 CLEARING THE GROUND PART! zation was not invented. It was born and has grown out of the humblest and most natural beginnings. 4 30. Primitive Man Not Helpless. Again, it has been the custom to assume that man commenced his ca- reer full-grown, with wants and faculties much as he now has them, and to have proceeded to establish the home, the industry, the commerce, and the govern- ment of the world by a kind of inspired contrivance. When scholarship learned to deny all this and to in- sist on the lowly origin and slow development, not only of man himself, but also of all the usages and in- stitutions of society which he posseses, it spoke so frequently of primitive man as " without experience and utterly helpless " as to become misleading with regard to the facts of our early life. 5 For it is certain that the first man that ever lived did not suddenly awaken from his animal antecedents and look around for food and shelter in keeping with the tastes and necessities of man as we know him. Modern science attempts to prove that the first man came into the world, like the last one, by being born into it. He might have been a slight improvement on his mother, but he took the food and shelter which she provided and asked no questions. If she was the last in the series to be called brute and her child the first in the series to be called man, it is only reasonable to assume that both the mother and her child inherited and possessed all of the higher cunning, instincts and habits which can now be found among the lower ani- mals. The bird and her woven nest, the bee and its matted storehouse, the beaver and its dam, the squirrel 4. "The social system is not the creation of any man or set of men, but has grown of itself out of the tendency among men to secure the things they wish for the least exertion." Baker: Monopolies and the People, p. 141. See also Morgan: Ancient Society, Preface and First Three Chapters. 5. Mason: Woman's Share in Primitive Culture, Introduction. Clodd : Childhood of the World. CHAP. Ill PRIMITIVE LIFE 37 and its store of food these would lead us to think that the first man, the superior of all these, with his limited wants, his ample inheritance of cunning, in- stinct and habit from his animal ancestry and the un- taken earth at his disposal, would find the question of subsistence an easier one than the average resident of a back alley in a modern factory town. He was never "without experience and utterly helpless." 31. The Roots of Civilization. It is now admitted that the usages and institutions of modern society "find not only their antecedent roots in barbarism, but their germs in savagery. " 6 It seems that it might be further said that these germs were themselves given vi- tality and form during the preceding countless centu- ries when man's animal ancestry had not yet advanced to the forms of life which finally and distinctively mark the life of man. If this is so, not only can we gather the meaning of our institutions from the early life of man, but from the instincts and habits of all natural life we may obtain hints which may prove helpful in the interpretation of the usages and institutions of modern society. 7 If we would understand modern usages and institu- 6. Morgan: Ancient Society, p. 4. 7. "The struggle for existence among men is probably as severe as that among the lower forms of organic life. Among men, as among animals or plants, we find a number of young brought into being which is far in excess of the number that reaches maturity. * * * But while the intensity of the struggle is the same, the conditions under which it is waged are different in certain important respects. In the first place, the human struggle is between groups more than between individ- uals. In the second place, it is a struggle for domination more than for annihilation, a struggle which has in it the possibility of losing part of its character as a strife, and giving place to an arrangement for mutual service between those whose interests at first seemed to conflict. Neither of these things is wholly confined to the human race. ***** The race of ants which has proved stronger in the fight [mark the word "fight"] no longer regards the members of the weaker race as rivals to be killed, but as helpers to be utilized in labor fof which the fighting race is unfitted. Under such circumstances we find institutions and usages which are in many respects strikingly like those of semi-civilized man." Hadley: Economics, pp. 19 * * 20. 38 CLEARING THE GROUND PART I tions, we must seek the reasons for their existence in the humble beginnings of the primitive life of man. The family, the church, the state, the workshop, the market, agriculture, mining, transportation, literature and art all these have come to be what they are, not by the invention, contrivance or decree of any man or million of men, but as the result of struggle and the slow growth of the life of the race through a thousand centuries. 8 32. The Struggle for Existence Fundamental. And this long struggle has always been at bottom a struggle for existence; that is, for the means of life, a struggle for food, fuel, clothing, shelter. This struggle neces- sarily always comes first in all personal and social life. Only when this struggle has been successfully made can there be any struggle for the higher com- forts and refinements of modern civilization. The claim is not that man has no other interests than these. It is, that his other interests cannot exist at all unless these things are first provided. 9 The fact is, that the whole race has been so completely engaged in secur- ing these things, or in seeking to possess these things, 8. "The key to the enigma of the universe is found in the doctrine of evolution. * * * To the physical, animal, vegetable, and even mineral worlds, the doctrine of evolution equally applies, and its sig- nificance is not confined to a necessary connection between the terms 'evolution/ 'man,' and 'monkey,' so often now-a-days found unalterably associated in the minds of the ignorant. The doctrine is a fundamental conception of all science mental, moral, and physical. * * * The study of evolution in all its branches is the study of history ; but history of different kinds. The study of the evolution of society is history in its highest and truest sense." Melville: The Evolution of Modern Society in Its Historical Aspect 5 Smithsonian Report, 1891, pp. 507 * * * 21. Socialism is, after all, in its fundamental conception, only the logical application of the scientific theory of natural evolution to economic phenomena." Ferri: Socialism and Modern Science, p. 94. 9. "The secret of progress, the perpetual satisfying of wants fol- lowed by the springing up of new wants, is the secret of individual unrest and disappointment." Toynbee : Notes and Jottings. "The prime factors in social progress are the Community and its Environment. The environment of a community comprises all the cir- cumstances, adjacent or remote, to which the community may be in CHAP. Ill PRIMITIVE LIFE 39 because of the power over others which their possession has given, that there has been neither the time nor the strength to give sufficient attention to other interests to so withstand the force of the struggle for existence as to make it possible to enable other things to make any very important mark on the life of the race. 10 33. The Human Brain, With Both Base and Dome. It is not contended that there is no crown to the brain of man, with its aspirations, its ideals, its lofty purposes. It is claimed that the struggle for the ex- istence of the individual and the struggle for the exist- ence of the group of related individuals has been so in- tense that the seat of the vital functions, of hunger and of lust that is, the base of the brain and not its dome has had the mastery. 34. And so, if one wishes to learn what the masters have done, it must be looked for in the domain of any way obliged to conform its actions. It comprises not only the climate of the country, its soil, its flora and fauna, its perpendicular elevation, its relation to the mountain-chains, the length of its coast line, the character of its scenery, and its geographical position with ref- erence to other countries, but it includes also the ideas, feelings, cus- toms and observances of past times, so far as they are preserved by literature, traditions, or monuments; as well as foreign contemporary manners and opinions, so far as they are known and regarded by the community in question. ***** The environment in our problem must, therefore, not only include psychical as well as physical factors, but the former are immeasurably the more important factors, and as civilization advances their relative importance steadily in- creases. * * * \y e have first to observe that it is a corollary from the law of use and disuse, and the kindred biologic laws which sum up the process of direct and indirect equilibration, that the fundamental characteristic of social progress is the continuous weakening of selfish- ness and the continuous strengthening of sympathy. Or to use a more convenient and somewhat more accurate expression suggested by Comte it is a gradual supplanting of egotism by altruism. Fiske: Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, Vol. II., pp. 197, 201. 10. "It is abundantly true that human qualities and material con- ditions react on one another; and any student or social reformer is self -condemned who leaves either one or the other out of account." Cunningham: Modern Civilization Its Economic Aspects, p. 4. "A closer analysis shows that the fundamental distinction be- tween the- animal and the human method is that the environment transforms the animal, while man transforms environment." Ward: Psychic Factors of Civilization, p. 257. 40 CLEARING THE GROUND PART! the activities of these basic faculties. But the very existence of the higher faculties of man demonstrates the long continuance of the struggle for a hearing for the higher possibilities of human life. Either the whole theory of development is wrong, or else it has been the effort of the brain to function in the realm of aspiration, of veneration, of mutual beneficence, which has forced the growth and development of these por- tions of the upper human brain, now believed to be especially essential in order that these particular traits may be found in the character of their possessor. If the present has inherited the product of such activi- ties, then its ancestry must have engaged in such ac- tivities. 11 35. Higher Activities Not Denied. In looking for the principal cause of all political and social institu- tions at any time in the conditions under which the struggle for existence has been carried on at that time, it is not contended that there are no other forces be- sides economic needs. So far in the world's life, the other forces have not been able to achieve the mastery. If the struggle for existence, carried on only on the line of securing food, fuel, clothing and shelter, is the only possible motive for human activity, then there would be a most discouraging outlook for the race, for those who hope to see this struggle for existence made of secondary consideration. When further organization, better equipment and the collective ownership and con- trol of industry shall make food, fuel, clothing and shelter the easy possession of all men, if these are all there is of life, what then shall spur men on to further achievements ? There is more in life than food and rai- ment. The possession of these things will not rob life of its meaning. There are higher things in life. Their roots run far back in the life of the world and ground 11. The History of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of Freedom." Hegel: Philosophy of History (Bohn Edition), pp. 19-20. CHAP. Ill PRIMITIVE LIFE 41 themselves in the most fundamental activities of the animal kingdom. But they are not yet the masters of man's activities. 12 36. The Crucifixion of the Worthiest and the Sur- vival of the Best Adapted. Forever in the world's yesterdays, the ruling laws, the ruling institutions, the ruling ideals, the ruling morals, the ruling, religions, have been the laws, institutions, ideals, morals and re- ligions of the ruling forces; and the ruling forces, so far in the world's life, have been fighting for the con- trol of the basic necessities, for the most primitive needs of man. The highest ideals frequently rule in domestic relations. The devotion and sacrifice of parental regard give us glimpses of what man might be in his social relations. But so far in the life of the race, whenever individuals, in their social relations, have risen above these fundamental demands of sub- sistence and the activities resulting from them, they have been starved, or hanged, or crucified. And then the very forces which have crucified these heroes, for living in advance of their time, have adopted the cant phrases of the new life, have banished its spirit and have harnessed its enthusiasm to the same old " bread and butter" problem as before. The " bread and but- ter" problem has ruled in all the past. It will rule in the future until it is solved, and poverty and the fear of poverty shall no longer be able to terrorize the world. 13 12. "One of the philosophical things that have been said in dis- criminating man from the lower animals, is that he is the one creature who is never satisfied. It is well for him that he is so, that there is always something more for which he craves. To my mind this fact strongly hints that man is infinitely more than a mere animate ma- chine." Fiske : A Century of Science, pp. 120-21. "There are men who could neither be distressed nor won into a sacrifice of their duty; but this stern virtue is the growth of few soils; and in the main it will be found that a power over a man's support is a power over his will." Alexander Hamilton: The Fed- eralist, No. LXXIII. 13. "Taking man, however, for what he has thus far been and 42 CLEARING THE GROUND PART! Whoever would understand the past must look at all the problems of the past from the " bread and butter" standpoint. Whoever would have other forces rule the future must first solve for the future the " bread and butter " problem. 37. Darwin, Spencer, Marx. These are the great natural truths which suggest and defend the theory of evolution, which Darwin applied to the study of the origin of the different kinds of animals, and which Herbert Spencer insisted must apply to all departments of thought, and Karl Marx definitely applied to the study of the labor problem, and so developed the scien- tific defense of the Socialist proposals. 38. This is what is usually meant by such phrases as, "the materialistic conception of history ; m4 "the economic interpretation of history; " "the economic foundations of society, ' ' and ' i economic determinism. ' ' It will be seen that this insistence upon economic causes as of fundamental importance in economic and social discussions in no way denies the foundations of re- ligion nor ignores any of the highest faculties of the human mind. still is, it is difficult to deny that the underlying influence in its broadest aspects has very generally been of this economic character. The economic interpretation of history in its proper formulation, does not exhaust the possibilities of life and progress; it does not ex- plain all the niceties of human development; but it emphasizes the forces which have hitherto been so largely instrumental in the rise and fall, in the prosperity and decadence, in the glory and failure, in the weal and woe of nations and peoples. It is a relative, rather than an absolute, explanation. It is substantially true of the past; it will tend to become less and less true of the future." Seligman: The Economic Interpretation of History, pp. 157-58. 14. "In the social production of their every-day existence men enter into definite relations that are at once necessary and independ- ent of their own volition relations of production that correspond to & definite stage of their material powers of production. The to- tality of these relations of production constitutes the economic struc- ture of society the real basis on which is erected the legal and po- litical edifice and to which there correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The method of production in material existence condi- tions social, political and mental evolution in general." Marx: A Criticism on Political Economy. "It is, however, important to remember that the originators of CHAP, in PRIMITIVE LIFE 43 39. Summary. 1. All the races of men were once in savagery and barbarism. 2. The beginnings of all modern institutions may be found in savagery and barbarism. 3. A knowledge of the nature of the beginnings^of modern institutions in savagery and barbarism and of their development from these humble origins is neces- sary to the understanding of modern institutions. 4. The principal controlling factors in the process of man's development, and of the institutions which he has established, are to be found in his struggle for ex- istence and the means he has used and the organiza- tions he has created to this end. 5. This does not mean that there are no other fac- tors in human life, but that the problems involved in providing for existence must always be solved before other matters can be given just consideration. the theory have themselves called attention to the danger of exag- geration. Toward the close of his career Engels, influenced no doubt by the weight of adverse criticism, pointed out that too much had some- times been claimed for the doctrine. 'Marx and I,' he writes to a stu- dent in 1890, 'are partly responsible for the fact that the younger men have sometimes laid more stress on the economic side than it deserves. In meeting the attacks of our opponents it was necessary for us to emphasize the dominant principle, denied by them ; and we did not always have the time, place or opportunity to let the other factors, which were concerned in the mutual action and reaction, get their deserts.' In another letter Engels explains his meaning more clearly: 'According to the materialistic view of history the factor which is in the last instance decisive in history is the production and reproduction of actual life. More than this neither Marx nor I have ever asserted. But when any one distorts this so as to read that the economic factor is the sole element, he converts the statement into a meaningless, abstract, absurd phrase. The economic condition is the basis, but the various elements in the superstruc- ture the political forms of the class contests, and their results, the constitution the legal forms, and also all the reflexes of these actual contests in the brains of the participants, the political, legal, phil- osophical theories, the religious views * all these exert an influence on the development of the historical struggles, and in many instances determine their form'. " Seligman : The Economic Interpre- tation of History, pp. 141-3. " * * * I am convinced that to omit or neglect these eco- nomical facts is to make the study of history barren and unreal. With every effort that can be given to it, the narrative of the historian can never be much more than an imperfect or suggestive sketch. We 44 CLEARING THE GROUND PART I REVIEW QUESTIONS. 1. From what earlier condition of life have all civilized peoples arisen? 2. In what way can one even now directly observe social ac- tivities like the earlier social activities of his own race? 3. By what process has civilization come into existence? 4. Were the earliest forms of human life ever "without experi- ence and utterly helpless"? 5. Why is the study of primitive life of great value to the stu- dent of social problems? 6. Why are economic questions of such great importance in the study of all human usages and institutions? 7. What has usually been the fate of the great idealists? Why? 8. Does this mean that ideals are without value or that the struggle for the means of life is not only the most fundamental busi- ness of life, but the highest and worthiest possible undertaking? 9. What is meant by the phrases: "materialistic conception of history," "the economic interpretation of history," "the economic foundations of society," "economic determination"? may get the chronology correct, the sequence of events exact, the de- tails of the campaigns precise, the changes of frontier reasonably accurate, but may still be far off from the controlling^ motives of public action, may be entirely in the dark as to the real cause ot events." Rogers: Economic Interpretation of History, yp. 6***12. CHAPTER IV THE ORDER OF PRIMITIVE PROGRESS 40. In the study of the life of man, it is found that the advance of the race falls into three grand divisions: Savagery, Barbarism and Civilization. Savagery and Barbarism are each subdivided into three periods, while Civilization is considered as a single period. We thus have seven periods in all. 1 In presenting this mat- ter here, the classifications of Mr. Lewis H. Morgan are followed. 2 The information so arranged has been gathered from a large number of sources. The ef- fort has been made to include nothing except those items regarding the truth of which the recognized students of these matters are in substantial agree- ment. 1. "The value of history lies not in the multitude of facts col- lected, but in their relation to each other." Adams: Law of Civiliza- tion and Decay, Preface, V. 2. Morgan: Ancient Society, pp. 9-14. "Before man could have attained to the civilized state it was necessary that he should gain all the elements of civilization. This implies an amazing change of condition, first from a primtive sav- age to a barbarian of the lowest type, and then from the latter to a Greek of the Homeric period, or a Hebrew of the time of Abraham. The progressive development which history records in the period of civilization was not less true of man in each of the previous periods. "By re-ascending along the several lines of human progress toward the primitive ages of man's existence, and removing one by one his 46 CLEARING THE GROUND PART 1 41. First Period Man With Only His Inheritance From His Animal Ancestry. The first of these periods, which was in Savagery, covers the time after man's advance above the other animals to the human form and prior to the discovery and use of fire and the adding of fish to man's earlier diet of roots, fruits and nuts. There were then promiscuous relation of the sexes, no government, no arts, no inventions, no organ- izations of industry and no recognition of property. 3 42. Second Period Fire. The second period, still in Savagery, began with the discovery of the use of fire and the use of fish as food. During this period the first division of labor was made by leaving the women about the fires while the men joined together in the fishing. 4 The earliest forms of social organiza- principal institutions, inventions, and discoveries, in the order in which they have appeared, the advance made in each period will be realized. "Morgan: Ancient Society, pp. 29-30. "Morgan deserves great credit for rediscovering and re-estab- lishing in its main outlines this foundation of our written history, and of finding in the sexual organizations of the North American In- dians the key that opens all the unfathomable riddles of most an- cient Greek, Roman and German history. His book is not the work of a short day. For more than forty years he grappled with the sub- ject, until he mastered it fully. Therefore hi work is one of the few epochal publications of our time. * * * Morgan was the first to make an attempt at introducing a logical order into the history of primeval society. Until considerably more material is obtained, no further changes will be necessary and his arrangement will surely remain in force." Engels: Origin of the Family, pp. 10-11, 27. 3. Westermark and others have contended that promiscuous ^ sex relations did not prevail in savagery, but the monogamic relations for which Westermark contends were of such a nature as not to ma- terially affect the argument that the family, like other institutions of modern society, has been developed as the result of economic causes, operating through long periods of time. The sex relations have constantly advanced in the direction of more and more exclu- siveness from the beginning. First those not helping to keep the tribal fire on the one hand, and those not belonging to the corre- sponding fishing groups, on the other, were excluded. Then blood relations were excluded. Then those not personally attracted were excluded. Then those not dependent for support were excluded, and finally there remains but one more possible exclusion, and that is not possible under capitalism. It is the self-possession of all women and the consequent exclusion from sex relations of all those brought together in consideration of property interests. 4. Mason: Woman's Share in Primitive Culture, Introduction. CHAP. IV THE ORDER OF PRIMITIVE PROGRESS 47 tion appear to have grown out of this division of labor: the women combining to guard the fire, and the men combining for fishing expeditions, both groups grow- ing into fixed relations along sex lines. The family also had its earliest form from the same causes, all of the men of the whole group became the husbands of all of the women of the corresponding group. In these groups, both men and women were of blood relation. 5 But promiscuous sex relations outside the groups came to an end. The fires and the fishing grounds were held and used collectively. 43. Third Period Bow and Arrow. The third period, the last in Savagery, began with the use of the bow and arrow. During this period the family idea advanced to a stage under which all the women of a group were of blood relation, and the men not so re- lated to each other; or all the men were of blood rela- tion, and the women not so related to each other. The group marriage remained and promiscuous sex rela- tions within the groups, but blood relations were not admitted into group relations across sex lines. 44. The gens appeared as an advance in govern- ment by which all of those belonging to the groups and maintaining relation of kinship after the above man- ner, were bound together in the common control of their common interests. To the diet of fruit, nuts, roots and fish, was added game, which the hunters, now equipped with the bow and arrow, were able to capture. There were further uses for fire and improvements in the camps. Industry was still carried on by the joint effort of all, and whatever productive property existed was held and used in common. 6 45 Fourth Period Pottery. The fourth period, the first in Barbarism, began with the making and use 5. Mason: Woman's Share in Primitive Culture, p. 221. 6. Morgan: Ancient Society, pp. 525-527. 48 CLEARING THE GROUND PART I of pottery. This is believed to have been woman 's in- vention, and the period is marked by a corresponding improvement in her work. 7 The forms of government advanced by the gentes combining into larger groups. Each gens continued to maintain its separate existence as before, but the larger groups, called phratries, ex- tended the idea of social organization. The family ad- vanced to the point where each man or woman claimed, or might claim, some man or woman of the correspond- ing gens as especially his or hers, but this did not ex- tend to the exclusive possession of each other, and each sex still lived by itself. There was still co-opera- tive labor and common ownership of productive prop- erty. 46. Fifth Period Taming the Animals. The fifth period, the second in Barbarism, began with the taming and use of animals, the building of houses of adobe brick and stone, the cultivation of corn and the cereals and the use of irrigation in the cultivation of the ground. There was still co-operative labor and the col- lective ownership of all property collectively used, now including fields, herds and houses. The family did not change form. The phratries made combinations and thus formed tribes after the same manner as the gentes had combined to make the phratries. There was a great change in the diet and in the clothing of the people. A much larger portion of the earth was made habitable, and, consequently, as the herds grew in numbers, the population migrated looking for wider fields of pasturage. The permanent possession of defi- nite territory by any given tribe became a matter of importance. 8 47. Sixth Period Iron. The sixth period, the last 7. Mason: Woman's Share in Primitive Culture, Chap. V. 8. Ihering: Evolution of the Aryans, pp. 14-44, and 48-50; Mor- gan: Ancient Society, p. 540. CHAP. IV THE ORDER OF PRIMITIVE PROGRESS 49 in Barbarism, began with the smelting of iron; and iron tools, together with iron weapons for hunting and for war, came into use. The tribes began to federate into nations. The stronger men began to contend for the exclusive possession of favorite women, and so polygamy came into being, as the practice of military leaders. It never became the established order of the common life. At the same time the relations between the men and the women of their mutual and special choice advanced toward the mutual and exclusive possession of each other. There were the beginnings of the modern family. 9 48. Primitive Products and Inventions. During this period there is found to have been in use rice, bar- ley, wheat, corn, rye, oats, peas, beans and onions, gold, silver, brass, iron, tin and bronze, the sickle, the pruning knife, the distaff, the spindle, the shuttle and the loom, the harp and the shepherd's pipe, the dyke, bridge and the irrigation ditch, garments of cloth and shoes of leather, houses of stone and brick, the dog, sheep, goat, hog, cow and horse, the wagon of four wheels, the saddle, pottery, the basket, the mill for grinding, and sailing vessels. 10 49. The labor of production was still the work of 9. "In primitive times sexual matters concerned the tribe, not the person. The end sought was the preservation of the group, and against it no individual had any rights, nor were his inclinations and feelings ever made the basis of duties or virtues. Where parent- age is unimportant promiscuity is the rule. Especially in fighting clans it was necessary to offer every inducement for child-bearing. Festivals, feasts, and social gatherings were designed to provoke the passions. "Under such conditions the first thought of a woman was, not to guard her chastity, but to escape barrenness. She knew that her position and probably her life depended upon her fertility. Chastity became a dominant virtue only after economic welfare had pro- gressed so far that clans began to disintegrate. Before that time barrenness was the dread of every woman, and she would resort to every means to avoid it." Professor Patten (University of Penn- sylvania) : Development of English Thought, p. 137. 10. All these are mentioned by Homer, who was the great poet of the last period of Barbarism. 50 CLEARING THE GROUND PART 1 women, but woman's work was beginning to be rein- forced by slaves. These were men captured from other tribes. In the earliest wars, the fight was unto death for one group or the other. The victorious men would save the women alive and take them unto themselves, adding them to the body of their own wives, where they would make a part of the working force of the tribe. Slavery made its beginning by saving alive the men who would finally surrender, and taking them home to join the women in the tribal industry. 11 This was the result of one of the most important discoveries of all time that a man is worth more alive than dead. 50 Barbarian Expansion. The tribes were press- ing upon each other for territory. The herds were out- growing the pastures and the populations were out- growing the smaller herds. Enlargement was neces- sary. To stay at home meant ruin through the limited means of life. To go abroad meant war. Whatever may be said of the early union of men within the tribes, there is no evidence whatever of any appreciation of any rights of any sort, for those outside the tribe. The gods of the tribes usually gave them all the land they wanted, without regard to whether it was already oc- cupied or not, the only condition being that "they go up and take it." 12 The result was universal war. War was becoming the regular occupation of men. But war, like hunting and fishing, was a joint matter, and the lands, usually the herds, and always the products of hunting, fishing and the spoils of war, belonged to all in common. 13 11. Morgan: Ancient Society, p. 540. 12. Gummere: Germanic Origins, Chapter IX.; Maine: Ancient Law, p. 125; Ihering: Evolution of the Aryans, pp. 19-20. 13. While I have followed Morgan's classifications, I have marked the periods as beginning with certain events, as serving my purpose better than as ending with certain other events. In this instance he mentions these items as belonging to near the end of Barbarism, while I mention them as marking the beginning of Civilization. The CHAP. IV THE ORDER OF PRIMITIVE PROGRESS 51 51. Seventh Period The Alphabet, War, Slavery and the Class Struggle. The seventh period is that covered by Civilization. This period is said to have begun with the invention of the alphabet. The begin- ning of this period was also marked by the beginning of private property in herds and lands as well as slaves. The motive of war and the function of the military de- partment speedily changed from an effort for relief from overcrowding to one of seeking power by con- quering and appropriating to private use the herds and lands of others and reducing the populations of the conquered lands to slavery. In fact, it was the be- ginning of slavery as a dominant industrial institution, as the slave of an earlier day had been a kind of mem- ber of the tribe or family, but now the slaves were organized into camps by themselves and the co-op- erative organization of industry gave way to slavery. Government changed from a free association based on kinship to an authority based wholly on force, and was made to cover all of the people on any given terri- tory without regard to kinship. 14 Society was divided into two classes, those who had forcibly taken the earth, and their slaves. The slaves were first the cap- tives of war a and afterwards the slaves of their cap- tors, and were compelled to produce with no direct interest in the products of their own labor.. Labor became the badge of servitude and dependence. The laborer was disgraced, discredited, disinherited and disfranchised and the age-long, world-wide, economic class struggle made its beginning. 52. Whence Slavery? We are here dealing with one of the most important facts of all history: Whence came slavery? Whence came private property in land? end of Barbarism is the same time as the beginning of Civilization, but I am able to make the relations of some events as the causes of other events more evident by speaking of them as I have done. 14. Gummere: Germanic Origins, Chapter IX.; Morgan: Ancient Society, Part II., Chapter XIII. 52 CLEARING THE GROUND PART! It is evident that the land was the primary object of attack, but the occupants, taken captive, were made slaves and set to work cultivating the land or caring for the herds. The land of conquered tribes was made the tribal property of the conquering tribe, at the same time that human beings were made the tribal property of the conquering tribe. 53. The Hunter and the Soldier. The earlier wars had been wars solely of defense, and the military lead- er had not been a very important character within his own tribe, where the purest primitive democracy pre- vailed in all matters within the tribe. It was only when war had become an important method of enrich- ing the tribe that the successful warrior came to sur- pass in importance both the hunter and the herdsman, and the mighty hunter became the builder of military power. 15 It was war which led to the discovery that it was easier to steal cattle than to raise them, easier to get wealth by appropriating the products of others than by producing the wealth at home. Appropriation paid better and became more honorable than produc- tion. Appropriation became the work of the soldier,\ production the work of the slave. Even then private property in land and slaves had not appeared. The whole class of the conquerors appropriated and held in common both the lands and the whole class of those whom they had made landless by war. 54. Robbing the Robbers. But the stronger men, who had first privately appropriated the favorite wom- en among those who were conquered, and so estab- lished polygamy, began to use, for private advantage, the tribal power to capture slaves and lands and then to 15. "And'Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the Lord. And the be- ginning of his Kingdom was Babel and Erech, and Accad, and Cal- neh, in the land of Shinar." Genesis: 10:8, 9, 10, 11. CHAP. IV THE ORDER OF PRIMITIVE PROGRESS 53 privately appropriate the lands and slaves which had before been appropriated by their tribes. The vic- torious tribes appropriated by war both the lands and the people of the conquered tribes, and in so doing de- veloped the strong military man who in turn used the military power, created and formerly used in order to enrich his tribe, now to enrich himself instead. War between the tribes extended tribal power and multi- plied the number of the tribal slaves, but these chief warriors robbed the robbers ; that is, they appropriated to themselves the lands and slaves which their own tribes were seeking to appropriate from other tribes, and thus made the beginning in the private ownership of both land and slaves. And in this manner, war be- tween the tribes seeking for a wider means of support, first made the whole class of captives the slaves of the whole class of their captors. And then the de- velopment of the strong military man within the tribes made possible the private possession of both the con- quered lands and the conquered peoples. And here at last private ownership of both land and slaves is the further fruit of war. 55. Subjection of Woman. The parentage of chil- dren among the master classes became of great impor- tance, as fixing the descent of property, and thus on a property basis the family was finally composed of one man and one woman and their children begotten together. 16 And here, also, the leisure class made its appearance. The women, who had been the first in- ventors, who had both created all primitive industry and had long continued to manage the industries they 16. "With the establishment of the inheritance of property in the children of its owner, came the first possibility of the monogamian family. Gradually though slowly, this form of marriage, with an exclusive cohabitation, became the rule rather than the exception; but it was not until civilization had commenced that it became per- manently established." Morgan: Ancient Society, p. 505. 54 CLEARING THE GROUND PART I had created now became workers with the slaves, and slaves with the workers, with no voice in the direc- tion of their own industry, but subject to the slave- driver's lash along with all other workers; either that, or the wives or the concubines of the soldiers, not to be discredited by toil, but to be guarded and impris- oned, in order that the paternity of the child should not be in doubt. They were both petted and ruled, both the subjects and the playthings of their masters. 56. Achievements of Primitive Society. It has been claimed that the last half century has seen more advance than all the previous life of man. But this is not the case. It would be as true to say that during the ten days of harvest, the fields yield more than during all the year besides. The fruits which are gathered then are the products of all the year, and of all the -years which have gone before. Live stock breeding, the cereals, houses, clothes, machinery, roads and other means of transportation and communica- tionin the development of such things as these, all of which had their beginnings in Barbarism, the last fifty years has seen many very great improvements. But the discovery of fire, the development of speech from the babble of beasts to the language of "articu- lately-speaking men," the development of the family and the creation of society on a basis of fraternity and equality, all of these and most of the f ormer tasks were carried to a high degree of excellence before the com- ing of Civilization and all under co-operative labor and the common ownership of productive property. As related to the existence, the comfort and the liberty of the race, the discovery of fire, the creation of lan- guage, the building of the family, the organizing of free society, not one of these has been equaled or CHAP. IV THE ORDER OF PRIMITIVE PROGRESS 55 even approached by any of the great inventions of the last century. 17 57. Mechanical Ancestry. The modern steam-plow has grown up from the crooked stick and ox team, which in turn were a vast improvement over the first sharpened stick with which the soil was turned and which was the common ancestor of all the spades, hoes, rakes, plows and harrows in existence. The modern palace is the distant offspring of the ancient hovel, or of the earliest nest or cave. Modern garments are the children of the ancient coverings of leaves and skins, as is the modern loom the outgrowth of the simple de- vices used in making the first hand-formed cloth, made from the finger-twisted threads of the earliest workers as they watched the fires and waited for the returning fishermen. The modern railway and steamship lines 17. "Modern civilization recovered and absorbed whatever was valuable in the ancient civilizations; and although its contributions to the sum of human knowledge have been vast, brilliant and rapid, they are far from being so disproportionately large as to overshadow the ancient civilizations and sink them into comparative insig- nificance. "The achievements of civilized man, although very great and remarkable, are nevertheless very far from sufficient to eclipse the works of man as a barbarian. As such he had wrought out and possessed all the elements of civilization, excepting alphabetic writing. His achievements as a barbarian should be considered in their rela- tion to the sum of human progress; and we may be forced to admit that they transcend in relative importance all his subsequent works. The use of writing, or its equivalent, in hieroglyphics upon stone, af- fords a fair test of the commencement of civilization." Morgan: An- cient Society, pp. 30-31. "Man's intellect is ever the same it moves in a sphere having a fixed and inexpansible upper limit, which has been reached from time to time by individual geniuses. But there is an apparent prog- ress arising from the fact that from place to place and time to time an intellect of equal power finds footing upon the total accomplish- ments of his predecessors and uses them as the starting point of further successes; not that later generations work with higher or more complete intellects, but with larger means accumulated by ear- lier generations, with better instruments, so to speak, and so ob- tain greater results. So it is of course impossible to deny progress in the field of invention and discovery but it would be a mistake to explain it from the greater perfection, or the progress of the hu- man intellect. An inventive Greek of ancient times, if he had fol- lowed Watt, would have invented the locomotive and if he could 56 CLEARING THE GROUND PART I are the direct descendants of the old carrying trails and the canoe-riding carriers of the savage days. Both the modern family and the modern state are the nat- ural and inevitable outgrowth of the old gentes, which were in turn the children of the groups of the savage and animal life which preceded the tribal organiza- tions. 58. Brotherhood. Modern life has wrought out many things at the hands of men. Primitive life wrought out the coming of man himself, for it was during these thousand centuries of common property and society based on kinship the kinsmen acting co- operativelythat the sentiment of brotherhood with- in the tribes was so wrought into the life of the race have known the arrangement of the electrical telegraph, it certainly might have occurred to him to construct a telephone. "Between human intellect four thousand years ago and today there is no qualitative difference nor any greater development or perfection only the completed labor of all intervening generations inures to the advantage of the modern intellect, which, with this ac- cumulated supply, to-day accomplishes apparently greater 'miracles' than the like intellect four thousand years ago did without it. But, in fact, laying aside the advantages of the former, the latter accom- plished no less wonderful things." Gumplowicz: Outlines of Sociology, pp. 208-9. "The history of a nation's industry must necessarily date back to prehistoric times and to the earliest stages of national life. For the history of industry is the history of civilization, and a nation's economic development must, to a large extent, underlie and influ- ence the course of its social and political progress. Hence it has been aptly remarked (Cunningham: Growth of Industry, I., p. 7) that there is no fact in a nation's history but has some traceable bearing on the industry of the time, and no fact that can be altogether ig- nored as if it were unconnected with industrial life. The progress of mankind is written in the history of its tools' (Walpole: Land of of Home Rule, p. 15); and to the economic historian the transition from the axehead of stone to that of bronze is quite as important as a change of dynasty; and certainly, in its way, it is as serious an industrial revolution as the change from the hand-loom to machinery." Gibbins: Industry in England, p. 3. "Human progress, from first to last, has been in a ratio not rigorously but essentially geometrical. This is plain on the face of the facts; and it could not, theoretically, have occurred in any other way. Every item of absolute knowledge gained became a factor in further acquisitions, until the present complexity of knowledge was attained. Consequently, while progress was slowest in time in the first period, and most rapid in the last, the relative amount may CHAP. IV THE ORDER OF PRIMITIVE PROGRESS 57 that it still survives five thousand years 18 of suffering and oppression at the hands of the anti-social and un- brotherly military power which first transformed so- ciety from the basis of kinship and mutual interest into that of force, and then used the force to usurp for the few the common inheritance of all. 59. Economic C&ea&G? During Savagery and Bar- barism there were no economic classes there was no world-wide class struggle. But at every step, the eco- nomic cause of the new advance is made evident. 19 Each new discovery, each new invention, meant new life to the world; and, using the new economic agencies, the steps were taken which still again led to other and to other achievements. The use of fire, the bow and arrow, the discovery of pottery, the domestication of animals, the discovery of the smelting and use of iron, and finally of the al- have been greatest in the first, when the achievements of either period are considered in their relations to the sum. It may be sug- gested as not improbable of ultimate recognition, that the progress of mankind in the period of savagery, in its relations to the sum of human progress, was greater in degree than it was afterward in the three sub-periods of barbarism ; and that the progress made in the whole period of barbarism was, in like manner, greater in degree than it has been since in the entire period of civilization." Morgan: An- cient Society, p. 38. 18. "It must be regarded as a marvelous fact that a portion of mankind five thousand years ago, less or more, attained to civiliza- tion." Morgan: Ancient Society, p. 553. 19. "A technical want felt by society is more of an impetus to science than ten universities." Engels interpreting the position of Marx, quoted by Seligman in "The Economic Interpretation of His- tory," p. 59. "The stationary condition of the human race is the rule, the progressive the exception." Maine: Ancient Law, p. 23. "What I wish particularly to point out is that what man asks from the soil is primarily nutrition only nutrition, a living. It is the 'food-quest' which has been so vividly portrayed in American prim- itive life by Mindeleff and so fully set forth by Mason: the tribe en- slaved by the soil; its laws, religion, customs, hopes, and fears wrapped up and submerged in the desperate strife for food.. Only where there is a surplus, where wealth rises above want, is it possible for the group to free itself from this bondage to the clod, to become more than 'an adscript of the glebe.' "The relations between man and the fauna and flora of the re- 58 CLEARING THE GROUND PART I phabet these were the creative forces, one after an- other, which suggested new advantages, in the long struggle for existence, first of individuals, then groups, then the gens, then the phratry, then the nation, and then a new factor in the world's life, which we shall trace in these pages, the creation of clashing economic classes and of world-conquest in order to appropriate rather than to produce. 60. Slaves and Soldiers. A new world of slaves and soldiers, struggling against each other, has suc- ceeded the old world of tribal brothers struggling for each other. Barbarism has ceased. Civilization has come. No wonder Carpenter speaks of its " cause and cure. ' : 61. Summary. 1. It will be noticed from the fore- going that from the earliest advance of the race until the coming of Civilization, co-operative industry, com- mon property, and government based on kinship and not on force, had covered the whole previous history of mankind. 2. It is seen from this study of primitive industry that when man came to use the resources of the earth, it never occurred to him for a thousand centuries that it could belong to only a portion of the race. When he did come to that conclusion, slavery and the sub- gion has been traced by Pickering and others in the distribution of plants cultivated by man for his food, use, or pleasure. They have been rightly named by Gerland 'the levers of his elevation.' Especial- ly the cereals supplied him a regular, appropriate, and sufficient nu- trition. Their product was not perishable, like fruit, but could be stored against the season of cold and want. Their cultivation led to a sedentary life, to the clearing and tillage of the soil, to its irriga- tion, and to the study of the seasons and their changes." Brinton: The Basis of Social Relations, p. 190. "The most advanced portion of the human race were halted, so to express it, at certain stages of progress, until some great inven- tion or discovery, such as the domestication of animals or the smelt- ing of iron ore, gave a new and powerful impulse forward." Morgan: Ancient Society, pp. 39-40. CHAP. IV. THE ORDER OF PRIMITIVE PROGRESS 59 jection of woman came along with the private appro- priation of the natural resources. 3. Again, it will be noticed that in his effort to use the earth and to develop its resources as the means of his support, for a like period, all of the people worked co-operatively both in the hunting, fishing and fighting, by the men, and in the cultivation of the soil and the development of household industries, by the women, both of which groups lived and worked under practical industrial democracies. 4. It is seen that this common possession of por- tions of the earth and the co-operative use of this nat- ural working plant by groups of kinsmen, were both destroyed by slavery which was established in the world by war, and that the wars came because of eco- nomic necessity. 5. It was under co-operative labor and common ownership of productive property that the whole line of discoveries and achievements were effected which make up the triumphs of primitive society. REVIEW QUESTIONS. 1. Name the great periods of man's history and mention the particular events which have marked the beginning of each. 2. What was characteristic of the life of man at the beginning of Savagery? 3. What was the occasion for the first division of labor? 4. What was the form of the first social organization and of the first family? 5. Trace the nation back through the simpler organizations out of which it has grown. 6. Trace the family in the same manner. 7. During what periods did co-operative industry and the com- mon ownership of productive property exist, and how were they over- thrown ? 8. What was the relation of slavery to barbarian war? 9. State some of the achievements of primitive industry. 10. Name fruits, grains, animals and tools in use at the begin- ning of civilization. 11. How do the achievements of primitive society compare with modern inventions? 12. Whence came the sentiment of brotherhood? 13. What things marked the beginning of civilization? CHAPTEE V SUMMARY OF PART FIRST 62. A Summary of Part First. 1. Society is di- vided into economic classes: One class is composed of masters, the other class is composed of servants. 2. The basis of this mastery and servitude, and the resulting dependence and poverty of the many is found in the private ownership and private control of the means of producing the means of life. 3. In the study of current institutions, it is neces- sary to look for their origins, in the usages of the ear- lier forms of social life. 4. This method of investigation is the scientific method. It is simply the theory of evolution applied to the study of social and economic problems. 5. Following this method it is found that, thus far, in the life of the race, the world has been so incom- pletely mastered and industry has been so inadequately organized, as to require the expenditure of so large a share of human energy in the battle for life, that it may fairly be said that the economic factors have been the dominant factors in human life. 6. During the primitive life of the race, economic development did not take the form of class struggles. Nevertheless, each great advance in man's improve- 60 CHAP. V. A SUMMARY OF PART FiRST 61 ment during this period was the result of an economic cause for example, the discovery of the use of fire, the invention of the bow and arrow, the making of pottery, the domestication of animals, the smelting of iron and the invention of the alphabet, have been seen to have been events of epoch-making power and importance. 7. The barbarian inter-tribal wars resulted in mak- ing masters of some tribes and slaves of others, and in this way made a beginning of the economic class war. 8. Great advances were made during savagery and barbarism, and throughout the many thousands of years of these periods, there were no economic masters or economic dependents; government was based on kin- ship and mutual interest, and both co-operative labor and collective ownership prevailed throughout this primitive life of the race, and ceased only with the coming of slavery and the subjection of woman, both of which were caused by war. PART 1 1 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM CHAPTER VI SLAVERY 63. Evolution. In the study of the evolution of capitalism, it should be borne in mind that capitalism, in its modern form, had its roots in the life of primi- tive society. The complete story of the evolution of capitalism would involve the whole story, thus far, of the social development of the race. Single effects are not results of single causes. 1 All social causes, in proportion to their power, co-operate together in the production of all social effects. Each effect in its 1. Unfortunately, few historians have thought it worth while to study seriously the economic factors in the history of nations. They have contented themselves with the intrigues and amusements of courtiers and kings, the actions of individual statesmen or the destructive feats of military heroes. They have often failed to ex- plain properly the great causes which necessitated the results they claim to investigate. But just as it is impossible to understand the growth of England without a proper appreciation of the social and in- dustrial events which rendered that growth possible, and provided the expenses which that growth entailed, so it will be impossible to pro- ceed in the future without a systematic study of econmic and indus- trial affairs. For the great political questions of the day are becom- ing more and more economic questions." Gibbons: Industry in Eng- land, p. 473. 62 CHAP. VI SLAVERY 63 turn becomes a social cause for further social effects. Hence the chain of the development of capitalism may be traced backward throughout the life of the race. Nevertheless, it can be fairly said that the leading features of capitalism that is, private monopoly in the ownership, private tyranny in the management, and inequality of opportunity in the use of the means of producing the means of life made their beginning in the world with the coming of slavery. But slavery came as the direct result of the inter-tribal barbarian wars and the military usurpation of the barbarian chieftains, and thus the seeds of capitalism were rooted in barbarism. In fact, when civilization succeeded bar- barism, the passion for the ownership of things had be- come the dominant passion of the race, 2 64. The Struggle for Land. The permanent pos- session of the herds and lands by the tribes, had be- come of the most vital importance as a means of life. The growing tribes had struggled with each other as they had trespassed on each other's territory. 3 Inter- 2. Morgan: Ancient Society pp. 6, 540. 3. "The first step in the struggle of races is that of the con- quest of one race by another. Among races that have pushed their boundaries forward until they meet and begin to overlap war usually results. If one race has devised superior weapons or has greater strategic abilities than the other it will triumph and become a con- quering race. The other race drops into the position of a conquered race. The conquering race holds the conquered race down and makes it tributary to itself. At the lowest stages of this process there was practical extermination of the conquered race. The Hebrews were scarcely above this stage in their wars upon the Canaanites, but that seems to have been a special outburst of savagery in a considerably ad- vanced race. The lowest savages are mostly cannibals. After the carnivorous habit had been formed, the eating of human flesh was a natural consequence of the struggle of the races. The most primitive wars were scarcely more than hunts, in which man was the mutual game of both contending parties. But at a later and higher stage head hunting, cannibalism, and the extermination of the conquered race, were gradually replaced by different forms of slavery. Success in conquering weaker races tended to develop predatory or military races, and the art of organizing armies received special attention. Such armies were at length used to make war on remote races, who were thus conquered and held under strong military power. Here the con- quered would so greatly outnumber the conquering that extermination 64 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART II tribal alliances had produced the nations, and great armies were the result. The chief men of the tribes, as well as of the nations, had become important as military leaders. 65. Tribes Enslaved. The conquered tribes were enslaved by the conquerors. As the victorious tribes extended their territory and enlarged their armies, the maintenance of these armies involved great industrial organizations. The military leader became not only the commander in battle, but also the master of in- dutry. 4 The workers were the tribes conquered in war and then made slaves to provide the support of their conquerors. 66. The Social and the Military. The mutual rela- tions of the people within the tribes became of less im- portance than the relations of all of the people to these new inter-tribal or national organizations. The would be impracticable. The practice was then to preserve the con- quered race and make it tributary to the wealth of the conquering race. Prisoners of war were enslaved, but the mass of the people was allowed to pay tribute." Ward : Pure Sociology, pp. 204-205. "The theory seems to be well settled that this archaic form of organization and of collective land-ownership by groups of men, united by the family tie, was common to all the races which com- pose the Aryan family. The traces of such a system have been estab- lished from Ireland to Hindoostan. * * * With the first advance in the path of civilization the principle of collective land-ownership naturally gave way to individual ownership. And such has been the transition through which the village community in most countries has passed." Taylor: The Origin and Growth of the English Con- stitution, Vol. I., p. 100. 4. "The barbarous isolation of families ceases when the strongest and most powerful force the weaker into their service. It is now that the division of labor [by classes] really begins: The victor devotes himself entirely to work of a higher order, to statesmanship, war, worship, etc.; the very doing of which is generally a pleasure in itself. The vanquished perform the lower. The one-half of the people are forced to labor for something beyond their own brute wants." Roscher: Political Economy, Vol. I., p. 211. "There is a double life in the state; we can clearly distinguish the activities of the state as a whole, as a single structure, from those emanating from the social elements. "The activities of the state as a whole originate in the sov- ereign class, which acts with the assistance or with the compulsory acquiescence of the subject class. * * * In particular, the su- perior class seeks to make the most productive use of the subject classes; as a rule this leads to oppression and can always be con- CHAP. VI SLAVERY 65 old relations had been based on kinship and mutual interest, and the affairs of the tribes had been admin- istered by practical co-operative democracies. The new organizations were subject to military necessity, rather than to the instincts of kinship; and the rela- tions of the military organization extended to the whole body of the people found on any given territory. Before this the life of the world had been made up most largely of social relations. The word social is derived from the word * ' societas, ' ' or "society," and means of, or pertaining to, the affairs of the whole body of the people. The people were everything, and the city did not exist. Whatever organization did ex- ist was solely for the benefit of the people, and had been controlled by them through their tribal associa- tions. Now the city made its appearance, and the city sidered as exploitation." Gumplowicz: Outlines of Sociology, pp. 116-17. "There have been three ways in which great political bodies have arisen. The earliest and lowest method was that of conquest without incorporation. A single powerful tribe conquered and an- nexed its neighbors without admitting them to a share in the gov- ernment. It appropriated their military strength, robbed them of most of the fruits of their labor, and thus virtually enslaved them. Such was the origin of the great despotic empires of Oriental type. Such states degenerate rapidly in military strength. Their slavish populations accustomed to be starved and eaten or massacred by the tax-gatherers, become unable to fight, so that great armies of them will flee before a handful of freemen, as in the case of the ancient Per- sians and the modern Egyptians. To strike down the executive head of such an assemblage of enslaved tribes is to effect the conquest or the dissolution of the whole mass, and hence the history of Eastern peoples has been characterized by sudden and gigantic revolutions. "The second method of forming great political bodies was that of conquest with incorporation. The conquering tribe, while annexing its neighbors, gradually admitted them to a share in the govern- ment. In this way arose the Roman empire, the largest, the most stable, and in its best days the most pacific political aggregate the world has yet seen. Throughout the best part of Europe its con- quests succeeded in transforming the ancient predatory type of so- ciety into the modern industrial type. It effectually broke up the prim- eval clan- system, with its narrow ethical ideas, and arrived at the broad conception of rights and duties coextensive with humanity. But in the method upon which Rome proceeded there .was an essential ele- ment of weakness. The simple . device of representation by which po- litical power is equally retained in all parts of the community while 66 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART II was everything and the people were nothing. The old city was a fortified place. It was sometimes entirely without population, but it was a walled city, with or without population, ready to be occupied and to be used in case of need for military purposes. 5 67. The City Politics and Militarism, The orig- inal city was a military affair and the original poli- tics had to do with the affairs of a military establish- ment. The word " politics " is derived from the word "polls," which is the Greek word for "city," and the city from which the meaning of "politics" was orig- inally taken, was a fortified place. Society, based orig- inally on the purpose of providing for the welfare of the whole people, gave way to the state, based on the military necessities of the fortified cities. The admin- istration of public affairs was no longer democratic, but military. The activities of the state were two-fold, at home and abroad. At home its activities were in- dustrial, abroad they were military. Away from home, the state acted through a soldier. At home, the state its exercise is delegated to a central body, was entirely unknown to the Romans. Partly for this reason, and partly because of the ter- rible military pressure to which the frontier was perpetually ex- posed, the Roman government became a despotism which gradually took on many of the vices of the Oriental type. The political weakness which resulted from this allowed Europe to be overrun by peoples or- ganized in clans and tribes and for some time there was a partial retro- gression toward the disorder characteristic of primitive ages. The retrogression was but partial and temporary, however; the exposed frontier has been steadily pushed eastward into the heart of Asia ; the industrial type of society is no longer menaced by the predatory type; the primeval clan-system has entirely disappeared as a social force; and warfare, once ubiquitous and chronic, has become local and occasional. "The third and highest method of forming great political bodies is that of federation. The element of fighting was essential in the two lower methods, but in this it is not essential. Here there is no con- quest, but a voluntary union of small political groups into a great political group. Each little group preserves its local independence intact, while forming part of an indissoluble whole. Obviously this method of political union requires both high intelligence and high ethical development." Fiske: The Destiny of Man, pp. 86-90. See also Fiske : American Political Ideas. 5. Kitto: Vol. II., p. 868. CHAP. VI SLAVERY (>/ acted by means of a slave, whose obedience and in- dustry were enforced by a soldier. The military or- ganization and the military spirit commanded both the soldier and the slave, and in both cases the motive for action was no longer for the common good of all, but the purpose now was to strengthen and support the military establishment. The great cities of the ancient world were simply military camps and slave camps combined. 6 68. Conquered Tribes and Private Lands. The employment of these slaves for this purpose also in- volved the use of great tracts of land, and the same military power which had enslaved the conquered tribes took also by the same power of war the lands along with the people. It has been seen how the land was made the personal estates of the military leaders, and how the territorial extension of the early states was affected by the inter-tribal alliances, which in- creased the number of soldiers; and the inter- tribal wars, which both increased the slave populations and the great privately owned landed estates. 69. Not the Oldest Form of Labor. All of the an- cient civilizations were built on slavery. This fact has led to the general impression that slavery was the old- 6. "From the moment that private possession in the means of production arose, exploitation and the division of society into two hostile classes, standing opposed to each other through their inter- est, also began." Liebknecht: Socialism What It Is, and What It Seeks to Accomplish," p. 39. "It is well understood by historical students that ancient slavery was a great step in human progress. But, whatever its merits, the consideration of slavery introduces a much larger subject the place of class relations in social development as a whole. In its material aspect, property in men is an institution by means of which one class of people appropriates the labor products of another class without economic repayment. This relation is brought about by other institutions than slavery. For instance, if a class engross the land of a country, and force the remainder of the population to pay rent, either in kind or in money, for the use of the soil, such a procedure issues, like slavery, in the absorption of labor products by an upper class without economic repayment. "We have observed the origin of social cleavage into upper and 68 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART II est and original form of industry. It was seen in the preceding chapters that such was not the case. Slavery was not a relic of barbarism. There is no evidence that slavery was an institution of primitive life. On the contrary, evidence that it did not exist until the closing years of barbarism and the beginning of civil- ization, is overwhelming. It is important that these points be borne in mind. 70. We can afford to dwell on this matter at some length. It has an important bearing on the develop- ment and on the relations of all social and industrial institutions. It is held, then, that chattel slavery did not exist prior to the beginning of civilization, in fact, that the beginning of civilization is especially marked by the beginning of slavery. And this is held to be the case for the following reasons : 71. Traditions. 1. The usages and traditions of the Germanic tribes all imply the prevalence of liberty. Chattel slavery had no existence among them. The men sold into slavery as the result of Eoman conquest, were captives from among the freemen of the fields and forests of the North. The had to be made slaves after they had been made captives. 7 72. Roman Law. 2. According to the Eoman law all men were assumed to have been free by the laws of nature, and slaves to have become such only by the contrary law of nations, that is, by conquest. There is no other reasonable explanation of this Roman in- terpretation of nature so directly in conflict with their own national law, then in force than that it was lower strata, on this general basis at the inception of social develop- ment. If we scrutinize the field carefully, it is evident that one of the greatest and most far-reaching facts of ancient civilization, as it emerges from the darkness of prehistoric times, as well as one of the most considerable facts of subsequent history is just this cleav- age of society into two principal classes." Wallis: American Jour- nal of Sociology, Vol. VII., pp. 764-65, May., 1902. 7. Guizot: History of Civilization (Lectures). Chapter II. CHAP. VI SLAVERY 69 a survival by tradition of a preceding condition in which all men were free. 8 73. Primitive Democracies. 3. Slavery nowhere originated by the tribes making slaves of their own members. The Theocracy of the Jews, the Republic of the Eomans, and the Democracies of the Greeks, were survivals within these ancient tribes of the original democracies which, until destroyed by war, existed among all primitive peoples. Primitive tribal lines had to be broken down before slavery could exist. They were broken down by war and at the beginning of civil- ization. The early Hebrew scriptures mark the passage of the Jews from barbarism into civilization. It is quite commonly supposed that the compromise of Moses on the subject of slavery was a compromise with an old abuse. The contrary is the fact. It was a compromise of barbarian liberty with new conditions. And even then, the members of the tribes were for- bidden to make slaves of the members of their own race. 9 The Mosaic land system was, in the same way, a survival, modifying the early horrors of the private appropriation of the earth. It was not a new idea specially provided and devised to make right old wrongs. It was a direct inheritance of barbarian usage outliving barbarism and, with a religious sanc- tion, vainly striving to control the economic conditions of a new era. 74. Old Words for Slave. 4. Among the Greeks, the word slave is also the word for captive, and in reading in the Greek language one can tell whether a slave or a captive is referred to only by the relations of this word to other words in the same passage. The word slave itself indicates the origin of slavery. It 8. "By natural right all men are born free; by right of nations (i. e., conquest) slavery has come in." Justinian Code, Book IV., L., XVII., 52. 9. "If thy brother, an Hebrew man or an Hebrew woman, be 70 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART II comes from the old word Slav, a member of the Sla- vonic race. Southern European wars were making cap- tives, and so slaves, of so many Slavs, or members of Slavonic tribes, that the tribal name of the captives staid with them in bondage and finally became the name applied to all bondmen, regardless of their na- tionality. 10 If the ancient tribes made slaves only of captives, if the members of their own tribes were exempt then it is clear that the beginning of conquest was the be- ginning of slavery. But the beginning of conquest was the beginning of civilization. 75. Primitive Burials. 5. Under slavery indus- try is discredited. The primitive peoples buried with their dead the tools of their simple industry. 11 Things so buried with the dead were marks of honor. Under slavery they would have been marks of disgrace. Either primitive peoples studied to discredit their dead, or slavery did not exist. Who would think of burying with the remains of a departed relative, who had been imprisoned, the striped clothes or the handcuffs in order to extend the evil record to the tomb! Either primitive peoples thus treated their own dead, or slavery did not exist. 76. Indians Without Slaves. 6. Savages, whose condition of advance toward civilization has not reached that point which had been reached by the an- cient peoples when slavery is known to have existed among them, do not now have slaves, except as they have copied the system from their civilized neighbors. The American Indians did not maintain any system of sold unto thee, and serve thee six years, then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee. And when thou lettest him go free from thee, thou shalt not let him go empty: thou shalt fur- nish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy threshing-floor and out of thy winepress: as the Lord thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him." Deuteronomy, Chapter XV., 12-15. 10. Ingram: History of Slavery, p. 5. 11. Morgan: Ancient Society. CHAP. VI SLAVERY 71 slavery among themselves, and they doggedly died when forced into slavery rather than submit to the loss of their barbarian liberty. 12 The Indians of the In- dian Territory copied the institution of black slavery from their white neighbors. And when the whole country was reorganized politically on the question of the disposition of the western public lands, the Indians of that territory were divided along the same lines as their white neighbors. It is an interesting thing to note that when the war was over, the Indians who had sided with the North sought to have their tribes dis- own those who had served with Confederate troops and so exclude them from any interest in the tribal lands. The United States government appointed a special commission to investigate the matter, and the commission not only recommended the government to maintain the tribal rights of those who had been south- ern troops, but it went further and insisted that the negroes, who before the war had been the slaves of the Indians, were also entitled to full tribal rights and hence to their share of the tribal property. The gov- ernment adopted the recommendation and enforced that arrangement. But that was among the Indians. In no other portion of the country were property rights of the emancipated negroes, in the social val- ues of the community, recognized. 77. Negroes Not Originally in Slavery. The Afri- can negroes, who were sold into slavery in Africa by the victorious tribes or by their military masters, were not slaves in Africa. They were free barbarians, or 12. "To the barbarian of the lower stage a slave was of no use. The American Indians therefore, treated their vanquished enemies in quite a different way from nations of a higher stage. The men were tortured or adopted as brothers into the tribe of the victors. The women were married or likewise adopted with their surviving children. The human labor power at this stage does not yet pro- duce a considerable amount over and above its cost of subsistence. But the introduction of cattle raising, metal industry, weaving, and finally agriculture wrought a change. Just as the once easily ob- 72 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART II savages. So determined were they not to become slaves that some thirty per cent, of all the negro cap- tives died in the process of being forced into slavery, not by barbarians or savages, but by the most highly civilized countries in the world. And so it is seen that slavery was distinctly an institution of civilization. For four thousand years, whatever portion of the earth was civilized, was fed and clothed by slaves. During all this time the barbarian was a freeman, ex- cept as captured and forced into slavery by his civil- ized neigbors, or except as he advanced toward civil- isation and began the development of slavery through inter-tribal wars after the same manner as slavery had at the first been established among the nations already civilized. Egypt, Persia, Greece, Carthage and Eome were all of them military creations, and the whole life of these ancient peoples was made brutal and corrupt, not by slavery alone, but by the armies which com- pelled the slaves to build the rude camps for those who toiled and the thrones and palaces for those who killed. 78. Cruelties. It is not necessary and it would be impossible to state the horrors of these long cen- turies of bondage. Men, women and children, philoso- phers, poets, artists, statesmen, the wisest and bravest of men, were condemned to slavery by men of their own race and frequently in every way their inferiors 13 and held in bondage, where they were chained to- gether in gangs and flogged to their tasks without mercy and slain without redress. The slave had lost all rights in war, so it was held, before he was made a tainable wives now had an exchange value and were bought, so labor power was now procured, especially since the flocks had definite- ly become private property. The family did not increase as rapidly as the cattle. More people were needed for superintending; for this purpose the captured enemy was available, and, besides, he could be increased by breeding like the cattle." Engels : Origin of the Family, p. 67. 13. "So in the midst of the magnificence of the Roman power, we perceive only a confused mass of proletaires, enslaved, free, do- CHAP. VI SLAVERY 73 slave in the first place. And hence the masters held the power of life and death, the power to compel all degrees of suffering and all manner of degradation, the power to enforce unwilling and unmentionable de- bauchery. The innocence of childhood, the helpless- ness of those outworn with toil and with the years, the enforced nakedness and debauchery of women, every faculty and function of whose bodies were held as the property of others; strong men compelled to slay each other for the entertainment of seeing them die together these were the toys with which brutality and lust amused themselves for 'forty centuries. 79. Products of Slave Labor. The cities, palaces and pyramids of Egypt, the hanging gardens and the wide and endless walls of Babylon, the temples, the harbors, the ships and markets of Greece, the stone roads which traversed all lands of the then known world, the fortresses, the camps, the villas and the mines, the pavements, waterways, coliseums and the fields and the vineyards of Rome, and across the Medi- terranean and in Spain, the works of Rome's greatest rival, Carthage, all were the products of the toil of slaves. 80. Slavery in the United States. Something ought to be said about slavery and serfdom in the United States. The old slavery, which made slaves or serfs of many of the ancestry of the people who finally became the settlers of this country, had practically dis- appeared when the enslavement of the black man was undertaken in Europe. It was never able to make any headway in the old country, where wage labor could be secured on such terms as always made the labor of mestic and artisan, who work to furnish supplies for the unproductive consumption of the great owners of capital and of lands. The liberal arts, so glorious and so noble, are abandoned to servile hands; medi- cine even is practiced only by slaves." Blanqui: History of Political Economy, p. 57. (On page 83, same work, Blanqui speaks of "ancient civilization, wholly founded on slavery.") 74 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART II the black slave unprofitable. The cotton, sugar and tobacco plantations of the new world, however, fur- nished an opening where labor was so scarce and the profits were so great that the black slave worker could be maintained at a profit for his master; and so, in countries producing these things, the slavery of a sub- ject race outlived the institution of slavery in other countries where wage workers were numerous, and the opportunities for production limited to the usual em- ployments. 14 It is needless to argue that the black man would always have worked better for wages. The fact is, that he could not have been obtained for pay at any price. The destruction of his liberty was the sole condition on which he could be secured at all. When force no longer kidnaped and compelled the African to become a worker, civilization had no re- ward by which he could be induced to accept what the employer could give in exchange for his African life. Immigration continued from civilized Europe, not from barbarian Africa. 81. Destroyed by War Wage System Pays Better. Negro chattel slavery was incidentally destroyed by the war to preserve the Union. The former masters have acquiesced in this, because, with the black man once in the mill which civilization provides, it is found on actual experience that he will produce so much for so little pay, that it is more profitable to hire him than to own him outright. It was for this reason that slav- ery died without a struggle in all of the old northern states. It is of the greatest interest to follow the aban- donment of slavery in these states. Slavery had for- 14. "The planting of sugar and tobacco can afford the expense of slave cultivation. The raising of corn, it seems, in the present times, cannot. In the English colonies, in which the principal produce is corn, the far greater part of the work is done by freemen. In our sugar colonies the whole work is done by slaves." Adam Smith: Wealth of Nations, Book III., Chapter 2. Published in 1776. This is of special value as giving the convictions of the students of CHAP. VI SLAVERY 75 merly existed throughout the North. Not only were black men held as chattels, but white men as well. In fact, white slavery was already in existence in the colonies when the Dutch traders disposed of their first cargo of blacks in Virginia. And the king of England is known to have been a party to the capturing by press gangs, of his own good English subjects, and winking at their sale into slavery in the colonies. 82. White Slavery in America. The beginning of black slavery was made in 1620, but the first black slaves were set to work in America as the fellow- workers of white men already in slavery on the black man's arrival. 15 The impossibility of carrying on profitable slave plantations, and the rise in manufac- tures in the northern states greatly increased the number of European immigrants into those states. As soon as the hired worker was found to be more profit- able than the slave laborer, the black men were "sold South" or given their liberty. White slavery does not seem to have survived the Eevolutionary War. In fact, a large share of the white men sold into American slavery, were men taken from the prisons of England; these matters when slavery was still in force. The invention of the cotton gin afterwards added cotton to the list of employments where slaves could be supported by the products of slave labor and leave a considerable surplus to be used or wasted by their masters. 15. "In the early days of Virginia and Maryland the slave was usually not a negro, but an Englishman, condemned either penally or by contract to a limited period of bondage. As far as we can ju4ge from the scanty and scattered records at our command, the condition and character of the indented servant underwent a marked change during the sevententh century, and a change for the worse. At the outset this class was supplied from two sources. A few were felons, usually those with whom capital punishment had been com- muted to colonial servitude. The cases, however, do not seem to have been numerous, and probably had but little effect on the general char- acter of the population. The bulk of the indented servants in Vir- ginia were laborers who bound themselves for a fixed term of service with a certainty of becoming small freeholders at the end of that period. Gradually the system changed. The great tobacco plantations of Virginia needed a larger servile population than could be provided by the chance supply of pardoned criminals. Nor were the ultimate prospects of an indented servant such as to attract free laborers in 76 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART 11 and after the Revolution, England established her penal colonies elsewhere. In the meantime, it had be- come more profitable in this country to hire than to own the white man's labor. 83. Selling Negroes to Themselves. It is a striking comment on the giving of liberty to the black men in the North, that the " manumission" papers which gave to any particular black man his liberty, usually speci- fied that it was done in consideration of long and faith- ful service, and the further consideration of the pay- ment to the former master by the freedman of a sum which in every three years amounted to more than the negro's market value. It was further provided in these papers, that in default of any of these payments, these papers should become void and the negro return to his former master and to his previous condition of servitude. So it is seen that the negro usually secured his liberty by making his liberty more profitable to his master than had been his servitude. Formerly the any number. The market was indeed partly furnished by political prisoners. There were few ages of English history in which this re- source would have insured so constant a supply as in the latter half of the seventeenth century. Penruddock's attempt against the Common- wealth in 1655, the Scotch rebellion in 1666, the rising of th West un- der Monmouth, the Jacobite insurrection in 1715, each furnished its share of prisoners to the colonies. But the demand was far in ex- cess of such precarious aids, and, as might have been expected, it soon produced a regular and organized supply. It became a trade to fur- nish the plantations with servile labor drawn from the off-scourings of the mother country. "When the Colonial Board came into being in 1661, not the least important ' of its duties was the control of the trade in indented servants. In that year a committee was appointed to consider the best means of furnishing labor to the plantations by authorizing con- tractors to transport criminals, beggars, and vagrants. More im- portant than the encouragement of this trade was the control and di- rection of it. The evils of the system were two-fold. On the one hand, the young, the inexperienced and the friendless were at the mercy of the kidnapers' 'spirits/ as they were called, who forced or beguiled them on shipboard and transported them to the colonial market. Children and apprentices were stolen. All those, and in a lawless age such as this was, there were many, of whom profligacy, cupidity, or malevolence would fain rid themselves, were in danger of being consigned to a life which left small chances of discovery or or escape. * * * Nor was this the only danger of the system. CHAP. VI SLAVERY 77 master had provided food, clothing and shelter all the year round for his slave; and the master was obliged to provide and manage the industry which made pos- sible the employment of his slave. But under this contract manumission arrangement, the master escaped all responsibility. The negro was obliged to look for some one who could use his labor to an advantage, and after keeping for himself the scantiest subsistence, turn the balance of his earnings over to his master for the privilege of being a free man, that is, for the privi- lege of looking for a new master. He was not given such liberty as enabled him to keep for himself the products of his own labor any more than while in out- right slavery. 84. The Slave-Dealing North. The share which the North had in establishing southern slavery ought also to be mentioned. Here is a sample of the circle completed by an ordinary New England business transaction in the earlier days. Lumber and fish were The Bristol slave ships served not only as a prison for the innocent, but as a refuge for the guilty. Runaway apprentices, faithless hus- bands and wives, fugitive thieves and murderers, were enabled to es- cape beyond the reach of civil or criminal justice. The system how- ever, was yet too necessary to be given up. The statesmen of Charles I's reign betook themselves with energy to the problems of Colonial government. The question of slavery was perhaps the most difficult that came before them, and they met it with judgment, and, it would seem, with fair success. * * * The evil still went on, as we learn from the records of the next reign. * * * We read, too, how the magistrates of Bristol drove a thriving trade by con- demning criminals and transferring them as articles of merchandise from one to another. * * * The publicity thus given to the mat- ter may have brought the Order of Council in March, 1686, directed alike against kidnapers and fraudulent servants. This provided, ( 1 ) that all contracts between emigrant servants and their masters should be for- mally executed before two magistrates, and that a register of such bargains should be kept; (2) that no adult should be transported but by his own free consent, and no child without the consent of either par- ent or master; (3) in the case of children under fourteen the consent of the parent as well as the master was necessary, unless the former was not forthcoming. That a system which imposed no check upon kid- naping of friendless orphans, or the sale of children by their own parents, should have been accepted as satisfactory, is a startling illus- tration of the temper of the age, and of that vast gulf which in some matters severs us from our forefathers. After this no trace is to be 78 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART II sold in the West Indies in exchange for molasses; the molasses made into rum in New England; the rum ex- changed with African tribes for slaves; the slaves sold to cotton-growers for cotton; the cotton made into clothes in the New England factories, and a part of the product exchanged for more molasses; to make more rum; to get more slaves; to get more cotton; to make more clothes; to get more molasses, etc., etc. The balance of the products were used to invest in and to monopolize western land, to enlarge her own manufacturing interests, to support schools, colleges, and churches; and thus to help lay the foundations for New England's greatness. And at a later day, when the slave trade had been driven from the sea, some of the same funds were used to support abolition soci- eties, notwithstanding the fact that the New England business man was usually on the side of the " broad- cloth mob ' 9 and against the abolitionists. In fact, the southern states had clean hands as com* pared with northern and European traders, who en- acted all the horrors of the " middle passage" and se- cured for these traders all the profits obtained for the found of any legislative attempt to cope with the abuses. That, how- ever, may be attributed not to the improvement of the system, but to the fact that it was gradually giving way before a rival form of in- dustry. * * * For it is an economic law of slavery, that where it exists it must exist without a rival. It can only succeed where it is a predominant form of labor. * * The new system (African slavery), indeed, did not win the day wholly without a struggle. A Virginia clergyman, writing in 1724, deplores the number of negroes and the consequent discouragement to the poorer class of white emi- grants. In South Carolina more than one effort was made to stem the tide. In 1678 an act was passed offering a bounty on the importa- tion of indented white servants, Irish only excepted. That they were designed to counteract the influx of black slaves is shown by the pro- vision that they were to be distributed among the planters, one to every six negroes. In 1712 a more elaborate attempt was made in the same direction. An act was passed which declared in its preamble the impor- tance of increasing the numbers of the population. A bounty of four- teen pounds per head was offered for the importation of British subjects between twelve and thirty years of age. It is not too much to say that the whole order of Southern society, its manner of life and forms of in- CIIAP. VI SLAVERY 79 work of introducing black slavery into the southern states. 16 85. Slave Labor Unprofitable Wage System Im- possible Under Barbarism. Adam Smith contends that at no time was the labor of slaves really profitable. He argues in effect, and with good reason, that the ancient slave labor would have been more produc- tive if it could have been organized under the modern wage system. But this takes it for granted that mod- ern industrial life could have been organized out of the materials from which the ancient slave was made. The man who in ancient times became a slave was a proud, high-spirited freeman, more defiant than a mod- ern factory worker. He was in the possession of his own lands and in the habit of producing for himself. No one collected from him either rent or interest, nor compelled him to earn profits for others before he was permitted to create a living for himself. He had for dustiy, were fashioned by slavery. We have already seen how the early conditions of Virginia life tended to throw .the land of the colony into the hands of a few large proprietors. That tendency was confirmed and intensified by slavery. For slave labor can only be employed profit- ably in large gangs, and such gangs can only be worked on wide terri- tories and in the hands of great capitalists." Doyle : English Colonies in America, pp. 382***85, 387, 388, 391. 16. "The world was a great slave holder throughout the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries, and during the greater part of the nineteenth. Nor were the negroes the only slaves in Virginia or in the other colonies. "On account of the crowded condition of English jails, many con- victs were transported to America and sold for a term of years as 'in- dentured servants.' White slaves and black worked side by side in the tobacco fields. Sometimes the whites, on becoming free, acquired property and social position in the colony. Many led a miserable ex- istence, and their descendants were called 'poor whites.' White slavery ceased about 1700. Till that time negro slavery was held in check, be- cause white slaves were often the cheaper. * * * A common notice in the newspaper was the announcement of the arrival of a packet and the public or private sale of a 'serving-man' or 'serving-woman.' In Philadelphia and Baltimore a lively business went on in this purchase and sale of redemptioners. "Not infrequently these were better educated than those who bought them, and they were employed to teach school or keep books. "For a time most of the schools in Maryland were conducted by convicts or redemptioners." Thorpe: A History of the American Peo- ple, pp. 37, 145. 80 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART II iris own use the full product of his toil. 17 It is more than likely that the only way by which he could be made to become a producer for another's use, was by the process by which he was deprived of his own equipment in lands and herds, and of his liberty as well. It has been said that there has never been a race of industrial workers produced without first going through a period of slavery on their way to the indus- trial habit. This does not dispute the position of Adam Smith. It only confirms the suggestion above that, in all probability, no barbarian could be found who would willingly exchange the leisure and liberty of his barbarian life for any rewards which the mod- ern wage system could offer in their stead. If the in- dustrial habit is to be one of the fixed characteristic!? of man in his final development, then the long centu- ries of suffering under slavery, and other forms of in- dustrial subjection, may have at least rendered the service of the pain and travail of a new birth for the race. 18 "The United Colonies conformed to the usage of their day by sell- ing into foreign bondage their foes taken in arms. A few, convicted of killing people 'otherwise than in the way of war/ were executed. Some years later Charles II. marketed as bondmen his Scotch sub- jects taken at Bothwell Bridge. Still later, James II. sold into West Indian slavery at least eight hundred and forty of his fellow English- men captured in Monmouth's rebellion, and the most refined ladies of his court strove for grants of these salable prisoners, not for purposes of mercy, but to replenish their dainty purses." Goodwin: The Pilgrim Republic, p. 562. 17. "The experience of all ages and nations, I believe, demon- strates that the work done by slaves, though it appears to cost only their maintenance, is, in the end, the dearest of any." Adam Smith: Wealth of Nations, Book III., Chapter 2. Read also Book I., Chapter 8, same work. 18. "The number of conquering races has always been relatively small and the number of conquered races has of course been corre spondingly large. This came at length to mean that the 'ruling classes 1 constituted only a small fraction of the population of the world, while the subject classes made up the great bulk of the population. At the time that men began to compile rude statistics of population, which was sparingly done before the beginning of our era, it was found that the slaves far outnumbered the 'citizens' of all countries. In Athens there was such a census taken in the year 309 B. C., when there was CHAP. VI SLAVERY 81 86. Emancipation Forbidden. Whatever may have been true as to the comparative value of slave labor and wage labor at the beginning of the period during which the world's work was done by chattel slaves, at a later date slave labor was put to the test with the wage labor of freedmen and the displaced farmers of the earlier days of the Eoman Eepublic. Two hundred years before the beginning of the Christian era, the desperate industry and small wages for which these people were willing to work, and the greater effectiveness of their labor, made it more profitable to hire them than to own slaves. So many of the Eoman masters took advantage of this fact, that the institution of slavery was in danger of abandonment and the authority of the law interfered to so tax the freeing of the slaves as to give the advantage to slave labor. There was more profit in wage labor, but so many of the old masters did not know how to satisfy their arrogance and aristocratic prida without chattel slavery, that the law was invoked by the many masters against the few to protect their arrogance, even at the expense of their profits. 19 found to be 21,000 citizens, 10,000 foreigners, and 400,000 slaves! It is not, therefore, a small number of men that have been thus kept in train- ing all these ages, but practically all mankind. It may sound paradox- ical to call slavery a civilizing agency, but if industry is civilizing, there is no escape from this conclusion, for it is probably no exaggera- tion to say that but for this severe school of experience continued through thousands of generations, there could have been nothing corre- sponding to modern industry. And right here is a corollary which Mr. Spencer and other critics of militancy have failed to draw. For slavery, as they admit, is the natural and necessary outcome of war. It is the initial step in the 'regime of status.' It was therefore in militarism that the foundations of industrialism were laid in social adaptation. There seems to be no other way by which mankind could have been prepared for an industrial era. Or if this is more than we are warranted in say- ing, it is at least true that this is the particular way in which men were fitted for the role that they have been playing in the past two cen- turies." Ward: Pure Sociology, p. 272. 19. "The pride of man makes him love to domineer, aaid nothing mortifies him so much as to be obliged to condescend to persuade his inferiors. Wherever the law allows it, and the nature of work can af- 82 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART II 87. Summary. 1. Chattel slavery did not exist among primitive peoples. 2. Chattel slavery came into existence as the result of the inter- tribal wars. Private property in land and in slaves came into existence by the same process and from the same cause. 3. All ancient civilizations had their economic foun- dations in slavery. The ancient world was divided into two classes, soldiers and slaves. 4. Black slavery in America was a reversion to an out-grown institution, and was finally abandoned be- cause not profitable in the northern states, and the southern states acquiesced in its final overthrow for the same reason. 5. Slavery was never profitable in competition with wage labor and existed primarily because force was necessary to induce the labor which could not be hired on any terms. REVIEW QUESTIONS. 1. In what way is capitalism related to the primitive life of the race? 2. What leading characteristics of capitalism came into existence with slavery? 3. What was the cause of the inter-tribal barbarian wars? 4. What was the relation of war to the beginning of slavery? 5. How do we know that slavery did not exist in primitive so- ciety? 6. What were the beginnings of the cities and how were their populations made up, and why? 7. What one thing was true of the labor of all ancient civiliza- tions ? 8. Was slavery ever really profitable? Why could not the wage system have succeeded barbarism instead of slavery? 9. When ancient slavery was found to be unprofitable, why was it not abandoned ? Quote Adam Smith. 10. Why did American slavery die in the North without a strug- gle ? Why is there no demand for a return to slavery in the South ? ford it, therefore, he will generally prefer the service of slaves to that of free men." Adam Smith: Wealth of Nations, Book III., Chapter 2; also see Simonds: Story of Labor, p. 139. CHAPTER VH SERFDOM 89. Workmen Born Not Captured. When the Eoman authority had extended Roman conquest to the utmost limits, and the task of protecting the frontier had made impossible the further extension of the fron- tier, and the limit of expansion by conquest had at last been reached, then alliances with new tribes could no longer recruit the Roman army, nor conquest of new countries provide more slaves. The old order of things which had driven the slave at his task and to his death, and then replaced him with a fresh captive from the eternal war on the frontier had to yield to a milder program. Slaves must be propagated if they could not be captured. If they were to be born and reared on the estates which they were to serve, then the conditions of the slaves must be improved and a fixed tenure of their interest in the hut and garden must be provided as the necessary condition of their providing and caring for the offspring who were to loecome the productive workers of the great estates. 1 1. "Completion of the Roman system of conquest reduced the sup- ply of slaves. * * * and the Romans were obliged to have recourse to the milder but more tedious methods of propagation." Gibbon: De- cline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chapter 2. "From the very moment when barbarism advanced to the encoun- ter with the ancient world, one sees the metamorphosis commenced; 83 84 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART II 90. The Serf's Home. The most marked advan- tage, therefore, of the serf over the slave, was that now the worker could have a family; could be inter- ested in his children; could know and love his off- spring; would become enthusiastic in the industry which would provide for their welfare. It should be noticed that the masters granted to the old slaves this new privilege for the sake of so securing new workers, and as the only way by which the necessary workers could be provided. To the worker the new home was a boon longed for through the centuries. To the master the hovel of the serf was only a breeding pen for toilers, and he spoke contemptuously of the serf and of the serf's family as "his litter. " 2 91. The Slave Market. The slave trade did not cease with the end of conquest* The occasional cap- tive and the child specially reared for the market kept up the trade centuries after entering upon the pro- cess which finally transformed nearly all Europe from the old slavery into the conditions of the new serfdom. In England the English parents depended for no small share of their income on the sale of children born unto themselves and reared especially for the slave market. Bristol was the great slave market of England, and this practice did not cease at that city until William the Conqueror prohibited it in the eleventh century, 3 slavery grows weak, because people no longer come from the country of slaves. They are more costly ; people treat them as a rare thing, or per- haps employ them as a defense. In proportion as the power was lost of renewing them by conquest, and their numbers could only be increased by their own fecundity, they became members of the Roman family ; they lived in a condition nearly like that of our domestics, and their masters insensibly lost the habits of despotism which attach to the idea of property. Thus was brought about the transition from slavery to serf- dom, two regimes very different, since the former enfeoffed man to man, and the second simply bound him to the soil." Blanqui: History of Political Economy, pp. 88-89. 2. Green : History of the English people, p. 260. 3. "An edict yet more honorable to him [William the Conqueror] put an end to the slave trade, which until then had been carried on at the CHAP. VII SERFDOM 85 All Southern Europe was well on in this transition from the slave, captured and driven to his death, with- out mercy, to the slave born and so treated that he would stay on his master's land and reproduce a suc- cessor to undertake with him and after him the same slave's task, when the Roman authority collapsed and workers had to be reared rather than captured as the sole source of supply. 92. Germanic Tribes in Southern Europe. When the Germanic tribes took possession of the Roman ter- ritory, they came down from the north with their bar- barian tribal relations still in force. They came into a country where the method of making a livelihood involved the cultivation of the soil on a larger scale than had been practiced among them. They were act- ing under the military exigencies of the general dis- order which followed the downfall of the Roman au- thority. None of them had ever lived in cities. ' ' They looked upon the walls of a town as a prison." 4 The general disorder made the support of the great cities insecure and uncertain, while they fell into such neg- lect that from sanitary reasons they became practi- cally uninhabitable. The old Roman masters who were engaged in agriculture had gathered into walled towns for common defense and for the social advantages in that way obtained. The new Germanic military chief- tains utterly destroyed many of these towns and port of Bristol." Green : History of the English People, Chapter 2, Sec- tion 6. "It was not an uncommon practice for the poor in the Middle Ages to sell themselves into slavery, or to become slaves by debt." Brace: Gesta Christi, or a History of Human Progress, p. 229. * * * There was a very large export trade in slaves, and their prices are recorded in the laws of the period. Bristol was a great center of this sad traffic, and remained so till the twelfth century, and English and Danish slaves formed an important merchandise in the markets of Germany. The devout Gytha, Earl Godwin's wife, is said to have shipped whole gangs, especially of young and pretty women, for sale in Denmark." Gibbins: Industry in England, pp. 44-45. 4. Freeman: General Sketch of History, p. 173. 86 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART II all were treated with neglect and contempt. 5 As these new chieftains came to cultivate the soil and to provide defense, they built castles on their own estates which they and their fighting men occupied in idleness and revelry while the work was done by the same old body of slaves, now sometimes reinforced by their former masters who had escaped the sword of the Ger- mans only to join the ranks of the enslaved. It was by the effort to adapt the social organization of those* 1 still in barbarism to the industrial conditions of those well advanced in civilization, that feudalism came into existence. Feudalism was an effort to preserve the independence of the tribes of warriors whose democ- racy had been destroyed by war; whose means of sup- port now required a fixed habitation, and whose re- sources now included the slaves as well as the lands of the conquered Eonians. It existed side by side with slavery, but finally succeeded slavery as the predom- inant industrial method for a thousand years. There were many kinds and degrees of serfs. There were many kinds and degrees among those who were the masters under serfdom. The original landholders of the northern countries of Europe were finally dis- placed and the castles and hovels of feudalism covered the British Isles and all of Western Europe to the north as far as the Scandinavian countries. In the northern countries and in England, serfdom was the direct creation of a compromise not between the last stages of the old slavery and these new military condi- tions, but, instead, a compromise between survivals of direct barbarian customs and these new military conditions. 93. In Teutonic and Celtic Countries. In all Teu- tonic and Celtic countries, the old barbarian tribal or village interest in all the land, on the part of all the 5. Adam Smith: Wealth of Nation?, Book 111., Chapter 3. CHAP. VII SERFDOM 87 people, still survived. The development of the new military powers simply destroyed the earlier chief men. The new conquerors consented to the earlier civil usages. They simply made new chief men from among their own favorites and in a way perpetuated the ancient rights to the soil, only conditioning the further enjoyment of these rights on the doing of mili- tary service. This was particularly the case in Eng- land. When William the Conqueror had made himself the master of England, he provided the military estab- lishment necessary for his own support, not only by appropriating large estates to his own use, but by mak- ing the titles to practically all the land in England depend on military service. 6 This is the reason why all England was so quickly covered with castles after the conquest. It was a part of the conquest. It was the process by which the conquest was made se- cure. 94. Thorold Rogers on the Fifteenth Century. - It was from these antecedents that the conditions arose which finally made so large a share of agricultural Englishmen either self-employers, outright and en- tirely, or a mixture of the serf and the wage worker so that great companies of men worked both for wages and for themselves. They had their patch of four acres with the cottage. They had their strips in the cultivated fields and in the meadows. They had their rights to fuel and to pasturage from the common holdings of the village, and so achieved a condition of which Thorold Rogers speaks as "the golden age of labor. ' ' Of these people he says : "I have stated more than once that the fifteenth century and the first quar- ter of the sixteenth were the golden age of the English laborer, if we are to interpret the wages which he 6. Blackstone: Commentaries on the Laws of England, Vol. I., Book II., Chapter 4. 88 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART II earned by the cost of the necessaries of life. At no time were wages, relatively speaking, so high; and at no time was food so cheap nor, as I have already observed, were the hours long. It is plain that ' the day was one of eight hours." 7 95. Denial of Political Power. The trouble with all this was that after the conquest the authority of the state was never in the hands of these workers; that whatever they had, they held only because it seemed most advantageous to their masters that it should be so. Thorold Eogers states that the conditions con- stantly grew worse for three centuries, and, as we shall see later, completed the chapter of abuses by the military masters appropriating public lands when they no longer needed the services of the workers and so coming finally to the complete triumph of the wage system over serfdom. 96. Serfdom in America. All of the charters which were given to the early companies for the settle- ment of America, were of the same nature as the old feudal land grants at home in the several countries which made them. On the Hudson, more than else- 7. Rogers: Work and Wages, pp. 326-27. "About the year 1000 benefices took the name of fiefs (feod), and the feudal organization was then complete. The servile or half- servile crowd, slaves of the Romans and Germans, the coloni of the first, the lidi of the second, either became servants of the lords or received lands from them on very humiliating conditions and were henceforth feudal serfs." Maine: Ancient Law, p. 231. "Another element [of feudalism] was represented by the bene- ficium, which was partly of Roman, partly of German, origin. A practice had arisen in the empire of granting out frontier- lands to soldiers upon condition of their rendering military service in border war- fare* * * This Roman custom naturally suggested to the Teutonic kings the plan of rewarding their followers out of their own estates with grants of land benefices or fiefs, with a special undertaking to be faithful in consideration of the gift." Taylor: Origin and Growth of the English Constitution, Vol. I., p. 223. "I believe, indeed, that under ordinary circumstances the means of life were more abundant during the Middle Ages than they are under our modern experience. There was, I am convinced, no extreme poverty." Rogers: Economic Interpretation of History, p. 16. Kropotkin: Mutual Aid, Chapters V. and VI. CHAP. VII SERFDOM 89 where, the real feudal life was actually in force. There was complete dependence of the serf on his lord, in- cluding military service and the oath of allegiance to the landlord by his tenant. This feudalism was in form overthrown by the Revolution. There were and are yet some survivals of this old feudalism still lingering in the Empire State. Her early control by the few great families along the Hudson; the appoint- ment of county officers by the state authorities which was not abandoned until 1830 and the large tracts of land still held in entailed and rent gathering estates, are instances in point. Both slavery and serfdom in this country are inter- esting subjects for study, but neither were in the line of the regular development of modern industry. Serf-"! dom was an importation from Europe, and slavery was a recurrence to a method of production already out- grown in the regular line of advance. 97. Slavery and Serfdom. We will rpturn to the study of slavery and serfdom in the places of their natural and historical development. The differences between slavery and serfdom are not easily stated, but the one which is of economic importance and there- fore of importance to us is that, historically, men first owned slaves, and the land in order to employ the slaves. Finally the discovery was made that if they owned the land, they did not need to own the slaves; and to extend to the slaves some portion of their rights, would add to their value as workers and would promote the propagation of more workers. The mas- ters had established themselves on estates and gath- ered their soldiers about them. The soldiers were free men, only it was desertion to withdraw from the mili- tary service of their lords. The workers were given the same kind of freedom that is, they were per- mitted to say that they were no longer slaves, but they 90 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART II were forbidden to go from one place to another. They had belonged to the masters under slavery. They be- longed to the land and the land belonged to masters under serfdom. 8 98. Vice, Cruelty and Greed. It was discovered that there was no vice which slavery could gratify,, which could not as well be served under serfdom. It was discovered that the earnings under serfdom were larger for the master than under slavery. It was dis- covered that the pride and arrogance of masters, which was the sole incentive for the perpetuation of unprofit- able slavery, could be better served by telling the vic- tim that he was no longer a slave. Then, by owning the sole means by which a worker could maintain his existence, they could continue to rob and corrupt the serf after the same old manner, and with larger re- turns for the master than slavery could afford. Serf- dom was but another form of slavery introduced by the masters and solely for the masters ? advantage. 99. The Masters Make the Change to Serfdom. The change from slavery to serfdom was not a victory 8. "The political constitution of serfdom was profoundly differ- ent, as were also its economic antecedents. Physical control over the personality of the laborer was no longer compatible with the lower fer- tility of the soil. A more fecund social system was required, and therewith a milder method of suppressing the free land, in order to afford greater stability of conditions and to ameliorate the condition of the laborers. Subjection, it is true, increased in extent as a large number of freemen were now reduced to serfdom, or to a state bordering thereon; but it diminished, nevertheless, in intensity." Loria: Eco- nomic Foundations of Society, p. 138. "The form of society immediately preceding the one with which we are familiar, that is to say, feudalism, recognized land as the basis of the social structure. Land was originally the only productive prop- erty known; and the significant fact for one who desires to appreciate the development of the property tax is that social duties, as well as social privileges, were in large part determined by the amount of land assigned, whether to the noble or to the serf. This was true of the in- ternal organization of the manors, where labor on the demesne was the 'contribution' of the villain to the support of the state; it was also true of the national organization when the lords acknowledged their hold- ings by rendering military service. It thus appears that feudalism re- garded the holding of land as the measure of social service." Adams: Finance, pp. 362-63. CHAP. VII SERFDOM 91 won by or for the slaves. It was a change effected by, and in the interest of the masters, and this is evident for the following reasons: 100. Transition Most Obscure. 1. It was made with so little stir that the historian cannot tell you when nor how it happened. Every demand which is known to have been made by the slaves or serfs during all the years when slavery was shifting into serfdom and serfdom was shifting from one condition of de- pendence to another, was promptly met by repression the most cruel. It could not have been secured by the slaves as a victory in their interest. Adam Smith says of one of these changes in the form of serfdom: * ' The time and manner in which so important a revolu- tion was brought about is one of the most obscure points in modern history." The whole personality of the slaves or serfs, for this period, was a blank. For a thousand years the only mention the old historians made of them was as playing minor parts in the vices and crimes of their lordly masters. If they had had the power to enforce so marked a change, they would have made trouble enough to have made the transition an event in history. If they could have caused this change, they could have made themselves felt in other ways so as not to have utterly disappeared from the world's notice while they were doing it. 101. Slaves Could Not Masters Did.-2. When slavery was established in the first place, those who were to be made slaves were fighting men the equals of those who were struggling to become their masters. When serfdom was to succeed slavery, those who were to be made serfs were already slaves. They were ac- customed to all manner of cruelty and were helpless in the hands of their military masters. Whatever changes were made at all, were made by the only ones able to make them and in their own behalf. There 92 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART II never was a slave or serf, unless back of him stood a soldier. Whatever changes have taken place in the forms of industrial servitude, have taken place under the eye of the soldier and in behalf of the master classes. The slave or serf has had as his only choice to serve or die. He should have died, sometimes he did. 102. Summary. 1. When the extension of the Eoman frontier was no longer possible, the conquest of new territory came to an end. Hence the capture of men in order to make them slaves also practically ended. Then workers had to be propagated instead of being captured, and the improvement in the lot of the slave which such propagation required was the prin- cipal cause of the change from slavery to serfdom. 2. The conquest of smaller tribes by those which were larger and better organized for military pur- poses frequently resulted in the victorious military masters confirming the barbarian usages of the cap- tured tribes, as to land and labor, with the one condi- tion that the conquered people should render to their new masters such military service as they might de- mand. In most Teutonic and Celtic countries this was the beginning of serfdom. 3. In the countries which had become civilized under the old Eoman rule, serfdom was a modification of slavery. 4. In the countries which had continued to be at war with Eome, serfdom was the result of the develop- ment of military power among themselves and was the form of dependent labor which was developed directly from inter-tribal barbarian war in these countries. 5. The great advantages which the workers enjoyed at certain times in some countries, as in England, under serfdom, were survivals from barbarism, which survivals were then in the process of being destroyed. CHAP. VII SERFDOM 93 6. Wherever serfdom came into existence as a mod- ification of slavery it was by the choice of the masters and in their interest. 7. Wherever serfdom came into existence as the re- sult of conquest it was established by force of arms, and in behalf of the new military masters. REVIEW QUESTIONS. 1. How were workers obtained under the old Roman rule? 2. How were they obtained when war could no longer supply the feaptives? 3. In what different light did the masters and the workers regard the homes of the serfs? 4. By what means did the new masters, who came into the con- trol of all Europe after the fall of Rome, provide for the support of their military establishments? 5. How did Thorold Rogers regard the lot of English workingmen in the fifteeenth century? 6. Whence came these great advantages of English workers? 7. How did they lose them ? What power was never granted them by their new military masters and for lack of which they lost these good conditions? 8. What was the difference between slavery and serfdom ? 9. By whom and in whose interest was the transition made from slavery to serfdom? CHAPTER VHI THE WAGE SYSTEM 103. Slavery, Serfdom and the Wage System. In preceding chapters, we have noticed how war was fol- lowed by the enslavement of the captive, and the mak- ing of private property of the lands before held by those who were thus enslaved. It was seen that when it was discovered that both the vices and the greed of the master classes could be better served by serfdom than by slavery, the change to serfdom was effected by and in behalf of the master classes. The discovery was made that if the master owned the land and could forbid the serf from moving off from the land of his lord, he did not need to own the slave, and so he called a slave a serf, and himself a lord. In the same way it was afterward discovered that there was no vice which slavery or serfdom fostered which could not be as well gratified, while greed could be better served, under the wage system. If the lords and masters owned all the land and tools, the serf could be permitted to go, when not needed by the master, and come again, as he might choose, so long as he remained without where to employ his hands as well as without " where to lay his head," except some lord or master should make terms with him. 94 CHAP. VIII THE WAGE SYSTEM 95 104. Industrial Discipline. The wage system is characterized by one thing which was impossible un- der either slavery or serfdom, namely, the right to seek a new master; but curiously enough, this privilege of quitting the employ of one's lord or master, which the master classes refused under both slavery and serf- dom, has become, under the wage system, not only the right to go, on the part of the worker, but the power to discharge, on the part of the master; and this has become the most powerful means of industrial dis- cipline ever held in the hands of masters. 1 105. The Struggle for Land Again. It has been seen how, in the early time, the tribes trespassed on each other's territory, and how, finally, all tribes were obliged to become warring tribes, or become the slaves of their warring neighbors. This same thing happened in feudalism. No sooner had the warring chieftains secured themselves in their castles and possessions, than, if for no other reason, the natural growth of their establishments demanded more room. They had established themselves by fighting, and, as a matter of fact, fighting never ceased. If any particular lord had wished "to avoid strife and to live peaceably with all men," he would not have been able to do so. He and his house would have gone at once to their own 1. "Freemen indeed! You are slaves, not to masters of any strength or honor, but to the idlest talkers at that floral end of West- minster bridge [in Parliament]. Nay, to countless meaner masters than they. For though, indeed, as early as the year 1102, it was decreed in ] a council at St. Peter's, Westminster, 'that no man for the future should presume to carry on the wicked trade of selling men in the mar- kets like ferute beasts, which hitherto had been the common custom of England,' the no less wicked trade of under-selling men in markets has lasted to this day; producing conditions of slavery differing from the ancient ones only in being starved instead of full-fed; and besides this, a state of slavery unheard of among the nations till now, has arisen with us. In all former slaveries Egyptian, Algerian, Saxon, and American the slave complaint has been of compulsory work. But the modern Politico-Economic slave is a new and far more injured species, condemned to compulsory idleness, for fear he should spoil other peo- ple's trade." Rich : The Communism of John Ruskin, pp. 188-89. 96 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART II burials or into some other lord's service and so into serfdom. 106. Expansion Inevitable. As long as the practice of taking by force of arms, or by the power of the competitive market remains, the tribes, the armies and the markets must continually expand or destruction awaits the enterprise. Just as the expansion of the ancient tribes created the ancient nation, so the ex-, pansion by the feudal lords of their holdings created the modern nations. Whenever a powerful chieftain, sallying forth from his own castle, had destroyed the castles and absorbed the holdings of his neighbors, covering territory so large that castles and warriors were required at many points in order to insure protec- tion, it would create from among his followers other lords, who would hold these new estates, but remain subject to their former master, and hold themselves and their fighting men forever in readiness to fight, not for themselves as independent lords but for their former master, now the lord of an ever widening realm. In the face of such a warrior, smaller lords would has- ten to declare allegiance to him, and to become his military subjects; not because they loved him, but be- cause they dared not fight the combination. 107. Widening Peaceful Territory. These subject lords were not permitted by their common master to fight each other, and hence, as war extended the terri- tory of such a chieftain, it ended war within his ter- ritory as long as he could maintain control. To keep control within his territory, as well as to extend his territory, made necessary the repair of the old roads and the construction of new ones. And so better roads and more of them connected the castles with each other, with the centers of power, and with the frontiers. 2 108. Jealousies. It will be readily seen that terri- tories brought together in such a way would be con- 2. Macaulay: History of England, Vol. 1., Chapter 3. THE WAGE SYSTEM ft? stantly subject to the combinations of the stronger lords to control the action of their master, while any misfortune which would befall the king would be taken advantage of by those having no regard for him, other than an allegiance based on fear. Jealousies, hatreds, rebellions and assassinations were ever rife and fre- quently scattered in an hour what had been patiently gathered in a lifetime or a century. 109. Divine Right of Kings. Besides their armies, the princes devised other means of extending and re- taining power. They invented the doctrine of "divine right of kings," and against the rival and the rebel they reinforced all that their armies could do in this life, with all that everlasting torment could threaten for the next. In this way, when a local lord wished to rebel, he would be unable to hold his fighting men together, as against the king of the realm, who, it was believed, had power not only to kill the body in battle, but to torture the soul in hell. 110. The Towns. Another important item in this program of the kings was to recognize and encourage the towns. The local lords had uniformly treated the towns with contempt. The towns were quarreling with their local lords and the kings were trying to lessen the power of these lords in order to extend their own. 3 The kings not only played the part of the "big med- icine man, ' ' so far as the soldiers of all the lords were concerned, but they were ready to form alliances with the despised tradesmen of the towns as well as with the horrors of the under world in order the better to con- trol their subject lords. 3. "The princes who lived upon the worst terms with their barons seem accordingly to have been the most liberal in grants of this kind to their burghs. King John of England, for example, appears to have been a most munificent benefactor to the towns." Adam Smith : Wealth of Nations, Book III., Chapter 3. The whole chapter is given to the sub- ject and is full of interest. 98 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART II 111. Better Roads, More Trade. The extension of territory and the creation of roads, together with the extension of conditions of peace, established commerce on a much larger scale than had been possible before, while the extension of territory involved the gathering of large armies and corresponding demands for larger supplies at points distant from the castles, and hence, difficult to provide. 112. Robber Barons. In the earlier periods of feu- dalism the towns had been neglected. They had been occupied by tradesmen, who had been despised, who had carried about their goods for sale much after the manner of a modern peddler. 4 These peddlers, how- ever, were the predecessors of the great commercial princes of our own times. Then they were subject to all manner of taxes and tariffs, collected by the lords for the privilege of selling goods on the several petty territories which the lords controlled. 5 They were not only taxed at the castles, but they were robbed on the roads. Among the titles which those old lords be stowed upon themselves, as indicating the things which they regarded as honorable, and of which their de- scendants are still boasting, was the name of " robber barons." 6 113. Free Cities. It was an easy thing for the kings to secure alliances with these industrial towns. They 4. Adam Smith : Wealth of Nations, Book III., Chapter 3. 5. "In the preceding sections an attempt has been made to show how the rising power of capitalism broke down the medieval forms of commercial and industrial regulation; the capitalists, who could not domiate them, migrated to places where they were free from old-fash- ioned restrictions." Cunningham: The Cambridge Modern History, p. 514 (Chapter on "Economic Change"). 6. "Money is now exactly what mountain promontories over public roads were in old times. The barons fought for them fairly: the strongest and cunningest got them; then fortified them, and made every one who passed below pay toll. Well, capital now is exactly what crags were then. Men fight fairly (we will, at least, grant so much, though it is more than we ought), for their money, but having once gotten it, the fortified millionaire can make everybody who passes below pay toll CHAP. VIII THE WAGE SYSTEM 99 were chartered in great numbers. They were made in- dependent of their local lords. They were permitted to become self-governing democracies. They were made up of bodies of tradesmen, and these trade organiza- tions were directly recognized, chartered and made the ruling bodies of the new cities. They were permitted to gather from their own citizens and by their own officers, the revenues which would fall to the kings, and so were freed from the presence and the conse- quent wrongs of the royal tax gatherers, and were therefore called free cities. 7 114. The Modern City. As the centuries passed and the roads were improved, the armies enlarged and the travel and transportation made secure from the robber lords, the trade of the cities was vastly increased. The kings came to depend on them for the supplies of their armies, and just as the military camp and the slave camp had together made the ancient cities possible, so the armies that opened and made safe the roads and the workers devoted to their support, both these groups gave the final impetus which built the modern city. 115. The Growing Market. The support which had been provided at the castles for the small groups of fighting men which had been attached to the castles, not only grew in importance with the growth of the armies, but the production of this support was trans- ferred to the towns. The towns became the producers, not only for the armies, but for a general market, which has continuously increased from this beginning until it has grown to be the world market of our own times. to his million and build another tower to his money castle. And I can tell you, the poor vagrants by the roadside suffer now quite as much from the bag-baron as ever they did from the crag-baron. 'Bags and crags have much the same result on rags'." John Ruskin: "A Crown of Wild Olives," p. 29. See also Macaulay: History of England, Vol. I., Chapter 3. 7. Adam Smith : Wealth of Nations, p. 305. 100 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART II 116. Gunpowder. This movement was greatly in- tensified and quickened by the invention of gunpow- der. 8 The appearance of gunpowder as a factor in war 'marked the disappearance of the castle as the seat of power and of the mounted knight as the most effective soldier. Cannon tore away the castle walls and no knight could safely fix his lance to run a tournament with a flying bullet. 9 117. Worthless Castles The Kings' Soldiers. The result was that the kings organized armies equipped with muskets, and answerable directly to the kings themselves, without the intervention of lords or castles. The military establishments of the feudal lords be- came useless as fortresses and were at last abandoned for that purpose to become the "country seafs" of those who before had been independent fighting men, but under the new order became courtiers at the king's court. Large numbers of men, who had before been the fighting men of the castles, and a larger number, who had been the working men about the castles, to provide the support of the fighting men, became alike useless to their lords. The lords were unable to pro- vide any employment by means of which they could make the further service of these serfs worth having. 118. Discharged Soldiers and Evicted Serfs. Both the soldiers and the workers were permitted to desert the lords in great numbers, but in going they were un- able to take the means of making a living with them. The cities, which had destroyed the industrial and mil- itary importance of the castles, now absorbed this needless surplus population from the feudal estates. 8. Buckle: History of Civilization, Vol. I., pp. 259-272. 9. "The first discovery mentioned, that of gunpowder * * has produced a political revolution parallel to the intellectual revolu- tion mentioned. The roar of the cannon and the sharp crack of the musket gave a fatal shock to the old political methods, for they revo- lutionized the art of war." Morris: Civilization an Historical Re- view, Vol. II., pp. 11-12. CHAP. VIII THE WAGE SYSTEM 101 They came to the cities utterly helpless, without tools, and without the means to live at all, except on the terms their new masters should offer them. 10 119. The Wage System. This was the beginning of the wage system as the dominant method of produc- tion. Wages had been paid before. 11 Wages had been paid to those not slaves, when slavery was the dom- inant method of production. Wages had been paid to those not serfs when serfdom was the dominant method of production. In the olden time, wages and slavery had existed side by side, and slavery had held its ground as the usual method of production by the in- terference of the law to extend slavery when the wage worker was found to be more profitable to the master. In the same way, for a thousand years, serfdom and the wage system existed together, but serfdom was the ruling method of production, because production at the castles was of the nature of a personal service, and serfdom involved the personal subjection of the worker to his one master. 10. "In the decrease of personal service, as villainage died away, it became the interest of the lord to diminish the number of tenants on his estate as it had been his interest before to maintain it, and he did this by massing the small allotments together into larger holdings. By this course of eviction the number of the free labor class was enormously increased, while the area of employment was diminished ; and the social danger from vagabondage and the 'sturdy beggar' grew every day great- er." Green: History of the English People, p. 272; see also Thorold Kogers : Work and Wages, Chapter 4. ( By sturdy beggars the historian here means a class which at the very beginning of the wage system in England closely resembled the modern tramp, both in his general con- dition and in the causes which put him into that condition.) 11. "The citizen farmer of Beocia in the seventh century before Christ, appears to have required one ox and one slave as the minimum stock on his land; on better stocked farms hired labor was employed, both male and female. * * * It has been pointed out above that money economy had been so far introduced in Athens as to affect the relations between employers and employeed. A great part of the laboring popula- tion of Athens consisted of wage-earners who had attained economic freedom. Some were citizens, who had political privileges, and others were aliens. It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that bcause there was so much scope for the employment of free labor, slavery was either limited or exceptional. There was a sufficient number of free la- borers to affect the political life of the city strongly, but there was 102 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART II 120. The Class War. But new conditions had arisen. The subjection of individuals of the working class to certain individuals of the ruling class was succeeded by the subjection of the whole class of work- ers to the whole class of employers; For the first time in all the life of the race, great companies of workers were set to bidding against each other for a chance to live. The wage worker, who was a free man under serfdom and under slavery, always had the alternative of giving himself into serfdom or slavery, as a last chance as against the labor market. But now the bid- ding against each other no longer had the limit of the rewards of the serf or the fare of the slave, below which the wage workers would not be likely to go for any long period. The only limit now was death by starvation and exposure. Under slavery or serfdom, the economic law of the free workers' wages would be that they would tend to the point which would equal the provision made for the support of the serf or the slave. But when the wage system came in as the dom- inant method of production, this bottom limit was taken away, and the economists discovered, and began to defend, the "iron law of wages," namely, that "wages tend to the lowest point at which the laborers will submit in numbers large enough to do the re- quired work." If they had added that the free wage earners were uniformly given the opportunity to sub- in addition a large number of laborers who were not in any sense eco- nomically free, and still less politically. "The slaves were for the most part found in the rural districts, though a certain amount of free labor found employment on the lands; still the estates of the Athenian gentry were for the most part culti- vated by slave labor. * * * Taken altogether the number of slaves was very large; it was maintained by importation, chiefly from the shores of the Black Sea, though piracy contributed its quota. Prisoners taken in war, and citizens who had fallen into poverty or crime, might all be reduced to this unenviable condition. There was no Greek who was free from the shadow of possible slavery as a fate he might incur without fault of his own." Cunningham: 'Western Civilization An- cient Times, pp. 81, 108-110. CHAP. VIII THE WAGE SYSTEM 103 mit to what was offered or starve, at the time wage labor became the dominant method of industrial pro- duction, then they would have stated the whole case. 12 121. Peddlers, Merchants and Helpless Workers. - New conditions had arisen. The mediaeval peddlers had become the manufacturers and merchants. For two hundred years, all the strife of European history was between these new masters of the towns and the old masters of the castles. 13 But in all this strife the toilers 12. "The economic structure of capitalistic society has grown out of the economic structure of feudal society. The dissolution of the lat- ter set free the elements of the former. "The immediate producer, the laborer, could only dispose of his own person after he has ceased to be attached to the soil and ceased to be a slave-serf* or bondman of another. To become a free seller of labor- power, who carries his commodity wherever he finds a market, he must further have escaped from the regime of the guilds, their rules for ap- prentices and journeymen, and the impediments of their labor regula- tions. Hence the historical movement which changes the producers into wage-workers, appears, on the one hand, as their emancipation from serfdom and from the fetters of the guilds, and this side alone, exists for our bourgeois historians. But, on the other hand, these new freed- men became sellers of themselves only after thy had been robbed of all their own means of production, and of all the guarantees of existence afforded by the old feudal arrangements. And the history of this, their expropriation, is written in the annals of mankind in letters of blood and fire. "The industrial capitalists, these new potentates, had on their part not only to displace the guild masters of handicrafts, but also the feudal lords, the possessors of the sources of wealth. In this re- spect their conquest of social power appears as the fruit of a victorious struggle both against feudal lordship and its revolting prerogatives, and against the guilds and the fetters they laid on the free development of production and the free exploitation of man by man. The chevaliers d'industrie, however, only succeeded in supplanting the chevaliers of the sword by making use of events of which they themselves were wholly innocent. They have risen by means as vile as those by which the Roman freedman once on a time made himself the master of his patronus. "The starting-point of the development that gave rise to the wage- laborer as well as to the capitalist, was the servitude of the laborer. The advance consisted in a change of form of this servitude, in the transformation of feudal exploitation into capitalist exploitation. To understand its march, we need not go back very far. Although we come across the first beginning of capitalist production as early as the four- teenth or fifteenth century, sporadically, in certain towns of the Med- iterranean, the capitalistic era dates from the sixteenth century. Wher- ever it appears, the abolition of serfdom has been long effected, and the highest development of the middle ages, the existence of sovereign towns, has been long on the wane." Marx: Capital, pp. 738-39. 13. "When Europe emerged from the Middle Ages, the risng mid- dle-class of the towns constituted its revolutionary element. It had 104 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART 11 in the fields which lay about the castles and the toilers of the factory towns, had no share or benefit. 14 The free wage earners were forbidden by law to refuse to work for whatever they were offered. The free wage earners were forbidden by law to organize, or in any way to seek together for an advance of wages. The free wage earners were forbidden by law to go from one town to another in quest of work, unless able to give bonds not to become a public charge. The free wage earners were forbidden by law to work at their own trades unless employed by those who held monopolies, granted by the kings. The free wage earners were flogged, imprisoned, transported, or hanged for the slightest offenses against the prejudice or the inter- ests of their employers. 15 122. New Countries. New conditions had arisen. America had been discovered, and a route to India, by way of Cape Good Hope, had been found out, and the world's commerce was making its beginning. Sailors were wanted. And free working men were kidnaped on the streets, dragged on board the vessels and hanged for mutiny, according to law, if they refused the tasks and the rations offered them. 123. Printing The Industrial Revolt Against the Church. New conditions had arisen. Printing had conquered a recognized position within mediaeval feudal organization, but this position, also, had bcome too narrow for its expansive power. The development of the middle-class, the bourgeoisie, became incom- patible with the maintenance of the feudal system; the feudal system, therefore, had to' fall." Engels : Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, In- troduction, p. 19. 14. "The eager spirits who crowded into the House of Commons, the mounted yeomen who rode with Hampden, the men who fought and won at Marston Moor and Nasby, thought no more of the peasant and the workman, had no more care for the bettering him, than the Irish Pa- triots of 1782 cared for the kernes and cottiers on whose labors they lived. For in the midst of this battle of giants, * * * the English people who lived by wages were sinking lower and lower, and fast taking their place * * * as the beggarly hewers and drawers of prosper- ous and progressive England." Thorold Rogers: Work and Wages, p. 97. 15. Green: History of the English People, pp. 259-27S, CHAP. VIII THE WAGE SYSTEM 105 been invented and the towns had learned to fight with printers ' ink, and what before had been a war of spears and bullets became a war of printed as well as of spoken words. The princes who had most used the claim of the divine right of kings had secured the sanc- tion of the Church to their pretensions, but the Church had learned its power and had refused to give "divine" credentials to princes whose conduct it could not con- trol. The disowned princes and rebellious towns or- ganized new churches of their own and the new churches became the defenders of the new towns and the champions of the new industrial gospel: "Go ye unto all nations and trade with them." 124. Commerce. The wage system had come, and under it the workers were producing more than slaves had produced, but were receiving less than had been given slaves^ The world commerce had made its be- ginningthe modern factory was still in its infancy, and war between the new employers and the old lords was at its height. 125. Political Economy and the Factory Towns. Political economy was made a science by itself. The subjects it discussed were the topics in controversy between the towns and the castles, and the positions taken by the economists were uniformly on the side of the towns. The towns wanted free trade. So did the economists. The towns wanted free labor, with no interference by the state and no scourge but hunger to drive the laborer to his task, and no limit but his endurance, either in the direction of a long day or a short ration. So did the economists.. The towns want- ed usury laws abolished and capital free to make its own bargains. So did the economists. The towns in- sisted that their way of doing things was the only way was the natural way. With the towns, nothing was so sacred as a bargain. They made no pretensions 106 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART II of claiming the divine right of the towns. They were sure they would be safely defended if they could trace their authority to a bargain. They gave the outlines of an impossible contract, made by an impossible com- pany of original contractors, and named it the * ' Social Compact." They made the subject matter, about which these impossible "high" contracting parties were mak- ing their bargains, what they termed man's "natural rights, ' 9 and curiously enough, they found these rights and this compact to justify exactly what the towns were doing and what the economists were contending for. 16 126. Wage System Came by Choice of the Masters. The wage system succeeded serfdom and slavery, not as a victory won by the workers, but as a change made by the masters, and because the wage system was found to be more profitable to the masters than either serfdom or slavery.* This is known to have been the case, for the following reasons : 127. Workers Were Helpless. 1. The workers had no power to compel such a change. Every effort which they made for improvement was mercilessly punished 16. Professor Richard T. Ely says, in his "Political Economy," p. 312, that "the most fruitful sources of economic enquiry" are themselves modern, and he so explains the absence of any separate science of econ- omy until after the important financial operations of governments and questions concerning labor had made their appearance. John Stuart Mill declares in the first sentence in his "Political Economy" that in "any department of human affairs, practice long precedes science: systematic enquiry into the modes of the powers of nature is a tardy product of a long course of efforts to use these powers for practical ends." In these two utterances from these two representative men, Mr. Ely of the modern school, and Mr. Mill ojf the classical school of political economy, we have the statement of an important truth. Prof. Ely ad- mits that political economy had no occasion to be "separated out of a large whole and constructed into a separate science" until "government financial transactions and questions concerning labor" had become mat- ters of importance. Mr. Mill offers a philosophical explanation of thia circumstance. The science of political economy was practiced before it was taught. It was practiced by the rising factory towns and was: taught in the interest of the rising "middle-class." CHAP. VIII THE WAGE SYSTEM 107 by both sides of the controversy between the towns and the castles. Luther encouraged a war for the slaughter of peasants, which finally killed not less than a hundred thousand of those who had been his own fol- lowers. 17 Cromwell acted after the same manner. 18 All of the old warfare for liberty was controlled by the employers and merchants of the new manufacturing towns, as against the lords of the old system. The peasants and factory toilers had no share in them, ex- cept as they were used to fight other men's battles for them. 128. Could Have Had Slaves. 2. The new indus- try could have been equipped with serfs for laborers. Slaves could have been obtained. The employers ac- cepted wage workers instead of serfs or slaves in en- terprises in which they insisted that the only motive was business for profits. Therefore, wage labor must have been more profitable, or it would not have been chosen. 129. A Long Evolution. 3. The line of advance by which the wage system came into existence began with inter-tribal wars, and in the line of mastery it was warrior, victor, master, lord and at last employer; while in the line of subjection it was warrior, captive, slave, serf and at last the employed. The wage sys- tem is simply the last step in this long class struggle, and is the last and final form of mastery and servitude. It had no other beginning than war and has no other foundation than force. Each step has been taken by the wish of the masters and the conditions of each form of servitude have been enforced by the power of 17. "No mercy, no toleration is due to the peasants; on them should fall the wrath of God and of man." * * * They should "be treated as mad dogs." Martin Luther, quoted from his life, written by himself, p. 184. 18. Church: Life of Oliver Cromwell, p. 328. 108 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART II the soldier, and the soldier still guards the shop and mine to enforce conditions to which the workers would not otherwise submit. 130. Summary. 1. The establishment of the wage system was simply the denial to the workers of any rights they may have had, either as slaves or serfs. 2. The wage system finally succeeded both slavery and serfdom, because more profitable for the masters. 3. The beginning of the wage system was simply the beginning of the exercise of the right of discharge by the masters. 4. The right to quit work on the part of the work- ers was not granted at the beginning of the wage sys- tem, and is still a subject of public controversy. 5. The right of discharge has become the most pow- erful means of industrial discipline ever held in the hands of the masters. 6. All of the strife of all of the years of controversy between the old militarism of the castles and the new commercialism of the towns was not in behalf of the workers, but was simply a struggle between two classes of masters to determine which should exploit the workers. 7. The old aristocracy lost and the bargain-making class won in this fight, because of economic causes, for instance, 1st, the culmination of the old system and the impossibility of its further development after it had brought into existence the modern nations. 2nd, the discovery of new countries. 3rd, the development of foreign trade. 4th, the invention of gunpowder, and of printing, and the overstocking of the feudal estates with more workers than could be profitably employed, especially after the invention of gunpowder, and the collapse of the old military system. CHAP. VIII THE WAGE SYSTEM 109 REVIEW QUESTIONS. 1. Trace the steps by which victorious warriors and their succes- sors became employers and the steps by which those captured in war and their successors became wage-workers. 2. What was the one thing which was always forbidden under slavery and serfdom and has now become, in the hands of employers, the most terrible means of industrial discipline? 3. By what process were the modern nations developed and how does it compare with the process by which the ancient nations were developed ? 4. How did conditions of peace come to be established over large territories ? 5. What effect did this have on the production of wealth? 6. What effect did the great increase of production for the market have on the castles and the towns? 7. Why did the kings encourage the towns? What powers did they grant to the towns? 8. What effect did the invention of gunpowder have on the increase in the number of wage workers? Why? 9. How was the claim of the divine right of kings used to extend their power? How was it finally used against the kings? What did the kings and the towns do when the power of the church was used against them? 10. What was the condition as to ability to live without depend- ence on others of those who were denied their former rights under serfdom and became wage workers in large numbers? 11. Name some of the things contended for by the towns and afterward taught by the political economist. 12. On whose behalf was serfdom abandoned for the wage system and why? Give proofs. CHAPTEE IX THE ERA OF INVENTION AND THE INDUSTRIAL DEVOLUTION 131. Slaves, Lands, Tools. The preceding chapters have shown how war created slavery, how war enforced the private appropriation of both land and slaves, how the master classes have shifted the manner of employ- ing the disinherited and dependent laborers from a condition of slavery, first to serfdom, and then to the wage system, that is, modern capitalism, and, hence, how capitalism has had its origin. Under slavery both the land and the workers were made the private prop- erty of the masters as the only known means by which the workers' products could be taken away from them. Under serfdom the land was held as private property of the masters, but the workers were given their par- tial liberty, the masters depending on their private ownership of the land as the principal means by which the workers' products could be taken away from them. Under modern capitalism the pretension is that the masters have given full personal liberty to the work- ers to come and to go as they choose. They depend wholly on the private ownership of both land and tools as the means of taking away from the workers the products of their labor. no CHAP. IX THE ERA OF INVENTION 111 132. The Earth Not Restored. The natural occu- pancy and free use of the earth, which was lost by the conquered tribes, as the result of barbarian wars which made them slaves, was not restored to the workers under serfdom, nor has it been restored to them under modern capitalism. The tools of industry were still simple and inexpensive at the beginning of modern capitalism. Owning the means of production, includ- ing both the natural resources and the tools of indus- try, the capitalists held in their own hands the man- agement of industry and appropriated to their own benefit the total products of industry, giving to the workers only such wages as would maintain their ef- ficiency, just as they gave to their machines the oil necessary to reduce friction and save the waste of wear. While all this was true at the beginning of capitalism, modern capitalism could not have been what it is at all, had it not been for the wonderful development of mod- ern machinery. 133. Arrested Growth. Throughout the primitive life of the race, each step in advance was the result of some improvement in the means whereby the race provided for its own existence. At the close of this primitive period and at the beginning of civilization, the simple tools of production had been developed to a point beyond which no important improvement was made during the whole period of civilization until very recent years. 134. Slavery and inventions. The introduction of slavery seems to have stopped the process of invention and improvement in the tools of industry. 1 Under slavery, if the worker improved his tools, no benefit could come to him, and the masters, having no share in doing the work, found it easier to use the lash or increase the number of their slaves than to take the 1. "The history of man is the history of arrested growth." Em- erson: Natural History of the Intellect. 112 THE EVOLUTION Otf CAPITALISM PART II pains to improve the tools, even if they had had the ability to develop the tools of industry while they were themselves devoted to the use of the weapons of war. 135. Militarism and Politics. Throughout slavery and serfdom the world's advance was marked, not by the introduction of new tools, but chiefly by changes in the organization of labor and of governments which were military, both in the form of their organization and in the purpose of their existence. The world's pro- gress for five thousand years was not in the line of improving the implements of industry, but by conquer- ing small tribal organizations and establishing other larger organizations in their stead, which are now growing into a world-wide political power, doing police duty for a world-wide industrial and commercial life. This task of conquest was first undertaken when the early tribes had outgrown their boundaries. It was carried on for long centuries with no knowledge on the part of the actors as to the final economic effects of the conflicts in which they were engaged. 136. Culmination of Growth of Tools, Organization and Conquest. In the present struggle, there is a cul- mination of both the development of organizations of men and of the great improvement of the tools of in- dustry. At last the control of this world-life on an industrial and commercial basis is the known cause of the conscious and purposeful struggle of all the na- tions of the world. The methods of organization under which labor is employed and the tools with which its efforts are made productive, combine together to usher in this last new era % The present forms of industrial organization of both laborers and capitalists are the culmination of the wage system; this system, we have seen, was the outgrowth of both slavery and serfdom. It still maintains conditions under which those who toil are dependent for the opportunity to do so, upon those who are themselves not workers, nor are they so CHAP. IX THE ERA OF INVENTION 113 vitally interested in the continuance and effectiveness of industry as are the workers. 137. Machinery. The development of machinery, under which productive ability is greatly increased, has come to its present effectiveness, together with the culmination of the world's conquest and the culmina- tion of the forms of industrial organization. It is the purpose of this chapter to take up the im- provement of tools at the place where it was dropped at the close of the fourth chapter, and to point out the conditions under which the invention and improvement in the tools of industry have been renewed, and to show the relation of this great industrial improvement to the development of the forms of the organization of industry. 138. The Free Cities, the American Frontier and In- ventions. In the eighth chapter attention was called to the free cities of northern Europe and to the revival of industry under the free, self-employing laborers who created those cities; once more, after a lapse of five thousand years, these new cities gave to the individual worker a direct interest in the effectiveness of the tools of his own industry. The improvement which had sud- denly ceased with the beginning of slavery was here renewed with the renewal of self-employment. The revival of inventions extended to America, for wher- ever self -employment went, there the genius of the in- ventor once more sprang into activity, and the im- provement of tools became again a great factor in the growth of the race life. 139. Industrial Occupation and Inventions. But the revival of inventions was under conditions not in existence under barbarism. The struggle for existence had become distinctly an industrial struggle. Industry was no longer the work of women only and the indus- trial employments were not now supplemented by the hunters or the fishermen, not even by the spoils of 114 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART II war as a regular dependence, in the struggle for the means of life. For the military had not only ceased to be in any way a source of income to the state, but had become instead a direct burden on the industrial classes. In fact, the work of the soldiers becomes more and more, not so much to conquer other countries in order to enrich their own countries, as to police the in- dustrial workers and enforce submission to the dictates of their capitalistic masters. 2 All workers of both sexes were now industrial work- ers, many of them with a direct interest in the value of their own products. And the old, rude tools handed down from barbarism, and across the whole period of 2. "The economic disturbances since 1873 contingent on war ex- penditures are not different in kind from those of former periods, but much greater in degree. This subject has been so thoroughly investi- gated and is so well understood that nothing more need be said in this connection than to point out that men in actual service at the present time in the armies and navies of Europe are in excess of 4,000,000, or about one to every fifteen of all the men of arms-bearing age all consumers and no producers. The number of men in reserve who are armed, subject to drill, and held ready for service at any moment, is about 14,250,000 in addition. Including the reserves, the present standing armies and navies of Europe require the services of one in every five of the men of arms-bearing age, or one in every twenty-four of the whole population. It is also estimated that it re- quires the constant product of one peasant engaged in agriculture, or of one operative engaged in manufacturing in the commercial and man- ufacturing states of Europe, to equip and sustain one soldier; that it requires the labor of one man to be diverted from every two hundred acres; and that a sum equivalent to $1.10 shall be deducted from the annual product of every acre. The present aggregate annual expendi- ture of Europe for military and naval purposes is probably in excess of a thousand million dollars. We express this expenditure in terms of money, but it means work performed; not that abundance of useful and desirable things may be increased, but decreased; not that toil may be lightened, but augmented. "As to the ultimate outcome of this state of affairs ostensibly kept up for the propagation or promotion of civilization there is an almost perfect agreement of opinion among those who have studied it; and that is, that the existence and continuance of the present mil- itary system of Continental Europe is impoverishing its people, im- pairing their industrial strength, effectually hindering progress, driv- ing the most promising men out of the several states to seek peaceful homes in foreign countries, and ultimately threatening the destruction of the whole fabric of society." Wells: Recent Economic Changes, pp. 322-23. CHAP. IX THE ERA OF INVENTION 116 slavery and serfdom, rapidly grew into machines in- stead of tools. 3 140. Tools and Machines. The difference between a machine and a tool has been the subject of some dis- cussion, but the real importance of this question is not so much in the technical or mechanical descriptions of tools or machines, as in the economic consequences of the development of the machines and their general use in production. There are four such important differences between tools and machines, (i) The tools were cheap, any- body could own them. The machines are expensive, only the joint savings of many workers or the holders of great inherited properties can possess them. (2) The tools were simple, anybody could use them single- handed and alone. The machines are large and com- plicated, and require the joint labor of many. (3) The tools with single-handed industry were not produc- tive enough to yield a product much beyond the needs of the worker's family, and hence their use did not fun- damentally depend on a public market 4 for the goods produced, but instead, principally, on a private need 3. "An instrument of labor is a thing, or a complex of things, which the laborer interposes between himself and the subject of his labor, and which serves as the conductor of his activity. "Ha makes use of the mechanical, physical and chemical prop- erties of some substances in order to make other substances subser- vient to his aims. * * * Thus nature becomes one of the organs of his activity, one that he annexes to his own bodily organs, adding stature to himself. * * * As the earth is his original larder, so too, it is his original tool house. It supplies him, for instance, with stones for throwing, grinding, pressing, cutting, etc. The earth itself is an instrument of labor." -Marx : Capital, p. 158. 4. "We must now descend from the consideration of the Industry and the Market, or group of related businesses, to examine the char- acter and structure of the unit of industry the Business. "In a study of the composition or co-operation of labor and capital in a Business before the era of machine-production there are five points of dominant importance (1) the ownership of the material; (2) the ownership of the tools; (3) the ownership of the productive power; (4) the relations subsisting between the individual units of labor; (5) the work-place." Hobson: The Evolution of Modern Capitalism, pp. 34-35. 116 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART II for their use. The producer was also the consumer. But the machine produces goods on so large a scale that the wide market is an indispensable condition of the use of the machine. 5 And (4) each industry carried on with hand tools completed its own products, but the introduction of machinery involves the establishment of great industries whose finished product becomes the raw material of other producers, and so the natural, untouched, raw materials go through the hands of many manufacturers on their way from a state of na- ture to the finished product. And hence the machine involves the manufacturers in relations of great mutual dependence on each other. This last item is made par- ticularly clear in the matter of the great improvements in the methods of transportation. Here, then, is the gist of the economic consequences of the transition from the use of simple tools to the use of the great mod- ern machines. The ownership and use of the simple tools and the consumption of the products were all mainly an individual matter, and the interdependent relations of manufacturers were not usually of a serious nature. In the case of the machines, joint ownership, joint use, the public market, and relations of great mu- tual dependence of the different enterprises on each other, are all inevitable. 141. The Industrial Revolution. Now notice some of the consequences of this transition. The introduc- tion of modern capitalism left the capitalist in control of the means of production, but at the beginning of modern capitalism, the tools were so simple and so in- expensive that self-employing and self-supporting la- bor was still possible. Using the old simple tools, the worker could equip himself out of savings from his wages and then employ his own labor, and in that way escape from the exploitation of the employer. 5. "The agricultural and other machinery in this country is equiv- alent to the combined effort of a population of over 400,000,000." The Trust: Its Bjooik, p. 6. CHAP. IX THE ERA OF INVENTION 117 Here is the core and essence of the Industrial Bevo- lution, resulting from the introduction of modern ma- chinery: 6 Personal independence was the most marked characteristic of the old hand producer. Mu- tual inter- dependence is inevitable under machine pro- duction. The helpless personal dependence of the man without machines on the man with machines is in- evitable so long as machine production is carried on under capitalism. Hence it is seen that the develop- ment of the machines made production a social mat- 6. "The chief material factor in the evolution of Capitalism is machinery." Hobson: The Evolution of Modern Capitalism, p. 5. * * # p or a u authorities agree that the 'industrial revolu- tion/ the event which has divided the nineteenth century from all antecedent time, began with the year 1760." Adams: Law of Civil- ization and Decay, p. 313. "A girl with a sewing machine can do the work of twelve men, but on aggregating the labor expended in making a sewing machine we find that one machine embodies a man's work for four and a half ." Macrosty: Trusts and the State, pp. 120-21. "The starting point and common impulse from which these various streams of evolution preceded was the invention within a space of a few years during the last quarter of the eighteenth century of a number of machines which entirely revolutionized the old methods of industry, and which have been the means of introducing into the states- manship of the nineteenth century problems unknown in the world be- fore. "These machines were the spinning- jenny of Hargreave, the water- frame of Arkwright, the mules of Crompton and Kelly, the power-loom, of Cartwright, and last and not least important, the steam engine with its common application to all industries alike. Previous to this, the occupations of spinning and weaving, of cutlery and hardware manufacture, had been carried on under what had been called the 'domestic system,' that is to say, in farmhouses and in the dwellings of the thousands of small free holders who still remained unswallowed by the large proprietors, but mainly in the numberless little homesteads rented for the purpose and situate in the fields surrounding the great centers of industry. In these latter, little pasture farms originally of from two to ten acres, all the processes of spinning and weaving, and dyeing, were carried out; each householder having two or three looms, and employing eight or ten hands, men, women and children; the product, when finished, being taken to the markets held periodically in some of the neighboring towns, to which merchants from the larger centers came to buy either for home consumption or for exportation to the Colonies or abroad. For ages the rule had been that the work- man himself owned his own machine as well as the raw materials of his industry; but as the demand increased and there was difficulty in getting enough yarn from the spinners, the merchants from the towns 118 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART II ter rather than a private affair. It left the capitalist still the owner of the great machinery of production, just as the worker had formerly owned his own small tools, and hence it not only made production social, rather than private, hut made the capitalist the private owner and the petty master of social interests. This made the capitalists the private masters of social neces- sities just as if social necessities could properly be pri- vate affairs, subject to private ownership, to private began to supply the raw material themselves, and to give it out to the weavers; still later, they supplied not only the material but the looms also, which were now set up in the buildings belonging to these mer- chants, so that there was nothing left to the workman but his labor. This, it is to be observed, was before the new machines had revolution- ized the industry; anl yet so long as the little homestead weavers scattered over the land held their own, wages were kept up and even raised to meet the increased demand of the ever-growing population of the country and the Colonies. The condition of the workmen accord- ingly, in spite of the rapidly rising price of bread, was one of com- parativ happiness and comfort; and this continued during all the years of the Factory System; wages being as much as doubled to meet the enormous demand which followed the cheapening of the prices of woolen and cotton goods by the new machines. "In the meantime the steam engine, which had been invented years before, was being applied to the new machinery; and thus fac- tories, which when water power alone was used had been scattered tories, which when water yoer alone was used had been scattered about the country on the banks of streams, were now transferred and confined to a few of the great towns Leeds, Halifax, Manchester, Bolton and the rest where an unlimited supply of labor could be picked up from the streets. And still the wages of the more skilled workmen were maintained, owing to the enormous increase of the demand. But when the power-loom was invented and applied; and when the factory chimneys in consequence rose ever thicker against the sky-line, and vast populations of human beings drawn from all the winds swarmed in the long rows of dingy streets that lay along- side of them and about their base; and when the output, as was in- evitable sooner or later, caught up with and at at last overtopped the demand, then came those recurring periods of ruinous recoil in the shape of over-production, gluts, falling markets, half-time and stag- nation; and what was unknown in the world before then, wages, from the sheer impossibility of regulating them in the jumble and confusion which the new machinery had caused, were suffered to be forced up and down at the caprice of the masters or according to the state of the market, as if the men had been bales of goods or sacks of coal. Seven centuries had come and gone since the men of these islands had fought hand to hand with the foreign invader; and meanwhile the laborer had passed by slow and gradual stages from serfdom to freedom; but he had all along been assured of a decent subsistence, either by his legal right as serf, or by wages fixed by Justices of the Peace acting as arbiters between master and man. CHAP. IX THE ERA OF INVENTION 119 control and hence to the private appropriation of the social products. 7 142. The Organization of Industry and Inventions. It was the application of inventive genius to the or- ganization of labor, as well as to the improvement of tools, which made possible this development of ma- chines instead of simple, single-handed tools. So long as the worker was manufacturing shoes, working by himself, and making the whole shoe with his own labor, it never occurred to him to use other tools than the simple hand tools involved in the process. But the division of labor, so that one worked at tanning the leather, another at cutting the shoes, another at putting on soles, another at the heels, suggested the possibility of the use of machines to do the simple things which each separate part of the process involved. No inventor would ever have undertaken to invent a machine which And now after seven centuries of peace, war had broken out, but this time industrial war, fought, it is true with legal weapons, but all the more subtle and deadly on that account, and waged for the golden spoils which the new inventions were pouring out in sackfuls along the streets to be scrambled for, and with issue in the event of failure, starvation. In this struggle, the masters, by a curious con- junction of circumstances, ill-timed for the men, easily got the up- per hand, and holding the men down, bound hand and foot in the meshes of some old statutes and regulations. * * *" Crozier: History of Intellectual Development, Vol III, pp. 47***50. 7. "To be a capitalist is to have not only a purely personal, but a social status in production. Capital is a collective product, and only by the united action of many members, nay, in the last resort, only by the united action of all members of society, can it be set in motion. "Capital is therefore not a personal; it is a social power. "When, therefore, capital is converted into common property, into the property of all members of society, personal property is not thereby transformed into social property." Marx and Engles : Communist Mani- festo, p. 35. "The conditions of labor underwent (in the Industrial Revolution) the greatest modification they have experienced since the origin of society. * * * That transformation from patriarchal labor into industrial feudalism, in which the workman, the new serf of the work- shop, seems bound to the glebe of wages, did not alarm the English producers, although it had the character of suddenness quite adapted to disturb their habits. They were far from foreseeing that machinery would bring them so much power and so many anxious cares." Blanqui: History of Political Economy, pp. 430-31. 120 THE EVOLUTON OF CAPITALISM PABT!! would make a shoe, but when a worker was set to put- ting on heels, he was not long in devising a machine which greatly quickened the process and added largely to the volume and value of his product. 143. Power Machinery, Connecting Machinery and Machine Tools. Invention has been developed along three lines. 8 (1) One has been devices by which other forces could be made to take the place of hand power. It is said that a horse, when harnessed and set to the plow, could, at the beginning, turn thirty times as much soil in a day as its driver was before able to turn with a spade. The treadmill, the sweepstake and devices for the use of wind, water, steam, electricity and the gas engine, are all instances in the development of machines whose purpose is to make available other forces for motive power to supplant hand power. As the horse was first used, the effectiveness of machines since in- troduced for this purpose is measured by so many "horse-power." (2) The development of tools in- tended to take the place of the hands of the worker. * (3) The shafting, belts, chains and knuckle joints, with which the power is carried from the power ma- chine to the machine tool. But this has not been one of such difficulties as were met with in providing the power or in devising the machines which would take the place of the skill of the human hands. The automatic machine, for taking the place of the human hands, is being developed with great rapidity. It was only a few years ago that watchmakers supposed that their craft was beyond the reach of machinery; but now no human hands can make the works of a watch so accurately as the machines since devised for that purpose. It is claimed that the labor cost for the works of a standard watch is but fifteen cents and that 8. Marx: Capital, pp. 367-68. CHAP. IX THE ERA OF INVENTION 121 the cutting machinery can be adjusted to the one two- hundredth part of a hair. The trend of development is, that whatever needs to be lifted, the working man is required simply to at- tach the machine, and that whatever needs to be formed in the process of manufacture, the working man is re- quired in order to stop and start the machine, but even in his function as a starter his occupation is being taken away. Fifty years ago, in the manufacture of nails, it re- quired a man with the training of an apprentice and the skill and care of an experienced worker, but today a nail machine makes sixteen nails at a stroke and all the worker needs to do is to hang up that many coils of wire, adjust them to the machinery, set it in mo- tion, and come around again to renew the supply when the machinery has eaten up and transformed into nails the raw materials so placed within its reach. 144. The Skilled Worker and Machinery. In the old industry, the skill was in the hands of the worker. The simple tools are of little value except the trained hand, which has learned its trade in long years of practice, is present to wield the tools. The genius of modern industry expresses itself, not in the skill of the worker, but in the intricate and difficult contriv- ances of the inventor. Equipped with this machinery, women are driving their husbands out of the shops, and children are displacing their mothers, and the skilled trades are disappearing before the onslaught of the inventor in a conflict where no other form of at- tack had been able to withstand the organizations of these trades. 145. Displacement of Labor. The first economic ef- fect of labor-saving machinery is to displace labor. 9 9. "But in the great majority of cases, the whole advantage of a new discovery, a new process, and a new machine rests with the 122 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART II It has been argued that such labor is re-employed in making machinery. If it were all so re-employed, then there would be no saving of labor. It is argued that it is re-employed in producing new articles; that these new articles are demanded for the use of those whose income is enlarged by the existence of the machine, and the enlargement of income means a corresponding en- largement of expenditure; that the additional expendi- ture means additional articles of use, and that, there- fore, together with this advancing of the standard of living, comes necessarily the re-employment of the la- bor displaced by the new machine. But the answer is, that the new machine is constant- ly entering every new field and that the process of dis- placement is as continuous in the new demands which the increased incomes of the owners of the machines enable them to make as in the old ones; that the ma- chinery is meeting the worker at every point, increas- ing the productivity of the shops while it lessens the number of workers required, and that this displacement occurs all along the line. It is absurd to contend that the displaced labor in one shop finds re-employment in another, while as a matter of fact the process of dis- placement is going on in all shops. 146. Loss of Solidarity. One of the most important effects of the modern development of machinery on the question of labor has been that during the time of its development and under the wage system, it has divided the workers into all sorts of smaller groups; has pro- vided for some much better opportunities than for oth- ers, and while there has been a continuous struggle be- capitalist employer. The great inventions of steam and the machin- ery employed in textile fabrics remained with those who invented and applied these capital forces and processes. The artisan, by whose labor the development of this wealth was alone possible, became more impoverished and stinted. If population was stimulated, it was made more miserable, and population will grow rapidly when the condition of the people is deteriorated." Rogers: Work and Wages, pp. 545-46. CHAP. IX THE ERA OF INVENTION 123 tween those in possession of the means of production and those without any ownership in them, still many of those without ownership have been able to deliver themselves from the necessity of further toil through industry, thrift or theft, and so by becoming the owners of tools which others must use, escape themselves from the working class. 147. Individual Deliverance. As a matter of fact, the development of the equipment and organization of modern capitalism has been almost wholly the achieve- ment of those who were themselves from the ranks of the workers. In the early development of industry, and especially on the frontiers, there were industrial and commercial opportunities by which a part of the work- ers could effect an advance over the fortunes of their fellows, and so by looking out for themselves provide for themselves, each on his own account, which tended to obscure, if not obliterate, all sense of solidarity of interest among the workers themselves. 148. Workers Again Bound to Their Class. But as the organization and equipment of industry becomes more perfect, it is becoming increasingly difficult for a born worker to escape from his class. The brightest minds among the workers a hundred years ago were giving their whole strength to the achievement of their own individual deliverance from the working class and to securing to themselves position and standing among the builders of new industrial establishments. But as advance is made toward completion of industrial plants and the perfection of industrial equipments, and es- pecially the organization of industry on a world-wide basis, the unusually gifted, along with the rest, will be doomed to remain in the ranks of the workers. This is true, not only of the trades, but of the profes- sions. It is becoming increasingly difficult to make a beginning in any of the professions, or, being a child 124 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART II of poverty, to work one's way out of the dependent re- lations into which such a birth delivers him. 149. The Strong Men To Save Themselves Must Save Their Class, It was the men of unusual ability among the workers of the last generation who have had the larger share in creating the capitalism of this gen- eration, but the men of the same gifts in this genera- tion and the next will be able to save themselves only by creating conditions under which all others may achieve deliverance along with themselves. The culmination of capitalism will close the doors of opportunity against the very gifts and powers among the workers which at the first so largely created capital- ism, and in the end these same gifts and powers for organization and direction which have arisen from among the workers to create modern capitalism, in the past generations, will in this or the next generation capture, for the use of all, the organization and equip- ment which the genius of the workers created, but which the forms of capitalism have diverted from the saving of labor to the oppression of the laborers. And so this era of invention, which began with some of the workers, once more their own employers, which vastly and rapidly improved the means of production, which excited the hopes of the wage worker to the degree of obscuring for many years the real economic class lines, and finally set the statesmen of whole con- tinents to denying the existence of economic classes at all, culminates with bringing the workers once more to realize the common dependence of the whole class of the workers on the whole class of the capitalist em- ployers. This struggle of the worker to own his own shop, the struggle of the small shop to become a large one, the effort of the workers to escape one at a time, has utterly failed to deliver the class of workers and the economic class lines were never clearer between CHAP. IX THE ERA OF INVENTION 125 master and slave, between lord and serf, than they are now between the exploiter and the exploited, in these days of the triumph of the machine, in its equipment of capitalism, and the triumph of capitalism, in making the public interests of all the private possessions of a few. 10 150. Summary. 1. Throughout the primitive life of the race, each advance in the social life was the re- sult of an improvement in the tools or weapons used in providing existence or defense. 2. The improvement of tools practically came to a sudden stop with the beginning of slavery, which be- came universal with the coming of civilization. 3. Throughout the period of civilization, until re- cent years, there was very little improvement of the tools; during this period the social changes were the results of changes in the manner of the organization and use of labor, or of military power, rather than by changes in the tools used by the laborers. 4. The revival of inventions was the result of the self-employment of labor in northern Europe and in America. 10. "The strange story of Frankenstein was, I make no doubt, sug- gested to Mary Godwin out of the opinions which she received from her father. Frankenstein had contrived to put life into a gigantic being which he had constructed, and on which he .intended to bestow super- human strength, stature and beauty. His creation had strength and statute but was unutterably and shockingly hideous. The maker of the monster abandoned the horrible creature, which had to shift for itself, and to learn the arts of life in solitude, as all fled with loath- ing from the sight of it. It possessed infinite powers of endurance, infinite capacity for learning, great determination and cunning, ir- resistible strength. It yearned for society, for sympathy, and for kindness; and meeting with none of these, being rejected by all and made a loathsome outcast, after it had been called into being, it be- came an infuriate fiend, which pursued with implacable hate and with the most cruel wrongs the man who, being the author of its existence, was thereupon its most detested enemy. This remarkable conception was intended, it is clear, to personify the misery, the loneliness, the endurance, the strength, the revenge of that anarchic spirit which mis- government engenders, the suddenness with which its passions seize their opportunities, and the hopelessness of the pursuit after it, when it has spent its fury for a time. Most European governments have been engaged in the work of Frankenstein, and have created the mon- sters with whom they have to deal." Rogers: Work and Wages, p. 554. 126 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART II 5. The economic effect of machinery is the displace- ment of labor. 6. The social effect of the introduction of machinery, together with the opportunities which new countries offer for self-employment, even with the old tools, has been to largely obscure the line of division between the owners and the workers of the world. The oppor- tunity for some of the workers to escape has led to the feeling that all workers could escape from the depend- ence of the wage workers' lot, if determined to do so. 7. The social effect of the completion of the equip- ment of industry, organized in world- wide trusts, is to close the door of opportunity for all those born to the lot of the working man, and will compel the strong minds of the working class to struggle, along with the rest, for the emancipation of all, as the only means whereby may come the deliverance of any. REVIEW QUESTIONS. 1. What relation did the improvements in the tools of primitive industry have to the development of the race life? 2. When did the improvement in ancient tools cease, and why? 3. What form of industrial change took the place of changes in the tools as the cause of social advance, after the improvement in the tools had ceased? 4. For how long a time did the improvement in tools practically cease and under what conditions was invention revived? 5. Name the main lines along which inventions have been de- veloped. 6. How were inventions stimulated by the division of labor? 7. What is the economic effect of the introduction of machinery? 8. Is displaced labor re-employed? 9. How did the modern era of development affect the class lines during its earlier advance? 10. What effect is the completer development having on the same lines? 11. Whence came the ability to organize and develop great en- terprises ? 12. When those with ability to organize and direct great enter- E rises can no longer save themselves, each acting alone, from the work- ig class, what then will be the way of escape? CHAPTER 33 THE TRUST, THE WORLD MARKET AND IMPERIALISM 151. Evolution of the Corporation. The corpora- tion came into existence, not by the base or criminal actions of men. The great machine made joint owner- ship inevitable. This joint ownership was first under- taken by partnerships. But as the result of long years of business experience and development, the corpora- tion appeared. It came as the survival of the form of organization best fitted to the necessities of effect- ive joint ownership. But the corporation itself is still subject to the same law of the survival of the fittest and the destruction of the unfittest, and the evolution of capitalism into new forms of organization still con- tinues. And these new forms are created just as the old ones were, by economic necessities not as the re- sult of the good or the bad qualities of the individuals involved. 152. Victory of the Big Machines. The corpora- tion came as a body large enough, by the joint sav- ings of the individual earnings of many, to make pos- sible the joint ownership of the great machines. The use of these machines at once made necessary a larger 127 128 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART II market. This was at first secured by a destructive com- petition of the new and larger machines against the older and smaller ones and, in the beginning of mod- ern capitalism, against the simple tools of primitive in- dustry. Because those with great machines produced with greater economy, they were able to destroy com- petitors who were working with inferior tools. This would lead to the day when no more markets could be obtained by destroying competitive establishments with inferior equipments. 153. A Wider Market. Every improvement in the machinery meant a larger product, and, hence, a wider market. In the nature of the case, the time must come when the best machinery would be in many establish- ments and many such establishments would be con- tending for supremacy in the same market. 1 In such 1. "There is every reason to believe that with a diminution in the number of competitors and an increase of their size, competition grows keener and keener. Under old business conditions custom held considerable sway; the personal element played a larger part alike in determining quality of goods and good faith; purchasers did not so closely compare prices; they were not guided exclusively by fig- ures; they did not systematically beat down prices, nor did they de- vote so large a proportion of their time, thought, and money to de- vices for taking away one another's customers. From the new busi- ness this personal element and these customary scruples have almost entirely vanished, and as the net advantages of large scale production grow, more and more attention is devoted to the direct work of com- petition. Hence we find that it is precisely in those trades which are most highly organized, provided with the most advanced machinery, and composed of the largest units of capital, that the fiercest and most unscrupulous competition has shown itself. The precise part which machinery, with its incalculable tendency to over-production, has played in this competition remains for later consideration. Here it is enough to place in evidence the acknowledged fact that the growing scale of the business has intensified and not diminished com- petition. In the great machine industries trade fluctuations are most severely felt; the smaller businesses are unable to stand before the tide of depression and collapse, or are driven in self-defense to coalesce. The borrowing of capital, the formation of joint stock enterprises and every form of co-operation in capital has proceeded most rapidly in the textile, metal, transport, shipping, and machine-making indus- tries, and in those minor manufactures, such as brewing and chemicals, which require large quantities of expensive plant. This joining togeth- er of small capitals to make a single large capital, this swallowing up of small by large businesses, means nothing else than the endeavor to CHAP. X THE TRUST, THE WORLD MARKET, ETC. 129 a case, the smallest advantage in the effectiveness of the machinery used, in the skill with which labor was organized and employed, or in the ability with which the market was sought for would give the final mas- tery to that corporation in whose favor the general av- erage of advantage was found to fall. An absolute equilibrium in all these particulars could not be hoped for; but even that could not prevent the unavoidable movement of capitalism towards concentration. 154. Bankruptcy and Consolidation. Two such cor- porations facing each other, buying raw materials in the same market, hiring labor in the same market, us- ing machinery of the same efficiency, could not success- fully withstand and finally prevent the consolidation of their enterprises. Under such conditions, one of three things must hap- eseape the risks and dangers attending small-scale production in the tide of modern industrial changes. But since all are moving in the same direction, no one gains upon the other. Certain common economics are shared by the monster competitors, but more and more energy must be given to the work of competition, and the productive economies are partly squanderd in the friction of fierce competition, and partly pass over to the body of consumers in lowered prices. Thus the en- deavor to secure safety and high profits by the economies of large- scale production is rendered futile by the growing severity of the com- petitive process. Each big firm finds itslf competent to undertake more business than it already possesses, and underbids its neighbor until the cutting of prices has sunk the weaker and driven profits to a bare subsistence point for the stronger competitors. "So long as the increased size of business brings with it a net eco- nomic advantage, the competition of ever larger competitors, whose total power of production is far ahead of sales at remunerative prices, and who are therefore constrained to devote an increased proportion of energy to taking one another's trade, must intensify this cut-throat warfare. The diminishing number of competitors in a market does not ease matters in the least, for the intensity of the strife reaches its maximum when two competing businesses are fighting a life or death struggle. As the effective competitors grow fewer, not only is the proportion of attention each devotes to the other more continuous and more highly concentrated, but the results of success more intrinsically valuable, for the reward, of victory over the last competitor is the at- tainment of monopoly." Hobson: Evolution of Modern Capitalism, pp. 120-22. 130 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART II pen; and whichever happens, consolidation must nec- essarily result. 2 First, if either proved in the slightest degree to be the superior of the other, the inferior would be driven into bankruptcy as the result of a prolonged battle for the control and monopoly of the market. Then the successful establishment would absorb the business of both, and consolidation would result. Secondly, if they should prove equally strong in the strife for the market, they could stay in the fight until 2. "Arranging in their logical order the laws of competition which we have found, we have the following diagram 3 I 1! (1) As the waste due to competition increases. le waste of com- petition increases in proportion to its intensity. (2) As the number of competing units (1) The intensity of competition i n - creases as the num- ber of competing units decreases. (2) The intensity of competition i n - creases with the amount of capital required for each competing unit, ecreases. (3) As the amount of capital required for each competing unit increases. (4) As the number of available natural agents decreases. "The preceding diagram sets plainly before us the three great salient causes from which have grown the long list of monopolies under which our civilization labors. First, the supply of natural agents of which new competitors in any industry may avail them- selves has been largely exhausted, or has been gathered up by exist- ing monopolies to render their position more secure \ the world has not the natural resources to develop that it had a century ago. Second,' the concentration of all the productive industries, except agriculture, into great establishments, while it has enormously les- sened the cost of production, has so reduced the number of compet- ing units that a monopoly is the inevitable final result. Last, the enormous capital required for the establishment and maintenance of new competing units tends to fortify the monopoly in its position and renders the escape of the public from its grasp practically im- possible. These terse statements contain exactly the kernel of po- tent truth for which we are seeking; monopolies of every sort are an inevitable result from certain conditions of modern civilization. "The vital importance of this truth cannot be over-estimated. For so long as we refuse to recognize it, so long as we attempt to CHAP.X THE TRUST, THE WORLD MARKET, ETC. 131 both were ruined and some new company took the business of both which, again, would be consolida- tion. 3 Thirdly, if they should refuse to contend and instead combine, then there is combination direct and outright. stop the present evils of monopoly by trying to add a feeble one to the number of competing units, or by trying to legislate against spe- cial monopolies, we are only building a temporary dam to shut Out a flood which can only be controlled at the fountain head. "The facts of history testify to the truth of this law. Monopo- lies were never so abundant as to-day, never so powerful, never so threatening; and with unimportant exceptions they have all sprung up with our modern industrial development. The last fifteen years have seen a greater industrial advancement than did the thirty preceding, but they have also witnessed a more than proportionate growth of monopolies. How worse than foolish, then, is the short-sightedness that ascribes monopolies to the personal wickedness of the men who form them. It is as foolish to decry the wickedness of trust makers as it is to curse the schemes of labor monopolists. Each is working unconsciously in obedience to a natural law; and the only reason that almost every man is not engaged in forming or maintaining a similar monopoly is that he is not placed in similar circumstances. Away, then, with the pessimism which declares that the prevalence of mo- nopolies evidences the decay of the nobler aspirations of humanity. The monopolies of today are a natural outgrowth of the laws of modern competition, and they are as actually the result of the application of steam, electricity, and machinery to the service of men as are our fac- tories and railways. Great evils though they may have become, there is naught of evil omen in them to make us fear for the ultimate wel- fare of our liberties. "To the practical mind, however, the question at once occurs, what light have we gained toward the proper method of counteracting this evil? Can it be true that the conditions of modern civilization neces- sitate our subjection to monopolies, and that all our vaunted progress in the arts of peace only brings us nearer to an inevitable and de- plorable end, in which a few holders of the strongest monopolies shall ride rough-shod over the industrial liberties of the vast mass of humanity? Were this true, perhaps we had better take a step back- ward; relinquish the factory for the workshop, the railway for the stage coach. 'Better it is to be of an humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud.' But the law we have found commits us to no such fate. We cannot, indeed, abolish the causes of monopolies. We cannot create new gifts of Nature, and it would be nonsense to attempt to bring about an increase in the number of competing units and a decrease in the capitalization of each by ex- changing our factories and works of today for the workshops of our grandfathers." Baker: Monopolies and the People, pp. 158-161. 3. "John D. Rockefeller, President of the Standard Oil Company, in a written statement submitted to the Industrial Commission, Jan- uary 10, 1900, thus summarized his views concerning trusts: " *It is too late to argue about the advantages of industrial com- binations. Their chief advantages are: 1. Command of necessary 132 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART II And hence, in the third and only other possible out- come there is still consolidation. Consolidation is as directly the result of the bankruptcy of a part or of all of the competitors as it is the result of the combina- tion of all. 4 155. The Trust Consolidation Without Bank- ruptcy. The trust is such a combination of corpora- tions, created to avoid the bankruptcy which other- wise was inevitable, for a part or all of the competitors. If the corporations had refused to combinne they could not have prevented consolidation. It would have come by the same process of the elimination of the more poor- ly equipped or the less capable management and the survival and enlargement of the establishments best fitted to survive in the midst of such an economic war- fare. The trust simply does intelligently and with fore- sight and without the bankruptcy of the competing parties, what competition would otherwise have accom- plished in spite of the corporations, but by the familiar old road of business failures on the one hand, and the capture of trade on the other. 156. The Trust at Work. Now, follow this neces- sary evolution of capitalism into the trust organiza- tion, and notice a few things which necessarily follow capital. 2. Extension of limits of business. 3. Increase of the num- ber of persons interested in the business. 4. Economy in the business. 5. Improvements and economies which are derived from knowledge of many interested persons of wide experience. 6. Power to give the public improved products at less prices and still make a profit for stockholders. 7. Permanent work and good wages for laborers'." Nettleton: Trust or Competition, p. 138. 4. "Indeed, one of the pressing questions is, whether the inde- pendent producers who have been crowded out of the field are unfor- tunate sufferers from natural progress, or whether they are the vic- tims of a wrong against which society should protect them. More centralization means a crushing out of competitors by a process that, however hard it is for them, is in a way legitimate; for it is an in- eident of the process of the survival of the fittest." Professor Clark (Columbia University): The Control of the Trusts, pp. 19-21. CHAP. X THE TRUST, THE WORLD MARKET, ETC. 133 the coming of the trust. Notice that the trust does not naturally arise until there are more factories contend- ing for the same market than are needed to supply that market. It is because the market cannot employ all, that some must fail. 5 And hence, the fight for survi- val. When the trust comes, it cannot sell more goods in the same market. It can only shut down a part of its factories without making their owners bankrupts. Without the trust, the same factories must have closed anyway, but by making their owners bankrupts. 6 157. Closing Factories. Which factories are sure to close? Those where raw materials, transportation and labor are found to be most expensive. The fac- tories which are best located and best equipped for winning in the competitive fight are the ones to produce what the market can take, and earn dividends, not only for their own former stockholders, but also for investments made in plants now doomed to idleness. The trust will always endeavor to manufacture at that place within the territory controlled by the trust where raw materials are cheapest, transportation least ex- pensive and labor most helpless. The general average of advantage in these particulars will determine which factories are to close. 158 Looking for Investments. Again, so soon as the trust appears in any single line of production, there is thereafter not the same demand for the re-invest- ment of its own earnings in its own business. While the corporations were competing with each other, each cor- 5. "No doubt there are occasions on which a trade cannot con- tinue to produce at its full strength without forcing the sale of its wares on an inelastic market disastrous to itself." Marshall: Prin- ciples of Economics, p. 411. 6. "With the exception of the Standard Oil trust, and perhaps one or two others that rose somewhat earlier, it may be fairly said, I think, that not merely competition, but competition that was proving ruinous to many establishments, was the cause of combina- tions." Jenks: Economic Journal, Vol. II., p. 73. 134 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART II poration was obliged to re-invest its earnings in enlarg- ing its own business equipment and in extending, by competitive advertising and competing salesmen, the volume of its business. For only the corporation which could do things on the largest scale could produce most cheaply and so be best able to survive. 159. Economies of the Trust. But as soon as the trust is established, the cost of competing salesmen and competing advertising, together with the wages, or salaries, of great numbers of workers is saved to the combination; and, besides, instead of building more shops, a great saving is made by closing a portion of those already built. As a result, the earnings are larger and, the demand for reinvestment in their own business ceasing, large sums are set at liberty to invest in other lines of business. But the very nature of machine pro- duction so relates many lines of manufacturing that the finished product of one manufacturer is the raw material of another. The trust having its earnings free for re-investment, follows its finished products into the related factories and buys or builds related plants, one after another, until it reaches the consumer direct. It follows its raw materials back through the preceding factories and finally to the natural resources direct. The tanners reach forward into the shoe factory and to the harness shop, and backward to the raw hides until the leather trust controls the whole industry, from the cattle ranch to the purchaser, who consumes the goods. And then its earnings, seeking re-investment, must enter unrelated lines of business. 160. Monopoly and the Trust. Finally, whenever a trust is established to control any particular market, others not before selling in that market, attracted by the better conditions for trade, will become competitors with the trust, with the result that the same old con- flict for control is again renewed, which may end in the CHAP. X THE TRUST, THE WORLD MARKET, ETC. 135 bankruptcy of either or both of the competitors or in a further combination; but, in any case, as shown above, in a further consolidation of the business. With each new enlargement, new competitors will arise, until all competitors selling in that market have either combined with or been destroyed by this ever-growing concentra- tion of business. Therefore, when the trust has once appeared in any line of trade, there is thereafter no logical stopping place for its growth until it has de- stroyed, or compelled to combine with itself, all com- petitors selling in the same market. 7 161. The International Trust. But the trust is be- coming international. It sells in the world market. 8 Therefore, there is no logical stopping place for the growth of the trust until it has destroyed, or forced to combine with itself, all competitors selling in the world's market. 9 And hence, from all the foregoing, it is clearly seen that, trust or no trust, consolidation which effects the same economic consequences as the trust is the necessary result of prolonged and de- termined competition for control of the same market, and that the trust, once in existence, must continue its evolution and necessary growth until one trust shall control all lines of business on all the earth, and shall produce for that whole world, at that place on all the earth where materials are cheapest, access to the sea most direct and labor most helpless. 7. See close of Note 1 above. 8. "It was Marx who first clearly pointed out the nature of the domestic system and its transformation into the factory system of our age, with the attendant change from the local to the national market, and from this in turn to the world market." Seligman: The Economic Interpretation of History, p. 69. 9. "Nevertheless, though these great economic movements were retarded, they could not be wholly arrested. Capitalism has gradually overcome the medieval obstacles ; it has swept away local exclusive- ness, and has been the means of developing large economic areas. A revolution has taken place in business practice, and the breaking down of commercial restrictions is a change which has affected the traders in all lands." Cunningham: The Cambridge Modern History,p. 531. 136 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART II 162. The World Market. At the beginning of this century, there were many different nations. To a large degree, each nation had its own government, its own language, its own peculiar institutions, and especially its own industrial and commercial life. But as each nation has developed its own industries, it has been compelled to look for foreign markets in order to dis- pose of the goods which the workers make, which the masters cannot use, and which the wages paid under capitalism are not enough to enable the workers to buy; and hence, the development of the century has been in the direction of a world market. 10 As each nation has extended its market, it has multiplied its battle-ships, built its coaling stations, and protected its own mer- chantmen as they have bought or sold in all lands. In- dustry and commerce have become a matter of interna- tional concern. 11 163. The Money Changer. In connection with in- dustry and commerce in international trade, the ex- change of international credits and the payment of bal- ances in specified commodities, as gold or silver bullion, 10. "The phase of civilization through which mankind is now passing opened in 1870. For many years previous to the German vic- tory (Franco-Prussian War, 1870) a quickening of competition, caused by a steady acceleration of movement, had been undermining the equi- librium reached at the battle of Waterloo (1815). Every- where society tends to become organized in greater arid denser masses, the more vigorous and economical mass destroying the less active and more wasteful." Adams: Economic Supremacy, p. 26. 11. "The right of association must be free; the magnitude of as- sociation must correspond with the magnitude of the business to be done; business can no longer be localized; it cannot be confined by state lines; when the problem is to open and keep open the markets of the world, it is sheer madness to attempt to restrict the business as of that of a local manufacturer. * * * The law is possibly our best guide on this subject. It has progressed as experience and the necessities of business required, from the idea that all combinations were wrong to the idea that all persons should be left free to combine for all legitimate purposes. * In reviewing the history of the Standard combination, I expect to demonstrate that the necessities' of the business demanded association on a large scale." S. C. J. Dodd. Solicitor of the Standard Oil Trust. Quoted by Nettleton; Trusts or Competition? p. 195. CHAP. X THE TRUST, THE WORLD MARKET, ETC 137 have made the international money-changer a factor of the first importance. His profits depend on the dis- counts, the exchanges and the gathering in of forfeited collaterals on loans made by him. In any particular neighborhood the money-changer, by withholding credit, may bring ruin to the business of one neighbor, while by extending credit he may de- velop the business of another. He may lend for the very purpose of enlarging business and getting posses- sion of collaterals on easy terms for the borrower. He may withdraw his loans for the very purpose of con- verting to his own use the collaterals which the same borrower has pledged for his " accommodations. ' ' But trade has become international, and the interna- tional money-changer has the same grip on the nations of the earth that the old-time money-lord had for a long time upon his neighbors. In time of peace, the interna- tional money-changer can "send home securities" that is, refuse credit to one country to its hurt, and ex- tend credit to another country in a manner for a time, at least to greatly enlarge its business. He may thus work one country against another by turns, and all the time be the master of both. In time of war, he may recall old loans; grant or withhold new loans; dictate alliances, equip armies, and so control the conditions on which victory depends. 164. The New World Power. Here, then, are four things new and startling in their significance, though all are but the culmination of a century of development. In fact, they are the outgrowth of all the centuries. They are : first, the international trust ; second, the fed- eration of all trusts; third, the presence of all flags on all seas; fourth, a single power both in the trusts and behind the flags in all lands and on all seas. 165. The Monopoly of the Earth. The logical cul- mination will be many factories, but only one corpora- 138 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART II tion of manufacturers ; many flags, but only one govern- ment; in fact, the speedy coming to fullness of power of a single private syndicate which shall own and govern all; shall control the industry, commerce, courts and armies of all the earth. 12 And this is not to be the "Parliament of man, the federation of the world." It is to be the parliament of dollars, the federation of the despoilers of the earth. 166. The Surviving Factory. When all the cor- porations engaged in any line of business combine into a trust to conduct all the business in any country, only those factories in all that country are continued in op- eration where materials are cheapest, transportation most advantageous and labor most helpless. When- ever the international trust comes into the fullness of its power, only those factories on all the earth will con- tinue in operation where materials are cheapest, trans- portation most advantageous, and labor most helpless. As in the case of a national trust, if the workers in th$ vicinity of a closed factory will consent to go on with the work on the terms at which the most helpless work- ers in any other portion of the country will consent to be employed, then, the chances for materials and trans- portation being equal, the work may go on in that fac- tory. So, also, in the case of the international trust, if the workers in any country where the standard of living and the wages of workers are high, if they too will consent to the terms under which the most help- less workers in all the earth consent to be employed, the chances for materials and transportation being equal, the work may go on in that country. Otherwise, the production of any particular article so involved will be transferred, and its production will remain 12. "I confess that I feel humiliated at the truth, which cannot be disguised, that though we live under the form of a Republic (the United States), we are, in fact, under the rule of a single man." Judge Story, quoted in "Annals of Toil," p. 199. CHAP. X THE TRUST, THE WORLD MARKET, ETC 139 transferred, to that place on all the earth where ma- terials are cheapest, the open sea within easy reach, and the toilers most helpless. 167. International Strikes and Trusts. Under such an organization, a successful strike in any single coun- try would be impossible. The workers in the United States might refuse to work; but the shops in England Italy and China could take the work, and on the other side of the earth, beyond the reach of their industry to help, or of their rage to interfere; under the pro- tection of all the armies of the earth; supported by all the battle-ships of all the seas, the wheels will turn, and what the market can take, the international trust can produce. With the international trust once in control of the production of any given article, a strike can never again win in any shop producing that article un- til the helpless workers of China, India, and of all "the isles of the sea' 7 shall have been made good and reliable members of the unions involved. Nor could a strike in any country succeed, even then, unless an in- ternational organization of the unions could be made more effiective in such a world encounter, without any armies on the land and without any battle-ships at sea, than the international trust could be made with all the armies of all lands and all the battle-ships of all the seas at its command. If these helpless workers are in- capable of such an effective membership in the unions, or if such an international organization of the unions would be helpless, because defenseless, then, under the international trust, the strike is at an end in all such shops. Heretofore, the factory has imported the help- less worker to compete with the trades unionist on his own ground and at the doors of the shop where the unionist was himself employed. Under the interna- tional trust, the factory itself may be exported instead. If the Chinese coolie is forbidden access to this coun- 140 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART II try, the international trust protected by the interna- tional battle-shipwill take the factory to the Chinese coolie's own country. 13 168. The Tariff, the Trust and the Shanghai Fac- tory. For a hundred years and more, American work- ers have largely supported a protective tariff in order not to be brought into competition with the pauper la- bor of other countries. Whatever may have been true of the past, under the international trust any possible advantage from the tariff to the American worker is at an end. It has been argued that freedom of trade would make necessary the payment in this country of the wages of the pauper labor of other countries, and to avoid this the products of the laborers of other coun- tries, who worked in other countries, have been for- bidden the American market except such payment be made as to balance the difference in wages. Whatever may have been true in the past, under the international trust the sum of the tariff on any given article will be promptly added to its price, and as the trust controls all the factories in that line in this country, American manufacturers will not compete to bring down the price at home. The tariff in such a case would add to the cost of living, but have no power to raise wages. This has been admitted, and the suggestion has been offered that whenever any article is made the subject of a trust organization it be put on the free list, and so open to the competition of the world. But under the in- ternational trust the same organization controls on 13. "The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instru- ments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of commu- nication, draw all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilization. The cheap prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilization into their midst, i. e., to become bourgeois themselves. In a word, it creates a world after its own immage." Marx and Engels: Communist Manifesto, p. 19. CHAP. X THE TRUST, THE WORLD MARKET, ETC. 141 both sides of the national boundary line, and it will be a matter of utter indifference to the trust whether you buy from its factory in Chicago, in Manchester or in Shanghai. The trust will fix its price for the trade of all countries and it will continue to be done by the arbitrary act of the trust which alone can fur- nish the goods. If the workers in this country will work on the basis of the Chinese coolies, then the people of this country may, if they wish, buy from a factory in this country. If the workers of this country refuse to join the Chinese coolies, they may join the American tramps instead, and the goods will come from Shanghai just the same. 169. No Possible Competitor. If it be said that ex- orbitant prices will mean large profits, and that new capital will be employed outside the international com- bination of all the trusts of all the countries, the an- swer is, that this international combination will con- trol the money of the earth, not to mention transporta- tion, on both land and sea, and all the other related lines of industry on which any new competing company must rely. This international combination will con- trol all the shops in the trust ; it will be able to destroy all shops not in the trust. It is self-evident that no new company, borrowing money from the trust or buying materials from the trust or shipping over lines owned by the trust, can live as a competitor with the trust. 170. Cornered at Last. Notice, then, that with the completion of this combination the strike will be in- effective, the tariff without force, and a new competitor impossible; and notice further that within the limits of what is possible, under capitalism, no other method of escape from the monopoly and tyranny of trade is even thinkable, to say nothing of its effectiveness. 171. Imperialism. And now as to the matter of imperialism and expansion, it is a matter of no con- 142 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART II cern to the helpless workers anywhere how far our flag shall be carried if its presence shall mean what every other battle flag on earth now means, and that is the extension of this trust-ruled industrial and commercial world life. 172. Choosing a Flag to Starve Under. What dif- ference does it make to a toiler what flag he starves un- der or what flag it is which supports those international policies which make certain the universal and helpless enslavement of the human race? If our flag goes abroad on such an errand, it means no harm to the worker which cannot come to him under some other flag, if our flag does not go. To keep our flag at home lest it should do the wrong, does not prevent the doing of the wrong; to send it abroad consenting to the wrong as the only means by which it may be unfurled in new and distant lands, is to send it as a defender of this in- ternational commercialism, which is only a system- atized form of international piracy, which is nothing else than the giving to the international capitalist the power of our flag to aid him in doing in other lands exactly the same thing which capitalism is doing at home. 173. Imperialism, Militarism, Expansion, Capital- ism. The imperialism of any or all the governments of the earth is a matter of no concern to the workers as long as the imperialism of international trade, mastered by an international trust, controlling all the industries of the earth, shall remain unchallenged. It is true that imperialism abroad does mean militarism at home. But it is also true that capitalism at home makes imperial- ism abroad absolutely inevitable. The international organization of industry and commerce which is so rap- idly culminating in the one international trust, includes the industry and commerce of America. The market for American products is international. The battle- CHAP. X THE TRUST, THE WORLD MARKET, ETC. 143 ship must go wherever the merchantman has gone. As long as capitalism, producing for an international market, rules American industry, the battle-ship must go. Expansion is simply capitalism looking for a for- eign market. 14 Imperialism is simply the power of the nation used to extend and protect that market. 174. Summary. 1. The use of the great machines made necessary ownership by the joint savings of many, employment of the joint labor of many and the great extension of the market, hence the coming of the manufacturing corporations. 2. Corporations competing for the same market were obliged to combine to avoid mutual destruction. It resulted in the combination of some companies and the ultimate destruction of all others selling the same goods in the same market, this is the trust. 3. The extension of trade has created a world mar- ket. The organization of the trust, once undertaken, had to become as extensive as the market in which it sought to control the trade, hence the international trust. 4. Every industry is intimately connected with many other industries which furnish the materials or the tools or the transportation involved in its own busi- ness. To control one line of production sometimes makes possible, and sometimes necessary, the control of other lines of trade, hence the federation of the trusts. 5. The perfect equipment and large earnings of the trust make impossible the re-investment of its profits in the further development of its own business, because 14. "All the energetic races have been plunged into a contest for the possession of the only markets left open capable of absorbing surplus manufactures, since all are forced to encourage exports to maintain themselves." Adams: Economic Supremacy, p. 29. 144 7HE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART It of the limitations of the market, and so compel the re- investment of the earnings of the trust in other lines of business, and thus bring new lines of business under the same control, and hence, again, the federation of the trusts. 6. The exigencies of foreign relations control the domestic policies of all countries. International trade controls all foreign relations. The international trust is rapidly becoming the master of all international trade. It is becoming the political as well as the indus- trial despot of the world. REVIEW QUESTIONS. 1. What made the creation of the manufacturing corporations necessary ? 2. Why was the creation of the trust necessary? Can consolida- tion be prevented? 3. Why must the trust become a world trust? 4. Why has the federation of trusts taken place? 5. Are there any forces which can prevent the culmination of business organization in a single world trust? 6. Name some of the important things which such a world power, or single international trust, would be sure to control. 7. How would this affect the interests of those not in the trusts? 8. Would a successful strike then be possible? Why? 9. Could any action regarding the tariff in any way affect the interests of an international trust? Why? 10. Would the organization of new competing companies be pos- sible after the completion of the one international trust? Why? 11. What is the cause at home of the policy of imperialism abroad ? CHAPTER XI THE COLLAPSE OF CAPITALISM 175. The Culmination. Capitalism has a world- wide existence. All other forms of the organization of industry and commerce have been crowded out of ex- istence. World-wide consolidation cannot be prevent- ed. This culmination is inevitable. It is the purpose of this chapter to show that the final collapse of cap- italism is as inevitable as is continued growth and final consolidation under capitalism. 176. Surplus Products. Capitalism, under ma- chine production, produces more goods than the cap- italists can dispose of among themselves and their em- ployes. The capitalists take all the goods from the market which they can use or are willing to waste. The workers take all the goods from the market which their wages will pay for. It was recently stated, in the United States Senate, by Senator Hanna, that American production will have to be lessened at least one-third, or the foreign market must be held for American goods. This means that American workers are producing very largely in ex- cess of what the American workers are able to buy, 145 146 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM. PART II over and above all that their employers can use or are willing to waste. 1 If the workers of this country are doing this, it is also true that the workers of all countries are doing the same. If the accuracy of Senator Hanna's figures be denied, it will not be denied that the workers of all countries are all the time producing largely in excess of all that the workers of all the countries are able to buy, over and above all that their employers can either use or waste. 177. The Foreign Market. By means of the foreign market the attempt is made to dispose of this surplus, by the employers of different countries trying to sell to each other this surplus, which the workers could use, but cannot buy, and which the employers claim, but cannot use. To whatever extent the foreign market relieves the overstocked market of one country, it must at the same time increase the overstock or stop the industry of some other country which was before pro- ducing the same goods for the same market. If the great manufacturing countries are all of them pro- ducing thirty per cent more than the workers can buy with their wages, 2 and over and above what their em- ployers can use or waste, this surplus cannot be long disposed of by international exchange, for however much this international exchange of goods, by ex- changing the staple articles of one country for the lux- uries of other countries, may add to what the capitalists may be willing to waste, it can in no way add to the pur- chasing power of the workers. I # * The upghot of the whole matter, therefore, is that America has been irresistibly impelled to produce a large industrial surplus a surplus, should no change occur, which will be larger in a few years than anything ever before known. Upon the existence of this surplus hinges the future, for the United States must provide sure and adequate outlets for her products, or be in danger of gluts more dangerous to her society than many panics such as 1873 and 1893." Adams: American Economic Supremacy, p. '32. 2. "But the capacity for extension, extensive and intensive, of CHAP. XI THE COLLAPSE OF CAPITALISM 147 178. Losing the Market. If there are increased sales for any one country, it is because it has captured the trade and closed the shops of some other country. 3 And so the struggle for the foreign market, wherever the markets is primarily governed by quite different laws, that work much less energetically. The extension of the markets cannot keep pace with the extension of production. The collision becomes inevitable, and as this cannot produce any real solution so long as it does not break in pieces the capitalist mode of production the collisions become periodic." Engels: Socialism Utopian and Scientific, pp. 63-64. "And how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises? On the one hand by enforced destrucion of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones. That is to say, by paving the way for more extensive and more destructive crises, and by diminishing the means whereby crises are prevented." Marx and Engles: Communist Manifesto, pp. 21-22. 3. " 'A pound of home trade,' it has been said, 'is more significant to manufacturing industry than thirty shillings or two pounds of foreign.' The comparison may not be exact, but it is on the right lines. Now, one of the most important branches of our home trade must be the supplying of agriculturists with manufactures in exchange for food. But when the purchasing power of this class of the com- munity has sunk as much as 43,000,000 (more than $206,000,000) per annum, it is obvious that such a loss of custom must seriously affect manufactures. Again, no small portion of our home market must consist in the purchases made by the working classes, yet it does not seem to occur to capitalist manufacturers that if they pay a large proportion of the industrial classes the lowest possible wages, and get them to work the longest possible hours while thus obtaining an ever- increasing production of goods, the question must sooner or later be answered: Who is going to consume the goods thus produced? "The answer, as far as the capitalist is concerned, seems to be foreign customers in new markets. English manufacturers and cap- italists have consistently supported that policy which seemed likely to open up these new markets for their goods. For a considerable time, as we saw, they occupied themselves very wisely in obtaining cheap raw material by passing enactments actuated by Free-Trade principles, and removing protective restrictions. Cheap raw material having thus been gained, and machinery having now been developed to such an extent as to increase production quite incalculably, Eng- land sends her textile and other products all over the world. She seems to find it necessary to discover fresh markets every ganeration or so, in order that this vast output of commodities may be sold. The merchant and manufacturing classes have supported and still support this policy, from a desire, apparently, rather to find new customers than to keep the old; and largely for the sake of British trade, wars have been made on China, Egypt, and Burmah, while at the present moment England is scrambling with Germany, Portugal, and other powers for the new markets of Africa. Today, indeed, the industrial history of our country seems to have reached a point when production under a purely mercantile system is over-reaching itself. It must go on and on without ceasing, finding or fighting for an outlet for the 148 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART II trade shall finally go, means destruction of industry for the losers in the conflict, and ultimate monopoly and world-mastery for the industrial victors. 179. Purchasing Power. But this is not all. Each such victory helps to destroy the purchasing power in the world-market of those countries whose shops are closed, and hence makes smaller, at the same time it monopolizes, this market for the victors. Whenever the world-trust shall come into complete control of the world-market and continues to produce more than its workers can buy, where, then, will it dispose of this surplus which the capitalist claims, but cannot use, and which the worker has produced and needs, but cannot buy? If the remedy shall be to produce less, then more workers are displaced and there will be still fewer to buy, and hence, a larger surplus than ever. 4 Then cap- wealth produced, lest the whole gigantic system of international com- merce should break down by the mere weight of its own immensity. Meanwhile English manufacturers are complaining of foreign competi- tion in plaintive tones, a complaint which merely means that whereas they thought some years ago that they had a complete monopoly in supplying the requirements of the world, they are now perceiving that they have not a monopoly at all, but only a good start, while other nations are already catching them up in the modern race for wealth." Gibbins: Industry in England, pp. 468-70. 4. "Owing to the great capacity of modern machinery, the op- eratives employed by the investment of savings can only consume a very small proportion of their product. An outlet must be found either in the discovery of fresh markets in countries yet to be 'developed' a problem which involves serious questions of foreign politics or in in- creased home consumption. Leaving the former of these out of account for the present, as it brings up international competition, and from the nature of things must gradually diminish in importance as a solution, we see that an increasing proportion of the national income must be spent in order to absorb the goods originating from savings. Here a limitation arises from the manner in which the annual income is di- vided. Out of a population of about forty million persons, some eight- een millions are 'occupied,' and of these it is estimated that thirteen millions constitute the manual labor class. They and their dependents, therefore, form the home market for the great bulk of the production of goods for consumption, and on their ability to increase their effect- ive demand depends the utility of the increased productivity of in- dustry. But they receive only 650,000,000 out of the national income of 1,700,000,000, or less than one-third, and the spending capacity of a very large proportion of them is much below what the average repre- sents. Even those of them who are best off have but a very small margin for conventional luxuries after providing for the bare neces- CHAP. XI THE COLLAPSE OF CAPITALISM 149 italism will be able to clear its shelves only by closing down its shops. Hence, the only final and logical out- come of the world-trust is to end the relief which may come to the industry of any one country by destroying the industry of some other country. The world-market is already the one market of the world. The business of supplying that world-market is rapidly becoming the business of a single combination by the process of competition and the necessary con- solidation resulting from the combination of some, and the destruction of others, of the competitors. 180. Commercial Suicide. Whenever a part of the competitors are in a world- wide combination and have destroyed all other competitors, then the combination must proceed to destroy itself or abandon capitalism. For what can the handful of men, who may be in that final combination, do with thirty per cent, of all the products of all the earth, products which the employers cannot use; products which the workers cannot buy; and which cannot any longer be sold outside the trust- controlled territory, to the profit of those in the trust, and to the ruin of those not in the trust, because, at last, all the world will be within the grasp of the one international combination "and there are no other worlds to conquer V 9 181. The Collapse. Therefore, the culmination of capitalism will insure its collapse, because production under capitalism now depends on the foreign market to dispose of its surplus; and the foreign market can last only so long as the international competitors are engaged in the process of destroying each other. ' When saries of life. This permanent maladjustment of purchasing and pro- ducing power necesarily produces an incalculable disorganization of industry, and profoundly increases the innate inability of the com- petitive system to balance supply and demand." Macrosty: Trusts and the State, p. 106. 150 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART II that war is over,and foreign relief is no longer possible, then, as Senator Hanna correctly contends, under cap- italism, there is no other alternative than to lessen pro- duction. And this process once entered upon, can find no stopping place short of the complete collapse of cap- italism, which has itself evolved the process of its own destruction. Again, the culmination of capitalism will be its col- lapse, because, when the one trust has bought the earth, it cannot any longer re-invest its earnings. The Kocke- fellers alone are buying up the world's productive prop- erty at the rate of two millions a week, but they are only one large stream. All the ten thousand industrial and commercial currents are flowing hourly into larger and larger streams and will at last come to the one great sea. The earnings of the trusts are going to buy the stocks of other corporations or the certificates or bonds of other trusts. The whole world's resources are being taxed to the uttermost to complete the purchase of the earth by a single syndicate. 182. The Bankrupt Trusts. It is sometimes said that the trusts are overstocked and are bound to fail. Corporations have been overstocked, but no " crash," due to such causes, has taken us backward to the small- er enterprises, but always forward to the larger ones. Nothing could happen which would hasten the com- ing of the final trust more than a general financial crash among the trusts. At the present rate of consolidation, the day is not far off when a sufficient portion of the productive property of the world will be in the hands of a single combination to make that combination prac- tically the master of the earth. With even ten per cent, of the annual product of all countries available for use in the purchase of the rest of productive properties of the earth, it will be a short road which will lead to CHAP. XI THE COLLAPSE OF CAPITALISM 151 the end of this means of re-investment for the earnings of the trust. 183. Played to a Finish. A handful of men cannot consume or waste one-third of the world 's products. When they can neither use nor re-invest their profits, the uninvested profits must accumulate in the vaults in the same way that the unsold goods will accumulate in the store-houses. Having bought the earth, the end of the buying business, so far as productive property is concerned, will be at hand. Capitalism will have made the earth a single great machine for making profits, and then, because it will have already bought the earth, it will have no use for the larger share of the profits. In the game of trade, the most successful gam- blers of them all will have won all the stakes; will have cleared the table of all its " counters " and its cash; will have ruined all competitors; will have " cinched" every chance; will have privately marked all the cards; will have ' * loaded all the dice ; ' ' there will be no one either able to bet or willing to take any further chances in this "braced game" of trade. So the game of capitalism will cease to be played, simply because it will have been played to a finish and the gamblers, for sheer lack of victims, "will adjourn for the night." 5 184. Compulsory Idleness. Again, the culmination of capitalism will be its collapse, because the world- trust cannot employ the workers of the world. When 5. "Capitalism does not, like feudalism, lead to under-production, and chokes in its own fat." Kautsky: The Social Revolution, p. 89. "In such a competition (America against France, Germany and Russia for the occupation and organization of interior China) suc- cess can only be won by surpassing the enemy in his own method, or in that concentration which reduces waste to a minimum. Such a concentration might, conceivably, be effected by the growth and amalgamation of the great trusts until they absorb the government, or it might be brought about by the central corporation, called the government, absorbing the trusts. In either event, the result would be approximately the same. The Eastern and Western continents would be competing for the most perfect system of state socialism." Adams: American Economic Supremacy, pp. 52-53. 152 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART II the final combination has its store-houses full of goods, which it cannot sell, and its vaults full of profits, which it cannot invest; and the workers of the world shall depend on this one trust for employment, a trust which can neither re-invest its profits nor sell its goods what then? If capitalism is to remain, the best it can do is to limit production to the volume of goods which those in the combination can use or waste, and which will pro- vide an existence for the workers employed in pro- ducing the goods. Under capitalism, any production beyond this will be aimless and useless, and such a lim- ited production could employ only a small fraction of the workers of the world. What workers would be so employed? It has been seen in the preceding chapter -that it would be the workers in those countries where raw materials are cheapest, access to the sea most di- rect and labor most helpless. That would mean that capitalism would last longest, farthest away from the greatest centers of the world's activity, for there raw materials cost most and labor is best organized. When the final trust comes it will collapse. It will collapse first where the workers are best organized and where society is most advanced. It will not need to collapse in all places in order to utterly collapse in most places. And the places of its earliest collapse will be in those countries where, when capitalism cannot any longer employ labor, labor will be best prepared to employ itself. But labor once perfectly equipped and self-em- ployed anywhere will rapidly extend the new order of things everywhere. 6 6. "The day of the capitalist has come, and he has made full use of it. To-morrow will be the day of the laborer, provided he has the strength and the wisdom to use his opportunities." Gibbins: In- dustry in England, p. 471. "For this is the close of an era; we have political freedom; next and right away is to come social enfranchisement." Kidd: Social Evo- lution, pp. 245-46, CHAP. XI THE COLLAPSE OF CAPITALISM 153 185. The Class War. The evolution of capitalism, beginning with the creation of the economic class war, by the earliest form of capitalism, slavery, and the con- tinuance of this class war under serfdom, and its full development and final struggle under modern capital- ism, argues the collapse of capitalism with equal cer- tainty. Through all the centuries of civilization, un- der the economic domination of capitalism, in its many forms, this bitter economic war has lasted on and on -barbarian against barbarian, the victor against the captive, the master against the slave, the lord against the serf, the employer against the employe^- or the warrior, victor, master, lord and employer against the warrior, captive, slave, serf and employe, the one an ascending sequence of increasing power, the other a descending sequence of increasing servitude. Each succeeding relation has grown out of the preceding one as an economic evolution in the interest of the mas- ter class. But tomorrow the masters will be few in number. They will largely own the earth, but they cannot use it. They cannot re-invest their earnings, they cannot sell their goods, they cannot employ the workers and they will not have the force to protect the titles which they have secured by force. The economic class war will/ end because the evolution of capitalism under the domination of the master class will have created a new class of masters, whose growing power capitalism can- not prevent, and whose strength no power on earth will be able to withstand, and whose welfare cannot be se- cured, unless capitalism shall cease to be. The eco- nomic enfranchisement of the working class means the disappearance of all other economic classes, and the col- lapse of that age-long capitalism, based on the appro- priation by one class of the products of another class, will be inevitable and final. 154 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PART II 186. Benevolent Feudalism. It is sometimes admit- ted that the trend of things is distinctly as is here in- dicated, and then it is denied that the final collapse will come. A new feudalism, "a benevolent feudalism,'' is to prevent all this. Not only has this been contended for, but there seem good reasons to believe that it has been definitely proposed and steps undertaken to re- alize that result. 7 It is asked if great capitalists could form a worla- wide combination to take charge of the governments, as well as the industries of the earth, and could so op- erate the governments that they could enforce such industrial activities as would provide for the personal comfort of all the workers, and thus, by making "the full dinner pail" always certain, could not, then, such a condition of dependence between the well-fed work- ers and their acknowledged masters be established that the masters would provide directly for all who would submit to their paternal care, all that could be carried in a " dinner pail" and starve or imprison all others, and then use or waste in private gardens, hunting grounds and personal services for the masters all the life values of all the people not required for the com- fortable support of the workers themselves. The great- est strength of this suggestion is in the fact that in the culmination of capitalism the final group of surviv- ing capitalists will be forced into a single combination. When they have made the last great bargain and have bargained for the world itself, that will surely include the governmental powers along with the rest. Then, why will not the surviving capitalists choose to use these powers of the state together with the world 's re- sources, which the final trust will control, in order to 7. W. T. Stead states that it was the dream of Cecil Rhodes to establish such an association of millionaires. He further claims that Mr. Rhodes had the approval of Mr. Carnegie and others for his proposals. CHAP. XI THE COLLAPSE OF CAPITALISM 155 provide, at least, a comfortable existence for all, rather than consent to the universal collapse here pointed out? 187. Inner Circle Unable to Keep the Peace, Dis- guise Its Crimes or Defend Itself. The reasons why this will not be done are many and conclusive. First. It would mean that when the final trust comes the capitalist "leopards will change their spots " and cease to lie in wait to destroy each other. There is no reason to hold that they will not continue their strife which will make the final trust, within the final trust, an ever-lessening self-destroying "inner circle" inev- itable, until all shall collapse together. 8 Second. Under the final trust, the fact of exploita- tion will be so clear, the exploiters will be so few, their victims will be so many, that compromise on any terms will be impossible. 9 Third. The workers could not be made content with a ' ' full dinner pail. ' ' They have contended for that be- cause they did not have it. Give it to them and make its possession secure and they will make a fight for 8. "Paradoxical as it may seem, the riches of a nation can be measured by the violence of the crises which they experience." Clement Juglar, quoted in Burton's Crises and Depressions, p. 2. "In spite of the splendor of isolated achievements in the construc- tion of great businesses, there is some ground for saying that the lack of a well co-ordinated system of control makes industry resemble at present (1900) a mob rather than an armj* Indeed, the headlong passion of the mob in which each stimulates the other, and because there is no plan things are overdone, resembles somewhat the stress of competition which when unrestrained ends in over-production." Jones: Economic Crises, pp. 48-49. 9. "Bad kings and governors help us, if only they are bad enough." Emerson: Natural History of the Intellect, p. 220. "In the trusts, freedom of competition changes into its very op- posite into monopoly; and the production without any definite plaoi of capitalistic society capitulates to the production upon a definite plan of the invading" socialistic society. Certainly this is so far still to the benefit and advantage of the capitalists. But in this case the exploitation is so palpable that it must break down. No nation will put up with production conducted by trusts, with so barefaced an ex- ploitation of the community by a small band of dividend-mongers." Engels: Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, p. 69. "Man casts aside his worn-out tools, but he keeps all that he has won by means of them." Lefevre: Race and Language, p. 63. 156 THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM PABT II more, and now having full stomachs, will increase the fury of their demand as they are stronger to make de- mands. 10 It should be remembered, when the great estates in ancient Eome attempted to improve the lot of their slaves so that more slaves could be gotten by birth, when conquest could provide no more, how quickly the effort to improve the slave destroyed slavery. It should be remembered, when the English landlords found that too many serfs were taking advantage of their right to go, the landlords attempted to keep their serfs by improving the lot of the serf, how quickly serfdom ceased to exist. When capitalism shall once sincerely try to improve the lot of the workers, that will be the end of capitalism. If the final trust keeps on its way of capitalistic pro- duction and exploitation, it must collapse. If the final trust tries to keep the peace and perpetuate itself by offering the workers half a loaf, they will proceed to demand and to take possession of the whole bakery it- self. And, hence, again, the culmination of capitalism will be its own collapse. 188. Summary. 1. The culmination of capitalism will involve its collapse for the following reasons: (a) Capitalism, depends upon a foreign market in which to sell its surplus products. The culmination of capitalism will make all markets into a single world market and make an end of the foreign market. (b) Capitalism depends for the investment of its profits upon larger and larger purchases of the world 's 10. "The mere fact of satisfying wants or leaving them unsatis- fied is one of the principal causes of their development, change in character, or complete suppression. Many wants, if regularly satis- fied, tend to increase in strength. There are also many which, if left unsatisfied will diminish in intensity; and some will die out entirely. The desire for works of art is strengthened by the study of art. The desire for knowledge is increased by its acquisition." Osborne: Prin- ciples of Economics, pp. 12-13. CHAP. XI THE COLLAPSE OF CAPITALISM 157 productive property. The culmination of capitalism will come when the final trust shall have bought a con- trolling interest in the earth. The profits cannot then be re-invested, and the profit system must collapse. (c) Capitalism can continue only so long as the workers shall continue to consent to its existence. ,The culmination of capitalism will make impossible any ra- tional provision for the existence of the working class under capitalism. Without the consent of the working class, capitalism must collapse.^ 2. The creation of a benevolent feudalism as the culmination of capitalism will be impossible, and for the following reasons : (a) Because the struggle for mastery among the masters will continue until all collapse. (b) Because of the impossibility of longer conceal- ing the infamous nature of capitalistic exploitation from the knowledge of those exploited. (c) Because to grant satisfaction to the present de- sires of the workers will create new demands, with add- ed power to enforce them, until they will have demand- ed and obtained all there is of the earth and its re- sources for all mankind. REVIEW QUESTIONS. 1. What is the principal reason why any one country cannot dis- pose of all of its staple products at home? 2. What must happen to the producers of other countries whenever a new country wins the trade of the world-market? 3. When a single combination shall own the industries of all coun- tries, where, then, can a foreign market be found for the surplus prod- ucts of any country? 4. When the world-trust has bought the world, where, then, will it make further investments of its earnings? 5. Will the world-trust be able to provide work for all? 6. Will the handful of private owners of the earth be able to protect their titles? 7. Why not a benevolent feudalism? CHAPTER XII A SUMMARY OF PART SECOND 189. 1. The early forms of capitalism began when slavery began. 2. Slavery was the result of the wars of the later days of barbarism. 3. Slavery was abandoned by the masters for serf- dom when that was found to be the more profitable form of servile toil. 4. Serfdom was changed to the wage system by the masters ; and the serfs who were evicted from the feudal estates became wage-workers in the rising factory towns. 5. The workers who remained in the country grew into self-employing workers, only to have their self- employment made impossible by the later developments of capitalism. 6. The era of invention came as the result of the self- employment in the free cities of Europe and on the American frontier. 7. The new machinery made joint ownership, joint labor and the larger market inevitable; and joint own- ership grew into the corporation. 8. Competing corporations, both by the destruc- tion of the weaker competitors and by the combina- 158 SUMMARY 159 tion of the stronger ones, as the only means of escape from mutual destruction by competition, created the trust. 9. The trust found it necessary either to combine with, or to destroy, all competitors selling in the same market. 10. The market was made a world-market by manu- facturers in all countries seeking to sell in other coun- tries the surplus of their products, that is, what they produced in excess of what the capitalists could use and what the wages of the workers could buy. 11. The trust becomes a world-trust striving to com- bine with, or to destroy, all competitors selling in the world-market. 12. The trust is unable to re-invest its earnings in its own business, and so must re-invest in other lines until all lines of business are brought within the control of a single trust. 13. The trust, becoming a world-trust, can then find no market foreign to its own territory, for then all territory will be trust territory, and hence must lose its foreign market for surplus products. 14. The trust, controlling all industries in all coun- tries, cannot employ all labor, because its only market will be what the capitalists can use and what the wages of the workers can buy. 15. As this will leave unsold the surplus which the workers produce and cannot buy, a constantly and rap- |idly increasing portion of the workers must lose em- ployment. 16. The culmination of capitalism is in the world- trust. 17. The surplus goods of the trust cannot then be sold, the profits of the trust cannot then be re-invested, and the workers of the world cannot then be employed. 18. The culmination of capitalism is its collapse. PART III THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM CHAPTER XIII COLLECTIVISM, DEMOCRACY AND EQUALITY 190. Capitalism Not the Invention of Capitalists. - In the discussion of the origin and development of cap- italism, the reader will notice that the discussion has been entirely devoted to the consideration of social and economic forces. Individuals have not been con- sidered. It would be quite possible to give an account of the development of capitalism in which the names of famous inventors, discoverers, or captains of industry would be largely considered, but such a discussion would be very misleading, because it would leave the impression that these men had created capitalism and not that the social and economic forces, by the long and constant evolution which we have followed, have cre- ated the economic conditions which have made both capitalism and the capitalists. 191. Socialism Not the Invention of Socialists. In the same way, any study of the origin and development of Socialism which gives attention to the consideration CHAP. XIII COLLECTIVISM, DEMOCRACY, EQUALITY 161 of the persons who have discovered the truths or have formulated the statement of the truths which the So- cialists teach, will mislead the student, and in spite of himself, leave with him the impression that Socialism is the invention or contrivance of some great mind, the child of some great genius, and that the student of So- cialism is simply the student, not of social forces, but of the sayings and doings of distinguished Socialists. 1 192. Underlying Principles. Socialism proposes Collective Ownership, Democratic Management and Equal Opportunity in the collectively used means of producing the means of life. The three great principles which underlie the Socialist proposals are: Collectiv- ism, Democracy, and Equality. If we are to under- stand the origin and development of Socialism, we must find the beginnings and trace the growth of the social forces which are making certain the coming tri- umph of these principles as related to the whole life of man, but especially as related to the overthrow of the corresponding wrongs of monopoly, tyranny and inequality of opportuity. These wrongs have grown with the growth of capitalism, are the central fea- tures of capitalism and can disappear from the life of man only by the disappearance of capitalism. 193. Inherent in the Nature of Things. Collectiv- ism, Democracy and Equality are inherent in the nat- ural and necessary relations of human existence. Wher- ever monopoly has overthrown Collectivism, wherever tyranny has succeeded Democracy, wherever inequality has usurped the place of Equality of Opportunity, it 1. There are a number of valuable works which deal largely with the biographies of distinguished Socialists, accounts of their activities in agitation and organization, and which will be of great interest to the student, among which are: Liebknecht: Karl Marx. Morris Hillquit: History of Socialism in the United States. Kirkup: A History of Socialism. Ely: French and German Socialism in Modern Times. Rae: Contemporary Socialism. 162 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III lias always been with the result of the speedy degen- eracy of the people involved, or else, the monopoly, tyr- anny and inequality have, by an evolutionary process, in the end, through a revolutionary consummation, re- established Collectivism, Democracy and Equality, usu- ally on a firmer basis than before. This strife between Collectivism, Democracy and Equality, on the one hand, and monopoly, tyranny and inequality on the other, has been, and is, one of the most marked features of the struggle for existence. 2 194. Collectivism in Simplest Forms of Life. So 2. "Burying beetles bury in ground corpses of all kinds of small animals. When one of them finds a corpse which it can hardly manage to bury itself, it calls four, six, or ten other beetles to perform the operation with united efforts. ******** "Some land-crabs of the West Indies and North America combine in large swarms in order to travel to the sea and to deposit therein their spawn; and each such migration implies concert, co-operation and mutual support. ******** "If we take an ants' nest, we not only see that every description of work rearing of progeny, foraging, building, rearing of aphides and so on is performed according to the principles of voluntary mutual aid; we must also recognize, with Forel, that the chief, the funda- mental feature of the life of many species of ants is the fact and the obligation for every ant of sharing its food, already swallowed and partly digested, with every member of the community which may apply for it. ******** "When a new swarm of bees is going to leave the hive in search of a new abode, a number of bees will make a preliminary exploration of the neighborhoood, and if they discover a convenient dwelling-place say, an old basket, or anything of the kind they will take posses- sion of it, and guard it, sometimes for a whole week, till the swarm comes to settle therein. ******** "The white-tailed eagles always assemble for devouring a corpse, and some of them (the younger ones first) always keep watch while the others are eating. ******** "But the fishing associations of the pelicans are certainly worthy of notice for the remarkable order and intelligence displayed by these clumsy birds. They always go fishing in numerous bands, and after having chosen an appropriate -bay, they form a wide half-circle in face of the shore, and narrow it by paddling towards the shore, catching all fish that happen to be enclosed in the circle. On narrow rivers and canals they even divide into two parties, each of which draws upon a half -circle, and both paddle to meet each other, just as if two parties CHAP. XIII COLLECTIVISM,. DEMOCRACY, EQUALITY 163 soon as the forms of life had reached the stage where the segregation of new living cells which were to grow into new members of the species, involved the produc- tion of the egg and hence the propagation of new life involved sex relations, so soon, in the development of the forms of life, only those forms could survive which of men dragging two long nets should advance to capture all fish taken between the nets when both parties come to meet. ******** "Even eagles even the powerful and terrible booted eagle, and the martial eagle, which is strong enough to carry away a hare or a young antelope in its claws are compelled to abandon their prey to bands of those beggars, the kites, which give the eagle a regular chase as soon as they see it in possession of a good prey. The kites will also give chase to the swift fishing-hawk, and rob it of the fish it has captured; but no one ever saw the kites fighting together for the pos- session of the prey so stolen. ******** "Take, for instance, a band of white cacadoos in Australia. Be- fore starting to plunder a corn-field they send out a reconnoitering party, which occupies the highest trees in the vicinity of the field, while other scouts perch upon the intermediate trees between the field and the forest and transmit the signals. If the report runs all right, a score of cacadoos will separate from the bulk of the band, take a fight in the air, and then fly towards the trees nearest to the field. They will also scrutinize the neighborhood for a long while, and only then will they give the signal for general advance, after which the whole band starts at once and plunders the field in no time. ******** "Life in societies is again the rule with the large family of horses, which includes the wild horses and donkeys of Asia, the zebras, the mustangs, the cimarones of the Pampas, and the half-wild horses of Mongolia and Siberia. They all live in numerous associaions made up of many studs, each of which consists of a number of mares under the leadership of a male. These numberless inhabitants of the Old and the New World, badly organized on the whole for resisting both their numerous enemies and the adverse conditions of climate, would soon have disappeared from the surface of the earth were it not for their sociable spirit. When a beast of prey approaches them, several studs unite at once; they repulse the beast and sometimes chase it; and neither the wolf nor the bear, not even the lion, can capture a horse or even a zebra as long as they are not detached from the herd. When a drought is burning the grass in the prairies, they gather in herds of sometimes 10,000 indivduals strong, and migrate. And when a snow- storm rages in the steppes, each stud keeps close, and repairs to a pro- tected ravine. * * * Union is their chief arm in the struggle for life, and man is their chief enemy. ******** "Several species (of monkeys) display the greatest solicitude for their wounded, and do not abandon a wounded comrade during a re- treat till they have ascertained that it is dead and that they are 164 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM* PART III learned to co-operate, because the production of the fertile egg is a co-operative process. It is not contend- ed that all did co-operate; only, that those that did not co-operate could not extend their existence beyond a single generation. 195. In Care of Young. When the forms of life had advanced and the improved form of life had greatly lengthened the period of the helplessness of the new born, then only those forms of life could survive which were able to extend the parental collectivism to co- operation with the new born in its struggle for exist- ence. It is not contended that all did co-operate with the young, but it is evident that the neglected young could not survive, and hence, only those became the helpless to restore it to life. * * * In some species several individ- uals will combine to overturn a stone in order to seach for ants' eggs under it. ******** "As to beavers, which are endowed, as known, with a most sym- pathetic character, their astounding dams and villages, in which gen- erations live and die, without knowing of any enemies but the otter and man, so wonderfully illustrate what mutual aid can achieve for the security of the species, the development of social habits and the evolution of intelligence, that they are familiar to all intersted in animal life. "Association is found in the animal world at all degrees of evolu- tion; * * * colonies are the very origin of evolution in the ani- mal kingdom. But, in proportion as we ascend the scale of evolution, we see association growing more and more conscious. It loses its pure- ly physical character, it ceases to be simply instinctive, it becomes rea- soned. With the higher vertebrates it is periodical, or is resorted to for the satisfaction of a given want propagation of the species, mi- gration, hunting or mutual defense. It even becomes occasional when birds associate against a robber, or mammals combine, under pressure of exceptional circumstances, to emigrate. In this last case, it becomes a voluntary deviation from habitual moods of life. The combination sometimes appears in two or more degrees the family first, then the group, and finally the association of groups, habitually scattered, but uniting in case of need, as with the bisons and other ruminants. It also takes higher forms, guaranteeing more independence to the individ- ual without depriving it of the benefits of social life. With most rodents the individual has its own dwelling, which it can retire to when it prefers being left alone; but the dwellings are laid out in villages and cities, so as to guarantee to all inhabitants the benefits and joys of social life." Kropotkin : Mutual Aid, Chapters I., II. CHAP. XIII COLLECTIVISM, DEMOCRACY, EQUALITY 165 seed plant for future survivals that did so co-operate with their young. 3 196. In Primitive Groups. When, in the early forms of primitive life, human beings began to act in groups for each other and against beasts of prey and other and hostile groups of men, then only those who learned to stand together, to co-operate within and for the groups, were able to survive. 4 It is not contended that all the members of all the groups did so co-operate, but it is evident that those groups which did not co- operate would be utterly destroyed in the struggle for existence with the groups which did so co-operate, and would therefore cease to be factors in the perpetua- tion of the race, leaving this function to those who had learned the lesson of co-operation, of collectivism. 5 197. In the Nations. As the barbarian tribes grew into nations, it was those nations which were best able to create a solidarity of national interest, those whose citizens learned best to co-operate with each other, and against the whole world without, which were best able 3. "Observation of the most savage races agrees with the compara- tive study of the institutions of civilized peoples, in proving that the only bond of political union recognized among primitive men, or con- ceivable by them, was the physical fact of blood-relationship." Fiske: Destiny of Man, pp. 78-79. 4. "Only by glancing back over this history in rapid review can we discover whether, on the whole, we are still the primitive egoists that Nietzsche would approve, or sympathetic, if not always close and believing, followers of Count Tolstoi. "We must go back to that little group of blood kindred which was the earliest human community. A few brothers and sisters, rec- ognizing their maternal kinship maintained a common lair or camp, struggled together against beast and nature, and together obtained food supplies. Within that little band the competition of the Dar- winian struggle had, in a measure, ceased. Toward all life that lay beyond the circle, the rule was unrelenting war. Here, then, at the outset of human life, the two standards were already established! Helpfulness, compassion, forgiveness even, were right and expedient within the group. Remorseless enmity, cruelty, treachery, any ex- pedient was right toward those men or groups against which the band must struggle for its own existence." Giddings: Democracy and Em- pire, p. 354. 5. The instant society becomes organized in clans, natural selec- tion can not let these clans die out, the clan becomes the chief object 166 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III to survive. 6 It was Collectivism within the nations which made them victorious over those less able to co- operate and so less able to survive. In the development of the modern nations, those most race-conscious, those most conscious of their class solidarity, those best able to co-operate, are the ones which have made themselves at last the joint masters of the world. 198. In Business. The same is true of business en- terprises. As capitalism has grown, its very monop- olies have been developed by those best able to effect co-operative relations among themselves. This very monopoly, in its final evolution, will be destroyed as a monopoly, by the enlargement of its own Collectivism to include all manking in the benefits of this Collectiv- or care of natural selection, because if you destroy it you retrograde again, you lose all you have gained; consequently, those clans in which the primeval selfish instincts were so modified that their individual conduct would be subordinated to some extent to the needs of the clan, those are the ones that would prevail in the struggle for life."- Fiske: A Century of Science, p. 110. "Deprive a pack of wolves of the tribal instinct that keeps them from rending each other, and place a single carcass before them, and their conduct may illustrate the economic system which would re- sult from the unrestrained action of selfish motives among men." Clark: Philosophy of Wealth, p. 15. It is interesting to note that Prof. Clark finds it necessary to deprive the wolves of "tribal instinct" that is, of Collectivism be- fore he can safely use them to illustrate the consequences of the absence of Collectivism among men. 6. "The environment of each little tribe is (in early times) ft^ congeries of neighboring hostile tribes; and the necessity of escaping captivity or death involves continual readiness for warfare, and the continual manifestation of the entire class of warlike unsocial pas- sions; while, on the other hand, the tribe is so small and homogeneous that the opportunity for the exercise of sympathetic and social feel- ings is confined chiefly to the conjugal and parental relations. Never- theless in the exercise of these feelings in these relations are contained the germs of all subsequent social progress. While without the limited sphere of the tribe all is hatred, revenge, and desire to domineer, within the limits of the tribe there is rom for the rudimentary display of such feelings as loyalty, gratitude, equity, family affection, personal friend- ship and regard for the claims of others." Fiske: Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, Vol. II., p. 203. "The rise of empires, this coalescence of small groups of men into larger and larger political aggregates, has been the chief work of civili- zation when looked at from its political side." Fiske: Destiny of Man, p. 85. CHAP. XIII COLLECTIVISM, DEMOCRACY, EQUALITY 167 ism, now of a part of the people only, and which in its half-grown form monopolizes, for a few, the interests of all. 7 Here is the general scientific truth, that in the strug- gle for existence throughout all forms of life, other things being equal, those forms of life are best able to survive among which Collectivism is most completed 199. Democracy. The same is true of Democracy. It is inherent in the natural and necessary relations of human existence. It also is an important condition of survival in the struggle for existence. In the very 7. . "But, it will be said, competition, as a natural law, divides advantages, and this division should be final. To this assertion we an- swer, yes and no. Natural law is not to be set aside, and cannot often be set aside; but natural law is always to be supplemented by the law of reason by well-directed human and humane endeavor. Reason is it- self a higher natural law." Bascom : Sociology, p. 229. "We need no longer call in the Socialist to testify against the uncurbed struggle in industry. The last twenty years have taught the lesson so thoroughly to our foremost business men that they are be- coming our instructors. Not alone with transportation, but with iron, with textiles, with insurance, with banking, and with many of the com- monest products, the unrestrained scramble of private interests is now seen to be intolerable. Good business now sets the limit to competi- tion by organizing co-operation. To check and control the excesses of competition has become the mark of first-class ability. A railroad president has been dismissed because 'he insists upon fighting other roads instead of working with them.' Acording to his own account, the head of another road owes his appointment to the fact that (in. his own words) 'I was known to have some aptitude for working with rival interests'." Brooks : Social Unrest, pp. 30-31. 8. "Man in the rudest state in which he now exists is the most dominant animal that has ever appeared on this earth. He has spread more widely than any other highly organized form, and all others have yielded before him. He manifestly owes this immense superiority to his intellectual faculties, to his social habits, which lead him to aid and defend his fellows, and to his corporeal structure." "The small strength and speed of man, his want of natural weap- ons, etc., are more than counterbalanced, firstly, by his intellectual powers, through which he has formed for himself weapons, tools, etc., though still remaining in a barbaric state, and, secondly, by his social qualities, which lead him to give and receive aid from his fellow men." "With those animals which were benefited by living in close asso- ciation, the individuals which took the greatest pleasure in society would best escape various dangers; while those that cared least for their comrades, and lived solitary, would perish in greater numbers." Darwin: Descent of Man, Chapters II., IV. "That life in societies is the most powerful weapon in the struggle for life, taken in its widest sense, has been illustrated by several ex- 168 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III simplest forms of life, before sex relations had been evolved, when one simple cell created another, it was another cell which was created, full, complete, inde- pendent, fully equipped to become itself the creator of other cells. No other kind of cells could survive. 200. In an Organism. When cells began to special- ize so that finally one set of cells grew into an eye, and another into an arm, each set of cells grew into a real organ, with its own necessary functions, a real and liv- amples on the foregoing pages, and could be illustrated by any amount of evidence, if further evidence were required. Life in societies en- ables the feeblest insects, the feeblest birds, and the feeblest mammals to resist, or to protect themselves from the most terrible birds and beasts of prey; it permits longevity; it enables the species to rear its progeny with the least waste of energy and to maintain its num- bers albeit at a very slow birth-rate; it enables the gregarious animals to migrate in search of new abodes. Therefore, while fully admitting that force, swiftness, protective colors, cunningness, and endurance to hunger and cold, which are mentioned by Darwin and Wallace, are so many qualities making the individual, or the species, the fittest under certain circumstances, we maintain that under any circumstances sociability is the greatest advantage in the struggle for life. Those species which willingly or unwillingly abandon it are doomed to decay; while those animals which know best how to combine have the great- est chances of survival and of further evolution, although they may be inferior to others in each of the faculties enumerated by Darwin and Wallace, save the intellectual faculty. The highest vertebrates and especially mankind are the best proof of this assertion. As to the intellectual faculty, while every Darwinist will agree with Darwin that it is the most powerful arm in the struggle for life, and the most powerful factor of further evolution, he also will admit that intelli- gence is an eminently social faculty. Language, imitation and ac- cumulated experience are so many elements of growing intelligence of which the unsociable animal is deprived. Therefore we find, at the top of each class of animals, the ants, the parrots, and the monkeys, all combining the greatest sociability with the highest development of intelligence. The fittest are thus the most sociable animals, and sociability appears as the chief factor of evolution, both directly by securing the well-being of the species while diminshing the waste of energy, and indirectly, by favoring the growth of intelligence. "Moreover, it is evident that life in societies would be utterly impossible without corresponding development of social feelings, and, especially, of a certain collective sense of justice growing to become a habit. If every individual were constantly abusing its personal advantages without the others interfering in favor of the wronged, no society-life would be possible. And feelings of justice develop, more or less, with all gregarious animals. * * * Sociability thus puts a limit to physical struggle, and leaves room for the develop- ment of better moral feelings. * * * In short, neither the crush- ing powers of the centralize^ state nor the teachings of mutual CHAP. XIII COLLECTIVISM, DEMOCRACY, EQUALITY 169 ing part of the living whole. When it lost these neces- sary relations to the whole, it did not survive; or at most remained only as a rudimentary survival, 201. In Reproduction. When the functions of re- production were specialized and Collectivism between parents could alone perpetuate the species, the indi- vidual was still preserved. Each new life was a real part of the real life of the species; that is, each new life must be fully equipped with its own complete organ- ism, independent from all other life as an individual and able to co-operate with other individuals like itself, else it could not survive; that is, it could not be a link in the surviving chain. 202. Unanimous Agreement. When Collectivism had produced the tribes, they were collections of in- dividuals, not the full grown individuals of the future, but real individuals none the less. Each had his share hatred and pitiless struggle which came, adorned with the attri- butes of science, from obliging philosophers and sociologists, could weed out the feeling of human solidarity deeply lodged in men's understanding and heart, because it has been nurtured by all pre- ceding evolution. What was the outcome of evolution since its earliest stages cannot be overpowered by one of the aspects of that same evolution. And the need of mutual aid and support which had lately taken refuge in the narrow circle of the family, or the slum neighbors, in the village, or the secret union of workers, reasserts it- self again, even in our modern society, and claims its rights to be, as it always has been, the chief leader towards further progress. * * * In the animal world we have seen that the vast majority of species live in societies, and that they find in association the best arms for the struggle for life; understood, of course, in its wide Darwinian sense not as a struggle for the sheer means of existence, but as a struggle against all natural conditions unfavorable to the species. The animal species, in which individual struggle has been reduced to its narrowest limits, and the practice of mutual aid has attained the greatest development, are- invariably the most numer- ous, the most prosperous, and the most open for further progress. The mutual protection which is obtained in this cage, the possibility of attaining old age and accumulating experience, the higher intel- lectual development, and the further growth of sociable habits, secure the maintenance of the species, its extension, and its further pro- gressive evolution. The unsociable species, on the contrary, are doomed to decay." Kropotkin; Mutual Aid A Factor of Evolution, pp. 30-31, 5T**59, 292, 170 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PAKT III in the ruling of the tribe, as well as his share in its de- fense. In fact, for a thousand centuries the early groups were controlled by unanimous agreement, not even by a majority vote. The modern jury trial and its requirement of unanimous agreement is a barbarian survival still telling the story of both the fact and the form of the oldest Democracies. 203. Democratic Armies. When the victorious tribes became the masters of the world and so es- tablished the nations of antiquity, they long retained their earlier Democracies at home. Their Collectivism finally perished when the Democracies within had been utterly destroyed. The soldier who knew he was fight- ing for his rations only has never been able to with- stand the soldier who believed he was fighting for him- self, or for a country whose interests he had been able to so identify with his own that he would give to the uttermost his life for its cause. The soldiers of the American Eevolution and of the Second War with England and the Boers in the recent African War are illustrations of this truth. Napoleon's soldiers had been made unconquerable in their war for the liberty of France, before they became, under his command, the conquerors of Europe. In this connection it is a sig- nificant fact that as the nations of antiquity succeeded each other as world powers, the old and failing power was always the one farthest from barbarism, and hence farthest from primitive democratic Collectivism, while the conquering new power was always the one nearest to barbarism, and hence, preserved in its own life more of the primitive democratic Collectivism. It was said of Xenophon's army that any man of his famous Ten Thousand was qualified to take command. No wonder they could cut their way through the ranks of the countless Persian soldiers among whom long cen- turies of absolutism had destroyed self-possession, and CHAP. XIII COLLECTIVISM, DEMOCRACY, EQUALITY 171 hence, the power of initiative and of self-direction. The vigorous democratic Collectivism of the ten thou- sand Greeks was too powerful for the helpless victims of the tyranny and monopoly of the despotic East. At * Syracuse, two hundred years later, the relation was reversed. Monopoly, tyranny and inequality were then the heritage of the Greeks, the fruits of Alexandrian militarism. The victorious Romans were still the sol- diers of the Republic boasting that " To be a Roman was to be greater than a king. ' ' 204. Collectivism and Democracy. Collectivism without Democracy is not Socialism. Democracy with- out Collectivism is not Socialism. Democratic Col- lectivism is inherent in the nature of things. Both Col- lectivism and Democracy are fundamental factors in the construction of the proposals of the Socialists. There is no whole, composed of parts, which is able to stand in the struggle for existence unless the whole- ness of each part is complete in its place and in the performance of its own special functions. This, then, is the general scientific truth, that, in the struggle for existence, other things being equal, that \ Collectivism is most effective within which Democracy is most complete. 205. Equality. The same is true of Equality. It too is inherent in the nature of things. In no com- plex organism are all the organs alike. In all such organisms, each organ is equally a part of the whole, and no one of them may say to another, "I have no need of thee. ' ' All are essential, all are fed by the same processes, all perform some certain task, or when any one shall fail in this, or new conditions no longer need its service, then the useless organ is ruthlessly elim- inated. Only in the social organism and under a vio- lation of natural and necessary relations of healthful 172 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III existence is an essential organ starved and a parasite fed at its expense. 206. Primitive Equality. Equality was as much a share of the primitive life of the race as was Collect- ivism or Democracy. There were no disfranchised clansmen. There were no three votes for men with feathers in their hair, and only one or none at all for others ' 'horn in the same house. ' ' The primitive Dem- ocracy, which required the approval of all before any should act,in any matter which was the concern of all, was the recognition of the equality of the clansmen be- yond all question. The modern jury, which is a sur- vival of the^ancient barbarian group, settling matters of dispute among them, requires still the approval not the consent only of all and of all alike. Here is Col- lectivism, Democracy and Equality; and here, again, is the general scientific truth, that, in the struggle for ex- istence, other things being equal, that democratic Col- lectivism is most likely to survive within which the equality of every essential part of the organism is most complete. 9 207. The Just Powers of Government. "All gov- ernments derive their just powers, " not from the con- quest of those who are governed by those who govern, nor from the "consent of the governed/' obtained in any way whatsoever, by those who govern. "All gov- ernments derive their just powers" from the equal participation in the constant administration of the com- mon interests of all, by all those whose interests are so administered. Whatever is more than this is the usur- 9. "The use of intelligence for the private manipulation of so- cial agencies does actually represent a level of social institutional life; and in certain great departments of human intercourse as espe- cially the commercial relatively selfish ends, as seen in personal competitions of wits, seem to be the highest society has yet attained. But as with individual growth, so here. As soon as the personal use of the individual's wit brings him into conflict with either of CHAP. XIII COLLECTIVISM, DEMOCRACY, EQUALITY 173 pation of power and the practice of tyranny. What- ever is less than this is, to that extent, the failure of the organism "to function" as an organism. 208. The Concern of All. Collectivism, Democracy and Equality, these priciples take their roots in the ani- mal kingdom, in the simplest forms of life. They are older than the race. No perfect social life is possible without them. It will be interesting to follow the story of the struggle for existence and notice how these prin- ciples in social life have grown in power and how the economic and social forces are making them the com- ing final, lasting masters of all life, and so finally to dis- place, for all time, the monopoly, tyranny and inequal- ity of capitalism, while they will enfranchise for all time all of the people in all matters which are the con- cern of all. 209. Summary. 1. Collectivism, Democracy and Equality are the principles which underlie the pro- posals of the Socialists. 2. To study the origin and development of these the two necessary movements by which society gradually grows or with the institutions which represent them so soon must the indi- vidual be restrained. And, further, the restraint is no more an arti- ficial thing, an external thing in society, than it is in the individual." Professor Baldwin: Social and Ethical Interpretations, pp. 542-43. "Human society is rapidly moving toward a state of equality very similar in all esesentials to that which is advocated by Socialist philosophers as the ideal of a genuinely Christian life. The forces drawing the human race to this remarkable end are the very same forces by which human history has been thus far wrought out. They are the same forces described by Darwin in his law of natural selec- tion. "Accompanying this drift to economical equality will be found several facts of the highest importance in the social evolution of man. "The brain of civilized woman is iscreasing in weight. Her in- tellect is rapidly developing a new and extraordinary capacity, and the ultimate end of this progress in woman will be a social state in which men and women will be intellectually equal, or nearly so. "The human population of the earth is moving with accelerat- ing force toward a mean, or normal, number which, when once reached, can never again be disturbed." Lane: The Level of Social Motion, Preface VI. 174 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III principles in the world's life is to study the evolution of Socialism. 3. Collectivism exists in the simplest forms of life, and is the essential thing, in the struggle for existence, in all forms of organization. The families, the tribes, the nations and all business organizations are neces- sarily collective. 4. Democracy exists in the simplest forms of life. It was the most striking characteristic of primitive society. 5. Democracy within any Collectivism is essential to the collective strength. 6. Equality as the basis of the Democracy within any Collectivism is equally essential to the collective strength. REVIEW QUESTIONS. 1. Why are not the individual capitalists considered in the study of capitalism? 2. Why are not the individual Socialists considered in the study of Socialism? 3. What are the principles which underlie the proposals of the Socialists ? 4. Trace Collectivism in the simplest forms of life. In prim- itive life. In the nations. In business. 5. Trace Democracy in the same way. 6. Trace Equality in the same way. 7. What is the general scientific truth concerning Collectivism as related to the struggle for existence? 8. What is the general scientific truth concerning Democracy as related to the struggle for existence? 9. What is the general scientific truth concerning equality as as related to the struggle for existence? CHAPTEE XIV COLLECTIVISM, DEMOCRACY AND EQUALITY (CONTINUED) 213. Things in Common. It is said that nowhere in the world, nor at any time in history, have men been found entirely separated from each other and in no way depending on any kind or degree of Collectiv- ism as a factor in the struggle for existence. Among savages, we find the early groups, with the common fire, the common camp, the common fishing and hunting grounds, and the common defense, all ad- ministered by common voice of all and all clansmen having equal responsibility, each for his share as a worker or as a defender, and each enjoying his equal rights in the common benefits of all enterprises car- ried on in common, these things were characteristic of all savages, of all races and in all lands. 214. Village Communities. Under barbarism these same common interests and equal voice in the control of common interests survived. At the time of the passage from barbarism to civilization, the village community had everywhere appeared. 1 In these vil- lage communities the common land, the common herds, 1. Kropotkin: Mutual Aid, pp. 120-135. 175 176 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III the common pasturage, the village stores, the long houses, democratic control and equal opportunity were all, and invariably, characteristics of that stage of ad- vance of the growing life of all races and in all lands. 215. Slave Associations. When barbarian wars made slaves of the captured tribes and the victorious tribes grew into despotic military organizations, the slaves perpetuated their Collectivism, Democracy and Equality so far as secret, voluntary associations among slaves could accomplish that result. 216. Ancient Trades Unions. When militarism within the victorious tribes began to crowd the original holders from their small primitive allotments of land and they became free laborers, the old barbarian Col- lectivism, Democracy and Equality created the ancient labor unions, which J. Osborne Ward has so carefully studied and has found to have existed in all the ancient countries, and which cared for the sick, buried their dead, and defended, by common action, both in great strikes, and finally in the Eoman elections, their in- terests as workingmen. He contends that Jesus was a member and the chief official of a labor union ; Luke, the chief official of an international organization of physicians ; and that when the disciples of Jesus were directed to go out in twos and to "take neither coat nor script, " they were observing the universal cus- tom of the old "walking delegates " and organizers- called ' evangelists "who always depended on the local unions of the workers for their entertainment, 2 and further, that the relief secured by Paul from the brothers in Asia for the help of the brothers in Jeru- salem was in the regular order of the mutual aid prac- ticed among those ancient labor organizations. 217. The Early Church. These ancient slave asso- 2. J. Osborne Ward: Ancient Lowly, Vol. II, Chapter IX CIIAP. XIII COLLECTIVISM, DEMOCRACY, EQUALITY 177 ciations and these ancient labor unions had no small share in hastening the early triumphs of the Christian religion, which found, through its championship of the welfare of the poor and through these world-wide secret organizations, the opportunity for its own secret propaganda. By means of these organizations, Collectivism, Democracy and Equality were struggling for existence in the face of monopoly, tyranny and in- equality of opportunity which militarism had made the masters of the ancient world. 218. The Free Cities. When the military power of Eome no longer held together and protected the net- work of cities which made up the Roman world, and these cities attempted their own reorganization, sup- port and defense, and grew into the free cities of Southern Europe, Collectivism, Democracy and Equal- ity immediately reappeared among them. When the barbarian village communities of Northern Europe, which were able to resist the destructive militarism, which built the institutions of feudalism on the ruins of most such villages, and so were able to preserve their liberty, and to grow into the industrial, self-sup- porting and self-defending free cities of Northern Europe, here, again, Collectivism, Democracy and Equality, inherited directly from barbarism in the North, and inherited indirectly through the ancient slave associations and trade unions in the South, created the mediaeval guilds. The members of these guilds worshiped and feasted together. They built and defended their cities togeth- er. They cared for their sick, buried their dead, taught trades to their young ; cared for the aged, the orphaned and the widowed. They improved and perfected the trades. They built the cathedrals. They established commerce. But, when the collapse of feudalism filled their streets with the runaway or the evicted serfs they 178 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III denied to the serfs the equality of opportunity which they had achieved for themselves ; they excluded them from the privileges of their democratic Collectivism and so built in their midst a hateful class war, the necessary result of the monopoly, tyranny and inequal- ity which the new conditions had brought upon them, and so laid with their own hands the foundations of the rebellious forces, which, intriguing with tKe royal authorities, helped in the final overthrow of their mu- nicipal greatness. 219. Fraternal Societies. The fraternal societies are survivals of these ancient industrial Democracies. Free Masons were once real masons, without being either serfs or slaves. Once the apron and the trowel, the compass and the square were not ceremonial af- fairs with this ancient organization. The duties of the Grand Master were not social only, nor were the functions of the order mainly a matter of entertain- ment. 3 It was a secret organization because all in- dustrial organizations were forbidden and it had to be secret or not at all. Through all these fraternities run the ideas of Collectivism, of common interests, of com- mon responsibilities, of common benefits, together with democratic management and equal rights for all the members of these brotherhoods. So far as they have fallen, in modern times, under the control of royalists and have become the instruments of oppression, they are illustrations of the capture by the exploiters of the organizations created by the laborers, and because so captured by the exploiters, used to oppress the very class whose collective efforts, because of collective in- terests, made their existence possible. The very name fraternity is from the ancient barbarian "phratry" a combination of gentes effecting a wider brotherhood than the earlier gens and preceding, as well as lead- 3. J. Osborne Ward: Ancient Lowly, Vol. I, p. 124. CHAP. XIII COLLECTIVISM, DEMOCRACY, EQUALITY 179 ing to, the organization of the tribes under barbarism. That the oldest fraternities are very old may well be granted. There is equal reason to hold that they are direct barbarian survivals, having existed in some form, and striving as best they could to preserve the Collectivism, Democracy and Equality of barbarism, through the long centuries of monopoly, tyranny and inequality of captitalistic civilization. 220. Modern Labor Unions. The same is true of modern labor unions. When the evicted and runaway serfs became so numerous in the rising factory towns and competed so desperately against each other for the opportunity to be employed, that the ownership of working people, or the feudal settlement of workers in any particular place was abandoned because unprofitable, then these working wage-slaves, slaves without either the mas- ters or the rations which slavery provided, attempted, by organization, to provide for themselves, and then, immediately, Collectivism, Democracy and Equality re- appeared in these efforts to organize the workers. The organizations were forbidden. To organize the work- ers was held to be treason to the state. The early unions were secret, not because they wished to be, but because they could exist in no other way. For four centuries they fought for the right to be. What they were fighting for was Collectivism, Democracy and Equality within their organizations. Whatever vic- tories they have won have been victories for these prin- ciples. When they have monopolized a trade or ex- cluded a worker, it has not been for the sake of the monopoly, but because they have been unable to bring all the workers to the wider and wiser view. In the na- ture of the case it was Collectivism, Democracy and Equality for those willing to join in the struggle, or for none at all. 180 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III 221. Working Class Solidarity. As the growth of industry has advanced; as the sharp lines of the trades have been broken down through the introduction of machinery; as the importance and power of the un- skilled workers have grown, the labor unions are daily recognizing more and more that the deliverance must be for all workers, or for none at all. The efforts of all the unions to develop the solidarity of the working class; the contention of the Socialists that the class- conscious worker only will be able to fight effectively the battles of the working class are not suggestions contrary to the inherent, natural and necessary rela- tions of the workers to each other and to the future of the whole race. They are simply true and instinctive expressions of relations which it is as impossible to conceive of as not existing, under capitalism, as it is to think of a square circle or a four-cornered triangle. 222. Monopoly. Capitalism is the Collectivism of a part to monopolize the just inheritance of all. 4 There is no possible way by which this monopoly can be destroyed except the Collectivism of all be made to take the place of the Collectivism of a part. This is not true because any one has said it is true. This is true because it is true, because, if some part is not to control, then the whole must. New mathematical re- lations must be put into the nature of things or this must be true and remain true. 5 4. "Before economic competition had divided men into classes according to their financial capacity, all craftsmen possessed cap- ital as all agriculturists held land. The guild established the craftsman's social status; as a member of a trade corporation he was governed by regulations fixing the number of hands he might employ, the amount of goods he might produce, and the quality of his workmanship; on the other hand the guild regulated the market, and insured a demand. Tradesmen, perhaps, did not easily grow rich, but they as seldom became poor. "With centralization, life changed. Competition sifted the strong from the weak; the former waxed wealthy, and hired hands at wages, the latter lost all but the ability to labor; and when the corporate body of producers had thus disintegrated, nothing stood be- tween the common property and the men who controlled the engine of the law." Adams: Law of Civilization and Decay, pp. 259-60. 5. "The persistence of Trade Unionism, and its growing power CHAP. X III COLLECTIVISM, DEMOCRACY, EQUALITY 181 223. The Whole Is Greater Than Any of Its Parts. - Industrial change must be to dethrone one part in order to enthrone another part, or it must be to de- throne no part, but instead to enthrone all parts, and hence the whole. Every departure from monopoly must be towards Collectivism. Every departure from tyranny must be towards Democracy. Every depar- ture from inequality must be toward Equality, or the reverse. 6 Every departure from Collectivism, Democ- racy and Equality must be towards monopoly, tyranny and inequality. The great principles which underlie the proposals of the Socialists are Collectivism, Democ- racy and Equality. These principles were not invent- ed. They are not ingenious schemes suggested by some in the state, indicates, to begin with, that the very conception of democracy will have to be widened, so as to include economic as well as political relations. The framers of the United States con- stitution, like the various parties in the French Revolution of 1789, saw no resemblance or analogy between the personal power which they drove from the castle, the altar, and the throne, and that which they left unchecked in the farm, the factory, and the mine. Even at the present day, after a century of revolution, the great mass" of middle and upper-class 'Liberals' all over the world see no more inconsistency between democracy and unrestrained capitalist enter- prise than Washington or Jefferson did between democracy and slave- holding. The 'dim inarticulate multitude' of manual-working wage- earners have, from the outset, felt their way to a different view. To them, the uncontrolled power wielded by the owners of pro- duction, able to withhold from the manual-worker all chance of sub- sistence unless he accepted their terms, meant a far more genuine loss of liberty and a far keener sense of the personal subjection than the official jurisdiction of the magistrate or the far-off, im- palpable rule of the king. The captains of industry, like the kings of gore, are honestly unable to understand why their personal power should be interfered with, and kings and captains alike have never found any difficulty in demonstrating that its maintenance was in- dispensable to society. Against this autocracy in industry the manual- workers have, during the century, increasingly made good their protest." Webb: Industrial Democracy, Vol. II, pp. 840-41. 6. "Wealth owes its advantages in production largely to fore- cast, combination and tacit concert. Nothing can be more unreason- able than to resent the same tendency in the working classes, and that because it takes them, as mere waifs, out of the stream of traffic. These combinations (of labor) are not to be judged by their earlier efforts, or by their mistakes alone, but by their di- rection of growth and the spirit called out by them. It is one of the highest achievements of our time that workmen are learning to think, combine, resist, aid." Bascom: Sociology, p. 230. 182 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III dreamer of dreams. They are simply the conditions of healthful, normal, progressive existence inherent in the unavoidable relations of human life. These princi- ples cannot prevail in the whole life of man while monopoly, tyranny and inequality of opportunity re- main in the workshop and in the market place. 224. Sanitary Conditions. The fight for Socialism is simply a fight for sanitary social conditions. 7 The fight for capitalism is a fight for unsanitary social con- ditions, conditions which mean death to the simplest organisms, conditions which, should they supplant Col- lectivism in nature, all life must cease; conditions which, had they prevailed in primitive society, the ear- ly man must have fallen the helpless prey of beasts too fierce for his single-handed resistance; conditions which, had they prevailed among barbarians, the tribes and nations never could have been; conditions which, whenever they have prevailed, have enslaved the many and made degenerates of the few. 8 Capitalism is a temporary departure from a general condition of san- itary social life, with the final result that in its cul- mination, sanitary conditions may be re-established in 7. "The individual will always make himself felt. This cor- responds probably to reality, for with social self-consciousness, not only does environment modify society, but society modifies environ- ment with a set purpose in view." Mayo-Smith: Statistics and So- ciology, p. 382. 8. "It is beyond question that the progress of mankind does depend upon the progressive conformity of the order of their con- ceptions to the order of phenomena; but after the inquiry con- tained in the preceding chapter I believe no further proof is nec- essary to convince us that the progress of mankind also depends upon the conformity of their desires to the requirements arising from their aggregation in communities. If civilization is a process of intellectual adaptation, it is also a process of moral adaptation; and the latter I believe to be the more fundamental of the two. The case is well stated by Mr. Spencer in the following passage: 'Ideas do not govern the world; the world is governed by feelings, to which ideas serve only as guides. The social mechanism does not rest finally upon opinions; but almost wholly upon character. All social phenomena are produced by the totality of human emotions and beliefs; of which the emotions are mainly pre-deter- mined, while the beliefs are mainly post-determined. Men's desires CHAP. XIII COLLECTIVISM, DEMOCRACY, EQUALITY 183 a wider field than ever before, either that, or capital- ism is a social disorder, a baneful disease, a loathsome contagion, slaying its millions but rendering no serv- ice in the long progress of the race. In either case, if it is a disease, it has run its course; a return to nor- mal conditions means the coming of Socialism; if it is a temporary departure with the result of ultimately creating conditions wherein Collectivism, Democracy and Equality will come again and more fully than ever before, then it has accomplished its mission and should now give place in order that its own harvest may be gathered. 9 225. Conclusions. In seeking the origin of Social- ism, the fundamental principles, Collectivism, Democ- racy and Equality, which underlie the Socialist pro- posals, are found to be inherent in the life of man. They condition his healthful existence. They equip him for the struggle for existence. They are infinitely older than the monopoly, tyranny and inequality of capitalism. These principles once obeyed will establish correct sanitary social conditions. 226. Summary. 1. Collectivism, Democracy and Equality are found to have existed among the bar- barian tribes. 2. They survived through voluntary associations among the slaves after they had been abandoned by, the masters. are chiefly inherited but their beliefs are chiefly acquired, and de- pend upon surrounding conditions; and the most important sur- rounding conditions depend upon the social state which the prevalent desires have produced. The social state at any time existing is the resultant of all the ambitions, self-interest, fears, reverences, indig- nations, sympathies, etc., of ancestral citizens and existing citizens." Fiske: Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, Vol. II, p. 242. 9. "Even if we regard the socialistic views as erroneous and 'demoralizing, the fact remains that they are held to a greater or less extent by a large number of people perhaps a majority of the voters in the U. S." President Hadley (Yale) : Education of an American Citizen, p. 58. 184 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III 3. They characterized the ancient trades unions. 4. They were characteristic of the early Christian church. 5. They were features of the early forms of the free cities of Europe, coming either directly from bar- barism in the North or indirectly through the associa- tions of the slaves in the South. 6. The oldest fraternal societies are survivals of old industrial Democracies. 7. Modern trades unions are striving to establish the same ideals. 8. The war of monopoly, tyranny and inequality against Collectivism, Democracy and Equality, is the war between capitalism and Socialism. REVIEW QUESTIONS. 1. Carefully identify and discuss Collectivism, Democracy and Equality in all of the following: ( 1 ) Savage and barbarian groups. (2) The village communities. (3) The ancient slave association. (4) The early Christian church. (5) The free cities. (6) The guilds. (7) Fraternal societies. (8) Modern trades unions. 2. Can individuals deliver themselves from the conditions of the working class? 3. Why are monopoly, tyranny and inequality unsanitary social conditions ? 4. Whence the origin of Socialism? CHAPTER XV COLLECTIVISM IN THE OWNERSHIP OF THE EARTH 227. Belongs to Man. It is admitted that the earth belongs to man. No other animal is able to dispute his claim. But most men live and die with no legal claim to the earth or to any share of it. Does the earth be- long to all men or to only a part of them? Does Col- lectivism or monopoly justly claim the right to rule in the matter of the ownership of the earth? 228. Belongs to All Men. There is no possible the- ory of the earth's origin which does not argue for Col- lectivism and against monopoly, in favor of ownership by all and not by any part. 229. The Biblical Authority. If it is claimed that the Biblical story of creation is a literal, detailed state- ment of the earth's origin, then those who hold to this view are bound to admit the force of the declara- tions of the same authority concerning the use of the earth. God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." -(Gen. 1:26). Only man was exempt from the dominion of men. 185 186 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III All men were to have dominion alike, for "There is no respect of persons with God." -(2 Chr. 19:7; Bom. 2:11; Eph. 6:9; Col. 3:25). And lest any should be- come the masters of others He declared "The land shall not be sold forever/ '(Lev. 25:23). And when His chosen people had ignored these principles and poverty and oppression had followed, He said again: "Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no room, and ye be made to dwell alone (without land) in the midst of the land. " Is. 5:8). These passages settle forever for those who hold to these authorities the question of ownership in favor of all the people. 230. The Scientific Defense. If it is claimed that the earth is simply the product uf natural forces, that is, that it is the result of the operation of forces still seen to be in operation, and that all questions of one's claims to the earth must be settled as the result of conclusions drawn from a study of the operation of these natural forces, then it is equally impossible to find any support for private monopoly in the owner- ship of what nature has so clearly provided for all. 231. The Monopolist and Nature. In order to un- derstand how utterly absurd the monopolist of natural resources must appear in contending for his claims, as inherent in the nature of things, listen to the story of the earth's origin as told according to what is called the nebular hypothesis. 232. The Beginning. If you will look up into the sky on any clear night you will see scattered along the path of the Milky Way vast spaces of what would seem to be fields of shining dust. That is what they are believed to be. Now the tendency of all bodies, no matter how great or small, is to fall together. If you will fill the washbowl in the bathroom and then pull CHAP. XV THE OWNERSHIP OF THE EARTH 187 the plug, or if you will take a pan full of water and punch a hole through the center of the bottom, you will notice, as the water starts toward the center of the bowl or pan that very soon, instead of running straight to the point, it starts to run around it. Why it does this need not be considered here any more than why it should start in the first place. We observe that things always fall toward each other and we call it grav- ity, but we do not understand it any better after we have given it a name than we did before. When a comet starts to fall towards the sun, instead of falling straight to it, the comet falls around it and goes on its way un- harmed. It is probably something of the same sort that happens in the pan or the washbowl, and this is the habit of falling bodies. 1 233. The Forming of the Planets. These great fields of star dust are no exception to all the rest and they are no sooner formed than the small particles take to falling towards each other and so towards a common center. As they fall towards and around each other, great bodies are formed, and great heat is created by the blows they give each other. They fall both around each other and towards a common center. Masses form and crash into each other #nd form again, and while the center becomes a great molten mass, the most dis- tant portions not only move around the center, but, coming up from what would constitute the poles of these vast, moving masses, they form into great rings and go on revolving as before. The rings of Saturn are an illustration of this stage of development. The rings once formed, being more massive in one place than in some other, form a lateral attraction so strong that the falling begins to follow the curved line of the ring's circumference until the ring grows into a ball. 1. Shaler: Outlines of the Earth's History, pp. 33-34. 188 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III As the ring was revolving around the center, so the ball continues to do so. In this way the earth's motion around the sun is explained. As the substance which composed the ball on falling towards its own center would fall around it, as it was falling into it, on be- coming a ball, would continue to revolve, as the earth does on its own axis. As the substance of such a ball would come towards its own center, the rings would be formed, and these, finally, would come to be balls and go on revolving as the rings had done. The moon was so formed. 234. The Making of the Earth 's Surface. The heat evolved by such a movement of worlds is beyond cal- culation. Once at its height the creation of new heat ceases. Eadiation continues and the whole system be- gins to cool off. As the planet cools, through the pas- sage of the centuries, water, which before had existed as gases, finally appears, and then the fire and water fight for the mastery and the cooling goes on more rapid- ly. The molten mass is now cooling into fire-fused rocks which form the foundation of the earth. The water, and finally the frost, join hands to break and grind the surface of these rocks. The storms and the seas wash the smaller particles away to deposit them elsewhere, and through the centuries they become the water-laid rocks of geologic time. As the surface cools, the interior remains a molten mass. As the interior cools further and further from the surface, the interior must contract in bulk, leaving great earth crusts of unsupported surface. This surface, bearing the bur- den of half a world, must contract in order to find sup- port. In doing so the surface sinks at one place, but must rise at some other, and so the mountains are lifted up and the building of the continents begins. 2 Forms of life appear; vegetation, rank and bound- less, provides the substance for the coal fields, and 2. Shaler: p. 90. CHAP. XV THE OWNERSHIP OF THE EARTH 180 then the continents shift, the water overflows and sifts again the slow deposits of the rocks above the fields so overgrown, and under the pressure of the rocks and the slow lapse of centuries, the coal is formed. 3 Great oceans of living forms, rich with oil, are caught and cornered in the world 's convulsions, and the oil is stored away for the long centuries yet to follow. 4 The water and the frosts are reinforced by great fields of ice in the grinding of the rocks and in the mak- ing of the soils. The earth is shaken by interior con- vulsions or the whole solar system sweeps into new fields and falls under the influence of the gravity of new stars and the climate changes. The ice retreats and the fields, made yellow by the grinding process, are in- vaded by a thousand forms of life. The soil is covered with vegetation, the earth worms and their less effect- ive helpers mix and turn the soil and mingle it with the decaying vegetation and so subdue it for a higher use. 5 235. The Beginning and the Ending. At last the forms of life develop into the forms of man. Through the slow movements of a thousand centuries society is created. Civilizations come and go. The earth grows old. Hourly it is losing the heat within itself. Hourly the sun supplies it less. In the long movements of the ages it loses its heat. It seems to have lost its life and at last completes its circular journey to the sun. The sun grows cold and old, and it dies also. It loses its power to hold its place in the heavens, and, like a meteor, falls headlong through the universe. This and some other system of worn-out worlds crash into each other, and by the stroke both are reduced into star dust, to start once more on the endless round of the world's birth, growth, death, and resurrection. 6 Un- 3. Thorpe: Coal, Its History and Its Uses, pp. 1-70. 4. Dana: Manual of Geology, p. 608. 5. Darwin : Earthworms. 6. Shaler: p. 42. 190 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III der this or any other theory of the earth's origin ever advanced in the name of science, these movements are so vast, the time so approaching to eternity, the grip of things so infinite, that to contend that there is any inherent intention on the part of nature that some favorites among men, or some special generation of men, and not all men of all generations, should be the beneficiaries of all this, is the highest of egotistic absurdity. 236. Not a Question of Intentions. If it be said that to assume that nature has any intentions, either for the few or for the many, is equally absurd, then the answer is that the absurdity complained of is the assumption that we may study in nature some force unknown to nature, and that this force, unknown in nature, is nevertheless operating through nature, and has intentions beyond nature or in contradiction to the plainly visible operations of nature. There is here no such assumption or contention. Our question, in this connection, does not go beyond an inquiry touching the inherent relations of natural forces to each other and the relations so discovered between man and the earth, both of whom are assumed to be the products of nature and existing subject to the laws of nature. 237. Evolution. The theory of evolution asserts that the process by which nature passes from one state of existence to another is "like that which takes place in the development of an ovum into a mature animal/' Now it is insisted that the earth was not created. It was born. It was not born full grown and in complete maturity. All of its features of landscape, of moun- tain and valley, of river and ocean, of land, of rocks and soils, of plants and animals, even its seasons and its climates, have been developed through countless ages of duration, of duration so long that a beginning CHAP. XV THE OWNERSHIP OF THE EARTH 191 is as unthinkable as an ending seems impossible. Dur- ing all this time the earth has moved out and on in space, by a combination of movements so complicated that no one can diagram her course, and with a speed so great that even calculation cannot measure her jour- ney or keep pace with her progress. 238. Pre-conscious Development. But the earth is not only related to time and to space with no end to one and no limit to the other, but it is instinct with life, with life as boundless and infinite as is the life of the universe itself. In the study of living organisms, the naturalist is never satisfied until he has discovered the function, that is, the use or purpose, of every sep- arate bone, muscle, nerve and organ, and the relation of each to all. What is this organ for! What end does this muscle serve! These questions are constantly on the lips of the scientists. Surely, if we may ask for and expect to find a purpose for each part of each simplest life, in the same way we may ask for and expect to find some answer to our question, namely: When man ceased to play a wholly unconscious part in his own evolution and commenced with conscious fore- sight and purpose, to provide for his own comfort, what then did he find to be in his own " state of na- ture/' his relations to the natural resources! Had the natural selection of his preconscious career put him in the way of Collectivism or of monopoly as the natural relation of the race to the earth ! It has been seen that without Collectivism he could not have survived. It has been seen how this Collectivism of insects, birds and beasts relates itself in the same manner to the col- lective use of nature in their collective struggle for ex- istence. It has been seen that for a thousand centuries after unconscious, natural selection had been succeed- ed on the part of man by conscious, natural selection 192 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III that it never seems to have occurred to any part of the race to monopolize nature's gifts to all. 239. The Right of the Most Conscious. Again, the earth must belong in nature to that manifestation of nature which, being most conscious, is best able to en- force its right to the earth and to make use of the earth. Man is the most conscious part of nature. He has achieved the mastery over the rest of nature. He alone can use to the best advantage all of nature. He alone can use her mines, the advantages of cultiva- tion, the fruits of improved natural increase and me- chanical and chemical forces. If most things are used to their best advantage, if many things are used at all, man must use them, and he can use them to the best advantage only by collective use. If the natural resources do not belong to man, and to all men, then there are no natural relations between the highest cul- mination of natural life and the natural resources and natural forces which make up the environment which has brought to its culmination this same highest life. 240. Man and the Rest of Nature. If this relation between man and the rest of nature and the claims of all men on the rest of nature, which must result from this relation, are to be denied, then the relation of motherhood itself may as well be disputed and all the study of the relations of things, or of persons and things, be at once abandoned. But this study of re- lations cannot be abandoned. One cannot think at all without thinking of the relations of things or of per- sons and things. There are no relations more evident or more important than the relations of man, all men, to the natural resources and to the natural forces which have caused his existence, and on which he must depend for the means of life, if after having been brought into existence he is to continue to exist at all. 241. The Earth and Man The Plant and Its CHAP. XV THE OWNERSHIP OF THE EARTH 193 Flower. Every flowering plant exists for the sake of its blossoms. Every orchard tree grows for the sake of its fruit. Man is the best and highest product of nature which is known to us. All that had gone before him was making way for his coming. All that had gone before was but himself, enlarging and perfecting the forms of his own life. The earth and man are both the children of nature. They are not unrelated. Man is the mature animal grown from the ovum born from the earth. Out of the earth and the eternal forces of which the earth itself is a product, man has arisen on the earth. In the nature of things the earth must be adapted to his needs, else he could not have come into existence on the earth, or, being in existence, he could not have survived. It furnishes the materials for his food, the fiber for his clothing, the means for his shelter and the fuel for his comfort. 242. Mutual Adaptation. Twist the earth's posi- tion but a little and correct the incline of its axis toward the sun and the changing of the seasons would cease forever. The equator would then move on under a blazing sun that no life could endure and the great temperate belt, the scene of all man's great achieve- ments, would then become uninhabitable fields of un- changing ice. 7 Open a way for the unhindered passage westward of the waters of the Atlantic at the Isthmus of Panama, and the Gulf stream would disappear. Its northern movement, with its burden of warmth, a thousand feet deep and a hundred miles wide, moving at the rate of four miles an hour, would no longer make the Euro- pean climate endurable. 8 So twist the earth's axis or so open a passage for the Atlantic, and in either case, between the everlast- 7. Shaler: pp. 59-63. 8. Shaler: pp. 146-147. 194 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III ing cold and the everlasting heat of the frigid and the torrid zones, then brought close together and with both the heat and cold greatly intensified, an unceas- ing storm of measureless fury would sweep away or drown all life from the narrow strip of temperate coun- try still left between these two extremes. 9 By a thousand close adjustments, nature holds her children safely and makes man's existence possible. The earth is adapted to man's needs. Man is adapted to the earth. They are both the children of nature. They are the child and the grandchild of the mother of worlds. The earth were a barren woman, mean- ingless in her disappointed maternity, were it not for man. Man's existence is unthinkable without the earth. The 'earth is his because he must use it or he cannot survive. 243. Monopoly and Collectivism. But the nature of monopoly is to deny this inherent, necessary rela- tionship of man to the earth and to rob most men of its benefits. The nature of Collectivism is to enforce this necessary and inherent relationship between the earth and man and to protect the interests of all in this com- mon inheritance. 244. The monopolists can find no defense in nature for their wrongs against the race. All nature is re- lated, collected, united. From "the stars in their course ' ' to the minutest fragments of floating dust, her grasp is as resistless as it is eternal. From the forms of life so simple and so fleeting that the student's glance through the microscope is more prolonged than the birth, maturity and decay of such life, from such a simple life to the most prolonged and most ennobled life of man, nature is bound together, is related; her 9. Shaler: pp. 146-147. CHAP. XV THE OWNERSHIP OF THE EARTH 19o sequence, her order, her intelligibility, her Collectiv- ism is complete. 245. The Test of Strength. Again, if it be claimed that the earth 's origin and man's origin on the earth are of no consequence and that the earth belongs to those who, in the struggle for existence, have been able to get it and that having it, they have the right to keep it, the answer is that the struggle for existence is not over, and this position, if admitted, will prove too much for those who hold to private monopoly in the ownership of the earth. If those who are able to take it may rightfully own it, then it only remains for the whole people to take it in order to own it be- yond dispute. More than this, if ability to take es- tablishes the right to own, no one will dispute that all of the people are stronger than any share of the peo- ple, and therefore the helpless few who hold the earth' are not its rightful owners, even on the ground of the righteousness of might, which is the last and only de- fense for their betrayal of the race by the few who wish to exclude the many from equal access to all the gifts of nature. 10 246. Private Titles Based on Force. Unreasonable as this position may seem in such a bald statement of the case, the fact is that all private titles to all natural resources do rest on no other foundation than force. It has been seen in Chapters Four and Five how the force which established the private legal titles to the 10. "There is nothing which so generally strikes the imagina- tion and engages the affections of mankind on the right of prop- erty; or that sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in total exclusion of the right of any other individual in the universe. And yet there are very few that will give themselves the trouble to consider the original and foundation of this right. Pleased as we are with the possession, we seem afraid to look back to the means by which it was acquired, as if fearful of some defect in our title; or at best we rest satisfied with the decision of the laws in our favor, with- out examining the reason for authority upon which those laws have 196 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART HI land also established chattel slavery and the subjec- tion of woman. It has been seen how the militarism which established slavery and the private titles to laud grew into world-wide despotism. The despotic po- litical power established by militarism has been over- thrown. Chattel slavery established by militarism has been outgrown and forbidden, but private land titles resting on no other defense than the same defense which established, perpetuated and defended both political despotism and chattel slavery, still remain. There is not an argument which can be made for the monopoly of land which cannot be made with equal force for the defense of political despotism and for the defense of chattel slavery. The destruction of both political despotism and chattel slavery, so far as their destruc- tion has really been accomplished, has been by the col- lective growth and the collective revolt of the collective life of the race. 247. The End of Monopoly. The tyranny of des- potism and the inequality of slavery can never be ut- terly destroyed so long as monopoly in the ownership of the natural resources is permitted to remain. The same militarism which destroyed primitive Collectiv- ism, in the use of the earth, also destroyed Democracy and Equality. The evolutionary process which is so been built. We think it enough that our title is derived by the grant of the former proprietor, by descent from our ancestors, or by the last will and testament of the dying owner; not caring to reflect that (accurately and strictly speaking) there is no founda- tion in nature or in natural law why a set of words upon parch- ment should convey the domain of land; why the son should have a right to exclude his fellow creatures from a determinate spot of ground because his father had done so before him; or why the occupier of a particular field or of a jewel, when lying on his death-bed, and no longer able to maintain possession, should be en- titled to tell the rest of the world which of them should enjoy it after him. These inquiries it must be owned, would be useless and ; even troublesome in common life. It is well if the mass of man- kind will obey the laws when made, without scrutinizing too nicely { into the reasons for making them." Blackstone: Commentaries on English Law, Book II., Chapter L, Section 2. CHAP. XV THE OWNERSHIP OF THE EARTH 197 strongly leading to the establishment of Democracy and Equality can never cease until, in its culmination, Collectivism, in the use of the earth, and in the means by which the earth may best be used, shall be estab- lished. So long as the right of one to own what another must use is admitted, so long men will continue the fight with bargains, or with bayonets, or with both, to secure and extend this destructive monopoly in the ownership of the earth. This warfare of monopoly, tyranny, and inequality can never be stopped except by Collectivism. But under Collectivism such a conflict would be impossible, for, under Collectivism, monopoly must stop at the line where the collective interest makes its beginning. 248. Inherent in the Nature of Things. Lester F. Ward declares that "From the point of view of sen- tient beings, that is most natural which results in the greatest advantage.'' 11 Until it can be shown that it is to "the greatest advantage" of a living organism to be denied the means of providing the means of its own existence, monopoly in the ownership of the earth must be held to be, in effect, the denial of necessary human rights, which are inherent in the nature of things, under any possible, rational interpretation of the nature of things. Collectivism is the only alterna- tive. As society approaches the realization of this truth, Socialism becomes the self-evident necessity of the ripening movement of the years. The origin of So- cialism is in the nature of things. The development of Socialism is nothing else than the natural development of the life of the race under the dominion 'of natural law. This development is more rapid, more resistless, and the results more inevitable as the process of evolu- tion becomes more conscious, and hence more purpose- 11. Ward: Dynamic Sociology, Vol. II, p. 538. 198 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III ful, more subject to the foresight of intelligent direc- tion, less subject to the chances of accidental survivals. 249. Summary. 1. The earth belongs to all men. 2. To those who hold to the authority of the Chris- tian and Jewish scriptures, the authority of these scrip- tures to this effect is complete. 3. To the scientific mind, the making of the earth and the origin of man cannot be separated. The mo- nopoly of the earth by a few cannot make any such use of the earth as would make any satisfactory culmina- tion for the countless centuries of time and the vast movements of the worlds involved in the creation of both the earth and man. But the use of all the earth by all the people through long periods of time, while the great achievements of the race are effected and the perfection of the race-life is attained, does give a fit- ting climax to the long processes of the ages. 4. The earth and man are mutually adapted to each other, belong together. Man cannot live without it. Whatever right he has to his life, he has the same right to the earth as the sole means by which his life is pos- sible. 5. Those who created the private titles to the earth created these titles and the owners continue to hold them solely by force. But as force is the sole founda- tion of private titles, no such title can be valid in the face of a stronger force. The private owners are be- coming fewer in number and weaker in power. The disinherited are becoming larger in number and greater in power. Titles based on force must finally deliver the earth to all of the people. 6. Only under the collective use of the earth's re- sources can the earth be used to "the greatest advan- tage/' which is "most natural." 7. Only under Socialism can this advantage of col- lective use, and hence the fulfillment of natural law, be realized. CHAP. XV THE OWNERSHIP OF THE EARTH 199 REVIEW QUESTIONS. 1. If the Biblical account of the earth's origin is to be in- terpreted as a literal statement of facts then to whom does the earth belong? 2. If the scientific account of the origin of the earth is to be accepted, then to whom does the earth belong? 3. Give an account of the development of the earth; of the be- ginning and the forming of the planets; the producing of the rings of Saturn; the moon; and the earth's surface. 4. Give an account of the origin of coal, of oil, and of the preparation of the soil for cultivation. 5. Does the question of the justice of man's ioint ownership of the earth involve the question of intentions or of conscious design in nature? G. When man first became a conscious factor in his own de- velopment, how did he regard himself as related to the earth? Was his earliest use of the earth under monopoly or Collectivism? 7. Can man live without the earth? 8. Has man a right to his life regardless of the consent of others ? 9. Has he a right to the earth regardless of the consent of others ? 10. Why has the most conscious part of the earth the right of mastery or ownership? 11. Why has man a right to the earth as its final and highest product ? 12. Who would be entitled to the earth under the argument of adaptation ? 13. Where is man's place in nature so far as nature herself may indicate? 14. If the strongest are to have the earth, who will get it in the future? Why? 15. What is meant by the nature of things? 16. Why are all men entitled to the earth in the nature of things ? 17. Why is the collective use of the earth necessary? 18. Why is Socialism necessary to the collective use of the earth? CHAPTEE XVI RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL DEMOCRACIES 250. The Fall of Democracy. Democracy once ruled the world in its economic interests, and through these, all other interests as well. This was the case under barbarism. When war became the chief indus- try, and the military master the master of the indus- tries, as well as of war, then despotism succeeded De- mocracy. Collectivism yielded to monopoly, and equal- ity of opportunity to inequality. The individual work- man no longer depended for his own existence on his own efforts, but first of all on the consent of his indus- trial master. 251. The Struggle for Democracy. The struggle for Democracy anywhere is a step towards its re-ap- pearance everywhere. So far as the struggle for De- mocracy has been effective in religious or political or- ganizations, these struggles have not only had their economic causes, but they are also having their eco- nomic results. 252. Political Democracies Among Industrial Mas- ters. Socialism asks for Democracy in industry. Has Democracy been recently tried in other fields? Has the tyranny of private monopoly been overthrown any- CHAP. XVI RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL DEMOCRACIES 201 where else in such a way as to suggest a like victory at the workshop and in the market place? Heretofore all revolutions under the monopoly of capitalism have been revolutions by which some inferior class has sought to overthrow the authority of some superior class whose rule it had found unbearable. In no case has any successful revolution gone to the bottom and sought to enfranchise those who were the servants of the rebels, as well as to overthrow those who were their masters. As a result all Democracies under civiliz- ation have been limited in their citizenship to those who had been able to overthrow their masters, and have never extended to the field of industry in which these political democrats were themselves oppressing their industrial dependents. Nevertheless, the overthrow of the masters, in any event, and the world's ability to get along without them anywhere, once established, has always strengthened the claims of Democracy and has had the distinct effect of bringing nearer the coming of Socialism, under which industrial Democracy will dispose of the industrial masters, along with the utter destruction of the whole human relation- ship of mastery and servitude. 1 1. "The struggle for emancipation through the exercise of leg- islative power, as we have said, is indispensable in conducting the social struggle. Those who do not possess it are condemned to per- petual passivity. The unique method which they employ against the ruling classes is aptly called the struggle for emancipation. The might of ideas is on their side, a significant statement which needs careful explanation. "The superior classes, as we have seen, cannot rest content with the fact of superiority; political relations need to be confirmed; might must be turned into right. It seemed simple enough for them to say: Let this be right. But every right has its obverse obliga- tion; however comprehensive, it has its limits at which obligations begin, the rights of those who hitherto have had none. So the rights of the rulers produced the rights of the ruled. The germ was there and it must develop. "But more than this; the human mind probes to the foundation of things seeking the principle of causation and analyzing the change of phenomena to find their eternal unchanging essence. Now in the changing phases of right the enduring principle is the idea. Thus rights not only lead to obligations, but also to the idea of right. 202 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PAET III 253. The Early Church. The early Christian church came into world-wide influence so largely and so rapidly because of its connections with the ancient labor unions and the slaves ' associations. These unions and associations were in every respect as fully demo- cratic as possible under the limitations of secrecy made necessary by the enmity of the government of the "If the obligation could be called the consequence of right in space, the idea was its consequence in time. Whoever asserts his rights cannot escape their consequences. Thus the rulers them- selves forge weapons with which the ruled and powerless classes successfully attack them and complete the natural process. The egoism of the powerful prepares the way for the uprising of the weak. "The idea of right is not a purely fanciful conception. It has power to influence men and can be practically applied. Men grow accustomed year by year to submit to rights; they use legal forms constantly and learn to respect rightful limitations, until finally the conception, the very idea, of rights pervades and controls them. In this way the idea of right becomes the fit weapon for those who have no other. "But its application is not simple. The legal bulwarks of the powerful will not yield to a simple appeal to ideas as Jericho's walls fell at the blast of trumpets; and, besides, the propertyless and powerless are unable to use such mental weapons immediately. Again we see the egoism of the one class promoting the social evolution of the whole. The bourgeoisie in the struggle, with the other property classes, is the first to appeal to universal human rights, to freedom and equality. "It claims to be contending, not for itself alone, but for the good of the whole folk. And it succeeds not without the support of the masses whom it flatters and to whom it discloses the resplend- ent goal of freedom and equality. Its might, like that of the higher class, is now based on right, and though for the moment what it has won seems to be clear gain, it has found the yoke of legal logic about its neck and must submit to its ideas. "For the lowest classes participation in the struggle was a profit- able experience. Even the slight amelioration of their condition was an advantage. It taught them many a lesson. But it is hard for them, relying simply on ideas, to undertake the social struggle, for political regulations are firmly based on the possession of material goods and are defended by the middle class also, and moreover as time goes on some of their ideas prove false and inde- fensible. "But in spite of exaggerations they are logical consequences of principles which the ruling class asserted in its own interest and from which the middle class profited, declaring them at the time to be universal. They cannot be wholly eradicated; they aid the strug- gle for the emancipation of the fourth class powerfully. They in- spire the masses with fanaticism and the struggle for the emanci- pation succeeds." Gumpjowicz : The Outlines of Sociology, pp. 148-149. CHAP. XVI RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL DEMOCRACIES 203 Caesars. 2 The old church was not a respecter of per- sons. 3 It did not act in any matters of importance without conference and agreement with the brothers, and these democratic fraternities of the working people, lasted for at least two hundred and fifty years. These examples of Collectivism, of Democracy and of Equality were so real and far-reaching that thejater military or- ganization of the church has been unable to utterly de- stroy them. 4 254. Ecclesiastical Rebels. Bodies of worshipers who did not yield to the new authorities on the develop- ment of the military model of church organization still clung to the traditions 'of the earlier Democracies. 2. "Still another peculiarity of the labor organizations was that they were secret. All through the vista of a thousand years during which we know them they were strictly a secret order. This habit of secrecy proved of greatest value during persecutions. Being legalized by a law so much revered, they were seldom molested ex- cept when persecuted on account of their political activities. Then it was that their discipline of profound secrecy proved of greatest value. After the amalgamation of the Christians with them their secrecy was so great that for ages they maintained themselves in spite of the most searching detectives of the Roman police the world over; and the evangelizing agents continued the preaching of the orig- inal doctrines and ideas until at last they assumed the mastery and conquered the Roman world." Ward: Ancient Lowly, Vol. II., p. 105. "Sodalicia" is one of the names applied to the ancient Roman labor organizations. Certain organizations within the Roman Catholic church are today known as "Sodalities." (Sodalis Companion.) "What became of all of these incomes into the eranos (labor unions) ? They went to buy, in quantities and at wholesale, without the usual middleman and his system of selfish profits, the food for the common table, to which all the members had an equal demo- cratic right. Why not? Each, without exception, paid into a com- mon fund the same sum in form of periodical dues sufficient to keep him or her supplied with nourishment which under that sys- tem of the syssitoi was furnished by the society out of these in- pouring funds; and it had a complete set of cooks, buyers, waiters, and officers of every kind to carry out the system to perfection." Ward: Ancient Lowly, Vol. II., p. 263. 3. "In the great community of the lovers of Christ 'bond and free' were alike. There was no distinction in the sight of God, none in the church. They recognized slavery as they recognized the tyr- anny of Caesar, but they put the slave, in their treatment and in their language, on the like footing with his owner." Brace: Gesta Christa, p. 45. 4. "It is striking that with the demand for freedom from feudal 204 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III Except where the protesting churches acted under the patronage of royal authority, as in England and in Germany, 5 all revolts against the military authorities of the church have always been efforts to re-establish ecclesiastical Democracies. This was true of Wycliffe, and the Lollards, of Huss, of the Waldenses, of the Quakers, and of the Russian Stundists. The Quakers and the Stundists carry their principles of Democracy back to the primitive order of unanimous agreement. 255. The Calvinistic Churches. John Calvin was the principal citizen of Geneva, which was an ancient free city. In later years Eousseau came from Geneva to Paris and wrote into his social theories what he had already seen in practice in his native city, together with its traditions of an earlier and completer Democ- racy. When Calvin helped to separate his city from the military organization of the church, he found his model for re-organization, not in the army, but in the demo- cratic ideals of the city of his adoption and in the traditions of the Democracies of the early church. In France, in Scotland, in Holland, in England and finally in America, the ecclesiastical democrats became polit- ical democrats as rapidly as they were able to win con- trol of the political power. It is impossible to over- estimate the influence of the Democracy of Holland on the English sojourners in that country who afterward became so largely the builders of New England's in- burdens is always included that for a free and elected clergy." Brace: Gesta Christa, p. 234. 5. In England the revolt against the church authorities at Rome was purely a political matter, led by the King of England, and was simply a shifting of the head of the English ecclesiastical authority from Rome to the English King. In Germany the princes were fighting the political power of Rome quite as much as was Luther fighting the ecclesiastical authority. Neither the English nor Lutheran church became democratic, because both were estab- lished either directly by or under the patronage of royal authorities. CHAP. X T 'I RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL DEMOCRACIES 205 stitutions. It is clearly the case that the Democracy of the Calvinistic churches had no small share in support- ing the democratic tendencies of the American col- onists. 256. The Windsor Constitution. In Connecticut was established the most ideal of political Democracies. The frontiersmen wrote at Windsor the first Constitu- tion in human history which was the instrument of cre- ating a new and sovereign state. In it they separated citizenship from church membership. They made no appeal to the consideration of royal grants or ecclesi- astical endorsements. These free men of the open forest admitted no power on earth more sacred than their own voluntary action. But this work was accom- plished with the help of one of those Calvinistic preach- ers, who, having helped to create a church without a bishop, proceeded to help build a state without a king. This preacher, Thomas Hooker, whom John Fiske con- tends deserves more to be called the father of American Democracy than any other man, held that t i The choice of public magistrates belongs unto the people by God's own allowance, " and that "they who have power to ap- point officers and magistrates have the right also to set the bounds and limitations of the power and place unto which they call them." Fiske further claims that at the time of the American Eevolution, the state of Con- necticut was "The strongest political structure of the continent. ' ' 6 257. American Industrial and Political Democracy. Karl Marx holds that the American frontiersman never lost his industrial independence, secured through the settlement of a new country and the use of simple and inexpensive tools, until the time of the American civil war. 7 American political Democracy has never 6 John Fiske: The Beginnings of New England, p. 127. 7. Marx: Capital, Chapter XXXIII. 206 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III willingly consented to the monopoly of political power. The political power of Jefferson, Jackson and most of all, of Lincoln, was the result of a direct appeal to this frontiersman's spirit of holding and using political power for economic advantage as the political right of an American citizen. 258. Lincoln on Labor and Capital. The discus- sions of Lincoln on labor and capital and his warning to the self-employed American workers not to lose or neglect to use their political power in their own eco- nomic behalf, is only a part of the record of how deeply the right of self-government, of political Democracy, was appreciated and how clearly, at least, Mr. Lincoln could see the economic importance of political activi- ties by the workers in their own behalf. 8 259. The Populist Party. The Populist party was not so much an effort to save mortgaged farms as to 8. "In these documents we find the abridgement of the existing right of suffrage, and the denial to the people of all rights to par- ticipate in the selection of public officers except the legislative, boldly advocated, with labored arguments to prove that large control of the people in government is the source of all political evil. In my present position I could scarcely be justified were I to omit raising a warning voice against this approach to returning despot- ism. * * * There is one point with its connections not so hack- neyed as most others, to which I ask a brief attention: It is an effort to place capital upon an equal footing with, if not above, labor in the structure of government. Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher (Consideration. The prudent, penniless beginner in the world labors for wages a while, saves a surplus with which tp buy tools or land for himself, then labors on his own account for a while, and at length hires an- other new beginner to help him. This is the just and generous and prosperous system which opens the way to all, gives hope to all, and consequent energy, progress and improvement of condition to all. No men living are more worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty none less inclined to take or touch aught which they have not honestly earned. "Let them beware of surrendering a political power which they already possess, and which, if surrendered, will surely be used to close the door of advancement against such as they, and to fix new disabilities and burdens upon them, till all of liberty shall be lost." Lincoln's Annual Message to Congress, Dec. 3, 1861. CHAP. XVI RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL DEMOCRACIES 207 prevent political monopoly from forever withholding from the workers any effective voice in the control of public affairs. Its cry was against the plutocrat, not so much because he controlled in the market, as be- cause he was a political usurper; and the control of politics, by millions of dollars, meant to them both the political and economic dependence of millions of men. 260. In no instance in all this were the economic proposals of the Socialists made or more than remotely hinted at, and yet all this was a part of the struggle for Democracy, and Democracy is essential to Socialism. 261. A Shop Without a Boss. Lyman Abbott claims, with good reason, "That when the world learned it could have a state without a king and a church without a bishop, it had taken a long step to- wards learning that there could be a shop without a boss." 9 262. The Plutocrat, the Democrat and Socialism. The political warfare of today is widely admitted to be a contest between the plutocrat and the democrat. This war cannot last long without discovering that the plutocrat is all-powerful in the government because he is all-powerful in the market place; that the democrat, the workingman, the industrial slave, is helpless in the government because he is industrially depend- ent in the market place. The power of the plutocrat in politics has its source in the monopoly of the shop and the market. The workingman will never be able to show his power in the state unless he shall achieve his industrial independence in the shop and in the market. There can be no real Democracy anywhere until the means of producing the means of life come under demo- cratic control. Make the workers once the masters of their own means of producing the means of life, and 9. Lyman Abbott: Industrial Democracy, (a lecture). 208 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III they will take care of Democracy everywhere else. The struggle for Democracy and against the masters of the lives of others, anywhere, is in vain, unless the masters of the market-place are to be overthrown. Ecclesias- tical and political Democracies will have been estab- lished in vain unless that political power shall at last be used to establish industrial Democracy which is Socialism. 263. Summary. 1. Both industrial and political Democracies were overthrown by the introduction of slavery at the beginning of civilization. 2. Every effort to re-establish Democracy anywhere has been a part of the long struggle to re-establish it everywhere. 3. The early church, the slave associations, the trades unions, the fraternities, and besides, all ecclesi- astical revolts, except when in the interest of political masters, have been efforts to re-establish Democracy. 4. American Democracy can be largely traced to freedom of economic opportunity and the influences of the independent churches which were themselves re- versions to primitive Democracy. 5. The present struggle between the political pluto- crat and the political democrat can never come to any final settlement except by the overthrow of the indus- trial plutocrat by the industrial democrat, which means the triumph of industrial Democracy which is So- cialism. REVIEW QUESTIONS. 1. When and how were monopoly, tyranny and inequality estab- lished in the world? 2. What is meant by industrial Democracy? 3. Has there ever been any real political Democracy without industrial Democracy? 4. What other institutions were practicing Democracy at ;the time of the early church? 5. After what model was the church afterward organized? 6. What was characteristic of all those churches which refused to conform to the military model of church organization? CHAP. XVI RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL DEMOCRACIES 209 7. In what cases were there church revolts which did not attempt to return to democratic models? 8. Trace Calvinistic church influence in promoting American democratic tendencies. 9. What was the economic foundation of the early American Democracy ? 10. Quote Lincoln (Notes) and Lyman Abbott. 11. Why is industrial Democracy necessary if political Democ- racy is to exist ? CHAPTER XVII MODERN SCIENCE AND SOCIALISM 264. Modern Science. The word "science" means knowledge, but it is knowledge in a particular form. The main facts relating to any subject must be gath- ered by exact observation and then arranged and classified in such a way as to show their relations to each other. 1 The term "modern science" is used in this connec- tion as meaning knowledge so obtained by observation and classification. Any knowledge which may be sup- posed to have been obtained by intuition, or instinct, or revelation, or dreams, or in any other way which does not involve observed facts and their logical arrange- ment and classification, as the process by which conclu- sions are reached, cannot be spoken of as "modern science." It is the purpose of this chapter to show that, so far as science is related to industrial and commercial in- stitutions, the conclusions of modern science are in support of the conclusions of Socialists; and that the achievements in industry and commerce which have been made possible by the progress of modern science also involve the establishment of Socialism as the only 1. Ward: Dynamic Sociology, Vol. I., p. 2. 210 CHAP. XVII SCIENCE AND SOCIALISM 211 means by which such achievements can bring their benefits to the whole body of society. 265. The Wickedness of Growth. Formerly it was supposed that society was created and all its forms established by divine authority. The divine right of kings did not mean that the king alone had the right to rule by divine authority. It meant, as well, that all civil officers, judges, clerks, all priests and bishops and all classes based on economic advantages were also of divine authority, while the helpless, the disinherited and dispossessed were under a divine obligation to be contented, not to complain at their lot, but to patiently serve those believed to be divinely ordained to be their masters. If the institutions and usages of society were at- tacked by any one, the answer was that, however hard or seemingly cruel such institutions might seem to be, they were the divine order, and that whoever com- plained was a blasphemer, guilty of such wickedness as forfeited his right to live, to say nothing about his right to be heard. 266. Some Old Records. The old records give the stories of whole tribes pitilessly butchered by divine order. Those who regarded these acts as examples worthy to be followed have defended these particular acts upon the ground that, while they seem terrible to us, nevertheless, the God who gave life has the right to take it away, and in any way which to him would seem wisest and most effective, in order to defend or estab- lish institutions or nations which are to exist by divine authority and with divine approval. 267. Recent Investigations. But modern science has been accurately observing the remains of the imple- ments, the burial places and the monuments, as well as tracing the origins of languages; and the institutions which these origins in speech and remnants of imple- 212 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III ments, burial places and monuments reveal, have been found to be, in any given stage of human development, practically the same among all races of mankind. Not only was Israel commanded to exterminate its enemies, but all other tribes among all races of mankind in the same stage of development always fought under simi- lar instructions from their tribal gods. In many other particulars it has been found that the tribes, supposed to be acting under divine direction, developed exactly the same institutions, both civil and military, as were developed by other tribes understood to have been act- ing under divine condemnation. 268. The Law of Social Growth. The law of social development has been recognized by special students of these matters and it is now known that whatever exists at any particular period has been developed out of the institutions which previously existed, and that this is true of all nations, regardless of the form of religion adopted by any. The doctrine of the divine authority of kings can have no standing in the presence of mod- ern science, nor can any of the contentions that any of the institutions of modern society exist under such di- vine sanction as would make it sacrilegious to continue the process of improvement, which has been going on from the beginning, have further serious consideration. 269. The Social Compact. More than one hundred years ago the doctrine of divine authority of kings was vigorously attacked and some new basis was sought for on which to rest the authority of the state. The doctrine of the social compact or social contract was devised. Under this doctrine it was assumed that at some time or other the people in any given community, either in form or in effect, had come to an agreement that certain usages should be established, certain natu- ral rights surrendered, and that society should be organized in a certain way. With the departure of the CHAP. XVII SCIENCE AND SOCIALISM 213 divine right of kings there came into being the conten- tion for the sacred obligation of contracts. In actual practice it came to mean that whatever exists has, in effect, been agreed to, and that to propose a change is a violation of the agreement ; it is an interference with the obligation of contracts. 2 270. Taken for Granted. Of course, it was rarely contended that the people living at any given time had themselves made such contracts; only some one who had lived before, them had done so, and that the con- tract, once established by the consent of somebody, must forever afterwards bind the life of everybody, or there was a violation of contracts, and contracts must not be violated. It involves the absurd position that vested rights granted by those who are dead may not be denied by those who are living. 271. "Abrogation of Contracts." In the United States the constitution provides the manner under which it may be amended, but it provides further that any law involving the abrogation of contracts shall be void and without force. The Illinois Trust & Savings Bank Company of Chi- cago, the Kothschild institution of that city, has a charter which was granted to a small country bank prior to the adoption of the present state constitution. It gave the old corporation permission to deal in real estate, but the present constitution forbids any cor- poration in Illinois to do so. But the living people of Illinois have no authority, even by changing their con- stitution, to change the contracts entered into by the dead people of Illinois before the current constitution was adopted. Under the divine right of kings, to 2. "Under no form of government is it so dangerous to erect a, political idol as in a Democratic Republic, for once erected, it is a sin against the Holy Ghost to lay hands upon it." Von Hoist, quoted in Annals of Toil, p. 199. "The psychologic law tends to reverse the biologic law." Ward: Psychic Factors in Civilization, p. 259. 214 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III change social institutions was wicked; under the cur- rent idea, to change them is dishonest. 272. New Life Must " Abrogate' ' Old Forms.-But again, 'modern science has established that no institu- tions of society are the arbitrary creations of any com- pact or contract or bargain ever made by any group of men, at aikv time, anywhere. It is now known that these compacts were never established until such con- ditions had been reached in the growth of the race as made the continuance of the old forms impossible and the existence of the new forms inevitable. In other words, it was the growth of the race which made the contract, or the constitution, and not the constitution which made the growth of the race. When the old forms have gone out of existence and the new forms have come into being, it has always been in the midst of strife, unless the old forms had grown so helpless that resistance on their part was impossible. But the new forms never made terms with the old. They have always taken possession in spite of the old. They have done so by force, if force was necessary. The whole story of human history has been one of old forms outgrown. The new forms first outgrew and then destroyed the older ones. These changes have always been in the line of industrial and social needs. Wherever degeneracy in public institutions has taken place it has always been because economic and social conditions have outgrown civil and political institu- tions, and the degeneracy has ensued as the result of attempting to use outgrown forms in the midst of con- ditions under which they could not operate. It is seen, therefore, that for the new forms to appear, in order to serve the new life already developed, is not dishonorable; it is no more the violation of a binding contract than for a living tree to continue growing though the dead bark about it cannot grow with it and CHAP. XVII SCIENCE AND SOCIALISM 215 must be broken by the process. It is not infamous nor dishonest to abandon the old. It is the outright be- trayal of both the present and the future not to do so. 273. Science The Shackle-Breaker. Science has unshackled the hands bound by the doctrine of the obligation of contracts. Science has unshackled the hands bound by the superstition which assumed the divine authority of the old and proclaimed the sacrilege of the new. Science has so rewritten civics and inter- preted religion as to attach both wickedness and dis- honor to whatever effort is made to bind the new life of today in the grave clothes of yesterday. Monopoly, tyranny and inequality have been hiding behind the divine right to rule and to enslave and to rob. Monopoly, tyranny and inequality have been hid- ing behind the sacredness of contracts. Modern science has stripped away these ancient coverings and forces monopoly, tyranny and inequality to justify themselves regardless of divine orders or of "contracts regularly signed, sealed and delivered." Collectivism, democracy and equality may now have their hearing without suffering from the charge of wickedness or the sneer of dishonor. By thus setting at liberty the mind of man to deal fearlessly with social problems, modern science has made a contribution of 'ncalculable value to the development of Socialism. 3 274. Science and Inventions. But modern science has not only taken the "blind-fold" from his eyes; it has furnished the tools and the methods of thinking which leads the student of social and economic prob- lems inevitably to collectivism. In mechanics, chem- istry and electricity, agriculture, mining, and in all 3. "The scientific achievements of the human intellect no longer occur sporadically; they follow one upon another, like the organized and systematic conquests of a resistless army. Each new discovery becomes at once a powerful implement in the hands of innumerable workers, and each year wins over fresh regions of the universe from the unknown to the known." Fiske : The Idea of God, p. 49. 216 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III lines of manufactures, the discoveries of science bear an important relation to the current development of industry and commerce. In all these it has had a large share in the work which has given to us our modern machinery. But the modern machinery involves social production, the benefits of which can never come to the whole body of society so long as capitalism shall last. 275. In Manufactures. The automatic machine is making production more and more an automatic proc- ess. As each step is taken the worker becomes a less important factor and the machine assumes new and more commanding importance. The great steel plants maintain great laboratories, with most expensive equipments, and have the most capable chemists continually engaged in experiments, for the purpose of effecting improvements in the proc- esses of production, every one of which involves the establishment of industry on a larger scale, thus mak- ing all production more and more social production, all of which are steps in the growth which makes the com- ing of Socialism inevitable. 4 Electricity, for example, cannot be used individu- ally. All of its advantages depend upon its use by many people at the same time. This means that with this social use the exercise of equal rights on the part of all the people in the advantages so secured cannot be long postponed. 276. In Agriculture. In agriculture the special training provided by the schools in agriculture has reached but a small percentage of the actual workers 4. "The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together. Subjection of nature's forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agricul- ture, steam navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalization of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground what earlier century had even a presenti- ment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labor?" Marx and Engels: Communist Manifesto, p. 20. CHAP. XVII SCIENCE AND SOCIALISM 217 on the land, but every such step involves larger capital and more perfect organization. Science cannot be applied to agriculture in the most effective manner, except agriculture shall be carried on on a larger scale than is possible under individual self -employment, and if carried on under effective organization, its benefits can accrue to the whole body of society only by the establishment of Socialism. 277. Growing Toward Socialism. Wherever mod- ern science has touched the industry and commerce of modern life it has shown the old methods of organiza- tion, the old schemes of distribution, the old forms of capitalistic enterprise, to be fatal to the interests of the whole body of the people. Each step in the advance of science as applied to the industry and commerce of the world is a nearer approach to the coming of Socialism. This is true because capitalism involves the monop- oly of the great achievements, and their operation through industrial tyranny and the creating and en- forcing of conditions of great inequality. Socialism is hurried nearer by each step in the ad- vance of science, because the advantages of these achievements can be realized by all only under collec- tivism, administered by an industrial democracy, and with equal opportunities for all to become the users of the great equipments and organizations which scien- tific methods of production are bringing into all of the processes by which the means of life may be produced. 278. Sanitary Science. The same is true of sani- tary science. Sanitary conditions cannot be maintained on single city lots. With the departure of Spanish! control from Havana and the application of sanitary science to Havana, the yellow fever departed and did not return. Sanitary science is conclusively establish- ing that contagious and infectious diseases may be 218 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PABT III driven off the earth if the people so will; but this can be undertaken in no small, individualistic way. Capitalism can find no sufficient reward in annual dividends for draining great swamps, for cleaning up and disinfecting whole states and for going round the world, if necessary, to clean out the plague spots from which world- wide contagion has repeatedly carried the plagues to the ends of the earth. Sanitary science emphasizes the common life and the common dependence of all peoples everywhere upon each other, as does no other single fact known to man; but capitalism looking for dividends is helpless, and only the whole race caring for itself will be able to meet a problem so great and secure advantages so lasting as the sanitary campaign which must be undertaken in the near future, and which will make the business of the race for a generation the removal of those seeds of disease which every year doom to such needless slaughter those who cannot be defended from diph- theria, typhoid, smallpox and the bubonic plague, so long as capitalism shall last. 5 5. "But our problem was whether it is possible for society to improve itself. Society is simply a compound organism whose acts exhibit the resultant of all the individual forces which its members exert. These acts, whether individual or collective, obey fixed laws. Objectively viewed, society is a natural object, presenting a variety of complicated movements produced by a particular class of natural forces. The question, therefore, simply is, Can man ever control these forces to his advantage as he controls other, and some very compli- cated, natural forces? Is it true that man shall ultimately obtain the dominion of the whole world except himself? I regard society and the social forces as constituting just as much a legitimate field for the exercise of human ingenuity as do the various material sub- stances and physical forces. The latter have been investigated and subjugated. The former are still pursuing their wild, unbridled course. The latter still exist, still exhibit their indestructible dynamic tenden- cies, still obey the Newtonian laws of motion, still operate along the lines of least resistance. But man, by teleological foresight, has succeeded in harmonizing these lines of least resistance with those of greatest advantage to himself. He has winds, the waters, fire, steam and electricity do his bidding. All nature both animate and inani- mate, has been reduced to his service. One field alone remains un- subdued. One class of natural forces still remains the play of chance, and from it he is constantly receiving the most serious check. This CHAP. XVII SCIENCE AXD SOCIALISM 219 Not so long as the poverty and neglect of the back alley remain can the child of the boulevard be secure from harm. Not so long as half the race goes to sleep each night with hunger only partly satisfied can any portion of the race be safe from the plagues which feed upon those whose vitality is of the lowest order. I Monopoly cannot provide security, even for the mon- opolists, from the crimes, the disasters, and the con- tagions which monopolists cause for others and are not altogether able to escape from themselves. The foulest atmosphere and the disease germs, like all the rest of nature, are no respecters of persons. Every step in sanitary science is a step away from the monopoly, tyranny and inequality of capitalism a drawing near- er of the triumph of Socialism. 279. Science and Crime. Science has also under- taken the study of crime. It has carefully investi- gated the cranial malformations which are character- istic of the various classes of criminals. It has estab- field is that of society itself, these unreclaimed forces are the social forces, of whose nature man seems to possess no knowledge, whose very existence he persistently ignores and which he consequently is powerless to control. * * * ^ Again the defenders of laissez faire will object that society has always done better when let alone; that all efforts to improve the moral or material condition of society by legislation and kindred means have not only been inoperative, but have, in the majority of cases, done positive harm, often to the very cause they were intended to subserve. "If it could be proved that they had always been absolutely inoperative the case would, perhaps, be somewhat discouraging; but, if they can be shown to have had an evil effect, this is all we can hope or desire. For if they can do harm, then they can do something, and nothing is left but to make them do good. Legislation (I use the term in the most general sense) is nothing else but invention. It is an effort so to control the forces of a state as to secure the greatest benefits to its people. But these forces are social forces, and the people are the members of society. As matters now are and have thus far been, government, in so far as the improvement of society is concerned, has been to a great extent a failure. It has done good service in protecting the operation of the natural dynamic forces, and for this it should receive due credit. But it has also to be charged with a long account of opposition to science and oppression of aspiring humanity." Ward: Dynamic Sociology, Vol. I., pp. 35-37. 220 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III listed that the Socialists have been mistaken in assum- ing that the crimes against property will utterly dis- appear with the coming of Socialism, but it has also established that when crime is not the direct result of bad social and economic conditions, it is the result of mental malformations which are themselves the result of inheritances from earlier social disorders. No gen- eration can remedy for itself the mental misfortunes which it has inherited from the past. These matters can be effected only through a series of generations in which each shall act, not for itself, but for its offspring. Under capitalism the whole force of society, so far as related to industry and commerce, is controlled with a view to securing dividends in time for the next semi- annual settlement with the stockholders. The range of its activities is too narrow and the range of its mo- tives is too limited for so great an undertaking. Under Socialism, the whole industrial and commercial life of the world will be organized, not for immediate divi- dends, but for the purpose of serving the whole life of man; and no future will be too distant, and no problem too great for society to undertake, when the strength or purity or sanity of its children is involved. 6 280. Conscious Selection and Desired Survivals. It has been contended, however, that modern science, 6. "The next question that naturally arises is, what special change takes place in the material and social conditions to render a further advance in civilization possible at any given point? Now, to answer this question aright, it is desirable, perhaps, at the outset to get a clear idea of what an advance in civilization really means. If, there- fore, we consider the various stages through which the world has passed in its progress from barbarism up to the present time, we shall find that the movement of what is called civilization has been along two distinct lines the one an upright, vertical line; the other a lateral, horizontal one. The upright, vertical movement is seen in the gradual rise of men's ideals from .that of prowess and mere brute force and mere brute courage, which was the ideal in the early life of all peoples (and still is so in the lowest savage races), up through the times when military strategy, cunning, and diplomacy shared with personal courage men's admiration, onward to the present day, when CHAP XVII SCIENCE AND SOCIALISM 221 instead of so defending Socialism, has proven its the- ories false and its proposals altogether impracticable and impossible, because it is said modern science has established that the growth of the race has been through an age-long struggle in which the fittest only has survived, and that, inasmuch as man has be$n made great and strong as he is under the law of the sur- vival of the fittest in the midst of the struggle for existence, that if this struggle shall be interfered with, the degeneracy of the race will necessarily be the result. Socialism, it is said, is an effort to provide, in de- fiance of the law of nature, for the survival of the un- fittest. But the fact is that the survival of the fittest the most serious sections of the most civilized nations have as their ideal that intellectual power, which, in its many different aspects, has produced all that is great and admirable in civil and national life. Except among the lowest savage races and the lowest class in civilized communities, mere physical prowess as an ideal may be said to have completely passed away; the military ideal, too, with all its accompaniments, is fast dying out ,m spite of its temporary recrudes- cence among some of the foremost nations, owing to material and political necessities; and now, mental power, in its many various applications, whether as practical wisdom, political sagacity, artistic, literary, or philosophical power, is supreme. But besides the upward movement which characterizes advancing civilization the rise in men's ideals we note a lateral horizontal movement as seen in the more equable administration of justice, the wider area for intellect, of knowledge, the wider extension of liberty and equality. Carrying with us this double movement, viz., the upward rise of Ideals and the lateral extension of Justice and Right as that by which advancing civilization is characterized, it will be expedient, if we wish to find out what changes take place in the material and social conditions of the world to render successive advances in civilization possible, to follow the rule laid down in the chapter on History, and instead of groping blindly through the mazes of historical detail, to look rather for the cue to what we want in the world of today, in the full assur- ance that if we can discover the conditions that render progress possi- ble today in a world which we know and can directly inspect the same must have been true in the days of Moses, of Caesar, of Charlemagne days that we cannot directly inspect and that we do not and can never really know. "If, then, we look fixedly into what actually takes place around us, we shall find that the first condition of progress and develop- ment, of free, unimpeded growth and expansion, whether among indi- viduals, classes, or nations, lies in the practical equalization of the Material and Social conditions under which they live." Crozier: Civilization and Progress, pp. 396-97. 222 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III does not mean the survival of the worthiest, but always the survival of the one best fitted to whatever the en- vironment may be, altogether regardless of the char- acter of the life which survives. The law of the survival of the fittest is not that the fittest is the worthiest, but only that it is best adapted to the conditions under which it struggles for exist- ence. 281. Uncultivated Fruits. The wild fruits are de- veloped under the operation of this law of natural selection and the survival of the best adapted the best fitted to the conditions. The improved fruits have been developed from them, not by a violation of the law of the survival of the fittest, but by comprehending the law, and by a more complete obedience to the law, in such a way that the operation of the law itself has been able to produce the marvelous results of conscious se- lection as applied to the growth of fruits. 282. Uncultivated Grains. The same is true of im- proved cereals and of high grades of stock. It has not been by the violation of the law of the survival of the fittest; it has not been by attempting by chance to se- cure a grade of cattle which will be able to survive under the old environments of neglect and exposure and scanty food, and indiscriminate and promiscuous sex selection. It has been by carefully guarding all these points and creating an environment under which "In the historical period the Graeco-Latin society struggled for civil equality (the abolition of slavery) ; it triumphed, but it did not halt, because to live is to struggle; the society of the middle ages struggled for religious equality; it won the battle, but it did not halt; and at the end of the last century it struggled for political equality. Must it now halt and remain stationary in the present state of prog- ress? Today society struggles for economic equality, not for an absolute material equality, but for that more practical, truer equality of which I have already spoken. And all the evidence enables us to foresee with mathematical certainty that this victory will be won to give place to new struggles and to new ideals among our descend- ants." Ferri : Socialism and Modern Science, p. 39. CHAP. XVII SCIENCE AND SOCIALISM 223 more desirable forms would have an opportunity to survive that such advance has been made possible. 283. Uncultivated Men. Now, the same is true of human beings. Where capitalistic conditions prevail, there those are most likely to survive who are not troubled by conscientious scruples, who have strong arms, strong brains and hard hearts conditions where whoever hesitates to strike hard whatever befall another will strike in vain. 284. Conscious Selection and Socialism. Is it not possible to be wise enough in the effort to obey this law of life, this doctrine of the survival of the fittest, in the midst of the struggle for existence, where men are involved, to so organize society that under the con- ditions under which all men shall live, the noble life may be the best fitted to such an environment and so at last have the chance to survive? In fact, the whole doctrine of the race growth under the struggle for existence teaches to the masses of men that if they are to survive at all, as free men, they will struggle none the less earnestly, while more effectively, by joining hands in using together the machinery, the organization, the resources of nature which singly and alone they cannot use, and which, jointly used, can be used for the benefit of all only under Socialism. Under Socialism all men may struggle for the attain- ment of intellectual and social excellences if they will. They can no longer rob each other of the opportunity ..to live, whether they wish to do so or not. The intel- ligence of one does not mean that another must be foolish, the strength of one that another must be weak, the beauty of one that another must be ugly, the art of one that another's possessions must be ill-formed, the social joy of one that another must be in distress in all these the success of one is in no way the result of the failure of any other. 224 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III 285. Summary. 1. Modern science has destroyed the doctrine of divine authority of social institutions and the doctrine of the lasting obligation of any con- tract which is in violation of the common good. 2. Modern science has established the fact that so- cial institutions are a natural growth and that to at- tempt to perpetuate outgrown institutions involves the betrayal of both the present and of the future. 3. Modern science has made great contributions to the equipment and to the improved processes of pro- duction. These equipments and processes are of such a nature that the joint use of them is necessary and therefore make production more and more a matter of social and not an individual concern. 4. Sanitary science can never complete its work except on a scale which cannot be undertaken under enterprises conducted for the profit of stockholders in private enterprises. 5. The science of criminology establishes that crimes which are not the result of present social conditions, which must remain so long as capitalism lasts, are the result of mental conditions which can be remedied only by a series of generations under improved conditions conditions which can come only under Socialism. 6. The law of the survival of the fittest demands that social conditions shall be of such a nature that the worthiest to survive shall also be fitted to the con- ditions under which they must survive, if at all. The industrial and commercial conditions now are of such a nature that only the unscrupulous and socially un- worthy are best fitted to survive under them. 7. Under socialism the struggle for existence where one succeeds at another's loss, will change to a strug- gle for a better existence in which the achievements of one will not depend on the loss of others. CHAP. XVII SCIENCE AND SOCIALISM 225 REVIEW QUESTIONS. 1. What is meant by the word "science"? 2. What are the two points which this chapter seeks to establish? 3. What was formerly held to be the basis of political authority? 4. What was thought of any efforts to improve society? 5. How was it finally discovered that peoples supposed to be acting under divine authority created the same institutions as those supposed to be acting under divine condemnation? 6. How has it been established that to change social forms is not sacrilegious? 7. What other doctrine has succeeded to the place formerly held by the divine right of kings? 8. How does the Constitution of the United States deny the divine right of kings theory and assert the social compact theory in its place? 9. On what ground does the Illinois Trust & Savings Company Bank continue to do business contrary to the provisions of the Con- stitution of Illinois? 10. If contracts and constitutions do not create social changes, then by what forces are they created? 11. If wickedness and dishonor do not attach to those proposing improvements, to whom do they attach in the times of great social changes ? 12. How is modern science related to steel plants, electricity, agriculture and the whole field of industry as related to machinery? 13. Why do these developments require Socialism in order that the benefits may be for all ? 14. Why does sanitary science require the coming of Socialism? 15. In what way is the science of criminology related to the coming of Socialism ? 16. Does the law of the survival of the fittest support or oppose the proposals of Socialists? Why? CHAPTER XVIII MACHINE PRODUCTION AND COLLECTIVISM 286. Aristotle on Machinery. Aristotle said that slavery could not be abolished without the destruction of society, unless, perhaps, some machine could be de- vised which could undertake the drudgery of toil. The era of invention has realized the suggestion of Aris- totle. Not some machine to take the place of the man, but a multitude of machines, each in its turn either tak- ing the place of the worker altogether, or multiplying his productive powers many fold, have done away with the last possible necessity for destructive human labor. 1 287. Joint Ownership and Use. But in the creation of this machinery the use of great wealth is necessary, 1. "If every tool, when summoned, or even of its own accord, could do the work that befits it, just as the creations of Daedalus moved of themselves, or the tripods of Hephaestos went of their own accord; if the weavers' shuttles were to weave of themselves, then there would be no need of apprentices for the master workers or slaves for the lords." Aristotle: Pol. A, iv., 4. "The power capable of being exerted by the steam engines of the world in existence and working in the year 1887 has been estimated by the Bureau of Statistics at Berlin as equivalent to that of 200,000,- 000 horses, representing approximately 1,000,000,000, or at least three times the working population of the earth, whose total number of inhabitants is probably 1,460,000,000. The application and use of steam up to date (1889) has accordingly more than trebled man's working power, and by enabling him to economize his physical 226 CHAP. XVIII MACHINE PRODUCTION 227 and, as has been seen in Chapter IX., this great wealth has been provided by the joint possessions or savings of many people. The use of machinery also involves great organizations of workers, and thus machine pro- duction is seen to be necessarily associated, or social production. It was impossible that joint production should be carried on without joint interests in produc- tion. If joint or collective interest in production had strength has given him greater leisure, comfort and abundance, and also greater opportunity for the mental training which is essential to a higher development. And yet it is certain that four-fifths of the steam engines now working in the world have been constructed in the last quarter of a century, or since 1865." Wells: Recent Economic Changes, p. 44. "About the year 1770 began to appear a remarkable series of inventions which ushered in what we may consider the modern era of industrial organization. They included Watt's development of the steam engine to a practical form, and some far-reaching innovations in the processes of the textile manufactures chief among which were the spinning frame and the spinning jenny. "The immediate practical results of these were highly important. The factory system almost immediately sprang into vigorous life as their first fruits. But still more important was the fact that the process of development thus started has ever since been steadily going on, and generally at a constantly accelerating rate., It is in these closing years of the nineteenth century proceeding with a rapidity and energy never exceeded, and no one who understands the volume of the forces which are operating to produce it would undertake to form the slightest conception of its ultimate limits. "A century of this process of development produced results almost beyond conception. This century brings us down to the year 1870 a time fresh in the memory of many who still consider themselves young. Of course, these results as embodied in the status of society at this latter period are not difficult of comprehension in a general way. They were in the main the same as those we now see around us. But the vastness of the distance which society had moved in that century, and the magnitude and wonder of the achievement, can only be comprehended after a close study of the details involved if, indeed, the human mind be at all adequate for such a task. The railroad, steamboat and telegraph; the processes of lithography and photography; the rotary printing press, the Jacquard loom, the Four- drinier paper machine; the cotton gin, the sewing machine, the reap- ing machine, these are but the beginning of the story. They are the striking landmarks of the triumphal progress, known to all the people, and each one of vast importance. But hardly less important in the aggregate than those (and similar other) works of genius, and even more characteristic of the period, is the multitude of minor inventions which were during this century applied to and which pow- erfully affected every branch of industry. The whole vast aggre- gate of the forces of production was multiplied many times in effec- 228 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III never n^n suggested before the joint ownership and joint use of the great machines, the joint use of the ma- chinery in the processes of production, and the neces- sity for a wide market in order to dispose of the goods would have made the suggestion and enforced the necessity for such an arrangement. 288. Co-operation Necessary. Collectivism was a necessity in the primitive struggle for existence, main- ly for reasons of defense. Machine production is a necessity, not so much for defensive reasons as because of its greater productive possibilities. But just as the necessities of defense made primitive man a co-oper- ator, so the advantages of a greater production compel co-operation under the machine. * 289. Drudgery Unnecessary. Under the use of rude tools, each worker could own his own tools and largely use his own products. Association in owner- ship, in production, or in disposing of the product, was not so necessary as under the use of modern machinery. Personal interest in the struggle for supremacy under capitalism has carried the equipment of labor to a point tiveness by the children of man's mind, and the machinery which did their bidding at almost every point immeasurably outstripped in speed and deftness the unaided human hand. "We are all tolerably familiar with the state of things in 1870. Let us painfully try to realize what it was a century before. Strike out, in imagination, the railroad, steamboat, telegraph, and all our modern wonder-workers; bring back the hand-loom and the spinning- wheel; think of the slow canal-boats, and the heavily laden wagons toil- ing through the muddy roads, as the sole dependence for internal com- merce. It is a far cry from that ancient day to this recent one. What shall we say is the difference in productive power between the two systems? How much more could a million men working in the modern way produce than a million workers of the olden times? "It is a subject too vast for even an approximate estimate. No man knows, or can know, with any approach to accuracy. We have seen several estimates on this point from trained economists. The smallest comparative value assigned by any one of them to the power of the modern way was five-fold that of the ancient. Inade- quate, indeed, this seems to us; the general estimate also is con- siderably higher nearer twenty-fold." Ferris: Pauperizing the Rich, PB- 125-127. ' CHAP. XVIII MACHINE PRODUCTION 229 where it lias attained the greatest efficiency. Just as the machine was necessary to bear the larger share of the drudgery of toil, if human beings were to be de- livered from the drudgery of toil, so the greatest per- fection of machinery means that the greatest possible deliverance of the toiler from the long hours and hard tasks of productive industry is also possible. This service capitalism has rendered, for under capitalism the equipment of industry not only makes necessary social use, but under capitalism the machinery itself has been brought to great perfection. 290. Machinery and the World-Market. The ma- chinery has made necessary the foreign market for sur- plus products, and the search for foreign markets and for cheap raw materials has sounded every sea and has drawn the industrial maps of all the countries of the earth. In this, capitalism has obtained the knowledge of the earth's resources and connected, for the most ef- fective use in this process of production, each separate portion of the earth. The one world-market is being rapidly followed by the one world-organization of in- dustry, by which every natural resource and every ad- vantage of soil and climate will be used to the very best advantage in providing the necessities and com- forts of life. All this helps to make unnecessary the brutalizing drudgery of modern industry. 291. Concentration of Private Ownership. If it had been possible that all these achievements could have been brought about without the concentration of capital in few hands, it would have left great multi- tudes of people personally interested in the perpetua- tion of capitalism because of the great numbers of those holding private ownership in the means of pro- duction who would then have remained owners under the present order of things, 230 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III 292. Easy Transition to Collective Ownership. Some years ago the problem of the transition from cap- italism to Socialism was regarded as a most difficult one, because of the great number of private owners who would be opposed, on account of private interests, to the establishment of the co-operative commonwealth. But capitalism has not only been perfecting and ex- tending the equipment of industry and the knowledge of the wide world's resources; it has also been effecting the concentration which leaves an ever-lessening num- ber of people personally interested in the perpetuation of capitalism, while it increases, by the same ratio, the number of those personally interested, because of per- sonal benefits, in the establishment of Socialism. 293. A Hired Management. Again this concentra- tion in the ownership of the means of production is perfecting the completest possible organization of the great industries. The capitalist owner can now hire, not only the labor to do the lifting and carrying, but the superintendence of production and the marketing of the products have also become the functions of the " hired man." Under complete capitalism, the capi- talist renders no service whatever. Even his service in management at last becomes a hired service. 2 He 2. "In the factory system the evolution towards parasitism goes its way in open daylight, and under a variety of forms. In propor- tion as the extension of the market calls for an increase in the scale of production, the more marked becomes the separation of the wage- earners, who are engaged in the actual work of production, from the capitalist master, who retains to himself the task of direction alone. Then comes the moment when those captains of industry delegate their functions to lieutenants, reducing their personal interference in the business to a minimum. One step further and we have the parasitic condition fully achieved; on the one side, work and no property; on the other side, property and no work. Then the workers do not even know who the capitalists are by whom they are exploited, and the exploiters have perhaps never even seen the industrial black-hole or factory of which they are the shareholders." Massart and Vander- velde: Parasitism Organic and Social, pp. 61-62. "The origin, development and final decay of the capitalist has a resemblance to the story of the feudal lord. The latter was originally CHAP. XVIII. MACHINE PRODUCTION 231 simply appropriates the lion's share of the products in consideration of having given his consent that the workers may use the earth and the machines in their necessary work of producing the means of life. 294. Labor Organizes According to Industries, Not Tools. But this is not all. The organizations of labor which formerly were effected along the lines of the trades are taking shape now along the lines of the in- dustries. Formerly all organized workingmen who used the same tools belonged to the same labor organ- izations without regard to the nature of the industry in which they were employed. The present movement is in the direction of effecting an organization of all workingmen engaged in any industry, regardless of the tools used by the individual workers so employed. By this is meant that all the men in any way connected with transportation are coming rapidly into a single organization; all those engaged in any way in the building trades, into a single organization; all those engaged in any way in the distribution of goods through the great department stores, into another great single organization. All this is brought about by the necessity of all those who work for the same employers belonging to the same organization, in order most ef- fectively to deal with their own common employer or association of employers with interests in common. elected by his fellow tribesmen to lead them in battle, and on return- ing to camp or village sank back into equality with the rest. In the course of time the office of leader like that of shoemaker, armorer and priest, became hereditary; finally, the functions of the baron, once real and necessary ones, disappeared. The name "duke" is de- rived from a verb meaning "to lead," but the modern duke leads nothing more important than a cotillion, while his secretary prepares his grace's speech for the House of Lords and the hired steward is collecting his grace's rents from the people whose ancestors his grace's ancestors plundered. So with the modern capitalist, whose function has dis- appeared and who now may spend his time in playing at yacht races, or with automobiles, while his hired manager and the professional "promoter" take care of the functions that used to occupy the time of his predecessor, the original captain of industry." F. P. (XHare. 232 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III 295. Beginning of Future Forms of Organization. But this new form of the organization of labor which the necessity of the situation is bringing into existence is rapidly bringing into existence the very identical industrial organizations which will be most likely to operate the great industries under Socialism. But under capitalism they do the work with no legal stand- ing in the right of management or in the power to ap- propriate the products of their own labor. These or- ganizations cannot long continue to deal with every separate branch of their own industries without mak- ing the discovery that they can conduct these indus- tries without the useless existence and needless exploit- ation of the private owners of the means of production. It is impossible for the industrial organizations of labor to long continue to do all the necessary work of production in any great industry without making the discovery that they may as well use their power as citizens to equip themselves as workers. 296. Industrial Developments in the Government. Responding to this regular and orderly development of industry and commerce, the general government is rapidly specializing its functions more and more in the direction of industrial and commercial organization. The Department of Agriculture, the Department of In- dustry and Commerce and its Land Department, are all of the nature of purely administrative activities of the economic interests of all the people. Departments of transportation, of mines and mining, of textile manu- facturing, of stock-growing and dairying, of forestry, of fisheries, and of foreign trade, all find the germs of their speedy development among the subdivisions of the government departments already in existence. 297. Labor Organizations and the Departments. the government, responding to the normal and CHAP. XVIII MACHINE PRODUCTION 233 inevitable development of the public interest in trans- portation, shall have organized a department devoted to transportation, and the workingmen employed in transportation are once completely organized into one great industrial union, it will be found impossible to divert the political activities of such a union from an effort to control that branch of the government directly connected with its own industry. But the same indus- trial developments, out from the forms of labor organ- ization on the one hand, and out from governmental activities on the other hand, and toward each other, are making their appearance, not only in transporta- tion, but in all lines of industrial life. 298. Labor Organizations and Political Power. The culmination of capitalism, as related to any in- dustry, turns that industry, management and all, over to the " hired men." The culmination of the labor or- ganization must finally bring into one organization all the workers employed in any single industry, regard- less of the kind of tools or the nature of the tasks in- volved. The necessary response of the political au- thorities to the economic activities of the people cre- ates government departments, corresponding both to the forms of the organization of the industry and to the forms of the organization of labor. The workers discover that they are doing all the world's work in- dependent of the private owners. Inevitably they are led to use their political power to capture the control of that department of government related to their own industry and then to extend its functions in their own behalf. 299. Transforming the Government. Let this hap- pen in many industries and the workers will not only become the political masters but they will transform the character of the government's activities, from the current military and monopolistic maladministration 234 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III of public affairs for the private benefit of the few, to purely administrative, industrial functions in behalf of all. The same forces which will then rule in the or- ganizations of labor will also rule in the affairs of the state. The very center and soul of the labor organ- izations is collectivism, democracy and equality. With their coming into place and power, the current social revolution will be complete. Government plutocracy will have been ousted and will have been succeeded by industrial democracy which is Socialism. 300. The Evolution of Socialism. Hence it is seen that Socialism also has its origin in the great modern machinery. Every step in the perfection of the great machines and of the industrial and commercial organ- izations of the private owners of the machines and every step in the creation of labor organizations, along the lines of the great industrial groups, which the use of the great machines makes necessary, are steps in the development of Socialism. Nothing but machine production could have brought about such a situation. The growth of the hand sickle and the flail into the great harvester; the growth of the carrying trail of savagery into the great systems of modern transportation ; the growth of the devices for making cloth from the finger-twisted threads of the earliest workers into the modern factory, are all steps in the development of Socialism. The organization of the partnership, then the cor- poration, then the trust, then the world-trust and final- ly the federation of all the trusts, while they are steps in the development of capitalism, even capitalism is here seen to be the forerunner of Socialism. There- fore, they, too, are steps in the development of Social- ism. Without capitalism the organization of collectivism, democracy and equality, in the struggle for existence, C y HAP. XVIII MACHINE PRODUCTION 235 under the great machine, which makes unnecessary the further drudgery of toil, would have been most difficult, if not impossible. With the great machinery, the coming of Socialism is simply the further adjustment of the forms of society to the improved processes by which the race provides for its own existence. 3 301. Summary. 1. Industrial drudgery is made unnecessary by the great machines. 2. Organized ownership and organized labor are both made inevitable by the great machines. 3. The transition to collective ownership of the means of producing the means of life is made certain and easy by the concentration of industry caused by the great machines. 4. Labor is organizing along the lines of the vari- ous industries and so is developing organizations which will be able to operate the industries without the cap- italists. 5. The government more and more organizes indus- trial departments which in the end will compel the 3. "Since the advent of civilization the outgrowth of property has been so immense, its forms so diversified, its uses so expanding and its management so intelligent in the interests of its owners, that it has become, on the part of the people, an unmanageable power. The human mind stands bewildered in the presence of its own creation. The time will come nevertheless when human intelli- gence will rise to the mastery over property and define the relations of the state to the property it protects as well as the obligations and the limits of the rights of its owners. The interests of society are para- mount to individual interests and the two must be brought into just and harmonious relations. A mere property career is not the final destiny of mankind, if progress is to be the law of the future as it has been of the past. The time which has passed away since civiliza- tion began is but a fragment of the past duration of man's existence; and but a fragment of the ages yet to come. The dissolution of society bids fair to become the termination of a career of which property is the end and aim; because such a career contains the elements of self- destruction. Democracy in government, brotherhood in society, equality in rights and privileges, and universal education, equally foreshadow the next higher plane of society to which experience, intelligence and knowl- edge are steadily tending. It will be a revival, in a higher form, of the liberty, equality and fraternity of the ancient gentes." * * * Morgan: Ancient Society, p. 55?. 236 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III workers to control the government in order to control their own interests as workers as represented in these government departments. 6. The control of the workers in the affairs of the government will enforce collectivism, democracy and equality throughout all political and industrial af- fairs. 7. This whole order of advance not only leads to Socialism, but could not have been brought about ex- cept through the order of capitalistic development, which is, therefore, the forerunner of Socialism. REVIEW QUESTIONS. 1. Quote Aristotle. 2. Need human labor be destructive of human life ? 3. What followed the introduction of the great machines? 4. Why is co-operation necessary under the use of the great machines ? 5. Why does collective ownership become easy and certain under the use of the great machines ? 6. How does the capitalist finally become an entirely useless factor in production? 7. What is the most recent development in the organization of labor unions? 8. How do the great industries become related to the adminis- tration of government? 9. Why will the new form of industrial organizations be more Mkely to seek political power ? 10. Are there any indications of the beginning of the forms of organizations of labor which are likely to operate the great industries in the future? 11. How will the industrial activities of the workers, when they become the supreme political authority of the country, affect the government ? 12. What will mark the completion of the current social reso- lution? CHAPTER XIX UTOPIAS, COLONIES, CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETIES AND SCIEN- TIFIC SOCIALISM 302. Dreams Which Nations Dream. The ideals which have finally grown into the proposals of the Socialists were voiced by prophets, poets and dream- ers long centuries before the industrial and economic conditions were so developed as to make inevitable the coming into actual life and form of these dreams of the dreamers. It is said that the dreams which na- tions dream come true. It is certain that these dreams of the long past were grounded on real and lasting factors in human life. It would be easy to sneer at the ancestry of scientific Socialism, but these dreams and hopes were really dreamed about and hoped for, and even this dreaming and hoping are a part of the facts which scientific students of the subject of Socialism must not ignore. The first efforts to put into working form the pro- posals of the Socialists were in the form of Utopian pictures. The first efforts in modern times to organize living workers into productive bodies for the mutual 237 238 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III benefit of the workers only were made by co-operative colonies. 303. Communism and Socialism. The word Social- ism was first made and used as referring to the plans and purposes of these colonies. Communism is a term older than Socialism. The manifesto of the Socialists of 1848, which first gave any adequate expression to Socialism as a world- wide movement, urging the work- ing men of all countries to unite, was published under the title of the "Communist Manifesto, " and is still known by that name. Notwithstanding this, Social- ism has come to refer to the proposal to provide for the joint ownership and joint administration of pro- ductive property only, and that on at least a national basis, while communism has come to refer to the pro- posal to jointly own and administer both the things of public and of private use, and this usually within small groups and on limited territory. 304. Primeval Survivals. The utopian dreams are so old as to suggest that they may have come to us as survivals of the primeval brotherhoods, seeking to ad- just themselves to the successive environments of the various stages of man's industrial advance. Plato's ' Republic" was among the earliest of these pictures and he says in his introduction that his work was sug- gested by a visit to the ceremonies of a dedication by one of the Grecian Trade Unions, and there can be little doubt that these very ancient organizations of workers were direct survivals from or reversions to the more ancient tribal organizations. Augustine's "Holy City," Bacon's "Atlantis," More's "Utopia," and Bellamy's "Looking Back- ward" were pictures which have been frequently mis- taken for detail drawings and specifications by which actually to build the new civilization. 305. A New Defense for Old Proposals. The one CHAP. XIX UTOPIAS AND SOCIALISM 239 thing which marks the transition from these Utopian efforts to the propaganda of the scientific Socialists is the difference in the basis of the reasoning of the advocates of the older and the newer schools. The principles of collectivism, democracy and equality had all been declared for and defended, for centuries be- fore the formulation and defense of the doctrines of scientific Socialism. In more recent years it had been attempted to introduce these principles into the gov- ernment of industries, but the reasons assigned for do- ing so and the plans proposed were not based on the new philosophy of evolution. 1 The change in the method of defense of these prin- ciples involved in the proposed reorganization of in- dustry was not more marked than in other fields of thought. The coming into scientific discussions of the evolutionary philosophy at once re-stated the grounds of defense for all sorts of positions, in philosophy, in religion, in morals, in politics, and in economics, in con- formity to this new method of procedure. The con- troversies between the old Socialists and the new ones were not more marked and were not so bitter as in religion, in the sciences, and in the general philosophy of history. The whole field of thought has been deeply affected, but the new philosophy which the evolutionist has taught reinforces the proposals of the Socialists, and gives a defense so rational and so conclusive, so di- rectly emphasizing the whole theory of the struggle for existence and the survival of those forms best adapted to the conditions under which the struggle 1. "There was, then, a political economy among the ancients as there is among the moderns; not a systematic and formulated political economy, but one arising from facts, and practiced before being written. Such has been, moreover, the course of all sciences since the origin of society. The first comers conceive and execute; the later ones reason and improve and complete the work of their predecessors." Blanqui: History of Political Economy, p. 26. 240 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III goes on, that few indeed are the advocates of Social- ism who would think of employing any other form of defense. 306. Before the Doctrine of Evolution. Before the teaching of the evolutionary philosophy the proposals of the Socialists had heen presented as the wise plans of some philanthropist, and naturally on lines of en- terprise sufficiently limited to be within the reason- able enterprise of some such benefactor. They were not presented as the necessary result of preceding con- ditions, nor as the necessary outgrowth of industrial development. Again, the industrial revolution central- ized and equipped industry on so large a scale as to suggest the collective ownership and democratic use of the means of production, and therefore helped to transfer the foundations of the argument from phil- anthropic ideals to economic causes. 307. On a Small Scale. The early Socialists tried to establish co-operative organizations which should exemplify the new co-operative commonwealth on a small scale. Their idea was that the new common- wealth would be made up of a number of such unrelated local enterprises. These enterprises were not under- taken as a means by which modern Socialism could be established. They were undertaken before scientific Socialism had been formulated. These experiments are widely confounded with Socialism, and this is largely true, because the word Socialism was first ap- plied to such enterprises before Socialism was itself developed into its present form. Socialism is no longer a dream or a picture, however beautiful, nor a proposal to build with pictures drawn in perspective as detail drawings. 2 2. "The spread of productive co-operation would not be, it is true, in principle a socialistic organization; for associations of this type would still be only competitive business, the latest development of the capitalistic principle. * * * The socialistic state will not be CHAP. XIX UTOPIAS AND SOCIALISM 241 308. Service of the Utopians. It must not be un- derstood that because the Utopian pictures were not building-plans and detail-drawings that therefore they were valueless. They were valueless as building models, but as a means of attacking outgrown indus- trial and commercial institutions and usages, and of arousing the interest and fixing the attention of those who are without interest in such matters, it is difficult to conceive of a better method than to begin with a story which teaches, while it entertains, and is able to teach because it is able to entertain. The harm comes when the poetic and literary work of a dreamer is attacked or defended as if it were written not to arouse and enthuse for battle but to take the place of marching orders. One may enjoy poetry and be deep- ly moved and helped by it without adopting the habit of speaking only in rhyme. 3 ealized till there remains only collective property in the instruments of social production. This must be borne in mind in order to under- stand the luke-warmness of the clearest heads among the socialists to- ward petty co-operative associations of a Schulze, and toward the question of profit-sharing among workmen toward the labor bureaus of the liberal state and toward the equally anarchical system of inde- pendent productive groups (such as are suggested by the anarchist), with their associated capital held together by no bond of union, but meeting on the bare footing of contract. Such enterprises are based on the competition of separate capital; they have a disjointed system of production; they presuppose always an anarchical struggle of private interests (between employers and employed, between earnest and idle workers, between co-operators and non-co-operators, between shrewdly managed social productive societies successful in their speculations and unsuccessful competing associations). The clear-sighted social- ist, as is well known approves these only in so far as they draw closer the connection of the worker with the means of production, and ad- vance the growth of a consciousness of collective interests; for the rest, he shrugs his shoulders at them. "Marx was indifferent or even averse to these 'reforms/ Socialism demands that there shall be collective ownership in the means of production; then, and then only, will it be possible to effect, in due proportion to labor, the assignment of incomes and private property in the means of enjoyment." Schaeme: The Quintessence of Socialism, pp. 21, 62-3. 3. "I propose only to offer a few suggestions regarding your study of Socialist literature. "First. Socialism like any other great and momemtous scheme, is 242 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III 309. Benefits of Co-operation. Again, it must not be understood that co-operative enterprises have ren- dered no service and that because they are not in- stances of concrete Socialism that therefore they are to be condemned. The last census of the United States (1900) shows that the average per capita property for the whole people of the United States was one thousand dollars, but at the same time the average within co-operative organizations was three thousand dollars. In the case of those not in the co-operative organizations it was very unequally divided, most people being without visible property, while within the organizations all members had equal ownership. Again, the standard of living within the organiza- tions has been very much higher than without. There are eighty such organizations in the United States, some of them more than one hundred years old, rep- resenting a population of many thousand people who are the possessors, and who use co-operatively, pro- ductive property worth many millions of dollars. 310. Co-operative Stores. The co-operative stores of Great Britain, France and Belgium have grown to be great institutions. Co-operative production in shops, owned and managed by the workers themselves, is also carried on both in England and America, and with marked success. While none of these are illustra- entitled to be judged by its latest and its best word; not to be de- rided for the crudities and absurdities of its early advocates. "Second. Socialism as a subject under debate by great thinkers, is not to be confounded with the Utopias of a few individuals like Mr. Bellamy's Looking Backward, or Dr. Hertzka's later Freeland. The great Socialists themselves have generally declined to offer any definite detailed scheme for the government control of production and distribution; and in this they have kept within their right. Inasmuch as they only indicate what appear to them general tendencies of society they have a right to say, "We do not know just where, just when, just how all this will issue.' " Walker: Discussions in Economics and Statistics, Vol. II., p. 294-5. See also Schaeffle: Quintessence of Socialism, Chapters I., II. CHAP. XIX UTOPIAS AND SOCIALISM 243 tions of Socialism, yet they all tend to demonstrate the great economy in co-operative production and distribu- tion, and what is of more consequence, the ability of the people to effectively organize and direct great industrial and commercial democracies, and are there- fore of importance in the study of the development of Socialism. 311. Co-operative Communities. It is a frequent saying that co-operative colonies are doomed to failure that they have always failed. This is not true. A much larger percentage of the enterprises undertaken under capitalism with no co-operative features fail than of those which are co-operative. Most capitalistic enterprises fail even after they have been long estab- lished and in operation. Nearly all of the co-operative colonies which have failed have failed in the effort to make a beginning. But there are particular difficulties which stand in the way of the success of these co-operative enterprises which ought to be mentioned in this connection. 312. Chances for Unity. 1. They are usually made up of men who, having been continually victimized by capitalistic employers, have formed the habit of look- ing with suspicion upon those who have special train- ing or experience in the management of business mat- ters. This habit follows them into the co-operative or- ganizations and makes it very difficult, if not impos- sible, for the workers to act continuously and effective- ly as a unit. 313. Waiting for Returns. 2. Again, whoever works for wages for a long time, receiving pay every Saturday night, is likely to find it very difficult to bear a share in enterprises where one must wait a long time for returns. It is not an easy thing for one who has never been obliged to wait more than thirty days for the next pay day to wait for an annual harvest. Such 244 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III enterprises are usually undertaken with scant capital, and it is not only waiting for a harvest, but frequently for many years of privation, before the days of plenty can arrive. It has been everywhere observed that a farmer who goes to the frontier to grow up with the country is much more likely to stay by the country un- til it grows up than one whose previous engagements have never trained him to wait for the harvest. It is these men who have their training as wage-workers .and who cannot wait for the harvest who are likely to have the controlling voice in managing enterprises which, in the nature of the case, can rarely succeed ex- cept after years of waiting. 314. Under Suspicion. 3. It would seem that such a co-operative enterprise would have the sympathy and support of those who are workers in the neighbor- hood where it is undertaken, but this is not the case. The workers in such an organization are sure to be misunderstood by their neighbors, and, most of all, by the people of their own class. It is hard for anyone to make a beginning among strangers. It is found par- ticularly hard by co-operative organizations, inasmuch ES, in spite of themselves, they are sure to fill the neigh- bors with prejudices against themselves long before they can have a chance to prove their integrity and use- fulness as good citizens by their conduct and their industry. 315. Enmity of the Courts. 4. The law permits the organization of co-operative enterprises, and under the common law the rules and regulations established by such an organization have the force of a contract and become a part of the law which the courts are set to enforce; but while the law permits the organization of co-operative enterprises, both in the letter and in the spirit of the law, those who are set to enforce the laws are the 'agents of those who are opposed, on gen- CHAP. XIX UTOPIAS AND SOCIALISM 245 eral principles, to co-operative undertakings and have no regard for the " binding force of contracts" when used by workers who are trying to live in the world and to escape any share of the service which capital- ism exacts from all who toil. It is rare, indeed, that a co-operative association can secure justice, or even a hearing, to say nothing of a just decision, before any court which will be permitted to exist so long as capitalism is permitted to control. The story of any co-operative colony reported to have failed is usually a long and dreary narrative of the attacks of the courts established to protect life and to make secure property in the possession of those to whom it belongs ; but which courts were used instead for the purpose of defaming the character and taking away the property of industrious people, who, because they were not serving the interests which had elected the court, were treated as if they were without rights before the court. 316. Bishop Hill. The Bishop Hill property in Illinois, now worth many millions, was thirty years in control of the courts, while the people who owned it were not permitted to use their own property in their own way. 317. Ruskin Colony. The Euskin Colony in Ten- nessee is another case where a receivership took pos- session of the property of the association under the pretense of defending property rights, and while the court robbed the whole group it refused to permit the workers to settle on any terms with the complainants and to retain and use their own property. 318. Kaweah Colony. The Kaweah Colony in Cali- fornia settled on public lands, built a road costing a quarter of a million of dollars, made good their title before special land commissioners appointed by the government, and then, without a hearing, their land 246 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III was declared a public park by act of Congress and the people driven by United States troops from the wealth their hands had created and the colony advertised as a failure. The advertisement, to be complete, should have outlined the process by which capitalism, at least in this case, was made such a pronounced success. The author of these pages worked for seven years in various efforts of this kind. Twice he saw a court refuse to examine the terms of agreement under which' an association was acting and proceed to dispose of the property of the defendant association without even hearing a statement of the case before the court. 319. Greatest Enterprises Out of Reach. 5. Again, the great tools of modern industry are railways, banks, stores, great manufacturing enterprises, where many thousands of people are employed in single lines of in- dustry under a single management, with limitless cap- ital, perfect equipment and the best possible organiza- tion. These are the great tools with which modern in- dustry is carried on. Small groups of workers cannot possibly own, and could not operate if they did own, these great enterprises. Whatever their plans, they cannot include the operation of these great industries; but without a share in these they must remain depend- ent upon the forces which control these great enter- prises whenever they come into the market to dispose of whatever their labor may produce, or to purchase from the market such articles as they may need and cannot manufacture. 320. An Unequal Battle. 6. Again, the capitalistic enterprises are engaged in a terrific warfare with each other. Nothing is so characteristic of the present time as is this warfare by which great enterprises are clear- ing the field of their small competitors, and, as they face each other, going into bankruptcy or going into the trusts. The methods bv which this warfare be- CHAP. XIX UTOPIAS AND SOCIALISM 247 tween the great corporations is being carried on are familiar. One corporation will get control of the sources upon which another corporation depends for the credit by the use of which it is able to carry on its business. Many a corporation has destroyed a com- petitor, not by underselling him, but by securing a position on the board of directors in the bank where the competitor discounted his paper, in order to refuse the accommodations at the bank on which the com- petitor depended for his existence. The control of patents which the competitor must use, the control of raw materials which the competitor must have, the control of transportation upon which the competitor depends, are all methods well known in the industrial warfare and used every hour in the pro- cess by which the corporations are destroying each other, or in the face of which they avoid destruction by consenting to combination in the form of a trust. Now, a co-operative organization competing in the same market with the trust will not only be unable to secure control of the banks, the patents, the raw ma- terials or the transportation, but because of the very nature of the organization it cannot hope to become effective in the use of such methods in the struggle for maintaining a place for itself in the trust-ruled market. The capitalistic competitor will hold his organization closely in hand, can keep his own counsel, and will be able to wield his full strength without delay, without a division in his own ranks and with the skill of long experience. The co-operative organization competing with the trust is unable to keep its own secrets, to act without delay, will always act with divided counsel and without skill or experience in such a contest. 321. World-Wide Conflict. 7. The capitalistic or- ganization is international. The ordinary co-oper- ative colony would count itself successful if it were able 248 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III to absorb the industry and enterprise of a single town- ship. Townships cannot cope with continents in this industrial warfare. The master of the co-operative township cannot hope to become the master of the capitalistic continent. In such a conflict the continent will control. 322. Co-Operative Organization a Public Function. The fact is that in all these enterprises the principal thing which the co-operative organization is under- taking to do is to perform certain functions which be- long to the whole body of society. The earth belongs to all mankind. No man can justly hold a claim against it outlasting his own lifetime. No human being was ever given his life on earth without at the same time being given his right to the use of the earth and all its productive powers in order to maintain his life while here; but the great body whose duty it is to see that dead hands let go and that the feeble hands of children shall be able to find their place and to hold their own is not a small group, not a fraternity, nor a brotherhood, nor a co-operative society, nor a colony. It is neither the people of a township nor of a continent. That is a function which belongs to the whole race and whatever group of people attempts to perform this function is assuming to do that which the whole body of society alone has the right and the power to do. To be sure, so long as society refuses to do its duty, indi- viduals and groups of individuals will continue to do the best they can. 323. Socialists and Co-Operators. Socialism is not committed to opposition to co-operative associations, shops or stores, or colonies, as compared with unadul- terated capitalism. It should be borne in mind that the capitalist is doomed to destruction by capitalism as well as the co-operator. Whatever is built on that foundation, whether by capitalism, pure and simple, ox HAP. XIX UTOPIAS AND SOCIALISM 249 by co-operators, acting under capitalism and as com- petitors with capitalism, can never deliver us from capitalism nor show on any scale what industry and trade would be without capitalism. Socialists are by instinct co-operators. Just as the Socialist movement came up through its Utopian period of development, the individual is not unlikely to take the same route an'd become a co-operator first and a Socialist after- ward. The co-operator who has grown to be a Socialist may be no less a co-operator while capitalism lasts than before he learned the larger lesson of the co-operative commonwealth. 4 324. All Corporations Perform Public Functions. It should be remembered further that every corpora- tion is attempting to perform a public function as well as are the co-operative societies. This is not only a theory of the Socialists, but it is a fact, recognized in the courts and established in the forms of law. The corporation is a public body created by the public and has the right to exist solely and only because it serves the public. When it serves the public badly, or when the public can find a better way for securing the same service, or when the public can perform the service without the corporation, the corporation, which has no right to exist except for the public welfare, under such circumstances forfeits its right to exist at all. 5 4. "But whatever Socialism may have meant in the past its real significance now is the steady expansion of representative self-govern- ment into the industrial sphere. This industrial democracy it is, and not any ingenious Utopia, with which individualists, if they desire to make any effectual resistance to the substitution of collective for individual will must attempt to deal." Webb: Problems of Modern Industry, p. 252. 5. "Sentimental Socialism has furnished some attempts at Utopian construction, but the modern world of politics has presented and does present still more of them with the ridiculous and chaotic mess of laws and codes which surround every man from his birth to his death, and even before he is born and after he is dead, in an inextricable net- work of codes, laws, decrees and regulations which stifle him like 250 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III 325. A Township Against a Continent. If the co- operative commonwealth is to be inaugurated, it will not be done by capturing a township and using that to capture a continent; it will be done by capturing the political authority of the whole body of society. The corporations which have assumed public functions are able to continue to serve society badly, to use the ma- chinery of industry and commerce to injure rather than to benefit, because they control the political authority of the whole body of society. It is not by their activity in business, but because they supplement their mastery in the market with their mastery at the ballot box. The workers are helpless in the market, but their voice is the supreme authority at the ballot box. Suc- cessful co-operation in the market still leaves the co- operators the easy victims of the capitalists who wield the public authority. Successful co-operation on the part of the workers at the ballot box will make them the masters of the shops and markets and will leave no power able to withstand them while they build the co-operative commonwealth. 326. The Evolution of Socialism. All co-operative efforts help to hasten the coming of Socialism. They have been an important factor in the evolution of So- cialism. So far as they have succeeded they have sug- gested the greater possibilities of the co-operative com- monwealth. So far as they have failed they have em- phasized the class antagonisms which so largely have been the cause of their failures. They have hastened the more general comprehension of scientific Social- ism and have deepened the determination of great the silk- worm in the cocoon." Ferri: Socialism and Modern Science, p. 131. "To this revolutionary idealism we must all cling fast, then, come what will, we can bear the heaviest, attain the highest, and remain worthy of the great historical purpose that awaits us." Kautsky: So- cial Revolution, p. 102. CHAP. XIX UTOPIAS AND SOCIALISM 251 numbers of people to stand fast to the end in the wider encounter. 6 327. Summary. 1. Utopian literature has been a great factor in economic and social discussions, 2. The word Socialism was first applied to the theories advanced in defense of co-operative colonies or communities, and was afterward applied to the doc- trines of Socialism as afterward developed; while the word " Communism " came to apply to efforts to jointly administer living expenses as well as the means of pro- duction. 3. Utopian Socialism was developed before the theory of evolution was taught, and hence makes no use of the scientific defense of its proposals. Scientific Socialism is simply the proposals of collectivism, de- mocracy and equality, defended by the use of the scientific arguments developed by the application of the theory of evolution to the domain of economics. 4. Utopian Socialism, taking no account of the scientific defense of Socialism, does not present the economic struggle as one between economic classes acting under the general doctrine of the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest. Scientific Socialism practically rests its case on the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest as applied to the industrial development. 5. Utopian Socialism aspires after a juster and fairer industrial condition and has frequently attempt- ed to realize such a condition by setting up a model on a small scale to show the world how it would work. 6. "As for the statesmen themselves, nothing further need here be said. The whole of this work has been an attempted demonstration of the illusions into which they have fallen by taking their stand on what can be seen through the keyhole of the present alone, and in consequence mistaking for political ends what, had they given themselves a greater length of line as perspective, they would have seen to be temporary po- litical means merely." Crozier: History of Intellectual Development Vol. III., p. 227. 252 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PAIIT III Scientific Socialism denies that the Socialist state can be established in spots, in advance of the economic development, or until the economic development reaches the stage in which Socialism will be the regu- lar scientific survival in the conflict between the eco- nomic interests which will be best served by Socialism and the economic interests now served by capitalism, and that when that stage is reached Socialism must come or world- wide disaster will be the inevitable re- sult. 7 6. Co-operative societies, colonies and manufactur- ing and commercial enterprises, have all established by actual experience, first, the practicability of demo- cratic management; and secondly, the very great advantage of co-operative endeavor on a small scale, as compared with small enterprises carried on under competition. 7. It is very difficult to secure the otherwise possi- ble advantages of co-operative organization under 7. "Revolution simply means that the evolution of society has reached the point where a complete transformation, both external and internal, has become immediately inevitable. No man and no body of men can make such a revolution before the time is ripe for it; though, as men become conscious instead of unconscious agents in the develop- ment of the society in which they live and of which they form a part they may themselves help to bring about this revolution. A successful revolution, whether effected in the one way or the other, merely gives legal expression and sanction to the new forms which, for the most part unobserved or disregarded, have developed in the womb of the old society. Force may be used at the end of the period as during the in- cubative and full growth. It is true, as Marx said, that force is the mid- wife of progress delivering the old society pregnant with the new; but on the other hand, force is also the abortionist of reaction, doing its utmost to strangle the new society in the womb of the old. Force it- self, on either side, is merely a detail in that inevitable growth which none can very rapidly advance or seriously hinder." Hyndman: Eco- nomics of Socialism, p. 4. "One nation can and should learn from others. And even when a society has got upon the right track for the discovery of the natural laws of its movement and it is the ultimate aim of this work to lay bare the economic law of motion of modern society it can neither clear by bold leaps, nor remove by legal enactments, the obstacles offered by the successive phases of its normal development. But it can shorten and lessen the birth pangs." Marx: Capital, preface to first edi- tion, p. 19. CHAP. XIX UTOPIAS AND SOCIALISM 253 capitalism, because of the inexperience in management on the part of the workers, the prejudice of the public, the long waiting for returns and the determined oppo- sition of capitalistic society, which controls and uses the courts of law to interfere with and to destroy such undertakings. 8. Co-operative enterprises cannot get control of the great shops, factories, mines, railways, banks and storehouses; but these are the principal means of mod- ern production and exchange, and are in possession and control of capitalism. 9. Captitalism uses all these forces to destroy co- operative enterprises. 10. The workers are the masters at the ballot box. If they will stand together there, they can use the power of the state to take possession and control of all the great enterprises, and the others will follow. It is easier to capture a continent by Socialism than a township by co-operative undertakings committed to the spread of Socialism. The continent will include the township. The township, if won, would be but a temporary victory. The continent would in the end control. REVIEW QUESTIONS. 1. In what way is the origin of the word Socialism related to the co-operative communities ? 2. Define communism and Socialism as related to each other. 3. In what way is the Utopian literature related to the beginning of the agitation for Socialism? 4. Are these writings valuable in propaganda work, and if so, why ? 5. What services have co-operative enterprises rendered regardless of their relations to Socialism? 6. Are such enterprises more likely to be failures than those with- out co-operative features? 7. Name some particular difficulties in the way of co-operative enterprises. 8. Can co-operative enterprises take advantage of the greatest tools of modern industry? 9. State relations of modern corporations to each other and give 254 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III reasons why co-operative organizations are at a disadvantage in the midst of these competitive encounters. 10. Why is the work of a co-operative society or colony an assump- tion of public functions? 11. Is the same true of private corporations? 12. How have co-operative undertakings helped in the evolution of Socialism? CHAPTER XX THE GROWTH OF THE SENSE OF SOLIDARITY OF THE RACE 328. Tribal Solidarity. During the primitive life of the race there was no sense of the common race life, neither was there any sufficient appreciation of the individual. The life of primitive man was limited by ignorance and ruled by fear. The slight organization which was possible was little above the animal plane. There was no realization of anything like a world-life or a race-life. The stranger, whether man or beast, was regarded but a brute. The man outside the tribe was not understood to have any claim to existence, or to sustain any relations whatever to those belonging to the tribe or clan. The members of the tribe were con- scious of the tribal life. In fact, the tribal life was the real life of primitive man. 329. Absence of the Individual. While his life did not go beyond the tribe as recognizing any human re- ilations between himself and any others not belonging 'to his own group, it never stopped short of the tribe to consider sufficiently the individual as of any con- sequence for his own sake. 330. A Completer Individuality. The development of the individual was made possible only by the ad- 255 256 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III vance of society, and society has advanced only as its activities have tended to the further development of the individual. There is no such thing as a real social advance which does not manifest itself in a completer individuality. And there can be no such thing as a great individuality which does not at the same time manifest itself in efforts tending toward the social growth. 1 Every advance in the life of the individual is re- flected in a corresponding advance in the life of so- ciety; and every real improvement in the life of so- ciety is reflected in a corresponding improvement in the selfhood of the individual. When selfishness is attacked it is that element in selfishness which is also meanness. When selfishness is defended it is not the meanness which any one would attempt to defend. It is the selfhood without which there can never be either a great manhood or a great society. 331. Primitive Ignorance of Earth and Man. The primitive man was ignorant of all the world which he could not cover by his own travels. He was ignorant of all social institutions which did not belong to his own group. Beyond the reach of his own vision his fears had peopled the plains, forests and seas with monstrosities which really only existed as the creations of his frightened imagination. In the midst of the beasts of prey and of human strangers deadlier than the beasts themselves, he could not exist except in groups. There was no race-life possible. The achieve- ment of any sense of a solidarity of interest, or sympathy, or of life as wide as the race, could only be 1. "Not only is it impossible to achieve personal moral growth aside from the community ; this personal strength being gained, gives at once the conditions of successfully combined action. The objections to organic effort in society fall to the ground just in the degree in which men attain private virtue. Nothing can withhold men from the col- lective use of their collective powers, any more than from the private use of their private powers." Bascom : Sociology, p. 252. CHAP. XX THE SENSE OF SOLIDARITY 2ti effected by the creation of conditions and by the oper- ation of forces which could awaken in him a conscious- ness, not only of his relations to the wider life of the race, but at the same time awaken and reveal to himself the possibilities of his own personality. 332. World Conquest and Race Solidarity. The earliest movement towards the world-life was the wars between the tribes, which finally resulted in world- wide conquest. Man was first able to realize something like a vital connection between the individual within the tribe and the whole race without and beyond the tribe, as the result of this world-wide conquest, which com- pelled him, as a single personality, to surrender to the single central authority established as the result of the militarism of the ancient world. 333. The Great Religions. The great religions fol- lowed closely upon the heels of conquest. It is im- possible to understand what is in man, or to follow the story of social development, and ignore the part which the great religions of the world have had in the great movements of the race. Whatever abuses may have attached to ecclesiastical organizations, every effort undertaken by any group of men to convert other groups of men to the religion of their own group has been an effort which has tended to create a sense of the unity of the race. The great world religions, moving and guiding the thought of whole continents and races, and for genera- tions together, in the effort to bring others under their sway, have had no small share in teaching the lesson of the oneness of the race. The Christian religion is particularly and has always been a religion of mission- aries. Where the missionaries have gone, trade has followed; or where trade has gone and the missionary followed, with the direct result of making trade more profitable, there a new force has at once been set to 258 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III work in revealing to man the fact of a common human life. 334. Into All Nations to Trade With Them. The earliest advance toward a sense of a wider life came to the tribe when it crossed a river or a mountain range to fight with the neighboring tribes. But going into all nations in order to trade with them has broken down prejudices and race hatreds, and has revealed to all men a common interest and common life, and has enforced that common interest and that common life to a degree never before possible. The same wants, the same means of support, the same appetites and pas- sions, the same ambitions, the same hopes and fears, the same aspirations, the same hopelessness in the face of blight, or plague, or storm, the same cruelty in strife and the same tenderness of parental regard all are revealed by trade, by the interchange of goods, as the common lot of all men and in all lands. The silks, the spices, the cotton and woolen goods, the rubber, the tea, the coffee, the items which make up our own simple daily fare have they not come from all races and from everywhere? They come with the touch of the life upon them which made them ready for our use, and, as we use them, we mingle with and become conscious of this common life of all. 2 335. Modern Industry. Modern industry has brought great armies of men into single organizations 2. "Thus the citizen in a modern municipality no longer produces his own food or makes his own clothes; no longer protects his own life or property ; no longer fetches his own water ; no longer removes his own refuse or even disinfects his own dwelling. He no longer educates his own children or doctors and nurses his own invalids." Webb : Industrial Democracy, Vol. II., p. 846. "For I repeat, the excellence of the social state does not lie in the fullness with which wealth is produced and accumulated, but in the fact that it is so distributed as to give the largest comfort and the widest hope to the general mass of those whose continued efforts constitute the present industry of the nation and the abiding prospect of its future well being." Rogers: Work and Wages, p. 573. CHAP. XX THE SENSE OF SOLIDARITY 259 under single management. They work together at the same tasks, are answerable to the same authority; de- pend for their opportunity to live upon the same conditions; have learned the necessity of organization in order to withstand aggressions on the part of their employers, and so have learned a sense of common interest and common life. All the workers of the world are coming into this common relation to each other and are learning that there is no deliverance for any of them from capitalism anywhere, except all workers shall act together in the deliverance of all. In the beginning they were conscious of tribal relations. Aft- erwards they became conscious of national relations. The instinct of nationality has made workers of dif- ferent countries enemies to each other. They have seen no reason why the workers of one land should not consent to the oppression and starvation of the workers of other lands, provided that in so doing markets for themselves were made secure and employment regular and profitable. But international trade and the world-wide organ- ization of industry is making the workers race con- scious as well as class conscious, and will rapidly es- tablish this race consciousness as the strongest factor in the political activity of the workers everywhere. 3 3. "If we announce that we will remove the present class state, then in order to meet the objections of our opponents we must also say that the social democracy, while it contends against the class state through the removal of the present form of production, will destroy the class struggle itself. Let the means of production become the possession > of the community ; then the proletariat is no longer a class as little as the bourgeoisie; then classes will cease; there will remain only society, a society of equals true human society, mankind and humanity. "For that reason it has been stated in the plainest manner that we should not substitute one class rule for another. Only malice and thoughtlessness could incidentally put such a wrong construction on our meaning, for in order to rule, in order to be able to exercise rule, I must have possession in the means of production. My private property in the means of production is the preliminary condition for riile, and socialism removes personal private property in the means of production. Rule and exploitation in every form must be done away with, man be- 260 THE EVOLUTION 0# SOCIALISM PART III 336. Vital Race Relationships. Again, modern science lias discovered and emphasized the oneness of all life. Not only are all living beings in some way interdependent, but all life which is has been derived from life that was. While science points us backward to the humblest origin, it has demonstrated that all men everywhere, when subject to the same conditions, developed the same institutions. For it is now known that like causes produce like results in human life, the same as in all 'other fields where the operation of nat- ural law has been observed and studied. All human life is the same life, because, subject to the same condi- tions, it produces the same results. And hence, what religion has made a deep and controlling sentiment, what war has made a necessity, what trade has made inevitable, modern science has made known as a vital, living relationship. However long the world was waiting for the first drop of human blood, when it came it was alive. It was endowed with certain marvelous powers. It was able to repeat, through succeeding generations, the same forms of life, and to carry on, as characteristic of each new life, the qualities of each individual life through whose heart it had passed on its way. 337. The Warm Blood-Current of the Race-Life. The warm, red blood which lives in the hearts of all men bears with itself qualities which it has never lost, powers which it has continuously possessed during un- told centuries since it was first given its life during all of which time it has never once been cold, or chilled, or dead. From the loins of each generation it has leaped to the next, hot, and bearing with itself the life of all preceding centuries. Each generation is not a come free and equal, not master and servant, but comrades, brothers and sisters!" Liebknecht: Socialism: What It Is and What It Seeks to Accomplish, p. 46. CHAP. XX THE SENSE OF SOLIDARITY 261 new life just visiting the world for the first time. It is the same old life, re-embodying and once more mani- festing itself in new and higher forms, unless exhausted by the excesses or made degenerate by the follies of its parentage. The waters of a mountain stream so mingle with each other that, no matter what torrents, or cur- rents, or eddies, or twists, or turns may be taken in its progress, the waters mingle with each other; and, sweet or bitter, clear or turbid, whatever is characteristic of any share of the current, speedily becomes a quality of the whole current itself. But no mountain stream has so mingled its waters as the sources of all life have mingled with each other in the movements of the centuries. The life we have was derived from the past. The life we live will be given to the future. All that the past has given us, all that we are, will deter- mine the life of tomorrow. In any effort to separate great families or tribes, no matter for how many centuries they may seem to suc- ceed, they are overwhelmed at last and swept on into the midst of the movement of the ages, either as a new force which has brightened and ennobled the life of all, or perchance as a group of degenerates whose separation has involved their own ruin, and whose re- turn can only injure the life of all so long as its weak vitality may last. This life current, capitalism poisons, corrupts, taints with crime, robs of its vitality and smothers out of it every rising purpose of a higher life. Only Socialism can win for it protection from harm and freedom to move unhampered in its long ascent. 338. United Testimony of the Sciences. Thus the study of biology leads to the knowledge of the oneness of all life to race-consciousness, to the sense of soli- darity. The same result follows the study of all the other sciences which deal with the facts of life or with the development of human institutions. Anthropology, 262 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III or the study of the human race; ethnology, or the study of the separate races of men, and philology, or the study of the written and spoken languages of the race, all reveal the kinship of the races, which more and more bind them to each other and into a single world- wide race-life, while the study of sociology, or the laws of social growth, are more and more making plain the necessary interdependence of all men in a way which reinforces every personal interest by revealing its identity with the widest interests of all. Eeciprocity is a new word in politics, but it ex- presses an old fact in real life, and the wide study of these sciences and the rapid growth of the great body of facts which students in these fields are gathering is reinforcing the sense of race solidarity among students and teachers everywhere. 339. The Poets and Prophets. The poets and prophets of all ages have seen and have sung the unity of the race. In fact, it was the realization of this unity which made the poets and the prophets. They have spoken of the life of all, which is to be the life of all tomorrow, and which their wider vision realized for themselves as if it was the life of all already. Those with a narrower vision could not see, and therefore could not understand; and the prophets were stoned because they bluntly spoke of pictures which others could not see. The poets escaped stoning because, though they spoke of that same coming common life, their music so blended its chords and quickened its vibrations in the lives of all that all responded to the all-life which had made the poets. 340. Industry and Politics Must Develop With Race Solidarity. Now, human life can realize the unity of the race and so make possible the perfection of the in- dividual only by continuing the development which CHAP. XX THE SENSE OF SOLIDARITY 263 will give to common possession the matters of com- mon concern and protect from the interference of any those things which belong to the individual alone. But the trouble with the old society, the trouble with the whole line of ecclesiastical, political and industrial institutions, is that they have insisted, and still insist, on organizing and controlling the things which are of individual concern, and refuse to organize and to give to joint control those things which are the concern of all. But this is what the Socialists propose to do. 341. The Highest Incentive to Action. The old individual asked, "If a man die, shall he live again!" The new individual may not ignore the old question; but his chief concern will be with this question: If a man live, what shall be the life which by his exist- ence must become and remain a share of the world life forever? 4 This sense of solidarity, this realization of 4. "The social purpose is a humanized world composed of men and women and children, sound and accomplished and beautiful in body; intelligent and sympathetic in mind; reverent in spirit; living in an environment rich in the largest elements of use and beauty; and oc- cupying themselves with the persistent study and pursuit of perfection. In a word, the social purpose is human wealth. There is but one inter- est in life, and that is the human interest. All that makes for human wealth; for the sound, strong, beautiful, accomplished organism; for an enlarged and rationalized conception of nature ; for the unfolding and perfecting of the human spirit all this is light; and all that makes against human wealth, however, sanctioned by law and custom, plati- tudes and prejudice, all this is darkness. Education is simply the prac- tical process by which we realize this social purpose and acquire human wealth. The social purpose is frankly avaricious of the ntmost possible amount of good fortune; and this divine greed can only be satisfied when as a society, we deliberately and consciously resolve to make the very best out of every individual, to make him highly endowed, to make him superior even to the full measure of his capacity. A nation which fails to do this fails to realize the social purpose, and must still be accounted barbarous. It has not yet come into conscious harmony with the great esthetic world-process. Looking over the earth today one sees a goodly and an increasing company of delightful, cultivated, social, human people; but one does not see a single nation that is other than barbarous. Even America, the greatest of them all, is not yet social, has not yet thrown herself unreservedly into the pursuit of human wealth. We make a fetish of the public school with its cheap information and shop-keeping accomplishments, but we have not yet conceived of human life as a moral and esthetic revelation of the universe nor of education as a practical 264 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PAET III the common life of man, this entering into companion- ship with all the past and into paternal relations with all the future, this unity and identity of interest be- tween the individual and the race to which he belongs, furnish a basis for the highest character an incen- tive for the greatest achievements. 5 It sounds the call for the only real heroism of modern times. 6 342. Capitalism Outgrown. But this sense of solidarity, this sense of brotherhood, this oneness of the race life, in which each individual is carrying within himself all the achievements of the past and all the promise of the future, can never express itself in process of entering into this tremendous possession. Even the bounty of nature, the indisputable heritage of the collective nation, her fields and forests, oil wells and coal mines, mineral deposits and stone quarries, water power and roadways, all this is handed over to the crude minis- tration of profit, and the majority of America's children are reduced to the position of wage-takers and servants, with little time or strength or heart for the carrying out of the true social purpose, the pursuit of the higher human wealth. The bulk of our laws have to do with merchan- dise and real estate. The few that concern themselves with man are mainly prohibitive, the things that he may not do. The realization of the social purpose demands a more positive ideal than this." Hender- son: Education and Life, pp. 48***50. 5. "Every being who is not monocellular is sure to have something good in him, because he is a society in embryo, and a society does not subsist without a certain equilibrium, a mutual balance of activities. Further, the monocellular being itself would become plural if more com- pletely analyzed; nothing in the universe is simple; now, every one who is complex has always more or less solidarity with other beings. Man, being the most complex being we know of, has also m'ore solidarity with respect to others. Moreover, he is the being with most conscious- ness of that solidarity. Now, he is the best who has most consciousness of his solidarity with other beings and the universe." Guyau: Educa- tion and Heredity, p. 33. 6. "The most unfortunate fact in the history of human develop- ment is the fact that the rational faculty so far outstripped the moral sentiments. This is really because moral sentiments require such a high degree of reasoning power. The intuitive reason which is purely egoistic, is almost the earliest manifestation of the directive agent and requires only a low degree of the faculty of reasoning. But sym- pathy requires a power of putting one's self in the place of another, of representing to self the pains of others. When this power is ac- quired it causes a reflex of the represented pain to self, and this re- flected pain felt by the person representing it becomes more and more acute and unendurable as the representation becomes more vivid and as the general organization becomes more delicate and refined. This high degree was far from being attained by man at the early stage CHAP. XX THE SEXSE OF SOLIDARITY 265 economic and industrial relations while capitalism lasts, because capitalism arrays one against another, and attempts to maintain as matters of individual con- cern those things upon which all must depend for their existence. 7 The monopoly, tyranny and inequality of capitalism are directly at war with this growing sense of solidarity of the race. 8 343. Socialism and Solidarity. On the other hand, this sense of race solidarity could not become the force it is in the life of man without directly suggesting the collectivism, democracy and equality which alone can with which we are now dealing. Vast ages must elapse before it is reached even in its simplest form. And yet the men of that time knew their own wants and possessed much intelligence of ways of satisfy- ing them. We need not go back to savage times to find this difference between egoistic and altruistic reason. We see it constantly in mem- bers of civilized society who are capable of murdering innocent per- sons for a few dollars with which they expect to gratify a passion or satisfy some personal want. It is true in this sense that a criminal is a survival from savagery. Civilization may indeed be measured by the capacity of men for suffering representative pain and their efforts to relieve it." W T ard: Pure Sociology, p. 346. "The industrial reformation for which western Europe groans and travails, and the advent of which is indicated by so many symptoms though it will come only as the fruit of faithful and sustained ef- fort), will be no isolated fact, but will form part of an applied art of life, modifying our whole environment, affecting our whole culture, and regulating our whole conduct in a word, directing all our re- sources to the one great end of the conservation and development of Humanity." Ingram: History of Political Economy, p. 246. 7. "As militancy first compelled national unity, so the warring factions of industrialism are being forced into protective alliances. This is the purport of the latest phase of social evolution. If under modern conditions fifty men can feed a thousand and another fifty can clothe them, the struggle for existence has ceased; there should now be enough peaceful leisure for all to develop the best that is in them." Flint and Hill: The Trust Its Book, Introduction, p. 35. 8. "Development in society involves the possibility of indefinite development in man. It assumes that man has not exhausted his physical or his intellectual or his spiritual powers. The spiritual terms carry with them the physical ones; the body can and must keep pace with the mind. There is at no point any indication of any in- abilty to go farther. The spirtual affections, the wise and just senti- ments which unite us to our fellow men, are plainly incipient. We are only finding the field which lies before them, not reaching its limits. "Social evolution also postulates the possibility of indefinite progress in society. It assumes that there is a bottom (and ultimate- ly) no clash of interests; that existing difficulties are the result 266 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PABT III satisfy, in industry and commerce, this sense of race solidarity. 9 This sense of solidarity must make mat- ters of common dependence subject to the common con- trol. It must deliver the individual to himself. It must deliver him from economic pressure by making those things which concern the existence of all subject to the control of all. Then no individual will any longer be dependent on any other individual for the means of life, or for the opportunity to create the means of life. But that is Socialism. Hence, the development of the sense of solidarity of the race has been an important factor in the development of Socialism. It could not advance and fail to suggest what the Socialists pro- pose. 10 344. Capitalism the Builder of Socialism. Capital- of deficient knowledge, defective feeling, and may pass away. They are simply the chaos that evolution is to rule into creation. There is no real, no permanent, self-sacrifice in progress. The well-being of all means the highest well-being of each. We save ourselves by losing them." Bascom: Social Theory, pp. 528-29. ^ 9. "We shall pass from class paternalism, originally derived from fetish fiction in times of universal ignorance, to human brotherhood in accordance with the nature of things and our growing knowledge of it; from political government to industrial administration; from competition in individualism to individuality in co-operation; from war and despotism, in any form, to peace and liberty." Thomas Car- lyle, Quoted by Davidson, The Annals of Toil, p. 233. 10. "The belief that with the stoppage of war, could it be achieved, national vigor must decay, is based on a complete failure to recognize that the lower form of struggle is stopped for the express purpose and with the necessary result that the higher struggle shall become possible. With the cessation of war, whatever is really vital and valu- able in nationality does not perish; on the contrary, it grows and thrives as it could not do before, when the national spirit out of which it grows was absorbed in baser sorts of struggle. "Internationalism is no more opposed to the true purposes of nation- alism than socialism within the nation, rightly guided, is hostile to individualism. The problem and its solution are the same. We socialize in order that we may individuate; we cease fighting with bullets in order to fight with ideas. "All the essentials of the biological struggle for life are retained, the incentive to individual vigor, the intensity of the struggle, the elimination of the unfit and the survival of the fittest. "The struggle has become more rational in mode and purpose and result, and reason is only a higher form of nature." Hobson; Im- perialism, pp. 199-200. CHAP. THE SENSE OF SOLIDARITY 267 ism has Had its share even in this growth of the sense of solidarity of the race. It has helped to create the great institutions in industry and to carry on great enterprises in commerce, which in turn have helped to enlarge, if not create, the very forces which must over- throw capitalism and establish institutions greater and freer than can be built under capitalism. And these new institutions will give us a selfhood more complete and more absolute, whose greatness will realize not only the individuality of single human beings, but the fullest sense of solidarity of race interests and of race- life. 345. Summary. 1. In the beginning man had no sense of the race life. Neither had he any sufficient appreciation of the individual. 2. The earliest life was the tribal life, which neither recognized the relation of the individual to the race, nor gave any proper scope to the selfhood of the individual within the tribe. 3. The earliest movement towards the world life was the wars between the tribes, which finally led to the establishment of the ancient military despotisms. The great religions closely followed the great con- quests and helped, in a large degree, to teach the les- son of the oneness of the race. 4. World-wide trade has broken over all race lines and national boundaries and brought the indivdual into direct relations with the whole race of man. 5. Great industries have compelled great companies of men to work together and to realize their com- mon dependence and so to come to the discovery of a common life interest. 6. Modern science has shown that like causes pro- duce like results in human affairs the same as in all other fields where the operations of natural law have 268 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III been observed and studied. Students of these affairs are made conscious of the race solidarity. 7. The realization of the race life cannot come un- der capitalism. Every effort to satisfy this race life is a step in the evolution of Socialism. REVIEW QUESTIONS. 1. Give conditions of primitive life which made impossible any sense of the race life. 2. Show relations of individuals to tribal life. 3. By what process were the tribal lines broken down and the individuals within and a larger world force without finally recognized? 4. How have the great religions affected the race life? 5. In what way has trade advanced the sense of oneness of all life ? 6. How has the study of natural law affected the conceptions of the race life? 7. Explain how transmission of life from generation to generation intermingles all life, making all life one. 8. What services have the poets and prophets rendered in this connection ? 9. Why were the prophets stoned, and why did the poets escape? 10. How will Socialism save the individual from interference in personal matters, and at the same time extend and satisfy the sense of solidarity ? 11. How is this sense of solidarity related to character, and why does the continuous surrender to capitalism make impossible the highest character in those who become conscious of this oneness of the race life? 12. What share has Capitalism had in the growth of the sense of solidarity of the race and so in the evolution of Socialism? CHAPTER XXI THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT 343. The Economic Classes. The existence of eco- nomic classes cannot be seriously denied. It is admit- ted that serious efforts have been made to abolish economic classes, but the steps taken have been insuf- ficient and at each new turn in the evolution of society the economic classes have so far remained, and must remain until the economic causes which perpetuate the economic classes are removed. Fraternities, churches, brotherhoods, literature, art, the noblest sentiments, can never do away with the economic classes, so long as economic inequality of opportunity shall continue to produce the master and the servant, the millionaire and the tramp, "the bond- holders and the vagabonds," the shirkers and the workers, those "who live without working, and those who work without living. " 344. Fixing the Class Lines. There are many classes of exploiters. There are many classes of work- ers. But the class lines of importance in economic con- troversies are not the lines between different classes of exploiters or between different classes of workers. The lines are clear enough between those "who plant vine- 269 270 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III yards and do not eat the fruit thereof" and fhose who do no planting, but do the eating nevertheless. The lines are clear enough between those who "build houses and others inhabit," and those who build no houses, but inhabit those which others build. The lines are clear enough between those who produce wealth which they are not permitted to enjoy and those who enjoy the products of others, but neither produce any- thing nor render any service of any sort or of any value to anyone. The line is clear enough between those who get something for nothing and those who get nothing for something. 1 In the chapter on "The Middle Class and Socialism" will be discussed those capitalists who are also work- ers and those workers who are also capitalists; but for the purposes of this chapter we may safely follow the broad lines here indicated. 348. All Wars Class Wars. -All of the conflicts of history have been class conflicts. This does not mean that classes were created in order to carry on the strife. It means that large groups of people having common interests have found that they could not best serve these interests without coming into conflict with other groups, and this conflict of interests has been the occa- sion of the conflict of classes whose interests were op- posed. The philosophy of the class struggle is a direct 1. "If we examine attentively the societies developing at the pres- ent day in the civilized countries in the old and new worlds, they present (we find) one common phenomenon: absolutely and irrevoc- ably all of them fall into two distinct and separate classes; one class accumulates in idleness enormous and ever- increasing revenues, the other, far more numerous, labors life long for miserable wages; one class lives without working, the other works without living without living a life, at least, worthy of the name. When confronted by so marked and so painful a contrast, the question must at once occur to every mind that reflects : Is this sad state of" affairs the result of inher- ent necessity; inseparable from the organic conditions of human nature; or is it merely the outcome of certain historical tendencies that are destined to disappear at a later stage of social evolution?" Loria: Economic Foundations of Society, p. 1. CHAP, XXI THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT 271 denial that the struggle for existence is a struggle of individuals only. It is simply the recognition of collectivism in the struggle for existence. Either the whole scope of the collective struggle for existence must be denied, or the class struggle, the struggle to- gether and for each other, of those whose interests in the struggle for existence are found to be the same, and against all others whose interests are in conflict, must be admitted. One collectivity has struggled against another collectivity because of the question of survival, not of individuals only, but of whole classes of individuals. 349. Conflicts Between the Exploiters. There have been many struggles in the past when the conflict was to determine which of the two contending groups should be permitted to exploit a third group whose interests were a matter of no concern to either of the contending parties. Probably the wars of Cromwell are as clear a case of a hotly contested battle between economic classes for the opportunity to exploit a third and neglected economic class, which, while not repre- sented by either side in the conflict, were the economic* victims of the victors whichever way the tide of battle turned. The world powers contending with each other for the markets of the Orient is a good illustration of this sort of conflict. While the contending parties all belong to the same economic class of exploiters, they have, nevertheless, conflicting economic interests in the struggle to determine which ones of the exploiting countries shall have the best chance at the country which all hold in the same regard as a hawk may be supposed to hold its prey. Eussia and England find it hard to be friends, not because either "has anything against the other, " but because each desires the largest possible share of Chinese resources and markets, and whatever either secures the other cannot have. 272 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM ABT 111 350. Ruling Classes and Prevailing Morals. What- ever country secures control of any particular portion of the Eastern territory, immediately the institutions, laws, usages and morals of that territory will proceed to take the form of the new ruling class. So long as class rule remains the ruling institutions, laws, usages and morals of any given country will be those of the ruling class of that country. This is only another way of saying that in the struggle for existence it is always true that those which survive are the ones which survive/ In the economic class struggle the class which has been the master in the control of the means of life has been the ruling class, and the working class has been able to survive only as the servants of these exploiting masters since the original creation of eco- nomic class lines. 351. The Evolution of the Class Struggle. In the discussion of primitive life, and particularly in follow- ing the order of human progress under primitive insti- tutions, it was discovered that there were no eco- nomic class struggles either in savagery or in barbar- ism. The economic class war made its beginning in the world as the result of barbarian wars of conquest. It began with the beginning of slavery. It changed form in the interest of the master class to serfdom, and finally, in the interest of the same master class, into the wage system. The struggle has been followed from its beginning with the beginning of civilization, through the various forms of servitude, including capitalism, down to the present. Today capitalism is both the economic and political expression of the interests of the masters, while Socialism is equally the economic and political expression of the interests of the toilers. 352. Conflicting Economic Interests. So long as capitalism remains the workers can be workers only CHAP. XXI THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT 273 with the consent of the idlers. They cannot manage their own industries. They cannot fix their own hours of labor. They cannot determine either the terms or the conditions under which they labor. They cannot appropriate to their own use the products of their own toil. If the workers are to be given joint ownership in the means of production, equal voice in the management of the industries and equal opportunity to become workers, then capitalism must necessarily cease. 2 The struggle of capitalism to perpetuate itself is not a struggle to defend old rights or to protect old inter- ests. It is an effort to continue to control the labor of others and to continue to appropriate the products of others. The co-operative commonwealth cannot be estab- lished without the burial of capitalism. The workers cannot increase their share of their products without diminishing the share of the capitalists. 2. "Of all the intellectual difficulties of individualism, the greatest, perhaps, is that which is presented by the constant flux of things. Whatever may be the advantages and the conveniences of the present state of society, we are, at any rate, all of us, now sure of one thing that it can not last. "We have learnt to think of social institutions and economic rela- tions as being as much the subjects of constant change and evolution as any biological organism. The main outlines of social organization, based upon the exact sphere of private ownership in England today, did not 'come down from the Mount.' " "The very last century has seen an almost complete upsetting of every economic and industrial relation in the country, and it is irra- tional to assume that the existing social order, thus new- created, is destined inevitably to endure in its main features unchanged and unchangeable. History did not stop with the last great convulsion of the Industrial Revolution, and Time did not then suddenly cease to be the great Innovator. ***** Thus, it is the constant flux of things which underlies all the 'difficulties' of individualism. What- ever we may think of the existing social order, one thing is certain namely, that it will undergo modification in the future as certainly and as steadily as in the past. Those modifications will be* partly the result of forces not consciously initiated or directed by human will. Partly, however, the modifications will be the results, either intended or unintended, of deliberate attempts to readjust the social environment to suit man's real or fancied needs. It is therefore not a question of whether the existing social order shall be changed, but of how this inevitable change shall be made." Webb: Problems of Modern Indus- try, pp. 229-30. 274 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III As the workers cannot increase the share they are getting, to say nothing of appropriating the total pro- duct of their industries which is justly theirs with- out directly antagonizing the interests of the capital- ists, there is, consequently, no way by which these questions can be fought out "to a finish" along any other line than the line of the mutual antagonisms re- sulting from these necessarily conflicting interests be- tween the workers and the idlers. 353. Class Consciousness. To see clearly that two great economic classes have existed in history, that they still exist to be aware of the conflict of interests between these classes, that is, between the exploiters and the victims of the exploitation to realize one's identity with his own class, is a necessary condition to taking one's most effective part on either side of this class struggle; and this is what is meant by being class conscious. 354. " States of Consciousness. " John Fiske says that "Life in the animal world is a series of states of consciousness. ' ' Any organism is alive just in propor- tion as it is conscious, and in that proportion only will it struggle for existence. It is true that one may be class conscious with but a slight degree of conscious- ness. One may know and realize that there are eco- nomic classes without intensely feeling his own iden- tity of interest with either class. He may have a shadowy sort of consciousness without having a real- ization of the matter and of the necessity of this eco- nomic class war. One may be conscious of some disorder in his own physical constitution. This disorder may be really fatal, but the victim will not rise to the death-struggle unless he is not only conscious of the disorder, but conscious of the very serious danger of his malady. One stupefied with drink has a form of consciousness CHAP. XXI THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT 275 and will make some effort to protect himself, but he cannot be as practical, as careful, as effective, as if wholly in possession of himself, as if in a more perfect state of consciousness. A sleeping child can protect itself but little, if at all. It comes into more effective- ness in the struggle for existence when half awake. Only when wide awake, however, can it use to the utmost its powers of self-preservation. This holds in the life of groups and classes as well as in all other forms of organic existence. The working class, un- conscious of its solidarity, unconscious of its power, unconscious of its relations to the exploiters, may be said to be in the sleeping stage of class consciousness. It is not enough that the worker shall be half awake. He must be altogether awake. He must, altogether realize his relations to his fellows, and how he is re- lated to the strugglers in this struggle of economic classes, and how vitally essential to his own welfare is the triumph of his class. 3 3. "While modern plutocracy is not a form of government in the same sense that the other forms mentioned are, it is, nevertheless, easy to see that its power is as great as any government has ever wielded. The test of governmental power is usually the manner in which it taxes the people, and the strongest indictments ever drawn up against the worst forms of tyranny have been those which recited the oppressive methods of extorting tribute. But tithes are regarded as oppressive, and a fourth part of the yield of any industry would justify a revolt. Yet today there are many commodities for which the people pay two or three times as much as would cover the cost of pro- duction, transportation and exchange at fair wages and fair profits. The monopolies in many lines actually tax the consumer from 25 to 75 per cent of the real value of the goods. Imagine an excise tax that should approach these figures! It was shown in Chapter XXXIII that under the operation of either monopoly or aggressive competition the price of everything is pushed up to the maximum limit that will be paid for the commodity in profitable quantities, and this wholly irrespec- tive of the cost of production. No government in the world has now, or ever has had, the power to enforce such an extortion as this. It is a governing power in the interests of favored individuals, which exceeds that of the most powerful monarch or despot that ever wielded a scepter. * "The individual has reigned long enough. The day has come for society to take its affairs into its own hands and shape its own destinies. The individual has acted as best he could. He has acted in the only way he could. With a consciousness, will, and intellect of 276 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III 355. The Irrepressible Warfare. The age-long class war is nearing a final crisis; and in that final conflict all those who are willing to serve in any way will be found together, and all those who exact ser- vice, or wish to exact service, for which they wish to render no corresponding service in return all these will be found together. And between these two classes the economic and political battle must be fought out "to a finish." There can be no compromise in the nature of the case. Nothing but unconditional sur- render can end the war. If the workers surrender, nothing but the continuance of dependence and poverty can come to them as a result while capitalism lasts, and the collapse of capitalism will come just the same. If capitalism does not surrender, its collapse cannot be avoided by any victory which it can possibly gain over the working people. If capitalism does surrender, as sooner or later it must surrender, the workers will become the masters, but as all men and women must then become useful people, serving others if they ex- pect the service of others, economic class lines must disappear at once and for all time. The economic class lines established in the world by the misfortune of barbarian wars, perpetuated through out the whole period of civilization by the force of the military, which now condemns the workers to condi- tions to which they would never submit, were the tasks his own he could do nothing else than pursue his natural ends. He should not be denounced nor called names. He should not even be blamed. Nay, he should be praised, and even imitated. Society should learn its great lesson from him, should follow the path he has so clearly laid out that leads to success. It should imagine itself an individual, with all the interests of an individual, and becoming fully conscious of these interests it should pursue them with the same indomitable will with which the individual pursues his interests. Not only this, it must be guided, as he is guided, by the social intellect, armed with all the knowledge that all individuals combined, with so great labor, zeal, and talent, have placed in its possession, constituting the social intelli- gence." Ward : Psychic Factors of Civilization, pp. 322 * * * 24, CHAP. XXI THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT fc;r of the toilers once free from the guards of the soldiers this age-long class war will end with the triumph of the working class. 356. The Evolution of Socialism. It was the com- ing of slavery, the result of barbarian wars and the earliest form of capitalism, which brought into exist- ence the economic class struggle. Every step in the development of modern capitalism has intensified the conflict of interests between the beneficiaries of cap- italism and the victims of capitalism. So long as cap- italism lasts this conflict of interests must remain. So long as the interests of these economic classes are opposed to each other, so long these classes must be at war and cannot be at peace. No possible victory of capitalism can end the conflict of interests and so end the class war. Every blow that is struck in this class war is making more evident, and in the end must make it absolutely clear to all men, that only by end- ing capitalism can this age-long warfare of economic classes be ended also. It is becoming equally clear that the only way to make an end of capitalism is to make a beginning of Socialism. And hence, the crea- tion of economic classes by capitalism and the pitiless class war under capitalism becomes a factor of the first importance in the evolution of Socialism. And Socialism is the final working program of the working man's side of this age-long economic class war. 357. Summary. 1. Economic classes do exist. 2. The economic class war is the result of the con- flict of the economic interests of the economic classes. 3. The master class is always the class in control of economic opportunities. 4. The class which is dependent on others for eco- nomic opportunities will be dependent in all other re- lations. 278 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III 5. The class war cannot be ended so long as con- flicting economic interests remain. 6. The working class cannot bring industrial peace by any surrender it can possibly make because con- flicting economic interests will still remain. 7. The master class cannot avoid disaster by any victory it can gain over the working class. Mutual strife among the masters will continue the process of mutual self-destruction. 8. Equal economic opportunity for all men will end the class war by removing the cause of the existence of economic classes. REVIEW QUESTIONS. 1. Describe the economic classes. 2. What is characteristic of all the wars? 3. Give instances of economic wars between members of the master class. 4. Give an account of the evolution of the economic class struggle - 5. Can the class war cease and capitalism continue? 6. What is meant by class consciousness? 7. Can there be degrees of class consciousness? 8. How many sides will be engaged in the final conflict of the economic class war? 9. What will end the economic class struggle? 10. How is Socialism related to this economic class struggle? CHAPTER XXII THE COLLAPSE OF CAPITALISM AND THE TRIUMPH OF SOCIALISM 358. The Inevitable Collapse. It has been seen in Chapter XI how inevitable is the collapse of capital- ism. It is the purpose here to show that the collapse of capitalism is not more inevitable than the triumph of Socialism is certain. Capitalism must finally collapse because, first, when a single group of owners own the earth, it will be im- possible for them to re-invest their profits. Profits in excess of personal expenditures which cannot be re-in- vested but must accumulate, can be of no advantage to their possessors. Second, capitalism must collapse because when all the world becomes one work-shop as well as one market there can then be no outside market for the products which the workers produce but cannot buy, and which their employers own but cannot consume. And finally, capitalism must col- lapse because, when all of the dominant industrial activities of the world are under a single centralized ownership, the management of these industries can no longer employ tlu? workers in producing goods which they cannot sell, nor in earning profits which they cannot re-invest. 279 280 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III 359. If Capitalism Remains. If capitalism must re- main after it has wrought its service and accomplished its work and reached the end of all possible devel- opment under that method of organization and man- agement of the industries, then the distress of the workers must be world- wide and most appalling, while all interest and incentive for the capitalist under cap- italism must utterly fail because the game has been played "to a finish" and further activity or achieve- ment in the line of capitalism is utterly impossible. 360. Need Not Remain. But capitalism does not need to remain. Having conquered the earth, the des- potic military organization of the work-shop, the mar- ket and the government, will be no longer necessary, for the age-long period of conquest will have reached its consummation. There will be no more worlds to conquer. This will be true in war, in politics, in trade, and the co-operative commonwealth must certainly follow. The world-conauest will have prepared the way. 361. Failure of Incentive Under Capitalism. The swords and spears of capitalism, no longer needed in the work of conquest, must then reinforce the pruning hooks and ploughshares of productive industry. But if this be true, then production must be carried on for some other purpose than for profits. Goods must be produced, not in order that they may be sold, in order that more goods may be bought, in order that more goods may be sold, for when this process has bought and sold the earth, the interest in accumulation must cease and with it the game itself. 1 362. Producing for the Products. But goods may be produced, even then, for the use of the producers. 1. "It is indeed certain that industrial society will not perma- nently remain without a systematic organization. The mere conflict of private interests will never produce a well-ordered commonwealth of labor." Ingram: History of Political Economy, p. 244. CHAP. XXII THE TRIUMPH OF SOCIALISM 281 Goods produced not in order that they may be used but in order that they may be sold, are called commod^ ities. Today the whole earth is given over to the pro- duction of commodities. But in primitive production goods were produced not to be sold in the market but to be stored in the tribal storehouse against the day of need. The Pueblo Indians to this day carry a stock of two years' provisions in excess of their needs. And if, for any reason, the stock falls below this limit, immediately all tribesmen are put on rations until the two years' surplus is restored. Here is a motive for industry which does not involve producing for a mar- ket, but simply involves producing for human needs. 363. Filling the Store-house and Leisure for AIL When capitalistic conquest shall have made the world into one work-shop and into one market-place, and cannot any longer produce for the sake of the market, in order to enlarge the market which will then have been enlarged to its utmost limit, we shall not need to abandon the store-houses ; we shall not need to abandon the shops. We can fill them with goods as they have never been filled, only the goods will belong to the producers and will be theirs for their own use. Production will not need to stop because there will no longer be a foreign market for the goods nor invest- ments for profits from the surplus which the workers produce but cannot buy. Goods can be produced for the world's store-house. The race will not need to live within a few months of the line of starvation. The power of the workers to take goods out of the store- house can be made equal to their service in putting goods into the store-house. And when production has been carried beyond both the current need and "the rainy day," the hours of labor may be shortened and leisure placed within the reach of all. The exploiter, unable to privately appropriate the 282 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III products of others and then dispose of the products so appropriated, must become himself a producer for use along with the rest. When private capitalism owns the earth and cannot use it, the people of the earth will be able both to use it and to provide some way by which they may own it in order that they may use it. 2 364. End of Monopoly, Tyranny and Inequality.- Wherever despotism has collapsed, democracy has been re-established. When the despotism of trade shall have collapsed, democracy will reassert itself in the shops and store-houses of the world. When the inequality which has been created by industry whose motive has been conquest, finds the groups of the workers democratically managing the means of pro- duction, it is impossible that any will be excluded. When capitalism, which has been the oppressor and the robber and the master of all, shall give up the keys to the earth's treasures, and surrenders its place of mastery, it is impossible to conceive of the surren- der being made to any share of the workers less than to all alike. The collapse of capitalism means the end of monop- oly in ownership, the end of petty personal tyranny in management and the end of inequality of opportunity, all of which are essential and necessary parts of cap- italism. Collectivism is the only possible alternative from monopoly; democracy the only possible alternative 2. "Marxian Socialists are not prophets. "Our sincere wish is that the social revolution, when its evolution shall be ripe, may be effected peacefully, as so many other revolutions have been without bloodshed like the English Revolution, which pre- ceded by a century, with its Bill of Rights, the French Revolution; like the Italian Revolution in Tuscany in 1859; like the Brazilian Revo- lution, with the exile of the Emperor Dom Pedro, in 1892. "It is certain that Socialism, by spreading education and culture among the people, by organizing the workers into a class-conscious party under its banner, is only increasing the probability of the ful- fillment of our hope." Ferri: Socialism and Modern Science, p. 153. CHAP. XXII THE TRIUMPH OF SOCIALISM 283 from tyranny; equality the only possible remedy for the wrong of inequality. Collectivism, democracy equality, the collective ownership, democratic man- agement and equal opportunity in the use of the col- lectively owned means of producing the means of life, is the next order in the affairs of the race. 365. Conclusion. The evolution, culmination and collapse of capitalism are parts of the processes of the evolution of Socialism. The evolution of Socialism as related to the evolution of capitalism is simply the larger whole comprising the smaller part. The evolu- tion of Socialism is vastly more extended in time, more comprehensive in the number and importance of the interests involved and in its culmination, in the inau- guration of the co-operative commonwealth, it will carry over to this social successor of capitalism all that had been achieved before capitalism, all that has been achieved by capitalism and all that has been achieved by all other social factors and forces exist- ing under capitalism, so far as the things which have been achieved can be of any further social service in the struggle for existence. 3 The race life, escaping from capitalism and entering into Socialism, will not only continue its evolution under new conditions, but will at last escape from the monopoly, tyranny and inequality of capitalism, resulting from the ignorance 3. "As long as the structure and the volume of the center of crys- tallization, the germ, or the embryo, increase gradually, we have a gradual and continuous process of evolution, which must be followed at a definite stage by a process of revolution, more or less prolonged, represented, for example, by the separation of the entire crystal from the mineral mass which surrounds it, or by certain revolutionary phases of vegetable or animal life, as for example, the moment of sexual reproduction. ; * * "These same processes also occur in the human world. By evolution must be understood the transformation that takes place day by day, which is almost unnoticed, but continuous and inevitable; by revolution, the critical and decisive movement, more or less prolonged, of an evolu- tion that has reached its concluding phase ; * "It must be remarked, in the first place, that while revolution and evolution are normal functions of social physiology, rebellion and 284 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM PART III and strife of the childhood of the race, but at last out- grown. And then: Brotherhood. 366. Summary. 1. The economic class struggle is caused by a conflict of economic interests. 2. The economic class struggle is between the bene- ficiaries and the victims of capitalism. 3. Economic classes must necessarily exist under individual violence are symptoms of social pathology." Ferri: Social- ism and Modern Science, pp. 139-40. "This is not mere sentimentality; it is the logical outcome of forces always at work within and around us. Just as there has come a time when, on this continent at least, war has given all of good that it has to give, so is there coming a time when competition which is industrial war will have conferred on the nation all its possible benefits. A perfected system of co-operation is the promise to civilized mankind of existing tendencies." The Trust: Its Book (Flint, Hill, etc.), Intro- duction, pp. 32-35. "No mind in our civilization has, in all probability, as yet imagined the full possibilities of the collective organization under the direction of a highly centralized and informed intelligence acting under the sense of responsibility here described of all the activities of industry and production, moving s!:adily towards the goal of the endowment of all human crpacities in r* l-i'cc, conflict of forces. It is only necessary for the observer who h: ' oT::"" grasped the meaning of the development described in th i precedii, J chapters to stand at almost any point in the life of the English-speaking world of the present day to realize how far society has, in reality, moved beyond that conception of its joint effort which prevailed in the early period of the competitive era the con- ception of the state as an irresponsible and almost brainless Colossus, organized primarily towards the end of securing men in possession of the gains they had obtained in an uncontrolled scramble for gain divorped from all sense of responsibility. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that the peoples who have lived through this phase of the competitive process, and amongst whom such competition as has prevailed has achieved the highest results, will start towards the new era with a great advantage in their favor. For it must be expected that, where the development in progress continues to be efficiently maintained, the new system will succeed the old, not by force or coercion, but by its own merits; and, in conditions in which it will become the increasing function of an informed and centralized system of public opinion to hold continually before the general mind through all the phases of public activity local, social, political, and international the character of the principles governing the epoch of development on which we have entered; and to see that the benefits accruing from the era of competition through which we have lived shall be retained and increased for society by compelling the new social order to make its way simply on its merits in free and fair rivalry with those activities of private effort which it is destined to supersede." Kidd; Principles of Western Civilization, p. 480 and preceding. CHAP. XXII THE TRIUMPH OF SOCIALISM 285 capitalism. Without economic classes there is no cap- italism. 4. So long as capitalism continues the economic class struggle must continue. 5. The collapse of capitalism will end the conflict of economic interests. 6. The coming of Socialism will provide for the continuance of industry without the exploitation of the workers and, hence, with no conflict of economic interests and therefore will make an end of the eco- nomic class struggle, and because of this a beginning of a universal brotherhood, a race no longer divided against itself. REVIEW QUESTIONS. 1. Describe the economic classes. 2. What relation has the fact of the collective struggle for exist- ence to the economic class struggle? 3. Under what conditions have great conflicts taken place between exploiters ? 4. Why are the ruling institutions, usages and morals of any country the institutions, usages and morals of the ruling class ? 5. Trace the evolution of the class struggle. 6. What are some of the points in controversy in the economic class struggle ? 7. What is class-consciousness? 8. Are there degrees of consciousness ? 9. Why is the conflict irrepressible? 10. What will end the class struggle? 11. How is the economic class struggle related to the evolution of Socialism? PART IV SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC QUESTIONS OF CON- TROVERSY BETWEEN CAPITALISTS AND SOCIALISTS CHAPTER XXIII FOR WHAT PURPOSES MAY THE STATE EXIST 367. The Struggle to Survive. Collectivism is in- herent in nature. It is present in all the lower forms of life. It was and is an essential condition of the survival of the human race in its struggles for exist- ence. It is ahsurd to admit that any organism may ex- ist, and yet deny to it the right to do its utmost to pre- serve and to defend its own existence. 1 368. Government a Factor in the Struggle to Sur- vive. If government is understood to he the function of society by which it seeks to defend itself and to pro- vide for its own welfare then to deny that the govern- 1. "They [the anarchists] combat Marxian Socialism because it is law-abiding and parliamentary, and they contend that the most efficacious and the surest mode of social transformation is rebellion. "These assertions, which respond to the vagueness of the sentiments and ideas of too large a portion of the working class and to the im- patience provoked by their wretched condition, may meet with a tem- porary, unintelligent approval; but their effect can only be ephemeral. The explosion of a bomb may indeed give birth to a momentary emotion, but it cannot advance by the hundredth part of an inch the evolution in men's minds towards Socialism, while it causes a reaction in feeling, a reaction in part sincere, but skillfully fomented and exploited as a pretext for repression." Ferri: Socialism and Modern Science, pp. 286 CHAP. XXIII PURPOSES OF THE STATE 287 ment may exist at all is to deny to the social organism the right which must be conceded to all organisms, namely, the right to do its utmost to preserve and to defend its own existence. Whatever theories one may entertain as to the nature and origin of rights, the fact is that all forms of life do exert themselves to the utter- most in the effort to survive in the struggle for exist- ence. The collectivism of all sociable animals, includ- ing man, is only a means to this end in this struggle for existence. The establishment of regularly constituted authorities for the purpose of maintaining the peace within and for protecting the collectivity from enemies without is only one form of the collective struggle for existence. 2 2. "The course of history is a struggle against nature, against need, ignorance and impotence, and, therefore, against bondage of every kind in which we were held under the law of nature at the beginning of history. The progressive overcoming of this impotence this is the evolution of liberty, whereof history is an account. In this struggle we should never have made one step in advance, and we should never take a further step, if we had gone into the struggle singly, each for himself. "Now, the state is precisely this contemplated unity and co-opera- tion of individuals in a moral whole, whose function it is to carry on this struggle, a combination which multiplies a million-fold the force of all the individuals comprised in it, which heightens a million-fold the powers which each individual singly would be able to exert. "The end of the state, therefore, is not simply to secure to each individual that personal freedom and that property with which the bourgeois principle assumes that the individual enters the state organization at the outset, but which in point of fact are first afforded him in and by the state. On the contrary, the end of the state can be no other than to accomplish that which, in the nature of things, is and always has been the function of the state, in set terms: by combining individuals into a state organization to enable them to achieve such ends and to attain such a level of existence as they could riot achieve as isolated individuals. "The ultimate and intrinsic end of the state, therefore, is to further the positive unfolding, the progressive development of human life. In other words, its function is to work out in actual achievement the true end of man; that is to say, the full degree of culture of which human nature is capable. It is the education and evolution of mankind into freedom." Lassalle : Science and =the Workingman, pp. 36-36. "The state, being the institute of justice, and by its nature all- inclusive, represents the most perfect form of co-operation possible. The large undertakings now successfully carried out by private corpor- ations can be still more successfully carried out by the state; for the private corporation, being bent on profits, naturally takes the ground 288 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV 369. Self -Preservation. The statement that " self- preservation is the first law of nature" is simply a declaration of this observed fact in nature, that no form of life considers any theory of rights when strug- gling for its own existence. This is as true of men as of beasts. It is as true of collections of men as of in- dividuals. The earliest gentes, phratries, the tribes, the nations made by federations of the tribes, were all of them the necessary result of this universal struggle for existence. 370. The Social Struggle. Society does and must exist. 3 What may society do in that branch of its ac- tivities which has to do with its own defense and with that anything is good enough which the public will accept, and no price too high that the public will pay; while the state, being free from this necessity, * * * may take the ideal ground that nothing is good enough which is short of the very best. All of the tremendous arguments which may be urged for association as a general principle of conduct may be urged with heightened force in favor of that more complete and perfect form of association represented by the state. And to this broader and more helpful conception of the state we are steadily advancing. One by one the state has been taking over functions and duties once vehemently denied to it, but now amply justified as helping to free men from the tyranny of things. Light-houses have been built and manned, waterways improved, maps and charts prepared. Cities have been paved and lighted and drained; water -has been regarded as a public necessity; water power and natural gas for manufacturing purposes have been made available; tram lines have been taken over or built; municipal tenements have been erected; free libraries and public baths and gymnasiums have been established. * * Both telegraphs and railways have been taken over by the state. Boards of health have been established; quarantine has been inaugurated; cur- rency has been provided. Best of all, in any country marked by any degree of intelligence and prosperity, an elaborate system of public education has come to be regarded as a public necessity. School houses have been built by the thousands, colleges and universities by the hundred, investigations have been carried on, publications issued, expe- ditions fitted out. This list, long as it is, does not by any means exhaust the present directions of state activity. And, from none of these multitudinous functions would any but a very small body of reaction- aries have the state withdraw. There is no turning back in this work of increasing the freedom of the individual by diminishing the tyranny of things." Henderson : Education and the Larger Life, p. 373. 3. "The external ground for the existence of the state is the nature of man. There are no men without continuity of social life [Zu- sammemleben] . There is no continuity of social life without order. There is no order without law. There is no law without coercive force. CHAP. XXIII PURPOSES OF THE STATE 280 making provision for the common welfare? Manifest- ly, this is not a question of what society may be able to do, but what it may most wisely do in order to best secure these ends. Society is not only a collectivity, but is a collection of individuals, each individual being an organ of the social organism. Society cannot protect itself, nor provide for its welfare, except as it provides for the safety and comfort of the individuals who make up the collectivity of which society is composed. Government may not exist, then, for any purpose which is not for the safety and welfare of the individuals who make up society. 371. The Abuse of Power. To use the public au- thority to impoverish a portion of society in order to enrich another portion of society would be, manifestly, an abuse of power. To use the public authority to deprive any member of society of the opportunity to live a full, human life would be to use the public power to do the very wrong in order to prevent which the government exists, and hence would be an abuse of power. To use the public authority to do for an individual anything for his advantage, and yet a thing which he can do better, or, at least, as well, for himself, is an unnecessary burden on all for the benefit of a single individual, and hence would be an abuse of power. To use the public authority to compel any member of society to speak, or act, or dress, or live in any par- ticular manner, when no serious social harm may come from leaving him to his own choice in all such matters, is for the collectivity to invade the domain of the most sacred personal liberties of the individual. It would There is no coercive force without organization. And this organization is the state." [System der Rechtsphilosophie, p. 296]. Lasson quoted by Lily: First Principles in Politics, p. 28. 290 QUESTIONS OF COKTROV&S PART IV be substituting persecution for protection, and would be a most serious abuse of power. For the public authority to require the individual to maintain any fixed standard of living or to regularly engage in any fixed calling or occupation, as to require one to be a blacksmith, another a farmer, and another a soldier contrary to the wishes of the person involved, would not be consistent with the true function of gov- ernment; that is, to secure the safety and welfare of society, the sole ground on which government has a right to exist and hence, would be an abuse of power. 372. Class Rule and Self-Government. "Is not that government best which governs least?" If gov- ernment is a superior, enacting and enforcing laws for the control of inferiors, then that government is best which governs not at all. But if government is a nec- essary co-operative organization, composed of those who are political equals, then that government is best which best protects the 'individual and most perfectly provides for all matters of common interest. Certainly that government cannot be best which ignores the prin- cipal task of life, namely, making a living. 4 373. Public Powers Controlled to Be Abused. Gov- ernment ownership is a term used only with offense among most Socialists; but if the government is only that function of society, of the whole of society, which provides for itself in all collective affairs and protects 4. The claim that the aggregate of governmental expenditures is largely determined by the industrial development finds support, also, in the general theory of social evolution. It is a fundamental law of social development that human wants are capable of indefinite expan- sion; but that their expansion will conform to the order of their relative importance. The conscious ability to satisfy a want which previously lay dormant gives to it a vitality that raises it from the rank of a simple desire to the rank of a vital principle capable of giving direction to social activity. As expressed by Bentham, 'Desires extend themselves with the means of satisfaction; the horizon is enlarged in proportion as one advances, and each new want equally accompanied by its pleasure and its pain becomes a new principle of action.' Now, it is evident that, PURPOSES OF THE STATE '201 all its members from interference in all private affairs, then the government is the public; is society at work; is the collectivity, and there would be no difference between government ownership, public ownership and collective ownership, in such a case. But any government which is more or less than this whole body of society, this general public, this social collectivity, acting in its own behalf, must be a gov- ernment exercising public power not to protect all, nor to provide for the general welfare of all; but in- stead, to use the authority of all to specially serve a part and to protect this group of favorites from the just wrath of the rest of society. From government owner- ship by such a government little or no advantage can come to the workers. For government ownership by such a government it is as impossible to find any very effective words of defense as it is to find grounds for defending the existence of such a government. The fact that every government on earth is admin- istered for purposes which are here condemned does not make the condemnation any less deserved. It for the orderly development of society, new collective wants as well as new individual wants must emerge as development proceeds, from which it follows that industrial growth opens up to society ever- expand- ing possibilites, which, in part, will be reflected in a corresponding expansion of those functions which government alone can perform."- Adams: Finance, p. 38. "It is hard to believe in the wisdom of an economic regime under which scarcity and want are the result of an over-production of neces- sary commodities. It is hard to believe that human wealth is increased and the social purpose furthered by committing the natural resources of a country, the gold and silver, copper and iron, coal and oil, field and forest, into the private keeping of a few individuals, instead of adminis- tering this bounty for the good of all. * * * * "The carrying out of the social purpose requires that a man shall have adequate food and shelter and clothing, air and water, light and heat, education and amusement, beauty and social opportunity. And further, it requires that the necessary material part of his life shall be won at the least possible expenditure of labor and time." Henderson: Education and the Larger Life, p. 78. "Employers will get labor cheap if they can; it is the business of the state to prevent them getting it so cheaply that they imperil the future of the race by the process." Rogers: Work and Wages, p. 528. 292 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV only emphasizes how serious is the demand for such a control of governmental powers as shall make these powers the servants of all, not the masters of any. 5 374. The Government and Business Enterprises. Is it consistent with the purposes for which the state exists for it to undertake any business or industrial enterprises? If the state is a superior, guiding, con- trolling and robbing the masses then such a state would bring no advantage to the masses whom it now robs without government business enterprises by go- ing into business on its own account. It can make no difference to the workers whether they be robbed by a private shop, protected by the state, or by a shop owned as well as protected by the state. If the state is to conduct lines of business, is to hire its workers in the market, is to employ them at the rates for which the labor market can furnish them, and is to sell the products for a profit, like other producers, while the workers have no voice in the management of the industries in which they are employed, nor direct ownership in the products of their own labors, then the benefits which could come to the workers from such government enterprises are of so little importance as to be hardly worth the trouble of securing them. Government railways, gas works, water works, street railways, electric power plants, and the postoffice are 5. "Since the time of Locke there has been practically no develop- ment of political thought. * * * There is really nothing on which the English race can base the claim they so often make, that they have a peculiar aptitude for the development of political institutions. They have been too conservative to develop institutional life beyond the needs of a primitive society. Peace and security come not from Anglo-Ameri- can institutions, but from the instincts inculcated during the supremacy of the Church, the favorable economic conditions, and that spirit of compromise which has been forced on the race by the presence of opposing types of men. Given these instincts and conditions, almost any institutions would be successful. Where these conditions are lack- ing, the failure of our institutions is lamentably apparent, and the inability to remedy them even more obvious." Patten: Development of English Thought, p. 188. CHAP. XXIII PURPOSES OF THE STATE 293 illustrations of this sort of government ownership. Such government ownership solves none of the politi- cal or economic problems connected with these great industries. 6 Whether such a state should establish industries to compete with the private enterprises, which such a government is supposed to specially protect, is a ques- tion for the capitalists who are running the govern- ment to settle with the capitalists who are running the private enterprises. 375. Industrial and Political Self -Government. It will be impossible to enthrone the workers in shops of their own without at the same time making the work- ers the masters of the state. When the workers are made the masters of the shops and of the government which is to protect the shops, then the state will cease to be the representative of any portion of the people, existing to protect this portion while this portion pro- ceeds to exploit the rest of society. With the workers once made the masters of the state, then the state, that is, the function of society by which it protects itself and provides for its own common welfare, will at once be recovered from the control of the few who use its power to rob the many, and will become simply the or- ganic expression of all the people in the direct control of all matters of common concern. 376. Socialism and the Government. If the state is understood to be one part of society, using the strength of all to rob another part of society, then So- cialism will abolish the state. If the state is under- stood to be the whole people, using their own collective strength and collective wisdom in order to protect and to provide for themselves, then all that Socialism will abolish will be the abuses of the state. 7 6. "The statesmanship of our rulers consists simply, not alone internally, but also externally, in placing every question upon the shelf and thereby increasing the number of unsolved problems." Kautsky: Social Revolution, p. 95. 7. "Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of 294 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV 377. Socialism Will Deliver the State from the Hands of Its Foes. Today the workshop and the mar- ket-place are privately owned and privately useS by a part of the people to exploit all the rest. Socialism will not destroy the shop or the market. It will deliver both into the ownership and control of all the people for the mutual and equal advantage of all. In the same way the state, that is, the government, is privately con- trolled and privately used by the private owners of the shops and markets, as a part of their business equip- ment in their work of exploiting all the rest of the people. 8 Socialism will not destroy the state, the gov- ernment. It will simply deliver it from the private control of the private owners of the shops and markets ; property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all." Adam Smith: Wealth of Nations, Book V., Chapter I. "Respect for the goods and property of others is the basis of human society. It is demanded by social duty, it is inspired by good manners, it is inculcated by divine rule, and should be rigidly enforced by civil law and authority. * * * It is the primary object of every well- founded government to encourage the acquisition of individual fortunes, as it is one of its most sacred duties to guard them for their possessors when they have been lawfully and honestly earned." Dos Passes, Com- mercial Trusts, pp. 133-34. "The great and chief end, therefore, of men's uniting into common- wealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property." Locke: Civil Government, p. 76, CasselFs National Library edition. "The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie." Marx and Engels: Com- munist Manifesto, p. 15. 8. "Such is the array of distinctively economic forces making for imperialism, a large, loose group of trades and professions seeking profitable business and lucrative employment from the expansion of military and civil services, from the expenditure on military operations, the opening up of new tracts of territory and trade with the same, and the provision of new capital which these operations require, all these finding their central guiding and directing force in the power of the general financier. "The play of these forces does not openly appear. They are essen- tially parasites upon patriotism, and they adapt themselves to its protecting colors. In the mouths of their representatives are noble phrases, expressive of their desire to extend the area of civilization, to establish good government, promote Christianity, extirpate slavery and elevate the lower races. Some of the business men who hold such language may entertain a genuine, though usually a vague, desire to accomplish these ends; but they are primarily engaged in business, and CHAP. XXIII PURPOSES OF THE STATE 295 and the same political action which will make the workers the masters in the administration of the shops will make them the masters in the administration of the government itself. In fact, it is only by capturing and using the power of the state that the workers can be made the masters in the shops and the market- place. 378. Do Socialists Propose the Abuse of Public Power? May the state then properly undertake to use the political power for such a purpose, that is, for the purpose of extending collectivism, democracy and equality to the workshop and market-place? The power of the state has been used, ever since the close of barbarism, to extend and enforce monopoly, tyranny and inequality in the workshop and the mar- ket-place. It is absurd to contend that the public au- thority may be used to employ the power of all, at the expense of all, for the benefit of a part, but that the authority of all may not be used by all for the benefit of all. It is of little advantage in the struggle for existence to have a voice in the affairs of the state if it is to be agreed that the state is to have no relation to the strug- gle for existence. The Socialist asks not only for a voice for all, but he insists that this voice of all shall be heard in the management of all those interests which the members of society hold in common. 379. Individuality Established and Defended Un- der Socialism. Where will the individual appear when this, revolution shall have changed the present political they are not unaware of the utility of the more unselfish forces in furthering their ends. Their true attitude of mind is expressed by Mr. Rhodes in his famous description of 'Her Majesty's flag' as 'the greatest commercial asset in the world.' " Hobson : Imperialism, p. 68. "The state, as now constituted, may be said, in essence, to exist for the maintenance of the four grand monopolies of land and locomo- tion, money and machinery, and for little else." Davidson: The An- nals of Toil, p. 477, 296 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV state to the coming social state, when public author- ity shall have ceased to be the special privilege of the few and has become the acknowledged function of all, and all collective interests have become subject to col- lective control? 9 The individual will have been delivered from the monopoly of capitalism, which denies him the right to earn a living except by the consent of some private owner of the means of production. 10 The individual will have been delivered from the tyranny of capitalism, which denies him the right to produce, except as the servant of another. The individual will have been delivered from the inequality of capitalism, which denies the right to most men to live at all, except as the personal inferiors, menials and dependents of others no better than them- selves. 9. "We must remember that the well-being of mankind * * * consists of three main elements: (1) the subjugation of nature; (2) the perfection of social machinery, and, (3) personal development and that true progress must include advancement in all." Mackenzie: Introduction to Social Philosophy, p. 297. "It is seen to consist, not in letting man alone, for that freedom turns out to be an illusion, but in surrounding him with facilities and opportunities for the full play of his individuality, the effective working out of his life purposes." Henderson: Education and the Larger Life, p. 376. 10. "The case for society stands thus: The individual must be assured the best means, the best and fullest opportunites for complete self -development; in no other way can society itself gain variety and strength. But one of the most indispensable conditions of opportunity for self -development, government alone, society's controlling organ, can supply. All combination which necessarily creates monopoly, which necessarily puts and keeps indispensable means of industrial and social development in the hands of a few, and those few not the few selected by society itself, but the few selected by arbitrary fortune, must be under either the direct or indirect control of society. To society alone can the power of dominating combination belong." President Wilson: The State, p. 661. "The whole idea of the social state is to further the opportunity and freedom of the individual life, and so make possible the increase of human wealth. The social state is the instrument of individualism, not its opponent. The social state limits individualism in only one way it denies the right of the individual to exploit his neighbor, even as justice denies the vendetta in taking over punishment from the hands of private vengeance and ranking it a state function," Henderson: Edu- cation and the Larger Life, p. 379. CHAP. XXIII PURPOSES OF THE STATE 297 The individual will be given his economic right td earn a living as a free, self-employing worker, to pos- sess for himself his products, 11 with equal voice in the control of the work he helps to do and with equal op- portunity to be a worker if he so chooses, with all the others. 380. The End of the Oppressor. Under such con- ditions the collective power of all, the public, the state, the government call it what you will this collective power of all cannot then be used to impoverish some in order to enrich others, to oppress some in order to gratify others, to humiliate some in order to exalt others. 12 Democratic collectivism with all mankind in the col- lectivity will make an end of the abuse of public power. Socialism will substitute the collective use of public power for the equal good of all, for its private abuse for the private profit of a few. 381. Summary. 1. Government is simply the whole body of society protecting and providing for itself. 2. The state exists because self-preservation is the first law of nature. 3. The power of the state has been captured by a ruling class the capitalist class and is everywhere used as a part of the equipment by which the few are able to oppress the many. 4. Socialism will deliver both the industries, which are collectively used and the power of the state, by which all collective interests should be protected from 11. "Commencing at zero in savagery, the passion for the posses- sion of property, as the representative of accumulated subsistence, has now become dominant over the human mind in civilized races." Mor- gan: Ancient Society, Preface, VII. 12. "Rampant as the spirit of commercialism now is, I cannot but regard its manifestation as the last up-flaming of the fire before it e^oes out." Prof. Henderson (Chicago University): Education and the Larger Life, p. 380, 298 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PABT IV the control of the few and into the possession of the many. 5. Such a social state would necessarily guard all private interests from public interference, and all pub- lic interests from private oppression. It would be the most perfect guaranty of free men and of free society. REVIEW QUESTIONS. 1. Is the state necessary? 2. By what right may it exist? 3. What relation has the state to the universal struggle for existence ? 4. Give instances of the abuse of public power. 5. Is that government best which governs least? 6. In what case may government ownership be different from public Or collective ownership? In what case would these terms all mean the same? 7. Can the workers be greatly benefited by government ownership when the government itself is not answerable to the workers? 8. Why is industrial democracy necessary in order to have real political democracy? 9. How can advantage be taken of political democracy in order to secure industrial democracy? 10. May the people properly undertake to use the power of the state to extend democracy to the workshop and the market? 11. What becomes of the individual under Socialism? CHAPTER XXIV ASSUMPTIONS IN ECONOMICS 382. The Economists. Political economy regards mankind only as related to the production, distribution or consumption of wealth. Social economy regards wealth only as related to the comfort, liberty and progress of mankind. So far as the meaning of words goes, political economy is the science of wealth from the standpoint of capitalism, and social economy is the science of wealth from the standpoint of Socialism. Nevertheless, many who are called politcal economists constantly consider the public welfare. Some who call themselves social economists are among the most active defenders of capitalism. We shall avoid confusion if we ignore any distinctions between economists as to whether they call themselves political or social econ- omists. Even if these terms be used interchangeably, still there are many kinds of economists. The English, also called the Manchester and the classical school, is the oldest and has been the most influential. Adam Smith, Eicardo, Malthus and John Stuart Mill were of this school. The German, modern or historical school, is 299 300 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV the other of the two most important of the groups of the political economists. 383. The English School. The English school ig- nores the real man who actually exists, and creates an imaginary man, who, it admits, never existed. It calls this creation of its imagination "the economic man," and proceeds to ask what this imaginary man would do under all possible circumstances. They answer their own questions in a manner consistent with the char- acter of their imaginary man, and from these answers they construct their "economic axioms," on which they build their science of economics. 1 384. The Historical School. The historical school does not try to imagine an "economic man" and base a science on the answers which their own straw man may make to their own questions. The English school is based on assumptions. The historical school is based on observations. 2 The English school derives its as- sumptions from its "economic man," who is simply an ordinary man stripped of all his qualities save those which are most in demand under capitalism. Its as- sumptions are the assumptions of capitalism. The 1. "Of every human passion or motive, political economy makes entire abstraction. Love of country, love of honor, love of friends, love of learning, love of art, pity, honor, shame, religion, charity, will never, so far as political economy cares to take account-, withstand in the slightest degree or for the shortest time the efforts of the economic man to amass wealth." Walker: Political Economy, p. 16. "Ricardo's economic assumptions were of his own making." Toyn- bce: The Industrial Revolution, p. 11. "Attempts have indeed been made to construct an abstract science with regard to the actions of an 'economic man/ who is under no ethical influences and who pursues pecuniary gain warily and energetically, but mechanically and selfishly. But they have not been successful, nor even thoroughly carried out, for they have never really treated the economic man as perfectly selfish. No one could be relied on better than the economic man to endure toil and sacrifice with the unselfish desire to make provision for his family; and his normal motives have always been tacitly assumed to include the family affections. But if these motives are included, why net also all other altruistic motives, the ac- tion of which is so far uniform in any class at any time and place that it can be reduced to general rule?" Marshall: Principles of Eco- nomics, Vol. I., Preface, p. 8. 2. Ely: Political Economy, p. 16, CHAP. XXIV ASSUMPTIONS IN ECONOMICS 301 historical school draws its conclusions from observa- tions. It observes how real men act and the results of their actions in real industry and commerce, but in industry and commerce as carried on under capitalism. 385. "The Dismal Science. " Now, as a matter of fact, if the real man is not so bad a character as the economic man would be if he could really become a living man, it is found, nevertheless, that under the stress of capitalism he acts badly enough, so that the English school, based on the assumptions which under- lie capitalism, and the historical school, based on the observation of man's conduct under capitalism, come practically to the same general results. Carlyle's char- acterization of economics as a "dismal science" will apply with equal force to both schools. 3 The English school argues from the character of a 3. "The trade unionists speak with considerable bitterness of political economists, and with some reason. The ordinary teaching of political economy admits as its first definition that wealth is the pro- duct of labor; but it seldom tries to point out how the producer should obtain the benefit of his own product. It treats of the manner in which wealth is produced, and postpones or neglects the consideration of the process by which it is distributed, being, it seems, attracted mainly by the agencies under which it is accumulated. Writers have been habitu- ated to estimate wealth as a general does military force, and are more concerned with its concentration than they are with the details of its partition. It is not surprising that this should be the case. Most writers on political economy have been persons in opulent, or at least in easy, circumstances. They have witnessed with profound or inte- rested satisfaction the growth of wealth in the classes to which they belong, or with which they have been familiar or intimate. In their eyes the poverty of industry has been a puzzle, a nuisance, a problem, a social crime. They have every sympathy with the man who wins and saves, no matter how; but they are not very considerate for a man who works. * In point of fact, ordinary political economy does not go further than to describe the process and some of the con- sequences of a state of war. The war is industrial, in which each man is striving to get the better of his neighbor, to beat him in the struggle for existence. Malthus and the elder Mill laid the Darwinian hypothesis before the modern prophet of the physical life of the future and the past began to speculate on natural forces." Rogers: Work and Wages, pp. 523 ' * 25. "Take economics as an example. During the eighteenth century Adam Smith, having carefully observed the conditions which prevailed in Europe, and especially in Great Britain, wrote a book admirably suited to his environment, and the book met with success. Then men 302 QUESTIONS OF CONTliOVfekSY A&T IV man who would do nothing but struggle for more wealth, and the historical school argues from the con- duct of a man so placed that he could do nothing but struggle for existence. The one has an abnormal man and the other abnormal conditions, and both arrive at abnormal results. 4 386. The Field of Study But, it is said, human character is of a low order, and all the world is under the reign of capitalism. If it be granted that both the imaginary economic man and the conditions under which real men act are abnormal, whence then the ma- terials for either social or political science, if these cannot be trusted? In the first place, it may be said that we may study real men and not imaginary ones, and if we do, the discovery of the endless changes of social and political forms wrought out with the world's advance will at once lead us beyond this modern, transitory, constantly shifting life under capitalism to the previous, and, from the standpoint of a student looking for social causes, to a more important period of man's existence. If we do this there will be revealed to us the steps by which this capitalism came into existence, as well as the elements within itself which will in the end make its further existence impossible. We shall learn that undertook to erect the principles of that book into a universal law, irrespective of environment. Then others theorized on these commen- tators and their successors upon them until the most practical of business problems has been lost in a metaphysical fog. "Now men are apt to lecture upon political economy as if it were a dogma, much as the nominalists and realists lectured in mediaeval schools. But a priori theories can avail little in matters which are determined by experiment." Adams: The New Empire, Introduction, pp. xxx., xxxi. 4. "A few years ago the proposition was made to remove economics from its place in the course of the British Association for the Advancement of Science on the ground that economic science had never shown itself worthy of the name. * * * If we take from political economy first all the truisms and then all the doubtful points our remainder will be a quantity closely approximating zero." Lunt: Eco- nomic Science, pp. 3 * * 5. CHAP. XXIV ASSUMPTIONS IN ECONOMICS 303 it is true that the materials for a satisfactory social philosophy of any sort cannot be gathered until men shall first have healthful lives in the midst of healthful surroundings; that our human nature will never be able to reveal unto itself the real nature of its own life until the struggle for existence shall cease to be de- structive of individual and social health. 387. May Learn the Next Step. But while no com- plete philosophy of the whole of life is possible until the whole of life may be revealed to us, enough is known, and not seriously disputed by reputable schol- arship, of our past and of the evolutionary advance of the race to enable the social economist to name the next step to be taken, and to enter into the struggle, by edu- cational and political action, to effectively assist so- ciety in taking that next step. 5 What the second step will be no one can tell, except by further observation, after the next step has been taken. 388. These limitations which the nature of the case has thrown around the student of social economy should be borne in mind while we inquire into some of the disputes between capitalists and Socialists as re- lated to some of the more fundamental assumptions of economic science. 389. Is Capitalism Natural?!. The capitalists assume that the wage system is the natural method of production. If they meant by this that it was the natural result of the development of the race at a certain stage of its growth, in the same way that the ancient tribal com- munism, slavery and serfdom may all of them be said 5. "But the Socialists were men who had felt intensely and knew something about the hidden springs of human action of which the economists took no account. * * * The influence which they are now exercising on the younger economists in England and Germany is important, and I think for the greater part wholesome, even though the association with fervid philanthropy does perhaps cause some tendency to rapid and unscientific thinking." Marshall: Present Posi- tion of Economics, p. 18. 304 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV to have been natural, there would be no dispute. But that is not their contention. They mean rather that it is the method of production originally practiced among men; that it has come into existence in the natural order of events and without violence, and that it is so inherent in the necessary relations of life that no ra- tional order of society is possible without capitalism. Historically this is not true. In theory there is no dis- pute that that system of production is most natural, at any given time, which best adjusts itself to the eco- nomic forces and conditions of that time. Whether capitalism or Socialism best fits the new economic con- ditions so rapidly developing in all of the earth, is the question at issue. To assume that either is natural and the other is not, is to assume the very point in controversy. With this understanding of the word natural, even if the assumption were true at any par- ticular stage in the world's growth, it would prove nothing. For as conditions change, the natural result would be the change of systems of organization to fit the changed conditions, so that what was natural at one time might be entirely unnatural at another time. 390. Capitalism of Eecent Origin. 2. The capi- talists assume that the wage system always has been and always will be the method of production. It is not meant that they deny the historic facts re- garding the existence of serfdom, slavery and the com- mon ownership and co-operative industry of the primi- tive peoples. They simply ignore them and write as if the whole of human history had no lessons for them until capitalism had come. Whenever they write about the past or predict the future, it is always, in effect, as if with the assumption that the wage system always was and always will be in existence. As a matter of fact, as has been seen in our study of the evolution of capitalism, it is of very recent origin. CI-T. XXIV ASSUMPTIONS IN ECONOMICS 305 391. The Origin of Capital. 3. The capitalists as- sume that the beginning of capitalism, i. e., of the private ownership of land and machinery and the re- sulting dependence of the many on the consent of the few for an opportunity to live at all, was made as the result of saving, thrift and enterprise. There is no place where the economists do greater violence to the truth than in this assumption. When confronted with the facts of history they admit that the facts are against them, but they obstinately con- tinue to teach as scientifically true that which is known and admitted to be historically false. Take for example the following from Francis A. Walker, whose "Political Economy" is the text-book in a larg- er number of schools and colleges in America than any other publication. He says: 6 392. V/alker's Account. " The origin of capital is so familiar that it need not be dwelt upon at length here. A very simple illustration may suffice. Let us take the case of a tribe dwelling along the shore and subsisting upon the fish caught from the rocks which jut into the sea. When the fish are plentiful the people live freely, even gluttonously. When their luck is bad they submit to privations which involve suffering, reaching sometimes to the pitch of famine. Now let us suppose that one of these fishermen, moved by a strong desire to better his condition, undertakes to lay by a store of fish. He denies himself and accumulates in his hut a considerable quantity of dried food. This is wealth. Whether it is to become capital or not de- pends upon the use which is to be made of it. If des- tined to be merely a reserve against hard times, it re- mains wealth; but does not become capital. "But our fishermen, in laying by his store of fish. 6. Walker: Political Economy, pp. 62-64. 306 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV has higher designs than to equalize the food consump- tion of the. year. As the dull season approaches, he takes all the food he can carry and goes to the hills, where he finds trees whose bark can be easily detached by sharp stones. Again and again he returns to his work in the hills, while his neighbors are painfully striving to keep themselves alive. At the end of the dull season he brings down to the water a canoe, so light that it can be borne upon his shoulders, so buoy- ant that he can paddle it out to the ' banks, ' which lie two or three miles from the shore, where in one day he can get as many fish as he could catch off the rocks in a week. "The canoe is capital; the fisherman is a capitalist. He can now take his choice of three things. He may go out in his canoe and bring home supplies of fish, which will allow him to marry and rear a family in comfort, and with his surplus hire some of his neigh- bors to build him a hut, their women to weave him blankets, and their children to bring water from the spring and wait upon his family; or, secondly, he may let out his canoe to*some one, who will be glad to get the use of it on payment of all the fish one family could fairly consume, and himself stay at home in complete idleness, basking in the sun or on stormy days seeking refuge in his comfortable hut ; or, which is more likely, he may, thirdly, let out the canoe and himself turn to advantage the knowledge and experience acquired by making canoes. Again and again he will appear upon the shore, bringing a new canoe, for the use of which a score of his neighbors will clamorously compete." 393. Theories Facing Facts. To all this it must be said that this illustration shows the origin of capital, except in the following particulars: (1) There never was such a savage. The first canoe was the result of centuries of paddling about in the water. No one man CHAP. XXIV ASSUMPTIONS IN ECONOMICS 307 made it nor possessed it when it was made. (2) If there had been such a savage, he would not have fished for himself only, but for the tribe as well as for himself, and he would have been as ignorant of the " banks" three miles from the shore as he was of the building of canoes. The " banks" were found and used in com- mon, and to this day the "fishing banks" are common property and are used co-operatively. (3) Bees, squir- rels, ground hogs, and savages never lived after the manner outlined. It was reserved for capitalism to put its workers in a position to live gluttonously a part of the time (if at all) and to starve the rest of the time. The savages who were so advanced that they caught fish and used canoes, caught them for the tribal store house, and carried large stores in advance of the demand. (4) If such a savage had made such a boat, he would have been employed at once making boats and showing others how to make boats for the whole tribe. (5) If he had chosen to hold a boat for his own pleasure, he would have been permitted to do so, but with two boats he would have been obliged to select one for himself and the other would have become tribal property if needed for the common good. (6) He could not have hired other savages to fish for him or build a hut for him, neither could he have hired the wives or children of his neighbors to become his fam- ily's servants. The savages of that stage of develop- ment served each other as equals, not as menials. That was reserved for civilization to introduce. When sav- ages lived on fish, each savage was alike responsible for all the duties of the husband and father for all of the women and children of the group. (7) He ctmld not have rented his boat for a part of the catch. Such a proposal such savages would not have understood. Eent is a part of capitalism. (8) He could not have led an idle life while others provided fish for him. 308 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV He would have helped to get the fish or he would not have eaten. A leisure class which others feed is a part of capitalism. (9) He could not have made boats for sale. There was no private market for private profits. 7 (10) It is seen that in every particular this illustration, by which we are to learn the origin of cap- ital, is contrary to the facts. 8 It assumes capitalism to be already in existence and proceeds to show how cap- italism might be born by having capitalism serve as midwife on the occasion of its own birth. Thus, in the name of science, is a false position defended by an ar- ray of assumptions utterly at variance with the facts. 394. John Stuart Mill and the Duke of Argyll. - John Stuart Mill, when facing the same question, ad- mits that his theory does not at all agree with the facts of history. He says: "In considering the institution of property as a question of social philosophy, we must leave out of consideration its actual origin in any of the existing nations of Europe. ' ' 9 He then proceeds to discuss the question by ' ' supposing, ' 9 not a savage, but an impossible " community, unhampered by any pre- vious possessions." He admits that no such commun- ity ever existed in Europe. The fact is that it never existed anywhere else. The further fact is that in the study of social institutions by evolutionary methods, the most important item of all is the "previous pos- session, ' ' the very thing which Mr. Mill ignores in his discussion of the origin of capitalism. The Duke of Argyll is more frank and truthful. In discussing this 7. You will find all these points confirmed in Morgan's Ancient Society, or by any other standard authority on the life of savages of the stage of development which Mr. Walker assumes. 8. "Two things have discredited political economy the one is its traditional disregard for facts; the other, its strangling itself with definitions." Rogers: The Economic Interpretation of History, Pref- ace, p. viii. 9. Mill: Political Economy, p. 260: also see the whole of Chapter V. of Book I., Vol. I. CHAP. XXIV ASSUMPTIONS IN ECONOMICS 309 same question, lie says: "It is the field of war, the field on which possession the right of exclusive use over some particular portion of the earth has been won, or on which it has been successsfully defended. We may like or dislike the steady contemplation of this truth, but it is a fact, nevertheless, whatever we may think of it." 10 395. War the Origin of Capital. It is admitted that, with capitalism once in existence, certain indi- viduals may be able to so manage as to corner the fish market and so be able to compel the wives and children of their neighbors to become their servants, but capi- talism itself, the private ownership of the means of producing the means of life, must first be established. Not until the private ownership of the canoe was made of more importance than the life, liberty and equality of opportunity for men, women and children could such a capitalist be produced. It was necessary for the capitalistic class to appear, on the one hand, and for the serving class to appear on the other, before "sav- ing, thrift and enterprise" could effect the rising of an individual from one class to the other, and this forc- ing of the class lines which separated the people into the two conditions of mastery and servitude, as Mr. Mill admits, as the Duke of Argyll directly states, and as was clearly proven in our study of the origin and development of capitalism in the second part of this volume, was the work of war. War has taken the earth away from the people. Socialism will restore it to them. 396. The Right to Buy and Sell. 4. The capital- ist assumes that there can be no right to property of any sort which one may not buy and another sell. 11 10. Duke of Argyll: Unseen Foundations of Society, p. 113. 11. Not only the right to buy or to sell all kinds of property is assumed, but even the right of society to restore to public ownership 310 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV The answer is that the right to the means of produc- ing the means of life is of the same nature as the right to life itself. The capitalist contends for the right to buy and sell productive property. The Socialist con- tends for the right to use productive property. The capitalist contends for the sacredness of trade, and he will admit no rights which will in any way imperil the continued possession of productive property in the hands of those who have it. The Socialist contends for the sacredness of life, and will admit no rights which will imperil either the fullest life or the completest liberty to those who need to use the means of producing the means of life. 397. Labor a Commodity. 5. The capitalist as- sumes that labor is a commodity, and as such may just- ly be bought and sold in the labor market. 12 The answer is that it is impossible to buy or sell labor apart from living laborers, that one cannot buy or sell labor without at the same time buying and selling laborers, and that the sale of a single laborer for a single hour is a crime against the whole race of man. 398. Self-interest. 6. The capitalist assumes that the sole and only motive in industry is individual self- interest. 13 The answer is that while this is not entirely the truth, the very great force of self-interest is not dis- puted. It is even insisted that economic conditions have always determined all other social forms and that the whole life of man now waits for social and po- litical adjustment to new economic conditions. More than this: It is insisted that, while associated effort on the part of all can best provide for the needs of each, the self-interest of the individual, when each is property not gotten by purchase from the public, but by force and fraud, is also denied. See Walker: Political Economy, pp. 385-308 12. Walker: Political Economy, pp. 259-287. 13. Walker: Political Economy, p. 96. CHAP. XXIV ASSUMPTIONS IN ECONOMICS 311 acting alone and for himself, results in the destruction of public spirit. The "good business man" is likely either to be neglectful of his public duties or to at- tempt to take advantage of the public needs for the sake of his private profit. It would not be so under Socialism. When no one can serve himself except at the same time he serves society, nor serve society ex- cept he serves himself, then private interest and public spirit will join hands as mutually helpful economic forces. The more recent defenders of capitalism, speaking in the name of the science of economics, are siding with the Socialists in their contention that in- dividual competition, the result of individual self-inter- est, cannot even exist as an active factor in the face of great combinations. 14 Prof. Hadley says in the preface of his " Economics ": "The size of the units of capital is so large that free competition often be- comes impossible, and theories of economics which are based upon the existence of such competition prove blind guides in dealing with modern price move- ments. ' ' 399. Economic Justice. 7. The capitalist assumes that under competition all men and women will be able to secure what is just, and so provide for the high- est welfare for each to which he can be justly entitled. 15 14. "You cannot escape, try whatever you can, from the influence of competition, any more than from the survival of the fittest. But the survival of the fittest may be the survival of the analogue to Frankenstein's demon, while the effort of all true civilization is to improve those who are improvable, and to deal with the residuum. It is possible that the struggle for existence, unless controlled and ele- vated, may be the degradation of all. It nearly came to be so during the first thirty years of the present century." Rogers: Work and Wages, p. 557. 15. Mill: Political Economy, Vol. II., pp. 378-381. "But when we say that the pecuniary inequality of mankind is due to a corresponding inequality of brain-power, even if we limit this brain-power to the 'money-making' quality alone, we have gone a great way too far. We have left out one of the most important ele- ments in the problem. We have only stated the subjective side of the question, and have neglected the objective side. We shall never 312 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV The answer is that if the parties to the competition were exact equals in strength, skill and good fortune, they might be able to exactly neutralize each other's efforts to serve society while striving with each other, but so long as any share of their strength is expended contending with each other, the largest production can- not be realized. It was the inequality of strength, skill and good fortune in war which made the coming of capitalism possible in the first place. Competition be- tween the weak and the strong does not mean the wel- fare of both; it means the sweat-shop for the helpless and leisure and luxury for the strong. 16 Socialism de- mands that the strength of society be used to per- petually maintain equal opportunities for those un- equally endowed, in order that all may live. Capital- ism demands unequal opportunities for those unequal- ly endowed, and the inequality of opportunity which it enforces is against those who are weak and in behalf of those who are strong. Capitalism cannot give to each the highest welfare to which he can be entitled. It pro- vides for the few, great and unearned benefits; and for be wholly right until we remember that this inequality of possession is due to a corresponding inequality of circumstances. The inequality of brain-power is only the subjective part of these circumstances. We must also consider the objective part, the external circumstances which surround each individual, whether belonging to the fortunate or the unfortunate class. Men come into the world and find themselves loaded with wealth or destitute of all proprietary interests. They are born millionaires or beggars. They open their eyes upon boundless plenty or upon abject poverty. They merit neither praise nor blame for the conditions under which they exist. However commendable intellectual qualities may be considered, they have nothing to do with those external circumstances over which we have no control." Ward: Dynamic Sociology, Vol. I., pp. 522-23. 16. "It is in the highest degree desirable that competition should be severe, searching, unremitting. * * * But if competition is to be the law of trade, if self-interest is to be its predominant force, the members of the employing class must not only press hard upon each other the harder the better but they must bear heavily on the laboring class; and the more heavily the better, so long as the latter can withstand and return the pressure. * * "This, I repeat, is the ideal industrial condition: that the body of laborers shall be able to offer an adequate economic resistance to continuous pressure from the employing class, so that no favors need CHAP. XXIV ASSUMPTIONS IN ECONOMICS 313 the many, great poverty as pitiless as it is unde- served. 17 400. " Letting Things Alone. "- 8. The capitalist assumes that the only duty of society toward industry and commerce is to let it alone. 18 The answer is that all factory laws, all courts for the collection of debts, the enforcing of contracts and the punishment of crimes against property are a re- fusal of society to let industry and commerce alone. In fact, the very organization of society itself is a re- fusal to let alone the things which concern the whole body of the people. Society does interfere. It ought not to do so in behalf of those who by force have mo- nopolized the resources and forces of nature and plead a let-alone policy for those who have been dispossessed. If it is to interfere at all, it should do so in behalf of all. But then, that is Socialism. be asked, on the one side, so that there need be no flinching on the other, in the exaction of all which the most vigorous prosecution of self-interest may require." Walker: Discussions in Economics and Statistics, pp. 307-9; see also "What Shall We Tell the Working Classes," Scribner's Magazine, Vol. II., pp. 619-27. 17. "Even the economists are beginning to see that 'free competi- tion' in business is a myth unless it be protected from the universal tendency of all competition in nature speedily and surely to end in monopoly." Ward: Pure Sociology, p. 568. "When the principle of competition is set aside capitalist political economy goes with it. This principle is fundamental in the science, and in the facts of which it treats, unless violence intervenes."- Ba scorn: Sociology, p. 60. 18. "The conflict between capital and labor is very much of a delusion." Laughlin: Political Economy, p. 347. Mill: Political Economy, Vol. II., p. 569. "Had economists worked out the most important part of their science, that which deals with the distribution of wealth, instead of merely busying themselves with hypothetical theories about rent, profits and population, they would have inculcated every one of those legislative acts which have seemed to control the production and distribution of wealth, but in reality have assisted the former, and have made the latter more natural, and therefore more equitable. I think that my contention, which I see quoted by Mr. Goschen, could be exhaustively proved, that every act of the legislature which seems to interfere with the doctrine of laissez faire, and has stood the test of experience, has been endorsed because it has added to the general efficiency of labor and therefore to the general well being of society." Rogers: Work and Wages, pp. 527-28. Ely: Political Economy, p. 221. 314 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV This let-alone contention is nothing less than the assumption that might is right, but with the limita- tion that the collective might of all must not be used to protect the common interest of all against the individ- ual might of the strong in their contest against the weak. "Let things alone " means, don't interfere to stop the athletic thief from robbing a crippled beggar. The might of greater strength, greater cunning or the accumulating power of greater or better organized industrial equipment in private hands may as ruth- lessly rob as an outright highwayman, and society could justify its protection of the highwayman as eas- ily as it could justify its protection of the greater strength, cunning or economic equipment of the pri- vate masters of the shop or market, in their economic war against those with inferior equipment, or entirely without the means of producing the means of life. 19 401. The Iron Law of Wages. 9. The capitalist assumes that there is no possible provision for work- ing men beyond the smallest wages for which the work- ers will consent to work in numbers large enough to do the work required. The answer is that this is true under capitalism, but under Socialism there will be no such iron law of wages. Under capitalism the private owners will always be striving to make the share of the products which falls to the workers the smallest possible. The competition 19. "Seventy-five years ago scarcely a single law existed in any country of Europe for regulating the contract for services in the interest of the laboring classes. At the same time the contract for commodities was everywhere subject to minute and incessant regulation. * Can there be any wonder that statesmen and the mass of the people entertain slight regard for political economy, whose professors refuse even to entertain consideration of the difference between services and commodities in exchange, and whose representatives in legislation have opposed almost every limitation upon the contract for labor as un- necessary and mischievous?" F. A. Walker, Quoted by Wright in Some Ethical Phases of the Labor Problem, pp. 65-66. CHAP. XXIV ASSUMPTIONS IN ECONOMICS 315 for employment among the workers in the face of this effort to reduce wages on the part of employers estab- lishes this tendency of wages always to reach the low- est level possible and still provide for the existence of the workers. This is the gist of the iron law of wages. It is obvious that it will remain a factor in the distribu- tion of the products of labor only so long as the private owners of the means of production can continue to force the workers to compete with each other for the opportunity to live at all. Under Socialism the total of the largest product which the workers are willing to produce will be the smallest reward for the workers themselves, for under Socialism those who are workers will no longer be compelled "to divide up" with those who are idlers in order to obtain their consent to become workers at all. 402. Summary. 1. All schools of economists, whether assuming the existence of an "economic man" or undertaking to observe the conduct of the ordinary man under capitalism, come to the same "dismal" con- clusions as to the lot of man under capitalism. 2. Present institutions can be understood only by studying their origin and the processes of their devel- opment. 3. The capitalists assume all the leading features of capitalism as belonging to the normal and lasting lot of man: (a) They assume that the wage system is the nat- ural method of production. In the same sense, so was slavery natural. (b) They assume capitalism always to have ex- isted. It is of recent origin. (c) They assume that capital originated in saving, thrift and enterprise. It owes its origin to war. (d) They assume that labor may be properly bought 316 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV and sold. But labor cannot be sold except the laborer be sold with his labor. (e) They assume that the sole and only motive in economics is individual self-interest. The collective self and the collective self-interest must also be con- sidered. (f) They assume the existence and the justness of competition. Free competition does not exist. By its own activities it has destroyed itself. (g) They assume the wisdom of the "let-alone policy." But they let nothing alone involving their own interests. Society ought to act in behalf of all in all matters where the interests of all are involved. (h) They assume the necessary existence of tne "iron law of wages. " This law holds only under cap- italism. There will be no such law under Socialism. REVIEW QUESTIONS. 1. State difference between English and historical schools of economists. 2. Why are the conclusions of both schools so nearly to the same effect? 3. From what sources can the materials be obtained for study in economics? 4. What are some of the necessary limitations ? 5. Is the wage system natural? 6. How old is capitalism? 7. What is the origin of capital? 8. Discuss positions of Walker, Mill and the Duke of Argyll. 9. On what is human progress now waiting? 10. Can economic justice exist under capitalism? 11. Shall society "let things alone?" Why? 12. Will the "iron law of wages" prevail under Socialism? Why? CHAPTEK XXV THEORIES OF VALUE 403. The Exchange of Products. The workers of the world are now producing goods to be sold in the world's market. Goods produced for the market are called commodities. In the sale and purchase of goods the fixing of a price at which the purchase or sale is made is necessary. The purpose of all production and sale of goods is in order to be able to purchase other goods. All pur- chase and sale of goods is of the nature of exchanging products which one has produced in excess of what he wishes to use, for the products of others which he also wishes to use. All purchases and sales which would seem to be exceptions are merely steps in the process by which the producer and consumer "get to- gether, ' ' and are therefore parts of this process of ex- change. 404. Power in Exchange. What determines the power of any given article to exchange itself for other articles in the market? 1 How many caps, shawls, coats 1. "It is not money that renders commodities commensurable. Just the contrary. It is because all commodities, as values, are real- ized human labor, and therefore commensurable, that their values can 317 318 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV of a certain kind can be obtained for a wagon load of wheat of a certain grade! This question is determined by learning the value of the wheat, and the value of the caps, shawls and coats to be exchanged. It is said that many things have value which cannot be ex- changed in the market for anything at all. The air is the usual illustration of this sort of value. This is called "use value " and is not a matter of importance in this discussion. Value, then, is the power which an article has to ex- change itself in the market for other articles. It is quite likely that no other subject has been more hotly disputed by the economists than this subject of value; the question of controversy being, "What creates value ?" 405. The Economists and Socialism. Beginning with John Locke in the last decade of the seventeenth century, 2 Sir William Petty, Adam Smith, Benjamin Franklin, Eicardo, John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, Henry George, and all the English economists prior to the work of Prof. Jevons, maintained in substantial be measured by one and the same special commodity, and the latter be converted into the common measure of their values, i. e., into money." Marx: Capital, p. 66. 2. "And thus, without supposing any private dominion and prop- erty in Adam over the world, exclusive of all other men, which can no way be proved, nor any one's property be made out from it, but suppos- ing the world, given as it was to the children of men in common, we see how labor could make men distinct titles to several parcels of it for their private uses, wherein there could be no doubt of right, no room for quarrel. "Nor is it so strange as perhaps, before consideration, it may appear, that the property of labor should be able to overbalance the community of land, for it is labor, indeed, that puts the difference of value in anything; and let any one consider what the difference is be- tween an acre of land planted with barley or sugar, sown with wheat or barley, and an acre lying in common without any husbandry upon it, and he will find that the improvement of labor makes the far greater part of the value. I think it will be but a very modest computation to say, that of the products of the earth useful to the life of man, nine- tenths are the effects of labor. Nay, if we will rightly estimate things as they come to our use, and cast up the several expenses about them what in them is purely owing to nature and what to labor we shall CHAP. XXV THEORIES OF VALUE 319 agreement that labor creates value. But, as Kirkup remarks, i * The economists, however, did not follow the principle to its obvious conclusions, that if labor is the source of wealth the laborer should enjoy it all. It was otherwise with the Socialists, who were not slow to perceive the bearing of the theory on the existing eco- nomic order." 3 406. All Theories Lead to Socialism. It is not the purpose of this chapter to enter into the controversy as to which of the many theories of value is most scien- tific, but to state all the more widely known theories of value and to point out that all alike reveal the in- justice of the "existing economic order, " and that it is necessary to reorganize production and exchange if current social production is to provide for the current social welfare. 407. Theories of Value. Prof. Gide names four the- ories of value. 4 They are substantially: 1. Utility is the cause of value. 2. Scarcity is the cause of value. find that in most of them ninety- nine hundredths are wholly to be put on the account of labor." Locke: Civil Government (John Morley Library Edition), p. 211, et seq. * And so far as we are aware, it is the first assertion that Value is due to human Labor." Macleod: History of Economics, p. 636, thus speaks of this passage from Locke. "The theory which bases the right of property upon labor represents likewise what we find among animals and among savages. A pair of birds build a nest, and the nest then becomes the nest of these birds. The savage builds a hut for himself and his mate, and it becomes his hut until a stronger tribe comes and seizes or destroys it. He may be said to own the materials and the site by the right of first occupation, and the finished hut by the right of labor. Grotius, in criticising the Roman jurist Paulus, who had already anticipated Locke's theory and made labor a justification of property, points out that, since nothing can be made except out of pre-existing matter, acquisition by means of labor depends ultimately on possession by means of occupation." Ritchie: Natural Rights, p. 268. 3. Kirkup : A History of Socialism, Chapter VII., p. 157. 4. "Economists have always sought for the causes of value, and each school, according to its respective tendencies, has fastened on to one or other of them. Utility, scarcity, difficulty of attainment and labor are the principal ones which have been specially pointed out as the real cause or causes. Gide: Political Economy, p. 54. 320 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV 3. Difficulty of attainment is the cause of value. 4. Labor is the cause of value. Prof. Hadley only recognizes what he calls the "com- petitive and the socialistic theories of value," but says there may be "as many different theories of value as there are different views of business ethics. " His competitive theory is the utility theory and his social- istic theory is the old theory of the English economists, namely, the labor cost of production. 5 408. Utility. Prof. Jevons, who was the first to teach the utility theory, says : ' ( Cost of production de- termines supply; supply determines final degree of util- ity; final degree of utility determines value," and Prof. Alfred Marshall calls attention to the fact that if cost of production determines utility and utility determines value, one might as well drop utility out of the series and agree with the old economists that cost of produc- tion (labor) determines value, because, says Marshall, "If A causes B, and B causes C, then A causes C." 6 5. "Value being essentially an ethical term, we may have as many different theories of value as there are different views of business ethics. But these views fall under two main heads; the commercial or com- petitive theory, which bases value upon what the buyer is willing and able to offer for an article; and the socialistic theory, which bases it upon what the article has cost the seller in the way of toil and sacrifice. When we have grasped this ethical character of the controversy between the commercial and socialistic theories, we seize more clearly upon the points which are essential to the adjudication of this controversy. The question between the two parties is not primarily one of fact, but of advisability, not what necessarily determines value, but what kind of a price we shall stamp with our approval by calling it a value. The commercial theory is that the value of an article is the price which it would command under a system of free and open competition, as dis- tinct from one which is the result of special bargaining or fraudulent concealment. In this sense, the market price represents the temporary value of an article, and the normal price represents its permanent value. The advocates of the commercial theory hold that the competitive sys- tem serves the economic interests of society so well that the first rule of business morals is to conform thereto, and that the demands of com- mercial justice are generally satisfied by a schedule of prices made under the influence of fair and open competition, as allowed and encouraged by the common law of England and America." Hadley: Economics, pp. 92-93. 0. Marshall: Principles of Economics, p. 566. CHAP. XXV THEORIES OF VALUE 32i 409. Scarcity. In the same way, it might be said that if scarcity causes the value of staple commodities, more labor might increase the supply and lessen the scarcity, or less labor lessen the supply and increase the scarcity. And so again: Labor determines scarcity and scarcity determines value. If so, then labor deter- mines value. 410. Difficulty of Attainment. Again, it might be said that if difficulty of attainment causes value, only labor can overcome the difficulties and produce the goods. The only possible measure of the difficulties is labor, and so, finally: Labor overcomes, measures or determines difficulties; difficulties determine value, or labor determines value. 411. Competitive and Socialistic. Take Prof. Had- ley's competitive theory of value in the same way. Competition determines value. But who are the com- petitors ? How can any one competitor hope to outsell his rivals ? Manifestly only by offering more products for a smaller sum. How can he do this ? Only by more efficient labor or better machinery. But labor pro- duced the machinery. Therefore, more or more effec- tive labor expended in the building and using of ma- chinery is the only way by which the successful com- petitor fixes the ruling or normal price; that is, estab- lishes the value in the market of any given article. And so, if competition causes value, and labor, in build- ing and using the machinery of production, determines competition, then labor determines competition and competition determines value. Again, drop out the central step in the series and labor determines value. 412. Labor and the Produce of Labor. Jevons says: "I hold labor to be essentially variable, so that its value must be determined by the value of the pro- duce, not the value of the produce by that of the la- 322 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV bor." 7 Tliis is like contending that a son is as tall as his father, but that the father is not as tall as the son. If the produce determines the value of labor, in the long run, then it can do so only because of its relation to labor as its creator. The produce cannot, in the nature of things, determine the value of labor, in the long run, unless conversely the labor is the mea- sure of the value of the produce. The Socialists would be just as willing to measure the value of labor by the value of the produce of labor, as to measure the value of the produce by the labor. Stated either end ahead, this is the very core of the controversy. Do labor and the produce of labor imu tually determine the value of each other? And if labor has the power to produce goods for the market in ex- cess of what it can buy out of the market, is not that share of its products which it produces and cannot buy a surplus product which it is compelled to produce but cannot have! 8 If it can produce it, why can it not have all it produces? 413. Marginal Utility. The Austrian economists while not abandoning the historical method have added deductive processes to their methods of study. Wieser and Bohm-Bawerk are of this school, as well as most of the current American defenders of cap- italism. These economists contend for still another theory of value, that is, that marginal utility deter- mines value 9 that is, the value of any article is deter- 7. Jevons: Theory of Political Economy. 8. "We know, however, from what has gone before, that the labor process may continue beyond the time necessary to reproduce and in- corporate in the product a mere equivalent for the value of the labor- power. Instead of the six hours that are sufficient for the latter pur- pose, the process may continue for twelve hours. The action of labor- power, therefore, not only reproduces its own value, but produces value over and above it. This surplus value is- the difference between the value of the product and the value of the elements consumed in the for- mation of that product; in other words, of the means of production and the labor power." Marx: Capital, p. 191. 9. These economists mean by "marginal utility" practically the same thing as Professor Jevons meant by "final utility." CHAP. XXV THEORIES OF VALUE 323 mined by the last margin of demand. This means that, had the price been higher, some one who did buy at the current price and whose purchase was necessary in order to maintain the price, would not have bought; and so the "higgling of the market " would have forced down the average price in the market, and so the value of the article in question. But that last margin of demand for any given article may constantly fluctuate, as labor and machinery are more or less effec- tive in the production of the articles exchanged against each other, and so labor, in the building or using of the machinery of production, comes back as the one universal and indispensable factor in determining value. 414. Labor and Machinery. If, however, a distinc- tion is to be drawn between labor and machinery, and values held to be the joint product of both labor and machinery, with the result that labor is getting more than its share of the product in wages, and machinery is getting less than the share which machinery creates, as is contended, then, inasmuch as machinery has no personal needs, no standard of living to maintain and no children to educate, the workers who do have all these demands to meet ought to own the machinery in order that they may have for their own use the total product of their own labor and their own machinery. And it is not sound public policy not to so provide the workers with their own tools. 415. Justifying Exploitation. In seeking after the " cause of value" it is not an impertinent inquiry to ask after the cause of this change in the theories of value. Why have the economists abandoned the old ground? Why do they persist in denying that labor, the work of mind and hand, past and present, the cre- ative power of man applied to natural resources, cre- ates all wealth and that as there is more or less of the 324 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV waste of life in the creation of any given article, in the long run, and in the large and general average, there is more or less of value ? Is not the denial of this labor theory of value primarily an effort to find a theoret- ical justification for the wealth of the idlers and the poverty of the toilers 1 416. Supply and Demand. If it be admitted that marginal utility, that is, the balance of supply and de- mand, fixes the ratios at which articles exchange for each other at any given time, still it is true that labor alone can provide the supply, and will be able to pro- vide the supply for the larger or smaller demand only as the larger or smaller demand is, in the last analysis, made against vital human energy wasted in the proc- esses of production. There is no theory of value under which one can provide more seats at an opera with the house already packed, in time for the entertainment already under way, or increase the supply of straw- berries, after the season for planting has already passed. But labor alone can increase the number of opera seats, or the strawberry crop, in order to meet a later and larger demand. The effort to find an economic defense for the ex- ploitation of labor through abstract, conflicting theo- ries of value, will not avail. They cannot change the facts of the current economic situation. 417. Service for Service. No Socialist asks for the service of others without reward. The Socialist can- not be thrust aside from the effort to secure to all the just reward of industry and the equal opportunity for all to be industrious, by any theories regarding the ab- stract question as to what causes value. 418. Monopoly and Value. We must not lose sight of another and most important consideration. Price is the value of any given article stated in terms of money. But this price, this value, is fixed arbitrarily CHAP. XXV THEORIES OF VALUE 325 as to some articles, by the trusts ; and the power of tiie trust-controlled articles to compel an exchange in the market without any regard to the cost of production, either in labor or in the use of machinery, without any regard to utility, scarcity, or difficulty of attainment, 'and without the competition on which Prof. Hadley depends to determine values, this power to force ex- changes at arbitrary prices is purely a power which exists as the result of monopoly, under which the sole consideration is "not to charge more than the traffic will bear." If it be said that this is the very process by which values are determined and that "what the traffic will bear" is the measure of marginal utility, that last and final sale without which prices must fall then the answer is, that this is essentially not a process of exchange, but of outright robbery. It is tak- ing the "golden eggs" as rapidly as the industrial "goose" will lay them, and providing the goose with such returns only as will keep up the laying of more eggs. This is exactly what is taking place. Labor is able to sell itself only for the cost in labor of produc- ing more labor. But labor produces more than the cost of its own reproduction. This product of labor in excess of the labor cost of producing labor is the ' ' sur- plus value" of Karl Marx. Its appropriation by the capitalist is possible because of monopoly in the owner- ship of the means of producing the means of life. ^ The process of creating and appropriating this surplus the capitalist calls employing labor. The Socialist calls it exploiting labor. 419. Theft, Not Exchange. This is not exchange. It is theft. It is the robber taking all the victim has, except enough to induce him to produce some more in order that the next intended robbery may still be pro- ductive of the largest possible returns. But, if the rule of the robber is to be ruled out, and justice in exchange 326 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV is to be sought for, then the ultimate of all exchanges is an exchange of the services of labor. And there can be no other basis than that of service for service, of labor for labor, how much of labor in producing oil, for how much of labor in producing bread ? No theory of values can apply in explaining how oil sells for thirty times its cost, both in labor and in the use of machinery in its production, with wide fields of unde- veloped oil, and whole armies of the poorly paid wait- ing for better jobs. 10 Private monopoly is the only ex- planation. This private monopoly is unendurable. It cannot last. Collective ownership, and the collective use of the means of production, is the only remedy for this private monopoly. Collective ownership and dem- ocratic management will leave labor the only claimant against the products of industry, no matter what the- ories of value may be thought to be most scientific. 420. Who, Not What, Produces Value. "The real question is not what produces value, but who produces value 1 ' ' And if the real producer is producing values which for any reason he cannot have for his own use, while those who produce nothing do have his products to use, then it becomes a question of sound public pol- icy to create such conditions as will enable those who produce values to have, for their own use, the values which they produce. 11 10. "The certainty that a competitor will be ruined, if he appears, takes away all probability of his appearing; and this probability affords the only natural check of any importance on the action of the mo- nopoly." Clark : The Control of the Trust, p. 75. 11. "Every man has the right to the product of his own industry, because it is a part of himself; into it he has put a portion of his life. His life is his own, therefore this portion of his life is his own. The artist paints a picture; the musician composes a symphony; the author writes a book; into this picture, this symphony, this book, the artist, musician, author, has gone. Because the artist has projected himself into the picture, the musician into the symphony, the author into the book, this product of himself belongs to him. And what is true of the artist, of the musician, of the author, is true of every laborer. The shoemaker projects himself into the shoes; the carpenter into the house ; CHAP. XXV THEORIES OF VALUE 327 421. The Share of Nature. In so far as different persons jointly perform necessary services in the cre- ation of values, let each have his just share of the values so created. If nature contributes and stands ready to contribute in the production of value, and if society as, a whole contributes and stands ready to contribute in the production of value, then no possible scheme of dis- tributive justice can justly give to any one a greater claim than to each and to all, so far as nature and society contribute to the production of value. 422. Machinery. If machinery and organization contribute and stand ready to contribute in the crea- tion of value, they are lifeless and inanimate things, and can have no wants, and therefore can have no rights, and those who stand between the worker and the loom-worker into the cloth. These also are a part of the man. Into them he has put his brain work or his handiwork; therefore they are his. This right of every man to the product of his own labor is a natural right. Society did not confer it; society cannot take it away. Society may fail to protect it, or may violate it, but the right itself is absolute. Wherever organic law violates this right it is unjust; when- ever it fails to protect this right it is inefficient. It was for this reason that slavery was unjust. The injustice of slavery did not lie in the fact that they were ill-fed, ill-clothed, or ill-housed. If it had been true that they were better housed and fed and clothed in slavery than in free- dom, still slavery would not have been justified. The evil of slavery was not that families were separated. If the law had provided ex- plicitly that slave families should not be separated, still slavery would have been unjust. The injustice was not in specific acts of cruelty. If there had never been a Legree, still slavery would have been unjust. It was not that the slave was denied education. In Rome the slaves were educated, and authors, copyists and literary men were held in slavery, and slavery was not just. The wrong of slavery lay in this: that per- sonality was invaded; the product of the man was taken from him; he had put a part of his life out into the world and he was robbed of it. Whenever and howsoever society does this, it does injustice. So, again, if society is so organized that men cannot engage in pro- ductive industry, it is unjustly organized. The command, "By the sweat of thy brow shalt thou earn thy daily bread," involves a prerogative even more than a command. If society is so organized that large masses country, and if the industrial organization of to-day remains un- changed there will be such times in the future, when thousands of men have been driven into that enforced idleness which is the Englishman's hell. Any organization of society which prevents masses of the people from earning their daily bread by the sweat of their brow, or which 328 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV his tools must render a better service, if they wish to share in the products, than simply to consent to the use of the lifeless tools and to the benefits of organiza- tion. If they can prove a right to the private owner- ship of the tools, which the workers cannot use with- out the consent of those who are not workers, and these idlers will not consent unless they be permitted to appropriate values they do not create, then it is contrary to wise public policy that the workers shall longer be without the tools of production to freely use in their own behalf. 423. Human Energy and the Landlord, the Capital- ist and the Laborer. Nature and the past efforts of society may have provided the means of production, but production is impossible without the present ex- penditure of individual human energy, that is, human life. That in the production of value the landlord con- tributes human energy or life is denied. That in the production of value the capitalist con- tributes human energy, or life, in the form of machin- ery and organization, is admitted. That he contributes his own energy, or life, is denied. Machinery and or- ganization are simply the union of raw materials, freely furnished by nature,- and human labor, energy, or life, in time past. It will be rarely found to have been pro- duced by the union of free raw materials and the labor, energy, or life, of their present possessors. The fails to enable them so to earn it if they will to do so, is an unjust or- ganization of society. So, any organization of society which, allowing men to work, still fails adequately and rightfully to adjust the relations between the workers, and takes so much for the one class that it leaves practically nothing for the other class, or leaves them but a mere pit- tance and bare subsistence, is an unjust organization of society. The man who has put his life into his labor has a right to the product of that life. If, in the complexity of modern society he is combined with others in that production, lie has a right to a fair, just and equable share in the product of the combined industry." Abbott: Rights of Man, pp. 104-106. CHAP. XXV THEORIES OF VALUE 329 fact that the capitalist possesses the machinery and organization, and that the laborer does not, is not a proof of the former's rightful possession. If they are to be used to impoverish and enslave the worker, then this situation, instead of proving the capitalist ? s right to social protection in appropriating the products of the laborer, only proves the laborer's right to social protection while he constructs for his own use the tools of his own industry. 424. The Reward of Tyranny. That the manager contributes labor, energy, or life, in the management of industry is not denied. The Socialist asks that all such necessary labor shall be justly rewarded. But the manager does not contribute what the workers cannot better contribute. He does not provide the manage- ment in the manner most economical and beneficial to the workers themselves. And finally, he does exercise personal, tyrannical control in the management of the industry of others, holding the workers in the relation of servants. Whereas, industrial democracy will not only produce better industrial results, but will imme- diately make the workers free men and women. The managers ought not to be rewarded by the workers with any share of the products for managing the en- terprise in such a manner as secures the smallest re- turns for the workers and holds them as the victims of the relation of mastery and servitude as the condi- tion of their existence. 425. Summary. 1. The value of any article means /'the amount of its purchasing power in exchange for . other articles in the market. 2. If value is created by labor, it follows that the laborers who create the value ought to have the values their labor creates. 3. If value is not created by labor alone but by "social conditions," by "mental attitudes," by ma- 330 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV chines, by "social f actors " other than labor, then sound public policy demands that all social factors shall serve all mankind alike and the least society can do is to provide equal economic opportunities for all. 4. All theories of value fail in the presence of monopoly, and monopoly controls the means of produc- ing the means of life. Vast organizations of industry make possible great economies, but if privately con- trolled involve monopoly. 5. Services cannot be rendered nor goods produced without the waste of human energy, or life. Whoever refuses to contribute of his energy, or life, to the ser- vice of others can have no just claim to the service or to the goods which are produced with the waste of energy, or life, of others. 6. If under current conditions goods are so pro- 'duced and services are so rendered that those who pro- duce goods, or render service, or are ready to render service, cannot secure the service or the goods of others in the same proportion as they are ready to serve others, then sound public policy demands such a change as shall create such conditions as will make this possi- ble, but that is Socialism. REVIEW QUESTIONS. 1. Why is the exchange of goods necessary? 2. What single thing is possessed in common by all exchangeable goods ? 3. What is value? 4. Who first taught the labor theory of value? 5. Who afterward taught it? 6. What advantage did the Socialists take of this theory? 7. Name other theories of value. 8. Who first taught the utility theory ? 9. Show that labor has an important place in all theories of value. 10. Who teach the marginal utility theory ? What is this theory ? 11. If labor and machinery are joint producers, what then? 12. How is labor related to supply and demand? 13. How does monopoly affect all theories of value? 14. What is meant by charging all the traffic will bear? What is surplus value? 15. What is the only rational remedy for monopoly? 16. Compare what with who, in the inquiry for the cause of value. 17. Who contribute to production? Who should share? 18. Can the service of the private manager be better provided for? 19. Why is private management objectionable? CHAPTER XXVI JUSTICE IN EXCHANGE THE MONEY QUESTION 426. The Origin of Money. In the earlier forms of society, when each tribe produced, stored and used, un- der common ownership, by co-operative labor and for the common use of all the tribe, there was no money because there was no private exchange for profits and so no call for any general medium of exchange. There was no system of credits, and hence, no debts, and therefore no call for a means by which the debtor could pay and discharge the claims of the creditor. There was no general market, and hence, no demand for any single measure by which the power of any article in the market, to exchange itself for any other article, could be easily determined. 427. The Necessity for Money. With the develop- ment of private ownership in the means of production, and the coming of the market, it became necessary to provide something which could be used in all of these several ways. The occasion for money did not exist until private ownership in the means of production and individual enterprise in the management of exchange had first come, and with the displacement of these it will again disappear in all of the main functions which 331 332 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV it now performs. But with private ownership and indi- vidual enterprise in the work of production and ex- change once in force, or so long as they remain in force, there can be no subject in economics of more impor- tance than that of money. 1 It is the purpose of this chapter to show just what the service of money is, how great its importance now is, why some of its functions and those the ones al- ways in dispute will not be needed under Socialism, and hence, how the whole money question, which is in- capable of just solution under capitalism, will vanish with the coming of the co-operative commonwealth. 428. Not at First the Creature of Law. Money was not created by legislation. It existed before legislation and independent of the legislator. It came into exist- ence not by political action, good or bad. It came into existence along with the market and solely because of its economic necessity. 429. Earliest Forms of Money. All sorts of things have been used as money. Cattle were an old form of money. The word "pecuniary," meaning of, or relat- ing to money, is derived from "pecus," meaning cattle, and so there is preserved to us, in this word, an allu- sion to the fact that among all European peoples the money was once cattle. Sheep, wheat, dates, rice, co- coa, olive oil, rock salt, tea, tobacco, whiskey, beaver skins, iron, tin, lead, copper, platinum, and gold and silver, are among the things which have been used as money. The American Indians had a method of mak- ing records by the use of beads so strung on strings and woven together as to make a hieroglyphic repre- sentation of things and events. They were made into belts and other ornaments. The beads were made of 1. "The division of labor converts the product of labor into a com- modity, and thereby makes necessary its further conversion into money." Marx: Capital, p. 81. CHAP. XXVI 1HE MONEY QUESTION 333 variously colored shells and embodied a good deal of labor. The finished product was called wampum and was used as money. 430. Necessary Qualities. It was found by experi- ence that whatever was to be used for money should possess in the highest degree possible five qualities: (1) It should be imperishable; (2) have large value in small compass and weight; (3) be capable of being di- vided into very small quantities, and be reunited if necessary without injury; (4) easy to recognize, and (5) all samples should be alike. It is because silver and gold so largely possess these qualities that they were finally adopted as the money of the world. 2 While money was at the first established by the economic necessities of the market, when once estab- lished, political intrigue and legislative action in the manipulation of the money metals, and in making na- tional notes or bonds for payment in one or the other, or both of them, have at one time protected and at another defrauded the public through all the years of their history. 431. Its Functions. According to the economists there are three functions of money: (1) a medium of ex- 2. "The ideal requisites for a perfect money material have been well stated, among others, by Jevons; but it is necessary to separate these, accordingly as they apply to a standard, or to a medium of exchange: I. Standard (1) Value; (2) Standard of value. II. Medium of Exchange; (3) Portability; (4) Indestructibility; (5) Homogeneity; (6) Divisibility (and reunion) ; (7) Cognizibility. "It will be seen at a glance that, where the medium of exchange is different from the standard, the requisites can not be indifferently ap- plied to both. Articles whose prices are expressed in terms of the standard, may be actually exchanged by means which do not call the standard into use. ' h As soon as legal conditions permitted any permanence of contracts, and as soon as the time element entered materially into industrial relations (especially with the extension of division of labor), the third function of money as a standard of deferred payments assumed importance. This function, however, is not different from that of a simple standard, except that the former covers compari- sons in which the time element appears. By some it might be regarded only as a case of the standard function. It is not important, however, how it is distinguished, provided only that the problems arising from the time element in contracts shall receive full attention." Laughlin: The Principles of Money, pp. 21-22. 334 QUESTIONS OP CONTROVERSY PART IV change; (2) a measure of value; (3) a standard for the settlement of deferred payments. 432. A Medium of Exchange. 1. As a medium of exchange money is simply a labor-saving device. One produces bread only and wishes to exchange bread in the market for all his other necessities, such as other articles of food and his clothing, fuel and house rent. With such a purpose in mind he comes with a load of bread. But suppose there is no money, no single ar- ticle which can be used with which to fix the price of the bread and of all the articles to be obtained with bread. How many loaves of bread for a ton of coal, a coat, a month's rent? Before he can sell his bread he must fix a price, and as there is no money he must make up a list of all the articles he wants, about the cost of production of most of which articles he knows little or nothing, but nevertheless he must fix a price for each, in bread, or a price for his bread in each of the other articles, which is the same thing. How many loaves of bread is a coat worth? How many loaves of bread is a ton of coal worth ? If he will make up a full market report of the price of bread he must make an entry for every other article in the market. If the merchant wanted to mark the price of his goods and there were but one hundred articles in the market and no money in existence, he would be obliged to make as many en- tries for each article as he had articles in his store. But this is not all. When our baker had established the value of his bread in all of the articles which he de- sired to purchase, it would yet be necessary to find those who had the food, clothing, fuel and rent in quan- tities to exchange for bread and of the kinds and qual- ities which the baker could use. It is readily seen that it would be an impossible undertaking to find the man who would have what the baker wants and would want what the baker has. Under the wage system it would CHAP. XXVI THE MONEY QUESTION 335 be about as impossible to do business without money as it would be to do business without transportation. And so all races of men, whenever they have reached the stage of attempting exchanges have hit upon some article which all would accept, not because all wanted to use the article, but inasmuch as all would accept it, the prices of all other articles could be fixed in the terms of this one article, and so all articles be more easily exchanged for each other. 433. A Measure of Value. 2. The economists also teach that money is a measure of value. 3 It is easy enough to use a foot rule in measuring lengths. How can one use money to measure the value of things ? In doing this there are two things to be comprehended: one is the measure itself and other is the thing meas- ured. The length of the foot rule is arbitrarily deter- mined by a standard foot with which any particular rule can be compared. With this for a standard, the length of which is easily comprehended, it is easy to de- termine and to understand greater or shorter lengths by applying the rule. Not so with money. To be sure there is a standard dollar, but that is a standard of weight and fineness by which the weight and fineness of any particular dollar can be determined; but that does not in any way help us to understand the value of the dollar, of proper weight and fineness, which is it- self to be the measure of other values. How can this measure of value itself be measured so that one can comprehend its value and so comprehend the value of the other things to which this measure may be applied ? 434. Value. In the discussions of the economists they make the word " value" mean the power which 3. "The first chief function of money is to supply commodities with the material for the expression of their values, or to represent their values as magnitudes of the same denomination, quantitatively equal, and quantitatively comparable. It thus serves as a universal measure of value." Marx: Capital, p. 66. 336 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV any given article lias to exchange itself in the market for other articles, and the word "price" is made to mean that exchange value expressed in the terms of money, as in dollars and cents. 4 Thus it is seen that any article has more or less value as it is able to ex- change itself for a larger or smaller quantity of other goods ; and the price is high or low as it indicates the greater or less power of an article to so exchange itself for other things. 435. A Common Quality of All Goods. There is only one thing which the things which have power to exchange themselves in the market all have in com- mon, and that is the labor power, the waste of human life expended in their production. This is as true of the original dollar as it is of wheat or cloth. Just as all things have length, and so a fixed and standard rule of given length can be used to measure all other things as to length, so all of the things in the market, which have power there to exchange themselves for other things, have this one quality in common, and no other, that the production of each article involves the waste of human life. If there is to be any measure which can determine the relation of these articles to each other it must be something common to them all, and further it must be something which, if possessed in a larger or smaller degree, will correspondingly in- crease or diminsh the power of any article to exchange itself for other things. That which is exchanged in the market is not really wheat and cloth and iron; it is the services which produced the wheat and cloth and iron, the human energy, that is, the human life ex- pended in their production; and hence, the real ques- tion, always unstated, but always present, is: How much of human life expended in the production of 4. ''Price is the money-name of the labor realized in a commodity." Marx: Capital, p. 74. CHAP. XXVI THE MONEY QUESTION 337 wheat shall be exchanged for how much of human life expended to produce cloth or iron? The same thing is true of all other articles in the market, including the gold in a dollar as truly as the cotton in a shirt. Under capitalism it is assumed that gold or silver, or silver and gold together, with printed promises to pay one or the other or both, can be used as a just measure of value. This will be disputed further on, but in this place the purpose is to make clear how this measure of value is applied in actual use. 438. Applying the Measure. If one goes into the market with any article which he has made, he knows what it has cost him in labor. If he knows nothing of the other articles and the price is fixed on them in tKe terms of some other article, as money, and he can learn the price of the article which he has brought, through his knowledge of his own article, and his ability to compare its price with the price of all the rest, he can at once measure the value of all the other articles, as related to his own, and so be able to understand their relation to himself, as a wealth-producer, and to esti- mate with some degree of accuracy what each article would cost him in time and toil to become its possessor. 437. Both Medium and Measure. The value of other things in the market is determined by their abil- ity to exchange for more or less money. The value of money is in the same way determined by its ability to exchange for more or less of other things. An indi- vidual is able to comprehend the range of all values by the relation of the price of each in money to the price of some article which he has himself produced. He ex- changes his own products for money only to again ex- change the money for other products. He is exchang- ing his own products, which he cannot use, for the products of others, which he can use, and money not only acts as a medium of exchange, but measures and 338 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV reveals the value of each article while making the ex- change. The value which things have for use independent of their power in the market is called use value. Air has the greatest use value but no exchange value. Money as a measure of value has to do with exchange values only. There is no such thing in economics as a measure of use values. Political economy takes no ac- count of use values. It only deals with things as re- lated to the market. It is the power of things in the market to exchange themselves for other things which it is the function of money to measure. 438. A Standard of Deferred Payments. 3. The economists further teach that it is the function of money to act as a standard for the settlement of de- ferred payments. Whatever is the standard for the settlement of de- ferred payments ought not to fluctuate in its own value; that is, its ability to exchange itself for the gen- eral average of other things ought to be the same at all times. If one sells and buys again at the same time, the same range of prices is in force when he buys as when he sells. The measure and medium of exchange has not had the time to shrink or lengthen after he has let go the article of his own production, and before he has gotten the article which he was seeking for his own use. But if one sells today and then buys a year later, it will be rare indeed that he will be able to buy for the same money the same things as when he sold a year before. Or if one lends to another on a year's time, it will be very rare that he will be able to buy the same things for the same money on the day of pay- ment as when the loan was made. If he lends wheat and wheat is to be paid again and the price of wheat doubles in the meantime, other things remaining un- changed, he can buy twice as much .with the wheat re- CHAP. XXVI THE MONEY QUESTION 339 turned as he could have bought with the wheat he had lent at the time the loan was made. In the same way if one borrows money with which to buy from the mar- ket things for his use, and depends on selling, at a later day in order to get the money with which to make repayment, if the range of prices goes down, that is, if the value of money as measured by the things it will buy, goes up, then the debtor must sell more things to get the money with which to make his payment than he was able to buy with the money he had borrowed. If, on the other hand, average prices had advanced, that is, if money had become cheaper as compared with the things which it would buy, then the debtor would sell fewer things to get the money with which to make his repayment and the creditor would be able to buy fewer things with the money paid, although he had the same number of dollars, than he could have bought with the money he lent at the time the loan was made. 439. The Debtor and Creditor. Every increase in the value of money, as compared with things which money buys, is a benefit to the creditor and an injury to the debtor. Every decrease in the value of money is a corresponding injury to the creditor and benefit to the debtor. This is the reason why those who have lent money are always wanting it to be scarce and therefore dear, and those who have borrowed money always want it plentiful and therefore cheap. It shows why in every money war the creditors and debtors are al- ways arrayed against each other. 5 . 440. The Ratio Between Other Things and Dollars. It is a general law of the economists that whenever 5. "The question of money, or of credit, for they are the same, is only of superficial importance, and really does not interest the wage worker, being wholly a question between the debtor and the creditor class. When the creditor lends his money, he wants it cheap, or rather plenty, with a minimum purchasing power. When he collects it, he wants it dear, with a maximum purchasing power." J. K. Ingalls: Economic Equities, p. 54. 340 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV the supply of any article is increased, the demand re- maining the same, the power of any fixed amount of that article to exchange itself for other things, that is, its value, is correspondingly decreased; but if the sup- ply should be decreased, under the same conditions, then the value would correspondingly increase. Stated in another way this law means that a big crop means a low price per bushel, and a crop failure a large price per bushel. When this law is applied to money it works in the same way as when applied to any other article. It means that the more money there is in cir- culation and available for business the less each dollar will buy and the easier it is for those with other things to sell to get dollars, but it also means that the fewer dollars there are in circulation and available for busi- ness the more each dollar will buy and the harder it is for those with other things to sell to get dollars in ex- change for other things. 441. Printed Dollars. In consideration of this fact it has been proposed to abandon the plan of having the material of each dollar of the same value as the dollar itself and to substitute printed dollars, of no value in themselves but to make them valuable not as has been so often said, by ' l act of congress ' ' declaring them valuable, but, through the power of congress to make them receivable for government charges, by mak- ing them receivable by all who enforce their collections through the courts and by limiting their volume. It is this power to determine what shall pass as a legal tender, be receivable for public charges and the power to control the volume of money which could make a good and sound currency, without gold, by act of con- gress, if it were only certain that congress itself would at all times be good and sound. There is no mathemat- ical or economic difficulty in the way of doing so, but there would be no natural limit to the number of dollars CHAP. XXVI THE MONEY QUESTION 341 which might be printed. It is evident that the credit- ors would always be struggling for fewer dollars and the debtors for more of them, and the danger of disas- ter would always be present in every act of congress. By act of congress the volume could be unduly limited asi well as unduly extended and there would be the possibility of using the action of congress to distress the debtor as well as for his relief. As a matter of fact, in dealing with the greenbacks, the power of con- gress has been almost uniformly used in the interest of those who were anxious for fewer dollars rather than for the relief of those who would be helped by the larger number of dollars. 442. Bank-Made Money. The money-lenders have resorted to the paper dollar of the private banking corporations. 6 While in the use of such money disaster is likely to fall all the time on the borrowers, the dan- ger of its use is greater than in the use of ' i money by 6. "The system of public credit, i. e., of national debts, whose origin we discover in Genoa and Venice as early as the middle ages, took possession of Europe generally during the manufacturing period. The colonial system with its maritime trade and commercial wars served as a forcing-house for it. Thus it first took root in Holland. National debts, i. e., the alienation of the state, whether despotic, constitutional or republican marked with its stamp the capitalistic era. The only part of the so-called national wealth that actually enters into the col- lective possessions of modern peoples is their national debt. Hence, as a necessary consequence, the modern doctrine, that a nation becomes the richer the more deeply it is in debt. Public credit becomes the credo of capital, and with the rise of national debt-making, want of faith in the national debt takes the place of the blasphemy against the holy ghost, which may not be forgiven. "The public debt becomes one of the most powerful levers of prim- itive accumulation. As with the stroke of an enchanter's wand, it en- dows barren money with the power of breeding and thus turns it into capital, without the necessity of its exposing itself to the troubles and risks inseparable from its employment in industry, or even in usury. The state creditors actually give nothing away, for the sum lent is transformed into public bonds, easily negotiable, which go on func- tioning in their hands just as so much hard cash would. But further, apart from the class of lazy annuitants thus created, and from the improvised wealth of the financiers, middlemen between the government and the nation as also apart from the tax-farmers, merchants, private manufacturers, to whom a good part of every national loan renders the service of a capital fallen from heaven the national debt has given rise to joint stock companies, to dealings in negotiable effects of 342 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV the act of congress." This bank note money puts the control of the volume of money, and hence of its value, into the hands of a small class in a way which makes possible the turning of both the increase and decrease of the volume of money to their own benefit. They will be able to make money plentiful and prices high when they are lending money and accepting collaterals, but there will be nothing to prevent them from making it scarce and dear when they get ready to withdraw from circulation their own money and to keep both the money and the collaterals. 7 Asset banking is simply a proposal to base the bank's circulation on whatever securities may be deemed satisfactory to the public authorities, after the all kinds, and to agiotage, in a word to stock exchange gambling and the modern bankocracy. "At their birth the great banks, decorated with national titles, were only associations of private speculators, who placed themselves by the side of the governments, and, thanks to the privileges they received, were in a position to advance money to the state. Hence the accumula- tion of the national debt has no more infallible measure than the suc- cessive rise in the stock of these banks, whose full development dates from the founding of the Bank of England in 1694. The Bank of Eng- land began with lending its money to the government at 8 per cent; at the same time it was empowered by Parliament to coin money out of the same capital, by lending it again to the public in the form of bank notes. It was allowed to use these notes for discounting bills, making advances on commodities, and for buying the precious metals. It was not long ere this credit Bank of England made its loans to the state, and paid, on account of the state, the interest on the public debt. It was not enough that the bank gave with one hand and took back more with the other; it remained, even whilst receiving the eternal creditor of the nation down to the last shilling advanced. Gradually it became inevitably the receptacle of the metallic hoard of the country, and the center of gravity of all commercial credit. What effect was produced on their contemporaries by the sudden uprising of this brood of banko- crats, financiers, rentiers, brokers, stock jobbers, etc., is proved by the writings of that time." Marx: Capital, pp. 779-80. 7. "But a time came when the suction of the usurers so wasted the life of the community that the stream of bullion ceased to flow from the capital (Rome) to the frontiers; then as the sustaining force failed, the line of troops along the Danube and the Rhine was drawn out until it broke, and the barbarians poured in unchecked." Adams: Law of Civilization and Decay, p. 46. "By degrees as competition sharpened after the Reformation, a type was developed which, perhaps, may be called the merchant ad- venturer; men like Child and Boulton, bold, energetic, audacious. Gradually energy vented itself more and more freely through these CHAP. XXVI THE MONEY QUESTION 343 same manner as bank currency is now based on na- tional bonds. It is in effect the adoption by the banks of the proposals of the Populists with the exception that the circulation is to be privately controlled rather than by the public, and is to be based on debfs rather than on property, but as the debts are to be secured by merchants, until they became the ruling power in England, their gov- ernment lasting from 1688 to 1815. At length they fell through the very brilliancy of their genius. The wealth they amassed so rapidly accumulated until it prevailed over all other forms of force, and by so doing raised another variety of man to power. These last were the modern bankers. "With the advent of the bankers, a profound change came over civilization, for contraction began. Self-interest had from the outset taught the producer that to prosper he should deal in wares which tended rather to rise than fall in value, relatively to coin. The op- posite instinct possessed the usurer; he found that he grew rich when money appreciated, or when the borrower had to part with more property to pay his debt when it fell due than the cash lent him would have bought on the day the obligation was contracted. As to- ward the close of the eighteenth century, the great hoards of London passed into the possession of men of the latter type, the third and most redoubtable variety of economic intellect arose to prominence, a variety of which perhaps the most conspicuous example is the family of Rothschild. * * During the long [Napoleonic] wars Europe plunged into debt, contracting loans in depreciated paper, or in coin which was unprecedentedly cheap because of the abundance of the precious metals. "In the year 1809, prices reached the greatest altitude they ever attained in modern, or even, perhaps, in all history. From the year 1810, nature has favored the usurious mind even as she fa- vored it in Rome, from the death of Augustus. "Moreover, both in ancient and modern life, the first symptom of this profound economic and intellectual revolution was identical. Tacitus has described the panic which was the immediate forerunner of the rise of the precious metals in the first century; and in 1810 a sim- ilar panic occurred in London, when prices suddenly fell fifteen per cent, and when the most famous magnate of the stock exchange was ruined and killed. * * From that day to this the slow contraction has continued, with only the break of little more than twenty years, when the gold of California and Australia came in an overwhelming flood; and from that day to this the same series of phenomena have succeeded one another, which eighteen hundred years ago marked the emascula- tion of Rome." Adams : Law of Civilization and Decay, pp. 321-325. "Not less formidable is the financial monopoly. A certain sub- stance made into a certain form and bearing a certain stamp is made the representative of its own intrinsic value, in any form whatever. The existence of this circulating medium gives rise to special enter- prises for the exchange of this only. As wealth increases more rap- idly than money, and the exchange of products becomes too great to be carried on with the amount of the circulating medium, resort is had to paper money, in the nature of obligations to pay in the recognized medium. These obligations, in the course of time and the demands and vicissitudes of trade, assume a thousand forms, and become loaded with 344 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV property it is the same thing in effect. The proposal, if adopted, would simply extend the range within which the banks could control the fluctuations in prices by alternately increasing and diminishing the volume of money in existence and available for business. 443. The Multiple Standard. In order to avoid the injury done by such fluctuations in the value of money it has been proposed to establish, instead of either the single standard or double standard, what is called the multiple standard. This proposal is that the aver- age price of a large number of articles in the market shall be depended on to fix the volume of money, and that the government shall issue as much money, or have authority to retire at any time, as much money as may be necessary to maintain this standard of average prices. If the price of a single article varies there may be some reason relating to the methods of its pro- duction or to the nature of the season, or to the de- mand for its use, to account for the change, but if the average price of a large number of the articles most in use varies in a free market, this can be accounted for only by too much or too little money. In this way it has been thought that a sufficient basis could be found for the effective guidance of congress in their re- sponsible control of the volume of money. 8 infinite complexities, giving extent and importance to financial enter- prise. "It would be marvelous if those who became initiated into all the mysteries of financial manipulation did not learn with the rest how to absorb a large amount of these various representations of value. No field of speculation offers such temptations, and, while a lack of tact and cunning is sure to be attended with ruin, the successful are loaded with wealth. Such a field is never without its organized monopolists, who do nothing but watch their chances to sweep down upon the fruits of human toil and with a stroke of the pen brush into their money drawers the patient labor of years. Though a somewhat hazardous one, speculation in paper obligations is an extensive business, a successful mode of acquisition, and a dangerous monopoly." Ward: Dynamic So- ciology, Vol. L, pp. 592-3. 8. "It appears to be a natural law that when social development has reached a certain stage, and capital has accumulated sufficiently, CHAP. XXVI THE MONEY QUESTION 345 It is evident that under such an arrangement the relation of the volume of money to average prices could be controlled, but it is equally evident that the average prices themselves could be seriously affected by the action of the trusts which control so large a number of the leading articles of the market. 444. Summary. Part I. No Solution Under Cap- italism. It is contended, then, that under capitalism there is no possible solution of the money question, and this for the following reasons: 9 1. A national paper* currency would be absolutely arbitrary in its relation to exchange and would de- pend on congress to fix its volume, and hence its value, without any possible means of otherwise maintaining a stability of average prices. An act cjf congress changing the volume of money, at any time, would change average prices. Every variation in average prices is an injury to someone. 2. The cost of producing gold and silver, either or both of them, varies from time to time and the vol- ume of gold and silver as related to the volume of busi- ness is constantly changing, and each such change af- fects average prices. Every variation in average prices in an injury to someone. 3. The hoarding of gold changes the volume of money as related to the volume of business, to the bene- fit of the creditors, just as the coming of new gold from the gold fields tends to the debtors' relief. There is no way by which the volume of the new gold can be fixed. It depends on the fortune of the mines. There the class which has had the capacity to absorb it shall try to enhance the value of their property by legislation." Adams: Law of Civiliza- tion and Decay, p. 29. 9. "The pursuit of an ideal money which is unchangeable in its relations to other things is as idle as the search for the philosopher's stone, or the attempt to find a fixed point in the solar system." Charles A. Conant, in Journal of Political Economy, June, 1903, p. 414. 346 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV is no way by which to prevent the hoarding of gold, both new and old. It depends at one time on the fears and at another time on the rascality of those who have it. Every change in the volume of money as related to the volume of business affects average prices. Every 1 variation in average prices is an injury to someone. ( 4. Bank currency, authorized by law, whether se- cured by national bonds or any other kind of assets, simply places the business of the country in the hands and at the mercy of a private corporation. The man- agement of such a corporation would have to be more thoroughly disinterested than any like group of men the world has yet known or they would use their power to manipulate the volume of money expressly for the purpose of affecting average prices. Every change in average prices which would thus be brought about would be to the injury of the industrial world for the further profit of its money masters. 5. The multiple standard would be no solution of the money question. The theory is mathematically faultless. It depends for its effectiveness upon an aver- age of prices created and continued, in a free market, by dealers engaged in an effective competition with each other. There is no such market, and unless human life is to be simply a horse race, managed solely to see which one can get ahead of all the rest, no such mar- ket is to be desired. Under the market as it is and as it is likely to remain, even with the multiple standard in force, if that were possible, the prices of trust-con- trolled articles could be continuously changed, arbi- trarily and without reason. Every such change would affect the average of prices, and under the multiple standard the volume of money, and so again the prices of articles not in the trust would fluctuate by the action of the trust and the power of the trust not only to arbi- trarily advance its own prices, but, through controlling CHAP. XXVI THE MONEY QUESTION 347 the money, disastrously to affect the prices of articles of trade not otherwise subject to trust control, and hence, would defeat the purposes of the multiple stand- ard. And, therefore, there is no solution of the money ques- tion under capitalism which does not leave the power of money in the hands of those who gamble with loaded dice and whose stakes involve the welfare of the world. 445. Summary. Part II. Socialism Will End the Controversy. On the other hand it is contended that Socialism will abolish exchange for profits and will dispose of the use of money of intrinsic value and sub- ject to private manipulation as an essential in ex- change, and so make an end of the money question by providing a way by which each may exchange his own labor power for the products of all others, practically on a basis of exact and equal justice to all, and this for the following reasons: 1. Under capitalism one's ability to get things out of the market depends on his possession of money, which is always an uncertain and imperfect record of someone, somewhere, some time, having put something into some market. Under Socialism the record on which one will depend for his power to draw things from the public stores will be definite and certain. It has been seen that the real thing exchanged is labor power, and under Socialism the record of labor power expended will be direct, simple and certain. No one can predict what the details of the distribution of the future will be, but it does not matter whether labor certificates, pass books, or whatever the device may be by which the credits for labor will be made available for daily use. The money now in existence could be so used. But whatever is used the certificates or the dol- lars will come into circulation because of the perform- ance of labor; they will go out of circulation by being 348 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV surrendered for goods to be used. They will make a record of production in one instance and of consump- tion in the other. Their volume will depend on the labor performed, and the extent of their claims will always be limited by the goods actually in store. These goods can be obtained only on account of labor per- formed, or because of childhood or old age or disabil- ity, so that the receiver of them will always be an im- mediate producer or a social charge, and not a social parasite. 2. As the total labor of all will be the sole claim- ant against all of the products of all of the workers, the only measure of value, that is of power in the mar- ket, will be labor itself. If things have any power to exchange themselves for other things, it would neces- sarily be at the cost in labor of producing the other things, for when the cost in labor could procure the other things by surrendering certificates of labor for them, none would exchange their goods at any other rate than the general average of the labor cost of pro- ducing them. The only power over the things in the market would be the labor which put them there. Then, as now, only the expenditure of human life can put things into the market. Then, but not as now, only those who put some share of their lives into filling the market could have any share in emptying it. Only those who gave something of life in the creation of goods could secure something of life in the form of goods. 3. Under Socialism there will be no need of loans for the purchase of productive plants. They will be owned in abundance by society for the free use of the whole body of its workers. There will be no need of loans for the purchase of goods for private stores. There will be no demand for private stores. There will be no occasion for personal loans. The able-bodied CHAP. XXVI THE MONEY QUESTION 319 will always have employment and the disabled will al- ways be provided for. The whole credit system of cap- italism will go at once on the coming of Socialism. As there will be no deferred payments, no standard for the settlement of deferred payments will be necessary. 4. The only thing which can in any way compare with our credit system will be found in the fact that the credits of the workers will accumulate from day to day, but while society stores the goods which will be produced by the labor which earns these credits it will not be a borrower of them, and when these workers come to the public stores to exchange these credits for the articles of their choice, it will not be to make a pur- chase, in the present sense of that term, but simply to withdraw from storage, values which are already theirs. To purchase is to give one thing of value in exchange for another thing of value. Under Socialism whatever forms of credit a worker may have will simply certify to his share of the goods in store. He will not go there to purchase what belongs to another. He will go to withdraw what is already his own. 5. So it is seen that under Socialism neither the votes of congress, nor the fortunes of mines, nor pri- vate hoarding, nor a trust-ruled market can, through the power of money, disastrously affect the process by which the products of all, which embody something of the expended life of all, shall always be within the reach of all. Banks, banking, loans, discounts, bonds, contracts, the breach of contracts, brokers, promoters, mortgages, foreclosures, evictions, embezzlements, bankruptcies, bulls, bears and corners will all go to the economic junk heap along with horse cars, stage coaches, flint-lock muskets and the rest of the outgrown equipment of a growing world. 10 10. "The civilized governments of the present day are resting under a burden of indebtedness computed at $27,000,000,000. This sum, which 350 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV REVIEW QUESTIONS. 1. According to the economists, what are the functions of money? 2. What was the origin of money ? Name some of the things which have been used as money. 3. What qualities ought any article to possess if it is to be used as money? Why did silver and gold finally come to be the money metals ? 4. What is meant by a medium of exchange? Why is such a medium necessary? 5. What is meant by a measure of value ? How can money be used to measure the value of any given article? 6. What is meant by value use value and price as used by the economists ? 7. What is the one thing which all things have in common as re- lated to the power which they have to exchange for each other in the market ? 8. How can the value of money be determined? 9. What is meant by a standard for the settlement of deferred pay- ments ? 10. Explain why a change in the value of money must injure either the creditor or the debtor. Why are the debtors and creditors always on opposite sides in all disputes which involve the value of money? 11. Give the general law of supply and demand as related to money. What about the proposal for paper money? What are the possibilities of its abuse? Could congress use its power to control the volume of money, made on paper, to the injury of the debtors? 12. Explain the multiple standard. 13. Prove that there is no solution for the money question under the wage system, mentioning paper money, gold, bank notes and the multiple standard. 14. Prove that Socialism would dispose of the money question, mentioning the medium of exchange, the measure of value and the standard for the settlement of deferred payments under Socialism. does not include local obligations of any sort, constitutes a mortgage of $722 upon each square mile of territory over which the burdened gov- ernments extend their jurisdiction, and shows a per capita indebtedness of $23 upon their subjects. The total amount of national obligations is equal to seven times the aggregate annual revenue of the indebted states: At the liberal estimate of $1.50 per day, the payment of accru- ing interest, computed at 5 per cent, would demand the continuous labor of three millions of men. Should the people of the United States con- tract to pay the principal of the world's debt, their engagement would call for the appropriation of a sum equal to the total gross product of .their industry for three years; or, if annual profits alone were devoted , to this purpose, they would be enslaved by their contract for the greater ' part of a generation. * "But it is not alone the magnitude of this constant drain upon the product of current industry that invites our attention to a study of pub- lic debts; their recent appearance suggests many questions of equal importance. Previous to the present century, England and Holland were the only countries that had learned by experience the weight of national obligations; but at the present time the phenomenon of public debts is almost universal, and there are many peoples that rival Eng- land in the taxes paid for their support." Adams : Public Debts, pp. 3-4. CHAPTER XXVII THEORIES OF POPULATION 446. The Law of Increase. The whole number of the children all the time exceeds the whole number of the parents, and so in each generation the population continues to multiply. 1 Plants and animals of all kinds are sprouted or are begotten in such numbers that if all which make a beginning in life were to continue to live and to bring forth after their kind, it would very soon occur that the world could not contain them. The reason why this does not happen is because the animals are not permitted by each other or by exposure or acci- dent to so come to maturity and bring forth each ' i after its own kind/' But if any particular animal should be given the exclusive occupancy of the whole earth, though it were the slowest breeder known, it alone in the course of time would so cover the earth 's surface that there would be the same struggle for the chance for some portion of them to live by the destruction of the rest. 2 447. The Struggle to Exist. All animals, including man, so say the capitalists, struggle for existence, and 1. Darwin: Descent of Man, p. 62. 2. Darwin: Descent of Man, p. 62. 351 352 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV must do so whether they like it or not, and they further say that to refuse to struggle for the survival of a part is, as a final result, to encounter starvation as the end of all. Thus the capitalists make man's strug- gle for existence not only, nor mainly, a struggle with hunger and exposure and the other conditions and forces of nature, but also, and mainly, and necessarily, a struggle between man and man for an opportunity to get a chance to struggle with the forces of nature. Moreover, it is explained that war, pestilence, fam- ine, hunger, disease, poverty, the distress of the chil- dren of the poor, the countless burials of infancy, are only in the line of the common lot of all life, and that while it does make hard the lot Of the many, it is the only means of exterminating such a portion of the race that the remainder may survive. 3 448. Limited Powers of Production. On the other hand, on any given tract of land, a given amount of labor being expended with the result of a given pro- duct, it may be said that if the amount of labor in- creased the amount of the product would also increase. It is evident, however, that the natural limit to the productive powers of the soil would establish a point beyond which the further employment of labor would not so increase the product as to reward the larger amount of labor at the same or a higher rate than was secured by the smaller amount of labor. 449. " Increasing" and "Diminishing Returns. "- If a given tract of land with one hundred days of labor should produce one thousand bushels of any given grain, it might be that with a hundred and fifty days of labor it would produce two thousand bushels. In this case the one hundred days were rewarded with ten bushels for each day of labor. But the one hundred and fifty days were rewarded with thirteen and a third .3. Walker: Political Economy, pp. 308-309. CHAP. XXVII THEORIES OF POPULATION 353 bushels for each day of labor. Now if the labor were increased to two hundred days and the product were increased to only two thousand one hundred bushels, then the rate of reward for each day of labor would fall to ten and a half bushels; that is, the total harvest would be increased, but the rate of reward for each day's labor would be diminished. "Land may be undercultivated and then extra cap- ital and labor will give an * increasing return' until a maximum rate has been reached, after which it will diminish again." 4 That is, it is seen that here are two important eco- nomic laws: First, the law of "increasing" returns according to which, up to a certain point, the rate of reward of labor upon any given tract of land increases when additional applications of labor are made; sec- ond, the law of "diminishing returns," in accordance with which, beyond a certain point, the rate of reward from a given tract of land decreases when additional labor is applied. It is evident that with additional land, as well as labor, the reward for the additional labor is not only as great as in the smaller undertakings but that the same increased advantages result from large combina- tions of machinery, organization, and scientific meth- ods of production in agriculture as in every other field of endeavor. This position has been recently disputed as applied to agriculture. That is, it is claimed that the benefits of organization as applied to larger enterprises cannot hold in the case of agriculture. But the most recent development in connection with the great farms about which this controversy has been carried on is that in the great wheat fields of the Sacramento Valley farm- 4. Marshall: Principles of Economics, p. 227. 354 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV ers are combining their thousand-acre farms into larger tracts for cultivation, maintaining private ownership to the various sections of these larger tracts, but com- bining in order that they may have the advantage of the great machinery as applied to agriculture, which machinery has been greatly enlarged in the last half dozen years. So that in agriculture, as in other lines of production, machinery, organization and scientific methods of production with increased land and in- creased labor, and under a single management, in- volves "increasing" and not "diminishing returns." In manufactures there is no such thing as a dimin- ishing reward for additional days of labor, but the re- verse is true. The larger the enterprise, the larger the product for each day of labor so employed. If it were making cloth instead of raising grain, and a given ap- plication of labor had produced one thousand yards, ten times the labor would not only produce ten times as many yards, but more than ten times as many yards. The law is one of "increasing" rather than "diminish- ing returns." Of course this would not hold if production were attempted in excess of the supply of raw material, for in manufactures as well as in agriculture the ultimate dependence is on the earth itself. In both agriculture and manufactures, the law is one of "increasing re- turns" for each additional day of labor so far as af- fected by the organization and equipment of labor. In neither agriculture nor manufactures can a single small tract of land be depended on to provide the na- tural resources for the sustenance of all the earth. But in agriculture the fact that additional labor cannot be employed to the same advantage on the same acres of land is of no consequence so long as there are addi- tional acres. And in manufactures, the fact that when the raw materials of the earth have been exhausted for CHAP. XXVII THEORIES OF POPULATION 355 any given year, that the manufacture would thereafter be impossible, and the fact that as the consumption o2 raw materials approaches the limit of supply, pro- duction would decrease in the volume of products as compared to the amount of labor, are of no conse- quence, so long as raw materials are abundant. 450. When the Last Acre Is in Use. For the last hundred years there has been an enormous increase in the population of the earth, but the increase in pro- duction has been many times faster than the increase of population. But the increase of production has in- volved an increase of the number of acres of land in use. That cannot go on forever. The limit of the new available soil is even now in sight. There are new con- tinents to bring into complete use, but there are no more new continents to discover. Will the popula- tion some day bring into use the last available acre of land and then the population continue to multiply, and so exceed the power of the earth each year to provide food and the raw materials for the support of the people f 451. In the Year of 2400. On this point Professor Alfred Marshall says : 5 ' i Taking the present population of the world at one and a half thousand millions; and assuming that its present rate of increase (about 8 per thousand annually; see Ravenstein's paper before the British Association in 1890) will continue, we find that in less than two hundred years it will amount to six thousand millions; or at the rate of about 200 to the square mile of fairly fertile land (Ravenstein reckons 28 million square miles of fairly fertile land, and 14 millions of poor grass lands. The first estimate is thought by many to be too high; but allowing for this, if the less fertile land be reckoned in for what it is 5. Marshall: Principles of Economics, p. 257. 356 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV worth, the result will be about thirty million square miles as assumed above). Meanwhile there will prob- ably be great improvements in the arts of agriculture; and, if so, the pressure of population on the means of subsistence may not be much felt even in two hundred years. But if the same rate of increase be continued till the year 2400, the population will then be 1,000 for every mile of fairly fertile land, and, so far as we can see now, the diet of such a population must needs be in the main vegetarian. ' ' 452. The Gloomiest Page in Economics. Here is the gloomiest page in political economy, for the capital- istic economists assure us that this very thing is to happen in the natural order of things, and on this as- surance have been based the most brutal proposals ever offered to mankind. 6 Here is the question which we are considering: Is such a crisis likely to occur? If so, would capitalism or Socialism be better able to longest postpone its coming and be better able to deal with such a situation when it could no longer be averted? 453. An Old Problem. It is admitted, then, that there is a natural and necessary limit to the productive powers of the soil, and that there is no such natural and necessary limit to the capacity for increasing the numbers of the people. This is an old problem debated by Plato and Aristotle. Laws for limiting or increas- ing the population have been frequently enacted by both ancient and modern nations. Wars have been fol- lowed with the offering of premiums for large families, and restrictions as to marriage have been suggested, if not enforced, when overpopulation has been threat- ened. In the lower stages of society "the ruthless slaughter of the infirm and aged, and sometimes of a 6. Walker: Political Economy, Book III., Chapters I. and II. CHAP. XXVII THEORIES OF POPULATION 357 certain proportion of the female children, has been re- sorted to in order to limit the population. ' ' 7 454. Absurd Proposals to Limit Population. Those who have believed the final over-population of the world to be probable have made the following sugges- tions regarding the best way to keep the population within the limit of subsistence: (1) It has been suggested by them to forbid" the marriage of the poor. 8 (2) John Stuart Mill proposed to so train the poor in the necessity of making the population scarce, in order to make wages high, as to induce such an inter- est in self-control on the part of the married poor as to limit the size of the poor man's family. 9 (3) Annie Besant some years ago inaugurated a campaign in England for the purpose of so enlighten- ing women regarding the physical operation of the child-bearing functions as to enable the mothers to pre- vent the conception of undesired children. Her cam- paign was denounced as wicked and indecent, and per- sons were imprisoned in this country for circulating books on this subject. But the capitalist saviors of so- ciety were placed in the awkward position of contend- ing in one breath that so many were born that some must starve, and in the next punishing as an offense the only serious and outright effort to prevent the coming of more than could be provided for, as if to prevent the coming was a crime, while to insist on their coming into conditions where all must suffer and many starve was a civic virtue. 455. A Knowledge of Natural Causes. Those who 7. Marshall: Principles of Economics, Book IV., Chapter IV., p. 251. 8. "The real labor problem is to be found in the discovery of the means by which the lowest classes can be restrained in numbers." Laughlin, Head Professor of Economics, University of Chi- cago: Political Economy, p. 347. 9. Mill : Political Economy, p. 347. 358 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV have denied the probability of the coming of such a crisis in the world's life as would result in the popula- tion having outgrown the possible means of subsist- ence have done so on the following grounds: (1) They have pointed out the undisputed fact that while the new-born among animals are largely in excess of the number which come to maturity, it is also true' that this excess of births as related to the number which mature constantly decreases as the grade of life advances towards man. 10 (2) Among all animals, including men, as the grade of any individual animal approaches perfection of its kind, the tendency to reproduce correspondingly de- creases. 11 (3) Whenever an animal is most poorly fed or most injuriously exposed, that is, as anxiety for its own ex- istence increases, the action of the reproductive forces is correspondingly quickened. 12 (4) A very large percentage of the children born are a result of the ignorance of the parents regarding their own reproductive functions, and ignorance re- garding so important a matter cannot always be count- ed on to overcrowd the world with children not desired by the very people who are responsible for their com- ing. 13 456. Over-Population Unnecessary. And, there- fore, it is contended that (1) if the people were enlight- ened so that the undesired child need not come; (2) if they were more fully developed both physically and mentally, so that the tendency toward a slower repro- duction on the part of a more perfectly developed man might be realized for all and (3) if poverty, distress, exposure, and the fear of these were taken out of the 10. Ferri: Socialism and Modern Science, pp. 35-37. 11. Ferri: Socialism and Modern Science, pp. 35-37. 12. Walker: Political Economy, p. 310. 13. Walker: Political Economy, p. 317, CHAP. XXVII THEORIES OF POPULATION 359 problem of life, so that conceptions resulting from the lack of the proper physical condition of comfort for the mothers might cease, then it is claimed there would be no ground to fear that population would ever ex- ceed the limit of subsistence. 457. Safe Conditions Impossible Under Capitalism. Let it be admitted for the sake of argument that so- ciety is sure to reach at some time in the future a con- dition under which the population will approach the uttermost limit of subsistence. If so, capitalism will be entirely incapable of solving the problem of the means of support, and this is held for the following reasons: 458. Forbidding the Poor to Marry. (1) To for- bid the marriage of the poor will not avail. The sex relation is one so natural and so vital to the character and welfare of man that laws forbidding wedlock have never been, never ought to be, and never can be made effective in preventing the union of those forbidden to marry. Christian missionaries in countries of different re- ligions and their converts who are forbidden to marry, except under conditions to which they are unwilling to assent, cohabit together and maintain all the rela- tions of the family life without marriage, according to the laws of those countries. The marriages are celebrated in keeping with the usages of the countries from which the missionaries have come, but regardless of the laws of the countries where they reside. It would be absurd to expect poor people under similar conditions to act in any other manner. If the poor should cohabit in spite of such a law they would be worthily following the example of worthy people who are right in contending that no law can be binding which forbids a relationship so natural to man and so necessary to the fulfillment of the purpose and meaning 360 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV of his existence. It might be further said that the fu- ture character of the race would be better served by cutting off from the bearing of offspring those most subject to the diseases and vices of the rich, rather than the sturdy, though helpless poor. 14 459. Genius and the Poor. (2) The successful en- forcement of a law forbidding the marriage of the poor in the past would have robbed the world of a great ma- jority of its most useful people. Moses in religion, Michael Angelo in art, Edison in science, Shakespeare in literature, Hamilton, Webster and Lincoln in Ameri- can politics, are only examples of the limitless list of strong men who have been given to the world by the families of the poor. A solution of the problem of pop- ulation which would rob the world of so large a propor- tion of its genius would only add to the misfortune of the situation rather than solve the problem. 460. Giving the World to the Backward Races. (3) The enlightenment of self-control proposed by Mr. Mill must be made universal in order to be made effect- ive. If not made universal the result would be to limit the number of the most advanced peoples and to give the earth to the most ignorant and backward races. But such an enlightenment and such self-control can 14. "Another group of persons who have no calling is formed at the upper fringe of society. I mean the professional idlers who live on their interest and absolve themselves of the duty of having a calling. Looked at from the outside, their manner of life differs from that of the other class; seen from within, however, it shows many points of re- semblance. Besides, these two classes come into personal contact with each other; they meet in the demi monde and among the gambling fra- ternity. Both congregate in large cities, both have perfectly perverse notions of honor, both, above all, are restless in disposition and unsettled in their movements. Just as a ship without a cargo is aimlessly tossed about by the wind and the waves, so the life of the rich idler is the play- thing of every whim or mood that happens to strike him." * * * * --Paulson: A System of Ethics, pp. 530-31. "The more a man leads an intellectual life, the less powerful does the animal nature become in him. The majority of great men have left no posterity. "The progress of enlightenment and comfort is therefore the best antidote against a too great increase of population, and by a kind of CHAP. XXVII THEORIES OF POPULATION 361 never be secured for any large number of working peo- ple anywhere with the mass* of men doomed to the ex- hausting toil and the wasting poverty which is inevit- able under capitalism. 461. Capitalism Unable to Use the Earth. (4)' Under capitalism the earth's resources can never be cul- tivated to the utmost limit and the products made available for the support of all the living. No worker can buy in excess of the purchasing power of his wages. No employer can pay wages unless he can sell the prod- ucts of labor for more than he pays in wages. Only that share of the product of the labor of the people which can be bought with the wages paid them can be made available for their support, and this must always be less than the whole product under capitalism. Hence, it is clear that the whole power of the earth's ability to support the people can never be made available un- der capitalism. But this is not all. Capitalism does not wait to reach the limit of the world's resources before it cuts off the poor man's support. Because the produce of labor is always in excess of the purchasing power of the wages of labor, the market, mainly supported by the wages social harmony the advance of civilization dispels the principal danger that threatens its future." Laveleye: Socialism of To-day, p. 13. "Nature left to herself tends to weed out the weak, but man has interfered. And there are yet other causes for anxiety. For there is some partial arrest of that selective influence of struggle and compe- tition which in the earlier stages of civilization caused those who were strongest and most vigorous to leave the largest progeny behind them; and to which, more than any other single cause, the progress of the human race is due. In the later stages of civilization the rule has indeed long been that the upper class marry late, and in consequence have fewer children than the working classes; but this has been com- pensated for by the fact that among the working classes themselves the old rule has held; and the vigor of the nation that is tending to be stamped out among the upper classes is thus replenished by the fresh stream of strength that is constantly welling up from below. But in France for a long time, and recently in America and England, some of the abler and more intelligent of the working class population have shown signs of a disinclination to have large families; and this is a source of danger." Marshall: Principles of Economics, p. 280. 362 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV of labor, must fail to take the total product under such a system. The articles which support life are the great staples of production. The workers can only buy what their wages will pay for. They could use the remain- der, but they cannot buy it. The capitalists could buy the remainder. In fact they already have it, but they cannot use so much of the staple articles. If they can not continue to sell the products of labor they cannot continue to employ labor to produce, and so even now, with almost whole continents of untaken land, capital- ism cuts off the worker from the means of producing the means of life by a failure or a lock-out whenever the market fails, as surely as if the limit of the world's resources were already reached. If capitalism cannot provide for the support of all now, it is certain that it cannot do so when all the earth is everywhere occupied by productive workers, and no one but the workers to provide a market. 462. Unable to Develop Its Resources. (5> The preservation of the forests, the irrigation and develop- ment of fertile but arid soils, the construction of great canals, the building of dykes and levees and the saving of the waste from the great cities which the sewers turn into the seas, which constantly exhausts the nat- ural productive powers of the soil, and all enterprises which require great outlay and long spaces of time for their full completion, these things, capitalism, de- pending for its motive for action on profit, cannot and does not undertake. But the full use of the world's pro- ductive powers requires this saving of what capitalism cannot save, and the development of that which capital- ism cannot develop. 463. Pestilence and Famine No Relief. (6) War, pestilence, disease and exposure, on which the capitalist depends to limit the population, cannot do it under capitalism, for while capitalism can cause all these in abundance, they are always followed by a more rapid birth rate than preceded) their coming. Sparsely set- CHAP. XXVII THEORIES OF POPULATION 363 tied countries have larger families than those which are overcrowded. Such loss of life only reacts with the return of increased numbers. Its only effect is to break' the incoming tide into an ebb and flow of many waves. But it does not stay the tide itself. Famine never relieved the stress of population in Ireland. There were never so many children born there as dur- ing and following her greatest famine. 464. Socialism and the Causes of Over-Population. On the other hand Socialism will meet in the best pos- sible manner every possible phase of the problem of an increasing population with an approaching limit of the means of support. 465. Maternal Distress. (1) Under Socialism all will be secure in the opportunity to obtain a comfort- able living, and the unnatural increase of the popula- tion resulting from maternal distress, caused by pov- erty, will cease. 466. Overwork and Mental Neglect. (2) Under Socialism the shortened day of labor will give time for the physical and mental development and mental activ- ity of all the people, and so the unnatural increase of the poorly developed because of overwork and mental neglect will cease. 467. Self-Control. (3) Under Socialism the leis- ure and the opportunity for all to study will make more nearly possible the general intelligence and special knowledge and self-control which will greatly decrease the number of undesired births. 468. Can Use the Earth. (4) Under International Socialism the resources of the whole earth can be de- veloped to the fullest possible capacity, with the best possible equipment and under scientific methods, and all the product will be available for the support of all the people, because all will be producers and all will draw from the common stores the total product of their 364 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV toil. Neither a failure, nor a strike, nor a lockout will be possible under Socialism. 469. Make the Desert Blossom. (5) Under Inter- national Socialism the paternal instinct of the race will make a garden of the whole world, and neither the cost of labor nor the lapse of time required will inter- fere to prevent making the desert to blossom and many of the great waste places to be forever fresh and green with their unfailing wealth. There will be no limit to improvement placed by the impossible sale of an ever- recurring surplus which the laborer can produce, but which his wages cannot buy. 470. The Unwelcome Child. (6) But should the improbable occur and the increase of the population un- der normal conditions finally outrun the boundless pos- sibilities of co-operative production, then society could deal with the question of limiting the population under no form of social or economic organization so well as under Socialism, where equality of opportunity, with democratic authority, and these only, could enforce the necessary limitations by intelligent, just, scientific and merciful measures for preventing over-population, rather than as capitalism proposes, insist on the unde- sired birth, only to starve and kill the unwelcomed child. REVIEW QUESTIONS. 1. What is the doctrine of diminishing returns? 2. What is the theory of the economists regarding the increase of population ? 3. Give grounds for holding that population will some time exceed the earth's ability to supply the means of support. 4. Give grounds for holding that this does not need to occur. 5. What measures have been offered under capitalism as a means of preventing over-production? (a) As to marriage? (b) The sugges- tion of Mill? (c) The crusade of Annie Besant? 6. Under what conditions is it believed by those who deny the ne- cessity of over-population, can over-population be prevented? 7. Why cannot capitalism deal with this problem? (a) Show how the forbidden marriage, the suggestion of Mill, or war, pestilence and famine cannot be relied on to limit the population, (b) Show that capitalism cannot use to the full limit the earth's resources for the sup- port of the people. 8. Why will Socialism be able to solve this problem? (a) As re- lated to comfort? (b) As related to the more perfect life of the people? (c) As related to the full use of the earth's resources, and (d) as re* lated to the direct action of limiting the population? CHAPTER XXVIII RENT, INTEREST AND PROFIT 471. The Joint Producers? According to the cap- italists, wealth is produced by the joint efforts of the landlord, the capitalist, the managing producer, and the laborer. 472. The Landlord. The landlord contributes his share in the production by furnishing the land or stand- ing room for the producer, and has his share of the products in rent. 473. The Capitalist. The capitalist contributes his share in the production by furnishing the buildings, the raw materials, machinery, and the advance wages, that is, wages while the first batch of products is be- ing turned out and the management is waiting for re- turns. He may furnish these directly, or he may fur- nish the money or credit with which to obtain them, and he has his share of the products in payments of interest. 474. The Manager. The managing producer, in order to contribute his share in production, must orig- inate the enterprise, must control it, must find a pay- ing market for the products, must carry all the risks 365 360 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV of the enterprise, and he has his share of the products in profit. 475. The Laborer. The laborer contributes his share under the direction of the managing producer, with the materials and machinery of the capitalist, and on the standing-room of the landlord, by actually creat- ing the wealth with his own toil, and he has his share of the products in wages. 476. The Division of Products. The wages of the laborer, the interest of the capitalist and the rent of the landlord are fixed in amount and are guaranteed by the managing producer, but the amount of his share is not fixed and must depend on all the contingencies of business, as well as on his own ability. His share of the products is all that is left after all the others are rewarded. This statement of the parties to production and of the shares falling to each is not disputed. It is sim- ply a statement of what is of daily occurrence under the wage system. That these are necessary parties to production or that the shares ought to be so fixed, holds only on the assumption that the wage system is a just or necessary method of production. It will be shown further on that it is neither just nor necessary, but it will nevertheless be of interest and of advantage to be familiar with the exposition and defense made by the economists, of rent, interest and profit, for these are the several forms in which the products of labor, over and above the share paid in wages, are taken from the laborers. 477. What Is Eent?-Let us consider, then, the grounds on which the capitalist maintains that the workers should share their products with others, be- cause the others have the legal title to the earth. They teach that the rent of any given tract of land in any particular region is the difference between the CHAP. XXVIII RENT, INTEREST AND PROFIT 367 productivity of that particular piece of land and the productivity of the least desirable like tract of land in actual use in that same region. They argue that the labor employed on lands which are so poor that they can pay no rent, just pays for the capital, labor and management, or it would not be used. If, then, an amount equal to the value of the products of the poor land be deducted from the returns from the most desirable locations, the remainder of the product, being a surplus over and above the pay for capital, labor and management, would be the rent. 1 478. The Single Tax. It is the contention of the advocates of the single tax that this sum belongs to society and ought to be collected from the legal owners of the land in the form of a tax and so be devoted to the public use. It is difficult to over-estimate the value of this agitation of the late Henry George and his fol- lowers in calling the general public attention to this fact, namely, that there is no pretense whatever that the sums paid in rent for land values, exclusive of im- provements, represent any service whatever from the landlords to society, but are simply the appropriation by the landlords of values which have been created by the whole body of the community for it is the com- munity which most of all determines which location is the most and which the least desirable. The single taxers as well as the Socialists have compelled the econ- omists to face this feature of the wage system. 479. Fixed Improvements. The economists who have spoken for capitalism have attempted to defend rent by the claim that the improvements really create the value of the land and that the land ought to belong to those who create its value. 2 The answer has been made that vacant and unim- 1. Ely: Political Economy, p. 215; and Walker: Political Econ- omy, p. 203. 2. Ely: Political Economy, p. 216. 368 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV proved land in the midst of a growing community grows in value with the rest; that the people whose im- provements create this value are the whole com- munity; that the improvements on any particular piece of land are only a small share of the improvements which make its value, and that therefore the argument for the private ownership of land, and hence the private appropriation of rent on account of improvements, is in fact an argument for public ownership of land and hence the public appropriation of the rents. It is these publicly created values which are called "unearned in- crements, ' ' meaning that they are unearned by the pri- vate owner who gets them. They are not unearned by the public which creates them, but does not get them. 480. Land Titles and Other Property. Again, it is contended that the titles to the land are as good and as just as the claims to patents, copyrights or corpora- tion stocks, the values of every one of which are as de- pendent on society for their existence as are the land values. 3 As to patents, it is contended that it was society which did all the preliminary work which finally made the invention possible; it is society which grants and protects the patent, and it is society which furnishes the market without which the invention would be valueless. Of copyrights, it is also said that society created the language used, lives the life which is por- trayed, amused or instructed, and again provides the market without which the copyright would be value- less. The same thing can be said of corporation stocks of every possible variety. The corporations themselves, as well as the machinery they use, are purely social products. Their tools, their methods and their mar- kets are all the creations of society. The "unearned 3. Contention of Roswell G. Hoar in Debate with Henry George. CHAP. XXVIII KENT, INTEREST AND PROFIT 369 increment " of land is no more a social product and un- earned by those who hold the land than are the shops, store houses and railways social products and unearned by those who hold them. 481. Socialists and Single Taxers. Here the Social- ists and single taxers part company. The single taxer looks for a ground of difference between socially cre- ated values in land and socially created values in ma- chinery, but the Socialist, instead of abandoning or limiting the application of the principle that society ought to own what society creates, because it would logically lead to the collective ownership of the tools of production, admits and insists that this is true and 1 asks that society shall proceed to take for its own use all of the means of production, so far as they are collect- ively used, for all are either the free gift of nature or the joint creation of society. 482. Unearned Benefits. It is doubted whether any of the representative economists really regard as of much force either of the foregoing arguments in defense of rent. John Stuart Mill admitted that rent belongs to society and organized an association called "The Land Tenure Reform Association/' to agitate for public ownership of land values. Francis A. Walker says: "The unqualified ownership of land * * * enables the land-owning class to reap a wholly un- earned benefit at the expense of the general com- munity. ' ' 4 483. Who Pays the Rent?-So it is admitted that 4. Walker: Political Economy, p. 395. "If a man shall acquire property worth $10,000, and shall rent it so S to receive a net income of 8 per cent per annum, payable semi-annual- ly, and shall each half year invest the income in property which will yield him the same rate of income, at the end of fifty years his property will be worth $500,000, instead of the $10,000 which he originally had all without his doing a stroke of work ! And this does not take into con- sideration any increase in the value of the property. The $490,000 has been earned by his tenants and paid him as rent. In a hundred years the amount would be almost incalculable. And in this manner have 370 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV the landlord is getting what does not belong to him, and then it is argued by most economists that this is no concern of the public because the rent does not add to the market price of the products. They contend that no one with a good farm would sell his products cheaper because he grew them more cheaply than his neighbor on a poor farm. The market would be obliged to buy the potatoes from the poor land or there would not be potatoes enough to go round. The expensively produced potatoes would fix the market price for all potatoes, including those grown more cheaply, because on better land. Now, they say it can make no difference to the general public whether the difference between the cost of producing potatoes on good land or poor land goes to the landlord or to his tenant as returns for his labor in excess of those realized by his neighbor, for neither the landlord nor the tenant would give the dif- ference to the public. 5 484. No Escape. To all this there is no answer, if the economist is permitted to stay under cover of cap- italism. But the whole argument would become absurd if the workers should organize to raise their own pota- toes, producing with the least labor possible all the potatoes that everybody would be likely to need. But it is just here where the wrong of the wage system is again made evident, in that it does provide, just as all great fortunes been accumulated. They are never earned. They could not be. No man could ever grow rich by the ordinary product of labor. "And there must be some reason for the growth of large fortunes which is not grounded in justice; for if they be not earned they are not justly held. They are, it is true, generally begun in industry and fru- gality; but they grow from other causes. It is a singular fact that not one dollar of the present fortunes of Vanderbilt, of Gould, or of the As- tors, has been earned by the possessors. The original which was earned has been long since spent, and those fabulous fortunes to-day are entire- ly composed of moneys received either as rent, interest or dividends." Dement: Workers and Ideals, pp. 29-30. 5. Ely: Political Economy, pp. 215-216; Walker: Political Econ- omy, pp. 211-214, CHAP. XXVIII RENT, INTEREST AND PROFIT 371 these men claim, a way by which the landlord can collect from the general public "unearned benefits" for himself, and while we are under capitalism there is no escape. 485. The Appeal to Conscience. But the final ap- peal of the capitalist is to the public conscience. These teachers who tell us that economics has nothing to do with ethics, who tell us that "love of country, love of honor, love of friends, love of learning, love of art, pity, honor, shame, religion, charity, will never * * * withstand in the slightest degree or for the shortest time the effort of the economic man to amass wealth, ' ' 6 when they can find no defense, even in their own kind of economics, for this theft of the very earth itself, ap- peal to those from whom the earth has been stolen, to deal conscientiously with those found in possession of the stolen property. Professor Ely says regarding the return of the earth to those to whom it belongs, 7 it "will never, in the opinion of the author, appeal to the conscience of the American public as a just thing. " 8 Francis A. Walker says: "As the surrender is now generations, even centuries old, and as the land has 6. Walker: Political Economy, p. 16 7. "Private property in or commercial ownership of the land can give no valid title against the inheritance nature bestows, and upon the recognition of which all principles of , justifiable property or ownership depend. 'The earth belongs in usufruct to the living/ No title which gives the present holder 'the right to its future products forever' and so subverts this principle, can have any just force or application; be- cause the very law of property depends upon the right to control that which our labor has effected. And since labor is absolutely powerless to create or effect the production of any property without access to the raw material, the earth and its substances and forces, any owner- ship of these which debars labor from their use destroys the right to produce property, and thus strikes at the fundamental principle upon which all true property in human society rests." J. K. Ingalls: Eco- nomic Equities, pp. 7-8. 8. Ely: Political Economy, p. 297. "As the rights of property cannot exist without correlative and com- mensurate duties, so the performance of those duties can not be neg- lected without bringing the rights into peril. We cannot insist upon the rights if we refuse to perform the duties." Lilly: First Principles of Politics, p. 44. 372 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV changed owners it would be simple robbery for the state to reassert its interests in the land, with- out fully indemnifying owners. ' ' And then he argues at length that indemnification is " impracticable, ' ' would lead to " corruption " and finally, in effect, that it would be better to give up our just claim to the earth to those who unjustly possess it. 486. "Indemnification" for "Unearned Benefits." A single question will settle all this dust and clear the atmosphere for action. Who will indemnify the disinherited? Who will pay the general community for the landlord's "unearned benefits at the expense of the general community ? ' ' This is not asked with re- gard to the wrongs of the past. Indemnification for the needless poverty and the starvation, suffering and death of the helpless women and children for a single year of the past would bankrupt the capitalism of the earth. But this question is asked for the future. No matter how many times titles have changed hands, nor how many innocent purchasers are involved, they will not be innocent if they continue to collect "unearned benefits at the expense of the general community." 10 It does not matter what payments were made in the past. If they were made with the products of the past, for services rendered in the past, then the account is settled, and neither side to the bargain can have any just claims against the future. If the pretended pay- ments of the past wtre merely promises made in the past, but to be really paid with the products of the future, then they were no payments at all. And herein, again, is the wrong of all bargains as touching the pri- 9. Walker: Political Economy, p. 395. 10. "If the society is poorly or defectively organized, there is a free multiplication of the parasitic classes, and the collapse and total ruin of that society soon follows. On the other hand, if the resistance which it offers to exploitation be at all adequate, there will be a speedy elimination of the individuals and classes who become parasitic," Massart and Vandervelde: Parasitism Organic and Social, pp. 121-22. CHAP. XXVIII RENT, INTEREST AND PROFIT 373 vate ownership of the earth; they all have regard to disposing of the products of the labor of the future and in such a way as shall put "unearned benefits" into the hands of the few and fix undeserved poverty as the lot of the many. 11 This is not robbery of the liv- ing only; it is the veriest rape and outrage of the un- born. 12 487. Buying One's Own Birthright. Who shall be indemnified 1 Shall the private owner of the earth be given the full value of the very blood of the toilers 11. "From man down the creatures live by preying on each other. Insidious parasites infest all kinds of plants and animals. Everything seems to have some mortal foe. The very ants go to war for all the world like men, and Venus' flytrap (Dionala) is as cruel as a spider. So human society is riddled with mischiefs and wrongs, some, like Armenian massacres, due to surviving savagery, and some, like slums, to sickly civilization." President Eliot: American Contributions to Civili- zation, pp. 269-70. "A receiver of stolen goods sells me something that I stand greatly in need of, at a very low price. Strictly as between him and me, as trading persons, he doubtless renders me a service, the full equivalent of the money I pay to him; but as between society and him, and even between him and me as a member of society, there is an account still open that has to be adjusted. "A highwayman points a pistol at my head, but offers to spare me if I shall give him $500, which I proceed to do with the greatest alacrity. In sparing my life he renders me the highest possible service, one for which I would gladly, were it needful, pay many times $500. Indeed, on no equal payment during my life do I so much felicitate myself. Still the question will arise, How came the highwayman to be in a position to do me such a vital service, and, after all, what right has he to my $500? "In like manner, while the owner of the land who at a certain rent leases me a few acres on which I may work to raise food for myself and family, undoubtedly does me a great service, as compared with not giv- ing me leave to cultivate it upon any terms whatever, it will still be rational and pertinent for me to inquire, at least under my breath, what business he has with the land any more than I or any one else. Why should 1 not have the whole produce of my ten- acre lot without deduc- tion, although I freely confess that I would rather submit to the deduc- tion than not have it at all * * * "Walker: Land and Its Rent, pp. 63-64. 12. "I have not the slightest doubt that the miserable condition of the poorer classes in our large towns is greatly due to the accumulation of land in a few hands in such towns, and to the possession of land by corporations." Rogers: Work and Wages, p. 530. "We plead for 'a strong, tense, elastic organization/ which puts the individual on his feet, and gives him the arena of his powers. Men are to bear in mind the constant tendency of power to usurpation. While the laws of industry are not to be set aside, fresh conditions are to be 374 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV which he is about to take, and who have nothing else to give, in order that he may be bought to loosen his grip on the toilers' throats, or must the toilers still con- tinue to surrender their natural birthright to the earth and forever submit to an . inheritance of dependence and want, not for themselves alone, but for the un- born after them? When the "American public" once understands the jugglery of which it is the victim, its conscience as well as its economic necessities will make short work of these "unearned benefits at the expense of the gen- eral community." 13 488. Services and Limitations of the Single Tax. If it be said that the single tax offers a way out, the constantly provided for their fair and favorable operation. Society is to strive for a perpetual renewal of opportunities and a redistribution of advantages, so that every child shall come from the cradle to a fresh world with fresh incentives, not to one overworn and used up for him by the errors of the past generations. Industrial usurpations are no more sacred than those of civil power : tyranny may be in the possession of property just as certainly as in that of authority. Indeed, the tyranny of ownership may become the more subtle and extended of the two. In a matter of such universal interest as personal opportunity and discipline, the gist of every wise measure is found in a maintenance of motives, a renovated and freshly habilitated life. Society should look sharply to the laws of social hereditament, should see what we do in- herit, and what we ought to inherit, and this with a supreme sense of the right of the race evershadowing that of personal or private rights." Bascom: Sociology, p. 252. "Yet the root of right is reason, the slow creeping reason of the ag- gregate mind. Customs which are congealed errors must yield to the clear, coherent push of reason proper. Every question must at length be brought into this light, and there be answered. * * * Custom may allow one by entail to follow and control his property for a thousand years, but reason will assert, and its assertion will at length be heeded, that the dead yield the earth to the living. Each man's life interest in it is a life interest, and all beyond that must have strict reference to the public weal." Bascom : Sociology, p. 17. 13. "The problem has, however, to be forced. Either we must sub- mit forever to hand over at least one-third of our annual product to those who do us the favor to own our country, without the obligation of rendering any service to the community, and to see this tribute augment with every advance in our industry and numbers, or else we must take steps, as considerately as may be possible, to put an end to this state of things. Nor does equity yield any such conclusive objection to the latter course. Even if the children of our proprietors have come into the world booted and spurred, it can scarcely be contended that whole generations CHAP. XXVIII RENT, INTEREST AND PROFIT 375 answer is that the single tax proposes, for a specified payment made to the public by those who are them- selves a part of the public, to surrender the earth for their private use and profit, and that under the wage system. It would leave both interest and profit un- touched. It would leave the worker without organiza- tion, without equipment and to the same inheritance of dependence on a private employer as before. The rela- tion of mastery and servitude would still remain to de- bauch the one class and to oppress the other. 14 If it be said that under the single tax any particular worker who should be dissatisfied with his wages could have his total product by going to work on his own account, which he could easily do with free access of their descendants yet unborn have a vested interest to ride on the backs of whole generations of unborn workers. Few persons will be- lieve that this globe must spin round the sun forever charged with this colossal mortgage implied by private ownership of the ground rents of great cities, merely because a few generations of mankind, over a small part of its area, could at first devise no better plan of appropriating its surface. * * * But against the permanent welfare of the community the unborn have no rights; and not even a living proprietor can possess a vested interest in the existing system of taxation. The democracy may be trusted to find, in dealing with the landlord, that the resources of civilization are not exhausted. * * * This growth in collective owner- ship it is, and not any vain sharing out of property, which is to achieve this practical equality of opportunity at which democracy aims." Webb: Problems of Modern Industry, pp. 240-41. 14. "Finally, that the single tax would be an unjust burden on labor and could not, therefore, solve the labor problem is as easily dem- onstrated. It is only necessary to note that this tax is based on a fic- titious, vanishing 'land value,' and not on the intrinsic, permanent, real, the producing value of the land. Hence, the proceeds of a single tax as- sessment, notably in the cities where it could alone be effectively ap- plied, must come, not from the land in question itself, which in this case produces nothing, but from wealth otherwise produced or appropri- ated. But, as all wealth is ultimately the product of land and labor, freely admitted by the single taxers, it logically and inevitably follows that this assessed wealth or tax, this much lauded, 'non- shifting' single tax, is nothing more nor less, after all, than a plain tax on labor, pre- cisely the same appropriated (robbed) labor as is all other appropriated wealth or capital. "Stripped of its only meritorious, socialistic features and reduced to its logical absurdity, the single tax system is nothing more nor less than the sale, by a given community, of their most advantageous loca- tion for exploiting the people to the man who is willing to pay to these same deluded people the biggest price for his noble privilege of robbing 376 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV to the soil, the answer is that under the single tax a dissatisfied worker would have the alternative of tak- ing such wages as a private employer would give him in a shop, thoroughly equipped and perfectly organ- ized, or he could go to work on his own account and have all he could produce, working single-handed, without equipment, without organization, and on any untaken, and hence on the least desirahle, locations. On the other hand, the Socialist contends that the workers are entitled to all that can be produced, with the best organization, best equipment and on all the land, in- cluding both the poorest and the best locations. And, further, the Socialist contends that those who do work shall not depend for an opportunity to do so on the consent of those who do not. 489. Thrift Saving and Interest. As to interest payments, the political economists have until recently contended that interest is the reward of thrift and saving, 15 but this contention has become absurd in the face of the thriftless and extravagant lives of the greater share of those engaged in the coupon-clipping industry. 490. Risk. The payment for risk has been offered as a sufficient justification. 16 But payment for risk is insurance. The mortgages, endorsements and other collateral securities are intended to cover the risks. Absolutely good security may lower the rate, but it does not abolish interest. 491. Share of the Profits. The latest defense of in- terest is that it is a guaranteed share of the profits. 17 them, a proposition savoring strongly of licensed brigandage and pos- sible only under our present absurd and immoral social system." H. P. Moyer. 15. Walker: Political Economy, pp. 230-231. 16. Ely: An introduction to Political Economy, p. 217; Walker: Political Economy, p. 236. 17. This position was taken in the American Economic Associa- tion in its session at Chicago, in 1893, and was generally concurred in CHAP. XXVIII RENT, INTEREST AND PROFIT 377 The capitalist is a kind of partner in the business. If his share of the profits can be guaranteed so that he may neglect the business, may go South in the winter and to the sea in the summer, and can do his share in "thrift and saving " by spending what others create, then he consents to a low fixed rate of profits, called in- terest. 18 So the real defense of interest is shifted to the de- fense of profit, and interest and profit must stand or fall together. 492. Profit and Superintendence. In the same way profits were formerly defended as "wages of superin- tendence, " but now the owner pays wages to a super- by the leading American teachers of political economy, present and par- ticipating in the discussion. 18. "In ancient times the loaning of money set up an odious debt- slavery. The fields of wealthy Romans were in great measure tilled by gangs of adjudicated debtors, who were in a more evil plight than the convicts employed on Portland Harbor. ***** At Athens (600 B. C.) similar conditions prevailed." Blissard: The Ethics of Usury and Interest, pp. 3-4; see Grote: History of Greece, Vol. III., p. 213, ap- pendix. "The precise meaning of profits, and its character as the reward of enterprise, will become clearer if we distinguish it from two things that are often combined and compared with it. Profit, in its strict sense, does not include wages of management; in the case of many businesses they can be easily distinguished. In a great railway company, the share- holders are the capitalists and get the profits, but they have very little to do with the management; that lies with the directors, who get their fees, as well as profits on the shares they hold, and with the manager and other officials, who get salaries, but may possibly hold no shares and therefore get no profits. In exactly the same way in any private con- cern the gross income, which the proprietor draws from it consists of two parts: the profit on the capital he has invested in it, and the wages he is entitled to for work in organization and administration. That is, as we have already seen, a very highly paid kind of work, and the gains of the capitalists, who manage their own enterprises, should be considered and including wages for their time, as well as profits on the capital they risk. "This distinction is clear enough; there is more difficulty in dis- criminating between profit, as already described, and interest. Profit is reward of enterprise, but interest is the payment demanded by a cap- italist who does not undertake any enterprise himself personally. He lets other people use his wealth, on the condition of giving him a regular return for it while they have the use of it. So far as possible he bar- gains himself out of the risks, and therefore he must be contented with a lower rate of return than those who undertake the risks of the enter- prise." Cunningham: Modern Civilization in Some of Its Economic Aspects, pp. 138-39. 378 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV intendent, 19 while he goes along with the interest-taker, the one spending what is obtained through interest pay- ments and the other what is obtained through divi- dends, but both expend what neither creates, but what the workers create in their absence. 20 Professor Ely says that profit "is the return which one receives for the organization and management of a business at one 's risk. ' ' 21 Is it contended that if risk could be taken out of the problem, profits would dis- appear! If not, then neither "wages of superintend- ence, " nor "reward for risk" is a justification of profits. 493. The Skillfully Managed. Mr. Walker argues that profits arise as the difference between the most skillfully and most wastefully managed plants, both of which are necessary to supply the market. The most wastefully managed fixes the market price and the most skillfully managed makes the difference between the market price and the cost of production in the skillfully managed shop. 22 But the trust is putting all the shops under a single management, and that the most skilled. When this is done and there remains no difference in cost between the most skillful and the most wasteful managements, will profits then disappear? If so, the Standard Oil Company should stop paying to its stockholders, each 19. Ely: Political Economy, p. 217. 20. "All the social functions of the capitalist are now performed by salaried employes. The capitalist has no further social function than that of pocketing dividends, tearing off coupons and gambling on the Stock Exchange, where the different capitalists despoil one another of their capital. At first the capitalistic mode of production forces out the workers. Now it forces out the capitalists, and reduces them, just as it reduced the workers, to the ranks of the surplus population, although not immediately into those of the industrial reserve army." Engels : Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, p. 71. 21. Ely: Introduction to Political Economy, p. 217. 22. Walker: Political Economy, pp. 247-259. CHAP. XXVIII RENT, INTEREST AND PROFIT 379 twelve months, more than the total sum of the original investment in the business. 494. The Laborer's Right Undisputed. The la- borer is the only factor in production whose claim to some share of the product has never been defended by the economists. His claim is so evident that it needs no defense. 495. The Real Question. Adam Smith is called "the father of political economy," and his first sen- tence in discussing the wages of labor is: "The produce of labor constitutes the natural recompense or wages of labor." 23 Then why does not the laborer get that produce, and get it all? 24 496. The Answer. 1. It is because the landlord pos- sesses the earth, and will not permit its use, except the toiler buys what the landlord does not justly own, by payments of rent. 2. It is because the capitalist possesses the machin- ery, which has been created by society through the long centuries of its growth, and will not permit the 23. Adam Smith: Wealth of Nations, p. 49. 24. "If they [the working classes] create a small amount of wealth and get the whole of it, they may not revolutionize society; but if it were to appear that they produce an ample amount and get only a part of it, many of them would become revolutionists, and all of them would have a right to do so. The indictment that hangs over society is that of 'exploiting labor.' 'Workmen,' it is said, 'are regularly robbed of what they produce. This is done within the forms of law, and by the natural working of competition.' If this charge were proved, every right-minded man would be a Socialist and his zeal in transforming the industrial system would then measure and express his sense of justice. * * * The right of the present social system to exist at all depends upon its honesty. * * * A plan of living that should force men to leave in their employers' hands anything that by right of creation is theirs, would be institutional robbery a legally established violation of the principle on which property is supposed to rest. "This is the problem we have to solve. It is an issue of pure fact. If the law on which property [right] is supposed to rest the rule, 'to each what he creates' actually works at the point where the possession of property begins, in the payments that are made in the mill, etc., for values there created, it remains for practical men so to perfect the industrial system, after its kind that exceptions to this prevalent rule may be less frequent and less considerable. We can deal other- wise with robberies that are not institutional; but it is evident that a 380 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV turning of a wheel except the toiler buys him off with payments of interest. 25 3. It is because industry is undertaken for private profits and the management will maintain a lockout until its profits are secure, regardless of the ruin which overwhelms the worker's family while he waits for society in which property is made to rest on the claim of a producer to what he creates must, as a general rule, vindicate that right at the point where titles originate that is, in payments that are made for la- bor. If it were to do otherwise, there would be at the foundation of the social structure an explosive element which sooner or later would destroy it. For nothing, if not to protect property, does the state exist. Hence a state which should force a workman to leave behind him, in the mill, property that was his by right of creation, would fail at a critical point. A study of distribution settles this question, as to whether the modern state is true to its principle." Clark : The Distribution of Wealth, Chapter I. "The fact through which the ascendancy of the present continues to express itself in the economic process is everywhere the same. We have it in view under the phenomenon of the legalized enforcement, whether by individuals, or classes, or corporations, or sometimes even by whole peoples, of rights which do not correspond to an equiva- lent in social utility. This is the phenomenon which John Stuart Mill and the English utilitarians had in view in their early attack on the in- stitution of unearned increments. This is the phenomenon which, in the last analysis, we see Henry George endeavoring to combat in his de- nouncement of the monopoly ownership of natural utilities. This is the phenomenon with which we see Marx struggling in his theory of surplus value, so far as it is true the phenomenon, that is to say, of the acquire- ment by capital of values in the produce of labor which represent mon- opoly rights not earned by capital in terms of function. It is the phe- nomenon we have in view that class of fortunes accumulated in stock exchange values which have not been earned in terms of function. It is the fact underlying every form of private right accruing from increase, unearned in terms of social utility, in the profit ownership of the instru- ments and materials of production. It is the phenomenon we have in view in the now universal tendency in modern industry to monopoly ownership, or its equivalent in monopoly control; with the resulting accumulation of vast private fortunes through the enforced disad- vantage of classes, of whole communities, and even of entire na- tions. It is the fact underlying every form of the exploitation of a less developed people, whether by special tariffs or otherwise by a ruling race for its own private advantage. And last of all, it is the phenomenon which meets us in its final colossal phase in the international world- process, under the tendency of aggregates of capital, in an uncontrolled and irresponsible scramble for profit governed in the last resort simply by the qualities contributing to success and survival in a free fight for private gain, to control the general exploitation of the natural re- sources of the world at the level of its lowest standards in human life and human labor. * * *" Kidd: Principles of Western Civilization, p. 476 and following. 25. "Capital is the accumulated stock of human labor." Mill, Quoted by Adams in Law of Civilization and Decay, p. 313. CHAP. XXVIII RENT, INTEREST AND PROFIT 381 permission to create the very wealth for the lack of which his children die. 4. It is because the toilers must first provide this rent, interest and profit for those who render no neces- sary service in production before they are permitted to produce at all, either for themselves or for the helpless ones who depend upon them. 26 497. The Prison House of Toil. This is the wage system. This is capitalism. This is the present prison- house of toil. The masters of industry and commerce have been able to compel the toilers to "divide up" with them, simply and only because in the evolution of human society it has reached this stage of advance. They can continue to do this only so long as they can have the authority of the citizenship of the toilers to support them in doing so. They can continue to do this only until society shall evolve out of capitalism into So- cialism, and in this evolution the toilers themselves must become the builders of society. 498. The Way Out Is Socialism. 1. Under Social- ism, society will own the land, and there will be no rent to pay. 2. Under Socialism, society will own the tools of production, and there will be no interest to pay. 3. Under Socialism, society, acting through those who are engaged in any industry and who will know most about it, and not through private stockholders both absent and ignorant, will manage production and there will be no profits to pay. 4. Under Socialism, whoever shares in the division of the products will share because he is, or is to be, or 26. "Between robbery and monopoly the difference appears very great, but it consists in two things, both of which are quantitative only. These are the rudeness and the illegality of the former as contrasted with the civility and the legality of the latter. The principle of a pro- cedure is not changed by mollifying the method. The motive is the same." Ward: Dynamic Sociology, Vol. I., p. 583. 382 QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY PART IV has been a producer and no others, unless the victims of disabling misfortune, who will be abundantly cared for, but without the shame of pauperism. REVIEW QUESTIONS. 1. According to the capitalist, by whom is wealth produced? 2. What does each party do in production, and what is the share of each in the products? 3. How does the capitalist justify the collection of rent? 4. State and answer the argument for rent (1) as related to im- provements. (2) As compared to the private ownership of patents, copy- rights and corporation stocks. 5. State the grounds of agreement and the point of separation be- tween the single taxer and the Socialist. 6. Quote Walker on the private ownership of land. 7. State and answer the argument that rent is not added to the market price of products and that therefore it is not paid by the general public. 8. State and answer the appeal of the economist to the public conscience on the land question. 9. Why is not the single tax a way of deliverance for the working man? 10. State and answer the defense of interest as made by the economist (1) on the ground of thrift and saving, (2) on the ground of risk, and (3) on the ground that it is a guaranteed part of profit. 11. State and answer the defense of profit (1) as wages of super- intendence; (2) as reward for risk; and (3) as reward for special busi- ness ability as compared with a poorly managed business. 12. Does rent, interest or profit rest on any necessary share in pro- duction? If not, then why are they permitted? 13? Under Socialism how will the workers be made secure in the use of the whole product of their labor ? PART V CURRENT PROBLEMS OF PUBLIC INTEREST AND SOCIALISM CHAPTEE XXIX THE FINE AKTS AND SOCIALISM 499. What Is Art? This is not a discussion of the fine arts, but a study of Socialism as related to the fine arts. There is nothing more hotly disputed than ' ' What is Art?" and this will not be an attempt to an- swer that question. But there is nothing more certain than the natural hunger of a man for that which is beautiful. The things which can excite in his breast the emotions resulting from a vision of splendor, or of grandeur, or of truth and beauty, are things which he will prize, and he who can create the things which will produce these emotions will always have no small share ,in making -this a world, not only of comfort, but of 'gladness. 1 1. "Art unites the spiritual and the physical in perfect being. It adds that supreme emotional perfection to life Nvhich we term beauty. h Art plays an important part in sociology, not only iri compet- ing stages of progress, but often as indicating the true direction, when men are baffled by misapplied energy. In some sense beauty, perfection of form, is the culmination of science, philosophy and faith, as it is 383 384 CURRENT PROBLEMS PART V 500. The Industrial and the Fine Arts. The indus- trial arts are devoted to the comfort of the world, the fine arts to its gladness. It is a curious fact that the beginnings of the fine arts were made first, and of the industrial arts afterwards. 2 Songs are older than statutes. Poetry is older than prose. Carving ornaments is older than the building of houses. Patches of color were put on the faces first, and then on fabrics. The artist came first, and the artisan followed him. Human speech existed as music before it was spoken in words. "Articulately speak- ing men" were those who had broken the earlier music- al tones into bits and pieces and had fixed a meaning to these bits of speech, which could not otherwise be given by the echoing voices of the primeval forests. 3 While modern singing so slurs the words that the unpracticed ear cannot catch them, and so misses the meaning of the songs, the older music had no words at all, and human beings called to each other across sex lines, and charmed each other, not by the meaning of the words in the songs they sung, but by the deeper meaning of their wordless songs. 501. " Songs Without Words.' 'Songs without words had been sung for a thousand centuries before Mendelssohn tried to catch them on the written scale and to repeat them on instruments of music. When words became an important part in speech the rhythm of the older songs still clung to the forms of speech, and all the earliest literature of the race was in the form of poetry. Prose was a later invention. The rhythm in natural speech was omitted from it, only by a conscious effort to do so. The oldest literature was the fullness and force of the inner life, and its complete mastery over the physical terms at its disposal." Bascom: Sociology, p, 261. 2. Darwin: Descent of Man, p. 592. 3. Darwin: Descent of Man, pp. 589-590. CHAT. XXIX THE FINE ARTS 385 listened to, not read, and the music of its rhythmic movement, no less than the meaning of its message, se- cured its hearing. Julius Caesar said of the ancient Druids of Britain: "They learn to repeat a great many verses so that they sometimes remain (in school) twen- ty years. They think it an unhallowed thing to commit their lore to writing. " 4 The epics of Homer, the orig- inal of the early Biblical narratives, and the remnants of the Babylonian writings, preserved by wedge-shaped characters on blocks of clay, were all in forms of verse. The utterances of the American Indians were full of symbol, parable and rhythm, all poetic forms of speech. 502. Word Pictures and Oratory. On great and grave occasions, when great souls give voice to the race thought of the hour, and real oratory speaks again, it is the imagery, the word picture, the parable, the rhythm of both voice and movement which awakens the sleeping artist in all men, and compels them "to hear him gladly" even while they hear words of their own reproof. 503. Form and Color. The same is true of form and color as it is of speech. In voice and form and color, the artist is really older than is man himself. The beginnings of man 's use of all these were in efforts of the sexes to attract each other across sex lines. It was the ornament, the display and the long low love call of one waiting for his mate that was the beginning of all art, and this beginning was made in the animal life which preceded the development of life into the form of man. And it furthermore survives and is shown each hour in the free life of our cousins of the fields and forests. The appreciation of sweetness and beauty of voice, form or color and the desire to impart the joy of this apreciation to others is the incentive to 4. Caesar : Britannia. 386 CURRENT PROBLEMS PART V all art, and this is a natural inheritance of both man and beast. 5 The perfect human being is, without dispute, the most complete expression of beauty, in form, color, movement, and voice, yet known to man. It ought to be remembered that man's love of beauty while he had not yet outgrown the shaggy and disheveled career of his brute ancestry, operated through the well known laws of evolutionary sex selection to create, through the long centuries of his growth, these forms of beauty and this voice of song. 504. Life, Love and Art. Architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and literature all appeal to the eye or ear and all attempt to create in those who see or listen, the emotions which inspire their creation. 6 It is not only true that the earliest art was the effort to speak across sex lines, but it is still true that the emotions, the mysteries and the aspirations of life which culmi- nate in sex relations, reaching backward to the cradle and forward to the grave, are still the subject and sub- stance of all art. If it be a song, there is somewhere the thought of 5. "The esthetic faculty does not seem to be traceable quite as far back as is animal altruism, which is found in some asexual forms and perhaps in Protozoa, but when it is found it is always conscious. All sexual selection is based on it, and we saw how early this began to transform the male element, to mold it into forms and to adorn it with hues that charmed the female. We traced these transformations up through the successively higher types till they culminated in such glorious objects as the male bird of paradise, the lyre bird, the pea- cock's tail, and the pheasant's plumes. It cropped out in the insect world in quite another way, more directly connected with the onto- genetic forces, led to the cross fertilization of flowers, and gave to the world its floral beauties. Similarly it has been well-nigh demonstrated that many of the large and luscious showy fruits have resulted from the advantage that their attractiveness to birds gave them in securing the wider distribution of such forms and their consequent survival in the struggle for existence. Thus long anterior to the advent of man the esthetic faculty, as a necessary concomitant of nerve (we can scarcely say brain) development, was embellishing the earth with products that the highest human tastes unanimously agree to call beautiful." Ward: Pure Sociology. 6. Tolstoi: What is Art, pp. 70-71. CHAP. XXIX THE FINE ARTS 387 love, or of the life which is dear because of love. If it be a landscape, there is the teeming life of the orchard and the meadow and the glad companionship of the flocks and herds. If it be a cathedral, there is the gloom and silence, the majesty and beauty which speaks of the greatness and value of the life it would reveal. If it be a story, it is flat and meaningless, unless it tells of the passion of some lonely life. If it be a battle scene, it is but coarse blotches of meaningless color, unless it tells of resistance against the enemy of wife or home or country and country as the defender not the despoiler of all of life. If it be a mountain peak, lonely and si- lent, and beyond approach, were it not for the loneliness of the human heart, it would be meaningless. The pic- ture of the Holy Mother and when was worthy moth- erhood other than holy or of the helpless child, or of the marriage feast, or of the sad and silent mourner for the lost, all these speak of love, and gladden only those who, too, have loved. 505. Joy of Life the Source of Art. Art is the ex- pression of the joy of life. There can be no art where there is no joy. Great art means great life with the fullness of joy, and art as the glad expression of its greatness. Now what are the relations of capitalism and Social- ism to the fine arts ? 506. 'Capitalism Cuts Off the Sources of Art. Cap- italism destroys the joy of life which makes art pos- sible. All men who toil, all traders and salesmen, and commercial travelers and clerks are compelled, under capitalism, to live and act as servants or as masters. Each man 's life is made dependent, not on the common life of all, but on the special whim or fancy of some master. Even the masters depend on one another in such a manner as to make no life really free. Now the first essential of the life which makes art possible is 388 CURRENT PROBLEMS that it shall be glad. The compulsory life of capital- ism makes a free, and so a glad, life impossible. There is no way by which free life can be secured for any one, until the existence of every one shall be made se- cure without dependence on any one who can by any means deprive him of his living. Such a condition can never be under capitalism. Socialism will secure the livelihood of all, and there- fore Socialism would give the freedom which would make possible the gladness of this common life. So- cialism would thus restore the very thing which capi- talism takes away, and without which real art can never be. 507. Loss of Leisure. Capitalism deprives the or- dinary man of the leisure and the means, either to pro- duce or to enjoy the works of art. 7 This lack of leis- ure deprives the world of the art work of the multi- tudes who have the natural endowment but not the time nor the means with which to cultivate either taste or skill; and it makes a tragedy of the lives of those who, in hunger and neglect, nevertheless strive to give expression to the beauty they see around them, and which, in the travail of their own sorrows, they strive to reveal to others. 8 508. "Worn Out.' 'But the others are overworked and underfed, or they are underworked and overfed, and in either case they are deaf and blind to the music and beauty of the penniless genius. Because there is no time, the people cannot learn the song of life, and if 7. "Hence sociology looks to the equalization of social relations. Civilization is a miserably crude experiment until it is possible for each member of society to command food and clothing and shelter and surplus and leisure enough to permit progressive and all- sided expansion of manhood." Small and Vincent: Introduction to the Study -of Society, p. 79. 8. "The immense product of the imagination in art and literature is a concrete fact with which every educated human being should be made somewhat familiar, such product being a very real part of every individual's actual environment." Eliot: Educational Reforms, p. 405. CHAP. XXIX THE FINE ARTS 389 they could, they have neither time nor spirit left to share in the singing. When " piped unto" they cannot " dance." They do not know the music, nor have they strength or time. 509. Deaf and Blind. It is not the poor alone who cannot share in the joy which art might give. It is the rich as well. The one is bound by his poverty, the other by conventionalism. The poor man goes to a poor show not because his tastes are low, but because it is cheap. The rich man goes to the best of plays, not because he understands or appreciates them, but because it is the fashion. His commercialism has blinded him to the greatest beauty. 9 It is a common remark among the best artists, both in the drama and the concert, that they are paid by the private boxes and the orchestra circle, but that they are appreciated by the ushers and the gallery. Under Socialism, leisure will be within the reach of all; genius will not need to starve the body in order to gratify the heart, and those who really love music and drama will not need to deny themselves of the comforts of life in order to secure a seat in tne gallery when genius speaks or sings. 10 Under Socialism and because of the leisure it will secure for all, instead of the few who now enjoy and 9. "Since the time of the Roman aristocracy what has any aris- tocracy done for art and literature or law? They have for over a thousand years been in possession of nearly the whole resources of every country in Europe. They have had its wealth, its libraries, its archives, its teachers at their disposal; and yet was there ever a more pitiful record than the list of 'Royal and Noble Authors ?' * * The painting and the sculpture of modern Europe owe not only their glory, but their very existence, to the labors of poor and obscure men. The great architectural monuments by which its soil is covered were hardly any of them the product of aristocratic feeling or liberality." Godkin: Problems in Modern Democracy, pp. 63 * * > 4. 10. "I had to go to Verona by the afternoon train. In the carriage with me were two American girls with their father and mother, people of the class which has lately made so much money suddenly, and does not know what to do with it; and these two girls, of about fifteen and eighteen, had evidently been indulged in everything (since they had had the means), which western civilization could imagine. And here they 390 CURRENT PROBLEMS PART V yet a smaller number who now produce the works of art, the millions will be able to enjoy and the tens of thousands to produce a better art than the world has ever known. 510. Patronage and Monopoly. Capitalism has be- come the special patron of the artist but its patronage is a blight rather than a blessing. It offers a prize for producing that which can only come as the glad ex- were, specimens of the utmost which the money and invention of the nineteenth century could produce in maidenhood, children of the most progressive race, enjoying the full advantages of political liberty, of enlightened philosophical education, of cheap pilfered literature, and of luxury at any cost. Whatever money, machinery or freedom of thought could do for these two children had been done. No supersti- tion had deceived, no restraint degraded them; types they could not but be of maidenly wisdom and felicity, as conceived by the forwardest intellects of our time. "And they were traveling^ through a district which, if any in the world, should touch the hearts and delight the eyes of young girls. Between Venice and Verona! Portia's villa perhaps in sight upon Brenta Juliet's tomb to be visited in the evening, blue against the southern sky the hills of Petrarch's home. Exquisite midsummer sun- shine, with low rays, glanced through the vine leaves ; all the Alps were clear, from the lake of Garda to Cadore, and to furthest Tyrol, What a princess' chamber, this, if these are princesses, and what dreams might they not dream therein. But these two American girls, surfeited so with indulgence, they had reduced themselves simply to two pieces of white putty that could feel pain. The flies and dust stuck to them as to clay, and they perceived, between Venice and Verona, nothing but the flies and the dust. They pulled down the blinds the moment they entered the carriage, and then sprawled, and writhed, and tossed among the cushions of it, in vain contest, during the whole fifty miles, with every miserable sensation of bodily affliction that could make time intolerable. They were dressed in their white frocks, coming vaguely open at the backs as they stretched or wiggled; they had French novels, lemons, and lumps of sugar,- to beguile their state with ; the novels hanging together by the ends of string that had once stitched them, or adhering at the corners in densely bruised dog's-ears, out of which the girls, wetting their fingers, occasionally extricated a gluey leaf. From time to time they cut a lemon open, ground a lump of sugar backward and forward over it till every fibre was in a treacly pulp, then sucked the pulp, and gnawed the skin into leathery strings, for the sake of its bitter. Only one sentence was exchanged, in the fifty miles, on the subject of things outside the carriage (the Alps being once visible from a station where they had drawn up the blinds). "'Don't those snow-caps make you cool?' "'No; I wish they did.' "And so they went their way, with sealed eyes and tormented limbs, their numbered miles of pain." Ruskin, quoted by Rich: The Communism of John Ruskin, pp. 199-200. CHAP. XXIX THE FINE ARTS 391 pression of that which is in the artist, and secures as a result, not an expression of the joy that was within him, but an imitator of what some other imitator made when he imitated somebody else. The prize winning artist wins the prize because he is true to the conventional standard, not because he is true to himself. The prize promotes the conventional, while it smothers the original. The patronage of the capitalist sets the artist to making what will satisfy the market, not what will express himself. It causes the public to value art, not by the joy it gives, but solely by the satisfaction of securing some commercial curiosity regardless of ability to appreciate or to un- derstand the work itself. And so, again, real art suf- fers at the hands of these dead counterfeits. When capitalism takes from the market a really great creation it is to monopolize it, to exclude from it those who could appreciate it, and to make, by means of it, a vulgar display of wealth, not so much by display- ing the work of art as by advertising its cost. Capitalistic patronage of art corrupts, misleads and destroys the artist's work, when coming into existence, and then monopolizes, degrades and misinterprets it, when in spite of patronage some real genius has pro- duced something real in art. Again, this patronage only reaches the real genius after the years of penury and neglect have so embit- tered his life that even the appreciation of his work can have but small effect, either as a reward to the artist, or an incentive to further work. 11 Under Socialism no man will ever need the patron- age of another in order to express himself in things of beauty or in words of song. It is inconceivable that under Socialism the works of genius would remain the 11. Ruskin: Political Economy and Art. 392 CURRENT PROBLEMS PART V monopolized curiosities of those who cannot appreciate them, while those who can would be excluded from their presence. Under Socialism and in the absence of capitalistic patronage, the real artist can do real work, and those for whom it is done will not be prevented from appre- ciating and enjoying it because of the poverty of the artist or the meanness of some private patron. 511. Natural Beauty and Commercial Ugliness. The world of nature is full of beauty. It is the world which capitalism has created that is full of ugliness. It is the practical world of capitalism, which can see no reason why the world should not be made a place of ugliness if it pays. Capitalism has made deserts of the fields and for- ests. It has built hovels and unsightly tenements for the workers. It has defaced the rocks and deformed the landscape, with its fences, bill boards, and un- sightly smoke stacks. It has befouled the streams and destroyed the waterfalls. It has deserted the places of beauty, only to overcrowd the flat and unhealthy swamp lands, as convenient for shipping as they are unfit for habitation. It has put ugliness, with a divi- dend attached to it, into open competition with beauty, with no return but the natural joy of life, and under economic pressure ugliness has won in the market place. Under the sway of capitalism, art has become a false and hypocritical pretense. She speaks alone in the palaces of the few, and shows her face only to those who have betrayed her. Ugliness has become the mas- ter of the world. Capitalism builds its death trap in shop and hovel and kills beauty as ruthlessly as it mur- ders men. 512. Never Seeing the World. Only Socialism can pee a reason why the desert should be covered with CHAP. XXIX THE FINE ARTS 393 blossoms, why the toilers should "dress and keep" the earth for its beauty, as well as for its food. The earth is the natural inheritance of all; not alone the natural resources which can be turned into articles of use for the comfort of all, but its natural beauty also. But capitalism has kept the many so busy and so poor, that they have no knowledge of its grandeur, and this mar- velous environment which nature has placed about her children, to open their eyes and to teach them the les- sons of the good and the beautiful, is never even known by them. The mountains and canons of Colorado, the water- falls like Spokane and Niagara, the stately movements of the Columbia, the St. Lawrence or the Hudson, the clear and placid waters of a mountain lake, the glory of a northern midnight, the grandeur of the Andes or the Alps, the marvelous scenery of the Rhine, the curi- ous atmospheric effects of a British summer day, the clear light which places at one's side the snow capped peaks of the distant ranges, the indescribable light and color of an Alaskan glacier, the glory and power of a sunlit storm at sea, with a rainbow riding in the white foam of every broken crest all these are nature, speak- ing, and beckoning to her children to see and to know the beautiful, and yet, under capitalism, for most men these things might as well never to have been at all. Socialism will so cheapen travel, and so enrich the workers, that the ends of the earth will be brought, nigh. What an added meaning to a picture, when it suggests a memory so splendid as one's own presence in the midst of the most wonderful things in nature. How all the world of art will come to all the world anew, when all the world itself is known by all her children. 513. Art Is Social. All art is necessarily social, Its object is to express one's life for the purpose of 394 CURRENT PROBLEMS PART V effecting the transfer of its own joy to and into the life of another. All capitalism is necessarily anti-so- cial. Its purpose is to extract from another, and at his loss, the things he needs for his use and comfort and for the profit of the one, regardless of the ruin of the other. Art gives joy. Profit gives grief. The one sings its song to express its gladness and to make the listener glad. The other repeats its jargon and lays its traps, regardless of consequences and leaves all who come under its power in bitterness and despair. 514. The Art Gallery and the Market Place. Now, the things of utility cannot be managed with regard to the one motive, and the things of beauty with re- gard to the other. If the motive of profit is to remain in the market it cannot be kept from the drama and the art gallery. If the social idea of art is to obtain a footing, even in the art gallery and the concert hall, then it must be extended to the market. Either men will make clothes with the social ideal of the artist or they will paint pictures with the sordid ideal of the market. 12 Whichever rules in either must in the end be the master of both. Under Socialism the motive of the artist will be the master of all. 515. Art and the Fashion Plates. Fashions are the 12. ""From the sixteenth century downward, the man of imagina- tion, unable to please the economic taste, has starved. "This mercenary quality forms the gulf which has divided the art of the Middle Ages from that of modern times a gulf which can not bo bridged, and which has broadened with the lapse of centuries, until at last the artist, like all else in society, has become the creature of a commercial market, even as the Greek was sold as a slave to the plutocrat of Rome. * * In an economic period, like that which has followed the Reformation, wealth is the form in which energy seeks expression; therefore, since the close of the fifteenth century, archi- tecture has reflected money." "No poetry can bloom in the arid modern soil, the drama has died, and the patrons of art are no longer even conscious of shame at pro- faning the most sacred ideals. The ecstatic dream, which some twelfth century monk cut into the stones of the sanctuary hallowed by the presence of his God, is reproduced to bedizen a warehouse; or the plan of an abbey, which Saint Hugh may have consecrated, is adapted to a railway station." Adams : Law of Civilization and Decay, pp. 381 CHAP. XXIX THE FINE ARTS 395 creations of the capitalists. They are devised by them, enforced by them, changed by them, and they are en- forced and changed, to be remade, enforced and changed again, not by any advance in art, nor by any activity of the artist, but solely and only for the sake of the profit to be obtained by such a process. The perfect human form is admitted to be the object of the highest beauty. The most splendid achieve- ments of art have been in giving expression to the hu- man form. But conventionalism has decreed that man's body is unclean, and the fashion plate has de- clared it ugly. Every artistic sense of color, of form and of movement is violated, every line of beauty broken. The natural form is pinched, and twisted and padded, and betrayed, to make of the victim a walking advertisement for the maker of the fashion plate. If sex selection, based on lines of beauty in the natural form of the naked savage, and the natural longing for its production, promoted the perfection of the form of man, then the contemplation of his dress and the maternal longing for a child that would fit his clothes, under present forms, would tend to make of him an unbearable deformity. 516. Wrecking the Masterpiece. Art had its birth in beautifying and prefecting the forms of human life. Its earliest and its best expressions were in naked human forms of ivory and gold and .marble, whose beauty has not been known since civilization came to cover men with rags and sores. Civilization has broken and enslaved man's spirit. It has bent and twisted and deformed his body. It has surrounded him with dis- order and desolation. It has filled him with disease, and covered him with all manner of ugliness. It has organ- ized the means of his oppression and has called it busi- ness. It has taught him to be ashamed of that which his glory, and to honor that which should be his 396 CURRENT PROBLEMS PART V shame and the culmination of capitalism is the cul- mination of this career of disaster to the artistic qual- ities and longings of the race. Socialism, on the other hand, will give the fullest ex- pression to the social ideals of the real artist. 517. Capitalism Doing Its Best. Capitalism is not to be blamed for extending its maxims and its methods to the art which its patronage makes possible. The Chicago pork packers and grain speculators are giving the best they have when they carry the stock yards and the Board of Trade into the Art Institute. The artist who longs for an art that is unknown at the Institute, the free and glad expression of a life both free and glad, can never be heard on the subject of beauty until the artist's social instincts shall not only enter the In- stitute, but enter every place of toil and trade. 13 518. Strength and Beauty. As a thing of utility a dress is strong. As a thing of art, it is a thing of beauty. But the dress is not two things, one strong and the other beautiful. It is one thing, and it is both strong 13. "Artistic tastes will not be gratified on a large scale until the utility of art exceeds its cost. Unartistic men control industrial organizations, the churches, and public affairs, because they are more active, and while they are in control churches, railroad stations and public buildings will be constructed with but little regard to their looks. All this would be changed if artistic and literary ideals promoted activity. The men they influence would then control social and indus- trial organizations and could determine* the form of buildings and other objects, if the net gain of their activity to society was greater than the additional cost of making their environment pleasing. Under pres- ent conditions, however, art is associated with leisure and is confined to galleries and museums, which ordinary people see only on holidays. It is thus sought chiefly by the inactive and overfed, who seek a relief from monotony by sensory stimulations. Pleasures that do not promote adjustment are detrimental, and those who indulge in them are sure to be eliminated. We are thus breeding against art and not in its favor. The classes affected by it are so differentiated from the racial standards that they cease to meet the conditions on which survival depends. They become sterilized and leave the world to those who adhere more fully to racial standards. Artists and writers, therefore, are made at the present time by education and conversion, but not by breeding. So long as this situation continues, there can be little net progress in art. Each new generation of artists rises out of the same inartistic conditions, develops in the same way, and dies out by gradual extinction." Patten: Development of English Thought, p. 386, CHAP. XXIX THE FINE ARTS $&l and beautiful. It is absurd to think that the social instinct of the artist could fix its form and its color, while greed for gain could fix its comfort and its strength. Now greed fixes both. Under Socialism the social instinct of the artist will be the master of all. That is why the real artist is always a Socialist. 14 519. Artists Are Socialists. Plato, John of Patmos, Augustine, More and Bellamy, and every other dreamer who has tried to give a literary picture of a higher life for man, has found that art could not even dream of a better life, and leave as any share of its picture the pitiless penury and distress of capitalism. Drummond mentions that John saw a city "without a church." 14. "We have seen that the essential condition of all art is the psychic power of forming ideals. Their execution is certain to follow their creation. It has often been remarked that persons of an artistic turn of mind often become, especially in later life, social reformers, and the examples of Ruskin, William Morris, Howells, Bellamy, and others are brought forward. I once heard a lecturer on Sociology at a university lay great emphasis on this fact before his class, and he treated it simply as a remarkable and apparently inexplicable coinci- dence. This led me to reflect upon it, but the explanation was not far to seek. An artist, or art critic, like Ruskin, possesses a mind specially constituted for seeing ideals in nature. Such a mind instantly detects the defects in everything observed and unconsciously supplies the missing parts. This faculty is general, and need not be confined to human features, to architectural designs, to statues, portraits and landscapes. It may take any direction. After a life engaged in the search of ideals in the world of material things, the inind often grows more serious and is more and more sympathetic. It lays more stress on moral defects, and in the most natural way conceivable it proceeds to form ethical and social ideals by the same process that it has always formed esthetic ideals. The defectiveness of the social state in per- mitting so much suffering is vividly represented, and the image of an ideal society in which this would be prevented spontaneously arises in the mind. Instinctively, too, the born artist now becomes a social artist, proceeds to construct such an ideal society, and we have a great array of Utopias, and Arcadias, and Altrureas. * * * To indulge in an apparent hyperbole, the moral and social reformer, nay, the social and political agitator or even fanatic, provided he be sincere and not a self-seeker, exercise the same function as the poet, the sculptor, and the painter, and out of all these fields of art, even from that of music, there have been recruited, in this perfectly natural and legitimate way, philanthropists, humanitarians, socialists, idealists, religious, economic and social reformers. The list is large, but as representative types, be- sides those already mentioned, we may properly name Victor Hugo, Tolstoi, Wagner, Millet, Swinburne and Oeorge Eliot." Ward: Pure Sociology, pp. 83-84. 398 CURRENT PROBLEMS PART V But it was also without a bank, a real estate office or a labor market, and in his city the fixed condition of every service was ' ' to every one according as his work is." 15 Wagner in music, Millet among the painters, Morris, Euskin, Carlyle, Zola, Hugo, Dickens and Burns among the singers of songs and the tellers of stories, and the whole number of those who, with them, have given to the world the art it has, have succeeded in doing so only as they have defied and deserted the spirit of capitalism, and have caught the social instinct which under Socialism will make the whole earth a place of beauty and every daily task of life an ex- pression of its joy. 520. Summary. 1. Capitalism, through the pov- erty which it causes, destroys the joy of life on which art depends for its existence. 2. Capitalism, through the relations of mastery and servitude which the wage system enforces, prevents the fullness of liberty, without which no life can freely ex- press itself, and so makes real art impossible. 3. Capitalism, through its patronage of art, humili- ates the artist and degrades his work. 4. Capitalism monopolizes the works of art, so that that which should be the joy of all is made the misunderstood and unappreciated curiosity of the few. 5. Capitalism, because of the lack of leisure, and cost of travel under its rule, withholds from the masses any opportunity to even see the most beautiful in 'na- ture or to cultivate the taste to understand or the skill to create real art. 6. Socialism will restore the joy of life, by making certain the means of life for all, so far as poverty or the fear of poverty is able to make life miserable. 7. Socialism will abolish the relations of mastery 15. Revelation: XXII., 12. (New version). CHAP. XXIX THE FINE ARTS 399 and servitude. Under Socialism the superintendent will be a public servant, answerable to those at work under his direction, not to a private boss answerable to a non-resident stockholder. Socialism will make all men free, and so with liberty will make possible the art which waits for liberty. 8. Under Socialism the artist will need the patron- age of no one, and his products cannot be monopolized by the few, and the many will have both the leisure and the means for study, travel and for art production. 9. Under Socialism the motive and the instincts of the artist will rule the world, and every highway, for- est, field, household, workshop, or market place will be a work of art and so an object of beauty, a minister to the joy of life. 10. Under Socialism it will not only be true, as now, that artists will be Socialists, but then the artisans will be artists also. REVIEW QUESTIONS. 1. What is the difference between the industrial arts and the fine arts? 2. Which was first to come into existence? 3. Give an account of the development of speech, first in music and poetry, and afterward in prose. What of the most ancient writings ? 4. What is the purpose of art, in the motive which moves the artist to produce his work? What of sex lines as the occasion for the work of the early artists? 5. What of the art instinct as a factor in the development of the human form? 6. Show that all art has some direct relation to the emotions of the heart. W T hy is there no art where there is no love? Give relations of great art to great life. 7. How does capitalism destroy the joy of life? What of toilers and traders? What of masters in their relations to each other? 8. How does the lack of means and leisure affect art for those who are artists, and those who would enjoy art? What of the rich man's appreciation of art? 9. Does art depend upon capitalistic patronage ? What is the effect of such patronage? On the general public? On the artist? What of the prize winning artist? Under it, what becomes of the best art? 10. How does capitalism destroy natural beauty? How does it prevent the many from enjoying the best in nature? 11. What of the fashions ? Their relation to capitalism and to art ? What of the human form? 400 CURRENT PROBLEMS TAUT V 12. Can the things of beauty and the things of utility be separated and the artist's motive rule in one place and the commercial instincts rule in the other? 13. How would Socialism affect art, as to the joy of life? As to means and the leisure for the production and the enjoyment of art? As to the liberty which would make the artist free to produce the best that is in him? As to the monopoly of the products of art? As to fashions? As to natural beauty and the world's wonders? 14. What has been true of all artistic efforts to make a literary picture of a higher life for man? 15. Why are artists Socialists ? CHAPTER XXX RELIGION AND SOCIALISM 521. The Thinking Animal. The word man is de- rived from an old term which meant ' ' to think. ' ' Man is the animal that thinks. Thinking involves the process of comparing things in order to discover their relations. Instinct is an impulse to act in some given way without consciously thinking about the action. In- stinct is believed to be an inheritance from the experi- ence of one's ancestors. The ability to think is called reason. It is said that man is governed by reason and animals by instinct. It is a disputed question whether some animals do not reason. It is not disputed that some men have only the smallest power to do so. It is certain that at the beginning of man's career, man, the thinking animal, must have been governed by his in- stincts. 522. Oldest Instincts. The long centuries of experi- ence, during which his animal ancestry had developed his instincts, had been given to the struggle for exist- ence, and just as the ruling impulse, the instinct, of a fledgling is to try its wings in flight, so the ruling im- pulse, the race instinct of man at the beginning of his 401 402 CURRENT PROBLEMS PART V career as man, was to use all his powers in this strug- gle for existence. The struggle had been with heat and cold, with hun- ger and disease with strangers and with beasts of prey. These, then, were his foes and the instinct, the ruling impulse of his life, was to be at war with them. 523. Moving and Motionless Living and Dead.- It is impossible to understand how the first discovery, the result of self-directed reflection, could have been anything other than that some things move and some things do not move. He stood by the side of beasts or men. While living they moved. When dead they were motionless. His earliest classification must have been the moving and the motionless, the living and the dead. 1 Men still speak of "dead matter " and "living water. ' ' Matter is not dead in the sense it was former- ly supposed to be, and flowing streams do not live as they were understood to live when the expression "liv- ing water ' ' was given to our forms of speech. To the first thinkers, the sun and the moon and the stars were seen to be in motion, and comparison with living things taught them to believe that these heaven- ly bodies were themselves alive. The trees grew, the rivers flowed, the fruits ripened, the clouds crossed the skies and broke into the noise and fury of the storm. The winds kissed man's face, sung in the hanging branches, and shrieked in the winter's blast. All these were regarded as living things, for life alone gave mo- tion. How great and marvelous the life which moved the cataract or whose voice was the thunder or whose breath was the storm. 524. The Breath of Life, When beasts or men no longer breathed, they were seen to die. Comparison of living things with those that did not live taught them 1. Clodd: Childhood of the World, p. 18. CHAP. XXX RELIGION AND SOCIALISM 403 that to breathe was to live, and to lose one 's breath was at once to die. Gust and ghost are different ways of spelling the same word. Both mean the same thing. 2 In all growing, moving things they understood there was a ghost, a spirit, life. With all these things, as man came to know them, he was struggling to preserve his own life. He thought of these things as having life and with life he understood them also to possess all the hopes and fears, the hunger and despair which he found in his own life's experience. 525. The Origin of Worship. In his struggle for existence he could not have been very long in making the discovery that there were things which by his strength he could control, and other things from which he must escape, or whose good will he must secure or else be overcome by them. Again, the classification was natural and easy. The things of which he was master were one class and the things which were his masters made up another class. As he attributed to all the things with which he struggled the qualities of his own mind, he soon learned to seek the good will of all things stronger than himself in forest, field and storm or sky, by offering the same services for their good will which he would be ready to accept from some life inferior to his own. He fought with whatever force he thought to be less than his own. He surrendered to whatever force he could see no way to overcome. What he could whip he whipped, and what he could not whip he worshipped. 526. Fetishism The Worship of Things. The earliest form of worship, and this is true everywhere and of all the races of mankind, was Fetishism. 3 It means the worship of things, each separate thing by it- self. 2. Clodd: Childhood of the World, p. 21. 3. Clodd: Childhood of the World, p. 22. 404 CURRENT PROBLEMS PART V 527. Polytheism Many Masters of Groups of Things. The first advance in the development of re- ligion was made when man, by the process again of the comparison of things, discovered that all trees of any particular kind grew and blossomed and brought to maturity their nuts and fruits in the same manner. 4 All the streams seemed to be moving alike. The water- falls broke into spray of the same kind, they sang the same songs, and hung in the mists above them the same rainbow everywhere. It was an easy step to under- stand that the same spirit was in them all. Each sep- arate thing now ceased to be a god, and each class of things became the subject of its own particular divin- ity. Before, the storm itself was a god, but now they said, "He rides upon the storm/' This form of worship is called polytheism (many gods), and under it worship passed from the worship of things to the worship of the masters of many things. 528. One God and One Evil Spirit Masters of All. The next step, now that it has been taken, seems most natural and easy. But we are looking at the problem with the conclusions of the thought of many centuries as the common thought and speech made fa- miliar to us from the earliest moments of our childhood. The process of comparison by which it could be discov- ered that there were characteristics in the movements and products of all things which indicated that there was one master of all things, instead of many masters of many things, was not an easy step to take. The difference between the harvest and the plagues which destroyed the harvests, between doves and snakes, between food and poison, between the strength of youth and the pestilence that " walketh at noonday " was so great and so difficult of explanation, if both were the action of the same Great Spirit, that man was 4. Clodd: Childhood of the World, p. 25. CHAP. XXX RELIGION AND SOCIALISM 405 unable to make the passage from polytheism to mono- theismfrom many gods to one god except it be be- lieved that the Great Spirit of all was at war with a lesser and malignant spirit and that in the fortunes of this warfare of the gods, whenever evil befell him, either it was because of the wrath of the Great Spirit or the victim of misfortune had been caught in the enemy's country. The beginning of this worship of one God of all good spirits and the execration of the one malignant master of all minor devils, brings us to the closing years of barbarism and to the opening centuries of civ- ilization with its written records and its sacred books and to the beginning of the written story of the further development of religion. 529. Common Grounds of Scholarship of All Creeds. It is not within the scope of this discussion to enter upon any of the questions of dispute regarding the au- thority of the sacred writings or of the ecclesiastical organizations. The purpose of this chapter will not require us to go outside of the field where all that is stated is admitted to be true by the best scholarship of all the creeds and by the creedless scholarship as well. It is the purpose of this chapter to call attention to the way in which religion is now monopolized and de- based by the rule of capitalism. If it is true that a great factor in the life of man which has come with him from the beginning and has had so large a share in the processes of his development is debased by capital- ism and would be liberated, ennobled and made a thou- sand-fold more effective under Socialism, then all alike should swing wide their doors to welcome this new fac- tor in the life of man. 530. The Evolution of Religion. It has been seen in Chapter III that at the beginning of the story of man's life on earth he was entirely without organiza- 406 CURRENT PROBLEMS PART V tion. 5 Ignorant of the nature of his surroundings, guided by the instincts of his animal ancestry, afraid of each separate thing which had the power to harm him, his fears evolved a faith which also was without organization. Having no conception of any established relations between himself and his fellows, it was impos- sible that he should think of such relations between the things he worshipped. 531. Beginnings of Organization. But as organiza- tion advanced among men and they built their camps together, kept a common fire, organized fishing com- panies, hunted and cultivated the fields and herded the flocks together, it became alike impossible that the or- ganization which they were able to develop among themselves they should continue forever to think im- possible among the gods. Hence, as the chief began to appear among men, the master of gods came to be thought of among the gods. 532. Cannibalism. Under fetish worship, cannibal- ism was the most natural thing to come into existence. If some one man became mightier than many others and each thing had life, great or small, according to its strength, then great warriors were great gods and "to drink their blood and to eat their flesh " was to ab- sorb the divinity of the captured warrior. This prac- tice and this creed was found among all races of men and in all lands in the earlier stages of the race life. 6 It shows why, in human sacrifices, the strongest and the most beautiful were required for the offering and why, when animals were at last substituted for men, the of- fering had to be spotless and the choicest of the flock. 533. The Families of Gods. The fact that all rivers had certain qualities in common was not realized by 5. See Chapter IV. 6. Morgan: Ancient Society. CHAP. XXX RELIGION AND SOCIALISM 407 men before organization among themselves Had made its appearance. When they passed from the worship of things to the worship of the masters of things, mas- tery was a sort of democratic function, exercised by groups of men, who were themselves kinsmen. The new gods were members of the family of the gods and at the first exercised their powers after the manner of the primeval groups of savages who were working their way into the institutions of earlier barbarism. 534. The Gods of War. The leisure class began to appear with the organization of religion, the univer- sality of inter-tribal wars and with the beginning of slavery. The wars were between the gods as well as between the tribes. The tribes which were victorious were believed to have won in battle because the gods of the victors had overcome and subdued the gods of the vanquished. It is believed that the supposed share which the gods had in these tribal wars was no small factor in effecting the change from the massacre to the enslavement of those beaten in battle. 7 535. Religion and Slavery. The relation of this form of religion to slavery is better seen in the life of ancient Eome than anywhere else, because here the military life which created the economic demand for slaves, the worship of the many gods of polytheism and slavery, as a method of industry, all reached their high- est development. While previous world powers had destroyed the gods and forbidden the religions of the conquered peo- ples, Eome captured the images and carried the gods captive to the Roman Pantheon, a temple for all the gods, and so reinforced the captivity of the conquered countries by the captivity of their gods. Eome became also the patron of the conquered gods and provided sup- port for the priests who ministered unto them and in 7. J. K. Ingram: History of Slavery, p. 8,- 408 CURRENT PROBLEMS PART V this way effected an alliance with the trusted religious teachers of conquered peoples and so was able to use the religion of a conquered tribe to enforce its slavery. 8 536. The Jews, the Romans and the Tribal Gods. The Jews and Eomans could never come to an under- standing because the Jews had no god which the Eo- mans were able to make a captive. 9 As long as the petty tribal life lasted and the petty tribal wars continued, the gods were petty tribal gods engaged in petty tribal matters. 537. The One Military Master and the One God.- In tracing the story of the development of religion in Eome, it is seen that just as the ancient democracy of the original tribes developed into the great political power, which, on its industrial side, was a slave power, and, in the method of its administration, was a military power, so the conception of the gods changed from the family of quarreling gods to the absolutism of the one military master. The European mind was never able to think of one God ruling all the heavens and the earth, until after all Europe had felt the power of one emperor ruling all the world. It was only after the world power had been devel- oped and enforced for centuries and all men were com- pelled to submit to a central human power, that the idea of the one universal and unseen God was able to strong- ly move the minds of men. It was after the "ends of the earth " and the " Isles of the Sea" had paid tribute to Eome that the creed of Abraham became the faith of the world, and then only by keeping a place for evil spirits in order to explain the plague and famine which 8. J. K. Ingram: History of Slavery, p. 8. 9. "When Pompey first conquered the Jews and forced his way into their temple, he reported that it was empty and their secret rites unmeaning." See Tacitus: History, 5, 9. He could not conceive of a d which he could not find and carry away by force of arms, after he . captured his temple. CHAP. XXX RELIGION AND SOCIALISM 409 it was thought could not come to a devout people, ex- cept a devil be the bearer of them. 538. The Ancient Priesthood. The ancient priest- hood gathered to itself all the functions of the leisure and professional classes. The world was divided into soldiers and slaves. The priest ranked with the soldier. In youth the priest was the soldier's teacher, in sick- ness his physician, in war his counselor and soothsayer, and in peace his law-giver. 539. The Law of Growth. A tree grows whether it will or not, and by a process of natural selection and the survival of the best adapted, it may improve as the centuries pass. But the hand of man may quicken the process of improvement. Under his conscious selec- tion and training, plants, animals and men improve, not by the overriding of the natural order, but by learning it and the more completely complying with the natural law of life. 10 540. Great Services of the Church. It would be ab- surd as well as untrue to deny or to belittle the great service of ecclesiastical orders during the long years since soldiers have been trying to conquer the world to the authority of a single political power and the mis- sionaries have been striving to convert the world to a single religion. During the centuries of disorder which followed the collapse of ancient European civilization, the church preserved from utter loss the literature, the agricul- 10. No economist of reputation at the present day would attempt to ignore the ethical aspects of an institution, as might have been done fifty years ago. Instead of asserting the complete independence of economics and ethics, the modern economist, whether individualist or Socialist, would insist on the close connection between the two sciences. He would say that nothing can be economically beneficial which was ethically bad, because such economic benefits could only be transitory. He would insist with equal force that nothing could be ethically good which was economically disastrous, because in this case also destruction must ensue with equal certainty." Hadley: Eco- nomics, pp. 22-23. 410 CURRENT PROBLEMS PART V ture, the horticulture, the learning, the medicine and the law of the older order. For many centuries her sanctuary was the only refuge and her voice the only authority strong enough to enforce obedience. But un- der slavery, her temples were patronized and her priest- hood supported by the masters, and the priesthood bid the slave be content and to submit. Under serfdom, the place of worship was at the mercy of the lords, and the master at the altar bid the master of spear and lance to treat the rebellious serfs "like mad dogs." Under the wage system the form of the church has largely changed with the form of industrial organiza- tion. The reformation of the church everywhere ac- companied the collapse of feudalism. 11 541. The Unity of All Nature. The developments of modern life have separated the professions of law, medicine and of the teacher from the priesthood. The marvelous modern developments in invention and com- merce have been accompanied by the microscope, the telescope, the library and the laboratory. The contra- dictions in nature, which made difficult the belief in a single universal life in all things, with a common life purpose running through all things, have been studied in the presence of the new worlds which these instru- ments have revealed. Under scientific tests which men 11. 'To trace the influence of the spiritual life in individual and social development would be as easy as it is unnecessary. What is generally forgotten, however, and what it is needful to emphasize again and again, is not only that the content of the conception of morality is a social product, but also that amid the complex social influences that co-operated to produce it, the economic factors have often been of chief significance that pure ethical or religious idealism has made itself felt only within the limitations of existing economic conditions. The material, as we have seen, has almost always preceded the ethical. Individual actions, like social actions, possessed a material significance long before they acquired an ethical meaning. * * * Since the mate- rial precedes the ethical, it will not surprise us to learn that the mate- rial conditions of society that is, in the widest sense, the economic conditions continually modify the content of the ethical conception. Men are what conditions make them, and ethical ideals are not exempt from the same inexorable law of environment." Seligman: The Economic Interpretation of History, pp. 126 * * * 28. CHAP. XXX RELIGION AND SOCIALISM 411 "have seen with their eyes and handled with their hands/' the unity of all nature has been established. It is no longer thought by anyone of learning that one law rules over things which gladden the world and an- other law over the things of bitterness and disaster. It is now known that this earth i ' is not a kingdom divided against itself. ' ' Its laws are known to be unchanging, unfailing, all-powerful and everywhere and always present. Obedience to the laws which so encompass and control all life is everywhere proclaimed as the law of life. 542. The Highest Religion. The inventor, the dis- coverer, the builder, the artist, the artisan, the moral- ist, the statesman and the law-giver are alike helpless except as they learn and obey these laws. Eeligion is meaningless except as it is grounded in them and is the interpretation of them. Whoever learns and tells again great nature 's secrets is her priest, 12 and whoever is able to give her the service of his life, in obedience to her laws, is the certain recipient of her gifts in the same abundance as is his service. 13 543. The Order of Advance. When, in his infancy and his ignorance, man worshipped each separate ob- ject which lay about him, he was his own teacher, priest and king. When organization came and men worked and fought in groups for the mastery over other men, the gods were thought to be in groups and the tribes gave "to the great medicine man" of the time the in- termediary duties of keeping the peace between gods 12. "A war hero supposes a barbarous condition of the race; and when all shall be civilized, they who know and love the most shall be be held to be the greatest and the best." Bishop Spaulding: Education and the Higher Life, p. 171. 13. "For the conservation and perfection of social relations, and for the realization of ideals, the social mind creates institutions. * * * Institutions react for good or ill upon all social functions, and especially upon the supreme social function, the development of personality." Giddings : Theory of Socialization, Syllabus, p. 33. 412 CURRENT PROBLEMS PAST V and men but woe to the priest who " prophesied not good things for my lord. ' ' When slavery and war possessed the earth, the forms of religion conformed to the new forms of the industrial life, and the master of the slave camp was master of the altar as well as commander of the armies. When serfdom came, the lords of the castle and of the cathedral had their interests in common and against the serfs. When the wage system came, the ecclesias- tical forms shifted to again suit the limited democracy of early capitalism and now again both school and church conform to the necessities of most modern plu- tocracy. 14 14. "Thus the economic interpretation of history, correctly under- stood, does not in the least seek to deny or to minimize the importance of ethical and spiritual forces in history. It only emphasizes the domain within which the ethical forces can at any particular time act with success. To sound the praises of mercy and love to a band of marauding savages would be futile; but when the old conditions of warfare are no longer really needed for self-defense, the moral teacher can do a great work in introducing more civilized practices, which shall be in harmony with the real needs of the new society. It is always on the border line of the transition from the old social necessity to the new social conve- nience that the ethical reformer makes his influence felt. With the per- petual change in human conditions there is always some kind of a border line, and thus always the need of the moral teacher, to point out the higher ideal and the path of progress. Unless the social con- ditions, however, are ripe for the change, the demand of the ethical reformer will be fruitless. Only if the conditions are ripe will the re- form be effected. "The moral ideals are thus continually in the forefront of the contest for progress. The ethical teacher is the scout and the van- guard of society; but he will be followed only if he enjoys the confi- dence of the people, and the real battle will be fought by the main body of social forces, amid which the economic conditions are in last resort so often decisive. There is a moral growth in society, as well as in the individual. The more civilized the society, the more ethical its mode of life. But to become more civilized, to permit the moral ideals to percolate through continually lower strata of the population, we must have an economic basis to render it possible. With every improvement in the material condition of the great mass of the population there will be an opportunity for the unfolding of a higher moral life; but not un- til the economic conditions of society become far more ideal will the ethical development of the individual have a free field for limitless progress. Only then will it be possible to neglect the economic factor, which may thenceforward be considered as a constant; only then will the economic interpretation of history become a matter for archaeolo- gists rather than for historians." Seligman: The Economic Inter- pretation of History, pp. 130-2. See Chapter II. CHAP. XXX RELIGION AND SOCIALISM 413 544. Capitalism and Religion The Right to Think. Man is the animal that thinks. Under capitalism, it is propsed that he shall think along only such lines as will forever lead him to give up the products of his unpaid labor for the free use of those who labor not .and then only do such thinking as he can while ex- hausting all the physical powers of his life in produc- ing wealth which he cannot have for his own or his family's use. 545. Capitalism limits the activity of the religious instincts to nights and Sundays for those who toil and then provides for them, if at all, under conditions where, poorly fed, poorly clothed and outworn with toil, the worker and worshipper is made to feel the humiliation of his helpless dependence, even more bit- terly at the altar than at the workshop. Is it any won- der that religion plays so small a part in the life of the average workingman? 15 546. The Mastery of Wealth. This modern plu- tocracy rules the church not so much by purposely cor- rupting the church as because the church is dependent for its support on the few who are able to support her, but will do so only so long as the service of the church is consistent with the economic interests of the mas- ters. 16 In spite of itself the modern church is a respecter of persons. In spite of itself its message and its service is made to serve mankind so far only as is possible with no offense to those who with one hand rob the race and with the other support and control the agencies supposed to exist for the special service of the poor. 547. The Religious Teacher and His Training. Not 15. "We must first secure a livelihood and then practice virtue." Aristotle, quoted by Hobson: Imperialism, p. 97. 16. "All for ourselves and nothing for other people seems in every age of the world to have been the vile maxim of the masters of man- kind.' Adam Smith; quoted by Davidson: Annals of Toil, p. 112. 414 CURRENT PROBLEMS PART V only is the church dependent on the masters for its support, but the pastors and teachers are largely edu- cated at the expense of these same masters, and while the highest motives may suggest these expenditures and no pressure of any conscious sort be exerted by the benefactor of these schools, it is impossible for teach- ers of religion to come to their positions as teachers at the expense of these masters of the market and not be strongly, if unconsciously, influenced to look with mild censure, if not approval on the crimes of the market which have made possible the endowment of the schools. 548. Work and Worship. Work and worship cannot be characteristic of the common life so long as great wealth delivers the few from the responsibility of self-support and drives the many to overwork, to long hours, to evil associations, to unsanitary conditions, to ignorance and to the conscious bearing of great wrongs at the hands of the very people whom the church "de- lights to honor. ' ' 549. The Slaughter of Intelligence. Intelligence, not ignorance, is the handmaid of religion. The really religious are ruled by their understanding, not by their superstitions. Prejudice is not piety. A refusal to think is no proof of holiness. Inability to think is in- ability to worship. No other thing in the life of the race has so smitten the common life with personal de- pendence and mental helplessness as modern capital- ism in its most modern form. Its attack on the intelli- gence and self-possession of the common people is most destructive of any rational faith. It is itself the very essence of irreligion. 550. Socialism and Religion. Socialists make no attack on religion. They make no attack on the church. The Socialists' proposals are the only economic pro- posals ever made not in outright violation of the prin- ciples of religion. 551. Religious Convictions a Private Matter. CHAP. XXX RELIGION AND SOCIALISM 415 While the Socialists contend that religion is a private matter with which it is not their purpose in any way to interfere, nevertheless the proposals of the Socialists will deliver society from many things which are in- herent in capitalism and are the greatest foes of re- ligion. Mastery and servitude are forbidden by reli- gion. They are inherent in capitalism. They will be impossible under Socialism. 552. Brotherhood. Brotherhood is commanded by religion. It is impossible under capitalism. 17 It will be inevitable under Socialism. When men cease to rob each other in the market they will enter easily and surely into the natural relations of real brothers. Jus- tice between man and man is commanded by religion. Capitalism cannot exist without injustice. Its maxim is " Every man for himself. " The struggle for Social- ism is a struggle for justice in economic relations. 18 553. Supporting the Church. The church builds her cathedrals and palaces and extends her enterprises to the ends of the earth. But her most splendid archi- tecture is but a makeshift and her world-wide enter- prises a small affair as compared with what the willing hands of willing workers would do for the churches of their choice were the poor, who even now so largely support the churches which the masters so largely rule, 17. "Our national religion is the performance of church cere- monies, and preaching of soporific truths (or untruths) to keep the mob quietly at work while we amuse ourselves." Ruskin, quoted by Kidd: Social Evolution, p. 89. "No individual competitor can lay down the rules of the combat. No individual can safely choose the higher plane so long as his oppo- nent is at liberty to fight on a lower." Webb : Problems of Modern In- dustry, p. 249. 18. "How far is it possible to open up to all the material means of a refined and noble life ? * * * Much has been said of the physical sufferings and ill-health caused by over-crowded dwellings, but the mental and moral ill-health due to them are greater evils still. With better house room and better food, with less hard work and more leisure, the great mass of our people would have the power of leading a life quite unlike that which they must lead now, a life far higher and far more noble." Marshall : Present Position of Economics, pp. 54-7. 416 CURRENT PROBLEMS PART V once given for their own disposal the total products of their toil. 554. Boundless Opportunity. Under Socialism the library, the laboratory, the university, the service of the church the opportunity to study and to understand and that for all the years of youth and for long hours of every day throughout one's lifetime, without the cor- ruption of mastery or the humiliation of servitude of any form will at last be realized for all. 555. Summary. 1. Capitalism is the foe of reli- gion. This is true for the following reasons: (a) It enforces mastery and servitude in violation of the requirements of brotherhood. (b) It makes inevitable such ignorance and dis- order among its victims as makes most difficult if not impossible any rational religious activity. (c) It robs the masses of both time and strength for religious duties. (d) It corrupts morals by enforcing in the shop and market business maxims utterly at variance with the precepts of all the great religions. (e) It corrupts the life of the people by making the livelihood of the teachers of religion depend on the good will of those whose personal profits depend upon the betrayal of the common good. 2. Socialism is neither religious nor irreligious, but it will in no way interfere with the religion of any, while it will bring about such conditions in the shop and market as will make possible the greatest religious activity of all those who choose to be religious. This is true for the following reasons : (a) It will abolish mastery and servitude in the shop and market; the betrayal of a brother for the sake of a living will never again be necessary. (b) Involuntary ignorance and the resulting con- ditions of disorder will disappear. CHAP. XXX RELIGION AND SOCIALISM 417 (c) There will be time and strength for all for any desirable undertaking aside from earning a living. There will be time and strength for religious purposes. (d) All men will earn their living under a system which will not itself exist in violation of the precepts of religion. (e) No teacher of religion will need to be the per- sonal dependent of those more fortunate than himself. (f) The resources of all the people will be sufficient to enable them at once to abolish the religious beggar and, from ample stores, provide for all the needs of the most ambitious undertakings of the church. REVIEW QUESTIONS. 1. What was the original meaning of the word man? What is meant by instinct ? What is thought to be the origin of the instincts ? 2. What was man's first guide and why was he, by his instincts, at war with his surroundings? 3. What is thinking? What was man's first general classification of the things he compared? Why do you think so? 4. Why should he think all moving things to be alive? What did he first worship? W T hy would he do so? 5. What was the first advance in religion? By what process did men pass from worship of the things to the worship of the masters of things ? 6. Why was the passage from the worship of many gods to the worship of one God hard to make? In what way did men account for the seeming contradictions in nature after accepting the belief in one God? 7. While fetishism, the worship of things, was the prevailing relig- ion, what about the forms of social organization? 8. In what way was religion changed when men had come to live in organized tribes and to have chiefs among them? 9. In what way was the worship of many gods related to slavery? 10. When the absolutism of the Roman military government had been established, what change took place in the worship of the gods? Why could not the change have taken place before? 11. What happened to the church everywhere on the collapse of feudalism ? 12. Name some of the great services which ecclesiastical organiza- tions have rendered to society. 13. When did the leisure class and the priestly orders first appear ? 14. When slavery and war everywhere divided the world between soldiers and slaves, to which side did the priest of the ancient religions belong? 15. How was the unity of all nature at last established? What now is known to be the law of life? 16. In what ways does capitalism affect the church? 17. Why and how will Socialism greatly benefit religion? CHAPTER XXXI EDUCATION AND SOCIALISM 556. The Old Education. Education may be said to be the discovery and application of those laws of life which make for man's improvement. 1 Under the old order of things the education of man was a priestly function. The priesthood taught the slaves submission, taught the soldier obedience, and ex- plained their relations of dependence and all misery as the divine order of things, bitter to endure, but nec- essary in order to escape greater woes in this life or for man 's probation and training for the world to come. 557. The Business Education. In the separation of education from the functions of the church, the rise of modern capitalism was the chief factor. 2 The idea of 1. "The ideal of the Prussian National System is given shortly as 'the harmonious and equitable evolution of the human powers'; at more length, in the words of Stein, 'by a method based on the nature of the mind, every power of the soul to be unfolded, every crude principle of life stirred up and nourished, all one-sided culture avoided, and the impulses on which the strength and worth of men rests, carefully attended to." Bain: Education as a Science, p. 1; and Donaldson: Lectures on Education, p. 38. 2. "Education did not have a complete and beautiful development. It was unworthily enslaved to other interests, and both in theory and 418 CHAP. XXXI EDUCATION AND SOCIALISM 419 an improved man by the process of general education which was characteristic of the old education has been greatly modified by the demand for such special train- ing as will best prepare the student for such a business career. 558. The New Education. The most modern edu- cational movement, commonly mentioned as "The New Education," is an effort, with the equipment which modern science has provided, to once more return to the old idea that the purpose of education shall be to produce the greatest strength of mind, body, character, or, in other words, to improve the life and add to its naturalness and its joy. 3 559. A Better Market or a Better Life. But the new educator is not unlike the old priest in at least the one particular that the school is as completely under the control of whatever is most dominant in society as practice it showed its servile condition." Painter: History of Educa- tion, p. 117, Chapter "Education Before the Reformation." 3. "So that while the child's first right and first duty is to adjust himself physiologically to his environment, to learn to walk, to use his hands and to feed himself, to be physically independent, there still remains the great outer circle of education or culture, without contact with which no human being is really either man or woman." President Butler: The Meaning of Education, pp. 13-14. "The aim of education is to prepare for complete living. To live completely means to be as useful as possible and to be happy. By usefulness is meant service, i. e., any activity which promotes the material or the spiritual interests of mankind, one or both. To be happy one must enjoy both his work and his leisure." Harris: Educa- tional Aims and Educational Values, p. 5. "Too many of us think of education for the people as if it meant only learning to read, write and cipher. Now, reading, writing and simple ciphering are merely the tools by the diligent use of which a rational education is to be obtained through years of well-directed labor. Under any civilized form of government, these arts ought to be acquired by every child by the time it is nine years of age. H * * Moreover, the fundamental object of democratic education to lift the whole population to a higher plane of intelligence, conduct and happiness has not yet been apprehended in the United States. Too many of our own pople think of popular education as if it were only a protection against dangerous superstitions, a measure of police, or a means of in- creasing the national productiveness in the arts and trades." Eliot: Educational Reforms, pp. 401-3. 420 CURRENT PROBLEMS PART V was ever the church itself. The class struggle is no- where more evident than in the conflict going on be- tween the educators. One class of teachers view the problem from the necessities of the people under capi- talism. Another class of teachers view the problem from the needs of a full, free human life, regardless as to whether or not capitalism is to remain. The victims of exploitation ask for such training in the school as will enable them to add to their earning power. 4 They ask that the public school shall be a training school preparatory to entering the shop or the market as wage workers. The exploiters, on the other hand, demand that the public school shall be a training school for ser- vants; the technical school must provide superintend- ents; the manual training school must provide more capable workmen; the public school generally, better clerks ; the industrial schools better house servants and domestics, and at every point the school must exalt those who succeed and must sneer at those who fail, regardless of the fact that success may be the fruits of villainy and failure come because the bankrupt could not bring himself to be a thief. The student of educa- tion studying the laws of human life, striving to pro- duce personal strength and personal character and to lay the foundation for a full and glad existence, re- sents the subordination and subjection of the school as preparatory to the despotism of the private shop and discovers, greatly to his disappointment, that just in proportion as his work is well done in the school the student is spoiled for the demands of the market. 560. Breaking With Ideals to Hold Employment. - 4. "Where the public school term in the United States is longest, there the average productive capacity of the citizen is greatest. This can hardly be a coincidence. When the man of science finds such a coin- cidence as this in his test tube or balance, he proclaims it as a scientific discovery proved by inductive science." Butler: Education in the United States, Vol. 1; Introduction, p. 13. CHAP. XXXI EDUCATION AND SOCIALISM 421 A principal in one of the great public schools in Chi- cago, with many years of experience, stated to the writer that it was not an infrequent occurrence that young men and women, trained in the public schools, after securing employment in the shops or stores, re- turn to their teachers for consolation and guidance, and that it was the universal testimony of these young peo- ple that they were able to make themselves useful to their employers only by the abandonment of the ideals which had been cherished in the schools. It is a prin- ciple in education that that which one learns to do with- out the conscious effort to do so, which naturally takes possession of one through contact with it, is the thing which is most effectively learned and which influences the life of the learner in the most marked degree. There is nothing more remarkable than the contrast between the effort of the school to ennoble and enrich the life of the people and the ruthless slaughter of their ideals in the shop and the market place. Between the ex- ploited working people on the one hand, pleading for an opportunity to secure such training for their chil- dren as will make them more marketable, and the em- ployer on the other hand, demanding such training as will multiply the number of those from whom he is to select the well-trained workers whom he shall choose to employ, the real educator finds himself practically without a hearing. 561. The Clash Between the Market and the Schools. President G. Stanley Hall, of Clark University, re- cently read a paper before the National Educational Association, at its meeting in Detroit, addressed to a special session of college presidents, in which he con- tended, in substance, that the business world has no place for the highest product of the worthiest schools. Col. Francis Parker, who was then living and present; Dr. Harris, National Commissioner of Education; Presi- 422 CURRENT PROBLEMS PART V dent Harper, of the University of Chicago; President Hadley, of Yale, and President Eliot, of Harvard, all of whom were present, did not dispute the position which had been taken, and practically agreed with the comment of Col. Francis Parker, that the position taken by Dr. Hall was simply a statement of what all edu- cators realized to be true. He further stated that this is a question which is easy to state, but for which he, at least, had been unable to satisfy himself with any an- swer he had been able to make as to a way out. These distinguished educators were unable to find a way out because, as long as capitalism remains the dominant factor in our modern life, there is no way out. 562. Training Masters and Servants. Making a living is the absorbing business of most people ; making a fortune is the equally absorbing problem of the few. These fortunes are made at the expense of those who are doomed to live lives devoted solely to toil in order that they may live at all. Between these two classes the few rich and the many poor, the relations of mas- tery and servitude must last as long as capitalism re- mains. And so long as the school is under the domina- tion of masters and servants, so long as the business of life is either doing the work of a servant or exercising the authority of a master, so long the school must an- swer to these most dominant influences in society, so long must the school produce masters and servants, or it must find itself out of touch with the established order of things. 563. Corrupting the Schools. Among the things which exist in society which must challenge most strongly the attention of the children and the influence of which is felt throughout the schools, is the great power of wealth the great helplessness of poverty and the pitiless humiliation of the poor man's child. The inevitable discrimination against the poor as they ap^ CHAP. XXXI EDUCATION AND SOCIALISM 423 proach the higher grades in the public schools, 5 is not only pathetic, because of its cruelty, but it is most dan- gerous to public morals in consideration of the common knowledge that great wealth is so frequently associated with great rascality. It unavoidably exalts to the high- est positions in the mind of the child, not those of the highest attainments, or of the worthiest character, not those who have best served society, not those who have attained to the ideals which the schools attempt to cherish, 6 but instead those who have betrayed society, who have grossly abandoned the highest purposes and brutally robbed the helpless under the protection of law. These are object lessons which every child meets upon the playground, and every such act of contempt for poverty and of deference to wealth is acting pow- erfully to corrupt the childhood of the race. 7 564. Falsifying Text Books. But this is not all ; the very text books are filled with examples which do not fix the attention of the learner on the real problems of real life, but instead on the calculations of the profits of the speculators, of the losses of unfortunate invest- ments, of the gains of investors, as if investment for profit was a natural and necessary act and the relations 5. "Most systems of education seem designed exclusively for the sons of wealthy gentry, who are supposed to have nothing else to do in life but seek the highest culture in the most approved and fashionable ways." Ward: Dynamic Sociology, Vol. II., p. 629. 6. "The mark of a barbarian is not the language he speaks nor the deity he worships. It is his rude intellectual development, his nar- row range of views, his rough treatment of others. Everything that distinguishes a savage from a civilized man can be directly or indirectly traced to the differences of education." Ward: Dynamic Sociology, Vo. II., p. 593. 7. The present enormous chasm between the ignorant and the intelligent, caused by the unequal distribution of knowledge, is the worst evil under which society labors. "This is because it places it in the power of a small number, having no great natural capacity, and no natural right or title, to seek their happiness at the expense of a large number. The large number, deprived of the means of intelligence, though born with a capacity for it, are really compelled by the small number, through the exercise of a superior intelligence, to serve them without compensation." Ward: Dynamic Sociology, Vol. II., p. 602. 424 CURRENT PROBLEMS PART V between gamblers and their victims on boards of trade the great relationships of life. The reading lessons glorify the subordination of servants, reflect upon labor organizations, and worst of all, .plainly misstate the facts of American history. All these abuses are inci- dental to the existence of capitalism. They are in- stances of a direct effort to mislead and corrupt the youth in the name of education and in behalf of the masters. 8 A United States history widely used in the public schools directly states that Socialism was tried at Jametsown, was proven a failure and abandoned be- cause found to be impracticable. How false such a statement is does not need to be argued in this con- nection further than to say that what took place at Jamestown was the following: When a group of adventurers from the idle classes of England were on the point of starvation, a military master required all to go to work or stop eating. The day's work required was a six-hour day, a fact deliber- ately suppressed in the school histories. In a single season with this short day, with workers not before ac- customed to toil, the colony was saved from outright ruin. The temporary relief secured by this military or- ganization of industry was not Socialism. There was no collectivism, no democracy nor equality. There was no triumph of the working class over their exploiters. There was no abolition of mastery and servitude. The instance has but little value except as showing that even the bosses will go to work rather than go hungry. The industrial development which makes Socialism 8. "The final result of exclusive reliance upon private benefactions for any phase or grade of education will be that the instruction provided will not only reflect the interests of a class, but will be confined to a class. This is no place to discuss the far-reaching consequences of such tendencies. To say they are not in harmony with the ideal of demo- cratic civilization is to express but mildly a great truth." Adams; Finance, pp. 71-& CHAP. XXXI EDUCATION AND SOCIALISM 425 possible had not then taken place. There is not a United States history, so far as known to the writer, used in the American public schools which makes any allusion to the treason of Northern capitalists in at- tempting to throttle the government under the adminis- tration of Mr. Lincoln, at the beginning of the Civil War. They nowhere point out the economic causes which are fundamental in the study of any historical problem. These school histories simply glorify a series of political and military accidents intended to make the student the worshipper of commercial and military masters, while leaving them in ignorance of the real causes of the events discussed. 585. The Factory Child and the Public School. - Capitalism takes the children from the schools and turns them over to the factories before their bodies are sufficiently grown to endure the strain of the tasks which are given them and before it is possible that their minds should be sufficiently informed to make them worthy citizen, 9 and then the politician, representing capitalism, disfranchises the men, grown from these very. children, because illiterate. Capitalism robs the childhood of the country of the play time of its youth, or if the children secure access to the play ground, the long hours and the needlessly heavy burdens borne by the parents make it impossible for the parents, the natural playmates of the children, to have their play time together with their children. The parent is the natural playmate, the most natural instructor, the most natural companion for the child, but capitalism dooms the ordinary worker to such a life of toil that he 9. "To make the most of any individual's peculiar power, it is important to discover it early, and then train it continuously and assiduously. It is wonderful what apparently small personal gifts may become the means of conspicuous service or achievement, if only they get discovered, trained and applied," Eliot: Educational Reforms, pp. 408-11, 426 CURRENT PROBLEMS PART V is incompetent to be either the playmate or the teacher of his own child, and if he was, it so binds him to the workshop and the market place that there is no time for that most natural companionship of the study hour and the play spell between the parent and the child. There is no place where the school suffers more than for lack of co-operation between the home, on the one hand, and the active duties of life, on the other, with the school it- self. But the school can now come in touch with the fac- tory only by becoming the training school of slaves, and it can come in touch with the fireside only by ad- mitting to the school house the breath of squalor and neglect forced into the workingman's home by the de- mands of industry, which makes a shop- worker of both wife and child and all too frequently a tramp of the natural bread-winner of the home. 566. Labor and Learning. Any normal concep- tion of education would extend educational activities throughout life. No one is too old for play no one is too old to learn. There is no one who would not live better and wiser and gladder if there was time out of every day for study, for reflection, for original investi- gation along some line of careful and independent study. There is a limit to the amount of vital force possessed by the workers. There is every reason for believing that it is a part of the deliberate purpose of the capitalists to so engage in toil and to so exhaust by toil the average worker that he will be incapable of being a free and careful thinker as well as an effective worker. 10 10. "Despotic governments have stunted men made them thin- blooded, low-browed, all back-head and no forehead. * * The lar- gest wastes of any nation are through ignorance." Hillis : A Man's Value to Society, Chapter I. "The point at which knowledge will cease to make a man a better wage- earner may be soon reached; but the point at which it will cease to make him a better and a happier man will never be reached." Creigh- ton: Thoughts on Education, pp. 212-13. ''The last right which it seems necessary to notice here, is the. CHAP. XXXI EDUCATION AND SOCIALISM 427 It is a pitiful thing to reflect upon, how the vast mul- titudes of the toilers throw down their tools at the end of the day's task too exnausted to think, even so ex- hausted that a rush to the nearest saloon is made for a stimulant to draw on the vital force which belongs to tomorrow's task, in order to endure the additional fatigue of returning to their homes. 567. So it is seen that capitalism corrupts the school. It forces the school to teaching a few things. It mis- leads and falsifies the things it teaches. It excludes many children from the school in order to use them in the shops, and draws the line at the beginning of pro- ductive industry for the vast multitudes of the workers against any further opportunity for study or for cul- ture. 11 568. The Hired Boss and His Neglected Learning. The wage worker is not the only one whom capitalism robs of the life-long opportunity for intellectual enjoy- ment. The hired boss or superintendent, the whole group of those who are the hired masters of the great industrial establishments, those who are held responsi- ble for producing results, are given the stern alterna- tive of being driven to the wall by competition in the effort to hold their positions or into nervous prostra- tion, idiocy or insanity. Those immediately responsi- ble for the employment of labor and for achieving in- right of education. In this case the right and obligation are so closely united that it is scarcely possible to distinguish them. Everyone, we may say, has both the right and the obligation of being educated accord- ing to his capacity, since education is necessary for the realization of the rational self. This is a right which has been but tardily recognized, even in some highly civilized countries; and even now in many of them the highest kinds of education are practically inaccessible to the mass of the people." Mackenzie: Manual of Ethics, p. 301. 11. "It is sufficient to mention Lord Bacon, Sir Isaac Newton, Alexander von Humboldt, Sir Charles Lyell, or Charles Darwin, in order to show that leisure is not, as is claimed, a detriment to aspiration. It shows, on the contrary, that the want of it is the great barrier to intellectual excellence; that poverty and monotonous toil crush out millions of potential luminaries in society." Ward: Dynamic Sociology, Vol. II., pp. 599-600. 428 CURRENT PROBLEMS PART V dustrial success in competitive enterprises are growing old in their youth, their young heads are covered with gray hairs, their public duties are neglected, their so- cial opportunities are forsaken, their appreciation of literature or the truths of science is pushed aside for the routine of their thankless tasks. They have dulled their artistic vision, they have starved their moral and mental faculties, they have slaughtered their worthiest aspirations, and all these they lay on mammon's altar for the place of a hired master and must continue to do so, so long as capitalism continues to exist. 12 For these, too, the beginning of service is the end of mental growth, and must be as long as capitalism lasts. 569. Socialism and Education. Now, Socialism will correct all this. There will be no motive for falsifying the books. 570. The Workshop and the School. The work of the schools and productive industries of society will necessarily grow toward each other until the deep abyss which now exists between the two will utterly disap- pear. It is true that the school would become the train- ing school for the workshop, but the worksEop will cease to be a slaughter house and will become the center of the organized activities, wherein the workers, both free and glad, will produce together the things essential for a full glad life. 571. The Fireside and the School. Under Social- ism there will be no abyss between the fireside and the school house. The teacher will necessarily cease to be a young man or a young woman merely using the school house as a stepping stone to something else. Those who have no taste for teaching and who are there 12. "The more society is improved and education perfected, the more equality will prevail and liberty be extended." Aristotle: Politics, CHAP. XXXI EDUCATION AND SOCIALISM 429 because they cannot earn as much somewhere else will disappear entirely from the school room. The long hours of leisure which co-operation will win for the workers will restore the parents to their children and the play hour to the home. The study hour of the fireside and the work of the school will so mingle with each other that it will be impossible to name the place where one ceases and the other begins. 572. The Ideals of the Schools and the Tasks of Real Life. Under Socialism it will no longer be true that the ideals cherished in the schools must be aban- doned in the doing of life 's harder tasks, for whenever industry is so organized that no one will be able to ex- act the services of others, except those who will ren- der services in return and, hence, so that no one shall be able to provide for himself in the most effective man- ner without at the same time he shall contribute to the welfare of all; when this is true, it will not need to be said again, as President Hall said in Detroit, that " there is no place in actual life for the choicest prod- ucts of the worthiest schools. ' ' 573. Summary. 1. Capitalism converts the schools into training schools for training masters and slaves. 2. It takes the children from the schools for service in the shops. 3. It makes impossible life-long study for both the. workers and their hired masters. 4. It falsifies and prostitutes the text books, en- forces base ideals and so misleads the youth in the name of education. 5. Socialism will reverse all this. It will make an end of mastery and servitude. It will provide for all a life-long opportunity for study and all motives leading either the writers of text books or the teachers to mis- state the facts of history or to betray the highest inter- ests of society will cease to exist. 430 CURRENT PROBLEMS PART V REVIEW QUESTIONS. 1. What is education? 2. By what means did the old education seek to improve mankind? 3. How did the coming of capitalism affect education? 4. What is meant by "the new education"? 5. How are the master and the serving classes related to the schools ? 6. How are the employments of the shop and market related to the schools? 7. Quote G. Stanley Hall. 8. What of the effect of commercialism on the life of the schools? 9. What of the school books and capitalism? 10. What of the Jamestown experiment ? 11. What of child labor and illiteracy? 12. What of the relation of the school and the home ? 13. What chance has a workingman for general study? . 14. How will the coming of Socialism affect the problem of education ? CHAPTER XXXH THE FARMER AND SOCIALISM 574. Untaken Land. Karl Marx has spoken no- where with greater clearness than in the thirty-third chapter of his ' ' Capital, ' ' when calling attention to the peculiar position of the farmers in North America and in the Colonies as compared with the farmers in the older European countries. He not only illustrates but clinches his argument with the famous Swan Eiver ex- periment in Australia, where a quarter of a million of dollars' worth of supplies in the shape of cattle, seeds and implements were sent to a new country, accom- panied by three thousand emigrants and where, be- cause of the untaken land, each man could work for himself and have the whole of his products. All re- fused to work as " hired hands " and the whole prop- erty was lost for lack of laborers. 1 575. America Before the Civil War. For more than two hundred years a steady stream of immigrants 1. "First of all Wakefield discovered that in the Colonies, property in money, means of subsistence, machines and other means of produc- tion, does not as yet stamp a man as a capitalist if there be wanting the correlative the wage worker, the other man who is compelled to sell himself of his own free will. He discovered that capital is not a thing, but a social relation between persons, established by the instru- mentality of things. Mr. Peel, he moans, took with him from England 431 432 CURRENT PROBLEMS PAKT V came to America. They landed with but scanty re- sources. But their earnings for a short time as " hired hands" made possible a beginning of their own, on' lands of their own, and, so, for all this time, the wages of labor made a nearer approach to the value of the products of labor than was possible in European coun- tries. The immigrant who had been here but a short time, on becoming himself a self-employed farmer, made way in the labor market for the more recent ar- rivals. While the supply from abroad occasionally gave the Atlantic cities an over supply of wage work- ers, the outlet in the West was so constant that not until recent years (Marx says, not until after the Civil War) was the supply of labor so in excess of the de- mand as to bring to America the capitalistic situation as related to the supply of wage workers and together with it the rule of capitalism as related to land as a means of production. 2 576. The Disappearing Wage Worker. While land was cheap and plentiful, and the tools of agriculture to Swan River, West Australia, means of subsistence and of production to the amount of 50,000 ($250,000). Mr. Peel had the foresight to bring with him, besides, 3,000 persons of the working class, men, women and children. Once arrived at his destination, 'Mr. Peel was left without a servant to make his bed or fetch him water from the river.' Unhappy Mr. Peel, who provided for everything except the export of English modes of production to Swan River." Karl Marx: Capital, pp. 791-792. 2. "Meanwhile the advance of capitalistic production in Europe, accompanied by increasing government pressure, has rendered Wake- field's recipe superfluous. On the one hand, the enormous ana ceaseless stream of men, year after year driven upon America, leaves behind a stationary sediment in the east of the United States, the wave of immigration from Europe throwing men on the labor market there more rapidly than the wave of emigration westwards can wash them away. On the other hand, the American Civil War brought in its train a colossal national debt, and, with it, pressure of taxes, the rise of the vilest finan- cial aristocracy, the squandering of a huge part of the public land on speculative companies for the exploitation of railways, mines, etc., in brief, the most rapid centralization of capital. The great republic has, therefore, ceased to be the promised land for emigrant laborers. Capi- talistic production advances there with giant strides, even though the lowering of wages and the dependence of the wage worker are as yet far from being brought down to the normal European level." Karl Marx: Capital, p. 799. CHAP. XXXII THE FARMER AND SOCIALISM 433 were simple and inexpensive, the wage workers who came to this country were constantly disappearing by becoming small farmers, that is, workers with suffi- cient property of their own to employ their own labor but with neither the capital nor with the surplus labor at hand to enable them to become the capitalistic ex- ploiters of the labor of others. Their property was the result of their own industry and saving and was used for their own employment and support. This was in strong contrast to the capitalist system where capital is the accumulation by the few of the products of the many, with the many wholly dependent on the few for the opportunity to create a living. 577. Independent Self-Support. These free self- employing farmers not only produced their own food, but for more than a hundred and fifty years they were practically the only manufacturers as well. 3 They pro- duced on their own farms their own clothing, boots, shoes, furniture and fuel, built their own houses, and with rude tools and scant returns lived their own free life. 4 That is, they did, without equipment and with- out organization, exactly what Socialism demands they shall have an opportunity to do again, become their own employers and have for their own reward the total product of their own labor, but with the added oppor- 3. "The first threshing machine was not invented till 1786; the cast-iron wheeled plow, the drill, the potato digger, the reaper and binder, the hay-raker, the corn-cutter, are not fifty years old. The Massachusetts farmer who witnessed the revolution plowed his land with the wooden 'bull plow,' sowed his grain broadcast, and, when it was ripe, cut it with a scythe, and threshed it on his barn floor with a flail. His house was without paint; his floors were without carpet. When darkness came on his light was derived from a few candles of home manufacture. The place of furnaces and stoves was supplied by huge cavernous fireplaces which took up one side of the room, and, sending half the smoke into the apartment, sent half the heat up the chimney." McMaster : History of the People of the United States, Vol. I., p. 18. 4. "In a paper, called 'Cause of and Cure for Hard Times,' published in 1787, an honest old farmer is made to say: 'At this time my farm gave me and my whole family a good living on the produce of it, and left me, one year with another, one hundred and fifty silver dollars, for 434 CURRENT PROBLEMS- PARTY tunity of the free use of the best equipment, and most perfect organization, not only in the production of crops from the soil, but in the whole round of human activity. 578. The Self -Employed. It is not disputed that for most of this time feudalism ruled on the Hudson, and chattel slavery ruled in the South, but it is insisted that neither were in the line of the real American ad- vance, and both were broken to pieces not only because neither was as profitable for the capitalist as the wage system, but for the added reason that the self-employ- ing farmers revolted against the oppression of slav- ery, with even greater fierceness than capitalism did against its economic losses. It was the sons of the self-employing farmers in the East, who, seeking for new homes for themselves in the West, fought the battles for free soil as against the southern planter, and for free homesteads as against the northern land grabber, and who at the same time waged the war as fiercely in one direction as they did in the other. 579. No Inheritance of Dependence. The American farmers do not have the inheritance of a thousand years of helpless dependence after the manner of the European peasants. They have the record of the mas- tery of the land of their nativity for over two hundred years, for it was they who conquered the wilderness, established civilization, fought the French and Indian wars, and achieved the national independence of this country, and then afterward controlled its affairs for more than half a century. The city has arisen and the farmer has been shorn of his power in politics. The I never spent more than ten dollars a year, which was for salt, nails and the like. Nothing to wear, eat or drink was purchased, as my farm provided all/ American Museum, January 1787, Connecticut Courant, August 18, 1788. Had this case been an uncommon one, the force and value of the paper would have been lost." McMaster : Vol I., foot note, p. 19. CHAP. XXXII THE FARMER AND SOCIALISM 435 factory has come and household manufacturing has disappeared and the farmer is made dependent for the larger share of his living on what he can sell into the market of his raw product in order that he may again huy out of the market the things of his use, and he is even more unable to control the market, either when he sells or when he buys, than is the skilled workman of the city when he sells his labor or buys his bread. 580. Under the Yoke. Capitalism has now taken the farmer as well as the carpenter or the iron moulder, and has set him to work under the pressure of the iron law of wages, and while his wages are paid in a different way and his dependence is enforced in a dif- ferent manner, he is as helpless as the wage worker. He is the victim of the same exploitation. He is given a bare subsistence for his long hours of toil and capital takes the rest of his products and under capitalism he has no way of escape. 581. Loss of Independence. The self-employing in- dependence of the American farmer has been taken away from him in four ways; (1) by the occupation of the land, (2) by the development of machinery, (3) by the separation of manufacturing production from the farmer's household, and (4) by the specialization of certain lines of agricultural enterprise and their or- ganization by corporations on a large scale and com- pletely under the factory methods of production. 582. Occupation of New Land. 1. The private oc- cupation of available public lands is practically com- plete. The recent settlement of Oklahoma shows how the surplus labor of the country would seek for self- employment on the land had it any longer the oppor- tunity to do so. The surplus labor cannot any longer find an outlet on new land and so capitalism, not only in the shop but on the land also, can proceed to rob the laborer according to its spirit and its habit, because the 436 CURRENT PROBLEMS PABT V public land being gone, the surplus worker has no other choice than to stand and deliver, or to tramp and starve. 583. Machinery. 2. The development of machin- ery makes the amount of capital necessary to enable one to produce to the best advantage so large that, even were the land provided, the additional equipment for effective production requires an outlay beyond the pos- sible earnings of a wage worker. An ox-team, a few chickens and a cow is no longer an outfit for a farmer, any more than a spinning wheel is an outfit for a cotton factory. With both the land and the machinery con- trolled by the capitalist, the toolless and landless worker has no outlet on the farm, except it be by long years of exhausting toil and through measureless pri- vation to which no one ought to submit, since there is no economic necessity for either the long toil or the extreme privation. 584. The Narrowing Process. 3. But more seri- ous than either of these is the equipment and organiza- tion of mining, manufacturing, transportation and storage, entirely separate from the farmer, and in every instance beyond his control. He cannot live without the use of these great instruments of industry and commerce. He cannot get his products into the market nor his living out of the market without their use. The capitalists control these things and they fix the terms on which the farmer is permitted to exist. They fix the price of what he sells and they fix the price of what he buys, and in spite of his ownership of his land and his farming implements, they fix his income, and in real capitalistic fashion they fix it on the basis of a bare existence for the farmer along with all the other workers. 585. Specialization in Farming. 4. The separa- tion of purely manufacturing undertakings from the CHAP. XXXII THE FARMER AND SOCIALISM ' 437 farm narrowed the farmer's employment to the pro- duction of raw materials for the manufacture of food and clothes, but the specialization of certain lines of agricultural enterprises has taken from the self-em- ploying farmers large portions of their work even as the producers of raw materials used in the production of food and clothes. The raising of cattle and sheep, together with wool-growing, the butter and cheese busi- ness, the stock yards and packing house enterprises, are largely in the hands of corporations. The growing and manufacture of sugar, the producing and market- ing of fruit, the raising of beans, cabbages and pickles, to some extent the production of wheat, and all the great preserving processes, are more and more becom- ing great corporation affairs. As fast as the factory system that is, ample capital, a single centralized management and thoroughly scien- tific methods can specialize and improve and so econ- omize in the processes of producing any article of farm produce that its production can be made cheaper with the work of a single worker as a part of the organiza- tion than is the cost of feeding the farmer's family along with himself, just so fast the corporation organ- izes the business, employs the single worker in the or- ganization, makes no provision for the worker's family and narrows the range of the farmer's undertakings. President Gr. Stanley Hall is the authority for the statement that the New England farmer of fifty years ago did the work which since then has been specialized into not fewer than sixty trades, and this process of specialization still continues. 586. The Small Farm. It is claimed that small farms, cultivated by single-handed workers and their families, will always pay better than large ones, and diversified farming better than "wool growing," "market gardening," "wheat raising," "cattle ranch- 438 CURRENT PROBLEMS PABT V ing," "bean farming," " fruit raising," "the milk' business," "dairying," or any other single specialty in farming. The answer to this is two-fold. (1) This same thing has been said continuously throughout all the years during which spinning, weaving, tanning, shoe making, fuel production, preserving, fruit grow- ing, dairying and cattle raising have been coming under the form of the factory system, and still the process of specialization, capitalization and organization, with the self-employed small farmer left out of the organ- ization and deprived of its benefits, goes on continu- ously. East such step has made the "independent farmer" more and more dependent on the corpora- tions created by and managed under modern capi- talism. 587. Salaried Superintendents. 2. If it be dis- puted that the factory system is entering largely into the field of agriculture and with the same results as in manufacturing, a sufficient reason for thinking so is found in the fact that just as students in the schools of technology are picked up for superintendents in fac- tories, as fast as they graduate, so the students in agricultural colleges are taken even faster than they are able to graduate, as superintendents of capitalistic enterprises in agriculture, dairying or in fruit growing companies, and in these enterprises they are given sal- aries from two to five times the average earnings of the self-employed farmer. 588. Why Half a Farm. If it be said that the farms are growing smaller on the average, and that therefore the corporation farm does not threaten the self-employed farmer, along with the self-employed store-keeper, or manufacturer, the answer is that both the small shop and the small store grow smaller as they disappear. As the department store advances the small store does not tend to get larger, but it is com- CHAP. XXXII THE FARMER AND SOCIALISM 439 pelled to get smaller in the process of its extinction. That farms are getting smaller on the average is ably disputed as a matter of fact, but whatever the truth may be, it is not essential to our argument. If the average acreage of the farm is less, it is because the mortgaged farm is divided in order that the farmer may sacrifice a part of it rather than lose it all. If the old homesteads are being divided among the chil- dren, it is because there is no other outlet for the farmers ' sons. It is not because a half a farm is more desirable for each of two children than wo^uld be a whole one. It is because it has come to a point where neither the city shop nor the western lands can provide for surplus population. It is because half a farm is better than no farm at all. It is not because the fac- tory system of limitless capital, cheap labor and scien- tific management will not work in agriculture. It is because the average farmer's boy cannot take advan- tage of these and is obliged to forego the most eco- nomic methods of production and to work on with poor equipment, within narrow fields and with unscientific methods or to have no means at all whereby he may save his life. 589. Millionaire Ranchmen. It should be borne in mind that there are all grades of farmers, from the millionaire ranchman to the farm hand. The farm hand is completely a wage worker, and the millionaire ranchman is completely a capitalist. Just as the small manufacturer and the small store keeper are doomed by the great factory and the department store, and can have no interest in common with them, so the self-em- ployed farmer is utterly without any interest in com- mon with corporation millionaires, who are already masters in the sheep, wool and cattle industries, and are continually entering every other field of agricultur- al enterprise. 590. Surrender for Lack of Outlet, If rude tools 440 CURRENT PROBLEMS PART V and single-handed industry remain in use on the small farms it is not because good tools are not desirable. It is because human life is. so cheap on these small farms in the presence of increasing populations and with no outlet elsewhere. Make decent industrial op- portunities for all and the conditions of farm labor will necessarily be made as good, with rewards as great, and with hours of toil as short, and with life's social opportunities as desirable, as are those of any other calling, or the farm work will not be done. But the farm work must be done. The food supply of the world depends upon it. Very well, then, if decent in- dustrial conditions were provided for all by the co- operative organization of the great manufacturing, mining, transportation and storage industries, with equal opportunity for all to be employed in these in- dustries, then the conditions of farm labor would nec- essarily have to be so improved that the advantages of the man who works closest to the soil would be the equal of those enjoyed by any other workers, and this would be equally true whether agriculture was carried on co-operatively or as individual enterprises, pro- vided equal access to the soil with equal equipment for its use are guaranteed to all. 591. The Surplus Farmer's Boy. If there was an outlet on new land the farmer's surplus boy woud not divide the old farm. If there was an outlet in some other calling he would not be a farmer at all. He would not submit to the long hours of toil, to the con- stant separation from the society of his fellows, to the lonelines and isolation of his wife and children, in their separation from social and educational opportu- nities, had he any better choice than the cheerless and over-crowded tenement which is now a poor man's lot if he leaves the farm. 592. " Middle Class " Farmers. The defenders of CHAP. XXXII THE FARMER AND SOCIALIST 441 capitalism are fond of pointing to the Census Eeport and to the fact that the value of farm property in the United States exceeds twenty billion dollars as evi- dence that there is a " great middle class that can have no interest in Socialism." To this the reply is that the matter of greatest concern to the wage worker is the fact that he cannot escape exploitation. Socialism will put an end to exploitation. Then Socialism is of the most vital concern to all victims of .exploitation. Therefore, if a great majority of the people who are usually considered in "the middle class" are found to be, nevertheless, victims of exploitation, then it is clear that they have interests which will be best served by the coming of Socialism. 593. The Exploited Farmer. Is the farmer ex- ploited! The following facts, taken from the "Ab- stract of the Twelfth Census, 1900," issued from the United States Census Office, shows that an unqualified statement that one is the owner of a farm does not alone determine whether he is an exploiter or the vic- tim of exploitation. The total value of farm property was $20,439,901,164 (p. 217), while the total value of the farm product, not fed to live stock, was $3,764,177,- 706. Deduct from this $54,783,757, which was paid for fertilizers (p. 236), divide the remainder by 10,381,- 765 workers engaged in farming industry (p. 24), and you have $357 to the individual employed. From this $357 must be further deducted interest on mortgages, taxes, cost of repairing machinery, etc. [which amount is not stated], in order to find the average annual re- turns for the labor of an individual employed in the farming industry. 594. Worse Than Cotton Factories. The value of the product of $3,375,862 of these farms averages less than $250. This number is equal to 58.8 per cent of all the farms in this country (p. 222). The value of the 442 CURRENT PROBLEMS PART V product of 1,378,539 of the better farms, i. e., 24 per cent of the total number of farms, averages about $750. From this must be deducted the amount paid for hired help, interest on mortgages, taxes and repair of ma- chinery in order to find the net income of the farmer of this class. This shows that on the average the 24 per cent of the total number of farmers are exploited to as great an extent as the iron and steel worker whose wages average $584 per year (pp. 322-323) while the 58.8 per cent, the farmers of the poorer class, are ex- ploited on the average to a greater extent than the cot- ton factory workers, where so many helpless women and children are employed for the poorest wages paid in any of the manufacturing industries. 5 There re- mains 14.5 per cent of the farmers with an average product of $1,750 and 2.7 per cent of the farmers have a product of over $2,500. There are 2,014,316 tenants and 4,410,877 farm hands most of whom must find a place on these last two classes of farms. These tenants and farm hands can have no interest in perpetuating exploitation. It will give an idea as to how numerous these tenants and farm hands are and how large a proportion of the whole population is so employed and so exploited by remembering that together they exceed by 169,525 the total popular vote of the Democratic party in the United States in 1900. That this vast army of farm workers are the victims of capitalistic exploitation no one denies. 595. Bankers Not Farmers. But it must be remem- bered that ownership of a farm that does not yield 5. It is interesting to notice that the southern manufacturers reply to the complaint against the employment of children in the southern factories by calling attention to the fact that these children are better cared for in the factories than they had before been cared for on the farms. To this no answer can be made by those who object to child labor in the factories, but ignore its existence on the farms. CHAP. XXXII THE FARMER AND SOCIALISM 443 enough product to support two families does not en- able the owner to rent it to another and live himself as an exploiter. There are many bankers and business men who own and rent farms that yield only a few hundred dollars' worth of products, but they are able to do this not because of their ownership of the aver- age farm but because of their ownership of many such farms or of other things in no way a part of the farm. So the argument that 82.8 per cent of the farms do not enable their owners to become exploiters or to escape exploitation still holds good, while the 2,014,316 ten- ants and 4,410,877 wage earners, in addition to the ex- ploited owners of the average farm, make it certain that at least 90 per cent of all those engaged in farm- ing are victims of exploitation to as great an extent as the wage workers in other industries. The bankers and business men who own farms and rent them can- not be classed with the farmers any more than the members of a railroad corporation who exploit the far- mer in another way. The Census Reports do not count these bankers and business men as farmers and they are not included in the above. 596. The Largest Group of the Working Class.- If 90 per cent of the 10,381,765 workers engaged in agricultural employments are victims of exploitation that will make a total number of 9,343,589 such vic- tims. The total vote for all candidates for the presi- dency, scattering votes and all, in 1900, was 13,983,610. If the number of exploited farm workers be compared with this total vote it will be found that it exceeds two- thirds of the whole vote by 21,183. It equals about one-half of all the whole number of productive work- ers in the United States and is a majority of more than a million over the whole number of full-grown male workers engaged in all other industries. Whatever these workers own does not deliver them from exploi- 444 CURRENT PROBLEMS PART V tation. Nothing but Socialism can ever effect their deliverance. 597. The Agricultural Working Class. The own- ership of property which is not used for the purposes of exploitation does not make a man a capitalist. It is inconceivable that under Socialism the general aver- age of property held for private use will not vastly exceed anything that does or can exist under capital- ism. The ownership of property, the income from which in rent, interest or profit does not amount to a sufficient sum to enable its possessor to live without labor, still leaves such a person in the working class, subject to exploitation and dependent on the coming of Socialism as the only certain means for his deliver- ance. 598. A Bare Existence. Capitalism in the shop and store and on the farm alike, leaves for most men but a bare existence and appropriates for itself the bulk of labor's products, securing for the capitalists an income which they can neither use nor waste. By the spe- cialization and organization of industry under capital- ism the means of producing the means of life are no longer in the hands of any of the workers. This is as true of the farmer as of any of the other workers. He is as dependent on a railroad as he is on a self-binder. He is as dependent on a cotton factory as he is on a cotton field or a herd of sheep. He is as dependent on a sugar refinery as he is on his garden. He is as de- pendent on the market as he is on his farm. The means of transportation, manufacture and return to him of the means of his own existence are as far be- yond his control as they are with the carpenter who owns his kit of tools and yet lives solely by the consent of capitalism. 599. Public Ownership. Capitalism cannot deliver the farmer from exploitation, nor can any possible re- CHAP. XXXII THE FARMER AND SOCIALISM 445 form, made under capitalism, do so. Public ownership of railroads simply leaves the coal, the machinery and the steel mills and ore mines in private hands, and the capitalist still able to manipulate business and despoil the workers. If all the related industries are to go with the roads, and all to be controlled by the workers, and in their own behalf, that would fix it, but that would include all important industries and that is Socialism. 600. Public Loans. Public loans on the storage of grain would help the farmer to hold his crop for a later market, would help all the farmers to do so. If this advanced the price to the farmer, the capitalist would still fix the price of what the farmer buys and what he would save in the one case he would lose in the t other. If the public would provide the means for pro- ducing what the farmer buys and would store that, as well as what the farmer produces, and would give all hands a chance at the goods for the cost of production, that would not only secure for the farmer the full value of the product of his own labor, but it would give him access to the products of others on a basis which would increase his purchasing power in the market more than would be true of any other class of workers. At the same time it would give the manufacturing working- man the same advantage and increase his purchasing power in the same manner, if not to the same degree. But that is Socialism. 601. Farmer and Capitalist. The ordinary farmer is not a capitalist. He is a workingman. Whatever he owns he owns in order that he may employ himself. When he employs others, it is only in order to use his own labor to a better advantage. His farm is not his in order to exploit others, but in order to employ him- self. He has no interests in common with the capitalist. His own and his children's future depends on the over- 446 CURRENT PROBLEMS PART V throw of capitalism. The only alternate to capital- ism is Socialism. 602. Socialism and the Farmer. What would So- cialism do for the American farmer? It would provide at once an outlet for surplus popu- lation. It could inaugurate agriculture on the new and arid lands [now worthless] by vast systems of im- provements, and give to every idle worker, not the va- cant land, but employment with the complete st equip- ment and the most perfect organization, and to all of the workers would belong all of the products. The sur- plus farmer's boy and the idle carpenter, instead of dividing the old farm or competing with a fellow la- borer for the chance to live, would be given the best of all possible chances to provide for themselves. Socialism would make possible the storage of the water at the sources of all the rivers ^of the Mississippi valley and its distribution and use when needed on the very lands on which the floods and drouths now spoil so large a share of their productive possibilities. Be- sides, in those vast enterprises the great tracts of un- used alluvial lands of the Mississippi bottoms could be brought under the most scientific cultivation, and the machinery of agricultural production perfected on the largest scale, and so again, by the enormous in- crease of production on such a scale, further multiply the productivity of labor. All of this enormous gain would fall to the workers only. "By this increase of productivity, the working day could be greatly short- ened, while the product would at the same time be greatly increased. During the busy season the farm workers could be reinforced from other sources, and during the dull season the man on the land could be otherwise employed, so that instead of the overwork of the busy season and the idleness of many for the CHAP. XXXII THE FARMER AND SOCIALISM 447 non-productive months, there would be all the year employment for all the workers. 6 Bapid transit and ample leisure for all the workers would make possible numerous centers of population, and instead of the lonely isolation of the usual farm house, they would put within easy reach of the workers on the land every social and educational opportunity which could be provided for anybody or anywhere. 603. The Farmer's Family. What the farmers will do with Socialism ought not to be a hard question to answer so long as the question, how to keep the boys on the farms, remains unanswered. The ordinary farmer's boy has hopes beyond the boundaries of the farm home of his childhood. What- ever may be said to him about the joys of country life, he sees the farmers around him worn and bent with toil. He sees his mother old before her time, and he can see no future for himself and the woman who is to be his wife but to repeat the toilsome tasks of those who gave him his existence. Socialism alone can solve the problem of the farmer's boy. It alone can provide for him the manly life of labor and leisure for which he longs. The farmer's daughter depends on Socialism as her only 'sure way for entry into the gladder and larger social life which lies beyond the farm house. If she escapes from the farm now, it is to become a servant in the office, shop or kitchen of some stranger, and so exchange her independent isolation on the farm for association hi the midst of humiliating dependence. 604. Enlarging Life and Restoring Liberty. The value of the average products of all the workers in manufacturing, mining and transportation greatly ex- ceeds that of the workers on the land. Formerly all these things were done by the farmers themselves in 6. In discussing the order of advance under the socialization of industries the "Communist Manifesto" suggests: "Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the population over the country." 448 CURRENT PROBLEMS PART V the old rude way of doing them. But capitalism has separated them from the farmer, vastly increased their productivity and excluded the farmer from the benefits of the improvements. Socialism would again make the farmer a sharer in these and in the whole industrial life of the world. There will be no occasion for attacking the small farm on the inauguration of Socialism. The collective industry could not afford to touch such properties un- til the great and unused tracts of arid and bottom lands should first be used, and long before such enterprises could be completed, the small farmer could not be kept at his isolated and unprofitable task, so great would be the rewards awaiting him in the collective industry. But should the small farm still give the best returns there is no reason why the farm work of the world may not still be done on small farms, only the fear of foreclosure or eviction or the dependence of the farm tenant and the farm hand will be forever over, as well as the power of the railways, the factories and the storehouses to corner the farmer's products and rob him of the value of the services he has rendered. 605. The Way Out. Forty per cent of the voting population is on the farm. Ninety per cent of these farmers, as the smallest possible estimate, have noth- ing to lose but their isolation and their poverty by the coming of Socialism, and they, too, as well as the wage slaves of the manufacturing towns, have a world to gain. The farmers had a more influential part in making the institutions of this country than any other class of workers. They have been and are the most independent in political action, and they are by force of habit and by the experience of all those now living in the western and central western states, accustomed to adventure and are determined not to be directly or indirectly the slaves of capitalism in any form. But the farmers can never rule this country again, except in alliance with CHAP. XXXII THE FARMER AND SOCIALISM 44U the working men of the factories, mines, storehouses and transportation lines. The working men of the towns, in a party by them- selves, will not be able to out-vote the country districts for many years. But the workers of the towns and of the country are alike ready and over-ripe for Socialism. When they unite to secure Socialism, Socialism will come on that same hour. 606. Summary. 1. The American farmers have at last come under the control of capitalism. 2. Under capitalism the famer must work for a bare existence the same as other workers. 3. His ownership of a portion of the means of pro- duction, in the shape of land and implements, does not deliver him from exploitation, because he depends as fully on the means of production in manufacture and on the means of distribution, as do the wage workers, and neither in the means of manufacture nor in the means of distribution has he any ownership. 4. Public ownership of a part of the means of manu- facture and distribution will not deliver him from ex- ploitation, so long as any share of the means of produc- tion in manufacture or the means of distribution on which he must depend are privately owned, because such a partial public ownership will only shift the place where he is robbed, not stop the robbery. 5. No real relief can be secured for the farmer by any reform in the medium of exchange, or in the meth- od by which he secures the use of money in order to exchange his own products for manufactured articles, so long as the things he buys are privately controlled, through the private ownership of the means of manu- facture and distribution. 6. The great economies of the use of the great ma- chines, the special skill resulting from the minute divis- ions of labor, the opportunity to be productively em- ployed, all the year round, and the opportunity to secure what he cannot produce, at what it costs in labor to produce it, can never be obtained by the farmer 450 CURRENT PROBLEMS PART V under capitalism, but will at once be realized under Socialism. 7. The income of farm and factory workers can be greatly increased, and the working day for both greatly shortened under Socialism. There is no great or lasting improvement for either under capitalism. 8. Under Socialism farmers and their families will have even better social and educational opportunities than are now provided for the most fortunate. Neither their sons nor daughters will be obliged to abandon the associations of childhood and become the hired servants of anyone in order to make a beginning in the world. 9. The farmers who are manual laborers, together with the wage workers of the towns, are, together, the overwhelming majority of the people. Socialism is the only platform which shows a way of deliverance both for self-employed farmers and wage workers, and hence, on which they can all unite, and united no powet can withstand them. REVIEW QUESTIONS. 1. Show the reason why farmers in new countries have been able to escape from the control of capitalism. 2. What share has the American farmer had in the development and government of this country? 3. Show how the private occupancy of the public land has helped to bring the farmer under the control of capitalism. 4. Show the same thing with regard to the development of machinery and with regard to the separation of mining and manufac- turing from the farmer. 5. Why will not public ownership of the railroads deliver the far- mers from exploitation? 6. Why will not the public storage and public loans deliver the farmer from exploitation? 7. How far must public ownership be extended in order to deliver the farmer from exploitation? Who else would then be benefited? 8. How would Socialism provide for the farmer's sons and daughters ? 9. How would it affect his hours of labor, and his social and educa- tional opportunities ? Why ? 10. Would Socialism begin with an attack on the small farms? Why not ? If the small farmer should give up his farm under Socialism, why would he do it ? 11. Is it likely that the farmers will ever be able to control the country again, without the aid of the manufacturing wage workers ? 12. Can either secure economic independence without the other ? 13. Why is Socialism the only platform on which all the workers, including the farmers, can be united? CHAPTEE XXXIII THE MIDDLE CLASS AND SOCIALISM 607. The Middle Class.-The term "middle class" applies in ordinary literature to the class of manufac- turers and business men developed in the growth of modern industry between the aristocracy on the one hand and the wage workers on the other. Cromwell was the political representative of this class in his time; Cobden, Bright and Gladstone were representa- tives of the same class. The continental term for this middle class is the "bourgeoisie." This term is de- rived from the term "burghers," meaning townsmen of mediaeval times. "Burgh," which is a part of the names of so many American towns, as "Pittsburgh," is from this same source. The term "bourgeois" came finally to mean the em- ploying manufacturers and traders of the towns as dis- tinguished from working men of the towns who were without the means of self-employment, as well as from the military masters, soldiers and peasants' in and about the castles. In English literature the same class is spoken of as the "commoners." In America, there being no aristocracy, society is properly divided into two classes only the class which in England is called the "commoners," and on the Con- 451 452 CURRENT PROBLEMS PART V tinent the "bourgeoisie," in America is represented by employing manufacturers and business men. The small business men, or the small shop men on the conti- nent are spoken of. as the " petty bourgeois." In America, in ordinary discussion, the term middle class has come to apply to the "petty bourgeois," that is, to the small manufacturer and the small business man. The small farmer has come also to be included in the middle class in American discussions. 608. The Subject Stated. The subject, then, for this chapter, is the consideration of these small busi- ness men, small manufacturers and small property holders of all sorts in relation to the Socialist move- ment in this country. It must be remembered, to begin with, that most men will be governed, in the long run and as a general principle, by what they conceive to be their economic interests. It has been seen that these economic interests have so far determined all of the great conflicts in the history of the race. It must be borne in mind that the class struggle is directly be- tween the business man's interest and the working man's interest; that is, it is a struggle resulting from a conflict of interests. If the share of the products which falls to the workers is to be increased, then the share which goes for rent, interest and profit must be de- creased. If the share which goes for rent, interest and profit shall be increased, then the share which falls to the laborer must be correspondingly decreased. Each party to this conflict is all the time endeavoring to en- large its own share. This is the war of interests which is always going on under capitalism. These mutually antagonistic interests naturally bring into antagonistic relations the parties whose in- terests are thus found to be in conflict. There is no question as to where the interests of wage workers fall in this struggle. There is no question as to where CHAP. XXXIII MIDDLE CLASS AND SOCIALISM 453 the capitalist, that is, the man who holds in private ownership the means of production, and uses these pri- vately owned means of production for the purposes of exploitation there is no question as to where the in- terests of this man fall, and so far as he understands his interests, there is no question as to where he will be most likely to be found in the conflict. 609. Numbers of the Various Classes. It has been seen in the previous chapter that ninety per cent of those engaged in agricultural employments are the victims of exploitation. While twenty billions and more are invested in farm property, only the smallest number of farms, not more than 17.2 per cent of them all, are the means of exploitation. All the workers on this 17.2 per cent of the farms and all the people, both the owners who are also workers and the workers who are not owners on all the other farms, are victims of exploitation. It is not an easy matter to fix the lines marking the boundaries of the middle class from the large capitalists. If the 14.5 per cent of the farmers with an average product of $1,750 per year be classed as the middle class and the 2.7 per cent which, accord- ing to the same authority claims to produce a yearly product valued at more that $2,500 per year, be classed as capitalists, and then the same proportion is ad- mitted to hold good in all other callings, the boundaries will probably be admitted to be substantially correct. 1 This would leave the working class composed of 82.8 per cent of all the people, which is certainly under rather than over the number of those who earn their living by rendering service rather than by appropriat- ing the products of others. The subject of this chapter is the discussion of the relations of this small group of only 14.5 per cent of 1. Abstract, The Twelfth Census, p. 233. 454 CURRENT PROBLEMS PART V the population to the economic and political conflict be- tween the 82.8 per cent on the one hand and the 2.7 per cent on the other. The consideration of this group is of very much greater importance than the small number which be- long to it would seem to indicate. Only 2.7 per cent of the population have been mentioned as belonging, with- out qualification, to the capitalist class, but their power must not be measured by their numbers. This small percentage of the people control all the great avenues of trade, all the great instruments of production, all of the necessary processses of exchange, and not only have they been able thus far to maintain their position as the economic masters of the market, but also as the political leaders of the remainder of the people. The struggle for political mastery in this country in recent years has been between the people represented by the 2.7 per cent and the 14.5 per cent of the population. The 82.8 per cent have been and are still without politi- cal representation in the councils of the nation. 610. Economic Classes and Political Parties. It is not accurate to say that the Republican party repre- sents the 2.7 per cent and the Democratic party the 14.5 per cent, as has been frequently claimed. War- fare between the little business man and the big one, which has been going on in the market, has appeared as frequently in the councils of the Republican party as in those of the Democratic party, and in neither party has the American middle class been able to secure any such possession of political power as to secure for them- selves the political mastery of national affairs at any time in recent years. Still, the political leadership in the middle class, whether Democratic or Republican, just as in the case of the millionaire politicians, acting as the political leaders of 82.8 per cent of the people that is, of the working class, has been uniformly an CHAP. XXXIII MIDDLE CLASS AND SOCIALISM 455 effort to secure the votes of the working class, not for the purpose of serving the economic interests of the working class, but for the purpose of serving the econ- omic interests of the middle class, or of the millionaire capitalists, as the case might be. 611. Socialists and the Working Class. The Social- ist movement is an effort to protect the working class from further middle class domination in this economic and politcal warfare. The Socialist movement is simply an effort to create a political party devoted to the championship of the economic interests of the 82.8 per cent of all the people ; that is, of the working class as against all others. The Socialist movement is an effort to create a political party which shall represent in politics the economic interests of these exploited workers rather than the economic interests of any share of the exploiters great exploiters and small ex- ploiters being alike the object of attack. The Socialist movement is an effort to secure the organization and triumph of a political party which, because it will rep- resent in politics the economic interests of the exploit- ed only, will, when coming to power, have no share of its constituency economically interested in betraying the purposes which the party is created to accomplish. 612. Middle Class Measures. All political contro- versies between the millionaire capitalist and the American middle class capitalist have been carried on, not over an effort to abolish capitalism, but to so con- trol public affairs as to force the use of public author- ity either in behalf of the economic interests of the smaller capitalist or in behalf of the economic interests of the larger capitalist. These controversies are simply conflicts between groups within the same class, the capitalist class, to the total neglect of the exploited working class. The political controversy between the working class and the capitalist class is not one for 456 CURRENT PROBLEMS PABT V reforming, remodeling, improving, capturing or using the political power in order to remodel and improve capitalism. It is for the more revolutionary purpose of utterly and absolutely putting capitalism out of ex- istence. 613. Only Two Parties Possible. The question then, as to the relation of the middle class to the Socialist party is at bottom the question of the relation of the Socialist party to middle class measures ; that is, to measures for reforming capitalism for the benefit of a group of small exploiters rather than for the aboli- tion of capitalism. The conflict between the working class and the capitalist class is so desperate, so deter- mined, so fundamental, and must be so all-absorbing that in the final encounter there can remain no stand- ing ground for any third party in American politics. The capitalists, reinforced by such workers as they can mislead, 2 through the workers' ignorance of their own class interests, must constitute one party, and the working men who, comprehending the nature of their own economic interest, and understanding how resist- less is their political power if they will only use it in their own behalf, must constitute the other party ; and between these two there can remain no middle ground on which can be organized the forces for the third side of a triangular fight. All conflicts between big capital- ism and little capitalism will disappear in the midst of the warfare between the friends and foes of capital- ism. The middle class man will be unable to propose any middle class measures around which he can rally any political following of sufficient numbers to secure po- litical power for any program which will attempt to 2. "The 'dangerous class/ the social scum, that passively rotten mass thrown off by the lowest layers of old society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reac* tionary intrigue." Marx and Engels: Communist Manifesto, p. ?9, CHAP. XXXIII MIDDLE CLASS AND SOCIALISM 457 antagonize the big capitalist on the one hand and the revolutionary working man on the other. 614. Economic Interests Both Ways. The middle class man, then, the small manufacturer, the small mer- chant and the small farmer, must simply take sides, one way or the other, between the exploiter and the ex- ploited. Which way will he go $ Bear in mind that we have assumed that he would go in the direction of his economic interests, and remember, if he moves in the line of his economic interests, it must be as between the workingman on the one hand and the millionaire on the other. There remains and there can remain no other alternative. The small merchant, small manufacturer and small farmer have economic interests in both direc- tions, but they can have dominant interests only one way. In proportion as they are producers, by the ser- vice of either mind or hand, they are victims of exploit- ation. In proportion as their income is derived from the fruits of the labor of others their economic interests are with the millionaire. Here is a farmer with forty acres of land employing a " hired hand" occasionally to assist him in his farm work ; a manufacturer with $3,000 invested employing a journeyman worker to assist him in his processes of production ; a barber, who not only works at a chair himself, but employs an as- sistant; a miner, who, having " struck pay dirt," is employing another to assist him in bringing it to the surface. Now, in all these cases, the men are them- selves producers, and so far as they are producers, they are, together with all other workers, the victims of ex- ploitation; but they are also exploiters, and add, or at least attempt to add, to their income by wearing out the lives of others. 615. Acting with the Capitalists. Which line of their own conflicting interests will these men follow in the battle between Socialism and capitalism! Sup- 458 CURRENT PROBLEMS PART V pose they decide to follow their economic interests as business men, and hence, to identify themselves with the millionaire capitalists, as the small business men are doing, throughout the country, in joining the Manu- facturers' Associations, Employers' Leagues and Pro- tective Unions. What will be the probable outcome of such an alliance for the small business man! Either the whole philosophy of economic evolution, of indus- trial development, must fall to the ground, or there re- mains for the small business man nothing but destruc- tion at the hands of the large capitalists. In choosing between the Socialist and the capitalist, he is not choos- ing between the saving or the destroying of his small business. His small business is doomed under capital- ism, and he himself is doomed under capitalism, sooner or later, to fall into the ranks of the dependent and helpless wage workers, begging the millionaire for an opportunity to be employed. 616. Acting with the Working Classes. On the other hand, suppose he considers his interests as a worker. Is there any way by which he can deliver him- self from the exploitation of which he himself is now a victim? Is there any way by which he can protect himself from ultimately falling into the dependent, wage-working class. He certainly cannot do so under capitalism. There are no laws which can be enacted; there are no enterprises which can be undertaken; there are no political combinations which can be effected with other workers which can deliver the little business man from exploitation while he continues to work in his own shop, or can guard him from the coming humiliation of seeking an opportunity to live at the hands of the very persons who will have destroyed his own business. If he decides with capitalism, he decides in favor of con- tinuing to be exploited as long as he remains his own employer; and he must further decide to doom both CHAP. XXXIII MIDDLE CLASS AND SOCIALISM 459 himself and his children after him to economic depen- dence upon the very forces which are destroying his self-employing industry. His only deliverance from continued exploitation as a producer, and from ulti- mate dependence upon his own destroyers, must come from the destruction of capitalism and the inaugura- tion of the co-operative commonwealth. If he can se- cure the coming of Socialism soon enough he may be able to pass directly from self-employment in his own small business to self-employment in the co-operative commonwealth. If the members of his middle class would abandon all middle class measures and fight di- rectly for the industrial emancipation of all workers, including themselves along with the rest, they could save themselves both from the exploitation which must last as long as their self-employment lasts and finally from the dependent relations of personal mastery and servitude which awaits them on the destruction of their self-employing enterprises. 3 617. Small Properties. Until recently the defend- ers of capitalism have asked with great assurance how Socialism could ever be inaugurated, because the own- ers of small shops and small farms would never con- sent to being dispossessed of their property by the in- auguration of Socialism. This is no longer a difficult question. The trusts are either absorbing the small properties, or what is worse for the small property- holder, leaving the title in the hands of the owner, but rendering the property valueless in his hands. The Socialist does not propose to take the property away 3. "The lower strata of the middle class the small trades-people, shopkeepers, and retired tradesmen generally, the handicraftsmen and peasants all these sink gradually into the proletariat, partly because their diminutive capital does not suffice for the scale on which modern industry is carried, and is swamped in the competition with the large capitalists, partly because their specialized skill is rendered worthless by new methods of production. Thus the proletariat is recruited from all classes of the population." Marx and Engels: Communist Manifesto, pp. 24-25. 100 CURRENT PROBLEMS PART V from the self-employed, and so rob him of the opportu- nity of self-employment, in order to inaugurate the co- operative commonwealth. Self -employment is the very thing for which the Socialists are contending. The trusts are robbing all the people, either of their small holdings, or, indirectly, of the values of their small holdings. 618. Exploitation at the Shop Door. It is claimed that exploitation takes place at the shop door, and can take place nowhere else, and therefore it is inferred that those who do not work in shops can in no way be interested in the problem of exploitation. Exploita- tion does take place at the shop door ; it does take place in the processes of production, but production is never complete until the article is delivered, not only in the form, but at the time and place of its final consumption. Therefore, if we are to understand that exploitation takes place only at the shop door, the door of the shop must be placed so close to the door of the consumer that no value shall be added by any added service to any given article after leaving the shop of the producer and before entering the home of the consumer. Take an illustration : for instance, a box of oranges is sold and delivered to a consumer in Chicago for five dollars. The delivery boy is a wage-worker, is the victim of exploitation ; but what is taken out of his service is in- cluded in the five dollars. The bookkeeper for the house which made the delivery is a wage-worker, the victim of exploitation, but what is taken from her pro- ducts is a part of the five dollars. The truck which hauled the oranges from the freight house is driven by a teamster who is working for wages, the victim of exploitation, but the sum taken from his earnings by his employer is a part of the five dollars. The freight agent, the brakeman, the conductor, the telegrapher- all along the line of shipment, the men who are engaged in repairing the track, or assisting in any way in bring- ing the oranges from California to Chicago, are all VIQ- CHAP. XXXIII MIDDLE CLASS AND SOCIALISM 461 tims of exploitation. They are working for wages, they get only a share of the values they create, but the share they create and get and the share they create and do not get, are both included in the five dollars. The man who gathered the oranges, the man who cultivated the field, the man who planted and guarded the trees, the man who made the box, the man who made the lumber out of which the box was made, the lumberman who brought down the logs from the forest out of which the lumber was made, all are victims of exploitation. All were working for wages, or if not for wages di- rectly under the eye of a master, they are nevertheless dependent upon some share of the same five dollars for the reward of their labor. If they produce more than they get, both what they get and what they pro- duce but do not get, so far as related to this transac- tion, are included in this five dollars. The shop door at which exploitation takes place is not alone in Southern California ; it is not alone at the freight office either at that end of the transportation line or in Chicago ; it is not alone at the fruit store. All who had any share in growing, transporting and finally in delivering the or- anges to the last purchaser, who bought them, not to sell again but to consume them, so far as they helped in the process, were producers. So far as they did not help but took advantage of the private ownership of any share of the means of growing, transporting or delivering the oranges for the purpose of compelling the workers to create values which they could not keep, but which the private owners appropriated, all these are exploiters, and production and exploitation took place all along the line. The shop door at which ex- ploitation takes place is found at every place where the worker is separated from any share of the values which his toil creates. Possibly the teamster owns the team; possibly the 462 CURRENT PROBLEMS PAET V orange grower owns the patch of land, possibly the fruit dealer owns the store, but they all work long hours with small returns, and the values which they create are taken from them under the monopolies and wastes of modern capitalism. The millionaire who owns the road and who charges for carrying the oranges "all that the traffic will i bear," may be the chief exploiter of them all; but whatever share of the final results go for rent, interest or profit, that shaTe is taken away from the workers, and it is taken away from them in spite of themselves and under conditions in which they have no choice but to submit. And this is as true of the truckman who owned his team as of the delivery boy who rode in an- other man's wagon and drove another man's horse. How many of the workers from the orchard grower to the delivery boy can be relied upon in the fight for Socialism? Is there any deliverance for any one of them under capitalism! Is there any way out for any one of them except Socialism? 619. The Millionaire. The millionaires who control the transportation lines, the freight depots, and the cold storage establishments may be conceded to be op- posed to Socialism, but there are many reasons why millionaires ought to be Socialists. The certain de- struction of the business interests of a part of them by the business triumphs of the others; the great un- certainty as to their own business future; the greater uncertainty as to the future of their children, as com- pared with the widest opportunities for living the com- pletest human life, which will be guaranteed to all un- der the co-operative commonwealth, ought to appeal strongly even to the millionaires. But it must be re- membered that their economic interests, as million- aires, are strictly opposed to Socialism, and further that it is directly against these interests that Socialism CHAP. XXXIII MIDDLE CLASS AND SOCIALISM 463 directs its attacks, and hence only such millionaires can be interested in Socialism as have other interests, as men, which to them are of more importance than their own careers as exploiters of other men. No mil- lionaire will become a Socialist because of his eco- nomic interests as a millionaire. 620. Emptiness of the Master's Life. Such mil- lionaires may be said to be the victims of capitalism in a sense in which the victims of exploitation are not. No one can know the emptiness and narrowness of a life whose sphere of activity makes impossible the comradeship, the fullness and gladness of normal human existence more than the millionaire who has been able to take the time and has had the ability to become disgusted with the brutal game of trade. Such a man may well turn to Socialism as the only means of escaping from the limitations of a life which can be measured by dollars and of securing admission, at last, into the fellowship of rational human existence. 4 But the Socialist party is not likely to get so much building material from this source as to call for any serious departure from the building plans and specifi- cations adopted with the understanding that the So- 4. "Undoubtedly there are bourgeois who from a feeling of justice and humanity place themselves upon the side of the laborers and Social- ists, but these are only the exceptions; the mass of the bourgeoisie has class consciousness, a consciousness of being the ruling and exploiting class. Indeed, the mass of the bourgeoisie, just because they are a ruling class, have a much sharper and stronger class consciousness than the proletariat." Liebknecht : No Compromise, p. 56. "Finally, in times when the class struggle nears the decisive hour, the process of dissolution going on within the ruling class, in fact within the whole range of old society, assumes such a violent, glaring character, that a small section of the ruling class cuts itself adrift, and joins the revolutionary class, the class that holds the future in its hands. Just as, therefore, at an earlier period, a section of the nobility went over to the bourgeoisie, so now a portion of the bourgeoisie goes over to the prole- tariat, and in particular, a portion of the bourgeois ideologists, who have raised themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically the historical movement as a whole." Marx and Engels: Communist Mani- festo, p. 28. "The great number and variety of mutually related groups within the state considered as a whole is called society in contrast with the 464 CURRENT PROBLEMS PART V cialist movement is primarily in behalf of the working class and solely and only in behalf of men as working men. 621. The Riddle of the Middle Class. But the middle class men who are both traders and producers, who are both exploiters and victims of exploitation, these men have economic interests both with the ex- ploiters and with the exploited. They can not follow their economic interests in both directions. They must elect to go one way or the other. As a class they are poorly informed in economic principles, deeply moved by their prejudices, insanely ambitious to be counted business men and so to be ranked with the class of the exploiters. All of these considerations would lead them to do as the great majority of them are doing; that is, act with the Manufacturers' Associations and Employers ' Leagues in their attacks upon the workers, and hence, in opposition to Socialism. All such middle class men are electing to follow such economic inter- ests as they have in common with the millionaire. They are lining up with the other capitalists in the eco- nomic class struggle against the workers and against their own economic interests as workers. But it is also true that many wage workers are affected by their prejudices and are influenced by their masters to act, both in the economic field and in the political field directly against their own economic interests, and the wage workers do so with no economic interests what- ever in common with their masters. Of the 14.5 per state. In this wider sense, society is not different from the state; it is the same thing viewed from another standpoint. But in a narrower and more accurate sense of the word each group centering about some one or more common interests is a society. This double meaning often leads to confusion, which is made worse because social groups are not always separated by a hard and fast line. They overlap and intertwine so that the same men are bound to one group by one set of interests, and to another group by another set." Gumplowicz: Outlines of Sociology, p. 138. CHAP. XXXIII MIDDLE CLASS AND SOCIALISM 465 cent of the population which falls to the middle class in the classification adopted above, only the smallest per- centage of them gain as much by being exploiters as they are losing by being exploited, and hence only the smallest share of this 14.5 per cent of the people would side with the millionaires if, after informing them- selves as to the economic possibilities of Socialism, they would follow their own most important economic interests. 629. The Sifting of the Wheat. The Socialist makes his appeal only to the victims of exploitation and has absolutely nothing to offer in the shape of economic advantage, to the middle class, or any other class, which can in any way protect their interests as exploiters. There is no possible way by which the members of the middle class can secure protection at the hands of the great capitalists, who are not only un- able to protect and perpetuate this middle class, but instead are actively engaged, not only in the destruc- tion of this middle class, but even in the mutual de- struction of their own gigantic enterprises. (See Chapter X) The defenders of capitalism will call to their aid as many of the working class as they can mislead. They will win to their support in the political field as many of the middle class, while they proceed to destroy them in the economic field, as they will be able to keep in ignorance of their own economic interests as workers, that is, they will control them through their igno- rance and prejudice after the same manner as they will secure the support of many wage workers who have no economic interests whatever in common with their masters. Socialism can make no appeal to any one or to any class except to those who are the victims of ex- ploitation and whose interests, as victims of the ex- 406 CURRENT PROBLEMS PART V plotters, are greater than any possible advantage which can come to them as the fruits of exploitation. Socialism makes its appeal, then, to working class in- terests only; it declares war on all exploiters, great and small, and depends for its support alone upon that vast majority of the whole population who are the pro- ducers of all wealth. 623. A Call to the Workers Only. Socialists then, may ask for the support of millionaires, but if they do they cannot do so on the ground that it is the pur- pose of Socialism to protect or enlarge the exploit- ing operations of the millionaires. A millionaire may be appealed to as one ' ' in sympathy with the working class," but in doing so, it must be borne in mind that no economic interest can exist, on his part, as the basis of his sympathy with these workers in the political field so long as he continues to be an exploiter in the economic field. Socialism may make its appeal to men who are Both exploiters and the victims of exploitation, but their appeal must be to them solely and only as the vic- tims of exploitation, unless the economic basis of the argument is to be abandoned and the appeal be made to " those in sympathy with the working class, " rather than to those of the working class, and hence, whose greatest economic interest is at one with the working class. But the whole theory of economic determinism, as seen in Chapters II and III, shows the ineffectiveness of any appeal to other than dominant economic interests in any great controversy involving the economic inter- ests of great numbers of people as the very subject con- cerning which these great numbers are in dispute. Therefore, the watchword of the Socialist propaganda and the guiding principle of the Socialist organization must be an appeal to working class interests and to CHAP. XXXIII MIDDLE CLASS AND SOCIALISM. 467 these interests alone; and hence, and of necessity, to all people whose working class interests can be shown to be of more serious concern to them than any eco- nomic advantage which they may enjoy under capital- ism. But this would include among those whose work- ing class interests are of greater importance than any other interests, ninety per cent of the farmers, includ- ing all of the farm tenants and farm hands, and the overwhelming majority of all the manufacturers and merchants with small capital and who work long hours in carrying on their enterprises. If these men do not act with the Socialists it will be because of their ignor- ance and prejudice not because of their conflicting economic interests. They are workers whose economic interests as workers are of infinitely more importance than any economic interests they can possibly have as capitalists. 624. Summary. 1. In American economic discus- sions the self-employed working people, who are en- gaged in small farming, manufacturing and commer- cial enterprises, are spoken of as "the middle class." 2. As capitalism approaches its culmination it de- stroys this middle class. 3. As the Socialist movement advances the middle class men must take sides either with those who are al- together exploiters or with those who are altogether the victims of exploitation. 4. The overwhelming majority of the self-employed working people, the American middle class, receive only the smallest share of their income from either rent, interest or profit. They find their greatest eco- nomic losses from exploitation and can find their deliv- erance only through the coming of Socialism. 5. Unless misled by ignorance or prejudice, just as the wage workers might be misled as to the real nature of their own economic interests, these economic 468 CURRENT PROBLEMS PART V. interests will bring many of these middle class people to the Socialist party, and that solely because of their working class relations, not because they are "in sym- pathy with the working class," but because they be- long to the working class. REVIEW QUESTIONS. 1. What is the origin of the term "middle class"? 2. Give the English and European equivalents for this term. 3. Do we have in America the same three economic classes as in Europe ? 4. What people in America have come to be called the middle class ? 5. What percentage of the people fairly belong to each of the three classes, the great exploiters, the self-employed who also employ others, and the wage workers, in the United States ? 6. What relation do