THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO DALLAS ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., LOOTED LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO The Next Step in Democracy BY R. W. SELLARS, PH.D. ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OP PHILOSOPHY, UNIVERSITY OP MICHIGAN AUTHOR OP "CRITICAL REALISM'* Nrut fork THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1916 All rights reserved COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, Set up and electrotyped. Published April, 1916. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. THE SPIRIT OF MODERN SOCIALISM 1 II. SOCIALISM IN THE MAKING 22 III. WHAT SOCIALISM HOPES TO ACCOMPLISH 48 IV. MISCONCEPTIONS OF SOCIALISM 72 V. OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM 93 VI. OBJECTIONS AND TENDENCIES 114 VII. THE ETHICS OF LABOR 135 VIII. THE GROWTH OF JUSTICE 157 IX. SOME. PRINCIPLES OF PECUNIARY REWARD 178 X. THE CONDITIONS OF A SOCIAL FREEDOM 200 XI. REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 222 XII. CAN WE UNIVERSALIZE DEMOCRACY? . . . 246 338055 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY CHAPTER I THE SPIRIT OF MODERN SOCIALISM LARGE movements bearing on many aspects of life are hard to define. There are at least two reasons for this. In the first place, they imply a criticism of the old stand- ards of justice and the good and therefore cannot be de- fined by means of them. In the second place, they consist in large measure of tendencies which are only partly con- scious of their end and which are impressive because of the prophecy they contain rather than for what they ex- plicitly champion. So long as a definition is thought of as an expression of definite relations between fixed and essentially changeless terms, no significant definition can be given of a new movement. The true definition is a product of a slow and creative growth; it is the ex- pression in conceptual elements of an intuition which is made possible only by the final settling down of social forces into something approaching an equilibrium. The intellectual formulation comes after the relative maturity of a social movement rather than before. At certain periods everyone feels that something new is abroad. There is no longer that quiet satisfaction with the customary methods of doing things that characterizes the epoch of accepted order. Those who are sensitive to signs of change know that society is preparing to take a step forward; they feel that the old watchwords no longer 1 NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY have the same authority and that men are consciously and unconsciously reaching out to new ideas and purposes and adjusting themselves to new methods. It is as though society had accomplished certain things with fairly appro- priate institutions and habits, had enjoyed the benefit for a time and was then reaching out for something finer and more adequate. Without clear knowledge of the reason why, discontent and restlessness grow apace and men look with critical eyes upon arrangements which but now were regarded with complacence. It is not difficult to find something analogous to this in the life of the individual. /How often a person strives for some goal which seems tohim, for the time, the thing which will satisfy all his desires. He thinks of himself as attaining this haven and settling down with a sigh of satisfaction to its enjoyment. But soon after his success, new desires spring up, urging him on to new emprises a new horizon opens up before him and what he has accom- plished appears little by the side of what is possible. His new situation has brought with it added knowl- edge and new opportunities so the old wanderlust returns and drives him onward. Now the history of society is very similar to this; forces making for change appear and break up the status which seemed so enduring. We may say, then, that periods of transition follow periods of relative balance and stability. During these eras of change, while the direction to be taken is not yet clearly marked, the air is full of suggestions. Discussions are rife and all kinds of ideas gain currency. The con- servatives, who are averse to change either because they have little imagination and naturally respect customs and habits or because they are the beneficiaries of the still dominant order, and both motives may be unconsciously THE SPIRIT OF MODERN SOCIALISM 3 combined decry innovations and praise the harmony and beauty and practicality of the actual social structure. In doing so, they are always partially right. They are in a position to see those aspects of society which are valuable and significant for the old is never without its justifica- tions. But we must balance against this the fact that the conservative has an influence far beyond what is right- fully his because of the values he defends, for his social position gives him a leverage upon public opinion in excess of his numbers and he has, moreover, back of him the essential conservatism of organized society, its fear of the unknown and untried. Over against the conservatives are the liberals who welcome certain limited changes and are less antagonistic to far-reaching schemes of reform; while in the vanguard are the more radical members of society who are fertile in ideas of a revolutionary type. It is by means of the interplay of these groups, reenforced by the changing pressure of political and industrial conditions, that the direction of progress and its speed are determined. Gradually society gains consciousness of new desires and new possibilities. The result is the growth of social move- ments which champion these desires and try to put them into action. Now socialism is just such an initiatory movement and it is far easier to come under its influence and to feel that it stands for something vital than to analyze it and give it an adequate definition. The correct reason for this difficulty of definition is, I believe, that which I offered above; it challenges the current, limited notions of justice and of the social good and consists of tendencies which have not yet secured complete formulation. Like all things which are big and vital, it is full of possibilities and has not come to complete self-expression. It is a move- 4 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY ment rather than a position, as much a means of discovery and of social growth as a program. To demand too com- plete a program is to require socialism to anticipate what cannot be anticipated those changes in industry, politics, social temper and social relations to which institutions must adapt themselves. The mistake made by many of the fathers of modern socialism has lain here, in the attempt to forecast the future in too definite a way. The result has been the production of orthodoxies quite comparable to those of the Churches and nearly as harmful in their consequences. I mean that there was the tendency to construct a social philosophy good for all time founded on the rendering explicit what was already supposedly im- plicit. Reflective thought was the microscope to be used by the great thinker in his effort to discern the forces al- ready at work. Once these could be discerned, the future course of society could be predicted. We are more modest to-day because we realize that newness is a character of all phases of life and that we cannot look with assurance very far ahead. [The unforeseen intervenes to disturb the most careful calculations. This situation does not mean that there are not certain perennial ideals like justice and liberty which are effective in human life, but that their concrete expression is conditioned by factors which are not entirely predictable. I presume that every young man of to-day who has the capacity to be attracted by the thought of a juster and humaner world than that visible around us has been drawn in some measure towards socialism. And such youths are surely many, for generous enthusiasms find hospitable soil in fresh minds not swayed by too anxious thought of self-interest, minds which for the time being are willing to undertake the quest of the Holy Grail. Let that man THE SPIRIT OF MODERN SOCIALISM 5 take shame to himself who has never been fired by the dream of better things into alliances and actions which seemed to his older and soberer self foolish and unwise! What would the world be were it entirely controlled by the tired pessimism of middle-age? But enthusiasm, valuable as it is in furnishing energy and in giving instinctive backing to the things which are worth while, must be supplemented by reflection if it is to use this energy economically and to the proper issues. Society is very complex and its re-organization cannot be left a matter of good intention and of enthusiasm not completely purged of sentimentality. Noble ideals must be given a realistic foundation and justified before the bar of sober reason or they will be viewed askance by the matter-of-fact people who have society's fortune in charge. But if reason and enthusiasm combine they will in the long run carry every- thing before them and the run will not be so very long either in this day and generation. Socialism, if it is to conquer, must be a philosophy as well as a religion; it must be capable not only of attracting but also of convincing. It must appeal to sober second thought. When we ask what socialism is, we are met by many and varied answers. Sometimes the term, socialistic, is used as an adjective to qualify measures which break with past principles and methods, especially those of the so-called laissez faire. Business men, accustomed to have their own way in the use of what they call their own and to conduct affairs as it seems right to them, are inclined to call all social control of a novel sort socialistic. Thus legislation which has for its aim the betterment of the conditions of labor in regard to hours, surroundings or instruments is usually called socialistic by employers of the old school. So far as this deepened control does bear witness to the 6 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY growth of a new outlook whose consequences we cannot yet foresee, the term stands for a contrast of a significant sort. The social good is opposed to what seems to the individual to be his good. Because socialism accepts this same ultimate standard, the adjective, socialistic, has a certain appropriateness. There is present the hint of the realization that, with present institutions, the employer has powers which may be used in an anti-social way. But any sum of measures which are socialistic in this sense would not necessarily be identical with socialism. Condemnatory definitions of socialism are very common. For instance, Roscher, a German economist, defines it as consisting of "those tendencies which demand a greater regard for the common weal than agrees with human nature." The question is, Who is to be judge of this agreement with human nature? This definition passes by objective characteristics and stresses subjective elements. A similar flaw is apparent in the definition offered by Adolf Held "We may define as socialistic every tendency which demands the subordination of the individual will to the community." The term, subordination, has here a deprecatory flavor; it is evident that such subordination as is implied is considered unwarranted and harmful. Next in order are mechanical definitions, definitions which miss both the spirit and method of socialism. Pro- fessor Janet in his book, "The Origins of Contemporary Socialism," wrote as follows: "We call socialism every doctrine which teaches that the State has a right to correct the inequality of wealth which exists among men and to establish legally the balance by taking from those who have too much in order to give to those who have not enough and that in a permanent manner. . . ." Socialism does teach that society has the right to modify economic rela- THE SPIRIT OF MODERN SOCIALISM 7 tions, but so do all contemporary political theorists. The important questions are How? To what degree? To what end? Many definitions which remain vague stress the spirit of socialism and thus bring out a feature which is neglected by those already offered. There is an ethical atmosphere surrounding the socialist movement which is peculiarly modern. It is the spiritual matrix of all that is best in the social and political innovations of the last two centuries. Just because socialism is filled with this spirit, it must have an essential validity even though various doctrines attached to it by past thinkers must be given up. The heart of any large movement is its purpose. If this be good, it can never go far wrong especially if its success is gradual and permits growth. We need a voluntaristic interpretation of society corresponding to the emphasis laid upon the will in recent psychology. Definitions of movements have been too intellectualistic; they have not recognized that their objects are creative movements and not mere cut-and-dried programs. With this point ii. mind, let us glance at a couple of definitions which in- troduce the ethical spirit of socialism. Proudhon, one of the founders of socialism, was ex- amined by a magistrate after the French revolution of 1848 and, in the course of the examination, was asked, What is socialism? He replied, "Every aspiration to- wards the amelioration of society." "In that case," said the magistrate, "we are all socialists." This answer reminds us of the remark of the English statesman, Sir William Harcourt, "We are all socialists now." There can be little doubt that there is to-day'a certain community of intention. Divergence arises only with the attempt to make this intention explicit; too often it is only sentimental 8 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY well-wishing which takes fright at serious plans to make the intention pass over into action. Another definition which introduces purpose is that given by Littre, the French positivist: "Socialism is a tendency to modify the present state, under the impulse of an idea of economic amelioration and by the discussion and intervention of the laboring classes." Here we have the new element of the social location of the movement. The laboring classes are supposed to play the chief role in the development and introduction of socialism. It is very interesting, as Flint in his book on socialism points out, that Karl Marx, one of the founders of modern socialism, gives no formal definition of it. Let us see whether we can discover the purpose which controls the socialist movement and let us then pass from the general purpose to the question of what means are proposed. Only in this way is it possible to work out a definition of socialism which, though tentative, is true to the movement. We can then hope to see the purpose struggling to incarnate itself in the actual movement. After this is done, we can offer suggestions of our own just because socialism is a growing thing, affected by new knowledge of society and by actual changes in society however brought about. The process of discovering a definition is often of more value than the product taken by itself, demanding as it does the analysis of various ideas and a study of their relations. Thus Plato's Republic is built up around the attempt to define justice and his definition can be understood only in the light of the entire discussion. It is not too much to say that in all the sciences the definitions given are merely compendious statements of the whole content. The elements of the proposition secure their meaning from the conclusions of THE SPIRIT OF MODERN SOCIALISM 9 the entire treatment. For the beginner, a definition is a suggestion; for the scholar, it is a summary. Socialism is a democratic movement whose purpose is the securing of an economic organization of society which will give the maximum possible at any one time of justice and liberty. Let us start with this definition and see what it involves. Socialism would come under the genus, democratic ( movement. It is democratic in two ways : first, it aims at 1 the good of all instead of the good of the few; second, it is I democratic in its location since it finds its leaders among ' those who have thrown themselves body and soul into the fight for the amelioration of the condition of the masses. Let us consider these two features of the movement. It is maintained by socialists that the governing class in society has never yet sought the good of all. There has always been a bias in favor of those who were already in control. What was desired at the best was the good of the many so far as this was compatible with the prerogatives of the social group which was dominant. In other words, the socialist maintains that there has never yet been a true democracy. Oligarchies have never succeeded in being anything more than intermittently charitable. Aristo- cratic societies have inevitably laid stress upon subordina- tion and have regarded the few as the portion which gave meaning to the lives of all. So far as a justification was sought, it was found either in terms of innate differences due to blood or to a necessary divergence in function. Our own plutocracy was founded ostensibly upon a dem- ocratic theory, but one which has proven itself to be false because too atomic and with too much stress upon fixed rights. The result has been the shame-faced growth of a vulgar type of aristocracy. It is the inadequacy of the 10 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY basis adopted by our so-called democracy that socialism attacks. It demands that the good of all become the avowed end of society and that conscious and persistent efforts be made to attain this good in spite of the inertia of institutions. The means to attain this goal should be made the object of reflection and of thorough investiga- tion. Socialism is confident that it is, itself, on the right track in its emphasis on cooperation and its denial of the social value of special privileges. The location of the movement is democratic as well as its purpose. Modern socialism does not await the benev- olent action of those in power nor does it look upon justice and liberty as benefits conferred in an external way upon passive recipients. Liberty and justice have always been achievements bought and paid for by character and effort. Those who would be free must themselves strike the blow. Revolutionary movements must be firmly based on the aspirations and desires of those most interested. Socialism is now and, if it is to win, must always be a popular move- ment. Its leaders are sometimes manual laborers who have continued to identify themselves with their social group and have fought its fights from a clear and intimate knowl- edge of its needs and yet with a larger vision of a more happily organized society; sometimes they are men of other social groups who have felt the injustice of pres- ent arrangements and have thrown in their lot with those who suffer the most from things as they are. There can be no question that socialism is democratic in both of these ways. It is a continuation of the struggle for polit- ical freedom and works for the extension of the conditions of a free life to the people at large. Let us pass next to the differentia, that is, to the specific attribute which differentiates socialism from other dem- THE SPIRIT OF MODERN SOCIALISM 11 ocratic movements. We have given this in terms of pur- pose. Socialism is the democratic movement whose pur- pose it is to secure an economic organization which will give the maximum possible at any one time of justice and lib- erty. If this differentia holds good, all men who are work- ing for such an economic organization will be socialists. So long as we lay stress upon kindredship in ethical spirit, this conclusion follows and is a test of the truth of the def- inition advanced. And I for one am inclined to lay far more stress upon this ethical unity than upon agreement in articles of creed. The aim and the desire are the im- portant psychological facts and therefore cannot help but be of tremendous social and political significance. If the majority of men sincerely desired this goal, it would be brought about. The differences between them would be secondary for they would concern the means; and men are far more willing to discuss and compromise upon means than ends. One of the ablest of contemporary English writers has stressed the need of what he calls conversion. The men who direct and control the business world are men of little education and of no imagination outside the region of busi- ness. "They do not really see the facts to which socialists call attention, because they do not really feel them. . . . They have never experienced that upheaval of the soul which has made the socialist a socialist by showing him everything in a new light, both the facts of the present and the possibilities of the future. . . . After conversion, it is true, they might still be against almost everything that socialists have ever proposed, though I do not think it likely that they would be. But even so, their opposition would be of a quite different kind from what it is now. It would be that of men who want to help reform, not to 12 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY hinder it. 'If such and such a thing is not practicable,' they would say, 'then we must try so and so.' Whereas now their attitude most commonly is, ' we must make out that everything is impracticable, in order that nothing may be done/" 1 I am inclined to agree with this writer that the psychical factor is of tremendous importance; socialism is really founded on values and these must be apprehended in a vital way. It is an old ethical dilemma whether the intention of doing justice is more important than the knowledge how to do justice. Both are necessary to the actual doing of the just act, but we can hope for the knowledge if only the intention be present in a driving and unappeasable form. Knowledge, however, is not apt to come to us unless the will be present. There is much truth in the religious em- phasis on the thirst for righteousness and upon the- need for what may be called conversion. If we really value a change and consider it of high importance, we do not rest until we have done our best to make it a reality; but, if we do not judge it to be of supreme importance, if we are un- able to exclaim, "Let justice be though the heavens fall, "our minds will not work in search of the requisite means. And what is true of the individual is true of the nation. If a nation does not honor justice, it will not accomplish great things. It would seem, then, that the purpose which dominates a movement is the most im- portant feature of that movement. Other features may change with new knowledge and new social conditions but, so long as that remains hot at its center, the move- ment will be the same. Socialism is predominantly a movement which concerns itself with the economic re-organization of society. We 1 G. Lowes Dickinson, "Justice and Liberty," pp. 7 and 8. THE SPIRIT OF MODERN SOCIALISM 13 must not forget, however, that such a re-organization cannot take place apart from a re-adjustment of political and general social relations. It will have its reverbera- tion all along the line. Society is not a machine part of which can be improved without affecting the rela- tions among the remaining parts. Now many socialists have been particularly interested in some feature of society such as the aesthetic and have measured their hopes in terms of their expectation of a healthier and more widely-based art. Such a man was William Morris, and it would not be erroneous to think of John Ruskin in this connection. To this end certain conditions were necessary and modern civilization with its stress upon competition and admiration for mere wholesale production could not furnish these conditions. Other socialists approach society from the side of personality. Warped, stunted and purblind souls cause them pain as sharp as a wound and they cry out in anger against those conditions which pro- duce them, refusing to believe that such conditions are irremediable. Still other socialists fix their gaze less upon these values than upon the actual massing of the battle; they are in the midst of an actual fight in which the masses are somewhat blindly pressing against the forces of their masters. For centuries this struggle has continued, the many working forward from the marshland with its fevers and penury to the more pleasant lands beyond but retarded by their ignorance and lack of weapons. It has, moreover, been in large measure an unplanned struggle; the eyes of the combatants have been withholden so that they have scarcely seen what they were doing. The movement of so- ciety is too impersonal to be judged in terms of personal ethics. The task of the socialists as this large group sees it is to release the spell of unconsciousness by riding into the 14 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY melee and shouting those battle-cries which cannot but awaken the combatants to a realization of their situation. But is our definition of socialism adequate as yet? Does it delimit the movement from other kindred dem- ocratic movements? Thus far I have stressed the living purpose of socialism and have been catholic rather than sectarian in my attitude. It is best to realize to the full the spiritual fellowship of modern democracy and to draw strength from the nobility and justice of the purpose which is beginning to sway it. The support of the opinion of those who are unselfishly working for the good of human- ity is not a small thing nor is it to be despised. Socialism must be in line with the profounder instincts of the major- ity if it is to succeed if it is even to be what it supposes itself to be, the process leading to the final stages of democ- racy. To define socialism, however, as adequately as a living movement can be defined, we must pass from the purpose which is given by the time-spirit to a knowledge of the con- templated means. As we have already pointed out, both are necessary to the accomplishment of any complex task. Without a fairly explicit idea of the means, the end is al- ways dim and fluctuating. We do not know how to focus our actions and purposes unless the end has succeeded in taking up the means into itself and thus defining itself more fully. Strictly speaking, the end is an abstraction without the means just as a result in a social field has little meaning without the processes which brought it about. It makes all the difference in the world how deeds are achieved whether by arbitrary and individualistic enterprise from above or by the slow cooperation of the many; in like manner, the end which is divorced from the means is apt to be conceived sentimentally and vaguely. Now it is in THE SPIRIT OF MODERN SOCIALISM 15 the theory of the means that the definition of socialism secures completion. Here socialism becomes distinct and unambiguous, a movement not easily confused with others. It would be easy to describe the means advocated by socialism in terms of conventional contrasts such as that between competition and cooperation but such contrasts are essentially misleading. Cooperation and competition are not so exclusive of one another as is sometimes sup- posed. Socialism does not involve the elimination of healthy experiment and responsible emulation; but it does stress social control and social welfare as against irrespon- sibility and merely private profit. Thus the temper and processes of socialism represent a different emphasis and a changed direction from those characteristic of our tradi- tional individualism . Social relations bulk larger and there is a finer sense of the importance to the various individuals involved of the industrial institutions with which their lives are bound up. The center of social gravity is human welfare rather than property. We may say, then, that socialism desires the introduc- tion of group ownership and control wherever feasible in order that the motive of private profit may be subor- dinated to that of human welfare. Here, once more, we are ultimately face to face with an ethical choice. On the one hand, there is the spirit of personal push and of in- dividual aggrandizement; on the other, the spirit of social achievement, the consideration of the group, the sense of organic dependence, the lessening of the desire for mere conspicuousness. Cooperation stresses social relations, trains the imagination to think of the self as in large meas- ure a function of society as a whole, removes the unholy emphasis on wealth as the end of life and makes life less a grim battle against pain and more a valiant and successful 16 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY campaign against the niggardliness of nature. This social- izing of industry should not diminish the need for individ- ual responsibility but rather hearten it because lessening the unholy pressure to which the individual is now sub- jected. Again, socialism denies the justice of those traditional institutions which give individuals unequal opportunities for self-development. It is at this point that socialism and true individualism are at one. Both value personality as something unique and humanly final and as somehow the ultimate term in the social equation. Such inequal- ities as exist must be rational and necessary if they are to be defensible. Now uncritical thought is prone to continue institutions and customs which bring about adventitious inequalities because these social methods justified them- selves in the past by a certain rough utility. Only very slowly is it realized that new conditions demand new customs and new institutions. And yet this slowness permits the continuance of mal-adjustments which cause untold misery and prevent the possible increase of human welfare. The stock example of this inertia 1 is of course the continuance of feudal rights in France long after the cor- responding duties had ceased to carry meaning. But there is an example in America which does not fall far short of this in its irrationality: "A great part of the 120 billions of American wealth as the statisticians report it- is made up of one form or another of capitalized privilege 1 Mr. Brooks Adams has developed the theory of such inertia at some length in his interesting study "The Theory of Social Revolutions." "Briefly the precedents induce the inference that privileged classes seldom have the intelligence to protect themselves by adaptation when nature turns against them, and, up to the present moment, the old privileged class in the United States has shown little promise of being an exception to the rule." P. 33. THE SPIRIT OF MODERN SOCIALISM 17 or of capitalized predation. If, indeed, our computations include all forms and manifestations of private claim and of private property in that to which no individual could originally have made good his private right of enjoyment, it is probably not going too far to assert that two thirds of the durable private bases of income in the United States are nothing else than this capitalization of privilege or of predation." 1 Unqualified inheritance and property rights cause a mal-distribution which is approaching that which we are taught so to reprobate in the case of feudal France. Just because the form of the rights is slightly different we are too apt to forget that the ethical principle is the same. Predation is always predation and rights without duties are socially intolerable. The strongest indictment which the socialist has to pass upon the principle of competition as this is defended by the individualist is that the conditions of a just competi- tion have never been achieved. He must, therefore, be excused if he thinks that the well-intentioned advocates of the "New Freedom" are as Utopian as he ever dreamed of being in his wildest moments. It is simply absurd to suppose that individuals will ever be able to compete on equal terms with one another without fundamental changes in our social institutions. Even then, it would require an omniscient government prone to interfere and to spy out in order to keep the atoms from associating and se- curing a monopoly element. Yet sound political philos- ophy demands that external governmental interference be kept within decided limits. An arbitrarily maintained competition or an increasingly socialized industry seem, then, to be the alternatives which confront us. One thing at least is certain this country has made a botch of in- ' =v 1 Davenport, " Economics of Enterprise," p. 519. 18 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY dividualism, that is, of competitive individualism working within the setting furnished by the traditional ethical and legal forms. We shall have occasion later to examine the nature of competition so we need not analyze it further at present when our interest is mainly in making clear the dif- ference between socialism and competition for private profit. There are, then, two kinds of individualism and these must be met by different arguments. To contrast social- ism with one of them does not necessarily distinguish it adequately from the other. As we shall see, it has much in common with one type of individualism while almost wholly opposed to the other. The traditional individualist, best represented by the ordinary man of business, is a conservative; he is sat- isfied to play the game as his fathers played it with no perception that the situation has changed in the mean- time. He knows that his fathers went by stage-coach and had not a tithe of those marvellous improvements which have changed his whole mode of life yet he has not imag- ination enough to realize that methods and customs which worked well enough under local conditions are ill-adapted to the present. Such a man emphasizes rights and accepts institutions no matter to what gross inequalities of fate they lead and to what empty and formal freedom they reduce the majority. To him the socialist replies that the state of society as it is at present is intolerable to those who are able to free their perception from the blindness cast by use and wont. What we need is the social prophet who will cry aloud with the same fervor and forcefulness that made the old Hebrew prophets so effective. Once aroused, cannot man with his gift of consciousness and his capacity to plan and rectify improve upon this product of rule-of -thumb and of unmastered forces? THE SPIRIT OF MODERN SOCIALISM 19 But the reforming individualist is the type who is most nearly akin to the socialist in spirit and is therefore his most worthy opponent. Each can learn from the other. If the socialist is inclined at times to merge the individual too completely in society and to infringe upon that right of free creative play so necessary to a vigorous personality, it is likewise true that the individualist overlooks the need of mutual adaptation when social processes are as complex as they are and forgets that there are activities too large and socially too important to be left in the hands of in- dividuals to be run for the sake of profit. As the case stands, the modern socialist denies that his ideals are bureaucratic; he claims to cherish liberty and to be an enemy of the undue extension of routine. But no move- ment is without its dangers, without tendencies to ex- tremes which need to be held in check. The tradition of individualism will consequently act as a kind of spiritual counterbalance to the levelling forces which are liable to manifest themselves in a collectivistic democracy. The personal ideals of socialist and reforming individualist would seem, then, to be less sharply opposed than is usually assumed. Both aim at the proper harmony of personality and efficiency. The perspective is slightly different, the psychological atmosphere distinct enough to cause a different mood; but a catholic and broad social- ism could readily include both motives and be the richer for them. On the whole, the individualist stresses personal success and the life of the family the narrower and more primitive social groups while the socialist brings into the picture those connective relations of interdependence which make society something corresponding to an organism. But the socialist feels that he has something more pos- itive to offer than has the reforming individualist. In his 20 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY eyes, industry has passed beyond the stage of individual management for the sake of private profit. Though it works still, he is convinced that it involves wastes and bad distributions which make a re-organization desirable. Processes are beginning to weigh in our eyes as well as re- sults. Human cost is bulking larger in our minds than formerly. We are beginning to regard industry as in- volving a kind of social partnership which properly im- plies rights, responsibilities and consequences which are beyond the just sovereignty of any individual or arbitrary group of individuals. It would seem that society in- stinctively feels that it must assume greater control of what affects it so nearly. But how can this control be best applied? By the political state or by socializing in- dustry? Perhaps by a combination of both expedients? These are the problems of means which are rising to con- sciousness within the modern state. And in our conception of control and of the problems which necessitate it we must not limit our outlook to merely economic efficiency, to mere quantity of production, but must enlarge it to take in social efficiency, that is, the welfare of the citizens. Economics has been isolated too much from the other social sciences just because society has been looked at too mechanically. The business class and the specialist have had too penetrative a voice. Should we not ask of any economic system whether the distribution it involves is a just one and conducive to the real liberty of the people at large? Unless this question be asked and considered, programs of control which leave the distribution of the product essentially as it was are open to the suspicion that the purpose is only to patch up a system which has broken down in its original form and revealed itself as inherently anti-social. THE SPIRIT OF MODERN SOCIALISM 21 We are at last in a position to complete our tentative definition of socialism by adding a differentia to distin- guish it from other movements which have the same ethical purpose. Socialism, we may say, is a democratic move- ment whose purpose is the securing of an economic re- organization of society which will give the maximum pos- sible of justice, liberty and efficiency and whose plan is the gradual socializing of industry to the degree and ex- tent that seem experimentally feasible. Along with this process will take place those political and legal and in- stitutional reforms which even individualism is coming to regard as necessary. It will take the American with his pioneer habits and optimism some time to realize that the day of successful private enterprise is past for the great majority and that the cultivation of such an outlook with its tendency to recklessness and selfishness only debauches those who are trained in it and makes society an easy victim for those who are allowed to play with loaded dice. The democratic ideal should consider the lot of the many, of those honest and industrious workers who perform a profoundly useful function for the state, as well as those who are able to rise from the ranks by the possession of superior intellect, will-power or cunning. Before America will turn to social- ism it must be converted a slow process this when it con- cerns a nation and learn to look beyond mere quantitative achievement to the sane qualities of life. It must thirst for real liberty, rational equality, justice and a noble life and be so convinced of their transcendent worth that it will not hesitate to look upon rights and institutions as valuable and deserving of consideration only so far as they are clearly conducive to these ends. CHAPTER II SOCIALISM IN THE MAKING A DEFINITION of socialism is not by itself sufficient to introduce a beginner to the actual movement. There are a thousand and one points in regard to the methods em- ployed and the attitudes taken toward tactical questions which can be understood only in the light of the history of the movement. Only by tracing socialism from its vague beginnings and noting the changes in both theory and practice which a wider experience pressed home will he who is really desirous of seeing eye to eye with the en- lightened socialist gain that concrete appreciation of the living movement which will enable him to judge it justly and even a little leniently. It takes time for a social theory to gain depth and adequacy and to outgrow those tempta- tions to narrowness and sectarianism which beset it. And he who would possess this maturer temper and insight cannot do better than follow step by step the growth of the socialist view of society. Such an approach will give him an experiential background of inestimable value and put him in a position to pass judgments truer to a larger range of facts than would otherwise be possible. Nothing better reveals those changes in temper and out- look which gradually take place in society than changes in social theories. These are, as it were, the outward and visible signs of those new situations which are constantly arising in the body politic. Institutions, customs and methods are largely unconscious creations due to the myriad-fold experiments which are occurring in society. 22 SOCIALISM IN THE MAKING 23 They are the mass-products of adjustments, changes in direction of interest and of the influence of newly-dawning ideals. Reflection registers these changes more than it creates them and the theories it constructs are to the stu- dent an extremely interesting record of the forces at work in society. It is through a study of the tendencies ex- pressed by these theories that it becomes possible to pre- dict the trend of affairs some way ahead. There is some- thing analogous in this to the plotting of a curve by a mathematician when a certain number of points are given. The socialist is convinced that the greater emphasis placed to-day, by legislation and ethical theory alike, upon human values is the public announcement of a new ethos or spirit which will have its ultimate effect upon institutions. Now the purpose of the present chapter is to study socialism in the making in order that we may better under- stand the necessarily temporary character of various doc- trines associated with it, and follow the growth of more adequate theories and programs. Yet we shall find back of them all a certain spirit or set of values to give them continuity. When we once grasp the fact that it is this spirit or principle that is fundamental to socialism, we shall be less likely to overstress any set of doctrines connected with the name of some distinguished leader such as Marx. Socialism must grow just as society itself grows if it ever hopes to be put into practice. Many socialists dislike to admit that particular theories once held in high repute have been proven erroneous. But is this attitude scientific? Is it not the old attempt to claim infallibility? Such an attitude savors more of the spirit of orthodox religion than of science. Science is more humble for it expects to see many of its theories modified in essentials and even discarded. It has lost false shame 24 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY for it knows the nature of human progress. Now it is time for socialism to learn this lesson and not pretend to the possession of an immutable set of doctrines given by a high priest. If biologists criticize many of Darwin's hypotheses in regard to the factors at work in evolution, is it lack of proper reverence to Marx to point out short- comings in his views? Surely we stand on the shoulders of such men as Darwin and Marx and are able to see far- ther than they could. Events have shaped themselves so that it does not require a very wise man to answer ques- tions which the giants of the past could not solve with cer- tainty. Socialism is__hoih a system of gradually changing doctrines and a set of values; it is both a science and an ideal. These two constituents must not be confused. As a system of doctrines, it must change in accordance with fuller knowledge; otherwise it has no right to claim spir- itual kinship with science. As an ideal, it has more in common with ethics, with that philosophical discipline which deals with the highest good and the means to its attainment. Socialism must have an intellectual formula- tion, but this formulation is less fixed than the purpose which gives it life. In order to encourage socialism to relinquish immutabil- ity as a false ideal, let us glance at the situation which is confronting political economy, its dearest enemy. Econ- omists have been the severest critics of socialism and yet have been inclined to commit the same sin, that of ortho- doxy. It should, therefore, be interesting to the socialist to find that many of the younger economists are giving up the dogmatic attitude for one which is more in harmony with modern science and philosophy. If this change of attitude spreads in both ranks, there is no reason why these traditional enemies should not become the best of SOCIALISM IN THE MAKING 25 friends. The difference between them will be one of func- tion. For these reasons, a brief application of the histor- ical method to political economy will serve as a suggestive introduction to the history of socialism. "Even Ricardo," writes Chapman, "despite the cold light of his purely scientific interest was not entirely suc- cessful. And there followed others who were amazingly successful in confounding the dry scientific point of view with a conception of society as a system of unemo- tional atoms, or worse, with the idea that a soulless mech- anism driven by self-interest as the motive power was the right thing to aim at. By the doctrines of these blun- dering teachers for whose mistakes, however, the masters of the new-born science were in some measure responsi- ble political and social sentiments were contaminated; and the country was condemned to pass through one of the greatest crises in its history, that occasioned by me- chanical invention and the introduction of steam-power, with- out benefit of much mutual helpfulness and sympathy." 1 This is a fair statement by an orthodox economist of the danger of founding maxims upon the inadequate theories of special social sciences. The early economists worked within the presuppositions and prejudices of the business class of their age and therefore reached con- clusions which are out of harmony with the beliefs and values of a time which is broader in its outlook and more democratically based. There is something inspiriting in the following language used by an American economist and the socialist should give heed to the intellectual candor of the man. "Every art," writes Davenport, "must have its corresponding science, or both must suffer. It is, then, for someone to 1 "Political Economy," p. 13. Italics mine. 36 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY construct an economic science adapted not only to the requirements of the facts but to the needs of their ameli- oration. To this end economics must cease to be a system of apologetics, the creed of the reactionary, a defense of privilege, a social soothing sirup, a smug pronouncement of the righteousness of whatever is with the still more disastrous corollary of the unrighteousness of whatever is not. . . . We economists must, then, come to recognize that we have not rightly analyzed the notion of capital and have wrongly interpreted the question-begging term productive in economic affairs. We have assumed that private gain and social welfare are approximately inter- changeable concepts. As we have failed to see that some profits and some wages are mere predation, so we have failed to recognize that some capital is as iniquitous and disastrous for social welfare as other of the capital is benef- icent." 1 When we find an economist thus frankly and freely criticizing the traditional views of his science and pointing out the difficulties which analysis has to face, it must not be thought strange that many phases of past socialist theory have turned out to be inadequate or even completely erroneous. The socialist can surely meet a writer of the frankness of Davenport at least half-way. One more quotation will, I think, suffice to make my point, the tentative character of theory and the necessity of taking toward it an evolutionary attitude. "Three defects appear, then," writes Hobson, 2 "to disqualify current economic science for the work of human valuation. First, an exaggerated stress upon production, reflected in the terminology and method of the science, with a corresponding neglect of consumption. Secondly, a 1 "The Economics of Enterprise," p. 528. 2 "Work and Wealth/' p. 9. SOCIALISM IN THE MAKING 27 standard of values which has no consistent relation to human welfare. Thirdly, a mechanical conception of the economic system, due to the treatment of every human action as a means to the production of non-humanly valued wealth" There is more than a touch of the influence of the purpose of socialism in this quotation. These criticisms of their own science by leading econ- omists reveal a growing consciousness of the complexity of social relations and the importance of values. One signif- icant thing we are assuredly able to deduce from these con- fessions, viz., that political economy is a special science and that deductions or maxims should not be drawn from it alone. There is always something abstract and partial in the assumptions and facts of a special science its values must be constantly re-valued and, added to this, there is its necessary immaturity. Now these conclusions, as we shall presently see, apply to socialism. There are at least three stages in the development of modern socialism and these stages are marked by differing conceptions of the social state to be achieved and of the methods best suited to bring this more ideal condition about. Roughly speaking, the first period lasted until the middle of the nineteenth century and is usually called the Utopian period, a term adopted from the famous romance of Sir Thomas More, that good knight and strange blend of radicalism and conservatism. We may regard the second period as commencing with the Communist Man- ifesto which was written by Marx and Engels in November of the year 1847. It was in large measure from the pecul- iar characteristics of this period that political socialism took its rise. This kind of socialism is called by its ad- mirers scientific, by its critics, orthodox socialism. We shall have occasion to point out both its strength and its 28 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY *2 > weakness. The third period represents the modification of the social philosophy of Marx and his contemporaries by influences due to changing political and social condi- tions and the more adequate knowledge of society con- sequent upon the growth of the social sciences. Thus the socialist movement is consciously and unconsciously undergoing an alteration of perspective and of doctrine as the result of a better knowledge of the tendencies actually at work in the world at large. This third period is, prop- erly speaking, a time of transition; socialism is losing its or- thodoxies while adhering to its purpose and general plan. Such is in summary the history of socialism. Let us now look at this development a little more closely. Utopian socialism was very fertile in ideas and, with all its faults, contributed far more to the positive content of socialism than the disciples of Marx are usually willing to admit. Fourier, for instance, for all his oddities caught the spirit of socialism in a remarkable degree its emphasis on cooperation and human welfare, its love of freedom, its sense of justice, its faith in humanity, its dislike of caste. He was one of the first to point out the waste in commer- cial competition, which does not have excellence but merely profit for its goal, and to challenge the smug optimism of the current economics. For him, socialism had larger as- pects than the economic although he recognized the im- portance of this basic phase of life. Saint Simon, the other French prophet of the regeneration of society, laid his stress upon the possibilities of a kind of scientific organiza- tion of society. The fault with society was its lack of order and method, the determination of affairs by chance and custom; the race had just muddled along. This criticism of things as they are, this yearning for a freer, more in- telligent, more sanely progressive world was urgently SOCIALISM IN THE MAKING 29 alive in these thinkers. The impulse of creation was abroad at the time sketching in hasty strokes a more ra- tional society, seeking to build it a little nearer to the heart's desire. But these early socialists had little appreciation of the obstacles which confronted them. They thought out their schemes of a better state with a patience and a thorough- ness which command our admiration, but they had little idea of how social changes are actually brought about. In this regard, they were the children of their age. We, to-day, consent to modify our basic institutions only gradually; every change is looked upon as an experiment whose result cannot be predicted and we would shrink back from a reckless unsettling of the whole foundation of society as likely to lead to disaster. Yet, while these early socialists believed in their ability to reconstruct society in detail and did not realize, as we do to-day, the complexity of social relations and the small part pure reason can play in their better adjustment to human welfare, they were far from advocating violence. Rationalists they were, but rationalists decidedly dis- illusioned with revolutionary methods. In the early decades of the nineteenth century, men were far less hope- ful of the achievements to be brought about by revolution than their fathers had been. The great French Revolution for all its sound and fury seemed to many thinking men to have made little improvement in the general conditions of life.. While they were unjust here, it is undoubtedly the case that the improvements made were not commensurate with the means. Reaction had so easily followed upon the heels of political changes and, to make matters worse, the industrial revolution had intervened to make these of far less importance than they had been thought. The 30 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY world had gone mad over the English parliamentary sys- tem, as a kind of beautiful toy, without asking what it was good for. In the meantime, the number of landless work- men living on starvation wages and laboring excessively long hours had increased. For those who realized this fact, the watchwords of the previous century with their exaltation of merely political and legal liberty were be- ginning to sound stale. Thus the socialists were this early probing deeper than others of their contemporaries. But they were naive both in regard to method and end to be aimed at. We who have had a hundred years' experience with political de- mocracy know how slow social change is and how many disappointments the enthusiast must undergo who ro- mantically and sentimentally idealizes the mass of men and their capacity to look ahead. We are aware that society is not a mechanism to be remodelled after some clever plan but a slowly developing organism not any too quick to learn by experience. As rationalists, the Utopians thoroughly believed in persuasion. They thought that truth was omnipotent and only needed a fair hearing to carry all before it. If only the plans for a happier and healthier community, thought they, could be brought clearly before the influen- tial members of society, they would be joyfully accepted, put into force and immediately a new era for humanity would dawn. Poor, old, lovable Fourier waited patiently to the last for the millionaire who would give the funds with which to start the first commune. Once this model commune was put into operation, it would, he believed, demonstrate beyond possibility of cavil the value of the new social organization. Other communes would there- upon spring up and the march to the conquest of the SOCIALISM IN THE MAKING 31 present inefficient and unjust order would continue by reason of the intrinsic worth of the new order. Thus ger- suasion and example united were to win the day for social- ism. While these early advocates of socialism differed among themselves on many points, they had essentially the same general outlook on the world. We have called them ra- tionalists because they wished to reconstruct the world by the light of an abstract reason. They were also optimists and idealists of the most pronounced type. " All thinkers," writes Sombart, 1 "who, up to the eighteen-forties, were socialistically inclined based their views on the metaphys- ical belief in the goodness of God (or of Nature). God is good, and since He made the world, the world also is good. Any other conclusion would be absurd. It would be absurd, for instance, to imagine that a beneficent God should have created a world which was not filled with goodness and harmony. Man is good by nature; he is a social animal; he can develop to the highest grades of per- fection. That is the gospel of the Utopists." But if the world is of this character, why are things so bad? Why is there so much suffering and disorder? The answer of the Utopian is like the answer of Rousseau: Men are the vic- tims of artificial conditions, of false institutions. Remove these arid restore the natural state of man's existence "based on the unerring and unchanging laws of Nature" and all will be well. It is the function of reason to dis- cover these laws and establish natural relationships among men. What must be our own attitude toward these teachings? There can be little doubt that this first phase of socialism was tinged with what for lack of a better name we may 1 "Socialism and the Socialist Movement," p. 31. 32 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY call Rousseauism; and there are many writers who claim that even contemporary socialists have not altogether rid themselves of this element. Now by Rousseauism we mean a lack of historical perspective, a tendency to idealize Nature, a proneness to think in terms of abstractions, a belief in natural or genuine institutions as against artificial institutions, a readiness to become unduly sentimental. The heart of the Rousseauist is in the right place but he does not understand human nature and the natural char- acter of all institutions. He does not see that these cus- toms are founded upon human life as it has been in the past and that persuasion alone will not be sufficient to make men relinquish them and adopt totally new ones. Yet in spite of the simplicity of their social psychology, these Utopians had keen minds and laid their fingers upon many weaknesses in the society of their day. They started men to think critically about abuses which had only use- and-wont as their justification. They brought reason to bear upon society and, if they were mistaken in their assumption that it would be easy to persuade men to build anew from top to bottom, they at least helped to awaken a new spirit of dissatisfaction. Our conclusion is that Utopian socialism began the con- scious movement toward a better organization of industrial life just as the teachings of Locke and Rousseau inaugu- rated the era of political democracy. There was, however, something premature and artificial about their suggestions. Either society was not morally developed enough to adopt their plans and put them into practice or else these plans were not in line with the actual growth of society. As a matter of fact, these plans represented too much of a break with the past and did not have in them the power to absorb and employ the untamed energies of the world as it was. SOCIALISM IN THE MAKING 33 They aimed to do too much all at once. But this fact should not lessen our estimation of the significance of such men as Owen, Fourier, Saint Simon and Cabet. They lived and thought nobly within the conditions of their time and planted the seeds of a movement which has since taken its acknowledged place as one of the most significant of the twentieth century. They helped to make democracy critical of industrial conditions and alert for improvements. Toward the middle of the nineteenth century, a marked change in outlook and sentiment made itself felt. New forces were stirring on every hand. The old balance of power was giving way. The city was replacing the coun- try; the proletariat was awaking to a sense of its thrall- dom; education was spreading among the masses; the ideals of political democracy were giving rise to new sets of values. All this led to the growth of reflection upon social affairs and a resultant knowledge of the way in which changes are effected in society. The consequence was a reaction against the light-hearted optimism and rationalism of the previous century and growth of a semi- pessimistic realism. The idea of social classes came to the fore. In this competitive era, man was looked upon as selfish rather than unselfish and as banding together in accordance with economic interests. This changed out- look immediately affected socialism and caused it to pass into a second stage. This second period is associated with the name of Karl Marx. While he was not the sole creator of this new phase of socialism, he was its most gifted interpreter. Let us glance at some of the distinctive features of Marxian socialism. We shall see at once that the change in spirit and outlook is very marked. 84 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY In the first place, Marx did not pretend to lay down a definite picture of the future organization of society. He did not work out the details of a New Republic or of a Phalanstery. His great work, often called the Socialist Bible, was an analysis of capitalism. He sought to show that the breakdown of capitalism was inevitable, that it was digging its own grave, and that the advent of socialism was assured. " Marxian socialism, or ' scientific ' socialism, as Marx called it," writes Simkhovitch, 1 "differed fun- damentally from the various types of socialism which preceded it. Marx ridiculed the invention of an ideal social organization, a perfect state. The fundamental proposi- tion upon which Marx's socialism rested was his economic interpretation of history. This conception implied that the political and legal organization of society is absolutely dependent upon its economic structure, that our future depends entirely upon existing economic tendencies, that no social revolution could socialize scattered and decen- tralized industry, nor could legions of small property- owners be expropriated." Hence Marx broke sharply with early socialism. He had no faith in isolated experiments and did not believe over much in the power of persuasion. Since the basic assumptions of his outlook were so different from those of the eighteenth century, it was inevitable that he should advocate different tactics. He tried to see society as it actually is and believed that he discerned something of the nature of a class-war, a continuous struggle between two classes whose interests were directly opposed. Hegelian that he was, he believed that he could work out the inner logic of the process and predict its various stages. But he was by nature and training an agitator as well as a speculative thinker and was not sat- 1 " Marxism Versus Socialism," Introduction, p. 6. SOCIALISM IN THE MAKING 35 isfied simply to predict. Through his activities and those of his friends, Engels, Liebknecht and others, the socialist movement became a proletarian movement, an organiza- tion of the working-people connected with large industries. It has thus brought these people consciously into touch with the ideals of a democracy of a radical kind. While Marx was, on the whole, a realist of a pretty con- crete sort, he was yet tinged with a revolutionary ardor. His imagination was possessed by the series of political revolutions which had convulsed France during the pre- vious half -century and he tended to look upon violent up- risings as the necessary means by which power passed from one class to another. The middle class had in this way shaken off the blighting control of the Feudal Aristoc- racy and abolished all those privileges which hindered its own development and march to power. Thus Marx be- lieved that a sort of veiled war is always raging in the heart of society and that it comes to a crisis now and then in open revolts with resultant shifts of power and institutional changes. Such was Marx's reading of history in terms of class struggles. Let us see how he applied this interpreta- tion of history to socialism. The middle class, or bourgeoisie, was slowly but surely gaining the upper hand and replacing absolute monarchies and feudalism by parliaments and by a democratic suf- frage. The consequence was a political and economic re- organization of society called democracy and capitalism re- spectively. These changes were creating a new, or fourth, class, the proletariat, long a relatively unimportant sat- ellite of the middle class but now attaining an unconscious solidarity and a tremendous potential power. Before middle-class democracy and capitalism were completely established, Marx thought, the proletariat would sur- 36 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY prise their nominal leaders by rebelling and securing the fruits of the revolution for themselves. "Thus we see," writes Jaures, "that the proletarian revolution is to be grafted on to a victorious bourgeois revolution. Marx's mind, delicately ironical and even sarcastic in tone, amused itself with these tricks of thought." Class dismounts class from the saddle until the last class is reached, those who bear the chief burden of society. With the sudden ascendency of this basic class, the old privileges cease and class-government ends. By a coup de surprise, a relatively weak element of the population takes advantage of a critical situation to overthrow the unjust economic organ- ization of the past. In this way, society will finally be rid of the canker of exploitation and be in a position to develop a healthy and happy life. What must we say of this revolutionary theory of social change? To the American and to the Englishman, it sounds too romantic and theatrical. England has a capac- ity for compromise and adjustment which prevents the overt occurrence of revolutions; the same is true of Amer- ica. For all his long residence in England, it is doubtful that Marx understood the temper and method of its people. His eyes were fixed upon France with its lack of training in government and its Latin sense of the dramatic. An- other objection must be raised to his philosophy of history. However it may have been in the past, a minority to-day would be unable to grasp the reins of power and re-organize society in a constructive and permanent fashion. Mere numbers do not constitute social power for the units may be ineffective individually and incapable of constructive efforts; moreover, the proletariat in the Marxian sense of that term do not constitute the majority of any modern state. It would seem to follow that socialism must resign SOCIALISM IN THE MAKING 37 this flirtation with the idea of a spectacular revolution it is somewhat too childish and superficial to gain credence among those who sense the complexity of society and the part played by ideas, customs and institutions. Society cannot go faster than the social mind and the social mind cannot be taken by storm; it has an inertia which is the despair of rationalists and revolutionaries alike. At the same time that we reject the philosophy of history of Marx we are forced to abandon much of his economics. Socialism will not come in a political democracy as the result of a spectacular revolution. Society is too plastic to the forces of public opinion for this to occur. We must likewise admit that the belief, encouraged by Marx, that capitalistic society contains within itself the germs of its own bankruptcy has failed to be verified by the facts. If the proletariat waited until the death-throes of capitalism began for their emancipation, they would be forced to wait indefinitely. Neither a sudden economic nor a sudden political cataclysm is probable. Both industry and govern- ment have a far broader basis to-day than ever before and consequently have a stabler equilibrium. But while many of the theories of the second period of socialism are no longer tenable and must be rejected, the situation is quite different with the tendencies set on foot at this time. We saw that Utopian socialists appealed to society as a whole and had faith in a vague educative process. Society, they thought, would follow the guidance of reason and this reason was a sort of impersonal reason having little to do with the grim forces which actually con- trol human relations. It was a reason of a transcendental type which ignored selfishness and custom and inertia and privilege. Now the aim dominating the second phase of socialism was the elevation of the mass of the working- 38 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY people. Leaving in the background, the vision of a benefi- cent future for all, these reformers fixed their attention upon the actual situation of the laboring classes. Socialism meant for them the emancipation of the proletariat by the proletariat. All their theories revolved around this cen- tral motive. False as many of the prophecies in regard to the future of the working-classes were, the emphasis laid on the neces- sity of their own initiative was eternally right. This de- mand that the masses awake and help to control their destiny is in line with the best traditions of liberalism and democracy. Instead of a passive mass controlled from above, Marx and his followers hoped to see the birth of a self-conscious and independent-minded group aware of its condition and of the essential injustice of it. Out of the insistent demands of this hitherto inarticulate part of society, a shifting of the center of gravity of public opin- ion would take place which would be reflected in all phases of social life. And this shifting of values is what is actually occurring. Socialism has become a movement rather than a vision of an ideal state. It is a ferment within society forcing society to progress toward a fuller democracy. Thus the second stage of socialism was not so much scientific as realistic. It brought socialism down from the clouds to the earth and led to its entrance as a militant factor in the actual alignment of tendencies and weighted interests which control legislation. We should always remember that theories may be in large measure wrong and yet have a vital correctness in so far as they call atten- tion to conditions which should not be permitted and nourish movements which help to bring about the mod- ification of those socially-hurtful conditions. Theories may possess truth by their very orientation and by the SOCIALISM IN THE MAKING 39 purpose which they subserve even though the overt el- ements in them must ultimately be given up and replaced by other distinctions and formulations which are more exact while yet retaining the same general purpose and guiding the same movement which has now grown more adult. Such, I believe, is the nature of the truth of the theories of the second stage of socialism, and it is for this reason that I sense something superficial in those econ- omists and publicists who remove these Marxian theories from their social and historical setting and attack them as wholly significant in themselves apart from the social and ethical motives which gave them their life. The second period of socialism witnessed the propaganda of the word among masses of people who had never before thought seriously and deeply upon social and political problems; and, if democracy rests upon the ability of nearly all people to respond to general principles which affect them and to offer suggestions as to their needs and particular circumstances, democracy owes a debt of gratitude to the socialist propaganda. It has called the masses to council. If, when called, they speak out boldly their criticism of our present-day social and economic organization, we should not be surprised. It would indeed be strange if these men who have borne burdens which we would not bear without protest did not ask the more favor- ably placed classes searching questions. It may well be that the answers they themselves give are crude and in- adequate; then it is our place to offer more adequate an- swers which are not mere evasions. So long as we do not do this, their hypotheses are the only ones in the field and must be tentatively accepted until more satisfactory ones are forthcoming. The important point to recognize is, however, the fact that democracy puts its trust in the 40 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY interplay of social forces and encourages all parts of the social organism to become articulate hoping that in this fashion the fullest justice can be done. How much better is such a program, which makes those who have divergent experiences speak for themselves, than that, inherent in restrictive policies, which trusts to a paternalistic interest in the condition of the lower classes! So long as different groups have different interests, that is, so long as society is imperfect, one group cannot be trusted to represent others. Our ideal should be harmony but not a harmony purchased at the expense of variety; a harmony which grows out of problems is far better than a harmony which ignores them. The third period into which socialism is now entering represents a time of transition in which the actual move- ment of events and the growth of new ideas have led to a reconsideration of the rather immature philosophy of the previous era. Naturally enough, the first move was to pour new wine into the old bottles, that is, to broaden out and to qualify the traditional theories. Many of the rather hasty theories of Marx were re-interpreted and robbed of their definiteness. This process was made easier by the vagueness which characterized the formulation of many of these doctrines. In his later years, Marx intro- duced qualifying phrases and where he had not done this, his friend, Engels, who lived on into the nineties did so. It was not difficult to carry this process further and so formulate such theories as the increasing misery of the working-classes, the labor theory of value, the mate- rialistic interpretation of history, the class-struggle, the over-production theory of crises, and the inherent tendency of capitalism to bankruptcy as to rob them of their old import. Marx was a system-maker, like Hegel and Fichte, SOCIALISM IN THE MAKING 41 and did not realize, as we do to-day, the danger of over- systematization in a changing field. Just because of this, Marxian socialism is exposed to the charge of continually making prophecies which fail to come true. It is often said that one of the strongest points of Marx- ian socialism was its determinism. The break-down of capitalism was considered inevitable and so was the triumph of the proletariat. This faith gave a grim opti- mism to the believer that nothing could shake. But the inevitable criticism of the system weakened the element of necessity and made the foundation of society less mechan- ically economic. It was more and more realized that human purposes and ideals are of prime importance as driving motives leading to social changes. Dominated as he was by the philosophy and science of the middle of last century, Marx was unable to conceive society except as a process moving forward en masse and according to the dialectic method of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. It matters little that he tried to stand German idealism on its head, as Feuerbach had done, and obtain a kind of materialistic realism; the impersonalism and mechanical determinism of the view still remained. Now this semi-mechanical and almost wholly deter- ministic outlook has been outgrown by social philosophy and it is the half-conscious recognition of this fact that motivated the movement towards revision. While the older men, naturally enough, desire to make as few changes as possible in the inherited system, others who are younger and therefore more plastic and more in touch with the time are anxious to break pretty definitely with the theories of the previous century. That which is false or inadequate is, they believe, more of a hindrance than a help. The Marxian phase of socialism brought it into touch 42 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY with political democracy and worked on the true principle that the people must help to emancipate themselves. We should never forget that those who are oppressed have themselves partly to blame. In this realistic and dem- ocratic attitude rather than in its economic theories lies the permanent contribution which Marxianism made. Perhaps we should add to this the challenge which it offered to the middle-class tendencies in economics. It helped to give a voice to the masses and drive home to the thinker their point of view in such a way that it could not be ignored. If a group of theories does this, it is thoroughly justified from the historical standpoint. Political economy is always in danger of bowing to the business man's out- look just as American philosophy so easily gives way to a genteel tradition. But political socialism must immerse itself in the living stream of modern social democracy; it must acquire patience and ingenuity and be content to approach its goal by slow degrees. It must take to heart the sobering lessons that political experience has been teaching even while never losing faith in the ultimate outcome. Such is true realism. Now a process of experiment and growth takes time, for obvious reasons. In the first place, because a certain smooth working of institutions must be attained before conclusions can be drawn; in the second place, because new habits and customs must be developed in the na- tion at large; in the third place, because a more social morality must replace the individual morality of the past; in the fourth place, because certain changes must precede others which presuppose them. The economic organiza- tion cannot be lightly separated from the whole social organization with its standards and methods and habits. SOCIALISM IN THE MAKING 43 For these reasons, the advance towards socializing in- dustry will be gradual and experimental and cannot out- run political capacity and integrity. The public mind is the ultimate source of change and psychological factors enter into social adjustment to a remarkable degree. So strikingly is this the case that many writers maintain the thesis that the chief obstacle to a systematic re- organization of industry is mental rather than technical. Such thinkers are in line with modern economics and sociology which are awakening to the fact that the indus- trial system is a psychical creation and only uses the phys- ical world as a tool. The practical importance of the psychological factor can be illustrated in this way. Those who profit from present conditions usually honestly believe that these conditions are necessary and cannot be improved upon. They do so because they are conventional and have also the will to believe and the will not to investigate other possibilities. On the other hand, those who bear the burden have seldom the capacity to imagine definite remedies. These psycho- logical characteristics account for what I have called the social inertia, the inability to acquire momentum apart from stimuli of a continuously acting and irrepressible sort such as a recognized conflict between the interests of social groups or a new vision of justice which has taken possession of those unselfish minds who form the ethical leaven of society. But I have in mind not only this re- tarding property of inertia but also the necessary limita- tion of the field of attention. Just as the individual mind must concentrate on one thing at a time if it is going to master it, so the social mind is unable to cover the whole social order in a satisfactory way unless it takes up one feature thoroughly and only then passes to another. We 44 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY may call this the principle of mental economy and it is a principle which the revolutionary spirit has never appraised at its true worth. It is of interest to note that even political socialism is becoming more and more opportunistic in its ideals and methods. This unfortunate but much employed word sig- nifies an acquiescence in the method of advance laid down by those features of the social mind and of its instruments, which we have pointed out as necessitating an experi- mental evolution instead of a fiery revolution. Only those who have a thin and shallow notion of civilization can persuade themselves that a complete change of economic relations and ideals could be carried through at a stroke without rupture of the delicate social tissues which surround industry and the market as the flesh models itself upon the skeleton. For opportunism with its slight association of ethical duplicity, it would prob- ably be better to substitute a term denoting a positive method founded on a clear comprehension of the charac- teristics of social progress. The ideal of the socialist would then become that of slimulating thjLSOcj&l amjscience to a desire for better things and of guiding it to a modification of institutions to bring about this end. Such an ideal is one with the function of statesmanship and, in spite of the scorn poured upon it by the orthodox Marxian, demands more knowledge and more concrete reasoning than the con- coction of an abstract outline, summed up in a few watch- words such as "an industrial democracy," which, so long as it remains apart from actual life does not create its own criticism. Socialism must possess a principle or it will be possessed by watchwords. And this alternative is a vital one for a principle guides while watchwords blind. SOCIALISM IN THE MAKING 45 But an experimental readjustment of economic rela- tions does not necessarily proceed at a snail's pace; much depends upon the preparation which the public mind has undergone. And it is in this field that political agitation and radical scholarship can do its best work. The customs and ideals which underlie the present order must be under- mined and their inadequacy convincingly demonstrated. The actual working of our institutions must be shown so that he who runs may read its unfairness; and this educa- tion of the public mind can best be carried on by means of investigations of actual conditions and by means of clear and simply-stated analyses of the real meaning of such terms as liberty and justice and property. The majority of the effective members of society will not be moved by mere denunciations nor by what has the appearance of emotional exaggeration. I fear that too many socialists have moved within the charmed circle of traditional watchwords and unreal classifications and have therefore been unable to make their message a meaningful one to those who felt and I believe truly that these terms did not express social life as it actually is. The orthodox socialist is like a philosopher who creates a vocabulary of his own and is surprised that others do not understand his message. Nor is this all. He is too often like a scien- tist who speaks and thinks in terms of the ideas of the last century. He who clings to a creed to-day by that very fact proclaims himself lacking in the true spirit of modern science. There is, I fear, too much emotion and too little intellectual humility among socialist writers and this men- tal bias makes socialism sectarian. There are signs, how- ever, both in America and abroad that socialism is allying itself with the modern social sciences, content to learn from them the results of economics and sociology and 46 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY psychology while holding before these sciences the stim- ulating ideal which is its dearest possession. Socialism will come only when the majority of citizens are in its favor and such a majority will not be merely numerical but will reveal itself in the attitude of public opinion. When public opinion swings towards socialism, socialism will come as fast as its problems permit. Looking backward, we will not be able to say, "Lo! it commenced then," for socialism will be a growth rather than a sudden creation. The plant will be above ground before we are aware and we will be startled into attention only when it bursts into flower. And not until those flowers have fallen and the fruit has come will we be quite certain what kind of plant has been growing thus quietly in our midst. The principle which will bring socialism to pass is psy- chological and not mechanical. The psychologist informs us that any idea which becomes dominant in the mind of an individual inevitably passes into action. The idea is never a mere passive image but has a body of tendencies straining at the leash and crying for release. Such is the ideo-motor theory which is playing so important a role to-day in the science of the mind. Now in the same way, ideas become dominant in the social mind and control legislation. The question for the socialist is, How can I make my ideas, which I consider so valuable for the weal of society, dominant? How can I capture the social mind? I have tried to make it clear that he can do this in two ways, and these two ways correspond to the work of two types of men, the agitator and the scholar. The agitator enlarges the social mind by awakening classes who have been too docile; he tries to make them more reflective and more critical of existent conditions. The scholar deepens the social mind by pointing out new possibilities and by SOCIALISM IN THE MAKING 47 disclosing remediable wrongs. His influence is continuous and creative like life itself. These two types of men supple- ment one another and it is a great pity that they have so often been at odds. The mature socialist of to-day would like to see them work together. As society is deepened and broadened by their activities, old institutions will be modified and new ones appear, largely by means of judi- cious experiments. CHAPTER III WHAT SOCIALISM HOPES TO ACCOMPLISH WE have seen how socialism has gradually formed out of a criticism of society by a part of itself. The more con- crete and vital this criticism, the more expressive of new forces and values, the less Utopian it has been. All move- ments have a similar history. There comes, first of all, the dawning sense that something is wrong. The natural impulse is to advocate extreme measures, to employ gen- eralities, to meet the situation in some spectacular way. This first reaction is emotional and imaginative. The intentions are good but there is not as yet sufficient knowl- edge of the actual problem. After this attitude has en- dured for some time, there arises an effort to define the trouble, to see what exactly is wrong, to pass from general- ities and emotional solutions to an accurate analysis of the situation. Very little is actually accomplished until this second stage ensues. There must be a satisfactory di- agnosis of the sickness and a fair body of knowledge about the organism before there can be much hope of a good prescription. Now all this takes time and time is very precious. It is, therefore, no wonder that the most in- terested parties get impatient. It is senseless for the more fortunate to scold them, just as it would be cruel for the healthy to chide the sick. It would be well if those who have a good seat at life's table would remember this anal- ogy. Now Utopian socialism represents the first stage, that of a sense of something wrong with a quick appeal to general- 48 WHAT SOCIALISM HOPES TO ACCOMPLISH 49 ities and vague imaginings. And sometimes these imag- inings were pretty keen. Everyone should read some of the great Utopias just to lift himself for a moment out of the rut of use-and-wont. Marxian socialism, on the other hand, represents just the beginning of reflective analysis. It is an attempt to analyze the problem and to bring knowledge to bear upon it. But a difficult problem can- not be diagnosed and prescribed for in the twinkling of an eye. The only fault that I am inclined to find with the admirer of Marx is that he usually credits Marx with the accomplishment of the impossible. It is this attitude which has induced the growth of those endless contro- versies between Marxists and conservative professors of political economy which are as absurd in their motivation, as they are stupid in their content. Perhaps these con- troversies aided in the development of clearer and more adequate ideas but their time is past. That the modern socialist must be true to the human values he cham- pions goes without saying. It is these values and the principle bound up with them which make him a so- cialist. He should not, however, fear to immerse himself in the teachings of the modern social sciences. To do otherwise is to proclaim himself a sectarian. Institutions criticize themselves by their results, just as do machines, and blindness to the nature of these results cannot be expected of rational beings whose happiness is bound up with them. So long as the conservative cannot demonstrate that our institutions are perfect, he must expect this constant inspection of the social machinery. It would indeed be strange were it otherwise: the wonder is that, with such obviously faulty results, the amount of complaint has been so small. The reason for this relative paucity of complaint has, of course, been psychological. 50 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY Very few individuals are able to separate themselves from the institutions of their day sufficiently to step back and watch their working. Such an act requires a certain degree of abstraction, a consciousness of institutions as human instruments which can be changed. Yet this ob- jective, shrewdly-critical attitude is becoming pretty general with the increase of education and the growth of democratic sentiment, and bids fair to spread to the masses who have until now been in society but not genuinely of it. The consequence of all this is the rise of a critical, experimental spirit which is not enamored of institutions but studies them in a scientific way and is little likely to be put off with choleric assertions that man has stumbled upon the best of possible organizations. Every feature of society must, from now on, defend itself before the bar of a reason steeped in facts and hopeful of improvement. We have tried to show that modern socialism is the expression of just such a concrete, critical and experimen- tal reason and that, as time has elapsed, it has become more and more familiar with the constituent elements of society, with the faults to be remedied, with the tendencies working beneath the surface, with promising experiments. It is this studious, realistic, experimental attitude toward society which I regard as the spirit of modern socialism. Thus far we have concerned ourselves mainly with its principle, its sense of values and its growth. Let us now try to gain some idea of what socialism hopes to do. 1. Socialism hopes to reduce the disorder characteristic of the market as at present organized. The disorder of the market finds expression in the num- ber of business failures and in the large amount of unem- ployment. Where there is not something approaching a monopoly, the market turns out to be a struggle for WHAT SOCIALISM HOPES TO ACCOMPLISH 51 profit, in which the contestants are compelled to trust to something not far removed from luck. Individual enter- prise is compelled to work in the dark in the attempt to secure and maintain a sufficient patronage. The result is, that an appallingly large number of failures are regis- tered especially in retail business. The strain and worry and financial loss due to this irrational state of the market is tremendous; many firms balance for years on the edge of bankruptcy until some loss pushes them over. I know of tradesmen who work from early morning until night and practically never take a holiday, simply in order to make both ends meet. The human cost of such a state of affairs is far greater than it need be, and the main motive is to escape being an employee under conditions which are felt to be still less bearable. The labor-market is equally chaotic. There is constant unemployment and strikes are only too frequent. The individual has no sense of security, and has to fight in order to receive what he feels to be human treatment. Thus the industrial system acts like a pump without an air-chamber to distribute the jar and the pressure. The necessary adjustments are made without much thought of the people employed, who are thrown out of work or given reduced wages with practically no notice. 1 The market is a huge chain of causes and effects without much coordination; it is not a machine under social con- trol but a resultant of tendencies and forces which meet 1 It is a mistake to suppose that insecurity of tenure holds only for the unskilled workman. There is very little security for a reporter in either United States or England. The complaint has been made that young men, employed perhaps at high salaries, have their "brains sucked" for a year or two, and are then discharged at a moment's notice, often worn out. For this aspect of commercialism see Scott-James, " The Influence of the Press," p. 263. 52 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY in a blind way much as the molecules of gas meet in a vessel. Now the socialist maintains that a different spirit and different methods can be introduced to eliminate a large share of this disorder. Cooperative enterprises in England already bid fair to push aside this undue multiplication of petty stores and the waste of capital and effort involved in them. The history of the Rochdale Experiment is ex- tremely illuminating in this regard. "Where so many other Union shops had failed Rochdale succeeded, and it has steadily grown to an institution with some 14,000 members, doing a trade of 300,000, owning shops and workshops, a library and reading-rooms, making large profits, and devoting a substantial part of them to educa- tion and to charitable purposes." The cooperative scheme has developed to such an extent in Great Britain that there were in 1906 more than 1400 stores with nearly two and a quarter million members, over 33,000,000 capital and sales exceeding 63,000,000 in the year. We have not been successful in this country because our traditions have unfitted us, in the past, for cooperative enterprise. But what can be accomplished is made apparent by a study of a firm like Sears, Roebuck and Company "which in- corporated approximately 9 millions of tangible assets into 9 millions of preferred stock and 30 millions of common stock; and this common stock is now selling at 200 due to the avoidance of the wastes of our prevailing system of retail merchandising." The human cost of strikes and unemployment mounts to a frightful total; yet a large measure of this cost could be eliminated by increased social control and by properly applied public work which could act as a kind of industrial reservoir. The brunt of the ill-adaptation caused by the WHAT SOCIALISM HOPES TO ACCOMPLISH 53 disorder of the market falls now on those who are least able to bear it. It would probably surprise society to find out how easily productive work such as reforestation, irrigation, the building of canals, etc., could be employed by the state to control this incidence of unemployment. Moreover, with a less selfish division of wealth, the ques- tion of strikes would lose much of its dire character. But we are concerned as yet with the discovery of social prob- lems, which can be grappled with if society but try, rather than with the solution of them. There are many other features of the market as actually organized which are anti-social in their effects. A quota- tion from a comparatively conservative sociologist will bring out one aspect that is not usually considered, that is, the control of the direction of production and of prices by the wealthy minority. "The process of definite pecu- niary valuation, the price-making function, is based upon 'effective demand* or the offer of money for goods; per- haps we ought to say for consumer's goods, as the value of producer's goods may be regarded as secondary. It is therefore the immediate work of those who have money to spend. Just how far spending is concentrated in a class I cannot pretend to say, but judging from current esti- mates I suppose it would be no exaggeration to say that one-half of the purchasing power in an industrial commu- nity is exercised by one-fifth of the families." 1 The neces- sities of life are thus often subordinated to the luxuries, a point made recently by G. B. Shaw. Again, we can almost say that the reward given to an individual is only acciden- tally expressive of his social service. The reaction of the market reflects the needs and desires of vast bodies of individuals and what the particular entrepreneur does 1 C. H. Cooley. American Journal of Sociology, Vol. XVIII, p. 551. 54 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY depends upon inventions and social achievements which, just because they are social, are ready to his hand. There is no good reason why the reward thus accidentally meted out should not be limited by society to an amount large enough to stimulate the individual but no larger. The re- mainder could go into the coffers of the state for social pur- poses. The reply of the economist that many lose what they invest and that these losses counterbalance the ap- parently excessively large gain misses the point. It does not follow that an excessive reward to one individual does socially counterbalance the losses of others. The employ- ment of a large share of this gain to social ends would directly aid those who lost by helping to make the penalty of failure less. 2. Socialism hopes to lessen the waste characteristic of present methods. This aim of socialism has always been stressed by all the historical systems. The chief indictment against capitalism has been this of wastefulness. The excessive development of middlemen who usually receive a reward quite disproportionate to their services has been noted again and again. The reply of the conservative that these middlemen do perform services, nevertheless, is beside the point for the socialist does not deny the fact. He simply claims that more efficient methods can be developed so that less labor will bring about the same results at less social cost. Intelligent and carefully considered methods should take the place of methods fostered by lack of coordination. It is surely an assumption that reason cannot grant without proof that the desire for profit by itself produces socially efficient methods and that it can therefore be trusted. The rather naive assumptions of laissez faire have been pretty well discredited by the facts, WHAT SOCIALISM HOPES TO ACCOMPLISH 55 and I know of no philosopher, economist or sociologist who would to-day undertake to defend them. If society wishes to attain an efficient industrial organization, it must disregard the blind cry for profit and consider the social good. The wastefulness of anarchic competition can best be seen in the attempt to secure a market, in the spoliation of the natural resources and in the phenomenon called cross freights. Let us glance at these features of anarchic competition. It always surprises the uninformed to be told what percentage of the retail price of an article is due to the attempt to secure a market. A friend of mine who is an expert chemist once told me that the raw material for a certain scouring product cost hardly a tenth of the price at which it was sold; the rest went to factors like adver- tisement, salesmen, package-form and freight. Now cer- tain of these factors have a distinctly social significance and could never be totally eliminated but others are grossly exaggerated by competitive methods. " In the Report of the Industrial Commission, we find it stated by Mr. Dowe, the President of the Commercial Travellers' National League that 35,000 salesmen have been thrown out of em- ployment by the organization of trusts, and 25,000 reduced to two-thirds of their previous salaries. This would represent a loss of 60,000,000 dollars in salaries on a basis of $1200 each." 1 In itself, this change implies greater economic efficiency and must be praised but this efficiency can never be separated from the larger question of social efficiency. Are we sure, under present conditions, that the saving redounds to the social good? Socialism says that it does not necessarily do so because there is no adequate 1 Quoted from Kelley, "Twentieth Century Socialism." 56 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY social method for its efficient distribution. It is an error that even political economy no longer champions to main- tain that the orgy of conspicuous display that vitiates society is industrially valuable. Socialism hopes to use tendencies which have much good in them but are now allowed to run wild. The spoliation of our natural resources needs little emphasis to-day for society at large is pretty wide-awake to the situation. Here the fault is not so much competition as a conflict between the material good of the individual capitalist and that of society. If we give up our natural inheritance and then allow the lure of immediate profit to work in an uncontrolled way, we pay the penalty as a society in two ways. We are poorer as a society for the simple reason that the barbarous wealth of the few does not make the society rich, unless we look upon society as a sort of fictitious entity endowed with statistical attributes. What the logician calls the "fallacy of composition" has been at work in the social mind. In the second place, the activity of the individual is necessarily short-sighted when we consider it from the standpoint of society because the time-spans of the two differ so immensely. It is altogether impossible to identify the profit of individuals with the good of society as an historical organism stretching into the future. Again, the activities of the individual have reactions which affect society but which do not harm the individual himself to a degree that would lead him to take account of them. The effect of deforestation upon the land and upon the rivers does not come within his pur- view: similarly, the increase of human wreckage does not fall upon the employer of child labor. Now socialism hopes to institute a control sufficient at least to take these reactions upon the good of society into account. WHAT SOCIALISM HOPES TO ACCOMPLISH 57 Since many European countries do this already, there is nothing chimerical in the hope. The phenomenon of cross freights is likewise an expres- sion of lack of efficiency because of anarchism. The same territory is covered by hundreds of milkmen in a large city where a quarter of that number would be amply sufficient. Our present lack of system thus creates an immense amount of labor which could be avoided and the leisure, thus obtained, distributed as almost the greatest social good. The increase of the cooperative spirit and methods would gradually bring about a saving of time and effort almost incalculable in its benefits were it properly dis- tributed. And it is this distribution which socialism always has in mind, thus going beyond the efficiency engineer who does not concern himself with the distribution of the social dividend. 3. Socialism hopes to eliminate all degrees of competition that are obviously anti-social in their consequences. While modern socialism is not opposed to competition of a constructive and creative sort, it does not blind itself to the fact that much competition is destructive and anti- social. The spirit of cooperation and the institutions which this spirit fosters are its remedies for this unethical and wasteful competition. It is a mistake to assume that cooperation excludes competition : it is just such false con- trasts that a sound social philosophy would bid us avoid. In order to cooperate, it is not necessary that individuals lose the desire to excel. Social excellence can never build itself upon individual apathy. What socialism wishes to overcome is the present tendency to grant excessive re- wards for actions and thus to nourish the merely acquis- itive instincts of mankind. Competition is a force which can be made to work for good as well as for harm; all de- 58 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY pends upon the institutions in which it operates and the control which society exercises over it. 1 Competition like any other attitude is relative to the institutions which furnish its background and conditions of functioning, and it is therefore false sociology to treat it as an absolute thing to be judged apart. Now the point the socialist makes is that competition has not been directed into the proper channels and so has worked for both good and evil; the hope he cherishes is that a gradual alteration in the spirit and institutions of society will reduce the amount of de- structive competition and increase the amount of healthy personal activity. 4. Socialism hopes to eliminate unmerited poverty. I narrow the hope to the poverty that is unmerited because the existence of such poverty is the crying shame of the present. At the present time wages are determined by the auto- matic working of the principle of supply and demand. In other words, labor is a commodity on the market and its price is fixed in much the same way that the price of other commodities is fixed. There are, however, complex condi- tions governing both the supply and the demand. These factors tend to operate in a more mechanical and unqual- ified fashion in the lower ranks of labor where the individ- uals are many in number, competing among one another for jobs and unable, because of poverty, to hold back for a higher price. The supply of unskilled labor is relatively large; it lacks fluidity; its resistance to low wages is not stubborn; it is deficient in power of organization and it is forced to make a hasty bargain because of its want. The inevitable result is low wages. Now, with institutions as 1 President Hadley's belief in the sufficiency of an increasing public morality should be noted in this connection. But must not such in- crease in intelligence and morality express itself in social institutions? WHAT SOCIALISM HOPES TO ACCOMPLISH 59 they are, this wage is too low to meet the economic burden placed upon the individual. Investigation is showing that the budget of the ordinary family hardly makes possible a decent and efficient standard of living, let alone provision for a rainy day of sickness or of unemployment. Modern civilization is demanding much of the family and seldom asks if it is able to stand the strain. It may be well to quote from a recent work by Professor Hollander, since many people have no conception of the extent of the poverty which exists in such a rich country as the United States. "The probable amount of such poverty (poverty which approaches pauperism) is as im- pressive as its evident quality. . . . The remarkable study of the nature and extent of poverty in the United States, made by Robert Hunter ten years ago, and still the only serviceable survey of the subject, sets forth that, in the industrial commonwealths of the United States, probably as much as 20 per cent of the total population are ordinarily below the poverty line. If one half of this estimate be applied to the other commonwealths, the con- clusion is that in fairly prosperous years 'no less than 10,000,000 persons in the United States are in poverty.' In this computation a purely physical standard 'a san- itary dwelling and sufficient food and clothing to keep the body in working order* define the poverty line, with no monetary allowance for intellectual, aesthetic, moral, or social requirements." Investigations in regard to wages show that "fully one half of the adult males engaged in gainful occupations in the United States are earning less than $626 per year." Those who are interested in these problems and they should be all citizens should read the literature on the subject which has been increasing of late. Certainly society has something better to do 60 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY than to put its hands in its pockets and let these mal- adjustments alone. Let us see how socialism could help this desperate sit- uation of the masses of the population. In the first place, it would lead the government to use a part of the social surplus on public works in order to furnish an industrial reservoir for the relief of those out of employment. Such a means of adjustment, planned to make the incidence of the natural presence of a certain amount of imperfection in the automatic working of industry fall upon society as a whole rather than upon individuals who do not deserve to be singled out as scapegoats and who are least in a position to bear the loss, has everything in its favor. Only those who are against government enterprise or who accept the exploded theory of a definite wage-fund can raise objections to it, while it has both ethical and eco- nomic arguments of superlative force in its favor. The ethical arguments have been suggested but it may be well to state some of them more explicitly. It is not fair for society to punish individuals for conditions for which they are not responsible. This argument would not hold were there no way out, but society is rich and efficient enough to provide such a way. Again, unemployment weakens a man's moral fiber and dampens the ardor of his personality. It will never be known how many in- dividuals have broken down under the ruthless conditions of the present. It is false ethics to reply that a man should be able to stand these conditions, for such a rejoinder is based on an a priori and arbitrary idea of what an individ- ual ought to be able to bear, an idea too often founded in ignorance and nourished by the will to believe because the contrary would be disagreeable. The economic ar- gument is closely bound up with the ethical and rests its WHAT SOCIALISM HOPES TO ACCOMPLISH 61 case on the question of efficiency. It will never be known how much labor power has been lost because of this short- sighted treatment of individuals. Men work better in security than in pinching need, better in mental and phys- ical health than in sickness. But there are other measures which are already pre- senting themselves to governments as means of preventing poverty. I cannot do better than present the argument of an English liberal in support of the measures in process of being put into effect in England through the cooperation of the liberal and the labor parties. Since the labor party is a socialist organization, the program is relevant and shows not only what modern socialism is planning but also what the best liberal thought is working towards. "He (the unskilled laborer)," writes Professor L. T. Hobhouse, /'ought not to be denuded of all inherited property. As a citizen he should have a certain share in the social in- heritance. This share should be his support in times of misfortune, of sickness, and of worklessness, whether due to economic disorganization or to invalidity and old age. His children's share, again, is the state-provided educa- tion. These shares are charges on the social surplus. It does not, if the fiscal arrangements are what they should be, infringe upon the income of other individuals, and the man who without further aid than the universally avail- able share in the social inheritance which is to fall to him as a citizen pays his way through life is to be justly re- garded as self-supporting." 1 This conception of a social inheritance upon which Professor Hobhouse bases his program indicates a wider view of property than enters the horizon of the customary individualist; property is on the way to become a social institution giving security and the 1 "Liberalism," p. 209, italics mine. 62 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY conditions of a real freedom to all the members of society. It seems to me that the path of social progress runs along the line of the increase of this social inheritance although a moderate individual inheritance will be permitted. In these ways, then, unmerited poverty will be elim- inated. What standard of living will be made possible by the better methods introduced by socialism cannot be foretold man must always combat the niggardliness of nature but there is good reason to hope that comfort will be wide-spread. 5. Socialism hopes to tap new energies which are now latent and are not elicited by our social arrangements. There are those who hold that present arrangements are peculiarly favorable to production. The entire middle class, according to these advocates, is stimulated by the hope of pecuniary gain to an extent that compensates for the waste due to competition. It is asserted that in- dividuals invent, organize, plan and toil in order to become independent and to be able to leave their families out of the reach of want. As a result the industrial machinery is speeded up to a rate that would otherwise be impossible, capital is saved and new enterprises are set on foot. We shall consider the truth and fiction contained in these statements in the next chapter in which we shall deal with the current objections to socialism; at present we are more concerned with pointing out new sources of social energy which are allowed to lie idle because of antiquated social methods. In former years it was assumed that need was the most effective motive to work. Work was a thing towards which people had to be driven by the pangs of hunger and by the biting lash of necessity. When the masters of society found that the physical lash was no longer profit- WHAT SOCIALISM HOPES TO ACCOMPLISH 63 able, they used other spurs and saw to it that the laboring people were not too well off. They were led to this attitude by unconscious motives even more than by conscious ones; greed and accepted theory harmonized with one another, so that we need not accept Thorold Roger's belief that in England a veritable conspiracy was set on foot. Men believe readily what they wish to believe, and I do not doubt that many members of the leisure class to-day hold in all faith that too large wages are not good for the workmen. Now it would be foolish to deny that need is a spur to work but the assumption back of the current form of the theory is that most work is disagreeable and that it cannot be given another setting. But is there not here, also, a tendency to that abstract thinking which is so com- mon? Are not the conditions of work an essential part of it? Nothing but absolute need would force me to work sixteen hours a day in a factory under unsanitary condi- tions and for a mere pittance that would enable me only to exist. Yet much of our attitude towards work is the social inheritance of the natural repugnance men felt to such a violation of their lives. Need of an almost physical kind would naturally be the only motive for such work; the only alternative to such a conclusion would be the assumption that a sort of continuous suicide is agreeable. In another chapter I shall try to show that a differ- ent social setting and a reduction of the hours of labor would greatly modify man's attitude towards work, so I shall not here linger upon that aspect of the question. What I wish to emphasize is the actual loss due to the lack of training, of a vital education and of wide prospects among the mass of people. They lack initiative and interest and are not able to put into play the capac- ities they actually possess. It is for this reason that so 64 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY many foremen and overseers are necessary. Why, I have watched gangs of laborers at work and my heart has been sick within me. What listlessness and mechanical routine, what numbers of cursing, chiding foremen! How many have tried to analyze the situation psychologically instead of applying standards drawn from their own attitudes in quite different kinds of work under quite different condi- tions? These men feel that they are at the bottom of society and that they have practically no chance to rise; they know that they were robbed of their social birthright; no future lies before them to make them set to with a will under its beckoning smile. Personalities are like plants: give them poor ground and a cloudy, frowning sky and you cannot expect much fruitage; give them good soil, proper cultivation and the stimulus that sunlight scatters broadcast and the result will astonish. Society has been deeply guilty in neglecting the psychology of work. We are still doing for society at large what we refuse to do any longer in the schoolroom. Can we expect to get the best results from men by methods which, we acknowledge, do not secure them from children? Why give all our pedagog- ical attention to the school? By means of a vital education and by increase of op- portunity for choice of work, socialism hopes to discover capacities which are now allowed to lie fallow. It is a great mistake to assume that the middle class has hered- itary abilities far above that of the submerged masses. Genius does not seem to obey the laws of good form which villadom complacently lays down. As Plato, the aristo- crat, had to acknowledge sadly, children of the baser metals are born from parents of the nobler metals and children of the nobler metals from parents who show little sign of excellence. Even if we allow that genius is WHAT SOCIALISM HOPES TO ACCOMPLISH 65 more frequent among those who are financially better off a very big assumption indeed this greater frequency would be more than counterbalanced by the greater pro- portion of the poor in society as at present organized. In other words, it is probable that society is permitting at least half of its talent to go to waste for lack of opportu- nity. Is not this fact sufficient in itself to more than coun- terbalance that selfish activity of the profit-seeker which the economist so lauds? We must remember, moreover, that modern socialism permits the partial existence of cur- rent motives but declares that stimulation is merely a rela- tive matter. If the highest income were twenty-five thousand dollars, it would be as eagerly sought after as a million dollars is now. Very few economists have compre- hended the psychological law of relativity to which they yet appeal in the principle of the diminishing utility of income. But it is a mistake to assume that social energy is lost only in the masses; the motive which stimulates the mem- bers of all classes to save produces effects which are harm- ful on the economic side where the resultant saving is too large. I mean that those who inherit wealth are encour- aged to parasitism. If they avoid the Scylla of parasitism, they easily fall into the Charybdis of a lazy slackness, a good-natured easy-goingness which keeps the personality at a low level of action. Every teacher in an American university knows what I mean; he knows the effect of a secure position in a country permeated by materialistic individualism and materialistic motives. The poor stu- dents are practically always the best students, not because they have the best brains, but because they are alive. It is a pity to see healthy, agreeable boys fall so desperately short of their possibilities just because society, as con- 66 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY trolled by their parents, has such an imperfect idea of what is good for them. Yet, as things are, we cannot altogether blame the individual fathers; it is better to be that type of man than to be thrown into the whirlpool of the present without resources. Thus energy is squandered in all ranks of society because of false standards and eco- nomic disharmony. The case of Carlyle's poor Irish widow who spread typhoid in a neighborhood, causing the death of both rich and poor, has its subtle analogies in the way luxury undermines the stamina of all classes. It would seem, then, that society as at present organized is extremely wasteful of its human resources, just as it is of its material resources, and that socialism hopes to remedy this evil by greater equality of opportunity and a healthier emphasis on human welfare. 1 6. Socialism hopes to make labor-saving devices really saving of labor. The last two centuries have witnessed a marvellous series of inventions adapted to do mechanically what could previously be done only by direct human effort. These inventions have increased productivity immensely and extended its range. The knowledge of nature developed in science was applied so that man was able to unchain the energy stored up in the earth and make it do his bidding. Ingenuity, knowledge and energy combined have led to an almost complete change of industry. But this process of industrial transformation required capital and credit. Out of the union of money with ingenuity and organizing 1 The birth of socialism out of industrialism is what the technical philosopher calls the "heterogeny of ends." Changes give rise to pur- poses and possibilities not previously thought of. Marx saw this, but he mechanicalized or dialectized the process the most natural thing to do in his time. WHAT SOCIALISM HOPES TO ACCOMPLISH 67 ability modern capitalism was born. But, as we have seen, society retained most of the legal principles and social methods of previous eras. Stress was laid upon better methods of production and little attention was given to human cost, consumption and distribution. The con- sequence was that the social possibilities of the new methods were lost sight of in the desire for individual success. The old notions of property were retained and priceless stores of social material such as iron, coal, petro- leum, copper, etc., were handed over to individual owners. Hence the greater share of the increased national dividend as well as the practical control of it was lodged in the hands of the few. The mass of the people became wage-earners competing with one another for the chance to work. Now there is nothing in a machine itself which would make it reduce the hours of labor of those who run it. All depends upon the social use of the machine. This fact can be brought out by certain alternative methods which might have been adopted. We can conceive of a military aristocracy controlling the distribution of the product is such a way that the employers and employees would have only a moderate share of the product and would be forced to work long and arduously. We can conceive, again, of a relatively large and efficient plutoc- racy say of American stock owning and controlling the dividend in such a way that a relatively small number of uneducated foreigners would have to work long hours at low pay while the members of the plutocracy had relatively little to do. In both these cases, we have class rule because the control of the dividend rests in large measure in the hands of a class. It follows that the actual incidence of labor falls on individuals in the manner and degree deter- mined by the social organization. The increase of a leisure 68 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY class does not mean the decrease of human cost in produc- tion. Society may mismanage inventions and get about as much harm as good out of them. But socialism hopes to make machines actually labor- saving by more justly distributing the work and the prod- uct. In this way, all of society will be acutely interested in the character of the things to be done and will pass to obvious luxuries only after a healthy foundation in the necessaries and comforts of life is assured. 7. Socialism hopes to procure a fair degree of leisure for each individual. A real rather than a formal democracy is interested in the development of its citizens in their capacity for en- joyment and achievement. And such a healthy and efficient personality is impossible without a fair degree of leisure. The fault with democracy up to the present is that it has been interested in the machinery of a formal political democracy to such an extent that it has tended to neglect everything else. But should not a true democracy be vitally alert to the value of leisure? Our economic or- ganization has, as a matter of fact, hardly been touched by the currents of thought and feeling which have led to the construction of representative government; it has grown automatically as a result of machinery and better means of communication. The time is come when this machinery will challenge the habits and points of view which political democracy has been cherishing. More and more people will ask themselves why, with our increased capacity for production, so many have to work such a pitiably large part of their waking lives that they are unable to catch even a glimpse of the artistic and intellectual heritage of the race, while others have time to burn, which they waste in pseudo-culture and aimless amusements. Such ques- WHAT SOCIALISM HOPES TO ACCOMPLISH 69 tions will gradually awaken the social conscience in a way they do not while most people have a ready refuge in inherited institutions as final. When an economic democ- racy is seen to be a possibility, these customary sedatives will no longer work. 8. Socialism hopes to achieve a better distribution of human costs. I presume that this is but another way of saying that socialism hopes for more justice. So long as industry is uncontrolled by ethical motives, division of labor and long hours are results of that craze for production as an end in itself which has ruled industry for the last two centuries. But extreme division of labor involves a degradation of the humanity of the workers since it prevents any real stimulus in the task. There must be more social control so that division of labor may be qualified by other com- pensations such as change of occupation and reduced hours. 9. Finally, socialism hopes to bring in its wake a society, healthier physically and morally, and one ever more capable of developing sane and progressive institutions. Condemnation has often been passed upon the ethical and artistic materialism of our present civilization. We have stressed a feverish production at the expense of a sane distribution and a healthy and adequate view of life. The mania for exploitation has ridden us and there has been no adequate balance wheel in our system or ideals to call a halt to our one-sided life. With all due acknowledge- ment of the achievements in art, science and philosophy which have taken place, it yet remains true that these have been the products of specialism and that their in- fluence has not been as gracious and widely extended as could be wished. It is the hope of socialism, as it is of a democracy which is more than formally political, to foster 70 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY a finer spirit than is generally present to-day and to make ever larger numbers of citizens capable of appreciating, if not also of creating, things of beauty and significance. Will it not be a joy to live in a society where people are healthy and contented and have both the time and the training to support experiments along artistic lines? But even a mild approach to such a condition of affairs would justify the industrial re-organization which the socialist hopes to set in progress. It is often asserted that socialism is stronger on its crit- ical than on its constructive side. There can be no doubt that many criticisms made by socialists who were in- capable of taking an evolutionary realistic view of condi- tions were exaggerated and showed a lack of perspec- tive, an inability to see the impersonal movement of society as a whole. He who has a glimpse of better things or is convinced of the injustice and hardship caused by the actual working of institutions is apt to be impatient. Perhaps he does not realize the complexity of the problems involved, perhaps he expects too much imagination and unselfishness from those who are virtually in power. It is a hard question and one over which I have pondered much. Can the moralist throw the blame for the slowness of amelioration of conditions in the United States upon an impersonal society which must grow from phase to phase in an impersonal way? Or is there something more per- sonal about it? Are those individuals who have great weight in the determination of public opinion personally blameworthy because they do not employ their influence hi an overt fashion in favor of reform? Have we the right to expect more of them than they do? Have we a right to expect inspired millionaires and inspired college presidents? What is needed most of all in the United States is an WHAT SOCIALISM HOPES TO ACCOMPLISH 71 aroused public opinion. Out of such an informed and dynamic opinion could be born something of the nature of a social conscience concerning those things which are not yet achieved. And the need for an alert, forward- looking opinion is the justification of all candid criticism of things as they are. The conservative assumes that criticism is of little value to society because he is satisfied with things as they are; so does the so-called practical man because he is engrossed with the present and has no vision. They are wrong in this assumption. We can never have too much of a healthy criticism, the kind of criticism which grows out of reflection upon imperfect yet remediable conditions. America has had enough muckraking. What it now needs is a constructive social revival, a new set of values. CHAPTER IV MISCONCEPTIONS OF SOCIALISM MANY inadequate conceptions of socialism are in posses- sion of the public mind. Of recent years the situation has greatly improved but there is room for further improve- ment. Just because of the importance of a socializing tendency for the future of society, anything which helps to root out these misunderstandings and to supplant them by clear ideas of the principles and methods advocated by modern socialism performs a distinct service. There is need for many writers with differing perspectives and yet with the capacity to think definitely about social condi- tions and to state their conclusions in an unambiguous way. We have here a problem of social pedagogy, and I think we can take it for granted as a general principle that an idea is best grasped when it is looked at from all sides, when it is turned over again and again and presented in all its bearings. When these conditions are fulfilled, misconceptions will gradually fade away and the future of a social principle will depend upon its pragmatic worth. Misconceptions are due to many causes. Sometimes, the presentation of the principle is faulty although the hearers are favorably disposed and are quite capable of grasping the ideas involved. Sometimes, there is a bias in the mind of the listeners which prevents them from doing justice to the ideas : they tend to separate one feature from its context, to commit the fallacy of accent or false em- phasis as the logicians call it. The "inner sophist" is at work and we say that the individual lacks fairness or open- 72 MISCONCEPTIONS OF SOCIALISM 73 ness of mind. Sometimes and this has occurred very frequently in the history of socialism abrupt and doc- trinaire views belonging to earlier stages of the movement are continued into periods which look at things differently. I am sure that socialists themselves are often the greatest .enemies of socialism. To be out of touch with the char- acteristics of public opinion is to commit a pedagogical fault; to advocate methods which break with the spirit of a people is to court neglect if not dislike. Socialism has suffered greatly from these causes of misconception. In this country, for instance, it has only recently begun to secure a fair hearing. It would be a difficult task to distribute the blame for this in any fair measure and to say whether such neglect was due to the character of the propaganda or to the inertness of the social conscience of Americans and their unwillingness to do things collectively. Still it would be well for so- cialists to question themselves to see whether their spirit and the form of their teaching could not be better adapted to the situation they are face to face with. But it must not be forgotten that it has always been the fate of new movements that challenge the current assump- tions and customs to be condemned unheard or else to find in the public mind only caricatures. Such was, for ex- ample, the fate that befell the theory of evolution in the stirring times of the sixties and seventies of last cen- tury. Similar obstacles overwhelmed the Anabaptist movement of the sixteenth century and crushed out ideas which have been revived since then and shown to be valuable. Society is essentially conservative and thinks more of self-preservation than of progress. Only after a movement has become comparatively strong and has secured rootage in the spirit of large numbers of the pop- 74 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY ulation is care taken to investigate it. In the treatment of a new movement, the natural tendency is to follow out the old proverb, "Give a dog a bad name and then hang it." 1 Now socialism has reached the stage where it receives fair consideration and can count upon a pretty just hearing. The socialist should, therefore, feel it his duty to offer as definite an idea of it as a growing movement allows. We have already endeavored to do this in part by indicating the purpose and principle which really guides the modern socialist movement, but it will be well to explain it neg- atively, so to speak, by contrasting its principle with those of other movements and by calling attention to false or hasty applications of this principle. Before going farther, however, I wish to call attention to the fact that significant movements always have themselves partly to blame for ideas which seem to them later malicious misconceptions. We can apply here what a clever English writer has remarked in another connection ! " Fools make fewer mistakes than wise men but they also discover fewer things worth while." No significant movement has gained consciousness of itself all at once. The modern socialist should be the first to declare that mistakes have been made; he should have no false shame about such an admission for every significant movement has had its hasty generalizations and untenable theories. Probably few political theories have been more effective for good than that of Natural Rights yet, in its usual form at least, it is untenable, as acute thinkers have seen since Jeremy Bentham's day. There are no completely final systems of science or philosophy, and it is decidedly improbable that the socialist movement has attained an entirely sat- 1 At one time Mr. Roosevelt was inclined to act in accordance with this MISCONCEPTIONS OF SOCIALISM 75 isfactory science and art of society. Even granting the possession of a true principle which is one with democracy, it is at first necessarily encumbered with all kinds of cru- dities and exaggerations, with too sharp contrasts, with lack of realization of the complexity of the problems in- volved. The dogmatic and finalistic attitude so easily crowds out the critical and evolutionary. To avoid too great dogmatism in theory and in details is the best means to keep a movement fresh and up-to-date. Socialism has at times failed to do this and has therefore done harm to itself. Yet in comparison with ordinary political parties, we may say truly that socialism is like science compared to rule-of-thumb procedure. It seeks to grapple with social problems in a systematic way and offers the founda- tion for something more truly of the nature of statesman- ship than we have had in this country. It represents the recognition that economic relations are to-day fundamental and must be made subservient to the welfare of the cit- izens a view that our sociologists are beginning to grasp but which is yet beyond the horizon of the older parties. But enough has been said to show that the misconcep- tion of the character of modern progressive socialism has been natural; let us now examine some of the false con- ceptions which should no longer be permitted to linger in the public mind. 1. Socialism is not the same as anarchism. It is easy to understand why socialism has so often been confounded with anarchism. Of course, anarchism in its strict sense and anarchism in the journalistic use of the term are by no means the same. Now it is the journalistic use of the word which has led to its confusion with social- ism. To those who see nothing to mend in present con- ditions all suggestions of change are repugnant and are 76 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY felt to strike at the very roots of law and order. When people are accustomed to identify the very existence of society with the principles and methods they have in- herited from their fathers, criticism of these social forms is looked upon as subversive of all order. Such was the situation in America which until the last couple of decades was an agricultural country with a vast domain and com- paratively good opportunities for the energetic individual. Customs, ideals and political and economic principles had grown up and hardened around this favorable situation. Our isolation from Europe, on the one hand, and the sim- plicity of our whole social life, on the other, led us, so to speak, to universalize the methods and principles to which we were accustomed; we would not consent even to con- sider another plan of organization and another set of ideals and swept every suggestion aside as anarchistic. This word was a blanket-term used to cover what was alien and un- settling. The anarchist was the discontented individual, the foreigner, the criminal; the popular imagination identi- fied him with the bomb-thrower and pictured him as a foreigner with a bristling beard, unkempt hair, heavy boots and rough woolen shirt. Americans with this mental equip- ment of custom and prejudice were thrown into unreason- ing terror by the events in Chicago at the time of the great railway strike. That there are individuals who strike blindly against a social organization which seems to them cruel and unjust there can be no doubt. And society should not be surprised that this is the case unless it had good reason to believe that it is always just. But it is obvious that socialists are not individuals who thus strike out against society. Instead, they wish to better the or- ganization of society by legal means. The only feature they have in common with the anarchist is the con- MISCONCEPTIONS OF SOCIALISM 77 yiction that the organization of society is decidedly im- perfect. It may be well, however, to gain a clearer notion of the nature of anarchism as a veritable social movement leaving aside the "propaganda by the deed" which is an adventitious phase which appears only under tyrannies or in countries which have been misgoverned for a long time. Anarchism is the opposite of centralized authority, it is radical individualism. It believes in the method of free association and the abolition of all institutions which lead to conflict of rights. The anarchist always cherishes the hope that individuals are naturally social and sym- pathetic and that artificial institutions separate them and cause the necessity for compulsion and authority. The remedy for the ills of society is, therefore, to do away with these institutions and the central government which sup- ports them. Now the ideal of the anarchist is very good in itself. Were it possible to have a sane and progressive society controlled internally and autonomously by the principle of free association, most intelligent men would advocate it. In matters of the mind, we already approach such an ideal but very few can persuade themselves that it is practical where organization of a dependable and almost automatic kind is imperative as in economic affairs. The socialist stands, as a consequence, for the principle of an intelligent, democratic organization of industry with tested rules which must be abided by until they are changed by public opinion. The socialist is evolutionary and realistic; the anarchist revolutionary and sentimen- tally idealistic. We usually think of the government as the sole source of order and therefore speak of the absence of government 78 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY as anarchy, meaning by this term lawlessness, disorder and social chaos. But are we not making a huge assumption when we take it for granted that government is the sole direct source of social order especially when we have the compulsory function of government in mind? We find, for instance, a prominent publicist declaring that "Au- thority is chiefly economic and not political and public." 1 It is the compulsory aspect of government which the anarchist singles out. He asserts that, so far as it in- volves coercion, it is an attempt to keep in force insti- tutions which are the natural creators of disorder. Most of the order which exists in the civilized world is due to contentment with conditions as they are, and not to government at all. When the coercive branches of gov- ernment pride themselves on the order which exists as though they were the sustainers of it all, they are in the position of Rostand's Chantecleer who believes that his crowing causes the sun to rise. Order has its ultimate dwelling in the temper, character and condition of the citizens. The trouble with us has been that we have dealt in the main with effects rather than with causes, with putting out fires instead of with the prevention of them. ' The anarchist believes, then, that coercive government is the sign and symptom of unjust conditions. With this thesis much of modern social science is in agreement; but the anarchist is not constructive and lapses almost imme- diately into sentimental assertions which lack the nec- essary foundation of a sane realism. The fault which the socialist finds with both anarchist and blind defender of the present regime is essentially the same. Each is governed by abstractions, by words rather 1 Ely, "Property and Contract in their Relation to the Distribution of Wealth," p. 133. MISCONCEPTIONS OF SOCIALISM 79 than by a comprehensive view of society. The one blindly affirms the goodness of government as such and does not trouble himself to separate out the various functions of government and to ask himself how far they are adjusted to the best knowledge of the age; the other sees only a senseless routine of punishment uninspired by a human- itarian purpose. As a matter of fact, the socialist tries to look at these things from the point of view of the radical social scientist, and in no circle is such literature more eagerly read than in socialist groups. The socialist be- lieves that he aims to apply science to life. Thus he is as critical as the anarchist and far more constructive. It is not his purpose to break sharply with the evolution of society but to guide that evolution in the light of the best knowledge and the best ideals. But, while using this knowledge, he can never forget that he is a member of a living movement. As a member, he has a purpose of a practical character, an active relation to society which the social scientist does not always have. The will to create new conditions is active in him. It has sometimes been pointed out that our traditional individualism has more in common with anarchism than with socialism, so far as the texture of society is concerned. Both seek to reduce government to a minimum. An- archism goes farther in this direction because it is critical of the institutions which our individualism regards as almost sacred. In other words, our traditional individual- ism has more sympathy with a coercive, central govern- ment because this is needed to protect property rights. Neither sees the constructive aspects of government. It is, of course, absurd to push antitheses too far and to make them stand for actual movements which are always less doctrinaire than theories. Socialism and anarchism 80 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY represent tendencies which lead in different directions and encourage the adoption of different methods. There can, I think, be little doubt that the methods in line with social- ism are more in touch with our present problems than are those of anarchism. The difference between the two is pragmatic and comes out clearly to view in the history of the movements. 2. Socialism is not identifiable urith syndicalism as such though it welcomes certain tendencies contained in syndical- ism. We must always remember that the socialist movement is complex and is in process of finding itself, that is, of securing a clear notion of both its purposes and its meth- ods. When it is balked or seems to be too stagnant in one direction it is apt to burst forth in a new spurt of energy and effort in an unexpected quarter. The forces of dis- content and of idealism which lie back of the socialist movement are seeking a satisfactory road of advance and the consequence of this experimental impulsion is the appearance of relatively new movements like syndicalism. We may say, then, that syndicalism is an experimental phase of the socialist movement due to the inability of the political form 1 of the movement to contain and ex- haust its energy. There are many misconceptions of syndicalism just as there are many misconceptions of the more conven- tionalized forms of socialism. The term has different meanings in different countries and various writers add 1 A distrust of representative government is abroad and finds one of its expressions in syndicalism. There are well-grounded complaints of incompetence and nepotism. (?/. Lowell, "Public Opinion and Popular Government," p. 130, for American conditions, and Christensen, "Poli- tics and Crowd Morality," ch. VIII, for Europe. MISCONCEPTIONS OF SOCIALISM 81 to these national interpretations, due to peculiar in- dustrial conditions, their own peculiar embellishments. The origin of the term is easily explained and this origin helps to throw light upon the movement itself. Syn- dicalisme is merely the French term for trades unionism. But the labor unions in France have a character some- what different from that possessed by similar move- ments in England and the United States. And syn- dicalism reflects this divergence in history and temper. In the first place, conditions in France have been decidedly different from those in English-speaking countries. The spirit of the movement and the method of its organiza- tions are in large measure an expression of these condi- tions and of the past history of the country. In the second place, the term, borrowed from the French language rather than translated, has furnished the symbol and the stimulus for new and more radical tendencies in the world of labor. The very strangeness of the word made it a fit sign for new departures and new programs. It will repay us to glance at these two factors which have helped to make syndicalism such a significant word. The French labor movement is neither as old nor as firmly founded as the English movement. The American movement, since the disruption of the Knights of Labor, has displayed much of the spirit of the English movement being, perhaps, even more conservative. In contrast to our familiar federation of skilled laborers is the Confedera- tion Generate du Travail, the famous C. G. T. of French newspapers, with its emphasis on the solidarity of labor, its recognition of local autonomy, its revolutionary aims and its loose organization. The C. G. T., as it is usually called, represents a fighting minority of French laborers while its history has been such as to give free rein to theory. 82 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY Partly because of its history, partly because of the in- tellectual character of its leaders, partly because of the relative unimportance of the administrative side of its work, partly because of the history of France itself, the movement has developed features which distinguish it from the solid, unimaginative trades unionism of other countries. Theories usually have their foundation in con- crete facts and it is impossible to understand some of the aspects of French syndicalism apart from the peculiar cir- cumstances of the French labor world. Very few trades have adequate national unions, the unions are weak financially and are compelled to trust to methods which encourage violence. Sectionalism, the tyranny of the minority, class-consciousnes on the part of a few and apathy on the part of the many, insufficient organization are features which do much to explain the temper of the C. G. T. But along with drawbacks of this character go idealism and a more critical reflection on the position of labor than is to be found in America. The proper attitude to take towards this development is neither laudation nor wholesale condemnation; instead, it must be understood and its lessons learned. Now those features which distinguish the French trades union movement from those of other countries have been taken as the elements of the vague movement which is called syndicalism in this country and in England. The term has come to mean revolutionary unionism, unionism with a larger purpose. Discontent with the methods of the craft unions, belief that the time is ripe for industrial unions expressing the solidarity of labor, the feeling that labor is interested in matters of discipline and conditions of work as well as in wages and hours, the hope of more aggressive action, all these motives are at work and roughly MISCONCEPTIONS OF SOCIALISM 83 group themselves under this new term as their symbol. Syndicalism is to the old unionism as socialism is to middle- class reformism. It represents the rising to the surface of ambitions and ideals which had been almost entirely absent from the staid unions with which we are familiar. Just because the term is an importation, just because its meaning is not fixed, it serves as a center of crystallization for ideas and tendencies which look to the future rather than to the past. Syndicalism is an economic movement in the same sense that the trades union movement is. The difference is that it is at once vaguer and more radical. So far as it is revolutionary in its outlook, the chief difference between it and political socialism is that they work in distinct spheres with different problems. The aim of syndicalism is to organize the workers in such a way that they will be able to gain greater control of industry and try out methods of cooperative production. Such is syndicalism at its best; but it has associated with it actions and schemes which cannot meet with the same approval as can its ultimate plans. The tactics which have grown up around syndicalism partake of an anarchist flavor and, as many have pointed out, indicate rather the attitude of despair and weakness than of courage and strength. The problem is not so much whether sabotage is abstractly justifiable in many cases it probably is but whether it is expedient in the long run. The view that the relation between the em- ployer and the employee is one of veiled war is apt to be taken too literally and deductions made that outrage other facts. On the one hand, there is the psychological objection that no group can create a system of ethics which makes them independent of society as a whole. To believe this would be to forget that society is very complex 84 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY and that the economic is only one aspect of it. The syndicalist is in danger of re-instating that phenomenon, the economic man, which even the economists have con- sented to give up. On the other hand, there is the objec- tion that sabotage requires a solidarity which weakly or- ganized workers do not possess. Spies, informers and the employer's weapon of the lockout are formidable obstacles to its successful application. But, above all, the question of its necessity must be raised. Suppose that the morals of the workers could resist it, suppose that public opinion in general would not be outraged to such a degree that it would take the employer's side, suppose that the solidarity of the workers was such that they could present a united front to the employers and to suppose these things is to suppose very much indeed the further question arises, Would illicit injuries be necessary in the struggle? Such solidarity and such class-consciousness would of themselves give the workers a weight in the decision of the industrial problems that would lead to experimental efforts along the lines suggested by them. It is interesting to note that in France to-day less is heard of sabotage than was heard a few years ago. As unions grow in strength, they turn their backs on guerilla warfare. So far, then, as syndicalism stands for a deepening of trades unionism the socialist is in favor of it. The reason for this attitude is that he believes that a new industrial organization cannot be made from the outside and thrust upon those engaged in industry but must rise in part at least from their lives and problems. In Germany, for in- stance, political socialism and trades unionism are in alliance and yet each movement retains its autonomy. Political socialism meets its own parliamentary problems while the organized labor movement faces its own concrete MISCONCEPTIONS OF SOCIALISM 85 situation in an empirical way while guided in its general policy by the idealism and perspective it secures from its contact with socialism. But syndicalism has not always been content to look upon itself as one movement among many. Certain theorists have gone to the extreme of interpreting it as involving the ideal that the producers alone should control industry. As can readily be seen, this ideal, although it is suggestive, is one-sided because it neglects the interests of the consumer. The doctrine of the " Mine for the Miners " with its non-social tendency would lead to a competition among the mass of the workers for preferential advantages as producers and would throw the consumptive side of the social economy into confusion. Monopoly cannot be justified any more for a laboring group than for a cap- italistic group. The only adequate standard is the good of the community as a whole and, to enable this stand- ard to become effective, there must be a larger con- trol than that exercised by the producers. But such a control necessitates the existence of something corre- sponding to the state, although it may well be a state with a different perspective than that which characterizes most present ones. There must be some unifying, coordinating body which can see relations in the large and adjust con- flicting interests in the light of the whole. There is one more point which needs comment because it reveals a weakness in many of the heated controversies of the present. There is a tendency abroad to consider the economic aspect of life as the sole important aspect. Industry has been threatening to overwhelm other phases of human existence and this exaggeration has reflected itself in theory just as it has in every day life. The eco- nomic struggle is so bitter that men see each other as pro- 86 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY ductive agents and forget the other relations which hold between them and lose sight of those enduring values which make the chief glory of human life. When we remember the small part the state of the nineteenth century took in the fostering of common interests, we cannot, however, blame those who see in the political state only an instru- ment of oppression. It is because of this inclination to look upon the state as an instrument of reaction that syndicalism approaches anarchism. It cannot see the democratic state of the future because the plutocratic state of the present shuts out the view. We may say, then, in conclusion, that syndicalism is in many ways a wholesome movement, more progressive than past trades unionism and stressing the importance to the worker of some measure of control over the condi- tions of his labor. The worker must shake himself loose from his apathy and make his contribution to the industrial organization of the future. Those who hope for freedom must deserve it; they must show that they can shoulder responsibility. Any tendency to anarchism comes from narrowness, from a natural bias to over-emphasize certain features of human relationship at the expense of others. Now socialism does stress this wider horizon and is in a position to give a truer perspective to movements which grow out of the toil and moil of particular problems. 3. Socialism is not bureaucratic. Modern socialism has its eye upon the golden mean so admired by the Ancient Greeks; it aims to steer between the Scylla of anarchism on the one hand and the Charybdis of bureaucracy on the other. Is it not in its favor that certain of its enemies accuse it of anarchism while others assert that it is patently bureaucratic? We have tried to show that it agrees with anarchism in its desire for the MISCONCEPTIONS OF SOCIALISM 87 greatest possible amount of social freedom, but seeks to lay a firm economic foundation for this desired freedom; it is concrete, empirical and evolutionary where the latter is abstract, doctrinaire and revolutionary. Let us see how so- cialism hopes to escape the danger of autocratic officialism. It is surprising how wide-spread is this misconception of socialism. How often we hear of socialism as the coming slavery, the servile state, the rule of the minority! It is easy enough to understand why Herbert Spencer and his disciples were led to regard socialism in this light, for they were still dominated by the laissezfaire individualism of the previous epoch. But the truth is that this individ- ualism was not individualistic enough when an individual is protected in property rights of all sorts which give him a differential advantage over large masses of men, how can he dream for a moment that this is true laissezfaire? The individualism of this epoch was too abstract and doc- trinaire and did not consider the only valid test of social procedure, the welfare of the nation in the long run. Experience soon showed that factory laws were necessary if the race were not to degenerate. Thus experience gave the lie direct to the optimistic "let alone" or "let be" of Smith and his followers. The modern attitude seems to reflect concrete experience when it no longer trusts to the working out of supposed natural laws of distribution based on private property and aggressive selfishness. Adminis- trative nihilism, as Huxley called it, has gone by the board in practically all modern states and we in America have been recent witnesses of its departure. Social control is the order of the day enforced by the logic of the facts. Hence, the question comes to be, Does socialism offer the best form of social control? It is really astonishing what pictures of the socialist 88 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY state are drawn by those who should know better. They must get their inspiration not from the platform of the socialist party but from traditional ideas of socialism as paternalistic and autocratic and prone to meddle. In short, the assumption is that the government is something apart from the citizens and not the citizens organized cooperatively. It seems impossible for large numbers of people to realize that democracy means that people should at last be able to do things for themselves in a social way. Now what people do for themselves cannot be paternal- ism. It simply testifies to the fact that the government is no longer a semi-caste affair but an instrument which the citizens have at last learned to handle for their own benefit. It would seem, then, that this misconception of socialism is largely due to the lingering on in legal and business circles of the old external notion of government. Modern socialism does not begin "with a contempt for ideals of liberty based on a confusion between liberty and competition" nor does it conceive mankind "as in the mass a helpless and feeble race which it is its duty to treat kindly." Those who are acquainted with the extremely democratic machinery by means of which the socialistic party is directed in America can only regard the above statements as due to a lack of knowledge. They in- volve a misconception which can thrive only in one who has had no first-hand contact with the socialism of to-day. Nowhere is there a more persistent attempt to work out the problem of practical democratic control. There is an interest in the process as well as in the result an attitude which is deadly to bureaucracy. Socialists speak of the bureaucratic interpretation of socialism as state capitalism and deny that it has much in common with democratic socialism. It lacks that social MISCONCEPTIONS OF SOCIALISM 89 purpose which we stressed so much in our definition of socialism. Thus it is dominated by the aim of economic efficiency and retains the traditional separation of eco- nomics from the larger problem of human welfare. Mere government ownership by itself does not meet the require- , ments of the socialist ideal since it depends upon the nature of the government and the spirit in which enterprises are run whether such ownership represents much of an advance over private control. The consumer may gain while the producer's lot is little bettered. While syndicalism places too much stress upon the producer, state capitalism is apt to look at things too much from the standpoint of the con- sumer. The social mean is half-way between these two extremes. As a matter of fact, I do not think state capitalism of a harsh type is to be expected in democratic countries. If we can judge at all from the situation in Australasia, the general spirit of society will give the temper in which government ownership will be administered. Even in the United States, the usual contention is that the lower grades of government employees are treated better than in private enterprises. Yet changes in control and owner- ship are not in themselves very revolutionary and it would be absurd to expect very marked improvements in social ethics immediately to follow them. While captains of industry are permitted autocratic control of their em- ployees, we must not be surprised to find that high govern- ment officials trained in the same school take a similar at- titude and forget that they are the servants of the people. Thus bureaucracy is a psychological state of mind more than an economic system. The way to protect ourselves against it is to study the social conditions which foster it. The methods of control which are slowly developing in 90 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY trades unions and in political institutions will undoubtedly be applied as a check upon any tendency to the over- growth of officialism. 1 4. Socialism is not communism. It is not uncommon to meet with individuals who think of socialism as advocating the equal division of property, taking from those who evidently have too much for their needs and giving to those who, as evidently, have too little. Such a static division of property without any modifica- tion of the industrial system would obviously only cause dissatisfaction on the one hand and laziness on the other. It is not, therefore, to be wondered at that the crushing retort is aimed at socialism, so understood, that it would disorganize social relations and would lead to no lasting benefit since the old inequality would soon return because of differences in ability and thrift. But it should be clear by now that socialism is interested in processes and in- stitutions and not merely in mathematical results reached by a governmental deux ex machina. Only a crude in- dividualism could dream for a moment of such unscientific solutions for social problems. Popular misconceptions of socialism, in this country particularly, are cast in the vein of eighteenth century individualism; the importance of processes and institutions is hardly understood. Were this country still mainly an agricultural nation, it would theoretically be possible to divide the land up into farms of equal extent but there would be no way of guaranteeing 1 "Whatever the perils may be in countries which have inherited a self-sufficient bureaucracy from a monarchical past, there would be little danger here that permanent officials properly supervised by non- professionals would be more seriously out of touch with public sentiment than temporary officials supervised by professional politicians." Lowell, " Public Opinion and Popular Government," p. 290. MISCONCEPTIONS OF SOCIALISM 91 that the incomes derived would be the same. Socialism deals with fact, not with fiction, and proposes to improve processes and institutions so that desirable results may flow from them with the least interference from outside. But communism, strictly speaking, stands for the owner- ship and enjoyment of things in common. What may be called local communism was very usual in early times and still lingers in Russia and among primitive races in many parts of the world. Such communism must, however, be qualified before it can be understood by western nations. In backward countries the individual is not the free, un- trammelled person we are accustomed to, not one who plans and acts out his own life on his own initiative, but one who obeys customs and usages of the most rigid sort. He is the individual whose life is merged in that of the group to a degree that we can hardly now conceive of. In such communism life must be very simple and the individ- ual not very self-conscious, or else there must be some very strong bond of union between the members such as reli- gious sentiment or fierce local patriotism. It is for this psychological reason that modern experiments in com- munism have succeeded, in the main, only when under- taken by religious sects. As a matter of fact, agricultural communism is scarcely more efficient than individual enterprise and has obvious drawbacks with human nature as it is. Industrial com- munism is still less workable because it would involve more complex conditions and inter-relations. The psy- chological atmosphere suitable to communism in its primitive form has been outgrown as man has passed from status and custom to contract and law; and it is very doubtful whether anything corresponding to it is either likely or desirable. Why, I shall try to show. 92 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY The prime difference between socialism and communism lies in the method of distribution of the earned income. Socialism holds to the method of private income and pri- vate property while communism denies its propriety. In this regard, I take it, socialism harkens to the voice of human experience and is in line with evolution. Free- dom of choice and ability to obtain some degree of self- expression are nearly inseparable from the possession of income privately controlled. So long as this income is secured justly, the individual is better for the responsibility which it involves and society is richer for the number of experiments going on in its midst. Distribute respon- sibility over society as a whole and the consequences of his actions do not strike home to the individual directly and poignantly enough to control his future conduct. Any moderately practical communism adapted to the level which society has actually reached would necessitate either equality in the use of the community's income really a form of distribution or the enforcement of sumptuary laws a method of control apt to conflict with the freedom of the individual. Communism would seem, therefore, to be vaguer, more sentimental and more in- clined to bureaucracy than socialism; perhaps it is for this reason that so many of the past Utopias have been com- munistic rather than socialistic. As Aristotle points out in his criticism of Plato's Republic, communism aims at too great a unity and tends to despise the actual incentives and motives which work in human life. Were human nature other than it is or were the national dividend far greater, communism might be the ideal form of social organization. But it is foolish to forget historically rooted values and habits in one's theories, for humanity will not. CHAPTER V OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM Now that we have called attention to the more im- portant misconceptions of socialism we are in a position to examine objections. We shall, I think, discover that many of these objections are based on erroneous ideas of the kind of society that modern socialism advocates. When this is the case, our prior study of current misconceptions will enable us to dismiss such objections quite summarily. But other criticisms cannot so easily be set aside for they point to difficulties not enough noticed by socialists. It is only human not to go too far afield to hunt out problems and, with the best intention to be philosophical in their attitude, socialists have been at times inclined to be at ease in Zion.* There is much truth in the old proverb that our enemies are often our truest friends since they keep us alert and progressive* The proper kind of^ejie^ay to have is the intellectual tyge who does not keep on swing- ing the same old club but invests in a rapier and forces us to examine all the links in our armor. There have been altogether too few of this variety of anti-socialist for the good of socialism. The majority of opponents have been too little stimulating because uninformed or merely prej- udiced. What socialism needs to-day is penetrative, sym- pathetic and basic criticism. By examining objections to socialism, we shall at one and the same time test the principle of the movement and see how it must develop in order to meet actual conditions. No social ideal can be considered true which is not prac- 94 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY tical, for the simple reason that such an ideal has no significance for human life.XAll ideals must be held sub- ject to a progressive, empirical verification. J^- So far as socialism has neglected to stress that interaction between theory and fact by means of which theories are modified and give rise to specific plans, it has thought abstractly. But just because the results of experiments cannot be anticipated, this incompleteness has not been altogether the fault of socialism. We must not demand of it what we do not demand of the scientist. And if a society like that of the United States is unwilling to make social experiments, it must expect to progress very slowly and to see other nations forge ahead and become the leaders. But we are now aware that political democracy was also perforce guilty of abstractness and of the mistakes that a land of deductive, over-simplified abstractness brings in its wake. Jacksonian democracy with its crude notions of equality which ignored fitness for specific duties has ceased to be our ideal. Even representative government no longer has the clear meaning it was once supposed to have; should mere arbitrary tracts of territory be repre- sented or should various social groups find their conscious expression in legislature and congress? Once more, we have found some difficulty in working out the proper mechanism for political democracy. The party-system sprang up naturally but led to corruptions which nullified the purpose of democracy. The caucus and the boss and the long ballot, all arose to bewilder and thwart popular sovereignty. And yet political democracy was worth trying in spite of all these unforeseen mishaps and diffi- culties. Life is a process of experiment and we can't get to results without going through the process. If people would only grasp this fundamental principle, half of the OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM 95 objection to democracy which is more wide-spread than is usually supposed would vanish. Wisdom comes with experience and only a small portion of this hard-bought experience can be anticipated. Humanity is never quite certain of what it can do until it actually tries. I Now socialism has the advantage of this political evolution while it will have new problems of its own to meet and solve.\But so long as the movement is supple, malleable and experimental it will win out. It cannot, however, for that very reason lay down beforehand a set scheme in all its entirety. It is becoming ever more clear that social values in which true liberty, social justice and relevant equality are the prime ideals at work are guiding the onward march of events. More often inconspicuous than in the focus of public consciousness, they win by the constancy of the pressure they exert. The modern socialist is convinced that this process of development will lead along the lines his movement has sketched ;J\he believes that the society of the future will be a socialist society just because that is the only type which is fitted to express humanity at its higher levels."^ The socialist no longer belittles the part which choice plays in the evolution of society although he is still impressed by the massiveness of the process and the importance of changes which at first had no obvious relation to social ideals. But this prediction limits itself to the more general lines of social structure. It is necessary to grasp this limitation if we are to appreciate the injustice of those criticisms of socialism which assume that it is a ready-made scheme with no capacity to adapt itself to changing conditions, f Socialism is a movement and not a fixed system* It is this fact that is so often forgotten by its critics. No vital 96 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY movement, calling into action all the powers of reflection which its followers possess and guarded by the warnings of opponents, can help being influenced by the time-spirit. Modern socialism is realizing that it can be truly scientific while being little more than a purpose, a principle and a direction for experiment. With this general understanding of the empirical tenor of modern socialism in mind, let us pass to a careful con- sideration of objections. These may be divided into two groups, those which concern objections to the ethical founda- tions of socialist theory, on the one hand; and, on the other, those which assert that socialism is impracticable. While this classification of objections to socialism is as complete as can be expected and covers the field, it does not exclude a certain amount of overlapping. We shall find the factor of misconception working in the most subtle way in both of the groups. Those who object to socialism because they regard it as anarchistic must be referred to the contrast between it and anarchism which was drawn in the preceding chapter. Socialism believes in law and order but desires this social peace to grow out of the contentment which an effective and concrete justice will inevitably bring in its wake. It dislikes repression because it regards the need for the exertion of external authority as a symptom of maladjust- ment in the social organization. It is sometimes said by those who wish to surprise the defender of the present order that socialism demands more laws than are in ex- istence to-day rather than fewer. This statement is par- tially true, yet it may be misleading. While unregulated competition and the exaltation of private property rights have led to conditions in which social disunion and chaotic individualism threaten to be the distinguishing marks of a OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM 97 warring society, and have thus given point to the rejoinder of the socialist to the conservative, that present society is a species of unconscious anarchism, they have also enforced the passage of complicated sets of laws purposing to maintain these competitive and selfish groups in some sort of a working adjustment. Thus anti-social individualism combined with rights has, as the reverse of the shield, an increase of laws supposed to establish the rules of the game. I believe that few reflective individuals can help feeling that the tremendous complication of modern law is an indictment of the character of our social organization. Happy are those people who are so related to one another that they need few laws! I cannot regard the multiplica- tion of laws as a favorable sign; instead, it seems to me a confession of unnecessary complexities. In science, the first stage of development is always more complicated in its expression than later stages; the maturity of a science coincides with simplicity of statement: a few clear prin- ciples are discovered which bind the field into one and make the old external and haphazard groupings no longer satisfactory. Now the same sequence of events will probably present itself in government. An unsatisfactory organization of society involves a system of laws if social disaster is not to intervene. But this scholastic appeal to laws and the belief in their necessity and absolute value implies shortsightedness and unwillingness to probe for causes. It is probable that socialism if it does represent a higher order will do away with the causes of that efflorescence of legal and legislative machinery which puzzles many to-day. In place of the cycles and epicycles of the present Ptolemaic system we shall have the noble harmony and simplicity of the Copernican era of society. A society which rejoices in doctors and lawyers has lost 98 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY i its sense of perspective. Just as the science of hygiene should decrease the need for doctors as mere practitioners, so the science of society should so re-organize human rela- tions that they will fall of themselves into a self-controlled harmony. Thus the transitional era between the present order and a more social order may be characterized by the passage of more laws especially if trial and error rather than intelligent statesmanship be applied to the problems which will arise but, when the rapids are passed and quiet water is reached, the pilot will not need to shout orders at every moment. Let us hope for the day when the economic order will largely run itself as do the diges- tive organs of a healthy man and the state can give its' attention to the values which make human life significant. Having said sufficient in regard to an objection based on a current misconception of socialism, I shall now pass to "criticisms involving an attack on the fundamental principle of socialism. X^There are two main classes of critics.^There are, first, those who believe that socialism has too narrow a conception of justice,^a conception which does not take into consideration the indeter- minateness of social values. *The other group of critics assert that socialism so interprets its principle that it for- gets the extra-deserts due to ability.^ Both these objections force socialism to reflection upon its principle; it must always face the possibility that its perspective has induced it to take too static and mathematical a view of justice and liberty. The spirit in which a principle is interpreted is as significant as the principle itself, and it may well be that the more subtle social values are neglected by those who demand the enforcement of the letter of the bond. Certain critics of socialism complain that it does not OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM 99 recognize sufficiently the part played by ability in produc- tion. The industrial genius, assert these thinkers, by means of his inventions and his perfecting of business organization makes possible a production many thousand times greater than would otherwise have been possible. Now the socialist has been so dominated by hostility to the employer that he has forgotten the importance of this qualitative factor in the industrial world. He has con- fused profit with the actual earning capacity of the em- ployer, with his marginal utility, to use an economic term. So obsessed has he been by the spectre of exploitation that he has levelled down all the agents in industry and been led to assume that they do essentially the same sort of work and should get about the same monetary reward. In other words, just because socialism has been pre- dominantly a movement among the manual workers and those who sympathize with them because of their miserable condition, it has refused to analyze the various factors actually cooperative in modern industry. Motivated by passion rather than by reflection, it has been led to take an extreme position. This natural tendency has, more- over, been reenforced by the unfortunate labor theory of value advocated by Karl Marx, a theory never clearly and unambiguously stated and obviously lending itself to a purely quantitative and dead-level view of production. If the dictum, that a man should get what he earns, ex- presses the outlook of socialism, then it can be shown that the employer actually earns far in excess of the ordinary laborer, that his utility is greater .v Such, in a general way, is the reply of the business man trained in economics. Very few anti-socialists, however, have been as moder- ate in their criticisms of socialism as this. Mr. Mallock, for instance, has come forth as the champion of the prin- 100 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY ciple that a man produces that amount of wealth which would not have been produced at all had his efforts not been made. The obvious objection to such a proposition is that modern industry is a group affair intimately bound up with social values of all sorts. All efforts are neces- sarily cooperative and it is impossible to say that one fac- tor is by itself responsible for all that is produced, just be- cause it is a necessary element. Besides, production can- not be separated from consumption and from the whole order of the social state which makes value possible and which gives the accumulation of knowledge and achieve- ment which itself is the causal antecedent of new achieve- ment. The inventor does not work in a vacuum and there- fore must be chary of absolute claims. The notion of John Locke that an individual has a right to that which he has himself produced requires considerable qualification before it can be accepted. In the first place, the agency of one individual must be capable of being completely separated from that of others. In the second place, all individuals must have the same opportunity. So under- stood, the ^proposition only signifies that individuals should be rewarded according to the results of the mar- riage of their effort and their ability. Now a right im- plies a recognition by society and a recognition must have some reason back of it; but what can this reason be but a social one? If it is for the common good that individuals should receive that which they produce, granted that this can be determined, then they will be given that right. Surely, as we have seen in an earlier chapter, there is no innate and absolute right to the product of effort and ability. But, if this be the case, there is no need for society to set itself the impossible task of trying to find out what each individual produces. The OBJECTIONS TO -SOCIALISM- 101 measure must be social and concern the use made of the reward and the control which the reward exerts over the agent's efforts. If an inventor obviously squandered the money which he received and injured his capacity to invent in so doing and would invent with little return, it would be for the good of society to limit his royalty to this small amount. But squandering is a relative matter; most of those whom society permits to secure excessive wealth make an unsatisfactory use of the excess and thus direct industry in channels which decrease the production of necessaries and significant goods. We may conclude, then, that, while ability does undoubtedly increase production and is extremely valuable socially, the actual development and application of the ability of one individual cannot be isolated from social conditions in the large and that, were such ^isolation from organic conditions possible, it would not form the basis of absolute and intuitive rights. Soci- ety inevitably selects the common good as the standard of rights, and the application of this standard must be guided by the empirical reactions of individuals, these reactions being relative to the character, first, of the in- dividuals taken distributively, and, second, of the ethical temper of the age. The time may come in spite of what our business men say when the average hard-headed employer may demand not much more than twice as much as the genius in science to whom most of our modern in- ventions are at least indirectly due. The social psychology of pecuniary reward has by no means been sufficiently worked out. Society babied and flattered its business type during the nineteenth century. But demand is itself a relative thing. The supply-price of managerial ability is determined by conditions which affect expectation. Just as the wages demanded by the 102 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY . average laborer is a function of his standard of living and of what he hopes he may get, so the salary or profits of the employer is controlled in very large measure by certain customary expectations. The economist is just beginning to realize the significance of the psychological principle of relativity for his field. If opportunity were made more equal, the wages of managers would undoubtedly drop and a series of pecuniary contrasts at a lower level and yet equally stimulating would develop. We do not yet know what the supply-price of managerial ability is, because we have not varied sufficiently the social conditions which affect it. It may well be that it is little, if any, higher than that of skilled labor. The beliefs of the economist and of the publicist have probably been influenced unconsciously by the prejudices of their associates in the business world. How readily humanity takes its customary scale of re- ward as a matter of divine right ! A little reflection will, I feel sure, convince the most prejudiced that there is no a priori correlation between any economic function and a definite position in the scale of reward. The social situa- tion is the fate which ultimately settles the temporary empirical correlation. These psychological and sociological reflections enable us to formulate an adequate reply to the objection of the business man. The business man has taken, as due to himself, factors which are impersonal and probably tem- porary. The supply of managers has* been limited by social conditions such as lack of education and private control of capital. Under present conditions, certain fields tend to become the monopoly of established classes. Why? Because the social organization is such that these classes can obtain control. A quotation from a typical discussion of modern economics may bring this principle more clearly OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM 103 before the reader. "To say that the earnings of employers are settled by demand and supply is not to demonstrate that it is open to everybody who is prepared to undertake the burden and is capable of doing the work, to make the employer's income. It is still necessary in almost all cir- cumstances, that a person should be possessed of some substantial resources if he is to thrust himself into the employing class. Moreover, it is generally requisite that he should have received a certain kind of training, and be in certain relations with particular sections of the business world, to enable him to make a start with fair prospects of success." 1 The greater income of the employer is due, then, to conditions which are logically external to the foundation of rights. He has no inalienable right to a higher salary than the laborer he employs. If the indus- trial organization can be modified in such a way that re- turns are more equitably divided, such a change would correspond to an increase in social welfare. It is evident that those economists who assert that men get what they earn forget that the market works within a complex set of institutions which are imperfect. We are thus in a position to assert that the social wel- .^ fare is the only foundation for any adequate theory of distribution. The defender of the reward of the capitalist really occupies the same standpoint as the Marxian whose theory of value and of distribution he condemns. The ideal is rather to secure a distribution which will make for a healthy and sane society and to make this distribution as automatic as possible. Predation is primarily un- earned income and, as a rule, unearned income does not work for the good of society. The socialist believes that our present institutions and practices encourage the 1 Chapman, "Political Economy," p. 192. 104 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY appearance of a monopoly element because the control of our industrial life is too much in private hands. It would seem, then, that if extra-reward be offered to ability it should be because it pays society to have this occur. That it does pay society goes without saying; but no set ratio of reward can be deduced from this fact. The problem of reward for all activities becomes exper- imental. The socialist believes that society has not en- couraged a valid competition because industry has not been public. 1 The dice have been loaded by the very nature of our characteristic social relations. Society must more and more determine what it wants and mould in- stitutions to serve its purposes. The second objection to the principle of socialism is vaguer in character and reflects what we may call class- aristocracy. Socialism, it is said, does not give the proper foundation for values of a delicate and fragile kind. It has so narrowed the conception of justice that it forces it into conflict with aesthetic values which have their rootage in social conditions which are not founded on the superficial justice which appeals to the unimaginative. The only sort of justice which can nourish a noble civilization is an indirect one, an element of faith and apparently costly experimentation must intervene. A crude balance in the hand of justice is apt to frustrate that slow maturation of art and of its proper, personal soil which means so much for the more significant aspects of life. Too great haste to secure results, too curious and critical an investigation of the sources whence the finer phases of uneconomic pro- 1 Probably the banking profession furnishes the best example of this tendency toward lessened internal competition. Let the reader compare it with the medical profession hi this regard. In this latter we often have over-competition. OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM 105 duction spring may dry up their channels. Culture and art and speculation, say these thinkers, are delicate flowers which require an atmosphere and surroundings which a democracy mainly interested in the exact distribution of dollars and cents cannot supply. A sort of aristocratic dolce far niente wedded to the liberty which hereditary property makes possible maintains the psychical condi- tions from which an indirect reaction upon life, in terms of art, may arise. The world is too pressingly present to the individual who must struggle with life to earn a livelihood for him to gain perspective. He is so immersed in it that he cannot study it and quizzically play with it; he is in- timidated and has not the courage to ignore it, or treat its pretences humorously, or use it boldly for purposes of his own. In short, the thesis of these critics of socialism is that of aristocracy. Human life would be shorn of its significance if society were composed only of countless masses of mediocre individuals well-fed and groomed and jealously demanding that all should be subject to the same direct, economic control. Leisure, freedom, an infinite variety of combinations, a certain irresponsibility alone furnish the exotic and spacious soil in which genius flowers. For all its exaggeration, the thesis of aristocracy de- mands careful consideration. A peasant democracy for all its ethical robustness does not reach the summum bonum of human capacity. And, if socialism necessarily implied the universalization of the peasant outlook on life, its cautious elimination of chance, its monotony, its over- valuation of the tangible, its demand for immediate fruits, it might seem, to the sympathizer with the common lot, the most satisfactory condition possible to man; while, to the adventurous lover of the demonic and the unusual, of subtle harmonies and daring creations, it might appear as 106 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY the apotheosis of an essentially unmeaning villadom. I do not wonder that those who think of socialism as the multiplication of fat contentment, or the reign of the phil- istine in the land, object to it so vigorously in spite of the obvious evils to which the uncontrolled market of to-day leads. Just because they are really interested in the serious values of life and are not defenders of the status quo for selfish reasons, these critics issue a challenge to socialism which it must take up. In a word, these individuals are advocates of the present order of things because it works, because values find expression, because a large number find liberty and because it furnishes conditions fit for the devel- opment of art, philosophy, science and literature. While they admit that excrescences exist which might well be eliminated, that reforms of various sorts need to be worked out, they yet maintain that the present institutions are essentially correct, that they justify themselves by their fruits, and that a hasty and superficial idea of justice, which looks down rather than up, is more apt to lower the level of civilization than to elevate it. The possession by all of caviar and autos is not the end of statesmanship. Such, in a general way, is the second objection to the principle of socialism. The first thing which must be done in meeting this ob- jection fairly is to eliminate the exaggeration in it. On the economic side, our present civilization is not so much aristocratic as plutocratic. An aristocratic society is sup- posed to have a sense of values and to cherish those fea- tures of life which cast a splendor of achievement over humanity. Suppose we grant this as a defining concep- tion of aristocracy, are we by that fact compelled to admit that such an aristocracy ever existed? Must we find its realization in the rigid subordinations of the military OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM 107 period when mere safety was the chief good, when, as Stendhal remarked, " not to be killed and to have in winter a good suit of skins was for many people the supreme happiness?" Aristocracy is a very relative thing when looked at historically. Aristotle finds difficulty in his .Politics in pointing out clear instances of it and is there- fore much more lenient to democracy than is Plato. Cer- tain conservatives look back to the English squirearchy as furnishing an example of this ideal control of affairs by the competent few, but those who have read Fielding or Smollett, or have read the accounts of the travels of for- eigners in the England of that day may be allowed to have their doubts. I am strongly inclined to believe that the aristocratic myth is largely without historical foundation. But even those who idealize the pseudo-aristocracies of the past do not, as a rule, claim that those in control of society were the creators of literature, painting, sculpture, philosophy and science. They were simply the class of effective appreciators, effective because of their social and financial status. In other words, they were the patrons who encouraged the poor artist or poet, gave leisure and protection to the scholar and withheld the philosopher from the ignorant wrath of the multitude. Were these values to exist and without them man's Me would be bare indeed an effective demand was necessary and this could manifest itself only through a leisure class. It is for this reason that patronage and art have so often been re- garded as correlatives. Now it is to the honor of the princes and bankers of the Renaissance that they appre- ciated art to the extent that they did. They and the Church have gained exceeding merit in the eyes of his- torians and of the lovers of the beautiful because of the assistance they rendered. But it might not be so edifying 108 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY if the psychological motives back of this patronage were laid bare. Conspicuous display and rivalry were by no means absent. Be that as it may, the time is past for patronage; for it needs the existence of caste distinctions if it is not to wound the artist so deeply in the depths of his personality that his mind and hand are palsied. Where art and literature are dependent upon fashion, they have no sure foundation; the Age of Queen Anne is succeeded by the period of the Georges. The only certain basis is that which is being gradually built up for it, an educated public in which all phases of opinion and all sorts of tend- encies find their echo. We may conclude, then, that it is the dilettante and not the true artist who demands the hot-house sort of existence and surroundings which the defender of present conditions asserts to be necessary to the development of a delicate art. Great art is simple, virile and profound, and can flourish only when men are in touch with the verities of life. And they cannot be in touch with these verities if classes are isolated from one another as they are at present. The spirit of this age is not favorable to real culture and disinterested inquiry, because our institutions have thrown us into the maelstrom of a vicious circle. Those who are safe from the worst eddies of the industrial whirlpool yet feel its fascination and effects in countless ways. Mate- rially out of it, they are psychologically subject to its magnetic influence. They know that they constitute only the fringe of society yet they try to convince themselves that they are the roof and crown of things. Possessing leisure without responsibility, conspicuousness without essential merit, education without significant ideals, the limited class which chance and one-time fitness for the economic struggle as it was staged has made our aristocracy OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM 109 function with the selfish incompetency which is to be ex- pected. How can art surge out of these disheartening jealousies, isolations, poverties and smug superfluities? It is at present so largely a symbol of class^diffejcejice&^ it is in one group with a trip to Europe, a summer cottage and a touring-car. The ethical materialism of the present rests on the existence of unethical distinctions in our social institutions which condemn large numbers to a life of unremitting struggle while a favored class have a control which their general mental capacity does not warrant. How can a sweet and sane and penetrative art arise in such an atmosphere? The tradition of a technique fitted for other times can be transmitted through the medium of an artificial culture but the spirit which will blow into it the breath of life is absent. But it would be false to the facts to draw too pessimistic a picture of the intellectual and artistic life of the present. To do so would be to drop into the onesidedness of devotees of medieval art. Human nature is too complex and is gifted with too many interests to be completely dominated by any one aspect of life. Some men are born artists just as others are naturally scientists and business organizers and philosophers. Thus there are many strands of tradi- tion which allure their chosen and lead them from the mart to more silent places. No one tendency in society no matter how blatant and omnipresent can bend all minds to do it homage. Human nature reacts selectively and, where personality has the freedom that it has to-day, we should expect groups to stand out against the cruder and shallower things of life. There are large numbers in society to-day who have only themselves to blame if they have led superficial lives. The socialist must not make the mis- take of over-estimating the value of external goods. A cer- 110 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY tain amount of income and of leisure is necessary to a de- veloped life, but this minimum is soon reached. Changes in the industrial system which would give the mass more leisure and a healthier standard of living would not of themselves do more than raise what the statistician calls the mode. Achievement of a high grade would not in- evitably follow. That would depend upon the spirit which developed in such a society. He who naively thinks that New York can be made an Athens by destroying the Bowery and the East Side has indeed a mechanical view of life. It is as absurd to expect a millennium when the poor are better off as to look for Kansas to produce a Goethe or Hegel as soon as the farmers pay their mort- gages. The socialist must not lose balance and drop into the customary classification of society into sheep and goats, the rich and the poor. But these cautions against the romantic side of socialism are no justification of injustice. Looking at things in the large, then, we may conclude that the aristocratic thesis commits a double fallacy. It looks backward rather than forward and forgets that society has outgrown the caste attitude which made benevolent patronage a condition of artistic achievement. In the second place, it is short-sighted and is unable to realize that processes are as important as results. It may take time to build a healthy foundation for society, and much bungling and inefficiency may intervene, but the result in the long run will far exceed what could be accom- plished on a more artificial basis. It is easy for an isolated portion of society which has obvious privileges to over- estimate its own importance, to forget that legal status does not always coincide with actual function. In spite of its exaggeration and of its evidently faulty localization of the creative elements of modern society, OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM 111 the aristocratic thesis serves as a counterbalance to the almost equally erroneous idealization of the mass of the manual workers so frequently found among romantic socialists. Because the social organization has been such that the working-classes, so called, have not had a square deal, it does not follow that they are the seat of all the virtues and capacities and that the thrusting of power into their hands will lead to a millennium. There is no good reason to suppose that the average of ability is as high in the economically-submerged classes as in those which have been more successful; while there has been much nonsense in the adoration of blue blood, it is probably true that the middle class at least has selected the more energetic of those below as recruits. We know too little of the laws of heredity and of variation to make any definite statements as to the distribution of ability, but we can at least affirm that there is no good reason to assert that potential ability is exceptionally high in the proletariat. But raw ability is, itself, insufficient to found a renewal of civic life upon. Social habits and traditions, recognized standards, wide experience, training, all these are necessary to intelligent action. Now a sort of social heredity is the pre-requisite of the effective presence of certain values and interests and this heredity cannot be created offhand hi an eman- cipated class, nor can it be injected from outside; it must grow up slowly as the result of the operation of new stimuli and wider opportunities. The revolutionary transference of political and economic power to those who have had lit- tle chance to find themselves, in that subtle and complex life which we call civilization, would probably lead to the rise of a sort of vandalism at least to the enthronement of philistinism. But it is only against the romantic school of democracy that the aristocratic thesis has its truth. 112 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY So far, then, as modern socialism is evolutionary, it stands for the hastening of a process which has both ethics and aesthetics in its favor. It works for the extension of opportunity to all and the re^moyaLot special privileges, from, the jew, and this out of conviction that the free cir- culation of ideas and ideals increases their strength and number. Community feeling and living, social respon- sibility and an almost universal acknowledgement of the things which are worth while furnish an environment in which noble and significant lives will be far less infrequent than they are to-day. Such an enlightened democracy has its conditions and it is one of the chief aims of socialism to further these without losing sight of the fact that they are means. Until the defender of privilege can prove that the radical extension of leisure and education will bring in its wake a shallow and facile epicureanism which will crowd out all serious values, his objection to socialism can- not be regarded as valid. There is in socialism an element of the "will to believe," of 'a faith in the decisions of the multitude, of belief in the reach and effectiveness of cooperative planning, of hopeful acquiescence in the guidance exercised by an educated public opinion. Hence, socialism is in large measure prophetic and beckons a people to social creation. And shall we be proud to pro- claim that we have no vision and no yearning to create col- lectively? The inertia of society is the cause of most of its evils, for there are few wrongs which we have not the power to right if only we had the unified will to grapple with them. The obstacles in the path of cooperation are, then, psychical rather than physical in character. What we must wait for is the gradual birth of a spirit of social crea- tion, a spirit which will be born out of the untiring effort of kindly and reflective men and women to ameliorate in- OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM 113 dustrial conditions and to uplift the general temper of the age. Such a spirit meeting half-way a movement among the manual workers to assert their manhood in their rela- tions to their employers would surely lead quickly to some- thing of the nature of real co-partnership and cooperation. But we must never forget that a valid cooperation must rest upon the moral and mental integrity of the citizens. Increasing education, accepted responsibility and the pervasive influence of social feelings furnish the only foun- dation upon which an industrial democracy may base itself. Let not this fact, basic as it is, intimidate us, how- ever, for the stature of freedom comes only to those who have accepted the responsibilities and penalties of freedom. It is this principle of a sound psychology which the true democrat must appeal to as his final answer to the objec- tions of the conservative. And I speak from my own ex- perience when I say that I know of nothing more deaden- ing than a petty bureaucracy resting upon the economic dependence of those it rules. There will, however, be no spiritual magic in terms and rules. The ultimate salvation of a people will be spiritual, intellectual, volitional. It is this soul of a people which creates its institutions, choosing those which best express and forward its aspirations. And if we, as a people, desire this spiritual unity which has in it the creative power to make democracy more than a cum- bersome political form, we cannot remain divided into masters and men, controllers and controlled, the haves and the have-nots, the dependent and the independent. Our future will be determined by our solution of the economic question; but this solution will express our spiritual quality and our intelligence. Let us now turn to a consideration of some of the prac- tical difficulties which have been urged against socialism. CHAPTER VI OBJECTIONS AND TENDENCIES APART from a similar attitude towards socialism itself, it is impossible to treat objections to socialism in the crit- ical and realistic spirit in which they should be treated. Were we defending some Utopian form of socialism or some hard-and-fast collectivism looked upon as a ready- made panacea, this spirit of approach would be psycho- logically impossible. He who is on the defensive and has bound up his mental integrity with some fixed scheme can never be fair in his reception of objections and suggestions. Above all things we have wished to escape from the in- tellectual and spiritual dangers of any such hardened orthodoxy and to keep ourselves plastic by a stress upon the purpose of socialism rather than upon some dogmatic and over-simplified plan. We have admitted all along that the advocates of socialism have been partly respon- sible for the lack of receptive interest, on the part of the general public, of which they complain. Socialism has too often been a counsel of perfection; it has thought to achieve finality in social affairs suddenly and dramatically. Consequently, it has over-valued forms and formulae at the expense of the spirit which is alone creative. In the following discussion of current objections to socialism, we shall, therefore, feel ourselves bound only by our allegiance to the purpose of advancing social welfare and community achievement and by that belief in the principle of coopera- tion which we have advocated in these pages. If objections really point out a genuine difficulty and are 114 OBJECTIONS AND TENDENCIES 115 motivated by the desire to indicate mis-apprehensions and inadequacies, they should be of the greatest service to a growing movement which is dominated by a purpose rather than by a set of watchwords. Unfortunately, most of the current objections to socialism are guilty of the same assumptions as the older forms of socialism themselves. They are, in short, ungenetic and academic in the worst sense of that term. Until he becomes accustomed to it, the thinker is surprised by the scholastic character of the reasoning of the average practical man. It is full of assumptions which have not been analyzed out and sub- jected to a searching scrutiny. In other words, his objec- tions reflect the stability and definite organization of the economic arrangements in which he lives and works and has his being. He speaks as these institutions would speak had they a voice. In many ways, the assumptions back of current objec- tions to socialism are more significant than the explicit objections themselves and therefore more suggestive to the non-partisan thinker. Indirectly at least, I hope to make it fairly clear that they reflect a clash of values, of aspirations, of possibilities. There is no Q. E. D. in this field because we are not dealing with a field independent of man's purposes and desires. We shall, as a consequence, frequently content ourselves with showing that an objec- tion is not in touch with the spirit of the actual movement of society. That and that alone is, in the last analysis, its sufficient refutation. It is life which ultimately refutes or confirms social doctrines; and life is a very large and massive thing which is unintimidated by those in authority be they kings, ex-presidents, noted business men or con- servative professors of political economy. The stream of social life is creative and constructive and presses on- 116 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY ward like the natural process it is, while those minds which have no vision for the flow of things see only those social institutions and usages which are as yet undissolved by the current no matter how undermined they may actually be. The conservative has a morphological mind, he notes structures which have hardened into definite form; the social thinker should have a genetic mind, one which sees the silent working of those forces and tendencies which are beginning to remould the old structures. What I wish to do in the following pages is to bring out as clearly as possible the effect of this genetic standpoint on the customary objections to socialism. It will be ev- ident that I defend the spirit of socialism instead of the letter of particular socialisms. In doing so, it may even be that I can point to the actual working of this spirit in cer- tain experiments and tendencies in contemporary society. Many traditional objections are relevant only to rev- olutionary socialism and we can therefore practically ignore them. The catastrophic view of social change present at certain times in Marx conceived the establish- ment of socialism as "an affair of twenty-four lively hours, with Individualism in full swing on Monday morning, a tidal wave of the insurgent proletariat on Monday after- noon and Socialism in complete working order on Tues- day." We have seen that this melodramatic view must be firmly repudiated. Social changes cannot be inaugurated like political changes because they are not so external. The ' problems involved are more difficult and their solutions are of the nature of experimental growths which take time to mature. Political institutions rest upon economic and social institutions and are relatively superficial when com- pared with these. We can, therefore, leave to one side the objections to socialism which are aimed at the violence and OBJECTIONS AND TENDENCIES 117 anarchy supposedly connected with it. There may be very bitter feelings at certain stages in the passage to a juster society, but a cataclysm is unlikely and is certainly unnecessary. When all is said, there are worse things for society than discontent and the energy, destructive and constructive, which it discharges upon smug routine. "Is the capitalist to be expropriated without indemnity, or to be offered compensation?" This is a typical anti- socialist dilemma. But, like most dilemmas, it does not contain an exhaustive disjunction. The process of social- ization will proceed in such a way as to retain the capital needed while changing its ownership with the minimum of hardship. Hence the method employed is the important feature of the advance of socialism. Let us take a con- crete example to make this rejection of the dilemma clear. Were the government to purchase the telegraph, tel- ephone and railroad lines, how would it finance the operation? Probably by a sale of bonds at a competitive rate of interest and, let us hope, so far as possible at low denominations so that many could invest. But this is not socialism ! Except so far as it represents a change of atti- tude towards social enterprise. There are many reasons to believe that such a national control and direction of the railroads with the definite emphasis on the welfare of society in place of profits would simplify the problems of transportation and management. The purpose would be clarified and disentangled from adventitious interests. And every possible simplification in the complexities of industry is an advantage. But it may be objected that this change is on the financial side only the substitution of a large number of owners for the few who own to-day. Now socialism does not look upon the continued payment of interest by an industry as the ideal because such pay- 118 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY ment means a tax on the country as a whole. How, then, could this debt be paid? In at least two ways. By means of a sinking fund used to buy up the indebtedness and ob- tained as a profit on the operation of the plant; and by means of a progressive tax on those incomes and inher- itances which exceed a certain minimum. I cannot con- ceive of the advent of socialism without a redistribution of wealth through a changed policy in taxation, 1 a policy which would, of course, be inaugurated gradually and applied sensibly the task of experts and statesmen. The difficulties to be confronted are, in the main, technical and, since other countries have begun nationalization, cannot be regarded as particularly intimidating. What is needed is the will to do things in a group way rather than in an individualistic and factional way. Another problem frequently raised by critics is this: Must all industry be nationalized, or are there to be dif- ferent units of socialization co-existing? The older cen- tralized collectivism which is usually retained as an object of attack by controversialists stood for complete national- ization. Here, again, we meet that over-simplification characteristic of early rationalism, the desire to find some all-inclusive pattern or rule. Genetic views have changed all that and have given new significance to variety. Out of variety will come growth and the fruitful suggestion which leads to growth. The flow of tendencies in each society must be considered. In a country like England where the cooperative stores have secured such a hold these will in all likelihood be extended and, as income be- comes more equalized, these stores will become in fact, if not in name, municipalized. And I see no reason why 1 There are signs that our system of taxation is to be overhauled and its incidence made more just. Such reform is in harmony with socialism. OBJECTIONS AND TENDENCIES 119 competition should not remain open to counteract any stagnation which might otherwise set in. The socialist must admit that no one can be quite certain as yet of the part played by advertisement and the multiplication of shops. Where standardization is easy there socialization is easy. The principle and spirit of cooperation may easily find expression in various ways whose value and limits will be tested by actual practice. The political units will always have the function of control and of a general supervision which will advance organization and the elimination of those private interests which hamper the best social in- terests. How much good would come in this country from a more jealous concern for the interest of the community and from the reversal of the assumption that private in- terests and rights precede public interests and rights ! Be- sides this general function of vigilant control, the state would find it advantageous to the public first to regulate and then to take over the forests, the water-ways, the water-power, the mineraf~resources, all of which lend themselves to abuse when left in private hands. The nation, again, would be justified in owning and run- ning the means of communication and of transportation. That such a unified organization of the means of trans- portation would lead to an immense saving few can doubt. Moreover, the system could be forged into an instrument for the economic development of the entire country since planning would be more possible. Ger- many, Italy, Switzerland and Belgium have something to teach us in this regard. There are national sins of omission as well as sins of commission and our present political democracy must not forget this ethical fact. A nation can be good negatively but it is nobler to be 120 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY good positively. It is time to lose our strange timidity in community effort. How far the political units will embark upon industrial enterprise depends in large measure upon whether indirect control and guidance does or does not work successfully, that is, in accordance with our changing ideals. The peculiar genius of a people will play some part in deciding this question; hence it is impossible to make predictions of a dogmatic sort. What the anti-socialist affects to fear is the appearance of officialism. If this appears, it must be met and corrected by making the work of officials less negative and formal, by giving them a freer hand and more responsibility. Socialism must, of course, hunt out and destroy all remnants of the spoils system. The proper relation between the expert and the few, responsible, elected officials must be worked out in practice. Political science is studying this problem. Inefficiency is a disease which has a remedy, and both the disease and the remedy are psychological. If the social spirit comes to the front, state enterprise has much in its favor. I can, in other words, see no necessary connection between governmental activity and bureaucracy. The merely police function of OUT government has hampered our officials, and com- bined with this has been a lack of freedom. But, in spite of all that may be said, I have far more faith in the capacity of many of our public services which have been freed from the spoils system than in much of private enter- prise. Let us apply these conclusions to the municipality. Municipal socialism has its natural sphere in the field of local monopolies. The problem, here, is essentially one of method. Is it best to own or to control indirectly by means of provisions in the charter? When a city has OBJECTIONS AND TENDENCIES 121 reached a certain level of civic conscience, ownership is undoubtedly better than ingenious charters because the total control is direct and the responsibility is not divided. But the department of public works must be taken out of politics and civil service with experts introduced. I refuse to think so lowly of democracy as to believe that this can- not be done even now. Political reforms adapted to root out bad customs and the personal use of public position and power must accompany the introduction of municipal enterprise in order to decrease the possibility of those scandals which induce pessimism and lethargy in so many good citizens. It is needless to point out that the spirit of private profit which has been so lauded by individualists is the chief cause of those habits and practices of which Americans are ashamed. We must cease worshipping Democracy with a capital D while refusing to analyze the actual behavior of a clumsy democracy which has little group spirit. A study of European cities at work should be an inspiration to the best citizens of our corporation- ridden municipalities. It may be that they will dimly see that it is the spirit which rules their business life that displays its presence in these incapacities which they proclaim almost with unction. City-planning, rec- reation centers, spacious parks, public amusements, city- extensions, not controlled by real-estate men but by the city itself, enlightened supervision of building would be priceless improvements on the way to a sane and healthy democracy and away from that let-alone-ism and private interest which has been the bane of American life. There will, I take it, soon be an advance all along the line in our municipalities and this advance will accompany and be partly the result of civic enterprise. Before long, American cities will surprise themselves by discovering what they 122 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY can do. Then their interest will be aroused and the only danger will be that they will go beyond their depth like swimmers who have first tasted of the joy of free and vital movements. Along with this advance in collective enterprise will undoubtedly go a softening of that spirit of autocracy which has been one of the most palpable blemishes of our ethos. The belief that a man had the absolute right to do what he would with his own showed no suspicion of the social side of the institution of property. Property was taken as a right which had no social purpose back of it. The propertyless man thus became simply a "hand" who had no rights in those enterprises in which he spent his life. It is against this situation in law and social custom that socialism rebels just as much as against the mal- distribution of the national income. Such a system of social relations when combined, as it naturally was, with the materialism which reckons individuals in terms of what they have rather than of what they are inevitably generated an atmosphere of autocracy of a peculiarly dis- agreeable kind. Something of the spirit and the measures of co-partnership and profit-sharing industrial reforms which we shall discuss soon must enter into the factory if this glaring insult to democratic ideals is to be removed. It is a mistake to identify the socialist movement with concern only for the monetary side of existence; it is con- cerned even more with the increase of more humane indus- trial relations and the development of industrial rights correspondent to the property rights so strongly em- phasized and guarded during the eighteenth and nine- teenth centuries. What I shall say, then, in answer to objections will pre- suppose the growth of this new ethos and will assume a OBJECTIONS AND TENDENCIES 123 growth all along the line, educational, political and ethical. And it is incontestable that ideas are determinants of such a growth. Let me illustrate what I mean. When the in- fluence of the Manchester school of economists and pub- licists was at its height in England and the Continent, many cities sold the public land they had and passed to the policy that all property so far as possible should be private property a view which has likewise controlled American policy. After a few decades this dogma began to be questioned and there was a gradual return to public ownership and control, a tendency which is being accel- erated. Thus the ideas which dominate and which are pervasive influence the practice of a people. They make easier the growth and working of institutions in accord with them. Americans need a bath of cooperative ideas with the suggestions to group action that they carry. The chief objection to government ownership arid man- agement of large industrial undertakings, such as the rail- roads, seems to concern the mode of selection of the man- agers. Are these to be elected by the people at large in a political fashion, or are they to be appointed by elected officials, or are they to be selected by the workmen? We need not consider this problem as one applying to ah 1 the economic activities of a nation at once. The change to public enterprise will be gradual and experimental. But in the case of those activities taken over, the procedure may be as follows. The railroads, for example, will be taken charge of by a public department and will in this way be under indirect popular control. The managers will undoubtedly be experts whose conduct will be tested by results. But socialism advocates that there go along with this an increased consultation with the workmen, in this way leading to the disappearance of that autocratic 124 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY attitude which is otherwise apt to linger behind. The spirit of community effort must be introduced so that the laborers may feel themselves a living and considered part of economic activity. The tendency of the age would thus be to a practical combination of -xesponsible officials, experts and cooperating workmen. Of one thing we can be sure; the long ballot type of political democracy will not be applied to public enterprises. Reforms in the polit- ical machinery of democracy which are even now being successfully agitated will supervene and will combine expertness with fixed responsibility. And there will be less jealousy of the expert, when the old personal idea of office-holding has been replaced by ideals of public service and public efficiency. Democracy will surely not defeat itself by adherence to an unworkable system. The pur- pose of democracy is a general social control of the condi- tions of life rather than any traditional right to vote for every holder of office. I would suggest, then, that society will work out some- thing of the nature of co-partnership in which the general public, the consumers, will retain a supervisory control as representing the interests of society at large, while the .workers in that field *will have a voice especially strong in matters of practical detail. Here, again, the socialist is confronted by his critics with a false dilemma. It is not a case of this or that but a case of this and that. Another point which is frequently raised as deadly to socialism is the assignment of the working-force to its posts. "The naive hope that inferior men will recognize their inferiority and volunteer to do the lower tasks is a remnant of Utopian fantasy; were it true that the men of the western world are prone to think their fortunes equal to their deserts, the socialist movement would lose nine- OBJECTIONS AND TENDENCIES 125 tenths of its recruits." 1 To this we reply that the selection of men must be impersonal and made so far as possible by the work. But let us look at this objection a little more closely. All intelligent socialists reject the notion of a semi- military assignment of posts and this scheme is to be found only in the conventional controversies which rage peren- nially. The distribution of function and wage must be essentially impersonal and so far as possible automatic, and all impersonal modes to be efficient must contain the principle of competition. This will be, however, a com- petition of a social character, a competition to determine relative efficiency rather than a competition for a job. Social institutions, such as educational institutions, must help in this necessary work of selection of the right sort of work for different individuals. The so-called Monarchical Socialism of Germany has done not a little in this direction for the trades. Applied psychology will probably have work to do along this line, as will also the teachers in vari- ous sorts of continuation schools. In other words, society must develop methods to increase the internal mobility of its members. The more the unjust friction in society which gives groups, or classes, a strength and control which their capacity does not warrant is removed, the more will the individual be likely to match his position. In a later chapter we shall examine the principles of pecuniary reward but we must here anticipate some of the conclusions to which we shall there be led. Does it not go without saying that the principle of social justice in these matters must be social in character and tests? That mode of distribution is just which works for the welfare of society. Thus our outlook is teleological and social 1 Skelton, "Socialism, A Critical Analysis," p. 199. 126 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY instead of mechanical and individualistic. The older slogans of socialism such as, "To each the whole product of his labor," were individualistic and impossible of realiza- tion in a complicated society dominated by the principle of division of labor. What we must do is to work out cus- toms and institutions which give a greater equality of opportunity and thus reduce any artificial scarcity as much as possible. The principle of distribution must be im- manent and dynamic rather than external and mathemat- ical. What increases social welfare increases justice. When we approach the problem in this way, we realize that there need be no sharp break between our present set of institutions and customs and those which are to come. As economic institutions are made more public, and as taxation begins to establish a new distribution of opportunity, social justice will increase. Hence the evolutionary socialist can agree with the soi-disant anti- socialist who asserts that " Society's best hope lies in con- tinuing to moralize the laws of supply and demand, not in endeavoring to disregard them." The socialist is simply more radical in his views of what is necessary if such moralization is to go very far. He is convinced that pub- lic endeavor and the spirit of cooperation will change the set and character of many institutions and add new ones whose purpose will be the increase of social mobility and individual opportunity. In accordance with the genetic standpoint, we have, in our answers to objections, been suggesting the most feasible lines of growth for a democratic society in which a cooperative spirit is seeking to clothe itself in fitting institutions and methods. We admitted that there must be an advance all along the line if this development is to be natural and healthy. The community must work out OBJECTIONS AND TENDENCIES 127 and institute political and educational reforms which will make democracy less clumsy and more enlightened. And there must be more discipline and more regard for public service. But this change in atmosphere would not be such a hard task as it has sometimes seemed if it were taken in hand by voluntary associations and pressed upon the consciousness of the time. Only those of the more comfortably placed classes who have endeavored to assist reforms of this kind have the right to cast stones at the proletarian socialist. Let us now see whether there are explicit movements in the economic field corresponding to the suggestions which I have made in answer to practical objections to socialism. A careful scrutiny of the economic field discloses at least three movements kindred to socialism, viz.'- the cooper- ative movement, co-partnership and profit-sharing. Cooperation is a democratic association of individuals for the purpose of mutual assistance. It occupies a posi- tion midway between our dominantly competitive society and municipal socialism and is quite capable of passing over into the latter when the time is ripe. There are co- operative societies for farming, for fruit-growing, for building, for manufacturing and for retail distribution. As a successful movement it goes back to the Rochdale pioneers, a group of twenty-eight poor men who got to- gether a capital of 28 by very small subscriptions. At first, the members gave their own time after their work was over but, as the years passed and the membership in- creased, managers with a definite salary were appointed. The reason for their success is to be found in the mode of distributing the profits of the enterprise. "The Rochdale pioneers determined that, after paying 5% interest on the share capital, all profit should be allotted to the purchasing 128 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY members in proportion to their purchases, and be capital- ized in the name of the member entitled, until his shares amounted to 5. Thus each member found it to his in- terest to purchase at the store and to introduce new pur- chasers. The ownership of the store remained always with the purchasers and each came under the magic in- fluence of a little capital saved." The facts to note are the stimulus to thrift and the absolutely democratic manner of ownership and management. Here we have in operation an open group which welcomes all new members. The more that enter the better for all. Moreover, as Mrs. Webb points out, there is in the cooperative stores a prac- tical elimination of the traditional element of profit. For a glimpse at the results of this movement let me quote from Mr. Williams' article in the Encyclopedia Britannica. This article is well worth reading but should be supplemented by Mrs. Sidney Webb's "Co-operative Movement in Great Britain." "Outwardly these stores may look like mere shops, but they are really much more. First, they are managed with a view not to a proprietor's profit, but to cheap and good commodities. Secondly, they have done an immense work for thrift and the mate- rial prosperity of the working-classes, and as teachers of business and self-government. But further, they have a distinct social and economic aim, namely, to correct the present inequalities of wealth, and substitute for the competitive system an industry controlled by all in the common interest, and distributing on principles of equity and reason, mutually agreed on, the wealth produced. With this view they acknowledge the duties of fair pay and good conditions for their own employees, and of not buying goods made under bad conditions. The best societies further set aside a small proportion of their profits OBJECTIONS AND TENDENCIES 129 for educational purposes, including concerts, social gather- ings, classes, lectures, reading-rooms and libraries, and often make grants to causes with which they sympa- thize. . . . There are of course many defects, and of their two million members a large, and many fear an increasing proportion, attracted by the prosperity of the societies, think chiefly of what they themselves gain; but the govern- ment of the movement has, hitherto at least, been largely in the hands of men of ideas, who believe that stores are but a step to cooperative production, and on to the 'co- operative commonwealth.' " The cooperative movement has been very successful on the continent of Europe but has secured little hold in the United States on the distributive side. In this country agricultural cooperation for the sake of eliminating the middle-man has had some success, especially among wheat and fruit growers; but our individualism has thus far pre- vented a development of cooperation at all correspondent to that of Europe. It needs more than necessity to mother inventions. But there are many signs that conditions are ripe for vigorous cooperative movements. What are needed are a willingness to pull together and the spread of sane ideas of the type of business organization required. Both in England and France, lawyers and men of business acumen have had public spirit enough to agitate for laws helpful to the growth of cooperation. We, on the other hand, have had too few men of standing who have been willing to spend themselves for such a tendency. Those who are interested in the statistical side of the cooperative movement will find an excellent summary in the works referred to. That it contains suggestions for the economic evolution of the future cannot be denied. M. Charles Gide, an eminent French economist, believes that ISO THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY some such tendency will operate for the progressive aboli- tion of the capitalist type of production. It has in it this possibility and, in any case, will be one of the factors to train society in the spirit and methods of cooperation. Let us hope that America will not be far behind in this phase of the democratic spirit. What is needed is, of course, the burgeoning of a new purpose, a new ideal to soften or supplant the unimaginative individualism which our social atomism has fostered. Co-partnership and profit-sharing have in them pos- sibilities which make them rank with cooperation as germs of the future industrial democracy. "For three genera- tions at least there have been voices crying that much was wrong in our industrial organization; and that mere wage service, while producing no doubt great results in many ways, was producing also separation of classes, with ir- responsibility and neglect, on the moral side; and, on the material side, unemployment, poverty, suffering and de- generacy. Among the many cures propounded by small groups, none has had more distinguished advocates than co-partnership found in John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spen- cer, 1 Alfred Marshall and George Jacob Holyyoake. But the great majority of middle and upper-class people have gone on either ignoring the whole question, or declaring that nothing was seriously wrong: at any rate nothing which could be put right by changes in our economic organiza- tion, whatever might be done by the spread of religion and 1 So many critics of socialism quote Herbert Spencer that it may be interesting to quote a passage from his " Principles of Sociology : " " So long as the worker remains a wage-earner, the marks of status do not wholly disappear. For so many hours daily, he makes over his facilities to a master or to a cooperative group for so much money, and is, for a time, owned by him or it. He is temporarily in the position of a slave; and his overlooker stands in the position of a slave-driver." OBJECTIONS AND TENDENCIES 131 education or even by purely political changes." 1 Mere wage service has spelled industrial autocracy, particularly so when combined with the materialistic outlook of the nineteenth century. It is not too much to say that, during this century, society has not been inspired by ideals of a character that would counteract the industrial organiza- tion. Profit-sharing is defined as an agreement freely entered into, by which the employee receives a share, fixed in ad- vance, of the profits of the particular business which em- ploys him. In this way, the employee becomes an inter- ested member of the enterprise and shares in its fortunes. But the purpose is also important since it determines in large measure the spirit in which the agreement is under- taken. If the purpose is still individualistic and does not have aught in mind but a stimulation of the wage-earners and the prevention of strikes, it is not in line with socialism except by accident. By accident, I mean that it* may bear witness to the weakness of the purely competitive wage system, its disharmony with democracy. While profit-sharing is one element of co-partnership, the ownership of part of the capital by the workers is the other feature which makes it an advance socially upon profit-sharing. This ownership is supposed to lead to the representation of the workers on the governing body of the company. There is, however, the tendency to give the workers a larger representation on the board than that to which their shares entitle them in recognition of their unique position in the business. In this way, the relations between the entrepreneur and the citizens who collaborate with him will be more harmonious and raised to a higher ethical level. The responsibility of direction must not be 1 Williams. "Co-partnership and Profit-sharing," p. 11. 132 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY weakened by lack of unity but a new spirit must enter into the entire enterprise. The problem is one for experimenta- tion carried on in the spirit of good-will. On the whole, the situation does not differ greatly from that which exists to-day in the affairs of the municipality. In both fields, democracy must work out methods of control which combine responsibility and efficiency. Probably the two movements will react upon and guide one an- other. Those who desire to gain a more detailed knowledge of the nature of these new forms of business organization should study the classic instances of Leclaire in Paris and Godin, the founder of the Familistere, at Guise. Were the history of these experiments, which turned out so success- fully, better known in the United States, there would, I am sure, be more attempts to do analogous things here. But there is an example of profit-sharing and co-partnership in the United States worthy of mention by the side of these classic instances, that of the N. O. Nelson Manufacturing Co. of St. Louis. To give the history of this enterprise in detail would take too much of our space but certain land- marks may be indicated. In 1887 Mr. Nelson introduced profit-sharing and, two years after, the principle of co- partnership. In 1905 he extended the profit-sharing to take in the customers. The circular in which he announced this change of policy is one of the most remarkable doc- uments in the history of industry according to one who can speak with some authority. After stating the method in accordance with which profits will be shared, he goes on to say: "I have been the active head of this business for over thirty years. / am the owner of as much or more property than I want. It has been made by the cooperation of the employees and the customers. I now want them to have OBJECTIONS AND TENDENCIES 133 the benefit of it. As the business has been for several years and is now and looks for the future, it should take a very few years to pass it entirely into the ownership of the em- ployees and the customers. It can be made more and more profitable by this mutual interest, and this additional profit goes entirely to those who made it." Had Mr. Carnegie followed such a course and exper- imented in the institution of such a form of voluntary socialism, I have no doubt that his fame would be far greater than philanthropy alone can make it. The action of such men as Leclaire, Godin and Nelson is socially creative; while external philanthropy, however admirable in its way, rests at a lower level. The possibilities open to a successful employer are seldom realized because private ambitions occupy the foreground and inhibit all impulses of a nobler kind. Seldom does the employer come up to his duties, let alone his possibilities. It re- mains to be seen whether a very able and extremely suc- cessful employer of a near city will grow in vision and in deed along the lines of industrial organization to the extent that his statements and activities sometimes give reason to expect. What could not a few of our privileged citizens accomplish if they had the unselfishness and the creative imagination! Are the Marxian socialists right when they assert that the new democracy must arise as did Christian- ity from the lowly rather than from those of high degree? It may be; and then I shall think shame of the wealthy and of those in places of authority, that they did not have the ability or the nobility to transform a system which the spirit of democracy had so evidently outgrown. In his patriotism the wealthy Greek trained a chorus or gave a trireme to his native city. Let our euergetes, or public benefactor, lead the way in the transformation of our 134 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY economic autocracy to a commonwealth in which the con- ditions of a social freedom have been established. Let our kings of finance and barons of coal and lumber and iron do that which has never been done before, establish a new order freely by giving up part at least of their domin- ion. CHAPTER VII THE ETHICS OF LABOR THE ethics of labor are bound up with the ethics of leisure. An adequate treatment of the one topic involves at least a sketch of the proper attitude toward the other. In the following study of the ethics of labor I shall there- fore give a fair measure of the space to thoughts upon the wise use of leisure. If the socialist demands more free time for the mass of the people, he must, at the same moment, show how he wishes this time to be spent. Social- ism must be constructive in spiritual things as well as in things material. Surely it is old enough by now not to let the bitterness it feels against injustice crowd out all thought of the right use of that leisure which it so much desires to multiply. Our chief trouble to-day is that we have not been able to make the separation between means and ends distinct enough and thus see life as an ethical whole. The means to life are so complex, absorbing and difficult to master that they obscure the larger issues. In a simpler society, like that of the old Greek city-state, this separation was more easily made. The modern social thinker would do well to take up his Aristotle once in a while and read such a passage as the following: "The whole of life is further divided into two parts, business and leisure, war and peace, and all actions into those which are honorable and those which are necessary and useful . . . there must be war for the sake of peace, business for the sake of leisure, things useful and necessary for the sake of things honor- 135 136 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY able." Here we have a series of subordinations which would be revolutionary to-day were they taken seriously. But do we not all have a suspicion of their truth? A simple life which is vigorous and creative may nourish a better sense of values and have a truer perspective than a more complex society which is turgid and in- choate. When Sombart wishes to convey to his readers the es- sence of the socialist gospel of happiness he quotes a poem of Heine's "A new song, a sweeter song, O friends, let me sing you: We want to set up here on earth The heaven for which we hope. " We want to be happy here on earth, And not to hunger more; The idle belly shall no longer live On that which busy hands create. " There is bread in plenty here on earth For every human creature; There are roses and myrtles, beauty and joy And sweet peas, too, in plenty." "I am certain," he writes, "that in every system of socialism the 'gospel of work/ as it is here expressed, re- ceives prominence. It is not too much to say that the glorification of labor is the central point in all socialist ethics, and that discussions on the organization of labor, on the relation between labor and production, between labor and profit, between labor and enjoyment form the kernel of all socialist theories. The world of the future will be a world of work, where the most widely accepted THE ETHICS OF LABOR 137 principle shall be: 'He who does not work shall not eat.' On this all socialists are agreed." 1 But the socialist goes further than a mere praise of work. Carlyle and Tolstoi greatly praised work and condemned those who live in idleness upon the fruits of others' toil. The socialist agrees with this moral teaching but he seeks to give it a social foundation in the economic order itself. In doing so, however, he must reckon with the economist. The economist deals primarily with the ways in which a society gets its livelihood. Increase of the national dividend is an end or good which he whole-heartedly de- sires. And, so long as this increase of income does not involve the subordination of fundamental human values, we cannot but agree with him. Taken as a mere fact, the additional productivity which the union of ma- chinery with division of labor makes possible is to be wel- comed. But we must never forget as the specialist in political economy is so prone to do that we have made this preliminary abstraction from human values and that other aspects of life must be taken into consideration when we wish to look upon society from a broader viewpoint. The more critical thinker is inclined to be more than sceptical of the assumption that an increase in the na- tional dividend necessarily involves an increase in human welfare. The existence of such a simple mathematical correspondence offering a clue to an infallible means of securing human welfare would be marvellous when we consider what a complex thing human welfare is. Just increase the number of pins, potatoes, autos, books, jewelry, lace and buildings; and all will be well. Was there ever a more naive assumption than this? Must we not ask further questions? Have the various goods been 1 Sombart, "Socialism and the Socialist Movement," pp. 24-5. 138 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY produced in the right proportion? Are luxuries sub- ordinated to necessities? Is money demand the same as the real human demand? In truth, production cannot be separated from distribution and consumption. The har- mony the conservative economist tends to assume is looked upon by the socialist as a difficult social achieve- ment. And it is an ever nearer approach to this ideal at which he aims. If democracy has any ethical significance, it means that individuals are valuable for their own sake and that their personality must never be violated more than is necessary. Every person possesses prospective rights in so far as he is capable of development and any abridgment of these rights or the conditions which give them meaning must be held suspect until shown to follow from the exigencies of the situation. Hence, to set increased production as a goal which absolutely justifies itself, no matter what means may be adopted or what division of human costs and na- tional dividend may exist, is to lose sight of the old truth that "Life is more than meat." Industrial institutions are complex and have had an evolution under the pressure of forces and motives which were largely non-moral. While there has probably always been a large utility in particular customs and methods, there is no reason to believe that this utility was ever more than rough and imperfect. We read that the Athenians were compelled to cancel the debts of the peasant popula- tion in order to prevent them from being sold as slaves, that the Romans were confronted by a revolution of the plebs for the same reason, that the peasants of France were so oppressed that they arose against their feudal masters in horrible rebellions, that the laboring population of England was threatened with degeneration as a conse- THE ETHICS OF LABOR 139 quence of the industrial revolution and the lack of social control that accompanied it. The utility of institutions can so easily be the utility of a dominant group rather than of society as a whole. The truth is that, in the past, such caste-utility was always dominant so that nobles and their retainers were clad in fine raiment and supped of the best while the peasants were ground to the earth. The inci- dence of economic institutions depends, in other words, upon the social organization as a whole. The fault with the common sense individualist is that he refuses to recog- nize this relationship, refuses to see the part played by inheritance and methods of management and class-groups. Because of this blindness, he does not see that it is not an easy thing to make the incidence of labor and the distri- bution of rewards just; that it is one of the hardest problems facing democracy to bring about this harmony. Too much faith in the natural justice of things in spite of all that modern science has dinned into our ears too much con- I tentment with one's own lot in life, too little imagination | of the lot of others, too much acceptance of past institu- tions as the final word of social wisdom; all these faiths have brought their inertias. For all these reasons, in- dustrial institutions have a kind of momentum which car- ries them on long after men have dreamed of radical changes. We may say, then, that the nature and distribution of labor is determined by our institutions. Let us see whether there is anything to criticize and correct in present arrange- ments when looked at from the point of view of democratic ethics. Are our economic institutions harmonious with those ideals of relevant equality, true liberty and self- realization which are pushing more and more into popular consciousness? Are the human costs of labor distributed 140 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY justly? Is the personality of the workman sinned against more than is necessary? What part does labor play in life, and what part should it play? These are questions which inevitably arise when we bring ethics with its emphasis upon human values into touch with industry. In early times work was more intimately bound up with the natural activities of men than it now is. It had a healthy and direct connection with organic instincts and hardly needed any external incentive. To fish or to hunt gave pleasure even though it brought fatigue. The ac- tivities contained their own interest and were not merely means for the securing of food and clothing. The fact that they continued as sports when they were no longer necessary bears witness to their attractiveness. But we must not go to the extreme that the eighteenth century idealist of savage life allowed himself to go; there was hard physical work to do, though no more of this was done than was absolutely necessary. While war engaged the atten- tion of the men, the women usually did the little cultiva- tion of the soil that was engaged in. The nearest approach to labor as task- work is to be found in those early forms of slavery which arise during the transition from a nomadic to an agricultural life. The slave was forced to do what the master found no pleasure in. Thus we have in slavery the entrance of force as a motive to work. But this prim- itive labor was not specialized and seldom lacked variety and interest. As civilization developed, society specialized into classes with fairly distinct functions. The warrior class protected the country and carried on wars of invasion; the priestly class took care of the religious rites; and the peasant or working-class provided the food and raiment. Mingled with the peasants and small landholders were the slaves THE ETHICS OF LABOR 141 taken in the wars, and workers in the various crafts which had grown up. Different social functions thus had classes born and bred to take charge of them. With certain ex- ceptions, those who did the more menial work were not driven over hard. Life was not run on the strenuous plan that it was later to achieve. It was not until kings planned great undertakings and the Roman patrician found it more profitable to use up cheap slaves on the plantation than to take care of them, that slave labor became the horrible thing we usually think of it as being. Men worked fairly hard and had rather empty lives, but the intelligence of the majority was not very high and their existence was, therefore, far from being a martyrdom. We must always bear in mind the psychological aspect of institutions. At first, the dominant classes had duties which justified their rights. The Roman patrician was a statesman and warrior who had a stern view of life and was by no means idle. As Taine points out, the early feudal leaders were exceptional men, brave and born leaders who had their horses ready to hand, quick to jump from couch to saddle for the protection of those who had chosen them as guard- ians. But as peace gradually came, their descendants retained the rights while the duties had almost disap- peared. Plato speaks of the plutocrat who presents a sorry figure in the field where he is clearly outdistanced by rugged and athletic men. Now this leisure class which possessed rights without many duties was very apt to devote itself to pursuits symbolic of its position to court functions, to sports, to art, to games, to luxurious living. What was the un- conscious motive? Perhaps conspicuous display. One writer has put the matter rather cynically in this way: "The glory of the successful sportsman is due to the fact 142 HE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY that his deeds are futile." There is a deal of truth in this analysis. Sport has prestige among the leisure classes because it is a vivid expression of their economic position, of what public opinion is at last beginning to call their parasitism. The result of this division of society into social classes, consisting, on the one hand, of those who were compelled to labor, and, on the other, of those who could easily shirk their social responsibility or else had largely lost their duties, was the growing contrast between work of an en- forced character and pleasant, self-chosen activities. The mass of the people had to toil under conditions which were irksome and not very inviting, while the favored few were their own masters. The actions approved of by the upper classes were not looked upon as work while that which they avoided was thought of as labor, some- thing which people would not do unless they could not help themselves. Such a mode of life was the symbol of a low social status; it was ignoble and servile. Our language bears the impress of this social contrast. A part of the consequence of this division of activities and modes of life into those freely chosen by the dominant classes and the toil enforced upon the mass of the people by their handicaps was the dislike felt for work. Work was a curse which all escaped who could. A life of leisure became the ideal and met its fulfillment in the Court. Idleness was looked upon as nobler than industry. The lack of serious interests to rule life made it easy to drift from one thing to another, to magnify matters of etiquette and to give way to pleasure-seeking. It was inevitable that an aristocracy which had outlived its function should manifest this fact in the character of its life. The moral which the courts of Louis the Fourteenth, Charles the THE ETHICS OF LABOR 143 Second and Napoleon the Third have for us is plain to read. The more prestige society gave this sort of irre- sponsible life, the more it cast a false glamor over an empty, though artificially refined, existence. We have here the problem of the rise and nature of a class ethics. The gentleman who leaned back in his carriage and com- placently watched the vulgar at work in the fields or in the smithy felt that leisure was the badge of his class. Hence it was doubly sweet. It goes without saying that such an individual, full of the prejudices of his class, would be unable to appreciate the importance of work as a healthy foundation for life. But the American must not suppose that society has escaped from the malign influence of a leisure class with no assignable function. Feudal rights which almost al- ways retained some slight measure of direct social re- sponsibility have been replaced by legal economic rights which are quite impersonal. What legal responsibility has the man who has inherited property in bonds and land to correspond to the rights which cash and credit lay open before him? Society gives but it does not demand enough hi return. Modern private property is the most irresponsible institution ever developed and, contrary to general opinion, is really modern. The result is that conditions have led to the growth of wealthy groups with no adequate outlet for their energies and no capaci- ties corresponding to their opportunities. In America a pioneer tradition of work has partly counteracted the dangers of such a situation, but not entirely. The idle rich has become a term of wide use and satire can hardly do justice to the type of life led in certain circles. There has been a revulsion from work and a dilettante trifling with life. The phenomenon always manifests itself but it 144 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY is aided by the prestige of a literature which is enamored of a life of idleness and copies the standards of the aris- tocracy of the past. It would seem that society rewards certain activities so highly and exercises so little control over the distribution of this excessive reward that it tends to pauperize the rich at least the effect is very analogous to that which is commonly called pauperization for the poor. In a sense, there was, in the past, a good deal of justifica- tion for the contempt of the leisure classes for those who worked. The means for education were so distinctly a class privilege that the mass of the people were rude and un- taught, uncouth in both dress and manners. To those who were not given to going behind appearances to causes, it seemed that the workers were different in nature, that they were constitutionally set apart for heavy, wearisome labor, that they lacked that natural refinement which they felt themselves to possess. How well comedy echoed this outlook with its country bumpkins, its dull-witted louts and hobble-de-hoys! But things have been changing in this regard. The hero of the modern novel is apt to be a workman who reads Marx and Engels, enjoys Darwin and is fond of quoting Ibsen and Galsworthy. Why, I actually read an account of the Panama Canal construc- tion not long ago in which the author, an acting police- man, discovers a Spanish workman who evidently reads Darwin and Hegel with understanding and pleasure. Such partial justification as the old contrast had seems to be disappearing. The essential weakness of the view of labor held by the upper classes is that labor is regarded as merely a means to wealth, power and idleness and not as valuable in it- self. Life has been such a scramble, and the penalties THE ETHICS OF LABOR 145 meted out to the unsuccessful have been so severe, that there has been excuse for this view of all economic en- terprise. Nevertheless, it has been short-sighted and individualistic. Life has come to be thought of as some- thing which lies beyond labor, whereas the right kind of labor is the heart of life. Such is the nemesis of social injustice, the revenge which the toiler unconsciously exacts from the leisure classes. Because they have de- graded labor into a thing which lacks beauty and has the associations of poverty and iron necessity, they are led to despise it and to miss the sanity and strength which it imparts to life. It is for this reason that so few of the leisure class have vital lives. They have no large interests and plans, the carrying out of which by persistent effort would give them a happy and noble life, and they are forced to fall to the level of seekers of distraction. The stimulus of serious purpose and of large, wholesome prob- lems is absent. It is within this general social setting that modern fac- tory life developed. With institutions and traditions as they were, could we expect that ethical and psychologi- cal factors would receive much weight? Let us see what labor has become as the result of mechanical achieve- ments which were hailed as labor-saving. With the extension of capitalistic enterprise there came about a mingling of labor on a new level in many ways a lower level. In the old days, even though labor was despised by the leisure classes as degrading, this judgment was hasty and for certain kinds of work untrue to the facts of the case. Before the days of Henry the Seventh, if we may believe Sir Thomas More, the lot of the peasant who had vested rights in land was not at all bad. His position was much like that of the small American farmer. 146 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY While there is no need to go to the extreme to which William Morris went in his love for medieval life, there is no doubt that at certain epochs the yeoman lived a vigorous, independent life. There was then, if ever, the Merry England of which stories tell. The city craftsman also had work to do in which he took pride. He was an artisan in the true sense of that word, taking a just pride in his handiwork. Thus, much work had a creative aspect by means of which the laborer expressed himself and gave vent to that artistic impulse which seems to slumber not far below the surface in all men, though in unequal de- grees. When this is so, labor can be both means and end necessity and desire uniting in a delightful harmony. But there is no need to idealize the past in order to understand and condemn tlie present. Modern indus- trialism arose in and was made possible by a chaotic mass of "free" labor loosed from its old mooring on the land. With the instinct to live as strong in them as ever, men were led into economic relations in which they were practically helpless. Freedom of contract meant freedom to work under conditions over which they had no con- trol and for wages which were extremely low, with the al- ternative of starving. Can it be called freedom when there is virtually no choice? Only the scholastic mind of the lawyer is capable of gravely asserting that there is real freedom in such a case. Without the possession of economic liberty, the laboring classes inevitably became the servants of mechanical invention. As has frequently been pointed out, neither inventors nor managers give much attention to the kind of work a machine demands of the workmen who are to tend it. Such considerations were not fostered by the prevailing ethics or lack of democratic ethics of the time. THE ETHICS OF LABOR 147 Since division of labor was profitable, men gradually took their place as the tenders of complicated machinery and were forced to work long hours at a high speed, repeating the same movements, in order to supply certain links in production which the machine was not quite able to per- form. To all intents and purposes, they were parts of the equipment of the factory. Since invention was di- rected entirely towards results of a quantitative kind and since laborers had no control over the system, psy- chological and physiological factors were unthought of. The workers were not asked whether the work was agree- able and gave any room for self-expression. Is it any wonder that, under these circumstances, work was uni- versally regarded as needing entirely external incentives? The traditional attitude towards work was strengthened by this new development. Let us glance at some of the human costs of non-artistic labor, labor in which there is relatively little self-expression and much repetition and physical exhaustion. These costs have been admirably summarized in J. A. Hobson's recent book, "Work and Wealth," to which reference has already been made. I shall make a few excerpts which bring out the points in which we are interested. "The conditions of most labor are such that the laborer finds little scope for thought and emotional interest in the work itself. ... To feed the same machinery with the same quantity of the same material at the same pace, so as to turn out an endless number of precisely similar articles is the absolute antithesis of art. ... If the tender could become as automatic as the machine he tended, if he could completely mechanize a little section of his faculties, it might go easier with him. But the main trend of life in the man fights against the mechanizing tendency of 148 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY his work, and this struggle entails a heavy cost. . . . The statistics in various countries prove that fatigue is a very important factor in industrial accident. . . . That over-fatigue connected with industry is responsible for large numbers of nervous disorders is, of course, generally admitted. The growing prevalence of cardiac neurosis and of neurasthenia in general among working-people is attested by many medical authorities." We come next to the psychical side of the worker's life. "But when fatigue advances, the irksomeness brings a growing feel- ing of painful effort, and a long bout of fatigue produces as its concomitant a period of grave conscious irritation of nerves with a subsequent period of painful collapse. . . . Drink and other sensational excesses are the normal re- actions of this lowered morale. Thus fatigue ranks as a main determinant of the 'character* of the working-classes and has a social significance in its bearing upon order and progress not less important than its influence upon the individual organism." Taking all these physiological and psychical facts into consideration, we find in them a heavy indictment against the nature of much of modern labor. It would seem that the personality of the workman is sinned against more than is necessary. Yet it is a part of the system and, so long as pecuniary values autocratic- ally control industry, human welfare is bound to suffer. Within this industrial situation and for this class of workers, it is folly to over-praise work. But, were the hours shorter and had the workers more control over the conditions of their labor, much might be said in favor even of this mechanical type of labor. It is a mistake to assume that automatic actions which have to be repeated in a certain rhythmical way are disagreeable to the major- ity of human beings. The fault has been that the natural THE ETHICS OF LABOR 149 pace of the human organism has been too much disre- garded in the endeavor to speed up. As society really becomes democratic in a profound sense and not merely in the political forms, the control of industry in the inter- est of the workers will become more conspicuous. Demo- cratic ethics must develop an ethics of work. If individuals are to reach the level of development of which they are capable, they must express themselves in activities of various kinds. There must be interests, things which draw them out and link them with their fellow men. Otherwise, individuals are almost bound to remain stagnant and undeveloped or else to degenerate. Proper work, adapted to the capacities of the person, car- ried along under agreeable conditions and not lasting long enough to over-fatigue is essential to a satisfactory personality. To bring this ethical ideal about, there must take place an almost revolutionary redistribution of labor and of the income derived from labor. And it is certainly one of the problems of modern socialism to aid in the evolution of this more ethically organized industrial society. The manual workers are, themselves, vaguely groping toward a partial solution of this ethico-economic problem but their efforts must be supplemented by the conscious endeavors of others. True democracy must regard all necessary work as honorable and must seek to give adequate rewards. Prob- ably more care should be taken with regard to the min- imum of this reward than with the maximum, although this latter should not be allowed to mount too high. This problem we will, however, consider in more detail later. On the whole, artistic work has been better treated than manual labor; but we must not forget that many great artists have lived and died in comparative poverty. A 150 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY noble society will treat choice things nobly and be willing to err on the side of over-recognition in preference to that of neglect. The great thinkers, artists, discoverers and poets have more than earned all that society ever gave them which was often little enough and it will be to the honor of democracy if it encourage those among its ranks who are born with the divine fire in then* breasts. The question of reward becomes here little more than that of efficiency, of the conditions of a sane life and a fruitful leisure. The costs of creative labor can never be escaped by means of legislative enactment just as its true joys can never be stolen; but a society which admires the most distinctive of human achievements will do its best to re- move those external cares which bear upon the creator and slowly palsy his hand. This does not mean, however, that the artist or philosopher or poet must be treated like an invalid and robbed of that vital contact with the real cur- rents of life which should give him robustness and vigor. I hope and believe that democracy will in the long run, when it has become more than formal, give the lie to those defenders of aristocracy who assert that democracy will never have the intellectual and spiritual elevation to rejoice hi and foster the gracious sides of life. Let us not fool ourselves: the society of to-day in the United States is not democracy, it is plutocratic commercialism dom- inated by pecuniary values. Democracy is as yet largely a matter of vague sentiment and of perplexed wishing. It is well for us to bear in mind the almost inevitable misunderstanding of one another to which different classes of workers are subject. The unskilled laborer has usually little conception of the immense amount of nervous energy expended by the manager of a business who wishes to make the concern march. Worries and plans are not visible THE ETHICS OF LABOR 151 things which can be carried around and displayed; their nature cannot be understood completely except by one with a similar experience. Sympathetic imagination needs training, education and the relative absence of envy. In that marvellous description of the life of the true artist in "Cousin Betty," Balzac quotes the words of a poet who speaks of the frightful labor of creation: "I begin my work with despair in my heart and leave it with chagrin." We see the outside of people just as we see the outside of their houses. One of the questions, then, which social ethics must solve is to remove that sense of injustice which pre- vents the growth of fair-minded appreciation of different kinds of work. Mere exhortation on the part of those who have more than their share of the good things of life can- not accomplish this desirable end; there must be a re- organization of the economic side of life. A sound social life cannot be built upon foundations which conflict with the newer sense of justice which is growing up around us. There must be publicity in regard to the work actually done by different people, so far as this is possible, and pretty equal opportunity in regard to selection of occupa- tion. I have often watched a day-laborer with almost a feeling of envy; yet I knew that I was idealizing his position I saw what seemed good to me and forgot the aspects of his We which would not have been pleasant. But what were the laborer's feelings? It is impossible to tell. It may be that he had the respect for me that one sincere worker should have for another a willingness to have confidence in the integrity of a man who works in another field whose conditions he does not understand. Again, he may not have had this confidence; he may have thought that I had a "snap" due to my education and opportunities. But 152 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY the manager and the scholar on their side too often mis- understand the life of the manual worker. They are not able to put themselves in his place and appreciate his feel- ing of being merely an instrument in the hands of another, his regrets for opportunities never offered, his lack of self- expression in his work, his actual privations. And the worst of it is that the conditions of modern industrial life do not of themselves lead to the increase of better under- standing between various types of workers. The cash- nexus for all its other advantages stands for an indirect relation between classes of men. All the more need is there, then, for a stern rejection of those unjustified priv- ileges which make false ideals of life attractive and foster misunderstandings, and for a correction of those conditions of labor which make it worse than it need be. In her remarkable little book called, "Democracy and Social Ethics," Miss Addams speaks of the embarrassment of the modern charity worker. "Probably there is no rela- tion in life which our democracy is changing more rapidly than the charitable relation that relation which obtains between benefactor and beneficiary; at the same time there is no point of contact in our modern experience which reveals so clearly the lack of that equality which democ- racy implies. We have reached the moment when democ- racy has made such inroads upon this relationship that the complacency of the old-fashioned charitable man is gone forever; while, at the same time, the very need and existence of charity denies us the consolation arid freedom which democracy will at last give." But surely this em- barrassment is not confined to charity. It is extending to all fields. Why should I work under healthy conditions and do the things in which I am intensely interested while so many are driven to do monotonous toil with a reward THE ETHICS OF LABOR 153 that hardly maintains their families under living condi- tions? Are these things necessary? I know that it is foolish because I am helpless to do aught but through society in this matter, but I cannot go in certain sections of the large industrial cities without feeling apologetic. Yet I belong to the teaching class which is by no means pampered in this country* The only enduring cure for this embarrassment, which is affecting more and more of the conscientious people of our time, is justice, that is, a social organization in harmony with the new sentiment of respect for the individual as such which has been slowly forming during the last two centuries. Surely a finer conscience is developing among all classes and this will lead to re-adjustments. The maleficent influence of traditions is probably no- where more active than in the sphere of labor. It is active in literature as we have seen; but it is also effective in giving an unhealthy bent to our education. Can it be denied that there has been an undemocratic perspective in our educational institutions? The needs of the actual factory employee are disregarded; he is not shown the meaning of the work he is doing, it is not connected with the general life of the time. In the same way, the history of the particular industry with which he is connected, the evolution of its technique and instruments is neglected. As Miss Addams again says, " We apparently believe that the working-man has no chance to realize life through his vocation." The truth is that we are all pseudo-aristocrats, and that the contrast between relatively idle classes and the mass of the people lingers on in various gradations, reenforced by the actual economic status of the many. " We assume that all men are searching for * puddings and power* to use Carlyle's phrase, and furnish only the schools 154 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY which help them to those ends." No one realizes the truth of this indictment more fully than the instructor in an American university. We can hardly blame the youth of our land when they conform, under penalty, to our social values, but it is surely the duty of one who reflects to chal- lenge the authority of those values. The purely aristo- cratic tradition, to whose origin and nature I gave attention earlier, has been tempered in our middle-class society with its pioneer habits, but it is still far from its death-throes. Its continued presence is indicated by a wrong conception of work. Work should be a healthy expression of the mental and physical energies of the individual; like play, it should unfold the instincts and interests which are nat- ural to man. In a democratic society, it should possess a cooperative atmosphere and link individuals together in the achievement of common social purposes and the sat- isfaction of common needs. These purposes and needs may range all the way from artistic expression and in- tellectual curiosity to the more homely tasks which spring from the necessity of ministering to the needs of the body. All these activities should receive a social sanction to give them standing and worth. There should be as little snob- bishness as possible. Each worker could then feel that he was doing something of recognized value and this feeling would surely suffuse his work and give it merit in his eyes. There is no activity which cannot be thus caught up and connected with the personality. If work be put in the proper ethical relation to the life of society, there is no kind of it which cannot become intrinsically interesting. We shall some day realize that Rodin's creed of art applies equally to work: "There is nothing ugly in art except that which is without character, that is to say, that which offers no outer or inner truth." THE ETHICS OF LABOR 155 This healthier attitude toward work, which will accom- pany a juster distribution of it and of its rewards, will surely be followed by a better use of leisure. Dreary toil brings in its wake, as a natural psychological effect, a feverish search for irritant pleasures and pastimes into which the laborer can plunge to forget the weary hours of joyless and enforced effort. The reformer has both psychological and sociological facts back of his faith that better social conditions will foster an increasing apprecia- tion of quieter pleasures and nobler, more expressive and creative enjoyments. There is room for education among all classes of society with respect to the wise use of leisure and an intelligent concern for things which are really worth while. It is unjust to blame too severely that social group which has had less stimulus, less leisure and less surplus energy. The middle class has been too ready to condemn others for not doing what it, itself, has hardly done. The more educated and economically freer circles of society must never forget that they have a prestige which is a great responsibility. If they are materialistic and unrefined in their outlook and enjoyments, they have no right to speak scornfully of those who pattern themselves after them in a social medium which makes their acts appear grosser than they really are. We are told that the poor man who spends ten cents on his pastimes is as luxurious as a rich man who spends ten dollars. But the reverse of this maxim is also true. Let the glamor of prestige be removed from my lady's pleasures and they will appear to the impartial eye as gross as those of her maid. Society as a whole must raise itself to a higher level. And per- haps nothing will be of greater assistance in this crusade than the attack which socialism is directing against the 156 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY habit of estimating men by what they have rather than by what they are. But the leaders of socialism as well as the rank and file must look to themselves. They must be self-critical as well as critical of others. If they are right in their claim that the fourth estate is no longer the passive lump of muscle it once was, let them see to it that these workers who are coming into their human birthright of knowledge and culture achieve a standard for themselves in their use of leisure. In this realm of life, also, they should show a proud class-consciousness, a direction of class-conscious- ness which would sting the possessing classes to the quick. There has been too much of truth in the dilettante critic's gibe that the rank and file of socialists desire only that they also may dine at the Waldorf-Astoria. For those who are beginning to think seriously on these questions of social construction, I can recommend nothing better to read and ponder over than the essay on Recrea- tive Culture by that wise old woman and earnest socialist, Ellen Key. "Recreative culture," she writes, "implies in the first place cultivation of the faculty of distinguishing between the different kinds of pleasure, and, in the next place, the will to choose the productive and reject the un- productive and harmful. And while noble pleasure makes every moment golden, time is wasted like water when the object is to 'pass* it." 1 And for those who will- ingly think of mankind as unprogressive I would call at- tention to her concluding sentence: "Only those who have not perceived that precisely humanity's will to perfect itself is the highest law of earthly life can despair of a more perfect humanity." 1 Ellen Key, "The Younger Generation," pp. 138 and 140. CHAPTER VIII THE GROWTH OF JUSTICE JUSTICE is pretty generally regarded as the basic social \ virtue. The degree in which it is present is believed to measure the happiness and stability of a society. In fact, the importance of justice and the desirability of its enforcement are so universally acknowledged that we have such maxims as Ruat coelum, fiat justitia let justice be done though the heavens fall. The word has secured a majesty and a genuine social prestige which would seem to augur well for the character of the relations and actions which society permits or approves. Surely where justice is so well thought of the citizens can have little ground for complaint. When we examine history with some care, we discover that there has hardly been a time when justice was not praised and held up by moralists and by public opinion as the essential social virtue. Only in times of actual anarchy when social standards have temporarily gone by the board, has there ever existed any marked tendency to mock at justice; and, even then, the attack upon it was likely to be covert. It seems natural for man to ac- knowledge some set of standards which are called justice and to try to enforce them. Probably no other word has had more robust and sterner associations. A demand for justice has been a sacred demand, something which immediately aroused attention if not sympathy. Yet, in spite of this almost universal acknowledgement of the supreme value of justice, there has been much dif- 157 158 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY ficulty in determining exactly what justice is and what it demands. The idea of what justice involves has varied from age to age, and even people living in the same period have been surprised to discover that their notion of what justice dictated in particular circumstances or in regard to certain institutions differed from that held by other equally conscientious persons. It would seem that justice has no fixed character, that it is always more or less of an unsolved problem, that its content is constantly shifting as possibilities and social capacities change. Justice is a growing thing, not something fixed once for all. Perhaps nothing is more startling to the conventional, unreflective person than to find his assumptions, the values and divisions and institutions which he has ac- cepted without question, bruskly assailed. Such an in- dividual has unconsciously fallen into the mental habit of regarding the customary ways of doing things as final, natural and, as it were, sacred. His idea of justice is his idea of what is usual and his views have been moulded by his experience of the way things have been done around him, by the accepted institutional arrangements, by the familiar legal standards of right and wrong, by the different kinds of life lived by rich and poor. Thus his view of what is just is a reflection of use and wont. It is static, conservative, conventional and scarcely admits the possibility of radical changes. Socialism is essentially a daring challenge to the domi- nant notions of justice characteristic of present-day so- ciety. In this regard socialism follows good precedent since practically every vital movement of history has had a re-interpretation of justice as its main-spring. The realistic student of history is aware that these re-inter- pretations are the expressions of changes in economic, THE GROWTH OF JUSTICE 159 political and general social conditions. They are like vistas which open before the traveller as he climbs a rugged moun- tain road. At each new height, at each new turn of the path, the scenery alters in character; what could not be seen before is now plainly visible. It is this widening of the so- cial horizon, this progressive enlargement of things possible, which the modern socialist wishes to press home to the con- sciousness of the mass of the people. He wishes them to see that new conditions bring new standards into view. To look upon society as an individual is at times sug- gestive. The expert in education informs us that children develop new capacities as they grow older; that what was impossible to them becomes quite within their grasp. Demands on their attention which would be absurd when they were eight years of age are met without much diffi- culty when they are twelve. And I think that every re- flective person realizes that his ability to meet demands of an intellectual as well as of a practical character is constantly growing. Problems which seem at one time to touch upon the limit of his capacity are later solved with comparative ease. Capacity is a thing which grows with training and experience and the individual's career is a history of continual steps in advance. Is it not essen- tially the same with society? Is he who refuses to set problems in slight advance of the child's development so that the mind must raise itself for a moment on tiptoe a good teacher? Is he a good statesman who opens up no new horizons and is afraid to counsel a step forward? The socialist does not believe that progress is furthered by such refusals. He who makes no demands of society, who sets no high standard of endeavor is not its best friend. The socialist absolutely refuses to be the timid sycophant of things as they are. 160 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY The just man is thought of as the righteous man, as the man who has a sound character and comprehensive ideals. But who is to decide what righteousness demands and what ideals are sound and sufficiently comprehensive? The exhortation of the traditional moralist, to be just, is good so far as the intention goes, but it does not tell us what conduct is just. Justice as a personal virtue would seem to be the expression of a virtuous life in its objective, social relations. But we have seen that these objective, social relations, these institutional arrangements of so- ciety are constantly changing and that the better is enemy of the best. The individual must be conscientious but, as a citizen, he must also be reflective and critical. There are at least two other formal meanings of justice which must be considered for the light they may throw upon its content. These are (1) what is fair, impartial, equitable; (2) the vindication of the current standards of right by means of the courts. Let us glance at these two meanings to see whether we can find a relation be- tween them to help us out of our difficulty. When we say that justice is the fair or the equitable, does this answer tell us what justice demands in any partic- ular case? To assert that we want a square deal may be illuminating in so far as it shows that we do not intend to put up with an obviously unsquare deal if we can help it but it hardly points out in a revelatory way just what is a square deal. The reader surely realizes by now that, if justice be a growth, it is impossible to find some a priori formula from which to deduce its content. This meaning of justice is a principle in the sense of an attitude which should guide the seeker after justice. It signifies that justice involves the elimination of partiality, that it cannot permit favoritism. THE GROWTH OF JUSTICE 161 Yet it is impossible to determine what exactly is just in any particular situation from this formal attitude, necessary as it is. Or, to put the problem in another way, he who acts from partiality, conscious or unconscious, will do justice only by accident; while he who shuts out his private preferences or advantages is at least on the right road. Would that more people were willing to do this! Still even he may find great difficulty in arriving at his goal the path may curve and turn and even dis- appear from sight in the most puzzling fashion, so that individuals who start out together with the best intention in the world of making the journey arm in arm arrive at different goals. In short, it is easy to underestimate the difficulty of deciding what justice in the concrete demands. Probably the most familiar use of the term is that which is associated with the administration of law. Rights are vindicated and duties enforced by means of judicial ma- chinery and this procedure is commonly spoken of as justice. To get justice is to secure the official confirmation of one's rights and to have this decision backed by the power of the government. Justice in this third sense is, then, an expression of the recognized institutions, of the actions which are permitted or condemned, of the socially accredited usages. It represents the principles which society has rightly or wrongly identified with its well- being. Now this overt justice which is being constantly interpreted and applied in our courts is the growth of centuries of legislation; it has its roots in the customs of our ancestors and is modified by statutes passed by suc- cessive law-making bodies. As problems concerning the relation of man to man or of the citizen to the state arose, these gave rise to decisions founded on precedent or upon principles harmonious with the viewpoint of the time. 162 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY Every phase of the social organization can thus be the object of laws which are necessary for its well-working. There is Constitutional Law, Canon Law, Common Law, Criminal Law, the Law of Corporations, International Law, etc. These various divisions of law show the uni- versal need for rules and methods which shall be recog- nized by society and enforced. When we think of these regulations and prescriptions, we realize how complex society is and how much slow experimentation has been at work during the centuries. There must be rules for the various social games which men have founded and which they regard as necessary for their welfare; there must be ways of protecting individuals in their recognized rights and of preventing harm from befalling them; these rules and ways constitute the concrete justice which can be formulated and enforced by law. But this legal justice, admirable as it is in many ways, is by no means perfect. It is impossible to regard it as other than a complex series of expedients more or less adapted to their end and dominated by sentiments and assumptions which have nothing final in their character. In the days before people were familiar with the idea of change, this legal justice in all its aspects was considered sacred and eternal. There was little questioning of the fitness of the punishments exacted from the violator of the criminal code; the judge passed sentence with an easy conscience while the condemned accepted his fate as some- how an inevitable decree. At least, this was the usual attitude although a dim protest against the injustice of human justice must now and then have arisen in the mind of the victim or of some of the more humane spectators. Thus there has always been a vision of a justice beyond the actual justice. THE GROWTH OF JUSTICE 163 This puzzling conflict of justice with justice, of the actual justice with that finer justice which pushes its way to the front and gradually brings about a modification of the code is commonly thought of as the opposition between justice with its stern and impersonal demands and the gentler urgings of mercy and sympathy. The law is con- ceived of as just in some mysterious way, and as having a sanctity and dignity which it is a kind of treason to chal- lenge, but yet too harsh and strict for human nature as it is. Consequently, the ideal of tempering justice with mercy arises long before there is a suspicion that the jus- tice which needs such tempering is not justice at its best. But this subterfuge by means of which the truth and dig- nity of a formal and too harsh justice is kept from overt criticism has lost its usefulness in these later days when such a large percentage of men are recognizing the in- adequacy of the old forms and methods of justice. It is being frankly recognized that the attainment of an ad- equate justice is not an easy thing and that the fixed ideas of goodness and badness and of the righteousness of pun- ishment for its own sake previously held are no longer tenable. Justice is coming to be a problem which the wisest and kindliest minds are trying hard to solve, rather than a code which must not be questioned. Thus the third meaning of the term, also, turns out to be indefinite. It would appear that this justice to which so many appeal as the final arbiter of human relations must first be found. Pilate asked "What is Truth?"; we are at last beginning to ask ourselves a twin question, " What is justice? " And this increasing acknowledgement that it is a problem is one of the most hopeful signs of progress. * Justice would seem, then, to be a growth, something* \ which is continually being bettered as the result of more \ i 164 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY knowledge and of finer sentiments. Let us see whether we can discover any principles and tendencies at work guiding this growth, so that we may venture a prophecy of its future content. The customary division of justice is that adopted by Aristotle in his " Ethics." Justice is either distributive or retributive. Distributive justice concerns itself with the assignment of social rewards of various kinds, such as income, honors, reputation, etc; while retributive or, as we prefer to call it to-day, corrective justice has to do with the treatment meted out by society to offenders. This division is pretty obvious and self-explanatory. A study of the growth of corrective justice will prepare us to appre- ciate better the change in our notions of distributive jus- tice which seems to be upon us. In early times, the tribal group controlled the conduct of its members in accordance with usages which had slowly grown up on the basis of vague utilities and even of super- stitions. Since life was comparatively simple and quite stable, the problems which arose were easily solved and such acts of justice as there were consisted of the appli- cation of accepted customs. Only as life became more complex and new possibilities opened out did justice be- come at times obscure and perplexing. At first, private or family revenge was the accepted method of dealing with grievances. The so-called lex talionis, the return of a blow for a blow, the demand of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, ruled supreme. In the Norse Sagas, for instance, we find a society practi- cally at this stage. The individual who had been injured by another sought to compass his death or, failing in this, endeavored to get the folkmoot to outlaw his enemy so that he might be robbed of all social protection. Grad- THE GROWTH OF JUSTICE 165 ually retributive justice was taken in hand by the social group in a formal manner and the right to private revenge banned because it was discovered that it led to blood- feuds and all sorts of internal dissensions. The power and safety of the tribe required the suppression of those cus- toms which would be apt to weaken it in comparison with its rivals. Thus a certain broad social utility presided at the birth of law. As time went on, the need for a clear statement of the various usages which had grown up rather at haphazard was felt. Favoritism, ambiguity, conflicts between the new and the old, and the rise of new situations forced the social group, now approaching the size of a nation, to pass to the higher stage of written laws. We possess pretty detailed knowledge of the passage of a society to this second stage in the case of the Greeks. The ideal which more or less consciously lies back of this advance was well expressed by Euripides, "With written laws, the humblest in the State Is sure of equal justice with the great." Would that this ideal were always reached ! These definite public laws were felt to offer a security which custom with its caste of interpreters could not guarantee. During the early years of its growth, law was guided by the desire of those in authority to build up a stable, social organization in accordance with the institutions and ideas of the period. In medieval Europe, for instance, order was never far removed from chaos : the church, the various small states and principalities were forced to work for some degree of unity and for the suppression of crime and disorder. The purpose was a laudable one, but the times were rough and violent and the law had to be harsh and 166 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY formal. Justice had an iron hand and an unpitying eye. Unfortunately, class-rule existed and made itself felt in the administration of justice. Status and authority were stressed and the law was used to maintain the relations upon which feudal society was founded. Class-feeling together with the roughness and lack of sensibility of the age led to barbarous punishments such as mutilation and the rack. Order was supposed to rest on terror and there was little scruple in resorting to extreme punishments for the slightest offences. This traditional justice was formal, external, ultra-severe and punitive. We have made great advances of recent years but it is well to know something of early justice in order to realize the need there was for improvement. Still it will not pay us to linger long upon this contrast. I shall therefore refer only to that wonderful criticism of the old justice made by Anatole France in his book entitled, "The Opinions of M. Jerome Coignard." A servant who has stolen some lace in order to deck herself out before her lover is captured. She immediately confesses her crime but is tortured for one or two hours nevertheless. After- wards, she is sentenced to be hung. The little bailiff who relates this story to M. Coignard looks upon the whole affair with pleasure rather than the reverse. Then comes the terrible story of the punishment of Helene Gillet, aged twenty-two years. For those who think this tale overdrawn, it may be enough to recall the historical fact that "Even as late as 1813, a proposal to change the pen- alty for stealing five shillings from death to transportation to a remote colony, was defeated in England." The purpose of justice has hitherto been dominantly deterrent and negative and its presupposition the entire satisfactoriness of the social conditions which it has had THE GROWTH OF JUSTICE 167 to guard. It has worked within the stiff framework of things as they are and followed obediently the classifica- tions and categories laid down by tradition. Theft was theft and murder was murder and carried the same dire penalty whatever the circumstances. The majesty of the law had to be upheld at whatever cost and the proper policing of society maintained. The application of the law was mainly a problem in classification and the particular individual involved possessed little or no interest for his own sake. Unless he was too obviously non compos mentis, the conditions which surrounded him and influenced him to the commission of the crime were not taken into account. Thus justice was by no means subtle in anything but its technicalities. It punished to uphold its over-sensitive majesty and, if I mistake not, to satisfy the cry for revenge which goes up from society. Crimes against property have been far too severely punished, showing a class animus and selfish fear which is ethically reprehensible. United to these shortcomings were the neglect of motives and the concern for mere external facts and the almost total dis- regard of the social causes at work leading to crime. Jus- tice was thus mechanical, formal and external. Now this connection of rigidity and repression was not accidentalrwfTef ever 'reason is not allowed free play, the method of social control resorted to is always fear and its companion, enforced respect for those in authority. Legal justice is not interested in the individual but in the maintenance of order and, just because the individual is considered primarily as a means, he is not studied and understood. The consequence has, only too often, been a real miscarriage of justice in so far as more harm was done to the individual than good to society. In the hope of protecting property for instance, life after life has been 168 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY brutalized and destroyed. This melancholy result has flowed inevitably from the false perspective dominating the older forms of justice. Property might well have been better protected if it had not been exalted too much. Let us note some of the errors of the old justice con- sequent upon its punitive attitude and formal methods. In the first place, its impartiality was more apparent than real. To treat a youth, who has committed his first crime from motives which are not at all criminal, practically like a hardened criminal is to neglect vital differences. Such superficial formality of treatment was possible only because the idea of punishment was uppermost in the mind of society; and this attitude meant that human beings were not valued very highly. To-day we are more willing to let the dead bury their dead and to look for- ward into the future; in other words, justice is being filled with human sympathy and is becoming keenly interested in persons and their future possibilities. To make an individual a valuable member of society by wise measures is beginning to be looked upon as a triumph. Justice is be- coming prospective instead of retrospective, concrete and human in place of formal and hard, corrective and psycho- logical rather than punitive. The focus of interest is changing from the crime to the criminal. The formal, punitive justice of the past committed many absurdities just because it was so short-sighted. We have already mentioned the treatment of novices in crime who were led to it by a variety of causes which were hardly at all discriminated. The lad who fell under the domina- tion of some hardened bravado, the boy who stole bread in order to feed his brothers and sisters, the mere youth who was led to commit certain depredations because the street- gang to which he belonged had drifted into doing them THE GROWTH OF JUSTICE 169 were all treated in much the same way. Sentenced to prison, the result was that they became outlaws asso- ciating with other outlaws bitter against society. It would almost seem that society took a stupid delight in making criminals. Could anything be more irrational? Society acted like the scorpion of popular myth which stings itself in its rage. Another stupidity is less often noticed even to-day. Is it sensible to give hardened crim- inals an arbitrary sentence and then to let them loose upon society? Either they should be kept under surveillance or else treated in a way to make them become self-respect- ing citizens able to earn a living. Society is reflecting upon these things to-day, but the reason is that the per- spective of justice has almost completely changed. Is it not evident that justice is a growing thing, not something fixed and definite which can be deduced from eternal principles? Society is so well founded by now that the chief pur- pose of justice can no longer be regarded as merely pro- tection against violence and anarchy. So long as society and individuals are imperfect, protection will always have its place but, let us hope, a diminishing place. The general decencies of life perpetuate themselves almost automatically and the causes of many crimes are such that society cannot help matters very much by a merely legal interference. The reason for this is that many deeds are instigated by causes which are unlikely to recur in the individual's life and which he probably regrets even more than society at large does. Justice must become more indirect and subtle and reside in the general spirit of society. I think it has been a mistake to suppose that law can do very much in certain aspects of human life. There has been something naive in the popular assump- 170 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY tion that all the ills society is heir to can be cured by courts. It is visibly an inheritance from the punitive prejudices of the old, non-psychological justice. We shall continue to seek to deter individuals from actions which are injurious to others but we shall as a rule trust to other means than we have in the past. Just as in medicine, prophylaxis is continuously rising into more prominence so that we are less proud of curing the sick than of preventing sickness, so in concrete justice we shall subordinate even correction and reformation to the establishment of those healthy conditions which will work towards the elimination of the so-called criminal. Thus there are three stages in the growth of justice, blind punishment, correction of the criminal after he has been made, and prophylaxis. Let us hope that the first stage has already been pretty nearly outgrown and that the third is dawning. It is improbable, however, that preven- tive measures will ever be complete enough to do away with the need for reformation. The incubation of crime is often in the dark, in those depths of the personality which are not open to public gaze, and it will burst forth without warning. All society can do, then, is to furnish as healthy conditions for the personality as possible and supplement these by subtle and well-thought-out corrective measures when these favorable conditions are inadequate. We shall try to supply each individual with those moral, economic and intellectual surroundings which will make his aggression upon others semi-pathological; we shall believe more in education, social well-being and the in- fluence of example, and far less in fear. Gradually, society will bend its efforts to surround every individual with an atmosphere of positive justice, that is, with those freedoms which encourage a vigorous and healthy personality, a THE GROWTH OF JUSTICE 171 sane mind in a sane body. Law like medicine will pass from the treatment of effects to the discovery and rooting out of causes. There is nothing very prophetic or revolutionary about this view of justice in these days, for noble men and women are already acting upon it and seeking to re-organize our courts and social institutions in the light of their clearer vision of the best methods to be adopted by society. Their efforts are as yet tentative and experimental, however, and there is need for a wider knowledge of the logic back of their program. A clear realization of the futility and actual injustice of the old justice will aid greatly the ad- vance of the new justice. An example of the methods and ideals of the social experiments being made along these broader, more con- structive lines may put the matter in a clearer light. Ab- stract analysis usually needs supplementation of this kind to make its import and bearing unmistakable. The Juve- nile Courts which are springing up in every direction repre- sent efforts to meet social problems in a scientific way. The attempt is made to understand the boy and to get his confidence and then to analyze his case and work out a remedy. Boys are now seen to drift into crimes of a minor kind almost unconsciously through those instincts and tendencies which, under other circumstances, would find healthy expression. In other words, our congested cities with their lack of playgrounds are not fit places for chil- dren. The methods of the social worker are united with the authority of the kindly, shrewd-eyed judge and the result is an astonishingly large number of reformations. Society has let human material run to waste for lack of care and sympathetic treatment and has contented itself with weeding out the dangerous products of its own neg- 172 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY lect. But boys and girls do not furnish the only field for these more far-sighted ministrations of the wiser attitude of justice. In many European cities, labor disputes are investigated and settled along equitable lines with as little appeal to the traditional court methods as possible. Even the presence of an attorney is not desired. In this country again, the Court of Domestic Relations inaugurated in Chicago as the result of the efforts of a group of women under the leadership of Jane Addams, is an excellent ex- ample of the spirit of the new departure. Miss Tarbell, who describes its work, writes as follows : " Punishment was the key to the old treatment. If a man or woman was found guilty of breaking some one or another of the laws of marriage, the practice had been to deal to him the punishment the law prescribed. The judges of the Munic- ipal Court knew well enough how futile as a rule the pun- ishment was, how almost invariably the one result was to make the breach in the family wider. They now broke utterly with the old formula and laid down a new aim for the court: 'To make itself equally as good an agent to keep husband and wife together and thus give the children the home influence, as it had been an agent in separating them.'" How long it has taken experience and reflection to arrive at this seemingly obvious conclusion. Habits and attitudes have a tremendous power so that men's eyes are withholden from the wise and truly just course. The conflict between the spirit and the letter of the justice of any epoch is commonly expressed as the contrast between equity and legal or formal justice. Equity, as Aristotle pointed out, is a sort of justice; it is an attempt to better formal or technical justice. We may say that it represents the leaven of sane ethical criticism within the general ordering of affairs by rule and thus bears witness THE GROWTH OF JUSTICE 173 to an inadequacy either in the general principles in force or in the method of their application. When the breach between what is felt to be just and the actual course taken is too marked, the sense of equity becomes the instigator of radical changes. Hence the ideal of equity stands for progress in the principles of justice and plasticity in their application. One of the signs of this awakening sense of the equities is the growing protest against the over- valuation of tech- nical forms of procedure. It is seen that these forms, when reenforced by this veneration, are even more apt to hinder the administration of justice than to further it. But an- other and deeper sign is the recognition of the wrong done in pitting a clever attorney with his reputation to make against some poor creature who has not the money to hire an able defender and not the wits to explain himself. Law has too often become a forensic battle between cel- ebrated criminal lawyers who are fighting, not for justice, but for money and reputation. The experiment begun by the city of Los Angeles to maintain a public defender is thus a mark of a clearer view of the true dignity of law. The time may come when, as Professor Hobhouse suggests, there will be a demand for the abolition of the power of money to purchase skilled advocacy. 1 What a revolution such a change would bring about in the legal profession! It almost takes a socialist even to dream of it. To socialize justice, to apply psychological methods, to see men in their concrete social relations, to study character and actions in an objective, truly scientific way, to be interested only in the best treatment of the individual for his own and so- ciety's sake : what a different court-room, what differently trained lawyers and judges such a program would require. 1 "Liberalism," p. 25. THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY We may say, then, that the new justice concerns itself fwith causes and conditions and seeks to control these in I the light of what it conceives ought to be. And this teleological or purposive character which is coming to the front makes it lose the old formal definiteness which it had hi the era when it had only punishment in mind. And, inevitably, corrective justice finds that it is bound up with distributive justice, with the social arrangements and in- stitutions which control men's lives. Thus it is this larger relationship which makes justice to-day so tantalizing and so challenging. Slowly, men are realizing that it reaches down to the very foundations of society and that rights and customs which they have taken for granted can no longer be so taken but must be carefully examined in the light of larger ideals. Justice is not a static thing whose place and magnitude can be calculated by mathematics or by deduction from Blackstone, but a growing thing whose size and structure depend on the economic and ethical development of society. It would be easy to show why a true corrective justice which aims at prevention rather than punishment must rest upon distributive justice. Let the conservative lay as much stress as he likes upon the natural criminality of mankind and the old-fashioned criminologist upon the criminal type, they yet cannot deny that the slums nourish the larger percentage of criminals. Poverty, ugly sur- roundings, mal-nutrition, lack of family control, false ideals nourished by unjust contrasts, all these work to- wards the inevitable result. The criminal is in large measure a product of society and the new justice demands that society cease to permit those conditions which are seen to produce him. At the very least, let it take proper precautions and not force the mentally and physically THE GROWTH OF JUSTICE 175 unfit to battle in a fierce arena and then punish them when they do not observe the rules which they hardly under- stand or else rightly resent. But corrective justice has concerned itself up to now only with the police aspect of justice; it must go deeper to the positive arrangements of society and in so doing it necessarily becomes distributive or constructive. It must seek to mould institutions in accordance with the ethical sentiments which are beginning to prevail. The dawning of a new apprehension of social or distrib- utive justice is usually connected with a watchword. Thus the workman of to-day who adopts as his motto the phrase, "Justice and not charity," is more or less aware that he desires a social organization in which he can secure a reward proportional to his honest endeavor. The assumption that he makes is that distribution should not be a mechanical thing following from certain uncriticized and inherited arrangements but a vital process governed so far as possible by ethical standards. Of course he would not put his idea in this form, but his protest really means that the dice are so loaded that he does not get a fair chance at life. And are not the dice loaded? Only when interpreted in this way does his motto have meaning. If reward were determined solely by competition within the legal and institutional arrangements of the day with the control they exert, and if this determination were just and these arrangements ethically acceptable, then the workman would be getting what he deserved and his motto would be useless as a slogan. Charity would be a matter of supererogation, an affair of grace. His watchword would signify only a laudable intention to be satisfied with his wages and to reject anything more. Those economists who assert that the laboring classes are paid what they earn 176 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY would find themselves in complete harmony with these individuals about whose condition they are theorizing. But this is not the case. The mass of the citizens are ask- ing themselves whether social arrangements are just, that is, whether they lead to the most desirable results. The reaction against charity which is so typical of the present reveals a deep-lying change in social values. On the one hand, the traditional lower classes are no longer satisfied to accept what gracious hands dole out from their stores, but rebelliously and truculently ask the source of this surplus. "Before we are grateful, we desire you to show that this largess is rightly yours and that we are not dispossessed heirs kept ostentatiously by those who have taken our fortunes" is the import of the surly atti- tude so often marked with sorrow by the charitable who are too human not to desire some manifestation of grati- tude. Suspicion and social scepticism are stalking abroad in the land and will not be laid except by honest proof that they are unjustified. The period of authority and reverence has passed for ever, and mere reiteration that things are as they should be will not bring it back. The workers who have been nourished in the atmosphere engendered by the incipient democracy of the present demand social relations of a virile type stimulating to their manhood. For this reason charity is repugnant to them. They feel that they have not been given their chance and therefore are not resigned. Thus the idea is spreading that charity is the attempt to soften condi- tions which a deeper ethical sense would revolt against and seek to cure. God's poor are now thought of as men's poor and charity as the helpless goodness of the pros- perous to the helpless poverty of the wretched. It is a true saying that there is more kindness than justice in THE GROWTH OF JUSTICE 177 the world. But we are beginning to ask ourselves whether this antithesis does not indicate a weakness in the ethical outlook of the past. We saw that the traditional contrast between justice and mercy pointed to a flaw in the formal, unbending justice of other days with its emphasis on the letter rather than the spirit and its tendency to rigidity and abstractness; true justice is merciful. But is not true kindness just and adequate justice kind? It is under the stimulus of ideas of this temper that the new justice is passing from correction to prevention and thence to the eager provision of those social conditions which will nourish healthy and significant lives. It is to the study of these conditions that the next two chapters will be devoted. CHAPTER IX SOME PRINCIPLES OF PECUNIARY REWARD JUSTICE is an ideal and a problem. Especially is this the case with pecuniary reward. To adopt the social standpoint and to decide that the distribution of rewards reacts profoundly upon the health and the direction of activity of society is but to set the problem. Yet even to do this much is an advance which should not be min- imized. No one knows better than the trained thinker how important is the posing of the right problem from the right standpoint. It is, indeed, half the battle. Still there must be some principle or set of principles in harmony with a virile yet comprehensive morality to guide a society which wishes to be democratic in the con- trol of those pecuniary rewards which affect men's lives so deeply. To seek such principles and to formulate them clearly is one of the important intellectual tasks which the mature socialist sets himself. He must free himself from all tendencies to Utopianism, on the one hand, and from intimidation by the possessing classes on the other. And I know of nothing more exasperating and, at the same time, impressive than the smug assurance of those who, for one reason or another, good or bad, occupy a pleasant economic position. To see through appearances to the realities of social status is not an easy task. The reader must remember that, in this field, values are uppermost, and that socialism represents a shifting of values rather than a system of facts and explanatory theories. Society, like an individual, is always being 178 SOME PRINCIPLES OF PECUNIARY REWARD 179 confronted by the hazard of a choice and all that it can ask is that the choice be not too blind. Further than this, knowledge does not go; and the series of decisions which determine the direction taken are expressions of character. Social questions can never be solved by the intellect alone, as are mathematical problems, because they involve a moral selection which cannot be reduced to a calculation of purely scientific data. We stressed this fact when we were discussing the relation of modern socialism, as a movement, to the social sciences. The distribution of pecuniary reward is a complex social problem which has -both a scientific and a moral side. And these aspects are not so separable as the spe- cialist in economics would like to have us believe. As a result of the spread of education and of the slowly in- creasing respect for the possibilities and rights of every individual, a portion at least of public opinion is beginning to ask itself whether society cannot exert a more definite control over the distribution of pecuniary reward. We are demanding why we should permit institutions to remain unchanged which lead to an inequality for which a study of the individuals concerned does not show ade- quate reason. Are better arrangements impossible be- cause of the complexity of society or because of the stu- pidity of men? Or is a drastic procedure urged upon us by our ideals and relatively sanctioned by our knowledge? The weight of these questions rests on the mind and con- science of the time with crushing force. We do not know how radical we ought to be; and, when we seek counsel, we are not sure to what voices to give ear. Age and posi- tion are naturally conservative and suspicious of new departures; success and comfort have their prejudices as surely as do failure, poverty and unarrived ability. 180 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY We have reason to believe that those who claim to speak with authority are only giving utterance to their impres- sions and bias and that they have unconsciously made assumptions which should be forced to defend themselves. In this situation, a search for principles above the level of power, custom and prejudice is in order. If we are to believe in moral progress, we must hold that the public will, in the long run, listen only to such principles. The first distinction we must make when we raise the question of pecuniary reward is the recurrent one between things as they are and as they ought to be. How is pecuniary reward determined in society as it is at pres- ent organized? How ought it to be determined in a so- ciety corresponding more nearly to the conditions of justice? These two questions are fairly distinct from one another and require different types of investigation; the one is empirical and factual, the other empirical and ethical. Let us try to keep this difference in mind for much aimless controversy and misunderstanding have arisen from the failure so to do. Pecuniary reward is a larger term than wages but it will be best to consider wages and its laws first. And by laws I mean the statements of the factors which actually control the price of labor in the market as at present or- ganized. Such laws are relative to certain conditions which are more or less under human control and must not therefore be confused with the laws formulated by the physical scientist. The assimilation of the laws of political economy with those of nature and the hasty issuing of maxims based upon them as something abso- lute and final have done much injury in the past. Let us, first of all, listen to what economists of good standing say on this topic of the determination of wages. SOME PRINCIPLES OF PECUNIARY REWARD 181 I shall quote them at some length and then summarize their conclusions. "Labor," writes Hobson, 1 "stands on so different a foot- ing from the other factors of production in regard to the conditions of its sale that a separate law of wages has often been propounded. Such procedure, however, is quite un- warranted. For the price of labor is determined like the price of the other factors by considerations of cost and scarcity affecting the relation of the supply to the de- mand." But labor is a different kind of factor in produc- tion than land or capital and must therefore at times be treated in a different fashion. In order to get the best work out of the laborer it may be necessary to treat him in a fairly humane fashion just as a horse must be well fed and groomed if it is to do its best work. Here we have in germ the so-called principle of the economy of high wages. But when we come to consider the problem a little more closely, we realize that there is something analogous to this in the non-human factors of production. A machine must be kept well oiled if it is to function satisfactorily and land must be well cultivated and fertilized. So far, then, as the economic institutions of the present are con- cerned, the attitude towards the various factors of pro- duction is the same only this factor causes more trouble because it is more complex and, unfortunately, has other relations in the social whole. Professor Chapman presents the marginal theory of wages in his excellent little book to which we have already referred. Unfortunately, he does not realize sufficiently the ambiguity of some of his terms. On the whole, how- ever, his standpoint is that of the analytic economist who works within the structure of the market as at present 1 "The Science of Wealth," p. 117. 182 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY organized. For him, also, the laws of wages do not vary from the laws of the other factors of production. "Our general conclusion is that wages in a given trade are settled by the marginal worth of labor in that trade and the supply price for labor in the trade, that is the wage at which an additional laborer will be forthcoming. The wage is the amount at which equal quantities of labor will be de- manded and supplied. It may be, however, that the lowest class of labor has no supply price that its numbers are independent of its wages given sufficient for subsist- ence in which case its wages are settled finally by its num- bers in relation to the marginal worth associated with them." 1 We have thus to do with a market so arranged that the price of the various factors of production is objectively determined by the part they play and their supply. For our present purpose we need not enter into such complexities as the cooperation of factors and their possible substitution for one another. What must be stressed is the objective, competitive, non-ethical char- acter of the determination of the price paid in the market. We must frankly recognize that we are living to-day under institutions which are organized on a competitive basis although they are surrounded and qualified by other institutions such as inheritance which are not so organized. One of the clearest statements of this situation and its implications is to be found in Davenport's book, "The Economics of Enterprise." "The competitive economy is an exchange economy, and therefore a price economy. Production takes place typically for the purposes of sale. Gain, therefore, is sought in terms of price, and accrues in terms of price: All economic purposes and methods take on the price emphasis. Price becomes the central and 1 P. 177. SOME PRINCIPLES OF PECUNIARY REWARD 183 pivotal fact in all industry and business. The theory of price is thus the core of all economic theory; the rest is corollary or application." Salaries are usually distinguished from wages and are considered to be compensations paid according to agree- ment over longer intervals of time and to individuals who possess trained ability. Naturally enough, the two shade into one another so that in certain cases it is a matter of rather arbitrary choice which of the terms be used. Social considerations usually enter in to decide the question. Now salaries are partly controlled by supply and de- mand as are wages but other factors enter in to a greater extent. The President of a University receives, perhaps, ten thousand dollars but this amount is not determined by the market to any large extent. I presume that able men would be willing to have the power for good and evil that such a position brings at a salary little if any higher than they are receiving in what Americans conceive of as sub- ordinate positions. Granted that the expenses are greater, it still remains true that this fact alone does not fix the salary offered. Can there be any doubt that social values, often of the most undemocratic kind, help to fix the sal- aries of public officials, business managers, conspicuous representatives of trades and industries in various fields? Thus the higher salaries are buoyed up and delivered from competition by the intrusion of causes which should be outside of the market. The lower grades of salaries are, on the other hand, more and more subject to the laws of competition. Theoretically, the profits of business men are determined by competition but, here again, other factors intrude to modify the result. The scarcity of business men leads to their power to take a larger proportional share of the social 184 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY product than seems at all just from other points of view. Thus a considerable percentage of their reward is due to the rent of a socially controlled supply of ability and knowledge. "The whole profit of a successful business, beyond what is really minimum wages of ability, is a scarcity rent or surplus, attributable, like every other surplus, to a restraint upon free competition by limiting the supply of the factor of production that receives the surplus. The conduct of modern industry lends itself to this scarcity. For, though there is most likely a plentiful supply of efficient business ability of various orders, only a small pro- portion of its owners can find an opportunity of training and applying it." Economists who have some insight into sociology are beginning to recognize that competition be- tween the factors of production is directed by social control and that this control rests in large measure in the hands of the few. To better this control and to make it democratic would seem to be the task of social justice. The market has a social setting which the economist has too much ignored; and it is the merit of the socialist that he sensed the problem and insisted on its reality, even though his interpretation of it was not technically perfect. The present organization of industry is such that a few, the business class, have an influence which seems to the investigator out of all proportion to their numbers or ability. Theirs is a pivotal position of great importance, and society has not made adjustments to meet the dangers which inhere hi such a situation. The consequence is that clear-sighted economists like Hobson are led to assert that "a constantly increasing share of the 'surplus' figures as net profits to the successful 'business man.' " Economic control is focussed in this class and society has been naive enough to assume that they would somehow use it for the ; SOME PRINCIPLES OF PECUNIARY REWARD 185 good of the whole or that, as Adam Smith would phrase it, an Unseen Hand would guide affairs for the best in this best of all possible worlds. Combined with this simplicity of outlook which never doubts that things are as they should be has been a naive worship of the business man in a society which, when the best is said, occupies a rel- .atively low intellectual and ethical level. As Mr. Lowes Dickenson remarks, we have very much over-estimated the business type and the business man. The vulgar self- admiration of our Joe Bounderbys and the unimaginative commercialism of our Thomas Gradgrinds have either captured the mind of the people or made them feel their helplessness. With slight changes, what Miss Addams considers the attitude of the poor towards the rich holds all through society. "The rich landlord is he who collects with sternness, who accepts no excuse, and will have his own. There are moments of irritation and of real bitter- ness against him, but there is still admiration, because he is rich and successful. 1 " Money talks everywhere and its mere presence tends to be its justification. It is within this social atmosphere that the valuation of the business man has taken place. We Americans have our recognized kings and captains and our ruling class. What I have tried to bring out in this discussion of actual pecuniary reward is the undeniable fact that the social organization as a whole with its institutions and opinions automatically controls the distribution of the national income. Let us see what the result has been. There are signs that we are getting ashamed of this result and would like to change it a wish which is as yet more sentimental than real; for, as I have tried to show in the Ethics of Work, the tradition of a leisure class is still strong among us. 186 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY In order to escape the complaint that I am overdrawing the economic situation, I shall confine myself to quotations from authorities on the subject. I have tried to point out the letting up of competitive forces as we move upward from the day-laborer to the business man; but this fact can be understood only when the non-competitive char- acter of the social setting is appreciated. To this should be added a clearer idea of just what capital is; we are too apt to conceive of it in terms of material goods whereas anything which is the foundation of credit is capital. Genuine social wealth and capital are by no means the same. Spahr's " Present Distribution of Wealth in the United States" estimates that seven eighths of the families in the United States own only one eighth of the wealth, and that one per cent own more than the remaining ninety- nine per cent. This has been challenged, but any estimate made by economists shows such enormous dispropor- tion as to make it incredible that the present distribu- tion can be regarded as just on any definition of justice other than " according to the principles of contract and competition!" 1 We have seen how extensively the prin- ciple of competition has been qualified by our social in- stitutions and system of class control. Let us look at the details of the distribution. "Out of the 107 billions of material wealth, 18j/ billions are reported as current products clothing, personal ornaments, furniture, car- riages. (I leave the reader to consider the probable dis- tribution of this portion.) Of the remaining 89 billions, 2 billions are coin and bullion. Of the remaining 87 bil- lions, 62 billions are land and improvements and 16 billions are accounted for as public utility corporations; 8 billions 1 Dewey and Tufts, "Ethics," p. 545. SOME PRINCIPLES OF PECUNIARY REWARD 187 remain for live stock and industrial equipment." 1 Analyz- ing these classes of wealth, we find some interesting re- sults. "Now of the 62 billions of land and improvement, it is estimated that there are 41 billions of unearned in- crement, that is to say, values due to the growth of the communities and to speculation. The last tax report for Illinois gives the town and city lots as assessed at 24 times the farm values. Estimating, also, the value of rights of way, of user and of terminals, for the rail- roads and tramways, express companies, electric light and telegraph companies, it is probably not wide of the truth to say that one half of the 18 billion value of public service corporations represents merely social values." Mr. Davenport's conclusion is that "Five ninths of the durable wealth reported by the census is made up of privately appropriated social wealth." Now this is a pretty sane estimate by a man who is radical but not an overt socialist. His comment is interesting: " Were society later to make as great a botch of socialism as it has thus far made of competition, socialism would present the nightmare of all the ages." The truth is that we have not had competition but special privileges. The belief of the socialist is that were these special privileges with their vicious allurements removed more people would be in favor of cooperation. However that may be, so- cialist and true liberal are agreed in regard to the un- satisfactoriness of the present distribution of income and the social institutions and customs which are responsible for it. There are mal-adjustments which leave unmerited poverty at the foundation of society and unmerited abun- dance at the top. As a preparation for the study of the question, How 1 Davenport, "The Economics of Enterprise," p. 520. 188 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY ought pecuniary reward to be determined? we have sought to gain some knowledge of the actual distribution of income and of some of the principles which control it. Probably John Stuart Mill's famous summary of the economic situation in England in his day is still near the truth : " If the choice were to be made between communism with all its chances, and the present state of society with all its sufferings and injustices, if the institution of private property necessarily carried with it, as a consequence, that the produce of labor should be apportioned, as we now see it, almost in inverse ratio to the labor, the largest portions to those who have not worked at all, the next largest to those whose work is almost nominal, and so in descending scale, the remuneration dwindling as the work grows harder and more disagreeable, until the most fa- tiguing and exhausting bodily labor cannot count with certainty on being able to earn even the necessaries of life, if this, or communism, were the alternative, all the difficulties, great or small, of communism would be but as dust in the balance." It would seem that artificial scarcities and privileges of one sort or other have aided to maintain a distribution which conflicts with the ideas of justice which are gradually unfolding in society. When we come to search for principles of pecuniary reward, we soon realize that they are relative to the whole situation of society and that there can be nothing abso- lute in their pronouncements. What, for instance, is the relation between pecuniary rewards and other rewards like security and leisure? Does the adulation of wealth as against personal capacity and wise activity make varia- tions in pecuniary reward more necessary than they would be in a saner and more cultured society? Such questions make us realize that principles are often of the nature of SOME PRINCIPLES OF PECUNIARY REWARD 189 goals at which we should aim, rather than doctrines which should be put into force with revolutionary ardor. The recognition of this relativity is, however, no excuse for dilatoriness and inactivity. Let us, then, examine those principles of an ethical character which have been suggested by socialists and radicals and ethical thinkers and then try to relate our conclusion to society in an organic way. Somehow dis- tribution must take into account the value of the indi- vidual's life and its range of possibilities. This point of approach is implicitly democratic in so far as it leads us to see value in all human beings and is overtly democratic when it causes us to challege inequalities in treatment which have not a clear justification. Democratic prin- ciples should manifest themselves as tendencies in indus- try. This much at least we can say without fear of being untrue to the relativity of things. To those who have felt repelled by present social ar- rangements, two standards of a just reward have in the main suggested themselves. Some have held that the members of society should receive from society according to their need while others have maintained that reward should be according to merit. A study of these two stand- ards may give us a deeper insight into the problem. Those who assert that need should be the principle of distribution seem to forget the relativity of the term. Needs are relative to the standard of living so that the need of a cultured man who has fallen on evil times is actually far greater than that of the man who has been used to what are called the necessaries of life. Thus need is not an absolute, objective fact which can be measured. An individual can so pamper himself that his needs may be far greater than those of a saner individual who has had 190 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY a healthier view of life. It would seem necessary to set up some standard of living as a healthy minimum and to limit the principle of need to the establishment of this level of reward; at least, such action would seem to be the wisest so long as need is thought of in the personal, sen- timental way that is customary. We are forced to con- clude that need as ordinarily interpreted has more connec- tion with the older ideas of charity than with the newer ideas of social justice. We saw that modern ideas of justice dwell on the pos- sibilities which inhere in individuals. Public opinion stresses need from this standpoint: what does such an individual need if he is to develop what he is capable of? Thus we are forward-looking and dynamic and relate need to the conditions of a satisfactory development of capac- ities which are recognized to be valuable to society. We feel that society should strive to present individuals with those pecuniary conditions which will assist them in their efforts at self-realization. Such need must be a socially- controlled affair resting in the enlightened public opinion of the day. Inequalities of reward ought if we are to accept this principle to correspond to differences in capacity on the supposition that it is more difficult to develop trained powers involving the higher faculties than skill of a less subtle type. Were the development of capac- ity entirely dependent on pecuniary reward, only a perfect and omniscient society could apportion the national in- come in such a way that this constructive justice would be forthcoming. Fortunately, however, the best work in art, science and philosophy is done by those who are far from being millionaires. In other words, there is no just human need for great personal wealth. Poverty hinders the growth of these nobler achievements because it prevents SOME PRINCIPLES OF PECUNIARY REWARD 191 the possession of necessary conditions, but wealth is apt to remove the simplicity and directness of genius. While we must not over-estimate the power of pecuniary reward in the realm of the things which are worth while,, it is equally absurd to under-estimate them. A society which toils overhard to give fools wherewith to disport themselves is a foolish society. But a society which does this while those who work have not a satisfactory standard of living and the children of ability have not the means to develop their gifts for the good of all is criminal as well as , foolish. Such a society sins against the possibilities in- herent in humanity and is inefficient because short sighted. The standard of need would thus seem to be identical with that of efficiency when the latter is taken in a large social sense. Before we take up the standard of merit to see what it leads to, it may be well to call attention to two facts which are sometimes forgotten. First, pecuniary reward is not; the only kind of reward which can be given by society. Leisure to pursue an avocation, to follow up some vein of activity which has not yet proven itself is also a reward. The wise giving of leisure is just as important as the giving of money. Second, society should always remember that production of a material kind is not the end of life. A spendthrift society can never solve the problem of pecuniary reward; a just distribution is thus always bound up with the problem of a wise and, therefore, just quantity of production. In this way, the ethics of reward is bound up with the ethics of work and the ethics of leisure. The spiritual temper of society will always affect the distribu- tion of reward. The problem cannot be a purely mechan- ical one. Now need, when interpreted in this constructive way in THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY and connected with the idea of social efficiency, seems to offer a healthy principle for distribution. It is internal, purposive and social, not external and mechanical. It is, however, not an easy principle to apply in its details, but then we must remember that no real problem is easy of solution. In fact, it is the sign of a trained mind in social affairs to realize that mathematical methods are only par- tially applicable when the relations between human beings are in question. Having seen the truth that lies in the emphasis on need as a principle of pecuniary reward, let us next consider the more commonly accepted standard of merit. If people could be rewarded according to their merit would such reward be just? I presume that the majority would immediately answer this question in the affirmative with- out any realization of the vagueness of the idea of merit. Do we mean social merit or individual merit? Are these two different kinds of merit coincident or may they be quite opposed to one another? The principle of merit is usually advanced as though it were perfectly clear in its meaning and had no need of interpretation. Nevertheless, I believe that reflection will show that the individualistic notion of merit, current among us and connected with competitive hustling, is too crude and unethical to survive analysis of a searching kind. It is usual to connect merit with effort on the one hand and with ability on the other hand; and no persistent attempt is made by popular thought to separate the two. Sometimes ability is thought of as the result of effort and, therefore, as the creation of the individual; sometimes it is taken as a gift which deserves recognition. It is surpris- ingly seldom that even this much of a distinction is made. People demand a reward proportionate to their ability just SOME PRINCIPLES OF PECUNIARY REWARD 193 because it is their own, just as they claim rent for land or interest for money that has been loaned. They bring ability under the category of property it is their posses- sion and never dream of carrying the analysis further. Their reasoning is probably somewhat as follows : " Under the present economic organization certain kinds of ability enable the individual to secure a greater reward than those are able to obtain who do not possess these capacities. But the organization which makes individuals compete with one another for their share of the social income is just and natural. Therefore, the reward of ability is just." I presume that very few practical men have a moment's doubt in regard to the essential justice of the unequal division of income which is so characteristic of present-day society. A man is supposed to have a sort of innate property right in his own capacities. In the old days when religion still modified the economic outlook of the majority, it was common to hear men speak of their ability as a gift of God to be reverently used for those ends which would appear good in His eyes. In other words, ability was not looked at as an absolute possession; it was in fact limited and conditional, the individual was an agent or representative not a monarch. To-day this con- ditional view has almost died out and ability is conceived as a gift of heredity, or of chance, of which the individual has a perfect right to take advantage just as he takes advantage of the rise in value of land due to the growth of a town. But even the political economist is beginning to think of ability as a sort of rent, something which the individual does not earn but which society allows him to make use of for its own good purpose or lack of purpose. We say that the landlord has the legal right to the rent which his land 194 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY brings but it is quite another thing to assert that he de- serves it or merits it. But how easily these two different concepts are confused in every day thought ! In the same way, a man has a legal right to the rent which his ability brings but it would be wrong for him to interpret this as meaning that he deserved it in some intrinsic fashion. Only if all men started equal as naked souls having the same capacities and had that free-will of which theologians speak would they have the right to claim merit for the trained abilities which they would finally possess. Leaving aside the interesting philosophical question whether such a facultative free-will has any meaning, it is still obvious that no individual is self-created in this way. The self- made man is after all only partially self-made. If his ability is hereditary, he cannot claim merit for his ances- tors; if it is due to a chance variation, he cannot regard such a fortunate variation as the result of his own mer- itorious efforts. So far, then, as it is a question of natural ability, it seems clear that we must leave out the idea of merit in the laudatory sense of that term. A little more humility on the part of successful men would be a good thing. Each should see himself in his relations, genetic and social. The inventor ought to know his dependence upon pure science, the business man upon the development of transportation and upon social activity in general. This knowledge, if it brought humility, would assist greatly in the coming of that social atmosphere which democracy needs. To bring this about is the task of our educational system to which it has been largely recreant. Let us see, now, whether this general discussion of the principles of reward can lead to any practical suggestion. Certain general reforms suggest themselves at once. These have been grouped together frequently enough SOME PRINCIPLES OF PECUNIARY REWARD 195 under the caption, equality of opportunity. Equality of opportunity, it is asserted, will give the conditions for a fairer competition between individuals for rewards. Eliminate the obviously unfit by kindly segregation, pre- vent the propagation of those who are sub-normal by similar measures; distribute the burdens of accident and unemployment over society as a whole instead of letting them fall upon the individual or the family; better the opportunity for an education suited to the nature of the individual and the role he will probably play when he grows up. All these reforms will lead to a healthier so- ciety and one in which the individual is more capable of competing with his fellows. Besides, such individuals will be more apt to cooperate together for the develop- ment of socialized institutions and methods. Thus far, however, we have onty the elementary condi- tions of social justice concerning which there is, in theory at least, little dispute. Society mpves forward too slowly because of the inertia caused by thoughtlessness and selfishness; but the battle of ideas has been fought and practically won. Yet the question remains obstinately in our minds whether these elementary reforms go much farther than an alleviation of the effects of social mal- adjustments. Will these reforms bring about a real and effective equality of opportunity? I very much doubt it because there is in them no attempt to grapple with those social institutions whose influence is continuous and pervasive. The individualist reformer has faith in the power of minor changes apart from radical alteration in the control of industry and property. For instance, the economist with this outlook asserts that the solution of the problem lies in the increase of employers with the retention of the competitive system. If only more in- 196 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY dividuals could receive the proper training and education and secure the necessary credit, profits would auto- matically sink, that is, the employer's share of the amount distributed would be less. Now this is evidently only the rebirth of the ideal of free competition in opposition to private monopoly. Of the two it is undoubtedly the one to be preferred; but the question remains how it is to be put into force when all the tendencies are towards amalgamation and cooperation. The opposition has been outgrown because a new possibility has come to the front since the days of Adam Smith. The truth is that the principle of equal opportunity cannot be realized, even approximately, apart from a serious re-adjustment of property relations and control. These buoy up those who are otherwise little different from scores of others and give them a reward out of all proportion to their needs and merit. "It is said that the first Cornelius Vanderbilt, who founded the Vanderbilt family, made a fortune of one hundred million dollars out of railways, and it is said that he made it legitimately, it being claimed that he rendered very valuable services to the country and that these services were worth quite one hundred million dollars if not a good deal more." Now those who make such dogmatic statements as these do not realize that they have no standard of valuation of an objective sort. In this country a service is worth what can be gotten for it and this fact means that worth is a purely competitive category relative to the social or- ganization. Change this organization and the same services would be worth far less. It is this significance of the basic spirit and methods of a country which the economist usually fails to grasp. "There was in Wurt- temberg in the early days of railways a very able railway SOME PRINCIPLES OF PECUNIARY REWARD 197 manager whose services resembled in many respects those of the first Cornelius Vanderbilt, because the essential service of the first Cornelius Vanderbilt consisted in rail- way concentration and unification. The man in Wurttem- berg, referred to, effected a real unity in the administration of the railways in that state and developed and built up there a very excellent railway system; and his salary was less than $3,000 a year." Of course, if we as a nation are incapable of doing things in a social way, we must pay a hundred millions to have them done in an individualistic way. Has not, however, the Panama canal taught us that we are not so incapable socially as we have thought ourselves to be? The paradox of America has been that its pride has suffered so little at its acknowledged inability to do large social things in a cooperative way. It would seem, then, that equal opportunity is relative to the spirit and method of industrial enterprise. And I do not see how property relations with the control they involve can be very much modified without steps being taken in the direction of public activity. Control and opportunity must be socialized and such socialization requires a social organization and a spirit of cooperation. Our general conclusion can now be stated. The ideal principle of reward is that of need, reward being thus rec- ognized definitely as a means to an end, a self-realization in accord with a progressive social welfare. But this principle cannot be directly applied apart from an experimental demonstration on the part of the individual of what he is capable of doing, and this objective test is essentially one with the principle of merit. In other words, the individual cannot be separated from his activity and judged as a mere bundle of potentialities. His needs must be connected with his actual functions. There is, then, 198 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY no final opposition between social need and social merit. It follows that we must relinquish any hope of an objective, mathematical principle which could be applied apart from the actual tangle of human activity. The ideal must be incarnated in the social organization of society and work there automatically. Of course, no ideal can be incarnated completely but can only be approached. But the point I wish to make is that we should never dream of an absolute and fixed justice external to society. An equitable reward must flow from a society whose economic organization is the manifestation of right principles. There should be little need to redistribute by means of special laws. What is desirable, then, is the growth of those economic relations which will help to evoke the energies of men and at the same time minister to the social welfare of all classes and types. Over-rewards and under-rewards will first of all be eliminated; and, as time goes on, things will shape themselves to a far nearer approach to equality than is at present dreamed of. Yet it seems safe to say that, however rich the growth of the spirit of service and cooperation may be, it will never do away with the need for some form of personal competition. The majority of men require a visible stimulus for their activity. More- over, to demand equality at any price is to show an un- generous spirit as little admirable as that of rampant self-assertion. Besides the pecuniary reward whose ethical principles we have just been examining, there are other rewards which an increasing civilization will offer ever more freely to all its children. The principle of these other rewards will be, as they have always been, communistic in char- acter. The beauty of nature has been common to all SOME PRINCIPLES OF PECUNIARY REWARD 199 just as the air has been. To these gifts enjoyed in com- mon will be added the beauty of municipal buildings, the restful peace of well kept-up parks, the pleasure of concerts in the evenings, the use at will of libraries and museums. Greater than all these, perhaps, though de- pending on them will be the constant enjoyment of real companionship of cultivated minds vitally interested in things worth while. Who can measure the rewards added to the pecuniary wages by this artistic and spiritual com- munism? Already society is learning that in these fields the good of the many is the good of each. It may be that it will be led by a recognition of this spiritual law to a new valuation of material things. CHAPTER X THE CONDITIONS OF A SOCIAL FREEDOM WE are often assured that we are a "free" people. We are given to understand that freedom is an inheritance from our fathers and that it has since been handed down like the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence from a Golden Age of political achievement. In contrast to the citizens of other countries we have, it is said, much cause for self-congratulation because of this possession of liberty. Liberty is thus taken as a final thing and not as a growing thing Is it not possible that we have taken one phase in the coming of complete liberty as the perfect consummation? Perhaps we have not reflected deeply enough and have allowed ourselves to think that our task was ended when it was not much more than begun. Perhaps the possession of a formal political liberty should mark only the beginning of a deeper and more difficult struggle for levels of freedom which lie beyond. Have we not thought of freedom too carelessly as a simple thing easily attained whereas it has depth within depth each more elusive than the one before? These are some of the ideas which are commencing to haunt us when we are glibly told that we are a free people. We are be- ginning to feel that freedom is a relative matter and that the freedom upon which we have prided ourselves is only a means to an end which we have not closely enough considered. New voices have, of late, sounded in our ears bidding us look around upon society as it actually is and to cease 200 THE CONDITIONS OF A SOCIAL FREEDOM 201 substituting sentimental ideas of what is for what actually is. And would it not be a good plan to be realists as well as idealists? We could then test the one by the other. The Declaration of Independence did not prevent the growth of slums; and economic let-alonism did not secure equal opportunity to all. To a very large extent, Americans have been abstract idealists who refused to test their beliefs by facts. But now we have become in- fested by Athenian gadflies in the shape of reformers, historians, sociologists and socialists who are stinging us into irritated questionings and half-defiant observa- tions. They demand that we examine our actual institu- tions and follow their detailed working instead of feeding ourselves with general phrases handed down to us from a time when they stood for actual steps in advance. And, strange to say, there has come over us a half-defined conviction that these voices speak truly and that we have been recreant to the spirit and larger import of the prin- ciples we have traditionally championed; that we have not carried on the work which the eighteenth century so nobly began. While the eighteenth century was radical and had visions of better things, the nineteenth century was conservative and engrossed in the conquest of nature. There are not wanting signs that the twentieth century will return to the idealism of the eighteenth and add to it a greater experience of ways and means and of the con- crete conditions of a social freedom. What, indeed, is freedom? And has it no further reaches to which our traditional liberties are but the portal? I presume that most Americans would now admit that there has been much arrogance in our claim to be the unique possessors of liberty. Humility has never been a conspicuous virtue of the strident patriotisms of the 202 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY past, and our country has by no means marked herself out as a blushing exception in this reign of chauvinism. We magnified our secession from England and our forma- tion of a staid republican government resting on a simple agricultural individualism into a world-event of tremen- dous import. We forgot that our conception of liberty was that of Locke and of the English Whigs of whom he was the spokesman. Convinced in our simplicity that we had created a new era in which all the old social and politi- cal problems were solved, we blazoned our ensigns and marched on to the conquest of a wilderness. This work we did faithfully and vigorously and were rewarded by a growth in wealth that was almost incredible. How much of this was due to our merit and how much to the natural fruitfulness of the continent cannot be told. In the meanwhile, we adhered to the negative idea of government with which we had been imbued by the strug- gle against the feudal system which was taking place in Europe at the time. Our real government consisted of our economic methods and of our social habits. And this fact was reflected into the Constitution which was adopted. "The fundamental division of powers in the Constitution of the United States," writes President Hadley, "is be- tween the voters on the one hand and property owners on the other. The forces of democracy on one side, divided between the executive and the legislature, are set over against the forces of property on the other side, with the judiciary as arbiter between them." And we all know that the judiciary 1 was permeated by the presuppositions of common law with its exaltation of property over per- *I would refer again to Mr. Brooks Adams' "The Theory of Social Revolutions," especially to Chapter II, The Limitations of the Judicial Functions. THE CONDITIONS OF A SOCIAL FREEDOM 203 sons. It was, therefore, hardly an impartial arbiter. Hence the danger was that freedom would be lost in a lib- erty which had been split up into liberties hardly dis- tinguishable from privileges. It was in such an atmosphere and under the reign of this real government by institutions and traditions that America passed from the promise of boyhood to a stalwart but earthly manhood. At times voices of protest were raised but they were scarcely heeded. Hence, the first criticisms which made us wince came from foreigners who visited our shores and found a gulf fixed between fact and abstract ideal, and from those English writers, such as Carlyle, Dickens, Arnold and, latterly, Bryce, whom we read and admired. Still many of the comments which came from across the sea were favorable so far as there was question of the rough democracy of our lives. We had large generosities and a fair degree of willingness to recognize ability in whatever walk of life it might be found. In other words, we had the virtues of our situation and of our historical origins. But these characteristics were natural gifts rather than controlled habits founded on reflection. In a new country, life was comparatively simple and direct and our fathers did not realize the problems which time would inevitably bring. And for a long time even up to the present we Americans have remained on the whole what the Germans call kritiklos, that is, un- reflective, uncritical. We have been overly optimistic in regard to social conditions and have allowed institutions to develop haphazard in the blind faith that things would turn out all right. During the pioneer days of America, Carlyle's view of our situation held true, that we had "half a world of un- tilled land, where populations that respect the constable 204 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY can live, for the present, without government." And, indeed, in many parts of the country notably the West there was not an excessive respect even for the constable. In many ways there has been no truer prophecy than that found in the "Latter-Day Pamphlets." "To men in their sleep there is nothing granted in this world: nothing or next to nothing to men that sit idly caucusing and ballot- boxing on the graves of their heroic ancestors, saying, 'It is well, it is well!' . . . No: America too will have to strain its energies in quite another fashion than this; to crack its sinews and all but break its heart, as the rest of us have to do, in thousandfold wrestle with the Pythons and mud-demons before it can become a habitation for the gods. America's battle is yet to fight; and we, sorrowful though nothing doubting, will wish her strength to it." This prediction, made during the days of the Chartist movement in England, sounds indeed prophetic to the American of the present. New problems are constantly opening at our feet and the familiar watchwords to which we trusted seem to be losing their efficacy. For many years, we refused to acknowledge to ourselves that there could be social problems, that mal-adjustments could arise; to-day we are beginning to realize that society is full of problems. Formerly we were fascinated by the vision of an abstract liberty which assumed that it was possible for individuals to be isolated and self-sufficient; now we are asking ourselves the conditions of a dynamic, social liberty in which individuals may aid one another to find the conditions of a satisfactory life. Let us see whether we can get a clearer idea of what liberty has meant in the past and of what it is capable of meaning. It may be that we shall then realize that liberty is a difficult thing to attain and that its attainment is dependent upon the solution of THE CONDITIONS OF A SOCIAL FREEDOM 205 large numbers of practical problems. How can individuals be best related to each other and to the means of life? What capacities do we wish to develop? What goal should a wise nation aim at? These questions set the problems of a real or effective liberty in a social organization like the present. An appreciation of the gradual deepening and broad- ening of the idea of freedom as this has gone on within historical times is undoubtedly the best preparation for reflection upon the nature of a desirable freedom. We shall know better what fits in with human nature and be able to judge how far customs and institutions which were once an advance are adapted to the newer conditions of the present. Once we get a clear conception of what man as a personality desires, we have only to work out the social setting which will free him for this self-realization. The problem for investigation and reflection will then be practical in character although difficult enough of solution: how far must habits and methods be changed in order to meet new conditions and bring out the best in the larger possibilities which progress has opened up? But we must not make the mistake that many reformers have made and suppose that changes in institutions, alone, are sufficient to give freedom and all good things to man- kind. Institutions are tools which must be used with skill and guided by an informing hand if they are to accomplish social work of a high level. Perhaps no misconception has done more to mar the good intentions and sentiments of what we are pleased to call democracy than this worship of forms and institutions and the naive assumption that it is easy to use them skillfully and creatively. When I look back upon the history of nineteenth century democ- racy in spite of the many noble things and beneficent 206 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY impulses which must be put to its credit I am impressed by the omnipresence of this assumption that the internal factor is of less importance than the external. It is for this reason that democracy has been a matter of forms and rights rather than of substance and the harmonious adjustment of rights and duties. I do not wonder that many an European, notwithstanding his wistfulness at our freedom from those national jealousies and inherited fric- tions which leave his continent always on the verge of war, feels that we are children who are not willing to learn patiently the art of using the instruments which we pos- sess. And is it not true that we have thought that there was a magic in institutions and terms which made a pains- taking study of their use and abuse unnecessary? Have we not been like untrained barbarians, full of grand visions and noble sentiments but lacking that thorough knowledge of technic which is the pre-condition of creative artistry in the social realm as much as it is in painting and sculp- ture? I do not wish to lay over-stress on this natural tend- ency to think that tools and workshops are more important than the mental and spiritual power to use them master- fully and with discrimination; but the illusion is so wide- spread and has done so much damage to democracy that it is a duty to call attention to it. I do so not in the service of the class-aristocracy of the past nor in that of our own crude plutocracy but in that of the democracy which we hope to see grow and reach a wise adulthood in the years to come. We Americans who have taken high-school buildings for schools, and city-halls for the civic conscious- ness of the city, and libraries for scholars need to have a Socrates to sting us out of our lethargy. And the socialist needs to reflect upon this teaching of the importance of the internal, for he too is apt to forget it in his anger at the THE CONDITIONS OF A SOCIAL FREEDOM 207 injustice of inherited methods and institutions when con- tinued beyond their day. The conditions of a social freedom, then, are both in- ternal and external. And in this regard society is similar to the individual. The individual who would be free, in the fullest sense, must possess the power of reflection and be able to order his life in its various activities so as to bring out that nice balance that permits a sane and healthy growth of his faculties. But there is also neces- sary those material means which enable him to plan his life. In an analogous way, we may say, society is em- bodied in a political and economic organism which is con- trolled and maintained by the creative thought of human beings and which yet reacts profoundly upon their des- tiny. Thus the outer and the inner, the body and the spirit of society, are most intimately connected. Social welfare depends upon the adequacy of both. But society is only tardily progressive. In this, too, it is like the majority of individuals who reach a certain level of achievement or of skill and are content to rest there as though the springs of their energies had run dry or their capacities were not of quality or strength to carry them farther. For this reason, society is essentially con- servative and, so long as institutions and customs are not too obviously imperfect and do not rest upon sensitive shoulders with too crushing a force, it is inclined to let well enough alone as though there could be a " well enough" in these matters. Looking deeper and passing beyond the psychological analogy with the individual, we see that society has a structural thickness, that it posses- ses a third dimension so to speak; it consists of classes or groups having different destinies and playing different r6les in the complex life of the whole. And this sociologi- 208 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY cal fact has direct bearing upon the conditions of social freedom. Groups which lie in the upper strata of society may be able to breathe freely while those which are farther down feel stifled. The individuals who compose the first group will probably feel pretty free and actually be able to choose their mode of life in practically every respect while the members of the other group are bound down and their path laid out for them in numberless ways, ways which only the very strong and very capable are able to avoid. So long as the influential groups are satisfied and the more circumscribed classes are unawakened and inarticu- late, little alteration in institutions and in the incidence of their weight will be made. The groups which form and control public opinion have, as a rule, little of which to complain; they are, therefore, inclined to be retrospec- tive, historically minded, acquiescent. The rest of the population, on the other hand, is usually inconspicuous in everything but numbers; they are seldem given to questioning customs, usages and institutions unless they are almost unbearable. Hence, between the passivity of the many and the contentment of the few, progress is bound to be slow. Certain social dogmas grow up and receive general acceptance, such as the belief that the formal right to vote will automatically bring about an effective freedom for all. Instead of seeing that freedom has new reaches beyond those which have been achieved, but that these new reaches will not fall into the lap of the many, like ripe fruit, as the result of some formal charm; public opinion is prone to rest content with things as they are. Selfishness plays some part in this acquiescence but lack of imagination and control by habit are just as power- ful if not more powerful. The majority of human beings THE CONDITIONS OF A SOCIAL FREEDOM 209 are the creatures of habit and do not have the mental train- ing nor the imaginative audacity to grapple with problems involving complex reconstructions. The function of modern socialism is to awaken the majority to a realization of their condition and to in- duce them to reflect on the possibility of social changes which will give them real and effective liberty and remove those handicaps under which they labor. On the negative side, socialism seeks frankly enough to arouse dissatisfac- tion with present conditions and to stimulate the desire for better things; it does this, believing that progress must have psychical forces back of it. Has not a wide-spread desire for change been the essential factor in all great movements? A subject people always has itself as well as the strength of its masters to blame for its position. On the positive side, socialism welcomes all those suggestions which, put into practice, help to raise the level of capacity and the degree of real freedom of the mass of the people. If, at times, it has laid too much stress upon the value of institutions and has somewhat overlooked the respon- sibility which will rest upon those who seek to apply these institutions, it has done this in common with all popular democracy. Its weakness has been the weakness of the whole period and must not be thrown on its shoul- ders alone. There are not wanting signs, however, and I hope this book will be taken as one of them that a new spirit is arising in democracy, a spirit which sees the living unity of inner and outer, of institutions and the social mind. These two aspects of society must ride abreast in what the physicist would call the same phase if they are to reenforce one another. When democratic aspira- tions do not find vital expression in institutions, they are sure to lose their vigor and degenerate into formal senti- 210 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY ments; when institutions are not filled with the social energy of an intelligent and moral citizenry, they are unable to fulfill their promise. Institutions are not auto- matic machines, they are more like the organs of a living body. I have felt the need to stress these sociological facts which are so easily overlooked; but I must now pass on to consider in more detail the conditions of freedom. The usual answer to this problem would be " the social and personal recognition of rights." Let us see how far this answer is true and to what extent it must be supplemented to be the whole truth. Socialism or, as it is sometimes called, collectivism is frequently thought of as antagonistic to individual free- dom. This opinion is in large measure the consequence of those superficial contrasts which rule the thinking of so many publicists. The individual is thought of as some- how outside of and opposed to society and his freedom, expressed in rights, is therefore conceived as a charter which has been wrung from a grudging society. Nothing could be less true of the facts; rights are social rights which represent the decision of society as to the best means for its welfare. Thus rights are social instruments and not anti-social possessions. What we call individualism represents the loose organization which society believed was the best at a certain stage in its evolution. All free- dom must be social; the only question is whether the maximum of freedom can be obtained by means of a loose organization of individuals striving for their own hand or by means of an intelligent cooperation. The practical difficulty with the first method is, as we have seen, that rights when uncontrolled easily become anti- social and thus contradict themselves. The more units THE CONDITIONS OF A SOCIAL FREEDOM 211 there are to adjust, the harder it is to adjust them. If we should wish to characterize the stages in social growth from the point of view of our present problem, it would be best to indicate the three levels which lie open to the social mind. These are, in their order, status which is often .spoken of as primitive socialism , individualism or let- alonism often called the police view of the state or, on its economic side, laissez faire and socialism. Now, if we have to do here with a growth, we would expect the suc- ceeding level to be more adequate than the preceding one. Hence the stage which follows individualism cannot be identified with the era of status. It should have a different atmosphere and far more developed institutions. Since socialism is feared by some as " the coming slavery," it may be well to dwell upon the true evolutionary view. The modern socialist is primarily interested in human personality and the conditions of its development; and he is, therefore, not at all desirous of returning to primitive conditions. He looks forward to a more complex and subtle system of social relations resting on the trained capacities of educated men and women who are at once self-reliant and social-minded; he certainly does not wish to turn the hands of the clock backward but rather to elicit and make the most of possibilities which are now allowed to remain latent and undeveloped. It follows that the socialist doei not advocate state interference and dictation in private matters and is hopeful that, as society becomes healthier, there will be little need for force. In other words, he dqf- sires a planful world but not a despotic world. Let re- strictions on the activities and choices of individuals de- crease, he says, but let indivduals become wise enough to know that the public welfare demands cooperation and justice. Perhaps I can best bring out the attitude of 212 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY modern socialism in this matter by showing the agreement between the individualist and the socialist. During the period of status, the concerns of every day life were regulated in the most inquisitional manner. One has but to read the Old Testament to realize what I mean. "Therein we find every concern of daily life ruled and regulated; how and when people shall wash themselves, what they shall eat and what they shall avoid, how the food is to be cooked, what clothes may be worn, whom they are to marry, and with what rites; while in addition to this, their religious views are provided carefully for them and also their morals, and in case of transgression, intentional or accidental, the form of expiation to be made." Now this attempt to regulate the life of the in- dividual is characteristic of all early society and the reason for it is quite largely religious. Religion was largely magical in character in this early period and all sorts of acts which we now regard as socially indifferent were then looked upon as of tremendous importance. This view has gradually been outgrown, and we now consider many acts as essentially personal which were formerly sub- ject to the control of executive authority. The sphere of personal choice has thus been enlarged; and this enlarge- ment reflects the growing rationality of the social mind. It is seen that no harm comes from giving the initiative of the individual pretty free play. It is upon this point that the socialist agrees with the individualist for he does not desire governmental meddling in what are truly personal affairs. The pressure of public opinion suffi- ciently takes care of personal oddities and extravagances. Hence the socialist, who is frankly in line with social evolu- tion, is at one with the individualist who writes as follows : "I wish to show that the only available method of dis- THE CONDITIONS OF A SOCIAL FREEDOM 213 covering the true limits of liberty at any given period is the historic. History teaches us that there has been a marked tendency (in the main continuous) to reduce the number of state restrictions on the absolute freedom of the citizens. State prohibitions are becoming fewer and .more definite, while, on tjbe other hand, some of them are at the same time more rigorously enforced. Freedom to murder and to rob is more firmly denied to the individual while in the meantime he has won the liberty to think as he pleases, to say a good deal more of what he pleases, to dress in accordance with his own taste, to eat when and what he likes, and to do, without let or hindrance, a thousand things which, in the olden times, he was not allowed to do without state supervision." 1 Now the so- cialist welcomes this liberty and seeks only to find and nourish the conditions which will make it universal and effective. He holds the same ideal as the individualist but is more realistic in his outlook on life as it is actually lived by the other half. His complaint is that the belated social or- ganization of the time makes this desired liberty effective for the few only, while the many are handicapped in numberless ways. The enemy of liberty is no longer the government in America it has never been the govern- ment but lack of opportunity and of actual control of the conditions of life. While it would be interesting, we have not the time to summarize the growth of religious rights, of political rights, of legal rights, of personal rights, in fact, of all the rights which taken together are supposed to constitute freedom and which do actually go a long way towards furnishing the conditions of freedom. Suppose that we take these rights for granted in their formal aspect and 1 Wordsworth Donisthorpe, "Law in a Free State." p. 80. 214 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY ask ourselves whether we have properly understood their conditions. We have already noted the shortcomings in the field of social justice of which society is guilty; is it likely, then, that liberty is so far separable from justice that liberty can be present in its perfection when justice is not? Is not society so much a psychological organism that an inadequacy in one aspect is good grounds for the prediction of a like inadequacy in other aspects? When we reflect on these questions, we get a clearer idea of the intimacy of the connections between liberty and justice. Are not these almost two terms for the same thing? Is not the growth of justice at the same time the growth of liberty? If so, we already have some notion of the condi- tions of a social freedom. It is only of late that Americans have begun to realize that their conception of liberty was negative and formal; it looked backward against old abuses characteristic of the Stuart regime in England rather than forward. It ex- pressed a satisfaction with the dominant tendencies of a pioneer society in which the first article of the actual creed was the right to private property as much of it as could be gotten and the second was the right to be let alone. But rights are relative to conditions and hence require continuous criticism and adjustment a process which is thwarted by the power of habit and the inertia of custom. Has the employee, for instance, established rights in a business of which he is virtually an integral part or do all rights reside in the owners? Is the right of free contract more than formal when the parties have unequal power and unlike facility in bargaining? Such questions show some of the conflicts which are slowly forcing us to re-interpret and develop the comparatively simple social scheme which we inherited. THE CONDITIONS OF A SOCIAL FREEDOM 215 It is due to this negative conception of political life with the removal from its purview of many of the most vital sides of society that political liberty has been so sterile so far as significant consequences are concerned. It has been superficially dramatic but its importance has been more apparent than real. It has reflected the economic changes which have been occurring but has seldom been the point of departure for creative direction. There are, however, certain signs that such a period is at last beginning; but the growing social perspective of politics has been forced upon America by problems which could no longer be shunned. The historical movement which we call democracy has been rich in large aspirations covering in a vague, allusive way the whole of life. It has been accompanied by a widen- ing of sympathy for man as man and a keener realization of the intrinsic worth of personality; it has reached out into all the main avenues of life and quickened man's sense of fairness. Associated with the rise of the working-classes to a place in the public eye they never before held, it has naturally concerned itself with the conditions of their life and expressed a solicitude for their welfare unique in the history of society. Now this democratic movement be- lieved for a long time that it had found adequate expres- sion in a representative form of government founded on universal manhood suffrage. Such an extension appealed to the imagination as a sort of admission into the counsels of the nation. The motto, "One man, one vote," seemed to symbolize an equality which could satisfy the pride of the most exacting advocate of the rights of the common man. It was not seen that such equality, important as it was as a step in advance, was quite formal and was rela- tive to the function of the government and to the capacity 216 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY and horizon of the people. If the government remained a routine affair in large measure superficial and extra- social as was the tradition with laissez faire this right would be virtually empty. The recurrent election of swarms of nobodies whose business capacity and integrity you have hardly any way of testing is to the more in- telligent a listless duty, to others a habit, to still others the political specialists whom we call bosses a game which is worth the candle. It was not until some time had elapsed that suspicion of the inadequacy of universal suffrage as a panacea began to arise. It was an instrument to be used by democracy but democracy did not know how to use the instrument. Carlyle's invectives against parliamenteering and the superstition that problems would solve themselves by the counting of heads represent the first reaction against the blind acceptance of the mechanism of representation as an adequate solution of social problems. The history of political democracy does, indeed, show how long a move- ment of a passionate, yet vague, type may be kept in a blind alley and use forms uncritically. Politics has its ritu- alism just as certainly as has religion. When the people have no large constructive ideals, they can be persuaded or, better, persuade themselves that a formal procedure is the goal. This disappointment with political democracy has been expressed by the conservative, Sir Henry Maine, and his words should be pondered by the uncritical en- thusiast. He declares that it is "one of the strangest of vulgar ideas that a very wide suffrage could or would promote progress, new ideas, new discoveries, new inven- tions, new arts of life. The chances are that it will produce a mischievous form of conservatism." In America this pronouncement has been in large measure verified. Forms THE CONDITIONS OF A SOCIAL FREEDOM 217 are instruments and their power for good and evil are in- separable from the social mind that uses them. Our political parties with their continual side-stepping of vital issues, their union with industrial greed, their min- istering to private ambitions, their devices for making politics a thing apart, are products of this refusal to see that forms are not self-sufficient. A country may be dem- ocratic in form and plutocratic in reality because the conditions of effective freedom have not yet been attained. But how can these conditions be brought about? By the increase of dissatisfaction, by pungent criticism, by a moral and civic awakening, by changes in forms; the con- ditions of freedom are spiritual in the ultimate analysis. Were man a spirit independent of his material environ- ment and not requiring food and shelter, were he able to move from place to place at the sole instance of his desires, were the conditions of his mental and moral development always within his reach, the coming of freedom would have no limit set to it but his natural capacity. The tissue of society would then be sustained by the untrammelled self- realization of the individuals composing it. Thought would be the father of the deed and creative tendencies of all kinds would work themselves out without stay or hin- drance. But, as we all know, such is not the case. The path of life is laid out for the majority before they are born. Space and matter set the conditions and give the material which man must master in order to lay the foundation for the intellectual and artistic heights which lie so hauntingly before him. And this foundation does not lay itself at the utterance of formulae; it must be achieved by effort. We have been individualistic thinkers and that means that we have hardly deigned to think about the social conditions of our lives. While the beginning of formal democracy has 218 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY dawned, experience, experiment, reflection and sympathy must work together to accomplish the slow bending of the means of life into line with the ends. The faith which so many people seem to entertain that this task is an easy one or that it has been completed in its essentials expresses in my opinion either the cheery optimism of a good place at life's table or a lack of imagination and knowledge. Now the socialist has always been more realistic than the traditional advocate of political democracy. He has not been deluded by forms and appearances to the same extent. Moreover, he has not been guilty of the na'ive assumption that democracy can be completely attained along one line, say the political, while there has been little advance along other lines. Society is too much of an or- ganic whole for that sort of thing. It is patent to every thinker that zealous political reformers have usually been guilty of such a mechanical view of progress. As though progress were external to the total life of the individuals who make up society! Taking the life of the majority in the concrete, the socialist has seen that they lacked an effective freedom in spite of political forms, and he has asked himself to what this lack was due. The answer which a close examination of the facts forced upon him was that the social organization was inadequate. This conclusion he phrased in the now well-known demand for economic liberty as something essential to democracy in the best sense. While not ignoring the value of political institutions, he has refused to lose sight of the extra- political foundation of society. We may say, then, that socialism has stood primarily for a deepening of the con- ception of democracy, for a critical dissatisfaction with formal freedom when a substantial or effective freedom was still in large measure to seek. His aim has been the dis- THE CONDITIONS OF A SOCIAL FREEDOM 219 covery and gradual attainment of all the conditions of social freedom. What are some of these conditions? We have laid stress upon the economic factors but we must never forget that the success of this completer democracy will rest on the equalization of opportunity. And we must not con- ceive such equalization in a static way. It means the development of a new temper in society as a whole which will have as its effect the removal of personal government in industrial affairs as well as in political affairs. Such personal government has always meant privilege and the spoils system. Equalization of opportunity means the replacement of such personal government by a competition based on excellence. All civilized countries have been working toward such a substitution in the appointment and advancement of officials. Civil service has been a success in spite of the handicaps under which it has grown. Examinations have been more and more realistic and therefore increasingly expressive of the candidate's ability in the particular field. Such weakness and inadequacy as remain reflect a certain scholasticism in our educational system itself. Civil service and the theory of education will develop together. I am sure that a displacement of personal control in industry will help education by giving it a vital stimulus. Education is too much a mechanical thing to-day for the reason that society is mechanical in temper. The schools simply reflect their social setting. Socialism stands, then, for something of the nature of the extension of civil service to industry. There will be tenure of position with good behavior; there will be advancement from below upward in accordance with tested capacity; there will be a stress upon both knowledge and experience. In this way, favoritism and special privilege will be elim- 220 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY inated. A man will not be appointed to an important position because he is the son of his father or the cousin of a director. I do not see how such a socialism can help being much more efficient than the present lack of system. Nor do I see any conflict between such a social and in- telligent way of doing things and the best sort of individ- ualism. The kind of individualism to which the socialist objects can be described as social atomism distorted by special privileges. But a competition aiming at the selection of excellence, if it is to be democratic and tap the human resources of a nation, must work within educational institutions which are open to the mass of the people. And this educational system must be of a character to assist in the objective se- lection of different types of capacity. To do so, two things at least are necessary. First, the system must correspond to the actual life of society; second, the teachers and ad- ministrators in it must have the leisure and the psycho- logical training to help counsel parents and children in regard to the probable aptitude of those who pass between their hands. Such advice will, of course, be only optional in character, and if those who are advised wish to ex- periment along other lines they can do so at their own risk. Such experimentation will, however, be compelled to work within the control exerted by practical and theoretical tests. No one can go very far in any field to-day who has not the capacity to meet obviously necessary, preliminary requirements. Society can be of the greatest assistance to the individual without a shadow of that dictation which has been called " the coming slavery." Institutions should assist people to find their level and their most natural line of work. The development of educational institutions to act as impersonal instruments of selection must pro- THE CONDITIONS OF A SOCIAL FREEDOM 221 ceed hand in hand with the extension of industrial civil service. But, while rightly paying strict attention to the indus- trial foundation of society, I hope that democracy will en- courage pure science, philosophy and art by offering fellowships in these fields. Such encouragement of research and of the spirit of creative achievement would have ' financial results, as the study of modern invention clearly reveals, and it would also react in countless ways upon the spiritual temper of society. Such a system of education as that outlined would cost money but it would more than justify the expense in- curred by the increased efficiency it would bring about. To no better use could the money obtained from large inheritance taxes be put. The hope of an industrial de- mocracy is in education. Trained intelligence furnishes the only sufficient foundation for those impersonal in- stitutions which are essential to the achievement and main- tenance of a positive freedom. CHAPTER XI REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR To Americans who knew little about the actual tensions in Europe, the great conflagration which swept over the Old World a year ago last August seemed a criminal case of incendiarism. To their eyes the world had appeared so peaceful, so prosperous and so progressive. To spend a few months in London, to go thence to Berlin or Munich and then to Paris was the proper thing to do and was so pleasant and enjoyable. Everywhere were cheerful, kindly faces, busy factories, flourishing cities full of mu- seums and art galleries; everywhere was the same hos- pitable welcome. Evidently these people could not have wished the war. It must have been forced upon them by the official rulers, by those quarrelsome and ambitious kings, diplomats and officers who, unfortunately, still have the destiny of these otherwise peaceful countries in their hands. Such reasoning was natural and it was no surprise to the more reflective and better posted to read in magazines and newspapers day after day the scathing indictments which the free and peace-loving inhabitants of America poured out upon the Kaisers and Kings of Europe. Such a ghastly event demanded that some cause be found and what was more plausible than the explanation that our ancient enemies, the kings, had once more and we hoped for the last time performed their Mephistophelean work. And Americans were more confirmed in this idea, which came to all of them with the force of an intuition and with 222 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 223 that inner assurance which intuitions are able to carry with them, when they found that the cartoonists were likewise possessed by the same idea and were holding up the kingly assassins to the scorn of an outraged world. What a pity that such degenerates, dotards and meg- alomaniacs were allowed to hold in their hands the issues of war and peace and to hurl their armies of palpitating flesh against one another ! Disgust that such things could still be was mingled with a profound thankfulness that we at least were for ever free from such a cause of war. How much of truth was there in this first verdict on the causes of the war which was so wide-spread in the United States during the first few months of its tremendous events while the spectators on this side of the Atlantic were not as yet penetrated by the massive character of the world-conflict? That is the first question which one who reflects on the war inevitably asks himself. There can be little doubt that, aside from those tenden- cies to jingoism which manifest themselves spasmodically in the United States as in all countries, the nation at large is peace-loving and desirous of doing what is just in its international relations. "The United States," writes Dealey, 1 "is no mean factor in the modern political world. From it has come the federation, the written constitution, a humanitarianism cosmopolitan in its scope and a wide ap- plication of the principles of democracy." We have been, on the whole, prosperous, idealistic and satisfied with the extent of territory over which we had rule. Did we not possess the greater part of a continent with both the Atlan- tic and the Pacific washing our shores, a huge territory inhabited by a population homogeneous in general outlook if not in race? Have we not from the first prided ourselves 1 "Development of the State," p. 233. 224 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY on being a place of refuge for the oppressed from all lands so that we had no racial animosities and no marked his- torical hatreds and fears? Moreover, our geographical position was all that we could ask from a military stand- point. No jealous power of the first class was to the North nor to the South, while thousands of miles of water sep- arated us from nations which could rival us in wealth and population. If ever a country had no excuse to be mil- itaristic it was ours. And our sentiment accorded in the main with this history and this situation. What was more natural than for such a favored people to regard war as abnormal and forced from above upon a totally unwilling people by an almost diabolic power of which they would do well to rid themselves as quickly as possible! And yet a little reflection upon our own history should rid us of such a facile solution of war. Like all popular explanations, it smacks too much of the division of those who come before the judgment seat into sheep and goats. Are things as simple as this? Is there a personal devil to cause all the evil in the world and frustrate the good in- tentions of the bon dieu? Are the mass of the people under all conditions so kindly and broad-minded and considerate of the feelings and rights of others that it requires the inherited power of a few individuals to work this evil in the world? Is this not good-natured sentimentalism to which a people of the antecedents and position of Amer- icans are especially prone? Surely we do not wish to whitewash ourselves, and, if we do not, can we judge others so harshly? Let us look at our own history for a moment. Our war with Mexico was not a just war; the best that can be said for it was that it was forced by a sort of land- hunger to which we as a growing, agricultural nation were then subject. And what would have been the result if REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 225 Mexico had, like the France of 1870, recovered her strength and even kept pace with us? Would the civilized world now feel sympathetic to a demand on the part of Mexico for the restoration of the land of which we had robbed her? I do not wish to push the parallel but simply to use it to illustrate how our situation has freed us from dangers and difficulties which have overwhelmed Europe. "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone." "The story of Naboth's vineyard," writes Professor Tufts, "has been often repeated in the dealings of the United States with Indian lands. Our dealings with Colombia excited alarm in South America and have been condemned by many of our own citizens." I think that we have done remarkably well in our national and international relations but not well enough, considering our opportunities, to justify the assertion that a republican form M government is a certain sign of international righteousness and that all its wars will be purely defensive. What, then, are the causes of the present war which threatens to dwarf all other wars in its extent and the number of combatants engaged? Let us distinguish, first of all, the larger causes, apart from which the alignment of the various powers cannot be understood, from the occasion. We are all aware that the occasion was the fric- tion between Serbia and Austria which culminated in the murder of the heir to the throne of the Dual Monarchy. This was the match which set fire to the fuse which every- one in Europe knew to be laid. And it was the shortness of this fuse which made the dreadful explosion unavoidable. Why was the fuse so short and what was the character of the chemical compounds which were so easily detonated? So much has been written and read about the war, that a general knowledge of the events themselves can be taken 226 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY for granted. Even the story of the diplomatic correspond- ence between the various nations has been told and retold. But the general public is beginning to suspect, what the scholar knew from the beginning, that this correspondence was a hasty attempt to undo in a moment what had been schemed and done for decades. When two men have been wrestling on a cliff, they may seek to stop their struggle when they find themselves on the point of falling but this last gasping effort at release is unlikely to be avail- ing; it may, instead, cause them to lose their balance com- pletely and thus hasten their fall into the precipice below. The thinker must leave to the future historian the task of recovering, so far as possible, all the events in the various capitals which preceded the actual declarations of war. Yet he may suspect that the most important events were the conversations of men in high places and their secret thoughts on the whole situation in Europe. The explo- sives were there, everybody knew that they were there; and none of the nations can be regarded as guiltless for all had been actors in the course of events, all had helped to create the explosive tension and to lay the fuse. If they saw the heat rising to the danger point and were alarmed, they were really alarmed at what they had done cold-bloodedly and patiently year after year. They had loaded the gun, so to speak, and they all believed that it would be fired very soon by some chance event, yet none of them would have been willing to alter their general policy. They had all been playing with fire and they had all known that they were playing with fire, but they did not have the will to stop. Why was this? Diplomacy has been blamed for much. Those who blame secret diplomacy are probably in large measure right in their feeling that many understandings and mutual en- REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 227 gagements between nations would be almost impossible were these dependent upon public opinion. Secret diplo- macy makes decisions possible where there would other- wise be indecision. Is there not a tendency, however, to forget that diplomacy is more the servant of the State as it is than a free agent? Nations have traditionary policies ex- pressive of their ambitions, and diplomacy regards itself as the zealous, perhaps the over-zealous, champion of these policies. An adjustment with other nations whose plans can be made to harmonize by a process of give-and-take is an affair of skill and finesse quite comparable to that which takes place in the business world when spheres of influence and trade-agreements are to be worked out be- tween competing firms. In both cases, ingenuity and patience are required. And the problems become still more difficult when groups of nations find themselves in absolute conflict with each other. Of course, it can be said that conflicts of interests should never be considered absolute, that where there's a will there's a way. But this is to mistake an ideal for international relations as they are. Can we expect States to be conciliatory and always ready to reach a compromise when we know that individ- uals and business-groups within these various states are not, but are ready, instead, to cut one another's throats? There are many individuals who are realistic when it is a question of social relations and activities with which they are familiar, who do not expect ambitious railroad mag- nates or financial syndicates to come to a peaceful agree- ment when their paths cross, and yet lose all sense of this realism when they begin to think of the relations between those still larger units which we call States. The psychol- ogy of this change is not difficult to discover. The aims of States are more impersonal and less concrete than the 228 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY aims of individuals and of business groups. They are, therefore, less real to the average individual when he is not indoctrinated with Weltpolitik or roused to the heights of patriotic enthusiasm. Under ordinary conditions, there- fore, they appear vague and easily adjustable. It is then that diplomacy seems sophisticated and devious and the hatcher of trouble. But while we have tried to take a juster view of the na- ture of diplomacy than is current when it is the object of censure, there is still a fundamental truth in the judgment that secret diplomacy is the worker of mischief. The secrecy of diplomacy permits the drift of a country in its foreign relations to remain hidden from those who are vitally interested in it. Nay more, it encourages social inattention and makes almost a virtue of it. It involves the absence of a broad social control of policies which ultimately bind the citizens of the country; it discourages wide-spread concern with international relations. The consequence is that a nation may awake one fine morning to find itself in a situation of which it had not dreamed, let alone consciously willed. Can it be doubted that the spread of education will bring in its wake a protest against any unnecessary mystery in these matters and a keener sense of responsibility? We have expressed the opinion that even present-day diplomacy mainly expresses the State as it is. And this conclusion brings us to the very interesting topic, the na- ture of the State. Let us attempt to gain some insight into the character of the various States which are now at war with one another. Perhaps we can then better understand why they continued to play with fire till they were burned. It is impossible to understand the character of States apart from some knowledge of their origin. Practically REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 229 all States of any size have had their origin in warfare. They have been moulded by wars of conquest and wars of defense against aggression. Consequently, the attitude of States toward one another has been that of veiled sus- picion and their relations have been dominantly selfish if not overtly hostile. We are told that those early social groups which formed the nucleus of our present territorial States seldom, if ever, dreamed of treating another group in a friendly way. To rob or slay the members of another tribe was laudable conduct. In fact, morality was an in- ternal affair which men never thought of extending to their dealings with individuals of other groups. As time passed, the boundaries of the more successful States were enlarged and this enlargement was due to the military virtues of the subjects combined with able leadership on the part of kings. The history of the formation of France and its welding into a fairly homogeneous nation makes extremely interesting reading for those who wish to under- stand the origins of the national units of Europe. With this unification went the gradual adoption of a common language and the growth of those sentiments of fellowship and social likemindedness which are called patriotism. But we must never forget that this patriotism has two faces like Janus of Old Rome. One face is smiling and benevolent and looks inward to approve the loyalty of the citizens to their common home and their traditions of suffering and achievement. Such patriotism expresses a psychological unity, the sense of mutual understanding, of kinship in mind and race, and the knowledge of a com- mon lot. The other face of this sentiment is, as we have said, suspicious if not threatening. It gazes out over the ramparts of seas and mountains and fortresses which cir- cumvallate the land of which it is the guardian and pro- 230 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY lector. Thus has it always been; will it ever be otherwise? Will nations always need to be on their guard in a state of what is called preparedness or will this vigilance relax as time marks changes in the relations of States? States have considered themselves self-sufficient and their virtues have been self-regarding, to use a term of which the moralist is fond. The responsibility of the State has been toward its citizens present and to come. A nurse who has been given charge of a child feels the ut- most responsibility for its safety and, in a fire or in the mad rush of a crowd, holds the little one tight and thinks only of its escape. It is this definite concentration of respon- sibility which finds expression in Riimelin's classic phrase, solus publica suprema lex. There can be little doubt that, up to the present, self-preservation and expansion have been the dominant aims of States; and, when one studies history sympathetically, one realizes that any other em- phasis would be unnatural. The State, as a product of nature, does not seek first the Kingdom of God in the hope that empire, dominion, wealth, power and safety will be added unto it. We can now better understand why the nations of Europe had been consciously playing with fire and did not have the will to stop. There had been more qualms of conscience among the citizens than ever before but the momentum of the old, dominant view of the State was as yet too great. New forces, championing new values and new aims, were gathering but they were still too weak and still with too little leverage upon the official and organized structure of the State to challenge successfully these his- toric aims. Voices sounded here and there in protest against this policy or that, but they were weak, disincarnated voices with no official habitation that they should be REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 231 listened to. They were voices of the future, of aspiration and hope and the practical men to whom these voices came momentarily and unavoidably shook their heads and said, "Shall these things be?" for practical men are men of the present. So the tide of affairs rolled onward. So the mighty collision came. And is it not absurd to ask, Who willed it? as though some one individual had the power to throw unwilling States against one another in a life-and-death struggle? The various States willed it not consciously as an individual wills some particular act but through the accepted pressure of their aims and established outlook. This acceptance is revealed in the character of their international program and in the extent of their military preparedness. These two features go to- gether although the program is usually the more dynamic and aggressive. We must not forget, however, that the past works into the present and determines many actions and attitudes which would otherwise have no sufficient ground. The State, like the individual, drags its past along with it, often as a heavy burden of which it would fain be rid. The sins of the fathers are visited on the children to the third and fourth generation. France is to-day being punished for the adoration which the fathers lavished on the first and third Napoleons; England is suffering from its lack of care for social justice; Germany for the too wanton use of the mailed fist; and Russia for its greed of power. Neither ethics nor political philosophy should ignore the continuity of cause and effect. The past must be taken along with the present if we wish to make an adequate judgment and not merely to lapse into partisanship. But we must not make the past too much into a fate which can never be shaken off. The great question after this war will be this, Have the nations purified themselves by 232 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY the fire which is consuming them, so that they can make a new start more free from the hatreds and false ambitions which they have inherited? Such is the hope of the hu- manitarian. Let us glance for a moment at the preparedness of the nations for war. France incorporated 90% of all males arriving at military age into her armed forces in time of peace, expended $311,131,166 a year on its military estab- lishments and had ready for emergency 3,878,000 fully trained men out of a population of 39,000,000 souls. Ger- many incorporated 50% of its males in its peace-time army, expended $322,467,615 a year and was supposed to have about 4,000,000 instructed men out of a population of 70,000,000. Thus these two countries had spent approxi- mately the same amount per year on their armies. This expenditure was a severe drain on the resources of both countries. We must add to this monetary loss the removal from industry of so many young men in the prime of their physical strength. Now what was true of these two coun- tries held in like measure of Russia, Austria, Italy and, in somewhat less degree, of the smaller countries like Belgium and Sweden. While maintaining a much smaller, professional army, Great Britain supported a navy of tremendous size and strength and aimed to keep it equal in fighting power to the navies of any two other nations. Such a navy was very costly but was felt to be necessary if Great Britain was to retain control of the ocean and protect her commu- nications with her colonies and dependencies. While a land-power, Germany found that her future lay upon the ocean and so felt herself bound to expand her navy or else acknowledge a permanent dependence upon the good-will of her chief competitor, England, a dependence which the REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 233 increasing friction of the two nations, due to their commer- cial expansion, made impossible. Such was the preparedess which made Europe an armed camp and constituted a burden under which the nations groaned. If a war would end this preparedness, many were almost ready to welcome a war. France was forced to bor- row money to meet her military needs and Germany was adding new forms of taxation to the old. A more vicious situation can hardly be imagined. If this is what compet- itive nationalism leads to, has not the State outlived its usefulness? What new forces can be brought to bear to lift the various States out of such mechanical balances as Triple Alliance over against Triple Entente? Is such pre- paredness to go on forever until some group of harmonious interests and dominant power is formed which may com- pel peace? Such questions as these arise for our reflection. We have said that the external policies of States are more dynamic than their military condition. Had the European nations no room for expansion in the world, it is quite thinkable that an equilibrium might have been established. This would have been the case in western Europe at least. Had France had no colonial ambitions and hopes, she might have acknowledged her defeat in the Franco- Prussian war as final seeing that her population was prac- tically stationary while that of Germany was steadily in- creasing. Perhaps such an acknowledgement might have paved the way to a lessening of the tension in Europe and permitted other forces of a constructive character to gain a hearing. But Europe dominated Africa and Asia and the rivalries which had arisen at home took the world for their theatre. Commercial expansion and colonial enterprise added fuel to the flame of the traditional jealousies and fears. New causes for friction appeared in every part 234 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY of the globe. Thus the self-preserving, self -regarding State was given a new lease of life. It seemed that the slow march of time alone could establish that equilibrium in the world at large which colonial enterprise and commer- cial expansion had prevented in the homelands. Nothing is more illuminating in this connection than the growth of Anglo-German rivalry. Up to 1885, there was no serious conflict between these two countries. Instead, they had been friends. On January 5 of that year Mr. Joseph Chamberlain said: "If foreign nations are deter- mined to pursue distant colonial enterprises, we have no right to prevent them." The world looked larger even that short while ago than it does now. As time passed, Germany's growth and her persistent efforts to find room in the world for her surplus population and a sphere for her enterprise gradually induced an altered tone. " For when the din of war dies down," writes J. Holland Rose, 1 "we shall realize that behind the lust of conquest there was an elemental force impelling the German people forward. Their population is ever increasing; and they must have more elbow-room in some of the sparsely inhabited lands." As a result of this pressure and acting under the guidance of the traditional ideals of the State, the present Kaiser adopted a Weltpolitik which threatened England's undis- turbed rule of distant dominions and this new, more ag- gressive policy on the part of a people who had hitherto stayed peacefully at home was disconcerting, to say the least, to the older country. I have yet to hear of a business firm which welcomes an aggressive rival. And it was the fatality, as one English writer puts it, of Germany to have appeared on the scene so late. Always seeking a chance to expand, she was always finding herself checkmated by 1 "The Origins of the War," p. 187. REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 235 some one power or by a combination of powers linked to- gether to defend their mutual interests. In Brazil, by the United States in pursuance of a half -understood policy; in South Africa, by Great Britain to protect her colonies and commercial predominance; in Morocco, by Great Britain and France together; in the Bagdad enterprise, by Great .Britain who feared for India; in Persia, by Great Britain and Russia. No wonder that Germany, thrown back on herself in this fashion, became more and more aggressive and threatening. We must look at this situation in the light of the traditional State. We are not called upon to name evil good or to exonerate either party to the conflict. What we, as rational beings, are called upon to do is to understand. If wars are to be avoided in the future, States must try to understand each other. They must separate the legiti- mate from the illegitimate ambitions of their neighbors and not simply oppose a blind, selfish veto on all ambi- tions alike because it suits their immediate interests or seems the easiest thing to do. No nation should regard its international program as above criticism. But this de- mand implies a change in the outlook of States and peoples toward one another. It is the hope of the socialist that this gradual alteration of attitude will come to pass as de- mocracy spreads over the world. He is convinced that the inhabitants of the various countries have little quarrel with each other. It is the too vigorous, monopoly-seeking entrepreneur who is able to make his sovereign State his protector and agent who is back of much of the mischief which is hatched. As George Lansbury writes: "I know the peoples, whatever their creed, race, or color, have no quarrel with one another except that which is created and fostered by governments and vested interests, and know- 236 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY ing this and the horrors connected with war, I am proud to be a pacifist." It is the increasing pressure within the States of this point of view which will change the interna- tional policies. In this connection, I cannot resist quoting an analysis of the colonial situation in Africa by E. D. Morel, an able and objective scholar. "On what logical grounds could Trance' be made to say to 'Germany ' : 'I, with my forty millions of people, claim the right to possess four and one- half million square miles of territory in Africa where I dif- ferentiate against your goods, and I claim the right to in- crease my possessions still further; but I deny you, with your sixty-five millions of people and expanding birth rate and foreign trade, the right to hold a single inch of African soil?' . . . That way lies, not peace, but endless strife; not statesmanship, but madness; not relief for the peoples of France, Britain and Germany, but added burdens." The socialist knows that back of colonial enterprise has lain the desire for special privileges and monopolies, fiscal and otherwise. For centuries Europe has been in a state of unstable equilibrium and this instability was increased by the ex- tension of interests and dominion to the world at large. Those who believe in the Marxian principle of economic determinism in its extreme form are, therefore, inclined to hold that there is no hope for a final peace until all the backward regions of the earth have been fully exploited and industry is world-wide. But, in the examination of the formal doctrines of Marx which we undertook in the early chapters of the present study of modern democracy, we came to the conclusion that it is untrue to the facts of human life to exalt the economic motive to the lonely preeminence assigned it by REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 237 the fathers of "scientific socialism." Human nature is very complex and other instincts and values than the economic are native to it. There is land-hunger; there is the struggle for food; there are racial and national rivalries which date into the past and which will give color and in- tensity to the future: but there are, also, values which bridge these chasms and conflicts and make the world something of a psychical unity. There are deeds and qualities which are universally admired and draw citizens of different States together. In spite of friction, nations need one another and supplement one another. The thinker must never lose his perspective and persuade him- self that social groups are of necessity enemies. Before the present war began, international bonds of various kinds were being strengthened. In fact, the growth of a vital recognition of the interdependence of nations had been so rapid all along the line that many were be- ginning to persuade themselves that a new era had dawned, an era of a firmly founded internationalism. It was the disappointment of these high hopes that led to much of the moral pessimism which ensued upon the outbreak of the war. The internal bonds are as yet of iron, the external bonds of silk. While the idealist may have over-estimated the thickness of these silken bonds which havel>een arising between nations, there can be no doubt that they are there and that new ones will be added from year to year. The evolutionist knows that it is merely a matter of time till they are strong enough to resist those centrifugal tenden- cies which the State has nourished. He looks forward to what may be called the organic coalescence of nations, the growth of solidarity in place of isolation. As Ellen Key points out, the socialist of to-day realizes that the peace- movement has had a history similar to that of socialism 238 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY itself. First came the dreamers who talked of federations which ignored national conditions and advocated con- trivances which had no vital connection with actuality. These were the Utopians of the peace-movement. These pacifists of the older school helped to familiarize humanity with the idea of peace and with its desirableness even though they did not persuade many of its immediate possibility. The newer pacifists, on the other hand, "con- sider that the propaganda in action which cannot fail to hasten on peace consists in promoting everywhere firm and binding international institutions. With inevitable necessity these must finally be crowned by the super- structure of a confederation of States, which will really and permanently supersede the state of war and usher in / ttfe state of peace." 1 \/ It is this more realistic, evolutionary view of pacifism which the thinker must favor. He will look upon the growth of peace as proceeding step by step with the estab- lishment of fixed boundaries between nations. But he will also hold that the psychical conditions favorable to peace will be even more important and that they will hasten the coming of the more physical equilibrium because support- ing the spirit of compromise and fairness. As education is slowly diffused among them, nations will come to under- stand each other better. The alien will no longer be thought of as the enemy as he has been in the past. The sociologist tells us that railroad, steamship, telegraph and cable have had as great an effect upon society as the ma- chine in the factory. Would such immense nations as the United States and Russia have been possible without rapid means of communication? The post and the tel- egraph have helped to make that likemindedness without 1 Ellen Key, "The Younger Generation," p. 62, REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 239 which a nation is merely a clumsy aggregation held to- gether for administrative purposes. The South and the North of our Civil War did not understand one another, and such misunderstanding was, beyond question, a potent cause of the war. Communication, travel and education slowly but inevitably absorb away this profound difference in ethos. It is to the breaking down of insularity and ignorance, to the removal of monopolistic 1 desires and the development of a sense of cooperation, scientific and in- dustrial, that the evolutionary pacifist looks. These changes will bring with them a new spirit which will affect the ideals of the State. But what part will socialism play in this evolution? Perhaps some of my readers have wondered at the small space which I have given to this topic in my reflections. And yet the omission has been more apparent than real. Surprise has often been expressed that international socialism was unable to do more than it did to stem the torrent which burst over Europe. But surely only the thoughtless who did not comprehend the character of the State of the present and the embryonic stage of inter- national socialism were really surprised. Socialists did what they could but they knew almost immediately that this would be little. The child cannot fight with the parent with any hope of success while the parent is still in the full vigor of manhood; yet the socialist believes that his move- ment, as it joins hands with the various forces sweeping the world on to democracy, will be the Zeus which will overthrow the Cronos who occupies the throne of human affairs. Shall we cry shame to a movement which is only 1 1 believe that Cobden was on the right track, even though he over- simplified national and international relations. The " protective system " when extended to spheres of influence is a fruitful source of friction. 240 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY a half-century old while ignoring the fact that organized Christianity which has been in the world some nineteen centuries was as powerless? That would be to use false scales in our judgment. Those who have followed my argument are in a position to realize the massive com- plexity of human relations. Socialism cannot as yet escape from nationalism; that was the error of fifty years ago. Socialism must work within the various nations as a ferment until they are ready to be friends. One great advantage which the socialism of the working- classes possesses is its spirit of international fraternity. For this reason, it will be an ever increasing tendency working for fairness and justice. It teaches Russian and German, Italian and Austrian, Englishman and French- man to shake hands and to call each other comrades. In spite of the temporary severance this war will cause and has already caused, this attitude will survive. These workmen meet, not as competitors, but as the exploited. They are aware of a common lot and this consciousness gives them a bond of unity than which there are few, if any, stronger. So far as they are competitors, they are indirect competitors. And they are, moreover, convinced that much of this economic competition which divides nations is unnecessary. It is as vicious in its motivation as it is bad in its consequences. In the place of competi- tion, the socialist desires to see cooperation found itself. The only competition he favors is that of excellence and efficiency. When our thoughts wander from the deep-lying causes of the war to the near future when the din of battle has died down, there arises an unlimited field for reflection. And here, again, there is no need to play the prophet. The wise man does not seek to foretell particular events but only REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 241 to dissect out tendencies of which time is the servant and not the complete master. These tendencies may conflict and we cannot always correctly estimate their changing balance but they will exist in the future just as they have in the past. In this regard, society is like an individual. Just as we can foretell the spiritual future of an individual with a large degree of accuracy if we know his heredity and his habits and his general circumstances, so we can estimate pretty soundly the hesitating future of society. We do not know what battles will be fought or who will be the victors, we do not know exactly where the boundaries between nations will be drawn; but we do know that man has advanced for centuries from autocracy to that which approaches democracy and we do know that this process will continue. The developed man demands rights and jus- tice for himself, and the increase of such demands spells de- mocracy. Stagnation or democracy, this is the antithesis. And nothing in the swift movement of events which the whole surface of the globe presents to the observer presages stagnation. Will this war set back democracy? I do not think so. It will bring in new elements such as an increased respect i for organization and intelligence but it will not turn the I eyes of mankind away from the cost and futility of the old / ambitions. Surely there will be a reaction in all the coun- / tries against those ideals and class-controls which made this monstrous waste of human energy and lives a possible' thing. There will be the demand for a revaluation of values, and human values will move nearer the seat of government. Of course, this advance does not necessarily mean the quick ascendency of American political methods and usages but it does mean the growth of the spiritual foundation of democracy, a foundation which will express 242 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY itself in different countries in different ways according to the genius of the country. But what part will America play? What will be its reaction to these events of which we are the breathless spectators? That is, indeed, a vital subject for reflection since upon the character of that massed reflection of Amer- ican citizens which is called public opinion rests the choice which we shall make. That current of thought which represents the traditional State is already in rapid movement. We must arm, it is said, while there is yet time. The world is an armed, berserker, robber world; not the peaceful, property- respecting, orderly world we had supposed. Let us arm lest we be a spoil to the victor and be drawn captive after his chariot. Let us see to it that university students be trained so that they may become officers. Let our pro- fessional army be increased to stand as a defense at our shores. Let the navy be enlarged so that it may bid de- fiance to the world. Then we shall be safe and may even venture forth to protect our interests in other lands. Such a policy of preparedness is urged upon us by common- sense and by patriotism. To do otherwise is foolishness, Utopianism, unwise parsimony. What must the socialist say to this natural reaction? He must judge between two ingredients in it, the spirit of the reaction and the program. Many a socialist may feel that it is unwise for any particular nation to break too hastily with the past and to disarm itself while other nations remain armed. Such an action might court, if not disaster, at least lack of influence in those questions which are still coming up for international consideration. Yet all the while, the socialist would maintain that the spirit in which this preparedness was maintained was even more REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 243 important than the military strength itself. He would not, therefore, feel bitterly aggrieved at a fair measure of preparedness if this were unaccompanied by the militaris- tic spirit or by the evident intention of certain classes in society to employ it for their own ends. When looked at in this light, the army and the navy would appear as a relatively necessary burden which he would regret. He would regret it for he knows how much better the same amount of money could be used for education and social reform. "Millions for defense, thousands for health or education, has been our national policy." He would regret it also because he would never be quite certain how necessary the expenditure was. Nations, like individuals, may be the victims of traditionary fears. Are there not, besides, other weapons such as the boycott which can be used as effectively as the big stick? If, then, the socialist had responsibility in his hands, he would maintain just about the measure of preparedness that we now have but he would see that the money expended was expended effi- ciently and wholesomely. But as a minority party, social- ism has the right to emphasize the attitude which it hopes to see grow in this and other countries, in the full knowl- edge that the majority parties which represent the State as it is will act in accordance with custom and pass measures looking for even an extreme degree of preparedness. The danger which confronts society is not a too hasty pacifism but a blossoming out of a militarism without an adequate ethical control back of it. The reflective socialist is con- vinced that much of the present cry for preparedness is hysterical and due to a misunderstanding of the deep- lying causes which led to the European war. The days of Louis the Fourteenth have not returned. But the mature socialist has a counsel nearer his heart 244 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY when he thinks of America with her wealth and potential power. He would like to see her play a truly beau role in this stirring time. War and all things connected with war have their spectacular, almost their melodramatic side. It is so easy to be carried away from a growing concern with social problems by the sudden boom of cannon. So well is this known that it is a matter of general knowledge that conservative statesmen in Europe have made a direct appeal to the warlike instincts of a people when internal troubles threatened something approaching a revolution. It has been hinted that such a motive played a part in the decision of Italy to cast her fortunes to the hazard of battle. Moreover, the socialist is aware that, during wars, social advance is delayed and social reforms forgotten. Shall we, who are not immediately threatened, allow ourselves to mark time? Democracy will be awake after the war as it has never been before and many of the old accepted na- tional ambitions will be fiercely challenged. Would not we as a people be crestfallen if we were to find our increased preparedness unnecessary? if here, again, we failed to be leaders but were led by our fears? But, it will be replied, the risk is too great. Preparedness is only a form of in- surance. But all great national choices involve risk just as all important personal choices do. He who will never risk anything will never make a momentous advance. Adventure is of the very nature of life. And yet hesitation may remain. An individual may take a risk, but is it right for a State to do so? Is not self-preservation the first duty of a State? Such would be the answer of the traditional State with its suspicions and aggressions. In expectation of this reply we have tried to show that the risk is not great, that the measure of pre- paredness we have is sufficient. Shall we give a sign to REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 245 an exhausted Europe that she must take on again the bur- den of armament of which she will more than ever desire to be rid? We may feel that our intentions are of the best, but have we a right to demand that our interpretation of our actions be accepted? In the light of this difficulty another possibility occurs to the thinker, a possibility which is in line with the teaching of socialism. Is there not another kind of preparedness which we may add to our battle- ships and forts? A modern war rests upon the whole nation. If that is healthy and well-organized, if it has stal- wart and intelligent citizens, if it has able scientists and wise thinkers, if it has factories and railroads, if it has the high patriotism which justice brings, if it has the re- sources of a continent and the potential strength of a vast population, it need fear little. No country will go far out of its way in a mere spirit of perverseness to attack it. Such, the socialist feels^ should be America's position. CHAPTER XII CAN WE UNIVERSALIZE DEMOCRACY? WE have endeavored to gain a clear idea of those ad- vances in social, economic and political life which appeal to the kindly and intelligent man of the western world as both desirable and feasible. Cannot justice be increased among us if we take thought and be no longer satisfied with the traditionary methods of dealing with our fellow men? Cannot freedom become less formal and legal and more a reality for the mass of workers if the spirit of co- operation be allowed to permeate and mould our economic institutions? Cannot equality pass from a mere phrase to a significant reality if it be taken to mean equality of opportunity? Such questions as these are abroad in the land and the sentiments which they are fostering will gradually find expression in those practical reforms and social experiments which mark the onward movement of democracy, for democracy is a movement rather than a fixed form achieved once for all. But while we have looked upon socialism as the deepen- ing and extension of that civilization which the western world has already achieved or, to speak more exactly, one of the manifestations of the massive forces in human nature which are pushing human values to the fore; and while we have seen no obstacles in its path greater than those which our fathers in their day met and conquered, this prophecy of evolution may have appeared to the critical reader too hopeful in its estimation of men and affairs. Is not democracy still too local a phenomenon 246 CAN WE UNIVERSALIZE DEMOCRACY? 247 for us to be justified in laying much stress upon it in our forecast of the future? Have not we Americans been too prone to universalize those habits, sentiments and in- stitutions which we identify with democracy and regard as the sole form suitable to a progressive and self-respect- ing people? And, even in our own case, have we not ignored too blandly those failures and shortcomings which stand out to the critically-minded in our municipal and even in our national affairs? And, if we have faith in our- selves and in our capacity to develop to nobler levels of democracy, are we not one among many? There are other races and other climes. There are Mexico, seem- ingly unable to reach a stable government without autoc- racy, the swarming masses of India where population constantly presses upon the means of subsistence, the submerged millions of China, those parts of the Orient which have never yet achieved anything even approaching a political democracy. Must we not search our hearts add confront our traditional optimism with the brutal facts of life as it is? If we do this, can we universalize democracy? A few decades ago, we might have turned our backs contemptuously on such a query. But an enlarged ex- perience of the world and a recognition of imperfections in our own political and social life have made us more humble and more thoughtful. We are beginning to realize that democracy has been more a faith than a reality and that, like any great religion, it has refused to recognize any boundaries. For democracy, as for Christianity, the cry has been: "There is neither Greek nor Jew, circumci- sion nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free." This tendency of a movement to demand univer- sality is a characteristic of comparatively modern times and is at the same time our pride and our discomfort. 348 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY It sets an ideal which urges us on but an ideal of whose difficulty we are increasingly aware. It is the nature and extent of the obstacles in the path of democracy which I wish to consider. For both democracy and religion there is the tempta- tion to think of the Kingdom as a free gift for which people need only to reach out their hands. Now it is to this facile, unearned, over-hasty extension of democracy that the facts of We are giving denial. With the first burst of enthusiasm over, we are beginning to realize that democ- racy, like character, is an achievement bought by slow and painstaking effort and, perhaps, resting on a biological as well as a social heredity of virtues. Have all races the foundation for the required social virtues? Have they the intelligence, the self-control, the patience and the per- sistence to the required amount? We are realizing, in other words, that democracy has its conditions and we are asking ourselves whether these conditions can always and everywhere be fulfilled. The traditional American impulse to extend democracy to other lands can be understood only in the light of Amer- can history. There was something unique and, in a sense, unhistorical in the origin of the United States. Our fore- fathers were uprooted from the soil in which their stock had developed to a high social level and were transplanted to a virgin continent under the power of non-conforming ideas, religious and political. They possessed a certain social training as well as a temperamental capacity for po- litical action. This break with the past and the isolation which ensued effected what can only be called a social ex- periment on a very large scale. The consequence was an extreme individualism suffused with an atmosphere of religious mysticism. Added to this was a certain aloofness CAN WE UNIVERSALIZE DEMOCRACY? 249 from the ways of the rest of the world. The of a pioneer life, the absence of pomp and circumstance, the essential equality characteristic of an agricultural life, all these factors of race and place prepared a people ready to welcome and to adopt the ideas of republic- anism and democracy which were beginning to seethe in Europe in the eighteenth century as a reaction against feudalism. Never did doctrines find a more fitting soil. They were in large measure the translation of actual con- ditions in America an almost homogeneous stock so far as the Aryan race was concerned, agricultural individual- ism, opportunity for all in the shape of immense tracts of free land. Thus the individualism of American condi- tions met the vague, anti-feudal formulas of the French Revolution and adopted them in full faith as watchwords and ideals. "Liberty, equality and fraternity," "All men are born free and equal," " Each to count as one," these slogans became the uncriticized dogmas of a creed which was more emotional than reflective. Americans seldom asked themselves whether there were any qual- ifications to be attached to these articles of their demo- cratic faith. And the reason for this absence of conditions was that Americans were thinking of their own lives. So far as they thought of the rest of the world, they thought of the inhabitants as at least potential Americans. The difficulties facing a democracy could not, then, be very great. Only the sceptically-inclined doubted for a mo- ment that every people would be the better for a represent- ative form of government with an elective executive. A congress or legislature had in it a virtue which counter- acted ignorance, ambition and greed. Such was the reflec- tion in America of the Age of Parliaments to which Carlyle so sarcastically refers. 250 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY All this was noble in its way, but was it not very naive? Did it not rest on lack of knowledge of the difficulties which confront a complex society? Was not America too optimistic in regard to its own achievements and too little prone to reflect on its own shortcomings? Let us com- pare the changes in Europe in the direction of democracy with the situation in America in order to get a better perspective. In this way, we can see what highly organ- ized societies have in common. During the nineteenth century, all unbeknown to the majority of Americans, what deserves to be called democ- racy increased in Europe and identified itself with very radical demands on the economic side of life. Social evils were met and controlled which were allowed in this conti- nent to flourish unchecked. And this radical movement had a threefold root in a more positive view of the func- tions of the government, a more intelligent study of social conditions and the rise of an international labor move- ment. While we had continued to lay stress upon the formal contrasts important enough, no doubt, in their way between republicanism and monarchy as types of government, European thinkers and publicists had learned to realize that democracy is more than an affair of govern- ment. Formal classifications in terms of government are not taken to be as fundamental as was supposed when the actual struggle was against feudal autocracy. Thus the emphases and watchwords of one generation are not those of the next because the concrete problems have shifted. What, then, is the exact nature of this democracy which we tend to universalize and to regard as the end-term of social development? In a very interesting chapter on "The Destinies of Democracy," Professor Franklin Gid- dings points out the difficulty in giving a "true account CAN WE UNIVERSALIZE DEMOCRACY? 251 of the involved relations of liberty and democracy the most complex, the most momentous, the most fascinating, and the most baffling products of social evolution." " True conceptions of liberty," he writes, " are to be found only in writings on constitutional law." * Since we must have a clear conception of the general character of democracy in order to make the question we have asked ourselves a definite one, let us glance at the distinctions which Profes- sor Giddings draws. " Scientifically, democracy must be defined as a form of government, or as a form of the State, or as a form of society, or as a combination of the three. As a form of government, democracy consists in the actual ad- ministration of political affairs through universal suffrage. Democracy as a form of government cannot co-exist with representative institutions; it admits executive and judicial offices only of the most restricted ministerial type; it demands the decision of every question of legal and execu- tive detail, no less than of every fundamental principle of right and of policy, by a direct popular vote. Democ- racy as a form of the State is popular sovereignty, that is, a popular distribution of formal political power. It signifies the right of the masses of the people to partici- pate in the creation of the government or machinery of administration. Democracy as a form of society is not so often or quite so easily discriminated. It is a democratic organization and control of the non-political forms of association. It is also something besides. In a perfectly democratic society the masses would possess that indef- inite, unformed, but actual political power which lies back of the formal power that registers its decisions through the act of voting. In Professor Burgess's nomenclature, democracy as a form of society is popular sovereignty 1 "Democracy and Empire," p. 200. 252 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY behind the constitution, as distinguished from popular sovereignty in the constitution." 1 This analysis helps us to realize the connection between socialism and democracy. While working for popular sovereignty, socialism always has in mind those broad human values to which it regards such sovereignty as a means. A people who achieved this formal democracy and allowed unjustified privileges to exist would be an ethically undeveloped people, a people whose development was, perhaps, legal and onesided and who were not con- scious of the larger issues of life. Now the point which Americans are beginning to realize is that this larger reflection may have developed farther among peoples who have achieved less than we have thanks to our history of popular sovereignty. We are also beginning to realize that constitutional monarchies may be as democratic in many essentials as countries in which the executive is directly elected by the whole people. The difference is one of system, of form, rather than of con- trol. When one realizes this fact, one is less inclined to lay stress upon the necessity for the spread of the American system as against the responsible cabinet scheme so gen- eral in Europe. The socialist is not so much interested in an ardent propaganda for republicanism as in the spread of democracy to society and the increasing recognition of human values. He feels, however, that if such a society is to have a firm basis it must rest on constitutionalism, on an achieved order, and on a social recognition of rights and duties. And it is by no means easy to achieve all this. It is an .evolution whose conditions are complex and, up to the present, not realized the world over. The United States, itself, has still some distance to go on this road. 1 " Democracy and Empire," p. 203. CAN WE UNIVERSALIZE DEMOCRACY? 258 When we look at democracy in this way as a level which is slowly attained, we realize that it cannot be adopted as a sort of fashion. It is a growth, not a garment. The attempt to extend such a democracy has problems to face which can be understood and weighed only in the light of a genuine knowledge of the world as it is. Both democracy and socialism have been over-inclined to sen- timent, perhaps even to sentimentalism. Democracy must be loyal to its values and incapable of discourage- ment but it need not be blind. To hug ignorance and to ignore difficulties is the surest path to disillusionment. What democracy needs is flexibility, sanity, knowledge and a high purpose. Possessed of these virtues, it will have patience and modesty, and be willing to creep where it cannot walk and walk where it cannot run. Let us glance at some of the factors which make the present generation unable to expect a hasty extension to backward countries of a particular type of democracy. Without attempting to be exhaustive, we can name the following: (1) the exploration of the world; (2) the teaching of Darwinism; (3) a better understanding of social psy- chology; (4) the friction between races; (5) an historical approach to institutions; (6) the failures which have over- taken the republican form of government in countries be- low our own level of development; (7) the lack of complete success where conditions have been the most favorable, as in the United States. A study of these factors will give us a more adequate perspective in which to forecast the evolution and spread of democracy in the world. It will give the ardent idealist a quieting sense that these things belong to nature and that they cannot be over-hastened. In that wise little book, "The Relations of the Advanced and the Backward Races of Mankind," James Bryce 254 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY points out that the last century witnessed the completion of one great task which man had to do. "Scientific knowl- edge will, we may hope, go on increasing steadily and rapidly. But the exploration of this earth is now all but finished. Civilized man knows his home in a sense in which he never knew it before. He knows how high are the mountains and how deep the seas, what are the cur- rents that keep the ocean in salutary unrest, and what the winds which bring rain or heat. . . . Moreover he knows the inhabitants of the earth, and not only the Races as they are, but the conditions which have determined the progress of each in the past and may affect them in the fu- ture, their natural aptitudes, their habits of industry or indolence, the features of the land wherein each dwells, and the influence of those features upon the increase or decay of population, upon the forms which industrial ef- fort takes." There results from this increased knowledge, he maintains, a possibility of prophesying the relative de- velopment of the various branches of mankind and the character of their relations. Questions of race-capacity arise, of the probability of miscegenation, of the acclima- tion of the white races for life in the tropics, of the na- ture of the bonds which will hold between the more back- ward and the more progressive countries. When the world-situation is approached in this concrete way, we can better grasp those larger problems of place and control which confront the claim of democracy to universalization. It is said that castes within the bound- aries of a country hinder the industrial and ethical develop- ment of both the well-born and the ignoble : Will the exist- ence of these different human strata in the world at large have a similar effect? Must all be redeemed before democ- racy can advance much farther? Or can different levels CAN WE UNIVERSALIZE DEMOCRACY? 255 of human achievement exist in partial independence of each other? Such are some of the questions which this explora- tion of the world has brought in its wake. The world is one in a way that it has never been before, yet the world is also many in a way that it has never been before. It is this divergence in unity which the political thought of democracy must face. The teaching of Darwinism with its stress on the selec- tive power of the environment laid the foundation for a more realistic view of society. Biology may be said to have entered the purview of political science for the first time. The eighteenth century had ignored racial differences and had abstracted lightly from factors which may be capital for the future tone of civilization. While we must not kotow to race and color, it would be equally foolish to disregard them or to act the coward in regard to them. Above all, the growth of the biological sciences has brought to view the idea of evolution and this idea means continuity and time. We no longer look forward to a miracle of sud- den change in which peoples will be exalted and show capacities for wise self-government of which their previous conduct had given us no suspicion. It is seen that peoples live in the midst of an atmosphere of customs, habits and institutions which are as much to be reckoned with as their reason or their native capacity. There is an inertia or ponderousness about large groups which is the despair of the sentimental rationalist. They are a part of organic life and must grow by assimilation. They are like those huge monsters which scientists have unearthed in the marl of Wyoming and Texas; ideas spread slowly to their ex- tremities. And this change of outlook which exploration and Darwinism have finally produced has modified and must continue to modify the old internationalism which 256 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY sprang up in the century of European revolution. The socialist must remember that, while he tried to be real- istic, Marx formed his ideas before the modern view of evolution had been fully developed. It is not to be won- dered at, then, that his brand of internationalism not to speak of that of Bakunin had in it much of the ideology of the age of Rousseau. The coming internationalism must be a growth resting on nationalism. The study of folk-lore, of the history of political institu- tions, of the rise and spread of moral ideals has given us a fuller insight into the way in which man progresses when he does progress. We understand better the tendencies to conservatism and to localism present in any society and no longer trust so much to eloquent demonstrations and general appeals. History has shown that culture- contacts usually have the element of pressure in them, that ideals struggle among one another for supremacy and that this supremacy is due to workableness in the actual conditions of time and place. To-day, philosophers assert that there is a struggle for survival among institutions which is quite comparable to that which, according to the biologist, occurs among animals. Has democracy this power to oust other forms of organization and is it capable of adapting itself to the most varied conditions? Those who believe in democracy and I am most certainly one of them are convinced that it expresses what man has it in him to be and what he dimly desires to be as soon as he attains a definite self-consciousness and a distinct individuality. If so, it is the goal which human nature itself sets; but human nature in this sense is too often only a potentiality not an actuality. Therefore the goal cannot be reached by a coup d'etat or by magic words. There is no royal road to democracy to use an Irish CAN WE UNIVERSALIZE DEMOCRACY? 257 bull any more than there is to culture or to achievement of any kind. Again, the friction between races, especially when these dwell within the same country or the same empire, has given ground for pessimism in regard to the extension of a genuine democracy. Does not democracy mean citizen- ship? And how can there be loyal citizenship when there are hatred and misunderstanding between classes of citi- zens ? A certain homogeneity, a certain feeling of fraternity would seem to be a condition of the harmonious working of democracy. There must be present a likemindedness, an almost intuitive understanding of and sympathy with the larger trend of public affairs. Will not differences of race, when combined with hostile memories, furnish the breed- ing-place for antagonisms which will introduce an element of strain in both national and international relations? Will a social atmosphere of justice and kindliness kill these noxious germs? The failure of paper democracies in other countries has likewise given the enthusiast pause. Those governments which swing between anarchy, on the one hand, and mil- itary dictatorship, on the other, have made the citizens of more stable nations aware that government is the ex- pression of a society and that, if the inhabitants of a coun- try have not those psychical qualifications which we call discipline, initiative and intelligence, they are as yet unfit to act as full citizens. They have need for a more con- tinuous source of authority until a middle class arises which is capable of giving balance to the government. I say middle class, not because I think that this class nec- essarily has large social virtues of a democratic sort, but because it always furnishes that stability and continuity which is one of the essential conditions of further progress. 258 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY The conclusions drawn by Dr. Goodnow, formerly Ameri- can advisor at Pekin and now President of Johns Hopkins University, from his experience in China is interesting in this connection because it expresses that undoctrinaire, realistic view of government which is displacing the earlier American impulse to universalize the political system of the United States without regard to circumstances. "To such a population, it would be, to put it in the mildest possible form, perilously unsettling to hold elections every so often. Too much chance by far would thus be given the political groups, already formed and distinctly active with a shrewdness and 'practical' skill more than a little reflective of western methods. The salvation of China lies in the gradual bringing into her public services of more and more of the abler, less self-seeking men and this can be better obtained under a monarchy of constitutional limitations than under republicanism as it would there be put into practice." There is undoubtedly danger in the constantly recurring election of the chief executive. The United States is a brilliant exception to this rule but, after all, an exception which can be accounted for only histor- ically. Now the progress achieved by some nations has seemed to the superficial observer to be of the slightest. Revolu- tion has followed revolution as one season follows another with little perceptible growth in that civic consciousness which is the foundation of true patriotism and the greatest enemy of faction. It was such display of factionism near us in Central America, Mexico and Venezuela and farther off in Portugal, Turkey and Persia which helped to weaken our inherited impulse to regard all countries as potential republics. We are realizing that there are different levels of potentiality and that time is indeed an important factor. CAN WE UNIVERSALIZE DEMOCRACY? 259 The student who wishes to be impartial does not always know what and whom to blame for these, at least relative, failures. If he is critical, he is inclined to be sceptical of a mere appeal to race, for race is often a blanket-term to cover our ignorance of economic and social conditions which are historically grounded. The daring thinker, therefore, suggests that there is more hope in such unrest than in the old lethargy. The ice of static custom is breaking under the swell of world-wide forces to whose influence we can as yet set no boundaries. But the con- servative thinker, the thinker with a leaning toward authority and a belief in control from above down, with, perhaps, a more confirmed race pride, has begun to ask himself whether progress of a genuine and extensive sort is possible for all races and climes or whether many nations may not have reached an almost predestined level beyond which they cannot rise any more than water can rise higher than its source. Are there aristocrats among the nations born to rule and to win the rewards of rule? Such is the divided attitude which makes the extension of democracy a problem. And, lastly, in our own country there has arisen a more adequate understanding of the difficulty of achieving a really efficient government when government is under the control of a jealous citizenry stressing rights rather than duties. The functions of government had, under our traditionary theory, been reduced to a minimum. Society was looked upon as a collection of individuals each pretty capable of looking after himself. This atomistic view was natural to an agricultural people who wished only to be allowed to lead their own lives in their own little circles, and had no idea of team-work nor desire to achieve some common end. To protect life and property, to see to the 260 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY enforcement of contracts, to look after those foreign rela- tions which remained even after all entangling alliances were eschewed, these were the duties of the government. No thought was paid to the inevitable and constant con- trol exerted by social institutions like those of property and inheritance. We believed that society offered no serious problems so long as the component individuals had certain personal virtues. The socialist often finds himself wondering how this blindness to problems was possible. But even on the political side, the American Republic has had its flaws. Blind partisanship, corruption at the polls, the spoils system, boss rule, selection of demagogues as leaders, the admiration for superficial cleverness, all these features have lessened that uncritical admiration for popular government with which we started. While we have no thought of drawing back, we cannot deny that we are disappointed. We are realizing that popular gov- ernment is literally an expression of the people as they are and that there is room for improvement. Reformers are, therefore, attempting two things: first, to make the polit- ical system as free from the evils of professionalism of a monetary sort as it can be made; second, to turn to the spread of education and publicity as the ultimate hope of democracy. Americans know now as they never knew before that an efficient and just democracy is a very diffi- cult thing to carry through. They have as strong faith as they ever had in the ultimate outcome but they are more aware that there are conditions which must be fulfilled. We have decided that there are certain psychical condi- tions without which the higher levels of democracy are impossible and that these conditions are not necessarily dependent upon the possession of any stereotyped form of CAN WE UNIVERSALIZE DEMOCRACY? 261 government, that there must be a social development in- volving education, discipline and the growth of both per- sonal and social virtues before a people are able to govern themselves very successfully, that democracy is an achieve- ment and not a gift. The impatient reformer who wishes a perfect society to arise as if by magic may be disheartened at such a conclusion, but he who possesses the historical point of view and is aware of what has been accomplished during the last two centuries sees no reason to be dis- couraged quite the contrary in fact. If democracy is to spread, how can this extension best be brought about? Have we, moreover, a fairly well grounded assurance that the conditions of democracy can be achieved in countries where it would seem to have hardly a foothold as yet? Having taken a philosophical view of the situation, what can we say to give a just hope to the lover of democracy? That there is a backwash to conservatism and to an emphasis on race at the present there can be no doubt. So impressed have some thinkers been by the realistic factors to which we have called attention that they are inclined to adopt as their motto, "Sufficient to a people is its government and social order since these are expres- sions of its life." But the fault with this interpretation is its neglect of the new influences which are at work in the world. It is so easy, as I pointed out once before, to in- terpret social conditions in terms of race. But is such an attitude really scientific? Race may be a factor but it is not the only factor. Anthropologists tell us, moreover, that there is no such thing as a pure race. The Russians have many racial strains in their blood and are by no means pure Slavic. The Bulgar is part Slavic and part brother to the Hungarian and Turk. The Japanese are decidedly a 262 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY mixture of Mongolian and Malay with, perhaps, a slight strain of Aryan. Many of the nations which are now back- ward played a spectacular role in history generations ago. The scientist has to go beyond race to geographical, cli- matic and economic factors if he wishes to understand somewhat better the causes of conditions as they are. What the biologist calls the principle of isolation has been very important. Isolated peoples have missed those culture-contacts which were forced upon European peoples by the very lay of the land. Who that has read Greek his- tory has not had it pointed out to him that the nature of the country and its Mediterranean position had much to do with its achievements? Egypt, Phoenicia, Syria and Persia in turn stimulated them and forced on them a larger world and a larger life. Let us see whether we have in this fact a suggestion of what is now taking place over the whole world and will continue to take place increas- ingly. We have said that the world is one to-day in a way that it has never been before. There are convection currents between nations which convey ideas, methods and in- stitutions from one shore to another. It is to the steady, persistent, almost automatic working of this agency that democracy must trust. Only he who has failed to give the situation thought can be ignorant of the tremendous reach and the continuous, unremitting pressure of peoples upon one another now that the world has been explored and its most distant parts linked together by railroads and steamship lines. The old isolation which permitted the hardening of society into an almost permanent mould has gone forever. The old internal adaptations and traditional ideas and customs have lost their adequacy, and with it their power, with this enforced widening of the horizon. CAN WE UNIVERSALIZE DEMOCRACY? 263 The psychological change which comes over the hermit nation when the world is brought to its doors is com- parable to the change in the mentality of an European peasant when he comes to the city. Whatever breaks down national barriers and habits prevents isolation and quickens the social pulse. But can we be certain that this industrial union of the / world which commerce is bringing to pass will necessarily work toward the spread of a genuine civilization instead of toward a monotonous external uniformity? There can be no doubt that it causes the disappearance of peasant costumes and the adoption of common modes of life. The locomotive and the huge ocean liner no longer astonish the natives of China and even the Eskimo is becoming familiar with rifle and auto-sledge. Cotton mills have their thousands of operatives in Bombay, Canton and Yokohama. A different kind of internationalism than that of which the eighteenth century dreamed is upon us, an internationalism of commerce and industry. What level will this extension of commercial relations bring in its wake? In spite of the evils connected with its misuse, machin- ery is more stimulating to the mind than hoe and hand- loom. It arouses curiosity as something new; it breaks down the old reverence for the past; it induces a new attitude toward nature and human affairs. Thus the machine is becoming the symbol of the new phase of society. Everywhere the horizon is being pushed back and a larger range of interests is being opened up to the mind's eye. I imagine that very few are able to appreciate the tremendous psychological effect this world-contact is having. The phonograph, it is said, has already become a religious issue in the Mohammedan world. If the Persian 264 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY wars made the Athens of Pericles possible, if the Crusades by bringing Near East and West together gave birth to the revival of learning, what must be the ultimate effect of this final and more permeative union? This much we can say: social life all over the world will be quickened, individuals will live larger, more self-conscious lives. The Hindoo who has travelled to the Transvaal is sensibly different from the Hindoo who has remained at home. He takes on new associations and attitudes with the change in the soil on which he travels. He who never before went on a strike will organize with his fellows and commit sabotage against his capitalistic oppressors. But other forces than those of commerce and industry must be at work if democracy is to advance. There might not be much of a net gain if all that was accomplished by these agencies was the disruption of charming and evil customs alike. If the onward march of western modes of life brought only a dreary uniformity in the place of that local vividness and color which delight the eye of the traveller, the thinker as well as the artist would simply shrug his shoulders and ask, To what good ? If Leopoldian- ism, the outrages of St. Thome and Putumayo, and the horrors of the march to Pekin were the influences brought to bear upon the backward races, it were better for them not to have been discovered. There is assuredly much that is brutal in this meeting of races. The contact was too sudden and too uncontrolled. The worst in the white man was brought to the front, rather than the better. The gross exploitation of the masses which was usual in Europe and America broke over the natives of other countries with hardly a restraint. During the nineteenth century, there swept over the uncivilized world the fierce tide of colonial enterprise. CAN WE UNIVERSALIZE DEMOCRACY? 265 Each great European nation became desirous of pre- empting some portion of the earth's surface in Africa or Oceania or Asia. England set the pace by turning immense areas of the map into red. Soon France followed. Then came Germany and Italy fast on their heels while Russia absorbed more and more of central Asia. In this way, an administrative relation was added to the commercial relation. I am strongly inclined to think that this was a good thing so far as it involved a sense of responsibility for the condition of the people controlled. We can, of course, never be certain what the history of these regions would have been had they not been absorbed by the great powers. Would there have been a natural evolution or internal anarchy? Colonial enterprises have at least ex- cluded anarchy. Much of the world is, then, in tutelage to Europe. There are many black pages in this extension of the dominion of the western State. But England and France have voluntarily crushed out slavery and seem inclined to foster native industries and native self-respect. Many keen thinkers who are familiar with conditions in tropical Africa feel that the great question of policy is whether assistance and encouragement will be given to the develop- ment of their country by the natives themselves or whether capitalists will be assisted in their desire to exploit the resources by hired or forced labor. Such moral questions confront the democratically-inclined empires in whose' hands are the destinies of vast territories. It is in this way that the growing democracy of the advanced coun- tries can cherish the peoples who are not yet ready for complete self-government. Let us hope that these dem- ocratic empires will be increasingly conscious of their responsibility. The dangers are twofold: the monopolist, 266 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY the exploiter, is always at hand and his influence in our plutocratic democracies is very great; again, the ideal of order may supplant the ideal of self-government. The civil servant wants good government and feels that he can bring it about. He is, therefore, apt to be impatient with those feeble efforts of native populations toward self-government which mean so much to them in terms of growing self-respect. As the spirit of a true democracy grows in Europe and America it will express itself toward colonies and dependencies in an increase of responsibility, a wider publicity for over-seas affairs and a desire to assist local control. Such will be the atmosphere of the future and it will be within this larger, almost international setting that backward races will take their lessons in self- government. Responsibility will be given as it is deserved; let us hope that it will be given even a little faster than it is deserved. How fast will this process of achieving successful popular government proceed? Perhaps not so very fast as in- dividuals measure time. But so long as the process is uninterrupted, there is room for a quiet optimism. It is the beginning which is most heartbreaking. It is so hard to get things started. After that, they march of them- selves so long as there is a firm general control. Yet we must admit that this movement which is beginning is more or less of an experiment. Time alone will tell how much capacity other races have for civilization of a complex type. All races seem to be able to produce exceptional leaders now and then but it remains to be seen how high the general level of capacity will be. The white race must be somewhat lenient in its judgments where huge masses are concerned, as in India, China and Japan, because thickly populated countries in which poverty is wide- CAN WE UNIVERSALIZE DEMOCRACY? 267 spread naturally lack that flexibility which is America's pride. The hope of such nations is in the rise of educated leadership. Popular sovereignty in accordance with the American system will for a long period be impossible for them. On this point Dr. Goodnow is undoubtedly right. Assuredly two of the problems which confront a world- wide democracy most pressingly are race-friction and differences in standard of living. Two striking instances of the first conflict are the separateness of Englishman and Hindoo and the antagonism between white men and negroes in the United States. As an instance of the second conflict we can take the exclusion of the Chinese from our country. Let us look briefly at these two problems. "To the colonial a year ago," writes a correspondent investigating conditions in India since the outbreak of the war, "the Indian was simply a 'nigger' who wished to overrun the dominions and bring down the standard of living. To the Indian the colonial was a white dog in the manger whose selfish policy of exclusion made a mock- ery of the Indian's much advertised British citizenship." Race antagonism combined with differences in economic status to produce a bitter hostility. Is this conflict un- avoidable? and if it is not avoidable what is the principle to be adopted? The conflict seems to me unavoidable and results from the too sudden contact of societies which had developed in comparative isolation. Standards and values are growths which have a social objectivity and must not be lightly disregarded. Simply to ignore them and to appeal to the ideal of fraternity and a common humanity is no solution. The democrat must have some insight into the actual character of social psychology. While kindly in his attitude toward all peoples, he must look at life as it 268 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY is. Would it not do more harm than good to break down the barriers within which different cultures had developed and to admit all those who knock at our gates? Would we be as able to solve our own problems if this tidal wave were allowed? My own feeling is that there are condi- tions to a healthy evolution of broad social purposes and that there must be psychical homogeneity if this evolu- tion is to occur. There are distractions enough in all countries to-day without admitting new ones. Future internationalism must have as its foundation a healthy nationalism. Immigrants who escape from one country to another do not help to solve the problems of their na- tive land. There are some countries in which the population is pressing on the means of subsistence. Until there is some- thing of the nature of birth-control, I do not see that the mass of the people in such territories have any chance for that self-development which is a condition of the higher levels of democracy. Nature will always deal harshly with over-population as it has in the past. Simply to spread the surplus over the world would not solve the problem, any more than to divide property among all in equal proportions would solve the problem of poverty. Socialism cannot change certain laws of nature but can only teach man to accommodate himself to them. Yet democratic countries have always been very willing to assist their less fortunate neighbors in ways that do not undermine their own integrity. And the best way to do this is to educate leaders among these people who, with a better understanding of the actual situation than a foreigner could ever possess, will work for social better- ment in their own land. Let democracies send forth missionaries of culture as well as missionaries of creeds. CAN WE UNIVERSALIZE DEMOCRACY? 269 To the more sentimental socialist this counsel may seem lukewarm but it is the only one which my judgment per- mits me to give. Let us try to be intelligently helpful to those who live in the same world as we do, both because it will pay us in numberless ways and because we are large enough morally to rejoice in the advancement of others and to sorrow at their pain. Their progress is literally our progress and our progress their progress, so intimately is the world being made one. But when different races at different levels of attain- ment live together in one country, the problem assumes a tenser form. As Bryce points out, antagonism between such races where the one is stronger and superior in attainment is sure to arise. "It arises from inequality, because as one of the races is stronger in intelligence and will, its average members treat members of the weaker race scornfully or roughly, when they can do so with impunity. It arises from dissimilarity of character, be- cause neither race understands the other's way of thinking and feeling, so that each gives offence even without mean- ing it. It arises from distrust, because the sense of not comprehending one another makes each suspect the other of faithlessness or guile." 1 On the economic side also there are causes of embittering friction. Whites frequently re- fuse to work side by side with negroes. They desire, more- over, to keep the skilled trades to themselves and are especially incensed when the negro appears as a strike- breaker or as one who underbids. Thus economic conflicts add themselves to psychological misunderstandings. It cannot be denied that many difficulties, social, political and economic, face American democracy in connection with 1 Bryce, "The Relations of the Advanced and the Backward Races of Mankind," pp. 29-30. 270 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY the relations between whites and blacks. What is the wisest attitude to take? It would require a book in itself to deal in any way adequately with this question. All that I can offer, there- fore, is a suggestion of the drift of my own thoughts re- garding the matter. The more I read and think about this problem the more convinced am I that it is wrong to carry race distinctions into constitutional and political affairs. Where law is there should be equality. Else there will be a rankling sense of injustice. Yet so long as one race is backward, it should not be allowed to secure control if it uses this control in a race way. But there are no States in which this possibility cannot be obviated by compromises which are inoffensive to the majority of both races. Let there be a literacy test of a fair sort if such a compromise be necessary and let there be an extension of civil service as against the long ballot. Such political reforms as are now in the air which are planned to make government more efficient may easily be so applied as to circumvent those dangers which the Southern States have had reason to fear. The only hope is the applica- tion of reason in place of the blind panic of fear and prej- udice. On the spiritual side, there is needed a growth of sympathy and tact and a conscious realization that the two races must live together in the future and should therefore make the best of the situation. Above all, the dominant race should be fair in its treatment of the other race and do all in its power to help the more handicapped portion of the population to secure self-respect. This can be done indirectly through education and increase of industrial efficiency. Such an attitude will enable the leaders which the negroes are already producing to set before them ideals of self-control and self-respect. Since CAN WE UNIVERSALIZE DEMOCRACY? 271 the two races do not blend to any appreciable degree, there will be in the United States two racial groups, yet it is not impossible that they will gradually work out a way of living together in which the friction will be minimal. Time is a great establisher of customs. But the white race must realize that black folk have souls and the leaders of both races must stress justice and the need of patience and kindliness. We asked ourselves one of those inclusive questions which can be answered only by the unfolding of a stand- point. We can universalize democracy if we mean by this claim the belief that events favorable to the growth of democracy are shaping themselves the world over. The world is being brought together in a physical and a social way and convection currents are carrying ideas and values back and forth. The old isolation which made possible the coexistence of all sorts of governments and customs is becoming a thing of the past; in its place we are seeing develop the beginnings, at least, of that organic coalescence of the nations which will make impossible too great divergence. The biologist informs us that many species are able to survive only because they are pro- tected by natural barriers from attack. This is also the case with institutions. New influences will act as dis- solvents of old forms and ideals. But while we believe that man is potentially democratic, he is not actually so until he has reached a certain level of development. And conditions are not equally favorable to the attainment of this level hi all places. Time must therefore intervene and it is the part of naivite, or of the doctrinaire, hastily to universalize any particular political system. When looked at in this way, it becomes clear that the role of American democracy is twofold. History and circum- 272 THE NEXT STEP IN DEMOCRACY stances have favored no other nation as they have favored ours. It should be our pride, therefore, as well as our duty to point the way to that healthy, creative and happy society which is within our reach if we but exalt ourselves by means of a purpose. Let justice and education be increased and all things else will be added. Our success in the path which our fathers set us has become an ethical duty to fall short of which would be apostasy. And noth- ing should be more damnable in our eyes than the suave whisper of satisfaction. We need lean prophets to whip us onward with their scorn, not fat apostles of content- ment with things as they are. And, in the second place, we must feel it our duty to reach out helping hands to those who are struggling upward so wearily and against such odds. This we should do inconspicuously and in- directly and not with too great advertisement of the fact. In this way we can make the none too easy path of de- mocracy in the world less stony and its various levels less inaccessible. INDEX Adams, Brooks, 16, 202 Addams, Jane, 153-4, 185 Administrative nihilism, 87 Anarchism, 75-80 Aristocracy, 105-111; and art, 107 Aristotle, 135 Art and socialism, 112 Artistic work, 149-150 Balzac, 151 Bentham, Jeremy, 74 Bryce, James, 253, 269 Bureaucracy, 86-90 Cabet, 33 Carlyle, 203-4 Chamberlain, Joseph, 234 Chapman, 25, 103, 181 Civil service, 219-20 Cobden, 239 Commune, 30 Communism, 90-2 Communist Manifesto, 27 Competition and socialism, 57-8 Conservatism, causes of, 208; mo- tives for, 3 Conversion, need of, 11 Cooley, 53 Cooperation and competition, 15, 127-130 Cooperative movement, 128-130 Co-partnership, 130-3 Darwin, 24 Darwinism, 255 Davenport, 17, 25-6, 182, 187 Dealey, 223 Democracy, 39-40; meaning of, 88; conditions of, 248 Democracy and the war, 241 Dewey, 186 Dickinson, 12, 185 Diplomacy, 226-8 Doctrines, temporary character of, 22-3 Donisthorpe, Wordsworth, 212-3 Ely, 78 Engels, 27, 40 Ethical materialism, 108-9 Feudal Aristocracy, 35 Feuerbach, 41 Fourier, 28, 30 France, Anatole, 166 Freedom and justice, 214 French Revolution, 29 German Idealism, 41 Giddings, Franklin, 250-1 Gide, Charles, 129 Goodnow, 258 Government ownership, 117-120 Hadley, 58, 202 Hegel, 40 Hobhouse, 61, 173 Hobson, 26, 147-8, 181, 184 273 274 INDEX Hollander. 59 Hunter, 59 Huxley, 87 Ideo-motor theory, 46 Individualism, kinds of, 18-9 Inertia, social, nature of, 16 Institutions, criticism of, 49; trust in, 206 Jaures, 36 Justice, character of, 158; growth of, 170; kinds of, 164; meanings of, 160 Kelley, Edmond, 55 Key, Ellen, 156, 238 Labor, human costs of, 147-9 Labor movements, 81-3 Laissez faire, 87, 211, 216 Lansbury, George, 235-6 Leisure, right use of, 135, 155-6 Liberty, limits of, 212-3 Liebknecht, 35 Locke, 32, 100 Lowell, 80, 90 Machinery, influence of, 263 Maine, Sir Henry, 216 Mai-distribution, 16-7, 186-7 Marx, 24, 28, 33, 49; his eco- nomics, 37; his philosophy of history, 35-7; and the prole- tariat, 38 Marxianism, its contribution, 42 Marxists, 49 Mill, John, 188 More, Sir Thomas, 27 Morel, E. D., 236 Morris, 13 Municipal socialism, 120-2 New Freedom, 17 Oligarchies, 9 Opportunism, 44 Orthodoxy, dangers of, 4, 23-4 Owen, 33 Pacifism, 237-8 Political economy, abstractness of, 27; field of, 137; and socialism, 24-5 Politics and ritualism, 216 Poverty, amount of, 59; and so- cialism, 58-62 Preparedness, 232, 242-5 Proletariat, 38 Profit-sharing, 130-3 Race, appeal to, 261; and prog- ress, 266 Radical scholarship, 45 Reward, principles of, 188-194 Rochdale Experiment, 52, 127-8 Rodin, 154 Rose, J. Holland, 234 Rousseau, 31 Rousseauism, 32 Ruskin, 13 Saint Simon, 28 Shaw, G. B., 53 Simkhovitch, 34 Skelton, 125 Slavery, 140 Social control, 20 Social freedom, conditions of, 207f . Socialist propaganda, 39 INDEX 275 Socialistic, meaning of, 5 Socialism, a movement, 1; Amer- ican attitude toward, 21; diffi- culty of defining, 3-4; defini- tions of, 6-8; location of, 10; misconceptions of, 72f.; need of historical approach to, 22; not bureaucratic, 86; objections to, 96f.; political, 44; three stages of, 27; two aspects of, 24; and the social sciences, 45; and the war, 239-41; and values, 104f. Sombart, 31, 136 Spencer, 87, 130 State, nature of, 228-230 State socialism, 88-9 Strikes, cost of, 52-3 Syndicalism, 80-6 Tarbell, Miss I., 172 Tufts, 186, 225 Unemployment, 60-1 Utopian socialism, 28, 48-9 Utopians, 30 War, causes of, 222-230 Webb, Mrs. Sidney, 128 Williams, 128, 131 Work, attitude toward, 155 Printed in the United States of America following pages contain advertisements of a few of the Macmillan books on kindred subjects. The Essentials of Socialism BY IRA B. 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