SOCIALISM 
 
 NEW AND OLD. 
 
 WILLIAM GRAHAM, M.A., 
 * 
 
 TROFESSOR OF POLITICAL ECOXOMY AND JURISPRUDENCE, QUEEN'S COLLEGIf, 
 BELFAST. 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD., 
 1891 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 IN a former work written by the author, entitled 
 " The Social Problem," the various forms of existing 
 Socialism were briefly considered as proffered solu- 
 tions of the Social Problem. In the present work 
 the whole subject of Socialism is considered more 
 fully (especially from the historical and economic 
 side) than the scope of the former work allowed. 
 The book is thus a new and independent work ; 
 though in the chapters on " Practicable State- 
 Socialism " the reader of the present volume who 
 may by chance have read the former one, may 
 observe a certain similarity in the conclusions 
 reached, as compared with those in a chapter of the 
 earlier work dealing with specific social remedies. 
 On the other hand, he may note a greater definite- 
 ness in the statement of certain conclusions, and 
 possibly even a difference of a more essential kind 
 a qualification of some of the results formerly set 
 
vf PREFACE. 
 
 forth. Where there is really such a difference as to 
 some, though not to a considerable extent there is 
 the conclusions here given are to be taken as the 
 author's more matured opinion on the subject. 
 
 I have to express my thanks to Mr. Goddard H. 
 Orpen, of Lincoln's Inn, for his careful reading of the 
 proofs while passing through the press, as well as 
 for suggestions and criticisms which assisted me to 
 make improvements in particular parts of the book. 
 
 LONDON, ////v 29, 1890. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION , . . xix-lv 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE FORMS OF SOCIALISM. 
 
 SECT. 
 
 I. The different senses of the word Socialism, and rela- 
 
 tion between the different kinds of Socialists . . i-n 
 
 II. Further division (according to the means proposed 
 of realizing their ideals) into the Revolutionary, 
 Evolutionary, and State- Socialists. Prospects of 
 Socialism in the leading civilized countries England, 
 France, Germany, and the United States . . 11-17 
 
 III. Anarchism, and its relation to Socialism: points of 
 agreement and difference. Why some knowledge of 
 
 the history of Socialism is desirable .... 17-20 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 SOCIALISM BEFORE THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 I. The Jewish Socialism. Socialistic institutions of the 
 
 Law of Moses The Jubilee, &c. Failure of the 
 Jewish Socialistic polity. Retardation of the change 
 to individualism by the Law of Moses and the 
 Prophets. The Socialism of the Gospels. The ideal 
 of the Christian Society 21-27 
 
 II. The Catholic Church and Communism. Gradation 
 
 of classes under Feudalism. Risings of the " com- 
 
Vlii CONTENTS. 
 
 monalty " after the decline of feudalism. The risings 
 of the people in England to prevent their divorce 
 from the land. Increase of the poor and institution 
 of Poor Laws. More's Utopia. Anticipation in it 
 of the modern Socialist argument. The age of 
 social Utopias 27-33 
 
 III. Decline in the production of Utopias. The new 
 problem for social philosophers The Origin of Civil 
 Society and Government. Hobbes* and Locke's 
 speculations. What constitutes private property 
 
 [according to each. Effects of their writings on 
 , English society and subsequent social speculation. 
 / The struggle for Monarchy in England throughout 
 [ the seventeenth century. Political effects of the limi- 
 tation of the kingly authority. Social and economic 
 effects. Decline of yeomen and rise of the farming 
 class. The agricultural labourer .... 33-39 
 
 IV. New era in the history of Society inaugurated by 
 / the writings of Rousseau. His " Discours sur 
 
 TOriginede rine'galite." His story of the "fall of 
 man " socially and morally. Stages in the early his- 
 tory of man. The happy stage at which the species 
 should have stopped. The origin of private property. 
 The evil world and the 'evil passions that came 
 with private property. The war of all with 
 all. Origin of Civil Society and Law. Trans- 
 formation of delegated into absolute authority. 
 The sole way of recovery, as indicated in the 
 " Contrat Social.'' The people the only legitimate 
 sovereign in the state. The proper aims of Govern- 
 u ment. How to retain the sovereign power in the 
 :\hands of the people. Far-reaching consequences of 
 Rousseau's writings. Errors and truth in them . 39-59 
 
 V. How far Rousseau was a Socialist. The doctrine of 
 the "Economic Politique'' favours what we now call 
 State-Socialism, to be secured by taxation and the 
 extension of the State's functions .... 59-64 
 
 VIJ Theories due to the influence of Rousseau's ideas. 
 
 ( Mably's Communism. Fichte's Collectivism, an 
 
 1 anticipation of the present collectivist system. 
 
 Bakunin's Anarchism. Morellet's Communism ; its 
 
 affinity with existing Collectivism. The French 
 
 Revolution partly Socialistic in its effects . . .64-71 
 
CONTENTS. IX 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 MODERN SOCIALISM, FROM ST. SIMON TO KARL MARX. 
 
 SECT. 
 
 \. St. Simon : his originality : successive phases of 
 his ideas. His Positivist stage. His State Social- j 
 ism, with the right to labour and the right to | 
 knowledge guaranteed to the labourer. Further 
 advance : a new morality necessary, to be supplied 
 by positive philosophers ; and a new religion, to be 
 preached by philanthropists. The " New Chris- 
 tianity.' 3 Its principal aim the amelioration of the 
 lot of 'the poor 72-78 
 
 II. The St. Simonian school. Advance on the views of 
 
 the Master. The three stages in the exploitation of 
 man by his fellows. A radical reform declared to be 
 necessary in the laws of Property and Inheritance. 
 Their principle of distribution: to each according 
 to his works. Views on Rent : on Capital. Antici- 
 pation of special positions of the present Collec- 
 tivists. Insight of the St. Simonians : merits and 
 defects of their ideal : specific objections . . 78-87 
 
 III. Carlyle's Socialism. Resemblance between his social 
 and political doctrine and the St. Simonian Social- 
 ism. Ideas in common with the St. Simonians 
 in "Sartor Resartus " and "Past and Present." 
 
 The doctrine of the " Latter Day Pamphlets. 5 ' t 
 
 Way to the desired end according to Carlyle : The 
 '* Great Man '' seconded by an aristocracy of ability. 
 Similar doctrine in Lord Beaconsfield's political 
 novels of " Sybil ; or the Two Nations," and 
 "Coninsby" 87-98 
 
 IV. New Socialistic scheme of Fourier : Not State- 
 Socialism. The phalange and the phalanstire. 
 Fourier's principle of distribution. Mill's eulogy 
 of Fourier's scheme : his criticism of it. Possible 
 
 case for an experiment on Fourier's lines . . 98-106 
 
 V. Louis Blanc's objection to St. Simonism. His own \ 
 scheme of co-operative production to be launched \ 
 by the aid of the State, but afterwards to be free from * 
 State control. Competition to be employed to get 
 rid of the present system, afterwards to be done away 
 with. Tendency of the scheme to Communism. 
 Its failure so far as partially tried . . . 106-115 
 
X CONTENTS. 
 
 VI.' J. S. Mill and his attitude to Socialism, as gathered 
 from his " Principles of Political Economy," his 
 " Chapters on Socialism " (Fortnightly Review) and 
 his "Autobiography." His general ideal of the 
 future society. Ideal in the sphere of industry ; Co- 
 operative production, realized without State aid. H is 
 prophecy in 1848. Why co-operative production has 
 not succeeded. Great extension and development 
 of the opposite system of capitalism since that time. 
 Cairnes' error as to the difficulties in the way of co- 
 operative production. Supplementary note on 
 Robert Owen's relation to Socialism and co-opera- 
 tive production 115-124 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE NEW SOCIALISM AND ITS ARGUMENT. 
 
 1. 1 The third Socialist crusade preached by Lassalle : 
 
 I the inspiration derived from Karl Marx. Improved 
 method of attack on the existing system. Marx's 
 economical and historical arguments. Their 
 guns turned on the orthodox economists. Commun- 
 istic point of departure of Marx : the subsequent 
 changes in his ideas and methods . . . 125-131 
 
 II. The new Socialism (Collectivism) and its aims: win- 
 
 it deserves special attention. Marx's three stages 
 in the history of industry. The appearance of the 
 capitalist and origin of capital. Stages before the 
 Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution : 
 its causes and results. Completion ot the revolu- 
 tion 131-138 
 
 III. Marx's theory of value derived from Ricardo. His 
 own theory of "surplus value." Fallacy of the 
 arguments in support of the theory. The appeal to 
 morals. Element of truth in the charges of Marx 
 against the capitalist employers in the past . nS-i5 1 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 
 
 I. General outline of the Collectivist scheme from the 
 
CONTENTS. XI 
 
 economic point of view. Production, distribution, 
 
 and value 152-161 
 
 II. Statement and examination of the chief objections 
 urged against the scheme: (i) that production 
 would be controlled by authority instead of by the 
 desires and demands of the community ; (2) that 
 production would be diminished from the with- 
 drawal of the present stimulus to the director of in- 
 dustry (entrepeneur); (3) that capital, especially fixed 
 capital, would not be furnished in sufficient amount ; 
 (4) that liberty would be in danger ; (5) that indi- 
 viduality of character would be repressed ; (6) that 
 culture would be endangered . . 162-182 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 IN THE SOCIALIST STATE (continued}. 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 
 
 I. Importance of the question of distribution in its rela- 
 
 tion to Socialism. The existing system. On what the 
 future of collectivism depends. Collectivist objection 
 to the present system. The proposed principle of 
 distribution : " To each in proportion to his hours of 
 average labour/' General difficulty of applying the 
 principle. Difficulty illustrated concretely in tHe case 
 of the cotton industry. Marx's standard of average 
 or common labour uncertain and indefinite. Diffi- 
 culty of reducing different kinds of skilled labour to 
 the standard 184-196 
 
 II. Examination and refutation of Marx's theory that 
 
 skilled labour is common labour intensified or multi- 
 plied. Importance of the theory in connection with 
 the collectivist principle of distribution. True reason 
 why the skilled should receive a larger remuneration 
 than the unskilled labourer. Why, in particular, the 
 industrial chief, the inventor, &c., should be liberally 
 remunerated 196-204 
 
 III. Furthej^xajmnation of the Socialist theory of value 
 and prin^iple~oTc[Istribution. " Objections : .djmjfllSlieit' 
 stimulus to-labour ftft- the^partloLthe generality^ 
 Impb~ssibiliTy~~6Tkeeping values fixed as required ty 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 SECT. _ f *AGB 
 
 the scheme. Foreign trade under Collectivism. 
 Difficulties of carrying it on in the absence of the 
 money measure of values. Difficulty of keeping 
 values of foreign commodities fixed . . . 204-212 
 
 IV. Final conclusion as to the Socialist principle of 
 
 distribution . ... 212-215 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 IN THE SOCIALIST STATE 
 THE SUPPRESSION OF MONEY AND MARKETS. 
 
 I. How far the abolition of money proposed by the col- 
 
 lectivists is possible. The labour cheques would 
 take the place of money : Would be subject to 
 all the evils of inconvertible paper-money, with other 
 unknown evils. Impossibility of suppressing market 
 values and speculation under Socialism. Probable 
 increase of speculation in worse forms than at 
 present. Cures for the present evils connected with 
 the fluctuations of values. Difficulties of applying 
 remedies, especially in the case of fraudulent finan- 
 cing and "company floating" .... 216-228 
 
 II. The recent increase in the formation of companies 
 and syndicates. Significance of the syndicates as 
 a possible stage in the direction of Socialism. Why 
 a general syndicate occupation of the field of business 
 
 and industry is unlikely for a long time yet . . 228-234 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 IN THE SOCIALIST STATE (concluded]. 
 
 UNPRODUCTIVE LABOURERS. THE CHURCH AND THE 
 GOVERNMENT. 
 
 I. How far certain kinds of unproductive labourers of the 
 less skilled sort might be enrolled under service of 
 the State. Inconvenience of suppressing domestic 
 servants and substituting for them public function- 
 aries as proposed by the Socialists. The Professions 
 
CONTENTS. xiii 
 
 SECT. PAGE 
 
 under Socialism. Individuals with special skill in 
 much request must be permitted to reap the natural 
 rewards of it. Examples : the physician, the advocate, 
 the artist, &c. The teaching service, like the civil 
 and the military service, might fit into Socialism 
 without great change 235-241 
 
 II. Possible position of Men of Letters and of 
 Philosophers under Socialism. Importance of the 
 functions of the latter in modern society. The 
 Philosophers and Socialism. The Church and 
 Socialism . . 242-249 
 
 III. The Government under Socialism. Reticence of 
 Socialist authorities on this topic. Mode in which 
 superiors are to be selected. A complete political 
 revolution implied, as well as a social and economi- 
 cal one. How far a violent revolution would be likely 
 
 to further the Socialist programme . . . 250-257 
 
 IV. Final pronouncement on Collectivism. True course 
 for the working class, their friends, and all the dis- 
 contented under the present order . . . 257-266 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM '.(A) LEGISLATIVE. 
 
 I. The case of the Socialists, so far as real, and what 
 
 makes its strength. The supporters of Socialism 267-272 
 
 II., Co-operative production. Where it might succeed. 
 How far likely to be a solution of the Capital and 
 Labour question. Difficulties in the way of success. 
 State assistance under certain conditions to associa- 
 tions of labourers might be tried as an experiment. 
 Best modes of composing the difference between 
 Capital and Labour at the present time . . 272-282 
 
 III. The Land Question. In England the creation of 
 small holdings should be aimed at, also allotments 
 to agricultural and other labourers ; also the buying 
 out by the municipalities of the speculative holders 
 of land in or near the large towns. How far 
 a certain kind of limited but healthy Socialism 
 
XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 might be promoted by the local governing authori- 
 ties 283-288 
 
 IV. How to provide greater equality of chances to ability 
 in the lower social grades. Importance of this kind 
 of Socialism, which is also the most practicable. 
 Reasons in favour of it ..... 288-297 
 
 V. The taxation of inheritances. Justice of the public 
 
 claim to part of inheritances. How most appro- 
 priately to apply the funds raised. Mill's more 
 extreme proposal. Probable results of it. The in- 
 crease should be gradual, and should not go much 
 ahead of the general sentiment or set of opinion. 
 Postulates moral improvement in individuals to make 
 it effective 297-308 
 
 VI. The unemployed labourers. Importance of knowing 
 how to deal with the question. Explanation of the 
 increased number of the unemployed in recent times. 
 Possible remedies for unemployed labour . . 308-320 
 
 VII. The Right to Labour. Consequences of conceding 
 the right according to Mill. His conclusions not 
 accepted by certain social thinkers. Reasons why the 
 right to labour cannot be guaranteed by the State 
 under the existing organization of industry . . 321-326 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ON SOME PROPOSED REMEDIES FOR LOW WAGES AND 
 UNEMPLOYED LABOUR. 
 
 I. A minimum wage to be fixed, (i) by authority ; (2) by 
 
 labourers themselves through Trades Unions. Con- 
 sequences of the first proposal. How far the second 
 course would be beneficial to the labourers. On 
 what the wages of common labour depend . . 327-332 
 
 II. The classical economists' doctrine of an " average 
 
 rate of wages." Objections to Mill's methcd of 
 determining the average rate by the Wage Fund 
 theory. His remedies for low wages as based 
 on that theory. Why wages have not fallen but 
 risen, though population has greatly increased 
 
CONTENTS. XV 
 
 SECT. PAGE 
 
 since Mill wrote. With general free-trade or free 
 foreign markets our population might indefinitely 
 increase without wages being reduced. Cairnes' 
 amended statement of the Wages Fund theory. 
 His conclusions from it as respects the future of 
 the labouring classes. Inconvenient consequences 
 of his reasoning respecting an "average rate of 
 wages." Criticism of his reasoning. His mistake 
 as to the comparative shares of the landlords, 
 capitalists, and the labouring classes. His reasons 
 why the share of the latter has not increased 
 in a greater proportion. His conclusions compared 
 with those of Mr. Giffen, as based on statistics, 
 Remedies on the economical side for low wages. 
 On the moral side. What the labourers themselves 
 can do to raise their condition. What the State 
 can do. Complete Socialism a doubtful remedy for 
 the low wages of unskilled labour . . . 332 -342 
 
 III. The class of casual labourers, and the residuum. 
 Great difficulty of raising their condition, though 
 their numbers may be reduced. How far Socialism 
 could deal with such lowest classes. As now con- 
 stituted their members would probably prefer the 
 present system to Socialism .... 342-346 
 
 IV. Confirmation of the conclusions reached by the ex- 
 amination of some proposed remedies, (i) That of 
 Mr. Mills for unemployed labourers. Statement of 
 
 the plan. Objections ...... 346-353 
 
 V. (2) Mr. Charles Booth's remedy for unemployed and 
 
 ill-paid labourers. Objections : Without compul- 
 sion, moral or physical, the plan would not work. 
 1 njustice as well as impolicy of compulsion^ ost-_ 
 jiness^ of the experiment. Probable good effects on 
 tHeclasses just above 353-3^2 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 AN EIGHT HOURS' WORKING DAY. 
 
 I. Effects of the legal limitation of the working day. 
 Assumption in the argument that the amount of 
 
XVI CONTENTS. 
 
 SECT. PACK 
 
 work required by society is a fixed or constant 
 quantity : how far true. Probable results as re- 
 gards our staple industries, especially those in 
 which we compete with foreign nations. Examina- 
 tion of the "double shift" argument in favour 
 of an eight hours' day. Probable general result 
 of the system if practicable. How far the objec- 
 tions to an eight hours' day would be removed 
 by an international understanding between our Go- 
 vernment and the Governments of competing coun- 
 tries 562-369 
 
 II. In what kinds of industries the reduction might be 
 accepted without resulting in loss to employers and 
 with benefit to the unemployed. Effect on other 
 labourers in those cases, where only the State should 
 interfere. Probable gain by the reduction of hours 
 in the mining industry : as also in shops. Other 
 industries where hours are too long. Effects of 
 reduction in these cases. Recapitulation . . 369-376 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 PRACTICA&E STATE SOCIALISM : (/?) ADMINISTRATIVE. 
 
 I. Tendency of the State to extend its functions in the 
 
 industrial sphere. In what direction such extension 
 might be advantageous. Advantages as respects 
 the State purchase and working of the railways. 
 Reasons why any extension of Government manage- 
 ment should be slowly and tentatively made. Why 
 mining industry is nevertheless specially suitable 
 lor Government management. Production and 
 distribution in general should be left to private 
 enterprise. Exceptions to this .... 377-385 
 
 II. Why agricultural industry leaves no room for State 
 
 enterprise or for co-operative farming as proposed 
 by the Socialists, though there may be room for the 
 older agrarian Socialism aiming at the diffusion of 
 landed property 385-383 
 
 III. The school of Laissez-faire. The social and political 
 ideal of Herbert Spencer. The perfect social state 
 of the far future. Conditions of attaining it. Objcc- 
 
CONTENTS. XVli 
 
 SECT. PAGE 
 
 tions to Mr. Spencer's doctrine of non-interference : 
 It ignores the fact that there is a Social Question, or 
 implies that the Government should let it alone. 
 Logical consequences of complete non-interference : 
 would leave no room for the operation of his own prin- 
 ciple of distribution. The State interference of recent 
 years just, as well as necessary. The Government 
 inspector a product of social evolution. Probable 
 results had there been no State interference. Inter- 
 ference a practical, as well as logical, consequence of 
 the " Law of Equal Freedom." Answer to the objec- 
 tion that Socialism lies at the end of recent Govern- 
 ment interferences 388-400 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE SUPPOSED SPONTANEOUS TENDENCIES TO SOCIALISM. 
 
 I. Statement of the two principal supposed tendencies 
 
 Extension of the State's functions, and the increasing 
 \ concentration of capital . Mistake of Karl Marx and 
 other philosophers as to the second tendency/ It is 
 not a tendency to concentration in few hands, but to 
 concentration of capital belonging to many for a 
 common purpose ....... 401-406 
 
 II. Difficulties that this peculiar concentration of capital 
 places in the way of Socialism. Under what con- 
 ditions the spread of companies and syndicates 
 might lead to an extension of State Socialism. 
 Reasons why these conditions are not likely to be 
 largely or early realized 407-409 
 
 III. The tendency to co-operative effort on the part of 
 labourers. Its relation to Socialism. The tendency 
 slower than that to the concentration of capital, but 
 the State might restrain the latter and aid the former. 
 The iuture political action of the working classes 
 not easily forecast, especially as the interests of the 
 different kinds of labourers are not identical 410-411 
 
 IV. Possible social goals in the future, according to emi- 
 nent writers, e.g. Karl Marx, De Tocquevilie, Comte, 
 
 a 
 
xviii CONTENTS. 
 
 SECT. PAGE 
 
 Herbert Spencer, Mill, St. Simon, Carlyle. True 
 lesson to be gathered from the different forecasts of 
 the social philosophers and prophets ; the danger of 
 specific prophecy. Faith to be derived ; that we are 
 in a progress to something better. But co-operative 
 human efforts will be necessary .... 411-416 
 
INTRODUCTION, 
 
 i. 
 
 THE object of this book is in the first place to give 
 an account of contemporary Socialism, its forms and 
 aims, its origins, and the causes of its appearance and 
 spread ; secondly, to examine how far, taking the most 
 reasonable form of it, it is desirable or practicable ; 
 thirdly, to set forth certain measures of a socialistic 
 character that would seem both beneficial and neces- 
 sary as supplements to the present system, to adopt 
 which there is a spontaneous tendency on the part of 
 the State, and to which the course of the industrial 
 and social evolution seems to point. 
 
 I have devoted a certain space to the history 
 of Socialism, in order not only to explain the parti- 
 cular forms it now assumes, but also to show that in its 
 essenceSt is no new thing ; that it has frequently ap- 
 peared before, and has always been produced by like 
 causes ; that in its most frequent and recurrent form 
 of communism the universal human experience has 
 rejected it as unsuited to average human nature, 
 though in primitive times groups of kindred in village 
 communities were general ; that where any species 
 cf Socialism has been found practicable and r.dvan- 
 
 a 2 
 
XX INTRODUCTION. 
 
 tageous, it has been rather what we should now call 
 State-Socialism, by which, as in the Jewish polity, 
 institutions like the Jubilee were interwoven with the 
 fundamental laws of the State ; a species of Socialism 
 that aimed not at abolishing private property, but at 
 universalizing it, and, by interposing obstacles to its 
 too-easy alienation, mostly by limiting the field of 
 freedom of contract by express commands, at pre- 
 venting great inequality from arising. 
 
 I have outlined the successive schemes of the chief 
 social system-makers, and have dwelt at some length 
 on the views of the three writers who have been most 
 influential as respects the development of Socialism, 
 namely Rousseau, St. Simon, and Karl Marx ; the 
 first, the founder of modern Democracy and of State- 
 Socialism ; the second, of a kind of aristocratic 
 Socialism based on natural inequality of capacity ; the 
 third, of the new Socialism, which has gained favour 
 with the working classes in all civilized countries, and 
 which agrees with the first in being democratic, and 
 with the second in aiming at collective ownership. 
 
 It is with the third of these, commonly called 
 Collectivism, that we shall be concerned in the second 
 part of the book (Chaps. IV. VIII.) . And with 
 respect to it, we must first observe that the historical 
 summary which condemns communism in general as 
 impracticable does not apply to it, in so far as it 
 allows to some extent private property and inheri- 
 tance ; it would only apply to it in so far as it 
 approaches to communism. But the Socialists hold 
 further, that a historical condemnation of past systems 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXl 
 
 does not apply to their system, because the industrial 
 and social circumstances are different to-day, because 
 their system, they say, is adapted to the new circum- 
 stances, and because the social and industrial evolu- 
 tion still going on is spontaneously leading up to 
 their ideal, and must inevitably issue in it, spite of 
 argument or of effort to the contrary. / And there is 
 in this so much of truth, together with unproved or 
 doubtful assumption, that the system must be exa- 
 mined separately on its own merits, apart from the 
 judgment of history on past systems. 
 
 I take the form of Socialism called Collectivism, 
 which postdates the collective ownership of land and 
 capital, with production under State direction, to be 
 Socialism. I do so because most Socialists, as a 
 matter of fact, are collectivists, and because the col- 
 lectivists regard themselves as the true church, though, 
 as will be seen hereafter, there are differences within 
 its bosom as to the way of attaining the goal, the 
 further and ultimate aims when the goal is reached, 
 and even as to the time of its realization ; there being 
 some who look for the coming of the Socialist king- 
 dom within a generation or two, whilst others post- 
 pone the event indefinitely, but still expect it to 
 come. 
 
 In giving an exposition of Collectivism, there is a 
 difficulty from a certain reserve on the part of authori- 
 tative writers as regards their positive programmes. 
 Neither Karl Marx nor Lassalle submit any be- 
 yond the vaguest outline, as M. Leroy-Beaulieu com- 
 plains ; but this want of definite programme, as 
 
xxii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Dr. Schreffie says, in his criticism of the new Socialism, 
 is perfectly natural, as well as prudent on their part ; 
 and after all it' is just as well that they do not submit 
 detailed programmes ; the refutation of which, how- 
 ever much the refuter might plume himself on it, would 
 be little to the purpose. It is best that our attention 
 should be directed to the main topics and larger is- 
 round which the battle must turn. And the main 
 topics, with which the principal issues arc connected, 
 are the chief economic categories: the production of 
 wealth; its distribution amongst the different kinds of 
 labourers, productive and unproductive ; money and 
 exchange, with their proposed suppression under 
 Socialism ; the theory of value ; these, together with 
 the position of the liberal professions, of literature, art, 
 science, and the nature of the Socialist Government ; 
 with reference to all of which I have considered the 
 views of the new Socialism in Chaps. V. to VIII. ; 
 while the argument of Karl Marx, on which the 
 moral case of Socialism rests, is examined in 
 Chap. IV, 
 
 In the expository parti have confined myself in the 
 main to general considerations ; where details are 
 entered into they are such as arc cither generally 
 agreed upon by Socialists, or are the strictly logical 
 consequences of their general principle conse- 
 quences which can be seen necessarily to follow by 
 placing oneself at the central point of view. Where 
 the Socialists themselves have not come to unanimity 
 on a capital point, such as whether there is to be 
 equality or inequality of remuneration, both views are 
 
INTRODUCTION, XXlii 
 
 considered, as well as the general tendency of the 
 system to one or other. 
 
 As the result, partly of the historical review, which 
 shows what things the universal human experience has 
 decided against in the past, as well as what has stood 
 the test of time, partly of the criticism which shows 
 how much of the present system must be retained, 
 and how much of the Socialist system must be given 
 up, but chiefly from the consideration of powerful 
 present facts and tendencies, what is practicable in 
 the general Socialist direction, as well as what is in the 
 sequence of these tendencies, is ascertained and stated 
 in the last four chapters. It is in this way only that 
 the course of the social movement in the line of least 
 resistance can be roughly discovered. I believe that 
 the path of the possible for statesmen and social re- 
 formers lies in the direction and within the limits there 
 indicated, though the category of time has to be con- 
 sidered, and public opinion may not be ripe or not 
 equally ripe for all the measures indicated. 
 
 . 
 
 I HAVE aimed as far as possible at scientific treat- 
 ment throughout, that is, I have tried to consider the 
 subject from the point of view of the economical, 
 moral, and political sciences, as being the only mode of 
 treatment that goes to the heart of the subject. More- 
 over, the new Socialism calls itself scientific, and ap- 
 peals to political economy, and to historical science 
 including the new doctrine of evolution as exemplified 
 
XXIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 in the history of human societies, and it must be met 
 and judged on its own ground. It appeals in par- 
 ticular to political economy, as in fact does also the 
 existing capitalist and individualist system, so that 
 the decisive battle must be 'fought in the field of 
 economics. But here it is especially necessary to 
 distinguish laws that always hold and that are more 
 properly called scientific laws, from laws that arc 
 merely temporary, or local, to distinguish hypothetical 
 from real laws and the fully-verified theory from the 
 theory still disputed, the latter occupying a consider- 
 able portion of the economic field. We must also dis- 
 tinguish the practical postulate or assumption like 
 laissez-faire from other fundamental assumptions such 
 as the universality of competition, the former being a 
 maxim of policy more and more discredited as a 
 maxim, the latter a fact generally realized, and de- 
 pending on principles of human nature, though in its 
 mischievous forms becoming less true from the spread 
 of the opposite fact of combination. Both the facts of 
 laissez-faire and competition were indeed necessary 
 and fair assumptions to the orthodox economy when 
 it occupied a larger and more undisputed terril 
 than it now does ; but the former was a principle of 
 Political Economy in a wholly different sense from 
 the latter ; it was an assumption which implied a 
 precept or maxim of State policy, the latter an ap- 
 proximate generalization which largely corresponded, 
 and which still, though in a less measure, corresponds, 
 to facts.. If these distinctions are not made, the 
 Socialist and the Individualist may alike beg the 
 
INTRODUCTION. xxv 
 
 question under cover of an appeal to the assumed 
 "principles of political economy." 
 
 Accordingly, we cannot allow Karl Marx and the 
 new Socialists to assume as beyond dispute Ricardo's 
 theory of value, which makes the comparative value 
 of commodities depend on the comparative quantity 
 of labour necessary to produce them and carry them to 
 market ; because there are decisive reasons against 
 the theory, which moreover has been objected to on 
 good grounds by authoritative English economists 
 since Ricardo's time. 1 Nevertheless, this theory of 
 value of Ricardo's, slightly developed, or altered, 
 together with his famous theory of minimum or 
 bare subsistence wages (called by Lassalle the " Iron 
 Law of Wages "), a little exaggerated, is the founda- 
 tion of Karl Marx's whole attack on Capitalism, and 
 of the attempt to prove capital and its accumulations 
 the result of spoliation. 
 
 Moreover, this same theory of value in another 
 aspect, in which the quantity of labour is measured 
 by hours of "average" or common labour, is made 
 the foundation of a supposed law of distribution, 
 which is to render to each in proportion to his amount 
 
 1 It is indeed partly defended by Cairnes, in whose hands, 
 however, the innate impotence of the theory is unintentionally 
 made manifest; as by "quantity of labour" Cairnes under- 
 stands duration or the number of hours of labour, but insists 
 that these should be multiplied by the severity of the labour 
 and again by its risk; being apparently unconscious that the 
 word "multiplication" has no meaning where there is no 
 quantitative measure of the multiplying factors, as in the case of 
 degrees of severity or of risk. 
 
XX VI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of work in fact, to furnish a self-acting law of 
 distribution, by which distributive justice would be 
 meted out to all ; which would indeed have been one 
 of the greatest discoveries ever made if the theory 
 could be sustained. 
 
 The theory of value, in the hands of Karl Marx, is 
 in fact almost the whole of Socialism. According to 
 Dr. Schaeffle, the most candid as well as the keenest 
 critic of Socialism, the theory is " in the strictest sense 
 the basis of Socialism. It is of no less importance than 
 any theory of Rousseau's, and its correction is perhaps 
 significant for the history of entire nations." For 
 these reasons the theory must be subjected to a 
 searching criticism before we can let it pass as 
 proved. 
 
 On the other hand, when an "orthodox " economist 
 or a politician objects to a proposed practical measure 
 as being "against the principles of political economy," 
 he should be asked whether he means the principle 
 of non-interference, or the theories and laws of the 
 science ; if the former, he merely assumes the 
 point, but if the latter, he should be reminded that 
 some supposed laws and theories, like Mill's Wages 
 Fund theory, are not merely in dispute, but given 
 up ; that others, agai n like the law of supply and 
 demand, are eternally true, e.g. that a diminished 
 supply of a necessary, demand being the same, raises 
 its market value, and may raise it much ; that an over- 
 great supply of any commodity (labour included), 
 compared with demand, must lower its value, if all 
 of it is to be sold, it being because of the former law 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXVii 
 
 that the interference of Government is asked for in the 
 cases of monopolies (or syndicates, unions, and trusts), 
 controlling any necessary of life, so that proposals 
 which he would perhaps call socialistic may be made 
 to rest on an economic law or fact, and can equally 
 with his own be asked for in the name of political 
 economy ; from all which, and more that might be 
 urged, follows the conclusion to be insisted upon, 
 that while part of political economy is eternally true, 
 and cannot be disregarded, even though it lend itself 
 to Socialism as well as to Individualism, part is doubt- 
 ful, and should be distinguished, and part again is 
 ceasing to be true, except hypothetically, from the 
 simple fact of social and industrial evolution. 
 
 Fn order to have a more indisputable as well as 
 useful body of economic doctrine to appeal to in the 
 controversy between Socialism and Individualism, as 
 well as in the more limited one between Capital 
 and Labour, it would be desirable to have the 
 laws which determine wages and profits, as well as 
 those of values and prices, restated up to date, and on 
 the assumption, not only of competition, but of 
 combination more or less complete on the part of 
 labourers as well as employers. It will be more 
 useful in future to know what determines the wages 
 of the different grades of labourers, especially of the 
 skilled on the one hand, and the unskilled on the 
 other, than what dcrermines the general or average 
 wage of all labourers as was formerly asked. The 
 Wages Fund theory will have to be finally dropped : 
 the theory which made average wages depend on the 
 
xxviii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 proportion between capital and population ; or more 
 strictly between a part of capital called the Wages 
 Fund and all hired labourers ; th j short formula to 
 which the labourer and his philanthropic friends 
 were formerly referred, which saved all the trouble 
 of examining special remedies for low wages ; to 
 which, in particular, trades unionists were referred 
 to prove the impossibility of their raising their own 
 wages without cutting down the wages of other 
 labourers, because the amount to be divided amongst 
 them all was a fixed and unalterable sum ; this 
 theory, the comfort of the capitalist, the economics in 
 a nutshell of the Malthusian, has finally given way in 
 spite of the able efforts of Cairnes, " the last of the 
 orthodox," to prop it up. 
 
 In treating the problem of wages on the assump- 
 tion of combination as well as competition,at least four 
 cases may arise, viz. that of competition amongst both 
 employers and labourers ; of combination amongst 
 both ; of combination on the side of the labourers, 
 but not on the side of the employers (which is now 
 perhaps the commonest case) ; of combination on the 
 side of employers, but not on the side of the labourers 
 (which is a not uncommon case). There is also the 
 case, increasing in frequency, of partial combination 
 on both sides. But whilst all these cases are possible, 
 the tendency is to further combination in both camps : 
 and the resulting problem of how to determine \v;i 
 or the price at which labour will be sold, or at which a 
 bargain will be made, becomes a very difficult one. 
 The wages might be the result of a trial of strength 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXIX 
 
 and. resources between all the labourers and all the 
 employers in a particular trade or branch of labour ; 
 while if a dispute were confined, as it generally now is, 
 to a particular group of labourers within a given area 
 and locality, e.g. the bakers, gas-men, railway porters, 
 and their employers, it would also be a question of 
 resources or staying power, where the employers 
 would generally occupy the stronger position were 
 both sides left to fight it out. But the fact is that the 
 public is generally a deeply interested party, and public 
 opinion of necessity almost takes the form of putting 
 pressure on one or other side, according to its ideas of 
 fairness or of the general interest, and thus of com- 
 pelling one or other side to give way. If the adverse 
 sanction of public opinion did not cause the dispute 
 to be arranged, arbitration would be necessitated, or 
 failing that, the interposition in some form of the 
 public authority. 
 
 There, however, is one thing no strikes could effect, 
 nor any court of arbitration effectively award for any 
 considerable length of time, namely a rate of wages 
 that would lower profit?, or more properly speaking 
 interest, much below what was current in the business 
 sphere in general. 
 
 Such is the form in which the problem of wages 
 tends to present itself more and more in future, 
 which makes it difficult of treatment by the old eco- 
 nomic methods. Moreover, prices tend more and more 
 to be determined not so much by cost of production 
 as by monopoly, whether that of the original producers 
 or that of any of the series of intermediaries who may 
 
XXX INTRODUCTION. 
 
 temporarily control the supply, especially in the case 
 of necessaries or commodities in great demand ; in 
 which case prices tend indeed, as economists say, to 
 depend on the relation between supply and demand, 
 which, however, does not tell us much, but in which it is 
 clear that the monopolists are in a very advantageous 
 position for forcing up the price, in the case of neces- 
 saries almost indefinitely, in the case of other things 
 not so high, but still too high ; from which there 
 follow these two consequences, the economic one, that 
 there is no single uniform law of prices for all such 
 cases, and the practical one, that if such monopolies 
 increase, and if the monopolists abuse the position of 
 vantage they hold, there might come a necessity for 
 State interference, however Socialistic such conclusion 
 may appear. Competition amongst the sellers has 
 hitherto largely guarded the buyers against high 
 prices ; competition, though it has sometimes re- 
 sulted in sophisticated goods, has, on the whole, been 
 a gain to the consumer, that is to everybody. But if 
 the sellers of goods or indispensable services should 
 form combinations ; if bread, coal, beer, and other 
 syndicates should be formed, or a series of ^ 
 wherever there are many intermediaries bct\ 
 producer and consumer, then the prices might rise 
 very high, especially if such grew so great as to 
 embrace most engaged in the production or most of 
 the wholesale or retail distributors ; while, if there 
 should arise powerful monopolies that paid both the 
 lowest wages to their employes, and exacted the 
 highest price from the consumer, of which the rail- 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXXI 
 
 way companies form a partial present example, it 
 might be found necessary for the State to interfere 
 (were it only at first by way of regulation after due 
 inquiry) with such a formidable power wielding such 
 a two-edged weapon. 
 
 Thus, then, while political economy must be 
 appealed to in the Socialist controversy, as in fact 
 both sides do appeal to it, though the battle must 
 be largely fought on the economic field, and though 
 the received economic method and conceptions must 
 be largely made use of for clearness and convenience, 
 and because they aie the best available intellectual 
 implements, nevertheless much of the economic field 
 is in dispute, while the received method and concep- 
 tions are imperfectly able to deal with the difficult 
 problems raised and the 'newer ones soon to be 
 raised. 
 
 III. 
 
 BUT the question of Socialism, though an economical 
 one in the sense explained, is even more essentially 
 an ethical question, as it involves, in the first place, 
 the whole great question of justice not justice in the 
 narrow sense in which the word is commonly used, 
 but in the most comprehensive as well as deepest sense. 
 Socialism has come into the world because of injustice, 
 in the first instance : so say the Socialists. It is also 
 come because the social evolution has prepared the 
 way for it ; but still its main aim is to realize 
 justice. The present system, industrial and social, the 
 
xxxii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Socialists say, is organized injustice, which results 
 in injustice in all directions, gross and palpable. 
 And the remarkable thing is that they have all but 
 gained over, or are gaining over, the economists to 
 their view, both in England and in Germany. Mill, 
 for example, in his " Political Economy," constantly 
 declaims against the injustice involved in the present 
 distribution of wealth, and he repeats his denunciation 
 in his " Autobiography." Cairnes, in his last book, 
 has discovered that the results of the existing in- 
 dustrial system "are not easily reconcilable with 
 any standard of right generally accepted amongst 
 men," and he quotes Shakespeare as on his side ; 2 
 while Professor Sidgwick, eminent as a writer on 
 morals as well as economics, goes so far as to say, 
 4( If the former method (the Socialist's) of providing 
 for the progress of industry could be trusted to work 
 without any counterbalancing drawbacks, the per- 
 petuation of the inequalities of distribution that we 
 see to be inevitably bound up with the existing system 
 would be difficult to reconcile with our common sense 
 of justice." 
 
 The point, then, of the resulting injustice of the 
 existing system is conceded. The question of course 
 still Remains, whether Socialism would secure any 
 greater justice, and whether it would be practicable, 
 taking human nature as it is. 
 
 2 " Take physic, Pomp, 
 
 Expose thyself to feel the woes that wretches feel ; 
 So shalt thou shake the superflux to them, 
 And show the heavens more just.'' 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXXlli 
 
 Two rules for securing distributive justice are indi- 
 cated : the first, the simple rule of equality, the 
 second, that each should receive according to his 
 works. Now the former does appear at first sight 
 as if it would secure greater justice than our present 
 system ; but whether it would be really just is dis- 
 puted by different Schools of Socialists ; the St. 
 Simonians in the past, as well as some of the present 
 Socialists, being opposed to it as unjust. The ques- 
 tion would be an extremely difficult one to decide 
 on ethical grounds, but the real question is less 
 one of abstract or ideal justice than of expediency. 
 The question is whether it would be practicable at all, 
 and if it could conceivably be practicable, whether it 
 would not be disastrous : whether the equality would 
 not be a universal equality in poverty, at a still lower 
 level than that of the mass of the working-classes of 
 to-day. 
 
 The second socialist rule for securing greater 
 justice, that each should get, not equally, but in pro- 
 portion to his works, or the quantity of his labour, is 
 one that we shall have to examine carefully- here- 
 after. As to its justice, there are differences of 
 opinion, Mill contending that the rule of equality 
 appeals to a higher standard of justice; but even if 
 we allow that there appears a kind of justice in the 
 unequal rule, and that it is more in agreement with 
 existing human nature, there arises the greatest diffi- 
 culty, or rather impossibility, in applying it on the 
 Socialist lines, from the want of a common measure of 
 quantity applicable to the different kinds of labour. 
 
 b 
 
XXXIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 As Professor Jevons says, it is " impossible to compare, 
 a priori^ the productive powers of a navvy, a carpenter, 
 an iron puddler, a barrister, and a schoolmaster." 
 This is true, and the confusion into which it throws 
 Socialism, which rests on the assumption that they 
 can be reduced to a common denominator in hours of 
 average or common labour and compared in amount, 
 will appear more fully hereafter. 
 
 But the Socialist controversy raises even deeper 
 questions than that of justice. Besides the deepest 
 psychological questions, it raises the whole difficult 
 and disputed question of man's capacity for moral 
 progress. And first it is allowed by thoughtful and 
 fair-minded men, like Mill, Laveleye, and Schceffle, 
 that Socialism would not work unless man's moral 
 nature were considerably improved. But the science 
 of psychology shows a certain stability and certain 
 permanent facts in human nature, in particular the 
 most eminent psychologists, like Spencer and Bain, 
 report the fact of egoism (self-interest, self-love) 
 as a fundamental and an instinctive thing not to begot 
 rid of. Moreover it is passed on from generation to 
 generation through heredity, so that each generation 
 has about the same total amount of it as the preced- 
 ing one. It is a sure inheritance, and so general that 
 political economy has made it its fundamental pos- 
 tulate, which, as Senior says, is related to all its con- 
 clusions as the dictum dc omni in Logic is related to 
 all syllogistic conclusions ; the economic laws, being- 
 all tainted with this original sin, only holding if the 
 fact of egoism be granted, being merely so many 
 
INTRODUCTION. xxxv 
 
 special modes in which it is exemplified. The ques- 
 tion then is raised, can this fact of deep ingrained love of 
 self be considerably reduced, and not merely in superior 
 spirits here and there but generally ? for if it cannot, 
 the Socialism that aims at equality, or even at greatly 
 reducing inequality, would not work. And it would 
 be even less suited in this respect to a modern 
 civilized community than to a less advanced one ; 
 for though our egoism is perhaps not greater, it has 
 discovered new wants ; it has been specially and in- 
 creasingly tempted during the past hundred years by 
 the vast new masses of wealth to be competed for. 
 It is probably more grasping in all that refers to the 
 acquisition of money and material things than ever 
 before. Unless, then, a large scope could be given 
 to the " favourite private affection," as Butler calls it, 
 and a larger scope than the new Socialism can promise, 
 Socialism is impracticable. 
 
 Any system, socialistic or other, which docs not 
 allow sufficiently for this fact of human nature, which 
 requires to postulate that it can be largely reduced, 
 especially that it can be reduced in a short time, 
 would in practice be doomed to speedy failure. The 
 self-regarding side of human nature slowly changes, 
 is slowly reduced ; the opposite side, including bene- 
 volence and love for others, slowly increases ; so 
 slowly that at the end of nearly 2000 years we are 
 behind the early Christians, and it is a question if we 
 are beyond the Greeks and Romans at their best 
 period, though we have had the help and the sanc- 
 tions of a religion that urges us to reduce egoism 
 
 b 2 
 
xx xvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 and to increase our love for others as our chief 
 
 duty. 
 
 Some of the Christian Churches, recognizing the 
 impossibility of a man changing his own nature for 
 the better, get over the difficulty by the assumption 
 of a special miracle. Can the Socialists expect a uni- 
 versal miracle ? Apparently the more sanguine do ; 
 they think that within a hundred years at latest men 
 will be fit for the Socialist kingdom of heaven, 
 not to speak of those who would take the kingdom 
 by violence, even before the present generation passes. 
 
 I do not deny the fact of moral progress in certain 
 directions during the past hundred years ; that there 
 has been a new sense of Justice, an awakened Con- 
 science, enlarged Philanthropy, shown in certain 
 choicer spirits, especially with reference to the labour- 
 ing classes and the poor. I allow that moralists have 
 rediscovered the Christian duty of love of our neigh- 
 bour when religion was beginning to lose its authority, 
 and that psychologists have found a basis for it in 
 certain facts of human nature ; that English moralists 
 of the eighteenth century of all schools have proved 
 that benevolence, or love of our neighbour, is the 
 whole, or nearly the wfiole, of virtue. I allow, too, 
 that in the nineteenth century, Benthamism, which 
 makes virtue or right conduct consist in actions 
 tending to maximize happiness ; Positivism, which 
 makes it consist in the love and service of Humanity ; 
 Socialism of the St. Simonian type, which makes 
 virtue and practical religion in the fortunate classes 
 to consist in endeavouring to raise the condition 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXXvii 
 
 of the class the most numerous and the poorest, 
 are all facts in favour of the Socialists' faith in im- 
 proved human nature. Nevertheless, I believe that 
 little real impression has been made on egoism or the 
 opposite side of human nature. I believe that it has 
 even been intensified on its more anti-social side ; 
 that there has been moral loss as well as gain, and 
 that it would require an extremely skilled moral 
 valuator to cast up the moral profit and loss of the 
 account. 
 
 For egoism has undoubtedly been tempted to an 
 extraordinary degree by the prodigious development 
 of wealth during the past century, and the new 
 possibilities of making fortunes, first in England by 
 her world-wide commerce and the monopoly of 
 foreign markets, then in the other leading European 
 nations, and, above all, latterly in America, in the 
 exploitation of a continent prodigal in natural re- 
 sources. All this wealth was, in the first instance, 
 the prize for the capitalist class, the manufacturers, 
 merchants, financiers, and through them subse- 
 quently, a large part of it, for the non-trading sections 
 of the middle class, professional and other. As- 
 suredly, if the love of money is the root of much evil, 
 it was never so stimulated before. And the resulting 
 Mammonism denounced by Carlyle forty years ago 
 has not grown less, but greater, and has infected 
 more. Wealth is more keenly pursued than it was 
 one hundred or even fifty years ago. Egoism was 
 formerly held in check by Religion, Love of Country, 
 Honour, devotion to a Cause, high influences, before 
 
xxxviii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 which it was rebuked, and which sometimes totally 
 overcame it. A man dared not formerly confess 
 self-interest his sole motive, and did not make money 
 his one end in life. There was an old-world idea 
 that the pursuit of money was not a high one ; that 
 it could scarcely be followed with clean hands ; a 
 notion that long survived in the feudal families' dis- 
 like of " trade." The ideas and the practices are all 
 different now. Money is power, and much money, 
 as Mill says, is the mark and measure of success 
 in life. I do not deny that rich men have often 
 latterly shown public spirit in endowing the public 
 with part of their acquired wealth. But these arc 
 exceptions ; the rich as a class have not done their 
 duty, and they have not, as Carlyle complained, 
 ennobled and humanized their work t>y making a 
 chivalry out of it, by attaching to them, by bonds of 
 loyalty and devotion, their allies in the industrial 
 fight, as even the robber barons and worst of the 
 feudal lords did their liegemen in feudal times. 
 They have too often cut down their wages, not even 
 giving them " prize money " as the result of successful 
 battle, till mutiny, in the shape of trades unions and 
 strikes, at length in some measure compelled them. 
 
 On the whole, then, whoever affirms that there has 
 been moral improvement will have to weigh very 
 carefully the many moral evils that have come with 
 the great accumulation of wealth, including luxury, 
 rapacity, ostentation, pride of purse in the pos- 
 sessors, servility and envy in others; the general 
 covetousness and corruption ; the cheating and 
 
INTRODUCTION. xxxix 
 
 swindling ; the oppression of the weak, the plunder of 
 the widow and the orphan by fraudulent companies ; 
 and set over against them the counter-facts of philan- 
 thropy, benevolence, awakened conscience, sense of 
 justice, which also have shown themselves though in 
 other members of society, and it will be found a 
 difficult thing to pronounce a confident verdict. The 
 most that could be said is, that while in some direc- 
 tions there has been moral advance, in others there 
 has been retrogression. 
 
 One of the most disputed and difficult questions 
 in the history of civilization and morals is precisely 
 that which is here involved, namely, whether general 
 progress, including progress in the arts and sciences, 
 implies a moral improvement, or the reverse. Rous- 
 seau contends that the progress of the arts and 
 sciences, and the increase of wealth, corrupt morals ; 
 that a nation is in a healthier state in its earlier 
 stages. Sir Henry Maine affirms that Rousseau was 
 wrong, but Carlyle, in his "Past and Present," in 
 which he represents society as healthier in England 
 in the time of Henry II. than in the nineteenth 
 century, agrees with Rousseau. The new German 
 Pessimism, in agreement with the old Calvinism, 
 does not believe in moral progress ; it thinks that 
 the quantity of evil in man is constant, and only 
 varies in its modes of expression. Mill is on the 
 opposite side, but he rather believes that great moral 
 progress will be, than that there has been much as 
 yet ; Herbert Spencer is also optimist ; but let not 
 the Socialists derive comfort from the prophet of evolu- 
 
xl INTRODUCTION. 
 
 tion, according to whom the species improves indeed, 
 but at a rate so tantalizingly slow that men would 
 not be ripe morally for the Socialist state for a 
 thousand years. With such a conflict of authorities 
 it might be rash to pronounce confidently. I shall 
 therefore only venture the opinion that the species 
 has morally improved on the whole ; that even society 
 within the past hundred years has become better, 
 because its ruling classes have been somewhat 
 awakened, and made to reflect by powerful preachers, 
 and by severe lessons of experience; while the manners 
 of all have been softened, and the laws have become 
 more just and humane. But as respects egoism, there 
 has been little improvement, especially on its weak 
 side, where it seeks for this world's goods. On the 
 contrary, I believe we have rather retrograded. 
 
 At all events, this quality of egoism, or self-interest, 
 is still far too strong, and far too general to allow us 
 to hope for much from proposals which postulate its 
 great reduction, or extinction, or its transformation 
 into love, fraternity, or sympathy. 
 
 It is easy to see how important this point is in 
 relation to Socialism, as on it turns the question 
 whether Socialism is possible soon, or later, or never. 
 The question of man's goodness and of his moral 
 progress, which Socialism postulates, is in dispute, 
 but the balance of opinion is against the Socialists, 
 and the doctrine of scientific evolution to which they 
 appeal is against them. Indeed, so clearly is it seen 
 by certain Socialists that it is vain to look for 
 much moral improvement, especially in the capitalist 
 
INTRODUCTION. xli 
 
 class, that they advocate revolution. Change the 
 environment,, say the revolutionists, forcibly if neces- 
 sary, and men's natures will be obliged to adapt 
 themselves to the new order ; they would accept 
 the inevitable, even the egoistic capitalists would 
 acquire the virtues necessary for the new condition, 
 or they would suffer worse. Nevertheless, neither 
 would this be a hopeful course, if, dispensing quite 
 with love or fraternity, the new order insisted on 
 equality, or even a very large levelling down of for- 
 tunes. There would be found so many dissatisfied 
 spirits, and so ill at ease in the new community, spirits 
 so restless, energetic, artful, wilful, that (it is much to 
 be feared), by art or force, they would fashion things 
 to their liking in the new order, or which would be 
 still simpler restore the old, that the revolution 
 
 would in fact lead to counter-revolution. 
 
 / 
 
 But though complete Socialism would require a 
 moral improvement not likely to come soon, some of 
 it, and a considerable improvement on the present 
 is possible, without postulating a human nature much 
 better than it is. There are reforms which might be 
 attempted taking us "just as we are." A wider 
 justice is undoubtedly possible, for human nature- 
 has a certain affinity for justice, or as M. Kenan 
 expresses it, in an unjust world "man has an invin- 
 cible leaning towards justice," without a minimum 
 of which no society could exist. And if it be 
 difficult for interested parties, capitalists and landlords, 
 to see justice, may not disinterested third parties sec 
 it ? May not philosophers, judges, chief justices, even 
 
xlii INTRODUCTION, 
 
 legislators, other than those interested, find it out for 
 them, and through law compel them to do it ? Though 
 perfect justice be an unattainable goal, an ever greater 
 approximation to justice is undoubtedly possible, and 
 the time is hopeful to try for a further extension of 
 it. Apparently, Lord Chief Justice Coleridge thought 
 so too, when, in a remarkable article published not 
 long ago, he recommended a revision of the laws 
 relating to property and contract, in order, as he 
 says, "to facilitate the inevitable transition from 
 feudalism to democracy ; " and laid down that " the 
 laws of property should be for the general advantage, 
 and not for that of a class ; that they are made by 
 the State for the people of the State, and that they 
 should be expressions of the cultivated intelligence 
 which controls and leads the opinion of the State 
 upon the various subjects of its laws." He also 
 declares in noteworthy words about certain so-called 
 free contracts, that the contract should be void " when 
 one party to a contract can impose and the other 
 party to it must accept its terms, however burden- 
 some, however inherently unjust," and that " contracts 
 nominally free might be cruel instruments of tyranny 
 and oppression, to be denounced by moralists, and 
 to be summarily set aside by just and fair laws." 3 
 These are weighty and remarkable words, coming 
 from one in the high position of the writer, and very 
 significant of the set of public sentiment, as well as 
 of a new spirit in the interpreters of law and justice. 
 The Church might also aid the work. There is no 
 3 Macmillaits Magazine, April, 1887. 
 
INTRODUCTION. xliii 
 
 contradiction between religion and a qualified 
 Socialism aiming at greater justice. Moses and 
 the Prophets were Socialists, in a certain sense, as 
 well as religious men. They aimed at social justice ; 
 they believed its realization on earth to be the wish 
 and the will of God. Nor, as will be shown here- 
 after, is there contradiction between such Socialism 
 and the Christianity of the Gospels. 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE question of Socialism and the Social Question 
 generally is, however, more obviously related to 
 politics than to religion. It more concerns the State 
 than the Church which can only act in favour of 
 Socialism by influencing the inner moral disposition. 
 The State can act on the will. It has great power ; 
 through its laws and institutions it can affect the re- 
 lations of classes. It can temper great inequality. It 
 can mitigate poverty. It can check the strong 
 oppressor. It can protect the poor, their health, their 
 lives, their property. Many of these things it has 
 already done to some extent, and it has shown an 
 increasing tendency, within the past forty years, to 
 interfere in order to protect the feeble workers, and 
 to restrain unscrupulous employers. 
 
 Not only has the State great power to aid the 
 lower and poorer classes, it has acknowledged duties ; 
 and these are extending also. Besides administering 
 justice, it is its duty to aim at justice in its laws. Its 
 duty is more than the protection of life and property. 
 It has to make just and beneficial laws respecting 
 
Xliv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 property. It is its duty to enforce contracts ; but it 
 may also be its duty to narrow the sphere of contracts 
 in certain cases affecting many where the contracts 
 cannot be really free. It is the business of the State 
 to jealously watch all monopolists, and it may 
 become its business, in certain cases, to prevent the 
 formation of monopolies, or to take from those 
 already formed the power of raising prices at dis- 
 cretion. 
 
 So great are the powers of the State to help. So 
 acknowledged are its duties. Still the powers of the 
 State are not infinite. There are things it cannot do, 
 economic laws that it cannot alter, economic evolu- 
 tions that it cannot prevent, though it may modify 
 them ; laws and evolutions therefore that Statesmen 
 should know, in order to know the right course to 
 take having regard to them. What the State can do, 
 what it further should or might do without traversing, 
 but accepting and allowing for, these scientific laws 
 and tendencies, as well as the limits within which 
 these laws and tendencies should confine its action 
 it will be our business to consider carefully hereafter. 
 
 Meantime, it may here be stated that if not Social- 
 ism, yet socialistic principles are, without doubt, 
 destined to influence the politics of the future in this, 
 as in every civilized country. There are signs, too 
 many and various to doubt of it ; and politicians, 
 judging from their own words, however vague and 
 general, are probably in their hearts aware of it. 
 There can be no doubt about it : the Social Ques- 
 tion, so long held back, and ignored, is pushing 
 
INTRODUCTION. xlv 
 
 forward in several directions, and it is felt by poli- 
 ticians that it must be faced and dealt with. 
 
 In such a case the wise thing for politicians is to 
 get a clear comprehension of Socialism and the Social 
 Question, in order to discover how far the latter is 
 soluble, how much of the former is practicable, just, 
 likely to be beneficial if adopted by the State, ho\v 
 much is Utopian, or tends to chaos, or to general 
 mischief. One reassuring thing, however, may 
 here be mentioned for the apprehensive politician, 
 namely that the English working classes are not 
 Socialists ; nor are they very promising materials 
 out of which to make Socialists, if we may judge by 
 the proceedings of recent Trades Union Congresses. 
 The trades unionists, who number nearly a million, 
 in general of the most intelligent and best paid of 
 the working classes, do not believe in Socialism 
 any more than in Co-operative Production. They 
 are not Socialists in the strictest sense ; they do not 
 ask for the collective ownership of land and capital ; 
 they think the proposal impracticable, and they 
 probably think that it would be bad for themselves- 
 They would like higher wages, and fewer hours of 
 work for the same wages ; but, where this is possible, 
 they think they can secure the end without the 
 help of the State, through refusal to work on other 
 terms. Whether they are right or not, they do not 
 ask for State interference, not even to bring in an 
 eight-hours' working day, save in particular trades, 
 such as mining. They have not asked for much legis- 
 lation that can be called socialistic ; of what they 
 
xlvi INTRODUCTION, 
 
 do ask from Parliament, namely increased employers' 
 liabilities, additional regulations for factories and 
 workshops, and increased inspectors, the prohibi- 
 tion of cheap foreign labourers in some cases, the 
 taxing of ground rents, the nationalization of the 
 land on iy the two last can be described as Socialistic ; 
 the last of all, which was included in the political 
 programme of the Congress a couple of years ago, 
 out of keeping with the rest as it is, being, perhaps, 
 rather a pious opinion, added for the sake of effect, 
 or out of deference to the prejudices of others, than 
 seriously meant or desired. 
 
 On the whole, there is not much Socialism mani- 
 fest, whatever may be the latent aspirations of the 
 best-paid sections of labour. Still, Socialism has 
 appeared in England, and it is spreading amongst the 
 common or unskilled labourers, the casually em- 
 ployed, and the unemployed, including the displaced 
 labourers, and indeed amongst the displaced and the 
 distressed of all classes. And as the lower grades of 
 labourers, to whom specially are the promises of 
 Socialism, are very numerous, and have got votes, 
 it is not unlikely that socialistic measures for their 
 benefit will be proposed before long in Parliament. 
 
 As to this portion of the problem, it would be well 
 for the State to anticipate the labourers. It is its 
 duty to help the more helpless, if it can, without 
 waiting for pressure. " The true art of the states- 
 man," as a German writer on political philosophy 
 rightly says, " will lie on the one hand in trying to 
 prevent the members of the organized classes of 
 
INTRODUCTION. xlvii 
 
 labour from falling into the unorganized proletariate ; 
 and on the other in assisting as many as possible to 
 rise from the proletariate into the organized class 
 where they can obtain a comparatively secure subsist- 
 ence;" 4 an art which I will add, though not impossible, 
 will tax our statesmen's resources to the utmost. 
 
 V. 
 
 So far we have only considered Socialism as a work- 
 ing man's question, or a poor man's question. But 
 to regard it as solely such is to take too narrow 
 a view of the subject. Socialism will never go far or 
 accomplish much unless it has promises for more 
 than the merely poor. It will never arouse sufficient 
 enthusiasm ; it will not enlist capacity in its service, 
 but rather repel it ; it will not, in consequence, acquire 
 the necessary momentum. 
 
 Most certainly modern Socialism as conceived by 
 its first founders, St. Simon and his school, had a 
 larger and wider aim than the elevation of the poorer 
 classes. That indeed was one of its express aims, 
 "The amelioration of the condition, material, mental, 
 and moral, of the poorer classes." But it had a 
 wider and more comprehensive ultimate aim, which 
 embraced the former one, and more, namely the 
 general reorganization of labour and the distribution 
 of its fruits on a new and juster scheme. It proposed 
 to place every capacity in its fitting field of labour 
 
 4 Bluntschli's " Theory of the State," Book II. ch. xviii. On 
 the " Survey of Modern Classes." 
 
xlviii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 and to reward each according to its works, which, if 
 it could have been done, would have solved what is 
 now called the Labour Question, or the working man's 
 question, and the larger question of distribution in 
 general, by giving to every one his due. 
 
 The old Socialism was more universal than the 
 new ; it addressed itself to all the world, including 
 particularly the poor, excluding only the inheritors 
 of wealth, and them but partially. It strongly 
 denied equality of capacity, but desired equality 
 of opportunity. It did not contemplate equality 
 of reward, which it conceived to be unjust. But 
 by the new Socialists of the Social Democracy of 
 Germany and elsewhere, Socialism is thought of 
 mainly as a labourers' question, and a general levelling 
 and equalizing is what appears to be aimed at, 
 although the natural course of social evolution, so 
 often appealed to by Karl Marx and the Socialist 
 writers as leading to their ideal, gives no ground to 
 expect any such general level. The tendencies which 
 according to the Socialist writers must irresistibly 
 end in Socialism give no hope of a Socialism of the 
 kind desired ; they are not in the direction of a 
 Socialism based upon equality, but of inequality ; 
 they do not point to the realization of the ideal of 
 the Socialism of Karl Marx, but rather to that of the 
 St. Simonians. 
 
 The new Socialists point to the extension of the 
 State's functions in the sphere of industry, the in- 
 creasing concentration of capital in larger masses, the 
 extension of the principle of association, as signs of 
 
INTRODUCTION. xlix 
 
 the coming of Socialism ; they tell us that a universal 
 Socialism may come by the successive absorption by 
 the State of the industries most suited for its manage- 
 ment, beginning with the great monopolies ; as fast 
 as they cover the field, the State following and super- 
 seding them. But if Socialism came spontaneously 
 in this way, as I allow that in part it might, it would 
 not be likely to result in the desired equality, for the 
 present principle of payment would presumably con- 
 tinue in all such extensions of Government manage- 
 ment, as in the civil service and all the public services 
 of to-day. The notion of equal remuneration would 
 thus have to be given up ; but then, according to Dr. 
 Schaeffle, if the notion of equality in the control of 
 the work and equality of remuneration be given 
 up, the "spirit of democracy is scattered to the 
 winds, and Socialism has no further charm for the 
 masses." 
 
 As to this last, I am by no means certain : such 
 Socialism might find favour with the masses, especially 
 if, to use the words of Professor Sidgwick, " the 
 principle of remuneration now adopted in respect of 
 Government officials were retained, while at the same 
 time the means of training for the higher kinds of 
 work were effectually brought within the reach of all 
 classes by a well-organized system of free education, 
 liberally supported by exhibitions for the children of 
 the poor." 5 
 
 I doubt if the democracy would be opposed to 
 inequality of remuneration or to authoritative control, 
 
 6 " Principles of Political Economy, 1 ' Book III. ch. vii. 4. 
 
 C 
 
1 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 provided there was equality of opportunity from the 
 beginning of each one's career ; for the father who 
 had failed to reach the higher position would feel a 
 sort of compensation and a source of consolation in 
 the better chances for his children. He would, in 
 some sort, feel as if through them he had a second 
 chance, while the blame for his own non-success 
 would lie with Nature, and could not be charged on 
 Society or its institutions. But whether such Socialism 
 would prove popular or not, it is perfectly certain 
 that no general scheme of Socialism grounded on 
 equality has any chance of success, because the 
 middle and the upper classes would be opposed, and 
 what is more significant, a very large class or section 
 of well-paid labourers. 
 
 At the present there are two separate tendencies 
 which might conceivably converge to form such a 
 Socialism, which would be St. Simonian in essence, 
 rather than the Socialism of Karl Marx and the Social 
 Democracy. One of the tendencies is the conscious 
 aim on the part of the State at raising the condition 
 of the lower classes in the special directions noticed 
 in Chap. IX. ; the other, a quite different tendency 
 and having only an indirect reference to the poor as 
 such ; which concerns the most capable of the whole 
 nation who would be surer of suitable employment 
 than at present, and which concerns the whole of the 
 people who would be gainers by having fitting fields 
 open for their various abilities ; and certainly, if in- 
 equality of money reward must continue, as in the 
 industrial field at any rate it must, this would seem 
 
INTRODUCTION. H 
 
 the best principle on which to found it. It would be, 
 if not absolutely just, which is an impossible ideal, 
 a less unjust principle than the present, which, through 
 inheritance, largely endows incapacity and narrows 
 the field of opportunities for capacity. 
 
 The last tendency might be furthered by a different 
 one, namely the tendency of the State to extend its 
 function in the domain of industry, a tendency which 
 undoubtedly exists, and which may increase in future 
 with the tendency to large monopolies. 
 
 If Socialism is ever to succeed, it will be in this 
 form. At least it will appear first in this form, which 
 while retaining the best of the present, would do away 
 with much social injustice. A thousand years later 
 the Socialism of equality may be possible ; but much 
 of this other kind is possible now. It is not Utopian, 
 it makes due concession to egoism; it is partly in 
 operation now as respects certain departments of the 
 public service, including industrial departments ; in 
 the Civil Service, the Military Service, the Educational 
 Service, even in the Church. It was more fully 
 realized in France under the first Napoleon, especially 
 as respects the army. Capacity found its way open 
 to command in it, but not in other armies, which was 
 the chief reason of its extraordinary success, and 
 why it entered most European capitals in triumph. 
 Bonapartism was thus a kind of experiment on St. 
 Simonian lines before the time of St. Simon, there 
 being much in common (as Roscher says) between 
 the two. 6 
 
 6 The Catholic Church in former times affords another partial 
 C 2 
 
Hi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Such a scheme might, perhaps, not be a bad ideal 
 goal as to which, however, I have two observations 
 to make. First, that we should go slowly and tenta- 
 tively towards it, not taking a second step till the 
 results of the first were carefully measured and known, 
 a thing requiring both time and science ; secondly, 
 that to my judgment it is distinctly a case where 
 part, as it would be more possible to get it, would 
 also be much better than the whole ; where a cor- 
 recting and supplementing of the present system, 
 somewhat on the lines suggested in the concluding 
 chapters, would be better than universal state manage- 
 ment and the suppression of private enterprise, which 
 the St. Simonian Socialism involves no less than the 
 new scheme of Collectivism. 
 
 It would be better economically to leave the 
 largest part of the field of industry in the hands of 
 private enterprise, both as a stimulus to invention 
 and to new enterprise, as well as to keep Government 
 management up to the mark by competition, and the 
 contagion of energetic example. But, secondly, there 
 are nearly as grave objections to the abolition of 
 inheritance, which is a necessary part of the St. 
 Simonian scheme, as there are to the equalizing of 
 salaries contemplated by the Social Democrats (Col- 
 lectivists). The abolition of inheritance would be 
 
 example. The best existing capacity was in her hierarchy. 
 Capacity was sought for, enlisted in her service, and promoted, 
 which in part explains her predominance in the Middle Ages, 
 as she was intellectually superior ; was really, compared with the 
 rest of society, as the head to the body. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 1m 
 
 unjust as well as contrary to the deepest instinct of 
 human nature. Let it be granted that the present 
 law of inheritance works injustice ; its proposed 
 abolition would create an opposite injustice. 
 
 The complete abolition of inheritance would be 
 unjust. In any case it would be inexpedient, unless 
 human nature were altered. Because society will not 
 get from an able man his best efforts, unless it gives 
 him first, the hope of a correspondingly greater 
 reward, and, secondly, unless it allows him to make 
 a provision for his children with his savings. Most 
 certainly men in general labour for their children far 
 more than for themselves ; and if inheritance were 
 abolished, all the extra energy and all the extra 
 wealth due to this deep spring of effort would disap- 
 pear. In the industrial field, at least, it would mean 
 diminished production, unless human nature had 
 changed, and men had learned to love each other, 
 and to labour strenuously for the good of each other. 
 
 The present system no doubt both works injustice, 
 and also indirectly checks production, by keeping 
 back the able, while it enables people who do no work 
 to levy rent and interest on the general revenue of 
 the country. And here again the middle course, as 
 recommended hereafter, would seem to be the only 
 practical solution of the perplexing question ; the only 
 conciliation of the social antinomy, that both the 
 opposite views of Socialism and the present system 
 are wrong as regards inheritance. 
 
 I am aware that the present Socialists claim it as a 
 great point in their favour that they do not propose 
 
liv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 to do away with inheritance. In reality, to touch it 
 would be a mere work of supererogation on their 
 part, because the salaries with them being- equal, or 
 nearly so, no one would be likely to have much to 
 leave to his children. But if considerable inequality 
 of salaries were allowed, there would be a reason, as 
 the St. Simonians saw, for abolishing inheritance, in 
 order to prevent inequality from becoming excessive. 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE immediate aim, then, and provisional social 
 goal, till time and spontaneous natural evolution 
 teach us more, would seem to be something like 
 what is given in the concluding portion of the follow- 
 ing pages ; part of it having reference to the working- 
 classes and the poor, part not referring to class, as 
 such, but to capacity, including a large part of the 
 natural ability without means to make its way, the 
 special fostering of which would be both for the 
 general good and for the good of the working-classes, 
 whose ranks would contain a large part of it. 
 
 The proposals which specially refer to the working- 
 classes and the poor are treated of under the heads of 
 co-operative production, the creation of small owners 
 of land, the regulation of factories and workshops, the 
 proposed maximum working day; those referring to 
 the nation generally, including the working-classes, 
 under the heads of taxation, especially of inheritances, 
 free education, the extension of Government manage- 
 ment in the industrial sphere, especially where mono- 
 
INTRODUCTION. lv 
 
 polies exist, or are likely to exist ; the State having 
 the advantage over monopolists of being a " moral 
 person " not interested in unduly raising prices or 
 lowering wages to make extra profits. 
 
 In addition to a general criticism of Socialism, 
 certain current proposals short of Socialism, but yet 
 in the Socialist direction, are considered ; schemes 
 for raising wages, for shortening hours of labour, 
 for giving work to the unemployed, as well as one 
 for doing both of the latter, by the examination of 
 which I hope to make my position clearer and also 
 to define more narrowly the limits of the action of 
 the State, whether by legislation or administration. 
 
 The programme recommended can hardly be con- 
 sidered a very extensive one. But it is certainly as 
 much as opinion is ready for. I believe it practi- 
 cable, which cannot be said either of the new scheme 
 of Collectivism or of the old, and in some respects 
 superior, Socialism, or yet of some other schemes 
 adverted to and criticized ; the full reasons for which 
 will in due course appear; so much having been 
 here entered into chiefly to give the reader some 
 notion in advance of the scope and general character 
 of the work, as well as of the main topics treated, 
 and the chief issues raised on a subject that, without 
 doubt, will be one of importance for a long time to 
 come, as at present it is one that engages the attention 
 of most thinking persons. 
 
SOCIALISM: NEW AND OLD* 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE FORMS OF SOCIALISM. 
 
 MODERN Socialism had its origin some seventy years 
 ago in France, under the initiative of St. Simon. I/ 
 took a definite form from his school about the time 
 of the July Revolution of 1830 ; but after drawing to 
 itself distinguished converts, and exciting much atten- 
 tion for a time, it soon passed away as impracticable. 
 It rose again some time before, and particularly during, 
 the memorable year 1848. This time it took more 
 specific form as a scheme for the reorganization of 
 Labour, but also a threatening form as a revolu- 
 tionary force. In its former character it was found 
 impracticable, after partial trial ; in the latter it was 
 suppressed by the sword, after a terrible insurrection 
 in Paris. This time it was thought it had finally 
 died. It was not so. It rose again in Germany 
 about 1862, increased in strength, and fortified with 
 stronger arguments, in process of time it crossed the 
 Atlantic, and made many converts in America ; 
 and within a comparatively recent period (almost 
 
 u 
 
2 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 within the past ten years) it has made its 
 appearance in England, where it is making con- 
 siderable progress. At the present time it is a 
 wide-spread, almost a universal, movement, which 
 shows itself in every civilized and Christian land 
 where the same economic and social conditions meet ; 
 and it is certain that it is a movement that will not 
 die without leaving important results behind it in the 
 sphere of practice. 
 
 If the question be asked, What is Socialism ? it is 
 impossible to give a single definition that would find 
 general acceptance, because the word is used by 
 writers of authority in three different senses, in each 
 of which again it is somewhat vaguely applied. 
 
 In the widest sense of the word, Socialism is any 
 e of social relations which has in view a more 
 equal distribution of wealth, or the preventing too 
 great inequality, in whatever way this be effected, 
 whether by State action, the voluntary efforts of 
 individuals directed towards that end, Church action, 
 philanthropy, or any other means ; in which wide 
 sense of the word Socialism embraces many social 
 phenomena and movements, both in the present and 
 in the past. Thus in the present it would embrace 
 co-operative production, the communistic experi- 
 ments in the United States and elsewhere, Christian 
 Socialism, contemporary legislation to ameliorate 
 the condition of small tenant farmers and the work- 
 ing classes generally, and even, if we set aside the 
 means to be employed, contemporary anarchists' 
 final aims. In this wide sense of the word, ancient 
 laws and customs aiming at the prevention of 
 
THE FORMS OF SOCIALISM. 3 
 
 poverty or of great inequality, the various risings of 
 the people for the same ends in England, in France, 
 and in Germany, together with the ideas, and senti- 
 ments that prompted them, might all be styled 
 Socialistic, and have been so described by Laveleye, 
 Roscher, and other writers. 
 
 There is a second sense of the word, which 
 is also perhaps the most usual sense, in which 
 it covers only a portion of the above field of mean- 
 ing. In this sense, the word is applied only to the 
 aim and endeavour of the State to secure, by laws 
 or institutions, a greater equality of conditions, or 
 to prevent too great inequality, in which sense the 
 laws of Solon, equally with certain legislation of 
 to-day, the Jewish Jubilee, and even the English 
 Poor Law would be Socialism. In this sense the 
 legislation of the Constituent Assembly, and 
 of the Convention during the French Revolution, 
 which took from the nobles to give to the peasants, 
 was Socialism, as the aim of the late Emperor 
 William to make a provision for the workman in time of 
 old age and sickness, by taking part of the insurance 
 fund from the employers, was socialistic. 1 But in this 
 sense, voluntary co-operative production would not be 
 Socialistic; existing communistic attempts would not 
 
 1 We might perhaps extend this sense of the word to cover 
 the case of customs in the Village Communities acquiesced in 
 by the Heads, even before there was any State or Law in the 
 strict sense, when such customs aimed, as they often did, at 
 preventing inequality. For though there was no State there was 
 government, recognized authority, and custom held in place of 
 law. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 SOCIALISM 'NEW AND OLD. 
 
 be Socialistic ; even though both contain the central 
 aim of Socialism, and the one thing common to all 
 forms of Socialism at all times, namely, the aim at the 
 diminution of inequality. In this sense loans by 
 the State to associations of working men of capital 
 at less than current interest would be Socialistic ; 
 and the recent agrarian legislation respecting land- 
 lord and tenant in Ireland was so far Socialistic, 
 that it was designed, and had for effect, to benefit 
 the tenant at the expense of the landlord. But the 
 undertaking by the Government of an industry or a 
 service like the Telegraph or the Postal Service is not 
 necessarily Socialistic, if it be done for the general 
 convenience, and without thought of diminishing 
 inequality ; though the farther such extension H 
 carried the more it tends to become so, by its nar- 
 rowing the field of private enterprise, and by 
 consequence the profits of the capitalist class, and 
 by coming nearer to the extreme Socialist's ideal 
 of universal state-directed industry. Moreover, so 
 far as the extension of Government functions in the 
 economical sphere is accompanied by a classification 
 of workers according to merit, and furnishes oppor- 
 tunities to talent without means, the nearer it comes 
 to the ideal of St. Simon, who is generally regarded 
 as the founder of modern Socialism. 
 
 It is in this second sense of the word that it is 
 generally used by writers of authority. Thus, M. Janet 
 defines Socialism to be " every doctrine which believes 
 it to be the business of the State to cor?*ct the in- 
 equalities of riches that exist amongst men, and to 
 establish the equilibrium legally by taking from 
 
THE FORMS OF SOCIALISM. 5 
 
 those who have too much to give to those who have 
 not enough, and to do this in a permanent manner, and 
 not merely in particular cases, such as that of a general 
 distress or a public calamity." 2 Similar but fuller is the 
 definition of Leroy-Beaulieu : " Socialism is a generic 
 term which expresses certain modes of interference 
 by the State in the relations between producers, or 
 between producers and consumers. This inter- 
 ference has not for its object solely security, fidelity 
 to engagements freely entered into by individuals ; it 
 proposes to rectify or to correct social inequalities, 
 to modify the natural course of things, to substitute for 
 contracts whose terms have been fully debated and 
 freely agreed to, official types of contracts, to come 
 to the aid of the party reputed to be feeble, and to 
 hinder the contractor reputed to be strong from 
 drawing the whole of the possible advantages, natural 
 or economic." To which he adds that " Socialism 
 proceeds by way of regulations or by competition of 
 the State with private industries." 3 
 
 This is also the sense in which M. de Laveleye 
 generally uses the word. In his work on "The 
 Socialism of to-day " (Introd. p. xv.), he says : " Every 
 Socialistic doctrine aims at introducing greater 
 equality into social conditions ; and, secondly, it tries 
 to realize these reforms by the action of the law or 
 the State." But even he occasionally uses the word 
 with a wider application, as where he speaks of the 
 Nihilistic Socialism of Bakunin, which not merely re- 
 
 2 " Les Origines du Socialisme Contemporain. ' 
 
 3 "Le Collectivisme." 
 
6 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 pudiates all State action, but aims at the destruction 
 of the State as the greatest enemy of a true Socialistic 
 community. It is in this second sense which M. de 
 Laveleye mostly adopts of State Socialism, that 
 the word will be generally used throughout this 
 book, though it will be found convenient to employ 
 it occasionally in the first sense, as well as fre- 
 quently in a third sense, to be now specially pointed 
 out. 
 
 In this third sense, Socialism is that system eco- 
 nomic and political, in which the production of wealth 
 is carried on solely by the State, as the collective 
 owner of the land and instruments of production, in- 
 stead of by private capitalist employers or companies ; 
 while the distribution in like manner is made by the 
 State on some assumed principles of justice, which give 
 to each in proportion to his work, instead of being 
 as now determined largely and immediately by con- 
 tracts, and ultimately by laws of property and in- 
 heritance. This, the only true Socialism accordin 
 its adherents, is now generally called Collectivism, to 
 denote the collective ownership or ownership by 
 the State, as the representative of all, of the land and 
 instruments of production. It distinguishes itself 
 from Communism, inasmuch as it admits of private 
 property in articles of consumption, and to a certain 
 limited extent, of inequality of shares, accumulations, 
 and inheritance. Only it suppresses private enterprise, 
 it will not allow individuals to use their accumula- 
 tions to set others to labour for them, with a view to 
 make profit from their labour, nor to lend for the 
 sake of interest, nor to let for the sake of rent or 
 
THE FORMS OF SOCIALISM. 7 
 
 hire, nor in any way to make private gains from 
 their superfluous goods ; because by these means great 
 inequality might come back, and it is a principal 
 aim of the new Socialism not only to extinguish 
 great inequality, but to prevent for ever its return. 
 
 To avoid confusion, it will be well to note the three 
 senses of the word Socialism. And it will be also well to 
 note the relation between the three kinds of Socialism. 
 What is common, the generic feature of all, is the 
 aim at greater equality of social conditions, in the 
 first case to be attained by any means, in the second 
 and third to be attained and maintained by the State. 
 In the first sense, Socialism is as old as the world, 
 old as the rudest form of society, and in fact in primi- 
 tive simple societies it was very generally realized 
 in considerable measure. In the second sense in 
 which Socialism is taken up by, and made an aim 
 of, the State, it is also very old, though this form 
 now called State Socialism has received a great 
 extension in our century, partly from a widened 
 spirit of philanthropy and the awakening of public 
 conscience, and partly from a spirit of apprehen- 
 sion, but chiefly owing to the increasing political 
 power of the people since the French Revolution, 
 which taught an ever-memorable lesson to ruling 
 classes, and for the first time showed to the modern 
 world the power of the people when joined in a 
 common cause. The interferences of the State were 
 at first for the protection of operatives in factories and 
 workshops ; they have since been extended to mining, 
 shipping, and all kinds of industries, as the influence 
 and voice of the people became more felt in Parlia- 
 
3 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 ment, while within a comparatively recent period, 
 or since 1870, there has been legislative interference 
 between landlord and tenant in Ireland, to fix rents 
 in the interests of the tenants, and to narrow the 
 landlords' rights ; in fact to narrow the sphere of so- 
 called Free Contracts, and this kind of protective State 
 Socialism, this interference with, and restriction of, 
 freedom of contracts, is likely to increase, as well as 
 the State Socialism involved in the extension of the 
 States' functions in the sphere of industrial under- 
 takings, the housing of the poor, the provision of free 
 education, etc. 
 
 It is partly from the extent of this tendency, that 
 extreme Socialism or Collectivism derives such 
 strength and plausibility as it has. This species of 
 Socialism which implies collective ownership and co- 
 operative labour, it should be noted, is essentially a 
 modern thing, which could not have been conceived 
 before the great industrial revolution of which it was 
 a direct result. Collectivism contemplates the collec- 
 tive ownership of land and capital (chiefly the latter), 
 and production on the great scale, which last was the 
 result, and the essence of the industrial revolution. 
 Before that event there were very few great capi- 
 talist employers with whom there could have been a 
 quarrel as to the division of the product. The 
 worker, in general, owned his own small capital, the 
 necessary instruments of his craft, and he was inde- 
 pendent of an employer. Socialism relating to the 
 land, or agrarian Socialism, there always was, as well 
 as a sort of general and intermittent quarrel between 
 rich and poor, but there were few great capitalists 
 
THE FORMS OF SOCIALISM. 9 
 
 outside the commercial class, and comparatively few 
 cases in which the labouring classes could point 
 distinctly to any one but the landlord, or perhaps the 
 small dealer who had given them credit, as having 
 made a profit out of their labour or their necessities. 
 It was otherwise when the artisan portion of them 
 were compelled from want of the necessary capital to 
 sell their labour to the great capitalist employer for so 
 much a day or week, when this sum was in general, as 
 economists affirmed, not much above bare subsistence 
 rate, and when they saw the master, who not long 
 before had been on the same social level as themselves, 
 grow rich in consequence ; for they did not care to dis- 
 tinguish the cases where the riches might have been 
 more due to his business genius and energy than to the 
 exploitation and under-payment of their labour. Here 
 was always matter for dispute, and often real and great 
 grievances on the side of the workers, and from this 
 new situation was born the standing quarrel between 
 Capital and Labour, which fills the whole century, the 
 interferences of the Legislature on the side of Labour, 
 Trades Unionism, which tries to strengthen its hands ; 
 and the new Socialism, which seeks to put an end to 
 the feud by the abolition of the individual capitalistic 
 system, and the replacing of it by the collective 
 ownership of the State. 
 
 The new Socialists, the Collectivists, will not honour 
 with the name of Socialist any one who does not 
 accept the whole of their programme. The half-way 
 systems and measures will not do. They say, in fact, 
 that they are even mischievous as tending to prolong 
 the present system of industrial anarchy based on 
 
10 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 spoliation and competition. Co-operative production 
 will not do, even if State-aided. It would prolong the 
 reign of competition, and the competitive system must 
 wholly cease. 
 
 Collectivism is, they say, the only system that is 
 thorough-going, coherent, and logical, as opposed to 
 the different partial stop-gap systems, co-operation, 
 legislative interference, etc., which would be either 
 wholly futile, or barely temporary palliatives. As 
 j opposed to the existing system, it is the only one at 
 once rational and founded on justice. The land and 
 the mineral wealth beneath it, should evidently belong 
 to all. They were Nature's gift to the human race, no 
 more intended to be appropriated by a few than the 
 common sunlight, air, or water. And in like manner 
 as regards the instruments for the production of the 
 means of life. In former times, the land did actually 
 belong to the community, and in a time not remote 
 the instruments of production did belong to the 
 workers. It is not so now. The agricultural labourer 
 on the land has become divorced from ownership : the 
 labourer in the towns no longer possesses the instru- 
 ments of his craft. He is dependent on the will and the 
 employment of another for his livelihood. The capital 
 which enables the capitalist to employ him, more- 
 over, is itself the result of the spoliation of labourers 
 past and present. These are great evils, for which 
 Collectivism is the only remedy that would beat once 
 just, efficacious, and that would bring finality with it. 
 Moreover, it is in harmony with existing facts and 
 steadily growing tendencies all pointing to it. The 
 State already occupies, to the general advantage and 
 
THE FORMS OF SOCIALISM. II 
 
 satisfaction, a portion of the field of enterprise and in- 
 dustry, within which competition is abolished. Let 
 it occupy the entire field. It already regulates, and 
 it tends ever more and more to regulate, the industries 
 it does not occupy which arc carried on in factories, 
 mines, and workshops. Let it put an end -to the 
 evil necessity of regulating by substituting its own 
 action for the private enterprise that requires so much 
 re'gulating to protect the labourers or the public. 
 Let it organize all the necessary labour as it already 
 does a part, and let it apportion their shares to all 
 according to the rules of justice. 
 
 II. 
 
 SUCH are the two kinds of Socialism that chiefly 
 concerns us, the one begun and extending, the other 
 existing only as aim and ideal. With respect to this 
 second, or Collectivism, which aims at extending and 
 universalizing the first, or State Socialism, as the 
 State may not have the will or desire to go so far, or 
 not to do so at once, or soon, we are led to a further 
 division of Socialists into the Revolutionary Socialists, 
 who aim at altering the existing State by getting 
 the control of it by violence, and thereafter ani- 
 mating it by their own revolutionary spirit in order 
 to effect their purposes ; and the Opportunist or 
 Evolutionary Socialists, who think" the existing State 
 slowly improved or widened in its functions, or even 
 taking it as it stands with its present disposition and 
 the opportunities offered by the existing diversity of 
 party interests, may serve to bring in Socialism by 
 
12 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 instalments. The programme of the Evolutionary 
 Collectivists coincides to some extent with that of 
 the State Socialists, though the latter docs not 
 specifically aim at collective ownership, or at any 
 more definite aim than greater justice or greater 
 equality, whether of condition or of opportunity. 
 
 The Revolutionary Socialists, not numerous in 
 England, but powerful on the Continent, think it 
 hopeless to expect anything from middle-claSs 
 Parliaments, composed largely of rich men, or men in 
 sympathy with these, whose interests are opposed to 
 the changes they have in view. They think the 
 struggle between the rich and poor must be end- 
 less so long as the rich hold the Government, make 
 the laws, and direct the policy of the State ; and for 
 the poor an endless struggle is endless defeat. 
 Events or a crisis must be forced and soon. It is a ques- 
 tion which concerns the present generation, when an 
 opportunity arises. Force has been the great hastencr 
 of events, the sword the great severer of hopeless knots. 
 Great movements have invariably led to the sword, 
 and great issues have been always settled by it, not 
 by appeals to reason, conscience, or humanity. And 
 the great quarrel between rich and poor, capital 
 and labour, between the dominant classes and the 
 hungry people can be settled in no other way. The 
 antagonism of interests is too great, the evils suffered 
 by the many, and their sense of injustice, daily 
 deepening, is too great, to allow them to wait. It 
 is idle to expect the rich to surrender property or 
 position of their own accord ; if the working classes 
 do not conquer them, and do not unite for the purpose, 
 
THE FORMS OF SOCIALISM. 13 
 
 they will never be better. The rich will hold them in 
 subjection for ever. It is for them who have strength 
 and justice on their side to force the present posi- 
 tion ; and that requires Revolution. 
 
 The other Socialists are more practical. They 
 distrust sudden and violent revolutions, which take 
 one step forward and two backward, by leading to 
 extreme reaction. They think that the State is in all 
 civilized countries becoming more suitable for the 
 attainment of their ends, is becoming more socialistic 
 and more democratic. They think that, by further poli- 
 tical reforms, by the introduction into Parliament or 
 Chamber, of men of culture, conscience, and capacity, 
 men of public spirit, or even men expressly sent 
 to advocate the interests of labour, they can get 
 more and more socialistic measures passed. They 
 reckon, too, on the great influence of impartial 
 outside forces on public opinion, and the changed 
 sentiment appearing in literature, in the press, the 
 churches, and even in law as judicially interpreted, 
 and apart from legislation. 
 
 In England Socialism, so far as it comes in at all, 
 will probably come in this way. Our system of 
 party government will give it certain opportunities. 
 Each party will take up a portion of the Socialist 
 programme. The Tory landowner will defend the 
 workers in the great towns against the oppression of 
 Capital, while the Liberal employer will take up the 
 cause of the agricultural labourer in the country. The 
 capitalist will see no objection to additional taxation on 
 landed property, and he will assist the tenant farmers 
 in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, to become owners of 
 
14 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 their holdings without too rigidly regarding the 
 landlord's rights ; while the landlords will be willing 
 to lessen the working hours of the labourers, to inquire 
 into and remedy their grievances, and to try experi- 
 ments on their behalf at the cost of the capitalist, as 
 well as to extend Employers' Liabilities, and make it 
 less easy for the " corsairs of commerce," the bucan- 
 neers of industry, the great Monopolist and Company 
 Promoter to prey on the property of the weak and un- 
 wary. It is possible, too, that the great outside inte- 
 rests, as the Church, Law, Literature, so far as they 
 are independent, may throw their weight against both 
 landlords and capitalists, as well from a sense of 
 justice as to conciliate the Fourth Estate. It would 
 be rather a change of policy, at least on the part of the 
 two former, but, if not quite from considerations of 
 justice, it may be thought prudent to be on the side 
 of the growing power that may one day be supreme, 
 and thus all things duly considered, the prospect 
 Socialism, bound up as they are with Democracy, 
 are not other than hopeful in these countries. 
 
 In France, where class antagonism is deep, where 
 the people are fiery and warlike, where each genera- 
 tion in Paris since the Revolution has been once 
 at least behind the barricade, the introduction of 
 Socialism may not improbably be attempted once 
 again by the sword ; a course very unlikely to lead to 
 the Socialists' goal, . unless, indeed, the new Cajsar 
 which the resulting chaos would probably necessitate, 
 should be imbued with Socialistic sentiments, and 
 should try to realize part of their programme. 
 
 In Germany, where, though Socialism is widely 
 
THE FORMS OF SOCIALISM. 15 
 
 spread, the existing State is strong, and, largely 
 impersonated in the Emperor, reposes on the na- 
 tional affections, Socialism will be slowly introduced 
 by the Emperor and his Chancellor, or by their succes- 
 sors, in accordance with the traditional policy of the 
 Hohenzollern monarchs, since the time of Frederick 
 the Great, to favour and protect the people whose 
 strength and courage are so necessary to the existence 
 of a great military state. There the sovereign is a 
 power above the middle-class and the landlords. He 
 has the will, if not the power, to do justice between 
 the antagonistic interests, and he is friendly to the 
 working-classes. The power of the great middle 
 and monied class in Germany, though considerable 
 and growing, is much less than it is in England 
 or America ; less even than it is in France ; and 
 accordingly it is probable that the qualified Socialism 
 that the late Emperor and Prince Bismarck have so 
 persistently pursued will be realized eventually by 
 the State itself in spite of middle-class opposition. 
 State Socialism, rnuch farther than would be possible 
 in England, would be suited to a people that already 
 has the species of State Socialism implied in a nation 
 in arms, periodically withdrawn from industry and 
 supported during the time, by the national taxes. 
 
 It is more difficult to offer any forecast as to 
 America, the other great country where Socialism 
 has appeared, and, as is proved by the Chicago Anar- 
 chists' riots as well as by other signs, is making way. 
 As a fact, many of the labourers are dissatisfied with 
 their condition, and many in the middle class are 
 aggrieved by the corruption of the great corporations, 
 
1 6 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 by the spread of vast monopolies, " Syndicates," and 
 " Trusts," while the comparatively low level of political 
 morality makes legislative reforms difficult. The 
 Capitalist has in America developed into colossal pro- 
 portions. The richest men the world has seen since 
 the latter time of the Roman Republic are there. 
 Capitalism has most fully 'flowered, has reached its 
 highest development there, and there is only want- 
 ing a hungry people, joined to a greatly dissatisfied 
 one, to have all the elements of an early explosion 
 prepared. When we add that society in America was 
 tolerably homogeneous less than a century ago 
 that even in 1835, when De Tocqueville wrote his 
 "Democracy in America," it presented marked 
 equality of conditions, and that it has now arranged 
 itself into the hierarchically graded form of 
 Western Europe, with a mighty plutocracy at 
 the top of the pyramid, a rich middle class below, 
 and a proletariate at the bottom, there are 
 not wanting causes of apprehension. Happily, the 
 wage- earners are as yet well paid, though prices are 
 dear, and the lowest social stratum is not as yet 
 large. 
 
 But Socialism and Socialistic theories are spread- 
 ing, and unless there is legislation in behalf of labour 
 there may come convulsions in America as soon as 
 or sooner than in any other country : because the 
 American people, like the French, are warlike and 
 spirited, as they have shown by the two tremendous 
 wars within a century, the first for Liberty, the second 
 for the Union. That the majority would be ready 
 to fight for Justice if they thought themselves treated 
 
THE FORMS OF SOCIALISM. 17 
 
 unjustly, there cannot be a doubt. Then the gene- 
 rality are very intelligent, education is diffused, and 
 every one reads at least the newspaper. Moreover 
 it is a country of fast Evolution. The slow steps of 
 social evolution in the Old Continent are quickened. 
 Parts of the process are abridged. Events come to a 
 head sooner. On all of which grounds I should look 
 for the Social Question to be brought to an earlier 
 issue there than elsewhere. 
 
 It need not necessarily be a violent issue, as the 
 people are fertile in social resources, ingenious 
 and unwearied in making social experiments, Com- 
 munistic, Mormonistic, Co-operative. Moreover, 
 American economists and social thinkers have taken 
 up the question betimes, and there is no branch of 
 philosophy in which they have shown more ability 
 and originality than in social speculation. They 
 are now doing their part which will be an important 
 one in mediating between capital and labour, and by 
 criticizing both Socialism and Political Economy 
 they may produce light that may enable their 
 country to go on in the path of social progress 
 without social convulsions. 
 
 in. 
 
 It remains to mention a peculiar kind of Socialists, 
 if such they can be called, who are not known at all 
 in England, but who are determined and formidable 
 in France, and who exist all over the Continent as well 
 as in America. These men are revolutionaries, and 
 something more. They will march willingly with 
 the violent revolutionary party to the destruction of 
 
 c 
 
1 8 SOCIALISM NE\V AND OLD. 
 
 existing States and existing Governments ; but they 
 will be no party to the raising again of any Govern- 
 ment, or of anything in the shape of the State, because 
 they are convinced of the incurable viciousness of all 
 Governments, existing or possible, and of the State 
 in all its forms, autocratic, oligarchic, democratic. The 
 State and all its institutions and laws are evils : 
 Better it had never existed. It has always been 
 worked in the interests of the few to the hurt of the 
 many. It has always by its laws repressed liberty, by 
 its institutions handed over the poor to be dominated 
 by the rich. The effect has always been the same for 
 the greater number, whatever the form of the State. 
 Let them all be destroyed and all go down together, 
 and let them never again be restored. There must 
 be no Central Government : even no local Govern- 
 ment, no public authority whatever not even the 
 policeman. Let all authority and law be destroyed ; 
 let us return to Rousseau's State of Nature before civil 
 society and Governments existed. No aggregation 
 of men greater than the " Amorphous Commune " is 
 wanted, and no l.aws in it. Equality in the com- 
 mune, full liberty and no authority, is the ideal. Work, 
 presumably, is to be done, and cheerfully ; for the 
 co-operative society in field and factory is shadowed 
 forth as the pleasing picture when all Governments 
 are subverted. One thing they deem certain : if \ve 
 once get back to the State of Nature, if we could 
 begin again, human society would never travel in 
 the same fatal lines as it has done ; it would neither 
 have property nor the legal family, and if all 
 authority were prevented, the State could never again 
 come into being to re-create them ; there would then 
 
THE FORMS OF SOCIALISM. 19 
 
 be no more national wars ; no more exploitation of 
 labour ; no more tyrannies ; real liberty, equality, 
 fraternity would for the first time, be possible, and 
 peace would be over the world. Such is the final 
 prospect ; but to get to it, war, they allow, will be 
 necessary, for Governments must be first subverted, 
 and to effect this force will be necessary. 
 
 These last are the Anarchists, and, according to 
 the definition before adopted, should not be regarded 
 as Socialists, because, far from desiring the aid of the 
 State to bring in their schemes, their one attitude to 
 the State is that of ceaseless hostility, and their one 
 hope is to overthrow it. Nevertheless, so far as they 
 aim in the end at social equality, as they do, they may 
 be regarded as a species of Socialists " the extreme 
 left " of the Socialists' camp. It is a question of ter- 
 minology whether we are to regard them as Socialists 
 or not. If State intervention is the essence of 
 Socialism, then Anarchists are not Socialists, but if 
 the aim at equality is the essential thing, then 
 Anarchists are Socialists, and extreme ones. Grow- 
 ing usage favours the former sense. But it should 
 not be forgotten that it is a question of words, nor 
 that the Anarchists' final aim would be described as 
 socialistic. Moreover, when the work of destruction 
 is done, this final idea somewhat resembles that of 
 Fourier, who is usually classed amongst the Socialists, 
 in fact, sharing, with St. Simon, the honour of being 
 one of the founders of Socialism. Fourier likewise 
 proposed to dispense with the aid of the State in trying 
 his experiments. He also regarded the commune as 
 the true ultimate political whole ; only he differs from 
 the Anarchist in not believing the subversion of the 
 
 C 2 
 
20 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 State the necessary first preliminary to trying his 
 scheme. 
 
 Such, then, are the chief forms of modern Socialism, 
 But we shall never understand Socialism fully, nor 
 know either its strength or weakness, without some 
 knowledge of its past history. Without knowing its 
 past, we shall not understand its present forms : nor the 
 absolute necessity of its presence. As Sociologists like 
 Comte and Herbert Spencer, in agreement with the 
 modern Historical School, inform us, we cannot under- 
 stand the present irrespective of the past ; \v ithout 
 a knowledge of causes which lie in the past, there 
 can be no right interpretation of the existing effects ; 
 nor, it may be added, without this knowledge can we 
 make any safe prediction as to the future, whether of 
 Society or of Socialism, because such prediction can 
 only consist, in the calculation of the probable effect 
 of existing tendencies and forces as gathered from a 
 study of the past and present. Happily, some general 
 power of prediction, without foreseeing the details, 
 we may have from the knowledge of the past and 
 present, rightly interpreted. We can gather the 1;. 
 and growing tendencies and forces, industrial, social, 
 moral and political, and from these forces, together 
 with existing general facts (statical laws) we may 
 hazard some broad predictions that will probably be 
 realized in future. Especially may we make such 
 rough forecast as to what may be in the more specific 
 economic sphere, in which the tendencies are more pro- 
 nounced and clear, as well as in general more durable 
 and massive, and less subject to modification from 
 human volitions, or the existence of counter tenden- 
 cies, than those in the spheres of morals or politics. 
 
21 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 SOCIALISM BEFORE THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 I. 
 
 f^o^JJ^LJru 1 '^ ftsgppce is notjj L _newJjmig. The 
 word is new ; the Socialists' argument that all wealth 
 is due to the labour of the working classes is new ; 
 and the principal forms which the socialistic spirit 
 now assumes, owing to the changed conditions of 
 modern industry and the production of wealth, are 
 new ; but the general thing, the substantial thing, is 
 old^ and its general aims are old, and always the 
 same a more even distribution of wealth, of money 
 orni^rie^!sWorth, as the main ^material means of j 
 happiness. It is even a necessary thing, deducible 
 from the principles of human nature although not at 
 all times in active operation. Although in a given 
 society the spirit may be sluggish or slumbering, 
 though it may be cowed or conquered for a time, it 
 always exists awaiting favouring conditions to mani- 
 fest itself again. 1 Socialism, in the form of a struggle 
 
 1 Roscher specifies the general conditions under which com- 
 munistic and socialistic ideas appearas follows: (i) a well-defined 
 confrontation of rich and poor without a strong intervening 
 middle class ; (2) a high degree of the division of labour 
 (3) revolutions which perplex opinion as to right, and in which 
 
22 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 of the lower classes to raise their condition, is as old as 
 History, in which it forms some of the most important, 
 though hitherto neglected, chapters. Socialism, in 
 the sense of a struggle for greater equality, is as old 
 as civil society, old as the separation of men into 
 classes, old as the distinction of rich and poor. Fur- 
 ther, the spirit of Socialism, in the shape of a set of 
 principles aiming at the establishment and perpetua- 
 tion of reasonable equality, presided at the founda- 
 tion of more than one famous historical state. MosesN 
 (or whoever wrote or compiled the books of Leviticus I 
 md Deuteronomy) was so far a Socialist that we* 
 
 in clearly see his endeavour, by judicious institu- 
 tions, to prevent great inequality amongst the Jews, 
 
 rhile Private Property and Inheritance are neverthe- 
 less sanctioned. We find in Leviticus a system of 
 land-holding intended to secure reasonable equality, 
 and a very remarkable institution, the Jubilee, de- 
 signed to prevent the Jewish people from being 
 permanently divorced from the land. We have un- 
 usual clemency shown to the honest debtor by which 
 the purpose of a good Bankruptcy Law was effected ; 
 and a special provision for the poor, if any such should 
 appear under a general socialistic polity expressly 
 designed to prevent extreme poverty. The usurer 
 as an evil possibility is foreseen by Moses, and is 
 warned from exercising his function, or practising his 
 methods, at the cost of his brethren in their necessi- 
 
 the multitude have learned their power; (4) a Democratic con- 
 stitution of the State ; (5) a general decay of religion and 
 morals and the spread of an atheistic and materialistic spirit. 
 \" Political Economy," vol. i.) 
 
SOCIALISM BEFORE THE IQTH CENTURY. 23 
 
 ties. We find equality aimed at, and fraternity every- 
 where inculcated as the surest moral guarantee of 
 equality. But all this is of the essence of Socialism. 
 Moreover, it is State Socialism, or Socialism embodied 
 in fundamental institutions, and under the consecra- 
 tion and guardianship of Law ; and it had the further 
 consecration of Religion, which was in the beginning 
 inseparably connected with Law. It is Socialism ; 
 only it differs from modern Socialism in the important 
 particular that it was Socialism established, and for 
 a long time successfully worked in practice, whereas 
 modern Socialism exists as yet mainly in aim and 
 endeavour. It was Socialism embodied in institu- 
 tions, customs, and laws, whereas ours is a spirit that 
 seeks incarnation. It was in a word accomplished 
 and successful Socialism, whilst ours is still in the 
 militant state ; and has still to demonstrate its prac- 
 ticability and advantages. 
 
 In time the Jewish Socialism failed. Individualism 
 and gross inequality of condition came ; but the Law 
 of Moses acted as a drag to make the process of 
 change to individualism slow, and the Jewish Pro-*! 
 phets appeared who* denounced the mighty and the I 
 despoiler and oppressor of his brethren. The pro- / 
 phets were Socialists : Isaiah the greatest of Social-/ 
 ists. Whoever doubts the essential similarity of 
 social phenomena at different times and in different 
 societies, provided they have reached similar stages 
 of social evolution, or whoever thinks that the recur- 
 rence of similar social effects from similar social 
 causes does not take place, should read Isaiah's de- 
 nunciations of those who " grind the faces of the 
 
24 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 poor ; " of those " who join house to house and add 
 field to field, that there be no place left in the land ; " 
 of those who, not unlike some modern class legislators, 
 " decree unrighteous decrees to turn aside the needy 
 from justice, and to take away the right from the 
 poor of my people ; " of those who oppressed the 
 widow and the orphan, that worst of crimes in the 
 eyes of Jewish sentiment. So similar, in fact, is the list 
 of social and moral evils, so common the causes, that 
 the words of Isaiah are still the best description of 
 our own evils and of our social situation. What was 
 his remedy ? Remarkable, and not without signifi- 
 cance for us : for the present, it was moral regeneration 
 with the alternative of national destruction ; for the 
 future, it was the coming of a king who should rule 
 in righteousness and execute judgment and justice. 
 Always with the Hebrew prophet, it was the great 
 and good King, the Messiah, who was at once to 
 deliver them from their enemies abroad, and to re- 
 introduce justice at home. He should be mighty to 
 do the double work ; to break in pieces the enemy, 
 and to curb and check entrenched and coalesced class 
 selfishness ; he should be wise, " filled with the spirit 
 of understanding and knowledge ; " for want of insight 
 would be fatal and would make all things worse ; he 
 should be filled with the spirit of justice. He should 
 be the strong conqueror, the just legislator, the wise 
 ruler; to combine the requisite conditions, he should 
 be almost supra-mortal ; and in fact the Messiah, the 
 great deliverer from the foreign enemy, the social 
 redeemer and restorer of justice, while human, was 
 yet conceived by Isaiah to be, if not something more 
 
SOCIALISM BEFORE THE IQTH CENTURY. 25 
 
 e_Kli; \ 
 
 listing \\ 
 ir the I 
 
 mic^rl / 
 
 than human, yet One expressly sent from heaven for 
 the work. 
 
 Similar is the burden in Jeremiiah and Ezekjgl ; \ 
 similar, but sterner, the denunciation of existing 
 society as things grew ever worse ; and similar 
 vision of the One who was to bring the promised 
 deliverance. 
 
 If we come to the New Testament, the Socialism 
 in the Gospels sometimes going even to the extreme -vx 
 of Communism is manifest. Christ was Hirnsetf>v J 
 theJVTessiah of Isaiah's prophecies, only that His 
 mission is conceived somewhat differently from 
 Isaiah's prophecies, to which frequent reference is 
 made. He did not come as a conqueror or deliverer 
 from the Romans. He had come " to preach the 
 Gospel to the poor," and to " proclaim deliverance to 
 the captives." The rich are repeatedly and terribly 
 denounced. The poor are blessed. Communism is Jb 
 advocated and practised. The voluntary surrender -A 
 of property for the benefit of the poor is recommended / 
 to the rich young man. It was the one thing wanting. 
 The precept is laid down to his hearers : " Give to 
 him that asketh," " and lend, expecting nothing in 
 return." Moreover, morality and true religion are 
 made on the most solemn occasion, and in the most 
 serious utterances in all the Gospels, to turn not 
 on speculative beliefs, but on whether we have fed 
 the hungry, clothed the naked, visited the prisoners ; 
 in general, on whether we have aided and succoured 
 the poor and the suffering portions of humanity, in 
 suffering chiefly because they are poor. In short, 
 there can be no mistake about it in spite of certain 
 
26 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 passages pointing in a different direction the Gospels 
 /are pervaded with the spirit of Socialism and Com- 
 [ munism (which is merely the extreme of Socialism), 
 Sis the predominant-, spirit ; and the " Kingdom of 
 Heaven," in^ one of its meanings, was a Society on 
 this Earth in which there were to be altered social as 
 well as moral conditions, and in which the poor were 
 to be exalted and the rich brought down. The ideal of 
 the Christian Society was equality of social conditions, 
 or, if any inequality, it was to be an inversion of the 
 existing one, requiring from the greatest the greatest 
 sum of services and sacrifices : no private property ; 
 no competition save to do the greatest good, with 
 mutual love making all possible and warming and 
 vitalizing the whole community. We have not the 
 modern formula of distribution "To each according 
 to his services," but a far higher rule. The greatest 
 is to render the greatest service to others, expecting 
 nothing special in return, and yet therein is to find 
 his happiness according to the seeming paradox that 
 whoso foregoes material things shall gain a hundred- 
 fold here and yet more hereafter. 
 
 The ideal has hitherto been found impossible ; but 
 let not any say that it does not exist in the Gospels ; 
 that Christ did not contemplate an earthly society ; 
 and that, therefore, the words which seem to have a 
 socialistic significance do not concern Christians of 
 to-day. The words pointing one way are too nume- 
 rous to be thus explained away ; they did refer to a 
 Society conceived as possible on our earth ; to a 
 Society believed to be ideally the best, and conformed 
 to the necessary conditions of a happy society; to a 
 
SOCIALISM BEFORE THE IQTH CENTURY. 2/ 
 
 society, moreover, capable of being realized. Un- 
 doubtedly, then, there is Socialism in the Gospels, 
 only it is not quite State Socialism, because the better 
 Society was to be brought about by the voluntary 
 union of believers. 
 
 V 
 
 THE Communistic idea was long kept-alive by the 
 Church, being inculcated on the rich in the form of 
 almsgiving, and fully embodied in one of her m< 
 remarkable institutions the Religious Houses with 
 life and goods in common, and the surplus goods to the 
 poor. We find, too, the early Fathers of the Church, \, 
 St.^Jeroj33-ef-Str^Basil, and others, denouncing riches j 
 as robbery as fervently as Proudhon, and almost in 
 the same words. Merely substituting " riches " for 
 "property," they say "riches is robbery." And all 
 throughout the ages of the Church's grandeur and 
 power we find her saints speaking Communism, the 
 Church not condemning ; although she herself, in her 
 collective capacity, partly from respect for the esta- 
 blished order of things, partly because she profited 
 by the institution of property, leaned to the side of 
 the rich and the powerful in the great social quarrel 
 which went on intermittently. In truly Catholic 
 and comprehensive spirit she combined Communism 
 with private property in herself; in equally Catholic 
 spirit, though not quite in the spirit of the Founder 
 of the Church, she gave her benediction to the rich 
 as well as the poor ; taking care, however, to make 
 the former pay, in return for the ease and grace done 
 
28 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 to their souls, some equivalent, a part of which she 
 held for the poor. 
 
 In the dark ages, in the long struggle of the 
 strong amongst races and individuals, the Christian 
 ideal was wholly inapplicable outside the monas- 
 tery, but as part compensation the poor and the 
 helpless were cared for by the Church, that is those of 
 them (comparatively few) who were neither serfs to 
 any lord, nor had any means of livelihood. When 
 Feudalism was fully established, society assumed a 
 hierarchical gradation of classes, the strong man at 
 the top as lord, the weak and conquered beneath as 
 serfs. The serf laboured so many days for the lord, so 
 many for himself. The mendicant or pauper class, 
 the lacklands and lackalls, were not comparati\ 
 numerous. In the towns the craftsmen were a 
 ciated in guilds which protected the interests of their 
 members. Society was stable ; men were in fixed 
 relations to other men, and though there was higher 
 and lower, strong and weak, there was little dissatis- 
 faction ; the morrow was sure to all, even to the 
 destitute few. 
 
 During the decline of Feudalism and after it, we find 
 a different state of things. Society again became 
 fluid and disorganized. We find risings of the people 
 in England, France, and Germany, the three leading 
 nations ; risings of the "Commonalty" in England, 
 I Peasant Wars in Germany, Jacquerie in France, from 
 the same common cause in each case. And we find 
 the Communistic phrases in the mouths of the leaders. 
 For two hundred years in England, from the rising of 
 Wat Tyler in 1381 to Ket's rebellion in the Eastern 
 
SOCIALISM BEFORE THE IQTH CENTURY. 29 
 
 Counties, society was unstable and liable to these social 
 commotions ; in England all throughout the century 
 of the Tudor Sovereigns, when the monarchs were 
 strong and the people sturdy and warlike, we find 
 repeated insurrections of the people to maintain their 
 rights to the land ; risings against the clearances and 
 the practice of enclosures by the great landowners, 
 who thought they should be able to do as they chose 
 with their own in the former case, and who, in the 
 latter, were not over-scrupulous as to what was their 
 own. The rising against the practice of clearances, 
 of turning arable into pasture land, and driving 
 away the cultivators has been described as an insur- 
 rection against economic causes and laws. In reality 
 it was a rising against an attempt to deprive the 
 tillers of the soil of the means of life, and against the 
 attempt of the landlords to exercise absolute rights of 
 property in the land which they never really possessed, 
 and could not be permitted to exercise at the cost of the 
 existence of the people. The strong Tudor sovereigns, 
 Henry VII. and Henry VIII., saw this clearly, and 
 attempted by statutes to check the practice, though 
 with only partial success. One permanent social 
 result followed from these practices together with the 
 confiscation of the property of the religious commu- 
 nities, namely, a great increase in the destitute poor, 
 so great that at last a permanent provision had to be 
 made for them ; and a new Communistic institu- 
 tion in the shape of Poor Laws was devised in place 
 of the old Communistic institutions dissolved. 
 
 The great increase of the poor and their hardships 
 roused the pity and sympathy of Sir Thomas More, / 
 
30 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 who in his " Utopia "goes back to the Communism of 
 i the Gospels and in some respects of Plato's Republic 
 ' as the only radical cure. No punishment, however 
 severe, he contends, is able to restrain those from 
 robbing who can find no other means of livelihood, 
 which must be the plight of many under an economic 
 system which drives men from the land, and does not 
 provide employment for them. Apparently Sir 
 Thomas had not come to the Elizabethan alternative 
 of levying a portion for the unemployed poor from the 
 resources of the rest of the community. In a remark- 
 able passage near the close of his book we find the 
 eternal argument- of the Communists given in the 
 clearest and most striking words, and the argument 
 of the modern Socialists anticipated. Excepting 
 only with the Utopians, he says, " May I perish if I see 
 anything that looks either like justice or equity, for 
 what justice is there in this, that a nobleman, a 
 goldsmith, a banker, or any other man that 
 either does nothing at all, or at least is em- 
 ployed at things that are of no use to the 
 public, should live in great luxury and splendour 
 upon what is so ill acquired ; and a mean man, 
 a carter, a smith, or a ploughman, that works harder 
 even than the beasts themselves, and is employed in 
 labours so necessary that no commonwealth could 
 hold out a year without them, can only earn so poor 
 a livelihood, and must lead so miserable a life, that 
 the condition of the beasts is much better than theirs. 
 For as the beasts do not work so constantly, so they 
 feed almost as well, and with more pleasure ; and 
 have no anxiety about what is to come, whilst these 
 
SOCIALISM BEFORE THE I9TH CENTURY. 31 
 
 men are depressed by a barren and fruitless employ- 
 ment, and tormented with the apprehension of want 
 in their old age. The Government does ill to be so 
 prodigal of its favours to the high-placed and idle, 
 and those who minister to the satisfaction of the rich, 
 and on the other hand to take no care of the meaner 
 sort, such as ploughmen, colliers, smiths, without 
 whom it could not subsist." And when the public 
 has used up their bodies and their services it leaves 
 them " to die in great misery." Not only so : " The 
 richer sort are often endeavouring to bring the hire of 
 the labourers lower, not only by fraudulent practices, 
 but by the laws which they procure to be made to 
 that effect ; so that, though it is a thing most unjust 
 in itself to give such small rewards to those who de- 
 serve so well of the public, yet they have given these 
 hardships the name and colour of justice, by procuring 
 laws to be made for regulating them." 
 
 Here is the argument of the Socialists anticipated 
 three hundred years ago ; the following breathes the 
 very spirit of Rousseau and the modern Revolutionists: 
 " Therefore, I must say that, as I hope for mercy, I 
 can have no notion of all the other governments that I 
 see or know than that they are a conspiracy of the rich, 
 who, on pretence of managing the public, only pursue 
 their private ends, and devise all the ways and arts 
 they can find out ; first that they may, without danger, 
 preserve all that they have so ill acquired, and then 
 that they may engage the poor to toil and labour for 
 them at as low rates as possible, and oppress them as 
 much as they please. And if they can but prevail to 
 get these contrivances established by the show of 
 
32 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 public authority, which is considered as the repre- 
 sentative of the whole people, then they are accounted 
 laws." 
 
 The book made no impression at the time, became 
 first it was written in Latin for the learned. Again, 
 when it was rendered into vigorous English, near the 
 end of the sixteenth century, it was still confined to the 
 few, and by them regarded as an ingenious exercise 
 of the fancy, not seriously to be taken, and impossible 
 of realization out of Utopia or the land of Nowhere 
 whose customs it describes. 
 
 The work nevertheless presents a remarkable 
 example of suspended vitality which, three centuries 
 after its first conception, has produced effects ; for 
 the book is now read, and existing Socialists draw 
 both arguments and practical hints from it. It is, in 
 fact, the first true work on Social Philosophy in the 
 English language, with the true marks of genius upon 
 it, originality and the perception of permanent truth, 
 moral and social, and all the more remarkable as 
 coming from an English Lord Chancellor. 
 
 Other philosophers besides More exercised their 
 minds in devising Ideal Commonwealths, or in body- 
 ing forth " Visions of the Perfect State ;" in fact, for a 
 century and more, the construction of political 
 Utopias was a favourite species of literary effort, and 
 the first form of political speculation, cast in the 
 fanciful form probably in part out of deference to the 
 established order of things, and for fear of giving 
 offence to the powers that be, partly because the 
 materials for scientific treatment were not accessible, 
 nor the philosophic habit and faculty of generalizing 
 
SOCIALISM BEFORE THE IQTH CENTURY. 33 
 
 common until later. Campanella, Fenelon, Harring- 
 ton, Bacon, and others produced works of this species ; 
 and in most of them private property is found the social 
 stumbling-block and the cause of social ills, and 
 communism of some sort the only cure. 
 
 III. 
 
 IT was not difficult to devise Ideal Commonwealths, 
 the example once set ; but as it was found in time to be 
 profitless, the practice became discredited, the writer 
 was called a political projector, and Utopias ceased 
 to be produced. It was more to the purpose to dis- 
 cover, if possible, how actual commonwealths and 
 societies came into being, and their continued raison 
 d'etre, and this was the problem to which philo- 
 sophers next addressed themselves, a really philo- 
 sophical and most important problem, but, for the 
 solution of which unfortunately, as Sir Henry Maine 
 remarks, the historical knowledge of the seventeenth 
 and eighteenth century was quite insufficient, so 
 that the philosophers were obliged to supplement 
 their imperfect knowledge by ingenious guesses and 
 to substitute hypothesis for history, drawing there- 
 from the most plausible deductions they could. 
 
 For a century and a half the human mind sat down 
 obstinately in front of the problem of the origin of 
 Civil Society and Government. Hobbes, Locke, 
 Kilmer, Rousseau, all inquire into it, and the first 
 two, as well as Rousseau, base the origin upon an 
 original covenant or social contract. All three 
 discuss likewise the best form of political Constitution, 
 
 D 
 
34 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 which Hobbcs finds to be an Absolute Monarchy, 
 Locke a Constitutional Monarchy, and Rousseau a 
 Democracy. 
 
 The first of these writers, Hobbes, very far from 
 being what he has been called, "one of England's 
 false prophets," was one of the most clear-seeing, 
 original, and independent thinkers on morals and 
 politics that ever lived. His great work, " Leviathan," 
 was epoch-making in both. Though weak in history, 
 like all in his age, he was the first to perceive that the 
 conduct of associated men must be governed by the 
 nature the appetites, desires, and affections of in- 
 dividual men ; that a sound psychology, therefore, is 
 the'one base of morals and politics ; and accordingly 
 he begins his famous book with an account of indi- 
 vidual human nature, its passions, desires, and senti- 
 ments, in general with the principles that move man 
 to action. He is in error, indeed, in supposing that 
 man at all times is the same ; that rude primitive 
 men had as many or the same principles of action as 
 civilized men. He did not allow for the fact of 
 evolution ; that the soul of the civilized man is as 
 much expanded beyond that of the primitive man as 
 that of the grown man is beyond that of the child ; 
 consequently his account of the motives that first 
 urged men into society, and regulated their early 
 intercourse, requires qualification even on the score of 
 psychology were there no historical objections to 
 it. Nevertheless there remains a certain truth in 
 his theory and his reasonings. 
 
 What led men at all into civil society, according to 
 Hobbes, was their terror of anarchy and its ex- 
 
SOCIALISM BEFORE THE IQTH CENTURY. 35 
 
 perienced evils in the State of Nature, their original 
 state ; in which state, while there is ceaseless strife, 
 there are no arts, no learning, no inventions, no com- 
 merce, and the life of man is " solitary, poor, nasty, 
 brutish, and short/' Men weary of this state of misery 
 are urged to get out of it by their fears, and, being 
 rational, ''reason suggesteth convenient articles of 
 peace," which in brief were, that they should all 
 forego mutual aggressions, arid hand over their 
 powers to a single person, " one man or one body," 
 who should maintain peace and justice, and defend 
 them against outside enemies. This one is Sovereign : 
 his voice is Law " the speech of him that of right 
 commands. Property is the creature of law ; there 
 is no other origin for it. But the sovereign one 
 should be guided by the law or laws of nature in 
 issuing his laws. In the State of Nature every one 
 had a right to everything that he had the power to get, 
 but only so long as he was able to hold it. Hobbes 
 believes that an absolute monarchy, the monarch 
 governing according to the law of nature or natural 
 morality, is the best form of government for the whole 
 people, and especially for the masses. If the monarch 
 is wise and good, so much the better ; if not, still he 
 should be obeyed, because the remedy, revolution, 
 involving civil war and anarchy, would be worse than 
 the evil. Better to bear the ills we have than fly 
 to worse to anarchy and its horrors, to get out of 
 which was the original cause of the social contract 
 and the transfer of power to the sovereign one. 
 
 Locke likewise bases Civil Society on a social con- 
 tract. But with Locke there is a contract on both 
 
 D 2 
 
36 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 sides, on the governed that they will obey pro- 
 vided the sovereign will govern according to certain 
 fundamental principles. The obedience is not to be 
 unlimited or passive ; in other words, the sovereign's 
 power should not be absolute. Locke founds the 
 rights of property on labour, not on law. That 
 thing is " mine " if, having got the raw material of it 
 from the bounty of nature, I have " mixed my labour 
 with it," and this, whether the original material be 
 land in the primitive state of uncultivation, or any of 
 its spontaneous products. If there is plenty of other 
 land, I do no one harm by appropriating a part ; but 
 I must not take more than I can make use of, and 
 my title to any part is only fully confirmed by its 
 reclamation and cultivation. It is labour which gives 
 the natural title to property : moreover, Locke adds, 
 it is labour which is the cause of nearly all the 
 values of things, whether value in use or value in 
 exchange, an important conclusion, in which he 
 anticipates in great measure Ricardo's theory, that 
 exchange value depends on the quantity of labour 
 necessary to produce commodities and place them in 
 the market ; a conclusion, too, that Karl Marx and 
 the modern Socialists have seized upon and made the 
 foundation of their argument and indictment against 
 modern society. 
 
 One common conclusion of the two English 
 philosophers was important from the consequences 
 afterwards drawn from it by Rousseau. According 
 to both, men in a State of Nature were " free and 
 equal," a proposition that Locke limits and carefully 
 qualifies ; but which Hobbes holds in extreme form. 
 
SOCIALISM BEFORE THE IQTH CENTURY. 37 
 
 He maintains that not only were men originally 
 equal, but that they are so still in the main : " for when 
 all is reckoned together, the difference between man 
 and man is not so considerable* as that one man 
 should therefore claim to himself any benefit to which 
 another may not pretend as well as he. As to 
 strength of body, the weakest has strength enough to 
 kill the strongest by secret machination or confederacy 
 with others " ; and " as to the faculties of the mind," 
 he adds, *' I find yet a greater equality amongst men 
 than that of strength. Leaving out of count the 
 arts founded upon words, and especially that skill 
 of proceeding upon general rules, because these are 
 not native faculties/' men are on a tolerable equality. 
 That they do not generally think so is due to a vain 
 conceit of their own wisdom ; others they readily 
 allow may be more witty, eloquent, or learned, but 
 not more wise ; " for they see their own wit at hand, 
 others at a distance." But the best practical proof of 
 equality is that each one is satisfied with himself, and 
 would not exchange with another ; " as there is not 
 ordinarily a greater sign of the equal distribution of 
 anything than that every man is contented with his 
 own share." 
 
 The writings of both philosophers had much 
 influence on the course of English politics, the 
 friends of absolutism drawing their arguments from 
 Hobbes, the Whigs from Locke : though neither had 
 much effect on the material fortunes of the English 
 people. The cause of absolute monarchy was fought 
 and lost in England in the seventeenth century : the 
 theory of Locke and limited sovereignty won. It 
 
38 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 can scarcely be said that the English people gained 
 by the final result ; for when the prolonged struggle 
 which filled the whole century of the Stuart sovereigns 
 was finished, the power that really gained was the 
 English landowners, who ruled the country, whether 
 under the name of Whig or Tory, until the middle 
 class paved their way to power by the Reform Bill 
 in 1832. The limitation of the kingly power had for 
 inevitable effect the transfer of sovereignty to the 
 next most powerful interest, which, at the time, 
 before the rise of the rich middle class, was that of 
 the nobility and the country gentry. It is true that 
 at first only the Whig section or faction of them 
 had place and power, and afterwards the Tories, 
 but the class legislation of either so far favoured 
 both and strengthened their social position. The 
 power of the people declined. The yeomen dis- 
 appeared by degrees. They fought against Charles I., 
 in many cases because the neighbouring great lord 
 had taken the king's side. They favoured the Revo- 
 lution ; they gained nothing either by the defeat 
 of Charles or by the Revolution. Perhaps they 
 took the wrong side for their own interest. Perhaps 
 a strong and just monarch could have checked the 
 operation of certain adverse causes, lurriped under the 
 general head of economic causes, but which were 
 then, as the like are now, really due quite as much to 
 the unchecked selfishness of the powerful and the 
 greedy as to the alleged economic causes that the 
 yeomen were thriftless, employed bad methods of 
 culture, or had not sufficient capital, and were forced 
 at last, in their necessity, to sell to the agent of the 
 
SOCIALISM BEFORE THE IQTH CENTURY. 39 
 
 great lord and migrate to the towns. As a fact 
 their numbers steadily and rapidly declined from the 
 Revolution all through the eighteenth century. The 
 new farming class, with considerable capital, took 
 their place in the rural social economy, and for a 
 long time prospered ; while the class of agricultural 
 labourers for scanty but customary wages, who had 
 no land unless perhaps their share in the steadily 
 decreasing village common was constantly increas- 
 ing in relative numbers throughout the century. 
 
 IV. 
 
 A NEW stage in the history of Communism and 
 Socialism and a new era in the history of human 
 society begins with the works of Rousseau, the first 
 of which was published in 1750, a hundred years after 
 Hobbes 1 " Leviathan," and some sixty after Locke's 
 treatise on " Civil Government." 
 
 Rousseau belongs to the same general class of 
 political thinkers as Hobbes and Locke. Like them, 
 he believes that men lived in a State of Nature before 
 they entered into Civil Society ; that they emerged 
 from this state by a social compact ; that in this pre- 
 social state they were free and equal ; that though 
 there was physical or natural inequality, there was no 
 political inequality, or inequality of condition coming 
 merely from convention. He differs from Hobbes in 
 believing that men were peaceful and happy in the 
 State of Nature, and he differs from both Hobbes 
 and Locke in the conclusions he reaches, in particular 
 as to the best and the right form of government or 
 
40 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 political constitution, which with him is a democracy, 
 and not, as with Hobbes, an absolute monarchy, or as 
 with Locke, a limited one. The rightful sovereign is 
 the people, the collective body of citizens ; and the 
 people, though everywhere dethroned, despoiled, and 
 cast into slavery, has an inalienable right to retake 
 when it may its rightful inheritance, of which it 
 had been stripped by the strong and crafty, who 
 noiv plead law and prescription in favour of their 
 usurpations. 
 
 In his " Discours sur 1'Origine de I'lne'galite " (1754) 
 we have the story of the fall of man socially ; in his 
 other works, the " Contrat Social " in particular, the 
 way by which the former happy state may be best 
 regained. 
 
 According to Rousseau, man lived for uncounted 
 ages in the State of Nature before he attained to 
 Civil Society. He distinguishes several stages, each 
 of which was prolonged. At first he lived solitary, 
 like the lower animals, and not much superior to 
 them save in possessing two arms, superfluous for 
 locomotion, but useful in many ways, while the 
 brutes had to go on all fours. He lived on the fruits 
 and other spontaneous products of nature ; slept 
 under a tree or in a cavern ; was without clothing, 
 without a house, without language or ideas, 
 without a companion ; but strong, robust, and 
 healthy; and, as far as so Iowa being had faculties 
 of enjoyment, was happy and contented. After a 
 time difficulties roused his dormant genius. With 
 sharp stones and with the branches of trees he com- 
 bated the ferocious animals or his fellows, or he 
 
SOCIALISM BEFORE THE IQTH CENTURY. 41 
 
 secured fruit before inaccessible. As numbers increased 
 he had to acquire new arts. He invented a hook and 
 line, ensnared fish, and became ichthyophagous. He 
 invented rude bows and arrows, and became a hunter. 
 He discovered fire, and lived more easily through the 
 rigours of winter. In cold regions he clothed himself 
 with skins of beasts he had slain. 
 
 As yet man lived solitary ; by degrees he learned 
 the advantage of a certain association with others of 
 his kind, which, however, only endured " so long as 
 the passing need which had occasioned it." Here he 
 acquired the first rude idea of a mutual engagement, 
 of an inchoate contract in fact, and the advantages to 
 all of fulfilling his part. Here, too, he acquired the 
 art or developed the dormant faculty of speech, 
 which at first consisted only of inarticulate or imitative 
 cries and gestures. With the hardest and sharpest 
 stones fashioned into axes, he cut wood, hollowed 
 the ground, and, with the help of clay and mud, made 
 the branches of trees into rude huts an important 
 epoch, because the first rude huts, according to 
 Rousseau, were the first rude form of private property 
 and first permitted a true family life. In fact, private 
 property and the family, now threatened by advanced 
 Communists, are natural, are older than Civil Society, 
 and not mere creatures of Law and the State. Hus- 
 band and wife, father and infant, are united. in one 
 natural society, in one home, from which follow the 
 two " sweetest sentiments known to men, conjugal and 
 paternal love." And now the functions of the sexes 
 begin to differentiate ; the woman becomes more 
 sedentary, and remains to look after the home and the 
 
42 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 infants, while the man goes abroad to search for the 
 common subsistence. 
 
 In such a simple and solitary life, with few wants 
 and improved instruments for their supply, the men 
 would enjoy much leisure, which they employed 
 partly in procuring commodities better dispensed with 
 because such, at first unnecessary, in time gave rise to 
 real wants, the supply of which was a less gratification 
 than the privation was a pain. 
 
 Such is the fancy picture of man in the first two 
 stages of his career. It is objected that the picture 
 is too idyllic, and does not agree v/ith what we know of 
 savages in the state most nearly corresponding to that 
 described. Further, it is not confirmed by historical 
 research into the earliest times, which has never dis- 
 covered the solitary individual man, but only groups, 
 generally groups of kindred. Nor has Darwinism or 
 prc-historic research given confirmation of the view, 
 except in so far as the remains of the cave-man, 
 with the stone hatchets found near him, may be so 
 regarded. What follows is less disputable, though not 
 all confirmed. There is, in fact, a mixture of doubtful 
 hypothesis, ingenious reasoning, and general truth. 
 
 By degrees, he tells us, men, hitherto nomad, 
 settled down in fixed places, united themselves into 
 groups (he does not say groups of kindred, which was 
 the true state of the case) ; finally, in each country 
 they formed an individual nation, whose units were 
 like in manners and character, not by rules or 
 laws, but by similarity of life and food and the 
 common influence of climate. They lived in aggrega- 
 tions of cabins, and in village societies ; and here new 
 
SOCIALISM BEFORE THE IQTH CENTURY. 43 
 
 qualities of soul and spirit were born, new sentiments 
 were evoked. First was born love between the sexes, 
 as distinct from what he before called conjugal affec- 
 tion. With love cajne into the world the dark twin- 
 born passion of jealousy. All the troop of virtues 
 and vices that have reference to society, all, save only 
 those relating to property, came into being. Inequality 
 of conditions now first appears, because natural dif- 
 ferences first manifest themselves differences in 
 beauty, eloquence, skill, strength, courage, and whoso 
 has most of these gains most regard, secures in virtue 
 of the superior excellence a larger share, not of material 
 things, but of what is more valued praise, esteem, 
 and consideration, so early and necessarily does ine- 
 quality of natural gift bring its natural complement 
 of unequal reward. 
 
 These unequal natural gifts and unequal benefits as 
 the result of them, gave birth to bad qualities, vanity 
 and contempt on the one side, and on the other envy 
 and shame, as they were likewise the sources of pains, 
 heart-burnings, and humiliations, to be set over 
 against the pleasures of praise and esteem. 
 
 But on the whole this was the stage at which our 
 species should have arrested itself. It was the hap- 
 piest state, just as there is a happiest period in the life 
 of the individual, at which he would, if he could, remain 
 always, and arrest the flight of time. This is the state 
 at which the savages have stopped. It was the 
 least subject to revolutions ; the best for the indi- 
 vidual man, who in it was independent, free, equal, or 
 nearly so, to his fellows, ready for any fortune, with no 
 care for the morrow, such as troubles so many of us, 
 
44 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 and who, in the constant exercise of all his faculties 
 in many directions, derived a pleasure as well as a 
 sense of dignity and self-sufficingness unknown to the 
 wearied drudges of monotonous labour under modern 
 civilization. 
 
 So long as men were contented to remain in this 
 state ..." whilst they attempted no work that one 
 alone could not execute, nor tried arts requiring the 
 co-operation of many hands (division of labour), 
 they lived free, healthy, good, and happy lives, as 
 far as their nature allowed them to do so, and they 
 continued to enjoy amongst each other all the sweet- 
 ness of independent social intercourse; but as soon ns 
 it was perceived that it was profitable for one to have 
 provisions for two, equality disappeared, property 
 crept in, labour became necessary, and the vast primal 
 forests were transformed into smiling plains which 
 it was necessary to water with the sweat of men, and 
 in which slavery and misery were soon seen to bud 
 and grow with the harvests." 2 
 
 It was to the arts of metallurgy and agriculture that 
 the change was due, because they led to a greater 
 cultivation of the ground, to division of labour, and 
 finally to private property, and all the disastrous ills 
 that followed its institution. It was not gold and 
 silver, as the poets feign, but iron and corn, " which 
 have civilized men and destroyed the human race." 
 From the cultivation of land follows necessarily its 
 division and appropriation. " It is the labour of 
 cultivation alone which, by giving a right to the cul- 
 
 2 " Discours sur l'Inegalit." 
 
SOCIALISM BEFORE THE I9TH CENTURY. 45 
 
 tivator over the produce of the earth on which he has 
 laboured, gives by consequence the right over the land 
 itself, at least until the following harvest, and so from 
 year to year, and this, being a continued possession, 
 easily passes into property." 
 
 But property once established, inequality of wealth 
 soon follows ; for now the natural differences of men 
 have their opportunity. The strongest will do more 
 work, the most skilful will draw a greater advantage 
 from his efforts, the most ingenious will devise means 
 of lessening his labour or will get a larger result from 
 it. The reward of the agriculturist and of the maker of 
 ploughs will not necessarily be equal, as it will 
 depend on the strength of the demand of each for the 
 other's product ; the one may earn much while the 
 other with difficulty will be able to live. Besides 
 different qualities in men, different circumstances 
 will affect men's fortunes unequally. 
 
 A wholly new and a worse world opens with the 
 installation of private property ; human nature ex- 
 pands itself in many directions ; above all in evil 
 directions. There follows a dark picture of human 
 nature in the new order, and a black list of all the 
 evil passions engendered : man is compelled fatally, 
 under the system, by his circumstances and his wants 
 to do evil, to be in fact a scoundrel. No pessimist, or 
 cynic, or Calvinist has ever drawn a darker portrait 
 of man than Rousseau's representation of him under 
 the new regime. He can no longer dispense with his 
 fellows : " rich, he has need of their services ; poor, he 
 has need of their succour ; and the middle condition 
 does not enable him to do without them. He 
 
46 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 must then seek ceaselessly to interest others in his 
 fortune, and to make them find it, in fact or in 
 appearance, their profit to labour for his advan- 
 tage; which makes him become artful and over- 
 reaching with one, hard and domineering with 
 another, and compels him to impose upon all whom 
 he cannot make to fear him, while he finds it not 
 his interest to benefit them. Finally, devouring 
 ambition, the passion to raise his relative fortune, 
 less from any real need than to exalt himself 
 above others, inspires in all men a dark desire 
 to injure each other, and a secret jealousy so 
 much the more dangerous that, in order to 
 effect its stroke in surety, it often assumes the 
 mask of benevolence ; in a word, competition and 
 rivalry on one side, and on the other opposition of 
 interests, with always the hidden desire to make 
 profit at the cost of others; all these evils are the 
 first effect of property and the inseparable cortege 
 of the growing inequality." 
 
 Such was the state to which primitive and 
 innocent man had come, and private property was 
 the cause of it. The course of things went on : 
 when the land was all occupied, and the different 
 possessions closed together and touched each other, 
 there were some men landless and with no handi- 
 crafts ; such were compelled, according as they were 
 spiritless or bold, either to receive or take by force 
 their subsistence from the rich; in the former case 
 as they did not receive without equivalent we had 
 slaves, in the latter thieves or robbers. The rich, 
 " like the famished wolf that, having once tasted 
 
SOCIALISM BEFORE THE IQTH CENTURY. 47 
 
 human flesh, disdains all other food," grew enamoured 
 of domination as the greatest of pleasures, and used 
 their slaves to subjugate more. "The lost 
 equality was followed by frightful disorder : the 
 usurpations of the rich, the brigandage of the poor, 
 the unbridled passions of all, extinguishing natural 
 pity and the voice, as yet feeble, of justice, made 
 men avaricious, greedy, ambitious, and wicked. The 
 right of the strong set aside the right of the 'first 
 occupant' after murderous conflicts. The nascent 
 Society was in the most horrible state of war. The 
 human race degraded and miserable, no longer able 
 to retrace its steps or renounce the evil acquisitions it 
 had made, and labouring only to its shame by the 
 abuse of the faculties that should have done it honour 
 was upon the eve of its ruin." 
 
 In fact, the human race had at length slowly 
 reached the condition that Hobbes declared to be the 
 necessary and universal condition of man in a state of 
 nature, namely the " war of all with all." It was a 
 state of things only favourable to the bold lacklands 
 and lackalls, but very unfavourable to the rich, who, 
 while they had to bear the total expenses of the 
 general war as the only possessors of superfluous 
 goods, were yet equally subject to danger with their 
 assailants. " Moreover, on reflecting, they felt they 
 could give no colour to their usurpations which rested 
 on a precarious and abusive tenure, and that de- 
 pending, as they really did, on force, a stronger force 
 might take away what force had given without 
 their having much cause of complaint. Even those 
 enriched by industry could not plead much better 
 
48 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 titles to their property. To the pica, ' I have built 
 this wall,' ' I have reclaimed this land/ would be the 
 response * And who gave you the boundary lines, 
 and on what pretence are you to be paid at our ex- 
 pense for a labour we did not impose on you ? Do 
 you know that a multitude of your brothers perish or 
 suffer from want of those things of which you have a 
 superfluity, and that it would require the consent ex- 
 press and unanimous of the human race for you to 
 appropriate from the common subsistence anything 
 in excess of your own ? " 
 
 In the great strait in which they were placed, 
 having neither good reasons nor yet sufficient force 
 on their side, the rich summoned craft and cunning to 
 their aid. They conceived a great idea " a project 
 the most astute that ever entered the human 
 spirit by which to convert their adversaries into 
 their defenders, to inspire them with wholly new 
 maxims, and to introduce institutions which would 
 be as favourable to them as Natural Law and the law 
 of the strong were the contrary." The rude and 
 unreflecting multitude were easily seduced by their 
 plausible reasons to carry out their aims. " Let us 
 unite," said the crafty rich, " to guarantee the feeble 
 from oppression, to check the ambitious, and to assure 
 to each one the possession of what he has. Let us 
 institute laws of justice and of peace to which all will 
 be compelled to conform, which will make no distinc- 
 tion of persons, and which will repair to some degree 
 the caprice of fortune by subjecting equally the 
 powerful and the feeble to mutual duties. In one word, 
 in place of turning our forces against each other, let 
 
SOCIALISM BEFORE THE TQTH CENTURY. 49 
 
 us unite them into one supreme power over all, 
 which will govern us by wise laws, protect 
 and defend all the members of the association, 
 repulse the common enemy, and maintain us in an 
 eternal concord." This succeeded : and thus was 
 born, according to Rousseau, Civil Society and Laws 
 "which gave new fetters to the feeble, and new forces 
 to the rich ; which destroyed beyond recovery natural 
 liberty, fixed for ever the law of property and of 
 inequality, converted a clever usurpation into an 
 irrevocable right, and, for the profit of a few ambitious 
 men, subjected henceforth all the human race to 
 servitude and misery." 
 
 The establishment of one political society necessi- 
 tated the like transformation amongst all other 
 nations and tribes, in order to concentrate their 
 strength, and to prevent their own subjugation. The 
 State of Nature and of War subsists thereafter only 
 between political societies or States. And what terrible 
 wars and butcheries have followed, so terrible that the 
 slaughter attending a single battle often far exceeds all 
 those killed violently during ages in the state of nature. 
 Here the modern Anarchists, who would return to 
 the State of Nature to avoid national wars, have bor- 
 rowed a hint. From the following they may take 
 another: "In spite of all the labours of the sagest 
 legislators, the political state always remained im- 
 perfect, because it was almost the work of chance, 
 and being badly begun, time in discovering its de- 
 fects and suggesting remedies could never repair 
 its fundamental vices ; they tinkered without cessa- 
 tion, in place of beginning by clearing the ground and 
 
50 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 removing the old materials, in order to raise a good 
 structure, as did Lycurgus at Sparta." 
 
 The Society thus formed was at first held very 
 loosely together by a few general conventions, which 
 each one engaged himself to observe. Experience 
 soon showed the feebleness of such a Constitution. 
 It was easy to infringe the engagements, and yet to 
 avoid punishment. The law, such as it was, was 
 eluded in infinite ways ; till at length it became ne- 
 cessary to hand over the public authority to magis- 
 tratesa dangerous deposit, because the magistrates 
 in time made their offices hereditary, and came to 
 regard themselves as the masters of the State, of 
 which they were only the functionaries, and their 
 fellowc-itizens as their slaves. 
 
 In the progress of inequality, the establishment of 
 law and the right of property was the first term, the 
 institution of magistrates the second, the third and 
 the last term was the transformation of delegated 
 authority into absolute authority ; from the first we 
 have the distinction of rich and poor ; from the second 
 that of the powerful and the weak ; from the third, that 
 of master and slave ; the last degree of inequality and 
 that to which the others tend, " until, at least, new revo- 
 lutions dissolve the Government completely, or bring 
 it nearer to a legitimate institution." 
 
 Four kinds of inequality are distinguished : those of 
 rank, riches, power, and personal merit ; of these four, 
 though the personal qualities are the source of all 
 the rest originally, it is that of riches to which they 
 reduce themselves in the end because wealth being 
 
SOCIALISM BEFORE THE IQTH CENTURY. 51 
 
 more immediately useful and easy of transfer, the 
 holder of it "avails himself easily of its force to buy 
 all the rest," and the extent to which this is actually 
 done measures the degree of corruption of a society 
 and a people. 
 
 That of modern society and civilization is extreme. 
 Gone far from the path of Nature and Reason, we 
 are consumed with foolish desires for factitious 
 honours and distinctions which make all men com- 
 petitors and rivals, or rather enemies. To such an 
 extreme degree has man become denaturalized, that 
 we have finally a " handful of the powerful and rich at 
 the summit of grandeur and fortune, whilst the crowd 
 crawl beneath in obscurity and misery ; the first not 
 really valuing the things they possess, unless so far as 
 the others are deprived of them, and who, without 
 other change of state, would cease to be happy if the 
 people ceased to be miserable," their misery giving a 
 relish and a sense of enjoyment, their pain an added 
 pleasure a terrible accusation, but one which happily, 
 though in some cases there are faint grounds for it, 
 must be pronounced grossly exaggerated, and in many 
 cases the reverse of the truth. He proceeds in his 
 indictment : The people are oppressed ; their rights are 
 extinguished ; their murmurs treated as sedition ; their 
 goods are forcibly taken from them in the shape of 
 taxes, whilst mutual dissensions and hatred are sown 
 amongst them by their chiefs and rulers, in order 
 that they may be the more easily held in subjection 
 the more they are divided > 
 
 Such disorders intensified lead at length to the 
 despotism of one ; the last term of inequality, and 
 
 E 2 
 
52 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 that which completes the cycle. For now all become 
 once again equal, in that they are nothing before the 
 despot. We have once more a return to the law of 
 the strongest and a new State of Nature, because the 
 tyrant is only master whilst he is the strongest, which 
 is the State of Nature save that it is worse than the 
 original state because it has been engendered by the 
 excess of corruption. 
 
 Such, in outline, is Rousseau's famous story of the 
 fall of man a very different one from that of Moses 
 or of Milton. The spirit of covetousness is here Satan, 
 the tempter ; Property is the forbidden fruit, from 
 which has come evil and misery into the world ; and 
 Law, in the hands of one or a few powerful ones, has 
 been the means whereby the evils have been kept up. 
 Differing alike from Hobbes and Locke in this, but 
 agreeing with modern Anarchists and many past 
 Law Reformers, he regards laws in general as favour- 
 ing the rich and powerful and oppressing the poor. 
 
 In the " Contrat Social" (1762) we have Rous- 
 seau's ideal of a good government, and his theory of 
 the true principles of political rights. The only legi- 
 timate base of civil society is the fundamental Social 
 Pact or Contract which runs as follows : " Each of us 
 puts in common his goods, his person, his life, and 
 all his powers undef the supreme direction of the 
 general will, and we collectively receive each member 
 as an indivisible part of the whole." This act of asso- 
 ciation produces a body moral and collective, called 
 formerly City, but now Republic or body politic, which 
 is the State when it is passive, the Sovereign when it 
 is active. The contractors are collectively the people ; 
 
SOCIALISM BEFORE THE IQTH CENTURY. 53 
 
 individually, as sharers in the sovereign power, they 
 are citizens ; and, as governed by . the laws, sub- 
 jects. 
 
 The people collectively form the sovereign. The 
 exercise of the General Will is the sovereignty. The 
 general will when enunciated , is Law. The aim of 
 law is the general good, and not the good of indivi- 
 duals or classes. It should be limited to what is 
 good for all, or at least for the great majority. But 
 though the people must, be supposed to desire and 
 to will the common good, it does not always know 
 it ; its will is always right, but intellectually it may 
 be deceived, Hence the need of wise legislators, es- 
 pecially at the first formation of States, to furnish 
 laws and institutions conformable to the general 
 will and the common good ; to what the general 
 will would be if all were fully enlightened. This did 
 Moses, and in later times, Mahomet, great and extra- 
 ordinary men, who, to give a greater sanction to the 
 laws, attributed their own wisdom to divine inspira- 
 tion. As to the common good, Liberty and Equality 
 are its two chief ingredients, and the first aims of 
 great legislators ; as much individual liberty as is 
 compatible with submission to laws made for the 
 general good, and above all, a reasonable, not a com- 
 plete, equality. Liberty is not possible with great in- 
 equality of material conditions. In addition to these 
 two main constituents of the general good in all 
 countries and times, the great law-givers in their 
 laws and institutions should have special regard to 
 the peculiar national bent or genius of the people, as 
 well as to their physical environment ; otherwise, if 
 
54 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 these two things are left out of the law-giver's purview, 
 or if he runs counter to them, the state will never be 
 solidly based. 
 
 Turning from what should be, to what actually 
 is, as matter of fact there are few good govern- 
 ments. Liberty does not exist, equality still less, and 
 laws far from aiming at them, have been employed 
 chiefly to maintain the rich in his wealth, and the 
 poor in his misery and subjection. Even if a good 
 political system were possessed by a people, it 
 would only last for a period, because all things human, 
 including the best States, grow old and die, and 
 tend to degenerate before they die. The most that a 
 people could hope for, supposing that they had a good 
 polity, would be to delay its decline, to lengthen 
 its life, by interesting themselves in public matters, 
 instead of deputing the work to others, as not being 
 their own concern. When they become indifferent 
 and prefer ease, gain, or anything else to liberty, the 
 state is already on the fatal incline. 
 
 The people may part with the Executive power, in 
 fact they must do so ; they must never lose control 
 of the Legislative power, if they would remain free 
 and be the real source of the laws they impose on 
 themselves. They are free so long as they submit 
 only to laws imposed by themselves ; but if they 
 part with the legislative power, their officials will be- 
 come their masters. The safeguards by which the 
 usurpation of the sovereign legislative power by the 
 executive may be prevented, are periodic popular 
 assemblies, which should meet by law without requir- 
 ing special summons, at which two questions should 
 
SOCIALISM BEFORE THE I9TH CENTURY. 55 
 
 be submitted. The first, whether it please the sovereign 
 to preserve the existing form of government ; the 
 second, whether it please the people to leave the 
 administration to those who are actually charged 
 with it. Certain means of strengthening the consti- 
 tution of the state are pointed out; the modes of 
 election ^of officers and functionaries in democracies 
 and monarchies compared ; the dictatorship as a 
 temporary expedient in a time of national crisis is 
 permitted, and the relations of religion to the state 
 are laid down, the chief of which is the toleration of 
 all religions that tolerate others, provided only that 
 their dogmas are not contrary to the duties of 
 citizens. 
 
 The consequences of these two works on politics, to- 
 gether with his other works on education, art, morals, 
 and the conduct of life, were prodigious. Not 
 since the voice of Luther was heard, hardly 
 since the words of the Gospel were spoken, 
 had there been words so charged with far-reaching 
 effects ; words which stirred thinkers, poets, the 
 middle classes, the people ; words which have been 
 the fountain-head of all revolutionary, communistic 
 and socialistic literature since, and whose influence 
 will be felt while the earth revolves in space. 
 
 The irrevocable words were spoken that had so 
 long waited for the right speaker, and which ex- 
 pressed the thought obscurely felt by millions of 
 human hearts. The multitude were awakened to 
 consciousness by them. The poor had found a power- 
 ful pleader, the dumb millions a voice, Democracy its 
 refounder, and Humanity in the eighteenth century 
 
56 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 its typical representative man, who gave vent to its in- 
 most sentiments, troubles, aspirations, and audacious 
 spirit of revolt. Whilst moralists in England were 
 elaborating their moral systems and hatching theories 
 of moral sentiments, suddenly there appeared this 
 disturber of symmetrical systems, announcing that 
 morality and moral obligation are largely meaning- 
 less, so long as society, the social structure and the 
 social order in its essence, reposes on injustice sup- 
 ported by fictions and falsehoods ; and with one 
 result, if his message be true, that the moral systems 
 become suddenly vanity, and the whole subject must 
 be considered afresh from the new point of view. 
 In like manner, whilst the political writers and jurists 
 were repairing their old theories in language abstract 
 and formidable, here was a man of original insight 
 with a fresh account of the actual origin of law, as well 
 as of its only legitimate origin; with a new theory of 
 society and law as they ought to be ; a man of genius, 
 sincere and earnest, who has suffered from the evils he 
 denounces ; one who can speak clear words, new 
 words, acute and ingenious, and felt by the hearers to 
 be largely true, though never heard before ; who 
 does not speak merely to the learned, but who can 
 make, any intelligent reader comprehend him ; one, 
 too, who, while he can cut in twain a sophism as 
 skilfully as the most accomplished of the dialecticians, 
 or as the most learned of the philosophers, at times 
 throws out memorable sentences that the rude swain 
 or unlettered artisan can comprehend. Once again 
 in the world was seen the marvellous power of " the 
 Word " when uttered by a man of genius, with a heart 
 
SOCIALISM BEFORE THE IQTH CENTURY. 57 
 
 beating for humanity, who had the eye to see and the 
 courage to speak ; above all, when he speaks the 
 word that his Age wants said. For Rousseau merely 
 said best what many in his age were endeavouring to 
 say ; he merely expressed most clearly, sincerely, fully 
 and eloquently the thought and sentiment of his age 
 everywhere felt in the air, the spirit of his time which 
 was seeking for a voice and found it at length in 
 him. 
 
 They were terrible as well as memorable words : 
 charged with class hatreds which they were destined 
 to evoke ; fraught with war and revolution and 
 anarchy ; words which, little as their author intended 
 it, brought not peace on earth, but a sword. Never- 
 theless it was necessary that what was true in them 
 should be spoken, and on Rousseau, first amongst the 
 modems, fell the burden of the old prophets. There 
 are errors in his writings ; he was wanting in our 
 ampler and more accurate historical knowledge ; he 
 exaggerates social evils; he needlessly blackens 
 human nature, as it now actually is, since if man, 
 in the course of evolution, has acquired new vices, he 
 has also developed glorious virtues. Further, his 
 account of the origin and evolution of law, and of 
 property, does not accord with the results of recent 
 historical research into the early condition of men. 
 There was no social contract of the kind described. 
 Law, like most other things, began at a germinal 
 point, and went through slow insensible changes, 
 which can be only roughly marked into stages 
 patriarchal commands, customs long obeyed and 
 taken up as laws after states were formed, the com- 
 
58 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 pilation of these by great lawgivers, like Lycurgus, 
 Manu, Solon, finally, legislation by the sovereign 
 body. And the like is true of the formation of States 
 or civil societies which were not, any more than laws, 
 born on a determinate day, but were for the most 
 part the result of a slow evolution. 
 
 He is wrong as to the primitive state of man. 
 Our remote ancestors appear to have been neither 
 happy nor amiable so far as the somewhat doubtful 
 light of historical research has fallen on them in early 
 times, or the more doubtful light of scientific specu- 
 lation, in prehistoric times. It is questionable if they 
 ever lived solitary, even in prehistoric times. And 
 it is certain that the savages of to-day are not 
 happier than the masses of the people in civilized 
 communities, though probably they are happier, or at 
 least feel less pain and misery, than the members of oui 
 lowest social stratum. They do indeed enjoy freedom 
 from all laws, and from every restraint except custom, 
 and they have a certain sense of self-sufficingness, and 
 perhaps a sense of completeness of life beyond what 
 is possible to our labouring population, who, through 
 excessive division of labour, must devote their 
 efforts to doing the same thing continually. But these 
 advantages of the savages are purchased at great 
 cost. Their numbers are relatively few, and these 
 few can with difficulty satisfy even the lowest and 
 most elementary needs of life. 
 
 He is wrong in maintaining that metallurgy and 
 agriculture destroyed the human race in any other 
 sense than that they made possible the first great 
 departure from the nomad or savage life, and led, as 
 
SOCIALISM BEFORE THE IQTH CENTURY. 59 
 
 Rousseau rightly shows they did lead, to private 
 property in land. 
 
 Nevertheless he was largely right. There is a 
 broad general truth in his historical stages, and a 
 truth partial, but terrible, running through his 
 denunciations of society and civilization, which is 
 independent of the accuracy of his historical facts. 
 We recognize the general soundness, strictness, and 
 ingenuity of his reasoning, the clearness of his 
 perceptions, the sincerity of his convictions, the 
 fervour and earnestness of his eloquence. He 
 remains the prophet and founder of modern 
 Democracy, the forerunner of modern Socialism, and 
 one of the most remarkable of the sons of men. 
 
 V. 
 
 As to the question how far Rousseau is to be re- 
 garded as a Socialist, the answer depends on the 
 particular sense we attach to the word. He cer- 
 tainly was not a Socialist in the sense of Collec- 
 tivist, nor can he be regarded as a Communist, though 
 there are arguments that favour Communism in the 
 " Discours sur 1'Inegalite." 3 It was undoubtedly his 
 opinion that men should never have left the state of 
 
 s In particular the well-known passage: " Le premier qui, 
 ayant enclos un terrain, s'avisa de dire ; Ced cst a moi, fut le 
 vrai fondateur de la societe' civile. Que de crimes, de miseres 
 et d'horreurs n'eiit pas e'pargne's au genre humain celui qui 
 arrachant les pieux et comblant les fosse's cut crie a ses sem- 
 blables ; Gardez-vous d'dcouter cet imposteur ! vous etes perdus 
 si vous oubliez que les fruits sont a tons et que la terre n'est a 
 personne." 
 
(50 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 Nature and the primitive Communism (their doing so 
 being- partly voluntary) ; that so far as voluntary it 
 was a fatal and nearly irreparable mistake. But he is 
 far from urging any attempt to return to it (other than 
 by endeavouring after a more natural and less conven- 
 tional life), because, on his principles a civilized 
 society can no more return on its old steps than an 
 old man can become young again ; civilized society 
 being in his view a society in old age, and subject 
 to all the pains and infirmities of old age. The 
 most that can now be done is to make the best of 
 the case, to mitigate the infirmities and defer decay 
 by good laws and institutions well administered, and 
 by good manners and morals in harmony with the 
 laws. In the "Contrat Social," he tells us that in a pro- 
 perly constituted government the General Will should 
 prevail. In the "Economic Politiquc," he further 
 tells us that virtue and morality consist in conform- 
 ing to the general will as expressed in good laws. 
 If there were generally such conformity, if such laws, 
 wisely framed as expressions of the general will, were 
 obeyed by the people and administered by the 
 magistrates and elected rulers; above all, if the 
 people were early trained to respect the laws, and 
 to love their country, life even in our modern effete 
 societies would not be at all a bad thing in fact, he 
 adds, regardless of consistency, "there would be little 
 wanting to make the people happy." This is un- 
 doubtedly a contradiction of the doctrine in his 
 former work ; but the essential thing to note is that 
 we have here his later ideas ; that they bore memor- 
 able fruit thirty years later when the attempt was 
 
SOCIALISM BEFORE THE IpTH CENTURY. 6l 
 
 made to realize them in France; and that the 
 trine of the supremacy of the will of the people, 
 underlies, nominally at least, all modern popular 
 governments. 
 
 He repeats that a primary aim of such a govern- 
 ment should be to prevent too great inequality of 
 property ; and the equalizing process should be 
 effected, " not by taking riches from their possessors, 
 but by giving to all the means of increasing wealth ; 
 not by building hospitals or almhouses for the poor, 
 but by guaranteeing the citizens from becoming 
 poor, by laws and institutions " ; for, as he pointedly 
 says, it is precisely because there is such a powerful 
 tendency in things to inequality, that it must be met 
 by the constant counteraction and pressure of laws 
 and institutions. In various specified ways, some 
 economically sound, some erroneous, governments 
 can aid in the general diffusion of wealth. But 
 above all things it is necessary to first form good 
 citizens, and to have good citizens it will be neces- 
 sary to take them early in hand ; " it will be neces- 
 sary to educate the children." Education should be 
 a function of the state, not of the parent. Then 
 follow his later views on private property ; in which 
 we find the statement that seems at first remarkable 
 as coming from Rousseau, " that the rights of pro- 
 perty are the most sacred of all the rights of citizens, 
 more so in some respects than liberty itself." Strange 
 too that we find good arguments against curtail- 
 ing inheritance, which have been reproduced by Mill 
 (" Pol. Economy," Book II., chap, ii.) : one being the 
 sensible and well-known one that the children are 
 
62 SOCIALISM NFAV AND OLD. 
 
 frequently co-labourers with the parent ; the other 
 that there is nothing so unsettling in a state as great 
 vicissitudes of fortune in its citizens which the aboli- 
 tion of inheritance would involve. It is chiefly by 
 judicious taxation, on which he reasons ingeniously 
 and acutely, that Rousseau, equally with Montesquieu, 
 would prevent inequality. " It is by taxes like these." 
 he says, " which ease the poor, and fall on the rich, 
 that we must prevent the continual increase of in- 
 equality of fortune, the enslavement by the rich of a 
 multitude of labourers and useless servants, the mul- 
 tiplication of idle men in the large cities, and the 
 desertion of the country districts." In the first place, 
 other things equal, the man who has ten times the 
 wealth of another, should pay ten times his tax ; 
 secondly, one who has no more than necessaries, 
 should not pay any tax. The man who has more, if 
 the need should arise, might fairly be required to pay 
 the whole surplus above necessaries. The rich draw 
 more advantages from government and the social 
 union ; they get all the lucrative posts, sinecures, 
 favours, exemptions. The law favours them, takes 
 every pains to protect them, but hardly ever punishes 
 them. "The rich man gets a hundred things, for 
 which he pays not a sou." The poor man gets 
 nothing, neither goods nor succour. With the 
 greatest difficulty can he get even justice. Then the 
 losses of the poor are less reparable, and the diffi- 
 culty of acquisition is infinitely greater. Moreover, 
 what the poor pay in taxes is for ever lost to them 
 in the money form, while it is mostly into the hands 
 of rich people those who have a share in the govern- 
 
SOCIALISM BEFORE THE IQTH CENTURY. 63 
 
 ment, or those who have influence 'with these that 
 soon or late the product of the tax passes. 
 
 On all these grounds taxation should have regard 
 to the different conditions of the contributors, and 
 especially as respects superfluities, and so should not 
 fall, as it generally does, on the people, but on the 
 rich. Sumptuary taxes, taxes on costly articles, 
 livery, carnages, the mass of objects of luxury, or 
 amusement are recommended as forming the least 
 onerous and most certain means of raising a revenue 
 for the State. 
 
 Thus then, finally, we see that Rousseau was a 
 Socialist. He is a preacher of equality, and the 
 most powerful. The greatest evil is inequality. A 
 good government should aim by good laws and wise 
 measures at preventing inequality from growing too 
 great. Education should be a state function. But 
 all this is Socialism, and State Socialism ; not Social- 
 ism in the new sense of collective ownership and co- 
 operative labour, because this particular form of the 
 general thing would have been irrelevant to the eco- 
 nomical circumstances of the time, and inconceivable 
 before the industrial revolution, and the large system 
 of production and concentration of capital in few 
 hands which was the result of that revolution, itself 
 scarcely then begun. Something, indeed, like the 
 idea of land nationalization he had in his mind ; 4 to 
 be effected by the relief of the peasants from accu- 
 mulated feudal and fiscal burdens, so as to leave 
 them owners, as was in fact largely done by the Re- 
 
 4 In the "Economic Politique," in particular, he gives expres- 
 sion to it. 
 
64 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 volution ; but he had no idea of the nationalization of 
 capital, the favourite idea of Collectivist Socialists. 
 He aimed in general at the diffusion of property, 
 which if it were done and could be maintained, the 
 better part of the new Socialists' end would be 
 secured without confiscation and the danger attending 
 a general social transformation. 
 
 VI. 
 
 WlTH respect to Rousseau's direct influence on 
 Socialistic development, M. Janet thinks that he 
 has "furnished to the Socialists formulas rather 
 than arguments;" but allows that "he is incontcst- 
 ably the founder of modern communism." On the 
 other hand, M. de Lavclcye traces the Socialism of 
 Fichte, which contains Collectivism in germ, as well 
 as the Anarchism of Bakunin, to the ideas of 
 Rousseau. 
 
 The Abbe* Mably, however, M. Janet admits, is a dis- 
 ciple of Rousseau. In his " Legislation ou Principes 
 des Lois" (1776) Mably attacks private property, 
 and defends Communism as the natural system ; so 
 natural that the real difficulty is to explain how 
 property ever arose. Men arc equal ; as they issue 
 from the hands of Nature, they are all similar. It is 
 the inequality of fortune that makes, through in- 
 equality of education, the great seeming inequality 
 of talents and ability. Some natural differences of 
 gift there are, but they are not great, 5 and they bear 
 
 5 In maintaining this proposition, Mably is in agreement 
 with Hobbes for the most part, but not with the St. Simoniau 
 
SOCIALISM BEFORE THE IpTH CENTURY. 65 
 
 no proportion to the monstrous inequalities of 
 fortune. 
 
 But though Communism is according to Nature, 
 Mably knows as well as Rousseau that it is imprac- 
 ticable for the present ; the opposite system of pro- 
 perty having such deep and widespread roots. The 
 only thing left to be done is for legislators to aim at 
 a return to Communism by slow stages, or at least 
 to take practicable steps in its direction. To this end, 
 he recommends measures some of them similar to 
 those suggested by Rousseau ; namely, direct taxes on 
 land ; sumptuary laws ; laws regulating successions ; 
 prohibition of testaments ; agrarian laws limiting 
 the extent of landed property. 
 
 The cruder Communism of Morellet as given in 
 his Code of Nature (1755) does not appear to have 
 been due to the influence of Rousseau, but rather to 
 general ideas of the kind " in the air ; " yet as his 
 scheme was that which, according to M. Janet, 
 Babceuf afterwards attempted to carry out by force in 
 France, and as our modern Collectivists appear to 
 have taken some hints from it, it may be referred to 
 here. Morellet's fundamental laws are three : no 
 property ; every one to be a public servant or 
 functionary ; G and every one to do real work, as 
 insisted on in the Collectivism of to-day. Production 
 
 Socialists, nor with the common verdict of mankind, so long as 
 Nature produces Newtons, Watts, or in general what are called 
 men of genius. 
 
 6 This is a point much insisted upon by the Collectivist 
 Socialists : see Gronlund's " Co-operative Commonwealth," 
 p, 146. 
 
66 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 and distribution are to be regulated by the State ; 
 education likewise, and in fact the whole of life, as in 
 More r s "Utopia," to the circle of ideas in which, though 
 even less practicable in the eighteenth century than 
 in the sixteenth, Morellet's scheme belongs. 
 
 A much nearer approach to the Socialism of to-day 
 is made by Fichte, the great German idealist philo- 
 sopher. His theory of property is remarkable, and 
 his practical scheme founded on it was prophetic, if 
 not suggestive of the Collectivist scheme. According 
 to Fichte, the only legitimate origin of property is 
 labour. Whoever does not work, has no right to the 
 means of existence from society. On the other hand, 
 he who has not the means of living is not bound to 
 recognize or respect the property of others, seeing 
 that as regards him the principles of the social con- 
 tract have been violated. 7 " Every one should have 
 some property ; society owes to all the means of 
 work, and all should work in order to live ; " princi- 
 ples which if logically carried out would justify the 
 right to labour and a good deal of the Socialist 
 creed. But Fichte does more than lay down the 
 principles on which society should be based as regards 
 property. He sketches in clear and bold outlines 
 the form of a society and an industrial system em- 
 bodying his ideas of right and social justice. " Pro- 
 duction and distribution should be collectively orga- 
 nized ; every one should receive for a fixed amount 
 of labour a fixed amount of capital, which would 
 constitute his property according to right." Property 
 
 7 Laveleye's " Socialism of To-day." 
 
SOCIALISM BEFORE THE IpTH CENTURY. 6/ 
 
 would thus be made universal. In the spirit of 
 Rousseau, he maintains that " no person should enjoy 
 superfluities so long as any person lacks necessaries ; 
 for the right of property in objects of luxury can 
 have no foundation until each citizen has his share 
 in the necessaries of life. Farmers and labourers 
 should form partnerships so as to produce the greatest 
 result with the least exertion " an ensemble of ideas 
 which, as M. de Laveleye, says,* are " manifestly in- 
 spired by Rousseau and the eighteenth-century 
 philosophers, and in which we have the essential 
 ideas of contemporary Socialism as regards both the 
 notion of right and its realization." 8 In the notion in 
 particular that for a " fixed amount of labour, every 
 one should receive a fixed amount of capital," it is 
 not difficult to see in germ the idea of Karl Marx 
 that the quantity of social labour measured in time, 
 is the measure of value, and still more easy to per- 
 ceive that it is identical with the Collectivist law of 
 distribution that all should receive, in return for hours 
 of labour, labour cheques, or goods that cost an equal 
 number of hours of labour. In fact, if we join to 
 this Morellet's idea that every one is to be a 
 functionary of the State, we have in outline and in 
 essence the whole of the new Socialism on its con- 
 structive, as distinct from its critical side. 
 
 According to Laveleye, even Bakunin's Anarchism 
 is traceable to Rousseau conjointly with the German 
 philosophers of the present century, and undoubtedly 
 the incoherent ideal of the anarchist, so far as it can 
 
 8 " The Socialism of To-day," p. 8. 
 F 2 
 
68 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 be gathered, would seem to be modelled on Rous- 
 seau's picture of primitive man in the state of 
 Nature; free, happy, without religion, without civili- 
 zation, without laws or government, consequently 
 without national wars ; a happy condition between 
 which and us there is only interposed the State and 
 its repressive authority to keep us back. Conse- 
 quently this authority must be attacked, and the 
 State overthrown, and then the happiness of the 
 state of Nature will be once again within our grasp. 
 But here there arises a slight incoherence or contra- 
 diction of doctrine. Bakunin desires what he calls 
 the " autonomy of the individual," or as a disciple 
 expresses it, " that every one should be free to do as 
 he pleases ; " with no restraining laws, as in the 
 land of Israel, when there was no king, and " every 
 man did that which was right in his own eyes." 
 But as he or his disciples have also foreshadowed the 
 " amorphous commune " as the autonomous unit and 
 co-operative labour in field or factory as the means 
 of life in the restored state of Nature, it is difficult to 
 see how every man can be autonomous, or himself 
 the masterful, uncontrollable unit, if there is to be 
 any social intercourse, or any organization of labour, 
 or at least unless the large system of production is 
 abolished. It is difficult to take part in the large pro- 
 duction without some surrender of Freedom, and it 
 is perhaps a perception of this difficulty that makes 
 Prince Krapotkin advocate an extension of the 
 smaller industries. 9 But if we may regard the Com- 
 
 9 See art. Nineteenth Century for October, 1888. 
 
SOCIALISM BEFORE THE IQTH CENTURV. 69 
 
 mune as the unit with co-operative labour even on a 
 small scale as the goal, this would correspond as 
 nearly as circumstances allow to the stage at which 
 Rousseau affirmed mankind should have arrested 
 itself, the stage when men lived in little village 
 societies, and before they made the fatal social con- 
 tract which gave birth to civil society; the happy 
 savage state before civilization or laws, refined arts 
 or luxuries ; and if this be the origin of the anarchists' 
 ideas, it would partly explain their hostility to civili- 
 zation, art, science, and their glorification of " holy 
 ignorance." But, however this be, the germs of their 
 aspirations and creed are to be found in Rousseau's 
 earlier writings, and probably were thence gathered 
 by Bakunin. But that Rousseau did not think a 
 return to the past possible, that he did not wish for 
 non-government, but a good government and re- 
 forms, we have just seen. The pity was that neither 
 the reforms he desired, nor the best government as 
 the means of accomplishing them, could be attained 
 without a revolution. 
 
 The Revolution came for which Rousseau and 
 others had prepared men's minds. What was the 
 Revolution ? At first a rising against the privileges 
 and unjust exemptions of the nobility and clergy, in 
 the sequel a rising against property, largely held 
 in their hands, and an attempt to bring in the reign 
 of equality ; in short, a Socialistic Revolution, in its 
 essence, as M. Taine regards it, although the word 
 did not then exist. The course of the revolution 
 turned entirely on the question of property. It was 
 
70 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 a contest (in which the third estate and the people were 
 on one side) for a new distribution of property and of 
 political power as a means towards it. It has, in- 
 deed, been asserted that it was a Bourgeois revolution ; 
 that it was made by the Bourgeoisie, and that they 
 were the sole gainers. This is partly true, partly 
 erroneous, for the people gained likewise. They gainc< 1 
 the land ; at least two millions were added to th^ 
 peasant proprietors that existed before the Revolu- 
 tion, and all were relieved from oppressive feudal 
 burdens. It is, however, true that the rising middle 
 class, envious of the political power as well as the 
 exclusive privileges and social position of the upper 
 classes, were the leaders of the assault on power 
 and privilege, and that they finally overthrew them, 
 while ever afterwards, even during the strong rule of 
 Napoleon and the time of the restored Bourbons, they 
 monopolized place, and to a great extent, from the 
 fall of Napoleon, political power. Nevertheless the 
 people, as stated, gained very considerably by the 
 Revolution. They had been the poor and su fieri n- 
 class, and they gained the most from the material 
 point of view. They not only gained the land, but 
 they also gained the consciousness of their strength 
 which, as shown by repeated instances, they have n 
 lost since the great Revolution a fact which makes 
 the people a power in France beyond what they are 
 in any other country. It is true that since the 
 Revolution they have fallen into a new subjection in 
 the great towns the economic subjection to capital, 
 but the French working classes have very emphati- 
 cally shown that they will not submit resignedly 
 
SOCIALISM BEFORE THE IQTH CENTURY. 71 
 
 to the power of a plutocracy, while their countrymen 
 in the rural districts have shaken themselves free of 
 the feudal aristocracy. 
 
 The Revolution was forced to fight. The " French 
 principles " were dangerous, were infectious. It was 
 the cause of the people and partly of the growing 
 middle class over Europe against the privileged 
 classes. The Titan war followed between the French 
 nation in arms and the coalesced kings of Europe. 
 When the excitement was all over, when the thunders 
 of the cannon were hushed, it was found in fact that the 
 terrible war had been for the most part in vain ; that 
 all the blood and treasure had been spent for little 
 result from the reactionists' point of view ; that, though 
 men may be killed, ideas are impenetrable by bullets, 
 and that men of the sword may " as easily cleave the 
 intrenchant air with their keen blades " as principles 
 like those that underlay the Revolutionary move- 
 ment ; that the Democratic flood was, in fact, only 
 temporarily checked, to acquire thereafter increased 
 and irresistible volume and force. 
 
72 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 CHAPTER IIT. 
 
 MODERN SOCIALISM : FROM ST. SIMON TO KARL 
 MARX. 
 
 THE ferment of ideas and the gorgeous hopes first 
 aroused by the Revolution ushered in a fresh era of 
 Social Utopias, as well as patent political constitu- 
 tions. Babceuf, in France, advocated pure Communism 
 in addition to liberty and perfect equality, though 
 without showing how liberty is reconcilable with 
 Communism. In England also, Godwin, in his 
 "Political Justice," impressed with the evils of the 
 existing order which he powerfully denounced, 
 declared for Communism as involving the lesser 
 evils. He makes somewhat light of the tremendous 
 difficulties in the way, answers them one by one 
 more from the lofty point of view of the philosopher 
 than of the man. He is, however, logical and thorough- 
 going, since with Plato, or going beyond him, he 
 does not shrink from, nor stop short of, a community 
 of women and children as well as of property. From 
 this work Shelley derived the like social and political 
 faith, as shown in the " Revolt of Islam " and others 
 of his writings. Other English poets, including 
 Coleridge and Southey, were smitten with the ideal 
 
MODERN SOCIALISM. 73 
 
 beauties of Communism, which they proposed to 
 realize in the New World, away from European pre- 
 judices and obstacles, in fact in the land the most 
 suitable, in America, where so many new social ex- 
 periments have since been tried. 
 
 These and different other Utopian schemes remained 
 ideas ; they became forgotten as time moved on, as the 
 Revolution seemed to have failed, as men saw their 
 impracticability. It was not until the great war was 
 over, and the Industrial Revolution, which had been 
 going on before and during the political and social 
 revolution, and during the war, had nearly accom- 
 plished itself, that something resembling a possible 
 scheme of social reorganization was submitted by 
 St. Simon, a French noble, who accordingly is usually 
 regarded as the founder of modern Socialism, though 
 even he cart hardly be said to have reached the true 
 socialist position, or the distinctive doctrines of 
 socialism until within a few years of his death. 
 
 Undoubtedly he was a man of genius and insight^^X 
 a bold and original social thinker and reformer, ) 
 some of whose ideas have had permanent results^/ 
 and these, as well as the successive phases of thought:\ 
 which led up more and more clearly to his final views, J 
 are well worth considering. According to St. Simon, / 
 modern society had long been disorganized, andHr 
 was urgently necessary that it should be organized 
 afresh and on wholly new principles. It should be 
 organized with a view to the needs of industry, which 
 will be its future main business, as it had been organ- 
 ized in the past with a view to the needs of war as the) 
 normal state. That past was gone. The day of the 
 
74 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 feudal noble, of the military leader, even of the priest 
 in the old sense, was gone. The day of the industrial 
 chief, of the savant, of the man of letters, was come. 
 The true aim henceforth of man in society, the true 
 end of the social union, was the production of things 
 useful to life "the exploitation of the globe by 
 association," as he expressed it in more general and 
 grandiloquent terms. This being so, the chiefs of 
 production, the leaders of industry and of science, 
 which on its practical side is the handmaid of in- 
 dustry, should be the leaders of society, and should 
 also form the Government. Non-producers, whether 
 nobles, landed proprietors, rentiers, priests, so far as 
 they taught erroneous morality, should be excluded. 
 In " 1'Organisateur " (1819) he gives a plan, half 
 practical, half Utopian, for realizing this social aim. 
 He proposes three chambers, one of Invention, one 
 of Examination, and a third called the Executive 
 Chamber. The members of the first and second \\ 
 to consist of engineers, savants, men of letters, arti 
 they were to be paid by the State, but they were to 
 be merely consultative bodies : the members of the 
 third were to be the great industrial leaders, capitalists, 
 and bankers. To these last he gave the executive 
 power, and the control of taxation and expenditure ; 
 and by so doing, as M. Paul Janet says, he gave them 
 the real temporal power. As in Comte's " System of 
 Positive Polity," the capitalists and particularly the 
 money capitalists, the great financiers and bankers, 
 were to rule ; though St. Simon wishes their func- 
 tions reduced as much as possible by submitting their 
 measures to the superior scientific light of the other 
 
MODERN SOCIALISM. 75 
 
 chambers. To the savants, supplemented by literary 
 men and artists, is virtually left the spiritual power. 
 
 But in the " Systeme Industriel " (1821) a change is 
 made. The savants and the men of letters are dis- 
 established. The spiritual power is withdrawn from 
 them, and especially from the savants, on the express 
 ground that such power would quickly corrupt the 
 scientific body ; that it would appropriate " les vices 
 du clergt ; il deviendrait metaphysicien, astucieux et 
 despote" The temporal power and the social hege- 
 mony were left with the industrial or capitalist class ; 
 and the power withdrawn from the savants was to be 
 handed over to positive philosophers. The King 
 himself was to bring in the new system by the Dicta- 
 torship the favourite method in France of cutting 
 the political Gordian knot. To this end St. Simon 
 addressed himself to the King, begging that he would 
 declare himself the premier industriel of the king- 
 dom, and affirm the system by Royal Ordinance. 
 
 So far one does not find much Socialism, but a good 
 deal of what is known as Positivism. We have 
 a plutocracy in power; the capitalist ruling in 
 the Government, as well as in the sphere of 
 industry ; the precise opposite of what Socialists of 
 to-day desire. Apparently the antagonism now so 
 pronounced between Capital and Labour had not 
 then presented itself to St. Simon's mind. On the 
 contrary, the capitalist was the general benefactor, 
 and the special patron and protector of the proletariate. 
 
 But soon we find a new idea rising and intensifying 
 in St. Simon's mind, an idea which his school de- 
 veloped much faster than the Master. He finds, 
 
76 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 looking at the condition of that "large and interesting 
 class " that lives by manual labour, that it is far from 
 satisfactory. Especially he notices early that figure, 
 in which the whole social problem presents itself in 
 epitome, " the able-bodied man who can get no work," 
 and whose wife and family are tied to the hazard of his 
 fate. He asks what arc the chief wants of the large 
 labouring class, and he finds that they are two : he 
 wants constant work, and he wants knowledge ; 
 labour to live by, and the light of science which may 
 help his fortunes. Both these should be assured to 
 him. They are his rights. The public budget should 
 be employed to ameliorate the condition of the people, 
 and the two primary heads of expenditure should be; 
 the first, for the education of the people ; the second, 
 for the ensuring of work to those who have no other 
 means of existence. Here, for the first time, we have 
 a distinct form of Socialism indicated ; we have a 
 form of State-Socialism and the Right to Labour 
 recognized : though whether a Government of 
 capitalists would be likely to go far in a direction 
 which might seem to threaten their own profits, or 
 introduce additional competition into their special 
 fields of enterprise, is a question that does not seem 
 to have arisen in the philosopher's mind. 
 
 He goes on, however, in his now rapidly increasing 
 sympathy for the proletariate, to declare that the aim 
 of politics should be "to labour directly for the well- 
 being, moral and material, of the working classes ; " 
 but he now perceives that neither could the new 
 society subsist nor those noble aims be attained with- 
 out a new morality. No society, he affirmed, was pos- 
 
MODERN SOCIALISM. 77 
 
 sible without " moral ideas held in common ; " but the 
 old morality was defective, and unsuited to the time. 
 A new morality, resting on a new basis, was required ; 
 a new doctrine appropriate to the state of know- 
 ledge ; and this new body of doctrine should be sup- 
 plied, not as formerly by theologians, metaphysicians, 
 men of letters, publicists, nor yet by savants^ because 
 they lacked the faculty of generalization : but by 
 " positive philosophers " only, and here again we have 
 the essence, so oft repeated, of Comte's " Philosophic 
 Politique." 
 
 But neither could a society live without religion : 
 still less could it be reformed. He addressed a letter 
 to the king, in which he said that the fundamental 
 principle of Christianity had commanded men to 
 regard each other as brothers and to co-operate for 
 mutual happiness ; a principle which required to-day 
 a new application. It was necessary that the tem- 
 poral power should appertain to "men useful, laborious 
 and pacific ; and that the spiritual power should be 
 assigned to men possessing the necessary knowledge." 
 Otherwise the principles of fraternity and mutual love 
 would be inapplicable so long as these two powers 
 were in the hands of warriors and theologians ; since 
 wars and theological dogmas have been the chief 
 causes of hate amongst men. He turns to the philan- 
 thropists saying that to make Christianity a practical 
 thing and a true moral power there will be previously 
 necessary a moral force to do it. This new moral 
 force he thinks is already distributed amongst them, 
 and he calls on them to be the new evangelists. 
 Preaching, the power of the word through voice and pen, 
 
78 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 will be necessary to enforce the new doctrine on kings, 
 capitalists, and peoples. And the final aim of all is 
 declared to be to organize society in the manner the 
 most advantageous for the greatest number ; that is, 
 the working classes. In his last work, the " Novcau 
 Christianisme " (1825), he gives us the new moral 
 maxim, the new version of our duty to our neighbour 
 the duty of all classes above the lowest which is, 
 that "all should labour for the development, material, 
 moral, and intellectual, of the class the most nume- 
 rous and the poorest." This is Christ's teaching 
 adapted to the circumstances of our time. To do 
 this is both morals and religion in one. T!KTC i 
 special dogma or religious doctrine laid clown, 
 the belief in God, and the implied belief that Chii.^t 
 was specially commissioned to teach men the 
 of life, anew announced by St. Simon. 
 
 II. 
 
 SOME of these views arc remarkable and original ; 
 but they are not very socialistic. What rather strikes 
 us in reading them in their totality is their strong 
 resemblance to Positivism, save only in the last 
 ligious phase. It is only in the hands of his School 
 that we find certain of his ideas developed, perhaps 
 logically, but probably to consequences the master 
 would not have allowed. At all events, it is amongst 
 the St. Sirnonians that we find what is no more than 
 the germ with St. Simon developed into the full-blown 
 flower of an all-embracing State Socialism. 
 
 According to St. Simon, as we have just seen, the 
 
MODERN SOCIALISM. 79 
 
 true social aim is the exploitation of the globe by 
 association ; according to the school, this has not 
 been the aim hitherto. Rather, it has been the ex- 
 ploitation of man by his fellow man. In future it 
 will be the exploitation of nature, the utilizing of her 
 resources, by " man associated with man." 
 
 There have been hitherto three successive stages 
 in the exploitation of man by his fellows ; slavery, 
 serfage, and the proletariate, or modern wage system. 
 In each successive stage the condition of the labourer 
 has improved, but the essence of all is the same, and 
 the present system is only a mitigated serfage. In 
 appearance, indeed., the worker is free ; he is not 
 bound to the soil ; and the contract with his employer 
 is apparently a free one. In reality it is not free. 
 There is compulsion brought to bear on his will by 
 the necessity to live. In result he will only get a 
 certain wage, not much above the means of bare 
 existence, and he will have to work hard for it, while 
 he may at any time be thrown out of work by indus- 
 trial crises ; moreover, his children's condition will be 
 no better, if as good. " For social advantages and 
 disadvantages transmit themselves hereditarily : 
 misery is hereditary." Property and poverty are 
 alike transmitted without reference to individual 
 merit, which is both a moral and a social evil, and the 
 source of all other evils. To raise the condition of 
 the proletariate, to carry out the words of St. Simon's 
 last testament, to ameliorate the condition of the 
 working classes is impossible, they say, without a 
 radical reform of the institution of property and 
 inheritance. 
 
80 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 The conception of property and its rights, they show, 
 has changed through the course of history : why may it 
 not be so again ? Property under the feudal regime was 
 not the same as property to-day under most civil laws. 
 The right of bequest had been altered ; the right of 
 succession had been interfered with and regulated by 
 law. Why might not the like be done again ? espe- 
 cially if it can be demonstrated to be necessary to 
 raise the condition of the mass of the nation the 
 true aim of both practical morality and religion. 
 
 They considered the subject of rent, and found that 
 the modern landowner is not entitled to receive it 
 while he discharges no duties. In the middle ages 
 it was necessary to pay rent, or its equivalent in pro- 
 duce, in order that the chief and his soldiers should 
 be subsisted for the military needs of the time. Those 
 who fought, who defended the goods and persons of all, 
 had to be supported by those who worked. It is not 
 so now ; and the surplus produce, due to the different 
 qualities of land, should not go to the proprietor, 
 but to the nation as a whole. Only so far as the pro- 
 prietor is himself cultivator should he reap the 
 fruits. 
 
 Coming to Capital, we find that the St. Simonians 
 had new and original views that never dawned upon 
 the Master. According to Enfantin, capital in the form 
 of instruments and means of future labour docs not 
 belong to, and should not be regarded as the property 
 of, the individual in such a sense that he could deal 
 with it as he pleased. It belongs to the community, 
 which would have to keep it up in the capitalist's 
 absence, under peril of future penury. Capitalists 
 
MODERN SOCIALISM. 8 1 
 
 are the depositaries, the stewards, the " intendants," 
 to use the St. Simonian word, of this capital ; the 
 revenue coming from it, after paying wages and 
 materials, is at present allowed to them as profits, and 
 very high they are ; but the principal, the capital 
 itself, is not theirs morally. It is true the law allows 
 them to regard it as theirs, to do with as they please. 
 They could consume it unproductively ; and individuals 
 often do. But what proves the community's para- 
 mount claim is the consideration that if this practice 
 were general the community would be ruined, and it 
 would then perforce have to withdraw the trust from 
 the present trustees and managers of the fund. The 
 community's claim to the capital lies latent ; there 
 would be no need to assert it if the capitalists made the 
 best use of the national principal, if they managed it at 
 the least expense, with the greatest intelligence, and 
 made its product the greatest ; and, lastly, if they 
 made an equitable partition between themselves and 
 their assistants. But do they ? the St. Simonians go 
 on to ask. Far from it. That they do not manage it 
 with intelligence is proved by the frequent industrial 
 crises, in which there are violent and irrational trans- 
 fers of capital and losses of capital ; the sudden ruin 
 of individuals ; the paralysis of production and trade ; 
 and from which the working classes thrown out of 
 work receive the most violent strokes of all. They do 
 not adjust production to consumption, to the wants 
 of the public, because they have not sufficient know- 
 ledge. Now the Government could procure such 
 knowledge, and could adjust supply to demand 
 whether home or foreign. Then the existing 
 
 G 
 
82 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 system is one of competition between producer a IK! 
 producer, and between distributor and distributor, with 
 the result that they frequently ruin each other ; their 
 avowed object being, as far as possible, by a system 
 of under-selling, to ruin rivals, without much gain to 
 the public ; because, when they have cleared the field 
 sufficiently, the survivors change their tactics, and raise 
 their prices on the buyer. 
 
 The proprietors of capital are only depositaries, 
 and " what is saved from past labour ought not to be 
 in the exclusive interest of individual enjoyment." 
 This, according to M. Paul Janet, is " Ic nceud 
 de la theorie," 1 and the meaning is that saving- 
 should either be added to capital, which is com- 
 mon property, or be divided fairly for consumption, 
 but that in neither case should they be regarded as 
 the capitalist's property. 
 
 Closely connected with this view of capital and of 
 property is their cure for the existing evils. It con- 
 sists simply in the abolition of hereditary succession. 
 A son shall neither succeed to his father's savings nor 
 to his father's function. All savings, at death, revert 
 to the State, and become the property of the com- 
 munity. This is a consequence of their fundamental 
 and famous principle of distribution : " From 
 each according to his capacity; to each capacity 
 according to its works." This, they say, is the only 
 principle of distribution that is at once just and 
 natural in the sphere of material production. It is a 
 natural principle, and the earliest. If alone, a hunter, 
 a fisher, a tiller of the ground, got according to his 
 1 Janet's " Saint Simon et le Saint-Simonisme," p, 93. 
 
MODERN SOCIALISM. 83 
 
 works ; if working in association he should get so 
 likewise, were there any means of discriminating the 
 amount of his contribution to the product, and of 
 comparing the value of one product with another, both 
 of which can, however, be done with sufficient accuracy 
 for practical purposes. It is the only just principle 
 that he should get in proportion as he contributes. 
 But such a system would give to the man already 
 favoured by nature, an objector may say. No 
 doubt ; but that seems to be Nature's intention, too ; 
 at any rate, it would work better than the present 
 system, which keeps back the man favoured by 
 Nature, by bestowing the means of life and all else 
 according to the chance of birth, from which it follows 
 that capacity is kept back and crushed by incapacity, 
 and society loses much thereby. Our Revolution, 
 they say, was the first great assertion of this fact and 
 intention of Nature ; the first great rising of Talent 
 against the hereditary usurpation of its seat at the 
 banquet of life, a rising against Privilege, an emphatic 
 declaration that ability will have its opportunity, and 
 will not suffer exclusion in the name of a dying fetish. 
 Let us all take our places in future according to this 
 principle, and let promotion be by merit, measured in 
 the same way. The hindmost will then have no cause 
 of complaint against society, while his lot will be much 
 mitigated under our system, as compared with what 
 it is at present. 2 
 
 St. Simon, they say, protested against " les oisifs," 
 
 and justly ; he did not point out the cure. It lies here 
 
 in the abolition of inheritance. Destroy that, and 
 
 3 " Saint Simon ct le Saint-Simomsmc," p. 90, et scg. 
 
 G 2 
 
84 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 each new geneiation collectively enters on its total 
 collective inheritance, is the successor to the last, and 
 to all its functions and offices, the rewards of which 
 shall be rated respectively at what they are worth by 
 the most expert valuators of the time. Each one will 
 then get his due place in the grand army of Industry, 
 his fair portion of the total of its fruits. His future 
 will be according to merit, which will be measured by 
 his work and the promise of further work. 
 
 By the abolition of inheritance the State becom s 
 the owner of land and capital, the necessary instru- 
 ments of production. The next step is to organize 
 production ; for which purpose it must itself under- 
 take all industries, and thereafter appoint the 
 hierarchy of workers. What it does in the Army, 
 the Universities, the Civil Service, say the St. 
 Simonians, it can do universally. The rewards will 
 not be equal ; they will be in proportion to the work, 
 and the grade of advancement in it ; but there will 
 be no more exploitation of the working classes, be- 
 cause there will be no more great capitals in pri\ 
 hands. If a well-paid official chooses to save he may 
 do so ; but at his death his savings go back to the 
 State. The individual will thus have little induce- 
 ment to save, but also there will be little need for it, 
 as his future and that of his children will be assured. 
 If any one objects that the stimulus to labour will be 
 withdrawn under the system, the St. Simonians reply 
 that the hope of promotion will be a sufficient stimu- 
 lus. But they agree with the founder of the Sect, 
 that a new religion and morality will be necessary 
 before men can be brought to see the justice of their 
 
MODERN SOCIALISM. 85 
 
 proposals. Christianity must be interpreted in a 
 wider sense, or certain of its dogmas must be set 
 aside to get this better and more suitable religion. 
 Industry and science must be pronounced holy and 
 religious. Men must no longer be taught to think 
 this life a mere preparation for another, or that the 
 flesh is necessarily sinful. The existence of God is 
 declared to be the first article in the new religion, 
 but the conception must be widened beyond the 
 narrow orthodox one. 
 
 We thus see that the St. Simonians had very ad- 
 vanced views on property and social re-organization. 
 In fact, their ideal, as given above, is that of the Collec- 
 tivists of to-day, who have scarcely advanced a single 
 step beyond the sketch of the St. Simonians. We 
 have nearly all the ideas of the present Socialists, not 
 merely in vague and general, but in definite, specific 
 form : that land and capital should belong to the State 
 in collectivity ; the three stages through which the 
 labouring class has passed, slavery, serfage, the pro- 
 letariate ; the evils attending the existing competitive 
 regime ; the commercial crises, the ill adaptation of 
 production and consumption, the ruin of rivals, the 
 uncertainty of work for labourers, and their depressed 
 wages. We have the ownership of land and capital 
 by the State, or what is now called their nationaliza- 
 tion, advocated, as well as the transformation of every 
 one into a State functionary ; in fact, the most com- 
 plete possible State-Socialism. The whole falls short 
 of the Socialists' argument as now presented by only 
 one thing the economic and the historical argu- 
 ment of Karl Marx, which tries to prove that capital 
 
85 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 is a robbery of the working classes. The St. Si- 
 monians further, with great insight, put their finger on 
 the specific remedy, other than State organization, 
 which appeared to be both possible and practicable, 
 and which if it could be carried out would certainly 
 be efficacious, and lead up to a universal State- 
 Socialism, namely, the curtailment and final aboli- 
 tion of inheritance. It speaks much for their 
 perspicacity, that they should so long ago have so 
 clearly felt their way into the true line of least resist- 
 ance ; but still more that they saw that a moral 
 change was concurrently or antecedently necessary. 
 The weak place in their scheme was that they did 
 not sufficiently calculate the vast vis inertia of 
 an established system, nor allow for the great 
 length of time necessary to bring about social and 
 industrial changes, nor for the fact that to a large 
 extent changes are spontaneous and independent 
 of governmental action. Their ideal had much in 
 it that was good and just, and much that in time will 
 probably be realized. We have been slowly moving 
 towards it. We are just now moving faster ; 
 but even so, with the normal rate of evolution 
 somewhat hastened under a force constantly in- 
 creasing, it will take a very long time, considering 
 the great forces of resistance, before society attains 
 the St. Simonian goal, where each one will be placed 
 according to capacity and receive according to 
 his works. There are things in the way : the 
 established system, in great part complicated, grow- 
 ing according to its own laws, and with deep roots : 
 and there is our unchanged human nature, on which it 
 
MODERN SOCIALISM, 8/ 
 
 reposes, and to which it responds; while, in part at least, 
 our moral sentiments must be improved before the 
 system can be greatly changed for the better. 
 
 The specific objections are obvious enough. If 
 the State controlled all industry, would the produce be 
 as great as under the present system of private enter- 
 prise, where profits go to the private owner of the 
 concern ? If all the work was done with the languid 
 energy shown by present government functionaries, 
 would it be done so well as now, and would the nation 
 be poorer or richer ? If the stimulus now given by 
 the gain and loss falling on the undertaker were with- 
 drawn a stimulus which, by appealing through his 
 self-interest to his energy, inventiveness, intelligence, 
 makes him perform prodigies can there be a doubt 
 that there would be much less to be divided amongst 
 all, and that the workers themselves would be worse 
 off? Then wotild or could each one be placed ac- 
 cording to merit in the projected system ? The 
 Government would have the selection of the 
 different incumbents of offices. But does it now 
 always appoint by merit ? All would depend on 
 the Government and its composition ; but it would 
 presumably be composed of r: en like the present 
 rulers. Even admitting that it might be better and 
 wiser, how is the change to be made, the new Govern- 
 ment to be installed, since no existing one would 
 be likely to pass a law for the abolition of Inherit- 
 ance ? 
 
 III. 
 IN England, a doctrine substantially the same as the 
 
88 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 St. Simonian was preached by Carlyle, a greater man 
 than St. Simon or any of his school. Whether Carlyle 
 was original or not, we find the leading ideas of St. 
 Simon advocated in the" Sartor Rcsartus," published 
 in 1 83 1, that is some timeafterthe St. Simonian doctrine 
 had been delivered to the world ; arid we find special 
 reference to St. Simon and his disciples. We find in 
 it that an aristocracy of talent is needed ; that religion 
 is eternally necessary, but that the old religion was 
 dead ; that a new spiritual power was arising ; and in 
 " Past and Present" (1843), that the new era belongs to 
 Labour ; that not " Arms and the man, but Tools and 
 the man/' would be the burden of the human Kpos 
 of the new era. 3 
 
 3 Even the germs of Carlyle's Hero-worship, the eternal need 
 of it and the eternal foundation provided for it in human nature, 
 may be discovered in the "Doctrine de St. Simon :" " Could 
 you believe that the human race, after having so long experienced 
 the respect which attracts the feeble to the strong, the admira- 
 tion inspired in intelligence by genius, the love which joyfully 
 devotes itself for the man in whose life the destinies of a people 
 and of the whole world seemed involved ; could you believe 
 that mankind is for ever disinherited from these noble senti- 
 ments ? " With which compare Carlyle : " Only in reverently 
 bowing down before the Higher does man feel himself exalted. 
 . . . Know that there is in man a quite indestructible reverence 
 for whatsoever holds of Heaven, or even plausibly counteifeits 
 such holding. Show the dullest clodpole, show the haughtiest 
 featherhead, that a soul higher than himself is actually here : 
 were his knees stiffened into brass, he must down and worship." 
 And, again : " Nature has so cunningly ordered it that what- 
 soever man ought to obey he cannot but obey. Before no 
 faintest revelation of the Godlike did he ever stand irreverent : 
 least of all when the Godlike showed itself created in a man 
 like himself.'* Hero-worship has always prevailed, does pre- 
 vail, and will prevail. " This fact is the corner-stone on which 
 
MODERN SOCIALISM. 89 
 
 In the " Sartor Resartus," which contains the germs 
 of all his future writings, we have, with much besides, 
 his opinions on Religion, Life, and Society. With 
 St. Simon, he perceives that Society is dying ; that 
 the old order is surely passing. But it is the death 
 of the Phoenix which will result in a new and better 
 Society, and as she dies she sings a " melodious Death - 
 song, which ends not until are heard the tones of a 
 more melodious Birthsong." Nay, the death of the Old 
 Society and the birth of the New go on concurrently. 
 But the process is slow, and it is not a happy but a 
 disquieting age for a man to be born into. Perhaps, 
 after two centuries of convulsion and conflagration 
 the Death-Birth process will be finished, and man can 
 once again find himself in a true and living society, 
 rightly related to his fellow-man, and feeling himself 
 once again in true relation to the Infinite. 
 
 all politics may stand firm to the remotest time " (" Sartor 
 Resartus''). "It is the final fixed point, the everlasting 
 adamant, lower than which the confused wreck of revolutionary 
 things cannot fall, and from which they can begin to build 
 themselves up again " (" Lectures on Heroes "). 
 
 This is undoubtedly the doctrine of the St. Simon'ans, whose 
 " one aim was to organize a power loved, cherished, and 
 venerated" (" Doctrine de St. Simon ''). But it is preached by 
 Carlyle with a power and a fervour of conviction wholly unap- 
 proached by the St. Simonian sect. He has given it new argu- 
 ments and illustrated it by historical examples, so as to make 
 the doctrine his own. Moreover, with Carlyle, as with Comte, 
 the spiritual and temporal powers are separated ; for though he 
 does believe that the truly able man is potentially able in all 
 directions, that capacity is essentially the same, namely clearness 
 of vision or insight yet it takes two main forms, as the hero 
 concerns himself with action or thought, with temporal things 
 or things spiritual, things eternal, things of the soul. 
 
90 SOCIALISM NEW. AND OLD. 
 
 For a true Society is impossible without Religion, 
 which is, as it were, the inmost nerve-tissue which 
 ministers life to the whole body politic, of whom 
 Government is but the skin which protects and holds 
 all together, whilst the labourers by hand or head are 
 but the muscular and osseous tissues lying under the 
 skin. Without Religion this same skin bccom 
 shrivelled pelt ; Industry has only a galvanic life ; 
 and Society finally becomes a dead carcass deserving 
 burial. Man is no more social, but only gregarious, 
 a collection of discordant human atoms ; and the 
 return to anarchy and war of all with all would surely 
 follow. 4 
 
 Society is impossible without Religion ; but accord- 
 ing to Carlyle, as according to St. Simon, the old 
 religion was dying, and the Church merely mumbled 
 delirium prior to dissolution. A new priesthood will 
 be required. The " new spiritual power " that .St. 
 Simon demanded, that Comte finds amongst the 
 positive philosophers, Carlyle discovers amongst men 
 of letters, in the high and true sense of the word; in 
 true poets, true critics of life, men of understanding 
 who know the meaning of life, thinkers who know the 
 meaning and spirit of the age ; not in " able edit* 
 the writers of fashionable novels, or of the modern 
 drama. He does not say in the " Sartor Resartin " 
 who are to be rulers in the industrial sphere, but he 
 tells us that only the labourer with his hand and the 
 labourer for spiritual bread are honourable ; in 
 Government the truer ruler is the able man, the born 
 hero who, in fact, all men in all ages are disposed to 
 4 " Sartor Resartus." 
 
MODERN SOCIALISM. 9 1 
 
 obey. This is the ruler by divine right. And here 
 is the adamantine social rock, at which revolutionary 
 downpulling and destruction stops. 5 
 
 In the " Past and Present " his ideas on the re- 
 organization of Society are more fully expressed, and 
 in particular on the Organization of Labour. Labour 
 is great and honourable. It alone is. Let all men 
 
 o 
 
 join in the grand army of Labour; even the Aristocrat, 
 " he is so much needed." Let him find his place, 
 let all men find their places at their peril. The 
 future belongs to Labour. Giant Labour will yet 
 be king. But the Giant was " blind " and stumbled. 
 When he gets knowledge hitherto denied him, he 
 will rise to the intrinsic dignity of his function. Car- 
 lyle, however, is the least of a system-maker. And 
 his system, though clear enough when seen as a whole, 
 has to be brought from his different works and pieced 
 together. But he is an extremely powerful preacher, 
 and by his figures he brings us to the concrete essence 
 of the matter, which the abstract generalizations of the 
 system-makers so often hide. Thus he shows us his 
 type of an industrial leader in Plugson of Undershot 
 " The man with the grim brow," who is a natural leader 
 of operative weavers and spinners. Plugson is a 
 good leader, the right man in the right place : a man 
 to be encouraged by Government and legislators, 
 instead of permitting him to be " strangled in the 
 partridge-nets of the landed aristocracy." He can 
 command a thousand hands, and, wonderful thing, 
 can find wages to pay them every Saturday night, 
 if only he gets fair play. In fact there is great hope 
 5 " Sartor Resartus." 
 
92 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 of him as Captain of Industry; he is a man who 
 "sees the fact," not a man of foolish words like the 
 generality. But there is one sad defect which must 
 be amended. lie is a Mammon worshipper, and a 
 materialist, much inclined to dividing unfairly with 
 his workers the results of their united conquest over 
 cotton-fibre. He is a Mammonist, and boasts of the 
 number of scalps taken in the competitive business war. 
 He is for in order to emphasize his point, Carlyle 
 goes into extremes a buccaneer in search of gold, 
 and he is given to the morality of the buccaneers, lie 
 would hardly distinguish between foreigners and his 
 countrymen, but would send both alike to the bottom. 
 Often he is a most unfair Captain of Industry. He 
 takes the lion's share, dismisses his hands summarily, 
 offering them " sixpence to drink his health." This 
 will not do in the future. The Industrial chief is too 
 well paid : and there should be permanent and 
 higher relations between him and his nomad workers, 
 instead of the existing relations of cash payment for 
 hours of work, with short contracts to be summarily 
 determined on either side. Society cannot go on 
 with mere Mammonism in the masters and black 
 mutiny and discontent in the hands ; nor without 
 mutual human love and loyalty. 
 
 The question of the Organization of Labour con- 
 tinually loomed larger with Carlyle up to the publi- 
 cation of the " Past and Present," after which he, to 
 a great extent, avoids the question, contenting him- 
 self with denunciation of the existing social and 
 spiritual order. Whether he had said all he had to 
 say in the way of construction in the books already 
 
MODERN SOCIALISM. 93 
 
 named together with Chartism (1839), whether he 
 was disheartened at the little practical results that 
 followed his teaching, whether he began to perceive 
 more clearly that changes in society must be slow, 
 certain it is that after the " Past and Present " he took 
 mainly to writing the biographies of two of his heroes, 
 Cromwell and Frederick. No doubt he makes their 
 doings the texts for preaching his old doctrine, and 
 he may have wished to show how much better the 
 heaven-born ruler can deal with all social questions 
 than shifting Parliamentary majorities ; that great 
 men can better solve such questions, and are by their 
 nature more inclined so to do. In the " Latter Day 
 Pamphlets," he does take up a branch of the Social 
 Question, namely, what to do with the Unemployed, 
 and How to treat the Criminal classes, but the general 
 question of the Organization of Labour is no longer 
 treated. For the unemployed generally the Govern- 
 ment should provide employment, exacting work in 
 return, if need be by punishment which is a step 
 to a rigorous State-Socialism, not easily to be taken 
 in England, and which, if taken, would necessitate 
 further steps. The general tone of the book, indeed, 
 is " flat despair " : it is not construction but destruction 
 that is chiefly in his mind. There is a furious assault 
 delivered all along the line against society, its chief 
 institutions, and its inmost spirit, moral and religious. 
 One after another is assailed with a fury of attack and 
 fervour of denunciation worthy of Isaiah or Jeremiah. 
 The Pig Philosophy, Hudson's Statue, Model Prisons, 
 the Stump Orator, are some of the titles under which 
 he savagely satirizes our Utilitarian Philosophy, our 
 
94 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 Mammon Worship, our foolish philanthropy, and our 
 more foolish admiration for fluent, shallow platform 
 speeches and Parliamentary oratory. Parliamentary 
 Government, Law, The Church and its Overseers, Lite- 
 rature and its practitioners, Political Economy and its 
 professors, all come in for a share of his scorn, and 
 each comes up for a whipping. Never difl a society 
 receive such a scourging. What he would positively 
 have he is not in a temper to tell us fully. But 
 that he wishes much changed or removed is 
 plain : above all our Parliamentary Government. 
 And his last thought appears to be that nothing good 
 can be done for our society until a second Cromwell 
 with a troop of soldiers turns the Parliament out of 
 doors, in the name of the 1 Lord. As the Messiah 
 of Hebrew prophets was always an individual 
 who would rule with justice and judgment, soCarlyle 
 believed that the spirit of wisdom and virtue could 
 only be found in the one, and not in the many. It 
 was the strong, single, unselfish, enlightened Will that 
 was wanted. He did not believe in the " Collective 
 Wisdom " as now gathered by foolish voters, nor yet 
 much in the collective conscience of the collective 
 wisdom. 
 
 The one strong man might effect much that was 
 needed by capacity and courage, and his work might 
 continue once it had received the consecration of 
 established law and fact. Like a sort of earthly 
 Deity, such a one would be above the selfish interests 
 of faction, party or class. He would be the 
 moderator and supreme arbitrator between contend- 
 ing interests. Above their prejudices, he alone could 
 
MODERN SOCIALISM. 95 
 
 see and do justice between class and class, as between 
 man and man. In the absence of such a one there is 
 nothing but clashing- interests, becoming constantly 
 more antagonistic until it must come, as in France, to 
 a Revolution and a war of classes. Between us and 
 anarchy there is but the policeman, a frail and unsure 
 defence, which might at any time give way. 
 
 The idea that in the solution of the great problem 
 of modern society more may be hoped for from the 
 powerful single ruler than from a Representative,; 
 body, with its chance and shifting majorities, which, 
 in consequence, has no single will or connected prin- 
 ciples of action, no continued policy, whose course, on 
 important occasions, is subject to unpredictable acci- 
 dents, and where the only motive force that can be 
 calculated upon as sure and steady, is class self- 
 interest tempered by fear, is significant, and may one 
 day bear important consequences, especially if the 
 working classes should become penetrated by it. It 
 is an old idea that, temporarily submerged, has come 
 up anew and is spreading. It was, as M. de Laveleye 
 informs us in his work on " Contemporary Socialism," 
 the notion of Lassalle, who, although Republican in 
 principle, yet expected more for his Socialistic scheme 
 from Prince Bismarck and the Emperor than from 
 any Republican Chamber of Deputies, even though 
 chosen by universal suffrage. An Imperial Social- 
 ism is always on the list of political possibilities 
 in France ; and it came near to being a reality 
 under Napoleon III., who, at one time, seriously con- 
 templated it. In Germany, there is at present a com- 
 petition, a bidding for the favour of the working-man, 
 
96 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 between the State Socialism of the great Chancellor 
 and the Emperor, which aims at insuring the future 
 of the working-classes ; and Revolutionary Socialism, 
 that aims at confiscating land and capital ; and it is 
 by no means certain that the majority will not close 
 with the Chancellor's " bird in the hand." 
 
 In England, besides Carlyle, one other remark- 
 able man, who, although he climbed to eminence by 
 means of Party, yet always maintained a certain 
 detachment from it, having within himself the better 
 opinions of both parties, gave expression to ideas 
 favouring Imperial Socialism. This was Lord Bca- 
 consfield, who, in his political novel of " Sybil, or 
 the Two Nations," which deals essentially with the 
 Social Question, shows his sympathies with the work- 
 ing classes, and with the strong sovereign. "Two 
 powers," he declares, "have been extinguished in 
 England, the Monarch and the Multitude ; " and he 
 wishes them both restored. Nay even, during his 
 remarkable career, more consistent throughout than 
 detractors allow, he did something in the direction of 
 restoring the power of both, in addition to widen in;;- 
 the Conservative political creed. By outbidding the 
 Liberals in his Reform Bill of 1867, he made Univcrs.il 
 Suffrage a necessity, by which, rightly used, the 
 multitude may once more become a power ; and at 
 his instance the Queen of England assumed the 
 style of Empress of India, which may in time imply 
 more than a merely nominal extension of sovereign 
 authority. In his novel of" Coningsby," he puts into 
 the mouth of one of his characters his own preference 
 for a strong monarch : " The tendency of advanced 
 
MODERN SOCIALISM. 97 
 
 civilization is in truth to pure monarchy .... An 
 educated nation recoils from the imperfect vicariate 
 of what it calls a representative government." He 
 thinks that the power of Parliament, and especially 
 of the House of Commons, will not last. His ideal 
 government is "a free monarchy, established on 
 fundamental laws, itself the apex of a vast pile of 
 municipal and local government, ruling over an in- 
 telligent and educated people, represented by a free 
 and intellectual press," and not by a Parliament. 
 The press would discuss and form public opinion 
 which, in its active and administrative aspect should 
 be concentrated in " one who has no class interests. 
 In an enlightened age, this monarch on the throne 
 free from the vulgar prejudices and corrupt interests 
 of the subjects, becomes again divine." ..." Before 
 such royal authority, the sectional animosities of our 
 country would disappear." Under the system " quali- 
 fication would not be parliamentary, but personal," 
 and the able and educated would occupy the com- 
 manding places, whether in the State, the Church, 
 Diplomacy, or in the Military Service ; all which put 
 together, are strongly suggestive of St. Simonism. 
 
 But whatever be its actual future, the idea of the 
 capable ruler, seconded by the best ability extant, with 
 the spiritual power separated from the temporal, is the 
 logical outcome of the St. Simonian doctrine. It is that 
 to which it essentially comes when reduced to cohe- 
 rence, as it came with Carlyle, if we suppose him to 
 have got his ideas from that quarter. It is the only 
 form in which, as well as the only means by which, it 
 could be made a reality, as indeed St. Simon himsslf 
 
 H 
 
pS SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 must have felt when he appealed to the king to 
 take up his project. Ca?sar, seconded by capacity, 
 was the sole means by which it could have been 
 introduced and maintained. 6 
 
 IV. 
 
 ALMOST contemporaneously with St. Simon another 
 Frenchman, Charles Fourier, was elaborating a dif- 
 ferent and, in the opinion of Mill, a more workable 
 scheme of social renovation on Socialistic lines. The 
 work, indeed, in which Fourier's main ideas are cm- 
 bodied, called the "Theorie dcs quatre Mouve- 
 ments," was published in 1808, long before St. Simon 
 had given his views to the world, but it received no 
 attention until after the discredit of the St. Simonian 
 scheme beginning in 1832. 
 
 Association is the central word of Fourier's as of 
 St. Simon's industrial system. Associated groups of 
 from 1600 to 2000 persons are to cultivate a square 
 league of ground called the Plialange, or phalanx ; 
 and are likewise to carry on all other kinds of indus- 
 try which may be necessary. The individuals arc to 
 live together in one pile of buildings, called the 
 Phalanstery, in order to economize in buildings, 
 in domestic arrangements, cooking, etc., and to reduce 
 distributors' profits ; they may cat at a common table 
 or not, as seems good to them : that is, they have life 
 
 6 Even Comte, whose economical conclusions are different 
 from the St. Simonians, and who prefers a Republic, yet thinks 
 that a Dictatorship might be temporarily necessary to install his 
 scheme of Positive Polity. 
 
MODERN SOCIALISM. 99 
 
 in common, and a good deal in each other's sight ; 
 they do not work in common more than is necessary 
 under the existing system ; and there is not a commu- 
 nity of property. Neither private property, nor inheri- 
 tance, is abolished. In the division of the produce of 
 industry, after a minimum sufficient for bare sub- 
 sistence has been assigned to each one, the surplus, 
 deducting the capital necessary for future opera- 
 tions, is to be divided amongst the three great 
 interests of Labour, Capital, and Talent, in the respec- 
 tive proportions of five-twelfths, four-twelfths, and 
 three-twelfths. Individuals, according to their several 
 tastes or aptitudes, may attach themselves to more 
 than one of the numerous groups of labourers within 
 each association. Every one must work ; useless 
 things will not be produced ; parasitic or unnecessary 
 work, such as the work of agents, distributors, middle- 
 men generally, will not exist in the phalanstery ; 
 from all which the Fourierist argues that no one need 
 work excessively. Nor need the work be disagree- 
 able. On the conrary, Fourier has discovered the 
 secret of making labour attractive. Few kinds of 
 labour are intrinsically disagreeable ; and if any is un- 
 pleasant, it is mostly because it is monotonous or too 
 long-continued. On Fourier's plan the monotony will 
 vanish, and none need work to excess. Even work 
 regarded as intrinsically repugnant ceases to be so 
 when it is not regarded as dishonourable, or when it 
 absolutely must be done. But should it be thought 
 otherwise, there is one way of compensating such 
 work in the phalanstery let those who perform it be 
 paid higher than other workers, and let them vary it 
 
 I-I 2 
 
100 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 with work more agreeable, as they will have oppor- 
 tunity of doing in the new community. 
 
 In Fourier's scheme, it may be noted, there is no 
 place allowed for domestic servants ; there will be no 
 need for private cook, kitchen-maid, parlour-maid, in 
 the phalanstery. The services now rendered by such 
 will be rendered for the good of all, and each will 
 have to contribute his or her special service in return 
 in the new life. The present man-servant and maid- 
 servant, the groom, valet, maid, and maid-of-all-work 
 can be dispensed with ; you can brush your own coat, 
 groom your own horse (if you are fortunate enough 
 to have one), nay, you can brush your own boots, and 
 your wife and daughter (if such relations exist in the 
 community) will be all the better and happier, in 
 Fourier's opinion, if they have a little scrubbing 
 and washing to do ; it will be good for the ner- 
 vous system, and will exorcise ennui and hysteria. 
 Certainly, whosoever joined the community would have 
 to give up a good deal, if not also wife and children 
 and lands, for the gospel's sake. But as full return 
 they were assured by Fourier of happiness. 
 
 And this raises the interesting and important ques- 
 tion of the Family and the relations of the sexes in 
 the model community. Some laws must be laid 
 down on this cardinal point, some principles must be 
 acted upon. What were they ? Apparently, with 
 Fourier, the fewer rules the better. It is a fundamental 
 principle with him that the misery and discord of the 
 social world come from checking and thwarting 
 natural passions and impulses. Nature intended 
 them all to be gratified. They shall, in the phalan- 
 
MODERN SOCIALISM. IOI 
 
 stery, have free play under the " Law of Passionate 
 Attraction," which he claims to have discovered 
 
 " There the passions, cramped no longer, shall have scope and 
 breathing space," 
 
 and the results will be something the world has not yet 
 seen, for certainly the tendency of these doctrines is 
 not in the direction of " One man One wife," or the in- 
 dissolubility of the marriage bond. On the contrary, 
 its tendency, as the philosopher knew, and probably 
 desired, is in the direction of free love and the com- 
 munity of wives, as is likewise the life in common 
 and the absence of separate households. But who- 
 ever goes thus far, should go one step further, and 
 abolish inheritance and private property. There 
 would then be thorough-going and consistent Com- 
 munism, and it would at least be an interesting 
 social experiment to see how it would work. 
 
 According to Mill, " whatever may be the merits 
 or defects of these various schemes, they cannot .truly 
 be said to be impracticable. No reasonable person 
 can doubt that a village community composed of a few 
 thousand inhabitants, cultivating in joint membership 
 the same extent of land which at present feeds that 
 number of people, and producing by combined labour 
 and the most improved processes the manufactured 
 articles which they required, would raise an amount, 
 of production sufficient to maintain them in com- 
 fort." And of the several forms of Socialism to which 
 he refers,' he thinks Fourierism the most practicable, 
 " the most skilfully combined, and with the greatest 
 foresight of objections." 
 
102 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 Now when Mill affirms that Fourier's scheme is 
 not impracticable, he is only contemplating it from 
 the economical point of view, because from the social 
 and moral and general standpoint it is demonstrably 
 impracticable ; and to prove it practicable in one 
 aspect, while other aspects equally essential are not 
 considered, is nothing to the purpose. 
 
 But now let us consider it from the politico- 
 economic point of view. There is no doubt, as Mill 
 says, that Fourier's community, if it had the necessary 
 land and capital to start with, would be able to 
 support itself, and probably in comfort. It would be 
 self-supporting and self-sufficient, like the Indian 
 village community of past times. It would support all 
 its members, and there would be no paupers or lack- 
 alls. And if all France were organized industrially 
 on the same model, there would be the same general 
 level of comfort throughout. There would be a stan- 
 dard of comfort, not high, but respectable, attained 
 by all. The problem of poverty would be solved, and 
 there would be a pretty general equality likewise. 
 
 But there is a great quantity of human labour 
 required under Fourier's scheme to realize this not 
 very high result. With 2000 persons, the large system 
 of production which so greatly increases the pro- 
 duce in proportion to the labour, would not be 
 possible, and there would in consequence be a great 
 economic loss. It would take half of FourierVs 
 phalanstery to work a modern cotton or silk factory ; 
 and that half could probably make what could be 
 exchanged for a greater sum of produce than the 
 whole would turn out if employed partly in agricul- 
 
MODERN SOCIALISM. 1 03 
 
 ture, and the rest in twenty or fifty petty handicrafts 
 as contemplated by Fourier. There would simply 
 be a great waste of labour. The present system pro- 
 duces as great result with half the labour, and the 
 capital need not be more to begin with. Fourier's 
 project was conceived with reference to a system of 
 industry that was rapidly disappearing when he wrote, 
 and which is now almost entirely superseded in 
 the spheres of manufacturing production, and largely 
 in the distributing and carrying businesses. The 
 scheme was more plausible when first put forth ; but 
 when Mill wrote, the industrial revolution was all but 
 complete. 
 
 I do not say that there might not be exceptional 
 cases in which the idea of Fourier might yet be tried ; 
 but merely that it could not be made general as 
 Fourier intended it to be. Now Mill in his criticism 
 must also have regarded it from the point of view of its 
 universal applicability ; since he is avowedly consider- 
 ing both Fourier's and the St. Simonian scheme as 
 possible substitutes for the existing order ? He should 
 therefore have estimated the economic results of both ; 
 since in a treatise on Political Economy that is the 
 first consideration, and all his own arguments as to the 
 advantages of the large scale of production in facili- 
 tating division of labour, allowing for large labour- 
 saving machinery, etc., can be employed to prove 
 that a nation covered with phalansteries or village 
 communities would be a poor nation, even allowing 
 for some economic gain by the life in common. It 
 would be poor in results, or for any purpose beyond 
 the provision of a coarse material comfort universalized. 
 
IO4 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 Now the present system gives us, if not quite this, 
 amongst the lower classes, yet something near to it, 
 while in addition it is able to tell off a large number 
 for immaterial labour, art, science, letters, philosophy, 
 and very many more to " do nothing gracefully," if 
 it so pleases them : the last not altogether a good 
 result, but with possibilities of good contained in it, 
 and the worst of the evils curable at less cost than a 
 universal life in the phalanstery would involve. 
 
 Mill further desired that the different schemes of 
 St. Simon and Fourier should have an opportunity 
 of trial. To this it may be said that at least Fourier's 
 system has had opportunities of trial, and it has inva- 
 riably failed. Though even if it had had a partial suc- 
 cess, this would not have been a conclusive argument 
 against the much stronger and demonstrative eco- 
 nomic argument. Fourierism has been tried more 
 than once on the Continent. It was also tried in 
 America in a celebrated experiment, of which 
 Nathaniel Hawthorne speaks in the " Blythdale 
 Romance," in which reasons other than economical 
 are shown against it. Even if it had not rashly in- 
 novated with regard to the family, it was bound to 
 fail. Economically, perhaps, it might have been 
 partly possible in 1808, when Fourier first wrote, 
 before the large production had extended itself, 
 though even then the millions of scattered small 
 farmers and proprietors would with difficult}- have 
 been induced to give up their homesteads and their 
 family life for the barrack-life, and no privacy of the 
 phalanstery. 
 
 There is perhaps one case where the phalanstery or 
 
MODERN SOCIALISM. 10$ 
 
 village community, its nearest realized type, might still 
 be possible, without involving much permanent loss. 
 It might prove a refuge for the unemployed (not likely 
 to be again employed), for the temporarily un- 
 employed, composed of agricultural labourers and 
 artisans, and for those only casually employed, pro- 
 vided, that is, that they would be willing to go to it 
 voluntarily. But one can see that these are not pro- 
 mising materials for our village community ; it would 
 not be an ideal one by any means. Even including 
 agricultural labourers and such artisans as might be 
 willing to take their fortune for a period in it (who 
 would not be of the best kind), it would not be very 
 successful economically. Still they might, under 
 certain conditions, make a living in these villages of 
 refuge, spare the public rates, and save to some 
 extent their own dignity. And something resem- 
 bling the above, though not modelled on the phalan- 
 stery of Fourier, seems to have been the village 
 contemplated and recently described by the Rev. 
 Mr. Mills as a refuge for the unemployed, as well as 
 for the recipient of out-door relief and the casual 
 labourer. 7 
 
 There is, however, this further to be said : that if a 
 self-contained, self-sustaining village community would 
 be good, one that did not produce all it needed, but 
 bought from the outside and gave its best products 
 in exchange might be better ; from whence it would 
 follow that it might be better to have an association 
 mostly of agricultural labourers, or a mainly agricultu- 
 
 7 For a fuller consideration of Mr. Mills' scheme, sec 
 Chapter XI. 
 
106 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 ral village with good farming machinery ; the clothes 
 and some other necessaries being bought where 
 cheapest. It could give some employment, no 
 doubt, to inferior artisans, as shoemakers and car- 
 penters, and the like. To this extent, perhaps, the 
 village community might be restored, but it would 
 always be in a state of unstable equilibrium, unless 
 the new recruits were enlisted for at least a twelve- 
 month without the power of leaving it. This, no doubt, 
 would be a sorry ending for the phalanstery, which 
 was announced with confident gravity by the founder 
 as the one means, without doubt, of making labour 
 attractive, mankind happy, and of introducing once 
 again the Golden Age. To come to a sort of semi- 
 pauper, semi-penal village community without the 
 Fourierist Palace in the centre, would be a lowering 
 of the phalansterian flag. Or if the palace be in- 
 sisted on, we shall have a building, half barrack, half 
 workhouse, in which the resemblance to the latter 
 would be only too painfully marked. 
 
 THE phalanstery shocked and went to pieces on the 
 large system of production, with which it is incom- 
 patible. Universalized, it would impoverish a nation, 
 besides being otherwise impracticable. On the other 
 hand, St. Simonism would destroy individual liberty, 
 would weight the State with endless responsibilities, 
 and the whole details of production, distribution, and 
 transportation. It would besides be a despotism if it 
 could be carried out, and not a beneficent despotism, 
 
MODERN SOCIALISM. 107 
 
 considering the weakness and imperfection of men. 
 So objected Louis Blanc to St. Simonism, in his 
 " Organisation du Travail " (1840), whilst bringing for- 
 ward a scheme of his own, which, he contends, would 
 be at once simple, immediately applicable, and of in- 
 definite extensibility ; in fact a full and final solution 
 of the Social Problem. 
 
 The large system of production, the large factory 
 and workshop, he saw was necessary. Large capital, 
 too, was necessary, but the large capitalist was not. 
 On the contrary, capitalism capital in the hands of 
 private individuals, with, as a necessary consequence, 
 unbounded competition, was ruinous for the working 
 classes, and not good for the middle classes, including 
 the capitalists themselves, because the larger capi- 
 talists, if sufficiently astute or unscrupulous, can 
 destroy the smaller ones by under-selling, as in fact 
 they constantly did. His own scheme was what is 
 now called co-operative production, with the difference 
 that instead of voluntary effort, he looked to the 
 State to give it its first motion, by advancing the 
 capital without interest, by drawing up the necessary 
 regulations, and by naming the hierarchy of workers 
 for one year, after which the co-operative groups were 
 to elect their own officers. He thought that if a 
 number of these co-operative associations were thus 
 launched State-aided in each of the greater provinces 
 of industry, they could compete successfully with the 
 private capitalist, and would beat him within no very 
 long time. By competition he trusted to drive him 
 out in a moderate time, and without shock to industry 
 in general. But having conquered the capitalist by 
 
IDS SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 competition, he wished competition to cease between 
 the different associations in any given industry ; as 
 he expressed it, he would "avail himself of the arm 
 of competition to destroy competition." 
 
 The Government, being the founder of the " social 
 workshops," would draw up the statutes which, de- 
 liberated on and voted by the national representation, 
 would have the form and power of law. The Govern- 
 ment having regulated the hierarchy of functions for 
 the first year, thereafter when the labourers had 
 learned each other's powers from daily contact, and 
 being deeply interested in having the best superiors, 
 "the hierarchy would issue from the elective principle." 
 
 The net proceeds each year would be divided into 
 three parts : the first to be divided equally amongst 
 the members of the association ; the second to be 
 devoted partly to the support of the old, the sick, the 
 infirm, partly to the alleviation of crises which would 
 weigh on other industries ; the third to furnish " in- 
 struments of labour" to those who might wish to join 
 the association, so as to allow of an indefinite exten- 
 sion of the principle. 
 
 Each association might also have affiliated to it 
 groups of subordinate workers in connected industries, 
 forming different parts of one whole, obeying the 
 same laws, and deriving the same advantages. 
 
 Every member might spend his salary as and 
 where he pleased; but the "evident economy and 
 incontestable excellence of the life in common 
 would give birth to voluntary association for wants 
 and pleasures," and thus the better part of Fourier's 
 scheme would be realized. 
 
MODERN SOCIALISM. IGQ 
 
 Capitalists would be invited into the associations, 
 and would receive the current rate of interest at least, 
 which interest would be guaranteed to them out of the 
 national budget ; but they would only participate in 
 the net surplus in the character of workers. 
 
 The struggle with private capital would not be 
 long, he thinks ; because all the co-operators would 
 have the economic advantages of the life in common, 
 and a great stimulus to produce quickly and well. 
 Nor would the struggle be subversive ; because the 
 State would be always present to mitigate the 
 effects of it, and could prevent the products of the 
 social workshop from being offered too cheaply. The 
 co-operators would not act like the strong competitor 
 under the existing regime, who sells at half the price of 
 his competitors, " to ruin them, and remain master of 
 the field of battle." The Government would not be 
 a party to such tactics ; and thus the final industrial 
 war between the associations and private enterprise 
 would be shorn of its most disastrous feature for the 
 conquered. There would be no sudden ruin for the 
 private capitalists ; they would merely be slowly but 
 surely defeated ; and they would soon come to recog- 
 nize the fact. There would be for the first time " a 
 healthy competition." At present, when the great 
 capitalist declares war on the little capitalist, it is 
 generally accompanied by " fraud, violence, and all the 
 evils that iniquity carries in its train ; " but the war 
 between association and capitalism would be carried 
 out" without brutality,without shocks, and with as much 
 clemency as would consist with attaining the desired 
 end, namely, the absorption, successive and pacific, of 
 
1 10 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 individual workshops by social workshops.' He is 
 sanguine that wherever a co-operative factory or work- 
 shop would be established, labourers and capitalists 
 alike would go and purchase from it. At the end of 
 a certain time the associations would infallibly remain 
 masters of the field. The State, through the associa- 
 tions, would render itself supreme little by little, 
 and as final result there would be the defeat and 
 extinction of competition, not monopoly, but 
 universal association. The best part of the ideal 
 of the St. Simonians would be realized without a 
 State despotism ; because after the first year the 
 role of the Government would be limited to super- 
 intending the maintenance of the connection of all the 
 grand centres of production of the same sort, and 
 to preventing the violation of the general principle 
 of the common regulations. After the defeat of the 
 private capitalist all associations in the same field of 
 production would merge competition amongst them- 
 selves ; because it would be absurd, having killed com- 
 petition between individuals, to permit it amongst 
 the associations. 8 On the contrary, in each sphere 
 of industry there would be a large central association 
 with which all the others would be in connection as 
 subordinate branches; just as M. Rothschild has a 
 principal seat for his banking operations, which is in 
 connection with less extensive branch concerns. 
 
 The mechanism, M. Blanc argues, is simple in the 
 extreme. Simpler than the postal system, which yet 
 worked so well. There are divisions and subdivisions 
 
 8 " Organisation du Travail/' p. 125. 
 
MODERN SOCIALISM. Ill 
 
 in the postal service, but one common mechanism 
 and one aim. There is no competition, as there might 
 have been had it been left to private enterprise. It 
 cannot be impossible for the labourers in a given 
 industry to act "avec ensemble" for a common end 
 in a country where one man for twenty years moved 
 simultaneously a million of men animated by his 
 single will. If the forces of destruction could be thus 
 organized, so surely may yet be the forces of pro- 
 duction. 
 
 Thus there would be established the solidarity of 
 interest of the workers in one industry, whether weav- 
 ing, mining, iron-founding, or any other. It would 
 then be necessary to establish a solidarity of interests 
 amongst the workers in all spheres. The State" would 
 aid, from the overplus in one industry, others that 
 might be depressed. Crises would become rarer, 
 because they are products of the present cruel system. 
 They would no longer arise from internal causes 
 causes generated at home by competition they 
 could come only from external causes, which treaties 
 of peace and alliance would largely counteract, if 
 only for the present bad scheme of foreign politics and 
 mischievous diplomacy with its false aims there were 
 substituted a true system founded on the necessities of 
 industry and the reciprocal conveniences of the labour- 
 ing classes in all parts of the world ; a system which, 
 as an international understanding in the interests of 
 labour, will be the foreign policy of the future. 
 
 Finally, if the State does not resolutely take up the 
 question of the reorganization of industry on these 
 lines, the existing industrial anarchy will go on ; but 
 
112 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 the existing social order cannot last ; it is giving 
 way on all sides. The whole social edifice is 
 cracking in all directions; and it will fall one day in 
 terrible ruin on all of us, if the evil signalized is not 
 dealt with in time by the State. 
 
 Such was the scheme of Louis Blanc, which, in 
 1848, when member of the Provisional Government in 
 France, he had the opportunity, rarely granted to the 
 social system-maker, of partially trying in practice. 
 He was allowed to establish a number of associations 
 of working men by the aid of Government subsidies. 9 
 The result did not realize expectations. After a 
 longer or shorter period of struggling, every one of 
 the associations failed ; while, on the other hand, a 
 number of co-operative associations founded by the 
 workmen's own capital, as also some industrial part- 
 nerships founded by capitalists, on Louis Blanc's 
 principle of distribution of the net proceeds, were suc- 
 cessful. M. de Laveleye argues that the cause of the 
 failure of Louis Blanc's associations was simply the 
 State assistance, which paralyzed or prevented the 
 formation of the qualities absolutely essential to per- 
 manent success, namely, energy, foresight, the spirit 
 and habit of saving qualities implied in self-reliance, 
 but which reliance on the State, or on any outside 
 
 9 I do not refer to the ateliers nationaux, which were not 
 countenanced by Louis Blanc ; but to certain associations of 
 working men who received advances from the Government on 
 the principle advocated in his book. There were not many 
 of these at first. L. Blanc congratulated himself on being 
 able to start a few: after the second rising the Government 
 subsidized fifty-six associations, all but one of which had failed 
 by 1875. See Laveleye's " Socialism of To-day," p. 73. 
 
MODERN SOCIALISM. 1 13 
 
 support, invariably weakens. And Professor Cairnes 
 appears to be of the same opinion as to the tendency 
 of State Help, as compared with self-reliance. If, 
 he argues, men can get capital provided by the State 
 as often as needed, why should they save, why work 
 hard, or take pains to turn out good work ? The very 
 springs of economy, of effort, and of excellence are 
 stopped, and in the opinion of all the enemies of 
 State help, there would be a competition, taking men 
 as they are, not to do most and best, but least and 
 worst, which would be nationally disastrous, unless 
 the nations competing with us adopted the same 
 suicidal system. 
 
 Without, for the present, further examining the 
 soundness of this view, we have merely here to note 
 that the social workshops in Paris aided by the State 
 all failed by degrees, as did, likewise, the co-operative 
 efforts in England, started and patronized, and partly 
 propped up, by philanthropic endeavours. But what 
 is more remarkable, and what requires a different 
 explanation, is the fact that the self-reliant attempts 
 at co-operative production made at Rochdale as well 
 as other places, even when started by the workers 
 savings, have likewise generally failed. 
 
 The system of Fourier failed because it was un- 
 suited to our modern minute division of labour, the 
 employment of extensive machinery, and large pro- 
 duction ; because economically it was weak, and 
 morally it ran counter to the instincts of human nature. 
 The Phalanstery, like the dying Village Community or 
 the House Communities of the Slavs, was retrograde. 
 The St. Simonian system cannot be said to have 
 
 I 
 
114 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 failed, because it has never been really tried, nor could it 
 easily be, considering its vastness and all-comprehen- 
 siveness. 1 Its weakness as a scheme is that it could 
 not be tried on a small scale, nor at all, without putting 
 all to hazard. It is an ideal that might be slowly 
 approximated to, but as a scheme it could only be fully 
 tried by a despot or a dictator, like Napoleon. We can 
 readily believe that, had it been tried by such an one, 
 it would have failed, for the opposite reason to that 
 which necessitated the failure of Fourier's scheme, 
 namely, because it was premature. Fourier's scheme 
 failed, St. Simon's scheme remained an ideal/ 
 Louis Blanc's scheme, a sort of middle between 
 the two, so far as tried, failed, and we can see 
 reasons for its failure. But for voluntary co-operative 
 production, the most carefully guarded against ob- 
 jections, which seemed to comply with all economic 
 conditions, which had passed, so to speak, all the 
 economic doctors Mill, Cairnes,Fawcett, Thornton 
 we should surely have expected a priori ''a better fortune. 
 What has been the cause of its failure ? for failure it 
 is, since, as regards this social question, not to advance, 
 or to advance so slowly after so long, is to fail. Before 
 attempting to answer this question, it will be well to 
 consider briefly the opinions, economic and social, of 
 John Stuart Mill, the principal advocate of Co- 
 It is, in fact, the St. Simonian scheme without the rulers, 
 temporal and spiritual without the aristocracy of capacity, and 
 with the election of officers from beneath by vote, and not 
 from above, that the existing Socialists wish to see attempted. 
 Except so far as Bonapartism was a partial application of 
 
MODERN SOCIALISM. 11$ 
 
 operative Production in England, and a man who, by 
 his sincerity, his wide sympathies, his love of justice, 
 as well as by his powers as a writer, his clearness of 
 thought and of exposition, his wide knowledge, and 
 common sense, has done much to advance the cause 
 of Democracy, as well as to prepare the soil for the 
 reception of Socialistic ideas. 
 
 VI. 
 
 IN his "Principles of Political Economy " 
 discusses Communism and Socialism, as they then 
 presented themselves to him, in a broadly catholic 
 and impartial spirit. Whether Socialism or private 
 property, reformed and purified, will hold the future 
 depends, he thinks, on which of the two affords the 
 largest space to individual liberty, which, next to 
 meat and drink, is the greatest need of man, and 
 which, unlike the others, tends to increase.^ At the 
 same time, the present system reposing on private 
 property will last a very considerable time, and, if it 
 were only freed from its worst features, would have 
 much on its side.) He shows us the kind of reforms 
 that he desires, and it is significant to note that they 
 mostly tend in a Socialistic direction, viz. legislation 
 to promote greater equality of fortune, limitation of 
 the rights of private property and of inheritance, the 
 abolition of certain kinds of property. In 1848, the 
 date of the publication of his book, a due mixture of 
 the two systems of Socialism and Individualism was 
 his ideal, and one both philosophical and practical. 
 In 1869, the year of the Congress of Bale, when 
 I 2 
 
Il6 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 Socialism, having been prosecuted in Germany, had 
 again become militant, and had submitted an ad- 
 vanced programme recommending the nationalization 
 of land and capital, Mill once more returned to the 
 question of Socialism as the most important one of 
 the future. He even contemplated writing a book 
 upon the subject, which, unfortunately, he did not 
 live to finish. Happily, though without all his argu- 
 ments, we are able to gather his main conclusions, 
 which, however, might have been qualified if he had 
 lived to complete the work. There is not a great ad- 
 vance in his theoretical opinions. The Socialists' in- 
 dictment he thinks grave and terrible, if true. Though 
 it contains much truth, it is exaggerated. Competi- 
 tion is not an unmixed evil, as the Socialists picture it. 
 It does, however, lead to some evils. In other respects 
 it works altogether for good, and gives workers high 
 wages, just as it sometimes does low wages. The 
 notion of property must be altered in the Socialist's 
 direction. All through history the notion has been 
 subject to change. The capitalist is not a confiscator. 
 He gets his profits on his capital, only on condition 
 that the circulating part of it is given to the workers. 
 He never touches the circulating part, save to give it 
 to them (Fortnightly Review, 1 874). 
 
 It cannot be said that we have here any great doc- 
 trinal change on the whole. His merit is that he tries 
 to hold the scales impartially between Capital and 
 Labour ; and as he was an undoubted friend of the 
 working classes, as well as a scientific seeker for the 
 true and good, his words will be likely to have weight 
 with all classes. 
 
MODERN SOCIALISM. 1 1/ 
 
 In his "Autobiography" he says that the views 
 which he and his wife had come to share would entitle 
 them to be classed " under the general designation of 
 Socialists." And this, though not quite a death-bed 
 confession of faith, yet, as it was written late in life, 
 and intended for the world after his death, must be 
 taken to express his final opinion. ; He there says : 
 " While we repudiated with the greatest energy the 
 tyranny of society over the individual, which most 
 Socialistic systems are supposed to involve, we yet 
 looked forward to a time when society would no longer 
 be divided into the idle and/ the industrious ; when 
 the rule that they who do not work shall not eat will 
 be applied not to paupers only, but impartially to all ; 
 when the division of the produce,oliabaur, instead of 
 depending in so great a degree, as it now does, on the 
 accident of birth, will be by concert on an acknow- 
 ledged principle ofjustice ; and when it will no longer 
 either be, or be thought to be, impossible for human 
 beings to exert themselves strenuously in procuring 
 benefits which are not to be exclusively their own, 
 but to.be shared with the society they belong to." 
 Professor Cairnes, indeed, thinks that these views 
 would not entitle him to call himself a Socialist, be- 
 cause he does not advocate i" the employment of the 
 powers of the State for the instant accomplishment 
 of ideal schemes, which is the invariable attribute of 
 all projects generally regarded as Socialistic." Now, 
 as matter of fact, I believe that few Socialists at present 
 do look for " the instant accomplishment of ideal 
 schemes " by the aid of the State ; certainly even 
 Louis Blanc did not expect that his scheme would 
 
IlS SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 be instantaneously accomplished, while Lassallc, who 
 also appealed to the State, did not expect that the 
 desired Social transformation could take place inside 
 two centuries. However, not to press the word " in- 
 stant," and letting " Socialism " stand for the more 
 or less gradual accomplishment of ideal schemes by 
 State aid, which is what it generally does signify, 
 Mill certainly was a Socialist, even before writing 
 "Autobiography." In two remarkable paragraphs in 
 different places in his work on Political Economy he 
 gives us his ideal : 3 the chief feature in which is the 
 limitation of inherited, fortunes to a moderate com- 
 petence. He sketches the leading features of Society 
 under his ideal, which he thinks would form a great 
 improvement on the present system. He does not 
 think that this better state could be realized at once, 
 or until mankind were morally improved. But he 
 regards it as an ideal to be striven for, and one that 
 can be brought about in the main only by the State. 
 And as steps towards it, practicable even at the time, 
 he recommends an increase in the land tax, the 
 reversion to the State of future unearned increments 
 in the value of land, and an increase in the taxes on 
 inheritances and legacies. So that Mill must be re- 
 garded as having been then a Socialist, and a State 
 Socialist. Only he is a Socialist that expects his 
 ideal to be realized slowly that is, he is a practical 
 and sensible Socialist, and neither Utopian nur 
 revolutionary. 
 
 As regards industry, his ideal is Co-operative Tro- 
 
 3 " Political Economy," pp. 139, 140 (People's Edition), also 
 pp. 454, 487. 
 
MODERN SOCIALISM. 119 
 
 duction the same as that of Louis Blanc, with 
 this difference, that he does not in this case look 
 for the help of the State, and probably because, 
 as he says, those associations that relied on the 
 State were less prosperous than those that relied ;, 
 on themselves, on their own savings, and the 
 small loans of sympathizing fellow-workmen. Like 
 Louis Blanc, he expected much from the prin- 
 ciple of associated labour ; and he prophesied that 
 the relation of employer and employed would be 
 gradually superseded by partnerships in one of 
 two forms : the first in which the workers will 
 share profits with the master ; the second in 
 which the workers will all be partners, the 
 master being replaced by an elected manager! The 
 first is profit-sharing. It is the second form, or 
 Co-operative Production proper, that must be ex- 
 pected to prevail in the end ; and he thinks that 
 time nearer than people in general imagine. Pri- 
 vate capitalists, as many as remain, will gradually 
 make all their workers sharers in profits. And so 
 with the associations of labourers ; for it would never 
 do for themselves to employ hired labourers while 
 trying to break down the principle of hired labour. 
 He thinks with Louis Blanc that these associations 
 would tend more and more to absorb all workpeople, 
 except those who have too little understanding, or 
 too little virtue, to be capable of learning to act on 
 any system other than that of narrow selfishness. The 
 capitalists, thus finding only bad workmen left with 
 them, would soon begin to think of giving up a hope- 
 less struggle ; they would lend their capital to the 
 
120 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 associations ; but they would have to do this at a 
 diminishing rate of interest, and at last accepting the 
 inevitable with the best grace, they would " most 
 probably exchange their capital for terminable annui- 
 ties/' Thus slowly and quietly by euthanasia would 
 pass away capitalism and the once mighty capitalist, 
 and co-operative production would reign supreme in 
 the industrial world. 
 
 Such was Mill's prophecy in 1848. It was a san- 
 guine time. Louis Blanc, as we have seen, expected 
 the like issue in the competition between the private 
 capitalists and the co-operative groups. So also did 
 Charles Kingsley, another determined enemy of 
 capitalism and the " Manchester School." So also 
 did Thomas Hughes and Mr. Holyoake, two vet .-ran 
 co-operators, whose faith has hardly yet failed 
 them, and who in 1887 celebrated the Jubilee of co- 
 operation. 
 
 But the prophets, including Mill, were reckoning 
 without their host, the capitalist. They knew 
 neither the vast strength and resources of the pri- 
 vate capitalist, nor the capacity of development in 
 capitalism, nor, on the other hand, did they know the 
 latent weakness of co-operation. With a light heart 
 Mill proposes the removal of the capitalist, the key- 
 stone of the whole system of modern industry, which, it" 
 there is anything in the science of society and the 
 doctrine of social evolution, is about as possible in our 
 time as it would have been possible in the days of Feu- 
 dalism to dispense suddenly with all the feudal chiefs. 
 What has been happening ever since, the really re- 
 markable evolution sin :e 1 848, has been quite a different 
 
MODERN SOCIALISM. 121 
 
 thing ; not the extension of co-operative associations 
 and the simultaneous extinction of the capitalist, but 
 the extension of limited companies, composed of 
 many small capitalists, and the transformation of 
 large private concerns into limited companies, in which 
 the large capitalist sits secure at the centre, holding 
 the greatest portion of the shares. In fact, the 
 capitalist has strengthened his position and consoli- 
 dated his empire by having so many smaller allies 
 and defenders. Companies new, and ever more com- 
 panies, occupy the field of industry and of enterprise. 
 The associations for co-operative production have 
 not extended relatively. They have hardly even 
 increased in absolute numbers within the past forty 
 years ; but have rather declined, at present there 
 being only a few instances in England of successful 
 effort of the kind ; though in France and Germany 
 there are a large, though not a relatively large, 
 number. 
 
 The capitalist, a strong and self-reliant man, was 
 laughing inwardly, whilst the prophets and economic 
 doctors were composedly compassing his death. None 
 knew better than he how little there was in co-opera- 
 tion and how little threatening it really was to him. 
 He knew well that unless the associations had great 
 money resources, he could at any moment starve their 
 profits by underselling. He kept his counsel. He 
 rather encouraged the co-operative delusion. It sent 
 the friends of the working-class on a wrong road, 
 where their meddling was of much less concern to 
 him. It left him alone for a time, and it served to 
 let off sentimental steam, which might otherwise 
 
122 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 have got Parliamentary Commissions of inquiry 
 into his practices. Whilst the friends of co-operation 
 preached self-help to the workers, he knew he was 
 safe, that he had a long- respite. "With their pitiful 
 resources we can at any moment blow them out of 
 the waters, if there is ever any necessity for it, 
 which there will not be so long as they depend <>n 
 themselves for capital. Let us leave them alone ; 
 waste no effort or talk on them. The inherent weak- 
 ness of the idea will cause its failure, and then we 
 shall hear no mr.re of it. Even if it drags on a 
 protracted and puny life, it will serve us rather 
 than otherwise. It will keep back proposals more 
 seriously touching our position. It will occupy the 
 philanthropists and some of the social projectors ; 
 meantime we shall be left alone, and we can strengthen 
 our weak places." 
 
 So ran the tenor of the capitalist's reflections, and 
 on the whole he was right. As matter of fact, 
 while co-operation did not make way, capitalism 
 enormously extended itself. New forms of rich men 
 appeared. 'In addition to the earlier rich types, the 
 manufacturer, the great brewer, the banker, the coal- 
 master, the iron-master, the great contractor, there 
 came new ones, producing, distributing, financing. 
 The skilful " cornerer " and operator appeared. Ne\v 
 hands of monopoly were placed on things necessary 
 or in excessive demand. New forms of monopoly- 
 rings, pools, syndicates, and trusts with developed 
 artifices and methods, appeared. The financier ex- 
 panded his province and branched out into new types, 
 especially in America, where he had a golden chance in 
 
MODERN SOCIALISM. 123 
 
 the extension of railway and other large enterprises 
 requiring much borrowed capital. Speculation ex- 
 tended, and was reduced to a fixed science by the 
 speculator. The Company " limited " became univer- 
 salized, and the company- floater found his chance 
 whether the company succeeded or failed. The 
 manager of the successful companies flourished, 
 as did the directors. New and well-paid parasites 
 on the fruits of industry, and new middle-men 
 found a place for themselves, though smaller ones 
 were extinguished by the growth of the large 
 system. 
 
 All the interests of the different kinds of capitalists 
 were solidairefiax more so than those of the landowners 
 in their day of power. They controlled the Parlia- 
 ment largely ; the press largely ; the loanable circu- 
 lating medium of the country and of the world 
 largely. Whatever is a power in modern times 
 they controlled. This, then, was the mighty interest 
 threatened by Mill's scheme of co-operation, for 
 with the downfall of the great producing capitalist 
 most of the other sorts would have been involved 
 with him. And there is no doubt from the words 
 of Mill and Louis Blanc that they were intended 
 to be dethroned. Thus an enormous and ex- 
 ceedingly powerful interest would be dislodged, 
 and in fact a social and industrial system sub- 
 verted, by, the success of co-operation, a thing, 
 as all history teaches, not easy to effect; and 
 this alone would almost account for the slow 
 progress of co-operation, were there not also 
 wanting certain moral qualities to be adverted 
 
124 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 to hereafter, without which success would be im- 
 possible. 4 
 
 NOTE. In the preceding historical review it may appear that 
 less than justice has been done to our own countryman, Robert 
 Owen, who has been sometimes described as " the founder of 
 English Socialism," as well as the initiator of the co-operative 
 movement. The truth is he is not entitled to either name. 
 Owen was a communist, whose scheme, though bearing some 
 resemblance to Fourier's, yet differs essentially from it in pro- 
 posing the rule of equality in distribution and the abolition of 
 private property ; that is to say, it differs in being still more 
 impracticable. Neither can Owen be rightly regarded as the 
 founder of co-operative production, though it is possible that his 
 failure to found a successful community in America may, by 
 narrowing the field of experiment, have prepared the way for 
 the more special attempt of co-operative production, and that 
 his great and disinterested efforts to introduce Communism 
 may have prepared the minds of the English people for the 
 milder Socialist movement of 1848. The chief result of 
 Owen's life, apart from the high example set of philanthropic 
 endeavour, was, in fact, a negative one : not the founding of 
 Socialism, but the demonstration once again, and by actual 
 experiment, of the impracticability of communism. 
 
 
 
 4 For the reason given I cannot agree with Professor 
 Cairnes (" Leading Principles of Political Economy ") that the 
 difficulties in the way of co-operation are chiefly moral. Still 
 less do I agree that co-operative production of the voluntary 
 kind is the sole outlook for the working classes, the assertion 
 of a single exclusive specific being now rather regarded as 
 savouring of the social empiric. I think, too, that the moral 
 difficulties are greater than he supposed ; and, moreover, would 
 require so long a time to overcome, that successful co-operative 
 production would come too late, so many other possible de- 
 velopments having taken place i .eantime in the industrial 
 sphere. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE NEW SOCIALISM AND ITS ARGUMENT. 
 I. 
 
 AFTER the memorable year of 1848 it seemed as if 
 Socialism were dead, and the middle classes in France, 
 for whom it had seemed a menace, rejoiced. It 
 had shown it-self dangerous and subversive in its 
 forms, and so far as actually tried in peaceful 
 fashion, according to the scheme of Louis Blanc, it 
 had not succeeded, but failed. In England, too, the 
 various attempts made at co-operative production 
 had failed. Socialism became discredited. Soon 
 people ceased to speak of it, save as a thing of the past, 
 as a strange and eccentric rising against the natural 
 course of things. The several systems of St. Simon, 
 Fourier, Louis Blanc, were relegated to the philoso- 
 phical museum for abortive social systems, or those 
 merely fanciful, like Plato's " Republic " and More's 
 " Utopia." Socialism, it was thought, was dead, and 
 the old society breathed freely once more. 
 
 Its peace was of short duration. In 1862 the 
 spectre of Socialism again appeared. Nay, it seemed 
 living, breathing, endowed with a larger life and 
 greater vitality than ever. A new Socialist crusade 
 
126 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 was preached, and this time it was Germany, as 
 before it had been France that had the honour of 
 leading it. 
 
 The third crusade was preached by Lassalle, but the 
 inspiration came from Karl Marx, both of that Jewish 
 race which from the time of Moses and the Prophets 
 had shown strong Socialistic tendencies as well as 
 others as strongly individualistic. Marx, the founder 
 of the new Socialism, had no new social system ; he 
 brought merely a new argument into the controversy. 1 
 He undertook to prove that the capitalist was a spoiler 
 and a robber, though not to blame for it, because he 
 was only a part of a necessary social evolution, in 
 which he found himself, without consciously con- 
 tributing to make it. He was merely born part of a 
 bad social system. According to Marx, we can do 
 little to mend it. Society must slowly go through 
 its successive stages : all that can be done by philoso- 
 phers or statesmen is to abridge a little the process, 
 and to facilitate the incoming of the next and better 
 stage : to " lessen the birth pangs." It is a matter of 
 evolution, and revolutions in the old violent sense 
 are of little use, save that they may come in as 
 necessary and useful crises in the course of evolution. 
 But it is not they, but the total evolution that really 
 effects the social transformation. 
 
 Nevertheless, it is important to have clear and true 
 knowledge in order to make the right and necessary 
 course clear, in order to facilitate the new birth. 
 
 1 Even his argument is not altogether original, bcin- 1 
 based on ideas of Rodbertus; which, however, are more fully 
 developed and illustrated by Marx. 
 
THE NEW SOCIALISM AND ITS ARGUMENT. I2/ 
 
 Whatever be the fatality in the course of evolution, 
 it is well that they who wish the change should have 
 morality and right on their side. And to prove that 
 they have Marx has written a History of Capital in 
 its past stages of growth ; and he submits capitalism, 
 as at present existing, to a long and laboured criticism, 
 and as the result of the history and the criticism, he 
 thinks he has clearly shown that capital is the result of 
 confiscation from the working classes. For hitherto 
 this had been rather assumed by the St. Simonians 
 and by Louis Blanc and Proudhon than attempted 
 to be proved. In order to prove it Marx goes on the 
 right and only method. He goes to history and 
 economic science, which had been neglected by 
 preceding Socialists ; and in his theory of value he 
 adroitly turns their own guns against the orthodox 
 economists and capitalists. -He accepts the doctrine 
 of Adam Smith and especially of Ricardo, that labour 
 is the sole source of value, and undertakes to show 
 from it that capital must be the result of spoliation. 
 
 Now, if Marx could establish his theory that 
 capital is robbery, he would have contributed a power- 
 ful argument in favour of Socialism. For men, so 
 long as they even pretend to be moral beings, and to 
 have any regard for justice, could not go on acquiescing 
 in a system thus shown to run counter to their 
 current ideas of morality and the precepts of all 
 religions. Marx would have created a powerful 
 diversion against the existing capitalist system. He 
 would have effected a fatal breach in the fortress of 
 capitalism ; and it would be only a question of time 
 when it would collapse ; for, as Professor Sidgwick says, 
 
128 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 "The conclusions of economic science have always 
 been supposed to relate ultimately however qualified 
 and supplemented to actual human beings,and actual 
 human beings will not permanently acquiesce in a 
 social order that common moral opinion condemns." ; 
 Moreover, if men are Christians as well as moral 
 beings, and really believe what they profess, they 
 could not acquiesce in a system of organized plunder 
 and oppression for their profit ; nor could we suppose 
 their spiritual guides would acquiesce in it. If, then, 
 the existing system were condemned by morality, and 
 religion threw in her weight against it as well, the 
 system would be doomed. The battle of Socialism 
 if Socialism were practicable would be won. It 
 is for these reasons that Marx's indictment against 
 capitalism and his argument to prove capital the 
 result of spoliation are deserving of serious and 
 careful examination. 
 
 I have said that Marx had no peculiar system, but 
 only an argument. The truth is that he set out from 
 the communism of Louis Blanc. In 1 847 he published, 
 in conjunction with F. Engels, a manifesto of the Ger- 
 man communists, 3 in which is advocated the abolition 
 of private property, the establishment of a single 
 centralized State bank, associations of agricultural 
 labourers, together with the carrying on of all in- 
 dustry other than agricultural in national factories, 
 which is simply the scheme of Louis Blanc. 
 
 The manifesto affirms that the ideal could only be 
 
 2 Sidgwick's "Principles of Political Economy," 2nd Ed. 
 p. 501. 
 
 3 Laveleye's "Socialism of To-day," p. 148. 
 
THE NEW SOCIALISM AND ITS ARGUMENT. 129 
 
 attained by a violent revolution, and it adds, " that 
 the transformation of society would not take place 
 according to the preconceived ideas of any reformer, 
 but on the initiation of the entire labouring classes " 
 whatever th.e last vague clause may mean, which is 
 both mysterious and partly contradictory to the 
 preceding, because the "preconceived ideas of re- 
 formers," and in particular those of himself and of 
 Louis Blanc, are laid down as at least general goals. 
 In 1864 Karl Marx founded the International 
 Society, intended as a sort of universal Trades' 
 Union, aiming at first, as M. de Laveleye says, at 
 " raising wages ; but later on, when the influence of 
 Marx was overridden, at a transformation of society, 
 if needs were, by revolution." The first manifesto of 
 the International, conceived by Marx, points to co- 
 operative production as the goal, but says that an un- 
 derstanding among all the workmen of all countries will 
 be necessary. Now one sees that to make strikes and 
 combinations effective, there should be an agreement 
 amongst the working classes to support each other ; 
 e.g. that if the workers in any branch of production 
 in England should strike, foreign workers should 
 not come over from Belgium or Denmark to take 
 their place ; for if they do, the capitalist could defy 
 his hands at home. One also sees how, if there were 
 funds subscribed by all, a part could be transferred 
 to any given place in any country to enable a local 
 strike to resist. This we can see ; though it was 
 somewhat Utopian to expect that such a plan would 
 long continue. We do not see how an international 
 understanding is needed to realize co-operative pro- 
 
130 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 duction, except, indeed, so far as the capitalist might, 
 if foreign cheap labour were imported, sooner starve 
 the co-operative producers by underselling. But for 
 this purpose an understanding of mutual interests, 
 without the founding of a society with subscriptions, 
 would seem sufficient. Or the workmen in each 
 country might agitate till they forced their Govern- 
 ment to forbid the importation of cheap foreign 
 labourers. 
 
 Marx had, at the commencement of his career, 
 urged the necessity of the working men getting first 
 their political rights, in order to make their influence 
 felt in the State, which was also the idea of Louis 
 Blanc, as it was of the leaders of the English Chartists. 
 But in the International Congress at Brussels in 1868, 
 it appears that the Congress repudiated State action. 
 If so, either Marx's influence and ideas were discounted, 
 or he had changed his views. By making their in- 
 fluence felt in the State, he thought in 1864 that 
 beneficial legislation might be secured for the working 
 classes, and that gradually, without revolution, co- 
 operative labour, without the capitalist, might !)< 
 introduced. After the Congress of 1873 Marx 
 retired into private life to finish the second volume of 
 the book that has made him famous " Das Kapital," 4 
 in which whatever may have been his previous views 
 his final ones are given, and in which Collectivism is 
 indicated as a goal,without, however, being expounded 
 
 4 He had previously published, in 1847, " Miscre de la 
 Philosophic," in answer to Proudhon's " Philosophic de la 
 Misere," and in 1859, "A Critique of Political Economy/' 
 the latter mostly reproduced in " Das Kapital." 
 
THE NEW SOCIALISM AND ITS ARGUMENT. 131 
 
 as a system, or without making it clear whether he 
 occupies the evolutionary or revolutionary stand- 
 point. At all events, the argument on which 
 Collectivism, the new Socialism, rests, is given at 
 great length, and with much repetition. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE new Socialists say that the previous efforts 
 failed because they were Utopian, and because the 
 fulness of time was not come for the experiments. 
 Industry, on the grand scale, had not universalized 
 itself, the evil of the existing system had not sufficiently 
 declared itself, the State had not shown what it could 
 do in the sphere of industry, and the people had not 
 got political power. The conditions are all different 
 to-day. Moreover, the Socialists say, " We will not 
 this time commit the mistakes of the past Socialists ; 
 we will not abolish private property, but only con- 
 siderably limit it ; we don't propose to do away with 
 inheritance, as the St. Simonians did, only we shall 
 so arrange that there will not be overgrown private 
 fortunes to leave ; but we do propose to do away 
 with profits, with rents, and, above all, with interest, 
 the taking of money for the use of money. There 
 shall only be wages which will be increased by what 
 now goes to rent and interest, and each one's share 
 shall be in proportion to the amount of his work. 
 The land and capital must henceforth belong to the 
 State for the good of all, instead of being private 
 property for the good of a few, and to the detriment 
 
 K 2 
 
132 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD, 
 
 of the many. Such is the just ideal for 'which the 
 time is ripe." 
 
 This new Socialism appeals to political economy, 
 and it appeals to history ; moreover, it appeals to 
 ethics. It calls itself Scientific Socialism, and for 
 these reasons it must be regarded with much more 
 seriousness than any previous form. All would 
 seem to turn on whether the appeals to economics 
 and ethics justify the conclusion drawn from them, 
 and accordingly it becomes necessary to examine the 
 arguments of Karl Marx, and his views on capital 
 and its origin, with some attention and at some 
 length. 
 
 According to Marx, there are three main stages in 
 the history of industry : First, the stage of the handi- 
 crafts ; secondly, the stage of what he calls (not very 
 accurately) manufactures and division of labour, 
 though without much help from machinery ; thirdly, 
 the stage of the great machine-produced industry 
 the modern stage in which we still are. In the first 
 stage, which lasted from time immemorial at least 
 from the days of Tubal Cainthe handicraftsman 
 owned the few instruments of his art, and the results 
 of his labour were his without deduction. If the 
 materials on which he wrought were likewise his, the 
 product was his absolutely and completely; if, as 
 might happen with some craftsmen, as the tailor or 
 the shoemaker, he wrought on the materials, the cloth 
 or leather, of another, he received a customary price 
 for his labour. There was no employer who made a 
 profit out of his labour. A small qualification only 
 needs to be made to this. From the Middle Ages 
 
THE NEW SOCIALISM AND ITS ARGUMENT. 133 
 
 onwards, under guild or corporation regulations, a 
 master workman might have two or three apprentices 
 and as many journeymen, the latter at daily wages, 
 in which case the master had, of course, some small 
 profits, and might, perhaps, be considered as an 
 embryonic or potential capitalist in the Socialist 
 sense. 
 
 It is in the next stage, however, that the capitalist 
 proper appears, though only half-fledged. In this 
 stage, which came necessarily with the advantages of 
 division of labour, masters employed men at agreed- 
 on daily or weekly wages, generally paying them as 
 low as possible, and being always, as Adam Smith 
 affirms, in a kind of tacit combination for that purpose, 
 so far, at least, as concerned the average rate, though 
 particular individuals sometimes found it to their 
 interest to pay higher. In Socialist phrase, they 
 " exploited the workers " used them to make a profit 
 out of their labour. Why did the handicraftsman 
 work for them ? In general, he had no choice. 
 Either he could not compete with the larger pro- 
 ducers,or, as generally happened, there was no question 
 of competition, because only-associated labour under 
 an employer was possible. Where the product con- 
 sisted of many parts, or the process of making 
 involved several successive operations, as in Adam 
 Smith's example of pin-making, or when the com- 
 modity itself was large as well as made up of parts, 
 the factory, or workshop, or workyard, necessarily 
 came into existence, bringing with it a large number 
 of men in one place, who received wages from an 
 employer. 
 
134 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 The chief 'thing to be noted about this stage is that 
 profits proper first appear, and become the source of 
 further capital the first capital having come either 
 from the savings of the small producers, from loans 
 by the money-lender or banker, from the gains made 
 in trade by merchants or dealers, or even, thoi. 
 indirectly, from the rent of landlords. 5 We have, 
 however, reached the stage of capitalist production, 
 though, as yet, in undeveloped form and extending to 
 relatively few industries. In Adam Smith's time it 
 had attained considerable dimensions, though, of 
 course, nothing to be compared with its colossal scale 
 at the present day. 
 
 The state of things in the middle of last century, 
 on the eve of the industrial revolution, was briefly 
 this : in most of the older trades there was the mas- 
 ter worker with his few apprentices and journeymen. 
 The master worked himself, the small necessary capi- 
 tal was his, and so were the small profits. His social 
 status was little superior to his assistant's, and the 
 most he could hope for was, as trade regulations 
 became less stringent in limiting the number of 
 journeymen, to raise hinaself to the dignity of a small 
 manufacturer. In a considerable number of industries 
 there were small capitalist employers who paid wages 
 to a number of men, but who did' no other work than 
 that of superintendence and general conduct of the 
 concern. It is worth noting that in the cotton, wool- 
 len, linen, silk, and other textile industries which have 
 since grown great staple trades, the spinning and 
 
 5 See Marx's " Capital," vol. ii., p. 77,]," On the Genesis of 
 the Industrial Capitalist." 
 
THE NEW SOCIALISM AND ITS ARGUMENT. 135 
 
 weaving was not generally done in factories, but by 
 men and women in their own homes working on their 
 own account, although in some cases, especially in 
 the woollen trade, there were employers who had 
 20, 50, or even 100 paid hands. 6 
 
 The revolution which totally changed this relatively 
 simple organization of labour began in the middle of 
 last century, and was brought about by a remarkable 
 series of inventions and discoveries, partly referable 
 to increased scientific knowledge, partly to the genius 
 of individuals. This spirit of invention and discovery, 
 which has since extended to every industry some 
 being even wholly created by it at first directed 
 itself to the staple textile industries of Great Britain, 
 the cotton, linen, woollen, and others ; and these were 
 revolutionized from top to bottom. The essence of 
 the change effected by the new inventions was briefly 
 this : the new invention usually took the form of a 
 machine which could produce more in the same time 
 than could be produced by an equal number of 
 workers without its aid ; perhaps it could produce 
 two or three, or even five times as much, and if this 
 could only be sold at the old price, or a trifle lower 
 so as to draw new customers, the owner could, before 
 the price fell, make great extra profits after making 
 good to himself the interest on the money invested in 
 the machine. 
 
 Or the advantage of the machine may be thus 
 
 stated : If the machine produces twice as much in the 
 
 same time with the same number of hands, then with 
 
 half or a little more than half the number of hands, 
 
 6 See Toynbee's " Industrial Revolution." 
 
136 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 and with a less large and less expensive machine, 
 there will be the same turn-out as by the old number 
 without the machine ; in other words, the employer 
 will get the same result with half the labourers, and 
 the wages of the displaced half might be put in his 
 pocket as extra profit minus, of course, the interest 
 of the capital sunk in the machine. 
 
 " But whence," it may be asked, " came the capital 
 sunk in the machine?" In the first case (when the same 
 hands were kept on), it was either borrowed or saved 
 out of previous profits, or most likely it came from 
 both sources ; in the second case the necessary capital 
 can come from the saved wages, being borrowed in the 
 first instance. In the first case the great additional 
 profits soon enabled the employer to extinguish both 
 borrowed principal and interest, after which, the extra 
 profits continuing, he was in a position to still further 
 enlarge the scale of his enterprise, as he usually did. 
 He did not often, until later times, under Trades 
 Union strikes, turn part of his circulating capital into 
 fixed, thereby displacing part of his hands ; because 
 the larger the scale of production, the more easily he 
 could undersell not merely the producer by the old 
 and ruder methods, but the producer by machinery 
 on a smaller scale in a smaller factory. He could 
 well afford to sell cheaper, and yet have higher profit. 
 Besides, cheapness widens the circle of customers, 
 enlarges the demand, and the enlarged demand re- 
 acting on expenses of production lessens them, thus 
 stimulating him to produce in ever larger quantity. 
 
 With the incoming of the new machinery there was 
 a great race for wealth and fortune. Whoever got 
 
THE NEW SOCIALISM AND ITS ARGUMENT. 137 
 
 the machinery first could undersell rivals, drive them 
 from the field, and step into their custom. It was a 
 grand case of the survival of the strongest, or the 
 fittest the fittest being a strange mixture of good 
 and bad types. The small producers were devoured 
 by the large. Moreover, the period of struggle being 
 prolonged, as ever newer and more potent or more 
 cunning machines were invented, the large were in 
 turn liable to be devoured by the still larger, a risk 
 in the business sphere which continues down to our 
 own time. 
 
 Instead of hands being turned adrift by the new 
 machinery, more and more were needed in the cotton, 
 woollen, and other industries. Then came the con- 
 quest and temporary monopoly of the Continental 
 market, which resulted in a demand for more hands 
 and the pressure into the service of women, married 
 and unmarried, girls, boys, infants of both sexes. By 
 the monopoly of the Continental market, as much as 
 by the labour, graduated in cheapness, of women, 
 young people, and children, the profits of the success- 
 ful capitalist became something extraordinary, being 
 swollen by the conquest of his home and foreign 
 competitors, by excessive working hours, by mono- 
 poly prices, sometimes by his own special genius and 
 aptitude for business. 
 
 The general introduction of steam power into 
 manufactures between 1830 and 1850, and the demands 
 of the new foreign markets in the East and in America, 
 carried the tendency to large production still farther, 
 and the latter date, or 1848, the date of the political 
 revolution, we might roughly fix upon as the com- 
 
138 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 pletion of the industrial revolution, and the establish- 
 ment of the capitalistic regime in England, the like 
 phenomena following after some time in France, 
 the United States, Germany, and all civilized 
 nations. 
 
 III. 
 
 WE are now in a position to see the essence of the 
 new Socialism and of Karl Marx's indictment of the 
 capitalists, on which chiefly the Socialist's argument 
 rests. All wealth, and all exchange value, according 
 to Marx, is the result of labour, and of labour only, 
 and to the labourers, the real producers, all wealth 
 should belong. Labour of head, directing and super- 
 intending labour, is allowed ; how far it contributes 
 to the result he does not attempt to tell us, though 
 the implication is that the labour is neither difficult 
 nor important. But certain it is that it receives 
 an extravagantly exaggerated reward, in addition 
 to interest on capital. Capital, Marx also allows, 
 is necessary as well as labour, and even increas- 
 ingly necessary, on account of the ever-increasing 
 machinery required by modern industry. But then 
 this capital should belong to the labourers in the 
 total, to the collectivity of labourers, and not to 
 private persons or to limited companies. And why ? 
 Because, according to him, capital is the result of 
 spoliation : of the capitalists withholding wages due 
 to the labourers ; and secondly, if labourers do not 
 own the capital, they must continue as now, the 
 slaves of the capitalist, the financier, and the receiver 
 
THE NEW SOCIALISM AND ITS ARGUMENT. 139 
 
 of interest, the slaves of the classes who live by 
 their labour. Their condition will even grow worse, 
 since more fixed capital will be required. Capital is 
 not the result of a virtuous abstinence on the part of 
 the capitalist, as Senior, a middle-class economist, 
 anxious to make out a good case for the capitalist, 
 maintained. Or, if it is the result of saving, it is 
 saving from a previous plunder taken from the work- 
 ing classes. Such is Marx's view. 
 
 To represent capital as the result of saving, as 
 Senior and others do, is to misrepresent fact and 
 history. Capital came and comes from profits, accu- 
 mulations made at the expense of the workers, and 
 these came, and still come, from surplus value con- 
 ferred by the workers on the materials given them. 
 To prove that this surplus value is solely conferred 
 by the labourers is, according to Marx, easy ; and, 
 it must be allowed, if we grant his premises and his 
 argument, they will go far to prove the case of the 
 Socialists from the moral point at least. A close 
 attention should therefore be given to his reasoning 
 here, as involving the central issue in the whole 
 Socialistic controversy, and because on it rests German 
 Socialism, and indeed all modern Socialism. 
 
 According to Marx as according to Ricardo, who 
 is the declared rock of the Socialistic faith the ex- 
 change value of any manufactured product depends 
 on the total quantity of labour necessary to produce 
 it, and bring it to market. And the additional value 
 conferred on any materials is due solely to the 
 additional human labour exerted on them. The 
 yarn of the spinner costs so much. When it turns 
 
140 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 out as woven cotton fabrics it is of so much more 
 value, because iof the additional human labour that 
 came in contact with the yarn which additional 
 labour is now crystallized, objectified, or " congealed," 
 to use the expression of Marx, in the cotton cloth. 
 The machinery confers no additional exchange value 
 on the raw materials ; or only as much as itself loses 
 in wear and tear. Nor can the added value come 
 from the act of exchange, which merely gives value 
 for value, which is a mere svvogping of equi valet 
 Consequently, human labour alone confers additional 
 or surplus value. He goes on to show that for/v?;-/ of 
 this new value conferred, the workman has been paid 
 in his wages (which, however, he maintains always 
 tend to the Ricardian minimum), for the remainder, 
 or surplus value proper, he has not been paid. This, 
 which is generally called profits, has been confiscated 
 by the capitalist. 
 
 This surplus value may otherwise be defined as all 
 above the minimum of bare subsistence. Marx is fond 
 of putting the case in another way. Suppose, he says, 
 the working day to consist of twelve hours, during 
 the first six of which the worker confers as much 
 value as would amount to his own subsistence, the 
 amount he actually receives ; then during the re- 
 maining six hours he works for the master for 
 nothing. And the worst of it is that any improve- 
 ments which reduce the cost of the labourer's neces- 
 saries only result in making him work a greater 
 number of hours gratis. The worker's case is the old 
 case of the serf, working so many days for himself and 
 so many for his lord, only that there is no such 
 
THE NEW SOCIALISM AND ITS ARGUMENT. 141 
 
 palpable division of the modern " wage-slave's " hours, 
 so that you could say when he was working for him- 
 self and when for the master. In fact, slavery, serfage, 
 the corvee, modern rack-renting, and capitalist appro- 
 priation of surplus value, are all at bottom identical, 
 according to Marx, since all consist in the superior 
 exacting whatever is produced above the necessary 
 means of subsistence of the worker. 7 
 
 Now as to this argument of Marx's regarding the 
 cause of exchange value, there would have been more 
 force in it during the stage of the handicraft industry, 
 because the workman's efforts, aided by his traditional 
 tools, did confer the additional value on the materials 
 on which his craft was exercised. The labour of the 
 carpenter, aided by plane and chisel, did confer on 
 the planks the additional exchange value they had in 
 the form of a box or table, and there is reason to say, 
 though it is rather a verbal subtlety, that the work 
 was the work of the carpenter and not also the work 
 of the plane and chisel. At any rate, if the tools were 
 his as well as the materials, the whole product was 
 his. In this case he is, as Adam Smith says, both 
 master and workman, and enjoys the whole produce 
 of his own labour, or the whole value which it adds to 
 the materials on which it is bestowed. 
 
 But as Adam Smith goes on to say, there were in 
 his time few such independent workmen ; the greater 
 proportion served under a master, who furnished the 
 more expensive instruments of production in fact 
 the considerable capital which was necessary, which 
 
 " " Capital," vol. i. p. 218 (Eng. Tr.). 
 
I 4 2 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 the workers did not possess, and without which in 
 the possession of someone they could not find em- 
 ployment. Can it any longer be said that all the 
 value is due to the labourers, solely, and that 
 therefore they should receive the total product, de- 
 ducting only the master's materials ? Doubtless their 
 labour was necessary, and it, aided by the tools 
 and appliances, did the work, made the changes of 
 value in the materials ; but can it therefore be said 
 that they are to get all the new value of the product, 
 and to have the same advantage as if all the instru- 
 ments of production were theirs ? Must they not in 
 fairness allow some deduction because they do not 
 possess the necessary tools and appliances ; or can 
 they expect to be in the same position as they would 
 have been in had all the means of production been 
 their own ? Unless the employer receives a portion 
 as profits he would have no inducement to employ 
 them, as Adam Smith says. Besides, he who fur- 
 nished the fixed capital had also generally founded 
 the business. Without his energy, intelligence, eve 
 for an opportunity, in addition to his capital, this 
 employment and means of livelihood would not have 
 existed at all at that place and time. 
 
 This capitalist when he arose was a benefactor to 
 them as much as to himself. Without this type of 
 man arising, seeing an opening, finding somehow the 
 capital and risking it, the thing could not have been 
 started at all. Who was to do it if he had failed to 
 arise ? The Government, in England at least, would 
 not ; the labourers could not ; the capitalist came. 
 Having already been one in a small way, and having 
 
THE NEW SOCIALISM AND ITS ARGUMENT. 143 
 
 made some savings, he borrowed more from the 
 banks, whose functions and fortunes were rising with 
 his own. He had good business abilities : the enter- 
 prise succeeded. He grew from less to more, and 
 the more he grew the easier it was to grow still 
 greater. 
 
 Now, be it remembered, it is a question of the fair 
 and equitable division of the product that here con- 
 cerns us, because the Socialist's argument appeals 
 to considerations of justice ; and, confining ourselves 
 to these considerations of justice, had not the employer 
 just described a fair claim not only to good wages 
 for his own anxious and difficult work, perhaps even 
 extra wages for his genius, but also a claim to get 
 interest on his capital sunk in the buildings and ap- 
 pliances, as well as invested in unsold goods until they 
 are purchased ? especially as he himself has to pay in- 
 terest on any capital he may have borrowed. He has 
 a fair claim to good wages, current rate of interest, 
 and compensation for deterioration of his fixed 
 capital. No doubt he often got and kept much 
 more, the morality of which I am not now going 
 to discuss any further than to say, that we must 
 judge him by the moral standard of the time, and 
 the morality of the time absolved him, as political 
 economists have since absolved him, on the ground 
 that it was done under freedom of contract, which 
 was supposed to confer a general absolution for all 
 hard bargains driven under it. 
 
 If interest on capital can be defended on grounds 
 of equity in Adam Smith's time, still more can it be 
 defended in our days of universal machinery and 
 
144 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 enormous field of investment. For, in the first place, 
 neither value nor "surplus value" can be said to be 
 solely due to human labour without a manifest begging 
 of the question. The machines in the factory labour 
 concurrently with the human beings, often, as in the 
 case of the " self-acting " machines, they do essentially 
 the same kind of work. In fact, looking at the pro- 
 cess of weaving, where hundreds of yards are coming 
 into being before our eyes, one would rather say that 
 the machines do the chief part of the work, are \he 
 real creators, the human labour consisting chiefly of 
 tending and superintending the latter even in some 
 cases being dispensed with by cunning " self-minders." 
 Not merely do the machines labour and confer values 
 in use, they confer exchange values, and their service 
 is charged for and paid in the exchange price. The 
 machinery works like the man, automatically, but 
 skilfully ; it confers values, and though it requires 
 no food like the man, it has cost much money, and it 
 gradually wears away or becomes suddenly depre- 
 ciated by better machines, for which reasons both 
 interest on its cost price and a percentage for wear 
 and tear, as well as for possible depreciation, must be 
 charged in the value or price of the things produced. 
 According to Marx, machines add no exchange 
 value to the product they help to create, except what 
 they themselves lose in the process. As much value 
 as they lose is passed over and is added on to the 
 value of the product, but no more. But it is a matter 
 of fact that needs no argument (though it is a conclu- 
 sion laid down by Ricardo and Mill), that the value 
 and price of things made by machinery is increa 
 
THE NEW SOCIALISM AND ITS ARGUMENT. 14$ 
 
 because interest has to be allowed for on the fixed 
 capital. How, then, can this additional value be due 
 to labour ? Can it be said that the machine is itself 
 the result cf labour ? It can be, and it is said by 
 some, but it will serve nothing for the argument ; 
 because the labour, crystallized or embodied in the 
 machine, has been fully paid for, including the profits 
 cf the maker. The present owner has paid fully all 
 previous labour, and previous profits as well, in the 
 purchase money of the machine ; it is now his, and 
 not his hands', and if he gets an increased price for 
 his total product, as he does, because he allows for 
 interest on the money sunk in the machine, this in- 
 crease is his and not his workers. In the case of the 
 machine, it may be said by the Socialists that it was 
 the producer of it who despoiled his labourers to the 
 extent of the interest charged. But the capitalist 
 who made the machine has the same defence for his 
 interest. He also had to use costly fixed capital, 
 and could not afford to give to the labourers all the 
 price of his product. The Socialists of the school 
 of Marx merely repeat perpetually the proposition 
 that all exchange value depends on labour, 8 and 
 assume perpetually the proposition, "all the product 
 should belong to the labourer." The complete 
 answer is : every manufactured product requires fixed 
 capital as well as labour, and the owner of the capital 
 
 8 This is Ricardo's theory ; but Mill has rightly corrected it 
 by showing that exchange value depends on wages and profits, 
 comparative wages and comparative profits, rather than on 
 "' quantity of labour," which, as we shall see fully later on, 
 neither does nor can determine value. 
 
 L 
 
146 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 always expects and on the average gets (in the price 
 of the products) a return for the service his capital 
 renders equal to the current rate of interest. Con- 
 sequently, neither is the product due solely to labour, 
 nor yet the exchange value. 
 
 In reality, no one denies that the prices of things 
 which is the real point are higher than they other- 
 wise would be, and sometimes much higher, simply 
 because interest has to be paid for. It is a fact known 
 too well to all of us, that the money values of nearly all 
 commodities (and many services) are greatly swollen 
 on account of interest that is paid on fixed capital. 9 
 This is a question of fact of which every one can judge, 
 but it must not be confused, as it is by the Socialists, 
 with the moral question, whether it is morally right 
 for capitalists to take interest, or whether it is socially 
 just that they should get it. This last is a debatable 
 question, only the negative must not be assumed as 
 the result of a laboured abstract argument, which 
 endeavours to prove that all value is due to human 
 labour, mostly of the manual sort, that machines 
 add nothing to value, in which the point at issue 
 is really begged, after an elaborate parade of 
 arguments. 
 
 And now to come to the moral question. Is it 
 right for the capitalist to look for interest on his 
 
 9 The prices of commodities made .by machinery have no 
 doubt also fallen through facility of production ; they would 
 have fallen much more were it not that the price of the total 
 turnout must cover interest, and depreciation of machinery, 
 sometimes, where more than one kind of machinery has been 
 operative, several interests, as well as the profits of dealers, &<; 
 
THE NEW SOCIALISM AND ITS ARGUMENT. 147 
 
 capital as well as for wages ? Why should he not ? I 
 ask. As he is not an angel, nor even a professing 
 philanthropist, but only an ordinary human being like 
 the rest of us, with an ineradicable core of egoism in 
 him, allowed to be legitimate by Adam Smith and 
 Mill, both eminent writers on morals as well as on 
 economics, he is fully justified in looking for the 
 market rate of interest on his capital, and the like 
 applies to smaller capitalists and to all who invest 
 money in productive work. As society is now con- 
 stituted and industry organized, whoever saves and 
 advances money for productive purposes does good, 
 why should he not get some return ? If there were 
 no interest paid at present few would save, and 
 none would lend except to a friend ; half the indus- 
 tries would at once collapse ; and of the remainder 
 few would continue if the employers received only 
 wages of management and no interest. These, no 
 doubt, are considerations of expediency, but they 
 show both the necessity and the advantages of in- 
 terest under our present industrial and social system. 
 Interest at present is necessary ; no one acting 
 under business motives will lend for nothing ; as 
 Emile de Laveleye says, no capitalist employer will 
 give to his employe's the whole proceeds of his busi- 
 ness, deducting only his own wages. To suppose that 
 men will do either, is to suppose that they have 
 reached a far higher moral level than they actually 
 have : I do not say higher than is possible in a distant 
 future period. To take interest may not be high 
 morally ; it certainly does not agree with the precept 
 in the Sermon on the Mount, " Give to him that 
 
 L 2 
 
I 4 8 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 asketh of thee, and from him that would^ borrow 
 turn not thou away," but it is not wrong nor immoral 
 in our time and social circumstances. It is a case of 
 getting something for the use of something, a quid 
 pro quo universal in the sphere of business which 
 even philanthropists practise when they descend into 
 that sphere, and which has been very profitable to 
 the labouring classes in the total. 
 
 I must grant, however, to the disciple of Karl Marx, 
 that the capitalist, from the beginning of his reign, 
 and especially from the time of the Industrial Revo- 
 lution, could have afforded higher wages consistent 
 with high profits much higher, in fact, than he now 
 gets, though on a smaller surface of capital ; that 
 morally, therefore, some of these profits should have 
 gone to his labourers. I say some, because a largo 
 part was due to his own business genius, perhaps to an 
 invention he made or bought, to the conquest of his 
 rivals and the absorption of their profits ; later on 
 some was due to monopoly prices charged either to 
 the public, or to the foreigner, and whatever extra 
 profits came in these ways was charly not due to a 
 spoliation of the workers, whoever else might have 
 cause of complaint. 
 
 I admit other charges made against the capitalist ; 
 that he overworked as well as underpaid his male 
 hands, that after pressing, though on strictly economic 
 principles, women and children into his service, he 
 overworked and underpaid them too ; while some- 
 times finding a means, through their low wages, of 
 depressing still further the wages of the gro\vn-up 
 
THE NEW SOCIALISM AND ITS ARGUMENT. 149 
 
 men, because if the wife and children earn so much, 
 the man, the head of the family, might do with so 
 much less, it being only necessary that the total wages 
 of the family-group should reach the. Ricardian stan- 
 dard. I allow that he was often callous as well as 
 greedy and covetous, and that provided he made his 
 profits he little recked that " the children were weep- 
 ing in the playtime of the others in the country of the 
 free," or that the future physique of the nation was 
 being endangered by the mothers working in un- 
 healthy factories as well as the fathers and the 
 children. 
 
 I admit other charges less insisted on that with- 
 out compunction he ruined rivals according to the 
 accepted business ethics ; that having sent them to 
 the bottom by superior mass of metal, and hoisting 
 thereafter the pirate flag of monopoly, he and his 
 surviving compeers combined and levied taxes on the 
 public through raised prices wherever possible and 
 prudent. 
 
 The past sins of the capitalist I admit, the worst 
 of which as affecting the labouring classes have been 
 transcribed by Karl Marx from Blue Books and the 
 Reports of Commissions. And they are on record 
 in the late Lord Shaftesbury's speeches during the 
 debates on the Factory Act, in 1844. Those things 
 are sufficiently evil, but amongst his evil deeds should 
 not be included the taking of interest or of fair profits, 
 which, however, is the chief charge brought against 
 him. That he looked for arty interest was his chief 
 offence, as the taking of interest, in addition to wages 
 
ISO 
 
 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 for his labour, is the unpardonable thing in his repre- 
 sentative of to-day. 
 
 If interest is to be successfully attacked on the 
 score of its being immoral, it must be on one of two 
 grounds either because the principal was come by in 
 questionable ways, or because the continued payment 
 of interest necessarily leads to great social injustices 
 and evils, which could be removed by its abolition 
 without producing greater evils. Now, as to the first 
 proposition, it is doubtless true that a portion of 
 the present accumulation of capital in individual 
 hands did come originally from doubtful sources, 
 morally viewed ; but as it would be impossible to 
 separate the part morally suspected from that fairly 
 acquired as, moreover, no law was broken in its 
 acquisition the present possessors ought not to be 
 disturbed in its enjoyment. Long possession purifies 
 titles on many grounds, and especially the title to 
 capital. But while there should be indemnity as 
 regards the past, that is no reason why the ways to 
 wealth should not be more legally fenced in in future, 
 especially as regards the operations of speculators, 
 " promoters/' and cornerers ; as well as regards the 
 possible unscrupulousness of employers. 
 
 As to the second proposition, that the payment of 
 interest in one or other form is the chief cause of 
 social evils and injustices, which could be removed 
 by its abolition this is indeed held by all the new 
 Socialists. But as its abolition is only a part of the 
 whole scheme of collectivism, and is not advocated 
 by Socialists, save as part of the whole, it will be 
 necessary first to consider that scheme together wilh 
 
THE NEW SOCIALISM AND ITS ARGUMENT. 151 
 
 its advantages and drawbacks before we can pro- 
 nounce decisively whether interest, which next to 
 inheritance is undoubtedly the chief cause of the 
 modern inequality of wealth, is also good on the 
 whole, and good for the greatest number. 
 
153 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 IN THE SOCIALIST STATE 
 
 I. 
 
 So far we have only had Marx's argument to prove 
 that capitalism as a system is robbery and spoliation : 
 an argument which, as we have just seen, is less solid 
 than the new Socialists suppose. There is no positive 
 and constructive scheme in Marx's writings; but 
 collectivism is undoubtedly suggested, 1 that is, the 
 collective ownership of land and capital as the means 
 of production, together with a distribution of products 
 amongst all workers, productive or unproductive, 
 according to the quantity of the work done, which is 
 to be measured by the hours of labour bestowed on it, 
 skilled labour being rated as a certain multiple of 
 average or common labour. 
 
 Collectivism is merely suggested by Marx as the 
 future governing principle ; it is not worked out into 
 detailed application, so as to present us with a positive, 
 connected, and practicable scheme. As in the case 
 of the somewhat resembling though vaguer scheme 
 of St. Simon, it was the school that elaborated the 
 scheme, so it has been rather the disciples of Karl 
 
 1 In particular, " Capital," vol. ii. p. 789 (Erg. trans.). 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 
 
 Marx than the master who have develoj 
 tivism so far as it has yet been develo] 
 system. 
 
 It must be confessed that its development 
 proceeded far : pcssibly in part, as Schaerfle suggests, 
 from prudence on the part of collectivist leaders, lest 
 they might afford a handle to the objector ; partly it 
 may be from defect of constructive genius and imagina- 
 tion, which would be more tasked to-day in our more 
 complex life than when Sir Thomas More drew up 
 his ingenious work : and partly it may even be, as M. 
 Leroy-Beaulieu affirms, because of the inherent im- 
 practicabilities and ineradicable contradictions of the 
 scheme. 2 Whatever the cause, certain it is that no 
 connected and well-thought-out presentment of the 
 scheme as a whole, with a due forecast, adequate 
 weighing, and satisfactory answering, of objections, 
 has been given to the world by Socialist writers of 
 authority, if we may except the short but masterly 
 sketch entitled, " The Quintessence of Socialism/' 
 by Dr. Schoeffle, who, however, is not so much a 
 Socialist as an impartial critic alike of the new 
 Socialism and of the existing system. 3 
 
 In this absence of full exposition we must content 
 ourselves with taking up the central and main prin- 
 ciple, and considering what it logically and necessarily 
 
 2 " Le Collectivisme." 
 
 3 There is also Mr. Gronhmd's " Co-operative Common- 
 wealth," in which while the constructive part is greatly wanting 
 on the economical side, neither his exposition of the political 
 side of collectivism nor yet his too easy refutation of objections 
 is quite satisfactory, 
 
154 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 implies ; we may also take the points in provisional 
 programmes in which the collectivists seem agreed, 
 and those points in the existing system which they 
 have mainly attacked. By all these means, especially 
 by the first, we may get a more magnified if not 
 a more detailed picture of collectivism. We can see 
 as in a panorama the whole of it, what the parent 
 idea in its integrity involves, apart, of course, from 
 the qualifications or reservations of particular 
 advocates. 
 
 I The State, then, or the community in general, is to be 
 I the collective owner of the land and of all the instru- 
 \ ments of production and of transport ; by instruments 
 meaning all things requisite, other than land, to pro- 
 duce and to circulate commodities what economists 
 call fixed capital all factories, workshops, ware- 
 houses, machinery, plant, appliances, railways' rolling- 
 stock, ships, &c. The State is to own, the land and 
 the fixed capital or to express both conveniently in 
 a single phrase, the means of production, production 
 according to economic usage being supposed to include 
 the distribution or circulation of products. 
 / grndirts in^their final shape, in which they are 
 directly consumable, the State will not own. These 
 it will only keep in its care, in public warehouses or 
 magazines or stores, until the workers of all kinds 
 send in their claims on them, which claims will be 
 measured by the number of hours for which they 
 have worked, and for which they will have received 
 certificates or labour cheques or orders to be pre- 
 sented against goods in their final consumable form 
 as distinct from those intermediate stages in which 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 155 
 
 they would be of no use to the holders under 
 collectivism. 
 
 The State will possess the fixed capital, or, more 
 correctly, the instruments of further production^ of 
 what is now called circulating capital the State can 
 only be considered as owner of those materials not 
 directly consumable by individuals, because not 
 directly satisfying any material want : it will not be 
 owner, as M. de Laveleye suggests/ of that portion of 
 circulating capital 5 now paid as wages, because under 
 collectivism that portion will become the property of 
 the labourers without being in any sense advanced 
 even temporarily to them. It is a result of their 
 labour aided by the instruments, and the State will 
 only have charge of it, will only possess it until the 
 labour cheques on it are presented. 
 
 The atiialjy^rJc_jiLprQductian-^nd distribution is^ 
 to be carried__on as atjpresent, namely by large 
 groups or co-operatively, but the directing head js_ 
 no longer to be the private capitalist employer. He 
 is to be~a functionary, a paA^joSisi3l_of_^].e^Siaie f 
 producing under superior direction and not according 
 to his own judgment ; with less risk than at present, 
 but also with much less chance of making a fortune. 
 It is possible, and Schseffle thinks it desirable, that 
 
 4 " The Socialism of To-day," p. 244. 
 
 * The term "circulating capital" would not be very appropriate 
 under collectivism, though at present, contemplated from the 
 capitalist and money point of view, it has significance. The 
 money which is paid for work and materials, in wages and cost 
 of materials, comes back, is replaced with profit, and the process 
 goes on indefinitely. But under collectivism there woucll be 
 no money. 
 
156 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 extra merit should be more highly remunerated, but 
 the salaries it is understood will be very modest 
 indeed as compared with those of the successful men 
 in business now. How the manager or leader of 
 industry is to be selected, whether by the suffrages 
 of the workers or by the State, and in the latter 
 case whether through the secretaries or chiefs of the 
 Industrial Departments, or in the way it now selects 
 officials for the existing branches of the public service 
 is a point on which collectivism does not seem to 
 have made up its mind, 6 though its principle, being 
 democratic, leans to the former method. 
 
 In agriculture as well as in all other industries the 
 work is to be carried on on collectivist principles, but 
 according to Schaeffle, the time is not ripe for this in 
 the rural districts in Germany, though according to 
 Mr. Gronlund the time is ready in England, and 
 soon will be in America, where he thinks the great 
 bonanza farms prove the greater economy of labour, 
 or the greater product to a given amount of labour 
 when farming is carried on on the large scale. His 
 faith is great when we consider that peasant pro- 
 prietors exist over a large part of the civilized world, 
 
 6 According to Mr. Gronlund, in the co-operative com- 
 monwealth all promotion should come from the vote of the 
 workers immediately beneath ; the workers choosing the fore- 
 men, and these again the manager ; while, on the other hand, 
 the manager could not, in the interests of obedience and disci- 
 pline, be removable save by his superior. Mill also thought 
 that the managers in future should be elected by the workers ; 
 but Mill was only thinking of co-operative production, where 
 the group that owns the capital would naturally have the 
 selection of the manager. 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 157 
 
 both in Europe and America, and that the present 
 tendency in the United Kingdom is to increase the 
 number of such by legislation. Moreover these 
 classes, as well as small farmers in general, whether 
 proprietors or tenants, are generally the most con- 
 servative in customs and sentiment, so that although 
 they have no objection to a collective or State owner- 
 ship, which would practically mean individual owner- 
 ship by the present occupiers, with liability to a tax, 
 it would take a very long time to turn. so conserva- 
 tive and so scattered a body into true collectivist- 
 socialists. 
 
 So far we have only been concerned with what 
 political economists call productive labour, or the 
 labour that results in material things, whether directly 
 consumable, as food, clothes, houses, fuel, light, furni- 
 ture, etc., or the materials of these in any of their 
 previous stages ; under production being included by 
 the Socialists the very considerable labour of trans- 
 port, as well as the connected labour of distribution, 
 the labour of the carrier by railway, road, or water- 
 way, and the labour of the dealer who gathers com- 
 modities to sell again at a profit ; all which labour is 
 in future to be done on collectivist principles, the 
 private undertaker and his profits alike having 
 disappeared. 
 
 But there is still much labour in the world that is 
 important and indispensable, though not productive 
 in the economic sense. There is all the labour that 
 consists in rendering services where no material thing 
 results or is worked into more desirable form. There 
 is the labour often absolutely necessary that con- 
 
158 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 sists in doing some services that some one requires 
 the labour of the physician, the schoolmaster, the pro- 
 fessor, the magistrate, the policeman, the soldier, the 
 domestic servant, or, as he or she will be called in 
 the socialist community, the domestic help, not to 
 speak of the labour that merely ministers to amuse- 
 ment, such as that of the actor, the public singer, or the 
 dancer. There is, too, the higher labour of the man 
 of letters, of the artist, of the man of science, so far 
 as he is an original investigator. There is the labour 
 of the civil as well as of the military service. How 
 is all this labour to be organized under collectivism, 
 and particularly how is it to be paid comparatr, 
 with productive labour ? As to some of it, there 
 is no question as respects organization, as it is 
 already carried on by co-operation or association 
 of efforts, and is paid by the State. Such is the case 
 with the work of the soldier, of the sailor of the 
 royal navy, and in a less perfect degree with the 
 labour of the civil service in general. But there 
 is labour that cannot be carried on by association 
 or collective effort ; the labour of the medical man, 
 of the lawyer, of the literary man, of the artist, etc. 
 These forms of labour, as we shall see more fully later 
 on, cannot be organized collectively, but on the strict 
 and central principle of collectivism, they should be 
 regulated, rated at their proper value, and paid by the 
 State. All kinds of workers are to be State func- 
 tionaries, and paid by the State. There will be no 
 private enterprise, because if any were allowed, more 
 would probably come, and inequality of wealth would 
 return from that side. A man will no longer be 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 159 
 
 permitted, even if he had the means or capital, to 
 open an educational establishment, start a journal, 
 undertake any private business on his own account, 
 because the fields of education, journalism, and of all 
 business are to be occupied by the State, and no| 
 chance will be allowed to any private competition. 
 
 All industries are to be controlled and directed by 
 the State as in the St. Simonian scheme, from which 
 collectivism differs only in not suppressing inherit- 
 ance, and by its democratic character as viewed from 
 the political side. Collectivism does not think it 
 necessary to suppress inheritance ; as under it there 
 would be so comparatively little left to inherit, it 
 assumes that there would be no fear of a return of the 
 great inequality of the old system from that side. 
 And it permits private property in consumable goods 
 and in things qua non consumuntur iisu, such as 
 pictures, jewellery, houses, which maybe bequeathed, 
 but it so far restricts the right of property that no one 
 will be allowed to make an income out of property 
 without work. There must be no lending at interest, 
 or advancing goods on credit to be repaid with interest, 
 no letting of articles for hire, no leasing for rent, no 
 private setting others at work with a view to make 
 a profit out of their labour, though apart from this 
 case, there does not seem to be any objection to 
 asking another to do a service in return for an 
 agreed-on payment. 
 
 As to distribution, each will receive in proportion 
 to the amount and kind of his work : the amount to 
 be measured in time, by the number of hours of 
 work of <f average labour," skilled labour to rate 
 
 i 
 
160 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 at so many times average labour; the value of un- 
 productive labour, where of ordinary kind, as that 
 of the policeman, to be measured by hours of work, 
 where it is of a superior kind, as the labour of the 
 magistrate or physician, to be determined arbitrarily 
 by the Government, or perhaps in the case of the 
 physician, partly, as now, by what the public will 
 
 'v .pay for it. 7 
 
 / There will be no market in the Socialist kingdom, 
 and no money. Markets and market prices are now 
 useful to adjust supply and demand ; this will be 
 unnecessary under collectivism, because the State 
 will do it through labour bureaus and statistics. At 
 present markets afford the grand chances to the 
 speculator and the cornerer, who can act on prices for 
 their own profit but to the detriment of the public. 
 The speculator and the cornerer, the engrosser 
 (accapareur] of former times, will for the first time 
 receive his effectual quietus, it is confidently believed, 
 with the suppression of the market. 
 
 Even more important is the suppression of money, 
 of gold, silver, and their representatives, bank-notes, 
 bills of exchange, etc. It is easy to some to accumu- 
 
 , late money, and thence would come back inequalities ; 
 it is not so easy to accumulate consumable goods. 
 Money is now chiefly needed as a general medium of 
 exchange ; something with which you can buy any- 
 thing, something for which you can sell anything. It 
 is mainly a convenient means of getting something 
 you want for something you have to give, whether 
 product or service. In the Socialist State you will get 
 7 Schaefflc's " Quintessence of Socialism," p. 50. 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 1 6 1 
 
 for your work or your special services the desired 
 things without the instrumentality of gold or silver 
 or notes, simply by presenting your labour cheques 
 at the State stores, or in some cases for your services 
 you will get labour cheques directly from the purchaser. 
 The only thing resembling money will be the labour 
 cheque. 
 
 With money will go all private bankers and bill dis- 
 counters, who now fulfil a useful function in lending 
 at interest to borrowers, productive or unproductive, 
 and in adapting supply of money to demand by alter- 
 ing the market rate of interest, but who would be 
 unnecessary if there was no money, and who, by the 
 power of extending or contracting their crec't, have 
 great power to encourage speculation, which some- 
 times ends in loss and ruin and crises, which would 
 be impossible in the Socialist State. 
 
 As the State will undertake all industry, and will 
 save the necessary collective capital, there will be no 
 private investments. There will be no investment of 
 money (or of labour cheques) at interest in companies' 
 shares. There will be no borrowing by Government at 
 interest. There will be no stock or share market any 
 more than money market or produce market ; no 
 quotations ; no buying or selling, real or fictitious. 
 The old familiar social types, the banker, the stock- 
 broker, and the comparatively new one, the financier, 
 the company promoter, the speculator on the Stock 
 Exchange, will disappear, as well as the much larger 
 class who live on the interest or dividends of their 
 investments. 
 
 tl 
 
1 62 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 II. 
 
 SUCH is the general outline of the scheme, to which 
 it is easy to see many objections ; and the first is 
 
 I that nothing could be produced either in the sphere of 
 material or intellectual production unless what pleased 
 the chiefs or heads of the departments of production. 
 If by chance you and others should wish for things 
 that have not been produced, you cannot have them 
 unless you can persuade the directors, because the 
 State will possess and control all the instruments of 
 production. At present it is demand which deter- 
 mines what shall be produced, and every conceivable 
 demand is catered for. Under collectivism production 
 will determine demand ; at least demand will have to 
 accommodate itself to production. If you would like 
 a superior copy of a book, an engraving of a painting, 
 a particular kind of furniture, a fabric for dress, you 
 cannot have them under collectivism unless the 
 directors in their wisdom have decided to produce 
 such things, as most probably, the State being demo- 
 cratic as well as socialistic in constitution, it will not. 
 There will be a great levelling down as well as a small 
 levelling up in the quality of the things produced, 
 while in variety there will be a great reduction, as all 
 the rarer luxuries and choicer fabrics, such as now 
 render attractive the brilliant shop windows in Regent 
 Street or the Rue de Rivoli, will disappear. 
 
 By this power of producing only what pleased them 
 the directors of production would very considerably 
 affect our lives. The food we should eat, the clothes 
 we should wear, the furniture of our dwellings, would 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 163 
 
 within limits not too wide be prescribed. To which 
 the Socialists say in reply : that it is absolutely 
 necessary that the State should be sole producer to 
 escape from the evils of the present system. Moreover, 
 the State would produce things in general request. 
 It would first produce an ample supply of good and 
 unadulterated necessaries ; after the necessaries it 
 would only produce luxuries that were in general 
 demand, and which did not take too much labour 
 that is too much time to produce ; because 
 Socialists consider leisure itself as a luxury, and in 
 the Socialist State it would not be desirable nor pos- 
 sible to force any one to labour beyond the time 
 necessary for his own support. It is, they say, because 
 there are now so many luxuries produced that men 
 and women have to labour so long. In the Socialist 
 State men would not give up their leisure for things 
 that merely gratify the eye for a moment, or which 
 minister to egregious vanity or love of ostentation. 
 The needs of the generality would have to be con- 
 sidered, and rare or costly things could not be pro- 
 duced for superfine people, who, moreover, would be 
 scarce in the Socialist community. There would, in 
 fact, be no one to purchase rare luxuries if they were 
 produced, as few people will have large salaries, 
 though there will not be equality. 8 But though luxu- 
 ries that could be monopolized would be restricted, 
 what may be called public luxuries and sources of 
 common enjoyment, whether art galleries, public 
 
 8 It is really a doubtful point ; but it is best to make the more 
 reasonable supposition with Schaeffle, that a certain degree of 
 inequality will exist. 
 
 M 2 
 
1 64 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 buildings, theatres, parks, promenades, c., would, 
 the Socialists assure us, be on a scale of unequalled 
 splendour. 
 
 The collectivists are less satisfactory in replying to 
 the objection relating to the production of immaterial 
 things. The State could print or suppress what books 
 it pleased, as it will control all the printing-presses 
 and pay the printers. According to M. Leroy Bc;ui- 
 lieu, there is here the basis for a spiritual despotism 
 such as the world has never seen, and going far beyond 
 the Inquisition. The " liberty of unlicensed printing " 
 for which Milton pleaded would be completely gone, 
 and it would depend on the composition of the 
 Government for the time being what new books 
 would be permitted to appear, as well as what old 
 ones would be reproduced. Fanatics in power would 
 suppress all works that they thought dangerous to 
 their views. What guarantee can the collectivists 
 give us against so great a danger ? for great it would 
 be ; while the thing itself, a practical suppression of 
 free thought and speech by the suppression of its 
 spiritual nutriment, would be wholly intolerable so 
 long as man does not live by bread only, and yet 
 there seems no answer to the objection save by letting 
 every one print at the State press what he pleases, 
 provided its expenses are guaranteed : in other words, 
 by withdrawing from the State the exclusive control 
 of the press and the decision of what it will and will 
 not print. And the same considerations apply to 
 the journals and magazines as to books. They will 
 have to be organs, not of the State, but of parties in 
 the State having different aims and ideas, religious, 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 165 
 
 political, even social, as now. The Socialist State, 
 indeed, could hardly be expected to lend the State 
 presses to social sectarians to print and advocate 
 doctrines subversive of the fundamental principles of 
 the State, and to urge a return to the old order of 
 individualism : and if, distrusting its inherent strength, 
 it did not do so, liberty of thought and speech would 
 be so far invaded. 
 
 The next objection is of an economic kind, and 
 refers to the quantity and quality of the production. 
 It is urged that the great stimulus to the private 
 interest of the industrial chief being withdrawn, the 
 generality would have no greater share than before 
 of necessaries or comforts, even though no costly 
 luxuries were produced : because the private capitalist 
 and the present source of initiative will be replaced 
 by a manager, who will have far less interest in the 
 result, while the workers themselves will be disposed 
 to take things easy, work in itself not being pleasant 
 (as political economy postulates), and no one fearing 
 dismissal under a socialistic regime. The_chif, on 
 whom so much depends, would have far less interest 
 than_npw to increase the product by his supervision^ 
 by search for improved processes, or new inven- 
 tions ; while the men of inventive genius, the Watts, 
 Hargreaves, and Bessemers, would find it far more 
 difficult to get their new ideas applied in practice, the 
 State being hitherto very timid and unenterprising 
 in running risks. The heads would be languid, the 
 general workers not too assiduous, and the State 
 timid, from all which there would 
 
 rate-of progress, Decreased production of wealth, with 
 
166 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 finally, in all probability, a diffused poverty, which 
 besides being an evil in itself is one that threatens all 
 the higher human interests. 
 
 And to this objection or doubt I think great weight 
 is to be attached. And there is ground to fear that 
 under Collectivism, so far as it has been unfolded, this 
 result would happen, in spite of the fact that the labour 
 that now produces many useless luxuries would 
 be available for useful things. Unless not merely 
 the generality the hands but the heads were en- 
 couraged, there would be grounds of apprehension on 
 this side, and the objection could only be got over by 
 paying the manager on a far more liberal scale than 
 collectivists contemplate, or than their central aim at 
 preventing inequality will allow, and by further permit- 
 ting the production of such things as the heads might 
 desire, for there would be no use in higher salaries 
 unless the production of specially desired luxuries 
 were permitted. Nothing could be done with thcrn, 
 since a man's capacity of consuming necessaries is 
 strictly limited, as Adam Smith says, by the narrow 
 capacity of his stomach ; and the industrial leader 
 could not use a superfluous stock of necessaries, as 
 the feudal chief formerly could, to extend his power 
 by feeding retainers to fight for him. It is not clear 
 from collectivist programmes whether he could keep 
 hired servants : certainly not many, as such would 
 naturally be regarded as savouring of past slavery. 
 If so, and if the well-paid official can neither have 
 servants, nor a fine house, nor carriages and horses, 
 nor superior wines, what use, we may ask, are his 
 additional labour cheques ,or orders on things of 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. l6/ 
 
 which he has a surfeit ? Is it not, then, to be feared 
 that the Captain of Industry would weary in well 
 
 doing ? If you wa "J^^jjyork fmm -him, yrm mnc-.fr ,- 
 
 give him an end to work for, a motive to urge him, 
 suchjLs"w111 iiidubrtaBTyact on^him. At present he 
 has such motive in his expected profits, and the cer- 
 tainty that with these he can command carriages, 
 footmen, choice wines, pictures, deer-forests ; legitimate 
 objects of desire, though not all of a high kind, as well 
 as more doubtful objects, political supremacy, social 
 homage, etc. Take away all these things, reduce 
 him to a Spartan simplicity of life, and expect more 
 than Spartan virtues from him, that he will work 
 early and late, be engrossed perpetually with a busi- 
 ness not specially his, out of mere benevolence and pub- 
 lic spirit is it not supposing him a being quite other 
 than he is, or than he is likely to become for centuries ? 
 The many average workers may have sufficient 
 motive ; the chiefs, on whom together with inventors 
 so much more depends, would not have it, and unless 
 they are liberally paid, and can demand what they 
 please with their wages, that is, unless Collectivism 
 modifies its central principle, the not remote results 
 would be a lack of heart and energy, issuing in a 
 general poverty. In a word, impracticability may be 
 writ large over the collectivist scheme so far as it 
 would largely cut down the salaries of superiors, 
 discourage inventors, or arbitrarily dictate production. 
 The failure would be certain, because it depends on 
 principles of human nature ignored by Socialists. So 
 surely as there is a certain permanency in human 
 nature, and certain well-established general egoistic 
 
1 68 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 traits in man, as all religions, moral science, the science 
 of psychology, the lessons of history, and our own 
 experience testify, so surely will any system fail 
 
 which ignores these general and permanent facts, 
 and which supposes man other than he is. Egoism, 
 self-interest, is the deepest and most central thing in 
 man, in the species, and egoism in its coarser and 
 acquisitive form of a desire for material goods, is the 
 main motive for action with the generality. If this 
 be forgotten, and if self-interest is not allowed a field, 
 the scheme that attempts to restrain it by rigid laws 
 would fail. Egoism compressed by laws would take 
 its revenge, would find a way to subsist in spite of 
 the most rigid laws ; it would first elude the laws, and 
 at last it would break them, and break up the State 
 along with them, having first impoverished it. 
 
 The conclusion to which we are led, then, is that 
 unless the industrial chiefs are remunerated liberally, 
 unless there be a gradation of salaries, and unless there 
 be free choice of products, or a production suited 
 for a well-to-do if not a rich class, that is, unless 
 the departure from the present system is not great, 
 Socialism would not work. The salaries need not 
 under Socialism be so large as now, as there would 
 be no need to set apart a portion of them to provide 
 for the future of a family, since the family would be 
 safe, and all its members would find their places in 
 the Socialist State assured in proportion to their 
 fitness. 
 
 A common objection to Socialism is that under it 
 I the supply of capital to create new instruments of 
 
 ' production and to prevent the deterioration of the 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 169 
 
 old would be insufficient, from the withdrawal of the , 
 present potent stimulus to saving in the shape of 
 interest. At present, in all societies economically 
 progressive, like England, France, Germany, the 
 United States, an ample supply of capital is provided 
 by the private savings of well- to-do or rich people, 
 who expect interest, still more by the savings of the 
 employing capitalists, who expect both interest and 
 wages of management. This stimulus is at present very 
 effective : in a country like England the increase of 
 capital each year is very great the doubt is whether 
 there would be an equally effective stimulus to saving 
 under Collectivism. 
 
 This is a point on which there is some misconcep- 
 tion, which is shared even by writers of authority 
 like Professor Cairnes, who affirms that under a 
 socialistic regime there would be no motives to keep 
 up capital save benevolence and public spirit. Under 
 Collectivism the new capital required would, as 
 Schaeffle says, take the form of a tax in kind or a 
 deduction from the gross produce. A certain pro- 
 portion of the consumable products would " be reserved 
 by the public overseers of production, partly for 
 keeping up the supply of collective capital and partly 
 for the maintenance of other not immediately pro- 
 ductive but generally useful institutions in fact the 
 public departments by which all the citizens benefit." 
 
 If we suppose one-tenth of the total produce to bs 
 thus set aside for the purpose of keeping up the col- 
 lective capital, the essence of the matter is that that 
 proportion is consumed by the workers engaged in 
 maintaining, increasing, or improving the instruments 
 
I/O SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 of production. The total amount of consumable 
 products will, on the one hand, be less, by the amount 
 consumed by these labourers, than if they had been 
 directly engaged in production, where they could 
 have produced as much as they consumed by the aid 
 of the old instruments ; but, on the other hand, the 
 product will be greater in future by the more efficient 
 instruments they will produce. All will gain by this 
 diversion of some labour from direct production to 
 the making of superior instruments, which ultimately 
 increase production. 9 
 
 Their support while making the instruments can 
 hardly be regarded as a tax or deduction, because, 
 while they consume each year one -tenth of the pro- 
 duce, it is a produce constantly increasing by their 
 labour. And if even the annual increment of capital 
 be increased, and more than one-tenth of the workers 
 be employed repairing or creating instruments, there 
 would so far be a less product from the remaining 
 diminished workers, but a greater product from the 
 constantly improved instruments. The essence of the 
 matter is that more directly consumable products are 
 every year given to those who are not directly but 
 indirectly producing : not producing consumable 
 things, but superior and more effective means of 
 attaining them. 
 
 9 This is the real meaning of investing capital. It is not 
 essentially a case of deferred consumption, as some represent 
 it, because the produce set aside or saved is, as Mill says, con- 
 sumed, and soon. It is consumed by those engaged in producing 
 the more efficient instruments, but the result of the immediate 
 consumption is a greater production, and of course also a 
 greater consumption ultimately. 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. I /I 
 
 The production of superior instruments would thus 
 be the obvious interest of the community. We can 
 see this if there were only ten men starting to labour 
 in common on isolated land. The advantages to all of 
 fixed capital would have been obvious had there been 
 five men on Crusoe's island. And here we can see 
 the error of Professor Cairnes, before referred to, that 
 under Socialism there would be no motives for saving 
 except benevolence and public spirit. Saving under 
 Socialism would take the form of sending more 
 labourers to make instruments, and of submitting to 
 an immediate deduction of products for their greater 
 ultimate increase. The motives of self-interest are 
 not done away with, as Cairnes supposes. Fixed 
 capital is really an investment of the general public 
 labour which is eminently productive and profitable, 
 which is restored with an additional yield, only that 
 under Socialism every one would have a share in the 
 additional yield, instead of, as now, only a class. 
 Whether investments of labour in this form would, 
 under Collectivism, be as extensive or effective as 
 now, may be questioned. But if on the one hand new 
 fields of investment would probably be less eagerly 
 sought for, imaginary and illusory ones would cer- 
 tainly be less tried than now, and there would be less 
 waste of capital from this cause or from miscalculation 
 or accident. 
 
 There certainly would be no capital obtained from 
 private savings, and private savings form a most 
 potent source of capital now. No interest could be 
 got for the loan of such, and private savings, if any, 
 would take a different form ; that of investment in 
 
172 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 things at once durable and desirable ; possibly in 
 making a provision for old age ; but in no case would 
 the saving be of a kind to increase the future produc- 
 tion, as it is at present. 
 
 nr. 
 
 BUT the commonest of all objections to Socialism 
 I is that liberty would be in danger ; liberty which, as 
 Mill says, is, next to food and drink, the most craving 
 want, and, unlike these, a want which increases with 
 all real improvement. It is also the chief objection 
 of Herbert Spencer. In his book entitled " Man 
 versus the State " he speaks of " the coming slavery " 
 foreshadowed in certain measures of a socialistic ten- 
 dency, and justifies the words on the ground that " all 
 Socialism implies slavery." This is an important 
 point ; it is also a difficult one, owing to the various 
 meanings of the woo-ds liberty and freedom, and on 
 both grounds it requires a careful consideration. 
 
 Mill, using the word in the wide sense of liberty of 
 thought, of conduct,, of uncontrolled development of 
 one's own individuality in all directions, for which he 
 pleads so powerfully in his treatise' on " Liberty," is 
 evidently in doubt as to the general weight of the 
 objection. He thinks there is some weight in it, 
 and that the future will lie with whichever of the 
 two systems, Socialism or Individualism, can afford 
 most space to liberty in general. He thinks, however, 
 that the objection as to the restrictions of Socialism is 
 11 vastly exaggerated ; " that members of the associa- 
 tions "need not be required to live together more 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 173 
 
 than they do now, nor need they be controlled in the 
 disposal of their individual share of the produce, nor 
 yet in the disposal of the large leisure they would 
 probably possess. Individuals need not be chained 
 to an occupation or to a particular locality." But 
 whatever the weight of the objection in this direction, 
 it applies, he thinks, with far greater force to the 
 present system, under which the majority of labourers 
 enjoy no real liberty, " have as little choice of occu- 
 pation or freedom of locomotion, are practically as 
 dependent on fixed rules and on the will of others as 
 they could be in any system short of actual slavery." 
 But indeed we might go farther than Mill and ask 
 how many at present have full liberty of this sort, 
 liberty to come and go, to work or idle, except the 
 fortunate few, the rich, or the people with sinecures, 
 or at least with very long vacations. The professional 
 man has little of this sort of liberty, and would be 
 sorry if he had liberty and leisure meaning in his 
 case smaller fees and greater anxiety, slavery mean- 
 ing inflowing guineas and pleasure from work and its 
 reward, the greatest he could enjoy. Omitting the 
 rich, those who enjoy much of this kind of liberty 
 now are the unsuccessful men, or the men only half 
 employed who earn only half-incomes, and who 
 would gladly get rid of it to fall into a constant 
 money-making groove. In fact, this " unchartered 
 freedom/' as Wordsworth calls it, may easily prove a 
 curse to its possessor, and in the majority of cases 
 produces more misery than satisfaction. Under 
 Socialism the man of superior ability who worked his 
 way to the best position and then had not too long 
 
SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 working hours would have more leisure, and probably 
 more relish for it, than the corresponding type of man 
 to-day, often over-worked. There is probably greater 
 task slavery now than there would be under Socialism, 
 because under it a man would have his own future and 
 that of his family assured without saving or paying an 
 insurance premium. Indeed the danger of Socialism 
 is, as we elsewhere note, rather in the opposite direc- 
 tion ; that far from being a slave to his task, the 
 Socialist would take things too easily, from the fact 
 that his own and his family's future is sure, or at 
 least as sure as that of the whole of which he is a 
 unit. 
 
 We may assume, then, that under a Socialist regime 
 (in its most reasonable form) a man would not be 
 prevented from taking an autumn tour to Switzer- 
 land, or going to the seaside for his holiday (because 
 there would, under any endurable Socialism, be holi- 
 days), provided he had the means to pay for the ex- 
 penses of the trip, which would come out of his salary 
 and not from the State, unless in the case where he 
 travels in its service ; nor would an ordinary worker 
 be prevented from emigrating to America if he pleased, 
 though a Socialist might possibly be then less in- 
 clined to go to America unless Socialistic institutions 
 were established there also. There would be no 
 force used to prevent an individual from going to a 
 country where he might better himself, but the State 
 would not in general feel bound to pay his passage. 
 That he would have to do for himself out of savings 
 made for contingencies of the kind ; though it is 
 even conceivable, if population became excessive 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 1/5 
 
 from any cause, that the State might organize 
 emigration to relieve its own condition. 
 
 On the whole we may say that under Socialism at 
 its best there would not be more slavery than now ; 
 and the supposed diffused and universal slavery 
 would in practice be no slavery, its very universality 
 reducing it to nothing, like the uniform atmospheric 
 pressure of so many pounds to the square inch that 
 we are all unconscious of: as it would be every 
 one's interest to resist and minimize the slavery, its 
 shackles would fall off or cease to be felt while a 
 species of real slavery that would cease or be lessened 
 would be that of the present over-tasked and under- 
 paid operative, male and female. 
 
 It is, indeed, objected that, the State being sole 
 producer, the leaders and directors of industry, as 
 well as all its higher officials, might be despotic ; that 
 all in command might be tyrannical to all who obey, 
 and that the liberty of the latter would be at their 
 rulers' mercy, without the hope of ever being able to 
 shake them from their shoulders, save by a change 
 of masters. This kind of slavery for the working 
 classes in general and for all who have to obey is 
 perhaps possible in some measure. But some in- 
 dustries and services are at present under State 
 direction without its being found an intolerable 
 despotism, while, as before stated, for the majority 
 of labourers the necessity of their position places 
 them in general in a state of merely mitigated 
 slavery at present. A certain degree of diminution 
 of liberty for the generality there probably would 
 be under Socialism, but that would be a price 
 
1 76 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 paid for greater security, and for the greater equaliz- 
 ing of opportunities. They have now at least 
 some liberty of domicile ; they may move from 
 one part of the country to the other to get better 
 wages, or for any other reason. They may even 
 move as the tramp, vagabond and gipsy, for the 
 mere pleasure of moving and asserting their freedom. 
 This liberty of domicile or place of abode would 
 probably be greatly contracted under Collectivism. 
 M. Leroy-Beaulieu thinks it would hardly exist at all, 
 because the State would be the sole owner of all the 
 houses, and no one could change to a particular place 
 unless the authorities allowed him a house. The 
 objection from this side does not seem insurmount- 
 able, and is most probably exaggerated ; but we shall 
 see later on, from another side, that if the State wished 
 to keep the values of things steady, it would have to 
 transfer labour arbitrarily from place to place. 
 
 Liberty of demand for both material and imma- 
 terial things, the power of buying the things we 
 pleased, would be narrowed, and liberty of thought 
 and speech there could not be if the State was the 
 sole owner of the printing presses and director of the 
 printer's work. As to the former, we have seen that 
 the choice of things to be produced would still have 
 to be left largely to the consumer ; as to the second, 
 which involves the whole great question of freedom of 
 thought and freedom of speech, such control could not 
 for a moment be left in the hands of any power, 
 temporal or spiritual. The State could be left to 
 produce bread for us, but not to produce books, 
 because our palates for spiritual sustenance differ so 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 177 
 
 much ; and therefore printing and publishing would 
 have to remain under private enterprise, however 
 regulated. 
 
 Mill's main objection alike to Communism and to 
 Socialism in all its forms, is that under either there 
 would be no asylum left for individuality of character. 
 He fears that public opinion would be a tyrannical 
 yoke ; and doubts " whether the absolute dependence 
 of each on all and surveillance of each by all would not 
 grind all down into a tame uniformity of thoughts, 
 feelings, and actions." This he thinks is a glaring evil 
 at present; the question is, would it not almost certainly 
 be increased under Socialism, when all would receive 
 the same general education and be subject to the same 
 common influences. We should all thus cast in the 
 same monotonous moulds, become as like as sheep 
 in a flock. No more variety in talent and taste, 
 in aspiration, in general character. The present 
 interesting and various contact with people having 
 different outlooks on things, the delightful exchange 
 of ideas and points of view, the mutual supple- 
 menting and stimulating would be gone, every one 
 would think the same thing as every other, and 
 in every one we should find only our own echo. 
 Conversation would lose all its charm, we should 
 never escape from our own insufficient and intolerable 
 selves, and society, which already suffers from the 
 disease of uniformity, and the "general average," 
 would become utterly weary, flat, and unprofitable. 
 
 Such not exaggerated is Mill's objection or ap- 
 prehension as to Socialism and Communism. 1 He is 
 1 See " Pol. Economy," Bk. II. ch. I. 3. 
 
 N 
 
178 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 evidently deeply impressed with it ; and in fact there is 
 much in it. I think, however, that Mill exaggerates 
 the danger from this side, though it is real. There is 
 no doubt that if we framed our conception of the 
 Socialist State from More's Utopia, from existing 
 communities, or even from the Fourierist scheme, there 
 would be reason to dread the want of diversity of 
 type, and even want of originality of thought, feeling, 
 and character. Certain considerations, however, not 
 dwelt on by Mill would remove some of the weight 
 of the objection under a reasonable form of Col- 
 lectivism, supposed otherwise practicable ; one such 
 consideration being the increasing variety of life 
 owing to evolution, social, industrial, and even in- 
 tellectual. Life gives increasing play in all direc- 
 tions to the division and specialization of work, 
 and this very fact must prevent, under any possible 
 Socialism, the dreaded uniformity and monotony of 
 life and character, and must result, as a condition of 
 its existence, in that diversity of talent and taste 
 which Mill fears would be crushed. It can hardly be 
 doubted that under any Socialism that is at all 
 possible, there would be men of science, men of 
 letters and artists, as well as inventors, engineers, 
 captains of industtfy, if not captains of war, and the 
 whole hierarchy of labourers of all kinds. It is not 
 to be doubted that the men of science would cultivate 
 different provinces, that the cultivators of each 
 branch would not be all equal in intellect, and that 
 occasionally a Lyell or a Darwin might appear ; there is 
 not much danger that poets, historians, critics, essayists, 
 novel writers would not be allowed in the Socialist 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 179 
 
 State in whatever way they might get their wages, or 
 in whatever way the best might be selected, and these 
 men of letters will differ in degree as well as in kind. 
 A genius might be expected now and then to appear, 
 and short of that there would always be some higher 
 than others. The best would be numerous, and if the 
 select in the different intellectual provinces should 
 meet in some future Academy, they would still form 
 good company, and it would not be for want of variety 
 of outlook on life and the universe if they bore each 
 other. The real danger is not that there would be 
 little variety in taste and talents, but that the generality 
 in the same sphere would be too like each other, and 
 that there would be a sort of Chinese equality of 
 intellect with little or no originality, and with, as a 
 consequence, an arrest of development or diminished 
 progress. 
 
 On the other hand, it must be remembered that, 
 under all schemes of Socialism, except Anarchism, 
 the generality would receive a higher education than 
 now, that all promise at least greater leisure than 
 now for the generality, who consequently would 
 most probably take greater pleasure in mental 
 things, in literature, science, and art. And as this 
 general light and culture would be wider and deeper, 
 it would awaken and ripen the seeds of genius 
 which now never get an opportunity ; it is therefore , 
 highly probable that originality would, on the whole, ^ 
 be greatly increased. Certain it is that new veins of 
 originality and genius would be struck in the virgin soil 
 of the hitherto uncultivated minds of the mass which 
 would yield rich results. That this is no fancy 
 
 N 2 
 
1 80 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 deduction but all but certain theory, is confirmed when 
 we remember the amount of genius that has burst up- 
 wards in spite of lack of culture and a forbidden tree 
 of knowledge. It is difficult, indeed, to keep the 
 highest order of genius back in certain provinces, 
 such as the fine arts or the inventive arts, especially 
 where, as in the former, to do so has always dimly 
 been felt as a crime against humanity, or as in the 
 latter where it is obviously useful, and consequently 
 in the fine arts especially, a Burns, a Beethoven, 
 supreme and original geniuses, will mostly find some 
 expression for their genius. But how miserable even 
 their conditions have mostly been, how incomplete 
 their utterance generally, and how many only less than 
 they have not spoken ! How many have even been 
 wholly repressed, who might have excelled in science, 
 philosophy, scholarship, literature (other than poetry), 
 where full development of faculty postulates a certain 
 degree of previous culture. It is of the successful 
 few of such as these that Heine speaks when in- 
 stancing the case of Lessing ; he says, " The 
 greater portion of their life was spent in poverty and 
 misery a curse which rests on almost all the great 
 minds of Germany, and which probably w j ll only be 
 overcome by the political emancipation." And most 
 certainly under such a revolution as Socialism, many 
 more of such superior spirits would find an oppor- 
 tunity. We have spoken chiefly of art, invention, 
 and literature in the widest sense, including the use 
 of words by speakers as well as writers ; it has been 
 in these that the geniuses of the people have hitherto 
 had any opportunity ; in arms, politics or administra- 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. l8l 
 
 tion they had no opportunity of proving superior 
 capacity till after the French Revolution. Since that 
 time great statesmen and soldiers have sprung from 
 the Fourth Estate and the lower middle class, both in 
 France and in America ; and there is every reason to 
 believe that there is much ability of this as of the 
 other order latent in the body of the people in every 
 country on all of which reflective Socialists propose 
 to draw. 
 
 Doubts have, however, been frequently expressed 
 whether culture would not be in danger under 
 Socialism culture as distinct from originality and 
 genius, which are the fountains that increase it and 
 minister to its enjoyment. Would the mass of the 
 people in a democratic society, it is urged, appreciate 
 a thing they had not got, and did not know ? Would 
 they recognize the necessity of setting apart funds 
 for its support and encouragement? According to 
 Professor Sidgwick, the development of culture has 
 been hitherto due to the existence of a rich and 
 leisured class. " It is only in a society of compara- 
 tively rich and leisured persons that these capacities 
 (for culture) and still more, the faculties of pro- 
 ducing excellent works in literature and art are 
 likely to be developed and transmitted in any high 
 degree ; " from which it is inferred that in the absence 
 of a rich and leisured class the growth of culture 
 would be in danger of being checked.; But although 
 this objection would probably apply to full communism 
 and thorough-going equality, it does not apply to 
 Socialism where some inequality of wealth is allowed, 
 2 Pol. Econ., Book III. ch. vii. 2. 
 
1 82 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 and where considerable leisure, though more diffused, 
 would exist; it would not apply to a Socialism 
 gradually led up to, under which a better education 
 would be given to all, and in which a certain amount 
 of leisure would naturally attach to certain dignities 
 and positions, as now. At present the rich and leisured 
 (more or less) are perhaps the chief patrons of litera- 
 ture and art ; books and pictures are addressed to 
 them, but even now they do not furnish the highest 
 instances of culture, and are not ideal patrons of the 
 persons who are its ministers, of those \vho arouse its 
 capacities, increase its range, or purvey nutriment to 
 it. As to the inference based on past experience 
 that it is only in a society of comparatively rich and 
 leisured persons that the "faculties of producing 
 excellent works in literature and art are likely to be 
 developed and transmitted in any high degree," I would 
 merely say that it would not apply to a Socialism 
 under which there would be some inequality of in- 
 come and some leisure, with education wider in sub- 
 ject, and deeper as well as more diffused than at 
 present; while if the proposition implies that the 
 rich and leisured, or their children, are more likely, 
 not merely to be the patrons of literature and art, 
 but themselves to produce excellent literary or artistic 
 works, I am inclined, for the reasons already given, 
 to think it the reverse of the truth. 
 
 How far art and literature which minister to culture 
 would, under Socialism, be likely to be encouraged 
 in ^the sense that artists and literary men would be 
 paid from the public resources, are different questions 
 which will be more conveniently considered when 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 183 
 
 we come to treat of unproductive labour ; our chief 
 object in this chapter being to consider the main 
 objections to Socialism in general. But this much 
 may, however, here be said ; that neither art nor 
 literature admit of much co-operative effort, nor 
 can the means of production, which consist of the 
 artist's or author's special genius, be collectively 
 owned as land or capital can be ; they must remain 
 connected with individuals, from which it would 
 seem to follow that payment by fixed salary would 
 not be the best mode of assigning to them their 
 remuneration ; so that though both might probably 
 enough flourish under a certain kind of Socialism, they 
 would not easily lend themselves to the kind called 
 Collectivism, with a system of fixed salaries. Espe- 
 cially would this apply in the case of art where the 
 artist cannot be made to work his best to order, 
 and where, though he would probably work for little 
 if in the vein, his art being pleasurable in itself, he 
 would also, as at present constituted, like good 
 material wages, which would be better given him by 
 the purchaser of his picture, whether the State, the 
 Municipality, or the State official in receipt of a 
 liberal salary, assuming that such would still continue 
 to be. 
 
1 84 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 IN THE SOCIALIST STATE (continued). 
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 
 I. 
 
 AND now as regards the great question of Distribu- 
 tion, what is to be the rule or principle under the new 
 Socialism ? Can it lay down a juster principle than 
 determines the division of produce to-day, that will be 
 at once practicable and that will not result ulteriorly 
 in having less to divide. This is the capital quc.-t 
 on which the future of Collectivism depends. 
 
 As regards the production of wealth things go on 
 very well at present. Labour, as a matter of fact, is 
 already in general collectively or co-operatively organ- 
 ized so as to produce the greatest result, wherever it is 
 most economical to have it so organized. The pro- 
 duction, as a matter of fact, is very great and sufficient 
 to give necessaries to all, comforts and decencies to 
 multitudes, luxurious commodities to many. The 
 only thing wrong as regards production, even accord- 
 ing to the Socialists, is that expensive luxuries arc 
 produced for a few, necessitating much labour, which 
 would cease under Socialism ; but apart from this they 
 have little improvements to suggest as regards pro- 
 duction. Not so as regards distribution. The exist- 
 

 
 IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 185 
 
 ing distribution, they say, is monstrous and iniquitous, 
 a system of organized confiscation and plunder, partly 
 by the capitalist employers who pay only half wages, 
 partly by bankers, financiers and the lending class 
 in general who get a share of profits in the shape of 
 interest, doing little or nothing in return for it ; then 
 by a series of middlemen carriers and distributors 
 who get their share for small, sometimes needless 
 work, by raised prices or heavy rates, for which the 
 consumer, who is mostly of the working classes, must 
 finally pay. Thus, between the upper and the nether 
 millstone of reduced wages which they receive, and 
 enhanced prices which they must pay to middlemen, 
 sometimes to monopolists and speculators, are the 
 working classes placed, who really produce all, and 
 for the most part transport all, while these same ca- 
 pitalists, middlemen, financiers, rentiers, speculators, 
 monopolists of all sorts, flourish, not to speak of the 
 landlords, whose rent increases while they do no- 
 thing, of the clergymen, who are either needless 
 spiritual middlemen or the moral police of property, 
 of the lawyers, etc., who do useless, perhaps injurious 
 work, all of whom in the last resort have to be paid 
 from the productive labour of the working classes. 
 
 Thus say the Socialists, in language very exag- 
 gerated, epecially as regards the employer of labour, 
 but with a certain truth withal. For that the actual 
 existing distribution now mainly made by so-called 
 free contracts, but based on, and its inequalities made 
 perpetual by, private property and inheritance, results 
 necessarily in injustice, all are agreed, from extreme 
 Socialists down to political economists like Mill and 
 
1 86 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 Cairnes ; the latter of whom declares in his last book 
 (" Leading Principles of Political Economy") that the 
 present system had results not " easy to reconcile with 
 any standard of right accepted amongst men." Not 
 less emphatic is Mill's condemnation, often repeated 
 in his treatise on " Political Economy ; " and in fact 
 there cannot be a doubt that Socialism derives its 
 chief strength from a widespread belief that the 
 present system results in injustices, which are con- 
 demned by the moral sense and contrary to the 
 aims of right legislation. 
 
 What is the cure proposed by Collectivism ? It 
 does not believe much in partial State-Socialism, in 
 Co-operative Production whether voluntary or State- 
 aided, in Profit-sharing, or in Trades Unions. These 
 would all leave the existing system substantially 
 intact, while co-operative production and profit- 
 sharing would still adhere in principle to the master 
 evil of competition which, according to the Socialists, 
 produces the existing commercial anarchy, neces- 
 sitates low wages, over-production, sophisticated 
 goods, and unemployed workers. These different 
 remedies are not even palliatives ; it is a doubtful 
 point, they think, whether they are not mischievous 
 by raising false hopes, delaying the true remedy, 
 and setting the working classes on wrong roads. They 
 can only, any one of them, be said to be good so 
 far as they can be regarded as steps in the direction 
 of the Collectivist ideal, as State-Socialism (in the 
 narrower sense) in general is, though not always ; as 
 for example, when it establishes small individual 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 187 
 
 proprietors in Ireland, or in the Highlands, instead of 
 introducing collective ownership. 
 
 What then is to be the new principle of Distribu- 
 tion ? That each shall receive in proportion to his/ 
 works, by which Schseffle understands, " according tc/ 
 the amount and social utility of the productive labour 
 of each." 
 
 The principle, though not unexceptionable, would 
 seem to embody a working rule of Justice. 1 The diffi- 
 culty is to apply it. How are we to know how much a 
 worker produces in a cotton or linen factory where 
 machines are working as well as he, and where the 
 work of twenty different kinds of labourers is necessary 
 as well as his to the final product? Where there is 
 a common result from different kinds of human labour, 
 from machine labour, and even from the gratuitous 
 labour of natural forces, how are we to measure the 
 amount of the product, thus due to such different co- 
 operant agents, with which an individual is to be 
 credited ? The fact is, we cannot pronounce how 
 much of the final product in yards of cloth any one 
 has produced, not even if we attribute to the man the 
 work done by the machine he merely tends, and we 
 arc obliged to be content with the rough convention, 
 that each one's work the quantity of his production 
 shall be measured by the number of hours of his 
 labour, the labour being supposed by Marx to be 
 
 1 The principle would not indeed be ideally just according 
 to Mill : to give more to those who produce more, the 
 strong and capable, is to give more to those already most 
 favoured by nature. Nevertheless he defends it on grounds of 
 expediency. 
 
1 88 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 of common or "average" kind, though the standard 
 is sufficiently vague, while skilled labour is to be 
 rated or regarded as average labour " intensified or 
 multiplied," which imports an additional vagueness 
 and uncertainty into the estimate. 
 
 At all events, in the factory, every eight hours of 
 this average labour, if there be any such, is to be 
 reckoned as good and as productive as every other, 
 whether like or unlike in kind. The formula " To 
 each in proportion to his works," means, " To each in 
 proportion to the number of hours of work," or labour- 
 time, as, according to Marx, time is essentially the 
 stuff of which the product is made. Labour-force is 
 converted into labour-time, of which products are 
 only a "congelation." Products are "congealed 
 labour-time." Labourers in the factory who have 
 worked the same number of hours arc to get the same 
 wages, the more skilled being reduced to the average 
 by some, we are not told what, rule of conversion ; 
 while all other labourers, spinners, masons, miners, car- 
 penters, are to receive the same remuneration as 
 weavers, provided their labour is as near to the 
 standard of average labour as that of weavers. 
 
 Now let us allow that it might be possible to tell 
 roughly the number of hours of average work 
 rendered by these labourers per day, or per week, or 
 per year. The book-keepers and clerks might keep 
 an account for each, and might give certificates for the 
 number of hours or of normal days of average labour. 
 The question is, How are we to give him his share of 
 products proportionate to his certificates or labour- 
 cheques? Before we can do so the values of all 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 189 
 
 products must be expressed in terms of the same 
 unit. Instead of as now expressed in money, they 
 must be expressed in labour-time : a pound of tea, a 
 yard of cotton, a ton of coals must be priced or 
 valued as so many units of labour-time, whether 
 the unit be the product of an hour or of a normal 
 day, as Schseffle prefers. Everything must have a 
 price or value expressed in labour-time, or we cannot 
 tell how much our labour-notes will fetch. But it 
 will not be easy to determine the value of a given 
 portion of any product in labour-time, because most 
 products wheat, coal, cloth, beer are the results of 
 a long series of different kinds of labour which it will 
 be necessary to ascertain and add up. When, indeed, 
 we have got the number of units incorporated in the 
 total product, it is only a question of arithmetic to de- 
 termine how much is contained in a given portion, as a 
 yard, a ton, a gallon, or other definite quantity. The 
 value of these in labour-time is given, and we 
 have only to present the same amount of labour- 
 cheques if we want to get them. The difficulty consists 
 in keeping an account of the number of hours, in re- 
 ducing different kinds of labour to average labour, and 
 when all is done the question arises whether the 
 present method of distribution, which is certainly 
 simpler, would not also be juster on the whole, as 
 well as assign to the worker a larger share. 
 
 The theory of value is, however, one on which 
 great stress is laid by Socialists, and in particular 
 by Karl Marx. According to Schaeffle, the idea 
 that labour-time is the measure of value " forms 
 theoretically in the strictest sense the basis of 
 
SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 Socialism ; " and he thinks the whole theory of value 
 more important for the future of nations than any of 
 Rousseau's theories. 2 It will therefore be profitable 
 to illustrate the theory more fully, as well as to ex- 
 amine its applicability, for which purpose it will be de- 
 sirable to see how the theory would work in a concrete 
 case. Let us take the case of manufactured cotton 
 goods : and for simplification, we may omit the series of 
 labourers in America by supposing that an equivalent 
 in goods has been paid for the raw cotton. All previous 
 labour having been thus paid for before unlading the 
 bales at Liverpool, we must first of all estimate how 
 many hours of labour are already in this raw cotton, 
 which we will suppose to be represented by the total 
 number of hours in the goods given for it. (Of course if 
 money had been given we should have to convert the 
 money into labour-time.) We must then add the num- 
 ber of hours' labour of unlading, the hours of the dock 
 hands and wharfingers, the hours of the draymen who 
 convey it to the railway station, of the railway port 
 of the guards and engine-drivers. All these mere 
 carriers have a claim on the ultimate product, or on 
 products in general, measured by their number of 
 hours of work or labour-time a very unequal 
 measure indeed for the railway porter, and the railway 
 guard and engine-drivers, the former of whom only 
 bestowed a few minutes' hard work, and the latter no 
 definitely measurable work on the goods at all, their 
 time being spent in the general transport and care of 
 both passengers and goods. But we are only at the 
 commencement of the difficulties raised by making 
 8 " Quintessence of Socialism," p. Si. 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 19! 
 
 labour-time the measure of value. We will suppose a 
 careful estimate made of all the additional hours added 
 on to the value by all the carriers. Next comes the 
 labour of so many spinners, which is divided into 
 many successive stages, as well as many simultaneous 
 operations ; unlike in kind, in continuity, in intensity, 
 some difficult but intermittent, some light but pro- 
 longed : sometimes requiring the labour of strong 
 men, sometimes better done by the defter fingers of 
 young women, some parts of which are quite effectively 
 done by the labour of children (at present paid in 
 money at a lower rate) ; are all these dissimilar la- 
 bourers to be paid alike in future, is their labour all to 
 be measured by the number of hours' work ? It cannot 
 be said that we have here all common or average 
 labour ; if not how are the different kinds to be reduced 
 to average labour ? And it will be necessary to know, 
 because otherwise we shall neither know the ultimate 
 value of the cotton cloth, nor yet the fair share of the 
 produce which each worker is entitled to, since the 
 value of the cloth, as of all else, is to be measured by 
 the number of hours of average labour embodied or 
 realized in it. 
 
 We are not yet done with the difficulties. After 
 going through twenty processes, the yarn is turned off 
 the-spindles and wound. It is then transferred to the 
 weaving factory without any intermediate buying and 
 selling, which would be one advantage of collective 
 management. After twenty more processes, engaging 
 many different kinds of labourers of unequal skill and 
 intelligence, including foremen, clerks, overseers, 
 managers, all the hours of labour of all will have to 
 
192 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 be expressed in commoner average labour ; will have 
 to be added up to get the total value ; and will have to 
 be kept separately in accounts so that each one may 
 get his due number of cheques and no more to pre- 
 sent against goods or services. Then, more carriers' 
 labour will be required, as well as bleachers, and their 
 contributions in time must be added on to the value 
 estimate, because they, too, will have a claim as 
 respects the total product. It will finally be conveyed 
 to warehouses. It may then be made into necessary 
 articles of direct utility ; the values of each of which 
 will have to be estimated by the book-keepers and 
 valuers from the value in hours of the amount of 
 material in it, together with the additional hours of the 
 seamstress, whom, on Marx's principles, we must sup- 
 pose aided by the sewing machine, as the latest social 
 and technical aid to her labour. As to the book- 
 keeper's own labour I will only say that, however 
 difficult it would be to measure it on the theory under 
 consideration, it will be very real and responsible. 
 
 If the question be raised, what is Marx's standard 
 of average or common labour, it is not easy to reply. 
 It is not a real objective one, as the labour of the car- 
 penter, the mason, the ploughman, or any other. It 
 is something lower, simpler, and less skilled than the 
 least skilledof these. There is no formal definition of it, 
 but it is described as "the expenditure of simple labour 
 power, i.e. the labour power which on an average, 
 apart from any special development, exists in the 
 organism of every ordinary individual." "Skilled 
 labour counts only as average labour intensified, or 
 rather as multiplied simple labour, a given quantity 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 193 
 
 of skilled labour being considered equal to a greater 
 quantity of simple labour." It is further described 
 as "mere human labour, simple average labour," 
 finally with a nearer approach to light, though not 
 quite to definiteness of conception, which is what is 
 wanted in a standard of comparison, it is " simple 
 unskilled labour, 3 to which the different sorts of skilled 
 labour are reduced as their standard." He adds, 
 " for simplicity's sake we shall henceforth account 
 every kind of labour to be unskilled labour ; by this 
 we do no more than save ourselves the trouble of 
 making the reduction ; " a saving of trouble much 
 to be regretted if, as implied, the reduction could 
 have been made by Marx. 
 
 The standard then is simple unskilled labour, of 
 which, however, it is not easy to get examples in the( 
 concrete, especially as nearly all labour requires the 
 aid of some implements and some degree of skill, 
 however faint. Perhaps the rude labour which a 
 "man out of work " could do or could learn to do in 
 a few days might be supposed to furnish examples. 
 But even this should not be labour requiring excep- 
 tional strength as that of the navvy or dock-labourer, 
 for this would not be average labour, or " the exercise 
 of labour-power which exists in the organism of every 
 ordinary individual." The first difficulty is the want 
 of a clear and definite conception of the standard, 
 before we can hope to reduce other kinds of labour to 
 it. The standard remains an ideal thing, an abstract 
 or general conception, while we want a definite con- 
 
 3 "Capital," vol. i. p. n. 
 
194 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 crete conception, as of such a kind of work for such a 
 length of time. 
 
 The next difficulty is to reduce the many different 
 sorts of skilled labour to this standard. And con- 
 fining ourselves in particular to the different kinds of 
 labour in the factory, all of which are above this un- 
 skilled labour, how are we to reduce them ? We 
 must first reduce the labour of the ordinary opera- 
 tive to it. But by what rule ? How much is it to 
 be rated above' average labour? Then comes the 
 skilled labour of the manual sort : this has to be 
 reduced to average labour. Is it to be twice or thrice, 
 and why ? Then where intelligence is of importance, 
 how is the labour into which it enters to be expressed 
 in terms of average labour? the labour e.g. of the fore- 
 man and overseer, or of the clerks who must corre- 
 spond in foreign languages, or finally of the owner or 
 manager whose work in organizing and directing is 
 altogether intellectual and moral ? And yet all tl 
 labourers arerequired to produce thermal thing,or\vhut 
 is equally necessary, to find a market. 4 All the labour 
 must be rated in hours of common or average labour, 
 or we cannot tell what is its value on Marx's princi- 
 ples ; and if we do not know its value, we cannot tell 
 the value of a given portion of the product, nor by 
 
 4 Under Collectivism, indeed, there would be no labour neces- 
 sary to find a market at home ; and much of the above labour 
 would be spared ; while the high ability now required to dis- 
 tance rivals would find no proper scope. There would still, 
 however, be some business ability of this particular kind 
 required to find the best foreign markets for our manufactures; 
 while all other kinds of ability tending to increase production, 
 would, of course, be as much needed as before. 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 195 
 
 consequence how much of it the different workers can 
 get in exchange for their certificates for hours of 
 work. We have no Law of Distribution, to get which 
 was the chief object of this theory of value, none, 
 save one impossible of application that each one 
 should get in proportion to his work, or as much of 
 the objectified time-products as he had given in 
 average labour-time. 
 
 Thus, then, we see that even with respect to the 
 workers of a single factory, hours of work would be 
 an imperfect and unequal measure of work. Even if 
 it could be applied it would very imperfectly realize 
 justice, which is the object in view ; while it could 
 not be applied without the greatest difficulty. The 
 difficulty increases if we compare the labour in a given 
 industry with the labour of connected or subsidiary 
 industries, the labour of weaving with spinning, or 
 with the labour of transport or circulation of the 
 product ; still more, if we compare one kind of pro- 
 ductive labour with another ; agricultural labour with 
 mining, or with carpentering, weaving, or navigating 
 a ship. The difficulty of comparing in this way pro- 
 ductive with unproductive labour is too obvious, e.g. 
 the labour of a magistrate and a business manager, 
 or of a soldier, a school-master, and an artisan, while, 
 with respect to some kinds of unproductive labour, 
 though highly important, time has little or nothing 
 to do with the work or its value. 
 
 The fact is, that where time as a measure is appli- 
 cable roughly, it is already applied, and workers for 
 the same time in the same species of work are paid 
 by time and paid the same amount. In other cases 
 
 O 2 
 
1 96 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 where it would be impossible to tell how many hours 
 they have really worked they are still paid by time 
 the day, week, or month. They are paid a certain 
 amount per week agreed on for their work, without 
 the vain attempt to estimate how many minutes or 
 hours of their work is objectified in the final material 
 product. In other cases again they are paid not by 
 time but by the job, or for the special service, where 
 the time-consideration is not the important point. 
 
 II. 
 
 As to Marx's theory that skilled labour is ordinary 
 labour intensified or multiplied, we must ask in what 
 sense it is common labour multiplied or intensified? 
 
 An hour's labour of the skilled sort is not two or 
 three or any number of times as severe or painful, or 
 disagreeable, as an hour of common labour, it is pro- 
 bably less so, possibly it is even pleasant, though even 
 were it otherwise, there is no quantitative measure of 
 these degrees. Nor can we say that skilled labour 
 requires greater muscular effort, of which there is 
 a quantitative measure in the number of foot pounds 
 lifted a given height. Thus estimated, we should 
 have to reverse the Marxian proposition, and say 
 that average labour was skilled labour multiplied. 
 But perhaps skilled labour consumes greater ner- 
 vous, including brain energy, though less -muscular 
 effort or energy, and that taken all together the 
 quantity of energy consumed by skilled labour is 
 greater. Now it is, perhaps, true that there is a 
 greater quantity of energy on the whole consumed 
 by the skilled than the unskilled labour, but science 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 197 
 
 as yet is not able to state the law of relation between 
 muscular and nervous energy, nor by consequence 
 to tell how much of one sort is equal to how much 
 of the other. It is not even able to measure nervous 
 energy other than muscular. The muscular effort, 
 the dead strain of lifting a weight through a height 
 by a navvy or a dock-hand it can measure, not the 
 various efforts of the worker in a skilled art, all 
 directed to realize one end ; some slight and 
 delicate, some more tense, some drawing on the 
 brain, some mechanical but deft, as in the arts of 
 the weaver, the working jeweller, or any other. 
 Here there is no measure of the quantity of the 
 energy or of the quantity of the labour, conse- 
 quently no possibility of comparing this kind of 
 labour with common labour, which consists mainly, 
 though not altogether, of the former kind of effort. 
 To take examples, how many times is the labour 
 of the carpenter, the sailor, the type-setter, the weaver, 
 the working jeweller, the carver in wcod or stone, 
 more than Marx's unskilled labour ? There is no 
 common quantitative measure or rulefor unskilled and 
 skilled labour, and the unskilled cannot be made a 
 standard, for the other cannot possibly be converted 
 into it. And as for skilled being common labour in- 
 tensified, this has been refuted by implication in the 
 above, because in considering all possible differences 
 in quantity we were thrown on differences of degree, 
 as the only conceivable way of trying to estimate 
 differences of quantity. We have considered all 
 respects in which they could be imagined to differ in 
 intensity, namely, in severity of effort, or in painful- 
 
I 9 8 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 ness in general, with the result that if any proposition 
 could at all be laid down, it would be one the reverse 
 of Marx's, that is, that unskilled labour is skilled 
 labour multiplied. 
 
 By intensity of work, indeed, Jevons understands 
 degree of painfulness, and as skilled labour is un- 
 doubtedly in general more pleasant or less painful 
 than unskilled, by this measure of intensity, common 
 labour would be skilled labour multiplied. An hour 
 of common labour would, perhaps, be two or three 
 hours' skilled labour, and in the Socialist field of in- 
 dustry should be paid accordingly, which might be 
 glad tidings for the poor, though not contained in 
 the gospel according to Marx. 
 
 We must emphasize this point, because it is fun- 
 damental with Marx and the Socialists, and with 
 the failure to establish it, much goes down. The 
 Marxian theory of value goes down ; which makes 
 value depend on the quantity of labour, because it 
 requires a reduction of skilled labour to unskilled, 
 and we see that this reduction cannot be made, in any 
 single case, save arbitrarily. It must be laid down 
 arbitrarily or assumed. We could not, therefore, tell 
 how much of one commodity would be equal to how 
 much of another save arbitrarily. At present, we do 
 at least know something as to what determines the 
 normal values of things. We know, at least, where 
 there is no monopoly, that they depend on the 
 money expenses of production, while demand has 
 something to do with them. In the Collectivist 
 Commonwealth there would be no law of value 
 except what it pleased the rulers to lay down, on 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 199 
 
 some imaginary principle or on none at all. Further, 
 there is no law of Distribution. So long as we 
 could say that any particular skilled labour was three 
 times or five times unskilled or common labour, there 
 would be a reason, and even a necessity on the 
 Socialist principle of "to each in proportion to the 
 amount of his work," for unequal wages in the same 
 proportion. Each one is to get in proportion to his 
 hours of average labour, and since the skilled counts 
 as so many times average labour, the skilled worker 
 must be credited with so many more hours of labour in 
 his labour certificates, and will have a correspondingly 
 larger order on the general stock of commodities. 
 But the moment the fallacy of the whole doctrine is 
 shown, the reason for giving higher wages vanishes, 
 while the question is raised whether it should not 
 be the unskilled that should get higher wages, on the 
 ground that it is skilled labour multiplied multiplied 
 in painfulness, which is Jevons' mark of intensified 
 labour, or multiplied in muscular effort, the only cir- 
 cumstance connected with the theory of which we 
 really have a quantitive measure. 5 
 
 There would thus be no reason for the skilled 
 receiving higher than the unskilled on the theory in 
 question. Even if the skilled could be shown to 
 be common labour multiplied, still if the acquisition 
 of the skill be paid for by the State, as it would 
 
 5 I add that Ricardo's Theory of Value, the supposed rock on 
 which the whole theory of Marx reposes, goes down by the 
 preceding analysis equally, and is proved to be a very sandy one. 
 The values of things do not now depend, any more than they 
 would in the Socialist kingdom, on quantity of labour. 
 
200 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD 
 
 be under Collectivism, and if the exercise of the 
 art be at least as agreeable as ordinary labour, as it 
 evidently is, why should the State pay higher wages ? 
 Having already given the craftsman an advantage in 
 training him to more agreeable work, because more 
 suitable, why should it give him threefold, or fourfold 
 the common wages? The Collectivists see the diffi- 
 culty ; they are much perturbed and divided by it, 
 and the more advanced ones boldly say that the 
 wages must be equalized. But if skilled and unskilled 
 are to be paid equally, so should be the industrial 
 chief and the generality by the same reasoning, 
 and we have before seen what the results of 
 this would be as regards production. If you pay 
 the chiefs low, you would not get them to exer- 
 cise their ability, you would take away all their 
 spring, energy, and initiative. Why should they take 
 trouble ? They are not angels, not the high beings 
 postulated, nor likely to be for 500 years ; at any 
 rate, for a much longer period than the " couple of 
 generations " which some Socialists think sufficient to 
 work the miracle of transformation in them, however 
 it may be with the savants, artists, or men of letters. 
 
 On grounds of ideal justice the State could not pay 
 more to the skilled than to the unskilled, nor to the 
 captain than to the workers, but on grounds of general 
 utility or expediency it absolutely would have to do 
 so : it would have to pay sufficiently to make all who 
 have any ability above the ordinary exert it to the 
 utmost. If it did not, they would not exert it, they 
 would take the minimum of trouble, and that for a 
 sufficiently long time to come, to destroy the common- 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE, 2OI 
 
 wealth. Pay the engineer and architect badly, and 
 bridges will be badly constructed, and Town Halls 
 ugly. Pay the captain of industry badly, or reward 
 the inventor poorly, and produce will diminish, 
 diffused poverty result. Abolish the hierarchical 
 gradation of dignity and payment in any direction, in 
 education, the military service, the civil service, or 
 any other, and the whole State would suffer grievously ; 
 above all in industry its abolition would be fatal, 
 and bad, not merely for those above, but for those 
 lower down. The more clear-sighted of the last 
 indeed would themselves soon revolt, and would 
 demand to be " led back again to Egypt," or the old 
 industrial order. 
 
 For every ascending grade of skill there would be 
 necessary higher and higher wages, because other- 
 wise there would be no sufficient stimulus to higher 
 endeavour and superior achievement. 
 
 Even if all were educated and trained at the ex- 
 pense of the State, so that the best would owe their 
 exceptional skill and science partly to the State as 
 well as to gift from Nature, it would still be neces- 
 sary to pay them higher. It is no doubt a case 
 of " giving to him that hath," to pay exceptionally 
 the man already exceptionally gifted by Nature. It 
 is not ideal justice, which would seem to require less 
 material reward for the person with higher qualities, 
 the exercise of which is pleasurable, and Mill even 
 seems to think that men should in this way redress 
 the inequalities made by Nature. So also Louis 
 Blanc, who prophesies a time when men of superior 
 capacity will feel that their superior gifts only 
 
202 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 entail higher duties. However, Nature makes the 
 primary inequality in making one man cleverer 
 than another, one woman more beautiful than 
 another, and under all human societies these gifts 
 from Nature will insure further advantages to their 
 possessors, while in certain spheres, especially in the 
 industrial, natural ability must bring greater material 
 or money rewards, for the simple reason that its pos- 
 sessor prefers such to anything else, and society 
 will find it its interest to give him what he desires. 
 And there is a sort of justice in it after all ; if he is 
 the means of increasing society's material products 
 in a greater proportion than other productive la- 
 bourers, he is entitled on that score to a liberal 
 share of what would not exist but for him. This is 
 the final defence for his higher share. 6 He causes 
 more to exist, therefore he should get more. And 
 the like applies to the man who increases the sum of 
 useful services or conveniences, since men have wants 
 and desires, which are gratified through services, 
 actions, efforts, where no material thing is in ques- 
 tion. 
 
 6 According to Prof. F. A. Walker, the share of the director 
 of industry (entrepreneur) is a creation due to his ability. This is 
 certainly true in part, though it would not be easy to prove 
 that what he adds to the general wealth is precisely what he 
 gets, which, in the case of his class, is a certain percentage on 
 the capital managed. The amount of this can be known roughly 
 from income-tax returns, but how much he contributes it is 
 wholly impossible to measure ; all we can say is that it is con- 
 siderable, and may be very great, judging from a comparison of 
 countries where the class is present and active, like England, 
 with countries where it is small or non-existent ; the former 
 being wealthy, the latter backward in material progress. 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 2O3 
 
 These considerations justify unequal wages, and 
 high wages to the captain of industry, the discoverer 
 of new processes, the inventor of new and more 
 potent methods, the supplier of new wants, the con- 
 structor of great material works; though they do 
 not apply to justify excessive wages to any of them, 
 nor to justify the gains of the successful speculator, 
 or of the rich monopolist who has taxed the public 
 for his high profits, or any of the rich parasites of 
 industry. 
 
 It would always be the interest of the State to pay 
 high if the work be necessary ; if few can do it well ; 
 if they will not do it well without the high wages. 
 This is the case especially in industry, for though 
 business qualifications are more widely extended than 
 certain other kinds, still the best will be required, and 
 the best will be limited. The ability of the industrial 
 chief is not perhaps of the highest kind; but it will 
 require to be specially well paid, because it is closely 
 related to material wealth, and abundant material 
 wealth lies at the bottom of so much else and so many 
 higher things as their necessary condition. 
 
 The weak point in Collectivism is here. The Col- 
 lectivists began by affirming that they have a perfect 
 and self-acting law of distribution, connected with 
 their theory of value : each is to get according to his 
 works ; his work is measured by the time he works, 
 which will command products, or services represent- 
 ing the same time. Skilled labour is common labour 
 multiplied ; so presumably is the labour of the in- 
 dustrial chiefs. So, too, according to some Socialists, 
 is professional labour, from which we would naturally 
 
204 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 infer unequal reward. But when all are educated 
 by the State, it seems that equality of reward is 
 to be the rule, at any rate there is to be a great 
 levelling. "Then perhaps an hour's work of the 
 teacher and an hour of the hod-carrier's work will 
 be paid for alike though it must be observed 
 that in difficulty the teacher's work does not at 
 all resemble that of the hod-carrier/' 7 from which 
 one darkly gathers that the teacher ought in justice to 
 get less. The real point and the true principle is 
 missed, that those who have a special gift, who are 
 consequently comparatively few, must for the general 
 good get higher wages, while those who have only 
 ordinary capacity should get less. Extra difficulty or 
 disagreeableness or risk, in the commoner kinds of 
 labour, should, no doubt, on grounds of justice, entitle 
 the labourers to higher wages, it is impossible to say 
 how much higher, but hardly so high, one would say, 
 as those in the next grade of skilled labour requiring 
 more special natural aptitudes ; certainly not so high 
 as the specially gifted in any grade. 
 
 III. 
 
 LET us try this theory of value and this principle 
 of distribution a little further. Each is to receive 
 according to the number of hours' work. What is 
 the stimulus to an individual to produce much, since 
 his wages depend on the time he labours, not on the 
 energy, intelligence, or economy of his labour ? What 
 in a particular factory is the stimulus to all, since if 
 
 1 " Co-operative Commonwealth," p. 146. 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 205 
 
 they produce more, its value is measured by the 
 number of hours' labour, not by the amount in yards 
 of cotton ? If they produce much they will fare no 
 better than the operatives in a neighbouring factory, 
 where they work slack. In fact, would it not be the 
 obvious and direct interest of all not to increase pro- 
 duction, but to work leisurely through the day ? 
 The answer of the Socialists is/ that if every one 
 works slack there will be less produce to divide ; 
 all will get less. Very well ; all would then only 
 be foregoing products for easy labour, so agreeable 
 to man, unless the whip of necessity is over him ; 
 and all might even become indolent, as in hot climates 
 they always do. But there is a direct temptation to 
 the members of one industry to labour less, because, 
 if they produce more than before, the total product 
 does not rise in value. It does not enable them to com- 
 mand more of other commodities, but only of their own 
 products so far as they purchase it. The inducement 
 at present to increased production on the part of the 
 capitalist at least, is that for a time the value and price 
 of a definite portion will remain the same, and he will 
 profit by the extra production. It would not be so 
 under Socialism. Schseffle indeed proposes "pre- 
 miums " to stimulate to extra production. But does 
 not this allow that you cannot get good work out of 
 a man unless you give him a direct and palpable 
 return for it ? 
 
 Another point : suppose by premiums or bounties 
 that the product in any given industry has been 
 stimulated ; suppose there is too much produced 
 
 8 Scbscffle, " Quintessence of Socialism." 
 
206 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 more than people want, omitting the consideration of 
 foreign trade for the present ; the value of the 
 surplus would either have to fall, i.e. the Socialist 
 theory of value would have to be given up, or if 
 not, the things, if perishable, would spoil in the ware- 
 houses, or the supply of the next usual period 
 would have to be diminished. But how ? Less 
 workmen would be required in that industry, or they 
 would work only half-time. What would the super- 
 fluous workmen do ? They could not be idle. The 
 State would have to find some work they could do, 
 in which the product was less than the amount de- 
 manded, and send them to it ; or if they objected to 
 move, it would have to support them wholly or par- 
 tially ; that is, we should cither have compulsory 
 ordering and transfer of the workers, i.e. no free choice 
 of residence, or public support for a time in their 
 own town, or public work would have to be found 
 of a kind that most of the unemployed could work 
 at ; and thus, our chief social problem would still 
 confront us. 
 
 The State could only adapt production (supply) to 
 demand in a given industry on condition of increasing 
 or lessening the workers or the hours of work ; and 
 it could not readily transfer the workers from one 
 industry to another at all, nor do it to any purpose, 
 unless it had the power of transferring them where 
 it pleased ; of ordering perhaps the superfluous a 
 cultural labour in Dorset up to the collieries, orsending 
 the temporarily superfluous shipwrights of Sundcrland 
 to the kind of labour elsewhere most resembling 
 their own, or setting them to make chairs or tables 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 2O7 
 
 in their own district. But perhaps the State could 
 check the " vagaries of demand, " as the Socialists 
 say, so that the quantity required could be kept 
 tolerably steady without these dislocations of trades 
 and moving of masses of labourers. The vagaries of 
 fashion and of demand at home might be reduced, 
 but not the accidents of seasons, nor the demand 
 from abroad. 
 
 If a harvest is defective say by one-third, the value 
 of the whole representing the same hours of labour 
 would be the same as in preceding years ; a loaf 
 would be worth one-third more as compared with 
 other things ; but might it not be worth far more 
 (omitting for the present the possible importation 
 of corn) ? Could the State so order it that a given 
 quantity of wheat shall not rise higher than one-third 
 estimated in the labour cheques ? 
 
 What is to prevent individuals in the supposed case 
 from buying an extra quantity of wheat, and selling it 
 later on for far more labour cheques when the pres- 
 sure comes to be felt ; as some people would be 
 willing to give more than others to have their 
 customary quantity of bread, and would give far more 
 than one-third more to secure it, especially would the 
 working classes for whom it is the chief staple of 
 consumption. If the Government cou/dkeep the price 
 of a necessary, so that it would not rise more than in 
 proportion to its deficiency, it would do good on the 
 whole, and perhaps we have here a case where 
 Socialism would work well. It is the old attempt of 
 the French Revolution times to fix a maximum price 
 for bread ; the difficulty is to make the maximum 
 
208 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 effective, when people in general do not want it fixed, 
 and are willing and eager to offer more. 
 
 However, this particular difficulty of a defective 
 harvest we have largely got over by our free import 
 of corn which keeps its value pretty steady, and so 
 no doubt it might be under Socialism if corn were 
 imported as much as now. 
 
 And this brings us to the question of foreign trade. 
 Under Collectivism it would be carried on by State 
 officials, and the chief advantages of it, according to 
 the Socialists, would no longer be reaped by pro- 
 ducers and exporting and importing merchants, but 
 by the community. No industry such as the cotton 
 or linen would specially profit by its superiority. 
 The profits resulting would go to the national 
 treasury ; from which it might be inferred that new 
 foreign markets would not be readily opened for our 
 products, nor would our custom in the old ones be 
 extended, unless indeed the State gave Schaeffic's 
 " bounties " to those industries that did the largest 
 business with foreigners, and at the same time allowed 
 a rather free hand to its foreign agents and cor re- 
 spondents : that is, unless it departed from its strict 
 principle and approached the present system : for 
 certainly in no direction are the advantages of free- 
 dom of industry and private enterprise greater than in 
 all that relates to foreign trade. 
 
 Another point ; the State, through a special depart- 
 ment, will export manufactured goods, and must take 
 either foreign goods or money in exchange. In general 
 only the difference of value between the total exports 
 and imports will be paid or received, as now, in gold 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 209 
 
 or silver, a certain amount of which the State must 
 have in reserve, though the precious metals for home 
 uses are to be dispensed with. When the State sells 
 to foreigners it will be obliged to put a money value 
 on the products, were it only for the reason that 
 foreign states (unless they also are socialistic, and 
 estimate values in labour-time) will reckon the values 
 of their goods in money. But it would be difficult to 
 reckon our products in money once the payment of 
 wages in coined money has ceased ; and the compara- 
 tive values of cotton and tea or wine would have to 
 be fixed wholly, as they now partly are, by comparative 
 intensity of demand, apart from a money estimate. 
 
 What an amount of confusion would result from the 
 impossibility of the rapid comparison now made by 
 the money price set on things it is easy to see. We 
 may safely say it would clog the wheels of commerce 
 to an excessive degree, and that England more than 
 any country would suffer from it. Trade which, between 
 countries using gold or silver, is now barter of things, 
 obedient to a rule having reference to money prices, 
 would become the blindest barter, governed by no 
 rule, but one impossible of application, namely " com- 
 parative intensity of demand." 
 
 No doubt in time some rate of exchange between 
 yards of cotton and pounds of tea might grow up, but 
 it would be a different one from that which would exist 
 if both countries used money, and put a money price 
 on their goods. Supposing, however, the tea acquired 
 at some rate and brought to England, what is to 
 determine its value? Not certainly the number of 
 foreign hours of work, the foreign labour-time, 
 
 P 
 
210 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 incorporated in it. Will it be the number of hours in 
 the cotton goods that were exchanged for it ? 'N 
 Mill and Ricardo would say, for that is what deter- 
 mines it now ; it is the cost of production measured 
 in the amount of labour, or in the number of days of 
 labour time in the things exported which fixes the value 
 of the imported goods. We will suppose the orthodox 
 theory correct ; 9 that a certain amount of cotton and 
 
 9 Ricardo's theory of foreign trade, amended by Mill, is far 
 from satisfactory. According to Mill, the value of an imported 
 commodity in England does not depend on its cost of production 
 in the foreign country, but on the cost of production of the 
 exported goods given for it. " The exchange value of a pipe 
 of wine in England will not depend upon what the produc- 
 tion of the wine may have cost in Spain, but on what the 
 production of the cloth exchanged for it has cost in England." 
 But as a matter of fact the value of a pipe of wine in England 
 does depend on its cost of production in Spain measured in 
 money, plus something due to cost of carriage, customs' duty, and 
 importer's profit. But by " cost of production in Spain," Mill 
 means the number of days of labour spent in production ; by cost 
 of production in England in like manner he means the time taken ; 
 in short, he measures value and cost of production by time or 
 quantity of labour, which was the wrong theory of Ricardo, cor- 
 rected by himself into his own, that value depends on cost 
 of production, measured by wages and profits that is by money. 
 The value of the wine in England does then depend on the money 
 cost of production in Spain ; on the wages and profits which 
 fix its price in Spain ; it does not depend on the hours or 
 days of labour taken to produce the cloth any more than the 
 wine, both of which would be nearly impossible to estimate, as 
 we have seen in the text. In all cases the money estimate or 
 price is in the minds of importers^nd exporters, even when they 
 appear to barter directly (supposing both countries to have 
 money) : it is the state of prices which determines the ratio of 
 exchange. If there were no money prices, foreign trade would 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 211 
 
 other goods, without any money, has been exchanged 
 for the tea ; the total value of the tea will then equal 
 the total value of the cotton and other goods, from 
 which the value of a pound of tea can be found. 
 Thus, if the cotton and other goods, the result of a 
 quarter of million days of average social labour, have 
 been exchanged forone million pounds of tea, the value 
 of a pound of tea will be a quarter of a day's labour ; 
 or one day's normal labour will command, or be equal 
 to, four pounds of tea. The State may fix values ac 
 cordingly. But now, suppose only half the amount of 
 tea is demanded at that value or rate. The State 
 officials, the Bureau of Trade would have to lower 
 the value to call out extra demand ; that is, do what 
 changes in market value now do ; or if they adhere to 
 the fixed value, they must import less next year or next 
 half-year, which would imply less exports of cotton, 
 etc. It would have to lessen purchases, that is lessen 
 exports of cotton, and lessen the labour employed at 
 the cotton manufacture, otherwise there would be too 
 much produced, and values of cotton would fall at 
 home, or if arbitrarily kept up the goods would not be 
 consumed. We have the old difficulty, or rather 
 impossibility, of keeping values fixed. 
 
 The values of things can only be kept fixed by 
 changing, in some cases, the quantity produced, 
 according as changes occur in human fancies or habits ; 
 in other cases, as in that of a necessary of life, like corn, 
 where a tolerably fixed quantity is strongly desired, 
 
 become nearly impossible, or would be reduced to very small 
 compass, 
 
 P 2 
 
212 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 and will be had before all else, but where more than 
 that is comparatively useless, a deficiency in the 
 quantity must necessitate a rise in value, a rise in what 
 people would be willing to offer, and a superfluity a 
 fall, and even a rapid fall if all is to be consumed. 
 The fall could only be prevented by the State setting 
 aside for future needs the superfluity from a pros- 
 perous harvest ; the former could not be prevented by 
 the State, because so long as private arrangements 
 could be made between parties, the persons with the 
 strongest desires would find means to get as much as 
 they wanted. The rise of value might, however, be 
 mitigated to the general good by the State's prevent- 
 ing certain speculators and monopolists taking advan- 
 tage of the deficiency and turning it to their special 
 profit. Wherever there are rings, combinations or syn- 
 dicates controlling a necessary of life, who would thus 
 have the power of aggravating a real scarcity, and by 
 acting on the fear or imagination might create a 
 greater rise than otherwise would take place, or who 
 might produce an artificial scarcity, the State, by 
 controlling such, or stepping into their place, could 
 minimize the evils of the scarcity, and prevent a great 
 rise of value to the general advantage, especially if 
 it had saved from former years. But it could not 
 keep values fixed unless it could alter human nature. 
 
 IV. 
 
 THUS, then, finally the Marxian theory of value and 
 " theoretical basis of Socialism " is vicious as a theory 
 and inapplicable in practice : the values of things in a 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 213 
 
 Socialistic community would have to be arbitrarily 
 fixed by the authorities. Even when arbitrarily fixed 
 they could not be kept so, any more than now, though 
 it would be necessary to keep them fixed, much more 
 than now. There is no principle of distribution con- 
 tained in the theory of value, because to get the 
 value of any product, the comparative worth of the 
 different kinds of labour must be presupposed. The 
 values of things cannot be pronounced till we have 
 already decided how many times skilled labour is 
 more than unskilled. The principle of distribution 
 is assumed, when we lay down the proportion between 
 the different kinds of skilled and common labour. If 
 my skilled labour is rated three times common labour, 
 then my day's labour, or my year's labour, will com- 
 mand three times as much, that is, the Law of Dis- 
 tribution is already assumed, and, as before said, it 
 must be assumed arbitrarily, since there is no com- 
 mon measure of the comparative quantities of labour. 
 I by no means say that Socialism, even in the form 
 of Collectivism, might not lay down some principle 
 or scheme of distribution juster than the present, 
 and which might be practically applicable. I only 
 say that there is none contained in Marx's prin- 
 ciples or in his theory of value, while the one vaguely 
 foreshadowed by some Collectivists of something 
 like a rude equality would be absolutely impracti- 
 cable, though if it could even conceivably be carried 
 out by a relentless despotism, in which chiefs more 
 ascetic than St. Just or Robespierre, and officials 
 more incorruptible, all willingly accepted the rule of 
 equal shares, and determined to carry it out, the 
 
214 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 result would be to bring society speedily to poverty, 
 and to send civilization back to its cradle. 
 
 The equality would certainly not bring liberty 
 with it, still less fraternity. It would not bring con- 
 tentment nor peace, assuming that human nature 
 had so far changed as to acquiesce in the thing even for 
 a short space of time. 
 
 I by no means imply that the great inequality of 
 the present system is all for the best ; nor that the 
 existing distribution of wealth, dependent partly on 
 Free Contracts, partly on our property laws, is ideally 
 just or perfect ; far from it ; but it is better and juster 
 than the rule of equality would be, which is 
 one principle of distribution proposed by* the So- 
 cialists, while it is at least practicable, which cannot 
 be said of the other Socialist principle of, " To each 
 in proportion to his works." 
 
 A better distribution than the present, and having 
 more reference to equality, is possible, without break- 
 ing so completely with the present system as Collec- 
 tivism proposes. It can be done by the State ; by 
 taxation, legislation, and otherwise, while still leaving 
 large Freedom of enterprise, as well as Freedom of 
 Contract between employer and employed. And 
 though equality of reward would be bad, something 
 like equality of start and of opportunity would be 
 good, and could be secured for the competitors by 
 the State. The State, moreover, in its own interest 
 and for the general good, could favour Nature's 
 inequalities, even at the risk of levelling a little social 
 inequalities or the inequalities of fortune ; it could sift 
 out and select Talent of all kinds, even assisting it if 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 
 
 necessary by funds for the purpose, without looking 
 for any other return than the natural results to 
 Society of this educated ability. It could even, by 
 extended State management, and by an enlarged 
 public service, provide places for the best, without 
 largely curtailing private enterprise. 
 
 A Society in which, at all events, the shares of 
 each would make a nearer approach to " fairness," in 
 which the evils of Freedom of Contract, of private 
 property and of competition would be tempered by 
 considerations of Justice, is possible, without any 
 need of adventuring into the terra incognita of 
 the Collectivist State, in which we should all get 
 either equal shares, or shares fixed entirely arbi- 
 trarily by State functionaries ; and in which, while 
 much would be doubtful and at hazard, it is most 
 probable that the working classes, even with Rent 
 and Interest thrown into the general Wage Dividend, 
 and the present great Wages of Management of 
 employers cut down, would not after all secure so 
 large a share as they do under the present system, 
 imperfect as it may be. 
 
21 6 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 IN THE SOCIALIST STATE (continued). 
 
 THE SUPPRESSION OF MONEY AND MARKETS. 
 I. 
 
 IT is the special boast of the new Socialism that it 
 would effectually kill all the parasites of industry 
 which riot to-day under the abused name of Freedom 
 of Industry or are sheltered under our property la\\^. 
 First would go the landlord, the land becoming 
 collective property, then the capitalist employer, who, 
 however, as regards his profits, is rather viewed as the 
 spoliator of the labourer than a parasite of industry. 
 Next will go the mostly unnecessary middleman, 
 who interposes between producers and consumers, 
 and by his profits swells the price on the latter for 
 little or no real service. Then by the abolition of 
 markets in general and market prices, the chance of 
 the general speculator and corncrer will be gone ; 
 by the suppression of private enterprise and invest- 
 ments, and by the consequent abolition of the stock 
 and share market the financier, the company pro- 
 moter, the director, the monopolist, the " rentier" the 
 speculator on the stock exchange, and numerous 
 other types will lose their opportunities ; and, lastly, 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 21 7 
 
 by the abolition of money and the money market, 
 the prohibition of loans at interest and of all credit 
 transactions involving interest, the functions of the 
 banker and bill discounter and of the money-lender 
 will no longer be necessary. Money, credit, stocks, 
 shares, bonds, debentures, will no longer exist, and 
 all at present connected with their manipulation, the 
 " whole unclean brigand aristocracy of the Bourse," 
 as Schaeffle rather severely and indiscriminately styles 
 them, will be compulsorily retired. 
 
 And a good riddance, many would say who are 
 not conscious Socialists. The question is how far 
 such sweeping change could be carried out, and how 
 far it would be really desirable. In the first place, 
 as regards the middlemen, even under Collectivism 
 there would be some required. There would be 
 carriers, and there would be official distributors in the 
 State magazines, though agents, travellers, and the 
 advertising sheet would be unnecessary. The number 
 of the distributors would not be so great as now ; 
 moreover, they would be paid in proportion to their 
 hours of work, and presumably according to ability, 
 though there would be much less scope for the kind of 
 ability that at present secures large fortunes, which 
 consists in the various methods, good and bad, of 
 widening one's connexion, but for which there would 
 be no proper scope under Collectivism. The distri- 
 butors would be paid less, and there would be less of 
 them, wherein would lie the chief gain to the public. 
 
 At the same time it must be noted that the process 
 of eliminating unnecessary intermediaries, of diminish- 
 ing the series as well as the numbers in each series, 
 
2l8 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 has been going on for a considerable time, and is 
 now proceeding even more rapidly. Not only the 
 great co-operative stores and the mammoth "pro- 
 viders," such as Whiteley's, have reduced the number, 
 but at present, by the formation of Trusts and 
 Syndicates, which are at once producers and distri- 
 butors, the number of middlemen is being further 
 reduced ; the general result being that the displaced 
 small traders and other middlemen lean rather illo- 
 gically to Socialism, which theoretically condemns 
 them, but which at the same time is the general refuge 
 of all the victims of the present order. 
 
 As to the proposed abolition of money, I venture 
 to doubt its possibility, so long at least as the labour 
 cheques are issued and are transferable. Coined 
 metallic money could, under certain conditions, be 
 dispensed with in the Socialist State for internal uses, 
 as it has been wherever inconvertible paper has been 
 used for money, and as it even now is largely replaced 
 by paper substitutes bank notes, bills of exchange, 
 cheques, and book credit. Under Collectivism the 
 labour cheques would take the place of money ; 
 they would be an inferior inconvertible paper 
 money. They would acquire the functions of money, 
 as at the outset they possess its two principal ones, 
 that of being a measure of values, and if not pre- 
 cisely a medium of exchange, as exchanges will be 
 nominally forbidden at least a means of purchase, a 
 means of procuring what we desire at the warehouses, 
 or such services as we need. The labour cheque 
 would be a general order on goods or services, which, 
 according to Adam Smith and Mill, is the essential 
 

 IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 219 
 
 thing in money. It would be general purchasing 
 power in whosesoever hand it may be. And if the State 
 produces all desirable things, or nearly all now pro- 
 curable with money, and if on presenting labour 
 cheques in sufficient number I can command any of 
 these things, what more, it might be asked, can be 
 desired, what more can be done with money now ? 
 
 The cheques would indeed be money ; but would 
 they be good money ? They would fulfil some func- 
 tions, would they fulfil all ? Would they have that 
 steadiness in value which it is desirable that a standard 
 and measure of value should have ? They would not 
 possess this desired attribute of steadiness. They 
 would be liable to all the evils of inconvertible paper, 
 together with certain indefinite evils peculiar to them- 
 selves. We have seen before that it would be im- 
 possible to keep the values of things with reference 
 to each other invariable ; that the arbitrary assess- 
 ment of values according to the calculated labour 
 time could not be maintained. It is now to be shown 
 that not alone would values alter, but that the labour 
 cheques for a day's work would more and more be 
 discounted on presentation, whether at the warehouses 
 or to the dispensers of services. They would procure 
 less and less. So far as there is saving and accumula- 
 tion of the cheques, there would be a constant increase 
 in the outstanding uncancelled cheques, and so far as 
 they were offered for services or passed as money 
 from one to another, that is, so far as they formed a 
 circulating medium, they would fall in value. More 
 would be demanded for a given service ; and, spite 
 of the good will of the State to fulfil its engagements, 
 
220 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 it might easily happen that more of them would be 
 presented at a particular time, say of deficient com- 
 modities, than the State could give the promised 
 equivalent for, so that it would be obliged to discount 
 their value. So long as any saving and accumulating 
 went on at all, so long as they passed at all as money, 
 the State could never be sure that it would not have 
 to discharge them by offering less than their nominal 
 value. It could only be sure if all the cheques were 
 presented daily or weekly by whoever possessed them, 
 and were then cancelled : otherwise the constantly- 
 increasing outstanding amount forced to do duty as 
 money, not only when services were purchased from 
 private persons, but on other occasions, would necessi- 
 tate their depreciation. Moreover, they would in- 
 crease in the hands of some who would present 
 them for payment. To the extent that saving and 
 accumulation went on it would be at the imminent 
 risk of depreciation and even of eventual repudiation. 
 The cheques would be constantly increasing, the 
 goods and services not, or not in the same proportion. 
 In fact immediate consumption, or at least imme- 
 diate realization of the value of the cheques within 
 the week or year to which so many other considera- 
 tions would prompt, would be the only wise policy 
 under Collectivism, the future of savings, especially of 
 saved labour cheques, being so uncertain, liable to 
 discount, and even to repudiation, total or partial. 
 There would certainly be a great temptation to the 
 State to apply the sponge of repudiation periodically 
 to accumulated outstanding cheques or obligations, 
 because such constitute a claim on it that it could 
 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 221 
 
 not meet in full if many were presented together, 
 since it has only got the yearly revenue and the 
 inalienable collective capital on which it cannot admit 
 any mortgage. In fact the more the cheques accumu- 
 late, the less could they ever be discharged in full. 
 There would either be depreciation of the cheque, 
 which would injure all, especially the average workers, 
 or depreciation would be avoided by a periodical 
 cancelling of accumulations. 
 
 But even supposing the Government could escape 
 these dangers, could perform the miracle of main- 
 taining stability in the value of the labour cheque and 
 respecting private savings, there would be another 
 danger. The money, the cheques would certainly 
 accumulate largely in some hands, though to prevent 
 accumulation is the reason why gold and silver are to 
 be banished. It would accumulate not only through 
 the inequality of remuneration shown to be neces- 
 sary and even allowed by Collectivists, but also 
 by the permitted gifts and bequests. Still more it 
 would accumulate in some hands through speculation. 
 
 For there would be speculation, and much specula- 
 tion, in the Socialist kingdom. More especially 
 as there, is nothing to prevent persons from buy- 
 ing more of things whose value was expected to 
 rise, and selling them or realizing them later against 
 a greater number of labour cheques ; and we have 
 seen that as the value in use of things constantly 
 varies, the exchange value, or the assessed value, 
 must change. The market value, which shifts with 
 the varying utility of things, would still ideally exist, 
 and would be constantly rising or falling above the 
 
222 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 assessed, or fixed, or cost value. There would be 
 private buying- and selling and speculating, because 
 the speculative which is closely connected with the 
 gambling spirit is so strong in so many. Money 
 would be won and lost, and the necessitous, the 
 losers, in spite of all prohibition, would offer high 
 interest to whosoever would advance money in the 
 hour of need. It is even probable, so long as no 
 interest could be made legitimately by any investment 
 of money, that this gambling and speculative spirit 
 would be enormously increased, as it is well kno\\n 
 that low interest under the present system tends to 
 encourage a speculative spirit, which has frequently 
 issued in crises. What would it be if there was no 
 interest at all ? There would be no legal or open 
 money market or general market, no recognized 
 function of banker, and all would be done in evasion 
 of the law. But there would certainly be speculation, 
 and there would soon be evolved an individual type 
 to facilitate speculation to speculative buyers not 
 a few, just as surely as the bookmaker has been 
 evolved to facilitate betting. There would certainly 
 be found a money-lender, who as surely appears as 
 there are men in pressing money difficulties, out of 
 which the money-lender can help them for sufficient 
 consideration. No laws could prevent speculation, 
 or money-lending for interest, so many people being 
 interested in violating or evading the law. 
 
 Of course, as the stock and share market would 
 be abolished, gambling in that particular quarter 
 would so far be done away with ; and speculative 
 buying and selling of products would have a narrower 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 223 
 
 field. But much speculative buying and selling there 
 would be, and much more pure gambling and betting 
 and staking money on events more or less uncertain. 
 This we can scientifically predict, so long as the 
 gambling instinct is so strong as it is in England 
 and America, and most civilized countries, so strong, 
 indeed, that life would be insipid to many without 
 the excitement of gambling, while to the majority, in 
 milder form, it gives a pleasure and a flavour. Specu- 
 lation is now mixed up with the whole of business 
 and with a large part of life. Every race, every card 
 party testifies, as well as the Stock Exchange, to the 
 universality of the spirit which, immoral as it mostly 
 is, is nevertheless closely connected with and shades 
 into a good spirit the spirit of adventure, the spirit 
 which says, " Nothing venture, nothing have," or, in 
 Scotch, " I'll mak' a spoon or I'll spoil a horn," a 
 spirit characteristic of superior races and individuals. 
 The notion, then, that the spirit of speculation could 
 be stamped out under Socialism is chimerical. Re- 
 pressed in certain quarters, it would find other vents, 
 some of which it is not difficult to foresee. 
 
 As there would be no private enterprise, and no 
 possibility of investing our labour-cheques so as to 
 get a legitimate increase by way of interest, no specu- 
 lative buying and selling, and no partially speculative 
 investments, where, by the exercise of skilful judg- 
 ment individuals might make money or get high 
 interest, there would be a great increase of wagering, 
 gambling, and pure speculation as the only means of 
 increasing the shares ; whereas if the State offered 
 interest and used private savings productively, or per- 
 
224 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 mitted private undertakings of a promising though 
 risky kind, there would be less pure speculation and 
 more real wealth created. If, in short, people can get 
 no interest for savings and are not allowed to invest 
 them productively, one or other of two things, both 
 bad, morally and materially, will result : either ex- 
 travagant unproductive consumption of luxuries, or 
 speculation, whether of a wholly gambling kind, or 
 such gambling as that on the turf, where there is 
 room for special knowledge and skilled judgment, 
 which make some certain of winning. And this last 
 species would probably take the place of the Stock 
 Exchange speculating. Both speculation and un- 
 productive consumption would flourish, and the 
 former would receive a great additional stimulus so 
 far as the labour cheques were in danger of deprecia- 
 tion, as we have shown they would be. " Let us eat 
 and drink " would be the probable philosophy, and 
 speculation would give flavour and excitement to the 
 banquet ; though it is no doubt also possible that 
 some consumption might take the higher form of the 
 purchase of pictures, books, artistic furniture, or the 
 spending of more on travelling. 
 
 On the whole we may say that the well-intentioned 
 but ambitious attempt of the Socialists to suppress 
 Money, the Investment list, and the Stock Exchange, 
 would lead to much greater visible evils than exist 
 at present, not to speak of other evils certain from 
 analogy, though, without trying the hazardous experi- 
 ment, we cannot describe them precisely. To dis- 
 pense with money was possible in a small state like 
 Sparta, was largely possible under the feudal system, or 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 225 
 
 under the self-contained village community ; but the 
 attempt to suppress it in a great modern complicated 
 society, especially one having a great foreign trade, 
 would be fraught with disaster and chaos. 
 
 The alternative is to correct the evils of the existing 
 system ; to regulate the currency, especially the 
 paper portion of it, more strictly ; perhaps, as Jevons 
 suggests, to confine the issue of notes to " a single 
 central State department, more resembling a mint 
 than a bank ; ' M to prevent fraud and swindling 
 by Law by a careful revision of the Companies' 
 Act, perhaps by defining certain malpractices of the 
 speculator, the cornerer, and the company floater, and 
 declaring them criminal. The meshes of law will have 
 to be made finer to catch the fraudulent, and public 
 opinion must punish the shady. Most certainly reform 
 is urgently wanted in this region of business, and most 
 certainly nowhere is it more difficult, as may be seen 
 from the failure of the Lord Chancellor's bill of last 
 year, intended to improve the Companies' Act, and 
 in particular to make the way of the dubious 
 company promoter less smooth. That the public 
 require more protection somehow is clear, as we 
 need only take up any financial journal to see that 
 shameful and seemingly obvious swindling goes 
 on under the head of company floating, and that 
 deception, gross as the " confidence trick " practised 
 on the countryman, and of essentially the same 
 nature, is being perpetually practised on victims 
 perennially renewed. And what is worse, because 
 
 1 Jevons on "Money," p. 341 ; see also Sidgwick's " Politica 
 Economy," Book III,, ch. iv. 8. 
 
 - Q 
 
226 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 it affects much greater numbers, there is much 
 fine financing, evincing superior science of the 
 same doubtful kind, though far more difficult of 
 detection, and against which, perhaps, there can be 
 no effective law. 
 
 The prodigious and unparalleled increase of wealth 
 during the past hundred years, which still goes on, 
 and the ever-extending field of investment which is 
 the result of it, has given to the company promoter 
 and many other new types a splendid chance, as well 
 as subjected them to a great temptation ; to men of 
 business genius really required, who arc benefactors, 
 as well as to noxious growths who trade on the 
 wide prevalence of the speculative spirit, the covetous 
 spirit, the eager desire to make money with a 
 minimum of effort, or on the ignorance, the credulity, 
 and the general gullibility of mankind. There is not 
 only the great field of investment at home, but 
 English capital goes to develop the resources of 
 many foreign countries ; and in these various fore 
 investments there has been found more tempting 
 bait. Here was a golden opportunity, not merely 
 for useful financiers of capacity and character, but 
 also for the dishonest and fraudulent. 
 
 For the financiers form a genus with several species, 
 of which the company promoter is one. And besides 
 the company promoter who performs a necessary work, 
 who is a sort of middleman between a few great capi- 
 talists and the general mass of investors, who acts in 
 general as midwife and launches the company into life, 
 there are the dishonest and fraudulent, the bubble com- 
 pany floaters, who form companies and wreck them 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 
 
 and form new ones, deriving a profit from all ; who 
 form companies to work mines in Mexico, in India, 
 anywhere, the remoter the better ; companies to do 
 impossible, sometimes imaginary, things ; who may 
 have the shares of the imaginary companies quoted 
 and bought and sold on the Stock Exchange, and 
 who may even, assisted by some friends, realize a 
 handsome thing before liquidation or exposure. By 
 glowing prospectus, containing reports from " our 
 working engineer " of the " most favourable results," 
 by a list of respectable directors, managers, bankers, 
 auditors, and solicitors of the company, if any such can 
 be induced to lend their names, above all by the un- 
 tiring efforts and surprising genius of the financier, 
 money may flow into a bogus scheme. Much more 
 likely it flows into a merely bad business or under- 
 taking ; the latter much safer and more respectable 
 for promoters, directors, manager, etc., and more 
 profitable, as the game will last the longer; the 
 shareholders will " bleed " the longer before the in- 
 evitable winding up ; and then there is much chance 
 in human affairs and in companies' fortunes. The pro- 
 moter in general is, from natural temperament, a 
 sanguine man ; usually he has several enterprises of 
 moment on the stocks concurrently. Having launched 
 a company and got his fees, he is usually not specially 
 interested in its future fate, which is committed to 
 fortune and the managing director. It is not specially 
 his affair. Having launched one concern, he has 
 other schemes incubating, others to mature ; other 
 companies to found ; " fresh fields and pastures new " 
 to try. His business is to launch companies, not to 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 make them successful, unless he retains some shares or 
 other special continued interest in the fate of the 
 company, which is sometimes the case if it really 
 promises well. He certainly has not an interest in the 
 health and success of all companies, as it is by the 
 creation of fresh ones that in general he exists and 
 flourishes. 
 
 It is satisfactory to know that the Lord Chancellor 
 has been deeply meditating how to "cabin, crib, and 
 confine " the genius of the swindling company floater, 
 as well as to exact guarantees of the bona fides of all 
 the class. But he will have to bring his utmost re- 
 sources, legal knowledge, and experience to bear, or 
 he will prove unequal to the task, for the man is a 
 genius in his way. Such are the exigent conditions 
 of the problem, that it will task all the ingenuity of 
 the legal profession to check this type, and 
 checked he must be. " If Law cannot do it, of what 
 use is Law ? " people will be inclined to say. Certainly 
 the Roman lawyers never had so difficult a problem, 
 such complicated conditions, such peculiar or slippery 
 types to deal with. And what makes the peculiar 
 difficulty of the problem is, that it is nearly impossible 
 to strike an effective blow against what may be called 
 the Higher Swindling without impeding or preventing 
 beneficial enterprises. 
 
 II. 
 
 BESIDES the company, bogus, bubble, or merely 
 bad, in which the shareholders are fleeced and lose 
 their capital, and where the promoter, directors, and 
 managers chiefly the former, who has a prior 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 229 
 
 claim on the paid-up capital have divided the spoil, 
 there are all degrees of struggling companies, from 
 those that pay zero dividends to those that pay from 
 four to five per cent. Nay, there are companies, 
 and especially some new syndicates, which promise 
 dividends of from seven to twenty-five per cent., and 
 some that actually pay them. How this is possible, 
 and the nature of this latest development of the Com- 
 pany and* of the monopolist spirit, for several reasons 
 deserves attention. 
 
 These syndicates are phenomena of great interest 
 and significance, both in themselves and in their 
 relation to Socialism. The word may be merely 
 another name for a large company, but is more 
 usually applied to a union or amalgamation of com- 
 panies in the same business, or perhaps merely to a 
 union of firms under one management. It is always 
 more or less of a monopoly. It aims at merging com- 
 petition. But it presents some important advantages. 
 In the first place it tends to eliminate unnecessary 
 middlemen, because it frequently combines producer 
 and distributor, e.g. a bread syndicate proposes 
 to grind flour, to make it into loaves, and to dis- 
 tribute the bread through its own shops; thereby 
 saving the profits of the wholesale flour merchant and 
 of the retail shops. There is a further well-known 
 economy coming from the large scale of production 
 and distribution, the greater division of labour and 
 employment of machinery, and from both economies 
 they are enabled to give better wages to the workers 
 than they enjoyed before. The price, owing to 
 these sources of saving, need not even be raised on 
 
230 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 the consumer, who would thus get superior articles 
 at the same price ; and so every one the whole 
 closed circle of shareholders, workers, consumers, as 
 well as promoters, managers, and directors would 
 appear to profit from the syndicate. Nevertheless, 
 when it has an assured monopoly the syndicate will 
 be much tempted to raise prices. It may then 
 begin to seem less of a universal benefactor if it 
 should try the monopolist's methods: the -question 
 for it, as for all monopolists, being, whether it is 
 more profitable to produce (or to offer for sale) much 
 and to offer it cheaper so as to get it all sold, or by 
 limiting supply to cause a rise of price, which may 
 enable the less supply to be sold for a greater amount ; 
 and this again depends partly oh whether the commodity 
 is a prime necessary of life, in which case it would be 
 more profitable pecuniarily to limit supply, though 
 otherwise a risky course for the syndicate to pursue. 
 However, unless it had a tolerably complete mono- 
 poly, it would not be likely to try, and so long as 
 the monopoly was not complete, the syndicate would 
 be generally advantageous. 
 
 The tendency is to increase the number of these 
 syndicates ; then to unite them into larger ones in 
 each field of production and distribution. Let us 
 suppose the whole field of industry covered by 
 syndicates. We should then have economical pro- 
 duction, good wages, good and unadulterated products, 
 the needless middlemen gone, and prices no higher 
 on the consumer than before ; no one apparently 
 having been hurt but the dislodged middlemen 
 and smaller traders, who moreover at least the 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 231 
 
 latter have been handsomely compensated in the 
 .purchase of their business, and have most likely left 
 part of the purchase-money invested in the improved 
 concern. This is a great advance on the rude and 
 brutal method of former times complained of by 
 Louis Blanc when the " great capitalist declared 
 war on the little capitalist," and left him dead upon 
 the field. The syndicate does not run a race of 
 cheapness which ruins the small man, thereafter raising 
 its prices. With far superior science and humanity 
 it buys out handsomely the smaller man, who, with 
 part of the proceeds, remains a grateful shareholder 
 in a business he knows, and, if he is specially able, 
 perhaps even a manager or director. 
 
 Competition complained of by the Socialists would 
 be largely gone, being merged within the syndicate ; 
 useless middlemen displaced ; the employing capi- 
 talist with his too high wages replaced by a manager : 
 all steps towards the Socialist goal. What is want- 
 ing chiefly ? There is still the deduction from wages 
 of interest for shareholders, and the higher the interest 
 the greater the deduction from wages. Even if the 
 working classes were paid higher wages than before, 
 still if good dividends are secured for the shareholders, 
 it is evident that wages might be still higher, and 
 the old quarrel between capital and labour would 
 break out afresh from this side. The wage-earners 
 want interest melted down into wages and divided 
 amongst them, and so long as interest is paid the 
 Socialist goal will not be reached. 
 
 This state of things, nevertheless, leans to a 
 moderate Socialism, because wherever the syndicates 
 
232 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 insisted on too high dividends at the cost either of the 
 labouring classes by reduced wages, or of the con- 
 sumer by raised prices, they would invite govern- 
 mental occupation and management of the industry. 
 And wherever the syndicates greatly abused their posi- 
 tion as monopolists there would be a likelihood of 
 State interference either to more strictly regulate or 
 to supersede the abused private enterprise. Certainly 
 the State could not permit what would be a virtual 
 power of taxation, an imperium in impcrio, if the 
 syndicates were sufficiently extended to control the 
 supply of a necessary of life. It could not allow to 
 any combination the power of arbitrarily raising the 
 price of bread, coal, fuel, house-rent, railway rates, 
 and if the combinations are ever sufficiently extensive 
 to be able to do so, and really exercise the power, 
 State or municipal occupation of their enterprise 
 would be absolutely necessary, and Socialism to that 
 extent at hand. 
 
 All the arguments in favour of private enterprise 
 would lose their force or be inapplicable in such a 
 case, while the arguments against it would be great. 
 It would be a case of a class or an interest having 
 power to tax the necessaries of the poor, as the 
 landlords had formerly such power through the Corn 
 Laws, and it would be intolerable. The State would 
 either have to fix prices according to the supply, as in 
 the case of wheat for example, or make regulations 
 forbidding artificial limitation of supply, as in the 
 case of coal, or finally take over the production. It 
 is, however, only to the case of a prime necessary 
 controllable by a single combination that these con- 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 
 
 siderations would apply. They would not apply t( 
 the production of manufactured goods meant chiefly 
 for exportation, nor to things partaking more or less 
 of the nature of luxuries 
 
 In any case the promoters and all connected with 
 the trusts and syndicates should reflect on the lines 
 on which they have entered. The formation of 
 them, though the greatest effort of the " promoter's " 
 genius, is a direct step on the road to Socialism. The 
 greater the syndicate and the more successful, the 
 greater the invitation to State interference, because 
 it would point out both where the interference of the 
 State was most called for, and where the manage- 
 ment of the State would be most certain of success. 
 Therefore, so far as the Syndicate conquers and 
 occupies, let it be merciful, let it not be too anxious 
 for high dividends, or the State, a still stronger 
 Corporate Person, may follow and supplant it ; in 
 which way it is possible that a certain limited portion 
 of the Collectivists' programme may be realized, 
 though for reasons urged elsewhere the whole is 
 impossible. 
 
 In the meantime the fear of an early syndicate 
 conquest and overrunning of the field of industry may 
 come over us on too slight grounds. It is as yet 
 chiefly in breweries, distilleries, and bakeries, or in- 
 dustries in which there is a possibility of something like 
 a local monopoly, and which have already been more 
 or less of a monopoly or a tacit combination, and where 
 the capital required, though large, is mostly under 
 a million, that the syndicate has succeeded. Where 
 it has tried larger enterprise, as in the American Sugar 
 
234 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 Trust or the Copper Syndicate, it has come to trouble. 
 There is no possibility, for many a year, of a syndicate 
 embracing one of our staple industries where the 
 capital required would be of colossal dimensions, and 
 where the large and prosperous firms and companies 
 would not join, having already more profits than they 
 could hope to gain by so doing ; so that, although the 
 general direction in which the syndicate and the union 
 of companies tends is clear, yet the time required 
 before there could be unified production and monopoly 
 in any given large national industry, the cotton 
 for example, is indefinitely remote. The financier 
 and former of the syndicate may therefore still 
 console himself that the Socialist goal of universal 
 State occupation is far off, while in the meantime the 
 syndicate is at once an economic development as well 
 as the product of his genius, for which, like other 
 inventors, he deserves something, and for which for 
 some time to come he will get something con- 
 siderable. 
 
235 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 IN THE SOCIALIST STATE (concluded). 
 
 UNPRODUCTIVE LABOURERS, THE CHURCH, AND 
 THE GOVERNMENT. 
 
 I. 
 
 WE have seen that the Collectivists have after all no 
 principle of distribution in the sphere of material pro- 
 duction ; that even in that sphere wages would have to 
 be unequal under penalty of general poverty, and that 
 the inequality would have to be arbitrarily determined, 
 instead of being as now mainly due to individual efforts, 
 good and bad, for which there is large scope. We 
 have now to consider the great amount and variety 
 of labour not connected directly or indirectly with 
 material production ; to inquire how Socialism would 
 deal with it, and how reward the labourers. 
 
 The labour in question, generally described as un- 
 productive, is not only very various, but some of it is 
 extremely important. In one form or other it is neces- 
 sary ; it exists in every civilized society, and, though 
 in less developed forms, the various types of labourers 
 have mostly existed in all past civilizations. 
 
 Some of the labour is, and always has been, of the 
 co-operative kind, as that of the military service, 
 which has always been highly organized. Then 
 
236 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 there is the civil service, which, though not largely 
 admitting co-operative labour, is already organized 
 and officered by the State. So to a considerable 
 extent is the educational service as respects primary 
 education, but not, in England at least, as respects 
 either intermediate or university education. 
 
 More of the outstanding unproductive labourers 
 could, it is clear, be enrolled under the service of the 
 State, or the County, or the Municipality. The 
 cabman, the railway porter, the tramcar man, would 
 probably work as well if they were paid by the State 
 or municipality, as at present, while no individuals 
 would be making a profit out of them, though as 
 regards the whole class of domestic servants, the 
 "house-slaves" of the Collectivists, however their social 
 status might be elevated, it does not appear what great 
 gain to the general conveniencewould result by making 
 them all State functionaries. Certainly the services 
 of some of them will always be necessary, whether 
 they will be monopolized by one private family or 
 not. A physician will require a coachman to drive 
 him round to his patients ; cooks and waiters must be 
 at restaurants ; and unless we live in large buildings 
 in each house there must be a private cook and some 
 one to bring the breakfast, make our beds, and dust 
 our rooms. Their status may be raised, their \vages, 
 perhaps, increased ; some of them will be always 
 necessary ; and the question is, would it not be 
 more to the general convenience that they should 
 sell their services how and to whom they pleased, 
 as now? The State might indeed pay to a coach- 
 man a fixed salary, to be repaid by the hirers 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 237 
 
 of the coach and service, instead of allowing him 
 to offer his services by the year to a doctor in 
 good practice, or a high official in the public service. 
 It might desire to discountenance such luxuries as 
 private carnages and livery servants, coachmen and 
 footmen, or it might wish, with the Collectivists, to pre- 
 vent possible carriage-owners or livery-stable keepers 
 from making profit out of coachmen, cab-drivers, and 
 grooms, by itself becoming the sole owner of carriages 
 to be let out for hire ; but the restriction on indi- 
 vidual freedom would be great, and the prohibition in 
 certain cases impossible to carry out. 
 
 In fact, the suppression of domestic servants, 
 however well intended by the Socialists in their 
 interest, would not only be undesired by the class, but 
 would imply a complete domestic revolution, the most 
 distasteful of all kinds of revolution, and the most diffi- 
 cult to effect, because touching at the inner private life 
 and at traditional habits and feelings. The abolition 
 of some species of servants and the turning of the 
 remainder into State functionaries, would mean the 
 abolition of the private residence, or would necessi- 
 tate, if not the common table, at least living in large 
 buildings or hotels, where the lately enfranchised 
 servants must do essentially the same things as before 
 for a payment of fixed fees to go to the State. The 
 separate residence implies servants (who are no 
 more house-slaves than that they contract to do 
 certain understood classes of acts at the bidding of 
 another). Some servants, at least, in the house we 
 must have, as it would be very incommodious to have 
 to send frequently for officials to help us. The nurse- 
 
238 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 maid and general indoor servant, at least, will have to 
 be allowed, even though the private cook might with 
 some inconvenience be dispensed with ; and the coach- 
 man must be permitted to the physician at least, 
 though many of us might be satisfied \\ith the hired 
 government cab and cabman. On the whole, the Col- 
 lectivists would be well advised not to insist on too 
 sweeping or sudden changes in this direction, as the 
 utmost they could do for the class in question would 
 be to convert them intotheflersontiet o{ a. great hotel, 
 where they would still be engaged in rendering essen- 
 tially the same kind of services as at present, save 
 only that if they be State or municipal officials they 
 could with difficulty be dismissed, while for such 
 misconduct or bad performance or neglect as now 
 justifies dismissal there would have to be substituted 
 some kind of punishment, as fine, or imprisonment, 
 or loss of grade, as in the military service. There is 
 no other alternative (where the power of dismissal 
 does not exist or is not exercised) ; and were it not 
 for the hapless condition of the class in question 
 when past their work, which, however, is capable of 
 being mitigated, one would say decidedly that they 
 are better as they are. 
 
 As to the professions under Socialism, it is clear 
 that some of them would necessarily exist as now. 
 There would certainly be physicians and surgeons, 
 schoolmasters and professors, judges, magistrates, 
 and persons learned in the law, even though the law of 
 property and contract would be much simplified, and 
 the business of barristers and solicitors in consequence 
 greatly reduced. The Socialists, indeed, expect justice 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 239 
 
 without cost, and that advocates, if they exist, will 
 not be paid by suitors, but by the State ; in fact, that 
 all dispensing of justice will be paid for by the State, as 
 it is partly paid at present in the salaries of the judge 
 and magistrate. But there will always be truth to dis- 
 cover, and difficult facts to elicit, and persons specially 
 skilful in doing this will be required, who must be 
 different from the judge. There will be a good many 
 required in spite of a simplified legal system, and 
 they cannot all be State lawyers ; or if they be, the 
 most skilled, the future eminent advocates and Q.C.'s, 
 could not be sufficiently well paid by the State, and 
 would be tempted either to do their work inefficiently, 
 or to receive fees from one side to induce them to use 
 their ability in its favour, or from both sides simply not 
 to use it against them. The danger of justice being 
 perverted would be great ; and one way to avoid it 
 would be to permit suitors to secure the services of the 
 eminent advocate by offering him his customary fees as 
 at present. The system is far from perfect, and justice 
 is frequently defeated by it, no doubt. Still as 
 under Socialism and a system of fixed salaries not on 
 a high scale, even if there was no temptation to accept 
 bribes, there would be a temptation for the superior 
 person not to exercise his utmost skill, from which 
 the interests of justice would suffer, only in less degree, 
 so that on the whole the present system, imperfect as 
 it is, seems most to accord with human nature and 
 circumstances of a rather permanent kind. 
 
 In general, in the professions where individuals 
 possess exceptional skill, the exercise of which is 
 in great request by many, as in the case of 
 
240 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 the eminent physician or advocate, the State could 
 not with the maximum of advantage retain such in its 
 exclusive service. It could not offer sufficiently high 
 pay, and it is much better to let them be paid by the 
 individuals profiting by the exceptional services. 
 The best ability will only be drawn out such is the 
 imperfection of human nature and human virtue by 
 permitting its possessor to reap extra pecuniary re- 
 ward from it, at least in the field of the " bread and 
 butter sciences." This is the general rule ; though 
 no doubt the State or the public might secure, as 
 now, the best services in the great hospitals of the 
 most eminent in the medical profession for moderate 
 remuneration, provided such were allowed to devote 
 most of their time to private practice with its special 
 fees in addition ; partly because the profession has 
 always practised an honourable species of Socialism by 
 graduating their fees to the different circumstances of 
 the rich and poor, and partly also because connection 
 with the great hospitals is a mark of distinction and 
 success, which is of use in further extending practice. 
 Every one, in whatever sphere, productive or un- 
 productive, who has a monopoly of a gift or talent, 
 the exercise of which is either desired by the public or 
 of great general utility, can, if it pleases its possessor, 
 exact high material or money returns, with the alter- 
 native, if he does not get such, that he can refuse to 
 exercise the gift, or can exercise it imperfectly. Even 
 where the monopoly is only partial in the case;; 
 where a few possess the ability the like holds in k 
 degree. It lies in the nature of things. It is indeed 
 possible that the artist (painter or sculptor) might be 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 241 
 
 willing to work, and work well, for a fixed salary paid 
 by the State, the exercise of his art being in itself a plea- 
 sure, and fame and the sense of spiritual power, an im- 
 portant partof his reward. Still,for a long time tocome, 
 so long as the slowly-dying Adam of egoism, which 
 has been much fostered under the present system, 
 exists in the artist, he would do more work, and would 
 throw his energy and soul more into it, if he were paid 
 by the picture paid by piecework, in fact and under 
 Socialism there would be nothing to prevent the State, 
 the municipality, or even the private patron, competing 
 for the exercise of his skill. No doubt under this 
 system there would be fewer portraits of private gen- 
 tlemen or of aldermen and mayors painted, unless 
 for presentation by the municipality or their admirers, 
 and it might thence result that the chief orders to a 
 greatartist would come from the State, or from the great 
 municipalities emulous for good picture galleries. 
 
 The whole teaching service, like the civil service, 
 would fit into Collectivism without any great change, 
 provided that the hierarchical principle were duly ob- 
 served. It is already largely organized on Socialistic 
 lines. In the higher and more important posts, the pro- 
 fessors of the sciences, the humanities, or philosophy, 
 and the lecturers in the different practical faculties, 
 might be paid fixed salaries, or better, partly fixed and 
 partly depending on their fees as at present. There 
 might be competition amongst the different universities 
 or university colleges to obtain the professor who had 
 a great reputation, but it would be desirable, in the 
 interest of learning as well as in that of the students 
 that his wages should not be stinted. 
 
 R 
 
242 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 II. 
 
 DOUBTLESS the vague thing called literature, and 
 some at least of the mixed multitude called literary 
 men, would exist under Socialism as under every 
 possible social system ; nor does the consideration 
 of the class or its wages raise any very special 
 difficulty. The side of human nature that literature 
 addresses will exist in future as in the past, and 
 according to all analogy and the normal law of 
 evolution, unless civilization retrogrades or there be 
 something in Socialism antagonistic, it will expand. 
 In any case, poetry and the relish for beauty and 
 truth will exist, tragedy and comedy will attract, 
 the ever-varied, but still the same, human story will 
 be re-told. New ideas will demand new expression ; 
 the power and province of " the word " will increase, 
 however its priests and purveyors be paid. As 
 to the latter, as before mentioned, it cannot be said 
 that the remuneration or the mode in which it is 
 given is satisfactory at present, though there ha- 
 been improvement. Great as is the service which men 
 of letters may confer on mankind, great as is the 
 power they wield over the soul, over the social order, 
 society has not known hitherto how to treat them in 
 the matter of wages, nor even comprehended their 
 true function and significance under our present 
 civilization. Fortunately, money is not what poets, 
 philosophers, or true men of letters in general most 
 want, nor can money ever be any measure of the 
 value of their work. They want the exorcise of 
 their function, the influence that naturally belongs 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 243 
 
 to it, liberty and a competence. According to Shelley, 
 the poet, wants " love and fame," and fame he gets 
 if he has so far raised his generation as to feel his 
 special gift. But the better part of his wages comes 
 not from without, whether from fame or money ; it 
 comes from himself and the exercise of his art, from 
 " the great poetic heart worth more than all poetic 
 fame," from the vision of beauty, the divination of 
 truth, and the effort that is itself pleasure to shape 
 them forth as an artistic whole. 
 
 To find money wages for the true poet who has 
 not been born with a competence, has always been a 
 problem, and it would probably continue so under 
 Socialism, especially as the poet in general both 
 " man and boy has been an idler in the land," 
 and still more as the greatest poets sometimes only 
 impress the world after their death. 
 
 It is more important for society to know how to 
 deal with the second great class of literary men, 
 more properly called philosophers, because, let it 
 treat them as it will, it cannot prevent them from 
 having the final controlling word in the great spheres 
 of religion, morals, and politics. To re-state the true 
 and the just in these spheres is in fact their function. 
 The class has existed under all civilizations. With 
 the Jews they were called prophets, and had com- 
 manding influence. Under the Greek civilization, 
 when they first appeared in their modern character 
 as searchers for truth, they also enjoyed great con- 
 sideration, so much so that kings consulted them. 
 At that time, and long after, they lived by lecturing 
 and teaching, for which their pupils paid them, as is 
 
 R 2 
 
244 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 still the case with some of their modern representatives. 
 But in modern times they influence the world chiefly 
 by writing books, by which, however, they cannot 
 live. It is a question what is the proper function of 
 such in a renovated modern society, and how they 
 should be paid. Plato, in his Republic, makes them 
 rulers, as does St. Simon, while Comte assigns to 
 them, under the name of " positive philosophers," the 
 spiritual power, reserving the temporal for the 
 capitalist class, this separation of functions being sup- 
 posed to be his great discovery in political science ; 
 the real fact being that the philosophic class cannot 
 be prevented from exercising in large measure both 
 spiritual and temporal power, if not at the time and 
 in appearance, yet finally and in substance. As a 
 class they exercise it, though not to the exclusion of 
 the clergy or politicians. As matter of fact, philo- 
 sophy, and philosophical criticism, seconded by scien- 
 tific discoveries, have profoundly affected religious 
 belief during the past hundred years ; as a matter of 
 fact, all fruitful political wisdom for the last three cen- 
 turies has emanated from the class in question, which 
 has furnished all intelligible theories of Government 
 and the State ; the principles of legislation and taxa- 
 tion ; of production, distribution, and trade ; of Inter- 
 national Law. As a matter of fact, men of the type of 
 Hobbes, Grotius, Locke, Montesquieu, Adam Smith, 
 Burke, Bentham, Mill, have exerted great political 
 influence through their books by impressing their 
 views on practical politicians and statesmen; as 
 a matter of fact, that great thing begun in 1789, and 
 still proceeding, called the Revolution, was set agoing 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 245 
 
 by philosophers ; as the reform impulse in England 
 was communicated by the same class of men. 
 Lastly, as a matter of fact, philosophers have pro- 
 duced Socialism ; the three founders of its three 
 principal forms, Rousseau, St. Simon, and Karl Marx, 
 were philosophers. 
 
 They are powerful for destruction as well as for 
 renovation and construction. They cannot then be 
 prevented from exercising temporal or political power 
 of a certain kind, as well as spiritual, in spite of 
 Comte's prohibition. 
 
 The class in general is fitted for either work its 
 individuals are potentially governors and teachers, 
 though not equally so, and as matter of fact, when 
 any of them have had the opportunity, as they have 
 had it increasingly during the last hundred years in 
 England, France, and Germany, they have generally 
 shown themselves fitted for governing, at least for 
 counselling and legislating ; while conversely some 
 of the best rulers and statesmen, from the days of 
 Solomon and Aurelius to our own, have been 
 eminently of the philosophic temperament. 
 
 Such being the great power they wield, and cannot 
 be prevented from wielding, it is an important ques- 
 tion what should be the acknowledged relation of the 
 State to them. At present there is none in particular, 
 though, in fact, the best of the class usually find their 
 way into chairs, where they serve the State usefully 
 by teaching the elite of the new generation philosophy, 
 moral, historical, and political science ; a few enter 
 Parliament, where they form an important counter- 
 poise to the plutocrats ; while a few devote their main 
 
246 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 time to the production of books ; become the whole- 
 sale producers of thoughts, of the large ne\v views on 
 politics, economics, and religion, which journalists and 
 essayists distribute, and which politicians in part apply. 
 The philosopher so engaged fills an important fund 
 for which he cannot be paid, and he is even in worse case 
 than the poet, for, in general, the greater his books, 
 the less they will be appreciated, save by the few. 
 How does the new Socialism propose to deal with 
 the class of philosophers ? It is silent, for the 
 most part, on the point, which is the more remarkable 
 as Karl Marx belonged to the class. It is, however, 
 probable that some of the class would, under Social- 
 ism, exercise considerable governing power, whether 
 directly or indirectly, certain that others would 
 exercise their present functions of teachers, and there 
 would probably be more of them taken into the 
 teaching body. Whether the philosopher \vho only 
 writes books could exist in the Socialist state is 
 doubtful, it would depend on how far the taste for 
 books on the severer but more important subjects 
 of religion, philosophy, morals, politics, historical 
 science existed ; in general, how far the philosophic 
 spirit prevailed amongst possible readers. Whether 
 the philosopher who attacked the principles of the 
 Socialist polity would enjoy freedom is a question still 
 more doubtful, though such freedom \vould be at least 
 as necessary then as at present. But however they 
 may be treated, certain it is that the Socialists will 
 have good reason to remember the philosopher- if 
 they should ever " enter into their kingdom." 
 As for the journal which, amongst its other functions, 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 247 
 
 diffuses political knowledge in a form less abstract and 
 more readable than the philosophers give it, it could as 
 well exist and the journalist as well bepaid in a Socialist 
 State as now, unless, indeed, all political parties were 
 merged in a common Collectivism, when fewer journal- 
 istic organs would be needed, though it is possible 
 that the journals, in the meantime, might have 
 developed other functions. So long, at any rate, as 
 parties and sects and separate interests exist, there 
 will be journals needed, and the launching of these 
 must be left to private enterprise, as the remuneration 
 of the labourers, to the subscribers. The mere 
 bookmaker who produces an article that has all the 
 outward semblance of literature would still exist, 
 if the demand for his peculiar wares continued. 
 The playwright would probably command good 
 wages in a Socialist community, if, as is not unlikely, 
 the demand should increase for what he produces, for, 
 though the art is not of the first order, it seems that 
 owing to the need of rapid production and novelty, 
 the power and the secret of production to suit the 
 public taste is confined to a limited number. The 
 story- teller, and even the novel-writerwho occasionally 
 rises to true literature, if they should possess qualities 
 widely appreciated, would probably fare well. Of 
 the forms of literature whose pay at present is surest 
 and best, the daily article, the weekly sermon, the 
 novel and the play, the second is paid largely by the 
 State, the other three, and sometimes the sermon, by 
 the consumer, and they could all in future be paid as 
 well as now, if the consumers should be as numerous 
 as now, as desirous of the commodity, and in par- 
 
248 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 ticular if they should have as much means to pay 
 for it under Collectivism, the last condition being, as 
 we have seen, a very doubtful point. 
 
 And the Church? What is the attitude of 
 Socialism to the Church? According to Scha^rflc, 
 Socialism is antagonistic to the Church, and "out and 
 out irreligious." And this in general is true, and for the 
 antagonism to the Church there are reasons, one being 
 that most of the leaders of Socialism do not believe 
 the doctrines taught by the Church ; another and a 
 stronger one being that Socialists consider the Church 
 identified in interest with the rich and ruling classes. 
 It is against her in the Socialist records that she has 
 not shown herself the friend of the poor or of the 
 working classes. Her chief function, they think, has 
 been that of a moral police in the interests of the 
 propertied classes, for which function there will be no 
 place in the Socialist kingdom. 
 
 But though Socialists are in general hostile to the 
 Church, there is no reason why they should be hos- 
 tile to religion or to Christianity. On the contrary, 
 the principles of the Gospels and of Socialism are one 
 and the same, and if the Socialists only knew it, and 
 made the most of the fact, it would constitute the 
 strongest plank in their platform. On the other hand, 
 the Church might find a place in the Socialist State, 
 if she laid the emphasis of her doctrine on the 
 Gospels and the Sermon on the Mount, rather than 
 on the Pauline Epistles and her own later dogmas and 
 accretions, and not improbably individual clergy, like 
 Maurice and Kingsley in the past and others in all 
 Christian communities at present, may in future sec 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 249 
 
 reasons to do so, and if many do, and especially those 
 who have influence in Church Government, then the 
 Church might subsist in such possible Socialist State 
 and even receive endowment from the State. And 
 so of course she might, and probably would, if the 
 many in such a society believed in her teaching. 
 
 Especially if the Church should assist Socialism 
 to become an established fact so far as possible. But 
 the chances are that she will not or cannot take a 
 side in her collective capacity, while permitting indi- 
 viduals to do so who can adopt the Socialist's pro- 
 gramme. The Church, at least in England, is in a 
 perplexing situation with regard to Socialism, as was 
 shown by her somewhat oracular deliverances at the 
 Pan-Anglican Congress (1887), at which a number of 
 propositions were laid down by a committee specially 
 appointed to report on the subject, which simply 
 cancelled each other, leaving a zero result as her 
 collective counsel to individuals, while collectively 
 not committing herself on the Social Question and 
 Socialism. Perhaps after all it was the only thing 
 she could do, and the wisest thing under very difficult 
 circumstances, which require her to conciliate the 
 working-classes on the one hand, and on the other 
 not to alarm the interests of property the powers 
 that be, and the powers that may be. Perhaps also 
 an insufficient comprehension of the question, its 
 delicacy and complications, had something to do with 
 the ambiguous and mutually destructive deliverances 
 of the Congress with regard to it. 
 
250 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 III. 
 
 A POINT remains to be considered. The Col- 
 lectivists have not clearly indicated their conception 
 of the State, as such, nor of Government under a 
 Collectivist Social system, and yet this is the most 
 vital point of all. In Plato's Republic the wise were 
 to rule, the brave to protect the community ; in 
 More's Utopia, in like manner, the wisest formed the 
 Government ; with the St. Simonians, also Capacity 
 was to direct who are to be rulers under the new 
 Socialism, and of what kind is to be the Govern- 
 ment ? 
 
 Though the Collectivists are rather reticent on the 
 point, we can see clearly that of logical necessity the 
 government must be essentially democratic : whether 
 the executive authority be delegated to a chosen one,so 
 as to form a kind of Democratic Caesarism, or whether 
 it be conferred on a body, remains uncertain, though the 
 tendency of their principles is to the latter. That it 
 must be democratic may be inferred further from the 
 principles of Karl Marx, as also from the name of 
 Social Democrats that German, English and Ameri- 
 can Socialists most affect. 
 
 In the Collectivist State an aristocracy resting on 
 the ownership of land will, of course, be impossible : 
 for like reasons a plutocracy could not exist, since 
 capital as well as land will be collectively owned, and 
 the highest salaries only moderate in amount. The 
 Capitalist in all his forms, whether the great employer 
 of labour, the great distributor, the great financier or 
 monopolist, will have disappeared. There will be no 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 251 
 
 aristocracy, whether of land or money. The classes 
 will have found their level in the masses, the former 
 being brought down, the latter somewhat exalted, 
 and if any distinction of rank remain (and some, it 
 would appear, is to be allowed) it must have reference 
 to difference of capacity. 
 
 But there must still be, we should imagine, a govern- 
 ing class, though not hereditary. There must be, if 
 not legislators (the Socialists affirming that few laws 
 will be needed, and that these will require the general 
 sanction), at least administrators as now; an adminis- 
 tration let us say, composed of some ten or a dozen 
 Ministers or Secretaries of State for the principal de- 
 partments of State activity, as War, Finance, Justice, 
 Education, the Colonies (if any connection be re- 
 tained with them), Trade, Agriculture, etc. There 
 must also be permanent Under-Secretaries of the Exe- 
 cutive Government, there must be Judges and a Chief 
 Justice ; and as the functions of the State will be 
 greatly extended to embrace all industries agricul- 
 tural, mining, manufacturing, carrying there must 
 be new Ministers and Secretaries, new Heads of 
 Departments, new Generals, in addition to the 
 officers and private soldiers in the industrial armies. 
 Who are these different Heads to be ? 
 
 Karl Marx, the founder of Collectivism, has not 
 designated who are to be the governors, nor how they 
 are to be found, but presumably they will be the 
 most capable, as with the St. Simonians. Still it is a 
 pity that neither he nor his followers have been more 
 explicit on this important point. 
 
 Mr. Gronlund, indeed, denies that there will be 
 
252 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 any governing required, or any governing classes. 
 " The whole people does not want or need any 
 governing at all," he affirms, a proposition th.it 
 looks anarchical ; but, as he adds, " it wants simply 
 administration good administration/' it appears that 
 he is merely using the word government in the narrow 
 sense of class rule and exclusive of administration 
 which, nevertheless, has always been considered as 
 the most important part of government. In the 
 Socialist State the Heads of Departments, according 
 to him, would form the Executive Government for 
 the time being, and as these would be more numerous 
 than now, and besides would have a greater mass of 
 matters, indeed, the totality of human affairs, on their 
 shoulders and depending on their wisdom and virtue, 
 we fear after all, in spite of assurances to the contrary, 
 that there would be a good deal of government and 
 even of issuing of " commands/' whether called laws, 
 rescripts, decrees, or whatever name does not matter. 
 The "Omniarchs," as Fourier and Leroy-Beaulieu call 
 them, would have much depending on them : it would 
 be wisdom on the part of the many to let them have 
 a rather free hand. But how, under Socialism, 
 are these important Heads or Chiefs of Depart- 
 ments to be discovered ? How to get the wise and 
 virtuous to the top is the real and never yet solved 
 problem. States will never be happy, Plato tells us, 
 till philosophers rule or rulers are philosophers, i.e. 
 wise men. How to get the wise and capable riddled 
 to the top is the question. The author of the 
 " Co-operative Commonwealth " has at least a plan to 
 propose, though he admits that it does not bind other 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 253 
 
 Socialists. The chiefs are to be the result of a series 
 of selections the select of the select. In this wise : 
 In a given industry, the ordinary workers choose 
 their foreman, the foremen in like manner their super- 
 intendent, or Carlyle's Captain of Industry ; all the 
 chiefs in a given district elect a district-superinten- 
 dent, and the district-superintendents from all parts 
 of the country meet and elect a bureau-chief, and he, 
 with other bureau-chiefs in connected industries, 
 proceed to elect a Chief of Department. 
 
 By this process of subtle distillation you surely get 
 your best man in one branch of industry, as boot- 
 making (to take the example cited) ; you proceed 
 in the same manner with every other special branch 
 of industry, manufacturing, mining, agricultural. You 
 get a Chief of Department in the cotton trade, in 
 the hosiery, the tailoring, the farming, the mining, 
 and other industries. In the same way you get the 
 wisest one in the teaching body ; " then one for the 
 physicians, another for the judges, one or more 
 chiefs for transportation, one or more for commerce 
 in fact, suppose there is not a social function that 
 does not converge in some way in such Chief of 
 Department." l 
 
 Here we have the great secret. These Chiefs, and 
 not too many of them, are to form the executive, 
 greatly widened as it is to be in its functions. It 
 would appear that the representatives of the boot- 
 making, tailoring, and other interests will necessarily 
 be numerous, if we judge by the great number of 
 specialized industries, though we cannot discover any 
 1 " Co-operative Commonwealth," p. 173. 
 
254 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 great qualifications for ruling in their chiefs unless the 
 ruling and directing be confined to what relates to 
 boot-making, tailoring, etc. If there are to be philo- 
 sophers in the body, perhaps they will be found in the 
 representative of the teachers, or of the judges, or of 
 the literary class, or of the savants ; they would, how- 
 ever, be considerably outvoted unless we reduce all the 
 industrial chiefs from many to one or a few in each 
 industry, and then there would be the certainty that 
 such would not be much wiser than any other of the 
 different chiefs in any branch of industry outside their 
 own ; that, for instance, the chosen in the leather trade, 
 whether raw, tanned, or made into boots, would know 
 little about the needs of the cotton, the hosiery, the 
 iron and steel, the ship-building, mining, and a 
 hundred other industries, while, as respects interests 
 other than industrial, they would have still less 
 comprehension. 
 
 An able man of business you may select in this v.-.iy, 
 an able administrator of the post-office, the telegraphs, 
 or a minister of agriculture ; but hardly, unless from 
 the lawyer or philosophic class, a statesman, who, in 
 addition to natural genius, requires a different previous 
 training; in particular the study of history, of political 
 science, and of human nature. 
 
 However this be, at all events a complete political 
 revolution is implied : a revolution in the govern- 
 ment of every existing State, and a total change 
 in the conception of the State, in addition to 
 the sweeping economic revolution, and the revo- 
 lution in private life that the changed economic 
 relations would bring. It is admitted by Socialists 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 255 
 
 that their scheme is incompatible with existing govern- 
 ments and as the latter are not likely to change 
 quickly enough of their own impulse in a Socialistic 
 direction, a revolution in fact as well as in idea, and 
 probably a violent struggle, will be necessary. 
 
 Now a revolution is a possible thing, and a success- 
 ful revolutionary government might be installed. The 
 thing has been before. The government might be 
 animated with Socialistic principles, and it might de- 
 cree the confiscation of land and capital. It might take 
 both from the present possessors, without any com- 
 pensation, or, more mercifully, it might give them 
 partial compensation, not in money, but in labour 
 cheques, to be presented against consumable goods, 2 
 most of which would be of no use. Interest might 
 be forbidden, salaries cut down, production con- 
 trolled, prisons might even be filled, and heads 
 cut off, but a universal collectivism would not work ; 
 it would be found impracticable because contrary 
 to human nature in certain directions, and in others 
 where it would be practicable it would be dis- 
 covered to be bad for the general weal. The ablest 
 and most energetic would revolt against it ; they 
 would probably carry the many with them after a 
 short experience of the new system. There would 
 be general chaos, and out of that chaos, in all pro- 
 bability, a strong and successful soldier would arise 
 (perhaps from the government itself) to compel 
 order, with the strong hand. It would indeed be 
 the best and the only way out of the difficulty; 
 and the thing has happened so invariably in like 
 * Schseffle's " Quintessence of Socialism," p. 33. 
 
256 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 cases that we may now almost regard it as a scientific 
 law. But history does indeed also suggest the 
 possibility that out of civil commotions and re- 
 volutions a great man might arise, a man ot 
 genius and virtue, who in re-establishing order might 
 found and establish something of permanent advan- 
 tage to the general weal, might in particular effect 
 changes for the better in the relation of classes 
 economic and social changes a thing more possible 
 to one man of great capacity than to a body, whether 
 Parliament, Congress, or Chamber of Deputies. The 
 latter, indeed, in times of revolution could not do it ; 
 the former might. This would be the only chance for 
 the Revolutionary Socialists ; and a remote one, for the 
 man would require almost superhuman power as well 
 as wisdom and virtue, should be a sort of earthly Deity, 
 in fact, to do the work. To establish universal Col- 
 lectivism would indeed be beyond the power of even 
 such a one, unless he could reverse the laws of nature, 
 but something less, though something considerable, in 
 the general Socialist direction, he might do and sooner 
 and more fully than a Representative Assembly. And 
 such a one of extraordinary will and genius, though 
 only of ordinary virtue, did arise out of the Great 
 Revolution in Napoleon, who did put into his Code 
 much that was practicable and permanently desirable, 
 and who had the large idea that the career should be 
 open in every field to talent ; the Napoleonic ideas 
 being in fact largely akin to St. Simonism, as 
 Roscher says, and really carrying out the best and 
 most practicable parts of it. 
 But Revolution should not be invoked on the 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 257 
 
 remote chance that a Deity would be found in the 
 whirlwind any more than in the hope that an im- 
 possible social system could be forcibly founded by 
 an Assembly, because the Caesar who might arise 
 would far more likely not be of large capacity, or he 
 might even prove a reactionary. He might find the 
 forces of reaction too strong for him, even supposing 
 him to have the best intentions to favour the socialist 
 ideas, or he might be opposed to them ; so that, all 
 things considered, the leaders of the working classes 
 would do better in pushing for reforms and practicable 
 ameliorations in their condition through existing 
 constitutional means rather than in putting all at 
 hazard by attempting a violent revolution more likely 
 to throw back their cause than to advance it. 
 
 Even by so doing it may not be possible to avoid 
 revolution in the end ; because in the assertion of the 
 cause of the Fourth Estate revolution may come from 
 class antagonisms, as it came in France after 1789 
 from the aspiring efforts of the Third Estate ; but if 
 it came in this way it would be in the natural order of 
 things, and the responsibility for it would not lie solely 
 with the working class, but would be shared by the 
 uncompromising defenders of the present order. And 
 it may be added that the only kind of revolution by 
 which the cause of labour would be likely to make any 
 permanent advance would be such a natural revolution, 
 which need not necessarily be a bloody one. 
 
 IV. 
 
 WE may here sum up the chief conclusions reached 
 respecting Collectivism, the latest scheme of an Ideal 
 
 S 
 
258 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 Commonwealth, and pronounce a final estimate upon 
 it. As a scheme, while partly agreeing with the St. 
 Simonian, it is distinctly inferior to the latter in not 
 fully recognizing inequality of capacity and frankly 
 accepting as the natural consequences of the fact, 
 inequality of remuneration, especially in the sphere 
 of material production. With really fuller economical 
 knowledge than St. Simonism, it is yet essentially 
 weak on the economical side where it should be 
 specially strong, and where it specially boasts of its 
 strength. 
 
 Its criticism of capital, though partly sound, is 
 largely fallacious. Its constructive scheme, so far 
 as any has been given, is unworkable in parts, in 
 others of doubtful tendency, in others, again, of bad 
 tendency. The detached propositions which form 
 the essence of it cannot cohere into a system. Its 
 parts cannot be put together so as to form a whole 
 that would work. Productive labour could not all be 
 collectively organized, still less unproductive. Agri- 
 cultural labour could not be collectively organized, 
 though land might be collectively owned. The 
 numerous small detached industries where not much 
 capital is needed could not with advantage be worked 
 by the State. There is much labour that might be 
 brigaded, though not suited for collective action in a 
 given place or at the same time, and the only thing 
 to be said in favour of State organization and pay- 
 ment is that it would prevent private exploitation, 
 though it would probably also open the door for 
 official corruption and misappropriation of funds. 
 
 As regards Distribution, we have seen that anything 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 259 
 
 approaching equalization of wages there could not 
 be without resulting in diminished production and 
 inferior services, especially those of the higher sort. 
 The industrial chief in particular will have to be paid 
 liberally, or the product will be worse in quality as 
 well as less in quantity. On grounds of justice no 
 less than of policy, the superior manager deserves 
 extra wages whenever the increase in quantity or 
 quality is due to his superior energy and ability. 
 Mere policy would dictate sufficient payment to make 
 him use all his energy and ability, at least until new 
 and higher motives can act upon him. Extra merit 
 in the generality of workers, for the like reasons, would 
 have to be paid higher, or production would suffer. 
 More than all, the great inventors of machines and dis- 
 coverers of new processes of production, the Watts, 
 Bessemers, Edisons, as well as the great engineers, 
 the Stephensons and Lessepses, the men who almost 
 at one stroke make a comprehensive addition to the 
 sum of wealth or store of material utilities, will have 
 to be specially encouraged, or if not their country 
 and the world will be the poorer. 
 
 We have seen, too, that certain professions, as the 
 medical and the legal, could not be adequately or 
 conveniently paid by the State ; that the most skilled 
 members at least would have to be permitted private 
 practice and to charge additional fees, in the interests 
 of the general health or of justice ; that the artist, the 
 actor, the public singer, the popular novelist or poet 
 all who possess an exceptional gift the exercise of 
 which is greatly valued could not conveniently or 
 with advantage be paid by the State, without at least 
 
 S 2 
 
260 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 a partial quenching of the gift and loss or privation 
 to the public. 
 
 As respects the theory of value, we have found 
 that it would be impossible to determine values in 
 practice by the cost in labour-time ; that even if 
 values were so determined by the most heroic book- 
 keeping and arbitrary reduction of skilled labour to 
 common labour, it would be impossible to keep values 
 fixed ; that it would be impossible to prevent market 
 or variable values, unless the State exercised arbi- 
 trary and extraordinary powers in the extension or 
 contraction of production and in the transfer of 
 labourers from place to place. We have seen, too, 
 that the Collectivists have no self-acting law of distri- 
 bution, that the share of each under their supposed 
 law would be entirely arbitrary and probably unjust. 
 
 The proposed abolition of money in like manner 
 would be largely nugatory, owing to the existence of 
 the labour-cheques, while the labour-cheques, in addi- 
 tion to their liability to indefinite depreciation, with 
 all the evils and injustices which depreciation brings, 
 would also be liable to evils peculiar to themselves, 
 not specially predictable without experience, but cer- 
 tain in some form in so far as the labour-cheques 
 would differ from inconvertible paper-money in 
 general. 
 
 We have seen, too, that foreign trade would be 
 impossible without surrendering the collectivist 
 principle, and the destruction of foreign trade would 
 be ruinous to a country like England. The Socialists 
 are generally silent on the point, or, when they do 
 speak of it, they decry its advantages, obvious as 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 26 1 
 
 many of them are ; from a dim perception that it is a 
 weak point in their system, though it is in reality 
 wholly incompatible with it. Now this is a case 
 where the working-classes of England at least should 
 know the true doctrine, and how deeply their in- 
 terests are bound up with foreign trade, without 
 which England could not possibly support anything 
 like her present population, and the abolition of 
 which under Collectivism would be to the same ex- 
 tent injurious. The Socialists are perhaps to be 
 excused for not seeing the full advantages of trade 
 since even Mill, who makes the consumer the chief 
 gainer by it, in getting cheap goods or things not 
 otherwise procurable, represents only one aspect of 
 its benefits, the chief being that it makes room in 
 a small country like England with limited land for 
 a much larger population than would be possible 
 without it, by the exchange of manufactures for 
 labourers' necessaries. No doubt it also enables 
 merchants and producers to make fortunes, and rich 
 people to get luxuries ; but it also enlarges the 
 absolute amount given to the labouring-class if not 
 individual wages as well ; so that the Socialists are 
 much mistaken when they imagine that if foreign 
 trade were abolished, English labour would be as 
 effectively applied, or could support so many as at 
 present, or support them so well. The abolition of 
 foreign trade might not greatly affect the United 
 States of America, simply because the United States 
 is virtually a continent, having most of the advan- 
 tages of foreign trade under the name of home trade; 
 though even America finds it to her advantage to 
 
262 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 export the corn she so easily raises for things she 
 cannot produce at all, like tea, or produces with 
 difficulty, like certain manufactured goods. 
 
 On the whole, we may say that universal Collec- 
 tivism is an impossible cure for the evils most com- 
 plained of; for the overlarge share of the produce 
 of capital and labour which the employing capitalist 
 gets ; and next for the undue share that landlords, 
 distributors, speculators, monopolists, and all kinds 
 of parasites are enabled to obtain ; while those parts 
 of the scheme to which there is no objection, but the 
 reverse, such as an extension of State management in 
 the industrial sphere in the case of monopolies ; a 
 further extension by consequence of the Civil Service ; 
 a more complete organization of the educational 
 service, regulation of the currency and of banking 
 with other legislation to check speculation ; these 
 things are not peculiar to Collectivism, but are most 
 of them parts of a State-Socialism already in opera- 
 tion, and to all of which there is a spontaneous ten- 
 dency. What is not possible at least for ages, if not 
 for ever is universal State enterprise, the abolition of 
 money and of interest, or the distribution of wealth 
 according to hours of work or anything approaching 
 a general equalizing of wages. 
 
 Now, considering all the gaps in Collectivism, the 
 necessary deductions from its principles, how much 
 of the present system must be retained and how 
 much of its own must be given up, considering 
 the perils of any attempt at realizing it, the question 
 indeed arises whether it would not be better to begin 
 at the other end, at the end near our hand, by improv- 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 263 
 
 ing- the existing system ; especially as Collectivism, 
 minus the things that it must give up, approximates 
 to an improved individualistic system ? Would it not 
 be better to begin where the social shoe pinches ? 
 Nay, no other course can be entertained for a moment, 
 as any attempt to set up universal Collectivism would 
 be madness, and the fall into the abyss of chaos sure. 
 
 Our whole existing system rests upon human 
 nature, is a product of average human nature, is merely 
 the outward expression of the most general facts of 
 human nature, such as the science of psychology to-day 
 reveals it ; especially is it the product of the self-regard- 
 ing instincts called egoism, and of family-regarding 
 instincts which is a kind of expanded and improved 
 egoism ; and therefore if the present system were 
 changed by decree of whatsoever governing power, if, 
 as Schaeffle says, Collectivism were "proclaimed in 
 the name of the people as a new legal system," the 
 same egoism, dominant and universal in this as in all 
 other civilized countries, would bring about the same 
 system again, or one closely resembling it, after a 
 period of chaos. It would follow as surely as the same 
 effects follow from the same causes. 
 
 Moreover, the present system, with all its evils, does 
 actually work. It only wants improvements, to push 
 for which is the right course for all interested in the 
 working classes, and for all who suffer from the present 
 system, instead of striving after an ideal which is im- 
 practicable and chimerical in some parts, undesirable 
 in others, and which could not even be set up in name 
 without producing universal confusion. 
 
 The mistake of the revolutionary Collectivists is to 
 
264 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 regard what should be at most only a distant goal, as 
 a possible point of early departure, as something from 
 which we could start to-morrow. With a large allow- 
 ance of time a portion of their scheme may be realized, 
 while some steps in the general direction, both in the 
 sphere of legislative and governmental management, 
 might even be taken early. 
 
 An extension of government management in the 
 sphere of industry is undoubtedly quite possible, and 
 I agree with Professor Sidgwick in thinking that in 
 certain directions such extension would be generally 
 advantageous. What these directions are we have inti- 
 mated already in a general way, and the subject will be 
 considered more fully hereafter. Here let it suffice to 
 say that this is pre-eminently one of the cases where 
 an induction from the part to the whole would be 
 fallacious, where what would be true for part of the 
 field of industry and enterprise occupied by the Go- 
 vernment would not be true if it were universally 
 occupied. 
 
 At least for a very long time, and probably for ever. 
 For it is essentially a case where the categories of time 
 and rate of motion, as well as quantity, are all important 
 and of the essence of the argument. Now time and 
 rate of movement involve the whole fact of social evolu- 
 tion, and the doctrine of social evolution is accepted 
 and insisted on even by Karl Marx and Lassalle, 
 being indeed one of the few points in which the new 
 Socialism is superior to the old. It is absolutely not 
 in men's power, as they rightly say, to change suddenly 
 an economic system ; the thing chiefly implied in 
 evolution being that it takes place slowly by way of 
 
IN THE SOCIALIST STATE. 265 
 
 natural growth and decay. Our whole economical 
 system is a kind of organism with a life and growth 
 and mutual relations of parts, and as such it cannot 
 be suddenly changed. Moreover, it rests, as before 
 stated, on existing human nature, which no one ima- 
 gines can be suddenly or greatly changed. Society, 
 as a whole, is also an organism in a fuller sense of 
 the word ; it changes, but changes slowly. The State 
 is also an organism which changes, which in modern 
 times enlarges its functions slowly and naturally with 
 the growth of civilization. Now we have seen that the 
 Collectivist programme implies, when accomplished, 
 a total revolution in the State, in Society, in private 
 life, and in the existing economical system, a revolu- 
 tion to effect which social evolution asks centuries, 
 working by its usual natural methods, but which 
 impatient Revolutionists and Collectivists in general 
 expect in a generation. At any rate, few seem will- 
 ing to defer the Socialist millenium beyond A.D. 2000, 
 any considerable postponing of the date seeming 
 to take away rapidly from its sustaining and stimu- 
 lating power. 
 
 The three revolutions, economical, political, and 
 social, could all be decreed. The question is how 
 far, with substantially unchanged human nature and 
 dispositions, they could be made effective towards 
 their aim ; and the certainty is that the attempt to 
 make them so would bring chaos, and confusion worse 
 confounded, until human nature rose in revolt against 
 the impossible thing. 
 
 There are no doubt some Collectivists who disclaim 
 revolution, and who do not expect the r r programme to 
 
266 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 be fully realized for generations. And these evolution 
 Collectivists are very much wiser and more practical 
 than the others. But if the conclusions we have come 
 to be correct, there are certain portions of the system 
 which can never be realized, being essentially imprac- 
 ticable, and certain portions that would be bad for 
 the majority of the working classes. If, then, the 
 evolution Collectivists throw those parts over, or get 
 rid of what Schaeffle calls " the critical blots " of 
 Collectivism, they would become practical State 
 Socialists, and could work in line with Radicals or 
 Tories, so far as these respectively take up and 
 advocate Social Reform or practicable and beneficial 
 Socialist measures. 
 
26; 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM : 
 
 (l.) LEGISLATIVE. 
 
 ALTHOUGH the main argument of the Socialists, 
 that all wealth is the product of labour, and 
 should therefore belong to the labouring classes, 
 is fallacious, and although the remedies of the 
 extreme Socialists for admitted social ills are either 
 impracticable for the most part and pregnant with 
 social chaos, or where they would be practicable 
 would not be beneficial to the working classes or the 
 community, it does not follow that the Socialists 
 have got no case, nor that there are not real remedies 
 for real social evils and injustices ; remedies slower 
 aflcTIess heroic than those prescribed, but more sure 
 and lasting. I believe they have a case, and that 
 there are such remedies. 
 
 The strength of the case of the Socialists lies 
 undoubtedly in the fact that the Land and Capital, 
 the two great requisites of production, other than 
 labour, have, as a fact, got into the hands of com- 
 paratively small classes, and out of those of the In-ge 
 labouring classes, and with this result as respects their 
 relation to capital, that they are obliged to accept 
 
268 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 wages reduced by employers' profits composed mainly 
 of interest and of wages of management rated as large 
 as interest ; that these labourers' wages in many cases, 
 and still more the wages of common or unskilled 
 labourers, tend to the Ricardian minimum or the 
 smallest amount that will suffice to support the 
 labourer and his family until such time at least as 
 the children's labour can assist ; that from the un- 
 certain and changing circumstances of modern manu- 
 facturing industry in particular, which produces for 
 an indefinite and shifting, but world-wide market, 
 only the best labourers can expect to get constant and 
 regular work, while even of these many may be thrown 
 out by new labour-saving machinery, changes of 
 fashion, or a commercial crisis ; that from these 
 different causes there is always in existence what 
 Marx called the " reserve army of labour," a phrase 
 which ill describes the sorrows of their situation, 
 being only partially employed, and the remaining time 
 anxiously idling while subsisting on siege allowance 
 from their society's funds, sometimes on the public 
 charity or benevolence; that besides and beyond 
 these at the bottom of all lies a mournful multi- 
 tude of men and women and children, the certain 
 result and product, predictable with scientific pre- 
 cision, of our whole individualistic and sauve qui 
 pent system, who can get no work save of the most 
 casual kind, not to speak of the considerable number 
 who have no particular intention of working, bein- 
 indeed mostly unfit for any work ; who, having been 
 born in a destitute condition, and never having had 
 the chance to learn an honest calling, took naturally 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 269 
 
 to the evil ways of their parents, to thieving, begging, 
 or loafing, which they still follow, there being in fact 
 no other courses at present open for them. 
 
 The monopoly of the land in like manner leads to 
 the worst, though not to all, of the above evils. It 
 led to them before the capitalistic system came into 
 being, and it still leads to them where it exists and 
 where agriculture is the chief industry, as in Ireland and 
 parts of Scotland. If the people are too numerous, 
 the rent competitively determined might conceivably 
 amount to the total produce, deducting only bare 
 subsistence, in which case the system would be 
 barely an improvement on slavery or the corvee, 
 save in its presenting the semblance of freedom. In 
 this case rents would be identical with profits, as 
 described by Ricardo and Marx, namely, all above 
 bare subsistence, in the one case, of the tenant, in the 
 other of the wage-earner. This, however, does not 
 apply to rents in England, because in England large 
 farming with large capital is the general rule, and 
 the landlords can only appropriate what is above the 
 line of average profits (surplus profits). But it has 
 been the case, and without interference tends to be 
 the case in countries of small tenures, as in most 
 parts of Ireland and in some parts of Scotland and 
 Wales which is the one main reason why the Land 
 Question is there more important than the capital 
 and labour question. Happily, however, the Land 
 Question in Ireland, where the evils were worst, is in 
 a fair way of being settled in the only practicable, 
 and, on the whole, satisfactory way, by the conversion 
 of the occupier into the owner, though land legisla- 
 
2/0 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 tion for the benefit of the tenants in Scotland and 
 Wales, suited to their different social circumstances, 
 is still needed. In the rural regions of England it 
 is the agricultural labourer who has been the chief 
 sufferer from the monopoly of land,* and in his case, 
 too, though something has been done by providing 
 allotments, something more ought to be done towards 
 the creation of a class of small farmers or owners. 
 
 Besides unemployed or ill-paid labourers, or over- 
 rented small farmers, there are others discontented 
 with the existing order, and inclined to Socialism : 
 all who have been permanently displaced by the 
 present capitalistic system ; the petty tradesman 
 and dealer, the superseded middleman, the skilled 
 workman whose place has been taken by machinery, 
 the early superannuated ; in addition to those dis- 
 placed, those again who have never been placed, or 
 who have failed to get berths or connection ; the 
 professional man without business ; the educated man 
 in general who can find no employment, whether from 
 excessive competition or want of character ; the edu- 
 cated man who is exploited by the capitalist with 
 superior astuteness, but without intellect or culture ; 
 the man of capacity and ambition, but without means ; 
 all the declassed, the failures, and the " broken men/' 
 Besides those who suffer from the present system, there 
 are men of a different stamp who favour Socialism 
 in some sense of the word, in some cases without too 
 closely inquiring what sense ; the idealist who would 
 improve the world at all risks ; the philanthropist who 
 sees society's evils, and thinks that Socialism might 
 prove the cure for them ; the social philosopher who 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 2/1 
 
 has thought out the whole problem, and thinks part 
 of the Socialists' programme right ; the moralist who 
 thinks the whole egoistic system immoral ; the just 
 man disturbed at what he considers the triumph of 
 the wicked in the case of the successful swindling 
 speculator or financier ; all these look with more or 
 less favour on Socialism as something which, being 
 the declared antithesis of what they dislike in the 
 present system, might bring deliverance, or a better 
 state of things. 
 
 There is also the Tory Democratic Member of Par- 
 liament who is in sympathy with one side of Socialism 
 to a certain distance, and the Radical Member who is 
 in sympathy with a different side of it, and probably 
 to a greater distance, judging from platform addresses 
 and from special programmes. And then the Church, 
 perhaps from an unquiet feeling that something 
 singularly like Socialism, mixed with something of 
 an opposite character, is in the first three Gospels, 
 has shown a certain leaning to it, or at least a new- 
 born interest in the working man. Nor is the general 
 public hostile or averse, but rather in its favour, pro- 
 vided it does not touch its interests or its pocket too 
 deeply. Nay, it would even go some distance towards 
 it, having been awakened somewhat, and having begun 
 to think that the labouring classes have a grievance 
 against the capitalist class and against the rich in 
 general. 
 
 Socialism is in fact supported not only by labourers, 
 but by a great mass of discontented feeling. It is like 
 David's cave of Adullam, to which resorted " every 
 one that was in distress, every one that was in debt, 
 
272 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 and every one that was discontented." From all this 
 Socialism derives its strength, though no doubt it 
 is fundamentally, as it has been historically, a work- 
 ing man's or a poor man's question in the main, 
 and a question of material interests, a " question of 
 the stomach," as Schaeffle calls it. Nevertheless, it 
 has branched out so as to include other classes than 
 ordinary labourers, and other interests than material 
 ones, as we have seen in the preceding chapters. In 
 the remainder of this book, in addition to the criti- 
 cism of some proposed measures, I propose to submit 
 certain measures of a more or less Socialistic character, 
 some of them intended to benefit the labouring classes 
 or their children, some of them to favour the naturally 
 fit in whatever class they may be, but all of them 
 aiming at a somewhat nearer approach to justice and 
 the greater good of the whole. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE modern capitalist, in spite of trades' union 
 pressure, can in general secure his profits, besides 
 covering all risks and expenses, so that the worker 
 must be content with what remains of the price of the 
 product or suffer worse. And now, how did the 
 capitalist get his capital ? He made it himself, or he 
 inherited it, most commonly the latter. As a rule, 
 his father or grandfather made the business, the con- 
 nection, and the capital, when it was easier to do so 
 than now. And how did he make it ? In various 
 ways, some good and commendable, some question- 
 able. By overworking and underpaying his hands ; 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 273 
 
 by underselling rivals and annexing their custom ; by 
 lowering prices to starve competitors, and again 
 raising prices to tax consumers ; by the conquest of 
 his foreign rivals until the latter learned his methods 
 of manufacture and shut him out by hostile tariffs. 
 Partly, too, it was due to his business genius, to his 
 enterprise in first adapting new processes or inven- 
 tions, to his unconquerable energy, his industry, his 
 saving disposition in the beginning of his career 
 in these and many other ways his father or grand- 
 father made the business, which continued to grow, 
 which the present capitalist inherited and perhaps 
 increased. And such methods, pursued continually 
 through two or three generations, have resulted in the 
 great accumulated capitals in. the hands of individuals 
 in our days. Let us add that Law for a long time 
 favoured him, by denying to his hands the right of 
 combination, by which means profits were kept higher 
 than they otherwise would have been ; that the State 
 permitted him to work his hands too long, and to 
 use without restriction cheap infants' and women's 
 labour until philanthropists and Tory members of 
 Parliament compelled legislative interference which 
 made him forego part of his gains in shortened hours, 
 healthier factories, and in later times by compensation 
 for preventible injuries to his employes. 1 
 
 1 The above paragraph refers chiefly to the circumstances of 
 England, where the capitalistic system first appeared, and where 
 it is still in its most developed form. Some of the statements 
 are, indeed, of general application; but others of them would 
 require a certain qualification before they would apply to other 
 civilized communities that entered on the large system of pro- 
 
 T 
 
274 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 No doubt at present the capitalist, as a rule, has 
 ceased to grow greater ; but how great he is, and how 
 many make incomes of io,ooo/., 2O,ooo/., 5O,ooo/., and 
 over, the income-tax assessments show. Moreover, 
 how many leave over a million personalty we can see 
 in the daily or weekly papers. No doubt, too, the 
 Company has come to dispute the industrial empire 
 with him in respect of those undertakings too great 
 even for his great capital, and the company implies a 
 large number of smaller capitalists who receive interest 
 
 duction later than England. Especially they should be quali- 
 fied as regards the United States, and especially the statement 
 that large capital is mostly inherited. In the United States, 
 where great centres of commerce or industry spring up in twenty 
 years ; where new manufactures are often started or old ones are 
 being nursed into large proportions, where new inventions are 
 continually being made and new sources of natural wealth are 
 continually being found, there must be continually great chances 
 for new men, and men who make great fortunes for themselves, 
 who began with nothing, are very numerous ; more so than in 
 England, where the tendency, in the old staple industries at 
 least, has been for businesses to become hereditary ; the new 
 men, who start from nothing, only getting chances so far as 
 they have great ability and get an opening to show it in the old 
 industries as manager, &c., or so far as they are instrumental in 
 initiating new ones. 
 
 In England, in short, a greater area of the industrial field is 
 already occupied by hereditary capitalists than in America ; the 
 portion open to the competition of business ability without 
 capital is less ; though in both countries there is an indefinite 
 new area that may be added to the field by the genius of inven- 
 tors, who at present, with the help of patents and " promoters," 
 are usually able to take care of themselves, and frequently to 
 make large fortunes. And the more inventors, and the more 
 companies are required to float the inventions, the more new 
 managers will be required. 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 275 
 
 as well as he. But the company, especially in our 
 times, has usually a great capitalist at the core, as a 
 sort of nucleus round which smaller ones are attracted, 
 or if not, there is a skilled manager to be paid a liberal 
 salary, and promoters and financiers to be feed, so 
 that the spread of the companies has not effected any 
 considerable breach in the large capitalist's empire as 
 yet, and it has only given the workers the rate of 
 wages current hitherto. 2 
 
 3 And now, if the short road of confiscation is not to 
 be thought of, and if expropriation of capitalists, with 
 partial compensation, though possible, is unadvisable, 
 how are the working classes to get capital so as to be 
 their own employers, independent of the capitalist, 
 and thereby to end the quarrel between Capital and 
 Labour ? How is the miracle to be wrought of finding 
 the necessary capital when the only two apparent 
 roads to it are barred ? Is it by saving out of their 
 wages already docked, putting their "savings" to- 
 gether, and starting a co-operative factory or work- 
 shop ? This is the plan advocated by Mill, Cairnes, 
 Thornton, Thomas Hughes, and many more, a plan 
 now considerably discredited after the experience of 
 fifty years with only, a few successful instances in 
 England, a rate of progress at which the millennium 
 may be expected sooner than the emancipation of 
 labour. Besides, wherever large capital is required, 
 as it is in the most important fields of production, 
 
 * The Syndicate, indeed, or last development of the company, 
 does hold out as one of its many alleged recommendations the 
 promise of increased wages, without, however, being able to any 
 considerable extent to perform it. 
 
 T -? 
 
276 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 groups of working men could not find it; even if they 
 could, the chances all are that they would be undersold 
 and beaten by the great capitalist, and the concern 
 sent into liquidation. In other directions requiring 
 less capital and less skilled management they might, 
 by extra energy and enthusiasm, succeed. But such 
 limited and narrow success would be far from a 
 solution of the capital and labour question. A well- 
 paid, absolute, and capable head or manager is 
 required in general for success in business. But co- 
 operators cannot afford to pay a manager highly, 
 and do not like him to be absolute ; as a consequence 
 of which co-operation would be a failure, or would 
 drag out at any rate a struggling existence, while 
 probably affording less wages than the service of the 
 capitalist. 
 
 In short, co-operative production by the unaided 
 efforts of workmen will not solve the labour problem, 
 and even the once sanguine hopes of enthusiastic 
 believers like Mr. Thomas Hughes arc beginning to 
 fail, as might be gathered from the proceedings of 
 the Co-operative Congress of the year 1887. Mr. 
 Holyoake alone on that occasion seemed full of confi- 
 dence, and delivered a jubilant address in that the 
 Jubilee year of co-operation. Unfortunately, it ap- 
 peared that the co-operation which had done the 
 great things he celebrated which possessed the mass 
 of capital and transacted the yearly business described 
 was not co-operative production, but co-operative 
 distribution, which, however good in other respects 
 for the working classes, has little to do with the 
 labour question or its solution. Co-operation might 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 277 
 
 possibly succeed if carried out on the Socialistic 
 plan ; namely, by universalizing it, and thereby 
 extinguishing at once the competition of the 
 private capitalist ; or, short of that, by State assist- 
 ance to associations of workers by way of loans 
 on a scale sufficient to try conclusions with the 
 capitalistic system ; unassisted, its success can be but 
 small. 
 
 The plan of State assistance is condemned by M. 
 de Laveleye and others as doomed in advance to 
 failure, chiefly because the experiment of advancing 
 money to associations of workmen in Paris in 1848 
 turned out a failure. But the failure of an experi- 
 ment badly tried, whose failure was desired and 
 assisted by adverse interests, is not decisive against a 
 like experiment carried out under more favourable 
 conditions, and with the light derived from past ex- 
 perience. I do not say as regards co-operative pro- 
 duction that the alternative lies between this and the 
 Socialists' more thorough-going co-operation applied 
 to every industry; but I say that if no such experi- 
 ment on a sufficient scale and in a sufficient variety of 
 businesses is fairly tried, we shall never learn the real 
 capabilities, the advantages or drawbacks, of co- 
 operative production, until perhaps one day, here 
 or elsewhere, the Socialists force the universal ex- 
 periment without previous trial, at the nearly certain 
 risk of universal chaos. A priori speculation, deduc- 
 tive reasoning from principles of human nature and 
 social or industrial circumstances, according to the 
 accepted economic method, though it may teach 
 us much, cannot, as to this question, disclose every- 
 
278 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 thing. And even the failure of small independent 
 attempts at co-operation is not decisive, as we can 
 see good reasons for their failure. Besides, if the 
 State advances money to small farmers to enable 
 them to become proprietors of the land, why 
 might not the town artisans ask for a like favour 
 for a precisely analogous object to make them 
 part proprietors of the capital needed for their 
 industry ? And as the Liberals are fond of trying 
 experiments in favour of their friends in the agricul- 
 tural regions to give them a part of the land, why 
 should not the Conservatives or Tory Democrats urge 
 one in behalf of the town artisans a course on the 
 lines of their asserted traditional policy as friends of 
 the working classes ? 
 
 There are doubts, grounded on moral and general 
 considerations, whether co-operative production can 
 succeed in the face of fair competition, and if these 
 doubts are well grounded, it would follow that pro- 
 duction under it would be less than under the exist- 
 ing capitalist production ; and that would constitute 
 a serious, though not a decisive, argument against 
 the former. We want these doubts cleared up, 
 and this can only be done by trying it concur- 
 rently with the other, and in competition with the 
 other, and by trying it in a sufficient number and 
 variety of cases to eliminate chance, or exceptional 
 circumstances, and to get at the general rule and 
 tendency. The Government might, perhaps, advance 
 money at the market rate of interest to Associations 
 of Labour who had already saved a fair proportion of 
 the required capital, and who could thus give some 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 279 
 
 guarantee for repayment of the loans. To make the 
 experiment fair, there should be no further assist- 
 ance or favour shown to them in the way of orders 
 for their products. And suppose the experiment 
 fails ? Why, then it would undoubtedly discredit 
 co-operative production, and we should probably 
 hear little more of it, except amongst the fanatics of 
 one idea. But more likely it would succeed here 
 and fail there, but succeed on the whole, in which 
 case we should no doubt go farther in the same 
 direction. In any case we should get important 
 light and guidance for the future. 
 
 Meantime, as the existing system of employment 
 by capitalists is likely to last for a considerable time, 
 and as very many working men are fairly satisfied 
 with it, and on excellent terms with their employer, 
 judging from the fact that they so often help to send 
 him to Parliament, it would be a good thing if the 
 employer and his hands could come to an agreement 
 amongst themselves as to the division of the results 
 of their united efforts. Let them agree as far as pos- 
 sible, and where they cannot, let them still agree so 
 far as to refer differences either to arbitrators or, as 
 at Nottingham, to Boards of Conciliation, composed 
 of representatives of both the masters and the men. 
 The agreement might be in some cases that wages 
 should be regulated according to a sliding scale of 
 prices of product, as in many of the mining districts, 
 or best of all, that employers should voluntarily share 
 all profits above a certain level with their employes. 
 This last seems only reasonable, considering that the 
 men have to bear their share of low profits in the 
 
280 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 form of lowered wages, besides being thrown tempo- 
 rarily out of work. Besides, if extra profits are not 
 shared voluntarily, Trades Union pressure can compel 
 it. But it would be better for the masters to take 
 the initiative in the work of conciliating. They are 
 the stronger party ; they have gained most hitherto ; 
 they can afford to do with less profits than their 
 fathers or grandfathers, because their capitals are now 
 so much greater, that with a less rate of profits they 
 would still have far greater incomes than their 
 fathers. If employers all along the line would only 
 be content with less profits, foregoing a part to their 
 hands, there is reason to think that the reign of 
 the capitalist employer might long continue, because 
 in other respects he is on the whole the best and 
 fittest for the place he holds. If he would but come 
 to look at the whole question from a new point of 
 view, having regard to the signs of the times with this 
 Labour Question everywhere ominous and threaten- 
 ing ; if he would come to see the necessity of somehow 
 coming to a good understanding with his workers 
 while there is yet time, much might be hoped in the 
 way of a working solution from his unusual common 
 sense, and his clear and practical intelligence. lie 
 could, in great degree, maintain the place which he 
 now possesses ; nay, perhaps even recoup himself, by 
 the heartier co-operation of his hands, for the profit* 
 parted with. 
 
 And if the capitalist should say, " We cannot forego 
 part of our profits," I reply, " You can, or a great 
 many of you, the fortunate ones, can ; moreover, 
 you sometimes do. Whenever you handsomely pre- 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 28 1 
 
 sent your townsmen with a people's park, or endow 
 a college or an hospital, you give money which you 
 could have afforded to your hands, and to which un- 
 less you are already paying the highest current 
 wages, or unless you can prove it to be due solely to 
 your business genius they had a prior claim. In 
 these cases you should have been just before you 
 were generous, or if the word " just " is to be ruled out 
 in economic bargains, then your generosity should 
 have begun with your workers. You should first 
 have given liberal wages to them, and afterwards 
 given, out of your remaining abundance, if it happily 
 seemed good to you, to your fellow-townsmen or 
 countrymen generally. 
 
 " Besides, is it really fair that you should get so 
 high a rate of profits, not only current interest on all 
 your capital and compensation for depreciation, but 
 also wages of management in proportion to the amount 
 of the capital, at a rate as high as the rate of 
 interest? This is really a little too much that you 
 and your class look to get ; four or five per cent, as in- 
 terest, and as much again for wages. A fair salary is 
 all you are entitled to, morally or socially, in respect 
 of your services. It might be liberal, but it should 
 not increase as your capital increases. Accordingly, 
 the difference, the extra amount which you now get, 
 should go to your workers or the public. You may 
 be able to sell your product so as to give you this 
 large salary, because, as Mill says, you enjoy a sort 
 of natural monopoly by the very fact of your large 
 capital, supplemented, we grant, by your undoubted 
 business ability; In fact, instead of getting wages 
 
282 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 in proportion to the whole area of your capital, you 
 should, if anything, get less than a manager's wages, 
 because you already enjoy interest on the large 
 capital. Your four per cent, upon your capital of 
 25o,ooo/. already gives you io,ooo/. But you look 
 to get, and the clever or lucky ones of your class 
 do get, a second io,ooo/. rated as wages. As much 
 of this as exceeds a manager's salary at current 
 rates should belong partly to your hands, and partly 
 to the public, to be repaid by the people's park, the 
 restored church, or the endowed college. 
 
 " You see your great capital, by giving you a kind of 
 monopoly, enables you to crush or keep out rivals, to 
 raise or keep up prices, and to a considerable extent 
 to dictate terms to your hands. But would it not 
 be more prudent to conciliate the latter, and to draw 
 them to your side by good wages? If you do not, 
 it may be the worse for you. For there is a kind 
 of feeling arising that your lot in modern clays is 
 really too fortunate, and then there is a doubt as to 
 the sources of your capital, a suspicion that, however 
 juridically unimpeachable its title, it is not all morally 
 yours ; and when such a feeling rises, if not over- 
 come by your good deeds in other directions, there 
 are ways in which it can make itself felt to your disad- 
 vantage. Correct, then, the possible defects in your title 
 by justice to your workers, and afterwards by generous 
 benefactions ; lest the time should come when your 
 profits may be taken from you, and you may have 
 to content yourself with the manager's salary on less 
 than the present scale of remuneration." 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 283 
 
 III. 
 
 As to the Land Question, in one way or other, as 
 matter of fact, the land of the three kingdoms has got 
 into comparatively few hands, and the people who 
 formerly owned considerable portions of it have be- 
 come divorced from it. From this land the landlords 
 as a class get very high rents, whether agricultural rents, 
 ground rents, or mine royalties. The agricultural 
 rents in England amount to the excess above ordi- 
 nary profits on farming capital, and this was great 
 until American competition in corn reduced it, by 
 reducing prices ; one consequence of which is that 
 some of the land is gone out of cultivation, and 
 thrown on the landlords' hands : what the economists 
 call " the margin of cultivation," or the land which 
 just returns ordinary profits, but can pay no rent, has 
 receded to better land. Now at all times there is 
 between this margin of cultivation, or the land that 
 yields profits but no rent, and the land that would re- 
 place wages, seed, and other expenses, but yield no 1 
 profits, a large zone of land that would yield varying de- 
 grees of profits, less than current profits. Let this land, 
 now largely increased, be let to small farmers at low 
 rents, and as it approaches the inferior limit, at no 
 rents. The superior parts of this zone would give 
 profits sufficient to small farmers who cultivated the 
 land chiefly for a living, and such would be willing to 
 pay small rents for the opportunity, though large 
 farmers could not afford to pay any. In fact, the 
 small farmers might even make considerable profits 
 
284 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 in addition to supporting themselves on the land, on 
 account of the greater care and industry they would 
 bestow upon it. All would depend on the rents being 
 low, and the possession of a small but sufficient capital, 
 which might in some cases be advanced by the Govern- 
 ment at moderate interest to promising agricultural 
 labourers, or to others in the rural regions who had 
 some knowledge of farming, as well as some taste 
 for it; while some even who had gone to the towns 
 might be drawn back by the prospect, to the relief 
 of the human congestion of the great cities. 
 
 " But why let our land for nothing, or next to 
 nothing ? " may say the landlord. " As well make a 
 present of it to them." But then, is it not lying on 
 your hands and yielding nothing now ? and is it not 
 better to have a small rent than nothing ? And even 
 if you let some of the inferior land outright for nothing, 
 we should not think your generosity transcendent. At 
 any rate, it might not be so bad an investment for you. 
 No doubt you have the alternative of cultivating 
 the best of this land yourself, and in that way you 
 would give employment perhaps to the same persons, 
 and also get some profits from it. But supposing 
 you do not, as most likely you will not, so long as 
 you have still better land to cultivate if you choose, 
 then you should be ready to let it to those who 
 can make an independent living out of it, and you 
 should not act on the "dog-in-the-manger" policy of 
 not utilizing it yourself, nor allowing others to 
 utilize it. 
 
 Also you can grant allotments at " fair rents " to 
 the other agricultural labourers ; allotments so large 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 285 
 
 as to furnish a real addition to their wages, and in 
 some cases prevent their migrations to the towns. 
 
 Then apart from agricultural rents which have 
 increased without the landlord's efforts or expense, 
 the ground rents have enormously increased, owing 
 to the extraordinary increase of the great cities and 
 towns, and the massing of men in great industrial 
 centres, with a wide fringe of villas and handsome 
 residences in the best surrounding sites. In both 
 cases the land-owner and the house-owner have 
 found their profit the land-owner especially. From 
 both the increased agricultural rents and the greatly 
 increased ground rents, what Mill calls the unearned 
 increment of values has come, that is, the increased 
 value not due to either labour or outlay on the land- 
 lord's part, but to the greatly increased wealth of the 
 nation, a large part of which the landlord by his 
 position has been able to intercept. Now this, it is 
 agreed on all hands, should belong to the community 
 at large, if only it could be taken without doing 
 injustice to those who have bought land at the 
 market value in recent years, since they at least 
 have paid for this increased value, and even paid the 
 discount value of future unearned increments. It 
 would be obviously unfair to take the unearned in- 
 crement from the recent purchaser who has paid for 
 it, because it is not he, but the person from whom 
 he bought, or perhaps his predecessor in possession, 
 who has pocketed the unearned increment ; and in 
 the cases where the land had been bought and sold 
 within the past hundred years, it would be diffi- 
 cult or impossible to make any one liable to a tax 
 
286 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 on the increment ; though there are many other cases 
 where there would be no doubt on whom the tax 
 should justly fall. Mill has indeed made the sugges- 
 tion that only future increments should be taken ; but 
 this would be difficult to carry out in any other way 
 than by buying compulsorily the land around the great 
 towns, and paying the market value to the present 
 holders, so that if any increase should take place in 
 future, it would belong to the community, and might 
 be applied to public purposes. And in future, no 
 doubt, new areas and situations would have increased 
 values unbought by any purchaser, speculative or 
 otherwise. 
 
 The speculative holder of land in or near the large 
 towns should be expropriated on the payment of 
 market prices, or if the idea of market price is not 
 applicable because there is no true market, then on 
 payment of fair prices to be fixed by an impartial 
 tribunal. This speculative holding of land interferes 
 with the general convenience of the community, 
 which can hardly be expected to be in deep 
 sympathy with the speculator's naked egoism thrust 
 so unpleasantly before them, in his patiently holding 
 on for years for his high price. It is a kind of free- 
 dom of enterprise or trade that ought not to be 
 encouraged, and it would be well if the municipality 
 in future anticipated all such speculators by an early 
 purchase of the land, or failing that, by substituting 
 itself for them at a later time at fair prices. 
 
 This, however, postulates a previous reform of 
 Local Government, without which the species of semi- 
 socialism here recommended cannot be effected. And 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 287 
 
 in fact a complete reform of Local Government, both 
 as regards the towns and the counties, is the most 
 urgently needed of all reforms, and one from which 
 more might be hoped than from any other as re- 
 gards the amelioration of the condition of the poor/' 
 A reform which would confer enlarged powers on 
 the municipalities, while retaining a due control 
 of them by the central authority as well as by the 
 local public opinion, in order to prevent the abuse 
 of their powers for personal or party purposes, might 
 confer great advantages on the labouring classes. 
 In the case of the great towns a certain flexibility in the 
 scheme of government would be required to allow free- 
 dom of action, and this can be secured by granting 
 the municipalities enlarged powers of a permissive 
 kind in addition to their essential powers and duties. 
 Freedom will be required, because initiative and 
 progress and varied development are best promoted 
 by allowing the great energetic centres, like Birming- 
 ham, Manchester, or Glasgow, to go on their tradi- 
 tional lines as far as may be, while giving them a 
 larger scope. It would be very undesirable that our 
 cities should be exactly similar, like the cities in 
 More's Utopia, The greater the variety the better, 
 provided they all have the same good general aims. 
 They will be so many great experiments, let us hope, 
 aiming at the general well-being of the community, 
 and at the suppression of poverty and misery 
 
 3 The above was written before the passing of the Local 
 Government Act of 1888, by which considerable powers are 
 conferred on the County Councils, including that of London; 
 the municipalities of the other great towns being unaffected. 
 
288 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 not due to the individuals' own faults. It will be 
 difficult indeed to effect this completely, or even to 
 stamp out poverty in any single city, but the city that 
 makes the nearest approach to it, that has the fullest 
 schools, the emptiest prisons and workhouses, the 
 best and healthiest labourers' dwellings, and the fewest 
 labour strikes, will be the model city. Perhaps it 
 may even help to solve for us the problem that has 
 hitherto become more' insoluble as well as more 
 pressing, what to do with the able-bodied unem- 
 ployed worker ; or give a hint to London as to 
 how to diminish the miscellaneous confraternities in 
 sorrow who formerly met in Trafalgar Square under 
 a black flag, and who still exist in large numbers 
 though they no longer hold their congregations. If 
 it does, it will indeed be the true Holy City, and the 
 Kingdom of Heaven will have come nigh unto it. 
 
 IV. 
 
 THERE is a third class monopoly which, though not 
 specially insisted on by the extreme Socialists, yet 
 presses more heavily on the poorer classes, and pro- 
 duces more and keener misery than the monopoly 
 of either land or capital. And what is the more 
 remarkable, it is a monopoly that is more easily 
 done away with, as respects at least its worst conse- 
 quences, than either of the other two. 
 
 There is the monopoly of the Professions, of the 
 Church,ofthe best appointments inthe Universities and 
 Colleges, of the best berths in the Public Service ; of the 
 best places in Business short of the highest ; and of the 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 289 
 
 innumerable other good positions open only to 
 aspirants with a certain standard of education, in 
 addition to some capital however small. This 
 monopoly of place, though not so palpable as that of 
 capital or land, is quite as real, and is worse in its 
 consequences, because it is the talent in the poorer 
 classes that is affected by it ; and this talent, though 
 latent for the most part, is very great, considering 
 the enormously greater numbers of the classes in 
 which it exists, and the great numbers of these that 
 do make their way in spite of the obstacles which 
 keep back a far greater number. 
 
 There is here a class grievance and something 
 more, inasmuch as it affects all classes and sections 
 of classes, from the lower middle class down to the 
 lowest of all ; and the grievance increases as we 
 descend the social grades, each "lower section being 
 excluded from an ever-wider field of prizes for which 
 candidates in that section are out of the running. 
 Besides being a class grievance, there is an enormous 
 waste of genius and misapplication of national 
 ability, which must have for one result a diminished 
 production of wealth, though that is the least part of 
 the loss to the community. 
 
 The grievance would indeed be much greater if 
 the Socialist's argument were sound, that 'all wealth, 
 including profits and rents, should belong to the 
 labouring classes, and chiefly to the manual labourers ; 
 for then a very large portion of the revenues of the 
 places above named should have belonged to them 
 in the first instances, all profits except a manager's 
 moderate salary, and if not all rents, a very consider- 
 
 U 
 
2pO SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 able portion of them ; so that they would have been 
 thus twice deprived of their share, once at the first 
 division of all the produce, and again at the second 
 division of a large portion in the shape of the revenues 
 of the professional and salaried classes. I have not 
 been able to accept the argument which would assign 
 all wealth in the first instance to labourers as such, 
 abolishing interest and transferring rent to the State ; 
 all the more do I think that the best of these clas 
 should have an opportunity of competing for so 
 much of these funds as are up for distribution a 
 second time, as professional fees or salaries of the 
 public service, but from which competition the 
 children of the labouring class are in main measure 
 excluded. 
 
 It is no longer the capitalist who is the enemy here. 
 It is simply the self-interest or selfishness of the 
 middle classes in general, which, far from affording 
 facilities to ability in the lower ranks, managed to 
 appropriate for its own purposes most of the educa- 
 tional funds intended by pious benefactors for the 
 clever children of the poor. It was a class selfishness ; 
 all natural, for the most part unconscious, though 
 systematically and persistently pursued for genera- 
 tions. And just as the middle classes have broken in 
 upon the monopoly formerly enjoyed by the upper 
 and privileged classes of the best places in the public 
 service which were reserved for their younger sons 
 and other relations, and which were as good as a 
 property for them, so now the lines of exclusion 
 drawn by the middle class for their own advantage, 
 or which their wealth necessarily produces, must 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 29 1 
 
 be considerably removed so as to allow something 
 like equal opportunities to the best ability in the still 
 larger classes beneath them. 
 
 And how is this to be done, to be done effectually 
 and not in name only ? There must be in the first place 
 either a nationalization of existing public educational 
 funds so that all may have an equal share in them, or 
 better still, an additional creation of funds in order to 
 furnish facilities in the shape of prizes, exhibitions, 
 and scholarships for the talented poor, such prizes to 
 be attached to the primary and intermediate schools 
 as well as to the new and old universities and the 
 many new university colleges, so that the best may 
 be assisted to rise successively and enter the univer- 
 sities, the professions, the public service, or an indus- 
 trial career. By these and similar means the elite of 
 the children of the poorer classes would have access 
 to, and their chances of a share in, an enormous total 
 annual revenue, which is perhaps greater than the 
 profits of capital, considering that a large portion of 
 the profits of capital, as well as of landlords' rents, 
 a fair fraction of the public taxes and some of the 
 wages of labour, go directly to form it. 
 
 The competitors from the masses and the lower mid- 
 dle class would thus have their chance of a share of this 
 great fund ; but let not the middle class be too much 
 alarmed at the increased competition. They will still 
 be well able to hold their own, owing to the advan- 
 tages that money necessarily gives to their children 
 from the beginning, both in securing the best 
 education and training for competitive trials, and the 
 further advantage in enabling some to hold out for 
 
 U 2 
 
2Q2 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD, 
 
 better prospects, or probationers to hold on, to tide 
 over the unremunerating or the waiting years in a pro- 
 fession. The want of means will be felt by many 
 even with prizes on the way and in spite of all their 
 efforts, and many in consequence with ability short 
 of the highest will fail. Fortunately for these coun- 
 tries, for most of the failures at home there arc 
 careers elsewhere, in our Colonies, in India, in the 
 great expanding Anglo-Saxon Republic otherwise 
 these disappointed ones would prove a source of social 
 danger. And we here strike on one of the obscurer 
 causes of German Socialism, in the great number of 
 well-educated men who are in straitened circum- 
 stances and without suitable careers. 4 
 
 We have not many such in these countries at pre- 
 sent ; under the scheme here recommended there 
 would indeed be a considerable number unabsorbed 
 at home, but for the placing of these we have facilities 
 not possessed by any other nation. It would be 
 something considerable that even the select could 
 rise at home, and that as regards the greater number 
 who would not rise so high, their condition should be 
 better materially than it would have been without the 
 national care and provision, to say nothing now of 
 the special satisfaction which culture for its own sake 
 brings. 
 
 In this way a great grievance of the Democracy 
 
 It is of such that Dr. Max Nordau speaks in his book, 
 " Les Mensonges Conventionnels de notre Civilization." " The 
 dedassGS are the intrepid vanguard of the army besieging the 
 haughty social edifice, who, soon or late, will raze it to the 
 ground." 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 293 
 
 would be removed, and many would be conciliated by 
 feeling that their country cared for them, that the 
 State was a fostering mother instead of an institution 
 organized for the benefit of the rich and high-born. 
 The path of the clever son might thus be smoothed 
 considerably for him ; and if by chance there was a 
 brother with no special taste for knowledge, but 
 otherwise apt and capable, such a one might, with a 
 good primary education supplemented by technical 
 education, take his place in one of the circles of 
 labour with much more than his father's prospects 
 at the lowest with higher wages, with more leisure, 
 with better instincts and aspirations ; a lot perhaps 
 on the whole as enviable as that of his more ambi- 
 tious brother. 
 
 But what cannot be done for the clever one is to 
 make his future position certain : a chance only can be 
 given him which may in future for men like him be a 
 safer and surer one, if, on his side, he has character 
 as well as mental ability ; and what cannot be pro- 
 mised to the second is that he shall have an equal 
 share in the product of labour with the existing 
 master, or even with the manager or industrial chief, 
 if the master should ever disappear. 
 
 And the daughters, can anything be done for 
 them ? Yes, something. The clever girl, as well as the 
 clever lad, will have a chance to raise herself socially, 
 partly by the new opportunities that will be afforded to 
 make a livelihood for herself, if necessary, but chiefly 
 by the corresponding elevation of male ability, in her 
 own grade, which will give her more opportunities to 
 marry advantageously. Still more will the handsome 
 
294 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 one, if she be moderately educated, even though 
 not clever, be able to marry. Hitherto, Beauty in 
 the lower walks of life has been sacrificed ; or, if 
 selected, it has been for questionable honours. As 
 Genius, the Divine child incarnate, instead of being 
 sought for diligently, and when found assisted and 
 preferred to its fitting place, has been neglected 
 and smothered in poverty, so Beauty in the lower 
 classes has been trodden in the rnud, and largely 
 sacrificed to the passions or social necessities of the 
 classes above. Partly from stupidity, partly from 
 selfishness, both of these highest gifts intended by 
 Nature to raise the human and the national type have 
 been hitherto largely sacrificed happily for both we 
 can see fairer prospects in the not far-off future. 
 
 And whence, it may be asked, is to come the 
 means for these prizes, and for all this free educa- 
 tion ? From the rich, I reply, chiefly, and by taxa- 
 tion, if necessary, But happily much, if not more 
 than enough, will come voluntarily, as this fountain 
 of beneficence has been flowing freely for some time 
 past, and may be expected to flow still more liberally in 
 future, when the rich get to learn there is no more cer- 
 tain way of doing good to others, perhaps of making 
 reparation to classes which they by their position have 
 unavoidably injured, or of averting envy from their 
 own class. As in the olden feudal times remorseful 
 and reparative gifts flowed into the Church, in future 
 such will flow in large measure to the School, the 
 College, the Hospital, and the Orphan Asylum, where 
 undoubtedly they will be an equally good invest- 
 ment, with the spiritual security as sure. These dona- 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 295 
 
 tions will be largely the property of the talented 
 poor. The remainder, if any more be needed, can 
 be raised by taxes, imperial or local. Evidently the 
 funds must come chiefly from the wealthier, and 
 justly, the object being to diminish inequality of 
 opportunities, and to raise the best of the poorer 
 classes. A special educational rate, or a portion 
 of an increased tax on inheritances, which for other 
 reasons should be increased in future, would supply 
 any possible deficiency in the voluntary contributions. 
 And why are we to do all this ? some may say, 
 give our money, or suffer it to be taken, to raise new 
 rivals, and to make the poor our equals. And the 
 answer is, partly because it is just, partly because it 
 is prudent to give a part in order to insure the re- 
 maining and larger part, and a good deal because it is 
 necessary. Because the days are come when the 
 people have got some political power, and a new dis- 
 tribution of political power requires a certain corre- 
 sponding distribution of wealth, or of the means to it, 
 amongst which education is the first to the poorer 
 classes. Moreover, if these several suggested changes 
 are to their advantage as who can doubt it and if 
 they are also just, the labouring classes will in time or- 
 ganize to demand them, and perhaps something more. 
 And be not too sure they cannot get them. They 
 ask a share of capital, of land, of education, or to be 
 placed in a position to help themselves to a moderate 
 share, from which they think they are unjustly ex- 
 cluded. This is their reasonable minimum, which 
 granted would secure peace in our generation ; re- 
 fused would throw moderate and reasonable men 
 
29$ SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 into the arms of the extreme and revolutionary 
 party, who will ask much more. And say not, 
 "There is no danger ; things will go on without con- 
 cessions or bribes, which only prompt to further de- 
 mands. The danger is to begin reforms or legisla- 
 tion which touch on property." It may indeed be 
 dangerous, in the sense that you may have to part 
 with something, but it would be more dangerous to 
 delay reforms, or refuse to attempt them. Nor con- 
 sole yourself with the reflection that in the last re- 
 sort the sword is on your side, for principles are more 
 potent than the sword, and they are now opposed to 
 you. Moreover, the sword in the hand of the soldier 
 has before now dropped before them on the day of trial. 
 No doubt for a time a reactionary Government can 
 repress. But it would be difficult to do so long 
 under our new democratic constitution, and the 
 Government that tried it far would be called to 
 account. It may be taken, therefore, that on reflection 
 you will not oppose the needed reforms ; nay, I think 
 it likely that your representatives in Parliament 
 will take a quite contrary course, and that a rivalry 
 between Liberals and Tories may begin as to which 
 can do the most for the classes beneath ; that the 
 Tory will try to befriend the artisan of the towns, 
 while the Liberal and the Radical will champion the 
 cause of the agricultural labourer ; a species of com- 
 petition, no matter what its historical origin, and 
 however it looks like a game of cross purposes, that 
 can only result in the general good. May it prove 
 so. It is the most hopeful thing about our Party 
 Government that each of our two great parties seems 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 297 
 
 anxious to take under its special protection and to 
 work for one of the two great subjected sections of 
 labour. And there is this finally to be said to our too 
 apprehensive middle and upper classes. Honesty and 
 justice in this as in other directions will be found the 
 best policy. The partial reparation asked for will 
 not amount to much during a single generation, while 
 it will set the face of society in the right direction, 
 and make social progress a reality and not a name. 
 You will hardly feel it, and much less if you come to 
 think rightly about it. In time you will feel glad 
 you were called upon to make the sacrifice, which 
 so far as voluntary will be counted to you for 
 righteousness. You will have the satisfaction of 
 having done your duty by your neighbour, which in 
 our times so many know not how to do; of having 
 been on the side of justice in your day and genera- 
 tion ; of having thereby aided in the solution of the 
 greatest, most perplexing, and most formidable of all 
 problems,, and of helping to keep off the chaos threat- 
 ening, which might else have come. And if the 
 case is rightly thus put, it can hardly be doubtful 
 which of the courses you will prefer, 
 
 V. 
 
 WE come to another and a vital side of our subject, 
 perhaps the most important side of all. Of the 
 two chief corner-stones of our present econo- 
 mical and social system, interest and inheritance, 
 interest, as already shown, could not be touched 
 by law without producing confusion, nor abolished 
 without immediate and universal chaos. It is other- 
 
298 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 wise as respects inheritance. Inheritance can be 
 touched by the State both by legislation and by 
 taxation, and it has been already touched with 
 advantage. I believe with Mill, that the right of 
 inheritance could be still farther restricted with 
 much social and moral advantage, and without 
 economical disadvantage, provided that the infringe- 
 ment did not too greatly run in advance of the 
 public sentiment, which is now setting in that 
 direction. 
 
 The reasons for the State restricting the right of 
 inheritance, and reserving a portion for itself, some of 
 them strongly urged by Mill, forty years ago, 5 and of 
 still greater strength to-day, are of the following 
 nature : That part of the wealth left by rich men, 
 though legally it belonged to them during life, was yet 
 not morally theirs, the whole being far more than their 
 services were worth, even rating them highly and 
 rewarding them liberally ; that of the million or half- 
 million, supposing it all to have been "made," as the 
 phrase runs (and not inherited), part was the result 
 of mere luck, part of business genius, or of good 
 business qualities and skilful audacity combined, 
 which last makes the great and successful financier 
 and speculator, though even into honest production 
 and distribution the speculative element increasingly 
 enters, so that chance as well as skill, in consequence, 
 is represented in the pecuniary results. In the case 
 of both producing and distributing capitalists, still 
 more in the case of the financing ones, those who 
 leave large fortunes are the successful survivors of 
 6 Political Economy, Book ii.. Chapter ii. 4. 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 299 
 
 many competitors, most of them failures who move on 
 crippled wings, or who have long since gone to the 
 bottom. In speculation the losses of the failures 
 become the gains of the fortunate, as the expected 
 profits of the employing capitalist who failed are ap- 
 propriated by his rival through extended custom and 
 in other ways. A large part, then, of this pile of wealth 
 was due to luck ; what part was withheld from the 
 workers in some cases, what part was the result of 
 monopoly prices or of skilful cornering, or of other 
 questionable practices which cannot be prevented, 
 but which the moral sense disapproves, we cannot 
 precisely say, though we know that a considerable 
 fraction of the total amount subject to the death 
 duties is due to these several causes, and might very 
 fairly be taken by the State if it could be distin- 
 guished. The only way to do rough justice would 
 seem to be to lay on an additional tax, increasing the 
 rate as the amount of the property left increases. 
 
 By falling on inheritances a tax falls where it can 
 best be borne, hits where it least hurts. The dead man 
 will not feel it : he only felt it prospectively during 
 life ; the heir will not feel it much, considering his 
 great good fortune. The testator was lucky, but he 
 also laboured ; the son is more lucky, inasmuch as 
 he inherits the results of his father's luck without 
 labour. The father's fortune included "unearned 
 increments " not due even to his father's labour ; the 
 son, gets these and much more without any labour, 
 and surely he should not grudge the State a share, 
 especially if taken at the time of his sudden accession 
 to fortune, when he can best spare it. 
 
300 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 The heir cannot here prefer the highest of all titles 
 to property, namely, that it is the direct fruits of his 
 own labour, or of the labour of others that he has 
 bought at an agreed price. He has no moral claim 
 to all his father's wealth, but only the legal claim that 
 it was freely bequeathed to him by its former owner ; 
 but this power of bequest or gift after death the 
 State has always reserved the right of controlling in 
 accordance with its views of general expediency ; so 
 also it has reserved the right of taxing bequests. In 
 ancient times the State or the laws controlled the 
 power mainly in the interest of the family, because 
 the claims of the children were then real as joint 
 labourers and defenders with the father. Land \\ as 
 then the chief wealth, the family group and not the 
 individual was the unit of society, and no outside group 
 could urge a claim to part of the property, while the 
 needs of the State for general purposes were small. 
 Inheritance was then a natural institution, and pains 
 were taken by law-givers like Moses to give it 
 the sanctions of law, and to make it inalienable. Now 
 things arc all different. Great masses of wealth arc 
 frequently aggregated in money-form during a single 
 life in sundry ways. There are opportunities to a 
 man who devotes himself exclusively to money- 
 making not possible formerly, not possible even a 
 hundred years ago, by availing himself of which he 
 may leave wealth to the extent of millions. The 
 contention is that these millions, though legally the 
 maker's, were not all morally his. They were not 
 absolutely and wholly his, still less are they his son's, 
 by any natural or moral right. Besides his skill, his 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 301 
 
 luck, his initiative even, he could not have had them 
 save for the progress of Science and Invention, nor even 
 if Law had not favoured him in various ways by allow- 
 ing him a very free hand in the supposed interests of 
 trade and industry generally a somewhat freer hand 
 than he will have in future. The public has a moral 
 claim to a part ; the public, including his own as- 
 sistants or hands in his work, nay, even the orphan 
 children of a defeated rival in the business, perhaps 
 the needy son or grandson of the inventor of some im- 
 proved " mules/' or of the discoverer of some chemical 
 process, the chief pecuniary results of which have 
 gone to the capitalists. The interests of Science 
 and Invention have a claim. The State, besides, 
 has its own special claim, always allowed, and 
 the State might, when levying the succession duties 
 as its own special claim, collect such an additional 
 percentage as it may deem due to these several 
 other claims. 
 
 That there is a real public claim, though of in- 
 definite amount, cannot reasonably be doubted, and 
 the best confirmation of the contention is the practice, 
 now happily growing on the part of wealthy men, 
 of leaving bequests for public purposes, or even 
 making beneficent donations during life. This 
 practice is no doubt partly due to the feeling that 
 they owe something to the public outside the 
 family group, though it may also be due to other 
 causes. Those who thus anticipate and give of free 
 grace what is due do well, and it should perhaps be 
 allowed to count in abatement of the State's subse- 
 quent claims; those who will not emulate the good 
 
302 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 example should receive admonition from the State in 
 the form of a special and additional tax, to be put 
 upon inheritances and bequests. 
 
 The extra taxes thus raised could of course be used 
 to ease the burden of taxation in other directions; 
 but it would be better if they could be appropriated 
 more specifically for the benefit of those who might 
 presumably have suffered pecuniary injury by the 
 large accumulations, which would be the working 
 classes through short wages, the general public 
 through high prices, or defeated rivals, the incidence of 
 the injury falling differently according to the class of 
 capitalist, whether producing, distributing, mining or 
 financing. Part of the proceeds would be morally clue 
 to the Friendly or Benefit Societies of working men, as 
 Prince Bismarck apparently thinks, though he prefers 
 to levy it during the master's lifetime ; part is due to 
 the Orphan Asylum or the Widow's Assurance 
 Society for the wife and children of defeated com- 
 petitors, but this would come with more grace from 
 the voluntary gift or bequest of the conquering 
 capitalist ; something also is due to the Educational 
 Funds of the nation in the shape of prizes and 
 exhibitions open to all. Part might also be appro- 
 priated, not so much to interests damaged by 
 industrial war or monopoly, as to more general 
 interests, such as science and invention, from which 
 was derived a portion of the fortune in many cases ; 
 and this part would naturally be allocated to the 
 endowment of the Technical School or the College 
 of Science, following in the lines of the excellent 
 example set by the late Sir Josiah Mason, Sir 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 303 
 
 Joseph Whitworth and other benefactors, who thus 
 repaid their special recognized debt to science as 
 well as to their countrymen in general. 
 
 In this way reparation might be made to under- 
 paid hands, to ruined rivals, to the general public, to 
 the unemployed in the special industry. But the 
 objection will without doubt be raised, that the tax 
 would be evaded by gifts during life, or by private 
 arrangements making over the interest in the busi- 
 ness to the children, or by other ingenious devices 
 which the genius of self-interest will suggest to 
 astute men fertile in expedients. I reply that such 
 would only be the case if the portion reserved by the 
 State be excessive ; it would not be so to any great 
 extent if the increases were made by degrees, and were 
 not very considerable at each increase, and if they 
 did not outrun the general public sentiment setting 
 in the direction of restraining overgrown fortunes. 
 Besides, certain evasions should be classed as fraudu- 
 lent, and discouraged by penalties. Then it may be 
 said that the tax would so much discourage saving and 
 effort that soon there would be a small volume to 
 tax, and that finally all, and especially the working 
 classes, would lose more than they would gain. 
 This too only applies to excessive taxation, and even 
 if to a small extent it would be true as regards 
 particular individuals, such slackened effort and dimi- 
 nished savings would give a better chance to rivals, 
 or to companies that would be glad to find a field of 
 enterprise less occupied, though their accumulated 
 profits be liable to deduction. After a certain 
 time as much labour as before would be employed, 
 
304 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 while the profits would be more divided. By degrees 
 undoubtedly, the capitalist being a very clear-sighted 
 person, would accept the situation, which would 
 still leave him and his children in a far better position 
 than would have been possible for him had he lived 
 a hundred or even fifty years ago. 
 
 On the whole, the advantages would greatly out- 
 weigh the possible drawbacks, and this is the only 
 direction in which a part of the policy of the Social- 
 ists also falls in with the past policy of the State, the 
 views and sometimes the practice of enlightened 
 business men, as well as the suggestions of some 
 economists, including John Stuart Mill. We cannot 
 go the impossible length of the St. Simonians and 
 other reconstructors, who would abolish inheritance 
 altogether : this, though not so chaotic in its conse- 
 quences as the abolition of interest, would equally run 
 against human nature in one of its deepest part-, the 
 sentiment of family, and family affection ; so that it 
 would be impossible to carry out the law ; but we 
 can and should limit inheritance. 
 
 Mill has in this connection suggested a plan that 
 would have more extensive consequences, for which 
 the times are hardly ripe. He suggests that the 
 power of bequest should be free, but that the amount 
 that any one heir or legatee should be permitted 
 to take should be limited by law to a moderate 
 competence. In reality, this, while leaving the power 
 of bequest apparently free, would restrict it, because if 
 the testator's intentions were not allowed to be car- 
 ried out, he would not be free to leave as he pleased, 
 and they would not be carried out if he bequeathed 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 305 
 
 the bulk of his property to his children, while 
 the State declared the children could only inherit 
 a certain amount. Let us, however, consider the 
 consequences of the idea. 
 
 A rich parent dies, and leaves four children, 
 together with personalty to the extent of say half a 
 million. The State has declared that none of the 
 children can inherit more than a competence. This we 
 will suppose to be iooo/. a year. 25,ooo/. is all that each 
 will be allowed to take, supposing interest to be four 
 per cent. They cannot all together take more than 
 ioo,ooo/. The State comes in for the remaining and 
 much greater portion, unless the testator has made 
 other bequests. 
 
 What, under such a law, would be the likely course 
 of the parent ? He can leave his wealth as he pleases, 
 to individual or corporation, but he cannot give more 
 to any individual, however dear, than a limited amount. 
 The result, though difficult to follow, will be impor- 
 tant and far-reaching. The ordinary motives to great 
 and long-continued exertion are weakened. The 
 greatest of all motives, namely, to provide for the 
 interests of a family, is not indeed weakened, nor the 
 motive to work for wealth so far as it ministers to 
 his own luxury or ostentation or power during 
 life, but the motive to exertion after enough is made 
 for these purposes is absolutely removed. When he 
 is worth a quarter of a million, he has little motive 
 to work to leave half a million, because the first gives 
 him all he wants ; and certainly after he has made 
 the half-million, he has little inducement to work for 
 another half. The result would probably be a remis- 
 
 X 
 
 
306 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 sion of effort, or early retirement, or greater unpro- 
 ductive consumption in the latter part of his life, unless 
 indeed we suppose a great moral change to have come 
 over his character, which makes him desirous to work 
 as hard as ever for the general good ; unless he is 
 satisfied to give higher wages to his hands, or anxious 
 to give more contributions to public objects. No 
 doubt by fixing high the amount that each one might 
 inherit, or rather, what comes to the same thing, by 
 not lowering the existing unlimited amount too much 
 or too soon, objections to this view of Mill's may be 
 met, and as Mill also recommends increased taxes 
 on inheritances, the practical results of the two views 
 would not be very different. On the one plan, by the 
 State reserving a fraction, say. one-tenth, the testa- 
 tor would be left free to dispose of nine-tenths ; on 
 the other, he could only leave up to a certain sum to any 
 person, but he might leave to that amount to as many 
 persons as he pleases, and presumably to corporations 
 to a still greater amount. The important practical 
 matter would be, in the one case not to fix the 
 State's portion too high, in the other not to put the 
 competence allowed by Mill too low, so that under 
 either scheme we might go on without any consider- 
 able solution of continuity in the sphere of industrv. 
 And here the conclusion comes in view that all 
 speculation in social matters always brings us to, 
 that all proposed changes in legislation, or in 
 practices, presuppose, to make them effective, a 
 moral or psychological change in the individuals. 
 If you could change men's motives, the springs of 
 their action, you could change all the rest. If you 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 307 
 
 could get men to desire to live and labour for others, 
 as the Positivist motto is ; if you could really get them 
 to love their neighbour as themselves, as Chris- 
 tianity commands ; if men were the sort that Mill 
 thinks they will become, these laws would be effica- 
 cious, for they would only anticipate the desires of 
 men. Even then they would be useless, as men 
 would do the thing proposed without the law. The 
 law at present should not be far ahead of the best men's 
 practice, or moral feeling at least ; it should not be 
 ahead even of the feeling of a considerable minority, 
 for the majority, if they cannot get the law altered, 
 will then try to evade or stultify it. But when the 
 sentiment and the practice turn the way the re- 
 former desires, the law may be passed. And contem- 
 poraneously the preaching of the moralist is re- 
 quired. He may urge with effect, as Mill does, that 
 the son's happiness would be better consulted by a 
 moderate competence than a large fortune, of no 
 use save to give dangerous power or to command 
 to satiety heaps of intrinsically worthless things, 
 which receive their value from a mere perverted 
 taste and opinion. Of course there is at present not 
 much use in preaching this doctrine to the generality. 
 But a great change has come over many, and the value 
 of immaterial and comparatively uncostly things is 
 beginning to be discovered, especially by the son of 
 the capitalist. Culture, art, science, literature have 
 begun to appeal to feelings in his breast ; above all, 
 he who will be the future industrial chief has been 
 meditating about the social and moral sides of the 
 great economical questions, and he is disposed to 
 
 X 2 
 
308 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 take a different view from his father or grand- 
 father. The mind and the moral sentiments of his age 
 and country have embraced him, are pressing on him. 
 He cannot escape them, happily does not wish to do so. 
 And from this young man, when he comes to fill his 
 father's seat, considerable things may be expected. I 
 think he will be called on to take a large part in the 
 solution of this labour question. I expect he will 
 rise to a higher conception of his function, and that 
 he may make it for the first time, though for less pecu- 
 niary reward, a really great one, by accepting its 
 moral as well as its other responsibilities. And it 
 may be noted that Mill is ready to allow to him 
 much more than a competence, thougli he also looked 
 a little prematurely as I think for his early dis- 
 appearance, or his transmutation into the salaried 
 
 VI. 
 
 Bur what of our friends who used to meet in 
 Trafalgar Square under the black flag the genuine 
 unemployed, as distinct from the loafer, the mendicant, 
 and the thief the men who have worked, who are 
 able and willing to work, but who can find no work ? 
 Strange to say, this obscure man out of work con- 
 stitutes the crux of our civilization, and the future 
 of society may depend on how it disposes of him, 
 how it deals with him. His cause is in our time 
 the cause of humanity, the social problem turns 
 round him, and we must hush all fine talk 
 about progress, love and life for others, freedom, 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 309 
 
 justice, even religion, so long as he is in our midst, 
 and his life is miserable and insecure. We must 
 suspend a little our activities for the heathen, and 
 our anxiety to save his soul, our compassion for the 
 far-off slave, all benevolent and philanthropic effort 
 and talk, till we steadily face his case to see if any- 
 thing can be done to better it, whether by the State 
 or any agency outside himself. There are indeed 
 those who believe that nothing can be done for him 
 by the State whether by legislation or remedial 
 measures without producing worse results for the 
 labouring class ; that the fate of the unemployed, in 
 common with that of all labourers, is in their own 
 hands, being bound up with the Malthusian law of 
 population, and that by a due restraint on the numbers 
 of his class, and by no other means, can work be 
 assured and wages raised ; low wages and want of 
 employment coming' from excessive numbers com- 
 pared with the demand for their labour. On the 
 other hand there are remedies confidently offered for 
 his case, irrespective of the law of population ; and 
 as usual we shall have to search for what is true, as 
 well as for what is practicable and necessary between 
 two opposite views. 
 
 The case of the unemployed is a very old one, if 
 it be also a hard one. Two thousand years ago in 
 Juda?a he was found standing "idle all day in the 
 market place," and why ? "because no man had hired 
 him/' as we read in the Gospels. Under every 
 society organized on the principle of individualism 
 and private property, he necessarily appears, after 
 the land has been fully appropriated. Under a 
 
310 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 slavery regime he does not appear; under the 
 feudal system he did not show ; it was only on 
 its break-up and after the emancipation of the 
 villeins and serfs that the unemployed proletariate 
 made his " first tragic appearance on the stage ol 
 mediaeval society." We find him in England from 
 the reign of Richard II. onwards, the emancipated 
 but landless villein ; throughout the century of the 
 Tudors the "true men " out of work, as well as the 
 " valiant beggars " and " sturdy vagabonds " who 
 would not work, were constantly increased in num- 
 bers, first by the dismissal of the warlike baron's 
 retainers at the end of the Wars of the Roses, then by 
 the displacements of the tenants through the cruel 
 conversion of the arable land into pasture in the reigns 
 of Henry VII., Henry VIII., and Edward VI., as well 
 as by the suppression of the monasteries, which 
 withdrew a provision for the most destitute. 
 
 The poor were always in existence, the lack-lands 
 and lack-alls; but the unemployed worker in the 
 large towns, the " reserve army of labour " (as Marx 
 calls it), now at work, now anxiously looking for 
 work, or doing nothing, is a comparatively modern 
 as well as a portentous phenomenon. This is the 
 true proletariate the modern workers who cannot 
 find constant or assured work, and who are badly 
 paid when at work. And if we would know the 
 remedies, if any, for his case, we should clearly know 
 what brings him here, what were the causes that 
 increased his numbers through this century ; for to 
 know the causes of social as of bodily diseases is half 
 the cure, supposing the case admits of cure. 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 311 
 
 The explanation of his presence in our times and 
 in recent times is briefly this : Having no capital 
 of his own, he must hire his services to an employer, 
 and the employer sometimes wants his services, 
 sometimes not. When trade is good, when business 
 is brisk and buoyant, employers want him, want all 
 possible hands for their work, and would be glad to 
 have additional ones if they could be extemporized 
 quickly. Then is their harvest, the ready realization 
 of which requires more men and perhaps women, 
 requires at least more human labour, which may be 
 got either by working the same numbers extra time, 
 or by employing additional hands, sometimes by both 
 means, if the period of hope is unusually prosperous 
 and prolonged. While the good time lasts, all hands 
 are employed in that special province of industry, 
 whether cotton, woollen, linen, iron, coal, shipbuild- 
 ing, or any other. Further, there is a general 
 tendency for a gale of prosperity to spread, and to 
 buoy up more than one, sometimes nearly all in- 
 dustries. This is the hopeful period. Masters are 
 very sanguine ; at all events they are daring ; the more 
 they can produce and sell, the greater their profits ; 
 if the gale of prosperity would last a few years, the 
 more fortunate may make fortunes. All are stimu- 
 lated, all strain their energies, they produce enough, 
 too much ; the foreign markets whence their orders 
 generally come are glutted. They can sell no 
 more ; their foreign correspondent writes de- 
 spondingly. There is no use now in producing more ; 
 it will be unsaleable save at great sacrifice, and it 
 was made to be sold. Then comes the check, and the 
 
312 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 dismissal of hands. To produce more would be of no 
 use, while by the dismissal of hands, or work at half- 
 time, much weekly wages at least are saved. And 
 just as when the trade was prosperous its pros- 
 perity communicated an impulse to other connected 
 industries, as well as received one from others pros- 
 pering, so now when the tide .turns the others like- 
 wise feel the retiring ebb of prosperity. 
 
 The modern industrial cycle, consisting of the three 
 stages, average business, prosperity, and depression, 
 and latterly contracting into the two alternate stages 
 or waves of prosperity and depression, explains in 
 part the presence of the unemployed in extra num- 
 bers at particular times, as well as in considerable 
 numbers at all times because there are nearly always 
 some industries depressed even in the best of times 
 from special causes, and these again are connected 
 with their special circle of industries, which suffer 
 with them. Thus, then, from this cause there arc 
 always some, and sometimes a great many simul- 
 taneously out of work. 
 
 There are other causes for the permanent unem- 
 ployed. Agriculture has long been depressed in Eng- 
 land, and this cause has sent a permanent stream from 
 the rural regions into the great industrial centres ; a 
 fact which constitutes an exception to the general rule 
 that the unemployed are only temporarily so, and 
 will be again required in their respective sph< 
 For the agricultural labourer who has gone to the 
 towns will not be required again in the country un- 
 less English farming again becomes prosperous, or 
 unless some change is made in our agrarian system to 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 313 
 
 call the labourers back to the land. This permanent 
 stream produces a rising flood of unemployed, es- 
 pecially in London, unless they can be absorbed in 
 great numbers, and no doubt the constant expansion of 
 London from other causes allows of and creates work 
 for some of them, but not for all. 6 Then we have the 
 poor foreign tradesman who comes to compete with 
 our tailors and needlewomen, and who either adds to 
 the unemployed himself, or worse still, supplants the 
 English worker by accepting lower wages. We 
 have also the Irishman who leaves the poorer 
 country to try his fortune in the richer, but as he is 
 frequently an unskilled worker, he only gets the 
 rudest work and hardest, sometimes none. His pre- 
 sence, however, increases the unemployed, using the 
 word in a wider sense, to include all kinds of labourers, 
 even the most casual when doing no work. 
 
 There is also a rather constant layer added by 
 the permanently displaced English worker the 
 worker who is displaced, not by the cheap foreign 
 labourer, but by labour-saving machinery. The new 
 invention which makes the fortune for the owner is 
 constantly scattering the workers. There is no 
 doubt some compensation for this to the collectivity 
 in the cheaper machine-made products, and even to 
 the working class in an ultimate extension of the 
 
 * The agricultural labourer who comes to London frequently 
 establishes himself at the expense of the Londoner \vith inferior 
 physical stamina ; so that it is the latter rather than the former 
 who adds to the unemployed, and, no doubt, the like is true as 
 regards other great cities. See Booth's " Life and Labour of 
 the People " (of East London). 
 
314 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 field of employment, but it is a fact that great and 
 ever-improving machinery, and machinery which is 
 constantly doin^ work before only done by men or 
 women, allows of a less number in that particular 
 instance, unless it is the means of enlarging the busi- 
 ness by enlarging the demand, so that the displaced 
 may be again required. The latter may indeed happen, 
 but it requires time during which the displaced, 
 who are more or less skilled labourers, swell the ranks 
 of the unemployed. There may not be so many re- 
 quired as before, or their special skill may be rendered 
 useless in the particular industry by the machinery, 
 and will be still more useless elsewhere, in which case 
 they are extremely likely to be permanently unem- 
 ployed, but possessing a special claim, as Mill says, 
 on the legislator's care, " their interest having been 
 sacrificed to the gains of their fellow-citizens and of 
 posterity." 
 
 There is also a cruel tendency in certain businesses 
 to dismiss men when their energy begins to flag ; 
 or, to make sure, even earlier, by pressing the young 
 in earlier : and from all these causes together tin re- 
 is always a large army of unemployed in London, 
 while at the present time 7 there is rather more than 
 the usual number for some years back, even though 
 the general depression is less acute than it has been, 
 and there are signs in some quarters that we have 
 passed the worst. 
 
 But are these depressions less unavoidable? It 
 would appear so ; because our great industries produce 
 
 7 The above was written in 1888 near the end of the last 
 depression of trade. 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 315 
 
 for a world-wide market ; while the entrepreneurs are 
 largely in the dark as to the causes that may affect the 
 demand for their goods. They cannot tell when a 
 demand may cease, or lessen, or increase ; they pro- 
 duce normally on chance at a certain rate, until the 
 demand increases or diminishes. When it increases, 
 when trade is good, competition urges all to produce 
 to the utmost, which soon becomes too much. Pro- 
 ducers cannot tell when Russia or Germany may 
 lay on a tariff, or increase one already laid on ; they 
 cannot tell when the United States will lessen one. 
 Besides, trading countries are connected in good or 
 bad fortune ; foreign countries may be prosperous 
 or the reverse ; when their trade is prosperous, they 
 have the means of purchasing our goods ; in the 
 reverse case they have not, and their orders fall off : 
 from all which it follows that manufacturers cannot 
 know the exact amount to produce in advance. They 
 await the impulse from the outside ; when the chance 
 comes, they produce as much as possible, and by 
 competition it soon becomes excessive. If the 
 foreign as well as the home demand held steady, 
 they could always keep on their hands ; if it 
 was steadily increasing, they could constantly 
 add to them ; if it even decreased according 
 to any rule that could be forecast, the numbers 
 thrown off might eventually be otherwise absorbed. 
 But the matter is largely chance, and all that can be 
 foreseen in the case of our great staple trades is that 
 all the hands will be sometimes wanted and some- 
 times not. The manufacturers, however, think it 
 well to have them when wanted, and nobody would 
 
316 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 less like than they that their hands should emigrate 
 in large numbers. If they did so, it would mean the 
 employer's ruin when the days of prosperity came 
 round, for the labourers cannot be dispensed with, 
 and substitutes, speaking generally, cannot be quickly 
 got. The system, in fact, of partial employment is, 
 on the whole, an excellent one for employers ; it 
 saves wages when the hands are not needed, it 
 enables a certain pressure to be brought to bear on 
 the better operatives regularly employed, and it pre- 
 vents the workers in general from asking too high 
 wages, or asking them for too long a time. 
 
 And one conclusion seems to follow from the fact 
 that the labour of most of the unemployed is socially 
 necessary, and necessary to the employers ; namely 
 that for the very reason that they are sometimes un- 
 employed, they should get higher wages when they 
 are employed, on Adam Smith's principle that the 
 mason's wages are high because he is necessarily a 
 considerable time doing no work. From the point 
 of view of justice and social utility they should be 
 better paid when they are at work, but unless they 
 can make their claim effective by standing out, 
 they will have to take such terms as their masters 
 offer. 
 
 Employers, no doubt, cannot be expected to em- 
 ploy people permanently at a loss. But perhaps 
 they are rather too much given to dismissing them. 
 If employers were more considerate, were a little 
 less under economical and more under ethical motives, 
 the outside circle of the unemployed would be less, 
 and the individuals would be in it for a shorter time. 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 317 
 
 And it makes all the difference to the worker whe- 
 ther he is out of work ten weeks or twenty ; it may 
 be a matter of life and death, of pauperization, humi- 
 liation, and loss of self-respect ; to the employer 
 it is a matter of making a certain range of profits 
 supposed to be necessary. Why should he not keep 
 them on until the line of interest is touched ? Those 
 most prosperous and firmest on their feet could 
 afford to do so, and no doubt some of them do act on 
 considerations other than economical without suffer- 
 ing much economical loss. It is even said that com- 
 panies have been known to carry on work with- 
 out dismissing their hands while dividends were at 
 zero, the manager and the workers sharing the whole 
 proceeds, and the shareholders receiving no interest. 
 This, no doubt, is a degree of self-sacrifice that could 
 not be expected to last long with the average share- 
 holder ; nevertheless the fact suggests an interesting 
 question for the workers' meditation, namely, whe- 
 ther they might not after all get better terms from a 
 company than from the private capitalist, who is 
 more intolerant of reduced profits, and less able to 
 bear them than a company where the loss is spread 
 over a number,, while the manager's salary is assured. 
 The company is indeed popularly supposed to be 
 deaf to all considerations other than dividends. This is 
 doubtful in the case of some producing companies, but 
 as between them and the individual capitalist it is not 
 doubtful that the egoistic and strictly economical 
 motives are stronger and more concentrated in one 
 than in many. It is indeed, according to orthodox 
 economics, because his egoism is so alive and his eye 
 
3l8 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 so keen in all directions, that the profits of the private 
 capitalist are so large as they are. 
 
 " But you ask something too much of us," may 
 urge the capitalist, " first to share our profits with our 
 employes, then to incur losses or considerably lowered 
 profits for their sake. The latter up to a certain 
 point we can do, provided we are allowed to reap all 
 the profits when better times come. But we cannot 
 do both, divide our profits and suffer the losses ; and 
 we cannot keep permanently employing people in 
 producing goods which don't sell, when perhaps the 
 additional produce is worth nothing, perhaps less than 
 nothing, because it helps to lower the price of the 
 stock already produced. Our production depends on 
 orders from without ; if we keep on producing in slack 
 times: irrespective of the demand, we should have 
 our capital invested in the risky form of unsaleable 
 goods, and we could not then go on producing more 
 till our stock was taken off. We would not have the 
 means. We should thus have finally to pull up, and dis- 
 miss them, and we ourselves might be ruined by having 
 our capital in a form that might have become enor- 
 mously depreciated in value. So you see there is a limit 
 to our power of keeping our hands at work, if we arc 
 to make ordinary profits and keep out of the Bank- 
 ruptcy Court. We should prefer to employ them 
 always, and to be always working full time, if we were 
 not to lose by it. When our machinery is not fully em- 
 ployed, we lose interest on our capital, and we have 
 certain constant expenses ; during this bad time, if we 
 kept on our hands, we should lose their wages like- 
 wise. Their work the produce of it during that time 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 319 
 
 would not be worth their wages ; it might be worth 
 nothing at all. We only dismiss them when we should 
 be considerable losers by keeping them, but we 
 shall be glad to have them back when our accumu- 
 lated goods move off, and the good times come round 
 again/' 
 
 Now there is truth in this, so far at least that even 
 the best-disposed employers must dismiss in stag- 
 nant times a portion of their hands, from which it 
 results that there will always, under the present 
 system, be unemployed more or less numerous from 
 this cause as well as from some of the others before 
 enumerated. 
 
 Such being the state of the case, the question 
 what is to be done with the unemployed becomes a 
 question as difficult as pressing. The workhouse is 
 open to them, as the police magistrate tells them ; 
 but the genuine unemployed operative or mechanic 
 rightly feels the strongest repugnance to the work- 
 house, with its degrading associations. What the 
 temporary unemployed want is either employment 
 by others, or the means of working at some kind of 
 work on their own account, some second resource for 
 their slack time or a reserve fund to fall back on. 8 
 
 8 If the average time out of work in a trade could be fore- 
 seen or gathered from statistics of past years, this reserve fund 
 should come from wages which should rise in the same pro- 
 portion as the time of employment was reduced. Thus, if the 
 unemployed time averaged ten weeks, the wages for forty-two 
 weeks must serve for fifty-two, and should rise accordingly, 
 though seme small deduction might be made to be set 
 against the fact of leisure and the individual chances of casual 
 work, 
 
320 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 They cannot work at their own calling or craft, for 
 one reason, because they have no capital ; they must, 
 then, either be set to work by the Government 01 
 by local authorities. But neither of these can cm- 
 ploy them at their own craft, because, amongst other 
 reasons, they would then be in competition with 
 other labourers in their own industry and would 
 injure them (a point to be more fully considered pre- 
 sently). They can only be set to some kind of useful 
 public work requiring only rude labour of a general 
 kind ; with of course economic loss, and waste of 
 skilled labour. 
 
 In parts of France the artisan has often a plot of land, 
 perhaps an acre or two, and that solves the problem ; 
 the like is true in parts of Switzerland. They work 
 on the land when not otherwise employed. Perhaps 
 something in the same direction might be done for 
 our artisans to the benefit of their health, as well as 
 the increase of their resources. It would also some- 
 what ease the public conscience, as well as be a guaran- 
 tee of public tranquillity, and most certainly some- 
 thing of this kind should be tried. It will, however 
 require the landlord and the municipality to address 
 themselves to the problem in the right frame of mind. 
 Perhaps it will require the reformed local govern- 
 ment so long promised before anything considerable 
 can be done. 9 
 
 9 Written before the Local Government of 1888 was passed, 
 \vhich does give certain powers of the kind required to the 
 County Councils. 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 321 
 
 VII. 
 
 BUT can society not assure to the labourer work ; re- 
 cognize the right to labour as an inherent right of 
 the working man ? It seems at first sight a reason- 
 able demand that the worker should be assured of 
 work, especially as the State has already guaranteed 
 to him the necessaries of life if he is out of work and 
 in want. 
 
 It seems at first sight a small thing ; but in reality 
 the right to labour recognized would be a very great 
 thing, involving wide-reaching and momentous con- 
 sequences. The following is the first, according to 
 most economists, including J. S. Mill : If work, with 
 wages, were assured to all who asked for them, not 
 merely to-day but in future, there would be such a 
 premium put on population, there would come such 
 an ever-increasing throng of claimants, that profitable 
 work could not after a time be found for all : the re- 
 sults of their work would not be worth their wages in 
 the case of an increasing number of labourers, and as 
 the right to work would involve the right to at least 
 necessaries so long as society possessed reserved 
 means, the increasing deficiency in the results of 
 inferior labour would have to be made up by in 
 creasing taxation of the wealthier members, until at last 
 the whole annual income of the country would barely 
 afford subsistence to the population. The tax for 
 the support of the poor would engross the whole 
 net produce of the country, the payers and receivers 
 having at last reached equality in a universal poverty. 
 At that point, according to Mill, the check on popu- 
 
 Y 
 
322 SOCIALISM NRW AND OJ .!>. 
 
 lation could no longer be postponed ; it would have 
 to be applied, or the increased numbers would die of 
 starvation ; it would have to be applied suddenly, 
 civilization, culture, and everything that places man- 
 kind above a nest of ants or a colony of beavers 
 having been sacrificed in the interval, for the sorry 
 result of a large population whose sole care is to have 
 sufficient food. 
 
 If the morrow were perfectly assured, if work were 
 certain or, work failing, if subsistence were assured 
 on conditions not somewhat disagreeable, there 
 would be no restraint, Mill contends, on population. 
 At present there is a natural restraint from the 
 difficulty of finding employment, and the moderate 
 wages paid to those employed. Life must not be 
 too pleasant nor too sure, or else increased throngs 
 would soon come to share the banquet, which would 
 soon become a sorry one for all at the board. Such 
 is the view of Mill and most English political econo- 
 mists, There are thoss who deny that certainty of 
 work would cause labourers to marry earlier and to 
 have larger families, who say that the more the 
 morrow is assured and the better their condition 
 grows, the less children are the result ; that poverty 
 makes the poor reckless and at the same time pro- 
 lific, that if their condition were first raised and 
 assured, the danger from over-population would 
 cease. This is M. de Laveleye's opinion, whose con- 
 tention is that " misery and ignorance" arc the 
 causes of too many children, while diffused educa- 
 tion and moderate comfort make men provk 
 It is not perfectly certain, then, that if subsistence 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 323 
 
 were certain, or it work were assured to all who 
 claimed it, the population would increase to the 
 alarming extent dreaded by Mill, because if food 
 were as certain as air, and as easily obtained, 
 labourers might come to think that still life was not 
 so fine a thing as to justify their calling in ever in- 
 creased numbers. If food were assured, other things 
 that were not assured would perhaps grow desirable, 
 and be regarded as necessaries ; in other words, 
 their standard of comfort or of what was necessary 
 for a life worth living might rise. This is no doubt 
 sustainable ; but probably full assurance of the 
 future in the existing lowest grades of labour would 
 be a source of danger, because the evil consequences 
 of over-population would be distant, and the brunt 
 of the danger would be borne by the rich when it did 
 come. The evils would fall on the rich, who could 
 and, in the opinion of the poorer classes, should 
 bear them ; the pleasure and gratification would be 
 their own. 
 
 It must, however, be observed that if the fear of a 
 superabundant population were the sole objection to 
 the allowance of the right to labour, it can hardly be 
 doubted that means could be devised to restrain 
 population, if the disagreeable necessity were forced on 
 society. But there are other objections to the right 
 to labour besides the possible swamping of society's 
 ship through sheer numbers. The right being re- 
 cognized> the State or the municipalities or the 
 county authorities would have to provide work, as 
 well as recognize the right to work, in case private 
 enterprise failed to provide it ; that is to say, the 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 State would have to start at once on the lines of 
 advanced Socialism, and this it is by no means 
 ready to do. The statesman at present says to the 
 labourer out of work, "The State cannot under- 
 take to find work for you; if it did find really 
 paying work for you, such as you have been doing, it 
 would be at the expense of your comrades now em- 
 ployed ; and if it were not paying work, if the results 
 would not support you, the taxpayers would have to 
 make it up, and the more of you that came, the more 
 they would have to contribute. The reason you are 
 now out of work is because your work was not 
 sufficiently profitable to your late employer; the 
 reason this work which you ask the State to undertake 
 was not undertaken is because it would not pay 
 current profits, at least in most cases. Why, then, 
 should the Government undertake it ? And if it 
 did, you are not exactly the class of workers that 
 it would prefer to employ. Possibly with select 
 workers and good superintendents it might make 
 the work commercially paying, but hardly with 
 you, if it may be said without offence. But there 
 is a stronger reason against its undertaking such 
 work. The State, the Government, does not con- 
 sider it amongst its functions or duties to find work 
 for all citizens, and then to set them at it ; it is not 
 at present constituted for such a purpose, and, to say 
 the truth, is not well suited for it Neither, for that 
 matter, is the local authority. It cannot, then, do 
 what you want, start the work you recommend, 
 without working at a loss to be borne by other 
 citizens, while even if working successfully aod on 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 325 
 
 business principles, it would come in competition with 
 the same kind of work under private enterprise, in 
 which case it would to the extent it succeeded create 
 as many fresh unemployed as it had set to work. 
 
 "The Government cannot, then, guarantee you 
 work ; but it accepts the responsibility of trying to 
 make the total field of industry as wide as possible 
 for you ; of giving to all citizens in future more and 
 fairer chances of helping themselves, by educational 
 facilities and in other ways. The State can reform 
 unwise laws or unjust laws that may have injured 
 the labouring classes. It will interfere to protect 
 your life, your property, your health. It can re- 
 adjust the burden of taxation, perhaps, a little more 
 equitably, and in your favour. In these and other 
 ways within the understood limits, the State can help 
 to place labourers in a better and a fairer position, 
 after which their fate must be left to themselves, our 
 Government not being a paternal one, and its policy 
 having had for aim the making of self-reliant, pru- 
 dent, and persevering men rather than grown children ; 
 though even if the State could make all its citizens 
 comfortable, provide for all their wants, and remove all 
 risk and danger, such a consummation would be dearly 
 purchased by the sapping of the high virtues of self- 
 dependence and forethought : which would be the 
 only sure result of the otherwise futile and impossible 
 aim. 
 
 " As for the existing unemployed, whose case we 
 sincerely deplore, the State or the municipalities 
 will do what is possible within the limits laid down 
 to mitigate temporary hardships. Relief work of a 
 
326 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 useful nature, in which there is no danger of com- 
 peting with private enterprise, will be undertaken in 
 supplement to private benevolence. More the State 
 cannot promise without changing its functions, with- 
 out entering on new paths fraught with risk to 
 national interests, and especially the material and 
 moral interests of the working classes themselves." 
 
327 
 
 CHAPTER X, 
 
 ON SOME SPECIFIC REMEDIES FOR LOW WAGES 
 AND UNEMPLOYED LABOUR. 
 
 I. 
 
 BUT besides labourers temporarily unemployed from 
 depressed trade or other causes, whose case we have 
 just considered, there are labourers regularly employed 
 at long hours, and others again regularly but intermit- 
 tently employed at wages not rising above Ricardo's 
 minimum, corresponding to a low standard of comfort, 
 and sometimes, though not in relatively many cases, 
 falling below it ; while, worse yet, there is a mass of 
 casual labourers, including many degraded ones, 
 whether from bad character or chance, who are in re- 
 ceipt of still less wages for such services as they render. 
 We are here concerned with the first class, the 
 case of common, unskilled or but slightly skilled 
 labourers at low wages or bare subsistence wages, and 
 the question arises whether the State could do any- 
 thing to raise the wages, or whether the labourers 
 themselves by Trades Unionism, or any other 
 agency, might hope to do so ; in short whether there 
 is any, and, if so, what cure for low wages, short of 
 Socialism, which would make all wages depend on 
 hours of average work. 
 
328 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 The State could indeed fix a minimum wage, as at 
 present recommended by some Socialists as a pro- 
 visional measure ; it could compel an employer to 
 pay all labourers that he actually employed not less 
 than a certain wage, 1 but it could not compel him to 
 employ more at that wage than he thought would be 
 profitable for himself. The result (apart from possible 
 collusions to evade the law) would be that he would, 
 in general, employ fewer labourers, and in certain 
 cases, where profits would be greatly reduced, none 
 at all after a time. The State would thus have done 
 injury to the labourers that its action had driven 
 out of employment, unless it followed up its benevo- 
 lent intentions either by itself employing such, by 
 supporting them without employment, or by supply- 
 ing them with the means of emigration, in case they 
 were inclined to emigrate. Of these three courses, 
 the two last would hardly be recommended, or the 
 last only in certain cases ; and the consequences of 
 the former we have already considered. The Socialists 
 are indeed consequent in urging it, because it would 
 be an important step in the direction of Socialism, 
 and one which would necessitate further steps. 
 
 But could not labourers at low wages, by forming 
 Trades Unions, and by refusing to sell their labour 
 for less than a certain amount, themselves effectually 
 fix a minimum wage ? They certainly could in most 
 cases form Trades Unions, and they could compel 
 the employer to pay such higher wage if he employed 
 
 1 Though it would be difficult to prevent evasions of the law 
 in those cases where labourers would prefer lower wages than the 
 legal minimum to none. 
 
ON SOME REMEDIES FOR LOW WAGES, ETC. 329 
 
 any of them ; but such unions would be extremely 
 unlikely to embrace all the labourers, many of whom 
 would merely have shut themselves out of the parti- 
 cular employment, and, if such Trades Unions were 
 universal over the country, out of any similar employ- 
 ment elsewhere, by insisting on the higher wages. 
 Higher wages they might, and in most cases probably 
 could secure for the better labourers, supposing a 
 certain quantity of the labour indispensable. They 
 could not secure it for all without lowering employers' 
 profits, unless in those cases where the demand was 
 constant, and where consequently the price of the 
 commodity produced (or the service done) by the 
 labourer could be raised on the consumer or final 
 purchaser, which, speaking generally, it could not. 
 Some of the labourers would therefore be thrown out 
 of employment, and if such Trades Unions, embracing 
 all unskilled labourers, were universal, and all tried to 
 raise wages, a certain proportion of them, increasing 
 with the amount of increase demanded, would be 
 thrown out of work everywhere. One-half or two- 
 thirds of them might secure a rise of wages, the re- 
 mainder being dispensed with. The latter would be 
 thrown on some form of public charity, and the ulti- 
 mate result would probably be that they would be glad 
 to take the low wage rather than alms or out-door 
 relief. There are, indeed, some who say that it would 
 be better for the labourers in such cases, and in all 
 cases where wages fall below the minimum, to stand out 
 for at least enough wages to live upon ; perhaps they 
 should do so : the result would then be that all who 
 were employed at all would have sufficient wages, and 
 
330 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 all the rest would be out of employment, living 
 on alms or on the poor-rates, and the thinking public 
 and the labourers themselves might then be led to 
 inquire into the causes of the previous low wages, and 
 thereafter to find the possible remedies. 
 
 It is not in general because employers are getting 
 excessive profits that wages are low, because unless 
 where there is monopoly or combination, or where 
 the profits are known only to the employer, competi- 
 tion reduces the profits to the ordinary level. Hi^h 
 profits cannot be the cause of low wages in most cases, 
 though they may be in a considerable proportion of 
 cases, and here Trades Unions might help to lower 
 them. What then is the cause of low wages where 
 they do exist, or on what do the wages depend ? The 
 wages of common labour, as the wages of skilled 
 labour, depend on a variety of considerations, the 
 chief of which is, no doubt, the demand, the amount 
 of need of the general public for their services in 
 comparison with the number of the labourers. It is 
 not the absolute number of the labourers, but the 
 ratio, the proportion between the numbers and the 
 need for them, and this need or demand is partly a fixed 
 amount, as in the case where the labour is related to 
 necessary commodities or services, partly it is variable. 
 In Australia and America the wages of common labour 
 are high, in Ireland low, in some parts of England 
 higher than others, on account of this proportion 
 varying in favour of the labourer or against him. 
 The wages also depend on the comparative amount 
 of capital in a country, both fixed and circulating, 
 and on the proportion between these two parts ; on 
 
ON SOME REMEDIES FOR LOW WAGES, ETC. 331 
 
 the proportion ol capital retained at home as com- 
 pared with the amount that is invested abroad ; the 
 amount of capital depending on the saving habits and 
 security in the country. Wages depend, too, on 
 whether employers can find profitable fields of enter- 
 prise, and on the nature, of such ; whether they supply 
 necessaries or an old and general want more cheaply, 
 or merely minister to a luxurious want or a wholly 
 new want, in the former case profiting labourers, in 
 the latter not ; and all this depends on the consumers. 
 The wages of common labour depend to a consider- 
 able extent on the kind of expenditure of rich or well- 
 to-do people, as well as on the amount of it, and on 
 the proportion between saving and expenditure. They 
 depend on the relative number of the class of labourers, 
 which depends partly on their habits with respect to 
 marriage ; on whether they had chances when young 
 of learning any art or craft that would have enabled 
 them to rise out of the class, and thereby lessen its 
 numbers ; on the degree of their attachment to their 
 place of birth or country, that is, on their willing- 
 ness or the contrary to emigrate and thereby lessen 
 the numbers; again, on whether the numbers have 
 been increased without their will or consent by foreign 
 immigrants, or by degraded labourers of their own 
 countrymen dropping down into their class, or by a 
 layer of temporarily unemployed labourers being added 
 to it ; again, on the number of deserters and social 
 malingerers who pass out of their ranks into a lower 
 deep because work is disagreeable. All these things 
 have to do with the amount of wages of common 
 labourers ; but above all it depends, capital being 
 
332 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 assumed to be in existence, on the demand and the 
 extensibility of the demand for the products or services 
 in which such common labour issues or objectifies 
 itself, which itself is bound up largely with the general 
 wealth, more especially with demand at home and 
 abroad for those manufactures, in which we have the 
 greatest advantage, the extension of which increases 
 not merely the amount of skilled labour directly re- 
 quired, but the amount of common labour indirectly 
 required. If this widens, there will be greater de- 
 mand for common labour and increased wages for 
 preferred hands, and probably for all : if it contracts, 
 there will be less wages even for the fewer employed. 
 Wages in such cases might sink even below the 
 Ricardian minimum : the labour might really !>- 
 worth no more to the employer, however much it 
 might have cost in efforts to the labourer. 
 
 If. 
 
 IN dealing with the problem of wages, the "classi- 
 cal " economists usually commenced by the assump- 
 tion of a general or average rate of wages, and they 
 laid down that this general rate depended on the 
 ratio between the supply of labour and the demand for 
 it ; more briefly, on the proportion between capital 
 and population ; more precisely, as put by Mill, on 
 the proportion between the wages-fund or " the funds 
 of all sorts destined for the payment of labour/' and 
 the entire labouring population, whether productively 
 or unproductively employed. 
 
 To this method it was objected that the general 
 rate of wages has no real existence ; that there is no 
 
ON SOME REMEDIES FOR LOW WAGES, ETC. 333 
 
 general rate in a country, but only in a particular em- 
 ployment within a limited locality, however the latter 
 may tend to widen with greater mobility of labour ; 
 and, secondly, it was objected that Mill's mode of 
 the average or general rate, by dividing 
 by the number of the labourers, must be 
 unfruitful so long as the fund itself was indeterminate 
 in amount. The theory was finally abandoned by 
 Mill after the attacks of Thornton, but it still 
 remains in his work on Political Economy as the 
 basis of all his reasonings and conclusions respecting 
 wages, profits, and rents, together with their tendency 
 in the future. According to him, the cause of low 
 wages was excessive numbers, and the only temporary 
 cure was depletion of numbers by emigration, the 
 only permanent cure was a due restraint on population 
 for the future, which could not be counted upon un- 
 less poverty could be extinguished (chiefly by emigra- 
 tion) for one whole generation, during which time the 
 rising generation might become habituated to a higher 
 standard of comfort. There was no other cure for 
 low wages, he argued ; and he certainly gives strong 
 reasons to show that the currently proposed remedies 
 of his time, such as supplements in aid of low wages, 
 a minimum wage fixed by law, even allotments, if 
 under a certain size, were delusive. 
 
 So wrote Mill in 1848, and though in 1869 he gave 
 up the wages- fund theory, he never gave up his views 
 on population. Nevertheless, population has greatly 
 increased since 1848, especially in Great Britain, while 
 the wages of all grades, including the lowest, have in- 
 creased ; moreover, pauperism has diminished. What, 
 
334 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 then, is the explanation of this result, so different from 
 Mill's prophecy, and with no room allowed for it in his 
 theory which seemingly shut out the possibility of it ? 
 The reason is not far to seek : it is, indeed, implicitly 
 recognized elsewhere by Mill, though not when he 
 lays down his official theory. The reason is that our 
 manufactures, in which there is a law of increasing 
 return, have been vastly expanded, while entirely new 
 industries have been since created ; and that by the 
 greater concentration of labour and capital in this 
 direction there has been additional employment at 
 better wages, while by selling our manufactured pro- 
 ducts to foreign nations we have been able to draw 
 half our bread supply from countries where the " law 
 of diminishing return " is not yet felt. \Ye have thus 
 escaped, so far as food is" concerned, from the law of 
 diminishing return at home, which fact or law, as the 
 economists show, is the only reason why increased 
 population should not continually bring with it a still 
 more increased return. The law of diminishing return 
 is for the present suspended, so long as we can draw 
 corn freely from America ; it does not affect us much 
 more than the Americans so far as our staple food for 
 labourers is concerned, though it may affect us as 
 regards other necessaries drawn from the soil or be- 
 neath it (e.g., fuel) which cannot be so easily imported. 
 It cannot, therefore, be offered as the final reason 
 why labourers must restrain population, the agricul- 
 tural situation in England being that only the best soils 
 are cultivated, while labour has gone increasingly to 
 manufactures, -where there is an increasing return ; a 
 fact which explains the rise of wages c\xn \\ith 
 
ON SOME REMEDIES FOR LOW WAGES, ETC. 335 
 
 an increased population, in spite of the economists' 
 prophecies. 
 
 But why, it may be asked, have they not risen still 
 higher, if there is a law of increasing production in all 
 directions, the culture of land not excepted, if we in- 
 clude as concerning us the countries with which we are 
 industrially connected through trade, which supply us 
 with food ? The fact is, we could go on for a long 
 time increasing production, and with increasing ad- 
 vantage, at the same time increasing our capital and 
 population, if other nations would freely buy from 
 us, or freely exchange with us. But they will not do 
 so in general ; they impose duties which narrow our 
 market : the result is, that our production for export 
 must be limited to the foreign demand, or we may 
 produce too much. And this fact which limits our 
 production limits our power of purchasing food in 
 indefinitely greater quantities, and thus we see both 
 why wages have risen with increasing population, and 
 why they have not risen still higher ; and we can see 
 also why, though population may still increase, the 
 rate of increase may in future have to be somewhat 
 slackened to prevent wages from falling. 
 
 In Cairnes, who substantially follows Mill in treating 
 of wages, we have an amended form of the wages-fund 
 theory. He follows the same method, dealing with 
 the problem of general or average wages in spite of 
 his recognition with Mill of " non-competing industrial 
 groups." He adopts most of Mill's conclusions, but 
 goes beyond him in his own pessimistic one as to the 
 tendencies of wages to become relatively lower under 
 the existing system of hired labour. He certainly 
 
336 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 presents the wages-fund theory in a clearer and less 
 objectionable form. The fund, omitting a small and 
 unimportant part, is, he holds, a portion pf capital. 
 Its amount depends on the nature of the national in- 
 dustries, being relatively greater in agriculture than in 
 manufactures, where a large part of capital takes the 
 form of instruments to aid labour. The tendency of the 
 wages fund is to lag" behind the other parts of capital, 
 from which he concludes that the number of those 
 who do not live by hired labour will increase relatively 
 to those who do, and that the existing inequality will 
 grow greater : " The rich will grow richer, and the 
 poor, at least relatively, poorer." Finally, he gives us 
 his remedy, which is the same as Mill's ultimate one, 
 namely, co-operative production, " the sole means of 
 escape," as he declares, " from a harsh and hopeless 
 destiny." 
 
 Such is the conclusion to which his reasoning about 
 an average or general rate of wages leads him, a 
 method which tends to hide the fact that the real 
 wages of labourers in different grades, as well as their 
 real condition, are very different, and a conclusion 
 which ignores the fact that some are very hopeful, 
 many tolerably satisfied with their condition, and that 
 most of them have no desire for the remedy, or belief 
 in the plan of salvation, he would have them all accept. 
 According to the terms of his conclusion, all labourers 
 are victims of a " harsh and hopeless destiny ; " all 
 are equally deserving our pity and sympathy. All of 
 them, too, should be equally anxious for a change, and 
 co-operative production is the remedy for all, the uni- 
 form and the sole remedy : a conclusion to which his ab- 
 
ON SOME REMEDIES FOR LOW WAGES, ETC. 337 
 
 stract method, which requires him to shut his eyes 
 to differences, even necessarily leads him, although his 
 recognition of "non-competing industrial groups," 
 with great differences of wages in each, should have 
 prevented him from drawing it ; while, again, attention 
 to facts would have shown the futility of the cure where 
 most needed, namely, for common and badly-paid 
 labourers, co-operative production being obviously in- 
 applicable to their labour, and otherwise impossible 
 from want of capital ; while skilled labourers, with good 
 wages, who might therefore save and co-operate, prefer 
 the present system because their wages are so good, 
 and they fear to lose the substance for the shadow. 
 
 Even the reasoning by which Cairnes reaches his 
 general conclusion affecting the whole mass of the 
 labouring population, and the amount to be divided 
 amongst them as wages, is not unexceptionable. 
 
 He allows that there has been a huge increase in 
 wealth, that a given exertion of labour and capital will 
 produce five, ten, twenty times the result as compared 
 with that of a like exertion a hundred years ago, and 
 he raises an interesting question as to the distribution 
 of all this wealth. Where has it all gone? The 
 greater part, it seems, has gone to the landlords in 
 increased rents ; the rate of wages has hardly risen, 
 while the rate of profits has not risen at all ; the latter 
 statement as to the rate of profits being away from 
 the real question, and misleading, the former not the 
 fact. The share of the landlord, though no doubt it 
 has been and is still great, is much exaggerated : 2 the 
 
 2 See Gifien on " The Growth of Capital," p. 113. Cairnes' 
 mistake was most probably suggested by Mill's chapter on th 
 
 Z 
 
338 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 capitalist class employing, financing, distributing 
 has gained in a far greater proportion by it, and, as 
 he afterwards notes, the rate of profits is simply no 
 sign of, and should, therefore, not be offered as an ex- 
 planation of the condition of the class, or the amount 
 of their incomes ; while, further, a large portion of the 
 wealth has somehow found its way into the hands 
 of the professional and middle class, other than the 
 larger capitalists, though his. method of inquiry and 
 theory of distribution gives no account of it. He is 
 disposed, indeed, to allow a slight increase in aVerage 
 wages, from the labourers' necessaries being slightly 
 cheapened ; he does not allow that they have been 
 cheapened much, the improvements in production 
 having chiefly applied to luxuries out of the labour 
 range of wants or powers of purchase. In brief, the 
 wages-fund is less because the landlords got the lar 
 share of the new wealth, leaving less for capitalists 
 and labourers ; secondly, because the share of capital 
 that went as wages-fund was largely diminished by 
 the amount of fixed capital increasingly necessary ; 
 and lastly, because labourers' necessaries were but 
 slightly reduced ; the first and last being contrary to 
 facts, the whole theory imperfect, and the practical 
 
 "Influence of Progress on Rents, Profits, &c.," in which Mill 
 lays down that the tendency of a society constituted ol 
 landlords, capitalists, and labourers " is to the progressive en- 
 richment of the landlord class : " the argument depending on 
 the assumption that all our food is drawn from England, and 
 that the law of diminishing return has to be fought against by 
 agricultural improvements ; the fact being that the margin of 
 cultivation has greatly receded, and that rents hive been for a 
 long time falling. 
 
ON SOME REMEDIES FOR LOW WAGES, ETC. 339 
 
 remedy based on it largely impracticable, as well as 
 illusory, where most required. 
 
 The true state of the case is no doubt as Mr. Giffen 
 represents it : that wages have increased in all the 
 grades of labour down to the lowest during the last 
 fifty years, though the increase has been relatively 
 less in the lowest grade ; that most labourers' neces- 
 saries have been cheapened, except house-rent and 
 agricultural products other than corn ; that the wages- 
 fund, therefore, or the amount of capital that goes 
 to the payment of labourers, has not diminished much 
 relatively, or apart altogether from the wages-fund 
 theory, that the portion of produce which capitalists 
 have retained as their reward has not so greatly in- 
 creased ; while, moreover, a part of that, as well as of 
 landlords' rents and of taxes, goes to hired unpro- 
 ductive labourers a fact which, though mentioned, is 
 afterwards forgotten by Cairnes. There has been an 
 improvement, then, though the condition of common 
 labourers still leaves much to be desired. 
 
 The further cure for low wages, at least for England, 
 the circumstances of each country being special, would 
 consist not so much in emigration or additional 
 restraints on population (though both may be neces- 
 sary in future to some extent)> as in the discovery of 
 new and free markets for our manufactures ; the 
 diminution or removal of hostile tariffs by treaties or 
 conventions, which where our self-governed colonies 
 are concerned might be arranged between the Imperial 
 and Colonial Governments; inventions which cheapen 
 production of any kind, and which, though at first they 
 give less employment, open the way for more ulti- 
 
 Z 2 
 
34O SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 mately. These, on the economical side ; on the moral 
 as well as economical side, a willingness to save for 
 less interest, and to devote business abilities for less 
 than present remuneration, both implying profit- 
 sharing in a wide sense, would give employment to 
 all labourers down to the lowest at increased wages ; 
 while increased saving, accompanied with less luxu- 
 rious expenditure, would tend to give a greater 
 abundance, and by consequence greater wages to all, 
 though it would convert some labourers who make 
 luxuries for the rich into labourers for a wider circle 
 of clients. It would, in fact, partly realize the Socialist 
 levelling aims spontaneously ; though as it implies a 
 serious change of moral disposition, it is rather to be 
 wished than expected, at least for some considerable 
 time to come. 
 
 The labourers on their side may in certain regions, 
 especially in the lowest grades, exercise a greater 
 restraint on population in the future, though even 
 here absolute and general rules cannot safely be laid 
 down. It is, however, certain that if the advice of 
 Malthus had been acted on ever since he gave it 
 in 1798, the enormous development of wealth which has 
 since resulted would have been impossible for want of 
 labourers ; while it is doubtful if the fewer labourers 
 that would now be in existence would have much 
 higher wages. Most certainly, without the increase of 
 population, the vast addition to the world's wealth from 
 the development of the resources of North America 
 would have been impossible, by which we have pro- 
 fited as well as the people of America, inasmuch as 
 it has delivered us from exclusive dependence 
 
ON SOME REMEDIES FOR LOW WAGES, ETC. 34! 
 
 on the food resources of a small country. Neverthe- 
 less it would seem that the need of a somewhat 
 greater restraint on numbers may be necessary in the 
 future, from the very fact of the occupation of the best 
 lands for colonization. 
 
 The State could also, as before said, by providing 
 educational facilities to the children of the poorer 
 class, give them access to the grades of labour above 
 their own traditional one, from which their poverty 
 now excludes them. Such mild dose of Socialism 
 in our social system would probably not be relished 
 by the skilled labourers whose qualified monopoly of 
 a profitable field it would threaten, nor by. those 
 who might be taxed to pay for it. Nevertheless on 
 ethical grounds it seems just, as on political grounds 
 it is necessary, in face of the fact that the class of 
 unskilled labourers is politically equal with the other 
 labourers ; though the instance is one that shows that 
 the assumed solidarity of interest of the whole work- 
 ing class is by no means always the fact : a considera- 
 tion of some importance, inasmuch as it may impose 
 an emphatic prohibition on some social specifics which 
 overlook it. 
 
 Complete Socialism, as conceived by the Collec- 
 tivists, even if otherwise practicable, would still be a 
 doubtful cure for the low wages of common labour. 
 The amount of the produce to be divided amongst 
 all would indeed be increased by rent and interest, as 
 well as by wages of management, so far as these are 
 excessive at present, perhaps by a still further levelling 
 down of these, as also by the conversion of all idlers 
 into workers, and by the restrictions on the production 
 
342 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 of luxuries requiring much labour : on the other side, 
 there would be the danger of greatly diminished 
 capital, the diminished stimulus to invention, and to 
 efficient production so far as dependent on the per- 
 sonal interest of the industrial directors and of all 
 superior labourers, added to the not improbable stim- 
 ulus to population ; so that the quota of each, though 
 it might be above the Ricardian minimum, would 
 certainly not" be as high as that of the better-paid 
 artisan at present. The general level of wages might 
 conceivably rise a little above the present scale for 
 common labour, by pulling down the share of all 
 other workers, as well as of non-workers ; while so far 
 as Socialism discouraged foreign trade, as it would be 
 obliged to do by its principles, the shares of all would 
 most probably fall below even bare subsistence. 
 
 in. 
 
 THERE remains beneath the classes at low wages a 
 peculiar and somewhat indefinite class, half labou; 
 half idlers, willing or unwilling, whose case rcquir 
 separate consideration the class of casual labourers 
 who live by occasional spells of work, by doing odd 
 jobs and miscellaneous services, or as occasional de- 
 pendents on other labourers, eked out sometimes by 
 out-door relief or by other charity, sometimes by the 
 labour of wife or children, as well as in numerous 
 other ways both known and unknown. This class, 
 speaking generally, is both physically and morally 
 unfit for regular and continuous labour from day to 
 day, though its members are quite capable of render- 
 ing individual services requiring human hands or 
 
ON SOME REMEDIES FOR LOW WAGES, ETC. 343 
 
 human intelligence. The class is numerous, especially 
 in the great cities, and most of all in London. It 
 contains both hereditary members, and many who have 
 fallen into it from all the classes above, sometimes 
 from bad moral character or from incapacity, some- 
 times from mere misfortune and without imputable 
 fault ; persons feeble in physique or mind without 
 being proper subjects for the hospital or the asylum, as 
 well as others physically strong and mentally capable, 
 but who dislike all regular work as disagreeable. On 
 its lower side the class is in contact with, or shades 
 down into, the lowest social deposit, composed of 
 criminals, semi-criminals, tramps, professional men- 
 dicants, &c. ; and it and these last together constitute 
 the social residuum. 
 
 The class or congeries of classes is on the whole a 
 very shiftless and hopeless one, though the upper section 
 of it, containing the best members, can live without 
 out-door relief, there being a certain indefinite demand 
 for their occasional services, while such intermittent 
 jobs and individual services are commonly well paid. 
 The whole class is numerous, 3 though probably rela- 
 tively less numerous than formerly ; it is for the most 
 part unhappy, especially its fallen members, and 
 certainly very poor. 
 
 What to do with this large class, or how to diminish 
 its numbers, has long been a perplexity to statesmen 
 and a problem for social philosophers and reformers. 
 Whippings, brandings, imprisonment, and executions 
 have been tried to reduce it. Poor Laws were framed 
 
 3 See Booth's " Life and Labour of the People " for interesting 
 facts and figures touching these classes. 
 
344 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 first because of it, and sanguinary criminal laws have 
 been passed to repress it. Ideal commonwealths have 
 been devised expressly to do away with its most con- 
 spicuous types. The class is still with us ; it would 
 almost seem an incompressible quantity. 
 
 Nevertheless it has been somewhat reduced, and it 
 may be reduced somewhat more by philanthropic effort 
 and by organized charity, as well as by the State 
 looking after the children and giving them chances of 
 escaping from their inherited status. Both on grounds 
 of humanity, and for the health of society as a whole, 
 something should be attempted in their behalf by 
 the State, especially through the local authorities. 
 And yet it will be found a most difficult and per- 
 plexing problem to reduce considerably this lo\vcst 
 class, and impossible to get rid of it wholly, since it 
 is demonstrable that there must absolutely be in an 
 individualistic society a certain number always failing 
 into the lowest social regions, as it is for the general 
 weal that some should fall and suffer ; the disagreeable- 
 ness of their condition being the natural punishment 
 of their fault or folly, though sometimes the conse- 
 quence of their incapacity. If criminals, in or out of 
 prison, were all comfortable, if foolish people were all 
 saved from the foreseen consequences of their folly, 
 if loafers and idlers were all happy, there would soon 
 be a great increase of fools, rogues, idlers, and 
 criminals. These must be left to suffer, but within a 
 measure. The thing to be deplored under the present 
 state of things is rather tiiat there arc some men, 
 women, and especially children, who are the victims 
 of misfortune and fate, nay, some who are occasionally 
 
ON SOME REMEDIES FOR LOW WAGES, ETC. 345 
 
 suffering from their virtues. These last are cases that 
 might be discovered by judicious philanthropic effort, 
 and the individuals might be assisted to recover them- 
 selves ; while the children of all, even of the bad, 
 might in part be rescued from the fate their parents' 
 faults or follies or vices would probably otherwise 
 have entailed on them and their posterity to the third 
 and fourth generation. And to do this last would be 
 the work chiefly of the State. 
 
 Socialism, as we have seen, would be a doubtful 
 cure for low wages. Neither, if it were established, 
 could it cure the mass of social drift and wreck, some 
 of it necessary for the general weal as an example by 
 way of punishment, more of it made by our too 
 individualistic and chance system. If Socialism were 
 established, unless these classes were dealt with 
 severely, were turned into slaves or close prisoners, 
 they would make very intractable citizens in the 
 Collectivist commonwealth. "But we should know 
 how to deal with them," the Socialist says. " More- 
 over, they would only be on our hands at most for 
 one generation, or until the grown generation had 
 gradually dropped off, afterwards there would be no 
 more of them." Unless, however, Socialism went about 
 the matter of suppression in very fundamental fashion, 
 by preventing the reproduction of such evil social 
 types, which would necessitate in general the State 
 control of and the arrangement of marriages, similar 
 types would be born which no education could make 
 into good citizens. The prisons under Socialism would 
 be much fuller than at present, while the slave-gang, ' 
 with the whip or prison in reserve, would have to be 
 
346 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 substituted for the present natural punishment of the 
 class that will not work, or the dismissed bad cha- 
 racters that none will employ. One thing is certain : 
 the whole class would prefer the present system, with 
 all its evils, to Socialism ; for in general its members 
 much like liberty, and do not much like work. They 
 like their present freedom, which they have bought at 
 so great a price. If the Socialist scheme were candidly 
 explained to them, they would instinctively see it 
 would not suit them ; and though in revolutionary 
 times many of them will attack society from in- 
 stincts of destruction, or envy, or revenge, there i.s 
 nothing they would like so little as a new construc- 
 tion on strictly Collectivist principles ; and if they 
 found themselves hemmed in in such a regime^ they 
 would be the first to revolt against it. They would, 
 indeed, make much better Anarchists than Socialists, 
 though for a continuance they would prefer to live 
 under the existing regime^ which does not oppress 
 them, which leaves them their liberty and char 
 and which is so far Socialistic that it promises them 
 the necessaries of life in case of extremity. 
 
 IV. 
 
 SUCH, then, are the conclusions to which we are kxd, 
 and such the limits within which improvements and 
 reforms seem possible. There are, however, at pre- 
 sent before the public certain special proposals for 
 raising wages, for giving work to the unemployed, 
 and generally for elevating the condition of the 
 labouring class, more or less new, and more or less 
 socialistic, notably one for the reduction by law of 
 
ON SOME REMEDIES FOR LOW WAGES, ETC. 347 
 
 the hours of labour to eight hours a day, which it 
 may be desirable to consider in order to mark 
 more definitely the limits of the possible, as well as to 
 show more clearly the position taken up in this book 
 on social reform. The first is a plan submitted by the 
 Rev. H. Mills, in a volume entitled "Poverty and 
 the State," a plan which he thinks would completely 
 solve the question of the unemployed ; a plan which 
 would provide self-supporting and not disagreeable 
 work for all unemployed labourers, and, indeed, for 
 other possible applicants who might like to try it ; 
 which would combine the advantages of co-operative 
 labour without being in competition with industries 
 under private enterprise ; and all this without costing 
 more to the community than a certain amount deemed 
 requisite to start and launch the scheme, which is 
 estimated at double that spent for one year on poor 
 relief. To do all this so simply would indeed be 
 a great social miracle, and we might well believe with 
 Mr. Mills that it would be followed by something like 
 the millennium. The question is how far it is really 
 possible, and in order to judge of this, it is necessary 
 and it may be useful to consider the scheme briefly 
 in detail. 
 
 The scheme starts from our existing system of 
 poor relief, which it proposes to reform and extend, 
 though afterwards, as much as possible to make us 
 forget their origin, Mr. Mills proposes to give the 
 name of " Co-operative Estates " to his refuges for 
 the unemployed. To go a little into details : his 
 idea is that each of the Poor Law Unions should be 
 empowered by Parliament "to collect a sum equal to 
 
SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 the present expenditure on account of the poor for two 
 years," with which to purchase tracts of land of about 
 2000 acres, which he thinks could be made to sup- 
 port double that number of persons, if duly stocked 
 with cows, pigs, poultry, as well as with inexpensive 
 machinery and plant. All kinds of unemployed 
 labourers would be free to come to the communities or 
 co-operative estates, and it would also appear that 
 idlers, mendicants, and the recipients of out-door relief 
 are to be driven to them. They would there raise their 
 own food, make their own clothes, and with the surplus 
 over their own wants in food, they could purchase 
 necessaries such as coal that they could not raise them- 
 selves, and some things of foreign growth, such as tea 
 and sugar. They are all to work on the co-operative 
 system ; or rather there is to be a certain amount of 
 communism, but without equality of distribution. 
 They are to work together, to take their meals to- 
 gether and at fixed hours. There is to be no competi- 
 tion with the outside English world in respect of any 
 of their productions; but commodities that are now 
 imported from abroad, such as wheat, butter, poultry, 
 eggs, might be permitted to be sold, because Mr. 
 Mills thinks there would be no harm in competing 
 with the foreigners who send us these commodities. 
 Moreover, he adds, contemplating the situation from 
 the interned co-operators' stand-point, " If we did not 
 sell something of our produce, we should not be able 
 to purchase articles of foreign growth," such as " tea, 
 coffee, petroleum, and oranges." 
 
 Such is the general idea, which is something like a 
 plan of workhouse reform proposed by Robert Owen 
 
ON SOME REMEDIES FOR LOW WAGES, ETC. 349 
 
 to the Government in 1817, and which also bears a rude 
 resemblance to Fourier's scheme. The first thing to 
 be observed with respect to it is, that it would cost a 
 good deal to the ratepayers : to buy and stock the 
 2000 acres, c., would cost, on the author's calculation, 
 close on ioo,ooo/. ; every Poor Law Union would 
 require as much, and there are many of them. But 
 then, we are assured, the scheme would be self- 
 supporting ever after, and the honest working-man 
 out of employment the figure that, according to Mr. 
 Morley, is more tragic than any Hamlet would no 
 longer sadden the sight of the philanthropist or trouble 
 the thoughts of the politician and social philosopher. 
 But could the scheme be made self-supporting ? I 
 doubt it greatly. I think it very probable that, in 
 addition to the first outlay, there would be a yearly 
 deficit, and thus the working man out of employment 
 would not have the satisfaction of feeling that he was 
 supporting himself. I grant that a proper assortment 
 of labourers could probably produce their own food, if 
 there were many agricultural labourers amongst them, 
 with their wives to look after the butter, poultry, &c., 
 some bakers, also a miller and a mill ; they might 
 produce coarse clothes if they raised their own flax 
 and produced their own wool, and if further they had 
 the necessary machinery and plant, the spinners and 
 weavers, also tailors, seamstresses, and shoemakers. 
 They could not produce their own coal, gas or light, tea 
 or sugar, and they would have to be permitted to sell 
 their surplus agricultural productions in order to get 
 these things, though to the extent that they did sell 
 such products they would be in competition with the 
 
3 SO SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 unaided English producers of the same, as well as 
 with foreigners. If the co-operators sold their wheat 
 cheaper than the Americans, they would be virtually 
 in competition with English farmers, and they could 
 afford to sell at almost any degree of cheapness in 
 order to get the coveted necessaries or luxuries. We 
 will, however, suppose this objection got over or mini- 
 mized. Supposing that the unemployed came, there 
 would probably be many kinds of labourers who could 
 not be set to work at their own occupation. Masons 
 and bricklayers would have nothing to do, as the 
 common building (not to be called workhouse) has 
 been already built ; the carpenter out of work, the 
 shipwright, the glazier, the plumber would have little 
 to do, still less the printer, the cabman, the clerk, the 
 cabinet-maker, the miner, the sailor, and a hundred 
 more. They would all have to turn to the dozen 
 or so of industries requisite to obtain the plain food 
 or rude clothes and furniture required by themselves. 
 They would not be allowed to make furniture, ex- 
 cept for their own use, as they could not sell it ; the 
 furniture trade outside objecting to a competition with 
 their work made possible by the public taxes. They 
 could only make chairs, tables, benches, wooden bed- 
 steads, and there might soon be " over-production." 
 Most of them would, therefore, have to learn some kind 
 of agricultural work, which would be the most profit- 
 able, if they were permitted to sell indefinitely. Spin- 
 ning and weaving would only be possible in a factory 
 with machinery, and these would be rather expensive. 
 Tailors and shoemakers would indeed also be re- 
 quired ; with respect to all other craftsmen or 
 
ON SOME REMEDIES FOR LOW WAGES, ETC. 351 
 
 labourers there would be no demand on the " estates " 
 for their special work. 
 
 Then the agricultural labourers on the estates would 
 not be the best of their kind. The best, if no longer 
 needed in the country, get quickly employed in 
 London and the great towns, 4 leaving few, or only 
 inferior ones, to go on the " estates ;" so that of those 
 used to the work there would only be bad ploughers 
 and diggers, reapers and threshers, while other 
 workers, such as artisans and operatives out of work, 
 could not be transformed quickly into such agricultural 
 labourers. Besides, these men would not remain long 
 (by hypothesis). They would only be there while 
 their own trade was depressed, and they would hardly 
 have time to learn properly any branch of agriculture 
 before they would want to leave ; while at the best they 
 would not be the best class of workmen, or (as a rule) 
 they would not be unemployed. There would be a 
 constant efflux as well as influx of different sorts of 
 inferior unemployed labourers, amongst which would 
 be found very few genuine agricultural labourers. But 
 that would not be the worst. 
 
 Besides unemployed labourers properly so called 
 who would not make good agricultural labourers, 
 there would be on the estates a much more hopeless 
 class, if, on our author's suggestion, all vagrants and 
 mendicants were to be driven in (as in the Beggar 
 Colonies of the Netherlands), and if all out-door relief 
 were refused. If this course were really adopted, I 
 think these last, the mendicants and the former out- 
 
 4 See Booth's " Life and Labour of the People " (of East 
 London). 
 
352 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 door paupers, would soon have the estatx >iearly all 
 to themselves, in which case, unless the discipline 
 was rather severe, unless there were, as in Mr. Car- 
 lyle's similar scheme, " workmasters and taskmasters, 
 life-commanders, equitable as Rhadamanthus 
 inflexible as he," I fear the experiment would be tar 
 from self-supporting. We should have " reformed " 
 our Poor Laws, I hardly think for the better; we 
 should not have solved the problem proposed, the 
 problem of the unemployed. 
 
 To take the scheme in its most promising form, 
 then, we must suppose the beggars and former semi- 
 paupers absent, and either living as they do now, or 
 planted on different " estates ;" because the better 
 part of the unemployed would not consent to asso- 
 ciate with them in the intimate and equal terms re- 
 quired by the scheme. We must also suppose another 
 thing not provided for in the scheme, namely, that 
 many and good agricultural labourers are on the estate 
 who wilt not, as a rule, be there unless special induce- 
 ments are offered them, such as higher wages than they 
 can expect in the towns, or equivalent advantages ; 
 we must also suppose the miscellaneous other 
 labourers to take kindly to their work, to labour 
 diligently and docilely as directed, and not to throw 
 it up on too short notice ; that is, we must suppose 
 the plan considerably other than it is presented to 
 us ; while, even so conceived, it is doubtful, whether 
 after paying the necessary officials and the genuine 
 agricultural labourers their proper and larger share, 
 the remaining produce would afford bare sub- 
 sistence to such unemployed labourers as would be 
 
ON SO'. REMEDIES FOR LOW WAGES, ETC. 353 
 
 there, whi.o if competition with outside agricultural 
 industry were forbidden or greatly restricted, as would 
 be necessary for reasons already given, so much even 
 would not be possible, so that the self-respecting un- 
 1 oyed would not feel independent of public help. 
 Oft the whole, then, taking the scheme at its best, it 
 would be a costly experiment for a very doubtful 
 result ; while taking it as actually stated, it would be 
 unworkable. 
 
 As we have before noted, the slack time that can be 
 fore-known should be paid for by higher wages when 
 employed, which it should be the labourers' aim to se- 
 cure by combination, leaving them at leisure, if they 
 choose, during the slack time ; while in many cases 
 allotments would be useful adjuncts : but exceptional 
 cases, where there is a wholly unforeseen depression of 
 trade and diminution cf employment, would seem best 
 dealt with by special relief and public works. 
 
 V. 
 
 THERE is also a rather remarkable, if not quite new, 
 remedy for poverty and the distressed condition of 
 the unemployed 5 suggested by Mr. Charles Booth in 
 a volume edited by him, and otherwise valuable for 
 its figures and facts, entitled " Labour and Life of the 
 People," vol. i. (referring to East London). In order 
 
 5 It is substantially the same as the proposal of Caflyle in 
 his well-known "Speech of the British Premier" to the as- 
 sembled paupers and lackalls in the " Latter Day Pamphlets," 
 and much like the proposal of Fletcher of Saltoun, in 1698, to 
 the Scottish Parliament, to restore serfdom because of the 
 great increase in the number of beggars. 
 
 A a 
 
354 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 to understand his proposal, it is necessary to give Mr. 
 Booth's classification of labourers and of social grades 
 in the districts to which his facts relate. They are as 
 follows : Class A, the lowest class of " occasional 
 labourers, loafers, criminals, and semi-criminals ;" not 
 numerous, put at ij per cent.; Class B, those \vho 
 live by casual earnings, and who are in a state of 
 chronic want, described as "the very poor," and 
 amounting to nj per cent. ; Class C, which lives on 
 " intermittent earnings ; " and Class D, on " small (or 
 minimum) regular earnings;" classed together as " the 
 poor ;" the four classes together amounting to over 
 300,000 out of a total of 900,000. Then we come to 
 the more hopeful grades : Class E, at regular standard 
 earnings, above the line of poverty, 42 per cent. ; 
 Class F, the better-paid artisans, foremen, and small 
 employers, 14 per cent. ; Class G, the lower middle 
 class, of shopkeepers, small employers, clerks, c. ; and 
 Class H, the upper middle class ; the last two together 
 forming about 9 per cent. 
 
 Now Mr. Booth's plan in brief is, to " harry Class A 
 out of existence " (by the united efforts of the police 
 and the magistrates) ; to carry Class B into captivity, 
 and "to plant its members in industrial groups where 
 land and building materials were cheap," where they 
 should be required to work regularly and long under 
 strict rules, where they should be employed, after 
 being, duly taught and trained, in building their 
 own dwellings (a slight improvement on Mr. Mills' 
 scheme), in cultivation of the land, in making clothes, 
 or in making furniture ; there being, as in the previous 
 scheme, " no competition with the outside world." 
 
ON SOME REMEDIES FOR LOW WAGES, ETC. 355 
 
 Thus, by making a sacrifice of the lowest class, the 
 classes just above, and all the rest of the labouring 
 classes could live and thrive, and could aim at ele- 
 vating their social and economic condition; by making 
 a scape-goat of a class, society could breathe freely. 
 Class C would get more work; Class D would get 
 more pay ; and Class E, the large ambitious class 
 that has no fear of falling, that is chiefly concerning 
 itself about rising, might go on trying to make the 
 best terms it could with employers or otherwise to 
 better its condition. By a slight infusion of Socialism, 
 all the rest of society could live on the better and 
 more bracing principle of a hardy individualism. At 
 present " our individualism fails because our Socialism 
 is incomplete." In taking charge of the lives of the 
 incapable, State Socialism finds its proper work, and 
 by doing so completely it would relieve us of a serious 
 danger (p. 167). 
 
 And now how are we to get the lowest class of casual 
 labourers into these industrial plantations ? There 
 is to be no compulsion, Mr. Booth says. " The only 
 form compulsion could assume would be that of 
 making life otherwise impossible ; an enforcement of 
 the standard of life which would oblige every one of 
 us to accept the relief of the State in the manner 
 prescribed by the State, unless we were able and 
 willing to conform to the standard." That is, there 
 is to be no compulsion nominally, but the enforcement 
 of a higher standard would be practical compulsion, 
 and, moreover, compulsion affecting some of the 
 classes ,(C and D) just above the casual class who are 
 Mr. Booth's special clients, 
 
 A a 2 
 
350 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 And most certainly without compulsion very fc\v 
 of the social types that Mr. Booth wants set apart 
 and secluded will apply for voluntary admission. 
 The class whose absence in the general individualist 
 system is desired by Mr. Booth manages to live at 
 present somehow ; and, indeed, Mr. Booth's book 
 throws some new and very interesting light upon 
 the matter, but nothing to qualify our conclusion that 
 few of them, if they could at all avoid it, would offer for 
 voluntary service in the industrial colonies, much dis- 
 liking, as Mr. Booth notes, all continuous labour, 
 while such, both regular and rigorous, would be 
 exacted under State direction. Some might try it, 
 he thinks, if all other resources were stopped, but they 
 would not long remain ; they would prefer, as he says, 
 their "crust and liberty," with all the chances and 
 excitements of their present life, to the monotonous 
 life and severe labour of the plantations. 
 
 As things are, then, they would not offer to go 
 voluntarily, but the persistent mendicant, the mendi- 
 cant tramp, and perhaps the man with no visible 
 means of livelihood, might be sent by the magistrate ; 
 still more, out-door relief under the Poor Law, and 
 all organized public charity, might be denied to the 
 able-bodied adult, and a considerable number of 
 recruits might thus be obtained. Some would prefer 
 it to the workhouse, the only remaining alternative. 
 The better class of distressed men would prefer it ; 
 the worse would elect the workhouse because it is not 
 a workplace, unless it too closed its doors on the 
 able-bodied. 
 
 There are other effects that would probably in 
 
ON SOME REMEDIES FOR LOW WAGES, ETC. 357 
 
 some measure follow the stopping of out-door relief 
 and organized public charity generally. Some of 
 the casual labourers would exert themselves more ; 
 those who laboured three days a week (the average, 
 according to Mr. Booth) would exert themselves to 
 obtain four ; that is, the competition would be in- 
 creased for the sum of casual jobs. There would be 
 a more embittered scramble with the class of inter- 
 mittent labourers, or casual labourers would intensify 
 some of their present questionable methods of adding 
 to their earnings, would put the strain on their wives 
 and children to work harder or get. more money how 
 they could ; some of them would be driven for certain 
 into the criminal classes, into which their own class 
 shades down in its lower sections, so that Class A, 
 which Mr. Booth thinks might be "harried out of 
 existence," would probably be increased, and not only 
 crime, but immorality, would probably be greatly in- 
 creased by the endeavour, however well meant, " to 
 induce or drive Class B to accept a regulated life." 
 Some of its members would have found refuge in the 
 workhouse, some would be in the prison; a great 
 many would maintain their old way of life by keener 
 competition, perhaps by new and original methods of 
 begging in evasion of the law against beggars, and in 
 still more questionable ways ; but so long as the 
 springs of private charity were not stopped, as they 
 would not be, our martyr class would not be all driven 
 away,but only a small number of them, to the industrial 
 villages. The convicted beggar and vagrant would be 
 there, some honest unemployed workers of the class 
 above, and a few of Class B ; unless, indeed the 
 
358 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 authorities forced the able-bodied ones now in the 
 workhouse on the plantations ; that is, unless the 
 workhouse as an alternative for the able-bodied adult 
 were also taken away. 
 
 But it is urged that this class of casual labours 
 pulls down a better class of men ; that if it was gone, 
 one class (C) would have more work, another (D) 
 more pay, and that they cannot rise so long as 
 this class beneath is dragging them down by its 
 competition. But to this the casual labourer might 
 retort with effect, " No doubt if we were all gone, 
 the unemployed would be better off, as they would 
 get paid for doing our work ; but so would we be 
 better off if they were gone or employed. It is 
 they who are dragging us down, if the thing were 
 rightly put, because they are competing with us for 
 our immemorial jobs, for the jobs and spells of work 
 always done by our class. We were here first. \Ye 
 have prescriptive right, the right of first occupation 
 of the field. But we, it seems, are to be driven off for 
 their benefit, that the class of men out of regular work 
 shall get our work to do in their unemployed and leisure 
 time, and that another class may get higher wages, 
 though we are hardly in competition with the second 
 class at all. It is we who are too many, it seems to 
 some philosophers. Thank them very much. But 
 we have as good a right to our place as any other 
 class, and if we are sometimes in want, it is partly 
 owing to the competition of men who should not be 
 in competition with us, but who come to take the 
 bit out of our mouths. There is a certain amount of 
 our kind of work always to be done ; it suits us ; as a 
 
ON SOME REMEDIES FOR LOW WAGES, ETC. 359 
 
 rule it isn't hard work, but then it isn't well paid, and 
 it's not very dignified, which last we don't mind ; but 
 the work should be done by us, not by the idle men 
 of other trades. We should be protected from their 
 competition if there were any rights. These jobo 
 and chances form the hereditary property of out- 
 class, the only thing we did inherit. We have the 
 good-will of them, and we can't be expropriated 
 more than any other class save by force and in- 
 justice. No doubt some of us are unfortunate at 
 times, still we rub along somehow and don't com- 
 plain much, and if we now and then come on the rates, 
 why so do our betters. And if you want to benefit 
 the unemployed (from bad trade), let the authorities 
 find work for them, while if unemployed intermittent 
 labourers or ill-paid labourers are to be benefited, let 
 it be at the cost of their employers that profit from 
 their work, or the public, and not at our cost. For our- 
 selves, all we further ask is that you leave us alone." 
 Thus may urge the casual labourer. It would, in 
 fact, be unjust to either force or drive them away; more- 
 over it would be impolitic, as before said, and largely 
 impracticable. But even if they were all bodily re- 
 moved and made State slaves, as Mr. Booth suggests 
 and as Carlyle recommended, the State would have a 
 serious task on hand, because on Mr. Booth's calcula- 
 tions the class in question is very numerous. In the 
 district covered by his figures (East London and 
 Hackney) it amounted to nj per cent., and if we 
 assume the same proportion all over the three king- 
 doms, out of a population of near forty millions there 
 would be over four millions to be relegated to the in- 
 
360 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 dustrial communities ; or say the proportion was less 
 in other parts of London and generally over the king- 
 dom, let us put them at three millions. This would be 
 a very large body to be dealt with, in addition to our in- 
 door paupers. We need not insist on the very un- 
 promising materials they would be for labourers. They 
 would mostly be men who had never learned any regu- 
 lar calling, but who might be able to do many miscel- 
 laneous things. They would not like regular work 
 from the habit of their lives ; they would mostly be 
 incapable of it, from want of physical strength 
 or endurance. They could only be kept to it by 
 punishment, which in their case would be cruelty ; 
 and even then the work would be bad, and small in 
 amount. So much indeed Mr. Booth admits ; that the 
 work would be bad, and probably far from self-sup- 
 porting. He adds, however, that even now their work 
 is costly to society, forgetting that when they are 
 removed it must still be paid for to the class that takes 
 their place, so that society would still have to pay 
 for it, as well as for the deficiency on the work in the 
 semi-penal colonies. Society would, in addition to the 
 inmates of the workhouse, have three or four millions 
 of slaves on hand, sent into captivity for the benefit 
 of the classes of ill-paid labourers just above them, 
 and unjustly expropriated from their hereditary 
 chances because they were somewhat more unfortunate 
 than these classes. 
 
 There is little doubt that their absence would raise 
 fora time at least and if population was not unduly 
 stimulated, would raise permanently, the condition of 
 the struggling classes just above the displaced casual 
 
ON SOME REMEDIES FOR LOW WAGES, ETC. 361 
 
 class. Profits and interest would indeed be reduced, 
 so far as wages were raised, unless inventions were 
 made or the work done was better or greater in 
 amount, and the elevation of wages would to some 
 extent contract the field of investment which the 
 former cheaper labour made possible, so that a fresh 
 fringe or margin of unemployed labour would be 
 another consequence of the raised wages. The new 
 unemployed would not be so numerous, indeed, as the 
 relegated class, but some there would be, the disen- 
 gaged capital probably going abroad for investment. 
 On the whole, the rest of society would probably be 
 the healthier for^the absence of the class ; the question 
 is, are we willing and ready to benefit the better class 
 of labourers at the cost of the lower and more unfor- 
 tunate, at the risk, also, of increasing crime and 
 immorality? I doubt very much whether opinion 
 would be in favour of it, especially as the sacrifice of 
 the lower class would entail a certain sacrifice to the 
 classes receiving profit and interest. I think it would 
 be opposed as tyrannical and unjust, that opinion 
 would set itself against it, and that a rigorous attempt 
 to stop out-door relief would be defeated by voluntary 
 charity. I am afraid, therefore, that this plan for the 
 benefit of the unemployed must also be ticketed with 
 the fatal word " impracticable," though if society 
 generally insisted on it, it would really benefit the 
 existing unemployed, as well as the low-paid labourers. 
 It is not, therefore, absolutely impracticable ; it is 
 only relatively so, and for the reason that it is most 
 unlikely that opinion will be in favour of it, at least 
 for a long time to come. 
 
362 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 AN EIGHT HOURS' WORKING DA\. 
 I. 
 
 A FAVOURITE plan at the present time for absorbing 
 unemployed labour, as well as for improving the 
 general condition of all labourers, is* to make eight 
 hours the legal working day, overtime to be paid 
 extra, and at higher rates. This proposal has found 
 more general support than any other, both amongst 
 labourers and social philosophers ; it is therefore 
 deserving of a careful consideration. 
 
 The view held by its supporters is, that the reduc- 
 tion in time of work would result in an equivalent 
 reduction in the amount of products and services, 
 while society, requiring the same total of both as 
 before, would be obliged to draw on the unemployed 
 labour to supply the deficiency. Those employed 
 would thus have more leisure, with wages un- 
 diminished ; they might still add to their wages by 
 overtime, while there would be few or none out of 
 work. 
 
 Such, in brief, is the theory. Or in figures : the 
 working time being reduced from ten hours (which is 
 about the present average day's work) to eight hours, 
 the resulting quantity of products and services will be 
 
AN EIGHT HOURS' WORKING DAY. 363 
 
 reduced in the same proportion, that is, to four-fifths, 
 leaving on^-fifth unsupplied, which the unemployed 
 can furnish. It is assumed in the argument that the 
 quantity of work required, the amount of commodities 
 (the necessaries, conveniences, and luxuries), including 
 the amount of services, is a constant amount, though 
 such is by no means the case, ns Professor Cairn es 
 justly points out. 1 Society can dispense with a large 
 part of the amount if necessary, just as it could 
 stomach far more commodities, conveniences, and 
 luxuries, if it could get them easily. 
 
 And in the case supposed of a general reduction in 
 working hours, society will and must reduce the 
 amount of its consumption of all things except abso- 
 lute necessaries ; more especially as a large part of 
 the society that is supposed to require a constant 
 amount of commodities and services is composed of 
 foreigners who purchase our manufactures, and who 
 would certainly purchase less if the prices were raised, 
 which would be the consequence of reduced hours 
 unless wages were reduced, or unless more energetic 
 labour for the shorter day resulted in as great pro- 
 duction as before. 
 
 Let us trace the possible consequences more fully 
 raid specially. Employers will get eight hours' work 
 from their employes instead of ten ; that is, they will 
 get only four-fifths work from them, and by conse- 
 quence only four-fifths the amount of production (or of 
 services) for the same wages, assuming the efficiency 
 of labour to remain the same. Omitting the con- 
 sideration of services (though the argument equally 
 
 " Leading Principles of Political Economy," Part II. c. iv. 3. 
 
364 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 applies to them), and considering only the case of 
 productive labour, the first obvious result in our 
 largest and most important industries would be the 
 reduction (and in some cases the annihilation) of 
 employers' profits, as v/ell as of interest on invest- 
 ments in such industries. 
 
 That such result would follow, assuming the 
 efficiency of labour not to increase, can be easily 
 demonstrated. The product will be less by one- fifth ; 
 and as it is the price of the product which pays wages 
 and profits (including interest), unless the diminished 
 product can be sold for the same price as the previous 
 larger product, that is, unless the price of a given 
 quantity or measure can be raised, profits must suffer. 
 Now if the price cannot be raised with anyadvant 
 to the producer, as is the case in many manufactures, 
 and if wages are not to be reduced, of course profits 
 would bear the whole brunt of the diminished produc- 
 tion ; and they might sink to zero or a negative 
 quantity in some cases. 
 
 In our great staple industries, prices could not be 
 raised to recoup loss of profits without causing a 
 diminished demand, which would soon result in 
 diminished employment, that is, the unemployed 
 would be increased. The diminished demand would be 
 more diminished wherever we are closely pressed by 
 foreign competitors, as in the linen and cotton trade, 
 the iron and steel trade, machine- making and other 
 industries, and the result might even be our exclusion 
 from some foreign markets, and even the occupation 
 of a part of the home market by cheaper foreign pro- 
 duction. But if prices could not be raised, what 
 
AN EIGHT HOURS' WORKING DAY. 365 
 
 would employers do ? Would they be likely to take 
 on additional hands, thereby making their losses still 
 greater, as the additional hands would be inferior 
 hands ? Moreover, whence would come the addi- 
 tional capital under the circumstances of declining 
 profits and interest ? 
 
 What would happen under the circumstances in 
 the trades in question (assuming that the nature of 
 employers and investors remains the same) would be 
 a reduction of wages all round in the same or nearly 
 the same proportion as the reduction of working 
 hours. The employed might strike, but if the 
 employers were firm, the former would have to give 
 in. Even making the extreme supposition that the 
 State forbade the reduction of wages as the natural 
 consequence of the reduction of hours of work, it 
 would not benefit the labourers, because fewer of 
 them would be employed at the wage which did not 
 allow average profits. Under the circumstances, if 
 wages were not reduced, capital would decrease. 
 There would be less possibility of saving. The nor- 
 mal increase of capital required each year beyond the 
 preceding one to keep pace with normal increase of 
 population would not be forthcoming. There would 
 be less possibility of saving, both because incomes 
 would be narrower, and there would be less induce- 
 ments to save for home investments yielding less in- 
 terest, so that a larger proportion of the smaller saved 
 capital would go abroad, unless, indeed, the eight 
 hours' movement, or an equivalent reduction in hours, 
 was universal, in which case the capital would stay at 
 home, but there would be less of it. New companies 
 
366 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 would cease to be formed at home ; old ones would 
 be woundup, as well as private firms ; from all which 
 causes the number of unemployed labourers would 
 be greatly increased, instead of being lessened. 
 
 Nor should too much reliance be placed on the 
 " double shift " argument, which maintains that in 
 certain industries, by taking on two successive sets 
 of operatives for eight hours, profits can be saved. 
 Thus we are told that many manufacturers in the 
 industries requiring much fixed capital would not 
 object to an eight hours' day, if they could get a 
 second set of operatives for another eight hours, as 
 they would recover any possible loss on the result of 
 the labour of the first set by the additional labour 
 they would get out of their machinery without having 
 to pay any more for it ; that is to say, their expenses 
 as regards machinery, consisting of interest and dej 
 ciation to be made good, being the same whether 
 the machinery works eight or sixteen hours, if they 
 could get a second set of labourers they would, as it 
 were, be getting the use of the machinery for nothing, 
 since they will be at no additional expense as rcsn 
 it save a little faster wear and tear. 
 
 The argument is theoretically sound; and it would 
 be good for some manufacturers if they could get the 
 second shift to come after the first. But it seems they 
 can't, for if they could the argument holding equally 
 good for a nine hours' day they would have 
 done it already. But supposing the workers were 
 willing to go for a second shift, what would be the 
 likely result ? There would be a competition to 
 get the best hands for the second shift, which would 
 
AN EIGHT HOURS' WORKING DAY. 367 
 
 tend to raise wages and to draw some unemployed 
 labourers. There would not be many of the latter, 
 however, as there is nothing to increase either the 
 foreign or home demand, prices not being lower, 
 there would only be the same quantity of production 
 required as before, and consequently only the same 
 quantity of labour, and therefore only a fifth or less 
 additional labourers at eight hours a day. We may 
 say generally there would only be the same number 
 or a little more required in both shifts taken together 
 than before, that is a little more than half the number 
 in each, or if the same number were kept on in 
 each they must work only half time, that is the 
 machines would be as idle as before, though to get 
 fuller efficiency from them was the object of the double 
 shifts. Such would be the rather absurd result if 
 the labourers were spread equally over all the factories 
 in the industry. What would happen, however, 
 under the competition supposed, would rather be 
 that the most able and energetic employers would 
 perhaps get the double shifts if they paid sufficiently 
 high wages ; they would have a double number of 
 the best labourers, while others would be working 
 half-time in each shift, while others again would be 
 obliged to quit the business altogether. After the 
 weaker firms had disappeared, the labourers would 
 have the eight hours' day and some leisure, at the cost 
 of a certain change of habits, which might seem more 
 than a counterbalance. There would also be higher 
 profits to the survivors, and some additional labourers 
 employed. 
 
 Such is the general result that would happen suppos- 
 
368 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 ing the labourers were generally willing to consent to a 
 system of relays, 2 but the system being for the present 
 impracticable, if not undesirable, the only alternative 
 to save profits in manufactories would be a reduction 
 of wages in factories equal to the reduction in time : 
 the labourers would then give a chance to some of 
 the unemployed, because there would then be no 
 need to raise the price, the foreign demand would 
 not contract, and there would be additional labourers 
 required to supply it, whom employers could take 
 on at the same rate as the other labourers, or a 
 slightly reduced rate, without loss of profit. 
 
 But the general objection to an eight hours' act 
 for mills and factories, unaccompanied by any reduc- 
 tion in wages, would be greatly reduced if our foreign 
 competitors made a similar reduction in working time, 
 in which case the relative advantages or disadvan- 
 tages of competing nations would remain as before, 
 and we should have no fearof a reduction of ourforci^n 
 markets by an advantage given to rivals. There 
 would then only be a contracted demand to appre- 
 hend from the raised prices, which would affect our 
 competitors equally with ourselves, while, if hours were 
 everywhere reduced, and if labour generally became 
 
 2 A writer in the Nineteenth Ccniury (July, 1889) thus explains 
 its advantages : "In the cotton trade it can be shown that if the 
 hands, instead of working in one shift of nine and a half hours 
 a day, worked in two shifts of eight hours each, the extra work 
 got out of the machinery would more than compensate the mill- 
 owner for the diminution of hours," which implies that every 
 mill-owner could recover and more than recover profks, and 
 that the hands are willing to work in the two shifts ; the second 
 proposition being very doubtful, and the first requiring large 
 qualification, as shown above. 
 
AN EIGHT HOURS' WORKING DAY. 369 
 
 more efficient through the additional heart and energy 
 thrown into it, as to some extent it certainly would, 
 it might not even be necessary to raise prices, in which 
 case the gain would be more than the loss. Leisure, 
 a most important thing for the labourers, would be 
 gained ; and if the labour was only sufficiently pro- 
 ductive, the employers would not lose. There would 
 not, however, in this case be any additional and un- 
 employed labourers required. The whole gain would 
 be reaped in leisure by those already employed. 
 
 As much might be gained, even though the labour 
 were less efficient than we have supposed, if employers 
 would be content to forego a part of their profits, not 
 necessarily large, which probably a small rise of price 
 would restore without much lowering of the demand. 
 But all this postulates, in addition to very effective 
 labour, an international understanding between our 
 Government and that of competing countries with 
 respect to the reduction of working hours ; except 
 indeed in those industries where our superiority is 
 great, or we have a monopoly of the foreign market, 
 in which cases we might act independently within the 
 limits of our advantage. 
 
 II. 
 
 What we have said hitherto applies to our great 
 national industries, the greater part of the production 
 in which is for the foreign market. In these indus- 
 tries the amount of the product required, or the 
 demand, is never fixed, but is essentially elastic. The 
 same may be said of a great variety of other indus- 
 tries which produce commodities not absolutely indis- 
 
 B b 
 
370 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 pensable. The consumption is not fixed : people 
 consume more or less according to the cheapness or 
 dearness in the case of things which, without being pre- 
 cisely luxuries, can be done without wholly or partly. 
 In these cases reduced hours would result in elevated 
 prices, in diminished demand, perhaps in greater pro- 
 portion than the diminished production, in which 
 case there would be lessened employment, or else 
 lessened wages for the same number of employed. 
 This is the case as regards a great number of pro- 
 ducts consumed by the middle and even the best paid 
 of the labouring class, such products including all the 
 more or less cheap luxuries. In these cases the con- 
 traction in demand following a rise in price differs in 
 different cases, being less as the luxury approaches 
 nearer to the character of a necessary. On the 
 other hand, the amount of necessaries consumed in 
 a country, the amount of food, clothes, coal, light, is 
 tolerably, though not absolutely, fixed. The amount 
 of food in particular is fixed, though not any parti- 
 cular article of diet, except perhaps bread. A fixed 
 amount of bread is required, and consequently a 
 certain quantity of baker's labour, but not of English 
 agricultural labour, since much of the required wheat 
 is raised in America. We may say, however, that a 
 tolerably constant quantity of baker's labour is re- 
 quired, as well as of miner's labour; of the different 
 kinds of labour in the building trades (masons', house 
 carpenters', &c.,) in the clothing trades, in the furni- 
 ture trades ; and in these cases the reduction of hours 
 would require the taking on of more labourers. The 
 reduction of baker's hours, unless machinery could 
 
AN EIGHT HOURS' WORKING DAY. 371 
 
 take the place of men, would give employment to 
 more bakers ; of miner's hours, to more miners ; of 
 gas worker's, to more gas workers (unless people 
 should prefer oil-lamps to gas) ; of tailor's hours, to 
 more tailors. In all these cases the employer could 
 accept reduced hours without losing profits. But he 
 must raise the price ; though not necessarily in 
 the same proportion as the hours have been reduced, 
 because the price of the raw material, the cloth 
 or flour, has not been affected by the more costly 
 labour of the baker or tailor. The price of bread, of 
 clothes, of fuel, of house-rent, of gas would all rise 
 though in different degrees. Some of the unemployed 
 would be required in all these trades, especially in the 
 mining and building industries ; but the chief con- 
 tributors to their support would be, not the employers, 
 who will have got their usual profits, nor the well-to-do 
 part of the public, who might otherwise have had to 
 maintain them by increased rates, but the labouring 
 class in general, as being the great consumers of 
 necessaries, all of which will be somewhat raised in 
 price. The better part of them, if they agitate for 
 an eight hours' day, and are successful in getting 
 it, will virtually have taxed their own necessaries for 
 the benefit of some inferior members of their class. 
 
 In this class of industries they would have merely 
 submitted to a reduction of wages for the benefit of 
 some of the unemployed. They would themselves 
 also gain more leisure, but the question is, are they 
 willing and anxious to submit to a virtual reduction 
 of wages in order to get it ? As regards the 
 general question, even if all the labourers, or a 
 B b 2 
 
372 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 decided majority of them, were in favour of the eight 
 hours' day, it does not follow that they should have 
 it, for it might be bad for their own interest, even as 
 they themselves understood it, or it might be bad for 
 interests other than their own, or the majority might 
 be made up largely of the present unemployed, who 
 would like the chance of getting work, but whose 
 places would be taken by a different class of unem- 
 ployed. To pass a law which would certainly have 
 for one effect to create a new, probably a larger, 
 class of unemployed, even though some of the old 
 ones would be at work, could hardly be considered as 
 either just or expedient policy. Such a law should 
 not be passed unless it were first demanded by a large 
 majority, were favourable to their own interests, and 
 not too injurious to other interests. But the con- 
 trary of all these it would be, if it were applied to 
 every industry under present circumstances. 
 
 But supposing a decided majority of labourers in a 
 single industry such as mining were agreed as to the 
 desirability of an eight hours' day, might not the 
 State in such a case be asked to make it a law for 
 that industry, since otherwise particular employers 
 in agreement with their labourers might find it their 
 interest to go against the majority ? It would depend 
 on the special circumstances of the case, one being 
 the effect of the law on other labourers and the 
 general interest, through the increased price of the 
 commodity. The State should not interfere with 
 free contract between employers and employed, un- 
 less for a decided national benefit, or to redress a 
 hardship or injustice suffered by a class of labourers 
 
AN EIGHT HOURS' WORKING DAY. 373 
 
 unable to protect themselves (as in the case of the 
 reduction of the hours of women and children in the 
 textile industries). Now as regards mining, eight 
 hours are, without doubt, a sufficiently long day's work, 
 the labour being exhausting, disagreeable, and dan- 
 gerous, and in this case the reduction of hours would 
 be an advantage on the whole. It would give some 
 leisure to hard-worked men, and it would make room 
 for additional labourers, while the rise of price would 
 only affect directly one or at most two articles of the 
 labourer's consumption, coal and gas : nevertheless, 
 the reduction should not be made by the State unless 
 it was clear that a very large majority were in favour 
 of such action by the State. 
 
 There would be little objection, too, to an eight 
 hours' working day in shops, whether wholesale or 
 retail. The quantity of business to be done is tolerably 
 fixed , as people have to make their customary pur- 
 chases whether trade is bad or good, though they 
 have not the same amount to spend. If the shop 
 hours were limited, say to ten hours (the work 
 being less exhausting than some) instead of twelve or 
 fourteen, the business could be done almost as well by 
 the present staff, without any need to increase either* 
 the number of distributors, or, in consequence, the 
 price of the goods. All that would be necessary 
 would be a slight change in the habits of purchasers. 
 Only so far as the distributors send their employes 
 to deliver goods to customers would prices tend 
 to rise by reduced working hours, as more employes 
 would be required, though not to any large extent ; 
 and in this particular case the reduction of hours 
 
374 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 would be almost an unmixed good to all, including 
 the shop-girls and shop-men in the large establish- 
 ments ; it could only affect injuriously the smaller 
 shops that supply the poorer classes, who can only 
 purchase at special times. 
 
 There are other industries or services where the 
 working hours are injuriously long : as in the baking, 
 the tailoring, and generally in the clothing trade, the 
 railway, 'bus, and tramcar services. In the case 
 of the railways a reduction would result in an 
 increased staff at diminished wages, the rates not 
 admitting of profitable increase ; in the 'bus and tram- 
 cars it would result in higher fares, perhaps in some 
 ceasing to run ; while in the case of the East-end 
 tailors the reduction of hours, excessive as they are, 
 would throw many of them out of work, who would 
 be opposed to it. In those trades or busin< 
 which produce luxuries for the rich, the hours might 
 be reduced with advantage ; more would be employed, 
 but the employers would not lose, as they could raise 
 their prices, which would be cheerfully paid by 
 people to whom high price is a matter of indifference, 
 sometimes even of preference. But in all these cases 
 .the reduction, wherever desirable, can be secured by 
 trades unions, except in the case of shop-assistants. 
 
 To recapitulate : in the case of manufactures an 
 eight hours' day would result either in reduced w; 
 for the same number, or in the employment of a less 
 number, from diminished demand through raised 
 prices, unless labour were more efficient. There 
 would also be the danger of losing our foreign 
 markets, unless a corresponding reduction of time 
 
AN EIGHT HOURS' WORKING DAY. 375 
 
 was made by our competitors. In the case of a large 
 number of commodities and services used at home 
 but not absolutely necessary, where the demand 
 expands or contracts with the price, reduced hours 
 and raised prices would result generally in lower 
 wages or lessened employment, though not equally 
 so in all cases. In the case of necessaries for home 
 consumption, reduced hours would raise prices, though 
 not perhaps greatly in the cases of bread or clothes. 
 In these cases, self-interest being assumed, unanimity 
 amongst labourers is hardly to be expected. The un- 
 employed would gain by an eight hours' day at the 
 cost of the community, and chiefly of the employed ; 
 therefore legislation would be inexpedient. In the 
 case of mining, the limitation of hours would, on the 
 whole, be a decided gain. The only interest affected 
 unfavourably would be that of the consumer, who 
 should, however, be willing to forego something to 
 benefit a large class of overworked labourers. It is 
 not so certain that the State should effect the limita- 
 tion, since a decided majority in combination could 
 effect it for themselves, the employers' interest not 
 being adverse in this case to that of the employed. 
 In the case of the East-end tailors and others worked 
 excessively long hours (or paid very low wages) the 
 interference of the State would merely throw a number 
 of them out of work, and would not be acceptable 
 to them. The long hours or low wages here come 
 from the fact that there are too many of them seek- 
 ing employment. If the numbers were less, they 
 could prevent the long hours or low wages. And 
 even as it is, if they wanted less hours, they could 
 
3/6 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 effect it for themselves by trades unions, and the 
 refusal to work so long ; but they could only do 
 so at the cost of some of their numbers being thrown 
 out of work. They cannot all, therefore, afford to 
 go into trades unions to lower hours or raise wages, 
 which would merely have for effect the exclusion 
 of a number of them altogether. In this particular 
 case it is the excessive competition from excessive 
 numbers due to foreign immigration, which lies at 
 the bottom of the long hours. Where the numbers 
 are excessive, neither the State nor trades unions 
 can prevent the evils, except by excluding some of 
 the workers, that is, increasing the unemployed. 
 
377 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM: 
 
 (II.) BY THE EXTENSION OF GOVERNMENT 
 MANAGEMENT IN THE SPHERE OF INDUSTRY, 
 
 I. 
 
 IT remains to consider how far the State might 
 itself advantageously undertake a certain portion 
 of the field of industry. At present it works satis- 
 factorily, as well as successfully from the economical 
 point of view, the postal and telegraph services, and 
 it has recently extended the postal service so as to 
 include the transport of small parcels ; that is to 
 say, it has to a certain extent become, in conjunction 
 with the railway companies, a carrier of goods. To 
 be a complete carrier even of parcels, it should own 
 the railways, their rolling stock and other adjuncts ; 
 and the question arises, whether the Government 
 might not undertake wholly the carnage of goods and 
 passengers by purchasing the railways, and working 
 them in the public interest? It is a kind of work 
 peculiarly suitable for Government management, 
 being largely of a uniform and routine character, not 
 demanding from the general managers the compli- 
 cated calculations and resources required in manu- 
 facturing industry, and for which work, however 
 responsible or difficult, the Government could secure 
 as capable managers as the companies. Besides, the 
 
378 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 railway interest is of the nature of a huge though 
 qualified monopoly ; or rather there are as many 
 monopolies as there are companies without com- 
 petition. Hence the chief check on the monopo- 
 lists' charges in freights and rates is their own sense 
 of self-interest, which is by no means always coin- 
 cident with the public interest or convenience. It 
 is true that our great railway companies have not 
 abused their position to the gross extent that the 
 companies in the United States have done, but there 
 have been abuses, and they are liable to abuse to a 
 degree which would not be possible if they were under 
 the control of the Government, with no other interest 
 .but that of the general public. 
 
 If the State undertook their management, the 
 working expenses would probably be reduced by 
 diminished salaries to directors for one item, and the 
 gross receipts would probably be increased by the 
 greater regard paid to the public convenience and 
 comfort. For this would increase the number of 
 passengers, while the amount of traffic would not be 
 decreased by fairer freight, which would facilitate 
 trade. The result would most likely be a fair balance 
 of net profits beyond their present amount, which 
 would be for the public benefit, and which might 
 be employed to reduce taxation, or in other ways. 
 The purchase of the railways and their adjuncts 
 would, however, necessitate the borrowing of some 
 700 to 800 millions sterling, the interest on which 
 could be paid by the profits resulting, with some- 
 thing left to help to extinguish the principal, it 
 deemed advisable. And the disengaged capital ot 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 379 
 
 the paid-off shareholders, what is to be done with 
 it ? As to that, it would partly go to fill up vacancies 
 made in other investments by the Government bor- 
 rowing for the railways, partly it might swell the 
 general loan fund so that some of it would overflow into 
 foreign investments, if there were not enough promis- 
 ing new enterprises at home ; the total effect being 
 most likely beneficial by calling forth extra savings. 
 Or, the financial change might be less, as many 
 of the shareholders might prefer to leave their 
 shares under the Government management, that is, 
 to lend their money, supposing they got their old 
 interest or something near it, so that to the extent 
 that they did so there would be a mere transfer of 
 their credit to the Government instead of to the 
 railway companies. 
 
 One result would be a great increase in the civil 
 service of the State, and an increase of Govern- 
 ment influence. There would be a number of 
 appointments with varying salaries thrown open to 
 the general competition of the whole nation, with 
 a certain equalizing and diffusing of opportunities, 
 wherein would consist its chief good result. It 
 would be so far a carrying out of the St. Simonian 
 ideal of awarding places according to talent, without 
 regard to the favour or patronage of individuals. 
 There would be abler persons filling the higher ap- 
 pointments than at present, because the ability of a 
 wider area would be drawn upon. 
 
 And having gone thus far, is the State to stop or 
 go farther and absorb all industries, substituting its 
 own management for that of the private capitalist 
 
380 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 or the company ? This question the Collectivist 
 or co-operative Socialist answers very confidently in 
 the affirmative. All industries are to be absorbed 
 one after another, or all together ; the manufactur- 
 ing, the mining, the carrying, the distributing (or 
 shopkeeping), even the agricultural, the exporting 
 and importing all these huge provinces are to be 
 annexed. Private enterprise, or exploiting for a profit 
 as it is called, is to be extinguished, and the State 
 or the collectivity is to be all in all, as well as the 
 owner of all, in the sphere of industry. This scheme 
 in its universality we have already examined and 
 pronounced judgment upon ; and there only remains 
 to add a few words with respect to certain portions 
 of it. 
 
 For many reasons every addition to Govern- 
 mental management in the sphere of industry should 
 be slow and tentative, of the nature of an experiment 
 requiring a whole generation to read the resulting 
 experience rightly and free from doubt. And the 
 Government should make a long pause after ths 
 absorption of the railways before it took the much 
 more responsible step of venturing into the field of 
 production proper, because with all drawbacks the 
 present system of private and individualistic enter- 
 prise has been fairly successful, and far more so than 
 we could hope that Governmental management in 
 general would be. We can see strong reason why 
 the private capitalist who has made or inherited his 
 place is a better man for it than the superior Govern- 
 ment official, generally devoid of initiative, and with 
 less keen interest and energy. The capitalist actual 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 381 
 
 or potential is under the keenest known stimulus to 
 the efficient production and exchange of his wares, 
 to the discovery and annexing of new markets, to 
 the trial of new and likely enterprises by which he 
 may make a fortune. He will find capital, he will 
 undertake risks, he will finally succeed, if only he is 
 assured of the fruits of his enterprise when successful. 
 
 In these ways capitalists have enriched the country 
 by the establishment of wholly new industries which 
 would not have existed without them. Nor is there 
 reason to think that Government in future, even 
 with the command of scientific knowledge and in- 
 ventive faculty, would be so successful in the creation 
 and development of new industries as private enter- 
 prise urged to sleepless activity by the hope of a 
 fortune, or of great additional profits. 
 
 The stimulus of private interest would be greatly 
 weakened under complete State Socialism, and unless 
 other motives which now are weak, such as benevo- 
 lence, public spirit, honour, can be strengthened 
 by opinion, by morals, or by miracle, or unless the 
 latent ability in the "nouvelles couches sociales" 
 which would be evoked and stirred to great activity 
 by the career opened out for it would partly com- 
 pensate, the certainty is that production would be less, 
 and that there would be a diffused poverty, with a 
 less reserve for disinterested intellectual needs. For 
 these reasons, amongst others, the State should be 
 slow and cautious in making an inroad into the 
 territory of private productive enterprise, which more- 
 over would be more contrary to traditional usage 
 and sentiment in these countries than in others 
 
382 SOCIALISM NMW AND OLD. 
 
 where the functions of the State have always been 
 wider in the industrial sphere. 
 
 But these considerations, however strong, may in 
 some directions have to give way to stronger, and 
 they have considerably less force in the case of the 
 mining industries, both because the raising of coal 
 or metalliferous ore does not seem a work the 
 management of which calls for any transcendent 
 ability in the mine-owner, who moreover mostly 
 deputes the work to a manager, and next because 
 these extractive industries easily lend themselves to 
 monopolies and combinations injurious to the public 
 interest, as in the case of the Pennsylvania o Mi- 
 masters, who agreed to limit supply so as to k 
 up prices. There are other reasons why the produc- 
 tion of coal, which is both a primary necessary of 
 life, and the basis of all our industries, should be 
 under the management of the State, which could take 
 more precautions for the safety, and care for the 
 health, of the large mining population, probably 
 thereby saving the cost of the present inspectors. \Vc 
 should not then have restrictions on the output of 
 coal as in the year of the coal famine, for the sake of 
 raising prices ; nor, on the other hand, a too liberal 
 use or reckless waste, or even a too free export of a 
 prime necessary of future generations. 1 Alining is a 
 
 1 On this point Prof. Sidgwick remarks, " The restriction of 
 private property in the contents of the earth may hereafter be- 
 come a matter of great practical importance, through the pro- 
 gress of geology and the gradual exhaustion of the stores of 
 valuable minerals easily obtainable.'" (*' Principles of Pol. 
 Econ.," Book III. ch. iv. 13.) 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 383 
 
 case where the maximum of State interference is 
 already called for, and already exists ; it would be 
 only going a little further to substitute complete 
 State management for the private enterprise that 
 requires so much regulation. The State could then 
 set an example of the virtues which it has inculcated 
 on the present owners, but which they have found so 
 hard to practise, and the resulting experience would 
 be of great service before going any farther in the 
 direction of State Socialism. The State management 
 would both disclose its own capacities, and it would 
 exercise a very salutary effect on the much greater 
 field of productive industry, remaining intact under 
 private direction. 
 
 As to our great industries which have been planted 
 and developed under private enterprise, they should 
 be left to private enterprise, until at least the great 
 superiority of Government management is demon- 
 strated ; but they may be interfered with in the 
 interest of the workers' health and comfort, and the 
 proceeds are to be held liable to such requisitions as 
 the State may deem just and fair. In addition to 
 manufacturing and agricultural industry embracing 
 most of the production proper of goods their circu- 
 lation should be left to voluntary enterprise, which in 
 the form of the Co-operative Store, and the great 
 wholesale house, is fast eliminating the unnecessary 
 and parasitic middle-men whose profits so largely 
 swell the consumer's price. No doubt the small men 
 will go to the wall as well as the unnecessary middle- 
 men, but this though a painful necessity, is a less evil 
 than the alternative of high prices to the poor for 
 
384 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 inferior goods. And the great distributing capitalist 
 will make great profits ; but he also confers a service, 
 and those who do not like him are free to patronize 
 their own co-operative stores. The sale of drink, 
 food, drugs, and the like, may be interfered with to 
 secure purity and good quality to the public, but 
 there would be no advantage gained by the State or 
 municipalities undertaking the work of distribution, 
 and substituting its officials for the existing ones. 
 In fact if the State is not the universal producer, it 
 could not with any advantage be the general distribu- 
 tor, though by appointing inspectors to certify as to 
 quality, it performs a useful and necessary work in 
 protecting the public, while leaving the work in the 
 hands otherwise best suited to it. 
 
 The public might also require protection from high 
 prices due to monopoly through the combination of 
 distributors, which is more possible in the sphere of 
 distribution than in that of production, and to which, 
 moreover, there is a distinctly increasing tendency at 
 present in certain directions, and here it would seem 
 desirable that the monopolists should have before their 
 mind fat possibility of State interference, and even of 
 State expropriation as a salutary restraint to prevent 
 too great abuse of their position. 
 
 There is one necessary, in addition to fuel, light 
 and water, the production of which cannot be 
 wholly left to private enterprise, namely, hoi; 
 so far as intended for the working classes and the 
 poor. The municipalities should in the first instance 
 supply a certain proportion of houses of this descrip- 
 tion in order to break the monopoly of the present 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 385 
 
 owners, and to deliver the poor from exorbitant rents, 
 amounting frequently to a quarter of their wages, for 
 a bad house. The ground landlord, the builder, and 
 the house-owner between them divide a very large 
 revenue, levied on every one in the form of rents, but 
 which press especially on the poor, the rent of whose 
 houses is raised to a scarcity price in many places, 
 because they must live, or find it convenient to live, 
 near their place of work, and because there are many 
 applicants. The demand for houses and house ac- 
 commodation exceeding the supply, forces up the rent, 
 though the house be bad and unhealthy ; and here is 
 one case where the municipalities might counteract 
 the selfishness, and stay the hand of the house-owner, 
 by partly supplying houses for the lower classes at 
 rents which would allow them only current interest. 
 
 II. 
 
 THERE is a large province of industry in which 
 co-operative labour cannot be applied with any very 
 decided advantage, and in which for other reasons it 
 is not desirable to attempt it on a large scale. I 
 mean agriculture, because in it the advantages of the 
 large system of production so conspicuous in manu- 
 factures is disputed, and in any case is not great, 
 while the application of it on a large scale in Europe 
 generally, would amount not only to a universal agra- 
 rian revolution, but to a revolution in social habits 
 and in daily private life. Here, therefore, there is no 
 room for State enterprise, any more than for the 
 extreme thing desired by the collectivist-socialists, 
 
 C c 
 
386 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 For hundreds of years the cultivators of the land 
 have been living in France, Germany, and most 
 countries in isolated farmhouses, or in villages, culti- 
 vating the soil with the help of the grown members 
 of their families, and sometimes of hired labourers. 
 This has been the case too in Ireland, Scotland, 
 Wales, and (though to a much less extent) in England 
 also. The cultivators of the land are attached to 
 their way of life, and everywhere are peculiarly 
 conservative in habits and sentiments. 
 
 Now co-operative farming, as conceived by the 
 Socialists, would require them to change their way of 
 life, to live in a common residence, or at least in close 
 proximity to each other, to abandon their traditional 
 homesteads, to give up their sense of private pro- 
 prietary rights, their sense of independence, the things, 
 the most cherished and consecrated in their feelings, 
 and that make the very essence of their life, and all 
 for what ? That by their united labour thrown into 
 a common stock they might finally, after re-division, 
 have perhaps a little more than they would have had 
 working on their own farm for themselves. For this 
 doubtful gain added to the inseparable company of 
 their fellow-co-operators, of which they might easily 
 have too much, they are to submit to be officered and 
 brigaded by the State. For a possible trifle extra per 
 annum, they are to bring themselves, or let them- 
 selves be put into community enforced and distasteful, 
 (for all this is gravely proposed by the Collecttvist 
 leaders, though for prudential reasons but slightly 
 referred to in working-men's programmes). But 
 however tempting the prospect is made, and however 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 387 
 
 the authority of the State is kept in the background, 
 I do not think many peasant proprietors in France 
 would be tempted to voluntarily enter the Co-operative 
 and Collectivist Commonwealth so far as it embraces 
 agriculture. 
 
 And now let the Authoritarian Socialist observe 
 that the extra amount per annum would certainly not 
 be forthcoming ; since it is precisely in the case of 
 peasant properties or good land tenures that the indi- 
 vidual owner or tenant is stimulated to the maximum 
 of industry and careful cultivation, because the results 
 directly accrue to himself, while under co-operative 
 farming it would not be his obvious interest to labour 
 with such energy. On the contrary, it would be each 
 one's interest to do least, provided the others did not 
 act on the same rule, and there would be the fatal 
 temptation to each to do less than his utmost, which 
 not even the presence of the overseer (however 
 necessary under the system) could overcome wholly ; 
 from which it follows that even aided by the best 
 machines and the largest holdings, the quota of the 
 co-operative farmer would be less than that of the 
 individual farmer* 
 
 Let us add, to come near home, that in Ireland, 
 or the Highlands, or in Wales, as it would be wholly- 
 impossible . to get the present occupiers into the 
 agricultural brigades, so even if it were tried with 
 agricultural labourers it is much to be feared-that they 
 would disagree amongst themselves. And they cer- 
 tainly would do so, as well as take their work easy, 
 unless the discipline of the brigades was of the 
 strictest kind. 
 
 C c 2 
 
388 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. . 
 
 For these reasons, I should recommend the Socialist 
 to give up the idea of including, merely for the sake 
 of symmetry and universality, the farmers in the 
 Co-operative Commonwealth. The older agrarian 
 Socialism will suit them better that which aimed 
 at equality in the main and liberty, and which 
 secured it by planting each one under his own vine, 
 at a convenient distance from his fellows, but not too 
 far for neighbourly help and voluntary co-operation. 
 This has succeeded in France, in the United States, 
 and other countries, and it is a further development 
 of this that we want in Ireland and parts of Great 
 Britain, and not Co-operative Farming, which for 
 political, social, and historical reasons, is out of the 
 question. 
 
 Here, then, is one very large industrial province not 
 suitable for State management, and a very large 
 population that for a very long time must be exempted 
 from citizenship in the "Co-operative Commonwealth. 
 The farming class of Europe and the United States 
 are not indeed opposed to Socialism, but they will 
 only be Socialists in their own fashion, and in the old 
 sense. They are not, as a rule, opposed to the diffe- 
 rent Socialism of the town artisan, which aims at the 
 control and possession of capital, only they think it 
 does not concern them, provided it does not bring 
 prolonged anarchy. 
 
 III. 
 
 AND here I find myself between the "points of 
 mighty opposites," between Adam Smith and all the 
 .classical economists reinforced by Herbert Spencer 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 389 
 
 on the one side, and on the other, St. Simon, Karl 
 Marx, Lassalle, Louis Blanc, and all the radical and 
 systematic Socialists. The reasons for rejecting '< 
 Socialism and the Socialist solution of our social 
 difficulties I have already given at length ; it remains 
 to justify the middle position held by showing the | 
 insuperable objections to the opposite system of non- 
 interference in the economic sphere, of which Mr. 
 Spencer is perhaps the most eminent living advocate. 
 It must indeed be allowed that any doctrine pro- 
 ceeding from the philosopher of Evolution deserves 
 weighty consideration, and he is wholly opposed 
 to State intervention in the sphere of industry, 
 whether in the way of regulation or management. 
 He furnishes new arguments to the laissez-faire 
 school, drawn from the general principles of his 
 philosophy. The functions of the State, he thinks, 
 should be minimized both in its legislative and 
 administrative capacity ; it is not its business to un- 
 dertake industry at all. In the ideal Society of the 
 far future, the functions of the State will have 
 ceased in its legislative capacity. There will be no need 
 of coercive law when our nature has been completely 
 broken in or adapted to its environment : right con- 
 duct will then be done as a matter of course, and will 
 even be pleasurable, so that laws with penalties may 
 be dispensed with. Its administrative sphere also 
 will be reduced to zero when industrialism shall have 
 completely extruded militarism. There will be no 
 army, no navy, and the Civil Service will be reduced 
 to the smallest compass. In fact the State, if evolu- 
 tion only goes in the lines it should and uoukl go, 
 
390 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 if men would be wise and not perversely set it on 
 the wrong track as they are evidently now doing, 2 - 
 the State will in time become almost a great rudi- 
 mentary organ, serving only for ornamental and cere- 
 monial purposes, and as a reminder of what it once 
 was ; but no longer necessary. It will be a great sur- 
 vival, merely testifying to a past unhappy history, and 
 to unfortunate but long- forgotten human necessities. 
 
 In the future perfect social state, however, there is 
 to be co-operation, because, as Mr. Spencer tells us in 
 the "Data of Ethics," in that state "complete living 
 is secured through voluntary co-operation," and the 
 fundamental principle of distribution is " that the life- 
 sustaining actions of each shall severally bring him the 
 amounts and kinds of advantage naturally achieved by 
 them" (p. 149), or in less abstract language, that " bene- 
 fits received be proportioned to services rendered," 
 this being the universal basis of co-operation. But that 
 benefits be proportioned to services implies two 
 things. First, that there be " no direct aggressions 
 on person or property ;" secondly, " no indirect 
 aggressions by breach of contract." If these two 
 negative conditions be observed, life will be facilitated 
 up to a certain point. The industrial life will be 
 complete, and industrialism, which is the antithesis 
 of militarism, will have its full and free sphere. 
 Nevertheless such life would be incomplete ; for " a 
 society is conceivable formed of men leading per- 
 fectly inoffensive lives, scrupulously fulfilling their 
 contracts, and efficiently rearing their offspring, who 
 yet yielding to one another no advantages beyond 
 2 See " Man versus the State." 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 39! 
 
 those agreed upon, fall short of that highest life 
 which the gratuitous rendering of services makes 
 possible/' Accordingly, then, this incomplete life, 
 which nevertheless complies with all the conditions 
 of industrialism, and strictly owes to no man anything, 
 must be supplemented by gratuitous rendering of 
 services, in order to reach the highest life which lies 
 at " the limit of evolution." There should be both 
 give and take as regards these extra virtuous deeds, be- 
 cause they do good to both parties. The giver has a 
 special gratification, the receiver a special good, and 
 both increase the " quantity of life." 
 
 This complete living, and the perfect social state, 
 however, lie a long way off, in fact countless gene- 
 rations. Meantime, as we stumble along slowly 
 towards it, co-operation is necessary, and at the 
 basis of co-operation is the eternal requisite that 
 benefits should be proportioned to effort or services. 
 But how to proportion benefits to services, or reward 
 to work, is precisely where all the trouble lies. This 
 is, in fact, the social problem. According to Mr. 
 Spencer, two conditions must be first observed ; life 
 and property must be assured, and contracts fulfilled ; 
 while according to most modern social reformers, 
 property and contract, laws of property and the 
 power of making and enforcing unfair contracts have 
 produced great social evils, and now prevent benefits 
 from being proportioned to services. 
 
 The monopoly of capital in relatively few hands 
 has made the worker dependent, and in the contract 
 with the owner of capital, the worker is in an unequal 
 and necessitous position which compels him to accept 
 
392 SOCIALISM NEW AND. OLD. 
 
 what he can get, which is not necessarily a benefit 
 proportioned to his services ; while the small tenant 
 farmer in his contract might be compelled hitherto 
 to pay all above bare subsistence, if rents were 
 determined by competition, if the landlord insisted 
 on his bond, and if the law backed him up. And how 
 do Mr. Spencer's conditions of social life under full 
 industrialism help us here to solve this difficulty 
 which is urgent ? We are to let things alone. The 
 State is not to interfere ; not to try ever so little to 
 redress the balance, or to diminish the dangerous in- 
 equality of property, no matter what its origin. It is 
 sacred once called property, or once its acquisition has 
 complied with the coarse conditions which imperfect 
 and often selfishly made laws prescribe. Do not aggress 
 after that. But is it not evident that laws of property 
 and contract, the legal conditions of acquisition and 
 ownership have powerfully assisted in bringing about 
 our actual social situation and overgrown inequality ? 
 And that without some alteration in these and 
 some interference of the State the evils could not 
 be corrected ? In short, on the path before us, 
 on the way to the Spencerian millennium, we are 
 confronted with a tremendous social problem, which 
 has convulsed nations, which has already produced 
 two or three revolutions and formidable risings in 
 France, which is now agitated in all civilized lands, 
 in Germany, France, the United States, England, 
 which must be dealt with somehow, and we expect a 
 great writer on Sociology to tell us how to deal with 
 it. In his " Social Statics/' indeed, he recommended 
 the nationalization of the land, in his " Political In- 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 393 
 
 stitutions," he still thinks that the nation may one 
 day resume possession of it, but is not certain. As to 
 the Capital and Labour Question, he gives us no 
 answer in his latest book, " Man versus the State," 
 save a repetition of laissez-faire. Don't interfere to 
 regulate industry, and don't interfere to manage. 
 This, however, leaves the question unsolved, and pre- 
 sumably his solution is that it will settle itself, if only 
 the State will be completely neutral, while if the State 
 interferes it will make matters worse. But it might 
 take a long and painful time to settle itself, and it 
 might not settle itself peacefully. What would the 
 State do in the latter painful contingency ? It might 
 have to interfere, or even take a side, or worse, there 
 might be the dreaded militarism in its worst shape of 
 civil war to get the control of the State, as the violent 
 Socialists threaten. 
 
 Without interference, it might happen that most of 
 the capital in a country might pass into the hands 
 of a relatively small class, as might the land, in which 
 case there might be the practical slavery of the majority 
 of the nation, of all who work and render service. 
 In such case what may be the actual reward of a 
 large section of the labourers ? Bare subsistence, if 
 the population be numerous, while the superior classes 
 may roll in splendour. And would this approach to 
 the realization of the formula for a fair division the 
 proportioning of benefits to services ? if not, and if it 
 has taken so long to get not much further than this 
 on the way to the " limit of evolution," even with a 
 little Government interference in recent years in 
 behalf of the less fortunate class, it would seem that 
 
394 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 a little more interference might hasten our pace, and 
 help us to approach nearer to the right apportionment 
 of reward to work, or of benefits to services. 
 
 Further, it should not be forgotten that the State 
 interference of recent years was just, as well as neces- 
 sary. Because, for a long time the State had inter- 
 fered on the other side, on the side of the masters 
 against the workmen. Moreover it is not difficult to 
 deduce the necessity for State interference from Mr. 
 Spencer's own fundamental principles. According 
 to him protection to life is necessary ; from which 
 follow Factory Acts and Government inspectors ; the 
 former containing regulations for the protection of 
 life and health which had been previously endangc; 
 through the master's selfishness and cupidity, and 
 where his self-interest could not be depended upon 
 to take proper precautions voluntarily. The inspector 
 is himself in fact, as Prof. Jevons says, a necessary 
 product of social evolution and the division of labour. 
 There arose a distinct need of him, and the only 
 question was whether he should be appointed by the 
 Government, or chosen from a body of local experts, 
 less likely to be efficient and impartial. 
 
 And then we should consider what would have 
 been the probable consequences had there been no 
 interferences, had the principle of laissez-faire been 
 worked out absolutely and unmitigatedly. We 
 should have had a proletariate of servile workers, 
 degraded in physique, in mind, in morals ; mothers 
 working in mines and factories, their sickly children 
 dying without a mother's care, or surviving with 
 enfeebled frames ; other children ignorant and 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 395 
 
 savage, worked to death or growing up savages ; the 
 whole labouring population turned into mere human 
 plant and instruments to make the fortunes of 
 masters, constantly becoming more insolent and 
 inhuman from impunity. We should have had the 
 "slave gangs" of the Roman Republic repeated, 
 only that the slaves would have been the country- 
 men of their masters, neither conquered in battle 
 nor born in slavery. We should have had a caste 
 of servile labourers working for. the capitalist's 
 fortunes as well as for the general convenience. 
 That is a deducible consequence, had the system 
 continued in its strictness and the hands submitted. 
 But they probably would not have submitted ; had 
 not the Government interfered before their physique 
 had been destroyed, and their spirit broken, they 
 would have rebelled against their masters, and if 
 necessary against the State, putting all to hazard. 
 They had leaders at the time of the Chartist agita- 
 tion, who would have appeared earlier had the laissez- 
 faire system gone on ; they would have counselled 
 the operatives to try extreme courses, and the counsel 
 would in all probability have been followed, because 
 Englishmen have a sense of justice and a latent dis- 
 position to stand up for their rights ; so that on all the 
 grounds of humanity, justice, and prudence, Govern- 
 mental interference was imperatively called for, and 
 the Government alone could stop the evils which it 
 was shown by experience could not be left to self- 
 interest, however enlightened. Social evolution left to 
 itself, unregulated by Law, takes too long to bring 
 assuagement to the existing social sufferings. Mean- 
 
396 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 while the existing generation dies, having been 
 sacrificed. Moreover, social evolution uncontrolled 
 leads as likely as not, judging from history, to social 
 dissolution, to a social Serbonian bog of anarch}', 
 instead of the happy and peaceful social millennium 
 where men "exchange specific reciprocities of aid 
 under agreement, supplemented and completed by 
 exchange of services beyond agreement." 3 
 
 Further, it is a consequence from Mr. Spencer's 
 " Law of Equal Freedom," as Professor Sidgwick 
 affirms, that there should be interference of the State 
 to produce greater equalities of opportunity, without 
 which the law of Equal Freedom is of little use to 
 us. That law is that "every man has freedom 
 to do all that he wills, provided that he infringes 
 not the equal freedom of any other man." But 
 what is the good of such freedom, when the 
 monopoly of others, who have all the land, 
 all the places, all the capital, all the credit, all 
 the means of getting a chance of any of tl 
 prevents its exercise ? To make this law a Magna 
 Charta for the human race requires, for the people oi 
 these countries at least, a certain amount of Govern- 
 ment interference and of Government legislation, in 
 addition to the voluntary virtues of individuals. 
 There is no real freedom, any more than equality, or 
 even equality of opportunity in our modern com- 
 munities for the propertyless, and such must either 
 be helped by the community, or remain slaves, or 
 pariahs, or obtain a living by dishonest or infamous 
 courses, and it is better that they should be helped 
 
 3 "Data of Ethics,'' p. 149. 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 397 
 
 by the State when young, by getting education at least, 
 which will give them a chance of a career, or of getting 
 an honest livelihood. 
 
 As to the still greater interferences of the Govern- 
 ment involved in the undertaking of certain 
 industries, this undoubtedly is a course that should 
 be entered upon with the greatest caution, slowly, 
 tentatively, and but a little at a time ; that should 
 not be further adventured upon until the light of ex- 
 perience has been gained, that is, until we have full 
 experience, and until that experience has been fully 
 and rightly interpreted, which, as Professor Jevons 
 says, is the great difficulty. It is difficult to read the 
 results of experience, from which diverse conclusions 
 may be and commonly are drawn, and which only 
 the mind most capable and most conversant 
 with the special matter can be depended on to 
 rightly read. For these and other reasons before 
 adverted to, the State will not lightly undertake 
 the management of any branch of industry already 
 established. For still stronger reasons it will not 
 undertake the initiation or creation of any industries. 
 Nevertheless, this does not apply to certain kinds of 
 business, those chiefly that have been or may be turned 
 into monopolies, or are likely to be dangerous and 
 hurtful to the public interest. At the lowest great 
 trading corporations or combinations require exten- 
 sive regulations in the public interest ; if they abuse 
 their powers for selfish purposes, management by the 
 State, which has no interest except that of the 
 public, may be necessary. 
 
 But the end of these things is Socialism, according 
 
398 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 to Mr. Spencer. Yes, no doubt. Still there is no 
 necessity either to go to the end full and complete, or 
 to be in a hurry. But we are told the momentum will 
 surely carry us to the end : " the changes made, the 
 changes in progress, and the changes urged, will 
 carry us not only to State-ownership of land and 
 dwellings, and means of communication .... but 
 towards State-usurpation of all industries * .... And 
 so will be brought about the desired ideal of the 
 Socialists." 5 I reply, we need not go to the end with- 
 out a clear view of the advantages to be gained. The 
 " changes urged " have to be first carried ; nothing 
 compels us to go on if we don't like the prospect, if 
 we can't discern the general advantages, if we see 
 greater disadvantages ; still more if we are stopped by 
 impracticabilities or impossibilities. We may go on, 
 stop at any point, go quicker ; all these courses are 
 possible. There is no fatality in the matter : no 
 necessary all-compelling momentum irrespective of 
 the general volition. Even if we should go on to the 
 end, it may be sufficiently far off to comply with the 
 conditions of evolution, which, as Mr. Spencer tells us 
 elsewhere, only demands long enough time to effect 
 any change, however vast. 
 
 The terror is, that when the end does com<\ \vc 
 shall be governed by an army of officials who will 
 destroy all liberty. It will be a reign of slavery worse 
 than the Egyptian. There will be the Inspector, 
 with workmasters, and taskmasters. And why ? 
 Because "all Socialism is slavery." Now, as before 
 
 4 "The Man versus the State," p. 39. 
 
 5 Ibid. p. 39. 
 
PRACTICABLE STATE SOCIALISM. 399 
 
 said, even if this were true it would still be a question 
 of the comparison of the degree of slavery under the 
 present system, with that under Socialism full-blown. 
 The officials at any rate would not be enslaved ; 
 they would be the enslavers, the rulers ; the rest 
 would be the slaves ; but at present the majority of 
 workers are enslaved largely by their work and the 
 necessity of working. The free are those who 
 can live without work, or those who direct work, 
 the landlord, the rentier, the capitalist. The officials 
 under Socialism would be the most capable in the 
 nation. And the question arises whether it would 
 not be better to have capacity at the head directing 
 than capital, which, after being gathered as often by 
 cupidity and astuteness as by ability and saving, is 
 passed on so often to incapacity by inheritance. If 
 the hierarchical principle is to govern future society, a 
 hierarchy according to capacity is better than any 
 other, as the wise of all times, from Plato to St. 
 Simon and Carlyle, have asserted. It is the " eternal 
 privilege of the foolish to be ruled by the wise," as 
 the latter has written ; and society will always be 
 restless and in unstable equilibrium, until capacity, 
 as such, has its due influence in the State, the 
 absence of which, more than the poverty of the 
 poor, is the cause of the present general unrest. At 
 present money rules in all directions. It may be 
 in the hands of capacity, in which case it has too 
 much power ; it may be in the hands of incapacity, in 
 which case it has unnatural power. Under full State 
 Socialism ability would at least be searched for 
 amongst all, and when found would be at least as 
 
400 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 likely as either wealth or privilege to have virtue 
 conjoined with it. The officials, therefore, might 
 not reduce all the rest to slavery ; even if they did 
 they would have a better right to do so than any 
 other powers. They could not, at any rate, hand us 
 over to the rule of their sons, as there would be no 
 hereditary succession to power. If there must be 
 a governing class, this would be the fairest sort, as 
 well as the most natural, and the most beneficent for 
 all. 
 
 Thus it would still be a question of the comparison 
 of evils, even if we were obliged to go on to the end. 
 But, as already stated, there would be no necessity for 
 so doing, simply because we started on the road in 
 order to get some of the foreseen advantages or to 
 escape from some present evils. We want the prin- 
 ciple introduced of giving chances to capacity as a 
 counterpoise to the great power of capital and in- 
 herited wealth or privilege, a third power to supple- 
 ment and to qualify these, but not to supersede 
 them. We want this because of its justice, its 
 advantages from an economic point of view, and 
 finally because of its necessity. And the only way 
 in which the third power that is without capital can be 
 evoked is by the State searching for and educating 
 destitute capacity, as also by extending the functions 
 of the State in the industrial sphere, in order to 
 provide additional places for this educated ability. 
 The first half of this can indeed be done by the 
 voluntary effort of rich men by gifts and bequests ; the 
 second can only be done by the State itself. 
 
4Oi 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 ON THE SUPPOSED SPONTANEOUS TENDENCIES TO 
 SOCIALISM. 
 
 THERE are others besides Herbert Spencer who 
 discern Socialism as the end or logical outcome of 
 certain tendencies which now prevail or which are 
 thought to prevail, and as all prophecies in modern 
 times must be based on what we know of existing ten- 
 dencies, supplemented by what history tells us of the 
 course of similar tendencies in the past, it is a matter 
 of importance to know how far such tendencies do 
 really exist, and if they do, to gauge, if possible, their 
 probable momentum, and to judge whether they are 
 likely to be permanent or passing, because confident 
 prophecies have been hazarded on the strength of 
 certain tendencies, while at the very moment of the 
 prophecy a counter-tendency was setting in. 1 
 
 The alleged tendencies to Socialism are chiefly 
 two : the tendency of the State to widen its functions, 
 especially in the economic sphere ; and the tendency 
 
 1 As in the case of De Tocqueville's celebrated prophecy that 
 nothing could stop the tide setting towards democracy and the 
 equality of conditions : although a counter-tide towards a new 
 inequality had already set in, with as a consequence of it the 
 rise of a new aristocracy or plutocracy in all Western Europe. 
 
 D d 
 
402 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 to increased concentration of wealth. As to the 
 former there is no doubt that the modern State has 
 a tendency to widen the range of its activity in 
 the economic sphere, as also in the interests of 
 culture, and this tendency is to a certain extent 
 Socialistic. The tendency exists ; it has increased 
 in England during the present century, especially 
 since the passing of the first Factory Acts in 1844. 
 It has increased especially in the legislative sphere, 
 and as far as the regulation of industry is con- 
 cerned ; it will increase further in the interests of the 
 health, the happiness, and the morals of the wofkim; 
 class ; so in like manner the tendency to assume 
 industrial functions on the part of the central or the 
 local government will increase. Nevertheless this 
 tendency will not increase fast nor go far, unless a 
 second tendency which we have now particularly to 
 consider should develop and show itself socially 
 mischievous. 
 
 The second tendency is that towards the increased 
 massing together or concentration of capital which has 
 been going on all through this century, at first as a 
 consequence of the industrial revolution and the needs 
 of the large scale of production, then by the under- 
 taking of ever larger enterprises requiring vast sums 
 of capital, as in the making and working of railways : a 
 tendency which first showed itself in the instance of 
 the great individual capitalist, then in the company or 
 union of capitalists, and lastly, within the past few 
 years, in the syndicate or union of companies. This 
 second tendency does exist ; it is likewise an increas- 
 ing tendency, and under certain circumstances of abuse 
 
THE SUPPOSED TENDENCIES TO SOCIALISM. 403 
 
 into which it would be tempted to fall, it might lead 
 to Socialism, not because of its affinities, since it is 
 the very opposite of Socialism, but by way of 
 repulsion ; it might lead to excessive government 
 regulation, or to the superseding of the syndicates by 
 government management in the interest of the public. 
 
 But before considering the circumstances which 
 might lead to such State Socialism, it is necessary to 
 clear away a mistake as to the concentration of capital, 
 to point out a mistaken tendency, which, if it really 
 did exist, would probably lead to Socialism by a far 
 shorter road: the mistake that the increasing concen- 
 tration of capital, which is an undoubted fact, is an 
 increasing concentration or accumulation in ever fewer 
 individual hands ; a mistake made conspicuously by 
 Karl Marx, which was endorsed by Cairnes and 
 Fawcett, and which lies at the bottom of all their 
 desires to change the present industrial organization 
 by substituting for it universal Collectivism, as Marx 
 would wish, or co-operative production, as the other 
 two prefer. 
 
 According to Karl Marx, Socialism will come when 
 the process of evolution has resulted in a few colossal 
 capitalists face to face with millions of exploited and 
 expropriated proletarians, including many smaller 
 capitalists who have been undersold and driven into 
 the ranks of the proletariate. " When the constantly 
 diminishing number of the magnates of capital has 
 resulted in a few gigantic ones with a growing mass 
 of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, and 
 exploitation;" and when, in addition, "the work- 
 ing class, increased in numbers, organized, disciplined, 
 D d 2 
 
404 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD.' 
 
 and united by the very mechanism of the process of 
 capitalist production itself, is animated with a spirit of 
 revolt," then, he declares, "the knell of capitalist 
 property will sound, the expropriators will be ex- 
 propriated." But we can now see that Marx mistook 
 the course of the industrial evolution, and that he pro- 
 phesied without due allowance for other facts and 
 forces that might check, or cross, or turn the tendency 
 he thought he had divined. 
 
 According to Cairnes also, as we have seen, the 
 tendency is to " an increased inequality in distribution. 
 The rich will grow richer, the poor, at least relatively, 
 poorer." And he recommends to the latter co- 
 operative production as their sole hope. Now Cairnes' 
 mistake was the less excusable, as he wrote at a time 
 (1874) when the tendency to great individual accumu- 
 lation had received a check, and there were statistics 
 available that might have tested his deduction. And 
 in fact all that his argument really proves is that the 
 class receiving interest (and occasionally wages of 
 management, in addition to interest) tends to get a 
 larger part of the produce than the class that lives by 
 hired wages, or, as he puts it, that the wages fund 
 tends to lag behind the other parts into which capital 
 is divided. This last, if true, would still be a sufficiently 
 serious thing, though Mr. Giffen, the eminent statis- 
 tician, denies its truth ; but true or not, it is a quite 
 different thing from the increasing concentration of 
 wealth in individual hands, which Cairnes appears 
 in the above quotations, to think implied in it: 
 that one class, and a large class, tends to get a some- 
 what larger share than another, and a much larger 
 
THE SUPPOSED TENDENCIES TO SOCIALISM. 405 
 
 class, would not be a desirable thing if it could be 
 prevented : it would scarcely be an argument for a 
 total change in our industrial system, as desired by 
 Cairnes, still less for the further social and political 
 changes desired by advanced Socialists. 
 
 According to Comte also (writing in 1850) the 
 tendency was to the greater concentration of capital 
 in the hands of individual capitalists ; he thought the 
 tendency a good one ; far from desiring to thwart it by 
 human volitions, he affirmed that the tendency would 
 necessarily and beneficially lead to a more pronounced 
 Capitalism instead of to Socialism, and with the 
 capitalists ruling in the political as well as the 
 industrial sphere ; so differently did the philosophers 
 forecast the future from the same assumed tendency. 
 
 Now if the tendency were really to the concentra- 
 tion of capital in ever fewer hands, with a mighty 
 mass of ill-paid and discontented workers, and with 
 no great middle class lying between, then indeed the 
 transition to Socialism more or less complete would 
 be much easier to accomplish, and in some shape it 
 would probably come ; at least it would be easier to 
 expropriate a comparative few ; it would be almost im- 
 possible to prevent it, the forces of might and justice 
 added to envy being adverse, and with no mediating 
 middle class. Both might and morality would be on 
 the side of the labouring class, and the fall of such a 
 plutocracy might be safely prophesied. But Marx 
 happily was mistaken as to the tendency. The ten- 
 dency is not to the greater and greater fortunes of 
 individual capitalists. That tendency did however, 
 exist during and fora certain time after the industrial 
 
406 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 revolution, especially in England so long as she had a 
 comparative monopoly of the continental as well as 
 other foreign markets. And the tendency was so 
 marked, it lasted so long, and some men became so rich, 
 that Marx may be excused for generalizing too hastily 
 from it, as undoubtedly he did. That tendency has 
 now almost ceased in England, from increased com- 
 petition, from the want of the old opportunities, from 
 increased wages, from the spread of companies, and 
 other causes ; and though it did exist at the time 
 Comte wrote, according to M. Leroy-Beaulieu it has 
 ceased in France, the law moreover having there con- 
 siderably assisted to check it by the equal partition 
 of inheritances amongst the children. 
 
 The real tendency at present is to the greater 
 massing together of separate portions of capital 
 owned by many capitalists, small, great, and of 
 moderate dimensions ; to the concentration of capital 
 certainly, but not to its concentration in single hands ; 
 to the union of capitals for a common purpose, while 
 still separately owned. The tendency is to the crea- 
 tion of companies and unions of companies ; to the 
 transformation of the larger businesses into companies 
 with larger capital, the original owner retaining a 
 large portion of the shares, and possibly a large in- 
 fluence in the management, if the business is in a 
 sound condition. The tendency is also to give 
 business ability without capital chances of becoming 
 rich through the management of such large concerns, 
 and greatly to increase the number of directors of 
 industry who, without being large capitalists, may in 
 time become considerable capitalists. 
 
THE SUPPOSED TENDENCIES TO SOCIALISM. 407 
 II. 
 
 THE tendency to the concentration of capital, then, 
 does exist as a fact, and Socialism might conceivably 
 come as the end of the tendency ; only it will not 
 come as the result of its concentration in the hands 
 of a few mammoth millionaires, for the tendency is 
 not towards such in any country save the United 
 States, and even there the tendency is not marked, 
 or it only shows itself in comparatively few in- 
 stances. It might conceivably come as the result 
 of a universal syndicate and monopolistic r/gime, 
 which, if the monopolists greatly abused their posi- 
 tion, might necessitate the State either to regulate 
 stringently or itself to occupy and undertake those 
 industries whose abuses proved incorrigible. But if a 
 partial Socialism came in this way, it would give the 
 present system a much longer lease of life, both be- 
 cause the process of monopolistic occupation will 
 probably be slow, and because the capitalists of a given 
 country will not be, as Marx prognosticated, a small 
 number, but hundreds of thousands, probably millions, 
 who would oppose a very powerful resistance to State 
 occupation of a given industry, unless where such 
 occupation was manifestly beneficial for the great 
 majority. 
 
 The great multitude interested, the great number 
 of owners of capital, whether in large or small por- 
 tions, including the more intelligent artisans, would 
 certainly make it difficult or impossible to expropriate 
 them, would indefinitely delay the process, and only 
 those industries could be taken over by the State the 
 
408 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 functions of which were discharged to the detriment 
 of the community. 
 
 If indeed every province of production, distribution, 
 and transport were occupied by syndicates and 
 monopolies ; if they abused the natural strength of 
 the monopolist's position by raising prices to the ut- 
 most, and especially prices of the prime necessaries, 
 while at the same time trying to reduce wages to the 
 lowest point; if, in short, they were animated solely 
 by egoism, and without conscience, or humanity, or 
 public spirit, the public outside the industrial world, 
 the large and intelligent middle class outside the 
 industrial class, would probably side with the labouring 
 class in pressing on the Government the suppression 
 of the worst of them and the undertaking of their 
 functions. 
 
 But, in the first place, the universal occupation of 
 the industrial field by monopolies, and the extinction 
 of competition, is very far off"; in the second place, 
 where any large combinations show too much cor- 
 porate selfishness they can be pulled up by State 
 supervision, and in certain cases great potential com- 
 binations can be nipped in the bud, their formation 
 can be prevented by the State refusing permission to 
 the companies to unite as " contrary to public policy " 
 or to public interest ; because a company is, in a cer- 
 tain sense, a creation of the State, as is likewise a 
 Union, and neither should exist, or receive permission 
 of the State to come into being, if deemed likely 
 to prove inimical to the general weal, so that the 
 State could always check early or altogether the for- 
 mation of possibly objectionable unions. Where, as 
 
THE SUPPOSED TENDENCIES TO SOCIALISM. 409 
 
 in a case like that of railways, they were necessary, 
 it would not be desirable to prevent their formation ; 
 they could always be checked if they abused their 
 position, and conditions should always be attached to 
 the concession of powers and privileges to' them. It is, 
 therefore, extremely unlikely that the industrial field 
 will ever be occupied by a few colossal and irrespon- 
 sible syndicates, or that the State will be driven to 
 substitute itself for them, save possibly in a very few 
 cases. 
 
 Lastly, the Syndicates would have to be devoid 
 not only of conscience, humanity, public spirit, but 
 also, what we can less easily suppose to be absent, 
 common sense and prudence, if they tried to extort 
 the highest prices in cases of necessaries supposed 
 to be controlled by them, or, on the other hand, to 
 reduce wages to the lowest point, on the ground that 
 labourers had no alternative work ; such would be 
 dangerous policy for themselves, though no doubt 
 there would be a temptation to it which might prove 
 too great for some employers: Only in such a case 
 of abuse would the State be called upon to interfere 
 and either strictly regulate or itself undertake the 
 function abused. 
 
 But the result of these several considerations is to 
 put off universal Socialism indefinitely as a natural 
 evolution,and points merely to the introduction of such 
 partial applications of State Socialism as peremptory 
 public exigence may require, in those cases where a 
 social function could not be entrusted to private 
 enterprise, whether monopolistic or competitive. 
 
410 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 III. 
 
 THERE is also the tendency on the part of the 
 labourers to co-operative effort, from which some 
 people expect the elevation of the labourers and the 
 composing of the quarrel between capital and labour 
 by merging the two ; and this tendency does certainly 
 exist ; it is, moreover, in the direction of Socialism in 
 the widest sense of the word ; only it is a much slower 
 tendency, and a smaller one, more especially in the 
 field of production, as already stated. Of the two 
 tendencies, one to co-operation on the part of labour, 
 and one to the spread and consolidation of companies 
 on the part of capital, the former will not develop 
 fast enough. The company will develop much faster, 
 and Socialism might much sooner come as the term 
 of that evolution unchecked than through co-opera- 
 tion. But the one might be restrained by the State ; 
 the other might be quickened ; the State might be- 
 come the working man's bank, to some extent, as it 
 has been the creditor of the farmer in Ireland ; it 
 might lend at market rate, say at 3 or 3 4 per cent., to 
 such associations of workers as had saved a moiety of 
 capital, if they could show the likelihood of success 
 in their projected enterprise. But as this point has 
 already been considered, it is not necessary to enlarge 
 on it here any further than to say that the working 
 classes, now that they have got so much political 
 power, may not improbably press for some State 
 assistance to increase the number of owners of capital, 
 especially as the results of unaided efforts must be 
 extremely small and slow. 
 
THE SUPPOSED TENDENCIES TO SOCIALISM. 41 1 
 
 What political action to improve their economical 
 position they may take cannot be precisely stated. 
 It is by no means likely that they will ever combine to 
 demand a maximum working day in England. They 
 will not ask the help of the State for the purpose ; nor 
 will they, with the Socialists, ask it to fix a minimum 
 of wages, which they can if they choose themselves 
 fix through Trades Unions. They may ask for the 
 nationalization of the land ; though it is not clear, 
 if landlords were compensated, what they would gain 
 by it beyond the creation of small farmers, the granting 
 of allotments to agricultural or other labourers, as an 
 occupation for slack times ; all of which may be 
 secured otherwise : so that it is not easy to forecast 
 the resultant line of action of the working classes, 
 more especially as the interests of the skilled and 
 unskilled labourers are not always identical, however 
 the desires for higher wages and fewer hours may be 
 common to both. 
 
 IV. 
 
 THUS far as to the existing tendencies. As to the 
 final goal, it is very difficult to say what it will be, or 
 what the end in which society will rest (if, indeed, it 
 ever attains to rest other than provisional equili- 
 brium). And it is difficult because of the new and 
 unforeseen factors that arise in the course of an ever- 
 expanding evolution which might upset our calcula- 
 tions ; new factors, industrial, social, moral, religious ; 
 new physical discoveries, like steam or electricity, 
 that might revolutionize industry ; new moral or 
 religious forces that might revolutionize manners, and 
 
412 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 the scheme of life, and with it indirectly the distribu- 
 tion of wealth; and great physical discoveries and 
 inventions affecting industry, we may indeed certainly 
 look for as in the normal course of evolution. 
 
 Society may indeed come to the collective owner- 
 ship of land and capital, but it will not be for a long 
 time ; it may come to equality of material goods, but 
 it will be at a time still more remote. On the other 
 hand, the system of private property and freedom of 
 contract may last indefinitely or for ever ; but if it 
 does, we may safely prophesy that it will be brought 
 more in accordance with reason, justice, and the 
 general good, and, though there be never equality of 
 property, there will be a nearer approach to equality 
 of opportunities, and a somewhat nearer approxima- 
 tion of the existing great extremes of fortune. 
 
 Eminent writers during the past hundred years 
 have prophesied far more confidently as to the future : 
 Karl Marx, as we have seen, that the concentration 
 of capital in the hands of a few would lead, naturally, 
 necessarily, and at no distant date, to their expropria- 
 tion, and to a Collectivist regime ; and De Tocque- 
 ville, that society was being borne invincibly to a state 
 of general equality of conditions, where the State 
 would continually become more powerful. On the 
 other hand, the sociologists, who, if their science were 
 all that its name implies, should be able to forecast the 
 future, " to look into the seeds of time and say which 
 grains would grow and which would not," predict very 
 differently : Comte, that the concentration of capital in 
 ever fewer hands would and should lead definitively, 
 to the political rule of the capitalists, tempered by the 
 
THE SUPPOSED TENDENCIES TO SOCIALISM. 413 
 
 counsel of positive philosophers, and that within a 
 short space of time ; while Herbert Spencer, as we 
 have already seen, filled with the doctrine of evolution, 
 and impressed with the lesson it teaches as to the 
 length of time required for changes for the better, 
 discerns at " the limits of evolution," countless genera- 
 tions hence, as goal, a system of property and 
 contract, purified and supplemented by voluntary 
 benevolence, with the authority of the State reduced 
 to a minimum. 
 
 In like manner Mill prophesied ; but his conclusion 
 was different. He prophesied that co-operative pro- 
 duction, " sooner than people in general imagined," 
 would transform society by superseding the capitalist 
 employer ; and with respect to the two exactly oppo- 
 site prophecies of Mill and Comte, all that need be 
 said is that neither of them has been as yet fulfilled. 
 Co-operative production has not advanced,, nor, on 
 the other hand, has the capitalist attained supreme 
 political power, though of the two perhaps the pro- 
 phecy of Comte has come nearer to fulfilment. 
 
 When De Tocqueville wrote his remarkable book 
 on " Democracy in America," the new tendency to 
 inequality had not shown itself in America, there was 
 great equality of conditions, and there was likewise 
 considerable equality of conditions in France as a con- 
 sequence of the Revolution. De Tocqueville gene- 
 ralized from what he then saw, and prophesied a further 
 and a general equality, though somewhat prema- 
 turely, because a tendency to a prodigious inequality 
 was setting in at the time he was writing, a tendency 
 first manifested in England, that increased, spread, 
 
414 SOCIALISM NEW AND OLD. 
 
 embraced the civilized world, that was followed by 
 a new social conquest, and the rise of a new and 
 potent monied aristocracy. It grew greater ; and 
 generalizing from this tendency, Karl Marx prophesied 
 it would grow still greater until all capital was concen- 
 trated in a few hands : the capitalists would then be 
 expropriated, and Socialism and equality would come. 
 But Marx, as already stated, based his prophecy on 
 a misread tendency, a short tendency which had 
 spent its full force before he died, just as De Tocque- 
 ville based his prediction on a supposed tendency 
 gathered from the facts of a generation earlier. 
 Both were wrong, a great current towards inequality 
 came, especially in America, after De Tocqueville 
 wrote, in 1835, just as there came a check to the 
 concentration of capital in fewer hands, and a ten- 
 dency to its dispersal, before Marx died. 
 
 Others also have prophesied in our century, though 
 without pretending to base their predictions on the 
 scientific study of political or social phenomena : St. 
 Simon, that the golden age was in the future, and 
 that society would reach it through his doctrine ; 
 Carlyle, that the abyss lay before society, unless the 
 Great Man appeared to save it. To the like effect 
 the poet-laureate also speaks : " Before Earth reach 
 her earthly best a God must mingle with the game." 
 
 What is the lesson to be gathered from the 
 prophets and writers on the science of society ? Not 
 that we should expect an early and radical trans- 
 formation of society ; neither the supremacy of a 
 few capitalists, nor yet their early expropriation ; 
 hardly even that we should expect the coming of the 
 
THE SUPPOSED TENDENCIES TO SOCIALISM. 415 
 
 semi-divine man of Carlyle and Tennyson to set 
 things right. The chief lesson is the rashness and 
 exceeding doubtfulness of specific prophecies which 
 are grounded as often on hopes or fears, likes or 
 dislikes, as on superior insight. The prophets are, 
 however, in general optimistic ; they believe in pro- 
 gress or evolution ; and they believe that civilized 
 society is progressing to something better than the 
 present state, though they differ considerably as to 
 what constitutes that better. I share this faith on 
 the whole myself. I believe that society is in move- 
 ment as part of an inevitable process to something 
 better in the end, though some of the stages to it 
 may appear to be really worse for particular gene- 
 rations. I believe we are moving towards a better, 
 to "a far-off divine event" which cannot be fully 
 perceived at present ; and I believe that the road to 
 it lies through something better than the present 
 which can be perceived. To get to this better will 
 require the co-operative efforts and volitions of 
 men, especially of the working classes, and of their 
 leaders. Social thinkers will be required to furnish 
 light and guidance, and also, it may be, great states- 
 men filled with the spirit of understanding and justice, 
 and with regard for the general good. There will 
 be neither miracle wrought, nor sudden social trans- 
 formation, which would be a miracle in order to last ; 
 but with good sense, self-reliance, and persistence on 
 the part of the many, assisted by the light and help 
 of the few, and with better dispositions on the part of 
 employers of labour, a considerable advance for the 
 whole people, and especially for the cause of labour, 
 
416 SOCIALISM NKW AND OLD. 
 
 might be made during the present generation : while 
 with these same conditions as permanent facts, the 
 movement for social reform, if not the socialistic 
 movement, will advance as fast as is desirable, and 
 will realize in future as much good as the nature and 
 complexity of things social and things human will 
 allow. 
 
 THE END 
 
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