D ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN PRODUCTION NOTE University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library Brittle Books Project, 2019.COPYRIGHT NOTIFICATION In Public Domain. Published prior to 1923. This digital copy was made from the printed version held by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It was made in compliance with copyright law. Prepared for the Brittle Books Project, Main Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign by Northern Micrographics Brookhaven Bindery La Crosse, Wisconsin 2019 v ->WK ( P«M >€M: ^SS *•)' J • 1' •■ msm ' m"r; iM'Ji ^'V IHRHi No. 6. August 1887. Published Monthly, $2.50 per year. Price, lO Cta. I I I I II I 1 I I I I 1 I I [ I I I I I I I I I I I I I I 1 I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I II NEW YORK LABOR LIBRARY AN ANSWER TO HENRY GEORGE. BY LAURENCE GRONLUND. New York Labor News Company 172 FIRST AVENUE, NEW YORK. J . 4 Entered.at the Post <~,»ffice. N. Y.. a* f"ass r>vrit;ht iro' ( ,/ T i-O v ~ ' w v,il :J".^ ^..' •»S.'V'L ^ 's- *v-<>" , ,", '/• >'•'; -J ',<\> > > > -,• ', ;, V % J.4 -,' .' v '»-•*-•. i> ' 1 ,.' n ; ' :-,' v. " ' - ' < „' 1 . \i „ 1 > -•.- vj ^ \ ^ i v~ ^ ** */ *■ r t TkiS^-i .4Axv»*f, * w „ v *_..,* »• - >,4 8S*v7s!v'; iiiiii&iiiUipMpi Ty* », 'V **>'•;:< .;iSS , l#esssrfj; ,s/^\ /' •v-ar Book Volume Ja 09-20M ■\U )* V /l^';^l, /' - mt rl Mrf^rVvg 5 V'^'T\1 fct:%%ifl kurfovn^m Wi^«iUh i i i i i i i I i JSocialism vs. Tax-Reform. AN ANSWER TO HENRY GEORGE. « BY LAURENCE GRONLUND. NEW YORK. NEW YORK LABOR NEWS CO., 172 First Avenue, 1887.THIS PAMPHLET CONTAINS: A. THE ATTACK OF GEORGE ON SOCIALIS AND SOCIALISTS^ with the parts to which objectior made italicized. The question- and exclamation-marks in bracl are ours. B. THE ANSWER OP GRONLUND. 1. Henry George—Tlte "Exploiter". 2. Land in its Relation to Capital. 3. The Wage-System and Land-Tax. 4. Individualism and Freedom. .5. Keep the Party on the Track!A. In Standard, No. 4 (July 30), George answers a correspondent who asks him to state his position to Socialism as tcJlow&: I have already done so at some length in that chapter of my book a Protection or Free Trade?" which is entitled "Free Trade and Socialism," and in a note to which I say: The term 44 socialism is used so loosely that it is hard to attach to it a definit meaning. I myself am classed as a socialist by those who denounce socialism, while those who profess themselves socialists declare me not to be one. For my own part I neither claim nor repudiate the name, and realizing as I do the correlative truth of both principles (?), can no more call myself an individualist or a socialist than one who considers the forces by which the planets are held to their orbits could call him- self a centrifugalist or a centripetalist (sic). The German socialism of the school of Marx (of which the leading representative in England is Mr. H. M. Hyndman, and the best exposition in America has been given by Mr. Laurence Gronlund), seems to me a high-purposed but incoherent mixture of truth and fallacy, the defects of which may be summed up in its want of radicalism (sic)—that is to say, of going to the root, (sic). The cardinal defect of socialism of the German school is its failure to make a clear distinction between the primary factor of production, land, and the derivative factor, capital (? I)—a confusion largely due to the use of a terminology singu- larly lacking in any approach to scientific precision (?), and to ignoring of that power of co-ordination (!!!) and adjustment (!!), which comes from the free play of individual interests, and is to the social organism what the unconscious functions are to the human organism. Confusinq land with capital (?), these socialists imagine that it is as necessary, in order to prevent the robbery of labor, to do away with the private ownership of land; and failing to recognize the primary cause of the helplessness of the mere laborer, where land is monopol- ized, and the co-ordination in production and justice in distribution that would result from really free competition, they imagine (!) the evil lies in the wage system, (!) and that competition must be abolished by committing to organized society—virtually the government (???)—the direction of both production and distribution, in order to prevent waste and secure to each the fair reward of his labor. Socialism is not akin to anarchism, as so many who know nothing of either seem to suppose. It is its antipode.. The socialist, as the term is com- monly used to denote German or state socialist, would, to secure the proper direction of industry and the just distribution of its fruits, commit its control to government (???); the philosophic anarchist, seeing the abuses to which gov- ernment is liable, would do away with government altogether, and trust every- thing to the co-ordination of individual impulses and needs. Both make a like mistake in seizing on one side of the truth and ignoring its correlative.There is this truth—and it is a very important one—in socialism, that as civil- ization advances the functions which pass into the proper sphere of governmental control become more and more numerous, as we see in the case of the railroad, the telegraph, the supplying of gas, water, etc., but this is all the more reason why we should be careful to guard against governmental interference with what can safely se left ^o individual action. In some things our existing system is too socialistic and in others too anarchistic. The proper line between govern- mental control r,uo individualism is that where free competition fails to secure liberty of action &nc* freedom of development. The great thing which we should a«m to secure ig freedom (precisely) ~that full freedom of each which is bounded oy the equal freedom of others. If if were absotaeiy necessary to make a choice between full state socialism ard anarchism, I for one would be inclined to chose anarchism, preferring no government at all, bad and inconvenient as that might be, to a government which should essay and control everything. And I imagine that this woul^ be the choice of the great majority of the American people, for individualism is strongly rooted in all the habits of thought of the peoples of English speech (?), and we seem t© lack the capacity for governmental direction and administration (?) that has been developed on the continent. This is the reason why socialism of the German school can never make the headway here that it has on the con- tinent of Europe. It is, in fact, the product of a state of society in which people have become largely used to governmental supervision and direction, and are accustomed to look to government as a sort of special providence. But in the meantime there is no reason why those who entertain such views as I do should not work harmoniously with socialists of the G-erman school as long as we go together, or why we should perpetually be accentuating our differ- ences (sic). The ultimate aims of socialism are high and noble. They seek to obtain for society that abolition of poverty for which we would strive. Any dispute as to means may well be postponed until it is necessary to raise it. I and my friend both wish to reach the Pacific ocean. I think we shall reach it at San Francisco; he is firmly of the opinion that it will be neces- sary to keep on until we get to China. So long as we are willing to travel westward (?) in the same car, we can well postpone disputes. (From the Standard of August 6th.) It is necessary that the platform to be adopted by the United Labor Party convention which is to meet at Syracuse on the 17th should firmly and clearly define the position of the party with relation to socialism. This is rendered necessary by the organized endeavor (?) of the State or German socialists to impress their particular views on the party—an endeavor that has become so notorious (?!) that any disposition to evade the issue whether or not the United Labor Party indorses these views, would give its enemies a specious pretext to make the charge that it does. Stimulated, perhaps, by the irritation produced by what in socialistic parlance might be called the attempt of the socialists to "exploit" (?) the United Labor Party, there is a strong disposition to rule out of the convention three pro- minent socialists who have been elected as delegates, but who are not voters of New York—one, Mr. Schevitsch, having his legal residence in New Jersey, andtie other two, Messrs. G-ronlund and Yrooman, having been in the State only - a few months. But though such a proceeding might be in conformity with the usage requir- ing that the members of a State convention should be voters of the State, the fact that these gentlemen are prominent socialists, and elected for that reason, furnishes an argument for the most liberal recognition of the right of the district to send such representatives as will best express the opinions of its members. Since the relations of the United Labor Party with socialism have been brought into such prominence and will enter into the most important part o* the pro- ceedings of the convention, it is all the better that socialism should be represented there by its ablest exponents, and it would be a pity to rule out of the conven- tion on technical grounds three such men as Messrs. Schevitsch, G-ronlund and Yrooman—the first a well-known socialistic editor, the second a well-known socialistic writer, and the third an accredited missionary and orator of the socialistic labor party. The question between State or German socialism and the ideas of that .great party of equal rights and individual freedom which is now beginning to rise all over the land, may as well, since the socialists have raised it, be settled now as at any other time, and ought to be settled frankly and openly, and on its merits and with the best representation of socialistic ideas that the members of the party who hold to these ideas can select. There are a large number of us who are not socialists, and are not willing to be used as a stalking horse (!) for socialism; and if the socialists of the G-erman school, who have hitherto acted with the United Labor Party, propose to use the socialistic organization as a party within a party, and making up in dis- cipline what they lack in numbers (! ?), to insist upon any indorsement, expressed or implied, of their peculiar theories as a condition of continuing to act with the party, then the quicker the two bodies separate, each to go its own way, the better it will be. And this not merely as a matter of principle but as a matter of policy—if any distinction can be made between the two things in the minds of men who have no policy except to^advance principle. For any disadvantage that might result from being called socialists we care nothing. But to permit the simple and obviously just principles of securing equal rights in natural opportunities by taking land values for public uses and of bringing businesses in their nature monopolies under the control or management of the State, to be con- founded with schemes for abolishing industrial liberty (?) and making the State the sole landholder as well as the sole landowner, the sole capitalist, the sole employer and the sole director of production and exchange, would be to greatly retard the work we have in hand. Such confused (!) theories and wild (!) schemes as those of the doctrinaires of the German sodialistic school can never stand the test of intelligent (?) discussion or make headway among a people with whome the instinct of individual freedom is so strong as with ours (?)» G-erman socialism is so confused (sic) and confusing (sic) in its terminology, so illogical (!!!) in its methods; it contains such a mixture of important truths with superficial© generalizations and unwarranted (!) assumptions, that it is difficult—at least for people of English speech—to readily understand its real meaning and purpose. Let me endeavor to give such a brief account of it afs will at least serve to show the differences between it and the theories advanced in The Standard and held by the great bulk of the men who are now united in the formation of a new party.— 6 — In the theories of Marxian or German socialism—or socialism as we might as well call it to avoid repetition—the central point is the employer or capitalist. In that form of production which the socialistic writers denominate the capital- ' istic, and which they assume (!) to be that of all production in the grade of civilization to which the most advanced modern nations have already attained, or, at least, in that to which they are advancing, this employer provides site, building, tools und materials, and buys labor, paying for it wages. He does not, however, pay in wages the whole value which the labor he buys adds to his material, but only a part of it, which the socialistic writers put at from one- quarter (?) to one-half. .The rest he keeps for himself. He, in short, buys labor as he buys commodities, and the price that he must pay and that labor can demand is, in the socialistic theory, fixed by the same law that governs the price of other commodities; that is to say, the minimum on which, in the exist- ing state of society, laborers will consent to maintain themselves and reproduce. The tendency of competition for employment among laborers to reduce wages to this minimum and keep them there is assumed, in the socialistic theory, to be the general law, and is styled by them the " iron law of wages." That part of the value created by the laborers, which the employer does not return to them in wages, but keeps for himself, and which is generally assumed (?) by socialistic writers to be from three-quarters (?) to one-half of the whole produce, they style * surplus value." (ironlund, however, in his book, "The Co-operative Commonwealth," which is probably the best popular rendering into English of the socialistic theory, givefe to this " surplus value " of Marx the much more intelligible name of "fleectings." It is from this " surplus value," or " fleecings," that profits, rents, and interests are assumed to come, and from it the employer or capitalists maintain and augment their capital. This, in fact, the socialistic writers generally speak of as, and even more commonly assume to be, the source ' of capital, and from this idea is derived the assertion they frequently make that capital consists of unpaid labor. Nothing could better show the incoherence (sic) of socialism than its failure to give any definite meaning to the term which it most frequently uses (?!) and lays the most stress upon. Capital, the socialists tell us, consists of " unpaid labor " or "surplus value," the "fleecings" of what has been produced by labor. Capital, they again tell us, is " that part of wealth employed productively with a view to profit by the sale of the produce (precisely). Yet they not only class land as capital (thus confounding the essential distinction between primary and second- ary factors of production (sic), but when pressed for an explanation of what , they mean when they talk about nationalizing capital they exclude from the definition such articles of wealth as the individual can employ productively with a view to profit, such as the ax of the woodsman, the sewing machine of the seamstress and the boat of the fisherman. The fact is that it is im- possible to get in the socialistsc literature any clear and consistent definition of capital (?). What they evidently have in mind in talking of capital is such capital as is used in the factory system (precisely), though they do not hesi tate to include land with it and to speak of the landlord pure and simple as a capitalist. The same indefiniteness (!) and confusion (!) of terminology, the same failure (!) to subject to analysis the things and phenomena of which it treats, run through the whole socialistic theory. For instance, in the "Socialistic Catechism " of Dr. J. L. Joynes, which is circulated by the State socialists both in England and this country, the question is asked, " What is wealth ? " Theanswer given is, " Everything that supplies the wants of man and ministers in any way to his comfort and enjoyment." Under this definition land, water, air and sunshine, to say nothing of intangible things, are clearly included as wealth, yet the very next question is, " Whence is wealth derived?" to which the answer is given, "From labor usefully employed upon natural objects." Yet the notion that labor usefully employed upon natural objects produces land is not more unintelligible than the notion that " surplus values " or " fleecings " produces capital. As to the latter, it might as well be said that robbing orch- ards produces apples, and, in fact, c©nsidering that land is by socialists included in capital, it might as well be said that robbing orchards produces apples and apple trees too. {Nonsense!) This indisposition or inability to analyze, to trace things to their root (sic/) and distinguish between the primary and secondary (?), the essential and the acci- dental, is the vice of the whole socialistic theory. The socialist sees that under the conditions that exist to-day in civilized societies, the laborer does not get the fair reward of his labor, and that the tendency of the competition between laborers is, despite the augmentation of productive power, to force wages to the minimum of a bare livelihood. But, instead of going further and asking the reason (?) of this, he assumes (!!!) it to be inherent in the "wage system." and the natural result of free competition. As the only remedy for these evils, he would put an end to the " wage system," and abolish competition by having the ownership of all capital (including land) assumed by the State; having all pro- duction and exchange directed by the State, and making all employed in pro- duction, or, at Least, all employed in production for exchange, employes of the State, whose business it will then be to see that they will get a fair return for their labor. In the "co-operative commonwealth," as pictured by the socialistic writers, ownership and possession of all means of production, including both land and capital, would be held by the State. The various classes of producers would be organized in associations or guilds in the nature of government depart- ments (?) whose members would settle their hours of work, the part each should assume, and the relative value of their labor, while the collectivity or general government would, in the words of G-ronlund, "only have three functions, of being general manager, general statistician and general arbitrator. As statist- ician it will determine how much is to be produced; as manager distribute the work and see^to it that it is properly performed; and as arbitrator it will see justice done between associatiQn and association and between each association and its members." Only*) this, ought certainly to be enough even for a collectivity as big as the United States; but in thus minimizing the functions of the collectivity, Mr. G-ronlund is evidently thinking merely of its relation with the various produc- ing (?) departments or associations. A still larger job would be that of ex- changing things and parts of things after they had been produced by the various associations. To this end the socialistic scheme is that all produce for exchange is to be turned over to the general government (?), which is to give the pro- ducers, or rather the producing association, money or orders in the form of labor notes, upon its general stock of wealth, according to the amount of labor which has entered into the productions. The general government, in its capacity *) George's Italics.— 8 — of general statistician, or general bureau of statistics, is not only to decide how much of each particular article is to be produced, but at what rates (?) it is to be exchanged and how much of it is to be exported when it is deemed expedient to export. Even newspapers and books are to be produced and circulated in this fashion. (?) If it is possible for anyone seriously to imagine such a scheme in actual operation in a country like the United States, it might be inconstruc- tive for him to go on and speculate how long it would take it to break up in anarchy or pass into worse than the despotism of ancient Egypt. The utter impracticability (?) and essential childishness (sic) of such a scheme as this is largely disguised to the believers in socialism by a curious pre- tense (?) of scientific research and generalization, and much reference to the doctrine of evolution. According to the socialistic writers all production up to quite recent times was for use, not for exchange, and they even gravely say that capital has only become an agent in production during the last two hundred years or so! Slavery, according to them, was the first method of organizing labor and securing the increased production that comes from it. From chattel slavery, by way of serfdom, the natural evolution has been into the industrial slavery of the wage system and " capitalistic production," in which modern civilization is now. And from this mankind are to pass by evolution into the socialistic organization of production and distribution in which all industry is to be intelligently ordered by the collective will. This evolution, they hold, will be accomplished anyhow by virtue of the natural forces, whatever they may be, which produce evolution, and the socialists who understand and hold to the Marxian theory do not so much hope to assist (?) in hastening its advent as to put men in readiness to take advantage of the new order when in the fullness of evolution it shall come. Their notion sometimes seems to be that one branch of industry after another will pass under control of the State, until everything has been thus managed and directed. At otfyer times it seems to be that the commercial crisis or gluts (which they attribute to a tendency of capitalists to produce as much as possible in order to get the largest profits, while the laborers, not getting their fair share of the produce of their labor, are unable to buy what is thus produced) will finally culminate in a grand break-down of the present system, when all that socialists will have to do will be to step in and Organize industry under governmental direction. # The simple truths which are the grains of wheat in all this mountainous chaff of grotesque (sic) exaggeration (!) and assumption (!) are that with the progress of civilization and the integration of society the division of labor becomes more minute and the methods of production require larger amounts of capital, and that certain functions are developed, such, for instance, as the maintenance of highways, the supplying of cities with water, etc., which can better be performed by the community or under the control of the community, than by leaving them to individual enterprise,, and (when in their nature competition becomes impossible) to individual or corporate monopoly. Ignoring the essential (?) distinction between land and capital, regarding land as but one of the means of production, of no more importance than steam engines or power looms, and looking to the direction and employment of labor by tke State as the oniy mode of securing an equitable distribution of wealth— 9 — socialists do not appreciate the wide and far-reaching consequences which would flow from that simple reform that would ^put all men upon an equality with regard to natural opportunities, and which by appropriating its natural revenue for the support of the State would make possible the freeing of production from all the imposts and restrictions that now hamper it. The nationalization of land is included in their programme as is the nationalization of machinery; but while they do not attach any more importance to the nationalization of land tha.n they do to that of any other " instrument of production," they also mean by it some- thing essentially different from what is aimed at by the United Labor Party. Frederick Engels, the coadjutor of Marx, in founding this G-erman school of socialism, has recently written a tract on the labor movement in America as a preface to anew edition of his " Condition of the Working Classes in England in 1884," which has been translated from the G-erman by Florence Keiley Wischnewetzky, who is, by the bye, a daughter of Congressman Keiley of Phila- delphia, and who doubtless comes the more easily to the idea of full govern- , mental regulation and direction of industry from her familiarity with the idea of the direction and regulation of industry by protective tariffs. In this pamphlet Herr Engels thus states the difference between the socialists of the G-erman school and those who think as I do: If Henry G-eorge declares land monopolization to be the sole cause of poverty and misery, he naturally finds the remedy in the resumption of land by society at large. Now, the socialists of the school of Marx, too, demand the resump- tion, by society, of the land, and not only of the land but of all other means of production likewise. But even,if we leave these out of the question, there is another difference. What is to be done with the land? Modern socialists, as represented by Marx, demand that it should be held and worked in common and for common account, and the same with all other means of social production— mines, railways, factories, etc.; Henry G-eorge would confine himself to letting it out to individuals as at present, merely regulating its distribution and apply- ing the rents for public, instead of, as at present, for private purposes. What the socialists demand implies a total revolution of the whole system of social production; what Henry G-eorge demands leaves the present mode of social production untouched, and has, in fact, been anticipated by the extreme section of Ricardian bourgeois economists who, too, demanded the confiscation of the rent of land by the State. The difference is, in fact, even greater than Herr Engels represents it. We do not propose any such violent and radical change as would be involved in the formal resumption of land by society at large, and the letting of it out to in- dividuals. We propose to leave land in individual possession as now, merely taking, in the form of a tax, as nearly as may be, the equivalent of that value which attaches to land by reason of the growth and advance of society ;—and while thus appropriating for the use of the community a revenue which properly belongs to the community, to do away with the incentive given to the with- holding ol land from productive use by the individual expectation of profiting by its futurfe increase in value. This simple yet radical reform would do away (?) with all the injustice which socialists see in the present conditions of society, and would open the way to all the real good that they can picture in their childish {sic) scheme of taking the State the universal capitalist, employer, merchant, and shopkeeper. t— 10 — For if the laborer does not now obtain his fair earnings; if, despite the im- provements which increase productive power, wages still ti nd to a minimum that gives but a bare living, it ig not because of any inherent injustice in the wage system, nor because of any iron law of wages which operates because it must. These things are simply the results of the iact that labor, deprived of its right of access to land, the natural and indispensable element of production and exist- ence, and thus rendered helpless, must, as the only means of escaping starvation, sell itself to those who can employ it. Make land free of access to labor and all else becomes possible (? ? ?) Land is not wealth or capital, but is, on the contrary, that original factor of production from which labor produces wealth and capital. Land is not a means of produc- tion, like a tool or a machine. It is the original means of production, without which no other means of production can be used, and from which labor can pro- duce all other means of production. It is not true, as socialists say, that the mere laborer, in the present stage of civilization, could not avail himself of the access to land to get a living. The two essential and primary factors of pro- duction—laboj and land—even in the absence of secondary factors obtained from their produce, have in their union, to-day, as they had in the beginning, the potentiality of all that man ever has brought, or ever can bring, into being. Nor is it true, as the socialists seem to assume^ that the whole class of producers below that of the employing capitalist are so destitute of capital, so incapable of getting it if they have good opportunity to use it, that they could not find the means to make good use of land if the monopoly that now holds so much eligible land vacant were broken up. Here in New York we see the poorest class of laborers building themselves some sort of shanties wherever they are permitted to use convenient land even on sufferance. And if the valuable land in and around New York that is now held vacant at enormous prices were subject to a tax which destroyed the expectation of profiting by the future increase in land values and compelled its owners either to build, to sell, or to give it away, is there is not a great body of wage-workers who would hasten to build or to get them- selves homes? (!) And with agricultural land, mining land, and, in short, all natural opportunities subjected to the same just system, is there not a great body of men now competing with each other in overstocked, unproductive voca- tions, or selling their labor for w ages, who have or could find the needed capital to employ themselves to good advantage ? (! I) With the glut in the labor market thus relieved, and the increased demand which would come from the relief of pro- duction both from the fines of present taxation and the blackmail of land specu- latioD, would not wages rise quickly and high in all branches of industry ?(!!!) With this liberty of labor to employ itself all the evils of " the wage system " would disappear, and free competition through the interplay of demand and sup- ply would not only fix the returns of the various Tcinds and qualities of exertion (?) with a justice and celerity to which the best efforts of any administrative bureau would be the clumsiest parody; but would determine the amounts and Tcinds of the various articles (?) needed to satisfy the wants of society, and the relative values at which they should exchange, with a comprehensiveness, a nicety and a celerity (?) which any general statistician or board of general statisticians, even though he or they possessed all human knowledge and all human virtue, could not hope to approach.—11 — In concentrating effort on the recognition of equal rights to land, the new party is striking at the root of that unjust distribution of wealth which the socialists of the German school blame to the wage system, and of that tyranny which they mistakenly attribute to capital. But we do not propose to stop here. There are other monopolies than that of land, though they are less important, and we propose to break them all up. The kernel of truth in the soc;alistic de- mand that the State should manage and regulate all industry is that there are many things that already can be better managed or controlled by the com- munity than by private individuals, and with the advance of society, these are con- stantly increasing. While we aim at simplifying government by substituting a simple and efficient plan of raising revenue for the present costly, cumbrous, unjust and demoralizing method, aiid by cutting off functions for which there is no need, we propose at the same time to push forward in the direction of ex- tending the co-operative functions of the State. Let the socialists come with us, and they will go faster and further in this direc- tion than they can go alone; and when we stop they can, if they choose, try to keep on. But if they must persist in bringing to the front their schemes for making the State everything and the individual nothing, let them maintain their Socialistic Labor Party and leave us to fight our own way. The cross of the new crusade has been raised. No matter who may be for it or who may be against it, it will be carried on without faltering and without swerving. (From the Standard of August 13th.) The dicision of the General Committee of the United Labor Party of New York County excluding members of the Socialistic Labor Party from member- ship in the United Labor Party has provoked from the socialists much expres- sion of indignation. But beneath the question whether any political party can permit a party within itself which, by organized action, may, in many cases, under the forms of parliamentary procedure, impose the will of a minority upon the majority, lies a far more important question. That question is whether the United Labor Party is or is not animated by the ideas, and working toward the aims, of State or G-erman socialism. It is the socialists themselves who have forced this question upon the party, (jfifo / no !) They worked well and efficiently with the United Labor Party in the municipal election of last year upon a platform which expressed definitely and clearly the principles and the methods of that party—the recognition of equal rights to natural opportunities by the appropriation of land values in taxation and the assumption by the community of such functions as involve monopoly or can be better performed by organized society than by individuals. (TPas that all f) There was no reason whatever why they might not have con- tinued to work along in the same way, but they have for some time past shown a purpose to commit the Labor Party to their own peculiar views and plans. The Vollszeitung, the organ of the German socialists in this c ty, has for some months urged upon the members of the Socialistic Labor Party the policy of impressing their views upon the United Labor Party at the various district meetings, and has urged them, should this be prevented, to organize meetings— 12 — themselves and draw members from ike United Labor Party. {Not) This has been accompanied by constant attacks (?) upon the principles of the United Labor Party, with a view of showing the necessity of nationalizing not only land but capital. In short the socialists have not only not observed the toleration with which, the majority have treated their peculiar views—a toleration of the sort by which alone conflicting views can be harmonized within party lines—but have been persistent in the attempt to undermine the platform (?) of the party in which they so indignantly claim the right of membership. An appeal which has been issued by the National Executive Committee of the Socialistic Labor Party as a protest against the exclusion of their members from the United Labor Party clearly states the socialistic demand. kt We insist," they say, ■" that the burning social question is not a land tax, but the abolition" of all private property in instruments of production." Very well, then. If the members of the Socialistic Labor Party insist that the burning question is the abolition of private property in all " instruments ot production "—by which they mean capital in all its forms—there is no place for them in the new party (sic)] either they must go out or the majority must go out, for it is certain that the majority of the men who constitute the United Labor Party do not propose to nationalize capital and are not in favor of the abolition of all private property in the " instruments of production." The socialistic protest thus goes on : To exclude the socialist element from the ranks of the United Labor Party is, in fact, to deprive it of its rudder : without it the ship of the new party, laden with such splendid promise?, will surely suffer shipwreck on the shoals of trifling half measures. In other words, the State socialists kindly propose to stay in the United Labor Party in order that they may act as its rudder, and steer it away from where the majority want it to go to where the minority imagine it ought to go. But, the appeal goes on: Should this protest, supported by you, the advanced workers, not be listened to, then the time will have come for the formation of a workingmen's party, with a broad programme, demanding the economic emancipation of the suffering industrial proletariat from the fetters of wage slavery, and determined on carrying out this programme. There can be only one answer to this. If the socialists insist upon steering, they must take to the socialistic ship. Then they can have a programme as broad as they please. But to consent to their loading the United Labor Party ship, by direction or implication, with their programme, would certainly be to cause her abandonment by all except themselves. As the question has now been raised it is impossible to either compromise or ignore it. It cannot be settled even by ruling out members of the Socialistic Labor Party from the ranks of the United Labor Party on the ground that they belong to another political party, but must be met by such a declaration of the State Convention at Syracuse next week as shall show beyond possibilityxof equivocation that the United Labor Party is opposed to State socialism, \— 13 — If the socialists thereupon choose to run candidates of their own, this will not only have the advantage of showing their real strength, but will enable them in any particular matter to act with or against the United Labor Party without any sacrifice of principle on their own part, and without asking for it on the part of others. * It may well be doubted, however, if the socialists would attempt to run can- didates of their own. The whole membership of the Socialistic Labor Party in New York, after ah existence of many years, is not one-third as large as that of the Anti-poverty Society (? ? ?), which has only had an existence of a few months, and the vote they have polled when they have run candidates has been ridiculously small, even when swelled by men who had not then, as fortunately they have now, any other way of expressing dissatisfaction with existing parties. The truth is that State socialism, with its childish (sic) notion of making all capital the property of the State, controling all production and fixing all prices by means of " general statisticians," " abolishing the wage system " by converting every citizen into a receiver of State wages, and supplanting merchant and storekeeper by Grovernment (?) warehouses, is an exotic (!) born of European conditions that cannot take root and flourish in American soil (sic). For my own part I have always refrained from accentuating any differences (!) with socialists until forced to, regarding them as workers in the great cause of the emancipation of labor who, however superficial their views, illogical their sheories or impracticable their plans, aimed at noble ends, and had laid hold of, even if the exaggerated, an important truth. But as I have been accused of shifting my attitude in regard to socialism since the last election, it may be well to reprint the following from my book, u Protection or Free Trade ? " : "In socialism as distinguished from individualism there is an unquestionable truth—and that a truth to which (especially by those most identified with free trade principles) too little intention has been paid. Man is primarily an individ- ual—a separate entity, differing from his fellows in desires and powers, and requiring for the exercise of those powers and the gratification of those desires individual play and freedom. But he is also a social being, having desires tliat harmonize with those of his fellows, and powers that can only be brought out in concerted action. There is thus a domain of individual action and a domain of social action—some things wThich can best be done when each acts for himself, and some things which can best be done when society acts for all of its mem- bers And the natural tendency of advancing civilization is to make social conditions relatively more important, and more and more to enlarge the domain of social action. This has not been sufficiently regarded, and at the present time, evil, unquestionably, results from leaving to individual action functions that bf the growth of society and the development of arts have passed into the domain of social action; just as, on the other hand, evil, unquestionably results from social interference with what properly belongs to the individual. Society ought not to leave the telegraph and the railway to the management and control of individuals; nor yet ought society to step in and collect individual debts or attempt to direct individual industry. But while there is a truth in socialism which individualists forget, there is a school of socialists who in like manner ignore the truth there is in individualismr and whose propositions for the improvement of social conditions belong to the class I have called *'super-adequate." Socialism in its narrow sense—the— 14 — socialism that would have the State absorb capital and abolish competition—ia the scheme ,ot men who, looking upon society in its most complex organization, have, failed to see that1 principles obvious in a simpler stage still hold true in the more intimate relations that result from the division of labor and the use of complex tools and methods, and have thus fallen into fallacies elaborated by the economists of a totally different school, who have taught that capital is the em- ployer and sustainer of labor, and have striven to confuse the distinction between property in land and property in labor products. Their scheme is that of men who, while revolting from the heartlessness and hopelessness of the "orthodox political economy," are yet entangled in its fallacies and blinded by its confusions, (sic) Confounding " capital" with " means of production," and accepting the dictum that " natural wages " are the least on which competition can force the laborer to live, they essay to cut a knot they do not see how to unravel (?) by making the State the sole capitalist and employer, and abolishing competition." But to put all men on a footing of substantial equality, so that there could be no dearth of employment, no " over-production," no tendency of wages to the minimum of subsistence, no monstrous fortunes on the one side and no army of proletarians on the other, it is not necessary that the State should assume the ownership of all the means of production and become the general employer and universal exchanger; it is necessary only that the equal rights of all to that primary means of production which is the source all other means of production are derived from, should be asserted. And this, so far from involving an exten- sion of governmental (?) functions and machinery, involves, as we have seen, their great reduction. It would thus tend to purify Government in two ways— first, by the betterment of social conditions on which purity in government depends, and second, by the simplification of administration. This step taken, and we could safely begin to add to the functions of the State in its proper or co-operative sphere. There is in reality no conflict between labor and capital (sic); the true conflict is between labor and monopoly. That a rich employer " squeezes " needy work- men may be true. But does this squeezing power result from his riches or their needs t No matter how rich an employer might be, how would it be possible to svueeze workmen who could make a good living for themselves (?) without going into his employment ? The competition of workmen with workmen for employment, which is the real cause that enables, and even in most cases forces, the employer to squeeze his warkmen, arises from the fact that men, debarred of the natural opportunities to employ themselves, are compelled to bid against one another ior the wages of an employer. Abolish the monopoly that forbids men to employ themselves, and capital could not possibly oppress labor. In no case could the capitalist obtain labor for less than the laborer could get by employing himself. Once remove the cause of that injustice which deprives the laborer of the capital his toil creates, and the- sharp distinction between capitalist and laborer wovld\ in fact, cease to exist. Henry George.— 15 — B. 1. HENRY GEORGE—THE "EXPLOITER". " I have always refrained from accentuating any differences with Socialists until forced to," says George. Certainly. And that indeed is what Socialists have complained of. They have tried in every possible way to induce him to enter into a discussion of his theories and remedy, but in vain. A short time ago he said to a Sun reporter: " I do not want a quarrel with them. They have a right to their opinion and I have a right to mine." A re- markable saying from a philosopher. No, Mr. George, you have not. A public teacher has no right to spread false doctrines. We contended that your teachings that private property in land is the cause ot our social evils and that the abolition of land ownership would remedy them are false. It was your plain duty to refute us, if you thought you could, or honestly to admit that you had blund- ered ; but you turned a deaf ear to us. Now, however, we have a substitute for a defense of his doctrines in the arguments against Socialism which George has published in the last numbers of his Standard and reprinted in the preceding pages, with short comments by me. I am only sorry that they are accompanied by a quarrel between the Socialists and their com- rades of the United Labor Party. That quarrel George persists in attributing to us. We have, according to him, " forced this question upon the party "; we have been trying to " exploit the party"; we "have been persistent in the attempt to undermine the platform of the party." This is un- true George! emphatically untrue. It is a well known fact that the United Labor Party was founded a year ago by the Socialists in conjunction With various Labor Organizations, without George partaking in that act at all. Shortly after these founders selected him as their standard-bearer, not at all on account of the economic doctrines he had been teaching, but because of his wellknown sympathy with the toiling masses. They all had in the constitutions and platforms of their several organizations expressed as their aim the abolition of the wage-system, a fact that must have been known to George. Sub-— 16 — sequently, after having given him nearly 70.000 votes, they ad- opted a constitution for the party of New York County, in which they prominently inserted this significant sentence: " the per- verse economic system which robs the producer of a large share in the results of his labor",— a system which cannot mean any- 4 thing else, and which all the workingmen concerned understood to mean the wage-system♦ Though this constitution was not sufficiently precise or advanced to entirely satisfy theSocialists, yet they have been perfectly loyal to it. It is an untruth to say that they ever have tried to undermine it; it is therefore an untruth to say, as is said on another page of last week's Standard, that they have " secretly " tried to undermine the " principles " of the party. I declare solemnly, on the other hand, that it was their in- tention, if they failed to persuade the coming convention to take a more advance d standpoint, to declare themselves satisfied, if the convention would adopt and re-affirm the constitution of the party of New York County. It is therefore a thorough misapprehension, and simply an un- friendly insinuation on the part of George, when he interprets the phrase of the Socialists being the " rudder " of the new party in the Appeal they issued last week to say as much as that they wanted to rule or ruin. It is the simple fact, well- known to all and to George better than anybody else, that they have left the machinery entirely in the hand of Henry George and his friends. The only claim they have made in that respect has been, to be permitted to send to the Convention delegates re- presenting their views from districts that were overwhelminglySo- cialistic. It is, again, an untruth for which there is not a particle of foundation that the Volkszeitung urged its readers to "draw members away from the United Labor Party." By being the "rudder" they simply meant to emphasize the fact that they were the most zealous and active part of the party and that they knew whither the party ought to steer and that they knew they were right. Then, undoubtedly, they, as a matter of course, also insisted uppn the right to agitate for that purpose within the party. That is to say they claimed the right to tt try to undermine the principles not of the party, but of Henry George; that right they have exercised, not secretly, but openly, but they however at the same time never objected, with a single word, when George on his part agitated, in and out of season, for his unpopular Free- Trade hobby and other theories. This is, indeed, the strong point of their case, that they turn the charge which George makes against them upon him. About— 17 — three months ago a committee, ponsisting of his friends, issued the call for the meeting of the coming convention, in which they ab- solutely emasculated the constitution, the principles of the United Labor Party. They very ingeniously and ^nificantly omitted the phrase, above mentioned: "the perverse economic system, which . . . robs the producer of a large share of the results cf his labor," and all reference to it. In place of that, th^y span out to hti in tolerable length the doctrine of George as to land and prescribed as a condition of sending delegates the subscribing of a demand for a land-tax as the sole tax, that is to say, they substituted a Free-Trade Platform for a Labor-Platform. This, we say, is undermining the principles of the party with a vengeance. This, indeed, we charge, is " expl5iting," confiscating the party in favor of Henry George. As can be seen from the introduction to my pamphlet. The Insufficiency of Henry George's Theories, this it was which furnished the occasion fort his pamphlet being published, and this, we declare was the sole cause for the agitation which was commenced by the Socialists. All they wanted to accomplish was to implore the members of the United Labor Party not to commit suicide, not to run their party into the ground by this change of front; nothing was further from their thoughts than to rule or ruin. Far from being such an unnatural parent as to choke their own child, the Socialists wanted to save it from the abductor. 2. LAND IN ITS RELATION TO CAPITAL. But we are very glad that we have at last succeeded in eliciting from Mr. George a statement of his objections to Socialism—such I as it is and such as they are. It cannot, on account of the public- ity which is given to the discussion, help opening the eyes of some to the true character of Socialism, and all that our cause needs, in order to be embraced, is to be understood. First of all it is evident from George's objections, that he does not understand it. Indeed this we knew before from his favorite illustration of his and our relations to each other, of which more afterwards. But what shall we say of the choice lot of adjectives which he applies to a system or a philosophy, whatever he will call it, which has been elaborated during, at least, forty years by some of the most learned and gifted, by common consent, of Europeans ? of such words as " confused a illogical," " superficial," " chaff," " childish " (absolutely rolled under the tongue) etc. applied to a system which a former minister— 18 — of Austria (Schseffle) devoted years of study to, before he, though unconverted, ventured to publish an exposition of it; which the professor cf P olitical Economy at the College of France lectures on to his students and h&s.written a large text-book upon ; which great Ij ambers of ths educated classes in Great Britain are at this day embracing, after in many cases having been led to study it by Geoige's own books? And especially when we remember that the man who applies these words knows the subject-matter only from a couple of small volumes, written by disciples, from inability to master the original authors. George likes to be taken for a great man ; he ought then to remember that the mark of greatness is modesty—or at least assumption of modesty; and all the more is that necessary, however great hie inborn genius nay be, when he labors under the very great disadvantage in a modern thinker of knowing only his mother tongue. But we shall inquire more in detail what right; he has to use such terms about Socialism. When perusing Protection and Free-Trade, I had asked myself in wonder what Mr. George could possibly mean by charging Socialists with lack of radicalism, with not going to the roots. If we were not radical, what were we then ? And, frankly, I thought of the saying, that " he who lives in a glass house should not throw stones." Now, however, I see that he means: that we do not dis- tinguish between land as primary and capital as derivative. Land, then, is " the primary element of production," according to George, and that, he says,we in our blindness will not see. Well,it was about the same thing that his disciple, JRev. Stewart Headlam, editor of the Church Reformer, in London, used constantly to repeat to me: "First of all we must have land to stand on; we cannot do anything without that. We cannot yet live in balloons." Why, certainly there is not a Socialist who will not admit that, that land is primary as to time. But suppose a normal man had land to stand in and absolutely nothing else ? PLe, undoubtedly, would be just as sure of dying by starvation, as if he was suspended in mid-air. If land therefore is said to be primary in importance, we deny it. We have nothing to do with the ages when men lived by catching fish or digging for roots, and particularly in the industrial period in which we are living, instru- ments or capital is just as indispensable to production or to life as land. But all this is really not to the point at all. Land in the sense we so far have spoken of means a part of the globe, with what it contains and with its natural qualities; means Nature in other— 19 — words. \But instruments and men themselves, for that manner, are as much a part of Nature as land is.) It therefore can be eliminated from all our reasonings, for we do not progress one step by haying it on our lips even as much as George has. LAnd therefore, also, Political Economy, the science with which we aie here concerned, never considers Nature or use-values^ But it is not at all natural land that George has in view in his {>ractical proposals. He does not want to confiscate natural land, or it cannot be done. We cannot carry nature in land about with us, as we can nature in a stick or a coat. What we want to con- fiscate is land -titles, and that makes all the difference in the world. He concerns himself with them, because they have value. It is thus, not natural land,but valuable land, land that has exchange- value, that he means nearly all through his books ; nevertheless he jumbles natural land and land with value together, without making any distinction between them, just as he does with profit and interest, and with interest and rate of interest. Instead of look- ing down on Socialists with contempt on account of our "inability to analyze," be it known that it is Mr. George who fails to dis- tinguish where distinctions are to be found - or, perhaps, he does not want to, because he needs God as a sanction for appropria- ting land-titles! He may .take either horn of the dilemma. Are lands with value to be distinguished.j&s primary from Capital as derivative ? Capital is certainly derivative, because it is derived from Nature. Nature is its mother and Labor .its fatter. When Labor is applied to Nature, wealth is the result, and Capital is a certain part of wealth. But it is Labor, and not Nature, which gives wealth or Capital its value, for Nature Js ^ always works gratuitously for us. But it is pre- cisely the same with valuable land; it is not "primary" at all, it likewise is derived from Nature, i. e. from natural land and Labor, and it is to Labor, exclusively, that its value is due — under all cir- cumstances. Take, even, a bare strip of land, into which has not been sunk one dollar's worth of Labor, if it be valuable,—and we know but too well, that it may be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars — still this must be ascribed to Labor. In this case it is the Labor that has brought the land nearer to market, has made it accessible ; it is the Labor that has made the surrounding improvements, that has built railroads, that has paved and graded the streets, laidjsewers, built the side-walks, planted the trees, seated the city^It isJba..othflr words, to the Labor of other people m the owner, that its value, is wholly duejjand that places it on ictly on the same footing as Capital which, according to our con-— 20 — tention, is, as to by far the greatest part, also due to the labor of other people than of the possessors. When, therefore, George speaks of land as "the original means - of production and as one of " the two primary factors of pro- [ duction— labor and land" he means something very different from the land he wants to confiscate, or whose rent«he means to confiscate! He is, in other words, just guilty of the "confusion" he ascribes to Socialists. His book Progress and Poverty would look very different; it would not, in spite of its insinuating periods, impose on so many readers; he himself would hardly be bold enough to insist on the conclusions he has drawn, if he were bound to be as definite in the use of words as Socialist writers are ; that is to say, if simply he were to say "Nature ", whenever he meant natural land, and reserve the terms " land" for land with value. Tou see the point, Mr. George, do you ? Well, it is George who charges Socialists with " incoherence " in the use of terms. " The fact is, that it is impossible to get in the Socialist literature any clear definition of capital:' Yet he quotes from my book the definition I adopt: " The part of wealth employed productively, with a view to profit by the sale of the produce." I think this definition will help us out of various blind alleys into which George has entangled himself during his investigation of Socialism. Thus he says, with an air of benevolent pity " they (Socialist writers) even gravely say that Capital has only become an agent in production during the last two hundred years or so " and finishes it off with an exclamation mark, denoting: What stupid folk they are! He, then, goes on stating the various methods of or- ganizing labor, to which Socialists call attention: slavery,! then serfdom, then the present wage-system, from which we conclude that a Socialist organization of production and distribution in the near future will evolve. That, to George, is "a curious pretense of scientific research!" "mountainous chaff!" "and "grotesque exaggeration and assumption ! " Yet immediately thereupon he adds that the "simple truth" which is "the grain of wheat" in all this "chaff" is, principally, that certain business of Society, certain social activities come to the front which " can better be performed by the community, or under the control of the com- munity, than by leaving them to individual enterprise, and indivi- dual monopoly." I should say, that this " simple truth " is an pretty importaT truth, and if this curious "grotesque "pretense of scientificreseai— 21 — really leads to correct conclusions of that character, then such research cannot be quite so contemptible as George wants to make out. It would be far less contemptible, if George could be made to see this other " truth which we contend for, that all so- cial activities are one after another thus coming to the front, because all individual " enterprises" will end in individual monopolies. Then such research is to say the least as important as George's abstract reasoning from his own inner consciousness. Well, now it ought not to be so very difficult for George to com- prehend, that the means of production must necessarily assume different forms under these different methods of organizing labor. Under the control of the community of the future what will cor- respond to that which now is known as capital will be " the part of the social wealth which is employed in production for the satis- faction of social wa,ntsAt present capital, in the hands of indi- viduals, is what I have defined it to be, the part of wealth (or of private wealth) employed in production, with a vi&w to profit, by sale of the produce." George, I think, will not seriously dispute this definition. But let me inform you, Mr. George, in defiance of your sneer, that a few hundred years back this definition would not have applied to the means of production, then in use. In passing I may remark that land then had no value, that is to say no exchange-value, for it could not be sold, was therefore then not capital; and the workers were not separated from it—and by the way, Mr. George! the workers nevertheless were in great poverty, which goes to prove that it is not at all, as you contend, want of access to land that causes poverty. But the point is that produc- tion was not carried on " with a view to profit, by sale of the produce;" consequently capital, as we now understand it, did not exist; indeed, Mr. George! it did not exist at that period at all. What corresponded to it may be defined as " the part of (private) wealth, employed in produce, for the sake of individual enjoy- ment." When therefore you say in another place, that " what they (Socialists) evidently have in mind in talking of capital is such capital as is used in the factory system," you are eminently right. Truly, when we talk of capital, we do mean that which now is called " capital," and when you immediately add " though they do not hesitate to include land with it," I ^dmit it. We certainly have no hesitation in including land, since we know, that land is needed on which to build the factory and therefore is a necessary means* of production, a "primary" means of production, if you please. But the definition which George has quoted helps to bring us to— 22 — another point. It emphasizes the fact that production, at the present time is carried on for the sake of profit. Fortunately, and unfortunately it is. "Fortunately," because as Socialists readily admit, it is to this that we owe the essential part of our progress of late. The profits have been the motive, the sole motive— though, of course, a very sordid motive—for our plutocrats, not to invent, for they have made mighty few inventions themselves, but utilize other folks' inventions, to institute division of labor, to use machinery, to exercise their " enterprise " and thus be instru- mental in increasing production, and causing the remarkable in- dustrial productivity, for which this century will ever remain famous, and of which Society a short period back stood so sorely in need. But at the same time we say " unfortunately," for it cer- tainly has been, in other respects, unfortunate, both for the work- ing-classes and, especially of late, for Society at large. For the working-classes it has been unfortunate from the very start, that the plutocrats should need such a sordid motive as profits, to perform their duties, to wit the duties of being the "movers" in production—a very good name which George, I think, has in- vented— of being the chiefs, the directors of industry. It has been unfortunate for them, that these plutocrats should not have been satisfied with their proper wages, the wages of superintendence, and the honor, attaching to their position, for these "profits" are of course so much taken away from their wages, or from the social wealth. It has been and is more and more becoming unfortunate for Society at large, because these plutocrats carry their motives, their chase after profits so far, that they do not care a snap for social wants, but only for profits, profits,' for nothing but profits, so that they have never the least hesitation to stop the wheels 6f production, as soon as there are no profits to make thereby, or indeed as soon as their profits be threatened with being a little diminished. Then follows a still greater mischief to Society from this profit system, because it undoubtedly is—it really is, Mr. George, whatever you may say—the proximate cause of over- production, so-called, in this, that it makes it impossible for the masses of the people to buy the commodities they produce, and heaps up, on the other hand, so much capital, that it cannot be profitably employed. For it is a true "notion" that profits, or " fleecings" produce capital. Ah, Mr. George, I am truly sorry, that I have nere to rap you over the knuckles—you, for whose genius, for whose eloquence, for whose remarkable personal mag- netism, and remarkable success I have the greatest admiration,— 23 — and, what is far more important, whose sympathy with the work- ers deserves their recognition. But I assure you, that it is. necessary for every man, and much more necessary for a philoso- pher and an economist to distinguish ; you would not have com- mitted your miserable blunder, your almost insulting witticism about " robbing orchards," if you only had taken time and trouble to distinguish. \ W hat do you think a Socialist means by saying the "fleec- ings ", that is the totality, the sum total, of profits, produce capital ? Well, you must have heard, frequently enough, from Socialists,, that labor creates all wealth (though 1 should very much have pre- ferred that the term had not been used, in the Socialist programme,, but that the word " values " had been substituted for " wealth " so that the sentence would have run: Labor creates all values,, which is substantially true). Now; since Capital is a part of wealth or values, it follows that it is Labor that creates all Capital. But,, you may put it down as an axiom to bear in mind in all your farther encounters with Socialists, that no class in the community are so logical as Socialists. Logic is their forte. Therefore they do not commit the blunder of saying that anything else than labor create capital, and consequently not profits or fleecings. But now please distinguish! While "fleecings" do not create Capiat^ they do produce capital in private hands. Robbing orchards does not, as you wisely intimate, produce apples, but it produces apple- thieves. In like manner fleecing the workingmen produces—capital- thieves, or as we euphoniously call them, capitalists. 3. THE WAGE-SYSTEM AND THE LAND-TAX. Now we have in answering George's strictures come to a very deplorable part. He says, that the Socialist, instead of going further and asking the reason of " the laborer getting only a bare livelihood, assumes this to be inherent in the wage-system." I call this statement deplorable, because it really causes me great pains to have to impute to Henry George any sort of dishonesty. But how is it possible to ^et over this here ? He admits he has read my book. The Cooperative Commonwealth, even if he has not read other Socialistic books. Now in that work I devote the whole first chapter to an attempt, to at least an honest attempt, to prove this fact. Yet George coolly says we " assume" it. In this chapter I show how the value ot all the manufactured products of the United States is, by virtue of the wage-system divided into two almost— 24 — equal parts, of which one is given to Labor in the form of wages, and the other to capitalists, landholders, employers and other "gentlemen at large" under the form of interest, rent and profits; and then we draw, in the first place, the necessary deduction, thatr to effect a new equitable distribution, the wage-system should be abolished, what thereupon has become, so to say, the alpha and omega of Socialist doctrines. It is curious that George has not long ago seen and that he apparently does not yet see, the wide divergence which this position on the wage-system which we hold and which George emphatically denies must cause between us. But no, he seems yet to think, that our aims are at this stage practically the same and would remain so for some time. He has a favorite illustration which he now puts in this form : " I and my friend both want to reach the Pacific Ocean. I think we shall reach it at San Francisco ; he is firmly of opinion that it will be necessary to keep on until we get to China. So long as we are willing to travel ivestward in one car we can well postpone disputes." No, no, no, George, we are not willing both to travel westward. ¥e dispute from the very start about the direction we should take. And we Socialists do not think that there can be too much clearness on this subject which you have shown yourself disposed to slur over. We say, since we fundamentally disagree, let us know it, let us know all about it; let us have our positions clearly defined, whether we come to an agreement or not. You think, and say, by your illustration, that we agree with you in your theory, that we, in the main, at least accept your doctrines and philosophy, but go beyond it. The fact is we do re- ally not accept your doctrines and philosophy at all. Have So- cialists then been hypocrites in working for your election last fall, in being fellow-members with you and your friends in the United Labor Party for so many months ? Of course not. But all this shows, that there is a mistake somewhere which ought to be cleared up. We maintain that the difficulty lies in your philo- sophy being false. This illustration of the relation of us to each other should rather be stated thus: Suppose us in San Francisco. We both and- all of us design to cross over to Japan. George has in- vented a very serviceable boat which is lying at San Francisco. We charter it and all go on board: George's followers, So- cialists and labor men in general. But-when we come on board, we Socialists insist that we ought to sail west, you say we— 25 — should go south. That is certainly a fundamental difference. It is a difference of such a character that, if it not settled on the spot, we Socialists ought to leave of our own accord. But now fet also so happens that we Socialists have found out that the wind and waves of their own accord are pretty sure to make us drift in a westerly direction, in any event, whatever efforts you may make to counteract it, the more so as we further find out that you are really blind to the fact about the necessary drift- ing of our ship in the right direction. So we stay on board; but whenever you want to persuade those on board, that we «hould steer the ship in a Southerly direction, we are constantly on the alert, counteracting you and proving to our friends that you are mistaken; that is what you call " accentuating our differ- ences " and which you deplore. This would be a right illustra- tion. The boat, which I have called a splendid, serviceable one, and which you have invented and constructed is your land-doctrine, and tax-remedy. Why is it serviceable to us Socialists? We want to abolish the wage-system. In order to do that, it is necessary to abolish private property in capital. According to our ideas land is a most important bastion in the fortress Capital, and it is not simply we who maintain that, but capitalists see it, and that is the reason they denounce George as a Socialist. For with his land-theories and tax-system, he deals mighty blows at this bastion: land, at private property in land, and that is why we call him a capital ally and his boat a first rate one. Now it will be easily seen, how it comes, that we have gone on board that boat, and we desired to stay there, and did stay there, working faithfully, until we were kicked out; and we all this time were not hypo- crites, either. It should be remarked that in upholding the wage system, and ridiculing our efforts for overthrowing it, George runs counter not only to us, but to all the various labor-organizations of this country, which nominated him last tall. So this splitmay be more serious than George seems to suppose. For Organized Labor, whether they be Trades-Unions, or Knights of Labor, or Central Labor ITnipn men, declare in their constitutions or platforms that they aim at the abolition of the wage-system, and the substitution of some form of co-operative production. Even the conservative Powderly cannot help preaching the same doctrine. More than that, George, in acting so, opposes himself to the efforts and aspirations of the working-classes everywhere. He must know— 26 — low powerful are the co operative societies in England in wealth and numbers. But the noble men who founded these societies did it for the sole, avowed purpose of doing away with the wage-system and thereby revolutionizing Society. They were true Revolution- ists at heart, as George himself is one as we shall soon see, though he will not admit it. These men said, we will first start co-opera- tive stores, where the workingmen can buy full-weight, unadult- erated goods, but not cheaper than anywhere else. With the pro- fits we will then afterwards start one co-operative productive factory after the other, into which one class, one branch of workers can enter after the other, until we have embraced the whole work-" ing-class, who will then have become perfectly independent of their old employers, the capitalists, in fact have become their own em- ployers, and the wage-system will be at an end. v That was their idea. They succeeded splendidly with the first part of their scheme, but then unfortunately there entered men not imbued with the co-operative spirit, men who simply wanted to amass a littih capital, wherewith to buy shares in joint stock com- panies at Oldham, and other places, and thus themselves "become small capitalists — thus themselves rising out of their class, instead of raising thevr class. They switched the move- ment unto a side-track. Lloyd Jones, one of the noble founders, and a disciple of Robert Owen, died in consequence about a year ago of a broken heart, but often he told me how unfortunate it had been that they at the start had not kept out of the movement the purely selfish men, for now all English workingmen, who were concerned about the welfare of their fellows had come to see that the wage-system had to go and be replaced by co-operation. And so, if we go to Prance, we find that a congress of French co-operators, held at Lyons last year, was opened with an address by M. Charles Gride, Professor of Political Economy at the University of Montpellier, in which he developed and sustained the proposition that the wage-system is an mferior condition of Labor and should be abolished. In a correspondence which I have the honor of keeping up with this professor he disclaims being a Social list, but is as much opposed to the wage-system as Socialists are and" wants to have it replaced with voluntary co-operation. But Henry George is positively , in love with the wage-system. He holds that the capitalists and wage-workers are to each other ; in the relation of two twin-sisters. Only get rid of those bad l&nd-' owners, tax away their substance, thus relieve the poor capitalists,— 27 — by ridding them of all taxes, and they will surely share their ad- vantages with the laborers. It must in the first place be distinctly understood that George's remedy is a tax-reform, and nothing else. It is not nationaliza- tion of land, it is not making land into common property, that George proposes. He, undoubtedly, up to the latest period, did suffer a good many people to be under a delusion in that respect; but everybody who studied his books thoroughly could only come to the conclusion that it was but a fiscal reform he contemplated, and that he was a complete, extreme Free-Trader. Now, will Free-Trade help the working-classes ? They seem already to have settled that matter for themselves ; wherever they are collected in great numbers, they have determined not to have anything to do with it. It is certainly a most unpopular doctrine George preaches. And we think, that their instinct is right here. Socialists are absolutely indifferent both to Free-Trade and Pro- tection, that is to say, Protection as practised now and likely to be practised under capitalist Regime. We hold that Free-Trade will never be beneficial to our country, until the principal civilized nations have adopted the national co-operative system which we contemplate, but then it will come of itself as a matter of course. On the other hand, Protection is really a delusion and a snare to the workingmen, for our protective tariffs do mightily little pro- tect the workingmen—who are the ones that need protection—but they protect their employers, the manufacturers, insure big profits to them, and thus protect the private interests of the plutocrats. But suppose our country would become Socialist in a short time, but all other nations remain under the present capitalist system ? Then, I agree perfectly with what Mr. Quinn said the other day in an interview, to wit: that our interests would require that all the goods we ourselves can produce ought to be absolutely pro- tected from foreign competition, not simply by a protective tariff, but by forbidding the import of foreign manufactures, and on the other hand Free-Trade in regard to all things that we could not ourselves produce. That is then |fche first thing that the members of the United Labor Party and our workers should know, that George's plan means Free-Trade. Next,fthey should know, that it is a delusion to suppose that taxing the land to its full value can be accom- plished constitutionally, legally, as George assures us. No, as I remarked above, George is^jwithoutJknomngj^ here a perfect revolutionist He never can succeecTin accomplishing this without revolutionary methods^^Now, we Socialists, of course, do not par-— 28 — i j ticularly object tjithis; only we want that there shall be no false pretence about iiH ! George relies on this, that some of his friends who are lawyers assure him that the Constitutions of nearly all States give the legist lature full power of taxation. So it is. But let us assume, that George succeeds in electing a legislature whose majority are ready to tax land to its full value, and a governor who will not veto such a> measure, there ought not to be found a reasonable man who does not know that the Court of Appeals of this State will say : No, this is not taxation, this is confiscation. Taxation must be reasonable, and the legislature must not be permitted to per- petuate such a fraud on the Constitution, as this is: to hide confiscation with a thin veil, and then label it taxation. And then suppose that George should further succeed in electing a Court of Appeals who would do his bidding, then we have the Supreme Court of the United States in Washington to reckon with. No, Mr. George, you are a revolutionist on this point. But now comes the grand question : Will such a tax help the workers? I have in another pamphlet discussed this question and shown, that the amount which would be collected from such a land-tax would not be enough to cover the running expenses of the Federal, State and local governments, not to speak of leaving these large surplus with which he in his books dazzles the eyes of his readers. George, in his articles, does not notice this point, but one of his ' , disciples has told me that the master said in reply, that " his party would very much curtail the expenses." That is something every new party promises. Next, I said that immunity from taxes will not increase wages, and will not enable the working-classes to procure capital or even homes any the easier. How does George meet this point ? It must be observed, it is the most important of all. It is the very essence of his plan that it shall help the working-classes in this struggle for existence, at least, though Socialism promises much more than that. He meets the point exactly as if he would be taken for a pro- phet. He simply makes assertion that this and that will happen; he wants his word to be enough, and gets sulky, if not indig- nant, if somebody ventures to raise a doubt. " Make land free of access to labor, and all else becomes possi- - ble"; that is an assertion. "If the valuable land in and around ; New York , . were subject to a tax ... is there not a great body of wage-workers who would hasten to build or to get them-- 29 — selves homes?" "With the glut in the labor market thus relieved ... would not wages rise quickly and high in all branches of industry"; these are all assertions, and nothing but assertions in the form of questions. When we object that free land will not enable the workers to become their own employers, because they still have not that other thing which is equally important: Capital, what does he say then ? It is almost incredible the answer he gives. He verily refers us to the fact that — "we see the 'poorest class of laborers building themselves some sort of shanties " when- ever they can find some free land. So, thus, that the poor can go down to the river and fish out old, rotten boards with which they build most miserable "shanties" is held to be an ans- wer, worthy of a philosopher, to the most difficult of problems, to the great stumbling block to the execution of his ideas, to the lack in the working-classes of capital, of large amounts of capital!! Otherwise he contents himself again with assertions in form of questions: " and with agriculturing land, mining land ... subjected to the same just system, is there not a great body of men . . . who have or could find the needed capital to employ themselves to good advantage ?" How should they have it? Where could they " find " it? That is precisely, Mr. George, the great problem you ought to solve. The Volkszeitung, in speaking the other day of this matter, used a most telling illustration which I cannot help repeating here. It compared Mr. George to Rip van Winkle, who instead of sleeping 20 years had been sleeping ever since the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. Indeed, it is a fitting illustra- tion, for the great factory system, machinery and the great world- markets are something tha^ 11 J ^t all enter into we still lived in the last pa j and first part of thisy^What can Socialists possibly reply to such vague, pro- phetic assertions as "would wages not quickly rise ?" etc. Well, we do not like to return the compliment and styling George "childish", but certainly he is — child like. One thing, however, is very evident, that if George, by his wishes and prophecies could influence the future, than we should haVe the past of a hundred years ago restored in many partic- ulars ; we should have a great number of small employers, scattered all over the Republic, laboriously engaged with their primntive tools and implements, in satisfying the wants of the surrounding neighbors. But is it not evident that this would mean to turn back the wheel of the calculations or plans exactly as if— 30 — progress, which even according to George, demands a greater con- centration of business, from the greatest to the smallest ? It will then be seen that George is full of contradictions ; we have in one place found him to be a revolutionist; now he is a reactionary . And workingmen should well observe this, that it is only from this concentration of industry that they can hope for elevation and emancipation. The small industry, the small store demands steady attention, steady work from morning till night. Only with large industrial establishments, large co-operative bazaars for the sale of goods, can they hope to secure that greatest of all bles- sings, the mother of all others, Leisure. 4. INDIVIDUALISM AND FREEDOM. George is willing to have himself called both an individualist and a socialist, just as he might " call himself a centrifugalist and a centripetalist." I do wonder how these two terms: individual- ism and socialism " correlate " in his mind. I always have com- prehended them as two terms that mutually exclude each ether. An individualist is one who places his interests above social in- terests, and a socialist one who acts reversely. An individualist pursues the aim of life in competition with his fellows by elbowing them aside; the socialist pursues it or wishes to pursue it in co- operation and emulation, with his fellows. Individualism, George maintains, is very strong in the American people ; so strong that Socialism has not the least chance of being accepted here. I think George is mistaken. Individualism has undoubtedly been strong in the past, but it was not so much a characteristic of the nation, as a characteristic of the period. The fact is that, as I have defined the terms, individualism aiul social- ism cannot both exist in the same person, or be dominant in the same nation at the same time; they may, and in fact do, exist by turns. There seems to be a rhythm of the human mind; at one time it is characterized by one sentiment, and in the succeeding period by the other, moving from one to the other, like the pen- dulum .of a clock. The past which we have just emerged from has been intensity individualistic in all civilized nations, but just * as sure the socialist sentiment is now everywhere moving to the front. And I maintain, in opposition to George, that the Anglo- Saxons are distinguishing themselves by nurturing that new senti- ment. It can be conclusively proved. Is is not a fact that trades- unionism has during this century taken its rise among them, and that it is among the English and Americans that it has reaehjed— 31 — its highest development? What is the essence of trades-union- ism ? That the individual subordinates his interest to the interest of the organization, that every person merges himself in the whole body, that private judgment allows itself to be overruled by the collective judgment. That is the reverse of individualism; it is the essence of socialism. It is not at all a rare experience, both in England and here, of Socialist agitators that after having expounded Socialism to an audience, they hear the exclamation : Well, if that is Socialism, thon we are already Socialists. There was nothing in all these weak articles of George on Socialism that surprised me more than Raiding this phrase, that it was " an exotic born of European condi- ' tionS) that cannot take root and flourish in American soil." What a vulgar expression from such a great philosopher as Henry George! - If, again, he would have only distinguished, exerted the analytic powers of which he is so proud, he would not, also, have fallen into this blunder. One may by surrounding circumstances be made into a Socialist, but not by the talk of another. The socialist thought, sentiment, is one that takes rise and is developed in the mind itself, and all that another's talk can do is to give conscious form to this thought and sentiment. " The great thing we should aim to secure is freedom "—there we agree with Henrv George. I, however, suspect that what he means by " freedom is merely " absence of restraints," while So- cialists mean something far more substantial, i. e., in adition: Independence, means for living the life worthy of a human being. But as George seems most concerned with absence of restraints, and still insists that this is incompatible with Socialism, I shall in the following take " freedom " in that sense. George, then, repeats the old charge, so often launched, that we want to make " the State everything and the individual nothing." And I maintain that Socialism wants to institute the most per- fect seV-govemment. George, certainly, must have known of some co-operative estab- lishments. Will he maintain, that he found less freedom there, for the workers in whatever capacity, than in a common shop or store, with its employer and employed? Will he maintain that tljiere the " establishment" was everything and the individual nothing ? . * # |If not, then he is in honor bound to admit that he has wronged— 32 — the " Co-operative Commonwealthfor, truly, it is intended to be a vast co-operative establishment, nothing but a small co-opera- tive concern on a large scale. ! He has in the second article pretty correctly set forth the organization of such a Co-operative Commonwealth, except tliat he speaks of the various classes of producers " being organized in organizations or guilds in the nature of government department^." Now, first, it would be more correct to say that they organize themselves, than that they " are being organized," and secondly, it is misleading to introduce the word "government" into our scheme. Whatever may be necessary in the transition period, so much is sure that we intend to do away with "government" over persons, in any invidious sense, entirely, and, solely, to haW in its place "administration of things." Why then persist in saddling us with that word " government," denoting some foreign will imposing itself on society ? Quite the contrary; we would have below perfectly free citizens, independent of any and all individuals, selecting from persons, known to them, their foremen, and these again selecting their directors, and so on upwards ; a pure democracy, in other words, with appointments from below instead of from above. That is the only way to answer the puzzling question: How shall we get competent, wise, and skillful persons to direct affairs ? That kind of persons are sure to gravitate toward the direction of affairs in a pure democracy with such a selection of them. They, then, will form in no sense a " government," but be simply the agents of Society, having the three functions of manager, statistician and arbitrator. But what a blunder George again commits when he states that I think " merely " of producing departments; and not of those exchanging things. * I do, nevertheless, include transportation and exchange in production, simply because the former add value to the product as well as work on raw material. George will therefore please note, that the exchange and transportation de- partments are organized exactly as the others: the salesmen and saleswomen in the large bazaars and the men on the railroads selecting their superiors as well. When then a certain number of goods are finished in the factories, they are distributed among the bazaars for sale by the collectivity as manager, as the raw- materials are to the factories for production. I cannot for my life see why it should be so difficult " seriously tb imagine such a scheme in actual operation in a country like th^j — 33 — Ufnited States," if we bring only a little good will to the task— but perhaps the good will is wanting. It certainly is, if George persists in speaking of " extending the functions of government." Socialism will not66 extend the functions of government." It will si^nply change the character of those who now do pur business, perform the services. Any one can see by observing, that we have a Vast mass of directors (employers or whatever else they may be cajlled) now; these will be changed into public functionaries ; that is;all. So far from their number being increased, is it not evident, that with order and economy, a vast number can advantageously bej dispensed with ? Certainly one great gain will be effected by this change of char- acter. The business of the Society will never be well performed as'long as it is looked upon rather from the standpoint of the pro- ducer than that of the consumer, Society in other words. By becoming a public functionary he will lose the petty character he now has of a worker who performs his task in order to live or to get rich, and will gain the dignity of one who performs a social office. When George speaks' of Socialists essaying to " cut a knot they do not see how to unravel by making the State the sole capitalist," I wish simply to remark that if he knew what Socialists had written in foreign languages, he might have found them unravelling the kn ot, and if he will do me the honor of reading my forthcoming book, Dcmton im, the French Revolution, he may find me trying to do (the same. 5. KEEP THE PARTY ON THE TRACK! "The adjectives, therefore, which George simply in his ignorance and. inability to master the fundamental propositions of Socialism, applies to it and its expounders, Socialists, if they care to be per- sonal, might with perfect propriety apply to him. Instead of "we failing to make a clear distinction between the prim- ary factor of production, land, and the derivative factor, capital," it ib Mr. George who fails to make a distinction at all between natjaral land and valuable land, between nature and land-titles. Instead of it being the Socialists who have hazy notions about Capital, it is George who, on account of the narrow compass of his [studies, has not the smallest notion of the historical develop- ment which the means of production have undergone in the course of civilization. He, in asserting that the conflict is between labor— 34 — Pand monopoly, not between labor and capital, has no notion of this, that Capital is monopoly—monopoly of natural opportunities aifd \social benefits. Instead of it being Socialists who "assume" and who "do not go further and ask the reason of" the miseries of the working- classes, it is George who all the time assumes; he assumes, Capital and Labor are twin-sisters; he assumes, that " it is necessary onjly that the equal rights to land should be asserted"; he assumes, that mere laborers can easily enough procure Capital, if they have only opportunity of using it; he assumes that a mere taix- reform will cause wages to rise " quickly "; he assumes that the landtax will bring in fabulous sums; he assumes that land holders and our governors will coolly allow property to be confiscated; and he assumes that Capitalists are such fools, that they can be hoodwinked into believing that their interests are not threatened by an attack on landed property, and into becoming the allies of George. i Instead of Socialists wanting to attack freedom, and making the government everything, they want to raise that great mass1 of the people, who now are virtually slaves, every single one of then* dependent on some "boss" for the very privilege of making a miserable living in return for coining their own sweat and blood into gold for their masters; they want to raise that great mass, which is not a class, but is the nation, into becoming truly foree citizens, dependent upon no single soul; with power to do as they please, which in the end will be found to be power to do what is best for the whole community. The Socialism which George has criticised is therefore re&lly nothing but a strawman he himself has constructed in ordeif to have the pleasure of knocking it down. , i Instead of it being Socialists who have tried to " exploit" the party and its principled, it is Henry George who right on the first morning after the election, and for every moment from that time to this, has done all he could to switch the party off the track, chang- ing it from a party of the workers, that is a party of the fleeiced against the parties of the fleecers, of the monopolists of the me" of production, into a Free Trade Party . As soon as that bee* evident—and not before—the Socialists cried " Beware ! " Fi that moment Henry George and his immediate followers organ- ized a plot to drive them out of the party. The question of " a political party " was, of course, a pretence; since they wouldjnot be a tail to Henry George's kite they had to go. That Geojge, however, calls " a spontaneous demand." | a.ns -me om— 35 — We, again, earnestly, solemnly, ask the delegates of the United Labor Party, now in Convention assembled, to pause. The ques- tion is now not, at bottom, whether we, the Socialist delegates, should be admitted. Socialists care for the cause, not for persons. If ^e should not be, but the Convention should re-affirm the Con- stitution of the party of this county, I say, for my part, that I believe that Socialists will, in spite of the insult, support the can- didates of the party at the coming election. Neither is the ques- tion, as George puts it: " Is the United Labor Party working towards the aim of State or German Socialism ? "—or Collectiv- ism, as I would suggest to call it. That is a question no man living can now determine ; that is a question for what I call " the Power behind Evolution " to determine. The plain question is : Shall the Party remain what it has hitherto been ? or, Shall it be He(nry George's Party ? Shall it be a Free Trade Party, or even mejrely a Land Party ? If the latter, we Socialists leave it here and now. We affirm thaj/t in that case it will run in the sand, or become a small con- tributary stream to the old corrupted parties. It cannot gather in ]the farmers, for as George states the question, he has already alijenated them. If now the labor-demands are omitted and wage- system upheld, he will alienate organized labor. There will then reiiiain a small, private clique of devotees with Henry George on a pejdestal! j&eorge affirms, that we " make up in discipline what we lack in numbers." There may, also, be an illusion here; it may be that th© portion of the 68,000 voters of last fall which Socialists influ- enced was considerably larger than George thinks. But he might have added another word to this sentence. Even if we are still comparatively few, he might have said: " They make up in discipline and in brains, what, etc." In brains, Mr. George! It wi 11 be soon discovered that, as we are devoted to ideals, so we ar|e also more clear-seeing than our fellows. LAURENCE GRONLUND.This book is a preservation facsimile produced for the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. It is made in compliance with copyright law and produced on acid-free archival 60# book weight paper which meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (permanence of paper). Preservation facsimile printing and binding by Northern Micrographics Brookhaven Bindery La Crosse, Wisconsin 2019