Socialism As It Is Part 5

If the aim of the "progressives" is the overthrow of "the rule of property" as Mr. Baker claims--if, in the words of Mr. White again, "America is joining the world movement towards equal opportunity for all men in our modern civilization," then indeed the greatest political and economic struggle of history, the final conflict between capitalism and Socialism, is at hand.

But when we ask along what lines this great war for a better society is to be waged, and by what methods, we are told that the parties to the conflict are separated, not by practical economic interests, but by "ideas" and "ideals," and that the chief means by which this social revolution is to be accomplished are direct legislation and the recall and their use to extend government ownership or control so as gradually to close one door after another upon the operations of capital until its power for harm is annihilated, _i.e._ democracy and collectivism. In other words, the militant phrases used by Socialists in earnest are adopted by radicals as convenient and popular battle cries in their campaign for "State Socialism," as to banking, railroads, mines, and a few industrial "trusts," but without the slightest attempt either to end the "rule of property" or to secure "equal opportunity" for any but farmers and small business men. They do nothing, moreover, to bring about the new political and cla.s.s alignment that is the very first requirement, if the rule of property in all its forms is to be ended, or equal opportunity secured for the lower as well as the comparatively well-to-do middle cla.s.ses.

Similarly the essential or practical difference between the "Socialism"

of Mr. Roosevelt's editorial a.s.sociate, Dr. Lyman Abbott, who acknowledges that cla.s.ses exist and says that capitalism must be abolished, and the Socialism of the international movement is this, that Dr. Abbott expects to work, on the whole, with the capitalists who are to be done away with, while Socialists expect to work against them.

Dr. Abbott claims that the "democratic Socialism" he advocates is directly the opposite of "State Socialism ... the doctrine of Bismarck," that it "aims to abolish the distinction between possessing and non-possessing cla.s.ses," that our present industrial inst.i.tutions are based on _autocracy_ and _inequality_ instead of liberty, democracy, and equality, that under the _wages system_ or capitalism, the laborers or wage earners are practically unable to earn their daily bread "except by permission of the capitalists who own the tools by which the labor must be carried on." He then proceeds to what would be regarded by many as a thoroughly Socialist conclusion:

"The real and radical remedy for the evils of capitalism is the organization of the industrial system in which the laborers or tool users will themselves become the capitalists or tool owners; in which, therefore, the cla.s.s distinction which exists under capitalism will be abolished."[36]

And what separates the advanced "State Socialism" of Mr. Hearst's brilliant editor, Mr. Arthur Brisbane, from the Socialism of the organized Socialist movement? Has not Mr. Brisbane hinted repeatedly at a possible revolution in the future? Has he not insisted that the crux of "the cost of living question" is not so much the control of prices by the private ownership of necessities of life (as some "State Socialist" reformers say, and even some official publications of the Socialist Party), as the _exploitation_ of the worker _at the point of production_, the fact that he does not get the full product of his labor--phrases which might have been used by Marx himself?

The _New York Evening Journal_ has even predicted an increasing conflict of economic interests on the political field--failing to state only that the people's fight must be won by a cla.s.s struggle, a movement directed against capitalism and excluding capitalists (except in such cases where they have completely abandoned their financial interests).

Asked whether the influence of the Interests (the "trusts") would increase or diminish in this country in the near future, the _Journal_ answered:--

"The influence of the interests, which means the power of the trusts, or organized industry and commerce, will go forward steadily without interruption.

"Just as steadily as early military feudalism advanced and grew, UNTIL THE PEOPLE AT LAST CONTROLLED IT AND OWNED IT, JUST SO STEADILY WILL TO-DAY'S INDUSTRIAL FEUDALISM advance and grow without interruption UNTIL THE PEOPLE CONTROL IT and own it.

"The trusts are destined to be infinitely more powerful than now, infinitely more ably organized.

"And that will be a good thing in the long run for the people. The trusts are the people's great teachers, proving that destructive, selfish, unbrotherly compet.i.tion is unnecessary.

"They are proving that the genius of man can free a nation or a world. They are saying to the people: 'You work under our ORDERS.

One power can own and manage industry.'

"It is hard for individual ambition just now. But in time THE PEOPLE WILL LEARN THE LESSON AND WILL SAY TO THE TRUST OWNERS:--

"'THANK YOU VERY MUCH. WE HAVE LEARNED THE LESSON. WE SEE THAT IT IS POSSIBLE FOR ONE POWER TO OWN AND CONTROL ALL INDUSTRY, ALL MANUFACTURES, ALL COMMERCE, AND WE, THE PEOPLE, WILL BE THAT ONE POWER.'

"Just as the individual feudal lords organized their little armies in France, and just as the French people themselves have all the armies in one--UNDER THE PEOPLE'S POWER--so the industries organized NOW by the barons of industrial feudalism, one by one, will be taken and put together by the people, UNDER THE PEOPLE'S OWNERSHIP."[37]

Yet we find the _Journal_, like all the vehicles and mouthpieces of radicalism, other than those of the Socialists, unready to take the first step necessary in any conflict; namely, to decide who is the enemy. Unless defended by definite groups in the community, "the rule of property," could be ended in a single election. Nor can the group that maintains capitalist government consist, as radicals suggest, merely of a handful of large capitalists, nor of these aided by certain cohorts of hired political mercenaries--nor yet of these two groups supported by the deceived and ignorant among the ma.s.ses. Unimportant elections may be fought with such support, but not revolutionary "civil wars" or "the upheavals of the centuries." _In every historical instance such struggles were supported on both sides by powerful, and at the same time numerically important, social cla.s.ses, acting on the solid basis of economic interest._

Yet non-Socialist reformers persist in claiming that they represent all cla.s.ses with the exception of a handful of monopolists, the bought, and the ignorant; and many a.s.sert flatly that their movement is altruistic, which can only mean that they intend to bestow such benefits as they think proper on some social cla.s.s that they expect to remain powerless to help itself. Here, then, in the att.i.tude of non-Socialist reformers towards various social cla.s.ses, we begin to see the inner structure of their movement. They do not propose to attack any "vested interests"

except those of the financial magnates, and they expect the lower cla.s.ses to remain politically impotent, which they as democrats, know means that these cla.s.ses are only going to receive such secondary consideration as the interests of the other cla.s.ses require.

Whether the radical of to-day, the "State Socialist," favors political democracy or not, depends on whether these "pa.s.sive beneficiaries" of the new "altruistic" system are in a majority. If they are not in a majority, certain political objects may be gained (without giving the non-capitalist ma.s.ses any real power) by allowing them all to vote, by removing undemocratic const.i.tutional restrictions, and by introducing direct legislation, the recall, and similar measures. If they are a majority, it is generally agreed that it is unsafe to allow them an equal voice in government, as they almost universally fail to rest satisfied with the benefits they secure from collectivist capitalism and press on immediately to a far more radical policy.

So in agricultural communities like New Zealand, Australia, and some of our Western States, where there is a prosperous property-holding majority, the most complete political democracy has come to prevail.

Judging everything by local conditions, the progressive small capitalists of our West sometimes even favor the extension of this democracy to the nation and the whole world, as when the Wisconsin legislature proposes direct legislation and the recall in our national government. But they are being warned against this "extremist" stand by conservative progressive leaders of the industrial sections like Ex-President Roosevelt or Governor Woodrow Wilson.

This latter type of progressive not only opposes the extension of radical democracy to districts like our South and East, numerically dominated by agricultural or industrial laborers, but often wants to restrict the ballot in those regions. Professor E. A. Ross, for example, writes in _La Follette's Weekly_ that "no one ought to be given the ballot unless he can give proof of ability to read and write the English language," which would disqualify a large part, if not the majority, of the working people in many industrial centers; while Dr. Abbott concluded a lengthy series of articles with the suggestion that the Southern States have "set an example which it would be well, if it were possible, for all the States to follow."

"Many of them have adopted in their const.i.tutions," Dr. Abbott continues, "a qualified suffrage. The qualifications are not the same in all the States, but there is not one of those States in which every man, black or white, has not a legal right to vote, provided he can read and write the English language, owns three hundred dollars' worth of property, and has paid his taxes. A provision that no man should vote unless he has intelligence enough to read and write, thrift enough to have laid up three hundred dollars' worth of property, and patriotism enough to have paid his taxes, would not be a bad provision for any State in the Union to incorporate in its const.i.tution."[38]

Such a provision accompanied by the customary Southern poll tax, which, Dr. Abbott overlooked (evidently inadvertently), would add several million more white workingmen to the millions (colored and white) that are already without a vote.[39]

We cannot wonder, then, that the working people, who are enthusiastic supporters of every democratic reform, should nevertheless distrust the democracy of the new movement. It is generally supposed in the United States that the reason the new "Insurgency" is weaker in the East than in the West is because of the greater ignorance and political corruption of the ma.s.ses of the great cities of the East. But when we see the radicalism of the West also, as soon as it enters the towns, tending to support the Socialists and Labor parties rather than the reformers, we realize that the distrust has no such local cause.

Perhaps the issue is more clearly seen in the hostility that exists among the working people and the Socialists towards the so-called commission plan of city government, which the progressives unanimously regard as a sort of democratic munic.i.p.al panacea. The commission plan for cities vests the whole local government in a board of half a dozen elected officials subject to the initiative and referendum and recall.

The Socialists approve of the last feature. They object to the commission and stand for the very opposite principle of an executive subordinate to a legislature and without veto power, because a board does not permit of minority representation, and because it allows most officials to be appointed through "influence" instead of being elected.

They object also, of course, to the high percentages usually required for the initiative and the recall. It is Socialist and Labor Union opposition, and not merely that of political machines, that has defeated the proposed plan in St. Louis, Jersey City, Hoboken, and elsewhere, and promises to check it all over the country. As a device for saving the taxpayer's money, the commission plan in its usual form is ideal, as a means for securing the benefits of the expenditure of this money to the non-propertied or very small propertied cla.s.ses, it is in its present form worse in the long run than the present corruption and waste. State legislatures and courts already protect the taxpayers from any measure in the least Socialistic, whatever form of local government and whatever party may prevail. It has caused more than a little resentment among the propertyless that the taxpayers should actually have the effrontery to propose the still more conservative commission plan as being a radically democratic reform.

It is on such substantial grounds that the propertyless distrust the democracy of the progressives and radicals. They find it extends only to sections or districts where small capitalist voters are in a majority.

The "State Socialist" and Reform att.i.tude towards political democracy is indeed essentially opportunistic. Not only does it vary from place to place, but it also changes rapidly with events. As long as the new movement is in its early stages, it deserves popularity, owing to the fact that it brings immediate material benefits to all and paves the way, either for capitalistic or for Socialistic progress, robs capitalism of all fear of the ma.s.ses, and is ready to remove all undemocratic const.i.tutional barriers and to do everything it can to advance popular government. These const.i.tutional checks and balances prevent the small capitalists and their progressive large capitalist allies from bringing to time the reactionaries of the latter cla.s.s, while they are so many that, in removing a few of them, there is little danger of that pure political democracy which would alone give to the ma.s.ses any "dangerous" power. At a later stage, when "State Socialism"

will have carried out its program, and the ma.s.ses see that it is ready to go only so far as the small capitalists' interests allow and no farther, and when it will already have forced recalcitrant large capitalists to terms, and so have reunited the capitalist cla.s.s, we may expect to see a complete reversal of the present semi-democratic att.i.tude. But as long as the "State Socialist" program is still largely ahead of us, the large capitalists not yet put into their place, and full political democracy--in spite of rapid progress--still far in the distance, a radical position as to this, that, or the other piece of political machinery signifies little. So many reforms of this kind are needed before political democracy can become effective--and in the meanwhile many things can happen that will give ample excuse to any of the "progressive" cla.s.ses that decide to reverse their present more or less democratic att.i.tude, such as an "unpatriotic" att.i.tude on the part of the ma.s.ses, a grave railroad strike, etc.

For there will be abundant time before democratic machinery can reach that point in its evolution, when the non-capitalist ma.s.ses can make the first and smallest use of it _against_ their small and large capitalist masters. If, for example, the Supreme Court of this country should ever be made elective, or by any other means be shorn of its political power, and if then the President's veto were abolished, and others of his powers given to Congress, there would remain still other alternatives for vetoing the execution of the people's will--and one veto is sufficient for every practical purpose. Even if the senators are everywhere directly elected, the Senate may still remain the permanent stronghold of capitalism unless overturned by a political revolution.

The one section of the Const.i.tution that is not subject to amendment is the allotment of two senators to each of the States. And even if public opinion should decide that this feature must be made changeable by ordinary amendment like the rest, it might require 90 or even 95 per cent of the people to pa.s.s such an amendment or to call a const.i.tutional convention for the purpose. For Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, Delaware, are not only governed by antiquated and undemocratic const.i.tutions, but are so small that wholesale bribery or a system of public doles is easily possible. The const.i.tutions of the mountain States are more modern, but Utah, Wyoming, Nevada, and New Mexico, and others of these States are so little populated as make them very easy for capitalist manipulation, as present political conditions show. Now if we add to these States the whole South, where the upper third or at most the upper half of the population is in firm control, through the disfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the majority of the non-capitalistic cla.s.ses (white and colored), we see that, even if the country were swept by a tide of democratic opinion, it is most unlikely that it will ever control the Senate. Moreover, if the capitalists (large and small) are ever in danger of losing the Senate, they have only to annex Mexico to add half a dozen or a dozen new States with limited franchises and undemocratic const.i.tutions.

Either the President, or the Senate, or the Supreme Court might prove quite sufficient to prevent the execution of the will of the people, in any important crisis--they would be especially effective when revolutionary changes in property, and rapid shifting of economic and political power into the hands of the people, are at stake, as Socialists believe they will be. But to resist such a movement, still another political weapon is available,--even if President, Senate, and Supreme Court fell into the hands of the people (and it is highly probable that the small capitalists, who themselves suffer under the above-mentioned const.i.tutional limitations, will force the larger capitalists to fall back on this other weapon in the end),--namely, a limitation of the suffrage.

The property and educational qualifications for voting which are directed against the colored people in the Southern States are being used to a considerable degree, both North and South, against the poorer whites. While there is no likelihood that this process will continue indefinitely, or that it will spread to all parts of the country, it is already sufficient to throw the balance of political power in favor of the capitalists in the national elections. If we put the total number of voters in the country at 15,000,000, we can see how significant is the fact that more than a million, black and white, have already been directly disfranchised in the South alone.

In view of these numerous methods of thwarting democracy in this country (and there are others) there is no reason why the capitalists should not permit political leaders after a time to accept a number of radical and even revolutionary reforms in political methods. The direct election of senators, though it was bitterly opposed a few years ago, is already widely accepted; the direct nomination of the President has become the law in several States; Mr. Roosevelt threatens that the "entire system"

may have to be changed, that const.i.tutions may be "thrown out of the window," and the power of judges over legislation abolished, which, as he notes, has already been advocated by the Socialist member of Congress[40]; the Wisconsin legislature formally calls for a national const.i.tutional convention and proposes to make the const.i.tution amendable henceforth by the "initiative"; Governor Woodrow Wilson suggests that _many_ of our existing evils may be remedied by national const.i.tutional amendments[41], and two such amendments are now nearing adoption after forty years, during which it was thought that all amendment had ceased indefinitely.

Whether it will be decided to take away the power of the Supreme Court over legislation and make it directly responsible to Congress or the people, or to call a const.i.tutional convention, is doubtful. A convention, as Senator Heyburn recently pointed out in the Senate, is "bigger than the Const.i.tution" and might conceivably amend what is declared in that instrument not to be amendable, by providing that the States should be represented in the Senate in proportion to population.

Even then the existing partial disfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the electors would prevent a new const.i.tution from going "too far" in a democratic direction. It is also true, as the same senator said, that the habit of amending the Const.i.tution is a dangerous one (to capitalism), and that it might some day put the capitalistic government's life at stake[42].

But this after all amounts only to saying that political evolution, like all other kinds, is c.u.mulative, and that its tempo is in the long run constantly accelerated. Certainly each change leads to more change. None of these proposed political reforms, however, even a const.i.tutional convention, _is in itself_ revolutionary, or promises to establish even a political democracy. All could coexist, for example, with a still greater restriction of the suffrage.

Nor do any of these measures _in themselves_ const.i.tute the smallest step in the direction of political democracy as long as a single effective check is allowed to remain. If there is any doubt on the matter, we have only to refer to other const.i.tutions than ours which accomplish the same object of checkmating democracy without a Supreme Court, without an absolute executive veto, without an effective second chamber, and in one important case without a written const.i.tution (England).

Or, we can turn to France, Switzerland, or New Zealand, where the suffrage is universal and political democracy is already approximated but rendered meaningless to the non-capitalist ma.s.ses by the existence of a majority composed of small capitalists. And in countries like the United States, where the small capitalists and their immediate dependents are nearly as numerous as the other cla.s.ses, a temporary majority may also be formed that may soon make full democracy as "safe"

for a considerable period as it is in Switzerland or New Zealand.[43]

As soon as "State Socialism" reaches its point of most rapid development, and as long as it continues to reach ever new cla.s.ses with its immediate benefits, it will doubtless receive the support of a majority, not only of the voters, but also of the whole population.

_During this period_ the "Socialistic" capitalists will be tempted to popularize and strengthen their movement not only by uncompleted political reforms, that are abortive and futile as far as the ma.s.ses are concerned, but also by the most thoroughgoing democracy. For radical democracy will not only be without danger, but useful and invaluable in the struggle of the progressive and collectivist capitalists against the retrogressive and individualist capitalists. As long as there is a majority composed of large and small capitalists and their dependents, together with those of the salaried and professional cla.s.ses who are satisfied with the capitalistic kind of collectivism (_i.e._ while its progress is most brilliant), it is only necessary for the progressives to hold the balance of power in order to have everything their own way both against Socialism and reaction. The powerful Socialist and revolutionary minority created in industrial communities by equal suffrage and a democratic form of government, _as long as it remains distinctly a minority_, is unable to injure the combined forces of capitalism, while it furnishes a useful and invaluable club by which the progressive capitalists can threaten and overwhelm the reactionaries.

In Great Britain, for example, the new collectivist movement of Messrs.

Churchill and Lloyd George, basing itself primarily on the support of the small capitalist cla.s.s, which there as elsewhere const.i.tutes a very large part (over a third) of the population, seeks also the support of a part of the non-propertied cla.s.ses. It cannot make them any plausible or honest promise of any equitable redistribution of income or of political power, but it can promise an increase of well-paid government employment, and it can guarantee that it will develop the industrial efficiency of all cla.s.ses and allow them a certain share, if a lesser one, in the benefits of this policy.

If then "State Socialism," like the benevolent despotisms and oligarchies of history, sometimes offers the purely _material_ benefits which it brings in some measure to all cla.s.ses, as a _subst.i.tute_ for democratic government, it also favors democracy in those places where the small capitalists and related cla.s.ses form a majority of the community. The purpose of the democratic policy, where it is adopted, is to stimulate new political interest in the "State Socialistic" program, and by increasing cautiously the political weight of the non-capitalists--without going far enough to give them any real or independent power--to check the reactionary element among the capitalists that tries to hold back the industrial and governmental organization the progressives have in view. It was in order to shift the political balance of power that the reactionary Bismarck introduced universal suffrage in Germany, and the same motive is leading Premier Asquith, who is not radical, to add considerably to the political weight of the working cla.s.ses in England, _i.e._ not to the point where they have any power whatever for their own purposes, but only to that point where their weight, added to that of the Liberals, counterbalances the Tories, and so automatically aids the former party.

The Liberals are giving Labor this almost valueless installment of democracy, just as they had previously granted instead such immediate and material benefits as we see in the recent British budgets, _as if_ they were concessions, only hiding the fact that _they would soon have conferred these benefits on the workers through their own self-interest, whether the workers had given them their political support or not_.

Mr. Lloyd George has said:--