Twentieth Century Socialism Part 22

But there is also another difference of hardly less importance between the reformer and the revolutionary Socialist--a difference of method.

A bourgeois reformer has no preconceived plan of reform. He hits at every evil like an Irishman at a fair--as he sees it. Governor Hughes, who belongs to this cla.s.s, thought in 1908 that race track gambling was the greatest evil of existing conditions and devoted the entire session of the legislature to an anti-race track gambling bill which he triumphantly pa.s.sed, only to see it nullified at the first opportunity by the courts. In 1909 he thought that a primary election bill was the most important reform; but this primary election bill failed to pa.s.s. The legislature, very much under his guidance, spent two years in pa.s.sing a useless anti-race track gambling bill and refusing to pa.s.s a primary bill, although during these two years at least 200,000 men have been seeking employment and not finding it, and a population therefore of about a million[154] in New York State alone has been on the verge of starvation in consequence.

The most striking feature of the bourgeois reformer is his lack of sense of proportion; but there is a reason for it. Unemployment is not a popular subject with the cla.s.s to which Governor Hughes belongs. As an evil it is too merciless; as a resource it is too unavowable.[155]

So it is impossible to get any legislature in any State in this Union effectively to consider the subject of unemployment.

The Socialist, on the contrary, has a definite preconceived plan of legislative enactment. While the reformer, however well-intentioned and intelligent, is hacking away at random at the jungle of evils in which the compet.i.tive system encompa.s.ses him, and hardly ever attaining any substantial progress, the Socialist has his course directed for him by the polar star. He regards such bills as anti-race track gambling as a waste of time. Race-track gambling is a necessary and poisonous fruit of the compet.i.tive system. It is useless to attack the fruit and leave the tree standing. The only legislation, therefore, that interests the Socialist looks towards putting an end or a check to the compet.i.tive system that results in the exploitation of the Many by the Few. And of all the evils the one that has stood out most startling and appalling during the last two years is the evil of unemployment.

The immediate demands of the Socialist party published at the end of the Socialist platform,[156] indicate the character of measures which the Socialists urge. In one sense these are reforms, many of which Governor Hughes favors, but they all tend towards one definite end--the limitation and ultimate suppression of the compet.i.tive system with the exploitation of the Many by the Few. In one sense, therefore, Socialists are reformers, but revolutionary reformers; all their reforms look towards the transfer of political power from the Few who exploit political power for their individual benefit, to the Many who will utilize political power for the benefit of all.

Having indicated the difference between reform and revolution, let us consider how far the Socialist is justified in saying that the compet.i.tive system is so bad that it cannot be improved--that it must be replaced altogether.

When a wagon is thoroughly worn out, it is useless to repair it; for if one part is strengthened it throws the strain upon a neighboring part which breaks down; and if that part is strengthened it throws the strain upon another which again breaks down. It is possible by intelligently renewing various parts of the wagon upon a preconceived plan, eventually to replace the broken-down wagon by an entirely new one; but the difficulty of doing this is extreme, and the wagon when so reconstructed, being composed of parts of different ages, must again give way at its most worn part. So experience indicates that it is better to throw a fairly used-up wagon on the junk heap and build a new one in its place.

Reform measures such as we have had under former administrations resemble an effort to patch up a worn-out wagon; for a reform measure directed at one evil is found to produce other evils very apt to be as great, if not greater than those that the measure is trying to suppress. Not many years ago a society for the suppression of vice made a crusade in New York upon vicious resorts. Such resorts are abominable; they should not exist in an orderly community. But attacking these resorts, without attacking the conditions that created them, only distributed the evil all over the city, involving a pernicious contact with unperverted youth.

Again, the difficulty of reconciling Sunday closing of barrooms with furnishing _bona fide_ travellers at hotels with refreshments was solved in New York by the Raines law, which defined a hotel by establishing a minimum of bedrooms. The result was that to almost every barroom there is attached this minimum of bedrooms to permit of the sale of liquor on Sunday; and this effort to secure Sunday closing has resulted in converting the barroom into a house of prost.i.tution.

Again, legislation for putting an end to the awful congestion and filth of the New York city tenements has by imposing upon the landlord expensive repairs, raised rents, so that, although the tenement dweller is little benefited because of evasion of the law, his rent has been uniformly raised.

In the chapters on the Scientific and Ethical Aspects of Socialism, an effort will be made to show why the compet.i.tive system is essentially bad and must remain bad so long as acquisitiveness is deliberately made the dominating motive of human activity; and how by modifying economic conditions we can secure all the benefits of a tempered acquisitiveness without the appalling results of an acquisitiveness that knows no bounds. This argument belongs, however, to the constructive argument for Socialism, and we have not yet completed the destructive argument against existing conditions. For there are two further ill.u.s.trations furnished by recent efforts to curb compet.i.tion which not only tend to demonstrate the hopelessness of the task, but throw light upon existing conditions and impending dangers. I refer to the rate law and legislation tending to control monopolies--to the inevitable tyrannies of the trust and the trade unions and the irreconcilable conflict between the two.

-- 3. POSSIBLE TRANSITIONAL MEASURES

I shall describe the cooperative commonwealth on the theory that it is to come gradually, not because I consider this the only way for Socialism to come, but one of the possible ways and the one most intelligible to the bourgeois mind.

Morris Hillquit and John Spargo have given good sketches of the Socialist state.[157] I shall adhere closely to their views, emphasizing and detailing them; and I am the more glad to adopt this plan because both are members of the National Executive Committee of the Socialist party and will not be accused of taking the bourgeois view of Socialism; whereas because I have been a bourgeois, I am likely to be accused of this.

Mr. Spargo begins by repudiating the idea of the Socialist state as a "great bureaucracy" and declares the Socialist ideal to be a "form of social organization in which every individual will enjoy the greatest possible amount of freedom for self-development and expression; and in which social authority will be reduced to the minimum necessary for the preservation and insurance of that right to all individuals."

The rights of the individual Mr. Spargo summarizes as follows:

"There must be perfect freedom of movement, including the right to withdraw from the domain of the government, to migrate at will to other territories; immunity from arrest, except for infringing others'

rights, with compensation for improper arrest; respect of the privacy of domicile and correspondence; full liberty of dress, subject to decency; freedom of utterance, whether by speech or publication, subject only to the protection of others from insult, injury, or interference with their equal liberties. Absolute freedom of the individual in all that pertains to art, science, philosophy, and religion, and their teaching, or propaganda, is essential. The state can rightly have nothing to do with these matters; they belong to the personal life alone. Art, science, philosophy, and religion cannot be protected by any authority, nor is such protection needed."

On the other hand, he summarizes the functions of the state as follows:

"The state has the right and the power to _organize_ and _control_ the economic system, comprehending in that term the production and distribution of all social wealth wherever private enterprise is dangerous to the social well-being, or is inefficient; the defence of the community from invasion, from fire, flood, famine, or disease; the relations with other states, such as trade agreements, boundary treaties, and the like; the maintenance of order, including the judicial and police systems in all their branches; and public education in all its departments."

The state, according to Mr. Spargo, is not to _own_ all sources of production (this is state Socialism); but is to have the right and power to _organize_ and _control_ the economic system. There is between these two statements all that distinguishes the crude Socialism of the nineteenth century from the practical Socialism of to-day. This is emphasized by Mr. Spargo when he states that "Socialism by no means involves the suppression of all private property and industry"; and the further recognition that the "Socialist state will not be static"; that is to say, it will not once for all decide that certain industries must be socialized and certain other industries be left to individual initiative.

The dominant factor that will determine these things is the public welfare. When private property in a particular thing is found injurious to public welfare, it will be taken over by the state for the purpose of being socialized, as will hereafter be explained. When it is deemed that private property in a public industry is injurious to public welfare, this industry will be socialized. When, on the contrary, it is found that by socializing an industry the advance of that industry tends to be paralyzed, private initiative will be encouraged to enter into that industry. Indeed, the economic structure of the commonwealth will be such that inefficiency in a socialized industry will automatically give rise to the compet.i.tion of private initiative therein.

I have used the expression "socialized industry." It is above all things important that we should be clear as to what these words mean; for it is the socialization of industry which is the modern subst.i.tute for the Socialist state. We cannot understand this better than by taking a concrete example.

Let us a.s.sume that the public has become convinced that a few individuals have already too long grown inordinately rich out of the refining and distribution of oil, and that the time has come for this industry to be socialized. The old theory was that the state would expropriate this industry and become the employer of all engaged in it. It is argued in favor of such a system that if the state can be entrusted with the distribution of letters, it can also be entrusted with the distribution of oil; and this is undoubtedly true. But if this same argument is applied to all industries it will expose the state to two great dangers: the state will be overburdened by the multiplicity and vastness of these tasks; and the state will become despotic. And because this task is greater than any one set of men can properly perform; even though the intentions of the members of the government be the best possible, errors of judgment and errors of detail will involve the state in injustice and discontent.

This difficulty can be met by not putting all these functions upon the state, but by so providing that the men shown in the past best able to handle a particular industry should continue to handle it. The socialization of the Standard Oil industry would simply mean the elimination of capitalistic control and exploitation. In taking over the oil industry, the state would doubtless adopt the method already adopted in taking over railroads, etc. A board would be appointed to take expert testimony as to the valuation of the industry, to determine the real value of every share. It would be called upon to value every stockholding with a view to determining to what compensation each stockholder was ent.i.tled; because a distinction will have to be made between various cla.s.ses of stockholders. Some stockholders have purchased their stock out of the economies of an industrious lifetime. They depend upon the dividends from such stock to support their old age. To cut down the income they derive from this stock might not only work an injustice, but work an injury to the commonwealth; for if these stockholders had not sufficient income to support themselves, they would become a burden on the state. Other stockholders would be found to have sufficient wealth to support a considerable reduction in the valuation of their stock without hardship. Others again would have such enormous wealth, that, having much more income than they can possibly spend, the reduction of their income would mean no hardship save that of depriving them of _power_ for the most part exerted at the present time injuriously to the commonwealth.

Experts, therefore, appointed by the state to make estimates with a view to the transfer of an industry from private to social ownership will have two distinct functions to perform: the function that boards of experts in similar cases perform to-day, to estimate the actual value of the property; and to estimate the wealth of the respective stockholders and cla.s.sify stockholders according to wealth with the view of effecting the transfer from private to social ownership without injustice to the individual or injury to the commonwealth. It is probable that compensation to stockholders will consist of annuities rather than lump sums. The advantage of compensation by annuity rather than by cash payment is considerable. As the state is taking over industries it will be more difficult for individuals to find investment for lump sums than to-day. As the state is looking forward to taking over industries to a sufficient extent to eliminate pure capitalism[158] altogether, it is to be hoped that future generations will not feel the need of capital of their own and will be all the more ready to enter into the cooperative scheme of industry if, having no capital, they have to work each in his own industry under the new and prosperous conditions which cooperative production ought by that time to have brought about.

Cases will undoubtedly be found where wealthy parents have worthless or defective children and grandchildren. Again, some parents have so contributed to the development of industry of the nation, as in the case of Mr. John D. Rockefeller and Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, that it may seem proper that the compensation given in the shape of an annuity to them should not end abruptly at their death; but that a part of it should be continued to their offspring. This question is one of conscience as well as of social welfare; and in view of the enormous importance of it to the wealthy of to-day, it is a pity that they confine themselves to denouncing Socialism, and by so doing, leave the elaboration of the Socialist program to a party of discontented which is likely to deal with them when the day of expropriation arrives, not only without mercy, but without justice.

To judge of the difficulty of determining the questions likely to arise, let us consider for a moment the case of Mr. Rockefeller.

Mr. John D. Rockefeller has testified over and over again that for many years he has had nothing to do with the management of the Standard Oil, and yet he draws from the Standard Oil an income so enormous that, not being able to spend more than a fraction of it, he has invested the balance in railroad shares and thus become master of a large part of our railroad system. I myself believe after a careful study of the organization and development of the Standard Oil that Mr.

Rockefeller has ama.s.sed his fortune strictly in conformity with law.

He has, it is true, deliberately lied at certain critical periods. But lying is not a crime, and is not actionable except under specified conditions. Mr. Rockefeller then is not a criminal. He simply presents a case where, having rendered an immense service to the community, he has received as a remuneration for that service wealth that surpa.s.ses the dreams of avarice.

If Mr. Rockefeller's holdings in the Standard Oil were expropriated by the state without one dollar of remuneration, Mr. Rockefeller would still be in possession of a far larger income derived from his railroad holdings than he and all his family could possibly spend. It is probable, therefore, that in such cases as those of Mr.

Rockefeller, J. Pierpont Morgan, and others of their cla.s.s, the state would make a valuation of all their wealth, leave them what it is proper they should have, and expropriate the rest. Even though there were left to multi-millionaires more income than they could possibly spend, the surplus expropriated by the state out of each of their swollen fortunes would leave to every industry a large fund which could be applied to increasing wages, improving conditions, and reducing prices. If, for example, it turned out that the income Mr.

Rockefeller derives from his railroad shares is more than he can spend and that, therefore, there were no reason why he should continue to own any shares in the Standard Oil whatever, the dividends accruing from the shares now held by Mr. Rockefeller in the Standard Oil would be applicable to improving the conditions of those who work for the Standard Oil. It is probable that Mr. Rockefeller owns about one-half of the shares in the Standard Oil. All the dividends now paid to Mr.

Rockefeller would in such case be applicable to these things. Such a solution would permit of the division of the enormous dividends which are being paid to-day to Mr. Rockefeller amongst the working body of the Standard Oil.

As to compensation, there is considerable disagreement in the Socialist party, and many Socialists would not admit the principle of compensation at all. In France, it is probable that these last const.i.tute, if not a majority, at any rate a very large minority of the party; but in America I think it can be said that the Socialist party stands for compensation. In support of this contention I cannot do better than quote a pa.s.sage from the article of Mr. Steffens in _Everybody's Magazine_, Oct., 1908.[159]

This pa.s.sage is extremely illuminating because we find in it the opinions of two men thoroughly representative of the two wings of the Socialist party: Eugene Debs, who is what Mr. Roosevelt would call "an extreme Socialist"; that is to say, he looks at Socialism from the revolutionary point of view; he regards the issue as between the capitalist on the one side and the proletariat on the other; he is an ardent exponent of the cla.s.s struggle theory; his sympathies are exclusively marshalled on the side of the poor, and his first impulse, therefore, on being questioned on this subject, is to express an opinion contrary to compensation. And yet his ideas on this subject are not so rooted but that they can at once be corrected when he is reminded by Victor Berger of the evils likely to result from expropriation without compensation.

To those unfamiliar with the personnel of the Socialist party, it is important to say a word regarding Victor Berger. He is the editor of the _Social Democratic Herald_, published in Milwaukee; but he is far more than this. He is the recognized leader of the Socialist party in Wisconsin, the only State in which Socialism has succeeded in electing members to the munic.i.p.al council and to the State legislature. No one who reads his editorials can fail to recognize that he is not only an economist, but a scholar. He is regularly elected to the National Executive Committee of the Socialist party at the head of the poll; and although I must not be understood to imply that there are no other men in the party of as great weight as Mr. Victor Berger, I think it may be stated without fear of contradiction that he to-day has more personal influence in the party than any other one man. The ease with which he brought the Presidential nominee around to his view on the subject of compensation is a measure of his influence. I think that upon the subject of compensation the opinion of Victor Berger is likely to prevail.[160]

The socialization of industry does not mean any change in the personnel of the industry whatever. Every man drawing salary or wages from the Standard Oil will go on drawing salary or wages as before.

The industry will be handed over to those who actually maintain and work at it. These men will run the industry in very much the same way as did the guilds in the Middle Ages, subject to the payment of annuities to old stockholders determined by the court.

There would, however, be some notable distinctions, between the medieval guild and the guild under a cooperative commonwealth.

The latter would not const.i.tute a complete monopoly; on the contrary, independent refiners would continue to refine and distribute oil, maintaining a wholesome compet.i.tion of a character to prevent the oil guild from becoming perfunctory and inefficient. This compet.i.tion would tend to avert the evils that attended the close monopoly of the medieval guild, practically all of which can be traced to the completeness of their monopoly.

Again the state would not _own_ the oil industry; it would reserve the right to _control_ it. No direct control need be exercised providing the industry were wisely administered; but if the industry had recourse to devices for crushing out compet.i.tion to which the trusts to-day habitually resort, the state would exercise this direct control by appointing one or more members to the governing board of the industry. The oil guild would, therefore, be kept upon its good behavior, both by the compet.i.tion of the independent refineries and by the danger of state intervention.

When the public became convinced that the time had come for the socialization of the steel industry, exactly the same process would be adopted. In this case, the function of those who had to value stockholdings would be facilitated. It has never been revealed how much J. Pierpont Morgan got in common stock for his role in the organization of the Steel Trust; but it is known that the amount of stock taken by him on that occasion was enormous. It would be interesting to calculate the number of hours of work he personally spent in promoting this trust and to compare these hours with the amount of stock which he received as a price of this service. Such a method might facilitate the work of those who had to value the stock and determine the amount to which he was ent.i.tled for the service he rendered.

The socialization of industry, therefore, will be seen to be a process in which, once started, the state need have little further to do. It will practically consist of a transfer of the industry from the hands of the capitalist to the hands of those actually engaged therein. It will involve the valuation of every stockholding in such a fashion that the capitalist will during his life receive in some cases all, though in other cases less than he has heretofore received; so that the excessive income now enjoyed by the capitalist will be applicable to improving the conditions of those engaged in the industry; it will also be applicable to the reduction of cost to the consumer. And this process applied to every trusted industry will have for immediate effect gradually to improve the condition of the workingmen. When applied to them all, not only will the workers receive an increased wage, but the wage they receive will have its purchasing power increased by the lowering of prices in all industries. Obviously this system is not going immediately to put the luxuries now enjoyed by the multi-millionaire at the disposal of every workingman; but it will increase them as the annuitants die, so that with the disappearance of the first generation of multi-millionaires, the conditions of labor will be still further improved; and with the disappearance of the second generation, to whom doubtless some annuities will also be given, the workingman will receive all the benefits now given to the capitalist.

Inasmuch as the wage-earners now receive on an average a little less than one-half of the whole profits of the industry, from this socialization of industry alone the laborer's will ultimately have their compensation doubled by increase of wage and decrease of prices.

By "worker" is not meant what we now call workingmen alone. It includes all engaged in industry through the work of their hands or their heads.

It is a common error into which Mr. Roosevelt has fallen that Socialism proposes to improve the condition of the one at the expense of the other; that it is a doctrine of Socialists that "all wealth is produced by _manual_ workers."[161] No such foolish proposition has ever been propounded by any Socialist however "extreme."[162] Socialists recognize the enormous role played by brain in the organization and administration of industry. What Socialism seeks to do is to eliminate the idle stockholder--not the industrious manager. If Mr. Roosevelt would cast his comprehensive eye around the cla.s.s to which he belongs, he will observe that it is composed in great part of idle stockholders who contribute nothing whatever to the work of the industries which furnish their dividends. And because these stockholders are idle, he will find that they tend also to be "thriftless and vicious," and that he is denouncing his own cla.s.s when he characterizes as "morally base" the proposition that "the thriftless and the vicious, who could or would put in but little, should be ent.i.tled to take out the earnings of the intelligent, the foresighted, and the industrious." He is very hard on them; he says this is living by "theft or by charity" and that this means "in each case degradation, a rapid lowering of self-respect and self-reliance."[163] If a Socialist were to use this language of the idle stockholders, he would be characterized as intemperate. I would not myself go so far as Mr. Roosevelt. There are many idle stockholders who, _because they are unconscious of living "by theft or by charity,"_ have preserved a social conscience that sets them to righting the wrongs of the many. Mr. Roosevelt himself, indeed, belongs to this very cla.s.s. If he ever takes the trouble to understand Socialism, he will see that it proposes to put an end to the cla.s.s that is idle and tends to be "thriftless and vicious"; that in other words, in this as in every other point on which Mr. Roosevelt attacks us, Socialism stands for the very opposite of what Mr. Roosevelt thinks. It proposes to take our industries out of the control of the idle and hand them over to the industrious, whether their industry be of the hand or of the head.

The result of such transfer will be to leave every man doing the work which he is already doing; to improve his condition; to keep alive the compet.i.tion necessary to prevent inefficiency or perfunctoriness and make character; to diminish the stakes of the game, so that the worker shall not lose health and happiness as now, but shall secure more or less of the luxuries of life. And industry will be so organized that no man who wants to work shall be without work; and no one who does not want to work shall be allowed to be idle.

Having explained what is meant by the socialization of industry, and pointed out how small the role of the state need be in the socialization of industry at large, we may next proceed to consider certain industries in which the state does, to-day, in other countries and would in a cooperative commonwealth certainly play the dominant role. In the first place, the state would own all natural monopolies.

By the word "state" must not be understood the Government at Washington alone. Certain monopolies are national monopolies and would therefore be owned by the national Government at Washington; for example, railroads, telegraphs, national forests, national waterways, etc. But it is the local authorities that would take over such local monopolies as tramways, electric works, gas works, and all those things that are essentially munic.i.p.al in their nature. The wisdom of this transfer of natural monopolies from private to public ownership it is not necessary to discuss. The enormous advantages that have attended this transfer in countries where it has been conscientiously tried leave no room for discussion except by those who have a personal interest in it, and to those this book is not addressed. Moreover, this subject will be treated in the next chapter.

There are, however, certain industries which, because they are intimately connected with public hygiene, it seems indispensable that the munic.i.p.ality should take over. I refer to such industries as packing houses, butcher shops, pharmacies, and the production and distribution of milk, ice, and bread.

The recklessness with which we allow ice companies to distribute ice collected from ponds into which the drainage of a large population filters and from the head waters of such rivers as the Hudson, which receives all the sewage of Albany, Schenectady, and Troy, seems incredible, were we not already familiar with the recklessness which hands over all our industries to a compet.i.tive system so fierce in its operation that adulteration is its necessary consequence.

Many of the bakeshops which furnish us with our bread baffle description, and on the poisons which are introduced into our milk I have already dilated. Wherever the temptation to adulterate is considerable and the consequence of adulteration to public health great, the community should not accept the risk that arises from compet.i.tion except within the narrowest possible limits. For this reason, it will doubtless be wise for a cooperative commonwealth to own and run packing houses, butcher shops, pharmacies, bakeries, and to produce and distribute milk and ice.