Woman under socialism Part 26

All this notwithstanding, capitalism proceeds on its course: it can be no other than it is. By means of the forms that its course dictates, it throws all the laws of capitalist economics overboard. "Free compet.i.tion," the Alpha and Omega of bourgeois society, is to bring the fittest to the top of the enterprises; but the stock corporation removes all individuality, and places the crown upon that combination that has the longest purse and the strongest grip. The syndicates, Trusts and rings carry the point still further. Whole branches of industry are monopolized; the individual capitalist becomes but a pliant link in a chain, held by a capitalist committee. _A handful of monopolists set themselves up as lords of the world and dictate to it the price of goods, to the workingmen their wages and conditions of life._

The whole course of this development brings out how utterly superfluous the individual capitalist has become, and that production, conducted upon a national and international scale, is the goal toward which society steers--with this difference, that, in the end, this organized production will redound to the benefit, not of a cla.s.s, but of the collectivity.

The economic revolution just sketched, and which is driving bourgeois society with great swiftness to its apogee, becomes more pointed from year to year. While Europe finds itself pressed more and more in its foreign markets, and finally on its own territory, by the compet.i.tion of the United States, latterly enemies have risen in the East also, rendering still more critical the plight of Europe, and at the same time threatening the United States also. This danger proceeds from the progress of English India toward becoming a great agricultural and industrial State--a progress that, in the first place, looks to the meeting of the wants of India's own two hundred million strong population, and, in the second place, develops into a mortal enemy of English and German industry in particular. And still another industrial State is beginning to rise in the East--_j.a.pan_. According to the "Kreuzzeitung" of February 20, 1895, "during the last ten years, j.a.pan has imported from Europe the best perfected machinery for setting up industrial plants, especially in cotton spinning. In 1889, she had only 35,000 spindles; now she has over 380,000. In 1889, j.a.pan imported 31 million pounds of raw cotton; in 1891, she imported 67 million. She is steadily decreasing her importations of manufactured articles, and increasing her importations of raw material, which she then retransports in the shape of manufactures. During the last year Hongkong, a European colony, bought over two million marks of j.a.panese cotton goods. The j.a.panese are providing their own markets with goods that formerly were imported from Europe and the United States. They are also exporting to Oriental markets, that were formerly provided from western sources. They are exporting matches and soap; they are manufacturing clothing, felt hats and hosiery; they have gla.s.s-blowing establishments, breweries, tileries, tan-yards and rope-walks."

The further expansion of j.a.pan's industry steadily reduces importations from Europe and the United States, and simultaneously places it in condition to turn up in the world's market as a compet.i.tor. Should China also, as a result of the j.a.panese-Chinese war, be compelled to open her immense territory to European culture, then, in view of the great adaptability and marvelous unpretentiousness of the Chinese workingman, another compet.i.tive power will have risen, more dangerous than any that the world's market has yet had to reckon with. Truly, the future of bourgeois society is threatened from all sides with grave dangers, and there is no way to escape them.

Thus _the crisis becomes permanent and international_. It is a result of all the markets being overstocked with goods. And yet, still more could be produced; but the large majority of people suffer want in the necessaries of life because they have no income wherewith to satisfy their wants by purchase. They lack clothing, underwear, furniture, homes, food for the body and mind, and means of enjoyment, all of which they could consume in large quant.i.ties. But all that does not exist to them. Hundreds of thousands of workingmen are even thrown upon the sidewalk, and rendered wholly unable to consume because their labor-power has become "_superfluous_" to the capitalists. Is it not obvious that our social system suffers of serious ailments? How could there be any "over-production" when there is no lack of capacity to consume, i. e., of wants that crave satisfaction? Obviously, it is not production, in and of itself, that breeds these unhallowed conditions and contradictions: _it is the system under which production is carried on, and the product is distributed_.

In human society, all its members are bound to one another by a thousand threads; and these threads are all the more numerous in proportion to a people's grade of culture. If disturbances set in, they are forthwith felt by all. Disturbances in production affect distribution and consumption; and _vice versa_. The feature of capitalist production is the concentration of property into ever fewer hands and into ever larger establishments. In distribution, on the contrary, an opposite current is noticeable. Whoever, due to the destructive effect of compet.i.tion, is stricken from the list of independent producers, seeks, in nine cases out of ten, to squeeze himself as a dealer between the producer and the consumer, and thus to earn his livelihood.

Hence the striking phenomenon of the increase of the middleman--dealers, shopkeepers, hucksters, commissioners, brokers, agents, saloonkeepers, etc. Most of these, among whom women are strongly represented, lead a life of worries and a needy existence. Many are compelled, in order to keep their heads above water, to speculate upon the lowest pa.s.sions of man and to promote them in all manner of ways. Hence the marvelous swing of the most repulsive advertis.e.m.e.nts, particularly in all matters the object of which is the gratification of s.e.xual pleasures.

It is undeniable, and, viewed from a higher viewpoint, it is also cheering, that the current for a greater enjoyment of life runs deep in modern society. Man begins to understand that, in order to be human, a life worthy of human beings is requisite, and the feeling is expressed in such form as corresponds with the respective conceptions of the enjoyment of life. As far as the distribution of its wealth is concerned, society has become much more _aristocratic_ than at any previous period. Between the richest and the poorest, the chasm is wider to-day than ever before. On the other hand, with regard to its ideas and laws, society has become more _democratic_.[169] Hence the ma.s.ses strive after greater equality; and, seeing that in their ignorance they know not yet the path by which to attain their wishes, they seek equality in the imitation of the upper cla.s.ses by furnishing themselves with whatever pleasures are within their reach. All possible artificial means are resorted to in order to exploit this tendency; the consequences are often serious. The gratification of a justified desire thus leads in a number of cases to wrong paths, often to crime; and society intervenes in its own way, without thereby improving matters in the least.

The increasing ma.s.s of the middlemen draws many evils in its wake.

Although this cla.s.s toils arduously and works under the load of heavy cares, _the majority are parasites, they are unproductively active, and they live upon the labors of others, just the same as the capitalist cla.s.s_. Higher prices is the inevitable consequence of this industry.

Food and other goods rise in price in such manner that they often cost twice or many times as much as the producer received for them.[170] If it is thought unadvisable or impossible to materially raise the price of the goods, lest consumption decline, they are artificially deteriorated, and recourse is had _to adulteration of food, and to false weights and measures_, in order to make the requisite profits. The chemist Chevalier reports that he knows, among the several adulterations of food, 32 for coffee, 30 for wine, 28 for chocolate, 24 for meal, 23 for brandy, 20 for bread, 19 for milk, 10 for b.u.t.ter, 9 for olive oil, 6 for sugar, etc. The Chamber of Commerce of Wesel reported in 1870 that an extensive system of swindle was practiced in the shops in the sale of ready-weighed articles: for 1 pound, 24 or 26 pennyweights were given, and in that way twice as much was gained as the difference in the price.

Workingmen and small traders who get their goods on credit and who must, accordingly, submit, even when the fraud is obvious, fare worst of all.

Grave abuses are also perpetrated in bakeries. Swindling and cheating are inseparable from our modern conditions, and certain government inst.i.tutions, such as high indirect taxes, are direct incentives thereto. The laws against the adulteration of food alter matters but little. The struggle for existence compels the swindlers to resort to ever shrewder means, nor is there any thorough and strict inspection.

Leading and influential circles of our ruling cla.s.ses are even interested in the system of swindle. Under the pretext that, in order to discover adulterations a more comprehensive and more expensive administrative apparatus is required, and that "legitimate business"

would suffer thereby, almost all inspection, worthy of the name, is lamed. If, however, laws and measures of inspection do actually intervene, they affect a considerable rise in the price of the unadulterated products, seeing that the lower price was made possible only by adulteration.

With the view of avoiding these evils of trade, evils that, as ever and everywhere, are hardest on the ma.s.ses, "Consumers' a.s.sociations" have been set up. In Germany, the "Consumers' a.s.sociation" plan, especially among the military and civil service employees, reaches such a point that numerous business houses have been ruined, and many are not far from the same fate. These a.s.sociations demonstrate the superfluousness of trade in a differently organized society.[171] In that consists their princ.i.p.al merit. The material advantages are not great for the members; neither are the facilities that they offer enough to enable the members to discover any material improvement in their condition. Not infrequently is their administration poor, and the members must pay for it. In the hands of capitalists, these a.s.sociations even become an additional means to chain the workingman to the factory, and they are used as weapons to depress wages. The founding of these "Consumers'

a.s.sociations" is, however, a symptom that the evils of trade and at least the superfluousness of the middlemen have been realized in wide circles. Society will reach that point of organization at which trade becomes wholly superfluous; the product will reach the consumer without the intervention of any middlemen other than those who attend to its transportation from place to place, and who are in the service of society. A natural demand, that flows from the collective procurement of food, _is its collective preparation for the table upon a large scale, whereby a further and enormous saving would be made of energy, s.p.a.ce, material and all manner of expenditures_.

The economic revolution in industry and transportation has spread to agriculture also, and in no slight degree. Commercial and industrial crises are felt in the country as well. Many relatives of families located in the country are partially or even wholly engaged in industrial establishments in cities, and this sort of occupation is becoming more and more common because the large farmers find it convenient _to convert on their own farms a considerable portion of their produce_. They thereby save the high cost of transporting the raw product--potatoes that are used for spirits, beets for sugar, grain for flour or brandy or beer. Furthermore, they have on their own farms cheaper and more willing labor than can be got in the city, or in industrial districts. Factories and rent are considerably cheaper, taxes and licenses lower, seeing that, to a certain extent, the landed proprietors are themselves lawgivers and law officers: from their midst numerous representatives are sent to the Reichstag: not infrequently they also control the local administration and the police department.

These are ample reasons for the phenomenon of increasing numbers of funnel-pipes in the country. Agriculture and industry step into ever closer interrelation with each other--an advantage that accrues mainly to the large landed estates.

The point of capitalist development reached in Germany also by agriculture has partially called forth conditions similar to those found in England and the United States. As with the small and middle cla.s.s industries, so likewise with the small and middle cla.s.s farms, they are swallowed up by the large. A number of circ.u.mstances render the life of the small and middle cla.s.s farmer ever harder, and ripen him for absorption by the large fellow.

No longer do the one-time conditions, as they were still known a few decades ago, prevail in the country. Modern culture now pervades the country in the remotest corners. Contrary to its own purpose, militarism exercises a certain revolutionary influence. The enormous increase of the standing army weighs, in so far as the blood-tax is concerned, heaviest of all upon the country districts. The degeneration of industrial and city life compels the drawing of by far the larger portion of soldiers from the rural population. When the farmer's son, the day laborer, or the servant returns after two or three years from the atmosphere of the city and the barracks, an atmosphere not exactly impregnated with high moral principles;--when he returns as the carrier and spreader of venereal diseases, he has also become acquainted with a ma.s.s of new views and wants whose gratification he is not inclined to discontinue. Accordingly, he makes larger demands upon life, and wants higher wages; his frugality of old went to pieces in the city.

Transportation, ever more extended and improved, also contributes toward the increase of wants in the country. Through intercourse with the city, the rustic becomes acquainted with the world from an entirely new and more seductive side: he is seized with new ideas: he learns of the wants of civilization, thitherto unknown to him. All that renders him discontented with his lot. On top of that, the increasing demands of the State, the province, the munic.i.p.ality hit both farmer and farmhand, and make them still more rebellious.

True enough, many farm products have greatly risen in value during this period, but not in even measure with the taxes and the cost of living.

On the other hand, transmarine compet.i.tion in food materially contributes toward reducing prices: this reduces incomes: the same can be counterbalanced only by improved management: and nine-tenths of the farmers lack the means thereto. Moreover, the farmer does not get for his product the price paid by the city: he has to deal with the middlemen: and these hold him in their clutches. The broker or dealer, who at given seasons traverses the country and, as a rule, himself sells to other middlemen, wants to make his profits: the gathering of many small quant.i.ties gives him much more trouble than a large invoice from a single large holder: the small farmer receives, as a consequence, less for his goods than the large farmer. Moreover, the quality of the products from the small farmer is inferior: the primitive methods that are there generally pursued have that effect: and that again compels the small farmer to submit to lower prices. Again, the farm owner or tenant can often not afford to wait until the price of his goods rises. He has payments to meet--rent, interest, taxes; he has loans to cancel and debts to settle with the broker and his hands. These liabilities are due on fixed dates: he must sell however unfavorable the moment. In order to improve his land, to provide for co-heirs, children, etc., the farmer has contracted a mortgage: he has no choice of creditor: thus his plight is rendered all the worse. High interest and stated payments of arrears give him hard blows. An unfavorable crop, or a false calculation on the proper crop, for which he expected a high price, carry him to the very brink of ruin. Often the purchaser of the crop and the mortgagee are one and the same person. The farmers of whole villages and districts thus find themselves at the mercy of a few creditors. The farmers of hops, wine and tobacco in Southern Germany; the truck farmers on the Rhine; the small farmers in Central Germany--all are in that plight. The mortgagee sucks them dry; he leaves them, apparent owners of a field, that, in point of fact, is theirs no longer. The capitalist vampire often finds it more profitable to farm in this way than, by seizing the land itself and selling it, or himself doing the farming. Thus many thousand farmers are carried on the registers as proprietors, who, in fact, are no longer such. Thus, again, many a large farmer--unskilled in his trade, or visited by misfortune, or who came into possession under unfavorable circ.u.mstances--also falls a prey to the executioner's axe of the capitalist. The capitalist becomes lord of the land; with the view of making double gains he goes into the business of "butchering estates:" he parcels out the domain because he can thereby get a larger price than if he sold it in lump: then also he has better prospects of plying his usurious trade if the proprietors are many and small holders.

It is well known that city houses with many small apartments yield the largest rent. A number of small holders join and buy a portion of the parcelled-out estate: the capitalist benefactor is ready at hand to pa.s.s larger tracts over to them on a small cash payment, securing the rest by mortgage bearing good interest. This is the milk in the cocoanut. If the small holder has luck and he succeeds, by utmost exertion, to extract a tolerable sum from the land, or to obtain an exceptionally cheap loan, then he can save himself; otherwise he fares as shown above.

If a few heads of cattle die on the hands of the farm-owner or tenant, a serious misfortune has befallen him; if he has a daughter who marries, her outfit augments his debts, besides his losing a cheap labor-power; if a son marries, the youngster wants a piece of land or its equivalent in money. Often this farmer must neglect necessary improvements: if his cattle and household do not furnish him with sufficient manure--a not unusual circ.u.mstance--then the yield of the farm declines, because its owner cannot buy fertilizers: often he lacks the means to obtain better seed. The profitable application of machinery is denied him: a rotation of crops, in keeping with the chemical composition of his farm, is often not to be thought of. As little can he turn to profit the advantages that science and experience offer him in the conduct of his domestic animals: the want of proper food, the want of proper stabling and attention, the want of all other means and appliances prevent him.

Innumerable, accordingly, are the causes that bear down upon the small and middle cla.s.s farmer, drive him into debt, and his head into the noose of the capitalist or the large holder.

The large landholders are generally intent upon buying up the small holdings, and thereby "rounding up" their estates. The large capitalist magnates have a predilection for investments in land, this being the safest form of property, one, moreover, that, with an increasing population, rises in value without effort on the part of the owners.

England furnishes the most striking instance of this particular increase of value. Although due to international compet.i.tion in agricultural products and cattle-raising, the yield of the land decreased during the last decades, nevertheless, seeing that in Scotland two million acres were converted into hunting grounds, that in Ireland four million acres lie almost waste, that in England the area of agriculture declined from 19,153,900 acres in 1831, to 15,651,605 in 1880, a loss of 3,484,385 acres, which have been converted into meadow lands, rent increased considerably. The aggregate rent from country estates amounted, in pounds sterling, to:--

Countries. 1857. 1875. 1880. Increase.

England and Wales 41,177,200 50,125,000 52,179,381 11,002,181 Scotland 5,932,000 7,493,000 7,776,919 1,844,919 Ireland 8,747,000 9,293,000 10,543,000 1,796,700 ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- Total 55,856,200 67,911,000 70,499,300 14,643,800

Accordingly, an increase of 26.2 per cent. within 23 years, and that without any effort on the part of the owners. Although, since 1880, due to the ever sharper international compet.i.tion in food, the agricultural conditions of England and Ireland have hardly improved, the large English landlords have not yet ventured upon such large demands upon the population as have the continental, the German large landlords in particular. England knows no agricultural tariffs; and the demand for a minimum price, fixed by government, of such nature that they have been styled "price raisers" and as the large landlords of the East Elbe region together with their train-bands in the German Reichstag are insisting on at the cost of the propertyless cla.s.ses, would raise in England a storm of indignation.

According to the agricultural statistics gathered in Germany on June 2, 1882, the farms fell into the following categories according to size:--

Percentage of Area. Farms. Total Farms.

Under 1 hectare 2,323,316 44.03 1 to 5 hectares 1,719,922 32.54 5 to 10 hectares 554,174 10.50 10 to 20 hectares 372,431 7.06 20 to 50 hectares 239,887 4.50 50 to 100 hectares 41,623 0.80 100 to 200 hectares 11,033 0.21 200 to 500 hectares 9,814 0.18 500 to 1,000 hectares 3,629 0.07 1,000 hectares 515 0.01 --------- ----- Total 5,276,344 99.90

According to Koppe, a minimum of 6 hectares are requisite in Northern Germany for a farmer's family to barely beat itself through; in order to live in tolerable circ.u.mstances, 15 to 20 hectares are requisite. In the fertile districts of Southern Germany, 3 to 4 hectares are considered good ground to support a peasant family on. This minimum is reached in Germany by not four million farms, and only about 6 per cent.

of the farmers have holdings large enough to enable them to get along in comfort. Not less than 3,222,270 farmers conduct industrial or commercial pursuits besides agriculture. It is a characteristic feature of the lands under cultivation that the farms of less than 50 hectares--5,200,000 in all--contained only 3,747,677 hectares of grain lands, whereas the farms of more than 50 hectares--66,000 in round figures--contained 9,636,246 hectares. One and a quarter per cent. of the farms contained 2 times more grain land than the other 98-3/4 per cent. put together.

And yet the picture presented by these statistics falls by far short of the reality. It has not been ascertained among how many owners these 5,276,344 farms are divided. The number of owners is far smaller than that of the farms themselves: many are the owners of dozens of farms: it is in the instance of large farms, in particular, that many are held by one proprietor. A knowledge of the concentration of land is of the highest socio-political importance, yet on this point the agricultural statistics of 1882 leave us greatly in the lurch. A few facts are, nevertheless, ascertained from other sources, and they give an approximate picture of the reality. The percentages of large landed property--over 100 hectares--to the aggregate agricultural property was as follows:--

Provinces. Percentage. Provinces. Percentage.

Pomerania 64.87 Brandenburg 42.60 Posen 61.22 Silesia 42.14 West Prussia 54.41 Saxony 30.89 East Prussia 41.79 Schleswig-Holstein 18.03

According to the memorial of the Prussian Minister of Agriculture, published in the bulletin of the Prussian Bureau of Statistics, the number of middle cla.s.s farms sank, from 354,610 with 35,260,084 acres, in 1816, to 344,737 with 33,498,433 acres, in 1859. The number of these farms had, accordingly, decreased within that period by 9,873, and peasant property had been wiped out to the volume of 1,711,641 acres.

The inquiry extended only to the provinces of Prussia, Posen (from 1823 on), Pomerania, exclusive of Stralsund; Brandenburg, Saxony, Silesia, and Westphalia.

What disappears as peasant property usually goes into large estates. In 1885, in the province of Pomerania, 62 proprietors held 118 estates; in 1891, however, the same number of proprietors held 203 estates with an area of 147,139 hectares. Altogether, there were in the province of Pomerania, in 1891, 1,353 n.o.ble and bourgeois landlords, owning 2,258 estates with 1,247,201 hectares.[172] The estates averaged 551 hectares in size.

Our eastern provinces give this table of landlords for the year 1888:--

Prince of Hohenlohe-Oehringen 39,365 hectares Prince of Sigmaringen 29,611 "

Prince of Thurn and Taxis 24,482 "

Prince Bismarck 18,600 "

Prince Radziwill 16,398 "

Duke of Milzinski 13,933 "

Representative Kennemann 10,482 "

Duke Serg. v. Czarnecki 9,263 "

v. Hansemann 7,734 "

Etc., etc., etc.

We see that we here have to do with owners of latifundia of first rank; and a portion of these gentlemen own also large estates in Southern Germany and Austria.

According to Conrad,[173] there were in the year 1888, in East Prussia, 547 entails, of which 153 were inst.i.tuted before the beginning of the nineteenth century. Entailed land is property that an heir can neither mortgage, divide nor alienate. The owner may go into bankruptcy through a dissolute life, but the entail and the income that flows therefrom remain unseizable. These entails, which only the very rich can inst.i.tute, are steadily increasing in number since the last decades. The 547 entails in existence in the eastern provinces of Prussia in 1888, held by 529 persons, 20 of whom were bourgeois, embraced 1,408,860 hectares, or 2,454 hectares on an average. According to the statistical figures, submitted in the spring of 1894 by the Prussian Minister of Agriculture to the Agrarian Commission, the entails of Prussia embraced at that time 1,833,754 hectares with a net income of 22,992,000 marks.

Estimating the holders of entails at 550, each has an unseizable income of 41,800 marks. a.s.suming, however, that these entails are concentrated in one province, it would mean that the whole province of Schleswig-Holstein, with an area of 1,890,000 hectares, belonged to 550 owners. In 1888 there were in the eastern provinces of Prussia 154 persons--among them 15 ruling Princes (the Kings of Prussia, Saxony, etc.); 89 Dukes, other Princes and Counts; 40 n.o.blemen and 10 bourgeois--who alone owned 1,830 estates aggregating 1,768,648 hectares of land. Probably, the property of these persons has in the meantime increased considerably, seeing that a good portion of the net incomes from these estates is expended in acquiring new ones. The n.o.bility of the first and second rank are the princ.i.p.al elements engaged in this gigantic concentration of landed property; but they are closely followed by the aristocracy of finance, who, with increasing predilection, invest their wealth in land, consisting mainly in magnificent woods, stocked with roe, deer and wild boar, that the owners may gratify their pa.s.sion for the hunt. A large number of the baronial manors consist of the estates of dispossessed peasants, who were driven from their homes and reduced to day laborers. According to Neumann, in the provinces of East and West Prussia alone, there were from twelve to thirteen thousand small holdings appropriated in that way between 1825 to 1859. This process of dispossessing, proletarianizing the country population by the capitalist landlords, has the laying waste of the land as a natural consequence. The population emigrates, or moves to the cities and industrial centers. Woods and meadows gain upon cultivated lands, the remaining territories are operated with machinery, that render human labor superfluous, or that need such only for short periods during the plowing and sowing seasons, or when the crops are gathered. The rapidly increasing number of movable steam engines, already mentioned, consists mainly of engines employed in the cultivation of the land. The decrease of the rural population, resulting upon these and other causes of secondary nature, is sharply expressed in the statistics on population.

Within the eight old provinces of Prussia, the proportion between the rural and the city population revealed, between 1867 and 1890, the following progression:--