Transcriber's Note:

Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has been preserved.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. For a complete list, please see the [end of this document].

TWENTIETH CENTURY SOCIALISM

TWENTIETH CENTURY
SOCIALISM

WHAT IT IS NOT; WHAT IT IS:
HOW IT MAY COME

BY

EDMOND KELLY, M.A., F.G.S.

Late Lecturer on Municipal Government at Columbia University,
in the City of New York

Author of "Government or Human Evolution,"
"Evolution and Effort," etc., etc.

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK
LONDON, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA
1911

Copyright, 1910
BY
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

First Edition, May, 1910
Reprinted, November, 1910
May, 1911

THE SCIENTIFIC PRESS
ROBERT DRUMMOND AND COMPANY
BROOKLYN, N.Y.

INTRODUCTION

I

No one whose intellectual parts are in working order believes that the industrial world will go back to an unorganized individualistic production and distribution of wealth. No one whose moral sense is awake desires to see the chief means of production owned and controlled by a small number of monstrously wealthy men, however great their ability or good their intentions. Nevertheless, most persons of moral sense and normal mentality are disturbed when one suggests in so many words that if industry cannot henceforth be individualistic and should not be owned and controlled by the Big Few, it will, apparently, have to be owned and controlled by the Many. This paradoxical psychology possibly indicates that we queer human beings do our real thinking and perform our occasional feats of moral self-examination in lucid intervals, alternating with states of mind—and conscience—which were better not described in non-technical language.

Edmond Kelly was a man whose lucidity was not interrupted. It was a necessity of his nature to think clearly and coherently. Not less necessary was it for him to think comprehensively, for his sympathy was boundless. Every phase of life interested him. He found nothing but meanness contemptible; and nothing but injustice moved him to hate. To such a mind the partial view is intolerable. A fact must be seen from every side and its relations to other facts must be traced out. From his earliest manhood Mr. Kelly looked upon the struggle for existence as both evolution and effort. Accepting the Darwinian explanation of life, he yet could not admit that man is powerless to control his fate. Physical evolution shades into physiological, and physiological evolution into psychological. Effort, foresight, and directed effort are products of evolution, but having been produced, they become forces in further evolution. In the higher evolution of man, they have become principal forces. From the moment that Mr. Kelly grasped this thought his mind was busy with it through all the years of his exceedingly active life, mastering its implications, examining it in its social or collective, no less than in its individual aspect, and forecasting the chief lines of constructive effort by an enlightened mankind industrially and politically organized for the most effective coöperation.

Yet it was not until a few years before his death that Mr. Kelly became a declared Socialist. The slow advance to his ultimate conclusions was characteristic. Though his mind moved swiftly, his intellectual integrity compelled him to examine every position as he went on. Because of these qualities his books form a series, consecutive in premisses and argument; a logical sequence corresponding to their chronological order. Thus, in his early work, "Evolution and Effort," Mr. Kelly was content to do thoroughly one particular thing, namely, to demonstrate that the Spencerian philosophy of evolution could be accepted without committing mankind to the practical programme of laissez faire, upon which Mr. Spencer himself so strongly insisted. This work Mr. Kelly did so well that there is no need for anyone to do it over, and it provided a firm foundation for his further constructive efforts. The Popular Science Monthly, which was then, under the editorship of Professor Edward L. Youmans, unreservedly committed to Spencerian views, acknowledged that it was the most telling attack upon what Professor Huxley had called "administrative nihilism" that had been made in any quarter. The main ideas of "Evolution and Effort" were elaborated and clinched in the two large volumes on "Government or Human Evolution," and were concretely applied to pressing practical questions in the unsigned book, "A Programme for Workingmen."

Each of the two volumes on "Government" was devoted, as "Evolution and Effort" had been, to establishing firmly a specific proposition. When Mr. Kelly began writing the first volume, which bore the sub-title "Justice," he was a lecturer in the Faculty of Political Science at Columbia University and was intensely interested in the movement for the reform of municipal politics in New York city. Believing that adequate organization was the chief need, he had founded the City Club and the subsidiary Good Government Clubs. In the discussions which this movement called forth, he says: "One fact stood out with startling conspicuousness. Not one out of a thousand was able to formulate a clear idea as to the principles upon which he stood; upon one measure he was an Individualist; upon another, a Collectivist; one day he was for strong governmental action; the next for liberty of contract; and of those who presented the claims of expediency and justice respectively, no one was able to say what justice was."

It seemed, therefore, to Mr. Kelly that on the theoretical side we needed first, and above all else, a clear conception of justice as an end to be attained. For conclusions already arrived at in "Evolution and Effort" made it impossible for him to believe that justice is satisfied by merely "rewarding every man according to his performance." Seeing in evolution possibilities beyond present attainment, he believed that a way should be found to enable every man to achieve his potential performance. Thus his notion of justice, derived from the principle of evolution, became substantially identical with that which had been set forth two thousand years ago by Plato in The Republic. To quote Mr. Kelly's own words: "Justice may, then, be described as the effort to eliminate from our social conditions the effects of the inequalities of Nature upon the happiness and advancement of man, and particularly to create an artificial environment which shall serve the individual as well as the race, and tend to perpetuate noble types rather than those which are base."

It was inevitable that with such a conception of justice in mind, a thinker scientifically so remorseless as Mr. Kelly was, should find individualistic prejudices shaken before he completed his task. "Beginning with a strong bias against Socialism of every kind," he was forced before he reached the end of his first volume to "a reluctant recognition that by collective action only could the uncorrupted many be rescued from the corrupt few, and could successful effort be made to diminish the misery of poverty and crime."

Having arrived at this conclusion, Mr. Kelly was able to make his second volume on the respective claims of Individualism and Collectivism an exposition which, for clearness of insight, acuteness of philosophical observation, wealth of historical knowledge, and sanity of judgment, has few equals in the modern literature of social problems. He demonstrated the inevitable failure of individualism as an adequate working programme for a complex civilization. He showed that collectivism must be accepted, whether we like it or not, if we desire justice; and, more than this, he showed, not speculatively, but from concrete and experimental data, that a civilized mankind may be expected to like a reasonable collectivism when it begins to understand and to adopt it, far better than it has liked individualism, and for the adequate reason that collectivism will diminish misery and increase happiness.

Not even upon the completion of this remarkable volume, however, was Mr. Kelly quite ready to take the final step of identifying himself with the Socialist party. So strong was that nature within him which, without theological implications, we may call the spiritual or religious, that he would have been glad if he could have seen the possibility of attaining the ends which Socialism contemplates through a movement essentially subjective, that is to say, through developments of the intellectual and moral nature of man which would impel all human beings, irrespective of class distinctions, to work together spontaneously and unselfishly, for the creation of a wholesome environment and essential justice in social relations. It was this feeling that led him to write the anonymously published, "Practical Programme for Workingmen," in which essentially socialistic measures are advocated, but with strong emphasis upon the vital importance of character and sympathy.

When a strong-minded man of strict intellectual honesty has thus advanced, step by step, from one position to another, at every stage of his progress surveying the whole field of human struggle; observing it dispassionately, as a scientific evolutionist; observing it sympathetically, "as one who loves his fellowmen," comes at last to the socialistic conclusion, and devotes the last weeks of his life to the preparation of a new statement of socialistic doctrine, the fact is more significant, as an indication of the way mankind is going, than are all the cries of "lo here, lo there" that arise from the din of party discussion. In Mr. Kelly's case the significance was deepened by all the circumstances of taste and association. Intensely democratic in his relations to men, Mr. Kelly was in breeding, in culture, in delicacy of feeling an aristocrat of the purest type. Educated at Columbia and at Cambridge, his university acquaintance and his political and professional activities in New York and in Paris had kept him continually in touch with what the socialist calls "the capitalist class." In joining the Socialist party he jeopardized friendships and associations that meant more to him than anything else save the approval of his own conscience.

The book now given to the public, written when he knew that his days were numbered, is, all in all, the most remarkable of his works. All writers of experience know that it is far easier to write a first statement of a newly discovered truth, than to restate the chief principles of a system already partly formulated; a system more or less vague where it is most vital, more or less unscientific and impossible where it is most specific. No one knew better than Mr. Kelly did that while the larger-minded leaders of the Socialist movement would generously welcome any thought which he had to give, there would be some of the rank and file who would feel that, in differing from the accredited writers, he was revealing himself as a convert not yet quite informed on all tenets of the creed—perhaps not even quite sound in the faith. A less enthusiastic nature, or one less resolutely determined to complete his life work as best he could, would have shrunk from such an undertaking as this book was. That under the circumstances he could put into it the vigor of thought and of style, the incisive criticism, the wealth of fact and illustration; above all, the freshness of view, the practical good sense and the strong constructive treatment which we find in these pages, is indeed remarkable.

How clearly he saw what sort of a book was needed, is best indicated in his own account of what he desired to do. It should be first of all, he thought, comprehensive. Socialism has been presented from the economic standpoint, from the scientific, from the ethical and from the idealistic. As Mr. Kelly saw it, Socialism is not merely an economic system, nor merely an idealistic vision. It is a consequence and product of evolution. "Science has made it constructive," he says, "and the trusts have made it practical." It is ethical because "the competitive system must ultimately break upon the solidarity of mankind," because the survival of the fit is not the whole result of evolution. The result still to be attained is "the improvement of all." And Socialism is idealistic because it not only contemplates, but gives reasonable promise of "a community from which exploitation, unemployment, poverty and prostitution shall be eliminated."

But besides making an exposition of Socialism as a whole and in all its parts, Mr. Kelly aimed to make a book "for non-socialists." With this purpose in view he has kept closely to concrete statement and above all has tried to avoid vagueness and loose generalization. He has described possibilities in terms that all know and understand. With the precision of the trained legal mind, he seizes the essential point when he says: "It is not enough to be told that there are a thousand ways through which Socialism can be attained. We want to see clearly one way." With the last strength that he had to spend Mr. Kelly showed one way; and no bewildered wayfarer through our baffling civilization, however he may hesitate to set his feet upon it, will venture to say that it is not clear.

Franklin H. Giddings.

New York, April 19, 1910.

II

An immense revolution, a wonderful revolution, is opening in the mind of the human race; a new driving force is taking hold of the souls of men—the devotion to the welfare of the whole; a new sense, with all the intensity of a new-born feeling, is emerging in the consciousness of men—the sense that one cannot himself be healthy or happy unless the race is happy and healthy. A hundred theories appearing here and there, a thousand organizations springing up, a million acts of individuals everywhere, attest each day the presence and the growing power of this vast solidarizing movement.

Among these manifestations throughout the world, the most pronounced and the most clearly defined is that compact, fiercely vital organization known as the international Socialist party. Yet the Socialist party is not the movement, any more than the cresting billow is the torrent. It is an imperatively necessary element; but the movement itself is vastly broader and deeper than any manifestation of it.

An uncounted multitude in all lands are gradually becoming conscious of this sweeping tendency and of their own part in it—a multitude as yet not bearing any specific title. Out of these a considerable number are fully conscious of the movement, and are willing partakers. These we might call solidarists, in token of their conviction that the goal ought to be and will be an economic solidarity. But of even these it is only a part who are distinctively to be called Socialists, only those who have perceived two certain mighty facts: first, that men's mass-relations in the process of making a living are fundamental to their other relations, to their opinions and motives, and to all revolutions; and, second, that the chief agency in bringing about changes in the great affairs of the human race has always been and continues to be the pressure and clash between enduring masses of men animated by opposite economic interests. The Socialist is one who sees these social and historic facts and whose action is guided by such sight; the non-Socialist solidarist is one who, though animated by the socializing impulses, has not yet perceived these two most weighty facts.

Now Edmond Kelly, as was natural from his antecedents, was for nearly the whole of his life a non-Socialist solidarist. But, about two years before his death, being at the height of his powers of insight and intellect, he attained the clear vision of the "class-struggle," and no longer had any doubts where he himself belonged in the army of humanity—he became and remained a comrade—a loyal comrade.

There is a certain bit of doggerel, said to derive from Oxford, which tells us that:

"Every little boy or gal,
[xiv] Who comes into this world alive,
Is born a little Radical,
Or else a small Conservative."

And this all-pervading division penetrates even that most radical of bodies, the Socialist party. That party has its own conservative and radical wings—its right and its left—and Edmond Kelly is distinctly of the right.

One who is inclined by instinct to the one wing, and by logic to the other, can realize the indispensableness of both—the special contribution which each makes, and which the other cannot make, to the common cause. The motive of this note is to appeal to the comrades of the left not to shut their eyes to the value of this book, not to forego its special usefulness. For the very attitude of its author, which may be distasteful to them—his making appeals which they no longer make, his using forms of speech which they reject, his making so little use of that which is their main appeal, fit him especially to influence the minds of that numerous fringe of educated persons who must evidently be first made "rightists" before they can become "centrists" or "leftists." It may even be imagined that the difficult type of working man, he who thinks himself too noble-minded to respond to class appeal, might begin to rouse himself if he could once be brought under the charm of this book.

Aware that he had not long to live, Mr. Kelly hastened to finish the first draft of the book, and indeed he survived that completion only two weeks. He knew that considerable editorial work was needed, and this he entrusted to Mrs. Florence Kelley, author of "Some Ethical Gains through Legislation" and translator of Marx' "Discourse on Free Trade," and of Friedrich Engels' work on the "Condition of the Working Class in England." She undertook and has fulfilled this trust, and has been aided throughout by the untiring labors of Shaun Kelly, the author's son. Thus this book of Mr. Kelly's is doubly a memorial of love—of his for man, and of ours for him.

Rufus W. Weeks.

CONTENTS

TWENTIETH CENTURY SOCIALISM

INTRODUCTORY[ToC]

My reason for writing this book is that I do not know of any one book that gives in small compass to the uninformed a comprehensive view of Socialism. It would be fatal to suggest to one not quite certain whether he wants to know about Socialism or not, that he should read the great economic foundation work of Karl Marx.[1] The excellent book of Emil Vandervelde,[2] which seems to me to contain one of the most compendious accounts of economic Socialism, is written from the Belgian and European point of view rather than from the American; it does not attempt to give either the scientific[3] or the ethical argument for Socialism, nor does it contain specific answers to the objections which are most imminent in American minds to-day. The recent book by Morris Hillquit,[4] deservedly recognized as one of the leaders of the party in America, an authoritative, clear and admirable statement of what the Socialist party stands for, seems to be addressed to the Socialist rather than to the non-Socialist. Innumerable books and pamphlets by Bernard Shaw, Sidney Webb, John Spargo, William Morris and others throw light on this enormous subject. But for years past when asked by the average American what one book would give him a complete account of Socialism, I have been at a loss what to recommend. The book that first opened my eyes to the possibilities of Socialism was "Fabian Tracts"; but I doubt whether this would appeal to many American readers. An economic mind must be given the economic argument; a scientific mind the scientific argument; an idealistic mind, the ideal; an ethical mind, the ethical; but the average mind must be given all four; for it is in the convincing concurrence of all four that the argument for Socialism is unanswerable.

Another reason for writing this book is the desire to put Socialism firmly on the solid foundation of fact. It is the progress of science and the economic development of the last few years that have made Socialism constructive and practical. Science has made it constructive and the trusts have made it practical. It no longer rests on the imagination of poets nor on the discontent of the unemployed. On the contrary, Science with its demonstration that man is no longer the mere result of his environment, but can become its master, teaches us that by constructing our environment with intelligence we can determine the direction of our own development. The trusts, with their demonstration of the waste and folly of competition, teach us that what a few promoters have done for their own benefit the whole community can do for the benefit of all.

Again, history has revealed a fact upon which the competitive system must ultimately break; it may break under the hammer of the new builder or through the upheaval of a mob; but that it must eventually break is as certain as that day follows night. This fact is the solidarity of mankind. Whether it was wise of the Few to share the government with the Many it is too late now to inquire. The thing has been done—alea jacta. And that the Few should imagine that, after having put a club in the hands of the Many with which they can, when they choose, at any election smash to pieces the machinery—political and industrial—that oppresses them; and having established a system of education—nay, of compulsory education—through which the Many must learn during their childhood, how upon attaining majority, they can use this club most effectually, the Many will refrain from using it—is one of those delicious inconsequences of the governing class which throws a ray of humor over an otherwise tragic scene.

I do not believe it was in the power of the Few to perpetuate their reign; I think there are evidences of a Power working through Evolution to which even Herbert Spencer has paid the tribute of a capital P, which ordained from the beginning that Man should progress not as his forbears did, through the survival only of the fit, but as Man has unconsciously for centuries been doing, through the improvement of all. I think this is the Power that some worship under the name of Jah and others under the name of God. But this view will not be insisted upon, for it is not necessary to insist upon it. The fact of human solidarity will, I think, be demonstrated,[5] and it will, I hope, at the same time be shown that Socialism is no longer a theory born of discontent, but a system developed by fact, and as inevitably so developed as the tiger from the jungle of India, or cattle from the civilization of man.

Again, I do not think it is sufficient to demonstrate that Socialism is sound in theory. We have also to show that it is attainable in fact.

The practical American will not be satisfied with being told that there are a thousand different ways through which Socialism can be attained. He does not want to be told how many ways there are to Socialism, but wants to be shown one way along which his imagination can safely travel.

What the "bourgeois" wants to know is just how Socialism is going to work. He cannot conceive of industry without capitalism, any more than he can conceive of the world without the sun. Some concrete picture must be presented to his mind that will enable him to understand that while capital is not only good, but essential, the capitalist is not only bad, but superfluous. Nothing less than a picture of industry actually in operation without capitalism will suffice; and this, therefore, I have attempted to draw. No pretence is made that the picture is the only possible Socialist state, or that it will ever be realized in the exact shape in which it is drawn. The only claim to be made for it is that it furnishes a fair account of an industrial community from which exploitation, unemployment, poverty and prostitution are eliminated; that such an industrial community is more practical because far more economical than our own; and that it is the goal towards which, if we survive the dangers attending the present conflict between capital and labor, industrial and ethical evolution are inevitably driving us.

Again, there is probably no feature connected with Socialism that it is more important to demonstrate and define than its economy. It occurred to me that we possessed in our official reports, and particularly in the 13th Annual Report of the Bureau of Labor, figures which would enable us to arrive at a considerable part of this economy with some mathematical certainty. I pointed out my plan to Mr. J. Lebovitz, of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., who has a better talent for statistics than myself, and I cannot but congratulate myself and my readers upon the results to which, thanks to his help, we have jointly come.

It must be admitted that the figures in our possession do not enable us to estimate the whole economy of Socialism; but they do enable us to give a tentative estimate of how many hours a workingman would have to work to produce the things which the average workingman consumes if no account be taken of profit, rent, interest, and the cost of distribution. Of course, though profit, interest and rent would be eliminated in a coöperative commonwealth, we should still be subject to the cost of distribution and, therefore, the figures we arrive at are incomplete in the sense that we have to take into account the fact that they do not include this cost. But there would be economies exercised in a coöperative commonwealth, such as the economy of insurance, of advertising, of unnecessary sickness, of strikes and lockouts, of the cost of pauperism, crime and in some measure that of dependents, defectives and delinquents, etc., which would probably pay the cost of distribution. I feel, therefore, that although our figures are not absolute, they do furnish a starting-point more satisfactory than has heretofore been obtained.

The most impelling reason for writing this book is the persistently false and misleading statements made regarding Socialism by the very persons whose business it is to be informed on the subject. For years now the men we elect to office as best fitted to govern us—Presidents and Presidential candidates, Roosevelt, Taft and Bryan, have in spite of repeated protests and explanations been guilty of this offence. Mr. Roosevelt stands too high in the esteem of a large part of our voting public, and I myself entertain too high an opinion of his ability, for such charges as those he has made against Socialism to go unanswered. And in answering them I shall take as my justification the platform of the Socialist party,[6] which must be carefully read by all who want to understand what Socialism really is in the United States of America. It is of course impossible in a platform to give the whole philosophy of Socialism, but the platform does state with sufficient precision what Socialists stand for to make it impossible for anyone who has read it to remain any longer under the false impression created by ignorance or deliberate misrepresentation.

I take Mr. Roosevelt's articles in the Outlook as the special object of my explanations, not only because they express very widespread fallacies regarding Socialism, but because they emanate from one who for popularity and reputation casts every other American in the shade; and also because, for this reason, his utterances not only command the attention of the foolish—this he easily gets—but should also, in view of his position, arrest that of those who tend by his exaggerations to be estranged from him.

So I have felt it an urgent duty to explain not only what Socialism is, as Hillquit, Vandervelde, Thompson,[7] and many others have so ably done, but specifically to point out what it is not: That it is not Anarchism, but order; not Communism, but justice; that it does not propose to abolish competition, but to regulate it; nor to abolish property, but to consecrate it; nor to abolish the home, but to make the home possible; nor to curtail liberty, but to enlarge it.

Now if this last is to be done, it is indispensable to have clear notions as to what liberty is; no intelligent understanding of liberty is possible unless there is an equally intelligent understanding of property, which is more closely connected with liberty than is generally recognized. The necessary relation between property and liberty has escaped some of our ablest lawyers. Just after James C. Carter had finished his argument in Paris on the Seal Fishery case and was preparing a supplementary brief that he had been given permission to file, he told me that he felt it necessary to study up the fundamental question of what property was and had been advised to read Proudhon! I did not know much about Socialism at that time, but did know enough to explain to him that Proudhon was an anarchistic communist; and asked him if he thought the court was disposed to listen to this kind of argument. Mr. Carter was shocked in the extreme, and lowering his voice, asked, a little shamefacedly, what Anarchism and Communism were, and were they the same as Socialism. This led to a discussion of property, of the views held regarding it by Socialists, Communists and Anarchists respectively; and to the strange conclusion that the brief which Mr. Carter was preparing in order to maintain the liberty of the United States to protect seals as the property of humanity at large was Socialism Simon pure! To his dismay he found himself on the verge of preaching the very doctrine which of all doctrines he most abhorred!

I do not know any standard work on Socialism that enters carefully into the nature of these things. I attempted it in "Government or Human Evolution," to which I shall have occasion sometimes to refer. But this book was addressed to students of Political Science and is not short or compendious enough for the general public.

In a word, I have written this book to supply what I believe to be a crying need—for a compact, simple statement of what Socialism is not, of what Socialism is, how Socialism may come about, and particularly distinguishing modern Socialism from the crude ideas that prevailed before Marx, Darwin and the development of trusts.

The public imagines to-day that Socialism is Utopian. This is singularly erroneous. Socialism is the only intelligent, practical system for providing humanity with the necessaries and comforts of life with the least waste, the least effort and the least injustice.

The competitive system under which these things are now produced and distributed has been condemned by the business men whose opinions the business world most respects, because it involves infinite labor to a vast majority of the race and useless cost to all, without, I venture to add, assuring happiness to any.

Socialism, on the other hand, presents a simple, obvious and unanswerable solution of the manifold problems presented by the competitive system. This solution ought to appeal to business men because it undertakes to do for the benefit of the nation what our greatest business men have been engaged for some years in doing for the benefit of themselves.

It is not likely that the American public, once it understands the situation, will refuse to adopt the only practical method of ridding itself of a wasteful system and a corrupt government just because the few who profit by it for very obvious reasons do not want them to. All the public needs is a clear understanding of what Socialism really is; how it is certain to come eventually; and how it is best that it should come.

Many Socialists make the mistake of asking us to look too far ahead. We are not all equally far-sighted. Some are very near-sighted. In fact the habit of looking closely at our ledgers and at our looms tends to make us near-sighted. Socialists too may be wrong in their forecast centuries ahead. This book therefore makes a distinction between those things that can be demonstrated and those which, on the contrary, are still matter for mere speculation.

It can be demonstrated that a partial substitution of coöperation for competition in definite doses will put an end to pauperism, prostitution and in great part to crime. Whether a wholesale substitution of coöperation for competition will still further promote human development and happiness is a matter of speculation—as to which men can legitimately differ.

The contention made in this book is that a substitution of coöperation for competition in the dose herein prescribed must put an end to the three gigantic evils above mentioned, and incidentally confer upon us a larger and truer measure of liberty and happiness than the world has ever yet known.

One word about the language of this book. As it is addressed to persons not familiar with the Socialist vocabulary, I am going to abstain to the utmost possible from using this vocabulary. I am not going to use the words "surplus value" when the more familiar word "profit" can be used with practically the same advantage. I am going to avoid the expression "materialist interpretation of history" when the words "economic interpretation of history" are equally correct and less likely to mislead. And I am above all going to avoid, wherever I can, the use of the words "individualism" and "individualists," because these words have been already used by capitalists to beg the whole question. Capitalists have quietly appropriated this word to themselves and Socialists have been foolish enough to permit them to do it. Capitalism does indeed promote a certain kind of individualism; but we shall have to discuss later just what is the nature of the individualism promoted by existing conditions and compare it with the individualism that will be promoted by Socialism. I think it will become clear that it is the peculiar province of Socialism to rescue the vast majority of men from conditions which make the development of the individual impossible, and to put opportunities of individual development at the disposal of all; that, indeed, the highest type of individualism can be realized only in a coöperative commonwealth that will give to every man not only opportunity for developing his individual talents, but leisure for doing so—the very leisure of which the vast majority are deprived under the present system and of which the few who have it profit little.

It is not easy to find words to substitute for individualist and individualism. The word that best describes the individualist is "egotist." But the use of the word "egotist," for the very reason that it is the truest word for describing the individualist, would arouse such protest in the minds of those so designated as perhaps to prevent this book from being read by the very persons to whom it is chiefly addressed.

The word "capitalist" cannot be used for this purpose either, because by no means all who have capitalistic ideas are capitalists, and some capitalists are free from capitalistic ideas.

So instead of the words "individualist," "egotist" and "capitalist," I am going to use the French word "bourgeois." It seems to convey what it is intended to convey with least error and most consideration for capitalistic susceptibilities. It is true that "bourgeois" is a French word and should be avoided in consequence, but it has been now so acclimated to our language that many editors print it without quotation marks. The word "bourgeois" roughly includes all those who have property or employ labor, or who can be psychologically classed with these. It includes the small shop-keeper who keeps a clerk, or perhaps only a servant, and the millionaire who keeps thousands of men at work in his factories, mines, railroads or other industries. It includes the large farmer who employs help, but not the small farmer who employs no help; it includes the lawyer, the broker and the agent who depend upon the capitalist but are lifted above the hunger line.

Instead of the word "individualism," I shall use another French expression which has also become acclimated—that is to say, laissez faire; for laissez faire are words adopted by the bourgeois to describe the system for which he generally stands. This expression is peculiarly appropriate to-day, when we hear our business men clamoring to be "let alone." Indeed were it not for the awkwardness of the expression "let-alone-ism," this literal translation of laissez faire would just suit my purpose.

It is true that the laissez faire of to-day differs from that of the last century. For there is at present a very wide belief in the possibility of controlling corporations, and whereas the laissez faire of the last century went so far as to deny the necessity of government control, that of to-day very largely admits it. By laissez faire, therefore, I mean the controlled laissez faire that now prevails as well as the uncontrolled laissez faire of a century ago, the essential difference between laissez faire and Socialism being that the former implies leaving the production and distribution of everything to private capital whether controlled or uncontrolled by government; whereas Socialism implies putting production and distribution of at least the necessaries of life into the hands of those who actually produce and distribute them without any intervention or control of private capital whatever.

I have been careful to take my facts and figures not from Socialist publications, but from government publications or economists of admitted authority. I have, too, in every case where it seems necessary quoted my authority so that there may be no doubt as to the source from which my facts are drawn.

In conclusion it must be stated that there are four very different standpoints from which Socialists start—the economic, the political, the scientific and the ethical.

Ethical writers began by disregarding the economic side of Socialism altogether, and some economic Socialists are therefore disposed to despise ethical and so-called Christian Socialism; whereas the ethical view is not only useful, but essential to a complete understanding of the subject.

The scientific view of Socialism has been comparatively little treated, but it is not for that reason the least important. On the contrary, Herbert Spencer and his school have built a formidable opposition to Socialism based upon pseudo-scientific grounds. It becomes, therefore, important to point out the extent to which Herbert Spencer was wrong and Huxley right in the application of science to this question.

My own conviction is that the highest Socialism is that which reconciles all four views—the economic, the political, the scientific and the ethical. But as this is a work of exposition rather than of controversy, I have abstained from insisting upon this view and have, on the contrary, endeavored to give a fair account of all four arguments, in the hope that those who are inclined to the economic view may adopt it for economic reasons; those inclined to the political view may adopt it for political reasons; those who are attracted by the scientific view may adopt it for scientific reasons; and those who are attracted by the ethical view may adopt it for ethical reasons, leaving it to time to determine whether the strongest argument for Socialism is not to be found in the fact that it is recommended by all four.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] "Capital," by Karl Marx.

[2] "Collectivism and Industrial Revolution," Emil Vandervelde.

[3] Engels and others have described Marxian or Economic Socialism as scientific, on the ground that Marx was the first to reduce Socialism to a science. But the word science has become so inseparably connected in our minds with chemistry, physics, biology, zoology, and geology, etc., that it seems wiser to define Marxian Socialism as economic and to keep the word scientific for that view of Socialism which is built on the sciences proper and principally on biology.

[4] "Socialism in Theory and Practice." Macmillan, 1909.

[5] Book III, Chapter VI.

[6] See Appendix.

[7] "The Constructive Program of Socialism," Carl D. Thompson.

BOOK I

[ToC]

WHAT SOCIALISM IS NOT

Socialism is not a subject which can be put into a nutshell. On the contrary it resembles rather a lofty mountain which has to be viewed from every point of the compass in order to be understood. Mont Blanc, approached from the North or Swiss side, presents the aspect of a round white dome of snow; approached from the South or Italian side it presents that of a sharp black peak of rock. Yet these totally different aspects belong to the same mountain. It takes a mountaineer about three days to go round Mont Blanc on foot; it takes an ordinary pedestrian who has to stick to roads about a week. It is probable, therefore, that the reader new to the subject will take at least a week to understand Socialism, which is quite as big a subject as Mont Blanc and considerably more important. He is likely, however, to take much more than a week if, as happens in most cases, he starts in a forest of prejudices any one of which is sufficient to obstruct his view. In the confusion in which the ordinary citizen finds himself, owing to this forest of prejudices which constitutes the greatest obstacle to the understanding of Socialism, he may very possibly wander all his life, and the first duty, therefore, of a book on Socialism is to take him out of the forest which he cannot himself see "because of the trees."

The great enemy to a sound understanding of Socialism used to be ignorance; to-day, however, there is less ignorance, but a great deal more confusion; and the confusion arises from two sources: confusion deliberately created by false denunciations of Socialism, and confusion unconsciously created by personal interests and prejudice.

The confusion arising from these two sources may be described as subjective obstacles to Socialism because they exist within ourselves. They are to be distinguished from objective obstacles to Socialism which exist outside of ourselves. For example, if a majority of us were in favor of adopting Socialism, we should still find many objective obstacles to it; for example, if we proposed to expropriate the trusts, we should undoubtedly be enjoined by the courts; we should find ourselves confronted with federal and State constitutions; we perhaps would have to amend these constitutions. These difficulties are outside of us. But before we reach these obstacles, we have to overcome others that exist within us and are to-day by far the most formidable. These subjective obstacles reside in our minds and are created there by vested interests, property, ignorance and misrepresentation. We are all of us under a spell woven about us by the economic conditions under which we live.

For example, the workingman who has saved a few hundred dollars and goes out West to take up land, thinks that by so doing he will escape from wage slavery. He does not know that he is not escaping slavery at all, but only changing masters. Instead of being the slave of an employer, he becomes the slave of his own farm. And the farm will prove an even harder taskmaster than a Pittsburg steel mill, for it will exact of him longer hours during more days of the year and seldom give him as high a wage. Nevertheless, the fact that he owns the farm—that the farm is his property—awakens in him the property instinct that tends to rank him on election day by the side of the bourgeois.

So also the store-keeper who, because he owns his stock, buys goods at a low price and sells them at a high, and makes profit, considers himself superior to the wage-earner, unmindful of the fact that his store adds to long hours and low wage the anxieties of the market and that, thanks to trusts and department stores, he is kept perpetually on the ragged edge of ruin.

The clerk, too, whose only ambition is to rise one grade higher than the one which he occupies, is prevented by the narrowness of his economic field from appreciating the extent to which he is exploited. Instead of being bound by class consciousness with his fellow clerks, he is, on the contrary, in perpetual rivalry with them, and is likely to be found on election day voting with the owner who exploits them all.

And even the wage-earner, the factory hand, who is the most obviously exploited of all, is in America still so absorbed by his trade union, by his fight with his employer, that he has not yet learned to recognize how much stronger he is in this fight on the political than on the economic field. So he too, instead of recognizing the salvation offered to him by Socialism as his fellow workingmen in Germany do, allows himself regularly to be betrayed into voting for one of the capitalist parties which his employer alternately controls.

And the darkness in which these men are regarding matters of vital interest to them is still further darkened by their own ignorance, by the ignorance of those around them and, I am afraid I must add, by deliberate misrepresentation.

Let us begin by extricating ourselves from the forest of prejudice that makes all clearness of vision impossible and, when we can see with our eyes, we shall take a rapid walk around this mountain of Socialism, as all climbers do, if only to choose the best points from which to climb it.

CHAPTER I

SUBJECTIVE OBSTACLES TO THE UNDERSTANDING OF SOCIALISM[ToC]

Vested Interests

There is in the archives of the House of Commons a petition filed by the gardeners of Hammersmith in opposition to a proposed improvement of the country roads, which would enable gardeners further removed from London to compete with Hammersmith gardeners on the London market. They regarded themselves as having a vested right in bad roads and actually took these so-called rights sufficiently seriously to petition Parliament not to improve roads which were going to bring them into competition with gardeners already at a disadvantage by being further removed from the market than themselves.

This is an illustration of the extent to which the human mind can be perverted by personal interest. But there is another illustration of so-called vested interests much more revolting in its nature and yet perhaps more justified in fact. When the cholera broke out in Paris, in 1830, and it was believed to have been brought into the country through rags, a bill was presented before the French Parliament for the destruction of all deposits of rags in the city. This was violently opposed by the rag pickers, who pointed out that these rags constituted their only source of existence, and they found many members of the French Parliament to support their view. We, who can dispassionately consider the situation of these rag pickers, have to admit that, if they could earn their living in no other way than rag picking, it would be a mistake for Parliament to deprive them of their source of living without giving them some other employment. But it would be worse still were Parliament to allow Paris to be decimated by cholera because the rag pickers claimed a vested right in pestiferous rags.

A similar situation presents itself in the city of New York to-day. The tenement-house commission has imposed upon tenement-house owners certain obligations which involve an expenditure of considerable sums of money, and many of our best citizens are indignant because the tenement-house law is not always rigidly enforced. Yet all who have followed the recent rent strike on the East Side, know that the tenement houses there are in large part owned by men as poor as those who live in them. The immense congestion in this district brought about such competition for lodgings that speculators were enabled to buy tenement houses at their utmost value and to sell them at a still higher price by persuading the thriftiest of the inhabitants of the district that, if they purchased these tenement houses and acted as their own janitors and agents, they could earn more money than was then being earned. Victims were found who have put all their savings into these tenement houses, leaving the larger part of the purchase on mortgage. These new landlords raise the rent in order to make the houses pay for themselves. These pauper tenement-house owners are in the same position to-day as the Paris rag pickers of 1830.

The question of what, if any, compensation should be paid when the state interferes with vested rights cannot be decided by any general rule. The demand for compensation by the Hammersmith gardeners was absurd; but that of the rag pickers was justified; that of poor tenement-house owners on the East Side seems also to be justified; but if the state in taking over these unwholesome tenements were to find one in the hands of a speculator, would compensation be to the same degree justified?

So these questions seem to become questions of detail; they cannot be disposed of by a general rule: "there shall be compensation" or "there shall not be compensation." Above all things, these so-called general rules must not be erected into dogmas or "principles" under the standard of which Socialists are to group themselves and fight one another.

It is interesting to consider in connection with this subject the geographical character of the objections to Socialism as illustrated by the attitude taken by England and America respectively on the subject of municipal ownership.

In England, municipal ownership of gas is the rule rather than the exception. Indeed Manchester has owned its own gas plant from 1843, and has furnished the public with gas at 60 cents per thousand cubic feet, and even at that price[8] made a net profit in 1907-8 of £57,609, which has been applied to the diminution of rates and extension of the service. Birmingham, which had to pay an extravagant price for its gas plant, nevertheless immediately reduced the price of gas and brought it down from $1.10 under private ownership to 50 cents to-day. In England, therefore, it is perfectly respectable to approve of municipal ownership of gas. But inasmuch as water has been until very lately furnished to London in great part by a private company chartered by James I. the stock of which has increased in value a thousand per cent and which counts among its stockholders royalty itself, anybody until very lately who proposed municipal ownership of water in London, was regarded as a dangerous anarchist.

The New York situation is just the reverse. For New York, after having tried private ownership of water and abandoned it as early as 1850 on account of the corruption that resulted therefrom, undertook public ownership of water with such success that no disinterested citizen to-day wants to go back to the old plan. So a New Yorker can advocate municipal ownership of water and still be regarded as a perfectly respectable citizen; but should he venture to favor municipal ownership of gas he is at once classed with those whose heads are only fit to be beaten with a club.

How long are we going to allow our opinions to be manufactured for us by water companies in London and gas companies in New York? Obviously we cannot take an impartial and intelligent view of this great question until we have divested ourselves of the prejudices created by vested interests. If the propertied class, which is committed to existing conditions by the fact that it profits by them, is willing to yield no inch to the rising tide of popular dissatisfaction and the awakening of popular conscience, it is probable that the revolutionary wing of the Socialist party will prevail, if only because under these circumstances the evolutionary wing will not be allowed to prevail. If, on the other hand, the propertied class become alive not only to the danger of undue resistance, but also to the reasonableness and justice of the Socialist ideal, there is no reason why vested interests, save such as owe their existence to downright robbery and crime, should materially suffer in the process of Socialist evolution. If this be true the words "menace of Socialism" will turn out to be inappropriate and unfounded. Sound Socialism has no menace for any but evil-doers.

Having now climbed out of the forest of prejudices created by private or so-called vested interests, let us next consider the different points of view created by temperament and economic conditions, from which the subject of Socialism tends to be regarded.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] "Municipal Year Book," 1909, p. 482.

CHAPTER II

ECONOMIC CONDITIONS[ToC]

Bourgeois, Revolutionist, and Evolutionist

Every man who is earning a living is profoundly affected by all that affects his living. If Socialism seems to threaten this living, he instinctively and often unconsciously repudiates it. From one point of view, Socialism presents a more formidable aspect than from another. It takes a very skilled climber to scale Mont Blanc from the Italian side, whereas from the Swiss side it is simply a matter of endurance. The same thing is true of Socialism.

Now there are three distinct and opposing points of view: The bourgeois point of view, the revolutionist point of view, and the evolutionist point of view.

(a) The Bourgeois Point of View

The bourgeois point of view is that which students of political science have been in the habit of describing as individualism. But there are objections to this use of the word individualism, as will appear later on.

The bourgeois view is that the production and distribution of the things we need can best be conducted by allowing every man to choose and do his own work under the stimulus of need when poor and of acquisitiveness when rich. This system is well described in the maxim: "Every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost." The first part of this maxim has in it considerable merit, for it encourages the self-reliance that has made the prosperity of America. But the latter part merely expresses a pious wish that is seldom gratified. The devil does not take the hindmost. The devil leaves them here to stalk through our highways and streets, a permanent army of about 500,000 tramps, swelled at all times by thousands and in such times as these by millions of unemployed.[9]

The bourgeois view is that of the man who owns or expects to own property; the bourgeois class represents a small proportion of the whole population, and is sometimes described as the propertied class.

But as the propertied class is in control of our schools, colleges and press, it has hitherto made the opinions of the vast majority. Thus the bourgeois view is not only that of the propertied class, but also that of most of those who have no property. It is the view of the man in the street.

Lately, however, Socialism has been making inroads into the opinions of both classes, and this has divided Socialists into two groups which, though generally found fighting under the same banner, nevertheless take different views of the subject, which tends to confuse the uninitiated. These two views are conveniently described as revolutionist and evolutionist. Let us study the revolutionist point of view first:

(b) The Revolutionist Point of View

Marx rendered a great service by pointing out the extent to which the non-propertied class is exploited by the propertied class—the proletariat by the bourgeois—the factory hand by the factory owner. Marx, however, did not himself confine Socialism to the struggle between the factory hand and the factory owner. But there has arisen out of the Marxian philosophy a school which has emphasized the observation of Marx that the factory hands increased in number while the factory owners decreased in number, and that this tends to produce a conflict between the two—a revolution from which the factory hand must emerge released from the incubus of the factory owner. Two ideas dominate this school: the class struggle—a struggle practically confined to the factory worker on the one hand and the factory owner on the other; and the revolution—the eventual clash between the two. The triumph of the factory hand is, according to this school, to result in the complete overturn of the whole social, industrial and economic fabric of society, the community[10] succeeding to the individual in the ownership of all land and all sources of production—all profit now appropriated by the factory owner accruing to the community and inuring to all the citizens of the state.

This revolutionist school regards Socialism from the point of view of a class that has no property—the proletariat—just as the bourgeois looks at Socialism from the point of view of those who have property. Both points of view tend to be partial; the bourgeois tends to see only what is good for himself in existing conditions and all that is bad for him in Socialism; the revolutionist tends to see all that is bad for him in existing conditions and only what is good for him in the proposed new Socialism. This fact tends to make revolutionists dominate the Socialist party (which is mainly recruited from the proletariat) and is, therefore, entitled to the most serious consideration. Private interest is the dominating motive of political action to-day. It is the avowed motive of the bourgeois. He has, therefore, no excuse for denouncing this same motive in the proletariat, all the less as the bourgeois has to admit that his industrial system produces pauperism, prostitution, and crime; whereas the proletariat points out that Socialism will put an end to pauperism and prostitution and in great part also to crime.

Because revolutionists believe that this change cannot be effected without a revolution—without a transfer of political power from the bourgeois to the proletariat—they speak of their movement as revolutionary, and often say that Socialism must come by revolution and not by reform.

But these words must not be allowed to mislead. Although the Socialist platform says that "adequate relief" cannot be expected from "any reform of the present order," it nevertheless embraces a series of reforms entitled "Immediate Demands." This is proof positive that the Socialist party is not opposed to legislative measures that in the bourgeois vocabulary are known as reforms, since it advocates them.

Socialists make a distinction between legislation that tends to transfer political power from the exploiters to the exploited and those that do not; the former are termed revolutionary and the latter are termed mere reforms. The former are what they stand for. But they do not for that reason remain indifferent to legislation that improves human conditions. On the contrary, the immediate demands of the Socialist platform include:

The scientific reforestation of timber lands and the reclamation of swamp lands; the land so reclaimed to be permanently retained as a part of the public domain:

The enactment of further measures for general education and for the conservation of health. The Bureau of Education to be made a department. The creation of a department of public health. The free administration of justice.

Obviously, therefore, even revolutionary Socialists advocate certain reforms; but they will be content with nothing less than the transfer of political power from those who now use it ill to those who will use it better.

Last, but not least, revolution does not in the Socialist vocabulary involve the idea of violence. It is used in the same sense as we use the expression "revolution of the planets," "revolution of the seasons," "revolution of the sun." Undoubtedly there are Socialists willing to use violence in order to attain their ends just as there are Fricks willing to use Pinkerton men, and mine owners willing to use the militia to attain theirs. But the idea of violence has been expressly repudiated by the leaders of the Socialist party. And the word "revolution" must not be understood to include it. This question is studied in fuller detail in Book III, Chapter II.

(c) The Evolutionist Point of View

The evolutionist point of view claims to be wider than either of the foregoing. The evolutionist is not content to study Socialism from the point of view of any one class. He undertakes to climb out of the forest of prejudices created by class to a point where he can study Socialism free from every obstruction. He studies Socialism from the point of view of the whole Democracy, including the employer, the employee, and those who neither employ nor are employed; as, for example, the farmer who farms his own land without the assistance of any farm hands outside of his own family. From this point of view, he can denounce the evils of the existing system of production and distribution—if system it can be called[11]—without the bitterness that distorts the view of the victims of this system, and can therefore see perhaps more clearly the methods by which the evils of the existing system can be eliminated.

The evolutionist points to history to prove that forcible revolution is generally attended by great waste of property and life, and is followed by a reaction that injuriously retards progress. He therefore seeks to change existing conditions without revolution, by successive reforms. This class of Socialist is denounced by revolutionists under a variety of names. He is called a parlor Socialist, an intellectual Socialist, but perhaps the name that carries with it the most contempt is that of step-by-step Socialist. He answers, however, that when he finds his progress arrested by a perpendicular precipice such as we are familiar with at the top of the Palisades, he refrains from throwing himself—or advising his neighbors to throw themselves—headlong into the abyss, but takes the trouble to find a possibly circuitous way round. He will not consent to sit at the top of the precipice until he grows wings, as the Roman peasant sat by the Tiber "until it ran dry." The step-by-step Socialist is content to adopt a winding path which sometimes turns his back to the place which he wishes to reach, because he holds in his hand a compass whose unerring needle will bring him eventually to the desired goal.

Again, the evolutionist claims to be supported by ethical and scientific considerations which the revolutionary Socialist regards as of secondary importance. But for the present it is convenient to postpone the study of the ethical and the scientific aspects of Socialism and to content ourselves with stating two principal claims made by the evolutionist, viz.:

First: that his view is likely to be clearer than that of either the bourgeois or the revolutionist, because it is not obstructed by class interest;

Second: that his policy is likely to be wise, because it is neither stationary as that of the bourgeois nor headlong as that of the revolutionist.

In conclusion, the revolutionist keeps his eye fixed on the horizon—perhaps it may even be said that he fixes his eye beyond the horizon, if that be possible; he looks forward to a state of society which, because it seems unrealizable to-day most of us are inclined to regard as visionary; and in presenting to us a commonwealth in which every personal interest will be vested in the community, he attacks at once the personal interests of every man who owns property in the country. Obviously, if all agriculture is to be owned by the community, every farmer will lose his farm. If all the factories are to be owned by the community, every factory owner will lose his factory. If all distribution is to be managed by the community, every storekeeper will lose his store. The revolutionary Socialist therefore raises against himself every property owner in the land; and all the more because there is division in the ranks of revolutionists as regards compensation, to which I have already referred. (See Vested Interests, p. 18.)

The evolutionist on the contrary confines his attention for the present to existing conditions. He adopts, it is true, as an ultimate goal the coöperative commonwealth advocated by the revolutionists. It is indeed the point to which his compass is always directing him. It constitutes the ideal to which he believes the race will eventually adapt itself. But in addition to historical fact regarding the cost of revolution in the past, and in view of certain other scientific facts which will be dwelt upon later, he recognizes that personal or vested interests are likely to interfere more than anything else with the adoption of Socialism as an ultimate goal, and that these interests therefore no statesman can afford to disregard.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] December, 1908.

[10] I am careful to use the word "community" and not the word "state," for state ownership is not Socialism. The Prussian State stands for state ownership, and even Mr. Roosevelt would not characterize the Prussian Government as Socialistic.

[11] Book II, Chapter III.

CHAPTER III[ToC]

MISREPRESENTATION AND IGNORANCE

Michaelangelo has said that sculpture is the art of chipping off superfluous stone. The sculptor sees a statue in every block. This is what Whistler used to call the "divine art of seeing." The sculptor's task is to remove those parts of the block that hide the statue from the layman's eye. So the Socialist sees the coöperative commonwealth imprisoned within the huge, rough, cruel mass that we call modern civilization, and his task is to remove from the beautiful form he sees the errors which mask it from the view of the unenlightened. If we can but remove these errors our task is in great part accomplished; and the first of these errors is that which confounds Socialism with Anarchism.

§ 1. Socialism is not Anarchism

Nothing is more unjustified than the confusion which exists in people's minds between Anarchism and Socialism. This confusion is not altogether unnatural, for Socialism and Anarchism have one great feature in common—both express discontent with existing conditions. The remedies, however, propounded by the Anarchists for evil conditions and those propounded by Socialists are contradictorily opposite. They are so opposite that the bourgeois turns out to be more nearly associated with the Anarchist than the Socialist is.

The theory upon which our present economic and political conditions are founded is that the less government interferes with the individual's action, the better. This theory may be said to have taken its start at the period of the French Revolution, and is generally connected in the minds of English-speaking people with Adam Smith, the Manchester School of laissez faire, the earlier works of John Stuart Mill, and all the works of Herbert Spencer. When, however, the pernicious consequences of allowing every individual to do as he chose with his own became felt, as for example in the poisoning of rivers by allowing every factory to pour its waste into them; and in degeneration of the race through unlimited exploitation of women and children in factories and mines, governments all over the world have been obliged as measures of self-defence to enact laws limiting individual action. The individualism of the beginning of last century has been gradually leading to the Socialism of to-day, Socialism being, among other things, an intelligent limitation of the abuse of property in accordance with a preconceived plan, instead of spasmodic limitation of the abuse of property forced upon us by the pernicious consequences thereof, often creating new abuses as bad as those suppressed.[12] While therefore the Socialist asks that the functions of government be extended sufficiently to secure to every man the greatest amount of liberty, and the bourgeois on the contrary demands that there shall be the least amount of government consistent with the protection of property and life, the Anarchist asks that there shall be no government at all. The bourgeois, therefore, is closer to the Anarchist than the Socialist is—in fact he stands between the two.

Socialists and Anarchists then are polar opposites. There is a whole world between them. Indeed it is impossible to conceive two theories of government more opposite one to another than that of Socialism, which demands more government, and that of Anarchism, which demands the destruction of government altogether.

§ 2. Socialism is not Communism

Those who derive their information regarding Socialism solely from books are apt to be puzzled by the word "Communism," because it has at different times stood for different things. The early Christians were Communists; so were Plato and Sir Thomas More; so also was Proudhon, whom Mr. Roosevelt places in the same category with Karl Marx. He does not seem to be aware that Proudhon and Marx were the protagonists of conflicting schools and that Marx drove Proudhon—who was a communistic Anarchist—and his followers out of the Socialist party of that day. For from Marx' economic doctrine of value was derived a totally new idea in the movement; this idea is couched in a formula which has become so familiar to Socialists that it seems incredible that anyone undertaking to write about Socialism should ignore it; namely, that the laboring class is entitled to the full product of its labor; that is to say, that it shall securely have exactly what it earns; no more, no less; that it shall be deprived of it neither by the capitalist as to-day nor by the thriftless or vicious as under the Communism of Apostolic times.

Mr. Roosevelt accuses Socialists of "loose thinking." Is there not a little loose thinking about this confusion of Socialism and Communism? Or is it that Mr. Roosevelt is just a century behindhand? Or is it that he has never read the works of Proudhon and Karl Marx, whom he groups together as propounding the same kind of Socialism? As a matter of fact, Proudhon has been so discredited by Marx that few Socialists think it worth while to read his works; whereas "Capital" is to-day the Bible of the Socialist movement.

One word, however, must be added about Communism before dismissing the subject: There are two kinds of Communists, just as there are two kinds of Anarchists; those who adopt Communism and Anarchism out of discontent with the present system; and those who adopt them because they stand for perfection. With the first category we need not concern ourselves. Their day is over. With the second there is an important point to be noted: Such writers as Kropotkin see further than the average citizen. They look forward to a day when the spirit of mutual helpfulness which ought to attend the substitution of coöperation for competition will have entirely changed human nature; when men will have acquired habits of industry, of justice, and of self-restraint that seem now incredible to us; they will then as naturally work as they now naturally shirk; they will as naturally help one another as they now naturally fight; they will as naturally share with one another as they now despoil one another. This may seem wildly impossible to us now; but if we look back to the day when our forbears lived in hordes, when children bore their mother's name because they did not know their father's, when no woman could move from her hut alone without being subject to assault, when self-indulgence prevailed except in so far as it was checked by fear, we can appreciate the scorn with which one of them would have listened to a prophet who should announce that men and women would ultimately mate once for all and be faithful to one another; children know their fathers and bear their father's name; women travel from one end of the country to another with perfect security, and self-restraint cease to be an imposition and become a habit. If then man has become so profoundly modified by the progress from the promiscuousness of the horde to the self-restraint of the family, why should he not be capable of one step further—from the habits that result from competition to the habits that would result from coöperation—from mutual hatred to mutual helpfulness? This is the hope and faith of such writers as Kropotkin. But it is not yet within the range of practical politics. So the Socialist party rightly confines its program within practical limits. There are too many idle and vicious among us to-day; too many products of human exploitation; too many worn-out men, women, and children; too much degeneration; too much hypocrisy; too much "looseness of thought." We must cut our garment to our customer. All that the Socialist asks to-day is to have what he earns. Morally he is entitled to it. Can our system of production be so modified as to assure this to him? This is the problem we have to solve. Socialists say that it can be so modified, or that it can, at least, be so modified as to put an end to pauperism, prostitution, and in great part to crime. This is the practical Socialism of to-day as distinguished from the Communism of centuries ago or that of centuries ahead. This is what the Socialist party stands for, and it is by this standard and no other that the Socialist party must be judged.

Socialism then does not stand to-day for Communism. On the contrary, it demands that the workers be assured, as exactly as is humanly possible, the product of their labor, and not share it with the idle and vicious on the one hand or be deprived of it by the capitalist on the other.

One reason why Communism has been discarded by the Socialist party is that generations of competition have so molded human nature that it is extremely probable that production would suffer were it suddenly eliminated. A man who has accustomed himself to the stimulus of arsenic cannot be suddenly deprived of arsenic without developing the symptoms of arsenical poisoning. It will doubtless be indispensable to maintain competition in the coöperative commonwealth. There is no longer question then of discarding competition; the question is in what doses shall it be administered; in doses that produce the pauperism and prostitution of to-day, or in doses that will furnish the necessary stimulus for human exertion without pushing that stimulus to exhaustion and degeneracy?

This question brings us to our next subject:

§ 3. Socialism will not Suppress Competition

No modern Socialist maintains that all competition is bad, or that it would be advisable to eliminate competition altogether from production and distribution. But it has become the duty of every sane man to consider whether it may not be possible to eliminate the excessive competition that gives rise to pauperism, prostitution, and crime. To answer this question, we must begin by determining what competition is good and what bad; and if the bad can be eliminated and the good maintained.

Competition is a part of the joy of life; healthy children race one another as they are let out from school; they challenge one another to wrestle and leap; and when they are tired of emulation, they join hands and dance. Competition and coöperation are the salt and the sweet of life; we want the one with our meat and the other with our pudding; we do not want all salt or all sweet; for too much sweet cloys the mouth while too much salt embitters it.

We all unconsciously recognize this by encouraging games and discouraging gambling. Now what is the difference between games and gambling? One is a wholesome use of time for the purpose of wholesome amusement; the other is an unwholesome abuse of time for the purpose of making money. The one incidentally encourages a beneficial action of muscle and brain; the other, on the contrary, promotes a detrimental appetite for unlawful profit.

We are all perfectly agreed about this so long as we confine ourselves to games and gambling; but as soon as we extend our argument to production and distribution we shall at once come into collision with the bourgeois. Let us therefore be very sure that our premises are sound and our deduction sure before we confront him.

Even as regards gambling there are degrees of vice; some would justify old people who bet only just enough on the issue of a game of piquet to make it worth while to count the points; whereas all would condemn a bet that involved the entire fortune, much more the life or death of a human being.

Now it may seem extravagant to assert that the competitive system of production imposes upon the majority a bet involving life or death, yet statistics demonstrate that mortality is from 35 to 50 per cent higher with those who lose than with those who win in the game of life.[13] But it is not extravagant to assert that it imposes upon the majority a bet involving a thing quite as precious as life—I mean health. A man who bets his life and loses is free from pain on this earth at any rate; but the man who bets his health and loses is committed to a period of misery not only for himself, but for all those around him so long as breath is in his body.

The greatest evil that attends the competitive system of production is that it commits all engaged in it to a game the stake of which is the life happiness not only of himself, but of all dependent on him.

If this were a matter of mere sport there is not a man with a spark of moral sense in him who would not condemn it. He would denounce it as a gladiatorial show; as belonging to the worst period of the worst empire known to history. But because it is a matter of production the bourgeois has for it no word save of justification and praise. He justifies it by the argument of necessity: "the poor you have with you always." He praises it because it "makes character."

If there were indeed no other system of production possible but the competitive system, the plea of necessity would be justified. But when we are dealing with a question involving the happiness of the majority of our fellow creatures, we must be very sure that there is no better system before the plea can be admitted. And as to those often misquoted words of Christ, there will undoubtedly under the coöperative as well as the competitive system always be some shiftless, some poor. But everything depends on what is meant by the word "poor." To-day the poor are on the verge of starvation; poverty means not only misery, but disease and crime. Under a coöperative system there need be no starvation; no fear of starvation; less disease; and infinitely less crime! The vast majority of men do not need the lash to drive them to their work; it is no longer necessary to keep before us the fear of want, of misery, of starvation; we have passed that stage; and just as the lash is used by trainers only for wild beasts, and gentler animals are better trained by the hope of reward than by the fear of punishment, so humanity has reached a point of moral development which makes it no longer inferior to the lower animals—the bourgeois notwithstanding. Better work can be got from a man by the prospect of increased comfort than by the fear of misery and unemployment.

As to the second justification, that the competitive system makes character; look for a moment at the character of the men who have succeeded in the competitive mill. Are these the saints of the latter day? Or are our saints not to be found amongst those who have never been in the competitive mill—who have resolutely kept out of it—Florence Nightingale, Father Damien, Rose Hawthorne, the Little Sisters of the Poor?

The real problem is not whether we should or can eliminate competition altogether from the field of production, but whether we should or can eliminate it to the extent necessary to put an end to the three great curses of humanity to-day.

§ 4. Socialism Will not Destroy the Home

Mr. Roosevelt in his Outlook editorial[14] said of the "Socialists who teach their faith as both a creed and a party platform" that "they are and necessarily must be bitterly hostile to religion and morality," that they "occupy in relation to morality and especially domestic morality a position so revolting—and I choose my words carefully—that it is difficult even to discuss it in a reputable paper."

When, however, he undertakes to substantiate this, he is obliged to admit that he cannot find any traces of it in American writers, and has to go to France and England for his examples. Had he been better informed, he would have known that not only is there no trace of immorality in our American Socialist press, but that there is one Socialist organ—the Christian Socialist—which has in the most vigorous terms denounced all those whose writings tend in any way to attack the fundamental principles of marriage. It is true that Christian Socialists in Mr. Roosevelt's opinion "deserve scant consideration at the hands of honest and clean-living men and women"; but he has not explained why. Nor has he ventured any explanation why Christian Socialists or any other Socialists should be "necessarily—bitterly hostile to religion and morality."

I must postpone to the chapter on the Ethical Aspect of Socialism[15] the explanation why Socialism, far from being "necessarily bitterly hostile to religion and morality," as Mr. Roosevelt maintains, is—on the contrary—the only form of society ever proposed which could make religion and morality possible. At the present time, it seems sufficient to point out the obvious fallacy of Mr. Roosevelt's syllogism.

Here it is:

Gabriel Deville wants to destroy the home.

Gabriel Deville is a Socialist;

Therefore: All Socialists want to destroy the home. The logic of this is bad enough, but even the premiss is false. Deville is no longer a Socialist; and if he does want to destroy the home, no one that I know of in America wants him back in the fold.

In exactly the same manner our ex-Presidential logician argues regarding divorce:

Herron divorced;

Herron is a Socialist;

Therefore: All Socialists divorce. Herron was divorced in 1901. He is the only leading Socialist who has divorced during twenty years to Mr. Roosevelt's knowledge or to mine. Whereas, during that time here are the statistics of divorces for the United States:

Total number of marriages 1887-1906, 12,832,044

Total number of divorces 1887-1906, 945,625 or about one in 12,[16] in all of which the majority of the men presumably voted for Mr. Roosevelt.

Can anyone who knows the family life of Socialists assert that the divorce rate among them is greater than that of the community in which they live?

Again, the pretence that the American home to-day is one which a capitalist like Mr. Roosevelt can hold up to the admiration of the world will not stand scrutiny.

Where there is wealth for leisure, there we find immorality enthroned as a vice; and where there is no leisure, there we find immorality imposed as a necessity. Are the filthy tenements and promiscuous lodgings of the congested districts in our large cities the homes to which Mr. Roosevelt is fearful that Socialism will put an end?[17] Or is it the so-called She-towns in New England from which men are driven because there is no employment in them for any save women and children?[18] Or the lumber camps to which these men are driven where there is no employment for women?[19] Or the home of the unemployed to which the bread-winner has returned day after day for two years now, seeking employment and finding none—guilty of no crime save that no man has hired him? Thousands—nay, hundreds of thousands of such so-called homes are scattered over the face of this land which Mr. Roosevelt has during seven years administered.

As a matter of fact, no decent home is possible for the majority of our fellow citizens so long as they are called upon to support it at present prices on present wages. All this will, I think, be made clear in the description of industrial conditions. Suffice it to say here that these conditions furnish a few luxurious and often licentious homes for the propertied class and a few comfortable and moral homes for the aristocracy of the working class, but leave a vast number of our families so nearly upon the edge of poverty as to drive their daughters to prostitution and their sons to crime.

§ 5. Socialism Will not Abolish Property

Another charge made by Mr. Roosevelt is that Socialists propose to abolish property and distribute wealth. It has been repeated by both Mr. Taft and Mr. Bryan and is still being repeated ad nauseam by the press. Workingmen so absorbed by the making of bread that they have no time to discuss questions of government may be excused for being ignorant on such a point as this; to them ignorance cannot be imputed as a fault. But that those who set themselves up as the persons best fitted to govern and educate our country—as indeed the only persons in the country possessing the knowledge of statesmanship necessary to handle our governmental affairs and publish our daily press—should either never have taken the trouble to find out what Socialism is, or, having taken the trouble, should so traduce it, is a sad commentary upon our editors and statesmen.

Just as it has been demonstrated that Socialism is opposed to Anarchism, so can it be demonstrated that Socialism is opposed to the distribution of wealth or the abolition of property. Far from distributing wealth, the essence of Socialism is that it seeks to concentrate it. Far from wanting to abolish property Socialism seeks to put it on a throne. The question of property is so important that a special chapter has been devoted to it. I shall therefore only say here just enough to remove the error created by the misstatements current on the subject.

Property is not only the basis of our present civilization, but must be the basis of all conceivable civilizations. It may be said that not only all law, but all government, is founded upon it. Property was instituted to furnish to every industrious man security as regards himself, his family, and the means of their support; to protect him and them from theft, from fraud and evil doing.

Unfortunately property, like every human institution—even the best of them[20]—has been abused to serve the selfishness of the crafty; and there have arisen, therefore, notions and laws regarding property which have reversed the results which property was instituted to secure. Instead of making every industrious man secure as regards himself, his family, and the means of their support, it has actually deprived the majority of all security regarding these things and, indeed, put the majority as regards these things at the mercy of a very few. Not only this, it has created conditions which to-day are depriving several millions of us not only of all means of support, but of all opportunity of earning them.

The bourgeois' excuse for such conditions is that no better can be devised. Here is the whole issue of Socialism raised; for Socialism contends that these conditions are totally unnecessary; that it does not need any imagination or invention to substitute for them a system that will put an end to such evils as pauperism, prostitution, and, in great part, crime; that we have but to adopt as a community the principles already adopted by the men—the makers of the trusts—to whom the whole business world looks up as infallible on these subjects; and that this can be accomplished by ridding the institution of property of the fallacies with which it has been industriously defaced. Just indeed as the truly religious have during all ages sought to rescue religion from the crafty who tend to use it for their own ends—Christ from the Pharisee, Plato from the Sophist, Luther from the Borgias, so Socialists are now seeking to rescue property from the few who, under a mistaken theory of happiness, use property to injure their fellow creatures when these very few can attain happiness only by so using property as to benefit those they now injure.

It must, however, be specifically stated that Socialism does not involve the concentration of all wealth in the state. No sane Socialist proposes to vest in the state the things which a man uses, his personal apparel, his personal furniture, his objects of art, his musical instruments, his automobile, or even his private yacht.

There is no intention to suppress private property except so far as it is used for exploitation. Light is thrown upon this subject in another paragraph, which indicts the capitalist system for making the production of the necessaries of our lives the object of their competitive enterprises and speculations.

What the Socialist party proposes to do is not to abolish property, but to abolish the capitalist system, as it expressly states; and it proposes to do this not only in the interest of the proletariat, but also in the interest of the capitalist himself, who, to quote the words of the platform, is "the slave of his wealth rather than its master." The extent to which this last is true will be discussed in a subsequent chapter and ought to constitute an impressive argument for all—even millionaires—who have become the slaves of the very fortunes they have made. And the moral tendency to restore property to its original intention by abolishing the capitalist system is expressly stated in the platform as not an attempt "to substitute working-class rule for capitalist-class rule, but to free all humanity from class rule and to realize the international brotherhood of man." If this be immoral, then a great many of us do not know what morality is.

Nor does it propose to vest in the state anything but what it is indispensable for a state to own in order to rescue the unwealthy majority from the exploitation of the wealthy few. Nothing is more false or libelous than the allegation that Socialism proposes to destroy property, or to deprive a man of the benefit of his talents, or of the enjoyment of the products of his work. It is the present industrial system that deprives the majority of the product of their work. Socialism aims at the opposite of these things. What Socialism does propose is to preserve wealth by eliminating waste and to ensure to all men the fullest benefit of their talents and the enjoyment of the whole product of their work. It does not propose to level down, as is so often claimed; the necessary effect of Socialism is to level up, if indeed it levels at all. The extent to which it may be wise to concentrate wealth in the state, or whether it is necessary to concentrate it in the state at all, is a question which must be postponed until we have a clear idea of what Socialism is.

Meanwhile I venture to suggest one view of Socialism which, although it does not attempt to define it, may help us as a first effort to get a correct apprehension of it.

Socialism is the concentration of just so much wealth in the community—please note that I do not say "state"—as may be necessary to secure the liberty and the happiness of every man, woman, and child consistent with the liberty and the happiness of every other man, woman, and child.

We are obviously here brought to the question of what is liberty, and to the discussion of another error regarding Socialism upon which the bourgeois is disposed to insist, viz.: Socialism will impair liberty.

§ 6. Socialism Will not Impair Liberty

The same thing must be said of liberty as of property: both are such important subjects that they demand a chapter to themselves. But there are current errors about liberty which, when removed, will prepare the mind for the undoubted fact that Socialism, far from impairing liberty, will greatly enlarge it.

When negro slavery existed people thought that if slavery were only abolished, liberty would be secured. It was found, however, that when negro slavery was abolished there was still another liberty to be secured—political liberty.

Now that we have secured the constitutional right and the constitutional weapon by which political liberty ought to be attained, we discover that these rights and weapons are useless to us so long as the immense majority of us are still economic slaves.

Let us consider for a moment just what is meant by an economic slave.

An economic slave is a man who is dependent for his living on another man or class of men and who, because all his waking hours and all his vitality must be devoted to making a living, has no leisure either to exercise his political rights or to enjoy himself.

It may seem exorbitant to say that the "immense majority" of us are economic slaves, yet a very little consideration will, I think, convince that we are.

Workingmen are dependent on their employers under conditions worse than negro slavery. For a slave owner had an interest in the life of his slave just as a farmer has an interest in the life of his stock. He therefore fed his slaves and did not overwork them. Nor was a slave subject to losing his job. The factory owner, on the contrary, not being the owner of his factory hands, is free to dismiss them as soon as they are worn out, and it is to his interest, by speeding up his machinery, to get the most work out of his hands possible, regardless whether he is overworking them; for as soon as they show signs of overwork he has but to dismiss them and employ a younger generation. Nor can it be said of workingmen that they have leisure for education, politics, or enjoyment. Now the last census shows that our industrial population numbers 21,000,000.

In the second place, the farmer works himself as hard—if not harder—than the factory owner works his factory hand. He is driven by the same necessity as the factory owner—the necessity of making money.[21] There are of course a few large farmers who own enough land to work it as the factory owner works his factory—by the use of machinery and men. But these are few, and it is the extraordinary economy that these men make in working their farms that obliges the small farmer to work night as well as day to make a bare living out of his land. Now by the last census the farming population in the United States numbers 30,000,000.

And what has been said of the workingman is true of the clerk and domestic; and what has been said of the small farmer is true of the small tradesman. Now clerks, domestics, and tradesmen number 30,000,000. Summing up we have:

out of a total population of 90,000,000 are economic slaves.

And of the 9,000,000 that remain, how many are economically free?

These are in part teachers, physicians, and lawyers. I leave it to teachers to tell us how much time they can call their own. As to the rest, it is the dream of a young doctor to get a large practice; and when his dream is realized, how much leisure does he enjoy? He is at the mercy of his practice, not only weekdays, but Sundays—days and nights. He is the slave of his own practice. It is the dream of the young lawyer to get rich clients and handle big cases. When he gets them, he discovers that he must have an office that costs between $30,000 and $50,000 a year to take care of them, and that he must earn these large sums before there is a penny left for himself. So he too is the slave of his own office.

But further than this: Our great business men—amongst them the very greatest—I have seen with my own eyes slowly sink under the burden of the very institutions their own genius had created. They too have become the slaves of their own creations.

So we are all slaves, the greatest and the least of us, with exceptions so few that they are hardly worth mentioning. And how do these exceptions use their leisure? It were better not too closely to inquire. Too much leisure is as detrimental to happiness and progress as too much work. The enormous increase of lunacy in late years is a straw that shows how the stream runs. Because of too much work or too much leisure the race is marching with fatal speed toward general prostration of nerve, of body, and of mind.

Whether then we look at this question from the point of view of human progress or of human happiness, it seems indispensable that the whole machinery of production be speeded down a little instead of continuously up. Now this is what Socialism proposes to do: It proposes by the substitution of coöperation for competition to make the same economy for all humanity as trust promoters have made for themselves. And the economy will be an economy of time. We shall work as hard while we are working, but we shall work four hours instead of eight and twelve. And the rest of the time we shall have to ourselves; we shall be economically free.

Yet if the reader has in his mind any such idea of Socialism as Mr. Roosevelt's "state free lunch counter," resulting in an "iron despotism over all workers compared to which any slave system of the past would seem beneficent because less utterly hopeless"—he will be disposed to condemn in advance any economic freedom purchased at such a price. I beg the reader, therefore, to try to rid his mind of the prejudice created by such views as Mr. Roosevelt's until he has read the chapters on the Economy of Socialism and How Socialism May Come. If in these chapters the errors of Mr. Roosevelt's notions are not dissipated, then this book will have been written in vain.

One thing more, however, must be said on this subject. Inexcusable though Mr. Roosevelt may be in most of his attacks on Socialism, it must be admitted that the "iron despotism" to which he thinks Socialism will lead is justified by many Socialist authors, and it is only very lately that a way has been found for introducing coöperation without compulsion. Again, Mr. Roosevelt is in good company in making this charge. It is the great cheval de bataille of every anti-Socialist.

In "A Plea for Liberty," edited by Herbert Spencer, the idea of concentrating wealth in the community is denounced as a "conception of life or conduct" which would compel men "to rise at morn to the sound of a state gong, breakfast off state viands, labor by time according to a state clock, dine at a state table supplied at the state's expense, and to be regulated as to rest and recreation."

In fact, Socialism proposes none of these things. But if it did, a factory hand might very well ask whether such a conception of life or conduct would be worse than to rise at morn by the sound of a factory bell, labor by time according to a factory clock, neither breakfast nor dine at a factory table supplied at the factory's expense, but be regulated as to rest and recreation by factory rules. When we come to discuss liberty, we shall be in a position to compare the liberty enjoyed under Socialism with the liberty enjoyed to-day.

In the chapter on Property and Liberty, the subject of liberty is carefully analyzed; no more, therefore, need be said on this subject except in conclusion to insist that it is the competitive system of to-day that makes slaves of practically all of us, and that it is the coöperative system alone that will secure for us the last and greatest of all the liberties—economic liberty—because it is economic liberty alone that will enable us to enjoy the other two.

§ 7. Conclusion

Having now chipped off some but not all of the errors that prevail, regarding Socialism, let us sum up what Socialism is not; it will help us to a study of what Socialism is.

Socialism is not Anarchism. It is the contradictory opposite of Anarchism. It believes in regulation, but demands that the regulation be wise and just.

Socialism is not Communism. On the contrary it demands that workingmen be assured as nearly as possible the product of their labor.

Socialism does not propose to eliminate competition, but only to abolish excessive competition that gives rise to pauperism, prostitution and crime.

Socialism is not hostile to the home. On the contrary, it seeks to remove the evils that make the homes of our millions insupportable.

Socialism is not immoral. On the contrary, it seeks to make the Golden Rule practical.

Socialism does not propose to abolish property or distribute wealth. It proposes, on the contrary, to consecrate property and concentrate wealth so that all shall enjoy according to their deserts the benefits of both.

Socialism will not impair liberty. On the contrary, it will for the first time give to humanity economic liberty without which so-called individual and political liberty are fruitless. It proposes to regulate production, consecrate property, and concentrate wealth only to the extent necessary to assure to every man the maximum of security and the maximum of leisure; thereby putting an end to pauperism, prostitution, and in great part, to crime, and furnishing to man environment most conducive to his advancement and happiness.

Whether it will accomplish these things can only be determined by approaching it from the positive side. We shall proceed next then to answer the question what Capitalism is.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] The principal evil attending such laws is that they give rise to graft. In other words, our political machine actually favors such laws, because they put a club in the hands of the machine through which it can not only levy political contributions, but coerce their victims into support of the machine.

[13] The death rate in 1900 among occupied males in the professions was 15.3 per 1000; in clerical and official classes 13.5; mercantile, 12.1; laboring and servant classes 20.2 per 1000 (12th Census U.S.) Dr. Emmett Holt, writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, points out the marked contrast between the death rate of the children of the poor and the children of the rich. See Appendix, p. 421.

[14] Outlook, March 20, 1909.

[15] Book III, Chapter V.

[16] U.S. Census Bulletin 96, p. 7, 12.

[17] "Poverty," by Robert Hunter. (Macmillan.)

[18] "Socialism and Social Reform," by R.T. Ely, p. 43. (Crowell.)

[19] Ibid.

[20] "Government or Human Evolution," Vol. II, p. 88 et seq., by the author.

[21] "The American Farmer," A.M. Simons.

BOOK II[ToC]

WHAT CAPITALISM IS

Socialism is necessarily twofold: destructive and constructive; critical and remedial. We shall take the critical or destructive rôle of Socialism first; setting down the evils in our existing industrial system which Socialism criticizes and seeks to destroy, and leaving the remedial or constructive rôle of Socialism where it properly belongs—to the end. For this reason the present book, which treats of the evils of the existing industrial system, is entitled "What Capitalism is."

Evils of Capitalism

For nearly two centuries men have produced and distributed the things they needed, upon what is called "the competitive system." That is to say, every individual is free to choose his particular share in this work and to make out of his work all that he can, in order with the money so made to purchase for himself the things that he individually needs. The farmer undertakes to furnish us with food, the forester with lumber, the miner with iron. Another set of men run railroads, steamboats, wagons, etc., to distribute the things produced to those who are engaged in selling them—by wholesale to the trade, or by retail to the consumer. Every man engaged in production and distribution is in a measure competing with every other man engaged in it, each trying to make out of his particular calling the largest amount of money possible with the view of being able with the money so earned to purchase for himself the largest amount of necessaries, comforts, and luxuries. This so-called competitive system has been elaborately described by all writers of political economy from de Quesnay and Adam Smith, the fathers of our present system of political economy, to the present day; and because it follows the predatory plan of nature (by which one set of animals lives by devouring another set), it is claimed by some so-called philosophers to be "natural" and therefore wise. The most notorious author of this so-called scientific justification of the competitive system is Herbert Spencer.

The competitive system, however, has been found to result in great waste, misery, and disease; and it is to these evil consequences that the Socialist desires to put an end. He claims that the competitive system is not wise, not scientific, and above all, not economical, but is the most wasteful system conceivable. He alleges that the only intelligent, economic way of producing and distributing the things we need is by coöperation; and the whole economic issue between Socialism and our present industrial system is that Socialism stands for coöperation, and our present system for competition.

It is by no means a necessary part of Socialist philosophy that competition be entirely eliminated. On the contrary, it has been pointed out and will later be further seen that competition has many useful qualities.[22] Socialism, however, points out that competition, when allowed full sway in producing and distributing the necessaries of life, is the direct occasion of the larger part of the misery in the world, and insists, therefore, that as regards production and distribution of the necessaries of life, competition be sufficiently eliminated to assure to all men the opportunity to work, and as nearly as possible the full product of their work. The limitation in italics is the definite dose to which reference has already been made.[23]

One prominent feature of the competitive system is that men do not work for the purpose of supplying the needs of their fellow creatures. The Steel Trust does not manufacture steel to satisfy our need for steel; the farmer does not raise wheat to satisfy our need for bread; they produce these things simply for the purpose of making money for themselves in order that with this money they can procure for themselves the things they need. Socialism claims that the rôle played by money in the competitive system is unfortunate, because the amount of money available at any given time is not always properly adjusted. Sometimes it is so badly adjusted that there is more cotton in one place than the people in that place can use, and in another more people who need cotton than there is cotton to give them; so that it is deliberately proposed to burn cotton for lack of consumers in one place, while consumers are allowed to suffer for lack of cotton in the other. So a short time ago thousands were dying of starvation for lack of wheat in India, while we had such a superabundance of it in America that we were exporting it every day. But that wheat was not available for India because it had to be converted into money.

Socialists allege that this bad situation would never arise if things were produced for the purpose of satisfying human needs instead of for making money.

Let us enumerate some of the most important evils of the competitive system, which Socialism seeks to correct. These evils briefly are: The competitive system is stupid because wasteful and disorderly; it is unnecessarily immoral, unjust and cruel.

FOOTNOTES:

[22] See Book I, Chapter III.

[23] See Book I, Chapter III.

CHAPTER I[ToC]

CAPITALISM IS STUPID