335
K168c0


-----
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE
REGENTS
UNIVERSITY
JOMNIBUS
ARTIBUS
OF
MINNESOTA
335
K168 co
1




LABOR NEWS COMPANY.
1
PROPERTY OF THE
Socialist Labor Party,
64 EAST FOURTH STREET,
NEW YORK CITY.
THE COMPLETEST COLLECTION
·OF·
SOCIALIST LITERATURE.
ADDRESS ORDERS AND REMITTANCES TO
MAX FORKER,
64 East Fourth Street,
New York City.

!
Entered at the New York Post Office as second clags matter.
LABOR LIBRARY. No. 9. Issued Monthly. Single Number 10 cents.
The Co-operative Commonwealth
AND
Why Workmen are Unemployed?
:
NEW YORK LABOR NEWS COMPANY,
64 EAST FOURTH ST.
New York, March, 1894.
335
K168c0
Published Monthly.
LABOR LIBRARY.
MARCH, 1894.
Price of this pamphlet, 10 cents per copy.
Published by the N. Y. LABOR NEWS CO., 64 East 4th St., New York.
Entered at the New York Post Office as Second Class Matter.
Subscription Price
$1.00 per year.
THE CO-OPERATIVE COMMONWEALTH.
Adapted for THE NEW YORK PEOPLE from K. Kautsky.
BY
DANIEL DE LEON.
1.
Social Reform and Revolution.
Private ownership in the instruments of production, once the means of
insuring to the producer the ownership of his product, has to-day become the
means of expropriating the farmer, the artisan, the small trader, and of placing
the non-producers-capitalists and landlords-in possession of the products of
labor. Only by converting into collective ownership the instruments of production
-the land, mines, raw materials, tools, machines, and the means of communica-
tion and transportation-all of which are to-day held as capitalist private property,
and by converting the production of commodities into socialist production, carried
on for and by society, only by these means can production on a large scale and
the ever increasing productivity of social labor, cease to be a source of misery
and oppression for the exploited classes, and become one of well-being and
harmonious development for all.
The conversion of the machinery of production, together with the means of
communication and transportation, from private into public property is the
Revolution--a revolution, that is irresistible and inevitable.
The productive forces that have developed in the lap of capitalist society
have become irreconcilable with the very system of property upon which it is
built. The endeavor to uphold this system of property is tantamount to render-
ing impossible all further social development, to condemn society to a standstill
2
and to stagnation, a stagnation, however, that is accompanied with the most
painful convulsions.
Every further perfection in the powers of production increases the contradic-
tion that exists between these and the present system of property. All attempts
to remove this contradiction, or even to soften it down, without interfering with
property, have proved vain, and must continue so to prove themselves as often
as attempted.
For the last hundred years thinkers and statesmen among the possessing
classes have been cutting and trying to prevent the threatened downfall of the
system of private property in the instruments of production-i. e. to prevent the
REVOLUTION. SOCIAL REFORM is the name they give to their perpetual tinkerings
with the industrial mechanism for the purpose of removing this or that ill effect
of private property in the instruments of production, at least of softening its
edges, without, however, ever touching private property itself. During the last
hundred years, manifold "oures" have been huckstered and even tried; it is
now hardly possible to imagine any new recipe in this line. All the so-called
"newest" panaceas of our social quacks which are to heal the old social ailments
quickly, without pain and without expense, are, upon closer inspection, discovered
to be but rehashes of old nostrums, all of which have been tried before in other
places, and found worthless.
Let not the position of the Socialist be misunderstood. He pronounces
these social reforms inoperative in so far as they pretend to remove the growing
contradictions, which the course of economic development brings out into ever
stronger light, between the powers of production and the existing system of
property, at the same time that they strive to uphold and to confirm the latter.
But the Socialist does not thereby mean that the SOCIAL REVOLUTION, i. e., the
abolition of private property in the instruments of production, will be accomplished
of itself; that the irresistible, inevitable course of evolution will do the work
without assistance from man; nor yet that all social reforms are worthless, and
that nothing is left to those, who suffer from the contradictions between the
modern powers of production and the system of property, but idly to cross their
arms and patiently to wait for better days.
When the Socialist speaks of the irresistibleness and inevitableness of the
social evolution, he of course starts from the belief that men are men, and not
puppets; that they are beings endowed with certain necessities and impulses ;
with certain physical and mental powers, which they will seek to put to their
best uses. Patiently to yield to what may seem unavoidable, is not to allow
the [social evolution to take its course, but to bring it to a standstill.
When the Socialist declares the abolition of private property in the instru-
ments of production to be unavoidable, he does not mean that some Sne morn-
ing, without their helping themselves, the exploited classes will find the ravens
feeding them. The Socialist considers the breakdown of the present social
system to be unavoidable because he knows that the economic evolution inevitably
brings on those conditions that will compel the exploited classes to rise against
this system of private ownership; that this system multiplies the number and
the strength of the exploited, and diminishes the number and the strength of
the exploiting classes, both of whom are still adhering to it; and that it will finally
lead to such unbearable conditions for the masses of the population that they
3
will have no alternative but, either to go down in silence, or to overthrow that
system of property.
Such a revolution may assume manifold forms according to the circumstances
under which it is effected. It by no means must necessarily be accompanied
with violence and bloodshed. There are instances in the history of mankind
when the ruling classes were either so exceptionally clear sighted, or so particu-
larly weak and cowardly, that they submitted to the inevitable and voluntarily
abdicated. Neither is it necessary that the social revolution be decided at one
blow; such probably never was the case. Revolutions prepare themselves by
years and decades of economic and political struggles; they are accomplished
under constant ups and downs, sustained by the conflicting classes and parties;
not infrequently are they interrupted by long periods of reaction.
Nevertheless, however manifold the forms may be which a revolution may
assume, never yet was any revolution accomplished without vigorous action on the
part of those who suffered most under the existing conditions.
When, furthermore, the Socialist declares those social reforms, that stop short
of the overthrow of the present system of property, to be unable to abolish the
contradictions which the present economic development has produced, he by no
means implies that all struggles on the part of the exploited against their present
sufferings are useless within the framework of the existing social order; that they
should patiently accommodate themselves to all ill-treatments and forms of exploit-
ation, which the capitalist system may decree to them; or that, so long as they
are at all exploited, it] matters little how. What he does mean is, that the ex-
ploited classes should not overrate the social reforms, and should not imagine
that through them the existing conditions can be rendered satisfactory to them.
The exploited classes should carefully examine all proposed social reforms that
are offered to them. Nine-tenths of the proposed reforms are not only useless
but positively injurious to the exploited classes. Most dangerous of all are those
schemes, which, aiming at the salvation of the threatened social order, shut their
eyes to the economic development of the last century. The workingmen, the
exploited classes generally, who take the field in favor of such schemes waste
their energies in a senseless endeavor to revive the dead past.
Many are the ways in which the economic development may be affected; it
may be hastened and it may be retarded; its edge may be dulled, or it may
be sharpened; only one thing is impossible-to stop its course, much less to
turn it back. Experience teaches that all attempts in this direction are not only
profitless, but increase the very sufferings which they were intended to remove,
while, on the other hand, those measures, that are really calculated more or less
to relieve some existing ill, have themselves the tendency rather to accelerate
the economic development.
When, for instance, in the early stages of capitalism, the wage-workers destroyed
the machine, opposed woman labor, and so on, their efforts were and could not
be otherwise than profitless; they arrayed themselves against a development that
nothing could resist. Since then they have hit upon better methods whereby to i
shield themselves as much as possible against the injurious effects of capitalist
exploitation; they have established their trade unions, and they have started their
independent political parties, each of which supplements the other, and with the
assistance of which they have, in all civilized countries met, with more or less
SEF 1 5 43
Van norm
1042468
4
success. But each of these successes, be it the raising of wages, the shortening
of hours, the prohibition of child labor, the establishment of sanitary regulations,
etc., gives a new impulse to the economic development: together, they have
either caused the capitalist to replace dearer labor with machinery, or they have
forced up his pay-roll, and thereby have rendered the competitive struggle harder
for the small capitalist, shortened his economic existence, and hastened the con-
centration of capital.
Accordingly, however justifiable, or even necessary, it may be that the work-
men establish labor organizations for the purpose of improving their condition,
by lowering the hours of work, and other equally wholesome measures, it were
a profound error to imagine that such reforms could delay the social révolution;
and equally mistaken is the notion that one cannot admit the usefulness of cer-
tain social reforms without admitting that it is possible to preserve society upon
its present basis. On the contrary, such reforms may be supported from the
revolutionary standpoint because, as it has been shown, they stimulate the course
of events, and because, so far from removing the suicidal tendencies of the
capitalist system, they help them along.
The turning of the people into proletarians, the concentration of capital in
the hands of a few, who rule the whole economic life of capitalist nations,
NONE OF THESE TRYING AND SHOCKING EFFECTS OF THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM OF PRODUC-
TION CAN BE CHECKED BY ANY REFORM WHATEVER, THAT IS BASED UPON THE EXISTING
SYSTEM OF PROPERTY, HOWEVER FAR REACHING SUCH REFORM MAY BE.
There is no political party, however fossilized and anxious it may be to
preserve things as they are, but has its misgivings with regard to this fact.
Each of them still advertises its special plan of reform as THE means whereby
to prevent the crash; but there is not one of them that still entertains complete
faith in its own panacea.
Dodging will not help them. The corner stone of the present system of
production—PRIVATE PROPERTY IN THE INSTRUMENTS OF PRODUCTION—becomes every
day more irreconcilable with the very nature of the means of production. The
magnitude that these instruments of production have reached, the social character
that their functions have assumed, mark them for common, social property,
without which, instead of being a blessing they become a curse to mankind.
The downfall of private property in them is now only a question of time; it is
sure to come; the only question still open is as to the time and the manner
in which the revolution will be accomplished.
II.
Private Property and Common Property.
Indeed, there can be no longer any question as to whether and how private
property is to be preserved in the instruments of production; the only question
is what SHALL, or rather MUST, take its place; it is not a question of making
an invention, but of dealing with an actual fact. We have as little choice in
the matter of the system of property that should be instituted, as we have in the
matter of preserving the existing one, or throwing it overboard.
LO
5
The same economic development that propounds the question : "What shall
be put in the place of the system of private ownership in the means of pro-
duction?" brings along the conditions that answer the question, The new system
of property lies latent in the old. To become acquainted with the former we
must turn, not to our personal leanings and wishes, but to the facts that sur-
round us.
Whoever understands the conditions that are requisite for the present system
of production knows what system of property those conditions will demand when
the existing system of property ceases to be possible. Private property in the
instruments of production has its roots in small production. Individual produc-
tion makes individual ownership necessary. Large production on the contrary
denotes Co-OPERATIVE, SOCIAL PRODUCTION. In large production each individual
does not work alone, but a large number of workers, the whole commonwealth,
work together to produce a whole, Accordingly, the modern instruments of pro-
duction are extensive and gigantic. With them it is wholly impossible that
every single worker should own his own instruments of production. Once the
present stage is reached by large production, it admits of but two systems of
ownership:
First, private ownership by the individual in the instruments of production
used by co-operative labor; that means the existing system of capitalist produc-
tion, with its train of misery and exploitation as the portion of the workers,
idleness and excessive abundance as the portion of the capitalist; and
Second, ownership by the workers in the common instruments of produc-
tion; that means a co-operative system of production, and the extinction of the
exploitation of the workers, who become masters of their own products, and who
themselves appropriate the surplus of which, under our system, they are deprived
by the capitalist.
ລ
TO SUBSTITUTE COMMON IN THE PLACE OF PRIVATE OWNERSHIP IN THE MEANS OF
PRODUCTION, THIS IT IS THAT THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IS URGING UPON US WITH
EVER INCREASING FORCE,
III.
Socialist Production.
The abolition of the present system of production means the substitution of
production for SALE by production for USE,
Production for use may be of two forms :
First, INDIVIDUAL production for the satisfaction of individual wants; and,
Second, SOCIAL, or CO-OPERATIVE, production for the satisfaction of the wants
of a commonwealth.
The first form of production has never been very general. Man always has
been a social being, as far as we can trace him back; the individual has always
bnt is a modern nation for that in
Thury?
become
ㄢ
​If not, then the world must
one nation
me one
6
been thrown upon co-operation with others in order to satisfy some of his prin-
cipal wants; as a result, others had to work for him, and he, in turn, had to
work for others; individual production for self consumption has always played a
subordinate role; to-day it hardly deserves mention.
Until the present system of production, i. e., production for sale, was de-
veloped, co-operative production for common use was the leading form; it may
be regarded as old as production itself. If any one system of production could
be considered more agreeable than any other to the nature of man, then co-
In all probability,
operative production must be pronounced the natural one.
for every thousand years that production for sale numbers, co-operative produc-
tion for use numbers tens of thousands. The character, extent and power of
every co-operative society have changed along with the instruments and methods
of production which it adopted. Nevertheless, whether such a commonwealth was
a horde, or a tribe, or any other form of community, they all had certain
essential features in common. Each satisfied its own wants, at least the most
vital ones, with the product of its own labor; the instruments of production
were the property of the community; its members worked together as free and
equal individuals according to some plan devised by, and under the guidance of,
some administrative power elected by and responsible to themselves; the product
of such co-operative labor was the property of the community, and was applied
either to the satisfaction of common wants, be these for production or consump-
tion, or was distributed among the individuals or groups which composed the
community.
The well-being of such self-supporting communities or societies depended upon
natural and personal conditions. The more fertile the territory which they occu-
pied, the more diligent, inventive and vigorous their members, the greater also
was the general well-being. Drouths, freshets, invasions by more powerful
enemies, might afflict or even destroy them, but there was one visitation they
were free from, THE FLUCTUATIONS OF THE MARKET; with this they were either
wholly unacquainted, or knew of it only in connection with articles of luxury.
Such co-operative production for use is nothing less than communistic,
or, as it is called to-day, socialist production; production for sale can be over-
come only by such a system; socialist production is the only system of produc-
tion possible when production for sale has become impossible.
_
ཁ་་
This fact does not, however, imply that mankind is about to revive the dead
past, or to restore the old forms of community property, or communal produc-
tion. Those forms corresponded to certain means of production; they were and
continue to be inapplicable to more highly developed instruments of production ;
it was for that reason that they disappeared almost everywhere in the course of
the economic development at the approach of the system of production for sale ;
and wherever they did resist the latter, their effect was to interfere with the
healthy development of productive powers. As reactionary and hopeless as were
the efforts to resist the system of production for sale by the old communal
system, it would be to-day to endeavor to overthrow the present by the revival
of "the old communal system.
That system of socialist production, which, owing to the impending bank-
ruptcy of our present system of production for sale, i. e., capitalist production,
has become inevitable, will, and necessarily must, have certain leading features
7
in common with the older systems of communal production, in so far, namely,
as both are systems of co-operative production for use. In the same way, the
capitalist system of production bears some resemblance to the system of small
and individual production, which forms the transition period between it and com-
munal production: both produce for sale. Now then, the same as the capitalist
system of production is a higher development notwithstanding it shares with
small production the feature of being PRODUCTION FOR SALE, that form of social
production that has now become necessary is different from and superior to the
former ones of PRODUCTION FOR USE.
The oncoming system of socialist production will not be the sequel to ancient
communism, it will be the sequel to the capitalist system of production, which
itself develops the elements that are requisite for the organization of its successor:
it brings forth the elements and the social organisms that are destined to be the
corner stone of the new system of production.
Socialist production requires, in the first place, the transformation of the
separate capitalist establishments into social institutions-a transformation that is
being prepared by the circumstance that the personality of the capitalist is steadily
becoming more and more superfluous in the present mechanism of production ; in
the second place, it requires that all the establishments, requisite for the satis-
faction of the wants of the commonwealth be united into one large concern-a
process that the present economic development 'is paving the way for by the
steady concentration of capitalist concerns in the hands of a few.
What shall be the size of such a self-sufficing commonwealth ? Seeing that
the Co-operative Commonwealth is not the product of an arbitrary figment of the
brain, but a necessary product of economic development, neither can the size of
such a commonwealth be an arbitrary one; it must conform to the stage of
social development in which it is applied; the higher the development, that has
been reached, the greater the division of labor, that has been perfected, the
more complicated intercourse has become between the producers-all the larger,
in consequence, will be the size of the commonwealth.
It is now nearly two hundred years since a well meaning Englishman, John
Bellers, submitted to the English Parliament, a plan to remove the misery, which
already then, young as it was, the capitalist system of production was spreading
through the land. He proposed the establishment of communities that should
produce everything they needed, industrial 28 well as agricultural products:
According to his plan, each community needed only from 200 to 300 workmen.
At that time handicraft was still the leading form of production; the capitalist
system was then in the manufacturing stage; as yet there was no thought of the
capitalist mill with its modern system of machinery.
A hundred years later the same idea was taken up anew, but considerably
improved and perfected, by other socialist thinkers, such as Owen and Fourier.
By that time, the present factory system of mills and machinery had already
begun; handicrafts were disappearing almost everywhere; society had reached a
higher stage. Accordingly, the communities, which the socialists proposed at the
beginning of our own century for the purpose of removing the ills of the capi
talist system of production, were ten times larger than those proposed by Bellers.
However wonderful the economic conditions were in the days of Owen and
Fourier when compared with those of Bellers, a generation later they have in
8
the
turn become trivial The machine is restlessly revolutionizing social life; it has
expanded the capitalist undertakings to such an extent that some of them already
embrace whole nations in their operations; it has brought the several undertakings
of a country into greater dependence upon one another, so that they now virtually
constitute one industry; and it tends to turn the whole economic life of capital.
ist nations into a single economic mechanism. Furthermore, the division and
subdivision of labor is carried on ever further; ever more do the several indus™
tries apply themselves to the production of special articles only, and, what is
more, to their production for the whole world; and ever larger becomes the
size of these establishments some of which count their workmen by the thousands.
Under such circumstances, a community, able to satisfy its wants, and em-
bracing all industries requisite thereto, must have dimensions very different from
those of the socialist colonies that were planned at the commencement of our
century. Among the social organizations in existence to-day, there is but one
that has the requisite dimensions, that can be used as the requisite field, for the
establishment and development of the Socialist or Co-operative Commonwealth.
and that is: the NATION.
>
Indeed, so prodigious is the development that production has reached in some
industries, and so intimate have become the connections between the several
capitalist nations that one might almost question the absolute sufficiency of a
single nation as the basis of the Co-operative Commonwealth.
Nevertheless, the present expansion of international intercourse is the result,
not so much of the existing conditions of production as of the existing condi-
tion of exploitation. The greater the swing which the capitalist system of pro-
duction obtains in a country, and the intenser the accompanying exploitation of
the working class, the larger also, as a rule, is the surplus of the products that
cannot be consumed in the country itself, and that, consequently, is sent abroad,
in search of foreign purchasers, When the population of the country have not
themselves the means with which to buy the staples they produce, the capitalists
go with their products in search of foreign customers whether or not the popu-
lation of their own country stand in need of them. The capitalists are after
purchasers, not after consumers. This explains the horrible phenomenon that
Ireland and India export large quantities of wheat during a famine; more recently,
during the fearful famine in Russia, the exportation of wheat by the Russian
capitalists could be checked only by an imperial order. When exploitation shall
have ceased, and production for use shall have taken the place of production for
sale, foreign exportations and importations will fall off greatly.
The existing intercourse between one nation and another will of course not
wholly disappear. The division of labor has been carried on so far; the market
which certain giant industries require for their product has become so extensive;
so many are the wants-coffee, for instance--that have been cultivated through
the development of international commerce, and these have to such an extent
grown into necessities, that it seems impossible any socialist commonwealth, even
though bounded by the confines of a nation, would be able to satisfy all its
wants with its own products. Some sort of exchange of products between one
nátion and another is sure to continue. Such, however, would not endanger the
economic independence and safety of the several nations so long as they do pro-
duce all that is ACTUALLY NECESSARY, and exchange with one another SUPERFLUITIES
9
EXOLUSIVELY. To-day, it is sufficient for a socialist commonwealth to be co-
extensive with the nation in order to produce all that it requires for its
own preservation.
This dimension would by no means be a cast-iron one. The modern nation
is but a product and a tool of the capitalist system of production; it grows
with that system; it grows, not only in power, but also in extent according as
the requirements of the capitalist system dictate. The domestic market is the
safest for the capitalist class of every country. It is the easiest to maintain and
best to exploit. The experience of the Hawaiian sugar planters, who once en-
joyed, but subsequently lost, our market for their staple; the subsequent
Hawaiian “Revolution,” i. e., the attempt of Claus Spreckels and his Hawaiian
Commercial Company to annex themselves to the United States, and thus regain
our market—are the most recent and most striking illustrations of this fact. In
proportion as the capitalist system develops, so also grows the pressure on the
part of the capitalist class in every nation for an extension of its political bõun-
daries. The statesman who maintained that modern wars are no longer DYNASTIC
but manifestations of NATIONAL ASPIRATIONS was not far from the truth, provided
always by "national aspirations" is understood the aspirations of the capitalist
class. Nothing so much injures the vital interests of the capitalists of any
nation as a reduction of their territory. The capitalist class of France would
have long ago pardoned Germany the five milliards which she demanded as a
money indemnity for the war of 1870; but the French capitalists can never
pardon the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine; all their "patriotic" twaddle notwith-
standing, their pocket is the nerve that aches.
•
All modern nations feel the necessity of extending their boundaries; in this
respect the capitalists of the United States are best off; their territorial extension
goes by leaps and bounds, nor can it be checked. The capitalists of England
at one time enjoyed this privilege above those of all other nations, but their
wings have been recently considerably clipped. Russia also enjoyed at one time
great advantages in this respect, but the limits of her aggrandizement seem to
have been reached; she is now bounded on all sides by nations who resist her
progress, seeing that they have the same interests as herself in extending their
boundaries. Worst off are the nations of continental Europe in this respect;
they, as well as all others, require territorial extension, but they are so closely
hemmed in by one another that none can grow except at the expense of some
other; in order to make up for this disadvantage the States of continental
Europe have set their caps toward the acquisition of colonies; but this policy
affords only slight relief to the capitalist requirement for territorial extension ;
this situation is the most powerful cause of the militarism that prevails there,
and which has turned Europe into a military camp. There are but two ways
out of this intolerable state of things; either a gigantic war that shall destroy
some of the existing European States; or the union of them all in a federation.
This evident endeavor of modern nations to keep pace in their territorial
extension with the economic development, is in itself a preparatory measure to
furnish the oncoming Co-operative Commonwealth with the territory requisite for
its establishment,
The modern State, i. e., Nation, is the only social organization in existence
ufficiently broad to contain a socialist commonwealth.
10
IV.
The Economic Significance of the State.
The modern State not only offers the only social organism equal, in point
of size, to the requirements of the socialist commonwealth, it, furthermore, con-
stitutes the only natural basis for the same.
All communities have ever had economic functions to fulfill. This must,
self-evidently, have been the case with the original communist societies which we
encounter at the threshold of history. In proportion as individual small produc-
tion, private ownership in the instruments of production, and production for sale
underwent their successive development, a number of social functions remained
extant, the fulfillment of which either exceeded the power of the individual
industries, or were from the start recognized as too important to be handed over
to the arbitrary conduct of individuals. Along with the care for the young, the
poor, the old and infirm-i. e., schools, hospitals and poor-houses-, the com-
munity reserved the functions of promoting and regulating commerce-i. e., building
highways, coining money, superintending markets-, and the management of cer-
tain general and important matters appertaining to production-i. e.. water courses,
etc.
In mediaeval society, likewise with us here during the colonial days, and
even during the early decades of our independence, these several functions
devolved upon the townships and sometimes upon religious corporations. The
mediaeval State cared not a copper about such functions.
Matters changed as that State grew into the modern State, i. e., a State of
office holders and soldiers, and became the tool of the capitalist class, which then
took control of the situation. The same as all previous forms of States, the
modern State is the tool of class rule. It could not, however, fulfill its mission
and satisfy the needs of the capitalist class without either dissolving, or depriving
of their independence, and taking upon itself the functions of, those economic
organizations which it found in existence, and which lay at the foundation of
the pre-capitalist social system. Even in such places where the modern State
tolerated the continuance of mediaeval organizations, these fell into decay and
became less and less able to fulfill their functions. These functions became,
however, broader and broader with the development of the capitalist system;
they grew and continued to grow with such rapidity that the State was gradually
compelled to assume even those functions which it cares least troubling itself
about. For instance, the necessity of taking upon itself the whole system of
charitable and educational institutions has become so pressing upon the State,
that it has in most cases conformed itself to this necessity. From the start it
assumed the function of coining money; since then, however, it has been com
pelled to extend its jurisdiction in other directions as well, notably that of building
highways.
There was a time when the capitalist class, full of itself, imagined it could
free itself wholly from the restraint of the State; the capitalist declared the State
should only watch over his safety at home and abroad, keep the proletarians and
foreign competitors in check, but keep its hands off the whole economic life.
The capitalist class had good reasons for this wish. However great the power of
11
1
the capitalists, the power of the State had not always shown itself as subservient
as they wished; even there where, as in the United States, the capitalist class
had virtually no competitor with whom to dispute the overlordship, and where,
accordingly, the power of the State showed itself friendly, the office holders often
became disagreeable friends to deal with.
The hostility of the capitalist class to the interference of the State in the
economic life of a country came to the surface first in England during the early
stirrings of the socialist labor movement; that hostile tendency received in Eng-
land the name of "Manchester School." The doctrines of that school were the
first intellectual weapons with which the capitalist class took the field against the
socialist labor movement. It is, therefore, no wonder that the opinion took hold
of many a socialist workman, that a SUPPORTER OF THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL and
a CAPITALIST, on the one hand, and on the other, SOCIALISM and THE INTERFERENCE
OF THE STATE IN THE ECONOMIC AFFAIRS OF A COUNTRY, were one and the same
thing; no wonder that such workmen believed that to overthrow the Manchester
School was to overthrow capitalism itself. It is just the reverse. The Manchester
School was never anything more than a theory which the capitalist class played
against the workingman, occasionally, against the Government also, whenever it
suited its purposes, but from the logical consequences of which it has carefully
guarded. To-day, the "Manchester School" no longer influences the capitalist
class abroad; the only traces we see of it here is in a few Bourbon capitalist
journals, at least thirty years behind the times. The reason of its decline was
the increasing force with which the economic and political development urged the
necessity of the extension of the functions of the State.
•
These functions grow from day to day. Not only do those which the State
assumed from the start become ever larger, but new ones are born of the capitalist
system itself, of which former generations had no conceptions and which affect
intimately the whole economic system. Whereas, formerly, statesmen were essen-
tially diplomats and jurists, to-day, they must be economists. Treaties and
privileges, ancient researches and matters of precedents are of little use in the
solution of modern political problems; economic principles have become the leading
arguments. Open any issue of the "Congressional Record," what are the subjects
that strike the eye with greatest frequency, if not exclusively? They are:
Finance, Taxation, Railroads, Labor, Commerce, etc.
Nor is this all. The economic development forces the State, partly in self-
defence, partly for the sake of fulfilling its functions in a better way, partly also
for the purpose of increasing its revenues, to take into its own hands more and
more functions or industries,
During the Middle Ages, the rulers derived their main income from their
property in land; later, during the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
their treasuries derived large accessions from the plundering of church and other
estates. On the other hand, the need of money frequently compelled the rulers
to sell their property to the capitalists. In most European countries, even now,
when the capitalist system is in full force, traces of this former condition of
things can be found in the domains of the crown and in State mines. Further-
more, the development of the military system added arsenals and wharves; the
development of commerce added post offices, railroads and telegraphs; finally
12
the increasing demand for money on the part of the State has given birth, in
European countries, to all manner of State monopolies.
Nor is a republican form of government exempt from these features. In
monarchies, the remnants of feudalism establish from the start interests in govern-
ment that are hostile to the capitalist class; in republics these hostile interests
are placed there by the contradictions of which the capitalist system itself is
guilty. In a republic, there is no feudal head or class to be supported; but
in lieu of them there is, bred of capitalism itself, an increasing pauper class,
which acting, consciously or unconsciously, in concert with the slums, forces the
State to increase its revenues in order to assist that large portion of our popula-
tion to a living. The pretexts under which revenue is raised to this end are
numerous: The most important ones are appropriations for "improvements,” in
not a few instances, of rivers and places that have no existence, and in most
cases, of places where there is no need of such; appropriations for millions of
pensions for imaginary "heroes"; appropriations for the erection of costly build-
ings, etc., etc., all of which have but one purpose in view, the satisfaction of a
clamor that is beginning to sound very much like that of the Roman mobs in
the declining days of Rome, when the populace was held quiet with bread and
circus shows.
While the economic functions and the economic power of the State are thus
steadily increased, in our own Republic as well as in European monarchies, the
whole economic mechanism becomes more and more complicated, more and more
sensitive, and the separate capitalist undertakings become proportionally more
interdependent upon one another. Along with all this, grows the dependence of
the capitalist class upon the greatest of all their establishments-the STATE or
GOVERNMENT. This increased dependence and interrelation increases also the dis-
turbances and disorders that afflict the economic mechanism, in relief of all of
which, the largest of existing economic powers, the State or Government, is with
increasing frequency appealed to by the capitalist class. Accordingly, in modern
society the State is called upon more and more to step in and take a hand in
the regulation and management of the economic mechanism; and ever stronger
are the means placed at its disposal and employed by it in the fulfillment of
this function. The economic omnipotence of the State, which appeared to the
"Manchester School" as a Socialist Utopia, has developed under the very nose of
that school into an inevitable result of the capitalist system of production itself,
and without which the capitalist system could not maintain itself.
V.
State Socialism & Democratic Socialism.
The economic activity of the modern State is the natural starting point of
that development that leads up to the Socialist or Co-operative Commonwealth.
It does not, however, follow, that every nationalization of an economic func-
tion or of an industry is a step towards the Socialist Commonwealth, and that
13
the latter could be the result of a general nationalization of all industries with-
out having to change the character of the State.
It
The theory that this could be the case is that of the STATE SOCIALISTS.
arises from a misunderstanding of the State itself. The same as all previous
systems of Government, the modern State is pre-eminently an implement intended
to guard the interests of the ruling class. This feature is in no wise changed
by its assumption of functions of general utility, and affecting the interests, not
of the ruling class alone, but of the whole body politic. The modern State will
assume these functions quite often, simply because otherwise the interests of
the ruling class would be endangered, but under no circumstances has it assumed,
or could it ever, assume these functions in such manner as to endanger the
overlordship of the capitalist class. Of this fact a remarkable illustration has
been recently furnished by the official declarations of the People's Party-a party
called into being by the property holding class of small Western farmers, whom
large capitalist production is submerging. The platform adopted at Omaha is
very explicit on all the points that concern the economic interests of that class;
the only demands, that are not self-evidently and inherently reactionary, are those
that call for the national ownership of the means of communication and trans-
portation; but, that these demands are made in the interest, not of the work-
ing class, the proletariat, but in the interest of the possessing class, appears from
two facts: first, the conspicuous absence from the platform itself of all provision
to improve the condition of the workers in those industries—such as higher earn-
ings and shorter hours; and, second, the insertion of some recommendations
looking in that direction, together with many other trivial ones, AFTER the plat-
form and UNDER the following very significant introductory clause: "Whereas
other questions have been presented for our consideration, we hereby submit the
following NOT as a part of the platform of the People's party." And, further-
more, still more recently, a Boston Nationalist Club, consisting mainly of middle
class people, issues a petition, likewise for the national ownership of the means
of communication, transportation, etc., but wholly omits all provisions looking
to the improvement of the conditions of the workers therein.
In the one case
ނ
as in the other, the capitalist functions which the State is asked to assume, are
instinctively, if not purposely, asked to be assumed in a manner that would not
endanger the overlordship of the capitalist class.
own
When the modern State nationalizes certain industries it does not do so for
the purpose of restricting capitalist exploitation, but for the sole purpose of pro-
tecting the capitalist system and establishing it upon a firmer basis; or for the
purpose of itself taking a hand in the exploitation of labor, increasing its
revenues, and thereby reducing the contributions for its own support which it
would otherwise have to impose upon the capitalist class. As an exploiter of
labor the State is superior to any private capitalist: besides the economic power
of the capitalists, which it would thereby acquire, it could also bring to bear
upon the exploited classes the political power which it already wields.
The State has never carried on the idea of nationalizing the industries further
than the interests of the ruling classes demanded; nor will it ever go further
than that. So long as the property-holding classes are also the ruling ones, the
nationalization of industries and capitalist functions will never be carried so far
14
affles all ther socialison
class of gain, oy a class made
up of the freaked number?
as to injure the capitalists and landlords, or to restrict their opportunities for
exploiting the proletariat.
THE STATE WILL NOT CEASE TO BE A CAPITALIST INSTITUTION UNTIL THE PROLE-
TABIAT, THE WORKING CLASS, HAS BECOME THE RULING CLASS; NOT UNTIL THEN WILL
IT BE POSSIBLE TO TURN IT INTO A SOCIALIST COMMONWEALTH.
From the recognition of this fact is born the task which the Socialist Labor
parties of all countries have set to themselves, to wit: To CALL UPON THE PROLE-
TARIAT, THE WORKING CLASS OF ALL LANDS, TO CONQUER THE POLITICAL POWER, TO
THE END THAT, WITH ITS AID, THEY MAY CONVERT THE NATION INTO A CO-OPERATIVE
COMMONWEALTH, POSSESSED OF ALL THE MEANS REQUISITE FOR ITS SUSTENANCE.
Socialists are frequently twitted with not having any fixed aims; that they
understand only to criticize; and that they know not what to put in the place
of that which they would overthrow. Nevertheless, the fact remains that none
of the existing parties in the United States, or in any other country, in which
the Socialists have taken the field, has so well marked and clear an aim as the
Socialist Labor Party. It may indeed be questioned whether any othor political
party has any aim at all, They all hold to the existing order; their platforms
contain nothing but plasters and salves with which they promise and hope to
make the impossible possible, and the unbearable bearable.
The Socialist Labor Party on the contrary does not build upon hopes and
promises, but upon the unalterable dictates of the economic development, Who-
ever understands this development must accept the aims of the Party. Whoever
declares these aims to be false should show in what respect the teachings of
Socialist political economy are false; he should show that the theory of the
development from small to large production is false; that production is carried
on to-day in the United States the same as it was carried on a hundred years
ago; he must show that things are to-day as they have always been. Only he
who could prove these postulates is justified in the belief that things will continue
as they are. But whoever is not featherbrained enough to believe that the social
conditions which we experience to-day are the same that have been always
experienced, neither could he conclude that the present conditions will continue
forever. What other than the Socialist Labor Party will tell him what WILL
and must take the place of the present order?
All other political parties live only in the present, and from hand to mouth;
the Socialist Labor Party is the only one that has a tangible aim before it, and
which steers its present course by the light of that great aim. All other parties
neither will nor can realize this aim; only by marching over their prostrate
bodies can the Socialist Labor Party reach the desired end. Because they neither
can nor will see, because they stubbornly persist in wool-gathering and star-
gazing, they declare off-hand that Socialists know not what they want except to
destroy whatever is.
I
15
VI.
The "Plan" of the Co-operative Common-
wealth.
It were an endless task to attempt to meet all the objections, misconceptions and
misstatements with which the capitalist class strives to combat Socialism. It is
profitless to attempt to enlighten malice and stupidity. Socialists could wear
themselves to the bone in such an undertaking, and yet fresh floods of mis-
representation would come pouring in.
There is, however, one objection that should be met; it is important enough
to merit thorough treatment; especially as by doing so the aims of Socialism
appear all the more clearly.
The apostles of capitalism declare the Socialist Commonwealth cannot be con-
sidered practicable, and cannot be the object of the endeavors of intelligent
people until the plan is presented to the world in a perfected form, and has
been tested and found feasible. They claim that no sensible man would start
to build a house before he has perfected his plan, and before experts have
approved it; that, least of all, would he undertake to pull down before he knew
what else to put in its place. Socialists are, accordingly, told that they must
come out with their "scheme"; unless they do so it is a sign that they them-
selves have not much confidence in it.
This objection sounds very plausible; so plausible indeed that even among
Socialists themselves many are of the opinion that the exposition of such a plan
is a necessity. Indeed, such a course was a prerequisite to all further agita-
tion so long as the laws that underlie the evolution of society were unknown,
and so long as the belief prevailed that social institutions are reared as obedient
to private whims as houses. The belief that such is the case is even now so
general that one often hears the expression "social edifice," used, not as a figure
of speach, but as a concrete idea.
Sociology, social evolution is a modern science. Formerly, the economic
development proceeded so slowly that it was barely noticeable. In certain epochs
of development mankind often remained centuries, and even thousands of years,
at one and the same stage. There are neighborhoods in Russia where the agri-
cultural implements still in use are hard to distinguish from those that we meet
at the very threshold of history. Hence it happened that the system of produc-
tion in vogue at a certain time, seemed an unalterable arrangement to the people
of that age; their fathers and grandfathers had produced like them, and the
conclusion was that their children and grandchildren would do likewise. Man
naturally considered the social institutions into which he was born to be per-
manent and ordained of God, and that it was a sacrilege to attempt innovations.
Great as the changes might be which were wrought by wars and internal class
struggles, these seemed to affect the surface only; such convulsions did, as a
matter of course, affect the foundation also, but they were hardly noticeable to
the generations of the time.
16
>
History is, to-day, still, essentially nothing but a more or less faithful chron.
icle of events recorded by such spectators; hence, history remains essentially
superficial, and although he who takes a bird's eye view of the thousands of
years of antiquity can perceive clearly a social evolution, yet the average historian
takes no notice of it.
Not until we reach the age of capitalist production does the social evolution
proceed at such a rapid pace that men became conscious thereof and turned
their thoughts to it. Of course, they first looked for the causes of this develop-
ment upon the surface, before probing deeper down. But he who sticks to the
surface can see only those forces that determine the immediate course of progress
and these are not the conditions under which production is carried on, but the
change of ideas among men.
As the capitalist system of production stepped upon the scene it created among
the persons who depended upon it capitalists, proletarians, etc.-new
wants,
wholly different from those of the people connected with the previous feudal
system of production. To these different wants corresponded also different per-
ceptions of right and wrong, of necessity and luxury, of usefulness and harm-
fulness. In proportion as the capitalist system of production grew, and the
classes that shared it became more marked, the perceptions which corresponded
to this system of production became clearer, asserted themselves in the Govern-
ment, and were felt in political and social life, until finally the new classes that
had been formed took possession of the State and shaped it agreeably to their
wants.
The philosophers who first endeavored to investigate the causes of social
development thought they found these in the IDEAS OF MEN; to a certain degree
they recognized that these ideas sprang from material wants; but the fact still
remained a secret to them that these wants changed from age to age and that
these changes were the result of changes in the economic conditions, i. e., in the
system of production. They started with the belief that the wants of man---
"human nature"-were unchangeable. Hence they could see but one "true,"
"natural," "just" social system, because only one could correspond with the "true
nature of man." All other social forms were pronounced by them the result of
mental aberrations, which could have been possible only because mankind àid
not realize sooner what they wanted, because their judgment was befogged,
either, as some imagined on account of the natural stupidity of man, or as
others maintained, on account of the willful machinations of priests and kings,
Looked upon from such a standpoint, the development of society was the result
of a development of thought. The cleverer men are, the quicker they are to
discover the social forms that suit human nature, the juster also and the better
did society become.
This is the theory of our so-called liberal thinkers. Wherever their influence
is felt this view prevails. As a matter of course the first Socialists, who ap-
peared at the commencement of this century, were likewise affected by this theory
They also imagined that the institutions of the capitalist State, which they found
extant, had sprung from the brain of the philosophers of the previous century
Arriving on the stage of history, a full century later, it was clear to these
Socialists that the capitalist social system was by no means the perfect thing
which the philosophers of the 18th century expected. Accordingly, this system
17
was still not the true one; the philosophers of the 18th century must have
made a mistake somewhere; the early Socialists addressed themselves to the task
of finding the mistake, and, in their turn of discovering the true social system
that should suit human nature better. They realized that it was necessary to
elaborate their plan more carefully than any of their illustrious predecessors had
done lest some untoward influence should nullify their work also. This method
of procedure was, moreover, dictated by the circumstance that the early Socialists,
who appeared at the beginning of the century, did not stand as did their pre-
decessors, the philosophers of the 18th century, face to face with a social system
whose downfall was at hand, nor did they have, as their predecessors had, the
encouragement of a mighty class, whose interests demanded the overthrow of the
then social order. They could not in those early days represent the social order
for which they strove as INEVITABLE, but only as DESIRABLE. It was a necessity ·
of their situation to try and present their social ideal in as clear and tangible a
form as possible, to the end that the mouths of people should water after it,
and none should entertain a doubt either as to its practicability or its pleas-
antness.
The adversaries of Socialism have not yet got beyond the point of looking
upon society from the standpoint occupied by social science a hundred years
ago; the only sort of Socialists they know and can unterstand is, accordingly,
that of those early and Utopian Socialists who started from the same premises
as they themselves. The adversaries of Socialism look upon the socialist com-
monwealth just as they would upon a capitalist enterprise, say, a stock corpora-
tiön, which is to be "started," and they refuse to take stock before it is shown
to their satisfaction the concern is practicable and will yield large dividends.
Such a conception might have had its justification at the beginning of our century ;
to-day, the socialist commonwealth no longer needs the "endorsement" of these
gentlemen in order to be realized.
The capitalist social system has run its course; its dissolution is now only
a question of time; the irresistible economic development leads with the certainty
of doom to the shipwreck of the capitalist system of production. No longer is
the building of a new social order in the place of the existing one simply
DESIRABLE, it has become INEVITABLE.
Ever larger and more powerful grows to-day the mass of the propertiless
workers for whom the existing system is unbearable, who have nothing to lose
with its downfall, but everything to gain, and who are bound-unless they be
willing to go down with the society of which they have become the most im-
portant part-to call into being a social order that shall correspond with their
interests.
These are not phantasias; they are facts that Socialists have DEMONSTRATED
with the actual occurrences that are daily taking place. These occurrences are
more eloquent and convincing than the most captivating and carefully prepared
pictures of the oncoming social order could be. The best that such pictures
can do is to show that the socialist commonwealth is not impossible; but these
pictures are bound to be defective; they can never cover all the details of social
life; they will always leave some loophole through which the adversary will in.
sinuate some objection, That, however, which is shown to be INEVITABLE, İs
thereby not only shown to be POSSIBLE but also the ONLY THING POSSIBLE, If,
18
indeed, the socialist commonwealth were an impossibility then mankind would be
out off from all further and possible economic development. In that case
modern society would fall to pieces the same as did the Roman Empire nearly
two thousand years ago, and finally relapse into barbarism,
AS THINGS STAND TO-DAY CAPITALIST CIVILIZATION CANNOT CONTINUE; WE MUST
EITHER MOVE ONWARD TO SOCIALISM OR FALL BACK INTO BARBARISM.
In view of this situation, it is wholly unnecessary to endeavor to move the
enemies of Socialism by some captivating picture with the view of obtaining
their endorsement. He, to whom the striking, tangible occurrences of the modern
system of production do not announce loudly enough the necessity for the socialist
commonwealth, will be still deafer to the praises that may be sung of a social
system that is not yet in existence, and which he can neither apprehend nor
comprehend.
Moreover, the construction of a plan upon which the future social order shall
be built has become, in our days, not only purposeless, but wholly irreconcilable
with the modern standpoint of science. In the course of the last century, not
only did a great revolution take place in the economic world, but likewise in the
heads of men. The comprehension of the causes of the social development has
become quite general. Already in the forties Marx and Engels showed-and
from that time on every step in social science has proved it—that, in the last
analysis, the history of mankind is determined, not by the ideas of man, but by
the economic development which progresses irresistibly, obedient to certain under-
lying laws, and not according to the wishes or the whims of the people. This
economic development is in steady motion; it brings about new forms of pro-
duction, which require new forms of society; it starts new wants among men
which compel them to reflect over their social conditions and to devise means
whereby to adjust society to the new system under which production is carried
on. Because, be it always remembered, this process of adjustment does not go
on of itself; it needs the aid of the human brain. Without thought, without
ideas, there is no progress. But these ideas, which thought generates, are only
the assistants of social development; the first impulse does not proceed from
them, as was formerly believed and as many still think; the first impulse comes
from the economic conditions.
Accordingly, it is not the thinkers and philosophers who determine the trend
of social progress; that is determined by the economic development. What the
thinkers can do is to DISCOVER, to RECOGNIZE, the trend, and they can do that
all the better, the clearer their understanding is of the conditions that preceded,
but they can never themselves pre-determine the course of the social evolution
at their own will.
But even the discovery and recognition of the trend of social progress has
its limits. The domain of social life is most complicated; even the clearest intel-
lect finds it impossible to probe it from all sides and to measure all the forces
therein at work with sufficient accuracy to enable him to foretell accurately what
social forms will result from the joint action of all these forces.
A new social form does not come into existence through the conception of
a plan by certain specially gifted heads who thereupon convince people by degrees
of its utility, and who, when they have acquired the requisite power, undertake
at their ease the construction of the social edifice according to this plan.
19
All social forms have hitherto been the result of long and fluctuating strug-
gles between the exploited and the exploiting classes, between the sinking and
reactionary classes on the one hand, and the progressive and revolutionary ones,
on the other. In the course of these struggles one set of these several classes
is found merged in all manner of combinations to battle with the other set of
classes that opposes them. The camp of the exploited at times contains both
revolutionary and reactionary elements; the camp of the revolutionists contains
at times both exploiters and exploited. Within one and the same class itself
different factions are frequently formed according to the intellect, the temper-
ament and the station of both individuals and whole sections. And finally, the
power wielded by any single class has never been permanent; it rose or fell ac-
cording as its understanding of the surrounding conditions, the compactness and
the size of its organizations, and its importance in the mechanism of production
increased or diminished.
In the course of the fluctuating struggles between these classes, the older
social forms, which had become untenable, crumbled down and were pushed
aside by new ones. The new social order that took the place of the old one
was not always straightways the best possible. In order to have been so, the
revolutionary classes at each such epoch would have had to be in possession of
the sole political power and of the most perfect understanding of their social
condition. Wherever, and as long as this was not the case mistakes were una-
voidable; not infrequently a new social order proved itself partially, if not wholly,
just as untenable as the one it had overthrown. Nevertheless, the stronger the
pressure of the economic development made itself felt, the clearer also became
the social institutions which it required, and proportionally greater became the
power of the revolutionary classes to carry out what was necessary. In such
cases, the institutions of the revolutionary classes that may have conflicted with
the then economic development, soon dropped off, while on the contrary, those
other institutions which were in keeping with the economic conditions, soon struck
root and could no longer be upset by the surviving upholders of the older system.
It is in this way that hitherto all new social orders have arisen; so-called
revolutionary times differ from others only in this, that events take place at a
more rapid pace and with a more vigorous pulse.
The genesis of social institutions is, accordingly, a very different one from
that of a house. Previously perfected plans are not applicable to the former.
In view of this fact, to sketch plans of the oncoming social state is about as
rational an occupation as to write in advance the history of the next war.
+
A
The course of events is, however, by no means independent of the 'individual.
Every one who works in society affects it to a greater or a lesser extent.
few individuals, especially prominent through their capacity or social condition,
may exercise great influence upon the whole nation; either they may promote,
by many a decade the development of society, by enlightening the people,
organizing the revolutionary forces and causing them to act with vigor and pre-
cision; or, they may lame and hold back the social development for many years
by turning their powers in the opposite direction. The former tend, by the
promotion of the social evolution, to diminish the sufferings and sacrifices that
it demands; the others, on the contrary, tend to increase these sufferings and
sacrifices by hampering the course of events. But neither of these can, whether
20
he be the most blood-thirsty tyrant or the wisest and most benevolent philo-
sopher, determine at will the direction that the social evolution shall take, or
prophesy accurately the new forms that it will adopt.
Few things are, therefore, more childish than to demand of the socialist that
he draw a picture of the commonwealth which he labors for. This demand,
which is made of no other than the Socialist Labor Party, however promiseful
of future well-being all other political parties may be, is so childish that it would
not deserve much attention were it not for the circumstance that, childish though
it be, it is the one objection against Socialism which its adversaries raise with
soberest mien. The other objections which they raise are, if anything, still
more childish, but, in making them, the adversaries of Socialism are not half so
serious.
Never yet in the history of mankind has it happened that a revolutionary
party was able to foresee, let alone determine, what the forms would be of the
new social order which it strove to usher in, The cause of progress had gained,
not a little, but quite a good deal, if it could as much as ascertain and recog-
nize the tendencies that led to such a new social order, to the end that its po-
litical activity could be a conscious and not merely an instinctive one. No
more can be demanded of the Socialist Labor Party. At the same time NEVER YET
WAS THERE A POLITICAL PARTY THAT HAS LOOKED SO DEEPLY INTO THE SOCIAL TEND-
ENCIES OF ITS TIMES, AND HAS SO THOROUGHLY UNDERSTOOD THEM AS THE SOCIALIST
LABOR PARTY.
The Socialist Labor Party does not so much deserve credit for this as to be
envied for its good luck. It owes its superiority to the circumstance that it
stands upon the shoulders of capitalist political economy, and that this was the
first that ever undertook a scientific investigation of the social mechanism and its
conditions, a thing that in its turn is to be ascribed to the circumstance that
the revolutionary classes, which overthrew the feudal system of production, were
themselves equipped with a much clearer understanding of their social mission,
and that they suffered much less from self-deceptions than any revolutionary
class that had preceded them. But the thinkers in the ranks of the Socialist
Movement have carried on the investigations of the social mechanism much
further, they have gone much deeper into the question than any capitalist
economist has done. “CAPITAL”, Karl Marx' great work has become the lodestar
of modern economic science. As far above the works of Quesnay, Adam Smith
and Ricardo as stands the work of Karl Marx, just so far stand the socialists
of to-day above the revolutionary classes that appeared at the close of the last
and the beginning of this century in point of clearness of vision and consciousness of
the goal at which they aim. When the Socialists decline to exhibit a prospectus of
the future State for the kind inspection of the honored public, they give no
ground for the satire of capitalist economists and penny-a-liners. The Socialist
Labor Party has a clearer insight into the future than had the pathfinders of the
present social order; and its political, historical and economic literature points
out much more clearly, than did that of the capitalist revolutionists of a hundred
years ago, the outlines and leading features of the oncoming social order.
We have shown how a thinker may be able to discover the tendencies of the
economic development of his own days, but that it is impossible for him to
foresee the social forms in which that development will ultimately find express
21
ion. A glance over existing conditions will prove the correctness of this view.
The tendencies of the capitalist system of production are the same in all countries
where it prevails; and yet how different are their political and social forms!
They are in England wholly different from those that obtain in France;
in France wholly different from those that exist in Germany; and in all of these
they are different again from those we have here in the United States. The
historical tendencies of the Labor Movement, which has been brought on by the
existing system of production are everywhere identical, and yet we see that the
forms under which this movement manifests itself are different in each country.
Furthermore, the tendencies of the capitalist system of production are to-day well
known; nevertheless, no one would venture to foretell what forms it will take
ten, twenty or thirty years hence-provided, of course, it has not been over-
thrown before then; and yet there are simpletons to be found who will require
from the Socialists a detailed description of the social forms that will be in
vogue at a time beyond that of the existing ones.
}
It does not, however, follow from the refusal of the Socialists to draw up a
plan of future society and of the stepping stones thereto, that they consider
useless or even harmful all thought about the Socialist or Co-operative Common-
wealth. That were to wash out the baby with the bath. Useless and harm-
ful is only the making of positive propositions for the preparation and organiza-
tion of the Co-operative Commonwealth. Propositions for the shaping of social
conditions can be made only where the field is fully under control and well
understood. For this reason Socialists can make no positive propositions for the
existing social order. Propositions that go beyond that cannot deal with facts
but must proceed from suppositions; they are, accordingly, phantasies and dreams
that at best fall flat; in case their inventor is vigorous and intellectually gifted
he might to such an extent affect the public mind as to cause serious obstruc-
tion and waste of time.
We should not, however, confuse with these vagaries, which are to be fought at all
points, those inquiries that are directed to ascertain the tendencies that the economic
development would or might take as soon as it is transferred from the capitalist to
the socialist basis. In such cases the question is not one of trivial recipes, but of
scientific consideration of facts. Inquiries of this sort are by no means useless; the
clearer we are enabled to see into the future, the better will we adapt our tactics in
the present. The most noted socialist thinkers have undertaken such inquiries.
The works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels are replete with the results of such
inquiries. August Bebel has given to the world his work on "Woman under Socia-
lism," which is of this same character. Similar inquiries, it is not unlikely, every
thinking Socialist has prosecuted in the privacy of his own closet; every one who
has placed before himself a great goal realizes the need of clearness upon the condi-
tións under which he will verify his ideal. According to the clearness that each
has upon the economic question, according to his condition in life, his temperament
his imagination, his acquaintance with the communistic societies that have been
started, so will also his private forecast be affected. But, while differences of
opinion may arise from this source, they in no wise disturb the compactness and
unity of the Socialist Labor Party. However different may be the view that each
may take of our final goal the only thing of importance is that all keep their eyes
in the same direction.
22
VII.
The "Abolition" of the Family.
One of the most widespread prejudices entertained against Socialism is that
it proposes to abolish the family.
No Socialist entertains the remotest idea of "abolishing" the family, whether
by law or otherwise. Only the grossest misrepresentation can fasten upon them
such a purpose; moreover it takes a fool to imagine that any form of family
can either be created or abolished by decree.
બની અનેકતા
The modern form of the family is nowise repulsive to the socialist system of
production; the institution of the socialist order does not, consequently, need the
abolition of the family for its introduction.
That which dissolves any existing form of family is the economic develop-
ment itself. Under the present or capitalist system of production the family is
torn asunder; husband, wife and children are forced from one another in the
search for bread; our irrational system of production raises SHE-TOWNS in one
section of the country, as in New England, and HE-VILLAGES in other sections, as
in Pennsylvania and the mining regions of the far West; it nurses prostitution
and adultery; and it dismantles the very citadel of the modern conception of the
family, from the highest to the lowest rungs of society.
The socialist system is not calculated to check the economic development; it
will, on the contrary, give it new impulse. This development will continue as
before, to withdraw from the circle of household duties and turn into special
industries one household occupation after another; that this cannot fail to have
in the future, as it had in the past, its effect upon the sphere of woman is
self evident; woman may cease to be a worker in the individual household and
may take her place as a worker in the large productive industries. But this
transition will not then be to her what it is to-day: a transition from hopse-
hold drudgery into wage-slavery, with the wage-slavery super-added to the house-
hold drudgery; it would not, as it does to day, hurl her from the protection of
her home into the exposed and helpless condition of the proletariat. By work-
ing in common with man in the large productive industries of society, she becomes
his equal, and will be able to receive her equal share with him of the social
product; she will then be his free companion, emancipated not only from slavery
to man, but also from slavery to capital. Free mistress of herself, the equal of
man, she will put a speedy end to all manner of prostitution, legalized as well
as unlegalized, and then for the first time in the world's history will she be
able to establish, as an actual, not a fictitious fact, the oneness of husband and
wife.
These are no Utopian vagaries, but scientific conclusions from established
facts. Whoever would deny the former, must first overthrow the latter. Seeing
that the "ladies" and "gentlemen" who shut their eyes to this development have
never been able to shake the scientific facts upon which these conclusions are
planted, there is nothing left to them but to affect to be shocked, and to
23
deavor to place their "morality" in as favorable a light as possible by means of
falsehoods and misrepresentations. But these methods will not stead them. They
will not be able to delay the social evolution by one minute.
This much stands fast: whatever alteration the family form, handed down to
us, may undergo, it will not be the act of Socialism or of the socialist system
of production, but of the economic development that has been going on under
our own eyes for the last century. Socialist society cannot hold this develop-
ment back; what it will do is to remove from the economic development all the
painful and degrading features that are its inevitable accompaniments under the
capitalist system of production. While, on the one hand, under the capitalist
system of production the economic development is steadily snapping, one after
another, the family bonds, and destroying connubial life, to the degradation of
all concerned, under the socialist system of production, on the other, whatever
existing family form may drop off it can only be replaced by a higher.
શ
VIII.
"Confiscation" of Property.
The enemies of Socialism, who, to hear them talk, one would imagine know
better than the Socialists themselves what these are after, and who assume to
forecast the Co-operative Commonwealth with greater accuracy than Socialists do,
also declare that Socialism can never come into power except through a whole-
sale confiscation of property, including the furniture and the small savings of the in-
dustrious poor. Next to the charge of contemplating the "abolition" of the
family, this one of "confiscation" is a favorite one with the mouth-pieces of capi-
talism.
Confiscation is not at all essential to socialist society.
The socialist pro-
gramme is silent upon the subject. It does not mention it, not because it is
afraid of frightening people away, but because that is not a subject upon which
anything can be said with certainty. The only thing that can be stated with
certainty is that the tendency of the economic development renders imperative
the social or national ownership and operation of the instruments of large pro-
duction. In what way this transfer from private and individual into collective
ownership will be effected; whether this inevitable transfer will take the form
of confiscation or otherwise; whether it will be a peaceable or a forcible one-
these are questions as impossible to answer to-day with certainty as it was im-
possible to answer similar questions with certainty forty years ago upon the sub.
ject of the abolition of chattel slavery; or as impossible as it was to answer
similar questions with certainty a hundred and twenty-five years ago upon the
subject of restraining the Crown and Parliament of Great Britain from reducing
the American colonists to the condition of its East Indian ryots. Neither can
past experience give much aid in this doubt. The transition may be effected, as
many different ways as there are
was that from feudalism to capitalism, in as
· 24
4:4
different countries. The manner of the transition depends wholly upon the
special and surrounding circumstances under which it is effected, as, for instance,
upon the power and the enlightenment of the classes that are concerned, all of
which are matters that can with difficulty be foretold; furthermore, the "unex-
pected" may happen, and this is an element that has played the most promi-
nent role in the history of mankind.
It goes without saying that Socialists wish that this unavoidable transition
could, be effected with no, or as little, friction as possible, in a peaceful way
and with the consent of the whole people. Unfortunately, however, history will
take its own course regardless of the wishes of both Socialists and their ad-
versaries.
Nevertheless, this much may be said with certainty: even though the course
of events should force the transition from capitalist to socialist production via
the road of confiscation, the economic development that has preceded us would
render necessary the confiscation of only a PART of existing property. The
economic development demands social ownership in the IMPLEMENTS OF LABOR
only; it does not concern itself with, nor does it touch, that part of property,
that is devoted to PERSONAL AND PRIVATE USES. Let us take one illustration,
furnished by capitalism itself. What are savings banks? They are the means
whereby the private property of non-capitalist classes is rendered accessible to the
capitalists; the deposits of every single depositor are, taken separately, too in-
significant to be applied to a capitalist industry; not until many deposits have
been gathered together are they in a condition to fulfill the function of "capital";
in the same measure in which capitalist undertakings shall pass from private into
social concerns, the opportunities will be lessened for would-be patrons of
savings banks to receive interest upon their deposits; these will cease to be
capital and to become purely non-interest-drawing funds. That, assuredly, is
not confiscation.
The confiscation of such property is, moreover, not only economically un-
necessary but politically improbable. These small deposits proceed mainly from
the pockets of the exploited classes, from those classes to whose efforts mainly
the introduction of Socialism will be due. Only he who considers these classes
to be utterly senseless can believe they would begin by first robbing themselves
of their hard earned savings in order to regain possession of their instruments
of production.
But moreover, not only does socialist production not require as a condition
precedent the confiscation of non-productive wealth, it does not even require the
social ownership of all instruments of production.
That which renders the socialist system necessary is LARGE PRODUCTION. Pro-
duction in common requires common ownership of the means of production.
For the same reason that private ownership in the implements of labor is repug-
nant to the system of production in common that is carried on in large produc-
tion, so likewise, would common ownership in the instruments of labor be re-
pugnant where production can, and must necessarily be carried on by separate
individuals. Production in such cases requires the private ownership by the
worker in his tools. There are industries that are still carried on upon this
small and individual system, and which tend to be absorbed by larger ones. The
transformation of these into social industries, in other words, the transformation
25

the
man St, Satta Kija
ZKA
of the instruments requisite to them into social property, would be a matter of
policy, to be determined in each case by its special circumstances.
With regard
to these industries, it were senseless to make any sweeping declaration except
that, speaking generally, the nationalization of such instruments of production
would be purposeless: the aim of Socialism is to place in the hands of the
producer the requisite implements of labor. To turn into social property the
implements of any such small industry would amount to nothing else than to
withdraw them from their present owner and forthwith to give them back to him.
It follows that the Co-operative Commonwealth does not absolutely require
the turning into social property of the instruments of production used in the
handicraft trades that still exist and even in somes branches of agriculture. (The
transition from the present to the socialist system would, not only take nothing
away from such handicraftsmen and farmers, but give them positive advantages,
Seeing that the tendency of socialist society is to substitute production for sale with pro-
duction for use,}it must be its endeavor to transform all social dues-taxes, interest that
may accrue from mortgages upon property that has been nationalized, etc., in so far
as these may not have been wholly abolished-from money payments into pay-
ments in kind. Such a change is equivalent to the raising of a tremendous
burden from the shoulders of the small farmer. In many ways the small farm-
ing class strains for this identical end. The recent subtreasury plan of the Farmers'
Alliance movement is an instance in point. But all these endeavors on their
part are bound to be abortive so long as the system of production for sale con-
tinues in force. Only the socialist commonwealth can bring on that ideal of so
many small farmers-payment in kind-and thereby remove one of the main causes
of their ruin.)
In point of fact the confiscators and expropriators are the capitalists; they
it is who confiscate the property of all the toiling classes-wage-workers,
small producers, working farmers, etc., etc. Socialist society will put an end to
confiscation.
It must, however, be admitted that Socialism neither proposes to, nor can,
stop the course of economic evolution. On the contrary, Socialism is to-day the
only means by which to promote the evolution. The same as in modern society,
so under the socialist system, large production will develop ever more, and absorb
ever more small branches of industry. In this respect, however, the same holds
good as in the case of the family and of wedlock. With regard to the one as
to the other, the direction of the evolution remains the same, with this difference,
however, that Socialism removes all the shocking and painful manifestations that
under the present system are the accompaniments of the social evolution; under
Socialism only the good features of progress will be seen.
To-day, the transformation of the small farmer and small producer from workers
in the field of small, into workers in the field of large, production means their
transformation from propertyholders into proletarians. In socialist society, how-
ever, the small producer whose industry is absorbed by large production can
only profit by the change; he becomes a sharer in the advantages of improved
methods; his condition is decidedly better; the change he then undergoes can
nowise be compared with that which he undergoes to-day; instead of being turned
from a propertyholder into a proletarian, he is turned from a small into a large
proprietor.
26
Small production is hopelessly doomed to disappear; only the socialist system
can make it possible for those who are still struggling in the mehes of small
production to become participants in the advantages of large production without
sinking into the class of the proletariat. The inevitable downfall of the small
producer, industrial and agricultural, can be an improvement to them, instead of
a source of increased troubles, only under the socialist system. Under Socialism
competition, that now grinds down and expropriates those who fall behind, will
no longer be the mainspring of the economic development; it will be the pover
of attraction which the more highly developed forms of production will exercise
upon the less developed ones.
A development of this sort is not only painless, but it proceeds much more
rapidly than under the spur of competition. To-day, when the introduction of
new and higher forms of production is impossible without ruining and expro
priating the owners of industries carried on under inferior forms, and without
inflicting suffering and privation upon large masses of workers, who have become
thereby superfluous, every economic progress encounters a dogged resistance. We
see on all sides instances of the tenacity with which producers cling to-day to
antiquated forms of production, and of their desperate efforts to preserve them.
Never yet was any system of production known so revolutionary as the present
one; never until now did any revolutionize so completely, within the space of
one hundred years, all human activities; and yet how many are not the rem-
nants of antiquated forms of production that still preserve their existence.
Just as soon as the fear disappears of being flung into the class of the pro-
letariat if an independent industry is abandoned; just as soon as the prejudices
existing to-day against large production disappear by reason of the advantages
which the social ownership of large production would bestow upon all, just as
soon as every body has the opportunity of sharing these advantages, only fools
will endeavor to preserve old and ineffective forms of production.
That which capitalist large production has failed to accomplish in a hundred
years, socialist large production will accomplish in no time, i. e., the absorption
of all industries that are still carried on with inferior methods; and this end will
be reached, not through ruin, misery and expropriation, but by the natural power of
attraction exercised by superior methods.
In such remote nooks and corners, where farming is carried on mainly for self
consumption, such a system may continue for sometime after the introduction of
socialist society; but it would not be long before the advantages to be derived from
socialist large production would be felt even in such places.
With regard to agriculture. especially, the transition from small to large produc-
tion will be greatly hastened and made easy by the steadily progressing disap-
pearance of the contrast between city and country, and by the tendency of locating
industries in convenient places.
27
•
IX.
Division of Products Under Socialism.
There is still a point, the most important of all, that should be touched
upon. The question most frequently put to a Socialist by capitalists is: How
will Socialists divide the wealth they produce; is each to have an equal share;
or how?
"Division," that is a thing that sticks in the very marrow of the philistines,
like a veritable leprosy. Their whole conception of Socialism begins and ends
with that word. Indeed, even among the most cultured, the idea is quite pre-
valent that the object of Socialism is to divide the whole wealth of the nation
among the people.
That this view still prevails, despite all protest and proofs on the part of the
Socialists is to be ascribed, not only to the malice of the enemies of Socialism,
but also, and perhaps to a greater extent, to their inability to understand the
social conditions that have been brought on by the development of large pro-
duction. Their horizon is still, to a great extent, bounded by the conceptions
that apply only to the system of small production. Indeed, judging from the
standpoint of small production, the only form of Socialism possible is division.
From the start of production for sale in antiquity it has happened innumerable
times, as often as a few families had heaped great wealth and had reduced
artisans and farmers to dependence, that these plotted for the expulsion of the
rich and the division of their property. They succeeded in this for the first
time during the French Revolution, notwithstanding, or perhaps, just by reason
of, its emphatic assertion of the rights of private property. Peasants, artisans
and the class that was about to develop into capitalists divided among themselves
the church estates. DIVISION IS THE SOCIALISM OF SMALL PRODUCTION; IT IS THE
SOCIALISM OF THE "CONSERVATIVE" BANKS OF SOCIETY;
RANKS OF SOCIETY; IT IS NOT THE SOCIALISM OF
THE PROLETARIAT.
It needs time, but the feat will yet be accomplished of ramming into the
heads of the so-called luminaries of our social system that Socialists do not pro-
pose to DIVIDE; that, on the contrary, their object is to CONCENTRATE in the
hands of society the instruments of production that are now scattered in the
hands of many owners.
But this does not yet dispose of the question of division. If the means of
production belong to society, to it must belong, as a matter of course, the func-
tion of disposing of the products that are brought forth with the aid of these
instruments. In what way will society distribute these among its members?
Shall it be upon the principle of equality or according to the labor performed
by each?
And in the latter case, is every kind of labor to receive the same
reward, whether it be agreeable or not, hard or easy, skilled or unskilled?
To many, the answer to this question seems to be the central point of
Socialism. Not only does it greatly pre-occupy the foes of Socialism, but even
the early Socialists devoted the greatest amount of attention to it. From Fourier
who
he?
28
to Weitling, and from Weitling to Bellamy there runs a steady stream of the
most diversified answers, many of which reveal a wonderful degree of acumen.
There is no lack of positive propositions; many of them are as plain as they
are praticable. Nevertheless, the question is not of the importance that is enerally
ascribed to it.
Time was when the distribution of products was looked upon as wholly in-
dependent from production itself; seeing, moreover, that the contradictions and
ills of the capitalist system of production manifest themselves first in its pecu-
liar method of distributing its products, it was quite natural that both the ex-
ploited classes and their friends should have located the root of the evil in the
"anjust" distribution of products. Of course these people proceeded, obedient
to the views that were prevalent at the beginning of this century, upon the
supposition that the existing system of distribution was the result of the ideas
of their days, i. e., of the popular understanding of right and wrong. In order
to remove this unjust system of distribution, all that was needed was to invent
ajuster one, and to convince the world of its advantages. The just system of
distribution could, of course, be none other than just the reverse of the existing
one. Among these people, some reasoned thus: "To-day there reigns the crassest
INEQUALITY; the principle upon which distribution should be based must be one
of EQUALITY.” Others followed another line of thought; they said: "To-day the
idler rolls in wealth while the laborer starves, consequently let the principle be
"To each according to his deeds"." Yet a third set raised objections to both
principles, and they set up a third formula: "To each according to his needs.'
The early Socialists spent much time upon this subject. For the same reasons
that they did so, to wit, their imperfect comprehension of the social mechanism,
not a few ideologists right here in the United States have tangled themselves in
the meshes of a profitless discussion upon this comparatively unimportant subject.
Modern Socialism, basing itself upon economic science takes the stand that
the distribution of products in a community is determined, not by the prevailing
conceptions of right and wrong, but by the prevailing system of production.
The share of the landlord, the capitalist and the wage-worker in the total pro-
duct of society is determined by the role which land, capital and labor-power
play to-day in the modern system of production. Sure enough, in the Co-operative
Commonwealth, the distribution of products will not be left to the mercy of
blind laws, which can never be well understood by those concerned.
The same
as to-day, in the interior of a large industrial establishment, production and the
payment of wages are matters that are carefully considered and well regulated,
so likewise in a socialist commonwealth, which is nothing more than a single
gigantic industrial concern, the same principle must prevail. The rules according
to which the distribution of products is to be carried out will be established by
the parties concerned. Nevertheless, it will not depend upor their whim what
those rules shall be; these will not be adapted arbitrarily to this or that prin-
ciple, however sonorous it may sound; they will be determined by the actual
condition of society, above all, by the condition of production itself.
For instance, the degree of the productivity of labor at any given time ex-
ercises a great influence upon the manner in which distribution is effected.
Without any excessive strain on the imagination, we can conceive a time when
science will have raised industry to such a high level of productivity that every-
29
•
thing wanted by man is produced in great abundance. In such case, the for-
mula "To each according to his needs" would be applied as a matter of course
and without difficulty. On the other hand, not even the profoundest conviction
of the justice of this formula would be able to put it into practice if the pro- J.B
ductivity of labor remained so low that the proceeds of the most excessive de-
gree of labor could produce only a bare necessity. Again, the formula "To each
according to his deeds" will always be found inapplicable. If it has any sense
at all, it pre-supposes a distribution of the total product of the commonwealth
among its members. This notion, the same as that about a general division and
the military form of Socialism, spring from the modes of thought that are pe-
culiar to the modern system of private property. To distribute the products at
stated intervals would be equivalent to the gradual re-introduction of private
property in the means of production.
--
M.B
The very essence of socialist production limits the possible distribution of
products to only a portion of these. All those products which are requisite to
the enlargement of production can not, as a matter of course, be the subject of
distribution; and the same holds good with regard to all such products that are
intended for common use, i. e., to the establishment, preservation or enlargement.
of public institutions.
Already in modern society the number and size of such institutions increases
steadily; it is upon this domain especially that large production crowds down
small production within the circle of household duties. It goes without saying
that so far from being checked, this development will be greatly stimulated in a
socialist commonwealth.
The quantity of products that can be absorbed by private consumption and,
accordingly, be turned into private property, must inevitably be a much slighter
portion of the total product in a socialist than in modern society, where almost
all products are merchandise and private property. In socialist, differently from
capitalist society, it is not the bulk of the products, but only the residue that
needs distribution.
But even this residue socialist society will not be able to dispose of at will;
there too, the requirements of production will determine the course to be pursued.
Seeing that production is undergoing steady changes, so likewise will the forms
and methods of distribution be subject to manifold changes in the socialist
commonwealth.
It is a Utopian idea to imagine that a special system of distribution is to
be manufactured, and that it will stand for all time. On this field, as little as
on any other, is socialist society likely to move by leaps and bounds, or start all
over anew; it is bound to go on from the point at which capitalist society
ceases. The distribution of goods in a socialist commonwealth might possibly
continue for some time under forms that are essentially improved developments of
the existing form of wage payment. At any rate this is the point from which
it is bound to start. Just as the forms of wage labor differ to-day, not only
from time to time, but also in various branches of industry, and in various sec-
tions of the country, so likewise, may it happen that in a socialist commonwealth
the distribution of products may be carried on under a variety of forms corre-
sponding to the various needs of the population and the historical antecedents of
the industry. The conception of the Co-operative Commonwealth as a rigid, cut-
30
and-dried, uniform institution held by hard and fast rules is mistaken; it is, on
the contrary, that system that, not only opposes least resistance to, but aids im-
measurably the course of evolution in all its manifold branches.
Next to the thought of "division", that of "equal shares" troubles the foes of
Socialism most. "Socialism," they declare, "proposes, that every one shall have
an equal share of the total product; the industrious is to have no more than
the lazy; hard and disagreeable labor is to receive no higher reward than that
that is light and agreeable; the hod-carrier who has nothing to do but to reach
out the material is to be on a par with the architect himself; under such cir-
cumstances, every one will work as little as possible; no one will perform the
hard and disagreeable tasks; knowledge having ceased to be appreciated will cease
to be cultivated; and the final result will be the relapse of society into barbar-
ism; consequently Socialism is impracticable."
میشه
The idiocy of this reasoning is too glaring to need exposure. This much
may be said: should socialist society ever decide to decree the equality of in-
comes, and should the effect of such a measure actually threaten to be the dire
one prophesied, then, and in that case, the natural result would be, not that
socialist production, but the principle of equality of incomes, would be thrown
overboard.
**
The foes of Socialism would be justified to conclude from the equality of in-
comes that Socialism is impracticable if they could prove:
(1) That this equality would be, under all circumstances, irreconcilable with
the progress of production. This they never have been and never will be able
to prove, seeing that the activity of the individual in production does not depend
solely upon his remuneration, but upon a great variety of circumstances-his sense
of duty, his ambition, his dignity, his pride, etc., etc.-none of which can be
the subject of positive prophecy, but only of conjecture, a conjecture, however,
which under improved social conditions, so far from making in favor, can only
make against the opinion expressed by the adversaries of Socialism; and
(2) That the equality of incomes is so essential to a socialist society that the
latter cannot be conceived without the former. To prove this the foes of Socia-
lism will find equally impossible. A glance over the various forms of communist
production which have still survived the shock of time, from the primitive com-
munism practised by our aboriginal Indians, down to the latest communistic
societies that have sprung up in various parts of the land, will reveal how manifold
are the forms of distribution that are applicable to a community of property™^ in
the instruments of production. All forms of modern wage payment-fixed salaries,
time wages, piece wages, bonuses-all of them are reconcilable with the spirit of
a socialist commonwealth; and there is not one of them that may not play quite
a role in socialist society, according as the wants and the customs of its mem-
bers, together with the requirements of production, may demand.
It does not, however, follow from this that the principle of the equality of
incomes-a principle that is not necessarily identical with their uniformity—will
cut no figure whatever in socialist society; whenever that principle shall assert
itself, it will not spring up as the aim of a movement for leveling things
generally, forcibly and straightway, but as the result of a natural development
and social tendency.
In the capitalist system of production there is seen simultaneously both a
31
tendency to increase, and one to diminish the differences between incomes; onė
tendency would aggravate, the other would reduce inequalities.
By dissolving the middle classes of society and swelling evermore the size of
individual fortunes the capitalist system broadens and deepens perceptibly the
chasm that exists between the masses of the population and those who are at
its head; the latter tower ever higher above the former and become less and less
approachable to them. Hand in hand with this tendency is noticed another,
which, operating within the circle of the masses themselves, steadily equalizes
their respective incomes; it flings the small producers, farmers and industrialists,
into the class of the proletariat, or at least, pushes their incomes down to the
proletarian level, and wipes out existing differences between the proletarians them-
selves. The machine tends steadily to the removal of all the differences which
originally took root among the proletariat; to-day, the differences in wages among
the various layers of labor fluctuate incessantly and come nearer and nearer to a
point of uniformity; at the same time the incomes of the educated proletariat
are irresistibly tending downwards. The equalization of incomes among the masses—
that thing at which the adversaries of Socialism affect to be shocked, and which
they brand with moral indignation as the malignant purpose of Socialism-is
going on under their own eyes, and is the result of their own precious system.
As a matter of course, all those tendencies that sharpen inequalities, and that
proceed from the private ownership in the means of production, would come to
an end, while the tendency to wipe out inequalities of incomes would find stronger
expression under the Socialist system. But here again, the observations made
upon the dissolution of existing family forms and upon the downfall of small
production hold good with equal force: the tendency of the economic develop-
ment remains in socialist, to a certain extent the same as in capitalist society,
but it finds expression in a very different way. To-day, the equalization of in-
comes among the masses of the population proceeds by the depression of the
higher incomes to the level of the lower ones; in a socialist commonwealth it
must inevitably proceed by the raising of the lower to the standard of the higher.
The adversaries of Socialism seek to frighten the small producers with the
claim that an equalization of incomes can mean for them nothing else than the
lowering of their conditions, because, say they, the incomes of the wealthy
classes are not large enough, if divided among the poor, to preserve the present
average income of the middle classes; that, consequently, if there is to be
equality of incomes the middle classes will have to give up part of their incomes,
and would by so much be the losers under Socialism.
Whatever truth there may be in this claim, lies in that; the most miserable,
above, the slums, are to-day so numerous and their indigence is so great that
the aistribution among them of the immense incomes of the rich might not suffice
to bring their condition quite up to the standard of the middle class. Whether
this argument could be advanced as a special reason for the preservation of our
glorious social system may well be doubted; some may be of the opinion that
any improvement that might be accomplished through such a division would be a
positive gain.
There is, however, no question about "division"; the only question is upon
the change of the method of production. The transformation of the capitalist
into the socialist system of production, must inevitably result in a rapid increase
32
*་་"་་
STAJAN ME
of the quantity of wealth produced yearly. It must never be lost sight of that
the capitalist system of production for sale hinders to-day the economic develop-
ment, hinders the full expansion of the productive forces that lie latent in
society. Not only is it not able to absorb the small industries in the measure
in which the technical development makes possible and requires; it has become
even impossible to it to employ all the labor forces that are available. The
capitalist system of production sqanders these forces in that it steadily drives an
increasing quantity thereof into the ranks of the unemployed, the slums, parasites
and the unproductive middle men.
Such a state of things is simply impossible in a socialist commonwealth; it
could not fail to find productive labor for all its available labor forces; it would
increase perceptibly, nay, it would double the number of productive workers; in
the measure in which it did this it would multiply the total wealth produced
yearly. This increase in production would be enough in itself to raise the in-
comes of all. workers, and not only those of the poorest ones.
Furthermore, socialist production would greatly promote the absorption of
small and its substitution by large production, and thereby also increase greatly
the productivity of labor; it would then be possible not only to raise the in-
comes of the workers but also to lower the hours of work.
In view of this the claim is puerile that Socialism means the equality of
pauperism. That is not the equality towards which Socialism tends; it is the
equality into which the modern system of production drives mankind. Socialist
production must inevitably improve the conditions of ALL WORKING CLASSES—those
of the small producer and small working farmer included. According to the
economic conditions under which the change from capitalism to Socialism may
be effected, will the improved general well-being of the community be greater or
less; but whatever those conditions may be, the progress will be marked; and
from that point on every further economic development will, instead of LOWERING,
as it does to-day, RAISE the general well-being of the commonwealth.
This turn in the direction of the course generally taken by incomes is, in
the eyes of Socialists, of much more importance to the well-being of society than
the absolute increase of incomes. The thoughtful man lives more in the future than
in the present; what the future threatens or promises to him preoccupies him
more than the enjoyment of the present. Not what IS but what WILL BE, not
EXISTING CONDITIONS, but tendencies determine the happiness or the unhappiness
both of individuals and of whole states.
Thus we become acquainted with another element of superiority in socialist
over capitalist society. It affords, not only an IMPROVED CONDITION OF WELL-
BEING but also the CERTAINTY OF LIVELIHOOD-a certainty not afforded to-day by
the largest fortune. If the improvement of well-being can be appreciated, mainly,
if not only, by the classes that hitherto have been exploited, the certainty of a
livelihood is a boon to the exploiters themselves, to those whose well-being needs
no improvement even where such might be possible. Uncertainty hovers over
both the rich and the poor, and possibly it is more trying than want itself; it
causes even those to taste the bitterness of want who are not yet subject to it;
it is a specter that haunts the most luxurious homes.
All observers who have become acquainted with communistic societies, whether
these were situated in India, France or America, have all been struck with the
33

St
appearance of calmness, confidence and equanimity peculiar to their members.
Independent of the oscillations of the market, and in possession of their own
instruments of production, they are self sufficient; they regulate their labor ac-
cording to their needs and they know in advance just what they have to expect.
And yet the security against want enjoyed by these primitive or more recent
colonies far from being perfect; their control over nature is slight, the com-
munities themselves are small. Mishaps_brought on by cattle diseases, failures
of crops, freshets, etc., are not infrequent, and when they occur smite the whole
body. Upon how much firmer a basis does not the Co-operative Commonwealth
stand with boundaries co-extensive with those of the nation and with all the
conquests of science at its command!
X.
Socialism and Freedom.
That a socialist commonwealth would afford its members comfort and security
has been admitted even by the foes of Socialism; "but," say they, "these ad-
vantages are bought at too dear a price; they are paid for with a total loss of
freedom; the bird in a cage may also have sufficient daily food; it also is
secure against hunger, the inclemencies of the weather and enemies; but it has
lost its freedom and for that reason it is a pitiful being, that peeps through
gilded bars into a world of dangers and want, and fain would struggle for its
own existence". They maintain that Socialism destroys economic freedom and
the freedom of labor; that it introduces a despotism in comparison to which the
most unrestricted political absolutism would be freedom, because this would con-
trol only one side of man, whereas Socialism would control all the phases of
human activity.
So great is the fear of this slavery that even some Socialists are seized with
it, and they become so-called "philosophical" anarchists. These gentlemen have
as great a horror for the Communism that there is in Socialism as they have
for the system of production for sale; and the odd measure they take to escape
both is to demand both; they want to have Communism and production for sale
together. Theoretically, this is absurd; in practice, the thing amounts to noth-
ing else than the exploded co-operative establishments which addle-pated capitalist
philanthropists have again and again advocated, again and again started, and again
and again failed in.
The charge is correct that socialist production is irreconcilable with the full
freedom of labor, that is to say, with the freedom of the laborer to work when,
where and how he wills. But so is this freedom of the worker irreconcilable
with all planful, co-operative work, whatever the form which it may assume,
whether the form be capitalistic or socialistic. Freedom of labor is possible
only in small production, and even there only up to a certain point. Even
where the small producer is freed from all social restrictions, he still remains
34.
:
dependent upon natural and social influences: the farmer depends upon the
weather, the small industrialist depends upon the markets. "Freedom of Labor'
is the ideal, the most revolutionary ideal, which the class of the small producer,
anable to look beyond the horizon of small production, is capable of. This
ideal had its good reasons a hundred years ago; to-day it has no economic
bottom to stand on, and can only haunt the heads of such people as are un-
able to perceive the industrial revolution that hast since then taken place. The
downfall of the "Freedom of Labor" is necessarily connected with the downfall
of small production. It is not the Socialists, but the resistless progress of large
production, who destroy that. Oddly enough, the very ones on whose lips is
found most frequently the declaration that "labor must be free" are the capital-
ists, i. e., those who have contributed most to the overthow of that freedom.
"Freedom of labor" has come to an end, not only in the mills, but in all
other places where the individual worker is only a link in a long chain of
workers; it does not exist either for the manual worker or for the "brain
worker," employed in any industry; the hospital doctor, the school teacher, the
railroad employe, the newspaper writer, and so on interminably-none of these
enjoys "Freedom of Labor"; they are all bound to certain rules; they must all
be at their posts at a certain hour.
For all this, the workingman does enjoy freedom in one respect under the
capitalist system. If the work does not suit him in one factory, he is free to
seek work in another; he can change his employer; in a socialist commonwealth,
where all the means of production are in a single hand, there is but one em-
ployer; to change him were impossible.
In this respect the wage-worker has to-day, what, superficially considered, may
seem an advantage over the workingman in a socialist commonwealth; but this
advantage cannot be given the name of "Freedom of Labor”. However frequently
a workingman may change his place of work to-day, he will find in each place,
substantially the same arrangements which hold the individual workers to certain
rules and regulations, all of which are a technical necessity.
The freedom, with the loss of which the workingman is threatened in a
socialist commonwealth, is, accordingly, not the "Freedom of Labor" but the
freedom to change his master. Under the present system, this freedom, where
it still exists, is of no slight importance; it is a protection to the workingman.
But even this freedom is gradually destroyed by the progress of capitalism; the
increasing number of the unemployed reduces ever more and more the number
of jobs that are free, and throws upon the labor market more applicants than
there are piaces.
The idle workingman is, as a rule, happy if he can at all
secure work. And furthermore, the increased concentration of the means of
production in a few hands has the steady tendency of placing over the working-
man the identical employer or set of employers, whichever way he may turn.
Inquiry therefore shows that what is decried as the wicked and tyrannical ten-
dencies of Socialism are but the natural tendencies of the economic development
which manifest themselves even in modern society.
It is not through Socialism, but through the economic development that free-
dom in the choice and opportunity of work is removed as much as freedom
during work itself. Socialism does not mean to, neither could it, if it would
check this development; but in this as in so many other respects Socialism can
35

obviate the evils that accompany the development. It cannot remove the de-
pendence of the workingmen upon the mechanism of production in which they
are one of the wheels; but it substitutes for the super-added dependence of the
workingmen upon a capitalist, with interests hostile to themselves, their depen-
dence upon a society of which they are themselves members, a society of equal
comrades, all of whom have the same interests.
It can be easily understood how and why dapper lawyers, authors and the
like may consider such a dependence unbearable; but such a dependence is not
unbearable to the modern proletarian, as a glance upon the trades union move-
ment will show. The trade organizations of labor furnish a picture of the so-
called "tyranny" of the socialist system of which the foes of Socialism have so
much to say. In the organizations of labor the rules under which each mem-
ber is to work are laid down accurately and enforced strictly; yet no sane mem-
ber of any such organization has ever complained that these rules were an un-
bearable restriction upon his personal liberty. Those who have found it incumbent
upon them to defend the "Freedom of Labor" against this shocking "terrorism,'
and who have done so, often with force of arms and with bloodshed, were, be
it noted, never the workingmen, but their EXPLOITERS. Poor "Freedom," what
has it come to that it has to-day no defenders other than our modern slaveholders!
The lack of freedom in work does, however, not only lose its oppressive
character, it also becomes the foundation of the highest freedom yet possible to
mankind. This seems a contradiction, but the contradiction is only in ap-
pearance.
Down to the day when large production stepped up, the labor employed in
the production of the necessities of life took up the full time of those engaged
in it; it required the fullest exercise of both body and mind; this was true
not only with the fisherman and the hunter, it was also true with regard to the
farmer, the mechanic and the merchant. The existence of the human being en-
gaged in production was consumed wholly by his occupation. It was labor that
steeled his sinews and nerves, that quickened his brain and made it anxious to
acquire knowledge. But the further the division and subdivision of labor was
carried, the more one-sided did it make the producers. Mind and body ceased
to exercise themselves in a variety of directions and to develop all their powers-
Wholly taken up by the fractional labor of the moment, the producers lost their
capacity to comprehend their whole surroundings. A harmonious, well-rounded
development of physical and mental powers, a deep concern in the questions
relating to nature and society, a philosophical bent of mind, i. e., the search
after the highest truths for their own sakes-none of these could be found under
such circumstances, except among those classes who remained free from the
necessity of toil. Until the commencement of the era of machinery this was
possible only by throwing upon others the burden of labor, by exploiting them.
The most ideologic, the most philosophic race that history has yet recorded, the
only society of thinkers and artists, devoted to science and art for their own
sakes was the Athenian aristocracy, the slaveholding landlords of Athens.
Among them all labor, whether slave or free, was degrading;
so.
and justly
It was no presumption on the part of Socrates when he said, "Traders and
mechanics lack culture; they have no leisure, and without leisure no good educa-
tion is possible. They only learn what their occupation requires of them

36
knowledge itself has no attraction for them.
They take up arithmetic only for
the sake of trade, not for the purpose of acquiring the knowledge of numbers.
It is not given to them to see higher. The merchant and mechanic say: The
pleasure derived from honor and from knowledge is of no value when compared
with money making.' However able smiths, carpenters and shoemakers may be
in their own trade, most of them are animated only with the souls of slaves;
they know not the beautiful, the good or the just.”
The economic development has progressed greatly since those days; the
division and sub-division of labor has reached a point undreamt of then; and
the increment taken by the system of production for sale has driven both the
former exploiters and cultured people into the class of producers. Not unlike
the mechanics and the farmers, the rich also, are wholly taken up with their
business. They do not now assemble in gymnasiums and academies, but in stock
exchanges and markets; the speculations in which they are absorbed do not con-
cern the questions of truth and justice, but the prices of wool, whiskey trust
stock, corporation bonds and dividends on coupons. These are the speculative
thoughts that consume their mental activities. After these "labors" they have
neither strength nor taste for any but the most grovelling amusements.
On the other hand, as far as the cultured classes are concerned, their educa-
tion has become a merchandise. They too, have neither time nor stimulus to
indulge in disinterested researches after truth, or to strive after an ideal. Each
one buries himself in his specialty, and considers every minute lost that is spent
in learning something that cannot be reduced to dollars and cents. Hence the
movement, that is becoming quite general, and in which the New York Sun has
taken conspicuous lead, to abolish public colleges, or to remove the study of
Greek and Latin from existing ones. Whatever the pedagogic grounds may be
upon which this movement seeks to place itself, the real reason for it is the
vulgar and vulgarizing desire to have the youth taught only such things as are
"useful,” i. e., such things as can be converted into money.
Even among scientific men and artists, the instinct after a harmonious
development in all directions is perceptibly losing ground. On all sides specialists
are springing up. Science and art are degraded to the level of a trade. What
Socrates once said of the mechanics, now holds good of these. Philosophy is
on the decline-that is to say, within the classes that are here considered.
In the meantime a new sort of labor has sprung up-MACHINE LABOR; and a
new class the PROLETARIAT.
The machine robs labor of all intellectual activity. The workingman at a
machine needs no longer to think; all he has to do is silently to obey the
machine. The machine dictates to him what he has to do; he has become an
appendage to it. What is said of the machine holds good also, although to a
slighter extent, of handicraft: the division and subdivision of labor in the pro-
duction of a single article, that was once brought forth by a single man, among
innumerable workingmen, establishes the same conditions and paves the way for
the introduction of machinery.
The first result of the monotony and absence of intellectual activity in the
work of the proletarian is to dull his mind.
The second result is that he is driven to revolt against excessive hours of
work. To him labor is not identical with life; life commences only when his
37
labor is at an end. To those workingmen, to whom labor and life were identical,
freedom of labor meant freedom of life. The workingman, however, who can
be said to live, i. e., enjoy life, only when he does not work, can enjoy free-
dom of life only by being free from labor. As a matter of course, the efforts.
of this class of workers can not be directed towards freeing themselves from al
work. Labor is the condition precedent for life. But their efforts will necessarily
be directed towards reducing their hours of work far enough to leave them time
to live.
This is one of the principal sources of the struggle on the part of the
modern proletariat to shorten the hours of work; a struggle which would have
had no meaning to the mechanics and the farmers of former social systems.
The struggle of the proletariat for shorter hours is not aimed at economic ad-
vantages, small or large, such as arise in wages or the reduction of the number
of the unemployed; the struggle for shorter hours is a STRUGGLE FOR LIFE.
A third result is that machine labor is deprived of mental activity. The
intellectual powers of the proletariat are not exhausted by their labor as are the
intellectual powers of those workers who are not lashed to the machine; with
the proletarian the intellectual powers lie fallow or are suspended during work.
For this reason the craving of the proletarian to exercise his mind outside of
his hours of work is strong. One of the most remarkable phenomena in modern
society is the thirst for knowledge displayed by the proletariat. While all other
classes kill their leisure time with the most unintellectual pastimes, the proletarian
displays a passion for intellectual culture. Only he who has had opportunity to
move among the proletariat can have any adequate conception of the ambition of
its members to learn and enlighten themselves. But even he who stands far
away may have some inkling thereof if he compares the papers, magazines, books
and pamphlets that circulate among the workingmen with those that are current
in higher circles.
But above all, this thirst for knowledge is entirely unselfish with the work-
ingman. The worker at a machine will not be able to raise his income through
the knowledge he may acquire. In seeking truth he does so for its own sake,
not for the sake of material profit. Accordingly, he does not limit himself to
any one domain of knowledge; he tries to embrace the whole; he seeks to un-
derstand the whole of society and the whole world. The hardest problems attract
him most; carried on by this instinct he often loses himself in the clouds.
It is not the possession of knowledge, but the desire to acquire it that con-
stitutes the philosopher. It is among the despised and ignorant ass of the
modern proletariat that the philosophical spirit of the most brilliant members of
the Athenian aristocracy is revived. But the free development of this spirit is
not possible in modern society. The proletariat is without means to instruct
itself; it is deprived of opportunities for systematic study; it is exposed to all
the dangers and inconveniences of planless self-instruction; above all it lacks
sufficient leisure. Science and art remain to the proletariat a promised land,
which it looks upon from a distance, which it struggles to possess, but which it
cannot yet enter.
Only the triumph of Socialism can render accessible to the proletariat all the
sources of culture; only the triumph of Socialism can make possible the reduction
of the necessary hours of work to such a point that the workingman can enjoy
38
leisure enough to acquire all the knowledge that he desires. The capitalist sys-
tem of production awakens the desire for knowledge in the breast of the prole.
tariat; only the socialist system of production can satisfy it.
It is not the "Freedom of Labor" but the freedom from labor, such as
machinery will make possible in a socialist commonwealth, that will bestow upon
mankind freedom of life, freedom to engage in science and art, freedom to
delight in the noblest pursuits..
That happy, harmonious culture, which has only once appeared in the history
of mankind, and was then the privelege of a small body of select aristocrats,
will become the common property of all civilized nations. What slaves were to
the ancient Athenians, machinery will be to civilized man in a socialist society.
Man will then feel and respond to all the elevating influences that flow from
freedom from excessive toil for their own sustenance, without being at the same
time poisoned by the evil effects which chattel slavery exercised upon the Athe-
nian aristocrats, and finally unnerved them. And the same as the modern aids
to science and art are far superior to those of thousands of years ago; and the
same as the modern domain of civilization exceeds prodigiously the small terri-
tory of ancient Greece, so will socialist society, the Co-operative Commonwealth,
i. e., the most brilliant community, that history has yet brought forth, excel all
others in moral greatness and material well-being.
Happy he whose lot it is to contribute his efforts in the struggle for this
beautiful ideal !
:0:
WHY WORKMEN ARE UNEMPLOYED?
An Answer To A Burning Question.
By ALEXANDER JONAS, New York.
How DOES IT COME?
A few years ago we had very hard times throughout the whole country; we call it a
orisis, a business crisis; many, very many hundred thousands of workmen and working
women in all branches of industry were out of employment and wandered from house to
house, from city to city, and from one state to the other.
They would readily have accepted any kind of work, but there was none to be had;
they could not find any. Factories were closed, or running only half time; business
☛ɔuses had nothing to do; there were but few buyers; on the farms there was some
narvest work to do, but being without money, the unemployed could not in many cases
reach the work offered at a distance. Besides, such employment was only temporary,
and after a few weeks the former misery returned.
Naturally there were millions of workmen still in employment. But how were they
paid? With the lowest wages possible; not enough to live on; too much to starve
spon. The few dollars saved up were speedily spent. Many who had joined a building
Association with a view to getting a home of their own, could not keep up their pay-
sment. The home, built with their hard earnings (and loans at high rates of interest), for
the sake of which they had silently accepted so many reductions in wages (for they could
not move as easily as before they became property owners), the little homes had to be
sacrificed. As the times were hard and no one wanted to invest in property unless it
could be bought for a song, they were compelled to accept less for their homes than it
cost to build it. And thus they lost all.
Misery Intensified.
Some of the few valuables which grace a workman's home, found their way to the
pawn shop, and the pall of darkest poverty fell upon the family. Exhausted from use-
less search for work, the father fails to return home. The few last cents are spent for
drink in the vain hope of drowning sorrow in liquor, and another drunkard's name is
added to the roll of the miserable. The family disperses. The father becomes a regular
tramp; he wanders aimlessly into the world; becomes unfit for work, even if it were
now obtainable, the wife and children suffer from day to day for the necessaries of
life. The boys became street gamins, and the girls,-the girls did not chose to starve,
and became what they could not avoid.
Laws were now passed against "tramps," hundreds of thousands of whom filled the
streets of our cities. They were treated likes brutes, and hunted down like wild beasts.
Legislatures vied with each other in their endeavors to excel in enacting the most stren-
uous and cruel laws. One monster in human form proposed to look up the tramps in
flooded prison chambers, and compel them to work the pumps or drown. In this way
t was hoped to accustom them to work again.
The Innocent Must Suffer.
Oh, it was a reign of terror ! Think of the misery: tens of thousands, hundreds of
thousands of industrious honest human beings all eager to work-to work for the lowest
wages, and unable to find work. They became beggars; became so-called criminals-
without any fault of theirs. Were they to blame for the scarcity of employment? Was
it their fault that even in "good times" their wages were so small, that if they wanted
to live like human beings, little could be saved. And that little saved up fund is speed-
ily used up, when the father of a family is without work for weeks and months at a
time.
A beautiful world; benign human institutions those, under which such shocking
conditions are possible.
A Famine, Amidst Abundance.
But the most astonishing circumstance was that, as the great business depression
began, there was such a superabundance of all the good things of the earth on hand,
that it became a puzzle what should be done with them.
If there had been no flour with which to bake bread, no clothing or shoes, no
furniture or utensils on hand; if the butcher had had no cattle or sheep to kill; if
there had been no chickens, doves and turkeys on the farms; no cigars or beer, linen
or cloth, no carpets or articles of industry; if there had not existed enough rooms
and dwellings to afford shelter for all the weary heads of mankind-then the great
calamity could easily have been explained. Then one could have said yes, it is very
natural that the people waste away and hunger, for they have no homes, nor shoes, and
their clothes are patches of rags because there has been no work done; the people are
thriftless and lazy, and there is no wonder about their poverty.
But exactly the reverse had been the case. Long before the crash broke in, labor
had been powerfully active for 10 to 14 hours per day; even overtime nad been worked,
and when there was a sudden cessation, all warehouses and storage rooms were stuffed
full of goods from floors to rafters; in the elevators of the country there was an abun-
dance of grain, and the farmers were puzzled to know what to do with all their fruit
crop, their fowls, milk and eggs.
The Enigma.
Many sought to find a solution to the great riddle, and tried to ascertain the reason
why hundreds of thousands of people should suffer amidst plenty and abundance. And
some really found a solution and showed how such occurrences could be permanently
prevented. But we shall relate later what they discovered and what they proposed;
first let us show how the story further develops itself.
Most of the workmen were perfectly dumb-founded and had not the faintest idea
of how it all came about. They had organized trades unions, that is, societies of crafts-
men in which the members mutually assisted each morally and financially. When the
boss tried to reduce their wages, all stood together and resisted. They endeavored to
reduce their working hours and keep up wages. They often succeeded; indeed the labor
unions were splendid institutions as long as times were good. But now, when the shops
and factories shut down, and general idleness resulted, they became perfectly helpless.
They tried in vain to keep up wages. There were so many hundreds of thousands of
unemployed, that no demand could be enforced. Everybody wanted to secure a living,
and many were compelled to accept the very lowest wages. Those unions which had
strong treasuries, materially assisted their members as long as the funds lasted; but
such assistence had to finally cease, for where so many thousands are in need, the
largest defence fund is soon swallowed up.
Better Times.
These conditions lasted for several years, and then a gradual improvement was
noticeable. In the meantime large numbers of people had become completely impover
ished; not only workmen, but also small traders and business men; many families had
been separated and were completely broken up. The stored up goods were partially
ruined: another portion had depreciated in value, but was after all mostly consumed.
Gradually orders began to flow in to manufacturers, and employment was given to
labor. Money again began to circulate among the people, and they again became
consumers. New buildings were again constructed. Many thousand small manufact-
urers, business men and farmers had been hopelessly ruined and had to be content to
find a place among the wage earners. But instead of the many thousand small business
enterprises, we now see large manufacturing corporations, big jobbers and large buyers,
and bonanza farmers. Business is done on a larger scale, and with increased capital.
Naturally large numbers of people became more dependent, as the number of big bosses
increased. But times improved; work again became abundant, machinery spurred and
whirred, the engines again drew larger freight trains and a golden era of prosperity
seemed again to have dawned. The workmen reorganized their trades unions, and kept
on voting the same old party tickets, just as though nothing had happened.
The hundreds of thousands who had been bankrupted were forgotten; the grave warn-
ings of the wise, whose insight led them to realize that prosperity could not be perman-
ent, unless better precautious should be made to prevent future orashes—all these
warnings were unheeded.
The Crash Repeated.
Calamity strides like a Colossus. After a few years industry is again interrupted.
First wages are reduced and strikes ensue. Orders being slack, the bosses are not
Inconvenienced, and persist in wage reductions; at the same time improved machinery is
introduced and workmen are displaced; all at once, without any apparent cause, the
crash overtakes us in a more acute form than before; misery is again rampant and
triumphant, and shocking poverty engulfs the land.
And thus we witness for the third time during the short space of 20 years the
frightful apparition of famine, of family separation, the wrecking of millions-and over
all the land the path of the gaunt spectre is strewn with the debris of a million fortunes.
Why and Wherefore?
Why this endless repetition of universal misery? Shall this continue forever, and is
there no remedy? These are the questions which every thoughtful man must seriously
entertain and honestly endeavor to solve. Some contend that our financial conditions
are at fault. Our government has coined too much silver whion is actually worth less
than its fictitious face value. For example: a silver dollar contains 70 cents worth, or
less, of silver, and the people of Europe, especially, who do business with us and buy
our goods, have lost confidence in us. They will not accept our silver, but demand
payment in gold, and hence our gold leaves the country, and flows abroad. Because of
this-many imagine-our own business men also lose confidence, lock up their factor-
ies, and discharge their workmen. But this is all nonsense.
It is certainly true that a majority of our Congressmen, being but ordinary
politicians, understand very little about how the affairs of the nation ought to be con-
dacted. As many of them are wealthy men, or are intimately connected with the
wealthy classes; some even being in the service of wealthy corporations, it is but
natural that they should enact laws favorable to the rich, but detrimental to the work.
men, and all poor people who live from hand to mouth.
The Silver Question.
And so they came to enact that foolish Sherman bill, whereby the government
is compelled to buy great quantities of silver from western mine owners, stamp it
at the nationat mints, and thus provide in fiat, what the silver dollar lacks in value
of the commercial rate of bullion. The politicians did this solely for the purpose of
increasing the price of silver, thereby enriching the silver mine owners.
And yet there are a lot of people, especially farmers, and some wage earners,
who imagine that it is good for our country if it is full of cheap money. But exactly
the opposite is the case. Let us assume that, in times when money is good and
worth its face value, the workman receives $10 per week. For this he can buy
goods to the actual value of $10. But when a depreciated currency, or a cheap
silver dollar is put into circulation and $10 are worth only the value of $7, his
wages are actually reduced $3 per week. It is possible that at the start the difference
may not be suspected. But as coinage is increased, the business world loses confidence
in it. In order to equalize the purchasing power of his wages he ought to get $13
per week instead of $10. But every workman will readily see that in hard times and
during periods of business depressions it is impossible to raise wages. Therefore a
wage earner acts contrary to his interest when he goes in for free silver coinage.
On the contrary it is his interest and duty to do all in his power as a citizen
and a voter, to secure the circulation of honest money only, so that every dollar
coined by the government shall be recognized and accepted over the wide world as
a reliable dollar.
The Cause Not Yet Discovered.
But the silver coinage question cannot lie at the bottom of the great poverty and
crisis, for as long as the employer can obtain orders, he will continue to manufacture
goods and employ labor, exacting higher prices on sales, proportioned to the depre-
ciated value of money taken in payment. And that long also the jobbers, workmen
and railroads will be kept busy. And the farmer, too, can dispose of his products,
as long as millions of wage earners are employed and have money to spend. The
Sherman act will be repealed, and our gold is being returned from Europe in
installments of several millions weekly and yet no improvement in the economic
condition of the people is noticeable.
But there are people who say: No, the silver question is not the cause of
poverty; but it is the question of free trade and protection.
Up to the present time, the largest part of the goods bought from Europe have
been subject to a toll, or tariff. We have a so-callel protective tariff. Now free
trade is to be resorted to, that is, that all goods which we buy from Europe, shall
come in free, without paying toll, or tariff. The uncertainty which prevails as to the
policy to be adopted by the present dominant political party, it is alleged depresses
business.
But this is not entirely correct. For, in the first place, nothing effecting tariff
changes has yet been done, and everbody knows that it will be a long time before
any changes are likely to be made. Besides, business was exceptionally good imme-
diately after the November elections of 1892 which showed the verdict of the American
people to be in the direction of tariff reform or alleged free trade.
The best proof that neither free trade nor tariff is the real cause of the present
crisis, is the fact that the same wide-spread poverty and sudden crash startled the
country in 1873 and 1884 when there was no messing with the silver question, and
free trade and tariff were at least a less prominent political issue. A still further
proof is the fact that similar sudden crashes visit Europe every few years, and,
as with us, continue to repeat themselves. And that, too, in countries having worth-
less as well as stable currency; in free trade as well as high tariff countries; in countries
ruled by kings and queens, as well as in republics such as Switzerland, France and the
United States.
Many people mistake the occasion of a crash for the real cause thereof. Failures at
the Stock Exchange, financial muddles and such like factors may lead to, but are not the
causes of, business depression.
As with an individual, who through physical exhaustion and a dissolute life has
become enervated. His whole constitution has become enfeebled, and his blood
perhaps corrupted. But he may continue to prolong existence for quite a while.
Accidentally he catches cold; and suddenly the symptoms of a fatal disease become
manifest, and he is thrown off his feet. One might claim that the cold was the cause of
his illness, but in reality the cold was only an occasion, and incident, which pre-
cipitated a disease, all the conditions of which had previously existed.
Precisely so it is with our extended poverty and sudden panic; the silver question,
failures at the Exchange, the free trade bugaboo, all of which may have added their
straws to the overburdened camel's load, but none of which singly caused it to break
down on the highway. The cause of the breakdown was the weight of the previous
load. So with our crisis; the real cause lies deeper.
The Real Cause.
As is generally known, modern production differs from all previous primitive
efforts. Before the introduction of machinery, when there were no railroads, no steam
power or electricity, everything was produced by the slowest, crudest and most labor-
ious processes of hand labor. The boots needed were ordered of the shoemaker; ready
made goods in a modern sense did not then exist. To the master of the cabinetmakers”
guild was given an order for chairs, tables, etc., and these were made to order, or
selected from the usual small stock which a few journeymen and apprentices had made
under the overseeing eye of the master. The farmer carried his few sacks of grain to
the mill, and it was generally well known what was needed in the small village settle-
ments. Goods were made for existing demand, and little was made which was not
required for immediate consumption. People lived frugally, for their instruments of
production were few and of the cradest construction, and the output was small. In the
country similar conditions prevailed. The farmer sold or traded his small stock of
grain, fruit, milk and eggs, for other necessities, apparel or furniture, and surplus
margins on both sides remained small, so that vast storage rooms were unnecessary, and
were unknown,
The journeyman in time became a master; the merchant's assistant eventually
opened a store of his own; the farmer's hired man, after many years of saving bought a
few furlongs of land which he proudly called his own. Life was a struggle with indigence,
and the few requirements were limited to necessities. But real hard times, as now
understood, during which thousands are without food, were limited to times of war, or
when rulers and nobles ate up the substance of the people, or when crops successively
failed.
But that in the midst of peace, without oppression of any kind, and in free coun-
tries, overwhelmed by superabundant crops, and with unsurpassed stores of all tho good
things on earth, humanity should be suddenly plunged in deepest misery-all this is a
distinctively modern occurrence, and has no historic parallel prior to the age of invention,
the development of the factory system, and the introduction and extensive application
of labor saving machinery.
The New Era.
Certainly much has been changed since then. Commerce and trade, manufacture
and agriculture-all, all have been gigantically augmented, and magnificently enlarged
and developed. The remnants of primitive, crude production are not worth mention.
Modern production is en gros. Not with a few journeymen and apprentices does the guild
master toil in an inferiorly equipped workshop; but hundreds, thousands, ten thousands
of workers are all employed by one boss or one company or corporation; they finish,
with the aid of improved machinery, steam powder and electrical appliances immeasur-
able stores of merchandise so that one would be forced to the conclusion that the people
suffered from a superabundance, rather than from a scarcity of food, goods, or wares.
But serious disadvantages now become apparent. Formerly the workman
produced almost exclusively custom work as ordered by people who needed said articles
personally, and the merchant was fairly well conversant with the needs and the
requirements of his custom trade. Surplus stock rarely existed; rather a scarcity of
goods was the rule. To-day, matters
matters are quite reversed. The New York and
Philadelphia manufacturer sells his goods in the markets of the world; i. e., ships them
as readily and impartially to Berlin, in Germany, or St. Petersburg, in Russia, as
to San Francisco, in California.
He is compelled to seek customers everywhere, for his machinery and factory
deteriorate from inactivity. Though machinery is idle, and factories are closed down,
interest, insurance, tax, clerical and guard service etc., are not decreased. and expenses
outrun income. He desires to retain his skilled and preferred workmen, in order to
maintain the standard excellence of product. He is therefore compelled to continue
production as long as it is at all possible. But all of his competitors are in the same
predicament; all are bent on distancing, surpassing, outbidding, underselling and over-
toppling each other. The big fish eat up the little ones.
This commercial trade rivalry and industrial strife is not confined to domestic manu-
facturers, but the struggle is international, and nations for apart vie with each and all
others. The manufacturers of England prefer that their goods find exclusive sale in
South America, in various European countries, in Australia, and even among the wild
tribes of darkest Africa. In close competition and hot pursuit we find the manufacturers
of the United States, Germany, France, etc.; and England finds herself close pressed to
maintain her industrial pre-eminence. In order to gain trade and increase customers,
manufacturers resort to every possible resource. New machinery is invented and
applied in order to reduce cost of production; wages of workmen are reduced, in order
to manufacture cheaper. Goods are adulterated, and quality is sacrificed.
Manufacturers no longer sell, like the old time craftsman, direct to the consumer,
but to large jobbers and distributors, who transport wares to all parts of the country,
and supply smaller dealers, traders and shopkeepers. In order to retain or hold the
trade of these large buyers, every conceivable concession is made by rival manufacturers.
They sell goods on long credit; i. e. let them have manufactured articles on tick, so
that they need not make settlement for 3, 6 or 9 months. After one manufacturer has
given a business firm quarterly credit, there comes another who offers 6 months' credit,
simply to unload goods. Jobbers know how to play their game; they require small
means, little capital, and order and sell goods largely on credit, that is, on debts.
Business is done, not with capital, but on liabilities.
The Collapse.
This free-for-all hippodrome endures for a while. It is a great tournament, in which
each endeavors to unhorse his combatant. Every manufacturer is the antagonist,
opponent and rival of all others; each seeks to surpass or conquer all others in the
gauzily disguised industrial battle.
Immense masses of goods are produced for which there is not the least demand,
Manufacturers must keep on turning out goods to keep machinery and works in action;
the business man places orders in anticipation of new orders, and in this way pays his
old debts by contracting new ones.
Finally all trade becomes blockaded; business stagnates; industry languishes;
orders slow up, for stocks are abnormally large. Workmen are suspended, laid off,
discharged. With payment of wages also suspended, they buy little, and pay for less.
Business becomes duller.
Artificial incidents are added to real causes; rumor lends her lying tongue and
mouths threats of impending war; a few bank failures add increased fear to the
general distrust; financial conditions become shaky, cranks rally round
the silver dollar, and lo! suddenly we are startled by a spectral confrontation of an
immense
Crash!
As the stores are stuffed full of all kinds of goods for which there is no demand,
there is a scarcity of orders at the business houses. For this reason manufacturers are
compelled to shut down their works, or produce only half time. Business men cannot
pay their old debts, for they cannot contract new ones. Banks refuse to loan money,
some of them even burst, because they have loaned out too much. Railroads and ships
have nothing to do. Hundreds of thousands and millions of workmen are unemployed.
Had they received good wages when employed, matters would not have been so bad, for
they would have been enabled to have saved up something. Or better still, they could
have purchased more goods right along, and thus have kept stocks reduced, which now
cannot be disposed of, and the crash could not have been so severe.
What is the real cause, therefore, of the crisis, the cause of so many workmen being
unemployed?
It is not the gold and silver question; not free trade or tariff, etc., but solely and
exclusively the fact that
primarily in our present senseless and planless system of production: in trade
and commerce, there are created, in a stated period, more goods than can possibly
be consumed, and therefrom results stagnation, and the crash overtakes us.
Men call this overproduction, (to produce over and above actual demand.)
And secondly, it results from the fact that the great majority of the people,
namely the wage earners, do not receive the full value of their product, but that
a part of it is retained to enrich the bosses, while the workmen receive low wages
and are therefore not able to buy the abundant goods which they actually need.
Men call this underconsumption (To consume, i. e. use under, or less than what is
produced and stocked up.)
This all explains why these crashes, (or crises, as they are called,) make their
appearance in all countries of the earth in precisely the same manner, and then again
gradually disappear, regardless of forms of government, for in both points, namely
(a) in the senseless manner of the production of goods, and (b) because the workmen
receive less wages than they earn, and is necessary to buy back the goods they produce
—in these two points the same system prevails in every industrial country of the world.
Is There a Remedy?
Is there no remedy for the workmen, so as to prevent the ever recurring misery?
That the workmen suffer most, almost solely from such conditions, few sensible
men will deny.
A permanent remedy can only be expected, when the evil is plucked up by the roots,
and the whole ruinous system of overproduction and underconsumption is annihilated
and replaced by a more sensible system.
As long as every country has hundreds of thousands of bosses who engage in
suicidal and self destructive competition, so long also will they keep on manufacturing
goods regardless of actual demand, and so long will business be conducted on tick, and
so long the whole swindle system which inevitably leads to bankruptcy, will endure.
And so long also, the workmen will never receive the full value of their products, for
the bosses must have profits, and very naturally can only "make money" in proportion
as they skin labor, and pay them less wages than they should have in order to buy back
the goods they produce.
If now the socialized methods of production were adopted, which would make all
workmen equal sharers in all manufacturing and business branches, and would conduct
all business transactions without bosses for the exclusive benefit and use of all partici-
pant producers, an overproduction of goods would be a simple impossibility, for
Competition, as understood to-day, would cease to exist;
Production would be regulated by natural and necessary demand;
The demands of the world's markets would be definitely known, for all
orders instead of being, as now, divided among a hundred thousand petty
bosses, would reach central offices established by labor, where knowledge and
experience would be mutually exchanged for the common good of all, not
secretively guarded and hidden for private gain.
Then all producers, i. e., every individual who worked directly for the common weal
as well as indirectly for himself, would actually receive all he produces. For there
would be no more parasitic bosses who must make profits; and all participants in the
collectively conducted factories, industries, mines, farms etc. would receive, fully and
completely, all that had been produced under the most favorable conditions.
Toward such a condition of affairs we are inevitably tending; for the small business
men and manufacturers are constantly being crushed out in the competitive struggle,
and unless there is a complete transformation, there will eventually remain only a
few enormously wealthy individuals, and millions of indigent, pauperized workmen.
But this unavoidable effectual transformation will not take place instantaneously,
and will not occur in a year or two from now.
The question therefore which presses for solution is, how can
Immediate Relief
be provided for the hundreds of thousands of unemployed.
The attempt to provide immediate relief can be made in two directions; direct
charitable relief to alleviate present distress; or, work for the unemployed. The latter
method, if possible and practical, would be the most effective. Money and the dis-
tribution of food-though always better than nothing,— are but as a drop of water
upon a hot stone; regardless of the fact that the most intelligent and deserving
workman would rather pawn his last coat, than humiliate himself by the acceptance of
beggar soup.
But where find, and how provide work for the unemployed?
Manufacturers and business men are powerless, for their trade is stagnated.
The powerful hand of the state or municipality alone can provide ample relief.
The nation and the community even as constituted to-day, are amply competent
to provide powerful ways and means for immediate relief, if they were only honestly
willing, that is, if the public officials, who represent the nation and municipality,
were possessed of "good will toward all men" and women who toil.
Public works of various kinds, which accrue to the benefit of the Commonwealth,
would afford work to hundreds of thousands of unemployed.
Why is this not done? Why have our officials, who have been humbly approached
and politely requested by labor leaders to provide such public work for the unem-
ployed, made evasive answers, coupled with the lamest possible excuses ?
Very naturally
They Have No Respect For Labor!
And why should they have? When men are to be elected to make or enforce
the laws of the people, candidates from all phases of our population are selected-
but none from the ranks of labor! The workmen themselves cast their votes for candidates
whom they know will enact and execute laws beneficial to the bosses, manufacturers
and capitalists, but to the detriment of labor.
Of the 356 so-called representatives of the people in Washington, 207 are attorneys
at law, or some sort of "legal lights," 14 are manufacturers; 21 are merchants; 8 are
bankers; 3 are railway magnates; the remainder are farmers, cattle kings or ranchers.
doctors, etc.
There is among them all not one labor representative!
And so it is everywhere, in all states of the Union, in all city councils-everywhere
where there is anything to officially discuss, to do or undo, labor is not in it.
How, under these circumstances, can wage earners expect that anything will ever be
done for them, even in times of their direst necessity? What do lawyers know about
the requirements of labor, even if they were honestly concerned about their welfare?
And the representatives of capital know very well that at the next election labor votes
will re-elect them, in spite of all adverse acts of the past on their part.
In order to secure immediafe relief, it is absolutely necessary that politicians be
compelled to recognize the rights of, and beget
Respect For Labor!
And this can only be done by organizing themselves into a separate political party
which shall elect men to office who know what the workers need, have the set purpose
and honest intention to vote, originate and enact laws favorable to the interests of the
toilers.
Such a political labor party is already in existence. It is the Socialist Labor Party,
organized in every country on earth, and has practically demonstrated that it perfectly
understands the needs of the workers.
Workingmen, identify yourselves in a body with this party, and relief will be
afforded quicker than many of you dare anticipate. If the politicians find that the
workers are joining the Socialist Labor Party by tens and hundreds of thousands, they
will realize that you have aroused yourselves from your Rip Van Winkle nap and political
indifference, and frightened at the certainty of losing their positions, will immediatley
do all that is possible in the way of affording public work to relieve present distress.
Many of you may say: "Our most urgent need is work, and you talk glibly to us
about politics; we want bread, and you give us a cold stone !”
But he who argues thus, is a simpleton. Workingmen, we cannot and will not en-
deavor to deceive you. Whoever tells you that your case can be cured with beg-
gar soup, or by spaniel-humbleness before old party claquers, is trying to deceive you,
as you may speedily ascertain.
Profit by the experience of the past. Whosoever desires the object, must also adopt
the means necessary for its attainment. You want immediate work, from the nation
or municipality, because private capitalistic enterprise cannot furnish it. The state and
city are political institutions, and he who desires to exercise control over them, and
derive benefit from them, must do so through political action, the elections and the
ballot.
Join the Socialist Labor Party at once, and then you can move for immediate relief
from your dire need-you will then be on the highway to permanent improvement of
your condition and the establishment of the Co-operative industrial system, in which
crises, like the present, with their frightful train of woe and misery, will be impossible.
Earnestly consider your condition in the light of the arguments we have advanced,
and then determine to pursue the path outlined, for there is no other means whereby
emancipation from industrial slavery can be achieved, but political action.

Vorwärts,
German Official Organ of the SOCIALIST LABOR PARTY.
PUBLISHED WEEKLY,
64 East Fourth Street,
New York City.
Subscription $2.00 a year, 50 cents a quarter,
5 cents a copy.
:

New Yorker Volkszeitung.

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TRUTHFUL RECORDER OF LABOR'S STRUGGLES!
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UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
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