[160] Let also one American instance be cited. It occurred on April 1, 1894, in Dolgeville, N. Y., where an employe of the "profit-sharing"
concern of Alfred Dolge--at whose annual dinners Professor, now President George Gunton was regularly a star guest, and orator to the "dined" workingmen on the beauties of "profit-sharing,"--one of the workingmen, driven by the pinching poverty and incert.i.tude inflicted upon him by the "profit-sharing" practice, killed his wife, four children and himself, and left a letter describing his plight. (See "The People," April 8, 1894)--THE TRANSLATOR.
[161] As early as the days of Plato were the consequences of such conditions understood. He writes: "A nation in which cla.s.ses exist, is not one, but two: one cla.s.s is made up of the poor, the other of the rich, both living together, yet on the watch against each other.... In the end, the ruling cla.s.s is unable to conduct a war, because it would then have to avail itself of the ma.s.ses, whom, armed, it fears more than the enemy himself"; Plato, "The Republic." Aristotle says: "Widespread poverty is an evil, inasmuch as it is hardly possible to prevent such people from becoming inciters of sedition"; Aristotle, "Politics."
[162] "Natuerliche Schoepfungsgeschichte."
[163] Similarly Plato in "The Republic": "Crimes have their roots in want of culture, in bad education and bad social inst.i.tutions."
Evidently, Plato understood the nature of society better than one of his learned successors twenty-three hundred years later,--not a cheering contemplation.
[164] In the sense of German industrial statistics, every employer is placed under the head of "small producer" who employs less than five persons.
[165] Clemens Heiss: "Die grossen Einkommen in Deutschland."
[166] Clemens Heiss, _ubi supra._
[167] Clemens Heiss: "Die grossen Einkommen in Deutschland."
[168] According to the census of 1900, the capital invested in industry was 9,831 million dollars,--an increase over 1890 of 3,307 million; and the value of the industrial products was 13,010 million dollars,--an increase over 1890 of 3,640 millions.--THE TRANSLATOR.
[169] Professor Adolf Wagner expresses the same thought in his first revised edition of Raus" "Lehrbuch der politischen Oekonomie." He says, p. 361: "The social question is the consciousness gained by the people of the contradiction between the economic development and the social principle of freedom and equality, that hovers over their minds as the ideal, and is realized in political life."
[170] Dr. E. Sax says in his work "Die Hausindustrie in Thuringen,"
among other things, that in 1869 the production of 244 million slate pencils had given from 122,000 to 200,000 gilders in wages to the labor, but the final price paid by the consumer rose to 1,200,000 gilders; it was, accordingly, at least six times as much as the producer received.
In the summer of 1888, there were 5 marks paid at first hand for 5 hundredweights of sh.e.l.lfish; the retailer paid the wholesale dealer 15 marks; and the public paid 125 marks. Moreover, large quant.i.ties of foodstuffs are destroyed because the prices will not pay for transportation. For instance, in years of great herring draughts, whole boatloads are turned to manure, while inland there are hundreds of thousands of people who can buy no herrings. It was likewise in 1892 with the large potato crops in California. And yet sense is claimed for such a state of things.
[171] The industrial census of June 5, 1882, gives Germany 386,157 large and 154,474 small stores, a total of 531,631. In the large shops, there were 705,906 persons employed.
[172] Dr. Rud. Meyer, "Das Sinken der Grundrente."
[173] "Die Fideikommisse in den westlichen Provinzen Pruessens."
[174] For further details see, "Das soziale Elend und die besitzenden Kla.s.sen in Oesterreich," T. W. Teisen.
[175] A German idiom, expressive of dumb bewilderment, uses the simile: "Like oxen before a mountain."--THE TRANSLATOR.
CHAPTER VII.
THE SOCIALIZATION OF SOCIETY.
The soon as possible general expropriation of all the means of production furnishes society with a new foundation. The conditions of life and labor--in manufacture, agriculture, transportation and communication, education, marriage, science, art and intercourse--are radically changed for both s.e.xes. Human existence acquires a new sense.
The present political organization gradually loses ground: the State vanishes: in a measure it abolishes itself.
It was shown in the first part of this book why the State arose. It arises, as the product of a social growth, from a primitive form of society, that rested on communism and that dissolved in the measure that _private property_ developed. With the rise of private property, antagonistic interests take shape within society; in the course of its development these antagonisms lead to rank and cla.s.s contrasts, and these, in turn, grow into enmities between the several groups of interests, and finally into rank and cla.s.s struggles, that threaten the existence of the new social order. In order to keep down these rank and cla.s.s struggles, and to protect the property-holders, an organization is requisite that parries the a.s.saults on property, and that p.r.o.nounces "legal and sacred" the property obtained under certain forms. _This organization and power, that guards and upholds property, is the State._ Through the enactment of laws it secures the owner in his ownership, and it steps as judge and avenger before him who a.s.sails the established order. By reason of its innermost being, the interest of a ruling property cla.s.s, and of the Government therewith connected, is ever conservative. The organization of the State changes only when the interest of property so demands. The State is, accordingly, the _inevitably necessary_ organization of a social order that rests upon cla.s.s rule. The moment cla.s.s antagonisms fall through the abolition of private property, the State loses both the _necessity_ and the _possibility_ for its existence. With the removal of the conditions for rulership, the State gradually ceases to be, the same as creeds wane when the belief ceases in supernatural beings, or in transcendental powers gifted with reason. Words must have sense; if they lose that they cease to convey ideas.
"Yes," interjects at this point a capitalist-minded reader, "that is all very well, but by what "legal principle" can society justify such a change?" The legal principle is the same that ever prevailed, whenever it was the question of changes and reforms,--_public policy_. Not the State, but society is the source of right; the State is but the committee of Society, authorized to administer and dispense right.
Hitherto, "Society" has been a small minority; yet it acted in the name of the whole community (the people) by p.r.o.nouncing itself "Society,"
much as Louis XIV. p.r.o.nounced himself the "State,"--"_L"etat c"est moi_"
(I am the State). When our newspapers announce: "The season begins; society is returning to the city," or "The season has closed; society is rushing to the country," they never mean the people, but only the upper ten thousand, who const.i.tute "Society" as they const.i.tute the "State."
The ma.s.ses are "plebs," "vile mult.i.tude," "canaille," "people." In keeping therewith, all that the State has done in the name of Society for the "public weal" has always been to the advantage and profit of the ruling cla.s.s. It is in its interests that laws are framed. "_Salus reipublicae suprema lex esto_" (Let the public weal be the supreme law) is a well known legal principle of Old Rome. But who const.i.tuted the Roman Commonwealth? Did it consist of the subjugated peoples, the millions of slaves? No. A disproportionately small number of Roman citizens, foremost among these the Roman n.o.bility, all of whom were supported by the subject cla.s.s.
When, in the Middle Ages, n.o.blemen and Princes stole the common property, they did so "according to law," in the "interest of the public weal," and how drastically the common property and that of the helpless peasants was treated on the occasion we have sufficiently explained. The agrarian history of the last fifteen centuries is a narration of uninterrupted robbery perpetrated upon common and peasant property by the n.o.bility and the Church in all the leading countries of Europe. When the French Revolution expropriated the estates of the n.o.bility and the Church, it did so "in the name of the public weal"; and a large part of the seven million of landed estates, that are to-day the prop of modern bourgeois France, owe their existence to this expropriation. "In the name of the public weal," Spain more than once embargoed Church property, and Italy wholly confiscated the same,--both with the plaudits of the zealous defenders of "sacred property." The English n.o.bility has for centuries been robbing the Irish and English people of their property, and, during the period of 1804-1832 made itself a present of not less than 3,511,710 acres of commons "in the interest of the public welfare." When during the great North American war for the emanc.i.p.ation of the negro, millions of slaves, the regular property of their masters, were declared free without indemnity to the latter, the thing was done "in the name of the public weal." Our whole capitalist development is an uninterrupted process of expropriation and confiscation, at which the manufacturer expropriates the workingman, the large landlord expropriates the peasant, the large merchant expropriates the small dealer, and finally one capitalist expropriates another, i. e., the larger expropriates and absorbs the smaller. To hear our bourgeoisie, all this happens in the interest of the "public weal," for the "good of society." The Napoleonites "saved Society" on the 18th Brumaire and 2d of December, and "Society" congratulated them. If hereafter Society shall save itself by resuming possession of the property that itself has produced, it will enact the most notable historic event--_it is not seeking to oppress some in the interest of others, but to afford to all the prerequisite for equality of existence, to make possible to each an existence worthy of human beings_. It will be morally the cleanest and most stupendous measure that human society has ever executed.
In what manner this gigantic process of social expropriation will be achieved, and under what modality, eludes all surmise. Who can tell how general conditions will then be, and what the demands of public interest will be?
In his fourth social letter to v. Kirchmann, ent.i.tled "Capital,"
Rodbertus says: "The dissolution of all capitalist property in land is no chimera; on the contrary, it is easily conceivable in national economy. It would, moreover, be the most radical aid to society, that, as might be put in a few words, is suffering of rent-rising--rent of land and capital. Hence the measure would be the only manner of abolishing property in land and capital, _a measure that would not even for a moment interrupt the commerce and progress of the nation_." What say our agrarians to this opinion of their former political co-religionist?
In the contemplation of how matters will probably shape themselves along the princ.i.p.al lines of human activity, upon such a measure of general expropriation, there can be no question of establishing hard and fast lines, or rigid inst.i.tutions. No one is able to forecast the detailed molds in which future generations may cast their social organizations, and how they will satisfy their wants. In Society as in Nature, everything is in constant flux and reflux; one thing rises, another wanes; what is old and sered is replaced with new and living forms.
Inventions, discoveries and improvements, numerous and various, the bearing and significance of which often none can tell, are made from day to day, come into operation, and, each in its own way, they revolutionize and transform human life and all society.
We can, accordingly, be concerned only with general principles, that flow inevitably from the preceding _expose_, and whose enforcement may be supervised, up to a certain point. If even hitherto society has been no automatic ent.i.ty, leadable and guidable by an individual, much as appearances often pointed the other way; if even hitherto those who imagined they pushed were themselves pushed; if even hitherto society was an organism, that developed according to certain inherent laws;--if that was. .h.i.therto the case, in the future all guiding and leading after individual caprice is all the more out of question. Society will have discovered the secret of its own being, it will have discovered the laws of its own progress, and it will apply these consciously towards its own further development.
So soon as society is in possession of all the means of production, _the duty to work, on the part of all able to work, without distinction of s.e.x, becomes the organic law of socialized society_. Without work society can not exist. Hence, society has the right to demand that all, who wish to satisfy their wants, shall exert themselves, according to their physical and mental faculties, in the production of the requisite wealth. The silly claim that the Socialist does not wish to work, that he seeks to abolish work, is a matchless absurdity, which fits our adversaries alone. Non-workers, idlers, exist in capitalist society _only_. Socialism agrees with the Bible that "He who will not work, neither shall he eat." But work shall not be mere activity; it shall be useful, productive activity. The new social system will demand that each and all pursue some industrial, agricultural or other useful occupation, whereby to furnish a certain amount of work towards the satisfaction of existing wants. _Without work no pleasure, no pleasure without work._
All being obliged to work, all have an equal interest in seeing the following three conditions of work in force:--
First, that work shall be moderate, and shall overtax none;
Second, that work shall be as agreeable and varied as possible;
Third, that work shall be as productive as possible, seeing that both the hours of work and fruition hinge upon that.
These three conditions hinge, in turn, upon the nature and the number of the productive powers that are available, and also upon the aspirations of society. But Socialist society does not come into existence for the purpose of living in proletarian style; _it comes into existence in order to abolish the proletarian style of life of the large majority of humanity_. It seeks to afford to each and all the fullest possible measure of the amenities of life. The question that does rise is, How high will the aspirations of society mount?
In order to determine this, an administration is requisite that shall embrace all the fields of social activity. Our munic.i.p.alities const.i.tute an effective basis thereto: if they are too large to allow a ready supervision, they can be divided into wards. As in primitive society, all members of the community who are of age partic.i.p.ate in the elections, _without distinction of s.e.x_, and have a voice in the choice of the persons who are to be entrusted with the administration. At the head of all the local administrations stands the central administration--as will be noted, not a Government, with power to rule, but an executive college of administrative functions. Whether the central administration shall be chosen directly by popular vote or appointed by the local administration is immaterial. These questions will not then have the importance they have to-day: the question is then no longer one of filling posts that bestow special honor, or that vest the inc.u.mbent with greater power and influence, or that yield larger incomes: it is then a question of filling positions of trust, for which the fittest, whether male or female, are taken; and these may be recalled or re-elected as circ.u.mstances may demand, or the electors may deem preferable. All posts are for given terms. The inc.u.mbents are, accordingly, clothed with no special "official qualities"; the feature of continuity of office is absent, likewise a hierarchical order of promotion. Hence it is also immaterial to us whether there shall be middle stages, say provincial administrations, between the central and the local administrations. If they are deemed necessary, they are set up; if they are not deemed necessary, they are left alone. All such matters are decided by actual exigencies, as ascertained in practice. If the progress of society has rendered any old organization superfluous, it is abolished without further ado and dispute, there being no longer any personal interest in conflict; and new ones are similarly established. Obviously, _such an administration, resting upon the broadest democratic foundation, differs radically from what we have to-day_. What a battle of newspapers, what a war of tongues in our parliaments, what mountains of public doc.u.ments in our bureaus, if but a trivial change is made in the administration or the Government!
The princ.i.p.al thing to ascertain is the number and the nature of the forces that are available, the quant.i.ty and nature of the means of production,--the factories, workshops, means of transportation and communication, land--and also their productivity. The next thing to ascertain is the quant.i.ty of the supplies that are on hand and the extent to which these can satisfy the wants of society. As to-day the State and the several munic.i.p.alities yearly cast up their budgets, the thing will then be done with an eye to all the wants of society, without thereby excluding changes that increased or new wants may demand.
Statistics here play the chief _role_: they become the most important subsidiary science of the new order: they furnish the measure for all social activities.
Statistics are extensively used to-day for similar purposes. The Imperial, State and munic.i.p.al budgets are based upon a large amount of statistical reports, made yearly by the several administrative branches.
Long experience and a certain degree of stability in the running wants facilitate their gathering. Every operator of a large factory, every merchant is, under normal conditions, able to determine accurately what he will need during the next three months, and how he should regulate his production and purchases. Unless excessive changes set in, his calculations will be found safe.
The experience that crises are caused by blind, anarchic production, i.
e., that production is carried on without a knowledge of the volume of supply, of sales and of demand of and for the several goods in the world"s market, has, as indicated in previous pa.s.sages, caused large manufacturers in several branches of industry to join in Trusts and rings, partly with the view of steadying prices, partly also for the purpose of regulating production by the light of previous experience and of the orders received. According to the capability of each establishment and to the probable demand, the output of each is determined for the next few months. Infractions are punished with heavy conventional mulcts, and even expulsion. The capitalists do not conclude these agreements for the benefit of the public, but to its injury and to their own profit. Their purpose is to utilize the power of combination in order to secure the greatest advantages to themselves. This regulation of production has for its object to enable the capitalist to demand from the public prices that could not be got if the compet.i.tive struggle was on between the several capitalists. These enrich themselves at the expense of the consumers who are forced to pay whatever price is demanded for the goods they need. As the consumer, so is the workingman injured by the Trusts. The artificial regulation of production throws a part of the working cla.s.s out of work, and, in order that these may live, they underbid their fellows at work. Thus the employer derives a double advantage: he receives higher prices, and he pays lower wages.
Such a regulation of production by combinations of capitalists _is exactly the reverse of that which will be practiced in Socialist society_. While to-day the interests of the capitalists is the determining factor, the interests of all will then be the guide.
Production will then be carried on for the satisfaction of human wants, and not in order to obtain, through high prices, large profits for private individuals. Nevertheless, the best planned combination in capitalist society can not take in and control all the factors needed in the calculation: compet.i.tion and speculation run wild despite all combinations: finally the discovery is made that the calculation had a leak, and the scheme breaks down.
The same as production on a large scale, commerce also has extensive statistics. Every week the larger centers of commerce and the ports publish reports on the supply of petroleum, coffee, cotton, sugar, grain, etc. These statistics are frequently inaccurate, seeing that the owners of the goods frequently have a personal interest in concealing the truth. On the whole, however, the statistics are pretty safe and furnish to those interested, information on the condition of the market. But here also speculation steps in, upsets all calculations, and often renders all legitimate business impossible. Seeing how impossible is a general regulation of production in capitalist society, due to the existence of many thousands of private producers with conflicting interests, it will be obvious why the speculative nature of commerce, the number of merchants and their conflicting interests render equally impossible the regulation of distribution. Nevertheless, what is done in these directions indicates what could be done so soon as private interest were to drop out and the interests of all were alone dominant.
A proof of this is furnished by the statistics of crops, that are yearly issued by the leading countries of civilization, and that enable certain general conclusions to be drawn upon the size of the crops, the extent that they will supply the demand, and the probable price.
In a socialized society matters are fully regulated; society is held in fraternal bonds. Everything is done in order; there, it is an easy matter to gauge demand. With a little experience, the thing is easy as play. If, for instance, the demand is statistically established for bread, meat, shoes, linen, etc., and, on the other hand, the productivity of the respective plants is equally known, _the average daily amount of socially necessary labor is thereby ascertained. The figures would, furthermore, point out where more plants for the production of a certain article may be needed, or where such may be discontinued as superfluous, or turned to other purposes._
Everyone decides the pursuit he chooses: the large number of different fields of activity caters to the tastes of all. If on one field there is a surplus and on another a dearth of labor-power, the administration attends to the equalization of forces. To organize production, and to furnish the several powers with the opportunity to apply themselves at the right places will be the princ.i.p.al task of these functionaries. In the measure that the several forces are broken in, the wheels will move with greater smoothness. The several branches and divisions of labor choose their foremen, who superintend the work. These are no slave-drivers, like most foremen of to-day; they are fellow workers, who, instead of a productive, exercise an administrative function entrusted to them. The idea is by no means excluded that, with the attainment of higher perfection, both in point of organization and of individuals, these functions should alternate so that, within a certain time, and in certain order, they are filled by all _regardless of s.e.x_.
A system of labor, organized upon a plan of such absolute liberty and democratic equality, where each stands for all, and all stand for each, and where the sense of solidarity reigns supreme,--such a system would generate a spirit of industry and of emulation nowhere to be found in the modern economic system. Nor could such a spirit of industry fail to react both upon the productivity of labor and the quality of labor"s product.