FOOTNOTES:
[25] The Christian Socialist author of The Gospel for To-day. See chapter on Christian Socialism.
[26] Mr. Wilshire, in his volume of criticism on my American speeches.
[27] Socialism: the Mallock-Wilshire Argument. By Gaylord Wilshire. New York, 1907.
[28] While this work was in the press, one of the English Labour members, Mr. Curran, at a public meeting, gave his views, as a socialist, about this very question—equality of industrial opportunity—and as an example of such opportunity already in existence, he mentioned the cash-credit system, which prevails in banks in Scotland. He seemed unaware that such advances of capital made in this system are made to picked men only. These men, moreover, have the strongest stimulus to effect in the face that they will keep all their profits. If a socialistic state gave cash-credits to everybody, it would confiscate all the profits if the workers were successful, and have no remedy against them if they failed.
[29] Unto This Last.
[30] See note to previous chapter, referring to the recent Red Catechism for socialist Sunday schools, in which children are taught, as the primary article of faith, that the wage-earners produce everything, that the productivity of all is practically equal, and that all are entitled to expect precisely the same kind of life.
CHAPTER XVI
THE SOCIAL POLICY OF THE FUTURE
I was constantly asked by socialists in America whether I really believed that society, as it is, is perfect, and that there are no evils and defects in it which are crying aloud for remedy. Unless I believed this—and that I could do so was hardly credible—I ought, they said, if I endeavoured to discredit the remedy proposed by themselves, to suggest another, which would be better and equally general, of my own.
Now, such an objection, as it stands, I might dismiss by curtly observing that I did not, and could not, suggest any remedy other than socialism, partly because the purport of my entire argument was that socialism, if realised, would not be a remedy at all; and partly because, for the evils that afflict society, no general remedy of any kind is possible. The diseases of society are various, and of various origin, and there is no one drug in the pharmacopœia of social reform which will cure or even touch them all, just as there is no one drug in the pharmacopœia of doctors which will cure appendicitis, mumps, sea-sickness, and pneumonia indifferently—which will stop a hollow tooth and allay the pains of childbirth.
But though such an answer would be at once fair and sufficient, if we take the objection in the spirit in which my critics urged it, the objection has more significance than they themselves suspected, and it requires to be answered in a very different way. Socialism may be worthless as a scheme, but it is not meaningless as a symptom. Rousseau's theory of the origin of society, of the social contract, and of a cure for all social evils by a return to a state of nature, had, as we all know now, no more relation to fact than the dreams of an illiterate drunkard; but they were not without value as a vague and symbolical expression of certain evils from which the France of his day was suffering. As a child, I was told a story of an old woman in Devonshire who, describing what was apparently some form of dyspepsia, said that "her inside had been coming up for a fortnight," and still continued to do so, although during the last few days "she had swallowed a pint of shot in order to keep her liver down." The old woman's diagnosis of her own case was ridiculous; her treatment of it, if continued, would have killed her; but both were suggestive, as indications that something was really amiss. The reasoning of Rousseau, who contended that the evils of the modern world were due to a departure from primeval conditions which were perfect, and that a cure for them must be sought in a return to the manner of life which prevailed among the contemporaries of the mammoth, and the immediate descendants of the pithekanthropos, was identical in kind with the reasoning of the old woman. The reasoning of the socialists is identical in kind with both. It consists of a poisonous prescription founded on a false diagnosis. But just as the diagnosis, no matter how grotesque, which a patient makes of his or of her own sufferings, and even the remedies which his or her fancy suggests, often assist doctors to discover what the ailment really is, so does socialism, alike in its diagnosis and its proposed cure, call attention to the existence of ailments in the body politic, and may even afford some clue to the treatment which the case requires, though this will be widely different from what the sufferer fancies.
Such being the case, then, in order that a true treatment may be adopted, the first thing to be done is to show the corporate patient precisely how and why the socialistic diagnosis is erroneous, and the proposed socialistic remedies incomparably worse than the disease. To this preparatory work the present volume has been devoted. Let us reconsider the outline of its general argument. As thoughtful socialists to-day are themselves coming to admit, the augmented wealth distinctive of the modern world is produced and sustained by the ability of the few, not by the labour of the many. The ability of the few is thus productive in the modern world in a manner in which it never was productive in any previous period, because, whereas in earlier ages the strongest wills and the keenest practical intellects were devoted to military conquest and the necessities of military defence, they have, in the modern world, to a constantly increasing degree, been deflected from the pursuits of war and concentrated on those of industry. But the old principle remains in operation still, of which military leadership was only one special exemplification. Nations now grow rich through industry as they once grew rich through conquest, because new commanders, with a precision unknown on battle-fields, direct the minutest operations of armies of a new kind; and the only terms on which any modern nation can maintain its present productivity, or hope to increase it in the future, consist in the technical submission of the majority of men to the guidance of an exceptional minority. As for the majority—the mass of average workers—they produce to-day just as much as, and no more than, they would produce if the angel of some industrial Passover were henceforward to kill, each year on a particular day, every human being who had risen above the level of his fellows, and, in virtue of his knowledge, ingenuity, genius, energy, and initiative, was capable of directing his fellows better than they could direct themselves. If such an annual decimation were inaugurated to-morrow in civilised countries such as Great Britain and America, the mass of the population would soon sink into a poverty deeper and more helpless than that which was their lot before the ability of the few, operating through modern capital, began to lend to the many an efficiency not their own. In other words, the entire "surplus values"—to adopt the phrase of Marx—which have been produced during the last hundred and fifty years, have been produced by the ability of the few, and the ability of the few only;[31] and every advance in wages, and every addition to the general conveniences of life, which the labourers now enjoy, is a something over and above what they produce by their own exertions. It is a gift to the many from the few, or, at all events, it has its origin in the sustentation and the multiplication of their efforts, and would shrink in proportion as these efforts were impeded. If, then, the claims which socialists put forward on behalf of labour are really to be based, as the earlier socialists based them, on the ground that production alone gives a valid right to possession, labour to-day, instead of getting less than its due, is, if we take it in the aggregate, getting incomparably more, and justice in that case would require that the vast majority of mankind should have its standards of living not raised but lowered.
Is it, then, the reader will here ask, the object of the present volume to suggest that the true course of social reform in the future would be gradually to take away from the majority some portion of what they at present possess, and bind them down, in accordance with the teaching of socialists in the past, to the little maximum which they could produce by their own unaided efforts? The moral of the present volume is the precise reverse of this. Its object is not to suggest that they should possess no more than they produce. It is to place their claim to a certain surplus not produced by themselves on a true instead of a fantastic basis.
Socialists seek to base the claim in question, alternately and sometimes simultaneously, on two grounds—one moral, the other practical—which are alike futile and fallacious, and are also incompatible with each other. The former consists of the a priori moral doctrine that every one has a right to what he produces, and consequently to no more. The latter consists of an assumption that those who produce most will, in deference to a standard of right of a wholly different kind, surrender their own products to those who produce least. The practical assumption is childish; and the abstract moral doctrine can only lead to a conclusion the opposite of that which those who appeal to it desire. But the claim in question may, when reduced to reasonable proportions, be defended on grounds both moral and practical, nevertheless, and the present volume aims at rendering these intelligible. Let us return for a moment to Rousseau and his theory of the social contract. We know to-day that never in the entire history of mankind did any such conscious contract as Rousseau imagined take place; but it is nevertheless true that virtually, and by ultimate implication, something like a contract or bargain underlies the relation between classes in all states of society.
When one man contracts to sell a horse for a certain price, and another man to pay that price for it, the price in question is agreed to because the buyer says to himself on the one hand, "If I do not consent to pay so much, I shall lose the horse, which is to me worth more than the money"; and the seller says to himself on the other hand, "If I do not consent to accept so little, I shall lose the money, which is to me worth more than the horse." Each bases his argument on a conscious or subconscious reference to the situation which will arise if the bargain is not concluded. Similarly, when any nation submits to a foreign rule, and forbears to revolt though it feels that rule distasteful, it forbears because, either consciously or subconsciously, it feels that the existing situation, whatever its drawbacks, is preferable to that which would arise from any violent attempt to change it. The same thing holds good of the labouring classes as a whole, as related to those classes who, in the modern world, direct them. By implication, if not consciously, they are partners to a certain bargain. They are not partners to a bargain because they consent to labour, for there is no bargaining with necessity; and they would have to labour in any case, if they wished to remain alive. They are partners to a bargain because they consent to labour under the direction of other people. It is true that, as regards the present and the near future, they are confronted by necessity even here. This is obviously true of countries such as Great Britain, in which, if the labour of the many were not elaborately organised by the few, three-fourths of the present population would be unable to obtain bread. Nevertheless, if we take a wider view of affairs, and consider what, without violating possibility, might conceivably take place in the course of a few disastrous centuries, the mass of modern labourers might gradually secede from the position which they at present occupy, and, spreading themselves in families or small industrial groups over the vast agricultural areas which still remain unoccupied, might keep themselves alive by labouring under their own direction, as men have done in earlier ages, and as savages do still. They would have, on the whole, to labour far harder than they do now, and to labour for a reward which, on the whole, would be incomparably less than that which is attainable to-day by all labour except the lowest. Moreover, their condition would have all the "instability" which, as Spencer rightly says, is inseparable from "the homogeneous." It could not last. Still, while it lasted, they could live; and, in theory, at all events, the mass of the human race must be recognised as capable of keeping themselves alive by the labour of pairs of hands which, in each case, are undirected by any intelligence superior to, or other than, the labourer's own. In theory, at all events, therefore, this self-supporting multitude would be capable of choosing whether they would continue in this condition of industrial autonomy, with all its hardships, its scant results, and its unceasing toil, or would submit their labour to the guidance of a minority more capable than themselves. Such being the case, then, if by submitting themselves to the guidance of others they were to get nothing more than they could produce when left to their own devices, they would, in surrendering their autonomy, be giving something for nothing—a transaction which could not be voluntary, and would be not the less unjust because, as all history shows us, they would be ultimately unable to resist it. Justice demands that a surrender of one kind, made by one party, should be paid for by a corresponding surrender of another kind, made by the other party; which last can only take the form of a concession to labour, as a right, of some portion of a product which labour does not produce. Labour can, on grounds of general moral justice, claim this as compensation for acquiescence, even though the acquiescence may, as a matter of fact, be involuntary.
Human nature, however, being what it is, these purely moral considerations would probably have little significance if they were not reinforced by others of a more immediately practical kind. Let us now turn to these. The motive which prompts labour to demand more than it produces is itself primarily not moral, but practical, and is so obvious as to need no comment. What concerns us here is the practical, as distinct from any moral, motive, which must, when the situation is understood, make ability anxious to concede it. For argument's sake we must assume that the great producers of wealth are men who have no other motive ultimately than ambition for themselves and their families, and would allow nothing of what they produce to be taken from them by any other human being except under the pressure of some incidental necessity. There is one broad feature, however, which even men such as these understand—the fact, namely, that for successful wealth production one of the most essential conditions is a condition of social stability, or a general acquiescence, at all events, in the broad features of the industrial system, by means of which the production in question takes place. But if the labourers have no stake in the surplus for the production of which such a system is requisite, it may be perfectly true that by escaping from it they would on the whole be no better off than they are, yet there is no reason which can be brought home to their own minds why they should not seek to disturb it as often and as recklessly as they can. There is, at best, no structural connection, but only a fractional one, between their own welfare and the welfare of those who direct them; and a structural connection between the two—a dovetailing of the one into the other—is what ability, no matter how selfish, is in its own interests concerned before all things to secure. In other words, it is concerned in its own interests so to arrange matters that the share of its own products which is made over to the labourers shall be large enough, and obvious enough, and sufficiently free from accessory disadvantages, to be appreciated by the labourers themselves; and the ideal state of social equilibrium would be reached when this share was such that any further augmentation of it would enfeeble the action of ability by depriving it of its necessary stimulus, and, by thus diminishing the amount of the total product, would make the share of the labourers less than it was before.
Though an ideal equilibrium of this kind may be never attainable absolutely, it is a condition to which practical wisdom may be always making approximations; but in order that it may be an equilibrium in fact as well as in theory, one thing further is necessary—namely, that both parties should understand clearly the fundamental character of the situation. And here labour has more to learn than ability; or perhaps it may be truer to say that socialism has given it more to unlearn. If any exchange takes place between two people, which by anybody who knew all the circumstances would be recognised as entirely just, but is not felt to be just by one of the contracting parties, he, though he may assent to the terms because he can get none better, will be as much dissatisfied as he would have been had he been actually overreached by the other. If, for example, he believed himself to be entitled to an estate of which the other was in reality not only the de facto, but also the true legal possessor, and if the other, out of kindness (let us say) towards a distant kinsman, agreed to pay him a pension, he would doubtless accept the pension as a something that was better than nothing; but he would not be satisfied with a part when he conceived himself to be entitled to the whole, and as soon as occasion offered would go to law to obtain it. In other words, if two persons are to make a bargain or contract which can possibly satisfy both, each must start with recognising that the other has some valid right, and what the nature of this right is, to the property or position which is held by him and which is the subject of the projected exchange. Unless this be the case, any exchange that may be effected will, for one of the parties at least, not be a true bargain or contract, but an enforced and temporary compromise. There will be no finality in it, and it will produce no content.
Now, in the case of the bargain or contract between labour and ability, this last situation is precisely that which the teachings of socialism are at present tending to generalise. They are encouraging the representatives of labour to regard the representatives of ability as a class which possesses much, but has no valid right to anything, and with whom in consequence no true bargain is possible; since, whatever this class concedes short of its whole possessions will merely be accepted by labour as a surrender of stolen goods, which merits resentment rather than thanks, because it is only partial.
The intellectual socialists of to-day, and many of their less educated followers, will strenuously deny this. They will declare that they, unlike their predecessors, recognise that directive ability is a true productive agent no less than ordinary labour is; and that able men, no less than the labourers, have rights which they may, if they choose, enforce with equal justice. And if we confine our attention to certain of their theoretical admissions, we need not go further than the pages of the present volume to remind ourselves that for this assertion there are ample, if disjointed, foundations. But the doctrine of modern socialism must be judged, not only by its separate parts, but also by the emphasis with which they are respectively enunciated, and by the mood of mind which, on the whole, it engenders among the majority of those who are affected by it; and, whatever its leading exponents may, on occasion, protest to the contrary, the main practical result which it has thus far produced among the masses has been to foment the impression, which is not the less efficacious because it is not explicitly formulated, that when labour and ability are disputing over their respective rights, ability comes into court with no genuine rights at all; and that, instead of representing (as it does) the knowledge, intellect, and energy to which the whole surplus values of the modern world are due, it represents merely a system of decently legalised theft from an output of wealth which would lose nothing of its amplitude, but would on the contrary still continue to increase were all exceptional energy, knowledge, and intellect deprived of all authority and starved out of existence to-morrow.
So long as such an impression prevails, and indeed until it is definitely superseded by one more in consonance with facts, no satisfactory social policy is practicable. Labour, as opposed to ability, may be compared to a man who believes that his tailor has overcharged him for a coat, and who disputes the account in a law court with a view to its reasonable reduction. In such a case it will be possible for him to obtain justice. The tailor's claim for £12 may be reduced to a claim for £10, or £8 5s., or £6 15s. 6d. But if the customer's contention is that he ought to get the coat for nothing, and that he does not in justice owe the tailor anything at all, he is making a demand that no law court could satisfy, and by a gratuitous misconception of his rights is doing all he can to preclude himself from any chance of obtaining them. The mood which socialism foments among the labouring classes is precisely analogous to the mood of such a man as this, and its results are analogous likewise. Its origin, however, being artificial and also obvious in its minutest particulars, the remedy for it, however difficult to apply, is not obscure in its nature. The mood in question results from a definite, a systematic, and an artificially produced misconception of the structure and the main phenomena, good and evil, of society as it exists to-day, and the different parts played by the different classes composing it. It has been the object of the present volume to expose, one after another, the individual fallacies of which this general misconception is the result, not with a view to suggesting that in society as it exists to-day there are no grave evils which a true social policy may alleviate, but with a view to promoting between classes, who are at present in needless antagonism, that sane and sober understanding with regard to their respective positions which alone can form the basis of any sound social policy in the future.
Of the individual demands or proposals now put forward by socialists, many point to objects which are individually desirable and are within limits practicable; but what hinders, more than anything else, any successful attempt to realise them is the fact that they are at present placed in a false setting. They resemble a demand for candles on the part of visitors at an hotel, who would have, if they did not get them, to go to bed in the dark—a demand which would be contested by nobody if it were not that those who made it demanded the candles only as a means of setting fire to the bed-curtains. The demands for old-age pensions, and for government action on behalf of the unemployed, for example, as now put forward in Great Britain, by labour Members who identify the interests of labour with socialism, are demands of this precise kind. The care of the aged, the care of the unwillingly and the discipline of the willingly idle, are among the most important objects to which social statesmanship can address itself; but the doctrines of socialism hinder instead of facilitate the accomplishment of them, because they identify the cure of certain diseased parts of the social organism with a treatment that would be ruinous to the health and ultimately to the life of the whole.
We may, however, look forward to a time, and may do our best to hasten it, when, the fallacies of socialism being discredited and the mischief which they produce having exhausted itself, we may be able to recognise that they have done permanent good as well as temporary evil—partly because their very perverseness and their varying and accumulating absurdities will have compelled men to recognise, and accept as self-evident, the countervailing truths which to many of the sanest thinkers have hitherto remained obscure; and partly because socialism, no matter how false as a theory of society, and no matter how impracticable as a social programme, will have called attention to evils which might otherwise have escaped attention, or been relegated to the class of evils for which no alleviation is possible.
Even to suggest the manner in which these evils would be treated by a sound and scientific statesmanship would be wholly beyond the scope of a volume such as the present, for this reason, if for no other, that, as has been said already, the evils in question are not one but many, each demanding special and separate treatment, just as ophthalmia demands a treatment other than that demanded by whooping-cough. But one general observation may be fitly made, in conclusion, which will apply to all of them. These remedies cannot be included under the heading of any mere general augmentation of the pecuniary reward of labour taken in the aggregate. The portion of the national dividend which goes to labour now, in progressive countries such as Great Britain, Germany, and America, is immensely greater than it was a hundred years ago, and unless industrial progress is arrested its tendency is to rise still further. The main evils to which a scientific statesmanship should address itself arise from the incidental conditions under which this dividend is spent—conditions, largely improvable, which at present deprive it of its full purchasing power. Of this I will give one example—the present structure of great industrial towns. It cannot be doubted that, if the sums now spent on the construction and maintenance of insanitary slums and alleys were employed in a scientific manner, a rent which has now to be paid for accommodation of the most degrading kind would suffice to command, on the strictest business principles, homes superior to those which, if its amount were doubled, would hardly be forthcoming for the labourer in most of our existing streets; while the purchasing power of the existing income of labour would be increased concurrently, and perhaps to a yet greater extent if much of the education, which now has no other effect than of generating impracticable ideas as to the abstract rights of man, were devoted to developing in men and women alike a greater mastery of the mere arts of household management.
But in merely mentioning these subjects I am transgressing my proper limits. I mention them only with a view to reminding the reader once more that the object of this volume is not to suggest, or supply arguments for maintaining that existing conditions are perfect, or that socialists are visionaries in declaring that they are capable of improvement. Its object has been to expose that radical misconception of facts which renders demands visionary that would not be visionary otherwise, and to stimulate all sane and statesmanlike reformers by helping them to see, and also to explain to others, that the improved conditions which socialism blindly clamours for are practicable only in proportion as they are dissociated from the theories of socialism.