The truth about socialism

by Allan L. Benson

Precisely so will the actions of men change when the production of the necessities of life by the government has demonstrated that no one need ever fear the lack of the means with which to live. The very knowledge that the stomach is taken for granted—that with free opportunity to labor, the material necessities and comforts of life are as assured as the air itself—will destroy the incentive to accumulate more wealth than is needed. Even the richest now consume and waste but a fraction of the wealth they possess. Yet they are spurred on to seek still further accumulations, because it is only so recently, comparatively, that the whole race was fighting for the means of life, that the madness for money is still in the air.

The madness for money will not always be in the air. Human nature is wonderfully adaptive. As soon as the workers take control of the government for the benefit of their class, and demonstrate the perfect ease with which enough wealth can be produced to enable everybody to live as well as the $5,000 a year man now lives, the scramble for wealth will quickly subside. It will not subside instantly, but it will subside. A few may grumble, as their industries are bought and taken over by the government, but they will have to take it out in grumbling. They will not even have to work if they don’t want to. They will have enough money obtained from the sale of their plants to enable them to live without working. But none of their successors will ever be able to live without working, because no opportunity will exist for anyone to obtain the products of another’s labor. Goods will be made and sold by the government at cost. No capitalist will stand between producers and consumers. The people will be their own capitalists, owning their own industrial machinery and managing it through the government.

Those who are opposed to Socialism ask what assurance we have that, under Socialism, the people would be able to manage their government. Others ask why we should not be as likely to have grafters in office under Socialist government as we are now under Democratic or Republican government? Still others believe that a Socialist government would inevitably become tyrannical and despotic, destroying all individual liberty and eventually bringing down civilization in a heap.

Let us answer these objections one by one. And let us first inquire why the people are not now able to manage and control their government.

In the first place, our form of government does not permit the people to control it. The rich men who made our constitution—and they were rich for their day; not a working man among them—purposely made a constitution under which nothing could be done to which the rich might object. That is why the United States senate was created. It was frankly declared in the constitutional convention that the senate was intended to represent wealth. The house of representatives was to represent the people, but the senate was to represent wealth, and the house of representatives could enact no legislation without the consent of the senate. Moreover, the United States supreme court, over which the people have absolutely no control, was created to construe the laws made by congress.

That is the first reason why the people do not now control their government—the framers of the constitution did not intend that they should control it, and the rich men of our day are taking advantage of their opportunity to control it themselves. The second reason is that the capitalist system, based, as it is, upon private profits, makes it highly profitable for the capitalist class to control the government. The robberies of capitalism are committed through laws, and control of the government is necessary to obtain and maintain the laws.

Socialists would abolish the senate, thus vesting the entire legislative power in the house of representatives. They would take from the President the power to appoint justices of the supreme court, and give the people the right to elect all judges. They would take from the United States supreme court the usurped power to declare acts of congress unconstitutional, and give to the people the power to say what acts of congress should be set aside. They would make the constitution of the United States amendable by majority vote, and they would make every public official in the country, from President down, subject to immediate recall at any time, by the vote of the people.

Socialists respectfully offer these reasons, among others, for believing that under Socialism, the people would be able to control their government. Another reason is that, under Socialism, there would be no trust senators or representatives, no representatives of great private banking interests or other aggregations of private capital, because there would be no such private interests.

The reasons are equally plain why, under Socialism, we should not be as certain to have Socialist grafters in office as we are now to have Democratic and Republican grafters. But not one of these reasons is that Socialists believe themselves to be more nearly honest than anyone else. Socialists have no such delusion. Socialists simply point to the fact that all of the present grafting is to secure private profits. When the profit system is abolished, and goods are made for use instead of for profit, nothing will be left to graft for. Public officials could still steal, of course; they could falsify pay-rolls, and probably in many other ways rob the people. But, in the first place, public officials now do little of this sort of clumsy stealing, and, in the second place, whatever stealing of this sort that may be done under Socialism will be punished in precisely the same way that it now is, except more vigorously. Moreover, Socialists do not believe there will be much such stealing, or that it will long continue. And so far as grafting is concerned, when the private profit system that makes grafting is abolished, grafting will be abolished along with it.

Let us now examine the charge that a Socialist government would become tyrannical, despotic, destroy individual liberty, and thus destroy civilization itself.