“And everything will be divided up equally, all around, and in five years the same persons will be rich who are now rich, and the same persons who are now poor will be poor again.”
List to the croaking parrot that has just flown into our happy home. Whenever and wherever there is a discussion about Socialism, that wise old bird wheels in and declares it is all a wicked scheme to rob the rich for the benefit of the poor, and that in no event could it long succeed. Poor old feathered imitation of a human intellect! Brainless, yet not without a voice, it talks on and on and on. Bereft of its feathers and its voice, it might take its place upon a hook in the market place and eventually work its way into some careless shopper’s basket as a perfectly good partridge, or diminutive duck. Placed upon the table and served as a delicacy, its worthlessness would soon be understood. But clad as nature clothed it and harping words that some one once dropped into its ear, its voice is continuously mistaken for the voice of wisdom and the progress of the world is commanded to halt.
But the progress of the world does not halt. Those who can think without inviting excruciating pain; those who can reflect without bringing on a stroke of apoplexy, are not compelled to think much or to reflect much to realize that nothing the bird says about “dividing up” is so. Who divided up the wealth that is represented in the public buildings in Washington? What part of the White House, pray, do you own? Do you own the south veranda, or do you own the President’s bed? Maybe it is the gilded lady upon the dome of the Capitol who calls you “papa” or “mamma.” If not, the wealth represented in the public buildings in Washington has not been “divided up,” for you have not been given your share.
Under Socialism, the wealth of the nation would no more be divided up than the wealth invested in the American navy is divided up now. The industrial wealth of the community, owned in common by the members of the community, would be at the service of the community. It would no more be at the service of an individual, exclusive of any other or all other individuals, than the postal department is now at the service of an individual to the exclusion of any other individual. Nor would any man or small set of men ever have a greater opportunity to regain possession of the nation’s industrial wealth than any man or small set of men now have to acquire private ownership of the Capitol at Washington. Any man may walk into the Capitol with all the freedom that he might feel if it were his own. But let any man try to sell off a wing as a lodging house and the Capitol police would do their duty. Let Socialists once nationalize the nation’s industries and they will cheerfully agree to lay their heads on the block if individuals ever recover possession of them.
Gentlemen who believe otherwise forget that under Socialism there would no longer be the means by which a few pile up great fortunes at the expense of the many. The private ownership of property that is collectively used is the means by which such fortunes are now accumulated. With the means gone, how could the fortunes reappear?
We Socialists are also often chided for what our opponents are pleased to call our “gross materialism.” Gentle folk like the Morgans, the Guggenheims, the Ryans, the Havemeyers and others often grieve because our vision seems to comprehend nothing but bread and butter, clothing and furniture, houses and lots and pensions for the aged.
Their grief is perhaps natural. We talk much about those things. We are frankly committed to the task of removing poverty from the world. Material things are required to remove poverty. When poverty goes, of course, a lot will go that is not material. All of the unhappiness that is caused by poverty and the fear of poverty will go. All of the ignorance that is caused by poverty will go. All of the crimes that are caused by ignorance and poverty will go. And much of the vice will go.
Much of the vice? Did you ever consider how much vice would go if capitalism were to go? Did you ever realize to what extent vice is fostered by the profit system to which Socialism is opposed? No? Then read what Wirt W. Hallman, of Chicago, said before the American Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis. Here it is:
“If any city will take the profit out of vice, it will immediately reduce the volume of vice at least 50 per cent. If, in addition, it will make vice dangerous to men as well as women, to patrons, property-owners and business men as well as to dive-keepers and women street-walkers, it will reduce vice 75 per cent. or more, and will reduce the wreckage of health and morals in much the same proportion.”
Socialism will not only take the profit out of vice, but it will take it out of everything. By enfranchising woman and making her economically independent, no woman would be compelled to sell herself to keep herself. Socialism, in this and other enumerated respects, is therefore not particularly materialistic.