The truth about socialism

by Allan L. Benson

So much for what Socialists believe Socialism, by reducing the prices of commodities to cost, would do for the people as consumers. Socialists believe Socialism would do even more for the people as workers. Behold the present plight of the workingman. He has a right to live, but he has not a right to the means by which he can live. He cannot live without work, yet, ever he must seek work as a privilege—not as a right. The coming of the age of machinery has made it impossible to work without machinery. Yet the worker owns no machinery and can get access to no machinery except upon such terms as he may be able to make with its owners.

Socialists urge the people to consider the results of this unprecedented situation. First, there is great insecurity of employment. No one knows how long his job is destined to last. It may not last another day. A great variety of causes exist, any one of which may deprive the worker of his opportunity to work. Wall Street gentlemen may put such a crimp in the financial situation that industry cannot go on. Business may slow down because more is being produced than the markets can absorb. A greedy employer may precipitate a strike by trying to reduce the wages of his employees. Any one of many causes may without notice step in between the worker and the machinery without which he cannot work.

But worse than the uncertainty of employment is the absolute certainty that millions of men must always be out of work. Times are never so good that there is work for everybody. Most persons do not know it, but in the best of times there are always a million men out of work. In the worst of times, the number of men out of work sometimes exceeds 5,000,000. The country cries for the things they might produce. There is great need for shoes, flour, cloth, houses, furniture, and fuel. These millions of men, if they could get in touch with machinery, could produce enough of such staples to satisfy the public demand. If they could but work, their earnings would vastly increase the amount of money in circulation and thus increase the buying power of everybody. But they cannot work, because they do not own the machinery without which they cannot work, and the men who own it will not let it be used, because they cannot see any profits for themselves in having it used.

Socialists say this is an appalling situation. They are amazed that the nation tolerates it. They believe the nation would not tolerate it if it understood it. Some things are more easily understood than others. If 5,000,000 men were on a sinking ship within swimming distance of the Atlantic shore and the employing class were to prevent them from swimming ashore for no other reason than that the employing class had no use for their services—the people would understand that. Socialists believe the people will soon understand the present situation.

Here is another thing that Socialists hope the people will soon understand. The policy of permitting a few men to use the machinery with which all other men must work or starve compels all other men to become competitors for its use. If there were no more workers than the capitalists must have, there would not be such competition. But there must always be more workers than the capitalists can use. The fact that the capitalist demands a profit upon the worker’s labor renders the worker incapable of buying back the very thing he has made. Under present conditions, trade must, therefore, always be smaller than the natural requirements of the people for goods. And since, with machinery, each worker can produce a vast volume of goods, it inevitably follows that only a part of the workers are required to make all of the goods that can be sold at a profit. That is why there is not always work for all.

With more workers than there are jobs, it thus comes about that the workers are compelled to compete among themselves for jobs. Only part of the workers can be employed and the struggle of each is to become one of that part. The workers who are out of employment are always willing to work, if they can get no more, for a wage that represents only the cost of the poorest living upon which they will consent to exist. It therefore follows that wages are always based upon the cost of living. If the cost of living is high, wages are high. If the cost of living is low, wages are low. In any event, the worker has nothing left after he has paid for his living.

Socialists say this is not just. They can understand the capitalist who buys labor as he buys pig-iron, but they say labor is entitled to more consideration than pig-iron. The price of labor, they declare, should be gauged by the value of labor’s product, instead of by the direness of labor’s needs. They say the present situation gives to the men who own machinery most of its benefits and to the many who operate it none of its hopes. Now. as of old, the average worker dare hope for no more than enough to keep him alive. Again and again and again the census reports have shown that the bulk of the people in this country are so poor that they do not own even the roofs over their heads.

The purpose of Socialism is to give the workers all they produce. And, when Socialists say “workers” they do not mean only those who wear overalls and carry dinner pails. They mean everybody who does useful labor. Socialists regard the general superintendent of a railroad as quite as much of a worker as they do the man on the section. But they do not regard the owners of railway stocks and bonds as workers. They regard them as parasites who are living off the products of labor by owning the locomotives, cars and other equipment with which the workers work. And, since the ownership of machinery is the club with which Socialists say capitalists commit their robberies, Socialists also declare that the only way to stop the robberies is to take away the club. It would do no good to take the club from the men who now hold it and give it even to the individual workers, because, with the principle of private ownership retained, ownership would soon gravitate into a few hands and robbery would go on as ruthlessly as ever. Socialists believe the only remedy is to destroy the club by vesting the ownership of the great machinery of production and distribution in the people, through the government.

Such is the gist of Socialism—public ownership of the trusts, combined with public ownership of the government. Gentlemen who are opposed to Socialism—for what reasons it is now unnecessary to consider—lose no opportunity to spread the belief that there are more kinds of Socialism than there are varieties of the celebrated products of Mr. Heinz. This is not so. There are more than 30,000,000 Socialists in the world. Not one of them would refuse to write across this chapter: “That is Socialism,” and sign his name to it. Every Socialist has his individual conception of how mankind would advance if poverty were eliminated, but all Socialists agree that the heart and soul of their philosophy lies in the public ownership, under democratic government, of the means of life. And, as compared with this belief, all other beliefs of Socialism are minor and inconsequential. Public ownership is the rock upon which it is determined to stand or fall.

Socialists differ only with regard to the means by which public ownership may be brought about. A handful of Socialists, for instance, believe that in order to bring it about it is necessary to oppose the labor unions. All other Socialists work hand in hand with the labor unions.