Woman under socialism

by August Bebel

Year.	Increased
Up to 3,000 marks	42 per cent.
3,000— 36,000 marks	333 per cent.
36,000— 60,000 marks	590 per cent.
60,000—120,000 marks	835 per cent.
Over 120,000 marks	942 per cent.

The number of incomes up to 3,000 marks increased exactly with the population; it would, however, have lagged behind it if, within the period of 1853-1890, there had not been an extraordinary increase of national, State, municipal and private officials, the large majority of whose incomes falls below 3,000 marks. On the other hand, the number of large incomes has risen beyond all proportion, although, during the period under consideration, there was not yet any provision in Prussia making the correct estimate of incomes obligatory. This was introduced in 1891. The actual increase of incomes was, accordingly, much larger than the figures indicate. As stated before, the concentration of wealth, on the one side, is paralleled with mass-proletarianization, on the other, and also with swelling figures of bankruptcy. During the period of 1880-1889, the number of bankruptcy cases, adjudicated by law, averaged, in Germany, 4,885 a year; it rose to 5,908 in 1890; to 7,234 in 1891; and to 7,358 in 1892. These figures do not include the large number of bankruptcies that did not reach the courts, the assets not being large enough to cover the costs; neither are included among them those that were settled out of court between the debtors and their creditors.

The same picture that is presented by the economic development of Germany is presented by that of all industrial countries of the world. All nations of civilization are endeavoring to become industrial States. They wish to produce, not merely for the satisfaction of their own domestic wants, but also for exportation. Hence the absolute propriety of no longer speaking of "national" but of "international" economy. It is the world's market that now regulates the price of numberless products of industry and agriculture, and that controls the social position of nations. The productive domain, that, in the near future, will dominate the world's market is that of the United States—a quarter from which is now proceeding the principal impetus toward revolutionizing the relations of the world's market, and, along therewith, all bourgeois society. According to the census of 1890, the capital invested in industry in the United States has risen to 6,524 million dollars, as against 2,790 million in 1880, an increase of 136 per cent. The value of the industrial products rose during that period from 5,369 million dollars to 9,370 million, or 75 per cent. in round figures, while the population increased only 25 per cent.[168] The United States has reached a point of development where it must export a large mass of products in order to be able to continue producing in sufficient quantities. Instead of importing articles of industry from Europe, these will henceforth be exported in large volumes, thereby upsetting commercial relations everywhere. What pass has been reached there is indicated by the mammoth struggles between Capital and Labor, by the distress of the masses that has lasted years, and by the colossal increase of bankruptcy during the last crisis. In 1879, 1880 and 1881 the sum absorbed in bankruptcies ran up to 82 million dollars in round figures; in 1890 the amount was 190 million dollars, and in 1891 it rose to 331 million dollars. An instance will illustrate the gigantic measure of the concentration of capital in that country. In 1870, there were in the United States 2,819 woolen mills, in which 96 million dollars were invested as capital; in 1890 the number of these mills had sunk to 1,312, but the capital invested had risen to 136 million. In 1870, on an average, $34,000 sufficed to establish a woolen mill; in 1890, not less than $102,000 was requisite. The increased demands upon capital forces the building of stock corporations, which, in turn, promote the concentration still more. Where the powers of a single capitalist do not suffice, several of them join; they appoint technical overseers, who are well paid, and they pocket, in the form of dividends, the profits which the workingmen must raise. The restlessness of industry reaches its classic form in the stock corporation, which demonstrates how useless the person of the capitalist has become as a leader of industry.

Seeing that this process of development and concentration is proceeding equally in all leading countries, the inevitable results of the anarchic method of production is "over-production," the stoppage of trade, the crisis.

Accordingly, the crisis is a consequence of the absence of any means whatever whereby at any time the actual demand for certain goods can be gauged and controlled. There is no power in bourgeois society able to regulate production as a whole; the customers are spread over too vast an area; then also, their purchasing power, upon which depends their power of consumption, is affected by a number of causes, beyond the control of the individual producer. Moreover, along with each individual producer, are a number of others, whose productive powers and actual yield also are unknown to him. Each strives, with all the means at his command—cheap prices, advertisements, long credit, drummers, also secret and crafty detraction of the quality of the goods of his competitor, the last of which is a measure that flourishes particularly at critical moments—to drive all other competitors from the field. Production is wholly left to accident and to the judgment of individuals. Accident often is more unfavorable than otherwise. Every capitalist must produce a certain quantity of goods, in order that he may exist; he is, however, driven to increase his output, partly because his increase of revenues depends upon that, partly also because upon that depend his prospects of being able to overcome his competitors, and keep the field all to himself. For a while, the output is safe; the circumstance tends to expansion and increased production. But prosperous times do not tempt one capitalist alone; they tempt them all. Thus production rises far above demand, and suddenly the market is found overstocked. Sales stop; prices fall; and production is curtailed. The curtailment of production in any one branch implies a diminished demand for workingmen, the lowering of wages and a retrenchment of consumption in the ranks of labor. A further stoppage of production and business in other departments is the necessary consequence. Small producers of all sorts—trademen, saloonkeepers, bakers, butchers, etc.,—whose customers are chiefly workingmen, lose the profitable sale of their goods and likewise land in distress.

The way in which such a crisis works appears from a census on the unemployed which the Social Democratic Party of Hamburg undertook on February 14, 1894. Of 53,756 workingmen who were interrogated, and of whom 34,647 were married, with an aggregate family dependence of 138,851, there were 18,422 who, during the last year, had been idle a total of 191,013 weeks; 5,084 persons had been idle from 1 to 5 weeks; 8,741 from 6 to 10 weeks; 1,446 from 11 to 15 weeks; 984 from 16 to 20 weeks; 2,167 more than 20 weeks. These are workingmen, who wished to work, but who, in this best of all possible worlds, could find no work. The sorry plight of these people may be imagined.

Again, one industry furnishes its raw material to another; one depends upon the other; it follows that all must suffer and pay for the blows that fall upon any. The circle of participants and sufferers spreads ever wider. A number of obligations, assumed in the hope of a long continuance of prosperity, cannot be met, and thus new fuel is added to the conflagration of the crisis, whose flames rise higher from month to month. An enormous mass of stored-up goods, tools, machinery, becomes almost worthless. The goods are got rid of at great sacrifices. Not only their proprietor is thereby ruined, but also dozens of others who are thereby likewise forced to give up their goods under cost. During the crisis itself, the method of production is all along improved with the view of meeting future competition; but this only prepares the ground for new and still worse crises. After the crisis has lasted years, after the surplusage of goods has been gradually done away with through sales at ruinous prices, through retrenchment of production, and through the destruction of smaller concerns, society slowly begins to recover again. Demand rises, and production follows suit—slowly at first and cautious, but, with the continuance of prosperity, the old vertigo sets in anew. Everyone is anxious to recover what he lost, and expects to be under cover before the next crisis breaks in. Nevertheless, seeing that all capitalists foster the identical thought, and that each one improves his plant so as to head off the others, the catastrophe is soon brought on again and with all the more fatal effect. Innumerable establishments rise and fall like balls at a game, and out of such continuous ups and downs flows the wretched state of things that is witnessed at all crises. These crises crowd upon one another in the measure that large production increases, and the competitive struggle—not between individuals only, but between whole nations—becomes sharper. The scampering for customers, on a small scale, and for markets on a large one, gains in fierceness, and ends finally in great losses. Goods and implements are heaped mountain high, yet the masses of the people suffer hunger and want.

The autumn of the year 1890 brought new proof of the correctness of this outline. After a long series of years of business depression, during which, however, large capitalist development was steadily progressing, an improvement in our economic life set in during 1887-8, stimulated in no slight degree by the extensive changes introduced in our army and navy systems. The upward movement continued during 1889 and up into the first quarter of 1890. During this period, a number of new establishments began to crop up everywhere in several fields of industry; a large number of others were enlarged and improved to the highest point of technical perfection, and their capacity greatly increased. In the same measure that this large capitalist development progressed, a larger and ever larger number of establishments passed from the hands of individual capitalists into stock corporations—a change that ever is more or less connected with an increase of production. The new issues, that, as a result of these combinations and due also to the increase of the public debt, were contracted in the international money market, ran up in 1887 to about 4,000 million marks; in 1888, to 5,500 million; and in 1889, to even 7,000 million. On the other hand, the capitalists of all countries were endeavoring to "regulate" prices and production by means of national and international agreements. Rings and Trusts sprang up like mushrooms over night. The majority, often all the capitalists concerned in the more important branches of production, formed syndicates, by means of which prices were fixed, and production was to be regulated by the light of accurate statistical information. Over-production was thus to be prevented. A marvelous monopolization of industry, such as had never been seen, was thus achieved in the interest of the capitalists and at the expense of the workingmen, and of the consumers in general. For a while it seemed as if capital had come into possession of the means that enabled it to control the market in all directions, to the injury of the public and to its own greater glory. But appearances deceived. The laws of capitalist production proved themselves stronger than the shrewdest representatives of the system who imagined they held in their hands the power to regulate it. The crisis set in. One of the largest international business houses of England fell and involved a number of others in its fall. All exchanges and markets—of London, Paris, Vienna and Berlin, as far as St. Petersburg, New York and Calcutta—shook and trembled. It had again been shown that the profoundest calculations prove deceptive, and that capitalist society cannot escape its fate.

All this notwithstanding, capitalism proceeds on its course: it can be no other than it is. By means of the forms that its course dictates, it throws all the laws of capitalist economics overboard. "Free competition," the Alpha and Omega of bourgeois society, is to bring the fittest to the top of the enterprises; but the stock corporation removes all individuality, and places the crown upon that combination that has the longest purse and the strongest grip. The syndicates, Trusts and rings carry the point still further. Whole branches of industry are monopolized; the individual capitalist becomes but a pliant link in a chain, held by a capitalist committee. A handful of monopolists set themselves up as lords of the world and dictate to it the price of goods, to the workingmen their wages and conditions of life.