Woman under socialism

by August Bebel

The whole course of this development brings out how utterly superfluous the individual capitalist has become, and that production, conducted upon a national and international scale, is the goal toward which society steers—with this difference, that, in the end, this organized production will redound to the benefit, not of a class, but of the collectivity.

The economic revolution just sketched, and which is driving bourgeois society with great swiftness to its apogee, becomes more pointed from year to year. While Europe finds itself pressed more and more in its foreign markets, and finally on its own territory, by the competition of the United States, latterly enemies have risen in the East also, rendering still more critical the plight of Europe, and at the same time threatening the United States also. This danger proceeds from the progress of English India toward becoming a great agricultural and industrial State—a progress that, in the first place, looks to the meeting of the wants of India's own two hundred million strong population, and, in the second place, develops into a mortal enemy of English and German industry in particular. And still another industrial State is beginning to rise in the East—Japan. According to the "Kreuzzeitung" of February 20, 1895, "during the last ten years, Japan has imported from Europe the best perfected machinery for setting up industrial plants, especially in cotton spinning. In 1889, she had only 35,000 spindles; now she has over 380,000. In 1889, Japan imported 31 million pounds of raw cotton; in 1891, she imported 67 million. She is steadily decreasing her importations of manufactured articles, and increasing her importations of raw material, which she then retransports in the shape of manufactures. During the last year Hongkong, a European colony, bought over two million marks of Japanese cotton goods. The Japanese are providing their own markets with goods that formerly were imported from Europe and the United States. They are also exporting to Oriental markets, that were formerly provided from western sources. They are exporting matches and soap; they are manufacturing clothing, felt hats and hosiery; they have glass-blowing establishments, breweries, tileries, tan-yards and rope-walks."

The further expansion of Japan's industry steadily reduces importations from Europe and the United States, and simultaneously places it in condition to turn up in the world's market as a competitor. Should China also, as a result of the Japanese-Chinese war, be compelled to open her immense territory to European culture, then, in view of the great adaptability and marvelous unpretentiousness of the Chinese workingman, another competitive power will have risen, more dangerous than any that the world's market has yet had to reckon with. Truly, the future of bourgeois society is threatened from all sides with grave dangers, and there is no way to escape them.

Thus the crisis becomes permanent and international. It is a result of all the markets being overstocked with goods. And yet, still more could be produced; but the large majority of people suffer want in the necessaries of life because they have no income wherewith to satisfy their wants by purchase. They lack clothing, underwear, furniture, homes, food for the body and mind, and means of enjoyment, all of which they could consume in large quantities. But all that does not exist to them. Hundreds of thousands of workingmen are even thrown upon the sidewalk, and rendered wholly unable to consume because their labor-power has become "superfluous" to the capitalists. Is it not obvious that our social system suffers of serious ailments? How could there be any "over-production" when there is no lack of capacity to consume, i. e., of wants that crave satisfaction? Obviously, it is not production, in and of itself, that breeds these unhallowed conditions and contradictions: it is the system under which production is carried on, and the product is distributed.

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In human society, all its members are bound to one another by a thousand threads; and these threads are all the more numerous in proportion to a people's grade of culture. If disturbances set in, they are forthwith felt by all. Disturbances in production affect distribution and consumption; and vice versa. The feature of capitalist production is the concentration of property into ever fewer hands and into ever larger establishments. In distribution, on the contrary, an opposite current is noticeable. Whoever, due to the destructive effect of competition, is stricken from the list of independent producers, seeks, in nine cases out of ten, to squeeze himself as a dealer between the producer and the consumer, and thus to earn his livelihood.

Hence the striking phenomenon of the increase of the middleman—dealers, shopkeepers, hucksters, commissioners, brokers, agents, saloonkeepers, etc. Most of these, among whom women are strongly represented, lead a life of worries and a needy existence. Many are compelled, in order to keep their heads above water, to speculate upon the lowest passions of man and to promote them in all manner of ways. Hence the marvelous swing of the most repulsive advertisements, particularly in all matters the object of which is the gratification of sexual pleasures.

It is undeniable, and, viewed from a higher viewpoint, it is also cheering, that the current for a greater enjoyment of life runs deep in modern society. Man begins to understand that, in order to be human, a life worthy of human beings is requisite, and the feeling is expressed in such form as corresponds with the respective conceptions of the enjoyment of life. As far as the distribution of its wealth is concerned, society has become much more aristocratic than at any previous period. Between the richest and the poorest, the chasm is wider to-day than ever before. On the other hand, with regard to its ideas and laws, society has become more democratic.[169] Hence the masses strive after greater equality; and, seeing that in their ignorance they know not yet the path by which to attain their wishes, they seek equality in the imitation of the upper classes by furnishing themselves with whatever pleasures are within their reach. All possible artificial means are resorted to in order to exploit this tendency; the consequences are often serious. The gratification of a justified desire thus leads in a number of cases to wrong paths, often to crime; and society intervenes in its own way, without thereby improving matters in the least.

The increasing mass of the middlemen draws many evils in its wake. Although this class toils arduously and works under the load of heavy cares, the majority are parasites, they are unproductively active, and they live upon the labors of others, just the same as the capitalist class. Higher prices is the inevitable consequence of this industry. Food and other goods rise in price in such manner that they often cost twice or many times as much as the producer received for them.[170] If it is thought unadvisable or impossible to materially raise the price of the goods, lest consumption decline, they are artificially deteriorated, and recourse is had to adulteration of food, and to false weights and measures, in order to make the requisite profits. The chemist Chevalier reports that he knows, among the several adulterations of food, 32 for coffee, 30 for wine, 28 for chocolate, 24 for meal, 23 for brandy, 20 for bread, 19 for milk, 10 for butter, 9 for olive oil, 6 for sugar, etc. The Chamber of Commerce of Wesel reported in 1870 that an extensive system of swindle was practiced in the shops in the sale of ready-weighed articles: for 1 pound, 24 or 26 pennyweights were given, and in that way twice as much was gained as the difference in the price. Workingmen and small traders who get their goods on credit and who must, accordingly, submit, even when the fraud is obvious, fare worst of all. Grave abuses are also perpetrated in bakeries. Swindling and cheating are inseparable from our modern conditions, and certain government institutions, such as high indirect taxes, are direct incentives thereto. The laws against the adulteration of food alter matters but little. The struggle for existence compels the swindlers to resort to ever shrewder means, nor is there any thorough and strict inspection. Leading and influential circles of our ruling classes are even interested in the system of swindle. Under the pretext that, in order to discover adulterations a more comprehensive and more expensive administrative apparatus is required, and that "legitimate business" would suffer thereby, almost all inspection, worthy of the name, is lamed. If, however, laws and measures of inspection do actually intervene, they affect a considerable rise in the price of the unadulterated products, seeing that the lower price was made possible only by adulteration.