The result of such transfer will be to leave every man doing the work which he is already doing; to improve his condition; to keep alive the competition necessary to prevent inefficiency or perfunctoriness and make character; to diminish the stakes of the game, so that the worker shall not lose health and happiness as now, but shall secure more or less of the luxuries of life. And industry will be so organized that no man who wants to work shall be without work; and no one who does not want to work shall be allowed to be idle.
Having explained what is meant by the socialization of industry, and pointed out how small the rôle of the state need be in the socialization of industry at large, we may next proceed to consider certain industries in which the state does, to-day, in other countries and would in a coöperative commonwealth certainly play the dominant rôle. In the first place, the state would own all natural monopolies. By the word "state" must not be understood the Government at Washington alone. Certain monopolies are national monopolies and would therefore be owned by the national Government at Washington; for example, railroads, telegraphs, national forests, national waterways, etc. But it is the local authorities that would take over such local monopolies as tramways, electric works, gas works, and all those things that are essentially municipal in their nature. The wisdom of this transfer of natural monopolies from private to public ownership it is not necessary to discuss. The enormous advantages that have attended this transfer in countries where it has been conscientiously tried leave no room for discussion except by those who have a personal interest in it, and to those this book is not addressed. Moreover, this subject will be treated in the next chapter.
There are, however, certain industries which, because they are intimately connected with public hygiene, it seems indispensable that the municipality should take over. I refer to such industries as packing houses, butcher shops, pharmacies, and the production and distribution of milk, ice, and bread.
The recklessness with which we allow ice companies to distribute ice collected from ponds into which the drainage of a large population filters and from the head waters of such rivers as the Hudson, which receives all the sewage of Albany, Schenectady, and Troy, seems incredible, were we not already familiar with the recklessness which hands over all our industries to a competitive system so fierce in its operation that adulteration is its necessary consequence.
Many of the bakeshops which furnish us with our bread baffle description, and on the poisons which are introduced into our milk I have already dilated. Wherever the temptation to adulterate is considerable and the consequence of adulteration to public health great, the community should not accept the risk that arises from competition except within the narrowest possible limits. For this reason, it will doubtless be wise for a coöperative commonwealth to own and run packing houses, butcher shops, pharmacies, bakeries, and to produce and distribute milk and ice.
As regards ice, it is amazing that the municipal authorities should not have undertaken this task before—especially in view of the raising of the price of ice for the poor by the Ice Trust. Every city has to supply its citizens with water, and as they are in control of pure water, it should be as much the function of the city to furnish pure ice as pure water. They have reservoirs free from pollution from which ice could be cut; and nothing but the political influence of the Ice Trust on the one hand, and the stupid indifference of the consumer on the other, has permitted this business to remain in private hands.[164]
The enormous profits made by the Meat Trust would permit not only of sanitary handling of this industry, but proper compensation to all engaged therein, and a notable reduction in the price of meat.
The fact that the baking industry is not trusted will make the taking over of this industry by the state a more difficult undertaking, but not for that reason an impossible one.
Competition is not necessarily to be eliminated in the taking over of these industries. It is quite possible that the state might not furnish good bread, and it ought, therefore, to be permissible for any individual to enter into this business. The competition will be limited because, inasmuch as the state will charge for its bread very little above cost price, few will be induced to enter into this business out of the desire for making money. The only motive that will induce citizens to enter into the business will be that of furnishing bread to their taste. Moreover, such industries would have to comply strictly with hygienic conditions, and they would be not so numerous as to make inspection as difficult, ineffectual, or expensive as to-day.
The production and distribution of milk suggests a function of the state to which sufficient importance cannot be attached. I mean the creation of farm colonies. On this single point I am not supported by the authority of the Socialist party. In other words, farm colonies have never been suggested as a part of the Socialist program; but this seems to be due to an oversight, for there does not seem to be in the Socialist party, as far as I can judge of it, any opposition to the idea. And the rôle of the farm colony seems to me of such importance that it is hardly possible to give too much attention to it.