It seems to me that it will be indispensable to submit these matters to an industrial parliament in which every industry will be represented. And as the determination of these questions will be a matter of the greatest importance to every individual, it is probable that these parliaments will have to be bicameral for the same reason that our government is bicameral; for the same difficulty will present itself. New York insists upon having its large population represented in Congress. Rhode Island, on the other hand, in spite of its small size, insists upon having its state sovereignty represented; so New York is given a representation in proportion to its population in the Lower House and Rhode Island is given equal representation in the Upper House. Exactly the same situation will present itself it regard to industries: Certain industries will be enormous and will want to be represented in proportion to their size; for example, the steel industry. Others will be much smaller but perhaps of much greater importance; for example, the engineers. They will want to be fairly represented in spite of their small size and I see no way of adjusting this other than by adopting an industrial parliament of two chambers, in one of which representation will be according to numbers, while in the other every industry will be equally represented irrespective of size. This may seem a cumbersome system, but it will take no more time than the administration of the trade union takes to-day, and will not be half as costly; for the trade union of to-day has to accumulate funds to provide for unemployment, old age, sickness, and strikes. Strikes and unemployment it will not be necessary to provide against and the others will be provided for by every guild for their own members. The question, therefore, of the adjustment of price and wages will occupy far less time than is now occupied by federations of trade unions.
It is probable that the conclusions to which the industrial parliament will come will not be final. It will be deemed wise to refer them for execution to the general government. This matter, however, belongs to the chapter on the political aspect of Socialism.
§ 9. Circulating Medium under Socialism
It may not be clear at first sight why it is proposed to substitute store checks for greenbacks or gold. Early Socialist writers—particularly Rodbertus—attached much importance to the elimination of gold and the substitution therefor of what they called "labor checks"; a currency representing time spent in labor. Modern Socialist writers have been disposed to cast aside all efforts to substitute this kind of currency for gold. Mr. Hillquit quotes Kautsky[187] with approval on this subject:
"'Money,' says Kautsky, 'is the simplest means known up to the present time which makes it possible in as complicated a mechanism as that of the modern productive process, with its tremendous far-reaching division of labor, to secure the circulation of products and their distribution to the individual members of society. It is the means which makes it possible for each one to satisfy his necessities according to his individual inclination (to be sure within the bounds of his economic power). As a means to such circulation, money will be found indispensable until something better is discovered.'"[188]
Upon this point I find myself at variance with modern Socialists. In Book II, Chapter VI, on Money, I have endeavored to show how the use of gold for currency puts those who own and handle gold in a position practically to control the entire country. If I have failed in proving this, there will be no occasion for substituting anything for gold. But if I have failed, it is, I think, my fault; or perhaps Socialist writers on this subject have not had, and do not possess, the intimate knowledge of financial affairs indispensable to an understanding of this subject. If Mr. Kautsky had practiced law in America, and had had American financiers for his clients, he would not, I think, have failed to understand that money is still more to-day what it always has been since the beginning of the civilized world—the "root of all evil." By money, I mean not currency, which is indispensable, but the use of precious metals as the sole fundamental medium of exchange; because the amount of such precious metals being limited, the few, who under competitive conditions contrive to get control of these metals, become by virtue of this control masters not only of our economic, but of our political conditions.
Mr. Hillquit says[189] that the principal economic classes and interest groups are represented by separate and well-defined political parties; and that the "only exception seems to be presented by the money-lending group of capitalists, who, as a rule, do not form parties of their own. This, however, may perhaps be accounted for by the function of money capital, which can become operative only in connection with the other forms of capitalistic ownership, but has no independent productive existence."
It is misleading to endeavor to draw conclusions from political groups which characterize politics in Germany and France, and there is, I think, a better reason why the great "money-lending group of capitalists" or financiers do not form parties of their own.
Mr. Hillquit is doubtless right in saying that the "Republican party is substantially the party of the modern capitalists," "while the Democratic party is largely the party of the middle class"; nevertheless, in America, as in Europe, the so-called interests and capitalists belong to no one party, because they must and do control both. And it is because Socialist writers do not seem to be aware of the extent to which they do control politics, that comparatively little interest is taken by these writers in questions of currency.
No one who lived in Europe during the Boer war is ignorant of the immense desire of both France and Germany to intervene on behalf of the Boers, and they certainly would have intervened not only because it afforded them a good opportunity to crush England, which one of them openly and the other less openly desired to do, but because such a war would have been popular with the masses in both countries. One thing alone prevented this: Financiers in France and Germany were heavily interested in African gold mines and it was their influence that turned the scale against the crushing of England at that time.