[Footnote 2: See above, ch. 16, sec. 2, on the police function.]
[Footnote 3: See ch. 16, secs. 3 and 4.]
[Footnote 4: See above, ch. 16, sec. 5, statistics of receipts from public service enterprises.]
CHAPTER 31
SOME ASPECTS OF SOCIALISM
§ 1. The distribution of incomes. § 2. Distribution by force and by status. § 3. Social effects of the right to transmit property. § 4. Effects of the right to inherit property. § 5. Broader social effects of inheritance. § 6. Limitations upon intestate inheritance. § 7. Some merits of competition. § 8. Wide acceptance of competition. § 9. "Economic harmonies" and discords. § 10. Competition modified by charitable distribution. § 11. Competition modified by authoritative distribution. § 12. Meanings of socialism. § 13. Philosophic socialism. § 14. Socialism in action. § 15. Origin of the radical socialist party. § 16. The two pillars of "scientific" socialism. § 17. Aspects of the materialistic philosophy of history. § 18. Utopian nature of "scientific" socialism. § 19. Its unreal and negative character. § 20. Revisionism and opportunism in the socialist party. § 21. Alluring claims of party-socialism. § 22. Growth and nature of the socialist vote. § 23. Economic legislation and the political parties.
§ 1. #The distribution of incomes#. The great economic progress of the past two centuries has been mainly in lines of technical production. The developing natural sciences and mechanic arts have given men a marvelously increased control over forces and materials. This has multiplied the quantities of goods of most kinds at the disposal of men, collectively considered. All men, with rare exceptions, have been gainers; but the increased production has been very unequally distributed among the members of the community. More and more insistently the plea and the demand have been made for better methods of distribution that will give to the masses of the people a larger share of the goods produced. Production is largely a problem of the technical arts; distribution is a problem of social economy.
Two aspects of distribution may be distinguished: functional distribution is the attribution of value (yields) to wealth and labor considered impersonally, as groups of productive agents; and personal distribution is the actual movement of incomes into the control of persons.[1] Personal incomes, whether monetary, real, or psychic, are the sum of a number of elements. Some parts are due to services performed by the person himself. When one combs his own hair he is performing for himself a service that is a part of his income. Benjamin Franklin said it was better to teach a boy to shave himself than to give him a thousand dollars with which to pay barbers for a life-time. Other parts of income are the uses and fruits of legally controlled wealth; chance finds, as gifts of value or lost and abandoned goods; goods assigned to one by authority; wealth inherited; illegal gains by robbery; goods secured on credit; gifts either of things or of services. The many methods by which incomes are distributed to the persons making up a society may be grouped in the following five general classes: force, status, charity, competition, and authority. These will be discussed in due order.
§ 2. #Distribution by force and by status.# Distribution by force is the most primitive mode of distribution. The stronger takes from the weaker. Forceful distribution still persists in the form of crime, and if we include fraud within the term it still affects an enormous amount of income. The lawless take whatever they can, and the supporters and officers of the law do what they can to check the acts. Slavery is distribution by force, as is the levying of war indemnities from a conquered people.
Distribution may be by status, or set rules and customs. In this case men receive incomes that are independent of their efforts and outside of their control. Distribution by status is guided neither by the personal merit of the recipients nor by the value of their direct services, but the merits and acts of men not living. Feudal society was built on status. Men were born to certain privileges and positions; they inherited property which could neither be bought nor sold; they followed trades which could rarely be entered by any outside of favored families. Caste in India and in other Oriental countries regulates a large part of the life of the people.