A Vision of the Future, Based on the Application of Ethical Principles

by Jane Hume Clapperton

In the Contemporary Review of February, 1902, Mr. J. A. Hobson thus writes: “... The idea of natural individual rights as the basis of democracy disappears. A clear grasp of society as an economic organism completely explodes the notion of property as an inherent individual right, for it shows that no individual can make or appropriate anything of value without the direct continuous assistance of society.”

The right of proprietorship in land is the first principle to examine. The relation between land and life in its simpler aspects is clear and definite. All classes of land animals—man included—are immediately dependent for subsistence upon the produce of land, and when man emerges from slavery, another element, namely, labour, enters into the conditions of his life and becomes, with land, essential to his existence. Of food, fitted for the nourishment of man, uncultivated land produces little save some wild fruits and edible roots, and many wild animals, which he may eat if in hunting them down they do not eat him. But land placed under the additional forces of man’s physical and intellectual energies produces an immense variety of objects—a perfect wealth of raw material, vegetable, animal, mineral—which, yielding to further elaboration through his efforts and genius, all help to create for him a civilized life. This raw material, in short, supplied man with food, shelter, clothing, with the comforts and luxuries his developing nature demands, and with all necessaries to the existence of literature, science, and art.

Passing over the primitive forms of associated life—the nomad and pastoral—we come to the agricultural stage, when labourers on the land are manifestly the all-important social units. They sow, till, and reap the fields. They tend domestic animals, whose skins and wool are made into garments by other members of the group. But the latter depend for food and the raw materials of their industry on the cultivators, who are, if I may so express it, the foundation stones of the simple social structure. To whom does the land belong? To the whole group, and an annual division amongst the families for purposes of cultivation takes place, whilst weapons, fishing-boats, tools and other movables are the property of individuals.

Now observe, a change gradually occurs, a change from the communal possession of land to a system of the individual possession of land, and force is the sole cause of this change. External aggression has initiated militant activity, while, in the process of frequent resistance to invasion, and frequent aggression upon others, there is produced the class inequalities which distinguish a militant type of society and a system allowing of individual land-ownership. Land becomes private property in the hands of the bold and crafty, who compel the cultivation of the soil by the landless men of the group, and by prisoners of war spared on condition that they perform hard labour. The institution of slavery thus becomes established, and it is a leading factor in the promotion of civilization. Lords of the soil spend their energies in warlike activities, whilst protecting their slaves and serfs at labour. The produce of that labour is appropriated by the dominant class, and used for its own particular benefit. Its requirements extend much beyond the mere necessaries of existence that it yields to the workers, and slowly there uprises a new form of labour and a large class of labourers, producing a variety of commodities to gratify the desires of pomp-loving, barbaric chiefs.

Now this class, the labour of which is wholly absorbed by the chiefs, must be fed from the produce of the land. How is this accomplished? The chiefs, while exacting hard labour from the slaves and serfs, yield them only a bare living. But the proceeds of their labour, over and above the bare living of the producers, is very considerable. There is therefore a large surplus, which, appropriated by the chiefs as rent, is the source of their power. With it they support a large class of landless men engaged in ministering to their own specific wants. Moreover, this class groups itself around the castle of the chiefs, which are filled with military retainers, and here we have the beginnings of towns.

The town population increases steadily with the increase of the surplus produce from land under better conditions of cultivation. Markets and stores are instituted, and a commercial system is introduced. Barter gives way to the use of money, and the entire social organism expands and becomes more complex.

Anon, slavery disappears. But workers on the land—always the most necessary social units—remain poor as before. Competitors for work, in danger of starving, drive no hard bargain with masters who are in full possession of the soil, and able to forbid their growing even the simple fruits and grain required for a meagre living. For food enough to live, they readily pledge the labour of their whole lives, and since nature’s recompense for labour is liberal, there is an abundant surplus produce for landowners to grasp and employ as they choose. Into the towns it is sent, and there it stimulates progress—mental and material—and creates new departures in social life.

Class inequalities among town workers increase, and labour becomes organized. The mentally stronger dominate the weaker in the new fields of industry. They direct and control the production of commodities for the use of the dominant class, and succeed in acquiring a greater reward for their work than a meagre living. Out of the surplus produce of the land they become able to secure from their lords a portion which forms the foundation of wealth in a new social class—a class of landless capitalists who, possessing brain power and later money-power, become the supreme factors in altering social conditions. These men promote manufacture and commerce by action similar to the landholders’ methods of promoting agriculture. They press down their workers to a bare living, and take as profits all that competition permits of the results of the joint labour. These profits they apply to the satisfaction of their personal desires and the carrying out of their schemes of manufacturing and commercial enterprise. Finally, they indulge in luxurious living and emulate landholders in the purchase of valuable commodities, thus stimulating certain trades.

Meanwhile, through the intercourse of urban life, mental activity rapidly augments. Education is initiated, aptitude and skill are more and more prized and rewarded. Invention profoundly modifies the primitive modes of production, and genius aspires to understand and govern the forces of nature. One direction taken by mental activity eventuates in an important social force, viz., the Church, or religious organization. Many of the best minds in early ages were allied with the priesthood, and the Church’s desire for stately temples, gorgeous shrines, and decorative worship have enormously aided the outward development of architecture, sculpture, painting, and music, and the inward growth of aesthetic capacity. But priests and all whose labour is absorbed by the requirements of religious worship and the constructing of temples, must be fed on the produce of the land. The priesthood is maintained in leisure by rents, tithes, or the voluntary offerings of the people. It is freed from the necessity of industrial labour and military activity, and members within this large class have devoted their leisure to literature, history, philosophy, and art, thereby greatly advancing civilization.

Under increased stability of governments the organization becomes of a mainly industrial type. Nations now possess enormous wealth in the form of material commodities, wealth in the form of intellectual literature and the educational institutions that promote knowledge; wealth in the form of ornament—all that embellishes and makes beautiful the surroundings of human life; and all this wealth has come into existence through the natural action of evolutionary forces—an action creative, step by step, of a system of social interdependence and regulation. The prominent features of the system are: First, private property in land; second, great social inequality; third, poverty of manual labourers; fourth, a large town population, and a small or minimum peasant population. Its less prominent but no less decisive feature is the complete social subjugation of the poor by the rich.