Conditions of Labor.—On the fourth point, the necessity of public control to regulate child labor, the labor of women, sanitary conditions, and the use of dangerous machinery, the public conscience is also awakening. Decisions of the courts on the constitutionality of regulating women's labor have been somewhat at variance. But the recently announced decision[241] of the United States Supreme Court in the "Oregon case" seems likely to be decisive of the principle that women may be treated as a class. Freedom of contract cannot be regarded as interfering with the right to establish reasonable precautions for women's health. Woman may be protected "from the greed as well as from the passion of man." The immorality of child labor under modern conditions is also becoming clear. For the public to see child life stunted physically, mentally, and morally by premature labor under the exhausting, deadening, and often demoralizing conditions of modern industry and business, is for the public to consent to wickedness. It cannot leave this matter to the conscience of individual manufacturers and parents, for the conscientious manufacturer is at a disadvantage, and it might with as much morality consent to a parent's starving or poisoning his child as to his injuring it in less violent manner. For a society pretending to be moral to permit little children to be used up or stunted under any plea of cheap production or support of parents, is not above the moral level of those peoples which practice infanticide to prevent economic stress. Indeed, in the case of a country which boasts of its wealth, there is far less justification than for the savage. In the case of provision against accident due to dangerous machinery, the ethical principle is also clear. To throw all the burden of the accidents incident to modern production upon the families of the laborers is entirely unjust. To impose it upon the conscientious manufacturer is no better, for it places him at a disadvantage. This is a necessary—except so far as it can be minimized by safety devices—part of the modern machine process. It ought to be paid for either by all manufacturers, who would then shift it to the consumers in the price of the goods, or by the public as a whole in some form of insurance. European countries have gone much farther than the United States in this direction. The theory that the employer is exempt if a fellow workman contributes in any way to the accident has been applied in the United States in such a way as to free employers, and thus the public, from any share in the burden of a large part of accidents—except as these entail poverty and bring the victim and his family into the dependent class.
Moreover, it is only by public action that fair conditions of labor can be secured in many trades and under many employers. For the single workman has not the slightest chance to make conditions, and the union has no effective means to support its position unless it represents a highly skilled trade and controls completely the supply of labor. It may go without saying that violence is wrong. But it is often ignored that for a prosperous society to leave the laborer no remedy but violence for an intolerable condition is just as wrong.
Motives.—(5) On the question of motives the collectivist theory is probably over-sanguine as to the gain to be effected by external means. It is difficult to believe that any change in methods would eliminate selfishness. There is abundant exercise of selfishness in political democracy, and even in families. Further, if it should be settled on other grounds that competition in certain cases performs a social service, it would then be possible for a man to compete with a desire to serve the public, just as truly as it would be possible to compete for selfish motives. That a process causes pain incidentally does not necessarily pervert the motive of the surgeon or parent. It does, of course, throw the burden of proof upon the advocate of the process. Rivalry need not mean enmity if the rivals are on an equal footing and play fair.
Exploitation of Labor.—(6) The question whether all capitalistic production first exploits the laboring class, and then tends to absorb or drive out of business the small capitalist, is not so easy of decision. It seems to be easy to make a plausible statement for each side by statistical evidence. There seems little doubt that the general standard of living for laborers is rising. On the other hand, the number of enormous fortunes seems to rise much faster, and there is an appalling amount of poverty in the great cities. This is sometimes attributed to thriftlessness or to excessively large families. A careful study of an English agricultural community, where the conditions seemed at least as good as the average, showed that a family could not have over two children without sinking below the line of adequate food, shelter, and clothing, to say nothing of medical attendance or other comforts. In the United States there has been such a supply of land available that the stress has not been so intense. Just what the situation will be if the country becomes thickly settled cannot be foretold. Professor J. B. Clark shows that the tendency in a static society would be to give the laborer more and more nearly his share—provided there is free competition for his services. The difficulty is that society is not static and that a laborer cannot shift at will from trade to trade and from place to place.
That sometimes capital exploits labor is merely to say that the buyer sometimes gets the advantage. That capital usually has the advantage in its greater resources may be admitted, but that it invariably must seems an unwarranted deduction. The multiplication of wants widens continually the number of occupations and thus increases the competition for the service of the more skilled. In such cases some, at least, of the sellers should be in a position to make a fair bargain. Indeed, recent socialists do not advocate any such complete assumption by society of all production as is presented in some of the socialistic Utopias. Their principle is "that the State must undertake the production and distribution of social wealth wherever private enterprise is dangerous or less efficient than public enterprise."[242]
It is for those who do not believe in public control to prove that in the great enterprises for the production of the necessaries of life, for transportation, banking, mining, and the like, private enterprise is not dangerous. The conduct of many—not all—of these enterprises in recent years, not only in their economic aspects, but in their recklessness of human life, health, and morality, is what makes socialism a practical question. If it is adopted, it will not be for any academic or a priori reasons. It will be because private enterprise fails to serve the public, and its injustice becomes intolerable. If business enterprise, as sometimes threatens, seeks to subordinate political and social institutions, including legislatures and courts, to economic interests, the choice must be between public control and public ownership. And if, whether by the inherent nature of legal doctrine and procedure, or by the superior shrewdness of capital in evading regulation, control is made to appear ineffective, the social conscience will demand ownership. To subordinate the State to commercial interests is as immoral as to make the economic interest supreme in the individual.
As regards the relations between capital and labor, it argues an undeveloped state of society that we have no machinery for determining controversy as to what is a fair wage. In the long run, and on the whole, supply and demand may give an approximately fair adjustment, but our present method of fighting it out in doubtful cases is barbaric. The issue is decided often by violence or the no less unmoral motive of pressing want, instead of by the moral test of what is fair. And the great third interest, the consumer, or the public at large, is not represented at all. New Zealand, Canada, and some of the states in the United States have made beginnings. The President undoubtedly commanded general support in his position during the coal strike, when he maintained that the public was morally bound to take some part in the struggle.
Must not society be lacking in resources if its only resource is to permit exploitation, on the one hand, or carry on all industry and business itself, upon the other? To lose the flexibility, variety, and keenness of interest secured by individual or associated enterprise, would certainly be an evil. Early business was conducted largely by kinship organizations. The pendulum has doubtless reached the other extreme in turning over to groups, organized on a purely commercial basis, operations that could be more equitably managed by city or state agency. Most favor public agency in the case of schools. Railroads, gas companies, and other monopolies are still subject to controversy. But that an ideally organized society should permit associations and grouping of a great many kinds as agencies for carrying on its work seems a platform not to be abandoned until proved hopeless.
Collective Agency is Not Necessarily Social.—The socialist is inclined to think that if the agency of production were the government or the whole organized society this would give a genuine social agency of control. This by no means follows. Party government and city government in the United States have shown the fallacy of this. But even apart from the possibility of a corrupt boss there is still a wide gap between the collective and the socialized agency. For until the members of society have reached a sufficiently high level of intelligence and character to exercise voluntary control, and to coöperate wisely and efficiently, there must be some central directing agency. And such an agency will be morally external to a large number. It doesn't matter so much what name this agent is called by—i.e., whether he is "capitalist," or "government,"—so long as the control is external. In general, individuals are still without the mutual confidence and public intelligence which would enable them really to socialize the mechanically collective process.