With these remarks, we may dismiss the specific charge of injustice brought by socialists against the present order of things, and the specific claim of right for the labouring class which they prefer. Let us now submit their proposals to a more practical and decisive test—will they or will they not realize the legitimate aspirations, the ideal of the working class? Does socialism offer a better guarantee for the realization of that ideal than the existing economy? I believe it does not. What is the ideal of the working class? It may be said to be that they shall share pari passu in the progressive conquests of civilization, and grow in comfort and refinement of life as other classes of the community have done. Now this involves two things—first, progress; second, diffusion of progress; and socialism is so intent on the second that it fails to see how completely it would cut the springs of the first. Some of its adherents do assert that production would be increased and progress accelerated under a socialistic economy, but they offer nothing in support of the assertion, and certainly our past experience of human nature would lead us to expect precisely the opposite result. The incentives and energy of production would be relaxed. I have already spoken of the loss that would probably be sustained in exchanging the interested zeal and keen eye of the responsible capitalist employer for the perfunctory administration of a State officer. A like loss would be suffered from lightening the responsibility of the labourers and lessening their power of acquisition. Under a socialist régime they cannot by any merit acquire more property than they enjoy in daily use, and they cannot by any fault fail to possess that. Now socialist labourers are not supposed, any more than socialist officials, to be angels from heaven; they are to carry on the work of society with the ordinary human nature which we at present possess; and in circumstances like those just described, unstirred either by hope or fear, our ordinary human nature would undoubtedly take its ease and bask contentedly in the kind providence of the State which relieved it of all necessity for taking thought or pains. The inevitable result would be a great diminution of production, which, with a rapidly increasing population (and socialism generally scouts the idea of restraining it), would soon prove seriously embarrassing, and could only be obviated by a resort to the lash; in a word, by a return to industrial slavery. Now, with a lessening production, progress is clearly impossible, and the more evenly the produce was distributed, the more certain would be the general decline.
Socialists ignore the civilizing value of private property and inheritance, because they think of property only as a means of immediate enjoyment, and not as a means of progress and moral development. They would allow private property only in what is sometimes termed consumers' wealth. You might still own your clothes, or even purchase your house and garden. But producers' wealth, they hold, should be common property, and neither be owned nor inherited by individuals. If this theory were to be enforced, it would be fatal to progress. Private property has all along been a great factor in civilization, but the private property that has been so has been much more producers' than consumers'. Consumers' wealth is a limited instrument of enjoyment; producers' is a power of immense capability in the hands of the competent. Socialists are really more individualistic than their opponents in the view they take of the function of property. They look upon it purely as a means for gratifying the desires of individuals, and ignore the immense social value it possesses as a nurse of the industrial virtues and an agency in the progressive development of society from generation to generation.
There is still another and even more important spring of progress that would be stifled by socialism—freedom. Freedom is, of course, a direct and integral element in any worthy human ideal, for it is an indispensable condition for individual development, but here it comes into consideration as an equally indispensable condition of social progress. Political philosophers, like W. von Humboldt and J. S. Mill, who have pled strongly for the widest possible extension of individual freedom, have made their plea in the interests of society itself. They looked on individuality as the living seed of progress; without individuality no variation of type or differentiation of function would be possible; and without freedom there could be no individuality. Under a régime of socialism freedom would be choked. Take, for example, a point of great importance both for personal and for social development, the choice of occupations. Socialism promises a free choice of occupations; but that is vain, for the relative numbers that are now required in any particular occupation are necessarily determined by the demands of consumers for the particular commodity the occupation in question sets itself to supply. Freedom of choice is, therefore, limited at present by natural conditions, which cause no murmuring; but these natural conditions would still exist under the socialist régime, and yet they would perforce appear in the guise of legal and artificial restrictions. It would be the choice of the State that would determine who should enter the more desirable occupations, and not the choice of the individuals themselves. The accepted would seem favourites; the rejected would complain of tyranny and wrong. Selection could not be made by competitive examination without treason against the principles of a socialist state, nor by lot without a sacrifice of efficiency. The same difficulties would attend the distribution of the fertile and the poor soils. Even consumption would not escape State inquisition and guidance, for an economy that pretended to do away with commercial vicissitudes must take care that a change of fashion does not extinguish a particular industry by superseding the articles it produces. Socialism would introduce, indeed, the most vexatious and all-encompassing absolutist government ever invented. It would impose on its central executive functions that would require omniscience for their discharge, and an authority so excessive that E. von Hartmann is probably right in thinking that obedience could only be secured by fabricating for it the illusion of a Divine origin and reinforcing loyalty by superstition. The extensive centralized authority given to government in France has undoubtedly been one of the main causes of the instability of the political system of that State, and a socialist rule, with its vastly greater prerogatives, could only maintain its ascendancy by being fabulously hedged with the divinity of a Grand Lama. A military despotism would be at least more consistent with modern conditions; but a military despotism socialists abjure, and yet believe that they can exact from free and equal citizens an almost animal submission to an authority they elect themselves.
Progress is only possible on the basis of industrial freedom and private property; and in the socialist controversy there is no question about the necessity of progress. That is an assumption common to both sides; socialists of the present day acknowledge it as implicitly as the general opinion of the time. They are no sharers in Mill's admiration for the stationary state; they utterly ridicule his Malthusian horror of a progressive population; and, profoundly impressed as they are with the vital need for a better distribution of wealth, they hesitate to sacrifice for it an increasing production. On the contrary, they claim for their system that it would stimulate progress, as well as spread its blessings, better than the system that exists, and Lassalle at all events frankly declared that unless socialism increased production, it would not be economically justifiable. But tried by this test, we have seen reason to find it wanting. The problem to which it addresses itself, the institution of a sound and healthy distribution of wealth, is probably the greatest social problem of the time; but socialism fails to solve it, because no distribution can be sound and healthy which destroys the conditions of further progress. The true solution must adhere to the lines of the present industrial system, the lines of industrial freedom and private property.
It is one thing, however, to say that the principles of industrial freedom and private property are essential to a healthy distribution, and it is quite another thing to hold that the distribution is then healthiest and most perfect when these principles enjoy the most absolute and unconditional operation. If socialism errs by suppressing them, laissez-faire runs into the opposite error of giving them unlimited authority. Laissez-faire is perhaps hardly any longer a living faith. But even when men still believed in the economic harmonies, they always taught that the best and justest distribution of wealth was that which issued out of the free competition of individuals, and that if this distribution ever turned out to be really faulty or partial, it was only because the competition was not free or perfect enough; because some of the competitors were not sufficiently enlightened as compared with others, or not sufficiently mobile with their labour or capital; in other words, because the competition was not conducted on equal terms. This theory manifestly makes the justice of the distribution effected by free competition to depend on the false assumption of the natural equality of the competitors, and therefore as manifestly implies that unless men are equal in talents and opportunities, the system of unlimited freedom may produce a distribution that is seriously unjust. Laissez-faire thus had a germ of socialism in its being, and even when its ascendancy seemed to be highest, it was already being practically replaced by a larger and more energetic theory of social politics which imposed on the State the duty of correcting many of the evils of the present distribution of wealth, and promoting, if not equality of all conditions, yet certainly amelioration of the inferior conditions. Instead of maintaining equal freedom for weak and strong, the State was to take the part of the weak against the strong, in order to secure to all citizens a real participation in progressive civilization. It is said truly enough that the effect of such interferences is not to destroy liberty, but to fulfil it, because, apart from them, the labour contract is no more a free contract for labourers living from hand to mouth than the capitulation of a beleaguered garrison when their provisions have run down is a free capitulation, and the legal intervention is necessary in order to make the men first really free. Legal freedom is no more an end in itself than legal intervention; both are merely means of giving men real freedom and enabling them effectually to work out their complete and normal vocation as human beings. I shall treat more fully of the true theory of social politics in a subsequent chapter on State Socialism; but here, in connection with its relation to industrial freedom, it will be enough to say that the restraints it proposes are neither meant nor calculated to impair real freedom, and that it is separated from socialism by its constant care to develop rather than supersede individual responsibility, to facilitate the spread of private property rather than suppress it, and to remove obstacles that are making men's own efforts a nullity rather than to substitute for those efforts the providence of the State.
If, then, there is any truth in these considerations—if the general acquisition of private property, and not its universal abolition, is the demand of the working-class ideal—then the business of social reform at present ought to be to facilitate the acquisition of private property; to multiply the opportunities of industrial investment open to the labouring classes, and to devise means for credit, for saving, for insurance, and the like. While, for reasons already explained, I have been unable to agree with Mr. Cairnes' despondent view of the economic position of the wage-paid labourers, I am entirely at one with him in conceiving the surest means to their progressive amelioration to lie in participation, by one means or another, in industrial capital. Much good may be done by a wider extension of trade unions, and a better organization of working class insurance; but the labourers must not rest content till they have found their way, under the new conditions of modern trade, to become capitalists as well as labourers. Co-operative production seems the most obvious solution of this problem; but it is a mischievous, though a common mistake, to regard it as the only solution. The fortunes of the working class are not all embarked in one bottom, and their salvation may be expected to fulfil itself in many ways. I cannot share in the lamentation sometimes made because some of the earlier productive associations have departed from the strict and original form of co-operation, under which all the shareholders in the business were labourers and all the labourers shareholders. In the present situation of affairs, variety of experiment is desirable, for only out of many various experiments can we eventually discover which are most suitable to the conditions and fittest to survive. Co-operative production would perhaps have been further advanced to-day, if co-operators had not been so faithful in their idolatry of their original ideal, and had fostered instead of discouraging variations of type, which may yet justify their superiority by persisting and multiplying. As it is, co-operative production has not been such a complete failure as it is sometimes represented; it can show at least a few very signal tokens of success and great promise. It is often declared to be inapplicable to the great industries, because they require more capital and better management than co-operative working men are usually able to furnish. But in the town and neighbourhood of Oldham there are 100 co-operative spinning mills, with a capital of close on £8,000,000. They are managed entirely by working men, their capital is contributed in £5 shares by working men, and they have during the last ten years paid dividends varying from 10 to 45 per cent. These are joint-stock companies rather than co-operative societies in the stricter sense; but they are joint-stock companies of working men, and they furnish to working men in an effective and successful way that participation in the industrial capital of the country which is really what is wanted. The Oldham workman prefers to hold shares in a different mill from that he works in, because he feels himself more free to exercise his voice as a shareholder there, and he prefers to carry his labour to the mill where he gets the best wages and the best treatment, without being obliged to change his investment when he changes his workshop. The advantage of the Oldham system over the stricter co-operative type is therefore the old advantage of freedom. It suits the English character better, and the only wonder is why it is still, after more than sixteen years' successful experience, confined exclusively to a single locality. It has been stated that there are a thousand operatives working at these mills who are worth £1000 to £2000, and besides the mills, there are co-operative stores, building societies, and other working-class companies in Oldham, with a combined capital of £3,500,000. In all these ways the zone of participators in property broadens, and hope and stimulus are introduced into the labourer's life. The truth seems to be that the great need of the working man is not so much money to invest as opportunity and motive for investment. The amount lodged in savings banks, the amount raised by trade unions, the amount wasted in drink, the amount wasted in inefficient household economy, which might be much lessened by better instruction in the arts of cookery and household management—all show that large numbers of the working class possess means at their disposal to constitute at least the beginnings of their emancipation, if good opportunities were open to them of using it advantageously in productive enterprise. Co-operation and profit-sharing are not the only means by which this might be realized. Private firms might initiate a practice of reserving a certain amount of their capital to constitute a kind of stock for their workmen to invest their savings in, under—if that were legalized—limited liability. One advantage of this plan over the ordinary industrial partnership would be, that while, like it, it would enhance the workmen's zeal in their work, it could not possibly have the effect of reducing wages, because the stock would be a free investment, and would probably not be taken up by all or by more than a majority of the workmen. Again, with a reform of our land laws, small investments in land will certainly be facilitated, especially among the agricultural class.
Socialists would no doubt condemn all such investments for the same reason as they generally condemn the co-operative movement, because they would tend to create "a new class with one foot in the camp of the bourgeoisie and the other in the camp of the proletariat." But that is precisely one of their chief advantages, and in making this objection socialists only betray how completely they ignore the operation of those portions of human nature that are the real forces and factors of social progress. It is only by linking a lower class to a higher that you can raise the level of the whole, and every pathway the working class makes into a comfortable equality with the lower bourgeoisie will constitute at once an opportunity and a spur for others to follow them, which will exercise an elevating effect upon the entire body. If it were generally open to all the labouring classes to begin by being wage-labourers and end by sharing in some degree in the industrial capital of the country, this would raise the level of the whole—of those who after all remained wage-labourers still, as well as of those who succeeded in gaining a better competency. It would give them all something to keep looking forward to during their working life, something to save for and strive after, and a higher standard of comfort would get diffused and considered necessary in the class generally through the example of the better off. For the more comfortably situated working men—whether they have won their comfort by co-operation or otherwise—have not passed out of their class. They have, as is alleged, one foot in the camp of the proletariat still. They live and move and have their being among working people, and constitute by their presence and social connections a stimulating and elevating agency. It is through connections like these that the ideas of comfort and culture that prevail among an upper class permeate through to a lower, and thus elevate the general standard of living upon which the level of wages so much depends. Even the minor inequalities in the ranks of the working class are not without their use in quickening their exertions to maintain the standard of respectability which they have won or inherited. Economists were not wrong in ascribing so much influence as they always have done to men's tenacity in adhering to their customary standard of life. Many striking illustrations of its beneficial operation might be mentioned. I select one, because it concerns an aspect of the condition of the labouring classes of this country that is at present attracting much attention—their house accommodation. In all our large cities, the house accommodation of the working class has hitherto been about as bad as bad could be, but there is one singular exception—it is Sheffield. Porter drew attention to the fact many years ago. "The town itself," he says, "is ill built and dirty beyond the usual condition of English towns, but it is the custom for each family among the labouring population to occupy a separate dwelling, the rooms of which are furnished in a very comfortable manner. The floors are carpeted, and the tables are usually of mahogany. Chests of drawers of the same material are commonly seen, and so in many cases is a clock also, the possession of which article of furniture has often been pointed out as the certain indication of prosperity and of personal responsibility on the part of the working man." ("Progress of the Nation," p. 523.) The same condition of things still prevails, for at the meeting of the British Association in Sheffield in 1879 Dr. Hime read a paper on the vital statistics of the town, in which he says:—"Although handsome public buildings are not a prominent feature in the town, still there are few towns in England where the great bulk of the population is so well provided for in the way of domestic architecture. Overcrowding is very rare; cellar dwellings are unknown; and almost every family has an entire house, a most important agent in securing physical as well as moral health." (Transactions of British Association, 1879.) Now this is a fact of the highest interest, and we naturally ask what peculiarity there is in the trade or circumstances of Sheffield, in the first place, to create such an exceptional excellence in the standard of working class house accommodation, and, in the next place, to maintain it. One thing is certain: it is not due to better wages. There are trades in Sheffield very highly paid, but the labourers belonging to them are described by the anonymous author of "An Inquiry into the Moral, Social, and Intellectual Condition of the Industrious Classes of Sheffield" (London, 1839), as being much less comfortable in their circumstances than the others. This writer speaks of some trades in which "the workmen are steady, intelligent, and orderly, seldom the recipients of charity or parochial relief. They depend on their own exertions for the respectable maintenance of their families, and when trade is depressed they strive to live on diminished wages, or fall back on resources secured by industry and economy. This healthy and vigorous condition is not attributable to high wages. The workmen in the edge-tool trade are extravagantly remunerated, and yet, as a body, they are perhaps as irregular and dissipated in their habits as any in the town. Their families, in time of good trade, feel few of the advantages of prosperity, and when labour is little in demand, they are the first to need the aid of charity. These differences are familiar to the most superficial observer of the social and moral condition of the workmen in the several branches" (p. 14). But the same writer mentions a peculiarity in the trade of Sheffield which, he says, marks it off from every other manufacturing town, and that peculiarity may serve to provide us with the explanation we are seeking. "With us," he says, "the distinctions between masters and men are not always well marked. Persons are to a great extent both. The transition from the one to the other is easy and frequent in those branches where the tools are few and simple, and the capital required extremely small, which applies to the whole of the cutlery department." "The facility with which men become masters causes extraordinary competition, and its inevitable result, insufficient remuneration." "Here merchants and manufacturers cannot become princes.... There is not sufficient play for large fortunes. The making of fortunes is with us a slow process. It is, however, far from being partial.... The longer period required in the making of them allows the mind time to adapt itself to its improved circumstances, not merely the speculative and money-getting part of the understanding, but the whole of its social, moral, and intellectual powers, without which means are a questionable good. Wealth and intelligence are accordingly with us more generally associated than in towns where immense fortunes are rapidly made. In the latter case, there is no time for adaptation, nor is it deemed necessary or at all important, where money is the measure by which all things are estimated. Another evil dependent on this sudden elevation in life is the great distance which is immediately placed between employer and employed" (p. 15). Class and class are thus better knit together in Sheffield than elsewhere. The exceptional facility of becoming masters seems to be the particular instrumentality which has brought down the ideas and habits of comfort of the bourgeoisie and spread them among the working class, and which has always prevented the great mass of the latter from sinking contentedly into a lower general standard of life. It introduced among them that social ambition, which is the most effective spur to progress, and the best preservative against decline. The fact that the exceptionally good house accommodation which prevails among the labouring population of Sheffield is not owing to exceptional, or even at all superior, wages, is one of much hope and encouragement. What is possible in Sheffield cannot be impossible elsewhere; and what is possible in the matter of house accommodation cannot be hopeless in other branches of consumption.
I shall be told that in all this I am only repeating the foolish idea of the French princess, who heard the people complain they could not get bread, and asked why then they did not buy cake. Where combinations are possible, it will be said, investments may be also possible; but the great majority of the working class are not in a position to combine, and it is mere mockery to tell people to save and invest who can hardly contrive to cover their backs. To this I reply, that there is no reason to assume that trade unions have reached the utmost extension of which they are susceptible, or to despair of their introduction into the hitherto unorganized trades. It was only lately common to deny the possibility of combination among agricultural labourers, and yet, scattered as they are, they have shown themselves not only able to combine, but to raise wages effectively by means of their combinations. We have now very powerful unions of unskilled day labourers, and a beginning has been made of an efficient organization even among needlewomen. It is true that, even when organization has spoken its last word, much of the distressing poverty that now exists would probably still remain, because we must not disguise from ourselves the fact that much of that poverty is the direct fruit of vice, disease, or indolence. But socialism could not cope with this mass of misery any better than the present system, for men don't drink and loaf and enter into improvident marriages or illicit alliances because they happen to be paid for their labour by contract with a capitalist instead of valuation by a State officer, and they certainly would not cease doing any of these things because an indulgent State undertook to save them from the natural penalties of doing them.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] The proportion in England for 1857, according to official figures, was 3½ times the number for one day, but whether that proportion continues still we have no means of knowing.