Your pay envelope

by John Richard Meader

And this leads up to still another very interesting phase of the situation. We are told by the Socialists that the making of goods for profit is to end, and that, in the Co-operative Commonwealth, such problems as the high cost of living will trouble us no longer. Once let the Socialists get control of our industries and we shall be compelled to pay no more than a commodity is actually worth.

Do you see into what a maze of absurdities the Socialists have led you? They tell us that we are to get anywhere from $2,000 to $5,000 a year. An English Socialist promises the workers $10,000 a year, for what does a few paltry thousands matter when a great army of voters are to be fooled into casting their ballots for the Socialist ticket! In addition, you are assured that your work-day is to be cut in half, and you are further informed that, with the culmination of the profit system, you will be able to purchase everything you want at materially lower prices than are charged for such commodities to-day.

Will you tell me, John, where the Socialists are going to get the money to meet this enormous pay-roll, if they stop making goods for profit? Wages are to be increased out of all proportion to the present schedule; hours of labor are to be reduced to a minimum, and yet, despite all this, the prices of all commodities are to be cheapened, too.

You don’t see how they are going to do it? No more do I! Suppose you ask that wise little man on the street-corner. Maybe he can tell you!

CHAPTER VI
YOU “WAGE SLAVES”!

My dear Smith,

If you were to tell the soap-boxer that Socialism is an impracticable scheme, and that it couldn’t “make good” whether we all wanted it or not, he would become very indignant and would probably call you a “blind fool,” if he did not shower upon you still more vituperative epithets. If you ever find yourself in such a position, don’t let the soap-boxer place you on the defensive. When you talk about the impracticability of Socialism you put the Socialist just where he doesn’t want to be, and, if you follow up your attack consistently and strenuously, you will have him on the run before you know it. Socialists like to theorize. They like to talk to people who don’t ask for too many details, but they have little liking for the man who demands definite plans and accurate specifications.

You have a little house in a new suburban section. It is a small house and it has a mortgage on it, but you are paying for it gradually and it won’t be many years before it will be all your own. Even now the payments and all the charges together call for a smaller monthly expenditure than would be required if you rented a home not nearly as comfortable as this one.

Now, John, suppose I were to come to you and tell you that if you would let me tear down your house I would build you another somewhere else. Wouldn’t you be likely to ask me where the new house was to be located, and what guarantee I would give you that it would be a more satisfactory place of abode than the one which you now occupy? No matter how well you may know me—no matter how much confidence you may have in me as an individual—unless you are a very careless or a very stupid person, you will refuse to consent to any change in your domestic arrangements until you are certain that the proposition will be advantageous to you.

Such caution is entirely reasonable; this is the attitude you should take; yet Socialism asks you to disregard all such conditions. It expects you to believe that, when everything that represents modern civilization has been thrown into a vast melting-pot called “The Revolution,” something will come out of it that will be very much to your profit. They won’t tell you how this is to be brought about. They themselves have a vague idea in regard to what kind of a society we are to evolve into, and they try to describe it to you under the general terms of the “Co-operative Commonwealth.” As a matter of fact, however, it is almost impossible to find any two Socialists who will agree, even as to the main points of their program, and some of the socialistic leaders are honest enough to admit that there is a poor chance that they would be able to carry out this program successfully, even if given the best of opportunities. For example, Edward Bernstein, who is a sufficiently good Socialist to be selected to represent his party in the German Reichstag, admits that, “Socialism could not keep its promise if it were placed in power to-morrow.”