“In the society of the future,” he says, “the self-same individual will be letter carrier to-day; to-morrow he must perform the duties of a post-office clerk; on the third day he must act as postmaster-general—but why use a title?—in short, he must undertake all that business which at present the director of the national post-office has in hand—he must prepare programs for international post-office congresses, etc.; and on the fourth day he must again return to the counter; on the fifth he condescends to be letter-carrier once more but this time not in the metropolis, but in some out-of-the-way place, for it is but meet that the sweets of city life should fall to the lot of all in their turn. Thus it would be also with the railroad department, in the mining and military department and in every common factory. To-day the member of the socialistic State descends into the bowels of the earth as a collier, or hammers at the anvil, or punches tickets; to-morrow he wields the quill, balances accounts, makes chemical experiments, drafts designs for machines or issues general edicts on the quantity and quality of the social productions.”
So, you “wage slaves,” you have been told what is in store for you. The utopian promises of some Socialist apologists are too ridiculous to be credited by a sane individual. The only thing that remains is the course which Sydney Webb and Ramsay MacDonald have outlined. The worker will still work for a wage. The officials of the new State will sanction the selection of his employment. He may take it or leave it, live or starve to death, for there will be but one master to whom he can turn for a job—the omnipotent State. It is the State that will tell him what he is permitted to do, and he will have no right save that of strict obedience.
As the author of “The Case Against Socialism” says (pp. 290-1): “A man might desire to be an electrical engineer. ‘No vacancies,’ says the State. ‘Ah, but I am sure that I can prove myself to be a much better man than some whom you have chosen,’ replies the applicant. ‘No outside competitions allowed,’ says the State. ‘We want masons, and a mason you must be.’ ‘But have I no personal freedom?’ replies the man. The answer is that he belongs to the State, and, if the official is in the mood to graciously explain matters further, the man will probably be told that it is difficult enough to organize labor at all, and that the attempt would become impossible if anyone was so selfish as to consider such a trivial matter as his own inclinations.”
What chance could a worker have under such circumstances? If he was not satisfied, he would simply have to pocket his dissatisfaction and make the best of it. What do you think of a body of men who, while planning this fate for the American worker, have the nerve to talk to him about “wage slavery”! Could anything be worse than this slavery with the State as a master?
CHAPTER VII
YOUR BOSS UNDER SOCIALISM
My dear Smith,
Having seen what the condition of the “wage slave” will be under Socialism, it is only fair that we should give a little attention to that other class in the Co-operative Commonwealth, the “bossing class.” The Socialist speaker on the street-corner assures us that, when the Socialist ideal is realized, everything in society will be democratically managed. It is in this way, they say, and in this way alone, that true liberty can be realized. The fact that they do not make clear is that, if you accept their definition, “liberty” means liberty to do just as we are told and nothing more.
And there will be no lack of people with power to tell you what to do.
As Laurence Gronlund states in “The Co-operative Commonwealth” (p. 115), while the Commonwealth “guarantees suitable employment,” it certainly cannot “guarantee a particular employment to everybody,” and this, as your own good judgment must tell you, opens the way for the creation of an army of state controllers in numbers hitherto undreamt of.
The theory that efficient work can be performed without direction is so utopian that it has been discarded, even by the majority of Socialists. The most that they are trying to do to-day is to develop a plan whereby the actual worker and the army of bosses may exist without continuous warfare.