Socialism: A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles

by John Spargo

Concerning the political organization of the Socialist state, so far as the extension of political democracy is concerned, not much need be said. You can very readily comprehend that this may be done by legal, constitutional means. Step by step, just as we attain power enough to do so, we shall extend the power of the people until we have a complete political democracy. Where, as in some of the Southern States, there is virtually a property qualification for the franchise, where that remnant of feudalism, the poll tax, remains, Socialists, whenever they come into power in those states, or whenever they are strong enough to force the issue, will insist upon making the franchise free. And where, as in this state, there is a sex qualification for the franchise, women being denied the suffrage, they will work unceasingly to do away with that relic of barbarism. By means of such measures as the Initiative and Referendum, and election of judges by the people, the sovereignty of the people will be established. It may be that without some constitutional amendments it will be found impossible to make political democracy complete. In that case, moving along the line of least resistance, they will do all that they can within the limits of the Constitution as it is, changing it whenever by reason of their power they deem that practicable.

As to the organization of the industrial life of the Socialist state, bringing industry from private to public control, here, too, Socialists will work along the line of least resistance. First of all, it must be remembered that there are tendencies to that end within society at present. Every development of industry and commerce, from competition to monopoly, so far as it centers the control in few hands and organizes the industry or business, makes it possible to take it over without dislocation, and, at the same time, makes it the interest of a larger number to help in bringing about that transfer. In like manner every voluntary coöperative organization of producers makes for the Socialist ideal. This is a far less important matter in the United States than in England and other European countries. Finally, we have the enormous extension of public functions developed already in capitalist society, and being constantly extended. Our postal system, public schools, state universities, libraries, museums, art galleries, parks, bureaus of research and information, hospitals, sanatoria, municipal ferries, water supply, fire departments, health boards, lighting systems, these, and a thousand other activities of our municipalities and states, and the nation, are so many forms created by capitalism to meet its own needs which belong, however, to Socialism and require only to be infused with the Socialist spirit. This will be done as they come under the influence of Socialists elected to various legislative and administrative bodies in ever increasing number as the movement grows.

All this is not difficult to comprehend. What is more likely to perplex the average man is the method by which Socialists propose to effect the transfer of individual or corporate property to the collectivity. Will it be confiscated, taken without recompense; and if so, will it not be necessary to take the bank savings of the poor widow as well as the millions of the millionaire? On the other hand, if compensation is given, will there not be still a privileged class, a wealthy class, that is, and a poorer class? These are the questions I see written upon your faces as I look down upon them and read the language of their strained interest. Every face seems a challenge to answer these questions. I shall try to answer them with perfect candor, as far as that is possible within the limits of our time. May I not ask you, then, to follow carefully a brief series of propositions, or postulates, which I shall, with your permission, lay before you?

First: The act of transfer, whether it take the form of confiscation or otherwise, must be the will of a legal majority of the people. If the unit is the city, a legal majority of the citizens there; if the unit is the state, then a legal majority of the citizens of the state; if the unit is the nation, then a legal majority in the nation. I use the term "legal majority" to indicate my profound conviction that the process itself must be a legal, constitutional process. Of course, in the event of some great upheaval occurring, such as, for example, the rising of a suffering and desperate people in consequence of some terrific panic or period of depression, brought on by capitalist misrule, or by war, this might be swept away. Throughout the world's history such upheavals have occurred, when the people's wrath, or their desperation, has assumed the form of a cyclone, and in such times laws have been of no more resistance than straws in the pathway of the cyclone sweeping across the plain. Omitting such dire happenings from our calculations—for so we must wish to do—we may lay down this principle of the imperative necessity for a legal majority, acting in legal manner.

Second: The process must be gradual. There will be no coup de force. No effort will be made to socialize those industries which have not been made ready by a degree of monopolization. This we can say with confidence, if for no other reason than that we cannot conceive a legal majority being stirred sufficiently to take action in the absence of some degree of oppression or danger, such as monopoly alone contains. Further, as a matter of hard, practical sense, it is not conceivable that any government will ever be able to deal with all the industries at one time. The railroads may be first to be taken, or it may be the mines in one state and the oil wells in another. The important point is to see that the process of socialization must be piecemeal and gradual. This does not mean that it must be a slow process, suggesting the slowness of geologic formations, but that it must be gradual, progressive, advancing from step to step, and giving opportunities for adjusting things. Otherwise there would be chaos and anarchy.

Third: The manner of the acquisition must be determined by the people at the time, and not fixed by us in advance, according to some abstract principle. If the people decide to take any particular individual or corporate property without compensation, that will be done. And they will have great historic precedents for their action. The Socialists of Europe could point to the manner in which many of the feudal estates and rights were confiscated, while American Socialists could point to the manner in which, without indemnity or compensation, chattel slavery was abolished.

So much is said merely by way of explanation, first, that the manner of acquiring private and corporate property and making it social property is not to be decided in advance, and secondly, that there are historic precedents for confiscation. On the other hand, there is no good reason why compensation should not be paid for such properties. You start! You have been more shocked than if I had said we should seize the properties and cut the throats of the proprietors! Be assured: I am not forgetting my promise to be frank with you, nor am I expressing my personal opinion merely when I say that there is nothing in the theory of modern Socialism which precludes the possibility of compensation. There is no Socialist of repute and authority in the world, so far as my knowledge goes, who makes a contrary claim. I should regard it as unworthy to lay down as the Socialist position views which were my own, and which were not shared by the great body of Socialist thinkers throughout the world. It is not less nor more than the truth that all the leading Socialists of the world agree that compensation could be paid without doing violence to a single Socialist principle, and most of them favor it.[200]

Once more I shall appeal to the authority of Marx. Engels wrote in 1894: "We do not at all consider the indemnification of the proprietors as an impossibility, whatever may be the circumstances. How many times has not Karl Marx expressed to me the opinion that if we could buy up the whole crowd it would really be the cheapest way of relieving ourselves of them."[201] Not only Marx, then, in the most intimate of his discussions with Engels, his bosom friend, but Engels himself, in almost his last days, refused to admit the impossibility of paying indemnity for properties socialized, "whatever may be the circumstances."

Now, as to the difficulties—especially as to the widow's savings. The socialization of non-productive wealth is not contemplated by any Socialist, no matter whether it consist of the widow's savings in a stocking or the treasures in the safe deposit vaults of the rich. Mere wealth, whether in money or precious gems and jewels, need not trouble us. Non-productive wealth is outside of our calculation. In the next place, as I have attempted to make clear, the petty business, the individual store, the small workshop, and the farm operated by its owner, would not, necessarily, nor probably, be disturbed. We have to consider only the great agencies of exploitation, industries operated by many producers of surplus-value for the benefit of the few. Let us, for example, take a conspicuous industrial organization, the so-called Steel Trust. Suppose the Socialists to be in power: there is a popular demand for the socialization of the steel industry. The government decides to take over the plant of the Steel Trust and all its affairs, and the support of the vast majority of the people is assured. First a valuation takes place, and then bonds, government bonds, are issued. Unlike what happens too often at the present time, the price fixed is not greatly in excess of the value the people acquire—one of the means by which the capitalists fasten their clutches on the popular throat. The Socialist spirit enters into the business. Bonds are issued to all the shareholders in strict proportion to their holdings, and so the poor widow, concerning whose interests critics of Socialism are so solicitous, gets bonds for her share. She is therefore even more secure than before, since it is no longer possible for unscrupulous individuals to plunder her by nefarious stock transactions.