So far, good and well. But, you may rightly say, this will not eliminate the unearned incomes. The heavy stockholders will simply become rich bondholders. Temporarily, that is true. But when that has been accomplished in a few of the more important industries, they will find it difficult to invest their surplus incomes profitably. There will also be a surplus to the state over and above the amounts annually paid in redemption of the bonds. Finally, it will be possible to adopt measures for eliminating the unearned incomes entirely by means of taxation, such as the progressive income tax, property and inheritance taxes. Taxation is, of course, a form of confiscation, but it is a form which has become familiar, which is perfectly legal, and which enables the confiscatory process to be stretched out over a long enough period to make it comparatively easy, to reduce the hardship to a minimum. By means of a progressive income tax, a bond tax, and an inheritance tax, it would be possible to eliminate the unearned incomes of a class of bondholders from society within a reasonable period, without inflicting injury or hardship upon any human being.
I do not, let me again warn you, set this plan before you as one which Socialism depends upon, which must be adopted. I do not say that the Socialist parties of the world are pledged to this method, for they are not. The subject is not mentioned in any of our programmes, so far as I recall them at this moment. We are silent upon the subject, not because we fear to discuss it, but because we realize that the matter will be decided when the question is reached, and that each case will be decided upon its merits. Still, it is but fair to express my belief that it is to the interest of the workers, no less than of the rest of society, that the change to a Socialist state be made as easy and peaceable as possible. Socialists, being human beings and not monsters, naturally desire that the transition to Socialism shall be made with as little friction and pain as possible. Left to their own choice, I am confident that those upon whom the task of effecting the change falls will not choose the way of violence, if the way of peace is left open to them.
Within the limits of this opportunity, I have tried to be as frank as I am to myself in those constant self-questionings which are inseparable from the work of the serious propagandist and honest teacher. Further I cannot go. If I have not been able to tell definitely how the change will be wrought, I have at least been able, I hope, to show that it may be brought about peaceably and without bloodshed. If this has given any one a new view of Socialism—opened, as it were, a doorway through which you can get a glimpse of the City Beautiful, and the way leading to its gates—then my reward is infinitely precious.
FOOTNOTES:
[197] From the stenographic report of an address given to some students of Socialism in New York, October, 1907.
[198] Cf. Jaurès, Studies in Socialism, page 44.
[199] Quoted by Jaurès, Studies in Socialism, page 93.
[200] The reader is referred to Kautsky's books, Das Erfurter Program and The Social Revolution, and to Vandervelde's admirable work, Collectivism, for confirmation of this statement.
[201] Quoted by Vandervelde, Collectivism, page 155.