Socialism and Democracy in Europe

by Samuel Peter Orth

The burden of the law is shifting from property to persons, from protecting things to protecting humanity. This change from the Roman law is almost revolutionary. Even Blackstone, our halfway-mark in the evolution of the common law, is busy with postulates protecting property.

Where is this encroachment of the state on private "rights" going to end? There are some things which the state (society) can do better than the individual; like the marshaling of an army or conducting a post-office, and things that are done to counteract the selfishness of individuals, like factory inspection. But there are other things which society cannot do; things that depend on individual effort, like art, literature, and invention. The two fields of state and individual activity merge into each other. Each nation marks its own distinctions. But this is certain: in a democracy the state will do the things which the people want it to do. And in a Social Democracy these things are numerous.

Social Democracy strikes a balance between individual duty and collective energy. It brings the power of government (collective power), not to the few who are rich, therefore ignoring oligarchy; nor to the few who are clever, thereby ignoring tyranny; nor to the few who are well-born, thus discarding aristocracy; but it brings all the power of the government to all the people. It attempts to coalesce the cleverness of the tyrant, the experience of the aristocrat, the wealth of the industrial nabob, and the aggregate momentum of the mass, into a humanitarian power. It attempts to use the gifts of all for the benefit of all.

Social Democracy is the resultant of two forces meeting from opposite directions: the forces of industrialism, and Socialism, of collectivism and individualism. No one can draw the exact direction of this resultant. It attempts to avoid the tyranny and selfishness of the few, and the tyranny and greed of the many.

Our study of the operation of governments under the sway of Social Democracy has shown the sort of legislation that is demanded. It is not necessary to repeat here the details of these laws. But it is necessary to bear in mind that there are two industrial questions which have absolutely refused to bend to the power of government: the question of the length of the workday and the question of wages. The vast majority of strikes are due to differences over these two questions. The eight-hour day and the minimum wage have been successful only in a limited government service.[4] Nor has any machinery set up by governments to avoid industrial collisions between workmen and employers been successful in avoiding differences over hours and wages. The elaborate system of Germany, for instance, is nothing more than the good will of the state offered to the warring industrial elements in the interests of peace. The questions of hours and wages are so fundamental that they embrace the right of private property. Any power that divests an individual of the right to dispose of his time or substance by contract virtually deprives him of the right of ownership.

The limits to the possibilities of Social Democracy are the limits of private ownership. This brings us at once to the verge of the eternal question of government—the finding of a just ratio between individual and collective responsibility: a ratio that varies with varying nationalities, and that will vary with the passing years. Each generation in every land will have to fix the limitations for itself.

The new Social Democracy has acquired certain characteristics which will help us in determining the trend of its movements. In the first place it is an educated Social Democracy. The taunt of ignorance applied to the old Socialism of passion cannot be applied to the new Socialism of practice. The nations of Europe no longer debate the suitability of universal education. That question happily was settled for the United States with the landing of the Pilgrims. It took one hundred years for Europe to understand the Ordinance of 1787, that "schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged." Not all of the European nations have touched the heights of this ideal, but Social Democracy is struggling towards it, and schools, more or less efficient, are open to the workmen's children. This education is extended to adults by the press and by self-imposed studies. The eagerness with which men and women flock to lectures and night classes is a great omen. In Paris the École Socialiste and Université Populaire, in Germany and Belgium the night classes in the labor union clubhouses, the debates and the lecture courses, are evidences of intellectual eagerness.

In the second place it is a drilled democracy. It is organized into vast co-operative societies and trade unions. Here it learns the lesson of constant watchfulness over details. This training in the infinite little things of business is a good sedative. Socialists bargain and sell and learn the lessons of competition; do banking and learn discount; engage in manufacture and learn the problem of the employer.

They are, moreover, drilled in parliaments, in city and county councils, in communal offices. They learn the advantages of give and take, are skilled in compromise, and feel the friction of opposition.

All this has wrought a wonderful change in Socialism. To a Belgian co-operativist running a butcher-shop, the eight-hour day is a practical problem; and to a Bavarian member of a city council the question of opening communal dwellings ceases to be only a subject for debate. Nothing has brought these people to earth so suddenly as the infusion of earthly experience into their blood. And this transfusion has given them life. It has rid them of their many adjectives and given them a few verbs. It has robbed them in large measure of their mob spirit.[5] Every year the arbitrary governments of Europe are finding police coercion more and more unnecessary. The Socialist crowd is growing orderly, is achieving that self-control which alone entitles a people to self-government.