A history of socialism

by Thomas Kirkup

In England a co-operative society is usually a group of workers who manage distribution with their joint capital in their own interests. The group is entirely democratic, open to every one, organised on the principle of one man one vote, and choosing their own committee or executive; the manager is a social functionary; no member can legally hold more than £200 of capital in any society. Production, especially for domestic consumption, has now made very great progress. In 1907 the movement had 1566 registered societies and 2,434,000 members. By that date the £28 with which the movement started in 1844 had expanded into a capital of £32,000,000, with an annual turnover of £105,000,000, and an annual profit of £12,000,000. It provides for the consumption of one-fifth of the population. The co-operative movement in Great Britain is already an industrial and economic power of no mean order. If it has not solved the social question, it has at least done much to clear the way towards a solution. The movement is also making rapid progress in Germany, Austria, Belgium, France, and Italy, and its greatest successes are in other fields than distribution. In Denmark the co-operative system is one of the brightest features of recent history. More recently a co-operative movement of great promise has begun in Ireland.

The co-operative society, therefore, is a self-governing group of workers, which has already made very considerable progress in controlling the economic interests of the labouring class. Not a little disappointment is felt that it has not accomplished greater results; as we believe, without good ground. It might reasonably have been expected that human nature would survive among co-operators, and that the self-regarding principle would continue to be the mainspring of individual action. Better social arrangements can only provide for it a more efficient system of regulation.

It is particularly regrettable that co-operative societies have not always had sufficient regard for their employees. There can be little doubt that the contrast between producers and consumers, and between the centralising and de-centralising tendencies in organisation, will long be a difficulty among co-operators, who do not thoroughly understand the new system to which they belong. Yet it should also be said that many of the objections raised by the critics of the movement are really due to the fact that they do not understand its real nature, and imagine that they find old things where really they meet only old names.

The noblest embodiment of the co-operative idea is to be found in one of the oldest seats of industry in Western Europe. This is the Vooruit (Forward) Society, which was founded at Ghent in a season of scarcity by Edouard Anseele and a few weavers in 1873. It was started with a capital of 84 francs and 93 centimes, about £3: 8s., at first naturally as a bakery, and has grown till it embraces the economy and life of about 100,000 out of the 165,000 inhabitants of the city. Besides the enormous and splendidly-equipped bakeries, it has huge stores and the largest cotton factory in Ghent, with an eight-hours’ day. It has its own printing works, a daily and weekly press, its own system of life insurance, and old-age pensions. It offers to its members at its People’s Palace the means of education and of wholesome recreation and it encourages art. This is a great achievement in a country where Church and State, landlord and capitalist, have so long combined to keep the workers in the lowest ignorance and degradation. The Vooruit has been a model to similar co-operative enterprises not only in Belgium, but in France, Holland, and Germany.

4. Of all the recent movements for the better ordering of society in England, we believe the co-operative movement to be the most hopeful, because the most thorough and practical, but it is only one of many. During the last half-century we have seen a long succession of efforts, partially successful, towards a new organisation of society rendered necessary by the changes due to the industrial revolution. In all spheres the watchword of the new era has been freedom, the removal of restraint. But it has been found that positive measures of reconstruction were also necessary. Factory legislation carried in opposition to the prevailing economic theory, trade-unions, employers’ combinations, industrial partnerships, boards of conciliation, the co-operative system,—all these are real, if partial, endeavours towards a new organisation of society suited to the new conditions. They are all modifications and limitations imposed on the competitive system, and to them the progress of the last sixty years is largely due. Socialism claims to be the comprehensive scheme of organisation which embraces in a complete and consistent unity all these partial efforts.

5. But the most striking feature of recent economic history is the continuation of the movement which began with the industrial revolution. Through this process the small producer was superseded by the capitalist, the smaller capitalist by the larger. And now the single capitalist is being absorbed by the company, an increasing proportion of the world’s business being so vast that only a great company can provide the requisite capital and organisation; whilst in the large companies, in case they cannot drive each other out of the field, there is a marked tendency to bring about a fusion of interests. In all this we see a great constructive process going on as the result of the inherent laws of industrial development.

The movement is active in our own country; but it is far surpassed in magnitude and activity by similar phenomena in the United States of America, where it is favoured by special circumstances. Under the protective system the economic development of America has proceeded without being disturbed by the industrial power of England. It is a self-contained and self-sufficing continent with a vast area and enormous natural resources. The people have not such a wide variety of political, social, literary, and artistic interests as have the ruling classes of England, and have therefore been all the more keenly engaged in the exploitation of the new world that lay open to them. Capitalism in America has shown an energy, acuteness, and fertility of resource which even in England are unparalleled. But in the various departments of industry the chiefs have found that competition may be suicidal and mutually destructive, and have therefore seen it expedient to arrange with each other for the regulation of production, of prices and wages. Hence the trusts, or great combinations of capitalists, which now confront American society and the American Republic, and which, as the latest development of capitalism, are well calculated to excite scientific curiosity in every country.

The trust system is, however, by no means confined to America. A like organisation under the name of cartels or syndicates is, in proportion to the size of the country, almost equally strong in Germany. In forms more or less open and undisguised it is spreading in England, Austria, and other lands. It may be regarded as an inevitable stage in the natural history of capitalism.

Thus far have we come through the natural growth of the company. If we consider the nature and development of the company, we shall find that it is not entirely undemocratic. The directors are, in principle at least, elected and removable by the shareholders. And as the shares are open for purchase by any one, a porter may be a shareholder in the railway company of which he is a servant, with, so far, a voice in the management. But in point of fact the companies are owned and controlled by the capitalist classes, and are a development of capitalism. The directors are usually large capitalists. Their main aim is to produce dividends. The relation of the management to the employees cannot have much of a kindly, human, and personal element.

On the other hand, the development of the company in a large degree means that the real administration of the economic movement is passing out of the hands of the owner of capital as such. The companies are for the most part managed by paid officials, who may or may not have a substantial holding in the capital. That is, the capitalists do not really manage the companies in which their capital is embarked. The manager, with a staff of paid officials, has become the pivot of the industrial movement. Generally speaking, the large company is more amenable to social regulation than a variety of small enterprises. And now we see that the natural development of the company has prepared the whole organisation necessary for its complete transference to social ownership and control, if such a step were deemed advisable. A great railway or system of water-supply can be transferred to State or municipal control without any particular change in the organisation by which it is worked. In fact, capitalism has prepared or is preparing the mechanism by which it may be superseded. It has done its work so thoroughly that it has been rendering even itself superfluous. We need not add that preparatory steps towards the transformation of the company may also be seen in the spread of the principle of industrial partnerships or profit-sharing. In America, where the industrial development is more recent, the founders of the great corporations still to a large degree continue to control them. Yet we can see how the constructive talent they have so marvellously shown has paved the way for social control when the time may come for it.