A Critical Examination of Socialism

by W. H. Mallock

I was constantly asked by socialists in America whether I really believed that society, as it is, is perfect, and that there are no evils and defects in it which are crying aloud for remedy. Unless I believed this—and that I could do so was hardly credible—I ought, they said, if I endeavoured to discredit the remedy proposed by themselves, to suggest another, which would be better and equally general, of my own.

Now, such an objection, as it stands, I might dismiss by curtly observing that I did not, and could not, suggest any remedy other than socialism, partly because the purport of my entire argument was that socialism, if realised, would not be a remedy at all; and partly because, for the evils that afflict society, no general remedy of any kind is possible. The diseases of society are various, and of various origin, and there is no one drug in the pharmacopœia of social reform which will cure or even touch them all, just as there is no one drug in the pharmacopœia of doctors which will cure appendicitis, mumps, sea-sickness, and pneumonia indifferently—which will stop a hollow tooth and allay the pains of childbirth.

But though such an answer would be at once fair and sufficient, if we take the objection in the spirit in which my critics urged it, the objection has more significance than they themselves suspected, and it requires to be answered in a very different way. Socialism may be worthless as a scheme, but it is not meaningless as a symptom. Rousseau's theory of the origin of society, of the social contract, and of a cure for all social evils by a return to a state of nature, had, as we all know now, no more relation to fact than the dreams of an illiterate drunkard; but they were not without value as a vague and symbolical expression of certain evils from which the France of his day was suffering. As a child, I was told a story of an old woman in Devonshire who, describing what was apparently some form of dyspepsia, said that "her inside had been coming up for a fortnight," and still continued to do so, although during the last few days "she had swallowed a pint of shot in order to keep her liver down." The old woman's diagnosis of her own case was ridiculous; her treatment of it, if continued, would have killed her; but both were suggestive, as indications that something was really amiss. The reasoning of Rousseau, who contended that the evils of the modern world were due to a departure from primeval conditions which were perfect, and that a cure for them must be sought in a return to the manner of life which prevailed among the contemporaries of the mammoth, and the immediate descendants of the pithekanthropos, was identical in kind with the reasoning of the old woman. The reasoning of the socialists is identical in kind with both. It consists of a poisonous prescription founded on a false diagnosis. But just as the diagnosis, no matter how grotesque, which a patient makes of his or of her own sufferings, and even the remedies which his or her fancy suggests, often assist doctors to discover what the ailment really is, so does socialism, alike in its diagnosis and its proposed cure, call attention to the existence of ailments in the body politic, and may even afford some clue to the treatment which the case requires, though this will be widely different from what the sufferer fancies.

Such being the case, then, in order that a true treatment may be adopted, the first thing to be done is to show the corporate patient precisely how and why the socialistic diagnosis is erroneous, and the proposed socialistic remedies incomparably worse than the disease. To this preparatory work the present volume has been devoted. Let us reconsider the outline of its general argument. As thoughtful socialists to-day are themselves coming to admit, the augmented wealth distinctive of the modern world is produced and sustained by the ability of the few, not by the labour of the many. The ability of the few is thus productive in the modern world in a manner in which it never was productive in any previous period, because, whereas in earlier ages the strongest wills and the keenest practical intellects were devoted to military conquest and the necessities of military defence, they have, in the modern world, to a constantly increasing degree, been deflected from the pursuits of war and concentrated on those of industry. But the old principle remains in operation still, of which military leadership was only one special exemplification. Nations now grow rich through industry as they once grew rich through conquest, because new commanders, with a precision unknown on battle-fields, direct the minutest operations of armies of a new kind; and the only terms on which any modern nation can maintain its present productivity, or hope to increase it in the future, consist in the technical submission of the majority of men to the guidance of an exceptional minority. As for the majority—the mass of average workers—they produce to-day just as much as, and no more than, they would produce if the angel of some industrial Passover were henceforward to kill, each year on a particular day, every human being who had risen above the level of his fellows, and, in virtue of his knowledge, ingenuity, genius, energy, and initiative, was capable of directing his fellows better than they could direct themselves. If such an annual decimation were inaugurated to-morrow in civilised countries such as Great Britain and America, the mass of the population would soon sink into a poverty deeper and more helpless than that which was their lot before the ability of the few, operating through modern capital, began to lend to the many an efficiency not their own. In other words, the entire "surplus values"—to adopt the phrase of Marx—which have been produced during the last hundred and fifty years, have been produced by the ability of the few, and the ability of the few only;[31] and every advance in wages, and every addition to the general conveniences of life, which the labourers now enjoy, is a something over and above what they produce by their own exertions. It is a gift to the many from the few, or, at all events, it has its origin in the sustentation and the multiplication of their efforts, and would shrink in proportion as these efforts were impeded. If, then, the claims which socialists put forward on behalf of labour are really to be based, as the earlier socialists based them, on the ground that production alone gives a valid right to possession, labour to-day, instead of getting less than its due, is, if we take it in the aggregate, getting incomparably more, and justice in that case would require that the vast majority of mankind should have its standards of living not raised but lowered.

Is it, then, the reader will here ask, the object of the present volume to suggest that the true course of social reform in the future would be gradually to take away from the majority some portion of what they at present possess, and bind them down, in accordance with the teaching of socialists in the past, to the little maximum which they could produce by their own unaided efforts? The moral of the present volume is the precise reverse of this. Its object is not to suggest that they should possess no more than they produce. It is to place their claim to a certain surplus not produced by themselves on a true instead of a fantastic basis.

Socialists seek to base the claim in question, alternately and sometimes simultaneously, on two grounds—one moral, the other practical—which are alike futile and fallacious, and are also incompatible with each other. The former consists of the a priori moral doctrine that every one has a right to what he produces, and consequently to no more. The latter consists of an assumption that those who produce most will, in deference to a standard of right of a wholly different kind, surrender their own products to those who produce least. The practical assumption is childish; and the abstract moral doctrine can only lead to a conclusion the opposite of that which those who appeal to it desire. But the claim in question may, when reduced to reasonable proportions, be defended on grounds both moral and practical, nevertheless, and the present volume aims at rendering these intelligible. Let us return for a moment to Rousseau and his theory of the social contract. We know to-day that never in the entire history of mankind did any such conscious contract as Rousseau imagined take place; but it is nevertheless true that virtually, and by ultimate implication, something like a contract or bargain underlies the relation between classes in all states of society.

When one man contracts to sell a horse for a certain price, and another man to pay that price for it, the price in question is agreed to because the buyer says to himself on the one hand, "If I do not consent to pay so much, I shall lose the horse, which is to me worth more than the money"; and the seller says to himself on the other hand, "If I do not consent to accept so little, I shall lose the money, which is to me worth more than the horse." Each bases his argument on a conscious or subconscious reference to the situation which will arise if the bargain is not concluded. Similarly, when any nation submits to a foreign rule, and forbears to revolt though it feels that rule distasteful, it forbears because, either consciously or subconsciously, it feels that the existing situation, whatever its drawbacks, is preferable to that which would arise from any violent attempt to change it. The same thing holds good of the labouring classes as a whole, as related to those classes who, in the modern world, direct them. By implication, if not consciously, they are partners to a certain bargain. They are not partners to a bargain because they consent to labour, for there is no bargaining with necessity; and they would have to labour in any case, if they wished to remain alive. They are partners to a bargain because they consent to labour under the direction of other people. It is true that, as regards the present and the near future, they are confronted by necessity even here. This is obviously true of countries such as Great Britain, in which, if the labour of the many were not elaborately organised by the few, three-fourths of the present population would be unable to obtain bread. Nevertheless, if we take a wider view of affairs, and consider what, without violating possibility, might conceivably take place in the course of a few disastrous centuries, the mass of modern labourers might gradually secede from the position which they at present occupy, and, spreading themselves in families or small industrial groups over the vast agricultural areas which still remain unoccupied, might keep themselves alive by labouring under their own direction, as men have done in earlier ages, and as savages do still. They would have, on the whole, to labour far harder than they do now, and to labour for a reward which, on the whole, would be incomparably less than that which is attainable to-day by all labour except the lowest. Moreover, their condition would have all the "instability" which, as Spencer rightly says, is inseparable from "the homogeneous." It could not last. Still, while it lasted, they could live; and, in theory, at all events, the mass of the human race must be recognised as capable of keeping themselves alive by the labour of pairs of hands which, in each case, are undirected by any intelligence superior to, or other than, the labourer's own. In theory, at all events, therefore, this self-supporting multitude would be capable of choosing whether they would continue in this condition of industrial autonomy, with all its hardships, its scant results, and its unceasing toil, or would submit their labour to the guidance of a minority more capable than themselves. Such being the case, then, if by submitting themselves to the guidance of others they were to get nothing more than they could produce when left to their own devices, they would, in surrendering their autonomy, be giving something for nothing—a transaction which could not be voluntary, and would be not the less unjust because, as all history shows us, they would be ultimately unable to resist it. Justice demands that a surrender of one kind, made by one party, should be paid for by a corresponding surrender of another kind, made by the other party; which last can only take the form of a concession to labour, as a right, of some portion of a product which labour does not produce. Labour can, on grounds of general moral justice, claim this as compensation for acquiescence, even though the acquiescence may, as a matter of fact, be involuntary.

Human nature, however, being what it is, these purely moral considerations would probably have little significance if they were not reinforced by others of a more immediately practical kind. Let us now turn to these. The motive which prompts labour to demand more than it produces is itself primarily not moral, but practical, and is so obvious as to need no comment. What concerns us here is the practical, as distinct from any moral, motive, which must, when the situation is understood, make ability anxious to concede it. For argument's sake we must assume that the great producers of wealth are men who have no other motive ultimately than ambition for themselves and their families, and would allow nothing of what they produce to be taken from them by any other human being except under the pressure of some incidental necessity. There is one broad feature, however, which even men such as these understand—the fact, namely, that for successful wealth production one of the most essential conditions is a condition of social stability, or a general acquiescence, at all events, in the broad features of the industrial system, by means of which the production in question takes place. But if the labourers have no stake in the surplus for the production of which such a system is requisite, it may be perfectly true that by escaping from it they would on the whole be no better off than they are, yet there is no reason which can be brought home to their own minds why they should not seek to disturb it as often and as recklessly as they can. There is, at best, no structural connection, but only a fractional one, between their own welfare and the welfare of those who direct them; and a structural connection between the two—a dovetailing of the one into the other—is what ability, no matter how selfish, is in its own interests concerned before all things to secure. In other words, it is concerned in its own interests so to arrange matters that the share of its own products which is made over to the labourers shall be large enough, and obvious enough, and sufficiently free from accessory disadvantages, to be appreciated by the labourers themselves; and the ideal state of social equilibrium would be reached when this share was such that any further augmentation of it would enfeeble the action of ability by depriving it of its necessary stimulus, and, by thus diminishing the amount of the total product, would make the share of the labourers less than it was before.

Though an ideal equilibrium of this kind may be never attainable absolutely, it is a condition to which practical wisdom may be always making approximations; but in order that it may be an equilibrium in fact as well as in theory, one thing further is necessary—namely, that both parties should understand clearly the fundamental character of the situation. And here labour has more to learn than ability; or perhaps it may be truer to say that socialism has given it more to unlearn. If any exchange takes place between two people, which by anybody who knew all the circumstances would be recognised as entirely just, but is not felt to be just by one of the contracting parties, he, though he may assent to the terms because he can get none better, will be as much dissatisfied as he would have been had he been actually overreached by the other. If, for example, he believed himself to be entitled to an estate of which the other was in reality not only the de facto, but also the true legal possessor, and if the other, out of kindness (let us say) towards a distant kinsman, agreed to pay him a pension, he would doubtless accept the pension as a something that was better than nothing; but he would not be satisfied with a part when he conceived himself to be entitled to the whole, and as soon as occasion offered would go to law to obtain it. In other words, if two persons are to make a bargain or contract which can possibly satisfy both, each must start with recognising that the other has some valid right, and what the nature of this right is, to the property or position which is held by him and which is the subject of the projected exchange. Unless this be the case, any exchange that may be effected will, for one of the parties at least, not be a true bargain or contract, but an enforced and temporary compromise. There will be no finality in it, and it will produce no content.

Now, in the case of the bargain or contract between labour and ability, this last situation is precisely that which the teachings of socialism are at present tending to generalise. They are encouraging the representatives of labour to regard the representatives of ability as a class which possesses much, but has no valid right to anything, and with whom in consequence no true bargain is possible; since, whatever this class concedes short of its whole possessions will merely be accepted by labour as a surrender of stolen goods, which merits resentment rather than thanks, because it is only partial.