As in the case of the farmers and small shopkeepers, everything here depends upon the economic and political program which the working class develops and offers in competition with the "State Socialism" of the capitalists. If it were true that the ownership of the smallest amount of property brings it about that Socialism is no longer desired, not a small minority of the population will be found aligned with the capitalists, but all the four million owners of farms, and the other millions with a thousand dollars or so invested in a building and loan association, an insurance policy or a savings bank deposit, a total numbering almost half of the occupied population. A bare majority, it is true, might still be without any stake in the community even of this modest character. But neither in the United States nor elsewhere is there any hope that a majority of the absolutely propertyless, even if it becomes a large one, will become sufficiently large within a generation, or perhaps even within a century, to enable it to overthrow the capitalists, unless it draws over to its side certain elements at least, of the middle classes, who, though weaker in some respects are better educated, better placed, and politically stronger than itself. The revolutionary spokesmen of the international Socialist movement now recognize this as clearly as do the most conservative observers.
The outcome of the great social struggle depends on the relative success of employers and employed in gaining the support of those classes which, either on account of their ownership of some slight property, or because they receive salaries or fees sufficiently large, must be placed in the middle class, but who cannot be classified primarily as small capitalists That this is the crux of the situation is recognized on all sides. Mr. Winston Churchill, for instance, demands that everything be done to strengthen and increase numerically this middle class, composed of millions of persons whom he claims "would certainly lose by anything like a general overturn, and ... are everywhere the strongest and the best organized millions," and his "State Socialism" is directed chiefly to that end. He believes that these millions, once become completely converted into small capitalists, would certainly prevent by an overwhelming resistance any effort on the part of the rest of the people to gain what he curiously calls, "a selfish advantage."
Mr. Churchill says that "the masses of the people should not use the fact that they are in a majority as a means to advance their relative position in society." There could not be a sharper contrast between "State Socialism" and Socialism. To Socialists the whole duty of man as a social being is to persuade the masses to "use the fact that they are in a majority as a means to advance their relative position in society." Mr. Churchill seems to feel that as long as everybody shares more or less in the general increase of prosperity from generation to generation, and, as he says, as long as there is "an ever increasing volume of production and an increasing wide diffusion of profit," there is no ground for complaint—whether the relative division of wealth and opportunity between the many and the few becomes more equal or not. But he realizes that his moral suasion is not likely to be heeded and is wise in putting his trust in the middle-class millions. For these are the bone of contention between capitalism and Socialism.
While the new middle class (that is, the lower salaried classes, corporation employees, professional men, etc.) is increasing numerically more rapidly than any other, large numbers within it are being deprived of any hope of rising into the wealthy or privileged class. As a consequence they are everywhere crowding into the Socialist ranks—by the hundred thousand in countries where the movement is oldest. Even in the organized Socialist parties these middle-class elements everywhere form a considerable proportion of the whole. Practically a third of the American Party according to a recent reckoning were engaged either in farming (15 per cent) or in commercial (9 per cent) or professional pursuits (5 per cent).
It is plain that certain sections of the so-called middle class are not only welcomed by Socialist parties, but constitute their most dependable and indispensable elements. Indeed, the majority of the Socialists agree with Kautsky that the danger lies in the opposite direction, that an unreliable small capitalist element has been admitted that will make trouble until it leaves the movement, in other words, that Socialist friendship for these classes has gone to the point of risking the existence of their organization. Surely their presence is a guarantee that Socialists have not been ruled by the working class or proletarian "fetish," against which Marx warned them more than half a century ago.
FOOTNOTES:
[207] The American Magazine, October, 1911.
[208] Winston Churchill, op. cit., p. 389.
[209] Die Neue Zeit, Oct. 27, 1911.
[210] Speech just before Congressional Elections of 1910.