[231] The 1908 Convention of the Socialist Party of the United States.
[232] Reprinted at frequent intervals by the Industrial Democrat, Oklahoma City.
[233] Mr. Simons's resolution also contains another proposition, seemingly at variance with this, which would postpone Socialist action indefinitely:—
"In the field of industry what the Socialist movement demands is the social ownership and control of the socially operated means of production, not of all means of production. Only to a very small extent is it [the land] likely to be, for many years to come, a socially operated means of production."
On the contrary, it would seem that "State Socialism," the basis on which Socialists must build, to say nothing of Socialism, will bring about a large measure of government ownership of land in the interest of the farmer of the individually operated farm. Socialism, it is true, requires besides government ownership, governmental operation, and recognizes that this is practicable only as fast as agriculture becomes organized like other industries. In the meanwhile it recognizes either in gradual government ownership or in the taxation of the unearned increment, the most progressive steps that can be undertaken by a capitalist government and supports them even where there is no large-scale production or social operation. For "wherever individual ownership is an agency of exploitation," to quote Mr. Simons's own resolution, "then such ownership is opposed by Socialism," i.e. wherever labor is employed.
The Socialist solution, it is true, can only come with "social operation," but that does not mean that Socialism has nothing to say to-day. It still favors the reforms of collectivist capitalism. Where extended national ownership of the land is impracticable there remains the taxation of the future unearned increment. To drop this "demand" also is to subordinate Socialism completely to small-scale capitalism.