Socialism as it is

by William English Walling

A government bank with an exclusive monopoly.

A partial nationalization of factories.

(No doubt, the part they would select would be that operated by the trusts.)

Government cultivation of waste lands.

Here we have a program closely resembling that of "State capitalism." It omits the important labor legislation for increasing efficiency, since this was unprofitable under competitive and extra-governmental capitalism, and in Marx's time had not yet appeared; e.g. the minimum wage, a shorter working day, and workingmen's insurance. As Marx and Engels mention, however, the substitution of industrial education for child labor (one of the most important and typical of these reforms), they would surely have included other measures of the same order, had they been practicable and under discussion at the time.

There can be little doubt that Marx and Engels, in this early pronunciamento, were purposely ambiguous in their language. For example, they demand "the extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state." This is plainly a conservatively capitalistic or a revolutionary Socialist measure entirely according to the degree to which, and the hands by which, it is carried out—and the same is evidently true of the appropriation of land rent and the abolition of inheritance. This is what Marx means when he says that every such measure is "self-contradictory and must be such of necessity." Up to a certain point they put capitalism on "a larger basis"; if carried beyond that, they may, in the right hands, become steps in Socialism.

Marx and Engels were neither able nor willing to lay out a program which would distinguish sharply between measures that would be transitional and those that would be Socialist sixty or seventy years after they wrote, but merely gave concrete illustrations of their policy; they stated explicitly that such reforms would vary from country to country, and only claimed for those they mentioned that they would be "pretty generally applicable." Yet, understood in the sense in which it was originally promulgated and afterwards explained, this early Socialist program still affords the most valuable key we have as to what Socialism is, if we view it on the side of its practical efforts rather than on that of abstract theories. Marx and Engels recognize that the measures I have mentioned must be acknowledged as "insufficient and untenable," because, though they involve "inroads on the rights of property," they do not go far enough to destroy capitalism and establish a Socialistic society. But they reassure their Socialistic critics by pointing out that these "insufficient" and "transitory" measures, "in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads on the old social order, and are indispensable as a means of entirely revolutionizing the mode of production." (My italics.)

That is, "State Socialism" is indispensable as a basis for Socialism, indeed necessitates it, provided Socialists look upon "State Socialist" measures chiefly as transitory means "to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class"; for this rise of the proletariat to the position of ruling class is necessarily "the first step in the revolution of the working class."

From the day of this first step the whole direction of social evolution would be altered. For, while the Socialists expect to utilize every reform of capitalist collectivism, and can only build on that foundation, their later policy would be diametrically opposed to it. A Socialist government would begin immediately an almost complete reversal of the statesmanship of "State Socialism." The first measure it would undertake would be to begin at once to increase wages faster than the rate of increase of the total wealth of the community. Secondly, within a few years, it would give to the masses of the population, according to their abilities, all the education needed to fill from the ranks of the non-capitalistic classes a proportion of all the most desirable and important positions in the community, corresponding to their numbers, and would see to it that they got these positions.

It is undoubtedly the opinion of the most representative figures of the international Socialist movement that there is not the slightest possibility that any of the non-Socialist reformers of to-day or of the near future are following or will follow any such policy, or even take the slightest step in that direction; and that there is nothing Socialists can do to force such a policy on the capitalists until they are actually or practically in power. Society may continue to progress, but it is surely inconceivable to any close observer, as it is inconceivable to the Socialists, that the privileged classes will ever consent, without the most violent struggle, to a program which, viewed as a whole, would lead, however gradually or indirectly, to a more equitable distribution of wealth and political power.