Twentieth Century Socialism Part 11

_Q._ "Not the affair of the American Sugar Refining Company?"--_A._ "No."

_Q._ "Now, suppose in the natural course of events the American Sugar Refining Company should suppress--we will not use the words 'crush out'--all compet.i.tion, all opposition. I understand from your theory--business principles--that you would then seek to get out of the public and consumer the largest amount of profit consistent with your idea of business principles?"--_A._ "Precisely."

_Q._ "Then, if you had the power to charge or impose prices on the public, what would be your idea of the limit that the public could possibly stand?"--_A._ "I think it would stand a quarter of a cent to-day. I think we could do it for twenty cents a hundred. I think the country is really damaged by having a number of people in the business."

_Q._ "That is not an answer to my question. My question is the limit.

What restraint would you put upon yourselves? What would be your restraint?"--_A._ "I call that restraint business consideration."

_Q._ "Would it not be the utmost limit that the consumer would bear?"--_A._ "Until we had compet.i.tion we should be in that position, but whether or not we would exercise it, is quite another matter."

The very effort of Mr. Havemeyer to disown the "policy of crus.h.i.+ng out compet.i.tion" followed immediately by his admission that a trust is a "press" built for that purpose, is indicative of the capitalist's mind on the subject: At one moment he navely admits what a moment before he emphatically denied. The trust, then, is the organization of an industry by one or a few men strong enough to suppress compet.i.tion and bleed the consumer.

The tyranny of the market has been suppressed only to subst.i.tute therefor the tyranny of the trust. And this new tyranny has for effect to enrich the trust magnate at the expense of the whole nation.

The course of industrial events beginning with the creation of guilds to suppress the anarchy of the Middle Ages; the tyranny of the guilds; the revolt against the guild; its suppression; the subst.i.tution therefor of so-called freedom of industry, of contract, of trade; the disorder or anarchy that ensued; the despotism of the market; the gradual suppression of all three freedoms in order to escape from the despotism of the market; and this suppression only preparing the way for the tyranny of the trust, is not accidental. It is a cycle through which industry had to pa.s.s till mankind found its way of escaping from the whirlpool.

We find the same cycle in the political world. The anarchy of the horde paving the way to the despotism of the tyrant; the despotism of the tyrant creating a revolt resulting in a new anarchy leading to another despotism as bad as the last, until staggering between anarchy and despotism, men slowly evolved a system of popular government. We shall see later that popular government can never remain popular under a system of industrial anarchy or industrial despotism, and that our industrial organization must adopt a system of popular control, if popular government is ever to become in fact as well as in name, popular.

Suffice it to point out that our industrial development following a law of necessity has so far staggered like a drunken man from anarchy to despotism and from despotism to anarchy--and that we are not likely to attain order from despotism until we recognize that the compet.i.tive system, such as we now have, can never attain it; and that it can be attained only by a deliberate subst.i.tution of cooperation for compet.i.tion _to the extent necessary_.

(_c_) _Tyranny of the Union_

Let us now consider another part of the industrial field which seems destined to be the arena of the next great development--the field of labor.

The consumer is not organized as yet; he has not waked up to the extent to which he is fleeced by the trust. But labor is organized, driven to organization by the terrible consequences of the freedom of contract[73] for which he clamored so loud in the Revolutionary period. A workingman alone, ignorant of the profits earned by the manufacturer, ignorant of the number of workingmen applying for work, himself hungry, and with a hungry family to support, is no match for an employer with sufficient capital at his disposal, a considerable knowledge of the labor market where he can find men to replace such as ask for a higher wage than he is willing to pay, and with practically no reason to fear hunger or even discomfort for himself or for those who are dear to him.

Freedom of contract, therefore, meant for the unorganized workingman at the beginning of the nineteenth century, not freedom, but slavery.

It will be later recorded how inevitably the tyranny of the market and the greed of capital combined to reduce workingmen to starvation wages and condemn women and children to degrading labor. One of two things had to happen: The whole laboring cla.s.s had to be reduced to a condition of permanent slavery, or the laboring cla.s.s had to combine to put an end to compet.i.tion between worker and worker that left them at the mercy of the market. That men reduced to the physical condition created by the industrialism of a century ago should have had the intelligence, courage, and self-restraint to combine and act in concert until they were able to some extent to impose rates of wages upon the employers, seems to-day hardly less than miraculous, and ought to serve as a warning to capitalists that they can no longer dispute the coming political power of such workingmen, or remain indifferent to it, or even denounce it with _Outlook_ intemperateness.

Mr. Eliot, President Emeritus of Harvard University, is outraged by what he regards as the tyranny of the trade union. Has he ever thought of the tyranny of the trust, or the tyranny of the market from which both inevitably spring? Has he ever understood that such a compet.i.tive system as ours can only put an end to anarchy by despotism; and can only shake off despotism at the risk of anarchy?

But the subject of trusts and trade unions is too large to be treated as an incident in the discussion of the evils of the compet.i.tive system. I shall content myself, therefore, with summing up briefly the course of events through which industrial development has pa.s.sed, for the light it throws upon the course through which it has still to pa.s.s:

Anarchy of industrial conditions during the Middle Ages gave rise to the guild, which for a season subst.i.tuted order for disorder.

The order introduced by the guild involved regulation; regulation involves power; and wherever power is exercised free from efficient popular control, it must end in tyranny.

The tyranny of the guild aroused a revolt and the cry of freedom of trade, freedom of industry, freedom of contract; these three freedoms under the compet.i.tive system reintroduced an era of anarchy--both in production and distribution--both for the employer and the employee, subject only to the despotism of the market.

The employees undertook to put an end to compet.i.tion between employees by organizing trade unions.

The employers undertook to put an end to compet.i.tion between employers by organizing trusts.

So the anarchy which, under the compet.i.tive system, must result from freedom, has given rise to the tyranny of the market, and the effort to escape the tyranny of the market to two other tyrannies--of the trust and of the trade union. These two tyrannies stand to-day not only arrayed against one another, but in the bitterest conflict--in the courts, in strikes, lockouts, and ultimately on the field of politics.

One thing stands out in singular relief from the foregoing sketch, viz., that it is freedom--of industry, of contract, and of trade--the battle cry both of the bourgeois employer and the proletarian employee--that has led to these two tyrannies.

At the present time I believe that the confusion in the ranks not only of the employer, but of the employee, as regards this so-called freedom--a freedom that both are clamoring for but neither have ever attained--is responsible for the failure of both to understand one another. And the subject of freedom or liberty will therefore be discussed in a chapter to itself.

FOOTNOTES:

[72] "Government," Vol. I, p. 276.

[73] Book II, Chapter IV.

CHAPTER IV

PROPERTY AND LIBERTY

The savage in a savage country, free from all constraint of law, custom, or government, must, I suppose, be admitted to enjoy the greatest freedom conceivable. He is free to hunt what animals he chooses; to pick the fruits of the earth; to gather the sh.e.l.ls by the seash.o.r.e. He is free also to till any part of the land if he knows how to do it; to sow and harvest it. He is also free to rob his fellow men; to enslave them; to kill them and, if his tastes so incline, to eat them.

But such a savage, while enjoying the greatest freedom conceivable, is also exposed to the greatest risk conceivable; for example, he is exposed to the risk of having the animals he hunts taken from him by one stronger than he; if he tills the ground and reaps the harvest, he is liable to have that harvest taken from him; and though he is free to rob, enslave, kill, and eat his fellow men, his fellow men are equally free to rob, enslave, kill, and eat him.

The same thing, of course, is true of his domestic relations. He may capture any female he likes and compel her to serve as his wife; but he is liable at any time to have his wife taken from him. As regards his physical and domestic needs, therefore, while he enjoys the greatest freedom possible, he is exposed to the greatest risk also.

-- 1. ORIGIN OF PROPERTY

It may be said for this order of things, if things can be said to have order where there is no order, that the strong men would prefer this system to one under which they would be limited as to the satisfaction of appet.i.te, pa.s.sion, and caprice. But the strongest men are liable to be subdued by a sufficient number of weaker men, as Polyphemus was subdued by Ulysses and his crew. So the strong men in the community as well as the weak, early discovered the importance of agreeing to respect each one the rights of the other in the things which through their labor they had acquired. Long, then, before there was any system of written law, our savage ancestors recognized the right of men in the product of their toil; and this recognition, whether we find it in the Ten Commandments of the Jews, or the Twelve Tables of the Romans, or in the customs of more savage races, is nothing more nor less than the inst.i.tution of property.

Although this inst.i.tution of property involves an abridgment of freedom--for under the property system n.o.body is free to rob another--nevertheless it is an abridgment of freedom by which everyone except the lazy profits; and it tends to put an end to laziness, because, under this inst.i.tution of property, only those who work can eat.

It is because the inst.i.tution of property is an abridgment of freedom that property and liberty are treated together in this chapter. It is impossible correctly to understand the one without the other. It will be seen later that as civilization develops and men are crowded together in a small s.p.a.ce, it becomes indispensable to the convenience of all that freedom should be further abridged; and that so long as the freedom of the individual is abridged, not only for the benefit of his neighbors, but of himself, the abridgment is a good thing and not a bad. Whereas, when we find freedom being abridged to the disadvantage of the many and the advantage of a few, then it will turn out that this abridgment is a bad thing and not a good.

One feature about the abridgment of freedom it is impossible to emphasize too much: In nations in which liberty is supposed most to prevail, the abridgment of freedom is for the most part confined to matters which involve little or no sacrifice. For example, the average citizen does not find himself in the slightest degree hampered by the criminal code; he does not want to kill or rob; it is perfectly clear to him that the sacrifice he makes of his freedom to kill or rob is of no importance by the side of the enormous security he receives as regards those people who might want to kill or rob him.

Socialism has been much injured by certain fanciful writers who have suggested various abridgments of human freedom that would be altogether abominable; as for example, the undue limitation of a man's liberty to choose his wife, and to choose his occupation. And opponents of Socialism use these totally discredited suggestions as weapons with which to fight Socialism; though in fact, modern Socialism repudiates them altogether.

The inst.i.tution of property, in abridging freedom, creates duties; and in furnis.h.i.+ng security, establishes rights. Thus we say that men have a right of property in the product of their toil; a right to enjoy the cabins they have built; a right to harvest the grain they have sown.

And the same thing can be said of rights and duties as has been said about the abridgment of freedom. So long as no man exacts rights of property in anything more than the result of his labor, so long is he only asking what is due to him.

And the inst.i.tution of property in the product of men's toil is not only justified by convenience, but is also ordered by religion. It is only economic expression of the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you;" or "I shall respect your right to the cabin you have built, as I expect you to respect my right to the cabin I have built."

Moreover, even though this were not the rule imposed by religion, it is a rule imposed by the principle of the survival of the fit. In the conflict between races, those races in which rights of property were respected were bound to prevail over those in which these rights were not respected, because respect for rights of property such as these is the only condition upon which a race can become prosperous, acc.u.mulate wealth, strength, and all the resources that enable one race successfully to fight with another. And here we see the first reconciliation between religion and science. Both teach exactly the same thing; that is to say, the Golden Rule.

In one sense the inst.i.tution of property abridges freedom. In another sense it enlarges it. For if a man has not only to kill his game, but to protect it from others, he is a slave to the game he has killed until he has eaten it. Whereas if the community in which he lives has adopted the inst.i.tution of property and respects it, he can leave his game unprotected, and has leisure therefore for other occupation. It will be seen ultimately that if the inst.i.tution of property were confined to the product of men's toil, the increase of knowledge of the last few centuries would permit of another enormous enlargement of freedom, for it would permit of the organization of labor in such a manner that the work of securing the necessaries of life that now costs the savage all his time, and the workingman of to-day between eight and twelve hours of his day, need really only cost him a comparatively insignificant fraction of it. But the demonstration of this must be left until later.[74]

We have seen, therefore, that so long as property is confined to the product of men's toil, all is well. The freedom of a savage life which exposed every man to being robbed by every other man is what we call license. The freedom, on the contrary, under the inst.i.tution of property which secures to men the product of their toil, we may call liberty--liberty being freedom secured by law.

"Legum omnes servi sumus, ut liberi esse possumus."[75]

However simple the idea of property of men in the product of their toil may seem to be, it has in practical life never yet been realized.

There are many reasons for this.