Part 21 (1/2)
[138] It is stated that the retailing of milk in New York is practically confined to six companies. But the price of milk has not been reduced accordingly. The economies resulting from this combination have swelled the profits of these companies. The consumers gain nothing from it. And this is what is taking place with all trust articles.
[139] Book III, Chapter III.
[140] This is more true of railroads in the United States than in England, probably because competing roads have not been tolerated in England to the same extent as in our country.
[141] The Thaw case furnishes an unfortunate ill.u.s.tration of this tendency.
[142] Ely, ”Socialism and Social Reform,” p. 134.
[143] Ely, ”Socialism and Social Reform,” p. 134.
[144] Book II, Chapter I. This subject has been discussed in detail in ”Government or Human Evolution,” Book II, Chapter II, p. 273, _et seq._, by the author.
[145] ”Economy of Manufacture.” Babbage (London, 1832), p. 246.
[146] M. DeLesseps has stated that it cost England 100,000,000 to change its s.h.i.+pping so as to fit it for pa.s.sage through the Suez Ca.n.a.l, and this expense applies more or less to change of machinery due to invention in every factory.
[147] Book III, Chapter II.
[148] ”Capital,” Part IV, Chapter XV.
[149] Issued by the Government Printing Office in 1904, ent.i.tled, ”Cost of Living and Retail Prices of Food.”
[150] ”Cost of Living and Retail Prices of Food,” pp. 18, 90-102, 516-93.
[151] ”The Standard of Living Among Workingmen's Families in New York City,” by Robert Coit Chapin, Ph.B., Charities Publication Committee, 1909, p. 178, _et seq._
CHAPTER II
ECONOMIC CONSTRUCTION OF THE COoPERATIVE COMMONWEALTH
Few things deterred me from a study of Socialism more than the prevailing error that it necessarily would subject us all to the tyranny of a state which would, because it owned all the sources of production, be able to dictate to every one of us the kind of work we should do and the hours during which we should do it. It must be admitted that this is the Socialism described by many authorities, amongst them Schaffle, in a book still widely read, ent.i.tled the ”Quintessence of Socialism.” But this book loses some of its authority when we remember that Schaffle followed it with another, ent.i.tled ”Why Socialism is Impossible”; and a.s.suredly the state Socialism described by Schaffle is extremely unattractive to the bourgeois mind.
It is not so unattractive to the workingman, because he now has these things determined for him by his employer without having any security of employment. State Socialism, therefore, has no terrors for him. On the contrary, as the workingman expects that the Socialist society will be controlled by workingmen, he expects to that extent to be his own master; that is, he will control the society that controls him.
State Socialism, therefore, is the form probably most in vogue amongst workingmen. They have not before their minds the history of previous revolutions which have for the most part only subst.i.tuted one set of masters for another. They cannot be expected, therefore, to appreciate the profound change that comes over men when put into positions of power, the temptations to which they are exposed, and the errors which even the best intentioned are likely to commit.
I do not mean to condemn state Socialism; for state Socialism veritably controlled by the people would probably furnish better government than that which we are now given at the hands of capitalists. But I shall not attempt to describe the economic structure that would prevail under state Socialism, because it has been already described; whereas I do not think that there has been any effort made to describe a cooperative commonwealth in which the state would have very little more power than that enjoyed by the government in England or Germany to-day.
The difficulty of a.s.signing tasks and of determining wages which makes Socialism impracticable to the bourgeois mind is a pure fiction, encouraged, I admit, by many Socialist writers who imagine that Socialism can only come by a sudden and violent transfer of political power from the capitalist to the proletariat, called revolution. As will more fully appear in the next chapter, the Political Aspect of Socialism, such a revolution is by no means necessary; for the cooperative commonwealth, as I understand it, need not be introduced by any sudden transfer of political power whatever.
In one sense, indeed, Socialism has in part come. The _laissez faire_ school had barely announced their doctrine and proceeded to legislate in accordance therewith, before the abominable consequences of the _laissez faire_ doctrine became so obvious that steps had at once to be taken to put an end to it. So the idea that a man could do what he liked with his own, which resulted in working women in mines to an extent which reduced them to the condition of the lower animals, the use of children in factories to a degree imperilling the future of the race, the reduction of men to starvation wages, the pollution of rivers by factory products, the spread of cholera by unwholesome dwellings--all gave rise to a series of legislative acts which limited the right of a man to exploit women and children, compelled landlords to maintain sanitary dwellings, and prevented the pollution of waters by factory products altogether. All this legislation was an unconscious tribute to that solidarity of the human race which is at the root of Socialism.
Nor was this all. The state and city could so obviously perform certain functions better and cheaper than private corporations that enterprise after enterprise was slowly taken from individuals and a.s.sumed by the state. The postoffice was the foremost of these. The munic.i.p.alization of gas, water, and trams, the nationalization of railroads, telegraphs, and telephones, have been pursued as purely economic measures rendered necessary by considerations of social welfare.
Indeed, England has been rus.h.i.+ng towards Socialism with such rapidity that increasing rates gave the capitalists an excuse for frightening the public with threats of bankruptcy, and occasioned the reaction in munic.i.p.al progress through which the country is now pa.s.sing. But the forces behind Socialism are so overwhelming that they convert its very enemies into its unconscious prophets, priests, and promoters.
Mr. Roosevelt, who has so lately entered the lists against Socialism, is with the exception perhaps of Pierpont Morgan and Rockefeller, the greatest practical Socialist in America. When Mr. Roosevelt called together the Governors of the States to consider what steps, if any, could be taken to prevent the shameful waste of our national resources by capitalistic enterprise, and when Mr. J.J. Hill in a remarkable summary counted up the awful loss to humanity involved in this waste, neither appears to have been aware that they were demonstrating to the world not only that Socialism was good, but that it was indispensable.
When Rockefeller brought together the distillers of oil into a single deliberately planned body, eliminating the waste of individual compet.i.tion, he does not seem to have been aware that he was demonstrating the amazing advantage of eliminating compet.i.tion and slowly preparing an industry for nationalization. When Mr. Morgan did the same thing for the Steel Trust, and the Coal Trust, and when he tried to do the same thing for the railroads until checked by a blundering government,[152] he, too, was unaware that he was demonstrating the failure of the very capitalistic system for which he stands. So the idol they themselves set up for wors.h.i.+p they are engaged in smas.h.i.+ng all to pieces; and they none of them see the humor of it.