Part 24 (1/2)

That the state will occasionally fail in this task is to be expected.

But what is the worst consequence that can result from failure?

Nothing more than the maintenance of the compet.i.tive system in every field of industry where the state fails. If the state fails to furnish good bread, private initiative will take the baking of bread from the state and will keep it until the state succeeds in furnis.h.i.+ng bread to the taste of the public. If the state fails in furnis.h.i.+ng garments, private initiative will keep garment making in its hands except in so far as the state makes garments for the inmates of its own inst.i.tutions.

Many problems connected with this system of production will occur to the mind of the intelligent reader. These problems, however, will be found to belong more strictly to the question of distribution and government control--two subjects that cannot be intelligently discussed until the question of private property in land has been answered.

-- 5. LAND

Socialism was formerly defined as including state owners.h.i.+p of land.

This idea is to-day, however, abandoned in favor of a much more intelligent system:

One princ.i.p.al difference between the Socialist and the Single Taxer is that the Single Taxer is opposed to state owners.h.i.+p of all land; and it is probable that the Single Taxer is more wise in this respect than the state Socialist. In the first place, the state Socialist who wants all land to be owned by the state ignores some very fundamental facts in human nature: He ignores the fact that humanity has for generations cultivated the instinct of owners.h.i.+p in land. There is nothing dearer in life to the French peasant than the strip of land barely sufficient to support life, and he will cling to that strip of land until some accident has torn it from him and reduced him to the condition of a pauper. Out of this instinct of owners.h.i.+p springs the extraordinary industry of the farmer--an industry which is not excelled or equalled in any but sweated trades.

The life of the peasant or small farmer is one of hards.h.i.+p that leaves no moment for leisure, and of monotony that populates our lunatic asylums.[179] Not only is the life of the farmer one of the hardest, but it is also one of the least secure. The failure of a single crop, the loss of a single horse, disease in a chicken yard, a violent hail-storm--any of these may oblige a farmer to put that first small mortgage on his farm which is the beginning of his ruin. Nevertheless, the farmer sticks to his farm and labors on it from the rising of the sun, through the glare of noon and up to the last ray in the west, because the land is his own and he has for it the kind of affection that a mother has for her child--an affection that makes no sacrifice too great. It would seem unwise to deprive the farmer of the satisfaction of owners.h.i.+p and the community of the industry and productivity which this sense of owners.h.i.+p results in.

There is no conceivable advantage in depriving the farmer of the owners.h.i.+p of his farm. The farmer now pays taxes on his land. The right of the state to exact a tax puts the state in the position of a landlord except that the state calls the tribute it levies on the farm a ”tax,” whereas the owner calls this tribute ”rent.” Of course there is a great difference between the tax levied by the state and the rent paid by the farmer to the private owner, because the one is light and the other heavy. This is the material difference which must not be lost sight of in the discussion of the subject. Every farmer expects to pay taxes to the state and all he asks is that the tax be not an onerous one. It can be rendered less onerous in the cooperative commonwealth than to-day because a cooperative commonwealth will not exact payment of taxes in money, but will content itself with payment in produce. Instead of the state taking over the land and depriving the farmer of owners.h.i.+p, and exacting rent, the cooperative commonwealth will leave the owners.h.i.+p in the farmer and exact a tax in produce; and so long as this tax is paid, the farmer will remain the undisputed owner of his land, and will continue to give it that hourly care without which the best results can hardly be obtained.

There is nothing in modern Socialism, therefore, to frighten the farmer. He cannot but benefit by it, for his taxes will be levied in produce instead of in cash; and it is the conversion of farm produce into cash which is the farmer's main difficulty to-day, as was seen when money was discussed.

The t.i.tle of a farmer under a cooperative commonwealth will be much like that of the peasant in the Island of Jersey, who generally purchases his land on condition of paying a certain amount to the owner per annum. These Jersey t.i.tles are just as secure as freeholds in England or in this country, subject of course to the payment of the rent charged.

The tax in produce, however, which the farmer is to pay the state will be far more just and fair. Land will be cla.s.sified according to productivity, and the farmer will never be called upon to furnish the state with a larger proportion of his crop than he can afford. On the other hand, farmers will not be allowed to keep the owners.h.i.+p of land which they do not use. If it is to the benefit of the community that land be drained, the owner will be called upon to drain it within a definite period. If he does not drain it within that period, the state will take his undrained land from him. Nor will the farmer be allowed to cut down timber where the maintenance of the timber is deemed important to the commonwealth.[180] He will be taught forestry and the propagation of deer, and shown how to produce as much income out of his timber as he would out of the land when cleared. Above all, he will be relieved from the exorbitant prices which he now pays the trust for every article which he does not himself produce. The state will undertake the task of distribution, so that he can receive as the farmer in South Australia does to-day--a part payment in cash for all produce he delivers at the nearest railroad, and a subsequent payment when his goods have been sold through the instrumentality of the state. But this last belongs to Distribution.

Prices will not be lowered by the compet.i.tion of farm colonies. On the contrary, they will be maintained by the prices asked by farm colonies. Farm-colony prices will allow every efficient farmer a substantial living, and the farmer will have the benefit of the example and advice furnished him by the nearest farm colony, which will be a model farm.

It may be objected that under this system the farmer will not have sufficient motive for adopting modern methods. There are undoubtedly farmers who are averse to the adoption of modern methods; but there are also thousands of farmers eager to know modern methods. Rev. J.D.

Detrich, who produced 6.7 tons of hay for every acre in cultivation on his farm[181] was so pestered by neighbors who called to study his methods that he was obliged to remove to an adjoining State.

Recalcitrant farmers will slowly be compelled to adopt modern methods by the fixing of prices that will make modern methods indispensable to prosperity.

In every way, therefore, the farmer will be benefited by the introduction of Socialism. He will keep the t.i.tle of owners.h.i.+p in his farm that is dear to him; he will pay his taxes in produce instead of in cash; he will have the benefit of education and advice at his door; and he will be relieved of the exorbitant prices now demanded by the trusts, and of that greatest of all his anxieties, the conversion of his produce into cash.

As regards city land, the problem is a very different one, because the treatment of city land is an essential part of the whole munic.i.p.al problem.

Practically all munic.i.p.al problems may be reduced to one--namely, crowding. As long as farmers live half a mile apart as they do on a standard 160-acre farm in the West, sewage and garbage are matters of individual rather than social interest. Provided the farmer does not pollute springs and water courses, he may dispose of his sewage and garbage as he chooses; but the moment men and women are crowded into cities on the vertical as well as on the horizontal plane, the disposal of sewage and garbage becomes of vital importance to the whole community.

So also the maintenance of roads is a comparatively simple problem in the country, where traffic is light; whereas in the city, where traffic is great, the pavement of the streets presents problems not only of resistance, but of noise. The droppings of horses on the country road can be neglected; whereas those of horses pa.s.sing a thousand per hour in a crowded city street create a dust injurious to health, and give rise to the problem of street cleaning.

Again, where land is plentiful compared with population, the rent charged for land is small and often negligible; whereas where land is scarce compared with the population, as in the island of Manhattan, the rent becomes prohibitive for all except the wealthy, and workingmen are reduced to the alternative between living near their work in unwholesome tenements and living far from their work in less unwholesome conditions. And this scarcity of land gives rise to many problems of congested districts, of tuberculosis, sanitation, transportation, and of rent.

If we look back on the whole history of our civilization, we shall see an unconscious struggle always going on between private interest and public spirit. The one tends to divide cities into two districts, one composed of the palaces of the rich, the other of the slums of the poor, and seeks to convert every problem of munic.i.p.al government into means of increasing private wealth. The other, on the contrary, we find manifested in the ”Age of Faith” building cathedrals; in the Age of Beauty or Renaissance, building public squares and gardens; and in recent years taking such services as transportation out of the hands of private individuals and vesting them in the city. This struggle between public and private interest has been, up to the present time, unconscious or fitful. The Socialist asks that it should become conscious and progressive; that is all.

Let us take a few concrete instances: It was not until dark alleys were found to facilitate the work of criminals that munic.i.p.alities were driven to light the streets; it was not until a district of Birmingham had become a menace to public welfare because its filth engendered both disease and crime that the munic.i.p.ality was driven to put an end to it; it was not until cholera began its ravages that munic.i.p.alities were driven to provide clean dwellings; it was not until the evils attending imperfect transportation became intolerable that New York was driven to build subways; it was not until fires devastated the city that New York organized its fire department; it was not until the filth of the streets was intolerable that the city took the cleaning of streets out of the hands of private contractors.

Up to the present time munic.i.p.al activities have been forced into existence by the growth of the evils to a point where they could no longer be endured.

Over a century ago it was said that munic.i.p.alities were ”sores upon the body politic,” and this phrase has been solemnly quoted ever since as a sort of slogan of despair; whereas the munic.i.p.ality might be and ought to be, if intelligently administered, the mainspring of all our great national activities. The Socialist asks that, instead of waiting for evils to become intolerable before we attempt to cope with them and then adopting measures which, because they come late, are inadequate, we should take up munic.i.p.al administration as a housekeeper takes hold of the administration of her house, adopting measures which we must inevitably in the end adopt before the evils become intolerable, and before the city becomes so over-built as to make the difficulty of coping with these evils insurmountable.

This is the spirit in which a citizen should approach the question of city land; and if we do approach it in this spirit, the problem of how to put an end to the evils arising from private owners.h.i.+p of land is in many respects similar to those which present themselves in our effort to put an end to the evils of private owners.h.i.+p of stock.