Slit-iron, for nails 1.10
Natural steel 1.42
Horseshoes 2.55
Gun-barrels, ordinary 9.10
Wood-saws 14.28
Scissors, best 446.94
Penknife-blades 657.14
Sword-handles, polished steel 972.82
It can not, however, be said of such manufactures as coarse cotton
cloth, wherein the increased cost of raw cotton causes an
immediate effect upon the price of the cloth, that the cost of the
materials forms but a small portion of the cost of the
manufacture.(138)
All the labor [not engaged in preparing materials] tends constantly and
strongly toward diminution, as the amount of production increases.
Manufactures are vastly more susceptible than agriculture of mechanical
improvements and contrivances for saving labor. In manufactures,
accordingly, the causes tending to increase the productiveness of industry
preponderate greatly over the one cause which tends to diminish it; and
the increase of production, called forth by the progress of society, takes
place, not at an increasing, but at a continually diminishing proportional
cost. This fact has manifested itself in the progressive fall of the
prices and values of almost every kind of manufactured goods during two
centuries past; a fall accelerated by the mechanical inventions of the
last seventy or eighty years, and susceptible of being prolonged and
extended beyond any limit which it would be safe to specify. The benefit
might even extend to the poorest class. The increased cheapness of
clothing and lodging might make up to them for the augmented cost of their
food.
There is, thus, no possible improvement in the arts of production which
does not in one or another mode exercise an antagonistic influence to the
law of diminishing return to agricultural labor. Nor is it only industrial
improvements which have this effect. Improvements in government, and
almost every kind of moral and social advancement, operate in the same
manner. We may say the same of improvements in education. The intelligence
of the workman is a most important element in the productiveness of labor.
The carefulness, economy, and general trustworthiness of laborers are as
important as their intelligence. Friendly relations and a community of
interest and feeling between laborers and employers are eminently so. In
the rich and idle classes, increased mental energy, more solid
instruction, and stronger feelings of conscience, public spirit, or
philanthropy, would qualify them to originate and promote the most
valuable improvements, both in the economical resources of their country
and in its institutions and customs.
§ 5. Law Holds True of Mining.
We must observe that what we have said of agriculture is true, with little
variation, of the other occupations which it represents; of all the arts
which extract materials from the globe. Mining industry, for example,
usually yields an increase of produce at a more than proportional increase
of expense.
It does worse, for even its customary annual produce requires to be
extracted by a greater and greater expenditure of labor and capital. As a
mine does not reproduce the coal or ore taken from it, not only are all
mines at last exhausted, but even when they as yet show no signs of
exhaustion they must be worked at a continually increasing cost; shafts
must be sunk deeper, galleries driven farther, greater power applied to
keep them clear of water; the produce must be lifted from a greater depth,
or conveyed a greater distance. The law of diminishing return applies
therefore to mining in a still more unqualified sense than to agriculture;
but the antagonizing agency, that of improvements in production, also
applies in a still greater degree. Mining operations are more susceptible
of mechanical improvements than agricultural: the first great application
of the steam-engine was to mining; and there are unlimited possibilities
of improvement in the chemical processes by which the metals are
extracted. There is another contingency, of no unfrequent occurrence,
which avails to counterbalance the progress of all existing mines toward
exhaustion: this is, the discovery of new ones, equal or superior in
richness.
Professor Jevons has applied this economic law to the industrial
situation of England.(139) While explaining that the supply of
cheap coal is the basis of English manufacturing prosperity, yet
he insists that, if the demand for coal is constantly increasing,
the point must inevitably be reached in the future when the
increased supply can be obtained only at a higher cost. When coal
costs England as much as it does any other nation, then her
exclusive industrial advantage will cease to exist. In the United
States the outlying iron deposits of Lake Superior, Lake
Champlain, and Pennsylvania, so geologists tell us, will find
competition arising from the new grades of greater productiveness
in the richer deposits of States like Alabama. In that case we
shall be going from poorer to better grades of iron-mines, but
after the change is made a series of different grades of
productiveness will be established as before.
To resume: all natural agents which are limited in quantity are not only
limited in their ultimate productive power, but, long before that power is
stretched to the utmost, they yield to any additional demands on
progressively harder terms. This law may, however, be suspended, or
temporarily controlled, by whatever adds to the general power of mankind
over nature, and especially by any extension of their knowledge, and their
consequent command, of the properties and powers of natural agents.
Chapter X. Consequences Of The Foregoing Laws.
§ 1. Remedies for Weakness of the Principle of Accumulation.
From the preceding exposition it appears that the limit to the increase of
production is twofold: from deficiency of capital, or of land. Production
comes to a pause, either because the effective desire of accumulation is
not sufficient to give rise to any further increase of capital, or
because, however disposed the possessors of surplus income may be to save
a portion of it, the limited land at the disposal of the community does
not permit additional capital to be employed with such a return as would
be an equivalent to them for their abstinence.
In countries where the principle of accumulation is as weak as it is in
the various nations of Asia, the desideratum economically considered is an
increase of industry, and of the effective desire of accumulation. The
means are, first, a better government: more complete security of property;
moderate taxes, and freedom from arbitrary exaction under the name of
taxes; a more permanent and more advantageous tenure of land, securing to
the cultivator as far as possible the undivided benefits of the industry,
skill, and economy he may exert. Secondly, improvement of the public
intelligence. Thirdly, the introduction of foreign arts, which raise the
returns derivable from additional capital to a rate corresponding to the
low strength of the desire of accumulation.
An excellent example of what might be done by this process is to
be seen under our very eyes in the present development of Mexico,
to which American capital and enterprise have been so prominently
drawn of late. All these proposed remedies, if put into use in
Mexico, would undoubtedly result in a striking increase of wealth.
§ 2. Even where the Desire to Accumulate is Strong, Population must be
Kept within the Limits of Population from Land.
But there are other countries, and England [and the United States are] at
the head of them, in which neither the spirit of industry nor the
effective desire of accumulation need any encouragement. In these
countries there would never be any deficiency of capital, if its increase
were never checked or brought to a stand by too great a diminution of its
returns. It is the tendency of the returns to a progressive diminution
which causes the increase of production to be often attended with a
deterioration in the condition of the producers; and this tendency, which
would in time put an end to increase of production altogether, is a result
of the necessary and inherent conditions of production from the land.
This, of course, is based on the supposition that no new lands,
such as those of the United States, can be opened for cultivation.
If there is no prohibition to the importation of cheaper food, new
and richer land in any part of the world, within reach of the
given country, is an influence which works against the tendency.
Yet the tendency, or economic law, is there all the same, forever
working.
In all countries which have passed beyond a very early stage in the
progress of agriculture, every increase in the demand for food, occasioned
by increased population, will always, unless there is a simultaneous
improvement in production, diminish the share which on a fair division
would fall to each individual. An increased production, in default of
unoccupied tracts of fertile land, or of fresh improvements tending to
cheapen commodities, can never be obtained but by increasing the labor in
more than the same proportion. The population must either work harder or
eat less, or obtain their usual food by sacrificing a part of their other
customary comforts. Whenever this necessity is postponed, it is because
the improvements which facilitate production continue progressive; because
the contrivances of mankind for making their labor more effective keep up
an equal struggle with Nature, and extort fresh resources from her
reluctant powers as fast as human necessities occupy and engross the old.
From this results the important corollary, that the necessity of
restraining population is not, as many persons believe, peculiar to a
condition of great inequality of property. A greater number of people can
not, in any given state of civilization, be collectively so well provided
for as a smaller. The niggardliness of nature,(140) not the injustice of
society, is the cause of the penalty attached to over-population. An
unjust distribution of wealth does not even aggravate the evil, but, at
most, causes it to be somewhat earlier felt. It is in vain to say that all
mouths which the increase of mankind calls into existence bring with them
hands. The new mouths require as much food as the old ones, and the hands
do not produce as much.
After a degree of density has been attained, sufficient to allow the
principal benefits of combination of labor, all further increase tends in
itself to mischief, so far as regards the average condition of the people;
but the progress of improvement has a counteracting operation, and allows
of increased numbers without any deterioration, and even consistently with
a higher average of comfort. Improvement must here be understood in a wide
sense, including not only new industrial inventions, or an extended use of
those already known, but improvements in institutions, education,
opinions, and human affairs generally, provided they tend, as almost all
improvements do, to give new motives or new facilities to production.
The increase in the population of the United States has been
enormous, as already seen, but the increase of production has been
still greater, owing to the fertility of our land, to improvements
in the arts, and to our great genius for invention, as may be seen
by the following table (amounts in the second column are given in
millions).(141) The steady increase of the valuation of our wealth
goes on faster than the increase of population, so that it
manifests itself in a larger average wealth to each inhabitant.
Decades. Valuation. Per cent Population. Per cent Per
of of capital
increase. increase. valuation.
1800 $1,742 .. 5,308,483 .. $328
1810 2,382 37 7,239,881 36 329
1820 3,734 57 9,633,882 33 386
1830 4,328 16 12,866,020 34 336
1840 6,124 41 17,069,453 33 359
1850 8,800 44 23,191,876 36 379
1860 16,160 84 31,443,321 35 514
1870 30,068 86 38,558,371 23 780
1880 40,000 33 50,155,783 30 798
If the productive powers of the country increase as rapidly as advancing
numbers call for an augmentation of produce, it is not necessary to obtain
that augmentation by the cultivation of soils more sterile than the worst
already under culture, or by applying additional labor to the old soils at
a diminished advantage; or at all events this loss of power is compensated
by the increased efficiency with which, in the progress of improvement,
labor is employed in manufactures. In one way or the other, the increased
population is provided for, and all are as well off as before. But if the
growth of human power over nature is suspended or slackened, and
population does not slacken its increase; if, with only the existing
command over natural agencies, those agencies are called upon for an
increased produce; this greater produce will not be afforded to the
increased population, without either demanding on the average a greater
effort from each, or on the average reducing each to a smaller ration out
of the aggregate produce.
Ever since the great mechanical inventions of Watt, Arkwright, and their
contemporaries, the return to labor has probably increased as fast as the
population; and would even have outstripped it, if that very augmentation
of return had not called forth an additional portion of the inherent power
of multiplication in the human species. During the twenty or thirty years
last elapsed, so rapid has been the extension of improved processes of
agriculture [in England], that even the land yields a greater produce in
proportion to the labor employed; the average price of corn had become
decidedly lower, even before the repeal of the corn laws had so materially
lightened, for the time being, the pressure of population upon production.
But though improvement may during a certain space of time keep up with, or
even surpass, the actual increase of population, it assuredly never comes
up to the rate of increase of which population is capable: and nothing
could have prevented a general deterioration in the condition of the human
race, were it not that population has in fact been restrained. Had it been
restrained still more, and the same improvements taken place, there would
have been a larger dividend than there now is, for the nation or the
species at large. The new ground wrung from nature by the improvements
would not have been all tied up in the support of mere numbers. Though the
gross produce would not have been so great, there would have been a
greater produce per head of the population.
§ 3. Necessity of Restraining Population not superseded by Free Trade in
Food.
When the growth of numbers outstrips the progress of improvement, and a
country is driven to obtain the means of subsistence on terms more and
more unfavorable, by the inability of its land to meet additional demands
except on more onerous conditions, there are two expedients, by which it
may hope to mitigate that disagreeable necessity, even though no change
should take place in the habits of the people with respect to their rate
of increase. One of these expedients is the importation of food from
abroad. The other is emigration.
The admission of cheaper food from a foreign country is equivalent to an
agricultural invention by which food could be raised at a similarly
diminished cost at home. It equally increases the productive power of
labor. The return was before, so much food for so much labor employed in
the growth of food: the return is now, a greater quantity of food for the
same labor employed in producing cottons or hardware, or some other
commodity to be given in exchange for food. The one improvement, like the
other, throws back the decline of the productive power of labor by a
certain distance: but in the one case, as in the other, it immediately
resumes its course; the tide which has receded, instantly begins to
readvance. It might seem, indeed, that, when a country draws its supply of
food from so wide a surface as the whole habitable globe, so little
impression can be produced on that great expanse by any increase of mouths
in one small corner of it that the inhabitants of the country may double
and treble their numbers without feeling the effect in any increased
tension of the springs of production, or any enhancement of the price of
food throughout the world. But in this calculation several things are
overlooked.
In the first place, the foreign regions from which corn can be imported do
not comprise the whole globe, but those parts of it almost alone which are
in the immediate neighborhood of coasts or navigable rivers; and of such
there is not, in the productive regions of the earth, so great a multitude
as to suffice during an indefinite time for a rapidly growing demand,
without an increasing strain on the productive powers of the soil.
In the next place, even if the supply were drawn from the whole instead of
a small part of the surface of the exporting countries, the quantity of
food would still be limited, which could be obtained from them without an
increase of the proportional cost. The countries which export food may be
divided into two classes: those in which the effective desire of
accumulation is strong, and those in which it is weak. In Australia and
the United States of America, the effective desire of accumulation is
strong; capital increases fast, and the production of food might be very
rapidly extended. But in such countries population also increases with
extraordinary rapidity. Their agriculture has to provide for their own
expanding numbers, as well as for those of the importing countries. They
must, therefore, from the nature of the case, be rapidly driven, if not to
less fertile, at least what is equivalent, to remoter and less accessible
lands, and to modes of cultivation like those of old countries, less
productive in proportion to the labor and expense.
The extraordinary resources of the United States are scarcely
understood even by Americans. Chart No. XVIII (see Book IV, Chap.
III) may give some idea of the agricultural possibilities of our
land. It will be seen from this that the quantity of fertile land
in but one of our States—Texas—is greater than that of
Austria-Hungary.
But the countries which have at the same time cheap food and great
industrial prosperity are few, being only those in which the arts of
civilized life have been transferred full-grown to a rich and uncultivated
soil. Among old countries, those which are able to export food, are able
only because their industry is in a very backward state, because capital,
and hence population, have never increased sufficiently to make food rise
to a higher price. Such countries are Russia, Poland, and Hungary.
The law, therefore, of diminishing return to industry, whenever population
makes a more rapid progress than improvement, is not solely applicable to
countries which are fed from their own soil, but in substance applies
quite as much to those which are willing to draw their food from any
accessible quarter that can afford it cheapest.
§ 4. —Nor by Emigration.
Besides the importation of corn, there is another resource which can be
invoked by a nation whose increasing numbers press hard, not against their
capital, but against the productive capacity of their land: I mean
Emigration, especially in the form of Colonization. Of this remedy the
efficacy as far as it goes is real, since it consists in seeking elsewhere
those unoccupied tracts of fertile land which, if they existed at home,
would enable the demand of an increasing population to be met without any
falling off in the productiveness of labor. Accordingly, when the region
to be colonized is near at hand, and the habits and tastes of the people
sufficiently migratory, this remedy is completely effectual. The migration
from the older parts of the American Confederation to the new Territories,
which is to all intents and purposes colonization, is what enables
population to go on unchecked throughout the Union without having yet
diminished the return to industry, or increased the difficulty of earning
a subsistence.
How strictly true this is may be seen by examining the map given
in the last census returns,(142) showing the residence of the
natives of the State of New York. The greater or less frequency of
natives of New York, residing in other States, is shown by
different degrees of shading on the map. A large district westward
as far as the Mississippi shows a density of natives of New York
of from two to six to a square mile, and a lesser density from
Minnesota to Indian Territory, on the other side of the
Mississippi. The same is shown of other older States. The
explanation of the movement can not be anything else than the same
as that for the larger movement from Europe to America.
There is no probability that even under the most enlightened arrangements
(in older countries) a permanent stream of emigration could be kept up,
sufficient to take off, as in America, all that portion of the annual
increase (when proceeding at its greatest rapidity) which, being in excess
of the progress made during the same short period in the arts of life,
tends to render living more difficult for every averagely situated
individual in the community. And, unless this can be done, emigration can
not, even in an economical point of view, dispense with the necessity of
checks to population.
The influence of immigration to the United States from European countries,
in lessening the tension in the relation between food and numbers, is one
of the most marked events in this century. The United States has received
about one fourth of its total population in 1880 from abroad since the
foundation of the republic, as will be seen by this table:
Total Immigration Into The United States.
Periods. Numbers.
From 250,000(143)
1789-1820
1820-1830 151,824
1831-1840 599,125
1841-1850 1,713,251
1851-1860 2,598,214
1861-1870 2,491,451
1871-1880 2,812,191
1881-1883 2,061,745
Total 12,677,801
Of this number, 5,333,991 came from the British Isles, of which 3,367,624
were Irish.
There came 3,860,624 Germans, 593,021 Scandinavians, and 334,064 French.
(See United States “Statistical Abstract,” 1878, 1880, 1883.)
The causes operating on this movement of men—a movement unequaled in
history—are undoubtedly economic. Like the migration of the early Teutonic
races from the Baltic to Southern Europe, it is due to the pressure of
numbers on subsistence.
A still more interesting study is that of the causes which attempt to
explain the direction of this stream after it has reached our shores. It
is a definite fact that the old slave States have hitherto received
practically none of this vast foreign immigration.(144) The actual
distribution of the foreign born in the United States is to be seen in a
most interesting way by aid of the colored map, Chart No. VIII, giving the
different densities of foreign-born population in different parts of the
Union. It seems almost certain that the general belief hitherto in the
insecurity of life and property in the old slave States has worked against
the material prosperity of that section.
The different ages of the native- and foreign-born inhabitants of the
United States may be seen from the accompanying diagrams(145) comparing
the aggregate population of the United States with the foreign-born. This
may profitably be compared with a similar diagram relating to the Chinese
in the United States (Book II, Chap. III, § 3).
Aggregate: 1870. The figures give the number of thousands of each sex.
Decade of Life. Males. Females.
1 136 132
2 115 114
3 87 90
4 62 63
5 47 44
6 31 27
7 17 15
8 7 7
9 2 2
Foreign: 1870.
Decade of Life. Males. Females.
1 24 23
2 48 49
3 128 114
4 134 113
5 107 84
6 60 44
7 27 23
8 9 9
9 2 2
BOOK II. DISTRIBUTION.
Chapter I. Of Property.
§ 1. Individual Property and its opponents.
The laws and conditions of the Production of Wealth partake of the
character of physical truths. There is nothing optional or arbitrary in
them. It is not so with the Distribution of Wealth. That is a matter of
human institution solely. The things once there, mankind, individually or
collectively, can do with them as they like. They can place them at the
disposal of whomsoever they please, and on whatever terms. The
Distribution of Wealth depends on the laws and customs of society. The
rules by which it is determined are what the opinions and feelings of the
ruling portion of the community make them, and are very different in
different ages and countries; and might be still more different, if
mankind so chose. We have here to consider, not the causes, but the
consequences, of the rules according to which wealth may be distributed.
Those, at least, are as little arbitrary, and have as much the character
of physical laws, as the laws of production.
We proceed, then, to the consideration of the different modes of
distributing the produce of land and labor, which have been adopted in
practice, or may be conceived in theory. Among these, our attention is
first claimed by that primary and fundamental institution, on which,
unless in some exceptional and very limited cases, the economical
arrangements of society have always rested, though in its secondary
features it has varied, and is liable to vary. I mean, of course, the
institution of individual property.
Private property, as an institution, did not owe its origin to any of
those considerations of utility which plead for the maintenance of it when
established. Enough is known of rude ages, both from history and from
analogous states of society in our own time, to show that tribunals (which
always precede laws) were originally established, not to determine rights,
but to repress violence and terminate quarrels. With this object chiefly
in view, they naturally enough gave legal effect to first occupancy, by
treating as the aggressor the person who first commenced violence, by
turning, or attempting to turn, another out of possession.
In considering the institution of property as a question in social
philosophy, we must leave out of consideration its actual origin in any of
the existing nations of Europe. We may suppose a community unhampered by
any previous possession; a body of colonists, occupying for the first time
an uninhabited country. (1.) If private property were adopted, we must
presume that it would be accompanied by none of the initial inequalities
and injustice which obstruct the beneficial operation of the principle in
old society. Every full-grown man or woman, we must suppose, would be
secured in the unfettered use and disposal of his or her bodily and mental
faculties; and the instruments of production, the land and tools, would be
divided fairly among them, so that all might start, in respect to outward
appliances, on equal terms. It is possible also to conceive that, in this
original apportionment, compensation might be made for the injuries of
nature, and the balance redressed by assigning to the less robust members
of the community advantages in the distribution, sufficient to put them on
a par with the rest. But the division, once made, would not again be
interfered with; individuals would be left to their own exertions and to
the ordinary chances for making an advantageous use of what was assigned
to them. (2.) If individual property, on the contrary, were excluded, the
plan which must be adopted would be to hold the land and all instruments
of production as the joint property of the community, and to carry on the
operations of industry on the common account. The direction of the labor
of the community would devolve upon a magistrate or magistrates, whom we
may suppose elected by the suffrages of the community, and whom we must
assume to be voluntarily obeyed by them. The division of the produce would
in like manner be a public act. The principle might either be that of
complete equality, or of apportionment to the necessities or deserts of
individuals, in whatever manner might be conformable to the ideas of
justice or policy prevailing in the community.
The assailants of the principle of individual property may be divided into
two classes: (1) those whose scheme implies absolute equality in the
distribution of the physical means of life and enjoyment, and (2) those
who admit inequality, but grounded on some principle, or supposed
principle, of justice or general expediency, and not, like so many of the
existing social inequalities, dependent on accident alone. The
characteristic name for this [first] economical system is Communism, a
word of Continental origin, only of late introduced into this country. The
word Socialism, which originated among the English Communists, and was
assumed by them as a name to designate their own doctrine, is now, on the
Continent, employed in a larger sense; not necessarily implying Communism,
or the entire abolition of private property, but applied to any system
which requires that the land and the instruments of production should be
the property, not of individuals, but of communities, or associations, or
of the government.
It should be said, moreover, that Socialism is to-day used in the
distinct sense of a system which abolishes private property, and
places the control of the capital, labor, and combined industries
of the country in the hands of the state. The essence of modern
socialism is the appeal to state-help and the weakening of
individual self-help. Collectivism is also a term now used by
German and French writers to describe an organization of the
industries of a country under a collective instead of an
individual management. Collectivism is but the French expression
for the system of state socialism.
§ 2. The case for Communism against private property presented.
The objection ordinarily made to a system of community of property and
equal distribution of the produce, that each person would be incessantly
occupied in evading his fair share of the work, points, undoubtedly, to a
real difficulty. But those who urge this objection forget to how great an
extent the same difficulty exists under the system on which nine tenths of
the business of society is now conducted. And though the “master’s eye,”
when the master is vigilant and intelligent, is of proverbial value, it
must be remembered that, in a Socialist farm or manufactory, each laborer
would be under the eye, not of one master, but of the whole community. If
Communistic labor might be less vigorous than that of a peasant
proprietor, or a workman laboring on his own account, it would probably be
more energetic than that of a laborer for hire, who has no personal
interest in the matter at all.
Another of the objections to Communism is that if every member of the
community were assured of subsistence for himself and any number of
children, on the sole condition of willingness to work, prudential
restraint on the multiplication of mankind would be at an end, and
population would start forward at a rate which would reduce the community
through successive stages of increasing discomfort to actual starvation.
But Communism is precisely the state of things in which opinion might be
expected to declare itself with greatest intensity against this kind of
selfish intemperance. An augmentation of numbers which diminished the
comfort or increased the toil of the mass would then cause (which now it
does not) immediate and unmistakable inconvenience to every individual in
the association; inconvenience which could not then be imputed to the
avarice of employers, or the unjust privileges of the rich.
A more real difficulty is that of fairly apportioning the labor of the
community among its members. There are many kinds of work, and by what
standard are they to be measured one against another? Who is to judge how
much cotton-spinning, or distributing goods from the stores, or
brick-laying, or chimney-sweeping, is equivalent to so much plowing?
Besides, even in the same kind of work, nominal equality of labor would be
so great a real inequality that the feeling of justice would revolt
against its being enforced. All persons are not equally fit for all labor;
and the same quantity of labor is an unequal burden on the weak and the
strong, the hardy and the delicate, the quick and the slow, the dull and
the intelligent.(146)
If, therefore, the choice were to be made between Communism with all its
chances and the present state of society with all its sufferings and
injustices, all the difficulties, great or small, of Communism, would be
but as dust in the balance. But, to make the comparison applicable, we
must compare Communism at its best with the _regime_ of individual
property, not as it is, but as it might be made. The laws of property have
never yet conformed to the principles on which the justification of
private property rests. They have made property of things which never
ought to be property, and absolute property where only a qualified
property ought to exist. Private property, in every defense made of it, is
supposed to mean the guarantee to individuals of the fruits of their own
labor and abstinence. The guarantee to them of the fruits of the labor and
abstinence of others, transmitted to them without any merit or exertion of
their own, is not of the essence of the institution, but a mere incidental
consequence, which, when it reaches a certain height, does not promote,
but conflicts with the ends which render private property legitimate. To
judge of the final destination of the institution of property, we must
suppose everything rectified which causes the institution to work in a
manner opposed to that equitable principle, of proportion between
remuneration and exertion, on which, in every vindication of it that will
bear the light, it is assumed to be grounded. We must also suppose two
conditions realized, without which neither Communism nor any other laws or
institutions could make the condition of the mass of mankind other than
degraded and miserable. One of these conditions is, universal education;
the other, a due limitation of the numbers of the community. With these,
there could be no poverty, even under the present social institutions:
and, these being supposed, the question of socialism is not, as generally
stated by Socialists, a question of flying to the sole refuge against the
evils which now bear down humanity, but a mere question of comparative
advantages, which futurity must determine. We are too ignorant either of
what individual agency in its best form, or socialism in its best form,
can accomplish, to be qualified to decide which of the two will be the
ultimate form of human society.
If a conjecture may be hazarded, the decision will probably depend mainly
on one consideration, viz., which of the two systems is consistent with
the greatest amount of human liberty and spontaneity. It is yet to be
ascertained whether the communistic scheme would be consistent with that
multiform development of human nature, those manifold unlikenesses, that
diversity of tastes and talents, and variety of intellectual points of
view, which not only form a great part of the interest of human life, but,
by bringing intellects into stimulating collision and by presenting to
each innumerable notions that he would not have conceived of himself, are
the mainspring of mental and moral progression.
§ 3. The Socialists who appeal to state-help.
For general purposes, a clearer understanding of the various
schemes may be gained by observing that (1) one class of
socialists intend to include the state itself within their plan,
and (2) another class aim to form separate communities inside the
state, and under its protection.
Of this first system there are no present examples; but the object
of most of the socialistic organizations in the United States and
Europe is to strive for the assumption by the state of the
production and distribution of wealth.(147) At present the most
active Socialists are to be found in Germany. The origin of this
influence, however, is to be traced to France.(148) Louis
Blanc,(149) in his “Organisation du Travail,” considers property
the great scourge of society. The Government, he asserts, should
regulate production; raise money to be appropriated without
interest for creating state workshops, in which the workmen should
elect their own overseers, and all receive the same wages; and the
sums needed should be raised from the abolition of collateral
inheritance. The important practical part of his scheme was that
the great state workshops, aided by the Government, would make
private competition in those industries impossible, and thus bring
about the change from the private to the socialistic system.
The founder of modern German socialism was Karl Marx,(150) and
almost the only Socialist who pretended to economic knowledge. He
aimed his attack on the present social system against the question
of value, by asserting that the amount of labor necessary for the
production of an article is the sole measure of its exchange
value. It follows from this that the right of property in the
article vests wholly in the laborer, while the capitalist, if he
claims a share of the product, is nothing less than a robber. No
just system, he avers, can properly exist so long as the rate of
wages is fixed by free contract between the employer and laborer;
therefore the only remedy is the nationalization of all the
elements of production, land, tools, materials, and all existing
appliances, which involves, of course, the destruction of the
institution of private property. An obvious weakness in this
scheme is the provision that the Government should determine what
goods are to be produced, and that every one is bound to perform
that work which is assigned by the state. In this there is no
choice of work, and the tyranny of one master would be supplanted
by the tyranny of a greater multiplex master in the officers of
Government. Moreover, it can not be admitted that exchange value
is determined by the quantity of labor alone. Every one knows that
the result of ten days’ labor of a skilled watch-maker does not
exchange for the result of ten days’ labor of an unskilled hodman.
Of two men making shoes, one may produce a good the other a poor
article, although both may work the same length of time; so that
their exchange value ought not to be determined by the mere
quantity of labor expended. Above all, Marx would extend the
equality of wages for the same time to the manager and
superintendent also. In other words, he proposes to take away all
the incentives to the acquirement or exercise of superior and
signal ability in every work of life, the result of which would
inevitably lead to a deadening extension of mediocrity.
This system gained an undue attention because it was made the
instrument of a socialist propaganda under the leadership of
Ferdinand Lassalle.(151) This active leader, in 1863, founded the
German “Workingmen’s Union,” a year earlier than the
“International(152) Association.” In 1869 Liebknecht and his
friends established the “Social Democratic Workingmen’s Party,”
which after some difficulties absorbed the followers of Lassalle
in a congress at Gotha in 1875, and form the present Socialist
party in Germany. Their programme,(153) as announced at Gotha, is
as follows:
I. Labor is the source of all riches and of all culture. As
general profitable labor can only be done by the human society,
the whole product of labor belongs to society—i.e., to all its
members—who have the same duties and the same right to work, each
according to his reasonable wants.
In the present society the means of work are the monopoly of the
class of capitalists. The class of workingmen thus become
dependent on them, and consequently are given over to all degrees
of misery and servitude.
In order to emancipate labor it is requisite that the means of
work be transformed into the common property of society, that all
production be regulated by associations, and that the entire
product of labor be turned over to society and justly distributed
for the benefit of all.
None but the working-class itself can emancipate labor, as in
relation to it all other classes are only a reactionary mass.
II. Led by these principles, the German Social Workingmen’s party,
by all legal means, strives for a free state and society, the
breaking down of the iron laws of wages by abolishing the system
of hired workingmen, by abolishing exploitation in every shape,
and doing away with all social and political inequality.
The German Social Workingmen’s party, although first working
within its national confines, is fully conscious of the
international character of the general workingmen’s movement, and
is resolved to fulfill all duties which it imposes on each
workingman in order to realize the fraternity of all men.
The German Social Workingmen’s party, for the purpose of preparing
the way, and for the solution of the social problem, demands the
creation of social productive associations, to be supported by the
state government, and under the control of the working-people. The
productive associations are to be founded in such numbers that the
social organization of the whole production can be effected by
them.
The German Social Workingmen’s party requires as the basis of
state government:
1. Universal, equal, direct, and secret suffrage, which, beginning
with the twentieth year, obliges all citizens to vote in all
State, county, and town elections. Election-day must be a Sunday
or a holiday.
2. Direct legislation by the people; decision as to war and peace
by the people.
3. General capability of bearing arms; popular defense in place of
standing armies.
4. Abolition of all exceptional laws, especially those relating to
the press, public meetings, and associations—in short, of all laws
which hinder the free expression of ideas and thought.
5. Gratuitous administration of justice by the people.
6. General and equal, popular and gratuitous education by the
Government in all classes and institutes of learning; general duty
to attend school; religion to be declared a private affair.
The German Social Workingmen’s party insists on realizing in the
present state of society:
1. The largest possible extension of political rights and freedom
in conformity to the above six demands.
2. A single progressive income-tax for State, counties, and towns,
instead of those which are imposed at present, and in place of
indirect taxes, which unequally burden the people.
3. Unlimited right of combination.
4. A normal working-day corresponding with the wants of society;
prohibition of Sunday labor.
5. Prohibition of children’s work and of women’s work, so far as
it injures their health and morality.
6. Protective laws for the life and health of workingmen; sanitary
control of their dwellings; superintendence of mines, factories,
industry, and home work by officers chosen by the workingmen; an
effectual law guaranteeing the responsibility of employers.
7. Regulation of prison-work.
8. Unrestricted self-government of all banks established for the
mutual assistance of workingmen.
The above scheme also represents very well the character of the
Socialist agitators in the United States, who are themselves
chiefly foreigners, and have foreign conceptions of socialism. On
this form of socialism it is interesting to have Mr. Mill’s later
opinions(154) in his own words.
“Among those who call themselves Socialists, two kinds of persons may be
distinguished. There are, in the first place, (1) those whose plans for a
new order of society, in which private property and individual competition
are to be superseded and other motives to action substituted, are on the
scale of a village community or township, and would be applied to an
entire country by the multiplication of such self-acting units; of this
character are the systems of Owen, of Fourier, and the more thoughtful and
philosophic Socialists generally. The other class (2) who are more a
product of the Continent than of Great Britain, and may be called the
revolutionary Socialists, propose to themselves a much bolder stroke.
Their scheme is the management of the whole productive resources of the
country by one central authority, the general Government. And with this
view some of them avow as their purpose that the working-classes, or
somebody in their behalf, should take possession of all the property of
the country, and administer it for the general benefit. The aim of that is
to substitute the new rule for the old at a single stroke, and to exchange
the amount of good realized under the present system, and its large
possibilities of improvement, for a plunge without any preparation into
the most extreme form of the problem of carrying on the whole round of the
operations of social life without the motive power which has always
hitherto worked the social machinery. It must be acknowledged that those
who would play this game on the strength of their own private opinion,
unconfirmed as yet by any experimental verification, must have a serene
confidence in their own wisdom on the one hand, and a recklessness of
people’s sufferings on the other, which Robespierre and St. Just, hitherto
the typical instances of those united attributes, scarcely came up to.” |
|
댓글 없음:
댓글 쓰기