CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE TRANSITION PERIOD.
"It is pretty late," I said, "but I want very much to ask you just a fewmore questions about the Revolution. All that I have learned leaves mequite as puzzled as ever to imagine any set of practical measures bywhich the substitution of public for private capitalism could have beeneffected without a prodigious shock. We had in our day engineers cleverenough to move great buildings from one site to another, keeping themmeanwhile so steady and upright as not to interfere with the dwellers inthem, or to cause an interruption of the domestic operations. A problemsomething like this, but a millionfold greater and more complex, musthave been raised when it came to changing the entire basis of productionand distribution and revolutionizing the conditions of everybody'semployment and maintenance, and doing it, moreover, without meanwhileseriously interrupting the ongoing of the various parts of the economicmachinery on which the livelihood of the people from day to day depended.I should be greatly interested to have you tell me something about howthis was done."
"Your question," replied the doctor, "reflects a feeling which had nolittle influence during the revolutionary period to prolong thetoleration extended by the people to private capitalism despite themounting indignation against its enormities. A complete change ofeconomic systems seemed to them, as it does to you, such a colossal andcomplicated undertaking that even many who ardently desired the new orderand fully believed in its feasibility when once established, shrank backfrom what they apprehended would be the vast confusion and difficulty ofthe transition process. Of course, the capitalists, and champions ofthings as they were, made the most of this feeling, and apparentlybothered the reformers not a little by calling on them to name thespecific measures by which they would, if they had the power, proceed tosubstitute for the existing system a nationalized plan of industrymanaged in the equal interest of all.
"One school of revolutionists declined to formulate or suggest anydefinite programme whatever for the consummating or constructive stage ofthe Revolution. They said that the crisis would suggest the method fordealing with it, and it would be foolish and fanciful to discuss theemergency before it arose. But a good general makes plans which providein advance for all the main eventualities of his campaign. His plans are,of course, subject to radical modifications or complete abandonment,according to circumstances, but a provisional plan he ought to have. Thereply of this school of revolutionists was not, therefore, satisfactory,and, so long as no better one could be made, a timid and conservativecommunity inclined to look askance at the revolutionary programme.
"Realizing the need of something more positive as a plan of campaign,various schools of reformers suggested more or less definite schemes. Onethere was which argued that the trades unions might develop strengthenough to control the great trades, and put their own elected officers inplace of the capitalists, thus organizing a sort of federation of tradesunions. This, if practicable, would have brought in a system of groupcapitalism as divisive and antisocial, in the large sense, as privatecapitalism itself, and far more dangerous to civil order. This idea waslater heard little of, as it became evident that the possible growth andfunctions of trade unionism were very limited.
"There was another school which held that the solution was to be found bythe establishment of great numbers of voluntary colonies, organized onco-operative principles, which by their success would lead to theformation of more and yet more, and that, finally, when most of thepopulation had joined such groups they would simply coalesce and formone. Many noble and enthusiastic souls devoted themselves to this line ofeffort, and the numerous colonies that were organized in the UnitedStates during the revolutionary period were a striking indication of thegeneral turning of men's hearts toward a better social order. Otherwisesuch experiments led, and could lead, to nothing. Economically weak, heldtogether by a sentimental motive, generally composed of eccentric thoughworthy persons, and surrounded by a hostile environment which had thewhole use and advantage of the social and economic machinery, it wasscarcely possible that such enterprises should come to anything practicalunless under exceptional leadership or circumstances.
"There was another school still which held that the better order was toevolve gradually out of the old as the result of an indefinite series ofhumane legislation, consisting of factory acts, short-hour laws, pensionsfor the old, improved tenement houses, abolition of slums, and I don'tknow how many other poultices for particular evils resultant from thesystem of private capitalism. These good people argued that when at someindefinitely remote time all the evil consequences of capitalism had beenabolished, it would be time enough and then comparatively easy to abolishcapitalism itself--that is to say, after all the rotten fruit of the eviltree had been picked by hand, one at a time, off the branches, it wouldbe time enough to cut down the tree. Of course, an obvious objection tothis plan was that, so long as the tree remained standing, the evil fruitwould be likely to grow as fast as it was plucked. The various reformmeasures, and many others urged by these reformers, were wholly humaneand excellent, and only to be criticised when put forward as a sufficientmethod of overthrowing capitalism. They did not even tend toward such aresult, but were quite as likely to help capitalism to obtain a longerlease of life by making it a little less abhorrent. There was really atime after the revolutionary movement had gained considerable headwaywhen judicious leaders felt considerable apprehension lest it might bediverted from its real aim, and its force wasted in this programme ofpiecemeal reforms.
"But you have asked me what was the plan of operation by which therevolutionists, when they finally came into power, actually overthrewprivate capitalism. It was really as pretty an illustration of themilitary manoeuvre that used to be called flanking as the history of warcontains. Now, a flanking operation is one by which an army, instead ofattacking its antagonist directly in front, moves round one of his flanksin such a way that without striking a blow it forces the enemy to leavehis position. That is just the strategy the revolutionists used in thefinal issue with capitalism.
"The capitalists had taken for granted that they were to be directlyassaulted by wholesale forcible seizure and confiscation of theirproperties. Not a bit of it. Although in the end, of course, collectiveownership was wholly substituted for the private ownership of capital,yet that was not done until after the whole system of private capitalismhad broken down and fallen to pieces, and not as a means of throwing itdown. To recur to the military illustration, the revolutionary army didnot directly attack the fortress of capitalism at all, but so manoeuvredas to make it untenable, and to compel its evacuation.
"Of course, you will understand that this policy was not suggested by anyconsideration for the rights of the capitalists. Long before this timethe people had been educated to see in private capitalism the source andsum of all villainies, convicting mankind of deadly sin every day that itwas tolerated. The policy of indirect attack pursued by therevolutionists was wholly dictated by the interest of the people atlarge, which demanded that serious derangements of the economic systemshould be, so far as possible, avoided during the transition from the oldorder to the new.
"And now, dropping figures of speech, let me tell you plainly what wasdone--that is, so far as I remember the story. I have made no specialstudy of the period since my college days, and very likely when you cometo read the histories you will find that I have made many mistakes as tothe details of the process. I am just trying to give you a general ideaof the main course of events, to the best of my remembrance. I havealready explained that the first step in the programme of politicalaction adopted by the opponents of private capitalism had been to inducethe people to municipalize and nationalize various quasi-public services,such as waterworks, lighting plants, ferries, local railroads, thetelegraph and telephone systems, the general railroad system, the coalmines and petroleum production, and the traffic in intoxicating liquors.These being a class of enterprises partly or wholly non-competitive andmonopolistic in character, the assumption of p
ublic control over them didnot directly attack the system of production and distribution in general,and even the timid and conservative viewed the step with littleapprehension. This whole class of natural or legal monopolies mightindeed have been taken under public management without logicallyinvolving an assault on the system of private capitalism as a whole. Notonly was this so, but even if this entire class of businesses was madepublic and run at cost, the cheapening in the cost of living to thecommunity thus effected would presently be swallowed up by reductions ofwages and prices, resulting from the remorseless operation of thecompetitive profit system.
"It was therefore chiefly as a means to an ulterior end that the opponentof capitalism favored the public operation of these businesses. One partof that ulterior end was to prove to the people the superior simplicity,efficiency, and humanity of public over private management of economicundertakings. But the principal use which this partial process ofnationalization served was to prepare a body of public employeessufficiently large to furnish a nucleus of consumers when the Governmentshould undertake the establishment of a general system of production anddistribution on a non-profit basis. The employees of the nationalizedrailroads alone numbered nearly a million, and with their dependent womenand children represented some 4,000,000 people. The employees in the coalmines, iron mines, and other businesses taken charge of by the Governmentas subsidiary to the railroads, together with the telegraph and telephoneworkers, also in the public service, made some hundreds of thousands morepersons with their dependents. Previous to these additions there had beenin the regular civil service of the Government nearly 250,000 persons,and the army and navy made some 50,000 more. These groups with theirdependents amounted probably to a million more persons, who, added to therailroad, mining, telegraph, and other employees, made an aggregate ofsomething like 5,000,000 persons dependent on the national employment.Besides these were the various bodies of State and municipal employees inall grades, from the Governors of States down to the street-cleaners.
THE PUBLIC-SERVICE STORES.
"The first step of the revolutionary party when it came to power, withthe mandate of a popular majority to bring in the new order, was toestablish in all important centers public-service stores, where publicemployees could procure at cost all provisions of necessity or luxurypreviously bought at private stores. The idea was the less startling fornot being wholly new. It had been the custom of various governments toprovide for certain of the needs of their soldiers and sailors byestablishing service stores at which everything was of absolutelyguaranteed quality and sold strictly at cost. The articles thus furnishedwere proverbial for their cheapness and quality compared with anythingthat could be bought elsewhere, and the soldier's privilege of obtainingsuch goods was envied by the civilian, left to the tender mercies of theadulterating and profit-gorging retailer. The public stores now set up bythe Government were, however, on a scale of completeness quite beyond anyprevious undertakings, intended as they were to supply all theconsumption of a population large enough for a small-sized nation.
"At first the goods in these stores were of necessity bought by theGovernment of the private capitalists, producers, or importers. On thesethe public employee saved all the middlemen's and retailers' profits,getting them at perhaps half or two thirds of what they must have paid atprivate stores, with the guarantee, moreover, of a careful Governmentinspection as to quality. But these substantial advantages were but aforetaste of the prosperity he enjoyed when the Government added thefunction of production to that of distribution, and proceeded as rapidlyas possible to manufacture products, instead of buying them ofcapitalists.
"To this end great food and cotton farms were established in all sectionsof the country and innumerable shops and factories started, so thatpresently the Government had in public employ not only the original5,000,000, but as many more--farmers, artisans, and laborers of allsorts. These, of course, also had the right to be provided for at thepublic stores, and the system had to be extended correspondingly. Thebuyers in the public stores now saved not only the profits of themiddleman and the retailer, but those as well of the manufacturer, theproducer, and the importer.
"Still further, not only did the public stores furnish the publicemployees with every kind of goods for consumption, but the Governmentlikewise organized all sorts of needful services, such as cooking,laundry work, housework agencies, etc., for the exclusive benefit ofpublic employees--all, of course, conducted absolutely at cost. Theresult was that the public employee was able to be supplied at home or inrestaurants with food prepared by the best skill out of the best materialand in the greatest possible variety, and more cheaply than he had everbeen able to provide himself with even the coarsest provisions."
"How did the Government acquire the lands and manufacturing plants itneeded?" I inquired. "Did it buy them of the owners, or as to the plantsdid it build them?"
"It coerected them without affecting the success of the programme, but that wasgenerally needless. As to land, the farmers by millions were only tooglad to turn over their farms to the Government and accept employment onthem, with the security of livelihood which that implied for them andtheirs. The Government, moreover, took for cultivation all unoccupiedlands that were convenient for the purpose, remitting the taxes forcompensation.
"It was much the same with the factories and shops which the nationalsystem called for. They were standing idle by thousands in all parts ofthe country, in the midst of starving populations of the unemployed. Whenthese plants were suited to the Government requirements they were takenpossession of, put in operation, and the former workers provided withemployment. In most instances former superintendents and foremen as wellas the main body of operatives were glad to keep their old places, withthe nation as employer. The owners of such plants, if I remember rightly,received some allowance, equal to a very low rate of interest, for theuse of their property until such time as the complete establishment ofthe new order should make the equal maintenance of all citizens thesubject of a national guarantee. That this was to be the speedy andcertain outcome of the course of events was now no longer doubted, andpending that result the owners of idle plants were only too glad to getanything at all for their use.
"The manufacturing plants were not the only form of idle capital whichthe Government on similar terms made use of. Considerable quantities offoreign imports were required to supply the public stores; and to avoidthe payment of profits to capitalists on these, the Government tookpossession of idle shipping, building what it further needed, and wentinto foreign trade, exporting products of the public industries, andbringing home in exchange the needed foreign goods. Fishing fleets flyingthe national flag also brought home the harvest of the seas. These peacefleets soon far outnumbered the war ships which up to that timeexclusively had borne the national commission. On these fleets the sailorwas no more a slave.
HOW MONEY LOST ITS VALUE.
"And now consider the effect of another feature of the public-storesystem, namely, the disuse of money in its operations. Ordinary money wasnot received in the public stores, but a sort of scrip canceled on useand good for a limited time only. The public employee had the right ofexchanging the money he received for wages, at par, into this scrip.While the Government issued it only to public employees, it was acceptedat the public stores from any who presented it, the Government being onlycareful that the total amount did not exceed the wages exchanged intosuch scrip by the public employees. It thus became a currency whichcommanded three, four, and five hundred per cent premium over money whichwould only buy the high-priced and adulterated goods for sale in theremaining stores of the capitalists. The gain of the premium went, ofcourse, to the public employees. Gold, which had been worshiped by thecapitalists as the supreme and eternal type of money, was no morereceivable than silver, copper, or paper currency at the public stores,and people who desired the best goods were fortunate to find a publicemployee foolish enough to accept three or four dollars in gold for onein scrip.
"The e
ffect to make money a drug in the market, of this sweepingreduction in its purchasing utility, was greatly increased by itspractically complete disuse by the large and ever-enlarging proportion ofthe people in the public service. The demand for money was still furtherlessened by the fact that nobody wanted to borrow it now for use inextending business, seeing that the field of enterprise open to privatecapital was shrinking every hour, and evidently destined presently todisappear. Neither did any one desire money to hoard it, for it was moreevident every day that it would soon become worthless. I have spoken ofthe public-store scrip commanding several hundred per cent premium overmoney, but that was in the earlier stages of the transition period.Toward the last the premium mounted to ever-dizzier altitudes, until thevalue of money quite disappeared, it being literally good for nothing asmoney.
"If you would imagine the complete collapse of the entire monetary andfinancial system with all its standards and influences upon humanrelations and conditions, you have only to fancy what the effect wouldhave been upon the same interests and relations in your day if positiveand unquestioned information had become general that the world was to bedestroyed within a few weeks or months, or at longest within a year. Inthis case indeed the world was not to be destroyed, but to be rejuvenatedand to enter on an incomparably higher and happier and more vigorousphase of evolution; but the effect on the monetary system and alldependent on it was quite the same as if the world were to come to anend, for the new world would have no use for money, nor recognize anyhuman rights or relations as measured by it."
"It strikes me," said I, "that as money grew valueless the public taxesmust have failed to bring in anything to support the Government."
"Taxes," replied the doctor, "were an incident of private capitalism andwere to pass away with it. Their use had been to give the Government ameans of commanding labor under the money system. In proportion as thenation collectively organized and directly applied the whole labor of thepeople as the public welfare required it, had no need and could make nouse of taxes any more than of money in other respects. Taxation went topieces in the culminating stage of the Revolution, in measure as theorganization of the capital and labor of the people for public purposesput an end to its functions."
HOW THE REST OF THE PEOPLE CAME IN.
"It seems to me that about this time, if not before, the mass of thepeople outside of the public service must have begun to insist prettyloudly upon being let in to share these good things."
"Of course they did," replied the doctor; "and of course that was justwhat they were expected to do and what it had been arranged they shoulddo as soon as the nationalized system of production and distribution wasin full running order. The previously existing body of public employeeshad merely been utilized as furnishing a convenient nucleus of consumersto start with, which might be supplied without deranging meantime anymore than necessary the outside wage or commodity markets. As soon as thesystem was in working order the Government undertook to receive into thepublic service not merely selected bodies of workers, but all whoapplied. From that time the industrial army received its recruits by tensand fifties of thousands a day till within a brief time the people as awhole were in the public service.
"Of course, everybody who had an occupation or trade was kept right on atit at the place where he had formerly been employed, and the laborexchanges, already in full use, managed the rest. Later on, when all wasgoing smoothly, would be time enough for the changings and shiftingsabout that would seem desirable."
"Naturally," I said, "under the operation of the public employmentprogramme, the working people must have been those first brought into thesystem, and the rich and well-to-do must probably have remained outsidelongest, and come in, so to speak, all in a batch, when they did."
"Evidently so," replied the doctor. "Of course, the original nucleus ofpublic employees, for whom the public stores were first opened, were allworking people, and so were the bodies of people successively taken intothe public service, as farmers, artisans, and tradesmen of all sorts.There was nothing to prevent a capitalist from joining the service, buthe could do so only as a worker on a par with the others. He could buy inthe public stores only to the extent of his pay as a worker. His othermoney would not be good there. There were many men and women of the richwho, in the humane enthusiasm of the closing days of the Revolution,abandoned their lands and mills to the Government and volunteered in thepublic service at anything that could be given them to do; but on thewhole, as might be expected, the idea of going to work for a living on aneconomic equality with their former servants was not one that the richwelcomed, and they did not come to it till they had to."
"And were they then, at last, enlisted by force?" I asked.
"By force!" exclaimed the doctor; "dear me! no. There was no sort ofconstraint brought to bear upon them any more than upon anybody else,save that created by the growing difficulty and final impossibility ofhiring persons for private employment, or obtaining the necessities oflife except from the public stores with the new scrip. Before theGovernment entered on the policy of receiving into the public serviceevery one who applied, the unemployed had thronged upon the capitalists,seeking to be hired. But immediately afterward the rich began to find itimpossible to obtain men and women to serve them in field, factory, orkitchen. They could offer no inducements in the depreciated money whichalone they possessed that were enough to counterbalance the advantages ofthe public service. Everybody knew also that there was no future for thewealthy class, and nothing to be gained through their favor.
"Moreover, as you may imagine, there was already a strong popular feelingof contempt for those who would abase themselves to serve others for hirewhen they might serve the nation of which they were citizens; and, as youmay well imagine, this growing sentiment made the position of a privateservant or employee of any sort intolerable. And not only did theunfortunate capitalists find it impossible to induce people to cook forthem, wash for them, to black their boots, to sweep their rooms, or drivetheir coaches, but they were put to straits to obtain in the dwindlingprivate markets, where alone their money was good, the bare necessitiesof life, and presently found even that impossible. For a while, it wouldseem, they struggled against a relentless fate, sullenly supporting lifeon crusts in the corners of their lonesome palaces; but at last, ofcourse, they all had to follow their former servants into the new nation,for there was no way of living save by connection with the nationaleconomic organization. Thus strikingly was illustrated, in the final exitof the capitalists from the human stage, how absolute was and always hadbeen the dependence of capital upon the labor it despised and tyrannizedover."
"And do I understand that there was no compulsion upon anybody to jointhe public service?"
"None but what was inherent in the circumstances I have named," repliedthe doctor. "The new order had no need or use for unwilling recruits. Infact, it needed no one, but every one needed it. If any one did not wishto enter the public service and could live outside of it without stealingor begging, he was quite welcome to. The books say that the woods werefull of self-exiled hermits for a while, but one by one they tired of itand came into the new social house. Some isolated communities, however,remained outside for years."
"The mill seems, indeed, to have been calculated to grind to an exceedingfineness all opposition to the new order," I observed, "and yet it musthave had its own difficulties, too, in the natural refractoriness of thematerials it had to make grist of. Take, for example, my own class of theidle rich, the men and women whose only business had been the pursuit ofpleasure. What useful work could have been got out of such people as wewere, however well disposed we might have become to render service? Wherecould we have been fitted into any sort of industrial service withoutbeing more hindrance than help?"
"The problem might have been serious if the idle rich of whom you speakhad been a very large proportion of the population, but, of course,though very much in evidence, they were in numbers insignificant comparedwith the mass of useful
workers. So far as they were educatedpersons--and quite generally they had some smattering of knowledge--therewas an ample demand for their services as teachers. Of course, they werenot trained teachers, or capable of good pedagogical work; but directlyafter the Revolution, when the children and youth of the former poor wereturned back by millions from the field and factories to the schools, andwhen the adults also of the working classes passionately demanded somedegree of education to correspond with the improved conditions of lifethey had entered on, there was unlimited call for the services asinstructors of everybody who was able to teach anything, even one of theprimary branches, spelling, writing, geography, or arithmetic in therudiments. The women of the former wealthy class, being mostly welleducated, found in this task of teaching the children of the masses, thenew heirs of the world, an employment in which I fancy they must havetasted more real happiness in the feeling of being useful to their kindthan all their former frivolous existences could have given them. Few,indeed, were there of any class who did not prove to have some physicalor mental quality by which they might with pleasure to themselves beserviceable to their kind."
WHAT WAS DONE WITH THE VICIOUS AND CRIMINAL.
"There was another class of my contemporaries," I said, "which I fancymust have given the new order more trouble to make anything out of thanthe rich, and those were the vicious and criminal idle. The rich were atleast intelligent and fairly well behaved, and knew enough to adaptthemselves to a new state of things and make the best of the inevitable,but these others must have been harder to deal with. There was a greatfloating population of vagabond criminals, loafers, and vicious of everyclass, male and female, in my day, as doubtless you well know. Admit thatour vicious form of society was responsible for them; nevertheless, therethey were, for the new society to deal with. To all intents and purposesthey were dehumanized, and as dangerous as wild beasts. They were barelykept in some sort of restraint by an army of police and the weapons ofcriminal law, and constituted a permanent menace to law and order. Attimes of unusual agitation, and especially at all revolutionary crises,they were wont to muster in alarming force and become aggressive. At thecrisis you are describing they must doubtless have made themselvesextremely turbulent. What did the new order do with them? Its just andhumane propositions would scarcely appeal to the members of the criminalclass. They were not reasonable beings; they preferred to live by lawlessviolence, rather than by orderly industry, on terms however just. Surelythe new nation must have found this class of citizens a very tough morselfor its digestion."
"Not nearly so tough," replied the doctor, "as the former society hadfound it. In the first place, the former society, being itself based oninjustice, was wholly without moral prestige or ethical authority indealing with the criminal and lawless classes. Society itself stoodcondemned in their presence for the injustice which had been theprovocation and excuse of their revolt. This was a fact which made thewhole machinery of so-called criminal justice in your day a mockery.Every intelligent man knew in his heart that the criminal and viciouswere, for the most part, what they were on account of neglect andinjustice, and an environment of depraving influences for which adefective social order was responsible, and that if righteousness weredone, society, instead of judging them, ought to stand with them in thedock before a higher justice, and take upon itself the heaviercondemnation. This the criminals themselves felt in the bottom of theirhearts, and that feeling forbade them to respect the law they feared.They felt that the society which bade them reform was itself in yetgreater need of reformation. The new order, on the other hand, held forthto the outcasts hands purged of guilt toward them. Admitting the wrongthat they had suffered in the past, it invited them to a new life undernew conditions, offering them, on just and equal terms, their share inthe social heritage. Do you suppose that there ever was a human heart sobase that it did not at least know the difference between justice andinjustice, and to some extent respond to it?
"A surprising number of the cases you speak of, who had been given up asfailures by your civilization, while in fact they had been proofs of itsfailure, responded with alacrity to the first fair opportunity to bedecent men and women which had ever come to them. There was, of course, alarge residuum too hopelessly perverted, too congenitally deformed, tohave the power of leading a good life, however assisted. Toward these thenew society, strong in the perfect justice of its attitude, proceededwith merciful firmness. The new society was not to tolerate, as the oldhad done, a criminal class in its midst any more than a destitute class.The old society never had any moral right to forbid stealing or to punishrobbers, for the whole economic system was based on the appropriation, byforce or fraud on the part of a few, of the earth and its resources andthe fruit of the toil of the poor. Still less had it any right to forbidbeggary or to punish violence, seeing that the economic system which itmaintained and defended necessarily operated to make beggars and toprovoke violence. But the new order, guaranteeing an equality of plentyto all, left no plea for the thief and robber, no excuse for the beggar,no provocation for the violent. By preferring their evil courses to thefair and honorable life offered them, such persons would henceforthpronounce sentence on themselves as unfit for human intercourse. With agood conscience, therefore, the new society proceeded to deal with allvicious and criminal persons as morally insane, and to segregate them inplaces of confinement, there to spend their lives--not, indeed, underpunishment, or enduring hardships of any sort beyond enough labor forself-support, but wholly secluded from the world--and absolutelyprevented from continuing their kind. By this means the race, in thefirst generation after the Revolution, was able to leave behind itselfforever a load of inherited depravity and base congenital instincts, andso ever since it has gone on from generation to generation, purgingitself of its uncleanness."
THE COLORED RACE AND THE NEW ORDER.
"In my day," I said, "a peculiar complication of the social problem inAmerica was the existence in the Southern States of many millions ofrecently freed negro slaves, but partially as yet equal to theresponsibility of freedom. I should be interested to know just how thenew order adapted itself to the condition of the colored race in theSouth."
"It proved," replied the doctor, "the prompt solution of a problem whichotherwise might have continued indefinitely to plague the Americanpeople. The population of recent slaves was in need of some sort ofindustrial regimen, at once firm and benevolent, administered underconditions which should meanwhile tend to educate, refine, and elevateits members. These conditions the new order met with ideal perfection.The centralized discipline of the national industrial army, depending forits enforcement not so much on force as on the inability of any one tosubsist outside of the system of which it was a part, furnished just thesort of a control--gentle yet resistless--which was needed by therecently emancipated bondsman. On the other hand, the universal educationand the refinements and amenities of life which came with the economicwelfare presently brought to all alike by the new order, meant for thecolored race even more as a civilizing agent than it did to the whitepopulation which relatively had been further advanced."
"There would have been in some parts," I remarked, "a strong prejudice onthe part of the white population against any system which compelled acloser commingling of the races."
"So we read, but there was absolutely nothing in the new system to offendthat prejudice. It related entirely to economic organization, and hadnothing more to do then than it has now with social relations. Even forindustrial purposes the new system involved no more commingling of racesthan the old had done. It was perfectly consistent with any degree ofrace separation in industry which the most bigoted local prejudices mightdemand."
HOW THE TRANSITION MIGHT HAVE BEEN HASTENED.
"There is just one point about the transition stage that I want to goback to," I said. "In the actual case, as you have stated it, it seemsthat the capitalists held on to their capital and continued to conductbusiness as long as they could induce anybody to work for them or buy of
them. I suppose that was human nature--capitalist human nature anyway;but it was also convenient for the Revolution, for this course gave timeto get the new economic system perfected as a framework before the strainof providing for the whole people was thrown on it. But it was justpossible, I suppose, that the capitalists might have taken a differentcourse. For example, suppose, from the moment the popular majority gavecontrol of the national Government to the revolutionists the capitalistshad with one accord abandoned their functions and refused to do businessof any kind. This, mind you, would have been before the Government hadany time to organize even the beginnings of the new system. That wouldhave made a more difficult problem to deal with, would it not?"
"I do not think that the problem would have been more difficult," repliedthe doctor, "though it would have called for more prompt and summaryaction. The Government would have had two things to do and to do at once:on the one hand, to take up and carry on the machinery of productiveindustry abandoned by the capitalists, and simultaneously to providemaintenance for the people pending the time when the new product shouldbecome available. I suppose that as to the matter of providing for themaintenance of the people the action taken would be like that usuallyfollowed by a government when by flood, famine, siege, or other suddenemergency the livelihood of a whole community has been endangered. Nodoubt the first step would have been to requisition, for public use allstores of grain, clothing, shoes, and commodities in general throughoutthe country, excepting of course reasonable stocks in strictly privateuse. There was always in any civilized country a supply ahead of thesenecessities sufficient for several months or a year which would be manytimes more than would be needful to bridge over the gap between thestoppage of the wheels of production under private management and theirgetting into full motion under public administration. Orders on thepublic stores for food and clothing would have been issued to allcitizens making application and enrolling themselves in the publicindustrial service. Meanwhile the Government would have immediatelyresumed the operation of the various productive enterprises abandoned bythe capitalists. Everybody previously employed in them would simply havekept on, and employment would have been as rapidly as possible providedfor those who had formerly been without it. The new product, as fast asmade, would be turned into the public stores and the process would, infact, have been just the same as that I have described, save that itwould have gone through in much quicker time. If it did not go quite sosmoothly on account of the necessary haste, on the other hand it wouldhave been done with sooner, and at most we can hardly imagine that theinconvenience and hardship to the people would have been greater thanresulted from even a mild specimen of the business crises which yourcontemporaries thought necessary every seven years, and toward the lastof the old order became perpetual.
HOW CAPITALIST COERCION OF EMPLOYEES WAS MET.
"Your question, however," continued the doctor, "reminds me of anotherpoint which I had forgotten to mention--namely, the provisional methodsof furnishing employment for the unemployed before the organization ofthe complete national system of industry. What your contemporaries werepleased to call 'the problem of the unemployed'--namely, the necessaryeffect of the profit system to create and perpetuate an unemployedclass--had been increasing in magnitude from the beginning of therevolutionary period, and toward the close of the century the involuntaryidlers were numbered by millions. While this state of things on the onehand furnished a powerful argument for the revolutionary propaganda bythe object lesson it furnished of the incompetence of private capitalismto solve the problem of national maintenance, on the other hand, inproportion as employment became hard to get, the hold of the employersover the actual and would-be employees became strengthened. Those who hademployment and feared to lose it, and those who had it not but hoped toget it, became, through fear and hope, very puppets in the hands of theemploying class and cast their votes at their bidding. Election afterelection was carried in this way by the capitalists through their powerto compel the workingman to vote the capitalist ticket against his ownconvictions, from the fear of losing or hope of obtaining an opportunityto work.
"This was the situation which made it necessary previous to the conquestof the General Government by the revolutionary party, in order that theworkingmen should be made free to vote for their own deliverance, that atleast a provisional system of employment should be established wherebythe wage-earner might be insured a livelihood when unable to find aprivate employer.
"In different States of the Union, as the revolutionary party came intopower, slightly different methods were adopted for meeting thisemergency. The crude and wasteful makeshift of indiscriminate employmenton public works, which had been previously adopted by governments indealing with similar emergencies, would not stand the criticism of thenew economic science. A more intelligent method was necessary and easilyfound. The usual plan, though varied in different localities, was for theState to guarantee to every citizen who applied therefor the means ofmaintenance, to be paid for in his or her labor, and to be taken in theform of commodities and lodgings, these commodities and lodgings beingthemselves produced and maintained by the sum of the labor of those, pastand present, who shared them. The necessary imported commodities or rawmaterials were obtained by the sale of the excess of product at marketrates, a special market being also found in the consumption of the Stateprisons, asylums, etc. This system, whereby the State enabled theotherwise unemployed mutually to maintain themselves by merely furnishingthe machinery and superintendence, came very largely into use to meet theemergencies of the transition period, and played an important part inpreparing the people for the new order, of which it was in an imperfectway a sort of anticipation. In some of these State establishments for theunemployed the circle of industries was remarkably complete, and thewhole product of their labor above expenses being shared among theworkers, they enjoyed far better fare than when in private employment,together with a sense of security then impossible. The employer's powerto control his workmen by the threat of discharge was broken from thetime these co-operative systems began to be established, and when, later,the national industrial organization was ready to absorb them, theymerely melted into it."
HOW ABOUT THE WOMEN?
"How about the women?" I said. "Do I understand that, from the firstorganization of the industrial public service on a complete scale, thewomen were expected, like the men, if physically able, to take theirplaces in the ranks?"
"Where women were sufficiently employed already in housework in their ownfamilies," replied the doctor, "they were recognized as rendering publicservice until the new co-operative housekeeping was sufficientlysystematized to do away with the necessity of separate kitchens and otherelaborate domestic machinery for each family. Otherwise, except asoccasions for exemption existed, women took their place from thebeginning of the new order as units in the industrial state on the samebasis with men.
"If the Revolution had come a hundred years before, when as yet women hadno other vocation but housework, the change in customs might have been astriking one, but already at that time women had made themselves a placein the industrial and business world, and by the time the Revolution cameit was rather exceptional when unmarried women not of the rich and idleclass did not have some regular occupation outside the home. Inrecognizing women as equally eligible and liable to public service withmen, the new order simply confirmed to the women workers the independencethey had already won."
"But how about the married women?"
"Of course," replied the doctor, "there would be considerable periodsduring which married women and mothers would naturally be wholly exemptfrom the performance of any public duty. But except at such times thereseems to be nothing in the nature of the sexual relation constituting areason why a married woman should lead a more secluded and useless lifethan a man. In this matter of the place of women under the new order, youmust understand that it was the women themselves, rather than the men,who insisted that they must share in full the duties as well as thepriv
ileges of citizenship. The men would not have demanded it of them. Inthis respect you must remember that during its whole course theRevolution had been contemporary with a movement for the enlargement andgreater freedom of women's lives, and their equalization as to rights andduties with men. The women, married as well as unmarried, had becomethoroughly tired of being effaced, and were in full revolt against theheadship of man. If the Revolution had not guaranteed the equality andcomradeship with him which she was fast conquering under the old order,it could never have counted on her support."
"But how about the care of children, of the home, etc.?"
"Certainly the mothers could have been trusted to see that nothinginterfered with the welfare of their children, nor was there anything inthe public service expected of them that need do so. There is nothing inthe maternal function which establishes such a relation between motherand child as need permanently interfere with her performance of socialand public duties, nor indeed does it appear that it was allowed to do soin your day by women of sufficient economic means to command neededassistance. The fact that women of the masses so often found it necessaryto abandon an independent existence, and cease to live any more forthemselves the moment they had children, was simply a mark of theimperfection of your social arrangements, and not a natural or moralnecessity. So, too, as to what you call caring for a home. As soon asco-operative methods were applied to housekeeping, and its variousdepartments were systematized as branches of the public service, theformer housewife had perforce to find another vocation in order to keepherself busy."
THE LODGINGS QUESTION.
"Talking about housework," I said, "how did they manage about houses?There were, of course, not enough good lodgings to go around, now thatall were economic equals. How was it settled who should have the goodhouses and who the poor?"
"As I have said," replied the doctor, "the controlling idea of therevolutionary policy at the climax of the Revolution was not tocomplicate the general readjustment by making any changes at that timenot necessary to its main purpose. For the vast number of the badlyhoused the building of better houses was one of the first and greatesttasks of the nation. As to the habitable houses, they were all assessedat a graduated rental according to size and desirability, which theirformer occupants, if they desired to keep them, were expected to pay outof their new incomes as citizens. For a modest house the rent wasnominal, but for a great house--one of the palaces of the millionaires,for instance--the rent was so large that no individual could pay it, andindeed no individual without a host of servants would be able to occupyit, and these, of course, he had no means of employing. Such buildingshad to be used as hotels, apartment houses, or for public purposes. Itwould appear that nobody changed dwellings except the very poor, whosehouses were unfit for habitation, and the very rich, who could make nouse of their former habitation under the changed condition of things."
WHEN ECONOMIC EQUALITY WAS FULLY REALIZED.
"There is one point not quite clear in my mind," I said, "and that isjust when the guarantee of equal maintenance for all citizens went intoeffect."
"I suppose," replied the doctor, "that it must have been when, after thefinal collapse of what was left of private capitalism, the nation assumedthe responsibility of providing for all the people. Until then theorganization of the public service had been on the wage basis, whichindeed was the only practicable way of initiating the plan of universalpublic employment while yet the mass of business was conducted by thecapitalists, and the new and rising system had to be accommodated at somany points to the existing order of things. The tremendous rate at whichthe membership of the national industrial army was growing from week toweek during the transition period would have made it impossible to findany basis of equal distribution that would hold good for a fortnight. Thepolicy of the Government had, however, been to prepare the workers forequal sharing by establishing, as far as possible, a level wage for allkinds of public employees. This it was possible to do, owing to thecheapening of all sorts of commodities by the abolition of profits,without reducing any one's income.
"For example, suppose one workman had received two dollars a day, andanother a dollar and a half. Owing to the cheapening of goods in thepublic stores, these wages presently purchased twice as much as before.But, instead of permitting the virtual increase of wages to operate bymultiplication, so as to double the original discrepancy between the payof the two, it was applied by equal additions to the account of each.While both alike were better off than before, the disproportion in theirwelfare was thus reduced. Nor could the one previously more highly paidobject to this as unfair, because the increased value of his wages wasnot the result of his own efforts, but of the new public organization,from which he could only ask an equal benefit with all others. Thus bythe time the nation was ready for equal sharing, a substantially levelwage, secured by leveling up, not leveling down, had already beenestablished. As to the high salaries of special employees, out of allproportion to workmen's wages, which obtained under private capitalism,they were ruthlessly cut down in the public service from the inception ofthe revolutionary policy.
"But of course the most radical innovation in establishing universaleconomic equality was not the establishment of a level wage as betweenthe workers, but the admission of the entire population, both of workersand of those unable to work or past the working age, to an equal share inthe national product. During the transition period the Government had ofnecessity proceeded like a capitalist in respect to recognizing anddealing only with effective workers. It took no more cognizance of theexistence of the women, except when workers, or the children, or the old,or the infirm, crippled, or sick, or other dependents on the workers thanthe capitalists had been in the habit of doing. But when the nationgathered into its hands the entire economic resources of the country itproceeded to administer them on the principle--proclaimed, indeed, in thegreat Declaration, but practically mocked by the former republic--thatall human beings have an equal right to liberty, life, and happiness, andthat governments rightfully exist only for the purpose of making goodthat right--a principle of which the first practical consequence ought tobe the guarantee to all on equal terms of the economic basis. Thenceforthall adult persons who could render any useful service to the nation wererequired to do so if they desired to enjoy the benefits of the economicsystem; but all who acknowledged the new order, whether they were able orunable to render any economic service, received an equal share with allothers of the national product, and such provision was made for the needsof children as should absolutely safeguard their interests from theneglect or caprice of selfish parents.
"Of course, the immediate effect must have been that the active workersreceived a less income than when they had been the only sharers; but ifthey had been good men and distributed their wages as they ought amongthose dependent on them, they still had for their personal use quite asmuch as before. Only those wage-earners who had formerly had nonedependent on them or had neglected them suffered any curtailment ofincome, and they deserved to. But indeed there was no question ofcurtailment for more than a very short time for any; for, as soon as thenow completed economic organization was fairly in motion, everybody waskept too busy devising ways to expend his or her own allowance to giveany thought to that of others. Of course, the equalizing of the economicmaintenance of all on the basis of citizenship put a final end to theemployment of private servants, even if the practice had lasted tillthen, which is doubtful; for if any one desired a personal servant hemust henceforth pay him as much as he could receive in the publicservice, which would be equivalent to the whole income of the would-beemployer, leaving him nothing for himself."
THE FINAL SETTLEMENT WITH THE CAPITALISTS.
"There is one point," I said, "on which I should like to be a little moreclearly informed. When the nation finally took possession absolutely inperpetuity of all the lands, machinery, and capital after the finalcollapse of private capitalism, there must have been doubtless some sortof final settling and balancing o
f accounts between the people and thecapitalists whose former properties had been nationalized. How was thatmanaged? What was the basis of final settlement?"
"The people waived a settlement," replied the doctor. "The guillotine,the gallows, and the firing platoon played no part in the consummation ofthe great Revolution. During the previous phases of the revolutionaryagitation there had indeed been much bitter talk of the reckoning whichthe people in the hour of their triumph would demand of the capitalistsfor the cruel past; but when the hour of triumph came, the enthusiasm ofhumanity which glorified it extinguished the fires of hate and took awayall desire of barren vengeance. No, there was no settlement demanded; thepeople forgave the past."
"Doctor," I said, "you have sufficiently--in fact,overwhelmingly--answered my question, and all the more so because you didnot catch my meaning. Remember that I represent the mental and moralcondition of the average American capitalist in 1887. What I meant was toinquire what compensation the people made to the capitalists fornationalizing what had been their property. Evidently, however, from thetwentieth-century point of view, if there were to be any final settlementbetween the people and the capitalists it was the former who had the billto present."
"I rather pride myself," replied the doctor, "in keeping track of yourpoint of view and distinguishing it from ours, but I confess that time Ifairly missed the cue. You see, as we look back upon the Revolution, oneof its most impressive features seems to be the vast magnanimity of thepeople at the moment of their complete triumph in according a freequittance to their former oppressors.
"Do you not see that if private capitalism was right, then the Revolutionwas wrong; but, on the other hand, if the Revolution was right, thenprivate capitalism was wrong, and the greatest wrong that ever existed;and in that case it was the capitalists who owed reparation to the peoplethey had wronged, rather than the people who owed compensation to thecapitalists for taking from them the means of that wrong? For the peopleto have consented on any terms to buy their freedom from their formermasters would have been to admit the justice of their former bondage.When insurgent slaves triumph, they are not in the habit of paying theirformer masters the price of the shackles and fetters they have broken;the masters usually consider themselves fortunate if they do not havetheir heads broken with them. Had the question of compensating thecapitalists been raised at the time we are speaking of, it would havebeen an unfortunate issue for them. To their question, Who was to paythem for what the people had taken from them? the response would havebeen, Who was to pay the people for what the capitalist system had takenfrom them and their ancestors, the light of life and liberty andhappiness which it had shut off from unnumbered generations? That was anaccounting which would have gone so deep and reached back so far that thedebtors might well be glad to waive it. In taking possession of the earthand all the works of man that stood upon it, the people were butreclaiming their own heritage and the work of their own hands, kept backfrom them by fraud. When the rightful heirs come to their own, the unjuststewards who kept them out of their inheritance may deem themselvesmercifully dealt with if the new masters are willing to let bygones bebygones.
"But while the idea of compensating the capitalists for putting an end totheir oppression would have been ethically absurd, you will scarcely geta full conception of the situation without considering that any suchcompensation was in the nature of the case impossible. To havecompensated the capitalists in any practical way--that is, any way whichwould have preserved to them under the new order any economic equivalentfor their former holdings--would have necessarily been to set up privatecapitalism over again in the very act of destroying it, thus defeatingand stultifying the Revolution in the moment of its triumph.
"You see that this last and greatest of revolutions in the nature of thecase absolutely differed from all former ones in the finality andcompleteness of its work. In all previous instances in which governmentshad abolished or converted to public use forms of property in the handsof citizens it had been possible to compensate them in some other kind ofproperty through which their former economic advantage should beperpetuated under a different form. For example, in condemning lands itwas possible to pay for them in money, and in abolishing property in menit was possible to pay for the slaves, so that the previous superiorityor privilege held by the property owner was not destroyed outright, butmerely translated, so to speak, into other terms. But the greatRevolution, aiming as it did at the final destruction of all forms ofadvantage, dominion, or privilege among men, left no guise or modepossible under which the capitalist could continue to exercise his formersuperiority. All the modes under which in past time men had exerciseddominion over their fellows had been by one revolution after anotherreduced to the single form of economic superiority, and now that thislast incarnation of the spirit of selfish dominion was to perish therewas no further refuge for it. The ultimate mask torn off, it was left towither in the face of the sun."
"Your explanation leaves me nothing further to ask as to the matter of afinal settling between the people and the capitalists," I said. "Still, Ihave understood that in the first steps toward the substitution of publicbusiness management for private capitalism, consisting in thenationalizing or municipalizing of quasi-public services, such as gasworks, railroads, telegraphs, etc., some theory of compensation wasfollowed. Public opinion, at that stage not having accepted the wholerevolutionary programme, must probably have insisted upon this practice.Just when was it discontinued?'
"You will readily perceive," replied the doctor, "that in measure as itbecame generally recognized that economic equality was at hand, it beganto seem farcical to pay the capitalists for their possessions in forms ofwealth which must presently, as all knew, become valueless. So it wasthat, as the Revolution approached its consummation, the idea of buyingthe capitalists out gave place to plans for safeguarding them fromunnecessary hardships pending the transition period. All the businessesof the class you speak of which were taken over by the people in theearly stages of the revolutionary agitation, were paid for in money orbonds, and usually at prices most favorable to the capitalists. As to thegreater plants, which were taken over later, such as railroads and themines, a different course was followed. By the time public opinion wasripe for these steps, it began to be recognized by the dullest that itwas possible, even if not probable, that the revolutionary programmewould go completely through, and all forms of monetary value orobligation become waste paper. With this prospect the capitalists owningthe properties were naturally not particularly desirous of takingnational bonds for them which would have been the natural form ofcompensation had they been bought outright. Even if the capitalists hadbeen willing to take the bonds, the people would never have consented toincrease the public debt by the five or six billions of bonds that wouldhave been necessary to carry out the purchase. Neither the railroads northe mines were therefore purchased at all. It was their management, nottheir ownership, which had excited the public indignation and created thedemand for their nationalization. It was their management, therefore,which was nationalized, their ownership remaining undisturbed.
"That is to say, the Government, on the high ground of public policy andfor the correction of grievances that had become intolerable, assumed theexclusive and perpetual management and operation of the railroad lines.An honest valuation of the plants having been made, the earnings, if any,up to a reasonable percentage, were paid over to the security holders.This arrangement answered the purpose of delivering the people and thesecurity holders alike from the extortions and mismanagement of theformer private operators, and at the same time brought a million railroademployees into the public service and the enjoyment of all its benefitsquite as effectively as if the lines had been bought outright. A similarplan was followed with the coal and other mines. This combination ofprivate ownership with public management continued until, the Revolutionhaving been consummated, all the capital of the country was nationalizedby comprehensive enactment.
"The general principle wh
ich governed the revolutionary policy in dealingwith property owners of all sorts was that while the distribution ofproperty was essentially unjust and existing property rights morallyinvalid, and as soon as possible a wholly new system should beestablished, yet that, until the new system of property could as a wholereplace the existing one, the legal rights of property owners ought to berespected, and when overruled in the public interest proper provisionshould be made to prevent hardship. The means of private maintenanceshould not, that is to say, be taken away from any one until theguarantee of maintenance from public sources could take its place. Theapplication of this principle by the revolutionists seems to have beenextremely logical, clean cut, and positive. The old law of property, badas it was, they did not aim to abolish in the name of license,spoliation, and confusion, but in the name of a stricter and more logicalas well as more righteous law. In the most nourishing days of capitalism,stealing, so called, was never repressed more sternly than up to the veryeve of the complete introduction of the new system.
"To sum up the case in a word," I suggested, "it seems that in passingfrom the old order into the new it necessarily fared with the rich as itdid when they passed out of this world into the next. In one case, as inthe other, they just absolutely had to leave their money behind them."
"The illustration is really very apt," laughed the doctor, "except in oneimportant particular. It has been rumored that the change which Divesmade from this world to the next was an unhappy one for him; but withinhalf a dozen years after the new economic system had been in operationthere was not an ex-millionaire of the lot who was not ready to admitthat life had been made as much better worth living for him and his classas for the rest of the community."
"Did the new order get into full running condition so quickly as that?" Iasked.
"Of course, it could not get into perfect order as you see it now formany years. The _personnel_ of any community is the prime factor inits economic efficiency, and not until the first generation born underthe new order had come to maturity--a generation of which every memberhad received the highest intellectual and industrial training--did theeconomic order fully show what it was capable of. But not ten nor twoyears had elapsed from the time when the national Government took all thepeople into employment on the basis of equal sharing in the productbefore the system showed results which overwhelmed the world withamazement. The partial system of public industries and public storeswhich the Government had already undertaken had given the people someintimation of the cheapening of products and improvement in their qualitywhich might follow from the abolition of profits even under a wagesystem, but not until the entire economic system had been nationalizedand all co-operated for a common weal was it possible completely to poolthe product and share it equally. No previous experience had thereforeprepared the public for the prodigious efficiency of the new economicenginery. The people had thought the reformers made rather large promisesas to what the new system would do in the way of wealth-making, but nowthey charged them of keeping back the truth. And yet the result was onethat need not have surprised any one who had taken the trouble tocalculate the economic effect of the change in systems. The incalculableincrease of wealth which but for the profit system the great inventionsof the century would long before have brought the world, was being reapedin a long-postponed but overwhelming harvest.
"The difficulty under the profit system had been to avoid producing toomuch; the difficulty under the equal sharing system was how to produceenough. The smallness of demand had before limited supply, but supply hadnow set to it an unlimited task. Under private capitalism demand had beena dwarf and lame at that, and yet this cripple had been pace-maker forthe giant production. National cooperation had put wings on the dwarf andshod the cripple with Mercury's sandals. Henceforth the giant would needall his strength, all his thews of steel and sinews of brass even, tokeep him in sight as he flitted on before.
"It would be difficult to give you an idea of the tremendous burst ofindustrial energy with which the rejuvenated nation on the morrow of theRevolution threw itself into the task of uplifting the welfare of allclasses to a level where the former rich man might find in sharing thecommon lot nothing to regret. Nothing like the Titanic achievement bywhich this result was effected had ever before been known in humanhistory, and nothing like it seems likely ever to occur again. In thepast there had not been work enough for the people. Millions, some rich,some poor, some willingly, some unwillingly, had always been idle, andnot only that, but half the work that was done was wasted in competitionor in producing luxuries to gratify the secondary wants of the few, whileyet the primary wants of the mass remained unsatisfied. Idle machineryequal to the power of other millions of men, idle land, idle capital ofevery sort, mocked the need of the people. Now, all at once there werenot hands enough in the country, wheels enough in the machinery, powerenough in steam and electricity, hours enough in the day, days enough inthe week, for the vast task of preparing the basis of a comfortableexistence for all. For not until all were well-to-do, well housed, wellclothed, well fed, might any be so under the new order of things.
"It is said that in the first full year after the new order wasestablished the total product of the country was tripled, and in thesecond the first year's product was doubled, and every bit of itconsumed.
"While, of course, the improvement in the material welfare of the nationwas the most notable feature in the first years after the Revolution,simply because it was the place at which any improvement must begin, yetthe ennobling and softening of manners and the growth of geniality insocial intercourse are said to have been changes scarcely less notable.While the class differences inherited from the former order in point ofhabits, education, and culture must, of course, continue to mark and in ameasure separate the members of the generation then on the stage, yet thecertain knowledge that the basis of these differences had passed awayforever, and that the children of all would mingle not only upon terms ofeconomic equality, but of moral, intellectual, and social sympathy, andentire community of interest, seems to have had a strong anticipatoryinfluence in bringing together in a sentiment of essential brotherhoodthose who were too far on in life to expect to see the full promise ofthe Revolution realized.
"One other matter is worth speaking of, and that is the effect almost atonce of the universal and abounding material prosperity which the nationhad entered on to make the people forget all about the importance theyhad so lately attached to petty differences in pay and wages and salary.In the old days of general poverty, when a sufficiency was so hard tocome by, a difference in wages of fifty cents or a dollar had seemed sogreat to the artisan that it was hard for him to accept the idea of aneconomic equality in which such important distinctions should disappear.It was quite natural that it should be so. Men fight for crusts when theyare starving, but they do not quarrel over bread at a banquet table.Somewhat so it befell when in the years after the Revolution materialabundance and all the comforts of life came to be a matter of course forevery one, and storing for the future was needless. Then it was that thehunger motive died out of human nature and covetousness as to materialthings, mocked to death by abundance, perished by atrophy, and themotives of the modern worker, the love of honor, the joy of beneficence,the delight of achievement, and the enthusiasm of humanity, became theimpulses of the economic world. Labor was glorified, and the cringingwage-slave of the nineteenth century stood forth transfigured as theknight of humanity."
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE BOOK OF THE BLIND.
If the reader were to judge merely from what has been set down in thesepages he would be likely to infer that my most absorbing interest duringthese days I am endeavoring to recall was the study of the politicaleconomy and social philosophy of the modern world, which I was pursuingunder the direction of Dr. Leete. That, however, would be a greatmistake. Full of wonder and fascination as was that occupation, it wasprosaic business compared with the interest of a certain old story whichhis daughter and I were going over toget
her, whereof but slight mentionhas been made, because it is a story which all know or ought to know forthemselves. The dear doctor, being aware of the usual course of suchstories, no doubt realized that this one might be expected presently toreach a stage of interest where it would be likely, for a time at least,wholly to distract my attention from other themes. No doubt he had beengoverned by this consideration in trying to give to our talks a rangewhich should result in furnishing me with a view of the institutions ofthe modern world and their rational basis that would be as symmetricaland rounded out as was at all consistent with the vastness of the subjectand the shortness of the time. It was some days after he had told me thestory of the transition period before we had an opportunity for anotherlong talk, and the turn he gave to our discourse on that occasion seemedto indicate that he intended it as a sort of conclusion of the series, asindeed it proved to be.
Edith and I had come home rather late that evening, and when she left meI turned into the library, where a light showed that the doctor was stillsitting. As I entered he was turning over the leaves of a very old andyellow-looking volume, the title of which, by its oddity, caught my eye.
"Kenloe's Book of the Blind," I said. "That is an odd title."
"It is the title of an odd book," replied the doctor. "The Book of theBlind is nearly a hundred years old, having been compiled soon after thetriumph of the Revolution. Everybody was happy, and the people in theirjoy were willing to forgive and forget the bitter opposition of thecapitalists and the learned class, which had so long held back theblessed change. The preachers who had preached, the teachers who hadtaught, and the writers who had written against the Revolution, were nowthe loudest in its praise, and desired nothing so much as to have theirprevious utterances forgotten. But Kenloe, moved by a certain crabbedsense of justice, was bound that they should not be forgotten.Accordingly, he took the pains to compile, with great care as toauthenticity, names, dates, and places, a mass of excerpts from speeches,books, sermons, and newspapers, in which the apologists of privatecapitalism had defended that system and assailed the advocates ofeconomic equality during the long period of revolutionary agitation. Thushe proposed to pillory for all time the blind guides who had done theirbest to lead the nation and the world into the ditch. The time wouldcome, he foresaw, as it has come, when it would seem incredible toposterity that rational men and, above all, learned men should haveopposed in the name of reason a measure which, like economic equalityobviously meant nothing more nor less than the general diffusion ofhappiness. Against that time he prepared this book to serve as aperpetual testimony. It was dreadfully hard on the men, all alive at thetime and desiring the past to be forgotten, on whom he conferred thismost undesirable immortality. One can imagine how they must haveanathematized him when the book came out. Nevertheless it must be saidthat if men ever deserved to endure perpetual obloquy those fellows did.
"When I came across this old volume on the top shelf of the library theother day it occurred to me that it might be helpful to complete yourimpression of the great Revolution by giving you an idea of the otherside of the controversy--the side of your own class, the capitalists, andwhat sort of reasons they were able to give against the proposition toequalize the basis of human welfare."
I assured the doctor that nothing would interest me more. Indeed, I hadbecome so thoroughly naturalized as a twentieth-century American thatthere was something decidedly piquant in the idea of having my formerpoint of view as a nineteenth-century capitalist recalled to me.
"Anticipating that you would take that view," said the doctor, "I haveprepared a little list of the main heads of objection from Kenloe'scollection, and we will go over them, if you like, this evening. Ofcourse, there are many more than I shall quote, but the others are mainlyvariations of these, or else relate to points which have been covered inour talks."
I made myself comfortable, and the doctor proceeded:
THE PULPIT OBJECTION.
"The clergy in your day assumed to be the leaders of the people, and itis but respectful to their pretensions to take up first what seems tohave been the main pulpit argument against the proposed system ofeconomic equality collectively guaranteed. It appears to have been ratherin the nature of an excuse for not espousing the new social ideal than adirect attack on it, which indeed it would have been rather difficult fornominal Christians to make, seeing that it was merely the proposal tocarry out the golden rule.
"The clergy reasoned that the fundamental cause of social misery washuman sin and depravity, and that it was vain to expect any greatimprovement in the social condition through mere improvements in socialforms and institutions unless there was a corresponding moral improvementin men. Until that improvement took place it was therefore of no use tointroduce improved social systems, for they would work as badly as theold ones if those who were to operate them were not themselves better menand women.
"The element of truth in this argument is the admitted fact that the usewhich individuals or communities are able to make of any idea,instrument, or institution depends on the degree to which they have beeneducated up to the point of understanding and appreciating it.
"On the other hand, however, it is equally true, as the clergy must atonce have admitted, that from the time a people begins to be morally andintellectually educated up to the point of understanding and appreciatingbetter institutions, their adoption is likely to be of the greatestbenefit to them. Take, for example, the ideas of religious liberty and ofdemocracy. There was a time when the race could not understand or fitlyuse either, and their adoption as formal institutions would have done nogood. Afterward there came a time when the world was ready for the ideas,and then their realization by means of new social institutionsconstituted great forward steps in civilization.
"That is to say, if, on the one hand, it is of no use to introduce animproved institution before people begin to be ready for it, on the otherhand great loss results if there be a delay or refusal to adopt thebetter institution as soon as the readiness begins to manifest itself.
"This being the general law of progress, the practical question is, Howare we to determine as to any particular proposed improvement ininstitutions whether the world is yet ready to make a good use of it orwhether it is premature?
"The testimony of history is that the only test of the fitness of peopleat any time for a new institution is the volume and earnestness of thepopular demand for the change. When the peoples began in earnest to cryout for religious liberty and freedom of conscience, it was evident thatthey were ready for them. When nations began strongly to demand populargovernment, it was proof that they were ready for that. It did not followthat they were entirely able at once to make the best possible use of thenew institution; that they could only learn to do by experience, and thefurther development which they would attain through the use of the betterinstitution and could not otherwise attain at all. What was certain wasthat after the people had reached this state of mind the old institutionhad ceased to be serviceable, and that however badly for a time the newone might work, the interest of the race demanded its adoption, andresistance to the change was resistance to progress.
"Applying this test to the situation toward the close of the nineteenthcentury, what evidence was there that the world was beginning to be readyfor a radically different and more humane set of social institutions? Theevidence was the volume, earnestness, and persistence of the populardemand for it which at that period had come to be the most widespread,profound, and powerful movement going on in the civilized world. This wasthe tremendous fact which should have warned the clergy who withstood thepeople's demand for better things to beware lest haply they be foundfighting even against God. What more convincing proof could be asked thatthe world had morally and intellectually outgrown the old economic orderthan the detestation and denunciation of its cruelties and fatuitieswhich had become the universal voice? What stronger evidence could therebe that the race was ready at least to attempt the experiment of sociallife on a nobler plane than
the marvelous development during this periodof the humanitarian and philanthropic spirit, the passionate acceptanceby the masses of the new idea of social solidarity and the universalbrotherhood of man?
"If the clergymen who objected to the Revolution on the ground thatbetter institutions would be of no utility without a better spirit hadbeen sincere in that objection, they would have found in a survey of thestate and tendencies of popular feeling the most striking proof of thepresence of the very conditions in extraordinary measure which theydemanded as necessary to insure the success of the experiment.
"But indeed it is to be greatly feared that they were not sincere. Theypretended to hold Christ's doctrine that hatred of the old life and adesire to lead a better one is the only vocation necessary to enter uponsuch a life. If they had been sincere in professing this doctrine, theywould have hailed with exultation the appeal of the masses to bedelivered from their bondage to a wicked social order and to be permittedto live together on better, kinder, juster terms. But what they actuallysaid to the people was in substance this: It is true, as you complain,that the present social and economic system is morally abominable andthoroughly antichristian, and that it destroys men's souls and bodies.Nevertheless, you must not think of trying to change it for a bettersystem, because you are not yet good enough to try to be better. It isnecessary that you should wait until you are more righteous before youattempt to leave off doing evil. You must go on stealing and fightinguntil you shall become fully sanctified.
"How would the clergy have been scandalized to hear that a Christianminister had in like terms attempted to discourage an individual penitentwho professed loathing for his former life and a desire to lead a better!What language shall we find then that is strong enough fitly tocharacterize the attitude of these so-called ministers of Christ, who inhis name rebuked and derided the aspirations of a world weary of socialwrong and seeking for a better way?"
THE LACK OF INCENTIVE OBJECTION.
"But, after all," pursued the doctor, turning the pages of Kenloe, "letus not be too hard on these unfortunate clergymen, as if they were moreblinded or bigoted in their opposition to progress than were otherclasses of the learned men of the day, as, for example, theeconomists. One of the main arguments--perhaps the leading one--of thenineteenth-century economists against the programme of economic equalityunder a nationalized economic system was that the people would not proveefficient workers owing to the lack of sufficiently sharp personalincentives to diligence.
"Now, let us look at this objection. Under the old system there were twomain incentives to economic exertion: the one chiefly operative on themasses, who lived from hand to mouth, with no hope of more than a baresubsistence; the other operating to stimulate the well-to-do and rich tocontinue their efforts to accumulate wealth. The first of these motives,the lash that drove the masses to their tasks, was the actual pressure orimminent fear of want. The second of the motives, that which spurred thealready rich, was the desire to be ever richer, a passion which we knowincreased with what it fed on. Under the new system every one on easyconditions would be sure of as good a maintenance as any one else and bequite relieved from the pressure or fear of want. No one, on the otherhand, by any amount of effort, could hope to become the economic superiorof another. Moreover, it was said, since every one looked to his share inthe general result rather than to his personal product, the nerve of zealwould be cut. It was argued that the result would be that everybody woulddo as little as he could and keep within the minimum requirement of thelaw, and that therefore, while the system might barely support itself, itcould never be an economic success."
"That sounds very natural," I said. "I imagine it is just the sort ofargument that I should have thought very powerful."
"So your friends the capitalists seem to have regarded it, and yet thevery statement of the argument contains a confession of the economicimbecility of private capitalism which really leaves nothing to bedesired as to completeness. Consider, Julian, what is implied as to aneconomic system by the admission that under it the people never escapethe actual pressure of want or the immediate dread of it. What more couldthe worst enemy of private capitalism allege against it, or what strongerreason could he give for demanding that some radically new system be atleast given a trial, than the fact which its defenders stated in thisargument for retaining it--namely, that under it the masses were alwayshungry? Surely no possible new system could work any worse than one whichconfessedly depended upon the perpetual famine of the people to keep itgoing."
"It was a pretty bad giving away of their case," I said, "when you cometo think of it that way. And yet at first statement it really had aformidable sound."
"Manifestly," said the doctor, "the incentives to wealth-production undera system confessedly resulting in perpetual famine must be ineffectual,and we really need consider them no further; but your economists praisedso highly the ambition to get rich as an economic motive and objected sostrongly to economic equality because it would shut it off, that a wordmay be well as to the real value of the lust of wealth as an economicmotive. Did the individual pursuit of riches under your systemnecessarily tend to increase the aggregate wealth of the community? Theanswer is significant. It tended to increase the aggregate wealth onlywhen it prompted the production of new wealth. When, on the other hand,it merely prompted individuals to get possession of wealth alreadyproduced and in the hands of others, it tended only to change thedistribution without at all increasing the total of wealth. Not only,indeed, did the pursuit of wealth by acquisition, as distinguished fromproduction, not tend to increase the total, but greatly to decrease it bywasteful strife. Now, I will leave it to you, Julian, whether thesuccessful pursuers of wealth, those who illustrated most strikingly theforce of this motive of accumulation, usually sought their wealth bythemselves producing it or by getting hold of what other people hadproduced or supplanting other people's enterprises and reaping the fieldothers had sown."
"By the latter processes, of course," I replied. "Production was slow andhard work. Great wealth could not be gained that way, and everybody knewit. The acquisition of other people's product and the supplanting oftheir enterprises were the easy and speedy and royal ways to riches forthose who were clever enough, and were the basis of all large and rapidaccumulations."
"So we read," said the doctor; "but the desire of getting rich alsostimulated capitalists to more or less productive activity which was thesource of what little wealth you had. This was called production forprofit, but the political-economy class the other morning showed us thatproduction for profit was economic suicide, tending inevitably, bylimiting the consuming power of a community, to a fractional part of itsproductive power to cripple production in turn, and so to keep the massof mankind in perpetual poverty. And surely this is enough to say aboutthe incentives to wealth-making which the world lost in abandoningprivate capitalism, first general poverty, and second the profit system,which caused that poverty. Decidedly we can dispense with thoseincentives.
"Under the modern system it is indeed true that no one ever imagined sucha thing as coming to want unless he deliberately chose to, but we thinkthat fear is on the whole the weakest as well as certainly the cruelestof incentives. We would not have it on any terms were it merely forgain's sake. Even in your day your capitalists knew that the best man wasnot he who was working for his next dinner, but he who was so well offthat no immediate concern for his living affected his mind. Self-respectand pride in achievement made him a far better workman than he who wasthinking of his day's pay. But if those motives were as strong then,think how much more powerful they are now! In your day when two menworked side by side for an employer it was no concern of the one, howeverthe other might cheat or loaf. It was not his loss, but the employer's.But now that all work for the common fund, the one who evades or scampshis work robs every one of his fellows. A man had better hang himselfnowadays than get the reputation of a shirk.
"As to the notion of these objectors that economic equality would cut th
enerve of zeal by denying the individual the reward of his personalachievements, it was a complete misconception of the effects of thesystem. The assumption that there would be no incentives to impelindividuals to excel one another in industry merely because theseincentives would not take a money form was absurd. Every one is asdirectly and far more certainly the beneficiary of his own merits as inyour day, save only that the reward is not in what you called 'cash.' Asyou know, the whole system of social and official rank and headship,together with the special honors of the state, are determined by therelative value of the economic and other services of individuals to thecommunity. Compared with the emulation aroused by this system of nobilityby merit, the incentives to effort offered under the old order of thingsmust have been slight indeed.
"The whole of this subject of incentive taken by your contemporariesseems, in fact, to have been based upon the crude and childish theorythat the main factor in diligence or execution of any kind is external,whereas it is wholly internal. A person is congenitally slothful orenergetic. In the one case no opportunity and no incentive can make himwork beyond a certain minimum of efficiency, while in the other case hewill make his opportunity and find his incentives, and nothing butsuperior force can prevent his doing the utmost possible. If the motiveforce is not in the man to start with, it can not be supplied fromwithout, and there is no substitute for it. If a man's mainspring is notwound up when he is born, it never can be wound up afterward. The mostthat any industrial system can do to promote diligence is to establishsuch absolutely fair conditions as shall promise sure recognition for allmerit in its measure. This fairness, which your system, utterly unjust inall respects, wholly failed to secure, ours absolutely provides. As tothe unfortunates who are born lazy, our system has certainly nomiraculous power to make them energetic, but it does see to it withabsolute certainty that every able-bodied person who receives economicmaintenance of the nation shall render at least the minimum of service.The laziest is sure to pay his cost. In your day, on the other hand,society supported millions of able-bodied loafers in idleness, a deadweight on the world's industry. From the hour of the consummation of thegreat Revolution, this burden ceased to be borne."
"Doctor," I said, "I am sure my old friends could do better than that.Let us have another of their objections."
AFRAID THAT EQUALITY WOULD MAKE EVERYBODY ALIKE.
"Here, then, is one which they seem to have thought a great deal of. Theyargued that the effect of economic equality would be to make everybodyjust alike, as if they had been sawed off to one measure, and thatconsequently life would become so monotonous that people would all hangthemselves at the end of a month. This objection is beautifully typicalof an age when everything and everybody had been reduced to a moneyvaluation. It having been proposed to equalize everybody's supply ofmoney, it was at once assumed, as a matter of course, that there would beleft no points of difference between individuals that would be worthconsidering. How perfectly does this conclusion express the philosophy oflife held by a generation in which it was the custom to sum up men asrespectively 'worth' so many thousands, hundred thousands, or millions ofdollars! Naturally enough, to such people it seemed that human beingswould become well-nigh indistinguishable if their bank accounts were thesame.
"But let us be entirely fair to your contemporaries. Possibly those whoused this argument against economic equality would have felt aggrieved tohave it made out the baldly sordid proposition it seems to be. Theyappear, to judge from the excerpts collected in this book, to have had avague but sincere apprehension that in some quite undefined way economicequality would really tend to make people monotonously alike, tediouslysimilar, not merely as to bank accounts, but as to qualities in general,with the result of obscuring the differences in natural endowments, theinteraction of which lends all the zest to social intercourse. It seemsalmost incredible that the obvious and necessary effect of economicequality could be apprehended in a sense so absolutely opposed to thetruth. How could your contemporaries look about them without seeing thatit is always inequality which prompts the suppression of individuality byputting a premium on servile imitation of superiors, and, on the otherhand, that it is always among equals that one finds independence?Suppose, Julian, you had a squad of recruits and wanted to ascertain at aglance their difference in height, what sort of ground would you selectto line them up on?"
"The levelest piece I could find, of course."
"Evidently; and no doubt these very objectors would have done the same ina like case, and yet they wholly failed to see that this was preciselywhat economic equality would mean for the community at large. Economicequality with the equalities of education and opportunity implied in itwas the level standing ground, the even floor, on which the new orderproposed to range all alike, that they might be known for what they were,and all their natural inequalities be brought fully out. The charge ofabolishing and obscuring the natural differences between men lay justlynot against the new order, but against the old, which, by a thousandartificial conditions and opportunities arising from economic inequality,made it impossible to know how far the apparent differences inindividuals were natural, and how far they were the result of artificialconditions. Those who voiced the objection to economic equality astending to make men all alike were fond of calling it a leveling process.So it was, but it was not men whom the process leveled, but the groundthey stood on. From its introduction dates the first full and clearrevelation of the natural and inherent varieties in human endowments.Economic equality, with all it implies, is the first condition of anytrue anthropometric or man-measuring system."
"Really," I said, "all these objections seem to be of the boomerangpattern, doing more damage to the side that used them than to the enemy."
"For that matter," replied the doctor, "the revolutionists would havebeen well off for ammunition if they had used only that furnished bytheir opponents' arguments. Take, for example, another specimen, which wemay call the aesthetic objection to economic equality, and might regardas a development of the one just considered. It was asserted that thepicturesqueness and amusement of the human spectacle would suffer withoutthe contrast of conditions between the rich and poor. The question firstsuggested by this statement is: To whom, to what class did thesecontrasts tend to make life more amusing? Certainly not to the poor, whomade up the mass of the race. To them they must have been maddening. Itwas then in the interest of the mere handful of rich and fortunate thatthis argument for retaining poverty was urged. Indeed this appears tohave been quite a fine ladies' argument. Kenloe puts it in the mouths ofleaders of polite society. As coolly as if it had been a question ofparlor decoration, they appear to have argued that the black backgroundof the general misery was a desirable foil to set off the pomp of therich. But, after all, this objection was not more brutal than it wasstupid. If here and there might be found some perverted being whorelished his luxuries the more keenly for the sight of others' want, yetthe general and universal rule is that happiness is stimulated by thesight of the happiness of others. As a matter of fact, far from desiringto see or be even reminded of squalor and poverty, the rich seem to havetried to get as far as possible from sight or sound of them, and to wishto forget their existence.
"A great part of the objections to economic equality in this book seemsto have been based on such complete misapprehensions of what the planimplied as to have no sort of relevancy to it. Some of these I havepassed over. One of them, by way of illustration, was based on theassumption that the new social order would in some way operate toenforce, by law, relations of social intimacy of all with all, withoutregard to personal tastes or affinities. Quite a number of Kenloe'ssubjects worked themselves up to a frenzy, protesting against theintolerable effects of such a requirement. Of course, they were fightingimaginary foes. There was nothing under the old social order whichcompelled men to associate merely because their bank accounts or incomeswere the same, and there was nothing under the new order that would anymore do so. While the universality of culture and refine
ment vastlywidens the circle from which one may choose congenial associates, thereis nothing to prevent anybody from living a life as absolutely unsocialas the veriest cynic of the old time could have desired.
OBJECTION THAT EQUALITY WOULD END THE COMPETITIVE SYSTEM.
"The theory of Kenloe," continued the doctor, "that unless he carefullyrecorded and authenticated these objections to economic equality,posterity would refuse to believe that they had ever been seriouslyoffered, is specially justified by the next one on the list. This is anargument against the new order because it would abolish the competitivesystem and put an end to the struggle for existence. According to theobjectors, this would be to destroy an invaluable school of character andtesting process for the weeding out of inferiority, and the developmentand survival as leaders of the best types of humanity. Now, if yourcontemporaries had excused themselves for tolerating the competitivesystem on the ground that, bad and cruel as it was, the world was notripe for any other, the attitude would have been intelligible, if notrational; but that they should defend it as a desirable institution initself, on account of its moral results, and therefore not to bedispensed with even if it could be, seems hard to believe. For what wasthe competitive system but a pitiless, all-involving combat for the meansof life, the whole zest of which depended on the fact that there was notenough to go round, and the losers must perish or purchase bare existenceby becoming the bondmen of the successful? Between a fight for thenecessary means of life like this and a fight for life itself with swordand gun, it is impossible to make any real distinction. However, let usgive the objection a fair hearing.
"In the first place, let us admit that, however dreadful were theincidents of the fight for the means of life called competition, yet, ifit were such a school of character and testing process for developing thebest types of the race as these objectors claimed, there would besomething to have been said in favor of its retention. But the firstcondition of any competition or test, the results of which are to commandrespect or possess any value, is the fairness and equality of thestruggle. Did this first and essential condition of any true competitivestruggle characterize the competitive system of your day?"
"On the contrary," I replied, "the vast majority of the contestants werehopelessly handicapped at the start by ignorance and lack of earlyadvantages, and never had even the ghost of a chance from the word go.Differences in economic advantages and backing, moreover, gave half therace at the beginning to some, leaving the others at a distance whichonly extraordinary endowments might overcome. Finally, in the race forwealth all the greatest prizes were not subject to competition at all,but were awarded without any contest according to the accident of birth."
"On the whole, then, it would appear," resumed the doctor, "that of allthe utterly unequal, unfair, fraudulent, sham contests, whether in sportor earnest, that were ever engaged in, the so-called competitive systemwas the ghastliest farce. It was called the competitive system apparentlyfor no other reason than that there was not a particle of genuinecompetition in it, nothing but brutal and cowardly slaughter of theunarmed and overmatched by bullies in armor; for, although we havecompared the competitive struggle to a foot race, it was no such harmlesssport as that, but a struggle to the death for life and liberty, which,mind you, the contestants did not even choose to risk, but were forced toundertake, whatever their chances. The old Romans used to enjoy thespectacle of seeing men fight for their lives, but they at least werecareful to pair their gladiators as nearly as possible. The most hardenedattendants at the Coliseum would have hissed from the arena a performancein which the combatants were matched with such utter disregard offairness as were those who fought for their lives in the so-calledcompetitive struggle of your day."
"Even you, doctor," I said, "though you know these things so well throughthe written record, can not realize how terribly true your words are."
"Very good. Now tell me what it would have been necessary to do by way ofequalizing the conditions of the competitive struggle in order that itmight be called, without mockery, a fair test of the qualities of thecontestants."
"It would have been necessary, at least," I said, "to equalize theireducational equipment, early advantages, and economic or money backing."
"Precisely so; and that is just what economic equality proposed to do.Your extraordinary contemporaries objected to economic equality becauseit would destroy the competitive system, when, in fact, it promised theworld the first and only genuine competitive system it ever had."
"This objection seems the biggest boomerang yet," I said.
"It is a double-ended one," said the doctor, "and we have yet observedbut one end. We have seen that the so-called competitive system underprivate capitalism was not a competitive system at all, and that nothingbut economic equality could make a truly competitive system possible.Grant, however, for the sake of the argument, that the old system washonestly competitive, and that the prizes went to the most proficientunder the requirements of the competition; the question would remainwhether the qualities the competition tended to develop were desirableones. A training school in the art of lying, for example, or burglary, orslander, or fraud, might be efficient in its method and the prizes mightbe fairly distributed to the most proficient pupils, and yet it wouldscarcely be argued that the maintenance of the school was in the publicinterest. The objection we are considering assumes that the qualitiesencouraged and rewarded under the competitive system were desirablequalities, and such as it was for the public policy to develop. Now, ifthis was so, we may confidently expect to find that the prize-winners inthe competitive struggle, the great money-makers of your age, wereadmitted to be intellectually and morally the finest types of the race atthe time. How was that?"
"Don't be sarcastic, doctor."
"No, I will not be sarcastic, however great the temptation, but justtalk straight on. What did the world, as a rule, think of the greatfortune-makers of your time? What sort of human types did they represent?As to intellectual culture, it was held as an axiom that a collegeeducation was a drawback to success in business, and naturally so, forany knowledge of the humanities would in so far have unmanned men for thesordid and pitiless conditions of the fight for wealth. We find the greatprize takers in the competitive struggle to have generally been men whomade it a boast that they had never had any mental education beyond therudiments. As a rule, the children and grandchildren, who gladlyinherited their wealth, were ashamed of their appearance and manners astoo gross for refined surroundings.
"So much for the intellectual qualities that marked the victors in therace for wealth under the miscalled competitive system; what of themoral? What were the qualities and practices which the successful seekerafter great wealth must systematically cultivate and follow? A lifelonghabit of calculating upon and taking advantage of the weaknesses,necessities, and mistakes of others, a pitiless insistence upon makingthe most of every advantage which one might gain over another, whether byskill or accident, the constant habit of undervaluing and depreciatingwhat one would buy, and overvaluing what one would sell; finally, such alifelong study to regulate every thought and act with sole reference tothe pole star of self-interest in its narrowest conception as must needspresently render the man incapable of every generous or self-forgettingimpulse. That was the condition of mind and soul which the competitivepursuit of wealth in your day tended to develop, and which was naturallymost brilliantly exemplified in the cases of those who carried away thegreat prizes of the struggle.
"But, of course, these winners of the great prizes were few, and had thedemoralizing influence of the struggle been limited to them it would haveinvolved the moral ruin of a small number. To realize how wide and deadlywas the depraving influence of the struggle for existence, we mustremember that it was not confined to its effect upon the characters ofthe few who succeeded, but demoralized equally the millions who failed,not on account of a virtue superior to that of the few winners, or anyunwillingness to adopt their methods, but merely through lack of therequisite a
bility or fortune. Though not one in ten thousand mightsucceed largely in the pursuit of wealth, yet the rules of the contestmust be followed as closely to make a bare living as to gain a fortune,in bargaining for a bag of old rags as in buying a railroad. So it wasthat the necessity equally upon all of seeking their living, howeverhumble, by the methods of competition, forbade the solace of a goodconscience as effectually to the poor man as to the rich, to the manylosers at the game as to the few winners. You remember the familiarlegend which represents the devil as bargaining with people for theirsouls, with the promise of worldly success as the price. The bargain wasin a manner fair as set forth in the old story. The man always receivedthe price agreed on. But the competitive system was a fraudulent devil,which, while requiring everybody to forfeit their souls, gave in returnworldly success to but one in a thousand.
"And now, Julian, just let us glance at the contrast between what winningmeant under the old false competitive system and what it means under thenew and true competitive system, both to the winner and to the others.The winners then were those who had been most successful in getting awaythe wealth of others. They had not even pretended to seek the good of thecommunity or to advance its interest, and if they had done so, thatresult had been quite incidental. More often than otherwise their wealthrepresented the loss of others. What wonder that their riches became abadge of ignominy and their victory their shame? The winners in thecompetition of to-day are those who have done most to increase thegeneral wealth and welfare. The losers, those who have failed to win theprizes, are not the victims of the winners, but those whose interest,together with the general interest, has been served by them better thanthey themselves could have served it. They are actually better offbecause a higher ability than theirs was developed in the race, seeingthat this ability redounded wholly to the common interest. The badges ofhonor and rewards of rank and office which are the tangible evidence ofsuccess won in the modern competitive struggle are but expressions of thelove and gratitude of the people to those who have proved themselvestheir most devoted and efficient servants and benefactors."
"It strikes me," I said, "so far as you have gone, that if some one hadbeen employed to draw up a list of the worst and weakest aspects ofprivate capitalism, he could not have done better than to select thefeatures of the system on which its champions seem to have based theirobjections to a change."
OBJECTION THAT EQUALITY WOULD DISCOURAGE INDEPENDENCE AND ORIGINALITY.
"That is an impression," said the doctor, "which you will find confirmedas we take up the next of the arguments on our list against economicequality. It was asserted that to have an economic maintenance on simpleand easy terms guaranteed to all by the nation would tend to discourageoriginality and independence of thought and conduct on the part of thepeople, and hinder the development of character and individuality. Thisobjection might be regarded as a branch of the former one that economicequality would make everybody just alike, or it might be considered acorollary of the argument we have just disposed of about the value ofcompetition as a school of character. But so much seems to have been madeof it by the opponents of the Revolution that I have set it downseparately.
"The objection is one which, by the very terms necessary to state it,seems to answer itself, for it amounts to saying that a person will be indanger of losing independence of feeling by gaining independence ofposition. If I were to ask you what economic condition was regarded asmost favorable to moral and intellectual independence in your day, andmost likely to encourage a man to act out himself without fear or favor,what would you say?"
"I should say, of course, that a secure and independent basis oflivelihood was that condition."
"Of course. Now, what the new order promised to give and guaranteeeverybody was precisely this absolute independence and security oflivelihood. And yet it was argued that the arrangement would beobjectionable, as tending to discourage independence of character. Itseems to us that if there is any one particular in which the influenceupon humanity of economic equality has been more beneficent than anyother, it has been the effect which security of economic position has hadto make every one absolute lord of himself and answerable for hisopinions, speech, and conduct to his own conscience only.
"That is perhaps enough to say in answer to an objection which, as Iremarked, really confutes itself, but the monumental audacity of thedefenders of private capitalism in arguing that any other possible systemcould be more unfavorable than itself to human dignity and independencetempts a little comment, especially as this is an aspect of the old orderon which I do not remember that we have had much talk. As it seems to us,perhaps the most offensive feature of private capitalism, if one mayselect among so many offensive features, was its effect to make cowardly,time-serving, abject creatures of human beings, as a consequence of thedependence for a living, of pretty nearly everybody upon some individualor group.
"Let us just glance at the spectacle which the old order presented inthis respect. Take the women in the first place, half the human race.Because they stood almost universally in a relation of economicdependence, first upon men in general and next upon some man inparticular, they were all their lives in a state of subjection both tothe personal dictation of some individual man, and to a set of irksomeand mind-benumbing conventions representing traditional standards ofopinion as to their proper conduct fixed in accordance with the masculinesentiment. But if the women had no independence at all, the men were notso very much better off. Of the masculine half of the world, the greaterpart were hirelings dependent for their living upon the favor ofemployers and having the most direct interest to conform so far aspossible in opinions and conduct to the prejudices of their masters, and,when they could not conform, to be silent. Look at your secret ballotlaws. You thought them absolutely necessary in order to enable workingmento vote freely. What a confession is that fact of the universalintimidation of the employed by the employer! Next there were thebusiness men, who held themselves above the workingmen. I mean thetradesmen, who sought a living by persuading the people to buy of them.But here our quest of independence is even more hopeless than among theworkingmen, for, in order to be successful in attracting the custom ofthose whom they cringingly styled their patrons, it was necessary for themerchant to be all things to all men, and to make an art ofobsequiousness.
"Let us look yet higher. We may surely expect to find independence ofthought and speech among the learned classes in the so-called liberalprofessions if nowhere else. Let us see how our inquiry fares there. Takethe clerical profession first--that of the religious ministers andteachers. We find that they were economic servants and hirelings eitherof hierarchies or congregations, and paid to voice the opinions of theiremployers and no others. Every word that dropped from their lips wascarefully weighed lest it should indicate a trace of independentthinking, and if it were found, the clergyman risked his living. Take thehigher branches of secular teaching in the colleges and professions.There seems to have been some freedom allowed in teaching the deadlanguages; but let the instructor take up some living issue and handle itin a manner inconsistent with the capitalist interest, and you know wellenough what became of him. Finally, take the editorial profession, thewriters for the press, who on the whole represented the most influentialbranch of the learned class. The great nineteenth-century newspaper was acapitalistic enterprise as purely commercial in its principle as a woolenfactory, and the editors were no more allowed to write their own opinionsthan the weavers to choose the patterns they wove. They were employed toadvocate the opinions and interests of the capitalists owning the paperand no others. The only respect in which the journalists seem to havediffered from the clergy was in the fact that the creeds which the latterwere employed to preach were more or less fixed traditions, while thosewhich the editors must preach changed with the ownership of the paper.This, Julian, is the truly exhilarating spectacle of abounding andunfettered originality, of sturdy moral and intellectual independence andrugged individuality, which it was feared by your conte
mporaries might beendangered by any change in the economic system. We may agree with themthat it would have been indeed a pity if any influence should operate tomake independence any rarer than it was, but they need not have beenapprehensive; it could not be."
"Judging from these examples of the sort of argumentative oppositionwhich the revolutionists had to meet," I observed, "it strikes me thatthey must have had a mighty easy time of it."
"So far as rational argument was concerned," replied the doctor, "nogreat revolutionary movement ever had to contend with so littleopposition. The cause of the capitalists was so utterly bad, either fromthe point of view of ethics, politics, or economic science, that therewas literally nothing that could be said for it that could not be turnedagainst it with greater effect. Silence was the only safe policy for thecapitalists, and they would have been glad enough to follow it if thepeople had not insisted that they should make some sort of a plea to theindictment against them. But because the argumentative opposition whichthe revolutionists had to meet was contemptible in quality, it did notfollow that their work was an easy one. Their real task--and it was onefor giants--was not to dispose of the arguments against their cause, butto overcome the moral and intellectual inertia of the masses and rousethem to do just a little clear thinking for themselves.
POLITICAL CORRUPTION AS AN OBJECTION TO NATIONALIZING INDUSTRY.
"The next objection--there are only two or three more worthmentioning--is directed not so much against economic equality in itselfas against the fitness of the machinery by which the new industrialsystem was to be carried on. The extension of popular government overindustry and commerce involved of course the substitution of public andpolitical administration on a large scale for the previous irresponsiblecontrol of private capitalists. Now, as I need not tell you, theGovernment of the United States--municipal, State, and national--in thelast third of the nineteenth century had become very corrupt. It wasargued that to intrust any additional functions to governments so corruptwould be nothing short of madness."
"Ah!" I exclaimed, "that is perhaps the rational objection we have beenwaiting for. I am sure it is one that would have weighed heavily with me,for the corruption of our governmental system smelled to heaven."
"There is no doubt," said the doctor, "that there was a great deal ofpolitical corruption and that it was a very bad thing, but we must look alittle deeper than these objectors did to see the true bearing of thisfact on the propriety of nationalizing industry.
"An instance of political corruption was one where the public servantabused his trust by using the administration under his control forpurposes of private gain instead of solely for the public interest--thatis to say, he managed his public trust just as if it were his privatebusiness and tried to make a profit out of it. A great outcry was made,and very properly, when any such conduct was suspected; and therefore thecorrupt officers operated under great difficulties, and were in constantdanger of detection and punishment. Consequently, even in the worstgovernments of your period the mass of business was honestly conducted,as it professed to be, in the public interest, comparatively few andoccasional transactions being affected by corrupt influences.
"On the other hand, what were the theory and practice pursued by thecapitalists in carrying on the economic machinery which were under theircontrol? They did not profess to act in the public interest or to haveany regard for it. The avowed object of their whole policy was so to usethe machinery of their position as to make the greatest personal gainspossible for themselves out of the community. That is to say, the use ofhis control of the public machinery for his personal gain--which on thepart of the public official was denounced and punished as a crime, andfor the greater part prevented by public vigilance--was the avowed policyof the capitalist. It was the pride of the public official that he leftoffice as poor as when he entered it, but it was the boast of thecapitalist that he made a fortune out of the opportunities of hisposition. In the case of the capitalist these gains were not calledcorrupt, as they were when made by public officials in the discharge ofpublic business. They were called profits, and regarded as legitimate;but the practical point to consider as to the results of the two systemswas that these profits cost the people they came out of just as much asif they had been called political plunder.
"And yet these wise men in Kenloe's collection taught the people, andsomebody must have listened to them, that because in some instancespublic officials succeeded in spite of all precautions in using thepublic administration for their own gain, it would not be safe to put anymore public interests under public administration, but would be safer toleave them to private capitalists, who frankly proposed as their regularpolicy just what the public officials were punished whenever caughtdoing--namely, taking advantage of the opportunities of their position toenrich themselves at public expense. It was precisely as if the owner ofan estate, finding it difficult to secure stewards who were perfectlyfaithful, should be counseled to protect himself by putting his affairsin the hands of professional thieves."
"You mean," I said, "that political corruption merely meant theoccasional application to the public administration of the profit-seekingprinciple on which all private business was conducted."
"Certainly. A case of corruption in office was simply a case where thepublic official forgot his oath and for the occasion took a businesslikeview of the opportunities of his position--that is to say, when thepublic official fell from grace he only fell to the normal level on whichall private business was admittedly conducted. It is simply astonishing,Julian, how completely your contemporaries overlooked this obvious fact.Of course, it was highly proper that they should be extremely critical ofthe conduct of their public officials; but it is unaccountable that theyshould fail to see that the profits of private capitalists came out ofthe community's pockets just as certainly as did the stealings ofdishonest officials, and that even in the most corrupt public departmentsthe stealings represented a far less percentage than would have beentaken as profits if the same business were done for the public bycapitalists.
"So much for the precious argument that, because some officials sometimestook profits of the people, it would be more economical to leave theirbusiness in the hands of those who would systematically do so! But, ofcourse, although the public conduct of business, even if it were markedwith a certain amount of corruption, would still be more economicalfor the community than leaving it under the profit system, yet noself-respecting community would wish to tolerate any public corruption atall, and need not, if only the people would exercise vigilance. Now, whatwill compel the people to exercise vigilance as to the publicadministration? The closeness with which we follow the course of an agentdepends on the importance of the interests put in his hands. Corruptionhas always thrived in political departments in which the mass of thepeople have felt little direct concern. Place under public administrationvital concerns of the community touching their welfare daily at manypoints, and there will be no further lack of vigilance. Had they beenwiser, the people who objected to the governmental assumption of neweconomic functions on account of existing political corruption would haveadvocated precisely that policy as the specific cure for the evil.
"A reason why these objectors seem to have been especially short-sightedis the fact that by all odds the most serious form which politicalcorruption took in America at that day was the bribery of legislators byprivate capitalists and corporations in order to obtain franchises andprivileges. In comparison with this abuse, peculation or bribery of crudedirect sorts were of little extent or importance. Now, the immediate andexpress effect of the governmental assumption of economic businesseswould be, so far as it went, to dry up this source of corruption, for itwas precisely this class of capitalist undertakings which therevolutionists proposed first to bring under public control.
"Of course, this objection was directed only against the new order whilein process of introduction. With its complete establishment the verypossibility of corruption, would disappear with the law of absol
uteuniformity governing all incomes.
"Worse and worse," I exclaimed. "What is the use of going further?"
"Patience," said the doctor. "Let us complete the subject while we are onit. There are only a couple more of the objections that have shape enoughto admit of being stated."
OBJECTION THAT A NATIONALIZED INDUSTRIAL SYSTEM WOULD THREATEN LIBERTY.
"The first of them," pursued the doctor, "was the argument that such anextension of the functions of public administration as nationalizedindustries involved would lodge a power in the hands of the Government,even though it were the people's own government, that would be dangerousto their liberties.
"All the plausibility there was to this objection rested on the tacitassumption that the people in their industrial relations had underprivate capitalism been free and unconstrained and subject to no form ofauthority. But what assumption could have been more regardless of factsthan this? Under private capitalism the entire scheme of industry andcommerce, involving the employment and livelihood of everybody, wassubject to the despotic and irresponsible government of private masters.The very demand for nationalizing industry has resulted wholly from thesufferings of the people under the yoke of the capitalists.
"In 1776 the Americans overthrew the British royal government in thecolonies and established their own in its place. Suppose at that time theking had sent an embassy to warn the American people that by assumingthese new functions of government which formerly had been performed forthem by him they were endangering their liberty. Such an embassy would,of course, have been laughed at. If any reply had been thought needful,it would have been pointed out that the Americans were not establishingover themselves any new government, but were substituting a government oftheir own, acting in their own interests, for the government of othersconducted in an indifferent or hostile interest. Now, that was preciselywhat nationalizing industry meant. The question was, Given the necessityof some sort of regulation and direction of the industrial system,whether it would tend more to liberty for the people to leave that powerto irresponsible persons with hostile interests, or to exercise itthemselves through responsible agents? Could there conceivably be but oneanswer to that question?
"And yet it seems that a noted philosopher of the period, in a tractwhich has come down to us, undertook to demonstrate that if the peopleperfected the democratic system by assuming control of industry in thepublic interest, they would presently fall into a state of slavery whichwould cause them to sigh for the days of Nero and Caligula. I wish we hadthat philosopher here, that we might ask him how, in accordance with anyobserved laws of human nature, slavery was going to come about as theresult of a system aiming to establish and perpetuate a more perfectdegree of equality, intellectual as well as material, than had ever beenknown. Did he fancy that the people would deliberately and maliciouslyimpose a yoke upon themselves, or did he apprehend that some usurperwould get hold of the social machinery and use it to reduce the people toservitude? But what usurper from the beginning ever essayed a task sohopeless as the subversion of a state in which there were no classes orinterests to set against one another, a state in which there was noaristocracy and no populace, a state the stability of which representedthe equal and entire stake in life of every human being in it? Truly itwould seem that people who conceived the subversion of such a republicpossible ought to have lost no time in chaining down the Pyramids, lestthey, too, defying ordinary laws of Nature, should incontinently turnupon their tops.
"But let us leave the dead to bury their dead, and consider how thenationalization of industry actually did affect the bearing of governmentupon the people. If the amount of governmental machinery--that is, theamount of regulating, controlling, assigning, and directing under thepublic management of industry--had continued to be just the same it wasunder the private administration of the capitalists, the fact that it wasnow the people's government, managing everything in the people's interestunder responsibility to the people, instead of an irresponsible tyrannyseeking its own interest, would of course make an absolute difference inthe whole character and effect of the system and make it vastly moretolerable. But not merely did the nationalization of industry give awholly new character and purpose to the economic administration, but italso greatly diminished the net amount of governing necessary to carry iton. This resulted naturally from the unity of system with the consequentco-ordination and interworking of all the parts which took the place ofthe former thousand-headed management following as many different andconflicting lines of interest, each a law to itself. To the workers thedifference was as if they had passed out from under the capriciouspersonal domination of innumerable petty despots to a government of lawsand principles so simple and systematic that the sense of being subjectto personal authority was gone.
"But to fully realize how strongly this argument of too much governmentdirected against the system of nationalized industry partook of theboomerang quality of the previous objections, we must look on to thelater effects which the social justice of the new order would naturallyhave to render superfluous well-nigh the whole machinery of government aspreviously conducted. The main, often almost sole, business ofgovernments in your day was the protection of property and person againstcriminals, a system involving a vast amount of interference with theinnocent. This function of the state has now become almost obsolete.There are no more any disputes about property, any thefts of property, orany need of protecting property. Everybody has all he needs and as muchas anybody else. In former ages a great number of crimes have resultedfrom the passions of love and jealousy. They were consequences of theidea derived from immemorial barbarism that men and women might acquiresexual proprietorship in one another, to be maintained and assertedagainst the will of the person. Such crimes ceased to be known after thefirst generation had grown up under the absolute sexual autonomy andindependence which followed from economic equality. There being no lowerclasses now which upper classes feel it their duty to bring up in the waythey should go, in spite of themselves, all sorts of attempts to regulatepersonal behavior in self-regarding matters by sumptuary legislation havelong ago ceased. A government in the sense of a coordinating directory ofour associated industries we shall always need, but that is practicallyall the government we have now. It used to be a dream of philosophersthat the world would some time enjoy such a reign of reason and justicethat men would be able to live together without laws. That condition, sofar as concerns punitive and coercive regulations, we have practicallyattained. As to compulsory laws, we might be said to live almost in astate of anarchy.
"There is, as I explained to you in the Labor Exchange the other morning,no compulsion, in the end, even as to the performance of the universalduty of public service. We only insist that those who finally refuse todo their part toward maintaining the social welfare shall not bepartakers of it, but shall resort by themselves and provide forthemselves.
THE MALTHUSIAN OBJECTION.
"And now we come to the last objection on my list. It is entirelydifferent in character from any of the others. It does not deny thateconomic equality would be practicable or desirable, or assert that themachinery would work badly. It admits that the system would prove atriumphant success in raising human welfare to an unprecedented point andmaking the world an incomparably more agreeable place to live in. It wasindeed the conceded success of the plan which was made the basis of thisobjection to it."
"That must be a curious sort of objection," I said. "Let us hear aboutit."
"The objectors put it in this way: 'Let us suppose,' they said, 'thatpoverty and all the baneful influences upon life and health that followin its train are abolished and all live out their natural span of life.Everybody being assured of maintenance for self and children, no motiveof prudence would be operative to restrict the number of offspring. Otherthings being equal, these conditions would mean a much faster increase ofpopulation than ever before known, and ultimately an overcrowding of theearth and a pressure on the food supply, unless indeed we suppose new and
indefinite food sources to be found?'"
"I do not see why it might not be reasonable to anticipate such aresult," I observed, "other things being equal."
"Other things being equal," replied the doctor, "such a result might beanticipated. But other things would not be equal, but so different thattheir influence could be depended on to prevent any such result."
"What are the other things that would not be equal?"
"Well, the first would be the diffusion of education, culture, andgeneral refinement. Tell me, were the families of the well-to-do andcultured class in the America of your day, as a whole, large?"
"Quite the contrary. They did not, as a rule, more than replacethemselves."
"Still, they were not prevented by any motive of prudence from increasingtheir numbers. They occupied in this respect as independent a position asfamilies do under the present order of economic equality and guaranteedmaintenance. Did it never occur to you why the families of the well-to-doand cultured in your day were not larger?"
"Doubtless," I said, "it was on account of the fact that in proportion asculture and refinement opened intellectual and aesthetic fields ofinterest, the impulses of crude animalism played less important parts inlife. Then, too, in proportion as families were refined the woman ceasedto be the mere sexual slave of the husband, and her wishes as to suchmatters were considered."
"Quite so. The reflection you have suggested is enough to indicate thefallacy of the whole Malthusian theory of the increase of population onwhich this objection to better social conditions was founded. Malthus, asyou know, held that population tended to increase faster than means ofsubsistence, and therefore that poverty and the tremendous wastes of lifeit stood for were absolutely necessary in order to prevent the world fromstarving to death by overcrowding. Of course, this doctrine wasenormously popular with the rich and learned class, who were responsiblefor the world's misery. They naturally were delighted to be assured thattheir indifference to the woes of the poor, and even their positiveagency in multiplying those woes, were providentially overruled for good,so as to be really rather praiseworthy than otherwise. The Malthusdoctrine also was very convenient as a means of turning the tables onreformers who proposed to abolish poverty by proving that, instead ofbenefiting mankind, their reforms would only make matters worse in theend by overcrowding the earth and starving everybody. By means of theMalthus doctrine, the meanest man who ever ground the face of the poorhad no difficulty in showing that he was really a slightly disguisedbenefactor of the race, while the philanthropist was an injurious fellow.
"This prodigious convenience of Malthusianism has an excuse for things asthey were, furnishes the explanation for the otherwise incomprehensiblevogue of so absurd a theory. That absurdity consists in the fact that,while laying such stress on the direct effects of poverty and all theills it stands for to destroy life, it utterly failed to allow for thefar greater influence which the brutalizing circumstances of povertyexerted to promote the reckless multiplication of the species. Poverty,with all its deadly consequences, slew its millions, but only afterhaving, by means of its brutalizing conditions, promoted the recklessreproduction of tens of millions--that is to say, the Malthus doctrinerecognized only the secondary effects of misery and degradation inreducing population, and wholly overlooked their far more importantprimary effect in multiplying it. That was its fatal fallacy.
"It was a fallacy the more inexcusable because Malthus and all hisfollowers were surrounded by a society the conditions of which absolutelyrefuted their theory. They had only to open then eyes to see thatwherever the poverty and squalor chiefly abounded, which they vaunted assuch valuable checks to population, humankind multiplied like rabbits,while in proportion as the economic level of a class was raised itsproliferousness declined. What corollary from this fact of universalobservation could be more obvious than that the way to prevent recklessoverpopulation was to raise, not to depress, the economic status of themass, with all the general improvement in well-being which that implied?How long do you suppose such an absurdly fundamental fallacy as underlaythe Malthus theory would have remained unexposed if Malthus had been arevolutionist instead of a champion and defender of capitalism?
"But let Malthus go. While the low birth-rate among the culturedclasses--whose condition was the prototype of the general condition undereconomic equality--was refutation enough of the overpopulation objection,yet there is another and far more conclusive answer, the full force ofwhich remains to be brought out. You said a few moments ago that onereason why the birth-rate was so moderate among the cultured classes wasthe fact that in that class the wishes of women were more considered thanin the lower classes. The necessary effect of economic equality betweenthe sexes would mean, however, that, instead of being more or lessconsidered, the wishes of women in all matters touching the subject weare discussing would be final and absolute. Previous to the establishmentof economic equality by the great Revolution the non-child-bearing sexwas the sex which determined the question of child-bearing, and thenatural consequence was the possibility of a Malthus and his doctrine.Nature has provided in the distress and inconvenience of the maternalfunction a sufficient check upon its abuse, just as she has in regard toall the other natural functions. But, in order that Nature's check shouldbe properly operative, it is necessary that the women through whose willsit must operate, if at all, should be absolutely free agents in thedisposition of themselves, and the necessary condition of that freeagency is economic independence. That secured, while we may be sure thatthe maternal instinct will forever prevent the race from dying out, theworld will be equally little in danger of being recklessly overcrowded."
THE END.
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