{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_38138/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_38138","id":"gutenberg_38138","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38138","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Economics","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Politics","Socialism","Utilitarianism"],"text":"Produced by Adrian Mastronardi and the Online Distributed\nProofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was\nproduced from images generously made available by The\nInternet Archive/Canadian Libraries)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n    +-----------------------------------------------------------+\n    | Transcriber's Note:                                       |\n    |                                                           |\n    | Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has     |\n    | been preserved.                                           |\n    |                                                           |\n    | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. For     |\n    | a complete list, please see the end of this document.     |\n    |                                                           |\n    +-----------------------------------------------------------+\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\n  SOCIALISM.\n\n\n  BY\n  JOHN STUART MILL.\n\n\n  _Reprinted from the Fortnightly Review._\n\n\n  CHICAGO.\n  BELFORDS, CLARKE & CO.\n  MDCCCLXXIX.\n\n\n\n\n  MANUFACTURED _BY_\n  DONOHUE\n  HENNEBERRY.\n  _CHICAGO, ILL._\n\n\n\n\nPRELIMINARY NOTICE.\n\n\nIt was in the year 1869 that, impressed with the degree in which, even\nduring the last twenty years, when the world seemed so wholly occupied\nwith other matters, the socialist ideas of speculative thinkers had\nspread among the workers in every civilized country, Mr. Mill formed\nthe design of writing a book on Socialism. Convinced that the\ninevitable tendencies of modern society must be to bring the questions\ninvolved in it always more and more to the front, he thought it of\ngreat practical consequence that they should be thoroughly and\nimpartially considered, and the lines pointed out by which the best\nspeculatively-tested theories might, without prolongation of suffering\non the one hand, or unnecessary disturbance on the other, be applied\nto the existing order of things. He therefore planned a work which\nshould go exhaustively through the whole subject, point by point; and\nthe chapters now printed are the first rough drafts thrown down\ntowards the foundation of that work. These chapters might not, when\nthe work came to be completely written out and then re-written,\naccording to the author's habit, have appeared in the present order;\nthey might have been incorporated into different parts of the work. It\nhas not been without hesitation that I have yielded to the urgent wish\nof the editor of this Review to give these chapters to the world; but\nI have complied with his request because, while they appear to me to\npossess great intrinsic value as well as special application to the\nproblems now forcing themselves on public attention, they will not, I\nbelieve, detract even from the mere literary reputation of their\nauthor, but will rather form an example of the patient labor with\nwhich good work is done.\n\n                                                    HELEN TAYLOR.\n\n  _January, 1879._\n\n\n\n\nSOCIALISM.\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTORY.\n\n\nIn the great country beyond the Atlantic, which is now well-nigh the\nmost powerful country in the world, and will soon be indisputably so,\nmanhood suffrage prevails. Such is also the political qualification of\nFrance since 1848, and has become that of the German Confederation,\nthough not of all the several states composing it. In Great Britain\nthe suffrage is not yet so widely extended, but the last Reform Act\nadmitted within what is called the pale of the Constitution so large a\nbody of those who live on weekly wages, that as soon and as often as\nthese shall choose to act together as a class, and exert for any\ncommon object the whole of the electoral power which our present\ninstitutions give them, they will exercise, though not a complete\nascendency, a very great influence on legislation. Now these are the\nvery class which, in the vocabulary of the higher ranks, are said to\nhave no stake in the country. Of course they have in reality the\ngreatest stake, since their daily bread depends on its prosperity. But\nthey are not engaged (we may call it bribed) by any peculiar interest\nof their own, to the support of property as it is, least of all to the\nsupport of inequalities of property. So far as their power reaches, or\nmay hereafter reach, the laws of property have to depend for support\nupon considerations of a public nature, upon the estimate made of\ntheir conduciveness to the general welfare, and not upon motives of a\nmere personal character operating on the minds of those who have\ncontrol over the Government.\n\nIt seems to me that the greatness of this change is as yet by no means\ncompletely realized, either by those who opposed, or by those who\neffected our last constitutional reform. To say the truth, the\nperceptions of Englishmen are of late somewhat blunted as to the\ntendencies of political changes. They have seen so many changes made,\nfrom which, while only in prospect, vast expectations were\nentertained, both of evil and of good, while the results of either\nkind that actually followed seemed far short of what had been\npredicted, that they have come to feel as if it were the nature of\npolitical changes not to fulfil expectation, and have fallen into a\nhabit of half-unconscious belief that such changes, when they take\nplace without a violent revolution, do not much or permanently disturb\nin practice the course of things habitual to the country. This,\nhowever, is but a superficial view either of the past or of the\nfuture. The various reforms of the last two generations have been at\nleast as fruitful in important consequences as was foretold. The\npredictions were often erroneous as to the suddenness of the effects,\nand sometimes even as to the kind of effect. We laugh at the vain\nexpectations of those who thought that Catholic emancipation would\ntranquilize Ireland, or reconcile it to British rule. At the end of\nthe first ten years of the Reform Act of 1832, few continued to think\neither that it would remove every important practical grievance, or\nthat it had opened the door to universal suffrage. But five-and-twenty\nyears more of its operation had given scope for a large development of\nits indirect working, which is much more momentous than the direct.\nSudden effects in history are generally superficial. Causes which go\ndeep down into the roots of future events produce the most serious\nparts of their effect only slowly, and have, therefore, time to become\na part of the familiar order of things before general attention is\ncalled to the changes they are producing; since, when the changes do\nbecome evident, they are often not seen, by cursory observers, to be\nin any peculiar manner connected with the cause. The remoter\nconsequences of a new political fact are seldom understood when they\noccur, except when they have been appreciated beforehand.\n\nThis timely appreciation is particularly easy in respect to tendencies\nof the change made in our institutions by the Reform Act of 1867. The\ngreat increase of electoral power which the Act places within the\nreach of the working classes is permanent. The circumstances which\nhave caused them, thus far, to make a very limited use of that power,\nare essentially temporary. It is known even to the most inobservant,\nthat the working classes have, and are likely to have, political\nobjects which concern them as working classes, and on which they\nbelieve, rightly or wrongly, that the interests and opinions of the\nother powerful classes are opposed to theirs. However much their\npursuit of these objects may be for the present retarded by want of\nelectoral organization, by dissensions among themselves, or by their\nnot having reduced as yet their wishes into a sufficiently definite\npractical shape, it is as certain as anything in politics can be, that\nthey will before long find the means of making their collective\nelectoral power effectively instrumental to the proportion of their\ncollective objects. And when they do so, it will not be in the\ndisorderly and ineffective way which belongs to a people not\nhabituated to the use of legal and constitutional machinery, nor will\nit be by the impulse of a mere instinct of levelling. The instruments\nwill be the press, public meetings and associations, and the return to\nParliament of the greatest possible number of persons pledged to the\npolitical aims of the working classes. The political aims will\nthemselves be determined by definite political doctrines; for politics\nare now scientifically studied from the point of view of the working\nclasses, and opinions conceived in the special interest of those\nclasses are organized into systems and creeds which lay claim to a\nplace on the platform of political philosophy, by the same right as\nthe systems elaborated by previous thinkers. It is of the utmost\nimportance that all reflecting persons should take into early\nconsideration what these popular political creeds are likely to be,\nand that every single article of them should be brought under the\nfullest light of investigation and discussion, so that, if possible,\nwhen the time shall be ripe, whatever is right in them may be adopted,\nand what is wrong rejected by general consent, and that instead of a\nhostile conflict, physical or only moral, between the old and the new,\nthe best parts of both may be combined in a renovated social fabric.\nAt the ordinary pace of those great social changes which are not\neffected by physical violence, we have before us an interval of about\na generation, on the due employment of which it depends whether the\naccommodation of social institutions to the altered state of human\nsociety, shall be the work of wise foresight, or of a conflict of\nopposite prejudices. The future of mankind will be gravely imperilled,\nif great questions are left to be fought over between ignorant change\nand ignorant opposition to change.\n\nAnd the discussion that is now required is one that must go down to\nthe very first principles of existing society. The fundamental\ndoctrines which were assumed as incontestable by former generations,\nare now put again on their trial. Until the present age, the\ninstitution of property in the shape in which it has been handed down\nfrom the past, had not, except by a few speculative writers, been\nbrought seriously into question, because the conflicts of the past\nhave always been conflicts between classes, both of which had a stake\nin the existing constitution of property. It will not be possible to\ngo on longer in this manner. When the discussion includes classes who\nhave next to no property of their own, and are only interested in the\ninstitution so far as it is a public benefit, they will not allow\nanything to be taken for granted--certainly not the principle of\nprivate property, the legitimacy and utility of which are denied by\nmany of the reasoners who look out from the stand-point of the working\nclasses. Those classes will certainly demand that the subject, in all\nits parts, shall be reconsidered from the foundation; that all\nproposals for doing without the institution, and all modes of\nmodifying it which have the appearance of being favorable to the\ninterest of the working classes, shall receive the fullest\nconsideration and discussion before it is decided that the subject\nmust remain as it is. As far as this country is concerned, the\ndispositions of the working classes have as yet manifested themselves\nhostile only to certain outlying portions of the proprietary system.\nMany of them desire to withdraw questions of wages from the freedom of\ncontract, which is one of the ordinary attributions of private\nproperty. The more aspiring of them deny that land is a proper subject\nfor private appropriation, and have commenced an agitation for its\nresumption by the State. With this is combined, in the speeches of\nsome of the agitators, a denunciation of what they term usury, but\nwithout any definition of what they mean by the name; and the cry does\nnot seem to be of home origin, but to have been caught up from the\nintercourse which has recently commenced through the Labor Congresses\nand the International Society, with the continental Socialists who\nobject to all interest on money, and deny the legitimacy of deriving\nan income in any form from property apart from labor. This doctrine\ndoes not as yet show signs of being widely prevalent in Great Britain,\nbut the soil is well prepared to receive the seeds of this\ndescription which are widely scattered from those foreign countries\nwhere large, general theories, and schemes of vast promise, instead of\ninspiring distrust, are essential to the popularity of a cause. It is\nin France, Germany, and Switzerland that anti-property doctrines in\nthe widest sense have drawn large bodies of working men to rally round\nthem. In these countries nearly all those who aim at reforming society\nin the interest of the working classes profess themselves Socialists,\na designation under which schemes of very diverse character are\ncomprehended and confounded, but which implies at least a remodelling\ngenerally approaching to abolition of the institution of private\nproperty. And it would probably be found that even in England the more\nprominent and active leaders of the working classes are usually in\ntheir private creed Socialists of one order or another, though being,\nlike most English politicians, better aware than their Continental\nbrethren that great and permanent changes in the fundamental ideas of\nmankind are not to be accomplished by a _coup de main_, they direct\ntheir practical efforts towards ends which seem within easier reach,\nand are content to hold back all extreme theories until there has been\nexperience of the operation of the same principles on a partial scale.\nWhile such continues to be the character of the English working\nclasses, as it is of Englishmen in general, they are not likely to\nrush head-long into the reckless extremities of some of the foreign\nSocialists, who, even in sober Switzerland, proclaim themselves\ncontent to begin by simple subversion, leaving the subsequent\nreconstruction to take care of itself; and by subversion, they mean\nnot only the annihilation of all government, but getting all property\nof all kinds out of the hands of the possessors to be used for the\ngeneral benefit; but in what mode it will, they say, be time enough\nafterwards to decide.\n\nThe avowal of this doctrine by a public newspaper, the organ of an\nassociation (_La Solidarite_ published at Neuchatel), is one of the\nmost curious signs of the times. The leaders of the English\nworking-men--whose delegates at the congresses of Geneva and Bale\ncontributed much the greatest part of such practical common sense as\nwas shown there--are not likely to begin deliberately by anarchy,\nwithout having formed any opinion as to what form of society should be\nestablished in the room of the old. But it is evident that whatever\nthey do propose can only be properly judged, and the grounds of the\njudgment made convincing to the general mind, on the basis of a\nprevious survey of the two rival theories, that of private property and\nthat of Socialism, one or other of which must necessarily furnish most\nof the premises in the discussion. Before, therefore, we can usefully\ndiscuss this class of questions in detail, it will be advisable to\nexamine from their foundations the general question raised by\nSocialism. And this examination should be made without any hostile\nprejudice. However irrefutable the arguments in favor of the laws of\nproperty may appear to those to whom they have the double prestige of\nimmemorial custom and of personal interest, nothing is more natural\nthan that a working man who has begun to speculate on politics, should\nregard them in a very different light. Having, after long struggles,\nattained in some countries, and nearly attained in others, the point at\nwhich for them, at least, there is no further progress to make in the\ndepartment of purely political rights, is it possible that the less\nfortunate classes among the \"adult males\" should not ask themselves\nwhether progress ought to stop there? Notwithstanding all that has been\ndone, and all that seems likely to be done, in the extension of\nfranchises, a few are born to great riches, and the many to a penury,\nmade only more grating by contrast. No longer enslaved or made\ndependent by force of law, the great majority are so by force of\npoverty; they are still chained to a place, to an occupation, and to\nconformity with the will of an employer, and debarred by the accident\nof birth both from the enjoyments, and from the mental and moral\nadvantages, which others inherit without exertion and independently of\ndesert. That this is an evil equal to almost any of those against\nwhich mankind have hitherto struggled, the poor are not wrong in\nbelieving. Is it a necessary evil? They are told so by those who do not\nfeel it--by those who have gained the prizes in the lottery of life.\nBut it was also said that slavery, that despotism, that all the\nprivileges of oligarchy were necessary. All the successive steps that\nhave been made by the poorer classes, partly won from the better\nfeelings of the powerful, partly extorted from their fears, and partly\nbought with money, or attained in exchange for support given to one\nsection of the powerful in its quarrels with another, had the strongest\nprejudices opposed to them beforehand; but their acquisition was a sign\nof power gained by the subordinate classes, a means to those classes of\nacquiring more; it consequently drew to those classes a certain share\nof the respect accorded to power, and produced a corresponding\nmodification in the creed of society respecting them; whatever\nadvantages they succeeded in acquiring came to be considered their due,\nwhile, of those which they had not yet attained, they continued to be\ndeemed unworthy. The classes, therefore, which the system of society\nmakes subordinate, have little reason to put faith in any of the maxims\nwhich the same system of society may have established as principles.\nConsidering that the opinions of mankind have been found so wonderfully\nflexible, have always tended to consecrate existing facts, and to\ndeclare what did not yet exist, either pernicious or impracticable,\nwhat assurance have those classes that the distinction of rich and poor\nis grounded on a more imperative necessity than those other ancient and\nlong-established facts, which, having been abolished, are now condemned\neven by those who formerly profited by them? This cannot be taken on\nthe word of an interested party. The working classes are entitled to\nclaim that the whole field of social institutions should be\nre-examined, and every question considered as if it now arose for the\nfirst time; with the idea constantly in view that the persons who are\nto be convinced are not those who owe their ease and importance to the\npresent system, but persons who have no other interest in the matter\nthan abstract justice and the general good of the community. It should\nbe the object to ascertain what institutions of property would be\nestablished by an unprejudiced legislator, absolutely impartial between\nthe possessors of property and the non-possessors; and to defend and to\njustify them by the reasons which would really influence such a\nlegislator, and not by such as have the appearance of being got up to\nmake out a case for what already exists. Such rights or privileges of\nproperty as will not stand this test will, sooner or later, have to be\ngiven up. An impartial hearing ought, moreover, to be given to all\nobjections against property itself. All evils and inconveniences\nattaching to the institution in its best form ought to be frankly\nadmitted, and the best remedies or palliatives applied which human\nintelligence is able to devise. And all plans proposed by social\nreformers, under whatever name designated, for the purpose of attaining\nthe benefits aimed at by the institution of property without its\ninconveniences, should be examined with the same candor, not prejudged\nas absurd or impracticable.\n\n\nSOCIALIST OBJECTIONS TO THE PRESENT ORDER OF SOCIETY.\n\nAs in all proposals for change there are two elements to be\nconsidered--that which is to be changed, and that which it is to be\nchanged to--so in Socialism considered generally, and in each of its\nvarieties taken separately, there are two parts to be distinguished,\nthe one negative and critical, the other constructive. There is,\nfirst, the judgment of Socialism on existing institutions and\npractices and on their results; and secondly, the various plans which\nit has propounded for doing better. In the former all the different\nschools of Socialism are at one. They agree almost to identity in the\nfaults which they find with the economical order of existing society.\nUp to a certain point also they entertain the same general conception\nof the remedy to be provided for those faults; but in the details,\nnotwithstanding this general agreement, there is a wide disparity. It\nwill be both natural and convenient, in attempting an estimate of\ntheir doctrines, to begin with the negative portion which is common to\nthem all, and to postpone all mention of their differences until we\narrive at that second part of their undertaking, in which alone they\nseriously differ.\n\nThis first part of our task is by no means difficult; since it\nconsists only in an enumeration of existing evils. Of these there is\nno scarcity, and most of them are by no means obscure or mysterious.\nMany of them are the veriest commonplaces of moralists, though the\nroots even of these lie deeper than moralists usually attempt to\npenetrate. So various are they that the only difficulty is to make any\napproach to an exhaustive catalogue. We shall content ourselves for\nthe present with mentioning a few of the principal. And let one thing\nbe remembered by the reader. When item after item of the enumeration\npasses before him, and he finds one fact after another which he has\nbeen accustomed to include among the necessities of nature urged as\nan accusation against social institutions, he is not entitled to cry\nunfairness, and to protest that the evils complained of are inherent\nin Man and Society, and are such as no arrangements can remedy. To\nassert this would be to beg the very question at issue. No one is more\nready than Socialists to admit--they affirm it indeed much more\ndecidedly than truth warrants--that the evils they complain of are\nirremediable in the present constitution of society. They propose to\nconsider whether some other form of society may be devised which would\nnot be liable to those evils, or would be liable to them in a much\nless degree. Those who object to the present order of society,\nconsidered as a whole and who accept as an alternative the possibility\nof a total change, have a right to set down all the evils which at\npresent exist in society as part of their case, whether these are\napparently attributable to social arrangements or not, provided they\ndo not flow from physical laws which human power is not adequate, or\nhuman knowledge has not yet learned, to counteract. Moral evils and\nsuch physical evils as would be remedied if all persons did as they\nought, are fairly chargeable against the state of society which admits\nof them; and are valid as arguments until it is shown that any other\nstate of society would involve an equal or greater amount of such\nevils. In the opinion of Socialists, the present arrangements of\nsociety in respect to Property and the Production and Distribution of\nWealth, are as means to the general good, a total failure. They say\nthat there is an enormous mass of evil which these arrangements do not\nsucceed in preventing; that the good, either moral or physical, which\nthey realize is wretchedly small compared with the amount of exertion\nemployed, and that even this small amount of good is brought about by\nmeans which are full of pernicious consequences, moral and physical.\n\nFirst among existing social evils may be mentioned the evil of\nPoverty. The institution of Property is upheld and commended\nprincipally as being the means by which labor and frugality are\ninsured their reward, and mankind enabled to emerge from indigence.\nIt may be so; most Socialists allow that it has been so in earlier\nperiods of history. But if the institution can do nothing more or\nbetter in this respect than it has hitherto done, its capabilities,\nthey affirm, are very insignificant. What proportion of the\npopulation, in the most civilized countries of Europe, enjoy in their\nown persons anything worth naming of the benefits of property? It may\nbe said, that but for property in the hands of their employers they\nwould be without daily bread; but, though this be conceded, at least\ntheir daily bread is all that they have; and that often in\ninsufficient quantity; almost always of inferior quality; and with no\nassurance of continuing to have it at all; an immense proportion of\nthe industrious classes being at some period or other of their lives\n(and all being liable to become) dependent, at least temporarily, on\nlegal or voluntary charity. Any attempt to depict the miseries of\nindigence, or to estimate the proportion of mankind who in the most\nadvanced countries are habitually given up during their whole\nexistence to its physical and moral sufferings, would be superfluous\nhere. This may be left to philanthropists, who have painted these\nmiseries in colors sufficiently strong. Suffice it to say that the\ncondition of numbers in civilized Europe, and even in England and\nFrance, is more wretched than that of most tribes of savages who are\nknown to us.\n\nIt may be said that of this hard lot no one has any reason to\ncomplain, because it befalls those only who are outstripped by others,\nfrom inferiority of energy or of prudence. This, even were it true,\nwould be a very small alleviation of the evil. If some Nero or\nDomitian was to require a hundred persons to run a race for their\nlives, on condition that the fifty or twenty who came in hindmost\nshould be put to death, it would not be any diminution of the\ninjustice that the strongest or nimblest would, except through some\nuntoward accident, be certain to escape. The misery and the crime\nwould be that they were put to death at all. So in the economy of\nsociety; if there be any who suffer physical privation or moral\ndegradation, whose bodily necessities are either not satisfied or\nsatisfied in a manner which only brutish creatures can be content\nwith, this, though not necessarily the crime of society, is _pro\ntanto_ a failure of the social arrangements. And to assert as a\nmitigation of the evil that those who thus suffer are the weaker\nmembers of the community, morally or physically, is to add insult to\nmisfortune. Is weakness a justification of suffering? Is it not, on\nthe contrary, an irresistible claim upon every human being for\nprotection against suffering? If the minds and feelings of the\nprosperous were in a right state, would they accept their prosperity\nif for the sake of it even one person near them was, for any other\ncause than voluntary fault, excluded from obtaining a desirable\nexistence?\n\nOne thing there is, which if it could be affirmed truly, would relieve\nsocial institutions from any share in the responsibility of these\nevils. Since the human race has no means of enjoyable existence, or of\nexistence at all, but what it derives from its own labor and\nabstinence, there would be no ground for complaint against society if\nevery one who was willing to undergo a fair share of this labor and\nabstinence could attain a fair share of the fruits. But is this the\nfact? Is it not the reverse of the fact? The reward, instead of being\nproportioned to the labor and abstinence of the individual, is almost\nin an inverse ratio to it: those who receive the least, labor and\nabstain the most. Even the idle, reckless, and ill-conducted poor,\nthose who are said with most justice to have themselves to blame for\ntheir condition, often undergo much more and severer labor, not only\nthan those who are born to pecuniary independence, but than almost any\nof the more highly remunerated of those who earn their subsistence;\nand even the inadequate self-control exercised by the industrious poor\ncosts them more sacrifice and more effort than is almost ever required\nfrom the more favored members of society. The very idea of\ndistributive justice, or of any proportionality between success and\nmerit, or between success and exertion, is in the present state of\nsociety so manifestly chimerical as to be relegated to the regions of\nromance. It is true that the lot of individuals is not wholly\nindependent of their virtue and intelligence; these do really tell in\ntheir favor, but far less than many other things in which there is no\nmerit at all. The most powerful of all the determining circumstances\nis birth. The great majority are what they were born to be. Some are\nborn rich without work, others are born to a position in which they\ncan become rich _by_ work, the great majority are born to hard work\nand poverty throughout life, numbers to indigence. Next to birth the\nchief cause of success in life is accident and opportunity. When a\nperson not born to riches succeeds in acquiring them, his own industry\nand dexterity have generally contributed to the result; but industry\nand dexterity would not have sufficed unless there had been also a\nconcurrence of occasions and chances which falls to the lot of only a\nsmall number. If persons are helped in their worldly career by their\nvirtues, so are they, and perhaps quite as often, by their vices: by\nservility and sycophancy, by hard-hearted and close-fisted\nselfishness, by the permitted lies and tricks of trade, by gambling\nspeculations, not seldom by downright knavery. Energies and talents\nare of much more avail for success in life than virtues; but if one\nman succeeds by employing energy and talent in something generally\nuseful, another thrives by exercising the same qualities in\nout-generalling and ruining a rival. It is as much as any moralist\nventures to assert, that, other circumstances being given, honesty is\nthe best policy, and that with parity of advantages an honest person\nhas a better chance than a rogue. Even this in many stations and\ncircumstances of life is questionable; anything more than this is out\nof the question. It cannot be pretended that honesty, as a means of\nsuccess, tells for as much as a difference of one single step on the\nsocial ladder. The connection between fortune and conduct is mainly\nthis, that there is a degree of bad conduct, or rather of some kinds\nof bad conduct, which suffices to ruin any amount of good fortune; but\nthe converse is not true: in the situation of most people no degree\nwhatever of good conduct can be counted upon for raising them in the\nworld, without the aid of fortunate accidents.\n\nThese evils, then--great poverty, and that poverty very little\nconnected with desert--are the first grand failure of the existing\narrangements of society. The second is human misconduct; crime, vice,\nand folly, with all the sufferings which follow in their train. For,\nnearly all the forms of misconduct, whether committed towards ourselves\nor towards others, may be traced to one of three causes: Poverty and\nits temptations in the many; Idleness and _desoeuvrement_ in the few\nwhose circumstances do not compel them to work; bad education, or want\nof education, in both. The first two must be allowed to be at least\nfailures in the social arrangements, the last is now almost universally\nadmitted to be the fault of those arrangements--it may almost be said\nthe crime. I am speaking loosely and in the rough, for a minuter\nanalysis of the sources of faults of character and errors of conduct\nwould establish far more conclusively the filiation which connects them\nwith a defective organization of society, though it would also show the\nreciprocal dependence of that faulty state of society on a backward\nstate of the human mind.\n\nAt this point, in the enumeration of the evils of society, the mere\nlevellers of former times usually stopped; but their more far-sighted\nsuccessors, the present Socialists, go farther. In their eyes the very\nfoundation of human life as at present constituted, the very principle\non which the production and repartition of all material products is now\ncarried on, is essentially vicious and anti-social. It is the principle\nof individualism, competition, each one for himself and against all the\nrest. It is grounded on opposition of interests, not harmony of\ninterests, and under it every one is required to find his place by a\nstruggle, by pushing others back or being pushed back by them.\nSocialists consider this system of private war (as it may be termed)\nbetween every one and every one, especially fatal in an economical\npoint of view and in a moral. Morally considered, its evils are\nobvious. It is the parent of envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness; it\nmakes every one the natural enemy of all others who cross his path, and\nevery one's path is constantly liable to be crossed. Under the present\nsystem hardly any one can gain except by the loss or disappointment of\none or of many others. In a well-constituted community every one would\nbe a gainer by every other person's successful exertions; while now we\ngain by each other's loss and lose by each other's gain, and our\ngreatest gains come from the worst source of all, from death, the death\nof those who are nearest and should be dearest to us. In its purely\neconomical operation the principle of individual competition receives\nas unqualified condemnation from the social reformers as in its moral.\nIn the competition of laborers they see the cause of low wages; in the\ncompetition of producers the cause of ruin and bankruptcy; and both\nevils, they affirm, tend constantly to increase as population and\nwealth make progress; no person (they conceive) being benefited except\nthe great proprietors of land, the holders of fixed money incomes, and\na few great capitalists, whose wealth is gradually enabling them to\nundersell all other producers, to absorb the whole of the operations of\nindustry into their own sphere, to drive from the market all employers\nof labor except themselves, and to convert the laborers into a kind of\nslaves or serfs, dependent on them for the means of support, and\ncompelled to accept these on such terms as they choose to offer.\nSociety, in short, is travelling onward, according to these\nspeculators, towards a new feudality, that of the great capitalists.\n\nAs I shall have ample opportunity in future chapters to state my own\nopinion on these topics, and on many others connected with and\nsubordinate to them, I shall now, without further preamble, exhibit\nthe opinions of distinguished Socialists on the present arrangements\nof society, in a selection of passages from their published writings.\nFor the present I desire to be considered as a mere reporter of the\nopinions of others. Hereafter it will appear how much of what I cite\nagrees or differs with my own sentiments.\n\nThe clearest, the most compact, and the most precise and specific\nstatement of the case of the Socialists generally against the existing\norder of society in the economical department of human affairs, is to\nbe found in the little work of M. Louis Blanc, _Organisation du\nTravail_. My first extracts, therefore, on this part of the subject,\nshall be taken from that treatise.\n\n    \"Competition is for the people a system of extermination. Is the\n    poor man a member of society, or an enemy to it? We ask for an\n    answer.\n\n    \"All around him he finds the soil preoccupied. Can he cultivate\n    the earth for himself? No; for the right of the first occupant\n    has become a right of property. Can he gather the fruits which\n    the hand of God ripens on the path of man? No; for, like the\n    soil, the fruits have been _appropriated_. Can he hunt or fish?\n    No; for that is a right which is dependent upon the government.\n    Can he draw water from a spring enclosed in a field? No; for the\n    proprietor of the field is, in virtue of his right to the\n    field, proprietor of the fountain. Can he, dying of hunger and\n    thirst, stretch out his hands for the charity of his\n    fellow-creatures? No; for there are laws against begging. Can\n    he, exhausted by fatigue and without a refuge, lie down to sleep\n    upon the pavement of the streets? No; for there are laws against\n    vagabondage. Can he, dying from the cruel native land where\n    everything is denied him, seek the means of living far from the\n    place where life was given him? No; for it is not permitted to\n    change your country except on certain conditions which the poor\n    man cannot fulfil.\n\n    \"What, then, can the unhappy man do? He will say, 'I have hands\n    to work with, I have intelligence, I have youth, I have\n    strength; take all this, and in return give me a morsel of\n    bread.' This is what the working-men do say. But even here the\n    poor man may be answered, 'I have no work to give you.' What is\n    he to do then?\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n    \"What is competition from the point of view of the workman? It\n    is work put up to auction. A contractor wants a workman: three\n    present themselves.--How much for your work?--Half-a-crown; I\n    have a wife and children.--Well; and how much for yours?--Two\n    shillings: I have no children, but I have a wife.--Very well;\n    and now how much for you?--One and eightpence are enough for me;\n    I am single. Then you shall have the work. It is done; the\n    bargain is struck. And what are the other two workmen to do? It\n    is to be hoped they will die quietly of hunger. But what if they\n    take to thieving? Never fear; we have the police. To murder? We\n    have got the hangman. As for the lucky one, his triumph is only\n    temporary. Let a fourth workman make his appearance, strong\n    enough to fast every other day, and his price will run down\n    still lower; then there will be a new outcast, a new recruit for\n    the prison perhaps!\n\n    \"Will it be said that these melancholy results are exaggerated;\n    that at all events they are only possible when there is not work\n    enough for the hands that seek employment? But I ask, in answer,\n    Does the principle of competition contain, by chance, within\n    itself any method by which this murderous disproportion is to be\n    avoided? If one branch of industry is in want of hands, who can\n    answer for it that, in the confusion created by universal\n    competition, another is not overstocked? And if, out of\n    thirty-four millions of men, twenty are really reduced to theft\n    for a living, this would suffice to condemn the principle.\n\n    \"But who is so blind as not to see that under the system of\n    unlimited competition, the continual fall of wages is no\n    exceptional circumstance, but a necessary and general fact? Has\n    the population a limit which it cannot exceed? Is it possible\n    for us to say to industry--industry given up to the accidents of\n    individual egotism and fertile in ruin--can we say, 'Thus far\n    shalt thou go, and no farther?' The population increases\n    constantly: tell the poor mother to become sterile, and\n    blaspheme the God who made her fruitful, for if you do not, the\n    lists will soon become too narrow for the combatants. A machine\n    is invented: command it to be broken, and anathematize science,\n    for if you do not, the thousand workmen whom the new machine\n    deprives of work will knock at the door of the neighboring\n    workshop, and lower the wages of their companions. Thus\n    systematic lowering of wages, ending in the driving out of a\n    certain number of workmen, is the inevitable effect of unlimited\n    competition. It is an industrial system by means of which the\n    working-classes are forced to exterminate one another.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n    \"If there is an undoubted fact, it is that the increase of\n    population is much more rapid among the poor than among the\n    rich. According to the _Statistics of European Population_, the\n    births at Paris are only one-thirty-second of the population in\n    the rich quarters, while in the others they rise to\n    one-twenty-sixth. This disproportion is a general fact, and M.\n    de Sismondi, in his work on Political Economy, has explained it\n    by the impossibility for the workmen of hopeful prudence. Those\n    only who feel themselves assured of the morrow can regulate the\n    number of their children according to their income; he who lives\n    from day to day is under the yoke of a mysterious fatality, to\n    which he sacrifices his children as he was sacrificed to it\n    himself. It is true the workhouses exist, menacing society with\n    an inundation of beggars--what way is there of escaping from the\n    cause?... It is clear that any society where the means of\n    subsistence increase less rapidly than the numbers of the\n    population, is a society on the brink of an abyss....\n    Competition produces destitution; this is a fact shown by\n    statistics. Destitution is fearfully prolific; this is shown by\n    statistics. The fruitfulness of the poor throws upon society\n    unhappy creatures who have need of work and cannot find it; this\n    is shown by statistics. At this point society is reduced to a\n    choice between killing the poor or maintaining them\n    gratuitously--between atrocity or folly.\"[1]\n\nSo much for the poor. We now pass to the middle classes.\n\n    \"According to the political economists of the school of Adam\n    Smith and Leon Say, _cheapness_ is the word in which may be\n    summed up the advantages of unlimited competition. But why\n    persist in considering the effect of cheapness with a view only\n    to the momentary advantage of the consumer? Cheapness is\n    advantageous to the consumer at the cost of introducing the\n    seeds of ruinous anarchy among the producers. Cheapness is, so\n    to speak, the hammer with which the rich among the producers\n    crush their poorer rivals. Cheapness is the trap into which the\n    daring speculators entice the hard-workers. Cheapness is the\n    sentence of death to the producer on a small scale who has no\n    money to invest in the purchase of machinery that his rich\n    rivals can easily procure. Cheapness is the great instrument in\n    the hands of monopoly; it absorbs the small manufacturer, the\n    small shopkeeper, the small proprietor; it is, in one word, the\n    destruction of the middle classes for the advantage of a few\n    industrial oligarchs.\n\n    \"Ought we, then, to consider cheapness as a curse? No one would\n    attempt to maintain such an absurdity. But it is the specialty\n    of wrong principles to turn good into evil and to corrupt all\n    things. Under the system of competition cheapness is only a\n    provisional and fallacious advantage. It is maintained only so\n    long as there is a struggle; no sooner have the rich competitors\n    driven out their poorer rivals than prices rise. Competition\n    leads to monopoly, for the same reason cheapness leads to high\n    prices. Thus, what has been made use of as a weapon in the\n    contest between the producers, sooner or later becomes a cause\n    of impoverishment among the consumers. And if to this cause we\n    add the others we have already enumerated, first among which\n    must be ranked the inordinate increase of the population, we\n    shall be compelled to recognize the impoverishment of the mass\n    of the consumers as a direct consequence of competition.\n\n    \"But, on the other hand, this very competition which tends to\n    dry up the sources of demand, urges production to over-supply.\n    The confusion produced by the universal struggle prevents each\n    producer from knowing the state of the market. He must work in\n    the dark, and trust to chance for a sale. Why should he check\n    the supply, especially as he can throw any loss on the workman\n    whose wages are so pre-eminently liable to rise and fall? Even\n    when production is carried on at a loss the manufacturers still\n    often carry it on, because they will not let their machinery,\n    &c., stand idle, or risk the loss of raw material, or lose their\n    customers; and because productive industry as carried on under\n    the competitive system being nothing else than a game of chance,\n    the gambler will not lose his chance of a lucky stroke.\n\n    \"Thus, and we cannot too often insist upon it, competition\n    necessarily tends to increase supply and to diminish\n    consumption; its tendency therefore is precisely the opposite\n    of what is sought by economic science; hence it is not merely\n    oppressive but foolish as well.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n    \"And in all this, in order to avoid dwelling on truths which\n    have become commonplaces, and sound declamatory from their very\n    truth, we have said nothing of the frightful moral corruption\n    which industry, organized, or more properly speaking,\n    disorganized, as it is at the present day, has introduced among\n    the middle classes. Everything has become venal, and competition\n    invades even the domain of thought.\n\n    \"The factory crushing the workshop; the showy establishment\n    absorbing the humble shop; the artisan who is his own master\n    replaced by the day-laborer; cultivation by the plow superseding\n    that by the spade, and bringing the poor man's field under\n    disgraceful homage to the money-lender; bankruptcies multiplied;\n    manufacturing industry transformed by the ill-regulated\n    extension of credit into a system of gambling where no one, not\n    even the rogue, can be sure of winning; in short a vast\n    confusion calculated to arouse jealousy, mistrust, and hatred,\n    and to stifle, little by little, all generous aspirations, all\n    faith, self-sacrifice, and poetry--such is the hideous but only\n    too faithful picture of the results obtained by the application\n    of the principle of competition.\"[2]\n\nThe Fourierists, through their principal organ, M. Considerant,\nenumerate the evils of the existing civilisation in the following\norder:--\n\n1. It employs an enormous quantity of labor and of human power\nunproductively, or in the work of destruction.\n\n    \"In the first place there is the army, which in France, as in\n    all other countries, absorbs the healthiest and strongest men, a\n    large number of the most talented and intelligent, and a\n    considerable part of the public revenue.... The existing state\n    of society develops in its impure atmosphere innumerable\n    outcasts, whose labor is not merely unproductive, but actually\n    destructive: adventurers, prostitutes, people with no\n    acknowledged means of living, beggars, convicts, swindlers,\n    thieves, and others whose numbers tend rather to increase than\n    to diminish....\n\n    \"To the list of unproductive labor fostered by our state of\n    Society must be added that of the judicature and of the bar, of\n    the courts of law and magistrates, the police, jailers,\n    executioners, &c.,--functions indispensable to the state of\n    society as it is.\n\n    \"Also people of what is called 'good society'; those who pass\n    their lives in doing nothing; idlers of all ranks.\n\n    \"Also the numberless custom-house officials, tax-gatherers,\n    bailiffs, excise-men; in short, all that army of men which\n    overlooks, brings to account, takes, but produces nothing.\n\n    \"Also the labors of sophists, philosophers, metaphysicians,\n    political men, working in mistaken directions, who do nothing to\n    advance science, and produce nothing but disturbance and sterile\n    discussions; the verbiage of advocates, pleaders, witnesses, &c.\n\n    \"And finally all the operations of commerce, from those of the\n    bankers and brokers, down to those of the grocer behind his\n    counter.\"[3]\n\nSecondly, they assert that even the industry and powers which in the\npresent system are devoted to production, do not produce more than a\nsmall portion of what they might produce if better employed and\ndirected:--\n\n    \"Who with any good-will and reflection will not see how much the\n    want of coherence--the disorder, the want of combination, the\n    parcelling out of labor and leaving it wholly to individual\n    action without any organization, without any large or general\n    views--are causes which limit the possibilities of production,\n    and destroy, or at least waste, our means of action? Does not\n    disorder give birth to poverty, as order and good management\n    give birth to riches? Is not want of combination a source of\n    weakness, as combination is a source of strength? And who can\n    say that industry, whether agricultural, domestic,\n    manufacturing, scientific, artistic, or commercial, is organized\n    at the present day either in the state or in municipalities? Who\n    can say that all the work which is carried on in any of these\n    departments is executed in subordination to any general views,\n    or with foresight, economy, and order? Or, again, who can say\n    that it is possible in our present state of society to develop,\n    by a good education, all the faculties bestowed by nature on\n    each of its members; to employ each one in functions which he\n    would like, which he would be the most capable of, and which,\n    therefore, he could carry on with the greatest advantage to\n    himself and to others? Has it even been so much as attempted to\n    solve the problems presented by varieties of character so as to\n    regulate and harmonize the varieties of employments in\n    accordance with natural aptitudes? Alas! The Utopia of the most\n    ardent philanthropists is to teach reading and writing to\n    twenty-five millions of the French people! And in the present\n    state of things we may defy them to succeed even in that!\n\n    \"And is it not a strange spectacle, too, and one which cries out\n    in condemnation of us, to see this state of society where the\n    soil is badly cultivated, and sometimes not cultivated at all;\n    where man is ill lodged, ill clothed, and yet where whole masses\n    are continually in need of work and pining in misery because\n    they cannot find it? Of a truth we are forced to acknowledge\n    that if the nations are poor and starving it is not because\n    nature has denied the means of producing wealth, but because of\n    the anarchy and disorder in our employment of those means; in\n    other words, it is because society is wretchedly constituted and\n    labor unorganized.\n\n    \"But this is not all, and you will have but a faint conception\n    of the evil if you do not consider that to all these vices of\n    society, which dry up the sources of wealth and prosperity, must\n    be added the struggle, the discord, the war, in short under many\n    names and many forms which society cherishes and cultivates\n    between the individuals that compose it. These struggles and\n    discords correspond to radical oppositions--deep-seated\n    antinomies between the various interests. Exactly in so far as\n    you are able to establish classes and categories within the\n    nation; in so far, also, you will have opposition of interests\n    and internal warfare either avowed or secret, even if you take\n    into consideration the industrial system only.\"[4]\n\nOne of the leading ideas of this school is the wastefulness and at the\nsame time the immorality of the existing arrangements for distributing\nthe produce of the country among the various consumers, the enormous\nsuperfluity in point of number of the agents of distribution, the\nmerchants, dealers, shopkeepers and their innumerable, employes, and\nthe depraving character of such a distribution of occupations.\n\n    \"It is evident that the interest of the trader is opposed to\n    that of the consumer and of the producer. Has he not bought\n    cheap and under-valued as much as possible in all his dealings\n    with the producer, the very same article which, vaunting its\n    excellence, he sells to you as dear as he can? Thus the interest\n    of the commercial body, collectively and individually, is\n    contrary to that of the producer and of the consumer--that is to\n    say, to the interest of the whole body of society.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n    \"The trader is a go-between, who profits by the general anarchy\n    and the non-organization of industry. The trader buys up\n    products, he buys up everything; he owns and detains everything,\n    in such sort that:--\n\n    \"1stly. He holds both Production and Consumption _under his\n    yoke_, because both must come to him either finally for the\n    products to be consumed, or at first for the raw materials to be\n    worked up. Commerce with all its methods of buying, and of\n    raising and lowering prices, its innumerable devices, and its\n    holding everything in the hands of _middle-men_, levies toll\n    right and left; it despotically gives the law to Production and\n    Consumption, of which it ought to be only the subordinate.\n\n    \"2ndly. It robs society by its _enormous profits_--profits\n    levied upon the consumer and the producer, and altogether out of\n    proportion to the services rendered, for which a twentieth of\n    the persons actually employed would be sufficient.\n\n    \"3rdly. It robs society by the subtraction of its productive\n    forces; taking off from productive labor nineteen-twentieths of\n    the agents of trade who are mere parasites. Thus, not only does\n    commerce rob society by appropriating an exorbitant share of the\n    common wealth, but also by considerably diminishing the\n    productive energy of the human beehive. The great majority of\n    traders would return to productive work if a rational system of\n    commercial organization were substituted for the inextricable\n    chaos of the present state of things.\n\n    \"4thly. It robs society by the _adulteration_ of products,\n    pushed at the present day beyond all bounds. And in fact, if a\n    hundred grocers establish themselves in a town where before\n    there were only twenty, it is plain that people will not begin\n    to consume five times as many groceries. Hereupon the hundred\n    virtuous grocers have to dispute between them the profits which\n    before were honestly made by the twenty; competition obliges\n    them to make it up at the expense of the consumer, either by\n    raising the prices as sometimes happens, or by adulterating the\n    goods as always happens. In such a state of things there is an\n    end to good faith. Inferior or adulterated goods are sold for\n    articles of good quality whenever the credulous customer is not\n    too experienced to be deceived. And when the customer has been\n    thoroughly imposed upon, the trading conscience consoles itself\n    by saying, 'I state my price; people can take or leave; no one\n    is obliged to buy.' The losses imposed on the consumers by the\n    bad quality or the adulteration of goods are incalculable.\n\n    \"5thly. It robs society by _accumulations_, artificial or not,\n    in consequence of which vast quantities of goods, collected in\n    one place, are damaged and destroyed for want of a sale. Fourier\n    (Th. des Quat. Mouv., p. 334, 1st ed.) says: 'The fundamental\n    principle of the commercial systems, that of _leaving full\n    liberty to the merchants_, gives them absolute right of property\n    over the goods in which they deal: they have the right to\n    withdraw them altogether, to withhold or even to burn them, as\n    happened more than once with the Oriental Company of Amsterdam,\n    which publicly burnt stores of cinnamon in order to raise the\n    price. What it did with cinnamon it would have done with corn;\n    but for the fear of being stoned by the populace, it would have\n    burnt some corn in order to sell the rest at four times its\n    value. Indeed, it actually is of daily occurrence in ports, for\n    provisions of grains to be thrown into the sea because the\n    merchants have allowed them to rot while waiting for a rise. I\n    myself, when I was a clerk, have had to superintend these\n    infamous proceedings, and in one day caused to be thrown into\n    the sea some forty thousand bushels of rice, which might have\n    been sold at a fair profit had the withholder been less greedy\n    of gain. It is society that bears the cost of this waste, which\n    takes place daily under shelter of the philosophical maxim of\n    _full liberty for the merchants_.'\n\n    \"6thly. Commerce robs society, moreover, by all the loss,\n    damage, and waste that follows from the extreme scattering of\n    products in millions of shops, and by the multiplication and\n    complication of carriage.\n\n    \"7thly. It robs society by shameless and unlimited\n    _usury_--usury absolutely appalling. The trader carries on\n    operations with fictitious capital, much higher in amount than\n    his real capital. A trader with a capital of twelve hundred\n    pounds will carry on operations, by means of bills and credit,\n    on a scale of four, eight, or twelve thousand pounds. Thus he\n    draws from capital _which he does not possess_, usurious\n    interest, out of all proportion with the capital he actually\n    owns.\n\n    \"8thly. It robs society by innumerable _bankruptcies_, for the\n    daily accidents of our commercial system, political events, and\n    any kind of disturbance, must usher in a day when the trader,\n    having incurred obligations beyond his means, is no longer able\n    to meet them; his failure, whether fraudulent or not, must be a\n    severe blow to his creditors. The bankruptcy of some entails\n    that of others, so that bankruptcies follow one upon another,\n    causing widespread ruin. And it is always the producer and the\n    consumer who suffer; for commerce, considered as a whole, does\n    not produce wealth, and invests very little in proportion to the\n    wealth which passes through its hands. How many are the\n    manufactures crushed by these blows! how many fertile sources of\n    wealth dried up by these devices, with all their disastrous\n    consequences!\n\n    \"The producer furnishes the goods, the consumer the money. Trade\n    furnishes credit, founded on little or no actual capital, and\n    the different members of the commercial body are in no way\n    responsible for one another. This, in a few words, is the whole\n    theory of the thing.\n\n    \"9thly. Commerce robs society by the _independence_ and\n    _irresponsibility_ which permits it to buy at the epochs when\n    the producers are forced to sell and compete with one another,\n    in order to procure money for their rent and necessary expenses\n    of production. When the markets are overstocked and goods cheap,\n    trade purchases. Then it creates a rise, and by this simple\n    manoeuvre despoils both producer and consumer.\n\n    \"10thly. It robs society by a considerable _drawing off_ of\n    _capital_, which will return to productive industry when\n    commerce plays its proper subordinate part, and is only an\n    agency carrying on transactions between the producers (more or\n    less distant) and the great centres of consumption--the\n    communistic societies. Thus the capital engaged in the\n    speculations of commerce (which, small as it is, compared to the\n    immense wealth which passes through its hands, consists\n    nevertheless of sums enormous in themselves), would return to\n    stimulate production if commerce was deprived of the\n    intermediate property in goods, and their distribution became a\n    matter of administrative organization. Stock-jobbing is the most\n    odious form of this vice of commerce.\n\n    \"11thly. It robs society by the _monopolising_ or buying up of\n    raw materials. 'For' (says Fourier, Th. des Quat. Mouv., p. 359,\n    1st ed.), 'the rise in price on articles that are bought up, is\n    borne ultimately by the consumer, although in the first place by\n    the manufacturers, who, being obliged to keep up their\n    establishments, must make pecuniary sacrifices, and manufacture\n    at small profits in the hope of better days; and it is often\n    long before they can repay themselves the rise in prices which\n    the monopoliser has compelled them to support in the first\n    instance....\"\n\n    \"In short, all these vices, besides many others which I omit,\n    are multiplied by the extreme complication of mercantile\n    affairs; for products do not pass once only through the greedy\n    clutches of commerce; there are some which pass and repass\n    twenty or thirty times before reaching the consumer. In the\n    first place, the raw material passes through the grasp of\n    commerce before reaching the manufacturer who first works it up;\n    then it returns to commerce to be sent out again to be worked up\n    in a second form; and so on until it receives its final shape.\n    Then it passes into the hands of merchants, who sell to the\n    wholesale dealers, and these to the great retail dealers of\n    towns, and these again to the little dealers and to the country\n    shops; and each time that it changes hands, it leaves something\n    behind it.\n\n    \"... One of my friends who was lately exploring the Jura, where\n    much working in metal is done, had occasion to enter the house\n    of a peasant who was a manufacturer of shovels. He asked the\n    price. 'Let us come to an understanding,' answered the poor\n    laborer, not an economist at all, but a man of common sense; 'I\n    sell them for 8_d._ to the trade, which retails them at 1_s._\n    8_d._ in the towns. If you could find a means of opening a\n    direct communication between the workman and the consumer, you\n    might have them for 1_s._ 2_d._, and we should each gain 6_d._\n    by the transaction.'\"[5]\n\nTo a similar effect Owen, in the _Book of the New Moral World_, part\n2, chap. iii.\n\n    \"The principle now in practice is to induce a large portion of\n    society to devote their lives to distribute wealth upon a large,\n    a medium, and a small scale, and to have it conveyed from place\n    to place in larger or smaller quantities, to meet the means and\n    wants of various divisions of society and individuals, as they\n    are now situated in cities, towns, villages, and country places.\n    This principle of distribution makes a class in society whose\n    business is to _buy from_ some parties and to _sell to_ others.\n    By this proceeding they are placed under circumstances which\n    induce them to endeavor to buy at what appears at the time a low\n    price in the market, and to sell again at the greatest permanent\n    profit which they can obtain. Their real object being to get as\n    much profit as gain between the seller to, and the buyer from\n    them, as can be effected in their transactions.\n\n    \"There are innumerable errors in principle and evils in practice\n    which necessarily proceed from this mode of distributing the\n    wealth of society.\n\n    \"1st. A general class of distributers is formed, whose interest\n    is separated from, and apparently opposed to, that of the\n    individual from whom they buy and to whom they sell.\n\n    \"2nd. Three classes of distributers are made, the small, the\n    medium, and the large buyers and sellers; or the retailers, the\n    wholesale dealers, and the extensive merchants.\n\n    \"3rd. Three classes of buyers thus created constitute the small,\n    the medium, and the large purchasers.\n\n    \"By this arrangement into various classes of buyers and sellers,\n    the parties are easily trained to learn that they have separate\n    and opposing interests, and different ranks and stations in\n    society. An inequality of feeling and condition is thus created\n    and maintained, with all the servility and pride which these\n    unequal arrangements are sure to produce. The parties are\n    regularly trained in a general system of deception, in order\n    that they may be the more successful in buying cheap and selling\n    dear.\n\n    \"The smaller sellers acquire habits of injurious idleness,\n    waiting often for hours for customers. And this evil is\n    experienced to a considerable extent even amongst the class of\n    wholesale dealers.\n\n    \"There are, also, by this arrangement, many more establishments\n    for selling than are necessary in the villages, towns, and\n    cities; and a very large capital is thus wasted without benefit\n    to society. And from their number opposed to each other all over\n    the country to obtain customers, they endeavor to undersell each\n    other, and are therefore continually endeavoring to injure the\n    producer by the establishment of what are called cheap shops and\n    warehouses; and to support their character the master or his\n    servants must be continually on the watch to buy bargains, that\n    is, to procure wealth for less than the cost of its production.\n\n    \"The distributers, small, medium, and large, have all to be\n    supported by the producers, and the greater the number of the\n    former compared with the latter, the greater will be the burden\n    which the producer has to sustain; for as the number of\n    distributers increases, the accumulation of wealth must\n    decrease, and more must be required from the producer.\n\n    \"The distributers of wealth, under the present system, are a\n    dead weight upon the producers, and are most active demoralisers\n    of society. Their dependent condition, at the commencement of\n    their task, teaches or induces them to be servile to their\n    customers, and to continue to be so as long as they are\n    accumulating wealth by their cheap buying and dear selling. But\n    when they have secured sufficient to be what they imagine to be\n    an independence--to live without business--they are too often\n    filled with a most ignorant pride, and become insolent to their\n    dependents.\n\n    \"The arrangement is altogether a most improvident one for\n    society, whose interest it is to produce the greatest amount of\n    wealth of the best qualities; while the existing system of\n    distribution is not only to withdraw great numbers from\n    producing to become distributers, but to add to the cost of the\n    consumer all the expense of a most wasteful and extravagant\n    distribution; the distribution costing to the consumer many\n    times the price of the original cost of the wealth purchased.\n\n    \"Then, by the position in which the seller is placed by his\n    created desire for gain on the one hand, and the competition he\n    meets with from opponents selling similar productions on the\n    other, he is strongly tempted to deteriorate the articles which\n    he has for sale; and when these are provisions, either of home\n    production or of foreign importation, the effects upon the\n    health, and consequent comfort and happiness of the consumers,\n    are often most injurious, and productive of much premature\n    death, especially among the working classes, who, in this\n    respect, are perhaps made to be the greatest sufferers, by\n    purchasing the inferior or low-priced articles.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n    \"The expense of thus distributing wealth in Great Britain and\n    Ireland, including transit from place to place, and all the\n    agents directly and indirectly engaged in this department, is,\n    perhaps, little short of one hundred millions annually, without\n    taking into consideration the deterioration of the quality of\n    many of the articles constituting this wealth, by carriage, and\n    by being divided into small quantities, and kept in improper\n    stores and places, in which the atmosphere is unfavorable to the\n    keeping of such articles in a tolerably good, and much less in\n    the best, condition for use.\"\n\nIn further illustration of the contrariety of interests between person\nand person, class and class, which pervades the present constitution\nof society, M. Considerant adds:--\n\n    \"If the wine-growers wish for free trade, this freedom ruins the\n    producer of corn, the manufacturers of iron, of cloth, of\n    cotton, and--we are compelled to add--the smuggler and the\n    customs' officer. If it is the interest of the consumer that\n    machines should be invented which lower prices by rendering\n    production less costly, these same machines throw out of work\n    thousands of workmen who do not know how to, and cannot at once,\n    find other work. Here, then, again is one of the innumerable\n    _vicious circles_ of civilisation ... for there are a thousand\n    facts which prove cumulatively that in our existing social\n    system the introduction of any good brings always along with it\n    some evil.\n\n    \"In short, if we go lower down and come to vulgar details, we\n    find that it is the interest of the tailor, the shoemaker, and\n    the hatter that coats, shoes, and hats should be soon worn out;\n    that the glazier profits by the hail-storms which break windows;\n    that the mason and the architect profit by fires; the lawyer is\n    enriched by law-suits; the doctor by disease; the wine-seller by\n    drunkenness; the prostitute by debauchery. And what a disaster\n    it would be for the judges, the police, and the jailers, as well\n    as for the barristers and the solicitors, and all the lawyers'\n    clerks, if crimes, offences, and law-suits were all at once to\n    come to an end!\"[6]\n\nThe following is one of the cardinal points of this school:--\n\n    \"Add to all this, that civilisation, which sows dissension and\n    war on every side; which employs a great part of its powers in\n    unproductive labor or even in destruction; which furthermore\n    diminishes the public wealth by the unnecessary friction and\n    discord it introduces into industry; add to all this, I say,\n    that this same social system has for its special characteristic\n    to produce a repugnance for work--a disgust for labor.\n\n    \"Everywhere you hear the laborer, the artisan, the clerk\n    complain of his position and his occupation, while they long for\n    the time when they can retire from work imposed upon them by\n    necessity. To be repugnant, to have for its motive and pivot\n    nothing but the fear of starvation, is the great, the fatal,\n    characteristic of civilised labor. The civilised workman is\n    condemned to penal servitude. So long as productive labor is so\n    organized that instead of being associated with pleasure it is\n    associated with pain, weariness and dislike, it will always\n    happen that all will avoid it who are able. With few exceptions,\n    those only will consent to work who are compelled to it by want.\n    Hence the most numerous classes, the artificers of social\n    wealth, the active and direct creators of all comfort and\n    luxury, will always be condemned to touch closely on poverty and\n    hunger; they will always be the slaves to ignorance and\n    degradation; they will continue to be always that huge herd of\n    mere beasts of burden whom we see ill-grown, decimated by\n    disease, bowed down in the great workshop of society over the\n    plow or over the counter, that they may prepare the delicate\n    food, and the sumptuous enjoyments of the upper and idle\n    classes.\n\n    \"So long as no method of attractive labor has been devised, it\n    will continue to be true that 'there must be many poor in order\n    that there may be a few rich;' a mean and hateful saying, which\n    we hear every day quoted as an eternal truth from the mouths of\n    people who call themselves Christians or philosophers. It is\n    very easy to understand that oppression, trickery, and\n    especially poverty, are the permanent and fatal appanage of\n    every state of society characterized by the dislike of work,\n    for, in this case, there is nothing but poverty that will force\n    men to labor. And the proof of this is, that if every one of all\n    the workers were to become suddenly rich, nineteen-twentieths of\n    all the work now done would be abandoned.\"[7]\n\nIn the opinion of the Fourierists, the tendency of the present order\nof society is to a concentration of wealth in the hands of a\ncomparatively few immensely rich individuals or companies, and the\nreduction of all the rest of the community into a complete dependence\non them. This was termed by Fourier _la jeodalite industrielle_.\n\n    \"This feudalism,\" says M. Considerant, \"would be constituted as\n    soon as the largest part of the industrial and territorial\n    property of the nation belongs to a minority which absorbs all\n    its revenues, while the great majority, chained to the\n    work-bench or laboring on the soil, must be content to gnaw the\n    pittance which is cast to them.\"[8]\n\nThis disastrous result is to be brought about partly by the mere\nprogress of competition, as sketched in our previous extract by M.\nLouis Blanc; assisted by the progress of national debts, which M.\nConsiderant regards as mortgages of the whole land and capital of the\ncountry, of which \"les capitalistes preteurs\" become, in a greater and\ngreater measure, co-proprietors, receiving without labor or risk an\nincreasing portion of the revenues.\n\n\nTHE SOCIALIST OBJECTIONS TO THE PRESENT ORDER OF SOCIETY EXAMINED.\n\nIt is impossible to deny that the considerations brought to notice in\nthe preceding chapter make out a frightful case either against the\nexisting order of society, or against the position of man himself in\nthis world. How much of the evils should be referred to the one, and\nhow much to the other, is the principal theoretic question which has\nto be resolved. But the strongest case is susceptible of exaggeration;\nand it will have been evident to many readers, even from the passages\nI have quoted, that such exaggeration is not wanting in the\nrepresentations of the ablest and most candid Socialists. Though much\nof their allegations is unanswerable, not a little is the result of\nerrors in political economy; by which, let me say once for all, I do\nnot mean the rejection of any practical rules of policy which have\nbeen laid down by political economists, I mean ignorance of economic\nfacts, and of the causes by which the economic phenomena of society\nas it is, are actually determined.\n\nIn the first place it is unhappily true that the wages of ordinary\nlabor, in all the countries of Europe, are wretchedly insufficient to\nsupply the physical and moral necessities of the population in any\ntolerable measure. But, when it is further alleged that even this\ninsufficient remuneration has a tendency to diminish; that there is,\nin the words of M. Louis Blanc, _une baisse continue des salaires_;\nthe assertion is in opposition to all accurate information, and to\nmany notorious facts. It has yet to be proved that there is any\ncountry in the civilized world where the ordinary wages of labor,\nestimated either in money or in articles of consumption, are\ndeclining; while in many they are, on the whole, on the increase; and\nan increase which is becoming, not slower, but more rapid. There are,\noccasionally, branches of industry which are being gradually\nsuperseded by something else, and, in those, until production\naccommodates itself to demand, wages are depressed; which is an evil,\nbut a temporary one, and would admit of great alleviation even in the\npresent system of social economy. A diminution thus produced of the\nreward of labor in some particular employment is the effect and the\nevidence of increased remuneration, or of a new source of\nremuneration, in some other; the total and the average remuneration\nbeing undiminished, or even increased. To make out an appearance of\ndiminution in the rate of wages in any leading branch of industry, it\nis always found necessary to compare some month or year of special and\ntemporary depression at the present time, with the average rate, or\neven some exceptionally high rate, at an earlier time. The\nvicissitudes are no doubt a great evil, but they were as frequent and\nas severe in former periods of economical history as now. The greater\nscale of the transactions, and the greater number of persons involved\nin each fluctuation, may make the fluctuation appear greater, but\nthough a larger population affords more sufferers, the evil does not\nweigh heavier on each of them individually. There is much evidence of\nimprovement, and none, that is at all trustworthy, of deterioration,\nin the mode of living of the laboring population of the countries of\nEurope; when there is any appearance to the contrary it is local or\npartial, and can always be traced either to the pressure of some\ntemporary calamity, or to some bad law or unwise act of government\nwhich admits of being corrected, while the permanent causes all\noperate in the direction of improvement.\n\nM. Louis Blanc, therefore, while showing himself much more enlightened\nthan the older school of levellers and democrats, inasmuch as he\nrecognizes the connection between low wages and the over-rapid\nincrease of population, appears to have fallen into the same error\nwhich was at first committed by Malthus and his followers, that of\nsupposing that because population has a greater power of increase than\nsubsistence, its pressure upon subsistence must be always growing more\nsevere. The difference is that the early Malthusians thought this an\nirrepressible tendency, while M. Louis Blanc thinks that it can be\nrepressed, but only under a system of Communism. It is a great point\ngained for truth when it comes to be seen that the tendency to\nover-population is a fact which Communism, as well as the existing\norder of society, would have to deal with. And it is much to be\nrejoiced at that this necessity is admitted by the most considerable\nchiefs of all existing schools of Socialism. Owen and Fourier, no less\nthan M. Louis Blanc, admitted it, and claimed for their respective\nsystems a pre-eminent power of dealing with this difficulty. However\nthis may be, experience shows that in the existing state of society\nthe pressure of population on subsistence, which is the principal\ncause of low wages, though a great, is not an increasing evil; on the\ncontrary, the progress of all that is called civilization has a\ntendency to diminish it, partly by the more rapid increase of the\nmeans of employing and maintaining labor, partly by the increased\nfacilities opened to labor for transporting itself to new countries\nand unoccupied fields of employment, and partly by a general\nimprovement in the intelligence and prudence of the population. This\nprogress, no doubt, is slow; but it is much that such progress should\ntake place at all, while we are still only in the first stage of that\npublic movement for the education of the whole people, which when more\nadvanced must add greatly to the force of all the two causes of\nimprovement specified above. It is, of course, open to discussion what\nform of society has the greatest power of dealing successfully with\nthe pressure of population on subsistence, and on this question there\nis much to be said for Socialism; what was long thought to be its\nweakest point will, perhaps, prove to be one of its strongest. But it\nhas no just claim to be considered as the sole means of preventing the\ngeneral and growing degradation of the mass of mankind through the\npeculiar tendency of poverty to produce over-population. Society as at\npresent constituted is not descending into that abyss, but gradually,\nthough slowly, rising out of it, and this improvement is likely to be\nprogressive if bad laws do not interfere with it.\n\nNext, it must be observed that Socialists generally, and even the most\nenlightened of them, have a very imperfect and one-sided notion of the\noperation of competition. They see half its effects, and overlook the\nother half; they regard it as an agency for grinding down every one's\nremuneration--for obliging every one to accept less wages for his\nlabor, or a less price for his commodities, which would be true only\nif every one had to dispose of his labor or his commodities to some\ngreat monopolist, and the competition were all on one side. They\nforget that competition is a cause of high prices and values as well\nas of low; that the buyers of labor and of commodities compete with\none another as well as the sellers; and that if it is competition\nwhich keeps the prices of labor and commodities as low as they are, it\nis competition which prevents them from falling still lower. In truth,\nwhen competition is perfectly free on both sides, its tendency is not\nspecially either to raise or to lower the price of articles, but to\nequalize it; to level inequalities of remuneration, and to reduce all\nto a general average, a result which, in so far as realized (no doubt\nvery imperfectly), is, on Socialistic principles, desirable. But if,\ndisregarding for the time that part of the effects of competition\nwhich consists in keeping up prices, we fix our attention on its\neffect in keeping them down, and contemplate this effect in reference\nsolely to the interest of the laboring classes, it would seem that if\ncompetition keeps down wages, and so gives a motive to the laboring\nclasses to withdraw the labor market from the full influence of\ncompetition, if they can, it must on the other hand have credit for\nkeeping down the prices of the articles on which wages are expended,\nto the great advantage of those who depend on wages. To meet this\nconsideration Socialists, as we said in our quotation from M. Louis\nBlanc, are reduced to affirm that the low prices of commodities\nproduced by competition are delusive and lead in the end to higher\nprices than before, because when the richest competitor has got rid of\nall his rivals, he commands the market and can demand any price he\npleases. Now, the commonest experience shows that this state of\nthings, under really free competition, is wholly imaginary. The\nrichest competitor neither does nor can get rid of all his rivals, and\nestablish himself in exclusive possession of the market; and it is not\nthe fact that any important branch of industry or commerce formerly\ndivided among many has become, or shows any tendency to become, the\nmonopoly of a few.\n\nThe kind of policy described is sometimes possible where, as in the\ncase of railways, the only competition possible is between two or\nthree great companies, the operations being on too vast a scale to be\nwithin the reach of individual capitalists; and this is one of the\nreasons why businesses which require to be carried on by great\njoint-stock enterprises cannot be trusted to competition, but, when\nnot reserved by the State to itself, ought to be carried on under\nconditions prescribed, and, from time to time, varied by the State,\nfor the purpose of insuring to the public a cheaper supply of its\nwants than would be afforded by private interest in the absence of\nsufficient competition. But in the ordinary branches of industry no\none rich competitor has it in his power to drive out all the smaller\nones. Some businesses show a tendency to pass out of the hands of many\nsmall producers or dealers into a smaller number of larger ones; but\nthe cases in which this happens are those in which the possession of a\nlarger capital permits the adoption of more powerful machinery, more\nefficient by more expensive processes, or a better organized and more\neconomical mode of carrying on business, and thus enables the large\ndealer legitimately and permanently to supply the commodity cheaper\nthan can be done on the small scale; to the great advantage of the\nconsumers, and therefore of the laboring classes, and diminishing,\n_pro tanto_, that waste of the resources of the community so much\ncomplained of by Socialists, the unnecessary multiplication of mere\ndistributors, and of the various other classes whom Fourier calls the\nparasites of industry. When this change is effected, the larger\ncapitalists, either individual or joint stock, among which the\nbusiness is divided, are seldom, if ever, in any considerable branch\nof commerce, so few as that competition shall not continue to act\nbetween them; so that the saving in cost, which enabled them to\nundersell the small dealers, continues afterwards, as at first, to be\npassed on, in lower prices, to their customers. The operation,\ntherefore, of competition in keeping down the prices of commodities,\nincluding those on which wages are expended, is not illusive but real,\nand, we may add, is a growing, not a declining, fact.\n\nBut there are other respects, equally important, in which the charges\nbrought by Socialists against competition do not admit of so complete\nan answer. Competition is the best security for cheapness, but by no\nmeans a security for quality. In former times, when producers and\nconsumers were less numerous, it was a security for both. The market\nwas not large enough nor the means of publicity sufficient to enable a\ndealer to make a fortune by continually attracting new customers: his\nsuccess depended on his retaining those that he had; and when a dealer\nfurnished good articles, or when he did not, the fact was soon known\nto those whom it concerned, and he acquired a character for honest or\ndishonest dealing of more importance to him than the gain that would\nbe made by cheating casual purchasers. But on the great scale of\nmodern transactions, with the great multiplication of competition and\nthe immense increase in the quantity of business competed for, dealers\nare so little dependent on permanent customers that character is much\nless essential to them, while there is also far less certainty of\ntheir obtaining the character they deserve. The low prices which a\ntradesman advertises are known, to a thousand for one who has\ndiscovered for himself or learned from others, that the bad quality of\nthe goods is more than an equivalent for their cheapness; while at the\nsame time the much greater fortunes now made by some dealers excite\nthe cupidity of all, and the greed of rapid gain substitutes itself\nfor the modest desire to make a living by their business. In this\nmanner, as wealth increases and greater prizes seem to be within\nreach, more and more of a gambling spirit is introduced into\ncommerce; and where this prevails not only are the simplest maxims of\nprudence disregarded, but all, even the most perilous, forms of\npecuniary improbity receive a terrible stimulus. This is the meaning\nof what is called the intensity of modern competition. It is further\nto be mentioned that when this intensity has reached a certain height,\nand when a portion of the producers of an article or the dealers in it\nhave resorted to any of the modes of fraud, such as adulteration,\ngiving short measure, &c., of the increase of which there is now so\nmuch complaint, the temptation is immense on these to adopt the\nfraudulent practises, who would not have originated them; for the\npublic are aware of the low prices fallaciously produced by the\nfrauds, but do not find out at first, if ever, that the article is not\nworth the lower price, and they will not go on paying a higher price\nfor a better article, and the honest dealer is placed at a terrible\ndisadvantage. Thus the frauds, begun by a few, become customs of the\ntrade, and the morality of the trading classes is more and more\ndeteriorated.\n\nOn this point, therefore, Socialists have really made out the\nexistence not only of a great evil, but of one which grows and tends\nto grow with the growth of population and wealth. It must be said,\nhowever, that society has never yet used the means which are already\nin its power of grappling with this evil. The laws against commercial\nfrauds are very defective, and their execution still more so. Laws of\nthis description have no chance of being really enforced unless it is\nthe special duty of some one to enforce them. They are specially in\nneed of a public prosecutor. It is still to be discovered how far it\nis possible to repress by means of the criminal law a class of\nmisdeeds which are now seldom brought before the tribunals, and to\nwhich, when brought, the judicial administration of this country is\nmost unduly lenient. The most important class, however, of these\nfrauds, to the mass of the people, those which affect the price or\nquality of articles of daily consumption, can be in a great measure\novercome by the institution of co-operative stores. By this plan any\nbody of consumers who form themselves into an association for the\npurpose, are enabled to pass over the retail dealers and obtain their\narticles direct from the wholesale merchants, or, what is better (now\nthat wholesale co-operative agencies have been established), from the\nproducers, thus freeing themselves from the heavy tax now paid to the\ndistributing classes and at the same time eliminate the usual\nperpetrators of adulterations and other frauds. Distribution thus\nbecomes a work performed by agents selected and paid by those who have\nno interest in anything but the cheapness and goodness of the article;\nand the distributors are capable of being thus reduced to the numbers\nwhich the quantity of work to be done really requires. The\ndifficulties of the plan consist in the skill and trustworthiness\nrequired in the managers, and the imperfect nature of the control\nwhich can be exercised over them by the body at large. The great\nsuccess and rapid growth of the system prove, however, that these\ndifficulties are, in some tolerable degree, overcome. At all events,\nif the beneficial tendency of the competition of retailers in\npromoting cheapness is fore-gone, and has to be replaced by other\nsecurities, the mischievous tendency of the same competition in\ndeteriorating quality is at any rate got rid of; and the prosperity of\nthe co-operative stores shows that this benefit is obtained not only\nwithout detriment to cheapness, but with great advantage to it, since\nthe profits of the concerns enable them to return to the consumers a\nlarge percentage on the price of every article supplied to them. So\nfar, therefore, as this class of evils is concerned, an effectual\nremedy is already in operation, which, though suggested by and partly\ngrounded on socialistic principles, is consistent with the existing\nconstitution of property.\n\nWith regard to those greater and more conspicuous economical frauds,\nor malpractices equivalent to frauds, of which so many deplorable\ncases have become notorious--committed by merchants and bankers\nbetween themselves or between them and those who have trusted them\nwith money, such a remedy as above described is not available, and the\nonly resources which the present constitution of society affords\nagainst them are a sterner reprobation by opinion, and a more\nefficient repression by the law. Neither of these remedies has had any\napproach to an effectual trial. It is on the occurrence of\ninsolvencies that these dishonest practices usually come to light; the\nperpetrators take their place, not in the class of malefactors, but in\nthat of insolvent debtors; and the laws of this and other countries\nwere formerly so savage against simple insolvency, that by one of\nthose reactions to which the opinions of mankind are liable,\ninsolvents came to be regarded mainly as objects of compassion, and it\nseemed to be thought that the hand both of law and of public opinion\ncould hardly press too lightly upon them. By an error in a contrary\ndirection to the ordinary one of our law, which in the punishment of\noffences in general wholly neglects the question of reparation to the\nsufferer, our bankruptcy laws have for some time treated the recovery\nfor creditors of what is left of their property as almost the sole\nobject, scarcely any importance being attached to the punishment of\nthe bankrupt for any misconduct which does not directly interfere with\nthat primary purpose. For three or four years past there has been a\nslight counter-reaction, and more than one bankruptcy act has been\npassed, somewhat less indulgent to the bankrupt; but the primary\nobject regarded has still been the pecuniary interest of the\ncreditors, and criminality in the bankrupt himself, with the exception\nof a small number of well-marked offences, gets off almost with\nimpunity. It may be confidently affirmed, therefore, that, at least in\nthis country, society has not exerted the power it possesses of making\nmercantile dishonesty dangerous to the perpetrator. On the contrary,\nit is a gambling trick in which all the advantage is on the side of\nthe trickster: if the trick succeeds it makes his fortune, or\npreserves it; if it fails, he is at most reduced to poverty, which was\nperhaps already impending when he determined to run the chance, and\nhe is classed by those who have not looked closely into the matter,\nand even by many who have, not among the infamous but among the\nunfortunate. Until a more moral and rational mode of dealing with\nculpable insolvency has been tried and failed, commercial dishonesty\ncannot be ranked among evils the prevalence of which is inseparable\nfrom commercial competition.\n\nAnother point on which there is much misapprehension on the part of\nSocialists, as well as of Trades Unionists and other partisans of\nLabor against Capital, relates to the proportions in which the produce\nof the country is really shared and the amount of what is actually\ndiverted from those who produce it, to enrich other persons. I forbear\nfor the present to speak of the land, which is a subject apart. But\nwith respect to capital employed in business, there is in the popular\nnotions a great deal of illusion. When, for instance, a capitalist\ninvests L20,000 in his business, and draws from it an income of\n(suppose) L2,000 a year, the common impression is as if he was the\nbeneficial owner both of the L20,000 and of the L2,000, while the\nlaborers own nothing but their wages. The truth, however, is, that he\nonly obtains the L2,000 on condition of applying no part of the\nL20,000 to his own use. He has the legal control over it, and might\nsquander it if he chose, but if he did he would not have the L2,000 a\nyear also. As long as he derives an income from his capital he has not\nthe option of withholding it from the use of others. As much of his\ninvested capital as consists of buildings, machinery, and other\ninstruments of production, are applied to production and are not\napplicable to the support or enjoyment of any one. What is so\napplicable (including what is laid out in keeping up or renewing the\nbuildings and instruments) is paid away to laborers, forming their\nremuneration and their share in the division of the produce. For all\npersonal purposes they have the capital and he has but the profits,\nwhich it only yields to him on condition that the capital itself is\nemployed in satisfying not his own wants, but those of laborers. The\nproportion which the profits of capital usually bear to capital itself\n(or rather to the circulating portion of it) is the ratio which the\ncapitalist's share of the produce bears to the aggregate share of the\nlaborers. Even of his own share a small part only belongs to him as\nthe owner of capital. The portion of the produce which falls to\ncapital merely as capital is measured by the interest of money, since\nthat is all that the owner of capital obtains when he contributes\nnothing to production except the capital itself. Now the interest of\ncapital in the public funds, which are considered to be the best\nsecurity, is at the present prices (which have not varied much for\nmany years) about three and one-third per cent. Even in this\ninvestment there is some little risk--risk of repudiation, risk of\nbeing obliged to sell out at a low price in some commercial crisis.\n\nEstimating these risks at 1/3 per cent., the remaining 3 per cent. may\nbe considered as the remuneration of capital, apart from insurance\nagainst loss. On the security of a mortgage 4 per cent. is generally\nobtained, but in this transaction there are considerably greater\nrisks--the uncertainty of titles to land under our bad system of law;\nthe chance of having to realize the security at a great cost in law\ncharges; and liability to delay in the receipt of the interest even\nwhen the principal is safe. When mere money independently of exertion\nyields a larger income, as it sometimes does, for example, by shares\nin railway or other companies, the surplus is hardly ever an\nequivalent for the risk of losing the whole, or part, of the capital\nby mismanagement, as in the case of the Brighton Railway, the dividend\nof which, after having been 6 per cent. per annum, sunk to from\nnothing to 1-1/2 per cent., and shares which had been bought at 120\ncould not be sold for more than about 43. When money is lent at the\nhigh rates of interest one occasionally hears of, rates only given by\nspend-thrifts and needy persons, it is because the risk of loss is so\ngreat that few who possess money can be induced to lend to them at\nall. So little reason is there for the outcry against \"usury\" as one\nof the grievous burthens of the working-classes. Of the profits,\ntherefore, which a manufacturer or other person in business obtains\nfrom his capital no more than about 3 per cent. can be set down to the\ncapital itself. If he were able and willing to give up the whole of\nthis to his laborers, who already share among them the whole of his\ncapital as it is annually reproduced from year to year, the addition\nto their weekly wages would be inconsiderable. Of what he obtains\nbeyond 3 per cent. a great part is insurance against the manifold\nlosses he is exposed to, and cannot safely be applied to his own use,\nbut requires to be kept in reserve to cover those losses when they\noccur. The remainder is properly the remuneration of his skill and\nindustry--the wages of his labor of superintendence. No doubt if he is\nvery successful in business these wages of his are extremely liberal,\nand quite out of proportion to what the same skill and industry would\ncommand if offered for hire. But, on the other hand, he runs a worse\nrisk than that of being out of employment; that of doing the work\nwithout earning anything by it, of having the labor and anxiety\nwithout the wages. I do not say that the drawbacks balance the\nprivileges, or that he derives no advantage from the position which\nmakes him a capitalist and employer of labor, instead of a skilled\nsuperintendent letting out his services to others; but the amount of\nhis advantage must not be estimated by the great prizes alone. If we\nsubtract from the gains of some the losses of others, and deduct from\nthe balance a fair compensation for the anxiety, skill, and labor of\nboth, grounded on the market price of skilled superintendence, what\nremains will be, no doubt, considerable, but yet, when compared to the\nentire capital of the country, annually reproduced and dispensed in\nwages, it is very much smaller than it appears to the popular\nimagination; and were the whole of it added to the share of the\nlaborers it would make a less addition to that share than would be\nmade by any important invention in machinery, or by the suppression of\nunnecessary distributors and other \"parasites of industry.\" To\ncomplete the estimate, however, of the portion of the produce of\nindustry which goes to remunerate capital we must not stop at the\ninterest earned out of the produce by the capital actually employed in\nproducing it, but must include that which is paid to the former owners\nof capital which has been unproductively spent and no longer exists,\nand is paid, of course, out of the produce of other capital. Of this\nnature is the interest of national debts, which is the cost a nation\nis burthened with for past difficulties and dangers, or for past folly\nor profligacy of its rulers, more or less shared by the nation itself.\nTo this must be added the interest on the debts of landowners and\nother unproductive consumers; except so far as the money borrowed may\nhave been spent in remunerative improvement of the productive powers\nof the land. As for landed property itself--the appropriation of the\nrent of land by private individuals--I reserve, as I have said, this\nquestion for discussion hereafter; for the tenure of land might be\nvaried in any manner considered desirable, all the land might be\ndeclared the property of the State, without interfering with the right\nof property in anything which is the product of human labor and\nabstinence.\n\nIt seemed desirable to begin the discussion of the Socialist question\nby these remarks in abatement of Socialist exaggerations, in order\nthat the true issues between Socialism and the existing state of\nsociety might be correctly conceived. The present system is not, as\nmany Socialists believe, hurrying us into a state of general indigence\nand slavery from which only Socialism can save us. The evils and\ninjustices suffered under the present system are great, but they are\nnot increasing; on the contrary, the general tendency is towards their\nslow diminution. Moreover the inequalities in the distribution of the\nproduce between capital and labor, however they may shock the feeling\nof natural justice, would not by their mere equalisation afford by any\nmeans so large a fund for raising the lower levels of remuneration as\nSocialists, and many besides Socialists, are apt to suppose. There is\nnot any one abuse or injustice now prevailing in society by merely\nabolishing which the human race would pass out of suffering into\nhappiness. What is incumbent on us is a calm comparison between two\ndifferent systems of society, with a view of determining which of them\naffords the greatest resources for overcoming the inevitable\ndifficulties of life. And if we find the answer to this question more\ndifficult, and more dependent upon intellectual and moral conditions,\nthan is usually thought, it is satisfactory to reflect that there is\ntime before us for the question to work itself out on an experimental\nscale, by actual trial. I believe we shall find that no other test is\npossible of the practicability or beneficial operation of Socialist\narrangements; but that the intellectual and moral grounds of Socialism\ndeserve the most attentive study, as affording in many cases the\nguiding principles of the improvements necessary to give the present\neconomic system of society its best chance.\n\n\nTHE DIFFICULTIES OF SOCIALISM.\n\nAmong those who call themselves Socialists, two kinds of persons may\nbe distinguished. There are, in the first place, those whose plans for\na new order of society, in which private property and individual\ncompetition are to be superseded and other motives to action\nsubstituted, are on the scale of a village community or township, and\nwould be applied to an entire country by the multiplication of such\nself-acting units; of this character are the systems of Owen, of\nFourier, and the more thoughtful and philosophic Socialists generally.\nThe other class, who are more a product of the Continent than of Great\nBritain and may be called the revolutionary Socialists, propose to\nthemselves a much bolder stroke. Their scheme is the management of the\nwhole productive resources of the country by one central authority,\nthe general government. And with this view some of them avow as their\npurpose that the working classes, or somebody in their behalf, should\ntake possession of all the property of the country, and administer it\nfor the general benefit.\n\nWhatever be the difficulties of the first of these two forms of\nSocialism, the second must evidently involve the same difficulties and\nmany more. The former, too, has the great advantage that it can be\nbrought into operation progressively, and can prove its capabilities\nby trial. It can be tried first on a select population and extended to\nothers as their education and cultivation permit. It need not, and in\nthe natural order of things would not, become an engine of subversion\nuntil it had shown itself capable of being also a means of\nreconstruction. It is not so with the other: the aim of that is to\nsubstitute the new rule for the old at a single stroke, and to\nexchange the amount of good realised under the present system, and its\nlarge possibilities of improvement, for a plunge without any\npreparation into the most extreme form of the problem of carrying on\nthe whole round of the operations of social life without the motive\npower which has always hitherto worked the social machinery. It must\nbe acknowledged that those who would play this game on the strength of\ntheir own private opinion, unconfirmed as yet by any experimental\nverification--who would forcibly deprive all who have now a\ncomfortable physical existence of their only present means of\npreserving it, and would brave the frightful bloodshed and misery that\nwould ensue if the attempt was resisted--must have a serene confidence\nin their own wisdom on the one hand and a recklessness of other\npeople's sufferings on the other, which Robespierre and St. Just,\nhitherto the typical instances of those united attributes, scarcely\ncame up to. Nevertheless this scheme has great elements of popularity\nwhich the more cautious and reasonable form of Socialism has not;\nbecause what it professes to do it promises to do quickly, and holds\nout hope to the enthusiastic of seeing the whole of their aspirations\nrealised in their own time and at a blow.\n\nThe peculiarities, however, of the revolutionary form of Socialism\nwill be most conveniently examined after the considerations common to\nboth the forms have been duly weighed.\n\nThe produce of the world could not attain anything approaching to its\npresent amount, nor support anything approaching to the present number\nof its inhabitants, except upon two conditions: abundant and costly\nmachinery, buildings, and other instruments of production; and the\npower of undertaking long operations and waiting a considerable time\nfor their fruits. In other words, there must be a large accumulation\nof capital, both fixed in the implements and buildings, and\ncirculating, that is employed in maintaining the laborers and their\nfamilies during the time which elapses before the productive\noperations are completed and the products come in. This necessity\ndepends on physical laws, and is inherent in the condition of human\nlife; but these requisites of production, the capital, fixed and\ncirculating, of the country (to which has to be added the land, and\nall that is contained in it), may either be the collective property of\nthose who use it, or may belong to individuals; and the question is,\nwhich of these arrangements is most conducive to human happiness. What\nis characteristic of Socialism is the joint ownership by all the\nmembers of the community of the instruments and means of production;\nwhich carries with it the consequence that the division of the produce\namong the body of owners must be a public act, performed according to\nrules laid down by the community. Socialism by no means excludes\nprivate ownership of articles of consumption; the exclusive right of\neach to his or her share of the produce when received, either to\nenjoy, to give, or to exchange it. The land, for example, might be\nwholly the property of the community for agricultural and other\nproductive purposes, and might be cultivated on their joint account,\nand yet the dwelling assigned to each individual or family as part of\ntheir remuneration might be as exclusively theirs, while they\ncontinued to fulfil their share of the common labors, as any one's\nhouse now is; and not the dwelling only, but any ornamental ground\nwhich the circumstances of the association allowed to be attached to\nthe house for purposes of enjoyment. The distinctive feature of\nSocialism is not that all things are in common, but that production is\nonly carried on upon the common account, and that the instruments of\nproduction are held as common property. The _practicability_ then of\nSocialism, on the scale of Mr. Owen's or M. Fourier's villages, admits\nof no dispute. The attempt to manage the whole production of a nation\nby one central organization is a totally different matter; but a mixed\nagricultural and manufacturing association of from two thousand to\nfour thousand inhabitants under any tolerable circumstances of soil\nand climate would be easier to manage than many a joint stock company.\nThe question to be considered is, whether this joint management is\nlikely to be as efficient and successful as the managements of private\nindustry by private capital. And this question has to be considered in\na double aspect; the efficiency of the directing mind, or minds, and\nthat of the simple workpeople. And in order to state this question in\nits simplest form, we will suppose the form of Socialism to be simple\nCommunism, _i.e._ equal division of the produce among all the sharers,\nor, according to M. Louis Blanc's still higher standard of justice,\napportionment of it according to difference of need, but without\nmaking any difference of reward according to the nature of the duty\nnor according to the supposed merits or services of the individual.\nThere are other forms of Socialism, particularly Fourierism, which do,\non considerations of justice or expediency, allow differences of\nremuneration for different kinds or degrees of service to the\ncommunity; but the consideration of these may be for the present\npostponed.\n\nThe difference between the motive powers in the economy of society\nunder private property and under Communism would be greatest in the\ncase of the directing minds. Under the present system, the direction\nbeing entirely in the hands of the person or persons who own (or are\npersonally responsible for) the capital, the whole benefit of the\ndifference between the best administration and the worst under which\nthe business can continue to be carried on accrues to the person or\npersons who control the administration: they reap the whole profit of\ngood management except so far as their self-interest or liberality\ninduce them to share it with their subordinates; and they suffer the\nwhole detriment of mismanagement except so far as this may cripple\ntheir subsequent power of employing labor. This strong personal motive\nto do their very best and utmost for the efficiency and economy of the\noperations, would not exist under Communism; as the managers would\nonly receive out of the produce the same equal dividend as the other\nmembers of the association. What would remain would be the interest\ncommon to all in so managing affairs as to make the dividend as large\nas possible; the incentives of public spirit, of conscience, and of\nthe honor and credit of the managers. The force of these motives,\nespecially when combined, is great. But it varies greatly in different\npersons, and is much greater for some purposes than for others. The\nverdict of experience, in the imperfect degree of moral cultivation\nwhich mankind have yet reached, is that the motive of conscience and\nthat of credit and reputation, even when they are of some strength,\nare, in the majority of cases, much stronger as restraining than as\nimpelling forces--are more to be depended on for preventing wrong,\nthan for calling forth the fullest energies in the pursuit of ordinary\noccupations. In the case of most men the only inducement which has\nbeen found sufficiently constant and unflagging to overcome the\never-present influence of indolence and love of ease, and induce men\nto apply themselves unrelaxingly to work for the most part in itself\ndull and unexciting, is the prospect of bettering their own economic\ncondition and that of their family; and the closer the connection of\nevery increase of exertion with a corresponding increase of its\nfruits, the more powerful is this motive. To suppose the contrary\nwould be to imply that with men as they now are, duty and honor are\nmore powerful principles of action than personal interest, not solely\nas to special acts and forbearances respecting which those sentiments\nhave been exceptionally cultivated, but in the regulation of their\nwhole lives; which no one, I suppose, will affirm. It may be said that\nthis inferior efficacy of public and social feelings is not\ninevitable--is the result of imperfect education. This I am quite\nready to admit, and also that there are even now many individual\nexceptions to the general infirmity. But before these exceptions can\ngrow into a majority, or even into a very large minority, much time\nwill be required. The education of human beings is one of the most\ndifficult of all arts, and this is one of the points in which it has\nhitherto been least successful; moreover improvements in general\neducation are necessarily very gradual because the future generation\nis educated by the present, and the imperfections of the teachers set\nan invincible limit to the degree in which they can train their pupils\nto be better than themselves. We must therefore expect, unless we are\noperating upon a select portion of the population, that personal\ninterest will for a long time be a more effective stimulus to the most\nvigorous and careful conduct of the industrial business of society\nthan motives of a higher character. It will be said that at present\nthe greed of personal gain by its very excess counteracts its own end\nby the stimulus it gives to reckless and often dishonest risks. This\nit does, and under Communism that source of evil would generally be\nabsent. It is probable, indeed, that enterprise either of a bad or of\na good kind would be a deficient element, and that business in general\nwould fall very much under the dominion of routine; the rather, as the\nperformance of duty in such communities has to be enforced by external\nsanctions, the more nearly each person's duty can be reduced to fixed\nrules, the easier it is to hold him to its performance. A circumstance\nwhich increases the probability of this result is the limited power\nwhich the managers would have of independent action. They would of\ncourse hold their authority from the choice of the community, by whom\ntheir function might at any time be withdrawn from them; and this\nwould make it necessary for them, even if not so required by the\nconstitution of the community, to obtain the general consent of the\nbody before making any change in the established mode of carrying on\nthe concern. The difficulty of persuading a numerous body to make a\nchange in their accustomed mode of working, of which change the\ntrouble is often great, and the risk more obvious to their minds than\nthe advantage, would have a great tendency to keep things in their\naccustomed track. Against this it has to be set, that choice by the\npersons who are directly interested in the success of the work, and\nwho have practical knowledge and opportunities of judgment, might be\nexpected on the average to produce managers of greater skill than the\nchances of birth, which now so often determine who shall be the owner\nof the capital. This may be true; and though it may be replied that\nthe capitalist by inheritance can also, like the community, appoint a\nmanager more capable than himself, this would only place him on the\nsame level of advantage as the community, not on a higher level. But\nit must be said on the other side that under the Communist system the\npersons most qualified for the management would be likely very often\nto hang back from undertaking it. At present the manager, even if he\nbe a hired servant, has a very much larger remuneration than the other\npersons concerned in the business; and there are open to his ambition\nhigher social positions to which his function of manager is a\nstepping-stone. On the Communist system none of these advantages would\nbe possessed by him; he could obtain only the same dividend out of the\nproduce of the community's labor as any other member of it; he would\nno longer have the chance of raising himself from a receiver of wages\ninto the class of capitalists; and while he could be in no way better\noff than any other laborer, his responsibilities and anxieties would\nbe so much greater that a large proportion of mankind would be likely\nto prefer the less onerous position. This difficulty was foreseen by\nPlato as an objection to the system proposed in his Republic of\ncommunity of goods among a governing class; and the motive on which he\nrelied for inducing the fit persons to take on themselves, in the\nabsence of all the ordinary inducements, the cares and labors of\ngovernment, was the fear of being governed by worse men. This, in\ntruth, is the motive which would have to be in the main depended upon;\nthe persons most competent to the management would be prompted to\nundertake the office to prevent it from falling into less competent\nhands. And the motive would probably be effectual at times when there\nwas an impression that by incompetent management the affairs of the\ncommunity were going to ruin, or even only decidedly deteriorating.\nBut this motive could not, as a rule, expect to be called into action\nby the less stringent inducement of merely promoting improvement;\nunless in the case of inventors or schemers eager to try some device\nfrom which they hoped for great and immediate fruits; and persons of\nthis kind are very often unfitted by over-sanguine temper and\nimperfect judgment for the general conduct of affairs, while even when\nfitted for it they are precisely the kind of persons against whom the\naverage man is apt to entertain a prejudice, and they would often be\nunable to overcome the preliminary difficulty of persuading the\ncommunity both to adopt their project and to accept them as managers.\nCommunistic management would thus be, in all probability, less\nfavorable than private management to that striking out of new paths\nand making immediate sacrifices for distant and uncertain advantages,\nwhich, though seldom unattended with risk, is generally indispensable\nto great improvements in the economic condition of mankind, and even\nto keeping up the existing state in the face of a continual increase\nof the number of mouths to be fed.\n\nWe have thus far taken account only of the operation of motives upon\nthe managing minds of the association. Let us now consider how the\ncase stands in regard to the ordinary workers.\n\nThese, under Communism, would have no interest, except their share of\nthe general interest, in doing their work honestly and energetically.\nBut in this respect matters would be no worse than they now are in\nregard to the great majority of the producing classes. These, being\npaid by fixed wages, are so far from having any direct interest of\ntheir own in the efficiency of their work, that they have not even\nthat share in the general interest which every worker would have in\nthe Communistic organization. Accordingly, the inefficiency of hired\nlabor, the imperfect manner in which it calls forth the real\ncapabilities of the laborers, is matter of common remark. It is true\nthat a character for being a good workman is far from being without\nits value, as it tends to give him a preference in employment, and\nsometimes obtains for him higher wages. There are also possibilities\nof rising to the position of foreman, or other subordinate\nadministrative posts, which are not only more highly paid than\nordinary labor, but sometimes open the way to ulterior advantages. But\non the other side is to be set that under Communism the general\nsentiment of the community, composed of the comrades under whose eyes\neach person works, would be sure to be in favor of good and hard\nworking, and unfavorable to laziness, carelessness, and waste. In the\npresent system not only is this not the case, but the public opinion\nof the workman class often acts in the very opposite direction: the\nrules of some trade societies actually forbid their members to exceed\na certain standard of efficiency, lest they should diminish the number\nof laborers required for the work; and for the same reason they often\nviolently resist contrivances for economising labor. The change from\nthis to a state in which every person would have an interest in\nrendering every other person as industrious, skilful, and careful as\npossible (which would be the case under Communism), would be a change\nvery much for the better.\n\nIt is, however, to be considered that the principal defects of the\npresent system in respect to the efficiency of labor may be corrected,\nand the chief advantages of Communism in that respect may be obtained,\nby arrangements compatible with private property and individual\ncompetition. Considerable improvement is already obtained by\npiece-work, in the kinds of labor which admit of it. By this the\nworkman's personal interest is closely connected with the quantity of\nwork he turns out--not so much with its quality, the security for\nwhich still has to depend on the employer's vigilance; neither does\npiece-work carry with it the public opinion of the workman class,\nwhich is often, on the contrary, strongly opposed to it, as a means of\n(as they think) diminishing the market for laborers. And there is\nreally good ground for their dislike of piece-work, if, as is alleged,\nit is a frequent practice of employers, after using piece-work to\nascertain the utmost which a good workman can do, to fix the price of\npiece-work so low that by doing that utmost he is not able to earn\nmore than they would be obliged to give him as day wages for ordinary\nwork.\n\nBut there is a far more complete remedy than piece-work for the\ndisadvantages of hired labor, viz., what is now called industrial\npartnership--the admission of the whole body of laborers to a\nparticipation in the profits, by distributing among all who share in\nthe work, in the form of a percentage on their earnings, the whole or\na fixed portion of the gains after a certain remuneration has been\nallowed to the capitalist. This plan has been found of admirable\nefficacy, both in this country and abroad. It has enlisted the\nsentiments of the workmen employed on the side of the most careful\nregard by all of them to the general interest of the concern; and by\nits joint effect in promoting zealous exertion and checking waste, it\nhas very materially increased the remuneration of every description of\nlabor in the concerns in which it has been adopted. It is evident that\nthis system admits of indefinite extension and of an indefinite\nincrease in the share of profits assigned to the laborers, short of\nthat which would leave to the managers less than the needful degree of\npersonal interest in the success of the concern. It is even likely\nthat when such arrangements become common, many of these concerns\nwould at some period or another, on the death or retirement of the\nchief's pass, by arrangement, into the state of purely co-operative\nassociations.\n\nIt thus appears that as far as concerns the motives to exertion in the\ngeneral body, Communism has no advantage which may not be reached\nunder private property, while as respects the managing heads it is at\na considerable disadvantage. It has also some disadvantages which seem\nto be inherent in it, through the necessity under which it lies of\ndeciding in a more or less arbitrary manner questions which, on the\npresent system, decide themselves, often badly enough but\nspontaneously.\n\nIt is a simple rule, and under certain aspects a just one, to give\nequal payment to all who share in the work. But this is a very\nimperfect justice unless the work also is apportioned equally. Now the\nmany different kinds of work required in every society are very\nunequal in hardness and unpleasantness. To measure these against one\nanother, so as to make quality equivalent to quantity, is so difficult\nthat Communists generally propose that all should work by turns at\nevery kind of labor. But this involves an almost complete sacrifice of\nthe economic advantages of the division of employments, advantages\nwhich are indeed frequently over-estimated (or rather the counter\nconsiderations are under-estimated) by political economists, but which\nare nevertheless, in the point of view of the productiveness of labor,\nvery considerable, for the double reason that the co-operation of\nemployment enables the work to distribute itself with some regard to\nthe special capacities and qualifications of the worker, and also that\nevery worker acquires greater skill and rapidity in one kind of work\nby confining himself to it. The arrangement, therefore, which is\ndeemed indispensable to a just distribution would probably be a very\nconsiderable disadvantage in respect of production. But further, it is\nstill a very imperfect standard of justice to demand the same amount\nof work from every one. People have unequal capacities of work, both\nmental and bodily, and what is a light task for one is an\ninsupportable burthen to another. It is necessary, therefore, that\nthere should be a dispensing power, an authority competent to grant\nexemptions from the ordinary amount of work, and to proportion tasks\nin some measure to capabilities. As long as there are any lazy or\nselfish persons who like better to be worked for by others than to\nwork, there will be frequent attempts to obtain exemptions by favor or\nfraud, and the frustration of these attempts will be an affair of\nconsiderable difficulty, and will by no means be always successful.\nThese inconveniences would be little felt, for some time at least, in\ncommunities composed of select persons, earnestly desirous of the\nsuccess of the experiment; but plans for the regeneration of society\nmust consider average human beings, and not only them but the large\nresiduum of persons greatly below the average in the personal and\nsocial virtues. The squabbles and ill-blood which could not fail to be\nengendered by the distribution of work whenever such persons have to\nbe dealt with, would be a great abatement from the harmony and\nunanimity which Communists hope would be found among the members of\ntheir association. That concord would, even in the most fortunate\ncircumstances, be much more liable to disturbance than Communists\nsuppose. The institution provides that there shall be no quarrelling\nabout material interests; individualism is excluded from that\ndepartment of affairs. But there are other departments from which no\ninstitutions can exclude it: there will still be rivalry for\nreputation and for personal power. When selfish ambition is excluded\nfrom the field in which, with most men, it chiefly exercises itself,\nthat of riches and pecuniary interest, it would betake itself with\ngreater intensity to the domain still open to it, and we may expect\nthat the struggles for pre-eminence and for influence in the\nmanagement would be of great bitterness when the personal passions,\ndiverted from their ordinary channel, are driven to seek their\nprincipal gratification in that other direction. For these various\nreasons it is probable that a Communist association would frequently\nfail to exhibit the attractive picture of mutual love and unity of\nwill and feeling which we are often told by Communists to expect, but\nwould often be torn by dissension and not unfrequently broken up by\nit.\n\nOther and numerous sources of discord are inherent in the necessity\nwhich the Communist principle involves, of deciding by the general\nvoice questions of the utmost importance to every one, which on the\npresent system can be and are left to individuals to decide, each for\nhis own case. As an example, take the subject of education. All\nSocialists are strongly impressed with the all-importance of the\ntraining given to the young, not only for the reasons which apply\nuniversally, but because their demands being much greater than those\nof any other system upon the intelligence and morality of the\nindividual citizen, they have even more at stake than any other\nsocieties on the excellence of their educational arrangements. Now\nunder Communism these arrangements would have to be made for every\ncitizen by the collective body, since individual parents, supposing\nthem to prefer some other mode of educating their children, would\nhave no private means of paying for it, and would be limited to what\nthey could do by their own personal teaching and influence. But every\nadult member of the body would have an equal voice in determining the\ncollective system designed for the benefit of all. Here, then, is a\nmost fruitful source of discord in every association. All who had any\nopinion or preference as to the education they would desire for their\nown children, would have to rely for their chance of obtaining it upon\nthe influence they could exercise in the joint decision of the\ncommunity.\n\nIt is needless to specify a number of other important questions\naffecting the mode of employing the productive resources of the\nassociation, the conditions of social life, the relations of the body\nwith other associations, &c., on which difference of opinion, often\nirreconcilable, would be likely to arise. But even the dissensions\nwhich might be expected would be a far less evil to the prospects of\nhumanity than a delusive unanimity produced by the prostration of all\nindividual opinions and wishes before the decree of the majority. The\nobstacles to human progression are always great, and require a\nconcurrence of favorable circumstances to overcome them; but an\nindispensable condition of their being overcome is, that human nature\nshould have freedom to expand spontaneously in various directions,\nboth in thought and practice; that people should both think for\nthemselves and try experiments for themselves, and should not resign\ninto the hands of rulers, whether acting in the name of a few or of\nthe majority, the business of thinking for them, and of prescribing\nhow they shall act. But in Communist associations private life would\nbe brought in a most unexampled degree within the dominion of public\nauthority, and there would be less scope for the development of\nindividual character and individual preferences than has hitherto\nexisted among the full citizens of any state belonging to the\nprogressive branches of the human family. Already in all societies the\ncompression of individuality by the majority is a great and growing\nevil; it would probably be much greater under Communism, except so far\nas it might be in the power of individuals to set bounds to it by\nselecting to belong to a community of persons like-minded with\nthemselves.\n\nFrom these various considerations I do not seek to draw any inference\nagainst the possibility that Communistic production is capable of\nbeing at some future time the form of society best adapted to the\nwants and circumstances of mankind. I think that this is, and will\nlong be an open question, upon which fresh light will continually be\nobtained, both by trial of the Communistic principle under favorable\ncircumstances, and by the improvements which will be gradually\neffected in the working of the existing system, that of private\nownership. The one certainty is, that Communism, to be successful,\nrequires a high standard of both moral and intellectual education in\nall the members of the community--moral, to qualify them for doing\ntheir part honestly and energetically in the labor of life under no\ninducement but their share in the general interest of the\nassociation, and their feelings of duty and sympathy towards it;\nintellectual, to make them capable of estimating distant interests and\nentering into complex considerations, sufficiently at least to be able\nto discriminate, in these matters, good counsel from bad. Now I reject\naltogether the notion that it is impossible for education and\ncultivation such as is implied in these things to be made the\ninheritance of every person in the nation; but I am convinced that it\nis very difficult, and that the passage to it from our present\ncondition can only be slow. I admit the plea that in the points of\nmoral education on which the success of communism depends, the present\nstate of society is demoralizing, and that only a Communistic\nassociation can effectually train mankind for Communism. It is for\nCommunism, then, to prove, by practical experiment, its power of\ngiving this training. Experiments alone can show whether there is as\nyet in any portion of the population a sufficiently high level of\nmoral cultivation to make Communism succeed, and to give to the next\ngeneration among themselves the education necessary to keep that high\nlevel permanently If Communist associations show that they can be\ndurable and prosperous, they will multiply, and will probably be\nadopted by successive portions of the population of the more advanced\ncountries as they become morally fitted for that mode of life. But to\nforce unprepared populations into Communist societies, even if a\npolitical revolution gave the power to make such an attempt, would end\nin disappointment.\n\nIf practical trial is necessary to test the capabilities of Communism,\nit is no less required for those other forms of Socialism which\nrecognize the difficulties of Communism and contrive means to surmount\nthem. The principal of these is Fourierism, a system which, if only as\na specimen of intellectual ingenuity, is highly worthy of the\nattention of any student, either of society or of the human mind.\nThere is scarcely an objection or a difficulty which Fourier did not\nforsee, and against which he did not make provision beforehand by\nself-acting contrivances, grounded, however, upon a less high\nprinciple of distributive justice than that of Communism, since he\nadmits inequalities of distribution and individual ownership of\ncapital, but not the arbitrary disposal of it. The great problem which\nhe grapples with is how to make labor attractive, since, if this\ncould be done, the principal difficulty of Socialism would be\novercome. He maintains that no kind of useful labor is necessarily or\nuniversally repugnant, unless either excessive in amount or devoid of\nthe stimulus of companionship and emulation, or regarded by mankind\nwith contempt. The workers in a Fourierist village are to class\nthemselves spontaneously in groups, each group undertaking a different\nkind of work, and the same person may be a member not only of one\ngroup but of any number; a certain minimum having first been set apart\nfor the subsistence of every member of the community, whether capable\nor not of labor, the society divides the remainder of the produce\namong the different groups, in such shares as it finds attract to each\nthe amount of labor required, and no more; if there is too great a run\nupon particular groups it is a sign that those groups are\nover-remunerated relatively to others; if any are neglected their\nremuneration must be made higher. The share of produce assigned to\neach group is divided in fixed proportions among three elements--labor,\ncapital, and talent; the part assigned to talent being awarded by the\nsuffrages of the group itself, and it is hoped that among the variety\nof human capacities all, or nearly all, will be qualified to excel in\nsome group or other. The remuneration for capital is to be such as is\nfound sufficient to induce savings from individual consumption, in\norder to increase the common stock to such point as is desired. The\nnumber and ingenuity of the contrivances for meeting minor\ndifficulties, and getting rid of minor inconveniencies, is very\nremarkable. By means of these various provisions it is the expectation\nof Fourierists that the personal inducements to exertion for the public\ninterest, instead of being taken away, would be made much greater than\nat present, since every increase of the service rendered would be much\nmore certain of leading to increase of reward than it is now, when\naccidents of position have so much influence. The efficiency of labor,\nthey therefore expect, would be unexampled, while the saving of labor\nwould be prodigious, by diverting to useful occupations that which is\nnow wasted on things useless or hurtful, and by dispensing with the\nvast number of superfluous distributors, the buying and selling for the\nwhole community being managed by a single agency. The free choice of\nindividuals as to their manner of life would be no further interfered\nwith than would be necessary for gaining the full advantages of\nco-operation in the industrial operations. Altogether, the picture of a\nFourierist community is both attractive in itself and requires less\nfrom common humanity than any other known system of Socialism; and it\nis much to be desired that the scheme should have that fair trial which\nalone can test the workableness of any new scheme of social life.[9]\n\nThe result of our review of the various difficulties of Socialism has\nled us to the conclusion that the various schemes for managing the\nproductive resources of the country by public instead of private\nagency have a case for a trial, and some of them may eventually\nestablish their claims to preference over the existing order of\nthings, but that they are at present workable only by the _elite_ of\nmankind, and have yet to prove their power of training mankind at\nlarge to the state of improvement which they presuppose. Far more, of\ncourse, may this be said of the more ambitious plan which aims at\ntaking possession of the whole land and capital of the country, and\nbeginning at once to administer it on the public account. Apart from\nall consideration of injustice to the present possessors, the very\nidea of conducting the whole industry of a country by direction from a\nsingle centre is so obviously chimerical, that nobody ventures to\npropose any mode in which it should be done; and it can hardly be\ndoubted that if the revolutionary Socialists attained their immediate\nobject, and actually had the whole property of the country at their\ndisposal, they would find no other practicable mode of exercising\ntheir power over it than that of dividing it into portions, each to be\nmade over to the administration of a small Socialist community. The\nproblem of management, which we have seen to be so difficult even to a\nselect population well prepared beforehand, would be thrown down to be\nsolved as best it could by aggregations united only by locality, or\ntaken indiscriminately from the population, including all the\nmalefactors, all the idlest and most vicious, the most incapable of\nsteady industry, forethought, or self-control, and a majority who,\nthough not equally degraded, are yet, in the opinion of Socialists\nthemselves as far as regards the qualities essential for the success\nof Socialism, profoundly demoralised by the existing state of society.\nIt is saying but little to say that the introduction of Socialism\nunder such conditions could have no effect but disastrous failure, and\nits apostles could have only the consolation that the order of society\nas it now exists would have perished first, and all who benefit by it\nwould be involved in the common ruin--a consolation which to some of\nthem would probably be real, for if appearances can be trusted the\nanimating principle of too many of the revolutionary Socialists is\nhate; a very excusable hatred of existing evils, which would vent\nitself by putting an end to the present system at all costs even to\nthose who suffer by it, in the hope that out of chaos would arise a\nbetter Kosmos, and in the impatience of desperation respecting any\nmore gradual improvement. They are unaware that chaos is the very most\nunfavorable position for setting out in the construction of a Kosmos,\nand that many ages of conflict, violence, and tyrannical oppression\nof the weak by the strong must intervene; they know not that they\nwould plunge mankind into the state of nature so forcibly described by\nHobbes (_Leviathan_, Part I. ch. xiii.), where every man is enemy to\nevery man:--\n\n    \"In such condition there is no place for industry, because the\n    fruit thereof is uncertain, and consequently no culture of the\n    earth, no navigation, no use of the commodities that may be\n    imported by sea, no commodious building, no instruments of\n    moving and removing such things as require much force, no\n    knowledge of the face of the earth, no account of time, no arts,\n    no letters, no society; and, which is worst of all, continual\n    fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man solitary,\n    poor, nasty, brutish, and short.\"\n\nIf the poorest and most wretched members of a so-called civilised\nsociety are in as bad a condition as every one would be in that worst\nform of barbarism produced by the dissolution of civilised life, it\ndoes not follow that the way to raise them would be to reduce all\nothers to the same miserable state. On the contrary, it is by the aid\nof the first who have risen that so many others have escaped from the\ngeneral lot, and it is only by better organization of the same process\nthat it may be hoped in time to succeed in raising the remainder.\n\n\nTHE IDEA OF PRIVATE PROPERTY NOT FIXED BUT VARIABLE.\n\nThe preceding considerations appear sufficient to show that an entire\nrenovation of the social fabric, such as is contemplated by Socialism,\nestablishing the economic constitution of society upon an entirely new\nbasis, other than that of private property and competition, however\nvaluable as an ideal, and even as a prophecy of ultimate\npossibilities, is not available as a present resource, since it\nrequires from those who are to carry on the new order of things\nqualities both moral and intellectual, which require to be tested in\nall, and to be created in most; and this cannot be done by an Act of\nParliament, but must be, on the most favorable supposition, a work of\nconsiderable time. For a long period to come the principle of\nindividual property will be in possession of the field; and even if in\nany country a popular movement were to place Socialists at the head of\na revolutionary government, in however many ways they might violate\nprivate property, the institution itself would survive, and would\neither be accepted by them or brought back by their expulsion, for the\nplain reason that people will not lose their hold of what is at\npresent their sole reliance for subsistence and security until a\nsubstitute for it has been got into working order. Even those, if any,\nwho had shared among themselves what was the property of others would\ndesire to keep what they had acquired, and to give back to property in\nthe new hands the sacredness which they had not recognised in the old.\n\nBut though, for these reasons, individual property has presumably a\nlong term before it, if only of provisional existence, we are not,\ntherefore, to conclude that it must exist during that whole term\nunmodified, or that all the rights now regarded as appertaining to\nproperty belong to it inherently, and must endure while it endures. On\nthe contrary, it is both the duty and the interest of those who derive\nthe most direct benefit from the laws of property to give impartial\nconsideration to all proposals for rendering those laws in any way\nless onerous to the majority. This, which would in any case be an\nobligation of justice, is an injunction of prudence also, in order to\nplace themselves in the right against the attempts which are sure to\nbe frequent to bring the Socialist forms of society prematurely into\noperation.\n\nOne of the mistakes oftenest committed, and which are the sources of\nthe greatest practical errors in human affairs, is that of supposing\nthat the same name always stands for the same aggregation of ideas. No\nword has been the subject of more of this kind of misunderstanding\nthan the word property. It denotes in every state of society the\nlargest powers of exclusive use or exclusive control over things (and\nsometimes, unfortunately, over persons) which the law accords, or\nwhich custom, in that state of society, recognizes; but these powers\nof exclusive use and control are very various, and differ greatly in\ndifferent countries and in different states of society.\n\nFor instance, in early states of society, the right of property did\nnot include the right of bequest. The power of disposing of property\nby will was in most countries of Europe a rather late institution; and\nlong after it was introduced it continued to be limited in favor of\nwhat were called natural heirs. Where bequest is not permitted,\nindividual property is only a life interest. And in fact, as has been\nso well and fully set forth by Sir Henry Maine in his most instructive\nwork on Ancient Law, the primitive idea of property was that it\nbelonged to the family, not the individual. The head of the family had\nthe management and was the person who really exercised the proprietary\nrights. As in other respects, so in this, he governed the family with\nnearly despotic power. But he was not free so to exercise his power as\nto defeat the co-proprietors of the other portions; he could not so\ndispose of the property as to deprive them of the joint enjoyment or\nof the succession. By the laws and customs of some nations the\nproperty could not be alienated without the consent of the male\nchildren; in other cases the child could by law demand a division of\nthe property and the assignment to him of his share, as in the story\nof the Prodigal Son. If the association kept together after the death\nof the head, some other member of it, not always his son, but often\nthe eldest of the family, the strongest, or the one selected by the\nrest, succeeded to the management and to the managing rights, all the\nothers retaining theirs as before. If, on the other hand the body\nbroke up into separate families, each of these took away with it a\npart of the property. I say the property, not the inheritance, because\nthe process was a mere continuance of existing rights, not a creation\nof new; the manager's share alone lapsed to the association.\n\nThen, again, in regard to proprietary rights over immovables (the\nprincipal kind of property in a rude age) these rights were of very\nvarying extent and duration. By the Jewish law property in immovables\nwas only a temporary concession; on the Sabbatical year it returned to\nthe common stock to be redistributed; though we may surmise that in\nthe historical times of the Jewish state this rule may have been\nsuccessfully evaded. In many countries of Asia, before European ideas\nintervened, nothing existed to which the expression property in land,\nas we understand the phrase, is strictly applicable. The ownership was\nbroken up among several distinct parties, whose rights were determined\nrather by custom than by law. The government was part owner, having\nthe right to a heavy rent. Ancient ideas and even ancient laws limited\nthe government share to some particular fraction of the gross produce,\nbut practically there was no fixed limit. The government might make\nover its share to an individual, who then became possessed of the\nright of collection and all the other rights of the state, but not\nthose of any private person connected with the soil. These private\nrights were of various kinds. The actual cultivators or such of them\nas had been long settled on the land, had a right to retain\npossession; it was held unlawful to evict them while they paid the\nrent--a rent not in general fixed by agreement, but by the custom of\nthe neighborhood. Between the actual cultivators and the state, or the\nsubstitute to whom the state had transferred its rights, there were\nintermediate persons with rights of various extent. There were\nofficers of government who collected the state's share of the produce,\nsometimes for large districts, who, though bound to pay over to\ngovernment all they collected, after deducting a percentage, were\noften hereditary officers. There were also, in many cases village\ncommunities, consisting of the reputed descendants of the first\nsettlers of a village, who shared among themselves either the land or\nits produce according to rules established by custom, either\ncultivating it themselves or employing others to cultivate it for\nthem, and whose rights in the land approached nearer to those of a\nlanded proprietor, as understood in England, than those of any other\nparty concerned. But the proprietary right of the village was not\nindividual, but collective; inalienable (the rights of individual\nsharers could only be sold or mortgaged with the consent of the\ncommunity) and governed by fixed rules. In mediaeval Europe almost all\nland was held from the sovereign on tenure of service, either military\nor agricultural; and in Great Britain even now, when the services as\nwell as all the reserved rights of the sovereign have long since\nfallen into disuse or been commuted for taxation, the theory of the\nlaw does not acknowledge an absolute right of property in land in any\nindividual; the fullest landed proprietor known to the law, the\nfreeholder, is but a \"tenant\" of the Crown. In Russia, even when the\ncultivators of the soil were serfs of the landed proprietor, his\nproprietary right in the land was limited by rights of theirs\nbelonging to them as a collective body managing its own affairs, and\nwith which he could not interfere. And in most of the countries of\ncontinental Europe when serfage was abolished or went out of use,\nthose who had cultivated the land as serfs remained in possession of\nrights as well as subject to obligations. The great land reforms of\nStein and his successors in Prussia consisted in abolishing both the\nrights and the obligations, and dividing the land bodily between the\nproprietor and the peasant, instead of leaving each of them with a\nlimited right over the whole. In other cases, as in Tuscany, the\n_metayer_ farmer is virtually co-proprietor with the landlord, since\ncustom, though not law, guarantees to him a permanent possession and\nhalf the gross produce, so long as he fulfils the customary conditions\nof his tenure.\n\nAgain: if rights of property over the same things are of different\nextent in different countries, so also are they exercised over\ndifferent things. In all countries at a former time, and in some\ncountries still, the right of property extended and extends to the\nownership of human beings. There has often been property in public\ntrusts, as in judicial offices, and a vast multitude of others in\nFrance before the Revolution; there are still a few patent offices in\nGreat Britain, though I believe they will cease by operation of law on\nthe death of the present holders; and we are only now abolishing\nproperty in army rank. Public bodies, constituted and endowed for\npublic purposes, still claim the same inviolable right of property in\ntheir estates which individuals have in theirs, and though a sound\npolitical morality does not acknowledge this claim, the law supports\nit. We thus see that the right of property is differently interpreted,\nand held to be of different extent, in different times and places;\nthat the conception entertained of it is a varying conception, has\nbeen frequently revised, and may admit of still further revision. It\nis also to be noticed that the revisions which it has hitherto\nundergone in the progress of society have generally been improvements.\nWhen, therefore, it is maintained, rightly or wrongly, that some\nchange or modification in the powers exercised over things by the\npersons legally recognised as their proprietors would be beneficial to\nthe public and conducive to the general improvement, it is no good\nanswer to this merely to say that the proposed change conflicts with\nthe idea of property. The idea of property is not some one thing,\nidentical throughout history and incapable of alteration, but is\nvariable like all other creations of the human mind; at any given time\nit is a brief expression denoting the rights over things conferred by\nthe law or custom of some given society at that time; but neither on\nthis point nor on any other has the law and custom of a given time and\nplace a claim to be stereotyped for ever. A proposed reform in laws\nor customs is not necessarily objectionable because its adoption would\nimply, not the adaptation of all human affairs to the existing idea of\nproperty, but the adaptation of existing ideas of property to the\ngrowth and improvement of human affairs. This is said without\nprejudice to the equitable claim of proprietors to be compensated by\nthe state for such legal rights of a proprietary nature as they may be\ndispossessed of for the public advantage. That equitable claim, the\ngrounds and the just limits of it, are a subject by itself, and as\nsuch will be discussed hereafter. Under this condition, however,\nsociety is fully entitled to abrogate or alter any particular right of\nproperty which on sufficient consideration it judges to stand in the\nway of the public good. And assuredly the terrible case which, as we\nsaw in a former chapter, Socialists are able to make out against the\npresent economic order of society, demands a full consideration of all\nmeans by which the institution may have a chance of being made to work\nin a manner more beneficial to that large portion of society which at\npresent enjoys the least share of its direct benefits.\n\n\nTHE END.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] See Louis Blanc, \"Organisation du Travail,\" 4me edition, pp. 6, 11,\n53, 57.\n\n[2] See Louis Blanc, \"Organisation du Travail,\" pp. 58-61, 65-66, 4me\nedition. Paris, 1845.\n\n[3] See Considerant, \"Destinee Sociale,\" tome i. pp. 35, 36, 37, 3me\ned. Paris, 1848.\n\n[4] See \"Destinee Sociale,\" par V. Considerant, tome i. pp. 38-40.\n\n[5] See Considerant, \"Destinee Sociale,\" tome i. pp. 43-51, 3me.\nedition, Paris, 1848.\n\n[6] Considerant, \"Destinee Sociale,\" tome i., pp. 59, 60.\n\n[7] Considerant, \"Destinee Sociale,\" tome i., pp. 60, 61.\n\n[8] Considerant, \"Destinee Sociale,\" tome i., p. 134.\n\n[9] The principles of Fourierism are clearly set forth and powerfully\ndefended in the various writings of M. Victor Considerant, especially\nthat entitled _La Destinee Sociale_; but the curious inquirer will do\nwell to study them in the writings of Fourier himself; where he will\nfind unmistakable proofs of genius, mixed, however with the wildest and\nmost unscientific fancies respecting the physical world, and much\ninteresting but rash speculation on the past and future history of\nhumanity. It is proper to add that on some important social questions,\nfor instance on marriage, Fourier had peculiar opinions, which,\nhowever, as he himself declares, are quite independent of, and\nseparable from, the principles of his industrial system.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n    +-----------------------------------------------------------+\n    | Typographical errors corrected in text:                   |\n    |                                                           |\n    | Page  14: founddation replaced with foundation            |\n    | Page  15: Congressses replaced with Congresses            |\n    | Page  22: moreever replaced with moreover                 |\n    | Page  28: Dominitian replaced with Domitian               |\n    | Page  42: monoply replaced with monopoly                  |\n    | Page  44: extention replaced with extension               |\n    | Page  84: conditon replaced with condition                |\n    | Page  86: occassionally replaced with occasionally        |\n    | Page  94: wisdon replaced with wisdom                     |\n    | Page  96: recieved replaced with received                 |\n    | Page 123: FN 9: Considerant replaced with Considerant     |\n    | Page 123: FN 9: Destinee replaced with Destinee           |\n    |                                                           |\n    +-----------------------------------------------------------+\n\n       *       *       *       *       *","title":"Socialism","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":25726}