{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_64882/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_64882","id":"gutenberg_64882","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/64882","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Economics","Category: History - Modern (1750+)","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Politics","Collectivism","Economic history","Great Britain -- Economic policy","Industrial policy","Social history","Socialism"],"text":"The Servile State\n\n\nBy Hilaire Belloc\n\n\n\"... If we do not restore the Institution of Property we cannot escape\nrestoring the Institution of Slavery; there is no third course.\"\n\n\nT.N. Foulis London & Edinburgh 1912\n\n\nTO E.S.P. Haynes\n\n* * *\n\nSynopsis of the Servile State\n\nIntroduction The Subject of this Book:--It is written to maintain the\nthesis that industrial society as we know it will tend towards the\nre-establishment of slavery.\n\n--The sections into which the book will be divided\n\nSection I\nDefinitions:--What _wealth_ is and why necessary to man--How\nproduced--The meaning of the words _Capital_, _Proletariat_, _Property_,\n_Means of Production_--The definition of the _Capitalist State_--The\ndefinition of the _/Servile State/_--What it is and what it is not--The\nre-establishment of status in the place of contract--That servitude is not\na question of degree but of kind--Summary of these definitions.\n\nSection II\nOur Civilisation was originally Servile:--The Servile\ninstitution in Pagan antiquity--Its fundamental character--A Pagan society\ntook it for granted--The institution disturbed by the advent of the\nChristian Church.\n\nSection III\nHow the Servile Institution was for a Time Dissolved:--The\nsubconscious effect of the Faith in this matter--The main elements of Pagan\neconomic society--The Villa--The transformation of the agricultural slave\ninto the Christian _serf_--Next into the Christian _peasant_--The\ncorresponding erection throughout Christendom of the /_Distributive\nState_/--It is nearly complete at the close of the Middle Ages--\"It was not\nmachinery that lost us our freedom, it was the loss of a free mind.\"\n\nSection IV\nHow the Distributive State Failed:--This failure original in\nEngland--The story of the decline from Distributive property to\nCapitalism--The economic revolution of the sixteenth century--The\nconfiscation of monastic land--What might have happened had the State\nretained it--As a fact that land is captured by an oligarchy--England is\nCapitalist _before_ the advent of the industrial revolution--Therefore\nmodern industry, proceeding from England, has grown in a Capitalist mould.\n\nSection V\nThe Capitalist State in Proportion as It Grows Perfect Grows\nUnstable:--It can of its nature be but a transitory phase lying between an\nearlier and a later stable state of society--The two internal strains which\nrender it unstable--_(a)_ The conflict between its social realities and its\nmoral and legal basis--_(b)_ The insecurity and insufficiency to which it\ncondemns free citizens--The few possessors can grant or withhold livelihood\nfrom the many non-possessors--Capitalism is so unstable that it dares not\nproceed to its own logical conclusion, but tends to restrict competition\namong owners, and insecurity and insufficiency among non-owners.\n\nSection VI\nThe Stable Solutions of this Instability:--The three stable\nsocial arrangements which alone can take the place of unstable\nCapitalism--The _Distributive_ solution, the _Collectivist_ solution, the\n_Servile_ solution--The reformer will not openly advocate the Servile\nsolution--There remain only the Distributive and the Collectivist solution.\n\nSection VII\nSocialism is the Easiest Apparent Solution of the Capitalist\nCrux:--A contrast between the reformer making for Distribution and the\nreformer making for Socialism (or Collectivism)--The difficulties met by\nthe first type--He is working against the grain--The second is working with\nthe grain--Collectivism a natural development of Capitalism--It appeals\nboth to Capitalist and Proletarian--None the less we shall see that the\nCollectivist attempt is doomed to fail and to produce a thing very\ndifferent from its object--to wit, the Servile State.\n\nSection VIII\nThe Reformers and Reformed Are Alike Making for the Servile\nState:--There are two types of reformers working along the line of least\nresistance--These are the Socialist and the Practical Man--The Socialist\nagain is of two kinds, The Humanist and the Statistician--The Humanist\nwould like both to confiscate from the owners and to establish security and\nsufficiency for the non-owners--He is allowed to do the second thing by\nestablishing servile conditions--He is forbidden to do the first--The\nStatistician is quite content so long as he can run and organise the\npoor--Both are canalised towards the Servile State and both are shepherded\noff their ideal Collectivist State--Meanwhile the great mass, the\nproletariat, upon whom the reformers are at work, though retaining the\ninstinct of ownership, has lost any experience of it and is subject to\nprivate law much more than to the law of the Courts--This is exactly what\nhappened in the past during the converse change from Slavery to\nFreedom--Private Law became stronger than Public at the beginning of the\nDark Ages--The owners welcomed the changes which maintained them in\nownership and yet increased the security of their revenue--to-day the\nnon-owners will welcome whatever keeps them a wage-earning class but\nincreases their wages and their security without insisting on the\nexpropriation of the owners.\n\nAppendix on \"Buying-Out\" An Appendix showing that the Collectivist proposal\nto \"Buy-Out\" the Capitalist in lieu of expropriating him is vain.\n\nSection IX The Servile State Has Begun:--The manifestation of the Servile\nState in law or proposals of law will fall into two sorts--(a) Laws or\nproposals of law compelling the proletariat to work--(b) Financial\noperations riveting the grip of capitalists more strongly upon society--As\nto (a), we find it /already/ at work in measures such as the Insurance Act\nand proposals such as Compulsory Arbitration, the enforcement of Trades\nUnion bargains and the erection of \"Labour Colonies,\" etc., for the\n\"unemployable\"--As to the second, we find that so-called \"Municipal\" or\n\"Socialist\" experiments in acquiring the means of production have /already/\nincreased and are continually increasing the dependence of society upon the\nCapitalist.\n\nConclusion\n\n* * *\n\nThe Servile State\n\n* * *\n\nIntroduction\nThe Subject of This Book\n\n\nThis book is written to maintain and prove the following truth:--\n\nThat our free modern society in which the means of production are owned by\na few being necessarily in unstable equilibrium, it is tending to reach a\ncondition of stable equilibrium /by the establishment of compulsory labour\nlegally enforcible upon those who do not own the means of production for\nthe advantage of those who do/. With this principle of compulsion applied\nagainst the non-owners there must also come a difference in their status;\nand in the eyes of society and of its positive law men will be divided into\ntwo sets: the first economically free and politically free, possessed of\nthe means of production, and securely confirmed in that possession; the\nsecond economically unfree and politically unfree, but at first secured by\ntheir very lack of freedom in certain necessaries of life and in a minimum\nof well-being beneath which they shall not fall.\n\nSociety having reached such a condition would be released from its present\ninternal strains and would have taken on a form which would be stable: that\nis, capable of being indefinitely prolonged without change. In it would be\nresolved the various factors of instability which increasingly disturb that\nform of society called _Capitalist_, and men would be satisfied to accept,\nand to continue in, such a settlement.\n\nTo such a stable society I shall give, for reasons which will be described\nin the next section, the title of THE SERVILE STATE.\n\nI shall not undertake to judge whether this approaching organisation of our\nmodern society be good or evil. I shall concern myself only with showing\nthe necessary tendency towards it which has long existed and the recent\nsocial provisions which show that it has actually begun.\n\nThis new state will be acceptable to those who desire consciously or by\nimplication the re-establishment among us of a difference of status between\npossessor and non-possessor: it will be distasteful to those who regard\nsuch a distinction with ill favour or with dread.\n\nMy business will not be to enter into the discussion between these two\ntypes of modern thinkers, but to point out to each and to both that that\nwhich the one favours and the other would fly is upon them.\n\nI shall prove my thesis in particular from the case of the industrial\nsociety of Great Britain, including that small, alien, and exceptional\ncorner of Ireland, which suffers or enjoys industrial conditions to-day.\n\nI shall divide the matter thus:--\n\n(1) I shall lay down certain definitions.\n\n(2) Next, I shall describe the institution of slavery and /The Servile\nState/ of which it is the basis, as these were in the ancient world. I\nshall then:\n\n(3) Sketch very briefly the process whereby that age-long institution of\nslavery was slowly dissolved during the Christian centuries, and whereby\nthe resulting medieval system, based upon highly divided property in the\nmeans of production, was\n\n(4) wrecked in certain areas of Europe as it approached completion, and had\nsubstituted for it, in practice though not in legal theory, a society based\nupon /Capitalism/.\n\n(5) Next, I shall show how Capitalism was of its nature unstable, because\nits social realities were in conflict with all existing or possible systems\nof law, and because its effects in denying _sufficiency_ and _security_\nwere intolerable to men; how being thus _unstable_, it consequently\npresented a _problem_ which demanded a solution: to wit, the establishment\nof some stable form of society whose law and social practice should\ncorrespond, and whose economic results, by providing _sufficiency_ and\n_security_, should be tolerable to human nature.\n\n(6) I shall next present the only three possible solutions:--\n\n(_a_) Collectivism, or the placing of the means of production in the hands\nof the political officers of the community.\n\n(_b_) Property, or the re-establishment of a Distributive State in which\nthe mass of citizens should severally own the means of production.\n\n(_c_) Slavery, or a Servile State in which those who do not own the means\nof production shall be legally compelled to work for those who do, and\nshall receive in exchange a security of livelihood.\n\nNow, seeing the distaste which the remains of our long Christian tradition\nhas bred in us for directly advocating the third solution and boldly\nsupporting the re-establishment of slavery, the first two alone are open to\nreformers: (1) a reaction towards a condition of well-divided property or\nthe _Distributive State_; (2) an attempt to achieve the ideal _Collectivist\nState_.\n\nIt can easily be shown that this second solution appeals most naturally and\neasily to a society already Capitalist on account of the difficulty which\nsuch a society has to discover the energy, the will, and the vision\nrequisite for the first solution.\n\n(7) I shall next proceed to show how the pursuit of this ideal Collectivist\nState which is bred of Capitalism leads men acting upon a Capitalist\nsociety not towards the Collectivist State nor anything like it, but to\nthat third utterly different thing--the _Servile State_.\n\nTo this eighth section I shall add an appendix showing how the attempt to\nachieve Collectivism gradually by public purchase is based upon an\nillusion.\n\n(8) Recognising that theoretical argument of this kind, though\nintellectually convincing, is not sufficient to the establishment of my\nthesis, I shall conclude by giving examples from modern English\nlegislation, which examples prove that the Servile State is actually upon\nus.\n\nSuch is the scheme I design for this book.\n\n\n\n\nSection One\nDefinitions\n\n\nMan, like every other organism, can only live by the transformation of his\nenvironment to his own use. He must transform his environment from a\ncondition where it is less to a condition where it is more subservient to\nhis needs.\n\nThat special, conscious, and intelligent transformation of his environment\nwhich is peculiar to the peculiar intelligence and creative faculty of man\nwe call the _Production of Wealth_.\n\n_Wealth_ is matter which has been consciously and intelligently transformed\nfrom a condition in which it is less to a condition in which it is more\nserviceable to a human need.\n\nWithout _Wealth_ man cannot exist. The production of it is a necessity to\nhim, and though it proceeds from the more to the less necessary, and even\nto those forms of production which we call luxuries, yet in any given human\nsociety there is a certain _kind_ and a certain _amount_ of wealth without\nwhich human life cannot be lived: as, for instance, in England to-day,\ncertain forms of cooked and elaborately prepared food, clothing, warmth,\nand habitation.\n\nTherefore, to control the production of wealth is to control human life\nitself. To refuse man the opportunity for the production of wealth is to\nrefuse him the opportunity for life; and, in general, the way in which the\nproduction of wealth is by law permitted is the only way in which the\ncitizens can legally exist.\n\nWealth can only be produced by the application of human energy, mental and\nphysical, to the forces of nature around us, and to the material which\nthose forces inform.\n\nThis human energy so applicable to the material world and its forces we\nwill call _Labour_. As for that material and those natural forces, we will\ncall them, for the sake of shortness, by the narrow, but conventionally\naccepted, term _Land_.\n\nIt would seem, therefore, that all problems connected with the production\nof wealth, and all discussion thereupon, involve but two principal original\nfactors, to wit, _Labour_ and _Land_, But it so happens that the conscious,\nartificial, and intelligent action of man upon nature, corresponding to his\npeculiar character compared with other created beings, introduces a third\nfactor of the utmost importance.\n\nMan proceeds to create wealth by ingenious methods of varying and often\nincreasing complexity, and aids himself by the construction of\n_implements_. These soon become in each new department of the production as\ntruly necessary to that production as _labour_ and _land_. Further, any\nprocess of production takes a certain time; during that time the producer\nmust be fed, and clothed, and housed, and the rest of it. There must\ntherefore be an _accumulation of wealth_ created in the past, and reserved\nwith the object of maintaining labour during its effort to produce for the\nfuture.\n\nWhether it be the making of an instrument or tool, or the setting aside of\na store of provisions, _labour_ applied to _land_ for either purpose is not\nproducing wealth for immediate consumption. It is setting aside and\nreserving somewhat, and that _somewhat_ is always necessary in varying\nproportions according to the simplicity or complexity of the economic\nsociety to the production of wealth.\n\nTo such wealth reserved and set aside for the purposes of future\nproduction, and not for immediate consumption, whether it be in the form of\ninstruments and tools, or in the form of stores for the maintenance of\nlabour during the process of production, we give the name of _Capital_.\n\nThere are thus three factors in the production of all human wealth, which\nwe may conventionally term _Land_, _Capital_, and _Labour_.\n\nWhen we talk of the _Means of Production_ we signify land and capital\ncombined. Thus, when we say that a man is \"dispossessed of the means of\nproduction,\" or cannot produce wealth save by the leave of another who\n\"possesses the means of production,\" we mean that he is the master only of\nhis labour and has no control, in any useful amount, over either capital,\nor land, or both combined.\n\nA man politically free, that is, one who enjoys the right before the law to\nexercise his energies when he pleases (or not at all if he does not so\nplease), but not possessed by legal right of control over any useful amount\nof the means of production, we call _proletarian_, and any considerable\nclass composed of such men we call a _proletariat_.\n\n_Property_ is a term used for that arrangement in society whereby the\ncontrol of land and of wealth made from land, including therefore all the\nmeans of production, is vested in some person or corporation. Thus we may\nsay of a building, including the land upon which it stands, that it is the\n\"property\" of such and such a citizen, or family, or college, or of the\nState, meaning that those who \"own\" such property are guaranteed by the\nlaws in the right to use it or withhold it from use. _Private property_\nsignifies such wealth (including the means of production) as may, by the\narrangements of society, be in the control of persons or corporations\n_other_ than the political bodies of which these persons or corporations\nare in another aspect members. What distinguishes private property is not\nthat the possessor thereof is less than the State, or is only a part of the\nState (for were that so we should talk of municipal property as private\nproperty), but rather that the owner may exercise his control over it to\nhis own advantage, and not as a trustee for society, nor in the hierarchy\nof political institutions. Thus Mr Jones is a citizen of Manchester, but he\ndoes not own his private property as a citizen of Manchester, he owns it as\nMr Jones, whereas, if the house next to his own be owned by the Manchester\nmunicipality, they own it only because they are a political body standing\nfor the whole community of the town. Mr Jones might move to Glasgow and\nstill own his property in Manchester, but the municipality of Manchester\ncan only own its property in connection with the corporate political life\nof the town.\n\nAn ideal society in which the means of production should be in the hands of\nthe political officers of the community we call _Collectivist_, or more\ngenerally _Socialist_.[1]\n\nA society in which private property in land and capital, that is, the\nownership and therefore the control of the means of production, is confined\nto some number of free citizens not large enough to determine the social\nmass of the State, while the rest have not such property and are therefore\nproletarian, we call _Capitalist_; and the method by which wealth is\nproduced in such a society can only be the application of labour, the\ndetermining mass of which must necessarily be proletarian, to land and\ncapital, in such fashion that, of the total wealth produced, the\nProletariat which labours shall only receive a portion.\n\nThe two marks, then, defining the Capitalist State are: (1) That the\ncitizens thereof are politically free: _i.e._ can use or withhold at will\ntheir possessions or their labour, but are also (2) divided into capitalist\nand proletarian in such proportions that the State as a whole is not\ncharacterised by the institution of ownership among free citizens, but by\nthe restriction of ownership to a section markedly less than the whole, or\neven to a small minority. Such a _Capitalist State_ is essentially divided\ninto two classes of free citizens, the one capitalist or owning, the other\npropertyless or proletarian.\n\nMy last definition concerns the Servile State itself, and since the idea is\nboth somewhat novel and also the subject of this book, I will not only\nestablish but expand its definition.\n\nThe definition of the Servile State is as follows:--\n\n\"_That arrangement of society in which so considerable a number of the\nfamilies and individuals are constrained by positive law to labour for the\nadvantage of other families and individuals as to stamp the whole community\nwith the mark of such labour we call_ /The Servile State/.\"\n\nNote first certain negative limitations in the above which must be clearly\nseized if we are not to lose clear thinking in a fog of metaphor and\nrhetoric.\n\nThat society is not servile in which men are intelligently constrained to\nlabour by enthusiasm, by a religious tenet, or indirectly from fear of\ndestitution, or directly from love of gain, or from the common sense which\nteaches them that by their labour they may increase their well-being.\n\nA clear boundary exists between the servile and the non-servile condition\nof labour, and the conditions upon either side of that boundary utterly\ndiffer one from another, Where there is _compulsion_ applicable by\n_positive law_ to men of a certain _status_, and such compulsion enforced\nin the last resort by the powers at the disposal of the State, there is the\ninstitution of _Slavery_; and if that institution be sufficiently expanded\nthe whole State may be said to repose upon a servile basis, and is a\nServile State.\n\nWhere such formal, legal status is absent the conditions are not servile;\nand the difference between servitude and freedom, appreciable in a thousand\ndetails of actual life, is most glaring in this: that the free man can\nrefuse his labour and use that refusal as an instrument wherewith to\n_bargain_; while the slave has no such instrument or power to bargain at\nall, but is dependent for his well-being upon the custom of society, backed\nby the regulation of such of its laws as may protect and guarantee the\nslave.\n\nNext, let it be observed that the State is not servile because the mere\ninstitution of slavery is to be discovered somewhere within its confines.\nThe State is only servile when so considerable a body of forced labour is\naffected by the compulsion of positive law as to give a character to the\nwhole community.\n\nSimilarly, that State is not servile in which _all_ citizens are liable to\nsubmit their energies to the compulsion of positive law, and must labour at\nthe discretion of State officials. By loose metaphor and for rhetorical\npurposes men who dislike Collectivism (for instance) or the discipline of a\nregiment will talk of the \"servile\" conditions of such organisations. But\nfor the purposes of strict definition and clear thinking it is essential to\nremember that a servile condition only exists by contrast with a free\ncondition. The servile condition is present in society only when there is\nalso present the free citizen for whose benefit the slave works under the\ncompulsion of positive law.\n\nAgain, it should be noted that this word \"servile\" in no way connotes the\nworst, nor even necessarily a bad, arrangement of society, This point is so\nclear that it should hardly delay us; but a confusion between the\nrhetorical and the precise use of the word servile I have discovered to\nembarrass public discussion of the matter so much that I must once more\nemphasise what should be self-evident.\n\nThe discussion as to whether the institution of slavery be a good or a bad\none, or be relatively better or worse than other alternative institutions,\nhas nothing whatever to do with the exact definition of that institution.\nThus Monarchy consists in throwing the responsibility for the direction of\nsociety upon an individual. One can imagine some Roman of the first century\npraising the new Imperial power, but through a muddle-headed tradition\nagainst \"kings\" swearing that he would never tolerate a \"monarchy.\" Such a\nfellow would have been a very futile critic of public affairs under Trajan,\nbut no more futile than a man who swears that nothing shall make him a\n\"slave,\" though well prepared to accept laws that compel him to labour\nwithout his consent, under the force of public law, and upon terms dictated\nby others.\n\nMany would argue that a man so compelled to labour, guaranteed against\ninsecurity and against insufficiency of food, housing and clothing,\npromised subsistence for his old age, and a similar set of advantages for\nhis posterity, would be a great deal better off than a free man lacking all\nthese things. But the argument does not affect the definition attaching to\nthe word servile. A devout Christian of blameless life drifting upon an\nice-flow in the Arctic night, without food or any prospect of succour, is\nnot so comfortably circumstanced as the Khedive of Egypt; but it would be\nfolly in establishing the definition of the words \"Christian\" and\n\"Mahommedan\" to bring this contrast into account.\n\nWe must then, throughout this inquiry, keep strictly to the economic aspect\nof the case. Only when that is established and when the modern tendency to\nthe re-establishment of slavery is clear, are we free to discuss the\nadvantages and disadvantages of the revolution through which we are\npassing.\n\nIt must further be grasped that the essential mark of the Servile\nInstitution does not depend upon the ownership of the slave by a particular\nmaster. That the institution of slavery tends to that form under the\nvarious forces composing human nature and human society is probable enough.\nThat if or when slavery were re-established in England a particular man\nwould in time be found the slave not of Capitalism in general but of, say,\nthe Shell Oil Trust in particular, is a very likely development; and we\nknow that in societies where the institution was of immemorial antiquity\nsuch direct possession of the slave by the free man or corporation of free\nmen had come to be the rule. But my point is that such a mark is not\nessential to the character of slavery. As an initial phase in the\ninstitution of slavery, or even as a permanent phase marking society for an\nindefinite time, it is perfectly easy to conceive of a whole class rendered\nservile by positive law, and compelled by such law to labour for the\nadvantage of another non-servile free class, without any direct act of\npossession permitted to one man over the person of another.\n\nThe final contrast thus established between slave and free might be\nmaintained by the State guaranteeing to the _un-free_, security in their\nsubsistence, to the free, security in their property and profits, rent and\ninterest. What would mark the slave in such a society would be his\nbelonging to that set or status which was compelled by no matter what\ndefinition to labour, and was thus cut off from the other set or status not\ncompelled to labour, but free to labour or not as it willed.\n\nAgain, the Servile State would certainly exist even though a man, being\nonly compelled to labour during a portion of his time, were free to bargain\nand even to accumulate in his \"free\" time. The old lawyers used to\ndistinguish between a serf \"in gross\" and a serf \"regardant.\" A serf \"in\ngross\" was one who was a serf at all times and places, and not in respect\nto a particular lord. A serf \"regardant\" was a serf only in his bondage to\nserve a particular lord. He was free as against other men. And one might\nperfectly well have slaves who were only slaves \"regardant\" to a particular\ntype of employment during particular hours. But they would be slaves none\nthe less, and if their hours were many and their class numerous, the State\nwhich they supported would be a Servile State.\n\nLastly, let it be remembered that the servile condition remains as truly an\ninstitution of the State when it attaches permanently and irrevocably at\nany one time to a particular set of human beings as when it attaches to a\nparticular class throughout their lives. Thus the laws of Paganism\npermitted the slave to be enfranchised by his master: it further permitted\nchildren or prisoners to be sold into slavery. The Servile Institution,\nthough perpetually changing in the elements of its composition, was still\nan unchanging factor in the State. Similarly, though the State should only\nsubject to slavery those who had less than a certain income, while leaving\nmen free by inheritance or otherwise to pass out of, and by loss to pass\ninto, the slave class, that slave class, though fluctuating as to its\ncomposition, would still permanently exist.\n\nThus, if the modern industrial State shall make a law by which servile\nconditions shall not attach to those capable of earning more than a certain\nsum by their own labour, but shall attach to those who earn less than this\nsum; or if the modern industrial State defines manual labour in a\nparticular fashion, renders it compulsory during a fixed time for those who\nundertake it, but leaves them free to turn later to other occupations if\nthey choose, undoubtedly such distinctions, though they attach to\nconditions and not to individuals, establish the Servile Institution.\n\nSome considerable number must be manual workers by definition, and while\nthey were so defined would be slaves. Here again the composition of the\nServile class would fluctuate, but the class would be permanent and large\nenough to stamp all society. I need not insist upon the practical effect:\nthat such a class, once established, tends to be fixed in the great\nmajority of those which make it up, and that the individuals entering or\nleaving it tend to become few compared to the whole mass.\n\nThere is one last point to be considered in this definition.\n\nIt is this:--\n\nSince, in the nature of things, a free society must enforce a contract (a\nfree society consisting in nothing else but the enforcement of free\ncontracts), how far can that be called a Servile condition which is the\nresult of contract nominally or really free? In other words, is not a\ncontract to labour, however freely entered into, servile of its nature when\nenforced by the State?\n\nFor instance, I have no food or clothing, nor do I possess the means of\nproduction whereby I can produce any wealth in exchange for such. I am so\ncircumstanced that an owner of the Means of Production will not allow me\naccess to those Means unless I sign a contract to serve him for a week at a\nwage of bare subsistence. Does the State in enforcing that contract make me\nfor that week a slave?\n\nObviously not. For the institution of Slavery presupposes a certain\nattitude of mind in the free man and in the slave, a habit of living in\neither, and the stamp of both those habits upon society. No such effects\nare produced by a contract enforceable by the length of one week. The\nduration of human life is such, and the prospect of posterity, that the\nfulfilling of such a contract in no way wounds the senses of liberty and of\nchoice.\n\nWhat of a month, a year, ten years, a lifetime? Suppose an extreme case,\nand a destitute man to sign a contract binding him and all his children who\nwere minors to work for a bare subsistence until his own death, or the\nattainment of majority of the children, whichever event might happen\nlatest; would the State in forcing that contract be making the man a slave?\n\nAs undoubtedly as it would not be making him a slave in the first case, it\nwould be making him a slave in the second.\n\nOne can only say to ancient sophistical difficulties of this kind, that the\nsense of men establishes for itself the true limits of any object, as of\nfreedom. What freedom is, or is not, in so far as mere measure of time is\nconcerned (though of course much else than time enters in), human habit\ndetermines; but the enforcing of a contract of service certainly or\nprobably leaving a choice after its expiration is consonant with freedom.\nThe enforcement of a contract probably binding one's whole life is not\nconsonant with freedom. One binding to service a man's natural heirs is\nintolerable to freedom.\n\nConsider another converse point. A man binds himself to work for life and\nhis children after him so far as the law may permit him to bind them in a\nparticular society, but that not for a bare subsistence, but for so large a\nwage that he will be wealthy in a few years, and his posterity, when the\ncontract is completed, wealthier still. Does the State in forcing such a\ncontract make the fortunate employee a slave? No. For it is in the essence\nof slavery that subsistence or little more than subsistence should be\nguaranteed to the slave. Slavery exists in order that the Free should\nbenefit by its existence, and connotes a condition in which the men\nsubjected to it may demand secure existence, but little more.\n\nIf anyone were to draw an exact line, and to say that a life-contract\nenforceable by law was slavery at so many shillings a week, but ceased to\nbe slavery after that margin, his effort would be folly. None the less,\nthere is a standard of subsistence in any one society, the guarantee of\nwhich (or little more) under an obligation to labour by compulsion is\nslavery, while the guarantee of very much more is not slavery.\n\nThis verbal jugglery might be continued. It is a type of verbal difficulty\napparent in every inquiry open to the professional disputant, but of no\neffect upon the mind of the honest inquirer whose business is not dialectic\nbut truth.\n\nIt is always possible by establishing a cross-section in a set of\ndefinitions to pose the unanswerable difficulty of degree, but that will\nnever affect the realities of discussion. We know, for instance, what is\nmeant by torture when it exists in a code of laws, and when it is\nforbidden. No imaginary difficulties of degree between pulling a man's hair\nand scalping him, between warming him and burning him alive, will disturb a\nreformer whose business it is to expunge torture from some penal code.\n\nIn the same way we know what is and what is not compulsory labour, what is\nand what is not the Servile Condition. Its test is, I repeat, the\nwithdrawal from a man of his free choice to labour or not to labour, here\nor there, for such and such an object; and the compelling of him by\npositive law to labour for the advantage of others who do not fall under\nthe same compulsion.\n\nWhere you have _that_, you have slavery: with all the manifold, spiritual,\nand political results of that ancient institution.\n\nWhere you have slavery affecting a class of such considerable size as to\nmark and determine the character of the State, there you have the Servile\nState.\n\n* * * * *\n\nTo sum up, then:--The /Servile State/ is that in which we find so\nconsiderable a body of families and individuals distinguished from _free\ncitizens_ by the mark of compulsory labour as to stamp a general character\nupon society, and all the chief characters, good or evil, attaching to the\ninstitution of slavery will be found permeating such a State, whether the\nslaves be directly and personally attached to their masters, only\nindirectly attached through the medium of the State, or attached in a third\nmanner through their subservience to corporations or to particular\nindustries. The slave so compelled to labour will be one dispossessed of\nthe means of production, and compelled by law to labour for the advantage\nof all or any who are possessed thereof. And the distinguishing mark of the\nslave proceeds from the special action upon him of a positive law which\nfirst separates one body of men, the less-free, from another, the more\nfree, in the function of contract within the general body of the community.\n\nNow, from a purely Servile conception of production and of the arrangement\nof society we Europeans sprang. The Immemorial past of Europe is a Servile\npast. During some centuries which the Church raised, permeated, and\nconstructed, Europe was gradually released or divorced from this immemorial\nand fundamental conception of slavery; to that conception, to that\ninstitution, our Industrial or Capitalist society is now upon its return.\nWe are re-establishing the slave.\n\n* * * * *\n\nBefore proceeding to the proof of this, I shall, in the next few pages,\ndigress to sketch very briefly the process whereby the old Pagan slavery\nwas transformed into a free society some centuries ago. I shall then\noutline the further process whereby the new non-servile society was wrecked\nat the Reformation in certain areas of Europe, and particularly in England.\nThere was gradually produced in its stead the transitory phase of society\n(now nearing its end) called generally _Capitalism_ or the _Capitalist\nState_.\n\nSuch a digression, being purely historical, is not logically necessary to a\nconsideration of our subject, but it is of great value to the reader,\nbecause the knowledge of how, in reality and in the concrete, things have\nmoved better enables us to understand the logical process whereby they tend\ntowards a particular goal in the future.\n\nOne could prove the tendency towards the Servile State in England to-day to\na man who knew nothing of the past of Europe; but that tendency will seem\nto him far more reasonably probable, far more a matter of experience and\nless a matter of mere deduction, when he knows what our society once was,\nand how it changed into what we know to-day.\n\n\n\n\nSection Two\nOur Civilisation Was Originally Servile\n\n\nIn no matter what field of the European past we make our research, we find,\nfrom two thousand years ago upwards, one fundamental institution whereupon\nthe whole of society reposes; that fundamental institution is Slavery.\n\nThere is here no distinction between the highly civilised City-State of the\nMediterranean, with its letters, its plastic art, and its code of laws,\nwith all that makes a civilisation--and this stretching back far beyond any\nsurviving record,--there is here no distinction between that civilised body\nand the Northern and Western societies of the Celtic tribes, or of the\nlittle known hordes that wandered in the Germanies. _All_ indifferently\nreposed upon slavery. It was a fundamental conception of society. It was\neverywhere present, nowhere disputed.\n\nThere _is_ a distinction (or would appear to be) between Europeans and\nAsiatics in this matter. The religion and morals of the one so differed in\ntheir very origin from those of the other that every social institution was\ntouched by the contrast--and Slavery among the rest.\n\nBut with that we need not concern ourselves. My point is that our European\nancestry, those men from whom we are descended and whose blood runs with\nlittle admixture in our veins, took slavery for granted, made of it the\neconomic pivot upon which the production of wealth should turn, and never\ndoubted but that it was normal to all human society.\n\nIt is a matter of capital importance to seize this.\n\nAn arrangement of such a sort would not have endured without intermission\n(and indeed without question) for many centuries, nor have been found\nemerging fully grown from that vast space of unrecorded time during which\nbarbarism and civilisation flourished side by side in Europe, had there not\nbeen something in it, good or evil, native to our blood.\n\nThere was no question in those ancient societies from which we spring of\nmaking subject races into slaves by the might of conquering races. All that\nis the guess-work of the universities. Not only is there no proof of it,\nrather all the existing proof is the other way. The Greek had a Greek\nslave, the Latin a Latin slave, the German a German slave, the Celt a\nCeltic slave. The theory that \"superior races\" invaded a land, either drove\nout the original inhabitants or reduced them to slavery, is one which has\nno argument either from our present knowledge of man's mind or from\nrecorded evidence. Indeed, the most striking feature of that Servile Basis\nupon which Paganism reposed was the human equality recognised between\nmaster and slave. The master might kill the slave, but both were of one\nrace and each was human to the other.\n\nThis spiritual value was not, as a further pernicious piece of guess-work\nwould dream, a \"growth\" or a \"progress.\" The doctrine of human equality was\ninherent in the very stuff of antiquity, as it is inherent in those\nsocieties which have not lost tradition.\n\nWe may presume that the barbarian of the North would grasp the great truth\nwith less facility than the civilised man of the Mediterranean, because\nbarbarism everywhere shows a retrogression in intellectual power; but the\nproof that the Servile Institution was a social arrangement rather than a\ndistinction of type is patent from the coincidence everywhere of\nEmancipation with Slavery. Pagan Europe not only thought the existence of\nSlaves a natural necessity to society, but equally thought that upon giving\na Slave his freedom the enfranchised man would naturally step, though\nperhaps after the interval of some lineage, into the ranks of free society.\nGreat poets and great artists, statesmen and soldiers were little troubled\nby the memory of a servile ancestry.\n\nOn the other hand, there was a perpetual recruitment of the Servile\nInstitution, just as there was a perpetual emancipation from it, proceeding\nyear after year; and the natural or normal method of recruitment is most\nclearly apparent to us in the simple and barbaric societies which the\nobservation of contemporary civilised Pagans enables us to judge.\n\nIt was poverty that made the slave.\n\nPrisoners of war taken in set combat afforded one mode of recruitment, and\nthere was also the raiding of men by pirates in the outer lands and the\nselling of them in the slave markets of the South. But at once the cause of\nthe recruitment and the permanent support of the institution of slavery was\nthe indigence of the man who sold himself into slavery, _or was born into\nit_; for it was a rule of Pagan Slavery that the slave bred the slave, and\nthat even if one of the parents were free the offspring was a slave.\n\nThe society of antiquity, therefore, was normally divided (as must at last\nbe the society of any servile state) into clearly marked sections: there\nwas upon the one hand the citizen who had a voice in the conduct of the\nState, who would often labour--but labour of his own free will--and who was\nnormally possessed of property; upon the other hand, there was a mass\ndispossessed of the means of production and compelled by positive law to\nlabour at command.\n\nIt is true that in the further developments of society the accumulation of\nprivate savings by a slave was tolerated and that slaves so favoured did\nsometimes purchase their freedom.\n\nIt is further true that in the confusion of the last generations of\nPaganism there arose in some of the great cities a considerable class of\nmen who, though free, were dispossessed of the means of production. But\nthese last never existed in a sufficient proportion to stamp the whole\nState of society with a character drawn from their proletarian\ncircumstance. To the end the Pagan world remained a world of free\nproprietors possessed, in various degrees, of the land and of the capital\nwhereby wealth may be produced, and applying to that land and capital for\nthe purpose of producing wealth, _compulsory_ labour.\n\nCertain features in that original Servile State from which we all spring\nshould be carefully noted by way of conclusion.\n\nFirst, though all nowadays contrast slavery with freedom to the advantage\nof the latter, yet men then accepted slavery freely as an alternative to\nindigence.\n\nSecondly (and this is most important for our judgment of the Servile\nInstitution as a whole, and of the chances of its return), in all those\ncenturies we find no organised effort, nor (what is still more significant)\ndo we find any _complaint of conscience_ against the institution which\ncondemned the bulk of human beings to forced labour.\n\nSlaves may be found in the literary exercises of the time bewailing their\nlot and joking about it; some philosophers will complain that an ideal\nsociety should contain no slaves; others will excuse the establishment of\nslavery upon this plea or that, while granting that it offends the dignity\nof man. The greater part will argue of the State that it is necessarily\nServile. But no one, slave or free, dreams of abolishing or even of\nchanging the thing. You have no martyrs for the case of \"freedom\" as\nagainst \"slavery.\" The so-called Servile wars are the resistance on the\npart of escaped slaves to any attempt at recapture, but they are not\naccompanied by an accepted affirmation that servitude is an intolerable\nthing; nor is that note struck at all from the unknown beginnings to the\nCatholic endings of the Pagan world. Slavery is irksome, undignified,\nwoeful; but it is, to them, of the nature of things.\n\nYou may say, to be brief, that this arrangement of society was the very air\nwhich Pagan Antiquity breathed.\n\nIts great works, its leisure and its domestic life, its humour, its\nreserves of power, all depend upon the fact that its society was that of\nthe Servile State.\n\nMen were happy in that arrangement, or, at least, as happy as men ever are.\n\nThe attempt to escape by a personal effort, whether of thrift, of\nadventure, or of flattery to a master, from the Servile condition had never\neven so much of driving power behind it as the attempt many show to-day to\nescape from the rank of wage-earners to those of employers. Servitude did\nnot seem a hell into which a man would rather die than sink, or out of\nwhich at any sacrifice whatsoever a man would raise himself. It was a\ncondition accepted by those who suffered it as much as by those who enjoyed\nit, and a perfectly necessary part of all that men did and thought.\n\nYou find no barbarian from some free place astonished at the institution of\nSlavery; you find no Slave pointing to a society in which Slavery was\nunknown as towards a happier land. To our ancestors not only for those few\ncenturies during which we have record of their actions, but apparently\nduring an illimitable past, the division of society into those who must\nwork under compulsion and those who would benefit by their labour was the\nvery plan of the State apart from which they could hardly think of society\nas existing at all.\n\nLet all this be clearly grasped. It is fundamental to an understanding of\nthe problem before us. Slavery is no novel experience in the history of\nEurope; nor is one suffering an odd dream when one talks of Slavery as\nacceptable to European men. Slavery was of the very stuff of Europe for\nthousands upon thousands of years, until Europe engaged upon that\nconsiderable moral experiment called _The Faith_, which many believe to be\nnow accomplished and discarded, and in the failure of which it would seem\nthat the old and primary institution of Slavery must return.\n\nFor there came upon us Europeans after all those centuries, and centuries\nof a settled social order which was erected upon Slavery as upon a sure\nfoundation, the experiment called the Christian Church.\n\nAmong the by-products of this experiment, very slowly emerging from the old\nPagan world, and not long completed before Christendom itself suffered a\nshipwreck, was the exceedingly gradual transformation of the Servile State\ninto something other: a society of owners. And how that something other did\nproceed from the Pagan Servile State I will next explain.\n\n\n\n\nSection Three\nHow the Servile Institution Was for a Time Dissolved\n\n\nThe process by which slavery disappeared among Christian men, though very\nlengthy in its development (it covered close upon a thousand years), and\nthough exceedingly complicated in its detail, may be easily and briefly\ngrasped in its main lines.\n\nLet it first be clearly understood that the vast revolution through which\nthe European mind passed bet ween the first and the fourth centuries (that\nrevolution which is often termed the Conversion of the World to\nChristianity, but which should for purposes of historical accuracy be\ncalled the Growth of the Church) included no attack upon the Servile\nInstitution.\n\nNo dogma of the Church pronounced Slavery to be immoral, or the sale and\npurchase of men to be a sin, or the imposition of compulsory labour upon a\nChristian to be a contravention of any human right.\n\nThe emancipation of Slaves was indeed regarded as a good work by the\nFaithful: but so was it regarded by the Pagan. It was, on the face of it, a\nservice rendered to one's fellowmen. The sale of Christians to Pagan\nmasters was abhorrent to the later empire of the Barbarian Invasions, not\nbecause slavery in itself was condemned, but because it was a sort of\ntreason to civilisation to force men away from Civilisation to Barbarism.\nIn general you will discover no pronouncement against slavery as an\ninstitution, nor any moral definition attacking it, throughout all those\nearly Christian centuries during which it none the less effectively\ndisappears.\n\nThe form of its disappearance is well worth noting. It begins with the\nestablishment as the fundamental unit of production in Western Europe of\nthose great landed estates, commonly lying in the hands of a single\nproprietor, and generally known as /Villae/.\n\nThere were, of course, many other forms of human agglomeration: small\npeasant farms owned in absolute proprietorship by their petty masters;\ngroups of free men associated in what was called a Vicus; manufactories in\nwhich groups of slaves were industrially organised to the profit of their\nmaster; and, governing the regions around them, the scheme of Roman towns.\n\nBut of all these the Villa the dominating type; and as society passed from\nthe high civilisation of the first four centuries into the simplicity of\nthe Dark Ages, the Villa, the unit of agricultural production, became more\nand more the model of all society.\n\nNow the Villa began as a considerable extent of land, containing, like a\nmodern English estate, pasture, arable, water, wood and heath, or waste\nland. It was owned by a dominus or _lord_ in absolute proprietorship, to\nsell, or leave by will, to do with it whatsoever he chose. It was\ncultivated for him by _Slaves_ to whom he owed nothing in return, and whom\nit was simply his interest to keep alive and to continue breeding in order\nthat they might perpetuate his wealth.\n\nI concentrate particularly upon these Slaves, the great majority of the\nhuman beings inhabiting the land, because, although there arose in the Dark\nAges, when the Roman Empire was passing into the society of the Middle\nAges, other social elements within the _Villae_--the Freed men who owed the\nlord a modified service, and even occasionally independent citizens present\nthrough a contract terminable and freely entered into yet it is the _Slave_\nwho is the mark of all that society.\n\nAt its origin, then, the Roman Villa was a piece of absolute property, the\nproduction of wealth upon which was due to the application of slave labour\nto the natural resources of the place; and that slave labour was as much\nthe property of the lord as was the land itself.\n\nThe first modification which this arrangement showed in the new society\nwhich accompanied the growth and establishment of the Church in the Roman\nworld, was a sort of customary rule which modified the old arbitrary\nposition of the Slave.\n\nThe Slave was still a Slave, but it was both more convenient in the decay\nof communications and public power, and more consonant with the social\nspirit of the time to make sure of that Slave's produce by asking him for\nno more than certain customary dues. The Slave and his descendants became\nmore or less rooted to one spot. Some were still bought and sold, but in\ndecreasing numbers. As the generations passed a larger and a larger\nproportion lived where and as their fathers had lived, and the produce\nwhich they raised was fixed more and more at a certain amount, which the\nlord was content to receive and ask no more. The arrangement was made\nworkable by leaving to the Slave all the remaining produce of his own\nlabour. There was a sort of implied bargain here, in the absence of public\npowers and in the decline of the old highly centralised and vigorous system\nwhich could always guarantee to the master the full product of the Slave's\neffort. The bargain implied was, that if the Slave Community of the Villa\nwould produce for the benefit of its Lord not less than a certain customary\namount of goods from the soil of the Villa, the Lord could count on their\nalways exercising that effort by leaving to them all the surplus, which\nthey could increase, if they willed, indefinitely.\n\nBy the ninth century, when this process had been gradually at work for a\nmatter of some three hundred years, one fixed form of productive unit began\nto be apparent throughout Western Christendom.\n\nThe old absolutely owned estate had come to be divided into three portions.\nOne of these was pasture and arable land, reserved privately to the lord,\nand called _domain_: that is, lord's land. Another was in the occupation,\nand already almost in the possession (practically, though not legally), of\nthose who had once been Slaves. A third was common land over which both the\nLord and the Slave exercised each their various rights, which rights were\nminutely remembered and held sacred by custom. For instance, in a certain\nvillage, if there was beech pasture for three hundred swine, the lord might\nput in but fifty: two hundred and fifty were the rights of the \"village.\"\n\nUpon the first of these portions, Domain, wealth was produced by the\nobedience of the Slave for certain fixed hours of labour. He must come so\nmany days a week, or upon such and such occasions (all fixed and\ncustomary), to till the land of the Domain for his Lord, and _all_ the\nproduce of this must be handed over to the Lord though, of course, a daily\nwage in kind was allowed, for the labourer must live.\n\nUpon the second portion, \"Land in Villenage,\" which was nearly always the\nmost of the arable and pasture land of the _Villae_, the Slaves worked by\nrules and customs which they gradually came to elaborate for themselves.\nThey worked under an officer of their own, sometimes nominated, sometimes\nelected: nearly always, in practice, a man suitable to them and more or\nless of their choice; though this co-operative work upon the old\nSlave-ground was controlled by the general customs of the village, common\nto lord and slave alike, and the principal officer over both kinds of land\nwas the Lord's Steward.\n\nOf the wealth so produced by the Slaves, a certain fixed portion (estimated\noriginally in kind) was payable to the Lord's Bailiff, and became the\nproperty of the Lord.\n\nFinally, on the third division of the land, the \"Waste,\" the \"Wood,\" the\n\"Heath,\" and certain common pastures, wealth was produced as elsewhere by\nthe labour of those who had once been the Slaves, but divided in customary\nproportions between them and their master. Thus, such and such a water\nmeadow would have grazing for so many oxen; the number was rigidly defined,\nand of that number so many would be the Lord's and so many the Villagers'.\n\nDuring the eighth, ninth and tenth centuries this system crystallised and\nbecame so natural in men's eyes that the original servile character of the\nworking folk upon the Villa was forgotten.\n\nThe documents of the time are rare. These three centuries are the crucible\nof Europe, and record is drowned and burnt in them. Our study of their\nsocial conditions, especially in the latter part, are matter rather of\ninference than of direct evidence. But the sale and purchase of men,\nalready exceptional at the beginning of this period, is almost unknown\nbefore the end of it. Apart from domestic slaves within the household,\nslavery in the old sense which Pagan antiquity gave that institution had\nbeen transformed out of all knowledge, and when, with the eleventh century,\nthe true Middle Ages begin to spring from the soil of the Dark Ages, and a\nnew civilisation to arise, though the old word _servus_ (the Latin for a\nslave) is still used for the man who works the soil, his status in the now\nincreasing number of documents which we can consult is wholly changed; we\ncan certainly no longer translate the word by the English word _slave_; we\nare compelled to translate it by a new word with very different\nconnotations: the word _serf_.\n\nThe Serf of the early Middle Ages, of the eleventh and early twelfth\ncenturies, of the Crusades and the Norman Conquest, is already nearly a\npeasant. He is indeed bound in legal theory to the soil upon which he was\nborn. In social practice, all that is required of him is that his family\nshould till its quota of servile land, and that the dues to the lord shall\nnot fail from absence of labour. That duty fulfilled, it is easy and common\nfor members of the serf-class to enter the professions and the Church, or\nto go wild; to become men practically free in the growing industries of the\ntowns. With every passing generation the ancient servile conception of the\nlabourer's status grows more and more dim, and the Courts and the practice\nof society treat him more and more as a man strictly bound to certain dues\nand to certain periodical labour within his industrial unit, but in all\nother respects free.\n\nAs the civilisation of the Middle Ages develops, as wealth increases and\nthe arts progressively flourish, this character of freedom becomes more\nmarked. In spite of attempts in time of scarcity (as after a plague) to\ninsist upon the old rights to compulsory labour, the habit of commuting\nthese rights for money-payments and dues has grown too strong to be\nresisted.\n\nIf at the end of the fourteenth century, let us say, or at the beginning of\nthe fifteenth, you had visited some Squire upon his estate in France or in\nEngland, he would have told you of the whole of it, \"These are my lands.\"\nBut the peasant (as he now was) would have said also of his holding, \"This\nis my land.\" He could not be evicted from it. The dues which he was\ncustomarily bound to pay were but a fraction of its total produce. He could\nnot always sell it, but it was always inheritable from father to son; and,\nin general, at the close of this long process of a thousand years the Slave\nhad become a free man for all the ordinary purposes of society. He bought\nand sold. He saved as he willed, he invested, he built, he drained at his\ndiscretion, and if he improved the land it was to his own profit.\n\nMeanwhile, side by side with this emancipation of mankind in the direct\nline of descent from the old chattel slaves of the Roman villa went, in the\nMiddle Ages, a crowd of institutions which all similarly made for a\ndistribution of property, and for the destruction of even the fossil\nremnants of a then forgotten Servile State. Thus industry of every kind in\nthe towns, in transport, in crafts, and in commerce, was organised in the\nform of _Guilds_. And a Guild was a society partly co-operative, but in the\nmain composed of private owners of capital whose corporation was\nself-governing, and was designed to check competition between its members:\nto prevent the growth of one at the expense of the other. Above all, most\njealously did the Guild safeguard the division of property, so that there\nshould be formed within its ranks no proletariat upon the one side, and no\nmonopolising capitalist upon the other.\n\nThere was a period of apprenticeship at a man's entry into a Guild, during\nwhich he worked for a master; but in time he became a master in his turn.\nThe existence of such corporations as the normal units of industrial\nproduction, of commercial effort, and of the means of transport, is proof\nenough of what the social spirit was which had also enfranchised the\nlabourer upon the land. And while such institutions flourished side by side\nwith the no longer servile village communities, freehold or absolute\npossession of the soil, as distinguished from the tenure of the serf under\nthe lord, also increased.\n\nThese three forms under which labour was exercised the serf, secure in his\nposition, and burdened only with regular dues, which were but a fraction of\nhis produce; the freeholder, a man independent save for money dues, which\nwere more of a tax than a rent; the Guild, in which well-divided capital\nworked co-operatively for craft production, for transport and for\ncommerce--all three between them were making for a society which should be\nbased upon the principle of property. All, or most,--the normal\nfamily--should own. And on ownership the freedom of the State should\nrepose.\n\nThe State, as the minds of men envisaged it at the close of this process,\nwas an agglomeration of families of varying wealth, but by far the greater\nnumber owners of the means of production. It was an agglomeration in which\nthe stability of this _distributive_ system (as I have called it) was\nguaranteed by the existence of co-operative bodies, binding men of the same\ncraft or of the same village together; guaranteeing the small proprietor\nagainst loss of his economic independence, while at the same time it\nguaranteed society against the growth of a proletariat. If liberty of\npurchase and of sale, of mortgage and of inheritance was restricted, it was\nrestricted with the social object of preventing the growth of an economic\noligarchy which could exploit the rest of the community. The restraints\nupon liberty were restraints designed for the preservation of liberty; and\nevery action of Mediaeval Society, from the flower of the Middle Ages to\nthe approach of their catastrophe, was directed towards the establishment\nof a State in which men should be economically free through the possession\nof capital and of land.\n\nSave here and there in legal formulae, or in rare patches isolated and\neccentric, the Servile Institution had totally disappeared; nor must it be\nimagined that anything in the nature of Collectivism had replaced it. There\nwas common land, but it was common land jealously guarded by men who were\nalso personal proprietors of other land. Common property in the village was\nbut one of the forms of property, and was used rather as the fly-wheel to\npreserve the regularity of the co-operative machine than as a type of\nholding in any way peculiarly sacred. The Guilds had property in common,\nbut that property was the property necessary to their co-operative life,\ntheir Halls, their Funds for Relief, their Religious Endowments. As for the\ninstruments of their trades, those instruments were owned by the individual\nmembers, _not_ by the guild, save where they were of so expensive a kind as\nto necessitate a corporate control.\n\nSuch was the transformation which had come over European society in the\ncourse of ten Christian centuries. Slavery had gone, and in its place had\ncome that establishment of free possession which seemed so normal to men,\nand so consonant to a happy human life. No particular name was then found\nfor it. To-day, and now that it has disappeared, we must construct an\nawkward one, and say that the Middle Ages had instinctively conceived and\nbrought into existence the /Distributive State/.\n\nThat excellent consummation of human society passed, as we know, and was in\ncertain Provinces of Europe, but more particularly in Britain, destroyed.\n\nFor a society in which the determinant mass of families were owners of\ncapital and of land; for one in which production was regulated by\nself-governing corporations of small owners; and for one in which the\nmisery and insecurity of a proletariat was unknown, there came to be\nsubstituted the dreadful moral anarchy against which all moral effort is\nnow turned, and which goes by the name of _Capitalism_.\n\nHow did such a catastrophe come about? Why was it permitted, and upon what\nhistorical process did the evil batten? What turned an England economically\nfree into the England which we know to-day, of which at least one-third is\nindigent, of which nineteen-twentieths are dispossessed of capital and of\nland, and of which the whole industry and national life is controlled upon\nits economic side by a few chance directors of millions, a few masters of\nunsocial and irresponsible monopolies?\n\nThe answer most usually given to this fundamental question in our history,\nand the one most readily accepted, is that this misfortune came about\nthrough a material process known as the _Industrial Revolution_. The use of\nexpensive machinery, the concentration of industry and of its implements\nare imagined to have enslaved, in some blind way, apart from the human\nwill, the action of English mankind.\n\nThe explanation is wholly false. No such material cause determined the\ndegradation from which we suffer.\n\nIt was the deliberate action of men, evil will in a few and apathy of will\namong the many, which produced a catastrophe as human in its causes and\ninception as in its vile effect.\n\nCapitalism was not the growth of the industrial movement, nor of chance\nmaterial discoveries. A little acquaintance with history and a little\nstraightforwardness in the teaching of it would be enough to prove that.\n\nThe Industrial System was a growth proceeding from Capitalism, not its\ncause. Capitalism was here in England before the Industrial System came\ninto being;--before the use of coal and of the new expensive machinery, and\nof the concentration of the implements of production in the great towns.\nHad Capitalism not been present before the Industrial Revolution, that\nrevolution might have proved as beneficent to Englishmen as it has proved\nmaleficent. But Capitalism--that is, the ownership by a few of the springs\nof life--was present long before the great discoveries came. It warped the\neffect of these discoveries and new inventions, and it turned them from a\ngood into an evil thing. It was not machinery that lost us our freedom; it\nwas the loss of a free mind.\n\n\n\n\nSection Four\nHow the Distributive State Failed\n\n\nWith the close of the middle ages the societies of Western Christendom and\nEngland among the rest were economically free.\n\nProperty was an institution native to the State and enjoyed by the great\nmass of its citizens. Co-operative institutions, voluntary regulations of\nlabour, restricted the completely independent use of property by its owners\nonly in order to keep that institution intact and to prevent the absorption\nof small property by great.\n\nThis excellent state of affairs which we had reached after many centuries\nof Christian development, and in which the old institution of slavery had\nbeen finally eliminated from Christendom, did not everywhere survive. In\nEngland in particular it was ruined. The seeds of the disaster were sown in\nthe sixteenth century. Its first apparent effects came to light in the\nseventeenth. During the eighteenth century England came to be finally,\nthough insecurely, established upon a proletarian basis, that is, it had\nalready become a society of rich men possessed of the means of production\non the one hand, and a majority dispossessed of those means upon the other.\nWith the nineteenth century the evil plant had come to its maturity, and\nEngland had become before the close of that period a purely Capitalist\nState, the type and model of Capitalism for the whole world: with the means\nof production tightly held by a very small group of citizens, and the whole\ndetermining mass of the nation dispossessed of capital and land, and\ndispossessed, therefore, in all cases of security, and in many of\nsufficiency as well. The mass of Englishmen, still possessed of political,\nlacked more and more the elements of economic, freedom, and were in a worse\nposture than free citizens have ever found themselves before in the history\nof Europe.\n\nBy what steps did so enormous a catastrophe fall upon us?\n\nThe first step in the process consisted in the mishandling of a great\neconomic revolution which marked the sixteenth century. The lands and the\naccumulated wealth of the monasteries were taken out of, the hands of their\nold possessors with the intention of vesting them in the Crown--but they\npassed, as a fact, not into the hands of the Crown, but into the hands of\nan already wealthy section of the community who, after the change was\ncomplete, became in the succeeding hundred years the governing power of\nEngland.\n\nThis is what happened:--\n\nThe England of the early sixteenth century, the England over which Henry\nVIII inherited his powerful Crown in youth, though it was an England in\nwhich the great mass of men owned the land they tilled and the houses in\nwhich they dwelt, and the implements with which they worked, was yet an\nEngland in which these goods, though widely distributed, were distributed\nunequally.\n\nThen, as now, the soil and its fixtures were the basis of all wealth, but\nthe proportion between the value of the soil and its fixtures and the value\nof other means of production (implements, stores of clothing and of\nsubsistence, etc.) was different from what it is now. The land and the\nfixtures upon it formed a very much larger fraction of the totality of the\nmeans of production than they do to-day. They represent to-day not one-half\nthe total means of production of this country, and though they are the\nnecessary foundation for all wealth production, yet our great machines, our\nstores of food and clothing, our coal and oil, our ships and the rest of\nit, come to more than the true value of the land and of the fixtures upon\nthe land: they come to more than the arable soil and the pasture, the\nconstructional value of the houses, wharves and docks, and so forth. In the\nearly sixteenth century the land and the fixtures upon it came, upon the\ncontrary, to very much more than all other forms of wealth combined.\n\nNow this form of wealth was here, more than in any other Western European\ncountry, already in the hands of a wealthy land-owning class at the end of\nthe Middle Ages.\n\nIt is impossible to give exact statistics, because none were gathered, and\nwe can only make general statements based upon inference and research. But,\nroughly speaking, we may say that of the total value of the land and its\nfixtures, probably rather more than a quarter, though less than a third,\nwas in the hands of this wealthy class.\n\nThe England of that day was mainly agricultural, and consisted of more than\nfour, but less than six million people, and in every agricultural community\nyou would have the Lord, as he was legally called (the squire, as he was\nalready conversationally termed), in possession of more demesne land than\nin any other country. On the average you found him, I say, owning in this\nabsolute fashion rather more than a quarter, perhaps a third of the land of\nthe village: in the towns the distribution was more even. Sometimes it was\na private individual who was in this position, sometimes a corporation, but\nin every village you would have found this demesne land absolutely owned by\nthe political head of the village, occupying a considerable proportion of\nits acreage. The rest, though distributed as property among the less\nfortunate of the population, and carrying with it houses and implements\nfrom which they could not be dispossessed, paid certain dues to the Lord,\nand, what was more, the Lord exercised local justice. This class of wealthy\nlandowners had been also for now one hundred years the Justices upon whom\nlocal administration depended.\n\nThere was no reason why this state of affairs should not gradually have led\nto the rise of the Peasant and the decay of the Lord. That is what happened\nin France, and it might perfectly well have happened here. A peasantry\neager to purchase might have gradually extended their holdings at the\nexpense of the demesne land, and to the distribution of property, which was\nalready fairly complete, there might have been added another excellent\nelement, namely, the more equal possession of that property. But any such\nprocess of gradual buying by the small man from the great, such as would\nseem natural to the temper of us European people, and such as has since\ntaken place nearly everywhere in countries which were left free to act upon\ntheir popular instincts, was interrupted in this country by an artificial\nrevolution of the most violent kind. This artificial revolution consisted\nin the seizing of the monastic lands by the Crown.\n\nIt is important to grasp clearly the nature of this operation, for the\nwhole economic future of England was to flow from it.\n\nOf the _demesne_ lands, and the power of local administration which they\ncarried with them (a very important feature, as we shall see later), rather\nmore than a quarter were in the hands of the Church; the Church was\ntherefore the \"Lord\" of something over 25 per cent. say 28 per cent. or\nperhaps nearly 30 per cent. of English agricultural communities, and the\noverseers of a like proportion of all English agricultural produce. The\nChurch was further the absolute owner in practice of something like 30 per\ncent. of the demesne land in the villages, and the receiver of something\nlike 30 per cent. of the customary dues, etc., paid by the smaller owners\nto the greater. All this economic power lay until 1535 in the hands of\nCathedral Chapters, communities of monks and nuns, educational\nestablishments conducted by the clergy, and so forth.\n\nWhen the Monastic lands were confiscated by Henry VIII, not the whole of\nthis vast economic influence was suddenly extinguished. The secular clergy\nremained endowed, and most of the educational establishments, though\nlooted, retained some revenue; but though the whole 30 per cent. did not\nsuffer confiscation, something well over 20 per cent. did, and the\nrevolution effected by this vast operation was by far the most complete,\nthe most sudden, and the most momentous of any that has taken place in the\neconomic history of any European people.\n\nIt was at first _intended_ to retain this great mass of the means of\nproduction in the hands of the Crown: that must be clearly remembered by\nany student of the fortunes of England, and by all who marvel at the\ncontrast between the old England and the new.\n\nHad that intention been firmly maintained, the English State and its\ngovernment would have been the most powerful in Europe.\n\nThe Executive (which in those days meant the _King_) would have had a\ngreater opportunity for crushing the resistance of the wealthy, for backing\nits political power with economic power, and for ordering the social life\nof its subjects than any other executive in Christendom.\n\nHad Henry VIII and his successors kept the land thus confiscated, the power\nof the French Monarchy, at which we are astonished, would have been nothing\nto the power of the English.\n\nThe King of England would have had in his own hands an instrument of\ncontrol of the most absolute sort. He would presumably have used it, as a\nstrong central government always does, for the weakening of the wealthier\nclasses, and to the indirect advantage of the mass of the people. At any\nrate, it would have been a very different England indeed from the England\nwe know, if the King had held fast to his own after the dissolution of the\nmonasteries.\n\nNow it is precisely here that the capital point in this great revolution\nappears. _The King failed to keep the lands he had seized._ That class of\nlarge landowners which already existed and controlled, as I have said,\nanything from a quarter to a third of the agricultural values of England,\nwere too strong for the monarchy. They insisted upon land being granted to\nthemselves, sometimes freely, sometimes for ridiculously small sums, and\nthey were strong enough in Parliament, and through the local administrative\npower they had, to see that their demands were satisfied. Nothing that the\nCrown let go ever went back to the Crown, and year after year more and more\nof what had once been the monastic land became the absolute possession of\nthe large landowners.\n\nObserve the effect of this. All over England men who already held in\nvirtually absolute property from one-quarter to one-third of the soil and\nthe ploughs and the barns of a village, became possessed in a very few\nyears of a further great section of the means of production, which turned\nthe scale wholly in their favour. They added to that third a new and extra\nfifth. They became at a blow the owners of _half_ the land! In many centres\nof capital importance they had come to own _more_ than half the land. They\nwere in many districts not only the unquestioned superiors, but the\neconomic masters of the rest of the community. They could buy to the\ngreatest advantage. They were strictly _competitive_, getting every\nshilling of due and of rent where the old clerical landlords had been\n_customary_--leaving much to the tenant. They began to fill the\nuniversities, the judiciary. The Crown less and less decided between great\nand small. More and more the great could decide in their own favour. They\nsoon possessed by these operations the bulk of the means of production, and\nthey immediately began the process of eating up the small independent men\nand gradually forming those great estates which, in the course of a few\ngenerations, became identical with the village itself. All over England you\nmay notice that the great squires' houses date from this revolution or\nafter it. The manorial house, the house of the local great man as it was in\nthe Middle Ages, survives here and there to show of what immense effect\nthis revolution was. The low-timbered place with its steadings and\noutbuildings, only a larger farmhouse among the other farmhouses, is turned\nafter the Reformation and thenceforward into a palace. Save where great\ncastles (which were only held of the Crown and not owned) made an\nexception, the pre-Reformation gentry lived as men richer than, but not the\nmasters of, other farmers around them. _After_ the Reformation there began\nto arise all over England those great \"country houses\" which rapidly became\nthe typical centres of English agricultural life.\n\nThe process was in full swing before Henry died. Unfortunately for England,\nhe left as his heir a sickly child, during the six years of whose reign,\nfrom 1547 to 1553, the loot went on at an appalling rate. When he died and\nMary came to the throne it was nearly completed. A mass of new families had\narisen, wealthy out of all proportion to anything which the older England\nhad known, and bound by a common interest to the older families which had\njoined in the grab. Every single man who sat in Parliament for a country\nrequired his price for voting the dissolution of the monasteries; every\nsingle man received it. A list of the members of the Dissolution Parliament\nis enough to prove this, and, apart from their power in Parliament, this\nclass had a hundred other ways of insisting on their will. The Howards\n(already of some lineage), the Cavendishes, the Cecils, the Russels, and\nfifty other new families thus rose upon the ruins of religion; and the\nprocess went steadily on until, about one hundred years after its\ninception, the whole face of England was changed.\n\nIn the place of a powerful Crown disposing of revenues far greater than\nthat of any subject, you had a Crown at its wit's end for money, and\ndominated by subjects some of whom were its equals in wealth, and who\ncould, especially through the action of Parliament (which they now\ncontrolled), do much what they willed with Government.\n\nIn other words, by the first third of the seventeenth century, by 1630--40,\nthe economic revolution was finally accomplished, and the new economic\nreality thrusting itself upon the old traditions of England was a powerful\noligarchy of large owners overshadowing an impoverished and dwindled\nmonarchy.\n\nOther causes had contributed to this deplorable result. The change in the\nvalue of money had hit the Crown very hard;[2] the peculiar history of the\nTudor family, their violent passions, their lack of resolution and of any\ncontinuous policy, to some extent the character of Charles I himself, and\nmany another subsidiary cause may be quoted. But the great main fact upon\nwhich the whole thing is dependent is the fact that the Monastic Lands, at\nleast a fifth of the wealth of the country, had been transferred to the\ngreat landowners, and that this transference had tipped the scale over\nentirely in their favour as against the peasantry.\n\nThe diminished and impoverished Crown could no longer stand. It fought\nagainst the new wealth, the struggle of the Civil Wars; it was utterly\ndefeated; and when a final settlement was arrived at in 1660, you have all\nthe realities of power in the hands of a small powerful class of wealthy\nmen, the King still surrounded by the forms and traditions of his old\npower, but in practice a salaried puppet. And in that economic world which\nunderlies all political appearances, the great dominating note was that a\nfew wealthy families had got hold of the bulk of the means of production in\nEngland, while the same families exercised all local administrative power\nand were moreover the Judges, the Higher Education, the Church, and the\ngenerals. They quite overshadowed what was left of central government in\nthis country.\n\nTake, as a starting-point for what followed, the date 1700. By that time\nmore than half of the English were dispossessed of capital and of land. Not\none man in two, even if you reckon the very small owners, inhabited a house\nof which he was the secure possessor, or tilled land from which he could\nnot be turned off.\n\nSuch a proportion may seem to us to-day a wonderfully free arrangement, and\ncertainly if nearly one-half of our population were possessed of the means\nof production, we should be in a very different situation from that in\nwhich we find ourselves. But the point to seize is that, though the bad\nbusiness was very far from completion in or about the year 1700, yet by\nthat date England had already become /Capitalist/. She had already\npermitted a vast section of her population to become _proletarian_, and it\nis this and _not_ the so-called \"Industrial Revolution,\" a later thing,\nwhich accounts for the terrible social condition in which we find ourselves\nto-day.\n\nHow true this is what I still have to say in this section will prove.\n\nIn an England thus already cursed with a very large proletariat class, and\nin an England already directed by a dominating Capitalist class, possessing\nthe means of production, there came a great industrial development.\n\nHad that industrial development come upon a people economically free, it\nwould have taken a co-operative form. Coming as it did upon a people which\nhad already largely lost its economic freedom, it took at its very origin a\n_Capitalist_ form, and this form it has retained, expanded, and perfected\nthroughout two hundred years.\n\nIt was in England that the Industrial System arose. It was in England that\nall its traditions and habits were formed; and because the England in which\nit arose was already a Capitalist England, modern Industrialism, wherever\nyou see it at work to-day, having spread from England, has proceeded upon\nthe Capitalist model.\n\nIt was in 1705 that the first practical steam-engine, Newcomen's, was set\nto work. The life of a man elapsed before this invention was made, by\nWatt's introduction of the condenser, into the great instrument of\nproduction which has transformed our industry--but in those sixty years all\nthe origins of the Industrial System are to be discovered. It was just\nbefore Watt's patent that Hargreaves' spinning-jenny appeared. Thirty years\nearlier, Abraham Darby of Colebrook Dale, at the end of a long series of\nexperiments which had covered more than a century, smelted iron-ore\nsuccessfully with coke. Not twenty years later, King introduced the flying\nshuttle, the first great improvement in the hand-loom; and in general the\nperiod covered by such a life as that of Dr Johnson, born just after\nNewcomen's engine was first set working, and dying seventy-four years\nafterwards, when the Industrial System was in full blast, covers that great\ntransformation of England. A man who, as a child, could remember the last\nyears of Queen Anne, and who lived to the eve of the French Revolution, saw\npassing before his eyes the change which transformed English society and\nhas led it to the expansion and peril in which we see it to-day.\n\nWhat was the characteristic mark of that half-century and more? Why did the\nnew inventions give us the form of society now known and hated under the\nname of Industrial? Why did the vast increase in the powers of production,\nin population and in accumulation of wealth, turn the mass of Englishmen\ninto a poverty-stricken proletariat, cut off the rich from the rest of the\nnation, and develop to the full all the evils which we associate with the\nCapitalist State?\n\nTo that question an answer almost as universal as it is unintelligent has\nbeen given. That answer is not only unintelligent but false, and it will be\nmy business here to show how false it is. The answer so provided in\ninnumerable textbooks, and taken almost as commonplace in our universities,\nis that the new methods of production--the new machinery, the new\nimplements--fatally and of themselves developed a Capitalist State in which\na few should own the means of production and the mass should be\nproletariat. The new instruments, it is pointed out, were on so vastly\ngreater a scale than the old, and were so much more expensive, that the\nsmall man could not afford them; while the rich man, who could afford them,\nate up by his competition, and reduced from the position of a small owner\nto that of a wage-earner, his insufficiently equipped competitor who still\nattempted to struggle on with the older and cheaper tools. To this (we are\ntold) the advantages of concentration were added in favour of the large\nowner against the small. Not only were the new instruments expensive almost\nin proportion to their efficiency, but, especially after the introduction\nof steam, they were efficient in proportion to their concentration in few\nplaces and under the direction of a few men. Under the effect of such false\narguments as these we have been taught to believe that the horrors of the\nIndustrial System were a blind and necessary product of material and\nimpersonal forces, and that wherever the steam engine, the power loom, the\nblast furnace and the rest were introduced, there fatally would soon appear\na little group of owners exploiting a vast majority of the dispossessed.\n\nIt is astonishing that a statement so unhistorical should have gained so\ngeneral a credence. Indeed, were the main truths of English history taught\nin our schools and universities to-day, were educated men familiar with the\ndetermining and major facts of the national past, such follies could never\nhave taken root. The vast growth of the proletariat, the concentration of\nownership into the hands of a few owners, and the exploitation by those\nowners of the mass of the community, had no fatal or necessary connection\nwith the discovery of new and perpetually improving methods of production.\nThe evil proceeded indirect historical sequence, proceeded patently and\ndemonstrably, from the fact that England, the seed-plot of the Industrial\nSystem, was _already_ captured by a wealthy oligarchy _before_ the series\nof great discoveries began.\n\nConsider in what way the Industrial System developed upon Capitalist lines.\nWhy were a few rich men put with such ease into possession of the new\nmethods? Why was it normal and natural in their eyes and in that of\ncontemporary society that those who produced the new wealth with the new\nmachinery should be proletarian and dispossessed? Simply because the\nEngland upon which the new discoveries had come was _already_ an England\nowned as to its soil and accumulations of wealth by a small minority: it\nwas _already_ an England in which perhaps half of the whole population was\nproletarian, and a medium for exploitation ready to hand.\n\nWhen any one of the new industries was launched it had to be _capitalised_;\nthat is, accumulated wealth from some source or other had to be found which\nwould support labour in the process of production until that process should\nbe complete. Someone must find the corn and the meat and the housing and\nthe clothing by which should be supported, between the extraction of the\nraw material and the moment when the consumption of the finished article\ncould begin, the human agents which dealt with that raw material and turned\nit into the finished product. Had property been well distributed, protected\nby co-operative guilds fenced round and supported by custom and by the\nautonomy of great artisan corporations, those accumulations of wealth,\nnecessary for the launching of each new method of production and for each\nnew perfection of it, would have been discovered in the mass of small\nowners. _Their_ corporations, _their_ little parcels of wealth combined\nwould have furnished the _capitalisation_ required for the new processes,\nand men already owners would, as one invention succeeded another, have\nincreased the total wealth of the community without disturbing the balance\nof distribution. There is no conceivable link in reason or in experience\nwhich binds the capitalisation of a new process with the idea of a few\nemploying owners and a mass of employed non-owners working at a wage. Such\ngreat discoveries coming in a society like that of the thirteenth century\nwould have blest and enriched mankind. Coming upon the diseased moral\nconditions of the eighteenth century in this country, they proved a curse.\n\nTo whom could the new industry turn for capitalisation? The small owner had\nalready largely disappeared. The corporate life and mutual obligations\nwhich had supported him and confirmed him in his property had been broken\nto pieces by no \"economic development,\" but by the deliberate action of the\nrich. He was ignorant because his schools had been taken from him and the\nuniversities closed to him. He was the more ignorant because the common\nlife which once nourished his social sense and the co-operative\narrangements which had once been his defence had disappeared. When you\nsought an accumulation of corn, of clothing, of housing, of fuel as the\nindispensable preliminary to the launching of your new industry; when you\nlooked round for someone who could find the accumulated wealth necessary\nfor these considerable experiments, you had to turn to the class which had\nalready monopolised the bulk of the means of production in England. The\nrich men alone could furnish you with those supplies.\n\nNor was this all. The supplies once found and the adventure \"capitalised,\"\nthat form of human energy which lay best to hand, which was indefinitely\nexploitable, weak, ignorant, and desperately necessitous, ready to produce\nfor you upon almost any terms, and glad enough if you would only keep it\nalive, was the existing proletariat which the new plutocracy had created\nwhen, in cornering the wealth of the country after the Reformation, they\nhad thrust out the mass of Englishmen from the possession of implements, of\nhouses, and of land.\n\nThe rich class, adopting some new process of production for its private\ngain, worked it upon those lines of mere competition which its avarice had\nalready established. Co-operative tradition was dead. Where would it find\nits cheapest labour? Obviously among the proletariat--not among the\nremaining small owners. What class would increase under the new wealth?\nObviously the proletariat again, without responsibilities, with nothing to\nleave to its progeny; and as they swelled the capitalist's gain, they\nenabled him with increasing power to buy out the small owner and send him\nto swell by another tributary the proletarian mass.\n\nIt was upon this account that the Industrial Revolution, as it is called,\ntook in its very origins the form which has made it an almost unmixed curse\nfor the unhappy society in which it has flourished. The rich, already\npossessed of the accumulations by which that industrial change could alone\nbe nourished, inherited all its succeeding accumulations of implements and\nall its increasing accumulations of subsistence. The factory system,\nstarting upon a basis of capitalist and proletariat, grew in the mould\nwhich had determined its origins. With every new advance the capitalist\nlooked for proletariat grist to feed the productive mill. Every\ncircumstance of that society, the form in which the laws that governed\nownership and profit were cast, the obligations of partners, the relations\nbet ween \"master\" and \"man,\" directly made for the indefinite expansion of\na subject, formless, wage-earning class controlled by a small body of\nowners, which body would tend to become smaller and richer still, and to be\npossessed of power ever greater and greater as the bad business unfolded.\n\nThe spread of economic oligarchy was everywhere, and not in industry alone.\nThe great landlords destroyed deliberately and of set purpose and to their\nown ad vantage the common rights over common land. The small plutocracy\nwith which they were knit up, and with whose mercantile elements they were\nnow fused, directed everything to its own ends. That strong central\ngovernment which should protect the community against the rapacity of a few\nhad gone generations before. Capitalism triumphant wielded all the\nmechanism of legislation and of information too. It still holds them; and\nthere is not an example of so-called \"Social Reform\" to-day which is not\ndemonstrably (though often subconsciously) directed to the further\nentrenchment and confirmation of an industrial society in which it is taken\nfor granted that a few shall own, that the vast majority shall live at a\nwage under them, and that all the bulk of Englishmen may hope for is the\namelioration of their lot by regulations and by control from above--but not\nby property; not by freedom.\n\nWe all feel--and those few of us who have analysed the matter not only feel\nbut know--that the Capitalist society thus gradually developed from its\norigins in the capture of the land four hundred years ago has reached its\nterm. It is almost self-evident that it cannot continue in the form which\nnow three generations have known, and it is equally self-evident that some\nsolution must be found for the intolerable and increasing instability with\nwhich it has poisoned our lives. But before considering the solutions\nvariously presented by various schools of thought, I shall in my next\nsection show how and why the English Capitalist Industrial System is thus\nintolerably unstable and consequently presents an acute problem which must\nbe solved under pain of social death.\n\n* * * * *\n\nIt must be noted that modern Industrialism has spread to many other centres\nfrom England. It bears everywhere the features stamped upon it by its\norigin in this country.\n\n\n\n\nSection Five\nThe Capitalist State in Proportion as It Grows Perfect Grows Unstable\n\n\nFrom the historical digression which I have introduced by way of\nillustrating my subject in the last two sections I now return to the\ngeneral discussion of my thesis and to the logical process by which it may\nbe established.\n\n* * * * *\n\nThe Capitalist State is unstable, and indeed more properly a transitory\nphase lying between two permanent and stable states of society.\n\nIn order to appreciate why this is so, let us recall the definition of the\nCapitalist State:--\n\n\"A society in which the ownership of the means of production is confined to\na body of free citizens, not large enough to make up properly a general\ncharacter of that society, while the rest are dispossessed of the means of\nproduction, and are therefore proletarian, we call _Capitalist_.\"\n\nNote the several points of such a state of affairs. You have private\nownership; but it is not private ownership distributed in many hands and\nthus familiar as an institution to society as a whole. Again, you have the\ngreat majority dispossessed but at the same time citizens, that is, men\npolitically free to act, though economically impotent; again, though it is\nbut an inference from our definition, it is a necessary inference that\nthere will be under Capitalism a conscious, direct, and planned\n_exploitation_ of the majority, the free citizens who do not own by the\nminority who are owners. For wealth must be produced: the whole of that\ncommunity must live: and the possessors can make such terms with the\nnon-possessors as shall make it certain that a portion of what the\nnon-possessors have produced shall go to the possessors.\n\nA society thus constituted cannot endure. It cannot endure because it is\nsubject to two very severe strains: strains which increase in severity in\nproportion as that society becomes more thoroughly Capitalist. The first of\nthese strains arises from the divergence between the moral theories upon\nwhich the State reposes and the social facts which those moral theories\nattempt to govern. The second strain arises from the insecurity to which\nCapitalism condemns the great mass of society, and the general character of\nanxiety and peril which it imposes upon all citizens, but in particular\nupon the majority, which consists, under Capitalism, of dispossessed free\nmen.\n\nOf these two strains it is impossible to say which is the gravest. Either\nwould be enough to destroy a social arrangement in which it was long\npresent. The two combined make that destruction certain; and there is no\nlonger any doubt that Capitalist society must transform itself into some\nother and more stable arrangement. It is the object of these pages to\ndiscover what that stable arrangement will probably be.\n\n* * * * *\n\nWe say that there is a moral strain already intolerably severe and growing\nmore severe with every perfection of Capitalism.\n\nThis moral strain comes from a contradiction between the realities of\nCapitalist and the moral base of our laws and traditions.\n\nThe moral base upon which our laws are still administered and our\nconventions raised presupposes a state composed of free citizens. Our laws\ndefend property as a normal institution with which all citizens are\nacquainted, and which all citizens respect. It punishes theft as an\nabnormal incident only occurring when, through evil motives, one free\ncitizen acquires the property of another without his knowledge and against\nhis will. It punishes fraud as another abnormal incident in which, from\nevil motives, one free citizen induces another to part with his property\nupon false representations. It enforces contract, the sole moral base of\nwhich is the freedom of the two contracting parties, and the power of\neither, if it so please him, not to enter into a contract which, once\nentered into, must be enforced. It gives to an owner the power to leave his\nproperty by will, under the conception that such ownership and such passage\nof property (to natural heirs as a rule, but exceptionally to any other\nwhom the testator may point out) is the normal operation of a society\ngenerally familiar with such things, and finding them part of the domestic\nlife lived by the mass of its citizens. It casts one citizen in damages if\nby any wilful action he has caused loss to another--for it presupposes him\nable to pay.\n\nThe sanction upon which social life reposes is, in our moral theory, the\nlegal punishment enforceable in our Courts, and the basis presupposed for\nthe security and material happiness of our citizens is the possession of\ngoods which shall guarantee us from anxiety and permit us an independence\nof action in the midst of our fellowmen.\n\nNow contrast all this, the moral theory upon which society is still\nperilously conducted, the moral theory to which Capitalism itself turns for\nsuccour when it is attacked, contrast, I say, its formulae and its\npresuppositions with the social reality of a Capitalist State such as is\nEngland to-day.\n\nProperty remains as an instinct perhaps with most of the citizens; as an\nexperience and a reality it is unknown to nineteen out of twenty. One\nhundred forms of fraud, the necessary corollary of unrestrained competition\nbetween a few and of unrestrained avarice as the motive controlling\nproduction, are not or cannot be punished: petty forms of violence in theft\nand of cunning in fraud the laws can deal with, but they cannot deal with\nthese alone. Our legal machinery has become little more than an engine for\nprotecting the few owners against the necessities, the demands, or the\nhatred of the mass of their dispossessed fellow-citizens. The vast bulk of\nso-called \"free\" contracts are to-day leonine contracts: arrangements which\none man was free to take or to leave, but which the other man was not free\nto take or to leave, because the second had for his alternative starvation.\n\nMost important of all, the fundamental social fact of our movement, far\nmore important than any security afforded by law, or than any machinery\nwhich the State can put into action, is the fact that livelihood is at the\nwill of the possessors. It can be granted by the possessors to the\nnon-possessors, or it can be withheld. The real sanction in our society for\nthe arrangements by which it is conducted is not punishment enforceable by\nthe Courts, but the withholding of _livelihood_ from the dispossessed by\nthe possessors. Most men now fear the loss of employment more than they\nfear legal punishment, and the discipline under which men are coerced in\ntheir modern forms of activity in England is the fear of dismissal. The\ntrue master of the Englishman to-day is not the Sovereign nor the officers\nof State, nor, save indirectly, the laws; his true master is the\nCapitalist.\n\nOf these main truths everyone is aware; and anyone who sets out to deny\nthem does so to-day at the peril of his reputation either for honesty or\nfor intelligence.\n\nIf it be asked why things have come to a head so late (Capitalism having\nbeen in growth for so long), the answer is that England, even now the most\ncompletely Capitalist State of the modern world, did not itself become a\ncompletely Capitalist State until the present generation. Within the memory\nof men now living half England was agricultural, with relations domestic\nrather than competitive between the various human factors to production.\n\nThis moral strain, therefore, arising from the divergence between what our\nlaws and moral phrases pretend, and what our society actually is, makes of\nthat society an utterly unstable thing.\n\nThis spiritual thesis is of far greater gravity than the narrow materialism\nof a generation now passing might imagine. Spiritual conflict is more\nfruitful of instability in the State than conflict of any other kind, and\nthere is acute spiritual conflict, conflict in every man's conscience and\nill-ease throughout the commonwealth when the realities of society are\ndivorced from the moral base of its institution.\n\nThe second strain which we have noted in Capitalism, its second element of\ninstability, consists in the fact that Capitalism destroys security.\n\n* * * * *\n\nExperience is enough to save us any delay upon this main point of our\nmatter. But even without experience we could reason with absolute certitude\nfrom the very nature of Capitalism that its chief effect would be the\ndestruction of security in human life.\n\nCombine these two elements: the ownership of the means of production by a\nvery few; the political freedom of owners and non-owners alike. There\nfollows immediately from that combination a competitive market wherein the\nlabour of the non-owner fetches just what it is worth, not as full\nproductive power, but as productive power which will leave a surplus to the\nCapitalist. It fetches nothing when the labourer cannot work, more in\nproportion to the pace at which he is driven; less in middle age than in\nyouth; less in old age than in middle age; nothing in sickness; nothing in\ndespair.\n\nA man in a position to accumulate (the normal result of human labour), a\nman founded upon property in sufficient amount and in established form is\nno more productive in his non-productive moments than is a proletarian; but\nhis life is balanced and regulated by his reception of rent and interest as\nwell as wages. Surplus values come to him, and are the fly-wheel balancing\nthe extremes of his life and carrying him over his bad times. With a\nproletarian it cannot be so. The aspect from Capital looks at a human being\nwhose labour it proposes to purchase cuts right across that normal aspect\nof human life from which we all regard our own affections, duties, and\ncharacter. A man thinks of himself, of his chances and of his security\nalong the line of his own individual existence from birth to death. Capital\npurchasing his labour (and not the man himself) purchases but a\ncross-section of his life, his moments of activity. For the rest, he must\nfend for himself; but to fend for yourself when you have nothing is to\nstarve.\n\nAs a matter of fact, where a few possess the means of production perfectly\nfree political conditions are impossible. A perfect Capitalist State cannot\nexist, though we have come nearer to it in modern England than other and\nmore fortunate nations had thought possible. In the perfect Capitalist\nState there would be no food available for the non-owner save when he was\nactually engaged in Production, and that absurdity would, by quickly ending\nall human lives save those of the owners, put a term to the arrangement. If\nyou left men completely free under a Capitalist system, there would be so\nheavy a mortality from starvation as would dry up the sources of labour in\na very short time.\n\nImagine the dispossessed to be ideally perfect cowards, the possessors to\nconsider nothing whatsoever except the buying of their labour in the\ncheapest market--and the system would break down from the death of children\nand of out-o'-works and of women. You would not have a State in mere\ndecline such as ours is. You would have a State manifestly and patently\nperishing.\n\nAs a fact, of course, Capitalism cannot proceed to its own logical extreme.\nSo long as the political freedom of all citizens is granted the freedom of\nthe few possessors of food to grant or withhold it, of the many\nnon-possessors to strike any bargain at all, lest they lack it: to exercise\nsuch freedom fully is to starve the very young, the old, the impotent, and\nthe despairing to death. Capitalism must keep alive, by non Capitalist\nmethods, great masses of the population who would otherwise starve to\ndeath; and that is what Capitalism was careful to do to an increasing\nextent as it got a stronger and a stronger grip upon the English people.\nElizabeth's Poor Law at the beginning of the business, the Poor Law of\n1834, coming at a moment when nearly half England had passed into the grip\nof Capitalism, are original and primitive instances: there are to-day a\nhundred others.\n\nThough this cause of insecurity--the fact that the possessors have no\ndirect incentive to keep men alive--is logically the most obvious, and\nalways the most enduring under a Capitalist system, there is another cause\nmore poignant in its effect upon human life. That other cause is the\ncompetitive anarchy in production which restricted ownership coupled with\nfreedom involves. Consider what is involved by the very process of\nproduction where the implements and the soil are in the hands of a few\nwhose motive for causing the proletariat to produce is not the use of the\nwealth created but the enjoyment by those possessors of surplus value or\n\"profit.\"\n\n* * * * *\n\nIf full political freedom be allowed to any two such possessors of\nimplements and stores, each will actively watch his market, attempt to\nundersell the other, tend to overproduce at the end of some season of extra\ndemand for his article, thus glut the market only to suffer a period of\ndepression afterwards--and so forth. Again, the Capitalist, free,\nindividual director of production, will miscalculate; sometimes he will\nfail, and his works will be shut down. Again, a mass of isolated,\nimperfectly instructed competing units cannot but direct their clashing\nefforts at an enormous waste, and that waste will fluctuate. Most\ncommissions, most advertisements, most parades, are examples of this waste.\nIf this waste of effort could be made a constant, the parasitical\nemployment it afforded would be a constant too. But of its nature it is a\nmost inconstant thing, and the employment it affords is therefore\nnecessarily precarious. The concrete translation of this is the insecurity\nof the commercial traveller, the advertising agent, the insurance agent,\nand every form of touting and cozening which competitive Capitalism carries\nwith it.\n\nNow here again, as in the case of the insecurity produced by age and\nsickness, Capitalism cannot be pursued to its logical conclusion, and it is\nthe element of freedom which suffers. Competition is, as a fact, restricted\nto an increasing extent by an understanding between the competitors,\naccompanied, especially in this country, by the ruin of the smaller\ncompetitor through secret conspiracies entered into by the larger men, and\nsupported by the secret political forces of the State.[3] In a word,\nCapitalism, proving almost as unstable to the owners as to the non-owners,\nis tending towards stability by losing its essential character of political\nfreedom. No better proof of the instability of Capitalism as a system could\nbe desired.\n\nTake any one of the numerous Trusts which now control English industry, and\nhave made of modern England the type, quoted throughout the Continent, of\nartificial monopolies. If the full formula of Capitalism were accepted by\nour Courts and our executive statesmen, anyone could start a rival\nbusiness, undersell those Trusts and shatter the comparative security they\nafford to industry within their field. The reason that no one does this is\nthat political freedom is not, as a fact, protected here by the Courts in\ncommercial affairs. A man attempting to compete with one of our great\nEnglish Trusts would find himself at once undersold. He might, by all the\nspirit of European law for centuries, indict those who would ruin him,\nciting them for a conspiracy in restraint of trade; of this conspiracy he\nwould find the judge and the politicians most heartily in support.\n\nBut it must always be remembered that these conspiracies in restraint of\ntrade which are the mark of modern England are in themselves a mark of the\ntransition from the true Capitalist phase to another.\n\nUnder the essential conditions of Capitalism--under a perfect political\nfreedom--such conspiracies would be punished by the Courts for what they\nare: to wit, a contravention of the fundamental doctrine of political\nliberty. For this doctrine, while it gives any man the right to make any\ncontract he chooses with any labourer and offer the produce at such prices\nas he sees fit, also involves the protection of that liberty by the\npunishment of any conspiracy that may have monopoly for its object. If such\nperfect freedom is no longer attempted, if monopolies are permitted and\nfostered, it is because the unnatural strain to which freedom, coupled with\nrestricted ownership, gives rise, the insecurity of its mere competition,\nthe anarchy of its productive methods have at last proved intolerable.\n\nI have already delayed more than was necessary in this section upon the\ncauses which render a Capitalist State essentially unstable.\n\nI might have treated the matter empirically, taking for granted the\nobservation which all my readers must have made, that Capitalism is as a\nfact doomed, and that the Capitalist State has already passed into its\nfirst phase of transition.\n\nWe are clearly no longer possessed of that absolutely political freedom\nwhich true Capitalism essentially demands. The insecurity involved, coupled\nwith the divorce between our traditional morals and the facts of society,\nhave already introduced such novel features as the permission of conspiracy\namong both possessors and non-possessors, the compulsory provision of\nsecurity through State action, and all these reforms, implicit or explicit,\nthe tendency of which I am about to examine.\n\n\n\n\nSection Six\nThe Stable Solutions of This Instability\n\n\nGiven a capitalist state, of its nature unstable, it will tend to reach\nstability by some method or another.\n\nIt is the definition of unstable equilibrium that a body in unstable\nequilibrium is seeking a stable equilibrium. For instance, a pyramid\nbalanced upon its apex is in unstable equilibrium; which simply means that\na slight force one way or the other will make it fall into a position where\nit will repose. Similarly, certain chemical mixtures are said to be in\nunstable equilibrium when their constituent parts have such affinity one\nfor another that a slight shock may make them combine and transform the\nchemical arrangement of the whole. Of this sort are explosives.\n\nIf the Capitalist State is in unstable equilibrium, this only means that it\nis seeking a stable equilibrium, and that Capitalism cannot but be\ntransformed into some other arrangement wherein Society may repose.\n\nThere are but three social arrangements which can replace Capitalism:\nSlavery, Socialism, and Property.\n\nI may imagine a mixture of any two of these three or of all the three, but\neach is a dominant type, and from the very nature of the problem no fourth\narrangement can be devised.\n\nThe problem turns, remember, upon the control of the means of production.\nCapitalism means that this control is vested in the hands of few, while\npolitical freedom is the appanage of all. If this anomaly cannot endure,\nfrom its insecurity and from its own contradiction with its presumed moral\nbasis, you must either have a transformation of the one or of the other of\nthe two elements which combined have been found unworkable. These two\nfactors are (1) The ownership of the means of Production by a few; (2) The\nFreedom of all. To solve Capitalism you must get rid of restricted\nownership, or of freedom, or of both. Now there is only one alternative to\nfreedom, which is the negation of it. Either a man is free to work and not\nto work as he pleases, or he may be liable to a legal compulsion to work,\nbacked by the forces of the State. In the first he is a free man; in the\nsecond he is by definition a slave. We have, therefore, so far as this\nfactor of freedom is concerned, no choice between a number of changes, but\nonly the opportunity of one, to wit, the establishment of slavery in place\nof freedom. Such a solution, the direct, immediate, and conscious\nre-establishment of slavery, would provide a true solution of the problems\nwhich Capitalism offers. It would guarantee, under workable regulations,\nsufficiency and security for the dispossessed. Such a solution, as I shall\nshow, is the probable goal which our society will in fact approach. To its\nimmediate and conscious acceptance, however, there is an obstacle.\n\nA direct and conscious establishment of slavery as a solution to the\nproblem of Capitalism, the surviving Christian tradition of our\ncivilisation compels men to reject. No reformer will advocate it; no\nprophet dares take it as yet for granted. All theories of a reformed\nsociety will therefore attempt, at first, to leave untouched the factor of\n_Freedom_ among the elements which make up Capitalism, and will concern\nthemselves with some change in the factor of _Property_.[4]\n\nNow, in attempting to remedy the evils of Capitalism by remedying that one\nof its two factors which consists in an ill distribution of property, you\nhave two, and only two, courses open to you.\n\nIf you are suffering because property is restricted to a few, you can alter\nthat factor in the problem _either_ by putting property into the hands of\nmany, or by putting it into the hands of none. There is no third course.\n\nIn the concrete, to put property in the hands of \"none\" means to vest it as\na trust in the hands of political officers. If you say that the evils\nproceeding from Capitalism are due to the institution of property itself,\nand not to the dispossession of the many by the few, then you must forbid\nthe private possession of the means of production by any particular and\nprivate part of the community: but someone must control the means of\nproduction, or we should have nothing to eat. So in practice this doctrine\nmeans the management of the means of production by those who are the public\nofficers of the community. Whether these public officers are themselves\ncontrolled by the community or no has nothing to do with this solution on\nits economic side. The essential point to grasp is that the only\nalternative to private property is public property. Somebody must see to\nthe ploughing and must control the ploughs; otherwise no ploughing will be\ndone.\n\nIt is equally obvious that if you conclude property in itself to be no evil\nbut only the small number of its owners, then your remedy is to increase\nthe number of those owners.\n\nSo much being grasped, we may recapitulate and say that a society like\nours, disliking the name of \"slavery,\" and avoiding a direct and conscious\nre-establishment of the slave status, will necessarily contemplate the\nreform of its ill-distributed ownership on one of two models. The first is\nthe negation of private property and the establishment of what is called\nCollectivism: that is, the management of the means of production by the\npolitical officers of the community. The second is the wider distribution\nof property until that institution shall become the mark of the whole\nState, and until free citizens are normally found to be possessors of\ncapital or land, or both.\n\nThe first model we call _Socialism_ or the Collectivist State; the second\nwe call the Proprietary or Distributive State.\n\nWith so much elucidated, I will proceed to show in my next section why the\nsecond model, involving the redistribution of property, is rejected as\nimpracticable by our existing Capitalist Society, and why, therefore, the\nmodel chosen by reformers is the first model, that of a Collectivist State.\n\nI shall then proceed to show that at its first inception all Collectivist\nReform is necessarily deflected and evolves, in the place of what it had\nintended, a new thing: a society wherein the owners remain few and wherein\nthe proletarian mass accepts security at the expense of servitude.\n\n* * * * *\n\nHave I made myself clear?\n\nIf not, I will repeat for the third time, and in its briefest terms, the\nformula which is the kernel of my whole thesis.\n\nThe Capitalist State breeds a Collectivist Theory which _in action_\nproduces something utterly different from Collectivism: to wit, the\n/Servile State/.\n\n\n\n\nSection Seven\nSocialism Is the Easiest Apparent Solution of the Capitalist Crux\n\n\nI say that the line of least resistance, if it be followed, leads a\nCapitalist State to transform itself into a Servile State.\n\nI propose to show that this comes about from the fact that not a\n_Distributive_ but a _Collectivist_ solution is the easiest for a\nCapitalist State to aim at, and that yet, in the very act of attempting\n_Collectivism_, what results is not Collectivism at all, but the servitude\nof the many, and the confirmation in their present privilege of the few;\nthat is, the Servile State.\n\n* * * * *\n\nMen to whom the institution of slavery is abhorrent propose for the remedy\nof Capitalism one of two reforms.\n\nEither they would put property into the hands of most citizens, so dividing\nland and capital that a determining number of families in the State were\npossessed of the means of production; or they would put those means of\nproduction into the hands of the political officers of the community, to be\nheld in trust for the advantage of all.\n\nThe first solution may be called the attempted establishment of the\n/Distributive State/. The second may be called the attempted establishment\nof the /Collectivist State/.\n\nThose who favour the first course are the Conservatives or Traditionalists.\nThey are men who respect and would, if possible, preserve the old forms of\nChristian European life. They know that property was thus distributed\nthroughout the State during the happiest periods of our past history; they\nalso know that where it is properly distributed to-day, you have greater\nsocial sanity and ease than elsewhere. In general, those who would\nre-establish, if possible, the Distributive State in the place of, and as a\nremedy for, the vices and unrest of Capitalism, are men concerned with\nknown realities, and having for their ideal a condition of society which\nexperience has tested and proved both stable and good. They are then, of\nthe two schools of reformers, the more _practical_ in the sense that they\ndeal more than do the Collectivists (called also Socialists) with things\nwhich either are or have been in actual existence. But they are less\npractical in another sense (as we shall see in a moment) from the fact that\nthe stage of the disease with which they are dealing does not readily lend\nitself to such a reaction as they propose.\n\nThe Collectivist, on the other hand, proposes to put land and capital into\nthe hands of the political officers of the community, and this on the\nunderstanding that they shall hold such land and capital in trust for the\nadvantage of the community. In making this proposal he is evidently dealing\nwith a state of things hitherto imaginary, and his ideal is not one that\nhas been tested by experience, nor one of which our race and history can\nfurnish instances. In this sense, therefore, he is the _less_ practical of\nthe two reformers. His ideal cannot be discovered in any past, known, and\nrecorded phase of our society. We cannot examine Socialism in actual\nworking, nor can we say (as we can say of well-divided property): \"On such\nand such an occasion, in such and such a period of European history,\nCollectivism was established and produced both stability and happiness in\nsociety.\"\n\nIn this sense, therefore, the Collectivist is far less practical than the\nreformer who desires well-distributed property.\n\nOn the other hand, there is a sense in which this Socialist is more\npractical than that other type of reformer, from the fact that the stage of\nthe disease into which we have fallen apparently admits of his remedy with\nless shock than it admits of a reaction towards well-divided property.\n\nFor example: the operation of buying out some great tract of private\nownership to-day (as a railway or a harbour company) with public funds,\ncontinuing its administration by publicly paid officials and converting its\nrevenue to public use, is a thing with which we are familiar and which\nseemingly might be indefinitely multiplied. Individual examples of such\ntransformation of waterworks, gas, tramways, from a Capitalist to a\nCollectivist basis are common, and the change does not disturb any\nfundamental thing in our society. When a private Water company or Tramway\nline is bought by some town and worked thereafter in the interests of the\npublic, the transaction is effected without any perceptible friction,\ndisturbs the life of no private citizen, and seems in every way normal to\nthe society in which it takes place.\n\nUpon the contrary, the attempt to create a large number of shareholders in\nsuch enterprises and artificially to substitute many partners, distributed\nthroughout a great number of the population, in the place of the original\nfew capitalist owners, would prove lengthy and at every step would arouse\nopposition, would create disturbance, would work at an expense of great\nfriction, and would be imperilled by the power of the new and many owners\nto sell again to a few.\n\nIn a word, the man who desires to re-establish property as an institution\nnormal to most citizens in the State is _working against the grain_ of our\nexisting Capitalist society, while a man who desires to establish\nSocialism--that is Collectivism--is working _with_ the grain of that\nsociety. The first is like a physician who should say to a man whose limbs\nwere partially atrophied from disuse: \"Do this and that, take such and such\nexercise, and you will recover the use of your limbs.\" The second is like a\nphysician who should say: \"You cannot go on as you are. Your limbs are\natrophied from lack of use. Your attempt to conduct yourself as though they\nwere not is useless and painful; you had better make up your mind to be\nwheeled about in a fashion consonant to your disease.\" The Physician is the\nReformer, his Patient the Proletariat.\n\nIt is not the purpose of this book to show how and under what difficulties\na condition of well-divided property might be restored and might take the\nplace (even in England) of that Capitalism which is now no longer either\nstable or tolerable; but for the purposes of contrast and to emphasise my\nargument I will proceed, before showing how the Collectivist unconsciously\nmakes for the Servile State, to show what difficulties surround the\nDistributive solution and why, therefore, the Collectivist solution appeals\nso much more readily to men living under Capitalism.\n\n* * * * *\n\nIf I desire to substitute a number of small owners for a few large ones in\nsome particular enterprise, how shall I set to work?\n\nI might boldly confiscate and redistribute at a blow. But by what process\nshould I choose the new owners? Even supposing that there was some\nmachinery whereby the justice of the new distribution could be assured, how\ncould I avoid the enormous and innumerable separate acts of injustice that\nwould attach to general redistributions? To say \"none shall own\" and to\nconfiscate is one thing; to say \"all should own\" and apportion ownership is\nanother. Action of this kind would so disturb the whole network of economic\nrelations as to bring ruin at once to the whole body politic, and\nparticularly to the smaller interests indirectly affected. In a society\nsuch as ours a catastrophe falling upon the State from outside might\nindirectly do good by making such a redistribution possible. But no one\nworking from within the State could provoke that catastrophe without\nruining his own cause.\n\nIf, then, I proceed more slowly and more rationally and canalise the\neconomic life of society so that small property shall gradually be built up\nwithin it, see against what forces of inertia and custom I have to work\nto-day in a Capitalist society!\n\nIf I desire to benefit small savings at the expense of large, I must\nreverse the whole economy under which interest is paid upon deposits\nto-day. It is far easier to save \u00a3100 out of a revenue of \u00a31,000 than to\nsave \u00a310 out of a revenue of \u00a3100. It is infinitely easier to save \u00a310 out\nof a revenue of \u00a3100 than \u00a35 out of a revenue of \u00a350. To build up small\nproperty through thrift when once the Mass have fallen into the proletarian\ntrough is impossible unless you deliberately subsidise small savings,\noffering them a reward which, in competition, they could never obtain; and\nto do this the whole vast arrangement of credit must be worked backwards.\nOr, let the policy be pursued of penalising undertakings with few owners,\nof heavily taxing large blocks of shares and of subsidising with the\nproduce small holders in proportion to the smallness of their holding. Here\nagain you are met with the difficulty of a vast majority who cannot even\nbid for the smallest share.\n\nOne might multiply instances of the sort indefinitely, but the strongest\nforce against the distribution of ownership in a society already permeated\nwith Capitalist modes of thought is still the moral one: Will men want to\nown? Will officials, administrators, and lawmakers be able to shake off the\npower which under Capitalism seems normal to the rich? If I approach, for\ninstance, the works of one of our great Trusts, purchase it with public\nmoney, bestow, even as a gift, the shares thereof to its workmen, can I\ncount upon any tradition of property in their midst which will prevent\ntheir squandering the new wealth? Can I discover any relics of the\nco-operative instinct among such men? Could I get managers and organisers\nto take a group of poor men seriously or to serve them as they would serve\nrich men? Is not the whole psychology of a Capitalist society divided\nbetween the proletarian mass which thinks in terms not of property but of\n\"employment,\" and the few owners who are alone familiar with the machinery\nof administration?\n\nI have touched but very briefly and superficially upon this matter, because\nit needs no elaboration. Though it is evident that with a sufficient will\nand a sufficient social vitality property could be restored, it is evident\nthat all efforts to restore it have in a Capitalist society such as our own\na note of oddity, of doubtful experiment, of being uncoordinated with other\nsocial things around them, which marks the heavy handicap under which any\nsuch attempt must proceed. It is like recommending elasticity to the aged.\n\nOn the other hand, the Collectivist experiment is thoroughly suited (in\nappearance at least) to the Capitalist society which it proposes to\nreplace. It works with the existing machinery of Capitalism, talks and\nthinks in the existing terms of Capitalism, appeals to just those appetites\nwhich Capitalism has aroused, and ridicules as fantastic and unheard-of\njust those things in society the memory of which Capitalism has killed\namong men wherever the blight of it has spread.\n\nSo true is all this that the stupider kind of Collectivist will often talk\nof a \"Capitalist phase\" of society as the necessary precedent to a\n\"Collectivist phase.\" A trust or monopoly is welcomed because it \"furnishes\na mode of transition from private to public ownership.\" Collectivism\npromises employment to the great mass who think of production only in terms\nof employment. It promises to its workmen the security which a great and\nwell-organised industrial Capitalist unit (like one of our railways) can\ngive through a system of pensions, regular promotion, etc., but that\nsecurity vastly increased through the fact that it is the State and not a\nmere unit of the State which guarantees it. Collectivism would administer,\nwould pay wages, would promote, would pension off, would fine--and all the\nrest of it--exactly as the Capitalist State does to-day. The proletarian,\nwhen the Collectivist (or Socialist) State is put before him, perceives\nnothing in the picture save certain ameliorations of his present position.\nWho can imagine that if, say, two of our great industries, Coal and\nRailways, were handed over to the State tomorrow, the armies of men\norganised therein would find any change in the character of their lives,\nsave in some increase of security and possibly in a very slight increase of\nearnings?\n\nThe whole scheme of Collectivism presents, so far as the proletarian mass\nof a Capitalist State is concerned, nothing unknown at all, but a promise\nof some increment in wages and a certainty of far greater ease of mind.\n\nTo that small minority of a Capitalist society which owns the means of\nproduction, Collectivism will of course appear as an enemy, but, even so,\nit is an enemy which they understand and an enemy with whom they can treat\nin terms common both to that enemy and to themselves. If, for instance, the\nState proposes to take over such and such a trust now paying 4 per cent.\nand believes that under State management it will make the trust pay 5 per\ncent. then the transference takes the form of a business proposition: the\nState is no harder to the Capitalists taken over than was Mr Yerkes to the\nUnderground. Again, the State, having greater credit and longevity, can (it\nwould seem)[5] \"buy out\" any existing Capitalist body upon favourable\nterms. Again, the discipline by which the State would enforce its rules\nupon the proletariat it employed would be the same rules as those by which\nthe Capitalist imposes discipline in his own interests to-day.\n\nThere is in the whole scheme which proposes to transform the Capitalist\ninto the Collectivist State no element of reaction, the use of no term with\nwhich a Capitalist society is not familiar, the appeal to no instinct,\nwhether of cowardice, greed, apathy, or mechanical regulation, with which a\nCapitalist community is not amply familiar.\n\nIn general, if modern Capitalist England were made by magic a State of\nsmall owners, we should all suffer an enormous revolution. We should marvel\nat the insolence of the poor, at the laziness of the contented, at the\nstrange diversities of task, at the rebellious, vigorous personalities\ndiscernible upon every side. But if this modern Capitalist England could,\nby a process sufficiently slow to allow for the readjustment of individual\ninterests, be transformed into a Collectivist State, the apparent change at\nthe end of that transition would not be conspicuous to the most of us, and\nthe transition itself should have met with no shocks that theory can\ndiscover. The insecure and hopeless margin below the regularly paid ranks\nof labour would have disappeared into isolated workplaces of a penal kind:\nwe should hardly miss them. Many incomes now involving considerable duties\nto the State would have been replaced by incomes as large or larger,\ninvolving much the same duties and bearing only the newer name of salaries.\nThe small shop-keeping class would find itself in part absorbed under\npublic schemes at a salary, in part engaged in the old work of distribution\nat secure incomes; and such small owners as are left, of boats, of farms,\neven of machinery, would perhaps know the new state of things into which\nthey had survived through nothing more novel than some increase in the\nirritating system of inspection and of onerous petty taxation: they are\nalready fairly used to both.\n\nThis picture of the natural transition from Capitalism to Collectivism\nseems so obvious that many Collectivists in a generation immediately past\nbelieved that nothing stood between them and the realisation of their ideal\nsave the unintelligence of mankind. They had only to argue and expound\npatiently and systematically for the great transformation to become\npossible. They had only to continue arguing and expounding for it at last\nto be realised.\n\nI say, \"of the last generation.\" To-day that simple and superficial\njudgment is getting woefully disturbed. The most sincere and single-minded\nof Collectivists cannot but note that the practical effect of their\npropaganda is not an approach towards the Collectivist State at all, but\ntowards something very different. It is becoming more and more evident that\nwith every new reform--and those reforms commonly promoted by particular\nSocialists, and in a puzzled way blessed by Socialists in general--another\nstate emerges more and more clearly. It is becoming increasingly certain\nthat the attempted transformation of Capitalism into Collectivism is\nresulting not in Collectivism at all, but in some third thing which the\nCollectivist never dreamt of, or the Capitalist either; and that third\nthing is the /Servile/ State: a State, that is, in which the mass of men\nshall be constrained _by law_ to labour to the profit of a minority, but,\nas the price of such constraint, shall enjoy a security which the old\nCapitalism did not give them.\n\nWhy is the apparently simple and direct action of Collectivist reform\ndiverted into so unexpected a channel? And in what new laws and\ninstitutions does modern England in particular and industrial society in\ngeneral show that this new form of the State is upon us?\n\nTo these two questions I will attempt an answer in the two concluding\ndivisions of this book.\n\n\n\n\nSection Eight\nThe Reformers and Reformed Are Alike Making for the Servile State\n\n\nI propose in this section to show how the three interests which between\nthem account for nearly the whole of the forces making for social change in\nmodern England are all necessarily drifting towards the Servile State.\n\nOf these three interests the first two represent the Reformers--the third\nthe people to be Reformed.\n\nThese three interests are, first, the _Socialist_, who is the theoretical\nreformer working along the line of least resistance; secondly, the\n\"_Practical Man_\" who as a \"practical\" reformer depends on his shortness of\nsight, and is therefore to-day a powerful factor; while the third is that\ngreat proletarian mass for whom the change is being effected, and on whom\nit is being imposed. What _they_ are most likely to accept, the way in\nwhich they will react upon new institutions is the most important factor of\nall, for _they_ are the material with and upon which the work is being\ndone.\n\n* * * * *\n\n(1) Of the _Socialist_ Reformer:\n\nI say that men attempting to achieve Collectivism or Socialism as the\nremedy for the evils of the Capitalist State find themselves drifting not\ntowards a Collectivist State at all, but towards a Servile State.\n\nThe Socialist movement, the first of the three factors in this drift, is\nitself made up of two kinds of men: there is (_a_) the man who regards the\npublic ownership of the means of production (and the consequent compulsion\nof all citizens to work under the direction of the State) as the only\nfeasible solution of our modern social ills. There is also (_b_) the man\nwho loves the Collectivist ideal in itself, who does not pursue it so much\nbecause it is a solution of modern Capitalism, as because it is an ordered\nand regular form of society which appeals to him in itself. He loves to\nconsider the ideal of a State in which land and capital shall be held by\npublic officials who shall order other men about and so preserve them from\nthe consequences of _their_ vice, ignorance, and folly.\n\nThese types are perfectly distinct, in many respects antagonistic, and\nbetween them they cover the whole Socialist movement.\n\nNow imagine either of these men at issue with the existing state of\nCapitalist society and attempting to transform it. Along what line of least\nresistance will either be led?\n\n* * * * *\n\n(_a_) The first type will begin by demanding the confiscation of the means\nof production from the hands of their present owners, and the vesting of\nthem in the State. But wait a moment. That demand is an exceedingly hard\nthing to accomplish. The present owners have between them and confiscation\na stony moral barrier. It is what _most_ men would call the moral basis of\nproperty (the instinct that property is a _right_), and what _all_ men\nwould admit to be at least a deeply rooted tradition. Again, they have\nbehind them the innumerable complexities of modern ownership.\n\nTo take a very simple case. Decree that all common lands enclosed since so\nlate a date as 1760 shall revert to the public. There you have a very\nmoderate case and a very defensible one. But conceive for a moment how many\nsmall freeholds, what a nexus of obligation and benefit spread over\nmillions, what thousands of exchanges, what purchases made upon the\ndifficult savings of small men such a measure would wreck! It is\nconceivable, for, in the moral sphere, society can do anything to society;\nbut it would bring crashing down with it twenty times the wealth involved\nand all the secure credit of our community. In a word, the thing is, in the\nconversational use of that term, impossible. So your best type of Socialist\nreformer is led to an expedient which I will here only mention--as it must\nbe separately considered at length later on account of its fundamental\nimportance--the expedient of \"_buying out_\" the present owner.\n\nIt is enough to say in this place that the attempt to \"buy out\" without\nconfiscation is based upon an economic error. This I shall prove in its\nproper place. For the moment I assume it and pass on to the rest of my\nreformer's action.\n\nHe does not confiscate, then; at the most he \"buys out\" (or attempts to\n\"buy out\") certain sections of the means of production.\n\nBut this action by no means covers the whole of his motive. By definition\nthe man is out to cure what he sees to be the great immediate evils of\nCapitalist society. He is out to cure the destitution which it causes in\ngreat multitudes and the harrowing insecurity which it imposes upon all. He\nis out to substitute for Capitalist society a society in which men shall\nall be fed, clothed, housed, and in which men shall not live in a perpetual\njeopardy of their housing, clothing, and food.\n\nWell, there is a way of achieving that without confiscation.\n\nThis reformer rightly thinks that the ownership of the means of production\nby a few has caused the evils which arouse his indignation and pity. But\nthey have only been so caused on account of a combination of such limited\nownership with universal freedom. The combination of the two is the very\ndefinition of the Capitalist State. It is difficult indeed to dispossess\nthe possessors. It is by no means so difficult (as we shall see again when\nwe are dealing with the mass whom these changes will principally affect) to\nmodify the factor of freedom.\n\nYou can say to the Capitalist: \"I desire to dispossess you, and meanwhile I\nam determined that your employees shall live tolerable lives.\" The\nCapitalist replies: \"I refuse to be dispossessed, and it is, short of\ncatastrophe, impossible to dispossess me. But if you will define the\nrelation between my employees and myself, I will undertake particular\nresponsibilities due to my position. Subject the proletarian, as a\nproletarian, and because he is a proletarian, to special laws. Clothe me,\nthe Capitalist, as a Capitalist, and because I am a Capitalist, with\nspecial converse duties under those laws. I will faithfully see that they\nare obeyed; I will compel my employees to obey them, and I will undertake\nthe new role imposed upon me by the State. Nay, I will go further, and I\nwill say that such a novel arrangement will make my own profits perhaps\nlarger and certainly more secure.\"\n\nThis idealist social reformer, therefore, finds the current of his demand\ncanalised. As to one part of it, confiscation, it is checked and barred; as\nto the other, securing human conditions for the proletariat, the gates are\nopen. Half the river is dammed by a strong weir, but there is a sluice, and\nthat sluice can be lifted. Once lifted, the whole force of the current will\nrun through the opportunity so afforded it; there will it scour and deepen\nits channel; there will the main stream learn to run.\n\nTo drop the metaphor, all those things in the true Socialist's demand which\nare compatible with the Servile State can certainly be achieved. The first\nsteps towards them are already achieved. They are of such a nature that\nupon them can be based a further advance in the same direction, and the\nwhole Capitalist State can be rapidly and easily transformed into the\nServile State, satisfying in its transformation the more immediate claims\nand the more urgent demands of the social reformer whose ultimate objective\nindeed may be the public ownership of capital and land, but whose driving\npower is a burning pity for the poverty and peril of the masses.\n\nWhen the transformation is complete there will be no ground left, nor any\ndemand or necessity, for public ownership. The reformer only asked for it\nin order to secure security and sufficiency: he has obtained his demand.\n\nHere are security and sufficiency achieved by another and much easier\nmethod, consonant with and proceeding from the Capitalist phase immediately\npreceding it: there is no need to go further.\n\nIn this way the Socialist whose motive is human good and not mere\norganisation is being shepherded in spite of himself _away_ from his\nCollectivist ideal and _towards_ a society in which the possessors shall\nremain possessed, the dispossessed shall remain dispossessed, in which the\nmass of men shall still work for the advantage of a few, and in which those\nfew shall still enjoy the surplus values produced by labour, but in which\nthe special evils of insecurity and insufficiency, in the main the product\nof freedom, have been eliminated by the destruction of freedom.\n\nAt the end of the process you will have two kinds of men, the owners\neconomically free, and controlling to their peace and to the guarantee of\ntheir livelihood the economically unfree non-owners. But that is the\nServile State.\n\n* * * * *\n\n(_b_) The second type of socialist reformer may be dealt with more briefly.\nIn him the exploitation of man by man excites no indignation. Indeed, he is\nnot of a type to which indignation or any other lively passion is familiar.\nTables, statistics, an exact framework for life--these afford him the food\nthat satisfies his moral appetite; the occupation most congenial to him is\nthe \"running\" of men: as a machine is run.\n\nTo such a man the Collectivist ideal particularly appeals.\n\nIt is orderly in the extreme. All that human and organic complexity which\nis the colour of any vital society offends him by its infinite\ndifferentiation. He is disturbed by multitudinous things; and the prospect\nof a vast bureaucracy wherein the whole of life shall be scheduled and\nappointed to certain simple schemes deriving from the coordinate work of\npublic clerks and marshalled by powerful heads of departments gives his\nsmall stomach a final satisfaction.\n\nNow this man, like the other, would prefer to begin with public property in\ncapital and land, and upon that basis to erect the formal scheme which so\nsuits his peculiar temperament. (It need hardly be said that in his vision\nof a future society he conceives of himself as the head of at least a\ndepartment and possibly of the whole State--but that is by the way.) But\nwhile he would prefer to begin with a Collectivist scheme ready-made, he\nfinds in practice that he cannot do so. He would have to confiscate just as\nthe more hearty Socialist would; and if that act is very difficult to the\nman burning at the sight of human wrongs, how much more difficult is it to\na man impelled by no such motive force and directed by nothing more intense\nthan a mechanical appetite for regulation?\n\nHe cannot confiscate or begin to confiscate. At the best he will \"buy out\"\nthe Capitalist.\n\nNow, in his case, as in the case of the more human Socialist, \"buying out\"\nis, as I shall show in its proper place, a system impossible of general\napplication.\n\nBut all those other things for which such a man cares much more than he\ndoes for the socialisation of the means of production--tabulation, detailed\nadministration of men, the co-ordination of many efforts under one\nschedule, the elimination of all private power to react against his\nDepartment, all these are immediately obtainable without disturbing the\nexisting arrangement of society. With him, precisely as with the other\nsocialist, what he desires can be reached without any dispossession of the\nfew existing possessors. He has but to secure the registration of the\nproletariat; next to ensure that neither they in the exercise of their\nfreedom, nor the employer in the exercise of his, can produce insufficiency\nor insecurity--and he is content. Let laws exist which make the proper\nhousing, feeding, clothing, and recreation of the proletarian mass be\nincumbent upon the possessing class, and the observance of such rules be\nimposed, by inspection and punishment, upon those whom he pretends to\nbenefit, and all that he really cares for will be achieved.\n\nTo such a man the Servile State is hardly a thing towards which he drifts,\nit is rather a tolerable alternative to his ideal Collectivist State, which\nalternative he is quite prepared to accept and regards favourably. Already\nthe greater part of such reformers who, a generation ago, would have called\nthemselves \"Socialists\" are now less concerned with any scheme for\nsocialising Capital and Land than with innumerable schemes actually\nexisting, some of them possessing already the force of laws, for\nregulating, \"running,\" and drilling the proletariat without trenching by an\ninch upon the privilege in implements, stores, and land enjoyed by the\nsmall Capitalist class.\n\nThe so-called \"Socialist\" of this type has not fallen into the Servile\nState by a miscalculation. He has fathered it; he welcomes its birth, he\nforesees his power over its future.\n\nSo much for the Socialist movement, which a generation ago proposed to\ntransform our Capitalist society into one where the community should be the\nuniversal owner and all men equally economically free or unfree under its\ntutelage. To-day their ideal has failed, and of the two sources whence\ntheir energy proceeded, the one is reluctantly, the other gladly,\nacquiescent in the advent of a society which is not Socialist at all but\nServile.\n\n* * * * *\n\n(2) Of the _Practical_ Reformer:\n\nThere is another type of Reformer, one who prides himself on _not_ being a\nsocialist, and one of the greatest weight to-day. He also is making for the\nServile State. This second factor in the change is the \"Practical Man\"; and\nthis fool, on account of his great numbers and determining influence in the\ndetails of legislation, must be carefully examined.\n\nIt is your \"Practical Man\" who says: \"Whatever you theorists and\ndoctrinaires may hold with regard to this proposal (which I support),\nthough it may offend some abstract dogma of yours, yet _in practice_ you\nmust admit that it does good. If you had _practical_ experience of the\nmisery of the Jones' family, or had done _practical_ work yourself in\nPudsey, you would have seen that a _practical_ man,\" etc.\n\nIt is not difficult to discern that the Practical Man in social reform is\nexactly the same animal as the Practical Man in every other department of\nhuman energy, and may be discovered suffering from the same twin\ndisabilities which stamp the Practical Man where-ever found: these twin\ndisabilities are an inability to define his own first principles and an\ninability to follow the consequences proceeding from his own action. Both\nthese disabilities proceed from one simple and deplorable form of\nimpotence, the inability to think.\n\nLet us help the Practical Man in his weakness and do a little thinking for\nhim.\n\nAs a social reformer he has of course (though he does not know it) first\nprinciples and dogmas like all the rest of us, and _his_ first principles\nand dogmas are exactly the same as those which his intellectual superiors\nhold in the matter of social reform. The two things intolerable to him as a\ndecent citizen (though a very stupid human being) are _insufficiency_ and\n_insecurity_. When he was \"working\" in the slums of Pudsey or raiding the\nproletarian Jones's from the secure base of Toynbee Hall, what shocked the\nworthy man most was \"unemployment\" and \"destitution\": that is, insecurity\nand insufficiency in flesh and blood.\n\nNow, if the Socialist who has thought out his case, whether as a mere\norganiser or as a man hungering and thirsting after justice, is led away\nfrom Socialism and towards the Servile State by the force of modern things\nin England, how much more easily do you not think the \"Practical Man\" will\nbe conducted towards that same Servile State, like any donkey to his\ngrazing ground? To those dull and shortsighted eyes the immediate solution\nwhich even the beginnings of the Servile State propose are what a declivity\nis to a piece of brainless matter. The piece of brainless matter rolls down\nthe declivity, and the Practical Man lollops from Capitalism to the Servile\nState with the same inevitable ease. Jones has not got enough. If you give\nhim something in charity, that something will be soon consumed, and then\nJones will again not have enough. Jones has been seven weeks out of work.\nIf you get him work \"under our unorganised and wasteful system, etc.,\" he\nmay lose it just as he lost his first jobs. The slums of Pudsey, as the\nPractical Man knows by Practical experience, are often unemployable. Then\nthere are \"the ravages of drink\": more fatal still the dreadful habit\nmankind has of forming families and breeding children. The worthy fellow\nnotes that \"as a practical matter of fact such men do not work unless you\nmake them.\"\n\nHe does not, because he cannot, coordinate all these things. He knows\nnothing of a society in which free men were once owners, nor of the\nco-operative and instinctive institutions for the protection of ownership\nwhich such a society spontaneously breeds. He \"takes the world as he finds\nit\"--and the consequence is that whereas men of greater capacity may admit\nwith different degrees of reluctance the general principles of the Servile\nState, _he_, the Practical Man, positively gloats on every new detail in\nthe building up of that form of society. And the destruction of freedom by\ninches (though he does not see it to be the destruction of freedom) is the\none panacea so obvious that he marvels at the doctrinaires who resist or\nsuspect the process.\n\nIt has been necessary to waste so much time on this deplorable individual\nbecause the circumstances of our generation give him a peculiar power.\nUnder the conditions of modern exchange a man of that sort enjoys great\nadvantages. He is to be found as he never was in any other society before\nour own, possessed of wealth, and political as never was any such citizen\nuntil our time. Of history with all its lessons; of the great schemes of\nphilosophy and religion, of human nature itself he is blank.\n\nThe Practical Man left to himself would not produce the Servile State. He\nwould not produce anything but a welter of anarchic restrictions which\nwould lead at last to some kind of revolt.\n\nUnfortunately, he is not left to himself. He is but the ally or flanking\nparty of great forces which he does nothing to oppose, and of particular\nmen, able and prepared for the work of general change, who use him with\ngratitude and contempt. Were he not so numerous in modern England, and,\nunder the extraordinary conditions of a Capitalist State, so economically\npowerful, I would have neglected him in this analysis. As it is, we may\nconsole ourselves by remembering that the advent of the Servile State, with\nits powerful organisation and necessity for lucid thought in those who\ngovern, will certainly eliminate him.\n\n* * * * *\n\nOur reformers, then, both those who think and those who do not, both those\nwho are conscious of the process and those who are unconscious of it, are\nmaking directly for the Servile State.\n\n* * * * *\n\n(3) What of the third factor? What of the people about to be reformed? What\nof the millions upon whose carcasses the reformers are at work, and who are\nthe subject of the great experiment? Do they tend, as material, to accept\nor to reject that transformation from free proletarianism to servitude\nwhich is the argument of this book?\n\nThe question is an important one to decide, for upon whether the material\nis suitable or unsuitable for the work to which it is subjected, depends\nthe success of every experiment making for the Servile State.\n\nThe mass of men in the Capitalist State is proletarian. As a matter of\ndefinition, the actual number of the proletariat and the proportion that\nnumber bears to the total number of families in the State may vary, but\nmust be sufficient to determine the general character of the State before\nwe can call that State _Capitalist_.\n\nBut, as we have seen, the Capitalist State is not a stable, and therefore\nnot a permanent, condition of society. It has proved ephemeral; and upon\nthat very account the proletariat in any Capitalist State retains to a\ngreater or less degree some memories of a state of society in which its\nancestors were possessors of property and economically free.\n\nThe strength of this memory or tradition is the first element we have to\nbear in mind in our problem, when we examine how far a particular\nproletariat, such as the English proletariat to-day, is ready to accept the\nServile State, which would condemn it to a perpetual loss of property and\nof all the free habit which property engenders.\n\nNext be it noted that under conditions of freedom the Capitalist class may\nbe entered by the more cunning or the more fortunate of the proletariat\nclass. Recruitment of the kind was originally sufficiently common in the\nfirst development of Capitalism to be a standing feature in society and to\nimpress the imagination of the general. Such recruitment is still possible.\nThe proportion which it bears to the whole proletariat, the chance which\neach member of the proletariat may think he has of escaping from his\nproletarian condition in a particular phase of Capitalism such as is ours\nto-day, is the second factor in the problem.\n\nThe third factor, and by far the greatest of all, is the appetite of the\ndispossessed for that security and sufficiency of which Capitalism, with\nits essential condition of freedom, has deprived them.\n\nNow let us consider the interplay of these three factors in the English\nproletariat as we actually know it at this moment. That proletariat is\ncertainly the great mass of the State: it covers about nineteen-twentieths\nof the population--if we exclude Ireland, where, as I shall point out in my\nconcluding pages, the reaction against Capitalism, and therefore against\nits development towards a Servile State, is already successful.\n\n* * * * *\n\nAs to the first factor, it has changed very rapidly within the memory of\nmen now living. The traditional rights of property are still strong in the\nminds of the English poor. All the moral connotations of that right are\nfamiliar to them. They are familiar with the conception of theft as a\nwrong; they are tenacious of any scraps of property which they may acquire.\nThey could all explain what is meant by ownership, by legacy, by exchange,\nand by gift, and even by contract. There is not one but could put himself\nin the position, mentally, of an owner.\n\nBut the actual experience of ownership, and the effect which that\nexperience has upon character and upon one's view of the State is a very\ndifferent matter. Within the memory of people still living a sufficient\nnumber of Englishmen were owning (as small freeholders, small masters,\netc.) to give to the institution of property coupled with freedom a very\nvivid effect upon the popular mind. More than this, there was a living\ntradition proceeding from the lips of men who could still bear living\ntestimony to the relics of a better state of things. I have myself spoken,\nwhen I was a boy, to old labourers in the neighbourhood of Oxford who had\nrisked their skins in armed protest against the enclosure of certain\ncommons, and who had of course suffered imprisonment by a wealthy judge as\nthe reward of their courage; and I have myself spoken in Lancashire to old\nmen who could retrace for me, either from their personal experience the\nlast phases of small ownership in the textile trade, or, from what their\nfathers had told them, the conditions of a time when small and well-divided\nownership in cottage looms was actually common.\n\nAll that has passed. The last chapter of its passage has been singularly\nrapid. Roughly speaking, it is the generation brought up under the\nEducation Acts of the last forty years which has grown up definitely and\nhopelessly proletarian. The present instinct, use, and meaning of property\nis lost to it: and this has had two very powerful effects, each strongly\ninclining our modern wage-earners to ignore the old barriers which lay\nbetween a condition of servitude and a condition of freedom. The first\neffect is this: that property is no longer what they seek, nor what they\nthink obtainable for themselves. The second effect is that they regard the\npossessors of property as a class apart, whom they always must ultimately\nobey, often envy, and sometimes hate; whose moral right to so singular a\nposition most of them would hesitate to concede, and many of them would now\nstrongly deny, but whose position they, at any rate, accept as a known and\npermanent social fact, the origins of which they have forgotten, and the\nfoundations of which they believe to be immemorial.\n\nTo sum up: The attitude of the proletariat in England to-day (the attitude\nof the overwhelming majority, that is, of English families) towards\nproperty and towards that freedom which is alone obtainable through\nproperty is no longer an attitude of experience or of expectation. They\nthink of themselves as wage-earners. To increase the weekly stipend of the\nwage-earner is an object which they vividly appreciate and pursue. To make\nhim cease to be a wage earner is an object that would seem to them entirely\noutside the realities of life.\n\nWhat of the second factor, the gambling chance which the Capitalist system,\nwith its necessary condition of freedom, of the legal power to bargain\nfully, and so forth, permits to the proletarian of escaping from his\nproletariat surroundings?\n\nOf this gambling chance and the effect it has upon men's minds we may say\nthat, while it has not disappeared, it has very greatly lost in force\nduring the last forty years. One often meets men who tell one, whether they\nare speaking in defence of or against the Capitalist system, that it still\nblinds the proletarian to any common consciousness of class, because the\nproletarian still has the example before him of members of his class, whom\nhe has known, rising (usually by various forms of villainy) to the position\nof capitalist. But when one goes down among the working men themselves, one\ndiscovers that the hope of such a change in the mind of any individual\nworker is now exceedingly remote. Millions of men in great groups of\nindustry, notably in the transport industry and in the mines, have quite\ngiven up such an expectation. Tiny as the chance ever was, exaggerated as\nthe hopes in a lottery always are, that tiny chance has fallen in the\ngeneral opinion of the workers to be negligible, and that hope which a\nlottery breeds is extinguished. The proletarian now regards himself as\ndefinitely proletarian, nor destined within human likelihood to be anything\nbut proletarian.\n\n* * * * *\n\nThese two factors, then, the memory of an older condition of economic\nfreedom, and the effect of a hope individuals might entertain of escaping\nfrom the wage-earning class, the two factors which might act most strongly\n_against_ the acceptation of the Servile State by that class, have so\nfallen in value that they offer but little opposition to the third factor\nin the situation which is making so strongly _for_ the Servile State, and\nwhich consists in the necessity all men acutely feel for sufficiency and\nfor security. It is this third factor alone which need be seriously\nconsidered to-day, when we ask ourselves how far the material upon which\nsocial reform is working, that is, the masses of the people, may be ready\nto accept the change.\n\nThe thing may be put in many ways. I will put it in what I believe to be\nthe most conclusive of all.\n\nIf you were to approach those millions of families now living at a wage,\nwith the proposal for a contract of service for life, guaranteeing them\nemployment at what each regarded as his usual full wage, how many would\nrefuse?\n\nSuch a contract would, of course, involve a loss of freedom: a\nlife-contract of the kind is, to be accurate, no contract at all. It is the\nnegation of contract and the acceptation of status. It would lay the man\nthat undertook it under an obligation of forced labour, coterminous and\ncoincident with his power to labour. It would be a permanent renunciation\nof his right (if such a right exists) to the surplus values created by his\nlabour. If we ask ourselves how many men, or rather how many families,\nwould prefer freedom (with its accompaniments of certain insecurity and\npossible insufficiency) to such a life-contract, no one can deny that the\nanswer is: \"Very few would refuse it.\" That is the key to the whole matter.\n\nWhat proportion would refuse it no one can determine; but I say that even\nas a voluntary offer, and not as a compulsory obligation, a contract of\nthis sort which would for the future destroy contract and re-erect status\nof a servile sort would be thought a boon by the mass of the proletariat\nto-day.\n\nNow take the truth from another aspect--by considering it thus from one\npoint of view and from another we can appreciate it best--Of what are the\nmass of men now most afraid in a Capitalist State? Not of the punishments\nthat can be inflicted by a Court of Law, but of \"the sack.\"\n\nYou may ask a man why he does not resist such and such a legal infamy; why\nhe permits himself to be the victim of fines and deductions from which the\nTruck Acts specifically protect him; why he cannot assert his opinion in\nthis or that matter; why he has accepted, without a blow, such and such an\ninsult.\n\nSome generations ago a man challenged to tell you why he forswore his\nmanhood in any particular regard would have answered you that it was\nbecause he feared punishment at the hands of the law; to-day he will tell\nyou that it is because he fears unemployment.\n\nPrivate law has for the second time in our long European story overcome\npublic law, and the sanctions which the Capitalist can call to the aid of\nhis private rule, by the action of his private will, are stronger than\nthose which the public Courts can impose.\n\nIn the seventeenth century a man feared to go to Mass lest the judges\nshould punish him. To-day a man fears to speak in favour of some social\ntheory which he holds to be just and true lest his master should punish\nhim. To deny the rule of public powers once involved public punishments\nwhich most men dreaded, though some stood out. To deny the rule of private\npowers involves to-day a private punishment against the threat of which\nvery few indeed dare to stand out.\n\nLook at the matter from yet another aspect. A law is passed (let us\nsuppose) which increases the total revenue of a wage-earner, or guarantees\nhim against the insecurity of his position in some small degree. The\nadministration of that law requires, upon the one hand, a close inquisition\ninto the man's circumstances by public officials, and, upon the other hand,\nthe administration of its benefits by that particular Capitalist or group\nof Capitalists whom the wage-earner serves to enrich. Do the Servile\nconditions attaching to this material benefit prevent a proletarian in\nEngland to-day from preferring the benefit to freedom? It is notorious that\nthey do not.\n\nNo matter from what angle you approach the business, the truth is always\nthe same. That great mass of wage-earners upon which our society now\nreposes understands as a present good all that will increase even to some\nsmall amount their present revenue and all that may guarantee them against\nthose perils of insecurity to which they are perpetually subject. They\nunderstand and welcome a good of this kind, and they are perfectly willing\nto pay for that good the corresponding price of control and\nenregimentation, exercised in gradually increasing degree by those who are\ntheir paymasters.\n\n* * * * *\n\nIt would be easy by substituting superficial for fundamental things, or\neven by proposing certain terms and phrases to be used in the place of\nterms and phrases now current it would be easy, I say, by such methods to\nridicule or to oppose the prime truths which I am here submitting. They\nnone the less remain truths.\n\nSubstitute for the term \"employee\" in one of our new laws the term \"serf,\"\neven do so mild a thing as to substitute the traditional term \"master\" for\nthe word \"employer,\" and the blunt words might breed revolt. Impose of a\nsudden the full conditions of a Servile State upon modern England, and it\nwould certainly breed revolt. But my point is that when the foundations of\nthe thing have to be laid and the first great steps taken, there is no\nrevolt; on the contrary, there is acquiescence and for the most part\ngratitude upon the part of the poor. After the long terrors imposed upon\nthem through a freedom unaccompanied by property, they see, at the expense\nof losing a mere legal freedom, the very real prospect of _having enough_\nand _not losing it_.\n\nAll forces, then, are making for the Servile State in this the final phase\nof our evil Capitalist society in England. The generous reformer is\ncanalised towards it; the ungenerous one finds it a very mirror of his\nideal; the herd of \"practical\" men meet at every stage in its inception the\n\"practical\" steps which they expected and demanded; while that proletarian\nmass upon whom the experiment is being tried have lost the tradition of\nproperty and of freedom which might resist the change, and are most\npowerfully inclined to its acceptance by the positive benefits which it\nconfers.\n\nIt may be objected that however true all this may be, no one can, upon such\ntheoretical grounds, regard the Servile State as something really\napproaching us. We need not believe in its advent (we shall be told) until\nwe see the first effects of its action.\n\nTo this I answer that the first effects of its action are already apparent.\nThe Servile State is, in industrial England to-day, no longer a menace but\nsomething in actual existence. It is in process of construction. The first\nmain lines of it are already plotted out; the cornerstone of it is already\nlaid.\n\nTo see the truth of this it is enough to consider laws and projects of law,\nthe first of which we already enjoy, while the last will pass from project\nto positive statute in due process of time.\n\n\nAppendix on \"Buying-Out\"\n\n\nThere is an impression abroad among those who propose to expropriate the\nCapitalist class for the benefit of the State, but who appreciate the\ndifficulties in the way of direct confiscation, that by spreading the\nprocess over a sufficient number of years and pursuing it after a certain\nfashion bearing all the outward appearances of a purchase, the\nexpropriation could be effected without the consequences and attendant\ndifficulties of direct confiscation. In other words, there is an impression\nthat the State could \"buyout\" the Capitalist class without their knowing\nit, and that in a sort of painless way this class can be slowly conjured\nout of existence.\n\nThe impression is held in a confused fashion by most of those who cherish\nit, and will not bear a clear analysis.\n\nIt is impossible by any jugglery to \"buyout\" the universality of the means\nof production without confiscation.\n\nTo prove this, consider a concrete case which puts the problem in the\nsimplest terms:--\n\nA community of twenty-two families lives upon the produce of two farms, the\nproperty of only two families out of that twenty-two.\n\nThe remaining twenty families are Proletarian. The two families, with their\nploughs, stores, land, etc., are Capitalist.\n\nThe labour of the twenty proletarian families applied to the land and\ncapital of these two capitalist families produces 300 measures of wheat, of\nwhich 200 measures, or 10 measures each, form the annual support of the\ntwenty proletarian families; the remaining 100 measures are the surplus\nvalue retained as rent, interest, and profit by the two Capitalist\nfamilies, each of which has thus a yearly income of 50 measures.\n\nThe State proposes to produce, after a certain length of time, a condition\nof affairs such that the surplus values shall no longer go to the two\nCapitalist families, but shall be distributed to the advantage of the whole\ncommunity, while it, the State, shall itself become the unembarrassed owner\nof both farms.\n\nNow capital is accumulated with the object of a certain return as the\nreward of accumulation. Instead of spending his money, a man saves it with\nthe object of retaining as the result of that saving a certain yearly\nrevenue. The measure of this does not fall in a particular society at a\nparticular time below a certain level. In other words, if a man cannot get\na certain minimum reward for his accumulation, he will not accumulate but\nspend.\n\nWhat is called in economics \"The Law of Diminishing Returns\" acts so that\ncontinual additions to capital, other things being equal (that is, the\nmethods of production remaining the same), do not provide a corresponding\nincrease of revenue. A thousand measures of capital applied to a particular\narea of natural forces will produce, for instance, 40 measures yearly, or 4\nper cent.; but 2000 measures applied in the same fashion will not produce\n80 measures. They will produce more than the thousand measures did, but not\nmore in proportion; not double. They will produce, say, 60 measures, or 3\nper cent., upon the capital. The action of this universal principle\nautomatically checks the accumulation of capital when it has reached such a\npoint that the proportionate return is the least which a man will accept.\nIf it falls below that he will spend rather than accumulate. The limit of\nthis minimum in any particular society at any particular time gives the\nmeasure to what we call \"_the Effective Desire of Accumulation_.\" Thus in\nEngland to-day it is a little over 3 per cent. The minimum which limits the\naccumulation of capital is a minimum return of about one-thirtieth yearly\nupon such capital, and this we may call for shortness the \"E.D.A.\" of our\nsociety at the present time.\n\nWhen, therefore, the Capitalist estimates the full value of his\npossessions, he counts them in \"so many years' purchase.\"[6] And that means\nthat he is willing to take in a lump sum down for his possessions so many\ntimes the yearly revenue which he at present enjoys. If his E.D.A. is\none-thirtieth, he will take a lump sum representing thirty times his annual\nrevenue.\n\nSo far so good. Let us suppose the two Capitalists in our example to have\nan E.D.A. of one-thirtieth. They will sell to the State if the State can\nput up 3000 measures of wheat.\n\nNow, of course, the State can do nothing of the kind. The accumulations of\nwheat being already in the hands of the Capitalists, and those\naccumulations amounting to much less than 3000 measures of wheat, the thing\nappears to be a deadlock.\n\nBut it is not a deadlock if the Capitalist is a fool. The State can go to\nthe Capitalists and say: \"Hand me over your farms, and against them I will\ngive you guarantee that you shall be paid _rather more than_ 100 measures\nof wheat a year for the thirty years. In fact, I will pay you half as much\nagain until these extra payments amount to a purchase of your original\nstock.\"\n\nOut of what does this extra amount come? Out of the State's power to tax.\n\nThe State can levy a tax upon the profits of both Capitalists A and B, and\npay them the extra with their own money.\n\nIn so simple an example it is evident that this \"ringing of the changes\"\nwould be spotted by the victims, and that they would bring against it\nprecisely the same forces which they would bring against the much simpler\nand more straightforward process of immediate confiscation.\n\nBut it is argued that in a complex State, where you are dealing with\nmyriads of individual Capitalists and thousands of particular forms of\nprofit, the process can be masked.\n\nThere are two ways in which the State can mask its action (according to\nthis policy). It can buy out first one small area of land and capital out\nof the general taxation and then another, and then another, until the whole\nhas been transferred; or it can tax with peculiar severity certain trades\nwhich the rest who are left immune will abandon to their ruin, and with the\ngeneral taxation plus this special taxation buy out those unfortunate\ntrades which will, of course, have sunk heavily in value under the attack.\n\nThe second of these tricks will soon be apparent in any society, however\ncomplex; for after one unpopular trade had been selected for attack the\ntrying on of the same methods in another less unpopular field will at once\nrouse suspicion.[7]\n\nThe first method, however, might have some chance of success, at least for\na long time after it was begun, in a highly complex and numerous society\nwere it not for a certain check which comes in of itself. That check is the\nfact that the Capitalist only takes _more than_ his old yearly revenue with\nthe object of reinvesting the surplus.\n\nI have a thousand pounds in Brighton railway stock, yielding me 3 per\ncent.: \u00a330 a year. The Government asks me to exchange my bit of paper\nagainst another bit of paper guaranteeing the payment of \u00a350 a year, that\nis, an extra rate a year, for so many years as will represent over and\nabove the regular interest paid a purchase of my stock. The Government's\nbit of paper promises to pay to the holder \u00a350 a year for, say,\nthirty-eight years. I am delighted to make the exchange, not because I am\nsuch a fool as to enjoy the prospect of my property being extinguished at\nthe end of thirty-eight years, but because I hope to be able to reinvest\nthe extra \u00a320 every year in something else that will bring me in 3 per\ncent. Thus, at the end of the thirty-eight years I shall (or my heirs) be\nbetter off than I was at the beginning of the transaction, and I shall have\nenjoyed during its maturing my old \u00a330 a year all the same.\n\nThe State can purchase thus on a small scale by subsidising purchase out of\nthe general taxation. It can, therefore, play this trick over a small area\nand for a short time with success. But the moment this area passes a very\nnarrow limit the \"market for investment\" is found to be restricted, Capital\nautomatically takes alarm, the State can no longer offer its paper\nguarantees save at an enhanced price. If it tries to turn the position by\nfurther raising taxation to what Capital regards as \"confiscatory\" rates,\nthere will be opposed to its action just the same forces as would be\nopposed to frank and open expropriation.\n\nThe matter is one of plain arithmetic, and all the confusion introduced by\nthe complex mechanism of \"finance\" can no more change the fundamental and\narithmetical principles involved than can the accumulation of triangles in\nan ordnance survey reduce the internal angles of the largest triangle to\nless than 180 degrees.[8] In fine: _if you desire to confiscate, you must\nconfiscate_.\n\nYou cannot outflank the enemy, as Financiers in the city and sharpers on\nthe racecourse outflank the simpler of mankind, nor can you conduct the\ngeneral process of expropriation upon a muddle-headed hope that somehow or\nother something will come out of nothing in the end.\n\nThere are, indeed, two ways in which the State could expropriate without\nmeeting the resistance that must be present against any attempt at\nconfiscation. But the first of these ways is precarious, the second\ninsufficient.\n\nThey are as follows:--\n\n(1) The State can promise the Capitalist a larger yearly revenue than he is\ngetting in the expectation that it, the State, can manage the business\nbetter than the Capitalist, or that some future expansion will come to its\naid. In other words, if the State makes a bigger profit out of the thing\nthan the Capitalist, it can buy out the Capitalist just as a private\nindividual with a similar business proposition can buy him out.\n\nBut the converse of this is that if the State has calculated badly, or has\nbad luck, it would find itself _endowing_ the Capitalists of the future\ninstead of gradually extinguishing them.\n\nIn this fashion the State could have \"socialised\" without confiscation the\nrailways of this country if it had taken them over fifty years ago,\npromising the then owners more than they were then obtaining. But if it had\nsocialised the hansom cab in the nineties, it would now be supporting in\nperpetuity that worthy but extinct type the cab-owner (and his children for\never) at the expense of the community.\n\n(2) The second way in which the State can expropriate without confiscation\nis by annuity. It can say to such Capitalists as have no heirs or care\nlittle for their fate if they have: \"You have only got so much time to live\nand to enjoy your \u00a330, will you take \u00a350 until you die?\" Upon the bargain\nbeing accepted the State will, in process of time, though not immediately\nupon the death of the annuitant, become an unembarrassed owner of what had\nbeen the annuitant's share in the means of production. But the area over\nwhich this method can be exercised is a very small one. It is not of itself\na sufficient instrument for the expropriation of any considerable field.\n\nI need hardly add that as a matter of fact the so-called \"Socialist\" and\nconfiscatory measures of our time have nothing to do with the problem here\ndiscussed. The State is indeed confiscating, that is, it is taxing in many\ncases in such a fashion as to impoverish the taxpayer and is lessening his\ncapital rather than shearing his income. But it is not putting the proceeds\ninto the means of production. It is either using them for immediate\nconsumption in the shape of new official salaries or handing them over to\nanother set of Capitalists.[9]\n\nBut these practical considerations of the way in which sham Socialist\nexperiments are working belong rather to my next section, in which I shall\ndeal with the actual beginnings of the Servile State in our midst.\n\n\n\n\nSection Nine\nThe Servile State Has Begun\n\n\nIn this last division of my book I deal with the actual appearance of the\nServile State in certain laws and proposals now familiar to the Industrial\nSociety of modern England. These are the patent objects, \"laws and projects\nof laws,\" which lend stuff to my argument, and show that it is based not\nupon a mere deduction, but upon an observation of things.\n\nTwo forms of this proof are evident: first, the laws and proposals which\nsubject the _Proletariat_ to Servile conditions; next, the fact that the\n_Capitalist_, so far from being expropriated by modern \"Socialist\"\nexperiments, is being confirmed in his power.\n\nI take these in their order, and I begin by asking in what statutes or\nproposals the Servile State first appeared among us.\n\nA false conception of our subject might lead one to find the origins of the\nServile State in the restrictions imposed upon certain forms of\nmanufacture, and the corresponding duties laid upon the Capitalist in the\ninterest of his workmen. The Factory Laws, as they are in this country,\nwould seem to offer upon this superficial and erroneous view a starting\npoint. They do nothing of the kind; and the view _is_ superficial and\nerroneous because it neglects the fundamentals of the case. What\ndistinguishes the Servile State is not the interference of law with the\naction of any citizen even in connection with industrial matters. Such\ninterference may or may not indicate the presence of a Servile status. It\nin no way indicates the presence of that status when it forbids a\nparticular kind of human action to be undertaken by the citizen as a\ncitizen.\n\nThe legislator says, for instance, \"You may pluck roses; but as I notice\nthat you sometimes scratch yourself, I will put you in prison unless you\ncut them with scissors at least 122 millimetres long, and I will appoint\none thousand inspectors to go round the country seeing whether the law is\nobserved. My brother-in-law shall be at the head of the Department at\n\u00a32,000 a year.\"\n\nWe are all familiar with that type of legislation. We are all familiar with\nthe arguments for and against it in any particular case. We may regard it\nas onerous, futile, or beneficent, or in any other light, according to our\nvarious temperaments. But it does not fall within the category of servile\nlegislation, because it establishes no distinction between two classes of\ncitizens, marking off the one as legally distinct from the other by a\ncriterion of manual labour or of income.\n\nThis is even true of such regulations as those which compel a Cotton Mill,\nfor instance, to have no less than such and such an amount of cubic space\nfor each operative, and such and such protection for dangerous machinery.\nThese laws do not concern themselves with the nature, the amount, or even\nthe existence of a contract for service. The object, for example, of the\nlaw which compels one to fence off certain types of machinery is simply to\nprotect human life, regardless of whether the human being so protected is\nrich or poor, Capitalist or Proletarian. These laws may in effect work in\nour society so that the Capitalist is made responsible for the Proletarian,\nbut he is not responsible _qua_ Capitalist, nor is the Proletarian\nprotected _qua_ Proletarian.\n\nIn the same way the law may compel me, if I am a Riparian owner, to put up\na fence of statutory strength wherever the water of my river is of more\nthan a statutory depth. Now it cannot compel me to do this unless I am the\nowner of the land. In a sense, therefore, this might be called the\nrecognition of my _Status_, because, by the nature of the case, only\nlandowners can be affected by the law, and landowners would be compelled by\nit to safeguard the lives of all, whether they were or were not owners of\nland.\n\nBut the category so established would be purely accidental. The object and\nmethod of the law do not concern themselves with a distinction between\ncitizens.\n\nA close observer might indeed discover certain points in the Factory laws,\ndetails and phrases, which did distinctly connote the existence of a\nCapitalist and of a Proletarian class. But we must take the statutes as a\nwhole and the order in which they were produced, above all, the general\nmotive and expressions governing each main statute, in order to judge\nwhether such examples of interference give us an origin or not.\n\nThe verdict will be that they do not. Such legislation may be oppressive in\nany degree or necessary in any degree, but it does not establish status in\nthe place of contract, and it is not, therefore, servile.\n\nNeither are those laws servile which in practice attach to the poor and not\nto the rich. Compulsory education is in legal theory required of every\ncitizen for his children. The state of mind which goes with plutocracy\nexempts of course all above a certain standard of wealth from this law. But\nthe law does apply to the universality of the commonwealth, and all\nfamilies resident in Great Britain (not in Ireland) are subject to its\nprovisions.\n\nThese are not origins. A true origin to the legislation I approach comes\nlater. The first example of servile legislation to be discovered upon the\nStatute Book is that which establishes the present form of _Employer's\nLiability_.\n\nI am far from saying that that law was passed, as modern laws are beginning\nto be passed, with the direct object of establishing a new status; though\nit was passed with some consciousness on the part of the legislator that\nsuch a new status was in existence as a social fact. Its motive was merely\nhumane, and the relief which it afforded seemed merely necessary at the\ntime; but it is an instructive example of the way in which a small neglect\nof strict doctrine and a slight toleration of anomaly admit great changes\ninto the State.\n\nThere had existed from all time in every community, and there was founded\nupon common sense, the legal doctrine that if one citizen was so placed\nwith regard to another by contract that he must in the fulfilment of that\ncontract perform certain services, and if those services accidentally\ninvolved damages to a third party, not the actual perpetrator of the\ndamage, but he who designed the particular operation leading to it was\nresponsible.\n\nThe point is subtle, but, as I say, fundamental. It involved no distinction\nof status between employer and employed.\n\nCitizen A offered citizen B a sack of wheat down if citizen B would plough\nfor him a piece of land which might or might not produce more than a sack\nof wheat.\n\nOf course citizen A expected it would produce more, and was awaiting a\nsurplus value, or he would not have made the contract with citizen B. But,\nat any rate, citizen B put his name to the agreement, and as a free man,\ncapable of contracting, was correspondingly bound to fulfil it.\n\nIn fulfilling this contract the ploughshare B is driving destroys a pipe\nconveying water by agreement through A's land to C. C suffers damage, and\nto recover the equivalent of that damage his action in justice and common\nsense can only be against A, for B was carrying out a plan and instruction\nof which A was the author. C is a third party who had nothing to do with\nsuch a contract and could not possibly have justice save by his chances of\ngetting it from A, who was the true author of the unintentional loss\ninflicted, since he designed the course of work.\n\nBut when the damage is not done to C at all, but to B, who is concerned\nwith a work the risks of which are known and willingly undertaken, it is\nquite another matter.\n\nCitizen A contracts with citizen B that citizen B, in consideration of a\nsack of wheat, shall plough a bit of land. Certain known risks must attach\nto that operation. Citizen B, if he is a free man, undertakes those risks\nwith his eyes open. For instance, he may sprain his wrist in turning the\nplough, or one of the horses may kick him while he is having his\nbread-and-cheese. If upon such an accident A is compelled to pay damages to\nB, a difference of status is at once recognised. B undertook to do work\nwhich, by all the theory of free contract, was, with its risks and its\nexpense of energy, the equivalent in B's own eyes of a sack of wheat; yet a\nlaw is passed to say that B can have more than that sack of wheat if he is\nhurt.\n\nThere is no converse right of A against B. If the employer suffers by such\nan accident to the employee, _he_ is not allowed to dock that sack of\nwheat, though it was regarded in the contract as the equivalent to a\ncertain amount of labour to be performed which, as a fact, has not been\nperformed. A has no action unless B has been _culpably_ negligent or\nremiss. In other words, the mere fact that one man is _working_ and the\nother not is the fundamental consideration on which the law is built, and\nthe law says: \"You are not a free man making a free contract with all its\nconsequences. You are a worker, and therefore an inferior: you are an\n_employee_; and that _status_ gives you a special position which would not\nbe recognised in the other party to the contract.\"\n\nThe principle is pushed still further when an employer is made liable for\nan accident happening to one of his employees at the hands of another\nemployee.\n\nA gives a sack of wheat to B and D each if they will dig a well for him.\nAll three parties are cognisant of the risks and accept them in the\ncontract. B, holding the rope on which D is lowered, lets it slip. If they\nwere all three men of exactly equal status, obviously D's action would be\nagainst B. But they are not of equal status in England to-day. B and D are\n_employees_, and are therefore in a special and inferior position before\nthe law compared with their employer A. D's action is, by this novel\nprinciple, no longer against B, who accidentally injured him by a personal\nact, however involuntary, for which a free man would be responsible, but\nagainst A, who was innocent of the whole business.\n\nNow in all this it is quite clear that A has peculiar duties not because he\nis a citizen, but because he is something more: an employer; and B and D\nhave special claims on A, not because they are citizens, but because they\nare something less: _viz. employees_. They can _claim protection_ from A,\nas inferiors of a superior in a State admitting such distinctions and\npatronage.\n\nIt will occur at once to the reader that in our existing social state the\nemployee will be very grateful for such legislation. One workman cannot\nrecover from another simply because the other will have no goods out of\nwhich to pay damages. Let the burden, therefore, fall upon the rich man!\n\nExcellent. But that is not the point. To argue thus is to say that Servile\nlegislation is necessary if we are to solve the problems raised by\nCapitalism. It remains servile legislation none the less. It is legislation\nthat would not exist in a society where property was well divided and where\na citizen could normally pay damages for the harm he had himself\ncaused.[10]\n\nThis first trickle of the stream, however, though it is of considerable\nhistorical interest as a point of departure, is not of very definite moment\nto our subject compared with the great bulk of later proposals, some of\nwhich are already law, others upon the point of becoming law, and which\ndefinitely recognise the Servile State, the re-establishment of status in\nthe place of contract, and the universal division of citizens into two\ncategories of employers and employed.\n\n* * * * *\n\nThese last merit a very different consideration, for they will represent to\nhistory the conscious and designed entry of Servile Institutions into the\nold Christian State. They are not \"origins,\" small indications of coming\nchange which the historian will painfully discover as a curiosity. They are\nthe admitted foundations of a new order, deliberately planned by a few,\nconfusedly accepted by the many, as the basis upon which a novel and stable\nsociety shall arise to replace the unstable and passing phase of\nCapitalism.\n\nThey fall roughly into three categories:--\n\n(1) Measures by which the insecurity of the proletariat shall be relieved\nthrough the action of the employing class, or of the proletariat itself\nacting under compulsion.\n\n(2) Measures by which the employer shall be compelled to give not less than\na certain minimum for any labour he may purchase, and\n\n(3) Measures which compel a man lacking the means of production to labour,\nthough he may have made no contract to that effect.\n\nThe last two, as will be seen in a moment, are complementary one of\nanother.\n\nAs to the first: Measures to palliate the insecurity of the proletariat.\n\nWe have of this an example in actual law at this moment. And that law the\nInsurance Act (whose political source and motive I am not here discussing)\nfollows in every particular the lines of a Servile State.\n\n(a) Its fundamental criterion is employment. In other words, I am compelled\nto enter a scheme providing me against the mischances of illness and\nunemployment not because I am a citizen, but only if I am:\n\n(1) Exchanging services for goods; and either\n\n(2) Obtaining less than a certain amount of goods for those services, or\n\n(3) A vulgar fellow working with his hands. The law carefully excludes from\nits provisions those forms of labour to which the educated and therefore\npowerful classes are subject, and further excludes from compulsion the mass\nof those who are for the moment earning enough to make them a class to be\nreckoned with as economically free. I may be a writer of books who, should\nhe fall ill, will leave in the greatest distress the family which he\nsupports. If the legislator were concerned for the morals of citizens, I\nshould most undoubtedly come under this law, under the form of a compulsory\ninsurance added to my income tax. But the legislator is not concerned with\npeople of my sort. He is concerned with a new status which he recognises in\nthe State, to wit, the proletariat. He envisages the proletariat not quite\naccurately as men either poor, or, if they are not poor, at any rate vulgar\npeople working with their hands, and he legislates accordingly.\n\n(b) Still more striking, as an example of status taking the place of\ncontract, is the fact that this law puts the duty of controlling the\nproletariat and of seeing that the law is obeyed _not_ upon the proletariat\nitself, but upon the _Capitalist class._\n\nNow this point is of an importance that cannot be exaggerated.\n\nThe future historian, whatever his interest in the first indications of\nthat profound revolution through which we are so rapidly passing, will most\ncertainly fix upon that one point as the cardinal landmark of our times.\nThe legislator surveying the Capitalist State proposes as a remedy for\ncertain of its evils the establishment of two categories in the State,\ncompels the lower man to registration, to a tax, and the rest of it, and\nfurther compels the upper man to be the instrument in enforcing that\nregistration and in collecting that tax. No one acquainted with the way in\nwhich any one of the great changes of the past has taken place, the\nsubstitution of tenure for the Roman proprietary right in land, or the\nsubstitution of the mediaeval peasant for the serf of the Dark Ages, can\npossibly misunderstand the significance of such a turning point in our\nhistory.\n\nWhether it will be completed or whether a reaction will destroy it is\nanother matter. Its mere proposal is of the greatest possible moment in the\ninquiry we are here pursuing.\n\nOf the next two groups, the fixing of a Minimum Wage and the Compulsion to\nLabour (which, as I have said, and will shortly show, are complementary one\nto the other), neither has yet appeared in actual legislation, but both are\nplanned, both thought out, both possessed of powerful advocates, and both\nupon the threshold of positive law.\n\n* * * * *\n\nThe fixing of a Minimum Wage, with a definite sum fixed by statute, has not\nyet entered our laws, but the first step towards such a consummation has\nbeen taken in the shape of giving legal sanction to some hypothetical\nMinimum Wage which shall be arrived at after discussion within a particular\ntrade. That trade is, of course, the mining industry. The law does not say:\n\"No Capitalist shall pay a miner less than so many shillings for so many\nhours' work.\" But it does say: \"Figures having been arrived at by local\nboards, any miner working within the area of each board can claim by force\nof law the minimum sum established by such boards.\" It is evident that from\nthis step to the next, which shall define some sliding scale of\nremuneration for labour according to prices and the profits of capital, is\nan easy and natural transition. It would give both parties what each\nimmediately requires: to capital a guarantee against disturbance; to labour\nsufficiency and security. The whole thing is an excellent object lesson in\nlittle of that general movement from free contract to status, and from the\nCapitalist to the Servile State, which is the tide of our time.\n\nThe neglect of older principles as abstract and doctrinaire; the immediate\nneed of both parties immediately satisfied; the unforeseen but necessary\nconsequence of satisfying such needs in such a fashion--all these, which\nare apparent in the settlement the mining industry has begun, are the\ntypical forces producing the Servile State.\n\nConsider in its largest aspect the nature of such a settlement.\n\nThe Proletarian accepts a position in which he produces for the Capitalist\na certain total of economic values, and retains out of that total a portion\nonly, leaving to the Capitalist all surplus value. The Capitalist, on his\nside, is guaranteed in the secure and permanent expectation of that surplus\nvalue through all the perils of social envy; the Proletarian is guaranteed\nin a sufficiency and a security for that sufficiency; but by the very\naction of such a guarantee there is withdrawn from him the power to refuse\nhis labour and thus to aim at putting himself in possession of the means of\nproduction.\n\nSuch schemes definitely divide citizens into two classes, the Capitalist\nand the Proletarian. They make it impossible for the second to combat the\nprivileged position of the first. They introduce into the positive laws of\nthe community a recognition of social facts which already divide Englishmen\ninto two groups of economically more free and economically less free, and\nthey stamp with the authority of the State a new constitution of society.\nSociety is recognised as no longer consisting of free men bargaining freely\nfor their labour or any other commodity in their possession, but of two\ncontrasting status, owners and non-owners. The first must not be allowed to\nleave the second without subsistence; the second must not be allowed to\nobtain that grip upon the means of production which is the privilege of the\nfirst. It is true that this first experiment is small in degree and\ntentative in quality; but to judge the movement as a general whole we must\nnot only consider the expression it has actually received so far in\npositive law, but the mood of our time.\n\nWhen this first experiment in a minimum wage was being debated in\nParliament, what was the great issue of debate? Upon what did those who\nwere the most ardent reformers particularly insist? _Not_ that the miners\nshould have an avenue open to them for obtaining possession of the mines;\nnot even that the State should have an avenue open to it for obtaining such\npossession; _but that the minimum wage should be fixed at a certain\nsatisfactory level_! That, as our recent experience testifies for all of\nus, was the crux of the quarrel. And that such a point should be the crux,\nnot the socialisation of the mines, nor the admission of the proletariat to\nthe means of production, but only a sufficiency and a security of wage, is\namply significant of the perhaps irresistible forces which are making in\nthe direction for which I argue in this book.\n\nThere was here no attempt of the Capitalist to impose Servile conditions\nnor of the Proletarian to resist them. Both parties were agreed upon that\nfundamental change. The discussion turned upon the minimum limit of\nsubsistence to be securely provided, a point which left aside, because it\ntook for granted, the establishment of _some_ minimum in any case.\n\nNext, let it be noted (for it is of moment to a later part of my argument)\nthat experiments of this sort promise to extend piecemeal. There is no\nlikelihood, judging by men's actions and speech, of some grand general\nscheme for the establishment of a minimum wage throughout the community.\nSuch a scheme would, of course, be as truly an establishment of the Servile\nState as piecemeal schemes. But, as we shall see in a moment, the extension\nof the principle piecemeal has a considerable effect upon the forms which\ncompulsion may take.\n\nThe miners' refusal to work, with the exaggerated panic it caused, bred\nthis first tentative appearance of the minimum wage in our laws. Normally,\ncapital prefers free labour with its margin of destitution; for such an\nanarchy, ephemeral though it is of its nature, while it lasts provides\ncheap labour; from the narrowest point of view it provides in the still\ncompetitive areas of Capitalism a better chance for profits.\n\nBut as one group of workmen after another, concerned with trades\nimmediately necessary to the life of the nation, and therefore tolerating\nbut little interruption, learn the power which combination gives them, it\nis inevitable that the legislator (concentrated as he is upon momentary\nremedies for difficulties as they arise) should propose for one such trade\nafter another the remedy of a minimum wage.\n\nThere can be little doubt that, trade by trade, the principle will extend.\nFor instance, the two and a half millions now guaranteed against\nunemployment are guaranteed against it for a certain weekly sum. That\nweekly sum must bear some relation to their estimated earnings when they\nare in employment.\n\nIt is a short step from the calculation of unemployment benefit (its being\nfixed by statute at a certain level, and that level determined by something\nwhich is regarded as the just remuneration of labour in that trade); it is\na short step, I say, from that to a statutory fixing of the sums paid\nduring employment.\n\nThe State says to the Serf: \"I saw to it that you should have so much when\nyou were unemployed. I find that in some rare cases my arrangement leads to\nyour getting more when you are unemployed than when you are employed. I\nfurther find that in many cases, though you get more when you are employed,\nyet the difference is not sufficient to tempt a lazy man to work, or to\nmake him take any particular trouble to get work. I must see to this.\"\n\nThe provision of a fixed schedule during unemployment thus inevitably leads\nto the examination, the defining, and at last the imposition of a minimum\nwage during employment; and every compulsory provision for unemployed\nbenefits is the seed of a minimum wage.\n\nOf still greater effect is the mere presence of State regulation in such a\nmatter. The fact that the State has begun to gather statistics of wages\nover these large areas of industry, and to do so not for a mere statistical\nobject, but a practical one, and the fact that the State has begun to immix\nthe action of positive law and constraint with the older system of free\nbargaining, mean that the whole weight of its influence is now in favour of\nregulation. It is no rash prophecy to assert that in the near future our\nindustrial society will see a gradually extending area of industry in which\nfrom two sides the fixing of wages by statute shall appear. From the one\nside it will come in the form of the State examining the conditions of\nlabour in connection with its own schemes for establishing sufficiency and\nsecurity by insurance. From the other side it will come through the\nreasonable proposals to make contracts between groups of labour and groups\nof capital enforceable in the Courts.\n\n* * * * *\n\nSo much, then, for the Principle of a Minimum Wage. It has already appeared\nin our laws. It is certain to spread. But how does the presence of this\nintroduction of a Minimum form part of the advance towards the Servile\nState?\n\nI have said that the principle of a minimum wage involves as its converse\nthe principle of compulsory labour. Indeed, most of the importance which\nthe principle of a minimum wage has for this inquiry lies in that converse\nnecessity of compulsory labour which it involves.\n\nBut as the connection between the two may not be clear at first sight, we\nmust do more than take it for granted. We must establish it by process of\nreason.\n\nThere are two distinct forms in which the whole policy of enforcing\nsecurity and sufficiency by law for the proletariat produce a corresponding\npolicy of compulsory labour.\n\nThe first of these forms is the compulsion which the Courts will exercise\nupon either of the parties concerned in the giving and in the receiving of\nthe minimum wage. The second form is the necessity under which society will\nfind itself, when once the principle of the minimum wage is conceded,\ncoupled with the principle of sufficiency and security, to maintain those\nwhom the minimum wage excludes from the area of normal employment.\n\nAs to the first form:--\n\nA Proletarian group has struck a bargain with a group of Capitalists to the\neffect that it will produce for that capital ten measures of value in a\nyear, will be content to receive six measures of value for itself, and will\nleave four measures as surplus value for the Capitalists. The bargain is\nratified; the Courts have the power to enforce it. If the Capitalists by\nsome trick of fines or by bluntly breaking their word pay out in wages less\nthan the six measures, the Courts must have some power of constraining\nthem. In other words, there must be some sanction to the action of the law.\nThere must be some power of punishment, and, through punishment, of\ncompulsion. Conversely, if the men, having struck this bargain, go back\nupon their word; if individuals among them or sections among them cease\nwork with a new demand for seven measures instead of six, the Courts must\nhave the power of constraining and of punishing _them_. Where the bargain\nis ephemeral or at any rate extended over only reasonable limits of time,\nit would be straining language perhaps to say that each individual case of\nconstraint exercised against the workmen would be a case of compulsory\nlabour. But extend the system over a long period of years, make it normal\nto industry and accepted as a habit in men's daily conception of the way in\nwhich their lives should be conducted, and the method is necessarily\ntransformed into a system of compulsory labour. In trades where wages\nfluctuate little this will obviously be the case. \"You, the agricultural\nlabourers of this district, have taken fifteen shillings a week for a very\nlong time. It has worked perfectly well. There seems no reason why you\nshould have more. Nay, you put your hands to it through your officials in\nthe year so and so that you regarded that sum as sufficient. Such and such\nof your members are now refusing to perform what this Court regards as a\ncontract. They must return within the limits of that contract or suffer the\nconsequences.\"\n\nRemember what power analogy exercises over men's minds, and how, when\nsystems of the sort are common to many trades, they will tend to create a\ngeneral point of view for all trades. Remember also how comparatively\nslight a threat is already sufficient to control men in our industrial\nsociety, the proletarian mass of which is accustomed to live from week to\nweek under peril of discharge, and has grown readily amenable to the threat\nof any reduction in those wages upon which it can but just subsist.\n\nNor are the Courts enforcing such contracts or quasi-contracts (as they\nwill come to be regarded) the only inducement.\n\nA man has been compelled by law to put aside sums from his wages as\ninsurance against unemployment. But he is no longer the judge of how such\nsums shall be used. They are not in his possession; they are not even in\nthe hands of some society which he can really control. They are in the\nhands of a Government official. \"Here is work offered you at twenty-five\nshillings a week. If you do not take it you certainly shall not have a\nright to the money you have been compelled to put aside. If you will take\nit the sum shall still stand to your credit, and when next in my judgment\nyour unemployment is not due to your recalcitrance and refusal to labour, I\nwill permit you to have some of your money: not otherwise.\" Dovetailing in\nwith this machinery of compulsion is all that mass of registration and\ndocketing which is accumulating through the use of Labour Exchanges. Not\nonly will the Official have the power to enforce special contracts, or the\npower to coerce individual men to labour under the threat of a fine, but he\nwill also have a series of _dossiers_ by which the record of each workman\ncan be established. No man, once so registered and known, can escape; and,\nof the nature of the system, the numbers caught in the net must steadily\nincrease until the whole mass of labour is mapped out and controlled.\n\nThese are very powerful instruments of compulsion indeed. They already\nexist. They are already a part of our laws.\n\nLastly, there is the obvious bludgeon of \"compulsory arbitration\": a\nbludgeon so obvious that it is revolting even to our proletariat. Indeed, I\nknow of no civilised European state which has succumbed to so gross a\nsuggestion. For it is a frank admission of servitude at one step, and for\ngood and all, such as men of our culture are not yet prepared to\nswallow.[11]\n\nSo much, then, for the first argument and the first form in which\ncompulsory labour is seen to be a direct and necessary consequence of\nestablishing a minimum wage and of scheduling employment to a scale.\n\n* * * * *\n\nThe second is equally clear. In the production of wheat the healthy and\nskilled man who can produce ten measures of wheat is compelled to work for\nsix measures, and the Capitalist is compelled to remain content with four\nmeasures for his share. The law will punish him if he tries to get out of\nhis legal obligation and to pay his workmen less than six measures of wheat\nduring the year. What of the man who is not sufficiently strong or skilled\nto produce even six measures? Will the Capitalist be constrained to pay him\nmore than the values he can produce? Most certainly not. The whole\nstructure of production as it was erected during the Capitalist phase of\nour industry has been left intact by the new laws and customs. Profit is\nstill left a necessity. If it were destroyed, still more if a loss were\nimposed by law, that would be a contradiction of the whole spirit in which\nall these reforms are being undertaken. They are being undertaken with the\nobject of establishing stability where there is now instability, and of\n\"reconciling,\" as the ironic phrase goes, \"the interests of capital and\nlabour.\" It would be impossible, without a general ruin, to compel capital\nto lose upon the man who is not worth even the minimum wage. How shall that\nelement of insecurity and instability be eliminated? To support the man\ngratuitously because he cannot earn a minimum wage, when all the rest of\nthe commonwealth is working for its guaranteed wages, is to put a premium\nupon incapacity and sloth. The man must be made to work. He must be taught,\nif possible, to produce those economic values, which are regarded as the\nminimum of sufficiency. He must be kept at that work even if he cannot\nproduce the minimum, lest his presence as a free labourer should imperil\nthe whole scheme of the minimum wage, and introduce at the same time a\ncontinuous element of instability. Hence he is necessarily a subject for\nforced labour. We have not yet in this country, established by force of\nlaw, the right to this form of compulsion, but it is an inevitable\nconsequence of those other reforms which have just been reviewed. The\n\"Labour Colony\" (a prison so called because euphemism is necessary to every\ntransition) will be erected to absorb this surplus, and that last form of\ncompulsion will crown the edifice of these reforms. They will then be\ncomplete so far as the subject classes are concerned, and even though this\nparticular institution of the \"Labour Colony\" (logically the last of all)\nprecede in time other forms of compulsion, it will make the advent of those\nother forms of compulsion more certain, facile, and rapid.\n\n* * * * *\n\nThere remains one last remark to be made upon the concrete side of my\nsubject. I have in this last section illustrated the tendency towards the\nServile State from actual laws and actual projects with which all are\nto-day familiar in English industrial society, and I have shown how these\nare certainly establishing the proletariat in a novel, but to them\nsatisfactory, Servile Status.\n\nIt remains to point out in a very few lines the complementary truth that\nwhat should be the very essence of Collectivist Reform, to wit, the\ntranslation of the means of production from the hands of private owners to\nthe hands of public officials, is nowhere being attempted. So far from its\nbeing attempted, all so-called \"Socialistic\" experiments in\nmunicipalisation and nationalisation are merely increasing the dependence\nof the community upon the Capitalist class. To prove this, we need only\nobserve that every single one of these experiments is effected by a loan.\n\nNow what is meant in economic reality by these municipal loans and national\nloans raised for the purpose of purchasing certain small sections of the\nmeans of production?\n\nCertain Capitalists own a number of rails, cars, etc. They put to work upon\nthese certain Proletarians, and the result is a certain total of economic\nvalues. Let the surplus values obtainable by the Capitalists after the\nsubsistence of the proletarians is provided for amount to \u00a310,000 a year.\nWe all know how a system of this sort is \"Municipalised.\" A \"loan\" is\nraised. It bears \"interest.\" It is saddled with a \"sinking fund.\"\n\nNow this loan is not really made in money, though the terms of it are in\nmoney. It is, at the end of a long string of exchanges, nothing more nor\nless than the loan of the cars, the rails, etc., by the Capitalists to the\nMunicipality. And the Capitalists require, before they will strike the\nbargain, a guarantee that the whole of their old profit shall be paid to\nthem, together with a further yearly sum, which after a certain number of\nyears shall represent the original value of the concern when they handed it\nover. These last additional sums are called the \"sinking fund\"; the\ncontinued payment of the old surplus values is called the \"interest.\"\n\nIn theory certain small sections of the means of production might be\nacquired in this way. That particular section would have been \"socialised.\"\nThe \"Sinking Fund\" (that is, the paying of the Capitalists for their plant\nby instalments) might be met out of the general taxation imposed on the\ncommunity, considering how large that is compared with any one experiment\nof the kind. The \"interest\" may by good management be met out of the true\nprofits of the tramways. At the end of a certain number of years the\ncommunity will be in possession of the tramways, will no longer be\nexploited in this particular by Capitalism, will have bought out Capitalism\nfrom the general taxes, and, in so far as the purchase money paid has been\nconsumed and not saved or invested by the Capitalists, a small measure of\n\"socialisation\" will have been achieved.\n\nAs a fact things are never so favourable.\n\nIn practice three conditions militate against even these tiny experiments\nin expropriation: the fact that the implements are always sold at much more\nthan their true value; the fact that the purchase includes non-productive\nthings; and the fact that the rate of borrowing is much faster than the\nrate of repayment. These three adverse conditions lead in practice to\nnothing but the riveting of Capitalism more securely round the body of the\nState.\n\nFor what is it that is paid for when a tramway, for instance, is taken\nover? Is it the true capital alone, the actual plant, which is paid for,\neven at an exaggerated price? Far from it! Over and above the rails and the\ncars, there are all the commissions that have been made, all the champagne\nluncheons, all the lawyers' fees, all the compensations to this man and to\nthat man, all the bribes. Nor does this exhaust the argument. Tramways\nrepresent a productive investment. What about pleasure gardens,\nwash-houses, baths, libraries, monuments, and the rest? The greater part of\nthese things are the product of \"loans.\" When you put up a public\ninstitution you borrow the bricks and the mortar and the iron and the wood\nand the tiles from Capitalists, _and you pledge yourself to pay interest,\nand to produce a sinking fund precisely as though a town hall or a bath\nwere a piece of reproductive machinery_.\n\nTo this must be added the fact that a considerable proportion of the\npurchases are failures: purchases of things just before they are driven out\nby some new invention; while on the top of the whole business you have the\nfact that the borrowing goes on at a far greater rate than the repayment.\n\nIn a word, all these experiments up and down Europe during our generation,\nmunicipal and national, have resulted in an indebtedness to capital\nincreasing rather more than twice, but not three times, as fast as the rate\nof repayment. The interest which capital demands with a complete\nindifference as to whether the loan is productive or non-productive amounts\nto rather more than 1 1/2 per cent. _excess_ over the produce of the\nvarious experiments, even though we count in the most lucrative and\nsuccessful of these, such as the state railways of many countries, and the\nthoroughly successful municipal enterprises of many modern towns.\n\nCapitalism has seen to it that it shall be a winner and not a loser by this\nform of sham Socialism, as by every other. And the same forces which in\npractice forbid confiscation see to it that the attempt to mask\nconfiscation by purchase shall not only fail, but shall turn against those\nwho have not had the courage to make a frontal attack upon privilege.\n\n* * * * *\n\nWith these concrete examples showing how Collectivism, in attempting its\npractice, does but confirm the Capitalist position, and showing how our\nlaws have already begun to impose a Servile Status upon the Proletariat, I\nend the argumentative thesis of this book.\n\nI believe I have proved my case.\n\nThe future of industrial society, and in particular of English society,\nleft to its own direction, is a future in which subsistence and security\nshall be guaranteed for the Proletariat, but shall be guaranteed at the\nexpense of the old political freedom and by the establishment of that\nProletariat in a status really, though not nominally, servile. At the same\ntime, the Owners will be guaranteed in their profits, the whole machinery\nof production in the smoothness of its working, and that stability which\nhas been lost under the Capitalist phase of society will be found once\nmore.\n\nThe internal strains which have threatened society during its Capitalist\nphase will be relaxed and eliminated, and the community will settle down\nupon that Servile basis which was its foundation before the advent of the\nChristian faith, from which that faith slowly weaned it, and to which in\nthe decay of that faith it naturally returns.\n\n\n\n\nConclusion It is possible to portray a great social movement of the past\nwith accuracy and in detail if one can spare to the task the time necessary\nfor research and further bring to it a certain power of co-ordination by\nwhich a great mass of detail can be integrated and made one whole.\n\nSuch a task is rarely accomplished, but it does not exceed the powers of\nhistory.\n\nWith regard to the future it is otherwise. No one can say even in its\nlargest aspect or upon its chief structural line what that future will be.\nHe can only present the main tendencies of his time: he can only determine\nthe equation of the curve and presume that that equation will apply more or\nless to its next developments.\n\nSo far as I can judge, those societies which broke with the continuity of\nChristian civilisation in the sixteenth century--which means, roughly,\nNorth Germany and Great Britain--tend at present to the re-establishment of\na Servile Status. It will be diversified by local accident, modified by\nlocal character, hidden under many forms. But it will come.\n\nThat the mere Capitalist anarchy cannot endure is patent to all men. That\nonly a very few possible solutions to it exist should be equally patent to\nall. For my part, as I have said in these pages, I do not believe there are\nmore than two: a reaction towards well-divided property, or the\nre-establishment of servitude. I cannot believe that theoretical\nCollectivism, now so plainly failing, will ever inform a real and living\nsociety.\n\nBut my conviction that the re-establishment of the Servile Status in\nindustrial society is actually upon us does not lead me to any meagre and\nmechanical prophecy of what the future of Europe shall be. The force of\nwhich I have been speaking is not the only force in the field. There is a\ncomplex knot of forces underlying any nation once Christian; a smouldering\nof the old fires.\n\nMoreover, one can point to European societies which will most certainly\nreject any such solution of our Capitalist problem, just as the same\nsocieties have either rejected, or lived suspicious of, Capitalism itself,\nand have rejected or lived suspicious of that industrial organisation which\ntill lately identified itself with \"progress\" and national well-being.\n\nThese societies are in the main the same as those which, in that great\nstorm of the sixteenth century,--the capital episode in the story of\nChristendom--held fast to tradition and saved the continuity of morals.\nChief among them should be noted to-day the French and the Irish.\n\nI would record it as an impression and no more that the Servile State,\nstrong as the tide is making for it in Prussia and in England to-day, will\nbe modified, checked, perhaps defeated in war, certainly halted in its\nattempt to establish itself completely, by the strong reaction which these\nfreer societies upon its flank will perpetually exercise.\n\nIreland has decided for a free peasantry, and our generation has seen the\nsolid foundation of that institution laid. In France the many experiments\nwhich elsewhere have successfully introduced the Servile State have been\ncontemptuously rejected by the populace, and (most significant!) a recent\nattempt to register and to \"insure\" the artisans as a separate category of\ncitizens has broken down in the face of an universal and a virile contempt.\n\nThat this second factor in the development of the future, the presence of\nfree societies, will destroy the tendency to the Servile State elsewhere I\ndo not affirm, but I believe that it will modify that tendency, certainly\nby example and perhaps by direct attack. And as I am upon the whole hopeful\nthat the Faith will recover its intimate and guiding place in the heart of\nEurope, so I believe that this sinking back into our original Paganism (for\nthe tendency to the Servile State is nothing less) will in due time be\nhalted and reversed.\n\n_Videat Deus_.\n\n\n\n\nEndnotes\n\n[1] Save in this special sense of \"Collectivist,\" the word \"Socialist\" has\neither no clear meaning, or is used synonymously with other older and\nbetter-known words.\n\n[2] The purchasing power of money fell during this century to about a third\nof its original standard. \u00a33 (say) would purchase under Charles I the\nnecessities which \u00a31 would have purchased under Henry VIII. Nearly all the\n_receipts_ of the Crown were customary. Most of its _expenses_ were\ncompetitive. It continued to get but \u00a31 where it was gradually compelled to\npay out \u00a33.\n\n[3] Before any trust is established in this country, the first step is to\n\"interest\" one of our politicians. The Telephones, the South Wales Coal\nTrust, the happily defeated Soap Trust, the Soda, Fish, and Fruit Trusts,\nare examples in point.\n\n[4] By which word \"_property_\" is meant, of course, property in the means\nof Production.\n\n[5] That this is an illusion I shall attempt to show on a later page.\n\n[6] By an illusion which clever statesmanship could use to the advantage of\nthe community, he even estimates the natural forces he controls (which need\nno accumulation, but are always present) on the analogy of his capital, and\nwill part with them at \"so many years' purchase.\" It is by taking advantage\nof this illusion that land purchase schemes (as in Ireland) happily work to\nthe advantage of the dispossessed.\n\n[7] Thus you can raid the brewers in a society half-Puritan where brewing\nis thought immoral by many, but proceed to railway stock and it will be a\nvery different matter.\n\n[8] In using this metaphor I at once record my apologies to those who\nbelieve in elliptical and hyperbolic universes, and confess myself an\nold-fashioned parabolist. Further, I admit that the triangles in question\nare spherical.\n\n[9] Thus the money levied upon the death of some not very wealthy squire\nand represented by, say, locomotives in the Argentine, turns into two miles\nof palings for the pleasant back gardens of a thousand new officials under\nthe Inebriates Bill, or is simply handed over to the shareholders of the\nPrudential under the Insurance Act. In the first case the locomotives have\nbeen given back to the Argentine, and after a long series of exchanges have\nbeen bartered against a great number of wood-palings from the Baltic not\nexactly reproductive wealth. In the second case the locomotives which used\nto be the squire's hands become, or their equivalent becomes, means of\nproduction in the hands of the Sassoons.\n\n[10] How true it is that the idea of status underlies this legislation can\neasily be tested by taking parallel cases, in one of which working men are\nconcerned, in the other the professional class. If I contract to write for\na publisher a complete History of the County of Rutland, and in the pursuit\nof that task, while examining some object of historical interest, fall down\na pit, I should not be able to recover against the publisher. But if I\ndress in mean clothes, and the same publisher, deceived, gives me a month's\nwork at cleaning out his ornamental water and I am wounded in that\noccupation by a fierce fish, he will be mulcted to my advantage, and that\nroundly.\n\n[11] But it has twice been brought forward in due process as a Bill in\nParliament!","title":"The Servile State","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":38589}