Twentieth century socialism : what it is not, what it is, how it may come

Introduction

No one whose intellectual parts are in working order believes that the industrial world will go back to an unorganized individualistic production and distribution of wealth. No one whose moral sense is awake desires to see the chief means of production owned and controlled by a small number of monstrously wealthy men, however great their ability or good their intentions. Nevertheless, most persons of moral sense and normal mentality are disturbed when one suggests in so many words that if industry cannot henceforth be individualistic and should not be owned and controlled by the Big Few, it will, apparently, have to be owned and controlled by the Many. This paradoxical psychology possibly indicates that we queer human beings do our real thinking and perform our occasional feats of moral self-examination in lucid intervals, alternating with states of mind — and conscience — which were better not described in non-technical language.

Edmond Kelly was a man whose lucidity was not interrupted. It was a necessity of his nature to think clearly and coherently. Not less necessary was it for him to think comprehensively, for his sympathy was vi INTRODUCTION

boundless. Every phase of life interested him. He found nothing but meanness contemptible; and nothing but injustice moved him to hate. To such a mind the partial view is intolerable. A fact must be seen from every side and its relations to other facts must be traced out. From his earliest manhood Mr. Kelly looked upon the struggle for existence as both evolution and effort. Accepting the Darwinian explanation of life, he yet could not admit that man is powerless to control his fate. Physical evolution shades into physiological, and physiological evolution into psychological. Effort, foresight, and directed effort are products of evolution, but having been produced, they become forces in further evolution. In the higher evolution of man, they have become principal forces. From the moment that Mr. Kelly grasped this thought his mind was busy with it through all the years of his exceedingly active life, mastering its implications, examining it in its social or collective, no less than in its individual aspect, and forecasting the chief lines of constructive effort by an enlightened mankind industrially and politically organized for the most effective cooperation.

Yet it was not until a few years before his death that Mr. Kelly became a declared Socialist. The slow advance to his ultimate conclusions was characteristic. Though his mind moved swiftly, his intellectual integrity compelled him to examine every position as he went on. Because of these qualities his books form a series, consecutive in premisses and argument; a logical sequence corresponding to their chronological order. Thus, in his early work, " Evolution and Effort," Mr. Kelly was content to do thoroughly one particular thing, namely, to demonstrate that the Spencerian philosophy of evolution could be accepted without committing mankind to

INTRODUCTION vii

the practical programme of laissez faire, upon which Mr. Spencer himself so strongly insisted. This work Mr. Kelly did so well that there is no need for anyone to do it over, and it provided a firm foundation for his further constructive efforts. The Popular Science Monthly, which was then, under the editorship of Professor Edward L. Youmans, unreservedly committed to Spencerian views, acknowledged that it was the most telling attack upon what Professor Huxley had called "administrative nihilism" that had been made in any quarter. The main ideas of " Evolution and Effort" were elaborated and clinched in the two large volumes on " Government or Human Evolution," and were concretely applied to pressing practical questions in the unsigned book, "A Programme for Workingmen."

Each of the two volumes on "Government" was devoted, as " Evolution and Effort" had been, to establishing firmly a specific proposition. When Mr. Kelly began writing the first volume, which bore the sub-title "Justice," he was a lecturer in the Faculty of Political Science at Columbia University and was intensely interested in the movement for the reform of municipal politics in New York city. Believing that adequate organization was the chief need, he had founded the City Club and the subsidiary Good Government Clubs. In the discussions which this movement called forth, he says: "One fact stood out with startling conspicuousness. Not one out of a thousand was able to formulate a clear idea as to the principles upon which he stood; upon one measure he was an Individualist; upon another, a Collectivism one day he was for strong governmental action; the next for liberty of contract; and of those who presented the claims of expediency and justice respectively , no one was able to say what justice was."

viii INTRODUCTION

It seemed, therefore, to Mr. Kelly that on the theoretical side we needed firsthand above all else, a clear conception of justice as an end to be attained. For conclusions already arrived at in "Evolution and Effort" made it impossible for himto believe that justice is satisfied by merely "rewarding every man according to his performance." Seeing in evolution possibilities beyond present attainment, he believed that a way should be found to enable every man to achieve his potential performance. Thus his notion of justice, derived from the principle of evolution, became substantially identical with that which had been set forth two thousand years ago by Plato in The Republic. To quote Mr. Kelly's own words: "Justice may, then, be described as the effort to eliminate from our social conditions the effects of the inequalities of Nature upon the happiness and advancement of man, and particularly to create an artificial environment which shall serve the individual as well as the race, and tend to perpetuate noble types rather than those which are base."

It was inevitable that with such a conception of justice in mind, a thinker scientifically so remorseless as Mr. Kelly was, should find individualistic prejudices shaken before he completed his task. " Beginning w T ith a strong bias against Socialism of every kind," he was forced before he reached the end of his first volume to "a reluctant recognition that by collective action only could the uncorrupted many be rescued from the corrupt few, and could successful effort be made to diminish the misery of poverty and crime."

Having arrived at this conclusion, Mr. Kelly was able to make his second volume on the respective claims of Individualism and Collectivism an exposition which, for clearness of insight, acuteness of philosophical

INTRODUCTION ix

observation, wealth of historical knowledge, and sanity of judgment, has few equals in the modern literature of social problems. He demonstrated the inevitable failure of individualism as an adequate working programme for a complex civilization. He showed that collectivism must be accepted, whether we like it or not, if we desire justice; and, more than this, he showed, not speculatively, but from concrete and experimental data, that a civilized mankind may be expected to like a reasonable collectivism when it begins to understand and to adopt it, far better than it has liked individualism, and for the adequate reason that collectivism will diminish misery and increase happiness.

Not even upon the completion of this remarkable volume, however, was Mr. Kelly quite ready to take the final step of identifying himself with the Socialist party. So strong was that nature within him which, without theological implications, we may call the spiritual or religious, that he would have been glad if he could have seen the possibility of attaining the ends which Socialism contemplates through a movement essentially subjective, that is to say, through developments of the intellectual and moral nature of man which would impel all human beings, irrespective of class distinctions, to work together spontaneously and unselfishly, for the creation of a wholesome environment and essential justice in social relations. It was this feeling that led him to write the anonymously published, "Practical Programme for Workingmen," in which essentially socialistic measures are advocated, but with strong emphasis upon the vital importance of character and sympathy.

When a strong-minded man of strict intellectual honesty has thus advanced, step by step, from one position to another, at every stage of his progress surveyx INTRODUCTION

ing the whole field of human struggle; observing it dispassionately, as a scientific evolutionist; observing it sympathetically, "as one who loves his fellowmen," comes at last to the socialistic conclusion, and devotes the last weeks of his life to the preparation of a new statement of socialistic doctrine, the fact is more significant, as an indication of the way mankind is going, than are all the cries of "lo here, lo there' ' that arise from the din of party discussion. In Mr. Kelly's case the significance was deepened by all the circumstances of taste and association. Intensely democratic in his relations to men, Mr. Kelly was in breeding, in culture, in delicacy of feeling an aristocrat of the purest type. Educated at Columbia and at Cambridge, his university acquaintance and his political and professional activities in New York and in Paris had kept him continually in touch with what the socialist calls "the capitalist class." In joining the Socialist party he jeopardized friendships and associations that meant more to him than anything else save the approval of his own conscience.

The book now given to the public, written when he knew that his days were numbered, is, all in all, the most remarkable of his works. All writers of experience know that it is far easier to write a first statement of a newly discovered truth, than to restate the chief principles of a system already partly formulated; a system more or less vague where it is most vital, more or less unscientific and impossible where it is most specific. No one knew better than Mr. Kelly did that while the larger-minded leaders of the Socialist movement would generously welcome any thought which he had to give, there would be some of the rank and file who would feel that, in differing from the accredited writers, he was revealing himself as a convert not yet quite informed

INTRODUCTION xi

on all tenets of the creed — perhaps not even quite sound in the faith. A less enthusiastic nature, or one less resolutely determined to complete his life work as best he could, would have shrunk from such an undertaking as this book was. That under the circumstances he could put into it the vigor of thought and of style, the incisive criticism, the wealth of fact and illustration; above all, the freshness of view, the practical good sense and the strong constructive treatment which we find in these pages, is indeed remarkable.

How clearly he saw what sort of a book was needed, is best indicated in his own account of what he desired to do. It should be first of all, he thought, comprehensive. Socialism has been presented from the economic standpoint, from the scientific, from the ethical and from the idealistic. As Mr. Kelly saw it, Socialism is not merely an economic system, nor merely an idealistic vision. It is a consequence and product of evolution. "Science has made it constructive," he says, " and the trusts have made it practical." It is ethical because "the competitive system must ultimately break upon the solidarity of mankind," because the survival of the fit is not the whole result of evolution. The result still to be attained is "the improvement of all." And Socialism is idealistic because it not only contemplates, but gives reasonable promise of "a community from which exploitation, unemployment, poverty and prostitution shall be eliminated."

But besides making an exposition of Socialism as a whole and in all its parts, Mr. Kelly aimed to make a book "for non-socialists." With this purpose in view he has kept closely to concrete statement and above all has tried to avoid vagueness and loose generalization. He has described possibilities in terms that all know and xii INTRODUCTION

understand. With the precision of the trained legal mind, he seizes the essential point when he says: "It is not enough to be told that there are a thousand ways through which Socialism can be attained. We want to see clearly one way." With the last strength that he had to spend Mr. Kelly showed one way; and no bewildered wayfarer through our baffling civilization, however he may hesitate to set his feet upon it, will venture to say that it is not clear.

Franklin H, Giddings.

New York, April 19, 1910.

II

An immense revolution, a wonderful revolution, is opening in the mind of the human race; a new driving force is taking hold of the souls of men — the devotion to the welfare of the whole; a new sense, with all the intensity of a new-born feeling, is emerging in the consciousness of men— the sense that one cannot himself be healthy or happy unless the race is happy and healthy. A hundred theories appearing here and there, a thousand organizations springing up, a million acts of individuals everywhere, attest each day the presence and the growing power of this vast solidarizing movement.

Among these manifestations throughout the world, the most pronounced and the most clearly defined is that compact, fiercely vital organization known as the international Socialist party. Yet the Socialist party is not the movement, any more than the cresting billow is the torrent. It is an imperatively necessary element;

INTRODUCTION xiii

but the movement itself is vastly broader and deeper than any manifestation of it.

An uncounted multitude in all lands are gradually becoming conscious of this sweeping tendency and of their own part in it — a multitude as yet not bearing any specific title. Out of these a considerable number are fully conscious of the movement, and are willing partakers. These we might call solidarists, in token of their conviction that the goal ought to be and will be an economic solidarity. But of even these it is only a part who are distinctively to be called Socialists, only those who have perceived two certain mighty facts: first, that men's mass-relations in the process of making a living are fundamental to their other relations, to their opinions and motives, and to all revolutions; and, second, that the chief agency in bringing about changes in the great affairs of the human race has always been and continues to be the pressure and clash between enduring masses of men animated by opposite economic interests. The Socialist is one who sees these social and historic facts and whose action is guided by such sight; the non- Socialist solidarist is one who, though animated by the socializing impulses, has not yet perceived these two most weighty facts.

Now Edmond Kelly, as was natural from his antecedents, was for nearly the whole of his life a non-Socialist solidarist. But, about two years before his death, being at the height of his powers of insight and intellect, he attained the clear vision of the " class-struggle/' and no longer had any doubts where he himself belonged in the army of humanity — he became and remained a comrade — a loyal comrade.

There is a certain bit of doggerel, said to derive from Oxford, which tells us that:

xiv INTRODUCTION

"Every little boy or gal, Who comes into this world alive, Is born a little Radical, Or else a small Conservative."

And this all-pervading division penetrates even that most radical of bodies, the Socialist party. That party has its own conservative and radical wings — its right and its left — and Edmond Kelly is distinctly of the right.

One who is inclined by instinct to the one wing, and by logic to the other, can realize the indispensableness of both — the special contribution which each makes, and which the other cannot make, to the common cause. The motive of this note is to appeal to the comrades of the left not to shut their eyes to the value of this book, not to forego its special usefulness. For the very attitude of its author, which may be distaseful to them — his making appeals which they no longer make, his using forms of speech which they reject, his making so little use of that which is their main appeal, fit him especially to influence the minds of that numerous fringe of educated persons who must evidently be first made "rightists" before they can become "centrists" or "leftists." It may even be imagined that the difficult type of working man, he who thinks himself too noble-minded to respond to class appeal, might begin to rouse himself if he could once be brought under the charm of this book.

Aware that he had not long to live, Mr. Kelly hastened to finish the first draft of the book, and indeed he survived that completion only two weeks. He knew that considerable editorial work was needed, and this he entrusted to Mrs. Florence Kelley, author of "Some Ethical Gains through Legislation" and translator of Marx' " Discourse on Free Trade," and of Friedrich Engels'

INTRODUCTION XV

work on the " Condition of the Working Class in England." She undertook and has fulfilled this trust, and has been aided throughout by the untiring labors of Shaun Kelly, the author's son. Thus this book of Mr. Kelly's is doubly a memorial of love — of his for man, and of ours for him.

Rufus W. Weeks.

Contents

Introductory Notes: page

By Professor Franklin H. Giddings v

By Rufus W. Weeks xii

Book I What Socialism Is Not Chapter

I. Subjective Obstacles to the Understanding of

Vested Interests 18

II. Economic Conditions 23

1. Bourgeois, Revolutionist, and Evolutionist 23

(a) The Bourgeois Point of View 23

(b) The Revolutionist Point of View 24

(c) The Evolutionist Point of View 27

III. Misrepresentation and Ignorance 31

1 . Socialism is not Anarchism 31

2. Socialism is not Communism 33

3. Socialism will not Suppress Competition 36

4. Socialism will not Destroy the Home 40

5. Socialism will not Abolish Property 42

6. Socialism will not Impair Liberty 46

7. Conclusion 51

BOOK II Evils of Capitalism 53

I. Capitalism is Stupid 57

1 . Overproduction 57

2. Unemployment 66

xvii xviii CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Capitalism is Stupid (continued).

3. Prostitution 79

4. Strikes and Lockouts 86

5. Adulteration 88

it. Capitalism is Wasteful 94

1. Getting the Market 95

2. Cross Freights 96

III. Capitalism is Disorderly 101

1. Anarchy of Production and Distribution 102

(a) Tyranny of the Market 102

(&) Tyranny of the Trust 104

(c) Tyranny of the Trade Union 106

IV. Property and Liberty 112

1. Origin of Property 113

V. Results of Property 131

1. The Guilds 135

2. Trade Unions 140

3. The Unsolved and Insoluble Problems of Trade

Unionism 145

4. Trusts 159

(a) The Conflict between the Trust and the Trade

Union 167

(6) Advantage of Trusts over Unions 169

(c) Advantage of Unions over Trusts 171

VI. Money 176

VII. Can the Evils of Capitalism be Eliminated by

Cooperation 199

Book III What Socialism Is

I. Economic Aspect of Socialism 204

II. Economic Construction of the Cooperative Common-

wealth 235

1. How Socialism May Come 239

2. Reform and Revolution 243

3. Possible Transitional Measures 248

4. Farm Colonies 263

CONTENTS xix

CHAPTER PAGE

II. Economic Construction of the Cooperative Common-

wealth (continued).

6. Summary of the Productive Side of Economic Con-

struction 286

7. Distribution 288

8. Remuneration . 303

9. Circulating Medium under Socialism 307

10. Summary 313

III. Political Aspect 317

1. Education 325

2. Churches 328

3. Political Construction 329

IV. Scientific Aspect 335

1. Natural Environment 337

(a) Struggle for Life or Competitive System 337

(b) Cooperative System 342

2. Human Environment 349

3. Effect of Competitive System on Type 357

4. Brief Restatement 360

5. Can Human Nature be Changed by Law 364

6. Summary 374

V. Ethical Aspect 378

1. Conflict between Science and Religion 378

2. Conflict between Economics and Religion 389

3. Socialism Reconciles Religion, Economics, and

Science 395

VI. Solidarity 402

Index 433

TWENTIETH CENTURY SOCIALISM

My reason for writing this book is that I do not know of any one book that gives in small compass to the uninformed a comprehensive view of Socialism. It would be fatal to suggest to one not quite certain whether he wants to know about Socialism or not, that he should read the great economic foundation work of Karl Marx. 1 The excellent book of Emil Vandervelde, 2 which seems to me to contain one of the most compendious accounts of economic Socialism, is written from the Belgian and European point of view rather than from the American; it does not attempt to give either the scientific 3 or the ethical argument for Socialism, nor does it contain spe-

1 "Capital," by Karl Marx.

2 "Collectivism and Industrial Revolution," Emil Vandervelde.

3 Engels and others have described Marxian or Economic Socialism as scientific, on the ground that Marx was the first to reduce Socialism to a science. But the word science has become so inseparably connected in our minds with chemistry, physics, biology, zoology, and geology, etc., that it seems wiser to define Marxian Socialism as economic and to keep the word scientific for that view of Socialism which is built on the sciences proper and principally on biology.

cific answers to the objections which are most imminent in American minds to-day. The recent book by Morris Hillquit, 1 deservedly recognized as one of the leaders of the party in America, an authoritative, clear and admirable statement of what the Socialist party stands for, seems to be addressed to the Socialist rather than to the non-Socialist. Innumerable books and pamphlets by Bernard Shaw, Sidney Webb, John Spargo, William Morris and others throw light on this enormous subject. But for years past when asked by the average American what one book would give him a complete account of Socialism, I have been at a loss what to recommend. The book that first opened my eyes to the possibilities of Socialism was " Fabian Tracts"; but I doubt whether this would appeal to many American readers. An economic mind must be given the economic argument; a scientific mind the scientific argument; an idealistic mind, the ideal; an ethical mind, the ethical; but the average mind must be given all four; for it is in the convincing concurrence of all four that the argument for Socialism is unanswerable.

Another reason for writing this book is the desire to put Socialism firmly on the solid foundation of fact. It is the progress of science and the economic development of the last few years that have made Socialism constructive and practical. Science has made it constructive and the trusts have made it practical. It no longer rests on the imagination of poets nor on the discontent of the unemployed. On the contrary, Science with its demonstration that man is no longer the mere result of his environment, but can become its master, teaches us that by constructing our environment with intelligence we can determine the direction of our own

1 "Socialism in Theory and Practice." Macmillan, 1909.

development. The trusts, with their demonstration of the waste and folly of competition, teach us that what a few promoters have done for their own benefit the whole community can do for the benefit of all.

Again, history has revealed a fact upon which the competitive system must ultimately break; it may break under the hammer of the new builder or through the upheaval of a mob; but that it must eventually break is as certain as that day follows night. This fact is the solidarity of mankind. Whether it was wise of the Few to share the government with the Many it is too late now to inquire. The thing has been done — aha jacta. And that the Few should imagine that, after having put a club in the hands of the Many with which they can, when they choose, at any election smash to pieces the machinery — political and industrial — that oppresses them; and having established a system of education — nay, of compulsory education — through which the Many must learn during their childhood, how upon attaining majority, they can use this club most effectually, the Many will refrain from using it — is one of those delicious inconsequences of the governing class which throws a ray of humor over an otherwise tragic scene.

I do not believe it was in the power of the Few to perpetuate their reign; I think there are evidences of a Power working through Evolution to which even Herbert Spencer has paid the tribute of a capital P, which ordained from the beginning that Man should progress not as his forbears did, through the survival only of the fit, but as Man has unconsciously for centuries been doing, through the improvement of all. I think this is the Power that some worship under the name of J ah and others under the name of God. But this view will not be insisted upon, for it is not necessary to insist upon it. The fact of human solidarity will, I think, be demonstrated, 1 and it will, I hope, at the same time be shown that Socialism is no longer a theory born of discontent, but a system developed by fact, and as inevitably so developed as the tiger from the jungle of India, or cattle from the civilization of man.

Again, I do not think it is sufficient to demonstrate that Socialism is sound in theory. We have also to show that it is attainable in fact.

The practical American will not be satisfied with being told that there are a thousand different ways through which Socialism can be attained. He does not want to be told how many ways there are to Socialism, but wants to be shown one way along which his imagination can safely travel.

What the " bourgeois" wants to know is just how Socialism is going to work. He cannot conceive of industry without capitalism, any more than he can conceive of the world without the sun. Some concrete picture must be presented to his mind that will enable him to understand that while capital is not only good, but essential, the capitalist is not only bad, but superfluous. Nothing less than a picture of industry actually in operation without capitalism will suffice; and this, therefore, I have attempted to draw. No pretence is made that the picture is the only possible Socialist state, or that it will ever be realized in the exact shape in which it is drawn. The only claim to be made for it is that it furnishes a fair account of an industrial community from which exploitation, unemployment, poverty and prostitution are eliminated; that such an industrial community is more practical because far more economical than our own; and that it is the goal towards which, if we survive

1 Book III, Chapter VI, the dangers attending the present conflict between capital and labor, industrial and ethical evolution are inevitably driving us.

Again, there is probably no feature connected with Socialism that it is more important to demonstrate and define than its economy. It occurred to me that we possessed in our official reports, and particularly in the 13th Annual Report of the Bureau of Labor, figures which would enable us to arrive at a considerable part of this economy with some mathematical certainty. I pointed out my plan to Mr. J. Lebovitz, of the Library of Congress, Washington, D. C, who has a better talent for statistics than myself, and I cannot but congratulate myself and my readers upon the results to which, thanks to his help, we have jointly come.

It must be admitted that the figures in our possession do not enable us to estimate the whole economy of Socialism; but they do enable us to give a tentative estimate of how many hours a workingman would have to work to produce the things which the average workingman consumes if no account be taken of profit, rent, interest, and the cost of distribution. Of course, though profit, interest and rent would be eliminated in a cooperative commonwealth, we should still be subject to the cost of distribution and, therefore, the figures we arrive at are incomplete in the sense that we have to take into account the fact that they do not include this cost. But there would be economies exercised in a cooperative commonwealth, such as the economy of insurance, of advertising, of unnecessary sickness, of strikes and lockouts, of the cost of pauperism, crime and in some measure that of dependents, defectives and delinquents, etc., which would probably pay the cost of distribution. I feel, therefore, that although our figures are not absolute, they do furnish a starting-point more satisfactory than has heretofore been obtained.

The most impelling reason for writing this book is the persistently false and misleading statements made regarding Socialism by the very persons whose business it is to be informed on the subject. For years now the men we elect to office as best fitted to govern us — Presidents and Presidential candidates, Roosevelt, Taft and Bryan, have in spite of repeated protests and explanations been guilty of this offence. Mr. Roosevelt stands too high in the esteem of a large part of our voting public, and I myself entertain too high an opinion of his ability, for such charges as those he has made against Socialism to go unanswered. And in answering them I shall take as my justification the platform of the Socialist party, 1 which must be carefully read by all who want to understand what Socialism really is in the United States of America. It is of course impossible in a platform to give the whole philosophy of Socialism, but the platform does state with sufficient precision what Socialists stand for to make it impossible for anyone who has read it to remain any longer under the false impression created by ignorance or deliberate misrepresentation.

I take Mr. Roosevelt's articles in the Outlook as the special object of my explanations, not only because they express very widespread fallacies regarding Socialism, but because they emanate from one who for popularity and reputation casts every other American in the shade; and also because, for this reason, his utterances not only command the attention of the foolish — this he easily gets — -but should also, in view of his position, arrest that of those who tend by his exaggerations to be estranged from him.