Are We Growing Toward Socialism?

Front matter

Copyright 1917, by Local Cleveland, Socialist Party

ARE WE GROWING

TOWARD

Chapter 1: Foreword

1—Foreword

That tremendous changes are taking place in the world can no longer be denied by even the most unthinking observer.

Forms of industrial organization bitterly opposed for several decades have become accepted facts. Governmental policies in relation to industry which aroused the united opposition of the owners of industry are being applied with little or no friction. Our conceptions of the services which the government should render to the people are becoming more inclusive.

The change in our viewpoint in regard to industrial development is illustrated in our attitude toward the great industrial organizations we call trusts.

For two decades the trust question was one of the momentous questions of our political life.

The passage of the Sherman anti-trust law in 1890 marked the beginning of the period of opposition, which extended down to the presidential campaign of 1912, during which Mr. Wilson advocated a "trust-busting" program.

Today "trust-busting" is no longer an issue. The trusts have become an accepted fact. Cases begun during the heat of the anti-trust campaign and still pending in the courts are prosecuted with little interest or enthusiasm and no doubt will be ultimately dropped.

Coincident with the dying out of the anti-trust fervor a new conception of the government's responsibility for industry has developed.

The tendency toward government control and even government ownership becomes constantly more pronounced,

In the cities, where the government is closer to the lives and needs of the people, the same tendencies and forces are manifesting themselves. There is an ever-increasing demand for greater service on the part of the city government and an ever-widening sphere of activity.

All these tendencies and developments, which were evident and in progress before the great war began, have been emphasized and become more marked since August of 1914.

Innovations in government activities which would have aroused bitter controversies ten or even five years ago, are being adopted with hardly any comment.

Our viewpoint has changed—is still changing rapidly, and social evolution, usually a slow and painful process, is proceeding by leaps and bounds.

Is all this mere chance?

Are we in the grip of blind forces about which we can understand nothing and is the mutation, change and development in our industrial life and social conceptions without definite direction?

Are we the plaything of fate which is bringing into the world a new chaos for us to struggle in?

Are we drifting without knowing whither we are going?

Or, is it possible for us to grasp the significance of these changes and to forecast the broad outline of the new social order toward which we are moving?

Is there a science of society which enables us through study and analysis to understand the social forces at work and to work in harmony with those social forces?

The Socialists say there is and that Socialism is that science of society.

The opponents of Socialism seem unable to grasp the broader meaning of Socialism.

They see the Socialists holding conventions, nominating candidates, framing platforms and entering into election contests and therefore consider the Socialist party as a mere political organization, expressing the ideas and whims of certain individuals, just as THEY look upon the Republican and Democratic parties.

This view was expressed by the editor of one of the metropolitan dailies in comparing the Socialist party to the Greenback party and the People’s party.

The Socialists had made great gains. They had increased their vote tremendously and elected their representatives to many political offices. The editor in question said this was nothing of importance. Third parties had appeared in American political life before, had their day and disappeared. Just as the Greenback party and the People’s party had gained a certain amount of prestige and power, so the Socialist party would gain certain strength and then disappear as these third parties of the past have disappeared.

This is still the view of the ignorant opponents to Socialism. The average politician, newspaper editor and business man think that Socialism is a temporary thing, a nuisance of the moment, which will soon drop out of sight and leave them to their undisturbed enjoyment of pelf and power.

It requires only a glance at one phase of the Socialist movement to destroy this illusion.

The Socialist movement is international.

It does not only exist in the United States, but in Germany, Russia, Italy, France, Austria, England and the other countries of Europe. There is a Socialist movement in China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the countries of South America. Our neighbors, Canada and Mexico, have Socialist parties.

The Socialist movement exists everywhere where the capitalist system is in existence. In every country of the world where a certain phase of industrial development has come into.existence it has brought with it the Socialist movement.

In all these countries the Socialists are fighting for an identical, ultimate goal. They stand united in their struggle to achieve a certain form of social and industrial organization.

This fact alone should serve to distinguish the Socialist party from all other political movements and to show that it has a different basis than the ephemeral third party political movements in this country during the last century.

To show why Socialism is called the science of society and by the application of this science to show that the changes in our industrial and social life are not part of a jumble of unrelated happenings, but a definite evolution and growth toward a new stage of society, and what that society must be, will be the purpose of the chapters to follow.

Chapter 2: Social Evolution of the Past

2—Social Evolution of the Past

To the man or woman who believes that the present organization of society has always existed the suggestion that a new and different social order may supplant it, naturally seems preposterous.

For such persons our social-organization has been cast in a certain mold and has remained unchanged and will remain unchangeable for all time. For them there is no hope. Things have always been so and will always be so, is their fatalistic formula.

In order to grasp the full significance of the industrial development of our time we must have as a background for our judgment a knowledge of the social evolution of the past.

Once we understand that the relations which men have entered into in gaining the means of subsistence have changed and altered through the ages, that social systems have come and gone, that these social systems have had their beginnings, that they have grown into full flower and declined and decayed, we are then in a position to interpret the social development of our own time.

The human race, during the period it has existed upon the earth, has lived under four great social systems, which are called primitive communism, slavery, feudalism and capitalism.

Each of these are marked by distinct relations between individuals in gaining their livelihood and each system of relationship in gaining a livelihood gave birth to a form of government, a code of ethics, and general social customs in harmony with it.

Our knowledge of the past, gained through the re- searches of scientists, tells us that primitive communism was the earliest social system which existed among men.

If we count the time that there has been a race of men upon the earth as a hundred thousand years. four-fifths of that time or nearly eighty thousand years has been lived by man under the social arrangement known as communism.

Communism existed among the American Indians when this continent was discovered. Vestiges of it still remain among the backward races of the earth. We are therefore in a position to know its chief features.

There was no private property in the means of subsistence during this early period of life of the human race. "The earth and the fullness thereof" belonged to all mankind.

The tribe of men which occupied a certain area used that territory in common. The fields, the forests, the hunting grounds were open to all alike. No one was denied the right to secure and use what nature had provided. There were no bounds set by ownership, no right to exact rent or payment for use of what others needed in order to live.

It was not only, however, the right to use what nature provided that marked this stage of human development. The things secured were likewise common property and used in common.

The game secured from the hunt, and at a later period the food secured through cultivation, was the common property of the gens (the gens was the unit of social organization among our ancestors.} One family did not starve while another in the same gens feast- ed. The units in the gens shared hardships and plenty alike. They suffered when there was scarcity and feasted when there was plenty.

There were no classes in this early communistic society and therefore no class government. Men were equal, The American Indians elected their own war chiefs and their sachems, or rulers, in time of peace. They met in councils and decided their course of action by the vote of the majority. Even the despised squaw had a voice and a vote in the council. The war chief and the sachem could be deposed by a vote of the gens.

We may well ask what it was that brought to an end this idealistic organization of society, which served mankind for so many ages, and brought into the world tyrrany, oppression and class conflicts which have been dominant in the history of mankind since the time of this ancient communism?

We find the answer in the development of the means of gaining a subsistence. Strange as it may seem, it was man's progress in gaining control over his food supply, his ability to produce a greater amount of the necessities of life, that brought to an end this primitive communism and led to the division of the human race into opposing classes, which has existed ever since.

So long as a human being could produce only enough for his own subsistence through his efforts, there was no basis for slavery. An enslaved man who consumed all that he produced was oi no use to his master. Slavery did not come into existence until it was profitable.

Cannibalism was universal among our savage an- cestors. The prisoners taken in wars between contending tribes became part of the food supply of the victors.

It was only after man had improved his productive powers sufficiently so that the individual could produce more than he consumed that slavery came into existence.

This time came with the development of the art of cultivating cereals and domesticating animals.

Incidentally this development of man's productive powers led to a more settled habitation, which was another factor in making slavery possible. Among a roving band the attention required to prevent slaves from escaping would in itself have made slavery impossible.

When this new mode of production came into existence the prisoners taken in the wars between the tribes were no longer killed and eaten, but were set to work to produce wealth for their masters.

With the development of productive ability there developed also the idea of private property, and naturally the war chief, chosen for his prowess in battle, would capture the greatest number of prisoners and thus gain the means of amassing wealth for himself. The great chief became the ruler, the king and the lesser leaders, part of the ruling class of the tribe.

From this beginning there grew up the great slave states of antiquity—Assyria, Persia, Athens and Rome.

This society based upon production through slaves could not exist permanently.

No society, to paraphrase the words of Abraham Lincoln, can remain in existence permanently, which is part slave and part free.

Men have never willingly accepted the yoke of slavery.

They have always fought for freedom. In a society in which an enslaved class exists there will always be a class conflict.

The historians of Athens tell us of an uprising of the slaves in the silver mines of Attica, owned by Athens, four centuries before the beginning of the present era, and Rome was shaken again and again by slave rebellions.

This struggle between the rulers and slaves ended "in the common ruin of the contending classes," for when the northern tribes descended upon Rome, divided against itself, it could not withstand their onslaught. With the end of the power of the Roman Empire there went out of existence the social system upon which it was based.

It is true that slavery existed in this country until after the middle of the last century but this was merely a case of social atavism. Slavery as.a social system ended with the breaking up of the Roman Empire.

For a time after the downfall of Rome the social organization of Europe was marked by a return to the communistic principles which dominated the social institutions of early mankind. Communistic villages grew up everywhere on that continent. The people lived in villages, protected by stockades, tilling the land about the village. The food thus secured was the common store. Their government was a democracy.

To protect themselves against the roving bands of warriors, which were to be found in all parts of Eur- ope, they chose a military chief, whose duty it was to protect the village against these marauders.

From this kernel developed the new class society—feudalism.

The military leader, first the servant of the community, granted a share in the product of the community in payment for his services, soon gained greater power and took as his right what had been previously freely given.

He arrogated to himself the power of a ruler and exacted as his due an ever greater part of the product of the workers. He developed from the servant of the community into the divinely appointed feudal overlord. The tillers of the soil, the workers, became serfs, who were bought and sold with the land. The new class society was in full bloom. Feudalism had blossomed forth, to rule Europe for a thousand years.

The reign of feudalism was marked by repeated uprisings of the serfs. The insurrection under Wat Tyler in England in the 14th century, the Peasant War in Southern Germany in the early part of the 16th century, were efforts of the serfs to throw their feudal oppressors from their backs. It was not, however, until a new class developed within the feudal system that the power of feudalism was seriously threatened.

The trading class, the first capitalists, grew up within the feudal system. Before the discovery of America this class had gained some measure of power. The era of commercial development which came with the discovery of the Western Hemisphere soon put it in a position to challenge the power of the feudal rulers of society.

At about the same time a new mode of production began to develop. Machinery came into use. Workers were needed in the factories which were being established.

Capitalism could not develop fully under feudalism. The serfs were attached to the land. They could not leave it. The new system of factory production required a large body of free laborers. The feudal rulers were apt to consider the traders their legitimate prey. They used their control of the state to advance their own interests at the expense of the interests of the capitalists.

The struggle between the feudal rulers and growing capitalist class lasted for six centuries. It manifested itself as early as the thirteenth century in the struggle of the free cities of the Hanseatic League against the feudal lords. The commercial class ended feudal rule in England in the middle of the sixteenth century. In France the end of feudalism was marked by the Reign of Terror in 1793. In Germany feudalism was partially beaten in 1848 and in Russia it met its Waterloo only yesterday.

The picture here drawn of the past life of man is merely a rough sketch. It should, however, be sufficient to show that man has not lived under a fixed and permanent social system, but that, on the contrary, there has been constant growth and development. With the knowledge that man’s social relations have been under four well defined systems of social organization, we are prepared for an examination of the capitalist system, to determine whether it is something permanent and unchangeable, as the apologists for things as they are seem to believe, or whether it is also growing and developing and preparing the way for a new social order.

Chapter 3: The Evolution of Production

3—The Evolution of Production

The improvement of the steam engine, which brought it into general use as a generator of power for manufacture, was accomplished by James Watt in 1782. The spinning and weaving machinery which revolutionized the manufacture of textiles, was invented by Hargreave, Arkwright and Crompton between 1764 and 1780.

These inventions mark the beginning of a new era of capitalist development.

The commercial class which carried on the early struggles against the feudal system was not, to any great extent, engaged in the manufacture of goods for sale. Production for sale developed very slowly. Manufacture was in its infancy and trading was the chief function of the commercial class.

It was after the perfection of the steam engine by Watt, which marked the beginning of the age of machine production, that the manufacture of goods for sale became the principle function of the capitalist.

We have seen in a previous chapter that it was changes in man’s way of getting a living, new methods of producing wealth, that brought into existence a new social order.

It is in the changes of industry since the development of machine production that we will find the signs pointing to the development of the new social order which is to succeed capitalism.

Prior to the general introduction of machinery individual production was the rule in industry.

The weaver, before the invention of the steam engine and the power loom, worked in his own home. He secured his supply of yarn from his employer, turned it into cloth by his own fireside and delivered the finished material to the owner.

The shoemaker, the blacksmith, the tailor, with their assistants, carried on the work of production in their own shops.

The shoemaker received his order from his customer, purchased his materials, turned them into shoes and handed the finished product to his customer. He produced a complete commodity which he sold direct to his customer.

Similarly the tailor produced complete commodities for direct sale to his customers.

When a number of workers were brought together in a shop or factory they usually worked with their employer. They produced completed articles, beginning with the raw material and putting the finished product on the market.

Production in these early days of capitalism, it will be thus seen, was individual in its character, It was individual labor, individual skill that counted in producing goods. The division of labor had not developed to any great extent.

The introduction of machinery changed all this. It developed a new mode of production.

Contrast the weaver in the days when weaving was still individual work, when the weaver secured the yarn from his employer and turned it into cloth in his own home, using a machine which he owned, to the workers in the great cloth producing industry of today!

The weaver of the days gone by has disappeared. The great, ingenious power machines have taken his place. In place of working in his own home he works in a great mill employing thousands of workers. He is a machine attendant, overseeing one operation of the work of producing cloth. In many instances women and children have replaced the expert workers and they are mere cogs in the industrial machine.

The same is true of other lines of production. The shoemaker who made shoes is gone. A shoe factory has supplanted him.

The workers in the shoe factory do not individually produce shoes. They perform single operations in the work of producing shoes. They cut leather into certain shapes, they sew certain seams, they sew on buttons and make buttonholes. The work of making a pair of shoes has been divided into many separate operations, each performed by a different worker.

The manufacture of clothing has developed similarly.

An examination of the processes of production in a great clothing factory, from the time the work of production was begun until the finished product was shipped to the distributor, would show many hundreds of men and women each performing separate operations in the process of production.

Such an examination would show the planning office, in which the operations are charted and the materials requisitioned, the stockkeepers who supply the materials, the markers who lay up the cloth on the tables and mark out the design of the garments with the help of patterns, the machine cutters, who cut the cloth, the blockers who stamp out certain parts, the label sewers and pin ticketers, who mark the various parts for identification, the assemblers, the basters, the machine operators, finishers, buttonhole makers, button sewers, pressers and examiners, and a variety of other workers, each performing a part of the work of producing a complete garment.

Each worker contributes.a small part of the work of producing the completed whole. Their product is no longer individual. It is a co-operative, collective product.

What is true of the work of producing shoes or clothing is true of industry in general. The entire process of the work of production has developed from an individual to collective work.

In every line of production hundreds, sometimes thousands of workers co-operate in producing goods. They work together, each performing a part of the work of bringing the complete product into existence.

Capitalism has developed from individual production to collective, co-operative production.

It is the development of the machinery of production that has wrought this mighty change in the manner of producing wealth.

Machinery is not as flexible as human beings. Most machines are built to perform one kind of work only. It requires many kinds of machines to perform the various operations necessary in the manufacture of a coat or a pair of shoes.

Each machine requires an attendant, whose part in the work of production is limited, by the fact that the machine performs only a certain operation.

The many kinds of machines necessary to the work of production had to be kept working in order to make their use profitable and this required production on a large scale. Thus the introduction of machinery made necessary the change from small scale production to the production of goods in great volume.

The development of machine production has therefore not only brought collective production into existence—that is, many workers co-operating in producing wealth—but it has also brought into existence great industrial organizations for production on.a large scale.

The great industrial organizations of our time, the trusts, are not the product of chance, but the logical result of the evolution of the machinery of production.

The individual or organization which proposes to "bust the trusts" is making as absurd a proposal as he who demands "sun stand still."

The work of production has not only become a collective process within the individual industrial units themselves, but the same interdependence exists between various industrial units.

If a single worker contributing to the work of production does his or her work badly the whole process becomes disorganized and the product may be worthless.

Similarly if the mines shut down for a definite period and coal cannot be obtained, or the transportation of goods is stopped by an interruption of railroad service, or the supply of raw material is not delivered, there is friction and the entire industrial process may stop.

The whole business of production has become a collective, co-operative process, interelated and interdependent.

Thus the changes in the capitalist mode of production, which begun one hundred and fifty years ago and which have been particularly rapid during the past twenty-five years, have transformed the entire structure of capitalism and established basic conditions, which are part of the necessary conditions for the establishment of Socialism.

Socialism requires co-operation in the production of wealth. That has come through the evolution of machinery under capitalism.

Socialism requires the integration of industry in larger industrial units. That has also come as the result of the development of the machinery of production under capitalism.

The evolution of capitalism has already produced the basic conditions necessary in industry for the development of the new social order which is to succeed it—SOCIALISM.

Chapter 4: The New Social Conscience

4—The New Social Conscience

In these words Karl Marx, who laid the theoretical foundation of the modern Socialist movement, summed up the principles underlying social evolution.

We have seen that the mode of production has developed from the individual production of the early days of capitalism to the collective production of the present day.

If the theory above enunciated is correct a new social consciousness, corresponding with the new mode of production, should have developed during the same period.

Has this new viewpoint come into existence? Is our social consciousness, our mental outlook, today different from that which existed when production was still individual in its character?

The political history of the last one hundred years will give us a definite answer to this question.

A hundred years ago the generally accepted theory in regard to the relation of governments to industry was typified in the words "laisser faire," (let alone). Non-interference with industry was considered a virtue. That government was best which interfered the least with individual freedom of action.

i will readily be seen that this is the reflex of the mode of production. Production was still individual and it brought into existence a political economy which laid stress on individual freedom in industry.

The capitalists were left alone to work out their own salvation. There were no laws regulating the manner in which they should run their business. The suggestion that a government might step in and tell the owners of industry whom they might employ, how the machinery of production should be safeguarded and how many hours the workers should be employed, would have seemed to them a shocking perversion of the duty of the government.

It was during this period of unchecked individualism that the horrors of child labor were greatest in England.

Children of the most tender ages, from the poor houses, were farmed out to the cotton manufacturers. In their mad greed for quick profits they worked these children for from fourteen to sixteen hours per day and compelled them to live under such conditions that they died by the thousands.

The supply of the children of the poor seemed inexhaustible. There were no laws to safeguard their lives. Individualism was rampant in industry. The result was that the children died like flies.

When the suggestion was first made that the government should pass laws to safeguard the lives of these children it aroused the bitter opposition of the entire capitalist class of England. They protested that the management of industry was not the business of the government. They said that if the government began to interfere with business in such a manner, business would be strangled and the entire industrial system would collapse.

Although the evidence to prove the brutal treatment of the children, the long hours they were compelled to work, the unsanitary conditions under which they lived, was at hand, it was only through one of the hardest struggles in English political history that the first child labor laws were passed in that country.

This incident from the industrial history of Eng- land shows how deeply rooted the theory of non-interference with industry was in the political economy of the past.

Since that time the theory of "laisser faire" has got so badly battered that it is no longer recognizable.

While the capitalist class still fights against laws regulating its business, the principle that the government has the right to legislate for the control of industry is firmly established.

In the constitution of the state of Ohio, adopted in 1912, we find the provision that "Laws may be passed fixing and regulating the hours of labor, establishing a minimum wage and providing for the comfort, health, safety and general welfare of all employees; and no other provision of this constitution shall impair or limit this power.

Legislation such as described in this paragraph is general throughout this country and in every other capitalistically developed country.

Not only has society established its right to interfere with the business of the capitalist in these respects, but it regulates every phase of industry.

The fixing of rates which railroads may charge for freight and passenger transportation is one example how far we have developed from the old ideas of the right of the government to interfere in industry.

Regulation in regard to industry expressed itself in child labor laws, laws regulating the hours of labor for men and women, providing for safeguarding of machinery, workmen's compensation, railway rate regu- lation, anti-trust and in laws affecting industry in scores of other ways, before the great war began.

Since the war began the rights of the private owners of industry have been invaded to even a greater extent. In place of the doctrine of "laisser-faire," we have the principles established that the private owners of industry have no rights which the government need respect.

This new social consciousness is the product of the change in the mode of production.

Just as individual production gave birth to ideas of political economy which sanctioned unchecked individualism in industry, so there has grown out of the collective production, which has since developed, the demand for social control of industry.

Capitalism has developed collectivism in industry. Many individuals are compelled to co-operate and work together in carrying on production. The social consciousness which demands collective control of industry, expressing itself at present through legislation by the government, is the natural product of this new mode of production.