American Syndicalism/Chapter 15
XV
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE CAPITALIST
No practical question in the future of Socialism will excite more vehement controversy than that of "compensation." What Socialism wants and is determined to get is now largely possessed by what is loosely called the capitalist class. Like the ownership of land this control of the machinery of production is thought to give the possessors an almost unlimited power over the lives and destinies of those who are without property. It is this dependence and insecurity that accounts largely for the increasing hostility to the "wage-system." No analogy is so frequent as that of the slave relation under this system.
The remedy which Socialism brings is to get the land and all the vast mechanism embodied in transportation, mill, factory and mine away from its present holders. The people are themselves to own and use these wealth-producers in the common interest.
We shall see more clearly what the I. W. W. propose and also what they are likely to do, so far as they get power, if we dwell a moment on the more general attitude of socialism toward compensation.
If it is to take over "land and the means of production," it is fair to press the question: how is this to be done? There are plenty of socialists of conservative temper who reply that experience from a dozen countries furnishes all the answer we require. We have already "socialized" very considerable portions of "the means of production and of the land." In several countries this process has gone go far that the term "state socialism" accurately describes the stage of socialization already reached. No part of the "machinery of production" is so important as the railroad, yet it has been taken over in one country after another until the United States and England are almost alone among more than thirty countries to preserve private ownership. It is from English railway managers themselves that we now hear, "Our roads will be under government control within a few years. It is only a question of time." If we add to this history of socialized property, the telegraph, telephone and express companies, coal mines, life and fire insurance, trolley and gas systems, vast areas of public domain and forests, we get some measure of this process.
To the question, how is socialism to take possession, it is said, "We shall continue as we have begun. We have only to go straight on upon the same road, and long before the century is out we shall have every scrap of important business socialized."
Thus far, we see that these great private properties have been, upon the whole, fairly bought and paid for. There has been hardly an instance of confiscation. Even if railways, trolley and gas properties "originated in robbery," it is recognized that the properties have passed in large part to those who later bought in good faith. I have heard a socialist lecturer very eloquent on this point. "We should be," he said, "just as dirty thieves as the worst of them, not to take this immense transfer of property to innocent hands into account. Society has given every sanction that it can give to these acquisitions, and we don't propose to steal them."
When actual dispossession is necessary, a system of "bond issues to be paid out of profits in the industry" or various forms of "annuities" are proposed by many socialist writers.
There are most formidable financial difficulties connected with these proposals, but they put no affront on our sense of fair dealing. So far as we can believe that socialism, once in power, would "take over" the mills, mines and other industries with the same consideration toward present ownership, we could all look on unalarmed, except as we doubted the later results of such a policy.
If, then, socialism wins power enough, will the determining majorities vote as fairly as these soberer adherents now talk? That is not a frivolous inquiry. There are not merely "five-foot libraries," but ten-foot libraries filled with very different opinions as to how the great private properties are to be taken over. Socialists generally do not suggest taking them without "some" return. If for no other reason, they hesitate because of the practical political difficulties sure to attend an outright confiscation. "Even if right, it would not be politic," is a very common sentence. Very carefully the question of "how" is avoided by this large intermediate section. Again and again we read, "It must be left to the future;" "We will cross that bridge when we get to it;" which means that the dominating political opinion of that future will decide how little or how much shall be paid to present private holders of the desired "means of production." This tempered discretion of the "moderates" does not however exhaust ordinary socialist opinion. Long before we reach the audacities of the I. W. W. on this issue, we meet throngs of those in good party standing who make short shift of Fabyan prudencies. Among those who have dealt repeatedly and explicitly with this issue of compensation is Belfort Bax, a man of learning and one of the most prolific of socialist writers. In his volume on The Ethics of Socialism is a chapter on "Justice." It contains this passage, which I give with his own italics. After proving to his own satisfaction that the "means of production" to be taken over "are no longer in the hands of the producers," he says:
"Now, Justice being henceforth identified with confiscation and injustice with the rights of property, there remains only the question of 'ways and means.' Our bourgeois apologist admitting as he must that the present possessors of land and capital hold possession of them simply by right of superior force, can hardly refuse to admit the right of the proletariat organized to that end to take possession of them by right of superior force. The only question remaining is how? And the only answer is how you can. Get what you can that tends in the right direction, by parliamentary means or otherwise, bien entendu, the right direction meaning that which curtails the capitalist's power of exploitation. If you choose to ask further how one would like it, the reply is so far as the present writer is concerned, one would like it to come as drastically as possible, as the moral effect of sudden expropriation would be much greater than that of any gradual process."
Very coolly in his well-filled library he takes the logic of his own analysis. Capital secured its booty through force. Injustice is the name for present "rights of property." Justice will be restored when labor comes to its senses, taking from every proud cut-purse the treasures so long withheld from the labor that produced them. It is true that Jaurès, Kautsky, Bernstein, Shaw, the Webbs, H. G. Wells, and others who have international recognition, commit themselves to compensation—Bernstein and the Webbs most unequivocally—but close scrutiny of the other three who have commanding influence is perplexing. Jaurès writes:[1]
"We do not propose to adopt any violent or sudden measures against those whose position is now sanctioned by law, we are resolved, in the interests of a peaceful and harmonious evolution, to bring about the transition from legal injustice to legal justice with the greatest possible consideration for the individuals who are now privileged monopolists. We especially state that in our opinion it is the duty of the State to give an indemnity to those whose interests will be injured by the necessary abolition of laws contrary to the common good in so far as this indemnity is consistent with the interests of the nation as a whole."
These last words (the italics my own) are not without humor. Compensation "consistent with the interests of the nation as a whole," has to be interpreted by political majorities. The convenient elasticity of his qualifying clause has the more significance because this greatest of socialist orators is reported to have said, as recently as 1906, in the Chamber of Deputies, that it was not possible to tell with certainty "Whether general expropriation of capitalistic property would be brought about with or without compensation." If his decision is finally against compensation, what torn shred would he leave to any arguing opponent begging the audience to adopt slower and more conservative measures?
Though Mr. Wells in his New Worlds for Old (p. 162) commits himself fervently to compensation and even insists that "property is not robbery," he has, like Jaurès, other moods. In his Misery of Boots he has this passage:
"And as for taking such property from the owners, why shouldn't we? The world has not only in the past taken slaves from their owners, with no compensation or with meager compensation; but in the history of mankind, dark as it is, there are innumerable cases of slave owners resigning their inhuman rights. . . . There are, no doubt, a number of dull, base, rich people who hate and dread socialism for purely selfish reasons; but it is quite possible to be a property owner and yet be anxious to see socialism come into its own. . . . Though I deny the right to compensation, I do not deny its probable advisability. So far as the question of method goes it is quite conceivable that we may partially compensate the property owners and make all sorts of mitigating arrangements to avoid cruelty to them in our attempt to end the wider cruelties of today."
In the heat of political appeal which of these two moods will prove the better vote getter?
If Mr. Wells himself before an audience were tilting with an adversary more "advanced" than he, what chances would his negative "advisability" get in the decision? First to deny the right to compensation and then with skittish half-heartedness, to talk about its "probable" advisability is to make easy work for the answering opponent.
More strictly of the Marx tradition, it is doubtful if any living writer carries more weight than Karl Kautsky. In the second part of The Social Revolution he is very explicit: "The money capitalist fulfills no personal function in the social life, and can without difficulty be at once expropriated. This will be all the more readily done as it is this portion of the capitalist class, the financier, who is most superfluous, and who is continually usurping domination over the whole economic life." The word "capitalist" is here used with precision as the receiver of interest. Like the landowner, as distinct from the working farmer, he is here held to be a parasite living off the laborer and has the same excuse for being as any other dead-beat. Why, then, should those holding such views consent to indemnify mere idlers? In the tug of politics, every extremist will show what real indemnity means. It means a huge issue of bonds thrown, as an interest-bearing debt, upon the people. Having been thoroughly instructed by socialism, that interest to private persons is theft, will they take kindly to this self-imposed burden, even if only during the life of the bondholder?
In our own country, there are few abler or more instructed socialist writers than Mr. Hillquit. He is now under violent attack by the I. W. W. press and other revolutionaries as a "stoggy conservative," a "timid moss-back." In his last book he thus states the case:[2]
"And similarly silent is the socialist program on the question whether the gradual expropriation of the possessing classes will be accomplished by a process of confiscation or by the method of compensation. The greater number of socialist writers incline towards the latter assumption, but in that they merely express their individual present preferences. Social development, and especially social revolutions, are not in the habit of consulting cut and dried theories evolved by philosophers of past generations, and social justice is more frequently a question of social expediency and class power. The French clergy was not compensated for the lands taken from it by the bourgeois revolution, and the Russian noblemen and American slave owners were not compensated upon the emancipation of their serfs and chattel slaves. It is not unlikely that in countries in which the social transformation will be accomplished peacefully, the state will compensate the expropriated proprietors, while every violent revolution will be followed by confiscation. The socialists are not much concerned about this issue."
This writer has excellent legal training; has been a mayor's legal advisor in a considerable city. In his analogies of the French clergy, Russian nobles and American slave owners, and his closing assurance that socialists "are not much concerned about this issue," we may test with some fairness a far larger opinion than his own. Mr. Hillquit has served with distinction on the National Executive Committee of his party. That the I. W. W. should see in him so hopeless a conservative, gives us some hint of what this more revolutionary contingent would do with "methods of compensation."
A writer and teacher of deserved distinction, C. Hanford Henderson, writes his socialist book Pay-Day, to show why profit is theft. The motto on the fly leaf reads, "Thou shalt not steal;" but as the thieves have been the receivers of "profit," this moral warning cannot apply to those who are now to enter into possession of their own. Mr Henderson says, "The trust is a conscious violation of the Federal law. It is, moreover, built up out of stolen labor-power. On either count, the trust might with perfect justice and propriety be directly confiscated by the State. It is both contrabrand and stolen property." He concedes that this is "a harsh measure," and therefore tempers his surgery: "It might readily be enacted that any further transfer of stocks and bonds would be illegal and void, and that when the present owners died, the State should inherit their holdings. In this way the transfer from private to public ownership would be accomplished gradually and peacefully, without hardship to any actual owner of such securities. His heirs would, of course, be disappointed. But if it be granted that the living owner had no defensible right to such securities, it would be a sentimentalism to allow him to say what shall be done with them after his death."
What, I ask, is it probable that popular majorities would decide on the case as here presented? The property to be taken over was first gained in "conscious violation of the Federal law." It is all "stolen labor-power" and could be "confiscated by the State" with "perfect justice." Could any eloquent foe of compensation have a better case than this? What would one possessed of the passion of a great tribune do with the hesitations and apologies of more conservative men as they met in popular debate?
From the whole nebulous zone of wobbly socialist opinions on compensation, we may now pass to the I. W. W. where there is neither variableness nor shadow of turning. There is little enough harmony in syndicalist ideas on many points, but that present capitalist possessors got their belongings through what in last analysis is fraud and force is a fixed and vehement belief. "Are we then to pay market values or any values to swindlers and highwaymen who have filched our properties?" One rarely hears a more effective gallery stroke than this question, "Do you compensate pick-pockets?" "Do you piously discuss financial methods for recompensing the man who lifted your watch or stole your bicycle?" I have many times listened to discussions of this question of compensation before general socialist audiences. "Shall capitalistic owners be paid? If so, how much?" is one wording that I heard discussed between conservative and radical socialists. It was not because the radical had more nimble wit or keener forensic ability; he caught and held the applause because he forced home to the audience the popular logic of socialism: "If capitalism systematically robs us, why should we pay for what was never owned at all?" By so far as this belief is real, that labor has been fleeced, to that extent compensation is likely to fare ill.
It is not to be forgotten that socialists in control must decide their economic and administrative policies politically. Heads of departments must be politically chosen, fiscal and other measures likewise carried out by some form of majority vote.
I was told on the Alaska boat "Spokane" that Captain Carroll had a petition presented to him begging that some change of route be allowed. He replied, "Madame, this boat is not run by petition." That, under socialism, things are to be "democractically managed" is an accepted definition. Every question of "compensation" must be "democratically" determined. At popular gatherings opinion must be made then as it is now. Audiences must be warned and exhorted to vote for this or that measure. The last demagogue will not die with capitalism.
In an imagined picture of one of those future audiences discussing what should be paid to the owners of the last ripening "trust,"—which of two socialist speakers, one conservative and one radical, will have the surest hold upon the listening majority?
I do not press this as unanswerable, but it deserves reflection. In all democratic uprisings the easy advantage of the more radical man has been noted since Aristotle. Is it likely to be less so when the whole logic of democracy has become complete? I submitted this to a thoughtful socialist now defending the I. W. W. He replied that a generation or two of experience and better education would produce a democracy competent and self-restrained enough to deal wisely and fairly with such issues as compensation. This is possible, and we do well to entertain it as a generous and admirable hope.
Meantime the I. W. W. are scoffingly impatient even of these prudent qualifications. They tell us, "Capitalism is already ripe almost to rotting." Like a dead substance, it is something from which we are to cut ourselves loose. Both in precept and example they are very specific. Their ablest exponents now state their case in the monthly International Socialist Review. In the last issue in my possession, a writer in the interest of "Simplicity" puts the case as follows:
"The world's people belong to or support one of the two great classes, capitalists or workers.
"What have we got? Nothing. What have they got? Everything.
"Now we want it. Simple, isn't it?
"We demand all they've got. Why? Because they have stolen it from us. We are the disinherited of the earth and we are getting ready to take back what belongs to us.
"They told us in the beginning that there was a chance for all. Now we know that they lied.
"We have become wise to the fact that we are the victims, the suckers, the fallguys, in the greatest bunco game ever invented. We put all we had into it—our health, our hopes, our strength and power to labor—but everything went merely to make them richer and stronger. The result is that they are the owners of everything that makes life worth living.
"We want it back. Now how are we going to get it?
"Ask them for it? They would hand us the laugh.
"Buy it from them? It never belonged to them in the first place—no, we are going to take it.
"Take it how? By force? No, not necessarily. By bullets? We are not so foolish. We have the power already. We far outnumber them and our brains, when used, are as good as theirs. Therefore, we will organize our power and use our brains in our own behalf hereafter instead of theirs. When the workers are once solidly united the system by which the capitalists daily rob us of the fruits of our toil will simply fall of its own weight."
A leaflet, the Noon Hour Chat, sent out by the socialist section closest akin to the I. W. W. ends with these words:
"Precedents from American history are all against the theory of compensation to capitalist owners. The thirteen American colonies having asserted their independence had no scruples about 'confiscating' to themselves millions of acres of land hitherto vested in the British crown. The North had no scruples in confiscating property valued at one billion dollars, when it freed the chattel slave.
"Capitalism comes into court with dirty hands when it crys 'Confiscation!' From the time it unjustly confiscated the rights of the peasants in the land, down to our own time when it has virtually confiscated the entire wealth of the nation, and continuously confiscates in a variety of ways the property of the middle class, capitalism has one long record of rapine, bloodshed and wholesale theft.
"The verdict of the court, of the working class, organized and aware of its mission, that will yet thunder forth to capitalism will be: Restore to us, the People, that which is rightfully ours and which you have stolen.
"There will be no 'compensation' about it. Such is the answer of the Socialist Labor Party."[3]
Here owners and non-owners stand over against each other as robbers and robbed. Labor, the creator of wealth, has "Nothing." Capitalistic owners have "Everything." Therefore labor demands "all they have got." "Why? Because they have stolen it from us." We are left in doubt about the use of "force" in this transfer. It may not be "necessary." Labor once "solidly united" will find that the whole capitalistic system "will simply fall of its own weight."
From observations submitted in the last chapter, the conclusion is fairly safe that these brisk iconoclasts will not have their way. They will not have it, because so many of the working class have too much at stake. They will not have it, because it will be seen to be neither fair nor safe. They will not have it, because other methods are now slowly appearing through which the evils of capitalism can be met with decency and good faith.
Before the century is out, ways will be found, largely through more intelligent taxation, to squeeze out enormous reserves of unearned increment. This reasoned policy is a working part of the advanced social politics in so many countries as to offer a more honorable escape from "the armored inequalities" against which the protest comes.
- ↑ Studies in Socialism, p. 89.
- ↑ Socialism. In Theory and Practice, 1910, p. 103.
- ↑ This is to be sharply distinguished from the Socialist Party.