CHAPTER VI LUXURY AND THE GREAT USEFUL EMPLOYMENT FRAUD
There is one excuse which is still too often made for the extravagance of the rich, and that is the excuse that "The consumption of luxuries by the rich finds useful employment for the poor."
It is a ridiculous excuse, and there is no eminent economist in the world who does not laugh at it; but the capitalist, the landlord, and many pressmen still think it is good enough to mislead or silence the people with.
As it is the only excuse the rich have to offer for their wasteful expenditure and costly idleness, it is worth while taking pains to convince the workers that it is no excuse at all.
It is a mere error or falsehood, of course, but it is such an old-established error, such a plausible lie, and is repeated so often and so loudly by non-Socialists, that its disproof is essential. Indeed, I regard it as a matter of great importance that this subject of luxury and labour should be thoroughly understanded of the people.
Here is this rich man's excuse, or defence, as it was stated by the Duke of Argyll about a dozen years ago. So slowly do the people learn, and so ignorant or dishonest does the Press remain, that the foolish statement is still quite up to date—
But there are at least some things to be seen which are in the nature of facts and not at all in the nature of speculation or mere opinion. Amongst these some become clear from the mere clearing up of the meaning of words such as "the unemployed." Employment in this sense is the hiring of manual labour for the supply of human wants. The more these wants are stimulated and multiplied the more widespread will be the inducement to hire. Therefore all outcries and prejudices against the progress of wealth and of what is called "luxury" are nothing but outcries of prejudice against the very sources and fountains of all employment. This conclusion is absolutely certain.
I have no doubt at all that the duke honestly believed that statement, and I daresay there are hundreds of eminent persons still alive who are no wiser than he.
The duke is quite correct in saying that "the more the wants of the rich are stimulated" the more employment there will be for the people. But after all, that only means that the more the rich waste, the harder the poor must work.
The fact is, the duke has omitted the most essential factor from the sum: he does not say how the rich man gets his money, nor from whom he gets his money. A ducal landlord draws, say, £100,000 a year in rent from his estates.
Who pays the rent? The farmers. Who earns the rent? The farmers and the labourers.
These men earn and pay the rent, and the ducal landlord takes it.
What does the duke do with the rent? He spends it. We are told that he spends it in finding useful employment for the poor, and one intelligent newspaper says—
A rich man cannot spend his money without finding employment for vast numbers of people who, without him, would starve.
That implies that the poor live on the rich. Now, I maintain that the rich live on the poor. Let us see.
The duke buys food, clothing, and lodging for himself, for his family, and for his servants. He buys, let us say, a suit of clothes for himself. That finds work for a tailor. And we are told that but for the duke the tailor must starve. Why?
The agricultural labourer is badly in want of clothes; cannot he find the tailor work? No. The labourer wants clothes, but he has no money. Why has he no money? Because the duke has taken his clothing money for rent!
Then in the first place it is because the duke has taken the labourer's money that the tailor has no work. Then if the duke did not take the labourer's money the labourer could buy clothes? Yes. Then if the duke did not take the labourer's money the tailor would have work? Yes. Then it is not the duke's money, but the labourer's money, which keeps the tailor from starving? Yes. Then in this case the duke is no use? He is worse than useless. The labourer, who earns the money, has no clothes, and the idle duke has clothes.
So that what the duke really does is to take the earnings of the labourer and spend them on clothes for himself.
Well, suppose I said to a farmer, "You give me five shillings a week out of your earnings, and I will find employment for a man to make cigars, I will smoke the cigars."
What would the farmer say? Would he not say, "Why should I employ you to smoke cigars which I pay for? If the cigar maker needs work, why should I not employ him myself, and smoke the cigars myself, since I am to pay for them?"
Would not the farmer speak sense? And would not the labourer speak sense if he said to the duke, "Why should I employ you to wear out breeches which I pay for?"
My offer to smoke the farmer's cigars is no more impudent than the assertion of the Duke of Argyll, that he, the duke, finds employment for a tailor by wearing out clothes for which the farmer has to pay.
If the farmer paid no rent, he could employ the tailor, and he would have the clothes. The duke does nothing more than deprive the farmer of his clothes.
But this is not the whole case against the duke. The duke does not spend all the rent in finding work for the poor. He spends a good deal of it on food and drink for himself and his dependants. This wealth is consumed—it is wasted, for it is consumed by men who produce nothing. And it all comes from the earnings of the men who pay the rent. Therefore, if the farmer and his men, instead of giving the money to the duke for rent, could spend it on themselves, they would find more employment for the poor than the duke can, because they would be able to spend all that the duke and his enormous retinue of servants waste.
Although the duke (with the labourer's money) does find work for some tailors, milliners, builders, bootmakers, and others, yet he does not find work for them all. There are always some tailors, bootmakers, and builders out of work.
Now, I understand that in this country about £14,000,000 a year are spent on horse-racing and hunting. This is spent by the rich. If it were not spent on horse-racing and hunting, it could be spent on useful things, and then, perhaps, there would be fewer tailors and other working men out of work.
But you may say, "What then would become of the huntsmen, jockeys, servants, and others who now live on hunting and on racing?" A very natural question. Allow me to explain the difference between necessaries and luxuries.
All the things made or used by man may be divided into two classes, under the heads of necessaries and luxuries.
I should count as necessaries all those things which are essential to the highest form of human life.
All those things which are not necessary to the highest form of human life I should call luxuries, or superfluities.
For instance, I should call food, clothing, houses, fuel, books, pictures, and musical instruments, necessaries; and I should call diamond ear-rings, racehorses, and broughams luxuries.
Now it is evident that all those things, whether luxuries or necessaries, are made by labour. Diamond rings, loaves of bread, grand pianos, and flat irons do not grow on trees; they must be made by the labour of the people. And it is very clear that the more luxuries a people produce, the fewer necessaries they will produce.
If a community consists of 10,000 people, and if 9000 people are making bread and 1000 are making jewellery, it is evident that there will be more bread than jewellery.
If in the same community 9000 make jewellery and only 1000 make bread, there will be more jewellery than bread.
In the first case there will be food enough for all, though jewels be scarce. In the second case the people must starve, although they wear diamond rings on all their fingers.
In a well-ordered State no luxuries would be produced until there were enough necessaries for all.
Robinson Crusoe's first care was to secure food and shelter. Had he neglected his goats and his raisins, and spent his time in making shell-boxes, he would have starved. Under those circumstances he would have been a fool. But what are we to call the delicate and refined ladies who wear satin and pearls, while the people who earn them lack bread?
Take a community of two men. They work upon a plot of land and grow grain for food. By each working six hours a day they produce enough food for both.
Now take one of those men away from the cultivation of the land, and set him to work for six hours a day at the making of bead necklaces. What happens?
This happens—that the man who is left upon the land must now work twelve hours a day. Why? Because although his companion has ceased to grow grain he has not ceased to eat bread. Therefore the man who grows the grain must now grow grain enough for two. That is to say, that the more men are set to the making of luxuries, the heavier will be the burden of the men who produce necessaries.
But in this case, you see, the farmer does get some return for his extra labour. That is to say, he gets half the necklaces in exchange for half his grain; for there is no rich man.
Suppose next a community of three—one of whom is a landlord, while the other two are farmers.
The landlord takes half the produce of the land in rent, but does no work. What happens?
We saw just now that the two workers could produce enough grain in six hours to feed two men for one day. Of this the landlord takes half. Therefore, the two men must now produce four men's food in one day, of which the landlord will take two, leaving the workers each one. Well, if it takes a man six hours to produce a day's keep for one, it will take him twelve hours to produce a day's keep for two. So that our two farmers must now work twice as long as before.
But now the landlord has got twice as much grain as he can eat. He therefore proceeds to spend it, and in spending it he "finds useful employment" for one of the farmers. That is to say, he takes one of the farmers off the land and sets him to building a house for the landlord. What is the effect of this?
The effect of it is that the one man left upon the land has now to find food for all three, and in return gets nothing.
Consider this carefully. All men must eat, and here are two men who do not produce food. To produce food for one man takes one man six hours. To produce food for three men takes one man eighteen hours. The one man left on the land has, therefore, to work three times as long, or three times as hard, as he did at first. In the case of the two men, we saw that the farmer did get his share of the bead necklaces, but in the case of the three men the farmer gets nothing. The luxuries produced by the man taken from the land are enjoyed by the rich man.
The landlord takes from the farmer two-thirds of his produce, and employs another man to help him to spend it.
We have here three classes—
1. The landlord, who does no work.
2. The landlord's servant, who does work for the benefit of the landlord.
3. The farmer, who produces food for himself and the other two.
Now, all the peoples of Europe, if not of the world, are divided into those three classes.
And it is most important that you should thoroughly understand those three classes, never forget them, and never allow the rich man, nor the champions of the rich man, to forget them.
The jockeys, huntsmen, and flunkeys alluded to just now, belong to the class who work, but whose work is all done for the benefit of the idle.
Do not be deceived into supposing that there are but two classes: there are three. Do not believe that the people may be divided into workers and idlers: they must be divided into (1) idlers, (2) workers who work for the idlers, and (3) workers who support the idlers and those who work for the idlers.
These three classes are a relic of the feudal times: they represent the barons, the vassals, and the retainers.
The rich man is the baron, who draws his wealth from the workers; the jockeys, milliners, flunkeys, upholsterers, designers, musicians, and others who serve the rich man, and live upon his custom and employment, are the retainers; the workers, who earn the money upon which the rich man and his following exist, are the vassals.
Remember the three classes: the rich, who produce nothing; the employees of the rich, who produce luxuries for the rich; and the workers, who find everything for themselves and all the wealth for the other two classes.
It is like two men on one donkey. The duke rides the donkey, and boasts that he carries the flunkey on his back. So he does. But the donkey carries both flunkey and duke.
Clearly, then, the duke confers no favour on the agricultural labourer by employing jockeys and servants, for the labourer has to pay for them, and the duke gets the benefit of their services.
But the duke confers a benefit on the men he employs as huntsmen and servants, and without the duke they would starve? No; without him they would not starve, for the wealth which supports them would still exist, and they could be found other work, and could even add to the general store of wealth by producing some by their own labour.
The same remark applies to all those of the second class, from the fashionable portrait-painter and the diamond-cutter down to the scullery-maid and the stable-boy.
Compare the position of an author of to-day with the position of an author in the time of Dr. Johnson. In Johnson's day the man of genius was poor and despised, dependent on rich patrons: in our day the man of genius writes for the public, and the rich patron is unknown.
The best patron is the People; the best employer is the People; the proper person to enjoy luxuries is the man who works for and creates them.
My Lady Dedlock finds useful employment for Mrs. Jones. She employs Mrs. Jones to make her ladyship a ball-dress.
Where does my lady get her money? She gets it from her husband, Sir Leicester Dedlock, who gets it from his tenant farmer, who gets it from the agricultural labourer, Hodge.
Then her ladyship orders the ball-dress of Mrs. Jones, and pays her with Hodge's money.
But if Mrs. Jones were not employed making the ball-dress for my Lady Dedlock, she could be making gowns for Mrs. Hodge, or frocks for Hodge's girls.
Whereas now Hodge cannot buy frocks for his children, and his wife is a dowdy, because Sir Leicester Dedlock has taken Hodge's earnings and given them to his lady to buy ball costumes.
Take a larger instance. There are many yachts which, in building and decoration, have cost a quarter of a million.
Average the wages of all the men engaged in the erection and fitting of such a vessel at 30s. a week. We shall find that the yacht has "found employment" for 160 men for twenty years. Now, while those men were engaged on that work they produced no necessaries for themselves. But they consumed necessaries, and those necessaries were produced by the same people who found the money for the owner of the yacht to spend. That is to say, that the builders were kept by the producers of necessaries, and the producers of necessaries were paid for the builders' keep, with money which they, the producers of necessaries, had earned for the owner of the yacht.
The conclusion of this sum being that the producers of necessaries had been compelled to support 160 men, and their wives and children, for twenty years; and for what?
That they might build one yacht for the pleasure of one idle man.
Would those yacht builders have starved without the rich man? Not at all. But for the rich man, the other workers would have had more money, could afford more holidays, and that quarter of a million spent on the one yacht would have built a whole fleet of pleasure boats.
And note also that the pleasure boats would find more employment than the yacht, for there would be more to spend on labour and less on costly materials.
So with other dependants of the rich. The duke's gardeners could find work in public parks for the people; the artists, who now sell their pictures to private collections, could sell them to public galleries; and some of the decorators and upholsterers who now work on the rich men's palaces might turn their talents to our town halls and hospitals and public pavilions. And that reminds me of a quotation from Mr. Mallock, cited in Merrie England. Mr. Mallock said—
Let us take, for instance, a large and beautiful cabinet, for which a rich man of taste pays £2000. The cabinet is of value to him for reasons which we will consider presently; as possessed by him it constitutes a portion of his wealth. But how could such a piece of wealth be distributed? Not only is it incapable of physical partition and distribution, but, if taken from the rich man and given to the poor man, the latter is not the least enriched by it. Put a priceless buhl cabinet into an Irish labourer's cottage, and it will probably only add to his discomforts; or, if he finds it useful, it will only be because he keeps his pigs in it. A picture by Titian, again, may be worth thousands, but it is worth thousands only to the man who can enjoy it.
Now, isn't that a precious piece of nonsense? There are two things to be said about that rich man's cabinet. The first is, that it was made by some workman who, if he had not been so employed, might have been producing what would be useful to the poor. So that the cabinet has cost the poor something. The second is, that a priceless buhl cabinet can be divided. Of course, it would be folly to hack it into shavings and serve them out amongst the mob; but if that cabinet is a thing of beauty and worth the seeing, it ought to be taken from the rich benefactor, whose benefaction consists in his having plundered it from the poor, and it ought to be put into a public museum where thousands could see it, and where the rich man could see it also if he chose. This, indeed, is the proper way to deal with all works of art, and this is one of the rich man's greatest crimes—that he keeps hoarded up in his house a number of things that ought to be the common heritage of the people.
Every article of luxury has to be paid for not in money, but in labour. Every glass of wine drunk by my lord, and every diamond star worn by my lady, has to be paid for with the sweat and the tears of the poorest of our people. I believe it is a literal fact that many of the artificial flowers worn at Court are actually stained with the tears of the famished and exhausted girls who make them.
To say that the extravagance of the rich finds useful employment for the poor, is more foolish than to say that the drunkard finds useful employment for the brewers.
The drunkard may have a better defence than the duke, because he may perhaps have produced, or earned, the money he spends in beer, whereas the duke's rents are not produced by the duke nor earned by him.
That is clear, is it not? And yet a few weeks since I saw an article in a London weekly paper in which we were told that the thief was an indispensable member of society, because he found employment for policemen, gaolers, builders of gaols, and other persons.
The excuse for the thief is as valid as the excuse for the duke. The thief finds plenty of employment for the people. But who pays the persons employed?
The police, the gaolers, and all the other persons employed in catching, holding, and feeding the thief, are paid out of the rates and taxes. Who pays the taxes? The British public. Then the British public have to support not only the police and the rest, but the thief as well.
What do the police, the thief, and the gaoler produce? Do they produce any wealth? No. They consume wealth, and the thief is so useful that if he died out for ever, it would pay us better to feed the gaolers and police for doing nothing than to fetch the thief back again to feed him as well.
Work is useless unless it be productive work. It would be work for a man to dig a hole and then fill it up again; but the work would be of no benefit to the nation. It would be work for a man to grow strawberries to feed the Duke of Argyll's donkey on, but it would be useless work, because it would add nothing to the general store of wealth.
Policemen and gaolers are men withdrawn from the work of producing wealth to wait upon useless criminals. They, like soldiers and many others, do not produce wealth, but they consume it, and the greater the number of producers and the smaller the number of consumers the richer the State must be. For which family would be the better off—the family wherein ten earned wages and none wasted them, or the family in which two earned wages and eight spent them?
Do not imagine, as some do, that increased consumption is a blessing. It is the amount of wealth you produce that makes a nation prosperous; and the idle rich man, who produces nothing, only makes his crime worse by spending a great deal.
The great mass of the workers lead mean, penurious, and joyless lives; they crowd into small and inconvenient houses; they occupy the darkest, narrowest, and dirtiest streets; they eat coarse and cheap food, when they do not go hungry; they drink adulterated beer and spirits; they wear shabby and ill-made clothes; they ride in third-class carriages, sit in the worst seats of the churches and theatres; and they stint their wives of rest, their children of education, and themselves of comfort and of honour, that they may pay rent, and interest, and profits for the idle rich to spend in luxury and folly.
And if the workers complain, or display any signs of suspicion or discontent, they are told that the rich are keeping them.
That is not true. It is the workers who are keeping the rich.
CHAPTER VII WHAT SOCIALISM IS NOT
It is no use telling you what Socialism is until I have told you what it is not. Those who do not wish you to be Socialists have given you very false notions about Socialism, in the hope of setting you against it. They have brought many false charges against Socialists, in the hope of setting you against them. So you have come to think of Socialism as a thing foolish, or vile, and when it is spoken of, you turn up your noses (instead of trying to see beyond them) and turn your backs on it.
A friend offers to give you a good house-dog; but someone tells you it is mad. Your friend will be wise to satisfy you that the dog is not mad before he begins to tell you how well it can guard a house. Because, as long as you think the dog will bite you, you are not in the frame of mind to hear about its usefulness.
A sailor is offering to sell an African chief a telescope; but the chief has been told that the thing is a gun. Then before the sailor shows the chief what the glass is good for, he will be wise to prove to him that it will not go off at half-cock and blow his eye out.
So with Socialism: before I try to show you what it really is, I must try to clear your mind of the prejudice which has been sown there by those who wish to make you hate Socialism because they fear it.
As a rule, my friends, it will be wise for you to look very carefully and hopefully at anything which Parliament men, or employers, or pressmen, call bad or foolish, because what helps you hinders them, and the stronger you grow the weaker they become.
Well, the men who have tried to smash your unions, who have written against you, and spoken against you, and acted against you in all great strikes and lock-outs, are the same men who speak and write against Socialism.
And what have they told you? Let us take their commonest statements, and see what they are made of.
They say that Socialists want to get up a revolution, to turn the country upside down by force, to seize all property, and to divide it equally amongst the whole people.
We will take these charges one at a time.
As to Revolution. I think I shall be right if I say that not one Socialist in fifty, at this day, expects or wishes to get Socialism by force of arms.
In the early days of Socialism, when there were very few Socialists, and some of those rash, or angry, men, it may have been true that Socialism implied revolution and violence. But to-day there are very few Socialists who believe in brute force, or who think a revolution possible or desirable. The bulk of our Socialists are for peaceful and lawful means. Some of them hope to bring Socialism to pass by means of a reformed Parliament; others hope to bring it to pass by means of a newer, wiser, and juster public opinion.
I have always been dead against the idea of revolution, for many reasons. I do not think a revolution is possible in Britain. Firstly, because the people have too much sense; secondly, because the people are by nature patient and kindly; thirdly, because the people are too free to make force needful.
I do not think a revolution is advisable. Because, firstly, it would be almost sure to fail; secondly, if it did not fail it would put the worst kind of men into power, and would destroy order and method before it was ready to replace them; thirdly, because a State built up on force is very likely to succumb to fraud; so that after great bloodshed, trouble, labour, and loss the people would almost surely slip down into worse evils than those against which they had fought, and would find that they had suffered and sinned in vain.
I do not believe in force, and I do not believe in haste. What we want is reason and right; and we can only hope to get reason and right by right and reasonable means.
The men who would come to the top in a civil war would be fighters and strivers; they would not be the kind of men to wisely model and patiently and justly rule or lead a new State. Your barricade man may be very useful—at the barricades; but when the fighting is over, and his work is done, he may be a great danger, for he is not the man, usually, to stand aside and make way for the builders to replace by right laws the wrong laws which his arms have destroyed.
Revolution by force of arms is not desirable nor feasible; but there is another kind of revolution from which we hope great things. This is a revolution of thought. Let us once get the people, or a big majority of the people, to understand Socialism, to believe in Socialism, and to work for Socialism, and the real revolution is accomplished.
In a free country, such as ours, the almighty voice is the voice of public opinion. What the public believe in and demand has got to be given. Who is to refuse? Neither King nor Parliament can stand against a united and resolute British people.
And do not suppose, either, that brute force, which is powerless to get good or to keep it, has power to resist it or destroy it. Neither truncheons nor bayonets can kill a truth. The sword and the cannon are impotent against the pen and the tongue.
Believe me, we can overcome the constable, the soldier, the Parliament man, the landlord, and the man of wealth, without shedding one drop of blood, or breaking one pane of glass, or losing one day's work.
Our real task is to win the trust and help of the people (I don't mean the workers only, but the British people), and the first thing to be done is to educate them—to teach them and tell them what we mean; to make quite clear to them what Socialism is, and what it is not.
One of the things it is not, is British imitation of the French Revolution. Our method is persuasion; our cause is justice; our weapons are the tongue and the pen.
Next: As to seizing the wealth of the country and sharing it out amongst the people. First, we do not propose to seize anything. We do propose to get some things,—the land, for instance,—and to make them the property of the whole nation; but we mean that to be done by Act of Parliament, and by purchase. Second, we have no idea of "sharing out" the land, nor the railways, nor the money, nor any other kind of wealth or property, equally amongst the people. To share these things out—if they could be shared, which they could not be—would be to make them private property, whereas we want them to be public property, the property of the British nation.
Yet, how often have you been told that Socialists want to have the wealth equally divided amongst all? And how often have you been told that if you divided the wealth in that way it would soon cease to be equally divided, because some would waste and some would save?
"Make all men equal in possessions," cry the non-Socialists, "and in a very short time there would be rich and poor, as before."
This is no argument against Socialism, for Socialists do not seek any such division. But I want to point out to you that though it looks true, it is not true.
It is quite true that, did we divide all wealth equally to-morrow, there would in a short time be many penniless, and a few in a way of getting rich; but it is only true if we suppose that after the sharing we allowed private ownership of land and the old system of trade and competition to go on as before. Change those things: do away with the bad system which leads to poverty and to wealth, and we should have no more rich and poor.
Destroy all the wealth of England to-morrow—we will not talk of "sharing" it out, but destroy it—and establish Socialism on the ruins and the bareness, and in a few years we should have a prosperous, a powerful, and a contented nation. There would be no rich and there would be no poor. But the nation would be richer and happier than it ever has been.
Another charge against Socialists is that they are Atheists, whose aim is to destroy all religion and all morality.
This is not true. It is true that some Socialists are Agnostics and some are Atheists. But Atheism is no more a part of Socialism than it is a part of Toryism, or of Radicalism, or of Liberalism. Many prominent Socialists are Christians, not a few are clergymen. Many Liberal and Tory leaders are Agnostics or Atheists. Mr. Bradlaugh was a Radical, and an Atheist; Prof. Huxley was an opponent of Socialism, and an Agnostic. Socialism does not touch religion at any point. It deals with laws, and with industrial and political government.
It is not sense to say, because some Atheists are Socialists, that all Socialists are Atheists.
Christ's teaching is often said to be socialistic. It is not socialistic; but it is communistic, and Communism is the most advanced form of the policy generally known as Socialism.
The charge of Immorality is absurd. Socialists demand a higher morality than any now to be found. They demand perfect honesty. Indeed, it is just the stern morality of Socialism which causes ambitious and greedy men to hate Socialism and resist it.
Another charge against Socialists is the charge of desiring Free Love.
Socialists, it has been said, want to destroy home life, to abolish marriage, to take the children from their parents, and to establish "Free Love."
"Free Love," I may say, means that all men and women shall be free to love as they please, and to live with whom they please. Therefore, that they shall be free to live as "man and wife" without marriage, to part when they please without divorce, and to take other partners as they please without shame or penalty.
Now, I say of this charge, as I have said of the others, that there may be some Socialists in favour of free love, just as there are some Socialists in favour of revolution, and some who are not Christians; but I say also that a big majority of Socialists are not in favour of free love, and that in any case free love is no more a part of Socialism than it is a part of Toryism or of Liberalism.
It is not sense to say, because some Free-Lovers are Socialists, that all Socialists are Free-Lovers.
I believe there is not one English Socialist in a hundred who would vote for doing away with marriage, or for handing over the children to the State. I for one would see the State farther before I would part with a child of mine. And I think you will generally find that those who are really eager to have all children given up to the State are men and women who have no children of their own.
Now, I submit that a childless man is not the right man to make laws about children.
As for the questions of free love and legal marriage, they are very hard to deal with, and this is not the time to deal with them. But I shall say here that many of those who talk the loudest about free love do not even know what love is, or have not sense enough to see that just as love and lust are two very different things, so are free love and free lust very different things.
Again, you are not to fall into the error of supposing that the relations of the sexes are all they should be at present. Free love, it is true, is not countenanced; but free lust is very common.
And although some Socialists may be in favour of free love, I never heard of a Socialist who had a word to say in favour of prostitution. It may be a very wicked thing to enable a free woman to give her love freely; but it is a much worse thing to allow, and even at times compel (for it amounts to that, by force of hunger) a free woman to sell her love—no, not her love, poor creature; the vilest never sold that—but to sell her honour, her body, and her soul.
I would do a great deal for Socialism if it were only to do that one good act of wiping out for ever the shameful sin of prostitution. This thing, indeed, is so horrible that I never think of it without feeling tempted to apologise for calling myself a man in a country where it is so common as it is in moral Britain.
There are several other common charges against Socialists; as that they are poor and envious—what we may call Have-nots-on-the-Have; that they are ignorant and incapable men, who know nothing, and cannot think; that, in short, they are failures and wasters, fools and knaves.
These charges are as true and as false as the others. There may be some Socialists who are ignorant and stupid; there may be some who are poor and envious; there may be some who are Socialists because they like cakes and ale better than work; and there may be some who are clever, but not too good—men who will feather their nests if they can find any geese for the plucking.
But I don't think that all Tories and Liberals are wise, learned, pure, unselfish, and clever men, eager to devote their talents to the good of their fellows, and unwilling to be paid, or thanked, or praised, for what they do.
I think there are fools and knaves,—even in Parliament,—and that some of the "Bounders-on-the-Bounce" find it pays a great deal better to toady to the "Haves" than to sacrifice themselves to the "Have-nots."
And I think I may claim that Socialists are in the main honest and sensible men, who work for Socialism because they believe in it, and not because it pays; for its advocacy seldom pays at all, and it never pays well; and I am sure that Socialism makes quicker progress amongst the educated than amongst the ignorant, and amongst the intelligent than amongst the dull.
As for brains: I hope such men as William Morris, Karl Marx, and Liebknecht are as well endowed with brains as—well, let us be modest, and say as the average Tory or Liberal leader.
But most of the charges and arguments I have quoted are not aimed at Socialism at all, but at Socialists.
Now, to prove that some of the men who espouse a cause are unworthy, is not the same thing as proving that the cause is bad.
Some parsons are foolish, some are insincere; but we do not therefore say that Christianity is unwise or untrue. Even if most parsons were really bad men we should only despise and condemn the clergy, and not the religion they dishonoured and misrepresented.
The question is not whether all Socialists are as wise as Mr. Samuel Woods, M.P., or as honest as Jabez Balfour; the question is whether Socialism is a thing in itself just, and wise, and possible.
If you find a Socialist who is foolish, laugh at him; it you find one who is a rogue, don't trust him; if you find one "on the make," stop his making. But as for Socialism, if it be good, accept it; if it be bad, reject it.
Here allow me to quote a few lines from Merrie England—
Half our time as champions of Socialism is wasted in denials of false descriptions of Socialism; and to a large extent the anger, the ridicule, and the argument of the opponents of Socialism are hurled against a Socialism which has no existence except in their own heated minds.
Socialism does not consist in violently seizing upon the property of the rich and sharing it out amongst the poor.
Socialism is not a wild dream of a happy land where the apples will drop off the trees into our open mouths, the fish come out of the rivers and fry themselves for dinner, and the looms turn out ready-made suits of velvet with golden buttons without the trouble of coaling the engine. Neither is it a dream of a nation of stained-glass angels, who never say damn, who always love their neighbours better than themselves, and who never need to work unless they wish to.
And now, having told you what Socialism is not, it remains for me to tell you what Socialism is.
CHAPTER VIII WHAT SOCIALISM IS
To those who are writing about such things as Socialism or Political Economy, one of the stumbling-blocks is in the hard or uncommon words, and another in the tediousness—the "dryness"—of the arguments and explanations.
It is not easy to say what has to be said so that anybody may see quite clearly what is meant, and it is still harder to say it so as to hold the attention and arouse the interest of men and women who are not used to reading or thinking about matters outside the daily round of their work and their play. As I want this book to be plain to all kinds of workers, even to those who have no "book-learning" and to whom a "hard word" is a "boggart," and a "dry" description or a long argument a weariness of the flesh, I must beg those of you who are more used to bookish talk and scientific terms (or names) to bear with me when I stop to show the meaning of things that to you are quite clear.
If I can make my meaning plain to members of Parliament, bishops, editors, and other half-educated persons, and to labouring men and women who have had but little schooling, and have never been used to think or care about Socialism, or Economics, or Politics, or "any such dry rot"—as they would call them—if I can catch the ear of the heedless and the untaught, the rest of you cannot fail to follow.
The terms, or names, used in speaking of Socialism—that is to say, the names given to ideas, or "thoughts," or to kinds of ideas, or "schools" of thought, are not easy to put into the plain words of common speech. To an untaught labourer Socialism is a hard word, so is Co-operation; and such a phrase, or name, as Political Economy is enough to clear a taproom, or break up a meeting, or close a book.
So I want to steer clear of "hard words," and "dry talk," and long-windedness, and I want to tell my tale, if I can, in "tinker's English."
What is Socialism?
There is more than one kind of Socialism, for we hear of State Socialism, of Practical Socialism, of Communal Socialism; and these kinds differ from each other, though they are all Socialism.
So you have different kinds of Liberals. There are old-school Whigs, and advanced Whigs, and Liberals, and Radicals, and advanced Radicals; but they are all Liberals.
So you have horse soldiers, foot soldiers, riflemen, artillery, and engineers; but they are all soldiers.
Amongst the Liberals are men of many minds: there are Churchmen, Nonconformists, Atheists; there are teetotalers and there are drinkers; there are Trade Union leaders, and there are leaders of the Masters' Federation. These men differ on many points, but they all agree upon one point.
Amongst the Socialists are many men of many minds: there are parsons, atheists, labourers, employers, men of peace, and men of force. These men differ on many points, but they all agree upon one point.
Now, this point on which men of different views agree is called a principle.
A principle is a main idea, or main thought. It is like the keelson of a ship or the backbone of a fish—it is the foundation on which the thing is built.
Thus, the principle of Trade Unionism is "combination," the combining, or joining together, of a number of workers, for the general good of all.
The principle of Democratic (or Popular) Government is the law that the will of the majority shall rule.
Do away with the "right of combination," and Trade Unionism is destroyed.
Do away with majority rule, and Popular Government is destroyed.
So if we can find the principle of Socialism, if we can find the one point on which all kinds of Socialists agree, we shall be able to see what Socialism really is.
Now, here in plain words is the principle, or root idea, on which all Socialists agree—
That the country, and all the machinery of production in the country, shall belong to the whole people (the nation), and shall be used by the people and for the people.
That "principle," the root idea of Socialism, means two things—
1. That the land and all the machines, tools, and buildings used in making needful things, together with all the canals, rivers, roads, railways, ships, and trains used in moving, sharing (distributing) needful things, and all the shops, markets, scales, weights, and money used in selling or dividing needful things, shall be the property of (belong to) the whole people (the nation).
2. That the land, tools, machines, trains, rivers, shops, scales, money, and all the other things belonging to the people, shall be worked, managed, divided, and used by the whole people in such a way as the greater number of the whole people shall deem best.
This is the principle of collective, or national, ownership, and co-operative, or national, use and control.
Socialism may, you see, be summed up in one line, in four words, as really meaning
BRITAIN FOR THE BRITISH.
I will make all this as plain as the nose on your face directly. Let us now look at the other side.
To-day Britain does not belong to the British; it belongs to a few of the British. There are bits of it which belong to the whole people, as Wimbledon Common, Portland Gaol, the highroads; but most of it is "private property."
Now, as there are Liberals and Tories, Catholics and Protestants, Dockers' Unions and Shipping Federations in England; so there are Socialists and non-Socialists.
And as there are different kinds of Socialists, so there are different kinds of non-Socialists.
As there is one point, or principle, on which all kinds of Socialists agree; so there is one point, or principle, on which all kinds of non-Socialists agree.
Amongst the non-Socialists there are Liberals and Tories, Catholics and Protestants, masters and workmen, rich and poor, lords and labourers, publicans and teetotalers; and these folks, as you know, differ in their ideas, and quarrel with and go against each other; but they are all non-Socialists, they are all against Socialism, and they all agree upon one point.
So, if we can find the one point on which all kinds of non-Socialists agree, we shall find the principle, or root idea, of non-Socialism.
Well, the "principle" of non-Socialism is just the opposite of the "principle" of Socialism. As the "principle" of Socialism is national ownership, so the "principle" of non-Socialism is private ownership. As the principle of Socialism is Britain for the British, so the principle of non-Socialism is Every Briton for Himself.
Again, as the principle of Socialism means two things, so does the principle of non-Socialism mean two things.
As the principle of Socialism means national ownership and co-operative national management, so the principle of non-Socialism means private ownership and private management.
Socialism says that Britain shall be owned and managed by the people for the people.
Non-Socialism says Britain shall be owned and managed by some persons for some persons.
Under Socialism you would have all the people working together for the good of all.
Under non-Socialism you have all the persons working separately (and mostly against each other), each for the good of himself.
So we find Socialism means Co-operation, and non-Socialism means Competition.
Co-operation, as here used, means operating or working together for a common end or purpose.
Competition means competing or vying with each other for personal ends or gain.
I'm afraid that is all as "dry" as bran, and as sad as a half-boiled dumpling; but I want to make it quite plain.
And now we will run over it all again in a more homely and lively way.
You know that to-day most of the land in Britain belongs to landlords, who let it to farmers or builders, and charge rent for it.
Socialists (all Socialists) say that all the land should belong to the British people, to the nation.
You know that the railways belong to railway companies, who carry goods and passengers, and charge fares and rates, to make profit.
Socialists all say that the railways should be bought by the people. Some say that fares should be charged, some that the railways should be free—just as the roads, rivers, and bridges now are; but all agree that any profit made by the railways should belong to the whole nation. Just as do the profits now made by the post office and the telegraphs.
You know that cotton mills, coalmines, and breweries now belong to rich men, or to companies, who sell the coal, the calico, or the beer, for profit.
Socialists say that all mines, mills, breweries, shops, works, ships, and farms should belong to the whole people, and should be managed by persons chosen by the people, or chosen by officials elected by the people, and that all the bread, beer, calico, coal, and other goods should be either sold to the people, or given to the people, or sold to foreign buyers for the benefit of the British nation.
Some Socialists would give the goods to the people, some would sell them; but all agree that any profit on such sales should belong to the whole people—just as any profit made on the sale of gas by the Manchester Corporation goes to the credit of the city.
Now you will begin to see what is meant by Socialism.
To-day the nation owns some things; under Socialism the nation would own all things.
To-day the nation owns the ships of the navy, the forts, arsenals, public buildings, Government factories, and some other things.
To-day the Government, for the nation, manages the post office and telegraphs, makes some of the clothes and food and arms for the army and navy, builds some of the warships, and oversees the Church, the prisons, and the schools.
Socialists want the nation to own all the buildings, factories, lands, rivers, ships, schools, machines, and goods, and to manage all their business and work, and to buy and sell and make and use all goods for themselves.
To-day some cities (as Manchester and Glasgow) make gas, and supply gas and water to the citizens. Some cities (as London) let their citizens buy their gas and water from gas and water companies.
Socialists want all the gas and water to be supplied to the people by their own officials, as in Glasgow and Manchester.
Under Socialism all the work of the nation would be organised—that is to say, it would be "ordered," or "arranged," so that no one need be out of work, and so that no useless work need be done, and so that no work need be done twice where once would serve.
At present the work is not organised, except in the post office and in the various works of the Corporations.
Let us take a look at the state of things in England to-day.
To-day the industries of England are not ordered nor arranged, but are left to be disordered by chance and by the ups and downs of trade.
So we have at one and the same time, and in one and the same trade, and, often enough, in one and the same town, some men working overtime and other men out of work.
We have at one time the cotton mills making more goods than they can sell, and at another time we have them unable to fulfil their orders.
We have in one street a dozen small shops all selling the same kind of goods, and so spending in rent, in fittings, in wages of servants, and other ways, about four times as much as would be spent if all the work were done in one big shop.
We have one contractor sending men and tools and bricks and wood from north London to build a house in south London, and another contractor in south London going to the same trouble and expense to build a house in north London.
We have in Essex and other parts of England thousands of acres of good land lying idle because it does not pay to till it, and at the same time we have thousands of labourers out of work who would be only too glad to till it.
So in one part of a city you may see hundreds of houses standing empty, and in another part of the same city you may see hard-working people living three and four families in a small cottage.
Then, under competition, where there are many firms in the same trade, and where each firm wants to get as much trade as it can, a great deal of money is spent by these firms in trying to get the trade from each other.
Thus all the cost of advertisements, of travellers' wages, and a lot of the cost of book-keeping, arise from the fact that there are many firms all trying to snatch the trade from each other.
Non-Socialists claim that this clumsy and costly way of going to work is really the best way there is. They say that competition gets the work done by the best men and at the lowest rate.
Perhaps some of them believe this; but it is not true. The mistake is caused by the fact that competition is better than monopoly.
That is to say, if there is only one tram company in a town the fares will be higher than if there are two; because when there are two one tries to undersell the other.
But take a town where there are two tram companies undercutting and working against each other, and hand the trams over to the Corporation, and you will find that the work is done better, is done cheaper, and the men are better paid than under competition.
This is because the Corporation is at less cost, has less waste, and does not want profits.
Well, under Socialism all the work of the nation would be managed by the nation—or perhaps I had better say by "the people," for some of the work would be local and some would be national. I will show you what I mean.
It might be better for each town to manage its own gas and water, to bake its own bread and brew its own beer. But it would be better for the post office to be managed by the nation, because that has to do with all the towns.
So we should find that some kinds of work were best done locally—that is, by each town or county—and that some were best done nationally, that is, by a body of officials acting for the nation.
For instance, tramways would be local and railways national; gas and water would be local and collieries national; police would be local and the army and navy national.
The kind of Socialism I am advocating here is Collectivism, or Practical Socialism. Motto: Britain for the British, the land and all the instruments of production, distribution, and exchange to be the property of the nation, and to be managed by the nation for the nation.
The land and railways, collieries, etc., to be bought from the present owners, but not at fancy prices.
Wages to be paid, and goods to be sold.
Thus, you see, Collectivism is really an extension of the principles, or ideas, of local government, and of the various corporation and civil services.
And now I tell you that is Socialism, and I ask you what is there in it to prevent any man from being a Christian, or from attending a place of worship, or from marrying, or being faithful to his wife, or from keeping and bringing up his children at home?
There is nothing in it to destroy religion, and there is nothing in it to destroy the home, and there is nothing in it to foster vice.
But there is something in it to kill ignorance and to destroy vice. There is something in it to shut up the gaols, to do away with prostitution, to reduce crime and drunkenness, and wipe out for ever the sweater and the slums, the beggars and the idle rich, the useless fine ladies and lords, and to make it possible for sober and willing workers to live healthy and happy and honourable lives.
For Socialism would teach and train all children wisely; it would foster genius and devotion to the common good; it would kill scamping and loafing and jerrymandering; it would give us better health, better homes, better work, better food, better lives, and better men and women.
CHAPTER IX COMPETITION v. CO-OPERATION
A comparison of competition with co-operation is a comparison of non-Socialism with Socialism.
For the principle of non-Socialism is competition, and the principle of Socialism is co-operation.
Non-Socialists tell us that competition is to the general advantage, because it lowers prices in favour of the consumer.
But competition in trade only seems desirable when we contrast it with private monopoly.
When we compare the effects of trade competition with the effects of State or Municipal co-operation, we find that competition is badly beaten.
Let us try to find the reasons of this.
The claim for the superior cheapness of competition rests on the theory that where two sellers compete against each other for trade each tries to undersell the other.
This sounds plausible, but, like many other plausible things, it is untrue. It is a theory, but the theory is incomplete.
If business men were fools the theory would work with mathematical precision, to the great joy and profit of the consumer; but business men are not built on those lines.
The seller of any article does not trade for trading's sake; he trades for profit.
It is a mistake to suppose that undercutting each other's prices is the only method of competing between rival firms in trade. There are other ways.
A trader, in order to defeat a rival, may
1. Give better quality at the same price, which is equal to giving more for the money, and is therefore a form of underselling; or
2. He may give the same quantity and quality at a lower price; or
3. He may balance the lowering of his price by resorting to adulteration or the use of inferior workmanship or material; or
4. He may try to overreach his rival by employing more travellers or by advertising more extensively.
As to underselling. This is not carried on to such extremes as the theorists would have us believe.
The object of a trader is to make money. He only desires increased trade if it brings more money.
Brown and Jones make soap for sale. Each desires to get as much of the trade as he can, consistently with profits.
It will pay Brown better to sell 1000 boxes of soap at a profit of sixpence on each box than to sell 2000 boxes at a profit of twopence a box, and it will pay him better to sell 4000 boxes at a profit of twopence each than it will to sell 1000 boxes at a profit of sixpence each.
Now, suppose there is a demand for 20,000 boxes of soap in a week. If Brown and Jones are content to divide the trade, each may sell 10,000 boxes at a profit of sixpence, and so may clear a total profit of £250.
If, by repeated undercutting, the profit falls to a penny a box, Brown and Jones will have very little more than £80 to divide between them. And it is clear that it will pay them better to divide the trade, for it would pay either of them better to take half the trade at even a threepenny profit than to secure it all at a profit of one penny.
Well, Brown and Jones have the full use of their faculties, and are well aware of the number of beans that make five.
Therefore they will not compete beyond the point at which competition will increase their gross profits.
And so we shall find in most businesses, from great railways down to tooth brushes, that the difference in prices, quality being equal, is not very great amongst native traders, and that a margin of profit is always left.
At the same time, so far as competition does lower prices without lowering quality, the benefit is to the consumer, and that much is to be put to the credit of competition.
But even there, on its strongest line, competition is beaten by State or Municipal co-operation.
Because, assuming that the State or Municipality can produce any article as cheaply as a private firm, the State or the Municipality can always beat the private trader in price to the extent of the trader's profit.
For no trader will continue to trade unless he makes some profit, whereas the State or Municipality wants no profit, but works for use or for service.
Therefore, if a private trader sells soap at a profit of one farthing a box, the State or Municipality can sell soap one farthing a box cheaper, other things being equal.
It is evident, then, that the trader must be beaten unless he can produce more cheaply than the State or Municipality.
Can he produce more cheaply? No. The State or Municipality can always produce more cheaply than the private trader, under equal conditions. Why? For the same reason that a large firm can beat a small one, or a trust can beat a number of large firms.
Suppose there are three separate firms making soap. Each firm must have its separate factory, its separate offices, its separate management, its separate power, its separate profits, and its separate plant.
But if one firm made all the soap, it would save a great deal of expense; for one large factory is cheaper than two of half its size, and one manager costs less than three.
If the London County Council made all the soap for London, it could make soap more cheaply than any one of a dozen private firms; because it would save so largely in rent, plant, and management.
Thus the State or Municipality scores over the private firm, and co-operation scores over competition in two ways: first, it cuts off the profit; and, second, it reduces the cost of production.
But that does not exhaust the advantages of co-operation over competition. There are two other forms of competition still to examine: these are adulteration and advertisement.
We all know the meaning of the phrase "cheap and nasty." We can get pianos, bicycles, houses, boots, tea, and many other things at various prices, and we find that many of the cheap pianos will not keep in tune, that the bicycles are always out of repair, that the houses fall down, the boots let in water, and the tea tastes like what it is—a mixture of dried tea leaves and rubbish.
Adulteration, as John Bright frankly declared, is a form of competition. It is also a form of rascality and fraud. It is a device for retaining profits for the seller, but it is seriously to the disadvantage of the consumer.
This form of competition, then, has to be put to the debit of competition.
And the absence of this form of competition has to be put to the credit of the State or the Municipal supply. For since the State or Municipality has no competitor to displace, it never descends to the baseness of adulteration.
The London County Council would not build jerry houses for the citizens, nor supply them with tea leaves for tea, nor logwood and water for port wine.
The sale of wooden nutmegs is a species of enterprise confined exclusively to the private trader. It is a form of competition, but never of commercial co-operation. It is peculiar to non-Socialism: Socialists would abolish it entirely.
We come now to the third device of the private trader in competition: the employment of commercial travellers and advertisement.
Of two firms selling similar goods, of equal quality, at equal prices, that firm will do the larger trade which keeps the greater number of commercial travellers and spends the greater sum upon advertisement.
But travellers cost money, and advertising costs money. And so we find that travellers and advertisements add to the cost of distribution.
Therefore competition, although by underbidding it has a limited tendency to lower the prices of goods, has also a tendency to increase the price in another way.
If Brown lowers the price of his soap the user of soap is the gainer. But if Brown increases the cost of his advertisements and his staff of travellers, the user is the loser, because the extra cost has to be paid for in the price of soap.
Now, if the London County Council made soap for all London, there would be
1. A saving in cost of rent, plant, and management.
2. A saving of profits by selling at cost price.
3. A saving of the whole cost of advertising.
4. A saving of the wages of the commercial travellers.
Under a system of trade competition all those four items (plus the effects of adulteration) have to be paid for by the consumer, that is to say, by the users of soap.
And what is true of soap is true of most other things.
That is why co-operation for use beats competition for sale and profit.
That is why the Municipal gas, water, and tram services are better and cheaper than the same services under the management of private companies.
That is one reason why Socialism is better than non-Socialism.
As an example of the difference between private and Municipal works, let us take the case of the gas supply in Liverpool and Manchester. These cities are both commercial, both large, both near the coalfields.
The gas service in Liverpool is a private monopoly, for profit; that of Manchester is a co-operative monopoly, for service.
In Liverpool (figures of 1897) the price of gas was 2s. 9d. per thousand feet. In Manchester the price of gas was 2s. 3d.
In Liverpool the profit on gas was 8-1/2d. per thousand feet. In Manchester the profit was 7-1/2d. per thousand feet.
In Liverpool the profits went to the company. In Manchester the profits went to the ratepayers.
Thus the Manchester ratepayer was getting his gas for 2s. 3d. less 7-1/2d., which means that he was getting it at 1s. 7-1/2d., while the Liverpool ratepayer was being charged 2s. 9d. The public monopoly of Manchester was, therefore, beating the private monopoly of Liverpool by 1s. 1-1/2d. per thousand feet in the price of gas.
In To-day's Work, by George Haw, and in Does Municipal Management Pay? by R. B. Suthers, you will find many examples as striking and conclusive as the one I have suggested above.
The waste incidental to private traders' competition is enormous. Take the one item of advertisement alone. There are draughtsmen, paper-makers, printers, billposters, painters, carpenters, gilders, mechanics, and a perfect army of other people all employed in making advertisement bills, pictures, hoardings, and other abominations—for what? Not to benefit the consumer, but to enable one private dealer to sell more of his wares than another. In Merrie England I dealt with this question, and I quoted from an excellent pamphlet by Mr. Washington, a man of splendid talents, whose death we have unfortunately to deplore. Mr. Washington, who was an inventor and a thoroughly practical man of business, spoke as follows:—
Taking soap as an example, it requires a purchaser of this commodity to expend a shilling in obtaining sixpennyworth of it, the additional sixpence being requisite to cover the cost of advertising, travelling, etc. It requires him to expend 1s. 1-1/2d. to obtain twopennyworth of pills for the same reason. For a sewing machine he must, if spending £7 on it, part with £4 of this amount on account of unnecessary cost; and so on in the case of all widely advertised articles. In the price of less-advertised commodities there is, in like manner, included as unnecessary cost a long string of middlemen's profits and expenses. It may be necessary to treat of these later, but for the present suffice it to say that in the price of goods as sold by retail the margin of unnecessary cost ranges from threepence to tenpence in the shilling, and taking an average of one thing with another, it may be safely stated that one-half of the price paid is rendered necessary simply through the foolish and inconvenient manner in which the business is carried on.