The truth about socialism

Most men are not interested in private profits, because they don’t get any. Profits are only for capitalists, and the number of capitalists bears but an insignificant proportion to the whole number of people. Most men are wage-workers, of one sort or another, or small farmers.

Yet we are living under a system that makes private profits the basis of business. If profits are good, business is good. If profits are only fair, business is only fair. If profits are bad, business is bad. And, when business is bad, the whole country suffers, though the country has the men, the machinery and the land with which business might be made good.

Socialists liken the present business edifice to an inverted pyramid resting upon its point—the point of private profits. Socialists have observed that the steadiest pyramids do not rest upon their points. They do not believe the pyramids of Egypt would have stood as long as they have if they had not been right side up. Socialists therefore propose that the pyramid of business shall be turned right side up. They believe it would stand more nearly steady if placed upon the broad basis of the people’s needs than it now does upon the pivot-point of private profits.

That is all that Socialists mean when they talk about the “revolutionary” character of their philosophy. They want to make a revolutionary change in the basis of business. They want goods produced solely to satisfy the public need for goods, rather than to satisfy any man’s greed for profits. They do not see how business can be thus revolutionized, so long as a few men own all of the great machinery with which goods are produced. Socialists, therefore, propose that the ownership of all the great machinery shall be acquired by the people, by purchase, and thus transferred from a few to all.

Those who are not in favor of this program may be divided into two classes. One class, desiring to cling to the private profit system, is opposed, upon principle, to the Socialist program. The other class, while eager enough, perhaps, to be rid of present conditions, does not believe the Socialist plan is practicable. The reason why so many men believe the Socialist plan is impractical is because so many men do not know what the Socialist plan is. The newspapers, owned as they are by capitalists, do not take the pains to tell the people much about the plans of Socialism. Even so great a trust lawyer as Samuel Untermyer of New York, apparently did not know much about the plans of Socialism until he debated Socialism in Carnegie Hall with Morris Hillquit. Mr. Untermyer, in his opening statement, made the colossal mistake of declaring that the Socialists had no definite plan for transferring the industries of the country from private to public ownership; that no one knew whether they meant to take over all industries, or whether they meant to take over only the trusts, while leaving the small concerns that are now fighting the trusts to compete with the government. In short, Mr. Untermyer left the impression that in the matter of putting their program into practice the Socialists were whirling around in a fog.

Let us see who was whirling around in a fog.

Victor L. Berger, the Socialist congressman from Milwaukee, introduced in the House of Representatives a bill embodying the following features:

The government shall immediately proceed to take over the ownership of all the trusts that control more than 40 per cent. of the business in their respective lines.

The price to be paid for these industries shall be fixed by a commission of fifteen experts, whose duty it shall be to determine the actual cash value of the physical properties.

Payment for the properties shall be proffered in the form of United States bonds, bearing 2 per cent. interest payable in 50 years, and a sinking fund shall be established to retire the bonds at maturity.

In the event of the refusal of any trust owner or owners to sell to the government his or their properties at the price fixed by the commission of experts, the President of the United States is authorized to use such measures as may be necessary to gain and hold possession of the properties.

A Bureau of Industries is hereby created within the Department of Commerce and Labor to operate all industries owned by the government.

Mind you, this is but the barest skeleton of the Berger bill. The bill itself may have no sense in it. But that is not the point. Samuel Untermyer, great trust lawyer and presumably well-read man, said that the Socialists had no definite plan for taking over the industries of the country. He made this statement in Carnegie Hall before thousands of people. And there was not one word of truth in it. If he had taken the slightest pains to inform himself, he might easily have learned that the Socialists have an exceedingly definite plan for taking over the ownership of the nation’s industries.

But Mr. Untermyer took no pains to inform himself. Ignorant as an Eskimo of the Socialist program, he just went to Carnegie Hall and talked. What he did not know, he guessed. What he could not guess right, he guessed wrong. He could guess almost nothing right. Mr. Hillquit made him look ridiculous. He was ridiculous. He was more than ridiculous. He was an object for pity. A great lawyer, having a great reputation to sustain, discussing a great subject of which he had only the most meager knowledge!

Mr. Hillquit riddled him, of course, but he did not riddle much because, speaking Socialistically, Mr. Untermyer is not much. But, unfortunately, only the 5,000 or 6,000 who heard the debate knew that Mr. Untermyer had been riddled. Millions of New Yorkers who read the capitalist newspapers the next morning received the impression from the headlines that Untermyer had riddled not only Hillquit but Socialism. “Socialists have no definite plans for doing the things they want to do” was the parroted charge. The charge was not true, but the public did not know the charge was not true. The capitalist newspapers would not let the public know. The newspapers had good reasons for not letting the public know. The newspapers are owned or backed by millionaires who are interested in maintaining present conditions. Socialism would interfere with these newspaper millionaires as much as it would interfere with any other millionaires. Yet it is from such sources that the public receives most of its information with regard to Socialism. It is because of this fact that the public knows so much about Socialism that is not so.

It emphatically is not so that the Socialists have no definite plan for taking over the management and control of the industries of the country. They know precisely what they are trying to do and how they are trying to do it. They have not drafted all of the laws that would be required under a Socialist republic for the next 500 years, but they have formulated certain general principles that, once established, will endure for centuries. I shall endeavor to make these general principles plain.

Socialists want to end class warfare. They want to prevent one class from robbing any other class. They do not see how class warfare can be ended so long as a small class controls the means of life of the great class. The means of life is the machinery and materials with which men work. Socialists, therefore, purpose that the means of life shall be owned by all of the people, through the government.

If this program be put into effect, a start must be made somewhere. Socialists purpose that the start be made with the trusts. They propose that the start be made with the trusts because the trusts have advanced furthest along the road of evolution. The trusts have already sloughed off the multitude of primitive, competitive managers. They are concentrated. Only the slightest shift will be necessary to concentrate the managements a little more and vest them in the government. Besides, the trusts control the bulk of the production of the great necessaries of life. Get the trusts and we shall have life. We shall have food. We shall have clothing. We shall have shelter. We shall have all of these things, because we shall have the machinery with which we may make all of these things.

Long before Congressman Berger’s bill was drafted, the cry of the Socialists was “Let the nation own the trusts.” Among Socialists, this cry was as insistent and as common as the cry of “Let us stand pat” was insistent and common among the Hanna Republicans of 1896 and 1900. That Socialist cry showed where the Socialists planned to begin. Congressman Berger’s bill only echoed the cry and made it more definite. The Socialist cry was “Let the nation own the trusts.” Congressman Berger’s bill told what trusts were, within the meaning of Socialist demands, and how to get them. Berger’s bill declared that a trust should be construed to mean any industry or combination of industries that controlled 40 per cent. or more of the national output of its product. And, Berger’s bill also laid down the principle that the easiest way to acquire the trusts is to buy them. Moreover, his bill also sought to provide the governmental machinery and the money with which to do it.

Never mind whether Berger’s bill was wise or foolish. Never mind whether the Socialist program is wise or foolish. We are now considering the charge that the Socialists have no definite program. That is what Mr. Untermyer said. That is what a thousand others say. Is it not plain that they are all wrong? Who can doubt that if the Berger bill were enacted into law, the trusts could and would be taken over? The Berger bill is plainer than any tariff bill that was ever written. Any man of common sense can understand it. No man can understand a tariff law. Yet tariff laws are administered. They are definite enough to accomplish what the protected manufacturers really want accomplished. Even those who oppose high tariff laws do not contend that they should be repealed because they lack definiteness.

The simple fact is that the Socialists want to take the trusts first, because they are the most important and the best adapted to immediate ownership by the people. For the time being, small competitive manufacturers would be compelled to compete with the government. If the Socialist theory of production is a fallacy, the small competitive producers would demonstrate it by providing better working conditions for their employees and selling goods more cheaply than the government. In that event, Socialism would fall of its own weight and the nation would restore present conditions.

If the Socialist theory of production is not a fallacy, the competitive producers would be driven out of business and sell their plants to the government for what they were worth. They would be driven out of business, because they could not afford to do business without a profit. They could get no profit without appropriating part of the product of their workers, and if they appropriated part of the product of their workers, the workers would shift over to the national industries where no products were appropriated.

In short, if the national ownership of trusts were a success, the day of the competitive manufacturer would be short. He could not afford to do business with a competitor who sought no profits. And this is precisely what Socialists believe would take place. They believe the national ownership of the trusts would be quickly followed by the national ownership of every industry that is now owned by some to skim a profit from the labor of others.

This does not mean, however, that peanut stands would be owned by the government. It does not necessarily mean that farms would be owned by the government. The Socialists are not fanatics over the mere principle of government ownership. They appeal to the principle only to accomplish an end. The end is the destruction of the power of some to rob others. If there is no robbery, there is no occasion for the application of the principle. The ownership of a peanut stand gives the owner no power to rob anybody. A man who tills his own farm is robbing nobody. Neither the ownership of the peanut stand nor the ownership of the farm gives the owner the power to rob anybody, because neither owner profits from the labor of an employee. But if tenant farming should ever become a serious evil in this country—and it is increasing all the while—the Socialists, if they were in power, would take over the ownership of all tenant farm lands. They would take over the tenant farms for the same reason that they now want to take over the trusts—because the landlords were using the power of ownership to appropriate part of the products of the tenants.

Let this do for the critics who say that Socialists have no definite program for taking over the ownership of the nation’s industries. There is another set of critics who say that, if Socialists should ever take over the industries, they could not run them. They say that the change from private to public ownership would bring chaos, that the government, as a manager of industry, would break down, that red revolution would sweep the world and that civilization would probably go down with a crash.

I shall pause a moment to comment upon the lack of humor that these gentlemen betray. They take themselves so seriously. If they were called upon to attend a dog beset with fleas, they would doubtless counsel the dog to prize the fleas as it prized its life.

“Don’t bite off one of those fleas, my dear dog,” we can hear them say. “You don’t know it, but they are doing you good. Each flea-bite increases the speed with which you pursue game. If fleas were not biting you all the time, you might become so comfortable that you would lie down in the sun, go to sleep, forget to eat, and thus starve to death. Remember, the fleas are your friends!”

Of course, the great capitalists who are opposing Socialism are not to be likened to fleas, except as to the facts that they are exceedingly agile and are working at the same trade. But in a season of national mourning over the high cost of living, is it not unseemly for these gentlemen to provoke us to laughter by telling us that, if we were to lose them, we ourselves should be lost? We who work can never save ourselves. We can be saved only by those who work us.

Let us get down to brass tacks. If the Socialists were to gain control of this government to-morrow, probably the first thing they would do toward carrying out their program would be to call a national convention to draft a twentieth century constitution to replace our present eighteenth century one. The convention would abolish the senate, vest the entire legislative power in the house of representatives, destroy the United States Supreme Court’s usurped power to declare acts of congress unconstitutional, make all judges elective by the people and establish the initiative, the referendum and recall. Socialists would not attempt to establish Socialism without first clearing the ground so that the people could control their government absolutely.

The work of the convention having been approved by the people, perhaps the first trust that would be taken over would be the railroad trust. It would be a big job. It would be so big a job that no other similar job would be undertaken until the completion of the railroad job was well under way, and the railroad job might require a year or two. I mention this fact to show that it would not be the purpose of a Socialist administration to rip this country up from Maine to Southern California within twenty-four hours from the fourth of March. In fact, there would be no ripping or jarring, as I shall soon show. Everything would proceed in an orderly, lawful manner.

I say there would be no ripping or jarring, because there would be no cessation of industry. Let us suppose, for instance, that the ownership and control of the railroads had been transferred from the present owners to the government. What would happen? Absolutely nothing in the nature of a jar. What happens now when one group of capitalists sell a railroad to another group of capitalists? Nothing, of course. The new owners tell the general manager to keep on running trains, as usual, or if they install a new general manager, they tell him to keep on running trains. The trainmen, if they did not read the newspapers, would not know the road had changed hands.

The transition from private to public ownership would be accomplished precisely as smoothly. The only change would be in the orders that a Socialist administration would give to the chief executive officer of the railroads. That order, in substance, would be: “Don’t try to make any profits out of the railroads. Run them at cost. Give the men more wages and shorter hours, and give the public the best possible service at the lowest possible rate and with the least possible risk to human life.”

If you can manufacture a riot out of such ingredients, go to it. If you can figure out how such a proceeding would disrupt civilization, proceed at your leisure.

The cards are all down. You now know what the Socialists want to do. Where is the danger?

“Oh,” the capitalist gentlemen say, “but you Socialists are not business men, and business men are required to manage industries. A Socialist government would therefore fail.”

Mayor Gaynor expressed much the same thought in a statement about Socialism that he prepared for the New York Times. Mr. Gaynor’s attitude toward Socialism is tolerant—almost sympathetic—yet he asked:

“Who would run your Socialistic government? Where would you get honest and competent men? Would the human understanding and capacity be larger then than it is now?”

Wherever Socialism is discussed, such questions are asked. They are evidently regarded as insuperable obstacles to Socialism. As a matter of fact, they serve only to show how little the questioners know of Socialism.

Socialists do not purpose to establish hatcheries for the breeding by special creation, of a class of super-men to administer government and manage industry. They will depend upon the regular run of the human race for material with which to work out their ideas. But they will approach the subjects of government and industry from a different point of view. The capitalist’s conception of honest and efficient government is that sort of government that will best protect him in the enjoyment of the unjust advantages that he has over the rest of the people. The capitalist’s conception of honest and efficient business management is that sort of business management that will yield him the most profits upon the least capital. The Socialist’s conception of the best government is that which gives no man an advantage over another, while giving every man the greatest opportunity to exercise his faculties, together with the greatest degree of personal liberty that is consistent with the liberty of everybody else. And, the Socialist’s conception of honest and efficient business management is that sort of management that produces the most product under the best working conditions at the least cost and distributes it among the people without profit.

In answer to Mayor Gaynor and others, Socialists therefore make these replies:

Capitalists are now able to get honest men who are competent to administer the government in the interest of the capitalist class. Why, then, should you doubt that Socialists will be able to get honest men who will be able to administer the government in the interest of the working class? In either case, it is simply a matter of executing the orders of the employer. Capitalism’s employees obey its orders. Socialism’s employees will, for the same reason, obey its orders. You tell your employees to maintain the advantage that the few have over the many, and they obey you. We shall tell our employees to destroy the advantage that the few have over the many. We believe they will obey us. If they do not, we shall recall them. That is more than you can now do.

Mayor Gaynor and others also ask if the “human understanding and capacity” would be larger under Socialism than they are now. Positively not. But we respectfully beg leave to suggest that it is not a matter of understanding or capacity. It is a matter of purpose and intention. Men “understand” what they are given to understand. If a man is told to understand the problem of grinding human beings down to push dividends up, he devotes his mind to this task and to no other. If the same man were told to grind dividends down to the vanishing point and hoist human beings high and dry above the poverty point, he would probably understand that, too. And, so far as capacity is concerned, we already have the capacity for great productive effort. We simply are not permitted to exercise enough of it to keep us in comfort. Socialism would not increase the capacity of the human mind, but it would give the nation an opportunity to exercise the capacity it has.

To simmer the whole matter into a few words, Socialism would endeavor to place government and industry in the hands of men who would consider every problem and every opportunity from the point of view of the working class. It is the reverse of this method against which Socialists complain. Capitalists are compelled to consider the working class last in order that they may consider themselves first. The interests of the capitalist class and the working class, instead of being “identical,” are hostile. The capitalist class seeks a maximum of product for a minimum of wages. The working class seeks a maximum of wages for a minimum of product. The two classes are at war with each other for the possession of the values that the working class creates.

And, since capitalists control both government and industry, it is but natural that the interests of capitalists should be considered first and the interests of workingmen last.

A little thought is enough to dissipate the fear that a Socialist government would fail, “because Socialists are not business men, and business men are required to manage industry.” Let us first inquire, what is meant by a “business man”? Is he not, first and foremost, a man who is expert in the squeezing out of profits? Of course, he is. If he can produce enough profits to satisfy his stockholders, he need know nothing about the mechanics of the business itself. And, so long as business is conducted upon the basis of private profits, it is obvious that the men in charge of it must be “business” men—men who understand the business of extracting profits.

But, with business established upon a basis of public usefulness, with no thought of private profits, of what use would be such a business man? His executive and organizing ability would be of the greatest value, but his ability as a mere profit-getter would be of no value.

For purposes of illustration, let us consider Judge Gary, the chief executive official of the United States Steel Corporation. Judge Gary probably knows about as much about making steel as you do about making Stradivarius violins. He was educated as a lawyer, practised law and was graduated to the bench. He knows a steel rail from a gas tank, but, to save his life, he could not make either. He is a lawyer—plus. A lawyer with a business man’s instinct for profits. A lawyer with a business man’s instinct for organization and administration.

Back of Judge Gary sits a cabinet of Wall Street directors who, in a general way, tell him what to do. But, like Judge Gary, these Wall street directors know nothing about the making of steel. They are expert only in the making of profits.

Now, a simple old person who had just dropped down here from another planet might tell you that such men could not possibly manage a great business like that of the steel trust. Such a simple old person might tell you that, under the management of such men, the plants of the steel trusts would be as likely to turn out bologna sausages or baled hay as steel. But we know, as a matter of fact, that, under the management of such men, the steel trust turns out nothing but steel. And why? Simply because, below these managers are thousands of highly trained men and hundreds of thousands of wage-workers who, collectively, know all that is known about the making of steel.

Here, then, comes this crushing question. If the Socialists were to gain control of this government, and upon behalf of the government, buy out the steel trust, what would prevent the Socialist President from writing such a letter as this to the chief executive officer of the steel trust:

“Dear Judge Gary: Until further notice stay where you are and do as you have been doing, except as to these particulars: Instead of consulting with J. Pierpont Morgan and your Wall Street cabinet, consult with me and my cabinet. Instead of making steel for profit, make it solely for use. It will not be necessary for you to make steel rails that break in order to keep steel stock from breaking on the market. Make everything as good as you can, sell everything you make at cost, increase the wages of your workingmen and shorten their hours. Do everything you can, in fact, to make the lot of the steel-worker as comfortable as may be.”

Would such a letter create a riot? Would Judge Gary indignantly resign and the workers flee?

Would the production of steel be interrupted for a single moment?

Yet, in no more violent way than this would the Socialists take over the ownership and control of any industry. The men now in charge would be left in charge—at least until better men could be found to take their places. Probably, here and there, a man would have to be changed. Not every man who can squeeze out profits is good for anything else. But the men who could forget profits and make good in usefulness—the men who could look at their problems solely from the point of view of the public—such men would be let alone. They would not only be let alone, but they would be given a better opportunity than they now have to make good. Profits ever stand in the way of making good in the real sense. Steel rails that break and kill passengers are not made poor because the steel trust officials do not know how to make them better. They are made poor because it would decrease profits to make them better. Every intelligent manager of industry knows of many things that he might do to increase the worth of his product, but most of this knowledge goes to waste because it would interfere with profits.

Let no man fear that Socialism, if tried, would crumple up because the government would be unable to find competent managers of industry. Every industry will continue to produce men who are competent to take charge of its technical work. The matter of executive heads is of secondary importance. The Postmaster General of the United States, who, almost invariably, is a mere politician, is at the head of one of the greatest enterprises in the world, yet the mails go on. The men who sort letters must know their business. The Postmaster General need not know his. It would be better if he did, of course, but even if he does not the mails go on. So much more important, collectively, are the real workers of the world than any man who figureheads over them.

When E. H. Harriman died the Harriman heirs found a man to head the Harriman system of railroads. The man they found—Judge Lovett—is not even a railroad man, but the Harriman lines go on. The Vanderbilts, Goulds, Rockefellers and Morgans also find men to manage their railroads and other industries. What these capitalists have done, the President, his cabinet and congress, will probably have little difficulty in doing.

Opponents of Socialism make ridiculous statements about the slavery that they declare would exist if the people, through the government, owned and operated their own industries. The workingman is told that, under Socialism, he would be ordered about from place to place as if he were a child.

This charge is no more ridiculous than another charge that is sometimes made, by which it is represented that, under Socialism, the blacksmith would burst into an opera house, demand the job of leading the orchestra, and start a revolution if he were denied the job. The fact is that, under Socialism, industry would proceed, so far as these matters are concerned, in much the same manner that it now proceeds. The workers would be free to apply for the kinds of work for which they regarded themselves as best fitted. So far as the necessities of industry would permit, the applications of the workers would be granted. But, in the long run, the workers would have to work where they were needed, precisely as they now have to work where they are needed, and, then as now, particular tasks would be given to those who were best fitted to perform them. Under Socialism, the worker would have to apply for work, at this place or that place, precisely as he does now. The only difference would be that he would always get work somewhere, that he would work fewer hours, under better conditions, for more pay, and, that, as a voter, he would have a voice in the management of all industry.

Such are the replies made by Socialists to the chief objections that are launched against Socialism. There is another charge—not an objection—that should also be considered. It is the charge that Socialists are dreamers, striving to establish a Utopia. Nothing could be more absurd. Socialists are evolutionists. They do not believe in Utopias, because they do not believe there is or can be such a thing as the last word in human progress. They believe the world will always continue to go onward and upward, precisely as it has always gone onward and upward. Much as they are devoted to Socialism, they have not the slightest belief that the world will stop with Socialism. They believe Socialism will some day become as outgrown and burdensome as capitalism now is, and that, when that day comes, Socialism should and will give way to something better.

The chief contention of Socialists is that Socialism is the next step in civilization, that it represents a great advance over capitalism, that it will end poverty and industrial depressions, and that Socialism must come unless civilization is to go backward.