Your pay envelope

My dear John,

If you want to see how mad a man can get and still live, ask the soap-box orator if Socialism proposes to pay all kinds of workers the same wage. Tell him that you have heard that, in the Co-operative Commonwealth, there will be absolute equality of remuneration.

If you put this question to the street-corner agitator, I’ll promise that you will get all that you bargained for and more. But don’t be frightened by his torrent of wrath and indignation. Quietly but persistently press the question home. Have your quotations where you can get at them easily, and be sure that they are strictly “scientific”—that you have the right page of the book from which they have been taken. If you will do this, and maintain your equanimity, you can very soon take the wind out of the soap-boxer’s sails, because, whatever some Socialists say to the contrary, equality of remuneration is the only possible outcome of the socialistic system, and there are plenty of simon-pure Marxists who admit as much.

In my last letter I told you what Socialism means by “equality of opportunity,” and I proved the truth of my statements by citing quotations the authenticity of which no Socialist can deny. Not one of these quotations was “torn from its context,” or otherwise mutilated, though there may be some Socialists who will tell you that this is what has happened.

Having seen that “equality of opportunity” means merely the opportunity to do the things that meet the approval of the bosses, we will now consider the question of equality of reward; and again we shall let the Socialists themselves tell us what Socialism really means to do towards “solving” the wage problem.

In the first place, let us refer to Karl Marx, for his orthodoxy is probably above suspicion. We find that the great master of the socialistic philosophy is a little uncertain as to what may happen during the transitional period between capitalism and the realization of the Socialist ideal. At this stage, he says, there may be inequalities in rights, including remuneration, but about the ultimate effect of collectivism, he has no such doubt. “In a higher phase of communist society,” he says, “after the slavish subordination of the individual under divisions of labor and consequently the opposition between mental and bodily work has disappeared ... after the individual has become more perfect in every respect ... then only ... society may inscribe on its banner: ‘From each one according to his abilities, to each one according to his needs.’” (“Zur Kritik des sozialdemokratischen Parteiprogramms.”)

It is difficult to construe this statement of Marx to mean anything except that the end of Socialism is practically complete equality in matters of reward. Certainly this is the idea which Mr. Spargo has formed from his study of the Marxist philosophy, for he tells us very definitely in his book, “Socialism” (p. 233), that “it may be freely admitted that the ideal to be aimed at ultimately must be approximate equality of income.”

George Bernard Shaw, the eminent English Socialist, also admits that equality is the ultimate aim of Marxism. In a paper read before the Fabian Society, in 1910, and published in the Fabian News (January, 1911), Mr. Shaw defines Socialism as “a state of society in which the income of the country would be divided equally among the inhabitants, without regard to character, industry or any other consideration except that they were human beings.”

And, that there might be no misunderstanding about his attitude toward this question, Mr. Shaw, talking to an interviewer for The Labor Leader, said (March 31, 1912): “Socialism is the system of society where all the income of the country is to be divided up in exactly equal portions; every one to have it, whether idle or industrious, young or old, good or bad ...; anyone who does not believe that, is not a Socialist.... Those are the conditions on which I say I am a Socialist. Those are the conditions on which Society should stand. The point is not whether they are reasonable conditions or not. They are the only workable conditions.”

Mr. Shaw seemed to think it necessary to disarm possible criticism by admitting that the conditions he proposes might be called “unreasonable.” His fears are groundless. We do not dub his proposition “unreasonable”—indeed, it embodies the only reasonable conditions under which Socialism could be operated. The only unreasonable thing about it is that it absolutely defies any attempt to bring it into harmony with that other working proposition of Marxism: that every worker shall receive the full products of his labor. If all are to get the same reward, whether idle or industrious, whether valuable or valueless to the community, it necessarily follows that some portion of the proceeds of the industrious workers’ labor must go to the worker whose labor has been profitless.

Discouraging as such a system of payment would be to industry and initiative, it still is, as a matter of fact, the only system that Socialism can adopt if it is to show any regard for the preservation of the collective character of the State.

If all workers are paid alike, it is possible that a certain degree of equality may be maintained. If, as Blatchford says in “Merrie England” (p. 103), “the only difference between a Prime Minister and a collier would be the difference of rank and occupation,” the mere worker may feel that he is living in a State in which class distinction has been largely eliminated. If, on the other hand, workers are to be paid according to the nature and value of their productions, how long do you think it will be before a new set of class distinctions will be created? How long will it be before the skilled workman who draws the fattest pay envelope will become the aristocrat, or, at least, will assume a class distinction mid-way between the bossing class and the class of unskilled laborers?

The Socialists themselves have recognized the danger that the problem of remuneration presents, and have tried to anticipate some of its difficulties by suggesting possible solutions. The sophists among them, of course, have sought to evade the issue, thus leaving the inquirer to imagine that this question, like all the other difficulties that confront the Collectivist, will settle itself when the moment of emergency arises. The more honest and consistent Socialists, however, are quite frank in their admission that equality of reward is the inevitable consequence of Collectivism. Even Spargo, in the quotation already referred to, admits that class formation must take place and the old problems incidental to economic inequality reappear under anything less than an “approximate equality of income.”

Mrs. Annie Besant, who is a much-quoted Socialist, takes the same stand. “Controversy,” she says (“Fabian Essays,” pp. 163-164), “will probably arise as to the division: shall all shares be equal, or shall the workers receive in proportion to the proposed dignity or indignity of their work? Inequality would be odious.... The impossibility of estimating the separate value of each man’s labor with any really valid result, the friction which would arise, the jealousies which would be provoked, the inevitable discontent, favoritism, and jobbery that would prevail; all these things will drive the Communal Council into the right path—equal remuneration of all workers.”

And yet as early as 1830—years before Marx and Engels had begun to prepare their “Communist Manifesto”—the French Communists addressed a manifesto to the Chamber of Deputies in which it was stated that the equal division of property would constitute “a greater violence, a more revolting injustice, than the unequal division which was originally effected by force of arms, by conquest.”

The Socialist of the present day may well learn wisdom from the logic of his French predecessors. It is a self-evident fact that production must be most disastrously effected by equality of distribution. Where is the incentive to come from if the industrious or the highly skilled man is to be mulcted of a share of his earnings that it may be used to equalize things with the “work-shy,” who happens to be indisposed to earn a living for himself? As one writer suggests, “it is to be no longer a question of ‘Every man for himself, and the devil take the hindmost,’ but we are to go to the opposite extreme and endeavor to establish an equally false doctrine of ‘Every man for his neighbor, and the devil take the foremost.’”

Marx seemingly attempts to provide for this contingency by preaching the doctrine embraced in the formula, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” Apparently, he recognizes that it will be impossible to evade the inequalities naturally existing between different individuals, and he endeavors to neutralize these natural advantages by supposing that each is to produce “according to his ability.”

But, my dear John, you mustn’t be deluded by the suggestion that there is a difference in these propositions. In both cases, the neutralizing profits are to be taken from the most efficient producers and given to those who are less efficient. If this were done there would soon be an end to the Socialist promise that every worker is to get the full product of his labor. If this rule of remuneration were to become operative, the surplus product needed to supply the bad or idle worker with the means of securing a reward “according to his needs,” would be stolen from the proceeds of the industry of the more capable “comrades.”

Yet H. M. Hyndman, the prominent English Socialist, sees no objection to this arrangement. In a letter contributed to the London Daily Telegraph (October 14, 1907), Mr. Hyndman wrote:

“Socialism will recognize no difference as to the share of the general product between the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ workman, but will give both every opportunity to make themselves more valuable citizens and comrades. Good and bad will alike be doing their social best for the community, and will be entitled to their full participation in the enjoyment of the wealth created by the work of the whole body.”

Mr. Hyndman seems to assume that, under such a system of production, there would be enough to go round—enough to satisfy all the wants of every member of the community. Do you think this possible?

Suppose that Socialism were adopted to-morrow, and that you, knowing that your livelihood was assured, were working side by side with a man who was producing about half as much as you. Would the fact that his sloth and incapacity did not count against him inspire you to do your best work, especially when you realized that the surplus product of your toil was fated to compensate him for his failure to “make good”?

It makes little difference from what point of view Socialism attempts to solve its problem of remunerating the worker. No matter which course it pursues, it courts disaster. Whether it rewards all equally or continues to recognize the existence of natural inequalities, it remains a system under which freedom is impossible.

Do you like the prospect, John?