Your pay envelope

My dear Smith,

Having seen what the condition of the “wage slave” will be under Socialism, it is only fair that we should give a little attention to that other class in the Co-operative Commonwealth, the “bossing class.” The Socialist speaker on the street-corner assures us that, when the Socialist ideal is realized, everything in society will be democratically managed. It is in this way, they say, and in this way alone, that true liberty can be realized. The fact that they do not make clear is that, if you accept their definition, “liberty” means liberty to do just as we are told and nothing more.

And there will be no lack of people with power to tell you what to do.

As Laurence Gronlund states in “The Co-operative Commonwealth” (p. 115), while the Commonwealth “guarantees suitable employment,” it certainly cannot “guarantee a particular employment to everybody,” and this, as your own good judgment must tell you, opens the way for the creation of an army of state controllers in numbers hitherto undreamt of.

The theory that efficient work can be performed without direction is so utopian that it has been discarded, even by the majority of Socialists. The most that they are trying to do to-day is to develop a plan whereby the actual worker and the army of bosses may exist without continuous warfare.

This brings us to the question: How are these bosses to be selected? For of course, so many will want to be bosses that some definite mode of selection must be resorted to.

Some socialistic prognosticators assert that the candidates for the directive positions will undergo a kind of civil service examination. Other authorities state that they will be chosen by drawing lots; but, as one writer has said, “in point of impracticability there is little to choose between the two suggestions.”

The favorite theory, however, is that the choice of bosses will be made by popular election, and such a course would be eminently socialistic in that it cynically and entirely ignores the claims of individual efficiency.

We know how inadequate a system of election may be, especially when popularity becomes the important factor in the choice of a candidate. It is not easy to imagine the complications that will ensue when every question of management of social affairs must be determined by the vote of the people.

In “Two and Two Make Four” (p. 230), Bird S. Coler, a most practical man of affairs, presents a sample of the questions upon which the people might be called upon to vote, thus giving us an opportunity to see how wisely we may be governed under Socialism:

“Boris Humphiak says puddling is a hot, hard job, and he doesn’t see why he should blister and sweat while Reginald Carnegie just sits in a cool office talking to a stenographer. Comrade Carnegie explains to Comrade Humphiak that the Carnegie labor is necessary, directive labor, and can be performed in the office, while the Humphiak labor is manual labor and must be performed in the puddling room. Comrade Humphiak cannot see it. He says each man ought to take his turn at puddling and at superintending. Let us vote on it. There are a thousand puddlers, one superintendent. The vote is a thousand to one for the Humphiak proposition. Comrade Carnegie goes down to the puddling room, tries to puddle, to the intense joy of the other puddlers who cease labor in order to enjoy his weak and inefficient attempts to puddle; and, when blinded and exhausted, he overturns a vat of molten metal, those who survive are sorry and those who do not, among whom is Comrade Carnegie, do not care any more. Meanwhile, Comrade Humphiak goes into the office, lights a cigar and neglects to give some orders, as a result of which forgetfulness on his part, the mill burns down.”

There is nothing absurd in the picture which Mr. Coler has drawn. Complications just as serious would arise were the questions of direction left to a popular vote; yet, if such matters are not settled by the ballot, how are they to be adjusted?

“Some kind of organization labor must have,” says Herbert Spencer (“A Plea for Liberty,” p. 10), “and if it is not that which arises by agreement under free competition it must be that which is imposed by authority.... Without alternative, the work must be done, and without alternative the benefit whatever it may be must be accepted.”

Socialists like to talk about abolishing class distinction. They know that this is one of the most attractive proposals that they can dangle before the envious and the ignorant. Yet what have we here but the establishment of two distinct classes—the directing or “bossing” class, and the obeying or working class? That Socialism would institute changes, there can be no doubt, but it would be a change in bosses, not a change in methods. As Professor Flint has said (“Socialism,” p. 373), “it would place the masses of mankind completely at the mercy of a comparatively small and highly centralized body of organizers and administrators entrusted with such power as no human hand can safely and righteously wield.”

Hobhouse in “Democracy and Reaction” (p. 228), clearly defines what this must mean:

“As the ‘expert’ comes to the front and ‘efficiency’ becomes the watchword of administration, all that was human in Socialism vanishes out of it. Its tenderness for the losers in the race, its protests against class tyranny, its revolt against commercial materialism,” all the sources of the Socialist doctrines are gone like a dream, and “instead we have the conception of society as a perfect piece of machinery pulled by wires radiating from a single centre, and all men and women are either ‘experts’ or puppets.”

It is thus that humanity, liberty and justice must vanish under Socialism, for the ultimate result, said Mr. Spencer (“A Plea for Liberty,” p. 26), “must be a society like that of ancient Peru ... in which the mass of the people, elaborately regimented in groups of 10, 50, 100, 500 and 1,000, ruled by officers of corresponding grades and tied to their districts, were superintended in their private lives as well as in their industries, and toiled hopelessly for the government organization.”

Not in practice alone, but in theory as well, the Socialist form of government is nothing short of absolute despotism. The very fact that the citizens of a nation—or of the world, should International Socialism become possible—are divided into the two classes of controllers and controlled necessarily provides for inequality in rank and an unequal enjoyment of the right of liberty. Socialists urge that, because the controlling class will derive their rights from the voluntary act of the controlled, such a condition of affairs will be freely undertaken. This may be possible in the beginning. It is quite probable that those destined to be controlled may, through their whole-hearted belief in Socialism, co-operate in the establishment of the new régime. But, later, it would begin to be a different story. Once having experienced the privilege of directing, it is quite beyond the bounds of reason to suppose that the director will consent freely to take his place in the servient class. A member of the official class, once that class has become firmly established, would strenuously resist any act threatening his position, and it would be doing an injustice to Socialists to assume that some of them have not seen this necessary consequence of their system. What would happen were such a move contemplated is frankly stated by Professor Karl Pearson. “Socialists,” he says (“Ethics of Free-thought,” p. 324), “have to inculcate that spirit which would give offenders against the State short shrift and the nearest lamp-post.” As Professor Flint remarks, such a sentiment “gives expression to the thought which animated the first tyrant.”

If you were to read the works of the prominent Socialist writers, John, you would find that Professor Pearson does not stand alone in his opinion. Robert Blatchford, in his popular presentation of Socialism (“Merrie England,” p. 75), goes just as far in asserting that man has no right to demand any other freedom than that which the majority may be willing to permit him to have. “Just as no man can have a right to the land, because no man makes the land, so no man has a right to his self, because he did not make that self.”

In spite of the crudeness and illogical character of this statement, it expresses only too forcibly the claim for the deification of the Socialist State at the cost of the complete suppression of the individual.

What does all this mean? In the last analysis it means that, if there is to be a servient class and a bossing class, it really is immaterial whether the worker belongs to the minority or to the majority. In either case, if he is selected as one to be bossed, such will be his fate, for the only people who will actually count at all are the officials who have been chosen, by one means or another, to become the bosses. What will make the conditions of the worker under Socialism infinitely worse than it is to-day, is the absence of any means of associated action for redress. Under no circumstances could such an existence be tolerable save in an ideal State in which benevolence reigns supreme—a State where envy, hatred, tyranny, ambition, indolence, folly and vanity no longer exist; a State where there are only wise and good men; and in such a State even law and direction might logically become unnecessary.

The human race, John, is not fitted for such a State. Untold centuries will pass before this ideal millennium can even remotely be realized. In the meantime we are trying to improve conditions with the material which we have at hand. With such material, even were all the theories of Marx to be put into operation, human nature must be considered as a factor, and it takes no prophet to foresee what a hopeless muddle we should make of things if we tried to run society upon the principles which Socialism proposes. Even John Spargo admits that “there is no such thing as an ‘automatic democracy,’ and eternal vigilance will be the price of liberty under Socialism, as it has ever been” (“Socialism,” p. 217).

Mr. Spargo is right as far as he goes, but he does not go far enough. He does not tell us that under Socialism vigilance would no longer be possible because it would not be tolerated; that with all trades and industries in the hands of the government, with all men and women dependent on the government for daily bread and compelled to do the work assigned to them, the State will consist of two classes only—state functionaries and ordinary people, controllers and controlled, masters and slaves. In what manner could man protect the rights of liberty under such a régime? What remedy could he have against oppression when he would always be pitted against “the State”—a State which would be placed in a position of being able to do no wrong.

“Wage slavery,” John? Isn’t this infinitely worse than any “wage slavery” of which you have ever dreamt?