Wealth to be consumed for welfare.—The only economic motive for the accumulation of wealth is its use in promotion of welfare. While the old maxim says, “A penny saved is worth two gained,” every one recognizes the penny as absolutely worthless except in view of some utility to be gained in spending it. So with every form of wealth. All economic value disappears when the thought of use is wanting. Such use, whether practically instantaneous, like the destruction of the gunpowder projecting the bullet, or extended through hundreds of years, as in the wearing out of a castle, or a bridge, is properly called consumption of wealth.
A majority of the great problems concerning social welfare are connected with the use of wealth, and therefore fall under the discussion of consumption. Indeed, so long as there is little accumulated wealth, as in the savage state, social problems have little significance. The statement of the Apostle Paul, “The love of money [pg 308] is the root of all evil,” while not confined in application to wealth already accumulated, has its most important bearing in the fact that wealth accumulated is itself a power to be used or abused by whoever controls it. The saying of Emerson, “The best political economy is care and culture of men,” applies most strictly to the uses of wealth and the methods of its consumption. The great question of today in every civilized land is, How can the accumulations of power in the shape of wealth made by this generation be used to establish a continuous welfare, not only for this generation, but for its successors? The wants of society today include not only a reasonable provision for life and health and wisdom and virtue during the life of those who are now active, but an equal provision for the same wants increased with each succeeding generation. In all thought of consuming wealth, we must remember that power in this form is rightly used only when power in some other form results. Thus wealth is consumed, according to natural laws, either for reproducing itself in more advantageous form or for sustaining human power in form of health or wisdom or virtue.
We have social welfare as the result of wealth consumed, or used up. Society is interested in all the wealth accumulated, and the methods of its accumulation and its fair distribution are a part of social machinery; yet these have their chief significance in the final consumption. It is not what we have, but what we do with it, that makes society interested in our possessions. It is not what society has, but how it uses it, that settles the chief questions of welfare or illfare. Not only gunpowder, [pg 309] but every conceivable power in material wealth, has blessing or bane in the use to which it is put. So the welfare of a community cannot be judged by the amount and kind of wealth produced or by the methods in production or by the distribution of ownership. These may be significant in showing the trend of social customs as to individual control, but the last inquiry will still have to be, What welfare comes to the entire community when all this wealth is used? Moreover, no analysis of qualities in any substance called wealth can measure the welfare involved in its use. Its relation to the individual using it and his relation to the whole community, with a careful analysis of wants met and character developed, must be considered. The final question is, How many and what kind of wants are satisfied?
Use of wealth individual.—It is necessary to realize that the social organization is maintained solely for the sake of individuals. All study of welfare and illfare is a study of individual human beings. The mutual relations of these human beings in society are means to individual life, growth and enjoyment. Even the total power of a generation in society is dependent upon how the individual wants of individual members of that society are met. Some of the greatest mistakes in estimating social welfare arise from overlooking the essential individuality of wants, upon which all wealth depends for its use.
This individuality makes the proper consumption of wealth largely a question of right and wrong. The possessor of any form of wealth is obliged to recognize [pg 310] his place in society as a promoter of welfare, and society compels, as far as it is able, a recognition of individual needs. Yet the very nature of consumption, as concerned with individual wants, makes individual judgment supreme in the use of wealth. It is my ideal of good health, high culture and sound morals that must be met for my enjoyment. My welfare, so long as I have rational powers, is the meeting of my ideal. Society rightly hesitates to interfere with my ideals by force as long as my actions do not disturb the welfare of my neighbors. The necessity of human liberty for actual welfare limits the control of society to very evident infringements upon others' welfare in every activity, including the use of wealth as well as other powers. This very restriction is in the interest of highest total enjoyment of welfare in the whole community.
Individual responsibility for use of wealth.—In estimating the proper uses of wealth, it is necessary to remember that mere animal existence is a very small part of human welfare. It would not be enough for any human society that every individual in it be fed, clothed, warmed and maintained in reasonably long life. The highest uniformity of mere animal enjoyment would not make a society worthy to be called human. Even uniformity of wants far higher, with uniform supply for those wants, would give but little organization and but little total welfare if that uniformity was brought by curtailment of natural powers or by constraint that hinders growth. The most natural fact among human beings, as in all the rest of nature, is variety; and every conception of proper consumption of wealth must involve [pg 311] this thought of variety of individuals in wants and powers left free to grow. It is a purely false assumption that the ideal community toward which all ought to strive is a community of equals in either ability or capacity. That is the ideal community which gives to every member of it opportunity to make most of himself; that is, to make himself most useful, and able to enjoy the truest use of his powers.
Hence we find the tendency in every community, with reference to wealth as to other individual forces, to recognize early and complete personal responsibility. This personal responsibility makes the question of consumption of wealth a question of morals as well as of wisdom. The whole discussion here turns upon the wisdom or unwisdom of certain personal uses or social uses of what the world has accumulated. We can ask what use of wealth is prudent, what imprudent; then what social organization best develops the wisdom which secures a prudent use of wealth; and finally, how far and in what ways society can act as a unit in the place of individuals. The machinery of government then becomes a part of every person's welfare, and his relation to its maintenance by contribution of his wealth is a part of prudent consumption. The economic question in consumption, then, involves not so much what one can get from society as what he can give to society, since his welfare comes largely through organization in the use of accumulated wealth.
Prudent uses of wealth.—It has already been suggested that a proper use of wealth looks always beyond the present. We accumulate, not only to spend, but to spend in such a way as will give larger abilities in the future. The name prudential consumption has been given to all that use of wealth which has for its end the maintenance of individual powers at highest efficiency for the longest life and provision for a more efficient posterity with more efficient instruments of production.
It is prudential use of wealth to gather into the farm, not only such machinery in the shape of buildings, fences and roadways as will make the future labor more effective, but all possible fertility that will make the future owners of the farm a larger welfare in possession. All wealth put into the form of productive capital is prudentially consumed. All so-called permanent improvements which look to the better satisfaction of future wants fulfil the condition of prudent foresight. All public improvements are really such, when this far-seeing provision for future wants and abilities of society is made. Such methods are the genuine economic saving in which the community should be encouraged. A saving which merely stores against a future personal want contributes less to general welfare, and [pg 313] does not stimulate the natural growth of wants in the individual, which is the chief source of increasing power. The one who saves that he may have better tools with which to do more for his future satisfaction, not only adds to his physical abilities to meet his daily wants, but adds the strongest stimulant to energy in his work. The supply of ordinary wants being provided for, new wants arise.
In the spirit of prudential consumption such wants are encouraged as give greater and greater abilities. Thus the ideal of life is constantly raised, and the struggle is not for existence but for higher enjoyment and more genuine welfare. The wealth which comes in this accumulation of capital for larger accomplishment aids true philanthropy. The whole world gets more of welfare with every addition made by farmers to their working capital. In the same way all increase of capital in machinery, tools, warehouses, ships and other means of transport contribute to a philanthropy that makes society richer.
Such saving is entirely opposed to the miserly spirit which hides wealth because of mere love of possession or fear of future want. It is the true way of both spending and having, since it expends earnings for that which continues to aid in bringing larger returns to meet increasing want. That social system is most prudent for the world which accumulates productive capital without reducing any part of society to poverty. Prudence, however, requires that this capital saving be adjusted to the abilities of the community in which it is to be used. The building of an enormous factory, where [pg 314] skill has yet to be developed and where a market is wanting, would be the height of imprudence. Such waste is sometimes seen under the false stimulant of a bounty or a restrictive tariff. Just so, great public improvements upon rivers, harbors and highways are a part of economy and prudent investment of wealth only when a community is able to use them to advantage. The test of prudence in capital saving is in its nice adjustment to the abilities of the users.
Prudent adjustment of capital.—A still further adjustment is required by prudence between the capital put into fixed forms and the circulating capital needed for best use of the more lasting machinery. A farmer is said to be stock poor when he overloads his farm or crowds his farm buildings with growing stock. Having all his capital in stock, he is unable to handle it to advantage, and must readjust his capital in live stock to his capital in the farm and machinery by selling some of his stock and adding to the value of his farm. On the other hand, many a farmer is land poor, where the bulk of his capital is invested in land, while he cannot command circulating capital in stock and wages sufficient to make the land useful. He needs, in the spirit of prudence, to sell some of his land for the sake of current funds to invest in live stock and in labor. The same principle applies to all investments of capital. A railroad may so exhaust the funds of the community in building it that it cannot be fairly manned for work. Sometimes a whole nation invests so largely in permanent forms of capital as to bring distress and poverty from want of means to use the great machine.
[pg 315]Prudence also requires a further adjustment between the amount of labor directly producing wealth and that employed in what may be called the arts of consumption, contributing directly to personal comfort and enjoyment. The neatness of a farmer's yard, outbuildings, fences and machinery is a part of his welfare. It also indicates a certain thrift, which enhances the value of the farm. But it is a proper sign of such thrift when it grows naturally out of the productive energy employed upon the crops and the stock. The wealth used in maintaining this neatness is not wasted, but it will not reproduce itself. It must be supplied from other sources in direct production. All services in the household, in contributing to bodily comfort of the family, make an essential part of human welfare, but prudence requires such an adjustment of these services to the total wealth-producing energy that they may be maintained without reducing the total power. All public expenditures in the care of streets and parks are an essential to welfare so long as the sources of wealth production are kept the more active from such advantages. The test of prudence in all such adjustment is the increase of power in wealth-production, along with increasing welfare.
Provision for future wants.—True prudence is largely foresight, and so is the enterprise of speculative energy which provides any product for a future market. No more careful adjustment is necessary than that which secures such a product of farm or factory as the world will need when it reaches its actual market. The greatest wisdom is needed in studying the conditions of a [pg 316] community with reference to its future wants, and the supply actually accumulating for meeting those wants.
Farmers need, as truly as any producers, to know the wants of the world for which they are producing food. The crops they plant in the spring will actually be consumed in large measure during the following year. Prudence suggests that they plant such crops as will be most in demand. If they judge by the market today, they are in danger of two errors: first, of overestimating the future demand, which may be satisfied before the new crop comes; second, of diverting from ordinary staple crops too large a portion of the crop-raising force. Common experience has taught that a high price of hops or onions or broom corn has almost certainly wrought a reduction of the price for succeeding crops below the normal cost. Still larger foresight is needed with reference to the raising of live stock, which requires more than a single season's investment of capital. To stock a farm with hogs, sheep, cattle or horses, requires from one to five years of accumulated capital. The record of farm stock shows successive waves of such production in direct opposition to prudence. (Chart No. 4, p. 83.)
The manufacturing world has similar experiences of imprudent consumption in the effort to forestall a market. But the record of failures in this respect is scarcely as marked, because of more business-like collection of information for the guidance of judgment. Farmers too generally follow the lead of their neighbors in adjustment of crops or stock. Manufacturers more generally try to do what their rivals are not doing. Success in producing what is not finally wanted we call overproduction. [pg 317] While the whole world is warned against this, each individual producer fails to study as well as he might the means of avoiding it.
Prudential consumption does not properly provide for those speculative dealings which end simply in a readjustment of wealth by gains on the one side through losses on the other. All these imply an actual waste of wealth and energy, whether they are exhibited in a gambling machine or a board of trade. But there are certain great enterprises, like wonderful inventions, which involve a prudential consumption of wealth. The wealth consumed in developing the electric telegraph system, or in laying the Atlantic cable, everyone would judge to be well invested. Every thought of prudence sustains such expenditure. Yet the spirit of invention, as a mere venture in desire to hit upon something which may chance to be wanted, shows lack of prudence, and the world suffers by great waste of energy in this direction. The only test of prudential consumption in provision for the future market is in the careful study of all conditions, favorable and unfavorable.
Consumption for growth.—True prudence in public improvements has just been mentioned, but such prudence has a larger range in promoting the permanent growth of human powers and capacities. Every wise father wishes his children to know more, be more efficient in the arts of life, and enjoy more of true welfare than he does. Communities which show no advancement in these respects are called dead, and decay is sure to follow. Prudence looks after all educational interests by expending wealth upon the means of education; not [pg 318] only sustaining schools, but making more permanent provision and increasing facilities for instruction. This is not only a means of preserving and wisely using the wealth accumulated, but a means of increased production. Such prudence suggests large endowments for public education, including the support of government machinery for uniformity of education. A similar prudence sustains the philanthropic spirit which maintains all the means of philanthropy. The endowment of asylums for the weak and afflicted and the support of religious institutions are prudent ways not only of caring for present welfare, but of increasing the welfare of the future. The next generation will be stronger and happier for the prudent foresight of this generation in overcoming obstacles to health and wisdom and virtue. To leave wealth thus invested is far better for successors than to leave it in form for ready consumption upon temporary wants. Thus all prudent consumption of wealth has for its basis the genuine welfare of a continuous society of human beings subject to improvement. Any forming community looks surely to future welfare when it invests wealth in good homes, good schools and good churches.
Society interested in imprudence.—This fact, that the wealth of each generation is so largely dependent upon the prudence of the preceding, emphasizes the importance of public sentiment in favor of prudential consumption. Public criticism naturally attacks the most noticeable failures of prudence, and it therefore seems worth while to consider some of those imprudent forms of consumption which society may seek to prevent. It is also proper to consider the ways in which society may act for prevention of imprudence.
Luxurious consumption.—The question of luxury in the same society with extreme poverty is always prominent. Luxury is supposed to be extravagant expenditure in meeting individual wants. Though such wants may be real and legitimate, lavish expenditure by any portion of a community seems at first sight a trespass upon common welfare. Some have considered that person wanting in good will to his fellows who expends upon his own comfort more than his neighbors can afford. Others define luxury to be expenditure for living above the average expenditure in the whole community. Still others regard any expenditure a luxury which is not needed to maintain physical powers.
It is easy to see that all these efforts at definition are [pg 320] imperfect, because the idea of luxury implies such a mode of life as does not contribute to the total welfare, and each one's idea of total welfare enters into his definition of luxury. It is an evident fact that the so-called luxuries of one generation become the actual necessities of the next. This is because the life of the race means more and includes more with each succeeding generation. To live in the twentieth century will mean, as it has always meant in the past, to have such exercise of every ability as circumstances permit. Luxury is therefore always relative to the duties one has to perform, as well as to the society in which one moves. Moreover, luxury is relative to individual abilities and individual plans. It would be luxury for a farmer to go without a needed plow for the sake of buying a lawn mower. It would be luxury for a student to own two coats, if he must go without a dictionary to buy the second.
It is easy to settle the luxuries of others, but less easy to so define luxury that the public can agree in the definition. In general, it is described to be a meeting of fanciful rather than real wants. Any individual in society is spending his wealth in luxury if he allows his imagination to conjure up adornments of person or household which contribute chiefly to display rather than to comfort or enlightenment. All such adornments of person, or home, or the public streets, as cultivate genuine taste and inspire to more of energy contribute to the general welfare far more than mere expenditure for food can do. Yet in times of starvation the food must come first. The world sometimes sneers at the desire among very poor people to cultivate flowers and maintain [pg 321] a canary or other pets; yet every philanthropist knows that these desires are among the strongest incentives to greater thrift and keener exertion.
Legal restrictions upon luxury.—With all this difficulty in definition and the certainty of change from age to age, there is nevertheless a disposition on the part of society to restrict actual luxury. Again and again this has led to enactment of laws prohibiting expenditure in certain definite forms. The dress of ladies of rank has been restricted as to style and quantity of material and ways of making. The variety upon a dinner table has been limited to a certain number of dishes and certain kinds of food.
All of these have been egregious failures, from the impossibility of measuring results upon the general progress of civilization. The indirect effects of ingenuity in dress and cooking have been on the whole so beneficial that the world cannot afford to hinder it. The intricacies of French cooking seem to an ordinary household extreme luxury, yet that very ingenuity has cheapened the cost of living, to a large portion of the world, by rendering palatable the coarser vegetables and cheaper meats which lie within the reach of the poor.
No real student of human nature would now attempt, unless it be in the emergency of a great famine, to restrict expenditures by law upon the plea of luxury. Still, society as a whole has some voice in directing the judgment of individuals. Public opinion is an effective check upon desires. The good will of the multitude is more important to the mass of men than any particular gratification. It is proper, therefore, to discuss at any [pg 322] time and at all times the limits of luxury, both for ourselves and for our neighbors. The sole cure for imprudent expenditure in luxuries is individual culture of mind and heart and conscience, so that each may do his best to secure, not only the good will of his neighbors, but their welfare.
Wasteful consumption.—Wasteful expenditure through ignorance or recklessness is more common and more weakening than luxury. Its limits cannot be described, since it covers expenditures of every kind, from the simplest provision for food and clothing to the most elaborate structures and wildest schemes of development. Though noticeable wastes are seen in the households of the rich, they are relatively larger among the poor.
Yet any attempt to regulate such waste by law is futile, chiefly from the fact that it ignores the personal responsibility and wants which make individual character. It is properly applied to the imbecile and the insane, as well as to children and youth, through the appointment of a prudent guardian. Society can protect itself only by fostering more complete systems of education in the arts of life. The tendency of our times toward a more technical education, especially in reference to the home and the common industries of life, marks the growth of public opinion toward a clearer ideal of prudence against waste. The study of economic principles in every department of life, and especially the clear understanding of everyday facts as to the things men handle and use, cannot but give wisdom for preventing waste.
[pg 323]Vicious consumption.—It is customary to distinguish from all other forms of imprudent consumption of wealth such vicious indulgence of appetites as not only consumes accumulated wealth but diminishes power in production. Such vicious indulgence is the result of cultivating unnatural and destructive appetites. Familiar illustrations are those connected with the drink habit, the opium habit, or any other vice whose chief effect is seen upon the individual life of the one indulging himself. These involve the very highest wastefulness, because they destroy not only wealth, but ability. Nobody can begin to compute in terms of money the actual waste of our country through indulgence in strong drink. The value of liquors consumed is no measure of the entire wastefulness. Yet this is more than enough to furnish all with bread.
The wrongfulness of such indulgence, from its harm to society through reducing the power of the race, is seldom disputed. Yet the right of society to restrict the individual indulgence is quite generally disputed. The larger need of freedom in the exercise of judgment among mature members of a community outweighs the need of preventing even vice. Society does well to bring the restraints of law upon the immature, whose judgment is not yet formed, thus supplementing by law the directive energy of parental control. It may yet go further, and prohibit such indulgence to all who have lost the power of self-control. But in general it has been found impossible to enforce restriction upon vicious indulgence except where such acts occasion direct suffering upon others, or help to maintain an immoral business. [pg 324] The right of restraint and constraint, even to prohibition, of that which fosters vice and extends its range must be admitted by all thoughtful persons. Still, the right to prohibit and the power to prohibit are not identical. The only sure preventive is early education of public conscience through the training of youth to a clear understanding of the vicious practices and their relation to the poverty and weakness and crime of humanity.
Destructive consumption.—A more obvious trespass upon prudential consumption is criminal destructiveness of every kind. Until society outgrows a condition in which fraud, theft, robbery and murder must be warded off by locks and bars, by immense bodies of policemen and armed militia, its wealth cannot be wholly invested for welfare. The possibility of such crimes as arson or train obstruction and destruction shows the condition of the best of modern communities to be far from ideal. Nobody pretends to measure the actual waste in society resulting from such criminal purposes. It extends to almost every detail of production and trade, and occupies a large portion of the inventive and executive energy of the people. Organized society attempts to restrain such waste by its police force, or by restraining laws and in actions enforced by severe penalties. Every honest man is financially interested in the conviction of every knave. Sympathy with fraud, even in trifles, is contributing toward such destructive waste.
In this connection the enormous expenditure in maintenance of standing armies and navies for the protection [pg 325] of national boundaries is of special importance. Reduction of this waste of wealth and power should be desired by every class of society. Though war has been the means by which human liberty has grown, it has also been the means of crushing it. It would seem that every incentive is offered each citizen to make an appeal to arms and the maintenance of armies a most remote necessity. Yet it seems that the mass of men of every rank are tenacious of national honor. While most communities have abandoned the duel as both wasteful and immoral in personal difficulties, the spirit of the duel is still rife in the differences between nations. A clearer perception of mutual interests in national welfare will bring nations, like individuals, to accept some method of enforcing neutral judgment for settling disputes, in place of war. The farmers of a country, being nearly 50 per cent of its people, and bearing a large proportion of the expense of armies and wars, have a tremendous interest in maintaining peace. This can be done not so much by reducing the provision for armies as by cultivating the spirit of fair settlement, against the false patriotism which claims everything for one's own nation.
False notions of waste.—Wasteful expenditure and luxury and possibly even vicious indulgence are often excused with the plea that expenditures of this kind make employment for labor, and so aid the poor. While it is true that multitudes are employed in catering to the vices of others, all must grant that the same wealth might be much better employed in other occupations. More than that, the larger wealth resulting from accumulation [pg 326] in place of waste would provide capital needed for fuller employment of all who can work. All imprudent expenditure reduces the power of society to accumulate wealth for giving occupation to all who will work. Moreover, such wastefulness creates a tendency toward thriftless character among the people. The welfare of the whole community depends upon the thrift of the whole community. The thriftlessness of rich men's sons is more damaging than the thriftlessness of tramps, because it is more tempting to others. Any man who lives simply to spend, however busy he keeps himself, is one of the wasteful ones in the community, unless he has some higher object than gratifying his desires. The energetic idler may be doing his worst for the community without being ranked as a spendthrift, because he makes such idleness respectable. It should be the desire of all good citizens to increase the ability of every other citizen, not only to live, but to live well. This thriftlessness can be overcome only by a strong public sentiment that corrects the early tendencies of youth to waste of means and energy.
Waste in rivalry.—There is another kind of wastefulness resulting from excessive competition for a particular business or a particular trade. Immense amounts are expended upon rival advertisements, all of which enter into the general cost to consumers. A multitude of retail dealers maintain stocks of goods entirely out of proportion to the needs of the community, because they are rivals in trade. Very likely the business rents are higher than they need be because of such rivalry. Not only is there a strong competition for a place, but also [pg 327] for showy equipment and elegance of display. All this could be saved by better organization. A still more evident waste is from the multiplication of agents and middle men of all kinds, employed simply in catching trade. Some of them act simply as interlopers, hoping to gain a small commission without the use of capital or painstaking in their business. These are the useless middle men maintained at the expense of the community. Full market reports and general information of buyers and sellers greatly reduce such waste.
Individualism.—While the social organization is necessarily thought of as a group of individuals, whose individual wants and plans and growth and character must be the chief incentive for action, it is necessary to avoid the extreme of individualism. In escaping from the false analogy implied in considering society an organism, there is a tendency to make the individual not only of final importance but independent of association. Excess of competition is represented in the maxim, “Every man for himself.” In the effort to carry out this maxim and in opposition to restraints of society, whether by law or by custom, many are led to advocate an abolition of organization, leaving all welfare to be secured by appeal to the individual judgment and conscience of men. It is true that back of all law is the law of righteousness in individual souls.
Under the name of “autonomy” theorists propose to appeal to this conscience of individuals, making every soul a law to itself. Such theorists assume that every human being will be wise and virtuous, or take the consequences of his failure. They forget that all organizations for constraint are a part of the natural consequences of failure in self-control.
[pg 329]Under the name of “anarchy” groups of people all over the world have united to destroy what they consider arbitrary rules in government. Anarchists differ from autonomists in putting foremost the destruction of existing governments. Their ideals of right and wrong and their methods of individual action for individual welfare are left for the future to develop, after the rule of the present has become no-rule. Their present organization, as far as it is public, appears to be, in almost direct contradiction of their principles, an absolute despotism. The same idea has gained followers in some countries, particularly in Russia, under the name of “nihilism.”
While in some instances such movements may be but a natural reaction against tyranny, the view of human wants and human welfare which all these advocates present is far from being correct. The grand economic fact that groups are superior to individuals in actual efficiency is beyond dispute; and it is equally true, though not so often stated, that groups gain greatest satisfaction for a given consumption of wealth. It is only when great numbers share in satisfaction that the highest range of wants can be gratified. Moreover, even individual wants are largely social. Each finds his highest pleasure in the society which nature has provided. The chief reasons for accumulating wealth are in what men can do for each other. Any individualism which overlooks these principles is opposed to welfare, and so self-contradictory.
The famous French phrases, “laissez faire” and “laissez passer,” which represent the individualistic side of economic theory, are often extended beyond the intent [pg 330] of the phrase makers. They mean essentially, let do, let go, and have their proper application in an appeal to conservative society to so modify laws and customs that individual enterprise, ingenuity and thrift shall be stimulated to its best by freedom. Freedom from restrictions in right-doing, under the evident motive furnished by general welfare, is an ideal for society. In economic directions it has great importance. No thinker can fail to see the trend of civilization toward such freedom. So far in the history of the world the enlargement of individual responsibility, by freedom from constraint among the mature members of society, has been the chief mark of progress. Yet the constraint of welfare, and of the general judgment as to what is welfare, as well as the necessity for agreement as to ways and means of reaching it, are better recognized today than ever before. The extreme of individualism destroys the natural constraint of a common judgment.
Socialism.—The opposite extreme is the assumption that common wants are of supreme importance and common judgment absolutely efficient. Under the name of “communism” it stands in direct contrast with anarchy. Anarchists and communists may unite upon a platform of a single plank, opposition to existing institutions; but in all ideals and purposes and plans for future welfare they are absolutely opposed to each other. The natural community of interests so evident in society gives a fair basis for the general principles of communism. No doubt the welfare of all is the interest of each, and the world is growing to recognize it. Among a group of beings perfectly wise and virtuous there [pg 331] could be no clashing of either interests or judgment. The ideal of Louis Blanc, “From every man according to his powers, to every man according to his wants,” would represent the natural activity of such a group. But in application to humanity, as it is and is bound to be by its weakness and waywardness, it seems abstractly ideal. In fact it is only roughly applicable in ends to be served, and suggests almost nothing as to ways and means. Like the golden rule, it applies to the disposition and purpose of the actor, but leaves the acts to be decided by individual judgment.
The numerous phases of opinion in application of this principle cannot be presented even by name in this short chapter. They are worthy of study as indicating a growth of opinion and sentiment in recognition of the mutual dependence of all human beings. They are also worthy of study as indicating how arbitrary a zealot may become in enforcing his opinions upon others. All of them are grouped somewhat loosely under the name of “socialism,” but there are many gradations in the supremacy of the social ideal over the individual welfare. There are also many shades of opinion as to how the final result of social supremacy shall be reached. Many are expecting a revolution by force of arms to establish the ideals of the leaders. More are opportunists, snatching every opportunity in legislation, in decision of courts, and in executive power, to apply their methods.
Under the name of “collectivism” appeals are made to the multitude to combine their energies under leadership: first, to overcome present restraints; and then to [pg 332] secure combined action in all modes of production and consumption. “Nationalism” is more familiar to our thought in the United States, as embracing the aim of a somewhat noisy party to bring about the compulsory organization of all industries under the control of the nation, even to placing all property and all methods of consumption under an official despotism.
Few recognize the actual logic of their views as compelling complete subjection of every individual to others' judgment, and fewer still have any idea of the official machinery needed for such control. The great majority are satisfied in seeing evils which might be cured by greater social accord, expecting at once to vote into existence the necessary machinery. Most of these are misled into considering wealth and its uses to be the chief elements of welfare. They forget that wealth is only a means of accomplishing one's purposes toward his fellows and himself. The greed of power and position and praise are far stronger as evil motives than greed of wealth. If wealth were distributed by omniscient wisdom and power according to the maxim of Louis Blanc, the higher welfare would still be as far away as ever, unless the same omniscience should control all actions. Such control by outward force would banish the very idea of virtue, the highest of all welfare.
It is easy to see that every form of socialism, in practical methods, involves a leveling process inconsistent with human nature and its surroundings. Equality of environments is possible only by reducing all to the lowest condition. Equality of aspirations reduces all toward the most brutal of the race. Even equality of [pg 333] efficiency reduces all to the power of the least efficient. So the whole range of method, assuming equality of wealth as important to welfare, lowers the welfare of the whole by destroying the best abilities and the best capacities for enjoyment in order to prevent inequality.
And yet it has not been proved that equality in any of these particulars is desirable. It is equally beyond proof that actual equality is possible. The most absolute communism implies the greatest inequality in official power. Even the pleasing phrase, “Equality of opportunity,” will not bear analysis as applied to human nature and human welfare, under the very highest ideals of social unity. Indeed, the lesson of facts in all activity is that inter-dependence of unlike and unequal forces makes the true unity of organization, and the surest welfare of multitudes. That each individual should have the best opportunity possible for his own development is best for each and for all in a community; but that such opportunities shall be equal in any other sense no wisdom can contrive. Most socialistic theories presuppose almost immediate change of human nature under the new form of administration. But for this supposition there is little ground in the history of the race or of all nature. Growth there will be, and evolution of ideals; but the administration grows out of these, instead of being their cause.
Socialistic tendencies.—Socialistic theories gain adherence under the provocation of certain tendencies in society. First, they appear whenever by oppression or fraud of any kind a community is made up of one class possessing wealth directly opposed to another class without [pg 334] wealth, with no extended middle class, and therefore with no ready means of transition from one class to another. As long as the doors are open for real progress in power of accomplishment, all the way from poverty to wealth, society has a unity in its variety that is better than any communism promises. At present in our own country, with the great multitude of farmers' families furnishing not only the necessities of life, but the larger part of human energy that goes into every calling and every rank, socialism does not appeal to any large number. An earnest, thriving farmer's family will never believe advantage to come either to themselves or to the race by making them all practically mere wage-earners.
Second, a common cause of socialistic views is separation, under extreme division of labor and opposing organizations sustained by it, of the workers in very distinct fields of labor. The jealousies arising between these classes, or guilds, or between employers and employed, foster the revolutionary spirit which jumps at any promise of relief from unsatisfactory conditions.
In the third place, a political revolution, if it has destroyed landmarks of the past and any natural sentiments growing out of social relations, leaves a mass of people at sea with reference to the nature of rights. Under such circumstances socialism offers an apparent solution of difficulties unprovided for. Though any practical effort to apply these theories under such circumstances usually results in despotic assumption of authority by a few, the people are moved by the pleasant-sounding phrases. If, in the settling of social affairs after a revolution, an earnest effort is made to agree upon [pg 335] set phrases embodying principles of constitutional liberty, the chances are in favor of some sweeping statements, too general to control action, but over-emphasizing individual rights in comparison with individual duties. Action under these declarations usually conforms to the necessities of the case, accepting the immediate welfare of the society as a guide to more complete welfare.
All these conditions are abnormal, wholly unfavorable to a fair consideration of what will promote welfare. Even if socialistic methods might work fairly well when all were favorably disposed, there is great question whether they would work as well as present social methods, under equal good will. It must not be forgotten that every scheme of nationalization, for its own sake, implies the government of every individual by everybody else, thus hampering under petty regulations and by force of multitudes the growth of every individual. No scheme for national direction provides as natural tests for merit, ability, enterprise or necessity as present methods are known to do wherever fraud and tyranny are abolished.
Coöperative consumption.—In the natural order of social development there is room for much more general association in the consumption of wealth than we sometimes think. The world has made great progress in this direction during the last fifty years, through voluntary organizations for prudent expenditure. The only limit to such community of organization for special purposes is in the nature of the work and the relation of the workers. Coöperative stores, banks, building and loan [pg 336] associations, laundries and even kitchens are within the range of actual experiments. We have already seen how such coöperative interests may operate in simple investment of capital for production. The chief obstacles in them all are the lack of certain characteristics of prudence in a multitude. In general the best management does not accord with the judgment of the mass.
A few brief maxims may indicate the natural restrictions upon such methods. Coöperative consumption is successful: first, where those coöperating are fairly equal in wants and abilities, or closely related through kinship or friendship; second, where the range of coöperation includes common wants; third, where no one is given the advantage of credit; fourth, where mutual confidence selects and sustains a continuous management; fifth, where frequent and full reports can make the business plain to all concerned. It would be interesting to follow the growth of coöperative stores and banking associations from small beginnings to enormous enterprises, but the limits of this volume will not permit. This extension may be realized from the statement that the Rochedale coöperative societies of England now number nearly two thousand, with more than a million members and nearly seventy-five million dollars of capital.