Socialism As It Is

W >> William English Walling >> Socialism As It Is

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45

This is especially true in the United States. We have elaborate forms
and external symbols of local self-government, and it may really
exist--as long as the municipalities are used for capitalistic purposes.
When it is proposed to use local self-government for Socialist ends,
however, it instantly disappears. Not only do the States interfere, with
the national government ready behind them, but the centralized
judiciary, state and national, is always at hand to intervene. _This is
potential centralization, and for the purposes of preventing radical or
Socialist measures the government of the United States is as centralized
as that of any civilized nation on earth._

Moreover, the semblance of local power given by municipal victories
brings a second difficulty to the Socialists--it means the election of
administrators and judges. Now even under the system of potential
centralization through the courts, _legislators_ are useful, for they
cannot be forced to serve capitalism. But government must be carried on
and mayors and judges are practically under the control of higher
authorities--in the new commission plan of government, they even do the
legislating. In the words of the _New York Daily Call_:--

"The Socialist Legislator finds his task a comparatively easy and
simple one. He proposes or supports every measure of advantage to
the working class in particular and to the great majority of the
people in general, barring such as are of a reactionary character.
But the Socialist executive and the Socialist judge find themselves
in no such simple situation. Their activities are circumscribed by
superior and hostile powers, and by written constitutions adopted
at the dictation of the capitalist class. How to harmonize their
activities with the just demands of the working class for the
immediate betterment of its conditions, as well as with the
Socialist program which has for its goal the ultimate overthrow of
the capitalist social order, and yet not come into such conflict
with the superior and hostile powers as would result in their own
removal from office--this question is bound to assume a gravity not
yet perhaps dreamed of by the majority of American Socialists.

"And yet even now, while our political power is still small, the
charge of opportunism, or the neglect of principle in pursuit of
some practical advantage, is continually being raised, sometimes
justly, sometimes unjustly."

The following from the _New York Evening Post_, illustrates both the
political and the economic difficulty of enacting Socialistic or even
radical measures in municipalities. It is taken from a special article
on the situation in Schenectady, where a Socialist, Dr. George R. Lunn
had just been elected mayor:--

"Schenectady is trying hard to take its dose of Socialism
philosophically. Its most staid and respectable citizens, who have
been staid and respectable Republicans and Democrats all their
life, console themselves with the thought that, after all, Old Dorp
is Old Dorp--Old Dorp being the affectionate way of referring to
Schenectady--and that her best citizens are still her best
citizens, and that Rev. George R. Lunn and all his Socialist crew
can't do a great amount of harm in two years to a city that
possesses such an ironclad charter as that with which Horace White,
when he was a Senator, endowed every city of the second class in
the Empire State. The conservative element in town back that
charter against all the reforms that the minister who is to be
mayor and his following of machinists, plumbers, coachmen, and
armature winders from the General Electric Works, who are going to
be common councillors and other things, can hope to introduce....

"The General Electric works--as everybody agrees--'made'
Schenectady. Census figures show it and statistics of one sort or
another show it. The concern employs more than 16,000 men and
women--as many persons as there are voters in the whole town. It
owns 275 acres of land, and of this about 60 acres are occupied
with shops and buildings. Its capital stock is valued at
$80,000,000. The General Electric, or as it is called up here, the
'G. E.,' has given work to thousands, has brought a lot of business
into town, has made real estate in hitherto deserted districts
valuable. On the tax assessors' books its property is assessed at
$4,500,000. It is safe to say that this is less than 25 per cent of
its true value.

"If Dr. Lunn should attempt to meddle with the 'G. E.'s'
assessment, Schenectady knows very well what would happen. The
General Electric Company would pack up and move away to some other
town that is pining for a nice big factory and does not care much
how small taxes it pays. That is the situation. Of course everybody
agrees that the company ought to be paying more, but when it comes
to a question of leaving well enough alone or losing the company
entirely, Schenectady says leave well enough alone, by all means.
The loss of the 'G. E.' works would be a disaster, from which the
Old Dorp would never recover. Why, even now the company has just
opened a brand new plant in Erie, Philadelphia, and if Schenectady
does not behave, what is to prevent the 'G. E.' from moving all its
belongings to Erie?

"Dr. Lunn has not had much to say regarding this phase of his
taxation reforms. The day after his election he issued a statement,
however, which showed that he did not intend to do anything
extremely radical:--

"'In the matter of taxation we have had something to say during the
campaign, but we Socialists are too good economists not to know
that the burdening of our local industries in the way of taxation
above that placed upon them in other cities would be foolhardy.
Under the present system, to which we are opposed, manufacturing
concerns have their rights, and any special burden placed upon them
by one community above that which is placed upon them in other
communities would inevitably and of necessity, from the standpoint
of economics, hinder their progress. We are not in favor of
hindering their progress. We stand for the greatest progress along
every line. We will not only encourage industries in every way
consistent with our principles, but will endeavor to bring new
industries to Schenectady, and furthermore, we will succeed in
doing it.'"[159]

The newly elected mayor is quoted by _Collier's Weekly_, as saying: "We
are only trying to conduct the city's business in the same honest way
we should run our own business." _Collier's_ says that the Socialists
generally "make their impression by mere business honesty and
efficiency," distinguishes this from what it calls the "harmful kind of
Socialism," and concludes that, "watching the actual performances of
those who choose to call themselves Socialists, we are thus far unable
to be filled with terror."[160]

Nearly all the comment at the time of the Socialist municipal victories
in the fall of 1911 pointed out, in similar terms, the contrast between
the very restricted opportunities they offer for the revolutionary
program of Socialism. The editorial in the _Saturday Evening Post_ is
typical:--

"Theoretically Socialism is the most ambitious of political
programs, involving nothing short of a whole-nation-wide or
world-wide revolution; but, except a solitary Congressman and
seventeen members of State legislatures, Socialists so far have
been elected only to local offices, and those usually of an
_administrative_ rather than legislative nature--elected, that is,
not to bring in a brand-new, all-embracing revolutionary program,
but to work the lumbering old bourgeois machine in a little
honester, more intelligent, kindlier manner perhaps than some
Republican or Democrat would work it.

"Designing a new world is more fascinating than scrubbing off some
small particular dirt spot on the old one--but less practical." (My
italics.)[161]

Even where _revolutionary_ Socialists carry a municipality, as they did
recently in Newcastle, Pennsylvania, the benefit to the labor movement
is probably only temporary. There the Socialist administration dismissed
the whole police force and filled their places with Socialists. The
result will undoubtedly be that the State will either make the police
irremovable, except by some complicated process, or will still further
extend the functions of the State constabulary in times of strike. The
moral effect of the victory in Newcastle, like that in Schenectady,
after the bitter labor struggles of recent years, cannot be questioned,
and this, together with temporary relief from petty persecution by local
authorities, is doubtless worth all the efforts that have been put
forth--provided the Socialists have not promised themselves and their
supporters any larger or more lasting results.

It is in view of difficulties such as these, which exist to some degree
in all countries, that in proportion as Socialists gain experience in
municipal action, they subordinate it to other forms of activity. Only
such "reformists" as are ready to abandon the last vestiges of their
Socialism persist in emphasizing a form of action that has a constant
tendency to compel all those involved to give more and more of their
time and energy to serving capitalism. Among the first Socialist
municipalities were those of Lille and Roubaix in France--which fell a
number of years ago into the hands of Guesdists, the revolutionary or
orthodox wing of the party. Rappoport reports their present position on
this question as presented at the recent Congress at St. Quentin, 1911.

"Among the Guesdists there are no municipal theorists but a great many
practical municipal men, former or present mayors: Delory (Lille), Paul
Constans (Montucon), Compere-Morel, Hubert (Nimes), only to mention
those present at the Congress. _Through experience they have learned
that what is called municipal Socialism, is good local government, but
in no sense Socialism._ Free meals for school children, weekly subsidies
for child-bearing women, etc., are useful to the working people; this is
not Socialism, but 'collective philanthropy' according to Compere-Morel.
Reforms are good, but the main thing is Socialism. The Guesdists are no
adherents of the doctrine, 'all or nothing,' but they are also no
admirers of the new doctrine of municipal Socialism."

There can be little doubt that a few years of experience in this country
will persuade those American Socialists who are now concentrating so
much of their attention on municipalities, to give more of their
energies to State legislatures and to Congress. The present efforts will
not be lost, as they can be easily turned into a new direction. And
whatever political reaction may seem to take place, after certain
illusions have been shattered, will be a seeming reaction only, and due
to the desertion from the ranks of the supporters of the Socialist
ticket of municipal reformers who never pretended to be Socialists, but
who voted for that Party merely because no equally reliable
non-Socialist reformers were in the field, or had so good a chance of
election. Such separation of the sheep from the goats will be specially
rapid when some variation of the so-called commission form of government
will have been gradually introduced, particularly where it is
accompanied by direct legislation and the recall. For then municipal
Socialists will be deprived of all opportunity of claiming this, that,
and the other reform as having some peculiar relation to Socialism. And
this day is near at hand.

All municipal reforms that interest property owners and non-property
owners alike will then be enacted with comparative ease and rapidity,
while all political parties, and all prolonged political struggles, will
center around the conflict between employers and employees. State and
national governments will see to it that no municipality in the hands of
the working class is allowed to retain any power that it could use to
injure or weaken capitalism. And this specific limitation of the powers
of municipalities that escape local capitalist control, will be so
frequent and open that all the world will see that Socialists are going
to achieve comparatively little by "capturing" local offices.

I have already mentioned in a general way the position of the Milwaukee
Socialists in the Wisconsin legislature. Let me return now to their
representative in Congress. Mr. Berger had differentiated himself from
previous trade union Congressmen largely by proposing a series of
radical _political_ reforms: the abolition of the Senate, of the
President's veto, and of the power of the Supreme Court over the
legislation of Congress, and a call for a national constitutional
convention. Radical as they are, it is probable that these reforms are
only a foreshadowing of the position rapidly being assumed by a large
part of the collectivist but anti-Socialist "insurgents," and
"progressives." Even Mr. Roosevelt and Justice Harlan, it will be
recalled, protest in the strongest terms against the power of the
Supreme Court over legislation, and the Wisconsin legislature, by no
means under Socialist control, has initiated a call for a national
constitutional convention.

In proposing his "old-age pension" bill, Mr. Berger appended a clause
which asserted that the measure should not be subject to the
interpretation of the Supreme Court, and showed that Congress had added
a similar clause to its Reconstruction Act in 1868 and that it had later
been recognized by the Supreme Court. Later the _Outlook_ suggested that
this was a remedy less radical than the widely popular recall of judges,
and remarked that it would only be to follow the constitution of most
other countries.[162] Also Senator Owen, on the same day on which Mr.
Berger introduced his bill, spoke for the recall of federal judges on
the floor of the United States Senate. It is impossible, then, to make
any important distinction between Mr. Berger's proposed _political_
reforms, sweeping as they are, and those of other radicals of the day.

The attitude of many of the "Insurgents" and "Progressives" of the
West, is also about all that mere trade unionists could ask for. A large
majority of this element in both parties favors the repeal of the
Sherman law as applied to labor union boycotts, and Senator La Follette
and others stand even for the right of government employees to organize
labor unions. The adoption of the recall of judges, owing largely to
non-Socialist efforts in Oregon, California, and Arizona, will make
anti-union injunctions in strikes and boycotts improbable in the courts
of those States, and the widely accepted proposal for the direct
election of the federal judiciary would have a similar effect in the
federal courts. It may be many years before these measures become
general or effective, but there can be no question that they are
demanded by a large, sincere, and well-organized body of opinion outside
of the Socialist Party. The Wisconsin legislature and most other
progressive bodies have so far failed to limit injunctions. But this has
been done in the constitution of Oklahoma, and I have suggested reasons
for believing that this prohibition may soon be favored by
"Progressives" generally.

In the first Socialist speech ever made in Congress, Mr. Berger laid
bare his economic philosophy and program. The subject was the reduction
of the tariff on wool and its manufactures, and Mr. Berger defined his
position on the tariff as well as still larger issues. He declared
himself practically a free trader, though of course he did not consider
free trade as a panacea, and his speech, according to the Socialist as
well as other reports, was received with a storm of
applause--especially, of course, from free-trade Democrats.

He pointed out that the manufacturer, having thoroughly mastered the
home market, had found that tariff wars were shutting him out from the
foreign markets he now needs. He might have added, as evidenced by the
nature of the proposed reciprocity treaty with Canada, that many
manufacturers are more interested in cheap raw material and cheap food
for their workers (cheap food making low wages possible, as in
free-trade Great Britain) than they are in a high tariff, and this even
in some instances where they have a certain need for protection for the
finished product and where no great export trade is in view.

Mr. Berger forgot England when he said that the tariff falls on the poor
man's head, for England has shown that the abolition of the tariff does
not benefit the poor man in the slightest degree. Poverty is far more
widespread there than here. He pointed to the fact that the importation
of goods into the United States was restricted, while that of labor was
not. He forgot that where both are restricted, as in Australia, the
workers are no better off than here.

The arguments employed in Mr. Berger's speech, in so far as they
referred to the tariff, were for the most part not to be distinguished
from those used by the Democrats in behalf of important capitalistic
elements of the population, and hence the welcome with which they were
received by the Democratic Congress and press. The Socialist matter in
the speech relating only indirectly to the tariff was, of course, less
favorably commented upon.

Mr. Berger's second speech before Congress was also significant. It was
in support of governmental old-age pensions, a very radical departure
for the United States and difficult of enactment because of our federal
system--but already, as Mr. Berger said, in force in Great Britain,
France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada.
Since the legislatures in all these countries are controlled by
opponents of Socialism, it is evident that such measures have been
adopted from other than Socialist motives. In fact they have no
necessary relation to Socialism at all, but, on the contrary, have been
widely enacted for capitalistic reasons without regard to the demands or
power of the workers.

Mr. Berger is reported to have said a few days after this speech: "The
idea will in five years have been incorporated into law. Both of the old
parties within that time will have incorporated the theory into their
platforms. Both the old parties to-day are approaching Socialistic
ideas, and appropriating our ideas to save themselves from the coming
overthrow."[163] The idea of governmental old-age pensions, on the
contrary, has always been popular in certain anti-Socialist circles and
is entirely in accord with any intelligent system of purely capitalistic
collectivism. Its common adoption by progressive capitalists would seem
to indicate that they consider it as being either directly or indirectly
conducive to their own interests. It is unnecessary to assume that they
adopt it from fear of Socialism. Few if any capitalists consider the
overthrow of capitalism as imminent, or feel that Socialism is likely
for many years to furnish them with a really acute political problem. A
combination of Republicans and Democrats, for example, with a full vote,
would easily overwhelm Mr. Berger, the sole Socialist Congressman in
his own Congressional district. If present political successes continue,
it will still take years for Socialism to send a score of
representatives to Congress, and when it does do so, they will be as
impotent as ever to overthrow the capitalist order.

For any independent representative without political power or
responsibility to propose radical reforms in advance of the larger
parties is a very simple matter. Statesmen with actual power cannot
afford to take up such reforms until the time is _politically_ ripe for
their practical consideration. When such a measure is passed, for the
individual or group that first proposed it to claim the credit for the
change would be absurd. These reforms, when conditions have suitably
evolved, become the order of the day, and are urged by all or nearly all
the forces of the time. The radical British old-age pension bill, it
will be remembered, was passed almost unanimously, although in the
Parliament that passed it there were only about 40 Socialist or
semi-Socialist representatives out of a total of 670 members.

What, then, could be more fatuous than such a view as the following,
expressed recently by a well-known Socialist:--

"Do you not think that the whole country should be apprised that this
(Berger's Old-age Pension bill) is a Socialist measure, introduced by a
Socialist Representative, and backed by the Socialist Party--before the
Republicans and Democrats realize the advisability of stealing our
thunder. In England the working-class political movement is stagnant
because the Liberal Party has out-generaled the Socialists by
voluntarily enacting great social reforms."[164]

In his anxiety to prepare a bill that capitalist legislators would
indorse and pass in the near future, Mr. Berger aroused great criticism
within the Party. The _New York Volkszeitung_ pointed out that in
limiting the benefit of the law to those who had been naturalized
citizens of the United States for sixteen years, he was requiring a
residence of twenty-one years in this country, a provision which
involved an excessively heavy discrimination against a very large
proportion of our foreign-born workers. Mr. Berger's project, moreover,
demanded that those convicted of felonies should also be excluded.
Socialists, as is well known, have always asserted that the larger part
of crimes and criminals were due to injustices of the existing social
order, for which the "criminals" were in no sense to blame. Mr. Berger's
secretary, Mr. W. J. Ghent, vigorously defended this clause, on the
typical "State Socialist" ground that the future Society would deal
_more severely_ with criminals than the present one.

Mr. Berger's bill was objected to by New York Socialists on the ground
that the old parties could be expected to give a more liberal bill in
the near future, and that it would then be difficult to explain the
narrower Socialist position. Mr. Ghent answered that nowhere had such a
liberal measure been enacted. To this the _Volkszeitung_ remarked that
there is a tremendous difference between a bill that owes its origin to
a capitalist government and one that comes from a Socialist
representative of the working class: "The former sets up a minimum while
the latter must demand the maximum." Finally, the _New York Local_ of
the Socialist Party resolved: "That we request the National Executive
Committee to resolve that Comrade Berger shall, before introducing any
bill, submit it to secure its approval by the National Executive
Committee."

Mr. Berger's maiden speech also summed up excellently the general policy
of Socialist "reformism."

"When the white man is sick or when he dies," he said, "the employer
usually loses nothing." Mr. Berger does not understand that, in modern
countries, _employers as a class_ are seeing that the _laborers as a
class_ are, after all, their chief asset: and are therefore organizing
to care for them through governmental action, as working animals, even
more systematically and infinitely more scientifically than slaves were
ever cared for. He is exhausting his efforts to persuade, or perhaps he
would say to compel, the government to the very action that the
interests of its capitalist masters most strongly demand.

Curiously enough, Mr. Berger expressed the "reformist," the
revolutionary, and the State capitalist principle in this same speech,
without being in the least troubled with the contradictions. He spoke of
industrial crises, irregular employment and unemployment as if they were
permanent features of capitalism:--

"These new inventions, machines, improvements, and labor devices,
displace human labor and steadily increase the army of unemployed,
who, starved and frantic, are ever ready to take the places of
those who have work, thereby still further depressing the labor
market."

The collectivist capitalists have already set themselves aggressively
to work to abolish unemployment, to make employment regular, to connect
the worker that needs a job with the job that needs a worker, and to put
an end to industrial crises, and with every promise of success.

Immediately afterward, Mr. Berger made a correct statement of the
Socialist position:--

"The average of wages, the certainty of employment, the social
privileges, and the independence of the wage-earning and
agricultural population, _when compared with the increase of wealth
and social production_, are steadily and rapidly decreasing."