Socialism As It Is

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Mr. Mitchell says that the workingmen in a separate party could not
even secure a respectable minority of the legislators. The
numerical strength of the Unions in proportion to the _voting_
population is scarcely greater than it was when he wrote (1903),
and what he said then holds true as ever to-day.

Mr. Gompers has also stated that labor would not be able to secure
more than twenty-five or fifty Congressmen by independent political
action. This is undoubtedly true, and we may take it for granted,
therefore, that, unless the unions most unexpectedly increase their
strength, there will be no national or even State-wide Trade Union
or Labor Party in this country, though the San Francisco example of
a city Labor party may be repeated now and then, and State
organizations of the Socialist Party, which enjoy a large measure
of autonomy, may occasionally, without changing their present
names, reduce themselves to mere trade-union parties in the narrow
sense of the term. President Gompers has claimed that 80 per cent
of the voting members of the American Federation of Labor followed
his advice in the election of 1908, which was, in nearly every
case, to vote the Democratic ticket. There were not over 2,000,000
members of the Federation at this time, and of these (allowing for
women, minors, and non-voting foreigners) there were not more than
1,500,000 voters. About 60 per cent of this number have always
voted Democratic, so that if Mr. Gompers's claim were conceded it
would mean a change of no more than 300,000 votes. It is true that
such a number of voters could effect the election or defeat of a
great many Democrats or Republican Congressmen, but, as Mr. Gompers
says, it could only elect a score or two of Independents, a number
which, as the example of Populism has shown, would be impotent
under our political system. Moreover, as such a Congressional group
would be situated politically not in the middle, but at one of the
extremes, _it could never hold the balance of power in this or any
other country_ until it became _a majority_.

Mr. Mitchell is careful to qualify his opposition to the third party (or
Labor Party) idea. He writes: "I wish it to be understood that this
refers only to the immediate policy of the unions. One cannot see what
the future of the dominant parties in the United States will be, and
should it come to pass that the two great American political parties
oppose labor legislation, as they now favor it, it would be the
imperative duty of unionists to form a third party in order to secure
some measure of reform."[241] Certainly both parties are becoming more
and more willing to grant "some measure" of labor reform, so that Mr.
Mitchell is unlikely to change his present position.

Whether the unions form a separate party or not, is to them a matter not
of principle, but of ways and means, of time and place. Where they are
very weak politically they seek only to have their representatives in
other parties; where they are stronger they may form a party of their
own to cooeperate with the other parties and secure a share in
government; where they are strongest they will seek to gain control over
a party that plays for higher stakes, brings to the unions the support
of other elements, and remains in opposition until it can secure
undivided control over government, _e.g._ the Socialist Party. Whether
the unions operate through all parties or a Labor Party or a Socialist
Party, is of secondary importance also to Socialists; what is of
consequence is the character of the unions, and the effect of their
political policy on the unions themselves. In all three cases the
principles of the unions may be at bottom the same, and in any of the
three cases they may be ready to use the Socialist Party for the sole
purpose of securing a modest improvement of their wages--even
obstructing other Party activities--as some of the German union leaders
have done. They may also use a Labor Party for the same purpose--as in
Great Britain. Or they may develop a political program without really
favoring any political party or having any distinctive political aim--as
in the United States.

The labor unions, even the most conservative, have always and everywhere
had some kind of a political program. They have naturally favored the
right to organize, to strike and boycott, free speech and a free press.
They have demanded universal suffrage, democratic constitutions, and
other measures to increase the political power of their members. They
have favored all economic reform policies of which working people got a
share, even if a disproportionately small one, and all forms of taxation
that lightened their burdens.[242] And, finally, they have usually
centered their attacks on the most powerful of their enemies, whether
Emperor, Church, army, landlords, or large capitalists.

In economic and political reform, the American unions, like those of
other countries, support all progressive measures, including the whole
"State Socialist" program. As to political machinery, they favor, of
course, every proposal that can remove constitutional checks and give
the majority control over the government, such as the easy amendment of
constitutions and the right to recall judges and all other officials by
majority vote. Like the Socialists, they welcome the "State Socialist"
labor program, government insurance for workingmen against old age,
sickness, accidents, and unemployment, a legal eight-hour day, a legal
minimum wage, industrial education, the prohibition of child labor, etc.

The unions and the parties they use also join in the effort of the small
capitalist investors and borrowers, consumers and producers, to control
the large interests--the central feature of the "State Socialist"
policy. But the conservative unions do not stop with such progressive,
if non-Socialist, measures; they take up the cause of the smaller
capitalists also _as competitors_. The recent attack of the Federation
of Labor on the "Steel Trust" is an example. The presidents of the
majority of the more important unions, who signed this document, became
the partisans not only of small capitalists who buy from the trust, sell
to it, or invest in its securities, but also of the unsuccessful
competitors that these combinations are eliminating. The Federation here
spoke of "the American institution of unrestricted production," which
can mean nothing less than unrestricted competition, and condemned the
"Steel Trust" because it controls production, whereas the regulation or
control of production is precisely the most essential thing to be
desired in a progressive industrial society--a control, of course, to be
turned as soon as possible to the benefit of all the people.

The Federation's attack was not only economically reactionary, but it
was practically disloyal to millions of employees. It applies against
the "trust," which happens to be unpopular, arguments which apply even
more strongly to competitive business. The trust, it said, corrupts
legislative bodies and is responsible for the high tariff. As if all
these practices had not begun before the "trusts" came into being, as if
the associated manufacturers are not even more strenuous advocates of
all the tariffs--which are life and death matters to them--than the
"trusts," which might very well get along without them. Finally, the
Federation accuses the "Steel Trust" of an especially oppressive policy
towards its working people, apparently forgetting its arch enemy, the
manufacturer's association. It is notorious, moreover, that the smallest
employers, such as the owners of sweat shops, nearly always on the verge
of bankruptcy and sometimes on the verge of starvation themselves, are
harder on their labor than the industrial combinations, and that in
competitive establishments, like textile mills, the periods when
employers are forced to close down altogether are far more frequent,
making the average wages the year round far below those paid by any of
the trusts. The merest glance at the statistics of the United States
census will be sufficient evidence to prove this. For not only are
weekly wages lower in the textile mills and several other industries
than they are in the steel corporation, but also employment year in and
year out is much more irregular. Here we see the unions adopting the
politics of the small capitalists, not only on its constructive or
"State Socialist" side, but also in its _reactionary_ tendency, now
being rapidly outgrown, of trying to restore competition, and actually
working against their own best interests for this purpose.

A writer in the _Federationist_ demands "a reduction of railway
charges, express rates, telegraph rates, telephone rates," and a
radical change in the great industrial corporations such as the
Steel Trust, which is to be subjected to thorough regulation.
Swollen fortunes are to be broken up, together with the power of
the monopolists, of "the gamblers in the necessities of life,
etc."[243] In this writer's opinion (Mr. Shibley), the monopolists
are the chief cause of high prices and the only important
anti-social group, and all the other classes of society have a
common interest with the wage earners. But business interests,
manufacturers, the owners of large farms, and employers in lines
where competition still prevails, would also, with the fewest
exceptions, take sides against the working people in any great
labor conflict--as the history of every modern country for the past
fifty years has shown. It is not "Big Business" or "The Interests,"
but business in general, not monopolistic employers, but the whole
employing class, against which the unions have contended and always
must contend--on the economic as well as the political field. Mr.
Gompers and his associates, like Mr. Bryan and Senator La Follette,
demand that the people shall rule, but they all depend upon the
hundreds of thousands of business men as allies, who, if opposed to
government by monopolies, are still more opposed to government by
their employees or by the consumers of their products, and are
certain to fight any political movement of which they are a
predominating part.

The American Federation of Labor, and the majority of the labor unions
comprising it, are thus seen to have a political program scarcely
distinguishable from that of the radical wing of either of the large
parties,--for it seeks little if any more than to join in with the
general movement against monopolists and large capitalists in a conflict
that can never be won or lost, since the leaders in the movement are
themselves indirectly and at the bottom a part of the capitalist class.

The President of the American Federation views this partly reactionary
and partly "State Socialist" program as being directed against
"capitalism." "The votes of courageous and honest citizens in all
civilized lands," says Mr. Gompers, "are cutting away the capitalistic
powers' privilege to lay tribute on the producers. Capitalism, as a
surviving form of feudalism,--the power to deprive the laborer of his
product,--gives signs of expiring."[244] Democratic reform and
improvement in economic conditions are apparently taken by Mr. Gompers
as a sign that capitalism is expiring and that society is progressing
satisfactorily to the wage earners. Although the constitution of the
Federation says that the world-wide "struggle between the capitalist and
the laborer" is a struggle between "oppressors and oppressed," Mr.
Gompers gives the outside world to understand that the unions have no
inevitable struggle before them, but are as interested in industrial
peace as are the employers. He has expressed his interpretation of the
purpose of the Federation in the single word "more." He sees progress
and asks a share for the unionists as each forward step is taken. He
does not ask that labor's share be increased in proportion to the
progress made--to say nothing of asking that this share should be made
disproportionately large in order gradually to make the distribution of
income more equal. A capitalism inspired by a more enlightened
selfishness might, without any ultimate loss, grant all the Federation's
present demands, political as well as economic. Therefore, Mr. Gompers,
quite logically, does not see any necessity for an aggressive attitude.

"Labor unions," says Mr. John Mitchell, who takes a similar view, "are
_for_ workmen, but _against_ no one. They are not hostile to employers,
not inimical to the interests of the general public. They are for a
class, because that class exists and has class interests, but the unions
did not create and do not perpetuate the class or its interests and do
not seek to evoke a class conflict."[245] Here it is recognized that the
working class exists as a class and has interests of its own. But, if,
as Mr. Mitchell adds, the unions do not wish to perpetuate this class or
its interests, then surely they must see to it, as far as they are able,
that members of this class have equal industrial opportunities with
other citizens, and that its children should at least be no longer
compelled to remain members of a class from which, as he expressly
acknowledges, there is at present no escape.

Both Mr. Gompers and Mr. Mitchell have gone to the defense of the
leading anti-Socialist organization in this country, Civic
Federation--and nothing could draw in stronger colors than do their
arguments the complete conflict of the Gompers-Mitchell labor union
policy to that of the Socialists. Mr. Gompers defends the Federation as
worthy of labor's respect on the ground that many of its most active
capitalist members have shown a sustained sincerity, "always having in
mind the rights and interests of labor," which is the very antithesis to
the Socialist claim that nobody will always have in mind the rights and
the interests of labor, except the laborers--and least of all those who
buy labor themselves, or are intimately associated with those who buy
labor.

Mr. Mitchell says that through the Civic Federation many employers have
become convinced that their antagonism to unions was based on prejudice,
and have withdrawn their opposition to the organization of the men in
their plants. No doubt this is strictly true. It shows that the unions
had been presented to the employers as being profitable to them. This,
Socialists would readily admit, might be the case with some labor
organizations as they have been shaped by leaders like Mr. Mitchell and
conferences like those of the Civic Federation. To Socialists
organizations that create this impression of harmony of interests do
exactly what is most dangerous for the workers--that is, they make them
less conscious and assertive of their own interests.

The Civic Federation, composed in large part of prominent capitalists
and conservatives, endeavors to allay the discontent of labor by
intimate association with the officers of the unions. Socialists have
long recognized the tendency of trade-union leaders to be persuaded by
such methods to the capitalist view. Eight years ago at Dresden, August
Bebel had already seen this danger, for he placed in the same class with
the academic "revisionists" those former proletarians who had been
raised into higher positions and were lost to the working classes
through "intercourse with people of the contrary tendency." It is this
class of leaders, according to the Socialists, which, up to the present,
has dominated the trade unions of Great Britain and the United States
and occasionally of other countries.

No Socialist has been more persistent in directing working-class opinion
against all such "leaders" than Mr. Debs, who does not mince matters in
this direction. "The American Federation of Labor," he writes, "has
numbers, but the capitalist class do not fear the American Federation
of Labor; quite the contrary. There is something wrong with that form of
unionism whose leaders are the lieutenants of capitalism; something is
wrong with that form of unionism that forms an alliance with such a
capitalist combination as the Civic Federation, whose sole purpose is to
chloroform the working class while the capitalist class go through their
pockets.... The old form of trade unionism no longer meets the demands
of the working class. The old trade union has not only fulfilled its
mission and outlived its usefulness, but is now positively reactionary,
and is maintained, not in the interest of the workers who support it,
but in the interest of the capitalist class who exploit the workers who
support it."

In a recent speech Mr. Debs related at length the Socialist view as to
how, in his opinion, this misleading of labor leaders comes about:--

"There is an army of men who serve as officers, who are on the
salary list, who make a good living, keeping the working class
divided. They start out with good intentions as a rule. They really
want to do something to serve their fellows. They are elected
officers of a labor organization, and they change their clothes.
They now wear a white shirt and a standing collar. They change
their habits and their methods. They have been used to cheap
clothes, coarse fare, and to associating with their fellow workers.
After they have been elevated to official position, as if by magic
they are recognized by those who previously scorned them and held
them in contempt. They find that some of the doors that were
previously barred against them now swing inward, and they can
actually put their feet under the mahogany of the capitalist.

"Our common labor man is now a labor leader. The great capitalist
pats him on the back and tells him that he knew long ago that he
was a coming man, that it was a fortunate thing for the workers of
the world that he had been born, that in fact they had long been
waiting for just such a wise and conservative leader. And this has
a certain effect upon our new-made leader, and unconsciously,
perhaps, he begins to change--just as John Mitchell did when Mark
Hanna patted him on the shoulder and said, 'John, it is a good
thing that you are at the head of the miners. You are the very man.
You have the greatest opportunity a labor leader ever had on this
earth. You can immortalize yourself. Now is your time.' Then John
Mitchell admitted that this capitalist, who had been pictured to
him as a monster, was not half as bad as he had thought he was;
that, in fact, he was a genial and companionable gentleman. He
repeats his visit the next day, or the next week, and is
introduced to some other distinguished person he had read about,
but never dreamed of meeting, and thus goes on the transformation.
All his dislikes disappear, and all feeling of antagonism vanishes.
He concludes that they are really most excellent people, and, now
that he has seen and knows them, he agrees with them there is no
necessary conflict between workers and capitalists. And he proceeds
to carry out this pet capitalist theory, and he can only do it by
betraying the class that trusted him and lifted him as high above
themselves as they could reach.

"It is true that such a leader is in favor with the capitalists;
that their newspapers write editorials about him and crown him a
great and wise leader; and that ministers of the gospel make his
name the text for their sermons, and emphasize the vital point that
if all labor leaders were such as he, there would be no objections
to labor organizations. And the leader feels himself flattered. And
when he is charged with having deserted the class he is supposed to
serve, he cries out that the indictment is brought by a discredited
labor leader. And that is probably true. The person who brings a
charge is very likely discredited. By whom? By the capitalist
class, of course; and its press and pulpit and 'public' opinion.
And in the present state of the working class, when he is
discredited by the capitalists, he is at once repudiated by their
wage slaves."[246]

Mr. Debs's attitude toward Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Gompers is by no means
exceptional among Socialists. Mr. Gompers visited Europe in 1909, spoke
at length in Paris and Berlin, and was viewed by the majority of the
European Socialists and unionists almost exactly as he is by Mr. Debs.
Among other things he said there, was that the very kernel of the
difference between the European and the American labor movement and the
reason why the wages are so much better in America than in Europe was
the _friendlier_ relations between the government and the working people
in this country--this after all the recent court decisions against the
unions, decisions which, even when outwardly milder, have precisely the
same effect as the hostile legislation and administration of the
Continent. Mr. Gompers, while in Europe, said that it was unnecessary
that governments and the working people should misunderstand one
another, and asked, "Is there not for us all the common ground of the
fatherland, of common interest and the wish that we feel to make our
people more prosperous, happier and freer?" "I do not know what I will
see there [in Hungary]," he continued, "but this much I will say, that I
know that nothing will convince me that this readiness of the workingmen
to fight against the government and of the government to fight against
the workingmen can bring anything good to either side."[247]

Such expressions naturally aroused the European Socialist and Labor
press, and Kautsky even devoted a special article to Gompers in the
_Neue Zeit_.[248] It was not necessary in a Socialist periodical to say
anything against Gompers's preaching of the common interests of capital
and labor, since there is practically no Socialist who would not agree
that such a belief amounts to a total blindness to industrial and
political conditions. But Kautsky feared that the German workingmen
might give some credit to Gompers's claim that the non-Socialist policy
of the American unions was responsible for the relatively greater
prosperity of the working people in America. "The workingmen," he
explained, referring to this country, "have not won their higher wages
in the last decade, but have inherited them from their forefathers. They
were principally a result of the presence of splendid lands from which
every man who wanted to become independent got as much as he needed."

Then he proceeded to show by the statistics of the Department of Labor
that daily real wages, measured in terms of what they would buy, had
actually decreased for the majority of American workingmen during the
last decade. It is true, as Mr. Gompers replied, that the hours have
become somewhat less, and that therefore the amount of real wages
received _per hour of work_ has slightly increased, though there are few
working people who will count themselves very fortunate in a decrease of
hours if it is paid for _even in a part_ by a decrease of the real wages
received at the end of the day. And even if we compare _the early_
nineties with the _last years_ of the recent decade, we find that the
slight increase in the purchasing power of the total wages received
(_i.e._ real wages) amounted at the most to no more than two or three
per cent in these fifteen years. In a word, the disproportion between
the prosperity of the wage earning and capitalist classes has in the
past two decades become much greater than ever before.

The basis of the Socialist economic criticism of existing society--and
one that appeals to the majority of the world's labor unionists also--is
that while the proportion of the population that consists of wage
earners is everywhere increasing, the share of the national income that
goes to wages is everywhere growing less. There is no more striking,
easily demonstrable, or generally admitted fact in modern life. The
whole purpose of Socialism--in so far as it can be expressed in terms of
income, is to reverse this tendency and to keep it reversed until
private capital is reduced to impotence, as far as the control of
industry is concerned.

Contrast with the position of Gompers and Mitchell the chief official of
the German unions, Karl Legien, a relatively conservative representative
of Continental unionism.

"The unions," he says, "are based on the conviction that there is
an unbridgeable gulf between capital and labor. This does not mean
that the capitalists and laborers may not, as men, find points of
contact; it means only that the accumulation of capital, resting as
it does on keeping from the laborer a part of the products of his
labor, forces a propertyless proletariat to sell its labor at any
price it can get. Between those who wish to maintain these
conditions and the propertyless laborers there is a wall which can
be done away with only by the abolition of wage labor. Here the
views prevailing in the unions are at one with those of the Social
Democratic Party."