CHAPTER II.

SOCIAL ANARCHY.

"We all can see that there are all over our country energies which can find no employment or, at all events, minds which are cruelly compressed into duties far too narrow, and, on the other hand, work which remains undone for want of adequate energies, because no systematic attempt has yet been made to estimate the real needs of the social organism and to distribute its forces in accordance with them.-There is no organic adjustment anywhere."-The "Value of Life," an American work, anon.

Competition gluts our markets, enables the rich to take advantage of the necessities of the poor, makes each man snatch the bread out of his neighbor's mouth, converts a nation of brethren into a mass of hostile, isolated units, and finally involves capitalists and laborers in one common ruin."-Greg.

"It is not to die, or even to die of hunger that makes a man wretched; many men have died; all men must die. But it is to live miserable, we know not why; to work sore and yet gain nothing; to be heartworn, weary, yet isolated, unrelated, girt in with a cold universal Laissez-faire.”—Carlyle.

The wage-system may be said to be of vital interest only to the wage-workers. They are a considerable part of the na

tion. They include not only the operatives in our factories and mines, but the whole army of railroad employees, all hired men on farms, all clerks engaged in stores and mercantile establishments; all. in fact, who help to create Values and receive a stated salary. And if not their numbers but the Values produced by them constitute the measure of their importance, they will be found very much to overbalance our independent farmers. The whole agricultural class (7.600.000 persons.) indeed, did not create more wealth in 1880 than our manufacturing operatives alone (2.700.000 in number.) But though the wage-workers are an important fraction of our population they, nevertheless, are but a fraction. If Socialism had regard to them only, it were nothing but a class-move

ment.

We claim there is a something-wrong in Society which vitally affects the whole nation and every individual of it. In prosperous years it may not obtrude itself on the attention of thoughtless people, but let "hard times" come on, and it makes everybody feel uneasy. What is this "somethingwrong"? Socialists say that it is nothing less than the method, the policy, which governs all activities of the principal nations of our time. It is spreading itself in Catholic societies, and throughout the whole world, but it arose in Protestant countries. It is, in fact, simply the exaggerated forin of one of the principles of Protestantism: the independence of the individual; which exaggerated individual independence we can properly call: Individualism. We can also call the policy: the "let alone " policy; its admirers give it a more euphonious name: Private Enterprise.

Let alone whom-what?

In the middle ages the feudal barons erected castles, from which they issued forth with their retainers, when they espied merchants and adventurers approaching on the contiguous highways laden with wealth, stopped them—and levied tolls. All that these barous desired was to be let alone." In our age it is the spiritual descendants of these merchants and adventurers who have grown powerful, fattened on “fleecings.” They in their turn demand to "be let alone;" they demand

that society shall be an unrestricted hunting ground for their "enterprise." They are let alone; we shall now note with what results to the different classes of society.

Before our present industrial system got into full swingthat is, before the power of steam was utilized -the masterworkman was an adept in his trade and owned his tools and the raw-materials he used. This is all now changed. The workman is now divorced from his implements and raw materials, which have got under the complete control of the capitalist class; he now has nothing left but his naked labor. This it is, again, which enables employers to buy labor in the market for a price much below the productivity of that labor; that is at a value much below its worth.

As

This monopoly has made employers into a class of autocrats, the laborers into a class of dependents-of hirelings. Jesse Jones says In the "International Review," of October 1880: A class is fixed, when nine-tenths of those comprising it can never get out of it. *** Why mock workingmen by putting rare exceptions for a general rule?”

The laboring men are dealt with by cur managers as mere tools. They are spoken of as tools, as things. This humanitarian age counts steers and sheep by · heads" and the workers by hands." A pity God did not make them only "hands!"

It is a paltry evasion to say, that the workers are free to consent or to refuse the terms of the employer. It is an evasion worthy of the man who asked permission of the Virgin to rob her of her necklace-and then did it, taking silence for consent. The Laborers have to consent. If they refuse the terms, capitalists simply stop business; they can stand it. Hard times" are really only hard on those whose subsistence depends on having work to do. The wives and daughters of capitalists do, as a rule, not leave off during hard times" attending operas in their silks, satins and diamonds; do not, as a rule, quit their luxurious brownstone-fronts or dismiss their liveried servants.

Henry George in his "Progress and Poverty" epitomizes the position of our laborers as follows: " Compelled to more

continuous labor than the savage, the laborer

a mere link in an enormous chain of producers and consumers, helpless to separate himself and helpless to move, except as they move -gains the mere necessaries of life, just what the savage gets, and loses the independence of the savage." And as to security he is not much better off The irregularity of his employment, the frequency with which he is out of work, is the most alarining feature of the workingman's condition. And that irregularity is often, very often, purposely brought about by the employing capitalist class. For instance, in order to put up the price of anthracite coal, out of twenty-four working days of a certain month nine were made idle days by the coal companies of Pennsylvania. The mining was interrupted to limit supply and the miners were left to do the best they could with work for two days out of every three.

This condition has been rendered yet enormously more precarious by the remarkable industrial inventions of the age. These victories of man, of Society, over Nature's physical forces ought certainly to have been unqualified blessings to

all.

Yet, how often have they proven instruments of torture to the working class! How many has the introduction of new machinery not thrown out of employment; how many existences have not thereby been destroyed!

We are familiar with the commonplace, that the outcry of laborers against "newfangled machinery" is a complaint born of ignorance; that in the end the working classes are as much benefitted as other classes. This outcry is by 10 means nothing but au ignorant childish complaint. Machinery would be an unqualified blessing, if the temporary injury which it so often has caused to individuals and whole bodies of men were considered in a spirit of social justice and brotherliness, That has never been done wherever the working classes are con sidered, either in this or any other country. In their case our legislators persistently repudiate the duty to take care of the interests of those who are sacrificed for the benefit of their fellow citizens and of posterity. But whenever other classes have been thus affected there has never been the slightest hesita

tion to liberally compensate those, prejudicially affected. It is the action of Society that has made machinery an evil. This is the real meaning of the outcry against "newfangled machinery."

And we deny that working people hitherto have been essentially benefitted by machinery and inventions at all. The sewing machine is a pointed illustration. That was thought, at all events, to be a blessing to the overworked, famishing needleWoman. Yet what has followed? That she is now still more overworked, more poorly paid and her health still more endangered.

But, to be sure-these inventions were not adopted by capitalists for the benefit of workpe »ple, or for the general benefit; no, indeed! For, of course, this machinery and these inventions have also gone into the hands of capitalists and are controlled by them for their exclusive benefit; and with admirable results. It has been calculated that two-thirds of all benefit arising from the use of machinery have gone to these "pushing" fellows and the remaining one-third to the consumers. Even our patent laws, with the general advantage for their primary idea, have become a means of enabling these capitalists, in no sense inventors, to levy heavy tribute upou the community for an indefinite length of time,

"Ah! but the workers are also consumers, we should think, and form the majority in fact of all consumers."

Hold on, sir! Has machinery lightened the day's toil of any worker? That is what ought to measure the benefits of inachinery to him. Let us see, if it has.

Here is one picture: Massachusetts is a model state, we suppose. Well, a statute of that State in 1860 made ten hours a maxium working day for children under twelve years of age. In 1867 her legislators became a little more humane and enacted that no child under fifteen years of age should work more than sixty hours a week. Go to Pennsylvania, and see children ten years old taken down every morning into the mines to work! Here is another picture: In England, two hundred years back ten hours were a normal working day for strong black