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Category: Classic Literature
Description: Two essays about the evils of socialism. In the first essay the author is a social darwinist. In the second he presents a socratic dialogue about property rights. The author believes that socialism is not the best way to insure that the fruits of society are evenly distributed. The author believes that inheritance is bad, that each generation should stand on its own accomplishments.
eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com,
Fictionwise Release Date: July 2003

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Words: 13119
Reading time: 37-52 min.

The postponement of this address, which was to have been delivered two weeks ago, was a real disappointment to me for I did not then know that another opportunity would be arranged. As one approaches maturity, it becomes a joy to talk to a group of young people in the light of whose pleasant faces one seems to renew his own youth. Youth is the most precious thing there is--it knows so little it never worries.

It is difficult for me to be here at this hour of the day and it has been impossible for me to hear those who have preceded me in this course. What I have to say may therefore have too little relation to what has been presented from other points of view to be satisfactory in what seems to have been designed as a debate. Nor have I, in recent years, read much Socialistic or anti-Socialistic literature of which the world is full. From my point of view, as will presently be seen, perusal of this literature would be a waste of time for none of it that I have seen or heard of discusses what seems to me essential, but in saying this I must not be understood as disparaging either the sincerity or the ability of writers on this subject.

When I was more or less familiar with Socialistic controversy the Socialistic propaganda was devoted in different countries to the accomplishment of the immediate program which in the respective countries was considered the essential thing to be done next, very little being said about the ultimate end which it was hoped to reach in due time. Thus it happened that in some countries what was called the Socialistic agitation was directed to the accomplishment of what was already established by non-Socialists in other countries. That is doubtless so still. Those discussions do not interest me and I have not followed them and shall not discuss any of them here. I shall consider only the ultimate aims of theoretical Socialism and whether if accomplished they probably would or would not make for the general welfare and especially for the welfare of the least efficient.

The ultimate aim of Socialism is the nationalization of all land, industry, transportation, distribution and finance and their collective administration for the common good as a governmental function and under a popular government. It involves the abolition of private profit, rent and interest and especially excludes the possibility of private profit by increase of values resulting from increase or concentration of population. The majority of Socialists would reach this end gradually, by successive steps, and with compensation to existing owners. A violent minority would reach it per saltum, by bloodshed if necessary, and by confiscation--"expropriation" they call it. All alike conduct their propaganda by endeavoring to create or accentuate the class consciousness of manual workers who constitute the majority of human beings and whose condition, it is insisted, would be improved under a Socialistic regime. The violent wing promotes not merely class consciousness but class hatred.

I have no time to split hairs in this discussion and it may be assumed that I understand that Socialists do not expect to absolutely control all personal activity but would leave all persons free to pursue any vocation which they might desire and to have and hold whatever they may acquire by personal activity and enterprise so only that they make no profit on the work of another or absorb for their own use any gift of Nature. No Socialist that I know of has attempted to draw the exact line between activities to be wholly absorbed by the State and those which would be left to private enterprise. No wise Socialist I think--if there are wise Socialists--would attempt to draw such a line at present. There is a certain vagueness in the Socialists' presentation of their case.

And before we proceed further let us get rid of the intellectual fog which envelops and shelters the advocates of Socialism. It is the fog of humanitarianism. I see and hear no advocacy of Socialism whose burden is not the uplift of humanity. Now, humanitarianism is perhaps the most beautiful thing there is. There is no more ennobling and inspiring sentiment than desire for the uplift of our fellowmen; but it has no legitimate place in the discussion of Socialism. For an advocate of Socialism to even refer, in presenting his case, to humanitarian sentiment is to that extent to beg the question.

For if Socialism would improve the lot of mankind, or of the major portion of it, that settles the whole matter. The quicker we get to it the better. Opponents of Socialism insist that it would benefit nobody, and that as to the least efficient in whose behalf Socialistic doctrines are especially urged, it would be deadly. As to the strong or the fairly efficient we need not concern ourselves. They will get on anyhow. What it is important to consider is the probable condition of the less efficient, and especially the submerged class, under a Socialist regime. And consideration will be useful only if it is in cold blood, absolutely without sentiment, and especially without even sub-conscious assumption or imagination that the condition of the unfortunate, or less fortunate, would or would not be improved by Socialism, or whether mankind can or cannot be made happier by attempts to control economic conditions by interference with the natural working out of economic results as the resultant of opposing pressure of individual interests. And do not call me a brute if I reach the conclusion that human selfishness is the hope of the race.

Because selfishness inspires to energetic action which means the largest possible aggregate production which is the first essential prerequisite to abundance for all. It is useless to talk about better distribution until the commodities exist to be distributed. And there is no other such spur to production as the expectation of personal profit. The pieceworker with more satisfaction to himself and profit to the world will produce far more than he would turn out under a daily wage if his earnings are thereby increased. And there are no others who give so little for what they receive as those who work for the public.

The first count in the case against Socialism is that by making the majority of workers public servants without the stimulus of selfishness it would increase human misery by reducing the aggregate of production and therefore the possible per capita consumption.

That, however, is on the surface. Let us bore a little deeper toward the core of the subject. It is a fundamental fallacy of Socialism that all gain is the result of Labor and that therefore all gain belongs to Labor--the term "Labor" in practice meaning the great majority of laborers who are manual workers[1].

Of course Labor is essential to production--so is Capital, which we shall come to later--and as between two things, both essential, it is perhaps impossible to conceive of one or the other as superior.

But there is another element, also essential, but in a class so much above the other two essential elements, that it is not too much to say that without it there could be no production adequate to sustain for more than a brief time any great population. And that element is Brains. It is not to Labor but to the human intellect as developed in the exceptional man that we owe all that exists, outside of Nature, which we count valuable, and the ability to so use the resources of Nature as to enable mankind to live. If products were to be divided among mankind so that each should receive according to his contribution to the possibilities of production, after the exceptional men had received their just dues, there would be very little left for the rest of us. When European races first discovered this continent it probably supported less than one million souls, and the number was not increasing. That it will ultimately support some hundreds of millions is due to the dealings of the human intellect with Nature. Brains do not get, do not ask, do not expect and could not use what would rightfully come to them.

But intellects vary in character and usefulness, and let us try by differentiation and elimination to isolate and consider those particular classes of intellect whose activities bear most directly on the questions raised by Socialistic theory. The chiefs are the devotees of pure science--the Galileos, the Newtons, the Pasteurs, the Faradays, the Kelvins, and the innumerable company of those like them, many known but most unknown, who spend their days and nights in the search for truth. They deserve and get the greatest of rewards which is the respect and admiration of their fellowman. As for material things, they desire and get very little. Following them are the magnates of applied science, the Watts, the Stephensons, the Bells, the Edisons, and their like, who apply to beneficial use the discoveries of the great lights of pure science often with prodigious material profit to themselves. The patent offices know them all, big and little. They perform a magnificent service, are highly esteemed in their day and generation and their material rewards are great. And upon the whole the world does not grudge them what they get.

But there are others. Next after the magnates of applied science in public estimation, but of equal economic importance, I would place the Captains of Industry. Without their grasp of human necessity and desire and their organizing and directing ability, Labor would grope blindly in the dark by wasteful methods to the production of insufficient quantities of undesirable products. The Marxian[2] conception of an economic surplus wrongfully withheld from Labor which produces it is the disordered fancy of a fine intellect hopelessly warped by the contemplation of human misery and humanitarian sympathy with human distress. All economic discussion is worthless if tainted by human sympathy. The surplus value in production is trifling and seems large only because concentrated in comparatively few hands. The surplus of ages is concentrated in the structures which we see all about us, and in the commodities ready or partly ready for consumption and which will disappear in a short time. The annual accretions are small for an enormous amount of human effort is wastefully directed. That more effort is not wasted is due to the increasing necessities of an increasing population stimulating the most competent by the hope of personal gain to provide new means and new methods whereby those necessities may be served. No stimulus other than the hope of personal gain has ever been found effective to inspire this effort, or make it successful. Government administration invents nothing. It copies tardily and administers wastefully. Direction falls to those who compete successfully in talk not to those who demonstrate resourcefulness and masterfulness in forseeing human requirements, utilizing available means for supplying them, and effectiveness in least wastefully directing labor in the use of these means. Our Captains of Industry are those who for the most part starting life with nothing but a sound mind in a strong body have risen to the direction of great affairs through unrestricted opportunity to strenuously compete through long hours of hard labor and the mental and bodily strength to endure it. There is no reason to suppose that any other method than the same strenuous and unrestricted competition would produce men equal to such responsibilities, or that any inspiration but the hope of personal gain would induce such effort. The contention that the honor of direction and the applause of the multitude would incite to the necessary competition is not sound. In the first place long years of inconspicuous service but with the same eager effort are essential preliminaries to the great places which but few can reach, and secondly the honor would go as it does now in public affairs, not to the man efficient in industry, but to the man efficient in talk. The one stimulus to personal exertion which Nature supplies, and the only stimulus which operates powerfully, and universally and continuously is the desire of personal gain coupled with the instinct for construction and accomplishment. Since the desire is for the largest possible production it is folly to try to withdraw that stimulus and substitute an emotion which, however powerful in a few persons and for uncertain periods, operates most strongly on those industrially least capable.

For I venture the assertion that there is not now and never has been among Socialists a single person who has demonstrated the ability to so direct the Labor of any considerable number of men either in production or distribution that the aggregate of yearly accomplishment at market value is as great as the aggregate cost at current wages.

The second count in the indictment of Socialism, therefore, is that for lack of the sole stimulus which Nature supplies, and the lack of opportunity under a system of equal tasks, with ideals of leisure, direction of production and exchange under a Socialistic regime would be so much less efficient than now that the aggregate waste would be far greater than that of the parasitism which has always existed in competitive Society.

A social parasite is a person whose contribution to the social product is less than the cost of his or her keep. If obviously defective we shall, at least for the present, let humanity override the economic instinct which suggests their removal--an instinct which has effectively operated in some overcrowded communities and take care of them. But the world has no use for the able-bodied parasite who during his or her working period of life does not contribute to the social dividend by personal exertion sufficient to pay for the kind of life which has been led. In opposing Socialism I am not defending parasitism. That can be got rid of when it becomes worth while and will be. But to jump out of parasitism into Socialism would be jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire. And we should have parasites still.

So much for the Captains of Industry whom we need. But there is still another class which could not exist in the Socialistic state, and which a great part of mankind holds in profound disesteem, but which is essential nevertheless. This is the man with the instinct of accumulation and whom we stigmatize as the "Capitalist"--the man who grasps what is within reach and holds it; who often gets the main profits of the inventions of the inventor; who forsees the future value of unused gifts of Nature and acquires them while they can be got cheap; who combines with others like him to control everything controllable and makes mankind pay roundly when it wants it. He is really the man to whom mankind is most indebted of all for without his beneficent if execrated service, in vain would the scientist toil in his laboratory, the inventor struggle through poverty to perfect his machine, the Captain of Industry conceive great accomplishment, and the laborer delve and grind at his daily task. The one supremely useful man is he who accumulates and holds.

If you say that this is an unlovely person the answer is that sometimes he is and sometimes he is not. If you say he is selfish the reply is that we are all selfish--he merely being able to make his selfishness effective. If you say he accumulates by devious ways and by grinding the face of the poor the reply is that sometimes he does and sometimes he does not. In these human aspects he is about like the rest of us. He it is who makes happiness and helpfulness possible.

But to these and all other assaults upon the character and methods of the accumulating man there is one general reply and that is that from the economic standpoint they are of no consequence whatever. It makes no economic difference what he is or what he does so only that he performs his accumulating office.