Equality Read online

  CHAPTER XIII.

  PRIVATE CAPITAL STOLEN FROM THE SOCIAL FUND.

  "I observe," pursued the doctor, "that Edith is getting very impatientwith these dry disquisitions, and thinks it high time we passed fromwealth in the abstract to wealth in the concrete, as illustrated by thecontents of your safe. I will delay the company only while I say a veryfew words more; but really this question of the restoration of yourmillion, raised half in jest as it was, so vitally touches the centraland fundamental principle of our social order that I want to give you atleast an outline idea of the modern ethics of wealth distribution.

  "The essential difference between the new and the old point of view youfully possess by this time. The old ethics conceived of the question ofwhat a man might rightfully possess as one which began and ended with therelation of individuals to things. Things have no rights as against moralbeings, and there was no reason, therefore, in the nature of the case asthus stated, why individuals should not acquire an unlimited ownership ofthings so far as their abilities permitted. But this view absolutelyignored the social consequences which result from an unequal distributionof material things in a world where everybody absolutely depends for lifeand all its uses on their share of those things. That is to say, the oldso-called ethics of property absolutely overlooked the whole ethical sideof the subject--namely, its bearing on human relations. It is preciselythis consideration which furnishes the whole basis of the modern ethicsof property. All human beings are equal in rights and dignity, and onlysuch a system of wealth distribution can therefore be defensible asrespects and secures those equalities. But while this is the principlewhich you will hear most generally stated as the moral ground of oureconomic equality, there is another quite sufficient and wholly differentground on which, even if the rights of life and liberty were notinvolved, we should yet maintain that equal sharing of the total productof industry was the only just plan, and that any other was robbery.

  "The main factor in the production of wealth among civilized men is thesocial organism, the machinery of associated labor and exchange by whichhundreds of millions of individuals provide the demand for one another'sproduct and mutually complement one another's labors, thereby making theproductive and distributive systems of a nation and of the world onegreat machine. This was true even under private capitalism, despite theprodigious waste and friction of its methods; but of course it is a farmore important truth now when the machinery of co-operation runs withabsolute smoothness and every ounce of energy is utilized to the utmosteffect. The element in the total industrial product which is due to thesocial organism is represented by the difference between the value ofwhat one man produces as a worker in connection with the socialorganization and what he could produce in a condition of isolation.Working in concert with his fellows by aid of the social organism, he andthey produce enough to support all in the highest luxury and refinement.Toiling in isolation, human experience has proved that he would befortunate if he could at the utmost produce enough to keep himself alive.It is estimated, I believe, that the average daily product of a worker inAmerica to-day is some fifty dollars. The product of the same man workingin isolation would probably be highly estimated on the same basis ofcalculation if put at a quarter of a dollar. Now tell me, Julian, to whombelongs the social organism, this vast machinery of human association,which enhances some two hundredfold the product of every one's labor?"

  "Manifestly," I replied, "it can belong to no one in particular, but tonothing less than society collectively. Society collectively can be theonly heir to the social inheritance of intellect and discovery, and it issociety collectively which furnishes the continuous daily concourse bywhich alone that inheritance is made effective."

  "Exactly so. The social organism, with all that it is and all it makespossible, is the indivisible inheritance of all in common. To whom, then,properly belongs that two hundredfold enhancement of the value of everyone's labor which is owing to the social organism?"

  "Manifestly to society collectively--to the general fund."

  "Previous to the great Revolution," pursued the doctor. "Although thereseems to have been a vague idea of some such social fund as this, whichbelonged to society collectively, there was no clear conception of itsvastness, and no custodian of it, or possible provision to see that itwas collected and applied for the common use. A public organization ofindustry, a nationalized economic system, was necessary before the socialfund could be properly protected and administered. Until then it mustneeds be the subject of universal plunder and embezzlement. The socialmachinery was seized upon by adventurers and made a means of enrichingthemselves by collecting tribute from the people to whom it belonged andwhom it should have enriched. It would be one way of describing theeffect of the Revolution to say that it was only the taking possession bythe people collectively of the social machinery which had always belongedto them, thenceforth to be conducted as a public plant, the returns ofwhich were to go to the owners as the equal proprietors and no longer tobuccaneers.

  "You will readily see," the doctor went on, "how this analysis of theproduct of industry must needs tend to minimize the importance of thepersonal equation of performance as between individual workers. If themodern man, by aid of the social machinery, can produce fifty dollars'worth of product where he could produce not over a quarter of a dollar'sworth without society, then forty-nine dollars and three quarters out ofevery fifty dollars must be credited to the social fund to be equallydistributed. The industrial efficiency of two men working without societymight have differed as two to one--that is, while one man was able toproduce a full quarter dollar's worth of work a day, the other couldproduce only twelve and a half cents' worth. This was a very greatdifference under those circumstances, but twelve and a half cents is soslight a proportion of fifty dollars as not to be worth mentioning. Thatis to say, the difference in individual endowments between the two menwould remain the same, but that difference would be reduced to relativeunimportance by the prodigious equal addition made to the product of bothalike by the social organism. Or again, before gunpowder was invented oneman might easily be worth two as a warrior. The difference between themen as individuals remained what it was; yet the overwhelming factoradded to the power of both alike by the gun practically equalized them asfighters. Speaking of guns, take a still better illustration--therelation of the individual soldiers in a square of infantry to theformation. There might be large differences in the fighting power of theindividual soldiers singly outside the ranks. Once in the ranks, however,the formation added to the fighting efficiency of every soldier equallyan element so overwhelming as to dwarf the difference between theindividual efficiency of different men. Say, for instance, that theformation added ten to the fighting force of every member, then the manwho outside the ranks was as two to one in power compared with hiscomrade would, when they both stood in the ranks, compare with him onlyas twelve to eleven--an inconsiderable difference.

  "I need scarcely point out to you, Julian, the bearing of the principleof the social fund on economic equality when the industrial system wasnationalized. It made it obvious that even if it were possible to figureout in a satisfactory manner the difference in the industrial productswhich in an accounting with the social fund could be respectivelycredited to differences in individual performance, the result would notbe worth the trouble. Even the worker of special ability, who might hopeto gain most by it, could not hope to gain so much as he would lose incommon with others by sacrificing the increased efficiency of theindustrial machinery that would result from the sentiment of solidarityand public spirit among the workers arising from a feeling of completeunity of interest."

  "Doctor," I exclaimed, "I like that idea of the social fund immensely! Itmakes me understand, among other things, the completeness with which youseem to have outgrown the wages notion, which in one form or other wasfundamental to all economic thought in my day. It is because you areaccustomed to regarding the social capital rather than your day-to-dayspecific exertions as the main s
ource of your wealth. It is, in a word,the difference between the attitude of the capitalist and theproletarian."

  "Even so," said the doctor. "The Revolution made us all capitalists, andthe idea of the dividend has driven out that of the stipend. We takewages only in honor. From our point of view as to the collectiveownership of the economic machinery of the social system, and theabsolute claim of society collectively to its product, there is somethingamusing in the laborious disputations by which your contemporaries usedto try to settle just how much or little wages or compensation forservices this or that individual or group was entitled to. Why, dear me,Julian, if the cleverest worker were limited to his own product, strictlyseparated and distinguished from the elements by which the use of thesocial machinery had multiplied it, he would fare no better than ahalf-starved savage. Everybody is entitled not only to his own product,but to vastly more--namely, to his share of the product of the socialorganism, in addition to his personal product, but he is entitled to thisshare not on the grab-as-grab-can plan of your day, by which some madethemselves millionaires and others were left beggars, but on equal termswith all his fellow-capitalists."

  "The idea of an unearned increment given to private properties by thesocial organism was talked of in my day," I said, "but only, as Iremember, with reference to land values. There were reformers who heldthat society had the right to take in taxes all increase in value of landthat resulted from social factors, such as increased population or publicimprovements, but they seemed to think the doctrine applicable to landonly."

  "Yes," said the doctor, "and it is rather odd that, having hold of theclew, they did not follow it up."