WANTED: A NEW LAW OF DEVELOPMENT
Evolution is no longer a mere tentative hypothesis. One by one,
step by step, each division and subdivision of science has
contributed its evidence, until now the case is complete and the
verdict rendered. While there is still discussion as to the method
of evolution, none the less, as a process sufficient to explain all
biological phenomena, all differentiations of life into widely
diverse species, families, and even kingdoms, evolution is flatly
accepted. Likewise has been accepted its law of development: THAT,
IN THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE, THE STRONG AND FIT AND THE PROGENY OF
THE STRONG AND FIT HAVE A BETTER OPPORTUNITY FOR SURVIVAL THAN THE
WEAK AND LESS FIT AND THE PROGENY OF THE WEAK AND LESS FIT.
It is in the struggle of the species with other species and against
all other hostile forces in the environment, that this law operates;
also in the struggle between the individuals of the same species.
In this struggle, which is for food and shelter, the weak
individuals must obviously win less food and shelter than the
strong. Because of this, their hold on life relaxes and they are
eliminated. And for the same reason that they may not win for
themselves adequate food and shelter, the weak cannot give to their
progeny the chance for survival that the strong give. And thus,
since the weak are prone to beget weakness, the species is
constantly purged of its inefficient members.
Because of this, a premium is placed upon strength, and so long as
the struggle for food and shelter obtains, just so long will the
average strength of each generation increase. On the other hand,
should conditions so change that all, and the progeny of all, the
weak as well as the strong, have an equal chance for survival, then,
at once, the average strength of each generation will begin to
diminish. Never yet, however, in animal life, has there been such a
state of affairs. Natural selection has always obtained. The
strong and their progeny, at the expense of the weak, have always
survived. This law of development has operated down all the past
upon all life; it so operates today, and it is not rash to say that
it will continue to operate in the future--at least upon all life
existing in a state of nature.
Man, preeminent though he is in the animal kingdom, capable of
reacting upon and making suitable an unsuitable environment,
nevertheless remains the creature of this same law of development.
The social selection to which he is subject is merely another form
of natural selection. True, within certain narrow limits he
modifies the struggle for existence and renders less precarious the
tenure of life for the weak. The extremely weak, diseased, and
inefficient are housed in hospitals and asylums. The strength of
the viciously strong, when inimical to society, is tempered by penal
institutions and by the gallows. The short-sighted are provided
with spectacles, and the sickly (when they can pay for it) with
sanitariums. Pestilential marshes are drained, plagues are checked,
and disasters averted. Yet, for all that, the strong and the
progeny of the strong survive, and the weak are crushed out. The
men strong of brain are masters as of yore. They dominate society
and gather to themselves the wealth of society. With this wealth
they maintain themselves and equip their progeny for the struggle.
They build their homes in healthful places, purchase the best
fruits, meats, and vegetables the market affords, and buy themselves
the ministrations of the most brilliant and learned of the
professional classes. The weak man, as of yore, is the servant, the
doer of things at the master's call. The weaker and less efficient
he is, the poorer is his reward. The weakest work for a living
wage, (when they can get work), live in unsanitary slums, on vile
and insufficient food, at the lowest depths of human degradation.
Their grasp on life is indeed precarious, their mortality excessive,
their infant death-rate appalling.
That some should be born to preferment and others to ignominy in
order that the race may progress, is cruel and sad; but none the
less they are so born. The weeding out of human souls, some for
fatness and smiles, some for leanness and tears, is surely a
heartless selective process--as heartless as it is natural. And the
human family, for all its wonderful record of adventure and
achievement, has not yet succeeded in avoiding this process. That
it is incapable of doing this is not to be hazarded. Not only is it
capable, but the whole trend of society is in that direction. All
the social forces are driving man on to a time when the old
selective law will be annulled. There is no escaping it, save by
the intervention of catastrophes and cataclysms quite unthinkable.
It is inexorable. It is inexorable because the common man demands
it. The twentieth century, the common man says, is his day; the
common man's day, or, rather, the dawning of the common man's day.
Nor can it be denied. The evidence is with him. The previous
centuries, and more notably the nineteenth, have marked the rise of
the common man. From chattel slavery to serfdom, and from serfdom
to what he bitterly terms "wage slavery," he has risen. Never was
he so strong as he is today, and never so menacing. He does the
work of the world, and he is beginning to know it. The world cannot
get along without him, and this also he is beginning to know. All
the human knowledge of the past, all the scientific discovery,
governmental experiment, and invention of machinery, have tended to
his advancement. His standard of living is higher. His common
school education would shame princes ten centuries past. His civil
and religious liberty makes him a free man, and his ballot the peer
of his betters. And all this has tended to make him conscious,
conscious of himself, conscious of his class. He looks about him
and questions that ancient law of development. It is cruel and
wrong, he is beginning to declare. It is an anachronism. Let it be
abolished. Why should there be one empty belly in all the world,
when the work of ten men can feed a hundred? What if my brother be
not so strong as I? He has not sinned. Wherefore should he hunger-
-he and his sinless little ones? Away with the old law. There is
food and shelter for all, therefore let all receive food and
shelter.
As fast as labor has become conscious it has organized. The
ambition of these class-conscious men is that the movement shall
become general, that all labor shall become conscious of itself and
its class interests. And the day that witnesses the solidarity of
labor, they triumphantly affirm, will be a day when labor dominates
the world. This growing consciousness has led to the organization
of two movements, both separate and distinct, but both converging
toward a common goal--one, the labor movement, known as Trade
Unionism; the other, the political movement, known as Socialism.
Both are grim and silent forces, unheralded and virtually unknown to
the general public save in moments of stress. The sleeping labor
giant receives little notice from the capitalistic press, and when
he stirs uneasily, a column of surprise, indignation, and horror
suffices.
It is only now and then, after long periods of silence, that the
labor movement puts in its claim for notice. All is quiet. The
kind old world spins on, and the bourgeois masters clip their
coupons in smug complacency. But the grim and silent forces are at
work.
Suddenly, like a clap of thunder from a clear sky, comes a
disruption of industry. From ocean to ocean the wheels of a great
chain of railroads cease to run. A quarter of a million miners
throw down pick and shovel and outrage the sun with their pale,
bleached faces. The street railways of a swarming metropolis stand
idle, or the rumble of machinery in vast manufactories dies away to
silence. There is alarm and panic. Arson and homicide stalk forth.
There is a cry in the night, and quick anger and sudden death.
Peaceful cities are affrighted by the crack of rifles and the snarl
of machine-guns, and the hearts of the shuddering are shaken by the
roar of dynamite. There is hurrying and skurrying. The wires are
kept hot between the centre of government and the seat of trouble.
The chiefs of state ponder gravely and advise, and governors of
states implore. There is assembling of militia and massing of
troops, and the streets resound to the tramp of armed men. There
are separate and joint conferences between the captains of industry
and the captains of labor. And then, finally, all is quiet again,
and the memory of it is like the memory of a bad dream.
But these strikes become olympiads, things to date from; and common
on the lips of men become such phrases as "The Great Dock Strike,"
"The Great Coal Strike," "The Great Railroad Strike." Never before
did labor do these things. After the Great Plague in England,
labor, finding itself in demand and innocently obeying the economic
law, asked higher wages. But the masters set a maximum wage,
restrained workingmen from moving about from place to place, refused
to tolerate idlers, and by most barbarous legal methods punished
those who disobeyed. But labor is accorded greater respect today.
Such a policy, put into effect in this the first decade of the
twentieth century, would sweep the masters from their seats in one
mighty crash. And the masters know it and are respectful.
A fair instance of the growing solidarity of labor is afforded by an
unimportant recent strike in San Francisco. The restaurant cooks
and waiters were completely unorganized, working at any and all
hours for whatever wages they could get. A representative of the
American Federation of Labor went among them and organized them.
Within a few weeks nearly two thousand men were enrolled, and they
had five thousand dollars on deposit. Then they put in their demand
for increased wages and shorter hours. Forthwith their employers
organized. The demand was denied, and the Cooks' and Waiters' Union
walked out.
All organized employers stood back of the restaurant owners, in
sympathy with them and willing to aid them if they dared. And at
the back of the Cooks' and Waiters' Union stood the organized labor
of the city, 40,000 strong. If a business man was caught
patronizing an "unfair" restaurant, he was boycotted; if a union man
was caught, he was fined heavily by his union or expelled. The
oyster companies and the slaughter houses made an attempt to refuse
to sell oysters and meat to union restaurants. The Butchers and
Meat Cutters, and the Teamsters, in retaliation, refused to work for
or to deliver to non-union restaurants. Upon this the oyster
companies and slaughter houses acknowledged themselves beaten and
peace reigned. But the Restaurant Bakers in non-union places were
ordered out, and the Bakery Wagon Drivers declined to deliver to
unfair houses.
Every American Federation of Labor union in the city was prepared to
strike, and waited only the word. And behind all, a handful of men,
known as the Labor Council, directed the fight. One by one, blow
upon blow, they were able if they deemed it necessary to call out
the unions--the Laundry Workers, who do the washing; the Hackmen,
who haul men to and from restaurants; the Butchers, Meat Cutters,
and Teamsters; and the Milkers, Milk Drivers, and Chicken Pickers;
and after that, in pure sympathy, the Retail Clerks, the Horse
Shoers, the Gas and Electrical Fixture Hangers, the Metal Roofers,
the Blacksmiths, the Blacksmiths' Helpers, the Stablemen, the
Machinists, the Brewers, the Coast Seamen, the Varnishers and
Polishers, the Confectioners, the Upholsterers, the Paper Hangers
and Fresco Painters, the Drug Clerks, the Fitters and Helpers, the
Metal Workers, the Boiler Makers and Iron Ship Builders, the
Assistant Undertakers, the Carriage and Wagon Workers, and so on
down the lengthy list of organizations.
For, over all these trades, over all these thousands of men, is the
Labor Council. When it speaks its voice is heard, and when it
orders it is obeyed. But it, in turn, is dominated by the National
Labor Council, with which it is constantly in touch. In this wholly
unimportant little local strike it is of interest to note the stands
taken by the different sides. The legal representative and official
mouthpiece of the Employers' Association said: "This organization
is formed for defensive purposes, and it may be driven to take
offensive steps, and if so, will be strong enough to follow them up.
Labor cannot be allowed to dictate to capital and say how business
shall be conducted. There is no objection to the formation of
unions and trades councils, but membership must not be compulsory.
It is repugnant to the American idea of liberty and cannot be
tolerated."
On the other hand, the president of the Team Drivers' Union said:
"The employers of labor in this city are generally against the
trade-union movement and there seems to be a concerted effort on
their part to check the progress of organized labor. Such action as
has been taken by them in sympathy with the present labor troubles
may, if continued, lead to a serious conflict, the outcome of which
might be most calamitous for the business and industrial interests
of San Francisco."
And the secretary of the United Brewery Workmen: "I regard a
sympathetic strike as the last weapon which organized labor should
use in its defence. When, however, associations of employers band
together to defeat organized labor, or one of its branches, then we
should not and will not hesitate ourselves to employ the same
instrument in retaliation."
Thus, in a little corner of the world, is exemplified the growing
solidarity of labor. The organization of labor has not only kept
pace with the organization of industry, but it has gained upon it.
In one winter, in the anthracite coal region, $160,000,000 in mines
and $600,000,000 in transportation and distribution consolidated its
ownership and control. And at once, arrayed as solidly on the other
side, were the 150,000 anthracite miners. The bituminous mines,
however, were not consolidated; yet the 250,000 men employed therein
were already combined. And not only that, but they were also
combined with the anthracite miners, these 400,000 men being under
the control and direction of one supreme labor council. And in this
and the other great councils are to be found captains of labor of
splendid abilities, who, in understanding of economic and industrial
conditions, are undeniably the equals of their opponents, the
captains of industry.
The United States is honeycombed with labor organizations. And the
big federations which these go to compose aggregate millions of
members, and in their various branches handle millions of dollars
yearly. And not only this; for the international brotherhoods and
unions are forming, and moneys for the aid of strikers pass back and
forth across the seas. The Machinists, in their demand for a nine-
hour day, affected 500,000 men in the United States, Mexico, and
Canada. In England the membership of working-class organizations is
approximated by Keir Hardie at 2,500,000, with reserve funds of
$18,000,000. There the cooperative movement has a membership of
1,500,000, and every year turns over in distribution more than
$100,000,000. In France, one-eighth of the whole working class is
unionized. In Belgium the unions are very rich and powerful, and so
able to defy the masters that many of the smaller manufacturers,
unable to resist, "are removing their works to other countries where
the workmen's organizations are not so potential." And in all other
countries, according to the stage of their economic and political
development, like figures obtain. And Europe, today, confesses that
her greatest social problem is the labor problem, and that it is the
one most closely engrossing the attention of her statesmen.
The organization of labor is one of the chief acknowledged factors
in the retrogression of British trade. The workers have become
class conscious as never before. The wrong of one is the wrong of
all. They have come to realize, in a short-sighted way, that their
masters' interests are not their interests. The harder they work,
they believe, the more wealth they create for their masters.
Further, the more work they do in one day, the fewer men will be
needed to do the work. So the unions place a day's stint upon their
members, beyond which they are not permitted to go. In "A Study of
Trade Unionism," by Benjamin Taylor in the "Nineteenth Century" of
April, 1898, are furnished some interesting corroborations. The
facts here set forth were collected by the Executive Board of the
Employers' Federation, the documentary proofs of which are in the
hands of the secretaries. In a certain firm the union workmen made
eight ammunition boxes a day. Nor could they be persuaded into
making more. A young Swiss, who could not speak English, was set to
work, and in the first day he made fifty boxes. In the same firm
the skilled union hands filed up the outside handles of one machine-
gun a day. That was their stint. No one was known ever to do more.
A non-union filer came into the shop and did twelve a day. A
Manchester firm found that to plane a large bed-casting took union
workmen one hundred and ninety hours, and non-union workmen one
hundred and thirty-five hours. In another instance a man, resigning
from his union, day by day did double the amount of work he had done
formerly. And to cap it all, an English gentleman, going out to
look at a wall being put up for him by union bricklayers, found one
of their number with his right arm strapped to his body, doing all
the work with his left arm -forsooth, because he was such an
energetic fellow that otherwise he would involuntarily lay more
bricks than his union permitted.
All England resounds to the cry, "Wake up, England!" But the sulky
giant is not stirred. "Let England's trade go to pot," he says;
"what have I to lose?" And England is powerless. The capacity of
her workmen is represented by 1, in comparison with the 2.25
capacity of the American workman. And because of the solidarity of
labor and the destructiveness of strikes, British capitalists dare
not even strive to emulate the enterprise of American capitalists.
So England watches trade slipping through her fingers and wails
unavailingly. As a correspondent writes: "The enormous power of
the trade unions hangs, a sullen cloud, over the whole industrial
world here, affecting men and masters alike."
The political movement known as Socialism is, perhaps, even less
realized by the general public. The great strides it has taken and
the portentous front it today exhibits are not comprehended; and,
fastened though it is in every land, it is given little space by the
capitalistic press. For all its plea and passion and warmth, it
wells upward like a great, cold tidal wave, irresistible,
inexorable, ingulfing present-day society level by level. By its
own preachment it is inexorable. Just as societies have sprung into
existence, fulfilled their function, and passed away, it claims,
just as surely is present society hastening on to its dissolution.
This is a transition period--and destined to be a very short one.
Barely a century old, capitalism is ripening so rapidly that it can
never live to see a second birthday. There is no hope for it, the
Socialists say. It is doomed.
The cardinal tenet of Socialism is that forbidding doctrine, the
materialistic conception of history. Men are not the masters of
their souls. They are the puppets of great, blind forces. The
lives they live and the deaths they die are compulsory. All social
codes are but the reflexes of existing economic conditions, plus
certain survivals of past economic conditions. The institutions men
build they are compelled to build. Economic laws determine at any
given time what these institutions shall be, how long they shall
operate, and by what they shall be replaced. And so, through the
economic process, the Socialist preaches the ripening of the
capitalistic society and the coming of the new cooperative society.
The second great tenet of Socialism, itself a phase of the
materialistic conception of history, is the class struggle. In the
social struggle for existence, men are forced into classes. "The
history of all society thus far is the history of class strife." In
existing society the capitalist class exploits the working class,
the proletariat. The interests of the exploiter are not the
interests of the exploited. "Profits are legitimate," says the one.
"Profits are unpaid wages," replies the other, when he has become
conscious of his class, "therefore profits are robbery." The
capitalist enforces his profits because he is the legal owner of all
the means of production. He is the legal owner because he controls
the political machinery of society. The Socialist sets to work to
capture the political machinery, so that he may make illegal the
capitalist's ownership of the means of production, and make legal
his own ownership of the means of production. And it is this
struggle, between these two classes, upon which the world has at
last entered.
Scientific Socialism is very young. Only yesterday it was in
swaddling clothes. But today it is a vigorous young giant, well
braced to battle for what it wants, and knowing precisely what it
wants. It holds its international conventions, where world-policies
are formulated by the representatives of millions of Socialists. In
little Belgium there are three-quarters of a million of men who work
for the cause; in Germany, 3,000,000; Austria, between 1895 and
1897, raised her socialist vote from 90,000 to 750,000. France in
1871 had a whole generation of Socialists wiped out; yet in 1885
there were 30,000, and in 1898, 1,000,000.
Ere the last Spaniard had evacuated Cuba, Socialist groups were
forming. And from far Japan, in these first days of the twentieth
century, writes one Tomoyoshi Murai: "The interest of our people on
Socialism has been greatly awakened these days, especially among our
laboring people on one hand and young students' circle on the other,
as much as we can draw an earnest and enthusiastic audience and fill
our hall, which holds two thousand. . . . It is gratifying to say
that we have a number of fine and well-trained public orators among
our leaders of Socialism in Japan. The first speaker tonight is Mr.
Kiyoshi Kawakami, editor of one of our city (Tokyo) dailies, a
strong, independent, and decidedly socialistic paper, circulated far
and wide. Mr. Kawakami is a scholar as well as a popular writer.
He is going to speak tonight on the subject, 'The Essence of
Socialism--the Fundamental Principles.' The next speaker is
Professor Iso Abe, president of our association, whose subject of
address is, 'Socialism and the Existing Social System.' The third
speaker is Mr. Naoe Kinosita, the editor of another strong journal
of the city. He speaks on the subject, 'How to Realize the
Socialist Ideals and Plans.' Next is Mr. Shigeyoshi Sugiyama, a
graduate of Hartford Theological Seminary and an advocate of Social
Christianity, who is to speak on 'Socialism and Municipal Problems.'
And the last speaker is the editor of the 'Labor World,' the
foremost leader of the labor-union movement in our country, Mr. Sen
Katayama, who speaks on the subject, 'The Outlook of Socialism in
Europe and America.' These addresses are going to be published in
book form and to be distributed among our people to enlighten their
minds on the subject."
And in the struggle for the political machinery of society,
Socialism is no longer confined to mere propaganda. Italy, Austria,
Belgium, England, have Socialist members in their national bodies.
Out of the one hundred and thirty-two members of the London County
Council, ninety-one are denounced by the conservative element as
Socialists. The Emperor of Germany grows anxious and angry at the
increasing numbers which are returned to the Reichstag. In France,
many of the large cities, such as Marseilles, are in the hands of
the Socialists. A large body of them is in the Chamber of Deputies,
and Millerand, Socialist, sits in the cabinet. Of him M. Leroy-
Beaulieu says with horror: "M. Millerand is the open enemy of
private property, private capital, the resolute advocate of the
socialization of production . . . a constant incitement to violence
. . . a collectivist, avowed and militant, taking part in the
government, dominating the departments of commerce and industry,
preparing all the laws and presiding at the passage of all measures
which should be submitted to merchants and tradesmen."
In the United States there are already Socialist mayors of towns and
members of State legislatures, a vast literature, and single
Socialist papers with subscription lists running up into the
hundreds of thousands. In 1896, 36,000 votes were cast for the
Socialist candidate for President; in 1900, nearly 200,000; in 1904,
450,000. And the United States, young as it is, is ripening
rapidly, and the Socialists claim, according to the materialistic
conception of history, that the United States will be the first
country in the world wherein the toilers will capture the political
machinery and expropriate the bourgeoisie.
But the Socialist and labor movements have recently entered upon a
new phase. There has been a remarkable change in attitude on both
sides. For a long time the labor unions refrained from going in for
political action. On the other hand, the Socialists claimed that
without political action labor was powerless. And because of this
there was much ill feeling between them, even open hostilities, and
no concerted action. But now the Socialists grant that the labor
movement has held up wages and decreased the hours of labor, and the
labor unions find that political action is necessary. Today both
parties have drawn closely together in the common fight. In the
United States this friendly feeling grows. The Socialist papers
espouse the cause of labor, and the unions have opened their ears
once more to the wiles of the Socialists. They are all leavened
with Socialist workmen, "boring from within," and many of their
leaders have already succumbed. In England, where class
consciousness is more developed, the name "Unionism" has been
replaced by "The New Unionism," the main object of which is "to
capture existing social structures in the interests of the wage-
earners." There the Socialist, the trade-union, and other working-
class organizations are beginning to cooperate in securing the
return of representatives to the House of Commons. And in France,
where the city councils and mayors of Marseilles and Monteaules-
Mines are Socialistic, thousands of francs of municipal money were
voted for the aid of the unions in the recent great strikes.
For centuries the world has been preparing for the coming of the
common man. And the period of preparation virtually past, labor,
conscious of itself and its desires, has begun a definite movement
toward solidarity. It believes the time is not far distant when the
historian will speak not only of the dark ages of feudalism, but of
the dark ages of capitalism. And labor sincerely believes itself
justified in this by the terrible indictment it brings against
capitalistic society. In the face of its enormous wealth,
capitalistic society forfeits its right to existence when it permits
widespread, bestial poverty. The philosophy of the survival of the
fittest does not soothe the class-conscious worker when he learns
through his class literature that among the Italian pants-finishers
of Chicago {9} the average weekly wage is $1.31, and the average
number of weeks employed in the year is 27.85. Likewise when he
reads:{10} "Every room in these reeking tenements houses a family or
two. In one room a missionary found a man ill with small-pox, his
wife just recovering from her confinement, and the children running
about half naked and covered with dirt. Here are seven people
living in one underground kitchen, and a little dead child lying in
the same room. Here live a widow and her six children, two of whom
are ill with scarlet fever. In another, nine brothers and sisters,
from twenty-nine years of age downward, live, eat, and sleep
together." And likewise, when he reads:{11} "When one man, fifty
years old, who has worked all his life, is compelled to beg a little
money to bury his dead baby, and another man, fifty years old, can
give ten million dollars to enable his daughter to live in luxury
and bolster up a decaying foreign aristocracy, do you see nothing
amiss?"
And on the other hand, the class-conscious worker reads the
statistics of the wealthy classes, knows what their incomes are, and
how they get them. True, down all the past he has known his own
material misery and the material comfort of the dominant classes,
and often has this knowledge led him to intemperate acts and unwise
rebellion. But today, and for the first time, because both society
and he have evolved, he is beginning to see a possible way out. His
ears are opening to the propaganda of Socialism, the passionate
gospel of the dispossessed. But it does not inculcate a turning
back. The way through is the way out, he understands, and with this
in mind he draws up the programme.
It is quite simple, this programme. Everything is moving in his
direction, toward the day when he will take charge. The trust? Ah,
no. Unlike the trembling middle-class man and the small capitalist,
he sees nothing at which to be frightened. He likes the trust. He
exults in the trust, for it is largely doing the task for him. It
socializes production; this done, there remains nothing for him to
do but socialize distribution, and all is accomplished. The trust?
"It organizes industry on an enormous, labor-saving scale, and
abolishes childish, wasteful competition." It is a gigantic object
lesson, and it preaches his political economy far more potently than
he can preach it. He points to the trust, laughing scornfully in
the face of the orthodox economists. "You told me this thing could
not be," {12} he thunders. "Behold, the thing is!"
He sees competition in the realm of production passing away. When
the captains of industry have thoroughly organized production, and
got everything running smoothly, it will be very easy for him to
eliminate the profits by stepping in and having the thing run for
himself. And the captain of industry, if he be good, may be given
the privilege of continuing the management on a fair salary. The
sixty millions of dividends which the Standard Oil Company annually
declares will be distributed among the workers. The same with the
great United States Steel Corporation. The president of that
corporation knows his business. Very good. Let him become
Secretary of the Department of Iron and Steel of the United States.
But, since the chief executive of a nation of seventy-odd millions
works for $50,000 a year, the Secretary of the Department of Iron
and Steel must expect to have his salary cut accordingly. And not
only will the workers take to themselves the profits of national and
municipal monopolies, but also the immense revenues which the
dominant classes today draw from rents, and mines, and factories,
and all manner of enterprises.
All this would seem very like a dream, even to the worker, if it
were not for the fact that like things have been done before. He
points triumphantly to the aristocrat of the eighteenth century, who
fought, legislated, governed, and dominated society, but who was
shorn of power and displaced by the rising bourgeoisie. Ay, the
thing was done, he holds. And it shall be done again, but this time
it is the proletariat who does the shearing. Sociology has taught
him that m-i-g-h-t spells "right." Every society has been ruled by
classes, and the classes have ruled by sheer strength, and have been
overthrown by sheer strength. The bourgeoisie, because it was the
stronger, dragged down the nobility of the sword; and the
proletariat, because it is the strongest of all, can and will drag
down the bourgeoisie.
And in that day, for better or worse, the common man becomes the
master--for better, he believes. It is his intention to make the
sum of human happiness far greater. No man shall work for a bare
living wage, which is degradation. Every man shall have work to do,
and shall be paid exceedingly well for doing it. There shall be no
slum classes, no beggars. Nor shall there be hundreds of thousands
of men and women condemned, for economic reasons, to lives of
celibacy or sexual infertility. Every man shall be able to marry,
to live in healthy, comfortable quarters, and to have all he wants
to eat as many times a day as he wishes. There shall no longer be a
life-and-death struggle for food and shelter. The old heartless law
of development shall be annulled.
All of which is very good and very fine. And when these things have
come to pass, what then? Of old, by virtue of their weakness and
inefficiency in the struggle for food and shelter, the race was
purged of its weak and inefficient members. But this will no longer
obtain. Under the new order the weak and the progeny of the weak
will have a chance for survival equal to that of the strong and the
progeny of the strong. This being so, the premium upon strength
will have been withdrawn, and on the face of it the average strength
of each generation, instead of continuing to rise, will begin to
decline.
When the common man's day shall have arrived, the new social
institutions of that day will prevent the weeding out of weakness
and inefficiency. All, the weak and the strong, will have an equal
chance for procreation. And the progeny of all, of the weak as well
as the strong, will have an equal chance for survival. This being
so, and if no new effective law of development be put into
operation, then progress must cease. And not only progress, for
deterioration would at once set in. It is a pregnant problem. What
will be the nature of this new and most necessary law of
development? Can the common man pause long enough from his
undermining labors to answer? Since he is bent upon dragging down
the bourgeoisie and reconstructing society, can he so reconstruct
that a premium, in some unguessed way or other, will still be laid
upon the strong and efficient so that the human type will continue
to develop? Can the common man, or the uncommon men who are allied
with him, devise such a law? Or have they already devised one? And
if so, what is it?
