“What has destroyed every previous civilization has been the tendency to the unequal distribution of wealth and power”
There is just now a disposition to scoff at any implication that we are
not in all respects progressing, and the spirit of our times is that of
the edict which the flattering premier proposed to the Chinese Emperor
who burned the ancient books—“that all who may dare to speak together
about the She and the Shoo be put to death; that those who make mention
of the past so as to blame the present be put to death along with their
relatives.”
Yet it is evident that there have been times of decline, just as there
have been times of advance; and it is further evident that these epochs
of decline could not at first have been generally recognized.
He would have been a rash man who, when Augustus was changing the
Rome of brick to the Rome of marble, when wealth was augmenting and
magnificence increasing, when victorious legions were extending the
frontier, when manners were becoming more refined, language more
polished, and literature rising to higher splendors—he would have been
a rash man who then would have said that Rome was entering her decline.
Yet such was the case.
And whoever will look may see that though our civilization is
apparently advancing with greater rapidity than ever, the same cause
which turned Roman progress into retrogression is operating now.
What has destroyed every previous civilization has been the tendency
to the unequal distribution of wealth and power. This same tendency,
operating with increasing force, is observable in our civilization
to-day, showing itself in every progressive community, and with greater
intensity the more progressive the community. Wages and interest tend
constantly to fall, rent to rise, the rich to become very much richer,
the poor to become more helpless and hopeless, and the middle class to
be swept away.
I have traced this tendency to its cause. I have shown by what simple
means this cause may be removed. I now wish to point out _how_, if this
is not done, progress must turn to decadence, and modern civilization
decline to barbarism, as have all previous civilizations. It is worth
while to point out _how_ this may occur, as many people, being unable
to see how progress may pass into retrogression, conceive such a thing
impossible. Gibbon, for instance, thought that modern civilization
could never be destroyed because there remained no barbarians to
overrun it, and it is a common idea that the invention of printing by
so multiplying books has prevented the possibility of knowledge ever
again being lost.
“Poorly paid labor is inefficient labor, the world over”
The
potential earnings of the labor thus going to waste, the cost of the
reckless, improvident and idle habits thus generated; the pecuniary
loss, to consider nothing more, suggested by the appalling statistics
of mortality, and especially infant mortality, among the poorer
classes; the waste indicated by the gin palaces or low groggeries
which increase as poverty deepens; the damage done by the vermin
of society that are bred of poverty and destitution—the thieves,
prostitutes, beggars, and tramps; the cost of guarding society against
them, are all items in the sum which the present unjust and unequal
distribution of wealth takes from the aggregate which, with present
means of production, society might enjoy. Nor yet shall we have
completed the account. The ignorance and vice, the recklessness and
immorality engendered by the inequality in the distribution of wealth
show themselves in the imbecility and corruption of government; and the
waste of public revenues, and the still greater waste involved in the
ignorant and corrupt abuse of public powers and functions, are their
legitimate consequences.
But the increase in wages, and the opening of new avenues of employment
which would result from the appropriation of rent to public purposes,
would not merely stop these wastes and relieve society of these
enormous losses; new power would be added to labor. It is but a truism
that labor is most productive where its wages are largest. Poorly paid
labor is inefficient labor, the world over.
What is remarked between the efficiency of labor in the agricultural
districts of England where different rates of wages prevail; what
Brassey noticed as between the work done by his better paid English
navvies and that done by the worse paid labor of the continent; what
was evident in the United States as between slave labor and free
labor; what is seen by the astonishing number of mechanics or servants
required in India or China to get anything done, is universally true.
The efficiency of labor always increases with the habitual wages of
labor—for high wages mean increased self-respect, intelligence, hope,
and energy. Man is not a machine, that will do so much and no more; he
is not an animal, whose powers may reach thus far and no further. It is
mind, not muscle, which is the great agent of production. The physical
power evolved in the human frame is one of the weakest of forces, but
for the human intelligence the resistless currents of nature flow, and
matter becomes plastic to the human will.
“The fundamental principle of human action, the law, that is to political economy what the law of gravitation is to physics is that men seek to gratify their desires with the least exertion”
In our examination we have reached the same point as would
have been attained had we simply treated capital as a form of labor,
and sought the law which divides the produce between rent and wages;
that is to say, between the possessors of the two factors, natural
substances and powers, and human exertion—which two factors by their
union produce all wealth.
CHAPTER VI.
WAGES AND THE LAW OF WAGES.
We have by inference already obtained the law of wages. But to verify
the deduction and to strip the subject of all ambiguities, let us seek
the law from an independent starting point.
There is, of course, no such thing as a common rate of wages, in
the sense that there is at any given time and place a common rate
of interest. Wages, which include all returns received from labor,
not only vary with the differing powers of individuals, but, as the
organization of society becomes elaborate, vary largely as between
occupations. Nevertheless, there is a certain general relation between
all wages, so that we express a clear and well-understood idea when
we say that wages are higher or lower in one time or place than in
another. In their degrees, wages rise and fall in obedience to a common
law. What is this law?
The fundamental principle of human action—the law that is to political
economy what the law of gravitation is to physics—is that men
seek to gratify their desires with the least exertion. Evidently,
this principle must bring to an equality, through the competition
it induces, the reward gained by equal exertions under similar
circumstances. When men work for themselves, this equalization will
be largely affected by the equation of prices; and between those who
work for themselves and those who work for others, the same tendency
to equalization will operate. Now, under this principle, what, in
conditions of freedom, will be the terms at which one man can hire
others to work for him? Evidently, they will be fixed by what the men
could make if laboring for themselves. The principle which will prevent
him from having to give anything above this, except what is necessary
to induce the change, will also prevent them from taking less. Did
they demand more, the competition of others would prevent them from
getting employment. Did he offer less, none would accept the terms,
as they could obtain greater results by working for themselves. Thus,
although the employer wishes to pay as little as possible, and the
employee to receive as much as possible, wages will be fixed by the
value or produce of such labor to the laborers themselves.
“Man is the only animal whose desires increase as they are fed; the only animal that is never satisfied.”
Now this limitation of space—this danger that the human race may
increase beyond the possibility of finding elbow room—is so far off as
to have for us no more practical interest than the recurrence of the
glacial period or the final extinguishment of the sun. Yet remote and
shadowy as it is, it is this possibility which gives to the Malthusian
theory its apparently self-evident character. But if we follow it, even
this shadow will disappear. It, also, springs from a false analogy.
That vegetable and animal life tend to press against the limits of
space does not prove the same tendency in human life.
Granted that man is only a more highly developed animal; that the
ring-tailed monkey is a distant relative who has gradually developed
acrobatic tendencies, and the hump-backed whale a far-off connection
who in early life took to the sea—granted that back of these he is kin
to the vegetable, and is still subject to the same laws as plants,
fishes, birds, and beasts. Yet there is still this difference between
man and all other animals—he is the only animal whose desires increase
as they are fed; the only animal that is never satisfied. The wants
of every other living thing are uniform and fixed. The ox of to-day
aspires to no more than did the ox when man first yoked him. The
sea gull of the English Channel, who poises himself above the swift
steamer, wants no better food or lodging than the gulls who circled
round as the keels of Cæsar’s galleys first grated on a British beach.
Of all that nature offers them, be it ever so abundant, all living
things save man can take, and care for, only enough to supply wants
which are definite and fixed. The only use they can make of additional
supplies or additional opportunities is to multiply.
But not so with man. No sooner are his animal wants satisfied than new
wants arise. Food he wants first, as does the beast; shelter next, as
does the beast; and these given, his reproductive instincts assert
their sway, as do those of the beast. But here man and beast part
company. The beast never goes further; the man has but set his feet on
the first step of an infinite progression—a progression upon which the
beast never enters; a progression away from and above the beast.
“He who sees the truth, let him proclaim it, without asking who is for it or who is against it.”
“Let no man imagine that he has no influence. Whoever he may be, and wherever he may be placed, the man who thinks becomes a light and a power.”
“How vainly shall we endeavor to repress crime by our barbarous punishment of the poorer class of criminals so long as children are reared in the brutalizing influences of poverty, so long as the bite of want drives men to crime.”
“Compare society to a boat. Her progress through the water will not depend upon the exertion of her crew, but upon the exertion devoted to propelling her. This will be lessened by any expenditure of force in fighting among themselves, or in pulling in different directions.”
“There is danger in reckless change, but greater danger in blind conservatism.”
“Progressive societies outgrow institutions as children outgrow clothes.”
Laissez faire (in its full true meaning) opens the way to the realization of the noble dreams of socialism.
Capital is a result of labor and is used by labor to assist it in further production. Labor is the active and initial force and labor is therefore the employer of capital.
There is danger in reckless change but greater danger in blind conservatism.
The state it cannot too often be repeated does nothing and can give nothing which it does not take from somebody.
Man is the only animal whose desires increase as they are fed the only animal that is never satisfied.
For as labor cannot produce without the use of land the denial of the equal right to use of land is necessarily the denial of the right of labor to its own produce.
That amid our highest civilization men faint and die with want is not due to the niggardliness of nature but to the injustice of man.
So long as all the increased wealth which modern progress brings goes but to build up great fortunes to increase luxury and make sharper the contest between the House of Have and the House of Want progress is not real and cannot be permanent.
There can be to the ownership of anything no rightful title which is not derived from the title of the producer and does not rest upon the natural right of the man to himself.
The equal right of all men to the use of land is as clear as their equal right to breathe the air - it is a right proclaimed by the fact of their existence. For we cannot suppose that some men have a right to be in this world and others no right.
