I HAVE been requested to criticise, from the Socialist point of view, the articles which Mr. Bradlaugh has recently contributed to this magazine. Now to break a lance with Mr. Bradlaugh must always be a hazardous task, and the attempt can only be justified by confidence in the excellence of one’s cause; but since I, as a Socialist, do feel this confidence in the cause of Socialism, and since Mr. Bradlaugh has referred to me by name in his attack on our principles, I cannot refuse to accept the challenge and to champion the cause which he attacks, even on the enemy’s ground. I must begin by expressing my extreme regret that he should ever have adopted his present attitude of antagonism, and my sincere hope that this antagonism will not be permanent. That Mr. Bradlaugh, who has long been honorably known as the foremost advocate of the rights of a minority against the well nigh invincible bigotry and prejudice of the vast majority of his countrymen, should attempt to daunt the band of thinkers and workers who have taken up the defence of the rights of the producers of wealth against the arrogant claims of the privileged class which consumes without producing, and that he should do this by marshalling the figures which prove that our opponents are numerous and our enterprise correspondingly difficult, this is in our eyes a deplorable thing indeed. “What a falling off was there,” we may well exclaim when we contemplate his present position.
But since he insists on throwing down the gauntlet to Socialists all and sundry, it is not for us to decline to pick it up. And as a sort of preliminary shake-hands before the encounter, let me repeat the remark of a clergyman, himself a complete ignoramus on the subject of Socialism, who has been prejudiced against even examining into its merits by the mere fact of Mr. Bradlaugh’s opposition. Dismissing the subject as beneath his contempt, he unwarily let slip the words: “If there were anything in it, Mr. Bradlaugh would have been sure to take it up.” It seems to me that these words are no small tribute, coming from his natural enemies the clergy, to the general belief in the honesty of his purpose, the power of his intellect, and the courage with which he has always maintained his opinions.
With Mr. Bradlaugh’s two first articles I have very little reason to disagree. For they deal almost exclusively with various Utopian Socialistic schemes, wherein bands of high-minded cooperative enthusiasts have attempted, with more or less—and generally less—success, to enable small communities, planted on principles of Socialism, to struggle for a season against the fatal environment of a stifling atmosphere of cut-throat competition. Obviously, the comparative success or complete failure of these interesting little experiments in what may be called the dilettante hot-house cultivation of Socialism on unnatural forcing-beds, and in abnormal conditions of growth, have no bearing whatever upon the question at issue between us, which is the historical development in due time of the hardy plant of organised international Socialism. For it is the main contention of the disciples of Karl Marx that the relentless evolution of economical force is implacable in its purpose and unalterable in its march, by any schemes or dreams of an idyllic Utopia, that the progress of competition itself has only paved the way for Socialism, and that the tendency of the times towards the displacement of individual by collective effort, which has been working unrecognised beneath the surface of society for centuries, has at last become completely manifest to all. The “company” is already the dominant factor in every department of the commercial and industrial world, while the individual is relegated to a position of considerably less importance than any single cog which plays its part in the mighty revolutions of the whirling wheels of our modern machinery. What scope for individuality is left to the farm-laborer who plods wearily at the plough-tail all day long? What opportunities for intellectual development are provided for the capitalist’s toiling drudge, at his perpetual round of the wearisome work of creating the wealth which others enjoy? The voice of the factory wage-slave from out the ceaseless din and the choking atmosphere of his crowded workshop returns a derisive reply to all such queries.
Ask Mr. Fawcett himself, the champion of individualism, if any such opportunities exist; he has embodied the most distinct of negatives in his latest book. With very few exceptions, the command of capital is absolutely necessary to preserve the individual from being crushed beneath the millstone of routine. Even the successful quack—that type of all that is basest in modern society—cannot commence his swindling career without the command of borrowed capital wherewith to advertise his quackeries. But it is useless to dwell upon a point which has already been conceded by the enemy. It is denied by none that the great forces of society are wielded at will by companies of capitalists, with a view, not to the well-being of the: workers, but to the accumulation of “profit’ for themselves. The railways are a typical instance. Porters and pointsmen may be exploited to the uttermost, but so long as the shareholders can safely draw the resulting dividend their conscience sleeps. That the dividend rightly belongs to those who have produced it by their labor— this is a heresy which does not raise its head at the directors’ annual dinner, and remains entirely unreferred to in the treasurer’s report.
Mr. Bradlaugh has especially directed his attack upon two of the publications of the Democratic Federation to which my name, among others, is appended. I have not the slightest wish to shirk the responsibility for either of these documents, and I will proceed to examine the points attacked, though, as they cannot fairly be dealt with piece-meal, I would strongly urge the readers of this magazine to study the originals themselves. They are entitled “A Summary of the Principles of Socialism,” and “Socialism made Plain,” the last being merely a manifesto, and not an elaborate exposition or a reasoned proof. From the first of these Mr. Bradlaugh quotes, and denounces as mischievous in its implication, the statement that “gunpowder helped to sweep away feudalism, while far stronger explosives are arrayed against capitalism.” I am glad to endorse his strong condemnation of “the criminal madness” of those who would encourage the use in England of those weapons which the oppressed have been driven to employ in Russia. The Democratic Federation deplores, as much as he can do, the fruitless attempts of anarchists to terrify society into taking the right turn by means of the spasmodic explosion of dynamite in its path; but our opposition to the anarchists is sufficiently emphasised by the succeeding sentence, which he forbore to quote: “To avoid alike the crushing anarchy of to-day, and the fierce anarchy of to-morrow, we strive to help forward the workers to the control of the State, as the only means whereby such hideous trouble can be avoided, and production and exchange can be organised for the benefit of the country at large.” And the context proceeds directly with the advocacy of universal suffrage as the only way in which a peaceable issue is possible for the possessing classes.
It is somewhat amusing to note that, except in a single sentence, Mr. Bradlaugh keeps clear of the question of surplus-value altogether, although it is the key-stone of the Socialist argument. The fact that “the iron law of wages” acting through the competition of the labor-market, always tends to reduce the reward of the work of the ordinary unskilled laborer to what will suffice for his family’s bare subsistence, however great may be the value of his work, this it is, which is the final condemnation of the competitive system. For it follows from this that the working classes give back to the idle and employing classes the full value of their day’s work in its first few hours, while for the remainder of the day they continue to create wealth, not for themselves, but for others to enjoy. And this remains true, as I have recently shown in the columns of the Echo,
“even though particular employers of labor fail to secure any of the spoil for themselves, and consequently are reduced to bankruptcy. For the name of the non-producing classes is legion, and every one of them takes his tithe of the wealth which the workers produce. The share of the actual employer may be little or nothing, but none the less does the lender of capital secure interest on his loan, the broker exact his brokerage, the lawyer make off with his fee, the middleman of every description pocket his profit, and the landlord make sure of his rent. Nor does even this exhaust the list of people who fatten upon the wealth which others produce. For besides the profit which is cleared by the middlemen on every transaction, and besides the rent that goes to the landlord of the concern, we have also to reckon up the rents that go to the various landlords of the different middlemen themselves, and finally the rate that is paid away to support the paupers who have been thrown out of work by the introduction of the last machine. All these numerous persons, whether willing or unwilling to work productively, are ultimately supplied with food and clothing, luxuries and necessaries, by those who do actually so work.”
Mr. Bradlaugh complains that in our statement of the theory of surplus-value, which is merely a necessary deduction from the theory of Adam Smith, Ricardo, Mill, and all the noted economists, that labor is the measure of value, we do not condescend to statistics, and give no proof that the amount of necessary daily labor for each individual is one hour, two hours, or three. But he must know very well that the exact amount cannot be precisely determined, simply because it is constantly diminishing with every fresh improvement in machinery, and is certain to diminish much more in the near future. The displacement of steam by electricity will diminish it largely, though under the present system it will, as J. S. Mill says, fail to lighten the day’s toil of a single laborer, and will only dislocate the present organisation of numerous industries, throw numberless workmen into the workhouse, ruin many employers, and present “the possibility of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice” to a few favored individuals of the privileged class. Since Mr. Bradlaugh “takes leave to doubt” the statement that less than 1½ hours’ work per day might enable all to live in comfort, and since he will be naturally indisposed to give credence to a Socialist like Karl Marx, I will refer him to Mr. William Hoyle, who, in an unguarded moment, being carried away by his zeal for temperance, and forgetting that his figures may be used to furnish forth the armory of Socialism, makes precisely the same statement as the result of his deliberate calculations. But such is the strength of our position, that the miscalculation of one or two hours does nothing to weaken the force of the argument. Suppose, for an instant, what Mr. Bradlaugh will hardly dare to deny, that five hours’ work is the necessary amount to keep all in comfort. The question then arises why a certain large number of people should be compelled to work for ten hours in order to exempt another large number from doing any work at all. The only answer to this is that the latter set of persons are in possession of the means of production, and that the rights of property demand that they should remain undisturbed. In reply to this we distinctly declare that such rights of property are merely wrongs, and are entirely incompatible with the laborer’s true rights of property in the fruits of his own toil, since the claim to be allowed by society to live in absolute idleness at the expense of the workers, by consuming what they produce without doing anything in return for the boon, can only be characterised as an outrage upon equity and common sense. I have heard that Mr. Bradlaugh himself once declared that he intended to maintain the rights of those who labor as against those who “leech.” Alas, the leeches more and more abound in spite of his declamation, and when Socialists suggest the application of the pinch of salt which will put an end to their powers of suction and compel them to disgorge their stolen goods, Mr. Bradlaugh’s hands are held up in holy horror, and we learn with astonishment and regret that the divine right of property in other people’s labor is as great a fetish in his eyes as was ever to others in olden times either the divine right of kings, or that divine right of priests which he has helped to destroy.
With respect to the attitude of Socialists on this question of private property, Mr. Bradlaugh has a theory of his own. He asserts that Socialism necessarily involves its absolute denial, and tries to pose us by asking how we are going to get on without it in the ordinary business of life. Now although I look forward confidently to some future period when the idea of brotherhood will be realised by the whole human race even more strongly than it is at present by the family, yet the immediate aim of Socialism is not the abolition of private property, but its establishment, by means of the emancipation of labor, upon the only sound basis. It is private capital which we attack, the power to hire laborers at starvation wages, and not the independent enjoyment of the fruits of labor by the individual who produces them. Consequently Mr. Bradlaugh’s manifold questions are manifestly irrelevant to the issue, and fall purposeless to the ground. It is to be regretted that in his study of our manifesto, “Socialism made Plain,” he neglected to pay any attention to an important paragraph on private property, which might have set his mind at rest on that point. I will give the words: “Do any say we attack private property?”—Mr. Bradlaugh, to wit—“We deny it. We attack only that private property for a few thousand loiterers and slave-drivers, which renders all property in the fruits of their own labor impossible for millions. We challenge that private property which renders poverty at once a necessity and a crime.” This single short quotation might have spared Mr. Bradlaugh the waste of a considerable amount of time, ink, and paper, which he has unnecessarily devoted to the explanation of the difficulties of regulating newspapers, theatres, trades, travelling, and many other items, without a mental and moral revolution as sudden as it would be complete. Such a revolution is already growing apace in our midst, but it is by no means a necessary factor in the process of securing to the laborer the fruits of his toil.
I refuse to be frightened by the menacing array of Mr. Bradlaugh’s small army of statistics, intended to prove that the owners of property are more numerous than they seem. A large number even of these owners will have greatly more to gain than to lose by a revolution which would put an end to their “interest” in the National Debt, and ensure to them the full reward of their labor. For instance, Mr. Bradlaugh announces that the portion of the National Debt held by Friendly Societies is £7,587,218, and that this sum is the property of at least 2,309,225 members in the United Kingdom. Consequently, the share of each individual is on the average little more than three guineas, and the dividend which annually accrues to each of these propertied persons is slightly over two shillings. It does not require a very high standard of intelligence to enable a man to perceive that Socialists, who intend to deprive him of these two shillings, and at the same time to secure to him the full value of his work, are proposing, not to diminish his income, but on the contrary, to raise it in a very large degree. So much for the statistical ninepins which Mr. Bradlaugh contentedly exhibits as an army of defence against the Socialists’ assault. Not that I mean to assert that all his figures prove equally flimsy under examination. I am well aware that the organised opposition to our organised attack will be bitter and strong. But what then? We fight for the principle of justice in a great international cause, and if we fall there will be others to succeed us. We believe that the right will at last prevail, and we rejoice to give practical testimony to the truth that there is a higher motive power among men than the desire of individual advantage.
I cannot do better than conclude with a quotation from the “Summary of the Principles of Socialism”: “There are many difficulties and dangers, the power of wealth is great, the unscrupulousness of property knows no bounds. We are well aware of this: we see and do not shrink from the inevitable struggle. But the numbers over against us, the hosts who may be bribed to fight for their oppressors, even to their own hurt—there are thousands, perhaps millions of such men? There are. We know that too. But in a cause like ours we refuse to recognise difficulties; with such misery around us we cannot stop to calculate forces; with such a future before us we will never count heads.”
J. L. Joynes
Our Corner, June 1, 1884, pp. 330-336