Communism PDF

Communism Author(s): Robertson, Edward Stanley Reviewed work(s): Source: Bristol Selected Pamphlets, (1883) Published by: University
of Bristol Library Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/60247896 . Accessed: 19/02/2013 21:05

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COMMUNISM,
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E.
S.
BOBEBTSON.
Published by the LIBERTY AND PROPERTY DEFENCE LEAGUE, 4, Westminster Chambers, London, S.W. 1883.
UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL LIBRARY

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We are all very apt to fancy that if wo only had authority we could at once and for ever amend many things which appear to us, and doubtless are, very wrong. When we see or hear of people ruined by drink, for instance, we are tempted to think that nothing is needed but to shut up public-houses. When some persons are blown up in mines, others crushed in machinery, others poisoned by working in lead, one's first impulse is to cry out that mining and machinery, and, dangerous trades generally, ought to be so regulated as to take the danger out of them, or, at any rate, reduce it to the smallest amount possible. And when we see great uncertainty of employment and sudden fluctuations in wages ; people forced to work for poor pay at repulsive or unwholesome trades ; the worst paid often doing the hardest kind of work, and thousands barely able to keep body and soul together; we are tempted hastily to put all this down to bad laws and to the selfishness of the wealthy and powerful, and to seek a remedy in the reconstruction of society. To do working men and women justice, it is seldom they who are the first to cry out for regulation of their own trades and of the conditions of their own lives. Such cries begin, for the most part, with men and women of leisure and kind hearts, but not always the wisest of heads. As to the attacks upon rich and powerful people, founded upon the actual inequality and supposed injustice of the relation between the employer class and the working class, they are happily not very common or popular in England as yet. Such attacks have hitherto mainly originated
4 on the Continent, with a small but clever and energetic band of visionary thinkers, who have persuaded a considerable number of working men in various countries to adopt a plausible scheme or set of schemes for the supposed improvement of the working man's condition. The plausibility of all these schemes depends upon the acceptance of certain postulates. We are requhed to believe, first, that the existing regime of private property and free contract is the cause of all the actual inequality and alleged injustice of things as they are ; and secondly, that things could be so altered by an authoritative arrangement as to cause this inequality and injustice to disappear. Now, my own belief is that the existing regime of private property and free contract is not the cause of all, but at most of only a very small part, of the injustices, and even the inequalities, complained of. In order to prove this, however, it would be necessary to write a formal treatise on social and economic science, which I have no intention or opportunity of doing just now. For my present purpose, it will probably suffice if I accept, for argument's sake, the second postulate just mentioned, and try to show, if I can, some of the consequences it involves. I will begin by pointing out that interferences with liberty and property may be demanded on several different kinds of grounds. They may be demanded in order to prevent people from injuring themselves. This is the usual plea for compulsory abstinence from strong drink, for instance. Or they may be demanded in order to protect working people against dangers directly arising from negligence or greed on the part of employers, such as the dangers of mines, of machinery, and of poisonous or unwholesome trades, against which legislative protection is so often asked and Or they may be demanded merely on the plea of granted. convenience, as in the case of certain regulations of railway and other traffic. Or, finally, they may be demanded for the purpose I of equalising people's conditions and warding off poverty. in the first last of class these propose to deal, iustance, with the
demands, because logically it includes all the rest, and if it is practicable, all the others are. Let us concede, then, for argument's sake, that a State organ isation could be createdor rather that a group of organisations could be created within each Statewhich should provide for all the physical wants of the community, and regulate all merely material life, so as to exclude poverty to the utmost, and get rid of most of the ills poverty brings in its train. I will go so far as to suppose that all this could be done without a forcible revolu tion, though the Continental advocates of sehemes of this sort (Collectivists, Socialists, or Communists, as they are called) are commonly reproached with being anarchists, because they are apt to try to carry their projects into effect by violent and subversive means. As a matter of fact, we shall see that the success of such schemes would be by no means anarchic in effect, but, on the contrary, would involve an unheard-of tightening of the chains of authority. For a Collectivist community could only be kept at work on certain very rigid conditions, the acceptance of which would be a very high price to pay, even for the exclusion of poverty. First, it would be necessary that the State should superintend the provision of food, lodging, clothing, and all the material necessaries of life for every citizen, just as the commissariat department of an army provides for the soldiers. Now, anyone who knows what the administration of an army commissariat is, knows that even such a limited body as an army is most difficult to provide for. In our own army, as a general rule, the supplies are inadequate as often as any extraordinary call is made upon them. In most foreign armies, when the supplies are adequate, they are so much more than adequate as to err on the side of lavishness. The high state of efficiency of the German Army is purchased at the cost of a crushing tax on German industry. Now, let us suppose that instead of a quarter of a million of adult men, or even a million, the whole population had to be provided
6 forsome thirty or forty millions, including not only picked and full-grown men, but the aged, the sick, delicate women, and young children. Surely to superintend the distribution of all the physical necessaries of life among such a vast and mixed multi tude would tax to the utmost the resources of any State organisation. Subdivide and distribute the work how you will, surely it will be all but impossible to guard against the risk of a breakdown at some point of the very complicated machinery! Under the regime of private enterprise and competition (coarse and cruel as some deem it), supply does somehow adjust itself roughly to demand. But the blunder of a State department would be of necessity irremediable. When the supplies of an army fall short there is free industry to fall back upon, and, when it is deemed necessary to ensure an army against shortness of supplies, free industry is permanently overtaxed. But a Communistically organised State would either have no such reserve, or would be compelled permanently to over-work its labourers in order that a reserve might exist. Secondly, the State, if Communistically organised, must_of necessity control all labour, direct its quantity, test its quality,_and compel its performance. Every man, woman, and child should have his or her daily task set and enforced. Under a regime of free industry and private enterprise', " he that will not work In countries like France, where there is neither shall he eat." no poor law, the cry of the Communistic agitator is not for maintenance while out of work, but for work to do whether the produce of his work is wanted or no. Our own poor law is a step in the direction of Communism (though not a very long one, and not wholly indefensible), and carries with it the Communist consequence that work for paupers must not only be provided but enforced. A Communistically organised State would be a collection of big workhouses. Those who aspire after such an ideal must have learned the lesson of the English work house very imperfectly indeed. Otherwise they must needs
7 know that there is a margin of the working class (as there is of all humanity) whose aim is to get through life doing the very smallest possible quantity of work. A considerable proportion of our workhouse population consists of tramps and " casuals" who are living upon the labour of others, they themselves producing nothing, and doing no more than they needs must in order that they may be fed at the cost of those who produce. And in this lowest deep there is a lower deep : the half criminal or wholly criminal fringe, which actually prefers the jail to the workhouse, and makes provision for a rainy day by breaking windows or street lamps. What room is there for people of this kind in a Collectivist State? Is it not self-evident that a man who will not work of his own accord must either be driven to work by the lash, or thrust out to starve on the roadside And, if either of these things has to be done, wherein lies the advantage of the new regime over the old? Thirdly, if the State is to be responsible for proportioning consumption to resources, the State must control the increase of the population. If the State is to provide food, and lodging, and clothing, it must have the power of deciding how many persons are to be fed, lodged, and clothed. This is a matter concerning which plain speaking is at once difficult and indispensable. Political economists write about restraints on marriageas if no children ever were born out of wedlock. The truth is, that wherever restraints on marriage have been imposed, illicit unions and illegitimate births have increased. In order to control population by State authority, it would be necessary to bring things into the condition satirised by Shakespeare in Measure for Measure. The slaves on American plantations " were encouraged to breed," because their offspring would sell at a profit. On the contrary, men and women in a State I will not complete the Communistically organised antithesis. In what way would the subjects of a Collectivist State
differ from slaves except that they would not be directly subject to a master's caprices And what manner of men would they be who should be intrusted with the organisation and control of the labour thus The " captains of industry " would have far more disciplined power than the officers of an army; and what would be the check on them? We can hardly suppose them appointed by We cannot That presupposes freedom. popular election. imagine a plantation of slaves choosing the overseer by universal suffrage. The overseers of the slaves of Communism would have to be chosen by some process of selection other than a vote of the very men and women whom they would have to control, to keep at work, and to restrain from over-multiplying. Now, the first tAvo of these functions are performed, roughly, indeed, and imperfectly, by the Capitalist Employer in a state of freedom. He it is who apportions the work to be done, and decides who shall do it. He it is who turns the lazy and inefficient workman into the street, and promotes the skilful and active labourer. The process by which the capitalist comes to the front is a process of natural selection, and is therefore more effective than any mode of artificial choice could be. The qualities needed for success in business arc the qualities which the electors of the Collectivist overseer would have to look for, be those electors who they may. As I said, we can hardly conceive the mass of the workmen choosing their own overseers ; but if they did, and if they chose them with a view to business efficiency, they would choose very much the same kind of men who now come to the front as a matter of fact. Now, we have already seen that the officers of the labour army would really have more formidable power than the officers of a fighting army. At present, the free labourer has at least the chance of changing his employer, or the nature of his employ, or if he chooses to play a desperate stake. he can strike. Under Collcctivists all these resources, or nearly all, would be closed against him. If he struck, he would be
9 treated simply as a deserter in face of the enemy. I am aware that in writing this I am at issue with the high authority of John Stuart Mill. But I venture to think that Mr. Mill pitched his standard of human unprovability very much too high. When he says that the drawbacks of Communism (the name Collectivism was not invented in his day) would not be greater than the drawbacks of free labour as it now exists, he assumes that free labourers as they now exist would one and all be easily made fit for a Collectivist regime. Is this true I venture to think not. Really good workmen might; but it is just the really good workmen who do not want Collectivism. I have referred formerly to an incorrigible class of downright idlers and criminals; but they are not the only hinderers with whom the Collectivist reformer would have to reckon. There are among working people, as there are in all ranks of life, a shiftless set of men and women, not vicious, not specially stupid, but simply flabby-minded, and without strength of will or purpose. The members of this class never rise above the station in which they are born, but it takes only a very slight push to thrust them below it. They are, perhaps, more common, at any rate their ill-luck is more commonly noted, in the middle class of society, because sharp need keeps them at work of some sort if they belong to the working class. Every one, however, must know more than one specimen, and this is precisely the class whose existence causes the cry for Collectivism, and at the same time shipwrecks Collectivist communities. All the Communist, Collectivist, or co-operative schemes that have to any extent succeeded, have done so by getting rid of persons of this class. I venture to think that Mr. Mill made too light of this circumstance when he expressed himself so hopefully. It should be remembered that while Collectivism would only take from the better workman the -stimulus of emulation, it would take away from men of the class I have described, the sharp spur of want. Mr. Mill did not, indeed, wholly overlook
10 this difficulty; on the contrary, a great part of his chapter on Communism is devoted to an attempt at its solution, or at explaining it away. But the most that he says amounts to this : that Collectivist work when the community was first started, need not be more inefficient than it now is, and possibly would be much more efficient when education became universal. To this it may be replied, that Communism or Collectivism will not be needed when education shall have become sufficiently universal and of fit quality to enable men to make the best of the system of private property and free contract. In the meantime, the fact that there is a great deal of inefficient work now affords a pretty strong presumption that there would be a certain amount of inefficient work then. Moreover, we must now regard the question, not only from the point of view of the general community, which wants commodities in a certain quantity and of certain quality for its consumption (and this is the position taken up by Mr. Mill in his defence of the principle of Communism), but we must regard it also from the point of view of the classes whose interests would be affected by the practical application of that principle. I have already suggested that for the idlers and the more or less criminal fringe of the working class, the one possible stimulus i3 coercionhunger on the one hand, and on the other, the prison, or perhaps the lash. And what of the class which is not criminal, and not exactly idle, but flabbyminded and shiftless What of the man who cannot be'paid his a in wages public-house, because he cannot resist the temptation to drink What of the man who requires Local Option Acts and Sunday Closing Acts to guard him against his own weakness? Is such a man fit to take part in Collectivist institutions I cannot think so. Such a one seems to me to be just the man who, relieved from the immediate fear of want, is almost certain to cross the boundary and fall into the idle class, if not into the criminal class. This, I venture to think, constitutes the dilemma of Collectivism. Until the criminals, the idlers, and the shiftless
ii are got rid of, Collectivism must fail, or turn into slavery. When they-are got rid of, Collectivism is no longer needed. Again, how will Collectivism influence the fortunes of the better class of working people? Will they be any better off than Will they not rather be worse I am loth to recur they were to a somewhat repulsive topic, but I must remind my readers that the general rules binding on a Collectivist community must include a rule regulating the increase of their numbers. In the present system, the skilful, energetic and steady workman is his own master as regards the maintenance of a large or a small family, or no family at all. Under a regime of Collectivism this matter must of necessity be ordered for him by superior authority, and he would lose any advantage he may possess over the shiftless and incompetent. Again, one of the ends directly aimed at by Collectivism is the equalisation of conditions, and this would by no means stop short at reducing the difference between employers and workmen. There would be an attempt to equalise wages. Unskilled labour would plead to be paid, not in proportion to skill, but in proportion to the hardness, unwholesomeness, or repulsiveness of the work; and I for one do not see how the plea could be answered or rejected. Levelling up would involve levelling down, not only for those that are conventionally termed the rich, but for every set of people who at present are in any way better off than any other set. Of course, I do not mean that all labour would be paid precisely at the same rate; but I do say that this would be the tendency. It would be very difficult to adjust the proportions of payment between different kinds of work; and while no one would wish to fix for ever the wages of the very poor at the rates that are earned now, it is certain that to tax skilled and educated workmen, in order that the unskilled should be better paid, would be bad for the whole public as well as for the better class of workmen. I think that what I have said above affords very cogent
12 reasons for believing that any attempt to reform society on a Collectivist or Communistic basis would introduce a state of things virtually undistinguishable from slavery, and would deprive the more skilled and educated sections of the woiking class of nearly all the advantages they now derive from their superior knowledge, prudence and temperance. Of course, I am quite aware that nobody in England asks for Communism or Collectivism in its crude and unalloyed form. I know, also, that a Continental Collectivist would reply to all I have said here, admitting that ordinary workmen are not now fit for that system, but undertaking to make them fit, and arguing that they can be made fit only by the actual discipline of the system. To this I rejoin that men can get all that is really good in Collectivism out of an intelligent use of private property and free contract. Collectivism, so far as it is a good thing, is nothing more than co-operation "writ large." So far as it is not that, it is slavery. Now, we do not want to pass through a period of slavery that we may attain to an enlarged and efficient system of co-operation; we hope to reach that, and we think we are on the way to it, by rightly understanding and intelligently working the system of property and free contract. But, I may be asked, what has all this got to do with such State regulation of labour, and of the conditions of life, as working men actually do demand, and actually do believe that it is their interest to obtain? Granting that they ought to oppose Com munism or Collectivism, is that any reason why they should oppose compulsory temperance, or inspection of factories, or the exclusion of women from certain trades To these questions two answers may be given. First, I would reply that opposing Collectivism is a reason for opposing State regulation, if, and in so far as. State regulation leads to Collectivism; secondly, I would say that every act whereby the State takes upon itself to interfere with liberty or property is capable of being attacked or defended on grounds peculiar to
13 The attack will usually be founded on the admitted that truth, liberty is a good thing in itself, and restraint is not a good thing in itself, though under given circumstances it may be the less of two evils. The defence of any given proceeding may take the ground that, under existing circumstances, the restraint sought is actually the less of two evilsin which case I should admit the defence to be a legitimate oneor it may take the ground that the State, having the power to interfere, has a right or is subject to a duty of interfering, merely because a grievance is alleged to exist; in other words, it may take the ground that it is " the duty of the State to make every one comfortable." This is the kind of reasoning which I say leads to Communism or Collectivism; and, if I am right in my estimate of the con sequences of those systems, I am entitled to say that anything which logically and practically leads up to them ought to bo itself. opposed. On the other hand, the Liberty and Property Defence League Stakes the practical ground that every act of State intervention lias reasons of its own, for and against, subject, however, to the general rule that liberty is in itself to be preferred tojrestraint, and property to confiscation. The burden of proof in every 'instance lies on the person who demands restraint or confiscation. Nothing ought to be done for the individual by the State, which the individual can do for him or herself. Where groups voluntarily combining can obtain certain advantages for them selves, the State ought to leave them as much as possible to reap the benefit of voluntary combined exertion. No man or woman of full age ought to be coerced under pretext of their own good, but only in order that they may not harm others. In no case ought it to be assumed that the State, or any public authority, is justified in interfering merely because it has the power to interfere. In every instance where State aid is invoked, the burden of proof lies upon the party invoking it. The moral I would draw from all I have said above is this :
14 We should be very careful, lest in combating poverty by the aid of authority, we fall into slavery. When we invoke the aid of authority to combat evils other than poverty, we should beware lest we play into the hands of those who would involve us in slavery in their mistaken efforts to put an end to poverty.
LIBERTY
AND
PROPERTY
DEFENCE
LEAGUE.
For resisting Overlegislation, for maintaining Freedom of Contract, and for advocating Individualism as opposed to Socialism, entirely irrespective of Party Politics.
C 0 II N C I L1 8 8 3-4. The Bight Honoeable the EARL OF WEMYSS, Chairman. The Eight Hon. Loud Bbamweel. The Eight Hon. Loed Penzutoe. Wobdswoetii DoifiSTnoBPE,Esq. H. D. Pociiin, Esq. The Eight Hon. Eael Eobtescue. Sie C William Siemens, E.E.S. II. C. Stephens, Esq. Captain Hambee. ~W.T. M'C. Tobrens, Esq., M.P. Alsager Hay Hill, Esq. J. A. Mullens, Esq. | Sie Ed. AY. Watkin, Baet M.P. The Et. lion. Eael oe Pembeoke. ; W. Wells, Esq. Honorary Treasurer: Sie Waltee Messrs. IIarbis, Powell Messrs. Heebies, E. Eaequhab, Bart.
Solicitors: & Sieveking, 34, Essex St., Strand, W.C.
Bankers: Farquiiab & Co., 1G, St. James's Street, S.W.
Auditors: Messrs. Geet, Prideaux & Bookee, 48, Lincolns's Inn Eields, W.C. Secretary: ~W. C. Ceoets. Persons wishing to join the League are requested to send their subscriptioji (voluntary from one shilling upivards) and address to and Co, Bankers, 16, St. James'sStreet, S.W. Messrs Herries, TParquliar Particulars and publications of the League can be hadfrom the Secretary, VictoriaStreet, London,S. W. W. C. C)efts No. 4, WestminsterChambers, Garden. & Co.,Pnuter3, Covent Habmswobui Ti^sistftet^treet, UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL LIBRARY

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Communism Author(s): Robertson, Edward Stanley Reviewed work(s): Source: Bristol Selected Pamphlets, (1883) Published by: University

of Bristol Library Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/60247896 . Accessed: 19/02/2013 21:05

Digitization of this work funded by the JISC Digitisation Programme.

UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL LIBRARY

Solicitors: & Sieveking, 34, Essex St., Strand, W.C.

Bankers: Farquiiab & Co., 1G, St. James's Street, S.W.

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