Ruskin and every other cooperative colony must work exactly like a capitalist stock company. The only difference is that the cooperative company will always be at a disadvantage, when compared to the capitalist business enterprise, even when the former has as much capital as the latter. The cooperative undertaking, because it is cooperative, cannot press any surplus value out of its members, and therefore its capital will not grow. On the other hand, it has to spend its main strength fighting strong capitalist concerns, while it is just that fight of competition that fixes the prices of the products.
Competition has to disappear ere a general lowering of the cost of production and a general uplifting of the standard of life is possible. But one colony cannot accomplish that. And one thousand colonies could not accomplish it. In order to accomplish that we must necessarily have control over the entire population.
That it is easy to regulate successfully the entire production of any branch of industry, our trust have proven to the satisfaction of all. These trusts accomplish what thousands of cooperative colonies could never accomplish, i.e., the trusts regulate production. The trusts make it possible to have a general lowering of the price of products and a general rise of the standard of living — if the people get a hold of them. The commonwealth could regulate matters even better and more successfully than the trusts, for there are means of power at the command of the commonwealth, which the trusts will never have.
But the main condition of success in this respect is that the productive basis of such a commonwealth must be very large. One state of the union — for instance Wisconsin, Kansas, or New York — would be insufficient for a Cooperative Commonwealth. None of them could furnish the basis for carrying on production on the largest modern scale even in a single industrial branch — not to speak of all branches — because competition with private enterprises would not cease. For example, it would be impossible to carry on successfully the oil business in Wisconsin in competition with the Standard Oil Company, especially since we have no oil wells in Wisconsin.
It is even questionable whether any one European country — England, France, or Germany, for instance, although each of them is called a great power — if standing alone could furnish a basis for independent cooperative production. Every one of these countries, not producing cotton and certain minerals of great importance (for instance, Swedish iron, quicksilver, copper, etc.), and every one of these countries being unable to support its inhabitants in case of the failure of a single crop, could not be considered a self-sufficient basis for Cooperative Commonwealth.
Of all the civilized countries in the world, probably the United States alone could furnish such a basis, because the people of the United States, even if isolated, could carry on production in the highest degree independent of other nations, on account of the great size of the country and the wonderful variety of its products.
Under such conditions it is clear that all communistic colony schemes have only the effect of leading people astray from the road to our goal. They only have the effect of getting the minds of the people confused as to our aims. They hinder the progress of our idea. Colony schemers have a habit of hiding and denying the class struggle, for they by necessity live in the spirit of capitalism, and are even in danger of using the methods of capitalist swindlers. For what are we to call a “Cooperative Gold Mine,” started with a capital of $2.5 million, when the cash on hand is $33.23, “with liabilities unknown.¸” Especially if we consider that the present owner is willing to sell this “Cooperative Commonwealth” for $5,000 cash and $95,000 in bonds secured by a mortgage on said “Cooperative
Commonwealth.” Truly, in one sense, this is the first “painfully” American colony scheme we know of; this scheme having the “gold brick” idea about it peculiar to certain Americans. But it is not the kind of Americans we Socialists appeal to....
Our American Socialism is only a branch of International Socialism, as American capitalism is a branch of International capitalism.
American capitalism differs somewhat in methods from capitalism in Europe, for here it has full sway, not having any remnant of feudalism to combat with. If anything, capitalism here is more reckless of human life and more brutal than in most of the old countries. American Socialism has to take that into consideration and also the fact that the ballot, if used rightly, forms a far more powerful weapon in this country than in any other.
American Socialism starts out with the “threadbare truism” that our present system divides society into two classes, the “have all” and the “have nothing” class, and that it is the great mass of the people that do all the useful work who belong to the “have nothing” class. Therefore American Socialism is class conscious. This does not mean that the Socialist must hate every capitalist individually, that some should be picked out as “scarecrows,” while the economic power and political encroachment of all the others should be silently submitted to. It means that while we understand that
every individual capitalist is the result of the present system as much as the wage worker, we still must fight the capitalists as a class, because the producers cannot reasonably expect anything but exploitation from the exploiters as a class.
In short, American Socialism recognizes that the development of capitalist society substitutes tyrannical monopoly by a minority for individual property of the many. But it does not revolt against recognized facts; it bows to them. It does not propose to reascend the current of centuries and return to barbarism — it does not intend to go into the backwoods and start communistic colonies — or to arrest the transformation of humanity which is going on before our very eyes. On the contrary, it bends to the laws of progress and evolution. And since it is a law of sociologic evolution that with modern civilization all the means of production pass from the form of individual property to that of capitalist property and then take the concentrated from of a trust for the benefit of the few — the contention of the American Socialist is this: In the measure that these immense capitalist properties, which dry up and destroy small and individual property, are formed, in that measure social property shall be substituted for capitalist property.
To accomplish this we want to make use of our political liberty and take possession of the public powers. And while this process is going on we also want to lighten the burdens on the shoulders of the wage workers and producers in general by constantly agitating, enacting, and enforcing laws in their favor, so as to strengthen their power of resistance in the great struggle. (This has been done in such a wonderful degree in Germany during the past 15 years that the physical well-being of the wage workers of the industrial districts has been improving greatly. Formerly the country districts used to send most of the men fit for military service, the factory districts never being able to fill their quota. This is rapidly changing on account of the many laws for the protection of workingmen.
The industrial districts not only fill their quota now, but are ahead of most rural districts.)
American Socialism means to support the true economic movement of the American wage workers,
the trade union movement, this being at the present time the only weapon of the wage worker outside of the ballot. American Socialists do not propose to run away from the capitalists; they intend to stay right in the battle and compel capitalist society to take care of the unemployed and the aged and invalids of labor. They intend to raise their voice and votes against the exploitation of children, mothers, and unborn babes. These and a great many other duties, which fall upon them with the present civilization, American Socialists will try to perform before the Cooperative Commonwealth
is reached. But they do not intend to compete with capitalist “promoters” in selling bonds for
nebulous “gold mines.” American Socialists will fight open and aboveboard everywhere and fight all capitalist parties alike. They cannot and will not assist capitalist politicians of one color in one state and of the other color in another state. In short, American Socialists will be simply Socialists, and nothing else.
And to gather and unite under its banner such American Socialists is the purpose of the Social Democratic Party of America.
Victor L. Berger1
Published in the Social Democratic Herald, whole no. 1 (July 9, 1898), pp. 3-4.
No comments:
Post a Comment