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WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES

OWE TO EACH OTHER

By

WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER

THE CAXTON PRINTERS, LTD.CALDWELL, IDAHO

1974

First published by Harper & Brothers, 1883Published by Yale University Press, 1925

Second printing, Yale University Press, 1934Published 1947 by The Pamphleteers, Inc., of Los Angeles

First Caxton printing, Feb. 1952Second Caxton printing, Nov. 1954Third Caxton printing, Sept. 1961Fourth Caxton printing, Dec. 1963Fifth Caxton printing, Oct. 1966Sixth Caxton printing, Sept. 1970

Seventh Caxton printing, May 1974

Printed and bound in the United States of Americaby The CAXTON PRINTERS, Ltd., Caldwell, Idaho

123768

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

FOREWORD 5

INTRODUCTION 7

I. O N A NEW PHILOSOPHY: THAT POV-

ERTY IS THE BEST POLICY 13

II. THAT A FREE MAN IS A SOVEREIGN,

BUT THAT A SOVEREIGN CANNOT

TAKE "TIPS" 25

III. THAT IT IS N O T WICKED TO BE RICH:

NAY, EVEN, THAT IT IS NOT WICKED

TO BE RICHER THAN ONE'S NEIGHBOR 38

IV. O N THE REASONS WHY MAN IS NOT

ALTOGETHER A BRUTE 51

V. THAT WE MUST HAVE FEW MEN, IF

WE WANT STRONG MEN 63

VI. THAT HE WHO WOULD BE WELL

TAKEN CARE OF MUST TAKE CARE

OF HIMSELF 71

VII. CONCERNING SOME OLD FOES UNDER

NEW FACES 88

4 CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

VIII. O N THE VALUE, AS A SOCIOLOGICAL

PRINCIPLE, OF THE RULE TO MIND

ONE'S OWN BUSINESS 97

IX. O N THE CASE OF A CERTAIN MAN

W H O IS NEVER THOUGHT OF 107

X. THE CASE OF THE FORGOTTEN MAN

FARTHER CONSIDERED 116

XI. WHEREFORE WE SHOULD LOVE ONE

ANOTHER 132

FOREWORD

WRITTEN more than fifty years ago—in 1883—WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES OWE TO EACH OTHER is

even more pertinent today than at the time of itsfirst publication. Then the arguments and "move-ments" for penalizing the thrifty, energetic, andcompetent by placing upon them more and moreof the burdens of the thriftless, lazy and incom-petent, were just beginning to make headway inour country, wherein these "social reforms" nowall but dominate political and so-called "social"thinking.

Among the great nations of the world today,only the United States of America championsthe rights of the individual as against the stateand organized pressure groups, and our faith hasbeen dangerously weakened—watered down by ablind and essentially false and cruel sentimen-talism.

In "Social Classes" Sumner defined and em-phasized the basically important role in our socialand economic development played by "The For-gotten Man." The misappropriation of this titleand its application to a character the exact oppo-

6 FOREWORD

site of the one for whom Sumner invented thephrase is, unfortunately, but typical of the per-version of words and phrases indulged in by ourpresent-day "liberals" in their attempt to furthertheir revolution by diverting the loyalties of in-dividualists to collectivist theories and beliefs.

How often have you said: "If only someone hadthe vision to see and the courage and ability tostate the truth about these false theories whichtoday are attracting our youth and confusingwell-meaning people everywhere!" Well, hereis the answer to your prayer—the everlastingtruth upon the greatest of issues in social sciencestated for you by the master of them all in thisfield. If this edition calls this great work to theattention of any of you for the first time, thatalone will amply justify its republication. Tothose of you who have read it before, we com-mend it anew as the most up-to-date and bestdiscussion you can find anywhere of the mostimportant questions of these critical days.

—WILLIAM C. MULLENDORE

Los Angeles, CaliforniaNovember 15, 1951

WHAT SOCIAL CLASSESOWE TO EACH OTHER

INTRODUCTION

WE are told every day that great social problemsstand before us and demand a solution, and we areassailed by oracles, threats, and warnings in refer-ence to those problems. There is a school ofwriters who are playing quite a role as the heraldsof the coming duty and the coming woe. Theyassume to speak for a large, but vague and unde-fined, constituency, who set the task, exact a ful-fillment, and threaten punishment for default.The task or problem is not specifically defined.Part of the task which devolves on those who aresubject to the duty is to define the problem. Theyare told only that something is the matter: that itbehooves them to find out what it is, and how tocorrect it, and then to work out the cure. All thisis more or less truculently set forth.

After reading and listening to a great deal ofthis sort of assertion I find that the question formsitself with more and more distinctness in my mind:Who are those who assume to put hard questions

8 WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES

to other people and to demand a solution of them?How did they acquire the right to demand thatothers should solve their world-problems for them?Who are they who are held to consider and solveall questions, and how did they fall under thisduty?

So far as I can find out what the classes are whoare respectively endowed with the rights and dutiesof posing and solving social problems, they are asfollows: Those who are bound to solve the prob-lems are the rich, comfortable, prosperous, virtu-ous, respectable, educated, and healthy; thosewhose right it is to set the problems are those whohave been less fortunate or less successful in thestruggle for existence. The problem itself seemsto be, How shall the latter be made as comfortableas the former? To solve this problem, and makeus all equally well off, is assumed to be the dutyof the former class; the penalty, if they fail of this,is to be bloodshed and destruction. If they cannotmake everybody else as well off as themselves, theyare to be brought down to the same misery asothers.

During the last ten years I have read a greatmany books and articles, especially by Germanwriters, in which an attempt has been made to setup "the State" as an entity having conscience,power, and will sublimated above human limita-tions, and as constituting a tutelary genius over

OWE TO EACH OTHER. 9

us all. I have never been able to find in history orexperience anything to fit this concept. I oncelived in Germany for two years, but I certainlysaw nothing of it there then. Whether the Statewhich Bismarck is moulding will fit the notion isat best a matter of faith and hope. My notion ofthe State has dwindled with growing experienceof life. As an abstraction, the State is to me onlyAll-of-us. In practice — that is, when it exerciseswill or adopts a line of action — it is only a littlegroup of men chosen in a very haphazard way bythe majority of us to perform certain services forall of us. The majority do not go about theirselection very rationally, and they are almostalways disappointed by the results of their ownoperation. Hence "the State," instead of offeringresources of wisdom, right reason, and puremoral sense beyond what the average of us pos-sess, generally offers much less of all those things.Furthermore, it often turns out in practice that"the State" is not even the known and accreditedservants of the State, but, as has been well said, isonly some obscure clerk, hidden in the recesses ofa Government bureau, into whose power thechance has fallen for the moment to pull one ofthe stops which control the Government ma-chine. In former days it often happened that"The State" was a barber, a fiddler, or a badwoman. In our day it often happens that "the


State" is a little functionary on whom a big func-tionary is forced to depend.

I cannot see the sense of spending time to readand write observations, such as I find in the writ-ings of many men of great attainments and ofgreat influence, of which the following might bea general type: If the statesmen could attain tothe requisite knowledge and wisdom, it is con-ceivable that the State might perform importantregulative functions in the production and dis-tribution of wealth, against which no positiveand sweeping theoretical objection could be madefrom the side of economic science; but statesmennever can acquire the requisite knowledge andwisdom. —To me this seems a mere waste of words.The inadequacy of the State to regulative tasks isagreed upon, as a matter of fact, by all. Why, then,bring State regulation into the discussion simplyin order to throw it out again? The whole subjectought to be discussed and settled aside from thehypothesis of State regulation.

The little group of public servants who, as Ihave said, constitute the State, when the State de-termines on anything, could not do much forthemselves or anybody else by their own force.If they do anything, they must dispose of men, asin an army, or of capital, as in a treasury. But thearmy, or police, or posse comitatus, is more or less


All-of-us, and the capital in the treasury is theproduct of the labor and saving of All-of-us. There-fore, when the State means power-to-do it meansAll-of-us, as brute force or as industrial force.

If anybody is to benefit from the action of theState it must be Some-of-us. If, then, the questionis raised, What ought the State to do for labor,for trade, for manufactures, for the poor, for thelearned professions? etc., etc.—that is, for a classor an interest—it is really the question, Whatought All-of-us to do for Some-of-us? But Some-of-us are included in All-of-us, and, so far as theyget the benefit of their own efforts, it is the sameas if they worked for themselves, and they may becancelled out of All-of-us. Then the questionwhich remains is, What ought Some-of-us to do forOthers-of-us? or, What do social classes owe to eachother?

I now propose to try to find out whether thereis any class in society which lies under the dutyand burden of fighting the battles of life for anyother class, or of solving social problems for thesatisfaction of any other class; also, whether thereis any class which has the right to formulate de-mands on "society" — that is, on other classes; also,whether there is anything but a fallacy and a super-stition in the notion that "the State" owes anythingto anybody except peace, order, and the guaranteesof rights.


I have in view, throughout the discussion, theeconomic, social, and political circumstances whichexist in the United States.


I.

ON A NEW PHILOSOPHY: THAT POVERTY ISTHE BEST POLICY.

IT is commonly asserted that there are in theUnited States no classes, and any allusion toclasses is resented. On the other hand, we con-stantly read and hear discussions of social topicsin which the existence of social classes is assumedas a simple fact. "The poor," "the weak," "thelaborers," are expressions which are used as ifthey had exact and well-understood definition.Discussions are made to bear upon the assumed rights,wrongs, and misfortunes of certain socialclasses; and all public speaking and writing con-sists, in a large measure, of the discussion of gen-eral plans for meeting the wishes of classes ofpeople who have not been able to satisfy their owndesires. These classes are sometimes discontented,and sometimes not. Sometimes they do not knowthat anything is amiss with them until the "friendsof humanity" come to them with offers of aid.Sometimes they are discontented and envious.They do not take their achievements as a fairmeasure of their rights. They do not blame them-selves or their parents for their lot, as comparedwith that of other people. Sometimes they claimthat they have a right to everything of which theyfeel the need for their happiness on earth. To


make such a claim against God and Nature would,of course, be only to say that we claim a right tolive on earth if we can. But God and Nature haveordained the chances and conditions of life onearth once for all. The case cannot be reopened.We cannot get a revision of the laws of human life.We are absolutely shut up to the need and duty,if we would learn how to live happily, of investi-gating the laws of Nature, and deducing the rulesof right living in the world as it is. These are verywearisome and commonplace tasks. They consistin labor and self-denial repeated over and overagain in learning and doing. When the peoplewhose claims we are considering are told to applythemselves to these tasks they become irritated andfeel almost insulted. They formulate their claimsas rights against society — that is, against some othermen. In their view they have a right, not only topursue happiness, but to get it; and if they failto get it, they think they have a claim to the aidof other men — that is, to the labor and self-denialof other men — to get it for them. They find oratorsand poets who tell them that they have grievances,so long as they have unsatisfied desires.

Now, if there are groups of people who have aclaim to other people's labor and self-denial, andif there are other people whose labor and self-denial are liable to be claimed by the first groups,then there certainly are "classes," and classes of


the oldest and most vicious type. For a man whocan command another man's labor and self-denialfor the support of his own existence is a privilegedperson of the highest species conceivable on earth.Princes and paupers meet on this plane, and noother men are on it all. On the other hand, a manwhose labor and self-denial may be diverted fromhis maintenance to that of some other man is nota free man, and approaches more or less toward theposition of a slave. Therefore we shall find that, inall the notions which we are to discuss, this ele-mentary contradiction, that there are classes andthat there are not classes, will produce repeatedconfusion and absurdity. We shall find that, in ourefforts to eliminate the old vices of class govern-ment, we are impeded and defeated by new prod-ucts of the worst class theory. We shall find thatall the schemes for producing equality and ob-literating the organization of society produce anew differentiation based on the worst possibledistinction — the right to claim and the duty to giveone man's effort for another man's satisfaction.We shall find that every effort to realize equalitynecessitates a sacrifice of liberty.

It is very popular to pose as a "friend of hu-manity," or a "friend of the working classes."The character, however, is quite exotic in theUnited States. It is borrowed from England,where some men, otherwise of small account,


have assumed it with great success and advantage.Anything which has a charitable sound and a kind-hearted tone generally passes without investiga-tion, because it is disagreeable to assail it. Sermons,essays, and orations assume a conventional stand-point with regard to the poor, the weak, etc.; andit is allowed to pass as an unquestioned doctrine inregard to social classes that "the rich" ought to"care for the poor"; that Churches especiallyought to collect capital from the rich and spend itfor the poor; that parishes ought to be clusters ofinstitutions by means of which one social classshould perform its duties to another; and thatclergymen, economists, and social philosophershave a technical and professional duty to deviseschemes for "helping the poor." The preachingin England used all to be done to the poor—thatthey ought to be contented with their lot andrespectful to their betters. Now, the greatest partof the preaching in America consists in injunctionsto those who have taken care of themselves to per-form their assumed duty to take care of others.Whatever may be one's private sentiments, thefear of appearing cold and hard-hearted causesthese conventional theories of social duty and theseassumptions of social fact to pass unchallenged.

Let us notice some distinctions which are ofprime importance to a correct consideration of thesubject which we intend to treat.


Certain ills belong to the hardships of humanlife. They are natural. They are part of the strug-gle with Nature for existence. We cannot blameour fellow-men for our share of these. My neigh-bor and I are both struggling to free ourselvesfrom these ills. The fact that my neighbor hassucceeded in this struggle better than I constitutesno grievance for me. Certain other ills are due tothe malice of men, and to the imperfections orerrors of civil institutions. These ills are an objectof agitation, and a subject for discussion. Theformer class of ills is to be met only by manlyeffort and energy; the latter may be corrected byassociated effort. The former class of ills is con-stantly grouped and generalized, and made theobject of social schemes. We shall see, as we goon, what that means. The second class of ills mayfall on certain social classes, and reform will takethe form of interference by other classes in favorof that one. The last fact is, no doubt, the reasonwhy people have been led, not noticing distinc-tions, to believe that the same method was appli-cable to the other class of ills. The distinctionhere made between the ills which belong to thestruggle for existence and those which are due tothe faults of human institutions is of primeimportance.

It will also be important, in order to clear upour ideas about the notions which are in fashion,


to note the relation of the economic to the po-litical significance of assumed duties of one classto another. That is to say, we may discuss thequestion whether one class owes duties to anotherby reference to the economic effects which willbe produced on the classes and society; or we maydiscuss the political expediency of formulatingand enforcing rights and duties respectively be-tween the parties. In the former case we mightassume that the givers of aid were willing to giveit, and we might discuss the benefit or mischief oftheir activity. In the other case we must assumethat some at least of those who were forced togive aid did so unwillingly. Here, then, therewould be a question of rights. The questionwhether voluntary charity is mischievous or notis one thing; the question whether legislationwhich forces one man to aid another is right andwise, as well as economically beneficial, is quiteanother question. Great confusion and conse-quent error is produced by allowing these twoquestions to become entangled in the discussion.Especially we shall need to notice the attempts toapply legislative methods of reform to the illswhich belong to the order of Nature.

There is no possible definition of "a poorman." A pauper is a person who cannot earn hisliving; whose producing powers have fallenpositively below his necessary consumption; who


cannot, therefore, pay his way. A human societyneeds the active co-operation and productiveenergy of every person in it. A man who is pres-ent as a consumer, yet who does not contributeeither by land, labor, or capital to the work ofsociety, is a burden. On no sound political theoryought such a person to share in the political powerof the State. He drops out of the ranks of workersand producers. Society must support him. It ac-cepts the burden, but he must be cancelled fromthe ranks of the rulers likewise. So much for thepauper. About him no more need be said. Buthe is not the "poor man." The "poor man" is anelastic term, under which any number of social fal-lacies may be hidden.

Neither is there any possible definition of "theweak." Some are weak in one way, and some inanother; and those who are weak in one sense arestrong in another. In general, however, it maybe said that those whom humanitarians and phi-lanthropists call the weak are the ones throughwhom the productive and conservative forces ofsociety are wasted. They constantly neutralizeand destroy the finest efforts of the wise and in-dustrious, and are a dead-weight on the society inall its struggles to realize any better things.Whether the people who mean no harm, but areweak in the essential powers necessary to the per-formance of one's duties in life, or those who are


malicious and vicious, do the more mischief, is aquestion not easy to answer.

Under the names of the poor and the weak, thenegligent, shiftless, inefficient, silly, and impru-dent are fastened upon the industrious and pru-dent as a responsibility and a duty. On the oneside, the terms are extended to cover the idle, in-temperate, and vicious, who, by the combination,gain credit which they do not deserve, and whichthey could not get if they stood alone. On theother hand, the terms are extended to includewage-receivers of the humblest rank, who are de-graded by the combination. The reader who de-sires to guard himself against fallacies shouldalways scrutinize the terms "poor" and "weak"as used, so as to see which or how many of theseclasses they are made to cover.

The humanitarians, philanthropists, and re-formers, looking at the facts of life as they pre-sent themselves, find enough which is sad andunpromising in the condition of many membersof society. They see wealth and poverty side byside. They note great inequality of social posi-tion and social chances. They eagerly set aboutthe attempt to account for what they see, and todevise schemes for remedying what they do notlike. In their eagerness to recommend the lessfortunate classes to pity and consideration theyforget all about the rights of other classes; they


gloss over all the faults of the classes in question,and they exaggerate their misfortunes and theirvirtues. They invent new theories of property,distorting rights and perpetuating injustice, asanyone is sure to do who sets about the readjust-ment of social relations with the interests of onegroup distinctly before his mind, and the inter-ests of all other groups thrown into the back-ground. When I have read certain of these dis-cussions I have thought that it must be quite dis-reputable to be respectable, quite dishonest toown property, quite unjust to go one's own wayand earn one's own living, and that the only reallyadmirable person was the good-for-nothing. Theman who by his own effort raises himself abovepoverty appears, in these discussions, to be of noaccount. The man who has done nothing to raisehimself above poverty finds that the social doc-tors flock about him, bringing the capital whichthey have collected from the other class, andpromising him the aid of the State to give himwhat the other had to work for. In all theseschemes and projects the organized interventionof society through the State is either planned orhoped for, and the State is thus made to becomethe protector and guardian of certain classes.The agents who are to direct the State action are,of course, the reformers and philanthropists.Their schemes, therefore, may always be reduced


to this type—that A and B decide what C shalldo for D. It will be interesting to inquire, at alater period of our discussion, who C is, and whatthe effect is upon him of all these arrangements.In all the discussions attention is concentrated onA and B, the noble social reformers, and on D,the "poor man." I call C the Forgotten Man, be-cause I have never seen that any notice was takenof him in any of the discussions. When we havedisposed of A, B, and D we can better appreciatethe case of C, and I think that we shall find thathe deserves our attention, for the worth of hischaracter and the magnitude of his unmeritedburdens. Here it may suffice to observe that, onthe theories of the social philosophers to whom Ihave referred, we should get a new maxim of ju-dicious living: Poverty is the best policy. If youget wealth, you will have to support other people;if you do not get wealth, it will be the duty of otherpeople to support you.

No doubt one chief reason for the unclear andcontradictory theories of class relations lies inthe fact that our society, largely controlled in allits organization by one set of doctrines, still con-tains survivals of old social theories which aretotally inconsistent with the former. In theMiddle Ages men were united by custom andprescription into associations, ranks, guilds, andcommunities of various kinds. These ties en-


dured as long as life lasted. Consequently societywas dependent, throughout all its details, onstatus, and the tie, or bond, was sentimental. Inour modern state, and in the United States morethan anywhere else, the social structure is basedon contract, and status is of the least importance.Contract, however, is rational—even rationalis-tic. It is also realistic, cold, and matter-of-fact.A contract relation is based on a sufficient reason,not on custom or prescription. It is not perma-nent. It endures only so long as the reason for itendures. In a state based on contract sentiment isout of place in any public or common affairs. Itis relegated to the sphere of private and personalrelations, where it depends not at all on classtypes, but on personal acquaintance and personalestimates. The sentimentalists among us alwaysseize upon the survivals of the old order. Theywant to save them and restore them. Much of theloose thinking also which troubles us in our socialdiscussions arises from the fact that men do notdistinguish the elements of status and of contractwhich may be found in our society.

Whether social philosophers think it desirableor not, it is out of the question to go back to statusor to the sentimental relations which once unitedbaron and retainer, master and servant, teacherand pupil, comrade and comrade. That we havelost some grace and elegance is undeniable. That


life once held more poetry and romance is trueenough. But it seems impossible that any onewho has studied the matter should doubt that wehave gained immeasurably, and that our farthergains lie in going forward, not in going back-ward. The feudal ties can never be restored. Ifthey could be restored they would bring backpersonal caprice, favoritism, sycophancy, and in-trigue. A society based on contract is a society offree and independent men, who form ties with-out favor or obligation, and co-operate withoutcringing or intrigue. A society based on contract,therefore, gives the utmost room and chance forindividual development, and for all the self-reliance and dignity of a free man. That a societyof free men, co-operating under contract, is byfar the strongest society which has ever yetexisted; that no such society has ever yet developedthe full measure of strength of which it is capable;and that the only social improvements which arenow conceivable lie in the direction of more com-plete realization of a society of free men unitedby contract, are points which cannot be contro-verted. It follows, however, that one man, in afree state, cannot claim help from, and cannot becharged to give help to, another. To understandthe full meaning of this assertion it will be worthwhile to see what a free democracy is.


II.

THAT A FREE MAN IS A SOVEREIGN, BUT THAT ASOVEREIGN CANNOT TAKE ''TIPS."

A FREE man, a free country, liberty, and equalityare terms of constant use among us. They areemployed as watchwords as soon as any socialquestions come into discussion. It is right thatthey should be so used. They ought to containthe broadest convictions and most positive faithsof the nation, and so they ought to be availablefor the decision of questions of detail.

In order, however, that they may be so em-ployed successfully and correctly it is essentialthat the terms should be correctly defined, andthat their popular use should conform to correctdefinitions. No doubt it is generally believedthat the terms are easily understood, and presentno difficulty. Probably the popular notion is,that liberty means doing as one has a mind to,and that it is a metaphysical or sentimental good.A little observation shows that there is no suchthing in this world as doing as one has a mind to.There is no man, from the tramp up to the Presi-dent, the Pope, or the Czar, who can do as he hasa mind to. There never has been any man, fromthe primitive barbarian up to a Humboldt or aDarwin, who could do as he had a mind to. The"Bohemian" who determines to realize some sort


of liberty of this kind accomplishes his purposeonly by sacrificing most of the rights and turninghis back on most of the duties of a civilized man,while filching as much as he can of the advan-tages of living in a civilized state. Moreover,liberty is not a metaphysical or sentimental thingat all. It is positive, practical, and actual. It isproduced and maintained by law and institu-tions, and is, therefore, concrete and historical.Sometimes we speak distinctively of civil liberty;but if there be any liberty other than civil liberty—that is, liberty under law—it is a mere fiction ofthe schoolmen, which they may be left to discuss.

Even as I write, however, I find in a leadingreview the following definition of liberty: Civilliberty is "the result of the restraint exercised bythe sovereign people on the more powerful indi-viduals and classes of the community, preventingthem from availing themselves of the excess oftheir power to the detriment of the other classes."This definition lays the foundation for the resultwhich it is apparently desired to reach, that "agovernment by the people can in no case becomea paternal government, since its law-makers areits mandatories and servants carrying out its will,and not its fathers or its masters." Here we havethe most mischievous fallacy under the generaltopic which I am discussing distinctly formu-lated. In the definition of liberty it will be noticed


that liberty is construed as the act of the sovereignpeople against somebody who must, of course, bedifferentiated from the sovereign people. When-ever "people" is used in this sense for anything lessthan the total population, man, woman, child, andbaby, and whenever the great dogmas which con-tain the word "people" are construed under thelimited definition of "people," there is alwaysfallacy.

History is only a tiresome repetition of onestory. Persons and classes have sought to win posses-sion of the power of the State in order tolive luxuriously out of the earnings of others.Autocracies, aristocracies, theocracies, and allother organizations for holding political power,have exhibited only the same line of action. It isthe extreme of political error to say that if po-litical power is only taken away from generals,nobles, priests, millionnaires, and scholars, andgiven to artisans and peasants, these latter maybe trusted to do only right and justice, and neverto abuse the power; that they will repress all ex-cess in others, and commit none themselves. Theywill commit abuse, if they can and dare, just asothers have done. The reason for the excesses ofthe old governing classes lies in the vices and pas-sions of human nature—cupidity, lust, vindic-tiveness, ambition, and vanity. These vices areconfined to no nation, class, or age. They appear


in the church, the academy, the workshop, andthe hovel, as well as in the army or the palace.They have appeared in autocracies, aristocracies,theocracies, democracies, and ochlocracies, allalike. The only thing which has ever restrainedthese vices of human nature in those who hadpolitical power is law sustained by impersonalinstitutions. If political power be given to themasses who have not hitherto had it, nothing willstop them from abusing it but laws and institu-tions. To say that a popular government cannotbe paternal is to give it a charter that it can do nowrong. The trouble is that a democratic govern-ment is in greater danger than any other of be-coming paternal, for it is sure of itself, and readyto undertake anything, and its power is excessiveand pitiless against dissentients.

What history shows is, that rights are safe onlywhen guaranteed against all arbitrary power,and all class and personal interest. Around anautocrat there has grown up an oligarchy of priestsand soldiers. In time a class of nobles has beendeveloped, who have broken into the oligarchyand made an aristocracy. Later the demos, risinginto an independent development, has assumedpower and made a democracy. Then the mob of acapital city has overwhelmed the democracy in anochlocracy. Then the "idol of the people," or themilitary "savior of society," or both in one, has


made himself autocrat, and the same old viciousround has recommenced. Where in all this isliberty? There has been no liberty at all, savewhere a state has known how to break out, once forall, from this delusive round; to set barriers toselfishness, cupidity, envy, and lust, in all classes,from highest to lowest, by laws and institutions;and to create great organs of civil life which caneliminate, as far as possible, arbitrary and personalelements from the adjustment of interests and thedefinition of rights. Liberty is an affair of laws andinstitutions which bring rights and duties intoequilibrium. It is not at all an affair of selectingthe proper class to rule.

The notion of a free state is entirely modern.It has been developed with the development ofthe middle class, and with the growth of a com-mercial and industrial civilization. Horror athuman slavery is not a century old as a commonsentiment in a civilized state. The idea of the"free man," as we understand it, is the product ofa revolt against mediaeval and feudal ideas; andour notion of equality, when it is true and prac-tical, can be explained only by that revolt. It wasin England that the modern idea found birth. Ithas been strengthened by the industrial and com-mercial development of that country. It has beeninherited by all the English-speaking nations,who have made liberty real because they have in-


herited it, not as a notion, but as a body of insti-tutions. It has been borrowed and imitated bythe military and police state of the Europeancontinent so fast as they have felt the influence ofthe expanding industrial civilization; but theyhave realized it only imperfectly, because theyhave no body of local institutions or traditions,and it remains for them as yet too much a matterof "declarations" and pronunciamentos.

The notion of civil liberty which we have in-herited is that of a status created for the individu-al by laws and institutions, the effect of which isthat each man is guaranteed the use of all his ownpowers exclusively for his own welfare. It is notat all a matter of elections, or universal suffrage,or democracy. All institutions are to be tested bythe degree to which they guarantee liberty. It isnot to be admitted for a moment that liberty is ameans to social ends, and that it may be impairedfor major considerations. Any one who so argueshas lost the bearing and relation of all the factsand factors in a free state. A human being has alife to live, a career to run. He is a centre ofpowers to work, and of capacities to suffer. Whathis powers may be—whether they can carry himfar or not; what his chances may be, whetherwide or restricted; what his fortune may be,whether to suffer much or little—are questions ofhis personal destiny which he must work out and


endure as he can; but for all that concerns thebearing of the society and its institutions uponthat man, and upon the sum of happiness towhich he can attain during his life on earth, theproduct of all history and all philosophy up tothis time is summed up in the doctrine, that heshould be left free to do the most for himself thathe can, and should be guaranteed the exclusiveenjoyment of all that he does. If the society—that is to say, in plain terms, if his fellow-men,either individually, by groups, or in a mass—im-pinge upon him otherwise than to surround himwith neutral conditions of security, they must doso under the strictest responsibility to justifythemselves. Jealousy and prejudice against allsuch interferences are high political virtues in afree man. It is not at all the function of the Stateto make men happy. They must make themselveshappy in their own way, and at their own risk.The functions of the State lie entirely in the con-ditions or chances under which the pursuit of happi-ness is carried on, so far as those conditionsor chances can be affected by civil organization.Hence, liberty for labor and security for earn-ings are the ends for which civil institutions exist,not means which may be employed for ulteriorends.

Now, the cardinal doctrine of any sound po-litical system is, that rights and duties should be


in equilibrium. A monarchical or aristocraticsystem is not immoral, if the rights and duties ofpersons and classes are in equilibrium, althoughthe rights and duties of different persons andclasses are unequal. An immoral political systemis created whenever there are privileged classes—that is, classes who have arrogated to them-selves rights while throwing the duties uponothers. In a democracy all have equal politicalrights. That is the fundamental political prin-ciple. A democracy, then, becomes immoral, ifall have not equal political duties. This is un-questionably the doctrine which needs to be re-iterated and inculcated beyond all others, if thedemocracy is to be made sound and permanent.Our orators and writers never speak of it, and donot seem often to know anything about it; but thereal danger of democracy is, that the classeswhich have the power under it will assume allthe rights and reject all the duties—that is, thatthey will use the political power to plunderthose-who-have. Democracy, in order to be trueto itself, and to develop into a sound working sys-tem, must oppose the same cold resistance to anyclaims for favor on the ground of poverty, as onthe ground of birth and rank. It can no moreadmit to public discussion, as within the rangeof possible action, any schemes for coddling andhelping wage-receivers than it could entertain


schemes for restricting political power to wage-payers. It must put down schemes for making"the rich" pay for whatever "the poor" want, justas it tramples on the old theories that only therich are fit to regulate society. One needs but towatch our periodical literature to see the dangerthat democracy will be construed as a system offavoring a new privileged class of the many andthe poor.

Holding in mind, now, the notions of libertyand democracy as we have defined them, we seethat it is not altogether a matter of fanfaronadewhen the American citizen calls himself a "sover-eign." A member of a free democracy is, in asense, a sovereign. He has no superior. He hasreached his sovereignty, however, by a processof reduction and division of power which leaveshim no inferior. It is very grand to call one's selfa sovereign, but it is greatly to the purpose to no-tice that the political responsibilities of the freeman have been intensified and aggregated just inproportion as political rights have been reducedand divided. Many monarchs have been in-capable of sovereignty and unfit for it. Placed inexalted situations, and inheritors of grand oppor-tunities they have exhibited only their own im-becility and vice. The reason was, because theythought only of the gratification of their ownvanity, and not at all of their duty. The free man


who steps forward to claim his inheritance andendowment as a free and equal member of a greatcivil body must understand that his duties and re-sponsibilities are measured to him by the samescale as his rights and his powers. He wants to besubject to no man. He wants to be equal to hisfellows, as all sovereigns are equal. So be it; buthe cannot escape the deduction that he can callno man to his aid. The other sovereigns will notrespect his independence if he becomes depen-dent, and they cannot respect his equality if hesues for favors. The free man in a free democ-racy, when he cut off all the ties which mightpull him down, severed also all the ties by whichhe might have made others pull him up. Hemust take all the consequences of his new status.He is, in a certain sense, an isolated man. Thefamily tie does not bring to him disgrace for themisdeeds of his relatives, as it once would havedone, but neither does it furnish him with thesupport which it once would have given. Therelations of men are open and free, but they arealso loose. A free man in a free democracyderogates from his rank if he takes a favor forwhich he does not render an equivalent.

A free man in a free democracy has no dutywhatever toward other men of the same rank andstanding, except respect, courtesy, and good-will.We cannot say that there are no classes, when we


are speaking politically, and then say that thereare classes, when we are telling A what it is hisduty to do for B. In a free state every man is heldand expected to take care of himself and his fam-ily, to make no trouble for his neighbor, and tocontribute his full share to public interests andcommon necessities. If he fails in this he throwsburdens on others. He does not thereby acquirerights against the others. On the contrary, heonly accumulates obligations toward them; andif he is allowed to make his deficiencies a groundof new claims, he passes over into the position ofa privileged or petted person—emancipated fromduties, endowed with claims. This is the inevi-table result of combining democratic politicaltheories with humanitarian social theories. Itwould be aside from my present purpose to show,but it is worth noticing in passing, that one resultof such inconsistency must surely be to underminedemocracy, to increase the power of wealth in thedemocracy, and to hasten the subjection of de-mocracy to plutocracy; for a man who accepts anyshare which he has not earned in another man'scapital cannot be an independent citizen.

It is often affirmed that the educated andwealthy have an obligation to those who haveless education and property, just because the lat-ter have political equality with the former, andoracles and warnings are uttered about what will


happen if the uneducated classes who have thesuffrage are not instructed at the care and ex-pense of the other classes. In this view of thematter universal suffrage is not a measure forstrengthening the State by bringing to its supportthe aid and affection of all classes, but it is a newburden, and, in fact, a peril. Those who favor itrepresent it as a peril. This doctrine is politicallyimmoral and vicious. When a community estab-lishes universal suffrage, it is as if it said to eachnew-comer, or to each young man: "We give youevery chance that any one else has. Now comealong with us; take care of yourself, and con-tribute your share to the burdens which we allhave to bear in order to support social institu-tions." Certainly, liberty, and universal suffrage,and democracy are not pledges of care and pro-tection, but they carry with them the exaction ofindividual responsibility. The State gives equalrights and equal chances just because it does notmean to give anything else. It sets each man onhis feet, and gives him leave to run, just becauseit does not mean to carry him. Having obtainedhis chances, he must take upon himself the re-sponsibility for his own success or failure. It is apure misfortune to the community, and onewhich will redound to its injury, if any man hasbeen endowed with political power who is aheavier burden then than he was before; but it


cannot be said that there is any new duty createdfor the good citizens toward the bad by the factthat the bad citizens are a harm to the State.


III.

THAT IT IS NOT WICKED TO BE RICH; NAY, EVEN, THATIT IS NOT WICKED TO BE RICHER THAN ONE'S NEIGHBOR

I HAVE before me a newspaper slip on which awriter expresses the opinion that no one shouldbe allowed to possess more than one million dol-lars' worth of property. Alongside of it is an-other slip, on which another writer expresses theopinion that the limit should be five millions. Ido not know what the comparative wealth of thetwo writers is, but it is interesting to notice thatthere is a wide margin between their ideas ofhow rich they would allow their fellow-citizensto become, and of the point at which they ("theState," of course) would step in to rob a man ofhis earnings. These two writers only represent agreat deal of crude thinking and declaimingwhich is in fashion. I never have known a manof ordinary common-sense who did not urgeupon his sons, from earliest childhood, doctrinesof economy and the practice of accumulation. Agood father believes that he does wisely to en-courage enterprise, productive skill, prudentself-denial, and judicious expenditure on thepart of his son. The object is to teach the boy toaccumulate capital. If, however, the boy shouldread many of the diatribes against "the rich"which are afloat in our literature; if he should


read or hear some of the current discussion about"capital"; and if, with the ingenuousness ofyouth, he should take these productions at theirliteral sense, instead of discounting them, as hisfather does, he would be forced to believe that hewas on the path of infamy when he was earningand saving capital. It is worth while to considerwhich we mean or what we mean. Is it wicked tobe rich? Is it mean to be a capitalist? If thequestion is one of degree only, and it is right to berich up to a certain point and wrong to be richer,how shall we find the point? Certainly, for prac-tical purposes, we ought to define the pointnearer than between one and five millions ofdollars.

There is an old ecclesiastical prejudice infavor of the poor and against the rich. In dayswhen men acted by ecclesiastical rules these preju-dices produced waste of capital, and helpedmightily to replunge Europe into barbarism.The prejudices are not yet dead, but they survivein our society as ludicrous contradictions and in-consistencies. One thing must be granted to therich: they are good-natured. Perhaps they donot recognize themselves, for a rich man is evenharder to define than a poor one. It is not un-common to hear a clergyman utter from the pulpitall the old prejudice in favor of the poor andagainst the rich, while asking the rich to do


something for the poor; and the rich comply,without apparently having their feelings hurt atall by the invidious comparison. We all agreethat he is a good member of society who workshis way up from poverty to wealth, but as soon ashe has worked his way up we begin to regard himwith suspicion, as a dangerous member of society.A newspaper starts the silly fallacy that "the richare rich because the poor are industrious," and itis copied from one end of the country to the otheras if it were a brilliant apothegm. "Capital" isdenounced by writers and speakers who havenever taken the trouble to find out what capitalis, and who use the word in two or three differentsenses in as many pages. Labor organizations areformed, not to employ combined effort for a com-mon object, but to indulge in declamation anddenunciation, and especially to furnish an easyliving to some officers who do not want to work.People who have rejected dogmatic religion, andretained only a residuum of religious sentimen-talism, find a special field in the discussion of therights of the poor and the duties of the rich. Wehave denunciations of banks, corporations, andmonopolies, which denunciations encourage onlyhelpless rage and animosity, because they are notcontrolled by any definitions or limitations, or byany distinctions between what is indispensablynecessary and what is abuse, between what is es-


tablished in the order of nature and what islegislative error. Think, for instance, of a journalwhich makes it its special business to denouncemonopolies, yet favors a protective tariff, and hasnot a word to say against trades-unions or patents!Think of public teachers who say that the farmeris ruined by the cost of transportation, when theymean that he cannot make any profits because hisfarm is too far from the market, and who denouncethe railroad because it does not correct for thefarmer, at the expense of its stockholders, the dis-advantage which lies in the physical situation ofthe farm! Think of that construction of this situ-ation which attributes all the trouble to the greedof "moneyed corporations!" Think of the piles ofrubbish that one has read about corners, andwatering stocks, and selling futures!

Undoubtedly there are, in connection witheach of these things, cases of fraud, swindling,and other financial crimes; that is to say, thegreed and selfishness of men are perpetual. Theyput on new phases, they adjust themselves to newforms of business, and constantly devise newmethods of fraud and robbery, just as burglarsdevise new artifices to circumvent every new pre-caution of the lock-makers. The criminal lawneeds to be improved to meet new forms ofcrime, but to denounce financial devices whichare useful and legitimate because use is made of


them for fraud, is ridiculous and unworthy ofthe age in which we live. Fifty years ago goodold English Tories used to denounce all joint-stock companies in the same way, and for similarreasons.

All the denunciations and declamations whichhave been referred to are made in the interest of"the poor man." His name never ceases to echoin the halls of legislation, and he is the excuseand reason for all the acts which are passed. Heis never forgotten in poetry, sermon, or essay. Hisinterest is invoked to defend every doubtful pro-cedure and every questionable institution. Yetwhere is he? Who is he? Who ever saw him?When did he ever get the benefit of any of thenumberless efforts in his behalf? When, rather,were his name and interest ever invoked, when,upon examination, it did not plainly appear thatsomebody else was to win—somebody who was fartoo "smart" ever to be poor, far too lazy ever to berich by industry and economy?

A great deal is said about the unearned incre-ment from land, especially with a view to thelarge gains of landlords in old countries. Theunearned increment from land has indeed madethe position of an English land-owner, for thelast two hundred years, the most fortunate thatany class of mortals ever has enjoyed; but thepresent moment, when the rent of agricultural


land in England is declining under the competi-tion of American land, is not well chosen for at-tacking the old advantage. Furthermore, the un-earned increment from land appears in theUnited States as a gain to the first comers, whohave here laid the foundations of a new State.Since the land is a monopoly, the unearned incre-ment lies in the laws of Nature. Then the onlyquestion is, Who shall have it?—the man whohas the ownership by prescription, or some or allothers? It is a beneficent incident of the owner-ship of land that a pioneer who reduces it to use,and helps to lay the foundations of a new State,finds a profit in the increasing value of land asthe new State grows up. It would be unjust totake that profit away from him, or from any suc-cessor to whom he has sold it. Moreover, there isan unearned increment on capital and on labor,due to the presence, around the capitalist and thelaborer, of a great, industrious, and prosperoussociety. A tax on land and a succession or pro-bate duty on capital might be perfectly justifiedby these facts. Unquestionably capital accumu-lates with a rapidity which follows in some highseries the security, good government, peacefulorder of the State in which it is employed; and ifthe State steps in, on the death of the holder, toclaim a share of the inheritance, such a claimmay be fully justified. The laborer likewise


gains by carrying on his labor in a strong, highlycivilized, and well-governed State far more thanhe could gain with equal industry on the frontieror in the midst of anarchy. He gains greater re-muneration for his services, and he also shares inthe enjoyment of all that accumulated capital ofa wealthy community which is public or semi-public in its nature.

It is often said that the earth belongs to therace, as if raw land was a boon, or gift. Raw landis only a chance to prosecute the struggle forexistence, and the man who tries to earn a livingby the subjugation of raw land makes that at-tempt under the most unfavorable conditions, forland can be brought into use only by great hard-ship and exertion. The boon, or gift, would be toget some land after somebody else had made it fitfor use. Any one in the world today can haveraw land by going to it; but there are millionswho would regard it simply as "transportationfor life," if they were forced to go and live onnew land and get their living out of it. Privateownership of land is only division of labor. If itis true in any sense that we all own the soil incommon, the best use we can make of our undi-vided interests is to vest them all gratuitously(just as we now do) in any who will assume thefunction of directly treating the soil, while therest of us take other shares in the social organiza-


tion. The reason is, because in this way we all getmore than we would if each one owned someland and used it directly. Supply and demandnow determine the distribution of population be-tween the direct use of land and other pursuits;and if the total profits and chances of land-cul-ture were reduced by taking all the "unearnedincrement" in taxes, there would simply be a re-distribution of industry until the profits of land-culture, less taxes and without chances from in-creasing value, were equal to the profits of otherpursuits under exemption from taxation.

It is remarkable that jealousy of individualproperty in land often goes along with very exag-gerated doctrines of tribal or national propertyin land. We are told that John, James, and Wil-liam ought not to possess part of the earth's sur-face because it belongs to all men; but it is heldthat Egyptians, Nicaraguans, or Indians havesuch right to the territory which they occupy,that they may bar the avenues of commerce andcivilization if they choose, and that it is wrong tooverride their prejudices or expropriate theirland. The truth is, that the notion that the raceown the earth has practical meaning only for thelatter class of cases.

The great gains of a great capitalist in a mod-ern state must be put under the head of wagesof superintendence. Anyone who believes that


any great enterprise of an industrial charactercan be started without labor must have littleexperience of life. Let anyone try to get a rail-road built, or to start a factory and win reputa-tion for its products, or to start a school and wina reputation for it, or to found a newspaper andmake it a success, or to start any other enterprise,and he will find what obstacles must be over-come, what risks must be taken, what persever-ance and courage are required, what foresightand sagacity are necessary. Especially in a newcountry, where many tasks are waiting, whereresources are strained to the utmost all the time,the judgment, courage, and perseverance re-quired to organize new enterprizes and carrythem to success are sometimes heroic. Personswho possess the necessary qualifications obtaingreat rewards. They ought to do so. It is foolishto rail at them. Then, again, the ability to organ-ize and conduct industrial, commercial, or finan-cial enterprises is rare; the great captains of in-dustry are as rare as great generals. The greatweakness of all co-operative enterprises is in thematter of supervision. Men of routine or menwho can do what they are told are not hard tofind; but men who can think and plan and tellthe routine men what to do are very rare. Theyare paid in proportion to the supply and demandof them.


If Mr. A. T. Stewart made a great fortune bycollecting and bringing dry-goods to the peopleof the United States, he did so because he under-stood how to do that thing better than any otherman of his generation. He proved it, because hecarried the business through commercial crisesand war, and kept increasing its dimensions. If,when he died, he left no competent successor, thebusiness must break up, and pass into new organi-zation in the hands of other men. Some have saidthat Mr. Stewart made his fortune out of thosewho worked for him or with him. But wouldthose persons have been able to come together,organize themselves, and earn what they did earnwithout him? Not at all. They would have beencomparatively helpless. He and they togetherformed a great system of factories, stores, trans-portation, under his guidance and judgment. Itwas for the benefit of all; but he contributed to itwhat no one else was able to contribute—the oneguiding mind which made the whole thing pos-sible. In no sense whatever does a man who accu-mulates a fortune by legitimate industry exploithis employe's, or make his capital "out o f any-body else. The wealth which he wins would notbe but for him.

The aggregation of large fortunes is not at alla thing to be regretted. On the contrary, it is anecessary condition of many forms of social ad-


vance. If we should set a limit to the accumula-tion of wealth, we should say to our most valu-able producers, "We do not want you to do us theservices which you best understand how to per-form, beyond a certain point." It would be likekilling off our generals in war. A great deal issaid, in the cant of a certain school about "ethicalviews of wealth," and we are told that some daymen will be found of such public spirit that, afterthey have accumulated a few millions, they willbe willing to go on and labor simply for thepleasure of paying the taxes of their fellow-citizens. Possibly this is true. It is a prophecy.It is as impossible to deny it as it is silly to affirmit. For if a time ever comes when there are menof this kind, the men of that age will arrange theiraffairs accordingly. There are no such men now,and those of us who live now cannot arrange ouraffairs by what men will be a hundred generationshence.

There is every indication that we are to seenew developments of the power of aggregatedcapital to serve civilization, and that the new de-velopments will be made right here in America.Joint-stock companies are yet in their infancy,and incorporated capital, instead of being a thingwhich can be overturned, is a thing which is be-coming more and more indispensable. I shallhave something to say in another chapter about


the necessary checks and guarantees, in a po-litical point of view, which must be established.Economically speaking, aggregated capital will bemore and more essential to the performanceof our social tasks. Furthermore, it seems to mecertain that all aggregated capital will fall moreand more under personal control. Each greatcompany will be known as controlled by one mas-ter mind. The reason for this lies in the great su-periority of personal management over manage-ment by boards and committees. This tendencyis in the public interest, for it is in the directionof more satisfactory responsibility. The greathindrance to the development of this continenthas lain in the lack of capital. The capital whichwe have had has been wasted by division and dis-sipation, and by injudicious applications. Thewaste of capital, in proportion to the total capi-tal, in this country between 1800 and 1850, in theattempts which were made to establish means ofcommunication and transportation, was enor-mous. The waste was chiefly due to ignoranceand bad management, especially to State controlof public works. We are to see the developmentof the country pushed forward at an unprece-dented rate by an aggregation of capital, and asystematic application of it under the direction ofcompetent men. This development will be for thebenefit of all, and it will enable each one of


us, in his measure and way, to increase his wealth.We may each of us go ahead to do so, and wehave every reason to rejoice in each other's pros-perity. There ought to be no laws to guaranteeproperty against the folly of its possessors. Inthe absence of such laws, capital inherited by aspendthrift will be squandered and re-accumu-lated in the hands of men who are fit and com-petent to hold it. So it should be, and under sucha state of things there is no reason to desire tolimit the property which any man may acquire.


IV.

ON THE REASONS WHY MAN IS NOTALTOGETHER A BRUTE.

THE Arabs have a story of a man who desiredto test which of his three sons loved him most.He sent them out to see which of the three wouldbring him the most valuable present. The threesons met in a distant city, and compared the giftsthey had found. The first had a carpet on whichhe could transport himself and others whitherso-ever he would. The second had a medicinewhich would cure any disease. The third had aglass in which he could see what was going on atany place he might name. The third used hisglass to see what was going on at home: he sawhis father ill in bed. The first transported allthree to their home on his carpet. The second ad-ministered the medicine and saved the father'slife. The perplexity of the father when he had todecide which son's gift had been of the mostvalue to him illustrates very fairly the difficultyof saying whether land, labor, or capital is mostessential to production. No production is possiblewithout the co-operation of all three.

We know that men once lived on the spontane-ous fruits of the earth, just as other animals do.In that stage of existence a man was just like thebrutes. His existence was at the sport of Nature.


He got what he could by way of food, and atewhat he could get, but he depended on findingwhat Nature gave. He could wrest nothing fromNature; he could make her produce nothing;and he had only his limbs with which to appro-priate what she offered. His existence was almostentirely controlled by accident; he possessed nocapital; he lived out of his product, and produc-tion had only the two elements of land and laborof appropriation. At the present time man is anintelligent animal. He knows something of thelaws of Nature; he can avail himself of what isfavorable, and avert what is unfavorable, in na-ture, to a certain extent; he has narrowed thesphere of accident, and in some respects reducedit to computations which lessen its importance;he can bring the productive forces of Nature intoservice, and make them produce food, clothing,and shelter. How has the change been broughtabout? The answer is, By capital. If we cancome to an understanding of what capital is, andwhat a place it occupies in civilization, it willclear up our ideas about a great many of theseschemes and philosophies which are put forwardto criticise social arrangements, or as a basis ofproposed reforms.

The first beginnings of capital are lost in theobscurity which covers all the germs of civiliza-tion. The more one comes to understand the case


of the primitive man, the more wonderful itseems that man ever started on the road to civili-zation. Among the lower animals we find someinchoate forms of capital, but from them to thelowest forms of real capital there is a great stride.It does not seem possible that man could havetaken that stride without intelligent reflection,and everything we know about the primitive manshows us that he did not reflect. No doubt acci-dent controlled the first steps. They may havebeen won and lost again many times. There wasone natural element which man learned to use soearly that we cannot find any trace of him whenhe had it not—fire. There was one tool-weaponin nature—the flint. Beyond the man who was sofar superior to the brutes that he knew how to usefire and had the use of flints we cannot go. A manof lower civilization than that was so like thebrutes that, like them, he could leave no sign ofhis presence on the earth save his bones.

The man who had a flint no longer need be aprey to a wild animal, but could make a prey ofit. He could get meat food. He who had meatfood could provide his food in such time as to getleisure to improve his flint tools. He could getskins for clothing, bones for needles, tendons forthread. He next devised traps and snares bywhich to take animals alive. He domesticatedthem, and lived on their increase. He made them


beasts of draught and burden, and so got the useof a natural force. He who had beasts of draughtand burden could make a road and trade, and soget the advantage of all soils and all climates. Hecould make a boat, and use the winds as force.He now had such tools, science, and skill that hecould till the ground, and make it give him morefood. So from the first step that man made abovethe brute the thing which made his civilizationpossible was capital. Every step of capital wonmade the next step possible, up to the presenthour. Not a step has been or can be made with-out capital. It is labor accumulated, multipliedinto itself—raised to a higher power, as themathematicians say. The locomotive is only pos-sible today because, from the flint-knife up, oneachievement has been multiplied into anotherthrough thousands of generations. We cannotnow stir a step in our life without capital. Wecannot build a school, a hospital, a church, oremploy a missionary society, without capital, anymore than we could build a palace or a factorywithout capital. We have ourselves, and we havethe earth; the thing which limits what we can dois the third requisite—capital. Capital is force,human energy stored or accumulated, and veryfew people ever come to appreciate its impor-tance to civilized life. We get so used to it thatwe do not see its use.


The industrial organization of society hasundergone a development with the developmentof capital. Nothing has ever made men spreadover the earth and develop the arts but neces-sity—that is, the need of getting a living, and thehardships endured in trying to meet that need.The human race has had to pay with its blood atevery step. It has had to buy its experience. Thething which has kept up the necessity of moremigration or more power over Nature has beenincrease of population. Where population hasbecome chronically excessive, and where thepopulation has succumbed and sunk, instead ofdeveloping energy enough for a new advance,there races have degenerated and settled intopermanent barbarism. They have lost the powerto rise again, and have made no inventions.Where life has been so easy and ample that itcost no effort, few improvements have beenmade. It is in the middle range, with enoughsocial pressure to make energy needful, and notenough social pressure to produce despair, thatthe most progress has been made.

At first all labor was forced. Men forced it onwomen, who were drudges and slaves. Men re-served for themselves only the work of huntingor war. Strange and often horrible shadows ofall the old primitive barbarism are now to befound in the slums of great cities, and in the


lowest groups of men, in the midst of civilizednations. Men impose labor on women in somesuch groups today. Through various grades ofslavery, serfdom, villeinage, and through variousorganizations of castes and guilds, the industrialorganization has been modified and developedup to the modern system. Some men have beenfound to denounce and deride the modern sys-tem—what they call the capitalist system. Themodern system is based on liberty, on contract,and on private property. It has been reachedthrough a gradual emancipation of the mass ofmankind from old bonds both to Nature and totheir fellow-men. Village communities, whichexcite the romantic admiration of some writers,were fit only for a most elementary and unorgan-ized society. They were fit neither to cope withthe natural difficulties of winning much foodfrom little land, nor to cope with the malice ofmen. Hence they perished. In the modern so-ciety the organization of labor is high. Some areland-owners and agriculturists, some are trans-porters, bankers, merchants, teachers; some ad-vance the product by manufacture. It is a systemof division of functions, which is being refinedall the time by subdivision of trade and occupa-tion, and by the differentiation of new trades.

The ties by which all are held together arethose of free co-operation and contract. If we


look back for comparison to anything of whichhuman history gives us a type or experiment, wesee that the modern free system of industry offersto every living human being chances of happi-ness indescribably in excess of what former gener-ations have possessed. It offers no such guar-antees as were once possessed by some, that theyshould in no case suffer. We have an instanceright at hand. The Negroes, once slaves in theUnited States, used to be assured care, medicine,and support; but they spent their efforts, andother men took the products. They have been setfree. That means only just this: they now workand hold their own products, and are assured ofnothing but what they earn. In escaping fromsubjection they have lost claims. Care, medicine,and support they get, if they earn it. Will anyone say that the black men have not gained? Willany one deny that individual black men mayseem worse off? Will any one allow such observa-tions to blind them to the true significance of thechange? If any one thinks that there are orought to be somewhere in society guarantees thatno man shall suffer hardship, let him understandthat there can be no such guarantees, unless othermen give them—that is, unless we go back toslavery, and make one man's effort conduce toanother man's welfare. Of course, if a specula-tor breaks loose from science and history, and


plans out an ideal society in which all the condi-tions are to be different, he is a law-giver orprophet, and those may listen to him who haveleisure.

The modern industrial system is a great socialco-operation. It is automatic and instinctive inits operation. The adjustments of the organs takeplace naturally. The parties are held together byimpersonal force—supply and demand. Theymay never see each other; they may be separatedby half the circumference of the globe. Theirco-operation in the social effort is combined anddistributed again by financial machinery, and therights and interests are measured and satisfiedwithout any special treaty or convention at all.All this goes on so smoothly and naturally thatwe forget to notice it. We think that it costs noth-ing—does itself, as it were. The truth is, that thisgreat co-operative effort is one of the greatproducts of civilization—one of its costliestproducts and highest refinements, because here,more than anywhere else, intelligence comes in,but intelligence so clear and correct that it doesnot need expression.

Now, by the great social organization thewhole civilized body (and soon we shall say thewhole human race) keeps up a combined assaulton Nature for the means of subsistence. Civi-lized society may be said to be maintained in an


unnatural position, at an elevation above theearth, or above the natural state of human society.It can be maintained there only by an efficientorganization of the social effort and by capital.At its elevation it supports far greater numbersthan it could support on any lower stage. Mem-bers of society who come into it as it is todaycan live only by entering into the organization.If numbers increase, the organization must beperfected, and capital must increase—i.e., powerover Nature. If the society does not keep up itspower, if it lowers its organization or wastes itscapital, it falls back toward the natural state ofbarbarism from which it rose, and in so doing itmust sacrifice thousands of its weakest members.Hence human society lives at a constant strainforward and upward, and those who have mostinterest that this strain be successfully kept up,that the social organization be perfected, andthat capital be increased, are those at the bottom.

The notion of property which prevails amongus today is, that a man has a right to the thingwhich he has made by his labor. This is a verymodern and highly civilized conception. Singu-larly enough, it has been brought forward dog-matically to prove that property in land is notreasonable, because man did not make land. Aman cannot "make" a chattel or product of anykind whatever without first appropriating land,


so as to get the ore, wood, wool, cotton, fur, orother raw material. All that men ever appro-priate land for is to get out of it the natural ma-terials on which they exercise their industry. Ap-propriation, therefore, precedes labor-produc-tion, both historically and logically. Primitiveraces regarded, and often now regard, appro-priation as the best title to property. As usual,they are logical. It is the simplest and most nat-ural mode of thinking to regard a thing as be-longing to that man who has, by carrying, wear-ing, or handling it, associated it for a certain timewith his person. I once heard a little boy of fouryears say to his mother, "Why is not this pencilmine now? It used to be my brother's, but I havebeen using it all day." He was reasoning withthe logic of his barbarian ancestors. The reasonfor allowing private property in land is, that twomen cannot eat the same loaf of bread. If A hastaken a piece of land, and is at work getting hisloaf out of it, B cannot use the same land at thesame time for the same purpose. Priority of ap-propriation is the only title of right which cansupersede the title of greater force. The reasonwhy man is not altogether a brute is, because hehas learned to accumulate capital, to use capital,to advance to a higher organization of society, todevelop a completer co-operation, and so to wingreater and greater control over Nature.


It is a great delusion to look about us and selectthose men who occupy the most advanced posi-tion in respect to worldly circumstances as thestandard to which we think that all might be andought to be brought. All the complaints andcriticisms about the inequality of men apply toinequalities in property, luxury, and creaturecomforts, not to knowledge, virtue, or even physi-cal beauty and strength. But it is plainly impos-sible that we should all attain to equality on thelevel of the best of us. The history of civilizationshows us that the human race has by no meansmarched on in a solid and even phalanx. It hashad its advance-guard, its rear-guard, and itsstragglers. It presents us the same picture today;for it embraces every grade, from the most civi-lized nations down to the lowest surviving typesof barbarians. Furthermore, if we analyze thesociety of the most civilized state, especially inone of the great cities where the highest triumphsof culture are presented, we find survivals ofevery form of barbarism and lower civilization.Hence, those who today enjoy the most completeemancipation from the hardships of human life,and the greatest command over the conditions ofexistence, simply show us the best that man hasyet been able to do. Can we all reach that stand-ard by wishing for it? Can we all vote it to eachother? If we pull down those who are most for-


tunate and successful, shall we not by that veryact defeat our own object? Those who are tryingto reason out any issue from this tangle of falsenotions of society and of history are only involv-ing themselves in hopeless absurdities and con-tradictions. If any man is not in the first rankwho might get there, let him put forth newenergy and take his place. If any man is not inthe front rank, although he has done his best,how can he be advanced at all? Certainly in noway save by pushing down any one else who isforced to contribute to his advancement.

It is often said that the mass of mankind areyet buried in poverty, ignorance, and brutish-ness. It would be a correct statement of the factsintended, from an historical and sociologicalpoint of view, to say, Only a small fraction of thehuman race have as yet, by thousands of years ofstruggle, been partially emancipated from pover-ty, ignorance, and brutishness. When once thissimple correction is made in the general point ofview, we gain most important corollaries for allthe subordinate questions about the relations ofraces, nations, and classes.


V.

THAT WE MUST HAVE FEW MEN, IF WEWANT STRONG MEN.

IN our modern revolt against the mediaevalnotions of hereditary honor and hereditaryshame we have gone too far, for we have lost theappreciation of the true dependence of childrenon parents. We have a glib phrase about "theaccident of birth," but it would puzzle anybodyto tell what it means. If A takes B to wife, it isnot an accident that he took B rather than C, D,or any other woman; and if A and B have achild, X, that child's ties to ancestry and pos-terity, and his relations to the human race, intowhich he has been born through A and B, are inno sense accidental. The child's interest in thequestion whether A should have married B or Cis as material as anything one can conceive of,and the fortune which made X the son of A, andnot of another man, is the most material fact inhis destiny. If those things were better under-stood public opinion about the ethics of marriageand parentage would undergo a most salutarychange. In following the modern tendency ofopinion we have lost sight of the due responsi-bility of parents, and our legislation has thrownupon some parents the responsibility, not only oftheir own children, but of those of others.


The relation of parents and children is theonly case of sacrifice in Nature. Elsewhereequivalence of exchange prevails rigorously.The parents, however, hand down to their chil-dren the return for all which they had themselvesinherited from their ancestors. They ought tohand down the inheritance with increase. It isby this relation that the human race keeps up aconstantly advancing contest with Nature. Thepenalty of ceasing an aggressive behavior towardthe hardships of life on the part of mankind is,that we go backward. We cannot stand still.Now, parental affection constitutes the personalmotive which drives every man in his place to anaggressive and conquering policy toward thelimiting conditions of human life. Affection forwife and children is also the greatest motive tosocial ambition and personal self-respect—that is,to what is technically called a "high standard ofliving."

Some people are greatly shocked to read ofwhat is called Malthusianism, when they read itin a book, who would be greatly ashamed ofthemselves if they did not practise Malthusian-ism in their own affairs. Among respectablepeople a man who took upon himself the caresand expenses of a family before he had secured aregular trade or profession, or had accumulatedsome capital, and who allowed his wife to lose


caste, and his children to be dirty, ragged, andneglected, would be severely blamed by the pub-lic opinion of the community. The standard ofliving which a man makes for himself and hisfamily, if he means to earn it, and does not for-mulate it as a demand which he means to makeon his fellow-men, is a gauge of his self-respect;and a high standard of living is the moral limitwhich an intelligent body of men sets for itselffar inside of the natural limits of the sustainingpower of the land, which latter limit is set bystarvation, pestilence, and war. But a high stand-ard of living restrains population; that is, if wehold up to the higher standard of men, we musthave fewer of them.

Taking men as they have been and are, theyare subjects of passion, emotion, and instinct.Only the elite of the race has yet been raised tothe point where reason and conscience can evencurb the lower motive forces. For the mass ofmankind, therefore, the price of better things istoo severe, for that price can be summed up inone word—self-control. The consequence is, thatfor all but a few of us the limit of attainment inlife in the best case is to live out our term, to payour debts, to place three or four children in a posi-tion to support themselves in a position as goodas the father's was, and there to make the accountbalance.


Since we must all live, in the civilized organi-zation of society, on the existing capital; andsince those who have only come out even have notaccumulated any of the capital, have no claim toown it, and cannot leave it to their children; andsince those who own land have parted with theircapital for it, which capital has passed backthrough other hands into industrial employment,how is a man who has inherited neither land norcapital to secure a living? He must give his pro-ductive energy to apply capital to land for thefurther production of wealth, and he must securea share in the existing capital by a contract rela-tion to those who own it.

Undoubtedly the man who possesses capitalhas a great advantage over the man who has nocapital, in all the struggle for existence. Thinkof two men who want to lift a weight, one ofwhom has a lever, and the other must apply hishands directly; think of two men tilling the soil,one of whom uses his hands or a stick, while theother has a horse and a plough; think of two menin conflict with a wild animal, one of whom hasonly a stick or a stone, while the other has a re-peating rifle; think of two men who are sick, one ofwhom can travel, command medical skill, getspace, light, air, and water, while the other lacksall these things. This does not mean that one manhas an advantage against the other, but that,


when they are rivals in the effort to get the meansof subsistence from Nature, the one who hascapital has immeasurable advantages over theother. If it were not so capital would not beformed. Capital is only formed by self-denial,and if the possession of it did not secure advan-tages and superiorities of a high order menwould never submit to what is necessary to get it.The first accumulation costs by far the most, andthe rate of increase by profits at first seems piti-ful. Among the metaphors which partially illus-trate capital—all of which, however, are imper-fect and inadequate—the snow-ball is useful toshow some facts about capital. Its first accumu-lation is slow, but as it proceeds the accumula-tion becomes rapid in a high ratio, and the ele-ment of self-denial declines. This fact, also, isfavorable to the accumulation of capital, for ifthe self-denial continued to be as great per unitwhen the accumulation had become great, therewould speedily come a point at which further ac-cumulation would not pay. The man who hascapital has secured his future, won leisure whichhe can employ in winning secondary objects ofnecessity and advantage, and emancipated him-self from those things in life which are gross andbelittling. The possession of capital is, there-fore, an indispensable prerequisite of educa-tional, scientific, and moral goods. This is not


saying that a man in the narrowest circumstancesmay not be a good man. It is saying that the ex-tension and elevation of all the moral and meta-physical interests of the race are conditioned onthat extension of civilization of which capital isthe prerequisite, and that he who has capital canparticipate in and move along with the highestdevelopments of his time. Hence it appears thatthe man who has his self-denial before him, how-ever good may be his intention, cannot be as theman who has his self-denial behind him. Someseem to think that this is very unjust, but they gettheir notions of justice from some occult sourceof inspiration, not from observing the facts of thisworld as it has been made and exists.

The maxim, or injunction, to which a study ofcapital leads us is, Get capital. In a communitywhere the standard of living is high, and the con-ditions of production are favorable, there is awide margin within which an individual maypractise self-denial and win capital without suf-fering, if he has not the charge of a family. Thatit requires energy, courage, perseverance, andprudence is not to be denied. Any one who be-lieves that any good thing on this earth can be gotwithout those virtues may believe in the philoso-pher's stone or the fountain of youth. If therewere any Utopia its inhabitants would certainlybe very insipid and characterless.


Those who have neither capital nor land un-questionably have a closer class interest thanlandlords or capitalists. If one of those who arein either of the latter classes is a spendthrift heloses his advantage. If the non-capitalists in-crease their numbers, they surrender themselvesinto the hands of the landlords and capitalists.They compete with each other for food untilthey run up the rent of land, and they competewith each other for wages until they give thecapitalist a great amount of productive energyfor a given amount of capital. If some of themare economical and prudent in the midst of aclass which saves nothing and marries early, thefew prudent suffer for the folly of the rest, sincethey can only get current rates of wages; and ifthese are low the margin out of which to makesavings by special personal effort is narrow. Noinstance has yet been seen of a society composedof a class of great capitalists and a class of labor-ers who had fallen into a caste of permanentdrudges. Probably no such thing is possible solong as landlords especially remain as a thirdclass, and so long as society continues to developstrong classes of merchants, financiers, profes-sional men, and other classes. If it were conceiv-able that non-capitalist laborers should give upstruggling to become capitalists, should give wayto vulgar enjoyments and passions, should reck-


lessly increase their numbers, and should becomea permanent caste, they might with some justicebe called proletarians. The name has beenadopted by some professed labor leaders, but itreally should be considered insulting. If therewere such a proletariat it would be hopelessly inthe hands of a body of plutocratic capitalists, anda society so organized would, no doubt, be farworse than a society composed only of nobles andserfs, which is the worst society the world has seenin modern times.

At every turn, therefore, it appears that thenumber of men and the quality of men limit eachother, and that the question whether we shallhave more men or better men is of most impor-tance to the class which has neither land norcapital.


VI.

THAT HE WHO WOULD BE WELL TAKEN CARE OFMUST TAKE CARE OF HIMSELF.

THE discussion of "the relations of labor andcapital" has not hitherto been very fruitful. Ithas been confused by ambiguous definitions, andit has been based upon assumptions about therights and duties of social classes which are, tosay the least, open to serious question as regardstheir truth and justice. If, then, we correct andlimit the definitions, and if we test the assump-tions, we shall find out whether there is anythingto discuss about the relations of "labor and capi-tal," and, if anything, what it is.

Let us first examine the terms.

1. Labor means properly toil, irksome exertion,expenditure of productive energy.

2. The term is used, secondly, by a figure ofspeech, and in a collective sense, to designate thebody of persons who, having neither capital norland, come into the industrial organization offer-ing productive services in exchange for means ofsubsistence. These persons are united by com-munity of interest into a group, or class, or in-terest, and, when interests come to be adjusted, theinterests of this group will undoubtedly be limitedby those of other groups.


3. The term labor is used, thirdly, in a morerestricted, very popular and current, but very ill-defined way, to designate a limited sub-groupamong those who live by contributing productiveefforts to the work of society. Every one is alaborer who is not a person of leisure. Publicmen, or other workers, if any, who labor but re-ceive no pay, might be excluded from the cate-gory, and we should immediately pass, by such arestriction, from a broad and philosophical to atechnical definition of the labor class. But mer-chants, bankers, professional men, and all whoselabor is, to an important degree, mental as wellas manual, are excluded from this third use ofthe term labor. The result is, that the word isused, in a sense at once loosely popular andstrictly technical, to designate a group of labor-ers who separate their interests from those ofother laborers. Whether farmers are included under"labor" in this third sense or not I havenot been able to determine. It seems that they areor are not, as the interest of the disputantsmay require.

1. Capital is any product of labor which is usedto assist production.

2. This term also is used, by a figure ofspeech, and in a collective sense, for the personswho possess capital, and who come into the in-


dustrial organization to get their living by usingcapital for profit. To do this they need to ex-change capital for productive services. Thesepersons constitute an interest, group, or class, al-though they are not united by any such communi-ty of interest as laborers, and, in the adjustmentof interests, the interests of the owners of capitalmust be limited by the interests of other groups.

3. Capital, however, is also used in a vagueand popular sense which it is hard to define. Ingeneral it is used, and in this sense, to mean em-ployers of laborers, but it seems to be restrictedto those who are employers on a large scale. Itdoes not seem to include those who employ onlydomestic servants. Those also are excluded whoown capital and lend it, but do not directly em-ploy people to use it.

It is evident that if we take for discussion"capital and labor," if each of the terms has threedefinitions, and if one definition of each is looseand doubtful, we have everything prepared for adiscussion which shall be interminable and fruit-less, which shall offer every attraction to undis-ciplined thinkers, and repel everybody else.

The real collision of interest, which is thecentre of the dispute, is that of employers andemployed; and the first condition of successfulstudy of the question, or of successful investiga-


tion to see if there is any question, is to throwaside the technical economic terms, and to lookat the subject in its true meaning, expressed inuntechnical language. We will use the terms"capital" and "labor" only in their strict eco-nomic significance, viz., the first definition givenabove under each term, and we will use the terms"laborers" and "capitalists" when we mean thepersons described in the second definition undereach term.

It is a common assertion that the interests ofemployers and employed are identical, that theyare partners in an enterprise, etc. These sayingsspring from a disposition, which may often benoticed, to find consoling and encouraging obser-vations in the facts of sociology, and to refute, ifpossible, any unpleasant observations. If we tryto learn what is true, we shall both do what isalone right, and we shall do the best for ourselvesin the end. The interests of employers and em-ployed as parties to a contract are antagonistic incertain respects and united in others, as in thecase wherever supply and demand operate. IfJohn gives cloth to James in exchange for wheat,John's interest is that cloth be good and attrac-tive but not plentiful, but that wheat be good andplentiful; James' interest is that wheat be good andattractive but not plentiful, but that cloth begood and plentiful. All men have a common in-


terest that all things be good, and that all thingsbut the one which each produces be plentiful.The employer is interested that capital be goodbut rare, and productive energy good and plenti-ful; the employe is interested that capital begood and plentiful, but that productive energybe good and rare. When one man alone can do aservice, and he can do it very well, he representsthe laborer's ideal. To say that employers andemployed are partners in an enterprise is only adelusive figure of speech. It is plainly based onno facts in the industrial system.

Employers and employed make contracts onthe best terms which they can agree upon, likebuyers and sellers, renters and hirers, borrowersand lenders. Their relations are, therefore, con-trolled by the universal law of supply and de-mand. The employer assumes the direction ofthe business, and takes all the risk, for the capitalmust be consumed in the industrial process, andwhether it will be found again in the product ornot depends upon the good judgment and fore-sight with which the capital and labor have beenapplied. Under the wages system the employerand the employe contract for time. The employe"fulfils the contract if he obeys orders during thetime, and treats the capital as he is told to treat it.Hence he is free from all responsibility, risk, andspeculation. That this is the most advantageous


arrangement for him, on the whole and in thegreat majority of cases, is very certain. Salariedmen and wage-receivers are in precisely the samecircumstances, except that the former, by customand usage, are those who have special skill ortraining, which is almost always an investment ofcapital, and which narrows the range of competi-tion in their case. Physicians, lawyers, and otherspaid by fees are workers by the piece. To thecapital in existence all must come for their sub-sistence and their tools.

Association is the lowest and simplest mode ofattaining accord and concord between men. It isnow the mode best suited to the condition andchances of employe's. Employers formerly madeuse of guilds to secure common action for a com-mon interest. They have given up this mode ofunion because it has been superseded by a betterone. Correspondence, travel, newspapers, cir-culars, and telegrams bring to employers andcapitalists the information which they need forthe defense of their interests. The combinationbetween them is automatic and instinctive. It isnot formal and regulated by rule. It is all thestronger on that account, because intelligentmen, holding the same general maxims of policy,and obtaining the same information, pursue sim-ilar lines of action, while retaining all the ease,freedom, and elasticity of personal independence.


At present employe's have not the leisure neces-sary for the higher modes of communication.Capital is also necessary to establish the ties ofcommon action under the higher forms. More-over, there is, no doubt, an incidental disadvan-tage connected with the release which the em-ploye" gets under the wages system from all re-sponsibility for the conduct of the business. Thatis, that employe's do not learn to watch or studythe course of industry, and do not plan for theirown advantage, as other classes do. There is anespecial field for combined action in the case ofemploye's. Employers are generally separated byjealousy and pride in regard to all but the mostuniversal class interests. Employe's have a muchcloser interest in each other's wisdom. Competi-tion of capitalists for profits redounds to thebenefit of laborers. Competition of laborers forsubsistence redounds to the benefit of capitalists.It is utterly futile to plan and scheme so thateither party can make a "corner" on the other. Ifemployers withdraw capital from employmentin an attempt to lower wages, they lose profits. Ifemploye's withdraw from competition in order toraise wages, they starve to death. Capital andlabor are the two things which least admit ofmonopoly. Employers can, however, if theyhave foresight of the movements of industry andcommerce, and if they make skillful use of credit,


win exceptional profits for a limited period. Onegreat means of exceptional profit lies in the veryfact that the employe's have not exercised thesame foresight, but have plodded along andwaited for the slow and successive action of theindustrial system through successive periods ofproduction, while the employer has anticipatedand synchronized several successive steps. Nobargain is fairly made if one of the parties to itfails to maintain his interest. If one party to acontract is well informed and the other ill in-formed, the former is sure to win an advantage.No doctrine that a true adjustment of interestfollows from the free play of interests can beconstrued to mean that an interest which is ne-glected will get its rights.

The employe's have no means of informationwhich is as good and legitimate as association,and it is fair and necessary that their actionshould be united in behalf of their interests. Theyare not in a position for the unrestricted develop-ment of individualism in regard to many of theirinterests. Unquestionably the better ones lose bythis, and the development of individualism is tobe looked forward to and hoped for as a greatgain. In the meantime the labor market, inwhich wages are fixed, cannot reach fair adjust-ments unless the interest of the laborers is fairlydefended, and that cannot, perhaps, yet be done


without associations of laborers. No newspapersyet report the labor market. If they give any no-tices of it—of its rise and fall, of its variations indifferent districts and in different trades—suchnotices are always made for the interest of theemployers. Re-distribution of employes, bothlocally and trade-wise (so far as the latter is pos-sible), is a legitimate and useful mode of raisingwages. The illegitimate attempt to raise wagesby limiting the number of apprentices is thegreat abuse of trades-unions. I shall discuss thatin the ninth chapter.

It appears that the English trades were forcedto contend, during the first half of this century,for the wages which the market really wouldgive them, but which, under the old traditionsand restrictions which remained, they could notget without a positive struggle. They formed theopinion that a strike could raise wages. Theywere educated so to think by the success whichthey had won in certain attempts. It appears tohave become a traditional opinion, in which noaccount is taken of the state of the labor market.It would be hard to find a case of any strikewithin thirty or forty years, either in England orthe United States, which has paid. If a strikeoccurs, it certainly wastes capital and hindersproduction. It must, therefore, lower wages sub-sequently below what they would have been if


there had been no strike. If a strike succeeds, thequestion arises whether an advance of wages asgreat or greater would not have occurred withina limited period without a strike.

Nevertheless, a strike is a legitimate resort atlast. It is like war, for it is war. All that can besaid is that those who have recourse to it at lastought to understand that they assume a great re-sponsibility, and that they can only be justified bythe circumstances of the case. I cannot believethat a strike for wages ever is expedient. Thereare other purposes, to be mentioned in a moment,for which a strike may be expedient; but a strikefor wages is a clear case of a strife in which ulti-mate success is a complete test of the justifiabilityof the course of those who made the strife. If themen win an advance, it proves that they ought tohave made it. If they do not win, it proves thatthey were wrong to strike. If they strike withthe market in their favor, they win. If they strikewith the market against them, they fail. It is inhuman nature that a man whose income is in-creased is happy and satisfied, although, if he de-manded it, he might perhaps at that very momentget more. A man whose income is lessened is dis-pleased and irritated, and he is more likely tostrike then, when it may be in vain. Strikes inindustry are not nearly so peculiar a phenomenonas they are often thought to be. Buyers strike


when they refuse to buy commodities of whichthe price has risen. Either the price remainshigh, and they permanently learn to do withoutthe commodity, or the price is lowered, and theybuy again. Tenants strike when house rents risetoo high for them. They seek smaller houses orparts of houses until there is a complete re-adjustment. Borrowers strike when the rates forcapital are so high that they cannot employ it toadvantage and pay those rates. Laborers maystrike and emigrate, or, in this country, take tothe land. This kind of strike is a regular applica-tion of legitimate means, and is sure to succeed.Of course, strikes with violence against em-ployers or other employe's are not to be discussedat all.

Trades-unions, then, are right and useful, andit may be that they are necessary. They may domuch by way of true economic means to raisewages. They are useful to spread information, tomaintain esprit de corps, to elevate the publicopinion of the class. They have been greatlyabused in the past. In this country they arein constant danger of being used by politicalschemers—a fact which does more than anythingelse to disparage them in the eyes of the bestworkmen. The economic notions most in favorin the trades-unions are erroneous, although notmore so than those which find favor in the count-


ing-room. A man who believes that he can raisewages by doing bad work, wasting time, allowingmaterial to be wasted, and giving generally theleast possible service in the allotted time, is not tobe distinguished from the man who says thatwages can be raised by putting protective taxeson all clothing, furniture, crockery, bedding,books, fuel, utensils, and tools. One lowers theservices given for the capital, and the otherlowers the capital given for the services. Trades-unionism in the higher classes consists in jobbery.There is a great deal of it in the professions. Ionce heard a group of lawyers of high standingsneer at an executor who hoped to get a largeestate through probate without allowing anylawyers to get big fees out of it. They all ap-proved of steps which had been taken to force acontest, which steps had forced the executor toretain two or three lawyers. No one of thespeakers had been retained.

Trades-unions need development, correction,and perfection. They ought, however, to get thisfrom the men themselves. If the men do not feelany need of such institutions, the patronage ofother persons who come to them and give themthese institutions will do harm and not good.Especially trades-unions ought to be perfectedso as to undertake a great range of improvementduties for which we now rely on Government in-


spection, which never gives what we need. Thesafety of workmen from machinery, the ventila-tion and sanitary arrangements required by fac-tories, the special precautions of certain pro-cesses, the hours of labor of women and children,the schooling of children, the limits of age foremployed children, Sunday work, hours oflabor—these and other like matters ought to becontrolled by the men themselves through theirorganizations. The laborers about whom we aretalking are free men in a free state. If they wantto be protected they must protect themselves.They ought to protect their own women and chil-dren. Their own class opinion ought to securethe education of the children of their class. Ifan individual workman is not bold enough toprotest against a wrong to laborers, the agent ofa trades-union might with propriety do it on be-half of the body of workmen. Here is a great andimportant need, and, instead of applying suitableand adequate means to supply it, we have dema-gogues declaiming, trades-union officers resolving,and Government inspectors drawing salaries, whilelittle or nothing is done.

I have said that trades-unions are right anduseful, and perhaps, necessary; but trades-unions are, in fact, in this country, an exotic andimported institution, and a great many of theirrules and modes of procedure, having been de-


veloped in England to meet English circum-stances, are out of place here. The institutionitself does not flourish here as it would if it werein a thoroughly congenial environment. It needsto be supported by special exertion and care.Two things here work against it. First, the greatmobility of our population. A trades-union, tobe strong, needs to be composed of men who havegrown up together, who have close personal ac-quaintance and mutual confidence, who havebeen trained to the same code, and who expect tolive on together in the same circumstances andinterests. In this country, where workmen moveabout frequently and with facility, the unionssuffer in their harmony and stability. It was asignificant fact that the unions declined duringthe hard times. It was only when the men wereprosperous that they could afford to keep up theunions, as a kind of social luxury. When the timecame to use the union it ceased to be. Secondly,the American workman really has such personalindependence, and such an independent andstrong position in the labor market, that he doesnot need the union. He is farther on the roadtoward the point where personal liberty sup-plants the associative principle than any otherworkman. Hence the association is likely to be aclog to him, especially if he is a good laborer,rather than an assistance. If it were not for the


notion brought from England, that trades-unions are, in some mysterious way, beneficial tothe workmen—which notion has now become anarticle of faith—it is very doubtful whetherAmerican workmen would find that the unionswere of any use, unless they were converted intoorganizations for accomplishing the purposesenumerated in the last paragraph.

The fashion of the time is to run to Govern-ment boards, commissions, and inspectors to setright everything which is wrong. No experienceseems to damp the faith of our public in theseinstrumentalities. The English Liberals in themiddle of this century seemed to have full graspof the principle of liberty, and to be fixed andestablished in favor of non-interference. Sincethey have come to power, however, they haveadopted the old instrumentalities, and havegreatly multiplied them since they have had agreat number of reforms to carry out. They seemto think that interference is good if only they in-terfere. In this country the party which is "in"always interferes, and the party which is "out"favors non-interference. The system of interfer-ence is a complete failure to the ends it aims at,and sooner or later it will fall of its own expenseand be swept away. The two notions—one to regu-late things by a committee of control, and theother to let things regulate themselves by the con-


flict of interests between free men—are diamet-rically opposed; and the former is corrupting tofree institutions, because men who are taught toexpect Government inspectors to come and takecare of them lose all true education in liberty. Ifwe have been all wrong for the last three hundredyears in aiming at a fuller realization of individualliberty, as a condition of general and widely-diffused happiness, then we must turn back topaternalism, discipline, and authority; but to havea combination of liberty and dependence isimpossible.

I have read a great many diatribes within thelast ten years against employers, and a greatmany declamations about the wrongs of em-ploye's. I have never seen a defense of the em-ployer. Who dares say that he is not the friendof the poor man? Who dares say that he is thefriend of the employer? I will try to say what Ithink is true. There are bad, harsh, cross em-ployers; there are slovenly, negligent workmen;there are just about as many proportionately ofone of these classes as of the other. The em-ployers of the United States—as a class, properexceptions being understood—have no advan-tage over their workmen. They could not op-press them if they wanted to do so. The advan-tage, taking good and bad times together, is withthe workmen. The employers wish the welfare


of the workmen in all respects, and would giveredress for any grievance which was brought totheir attention. They are considerate of the cir-cumstances and interests of the laborers. Theyremember the interests of the workmen whendriven to consider the necessity of closing or re-ducing hours. They go on, and take risk andtrouble on themselves in working through badtimes, rather than close their works. The wholeclass of those-who-have are quick in their sym-pathy for any form of distress or suffering. Theyare too quick. Their sympathies need regulating,not stimulating. They are more likely to giveaway capital recklessly than to withhold itstingily when any alleged case of misfortune isbefore them. They rejoice to see any man suc-ceed in improving his position. They will aidhim with counsel and information if he desiresit, and any man who needs and deserves help be-cause he is trying to help himself will be sure tomeet with sympathy, encouragement, and assist-ance from those who are better off. If those whoare in that position are related to him as em-ployers to employe, that tie will be recognized asgiving him an especial claim.


VII.

CONCERNING SOME OLD FOES UNDER NEW FACES.

T H E history of the human race is one longstory of attempts by certain persons and classes toobtain control of the power of the State, so as towin earthly gratifications at the expense ofothers. People constantly assume that there issomething metaphysical and sentimental aboutgovernment. At bottom there are two chiefthings with which government has to deal. Theyare, the property of men and the honor ofwomen. These it has to defend against crime.The capital which, as we have seen, is the condi-tion of all welfare on earth, the fortification ofexistence, and the means of growth, is an objectof cupidity. Some want to get it without payingthe price of industry and economy. In ancienttimes they made use of force. They organizedbands of robbers. They plundered laborers andmerchants. Chief of all, however, they foundthat means of robbery which consisted in gainingcontrol of the civil organization—the State—and using its poetry and romance as a glamourunder cover of which they made robbery lawful.They developed high-spun theories of nationality,patriotism, and loyalty. They took all the rank,glory, power, and prestige of the great civilorganization, and they took all the rights. They


threw on others the burdens and the duties. Atone time, no doubt, feudalism was an organiza-tion which drew together again the fragments ofa dissolved society; but when the lawyers hadapplied the Roman law to modern kings, andfeudal nobles had been converted into an aristoc-racy of court nobles, the feudal nobility no longerserved any purpose.

In modern times the great phenomenon hasbeen the growth of the middle class out of themediaeval cities, the accumulation of wealth, andthe encroachment of wealth, as a social power, onthe ground formerly occupied by rank and birth.The middle class has been obliged to fight for itsrights against the feudal class, and it has, duringthree or four centuries, gradually invented andestablished institutions to guarantee personal andproperty rights against the arbitrary will of kingsand nobles.

In its turn wealth is now becoming a power inthree or four centuries, gradually invented andthe State, and, like every other power, it is liableto abuse unless restrained by checks and guaran-tees. There is an insolence of wealth, as there isan insolence of rank. A plutocracy might beeven far worse than an aristocracy. Aristocratshave always had their class vices and their classvirtues. They have always been, as a class,chargeable with licentiousness and gambling.


They have, however, as a class, despised lyingand stealing. They have always pretended tomaintain a standard of honor, although the defi-nition and the code of honor have suffered manychanges and shocking deterioration. The middleclass has always abhorred gambling and licen-tiousness, but it has not always been strict abouttruth and pecuniary fidelity. That there is a codeand standard of mercantile honor which is quiteas pure and grand as any military code, is beyondquestion, but it has never yet been establishedand defined by long usage and the concurrentsupport of a large and influential society. Thefeudal code has, through centuries, bred a hightype of men, and constituted a caste. The mer-cantile code has not yet done so, but the wealthyclass has attempted to merge itself in or to imitatethe feudal class.

The consequence is, that the wealth-power hasbeen developed, while the moral and social sanc-tions by which that power ought to be controlledhave not yet been developed. A plutocracywould be a civil organization in which the powerresides in wealth, in which a man might havewhatever he could buy, in which the rights, in-terests, and feelings of those who could not paywould be overridden.

There is a plain tendency of all civilized gov-ernments toward plutocracy. The power of


wealth in the English House of Commons hassteadily increased for fifty years. The history ofthe present French Republic has shown an ex-traordinary development of plutocratic spiritand measures. In the United States many pluto-cratic doctrines have a currency which is notgranted them anywhere else; that is, a man'sright to have almost anything which he can payfor is more popularly recognized here than else-where. So far the most successful limitation onplutocracy has come from aristocracy, for theprestige of rank is still great wherever it exists.The social sanctions of aristocracy tell with greatforce on the plutocrats, more especially on theirwives and daughters. It has already resulted thata class of wealthy men is growing up in regard towhom the old sarcasms of the novels and thestage about parvenus are entirely thrown away.They are men who have no superiors, by what-ever standard one chooses to measure them. Suchan interplay of social forces would, indeed, be agreat and happy solution of a new social prob-lem, if the aristocratic forces were strong enoughfor the magnitude of the task. If the feudal aris-tocracy, or its modern representative—which is,in reality, not at all feudal—could carry downinto the new era and transmit to the new mastersof society the grace, elegance, breeding, and cul-ture of the past, society would certainly gain by


that course of things, as compared with any suchrupture between past and present as occurred inthe French Revolution. The dogmatic radicalswho assail "on principle" the inherited social no-tions and distinctions are not serving civilization.Society can do without patricians, but it cannotdo without patrician virtues.

In the United States the opponent of plutoc-racy is democracy. Nowhere else in the worldhas the power of wealth come to be discussed inits political aspects as it is here. Nowhere elsedoes the question arise as it does here. I havegiven some reasons for this in former chapters.Nowhere in the world is the danger of plutoc-racy as formidable as it is here. To it we opposethe power of numbers as it is presented by de-mocracy. Democracy itself, however, is new andexperimental. It has not yet existed long enoughto find its appropriate forms. It has no prestigefrom antiquity such as aristocracy possesses. Ithas, indeed, none of the surroundings which ap-peal to the imagination. On the other hand, de-mocracy is rooted in the physical, economic, andsocial circumstances of the United States. Thiscountry cannot be other than democratic for anindefinite period in the future. Its political proc-esses will also be republican. The affection ofthe people for democracy makes them blind anduncritical in regard to it, and they are as fond of


the political fallacies to which democracy lendsitself as they are of its sound and correct inter-pretation, or fonder. Can democracy develop it-self and at the same time curb plutocracy?

Already the question presents itself as one oflife or death to democracy. Legislative and judi-cial scandals show us that the conflict is alreadyopened, and that it is serious. The lobby is thearmy of the plutocracy. An elective judiciary isa device so much in the interest of plutocracy,that it must be regarded as a striking proof of thetoughness of the judicial institution that it hasresisted the corruption so much as it has. Thecaucus, convention, and committee lend them-selves most readily to the purposes of interestedspeculators and jobbers. It is just such machineryas they might have invented if they had been try-ing to make political devices to serve their pur-pose, and their processes call in question nothingless than the possibility of free self-governmentunder the forms of a democratic republic.

For now I come to the particular point whichI desire to bring forward against all the denun-ciations and complainings about the power ofchartered corporations and aggregated capital.If charters have been given which confer unduepowers, who gave them? Our legislators did.Who elected these legislators. We did. If weare a free, self-governing people, we must under-


stand that it costs vigilance and exertion to beself-governing. It costs far more vigilance andexertion to be so under the democratic form,where we have no aids from tradition or prestige,than under other forms. If we are a free, self-governing people, we can blame nobody but our-selves for our misfortunes. No one will come tohelp us out of them. It will do no good to heaplaw upon law, or to try by constitutional provi-sions simply to abstain from the use of powerswhich we find we always abuse. How can we getbad legislators to pass a law which shall hinderbad legislators from passing a bad law? That iswhat we are trying to do by many of our pro-posed remedies. The task before us, however, isone which calls for fresh reserves of moral forceand political virtue from the very foundations ofthe social body. Surely it is not a new thing to usto learn that men are greedy and covetous, andthat they will be selfish and tyrannical if theydare. The plutocrats are simply trying to dowhat the generals, nobles, and priests have donein the past—get the power of the State into theirhands, so as to bend the rights of others to theirown advantage; and what we need to do is to rec-ognize the fact that we are face to face with thesame old foes—the vices and passions of humannature. One of the oldest and most mischievousfallacies in this country has been the notion that


we are better than other nations, and that Gov-ernment has a smaller and easier task here thanelsewhere. This fallacy has hindered us fromrecognizing our old foes as soon as we shouldhave done. Then, again, these vices and passionstake good care here to deck themselves out in thetrappings of democratic watchwords and phrases,so that they are more often greeted with cheersthan with opposition when they first appear.The plan of electing men to represent us whosystematically surrender public to private inter-ests, and then trying to cure the mischief by news-paper and platform declamation against capitaland corporations, is an entire failure.

The new foes must be met, as the old ones weremet—by institutions and guarantees. The prob-lem of civil liberty is constantly renewed. Solvedonce, it re-appears in a new form. The old con-stitutional guarantees were all aimed againstking and nobles. New ones must be invented tohold the power of wealth to that responsibilitywithout which no power whatever is consistentwith liberty. The judiciary has given the mostsatisfactory evidence that it is competent to thenew duty which devolves upon it. The courtshave proved, in every case in which they havebeen called upon, that there are remedies, thatthey are adequate, and that they can be broughtto bear upon the cases. The chief need seems to


be more power of voluntary combination and co-operation among those who are aggrieved. Suchco-operation is a constant necessity under freeself-government; and when, in any community,men lose the power of voluntary co-operation infurtherance or defense of their own interests,they deserve to suffer, with no other remedy thannewspaper denunciations and platform declama-tions. Of course, in such a state of things, politi-cal mountebanks come forward and proposefierce measures which can be paraded for politi-cal effect. Such measures would be hostile to allour institutions, would destroy capital, over-throw credit, and impair the most essential in-terests of society. On the side of political ma-chinery there is no ground for hope, but only forfear. On the side of constitutional guarantees andthe independent action of self-governing freementhere is every ground for hope.


VIII.

ON THE VALUE, AS A SOCIOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE, OFTHE RULE TO MIND ONE'S OWN BUSINESS.

THE passion for dealing with social questionsis one of the marks of our time. Every man getssome experience of, and makes some observationson social affairs. Except matters of health, prob-ably none have such general interest as matters ofsociety. Except matters of health, none are somuch afflicted by dogmatism and crude specula-tion as those which appertain to society. Theamateurs in social science always ask: What shallwe do? What shall we do with Neighbor A?What shall we do for Neighbor B? What shallwe make Neighbor A do for Neighbor B? It isa fine thing to be planning and discussing broadand general theories of wide application. Theamateurs always plan to use the individual forsome constructive and inferential social purpose,or to use the society for some constructive and in-ferential individual purpose. For A to sit downand think, What shall I do? is commonplace;but to think what B ought to do is interesting,romantic, moral, self-flattering, and public-spirited all at once. It satisfies a great number ofhuman weaknesses at once. To go on and planwhat a whole class of people ought to do is to feelone's self a power on earth, to win a public posi-


tion, to clothe one's self in dignity. Hence wehave an unlimited supply of reformers, philan-thropists, humanitarians, and would-be managers-in-general of society.

Every man and woman in society has one bigduty. That is, to take care of his or her own self.This is a social duty. For, fortunately, the matterstands so that the duty of making the best of one'sself individually is not a separate thing from theduty of filling one's place in society, but the twoare one, and the latter is accomplished when theformer is done. The common notion, however,seems to be that one has a duty to society, as a spe-cial and separate thing, and that this duty con-sists in considering and deciding what otherpeople ought to do. Now, the man who can doanything for or about anybody else than himselfis fit to be head of a family; and when he becomeshead of a family he has duties to his wife and hischildren, in addition to the former big duty.Then, again, any man who can take care of him-self and his family is in a very exceptional posi-tion, if he does not find in his immediate sur-roundings people who need his care and havesome sort of a personal claim upon him. If, now,he is able to fulfill all this, and to take care of any-body outside his family and his dependents, hemust have a surplus of energy, wisdom, andmoral virtue beyond what he needs for his own


business. No man has this; for a family is acharge which is capable of infinite development,and no man could suffice to the full measure ofduty for which a family may draw upon him.Neither can a man give to society so advanta-geous an employment of his services, whateverthey are, in any other way as by spending them onhis family. Upon this, however, I will not insist.I recur to the observation that a man who pro-poses to take care of other people must have him-self and his family taken care of, after some sortof a fashion, and must have an as yet unexhaustedstore of energy.

The danger of minding other people's busi-ness is twofold. First, there is the danger thata man may leave his own business unattended to;and, second, there is the danger of an imperti-nent interference with another's affairs. The"friends of humanity" almost always run intoboth dangers. I am one of humanity, and I donot want any volunteer friends. I regard friend-ship as mutual, and I want to have my say aboutit. I suppose that other components of humanityfeel in the same way about it. If so, they mustregard any one who assumes the role of a friendof humanity as impertinent. The reference to thefriend of humanity back to his own business isobviously the next step.

Yet we are constantly annoyed, and the legis-


latures are kept constantly busy, by the peoplewho have made up their minds that it is wise andconducive to happiness to live in a certain way,and who want to compel everybody else to live intheir way. Some people have decided to spendSunday in a certain way, and they want lawspassed to make other people spend Sunday in thesame way. Some people have resolved to be tee-totalers, and they want a law passed to makeeverybody else a teetotaler. Some people haveresolved to eschew luxury, and they want taxeslaid to make others eschew luxury. The taxingpower is especially something after which thereformer's finger always itches. Sometimes thereis an element of self-interest in the proposed ref-ormation, as when a publisher wanted a dutyimposed on books, to keep Americans from read-ing books which would unsettle their American-isms; and when artists wanted a tax laid onpictures, to save Americans from buying badpaintings.

I make no reference here to the giving andtaking of counsel and aid between man and man:of that I shall say something in the last chapter.The very sacredness of the relation in which twomen stand to one another when one of them res-cues the other from vice separates that relationfrom any connection with the work of the social


busybody, the professional philanthropist, and theempirical legislator.

The amateur social doctors are like the ama-teur physicians—they always begin with thequestion of remedies, and they go at this withoutany diagnosis or any knowledge of the anatomyor physiology of society. They never have anydoubt of the efficacy of their remedies. Theynever take account of any ulterior effects whichmay be apprehended from the remedy itself. Itgenerally troubles them not a whit that theirremedy implies a complete reconstruction ofsociety, or even a reconstitution of human nature.Against all such social quackery the obviousinjunction to the quacks is, to mind their ownbusiness.

The social doctors enjoy the satisfaction offeeling themselves to be more moral or more en-lightened than their fellow-men. They are ableto see what other men ought to do when the othermen do not see it. An examination of the work ofthe social doctors, however, shows that they areonly more ignorant and more presumptuous thanother people. We have a great many social diffi-culties and hardships to contend with. Poverty,pain, disease, and misfortune surround our exis-tence. We fight against them all the time. Theindividual is a centre of hopes, affections, desires,and sufferings. When he dies, life changes its


form, but does not cease. That means that theperson—the centre of all the hopes, affections,etc.—after struggling as long as he can, is sure tosuccumb at last. We would, therefore, as far asthe hardships of the human lot are concerned, goon struggling to the best of our ability againstthem but for the social doctors, and we wouldendure what we could not cure. But we have in-herited a vast number of social ills which nevercame from Nature. They are the complicatedproducts of all the tinkering, muddling, andblundering of social doctors in the past. Theseproducts of social quackery are now buttressedby habit, fashion, prejudice, platitudinarianthinking, and new quackery in political economyand social science. It is a fact worth noticing,just when there seems to be a revival of faith inlegislative agencies, that our States are generallyproviding against the experienced evils of over-legislation by ordering that the Legislature shallsit only every other year. During the hard times,when Congress had a real chance to make or marthe public welfare, the final adjournment of thatbody was hailed year after year with cries of re-lief from a great anxiety. The greatest reformswhich could now be accomplished would consistin undoing the work of statesmen in the past, andthe greatest difficulty in the way of reform is tofind out how to undo their work without injury


to what is natural and sound. All this mischiefhas been done by men who sat down to considerthe problem (as I heard an apprentice of theirsonce express it), What kind of a society do wewant to make? When they had settled this ques-tion a priori to their satisfaction, they set to workto make their ideal society, and today we sufferthe consequences. Human society tries hard toadapt itself to any conditions in which it finds it-self, and we have been warped and distorteduntil we have got used to it, as the foot adaptsitself to an ill-made boot. Next, we have come tothink that that is the right way for things to be;and it is true that a change to a sound and normalcondition would for a time hurt us, as a manwhose foot has been distorted would suffer if hetried to wear a well-shaped boot. Finally, wehave produced a lot of economists and socialphilosophers who have invented sophisms forfitting our thinking to the distorted facts.

Society, therefore, does not need any care orsupervision. If we can acquire a science of so-ciety, based on observation of phenomena andstudy of forces, we may hope to gain someground slowly toward the elimination of olderrors and the re-establishment of a sound andnatural social order. Whatever we gain that waywill be by growth, never in the world by any re-construction of society on the plan of some enthu-


siastic social architect. The latter is only repeat-ing the old error over again, and postponing allour chances of real improvement. Society needsfirst of all to be freed from these meddlers—thatis, to be let alone. Here we are, then, once moreback at the old doctrine—Laissez faire. Let ustranslate it into blunt English, and it will read,Mind your own business. It is nothing but thedoctrine of liberty. Let every man be happy inhis own way. If his sphere of action and interestimpinges on that of any other man, there willhave to be compromise and adjustment. Waitfor the occasion. Do not attempt to generalizethose interferences or to plan for them a priori.We have a body of laws and institutions whichhave grown up as occasion has occurred for ad-justing rights. Let the same process go on. Prac-tise the utmost reserve possible in your interfer-ences even of this kind, and by no means seize oc-casion for interfering with natural adjustments.Try first long and patiently whether the naturaladjustment will not come about through the playof interests and the voluntary concessions of theparties.

I have said that we have an empirical politicaleconomy and social science to fit the distortionsof our society. The test of empiricism in thismatter is the attitude which one takes up toward


laissez faire. It no doubt wounds the vanity of aphilosopher who is just ready with a new solu-tion of the universe to be told to mind his ownbusiness. So he goes on to tell us that if we thinkthat we shall, by being let alone, attain a perfecthappiness on earth, we are mistaken. The half-way men—the professional socialists—join him.They solemnly shake their heads, and tell us thathe is right—that letting us alone will never se-cure us perfect happiness. Under all this lies thefamiliar logical fallacy, never expressed, butreally the point of the whole, that we shall getperfect happiness if we put ourselves in thehands of the world-reformer. We never sup-posed that laissez faire would give us perfecthappiness. We have left perfect happiness en-tirely out of our account. If the social doctorswill mind their own business, we shall have notroubles but what belong to Nature. Those wewill endure or combat as we can. What we de-sire is, that the friends of humanity should ceaseto add to them. Our disposition toward the illswhich our fellow-man inflicts on us throughmalice or meddling is quite different from ourdisposition toward the ills which are inherent inthe conditions of human life.

To mind one's own business is a purely nega-tive and unproductive injunction, but, taking


social matters as they are just now, it is a sociolog-ical principle of the first importance. Theremight be developed a grand philosophy on thebasis of minding one's own business.


IX.

ON THE CASE OF A CERTAIN MAN WHO ISNEVER THOUGHT OF.

T H E type and formula of most schemes ofphilanthropy or humanitarianism is this: A andB put their heads together to decide what C shallbe made to do for D. The radical vice of allthese schemes, from a sociological point of view,is that C is not allowed a voice in the matter, andhis position, character, and interests, as well asthe ultimate effects on society through C's in-terests, are entirely overlooked. I call C the For-gotten Man. For once let us look him up andconsider his case, for the characteristic of allsocial doctors is, that they fix their minds on someman or group of men whose case appeals to thesympathies and the imagination, and they planremedies addressed to the particular trouble;they do not understand that all the parts of so-ciety hold together, and that forces which are setin action act and react throughout the whole or-ganism, until an equilibrium is produced by areadjustment of all interests and rights. Theytherefore ignore entirely the source from whichthey must draw all the energy which they em-ploy in their remedies, and they ignore all theeffects on other members of society than the onesthey have in view. They are always under the


dominion of the superstition of government, and,forgetting that a government produces nothingat all, they leave out of sight the first fact to beremembered in all social discussion—that theState cannot get a cent for any man withouttaking it from some other man, and this lattermust be a man who has produced and saved it.This latter is the Forgotten Man.

The friends of humanity start out with certainbenevolent feelings toward "the poor," "theweak," "the laborers," and others of whom theymake pets. They generalize these classes, andrender them impersonal, and so constitute theclasses into social pets. They turn to other classesand appeal to sympathy and generosity, and toall the other noble sentiments of the humanheart. Action in the line proposed consists in atransfer of capital from the better off to theworse off. Capital, however, as we have seen, isthe force by which civilization is maintained andcarried on. The same piece of capital cannot beused in two ways. Every bit of capital, therefore,which is given to a shiftless and inefficient mem-ber of society, who makes no return for it, isdiverted from a reproductive use; but if it wasput to reproductive use, it would have to begranted in wages to an efficient and productivelaborer. Hence the real sufferer by that kind ofbenevolence which consists in an expenditure of


capital to protect the good-for-nothing is the in-dustrious laborer. The latter, however, is neverthought of in this connection. It is assumed thathe is provided for and out of the account. Such anotion only shows how little true notions of po-litical economy have as yet become popularized.There is an almost invincible prejudice that aman who gives a dollar to a beggar is generousand kind-hearted, but that a man who refuses thebeggar and puts the dollar in a savings-bank isstingy and mean. The former is putting capitalwhere it is very sure to be wasted, and where itwill be a kind of seed for a long succession offuture dollars, which must be wasted to ward offa greater strain on the sympathies than wouldhave been occasioned by a refusal in the firstplace. Inasmuch as the dollar might have beenturned into capital and given to a laborer who,while earning it, would have reproduced it, itmust be regarded as taken from the latter. Whena millionaire gives a dollar to a beggar the gainof utility to the beggar is enormous, and the lossof utility to the millionaire is insignificant.Generally the discussion is allowed to rest there.But if the millionaire makes capital of the dol-lar, it must go upon the labor market, as a de-mand for productive services. Hence there isanother party in interest—the person who sup-plies productive services. There always are two


parties. The second one is always the ForgottenMan, and any one who wants to truly understandthe matter in question must go and search for theForgotten Man. He will be found to be worthy,industrious, independent, and self-supporting. Heis not, technically, "poor" or "weak"; he mindshis own business, and makes no complaint. Con-sequently the philanthropists never think of him,and trample on him.

We hear a great deal of schemes for "improv-ing the condition of the working-man." In theUnited States the farther down we go in thegrade of labor, the greater is the advantagewhich the laborer has over the higher classes. Ahod-carrier or digger here can, by one day'slabor, command many times more days' labor ofa carpenter, surveyor, bookkeeper, or doctorthan an unskilled laborer in Europe could com-mand by one day's labor. The same is true, in aless degree, of the carpenter, as compared withthe bookkeeper, surveyor, and doctor. This iswhy the United States is the great country forthe unskilled laborer. The economic conditionsall favor that class. There is a great continent tobe subdued, and there is a fertile soil available tolabor, with scarcely any need of capital. Hencethe people who have the strong arms have whatis most needed, and, if it were not for social con-sideration, higher education would not pay.

OWE TO EACH OTHER. I l l

Such being the case, the working-man needs noimprovement in his condition except to be freedfrom the parasites who are living on him. Allschemes for patronizing "the working classes"savor of condescension. They are impertinentand out of place in this free democracy. Thereis not, in fact, any such state of things or any suchrelation as would make projects of this kind ap-propriate. Such projects demoralize both par-ties, flattering the vanity of one and underminingthe self-respect of the other.

For our present purpose it is most importantto notice that if we lift any man up we must havea fulcrum, or point of reaction. In society thatmeans that to lift one man up we push anotherdown. The schemes for improving the conditionof the working classes interfere in the competi-tion of workmen with each other. The benefi-ciaries are selected by favoritism, and are apt tobe those who have recommended themselves tothe friends of humanity by language or conductwhich does not betoken independence and energy.Those who suffer a corresponding depression bythe interference are the independent and self-reliant, who once more are forgotten or passedover; and the friends of humanity once more ap-pear, in their zeal to help somebody, to be tram-pling on those who are trying to help themselves.

Trades-unions adopt various devices for rais-


ing wages, and those who give their time to phi-lanthropy are interested in these devices, andwish them success. They fix their minds entirelyon the workmen for the time being in the trade,and do not take note of any other workmen as in-terested in the matter. It is supposed that thefight is between the workmen and their em-ployers, and it is believed that one can give sym-pathy in that contest to the workmen withoutfeeling responsibility for anything farther. It issoon seen, however, that the employer adds thetrades-union and strike risk to the other risks ofhis business, and settles down to it philosophi-cally. If, now, we go farther, we see that he takesit philosophically because he has passed the lossalong on the public. It then appears that thepublic wealth has been diminished, and that thedanger of a trade war, like the danger of a revo-lution, is a constant reduction of the well-beingof all. So far, however, we have seen only thingswhich could lower wages—nothing which couldraise them. The employer is worried, but thatdoes not raise wages. The public loses, but theloss goes to cover extra risk, and that does notraise wages.

A trades-union raises wages (aside from thelegitimate and economic means noticed in Chap-ter VI.) by restricting the number of apprenticeswho may be taken into the trade. This device


acts directly on the supply of laborers, and thatproduces effects on wages. If, however, the num-ber of apprentices is limited, some are kept outwho want to get in. Those who are in have,therefore, made a monopoly, and constitutedthemselves a privileged class on a basis exactlyanalogous to that of the old privileged aristocra-cies. But whatever is gained by this arrangementfor those who are in is won at a greater loss tothose who are kept out. Hence it is not upon themasters nor upon the public that trades-unionsexert the pressure by which they raise wages; itis upon other persons of the labor class who wantto get into the trades, but, not being able to do so,are pushed down into the unskilled labor class.These persons, however, are passed by entirelywithout notice in all the discussions about trades-unions. They are the Forgotten Men. But, sincethey want to get into the trade and win their liv-ing in it, it is fair to suppose that they are fit forit, would succeed at it, would do well for them-selves and society in it; that is to say, that, of allpersons interested or concerned, they most de-serve our sympathy and attention.

The cases already mentioned involve no legisla-tion. Society, however, maintains police, sheriffs,and various institutions, the object of which isto protect people against themselves—that is,against their own vices. Almost all legislative


effort to prevent vice is really protective of vice,because all such legislation saves the vicious manfrom the penalty of his vice. Nature's remediesagainst vice are terrible. She removes the vic-tims without pity. A drunkard in the gutter isjust where he ought to be, according to the fitnessand tendency of things. Nature has set up on himthe process of decline and dissolution by whichshe removes things which have survived theirusefulness. Gambling and other less mention-able vices carry their own penalties with them.

Now, we never can annihilate a penalty. Wecan only divert it from the head of the man whohas incurred it to the heads of others who havenot incurred it. A vast amount of "social re-form" consists in just this operation. The conse-quence is that those who have gone astray, beingrelieved from Nature's fierce discipline, go on toworse, and that there is a constantly heavier bur-den for the others to bear. Who are the others?When we see a drunkard in the gutter we pityhim. If a policeman picks him up, we say thatsociety has interfered to save him from perish-ing. "Society" is a fine word, and it saves us thetrouble of thinking. The industrious and soberworkman, who is mulcted of a percentage of hisday's wages to pay the policeman, is the one whobears the penalty. But he is the Forgotten Man.He passes by and is never noticed, because he has


behaved himself, fulfilled his contracts, and askedfor nothing.

The fallacy of all prohibitory, sumptuary, andmoral legislation is the same. A and B deter-mine to be teetotalers, which is often a wise de-termination, and sometimes a necessary one. IfA and B are moved by considerations whichseem to them good, that is enough. But A and Bput their heads together to get a law passedwhich shall force C to be a teetotaler for the sakeof D, who is in danger of drinking too much.There is no pressure on A and B. They are hav-ing their own way, and they like it. There israrely any pressure on D. He does not like it,and evades it. The pressure all comes on C. Thequestion then arises, Who is C? He is the manwho wants alcoholic liquors for any honest pur-pose whatsoever, who would use his liberty with-out abusing it, who would occasion no public ques-tion, and trouble nobody at all. He is the For-gotten Man again, and as soon as he is drawn fromhis obscurity we see that he is just what each oneof us ought to be.


X.THE CASE OF THE FORGOTTEN MAN

FARTHER CONSIDERED.

THERE is a beautiful notion afloat in our litera-ture and in the minds of our people that men areborn to certain "natural rights." If that weretrue, there would be something on earth whichwas got for nothing, and this world would not bethe place it is at all. The fact is, that there is noright whatever inherited by man which has notan equivalent and corresponding duty by the sideof it, as the price of it. The rights, advantages,capital, knowledge, and all other goods which weinherit from past generations have been won bythe struggles and sufferings of past generations;and the fact that the race lives, though men die,and that the race can by heredity accumulatewithin some cycle its victories over Nature, isone of the facts which make civilization possible.The struggles of the race as a whole produce thepossessions of the race as a whole. Something fornothing is not to be found on earth.

If there were such things as natural rights, thequestion would arise, Against whom are theygood? Who has the corresponding obligation tosatisfy these rights? There can be no rightsagainst Nature, except to get out of her whateverwe can, which is only the fact of the struggle for


existence stated over again. The common asser-tion is, that the rights are good against society;that is, that society is bound to obtain and securethem for the persons interested. Society, how-ever, is only the persons interested plus someother persons; and as the persons interested haveby the hypothesis failed to win the rights, wecome to this, that natural rights are the claimswhich certain persons have by prerogative againstsome other persons. Such is the actual interpreta-tion in practice of natural rights—claims whichsome people have by prerogative on other people.

This theory is a very far-reaching one, and ofcourse it is adequate to furnish a foundation fora whole social philosophy. In its widest exten-sion it comes to mean that if any man finds him-self uncomfortable in this world, it must besomebody else's fault, and that somebody isbound to come and make him comfortable. Now,the people who are most uncomfortable in thisworld (for if we should tell all our troubles itwould not be found to be a very comfortableworld for anybody) are those who have ne-glected their duties, and consequently have failedto get their rights. The people who can be calledupon to serve the uncomfortable must be thosewho have done their duty, as the world goes,tolerably well. Consequently the doctrine whichwe are discussing turns out to be in practice only


a scheme for making injustice prevail in humansociety by reversing the distribution of rewardsand punishments between those who have donetheir duty and those who have not.

We are constantly preached at by our publicteachers, as if respectable people were to blamebecause some people are not respectable—as ifthe man who has done his duty in his own spherewas responsible in some way for another manwho has not done his duty in his sphere. Thereare relations of employer and employe* whichneed to be regulated by compromise and treaty.There are sanitary precautions which need to betaken in factories and houses. There are precau-tions against fire which are necessary. There iscare needed that children be not employed tooyoung, and that they have an education. Thereis care needed that banks, insurance companies,and railroads be well managed, and that officersdo not abuse their trusts. There is a duty in eachcase on the interested parties to defend their owninterest. The penalty of neglect is suffering. Thesystem of providing for these things by boardsand inspectors throws the cost of it, not on the in-terested parties, but on the tax-payers. Some ofthem, no doubt, are the interested parties, andthey may consider that they are exercising theproper care by paying taxes to support an in-spector. If so, they only get their fair deserts


when the railroad inspector finds out that abridge is not safe after it is broken down, or whenthe bank examiner comes in to find out why abank failed after the cashier has stolen all thefunds. The real victim is the Forgotten Managain—the man who has watched his own invest-ments, made his own machinery safe, attended tohis own plumbing, and educated his own chil-dren, and who, just when he wants to enjoy thefruits of his care, is told that it is his duty to goand take care of some of his negligent neighbors,or, if he does not go, to pay an inspector to go.No doubt it is often in his interest to go or to send,rather than to have the matter neglected, on ac-count of his own connection with the thing ne-glected, and his own secondary peril; but thepoint now is, that if preaching and philosophiz-ing can do any good in the premises, it is allwrong to preach to the Forgotten Man that it ishis duty to go and remedy other people's neglect.It is not his duty. It is a harsh and unjust burdenwhich is laid upon him, and it is only the moreunjust because no one thinks of him when layingthe burden so that it falls on him. The exhorta-tions ought to be expended on the negligent—that they take care of themselves.

It is an especially vicious extension of the falsedoctrine above mentioned that criminals havesome sort of a right against or claim on society.


Many reformatory plans are based on a doctrineof this kind when they are urged upon the publicconscience. A criminal is a man who, instead ofworking with and for the society, has turnedagainst it, and become destructive and injurious.His punishment means that society rules him outof its membership, and separates him from itsassociation, by execution or imprisonment, ac-cording to the gravity of his offense. He has noclaims against society at all. What shall be donewith him is a question of expediency to be settledin view of the interests of society—that is, of thenon-criminals. The French writers of the schoolof '48 used to represent the badness of the badmen as the fault of "society." As the object ofthis statement was to show that the badness of thebad men was not the fault of the bad men, and associety contains only good men and bad men, itfollowed that the badness of the bad men was thefault of the good men. On that theory, of coursethe good men owed a great deal to the bad menwho were in prison and at the galleys on theiraccount. If we do not admit that theory, it be-hooves us to remember that any claim which weallow to the criminal against the "State" is onlyso much burden laid upon those who have nevercost the State anything for discipline or correc-tion. The punishments of society are just like


those of God and Nature—they are warnings tothe wrong-doer to reform himself.

When public offices are to be filled numerouscandidates at once appear. Some are urged onthe ground that they are poor, or cannot earn aliving, or want support while getting an educa-tion, or have female relatives dependent on them,or are in poor health, or belong in a particulardistrict, or are related to certain persons, or havedone meritorious service in some other line ofwork than that which they apply to do. Theabuses of the public service are to be condemnedon account of the harm to the public interest, butthere is an incidental injustice of the same gen-eral character with that which we are discussing.If an office is granted by favoritism or for anypersonal reason to A, it cannot be given to B. Ifan office is filled by a person who is unfit for it, healways keeps out somebody somewhere who is fitfor it; that is, the social injustice has a victim inan unknown person—the Forgotten Man—andhe is some person who has no political influence,and who has known no way in which to securethe chances of life except to deserve them. He ispassed by for the noisy, pushing, importunate, andincompetent.

I have said something disparagingly in a pre-vious chapter about the popular rage againstcombined capital, corporations, corners, selling


futures, etc., etc. The popular rage is not with-out reason, but it is sadly misdirected and thereal things which deserve attack are thriving allthe time. The greatest social evil with which wehave to contend is jobbery. Whatever there is inlegislative charters, watering stocks, etc., etc.,which is objectionable, comes under the head ofjobbery. Jobbery is any scheme which aims togain, not by the legitimate fruits of industry andenterprise, but by extorting from somebody apart of his product under guise of some pre-tended industrial undertaking. Of course it isonly a modification when the undertaking inquestion has some legitimate character, but theoccasion is used to graft upon it devices for ob-taining what has not been earned. Jobbery is thevice of plutocracy, and it is the especial formunder which plutocracy corrupts a democraticand republican form of government. The UnitedStates is deeply afflicted with it, and the problemof civil liberty here is to conquer it. It affectseverything which we really need to have done tosuch an extent that we have to do without publicobjects which we need through fear of jobbery.Our public buildings are jobs—not always, butoften. They are not needed, or are costly beyondall necessity or even decent luxury. Internal im-provements are jobs. They are not made becausethey are needed to meet needs which have been


experienced. They are made to serve privateends, often incidentally the political interests ofthe persons who vote the appropriations. Pen-sions have become jobs. In England pensionsused to be given to aristocrats, because aristocratshad political influence, in order to corrupt them.Here pensions are given to the great democraticmass, because they have political power, to cor-rupt them. Instead of going out where there isplenty of land and making a farm there, somepeople go down under the Mississippi River tomake a farm, and then they want to tax all thepeople in the United States to make dikes to keepthe river off their farms. The California gold-miners have washed out gold, and have washedthe dirt down into the rivers and on the farmsbelow. They want the Federal Government tonow clean out the rivers and restore the farms.The silver-miners found their product decliningin value, and they got the Federal Governmentto go into the market and buy what the public didnot want, in order to sustain (as they hoped) theprice of silver. The Federal Government iscalled upon to buy or hire unsalable ships, tobuild canals which will not pay, to furnish capi-tal for all sorts of experiments, and to provide capi-tal for enterprises of which private individualswill win the profits. All this is called "developing


our resources," but it is, in truth, the great planof all living on each other.

The greatest job of all is a protective tariff. Itincludes the biggest log-rolling and the widestcorruption of economic and political ideas. Itwas said that there would be a rebellion if thetaxes were not taken off whiskey and tobacco,which taxes were paid into the public Treasury.Just then the importations of Sumatra tobaccobecame important enough to affect the market.The Connecticut tobacco-growers at once calledfor an import duty on tobacco which would keepup the price of their product. So it appears thatif the tax on tobacco is paid to the Federal Trea-sury there will be a rebellion, but if it is paid tothe Connecticut tobacco-raisers there will be norebellion at all. The farmers have long paidtribute to the manufacturers; now the manufac-turing and other laborers are to pay tribute to thefarmers. The system is made more comprehen-sive and complete, and we all are living on eachother more than ever.

Now, the plan of plundering each other pro-duces nothing. It only wastes. All the materialover which the protected interests wrangle andgrab must be got from somebody outside of theircircle. The talk is all about the American la-borer and American industry, but in every casein which there is not an actual production of


wealth by industry there are two laborers andtwo industries to be considered—the one whogets and the one who gives. Every protected in-dustry has to plead, as the major premise of itsargument, that any industry which does not payought to be carried on at the expense of the con-sumers of the product, and, as its minor premise,that the industry in question does not pay; that is,that it cannot reproduce a capital equal in valueto that which it consumes plus the current rate ofprofit. Hence every such industry must be aparasite on some other industry. What is the otherindustry? Who is the other man? This, the realquestion, is always overlooked.

In all jobbery the case is the same. There is avictim somewhere who is paying for it all. Thedoors of waste and extravagance stand open, andthere seems to be a general agreement to squanderand spend. It all belongs to somebody. Thereis somebody who had to contribute it, and whowill have to find more. Nothing is ever saidabout him. Attention is all absorbed by the clam-orous interests, the importunate petitioners,the plausible schemers, the pitiless bores. Now,who is the victim? He is the Forgotten Man. Ifwe go to find him, we shall find him hard at worktilling the soil to get out of it the fund for all thejobbery, the object of all the plunder, the cost ofall the economic quackery, and the pay of all the


politicians and statesmen who have sacrificed hisinterests to his enemies. We shall find him anhonest, sober, industrious citizen, unknown out-side his little circle, paying his debts and his taxes,supporting the church and the school, reading hisparty newspaper, and cheering for his petpolitician.

We must not overlook the fact that the Forgot-ten Man is not infrequently a woman. I have be-fore me a newspaper which contains five lettersfrom corset-stitchers who complain that theycannot earn more than seventy-five cents a daywith a machine, and that they have to providethe thread. The tax on the grade of thread usedby them is prohibitory as to all importation, andit is the corset-stitchers who have to pay day byday out of their time and labor the total enhance-ment of price due to the tax. Women who earntheir own living probably earn on an averageseventy-five cents per day of ten hours. Twenty-four minutes' work ought to buy a spool ofthread at the retail price, if the American work-woman were allowed to exchange her labor forthread on the best terms that the art and com-merce of today would allow; but after she hasdone twenty-four minutes' work for the threadshe is forced by the laws of her country to goback and work sixteen minutes longer to pay thetax—that is, to support the thread-mill. The


thread-mill, therefore, is not an institution forgetting thread for the American people, but formaking thread harder to get than it would be ifthere were no such institution.

In justification, now, of an arrangement somonstrously unjust and out of place in a freecountry, it is said that the employes in the thread-mill get high wages, and that, but for the tax,American laborers must come down to the lowwages of foreign thread-makers. It is not truethat American thread-makers get any more thanthe market rate of wages, and they would not getless if the tax were entirely removed, because themarket rate of wages in the United States wouldbe controlled then, as it is now, by the supply anddemand of laborers under the natural advantagesand opportunities of industry in this country. Itmakes a great impression on the imagination,however, to go to a manufacturing town and seegreat mills and a crowd of operatives; and sucha sight is put forward, under the special allega-tion that it would not exist but for a protectivetax, as a proof that protective taxes are wise. Butif it be true that the thread-mill would not existbut for the tax, or that the operatives would notget such good wages but for the tax, then howcan we form a judgment as to whether the pro-tective system is wise or not unless we call tomind all the seamstresses, washer-women, ser-


vants, factory-hands, saleswomen, teachers, andlaborers' wives and daughters, scattered in thegarrets and tenements of great cities and in cot-tages all over the country, who are paying the taxwhich keeps the mill going and pays the extrawages? If the sewing-women, teachers, servants,and washer-women could once be collected overagainst the thread-mill, then some inferencescould be drawn which would be worth some-thing. Then some light might be thrown uponthe obstinate fallacy of "creating an industry,"and we might begin to understand the differencebetween wanting thread and wanting a thread-mill. Some nations spend capital on great pal-aces, others on standing armies, others on iron-clad ships of war. Those things are all glorious,and strike the imagination with great force whenthey are seen; but no one doubts that they makelife harder for the scattered insignificant peas-ants and laborers who have to pay for them all.They "support a great many people," they "makework," they "give employment to other indus-tries." We Americans have no palaces, armies, oriron-clads, but we spend our earnings on protectedindustries. A big protected factory, if it reallyneeds the protection for its support, is a heavierload for the Forgotten Men and Women than aniron-clad ship of war in time of peace.

It is plain that the Forgotten Man and the


Forgotten Woman are the real productivestrength of the country. The Forgotten Manworks and votes—generally he prays—but hischief business in life is to pay. His name nevergets into the newspapers except when he marriesor dies. He is an obscure man. He may grumblesometimes to his wife, but he does not frequentthe grocery, and he does not talk politics at thetavern. So he is forgotten. Yet who is therewhom the statesman, economist, and social phi-losopher ought to think of before this man? Ifany student of social science comes to appreciatethe case of the Forgotten Man, he will becomean unflinching advocate of strict scientific think-ing in sociology, and a hard-hearted skeptic asregards any scheme of social amelioration. Hewill always want to know, Who and where is theForgotten Man in this case, who will have to payfor it all?

The Forgotten Man is not a pauper. It be-longs to his character to save something. Hencehe is a capitalist, though never a great one. He isa "poor" man in the popular sense of the word,but not in a correct sense. In fact, one of the mostconstant and trustworthy signs that the ForgottenMan is in danger of a new assault is, that "thepoor man" is brought into the discussion. Sincethe Forgotten Man has some capital, any onewho cares for his interest will try to make capital


secure by securing the inviolability of contracts,the stability of currency, and the firmness ofcredit. Any one, therefore, who cares for theForgotten Man will be sure to be considered afriend of the capitalist and an enemy of the poorman.

It is the Forgotten Man who is threatened byevery extension of the paternal theory of govern-ment. It is he who must work and pay. When,therefore, the statesmen and social philosopherssit down to think what the State can do or oughtto do, they really mean to decide what the For-gotten Man shall do. What the Forgotten Manwants, therefore, is a fuller realization of consti-tutional liberty. He is suffering from the factthat there are yet mixed in our institutions me-diaeval theories of protection, regulation, andauthority, and modern theories of independenceand individual liberty and responsibility. Theconsequence of this mixed state of things is, thatthose who are clever enough to get into controluse the paternal theory by which to measuretheir own rights—that is, they assume privileges;and they use the theory of liberty to measuretheir own duties—that is, when it comes to theduties, they want to be "let alone." The Forgot-ten Man never gets into control. He has to payboth ways. His rights are measured to him bythe theory of liberty—that is, he has only such as


he can conquer; his duties are measured to himon the paternal theory—that is, he must dis-charge all which are laid upon him, as is the for-tune of parents. In a paternal relation there arealways two parties, a father and a child; andwhen we use the paternal relation metaphori-cally, it is of the first importance to know who isto be father and who is to be child. The role ofparent falls always to the Forgotten Man. Whathe wants, therefore, is that ambiguities in ourinstitutions be cleared up, and that liberty bemore fully realized.

It behooves any economist or social philoso-pher, whatever be the grade of his orthodoxy,who proposes to enlarge the sphere of the"State," or to take any steps whatever having inview the welfare of any class whatever, to pursuethe analysis of the social effects of his propositionuntil he finds that other group whose interestsmust be curtailed or whose energies must beplaced under contribution by the course ofaction which he proposes; and he cannot main-tain his proposition until he has demonstratedthat it will be more advantageous, both quantita-tively and qualitatively, to those who must bearthe weight of it than complete non-interferenceby the State with the relations of the parties inquestion.


XL

WHEREFORE WE SHOULD LOVE ONE ANOTHER.

SUPPOSE that a man, going through a wood,should be struck by a falling tree and pinneddown beneath it. Suppose that another man,coming that way and finding him there, should,instead of hastening to give or to bring aid, beginto lecture on the law of gravitation, taking thetree as an illustration.

Suppose, again, that a person lecturing on thelaw of gravitation should state the law of fallingbodies, and suppose that an objector should say:You state your law as a cold, mathematical fact,and you declare that all bodies will fall conform-ably to it. How heartless! You do not reflect thatit may be a beautiful little child falling from awindow.

These two suppositions may be of some use tous as illustrations.

Let us take the second first. It is the objectionof the sentimentalist; and, ridiculous as the modeof discussion appears when applied to the laws ofnatural philosophy, the sociologist is constantlymet by objections of just that character. Espe-cially when the subject under discussion is char-ity in any of its public forms, the attempt tobring method and clearness into the discussion issure to be crossed by suggestions which are as far


from the point and as foreign to any really intel-ligent point of view as the supposed speech in theillustration. In the first place, a child would falljust as a stone would fall. Nature's forces knowno pity. Just so in sociology. The forces knowno pity. In the second place, if a natural philoso-pher should discuss all the bodies which mayfall, he would go entirely astray, and would cer-tainly do no good. The same is true of the sociolo-gist. He must concentrate, not scatter, andstudy laws, not all conceivable combinations offorce which may occur in practice. In the thirdplace, nobody ever saw a body fall as the philoso-phers say it will fall, because they can accom-plish nothing unless they study forces separately,and allow for their combined action in all con-crete and actual phenomena. The same is true insociology, with the additional fact that the forcesand their combinations in sociology are far themost complex which we have to deal with. Inthe fourth place, any natural philosopher whoshould stop, after stating the law of fallingbodies, to warn mothers not to let their childrenfall out of the window, would make himselfridiculous. Just so a sociologist who should at-tach moral applications and practical maxims tohis investigations would entirely miss his properbusiness. There is the force of gravity as a fact inthe world. If we understand this, the necessity of


care to conform to the action of gravity meets usat every step in our private life and personal ex-perience. The fact in sociology is in no wisedifferent.

If, for instance, we take political economy,that science does not teach an individual how toget rich. It is a social science. It treats of thelaws of the material welfare of human societies.It is, therefore, only one science among all thesciences which inform us about the laws and con-ditions of our life on earth. Education has for itsobject to give a man knowledge of the conditionsand laws of living, so that, in any case in whichthe individual stands face to face with the neces-sity of deciding what to do, if he is an educatedman, he may know how to make a wise and intel-ligent decision. If he knows chemistry, physics,geology, and other sciences, he will know whathe must encounter of obstacle or help in Naturein what he proposes to do. If he knows physiologyand hygiene, he will know what effects on healthhe must expect in one course or another. If heknows political economy, he will know what effecton wealth and on the welfare of society one courseor another will produce. There is no injunction,no "ought" in political economy at all. It does notassume to tell man what he ought to do, any morethan chemistry tells us that we ought to mixthings, or mathematics that we ought to solve


equations. It only gives one element necessary toan intelligent decision, and in every practical andconcrete case the responsibility of deciding whatto do rests on the man who has to act. The econo-mist, therefore, does not say to any one, Youought never to give money to charity. He contra-dicts anybody who says, You ought to give moneyto charity; and, in opposition to any such person,he says, Let me show you what difference it makesto you, to others, to society, whether you givemoney to charity or not, so that you can make awise and intelligent decision. Certainly there isno harder thing to do than to employ capitalcharitably. It would be extreme folly to say thatnothing of that sort ought to be done, but I fullybelieve that today the next pernicious thing to viceis charity in its broad and popular sense.

In the preceding chapters I have discussed thepublic and social relations of classes, and thosesocial topics in which groups of persons are con-sidered as groups or classes, without regard topersonal merits or demerits. I have relegated allcharitable work to the domain of private rela-tions, where personal acquaintance and personalestimates may furnish the proper limitations andguarantees. A man who had no sympathies andno sentiments would be a very poor creature; butthe public charities, more especially the legisla-tive charities, nourish no man's sympathies and


sentiments. Furthermore, it ought to be dis-tinctly perceived that any charitable and benevo-lent effort which any man desires to make volun-tarily, to see if he can do any good, lies entirelybeyond the field of discussion. It would be as im-pertinent to prevent his effort as it is to force co-operation in an effort on some one who does notwant to participate in it. What I choose to do byway of exercising my own sympathies under myown reason and conscience is one thing; whatanother man forces me to do of a sympatheticcharacter, because his reason and conscience ap-prove of it, is quite another thing.

What, now, is the reason why we should helpeach other? This carries us back to the other il-lustration with which we started. We may phi-losophize as coolly and correctly as we chooseabout our duties and about the laws of right liv-ing; no one of us lives up to what he knows. Theman struck by the falling tree has, perhaps, beencareless. We are all careless. Environed as weare by risks and perils, which befall us as misfor-tunes, no man of us is in a position to say, "Iknow all the laws, and am sure to obey them all;therefore I shall never need aid and sympathy."At the very best, one of us fails in one way andanother in another, if we do not fail altogether.Therefore the man under the tree is the one of uswho for the moment is smitten. It may be you to-


morrow, and I next day. It is the common frailtyin the midst of a common peril which gives us akind of solidarity of interest to rescue the one forwhom the chances of life have turned out badlyjust now. Probably the victim is to blame. Healmost always is so. A lecture to that effect in thecrisis of his peril would be out of place, becauseit would not fit the need of the moment; but itwould be very much in place at another time,when the need was to avert the repetition of suchan accident to somebody else. Men, therefore,owe to men, in the chances and perils of this life,aid and sympathy, on account of the commonparticipation in human frailty and folly. Thisobservation, however, puts aid and sympathy inthe field of private and personal relations, underthe regulation of reason and conscience, and givesno ground for mechanical and impersonal schemes.

We may, then, distinguish four things:

1. The function of science is to investigatetruth. Science is colorless and impersonal. It in-vestigates the force of gravity, and finds out thelaws of that force, and has nothing to do with theweal or woe of men under the operation of thelaw.

2. The moral deductions as to what one oughtto do are to be drawn by the reason and conscienceof the individual man who is instructed by science.


Let him take note of the force of gravity, and seeto it that he does not walk off a precipice or getin the way of a falling body.

3. On account of the number and variety ofperils of all kinds by which our lives are en-vironed, and on account of ignorance, carelessness,and folly, we all neglect to obey the moral deduc-tions which we have learned, so that, in fact, thewisest and the best of us act foolishly and suffer.

4. The law of sympathy, by which we share eachothers' burdens, is to do as we would be done by.It is not a scientific principle, and does not admitof such generalization or interpretation that A cantell B what this law enjoins on B to do. Hence therelations of sympathy and sentiment are essen-tially limited to two persons only, and they cannotbe made a basis for the relations of groups ofpersons, or for discussion by any third party.

Social improvement is not to be won by directeffort. It is secondary, and results from physicalor economic improvements. That is the reasonwhy schemes of direct social amelioration alwayshave an arbitrary, sentimental, and artificialcharacter, while true social advance must be aproduct and a growth. The efforts which arebeing put forth for every kind of progress in thearts and sciences are, therefore, contributing totrue social progress. Let any one learn what


hardship was involved, even for a wealthy per-son, a century ago, in crossing the Atlantic, andthen let him compare that hardship even with asteerage passage at the present time, consideringtime and money cost. This improvement in trans-portation by which "the poor and weak" can becarried from the crowded centres of populationto the new land is worth more to them than allthe schemes of all the social reformers. An im-provement in surgical instruments or in anaes-thetics really does more for those who are notwell off than all the declamations of the oratorsand pious wishes of the reformers. Civil servicereform would be a greater gain to the laborersthan innumerable factory acts and eight-hourlaws. Free trade would be a greater blessing to"the poor man" than all the devices of all thefriends of humanity if they could be realized. Ifthe economists could satisfactorily solve theproblem of the regulation of paper currency,they would do more for the wages class thancould be accomplished by all the artificial doc-trines about wages which they seem to feel boundto encourage. If we could get firm and good lawspassed for the management of savings-banks, andthen refrain from the amendments by whichthose laws are gradually broken down, we shoulddo more for the non-capitalist class than by vol-


umes of laws against "corporations" and the "ex-cessive power of capital."

We each owe to the other mutual redress ofgrievances. It has been said, in answer to myargument in the last chapter about the ForgottenWomen and thread, that the tax on thread is"only a little thing," and that it cannot hurt thewomen much, and also that, if the women do notwant to pay two cents a spool tax, there is threadof an inferior quality, which they can buycheaper. These answers represent the bitterestand basest social injustice. Every honest citizenof a free state owes it to himself, to the commu-nity, and especially to those who are at once weakand wronged, to go to their assistance and to helpredress their wrongs. Whenever a law or socialarrangement acts so as to injure any one, and thatone the humblest, then there is a duty on thosewho are stronger, or who know better, to demandand fight for redress and correction. When gen-eralized this means that it is the duty of All-of-us (that is, the State) to establish justice for all,from the least to the greatest, and in all matters.This, however, is no new doctrine. It is only theold, true, and indisputable function of the State;and in working for a redress of wrongs and a cor-rection of legislative abuses, we are only strug-gling to a fuller realization of it—that is, workingto improve civil government.


We each owe it to the other to guarantee rights.Rights do not pertain to results, but only tochances. They pertain to the conditions of thestruggle for existence, not to any of the results ofit; to the pursuit of happiness, not to the posses-sion of happiness. It cannot be said that each onehas a right to have some property, because if oneman had such a right some other man or menwould be under a corresponding obligation toprovide him with some property. Each has aright to acquire and possess property if he can.It is plain what fallacies are developed when weoverlook this distinction. Those fallacies runthrough all socialistic schemes and theories. Ifwe take rights to pertain to results, and then saythat rights must be equal, we come to say thatmen have a right to be equally happy, and so onin all the details. Rights should be equal, be-cause they pertain to chances, and all ought tohave equal chances so far as chances are pro-vided or limited by the action of society. This,however, will not produce equal results, but it isright just because it will produce unequal results—that is, results which shall be proportioned tothe merits of individuals. We each owe it to theother to guarantee mutually the chance to earn,to possess, to learn, to marry, etc., etc., againstany interference which would prevent the exer-cise of those rights by a person who wishes to


prosecute and enjoy them in peace for the pur-suit of happiness. If we generalize this, it meansthat All-of-us ought to guarantee rights to eachof us. But our modern free, constitutional Statesare constructed entirely on the notion of rights,and we regard them as performing their func-tions more and more perfectly according as theyguarantee rights in consonance with the con-stantly corrected and expanded notions of rightsfrom one generation to another. Therefore,when we say that we owe it to each other to guar-antee rights we only say that we ought to prose-cute and improve our political science.

If we have in mind the value of chances toearn, learn, possess, etc., for a man of indepen-dent energy, we can go on one step farther in ourdeductions about help. The only help which isgenerally expedient, even within the limits of theprivate and personal relations of two persons toeach other, is that which consists in helping aman to help himself. This always consists inopening the chances. A man of assured positioncan by an effort which is of no appreciable im-portance to him, give aid which is of incalcul-able value to a man who is all ready to make hisown career if he can only get a chance. Thetruest and deepest pathos in this world is not thatof suffering but that of brave struggling. Thetruest sympathy is not compassion, but a fellow-


feeling with courage and fortitude in the midstof noble effort.

Now, the aid which helps a man to help him-self is not in the least akin to the aid which isgiven in charity. If alms are given, or if we"make work" for a man, or "give him employ-ment," or "protect" him, we simply take a prod-uct from one and give it to another. If we help aman to help himself, by opening the chancesaround him, we put him in a position to add tothe wealth of the community by putting newpowers in operation to produce. It would seemthat the difference between getting somethingalready in existence from the one who has it, andproducing a new thing by applying new labor tonatural materials, would be so plain as never tobe forgotten; but the fallacy of confusing the twois one of the commonest in all social discussions.

We have now seen that the current discussionsabout the claims and rights of social classes oneach other are radically erroneous and falla-cious, and we have seen that an analysis of thegeneral obligations which we all have to eachother leads us to nothing but an emphatic repeti-tion of old but well acknowledged obligations toperfect our political institutions. We have beenled to restriction, not extension, of the functionsof the State, but we have also been led to see thenecessity of purifying and perfecting the opera-


tion of the State in the functions which properlybelong to it. If we refuse to recognize any classesas existing in society when, perhaps, a claimmight be set up that the wealthy, educated, andvirtuous have acquired special rights and pre-cedence, we certainly cannot recognize anyclasses when it is attempted to establish such dis-tinctions for the sake of imposing burdens andduties on one group for the benefit of others. Themen who have not done their duty in this worldnever can be equal to those who have done theirduty more or less well. If words like wise andfoolish, thrifty and extravagant, prudent andnegligent, have any meaning in language, then itmust make some difference how people behavein this world, and the difference will appear inthe position they acquire in the body of society,and in relation to the chances of life. They may,then, be classified in reference to these facts.Such classes always will exist; no other social dis-tinctions can endure. If, then, we look to theorigin and definition of these classes, we shallfind it impossible to deduce any obligationswhich one of them bears to the other. The classdistinctions simply result from the different de-grees of success with which men have availedthemselves of the chances which were presentedto them. Instead of endeavoring to redistributethe acquisitions which have been made between


the existing classes, our aim should be to in-crease, multiply, and extend the chances. Suchis the work of civilization. Every old error orabuse which is removed opens new chances of de-velopment to all the new energy of society. Everyimprovement in education, science, art, or gov-ernment expands the chances of man on earth.Such expansion is no guarantee of equality. Onthe contrary, if there be liberty, some will profitby the chances eagerly and some will neglectthem altogether. Therefore, the greater thechances the more unequal will be the fortune ofthese two sets of men. So it ought to be, in alljustice and right reason. The yearning afterequality is the offspring of envy and covetous-ness, and there is no possible plan for satisfyingthat yearning which can do aught else than robA to give to B; consequently all such plans nour-ish some of the meanest vices of human nature,waste capital, and overthrow civilization. But ifwe can expand the chances we can count on ageneral and steady growth of civilization andadvancement of society by and through its bestmembers. In the prosecution of these chances weall owe to each other good-will, mutual respect,and mutual guarantees of liberty and security.Beyond this nothing can be affirmed as a duty ofone group to another in a free state.

what social classes owe to each other - mises institute social classes owe each other_2.pdfunited...

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