CHAPTER V.

IN THE SOCIALIST STATE.

I.

So far we have only had Marx's argument to prove that capitalism as a system is robbery and spoliation : an argument which, as we have just seen, is less solid than the new Socialists suppose. There is no positive and constructive scheme in Marx's writings; but collectivism is undoubtedly suggested,' that is, the collective ownership of land and capital as the means of production, together with a distribution of products amongst all workers, productive or unproductive, according to the quantity of the work done, which is to be measured by the hours of labour bestowed on it, skilled labour being rated as a certain multiple of average or common labour.

Collectivism is merely suggested by Marx as the future governing principle; it is not worked out into detailed application, so as to present us with a positive, connected, and practicable scheme. As in the case of the somewhat resembling though vaguer scheme of St. Simon, it was the school that elaborated the scheme, so it has been rather the disciples of Karl

In particular, " Capital," vol. ii. p. 789 (Eng. trans.).

Marx than the master who have developed collectivism-so far as it has yet been developed into a system.

It must be confessed that its development has not proceeded far possibly in part, as Schaffle suggests, from prudence on the part of collectivist leaders, lest they might afford a handle to the objector; partly it may be from defect of constructive genius and imagination, which would be more tasked to-day in our more complex life than when Sir Thomas More drew up his ingenious work and partly it may even be, as M. Leroy-Beaulieu affirms, because of the inherent impracticabilities and ineradicable contradictions of the scheme. Whatever the cause, certain it is that no connected and well-thought-out presentment of the scheme as a whole, with a due forecast, adequate weighing, and satisfactory answering, of objections, has been given to the world by Socialist writers of authority, if we may except the short but masterly sketch entitled, "The Quintessence of Socialism," by Dr. Schæffle, who, however, is not so much a Socialist as an impartial critic alike of the new Socialism and of the existing system."

In this absence of full exposition we must content ourselves with taking up the central and main principle, and considering what it logically and necessarily

2" Le Collectivisme."

3 There is also Mr. Gronlund's "Co-operative Commonwealth," in which while the constructive part is greatly wanting on the economical side, neither his exposition of the political side of collectivism nor yet his too easy refutation of objections is quite satisfactory.

implies; we may also take the points in provisional programmes in which the collectivists seem agreed, and those points in the existing system which they have mainly attacked. By all these means, especially by the first, we may get a more magnified if not a more detailed picture of collectivism. We can see as in a panorama the whole of it, what the parent idea in its integrity involves, apart, of course, from the qualifications or reservations of particular

advocates.

The State, then, or the community in general, is to be the collective owner of the land and of all the instruments of production and of transport; by instruments meaning all things requisite, other than land, to produce and to circulate commodities-what economists call fixed capital-all factories, workshops, warehouses, machinery, plant, appliances, railways' rollingstock, ships, &c. The State is to own the land and the fixed capital—or to express both conveniently in a single phrase, the means of production, production according to economic usage being supposed to include the distribution or circulation of products.

Products in their final shape, in which they are directly consumable, the State will not own. These it will only keep in its care, in public warehouses or magazines or stores, until the workers of all kinds send in their claims on them, which claims will be measured by the number of hours for which they have worked, and for which they will have received certificates or labour cheques or orders to be presented against goods in their final consumable form as distinct from those intermediate stages in which

they would be of no usc to the holders under collectivism.

The State will possess the fixed capital, or, more correctly, the instruments of further production; of what is now called circulating capital the State can only be considered as owner of those materials not directly consumable by individuals, because not directly satisfying any material want: it will not be owner, as M. de Laveleye suggests, of that portion of circulating capital now paid as wages, because under collectivism that portion will become the property of the labourers without being in any sense advanced even temporarily to them. It is a result of their labour aided by the instruments, and the State will only have charge of it, will only possess it until the labour cheques on it are presented.

The actual work of production and distribution is to be carried on as at present, namely by large groups or co-operatively, but the directing head is no longer to be the private capitalist employer. He is to be a functionary, a paid official of the State, producing under superior direction and not according to his own judgment; with less risk than at present, but also with much less chance of making a fortune. It is possible, and Schæffle thinks it desirable, that 4 “The Socialism of To-day,” p. 244.

5 The term "circulating capital" would not be very appropriate under collectivism, though at present, contemplated from the capitalist and money point of view, it has significance. The money which is paid for work and materials, in wages and cost of materials, comes back, is replaced with profit, and the process goes on indefinitely. But under collectivism there woudl be

no money.

extra merit should be more highly remunerated, but the salaries it is understood will be very modest indeed as compared with those of the successful men in business now. How the manager or leader of industry is to be selected, whether by the suffrages of the workers or by the State,-and in the latter case whether through the secretaries or chiefs of the Industrial Departments, or in the way it now selects officials for the existing branches of the public service -is a point on which collectivism does not seem to have made up its mind, though its principle, being democratic, leans to the former method.

In agriculture as well as in all other industries the work is to be carried on on collectivist principles, but according to Schæffle, the time is not ripe for this in the rural districts in Germany, though according to Mr. Gronlund the time is ready in England, and soon will be in America, where he thinks the great bonanza farms prove the greater economy of labour, or the greater product to a given amount of labour when farming is carried on on the large scale. His faith is great when we consider that peasant proprietors exist over a large part of the civilized world,

According to Mr. Gronlund, in the co-operative commonwealth all promotion should come from the vote of the workers immediately beneath; the workers choosing the foremen, and. these again the manager; while, on the other hand, the manager could not, in the interests of obedience and discipline, be removable save by his superior. Mill also thought that the managers in future should be elected by the workers; but Mill was only thinking of co-operative production, where the group that owns the capital would naturally have the selection of the manager.