Harald Westergaard

“ The special compulsion of the struggle is over, but it has left an aftermath of issues grave enough to make peace insecure unless something equivalent to the Supreme Economic Council survives in full efficiency. The agency that did so much to win the war may do as much to prevent another one, but to that end it will have to be guided by economic principles, and it is a saving fact that these still survive. The war has not abolished the law of demand and supply, though governments may forget it. In the coming era they must build better than they now know. ”

“ The fact that during the war governments had to take on innumerable functions that were formerly in private hands has lent an impetus to socialism and to the perverted growths that have accompanied it, and it has created a new international system the meaning of which is profoundly significant, though he who runs cannot so easily read it. There are dangerous features in the system which the war evoked and, happily for mankind, there are available safeguards which were evoked with them and need to be retained if human effort can do it. ”

“ By all this legislation Denmark posits, clearly the right of the citizen to exist. This principle has been so far recognized by all civilized countries that they acknowledge as a duty the establishment of a Poor Relief System. But in most countries the relief given through such a medium involves certain limitations of political rights; and, moreover, it is generally rather small. No such limitation, however, is attached to the legislation described, where, indeed, help has recently been given so freely that the unemployed workman is under no great inducement to return to work. ”

“ The social gap separating the peasant and the noble in the eighteenth century was enormous; and under lying it was a deep-rooted conviction that every man was born into his class, whether that of noble, peasant, or plain citizen. There might be a feeling of dissatisfaction among the poor, and this feeling might even, under special circumstances, lead to revolt. Almost all countries have known peasant revolts. But in spite of dissatisfaction and revolt the conviction persisted that every man must remain in the class into which he was born. ”

“ Mere exhaustion holds war dogs temporarily in leash, but it will take more than that to tame them as they must be tamed if peace is made to last.
We here confront a wide difference between the several states in comparative desire for peace and disposition to maintain it. One portentous fact is the grim determination of Russian communists to extend their system by crude force from state to state. Bolshevism is government by the few and largely the bad masquerading as government for and by the people. ”

“ For a long time the trade unions included labour exchange and support of the unemployed in their programmes. Because of their aggressive attitude, however, they were less able to secure government recognition and support for this work, since they gave 'unemployment support' not only to their members who were out of work, but also to those who were out on strike. It is natural, therefore, that employers always looked askance on labour exchange as practised by trade unions. ”

“ But with this growing enlightenment there has sprung up a dread of infection, which sometimes makes it difficult for a patient discharged from a tuberculosis sanitorium to obtain work. If he is skilled in office-work, for example, his fellow-workers in the office may shun him as one infected with plague. It is, therefore, a very important duty to help such people, who though they are well and able to work, are unable to find employment. And this does not apply only to persons who have recovered from tuberculosis ”

“ The neutrality of Denmark during the World War created for her unique economic opportunities. There was a great demand for goods which she had on hand or could readily procure. Shrewd merchants and manufacturers recognized their opportunity, and in a very short time many of them made large fortunes. But this was not to the advantage of the majority. In the eager race to purchase the commodities which Denmark was able to deliver, prices rose and the populace was in danger of serious privation. ”

“ The custom of boarding the farmhand seemed too deeply rooted to be changed. As an author wrote some years later in regard to it: 'It was based on the idea that a man could not work on such food as his family had to be content with.' This view may still be found among workmen in the towns, where it is a matter of course that the head of the family gets more abundant and more nourishing food than his wife and children; but for the farmhand of forty years ago who owned no land, it was misery. Generous employers sometimes supplemented the terribly inadequate wage by gifts, such as milk ”

“ But while the industrial development of Denmark has been slight in comparison with that of other countries, it has, nevertheless, been sufficient to form a gulf between employers and employees. The strong class feeling of earlier periods still exists, but in a new form; its basis is no longer trade rivalry, but the antagonism of capital and labour, which often develops to the point of open conflict. ”

“ In its mother country, Russia, the economic measure by which it began its career was confiscation of private wealth—in itself an ultra-democratic measure. If this had brought in a true communism, it would have been a ruthless and unjust measure for creating a peace-loving state. ”

“ The plans of the Division of Economics and History of the Carnegie Endowment have been transformed by the World War. Problems now calling for study transcend in importance those with which this division has been dealing and material for research and record so far transcends any that was formerly available that it will demand almost exclusive attention for some years to come. A new world has evolved suddenly out of the world which we knew, and the transformation extends to the foundations of government and of economic life. ”

“ The younger members of the party have often shown impatience with the slow and cautious methods of the older men. In Denmark, as in all other countries, the Syndicalistic Movement regards itself as the more genuine expression of the teachings of Karl Marx. Parliament is looked down upon as an anachronism, and there is a desire for immediate and vigorous action, which would bring us to the verge of anarchy. We cannot impeach the motives of these young men. They may be firmly convinced that the community will adjust itself wisely to unchartered freedom when the old bonds have been broken ”

“ Within the several states war has democratized industry, giving to labour an increase of control a change that, if continued, will entail momentous consequences; but still greater effects have been produced on the relations of states to each other. The world as a whole has changed more than its component parts, and the new relation of the parts to one another is the critical element in the situation. The great increase in the economic functions of governments is one cause of this condition. ”

“ In the rural districts a large class of cottars or farm labourers had grown up alongside the seventy thousand peasants; and in the towns industries had developed which gave employment to large numbers of workmen who were widely separated, both socially and economically, from their employers, even though there still existed a middle stratum of society whose time-honoured customs and modes of thinking served, to a certain extent, to bridge the gap between the upper and lower classes. ”

“ The war also interfered with the movement in Denmark and prevented voluntary unemployment funds from becoming the great lever in social reform that they might have been. If it had been possible for the movement to develop quietly under the favourable conditions which had prevailed in Denmark at the beginning of this century, there is no doubt that this branch of social insurance would have received much greater sympathy from all classes of society. ”

“ It is safe to say that the death-dealing arts and instruments will far surpass in destructiveness those which made the late war so deadly, and to a soldier of the future the order to march into a cloud of poisonous gas and a whirlwind of missiles will resemble an order to plunge into the rapids of Niagara. This is one central and obvious fact which the war has taught us, and it has many corollaries, some of which have to do with the increased costs of war and the importance of the particular resources that make a nation powerful for offence and defence ”

“ As populations increase and push forward from all sides, there is a natural interchange of influence. That southern Sleswick, originally Danish, thus became Germanized, is no wonder. German artisans found their way into Denmark and brought with them the customs of their guilds; and the language of Danish artisans to-day is clearly marked by this influence. During the flourishing period of the Hanseatic towns German trade found fertile soil in Denmark, and Danish economic life was in many ways dependent on Hamburg. ”

“ Future historians will certainly see in the Danish use of the unemployment funds during the present period of high prices a reflection of the English Allowance System of the eighteenth century, which Malthus attacked so vigorously. Just as that system aimed to give the unemployed workman the minimum necessary for his existence, the present Danish system aims to give him an income up to a certain limit. ”

“ All this activity in the field of unemployment insurance furnishes proof of the independent development of social ideas. Adam Smith and Turgot announced the principle of man's right to work, and they built upon it. They set forth as a prime necessity the abolition of all trade restrictions, so that all men might use their powers as they thought fit. ”

“ Within the great international community in which the several states are units extensive economic functions have gravitated into the hands of governments and caused them to face each other as business rivals and to deal with each other in a multitude of ways in which the merely self-seeking policy of private business is intolerable. ”

“ Their combined populations constitute but a small percentage of the population of Europe; that of the kingdom of Denmark is not 2 per mille of the population of the earth. Still, there is profit in such an inquiry. In the whirling stream in which society is now drifting there is, as it were, a current for each country; and the smaller the country, the easier the task of following its course. In a diminutive state such as Denmark the same forces are at work as in the great nations, so that a study of what is happening here may help us to understand what is happening elsewhere. ”

“ In some trades the number of apprentices has increased to such an extent that in the near future it may be difficult for a young man to find work in the trade for which he has trained himself; but the working classes will not hear of laws that will restrict the freedom of their children in the choice of a trade.
This individualism confronts us at many points. Help to self-help is an extraordinarily deep-rooted idea. Heretofore the initiative for the launching of many movements useful for society, as in philanthropy, education or science, has been taken by private persons ”

“ It is not surprising that a workman, who has a weekly wage of 28 kroner and who is consequently entitled to 21 kroner weekly in the form of unemployment support, is not tempted to return to all-day labour for a paltry 7 kroner more by taking employment but prefers to receive unemployment support and then perhaps supply his income by some odd work which is outside the control. ”

“ Now one society, now another, will with more or less right lay claim to government recognition and support, and in this way private initiative will co-operate with the community as a whole. Without private initiative the movement might never have been started. ”

“ Now that the state and the municipality had bound themselves to spend so much upon the old, it was thought right and proper that a tax should be imposed as a sort of premium for a certain number of years on those who would benefit by the pension, in order to lighten the burden resting upon the general public. ”

“ But agricultural reform in Denmark was much more beneficial to the peasantry than it was in England. While in the latter country, under the development of the system of great holdings, the peasant class almost disappeared, being replaced by the farmer and the agricultural labourer, whose condition was extremely poor, in Denmark the peasant class survived and came to form a solid and secure core of the population. ”

“ We are justified, however, in holding that few countries are better armed against sudden catastrophes than Denmark; and, if she is spared bolshevist or syndicalistic influence from without, she shows signs, as I hope will appear from this treatise, of a healthy and independent progress, on the lines of her past efficiency and the ideals of her population, toward the solution of the social problem in such a way that it may offer an example to be imitated in several points. ”

“ If we examine the decisions made with regard to the duty of insurance or the reference of accidents under the law, we find that a great liberality underlies its extensive regulations, even in cases which, hastily considered, would seem to lie outside the scope of insurance. ”

“ In certain respects the co-operative dairies give the owners of small holdings the advantage of working on a large scale, while, on the other hand, much work that is better suited for small holdings is handled by individuals.
The development of this movement has not been entirely without social drawbacks. Farmers of earlier generations were naturally more or less liberal with their milk, whereas now they are tempted to count every ounce. But the consequent decline in gifts or payments in kind to their hands is more than balanced by the indubitable rise in wages. ”

“ These great social reforms of the eighteenth century were carried out under peaceful conditions. In France the emancipation of the peasants was brought about by the great Revolution; in Germany, where the oppression must often have been extremely severe, it did not take place until the nineteenth century.
It is well known that no such formal emancipation was necessary in England, where it was accomplished by the use of capital in the course of the country's normal economic development. It may be said that Denmark was second to England in its gradual, peaceful, social adjustments. ”

“ The workmen's insurance, or rather, the national insurance, which we have briefly described has done much for the benefit of the lower classes. The results may best be summed up, perhaps, as follows: a great step has been taken toward community within society; and, on the whole, Denmark has gone as far as, if not farther than, any other country toward communism, without having had to renounce the principle of individualism. ”