John Bates Clark

“ Whatever there is, be it large or small, may be divided rightly or wrongly; but I am not able to see that the mere division of it exhausts the application of the principle of justice. While it is clearly wrong for one party to plunder another, it is almost as clearly wrong for one party to reduce the general income and so, in a sense, rob everybody. A party that should systematically hinder production and reduce its fruits would rob a myriad of honest laborers who are ill prepared to stand this loss and have a perfect right to be protected from it. ”

“ Under a normal condition, multiplying capital means in itself higher wages. Higher wages mean that laborers, in the end, begin to get boats of their own, or shares in boats, and that the laboring-class and the capitalist class are more and more merged. Invention—that is, devising and introducing canoes—and accumulation of capital—that is, active canoe-building—mean for laborers higher pay and a chance to save capital.
Do you tell me that this is a primitive State, an Eden of the past and hopelessly vanished from the present earth; that it is a lost Paradise whose gates are forever barred? ”

“ Of all conditions of human happiness, the one which is most underestimated is progress in power to produce. Hardly any of those who would revolutionize the industrial State, and not all of those who would reform it, have any conception of the importance of this progress. It is the sine qua non of any hopeful outlook for the future of mankind.
I am to speak, however, of justice in the business relations of life, and it might seem that this shut out the mere question of general prosperity. The most obvious issue between different social classes concerns the division of whatever income exists. ”

“ Socialism can have no monopoly of beatific visions. It offers much in that direction. It draws a picture of a future State of great riches and general equality; and the picture is glorified by a vision of general brotherhood. To some this seems more attractive than any other which imagination can create. I confess to a preference for a prospect which assures, before all else, the continuance of progress, and shows humanity striving to make forward steps and actually making them so long as the universe shall exist. ”

“ For six months we have been living under what may be called “triumphant democracy,” not because the Democratic Party has beaten its rivals and come into control of the Government, but for a much deeper reason, namely, that a democracy carried into industrial life is the dominating principle of every political body that can hope for success. Every party must show by its action that it values the man more than the dollar. To this extent we are all democrats and wish the Government to act for the people as well as to be controlled by the people. ”

“ If we can remove the evils that exist, we shall make our state very much more than tolerable. The greatness of the evils measures the gain from removing them. Every single one that is removed improves the status of our people. We can take, as it were, a social account of stock, measure our present state, measure the extent to which we can improve it by putting an end to one bad influence, count the number of such bad influences, and so get an estimate of the gains of carrying out a complete reformatory programme. It will show an enormous possibility of improvement. ”

“ It tends in the direction of a fair division of products between employers and employed, and if it could work entirely without hindrances, would actually give to every laborer substantially what he produces. In the midst of all prevalent abuses this basic law asserts itself like a law of gravitation, and so long as monopoly is excluded and competition is free,—so long as both labor and capital can move without hindrance to the points at which they can create the largest products and get the largest rewards—its action cannot be stopped, while that of the forces that disturb it can be so. ”

“ I am prepared to claim that it is in this spirit that we demand that private initiative, which has given us the amount of prosperity that we have thus far obtained, shall be enabled to continue its work without being supplanted by monopoly. In a general way I should include public monopoly as well as private among the things which would put a damper on the progress of improvement and lessen the income on which the comfort of laborers in the near future will be dependent. Monopoly of any sort is hostile to improvement, and in this chiefly lies the menace which it holds for mankind. ”

“ Under an inert government the industrial system would suffer irreparably.
The thing first to be rescued is competition—meaning that healthful rivalry between different producers which has always been the guaranty of technical progress. That such progress has gone on with bewildering rapidity since the invention of the steam engine is nowhere denied; and neither is it denied that competition of the normal kind—the effort of rivals to excel in productive processes—has caused it. It has multiplied the product of labor here tenfold, there, twentyfold, and elsewhere a hundredfold and more. ”

“ If we recognize a necessity for a struggle of classes, it is not one that marshals labor against all wealth. The contention is rather between honest wealth allied with honest labor, on the one hand, and dishonest wealth on the other; and in a contest so aligned, victory for the former party means social justice.
There is a preliminary reform to be carried through as a condition of securing most of the others. Who can estimate the benefit which would come from merely making our Government what it purports to be—government by the people? ”

“ If they actually do it, as sooner or later those or kindred measures probably will, they will so far restore the democracy of our earlier and simpler days as to make us look back on the rule of rings and bosses as on a nightmare of the past. When the Government is thus really controlled by the people we can count on having its full power exerted for them. ”

“ Leaders of the Industrial Workers of the World have recently announced an intention of forcing the hours of labor downward from ten hours per day to eight, six, and finally, four, while at the same time the pay will be forced up in a more or less corresponding ratio. They have also announced an intention of making capital useless to its owners, by crippling its productive power, and so making it easier to seize it. It goes without saying that a four-hour day and high wages can never come by a war which destroys most of the income to be divided. ”

“ It is the fact that our misfortunes have come because of our own faults. If they had come when we were doing our best, there would be no hope for us.” Now the evils of our own social system which result from mistakes or faults are just such a ground of hope. Every such evil which can be cited describes one possible reform, and the longer the list of evils, the greater is the sum total of gain which we can make by doing away with them. ”

“ The division of the social income is of vital importance as well as the general size of it. I have claimed for the regulation of monopoly that it is nearly the greatest of possible reforms. Perhaps the very greatest is a change in the mode of adjusting wages. They are fixed at present in a rough-and-ready way, though not without some reference to what labor produces and what employers can pay, and not, therefore, without the action of a principle which makes, in a powerful way, for justice. Any method, however, which involves many strikes and lockouts, is bad economically and worse morally. ”

“ Business men know that this is not the case; and that something puts a check on their action. They can make their prices higher than they should be—higher than it is for the interest of the country to have them; but they cannot make them as high as they would be under a real and secure monopoly. The point I am making is that we can destroy such monopolistic power as they have. We can liberate competition, which has, in the main, afforded reasonable prices, and has also guaranteed that progress which is indispensable for maintaining a human life that is worth living. ”

“ There will never be a time when, in the division of any common property, the mere bald interests of the claimants are alike. When two fishermen own one boat and fish together, each one is interested in taking the whole catch. They divide, however, by a fair rule and live in peace. Any similar division may proceed in harmony if what the parties want is justice. Till recently American workmen have lived with their employers without hating them; and if wages can be fixed now by some appeal to the principle of justice, they can live with them in that way again. ”

“ The line of division between labor and capital ought not always to be the sharp boundary that it is. Labor should be enabled to acquire a modest share of capital and to invest it securely. Protection for small investments is urgently needed, and would do much to change a proletariat into an independent working-class. This is an essential feature of the social system we wish for and work for. ”

“ Every man, woman, and child has a right to demand that the powers that be remove hindrances in the way of production, and not only allow the general income to be large and grow larger, but do everything that they possibly can do to make it grow larger. It is an unjust act to reduce general earnings, even though no one is singled out for particular injury. On this ground we insist on trust legislation, tariff reform, the conservation of natural resources, etc. ”

“ When we differ, it is in deciding on the means to carry out our common purpose; and here we differ very widely. Some would use the power of the State to correct and improve our system of industry, and these constitute a party of reform. Others would abolish that system and substitute something untried. For private capital they would put public capital and for private management, public management—either in the whole field of industry or in that great part of it where large capital rules. These are Socialists in the modern and current sense of the term. ”

“ A belief in a State where even this will be realized is deeply implanted in human nature, and Socialism itself might easily get a major premise from it. The syllogism would run thus: (1) A better State is bound to come. (2) It cannot come under the system of private capital. (3) Therefore that system must be abolished. So would we all say if the minor premise were true—"The good State is impossible under private capital." We claim that it is possible and that we can see how to realize it. We can trace the forces which, without revolution, will make work lighter, pay better. ”

“ If there are "inspiration points" on the mountain-tops of science, as well as on those of nature, this is one of them, and it is reached whenever a man discovers that in a highly imperfect society the fundamental law makes for justice, that it is impossible to prevent it from working and that it is entirely possible to remove the hindrances it encounters and let it have the first play. ”

“ There are doubtless some industries in which hours might be reduced with no lessening of wages, because profits are large enough to bear some reduction. In these cases a strong union might get either more pay for a day of the present length or the present rate for a shorter day. A universal reduction of the period of labor would have to mean a reduction of the product of industry, and without immediate improvements in method of production it would entail smaller wages. ”

“ Every reform will make it better, and there are many to be made. (3) The coming State will be whatever we have wit and energy enough to make it.
Our plea for the justice of the coming system will not convince any man who starts with the assertion that capital ought to have no return whatever, and that interest is robbery, and that the men who bring empty hands to the mill should take all the product of it. To most men’s instinctive judgment this view does not appeal. The general verdict is that it is right for capital to get something. ”

“ The workers will be so comfortable that the care of a great capital will more than offset any additional comfort a man can get by owning it. Grotesquely exaggerated as this claim may appear to be, it was based on serious economic study. There are forces at work which, if they have free play, will carry human life very far in the direction of the State so described, with its comfort, contentment, and fraternity. ”

“ The impulse to revolutionize the system comes from the belief that it is irreclaimably bad. The first thing to be done is to see how much reclaiming the system is capable of; and the only sure way to test this question is to use all our power in the effort to improve it. When all such efforts shall have failed, it will be time for desperate measures.
Our industrial system has many faults:—here we are happily agreed. It is the inferences we draw from this fact that are different. ”

“ Are they not already in the fullest flower, and big and mature as they are ever likely to be? The companies themselves, with their vast material plants, certainly are so. What we are talking about, however, is not the mere size of the companies, but the element of monopoly that is in them. Have they such a power that they can safely charge anything they please for their products? Is it as though they were licensed by the Government to be the sole makers and vendors of their special wares? ”