Simon Newcomb

“ Nothing shows in a stronger light the absence of rational adaptation of means to ends in the socialistic policy than the fact that not only is this claim not made, but all the exertions of labor organizations tend to make the poor man’s necessaries scarce and dear, while they leave a large part of the rich man’s luxuries untouched. No one ever heard of a bricklayers’ strike failing of support because the men were at work on houses for the poor, and for many years the most exacting and effective labor organizations of the country have been those whose members make shoes for the million. ”

“ The first and greatest object of wages and wealth is to be comfortably housed, fed, and clothed. The man who can succeed in this without an exhausting or injurious amount of labor has fairly attained one of the great ends of human existence, and has the same right to congratulate himself, whether his daily income is fifty cents or fifty dollars. ”

“ No observer of public thought on social problems can fail to notice a feeling among all classes, the thoughtful and the careless, the wise and the ignorant, the rich and the poor, that the results of our industrial system, so far as the general welfare is concerned, are not creditable to our civilization ; that society has allowed a favored few to possess themselves of wealth which, under a different system, might have contributed in an important degree to the prosperity of the masses. ”

“ The wonder is that clergymen, professors, and journalists can call it philanthropy when they see a strong man step between a willing employer and a poor laborer, and use every means to reduce the latter to starvation. ”

“ We must, as an example, take some necessary of life with which the masses are insufficiently supplied : let us take clothing. If, during the last fifty years, more clothing has been made than is necessary for the comfort of all, and if during all that time a large body of the people have been insufficiently clad, then one of two things is inevitable : either there has been a constant accumulation of unsold clothing, or a great many men have bought and worn far more than their share. ”

“ Every one knows that he who has the money to buy can get almost anything he wants. What conclusion more natural than that if everybody had money, everybody could buy ? To learn that there would be scarcity even if every one had the money to buy, because there is not enough to go round, requires a course of thought which, though easy, is entered upon by few. ”

“ Reformers have so long called upon the legislative Jove for help as to make us forget that they can put their own shoulders to the wheel as effectively as Jupiter himself can. Under the system which now prevails, dissatisfied men of all callings can form themselves into an association, and distribute among themselves all the products of their labor in what way they deem best. ”

“ But it will be soon enough to discuss their success when we find reformers willing either to join those which exist or to form others on improved models. To come directly to the point : if all America, or all England, or all London should to-morrow organize itself by general consent into a gigantic association for the equitable distribution of all the products of its labor, would the results be any more satisfactory to social reformers and dissatisfied laborers than those of the various communities which have been organized among us ? ”

“ In this view Socialists, Anarchists, and labor-reformers are at one with a large body—perhaps with a majority—of the educated community. Divergence begins with the question whether it is politic and practicable to change a system which all admit to be unsatisfactory in some of its results. The attitude of the typical philanthropist toward the Socialist may be expressed thus : “We admit that a system under which one man can gain millions of money through the toil of a hundred thousand barely gaining a subsistence must be wrong. ”

“ Remove these defects, so that every man shall be ready to do his best for the promotion of the general welfare : then may poverty cease and all be supplied with the necessaries and decencies of life with less labor than is now required to gain a bare subsistence.”
This last proposition is the one into which I propose to inquire. If all men were very good and nobody wanted to be richer than his neighbors, while every one was ready to do whatever the combined wisdom of the community decided ought to be done, would the masses really be much better off than they are now ? ”

“ We must reject the theory that everything the masses want to eat, drink, and wear should be made scarce and dear, and adopt the policy of making it cheap and plentiful. For example, we ought to get all the work we can out of the criminal classes, because we shall thus increase the supply of the necessaries of life. We cannot comfortably house the poor until we build more and better tenement-houses. ”

“ Measured by the popular standard, this man is a pauper, in spite of his enjoying a large income and a hundred thousand dollars of wealth belonging to a capitalist. This standard is clearly fallacious in his case.
The truth is that the proportion of men who own little or nothing tends to increase, for the very plain reason that it is every year becoming easier to enjoy wealth without owning it. ”

“ Every one knows that, so far as the public is concerned, one great object of a labor-union is to prevent the competition of non-union laborers, and to limit the number of youths who shall be allowed to learn a trade. ”

“ A century ago the man who possessed nothing was poor indeed, because few others had spare houses or beds to share with him. Now for a dollar he can ride over a million dollars’ worth of railroad, and for a small percentage on its cost he can live in a house of any ordinary size.
Second fallacy—That the masses have good reason to complain of an unequal and unfair distribution of the wealth actually produced day by day and year by year, through their weekly wages being insufficient to purchase those good things to which they are fairly entitled. ”

“ To compensate for every disadvantage, such an association would have over society at large the great advantage of being made up of picked men. Our society has the aged, the infirm, the worthless, and the criminal classes to care for. The new society can select the young, the honest, the healthy, and the industrious. ”

“ We must also discourage the eight-hour system, because if we diminish the building of houses by 20 per cent, we shall certainly find it much harder to house the poor of the next generation.
The difference between the views I have set forth and those I have contested may be fairly summed up thus : from the standpoint which I have contested, the problem of improving the condition of the masses is not one of production, but of distribution. The majority think that enough and to spare is produced for all, but the only difficulty is that the masses do not get their share. ”

“ Judged by any rational standard, he is pitiably poor ; for if all his earnings had been taken from him as fast as he gathered them, he would have been no better off in life or in death. Then compare with him a professional man who occupies a rented house, uses rented furniture, lives luxuriously by paying next week for the food he consumes this, and owes his tailor for his last suit of clothes. ”

“ It is this : if a large body of men believe that any scheme of industrial reorganization would be beneficial, they are at liberty to put that system into operation among themselves and for their own exclusive benefit, and tints to demonstrate what society at large could do in the same way. ”

“ More instructive is it to inquire how much the poor would profit if all the wealth of the rich were divided among them. We take a thousand millionaires of New York and its vicinity, if there are so many, and divide their wealth among the hundred thousand poorest families. ”

“ Whether a person has or has not reason to complain is a matter of individual opinion, which it is not possible to settle by any general principle. All I propose to do is to show that there is much less reason to complain than is commonly supposed. ”

“ If there is any one right of man which appeals to the universal conscience, it is that of developing his powers and faculties ; and if there is one duty universally recognized, it is that of helping him to do it by every means in our power. ”

“ These are doubtless great advantages : we cannot stop to inquire whether they generally yield more happiness than the outfit and furniture of a tenement, or how often they are more than set off by such a skeleton in the closet as never disturbs the dreams of the poor. ”

“ Now, measured by this standard, the difference between the richest man of the country and the average skilled laborer, though great, is not nearly so great as the difference between their nominal wealth or income leads men to suppose. ”

“ Then we have a hundred poor families for each millionaire. They take possession of his house, but find the beds so far occupied by his servants, whom they do not wish to displace, that all they can do is to bivouac in the parlor, which will not hold half of them. Half a dozen of the beneficiaries get new suits of clothes ; every one gets the hundredth part of a wild duck for dinner, and the fiftieth part of a fine beefsteak. What could they get more ? Wealth ? Yes ; but what wealth ? ”

“ But we all know that in no clothing-house is there any greater accumulation than is necessary to enable customers to find what suits them. Then who wears more than his share ? The rich man ? No ; he only wears one suit at a time. True, he buys at first hand much more than his share ”

“ Another difficulty arises from the vagueness of the current ideas associated with wealth. Let us compare two laboring men, one of whom is a good, intelligent manager, and lives in a place where the necessaries of life are cheap, while the other is unskilful in the market and the household, and lives where things are dear. The first gets a healthy, comfortable living on wages of one dollar a day ; the second is miserable on two dollars. Which is the richer ? Many laborers, impressed by the superior dignity attaching to the higher wages, would say the second ”

“ In thus refraining from any attempt to put their own principles into practice, notwithstanding the facility with which they could do it, they remind us of an architect afraid to erect a building according to his own plans. ”

“ If, after all the clothing made gets worn, one-tenth of the people are in rags and another tenth insufficiently clad, what follows ? Evidently there is not clothing enough to go round comfortably. And what is true of this is true of ail the commodities which the poor cannot get. If all that exists were divided among the masses to-day, the want would be greater than ever in a few months. ”

“ Nor need the association put its theories into practice to any greater extent than it finds advantageous. It can confine itself to just such industries as it believes to be most oppressed, can make any contracts it pleases with society at large to exchange services with it, and can sell any of its products it chooses to part with. ”

“ Then those members who belong to the building trades would erect nothing but homes and other buildings for the association ; all the clothing made by the tailors, all the shoes made by the shoemakers, all the bread made by the farmers and the bakers, would be divided according to any system that might be adapted. It is true that, at first, the want of capital and land would prove an inconvenience. ”

“ He might claim that this underproduction of necessaries for the masses shows that an undue proportion of the labor power of the country is devoted to the luxury of the few, and that it would be an excellent thing if the labor now employed in caring for the rich man’s fast horses were devoted to the poor man’s ill-shod feet. ”

“ The Shakers are well known to all, and many of us have heard of such communities as the Economites, the Icarians, and the Brook Farm Community, in some of which every honest and industrious laborer might receive a welcome. ”

“ But their success has been attained through a self-denial, submission to discipline, and suppression of the natural activities of the race to which no ordinary man of any class would submit. But talk of all these communities as we may, the fact remains that they all tend to die out, and that not one Socialist in a thousand would exchange his lot for that of one of their members. ”

“ After the first gloss is off it passes through the hands of his servants, his employees, or the second-hand dealer, to a wearer lower in the social scale, and continues on its course until it is worn out. ”

“ The case stands thus : the rich man has a much larger house, enabling him to have a bedroom to himself and a parlor in which he can entertain a host of friends. He walks on soft carpets, instead of a bare floor ”