CHAPTER VI

PROGRAM OF THE SOCIALIST PARTY

LET us now examine the program of the Socialist party, the ideas which it pretends to stand for. What Socialists have done depends on their power, on the extent to which society has permitted them to put thought into action. What they would like to do lies wholly in the region of unrealized ideals. What is the Socialist party avowedly driving at? I will quote its national platform of 1912 paragraph by paragraph with comments:

1. The Socialist party of the United States declares that the capitalist system has outgrown its historic function, and has become utterly incapable of meeting the problems now confronting society. We denounce this outgrown system as incompetent and corrupt and the source of unspeakable misery and suffering to the whole working class.

If the reader remembers the imperfect remarks in the second chapter of this book, he

will understand what is meant by "historic function." Much Socialist thought is an analysis of history; it discovers that one economic form of society follows another, and predicts that the Socialist form is the next one due to arrive. Socialists are sometimes a little confusing in their moods and tenses. Obviously the capitalist system has not outgrown its historical function so long as in point of historic fact it continues to function. And it is, beyond peradventure of a reasonable doubt, going full blast. The intention, put more colloquially, is something like this: "It is about time we had a better system than capitalism; the Socialist system is better and we'll back it to push capitalism off the earth, the sooner the better." It is not true that the capitalist system causes misery and suffering to the "whole working class." The more prosperous of the skilled workmen are quite comfortable; that is why they are conservative, are vigorously assailed in the Socialist press as aristocrats of labor, are indifferent to the larger part of the workers, and inclined to play the capitalist's game.

2. Under this system the industrial equipment of the nation has passed into the absolute control of a plutocracy which exacts an annual tribute of

millions of dollars from the producers. Unafraid of any organized resistance, it stretches out its greedy hands over the still undeveloped resources of the nation-the land, the mines, the forests, and the water powers of every state in the Union.

As has been pointed out, the Socialist is not the only enemy of the controlling plutocracy. Another enemy, quite as indignant and at present more effectively organized, is the little business man, the ordinary decent citizen, expressing himself politically through progressivism and "new democracy." The Socialist believes that the best efforts of the democratic reformer, with his program of conservation and nationalization of undeveloped resources and his game of "trust busting," can result only in a partial limitation of the power of great capital. So far middle-class insurgency has not succeeded in staying those "greedy hands"; it has only slapped them on the wrist. Bourgeois insurgency rebels against obvious economic evils and does not get at the fundamental problem. The Socialist hopes to undermine the whole structure, not only the towering plutocracy, but the system on which the plutocracy rests. Though at present the plutocracy can afford to be "unafraid of any organized resistance," and

though nothing but a final revolution can end its existence, yet it is likely that the plutocracy will meet and partly surrender to a growing middle-class opposition before we are very far on the way to Socialism.

3. In spite of the multiplication of labor-saving machines and improved methods of industry that cheapen the cost of production, the share of the producers grows ever less, and the prices of all the necessities of life steadily increase. The boasted prosperity of this nation is for the owning class alone. To the rest it means only greater hardship and misery. The high cost of living is felt in every home. Millions of wage-workers have seen the purchasing power of their wages decrease until life has become a desperate battle for mere existence.

There is a whole volume of economics compressed into that paragraph, and it is as true as a compressed statement can be. Note that the condemnation of the capitalist system need not depend on a decrease of the worker's absolute share in the fruits of production. It would be enough to show that the relative share does not increase or does not increase fast enough, in order theoretically to knock out the capitalist system. The bourgeois who argues that the workman is better off than he used to

be forty years ago is not justifying the system. The worker is not better off relatively to the total amount of wealth that is produced. Open plumbing cost much money in our grandfather's time; to-day every Mike and Hans of us ought to have a bathroom. The decrease in the purchasing power of wages has not made the desperate battle for existence. The workers have always had a desperate battle for existence, more desperate at some periods than at others, and they will keep on having it until they turn on the masters and make a desperate battle of re

sistance.

Multitudes of unemployed walk the streets of our cities or trudge from state to state awaiting the will of the masters to move the wheels of industry.

It is not quite true that the masters can at will move the wheels of industry. They are themselves the slaves of the system which produced them and by which they most conspicuously benefit; they run industry just so long as they can make a profit. Their will would lead them to keep the wheels turning twentysix hours a day; they are limited by the market, which they cannot control. That is the central weakness of the profit system, and it is one of