CHAPTER XXIII: THE NEAR FUTURE.

§ 846. Strictly speaking, the last two Chapters should not be included in an account of Industrial Institutions, since the one treats of institutions which are at present merely tentative, and the other of projected institutions. But Cooperation and Socialism fill so large a space in the public mind, that passing them by in silence seemed impracticable.

Here it seems impracticable to pass by in silence certain questions still further outside the subject of industrial evolution as at present known to us—questions concerning its future. It may fairly be said that the study of sociology is useless if, from an account of what has been, we cannot infer what is to be—that there is no such thing as a science of society unless its generalizations concerning past days yield enlightenment to our thoughts concerning days to come, and consequent guidance to our acts. So that, willingly as I would have avoided the making of forecasts, there is for me no defensible alternative.

Existing factors are so numerous and conflicting, and the emergence of new factors, not in any way to be anticipated, so probable, as to make all speculation hazardous, and to make valueless all conclusions save those of the most general kind. Development of the arts of life, consequent on the advance of science, which has already in so many ways profoundly affected social organization (instance the factory-system), is likely hereafter to affect it as profoundly or more Edition: current; Page: [591] profoundly. The growth and spread of exact knowledge, changing as it is now doing men’s ideas of the Universe and of the Power manifested through it, must increasingly modify the regulative action of ecclesiastical institutions. A necessary concomitant is the waning authority of the associated system of morals, now having an alleged supernatural sanction; and before there is accepted in its place a scientifically-based ethics, there may result a disastrous relaxation of restraints. Simultaneously with progression towards more enlightened conceptions, we see going on retrogression towards old religious beliefs, and a strengthening of the sacerdotal influences associated with them. The immediate issues of these conflicting processes appear incalculable. Meanwhile men’s natures are subjected to various disciplines, and are undergoing various kinds of alterations. The baser instincts, which dominated during the long ages of savage warfare, are being invigorated by revived militancy; while the many beneficent activities distinguishing our age, imply a fostering of the higher sentiments. There is a moral struggle of which the average effect cannot be estimated.

After all that has been said, it will be manifest that the future of industrial institutions is bound up with the future of social institutions at large; and that we can rightly infer the first only by infering the last. Here, then, we must contemplate fundamental social relations and the fundamental implications of them.

§ 847. When living apart, the individual man pursues his aims with no restraints save those imposed by surrounding Nature. When living with others, he becomes subject to certain further restraints imposed by their presence. In the one case he is wholly his own master; in the other case he ceases to be his own master in so far as these additional restraints check fulfilment of his desires. The curbing of his individuality, at first negative only (forbidding certain Edition: current; Page: [592] actions), may presently become positive (commanding certain other actions). This happens when the group of which he is a member, carries on hostilities with other such groups. The aggregate will then often dictates actions to which he may be averse—forces him to fight under penalty of reprobation, ill-treatment, and perhaps expulsion. This masterhood of the community is greater or less according as its original cause, external antagonism, is greater or less; and the question arising at the beginning of social evolution, and dominant throughout its successive stages, is—How much is each subject to all and how much independent of all? To what extent does he own himself and to what extent is he owned by others?

This antithesis, here presented in the abstract, has been frequently in the foregoing work presented in the concrete. At the one extreme we have the Eskimo, who cannot be said to form a society in the full sense of the word, but simply live in juxtaposition; and, not even knowing what war is, have no need for combined action and consequent subjection of the individual will to the general will. And again we have those few peaceful tribes, several times referred to (§§ 260, 327, 573), who, in like manner not called on to act together against external foes, live in amity with one another; and, individually owning themselves completely, are controlled only on those rare occasions when some small transgression calls for notice of the elders. At the other extreme stand the societies devoted to war, whose members belong entirely to the State. In ancient times we have, for instance, the Spartans, who, severally owning their helots, were themselves owned by the community; and, living in common on food contributed by all, were severally compelled by their incorporated fellows to pass their lives either in fighting or in preparation for fighting. In modern times an example is furnished by the Dahomans with their army of amazons, whose king has a bed-room paved with the skulls of conquered chiefs, and makes war to obtain, as he says, Edition: current; Page: [593] more “thatch”—that is, skulls—for his roof, and who is absolute master of all individuals and their property. Literally fulfilling the boast—“L’État c’est moi,” the State, in his person, owns everybody and everything.

No other traits of social structure are equally radical with those which result from the relative powers of the social unit and the social aggregate. Chronic warfare, while requiring subordination throughout the successive grades of an army, also requires subordination of the whole society to the army, for which it serves as a commissariat. It requires, also, subordination throughout the ranks of this commissariat: graduated subjection is the law of the whole organization. Conversely, decrease of warfare brings relaxation. The desire of everyone to use his powers for his own advantage, which all along generates resistance to the coercion of militancy, begins to have its effect as militancy declines. Individual self-assertion by degrees breaks through its rigid regulations, and the citizen more and more gains possession of himself.

Inevitably, with these forms of social organization and social action, there go the appropriate ideas and sentiments. To be stable, the arrangements of a community must be congruous with the natures of its members. If a fundamental change of circumstances produces change in the structure of the community or in the natures of its members, then the natures of its members or the structure of the community must presently undergo a corresponding change. And these changes must be expressed in the average feelings and opinions. At the one extreme loyalty is the supreme virtue and disobedience a crime. At the other extreme servile submission is held contemptible and maintenance of freedom the cardinal trait of manhood. Between these extremes are endless incongruous minglings of the opposed sentiments.

Hence, to be rightly drawn, our conclusions about impending social changes must be guided by observing whether the movement is towards ownership of each man by others Edition: current; Page: [594] or towards ownership of each man by himself, and towards the corresponding emotions and thoughts. Practically it matters little what is the character of the ownership by others—whether it is ownership by a monarch, by an oligarchy, by a democratic majority, or by a communistic organization. The question for each is how far he is prevented from using his faculties for his own advantage and compelled to use them for others’ advantage, not what is the power which prevents him or compels him. And the evidence now to be contemplated shows that submission to ownership by others increases or decreases according to the conditions; no matter whether the embodiment of such others is political, social, or industrial.

§ 848. Germany, already before 1870 having a highly organized military system, has since been extending and improving it. All physically fit men between certain ages are soldiers either in preparation, in actual service, or in reserve; and this ownership of subjects by the State extends even to those who have gone abroad. For the support of its vast armaments those engaged in civil life are more and more taxed; which means that to the extent of those parts of their earnings taken by the State, they are owned by the State: their powers being used for its purposes and not for their own. And approach to an entirely militant type of structure is shown in the growing autocratic power of the soldier-emperor; who is swayed by the absolutely pagan thought of responsibility to ancestors in heaven.

Further, the German citizen does not fully own himself while carrying on his civil life, outdoor and indoor. The control of his industrial activities is still like that of mediæval days. The old system of bounties is in force; and along with this goes, in the case of sugar, a tax on internal consumption, as well as a prescribed limit to the amount produced. Then there is the recent restraining of Stock-Exchange transactions and interdicting of time-dealing in Edition: current; Page: [595] corn. A more widespread coercion is seen in the Old Age Pension system. And, again, there is the recent Government measure for establishing compulsory gilds of artizans: a manifest reversion. These and many other regulations, alike of employers and employed, make them in so far creatures of the State, not having the unrestrained use of their own faculties. And even when at home it is the same. Says Mr. Eubule Evans, in a recent account of the changes that have taken place in German life since 1870:—

And now note that this is the testimony not of an outsider only, but that of a German who, perhaps above all others, is the most competent judge. Prince Bismarck in 1893 said to a deputation from the principality of Lippe:—

Verification is here afforded of a statement made above, that the prevailing sentiments and ideas must be congruous with the prevailing social structure. The stifling of the national consciousness, feared by Prince Bismarck, is commented on by Mr. Evans, who, referring to the feeling of Germans about bureaucratic control, says:—“Long use has made it second nature to them; they can hardly imagine any other régime.”

And now we see why the socialistic movement has assumed such large proportions in Germany. We may understand why its theoretical expounders, Rodbertus, Marx, Lassalle, and its working advocates, Bebel, Liebknecht, Singer, and others, have raised its adherents into a body of Edition: current; Page: [596] great political importance. For the socialistic régime is simply another form of the bureaucratic régime. Military regimentation, civil regimentation, and industrial regimentation, are in their natures essentially the same: the kinship between them being otherwise shown by such facts as that while the military rulers have entertained schemes for a qualified State-socialism, the ruled have advocated the “training of the nation in arms,” as at the socialistic congress at Erfurt in 1891. And when we remember how lately feudalism has died out in Germany—how little Germans have been accustomed to self-ownership and how much to ownership by others—we may understand how unobjectionable to them seems that system of ownership by others which State-socialism implies.

§ 849. From time to time newspapers remind us of the competition between Germany and France in their military developments. The body politic in either case, expends most of its energies in growths of teeth and claws—every increase on the one side prompting an increase on the other. In France, to prepare for revenge, conscription takes a greatly augmented part of the available manhood, including even the young men who are presently to teach the religion of forgiveness; so that, as a distinguished publicist states, the effective strength of the army and navy has grown from 470,000 in 1869 to 666,000 for the forthcoming year: leaving out of the comparison, as being producers, the reserves, which raise the present fighting force to over 2,000,000. To support this non-productive class owned by the State as fighters, the State makes the workers surrender a proportionate part of their earnings, and owns them to the extent of that part—to a much larger extent, as we shall presently see. Militant activity accompanies this militant organization. It was recently lauded by the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, who, referring to Tunis, Tongking, the Congo, and Madagascar, enlarged on the need there had Edition: current; Page: [597] been for competing in political burglaries with other nations; and held that, by taking forcible possession of territories owned by inferior peoples, “France has regained a certain portion of the glory which so many noble enterprises during previous centuries had insured her.”

With this militant structure, activity, and sentiment, observe the civil structure that coexists. During the feudal and monarchical ages—ages of despotism, first local and then general—there had grown up a bureaucracy which, before the Revolution, was so fully developed that besides ownership of the citizen for fighting purposes there was ownership of him as a civilian, carried so far that industry was prostrate under legislative restraints and the load of officials. This bureaucracy survived during the Imperial régime and survives still under the Republican régime—survives, indeed, in larger shape; for, according to M. Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, there have been, in the last 15 years, 200,000 new civil functionaries appointed. From the simple fact that it is the business of the French police to know the domicile and the doings of everybody, may readily be inferred the spirit in which the French citizen is dealt with by his government: the notification of his whereabouts being akin to a soldier’s response to the roll-call or a sailor’s appearance at muster. Such control inevitably ramifies; and hence regulations like that specifying the time after confinement when a woman may go out to work, or that which prevents a man from designing the façade to his house as he pleases. The rage for uniformity, well illustrated by the minister who boasted that at a given hour all the boys in France were saying the same lesson, is an outcome of a nature which values equality much more than liberty. There is small objection to coercion if all are equally coerced; and hence the tendency to regimentation reappears in one or other form continually. In the days of the Revolution new sets of regulations, replacing sets which had been abolished, ran out into minute details; even to the absurd extent that on a certain appointed Edition: current; Page: [598] fête, mothers, at a specified moment, were to regard their children with tender eyes! Inevitably a national character in which the sentiment of self-ownership offers little resistance to ownership by others, puts little check on the growth of public instrumentalities; be they for external conflicts or internal administrations. And the result, as given by M. Yves Guyot, is that whereas the total public expenditure just before the Franco-German war was about 2,224,000,000 francs, it is now about 4,176,000,000 francs. Basing his estimate on the calculation of M. Vacher concerning the annual exchangeable produce of France, M. Guyot concludes that the civil and military expenditures absorb 30 per cent. of it. In feudal days the serf did corvées for his lord, working on his estate during so many days in the year; and now, during over 90 days in the year, a modern Frenchman does corvées for his government. To that extent he is a serf of the community; for it matters not whether he gives so much work or whether he gives an equivalent in money.

Hence we see why in France, as in Germany, a scheme of social re-organization under which each citizen, while maintained by the community, is to labour for the community, has obtained so wide an adhesion as to create a formidable political body—why among the French, St. Simon, Fourier, Proudhon, Cabet, Louis Blanc, Pierre Leroux, now by word and now by deed, have sought to bring about some form of communistic working and living. For the Frenchman, habituated to subordination both as soldier and as civilian, has an adapted nature. Inheriting military traditions in which he glories, and subject at school to a discipline of military strictness, he, without repugnance, accepts the idea of industrial regimentation; and does not resent the suggestion that for the sake of being taken care of he should put himself under a universal directive organization. Indeed he has in large measure done this already. Though his political institutions appear to give him freedom, yet he Edition: current; Page: [599] submits to control in a way astonishing to those who better understand what freedom is; as was shown by the remarks of English delegates to a Trade-union Congress at Paris in 1883, who condemned the official trampling on citizens as “a disgrace to, and an anomaly in, a republican nation.”

§ 850. The evidence furnished by our own country strengthens the evidence furnished by France and Germany; in the first place by contrast, in the second place by agreement.

Verification by contrast meets us on observing that in England, where the extent of ownership by others has been less than in France and Germany, alike under its military form and under its civil form, there has been less progress in sentiment and idea towards that form of ownership by others which socialism implies. The earlier decay of feudalism, with its internal conflicts and its serfdom, and the subsequent smaller development of military organization, have implied that for a long time the English have been not so much subject to the positive coercion implied by army-life; and the absence of conscription, save during actual war, has otherwise exhibited this social trait. At the same time there has been comparatively little dictation to the citizen in the carrying on of his business and the conduct of his life. Industrial regulation has been relatively small, and a generation ago supervision by police had become even too small. That is to say, self-ownership has been in both ways less trenched upon by State-ownership than in continental countries. Meanwhile we have had, until lately, no conspicuous exponent of socialism save Robert Owen; the socialist propaganda has had in England no such extensive success as abroad; and though now having supreme power, the masses have sent few avowed socialists to Parliament.

The verification by agreement meets us on observing that, as in France and in Germany, so in England, increases of Edition: current; Page: [600] armaments and of aggressive activities, have brought changes towards the militant social type; alike in development of the civil organization with its accompanying sentiments and ideas, and in the spread of socialistic theories. Before the great modern growths of continental armies had commenced, there were frequent scares about our unprepared state; and since that time increases in fortifications, vessels of war, and numbers of troops, have been again after a while followed by alarmist representations of our defencelessness, followed by further increases. See the result. From figures kindly supplied to me by a high official, it appears that in 1846 (making a proportionate estimate of the militia, the number of which was not ascertainable) our land forces of all kinds at home and abroad, of English blood, numbered about 260,000, and our sea-forces about 42,000; while at the present time their respective numbers are 714,000 and 93,000. So that, broadly speaking, in the course of 50 years the strength of the navy has been more than doubled, and that of the army nearly trebled. Meanwhile the total annual expenditure for armaments and defences has risen to over £35,000,000. For a generation the volunteer movement has been accustoming multitudes of civilians to military rule, while re-awakening their fighting instincts. On groups of upper-class boys in public schools, who have their drills and even their sham fights, and on groups of lower-class boys in London, such as the Church Lads Brigade, regimental discipline is similarly brought to bear; and in both cases with expressed approval from priests of the religion of peace. While in permanent camps, in annual reviews and sham fights of volunteers, as well as in the more important military manœuvres for which spaces are to be forcibly taken, we are shown a recrudescence of the organization and life appropriate to war, joined now with advocacy of conscription by leading soldiers and approval of it by “advanced” artizans. Meanwhile, with growth of armaments has gone growth of aggressiveness. More and Edition: current; Page: [601] more lands belonging to weak peoples are being seized on one or other pretext; so that whereas about 1850 we had 48 territories, colonies, settlements, protectorates, we have now (counting each extension as another possession), as many as 77, and so that at the present time every journal brings reports of the progress of our arms, often in more places than one.*

Along with increases in that direct State-ownership of the individual which is implied by use of him as a soldier, let us now observe the increase in that indirect State-ownership which is implied by multiplication of dictations and restraints, and by growth of general and local taxation. Typical of the civil régime which has been spreading since the middle of the century, is the system of education by public agency, to support which, partly through general taxes and partly through local rates, certain earnings of citizens are appropriated. Not the parent but the nation is now in chief measure the owner of the child, ordering the course of its life and deciding on the things it must be taught; and the parent who disregards or disputes the nation’s ownership is punished. In a kindred spirit control is extended over the parent himself in the carrying on of his life and use of his property. In 1884 I named fifty-nine Acts, further regulating the conduct of citizens, which had been passed since 1860. (The Man versus the State, chap. I.). Since then, coercive legislation affecting men’s lives has greatly extended. A digest made for me of legislation up to 1894, inclusive, dealing with land, agriculture, mines, railways, canals, ships, manufactures, trade, drinking, &c., shows that 43 more interfering Acts have been passed. An enormous draft on men’s resources has accompanied this growth of restrictions and administrations. An authoritative table shows that in the 24 years from 1867-8 to 1891-2, the aggregate of local expenditures had considerably more than Edition: current; Page: [602] doubled and the aggregate of local debts had considerably more than trebled—greatly burdening the living and still more burdening posterity. If it be said that in return for augmented absorption of his earnings, the citizen receives various gratis advantages, the reply is that the essential fact remains: coercion is exercised in appropriating more of his property. “That much of your income you may spend as you like, but this much we shall spend for you, either for your benefit or for the benefit of somebody else.” The individual to whom this is said by a Government representing the aggregate of individuals, is in so far owned by this aggregate; and is annually being thus owned to a larger extent.

And now we may see how congruous with these developments has been the development of socialistic ideas and sentiments. As in France and Germany, with extensive ownership of the individual by the State in military and civil organizations, there has widely coexisted advocacy of that ownership by the State to which socialism gives another shape; so here, with approximation to the continental type in the one respect, there has gone a growing acceptance of the continental conception in the other respect. Fourteen years ago socialism in England was represented by less than a score middle-class “Fabians,” supported by a sprinkling of men among the working classes; while of late socialists have become so numerous that not long since they temporarily captured the trade-unions, and still get their views largely expressed in trade-union resolutions at congresses. As we see in the part taken by English delegates to the recent Congress of Socialist workers, where ultimate absorption of all kinds of fixed property was urged, or as we see in the suggested strike against rents as an immediate method of procedure, great numbers of men here, as abroad, show an absolute disregard of all existing contracts, and, by implication, a proposed abolition of contract for the future: necessitating return to the old system of status under a new Edition: current; Page: [603] form. For in the absence of that voluntary cooperation which contract implies, there is no possible alternative but compulsory cooperation. Self-ownership entirely disappears and ownership by others universally replaces it.

§ 851. Thus, alike at home and abroad, throughout institutions, activities, sentiments, and ideas, there is the same tendency; and this tendency becomes daily more pronounced. In the minds of the masses seeking for more benefits by law, and in the minds of legislators trying to fulfil the expectations they have raised, we everywhere see a progressive merging of the life of the unit in the life of the aggregate. To vary the poet’s line—“The individual withers and the State is more and more.”

Naturally the member of parliament who submits to coercion by his party, contemplates legal coercions of others without repugnance. Politically considered, he is either one of the herd owned by his leader, or else the humble servant owned by the caucus who chose him; and having in so far sacrificed his self-ownership, he does not greatly respect the self-ownership of the ordinary citizen. If some influential body of his constituents urges a new interference, the fact that it will put upon the rest additional restraints, or appropriate further portions of their earnings, serves but little to deter him from giving the vote commanded. Indeed he feels that he has no alternative if he wishes to be returned at the next election. That he is adding another to the multitudinous strands of the network restraining men’s movements, is a matter of indifference. He considers only what he calls “the merits of the case,” and declines to ask what will result from always looking at the immediate and ignoring the remote. Every day he takes some new step towards the socialistic ideal, while refusing to think that he will ever arrive at it; and every day, to preserve his place, he seeks to outbid his political rival in taking such steps. As remarked by an observant Frenchman, Dr. René Lavollée—

And thus, being the creature of his party and the creature of his constituents, he does not hesitate in making each citizen the creature of the community.

This general drift towards a form of society in which private activities of every kind, guided by individual wills, are to be replaced by public activities guided by governmental will, must inevitably be made more rapid by recent organic changes, which further increase the powers of those who gain by public administrations and decrease the powers of those who lose by them. Already national and municipal franchises, so framed as to dissociate the giving of votes from the bearing of burdens, have resulted, as was long ago pointed out they must do,* in multiplied meddlings and lavish expenditure. And now the extension of similar franchises to parishes will augment such effects. With a fatuity almost passing belief, legislators have concluded that things will go well when the many say to the few—“We will decide what shall be done and you shall pay for it.” Table conversations show that even by many people called educated, Government is regarded as having unlimited powers joined with unlimited resources; and political speeches make the rustic think of it as an earthly providence which can do anything for him if interested men will let it. Naturally it happens that, as a socialist lecturer writes—“To get listeners to socialist arguments is to get converts;” for the listener is not shown that the benefits to be conferred on each, will be benefits derived from the labours of all, carried on under compulsion. He does not see that he can have the mess of pottage only by surrendering his birth-right. Edition: current; Page: [605] He is not told that if he is to be fed he must also be driven.

§ 852. There seems no avoiding the conclusion that these conspiring causes must presently bring about that lapse of self-ownership into ownership by the community, which is partially implied by collectivism and completely by communism. The momentum of social change, like every other momentum, must work out effects proportionate to its amount, minus the resistance offered to it; and in this case there is very little resistance. Could a great spread of cooperative production be counted upon, some hope of arrest might be entertained. But even if its growth justifies the beliefs of its advocates, it seems likely to offer but a feeble check.

In what way the coming transformation will be effected is of course uncertain. A sudden substitution of the régime proposed for the régime which exists, as intended by bearers of the red flag, seems less likely than a progressive metamorphosis. To bring about the change it needs but gradually to extend State-regulation and restrain individual action. If the central administration and the multiplying local administrations go on adding function to function; if year after year more things are done by public agency, and fewer things left to be done by private agency; if the businesses of companies are one after another taken over by the State or the municipality, while the businesses of individuals are progressively trenched upon by official competitors; then, in no long time, the present voluntary industrial organization will have its place entirely usurped by a compulsory industrial organization. Eventually the brain-worker will find that there are no places left save in one or other public department; while the hand-worker will find that there are none to employ him save public officials. And so will be established a state in which no man can do what he likes but every man must do what he is told.

An entire loss of freedom will thus be the fate of those who do not deserve the freedom they possess. They have been weighed in the balances and found wanting: having neither the required idea nor the required sentiment. Only a nature which will sacrifice everything to defend personal liberty of action, and is eager to defend the like liberties of action of others, can permanently maintain free institutions. While not tolerating aggression upon himself, he must have sympathies such as will not tolerate aggression upon his fellows—be they fellows of the same race or of other races. As shown in multitudinous ways throughout this work, a society organized for coercive action against other societies, must subject its members to coercion. In proportion as men’s claims are trampled upon by it externally, will men’s claims be trampled upon by it internally. History has familiarized the truth that tyrant and slave are men of the same kind differently placed. Be it in the ancient Egyptian king subject to a rigid routine of daily life enforced by priests, be it in the Roman patrician, master of bondmen and himself in bondage to the State, be it in the feudal lord possessing his serfs and himself possessed by his suzerain, be it in the modern artizan yielding up to his union his right to make contracts and maltreating his fellow who will not, we equally see that those who disregard others’ individualities must in one way or other sacrifice their own. Men thus constituted cannot maintain free institutions. They must live under some system of coercive government; and when old forms of it lose their strength must generate new forms.

Even apart from special evidence, this general conclusion is forced on us by contemplating the law of rhythm: a law manifested throughout all things from the inconceivably rapid oscillations of a unit of ether to the secular perturbations of the solar system. For, as shown in First Principles rhythm everywhere results from antagonist forces. As thus caused it is displayed throughout social phenomena, from the hourly rises and falls of Stock Exchange prices to Edition: current; Page: [607] the actions and reactions of political parties; and in the changes, now towards increase of restraints on men and now towards decrease of them, one of the slowest and widest rhythms is exhibited. After centuries during which coercive rule had been quietly diminishing and had been occasionally made less by violence, there was reached in the middle of our century, especially in England, a degree of individual freedom greater than ever before existed since nations began to be formed. Men could move about as they pleased, work at what they pleased, trade with whom they pleased. But the movement which in so large a measure broke down the despotic regulations of the past, rushed on to a limit from which there has commenced a return movement. Instead of restraints and dictations of the old kinds, new kinds of restraints and dictations are being gradually imposed. Instead of the rule of powerful political classes, men are elaborating for themselves a rule of official classes, which will become equally powerful or probably more powerful—classes eventually differing from those which socialist theories contemplate, as much as the rich and proud ecclesiastical hierarchy of the middle ages differed from the groups of poor and humble missionaries out of which it grew.