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Woman and Socialism: 2.—Intermediate Trade and the Increased Cost of Living.

Woman and Socialism
2.—Intermediate Trade and the Increased Cost of Living.

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Notes

table of contents
  1. WOMAN AND SOCIALISM
  2. Contents
  3. Introduction.
  4. Woman in the Past.
    1. CHAPTER I. The Position of Woman in Primeval Society.
      1. 1.—Chief Epochs of Primeval History.
      2. 2.—Family Forms.
      3. 3.—The Matriarchate.
    2. CHAPTER II. Conflict between Matriarchate and Patriarchate.
      1. 1.—Rise of the Patriarchate.
      2. 2.—Traces of the Matriarchate in Greek Myths and Dramas.
      3. 3.—Legitimate Wives and Courtesans in Athens.
      4. 4.—Remnants of the Matriarchate in the Customs of Various Nations.
      5. 5.—Rise of the State.—Dissolution of the Gens in Rome.
    3. CHAPTER III. Christianity.
    4. CHAPTER IV. Woman in the Mediaeval Age.
      1. 1.—The Position of Women among the Germans.
      2. 2.—Feudalism and the Right of the First Night.
      3. 3.—The Rise of Cities.—Monastic Affairs.—Prostitution.
      4. 4.—Knighthood and the Veneration of Women.
    5. CHAPTER V. The Reformation.
      1. 1.—Luther.
      2. 2.—Results of the Reformation.—The Thirty Years’ War.
    6. CHAPTER VI. The Eighteenth Century.
      1. 1.—Court Life in Germany.
      2. 2.—Commercialism and the New Marriage Laws.
      3. 3.—The French Revolution and the Rise of Industry.
  5. Woman at the Present Day.
    1. CHAPTER VII. Woman as a Sex Being.
      1. 1.—The Sexual Impulse.
      2. 2.—Celibacy and the Frequency of Suicide.
    2. CHAPTER VIII. Modern Marriage.
      1. 1.—Marriage as a Profession.
      2. 2.—Decline of the Birthrate.
      3. 3.—Mercenary Marriage and the Matrimonial Market.
    3. CHAPTER IX. Disruption of the Family.
      1. 1.—Increase of Divorce.
      2. 2.—Bourgeois and Proletarian Marriage.
    4. CHAPTER X. Marriage as a Means of Support.
      1. 1.—Decline of the Marriage Rate.
      2. 2.—Infanticide and Abortion.
      3. 3.—Education for Marriage.
      4. 4.—The Misery of Present Day Marriages.
    5. CHAPTER XI. The Chances of Matrimony.
      1. 1.—The Numerical Proportion of the Sexes.
      2. 2.—Obstacles to Marriage.—The Excess of Women.
    6. CHAPTER XII. Prostitution a Necessary Social Institution of Bourgeois Society.
      1. 1.—Prostitution and Society.
      2. 2.—Prostitution and the State.
      3. 3.—The White Slave Trade.
      4. 4.—The Increase of Prostitution.—Illegitimate Motherhood.
      5. 5.—Crimes Against Morality and Sexual Diseases.
    7. CHAPTER XIII. Woman in Industry.
      1. 1.—Development and Extension of Female Labor.
      2. 2.—Factory Work of Married Women.—Sweatshop Labor and Dangerous Occupations.
    8. CHAPTER XIV. The Struggle of Women for Education.
      1. 1.—The Revolution in Domestic Life.
      2. 2.—The Intellectual Abilities of Women.
      3. 3.—Differences in Physical and Mental Qualities of Man and Woman.
      4. 4.—Darwinism and the Condition of Society.
      5. 5.—Woman and the Learned Professions.
    9. CHAPTER XV. The Legal Status of Women.
      1. 1.—The Struggle for Equality Before the Law.
      2. 2.—The Struggle for Political Equality.
  6. The State and Society.
    1. CHAPTER XVI. The Class-State and the Modern Proletariat.
      1. 1.—Our Public Life.
      2. 2.—Aggravation of Social Extremes.
    2. CHAPTER XVII. The Process of Concentration in Capitalistic Industry.
      1. 1.—The Displacement of Agriculture by Industry.
      2. 2.—Increasing Pauperization.—Preponderance of Large Industrial Establishments.
      3. 3.—Concentration of Wealth.
    3. CHAPTER XVIII. Crisis and Competition.
      1. 1.—Causes and Effects of the Crises.
      2. 2.—Intermediate Trade and the Increased Cost of Living.
    4. CHAPTER XIX. The Revolution in Agriculture.
      1. 1.—Transatlantic Competition and Desertion of the Country.
      2. 2.—Peasants and Great Landowners.
      3. 3.—The Contrast Between City and Country.
  7. The Socialization of Society.
    1. CHAPTER XX. The Social Revolution.
      1. 1.—The Transformation of Society.
      2. 2.—Expropriation of the Expropriators.
    2. CHAPTER XXI. Fundamental Laws of Socialistic Society.
      1. 1.—Duty to Work of All Able-bodied Persons.
      2. 2.—Harmony of Interests.
      3. 3.—Organization of Labor.
      4. 4.—The Growth of the Productivity of Labor.
      5. 5.—Removal of the Contrast between Mental and Manual Work.
      6. 6.—Increase of Consumption.
      7. 7.—Equal Duty to Work for All.
      8. 8.—Abolition of Trade.—Transformation of Traffic.
    3. CHAPTER XXII. Socialism and Agriculture.
      1. 1.—Abolition of the Private Ownership of Land.
      2. 2.—The Amelioration of Land.
      3. 3.—Changed Methods of Farming.
      4. 4.—Agriculture on a Large and Small Scale.—Electric Appliances.
      5. 5.—Vine-Culture of the Future.
      6. 6.—Measures to Prevent Exhaustion of the Soil.
      7. 7.—Removal of the Contrast between City and Country.
    4. CHAPTER XXIII. Abolition of the State.
    5. CHAPTER XXIV. The Future of Religion.
    6. CHAPTER XXV. The Socialist System of Education.
    7. CHAPTER XXVI. Literature and Art in Socialistic Society.
    8. CHAPTER XXVII. Free Development of Individuality.
      1. 1.—Freedom from Care.
      2. 2.—Changes in the Methods of Nutrition.
      3. 3.—The Communistic Kitchen.
      4. 4.—Transformation of Domestic Life.
    9. CHAPTER XXVIII. Woman in the Future.
    10. CHAPTER XXIX. Internationality.
    11. CHAPTER XXX. The Question of Population and Socialism.
      1. 1.—Fear of Over-Population.
      2. 2.—Production of Over-Population.
      3. 3.—Poverty and Fecundity.
      4. 4.—Lack of Human Beings and Abundance of Food.
      5. 5.—Social Conditions and Reproductive Ability.
  8. Conclusion.
  9. THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

2.—Intermediate Trade and the Increased Cost of Living.

In human society all individuals are linked to one another by a thousand threads that become more complicated and interwoven with increasing civilization. When disturbances occur they are felt by all members. Disturbances in production affect distribution and consumption and vice versa. A marked characteristic of capitalistic production is the concentration of the means of production in increasingly large factories. In distribution the opposite trait becomes manifest. Whoever has been driven by competition out of the ranks of independent producers, in nine cases out of ten seeks to win a place as dealer between producer and consumer to obtain a living.[205] This accounts for the surprising increase of persons engaged in intermediate trade, dealers, small shopkeepers, hucksters, agents, jobbers, etc. as has been statistically proven in a previous chapter. Most of these persons, among whom we find many women independently engaged in business, lead a precarious existence. Many, in order to subsist, must cater to the basest fashions of their fellow-men. This accounts for the tremendous prevalence of advertising especially in regard to everything in connection with the gratification of the love of luxury.

Now it cannot be denied that in modern society the desire for the enjoyment of life is very noticeable, and viewed from a higher standard this fact is gratifying. People begin to understand that in order to be human they must lead lives worthy of human beings, and they seek to gratify this desire in the manner in which they conceive the enjoyment of life. In the display of wealth society has become much more aristocratic than in any former period. The contrast between the richest and the poorest is greater than ever. On the other hand, society has become more democratic in its ideas and laws.[206] The masses demand greater equality, and since in their ignorance, they do not yet recognize the means to achieve true equality, they seek it in trying to ape those in superior social positions and to obtain every enjoyment within their reach. Various stimulants serve to gratify this desire and the results are frequently detrimental. A desire that is justified in itself leads to devious paths in many cases; it even leads to crimes, and society punishes the perpetrators without changing matters in the least.

The growing number of persons engaged in intermediate trade has led to many evils. Though the persons thus engaged work hard and are frequently burdened with care, most of them form a class of parasites who are unproductive and live on the products of the labor of others as well as the employing class. An increased cost of living is the inevitable result of intermediate trade. The price of provisions is thereby raised to such extent that they sometimes cost twice and three times as much as is obtained by the producer.[207] But if provisions can not be raised in price any more, because a further raise would limit the consumption, they are diminished in quantity and quality, adulteration of food and the use of incorrect weights and measures is resorted to. The chemist Chevalier reports that among various articles of food he found the following number of methods of adulteration: coffee, 32; wine, 30; chocolate, 28; flour, 24; whiskey, 23; bread, 20; milk, 19; butter, 10; olive oil, 9; sugar, 6, etc. A great deal of fraud is practiced in the grocery stores with goods that have been previously measured or weighed and packed. Frequently only 12 or 14 ounces are sold for a pound, and in this way the lower price is made up for. Workingmen and other persons of small means suffer most from these fraudulent methods, because they are obliged to buy on credit and must therefore hold their peace even where the fraud is perfectly evident. In the bakery trade also incorrect weight is frequently resorted to. Swindle and fraud are inevitably linked with our social conditions, and certain institutions of the state, for instance high indirect taxes and duties, favor swindle and fraud. The laws enacted against the adultery of food accomplish but little. The struggle for existence compels the swindlers to resort to more cunning methods, and a thoroughgoing and severe control rarely exists. Serious control is also made impossible because it is claimed that in order to detect every adultery, an expensive and extensive organization would be required and that legitimate business would also be damaged thereby. But wherever the control does interfere successfully, a considerable increase in prices ensues, because the low prices were possible only by means of adulteration.

In order to diminish these evils from which the masses always and everywhere suffer most, cooperative stores have been established. In Germany especially army and navy stores and civil service stores have been developed to such an extent, that many commercial enterprises were ruined by them. But the workingmen’s cooperative stores have also developed tremendously during the last decade and have partly even undertaken the manufacture of certain commodities. The cooperative stores in Hamburg, Leipsic, Dresden, Stuttgart, Breslau, Vienna, etc., have become model establishments and the annual sales of the German cooperative stores amount to hundreds of millions of marks. Since a few years the German cooperative stores have central establishments in Hamburg where the goods are purchased wholesale on the largest scale; this enables the various branch stores to obtain these goods at the lowest possible price. These cooperative stores prove that the scattering methods of intermediate trade are superfluous. That is their greatest advantage beside the other advantage that they furnish reliable goods. The material advantages to their members are not very great nor do they suffice to bring about any marked improvement in their social status. But the establishment of these cooperative stores proves the existence of a widespread recognition that intermediate trade is superfluous. Society will ultimately achieve an organization that will do away with commerce, since the products will be turned over to the consumers without the aid of other intermediate agents than are required by transportation from one place to another and by distribution. When the common purchase of food has been achieved, the common preparation of food on a large scale appears to be the next logical step. This again would lead to a tremendous saving in labor power, space, material and many other expenses.

[205] “The decline of ancient handicraft is not the only cause that accounts for the great increase in the small retail trade. The growing industrialization and commercialization of the country notwithstanding its tendency toward manufacture on a large scale always furnishes new ground for small businesses. Inventions that create new branches of industry also cause the rise of new small establishments for the distribution of these products. But the main cause of the great increase in retail trade is,—as expressed in a report submitted to the government of Saxony by the Dresden chamber of commerce,—that trade on a small scale has become the rallying place of many persons who despair of making their living in any other way.” Paul Lange—Retail Trade and Middle Class Politics. “New Era.”

[206] In his first adaption of Rau’s “Text Book of Political Economy,” Professor Adolf Wagner expresses a similar thought. He says: “The social struggle is the conscious contradiction between the economic development and the social ideal of freedom and equality as expressed in political life.”

[207] In his book on “Domestic Industry in Thuringia,” Dr. E. Sax tells us that in 1869 the production of 244½ million slate pencils had yielded 122,000 to 200,000 florins in wages to the workingmen, but their final sale had yielded 1,200,000 florins, at least six times as much as the producers had received. During the summer of 1888, 5 marks were paid for 5 hundred-weights of haddock by the wholesaler. But the retailer paid 15 marks to the wholesaler, and the public paid the latter 125 marks. Large quantities of food moreover are destroyed because the prices do not make their transportation worth while. For instance, during years when the catch of herrings has been an over abundant one, loads of them have been used as manure, while there were thousands of persons in the interior who could not afford to buy herrings. The same occurred in California in 1892 when the crop of potatoes was too abundant. When in 1901 the price of sugar was very low, a trade paper seriously suggested to destroy a greater part of the supplies so that the price could be raised. It is well known that Charles Fourier was inspired to his ideas of a social system because while he served as apprentice in a commercial house in Toulon, he had been ordered to throw a load of rice over board to raise the prices. He reasoned that a society which resorts to such barbarous and irrational methods must be founded on a false basis, and so he became a socialist.

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