A Critical Examination of Socialism. W. H. Mallock
of a coherent party could group themselves.
Such was the feat accomplished by Karl Marx, through his celebrated treatise on Capital, which was published between fifty and sixty years ago, and which has, since then, throughout all Europe and America, been acclaimed as the Magna Charta, or the Bible, of "scientific socialism."
Whatever may be the change which, as a theory, socialism has subsequently undergone—and changes there have been which will presently occupy our attention—it is with the theory of Marx, and the temper of mind resulting from it, that socialism, regarded as a practical force, begins; and among the majority of socialists this theory is predominant still. In view, therefore, of the requirements of logic, of history, and of contemporary facts, our own examination must begin with the theory of Marx likewise.
CHAPTER II
THE THEORY OF MARX AND THE EARLIER SOCIALISTS SUMMARISED
All radical revolutions which are advocated in the interests of the people are commended to the people, and the people are invited to accomplish them, on the ground that majorities are, if they would only realise it, capable of moulding society in any manner they please. As applied to matters of legislation and government, this theory is sufficiently familiar to everybody. It has been elaborated in endless detail, and has expressed itself in the constitutions of all modern democracies. What Karl Marx did, and did for the first time, was to invest this theory of the all-efficiency of the majority with a definiteness, in respect of distribution of wealth, similar to that with which it had been invested already in respect of the making of laws and the dictation of national policies.
The practical outcome of the scientific reasoning of Marx is summed up in the formula which has figured as the premise and conclusion of every congress of his followers, of every book or manifesto published by them, and of every propagandist oration uttered by them at street-corners, namely, "All wealth is produced by labour, therefore to the labourers all wealth is due"—a doctrine in itself not novel if taken as a pious generality, but presented by Marx as the outcome of an elaborate system of economics.
The efficiency of this doctrine as an instrument of agitation is obvious. It appeals at once to two universal instincts: the instinct of cupidity and the instinct of universal justice. It stimulates the labourers to demand more than they receive already, and it stimulates to demand the more on the ground that they themselves have produced it. It teaches them that the wealth of every man who is not a manual labourer is something stolen from themselves which ought to be and which can be restored to them.
Now, whatever may be the value of such teaching as a contribution to economic science, it illustrates by its success one cardinal truth, and by implication it bears witness to another. The first truth is that, no matter how desirable any object may be which is obtruded on the imagination of anybody, nobody will bestir himself in a practical way to demand it until he can be persuaded to believe that its attainment is practically possible. The other is this: that the possibilities of redistributing wealth depend on the causes by which wealth is produced. All wealth, says Marx, can practically be appropriated by the labourers. But why? Because the labourers themselves comprise in their own labour all the forces that produce it. If its production necessitated the activity of any persons other than themselves, these other persons would inevitably have some control over its distribution; since if it were distributed in a manner of which these other persons disapproved, it would be open to them to refuse to take part in its production any longer; and there would, in consequence, be no wealth, or less wealth, to distribute.
Let us, then, examine the precise sense and manner in which this theory of labour as the sole producer of wealth is elaborated and defended by Marx in his Bible of Scientific Socialism. His argument, though the expression of it is very often pedantic and encumbered with superfluous mathematical formulæ, is ingenious and interesting, and is associated with historical criticism which, in spite of its defects, is valuable. Marx was, indeed, foremost among those thinkers already referred to who first insisted on the fact that the economic conditions of to-day are mainly a novel development of others which went before them, and that, having their roots in history, they must be studied by the historical method. He recognised, however, that for practical purposes each age must concern itself with its own environment; and his logical starting-point is an analysis of wealth-production as it exists to-day. He begins by insisting on the fact that labour in the modern world is divided with such a general and such an increasing minuteness that each labour produces one kind of product only, of which he himself can consume but a small fraction, and often consumes nothing. His own product, therefore, has for him the character of wealth only because he is able to exchange it for commodities of other kinds; and the amount of wealth represented by it depends upon what the quantity of other assorted commodities, which he can get in exchange for it, is. What, then, is the common measure, in accordance with which, as a fact, one kind of commodity will exchange for any other, or any others? For his answer to this question Marx goes to the orthodox economists of his time—the recognised exponents of the system against which his own arguments were directed—and notably, among these, to Ricardo; and, adopting Ricardo's conclusions, as though they were axiomatic, he asserts that the measure of exchange between one class of commodities and another—such, for example, as cigars, printed books, and chronometers—is the amount of manual labour, estimated in terms of time, which is on an average necessary to the production of each of them. His meaning in this respect is illustrated with pictorial vividness by his teaching with regard to the form in which the measure of exchange should embody itself. This, he said, ought not to be gold or silver, but "labour-certificates," which would indicate that whoever possessed them had laboured for so many hours in producing no matter what, and which would purchase anything else, or any quantity of anything else, representing an equal expenditure of labour of any other kind.
Having thus settled, as it seemed to him beyond dispute, that manual labour, estimated in terms of time, is the sole source and measure of economic values or of wealth, Marx goes on to point out that, by the improvement of industrial methods, labour in the modern world has been growing more and more productive, so that each labour-hour results in an increased yield of commodities. Thus a man who a couple of centuries ago could have only just kept himself alive by the products of his entire labour-day, can now keep himself alive by the products of half or a quarter of it. The products of the remainder of his labour-day are what Marx called a "surplus value," meaning by this phrase all that output of wealth which is beyond what is practically necessary to keep the labourer alive. But what, he asks, becomes of this surplus? Does it go to the labourers who have produced it? No, he replies. On the contrary, as fast as it is produced, it is abstracted from the labourer in a manner, which he goes on to analyse, by the capitalist.
Marx here advances to the second stage of his argument. Capital, as he conceives of it, is the tools or instruments of production; and modern capital for him means those vast aggregates of machinery by the use of which in most industries the earlier implements have been displaced. Now, here, says Marx, the capitalist is sure to interpose with the objection that the increased output of wealth is due, not to labour, but to the machinery, and that the labourer, as such, has consequently no claim on it. But to this objection Marx is ready with the following answer—that the machinery itself is nothing but past labour in disguise. It is past labour crystallised, or embodied in an external form, and used by present labour to assist itself in its own operations. Every wheel, crank, and connecting-rod, every rivet in every boiler, owes its shape and its place to labour, and labour only. Labour, therefore—the labour of the average multitude—remains the sole agent in the production of wealth, after all.
Capital, however, as thus understood, has, he says, this peculiarity—that, being labour in an externalised and also in a permanent form, it is capable of being detached from the labourers and appropriated by other people; and the essence of modern capitalism is neither more nor less than this—the appropriation of the instruments of production by a minority who are not producers. So long as the implements of production were small and simple, and such that each could be used by one man or family, the divorce between the labourer and his implements was not easy to accomplish; but in proportion