To show that Marx's theories and prophecies are invalid is not by any means to establish the weakness of economic socialism. If Marx's theories and prophecies were well founded, they would constitute a powerful argument for the justification and future existence of socialism. To show that they are ill founded is negative, although useful, criticism. It is necessary also to advance positive proof of the weakness of socialism.

The principal criticism of economic socialism is that with human beings as they are now constituted it will not work. If human beings were ideally perfect, socialism could be made to work, but in that case there would be no need for the introduction of socialism because perfect human beings could get along very well under almost any economic system.

Economic socialism would not work because in the first place, assuming that the present proprietors are to be expropriated without compensation, there would be a very numerous and powerful class of people opposed to socialism from the start. Socialism, even with all the members of society well disposed towards the plan, would find it hard to get along; but with these ex-proprietors arrayed against it, it would be overturned before it was well started. It is true that some socialists propose to buy up the interests of the present proprietors and thus to escape their opposition. But this plan, too, involves saddling the state with heavy interest charges or else burdening the people with excessive taxes. To do either of these things would be to handicap socialism at the start and to make its success impossible.

If economic socialism were really started and under way, it would be found to be much less productive than the present competitive system. While a much fairer distribution of wealth than the present one is easily thinkable and might even be worked out with a fair degree of success under socialism, still if the amount to be divided was diminished as a result of socialism, it requires only an elementary knowledge of mathematics to realize that the average share to be divided would be much smaller than it is at present. A great many of the workers then would find that they would have to be content with a smaller income than under the old system. Unless human nature is to undergo a very material change for the better the discontent thus engendered would lead to a powerful demand for a return to the old system.

That socialism would mean a lessened production there is no room to doubt. Visionary reformers may dream of a time when the whole productive process will be nothing but a great round of pleasure for the workers. But that vision belongs so far in the future that it is idle for economists to speculate about it. As far as we can see into the future of industrial production the average day's work will contain much that is monotonous and disagreeable. Men will shirk work and some form of pressure will have to be applied to keep them at work. An equal division of the product is out of the question for this purpose; a division according to needs does not fit the case any better. If the worker's share is to be the same whether he works well or ill or does not work at all, he will probably choose not to work. Of course, there remains the possibility of rewarding the worker roughly according to the work which he does, which is practically done at present. But to divide the product among the workers in this manner under socialism involves many difficulties which are not met with under the competitive system. At the present time one man may be paid two dollars a day for using a pick and shovel and another man may be paid two dollars and a half a day for driving a team. There is no way of determining which man has produced greater wealth. One man is paid 25 per cent more than the other not because he has produced 25 per cent more but because the demand for teamsters is stronger relatively to the supply than the demand for shovelers relatively to the supply of shovelers. Under socialism it would not be possible to fix wages on the demand and supply principle. Any other principle which is chosen would be an arbitrary one. It would leave many of the workers dissatisfied. To-day, when a man is dissatisfied with the principle according to which his wages are regulated he often joins the socialist party. Under a system of socialism if a man became dissatisfied with the principle governing his income, he would join the antisocialist party and do what he could towards overthrowing socialism. There would be enough men joining the antisocialist party to make the continued existence of socialism to say the least problematical.

Under a system of socialism and in a democracy every laborer would probably be a voter and would help to elect the officials who assigned the tasks and fixed the wages. Again, unless human nature changes, one group of workers or the workers of one locality would think that they were unfairly treated as compared with another group of workers or the workers of other localities. They would attempt to right their wrong through the use of their political strength. The present form of political lobbying by which the government spends enormous sums upon expensive post-office buildings where there is an inconsiderable amount of mail, or in deepening the channels of hypothetical rivers which contain no water, would be a comparatively innocent pastime as compared with lobbying where whole sections of the country or great economic groups were using their political power in a struggle to increase their shares of the social dividend.

Questions

1. Are problems of distribution likely to receive more attention in a community where every one is poor or in a community where there are rich and poor?

2. What is the plan of reform which is put forward by the single taxers? What is the difference between the proposals of the more radical and those of the more moderate single taxers?

3. What arguments do the single taxers advance in support of their proposals?

4. Discuss the merits of the single tax plan.

5. What special taxes on land values have been adopted in Europe in recent years?

6. Are writers on socialism agreed upon the meaning of socialism? Illustrate.

7. Define socialism.

8. Are the proposals for economic reform which are advocated by socialists dependent upon the economic theory put forward by them?

9. Will two commodities upon which exactly the same amounts of labor have been expended always have the same exchange value? Explain.

10. Upon what does the value of an article depend?

11. What is Marx's explanation of the source of profits? Discuss this explanation.

12. What is the so-called law of capitalistic development?

13. Why is economic socialism impossible of realization within a period of time short enough to make it of practical interest to us?

Supplementary Reading

Devas, Political Economy, Book III., Chap. vii.

Fillebrown, The A B C of Taxation, Chaps. i., iii., and xii.

George, Progress and Poverty, Books V.-VIII.

Hillquit and Ryan, Socialism: Promise or Menace, Chaps. ii.-iv.

Seager, Principles, Chaps. xxviii. and xxxiii.

Seligman, Principles, Chap. xxxv.

Taussig, Principles, Chaps. lxiv. and lxv.

Walker, Political Economy, Part VI., Chaps. x. and xviii.