The Object of the Labor Movement/Preface
PREFACE.
The speech herewith placed before the workers of America is the noteworthy utterance of the Konigsberg physician and noble friend of the working-class, Dr. Johann Jakoby, a democrat in the best sense of the word, a warm advocate of the enlightenment of the people and of the improvement of their condition. Johann Jakoby, following the democratic thought to its logical conclusion, perceived that the bearer of the democratic idea in our day is the modern social democracy, and he the most eminent of his party was first to join the young Socialist Labor Party.
In America the old Jefferson democracy perished long ago, and with it as with the democracy of Jakoby the "democratic" party of to-day has its name alone in common, as may best be seen from the phases of "development" through which the "democratic" party has passed, the last stage included. The "democratic" party after being the pro-slavery party, passed through a phase in which it differed from its "republican" rival only in representing Free Trade as opposed to Protection. Then, the Tariff question ceasing to serve as an issue, and the old parties surviving only to divide the spoils (to the shame not alone of the "democratic" party, be it said), a presidential election became possible which turned not upon party platforms but up-on the relative decency of two candidates. The rise of the United Labor Party at the November election of 1886, which has been rightly characterized as the beginning of a new era in American politics, lent the "democrats" a passing raison d' etre as "saviors of society," representing neither platforms nor decency, but the great "principle" of "Patriotism." And the fusion of the two old parties for the furtherance of this "principle" is only a question of time. Already during the campaign of the past autumn, naively upright "democrats" who take "Society Saving" seriously, showered bitter reproaches upon the "republicans" for their "unpatriotic" action in nominating separate candidates. And the complete fusion of the "democrats" with their kindred spirits, the "republicans," will be delayed so long only as each of the old parties may still hope to "save" something for itself. Meanwhile the general saving of society is not lost sight of, and bills are pending in Congress to provide for the more effective establishment of the militia, a point which we shall touch upon later.
One pre eminently democratic quality our party with this glorious record unmistakably possesses, to do it justice, far beyond all true democracy, namely, a colossal respect for popular majorities. A majority it must have at all costs, and since it would have hard work to convince one, it buys its majority wherever it can. Accordingly, bribes proving unavailing among the masses of workers now awakening to a consciousness of their class interests, we behold the spectacle of these worthy "democrats" and "patriots" buying among the tenement-house populations of our great cities that popular majority which they so greatly respect. For the purchase of a majority no sacrifice of money is too great, and every fair-minded person must admit that this is the heaviest sacrifice which a party can make that represents only the interests of that class whose domination in State and society rests solely upon its possessions. Thus do our "patriots" sacrifice that which in their eyes is most sacred. It is, however, a sacrifice that brings its own reward.
In spite of all this decay and corruption within the old parties, the spirit and traditions of the Jeffersonian Democracy still live in a considerable part of the Laboring Class; and we see here among us in the person of Henry George a man who is following in the path of Jakoby and, as an upright Democrat, has placed himself upon the side of the Laboring Class. If he follows to the end the path he has entered, as we do not doubt he will do, he is, we believe,destined to play an honorable part in the development of the Labor Movement in America. His exclusive demand for the nationalization of the land is totally insufficient for any society which rests upon the capitalist method of production, least of all for the country of the industrial proletariat par excellence. If Henry George extends his demand to cover the demand for the socialization of all the means of production, the demand which, after all, forms the kernel of the Labor Question, that is to say, if he places himself upon the standpoint of modern Scientific Socialism, then only can he become a true representative of the workers; for then he will express the actual interests of the Laboring Class. Otherwise he will be condemned to be a mere leader of a sect, instead of representing a mighty and decisive Labor Movement which, once awakened to class-consciousness, is being driven by the logic of events to modern Socialism, and cannot possibly stop with the land question. We say stop with the land question because the modern Labor Movement embraces the land question as a matter of course.
The noble hearted Johann Jakoby arrived at his Socialist position, thanks to his high intelligence and, one might almost say, to his healthy instinct, when we take into consideration the backward economic condition of Germany in his day and the consequent far from conspicuous class antagonisms.
Wholly different is the position of Henry George. This can be clear and well considered to its utmost consequences. He has the good fortune to live and work in a country which is economically and politically perhaps the most advanced; in which the antagonism of the classes is glaring, blurred by no mediæval social traditions such as are so frequent even in the most advanced States of the Old World where the so-called middle parties base their existence upon them.
Here, no one who has eyes for the reality can fail to recognize the comparatively small class of capitalists mighty by reason of their possessions; and face to face with it, separated by diametrically opposed interests, by a gulf that can neither be bridged over nor filled up with specious phrases of harmony, the Laboring Class.
Another factor must be especially emphasized which is of eminent importance, namely, the possibility of clear insight into the economic process going on about us and a true comprehension of it, i. e., scientific enlightenment such as exists to a considerable extent in the more progressive proletarian movements of Europe and in an especially high degree among our German brothers who can already point to a brilliant political Past.
Our young Labor Party is now on the way towards becoming a great political party, and its next task, as it has itself recognized, is the work of consolidation in a national Party. With its growth and the simultaneous increase in political influence, the need of that enlightenment which is now naturally wanting, will become more urgent in order that the Labor Party may press with full intelligence towards the attainment of its main object, the political and economic emancipation of the Laboring Class.
The labor question has left the phase of utopian plans far behind it. It has become a science, among whose chief representatives recognized as founders of Modern Scientific Socialism are Karl Marx and his lifelong friend and co-worker, Frederick Engels. The fundamental works upon Socialism, Marx's Capital and Engels' Condition of the Working Class in England, have very recently been made accessible in translations to English-reading workers.
To return to the accompanying pamphlet. There are two points in which Socialists to-day will not agree with the author as to the means by which the Object of the Labor Movement is to be attained.
Socialists differ from Jakoby in his estimate of profit-sharing, finding it a measure irrational in theory and reactionary in its practical working, a trick of the employer to divert the attention of the workers from their class interests.
All profit is produced by labor, is in the ultimate analysis unpaid labor. The workers' share would therefore naturally be the whole of the profit. But under our present system the workmen have no claim upon any part of it. The whole belongs legally to the capitalist, and the workers cannot well find any logical argument for claiming a part of what is rightfully theirs and legally another's. If they insist upon having the whole of what is their own they insist upon the Social Revolution, for no measure less radical can secure it for them. But if they consent to be bought off by their plunderers with a share of the booty they assume a position which is not conducive to the speedy abolition of legalized robbery.
In practice profit-sharing has been characterized as embodying the principle of the fly on the window pane which, being close to the eye, shut out the view of the dome of St. Peter's. For profit-sharing has been found by shrewd employers to occupy the minds of workers with petty economies and with watching each other in order to insure the largest possible "share" to the exclusion of larger considerations of class interest. That this is the real object of the arrangement is indicated by two facts. It is in the employing class and not in the working class that profit-sharing finds its apostles, and this is an unfailing danger signal. And in the second place, it is adopted chiefly by a certain class of employers to whom it offers especial advantages in the struggle for existence. The most powerful monopolies do not share their profits with their employes because they do not especially need to attach the "hands" to the "concern." Employers of labor upon a small scale cannot as a rule share profits with their employes, their margin is too small. It is the middle class of employers who, hard-pressed to fight the large capitalists on the one hand and the labor organizations on the other, are thankful to buy peace with their own employes upon upon such favorable terms as profit-sharing offers.
Socialists therefore do not recommed profit-sharing. If enlightened workers accept it when offered they are not thereby blinded; they know that profit-sharing bears no criticism from an economic standpoint, but would if disinterested, be mere philanthropy; they know that there is no standard by which the workers' share can be determined, and they fully understand that the trifling increase in their annual income is merely the price which employers gladly pay for decided advantages obtained in the economy and intensity of the labor thus paid for and in the immunity from strikes. But Socialists do not, with Jakoby, recognize profit-sharing as a means to a peaceful solution of the labor question.
The second point upon which Socialists will not agree with Jakoby is his assumption of the possibility of effort for a peaceful solution of the Labor Question on the part of the State and the Capitalist class.
The individual employer who could recognize his employe "as his own equal and treat him accordingly," gives place more and more to the corporation "with no body to be kicked and no soul to be damned." And it were folly indeed to look to the capitalist corporations of America to promote the transition to the Socialist system. That would be asking them to commit suicide.
Moreover the State becomes year by year more completely the property, the willing tool, of these same corporations and less capable of action in the interest of the people. Such slender concessions as it makes in the direction of protecting and advancing the interests of the working class are made in answer to the demands of Labor organized so powerfully that its demand is a threat. And so far as it dares, the State of to-day renders illusory the trifles that it yields. If we pass in review the demands which Johann Jakoby makes of the State we find that, here in America, when the Government yielded to the demand for the eight-hour working day for its employees, the enforcement of the law remained practically nil. In the separate States the eight-hour law, wherever passed, is either a dead letter or vitiated in the first place by the private contract clause. The prohibition of the employment of children under fourteen years of age, though in some States enacted, is generally evaded for want of adequate inspection by men and women appointed from the working class, or of that indispensable accompaniment of such a prohibition, sufficient school accommodation and an efficiently enforced compulsory law. A graduated income tax could be imposed by the Government only under the stress of the civil war and the State was the far-too-humble servant of its plutocratic owners to attempt stringent enforcement. Instead of universal compulsory military training we find the irresponsible mercenaries of the great corporations, the Pinkerton armed detective force, growing in recklessness from year to year; while the militia, once meant to serve the ends indicated by Jakoby, has been perverted, corrupted and hedged about with costly conditions until, to-day, it bears the character of a bourgeois volunteer re-enforcement of the regular army maintained by the State for the support of the capitalists in the suppression of lawful protests of the proletariat.
It is evident that all hope of help towards the peaceful solution of the labor question by the capitalist class and the State is illusory. The transition from the Wage-System to the Socialistic organization of society is going on around us and its peaceful consummation clearly rests with the Working Class. The clearer the insight of the workers the speedier and more peaceful the change. "In proportion as the proletariat absorbs socialistic and communistic elements, will the Revolution diminish in bloodshed, revenge and savagery."
F. K. W.