passengers trying to travel by one train or tramcar. They might even see along our English country roads the melancholy spectacle of men tramping in both directions evidently in search of the same kind of work. They might be able to see that some had too much— more than they seemed to know how to dispose of without hurting themselves and others-while some evidently had too little for healthy and happy existence. But in spite of these defects, they would report, I think, that on the whole the machinery, whatever its exact nature, seemed to do its work fairly effectively. And if we can imagine them able to go back five hundred or a thousand years, we can feel tolerably sure that they would report still more favourably, since they would then see that enormous improvement had taken place and would discover no appearance of any change which would suggest that the existing system is not the outcome of an orderly development of the institutions of the past.

I insist so strongly on the fact that our existing machinery does work, not with any idea of contending that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds, but because I think that in order to get any proper hold of economics it is necessary to begin by considering, not the defects of machinery, but the main principles involved in its construction and working. We are apt to begin with the defects because it is they that strike our eye and often excite our sympathy. Seven per cent of unemployed are much more likely to make us start thinking about economics than the other ninety-three who are in employment. The emaciated corpse of a single person starved to death naturally makes more impression on our minds than the comfortable bodies of a hundred thousand sufficiently fed citizens. But if we want thoroughly to understand the reason why work and food do not quite "go round," we should begin by endeavoring to discover what, after all, certainly does not explain itself—why they go as far round as they do. If we grant that there is an organization, the next question is, What is it? It is certainly not merely "the State." In modern times we become so accustomed to all institutions being defined and modified from time to time by the States within the jurisdiction of which they exist, that we are apt to regard them all as springing from the State and dependent upon its existence for their origin and development. But this is wrong. There are economic institutions which are older than the State, at any rate in the sense in which we use the word at the present day, and there are others which have come into being and developed under the ban rather

than under the patronage of the State. Moreover, some of them cover the whole world or at the least far wider areas than any State of the present or past. In dealing with the most important of the institutions on which our existing economic organization is based, it is most convenient to take the State as the third, the Family and Property being the first and second.

8. CERTAINTY, COMPLETENESS, AND REGULARITY1

Let anyone propose to himself the problem of supplying with daily provisions of all kinds a city containing above a million of inhabitants. Let him imagine himself a head-commissary, entrusted with the office of furnishing to this enormous host their daily rations. Any considerable failure in the supply, even for a single day, might produce the most frightful distress, since the spot on which they are cantoned produces absolutely nothing. Some, indeed, of the articles consumed admit of being reserved in public or private stores for a considerable time; but many, including most articles of animal food and many of vegetable, are of the most perishable nature. As a deficient supply of these even for a few days would occasion great inconvenience, so a redundancy of them would produce a corresponding waste. Moreover, in a district of such vast extent as this "province (as it has been aptly called) covered with houses," it is essential that the supplies should be so distributed among the different quarters as to be brought almost to the doors of the inhabitants; at least within such a distance that they may, without an inconvenient waste of time and labour, procure their daily shares.

Moreover, whereas the supply of provisions for an army or garrison is comparatively uniform in kind, here the greatest possible variety is required, suitable to the wants of various classes of consumers.

Again, this immense population is extremely fluctuating in number; and the increase or diminution depends on causes, of which though some may, others cannot, be distinctly foreseen.

Lastly, and above all, the daily supplies of each article must be so nicely adjusted to the stock from which it is drawn-to the scanty, or more or less abundant, harvest, importation, or other source of supply -to the interval which is to elapse before a fresh stock can be furnished, and to the probable abundance of the new supply that as little distress as possible may be undergone; that, on the one hand

1 Adapted from Richard Whately, Introductory Lectures in Political Economy, Lecture IV, pp. 93-98. (B. Fellowes, 1832.)

the population may not unnecessarily be put upon short allowance of the article, and that, on the other hand, they may be preserved from the more dreadful risk of famine, which would ensue from their continuing a free consumption when the store was insufficient to hold out.

It is really wonderful to consider with what ease and regularity this important end is accomplished, day after day and year after year, through the sagacity and vigilance of private interest operating on the numerous class of wholesale and, more especially, of retail dealers. Each of these watches attentively the demands of the neighborhood, or of the market he frequents, for such commodities as he deals in. The apprehension, on the one hand, of not realizing all the profit he might, and, on the other hand, of having his goods left on his hands, either by his laying in too large a stock, or by his rival's underselling him these, acting like antagonist muscles, regulate the extent of his dealings and the prices at which he buys and sells. An abundant supply causes him to lower his prices and thus enables the public to enjoy that abundance, while he is guided only by the apprehension of being undersold; and, on the other hand, an actual or apprehended scarcity causes him to demand a higher price, or to keep back his goods in expectation of a rise.

9. PLANLESSNESS AND CONFLICT'

And there is war between and among the classes. War, sometimes overt and violent, sometimes concealed and even unconscious, but war nevertheless. The war is all the more intense and irrepressible because it springs, not from personal hostility or accidental misunderstandings, but from ever-present organic economic causes.

There is war between employer and employee.

The employer is in business for profits. Industrial profits come from the work of the hired hand. The smaller the wages the larger the profits. The employee works for wages. Wages represent the product of his labor after deduction of the employer's profit. The smaller the profit the larger the wages. The employer must strive to maintain or increase his profits under penalty of industrial extermination. His personal views and feelings cannot alter the situation. The employee must strive to maintain or increase his wages under pain of physical destruction. His personal inclinations do not count. Sometimes this antagonism of interests expresses itself in petty bar

Taken by permission from Morris Hillquit, Socialism Summed Up, pp. 14–17. (H. K. Fly Co., 1911, Author's copyright.)

gaining and commonplace haggling, and at other times it assumes the form of violent conflicts: strikes, boycotts, and occasional dynamite explosions and, on the other hand, lockouts, black lists, injunctions, and jails.

There is war between employer and employer.

Each capitalist controls a share of an industry. The greater the share the larger, ordinarily, is his profit. His natural desire is to increase his share. He can do that only at the expense of his neighbor. Hence, the mad industrial competition, the merciless rivalry for the "market," the mutual underbidding and underselling, the adulteration and falsification of commodities, the senseless speculative enterprises, and, finally, wholesale failure and ruin.

There is war between worker and worker.

Modern machinery, although inherently of untold blessing to mankind, operates as a curse upon the toiler under the prevailing system of individual ownership. It does not lighten the burdens of the worker. It does not reduce his hours of labor-it displaces him from his employment. The marvelous productivity of the machine creates the dread legions of jobless workers, the fierce competition for a chance to work, and the consequent lowering of wages below the living standard.

The automatic, almost self-operating, machine makes child and woman labor possible and profitable, and the children and wives of the workers are drafted into the field of industry in competition with their fathers and husbands. The more women and children are at work in factories the rarer become the opportunities for men to find work and the lower become their wages. Child and woman labor means lower wages for man. Low wages for men mean more child and woman labor, and so the workers move forever in a vicious circle of misery and privation.

There is war between producer and user.

Business is conducted for profits. The larger the prices of the commodity or the higher the rate of service the greater, ordinarily, is the profit of the capitalist. Hence, the everlasting quarrels between the seller and the buyer, the landlord and the tenant, the carrier and the passenger, the aggressive and inexorable "producer," and the pitiable "ultimate consumer."

The individualistic and competitive system of industry is a system of general social warfare; an ugly, brutal fight of all against all. It is a mad, embittered race for wealth or bread, without plan or

terr

system, without pity or mercy. It has produced the abnormal type of the multi-millionaire with a hoard of material wealth enough to last thousands of families for countless generations to come, and the children of the slums succumbing for lack of the barest necessaries of life. It operates through periods of feverish activity during which men, women, and even children of tender age are worked to exhaustion, and periods of inactivity and depression during which millions of willing workers are forced into idleness and starvation.

The system of competition has not been without merit. It has organized industry, stimulated invention, and increased human productivity a hundred fold. It has created vast wealth and evolved higher standards of life. It has broken down the barriers between countries and united all modern nations into one world-wide family of almost identical culture and civilization. It has played an important and useful part in the history of human growth.

But sharing the fate of all other industrial systems, competition finally reaches a stage when its mission is accomplished, and its usefulness is outlived.

See also, 353. The Socialists' Indictment of Competitive Society. 140. Production for Profit.

IO. WHEREIN HARMONY, WHEREIN DISHARMONY
OF STRUCTURE

Our survey of industry shows us an elaborate system of businesses and trades by which the productive powers of Nature and of man are brought into operation for the supply of human wants. This system exhibits much detailed skill of adaptation and co-operation. The harmony of structure and of working in an ordinary business, a factory, a mine, a bank, a shop, is very exact. Though the owners of the different factors of production in the business are mainly moved by considerations of personal gain, viz., the wages, interest, rent, profits they expect to receive, there is a sufficiently close and constant harmony of these individual interests to supply a sound business economy. Though friction causes some evident waste, and larger disturbances sometimes arise, the ordinary business works harmoniously and economically at most times.

Taken by permission from J. A. Hobson, The Science of Wealth, pp. 249-52. (Henry Holt & Co., 1911.)