NO TES A ND ABS TRA C TS §6 1
means of existence. Therefore, under existing circumstances, it is bound to perish. But the communal form of land-owning is a most important basis on which to build the future social industry. What we have to do is to graft on the commune scientific agriculture and great industry, and to transform it so that it may become a fit instru- ment for the organization of large industry, and for giving her, instead of a capital- istic, a social form. Capitalism destroys patriarchal production, which was based on production for the use of the producer, but in destroving it does not make it suffi- ciently social to satisfy the needs of the whole community."
The principal idea of M. Vorontzov concerning the evolution of Russian society as a result of economic forms is that the bourgeoisie is destined to plav a role only of second rank; the factory hands have no chance for a considerable increase, and there- fore the only possible social stratum of our future, as in our past, will be the peasantry.
The Narodniki, therefore, recommend the fostering of cottage industry, communal agriculture, and cooperative workshops ; politically they are the greatest enemies of bureaucracy and officialdom.
Thus liioth these schools of collectivists, the Marxians and Narodniki, may be said to represent two camps, one of which makes villagedom — the peasantry — the only savior, economic and social, and the other thinks the factory, the town, the thing which has to come, which must come, and which one has to strive for, if one wishes for the coming of the future coUectivist society.
Generally speaking, there is no individualistic economic school in Russia at all. The difference is only in the degree of collectivism admissible in society and concern- ing the economic policy which Russia should aim at — whether it should be " great commerce," " great landlordism," small industry, or peasant proprietorship, coopera- tive or commercial joint-stock banks, etc.
M. Slonimsky, an out-and-out anti-Marxian, criticises the theory of surplus value. For a theory of labor as a value standard there ought to be first an explanation of the way to measure and to define labor itself; it is impossible to translate art work into the language of simple work, because you cannot mix quality with quantity. As a refuta- tion of the theory of Marx, which ascribes the whole value of the commodities to human labor, Slonimsky pointedly brings out the following contradiction : "Capital," says he, "looks for the surplus value of labor, and at the same time does its best to supersede it by machinery; it lives and grows only by working through living human labor, and at the same time tries to replace it by machinery; it exploits the workers, yet can do without any exploitation ; it draws its net income from the unpaid surplus value, yet systematically diminishes the number of men with surplus labor and surplus value." — S. Rapoport, "Economics in Russia," in Economic Keview, October, 1899.
The Policy of the Tin-Plate Combination. — i. Relation to the tin-plate plants of the combination. — .\t the present time a number of the plants have been closed down. Among these are some of the largest and best-equipped mills in the country. The company now owns every tin-plate plant in the United States making a product for the general trade. Just how long these establishments are to remain closed it is impossible to say, but undoubtedly the company is trying to find out to just what extent it is necessary to operate the different plants to supply the demand. If it is discovered that all, or nearly all, are necessary, two lines of policy are open to the directors : first, to operate all the mills owned by the company ; second, to close the more poorly equipped and badly situated mills and to increase the producing power of the better plants.
2. Dividends. — It is continually asserted that the American Tin-Plate Co. will be able to pay dividends from the start, not only on the preferred stock, but on the common stock as well. This dividend, it is said, will be declared on April i to at least \Yi percent. The company has been in existence only since December, 1898, and although large orders have undoubtedly been given to the company, the prices of tin plate have not advanced sufficiently to pay the increased cost of steel and tin in production. There is, of course, the temptation constantly before such a concern to pay dividends out of capital stock in order to push up the quotation of common stock. But the whole attitude of the company seems to be that of a legitimate manufacturing enterprise, rather than a speculative movement. The company is not likelv to force the payment of dividends before it earns them.
