The difficulties for the proletarian regime lie not so much in the sphere of property as in that of production.
THE INCENTIVE OF THE LABORER TO LABOR.
We have seen that the social revolution makes the continuation of the capitalist manner of production impossible, and that the political domination of the proletariat is necessarily bound up with the economic uprising against the capitalist manner of production by which its progress is hindered. Production however must continue. It cannot pause even for a few weeks without the whole of society going down. So it is that the victorious proletariat has the imperative task of ensuring the continuance of production in spite of all disturbances, and to lead the laborer back to the factories, or other places of labor upon which they have turned their backs and to keep them there in order that production may go on undisturbed.
What are the means at the disposal of the new regime for the solution of this problem? Certainly not the whip of hunger and still less that of physical compulsion. If there are people who think that the victory of the proletariat is to establish a prison regimentation where each one will be assigned his labor by his superior then they know the proletariat very poorly. The proletariat which will then make its own laws has a much stronger instinct for freedom than any of the servile and pedantic professors who are crying about the prisonlike character of the future state.
The victorious proletariat will never be satisfied with any prison or barrack-like regulations. Moreover it has no need of anything of the kind since it has other means at its command to hold the laborer to his labor.
In this connection the great power of custom must not be forgotten. Capital has accustomed the modern laborer to work day in and day out and he will not long remain wholly without labor. There are people who are so much accustomed to their work that they do not know what to do with their free time and that feel themselves unhappy when they are not working, and there will be few people who will feel themselves happy for any length of time without any work. I am convinced that when once labor loses the repulsive character of over-work and when the hours of labor are reduced in a reasonable degree, custom alone will suffice to hold the great majority of workers in regular work in factories and mines.
But it is self-evident that we cannot trust to this motive alone as it is the weakest. Another much stronger motive force is the discipline of the proletariat. We know that when the union declares a strike the discipline of organized labor is sufficiently strong to make the laborers freely take upon themselves all the dangers and horrors of unemployment and to remain hungry for months in order to secure a victorious conclusion for the common cause. Now I believe that when it is possible by the strength of discipline to keep the laborers out of the factories it will also be possible to hold them in by the same force. If the union once recognizes the necessity of the unbroken regular progress of labor we may be sure that the interest of the whole will be so great that scarcely a single member will leave his post. The same force that the proletariat uses to-day as a weapon to destroy production will then become an effective means to secure the regular continuance of social labor. The higher the economic organization develops to-day the better the outlook for the undisturbed progress of production after the conquest of political power by the proletariat.
But the discipline which lives in the proletariat is not military discipline. It does not mean blind obedience to an authority imposed from above. It is democratic discipline, a free will submission to a self-chosen leadership, and to the decisions of the majority of their own comrades. If this democratic discipline operates in the factory, it presupposes a democratic organization of labor, and that a democratic factory will take the place of the present aristocratic one. It is self evident that a socialist regime would from the beginning seek to organize production democratically. But even if the victorious proletariat did not have this point in view from the beginning they would be driven to it by the necessity of ensuring the progress of production. The maintenance of social discipline in labor could only be secured by the introduction of union discipline into the processes of production.
This would, however, not be everywhere carried out in the same manner, for each industry has its own peculiarities according to which the organization of the laborers must conform. There are, for example, industries which cannot be operated without a bureaucratic organization, as for example railroads. The democratic organization can be so formed that the laborers choose delegates, who will constitute a sort of parliament, which will fix the conditions of labor and control the government of the bureaucratic machinery. Other industries can be given over to the direction of the unions, and others again can be operated co-operatively. There are also many forms of democratic organizations of industry which are possible, and we need not expect that the organization of all industry would be according to one and the same pattern.
We have seen how the various forms of property would vary and that there would be national, municipal and co-operative property. At the same time, as we saw, private property can still exist in many means of production. Now we see also that the organization of industry takes on manifold forms.
But however powerful motives democratic discipline and the custom of labor may be, they are perhaps not sufficient to ensure that the entire labor class would continuously take part in production. We need not expect that at any time in present society the economic organization and discipline will include more than the majority of the laboring class. When these shall come into control only a minority of the members will probably be organized. It will be necessary to look for other motives to labor. There is one especially strong motive that is peculiar to a proletarian regime, that is, the attractive power of labor. It will be necessary to make labor, which to-day is a burden, a joy, so that it will be a pleasure to work, so that the laborer will go to his work with pleasure. To be sure that is not so simple a thing, but at least a beginning to it can be made by the proletariat at the beginning of its rule in that it will shorten the hours of labor. At the same time it will endeavor to make the place of labor more hygienic and friendly and to take from the labor process as much as possible its disagreeable repulsive side.
All of this is simply a continuation of efforts that to-day are somewhat developed in all labor legislation. But great advances in this direction demand building and technical changes which cannot be brought about between one day and the next. It will be neither an easy or rapid task to make the work in factories and mines very attractive. Beside the attractiveness of labor another power of attraction will come into operation through the wages of labor.
I speak here of the wages of labor. What, it will be said, will there be wages in the new society? Shall we not have abolished wage-labor and money? How then can one speak of the wages of labor? These objections would be sound if the social revolution proposed to immediately abolish money. I maintain that this would be impossible. Money is the simplest means known up to the present time which makes it possible in as complicated a mechanism as that of the modern productive process, with its tremendous far-reaching division of labor, to secure the circulation of products and their distribution to the individual members of society. It is the means which makes it possible for each one to satisfy his necessities according to his individual inclination (to be sure within the bounds of his economic power). As a means to such circulation money will be found indispensable until something better is discovered. To be sure many of its functions, especially that of the measure of value, will disappear, at least in internal commerce. A few remarks concerning value will not be out of place here since they relate to what will be of much importance in our future discussion.
There could be no greater error than to consider that one of the tasks of a socialist society is to see that the law of value is brought into perfect operation and that only equivalent values are exchanged. The law of values is rather a law peculiar to a society of production for exchange.
Production for exchange is that manner of production in which with a developed division of labor independent producers produce for one another. But no manner of production can exist without a definite proportionality in production. The number of labor powers at the disposal of society is limited, and production can only be continued when a corresponding number of productive forces are active in each branch of existing production. In a communistic society labor will be systematically regulated and the labor power be assigned to the individual branches of production according to a definite plan. In the production for exchange this regulation is obtained through the law of value. The value of each product is determined not by the labor time actually applied to it but by the socially necessary time for its production. With the modification that this law receives in capitalist production by profits we are not concerned because this would only unnecessarily complicate the analysis without bringing any new knowledge to the question. The socially necessary labor time in each branch of labor is determined on the one side by the height of its technique in any society and the customary exertion of labor, etc., in short through the average productive power of the individual laborers; on the other side, however, by the number of products demanded by the social necessity of a particular branch of labor, and finally by the total number of labor powers at the disposal of society. Free competition sees to it to-day that the price of products, that is to say the amount of money that one can exchange for them, is continually tending towards the value determined by the socially necessary labor time. In this manner the result is attained that the production in each department of labor, in spite of the fact that it is not regulated from any central point, never goes very far, or continues long away from the proper level. Without the law of value the anarchy that rules in the production for exchange would soon end in an inextricable chaos.
An example will make this plain. We will make it as simple as possible. As the sum of social production only two different forms of goods are necessary, so far as I am concerned—trousers and suspenders.
Considering then that a society demands as the socially necessary labor within a definite time for the production of trousers 10,000 labor days and for suspenders 1,000, that is to say, this amount of labor is necessary in order to satisfy the social need for trousers and suspenders at the present stage of the productivity of labor. If the product of the labor day is worth one dollar, the value of the trousers will be $10,000 and of the suspenders $1,000.
If the individual laborer deviates from the social form in his production and produces for example one-half as many products in a labor day as his colleagues, then, the price of his product for a day's labor would be only the half of that inhering to what was produced by the others in a day of labor. This is well known. This happens also if the proportionality of labor is abnormal, for example, if the manufacturers of trousers attract more labor power to-day than is socially necessary this labor power must be taken away from other places so that the number of labor powers at the disposal of society in this line would be diminished. Take it in the simplest possible form, that they are all drawn away from the tailors. In place of the socially necessary time of 10,000 labor days here and the 1,000 there, we find only 8,000 actual labor days here and 3,000 there. The world is swamped with suspenders and we do not have enough trousers. What will be the result? The price of suspenders sinks and that of trousers rise. The 3,000 actual salable labor days in the manufacture of suspenders will then represent only the value of the 1,000 socially necessary and the value of the individual suspenders will sink to one-third of their former value. The prices will correspondingly sink below these one-third. The value of the trousers will, however, be determined as before by the socially necessary 10,000 and not by the actually supplied 8,000 labor days and as a result the individual producers will be worth five-fourths of their previous price. As a result of this the manufacture of suspenders will be unprofitable and the number of labor powers devoted to it will decrease and flow again to the manufacture of trousers which has become so extraordinarily profitable.
It is in this manner that the law of value under free competition regulates production. It is not the best conceivable way to regulate production but it is the only one possible with private property in the means of production. With social property in the means of production we shall have instead social regulation of production and the necessity of regulating production by the exchange of equal values will cease. Therewith also will disappear the necessity of money as a measure of value. In place of metallic money we can easily have token money. The price of products themselves can now be determined independent of their value. Meanwhile the amount of labor time embodied will always have an important bearing in determining its value and it is probable that the inherited price would be approximated.
While labor gives value and price to the product and labor must be paid with money there will be wages. In spite of this it would be false if one were to speak of a continuation of the present wage system as is done by many Fabians who say that the object of socialism is not to abolish the wage system but rather to make it universal. That is only superficially correct. As a matter of fact wages under the proletarian regime would be something wholly different from under capitalism. To-day it is the price of the commodity—labor power. This is determined in the last analysis by the cost of subsistence of the laborer, while its minor variations depend upon the operation of supply and demand. In a society ruled by the proletariat this would stop, as the laborer would no longer be compelled to sell his labor power. This labor power would cease to be a commodity whose price is determined by its cost of re-production, and its price would become independent of the relation between supply and demand. That which to-day determines in the last analysis the height of wages is the number of products to be divided among the laboring class, the larger this number the higher can and will the general level of wages rise. All things considered the proportioning of the wages of labor among the different branches of industry is largely influenced by supply and demand, and since the laborers cannot be assigned by military discipline and against their wishes to the various branches of industry, so it may happen that too many laborers rush into certain branches of industry while a lack of laborers is the rule in others. The necessary balance can then only be brought about by the reduction of wages where there are too many laborers and the raising of them in those branches of industry where there is a lack of laborers until the point is reached where every branch has as many laborers as it can use. But the relation between supply and demand has really no influence upon a universal levelling of the wages of the entire laboring class which is determined only by the amount of existing product. A universal decline in wages as the result of over-production is impossible. The more there is produced the higher in general are the wages.
Now the following question arises. If the continuous progress of production is to be secured it will then be necessary to hold the laborers to production by a universal raising of wages. Whence then shall this increase of wages be paid and whence shall come the necessary amount of product?
If we accept the most favorable conditions for the new regime, which we have not done, with all property confiscated, and with the total income of the capitalists flowing to the laborers, this in itself would give a very handsome rise in wages. I have pointed out in my writings on "Reform and Revolution" the statistics of England in the year 1891 where the amount of the income of the laborers was seven hundred million pounds sterling and where the amount of the income of the capitalists was in the neighborhood of eight hundred million pounds sterling. I have further shown that these statistics in my opinion were painted too rosily. I have reason to believe that they calculate the wages too high and the capitalist income too low. If we take, however, these figures of 1891 they will show that if the income of the capitalist was directed to the laborers wages would be doubled. But unfortunately things are not to be done so simply. When we expropriate capital we must at the same time take over its social functions. The most important of these is the accumulation of capital. Capitalists do not consume their entire income. A portion they lay aside for the extension of production. A proletarian regime would be obliged to do the same since it too must extend production. Accordingly for this reason even the most radical confiscation of capital could not turn its entire previous income to the laboring class. Even from the surplus value that the capitalists pocket they must again give up a portion in the form of taxes to the State. This share would increase enormously when the progressive income and property tax are the only forms of state and municipal taxation. And the burden of taxation would not diminish. I have pointed out above at what cost the re-arrangement of the school system alone could be brought about and besides this an old age insurance for all incapable of labor, etc., would be instituted.
We shall see that there is none too much remaining over from the present income of the capitalist to be applied to the raising of wages even if we confiscate capital at one stroke. There is even less if we wish to compensate the capitalist. It would then be absolutely necessary if we were to raise the wages of labor to raise production above its present amount.
It will be one of the imperative tasks of the social revolution not simply to continue but to increase production. The victorious proletariat must extend production rapidly if it is to be able to satisfy the enormous demands that will be made upon the new regime.
INCREASE IN PRODUCTION.
There are various means by which production can be increased. Two of the most important of these have already attained great significance. Both have been applied with great results by the trusts of America from which very much can be learned concerning the methods of the social revolution. They show us how at a single stroke the productivity of labor can be increased simply by concentrating the total production in the most perfect industrial plants and throwing all those out of operation which do not attain a definite standard. The Sugar Trust, for example, a few years ago consigned all but about one-fourth of the industrial plants which it possessed to idleness and in this one-fourth it has produced as much as previously in the whole number. The whiskey trust also obtained eighty large distilleries and, at once put out of operation sixty-eight out of the eighty. It is only operating twelve distilleries but in these twelve it produces even more than hitherto in the eighty. A