The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-04-12
MODERN SOCIALISM.
Rev. DR.. Behrends Clearly and Forcibly Points
Out q Number of It's Fallacies.
Special to the Indianapolis Journal.

Special to the indianapolis Journal.
BROOKLYN, April 1l.-Rev. DIR. Behrends, of
the Central Congregational Church. tonight de-
livered the fourth of mis- series of sermons on
christianity and Socialism" His subject was
Economic Fallacies Of Modern Socialism" In
the course of his discourse he said:
'Before passing to the economic fallacies of
Socialism, two other assumptions require brief
notice. The first is that the function of the
state is the regulation of the production and the
distribution of wealth. The plain drift of legis-
lation and of public opinion for two hundred
years has been in the direction of personal liber-
ty and the limitation of governmental lnterfer-
ence. Socialism calls for a paternal government,
providing work and reward for every man. The
state is to become a great task-master, owning
all the farms and all the mills, and distributing
their products. The scheme is utterly imprac-
ticable, and the theory on which it is based is
wholly untenable. In its elimination of person
al liberty from the industrial life. John Stuart
Mill finds the chronic weakness of modern So
cialism. the immovable rock against which 1t
must be wrecked. The second assumption is a
corollary of the paternal idea of the state, viz:
That the energy by which wealth is produced
should control the government. The Socialistlc
ideal is the dominance of the laboring classes, a
supremacy as really sectional as the mon
archical, the aristocratic, the military. and
the plutocratic, against each of which in
turn society has protested and revolted. The
divine right of labor to rule is as partisan and
despotic a formula as the divine right of kings,
of birth, blood and wealth; and on this matter
there can be no compromise with the advocates
Of the new order. We have had a surfeit of class
legislation and rule. and the present calls for the
complete elimination of this most despicable ele-
ment in governmental administration, so that
manhood, not its accidents of occupation, NAV
be enthroned in the counsels of the state.
Modern Socialism, then, is discredited by its as
sumptions that man is the creature OF clrcun-
stances, that civil institutions rest on force and
fraud. that the poor are growing poorer. that 1t
is the business of the state to find work for its
citizens, and that political power is the preroga-
tive of labor. The most serious economic fallacy
of modern Socialism, the pivot from which 1t
would turn the economic world upside down, Is
the doctrine that labor is the only source of
wealth, and the sole element in value. This
theory is borrowed from Adam Smith, but he
would have looked aghast at its Interpretation.
He opposed it to the doctrine that the
soil is the only source of wealth. The
truth is, that wealth combines both factors,
land and labor, and the labor must be both mus
cular and skillful. Brains, hands and nature
must unite in productive industry. Labor busy
ing itself with nothing, saving the air never so
violently, produces nothing; and labor expended
on useless materials does not create wealth.
Marx recognized that his theory of labor as the
only standard of value required notifications,
else the man who spoils a piece Of cloth and
makes a coat that nobody wants to wear, work
ing diligently ten hours a day for a week ought
to be paid three times as much as a man who, in
twenty hours, fashions a garment that a dozen
mon are ready to buy. So Marx modified his
theory by saying that it is the socially neces-
sary' labor that fixes value, the average amount
of labor required for the production OF an article.
But in such an event the skilled tailor will earn
three times as much as his ~bungling neighbor,
and the latter will be reduced to starvation
wages The simple truth is that there is no
conceivable way in which intelligence and util-
iy can be dispensed with in the economies of
society. No less serious is the fallacy involved
in the socialistic crusade against property in
land. A distinction is made between possession
and ownership, but the former cannot be defend
ed when the latter is denied. Mr.. Henry George
is sure that the pen with which he wrote
his book was justly his own, because he
bought it from the stationer. who obtained
it from the importer. to whom it was consigned
by the manufacturer, who in his turn obtained
the raw material from these who dug it out of
the mine. But property in lapd, the author
claims, is robbery; and it the owner of the mine
was a thief. SO also WAS the manufacturer, the
importer, the %stationer and the writer. From
beginning to end the pen is stolen goods. Dis
guise it as we may, the land question is the
question ultimately of a mans ownership in
himself; for property has with great force been
declared to be only a part OF the individual pos
SCISSOR, the apparatus of personal life. The ma
tionaliZation of land involves the naturalization
" Ithh, kao . wv vi Mo bSAoOhoA y
The socialistic dream that governmental direc-
ton Of industries would be more economical and
effective than their management on the basis of
free capitalistic corporation, will not bear analy-
sis. There is nothing more s~cathing than Her
bert Spencers exposure of this delirium. 1t is
notorious that governments are the most
wasteful producers and the most profitable
customers. Public contracts are suggest
i've of fraud. The best brain is not
found on the civil list, and business is best con
Quoted when government ~refrains from med
ding. Socialists attack nothing more fercely
than the wage system, and they demand the sub
~stitution of labor certificates for gold and silver.
Hours are to take the place of pounds and DOL
lars in barter and exchange. 1t is difficult to
see what advantage would accrue from the pro-
posed change, for paper checks are not wealth
and would be subject to the same laws that de-
termine the value Of any medium of exchange.
There is a similar denunciation of machinery
and of the evils of free competition in produc-
ton. The latter~sophistries have been admir-
ably exposed by Mr.. Edward Atkinson. Com
petition and machinery have been q blessing to
while his wages have meanwhile risen. Still, it
cannot be denied that the working classes have
not shared in the advance of the present century
as they ought to have done. They have suffered
for centuries from oppressive legislation. Edu-
cation has been out of their reach. They have
not been permitted to combine for mutual pro-
lection. Labor has only just begun its career of
freedom. Let the path be everywhere cleared
for the man. whatever his ancestry or occupa-
ton! Then shall there be a steady forward
march, and ground once gained will never need
to be recovered"
Revolutions Have That Effect.
Philadelphia Times.
The present labor agitation is going to kill off