The record-union., 1894-06-09
MALLocR ON SOCIALISM.

Socialism, argues Mr.. Mallock in his
new chapters, is creed based on a theory
which sociaistic organizations wish to be
tested by practice. But the socialists are
broken into factions from conservative to
radical, from those who would have the
creed realized through educational pro-
cesses to those who would work sudden
forcible and radical changes.
The central principles of the dogma are
that all human need can and should be
supplied by the common effort, each to
his need: the distribution Of all products
or riches according to the labor done by
each; that the possessing people should
be taken from by the State, for the pur-
pose of investment for production, to the
extent of the excess of possession beyond
the individual need. But this taking is
to be gradual, so as to transfer rent ability
from the person to the State that the
State should pay wages, not the indi-
vidual, therefore the State must possess
in order to use capital; but the excess of
possessions of the Individual are to be
purchased with the money and converti-
bic capital taken by the State. Thus, ii,
as Mallock wittily puts it, one has glass
of beer and two pence, the State is to
take the two pence and buy the beer.
But the State is not to take capital in
any way until and only as it is able to
employ productive labor. But this ability
will develop as conditions are harmon
ously adjusted until the State controls
the aggregate income of the country.
But the errors and fatal weakness in
this conclusion and chief end of the So
cialistic theory resides in the assump-
ton that income will continue to develop
from ability and industry and skill as
now. This it cannot do because the States
collection of income and its redistribu-
Iion in wages. means an equal share by
each in the means of production. So that
though one may receive more wages than
another, he viii still have as full share as
the other in the socialized means of pro-
duction, and the profits of the use of such
means, and this would result in the de-
struction of the desire to produce more
by labor, skill or wit, since such output
of skill could not affect ones share in the
profits of production.
Mallock exposes vital defect in the
socialistic doctrine by showing that it is
erroneous TO hold labor to be the chief or
sole human agent in production, and that
the non-laboring classes are conse-
quently non-productive classes. This
error lies at the base of socialism,
and with its dissipation. the whole fabric
must fall.
Not only muscular labor. says Mr.. NAL
lock, in his review of Fabian economies,
but invention. scientific discovery and
industrial management are concerned in
production. The modern increase in the
productivity of industrial exertion is due
TO the development of the latter, not of
the former. But all these things the
orthodox economists of socialistic schools
include under the one term labor, 'labor
of the savant," 'labor of the inventor
tabor of the superintendent etc. This
admits that labor is of two kinds, one
universal, one scarce faculty. But the
truth in this admission they do not
analyze.
Thus Mr.. Sidney Webb, one of the
Fabian essayists, says: Labor is form
of human exertion, the acquisition OF
which is mere question of provender.U
But if the muscular labor is to be treated
as opposed to inventive, managing and
discovering ability, there can be no clear
treatment or consideration of production.
The faculty of the latter is ability. So
labor, as considered by the socialists, is
not the sole agency in producing and
piling up wealth in a community; ability
produces it in part When we come to
consider swhat part.'' the case of theo-
retic socialism is lost.
Production is now, compared with the
past, in greater proportion than the num-
ber of producers; Mallock affirns, for
instance. that in England it is to the same
number of people three times what it
was hundred years ago. This is due