The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-12-06
Social EXpediency And Social Welfare
 Must Be Tests Of Future Industry

poly We may have many large plants, big enough to accomplish full utilization of by-products and the economies Of large scale production, and yet maintain eff, fective competition among them. Public policy in the United States both under State legislation and under the Sherman law, works toward preventing monopoly, while at the ss-me time permit ting economical large scale pro- ductton. When Marx wrote, there was substantial evidence for his view that machine pro- ductiOn was bringing misery rather than good to the masses of the laborers. but the evidence today is overwhelming that the condition of mankind las been markedly improved by machine production.
 Marx was right in his view that if the masses of mankind should become propertyIess, if the econ omic middle class should disap- pear, a small group of rich cap italists would be unable to de- fend themselves. But this view involves on the other side, as Marx himself recognized, the fact that where you have land and other wealth widely diffused, when larg elements of the popu- lation have a stake in private property, a social revolution of the kind which he desired will be exceedingly difficult.
 Marx predicted that socialism would come as matter of inevf- table necessity through the work ing out of iron laws over which man has no control. Many mod ern Socialists are disposed to say that whether or not Marx is right on this point the process will be so slow that they cannot wait for it, and are seeking ac- lively by propaganda and legfsla- uon to accomplish their hearts desire. The argument has shift ed from the question of whether Socialism is an inevitable thing to the question of whether it is a good thing.
 Single TaNer Versus Sociaiist.
 Another interesting social ra- dical, different in many ways from the Socialist. is the Single TaXer. He procIaims vigorous opposition to socialism. He is an indiVidualist. He wishes to have free enterprise; he wishes to have competition; he wishes to limit the functions of the government to a mini Ium. The one thing he proposes to do, which he thinks will abolish all poverty rom the world, is to tax land practically 10 the full extent of it's economic rent, leaving the landlord indeed the hollow shell of legal own ership, but taking from him the kernel of economic substance On the other hand, the Single Taxer, would not pay improvements on land at all. or any other of the products of human effort. He is willing that men should receive profits and interest and wages, declaring all of them to be the Ie- giumate rewards of human en- deaVOr. The land itself however. is a gift of nature he says, and the yield from the land should belong to society as a whole There is not space for a general discussion of the Single Tax, but we may call attention to the fea- ture of 1t. If the Single Taxer has his way, he will go far toward destroying that economic middle class which cOnstiglres the great bUlWark against Socialism. By and large, landed property is held in the United States today by people of moderate means. With few exceptions, great fortunes are not invested in land. There are millions of land owners in the United States. If they are ruined, private property in gen. eral will be greatly weakened in the political struggle.
 Direct Action" RadicaIisn.
 Among the more violent social radicals are the Syndicaists. This movement started in France The French syndicates (Syndicats) are a form of labor organizat ton, and the first step taken by the American Syndicalists, the so- called I. W. W, was in the for nation of a nv type or labor organization, the so-called indus trial union. as distinguished from the trade union. The trade union cuts across industrial lines. Thus it carpenters trade union might include carpenters in the build ing trade, carpenters attached to a brewing esta bIishment, carpen- ters working in a wagon factory and so on. An industrial union. however, in, say, the brewing in dustry, would take in all the car penters in that industry, all the coopers. all the brewers, all the truckdrivers, and so Cn, m a sim gle union.
 This is merely the beginning of the difference between ec-ndi- calists and the I. W. w. on the one hand, and the American Fed eration of Labor, headed by MT. Gompers, on the other. Between these two organizations there is a bitter feud. The American Fed eration of Labor is based on the trade union, having found by ex-. perience that it is not easy for workers of diverse types to cOm- bine effectively in a single clCse orga anization. The Federation ac- cepts private property, free en- terprise. and business competi- ton. It is concerned with tmprov- ing wages, hours of labor, and working conditions, and with se- curing labor legislation, protec- tion against industrial accidents and similar gains, by steady pres sure within the existing social or der. The I. w. w, on the other hand, and the Syndicalists in general, are looking far beyond