Socialist Tradition

Chapter 11. Early English Socialism

The seed ye sow, another reaps;
The wealth ye find, another keeps;
The robes ye weave, another wears;
The arms ye forge, another bears.

Sow seed,—but let no tyrant reap;
Find wealth,—let no impostor heap;
Weave robes,—let not the idle wear;
Forge arms,—in your defence to bear.

‘If, on the contrary, the measure of the capitalists prevails, what is the consequence? Whetted by the stimulus of the gratification of unbounded desires, of superiority without assignable limit to the destitution around him, the desire of accumulation supersedes with the capitalist even the love of enjoyment. To inequality of wealth there is no bound: it becomes the ruling passion: the distinction which it confers, the envy which it excites, urge men on to acquire it by any means: talents, virtue are sacrificed to it. Every expedient which force and cunning can use to appropriate the fruits of other men’s labor, and with this view to turn the mass of mankind into ignorant contented drudges, is erected into a custom or a law. A universal and always vigilant conspiracy of capitalists, of necessity the most intelligent, exists everywhere, because founded on a universally existing interest, to cause the laborers to toil for the lowest possible, and to wrest as much as possible of the products of their labor to swell the accumulations and expenditure of capitalists. Yet such is the rage of these men for distinction, for expenditure as an instrument of distinction rather than of any direct enjoyment, that the products of the labor of thousands are swallowed up for no other end than to gratify such unsubstantial desires. What accumulated wealth there is in such a community, is gathered into the hands of a few; and as well from its bulk as from its contrast with the surrounding poverty, it strikes every eye. The productive laborers stript of all capital, of tools, houses, and materials to make their labor productive, toil from want, from the necessity of existence, their remuneration being kept at the lowest compatible with the existence of industrious habits.... The extremes of luxury and magnificence prevail. The evils of inequality are pushed to the utmost. The desire of accumulation reigns unbounded: production is stimulated chiefly by want’ (pp. 170–171).

‘The object in labouring is to supply the individual’s wants. Nature gave him his faculties and powers for this purpose; for this purpose only, and not for the purpose of supplying the wants of other men whom she equally endowed’ (Popular Political Economy, p. 51).

It is not, as might be inferred from Gray, a remote ancestor of Fabian Tract No. 5, Facts for Socialists. Colquhoun is beset by Adam Smith’s definition of productive labour, and thinks in terms of ‘vendible commodities.’ His own estimate (p. 109) is that on this definition one-fifth part of the whole community are unproductive labourers, and that they secure one-third of the new property created annually. But he hastens to warn his readers that the unproductive labourer, on Adam Smith’s definition, may be a very useful person: ‘with a few exceptions... they eminently tend to promote, invigorate, and render more productive the labour of the creating classes.’ Indeed (p. 105), he somewhat too zealously goes out of his way to prove (with few exceptions) the great usefulness of everybody. Gray, taking Colquhoun’s table and adding to it, makes his own estimate of the useless and the useful, on a purely arbitrary basis which reflects his own prejudices. It is a significant testimony to his prudence that while temporal and spiritual peers and all other ‘gentry’ are 100 per cent, useless, no impious voice of criticism is raised against even the remoter branches of the Royal Family, who are classed as 100 per cent, useful. Eminent clergymen are 100 per cent, useless; lesser clergymen are 100 per cent, useful. The whole profession of law, from judges down to ‘clerks, etc.,’ are useless. The theatrical profession (rather oddly) leaves the inquisition without a stain on its honour, being found 100 per cent, useful. Again, rather oddly, the class of lunatics produces none who are useless. In most cases, there is merely an arbitrary cutting down to a half or a third, the residue (with their families) being ‘useless.’

Where Colquhoun may quite legitimately irritate—if, after reading Owen, one is so weak as to feel irritation against anyone—is in his doctrine of the usefulness of Poverty in a State, resting on the distinction between poverty and indigence. Every State, he says, is supported by the poverty of the community (p. 110); and the reasoning is almost grotesquely simple. Riches are the offspring of labour; and labour can result only from a state of poverty! But below poverty lies indigence, and by ‘well-timed props,’ the poor must be prevented from lapsing into indigence, at which point they become a burden to others. They must (in a very fine phrase) ‘be again restored to their former rank of independent poverty’ (p. 113).