| Show HENRY GEORGE OPPOSES CLASS antagonism by henry george jr the following letter from a gentleman tor whom I 1 have much respect Is offered in full henry george jr referring to your article ot today a nil your remarks on class consciousness ness I 1 beg to call your attention to the following by william mor ris in our modern society tharo are two class vs a useful and a useless class the useless class Is called the upper tho useful class tho lower class the useless or tipper class having the monopoly of all the means of production of wealth save the power of labor can and does compel the useful or lower class to work tor its own advantage and for the advantage ut the upper class nor will the latter allow tho useful class to work on any other terms this necessarily means an increasing contest of the classes one against tho other aej next of the individuals of each class among themselves most thinking people admit the truth of what I 1 have just stated lut many of them believe that the system though obviously unjust and wasteful Is necessary thou gli perhaps aliey cannot give their reasons for their belief and BO ahry can see nothing for it but palliating pallia ting the worst evils of ane system but since the various palliatives lia tives in fashion at one time and another have failed each in its turn I 1 call upon them firstly to consider whether the system itself might not be changed and secondly to look around and note the signs of approaching change OBJECTION NO REMEDY OFFERED now I 1 have read carefully all that you have written in various editions of the north american and have yet to find that you offer any remedy for the greatest evil that has ever been inflicted on mankind which is the evil of poverty the socialist offers a positive and absolute remedy tor that evil and until some other remedy ia suggested it is worse than folly for otheus to assail abo socialist philosophy I 1 challenge you to refute tho above remarks of william morris whom I 1 presume you will acknowledge was no mean man among men DANIEL KISSAM YOUNG woodbury N J december 25 1904 of course I 1 think atut the talented and large hearted william morris was no merji man among men and similarly I 1 hold mr young but I 1 beg to differ with both of them briefly in the following respects it is as mr morris aalde that one class of men in the community has monopoly powers by which it robs the mass of workers yet this does not call for class consciousness but if I 1 may coin a phrase for monopoly consciousness our hope of industrial salvation does not lie in arraying class against class which la what the awakening to class consciousness implies our hope ie to establish all men in a condition of equality in respect to economic wo must abolish privileges wo must destroy private monopolies no but some will say that this U really no distinction that to destroy monopoly and to abolish the monopoly class is the same thing perhaps that Is what th socialist who advocates class consciousness thinks but the two things are very different the one proposal really arrays the great mass of workers against another body of men in community and alt ler passions the other arrays the working mass against evil principles and while alio hostility of tho beneficiaries of those evil principles will be roused ct the real aim of the masses is likely to be seen more clearly and the result be achieved sooner and with less trouble WORST HAVE GOOD POINTS even the worst of men have good points of some kind in them to arauso class feeling against them Is to denounce them as entirely bad to denounce them as entirely bad la to prejudice and hurt a cause that may bo just I 1 know a very brilliant newspaper man who avows socialism and calls tor class consciousness he says that clashes do exist and that it anything is to be done for the masses in remedy it can be only through appeal to class feeling the monopolists act together as a class let the laboring masses act as a class that is his view but any one who reads history with care may see the great danger of such class feeling in action reason Is thrown to the winds and passion takes its place passion 1 does not build up it tears down of course I 1 believe that the masses of men should become conscious of what it Is that robs them but I 1 am opposed to their fixing their opposition against a class they should fix it against the evil principles pos reseed by that class for those same principles in the hands of other men would make of such other men the same hind of a class indeed any set of men clothed with those principles would become privileged it Is not against privileges that we should turn our opposition As to a remedy for poverty I 1 have heard much from socialists as to the wisdom with which the great masses of men will act in abolishing poverty when they get ready to act all together but I 1 have never known a socialist to lay down a simple coherent etca by step plan for proceeding to abolish involuntary poverty A PER CENT TAX I 1 myself who am not a socialist but really an would throw monopolized natural bounties open to labor by taxing uch bounties to the full on their economic value in other words I 1 would tax into the public treasury tho whole annual value of land exempting improvements and all other things from taxation that would force an enormous quantity at valuable land in the cities and elsewhere out of the idle hands of speculators into tho hands 0 users that would in effect make a tremendous demand for labor of every kind to make a great demand for labor would cause a material rise in wages with opportunities for all to work and with a rise in wages involuntary poverty would bo a thing of the past it would be abolished another correspondent sends me the following communication henry george jr As I 1 see that you invite criticism of tho stand you take on tho economic questions of the day ill submit to you the following in the first place let me say that the you point out are very real and I 1 more than indorse all you say in condemnation thereof 1 aa a single you indorse the fact that all wealth is the result of labor applied to the land now as land is the common heritage of all but a heritage which will not without labor yield any wealth to man is it not therefore belf that only the productive laborer la entitled thereto and what is more to all tho wealth he produces it any leveling la to bo done on account 0 tho unequal productiveness ti veness of the soli it surely ought to bo up so that each producer will receive tho maximum of tho average production of all instead of down as single proposes he that will nob work shall not it Is a maxim that surely must be enforced ere justice to all can bo obtained but how can such justice obtain tax the producer for tho use of land without which aie cannot productive ability this would be epping the stream at ats fountain and would surely provo persisted in 2 you say sou do not promise to tax the land its value what however value represent when it thelan is privately owned excepting the amount of the fruits of his labor the individual must give up in order to get access to that land an ownership to the single tax ai you admit is not opposed will the taking of this tribute for communal use by process q law bo less depre hen sible than alie taking of it privately by the landlord nay Is it not more so in that it proposes officially that the community beleiu by a system of spoliation the evils of which are but the thereof begin to see more clearly day by day and for which a remedy must be found it our civilization is to endure S while all byo a right to the uso of the land neither the community which as such had no liand lia nd in producing the wealth any more than the landlord has right to reap where it haa not sown bul all men capable to labor must be forced to earn their living by being producers in some form or other on pain of not receiving any of the fruits thereof EXAMPLES OF CO OPERA i f TION NOW 4 you are entirely when you conceived the fundamental principle of socialism to be tho abolition of all competition in production can you name one productive industry that is not carried on purely operatively cooperatively co today I 1 care not what it be from the making of a pin to the finest locomotive extant the aim of socialism Is not the enforcement of productive cooperation that is already an established fact but to prevent its individualistic ua listic appropriation by those who generally do not toil productively what any ono can individually and competitively produce to that ho is fully no socialist will quarrel with him on account of it but ill warrant you it will be the barest of a bare living ho will be able to make without of the comforts let alono the luxuries of life chicago 1 the doest bot propose a leveling dawir bol rather a leveling up he prop give to the producer the full fruits of his labor but economic rent is a value attaching to the fruits of labor it Is not an individual but a social value in taking it for the community we should be giving to the community what it created and ahat therefore is its due in taking this social value by taxation for social uses wo should have no necessity to tax labor or the products of labor 2 for private individuals to appropriate ground rent is unjust because it Is a private appropriation of a value that was ade by the public and should go to the public this explains why the taxing of the annual value ot tho land into the public coffer would be just to all and no injustice to any land values belong to the community not to the landlords moreover taxing land values would destroy all incentive to hold land out of use and speculate in it it woud kill and speculation which at bottom is what makes so many involuntary idle men 3 all men who are capable of doing it should be made to support them and all but the sick and infirm would do bo if they had the opportunity taxing land values would open natural opportunities to labor aal thus give all capable men opportunity for self support 4 I 1 am conscious eliat there are many definitions of socialism juit as there are many different kinds of socialists cia lists I 1 off as a brief but comprehensive hen sive explanation of what socialism is the definition given in the century dictionary GENERAL definition OF SOCIALISM socialism is any theory or system of social organization which would abolish entirely or in great part the individual effort and competition on which modern society exists aisil substitutes utes for it to operate action would introduce a more perfect and equal distribution trib ution of the products of labor and would make land and capital as the instruments and mcana of production the joint ot the members of the community I 1 offer hla definition as appearing to me to be an explanation ot socialism but as john graham brooks himself apparently a socialist says in his book tho social unrest studies tn labor and socialist moments Mo vents some ono has collected ten thousand of religion one could gather aa many of socialism so might wo say that socialists differ as to compe but I 1 assumed that most socialists oppose competition Is not the destruction of tho competitive system a stock phrase with socialists of course if socialists do not propose to abolish the competitive system well and good for my own part all I 1 propose la that all monopoly privileges be from private hands and then that individuals be heift to compete as they will I 1 wonder it mr dodge will abreo with this THE CHEMISTS DISCOVERY from the minneapolis journal the of the south dakota food commission extracted enough coal tar dye from a bottle ot port alno taken from an original package in the presence of members of the legislature to dye a brilliant wine color alno square feet of heavy woolen cloth from a bottle of tomato catsup ho took enouf yo color a like amount of hooff Ho olf 11 A single bottlo of pop ing matter of still greater i c abo great fall river strike hag terminated mina ted owing to tho efforts of governor douglas |
