CHAPTER XXII THE COLLAPSE OF CAPITALISM AND THE TRIUMPH OF SOCIALISM 358. The Inevitable Collapse.-It has been seen in Chapter XI how inevitable is the collapse of capitalism. It is the purpose here to show that the collapse of capitalism is not more inevitable than the triumph of Socialism is certain. Capitalism must finally collapse because, first, when a single group of owners own the earth, it will be impossible for them to re-invest their profits. Profits in excess of personal expenditures which cannot be re-invested but must accumulate, can be of no advantage to their possessors. Second, capitalism must collapse because when all the world becomes one work-shopas well as one market-there can then be no outside market for the products which the workers produce but cannot buy, and which their employers own but cannot consume. And finally, capitalism must collapse because, when all of the dominant industrial activities of the world are under a single centralized ownership, the management of these industries can no longer employ the workers in producing goods which they cannot sell, nor in earning profits which they cannot re-invest. ! 359. If Capitalism Remains. If capitalism must remain after it has wrought its service and accomplished its work and reached the end of all possible development under that method of organization and management of the industries,-then the distress of the workers must be world-wide and most appalling, while all interest and incentive for the capitalist under capitalism must utterly fail because the game has been played "to a finish" and further activity or achievement in the line of capitalism is utterly impossible. 360. Need Not Remain.-But capitalism does not need to remain. Having conquered the earth, the despotic military organization of the work-shop, the market and the government, will be no longer necessary, for the age-long period of conquest will have reached its consummation. There will be no more worlds to conquer. This will be true in war, in politics, in trade, -and the co-operative commonwealth must certainly follow. The world-conquest will have prepared the way. 361. Failure of Incentive Under Capitalism.-The swords and spears of capitalism, no longer needed in the work of conquest, must then reinforce the pruning hooks and ploughshares of productive industry. But if this be true, then production must be carried on for some other purpose than for profits. Goods must be produced, not in order that they may be sold, in order that more goods may be bought, in order that more goods may be sold, for when this process has bought and sold the earth, the interest in accumulation must cease and with it the game itself.1 362. Producing for the Products.-But goods may be produced, even then, for the use of the producers. 1. "It is indeed certain that industrial society will not permanently remain without a systematic organization. The mere conflict of private interests will never produce a well-ordered commonwealth of labor."-Ingram: History of Political Economy, p. 244. Goods produced not in order that they may be used but in order that they may be sold, are called commodities. Today the whole earth is given over to the production of commodities. But in primitive production goods were produced not to be sold in the market but to be stored in the tribal storehouse against the day of need. The Pueblo Indians to this day carry a stock of two years' provisions in excess of their needs. And if, for any reason, the stock falls below this limit, immediately all tribesmen are put on rations until the two years' surplus is restored. Here is a motive for industry which does not involve producing for a market, but simply involves producing for human needs. 363. Filling the Store-house and Leisure for All.When capitalistic conquest shall have made the world into one work-shop and into one market-place, and cannot any longer produce for the sake of the market, in order to enlarge the market which will then have been enlarged to its utmost limit, we shall not need to abandon the store-houses; we shall not need to abandon the shops. We can fill them with goods as they have never been filled, only the goods will belong to the producers and will be theirs for their own use. Production will not need to stop because there will no longer be a foreign market for the goods nor investments for profits from the surplus which the workers produce but cannot buy. Goods can be produced for the world's store-house. The race will not need to live within a few months of the line of starvation. The power of the workers to take goods out of the storehouse can be made equal to their service in putting goods into the store-house. And when production has been carried beyond both the current need and "the rainy day," the hours of labor may be shortened and leisure placed within the reach of all. The exploiter, unable to privately appropriate the products of others and then dispose of the products so appropriated, must become himself a producer for use along with the rest. When private capitalism owns the earth and cannot use it, the people of the earth will be able both to use it and to provide some way by which they may own it in order that they may use it.2 364. End of Monopoly, Tyranny and Inequality.— Wherever despotism has collapsed, democracy has been re-established. When the despotism of trade shall have collapsed, democracy will reassert itself in the shops and store-houses of the world. When the inequality which has been created by industry whose motive has been conquest, finds the groups of the workers democratically managing the means of production, it is impossible that any will be excluded. When capitalism, which has been the oppressor and the robber and the master of all, shall give up the keys to the earth's treasures, and surrenders its place of mastery, it is impossible to conceive of the surrender being made to any share of the workers less than to all alike. The collapse of capitalism means the end of monopoly in ownership, the end of petty personal tyranny in management and the end of inequality of opportunity, --all of which are essential and necessary parts of capitalism. Collectivism is the only possible alternative from monopoly; democracy the only possible alternative 2. "Marxian Socialists are not prophets. "Our sincere wish is that the social revolution, when its evolution shall be ripe, may be effected peacefully, as so many other revolutions have been without bloodshed-like the English Revolution, which preceded by a century, with its Bill of Rights, the French Revolution; like the Italian Revolution in Tuscany in 1859; like the Brazilian Revolution, with the exile of the Emperor Dom Pedro, in 1892. "It is certain that Socialism, by spreading education and culture among the people, by organizing the workers into a class-conscious party under its banner, is only increasing the probability of the fulfillment of our hope."-Ferri: Socialism and Modern Science, p. 153. from tyranny; equality the only possible remedy for the wrong of inequality. Collectivism, democracy equality, the collective ownership, democratic management and equal opportunity in the use of the collectively owned means of producing the means of life, -is the next order in the affairs of the race. 365. Conclusion.-The evolution, culmination and collapse of capitalism are parts of the processes of the evolution of Socialism. The evolution of Socialism as related to the evolution of capitalism is simply the larger whole comprising the smaller part. The evolution of Socialism is vastly more extended in time, more comprehensive in the number and importance of the interests involved and in its culmination, in the inauguration of the co-operative commonwealth, it will carry over to this social successor of capitalism all that had been achieved before capitalism, all that has been achieved by capitalism and all that has been achieved by all other social factors and forces existing under capitalism, so far as the things which have been achieved can be of any further social service in the struggle for existence.3 The race life, escaping from capitalism and entering into Socialism, will not only continue its evolution under new conditions, but will at last escape from the monopoly, tyranny and inequality of capitalism, resulting from the ignorance 3. "As long as the structure and the volume of the center of crystallization, the germ, or the embryo, increase gradually, we have a gradual and continuous process of evolution, which must be followed at a definite stage by a process of revolution, more or less prolonged, represented, for example, by the separation of the entire crystal from the mineral mass which surrounds it, or by certain revolutionary phases of vegetable or animal life, as for example, the moment of sexual reproduction.; * "These same processes also occur in the human world. By evolution must be understood the transformation that takes place day by day, which is almost unnoticed, but continuous and inevitable; by revolution, the critical and decisive movement, more or less prolonged, of an evolution that has reached its concluding phase; * "It must be remarked, in the first place, that while revolution and evolution are normal functions of social physiology, rebellion and |