the working men of the factories, mines, storehouses and transportation lines.

The working men of the towns, in a party by themselves, will not be able to out-vote the country districts for many years. But the workers of the towns and of the country are alike ready and over-ripe for Socialism. When they unite to secure Socialism, Socialism will come on that same hour.

606. Summary.-1. The American farmers have at last come under the control of capitalism.

2. Under capitalism the famer must work for a bare existence the same as other workers.

3. His ownership of a portion of the means of production, in the shape of land and implements, does not deliver him from exploitation, because he depends as fully on the means of production in manufacture and on the means of distribution, as do the wage workers. and neither in the means of manufacture nor in the means of distribution has he any ownership.

4. Public ownership of a part of the means of manufacture and distribution will not deliver him from exploitation, so long as any share of the means of production in manufacture or the means of distribution on which he must depend are privately owned, because such a partial public ownership will only shift the place where he is robbed, not stop the robbery.

5. No real relief can be secured for the farmer by any reform in the medium of exchange, or in the method by which he secures the use of money in order to exchange his own products for manufactured articles, so long as the things he buys are privately controlled, through the private ownership of the means of manufacture and distribution.

6. The great economies of the use of the great machines, the special skill resulting from the minute divisions of labor, the opportunity to be productively employed, all the year round, and the opportunity to secure what he cannot produce, at what it costs in labor to produce it, can never be obtained by the farmer

under capitalism, but will at once be realized under Socialism.

7. The income of farm and factory workers can be greatly increased, and the working day for both greatly shortened under Socialism. There is no great or lasting improvement for either under capitalism.

8. Under Socialism farmers and their families will have even better social and educational opportunities than are now provided for the most fortunate. Neither their sons nor daughters will be obliged to abandon the associations of childhood and become the hired servants of anyone in order to make a beginning in the world.

9. The farmers who are manual laborers, together with the wage workers of the towns, are, together, the overwhelming majority of the people. Socialism is the only platform which shows a way of deliverance both for self-employed farmers and wage workers, and hence, on which they can all unite, and united no power can withstand them.

REVIEW QUESTIONS.

1. Show the reason why farmers in new countries have been able to escape from the control of capitalism.

2. What share has the American farmer had in the development and government of this country?

3. Show how the private occupancy of the public land has helped to bring the farmer under the control of capitalism.

4. Show the same thing with regard to the development of machinery and with regard to the separation of mining and manufacturing from the farmer.

5. Why will not public ownership of the railroads deliver the farmers from exploitation?

6. Why will not the public storage and public loans deliver the farmer from exploitation?

7. How far must public ownership be extended in order to deliver the farmer from exploitation? Who else would then be benefited? 8. How would Socialism provide for the farmer's daughters?

sons and

9. How would it affect his hours of labor, and his social and educational opportunities? Why?

10. Would Socialism begin with an attack on the small farms? Why not? If the small farmer should give up his farm under Socialism, why would he do it?

11. Is it likely that the farmers will ever be able to control the country again, without the aid of the manufacturing wage workers? 12. Can either secure economic independence without the other? 13. Why is Socialism the only platform on which all the workers, including the farmers, can be united?

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE MIDDLE CLASS AND SOCIALISM

607. The Middle Class.-The term "middle class' applies in ordinary literature to the class of manufacturers and business men developed in the growth of modern industry between the aristocracy on the one hand and the wage workers on the other. Cromwell was the political representative of this class in his time; Cobden, Bright and Gladstone were representa tives of the same class. The continental term for this middle class is the "bourgeoisie." This term is derived from the term "burghers," meaning townsmen of mediaeval times. "Burgh," which is a part of the names of so many American towns, as "Pittsburgh," is from this same source.

The term "bourgeois" came finally to mean the employing manufacturers and traders of the towns as distinguished from working men of the towns who were without the means of self-employment, as well as from the military masters, soldiers and peasants in and about the castles. In English literature the same class is spoken of as the "commoners."

In America, there being no aristocracy, society is properly divided into two classes only-the class which in England is called the "commoners," and on the Con

tinent the "bourgeoisie," in America is represented by employing manufacturers and business men. The small business men, or the small shop men on the continent are spoken of as the "petty bourgeois." In 'America, in ordinary discussion, the term middle class has come to apply to the "petty bourgeois," that is, to the small manufacturer and the small business man. The small farmer has come also to be included in the middle class in American discussions.

608. The Subject Stated.-The subject, then, for this chapter, is the consideration of these small business men, small manufacturers and small property holders of all sorts in relation to the Socialist movement in this country. It must be remembered, to begin with, that most men will be governed, in the long run and as a general principle, by what they conceive to be their economic interests. It has been seen that these economic interests have so far determined all of the great conflicts in the history of the race. It must be borne in mind that the class struggle is directly between the business man's interest and the working man's interest; that is, it is a struggle resulting from a conflict of interests. If the share of the products which falls to the workers is to be increased, then the share which goes for rent, interest and profit must be decreased. If the share which goes for rent, interest and profit shall be increased, then the share which falls to the laborer must be correspondingly decreased. Each party to this conflict is all the time endeavoring to enlarge its own share. This is the war of interests which is always going on under capitalism.

These mutually antagonistic interests naturally bring into antagonistic relations the parties whose interests are thus found to be in conflict. There is no question as to where the interests of wage workers fall in this struggle. There is no question as to where

the capitalist, that is, the man who holds in private ownership the means of production, and uses these privately owned means of production for the purposes of exploitation-there is no question as to where the interests of this man fall, and so far as he understands his interests, there is no question as to where he will be most likely to be found in the conflict.

609. Numbers of the Various Classes.-It has been seen in the previous chapter that ninety per cent of those engaged in agricultural employments are the victims of exploitation. While twenty billions and more are invested in farm property, only the smallest number of farms, not more than 17.2 per cent of them all, are the means of exploitation. All the workers on this 17.2 per cent of the farms and all the people, both the owners who are also workers and the workers who are not owners on all the other farms, are victims of exploitation. It is not an easy matter to fix the lines marking the boundaries of the middle class from the large capitalists. If the 14.5 per cent of the farmers with an average product of $1,750 per year be classed as the middle class and the 2.7 per cent which, according to the same authority claims to produce a yearly product valued at more that $2,500 per year, be classed as capitalists, and then the same proportion is admitted to hold good in all other callings, the boundaries will probably be admitted to be substantially correct.1 This would leave the working class composed of 82.8 per cent of all the people, which is certainly under rather than over the number of those who earn their living by rendering service rather than by appropriating the products of others.

The subject of this chapter is the discussion of the relations of this small group of only 14.5 per cent of

1. Abstract, The Twelfth Census, p. 233.