PAPERS ON LABOR AND CAPITAL.
PAPERS ON LABOR AND CAPITAL.
PAPERS ON LABOR AND CAPITAL.
PAPERS ON LABOR AND CAPITAL.
This question forms one of the corner-stones of future society, but of all the questions in which society seems interested it is the worst understood. Four-fifths of the people of the world toil on, year after year, and all the time see the other fifth revelling in the luxuries the sweat of their brows has produced. While the one-fifth enjoy the luxuries thus produced, as though they had acquired them by divine right, which none may call in question nor dispute, the great power of the laboring many has never been felt. It has never been concentrated or organized into concert of action. Even now this immense force is still dispersed. It seems to have no centre around which it can gather. It has no organization, and herein lies its weakness.
Organization should be effected for two principal ends: First, for construction; second, for destruction. The old systems cumber the ground whereon the new must be reared, and they must be pulled down to give it room; nevertheless, the constructive part of the operation must first begin; before the old will yield, the new must at least be formulated. This is not impossible in the department of principles. This new rests upon foundations deeper down than existing things, and these can, therefore, be used previously to the destruction of the foundations of the old. The new also reaches higher than the old; hence its frame-work may be reared, while yet the old stand comparatively intact. The work of construction once begun, that of destruction must necessarily immediately follow, and when the former shall have been completed the latter will have been but finished. This is the philosophy of Integration and of Disintegration in all departments of the universe.
Labor and Capital is a question relating in the first instance to the material prosperity of a people; but secondarily it reacts upon all other interests—intellectual, moral, physical and religious. None of these interests can flourish among a people who are burdened by material wants; neither are they usually unitedly prosperous among that part of a people who are greatly advanced in material possessions.Either extreme in material interests appears to be deleterious to the best and most harmonious general advancement of all the other interests. It is the mean between the extremes—the calling up from those below, and the leveling down of those above the mean—in which the harmony of all is found.
Harmony of all the interests of humanity can alone be attained through organization. A permanent basis of organization can only be discovered by scientific investigation. The organization of society must be realized through the science of sociology, which, of all sciences is the least understood by the general mind. Yet there are among the great minds of the planet a large number of those who thoroughly comprehend this science, and it is to these that the world must look for a reconstruction of its society upon such principles as shall render it permanent; upon such, as it can constantly be improved upon, without changing its methods of operation.
Into such a reconstruction the branch of sociology that relates to production and use, or labor and capital, will enter largely, and must be the portion of it to be first entered upon, because all things which are built upon earth must have a material foundation until there shall be such a harmony and unity of interests, and such co-operation among mankind as would proceed from a universal brotherhood, in which each would have his special part to perform to contribute to the common result.
The agitation that is beginning to be felt all over the world where intelligent labor exists, indicates that the time is at hand wherein the first steps toward a constructive organization of society, upon scientific principles, is to be begun. Not only is this agitation shown to exist in this country, but it has lately been developed that labor societies exist throughout Europe, having a common head and centre, and that they deem themselves strong enough to express wishes entirely antagonistic to the ruling powers.
Now what these organizations require to become—something more than mere instruments for agitation, mere means by which the injustice between labor and capital is exposed—is to become constructive in their action; instead of expending all their means and strength in the work of pulling down the old systems of things, they should begin the actual construction of a new system. For this end they must bring science—the science of sociology—to their aid, and make its professors active leaders and trusted assistants in the grand work. Capital is putting forth some strong efforts to confine science in its interests, but theteachings of science are of too general and cosmopolitan a character to permit its professors to ally themselves with a pseudo aristocracy—the aristocracy of wealth.
Well may the political parties view with alarm the beginning of organization among the classes they have until now relied upon to carry themselves into power. If bereft of the capacity to influence the masses who heretofore have not thought for themselves, they know their power will depart. How has it been possible thus long for leaders to control the masses, except that the masses have permitted others to act for them, and that without rendering any account for such action? The time for such representation has passed. The people have arrived at that degree of understanding of their actual interests, that will not admit of a blind acquiescence in all that even a “People’s Congress” may do. They will begin to instruct their representatives instead of being led by them.
’Tis true that by capital coming to the rescue of the country it is intact to-day; but it asked its price and has been paid. So far the obligation is removed, and justice to all is demanded. Legislation entirely in the interests of capital will not be any longer tacitly acknowledged as binding those whose interests are sacrificed. Whatever obligations the country may be under to those who hold its securities, it is under still greater to the producing interest, to which it must look for the ability to retire them when called upon so to do by the tenor of the contract they contain. It thus appears that all the interests and all the prosperity of the country are dependent upon the producing classes, and therefore to them government must listen, for they will not be ignored much longer.
New York, Oct. 10, 1870.
New York, Oct. 10, 1870.
New York, Oct. 10, 1870.
New York, Oct. 10, 1870.