The Psychology of Socialism
Book 3: Socialism As Affected By Race
Chapter 6: The Formation of Socialism among the Latin Peoples
Gustave Le Bon
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I. Absorption by the State :-Modern Socialism is, among the Latins, the necessary consequence of their old conception of the Government--Progressive extension of the functions of the State-How the exigencies of the public necessitate this extension-The State is obliged more and more to direct important undertakings, and to subsidise those it does not direct-various examples showing the necessity of the intervention of the State, even though unwilling, in matters of regulation and protection. 2. The consequences of the extension of the functions of the State :-All sentiments of responsibility and enterprise in the citizen disappear-Regulations follow regulations -Difficulties experienced by the State in directing everything --Enormous expenditure necessitated by its constant intervention--Inevitable increase of officialism and red-tape in the Latin nations--Decay of the power of the State-Incessant demand of the public for increased regulations-Enormous cost of making of all that is manufactured by the State-Fatal complications of its administration--Various examples furnished by the war and by the navy-Cost of making in private industry-Latin colonial administration-Identical consequences of Latin administration in Italy and in France. 3. The Collectivist State :-The Latin peoples need only go a little further to arrive at pure Collectivism-They have for a long time been in the Collectivist phase-Examination of the propositions of the Collectivists, and what of them have already been carried into effect.
I. ABSORPTION BY THE STATE.
THE preceding chapters have sufficiently shown that Socialism, under the form of State Socialism, very nearly akin to Collectivism, is in France the culmination of a long past, the ultimate consequence of institutions already very old. Far from deserving to be considered
168) revolutionary, modern Collectivism should be regarded as a highly retrograde doctrine, and its disciples as timid reactionaries, limiting themselves to developing the most ancient and least elevated of the Latin traditions. They announce uproariously, every day, the approaching triumph of their Utopias. But we were the victims of them long before they were born.
State Socialism, or the centralisation of all the elements of a nation's life in the hands of the Government, is perhaps the most characteristic, the most fundamental, and the most obstinate of all conceptions of Latin societies. Far from having entered into a state of decline, State absorption is only increasing every day. For a long time limited to political functions, it was able to extend itself to the region of industry only at a time when industry scarcely existed. When the latter became preponderant, political authority intervened in every branch of industry. The State finds itself obliged, in the matter of railways, harbours, canals, buildings, &c., to supply the enterprise which the citizen lacks. The most important enterprises it directs itself, exclusively, and retains the monopoly of numerous undertakings-such as instruction, telegraphs, telephones, tobacco, matches, &c.-which it has successively absorbed. Those over which it does not actually preside it is obliged to support lest they should be endangered. Without its subsidies most of them would promptly become insolvent. In this manner it pays to the railway companies enormous subsidies under the title of "guarantees of interest."
It throws the sum of £3,740,000 annually to their shareholders, to which we must add the £1,920,000 Of the annual deficit on the lines it itself exploits.
The private enterprises-marititne, commercial, or agricultural-which it is forced to subsidise in various ways, are numerous ; subsidies for the shipbuilders,
169) subsidies for sugar-makers, subsidies for silk-spinners, for cultivators-the latter alone, in 1895, had risen to £360,000. There is hardly an industry to-day that does not claim the financial protection of the State. The most hostile political parties are perfectly at one on this point, and unhappily on this point alone. Considered responsible for everything, and obliged to direct everything, the State seems to possess an immense treasure which every one can spend. Should a department require the necessary sum to pay a director destined to ameliorate an absolutely local industry, which brings it in a large revenue, it applies to the State -as in the case of the Chamber of Commerce of X., cited by the Temps-and not to the persons interested in the progress of the industry. Another department wishes to build a railway of purely local importance ; it applies to the State. A seaport wishes for improvements by which it alone would profit : always the State. Nowhere do we find the least trace of private enterprise or private association to undertake or support any work whatever.
M. P. Bourde has reported a very typical example of this state of mind. It is the story, absolutely incomprehensible and unreal to an Englishman or American, of the inhabitants of the little town of X. One of their water conduits having been broken, it suddenly received the filth of a neighbouring sewer. To send for a workman and have the accident repaired was an idea too little Latin to recommend itself to the municipal council which met to discuss the accident. Evidently they must address themselves to the Government. Four large newspaper columns were scarcely sufficient to relate the steps taken. Thanks to- the intervention of a considerable number of ministers, Senators, deputies, prefects, engineers, &c.! the application made only twenty pauses in the various administrative departments, and the final decision took
170) only two years to reach the commune. The townsfolk, in the meantime, continued, with resignation, to drink sewage, without once dreaming of remedying the accident themselves. The examples given by Tocqueville show that matters passed in exactly the same fashion under the ancien régime.
We have here a special state of mind, which is evidently a racial characteristic. The State is obliged to intervene incessantly, in matters of regulation and protection ; but if it were to lend an ear to all complaints it would intervene far more frequently still. Last year, in the Senate, an honourable senator made himself the organ of the claims of a syndicate of pork butchers, who wished to induce the Government to substitute salt pork for beef in the diet of the army, under the pretext of protecting the raising of little pigs. To the mind of these brave fellows, as the natural function of -the State is to protect industry, it would necessarily guarantee the sale of their merchandise by making salt pork obligatory by decree.
It is very unjust to reproach the Collectivists with wishing to place all monopolies, all industries, all public services in the hands of the Government. The dream is not special to them ; it is that of every party ; it is the dream of the race.
Assailed on every hand, the State defends itself as it may; but under the unanimous pressure of the public it is obliged, despite itself, to protect and to regulate. Its intervention is demanded on every hand, and always in the same sense ; that is to say, in the sense of the restriction of initiative and the liberty of the citizen, and of the preponderant action of officials.
The laws of this kind, which are proposed every day, are innumerable : laws to determine the purchase of railways and their administration by the State, laws to monopolise alcohol, laws to engross the administration of
171) the Bank of France, laws to regulate the hours of labour in factories, laws to prevent the competition of foreign produce, laws to give a retiring pension to all aged workmen, laws to force the contractors for public works to employ only certain classes of workmen, laws to regulate the price of bread, laws to tax celibates, so as to oblige them to marry, laws to overwhelm the large shops with taxes for the benefit of the smaller, &c., &c.
Such are the facts; we will now examine their consequences.
2. THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE EXTENSION OF THE FUNCTIONS OF THE STATE.
The consequences of this absorption of all functions by the State, and its constant intervention-an absorption and intervention demanded by all parties without exception-are altogether disastrous to the nation that suffers them, or, rather, enforces them. This perpetual intervention is ending by entirely destroying in the breast of the citizen those sentiments of initiative and responsibility of which he already possessed so little. It obliges the State to direct, at great expense, owing to the complexity of its mechanism, such undertakings as private persons, with the motive power of personal interest, might successfully manage at far less expense, as they do in other countries.
These results have long been verified by economists.
" The concentration of economic power in the hands of the State," writes M. Leroy-Beaulieu, "is leading, in the new France, to the ruin of private initiative, and the degeneration of individual will and energy. It must end in a kind of bureaucratic servitude or parliamentary Caesarism which will at once enervate and demoralise an impoverished country."
Never were the economists more visibly right ; yet
172) never have their words been more wasted on the desert air. No one contests their assertions, yet none the less we continue to advance further and further along a road which will lead the nations that tread it to the last degree of decadence and servitude.
The truth is that by the very fact that they have entered on this road they are forced to tread it to the end. Only by means of an immense and ever-increasing army of agents is the State able to succeed in directing everything, in administrating everything, in centralising everything. The annual cost of these agents, twenty-five years ago, was scarcely £12,000,000 ; it is now £20,000,000, and their number must inevitably increase in immense proportions. The instruction given by the State is no longer of much use but to create functionaries for the State. Half the pupils of our lycées are destined for public service. Only the failures enter commerce, agriculture, or industry; the exact contrary takes place in England and America.
The Government defends itself as well as it can against this invasion of diplomés, whom their hereditary aptitudes and their debasing education have not endowed with the amount of initiative necessary to create independent situations for themselves. They have application only for learning the largest text-books by heart ; in this matter nothing disheartens them. The State is incessantly complicating the subjects of its examinations, and making its text -books thicker and thicker; nothing discourages the candidates. With one quarter of the patience necessary to learn sickening trivialities by heart the greater number of them would make their fortunes in industry; but they do not even dream of such a thing. It has been said with reason that our century is the century of examinations. It is precisely the Chinese system ; and, as Renan has observed, it has produced, in that nation of mandarins, an incurable senility.
173)
It is, in fact, the bureaucracy that governs France to-day, and will necessarily govern her more and more. The power of the State is scattered among innumerable hands. The irresistible need of the Latins to be governed is accompanied by a not less irresistible need of exercising authority ; hence all the agents who represent the State govern one another according to a rigid and trivially detailed hierarchy, which descends by successive degrees from the minister to the humblest cantonnier. Each official possesses only the most narrowly limited functions, and therefore cannot perform the most trivial act without having recourse to a whole hierarchy above him. He is imprisoned inextricably in a network of regulations and complications, the -,weight of which necessarily falls on all those who have occasion to apply to him.
This network of regulations extends itself every day, in proportion as the initiative of the citizen becomes feebler. As Léon Say observed : "The cry becomes always louder and louder for more and more microscopic regulations."
Harassed by the incessant appeals of a public greedy of tutelage, the State legislates and regulates without pause. Obliged to direct everything, to foresee everything, it enters into the most trifling details. A man is run over by a carriage; a clock is stolen from a mairie; immediately a commission is nominated and charged with the elaboration of a regulation, and this regulation always occupies a whole volume. According to a wellinformed journal, the new regulation drawn up in respect of the circulation of cabs and other means of transport in Paris by a commission entrusted with the task of simplifying the existing state of things will comprise no fewer than 425 articles !
This prodigious need of regulation does not appear to be new in history. It has already appeared among many
174) peoples, and notably among the Romans and the Byzantines, at their periods of lowest decadence, and it must have contributed greatly to hasten the final dissolution. M. Gaston Boissier remarks that at the end of the Roman Empire, "never had administrative triviality been carried so far. This period was before all things a scribbling age. An imperial functionary never stirred without his secretaries and stenographers."
From these complicated hierarchies and this narrow regulation it results, first of all, that everything the State produces is produced in a very slow and costly way. Not for nothing can the citizens of a country refuse to direct their own affairs, and confide all to the hands of the State. The latter makes them pay dearly for its intervention. As a very typical example of this, I may cite the various railroads which the departments have forced the State to construct.
In obedience to the pressure of the public, the Government has successively constructed, and directly administered, nearly 1,700 miles of lines, which cost, according to the report of the Budget Commission of 1895, the enormous sum of £51,000,000, including the annual deficit capitalised. The annual profits are £360,000, and the expenses £2,280,000 ; the annual deficit, therefore, is about £1,920,000. This deficit is partly accounted for by the enormous expenses of working. While the working expenses of great companies such, for example, as the Paris-Lyon and the Orléans, amount to 50 per cent., little interested in economy though these companies be-since the State guarantees them a minimum of interest-the working expenses of the State railways reach the incredible figure of 77 per cent. !
"It is impossible," writes M. Leroy-Beaulieu, " adequately to express to what a decay of private initiative the conduct of public works in France is leading. Habituated
(175) to rely on the subventions of the commune, department, or central power, the divers agglomerations of inhabitants, and above all in the country, are no longer capable of undertaking any matter whatever by themselves, nor of agreeing upon any point. I have known villages of 200 or 300 inhabitants, belonging to a large and scattered commune, to wait for years and humbly to solicit aid in the matter of a well which was indispensable to them, and which £8 or £12, or a contribution of tenpence apiece, -,would have sufficed to put in good repair. I have seen other villages having only one road by which to despatch their commodities, and incapable of taking concerted action when, by means of a prime expense of £80, and an annual sum of £8 or £12, they could easily have rendered the road sound and durable. I am speaking, however, of districts relatively wealthy, far more so at least than the generality of the communes of France.
" We need have no hesitation in saying that of all the wealthy and long civilised nations France is one of the worst off as regards the possession and inexpensiveness of objects of collective use. Gas is dearer than anywhere else; electricity has but hardly begun to light a few streets of a few towns ; the state of urban transport is barbarous ; tramways are rare, and almost unknown save in cities of the first rank and a few only of the second, and the tramway companies, with perhaps two or three exceptions in the whole of France, have failed ; capitalists, alarmed at these failures, feel no inclination to endow our cities with networks of perfected urban communications. The telephone is twice or thrice as dear in Paris as in London, Berlin, Brussels, Amsterdam, or New York. Thus, in the nineteenth century, we have a great country pr outing only in the very slightest degree by the numerous recent developments which have been transforming urban existence for the last fifty years. Is it that the State does
(176) not intervene sufficiently ? No, it is because it intervenes too much ! The municipalities, which represent the State, use to excess their double power of restraint : the administrative and legal restraint, which multiplies injunctions or prohibitions, and often, without any restriction, subjects companies to the variable judgment of the municipal councils ; and the fiscal restraint, which is anxious to make of every society of capitalists an inexhaustible milch-cow for the municipality. To these forms of restraint must be added the narrow sentiment of envy which regards all property of private companies as a reflection on the public powers."
The complication of procedure, the routine, and also the necessity which the employés experience, in order to safeguard their responsibility, of subjecting themselves to the most minute formalities, result in the enormous expense which is evident in everything administered by the State.[1] The reports given in the name of the Commission of the Budget, by M. Cavaignac on the War Budget, and by M. Pelletan on the Naval Budget, show that the complexities of our administrations surpass the imaginable. In M. Cavaignac's report we find, among a number of analogous cases, the incredible yet veracious tale of the chef de bataillon who, having received permission to have made, at the Invalides, a pair of nonregimental boots, found himself a debtor to the State for the sum of 7 fr. 8o, which sum he was perfectly willing to pay. To render this payment regular there
(177) were necessary three letters from the Minister of War, one from the Minister of Finances, and fifteen letters, decisions, or reports from generals, directors, chiefs of departments, &c., at the head of the various administrative services !
In the report of the Commission on the Naval Budget we find far greater complications. The monthly pay of a simple lieutenant comprises a collection of sixty-five different items, " all provided with long tails of decimals." To obtain, in a seaport, a "sail-maker's palm," a piece of leather worth a penny, it is necessary to make out a special form, for which one must explore every corner of the port in search of six different signatures. When once the scrap of leather is obtained, new signatures and inscriptions are necessary in other registers. As a receipt for certain articles pieces of accountant's work demanding fourteen days' labour are necessary. The number of reports docketed by certain departments is reckoned at 100,000.
There is not less complexity on board ship ; the bureaucratic provisions are prodigious. " We have found there, together with thirty-three volumes of regulations, intended to determine the details of administrative life on board, a list of 230 different types of registers, ledgers, memoranda, weekly and monthly reports, certificates, receipt forms, journals, fly-leaves, &c." The unhappy employés very quickly lose their heads in this labyrinth of ciphers. Crushed by their terrible labour, they end by working entirely at hazard. " Hundreds of employés are occupied exclusively at calculating, transcribing, copying into innumerable registers, reproducing on countless fly-leaves, dividing, totalising, or despatching to the minister, figures that have no reality, that correspond to nothing in the region of facts, which would probably be nearer the truth if they were one and all invented."
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It is thus impossible to arrive at any precise information with regard to munitions, for each category thereof is appropriated to a whole series of bureaux, each of which is autonomous. A few verifications, undertaken at random by the writer of the report on the Budget, yielded him the most extravagant figures.
For instance, while essential objects were absolutely lacking-for example, the 23,000 spoons and forks mentioned in his report, which, on sale for one penny retail in the streets of Toulon, were bought by the Administration at the rate of fivepence apiece-we find that of other articles a stock was laid in which would last for thirty years, and in some cases for sixty-eight years. As for the bargains of the Administration, the figures unearthed were truly marvellous. In the extreme East-the place of production-it paid for rice 60 per cent. more than the price at Toulon. The prices paid for all articles are in general double the price that would be paid by a private individual, simply because the Administration is unable to pay for them before innumerable pieces of accountant's work have been passed and filed, and is obliged to apply to intermediaries, who make advances which are often not reimbursed for a very long time, on account of the frightful complication of the necessary documents. All this terrible and unnecessary waste represents millions of pounds as truly thrown away as though cast into the sea. A business man who should conduct his affairs in such a manner would not wait long for bankruptcy.
M. Pelletan had the curiosity to investigate the routine of private industry, and to consider how to avoid these thousands of registers and employés, and this accountant's work which ends, by reason of the perfect impossibility of fathoming its in the most serious disorder, Nothing could be more interesting than this comparison, which contrasts State Socialism as dreamed of by the
179) Collectivists with private initiative as understood by the English and Americans. He expresses himself as follows
" In order to obtain a point of comparison, we inquired into the procedure of a large private industrial concern which is connected with one of our arsenals, and, like the latter, is devoted to ship-building. We shall form some idea of the importance of this establishment if we consider that there are on the slips, at the present moment, one of our large cruisers of the first class, two Brazilian armoured vessels, a twenty-three knot cruiser, a packet-boat, and five sailing vessels ; in short, a flotilla of 68,000 tons French. We must agree that for such an establishment magazines of a certain importance are necessary.
" One large book suffices for the accounts of each of these magazines. Over the place where each sort of article is stored is a ticket indicating the nature of the object, the corresponding folio of the large book, and above, in three columns, the entered, removed, and remaining stock. Thus a glance of the eye will discover the state of the stock of the article in question. If a foreman wishes to draw from the stock he presents a signed and dated ticket, indicating the nature of the article applied for, and the number thereof. The storekeeper writes on the back the name, weight, price per article, and and(sic) the total price. The tickets are transcribed into a ledger, and then into the great book. Nothing could be simpler, nor, apparently, more complete."
It is interesting to compare the cost of production in the case of private firms, who are obliged to make money, with that in the case of the State, which is not so obliged. The comparison has been made long ago ; articles that the State makes for itself cost it, in general, 25 to 50 per cent. more than the same articles made by
(180) private firms. In the case of armoured vessels, the total cost of which is about £800,000, the difference of the costs of production in England and France is about 25 per cent., according to a report drawn up by M. de Kerjegu.[2]
This excessive cost of all that is manufactured by the State is the result of many factors. It is sufficient to investigate the fact, without searching into all the causes. We shall limit ourselves to observing that some of these causes reside not merely in the complication of regulations and formalities, but in an essential psychological factor ; the indifference which one naturally brings to all affairs in which there is no question of personal interest. It is for this important reason that we so often see the failure of industrial enterprises which are managed by
(181) intermediaries, and not by any one personally interested.[3]
From these different conditions there necessarily ensue very dissimilar methods of administration. I have recently met with an example, which I here reproduce, as being highly typical and because it clearly illustrates my idea.
A foreign firm had established in France, at its own expense, a tramway line uniting two great industrial centres, which it administered itself. The enterprise succeeded admirably. The annual receipts reached £44,000, and the working expenses did not exceed 47 per cent. The local authorities having observed to the company that it was annoying to see a foreigner at its head, the company consented to replace him by a French engineer. The experiment was highly instructive. The engineer began first of all by reorganising the offices and adorning them with numerous officials-sub-director, accountant-in-chief, advocate-in-chief, cashier, &c. ; he then naturally elaborated a long and very complex scheme of regulations, in which all the ingenuity of his Latin mind unfolded itself.
The results were not slow to appear. In less than a year the working expenses had almost doubled. They reached, in fact, the sum of 82 per cent., and the company found ruin staring it in the face.
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It took a heroic resolve. The director went to the authorities, placed the results before their eyes, and then offered to allow the engineer to retain his title and emoluments, on the express condition that he should never, under any pretext, set foot in the offices. The proposition was accepted, the old order of things re-established, and the expenses of working quickly fell to their normal figure of 47 per cent. This experiment in Latin administration cost the company nearly £20,000.
Applied to the Colonies our system of administration has engendered the most disastrous results. It has ended in the gradual ruin of all our possessions. While the English Colonies cost the exchequer next to nothing, we spend £3,200,000 a year in support of ours. In exchange for these £3,200,000 we do business with them to the extent of about £3,600,000, which hardly yields £600,000 profit. We have then £600,000 of receipts in exchange for £3,200,000 expenditure, which leaves an annual deficit of £2,600,000. This deficit is far more than a mere loss, for this sum of £2,600,000 really serves to develop the commerce of our competitors, from whom above all our colonies draw their imports, our compatriots being incapable of producing them at the same prices: The exports to our colonies from foreign countries exceed the French exports by £1,840,000, which could hardly be otherwise in respect of the administrative hindrances with which we embarrass our commerce in our colonies. In order to administer the two million inhabitants of Cochin China we employ more officials than the English to administer 250 millions of Hindoos. A journal stated recently that in the times of the kings of Dahomey our traders preferred to establish themselves on their soil rather than submit to the amazing administrative complications which they had to encounter in our colony. The severest tyrant is far less severe than the anony-
(183) -mous bureaucratic tyranny to which, in default of knowing how to conduct ourselves, we are absolutely forced to submit.
Naturally, the Latin administrative methods necessitate an enormous budget ; from £72,000,000 in 1869 it has gradually increased to £140,000,000, a sum which must be increased to £200,000,000 if we add the communal budgets to that of the State. Such a budget can exist only by crushing taxation.[4] The State, obedient to the general state of mind, which opposes all undertakings due to private enterprise, hampers industry by sometimes extravagant taxes. The Omnibus Company in its last report, published in 1898, stated that for a dividend of 65 francs per share paid to each shareholder it paid to the State or the city 149 francs in taxes, or a duty of more than Zoo per cent. In the case of the Compagnie générale des voitures the State and the City levied 2 francs 44 centimes of the daily receipts of each vehicle, so that the shareholders received only 11 centimes. And so forth. All these enterprises are consequently approaching ruin, and they also are destined, sooner or later, inevitably to pass into the hands of the State.
The preceding figures allow us to foresee what State Socialism will bring us to when its evolution shall be complete; the speedy and absolute ruin of every industry of the countries in which it shall triumph.
It is almost superfluous to add that the effects of centralisation and absorption by the State which we perceive in France are equally perceptible in the other Latin countries, and in a far greater degree. Things have arrived at such a crisis in Italy that on February 21,
(184) 1894, the Government laid a Bill before Parliament by means of which the King should be invested, for one year, with dictatorial powers, in order to attempt the reorganisation of the administrations of the State. It is a matter for regret that the Bill did not pass ; for its application would clearly have demonstrated the vanity of all attempts at the reform of institutions when they are the consequences of a racial state of mind.
We may gain some idea of the development of State Socialism in Italy, and of the restraint it produces, from the following extracts from an article by the Italian deputy Bonasi, published in the Political and Parliamentary Review for October, 1895.
" The administrative officials in the provinces are not only allowed no initiative ; they are not even allowed the modest latitude of interpretation and application which is nevertheless inseparable from the exercise of an administrative function. Outside of the attributes which are expressly conferred on them by laws, regulations, circulars, and ministerial instructions, they dare not budge an inch without previous authorisation, and the final approbation of the minister on whom they are dependent . . . . The prefects, the commissioners of finance, the presidents of the courts, the rectors of universities, are unable to authorise the smallest expenditure or the least important or most urgent repair, unless their decision has received the benediction of the ministerial placet . . . .
"If a commune, or a benevolent society, wish to acquire real estate, though it be a matter only of a square yard of earth, or the acceptance of a legacy made in its favour, even of a few shillings, there must be a deliberation of the communal council, or of the committee of the society ; and more, there is necessary in each case the vote of the administrative provincial
185) commission ; a request made to the King for the supreme authorisation ; a report from the prefect accompanying the application to the minister, with a summingup and particulars ; a report from the minister to the Council of State ; an advice from the Council, and finally a royal decree, and its registration in the Court of Accounts."
The inevitable consequences of this state of things have been an extremely rapid increase of the number of Italian functionaries, and consequently of the Budget.
Identical facts are to be observed in all the Latin nations, and are clearly the result of the mental constitution of their race. The proof is yet more authentic where we oppose these facts to what I have said in another chapter of the results of private initiative in the Anglo-Saxon race.
It is especially important to keep in mind the proof that it is entirely to ourselves, and not to the Government, that we owe the gradual extension of the role of the State and its consequences. Let the government be what we will-republic, dictatorship, commune, or monarchy; let it have at its head Heliogabalus, Louis Quatorze, Robespierre, or a victorious general-the part played by the State among the Latin peoples cannot change. It is the consequence of a racial necessity. The State, in reality, is ourselves, and we can blame none but ourselves for its organisation. By reason of this mental characteristic, which Caesar in his days perceived and pointed out, we always hold the Government responsible for our own faults, and we are still persuaded that by changing our institutions or our rulers everything will be transformed. No amount of reasoning can cure us of the error. We can, However, foresee it, m Considering that when the hazards of politics have placed at the heads of departments such deputies as have the
(186) most searchingly criticised the services they find them selves called to direct, there has never been an example of their being able to modify, however slightly, that which they considered, with reason, to be an intolerable abuse. These abuses are vices of race, and therefore incurable. We have only to cite the example of the Minister of the Navy to more than justify these remarks.
3. THE COLLECTIVIST STATE.
We have just been considering the progress of State Socialism and its consequences. It remains to me to show how little divides us from complete Collectivism, as dreamed of by the high priests of the doctrine.
The dangers of Collectivism have not escaped the eyes of such statesmen as have been endowed with a certain perspicacity ; but they do not appear to have seen very clearly that we have long ago entered into the Collectivist phase. Ensuing are the remarks on this subject of one of the most distinguished of them, M. Bourdeau, sometime president of the Chamber of Deputies :
"The danger to be feared is not that Collectivism is triumphing, establishing itself, modelling society to its liking. The danger is that it continues to insinuate itself into the popular mind, and into our institutions ; to throw scorn on capital and its use, and on the institutions derived from it (banks and so forth) ; on private initiative, which is incessantly vilified, to the profit of State monopolies ; on thrift, on personal property, on inheritance, on salaries proportioned to the merits and utility of the returns offered ; on the means which to-day serve to elevate the lowest, or at least their descendants, to the highest positions ; on the support given to society by the millions of initative efforts excited by personal interest.
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"The result of all this is enormously to increase the rôle of the State ; to make it responsible for railroads, mines, and banks, and perhaps for navigation, assurance, and stores ; to crush large or medium fortunes and inheritances by duties, together with all that stimulates man to invention, or to adventurous and long-sustained enterprises ; all that makes him a creature of foresight, considerate of future generations ; all that makes him a worker for posterity ; to disgust the worker with difficult tasks, with economy, with the hope of success ; in short, to reduce the individual to mediocrity of desires, ambitions, energy, and talent, under the guardianship of an all-absorbing State ; to replace, more and more, the man animated by personal interest, by a quasi-official."
The conclusions of this statesman are patent to every mind a little familiar with the economic and psychologic necessities which rule a people. He has clearly perceived that the latent triumph of Socialism is still more assured and still more dangerous than its nominal triumph.
The society of the future, dreamed of by the Collectivists, has for some time been gradually realising itself among the Latin nations. State Socialism is, in fact, as I have shown, the necessary conclusion of the past of these nations, the final step towards the decadence which no civilisation has as yet been able to avoid. For centuries subjected systematically to hierarchies, brought to a dead level by a university education and a system of examinations which run all into one mould ; greedy of equality, but little eager for liberty ; accustomed to every kind of administrative tyranny, military, religious, or moral ; having lost all initiative, all power of Will ; gradually habituated to have recourse in all things to the State ;--they are doomed by the fatality of their race
(188) to suffer the State Socialism which the Collectivists are preaching to-day. I have already said that they have actually been subjected to it for a considerable time. To convince himself, the reader has only to consider what it is that the Collectivists are proposing, and therein to perceive the simple development of the already existent state of things. These Collectivists truly believe themselves to be innovators, but their doctrine is only precipitating a natural phase of evolution whose preparation and advent is none of their work. A brief examination of their fundamental propositions will readily prove this.
One of the principal ends of Collectivism is the State monopoly of all industries and enterprises. Now all that in England, and especially in America, is founded and fostered by private initiative, is, to-day, among the Latin peoples, more or less in the hands of the Government. And the Government is for ever taking over fresh industries-telephones and matches to-day-alcohol, mines, and means of transport to-morrow. When this absorption is complete an important fraction of the Collectivist dream will be realised.
The Collectivists wish to place the public wealth in the hands of the State by various means ; notably by the progressive increase of the death duties. With us these death duties are increasing every day ; a new Bill has just brought them up to id per cent. A few successive increases will realise the Collectivist ideal.
The Collectivist State will give every citizen an identical, gratuitous, and obligatory education. Our University, with its terrible bed of Procrustes, has realised this ideal long ago.
The Collectivist State will control everything by means of an immense army of functionaries who will regulate the least acts of the citizen's life. There are already
(189) great battalions of these functionaries ; they are to-day the true masters in the State. Their number is always on the increase, by the sole fact that the laws and regulations which are progressively limiting the initiative and liberty of the citizen are on the increase. Already, under various pretexts, they supervise the work of manufactories, and of the smallest private undertakings. They have only to increase their number and their attributes a little, and the Collectivist dream will be realised on this point also.
While it hopes to arrive at the absorption of private fortunes to the profit of the State by increasing the death duties, Collectivism is also persecuting capital in every imaginable manner. The State has led the way in this matter. Every day all private undertakings find themselves crushed by heavier and heavier duties, which are more and more reducing their returns and their chances of prosperity. There are, as I have already shown, certain industries, such as the Omnibus Company in Paris, which for 65 francs of dividend to the shareholder pay 149 francs in various taxes. Other sources of revenue are being extinguished, one after another, by increasing duties. We are beginning to think of attacking rent. In Italy, where this stage has long been reached, the duty on rent has gradually been raised to 20 per cent. A few successive increases of the duty will suffice to arrive at the complete absorption of revenue, and consequently of capital, for the profit of the State.
Finally, according to the Collectivists, the proletariat should deprive the present directing classes of their political rights. This has not been effected as yet, but we are nearing it rapidly. The popular classes are the masters of society by virtue of the universal suffrage, and they are beginning to send an increasing number of Socialists to Parliament. When the majority is a Socialist
(190) majority the list of demands will be completely granted. Every fantasy will be possible; and finally, to bring them to an end, will definitely open that period of Caesars, and then of invasions, which has always marked the final hour of decadence of nations already too aged.
