The Psychology of Socialism
Book 5: The Conflict Between the Laws of Evolution, The Democratic Ideal,
and the Aspirations of the Socialists
Chapter 4: The Social Solidarity
Gustave Le Bon
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1. Social solidarity and charity:-The fundamental difference between the two-Charity is an anti-social and harmful sentiment-The most useful works of solidarity have neither charity nor altruism as their base--They are based on the association of similar interests-The movement towards solidarity is one of the most important tendencies of modern social evolution-The profundity of its causes-Association replaces individual egoism, which is powerless, by a powerful collective egoism, by which every one profits-Solidarity is at present the best arm of the weak. 2. The modern forms of solidarity :-It is possible only between individuals having similar immediate interests-Co-operative societies-Their development among the Anglo-Saxons -- Why they are unsuccessful among the Latins -- Public companies-Their power and utility-They must be made to penetrate into the popular classes -Co-operative societies and their drawbacks-How the workers might become proprietors of their workshops-Unions-Their utility, their power, and their inconveniences-They are the necessary consequence of modern evolution-Disappearance of the old familiar relations between masters and men.
I. SOCIAL SOLIDARITY AND CHARITY.
THE struggle which, as we have just seen, is taking place in the heart of society, brings together adversaries who are very unequally endowed. We shall see how the weaker have been able, by associating their forces, to render the warfare less unequal.
For many people the term " social solidarity " always recalls, to some extent, the idea of charity. Its true sense, however, is very different. The societies of the present day are approaching solidarity of interests and relinquish-
342) -ing charity. It is even very probable that the societies of the future will regard charity as a low and barbarous conception, altruistic in nothing but appearance, thoroughly egoistic in essence, and generally noxious.
The term solidarity signifies merely association, and by no means charity or altruism. Charity is a noxious and anti-social sentiment ; altruism is an artificial and impotent sentiment. When we examine the most useful works of solidarity-insurance and mutual aid societies, societies for granting pensions, co-operative societies, &c. -we find that they are never based on charity or altruism, but simply on the combined interests of a number of people who more often than not have never seen one another. Having paid a certain annual subscription, the subscriber receives a pension in proportion to this subscription in the event of sickness or age. It is a matter of privilege without benevolence, just as the man who insures his property against fire has a right, in case of fire, to the amount for which he has insured it. Of course he profits by the collective subscriptions, since the sum lie receives is far greater than the sum he has paid, but all the members of the collectivity may profit in the same way, and he owes nothing to any man. He profits by a privilege which he has bought, not by a favour, and it is important to mark clearly the profound difference between associations of interests which are based on financial combinations guided by the calculation of probabilities and the works of charity which are based on the hypothetical good -,wishes and uncertain altruism of a small number of individuals. Works of charity have no real social value, and are very justly rejected by a large number of Socialists, who on this point are at one with the most eminent thinkers. That there are such institutions as hospitals and assistance bureaux, conducted by the State at, the public expense, we can only be thank-
(343) -ful ; but charity on the whole is more harmful in practice than useful. In default of an impossible amount of supervision it serves more often than not to support a whole class of individuals who merely exploit pity in order to live in idleness. The obvious result is to prevent a number of destitute people from working, as they find the resources of charity more convenient and even more productive, arid to increase professional mendicity to an enormous extent. The countless charitable associations for the assistance of the unemployed, or young consumptives, or widows without resources, or deserted Chinese infants, &c., &c., are at most only of use to afford occupation for unemployed old ladies, or to idle men of the world, who wish to obtain salvation at a cheap rate, and are glad to occupy their leisure by becoming presidents, secretaries, committee members, treasurers, &c., of something or other. Thus they procure the illusion that they have been of some use here below. And herein they are very greatly mistaken.[1]
The movement in favour of solidarity, that is to say, the association of similar interests, which is so generally
(344) evident, is perhaps the most definite of the new social tendencies, and is probably one of those that will have the greatest effect on our evolution. To-day the word solidarity is heard far oftener than the old shibboleths of equality and fraternity, and is tending to supplant them. It is by no means synonymous. As the final object of the association of interests is to struggle against other interests, it is evident that solidarity is only a particular form of the universal conflict of classes and individuals. Understood as it is to-day, solidarity reduces our old dreams of fraternity to the very closely circumscribed limits of associations.
This tendency towards solidarity in the shape of associations, a tendency which we see extending itself every day, has various causes. The most important of these is the abatement of individual will and initiative, and the frequent uselessness of these qualities under the conditions which have arisen from the modern developments of economics. The need of isolated action is becoming rarer and rarer. It is almost impossible for individual efforts to exert themselves to-day except through the agency of associations, that is to say, by the aid of collectivities.
A still profounder cause is impelling the modern man to association. He has lost his gods, he sees his home threatened, he no longer has faith in the future, and he feels more and more the need of something to lean on. Association replaces the impotent egoism of the individual by a collective and powerful and collective egoism by which every one profits. In default of classification by the ties of religion, the ties of blood, the ties of politics, and all the different ties which are every day growing weaker, the solidarity of interests is able to unite men with sufficient strength.
This kind of solidarity is almost the only means remain-
345) -ing to the weak, that is to say, to the greater number, by which they may struggle against the powerful, and be not too greatly oppressed by them.
In the universal struggle whose laws we have already traced the weaker are always defenceless before the stronger, and the stronger do not hesitate to crush them. Lords, feudal, financial, or industrial, have hitherto never troubled much about those whom circumstances have placed below them.
To this universal oppression, that neither religions nor laws have hitherto been able to combat with stronger weapons than empty words, the modern man has hitherto found nothing to oppose bait the principle of association, which consolidates all the individuals of the same group. Solidarity is the best arm that the weak possess in order to efface to some extent the consequences of social inequalities, and to render them a little less hard. Far from being contradicted by natural laws, it has the merit of being based on them. Science knows nothing of liberty, or at least does not accept it in her own domain, since she discovers everywhere phenomena ruled by an inflexible determinism. Still less does she believe in equality, for modern biology sees in the inequalities of creatures the fundamental condition of their progress. Neither will she accept fraternity, since merciless war has been a constant phenomenon since the remotest geologic periods. Solidarity, on the contrary, is not contradicted by any known fact. Certain animals, and above all the weakest, are only able to exist by a rigid solidarity, which alone makes it possible for them to defend themselves against their enemies.
The association of the similar interests of the various members of human societies is assuredly very ancient, since it is to be found in our earliest records of history, but in all ages it was always more or less hampered and
(346) limited. It was barely possible on the narrow region of economic and religious interests. The Revolution thought to do a useful work in suppressing the corporations. No measure could have been more disastrous to the democratic cause that the men of the Revolution thought they were defending. To-day these abolished corporations are everywhere reappearing under new names and new forms. In the modern developments of industry, which have considerably increased the division of labour, this renaissance was inevitable.
2. THE MODERN FORMS OF SOLIDARITY.
Now that we have clearly marked the difference between those solidarities which are based on combined interests and those which repose on charity, let us take a rapid glance at the various forms of modern solidarity.
It is at once evident that a solidarity between individuals does not exist simply because they are engaged in a common work, the success of which depends on the association of their efforts ; indeed, we very often find the contrary. The director of a factory, his men, and his shareholders, have theoretically a common interest in working for the success of the concern on which their existence or fortune depends. In reality this far-fetched solidarity only covers very conflicting interests, and the parties in contact are by no means actuated by reciprocal sentiments of benevolence. The workman wants his salary to be raised, which can be done only by reducing the shareholders' profits. The shareholders, on the contrary, represented by the director, have every reason to reduce the profits of the workmen in order to increase their oxen ; so that the solidarity which theoretically ought to exist between workmen, directors, and shareholders has no real existence.
True solidarity is possible only between persons who
(347) have the same immediate interests. Such are the interest that have called into being the modern institution of the trades-union, which we shall presently examine.
There are, however, certain forms of association which are able to consolidate interests that are naturally conflicting. They associate the contrary interests of producers and consumers by offering them reciprocal advantages. The producer voluntarily contents himself with a reduced profit on each article sold if the sale of a large number of articles is assured to him, and this sale is rendered certain by the association of a considerable number of purchasers.
In the great English co-operative societies there are only identical interests associated, as the consumer is at the same time the producer, these societies producing almost everything that they consume, and even owning farms producing wheat, sheep and cattle, milk, vegetables, and so forth. They present this very great advantage that the weaker and less capable members benefit by the intelligence of the most capable, who are placed at the head of these enterprises, which could not prosper without them. The Latin countries have not arrived at this yet.
I have elsewhere shown that it is by themselves administrating their various associations, and notably their cooperative societies, that the Anglo-Saxon workers have learned to manage their own affairs. The French workman is too deeply imbued with the Latin concepts of his race to permit of his possession of the initiative necessary to found and administer societies which would allow him to ameliorate his lot. If, thanks to a few intelligent leaders, he does sometimes found such a society, he immediately confides its administration to second-rate men of business, whom he treats with suspicion, acid the affair soon comes to grief.
These Latin societies, which are administered by
(348) intermediaries indifferent to their success, are conducted with the meticulous and complicated procedure peculiar to our national temperament, and vegetate miserably. An additional cause of their ill success is that the Latin workman, having little foresight, will buy his provisions from day to day at retail, from small shopkeepers, with whom he gossips, and who very willingly give him credit, for which he has to pay dearly, rather than of the large stores at which he must pay ready money, and where he cannot talk half the day over a purchase. It would, however, be greatly to his interest to rid himself of intermediaries by means of co-operative societies. The sum paid in one year in France to the middlemen, who separate the producer from the consumer, has been reckoned at more than £280,000,000, or twice the amount we pay in taxes. The exactions of the middleman are far more severe than those of the capitalist, but the workman does not see them, and in consequence supports them without a murmur.
The most widespread of modern forms of association, and at the same time most anonymous, is the public company. As M. Leroy-Beaulieu says very truly, it is " the ruling trait of the economic organisation of the modern world . . . . Industry, finance, commerce, and even agriculture, and colonial enterprises-it extends to everything. It is already in almost every nation the habitual instrument of the mechanical production and the exploitation of the forces of nature . . . . The anonymous company seems to be called on to become the ruler of the world ; it is the true heir of the old feudal system and the fallen aristocracy. It will be the emperor of the world ; for the hour is approaching when the world will be issued in shares." It is, as out author says further, a product not of wealth, but of the democracy, and the dissemination of capital in many hands.
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Exploitation by shares is, in fact, the only form of association possible to small capitalists. It constitutes Collectivism in appearance, but only in appearance, for it is a Collectivism which one may enter freely, and leave freely, and the profit is strictly proportioned to the effort, that is to say, to the sum of little economies which each individual brings to it. On the day when the workman becomes the proprietor, anonymous but interested, of the shop in which he works, by means of the system of shares, an immense advance will have been accomplished. It is perhaps only by this method that the economic emancipation of the workman will ever take place-if it ever does take place-and by which the natural and social inequalities of man may be to some extent effaced.
Hitherto the public company has not penetrated so far as the popular classes. The only mode of association approaching to the public company (though in reality very unlike it) known to the people, is the system of profit-sharing. :Many societies founded on this principle have succeeded very well. If there are not very many such societies it is because the proper organisation of such enterprises demands very superior and therefore always rare capacities.
I may mention as the oldest and most remarkable of these associations the association of painters founded in 1829 by Leclaire, and continued by Redcuy et Cie of Paris ; the factory of Guise in Aisne ; that of Laecken in Belgium, &c. The first divides 25 per cent. of the profits among its members, who are all workmen, and after a certain number of years gives them a pension of £6o. There are now 920 of these pensions.
The Guise factory is a kind of community, in which the association of capital anal labour- have produced excellent results. In 1894 it did business to the extent of more than £200,000, and made a profit of nearly £30,000.
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There are now more than 300 establishments of this kind in France and abroad.
The most celebrated of these societies in England is that of the Equitable Pioneers of Rochdale, which was founded in 1844 by an association of twenty-eight workmen who possessed a little capital. In 1891 it counted 12,000 associates and a capital of £360,000. It does business to the extent of about £300,000, and yields an annual profit of £52,000.
Associations of this kind have had as great a success in Belgium; notably the Woruit at Ghent. There are also many very prosperous concerns of the same kind in Germany. A certain number have been founded in northern Italy in the last few years, but there, as in France, they will perish for want of proper management. Their organisation is altogether Latin in character, which means that their fate will depend entirely on the individuals placed at their head, as the members have neither the capacity nor, so far as that goes, the intention to administer them themselves as the Anglo-Saxon workmen do.
The great danger of these societies is that the sharing of profits necessarily implies the sharing of losses, which are and must be frequent in industry. As long as there is a profit the associates are perfectly at one, but as soon as there is a loss the harmony, as a general thing, is quickly broken. America has recently furnished us with a very striking proof of this. The destruction by fire of the gigantic establishment of the Pulman Company, and the acts of savage vandalism and pillage which followed, shows us plainly what becomes of these great enterprises when they are no longer attended with success.
The Pulman Company had built enormous factories occupying 6,000 men, and a charming town for the latter and their families. This town counted 13,000 inhabitants,
(351) and was provided with every modern comfort, a large park, theatre, library, &c. The houses could be acquired only by the workmen, who became proprietors by paying a small annual sure.
As long as affairs were in full swing peace and abundance reigned. The men had deposited nearly £160,000 in the savings banks in a few years.
But the orders lessened on account of the reduced profits of the railway companies, the customers of the company, so that the latter, in order not to work at a loss by employing all their men, were obliged to cut down their wages from 9s. 2d. a clay to 6s. 3d. A veritable revolution followed. The workshops were pillaged and burnt, and the workers determined on a strike which spread to the railways and led to such scenes of violence that President Cleveland was obliged to proclaim martial law. The revolt was finally brought to an end by firing on the strikers.
I have little faith in these profit-sharing societies, which place the man too much at the mercy of his master, and bind him to that master for too long a time. The master has no real interest in sharing his profits with the men, since it is certain that they will always refuse to share in the losses also, and will revolt as soon difficulties appear. Moreover, it is only out of sheer philanthropy that a master consents to share his profits with his men. Nothing can force him to do so. It is possible to found a durable institution on interest, which is a solid and unchanging sentiment, but not on philanthropy, which is a fluctuating and always ephemeral sentiment. Philanthropy, too, is too like pity to inspire any gratitude in its objects. I imagine that Mr. Pulman, before his burning factories, must have acquired those valuable ideas of the value of philanthropy which are not to be learned from books, and yet the ignorance of which often costs so dear.
(352) The only possible form of profit-sharing which absolutely respects the interests of both master and man, arid which makes them independent of one another, is profit-sharing by means of shares, which implies participation in the losses as well as in the gains, and is the only equitable and therefore acceptable arrangement. The L1 share is within the reach of every purse, and I am amazed that no factories have yet been started in which the shareholders will be solely workmen. When once the workman shall be thus transformed into a capitalist interested in the success of his business, his present demands will have no raison d'être, since he will be working solely for himself. The workman who should wish for any reason to change his workshop would merely sell his shares like any other shareholder in order to regain his liberty. The only difficulty would arise in finding the men capable of directing the factory, but experience would soon teach the workers the value of these capable men, and the necessity of securing them by paying them at a suitable rate.
I gave a few hints on this subject a long time ago in one of my books. This book recently falling into the hands of a Belgian engineer, M. Bourson, who is occupied in industrial matters, he was struck with the practical utility of my idea, and wrote to me that he was going to attempt to realise it. I sincerely hope he will succeed. The great difficulty, evidently, resides in the subscription of the necessary capital, which cannot be demanded from men without any money. The only method that I can see is to sell in part or in totality an already existing factory to the workmen employed in it, as it might be sold to ordinary shareholders, but so that the workmen might acquire it gradually, Let us, for example, suppose that the proprietor of a factory wished to convert his business into a company, as many do nowadays. Hitherto,
(353) we will say, he has always paid his men 5s. 6d. a day. He will now pay them only 4s. 9d. or 4s. 6d. a day, and the deficit will be entered to the account of each hand until the total of the amounts held back amounts to £1, the price of a share. This share will be registered in the name of the workman, who may draw the dividend at will, but is not permitted to sell before the lapse of a certain number of years, so as to preserve him from the temptation of parting with it. In this manner the workman will soon become the holder of a more or less considerable number of shares, of which the dividends will soon repay him for the reduction of his salary, and will afford him an income in his old age. He will thus have become a proprietor without any intervention on the part of the State. The moral effect thus obtained would be of even greater value than the material advantages of such a system. The workman would properly regard the factory as a personal property, and would be interested in its success. By attending the meetings of shareholders he would learn first to understand and then to take a part in the discussion of matters of business. He would soon understand the part played by capital, and the interplay of economic necessities. Having become a capitalist he would no longer be a mere labourer. Finally, he would emerge from his narrow sphere, his limited horizon. The present antagonism of capital and labour would gradually be replaced by alliance. The interests at present in conflict would be fused. The man of action and brains who should preach by example and be the first to realise this idea might be regarded as one of the benefactors of humanity.
There is yet one more form of association to be examined, a form born of the necessities of the period, already possessed of great power, and destined to obtain yet more. I am speaking of leagues or unions, which
(354) group together, in a momentary or permanent fashion, individuals having the same interests or following the same profession.
This form of association, which is new to the Latin peoples, is already long familiar to such peoples as the Anglo-Saxons, peoples who have long rejoiced in liberty, and who know how to depend on themselves and to help themselves.
"Here," said Taine, speaking of England, " if a man has a good idea he communicates it to his friends. It appears good to many of them. They subscribe money, publish the idea, and summon around them sympathies and subscriptions. The sympathy and the subscriptions arrive ; the publicity of the idea increases. The snowball begins to grow; it strikes against the doors of Parliament, and opens them, or melts away. This is the English mechanism of reforms ; this is how the English manage their own affairs ; and you must understand that all over the soil of England there are little snowballs in process of growth."
It is by associations of this kind, such as the Corn League of Cobden, that the English have obtained their most useful reforms. They enforce their desires on Parliament so soon as it becomes evident that they are the expression of a popular desire.
It is evident that no isolated individual, however influential, can obtain as much as can be obtained by an association representing numerous collective interests. M. Bonvallot has shown what may be obtained by a league of individuals with collective interests.
"The Touring Club, which counts more than 70,000 members, at the present time, is a power. Not only has the Touring Club provided cyclists with road maps, itineraries, reduced hotel tariffs, and assistance depôts, but it has also awakened the terrible administration of
(355) the Bridges and Roads department, and has provided roads on which it is possible to cycle. It has made the redoubtable railway companies capitulate ; it has turned the crusty customs officials into obliging fellows, and has made the crossing of the frontier a pleasure."
The Touring Club was founded without any difficulty, since each member, by paying his very modest subscription, obtained the protection of a powerful association, of which he felt the need every day, and which would repay hi, subscription a hundred times over in the services it would render him. But I doubt if any analogous association could have in France, as in England, for its end, an important reform of general interest-an educational reform, for instance. If my worthy friend Bonvallot could succeed in organising a league for the reform of education which should number only a tenth of the members of the Touring Club, he would be able to boast of having rendered an enormous service to his country.
We must recognise that hitherto the working classes have profited most intelligently by such associations, and we cannot too greatly admire the results of their efforts. They have obtained their present power not by the universal suffrage, but by their trades-unions. These unions have become the arm of the weak and obscure, who are thereby able to meet the greatest princes of industry and finance on an equal footing. Thanks to these unions the relations between the employers and the employed are tending to be completely transformed. The employer is no longer the vaguely paternal autocrat, administrating all questions of labour without discussion, governing whole populations of workers at will, and regulating the conditions of labour, questions of sanitation and hygiene, &c. His will, his whims, his weaknesses and his errors are to-day confronted by the trades-union,
(356) which by number and unanimity represents a power almost equal to his own : a despotic power, no doubt, to its members, but a power which on ceasing to be despotic would cease to be.
Trades-unions would seem to be a very necessary consequence of modern evolution, to judge by their rapid propagation. To-day there is not a single calling, from the school-teacher's to the charcoal-burner's and the scavenger's, which has not its union. The employers are naturally forming defensive unions in turn, but while in France there are 1,400 employers' unions, with 114,000 members, there are 2,000 trades-unions with more than 400,000 members. There are unions, such as the railway-employés' union, which count more than 80,000 members. These are all-powerful armies, obeying the voice of their chiefs without discussion, with which it is absolutely necessary to come to terms. They constitute a power which is often blind, but always formidable, and which in every case is of immense service to the workers, be it only by raising their moral standard by transforming them from timid mercenaries into men who must be respected and encountered on an equal footing.
The Latin peoples, unfortunately, have highly autocratic tendencies, so that their unions are often as despotic as ever their masters could have been. The lot of the latter is at present far from enviable. The following lilies, from a speech of a some-time minister, M. Barthou, gives one some idea of their state :
"Threatened incessantly by the laws which uphold the liberty of union, exposed to legal brutalities and to imprisonment, having no effective authority over their men, overburdened with the expenses of maintaining the funds to provide for enforced idleness, accident, sickness, and old age, which he no longer dares to charge to the wages sheet on account of their very hugeness, which would
(357) provoke a popular rising, hampered still more by the steadily increasing taxation of the fortune gained in spite of all these difficulties and humiliations, no longer masters in anything but in name, and gaining nothing thereby but misfortune and a hundred risks, the masters, the industrial leaders, will renounce their position, will abdicate, or at most will continue to struggle without spirit and without courage, and will fail at their task like the tax-gatherers of the last centuries of the Roman Empire."
Doubtless the relations between men and masters, so strained and embittered as they are to-day, will finally be ameliorated by a force stronger than all institutions necessity. The Latin workman, who at present treats his master as an enemy, will finally comprehend, with the Anglo-Saxon workman of whom I have spoken elsewhere, that the interests of the men and the masters are of the same order, and that both are subject to the same master, the public, the sole arbiter of wages.
At all events, the old relations, whether familiar or autocratic, between employers and employed, masters and servants, are to-day done with. We may regret them, but only as we regret the dead, knowing well that we shall never behold them again. In the future evolution of the world the mind will be ruled by interests, not by sentiments. Pity, charity, and altruism are the survivors, without prestige and without influence, of the past that is dying before our eyes. The future will no longer know them.
