§ V. Industrial Reserve Army

What are we to think, finally, of the increasing number of “discarded” laborers, of the steadily growing “army of supernumerary workingmen”’? They exist only in socialist writings. Yet we are far from denying that nowadays men are out of work often enough, and that it must be one of the first cares of social reformers to remedy this evil. But we absolutely deny that this evil is a necessary consequence of private ownership in the means of production, or that it cannot be eliminated in the existing order of society.

As a matter of fact want of employment has not increased since the middle of last century. In this respect England furnishes us very accurate information. The number of able-bodied paupers in England and Wales has decreased almost continually since 1849, with the exception of 1863 and 1864, which show unusually high figures.

Relief was granted to the following numbers of adult able-bodied laborers:

From 1891 to 1895 there seems to have been a slight increase in the number of the relieved. Of course, not all who were out of employment were the recipients of official relief. Nevertheless, it is fair to conclude from the number of one category to that of the other. Moreover, it should not be overlooked that at present the working class is far more numerous than formerly.

Also in the German Empire the last few years have shown that the number of the unemployed is not at all as formidable as people were formerly inclined to believe. According to a census taken on December 2, 1895, there were on that day, at the worst season of the year, in the whole of Germany 553,640 unemployed, i.e., able-bodied laborers out of work, a percentage of 3.43% of the whole number of workingmen.¹ Even G. Adler, who certainly cannot be accused of extreme antisocialist bias, is of opinion that according to modern statistics we are justified in not making too high an estimate of the number of the unemployed.²

¹ Cf. Statistik des Deutschen Reiches, New Series, cii. p. 301. On June 14, 1895, the number of unemployed laborers was 179,004 (p. 300).

² Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften, article Arbeitslosigkeit.

Modern methods of production, far from rendering the workingman superfluous, have procured employment for an ever-growing number of men. The English cotton industry employed 259,336 hands in 1839; 330,924 in 1850; 450,087 in 1870; 492,903 in 1879; 528,795 in 1890. This does not look like rendering the workingman superfluous. In Germany the official statistics mark an increase in the number of employees in manufactures, mining, smelting, and the building trades from 6,699,026 in 1882 to 8,601,354 in 1895.³ The average number of wage-earners in the mining industry rose from 273,930 in 1872 to 337,193 in 1886, to 430,155 in 1895, and to 573,078 in 1900.⁴ Also in the smelting industry the average number of wage-earners rose from 38,489 in 1872 to 42,402 in 1886, to 47,201 in 1895. and to 59.664 in 1900.

³ Cf. Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik, 3d series, xv. p. 87.

⁴ Cf. Statistisches Jahrbuch für das Deutsche Reich, 1888, p. 29; 1897, p. 35; 1902, p. 31.

The intrinsic reason why the workingman has not been superseded by machinery is not difficult to grasp. Machines, of course, are labor-saving devices and replace a good many workingmen, but on the other hand they widen existing fields of production and open up new ones. Moreover, machines must be constructed, tended, and repaired. To provide for the increased amount of raw material, to transport the finished products calls for additional forces. The hand of man is required to put the last finishing touch to the products of machinery. The invention of new machines as a rule also discloses new sources of revenue and employment. It may suffice to call to mind the telegraph and telephone service, the new photographic and printing processes, the plastic and ceramic industries, etc.

Thus we come to the undoubted conclusion: Both the materialistic conception of history and its application as the basis of socialism are huge fallacies. Out of certain abuses and drawbacks, which undoubtedly existed in industrial circles during the middle of the past century, and by means of unwarrantable exaggerations, arbitrary generalizations, and deductions, there has been concocted a general theory made to order as the “scientific” basis of socialism.

It is rather queer that the so-called “revisionists,” headed by Bernstein—and their number among prominent socialists is very considerable—discard these fundamental tenets and still profess to be adherents of socialism. Bernstein himself went so far as to put up the paradoxical assertion: “The prospects of socialism depend, not on the decrease, but on the growth of social wealth. Socialism, or rather the socialist movement of modern times, has outlived many a superstition; it will outlive also the superstition that its future depends on the concentration of property, or, if you prefer, on the absorption of surplus-value by a diminishing number of capitalist mammoths. To the nine or ten million fathers of families who are despoiled by the transaction, it makes no difference in principle whether the social surplus-value is monopolized by ten thousand persons or whether it is distributed according to a graduated scale among half a million. The struggle for greater equalization of distribution and for an organization which will insure a more equal distribution is, on that account, not less justified and necessary.”¹ These words are self-contradictory. Bernstein admits that the condition of the lower classes is improving, both in an absolute and a relative sense, and yet he expatiates on the monopolizing of surplus-value in the hands of half a million as against the nine or ten million who are despoiled. Even an acute critic is thus misled by his socialist shibboleths. But is the struggle of the lower classes for a juster distribution not perfectly warranted? We ask in return: On what does Bernstein base his assertion that the present distribution is unjust? Marx used his theory of surplus-value to demonstrate the injustice of the capitalist system, but this theory Bernstein repudiates. How then will he make good his contention that the present distribution of wealth is unjust? At most we may concede that the present altogether too unequal distribution of property smacks of unfairness, and that the endeavor to procure greater equalization is justifiable. But this endeavor alone does not suffice to stamp one as a socialist, otherwise most men would nowadays be socialists.

¹ Die Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus, p. 51.

Why then does Bernstein not confess fairly and squarely that he and his partisans constitute a reform party? He writes indeed: “The influence of social democracy would reach much farther than it does to-day, if it were bold enough to emancipate itself from a phraseology which is actually superannuated, and if it would wish to appear what it nowadays is in reality, namely, a democratic socialist reform party.”¹

¹ Ibid., p. 165.

“A democratic socialist reform party!” What is that supposed to be? Does Bernstein mean by it the “socialization of all the means of production”? On this point we are completely left in the dark. He is of opinion that from the spread of “socialist thought” we may conclude that we are rapidly approaching a time when social democracy is forced to make positive proposals of reform. The aim of these reforms would be the “general application of the principle of trades-unionism.” This again is rather ambiguous. Trades-unionism is far from being a transition to socialism. In the mediæval cities the guilds and corporations were highly developed. Were they, on that account, approaching the socialist society of the future? Not in the least. In fact, strongly organized and exclusive trades-unions would be the safest bulwark against socialism and its levelling, equalizing tendencies.