THE ECONOMIC LESSON OF THE COMMUNE.
WitT will be the effect of the Communist failure on he social elevation of the masses ? When the pas- sions justly aroused by last week's catastrophe have died away, the motives and objects of an insurrection designed to reorganize society, and its ultimate effect on the real welfare of the masses, will form the chief subjects of interest con- nected with it. Those who are trying to make the Europe of the future more like what they would wish to see it, will have forced on them the question how far their aims are im- peded or promoted by the civil war of Paris and its terrible tragedies. In the midst, therefore, of the hurry and excite- ment of the moment we should like to step aside for a little, and look at the permanent issue which underlies so much of the contest. At first sight, the prospect is somewhat dis- heartening. To take the very simplest view, it is impossible not to see that the destruction and waste of the last few months, and the disruption of business relations, will retard for years the production and accumulation of wealth upon which primarily the material welfare of the masses depends. Before wealth can be distributed, it must exist, and the pro- blem of distributing an average amount of well-being among large industrial communities is not simplified, but the reverse, by a diminution of the aggregate means. Still more will the object in view be at least temporarily hindered by the aggra- vation of political and class animosities through the insurrec- tion itself. We may quite expect at first a more jealous and grasping selfishness on the part of those who possess, at least in a country like France,—coming out in private in a rougher application of the rules of competition, and a more dis- tant intercourse with the " inferiors " employed, and com- ing out in legislation in every kind of restrictive regulation to make capital and property secure, and guard those who possess against another irruption from below. These con- ditions of the problem of elevating the masses are in the highest degree unfavourable. For years, perhaps, it will be uphill work to bring the old questions to the foreground, and it will certainly take some time before the recently existing vantage-ground of accumulating wealth to be distributed, and to employ labourers, is reacquired in France. But it is im-
possible not to see that this is only a superficial aspect of the question. The problem we have stated is not to be shelved by any catastrophes, or the blunders of the workmen them- selves in aiming at a vague and shadowy ideal. If the vices of old societies are not to be stereotyped in modern Europe, if some of the worst phenomena of a slave community are not to be reproduced in a society which consists of impoverished workmen and wealthy employers, then the economic questions which were at the bottom of the insurrection must be again and again taken up, however wide the true solution may be from the ideas and aims of the insurgents.
In reality we believe that the insurrection, notwithstanding the immediate loss to the cause of the masses involved in its defeat, will in the end accelerate, and, if statesmen are wise, ought to accelerate, the end desired. It is the nature of such events as we have just seen to emphasize the ideas associated with them, and give them a compelling power over men's minds most powerful in promoting their acceptance, or the study of the right means of opposing them, in spite of the prejudices they excite. The first French Revolution, with all its horrors, substituted a new society for the old ; even the Revolution of 1848 left a trace of its peculiar ideas behind it, in the vast expenditure on public works which answered some of the objects of "national workshops ;" more recently we have seen how abortive attempts at insurrection in Ireland awakened men's minds to the urgency of measures which were, if anything, not desired by the insurgents, but were the only means possible for meeting the insurrection. In the same way the civil war of the last two months cannot but concentrate poli- tical thought on the vast discontent which bred it, and on the state of education among the masses which gave so much currency to Utopian delusions and aggravated the crimes of the closing scenes. It is of little use to say that the motive- power is only envy,—that in the nineteenth century, notwith- standing better wages and more comfort, the artisans have not got beyond the ideas which produced a Jack Cade rebel- lion. The phenomenon will not be got rid of by hard names, even if it deserves them, and the unstable equilibrium it creates will be a continual source of anxiety. And the actual history of the insurrection, though the insurgents and their allies have temporarily lost power and prestige, will certainly aggravate the discontent and danger. The misery resulting will be a fresh stimulus to passion, while there has been- nothing like the failure of an experiment to make the Socialist doctrine unpopular with reflecting artisans. The Commune, they may say, never had a chance. It had to fight for dear life from the very beginning, and could not get beyond the organization of a camp. The partial socialist experiments that were tried, they may add, were so far not unsuccessful. The whole circumstances of Paris for many months were such as to necessitate a State organization for satisfying the ordinary wants of living, and the organization did not break down. Why not render permanent an arrangement which was possible under the stress of a siege, and which at least bestowed on the artisans of Paris a state of comfort which they had not before enjoyed ? There is thus nothing in the history to create a dis- trust among working-men of the theories to which they have been. prone. The spirit in which the insurrection has been suppressed, as all must recognize, will also aggravate the evil. They were hated, the artisans will say, with a perfect hatred, because the bourgeoisie, the capitalists, the State pensionaries, the gentle- men were eager to get back to their money-getting and luxury, and would not even consider whether a more equal share for all at the banquet of life was not possible. We cannot but conceive, therefore, as most formidable during the next few years the state of mind among the aitizan classes, not only in France itself, but by sympathy throughout the whole continent of Europe. The discontent which bred the insurrection will have been aggravated, and even apart from the interest which the insurrection itself will rouse, should concentrate the thoughts of politicians on the means of averting the calamities involved in the existence of such feelings. No such stimulus should be necessary, but its operation may still be beneficent.
There are also one or two subordinate lessons, but still of great practical importance, taught by the disasters of the Com- mune. One is the inability of attempting to educate the workmen by the enthusiastic advocacy of the hard principles of political economy. Science is, of course, passionless, and. has no likes or dislikes, but the enthusiasm for the present economic system, which is not unnatural among theorists and the men who teach the workmen from above, has a grating effect, for very sufficient reasons, upon the pupils. What the theorist admires, and very justly, is the perfection with which wealth is created and distributed by a complicated and spontaneous machinery, by which millions of human beings are supported upon narrow room, the great majority in an advanced state of civilization compared with the state of much fewer numbers not very many centuries ago. The theorist, too, is apprehensive, and knows that any novel system, if it could ever be tried, will be likely to break down altogether. He may justly say, too, that what the present system accomplishes is nothing to what its triumphs would be were workmen themselves more careful— that they have the game in their own hands even now, and do not need to try any novel experiments. And such views are naturally echoed by successful individuals and classes. But the difficulty is that the pupils to whom this enthusiastic advocacy is applied, are necessarily so placed as to feel the pinch of the failures where the system breaks down, and cannot be expected to take them so philosophically, even if they could hold the wider views as to the difficulty of any system which the theorist entertains. People who may be forced to starve by a new invention which destroys their means of living, or by a commercial crisis, cannot take the present system calmly, and must necessarily give ex- aggerated importance to these failures. No doubt, were they more careful, manyof these failures would be mitigated ; but the imperfections of human nature are a necessary condition of the problem, and because they are imperfect we cannot suppose that the artizans will be any the more content. The late insurrection, therefore, may be taken as a formidable protest against the merely scientific and philosophic way of treating the problems affecting the artizan classes. The causes of the discontent which lighted up so tremendous a conflagration cannot have been slight, and the easy and confident mode of refuting socialist fallacies must be definitely given up. It is significant enough that the explosion should occur in a country where the teaching of orthodox political economy is always given in its hardest form. French economists will hardly make any allowances at all. They have laboured to demon- strate that the system of competition is so perfect as to leave no deficiencies to be supplemented, and they resent with scorn any notion of failure in its working.
A second lesson is the error of the excess of thrift, and jealousy of property-rights, which is the vice of French society. The enthusiastic advocacy of orthodox political economy is perhaps only a form of this social vice, aggravated by the neatness of French logic. Now, whatever may be said for an economic system founded upon competition, it must be admitted to be quite possible for the moral evils of an unscrupulous use of it in all social relations to ex- ceed the material advantages. A society in which there were no cordial relations between classes, no common pursuits, no willing contributions towards common aims, would really be a society full of intestine war ; and it is to be feared both that French society has nearly reached this stage, and that it is a danger of all industrial communities. Different groups become strangers to each other, and their only inter- course may be one of competition, which is apt to take its lowest shape. One corrective to this evil is that of generous giving, and if society is not to be destroyed, other correctives must be found, chiefly, we believe, in the increase of the func- tions of the State, and the extension of its educational and -disciplinary agencies. The end should be that while all classes are socially bound together, competition should come to be viewed mainly as a means of distributing the general wealth of society according to individual tastes, and in proportion to individual efforts, and not as an instrument of avarice or greed.
We conclude, then, that the result of the insurrection must be to give a new life to the problem of the distribution of wealth—that statesmen must seek more earnestly than ever to cover the lamentable failures of the present economic system, whether they are due to defective education or to other causes. The various remedies possible may be undoubtedly combined. Legislation and the general efforts of society in a proper spirit should promote in the masses a disposition to receive the first lesson of political economy, which is the necessary imperfec- tion of any system for so complex a task as the distribution of wealth among imperfect human beings. Nor can it be said that the expedients possible to statesmen for distributing some portion of the whole wealth of a community have been exhausted. None are equal singly or collectively to what prudent work- men could do for themselves, but they will help a little, and as workmen improve the aggregate result in a country of in- creasing wealth may be great. Amongst other means which might be suggested, there is the regulation for the common benefit of natural and artificial monopolies, which has certainly not yet been carried in any community to a tolerable degree of perfection. It would hardly be possibly to over-estimate, for instance, the amount of comfort which would be conferred on the citizens of crowded towns by the improved regulation of the monopolies of soil, water, light, and locomotion. Things which the poor must now purchase dearly on account of defective regulation might be almost as free as air, and a common property which is neglected might be appropriated to the necessary expenditure of the community. Again, while private property remains the rule, a certain class of property which cannot be removed from the country, which possesses an increas- ing monopoly value, may well be the subject of restrictions as to possession and inheritance which would secure to the com- munity generally a portion of that value. In a country of increasing wealth, the common estate should, in fact, be sus- ceptible of almost indefinite increase, and become the means of adding to the enjoyments and comfort of every individual it contains. At present nations are so indebted, that to talk of national property, or a surplus of such property, is absurd, but the astonishing rate at which wealth now increases must make us look forward to a change in the condition of the principal nations. Even as it is, they possess properties which have little saleable value, but are of service to the community, and such properties may at least be increased. It is less im- portant, however, to point out particularexpedients, than to show their possibility. Statesmen will have no excuse in the con- ditions of society, or in the want of means, for neglecting the problems thrust upon them.
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