There is a fundamental difference between Socialism and Anarchism as regards the question of distribution.Socialism, at any rate in most of its forms, would retain payment for work done or for willingness to work, and, except in the case of persons incapacitated by age or infirmity, would make willingness to work a condition of subsistence, or at any rate of subsistence above a certain very low minimum.Anarchism, on the other hand, aims at granting to everyone, without any conditions whatever, just as much of all ordinary commodities as he or she may care to consume, while the rarer com- modities, of which the supply cannot easily be indefinitely increased, would be rationed and divided equally among the population.Thus Anarchism would not impose any OBLIGATIONS of work, though Anarchists believe that the necessary work could be madesufficiently agreeable for the vast majority of the population to undertake it voluntarily.Socialists, on the other hand, would exact work.Some of them would make the incomes of all workers equal, while others would retain higher pay for the work which is considered more valuable.All these different systems are compatible with the common ownership of land and capital, though they differ greatly as regards the kind of society which they would produce.
Socialism with inequality of income would not differ greatly as regards the economic stimulus to work from the society in which we live.Such differences as it would entail would undoubtedly be to the good from our present point of view.Under the existing system many people enjoy idleness and affluence through the mere accident of inheriting land or capital.Many others, through their activities in industry or finance, enjoy an income which is certainly very far in excess of anything to which their social utility entitles them.On the other hand, it often happens that inventors and discoverers, whose work has the very greatest social utility, are robbed of their reward either by capitalists or by the failure of the public to appreciate their work until too late.The better paid work is only open to those who have been able to afford an expensive training, and these men are selected in the main not by merit but by luck.The wage earner is not paid for his willingness to work, but only for his utility to the employer.Consequently, he may be plunged into destitution by causes over which he has no control.Such destitution is a constant fear, and when it occurs it produces undeserved suffering, and often deterioration in the social value of the sufferer.These are a few among the evils of our existing system from the standpoint of production.All these evils we might expect to see remedied under any system of Socialism.
There are two questions which need to be considered when we are discussing how far work requires the economic motive.The first question is: Must society give higher pay for the more skilled or socially more valuable work, if such work is to be done in sufficient quantities? The second question is: Could work be made so attractive that enough of it would be done even if idlers received just as much of the produce of work? The first of these questions concerns the division between two schools ofSocialists: the more moderate Socialists sometimes concede that even under Socialism it would be well to retain unequal pay for different kinds of work, while the more thoroughgoing Socialists advocate equal incomes for all workers.The second question, on the other hand, forms a division between Socialists and Anarchists; the latter would not deprive a man of commodities if he did not work, while the former in general would.
Our second question is so much more fundamental than our first that it must be discussed at once, and in the course of this discussion what needs to be said on our first question will find its place naturally.
Wages or Free Sharing?--``Abolition of the wages system'' is one of the watchwords common to Anarchists and advanced Socialists.But in its most natural sense it is a watchword to which only the Anarchists have a right.In the Anarchist conception of society all the commoner commodities will be available to everyone without stint, in the kind of way in which water is available at present.[41] Advo- cates of this system point out that it applies already to many things which formerly had to be paid for, e.g., roads and bridges.They point out that it might very easily be extended to trams and local trains.They proceed to argue--as Kropotkin does by means of his proofs that the soil might be made indefinitely more productive--that all the commoner kinds of food could be given away to all who demanded them, since it would be easy to produce them in quantities adequate to any possible demand.If this system were extended to all the necessaries of life, everyone's bare livelihood would be secured, quite regardless of the way in which he might choose to spend his time.As for commodities which cannot be produced in indefinite quantities, such as luxuries and delicacies, they also, according to the Anarchists, are to be distributed without payment, but on a system of rations, the amount available being divided equally among the population.No doubt, though this is not said, something like a price will have to be put upon these luxuries, so that a man may be free to choose how he will take his share: one man will prefer good wine, another the finest Havana cigars, another pictures or beautiful furniture.Presumably, every man will be allowed to take such luxuries as are his due in whatever form he prefers, the relative prices being fixed so as to equalize the demand.In such a world as this,the economic stimulus to production will have wholly disappeared, and if work is to continue it must be from other motives.[42]
