This is the neglect of political life by wealth and education on one side; and, it might be said, the suspicion of wealth and education as political factors among the populace on another; "The cult of incompetence," a distinguished observer1 calls it in France. This is doubtless due to many causes; among them might be mentioned, however, the necessary control of the politician or statesman by the party machinery and the fact that the average workingman at the polls may believe the candidate most nearly approaching his own financial and intellectual level will best be able to appreciate his political needs. Education, therefore, and wealth, when not used as a means of corruption, seem not only of little advantage in the public life of a Democracy, but may even become a barrier between the industrial masses and men of means and distinction. This seems one tendency with reference to conditions generated in a Democracy. Another tendency, however, of a different nature, may be traced to financial and corporate influence. This tendency results in important official positions such as those of Attorney-General, Speaker, District Attorney, Treasurer, Senator, Judge, Assessor, and so forth being filled by men of attainments of a certain kind, usually of a distinctly legal type: these men being chosen because of their ability or political influence and placed in these specific positions for specific purposes. Through these officials it is possible for the men who supply the party contributions to the "machine" to control the decisions of a Finance Committee, the imposition of taxes, the disposition of public funds, fiscal decisions, the awarding of contracts, subsidies, appropriations, franchises, prosecutions, and receiverships; it is perfectly possible to enact legislation in such a way that legal responsibility may be quashed wherever desired and the control of public funds and fiduciary institutions placed outside the pale of the law; while statutes may, of course, be construed, interpreted, and applied as desired.2

Thus the typical legislative and official body of Democracy seems to absorb the lesser intellectual lights, on one side, to form the bulk of its material; and, on another, to have a few acute and conscious legal elements thrust into it; injected as it were from without, through the party machinery into certain positions for certain purposes. The legislation to be expected from an administrative system constituted in this way, 1 Le Culte de l'Incompetence, par Emile Faguet.

• The student who desires to study Democracy at work could not do better than consult Lincoln Steffens' The Shame of the Cities, or Hendrick's Story of Life Insurance, McClure's, New York. All necessary data and endless specific cases will there be found.

especially with reference to its fiscal and financial decisions, may not seem of a very inspiring nature. If the bulk of the fiscal and financial decisions of the United States is examined, some ground may be found for the opinion of the Chairman of the House Committee on Banking and Currency1 who says "that there is scarcely a law upon our statute books affecting our finances and currency which is clearly and purely the result of economic thought and such as would have passed but for necessity, ignorance or political cowardice."

However, it may seem an injustice to suppose that "necessity, ignorance, and political cowardice" exhaust the resources of such legislative and administrative material. Says Mr. Godkin:2 "Every government has been a rich man's government. It is only in some of the smaller Swiss cantons that departures from this rule have been made. But, as a rule, in democratic societies of our day, government has been transferred to poor men. These poor men find themselves in possession of very great power over rich communities. Through the taxing power rich corporations and rich individuals are at their mercy. They are not restrained by tradition; they are often stimulated by envy or other anti-social passions."

Thus the democratic society, studied in practice, seems to develop three characteristic administrative elements; (1) A relatively poor legislature devoid of distinction, social or intellectual; (2) a party organization in complete control of this legislature, through its control of patronage and the suffrage; (3) the wealth and intelligence of the society largely outside political life. The practical Democracy seems to be a poor and ignorant legislature controlled by party machinery acting as a screen for the wealth and intelligence of the community. What can be, what must be, the results of such a system? Need it be said that practically the important administrative activity of such a society will resolve itself into the dictation of fiscal decisions by organized wealth and the blackmailing of the organized wealth by the politicians? A man who has studied it at first hand for years in the great cities of America suggests the following definition3 of Democracy: "the government of the people, by the rascals, for the rich."

Vox populi, vox dei: It seems that in ninety-nine cases in a hundred vox populi means that a corporation desires a protected market or a

1 Congressman Charles N. Fowler, Address before the Illinois Manufacturers' Association, Chicago, December 10, 1907.

2 Problems of Modern Democracy, p. 301.

• Lincoln Steffens. The Shame of the Cities, p. 103.

legislative enactment; a demagogue seeks popularity, a politician sees an opportunity of levying legalized blackmail; a financial genius, a method of creating millions out of nothing by capitalizing a tax on a vital or industrial requirement: an issue is made, "patriotism" is inflamed, the people are harangued through the orators and the newspapers, the political machinery is set in motion, the measure is passed, and the tongues of the hydra-headed Demos, supposed to echo the voice of the Divinity, have given utterance to their wisdom.

To any one possessing any familiarity with what the words "franchise," "machine," "boss," "contract," "Protection," "taxation," "commercialized vice," mean, in actual fact in a democratic society, there may seem ample reason to believe that Democracy, in its practical aspects, presents all the elements for the establishment of as sodden and sordid an abuse of political power as has ever been invented. As Huxley1 well says: "Up to this time, the progress of such republics as have been established in the world has not been such as to lead to any confident expectation that their foundation is laid on a sufficiently secure subsoil of public spirit, morality, and intelligence. On the contrary, they exhibit examples of personal corruption and of political profligacy, as fine as any hotbed of despotism has ever produced; while they fail in the primary duty of the administration of justice, as none but an effete despotism has ever failed."

The mass of political theory, ancient and modern, may be roughly separated into two broad divisions: the aristocratic and the democratic. The leading writers devoted to the support of Democracy, together with an examination of the actual results produced by aristocratic legislative assemblies, suggest the following definitions of Aristocracy:

Aristocracy a form of government in which a few individuals exploit the resources of a society for their own benefit.

That body of political thought devoted to the support of Aristocracy and the actual conditions generated in democratic societies present grounds for the following definition of Democracy:

Democracy a form of government in which a few individuals exploit the resources of a society for their own benefit.

All that is necessary to reach these conclusions is to study administrative history without prejudice, and above all to look carefully at the facts.

1 Hume, p. 24.

T

CHAPTER IV

NATURAL SOCIETY

HE study of political society in the light of the evolutionary sciences, mathematics, and economic inquiry suggests the following considerations:

I. Progress can apparently be continued but through a selective process demanding the propagation of a species through individuals possessing a more than average development. This process, consequently, requires the death or failure of those below this standard; that is, progress demands the sacrifice of the vital interests of the majority. In a physico-biological sense, therefore, progressive conditions seem opposed to the vital interests of the majority of the individuals concerned, and consequently lacking in any rational claim to their support.

It may be said, however, that human progress is political, not physical, and incapable of being brought within the scope of biological generalizations. Political progress necessarily involves the aggression of one society in relation to other societies. Aggression of this kind necessarily involves in turn the aggression of the progressive society in relation to its own units. This aggression must be based fundamentally upon the subordination of the interests of the majority of individuals to those of the society regarded as a progressive organization. It is, however, impossible to form any rational conception of a society except as an aggregate of individuals. A society based upon this principle, therefore, subverts the interests of the majority of its individuals in order to subvert the interests of another majority of its individuals. This process seems devoid of a rational principle at the beginning and incapable of leading to anything but its own subversion in the end. Progressive political systems, in that they attempt the essentially impossible, that is, the union of the interests of the individual with those of a progressive aggregate, must apparently always sweep round in aimless circles. The history of the constitutional development and final collapse of the progressive societies of the past supports such a position.

It may be said again that progress is neither biological nor political,

but psychological and intellectual; and, as such incapable of being expressed in either biological or political terms. If progress of this kind is subjected to a process of analysis, the ideal sequences presented seem chiefly involved in a series of rings or repetitions. If that accumulation of systematized experience called science is regarded as embodying progress, it seems that science shows, with whatever certainty it possesses, that all progress, in whatever form conceived, must inevitably be lost in the silent chaos of the future, just as man's history is lost in the silent chaos of the past. Compare Part IV.

II. Indirect taxation is a system of raising social revenue by means of levying taxes on consumable goods. Taxes of this nature, in order to be constant and productive, must be assessed upon vital and industrial necessaries. A fiscal system based upon such taxes, as are all existing national systems, is analogous to the direct periodic assessment of incomes in proportion to necessary living expenses. Comparison of the necessary living expenses of an income of £100 with those of an income of £100,000 suggest the practical results of this process. It is obvious that a vastly larger proportion of the smaller incomes will be taxed than of the larger. It may thus seem that the taxation of incomes in proportion to necessary living expenses must draw the smaller incomes of any society into a progressively increasing process of taxation; while creating at the same time a progressively increasing process of exemption and accumulation on the side of the larger fortunes. The result of this process can but create a constant withdrawal of property from the hands of the poor: giving to those who have, and taking from those who have not, even the little they possess. Further considerations and statistical illustrations will be found in Parts II and III.

III. The best economic thought suggests that the suppression of industry is disadvantageous. Taxes upon consumption suppress the industries adversely affected. If the industries supported by taxation are of greater value than untaxed industry, France, England, and the United States should cut themselves up into small protected areas, each taxing the other's goods. But it seems obvious that however small the protected areas might be, they could always be cut into smaller, a process which, carried to its logical conclusion, would lead to the abolition of trade as the surest means of creating wealth. These considerations lead to the opinion that the unsuppressed and untaxed consuming power of any population is worth more in annual earning capacity than the taxed and suppressed consuming power. Compare Part I.