There are some charges made against C. which may be brought with at least equal force against the economic and industrial arrangements which now prevail. One of these is that C. does not avail itself sufficiently of the motive of self-interest, in order to obtain from each laborer the best and most conscientious work of which he is capable. If, it is urged, the result of man's industry belongs not to himself solely, but to the whole community of which he is a member, he will not throw the same energy and zeal into his work as he will if everything he produces belongs solely to himself. There can be no doubt of the truth of this statement; self-interest is a force on which industrial machinery chiefly relies for motive power. But it is remarkable that the prevailing system of working for fixed weekly wages checks the play of self-interest in the work man much more completely than it is checked in the communistic society by the fact that the results of the labor of each are shared by all. A workman who is in the receipt of fixed weekly wages has no motive to reach any higher standard of excellence or expedition in his work than such as will prevent him from being discharged for bad work or laziness. It is a complaint constantly heard among employers of labor that the only ambition of the men seems to be the doing the least work possible for their wages. The actual existence of the feeling among workmen is proved by many of the rules of trades' unions—such as that which limits the number of bricks which a hod-man is allowed to carry, and which in one case' forbade the use of wheel-barrows in taking bricks from one spot to another. Thornton's book On Labor gives several examples of the rules adopted by trades' unions to check the tendency which is sometimes found in a workman to exert himself to do his best, and thus show his superiority over his fel lows. "Not besting one's mates" has by several English unions been made a social enactment. Such examples are sufficient to show that the present industrial system does not bring into play the motive force of direct self-interest in stimulating the exer tions of the laborer. In this respect C. would seem at first sight to compare favorably with mere wages-receiving industry; for in a communistic society every man and woman has some direct share, however small, in the result of his or her labor. If more is pro duced, there will be more to receive; and instead of a trade union, every member of which is pledged, under penalties, to work slowly and to watch that his fellow-work men do the same, C. gives to each laborer a direct interest not only in working well himself, but in watching to see that honest and steady work is done by his neighbor. As a matter of fact, the American communistic societies have found no difficulty in enforc ing the habit of careful and regular industry on their members. The American com munists do not as a rule work hard, for they find that they provide for all the wants of the community without excessive or exhausting toil; but there arc no idle members; every one works well and steadily while he is working. That the quality of their work is good is proved by the fact that their commercial reputation stands very high. The garden seeds of the Shakers, and their brooms, have been celebrated all over the United States for their excellence. " The Oneida perfectionists established the reputation of their silk twist in the market by giving accurate weight and sound material; the woolen stuffs of Amnia command a constant market, because they are well and honestly made; and in general they (the communists) have a reputation for honesty and fair dealing among their neighbors wherever their products arc bought and sold." It should, how ever, be remembered that a few successful communists afford no test of what would be the effect of a general adoption of C. on industrial activity and efficiency. In the United States there are only about 5,000 communists, children included; and though there are eight different societies, these are divided into 72 separate communities, the Shakers alone having 58. Ou an average, each community consists of less than 70 persons. The elaborate despotism of communistic government, together with the minute surveillance which the small size of these communities renders possible, makes it easy for the leaders to exact from each member his quota of toil; idleness would be at once detected, and would not be suffered to exist, as the power of expelling an idle member would be resorted to if the voice of public opinion were not sufficient to induce him to mend his ways. Similar means of detecting and preventing idleness would be completely absent if C. were generally adopted. There would, of course, in this ease be no power of expelling an idle member, and the difficulty of detecting and proving to the central authorities a disposition on the part of any of the members to avoid a fair share of work would increase step by step with the increase of the size of the community. The motive of self-interest in promoting good work is much more powerful in a small communistic society than in a large one. A man can appreciate the value of his own industry much more clearly if the resulting product is shared between 30 or 40 persons, every one of whom is known to him, than he can if it were thrown into the common stock of 20,000 people. The weakening of the motive of self-interest which is inherent in C. is reduced to a minimum in small communities; but it would act with fatal results to industrial activity if there should ever be an attempt to make C. universal. For much as the present sys tem falls short of making the most of the great engine of self-interest among those who merely work for wages, there is no such feature among the other industrial classes. Capitalists, land-owners, inventors, traders, members of partnerships, members of co-op erative societies, all are brought under the stimulating influence of self-interest, and thus devote themselves to industrial projects with a zeal completely and necessarily unknown among those who work for wages, or those who are members of communistic societies. It is a special feature of co-operation that it brings the motive of self-interest
into activity among manual laborers without attempting, as C. does, to overthrow all existing economic institutions. It takes these as they are, and men and women as they are, and suggests a means by which the laborer, no less than the capitalist, can be stimulated by direct self-interest to throw some energy and enthusiasm into his work.
While it has built up co-operation, C. as a system has been a signal failure. In France, the names of St. Simon, Fourier, Hazard, and Enfantin are synonymous with disaster. In England the name of Owen recalls the brief existences of Harmony ball and Orbiston, the establishment of the labor exchange and the issue of labor notes, and a number of other schemes which raised great hopes and expectations that were doomed to speedy disappointment. In the United States the success of C., such as it is, is hardly more encouraging than its failure in Europe. The measure of material prosperity achieved is not very considerable, bearing in mind the length of time most of the societies have existed and the ease and cheapness with which unoccupied land can be obtained. Nordhoff estimates the capitalized wealth of the 72 American communities at A2,000, 000. They own from 150,000 to 130,000 acres, or about 36 acres to each person; they possess sonic of the most fertile soil in the world; one of the Shaker villages owns a magnificent estate of 4,500 acres lying in the famous Miami valley, a soil much of which is so fertile that after 60 years of cropping it will still yield from 60 to 70 bushels of corn to the acre without manuring. The material condition of the inhabitants of the communistic villages compares favorably, no doubt, with that of the German peasant by whom the majority of American communes were originally started; but the monot ony, the personal submission, time impossibility of privacy or temporary seclusion. the absence of anything like intellectual activity in these societies, would render the life well-nigh unbearable to people who had been previously accustomed to a higher standard of happiness than that at present within the reach of the ordinary day laborer. Many communistic experiments in the United States have been unsuccessful. Noyes, in his book on American Socialism, gives brief histories of no less than 47 of these failures. Comparing the histories of those societies which have died a natural death with that of those which have continued to exist, it is found that the successful societies had no advantage either in the wealth of their members or the intellectual ability of their leaders. Most of the successful societies began poor; most of the unsuccessful societies began with what were believed t.,t be sufficient means to achieve success. Many of the unsuccessful societies were founded by high-minded, highly cultivated men and women, and their members were distinguished for education and intellectual attain ments. From these facts, and with ample means through personal experience for forming a correct opinion, Mr. Nordhoff draws the conclusion that in a communistic experiment success depends upon a feeling among all the members "of the unbearable ness of the circumstances" in which their lives were originally cast. They must have •suffered from wrong and oppression, as well as from want, before C. can appear as a welcome change in their manner of life. Hence the poorer and more narrow and miser able the condition of the people who start a communistic experiment the more likely it is under judicious leaders to succeed. People are easily satisfied when almost any change in their lives must be for the better. It would be undesirable to detract from the achievement of the American communes in raising the poorest and most miserable to a degree of material prosperity which compares with that of well-to-do small farmers in any country. This is no small feat; as they have also proved the possibility of put ting C. into practical forms at least on a small scale, and under exceptionally favorable economic conditions. But it is impossible to doubt that their practical value to the world has been in illustrating the limitations and drawbacks of the system. As long as C. remained an unexplored region given over to the dreamers of dreams and the seers of visions, it was impossible to prove that it did not possess all the marvelous perfec tions which they fondly. Attributed to it. The American societies offer a life which is confessedly attractive only to those whose original circumstances are exceptionally unfortunate. To those, C. can give, together with a congenial religious atmosphere, material prosperity of a humble type, accompanied by the sacrifice of individuality, liberty. privacy, and intellectual development. It can hardly be denied that these experiments prove that, even were C. on a large scale practically possible, it would never satisfy, the, aspirations of those who look for a time when increased material prosperity among the working classes, shall be accompanied by a corresponding increase of intel lectual activity, political respOnsibility, and personal independence. Time old form of society seems more favorable than C. to the growth of these qualities; and it is probable that the experiments in the United States may help to establish the conviction among economic revolutionists that more can be accomplished by grafting new institutions, such as co-operation, on the old plan of private property than can be achieved by root ing it up altogether and planting the seedling of C. in its stead. [Portions of this article are taken, with some modifications, from Encyclopcedia Brittanica, ninth edition.]