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 COLLECTIVISM

106

COLLECTIVISM

may be judged according to local circumstances to be likely to give scandal or to be attended with danger to souls. The sometimes intricate and deli- cate questions arising from the collection of money by religious when entrusted with quasi-parochial func- tions have been legislated for in the Apostolic Consti- tution "Romanes Pontifices" of 8 May, 1881.

There is a short article s. v. Collecten in the Kirchenlcxikon, but there seems to be no one source of information which brings together in moderate compass the facts tiiscussed above. The reader may, however, be referred for various points to different treatises, of which the following are the most noteworthy: FODR.VERET in Dict. de theot. calh. (19051, s. v. Bicns ccclesias- luiiits: Tbalhoff.r, Liturgik (Freiburg, 1893), Vol. II, Ft. I; GiHH, The Mass (tr. Freiburg. 1902), 496-514; H.idd.v.n. Sctd.*- MORK, and Armfield in Diet. ('hn:.L Aitliq., s. vv. Ahns: Obla- tions: Foot: Scud.\mork. .V..^; I In. 1876), 346sq.; BoNDROiT.OfC'ip'.ci/, I nuvain, 1900); BiEDERLACK, Dr r.nn. ilnns- bruck, 1892); Wernz, ./:/.i /). . r. ■ ""i-^ III, 134 Bq.; Laurentius. InsHtutionc^ Juris Kceh sin.^liei (Freiburg. 1908), 631-657.

Herbert Thurston.

Collectivism. — This terra is sometimes employed as a substitute for socialism. It is of later origin, and is somewhat more precise in use and content. Social- ism, while sufficiently definite in the minds of those who have a right to class themselves as socialists, is frequently employed in a loose way by others. The single-ta.x theory, government ownership of public utilities such as railways and telegraphs, stricter public regulation of industry, and even moderate measures of social reform, are sometimes called social- ism by indi\'iduals and newspapers. Collectivism is scarcely ever used except to designate that system of industry in which the material agents of production would be owned and managed by the public, the collec- tivity. And it usually indicates merely the economic side of socialism, without reference to any philo- sophical, psychological, ethical, or historical assump- tions. Socialism means primarily an ideal industrial order as just described, but it is also quitr- properly used to characterize the entire idealngirni foundation upon which International or Marxian .sdcialists build, as well as the concrete movement that is actively striving for the realization of this ideal order. Hence economic determinism, the class struggle, and the catastrophic concentration of industry would be called socialist rather than collectivist theories. Not- withstanding these advantages of definiteness, the word coUectivisi/i has not been widely employed, even in France and Belgium; nor does it promise to sup- plant the older term in the future.

WTiile collectivism implies the substitution of col- lective for private property in the means of produc- tion, it is susceptible of considerable diversity in its application throughout the realm of industry. One of the most thoroughgoing of the German socialists, Karl Kautsky, in his forecast of what might be expected to happen the day after the industrial revolution, suggests that when the State has taken possession of the capitalistic industries it could sell a portion of them to the labourers who work them, another portion to co-operative associations, another to mtmicipalities, and still another to provincial sub- divisions of the nation (in America, the several States). All industries that had already become monopolized and national in scope would, of course, be operated by the nation, and the national form of industry would probably be the predominant one ultimately. Land would be collectively owned, but not always col- lectively operated. According to Kautsky, the small non-capitalistic farms (embracing by far the greater part of all agricultural land) might well remain in the hands of indivitlual farmers. While not owning the ground that he tilled, and while — in all probability — paying rent to the State in proportion to the value of the land, the small farmer would own and manage his agricultural business, the machinery, seeds, horses, etc., that he used, and the product that he produced.

Thus his position would approximate that of a farmer under the single-tax system. He would not be a

wage-receiver in the employ of the industrial State. Finally there are certain non-agricultural small in- dustries which could continue to be privately owned and managed. This is especially true of those in which hand labour predominates, and which produce for immediate consimiption, for example, the work of barbers, artists, custom-tailors, and dressmakers. Since the supreme aim of collectivism is the abolition of that capitalistic regime which enables one man or one corporation arbitrarily to exploit the labour and the necessities of many men, it obviou.sly does not — in theory at least — imply equal compensation for all individuals, nnrtlir di'st ruction of individual initiative, nor the estalili>liiiirnt of a bureaucratic despotism. Hence the theorctiral possibility of different rates of pay, of many and di\er,se industrial imits, of a con- siderable number of small industries, and of private property in the goods that minister to immediate enjoyment. As the American socialist John Spargo puts it, " we want .social ownership only of those things which cannot be controlled by private owners except as means of exploiting the labour of others and making them bondsmen" (Capitalist and Labor, etc., 120). As in the matter of the ownership and opera- tion of the means of production, so with regard to the ultimate directive power, the governmental functions, collectivism does not theoretically necessitate the des- potic supremacy of a highly centralized State. Indeed, the Continental sociali.sts, who detest the military governments luider which they live, favour decentrali- zation ritliii tlian the opposite; hence so many of them lay >ti-.-^ii|iiin the development of the local polit- ical unit, and thi inevitable increase of provincial and municipal functions in the collectivist State. Their ideal, and the ideal of collectivists generally, is a State organized un industrial lines, in which each industry, whether local or national, and its workers will be sub- stantially autonomous, and in which government of persons will be replaced by an administration of things. From this outline of what may be regarded as the prevailing theory of collectivism, it appears that many of the arg\inicnts against collectivism have lost some- thing of their former strength and pertinency. This is particularly true of those objections which assume a completely centralized management of industry, equal compensation for all workers, and the entire absence of individual initiative in production. On the other hand, the very diversity of industrial direc- tion, the vast scope given to local and provincial autonomy, and the very small part assigned to coer- cive and repressive activity in the collectivist system would undoubtedly prove fatal to its efficiency and stability. To suppose that the local industrial unit, say, the municipal gas works, or the local branch of the national shoe manufacture, could be operated effectively on a basis of complete industrial democ- racy, requires a faith surpassing that of children. The workers would lack the incentive to hard work that comes from fear of discharge, and would be under constant temptation to assume that they were more active and more efficient than their equally paid fellows in other workshops of the same class. Hence sufficient centralization to place the control of indus- try outside of the local unit or branch would seem to be indispensable. This means a combination of industrial and (jolitical power that could easily put an end to freedom of action, speech, and ■nTiting. Since the form of authority would be democratic, the people could no doubt vote such a government out of power; but in the concrete the people means the majority, and a majority might continue for a long series of years to impose intolerable conditions on a minority almost equal in munbers. For collectivism there seems to be no middle ground between ineffi- ciency and despotism. An industrial system which