The Communistic Societies of the United States | Page 4

their members to hatred, indolence, and waste, in
making public the statistics and the possibilities of co-operation, they

would have achieved some positive good.
But while co-operative efforts have generally failed in the United States,
we have here a number of successful Communistic Societies, pursuing
agriculture and different branches of manufacturing, and I have thought
it useful to examine these, to see if their experience offers any useful
hints toward the solution of the labor question. Hitherto very little,
indeed almost nothing definite and precise, has been made known
concerning these societies; and Communism remains loudly but very
vaguely spoken of, by friends as well as enemies, and is commonly a
word either of terror or of contempt in the public prints.
In the following pages will be found, accordingly, an account of the
COMMUNISTIC SOCIETIES now existing in the United States, made
from personal visit and careful examination; and including for each its
social customs and expedients; its practical and business methods; its
system of government; the industries it pursues; its religious creed and
practices; as well as its present numbers and condition, and its history.
It appears to me an important fact that these societies, composed for the
most part of men originally farmers or mechanics--people of very
limited means and education--have yet succeeded in accumulating
considerable wealth, and at any rate a satisfactory provision for their
own old age and disability, and for the education of their children or
successors. In every case they have developed among their membership
very remarkable business ability, considering their original station in
life; they have found among themselves leaders wise enough to rule,
and skill sufficient to enable them to establish and carry on, not merely
agricultural operations, but also manufactures, and to conduct
successfully complicated business affairs.
Some of these societies have existed fifty, some twenty-five, and some
for nearly eighty years. All began with small means; and some are now
very wealthy. Moreover, while some of these communes are still living
under the guidance of their founders, others, equally successful, have
continued to prosper for many years after the death of their original
leaders. Some are celibate; but others inculcate, or at least permit
marriage. Some gather their members into a common or "unitary"
dwelling; but others, with no less success, maintain the family relation
and the separate household.
It seemed to me that the conditions of success vary sufficiently among

these societies to make their histories at least interesting, and perhaps
important. I was curious, too, to ascertain if their success depended
upon obscure conditions, not generally attainable, as extraordinary
ability in a leader; or undesirable, as religious fanaticism or an
unnatural relation of the sexes; or whether it might not appear that the
conditions absolutely necessary to success were only such as any
company of carefully selected and reasonably determined men and
women might hope to command.
I desired also to discover how the successful Communists had met and
overcome the difficulties of idleness, selfishness, and unthrift in
individuals, which are commonly believed to make Communism
impossible, and which are well summed up in the following passage in
Mr. Mill's chapter on Communism:
"The objection ordinarily made to a system of community of property
and equal distribution of the produce, that each person would be
incessantly occupied in evading his fair share of the work, points,
undoubtedly, to a real difficulty. But those who urge this objection
forget to how great an extent the same difficulty exists under the
system on which nine tenths of the business of society is now
conducted. The objection supposes that honest and efficient labor is
only to be had from those who are themselves individually to reap the
benefit of their own exertions. But how small a part of all the labor
performed in England, from the lowest paid to the highest, is done by
persons working for their own benefit. From the Irish reaper or hodman
to the chief justice or the minister of state, nearly all the work of
society is remunerated by day wages or fixed salaries. A factory
operative has less personal interest in his work than a member of a
Communist association, since he is not, like him, working for a
partnership of which he is himself a member. It will no doubt be said
that, though the laborers themselves have not, in most cases, a personal
interest in their work, they are watched and superintended, and their
labor directed, and the mental part of the labor performed, by persons
who have. Even this, however, is far from being universally the fact. In
all public, and many of the largest and most successful private
undertakings, not only the labors of detail, but the control and
superintendence are entrusted to salaried officers. And though the
'master's eye,' when the