NEVOLENT 
 UDALISM. 
 
 phlet No. 2. 
 
THE NEXT STEP: 
 
 A. 
 
 Benevolent Feudalism. 
 
 BY W. J. GHENT. 
 
 Published by 
 THE COLLECTIVIST SOCIETY, 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 May, 1902, 
 
I 
 
 f 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 It is generally conceded that the 
 regime of free competition is over. In- 
 dustry is being systematized and unified 
 on a constantly enlarging scale. The 
 future form of production becomes there- 
 fore a matter of absorbing interest tO' all 
 thinking citizens. 
 
 The writer of our first pamphlet, " So- 
 cialism and Collectivism," holds that the 
 next form will be national co-operation. 
 The present pamphlet presents a startling 
 alternative. 
 
 It lies with the popular mandate to de- 
 termine which of two powerful tenden- 
 cies is to be supported — the one making 
 for Industrial Democracy and the other 
 making for Industrial Oligarchy. 
 
 Some comment on Mr. Ghent's article 
 will be found in an addendum (pages 
 31-32). The Collect: VIST Society. 
 
 Previous issue in this series: 
 
 No. I. An Exposition of Socialism and 
 Collectivism." By a Churchman. 51 
 pages. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2015 
 
 https://archive.org/detajls/nextstepbenevoleOOghen 
 
THE NEXT STEP: 
 
 A Benevolent Feudalism/^ 
 
 BY W. J. GHENT. 
 npHE next distinct stage in the socio- 
 
 economic evolution of America 
 
 may be something entirely differ- 
 ent from any of the forms usually pre- 
 dicted. Anarchist prophecies are, of 
 course, futile ; and the Tolstoyan Utopia 
 of a return to primitive production, with 
 its prodigal waste of effort and conse- 
 quent impoverishment of the race, allures 
 but few minds. The Kropotkinian 
 dream of a communistic union of shop 
 industry and agriculture is of a like type ; 
 and well-nigh as barren are the Neo-Jef- 
 fersonian visions of a general revival of 
 small-farm and small-shop production 
 and the dominance of a middle-class 
 democracy. The orthodox economists, 
 with their notions of a slightly modified 
 Individualism, wherein each unit secures 
 the just reward of his capacity and serv- 
 ice, are but worshiping an image which 
 
 *Reprinted, hy courtesy of the editors, from The Inde- 
 pendent^ of April 3, 1902. \The Independent^ a weekly 
 magazine : New York, 130 Fulton St.] 
 
4 
 
 they have created out of their books, and 
 which has no real counterpart in life ; and 
 finally, the Marxists, who predict the 
 establishment of a co-operative common- 
 wealth, are, to say the least, too sanguine 
 in foreshortening the time of its triumph. 
 Whatever the more distant future may 
 bring to pass, there is but little evidence 
 to prove that collectivism will be the next 
 status of society. Rather, that coming 
 status, of which the contributing forces 
 are now energetically at work and of 
 which the first phases are already plainly 
 observable, will be something in the na- 
 ture of a Benevolent Feudalism. 
 
 That the concentration of capital and 
 the increase of individual holdings of 
 wealth will continue is almost unani- 
 mously conceded. Forty years ago Marx 
 laid down the formula of capitalist ac- 
 cumulation which has ever since been a 
 fixed article of creed with the orthodox 
 Socialists. " One capitalist always kills 
 many " is its central maxim. And only 
 recently Prof. John B. Clark, doubtless 
 our most distinguished representative of 
 the orthodox economists, declared, in the 
 pages of The Independent, that 
 
 the world of the near future . . . will 
 present a condition of vast and ever-growing 
 inequality. . . . The rich will continually 
 grow richer, and the multi-millionaires will ap- 
 proach the billion-dollar standard." 
 
5 
 
 It is a view that needs no particular but- 
 tressing of authority, for it is held by 
 most of those who seriously scan the out- 
 look. 
 
 There are, it is not to be disputed, cer- 
 tain tendencies and data which apparent- 
 ly conflict with this view. There is a 
 marked persistence, and in some cases a 
 growth, of small-unit farming and of 
 small-shop production and distribution. 
 This tendency is strongly insisted upon 
 by Prince Kropotkin and by the German 
 Socialist Bernstein, and is conceded, 
 tho cautiously, by a number of other 
 radicals, among them the Belgian So- 
 cialist Vandervelde. That it is a real 
 tendency seems unquestioned on the face 
 of the figures from Germany, France, 
 England and Belgium ; and it is not un- 
 likely that further confirmation will be 
 found in the detailed reports of the last 
 United States census. Furthermore, the 
 great commercial combinations are not 
 necessarily a proof of individual increase 
 of wealth. Often, perhaps generally, 
 they result in this individual increase; 
 but the two things are not inevitably re- 
 lated. These combinations are generally, 
 as William Graham pointed out nearly 
 twelve years ago, a massing together of 
 separate portions of capital, small, great 
 and moderate — a union of capitals for 
 a common purpose while still Separately 
 
6 
 
 owned. Lipton's great company, for in- 
 stance, has over 62,000 shareholders ; and 
 many of America's most powerful com* 
 binations are built up out of a multitude 
 of small and moderate holdings. 
 
 But tho these facts and tendencies K 
 admitted, they do not really affect tlx 
 foregoing generalization. The drift to- 
 ward small-unit production and distri- 
 bution in certain lines argues no growth 
 of economic independence. On the con- 
 trary, it is attended by a constant pres- 
 sure and constraint. The more the great 
 combinations increase their power, the 
 greater is the subordination of the small 
 concerns. They may, for one reason or 
 another, find it possible, and even fairly 
 profitable, to continue; but they will be 
 more and more confined to particular ac- 
 tivities, to particular territories, and in 
 time to particular methods, all dictated 
 and enforced by the pressure of the 
 larger concerns. The petty tradesmen 
 and producers are thus an economically 
 dependent class ; and their dependence in- 
 creases with the years. In a like posi- 
 tion, also, are the owners of small and 
 moderate holdings in the trusts. The 
 larger holdings — often the single largest 
 holding — determines the rules of the 
 game; the smaller ones are either ac- 
 quiescent, or if recalcitrant, are power- 
 less to enforce their will. Especially is 
 
7 
 
 this true in America, where the head of a 
 corporation is often an absolute ruler, 
 who determines not only the policy of the 
 enterprise, but the personnel of the board 
 of directors. 
 
 The tendencies thus make, on the one 
 hand, toward the centralization of vast 
 power in the hands of a few men — the 
 morganization of industry, as it were— 
 and on the other, toward a vast increase 
 in the number of those who compose the 
 economically dependent classes. The lat- 
 ter number is already stupendous. The 
 laborers and mechanics were long ago 
 brought under the yoke through their 
 divorcement from the land and the appli- 
 cation of steam to factory operation. 
 They are economically unfree except in 
 so far as their organizations make pos- 
 sible a collective bargaining for wages 
 and hours. The growth of commerce 
 raised up an enormous class of clerks and 
 helpers, perhaps the most dependent class 
 in the community. The growth and par- 
 tial diffusion of wealth in America has 
 in fifty years largely altered the char- 
 acter of domestic service and increased 
 the number of servants many fold. Rail- 
 road pools and farm-implement trusts 
 have drawn a tightening cordon about 
 the farmers. The professions, too, have 
 felt the change. Behind many of our 
 important newspapers are private com- 
 
8 
 
 mercial interests which dictate their gen- 
 eral policy, if not, as is frequently the 
 case, their particular attitude upon every 
 public question; while the race for en- 
 dowments made by the greater number 
 of the churches and by all colleges ex- 
 cept a few State-supported ones, compels 
 a cautious regard on the part of synod 
 and faculty for the wishes, the views and 
 prejudices of men of great wealth. To 
 this growing deference of preacher, 
 teacher and editor is added that of two 
 yet more important classes — the makers 
 and the interpreters of law. The record of 
 legislation and judicial interpretation re- 
 garding slavery previous to the Civil 
 War has been paralleled in recent years 
 by the record of legislatures and courts 
 in matters relating to the lives and health 
 of manual workers, especially in such 
 cases as employers' liability and factory 
 inspection. Thus, with a great addition 
 to the number of subordinate classes, 
 with a tremendous increase of their in- 
 dividual components, and with a corre- 
 sponding growth of power in the hands 
 of a few score magnates, there is needed 
 little further to make up a socio-economic 
 status that contains all the essentials of 
 a renascent feudalism. 
 
 It is, at least in its beginning, less a 
 personal than a class feudalism. History 
 may repeat itself, as the adage runs ; but 
 
9 
 
 not by identical forms and events. The 
 great spirals of evolutionary progress 
 carry us for a time back to the general 
 direction of older journeyings, but not to 
 the well-worn pathways themselves. The 
 old feudalism exacted faithful service, 
 industrial and martial, from the under- 
 ling; protection and justice from the 
 overlord. It is not likely that personal 
 fidelity, as once known, can ever be re- 
 stored: the long period of dislodgment 
 from the land, the diffusion of learn- 
 ing, the exercise of the franchise, and 
 the training in individual effort have left 
 a seemingly unbridgeable chasm between 
 the past and the present forms. But 
 tho personal fidelity, in the old sense, is 
 improbable, group fidelity, founded upon 
 the conscious dependence of a class, is al- 
 ready observable, and it grows apace. 
 Out of the sense of class dependence 
 arises the extreme deference which we 
 yield, the rapt homage which we pay — 
 not as individuals, but as units of a class 
 — to the men of wealth. We do not 
 know them personally, and we have no 
 sense of personal attachment. But in 
 most things we grant them priority. We 
 send them or their legates to the Senate 
 to make our laws; we permit them to 
 name our administrators and our judi- 
 ciary; we listen with eager attention to 
 their utterances and we abide by their 
 
10 
 
 judgment. Not always, indeed; for some 
 of us grumble at times and ask angrily 
 where it will all end. We talk threaten- 
 ingly of instituting referendums to curb 
 excessive power ; of levying income taxes, 
 or of compelling the Government to ac- 
 quire the railroads and the telegraphs. 
 We subscribe to newspapers and other 
 publications which criticise the acts of 
 the great corporations, and we hail as a 
 new Gracchus the ardent reformer who 
 occasionally comes forth for a season to 
 do battle for the popular cause. But this 
 revolt is, for the most part, sentimental ; 
 it is a mental attitude but rarely trans- 
 mutable into terms of action. It is,^ more- 
 over, sporadic and flickering; it dies out 
 after a time, and we revert to our usual 
 moods, concerning ourselves with our 
 particular interests and letting the rest 
 of the world wag as it will. 
 
 The new feudalism is thus character- 
 ized by a class dependence rather than by 
 a personal dependence. But it diflfers in 
 still other respects from the old. It is 
 qualified and restricted, and by agencies 
 hardly operative in medieval times. ^ De- 
 mocracy tends to restrain it, and ethics to 
 moralize it. Tho it has its birth and nur- 
 ture out of the rough and unsocialized 
 barbarians of wealth," in Mr. Henry D. 
 Lloyd's phrase, its youth and maturity 
 promise a modification of character. 
 More and more it tends to become a be- 
 
II 
 
 nevolent feudalism. On the ethical side 
 it is qualified by a growing and diffusive 
 sense of responsibility and of kinship. 
 The principle of the trusteeship of great 
 wealth " having found lodgment, like a 
 seed, in the erstwhile barren soil of mam- 
 monism, has become a flourishing 
 growth. The enormous benefactions 
 for social purposes, which have been 
 common of late years, and which in 1901 
 reached a total of $107,000,000, could 
 come only from men and women who 
 have been taught to feel an ethical duty 
 to society. It is a duty, true enough, 
 which is but dimly seen and imperfectly 
 fulfilled. The greater part of these 
 benefactions is directed to purposes 
 which have but a slight or indirect bear- 
 ing upon the relief of social distress, the 
 restraint of injustice, or the mitigation 
 of remediable hardships. The giving is 
 even often economically false, and if car- 
 ried to an extreme would prove disas- 
 trous to the community; for in many 
 cases it is a transmutation of wealth 
 from a status of active capital, wherein 
 it makes possible a greater diffusion of 
 comfort, to a status of comparative 
 sterility. But, tho often mistaken as is 
 the conception and futile the fulfilment 
 of this duty, the fact that it is appre- 
 hended at all is one of far-reaching im- 
 portance. 
 
 The limitation which democracy puts 
 
12 
 
 Upon the new feudalism is also impor- 
 tant. For democracy will endure, in 
 spite of the new order. Like death/' 
 said Disraeli, it gives back nothing." 
 Something of its substance it gives back, 
 it must be confessed; for it permits the 
 most serious encroachments upon its 
 rights; but of its outer forms it yields 
 nothing, and thus it retains the poten- 
 tiality of exerting its will in whatever 
 direction it may see fit. And this fact, 
 tho now but feebly recognized by the 
 feudal barons, will be better understood 
 by them as time runs on, and they will 
 bear in mind the limit of popular pa- 
 tience. It is an elastic limit, of a truth ; 
 for the mass of mankind, as both Ham- 
 let and Thomas Jefferson observed, are 
 more ready to endure known ills than to 
 fly to others that they know not. It is 
 a limit which, to be heeded, needs only 
 to be carefully studied. Macaulay's fa- 
 mous dictum, that the privileged classes, 
 when their rule is threatened, always 
 bring about their own ruin by making 
 further exactions, is likely, in this case, 
 to prove untrue. A wiser forethought 
 begins to prevail among the autocrats of 
 to-day — a forethought destined to^ grow 
 and expand and to prove of inestimable 
 value when bequeathed to their succes- 
 sors. Our nobility will thus temper 
 their exactions to an endurable limit; 
 and they will distribute benefits to a de- 
 
13 
 
 gree that makes a tolerant, if not a sat- 
 isfied people. They may even make a 
 working principle of Bentham's maxim, 
 and after, of course, appropriating the 
 first and choicest fruits of industry to 
 themselves, may seek to promote the 
 " greatest happiness of the greatest num- 
 ber." For therein will lie their greater 
 security. 
 
 Of the particular forms which this 
 new feudalism will take there ^ are al- 
 ready numerous indications which fur- 
 nish grounds for more or less confident 
 prediction. All societies evolve natur- 
 ally out of their predecessors. In so- 
 ciology, as in biology, there is no cell 
 without a parent cell. The society of 
 each generation develops a multitude of 
 spontaneous and acquired variations, 
 and out of these, by a blending process 
 of natural and conscious selection, the 
 succeeding society is evolved. The new 
 feudalism is but an orderly outgrowth of 
 past and present tendencies and condi- 
 tions. 
 
 Unlike the old feudalism it is not con- 
 fined to the country. Qualified in cer- 
 tain respects tho it be, it has yet a far 
 wider province and scope of action. The 
 great manorial estates now being created 
 along the banks of the Hudson, along 
 the shores of Long Island Sound and 
 Lake Michigan, are but its pleasure 
 places — its Sans Soucis, its Bagatelles. 
 
14 
 
 For from bemg the foundation of its 
 revenues, as were the estates of the old 
 feudalism, these are the prodigally ex- 
 pensive playthings of the new. The oil 
 wells, the mines, the grain fields, the for- 
 ests and the great thoroughfares of the 
 land are its ultimate sources of revenue ; 
 but its strongholds are in the cities. It 
 is in these centers of activity, with their 
 warehouses, where the harvests are 
 hoarded; their workshops, where the 
 metals and woods are fashioned into ar- 
 ticles of use; their great distributing 
 houses; their exchanges; their enor- 
 mously valuable franchises to be had for 
 the asking or the seizing, and their pres- 
 sure of population, which forces an hour- 
 ly increase in the exorbitant value of 
 land, that the new feudalism finds the 
 field best adapted for its main opera- 
 tions. 
 
 Bondage to the land was the basis of 
 villeinage in the old regime; bondage to 
 the job will be the basis of villeinage in 
 the new. The wage-system will endure, 
 for it is an incomparably simpler means 
 of determining the baron's volume of 
 profits than were the boon-works," the 
 ^ week- works '' and the corvees of old. 
 But with increasing concentradon on 
 the one hand, and the fiercer competi- 
 tion for employment on the other, the 
 secured job will become the laborer's 
 fortress, which he will hardly dare to 
 
15 
 
 evacuate. The hope of bettering his 
 condition by surrendering one place in 
 the expectation of getting another will 
 be qualified by a restraining prudence. 
 He will no longer trust his individual 
 strength, but will protest against ill con- 
 ditions, or, in the last resort, strike, only 
 in company with a formidable host of 
 his fellows. And even the collective as- 
 sertion of his demands will be restrained 
 more and more as he considers recur- 
 ring failures of his efforts such as that 
 of the recent steel strike. Moreover, 
 concentration gives opportunity for an 
 almost indefinite extension of the black- 
 list: a person of offensive activity may 
 be denied work in every feudal shop and 
 on every feudal farm from one end of 
 the country to the other. He will be a 
 hardy and reckless industrial villein in- 
 deed who will dare incur the enmity of 
 the Duke of the Oil Trust when he 
 knows that his actions will be promptly 
 communicated to the banded autocracy 
 of dukes, earls and marquises of the 
 steel, coal, iron, window glass, lumber 
 and traffic industries. 
 
 Of the three under classes of the old 
 feudalism — sub-tenants, cotters and vil- 
 leins — the first two are already on the 
 ground, and the last is in process of res- 
 toration. But the vast complexity of 
 modern society specializes functions, 
 and for the new feudalism still other 
 
i6 
 
 classes are required. It is a difficult 
 task properly to differentiate these class- 
 es. They shade off almost impercepti- 
 bly into one another; and the dynamic 
 processes of modern industry often hurl, 
 in one mighty convulsion, great bodies 
 of individuals from a higher to a lower 
 class, blurring or obscuring the lines of 
 demarcation. Nevertheless, to take a 
 figure from geology, these convulsions 
 become less and less frequent as the sub- 
 stratum of industrial processes becomes 
 more fixed and regular; the classes be- 
 come more stable and shov^ more dis- 
 tinct differences, and they will tend, un- 
 der the new regime, to the formal insti- 
 tution of graded caste. At the bottom 
 are the wastrels, at the top the barons; 
 and the gradation, when the new regime 
 shall have become fully developed, 
 whole and perfect in its parts, will be 
 about as follows: 
 
 I. The barons, graded on the basis of 
 possessions. 
 
 II. The courtiers and court-agents. 
 
 III. The workers in pure and applied 
 science, artists and physicians. The 
 new feudalism, like most autocracies, 
 will foster not only the arts, but also cer- 
 tain kinds of learning — particularly the 
 kinds which are unlikely to disturb the 
 minds of the multitude. A future 
 Marsh or Cope or Le Conte will be lib- 
 erally patronized and left free to dis- 
 
17 
 
 cover what he will ; and so, too, an Edi- 
 son or a Marconi. Only they must not 
 meddle with anything relating to social 
 science. For obvious reasons, ^ also, 
 physicians will occupy a position of 
 honor and comparative freedom under 
 the new regime, 
 
 IV. The entrepreneurs, the managers 
 of the great industries, transformed into 
 a salaried class. 
 
 V. The foremen and superintendents. 
 This class has heretofore been recruited 
 largely from the skilled workers, but with 
 the growth of technical education in 
 schools and colleges and the development 
 of fixed caste, it is likely to become en- 
 tirely differentiated. 
 
 VI. The villeins of the cities and 
 towns, more or less regularly employed, 
 who do skilled work and are partially 
 protected by organization. 
 
 VII. The villeins of the cities and 
 towns who do unskilled work and are 
 unprotected by organization. They will 
 comprise the laborers, domestics and 
 clerks. 
 
 VIII. The villeins of the manorial es- 
 tates, of the great farms, the mines and 
 the forests. 
 
 IX. The small-unit farmers (land own- 
 ing), the petty tradesmen and manufac- 
 turers. 
 
 X. The sub-tenants on the manorial es- 
 
i8 
 
 tates and great farms (corresponding to 
 the class of free tenants'' in the old 
 feudalism). 
 
 XL The cotters, living in isolated 
 places and on the margin of cultivation. 
 
 XIL The tramps, the occasionally em- 
 ployed, the unemployed — the wastrels of 
 city and country. 
 
 This, then, is the table of socio-indus- 
 trial rank leading down from the feuda- 
 tory barons. It is a classification open, of 
 course, to amendment. The minor share- 
 holders, it may be suggested, are not pro- 
 vided for; and certain other omissions 
 might be named. But it is not possible to 
 anticipate every detail; and, as for the 
 small shareholders, who now occupy a 
 v/ide range, from comparative poverty to 
 comparative affluence, it seems likely that 
 the complete development of the new 
 regime will practically eliminate them. 
 Other critics, furthermore, will object to 
 the basis of gradation. The basis em- 
 ployed is not relative wealth, a test which 
 nine out of ten persons would unhesitat- 
 ingly apply in social classification; it is 
 not comparative earning capacity, eco- 
 nomic freedom, nor intellectual ability. 
 Rather, it is the relative degree of com- 
 fort—material, moral and intellectual— 
 which each class contributes to the nobil- 
 ity. The wastrels contribute least, and 
 they are the lowest. The foremen, super- 
 
19 
 
 intendents and entrepreneurs contribute 
 most of the purely material comfort, and 
 their place is correspondingly high. But 
 higher yet is the rank of the courtiers and 
 court agents, the legates and nuncios. This 
 class will include the editors of respect- 
 able and safe newspapers, the pas- 
 tors of "conservative'' and wealthy " 
 churches, the professors and' teachers in 
 endowed colleges and schools, lawyers 
 generally, and most judges and politi- 
 cians. During the transition period 
 there will be a gradual elimination of the 
 more unserviceable of these persons, with 
 the result that in the end this class will be 
 largely transformed. The individual se- 
 curity of place and livelihood of its mem- 
 bers will then depend on the harmony of 
 their utterances and acts with the wishes 
 of the great nobles ; and so long as they 
 rightly fulfil their functions their recom- 
 pense will be generous. They will be at 
 once the assuagers of popular suspicion 
 and discontent and the providers of 
 moral and intellectual anodynes for the 
 barons. Such of them, however, as have 
 not the tact or fidelity to do or say what 
 is expected of them will be promptly 
 forced into class XI or XII, or, in ex- 
 treme cases, banished from all classes, to 
 become the wretched pariahs of society. 
 
 Through all the various activities of 
 these populous classes (except the last) 
 our Benevolent Feudalism will carry on 
 
20 
 
 the nation's work. Its operations will 
 begin with the land, whence it extracts 
 the raw material of commerce. It is just 
 at this stage of its workings that it will 
 differ most from the customary forms of 
 the old. The cotters will be pushed further 
 back into isolation, and the sub-tenants 
 will be confined to the grubbing away at 
 their ill-recompensed labors. It is with 
 the eighth class, the villeins of farm 
 and wood and mine, that we have here to 
 deal. The ancient ceremony of hom- 
 age," the swearing of personal fidelity to 
 the lord, is transformed into that of the 
 beseeching of the foreman for work. The 
 wage system, with its mechanical simplic- 
 ity, continuing in force, there is an ab- 
 sence of the old exactions of special work 
 from the employed villein. A mere alter- 
 ing of the wage scale appropriates to the 
 great noble whatever share of the product 
 he feels he may safely demand for him- 
 self. Thus week-work,'' the three or 
 four days' toil in each week which the vil- 
 lein had to give unrecompensed to the 
 lord, and " boon-work," the several days 
 of extra toil three or four times a year, 
 will never be revived. Even the company 
 store, the modern form of feudal exac- 
 tion, will in time be given up, for at best 
 it is but a clumsy and offensive make- 
 shift, and defter and less irritating means 
 are at hand for reaching the same result. 
 
21 
 
 There will hardly be a restoration of re- 
 lief," the payment of a year's dues on in- 
 heriting an allotment of land, or of 
 heriot," the payment of a valuable gift 
 from the possessions of a deceased rela- 
 tive. Indeed, these tithes may not be 
 worth the bother of collecting; for the 
 villein's inheritance will probably be but 
 moderate, as befits his state and the place 
 which God and the nobility have ordained 
 for him. 
 
 The raw materials gathered, the scene 
 of operations shifts from the country to 
 the cities and great towns. But many of 
 the latter will lose, during the transition 
 period, a considerable part of their 
 greatness, from the shutting up of need- 
 less factories and the concentration of 
 production in the larger workshops. 
 There will thus be large displacements 
 of labor, and for a time a wide extension 
 of suffering. Popular discontent will nat- 
 urally follow, and it will be fomented, to 
 some extent, by agitation ; but the agita- 
 tion will be guarded in expression and ac- 
 tion, and it will be relatively barren of re- 
 sult. The possible danger therefrom will 
 have been provided against, and a host of 
 economists, preachers and editors will be 
 ready to show indisputably that the evo- 
 lution taking place is for the best interests 
 of all ; that it follows a " natural and in- 
 evitable law ; " that those who have been 
 
22 
 
 thrown out of work have only their own 
 incompetency to blame ; that all who real- 
 ly want work can get it, and that any in- 
 terference wnth the prevailing regime will 
 be sure to bring on a panic, which will 
 only make matters worse. Hearing this, 
 the multitude will hesitatingly acquiesce 
 and thereupon subside ; and tho occasion- 
 ally a radical journal or a radical agitator 
 will counsel revolt, the mass will remain 
 quiescent. Gradually, too, by one method 
 or another, sometimes by the direct action 
 of the nobility, the greater part of the dis- 
 placed workers w411 find some means of 
 getting bread, while those who cannot 
 will be eliminated from the struggle and 
 cease to be a potential factor for trouble. 
 
 In its general aspects shop industry 
 will be carried on much as now. Only the 
 shops will be very much larger, the indi- 
 vidual and total output will be greater, 
 the unit cost of production will be less- 
 ened. Wages and hours will for a time 
 continue on something like the present 
 level; but, despite the persistence of the 
 unions, no considerable gains in behalf of 
 labor are to be expected. The owners of 
 all industry worth owning, the barons 
 will laugh at threats of striking and boy- 
 cotting. No competitor can possibly make 
 capital out of the labor disputes of an- 
 other, for there will be no competitors, 
 actual or potential. What the barons will 
 
23 
 
 most dread will be the collective assertion 
 of the villeins at the polls ; but this, from 
 experience, they will know to be a thing 
 of no immediate danger. By the putting 
 forward of a hundred irrelevant issues 
 they can hopelessly divide the voters at 
 each election ; or, that failing, there is al- 
 ways to be trusted as a last resort the cry 
 of impending panic. 
 
 Practically all industry will be regu- 
 lated in terms of wages, and the entre- 
 preneurs, who will then have become the 
 chief salaried officers of the nobles, will 
 calculate to a hair the needful production 
 for each year. Waste and other losses 
 will thus be reduced to a minimum. A 
 vast scheme of exact systematization will 
 have taken the place of the old free com- 
 petition, and industry will be carried on 
 as by clockwork. 
 
 Gradually a change will take place in 
 the aspirations and conduct of the young- 
 er generations. Heretofore there has been 
 at least some degree of freedom of choice 
 in determining one's occupation, however 
 much that freedom has been curtailed by 
 actual economic conditions. But with the 
 settling of industrial processes comes 
 more and more constraint. The dream 
 of the children of the farms to escape 
 from their drudgery by migrating to the 
 city, and from the stepping stone of a 
 clerkly place at $3 a week to rise to af- 
 
24 
 
 fluence, will be given over, and they will 
 follow the footsteps of their fathers. A 
 like fixity of condition will be observed 
 in the cities, and the sons of clerks and of 
 mechanics and of day laborers will tend 
 to accept their environment of birth and 
 training and abide by it. It is a phenom- 
 enon observable in all countries where 
 the economic pressure is severe, and it is 
 certain to obtain in feudal America. 
 
 The sub-tenants and the small-unit pro- 
 ducers and distributers will be confined 
 within smaller and smaller limits, while 
 the foremen, the superintendents and the 
 entrepreneurs of the workshops will at- 
 tain to greater power and recompense. 
 But the chief glory of the new regime, 
 next to that of the nobles, will be that of 
 the class of courtiers and court-agents. 
 Theirs, in a sense, will be the most im- 
 portant function in the State—" to justify 
 the ways of God [and the nobility] to 
 man." " Two divisions of the courtier 
 class, however, will find life rather a bur- 
 densome travail. They are the judges 
 and the politicians. Holding their places 
 at once by popular election and by the 
 grace of the barons, they will be fated to 
 a constant see-saw of conflicting obliga- 
 tions. They must, in some measure, sat- 
 isfy the demands of the multitude, and 
 yet, on the other hand, they must obey the 
 commands from above. 
 
25 
 
 The outlines of the present State loom 
 but feebly through the intricate network 
 of the new system. The nobles will have 
 attained to complete power, and the mo- 
 tive and operation of Government will 
 have become simply the registering and 
 administering of their collective will. 
 And yet the State will continue very 
 much as now, just as the form and name 
 of the Roman Republic continued under 
 Augustus. The present State machinery 
 is admirably adapted for the subtle and 
 extra-legal exertion of power by an au- 
 tocracy ; and while improvements to that 
 end might unquestionably be made, the 
 barons will hesitate to take action which 
 will needlessly arouse popular suspicions. 
 From petty constable to Supreme Court 
 Justice the officials will understand, or be 
 made to understand, the golden mean of 
 their duties ; and except for an occasional 
 rascally Jacobin, whom it may for a time 
 be difficult to suppress, they will be faith- 
 ful and obey. . 
 
 The manorial courts, with powers exer- 
 cised by the local lords, will not, as a rule, 
 be restored. Probably the " court baron," 
 for determining tenantry and wage ques- 
 tions, will be revived. It may even come 
 as a natural outgrowth of the present con- 
 ciliation boards, with a successor of the 
 Committee of Thirty-six as a sort of gen- 
 eral court baron for the nation. But the 
 
26 
 
 court leet," the manorial institution for 
 punishing misdemeanors, wherein the 
 baron holds his powers by special grant 
 from the central authority of the State, 
 we shall never know again. It is far sim- 
 pler and will be less disturbing to the pop- 
 ular mind to leave in existence the pres- 
 ent courts so long as the baron can dic- 
 tate the general policy of justice. 
 
 Armed force will, of course, be em- 
 ployed to overawe the discontented and 
 to quiet unnecessary turbulence. Unlike 
 the armed forces of the old feudalism, the 
 nominal control will be that of the 
 State; the soldiery will be regular and 
 not irregular. Not again will the 
 barons risk the general indignation 
 arising from the employment of Pink- 
 ertons and other private armies. The 
 worker has unmistakably shown his 
 preference, when he is to be subdued, for 
 the militia and the Federal army. Broad- 
 ly speaking, it is not an unreasonable at- 
 titude ; and it goes without saying that it 
 will be respected. The militia of our Be- 
 nevolent Feudalism will be recruited, as 
 now, mostly from the clerkly class; and 
 it will be officered largely by the sons and 
 nephews of the barons. But its actions 
 will be tempered by a saner policy. Gov- 
 erned by those who have most to fear 
 from popular exasperation, it will show 
 a finer restraint. 
 
27 
 
 A general view of the new society will 
 present little of startling novelty. A per- 
 son leaving this planet to-day and revis- 
 iting " the pale glimpses of the moon " 
 when the new order is in full swing will 
 from superficial observation see but few 
 changes. Alter et idem — another, yet 
 the same — he will say. Only by closer 
 view will he mark the deepening and 
 widening of channels along which the 
 powerful currents of present tendencies 
 are borne ; only so will he note the effect 
 of the more complete development of the 
 mighty forces now at work. 
 
 So comprehensive and so exact will be 
 the social and political control that it will 
 be exercised in a constantly widening 
 scope and over a growing multiplicity of 
 details. The distribution of wages and 
 dividends will be nicely balanced with a 
 watchful regard for possible dissatisfac- 
 tion. Old-age pensions to the more faith- 
 ful employees, such as those granted by 
 the Illinois Central, the Pennsylvania, 
 the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company, the 
 Metropolitan Traction Company, or the 
 Lackawanna, will be generally distrib- 
 uted, for the hard work will be done only 
 by the most vigorous, and a large class of 
 destitute unemployed will be a needless 
 menace to the regime. Peace will be the 
 main desideratum, and its cultivation 
 will be the most honored science of the 
 
28 
 
 age. A happy blending of generosity 
 and firmness will characterize all dealings 
 with open discontent; but the prevention 
 of discontent will be the prior study, to 
 which the intellect and the energies of the 
 nobles and their legates will be ever bent. 
 To that end the teachings of the schools 
 and colleges, the sermons, the editorials, 
 the stump orations, and even the plays at 
 the theaters will be skilfully and per- 
 suasively molded; and the questioning 
 heart of the poor, which perpetually seeks 
 some answer to the painful riddle of the 
 earth, will meet with a multitude of mol- 
 lifying responses. These will be: From 
 the churches, that discontent is the fruit 
 of atheism, and that religion alone is a 
 solace for earthly wo; from the colleg'es, 
 that discontent is ignorant and irrational, 
 since conditions have certainly bettered 
 in the last one hundred years ; from the 
 newspapers, that discontent is anarchy; 
 and from the stump orators that it is unpa- 
 triotic, since this nation is the greatest 
 and most glorious that ever the sun shone 
 upon. As of old, these reasons will for 
 the time suffice ; and against the possibil- 
 ity of recurrent questionings new apolo- 
 getics will be skilfully formulated, to be 
 put forth as occasion requires. On all 
 sides will be observed a greater respect 
 for power; and the former tendency to- 
 ward rash and bitter criticism of the up- 
 per classes will decline. 
 
29 
 
 The arts, too, will be modified. Litera- 
 ture will take on the hues and tones of 
 the good-natured days of Charles 11. In- 
 stead of poetry, however, the innocuous 
 novel will flourish best; every flowery 
 courtier will write romance, and the lit- 
 erary darling of the renascence will be an 
 Edmund Waller of fiction. A lineal de- 
 scendant of the famous Lely, who 
 
 "... on animated canvas stole 
 The sleepy eye that spoke the melting soul," 
 
 will be the laureled chief of our painters ; 
 and sculpture, architecture and the lesser 
 arts, under the spell of changed influ- 
 ences, will undergo a like transformation. 
 
 This, then, in the rough, is our Benevo- 
 lent Feudalism to-be. It is not precisely 
 a Utopia, not an island valley of Avil- 
 ion and yet it has its commendable, even 
 its fascinating features. " The empire is 
 peace," shouted the partisans of Louis 
 Napoleon ; and a like cry, with an equal 
 ardency of enthusiasm, will be uttered by 
 the supporters of the new regime. Peace 
 and stability will be its defensive 
 arguments, and peace and stability- 
 it will probably bring. But tranquil 
 or unquiet, whatever it may be, its 
 triumph is assured; and existent forces 
 are carrying us toward it with an 
 • ever accelerating speed. One power 
 alone might prevent it — the collective 
 popular will that it shall not be. But of 
 
3^ l?<^^!^r^:^3»? 
 
 this there is no fear on the part of the 
 barons, and but little expectation on the 
 part of the underlings.* 
 
 New York City. 
 
 * Since the publication of this article my atten- 
 tion has been called to an address, entitled " The 
 New Feudalism," delivered by Mr. Benjamin A. 
 Richmond, of Cumberland, Md., before the Mary- 
 land Bar Association in July,, 1898. I had never 
 seen or heard of this address, or of any other 
 treatment of the subject ; nor had any of the 
 friends and acquaintances to whom I mentioned 
 the matter. In the last few months casual 
 and scattered references to *' feudal times " have 
 been met with occasionally ; but previous to fif- 
 teen months ago, when I first outlined my article. 
 I had seen nothing, so far as I can now recall, in 
 the slightest manner alluding to such a concept. 
 
 Mr. Richmond's address is an interesting and 
 able presentation of the subject. It is written 
 from a legal viewpoint, and the treatment is there- 
 fore widely different from that of mine ; neverthe- 
 less, in two instances he and I have managed to 
 hit upon very similar phrases. Mr. Richmond is 
 unquestionably entitled to the credit of priority in 
 the general concept, and I am glad to acknowledge 
 his claim.-— W. J. G. 
 
31 
 
 ADDENDUM. 
 
 BY THE COMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC STUDY. 
 
 Mr. Ghent has supplied, in one of his 
 closing sentences, an important qualifica- 
 tion to his prophecy : " One power ^ alone 
 might prevent it [the consummation of 
 a new feudal system]— ^/^^ collective 
 popular will that it shall not heJ' How 
 correctly, or incorrectly, on the whole, he 
 has seized upon current phenomena, and 
 how justly or unjustly he has interpreted 
 current tendencies we may well leave to 
 the individual judgnient of the reader. 
 But at least his basic contention — ^that 
 whether or not there is now a greater or 
 less number of individual industries than 
 before, social, industrial and^ political 
 power is rapidly centralizing in a few 
 hands — is hardly to be disputed. Man- 
 hood suffrage has so far proved but an 
 ineffective obstacle to this concentration. 
 
 Since concentration is everywhere ap- 
 parent, and since every indication points 
 to its continuance, there remains to the 
 citizenship the choice only of how and 
 for what purpose that concentration shall 
 be perfected. It is idle to talk of a re- 
 turn to the clumsy and chaotic methods 
 of free competition. The public must 
 
32 
 
 decide whether unified industry is to be 
 carried on for the benefit of the many 
 or the benefit of the few. 
 
 It is to be hoped that Mr. Ghent is 
 entirely wrong in his assumption of the 
 continued quiescence of the masses. His- 
 toric parallels can be quoted, it is true, 
 for such a view : the England of Richard 
 II and again of Charles II furnish pitiful 
 instances of popular submission follow- 
 ing upon periods of strenuous freedom 
 of action. But the England of 1382 and 
 of 1661 has small counterpart in the 
 United States of 1902. The people who 
 sacrificed so much of their blood and 
 treasure, first, to win their independence ; 
 second, to maintain it, and third, to pre- 
 serve their national integrity, have sure- 
 ly within themselves the potency " to 
 shape the future hour," to checkmate the 
 ill, and to foster the beneficent tendencies 
 of the time, and to erect upon the ruins 
 of a baffled oligarchy the solid structure 
 of a co-operative commonwealth. 
 
33 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM THE CONSTITUTION OP 
 THE COLLECTIVIST SOCIETY. 
 
 e.r.^I^J^!}^^7^J^^^ principle of production 
 
 and distribution is expressed in the dictum: 
 Urorn each according to his ability; to each ac- 
 cording to his needs." This princiole reouireq 
 that all should have the opportin'ty of useful 
 work, and that all should engage in useful work 
 ?hn,T^*^^ penalty of public'' disgrace f tLt all 
 who^^l-if"^^?^ comfortable incomes exiept those 
 who will not work, and that none should receive 
 excessively high incomes, as the latter are moJaiTy 
 mnnHv"^ ^i^^ }?' i^ecipient and to the com- 
 munity. The ultimate operation of this princiole 
 comesf ''^'^^ practical equality of in- 
 
 ******** 
 .i^y^ believe that the establishment of this nrin- 
 ciple will require the transfer of the means of nrS 
 duction and distribution into the Ss of ttie 
 community ; and that every transfer of ^his naturl 
 must^ be accompanied by just compensation. 
 
 pro'^lseti rlX'tef ^^^"^ ^^^-^ 
 
 *^ secure work to the unemcJovprl • 
 for'^lif i"V "'^^i"'"'" day and a mtataum^lge 
 aged """^ P™^'*^^ pensions fo7?f I 
 
 f.nrt''?hi".f*'S" of franchises at their full value 
 co"^es*'l'na^5^S^rtanc^f ^"'"^ .and-valuel'^'?n^: 
 The assumption by city and State 2-overnmPTif« 
 
 moyemeute^fo^%n±f S^stwa and the various 
 without prejudice betterment earnestly and 
 
 mo?^^e^Zr''S!.*iofeveL%nt^°^*''- 
 
34 
 
 cause of social betterment, whether within or 
 ;i hou° thrpolitical S?««»f„,^^°tr"^^"'- 
 
 |?^E'%\nATS'o& 'AOUIC STUDY. 
 
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