Let us picture a small island inhabited by six men. One of these men fishes, another hunts, another gathers cocoanuts, another raises goats for clothing, and so on. The six men among them produce by their labor all the necessities of their lives, and they exchange their products with one another. The island is productive, and each of the men is free, and makes his exchanges on equal terms; on that basis the industry of the island can continue indefinitely, and there will never be any trouble. There may sometimes be over-production, but it will not cause anyone to starve. If the fisherman is unusually lucky one day, he will be able to take a vacation for a few days, living on his fish and the products he exchanges for his fish. For the sake of convenience in future reference, I will describe this happy island as a "free" society; meaning that each of the members of this society has access on equal terms to the sources of wealth, and each owns the product of his own labor, without paying tribute to any one else for the right to labor, or to exchange his products.
But now let us suppose that one of the men on the island is strong and aggressive; he takes a club and knocks down the other five men, and compels them to sign a piece of paper agreeing that hereafter he is the president of the land development company of the island, the chief stockholder in the goat-raising company, and owner of the fishing concession and the cocoanut grove; also, that hereafter goods shall not be bartered in kind, but shall be exchanged for money, and that he is the banker, and also the government, with the right to issue money. In this society you will find that the real work, the actually productive work, is done by five men, instead of by six, and these five do not get the full value of their labor. The fisherman will fish, but his product will no longer belong to himself; he will get part of it as wages, while the "business man" takes charge of the balance. So when there is a lucky day, there will be prosperity in the fishing industry, but this prosperity will not benefit the fisherman; he will have only his wage, and when he has caught too many fish, he will not have a few days' vacation, but will be out of a job.
And exactly the same thing will happen to the goat-herd. He will probably have work all the year round, because goats have to be tended, but he will get barely enough to keep him alive, and the surplus skins and milk will go to the owner of the no-longer-happy island. Perhaps it will occur to the owner that the man who raises cocoanuts might also keep an eye on the goats, and so the goat-herd will be permanently out of a job, and will turn into what is called a tramp, or vagrant. Inasmuch as everything to eat on the island belongs to the owner, the ex-goat-herd will be tempted to become a criminal, and so it will be necessary for the owner to arm the cocoanut man with a club and make him into a policeman; or perhaps he will organize the fisherman and the hunter into a militia for the preservation of law and order. They will be glad to serve him, because, owing to the extreme productivity of the island, they will be out of jobs a great part of the time, and but for the generosity of the business man, would have no way of earning a living.
But suppose that the cocoanut man should invent a machine for gathering a year's supply of nuts in a week; suppose the fisherman should devise a scheme to fill his boat with fish in a few minutes; and suppose that as a result of these inventions the business man got so rich that he moved to Paris, and no longer saw his workers, or even knew their names. Under these conditions you can see that overproduction and unemployment might increase on the island; and also the business man might seem less human and lovable to his wage slaves, and might need a larger police force. It might even happen that he would discover the need of a propaganda department, in order to keep his police force loyal, and a secret service to make sure that agitators did not get into the schools.
The five islanders, having filled all the barns and storehouses, would be turned out to starve; and when they asked the reason, they would be told it was because they had produced a surplus of food. This may sound grotesque, but it is what is being said to 5,000,000 men in America as I write. There are clothing-workers who are going about in rags, and they are told it is because they have produced too much clothing. There are shoe-workers whose shoes are falling off their feet, and they are told it is because they have produced too many shoes. There are carpenters who have no homes, and they are told that a great many homes are needed, but unfortunately it doesn't pay the builders to go ahead just now. This may sound like a caricature, but it happens to be the most prominent single fact in the consciousness of 5,000,000 Americans at the close of the year 1921. No wonder they are discontented with the present order.
The solution of the mystery is so simple that the 5,000,000 unemployed cannot be kept permanently from understanding it. The reason the five men on the island are starving is because one man owns the island and the others own nothing. If the island were community property, the five men would each own a share of the contents of the barns and storehouses, and would not be starving. If the 100,000,000 people of America owned the productive machinery of America, then instantly the unemployment crisis would pass like an evil dream. The farm-workers who need shoes would exchange their food with the starving shoe-workers, and the starving shoe-workers would have jobs. They would want clothing, and so the clothing-makers would start to work; and so on all the way down the line. There is only one thing necessary to make this possible, and that is the thing which we have agreed to call the social revolution.