m.

If, however, the majority of farmers must remain inaccessible to
Socialism until the great change is at hand, this is not because they
are getting an undue share of the national wealth or because they are
private property fanatics, or because agriculturists are economically
and politically backward, or because they are hostile to labor, though
all this is true of many, but because of all classes, they are the most
easily capable of being converted into (or perpetuated as) small
capitalists by the reforms of the capitalist statesman in search of
reliable and numerically important political support.

I have shown the attitude of the Socialists towards each of the
agricultural classes--their belief that they will be able to attach to
themselves the agricultural laborers and those tenants and independent
farmers who are neither landlords nor steady employers, nor expect to
become such. But what now is the attitude of laborers, tenants, etc.,
towards Socialism, and what program do the Socialists offer to attract
them? Let us first consider a few general reforms on which all
Socialists would agree and which would be acceptable to all classes of
agriculturists. Socialists differ upon certain _fundamental_ alterations
in their program which have been proposed in order to adapt it to
agriculture. Aside from these, all Socialist parties wish to do
everything that is possible to attract agriculturists. They favor such
measures as the nationalization of forests, irrigation, state fire
insurance, the nationalization of transportation, the extension of free
education and especially of free agricultural education, the
organization of free medical assistance, graduated income and
inheritance taxes, and the decrease of military expenditures, etc. It
will be seen that all these reforms are such as might be, and often are,
adopted by parties which have nothing to do with Socialism. Community
ownership of forests and national subsidies for roads are urged by so
conservative a body as Mr. Roosevelt's Commission on Country Life. They
are all typical "State Socialist" (_i.e._ State capitalist) measures,
justifiable and indispensable, but not intimately related with the
program of _Socialism_. The indorsement of such measures might indeed
assure the Socialists the friendly cooeperation of political factions
representing the agriculturists, but it could scarcely secure for them
the same partisan support in the country as they have obtained