factories which produce agricultural machinery and
other needed supplies, control the lives and income of the
agriculturists almost as rigidly as they do those of their own
employees. Mr. Simons's views on this point also are probably those of a
majority of the party.

Mr. Victor Berger does not consider that farmers belong to that class by
whom and for whom Socialism has come into being. "The average farmer is
not a proletarian," he says, "yet he is a producer."[231] This would
seem to imply that the farmer should have Socialist consideration,
though perhaps not equal consideration with the workingman. Mr. Berger's
main argument apparently was that the farmers must be included in the
movement, not because this is demanded by principle but because "you
will never get control of the United States unless you have the farming
class with you," as he said at a Socialist convention.

Thus there are three possible attitudes of Socialists towards the
self-employing farmer, and all three are represented in the movement.
Kautsky, Vandervelde, and many others believe that after all he is not a
proletarian, and therefore should not or cannot be included in the
movement. The French Socialists and many Americans believe that he is
practically a proletarian and should and can be included. The
"reformists" in countries where he is very numerous believe he should be
included, even when (Berger) they do not consider him as a proletarian.
The Socialist movement, on the whole, now stands with Kautsky and
Vandervelde, and this is undoubtedly the correct position until the
Socialists are near to political supremacy. The French and American
view, that the self-employing farmer is practically a wage earner, is
spreading, and though this view is false and dangerous if prematurely
applied (_i.e._ to-day) it will become correct in the future when
collectivist capitalism has exhausted its reforms and the small farmer
is becoming an employee of the highly productive government farms or a
profit-sharer in cooeperative associations.

At the last American Socialist Convention (1910) Mr. Simons's resolution
carefully avoided the "reformist" position of trying to prop up either
private property or small-scale production, by the statement that, while
"no Socialist Party proposes the immediate expropriation of the farm
owner who is cultivating his own farm," that, on the other hand, "it is
not for the Socialist Party to guarantee the private ownership o