ecome Socialists. Therefore it lies
in the interest of the professional Socialist agitators to maintain
poverty and misery among the masses, and if possible to increase it.
With this object in view, many Socialist agitators oppose all measures
which are likely to turn the propertyless wage-earner--the "wage
slave" as the Socialists like to call him, in order to exasperate
him--into an owner of property, a small capitalist. That might make
him a contented man. Therefore, as we have seen in Chapter XVIII., the
Socialist leaders strenuously oppose "for scientific reasons" the
creation of peasant proprietors. They distinctly encourage
improvidence and oppose, also "for scientific reasons," providence,
thrift, and abstinence among the workers. The philosopher of British
Socialism informs us: "Thrift, the hoarding up of the products of
labour, it is obvious, must be without rhyme or reason, except on a
capitalist basis,"[840] and the Socialists do not wish the workers to
become capitalists.

Some Socialists were indiscreet enough to confess that they opposed
providence, thrift, and temperance among the workers, as practised
especially by the members of trade unions, co-operative societies, and
friendly societies, because these are likely to elevate the masses
and rob the Socialist leaders of supporters. We read, for instance:
"The so-called thrift and temperance movements are essentially
antagonistic to Socialism."[841] "The trade co-operator canonises the
bourgeois virtues, but Socialist vices, of 'over-work' and
'thrift.'"[842] "Co-operation, though regarded by the individual
trader as an enemy, does not necessarily enter into conflict with the
capitalist at all. Indeed, so far as it transforms workmen into
shareholders, it forms a bulwark for capitalism, the same as the
creation of small landholders or any other class of small proprietors
would do."[843] "Co-operation, as carried on in England, is an
obstacle and a danger to the Socialist cause. Being capitalist
concerns pure and simple, co-operative societies are subjected to the
same influences as all other capitalistic ventures."[844] "The
friendly societies are the least promising of any of the democratic
movements from the political point of view. The doctrine of 'thrift'
also has been preached very vigorously to them. There is at present
little prospect of the friendly societies identifying themselves with
the general political labour movement of the country."[845]