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A MARXIST HISTORY OF
CAPITALISM

Henry Heller’s short account of the history of capitalism combines Marx’s

economic and political thought with contemporary scholarship to shed light
on the current capitalist crisis. It argues that capitalism is an evolving mode
of production that has now outgrown its institutional and political limits.
The book provides an overview of the different historical stages of capi-
talism, underpinned by accessible discussions of its theoretical foundations.
Heller shows that capitalism has always been a double-edged sword, on one
hand advancing humanity, and on the other harming traditional societies and
our natural environment. He makes the case that capitalism has now become
self-destructive, and that our current era of neoliberalism may trigger a transition
to a democratic and ecologically aware form of socialism.

Henry Heller is Professor of History at the University of Manitoba, Canada.

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A MARXIST HISTORY
OF CAPITALISM

Henry Heller
First published 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
 2019 Henry Heller
The right of Henry Heller to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book

ISBN: 978-1-138-49045-1 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-138-49587-6 (pbk)
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Typeset in Bembo
by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK
CONTENTS

Preface vi

Introduction 1

1 Merchant capitalism 11

2 The political economy of capitalist transition 26

3 Ascendant capitalism (1789–1980) 54

4 Neoliberalism (1980–2018) 79

5 Towards socialism 105

Index 141
PREFACE

During the Cold War people were reluctant even to name the system we
live under. Today capitalism is all over the media and has become a hot
topic. A concept that was once taboo is suddenly on everyone’s lips. A recent
mainstream review of the existing scholarship entitles itself Capitalism: The
Reemergence of a Historical Concept (Kocka and Van der Linden 2016).
The end of the Cold War and the financial crisis of 2008 has made it pos-
sible to name the system.
Prior to 2008 we were told we stood at the end of history and that capital-
ism would go on forever. But the bursting of the financial bubble in that year
and the ongoing economic malaise since has led to a nagging sense of doubt.
People at all levels of society are asking themselves: does capitalism have a
future? Reflecting an anxiety widely felt, the future of capitalism has become
a popular subject of feature articles in the pages of establishment journals such
as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Le Monde, Die
Zeit, Der Spiegel and the Financial Times. The history of capitalism is suddenly
voguish. The growing importance of the history of capitalism was reflected
in an important feature article in The NY Times (Schuessler 2013) and an
interesting new entry on Wikipedia (‘History of Capitalism’). New courses
and programmes in the subject are proliferating at places such as Harvard,
Cornell, Johns Hopkins, the University of North Carolina, the University of
Florida, University of British Columbia and the Catholic University. At the
beginning of 2018 a new mainstream academic journal with a prestigious list
of advisors entitled Capitalism and History was announced.
Even business historians have taken note. In a remarkable keynote
address given at the 38th Annual Economic and Business History Society
 Preface vii

Conference in Baltimore, Lou Galambos of Johns Hopkins pointed to the

brilliance of recent books on the history of American capitalism. Based on
these works, he forecast that in future the history of business will be writ-
ten no longer from the point of view of individual enterprises but from the
perspective of capitalist society as a whole, including its values, tastes and
culture. Galambos takes this position even though he acknowledges that the
teaching of the history of capitalism inevitably implies criticism of business
rather than apologetics. All the more so as in practice the historical approach
to capitalism raises the spectre of Marxism (Galambos 2014).
But here too times have changed. The crisis of 2008 has led to a wide-
spread revival of interest in Marx. Marx has resurfaced in the mainstream
media in the form of feature stories with titles such as ‘Marx is Back’, ‘What
Marx Can Teach Us’ and ‘Marx Was Right’. In university circles the finan-
cial crisis and economic malaise had led to a questioning of the neoliberal
paradigm and a return to Keynes but also the waning of postmodernism and
cultural studies in favour of Marxism (Palmer 2012).
Of course the history of capitalism has always interested Marxists, includ-
ing Marx, who was certainly a Marxist despite his disclaimers. There is
no doubt that Marx’s Das Kapital is devoted to analyzing the structure of
nineteenth-century capitalism. But Marx conceives of capital as based on an
evolving relationship between capitalists and workers that was intrinsically
historical. His analytical concepts incorporate and compress much historical
material. Moreover, Marx ends the long first volume of his grand opus by
offering an account of the historical origins of capitalism through primitive
accumulation. Throughout Das Kapital and especially in Volumes One and
Three Marx’s notes are full of insightful historical insights that are worthy of
study in themselves.
Since Marx his followers have continued to take an interest in the his-
tory of capitalism because, since at least the time of Lenin and the crisis
of World War I, they have sensed that it was in trouble. The subsequent
Depression and the devastation of World War II formed the background
against which the famous debate on the transition from feudalism to capi-
talism first unfolded. Discussion was set off by the publication of Maurice
Dobb’s Studies in the Development of Capitalism (1946). Dobb’s work was
debated during the next decade in the pages of the American Marxist
journal Science & Society at the height of the anti-Communist repression
in the 1950s (Hilton 1976). The transition debate reflected the insight of
Marxist scholars who understood that capitalism had entered its senescence.
Understanding feudalism’s demise and the birth of capitalism, it was pre-
sumed, could shed light on the end of capitalism and a historical evolution
towards socialism. The debate has continued ever since (Heller 2011). This
debate has itself been raised to a higher level by increasing discussion of
viii Preface

Marx’s concept of modes of production that views capitalism as merely a

passing phase in human history.
Among Marxists the sense that capitalism has entered its twilight has only
deepened in more recent decades. In this light we offer a brief history of
capitalism designed for the general public and university students. It is based
on an awareness of current scholarship, both Marxist and non-Marxist, but
in its premises it is solidly Marxist. Such a history is necessary if only as a
counterweight to the growing body of historical scholarship on capitalism
that is non-Marxist.1 The latter aims somehow to recuperate capitalism in
the belief that it is still reformable. We do not think so.
This work is rooted in the idea that, like previous modes of production,
capitalism is in decay and its decline needs to be explained. We assume that the
worm was in the bud from the beginning, that its premises were flawed in that
it showed a reckless disregard for both people and nature. It highlights both its
immediate contradictions and long-term reasons for its current decline. Most
of the text is an account of the historical development of capitalism: its accom-
plishments certainly, but also its flaws and its increasingly adverse impact.
Faced with capitalism’s crisis it is possible that the global society we live in
will fall to pieces or destroy itself, a regression towards nuclear war and bar-
barism. A dystopian future is a popular theme in contemporary cinema and
literature and is certainly possible. But the likelihood is that it will not happen.
We assume, on the contrary, that the only rational outcome to the crisis is a
transition to socialism. Moreover, to coin a phrase, we think the rational will
become real.
Historians ordinarily deal with the past and avoid predicting the future.
It is true that Marx himself was reticent to provide the outlines of a future
socialism. On the other hand, his analysis points to the idea that socialism is
latent within capitalism. Capitalism as it develops, as it were, becomes more
and more pregnant with socialism.
It is difficult to predict events in the short run. On the other hand, fore-
seeing longer term outcomes based on powerful and deep-rooted historical
factors is more plausible. That early liberalism would likely lead to political
democracy, that the independence of the United States was likely to make it
a great power, that imperialism would produce war, etc. were outcomes that
in fact were widely predicted. That Marx’s insights that the ongoing con-
centration and centralization of capital and the socialization of production
would in future produce socialism appears similarly plausible. Moreover, the
times are so out of joint that scholars in my view have the responsibility of
offering some guidance with respect to the future if they can. At this point
remaining silent and refusing to offer an informed opinion amounts to a form
of dereliction.
 Preface ix

We assume that getting to socialism is likely to be messy and that historical

change on this scale will involve death and upheaval as part of the cost of
revolutionary change. But then what do we have now in the absence of
revolution? In fact a considerable body of literature exists on how a transition
to socialism might take place. Without falling into dogmatism or utopianism
this work tries to suggest how a transition to socialism might occur and what
the essential elements of such a new way of life might look like.
I have long been interested in the history of capitalism and the focus of
my research has been on the early history of capitalism, including the French
Revolution. At the same time a long-term interest in modern politics and
commitment to political activism have spurred a continuing attention to the
more recent history of capitalism. In recent years my theoretical understand-
ing of capitalism has deepened as a result of my friendship with distinguished
students of Marx Radhika Desai, Alan Freeman and Peter Kulchyski. I
would also like to thank Rosemary Hnatiuk, Karen Naylor, Ken Kalturnyk,
Cy Gonick, Bob Gowerluck, Roberta Hechter and Sig Laser for their sup-
port and comradeship.

Note
1 A key apologetic text is the recent Kocka (2016).

Bibliography
Dobb, Maurice, 1946, Studies in the Development of Capitalism. New York: International
Publishers.
Galambos, Lou, 2014, ‘Is this a decisive moment for the history of business, economic
history, and the history of capitalism?’, Essays in Economic & Business History, 32:1,
pp. 1–18.
Heller, Henry, 2011, The Birth of Capitalism. London: Pluto.
Hilton, Rodney Howard et al., 1976, The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism.
London: New Left Books.
‘History of Capitalism’, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_capitalism
Kocka, Jűrgen, 2016, Capitalism: A Short History. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
—— and Van der Linden, Marcel (eds.), 2016, Capitalism: The Reemergence of a Historical
Concept. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Palmer, Bryan D., 2012, ‘The irrepressible revolutionary: Marx for the uninitiated,
the unconvinced and the unrepentant, Critique, 40:1, pp. 119–35.
Schuessler, Jennifer, 2013, ‘In history departments, it’s up with capitalism’, The New
York Times, April 6, www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/education/in-history
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INTRODUCTION

Capitalism, which began in the sixteenth century, did not create inequality.
That began long before, at the start of recorded history. Social inequal-
ity was a product of the development of the state and classes and has been
with us since the end of the Neolithic period (3500 bc). It is rooted in the
control of a limited economic surplus by a ruling class. Class struggle begins
when such a class achieves a degree of independence from the state while
being dependent on it for protection. The perpetuation of its control over
the land and enhanced consumption being the goals of this class, the latter
increases its demands for surplus. At the same time, the producers, faced
with the demands of the landlords, limit what they produce and try to with-
hold as much as possible. Hence the class struggle that becomes the motor
of historical development.
Inequality and civilization then go hand-in-hand from the latter’s begin-
nings and into modern times. The degree of inequality has varied through
the centuries. The fall of the Roman Empire in the West at the hands of
German invaders and the Arab invasions of the Middle East saw a temporary
levelling down of society. In the Dark Ages that followed the fall of the
Roman Empire isolated peasant communities existed in Europe that exhibited
a high degree of equality.
But in general class-based inequality was the rule throughout Classical
Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The crisis of the late Middle Ages witnessed
a partial redistribution of wealth at the expense of the rich. On the other
hand, in the medieval period the narrowing of differences between the rich
and poor that did occur was limited.
2 Introduction

In the early modern period, from the sixteenth century onwards, inequality
of wealth defined society. Today inequality is arguably more extreme than
ever – greater even than prior to the French Revolution or the Russian
Revolution. Great revolutions in modern times like those in France, Russia
and China did produce a reduction in inequality but these proved temporary.
But if modern times did not produce any levelling down it did produce
a bigger material surplus. As usual the rich appropriated most of the benefit
and held onto power. But a minority of the producers, including work-
ers, fortunate to live in Europe and North America eventually saw some
economic gains in the period from 1880–1980. While this is not the full
story – exploitation of the Global South had its part – it was the expan-
sion of the forces of production under industrial capitalism that made this
belated improvement possible. Moreover, it has always been the expectation
of Marxists that capitalist economic growth would become the basis for the
establishment of socialist equality in the future.
Europe in the sixteenth century or the period of the birth of modernity –
the time of the Renaissance, Reformation, crystallization of the territorial
state and conquest of the New World – did not then give birth to equality.
On the contrary, the number of dispossessed or those without land or other
property began to rise. This was not in itself new if we think of the his-
tory of the peasantry in Ancient Greece and Rome or of peasants in the
early modern history of India, Ottoman Empire or China. It was not new
either that those who had no land began to sell or were forced to sell their
labour in order to gain a livelihood. Some wage labour existed in almost all
pre-capitalist societies. It was not new that those who bought this labour
prospered. They began to buy more land and other productive properties.
They expropriated more and more of the land of the poor in order to increase
their wealth further. The number of those who sold their labour increased
from one generation to the next. What was new was that this process never
stopped. Expanding from one century to the next by the twentieth century
those dispossessed of land came to include the overwhelming majority of the
population. The new bright idea was that instead of renting land to produc-
ers property owners would rather rent their labour instead. What was new
was that the work of the dispossessed bought for wages was turned into a
new form of collective labour called value, which in its phenomenal form
manifested itself as capital. A new mode of production was born. Moreover,
the expansion of collective labour ballooned into enormous wealth under
the control of the capitalist class.
The history of the capitalist mode of production divides into four unequal
stages: the longest lived was merchant capitalism (1500–1780) marked by the
 Introduction 3

slow accretion of capital and in which colonialism played an integral part;

industrial capitalism (1780–1880), which saw the full-scale entry of capital
into production and an explosion of industrial growth focused in the main
capitalist countries; monopoly capitalism and imperialism (1880–1945) in
which capitalism conquered the rest of the world economically and politi-
cally; and finally late capitalism (1917–2017), which saw the continuation of
the previous period of monopoly capitalism and imperialism but included a
period of consumer capitalism (1945–1980) and then extended into the years
of neoliberalism and global monopoly capitalism (1980–2017). Late capital-
ism thus saw a brief period of consumer prosperity followed by the onset of
crisis and a new and dramatic rise in poverty and inequality worldwide.
This history narrates the story of the development of the phenomenal
and concrete aspects of capitalism that have manifested themselves over the
course of centuries through primitive accumulation, the birth of the sover-
eign state, the creation of the world market, mercantilism, colonialism, war,
revolution, industrial revolution, economic crisis and depression, monopoly
capitalism, imperialism and financializaiton.
It deals first of all with the origins of capitalism and its development as
merchant capitalism. It then outlines the second or mature phase of capitalism,
which begins with the onset of the Industrial Revolution and the French
Revolution. Discussion of late capitalism, which dates from World War I
and the Depression of the 1930s, takes us towards the crisis of twenty-first-
century capitalism and a consideration of a possible transition to socialism.

The accumulation of capital

But what is value? What is capital? In ancient and medieval times what was
valued was strongly coloured by moral considerations. Things economic
were valued but use values were more important than exchange values.
Contemplation, knowledge and pleasure were seen as valuable. Moreover,
nature was understood to have value. As late as the eighteenth century the
French physiocratic school insisted that land was the source of economic
value. But from the seventeenth century nature came increasingly to be
seen as a free good to be used or conquered and labour was recognized
as a source of value in the context of an increasingly market-driven society.
A series of British economists, including William Petty, Adam Smith and
David Ricardo, asserted that labour was the source of value. What was
valued was that which produced money profits. Economically minded
thinkers realized that it was labour that was creating profits and hence was
the source of value.
4 Introduction

Theorizing about an increasingly mature capitalist economy Karl Marx

developed a theoretically sophisticated version of the labour theory of value
rooted in a historical view of the development of capitalism. According to
this view, the concrete labour of workers, organized into a division of labour
under the control of a rich farmer, merchant or mine owner, produced mar-
ket commodities such as wheat, wool and coal, which, when sold, were
transformed into profits in the form of money. Parts of these profits were
reinvested in the purchase of more productive assets (raw wool, picks, shov-
els, pumps, horses, harnesses, ploughs, carts and farm implements, as well as
the labour of more workers), which were combined to produce more and
more profitable commodities such as wool, cloth or wheat. As this process
repeated itself and became general, individual and concrete labours gradu-
ally amalgamated and expressed themselves as collective social labour or the
concrete abstraction known as labour power (abstract labour), which could
be bought and sold for money like other commodities (Starosta and Caligaris
2016). The wage labour of increasing numbers of workers turned into this
new thing which Marx refers to as value from the sixteenth century onward.1
Abstract labour under the control of capital materializes itself as value
through the objectification or materialization of social labour in commodi-
ties which likewise are bought and sold. Value is not a material thing like a
tree or horse. It is a social relationship that appears as a tangible characteristic
of a commodity. In other words, the social relationship that is manifested in
value and the magnitude of value is constituted in production, circulation
and exchange. Value is then a form of wealth that is created under capital’s
auspices and control. Under capitalism social labour or value comes into
being under the aegis and control of capital. Such social or collective labour
has been dominated by capital up to the present day. Imprisoned by those
who control means of production, value manifests itself in phenomenal form
as capital controlled by its owners.
There are three aspects of value that manifest themselves in a capitalist
commodity. The first of these value forms is use value, which includes com-
modities like food, clothes and shelter. But the second and most important
form of value found in a commodity is that which is created by abstract
labour, which is generated in production. The third aspect of value is
exchange value or the price of a given commodity and is the way a commodity
appears in phenomenal form in the market economy.
Commodities there are exchanged for money, part of the proceeds of
which go back to the workers as wages or the price of their labour. The
value of the means of subsistence, which go back to the worker as wages, is
determined by the amount of abstract labour necessary to produce his/her
means of subsistence.
 Introduction 5

The extra value or what remains after payment of wages or the part of
what Marx called necessary labour – surplus value – is realized as money cap-
ital and pocketed as profit or rent. The goal of capitalists is to increase surplus
value as much as possible. Surplus value can be increased by extending the
hours of work and by intensifying work or absolute exploitation. But it can
also be increased by diminishing the part of necessary labour through relative
exploitation or enhancing labour productivity through the reorganization of
production or technological innovation.
That part of surplus value which is re-invested is crucial to the expansion
of capital. The expanding spiral of investment in production and the sale of
more and more commodities sets value in motion and turns it into its phe-
nomenal form known as capital. Accumulation of capital takes the form of a
mounting spiral of capital or of value in motion. It is enhanced by the growing
importance of relative exploitation in the course of the historical develop-
ment of capitalism. It is this accretion of capital that has manifested itself in
the emergence of gigantic corporations, powerful territorial states, great cities,
monumental buildings and the highways and byways of modernity.

The rise of the working class

The working class, which is the agent that produces value under the ferule
of capital, is an intrinsic part of its history. It comes to the surface already
in the sixteenth century in grain fields, coal mines and print shops and takes
on significance from the eighteenth century in England but also in Holland,
Belgium and France. The generation of more and more value prompts the
further development of the working class, including a deepening division of
labour and perforce cooperation among its members.

Class war
With its growing class consciousness and organization the working class
began to liberate itself, making a serious impact on politics from the mid-
nineteenth century onwards. Its rising influence took the form of an ongoing
war of position against capital to gain a higher level of subsistence and social
protection for itself. We refer to public meetings, marches, riots, slowdowns,
sabotage, boycotts, strikes, unionization drives, political clubs, campaigns for
suffrage and voting and the formation of socialist, labour and Communist
parties in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. From protests over the
price of bread, the introduction of machines and demands for the vote, it
gradually turned to strikes and agitation over the length of the working day,
conditions in the factories and workplaces, and pensions and unemployment
6 Introduction

insurance. Finally workers began to form and participate in political parties

that represented their interests within the confines of the bourgeois state.
But the rise of the working class also expressed itself in a war of move-
ment or open struggle for state power with capital from the mid-nineteenth
century onwards, including revolutions in Russia, China, Korea, Cuba,
Vietnam, Nicaragua and El Salvador in the name of socialism. In most of
these cases the working class may have been relatively small in numbers but
its role was strategically important.

The working class now

It is commonly asserted that the power of the industrial working class –
the main agent of revolutionary change in Marx’s conception of socialist
transition – declined from the latter half of the twentieth century onwards.
On the contrary, this work will argue that the potential power of the
organized working class worldwide has never been greater. The concen-
tration of capital has increased its influence as has the relocation of much
industrial capital to the Global South. It is a sleeping giant.

Wage labour, slavery and serfdom

The establishment of socialism will entail the decay of value and the estab-
lishment of use value as the basic measure of wealth. Value itself cannot be
understood as a merely economic concept. Certainly it came into being under
the thrall of capital. But, as we will endeavour to show, it emerged through
a historical process beginning in the sixteenth century, which involved a
struggle for increased social equality based on the equalization of all kinds of
labour. This conflict entailed ongoing ideological and class conflict.
Moreover, wage labour or free labour emerged in tandem with and also
in rivalry to other forms of exploitation including serf and slave labour. The
latter two forms of exploitation entailed personal dependence and therefore
could not be translated into abstract labour based on the exchange of money.
Moreover, this conflict between different forms of exploitation was far from
progressing in a historically even way. The advance of wage labour in the
heart of Europe entailed the simultaneous advance of serfdom and slavery on
its periphery from the sixteenth century onwards. As will be shown, it was
only in the nineteenth century that the final showdown between slave, serf
and free labour took place. The battle of ideas and class conflict on a grand
scale became an integral part of this struggle between these different modes
of exploitation in the first part of the nineteenth century.
 Introduction 7

Absolute and relative exploitation

The great economic advantage of wage labour to other forms of exploitation
was that it led to a ballooning of value and greatly enlarged material output.
Moreover, such growth could be enhanced by increasing the productivity of
labour. But this advantage only became fully apparent during the Industrial
Revolution. At the beginning of capitalism absolute exploitation or the reduc-
tion of wages, extension of the working day to as much as fourteen hours or
the intensification of work through work discipline were the primary ways of
increasing surplus value and accumulation. But from the beginning absolute
exploitation was amplified by the use of more efficient methods of produc-
tion, which increased the productivity of work and consequently increased
the amount of surplus value produced in each working hour.
In the early phases of capitalism the fencing of land and the introduc-
tion of so-called convertible husbandry, the reorganization of production
through the putting-out system or alternatively the centralization of parts
of production in a large workshop or manufacture boosted productivity.
Within workshops an increasing division of labour also enhanced output.
Over time such relative exploitation played an increasing role in capitalist
production, greatly increasing the extraction of surplus value and the accu-
mulation of capital. Indeed, at a certain point the expansion of value took on
a law-like form which is referred to as the law of value.
Different enterprises produce a given commodity with varying degrees
of efficiency. In consequence the individual labour time required to pro-
duce a given commodity will differ. Yet the commodity will sell at the same
price. More efficient enterprises in which individual labour time is less than
socially necessary will realize more surplus value or profit per unit of out-
put than less efficient firms in which individual labour time is greater than
socially necessary labour time. The difference between individual value and
market value forces the introduction of new production methods in order
to be competitive. The impulse to introduce more and more techniques that
augment relative exploitation follows.
Also spurring relative exploitation is the increasing demands on capital as
a result of class struggle from an increasingly militant and organized working
class. Faced with the necessity of making concessions to workers the most
creative response of capital is the introduction of more and more labour-
saving techniques.
If the growth of relative exploitation and the operation of the law of
value were key to the blossoming of capitalism in the nineteenth cen-
tury, the decline in the production of surplus value as a result of a decline
in the extraction of value through enhanced relative exploitation and the
8 Introduction

weakening of the effects of the law of value are key to understanding the
crisis of contemporary capitalism.

Against Brenner
Although Robert Brenner – arguably the most original and influential con-
temporary theorist of the transition from feudalism to capitalism – does not
mention the law of value his thesis suggests that competitive pressures based
on the law of value drove the extraordinary development of British capitalism
from the sixteenth century onwards (Brenner 1976). It will be the argument
of this text that such a view is anachronistic. Competition was an intrinsic
feature of capitalism from its very beginnings. But the labour relations cre-
ated by primitive accumulation, absolute exploitation and concentration of
capital were more important in the early development of capitalism than was
relative exploitation. Relative exploitation and the centralization of capital
spurred by competition only became decisive in the eighteenth century. The
law of value did not fully operate until the nineteenth century.

Eurocentrism opposed
This work will also argue against the too Eurocentric view of Brenner’s con-
ception of capitalism’s past (Brenner 1977). For him capitalism originated in
England or at best in England and Holland. I will insist that capitalism, from
its beginnings, was a global system. This is because, from its inception, capi-
talism was dependent on the global market and the raw materials and primary
products produced by serfdom and slavery on the margins of Europe, which
were integral to the development of the wage labour and profit system that
emerged in Europe.
Moreover, capitalism cannot be understood only in terms of the exploita-
tion of labour but must be grasped in terms of the development of money
capital embodying surplus value. Money was no new thing. But the devel-
opment of money encapsulating surplus value was. Such money in the
quantities necessary to develop the European and world economy came not
from Europe but mainly from Latin America and Japan. Capitalism from the
beginning was global and not merely European. In its earliest phase the his-
tory of capitalism was in a sense the pursuit of money as its necessary catalyst.

Capitalism and revolution

At a certain point the rise of capitalism necessitated political revolutions
which cleared the way for the further expansion of value and accumulation
 Introduction 9

of capital. The existing social relations of production stood in the way.

Capitalism was able to develop initially within the context of feudal society.
Moreover, in Germany and Japan in the nineteenth century capitalism was
based on passive revolutions from above imposed by the traditional or feudal
classes without social uprisings from below. On the other hand, contrary to
revisionist arguments, including those of Brenner and his followers, we insist
on the fact that the initial critical transitions to capitalism in early modern
Holland, England and France were the product of bourgeois revolutions in
which craftsmen, petty merchants and peasants played a decisive role.

The current crisis

The current economic depression stems from the existing social relations of
production once again standing in the way of the further expansion of sur-
plus value as was the case in earlier crises. Moreover, this crisis must be seen
as the third in a series which began with the depression of 1873–1894 and
which reoccurred in 1929–39. Both of these crises were resolved by restruc-
turing, the first by monopoly capitalism and imperialism and the second by
war, socialism and then the institution of Fordism and the global restructuring
of capitalism post-1945 under U.S. auspices.
Productivity gains and the lowering of trade barriers under American aus-
pices increased the rate of surplus value and increased profits dramatically in the
next two decades. Gains by capital allowed impressive increases in salaries and
benefits going to workers in the advanced capitalist countries.
But this forward momentum came to an end during the 1970s. A decline
in growth rates and the rate of surplus extraction then set the stage for the
onset of neoliberalism, which has dominated the world economy to the
present. The thrust of neoliberalism has been to restructure once more to
restore the rate of surplus value at the expense of workers in order to shore
up capitalism.
The period up to 2000 therefore saw a dramatic increase in the extraction
of surplus value and profits and decline in working class living and working
standards. But since the onset of the crisis in 2008 levels of investment in the
productive or surplus value sectors of the economy and growth rates have
lagged despite the intensification of pressure on wages and further erosion of
workers’ welfare benefits. The owners of capital have been able to maintain
their position by speculation, investing in debt and outright confiscation of
wealth from the working class. Indeed, the decline of surplus value lies at the
heart of the current crisis.
But this time it is a general crisis that includes rising working class con-
sciousness and loss of confidence in capitalism, a decline in the credibility of
10 Introduction

the politicians who control liberal democracies, a reluctance or unwillingness

of capital to invest in productive capital and an incipient environmental emer-
gency. Moreover, while China, whose economic power is second only to that
of the United States, fully participates in the global economy its loyalty to the
capitalist system cannot be taken for granted. Capitalism has surmounted diffi-
culties before but overcoming its current slump seems more and more daunting.
As we have argued, value and the extraction of surplus value have been
central to the development of capitalism from its beginnings. As Marx argues,
the extraction of fresh surplus value from living labour is essential to the ani-
mation of fixed capital which otherwise is so much dead labour. Moreover,
the law of value represents the most important regulatory mechanism of the
capitalist market system and its operation is essential to a mature capital-
ist economy. But its renewed operation, a resumption and continuation of
which presumes the restoration of historical rates of the accumulation of
capital, may not be possible and is certainly not environmentally desirable.
An alternative to value or abstract labour as the measure of wealth would
be the creation of a socialist and ecological economy. Accordingly, we will
argue that it is public ownership, planning based on information technology,
cybernetics, democratic decision-making and a refocusing of the goals of
production to create use values rather than exchange values that represent
the real alternative.

Note
1 It should be noted that wage labour and value can be found here and there in small
pockets in pre-capitalist society.

Bibliography
Brenner, Robert, 1976, ‘Agrarian class structure and economic development in
pre-industrial Europe’, Past & Present, 70:170, pp. 30–75, in Trevor Aston and
C.H.E. Philipin (eds.), (1985), The Brenner Debate. Cambridge, New York:
Cambridge University Press, pp. 10–63.
—— 1977, ‘The origins of capitalist development: a critique of Neo-Smithian
Marxism’, New Left Review, 104, pp. 25–93.
Starosta, G. and Caligaris, G., 2016, ‘The commodity of labour-power’, Science &
Society, 80:3, pp. 319–45.
1
MERCHANT CAPITALISM

Introduction
Capitalism as a mode of production began in England in the sixteenth century.
Its expansion based itself on the increasingly generalized production and sale
of market commodities. Its gains were distributed as profits, rent and wages
paid in money. In succeeding centuries, it spread across the globe.
Capitalism is now the way of life of the entire world. Virtually everyone
on earth is dependent on market capitalism. There is no frontier beyond its
reach. The whole earth is saturated with capitalism’s commodities. All of
nature has been conquered and is up for sale. We live in a culture of com-
modities. The institutions of the state, the legal and educational system and
the media reflect and reinforce capitalism’s dominance.
Capitalism has been with us for a long time – more than 500 years. It is
difficult at this point to think of a different way of living outside the reach
of this now totalized reality. It has triumphed everywhere but is reaching its
term. We think that capitalism by its very nature needs to expand further
spatially and penetrate more deeply into society and is having increasing dif-
ficulty doing so. It is reaching its limits as a system. It is a mode of production
which is coming to its end because it is locked into the militarism, imperial-
ism and unending war that goes with national state sovereignty, insuperable
economic as well as political contradictions, increasing social inequality and
disintegration and unfolding ecological disasters: a rising litany of troubles to
which, by virtue of its own inner dynamic, it has no political answers. As a
result, we live in a world of declining opportunities and increasing fear.
12 Merchant capitalism

Whereas earlier capitalism had been able to overcome repeated and

serious crises the current build-up of problems is so great that it is highly
unlikely that it can manage to do so again. Moreover, it has increasingly lost
its economic and political legitimacy in the eyes of most of those who live
under it but who no longer benefit from it. Decline of this mode of pro-
duction has now become highly likely and might take a catastrophic form.
This happened before with the fall of the Roman Empire and in the crisis of
feudalism at the end of the Middle Ages. An interregnum – a time of chronic
uncertainty, unexpected and unwelcome change, deep pessimism and grow-
ing popular unrest – has opened up, and its outcome – a triumphant victory
for humankind through the breakthrough of socialism or a fall into a night-
mare dystopia – is uncertain.
Contemporary capitalism is gripped by pessimism. This was not true
in the past. Capitalism was associated with growth and once embodied
hope. The early success of capitalism reflected itself in the idea of progress,
i.e. the notion that human history was the story of ongoing economic and
cultural advance. This sunny view had already surfaced in the Renaissance
but became a popular idea only during the Enlightenment and the Industrial
Revolution of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The idea of progress
was based on the fact that Europe, under capitalism, was developing immense
forces of production that potentially could be used to improve all aspects of
human life. Progress based on the indefinite expansion of capitalism became
a shibboleth of European and American ideology in the nineteenth century.
Two world wars in the twentieth century and successive economic crises
have tainted the idea that there can be progress under capitalism. Instead of
diminishing poverty and inequality – as its apologists promised – capitalism
has made these problems much worse. The level of global social inequality
and poverty has never been greater. Moreover, the ecological regime on
which capitalism bases itself, i.e. cheap energy, food, resources and labour,
has turned on itself and is no longer sustainable.

Beginnings
The capitalist mode of production is built on the exploitation of workers by
capitalists.
From start to finish it has been based on the gap between owners of
property or those who control means of production – land, mines, fac-
tories, machines, etc. – and wage workers or producers who lack such
ownership or control. In order to gain a livelihood, producers from the
sixteenth century onwards found that they had to sell their labour power to
capitalists for a wage. The capacity to labour, like wheat, wool and wood,
 Merchant capitalism 13

became a commodity for sale in the market. Capitalists back then, as now,
pocketed the surplus value created by the producers and realized as profit,
which was then reinvested and allowed the further expansion of capital and
the development of new means of production.
Inequality based on control of productive property or the absence thereof
was the source of capitalism’s dynamism and also its original sin, which it
has never overcome. In the face of this basic division at the heart of produc-
tion advocates of capitalism eventually promised representative democracy
as a sop to the fact of the undeniable tyranny of the workplace – those who
worked being exploited by those who owned.
More substantially they pointed towards a continuous expansion of the
material surplus beyond that achieved in the feudal or tribal modes of pro-
duction under which humankind had previously lived. And capitalism did,
from its beginnings, provide more material wealth at least to its primary
beneficiaries, i.e. capitalist farmers, merchants, manufacturers, landlords and
to the emerging territorial state. Even workers in the advanced capitalist
countries saw limited economic improvement from 1880 onwards.
The unprecedented nature of this development needs to be stressed.
Throughout the history of class-based societies, dating from the birth of
civilization, upper classes have demanded surplus from peasant producers
who formed the overwhelming majority. The goal of producers was purely
defensive. It was always to ensure the simple reproduction of their way of life
based on subsistence agriculture.

Consumption versus accumulation

During the long historical period that followed the beginning of civilization
the aim of the upper class was to enlarge its access to economic surplus in
order to increase its consumption. It was upper-class demand for more sur-
plus and peasant resistance that created conflict and drove history forward.
With the appearance of the capitalist class in the sixteenth century the goal
of the upper class changed. The primary goal of this now profit-seeking
class was no longer consumption but the accumulation of capital – indeed,
the accumulation of capital for its own sake. The revolutionary charac-
ter of this development has to be underscored. Consumption of wealth
became entirely subordinate to its accumulation, the necessity of which was
intrinsic to the new mode of production. That is why the debut of the capi-
talist mode of production in the sixteenth century represented a qualitative
historical breakthrough.
Capitalists who own means of production or productive property exploit
labour not because they directly coerce producers as plantation owners did
14 Merchant capitalism

under slavery or by extorting rent to access means of production as landlords

did under feudalism. Capitalists exploit because they appropriate the major
part of what workers produce as capitalist profit while paying the latter a
mere subsistence wage for their labour. They do this by buying labour power
from workers in order to produce commodities for sale from the means of
production under their control. The profit that is realized in the form of
capitalist money derives from the surplus value contained in commodities
produced by workers. Accumulation of capital or the self-expansion of value
that is the keynote of the capitalist mode takes place when profits in the
form of money capital are repeatedly reinvested back into productive capital,
i.e. land, tools, machines, which makes possible the production of yet more
commodities for sale and their realization as more money profit.

Late medieval crisis

How did labour power or the capacity of wage earners to work become
a commodity for sale? It began in the first place in Western Europe. Serfs
there liberated themselves de facto and de jure from personal bondage at the
end of the Middle Ages. Liberation from personal dependence became pos-
sible because the tributary or feudal mode of production experienced a major
economic and political crisis. The crisis itself was a result of over-exploitation
by the upper class. In reaction the peasantry and urban populations rebelled
all across Western Europe. In other words, the feudal mode was undermined
by an economic crisis and class war in the late Middle Ages.
Like the present decades the years between 1300–1450 were an interreg-
num marked by uncertainty, pessimism and unrest. The period nonetheless
did see mass uprisings from below and the liberation of the mass of the
population from personal dependence on overlords and a marked decline
in the burden of rent. Peasants and other small producers enjoyed a tempo-
rary improvement in their condition (Hilton 1985). Some achieved enough
wealth to control or rent agricultural property and to begin to hire other less
well off peasants for wages.

Primitive accumulation
Indeed, from the sixteenth century onwards more and more peasant pro-
ducers lost access to sufficient land or means of production to maintain
themselves while these properties became the possession of landlords or rich
peasants (Bryer 2006, Dimmock 2014). Whereas class war from below had
extended the landholdings of the mass of producers and weakened feudalism
in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, this dispossession of poor peasants
 Merchant capitalism 15

by wealthy peasants and landlords or sixteenth-century class war from above

initiated capitalism.
The loss of access to the land was often a violent and traumatic expe-
rience. This process is part of what Marx called primitive accumulation
because it allowed a certain concentration of wealth but especially because
it put in place the social relations that permitted the further accumulation
of capital. This transformation, which began in 1500, unfolded into the
nineteenth century across the face of Western Europe. England found itself
in the vanguard of capitalist development. Based on the extension of these
new social relations commodity production became generalized as more and
more of what was produced was put on the market and increasing num-
bers of producers were forced to sell their labour as a commodity. By the
end of the eighteenth century half the population of Western Europe were
wage workers (Tilly 1983, Luccasen 2005). This meant that their labour was
available to generate surplus value, creating profits for the bourgeoisie that,
as a result, grew increasingly powerful as a class in the course of the early
modern centuries.

Free labour
In so far as exchange using money and the possession of commodities became
the general form of the relation between people the notion of the equiva-
lence and equality of all kinds of concrete labour or the notion of value
gradually developed over the course of the early modern period. Already
implicit in the sixteenth century in the Protestant theologian Martin Luther’s
concepts of the priesthood of all believers and all labour as a divine call-
ing, a belief in the natural equality of humanity was strongly entrenched in
public opinion by the end of the eighteenth century and became a popular
prejudice during the French Revolution. Among political economists in the
late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries studying the development of
capitalism the equivalence of all kinds of labour crystallized into the concrete
abstraction value. The idea of value was deployed most famously in the
economic thought of Karl Marx. Purchase of labour power (the capacity to
labour) in the market, he argued, was critical to creating new value. In other
words, value is a thing that is both real and an abstraction that developed
historically as capitalism gradually blossomed and then came to be conceptu-
alized as such by political economists. Marx saw that it was the extraction and
self-expansion of value that was key to the accumulation of capital that was
revealing itself dramatically in his own lifetime in the form of the Industrial
Revolution. Indeed, value in expansion and movement is the leitmotif of the
history of capitalism. Its growing inertia today is a signal of capitalism’s crisis.
16 Merchant capitalism

The struggle for social equality that marked the early modern period and
the French Revolution was actually intensifying during Marx’s lifetime. It
took the form of the struggle for the rights of free labour and against serf-
dom and slavery. The affirmation of the rights of free labour, or the legal
and unrestricted right to offer one’s labour for sale as a market commodity,
allowed the expansion of value and played an important role in the agenda
of the bourgeois revolutions that marked the first part of the nineteenth
century (Drescher 2002, Morris 1996: 32–3). The establishment of the legal
freedom of labour meant freedom from the personal dependence on a mas-
ter characteristic of a slave or a serf and as such marked a real advance in
human freedom. Socially and economically it blocked the forcing of produc-
ers back into a relation of direct dependence and compelled the capitalist to
obtain labour power by buying it in the market in exchange for money. This
allowed the transformation of concrete labour into labour power and the
latter into value. The creation of value without the personal freedom to sell
one’s labour power is unthinkable.

The world market

As we have seen, capitalism began in much of Western Europe at the begin-
ning of the sixteenth century while gradually centring itself in Holland and
England. While capitalist agriculture and manufacture concentrated in these
two states the second main feature of capitalism took the form of a world
market and developed simultaneously alongside the spread of independent
wage labour in Western Europe. The expanding world market was based
on the global circulation of gold and silver, which allowed the realization of
surplus value through the capitalist production and sale of capitalist manufac-
tures worldwide and the transformation of coerced or non-capitalist surplus
labour (slavery, indentured labour, serfdom) into commodities (sugar,
tobacco, wheat) being sold for money (Manning 2002, Pomeranz and Topik
1999, Flynn 1996).
From its inception capitalism was a world system. The whole of the
emerging inter-European and global commodity trading system depended
on the existence of world money or gold and silver produced, for the most
part, in Peru and Mexico. The availability of money was essential not only
to the exchange of commodities but also to the developing process of capital
accumulation as it was the only way that the cycle of capital accumulation
could complete itself and finance its own further expansion. Given that the
source of this world money essential to capitalism was non-European regard-
ing capitalism as an exclusively European creation makes no sense.
 Merchant capitalism 17

Uneven development
The capitalist world developed unevenly. Some places became focal points
of capitalist production and exchange while other places were relegated to
the margins and dependent on the centre. In a process of uneven devel-
opment, the accumulation of capital in the centre came at the expense of
dependent areas consisting of the Global South, the Middle East and Eastern
Europe, which provided markets for European manufactures and cheap food
and raw materials based on coerced labour.
In the social formation of the early modern period the capitalist mode
increasingly predominated economically but the feudal, slave and hunting
and gathering modes co-existed with it and were linked to it. In this context
serfdom and slavery actually grew stronger in the context of an advanc-
ing capitalism. The wheat, sugar and furs produced in these non-capitalist
regions became capitalist commodities as they were absorbed into the over-
all capitalist system dominated by wage labour. Indigenous populations in
North America, for example, continued to organize their communities based
on hunting and gathering, but they supplemented their livelihood by selling
furs in exchange for money, using the latter to buy European commodities
such as flints, gunpowder, rifles, knives, cooking utensils, cloth and other
tools produced in France and England.
The development of capitalism accordingly tended to concentrate capi-
tal in England and Holland, while other areas such as Eastern Europe, the
Mediterranean, including the Ottoman Empire, West Africa and Latin
America became economically subordinate to the states of the Northwest
Atlantic seaboard. As a result of early capitalist development the feudal or
tributary mode of production based on landlord exploitation of peasants at
first became stronger and was entrenched in the Hapsburg Empire, Russia,
the Ottoman Empire, India and China.

Merchant capitalism (1500–1760)

Under merchant capitalism production in agriculture and manufacture
tended to be subordinated to the control of merchants. Control of means
of manufacturing production was more informal than real. Investment in
actual means of industrial production was limited. Absolute exploitation in
the form of low wages and long hours was more important than relative
exploitation or the introduction of new technology and the reorganization
of production into more productive forms. As a result, in its first centuries
the capitalist mode of production did not see any great breakthroughs in
the rate of growth. Much of the wealth that accumulated into the hands of
18 Merchant capitalism

employers or bourgeoisie came about as a result of the latter’s establishing

indirect control of the means of production by means of offering credit or
through monopolizing access to domestic and foreign markets. Productivity
only began to rise significantly in the eighteenth century and the advanced
capitalist agriculture of southern England did not exceed the level achieved
in the Yangtze Delta of feudal China until the end of that century (Heller
2011: 232).
Over much of England and the rest of Europe a compromise existed
between manufacturing and agriculture in which many industrial produc-
ers continued to live in the countryside and produced much of their own
subsistence based on domestic family labour. In this set up the subsumption
of labour to capital was incomplete and older means of production simply
fell under the control of merchant-entrepreneurs (Heller 2011: 233–7).
Meanwhile over the period the rural and urban population became more
and more dependent on wages as a result of primitive accumulation and
population growth.

State and capitalism

The development of capitalism in the sixteenth century was made possible
by the appearance of a new kind of state whose laws and coercive apparatus
proved an indispensable framework to the formation of markets and capital
accumulation. It took the form of relatively compact sovereign territorial
states in England, Holland and France and to a certain extent in Castile,
Denmark, Sweden and the lesser principalities of Germany. While territo-
rial states gained power the over-arching political authority of the Pope and
Holy Roman Emperor, which hitherto had blocked the political aspirations
of lesser rulers, faded. This devolution was facilitated by the relatively iso-
lated location of Western Europe, which was peripheral to the ambitions
of the powerful centralized empires of China, India and the Middle East,
whose political and military preoccupations and fiscal demands limited the
economic ambitions of merchants and manufacturers.
The territorial state, over time, subordinated autonomous territories and
independent towns to itself and fixed borders and frontiers delimiting its
space from that of rivals. It reorganized the space it controlled, making it
homogenous by establishing a more or less uniform administrative grid based
on centralized control. In alliance with merchants the rulers of territorial
states competed with one another, striving to expand internal markets and
gain markets externally.
To be sure, the class basis of the early modern state remained landlords.
In England, France and other West European countries the early modern
Another random document with
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 Those who failed to be elected felt, of course, various degrees of
disappointment and envy. Some proposed forming a scrub team of
the left-overs. Others were afraid that this would show the “team”
that they were jealous of them; whereas, they had been putting on a
brave front by saying to their classmates that they would not have
accepted a position on the team even if they had been elected.
The entire school grounds occupied about half a city block. This
space had to be shared with the boys and girls in all the other grades.
It naturally followed that there was little space to be used by each
room.
Miss Darnell’s eighth grade ball team girls were anxious to bring
fame to themselves as champion players. Mr. Warren’s thrilling
speech still rang in their ears. His slogan, “We’ll beat ’em!” was
passed from lip to lip. As a result of this enthusiasm, this special
team wished to play ball at every intermission and before and after
school. When they played, the rest of the girls in Miss Darnell’s room
were obliged to keep off the ground allotted to that room. The girls
who rebelled against being nothing but “fans” were called “disloyal to
their own team” or “green with jealousy.” The play periods were no
longer enjoyed by all, but distinct factions arose, consisting of team
and “fans,” and as the team grew more and more determined to use
the grounds at every available minute the “fans” became less and less
enthusiastic in their support.

CONSTRUCTIVE TREATMENT

Mr. Warren did wrong to deprive any pupil of a right use of the
playground or gymnasium.
When teams are formed, limit the time they may use the field and
apparatus so as to accommodate those who are not on the teams at
some time during the day.

COMMENTS

Mr. Warren’s prime motive in asking to have ball teams elected

was to have the girls take delight in vigorous, outdoor sport. In that
respect his plan was ideal, but he failed to take into account in any
way whatsoever those children who were not on the team. Children
are quick to feel an injustice. Their usual mode of reaction is either to
resent the teacher’s action or to be jealous of the favored ones. No
plan should be advocated or even tolerated that does not give
reasonable consideration to the rights and welfare of all the pupils.

ILLUSTRATION (EIGHTH GRADE)

A new gymnasium had just been erected Sharing Dances

at Horton and the principal, Mr. Bergen,
was anxious to have all get the benefit of it. The eighth grade girls
under Miss Vance were especially pleased with this fine play room.
One of their number, Stella Day, had been taking lessons in dancing
and promised to teach her special friends the new steps. It so turned
out that Miss Vance herself was interested in these new dances and
enjoyed watching the lessons. But the majority of the girls in her
room cared nothing about dancing and indeed if they had cared the
“lessons” were not at all open to them, since only eight of the twenty-
one girls were invited to take any part in this exercise.
Mr. Bergen had carefully arranged the gymnasium program so that
each room might use it every day. The first time he watched Miss
Vance’s pupils at “gym” work he was surprised to find so few taking
the exercises and furthermore to see that the onlookers were not
even enjoying the watching of the dancers. This led him to surmise
that they did not take turns in their exercises, otherwise the dejected
look would not have been seen on the faces of the observers.
Mr. Bergen made a mental note of those who were dancing and
returned the next day to see if the same girls were occupying the
whole of the teacher’s attention. Finding that such was the case he
explained to Miss Vance that all of her pupils must be really
interested in watching or actually engaged in every game during the
exercise period. Following his advice, Miss Vance changed the
exercise to games in which all could take part, thus making a
legitimate use of the gymnasium period.
CASE 128 (HIGH SCHOOL)

Elizabeth Dyer seemed to be naturally Taking the Best

selfish. When the classes were sent to do
blackboard work she invariably chose the place where the light was
the best. When the crayons were passed she took the unused one.
One of the new erasers was always in her hand. When the class was
called she always took the recitation bench nearest the teacher, etc.,
etc.
Little Susan Dillman said to a group of girls on the way home from
school one evening,
“Girls, I’m going to tell Bess Dyer what I think of her.”
“Oh, no, you don’t dare,” said the other girls.
“You’ll see,” said Susan.
That night Susan thought out her plan. She invited three of her
closest friends to her home the next evening and disclosed her plan.
She had composed this bit of rhyme:

“Just guess if you can

What girl in our class
Appropriates always the best,
Be it crayon or book,
By hook or by crook
She’ll beat to it all of the rest.”

“Now girls, here in the library is Sam’s typewriter. Let’s each write
a part of this so we can all say we didn’t write it and lay it on
Elizabeth’s desk tomorrow.” All were agreed, so one after another
took a turn at writing. After many copies were spoiled they finally
wrote one that pleased them. Each took a turn at addressing the
envelope. When it was sealed they said, “E-ne me-ne mi-ne mo,” etc.,
to find out who was to place this on Elizabeth’s desk. The lot fell to
Lulu Miller, but she would do it only on condition that Sue go with
her and help her place it. The next morning the girls went to school
as soon as the doors were opened. They found nobody in the
assembly room, so they opened Elizabeth’s geometry text at that
day’s lesson. Each took hold of one corner of the envelope and placed
it in the book. Then they returned the book to the desk and went into
the history room where they diligently studied the maps until school
opened.
After opening exercises the four guilty girls watched from a corner
of their eyes to see Elizabeth get her missive. Susan saw her take out
the letter, open it and blush scarlet, while she wiped away tears of
vexation. Soon Elizabeth with letter in hand walked up to Mr.
Davidson’s desk and talked to him a few minutes. When she came
away again she didn’t have the letter.
The girls had not counted upon this turn of affairs.
Before school closed Mr. Davidson asked who put the note in
Elizabeth’s geometry. Nobody answered. He then questioned
everybody one at a time and each answered “No” to the question.
“Did you put it there?” Susan and Lulu tried to think they told the
truth because they neither of them did it alone.
Mr. Davidson said, “All right, we’ll stay right here till we find out
the guilty party.” Some laughed, others pouted and a few who drove
to school from the country looked worried. Mr. Davidson said,
“Somebody in this room knows who did that. I’m sorry to think
anybody is mean enough to keep all of his schoolmates in because he
will not tell the truth.”
Still nobody confessed. Mr. Davidson waited and scolded by turns
until dusk, all to no purpose. The girls’ fear of exposure, to say
nothing of confession, grew greater with every speech he made. He
finally dismissed the school, after saying that he would find the
culprit and suspend him.
Daily Mr. Davidson referred publicly to the note and made threats
as to what he would do with the guilty one. These frequent references
to the affair helped Elizabeth to remember her fault and practically
cured her of it. But the guilty ones were never found out and Mr.
Davidson had four pupils whose joy and efficiency in school work
were greatly diminished.

CONSTRUCTIVE TREATMENT

When you see that a pupil is truly selfish begin at once to treat
him. First find out, if possible, how this trait was developed and then
begin to correct the false notions. Say to the selfish one, “I want you
to study the pupils of this room this week, and tell me of all the
unselfish deeds done that you can make note of, and why you think
them unselfish.” Of course, other pupils will be given similar topics
and the reports, as well as the original requests, will be made in
public. These character studies may be connected with literature in
place of the fictitious personalities which are often studied.
When wishing to find the writer of a note go to work at it privately.
Having once made a threat do not lightly disregard it. Do not give
over to your pupils matters of discipline which you should attend to
yourself.

COMMENTS

Mr. Davidson doubtless knew that Elizabeth was selfish, but took
no measures to correct the fault. Some teachers say they are not
employed as character builders but only as instructors in secular
matters. The truth is, however, that they cannot escape instructing in
morals. Elizabeth was growing more selfish. The question as to
whether character grows during school life is settled. Pupils do
change in character. The teacher has no choice. He either confirms or
breaks up bad habits. The principle of substitution enables the selfish
pupil to grow less selfish by the study and admiration of unselfish
pupils and adults. It is in order to call forth this admiration that the
student is asked to tell why he names certain acts unselfish.
Teachers make mistakes often by publicly announcing a
misdemeanor about which there would otherwise be little known.
Cases where immediate danger does not threaten should not be
made public. Private inquiry is always much more fruitful of good
results. Public confession is especially hard. Furthermore, the
sidetracking of legitimate school interests by much discussion of
misdemeanors can be minimized by letting as few persons as
possible know about the wrong deed.
Threats that are not carried out weaken the teacher’s control.
Patient study and planning will show the teacher a way to cure
selfishness. By judicious observation a teacher can discover attitudes
taken toward a pupil by his schoolmates and these will be of great
value to him in any attempt at corrective measures.
It is doubtless true that the schoolmates often develop a wise and
effective cure for some wrong trait or attitude. In such cases they
may be permitted to carry out their program, without the connivance
of the teacher. But a close examination of the conditions is needful,
so that neglect of unformed characters may not be appropriately
charged against a teacher.

ILLUSTRATION (HIGH SCHOOL)

Earl Foley was fifteen years old when he entered high school and
came under the control of its principal, Mr. Mullendore.
Earl was large, with a round face, thick lips, a big mouth and a too
ready smile. He was very active and learned easily, but was
unmannerly and above all, selfish. He invariably selected the best for
himself, stood between others and the teacher, gave his views
unsought, and in many little ways annoyed his teachers and
companions.
Mr. Mullendore discovered that the boy Selfish Manners
simply needed teaching, so he decided that
in his private talks with Earl he would use illustrations easily
understood. He asked Earl one day what famous person he admired
above all others. Finding the man to be Lincoln, Mr. Mullendore
talked of Lincoln’s unselfishness and humility and even asked Earl
what kind of pencil he thought Lincoln would have taken if passed a
box containing one good pencil, and the others second grade, Lincoln
knowing, meanwhile, that all would be used by his classmates. Mr.
Mullendore talked of Earl’s work on the farm and asked him to recall
the practice of pigs, cattle and fowls in getting their share of food. He
asked Earl to study out the cause for the development of
unselfishness in the human race.
All this was said without a single reference to Earl’s own traits. It
seemed a part of the study of Lincoln. Earl was not slow to apply the
suggestions of the lesson, however, and before many months had
passed he was one of the most unselfish pupils in the high school.
 (2) Jealousy. Some one has truly said, “In jealousy there is more
self-love than love.” It is an attitude which develops early, however.
Even very young children will sometimes destroy an object rather
than have it fall into the hands of another. As a rule the smaller the
number of individuals in competition and the narrower the range of
their interests the more intense will be the jealousy between them.
The teacher’s problems are complicated by jealousies in two ways:
(1) by a spirit of unkindly rivalry among patrons of the school, a
feeling which is sure to be reflected in the attitudes of the pupils
toward each other, and (2) by a spirit of jealousy arising among and
limited to the pupils themselves.
The first type has been treated incidentally in other parts of
Practical School Discipline and need not be further dealt with here.
The second type, fortunately, is not a very common cause of trouble
in the well ordered school-room, but it is a fault so harmful to the
child himself and in adult life, so harmful to all who come within its
blighting influence, that it can not be too carefully watched and
checked in its early development.
During adolescence and afterwards, jealous attitudes arise mainly
out of sports and out of competition for sex recognition and
appreciation. Jealousy breeds an angry resentment toward a person
who holds or seems likely to acquire one’s property or personal
privilege. It embraces a feeling of fear and a sense of helplessness in
the face of the aggressor. It develops an enlarged appreciation of the
treasures involved and a disposition to care for them by violence, or
if defence is useless, to destroy them.
Jealousy, envy, rivalry and covetousness are only varying forms of
the same anti-social attitude of selfishness. Tact and patience on the
part of parent and teacher and the judicious application of the Five
Fundamental Principles will uproot them all in time.

CASE 129 (THIRD GRADE)

Julia Jenkins was a beautiful child with a sunny disposition and an

inclination toward sociability. Her voice was well modulated for a
child, and her manners were charming. She loved everybody. Her
dresses were fashionable, dainty and immaculate, her curls always
becomingly arranged. Altogether she was such a child as one delights
to see, one who brought a smile to the faces of almost all whom she
met, strangers as well as friends. As she entered the third grade
school-room for the first time, Miss Elliot, the teacher, exclaimed,
“What a darling!”
Among other pupils in the room was Caroline Hillis, a timid little
girl with a solemn, little old-looking face. Her language was crude,
her manner unpolished and her dresses ill-fitting, coarse and faded.
She was the eldest of four children and long before she reached the
third grade was considered by her mother too big to be kissed and
petted.
How Caroline watched Julia! at first with Jealous of
admiration only. But as the days went by Playmate
her attitude gradually changed to jealousy. Julia always knew her
lessons. Julia’s language was always correct. Julia never slammed
doors or walked noisily, and oh, most enviable privilege of all, Julia
often stood near Miss Elliot as she sat at her desk and put her arm
around the teacher’s neck. At such times Miss Elliot smiled at Julia
in an intimate way. How much Caroline would give to be able to
stand there thus and show her love for Miss Elliot in the same way
but she simply could not. Little did Miss Elliot think that Caroline
had planned to do just that very thing. As Caroline lay in bed before
she went to sleep she thought, “Now, tomorrow I’ll ask Miss Elliot
how to work a problem and I’ll stand by her and put my arm around
her neck, just as Julia does and Miss Elliot will look at me just as she
does at Julia.”
But alas! just as Caroline tremblingly approached Miss Elliot,
thinking to carry out her plan, the teacher arose to discover the
location of a mild disturbance in the back of the room and Caroline
in confusion told her errand and went back to her seat where she
shyly brushed aside a few stray tears. With heroic courage she
decided to try it again and this time she found Miss Elliot seated, but
before Caroline reached her she said hurriedly, “What is it,
Caroline?” with no smile and in such a matter-of-fact voice that
Caroline stammered her question before she really reached Miss
Elliot’s side. It was of no use. She didn’t believe Miss Elliot liked her
as well as she did Julia. Whereas Miss Elliot soliloquized, “What an
awkward, timid, unlovable child Caroline is today, she seemed afraid
of me. I know the rest of the children like me. I can’t pet her in order
to win her confidence. I’ve got to treat them all alike.” Because
Caroline regarded her teacher with such sad eyes, the idea grew in
Miss Elliot’s mind that Caroline disliked her.
In Caroline’s mind the thought persisted that Julia was favored by
everybody. She began to think of Julia’s faults. As she sought them
earnestly she found them: Julia always talked too much, she liked too
well to speak of her brother Eugene who was in college, she talked of
Miss Elliot as if she owned her.
One day a little girl spoke of her doll, another of a doll’s party and
soon Julia said, “Oh, girls, let’s all bring a doll tomorrow and have a
dolls’ party at recess! Wouldn’t that be fun?” All agreed but Caroline,
who was on the edge of the group. Her downcast face was unnoticed.
The truth is that Caroline’s only doll was badly soiled and somewhat
dismembered.
Julia easily gained the encouragement of Miss Elliot in her plan for
the next day. Some of the girls went early with their dolls. Julia’s was
a cunning little character doll. Caroline brought none. She imagined
that she could hear Miss Elliot say, “How cunning!” as she looked at
Julia’s doll, and then Julia and the teacher would exchange that
intimate smile; Caroline would be the only one who had no doll. She
never could have Miss Elliot’s approval.
While Caroline was feeling rather than thinking all this Julia said,
“Let’s lay all our dolls on Miss Elliot’s desk and then when she comes
have her guess which one belongs to which girl.”
“That will be fun,” said the others, so it was quickly done. Caroline
stood at a little distance feeling left out of the fun.
“Let’s go and meet Miss Elliot,” said Julia, “and tell her about it.
Soon all the girls but Caroline were out of the room and starting
down the street.
Caroline presently said to herself, “I’ll hide her doll and then I
guess Miss Elliot can’t brag about it.”
She cast her eyes about the room for a hiding place. There stood
the piano! Mrs. Fitzhugh had said yesterday that she kept her ring in
the piano. Hastily grabbing up Julia’s doll Caroline stood upon the
piano bench and lifting the lid of the upright piano, laid the doll
inside upon the hammers, closed the lid and jumped down to the
floor just in time to gain a place by the window before the girls and
Miss Elliot came in.
They led Miss Elliot to her desk, having already told her what they
wanted her to do. Almost immediately they noticed that Julia’s doll
was gone. Caroline, now remorseful and silent, was questioned. She
said she knew nothing about it. The girls sought everywhere for the
doll until school time, Caroline helping them look into desks and on
closet shelves.
Caroline, growing more and more remorseful as one girl after
another pitied Julia, resolved to return to the room at noon time,
when everybody was out of the room, and put the doll on Julia’s
desk.
Imagine Caroline’s dismay when the piano was found out of order
by Miss Elliot as soon as she started to play the opening song.
Miss Elliot opened the piano lid and gave a little start. There was
the lost doll! Julia rushed for it and cuddled it. Molly said aloud,
“How did it get there?” Caroline hung her head and Miss Elliot
looked very grave.
“Caroline, come here,” she said. “Why did you put Julia’s doll into
the piano?”
“I don’t know,” said Caroline, with a degree of truth.
“It is a marvel that it isn’t broken. I’ll have to whip you for that.”
Taking a strap kept for the purpose Miss Elliot explained to
Caroline that she had lied as well as concealed the doll with a
probable hope of stealing it later. She then gave the child a severe
whipping. Caroline dumbly felt that she was misjudged and yet could
not explain why, even to herself.

CONSTRUCTIVE TREATMENT

Miss Elliot should have satisfied herself fully as to the motive

underlying Caroline’s action before punishing her. Always delay a
punishment until you have found the real cause of the misdemeanor.
When a child shows a tendency to withdraw from group activities
take special pains to draw him into the play circle. Take the timid
child by the hand rather than the one who rushes to you. Say to the
child who shrinks back into her corner, “We need one more little girl
here.” Hold out your hand toward her as you speak. The gesture will
reinforce the words, and be to the child a suggestion of welcome into
the group.

COMMENTS

There is no more faulty method of discipline than that of severely

punishing a child for some outbreak against moral or school law
before a hearing has been given him; not merely giving a chance to
confess his wrong, but going to the bottom of the matter and finding,
if possible, the underlying motive or instinct which led up to the
outbreak. Skillful questioning ought to bring this out.
Very often the slow and timid child is longing for your friendship
but does not know how to show his desire. Whether or not he is
conscious of needing your aid, he, nevertheless, does need it.

ILLUSTRATION (SIXTH GRADE)

June Dacey was a frail city girl whose health was such that her
parents feared to send her to the public schools in New York. One
September morning June’s father said to her: “June, how would you
like to spend a year in the country and attend school with your
cousins?”
June thought it would be, “Just fine!” and Mr. Dacey was not long
in arranging with his brother in Massachusetts to receive June into
his home and to see her well started in the country school.
All went well until June’s cousin Carrie Dacey began to show signs
of jealousy toward June. The two girls were just of an age, but Carrie
was an unusually vigorous, strong, healthy girl with double the
amount of endurance possessed by June. As a consequence the two
girls received very different treatment by their elders and even in a
half unconscious way by the other children who were, indeed,
somewhat overawed by June’s pretty clothes and refined manners.
“O, yes! of course June can have everything and I can’t have
anything,” said Carrie one day in a fit of petulance. “She has all the
nice clothes and I have to wear this old thing. She can ride to the
picnic while I have to walk. The teacher is always doing things for her
and nobody ever does anything for me. At home it’s just the same
way, June gets all the attention.”
Miss Scott, the teacher, happened to overhear the remark,
although it was not intended for her, and was thereby made
conscious of the ill-will that was springing up between the two girls.
She had had no desire to show partiality in any way toward June but
only to protect the frail girl from too fatiguing sport. Now she said to
herself, “This won’t do! We shall have a tragedy here soon! I must
think out some plan to overcome this feeling between the two
cousins.”
It so happened that the children had for their reading lesson “The
Story of the Twins.” The story was full of activity and fun and
mischief and the children liked it. Miss Scott had promised the class
that when they could read it very well they might dramatize it some
day.
“You two girls who are just of an age must be our twins,” said Miss
Scott, “the other children may take the other parts. Mary and Jane,
come help me make this crepe paper into costumes for ‘the twins.’
They must dress just alike.”
The children caught the idea, and, just as Miss Scott intended they
should do, immediately nicknamed the two girls “The Twins.” Miss
Scott strengthened the tendency still further by saying occasionally,
in a playful way, “Will the twins pass the paint boxes for us?” “Will
the twins collect the pencils?”
Carrie was soon quite cured of her jealous complainings. Through
suggestion, the feeling of coöperation and comradeship had been
substituted for the selfish emotion of jealousy, and in thus being
linked together in school duties and sports, in a way, too, that
emphasized the relation of equality, the two children soon became
firm friends.

CASE 130 (EIGHTH GRADE)

Wendell Smith was a son of Dr. Smith, one of the most influential
men in the village. He was handsome, well-dressed, well-mannered
and very intelligent. He had delightful books, mechanical and
constructive toys, a bicycle, a watch, and now a few days after he
entered the fourth grade his father gave him a pony and carriage for
a birthday present.
Mark Hazard was in the same grade at Jealous of “Rich
school. Their teacher was Miss Hosiner. Boy”
Mark was a wide-awake boy who was often in mischief. He was
coarse in his speech and manners. He criticized adversely every one
of Wendell’s possessions and was always glad when for any reason
Wendell failed to recite well. When the boys played, Mark would say:
“Don’t ask Wendell to come, he might get his clothes dirty.” When
Wendell missed the word “giraffe” Mark whispered sibilantly, “He
can spell ‘pony’; that’s all the animal he knows.”
Miss Hosiner knew that Mark disliked Wendell and felt sure that
jealousy was at the bottom of his sneers and coarse remarks, but she
didn’t know how to bring about a change.
There was a pool of muddy water near the back door after every
rain. This was spanned by a plank over which the children walked to
the playground.
One day Mark and Wendell were both on the plank when Mark
deftly tripped Wendell, who fell splash into the muddy water. Had
Mark used common courtesy Wendell would doubtless have laughed
at his own plight, but when he looked up to see Mark’s sneer as he
said sarcastically, “Now you’re some dolled up ain’t you?” he said,
“Mark Hazard, you’ve got to smart for this.”
Miss Hosiner had seen it all from the window and understood the
situation perfectly. She went to the door and said, “Wendell, you may
go home and change your clothes; Mark, you may go in and take your
seat and you may have all of your intermissions alone for a week. As
soon as you come in the morning, and at noon, you may take your
seat at once. I will allow you a separate time for your recess from that
of pupils who know how to behave toward each other. Since you can’t
act decently toward other boys, you may play by yourself.”
As the group separated Mark shook his fist at Miss Hosiner’s
retreating back and openly made an ugly face at Wendell.
Not only during the week of his punishment but throughout the
year he showed insolence toward Miss Hosiner and distinct dislike
for Wendell.

CONSTRUCTIVE TREATMENT

Go privately to the boy of whom one or more of the pupils are

jealous and tell him how to treat the jealous ones. In the above
instance say to Wendell as soon as you first observe that Mark is
jealous of him, “I have observed that Mark is not friendly with you. I
know you would be much happier to have his friendship. He is not
sure that you want to be friends and since you have more to give him
by becoming friends than he can give you I can’t blame him much for
wanting you to make the start.
“If one man had $1,000 to put into business and another $10,000,
you couldn’t expect the man with the $1,000 to have audacity
enough to ask the $10,000 man to go into partnership with him, but
how glad he’d be if the richer man should invite him to become a
partner in his business.
“Now, that’s just the way it is with you and Mark. You’ll have to
make him see that you really want to be friends before he can believe
that it is so. I heard one of the boys say that you are going to give
them all a ride in turn in your new pony carriage. If I were you I
would ask Mark to be the first one. I’d ask him first to share all of my
good things, because he suffers most for the things that you have.
That’s what makes him feel out of sorts because he can’t have them.
“It takes more skill to be a gracious receiver than to be a gracious
giver, so don’t feel offended if Mark doesn’t know how to act at first.
Keep on trying to show him that you like him until you succeed.”

COMMENTS

The question of inequality so pitifully and constantly understood

by many sensitive children is often the cause of jealousy that grows
until it becomes a menace to peace in a school. This feeling should be
checked as soon as it appears. Punishing the one who is jealous only
makes him entertain a feeling of resentment toward both the teacher
and the one who is envied by him. The right interchange of feeling
can be secured only by assisting the more favored pupil to show
genuine friendship for the one who is jealous.

ILLUSTRATION (FOURTH GRADE)

Emeline Carlisle was a little girl who talked about the maid, the
cook and the nurse at their house, of the company they had, the
vacations they spent and the clerks in “father’s store.”
Jessie Dodge was a child of a poor but refined widow who, with
extreme difficulty, was able to provide sufficient clothing and food
for her.
Miss Dunlap, the teacher in the fourth Jealous of “Rich
grade, saw that Jessie was destined to Girl”
become jealous of Emeline. So she pointed out to Emeline from time
to time the superior gifts and traits of Jessie. She would say:
“Jessie Dodge is such a refined girl. She knows how to reply
whenever she is spoken to. I think the girls who are her special
friends are fortunate.”
She appointed these two girls to do tasks together, saying, “Jessie
and Emeline may work together on the fifth problem, Emeline writes
well and Jesse thinks well. They will make good companions for this
work.”
By such handling of the situation, Emeline and Jessie became good
friends.

CASE 131 (HIGH SCHOOL)

A western college gave a high school tournament every spring.

Surrounding high schools were invited to assemble with their
competing candidates for athletic contests in the afternoon, followed
by reading and oratorical contests that night. Prizes were given to the
winners either by the college or individuals in the college town.
This tournament was one of the big Jealousy
events of the year for the high schools. They Between Schools
trained for it from September till May. The victors were lionized in
the typically enthusiastic high school manner, while the citizens of
the towns in which the schools were located talked of the event for
weeks and knew and honored not only the schools but the
individuals who had won the prizes.
For two years Eastman pupils had won in athletics, and now (1915)
they were reputed to have an excellent reader who was going up to
the oratorical contest. The slogan in more than one school had been
“Beat Eastman.”
The meet occurred on Friday. On Thursday evening Principal
MacKenzie of Dwight said to his contestants, “I believe we’ll win
tomorrow. I believe we have the kind of muscles and brains that will
‘Beat Eastman.’”
“Hurra-a-a!” sang out the boys—all but one, John Nealy.
An inscrutable look had come into his eyes when Mr. MacKenzie
uttered the words, “Beat Eastman,” and he had been too intently
following up some idea to join in the shout.
On the way to the college town the next morning he said to his
colleagues, “Boys, I’ve thought of a way to beat Eastman.”
“How?” they said, eagerly.
“We’ll take the boys to a ‘feed’ at noon. We’ll order everything
eatable for their runner and jumper and we’ll get them so filled up
that they can’t make good.”
“But will they go with us?”
“Sure, they’ll go. Their runner, Fernald, is a good friend of mine.”
“We won’t dare overeat.”
“Can’t we just pretend we’re eating everything?”
The details were arranged.
Now, Harmon Walsh, one of the Dwight boys, had a fine, upright
character and he could not be party to this foolish scheme of John’s.
He finally decided to tell Mr. MacKenzie about it.
The latter, astonished, took the Dwight boys under his special care,
forbade their inviting anybody to lunch with them, and never left
them until they were on the athletic field.
That year Eastman came out second and Dwight third.
 When they returned to Dwight, Mr. MacKenzie called John into
his office and inquired why he had proposed his “lunch scheme” on
the way to the meet.
“I’m sick and tired of hearing Eastman’s praises,” said John. “I’d
do anything to beat them.”
Thereupon Prof. MacKenzie talked so harshly to John on the
subject of jealousy that he quit school, as he had begged to do before.
So he missed getting his high school education because his teacher
was not able to cultivate in him a spirit of competition without
jealousy and unfortunately was unable to handle properly a case of
jealousy when it appeared.

CONSTRUCTIVE TREATMENT

In dealing with inter-high school competitive programs talk much

about the good qualities of your school’s opponents. Secure personal
favorable items of interest concerning opposing debaters and ball
team members. After a game or debate, talk of the good qualities or
traits of character exhibited by the opponents. Talk on such themes
as, “I’d rather be right than be president.”

COMMENTS

The dividing line between legitimate ambition to win for one’s

school and jealousy of a winning opponent is hard to fix ofttimes.
High school students should be drilled against personal antagonism
and mean advantage by the principal, who should always laud the
clean, fair, open game.

ILLUSTRATION 1 (HIGH SCHOOL)

The big, final basket ball game between Danvers and Winfield high
schools would determine which was the best team in the state. Prof.
Beatty of Danvers wrote to Prof. Ryland of Winfield and said, among
other things:
 “Kindly write me a few words about each Appreciating
boy on your team to read to our boys. Are Opponents
they country or town boys? What is the favorite study of each? What
does each expect to do when he gets out of high school? What do you
consider the finest trait of each?
When the answer to this letter came, the Danvers boys read it
eagerly and later met the Winfield boys as friends. Not a hint of
jealousy was shown by Danvers when Winfield won.

ILLUSTRATION 2 (HIGH SCHOOL)

Occasionally, a student overworks in the effort to secure the

highest place in the teacher’s appreciation. In a certain high school
the history teacher had two boys in her class in modern history who
were rivals for first place.
One belonged to a wealthy family and had Jealous of
every help and encouragement; the other Scholarship
was away from home and working his way through school. It was the
latter boy who worried his teacher. He was up early in the morning
and late at night attending to furnaces in winter, gardening and
cleaning in the spring; and after these exertions he read carefully all
the references given, lest Charles Schofield should do better work
than he. Of course this soon told on his health, but he kept doggedly
at his heavy tasks. When he grew so listless that he had to rouse
himself with a visible effort to recite, Miss Van Leer kept him one day
after class for a talk.
“You mustn’t think of trying to keep up with Charles Schofield,”
she said firmly. “Why, he has nothing to do but eat and sleep and
take a little exercise and study.”
“I know that. But you said last term that he did the best work in
the class, and I resolved that he shouldn’t do the best this term, just
because he has a big library at home and all the time in the world.
You know I want to show you what I can do, Miss Van Leer.”
“I want you now, Ben, to show me how much common sense you
have. You are simply allowing a foolish pride to run away with your
good judgment. Promise me you’ll merely read through the text
assignment for a fortnight.”
 “And hear him rattle off reams from Adams and all the rest of
them? Not I! You would think me a piker, for all you say.”
“Will you do it for me—as a personal favor?” Miss Van Leer was
forced finally to put her wish on a personal basis. This succeeded
where all appeal to self-interest had failed.
(3) Cliques and snobbishness. One phase of this subject, that of the
ringleader, will be treated under the heading “Regulative Instincts.”
At the present time the gregarious aspect, or the tendency of young
people to join together in little bands, will be noticed chiefly. Such a
tendency is, of course, only indirectly harmful. It is both social and
anti-social—social because of the impulse toward companionship,
anti-social because of the selfishness that excludes from the social
group all except a few chosen favorites.

CASE 132 (SIXTH GRADE)

In the town of Fairfield Center, there was a little group of girls,

four in number, who considered themselves superior to the other
girls in school. Miss Baldwin was repeatedly annoyed by their
aloofness, but the other children in her room felt it most.
At recess time, when a game of “I spy” Aping the High
was suggested, this little clique would School
withdraw from the crowd and walk, instead. This habit became so
influential that many of the other girls stopped playing at recess.
Unwholesome gossip was the result. It remained for Miss Sayre, who
took charge of the room the next year, to break down the barriers.
She, too, failed, but for another reason.
Miss Sayre called these four girls to her one day after school, when
they were in a hurry to go home, and gave them some good advice.
“You girls seem to run off by yourselves and not to play with the
others. I want to know why.”
“O, we don’t like their games. They always play such silly games.
The girls in high school don’t do things like that.”
“But you aren’t high school girls—you are just little girls of the
sixth grade. Drop that nonsense. I want you to break up this cliquing
and moping around and act like girls. Now, do you understand?”
 “Yes,” in a chorus. But nothing came of it.

CONSTRUCTIVE TREATMENT

Instead of a direct attack, draw these girls into activities that

require them to act in close coöperation with other girls. Try
committee work.
“Gladys is sick with pneumonia. She can’t come to school for two
weeks yet. I want to appoint a committee of two to call on her and
take her some flowers. I’m going to appoint Eva and Annette for this
work.”
Be sure to make combinations that promise enough congeniality to
provide at least a temporary friendship. Repeat the process very
frequently, yet avoid disclosing a purpose to disrupt the friendship of
chums, for that will excite antagonism and so spoil the whole plan.
Children are very jealous of their friendship, and delicate handling
is needed in order that no real injustice may be done them. Close
friendship is usually of great value and the growth of attachments
between children of the same sex is to be fostered.
The danger is in settling into grooves of thought that cramp the
mind and improverish it for lack of wide association. It is very clear
that the more human beings a person knows, the broader will be his
personality and the richer his information. Hence, teachers are
everywhere duty bound to democratize the life of their charges.

ILLUSTRATION (FIFTH AND SIXTH GRADES)

Misses Phelps and Bender took a wise course in curing the fifth
and sixth graders under their charge, of snobbishness. They
combined forces and went into flower gardening on a small scale. A
plot of ground was procured and the children grouped by pairs
according to an inflexible rule adopted at the very start. There were
several motives behind this project, but we need consider only this
one point.
To insure a genuinely democratic spirit, Gardening in
two pairs were assigned each day for work Pairs