‘For more than twenty years, Oren Levin-Waldman has conducted pioneering work, not only on minimum wages and wage contours, the earned income tax credit, and democratic theory, but also on the living-wage movement in the context of struggles over economic development and conceptions of citizenship. Wage Policy, Income Distribution, and Democratic Theory is the culmination of that work. Looking beyond the Great Recession, Levin-Waldman draws our attention to the equally serious Great Stagnation, a silent depression in wages that has gripped working families in the United States for decades. And he persuasively argues for a pragmatic solution: a combination of institutions and legislation – a wage policy – that can accelerate aggregate demand, boost employment, and spur economic development. But such a policy also has another, equally vital consequence: it can reduce income inequality in a way that enhances personal autonomy, gives meaning to the notion of personal responsibility, and fortifies democracy by strengthening opportunities for political and civic participation. In short, Levin-Waldman has put his finger on what may be the central domestic political issue of our time and the book deserves the widest possible audience in academic, practitioner, and policy circles’.
Charles Whalen, Visiting Fellow, School of Industrial & Labor Relations, Cornell University, USA
Wage Policy, Income Distribution, and Democratic Theory
This book explores the relationship between wage policy, distribution of income, and ultimately how that distribution impacts on democratic theory. In doing so, it examines the types of policies that are critical to the maintenance of a sustainable democracy. Wage policy, long the domain of economists (particularly neoclassical economists whose focus has been their impact on labor markets and income distribution), has largely been ignored by democratic theorists. LevinWaldman argues that because wage policy can shape overall income distribution, it has a significant effect on equality levels and is therefore core to democratic theory. Its potential to enhance individual autonomy, which is a necessary condition for democratic participation, is another reason why wage policy should be at the centre of democratic theory.
This book argues that the evolution in wage policy has paralleled economic transformations, which democratic theory has evolved to accommodate. Through a careful analysis of democratic theory and empirical analysis of the impact of wage policy on income distribution, this book concludes that wage policy is an important component in the maintenance of democratic society. A wage policy that raises the wages of those at the bottom can give workers more independence and power as they are placed on more equal footing with managers. This, in and of itself, can be a source of empowerment, effectively enhancing their autonomy. By doing so, workers feel less exploited and income inequality is reduced.
This significant contribution explores the meaning of democratic theory and how it has evolved along with the meaning and specific forms of wage policy, providing invaluable new insights into their connections. This book will be of interest to postgraduates and researchers in economics and political science, as well as policy practitioners interested in issues of income inequality or democratic theory.
Oren M. Levin-Waldman is Professor of Public Policy and Public Administration in the School of Management at Metropolitan College of New York, USA.
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Oren M. Levin-Waldman
Wage Policy, Income Distribution, and Democratic Theory
Oren M. Levin-Waldman
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Levin-Waldman, Oren M.
Wage policy, income distribution, and democratic theory/by Oren M. Levin-Waldman. p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Wages–Government policy–United States. 2. Living wage movement–United States. 3. Income distribution–United States–History. 4. Democracy. I. Title. HD4975.L429 2010 331.2′10973–dc22 2010020095
ISBN 0-203-83904-8 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN: 978-0-415-77971-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-83904-1 (ebk)
In loving memory of my mother
Saula Waldman
Imi Morati Saula bat Shmuel Z’Chrona L’Vrocha
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Preface
As this book goes to press, the US economy is in the throes of a deep recession. Unemployment still remains close to 10 percent, people have lost their homes to foreclosure, and many more are “under water” – meaning that their mortgages exceed their homes’ value. Although there are claims of beginning signs of recovery, most companies aren’t hiring. The newest phrase to enter our lexicon has become the “jobless recovery.” The government stimulus plan, perhaps modeled in part on the 1930s Work Progress Administration (WPA), has not yielded the promised results, mostly because much of the stimulus money remains unspent. And that which has been spent, has gone to pork-barrel projects rather than construction and repair of infrastructure. A jobs program might appear to be a logical response to sustained unemployment, but it ultimately fails if it cannot account for the causes of unemployment – that people aren’t demanding goods and services. Arguably, more people working will result in an increased demand for goods and services. And yet, the simple cause, and often overlooked because it is so simple, is that people lack sufficient income and so are unable to demand goods and services. Although John Maynard Keynes (1964) has been out of fashion for years, on this he was correct. In response to the neoclassical model that held unemployment in a competitive market to be due to wage rigidity, Keynes was able to state the obvious: If consumers are not demanding goods and services, it really does not matter how low workers reduce their wage demands. Firms will not hire because they have no need to.
The current recession was precipitated by the financial meltdown beginning in the fall of 2007, and this was precipitated by the sub-prime mortgage crisis. In a nutshell, many consumers were sucked into mortgages for whatever reason, they couldn’t afford to make their payments, and the banks foreclosed. The glut of houses only reduced the value of others’ homes. In some cases, mortgages were made at low teaser rates on the assumption that as the variable rate mortgages rose, so too would the consumer’s income. In many cases, consumers were led to believe that they would be able to afford these mortgages when they could not. In all fairness to borrowers, many may have believed that according to the natural order of things their incomes would rise and that they in turn would be able to afford the payments as their adjustable rate mortgages increased. Historically, this was the natural order of things. It is only in the last
few decades that wages have been stagnant. Almost all the mortgages were securitized, meaning the loans were sold to investors as securities. As a consequence of this practice, mortgage companies had no incentive to work out payment plans with struggling consumers. Rather, having already made their money up front they had every incentive to simply foreclose and try to unload the housing stock in fire sales. Intuitively, the answer would appear to again have been simple: provide workers with the wherewithal to pay off their mortgages.
Public policy in the United States and elsewhere is anything but simple. Fraught with interest groups and the inability to reach agreement, at best we attain incremental policy. Charles Lindblom (1959; 1965) famously referred to this as the science of muddling through. Moreover, it was good for democracy because it meant that government could not move precipitously on anything, meaning that individual rights couldn’t easily be trampled on. And yet, because the outcome would be the result of partisan mutual adjustment, it was assumed that the policy process would involve the broadest participation of the public through policy networks, organizations, and interest groups. In the end, then, everybody would be broadly represented. The case of the sub-prime crisis, however, is perhaps an example of policy not being made in this fashion. Rather, the response was for the US Treasury, in conjunction with the Federal Reserve Board (Fed), to offer banks a bailout for the purposes of shoring up the financial system. The approach was top-down as opposed to bottom-up. It also followed an elitist approach to policy in that it was assumed that issues were so technical in nature that only the so-called experts could understand the issues. Consequently, there couldn’t be any room for the input of others.
A policy from the Fed in the service of the financial industry should come as no great surprise. By statute, the Fed’s primary constituency is the banking industry. Employment has only become a secondary ideal, and only by default. Because Congress would rather not take responsibility for fiscal policy, it has fallen to the Fed as an implied responsibility, whose basis lies in the Employment Act of 1946. That Act established that it would be the “continuing policy and responsibility of the Federal Government to use all practicable means . . . to promote maximum employment, production, and purchasing power” (Employment Act 1946, p. 23). A “practicable means” of fulfilling its maintenance function might be accomplished through monetary policy, especially as the principal maintenance function was to control for both inflation and recession. The Act clearly implied a role for monetary policy.
My purpose here is not to argue the failure of American economic policy, or even to argue how democratic governance effectively failed to be responsive to the needs and interests of ordinary citizens. Rather it is to focus on a long neglected topic, and one which has bearing on the current state of the economy. While there is discussion about minimum wages and wage rigidity from time to time and plenty of discussion about the fairness of the current tax system, there is precious little discussion about substantive wage policy. The idea is nothing new. Sidney Weintraub (1972) almost four decades ago argued that an income policy would serve as a necessary complement to the fiscal and monetary tools
traditionally used to manage the economy. The argument was actually quite simple: It wouldn’t matter how many jobs might be created either through tax reductions or lowering of interest groups if people’s incomes failed to keep up with inflation. My purpose in this book is to take the argument a step further. Not only would a wage policy, if it resulted in arresting wage stagnation, better provide workers the wherewithal to demand more goods and services, it would also result in less income inequality, which over the last few decades has increased tremendously, and be in the service of enhancing democracy.
Therefore, I assume a couple of things: First, the stagnation of wages which we have observed over the last three decades, would not have happened had there been a viable wage policy. Second, if we had a credible wage policy, the level of income inequality would be considerably less. Many European countries have lower levels of inequality because they have more social provision and centralized wage setting mechanisms, i.e. wage policies. I would even suggest that had there been a viable wage policy, the financial meltdown following the subprime crisis might not have occurred, or would have been less likely to have, because people would have been in a better position to pay off their mortgages.
In the pages that follow, I argue that wage policy is essentially a middle class issue and ultimately is critical to sustaining democratic society. Consider that rising wages throughout the distribution will have the intended macroeconomic effects of increasing demand for goods and services. If the wages of those at the bottom rise along with those at the top, or even increase at a higher relative percentage, the gap between the top and the bottom will be narrower, thereby resulting in less income inequality. Obviously, this will not mean that we all have the same thing, but a narrowing of the gap between the two extremes of the top and the bottom means that there are fewer people at the very bottom and the very top, and more concentration in the middle. Less income inequality effectively means a broader middle class, and a broad middle class is critical to democratic governance. It isn’t just a question of achieving a more equitable distribution of income; it is ultimately about enhancing personal autonomy. As workers see their wages rising, rather than eroding through stagnation, their morale is boosted, and they in turn become more productive. But that they are less likely to become dependent, means that they have achieved greater independence. Therefore, I argue that wage policy is essential to enhancing the personal autonomy of individuals, which is a fundamental prerequisite to participating in democratic society.
In previous works, I have focused on both the minimum wage and the living wage, both of which are examples of wage policy. Both, however, have been limited policy responses to poverty and insufficient wages. Here I focus on the broader topic of wage policy as a concept that policy makers ought to give greater thought to. Wage policy would ultimately be a middle class issue, as it would effectively bolster the wages of those in the middle class. But wage policy is critical to democracy because it would accomplish three necessary objectives. First, by enabling workers to earn livable wages they are better able to be selfsufficient and keep themselves and their families out of poverty. This then
becomes a matter of individual autonomy. While democratic society is one that allows its members to live autonomous lives, it also requires that they be autonomous so that they can think critically and be active participants in the political process. Second, to the extent that wage policy reduces income inequality, it effectively makes society more equal insofar as the result is a broader middle class. And third, to the extent that it serves to bolster the middle class, it becomes a necessary ingredient in the continued economic development of society. Democratic society requires autonomy, equality, a broad middle class, and a measure of economic development.
As I have spent much of my academic career grappling with these issues, this project might well represent the culmination of my work. In that vein, it certainly has been many years in the making. I actually had the opportunity in the fall of 2007 to participate in a workshop on work and social justice at the University of Zurich where I was able to explore the relationship between a minimum wage and democratic ethos. The paper for that workshop was later published in Advances in Industrial and Labor Relations, and it forms the basis for some of the arguments in this book. I thank Carsten Kollmann for organizing the workshop, as well as his gracious invitation to participate. Portions of this manuscript were read by Charles Whalen and Aryeh Botwinick. Working in the area of democratic theory this time actually afforded me the opportunity to rekindle a relationship with Aryeh Botwinick who many years ago taught me political philosophy in graduate school. The theoretical pieces of this work are no doubt better because of his input. I wish to thank Thomas Sutton, my editor at Routledge, for seeing this as a worthy project. I also benefitted from the comments of several anonymous reviewers. All comments received have no doubt made this a better manuscript, but I bear sole responsibility for the errors or omissions remaining. I also would like to thank the editors of the Journal of Socio-Economics, the International Encyclopedia of Public Policy, and Advances in Industrial and Labor Relations – Morris Altman, Phil O’Harra, and David Lewin and Bruce Kaufman respectively – for permission to reprint pieces that first appeared in their pages. “Urban Path Dependency Theory and the Living Wage: Were Cities that Passed Ordinances Destined to Do So?” constitutes the core of Chapter 5 and was first published in the Journal of Socio-Economics 38, 4 (August 2009). “Income Inequality and the Distribution of Power” of which portions are reprinted mostly in Chapter 7 was first published in Volume 2: Economic Policy (GPERU: Perth 2008). And “The Minimum Wage and Competing Ethical Conceptions” was first published in AILR 16 (2009). I also thank the Emerald Publishing Company, the publisher of AILR, for its permission to reprint.
A work like this is always a solitary enterprise, but it nonetheless would not have been possible without my family’s support. My two sons Avi and Ariel, of course were themselves. Though both grown now, they still provide their father a sense of purpose. And my wife Renee provided the love and support necessary to see this project through to completion. Finally, just a few months before this work went to press, my mother Saula Waldman passed away. My mother was
Preface xxi
raised in an environment where social justice was a core value. She was at heart a socialist, although never a pure Marxist. Her father, although he loved Franklin Roosevelt, nonetheless voted for Norman Thomas three times. I am sure that whatever values are contained in this work owe to her influence. She was certainly passionate in the view that communities have a responsibility to take care of their members, whether it is done privately through charitable organizations or publicly through public policy. Therefore, it is in loving memory of my mother, Z’Chrona L’Vrocha, that I dedicate this book.
1 Introduction
This is a book about the relationship between wage policy, whether in the form of a wage floor or other policies that serve to bolster wages, the distribution of income, and ultimately how that distribution impacts democratic theory. It is about the types of policies that are critical to the maintenance of a sustainable democracy. Why wage policy? Because wage policy has largely been ignored by democratic theorists. And yet, it impacts on the meaning of equality to the extent that it can impact on the overall income distribution. Equality is also core to democratic theory. While democratic theory doesn’t assume wage policy, or any type of public policy for that matter, it does assume equality. But it isn’t always clear just what is meant by equality, and depending on how it is defined, there may be different implications with regards to what is required.
Democracy assumes, and in fact requires, individual autonomy. For individuals to be able to participate as full-fledged citizens, they need to be autonomous. Autonomy, however, may require more than the absence of constraints on human agency; it may in fact require policies that enable them to realize that agency, thereby enabling them to live independent lives. Therefore, to the extent that wage policies may achieve greater equality and more autonomy, wage policy must be viewed as being consistent with a broad definition of democratic theory. Because wage policy is able to impact on income distribution and ultimately equality, as well as impact on autonomy, it has a role to play in the maintenance of democracy.
Wage policy
Wage policy can be broadly defined as a set of institutions designed to bolster the wages of workers, especially for those workers who lack what James Galbraith (1998) refers to as monopoly power when it comes to negotiating. Wage policy, in effect, confers monopoly power on workers who seek to bargain with management on an equal playing field. Historically these institutions assumed the form of labor policies that allowed for unionization and collective bargaining, and specific wage floors. Traditionally, wage floors assumed the form of federal and state minimum wage legislation. More recently, they have assumed the form of Living Wage ordinances at the local level, as well as broader proposals for basic and/or minimum incomes.
It may strike some as odd to think in terms of a history of wage policy in the United States, but the United States has long had one even if only in its most negative form of protecting individual rights to bargain for themselves over their own wage rates. In the early days of the republic wage policy assumed the form of contractual enforcement of indentures, apprenticeships arrangements, and other guild protections. During industrialization and the advent of wage labor, it assumed the form of “liberty of contract” – the notion that there should be no barriers to one’s ability to negotiate one’s terms of employment. This meant that the state could not use its police power to legislate either maximum hours or minimum wages because that would intrude upon the individual’s right to negotiate terms different from those legislated. It also meant that the state would use its police power to break up unions, as they were considered to be a collusion in restraint of free trade. Following the demise of this doctrine during the 1930s, wage policy was expressed in the form of institutions designed to bolster wages, most notably unions and statutory minimum wages. Later on, during a period of anti-labor antagonism, wage policy found expression in negative income taxes, most notably the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) which would effectively subsidize those who worked and who also had children. Only in the last couple of decades, amidst the decline of unionism and the erosion in value of the federal minimum wage, has wage policy been expressed in the form of grass-roots campaigns at the local level to pass Living Wage ordinances. Although wage policy has assumed various forms over the years, it has essentially been evolutionary. Arguably its evolution has been incidental to economic growth and development.
For the purpose of this study, I define wage policy as either a set of institutions and or legislation that serves to bolster wages. An expansive view of wage policy could include more general welfare state policies that impinge on labor. In some cases, as is true in other OECD countries, and what might be referred to as social market economies (SME), wage policy actually involves a system of centralized wage setting. A narrow view of wage policy could similarly be construed as a putative policy of laissez-faire when it comes to wage regulation. Not included in my definition of wage policy, or at least as it would pertain to the United States, is the more corporatist version found to a greater extent in Europe where the state effectively regulates wage and labor agreements through negotiations and agreements between big business, big labor, and government, although it would certainly fall within the purview of wage policy. Rather, I’m taking a narrower view of wage policy to encompass institutions like unions and the legal framework that allows for unionism, as well as wage floors such as minimum wages and Living Wage ordinances. When I talk about the evolution of wage policy, I specifically refer to a trajectory from laissez-faire, usually expressed in the form of liberty of contract, through unionization to minimum wage legislation. Underlying this evolution is a theme that will be developed later that because wages aren’t natural per se and because the balance of power between employers and their employees is asymmetric at best, wage policy is necessary for workers to have a measure of voice that allows them to live in dignity and out of poverty.
An argument for wage policy also assumes something else. It effectively rejects the neoclassical view of wage determination found in most economics textbooks, and which has underpinned much of economic policy in the United States. And, if it wasn’t the basis of policy, it certainly formed the basis of opposing policy. The neoclassical synthesis essentially maintains that in purely competitive markets, market clearing wages are achieved when the demand for labor is exactly equal to the supply of labor. Wages, then, are determined by market forces. At the wage at which demand equals supply, all those willing and able to work at that wage will be employed. Those whose demands exceed what employers are willing to pay will be unemployed. It is up to the worker through his/her wage demands to determine whether s/he will be employed rather than unemployed. More people willing to work will induce the wage to fall further, thereby inducing firms to demand even more labor and hire more workers. Wage policy in the form of a floor or other institution that serve to artificially inflate wages, prevents the cost of labor from dropping to the point that more workers would be hired. As a result, fewer workers will be hired and consequently there will be greater unemployment. Wage policy is in part a response to the assumption of neoclassical economics, but it rejects this argument on the premise that wage setting is affected by institutions. Moreover, it recognizes that externalities do arise from markets that are allowed to operate totally unfettered. One such externality may be income inequality. Active wage policy also categorically rejects the premise that individuals are free to negotiate over wage rates. Rather, employers through their market power set rates, and the only negotiation open is to either accept or reject. Wage policy, by contrast, recognizes the asymmetrical power balance between employers and workers.
There are, of course, some that would couch these differences in wage policy form in terms of differences in welfare state development, or welfare capitalism. Gosta Esping-Andersen (1990) offers three welfare state regime types: the “liberal” welfare state, the “corporatist” welfare state, and the “social democratic” welfare state. A liberal welfare state is relatively narrow and is founded on means-tested assistance, modest universal transfers, or modest social-insurance plans. The corporatist welfare state is a bit more expansive, and is found mostly in Austria, France, Germany, and Italy. It is this type that is characterized by the preservation of status differentials in a state ready to displace the market as the provider of welfare. In this vein, it differs from the liberal welfare regime, which might be characterized as a limited welfare state, in that private insurance and occupational fringe benefits play a marginal role. The state provides more. And the social democratic state is found in those countries whereby the principles of universalism and decommodification of social rights have been extended to the new middle classes. The social democratic regime might be considered the most egalitarian and characterized by greater levels of redistribution precisely because workers are no longer considered faceless commodities, but rather, individuals possessing equal rights to the benefits of universalism.
As commodities, workers are replicable, atomized and redundant. It was the commodity status of individuals that lay at the heart of nineteenth-century
debates and conflicts over the “social question.” The old feudalistic system, by contrast, was actually antagonistic to commodity status. Markets weren’t considered to be important, and wage labor was only marginally important to human well-being. Corporatist societies emerged in towns among the artisans and craftsmen as a means of controlling entry, membership, prices, and production. It was the corporatist model that was the early and most prevalent response to commodification. But it was socialism that emerged in response to capitalism’s commodification of labor. Contrary to liberalism which seeks to protect property rights, and even corporatism that seeks to protect the rights of the privileged few, socialism’s aim is the maximization and institutionalization of rights (Esping-Andersen 1990). The social democratic welfare state regime would, especially if pursuing a wage policy, seek to couch policy as a necessary vehicle for the attainment of rights. Given the variation in welfare capitalism, it isn’t too difficult to see that there would similarly be variation in the types of wage policies, as it is the nature of the welfare state type of regime that will very much determine the scope of wage policy. And yet, if we can understand that it is the liberal welfare regime that characterizes the United States, we can also understand why relative to other nations wage policy in the United States has been underdeveloped.
Income inequality
Income inequality has in recent decades been on the rise. Those at the top of the distribution have seen their incomes increase while those at the bottom have seen their incomes decrease in real terms. This has effectively narrowed the middle class, whose wages have stagnated in aggregate terms since the 1970s (Phillips 1990; Newman 1993; Hungerford 1993; Wolff 1994; Danziger and Gottschalk 1995). To talk about income inequality is somewhat problematic because it isn’t entirely clear just what we mean by it. What does it mean to say things are unequal in terms of distribution? The concept of income inequality is often viewed as a problem in a market economy, which allocates income on the basis of several factors including education, experience, innate abilities, incentive, and risk. On the contrary, when these factors are considered income is by and large distributed on the basis of desert. More educated individuals, and those possessing greater abilities, are entitled to earn higher incomes than those who do not. That one is poor, especially in a society where everyone is presumed to enjoy equal opportunity, is ultimately that individual’s responsibility. And yet, the capacity to have greater income exists if there is a willingness to obtain the requisite education and training to command it. Although there may be some agreement that a more equitable distribution of income ought to involve a move to greater equality of income and greater equality of opportunity, the prevailing view, at least in the United States, is that there is equality of opportunity (Robinson and Dervis 1977). Moreover, the concept of equal opportunity has effectively enabled us to ignore the fact that we don’t all have the same thing. But part of why it has been so prevalent in the United States is because of the dominance
of the neoclassical model. To interfere in the operations of the marketplace, if even for noble reasons such as achieving greater equity, is to bring inefficiency.
Income inequality and poverty are both greater in the United States than in other industrialized nations (Smeeding and Sullivan 1998; Smeeding et al.1990). While inequality in the United States has been increasing for decades now, the sharpest increase appears to have occurred during the early 1980s, and then again during the 1990s (Bernstein and Mishel 1997). But it was also during this period that the United States saw a decline in unionism and deterioration in the minimum wage. Those declines weren’t nearly as great in other countries where income inequality has tended to be less. Between 1963 and 1989, for instance, the wages of the least skilled, those in the bottom 10th percentile fell by 5 percent while the wages for the most skilled, those in the 90th percentile, increased by 40 percent (Juhn et al. 1993). The net result of this divergence was an enormous increase in wage inequality. More to the point, as I will argue later, it is because of the greater deterioration of wage policy in the United States than in other countries during this period, that inequality has been greater in the United States than elsewhere.
The neoclassical model holds rising income inequality to be a function of structural economic transformation. Technological change has tended to be biased towards those with higher levels of education and skills. As the economy has evolved from industrial-based manufacturing to post-industrial service, there has been a growing mismatch between good paying jobs and the skills available to workers. According to this school of thought, the labor market is divided into a primary market where high premiums are placed on skilled workers, and a secondary market where unskilled workers are trapped in the lowest-wage service sector of the economy. The growth in wage inequality between the primary and secondary labor markets has been caused by increasing skills differentials between the two (Katz and Murphy 1992; Katz and Krueger 1992).
Institutionalists, on the other hand, and a tradition from which the concept of active wage policy is derived, hold rising income inequality to be a function of deliberate policy choices biased towards the interests of business. Those choices included an assault on the institutions that long served to bolster the wages of those at the bottom of the distribution, as well as the working class: mainly the minimum wage and unions (Card and DiNardo 2002; Howell and Huebler 2001). During the late 1970s, the United States began experiencing a sharp ideological shift towards a preference for competitive market outcomes and solutions, and this ideological shift did have direct effects on bargaining in the workplace (Moody 1988). Those countries with the greatest increases in income inequality also had the most decentralized labor markets, whereas those countries with centralized wage-setting institutions tended to have less income inequality. The institutionalist school will argue that in the absence of institutions to prop up the wages of those at the bottom of the distribution, income inequality is bound to increase. The larger point, however, is that income inequality has increased in part due to the deterioration of wage policy (Volscho 2005). Among the arguments that I intend to make is that income inequality has been greater in the
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“If I had my cane here, I would lay it over the rascal’s shoulders,” said the Master Goldsmith grimly; “these varlets that insult their betters deserve hanging.”
“Tut!” I said, laughing; “if it had only been the disrespect to me, it would not matter; the fellow is not worth the caning, but he has imperilled a noble lady and lost us our liberty. However, as we cannot hang him, let his conscience do it, Maître le Bastien.”
“He shall be dismissed from my service without a sou,” said the goldsmith sternly.
At this the knave began to whimper, overcome with shame and consternation.
“I vow I meant no harm, but the spoiling of monsieur’s trick,” he protested. “I did not know what the great brute said, until Advotia told me, and then he had whistled up his men and had me fast enough. I do swear to you, Maître le Bastien, that I never dreamed of any peril for either of you; I thought that M. le Marquis only meant to frighten me. I am not ungrateful to you, my master, or unfaithful,” and the fellow drew his sleeve across his eyes.
“Much cause you have to talk of gratitude and faith,” retorted the master harshly; “you are a rascal from head to heels!”
“Was I a rascal when I stood between you and the dagger on the rue Saint Denis?” cried Michaud hotly. “Was I a rascal when I nursed you through the fever at Blois, in ’79?”
Maître le Bastien was silent, his face changing. As for me, I saw now the whole matter; the fellow had been jealous of his master’s favour. I was a new apprentice, or claimed to be one, and had been admitted at once to a greater intimacy and confidence than he had ever attained; I had eaten at his employer’s table and done no work.
“Let the matter pass, Maître le Bastien,” I said lightly. “He has erred, and he is like enough to atone for it here. I forgive him—I pray you, follow my example.”
I did not add that I would never trust the varlet more; it would have seemed a poor revenge on an inferior.
A cloud passed from Maître le Bastien’s face; he was a man of an exceeding kind heart, and loved to give or take offence less than any man I ever saw.
“He must win my confidence again,” he said, relenting; “which will be no easy matter.”
A deep flush passed over the apprentice’s face.
“I will win it, monsieur,” he said.
Willing to let the matter pass, I walked to the window and looked out, trying to locate our position in the palace. The room, which was square and marble-floored, had three narrow windows in it, which were not barred, but, as I found, too high from the ground for the most daring to leap from them. I saw that we were in the front of the palace and our windows all overlooked the Red Place and the Red Staircase. There were wide sills, wide enough for a man to stand upon, both inside and out, and beside the third window on the right, a fretwork of iron ran upward to the roof. I looked at it sharply, to see if it would afford a possibility of escape, but it seemed too slender to uphold a man, and besides it ran up, not down, and the chances of escape by the roof were too remote to tempt anyone to take the risk.
Evening was approaching, and below the court of the Kremlin lay in the shadow; a purple dimness wrapped the distant places, and swathed itself, cloud-like, about the foundations of cathedrals and palaces, creeping upward, as a vapour creeps, while above the white domes and minarets caught the afterglow, and the golden crosses gleamed against the deep, clear sky.
I stood leaning on the window-sill, looking down and reflecting on the strangeness of our position, and deeply troubled, too, over the peril that I knew threatened the Princess Daria, and that I was powerless to avert. I could not even warn her. If I could only find Maluta and speed him on an errand to her, I thought, but the dwarf
had disappeared when I entered the presence of Sophia; and I had no means of communicating with him. Knowing that accidents of a sudden and mysterious nature often happened in Moscow, that even the young women chosen as brides by the various czars had been summarily disposed of by jealous factions at court, I had no reason to feel comforted in regard to the princess. That Sophia was jealous of her I could not doubt, and it was not difficult to conjecture the result, and I was helpless! It was this that drove me well-nigh to distraction and made me give tart answers to Maître le Bastien when he began to talk of our situation. Naturally enough the worthy man thought more of his own peril and inconvenience than of anything else, and I had no mind to betray the cause of my uneasiness, so we talked often at cross-purposes, and with little sympathy.
“This is a most unhappy matter,” he said gravely, “and may end in a worse way still.”
“It is,” I retorted, “for a woman’s jealousy is like a fire kindled in a stubble field, and consumes all before it.”
He stared. “I hope the Prince Galitsyn may discover the true situation and deliver us,” he remarked.
“I hope he may,” I said, “and withdraw his ridiculous pretensions.”
“I do not understand you, monsieur,” replied Maître le Bastien.
“I beg your pardon,” I rejoined, “but we both hope for similar results, though from different causes, so we are both of the same mind in the end.”
He looked perplexed. “I do not believe that the czarevna will dare to carry matters to extremes against two Frenchmen,” he said.
“Bah!” I retorted; “she has no conception of the greatness of France, of its splendour, its resources, its power! These Russians think that Moscow is the centre of the earth; their arrogance is absurd!”
“It is,” said the goldsmith; “but it is ever the smallest cock in the barnyard that crows the loudest.”
I replied in kind, and we continued, for some time, to give vent to our feelings by similar expressions, and then, finding that no one came to our relief and that we could not escape, Maître le Bastien produced a pack of cards from his pocket and we fell to playing picquet as long as our one taper lasted. As for supper, we had none, and were forced to go hungry, and to sleep on the wooden settles in the corners; for they gave us no beds, and we would have suffered from thirst as well as hunger, if we had not found a pitcher of clear water on one of the window ledges. In these dismal quarters, therefore, we passed the night, and, awakening with the sunrise, found the prospect still unchanged.
Hunger does not mend the temper, and we began the day grumbling at our treatment, and we were not destined to immediate relief; it was on in the morning, toward seven o’clock, when the door opened, at last, to admit Kourbsky and a serf who brought a meagre meal and set it on the table, so meagre indeed that I began to wonder how three men were to partake of it, when the chamberlain solved the mystery.
“The master goldsmith comes with me to Prince Galitsyn,” he said pompously; “his excellency has interceded for him to her serene high mightiness Sophia Alexeievna.”
Maître le Bastien rose joyfully from his seat at the table and Michaud and I followed his example, but here Kourbsky interfered.
“The master goldsmith,” he said, “and this man,” pointing at his favourite Michaud; “but not you,” and he regarded me maliciously.
Le Bastien halted. “We cannot be separated,” he declared generously.
“That is a short-sighted policy, Maître le Bastien,” I said, in French; “for when you have your liberty, you can obtain mine.”
“You can choose,” said the chamberlain amiably, “between parting with your apprentice or your head.”
The good goldsmith, though by no means a coward, was not a soldier by profession, or even a reckless man. He yielded, saying to me in French.
“My first care shall be for you, monsieur.”
“It is well,” I replied, smiling; “but I hope you will first get a breakfast.”
“Come, come,” said Kourbsky, casting a suspicious glance at me, “we have no time to lose—forward, march, sir goldsmith!” and he hustled master and man out of the room.
Then I heard the door clang behind them, the bolts fall into place, and I was alone in my prison and before me was a chelpan a kind of dough cake—and a cup of water! Both might be poisoned, but a hungry man is not over-cautious. I despatched the dough and drank the water, reflecting that I might need both before I escaped the clutches of my portly friend, the chamberlain, who had evidently determined to avenge himself for his own capture, whether by order of the czarevna or not. Having disposed of my breakfast, which served to whet my appetite rather than to satisfy it, I walked to and fro in the room, lost in thought—and not very pleasant thought. My reflections running so much on the line of those of the previous night, it is useless to record them, but I was in no pleasant frame of mind when I went, at the end of an hour, to look out of the window. The Red Place was nearly as quiet as on the previous evening, but now the sunshine illuminated it, and occasionally a boyar crossed it, or a servant ran out of the palace. The ravens of the Kremlin were circling around the windows and some alighted even on the balustrade of the bedchamber porch. The stillness struck me as unusual; not even a church-bell sounded; it must have been then between eight and nine in the morning. As I stood looking down, I saw the carriage of some great noble roll slowly across the court, attended, according to custom, by twenty or thirty serfs on foot, who went before and behind the vehicle. They were clad in crimson tunics edged with gold embroidery, and yet ran bare-foot, while the harness on the horses was covered with the dangling tails of
martens, a decoration much in vogue with the aristocracy, and the duga above each animal’s neck shone with jewels. An old man, stately in bearing and magnificent in dress, sat in this carriage, and at his feet was a slave, also liveried in crimson, while beside him was a slender girlish figure, attired with equal splendour and wearing a long white scarf about her throat, besides the fata over her face. This strange procession halting at the Red Staircase, the serfs assisted their master and mistress to alight, and as they did so, a breeze lifted the nun’s veil and I saw the features beneath it.
It was the Princess Daria.
I stood a moment rooted to the ground, and then the full significance of her arrival at that hour came upon me. That must be her father, and they had been decoyed there, doubtless by the Czarevna Sophia.
I flew to the door and shook it, like a madman. I ran again to the window and measured with my eye the leap to the flint pavement below and knew it to be impossible, and then I stood and cursed my evil fortune. She, meanwhile, had gone on blindly to her fate, whatever it might be, in the same palace where I was a prisoner. There followed an interval of absolute despair and rage; I felt like a caged beast ready to tear my jailers in pieces, if they came, but happily for them they did not, and—though I knew it not—they were little likely to remember me again that day.
The whirl of my passions had made me deaf, but now at last there came a sound that roused me and made me listen. Far off at first, and then nearer and nearer, the bells began to toll, the deep notes of their metal tongues clanging in the clear spring atmosphere, and with this burst of music came the sullen roll of many drums, and deeper, louder, fiercer, the mighty boom of the tocsin—sounded in four hundred churches—rolled like the roar of thunder over Moscow.
I looked out and saw a man running like a wild creature across the square, and then—between the deep notes of the tocsin—came an awful sound, a fierce, many-voiced roar, the cry of the multitude, the
savage yell of the mob. A shout below me, thin and shrill, cut the tumult like a knife.
“Close the gates!” it screamed, “the Streltsi—the Streltsi have risen!”
The bells of the tower of Ivan Veliki and the cathedrals began to ring, and near at hand I heard a woman scream. Nearer and nearer drew the awful waves of sound, lapping up the space between, as a wolf laps blood, and ever leaping up louder and fiercer the yelp of the canaille.
XIV:ADESPERATECLIMB
AGAIN I tried the door and beat upon it, and then returned to the window and was held there by the sight that unfolded before my eyes. The boyars, knowing well that the fury of the rising tempest would break upon their heads, were trying to escape; in the brief time that had elapsed since the first bells began to toll their coaches had been hurried out and the Red Place was a scene of confusion. From all parts of the palace and the adjoining buildings officials of the court and nobles were rushing out, and running hither and yon; the horses plunged and fretted and the men shouted to each other; not a man among them had a cool head, and never was there greater need—for the mob was coming on. It had evidently been impossible to close the gates, and now I heard the tramp of a multitude, besides its voice. And, at last, in the spaces between the buildings, I began to see the hundred-headed thing itself, a surging mass of men, so closely packed that it moved darkly, even in the sunshine, and above waved the broad folds of the banner of the Streltsi, which I knew well enough. It bore an image of the Virgin on it and was esteemed a sacred emblem, though it was to look that day on dark and bloody work. Now the roar of the mob rose, even in the court of the Kremlin, and echoed about the palace of the czars. On, on they came, driving back the fleeing boyars, like a herd of sheep, closing in on the carriages and horses, surging closer and ever closer upon the Red Staircase.
I looked down upon them in much curiosity; for an instant I forgot everything else. Here was the only military force in Russia, the only guardians of the throne, in mutiny, and who could oppose them? What man could quell the tumult, drive these mad creatures back to their dens? Fierce faces looked up, brawny arms brandished their weapons, and I noticed that they had even broken the long handles of their spears, that they might use them as swords. They poured in
from every avenue and gateway, they choked up every outlet and massed themselves about the palace, shouting with passionate fury.
“Down with the Naryshkins! Death to the traitors! They have murdered the Czarevitch Ivan!”
Down with the Naryshkins! Ah, Mme. Sophia, this is then your handiwork? Down with your rivals, up with the Miloslavskys, and the blind czarevitch and his great sister. I saw what she had done, and more than ever I dreaded her power over the Princess Daria.
Meanwhile the uproar in the Red Place beggared description; for the most part I could not distinguish what was said, or rather shouted, but, ever and anon, I did clearly comprehend the cry:
“Give us the traitors! The Naryshkins have murdered the Czarevitch Ivan and the imperial family!”
The idea that a conspiracy really existed in the family of the Czarina Natalia to destroy the rivals of her little son, the Czar Peter, had got a firm hold on the ignorant minds of these creatures, and it had doubtless much to do with the final outbreak, but even after they were assured of the safety of the czarevitch, they kept on in their furious course.
While I looked, the patriarch, in full pontificals, came out upon the bedchamber porch and addressed the rioters, and with him were some boyars, among whom I recognised Prince Galitsyn. But their appeals to the mob had no result; the soldiers crowded up under the balcony and on the very Red Staircase itself; they brandished their weapons and shouted:
“Give us the traitors! Down with the Naryshkins!”
Their wild upturned faces scowled fiercely upon the nobles; they gesticulated and screamed, but, as, yet, no blood was shed, and only one or two stones had been thrown, and they fell wide of the mark, but the sullen rumble of wrath rose on the outskirts of the throng; the naked spears flashed in the sunshine, death was there, riot and murder—no sane man could be blind to it. Once more that
wild shout rose. I climbed on the window-sill and looked down and saw the boyars bringing out the Czarina Natalia and her son, the little Czar Peter, and with them the weak-minded Czarevitch Ivan. At the sight of them the rioters went mad; they cried out so fiercely that the voice of the patriarch was drowned. They brought ladders and climbed to the very porch where the czarina stood—white as death—with the two boys beside her. The patriarch talked to the soldiers, but in vain, they pushed him roughly aside and clambered over one another until they pressed so close upon the czarina that she gave way, and hurried back into the palace, with her son and stepson, and then—for the moment I thought that the end was at hand. The rioters howled like wolves and pressed forward; below a dark mass of men and a forest of cruel steel.
It was at this crisis that the chancellor, Matveief, came out; he was an old man of stately bearing, the uncle of the Czarina Natalia, and once the commander of these animals. At the sight of him there was a sudden lull, the noise died away, the onward rush was stayed; they waited, snarling like beasts, and the chancellor spoke. His voice did not come up to me distinctly; I could not follow his speech word for word, but I caught the drift of it. He was an astute politician, and he told them that they had been deceived by bad men, that no conspiracy existed, that they had themselves seen both the czar and the czarevitch alive and in good health, and it behoved them to disperse quietly to their homes, and, if they did so, he would himself intercede for them, that the czar might pardon this mutiny and attend to their grievances. Never was a speech better received; a shout of applause followed it, and the ringleaders began to waver. All might yet be well. I drew a breath of relief, and in this season of quiet I heard, for the first time, a knocking at the door of my prison.
I leaped from the sill and, forgetting Matveief and his diplomacy, hastened to the door. The knocking was now followed by a scratching sound that had become familiar to me.
